Everyday Erinyes #358

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:42 pm Politics

Feb 192023

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

I was going to say something like, “I’m sorry, but it really angers me that…” but the truth is I’m not sorry at all. It makes me very angry to see white snowflakes cmpaining about trauma for them and particularly for their kids just thinking about white ill treatment of black people, when the real trauma is being suffered by black people, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, And I will not apologize for being angry angry about that. This article, nominally about how people cope, is in some ways more about the quantity and the nature of what black people have to cope with. And God forbid they should say anything to make Wypipo uncomfortable! Well, I believe in comforting the afflicted, but also in afflicting the comfortable. Comforting the afflicted helps. But only afflicting the comfortable can bring about lasting change.
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How Black communities cope with trauma triggered by police brutality

A portrait of Tyre Nichols at the entrance of the church where his funeral was held in Memphis, Tenn., on Feb. 1, 2023.
Lucy Garrett/Getty Images

Deion Scott Hawkins, Emerson College

The release of footage showing the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police and protests in Atlanta have renewed public debate on the issues of police brutality and police reform.

For some people, seeing is believing, and the circulation of videos documenting police violence is valued as a tool of accountability.

But for many in the Black community, which studies show is disproportionately affected by police brutality, viewing videos of and having conversations about police violence can have several adverse effects, including psychological distress and trauma.

What is trauma?

The American Psychological Association defines trauma as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning.”

In her seminal book “Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror,” published in 1992, Dr. Judith Lewis Herman notes that encountering a traumatic event permanently alters one’s perceptions of safety.

To prepare for a threat, these individuals develop intense feelings of fear and anger.
These changes in emotional state are usually biological, as shifts in attention, perception and emotion are normal physiological reactions to a perceived threat.

This is known as our “fight or flight response.”

Trauma can manifest itself in various ways. For example, on some occasions, traumatic events are known to lead to feelings of depression and intense sadness and episodes of
helplessness.

Additionally, trauma is known to increase one’s state of hypervigilance, or the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats in the area. This state of elevated alertness often creates anxiety around dying and can have physiological impacts on the body, such as sweating and elevated heart rate.

Police brutality and Black trauma

As a critical scholar and researcher, I use trauma-informed interview techniques to better understand the intersections of police brutality and mental health in the Black community. My research
focuses on those most affected, and that research highlights the human experience.

There is always a face behind the statistic.

Thus, my work typically uses critical race theory, as it focuses on the perspectives of marginalized people. For example, my study published in the Journal of Health Communication explored how stories of police brutality are circulated within the Black community and how these stories affect mental health.

Through dozens of interviews, I discovered three key ways in which trauma is triggered by incidents of police brutality that often appear in Black communities.

A black woman wearing a mask is standing next to large poster that has a portrait of her son. her son — Valerie Castile stands by a portrait of her son, Philando Castile, on July 6, 2020.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Intense sadness, hypervigilance and sense of helplessness

The excerpts below are direct quotations from members of the Black community whom I interviewed as part of a larger research project. This study was conducted in Washington, D.C., in 2018, but its findings are still relevant, as it reveals how police brutality directly fuels trauma in the Black community.

Because of research protections and protocol, pseudonyms are used, and no other identifying information can be published.

1. Intense sadness

When asked about feelings after viewing videos or images of brutality, every interviewee indicated intense sadness as the primary emotion. This sadness often affected how individuals went about their day, especially work-related activities.

Darius

I remember I walked into work, face cut up and people were like, “What’s wrong? What happened?” I told them I had been in a fight. But really, I had been beat up by a police officer who assumed I was someone else. I appreciated them asking me if I was OK, but I wasn’t really comfortable telling them, you know? We had previous conversations that let me know they didn’t really think Black lives mattered. After Philando, I had to take a sick day to recover. That’s how sad I was, man.

Chanelle

Philando Castile. I was rrreealllly sad. Philando was the boiling point. I cracked. I literally had to leave my desk at work and take a break. When I came back, my white co-workers told me I was overreacting because I didn’t know him, which pissed me off. What they don’t get is that Philando could be anyone in my family. It’s not just Philando, it’s that I fear my brothers could be shot in cold blood at any moment. That’s why I was so damn sad.

2. Hypervigilance

Interviewees also discussed their chronic fear of dying at the hands of law enforcement. In turn, this fear prompts a permanent state of hypervigilance or hyperalertness; many members of the Black community constantly feel they are going to die if they encounter a police officer.

Mary

Whenever I see cops, I tense up. One time, cops pulled up to me when I was in a car and my friend looked at me with the straightest face and said, “One of us is about to die.” I was so shocked, and I said, “That’s not funny.” But he was serious. He really thought one of us was going to die.

