For Student Power has an interesting post up discussing the tactics of the New School occupiers, who were successful in winning some positive changes at the school through direct action.

Limited negotiation is fine in terms of winning explicit concessions, but in order to have negotiations, you must have bargaining power, and this requires bold direct action. This belief, this mode of resistance, was the reason for our success. Despite the political inclinations of many of our well-intentioned and intelligent comrades in the New School in Exile (and despite their ever-present reluctance), it was the taking of the cafeteria, the blocking of the doors, the control of the building, that was our power. Of course, our aforementioned “political” comrades celebrated each and every direct action vigorously after the fact, realizing the terms of negotiation had just been changed in our favor, despite their initial resistance to it, saying things like “it’s too disorganized; it’s too brazen; it’s too illegal”—it’s too this or that. Even our last action, when we linked the wonderful movement outside to us inside by the opening of a fire door at midnight, changed the status of the ongoing negotiations in our favor. This was said before us by one of our own negotiators, who herself was not necessarily pro-direct action.

I absolutely agree that no one in authority is going to give you anything unless they want to anyway, or you give yourself enough power to make them. And I think that in general, anti-sexual violence activists could use a little of the chutzpah the New School students have. However, students looking to the New School occupiers for tactical inspiration should remember that it doesn’t necessarily follow that any particular form of direct action (like occupation of a building) will be effective. I know of some schools where the type of action the New School students took would not have worked well, for various logistical reasons. Likewise, hunger strikes, tent cities, tree sits, etc. work at some schools but not others. Students who want to replicate the New School success should always take the specifics of their campus into account in building their strategy. It’s particularly important to remember that this action came after a whole lot of other actions, which gradually built pressure. You can’t just take over your cafeteria out of nowhere and expect to get a whole lot out of the administration. Part of what makes for success is the administration’s knowledge that you’re not going away and it’s only going to get worse.

One thing I’d question the New School students on is the repeated use of old school radical terms like “comrade” by the occupiers. Not because I have some problem with someone being radical or Marxist or whatever they consider themselves, but because frankly, I think it’s kind of elitist to throw around words that only people with access to a lot of history and philosophy books will connect with, and because a lot of people have visceral negative reactions to those words—some for stupid reasons, others for legit ones. If you are intentionally choosing to use words that will alienate many potential supporters, you’d better have a good reason. I just don’t see an overwhelming reason to move discourse in the direction of the term “comrade.” (That, btw, is why I don’t encourage students working to improve their sexual assault policies to make the movement about “feminism.”) Do what you need to do to win the concrete, institutional victories, and don’t worry about the labels. You can’t eat words.

(Trigger warning on the link)

Latoya at Racialicious has her essay “The Not Rape Epidemic” from the new book Yes Means Yes! up. It’s well worth your time.

Sometimes something is just so horrible, there’s hardly anything to say about it.

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the “tight shorts” she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn’s attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells Hair Balls.

After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.

Now, you would assume that these police officers, who undoubtedly horribly traumatized a child, and beat her badly enough to put her hearing at risk, would be charged with a crime.

Right? Right?

No. Dymond and her father are facing charges for “assaulting a peace officer.” Because she fought back when three men who were not in uniform attacked her, and because her father saw the assault and tried to protect her as the three men who were not in uniform dragged his daughter away.

By the way, when they charged her, they arrested the little girl in the middle of school.

I have some questions.

Would this ever happen to a little white girl? What would happen if it did?

What if they had had the right house? Would we be hearing about their savage beating of someone who was clearly no threat to them if that person had been a sex worker after all?

What if the police had been in uniform? Are we supposed to stand by and let them beat up our children if they’ve identified themselves?

If the Milburns sue the police department and win, how much money will pay for the recurring nightmares of police beating, raping and mutilating her that Dymond now suffers?

The Milburn’s lawyer is an Anthony Griffin, in Galveston, TX. If you think there’s some way you can help with the case, you might want to check in with him.

From Cara comes a great analysis of this lovely image.

Images and “jokes” like this really do point out the deeply destructive and misogynistic rape culture we live under, when “sex” is so regularly portrayed in this way. Few, I imagine, would consider this image to be promoting rape. But personally, it’s all I can see. After all, if the woman was willing and truly consenting, a remote control would not be necessary for her to perform the desired acts. The idea of a completely sexually controlled woman, however tongue-in-cheek, is still promoting as a false-ideal a woman who cannot say no. And a woman who quite literally cannot say no due to control from outside forces is in fact a woman who cannot give a meaningful yes.

Yup.

The idea that the best “sex” consists of a man getting a subservient woman to serve his every whim regardless of her own desires, rather than a pleasurable interaction between equals, is pretty much rape culture in a nutshell. And ads like this teach the teenage boys who look at them that this attitude is normal, acceptable, and worthy of encouragement.

(Original image pulled from Sociological Images)

Ok, so I’m here in the SAFER office getting ready for the SAFER Holiday Get Together tonight, and a particularly creepy version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” comes on, the version with James Taylor and Natalie Cole.

How can anyone sing this song and not think about what lyrics like this are about:
“What’s the sense in hurting my pride”
“say, what’s in this drink?”
“the answer is no”
“Baby don’t hold out”
“How can you do this thing to me”

It’s like a alcohol-fueled rape how-to set to music. What a waste of a good tune.