George Floyd's headstone sits front and center in an orderly faux cemetery with other white headstones set up in grass — Each headstone in Minneapolis’ ‘Say Their Names’ cemetery represents a Black American killed by police – deaths that create a ripple effect of pain felt in Black communities nationwide.
Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Luke

There is not a single time where I can sit in a car and hear a siren or see a cop light flash, that I’m not fearful. I imagine it’s like what soldiers feel when they hear anything that sounds like a bomb. When I hear sirens, I start to look around and hope that someone else is around. Because, if I were to get shot, I would want someone to be able to tell the truth. People are straight up dropping at the hands of police. I never want to be in that situation.

Corey

I’m always scared and alert, honestly. I walk around on campus, and I use my iPad to listen to music. I always have my iPad with me. I’m afraid the police are going to see me holding my iPad and assume it’s something else, and before I have time to explain what it is, I’m afraid I would be shot. I always have my headphones in, too. I replay this terrible scenario in my head over and over again. A cop is yelling at me to stop, but since my headphones are in, I can’t hear him and keep walking. He thinks I am running away and shoots me in my back.

3. Sense of helplessness

Adding to sadness and hyperalertness, many Black Americans also feel they have little control over interactions with police and cannot change the outcome. This is true regardless of their tone, behavior or actions. This is known as helplessness, a known symptom of trauma.

Lena

It’s a sad reality to accept that no matter how you dress, how you talk, a police officer will always judge you and think you’re a threat. I don’t think we have control over if we are going to get beat or not. Black folks could literally read a how-to-survive book and do every step, but cops would still find some reason to make the situation worse. We are always in a Catch-22. If we talk too much, we are talking back. If we talk too little, we are suspicious. I do everything in my power to avoid cops. Listen, someone broke in my house and I refused to call the police. I be damned. Because I think they would have assumed I was the robber and shot me.

Virginia

Every time I see a video, I feel an intense sadness. It feels like you are in the world’s worst … cycle I guess; some kind of sick joke. It’s like, damn, it happened again. Like nothing is ever going to change. Things may look like they are getting better, but then even when they are arrested, the sadness continues.

Deion Scott Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Argumentation & Advocacy, Emerson College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you have taken on the task of afflicting the comfortable since probably a thousand years BCE, and added the faculty of comforting the affflicted somewhere around 500 years BCE. Help us learn how to do both effectively … and if we are too slow learners … don’t be shy about going at it yourselves.

The Furies and I will be back.

Video Thread 2/19/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:08 pm Open Thread, Politics

Feb 192023

Glenn Kirschner – Proud Boys subpoena Trump to testify at seditious conspiracy trial. What could possibly go wrong?

The Lincoln Project – We’ll Name Them

Ring of Fire – Hunter Biden’s Lawyers Use Trump’s Legal Arguments Against House Republicans

Parody Project – King of the Con (This one actually had me singing along.)

Kitten Cries So Someone Will Rescue Him

Beau – Let’s talk about an alert to leave and some intelligence news….

Open Thread February 19, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:15 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 192023

Yesterday, The radio opera was “Don Carlo” by Verdi, based on a play by Schiller (another playwright whose work inspired multiple operas, the best known besides this one being “Maria Stuarda” by Donizetti and “William Tell” by Rossini.) All three of those are based on actual historical characters, but hoo boy, is the history – and in this one characterization – off. And probably wrongest with Don Carlo himself.He is depicted as maybe a little hot-headed, but enlightened and idealistic. In reality, the best decription of this Spanish prince would be the line from “Greater Tuna” – “Vera, that boy ain’t right.” The one character in Don Carlo whom Schiller invented is Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa. He is the nicest and best human being in the opera. Well, we can’t have that in aplay/opera including the Spanish Inquisition, so he gets killed near the end. He does get the most beautuiful aria to die to in the opera, in fact one of thee best I’ve ever heard. So there are plenty of audience tears to water his imaginary grave. King Philip gets a nice aria too, and basses love to sing it, but given the context it strikes me as a bit ridiculous. His wife was engaged to his son first, and they had a chance to meet, and being two young healthy and attractive people (at least in theory) they naturally fell in love. Their marriage is supposed to be part of a peace treaty between Spain and France. When twice-widowed Philip decides to marry her himself, and for the sake of her country’s peace she agrees, I mean, what did he expect? Now, after all these years he’s whining “She never loved me.” Dude, you should be grateful that, not loving you, she was faithful to ypu in spite of all temptations. Such a Republican fantasy world. Possibly the most interesting character (at least the real-life one) is the Princess Eboli. She doesn’t come across as terribly nice in the opera, but she does come across as strong, and she was that, along with being beautiful She lost an eye in her early teens playing with a bow and arrows – not something one would exoect a girl to do – and wore an eye patch the rest of her life, and was considered the most beautiful woman in Europe anyway. In Spain even today, she’s kind of a feminist icon. She gets two arias, one just to entertain the court, flashy and tells a story, but not personal, and the big one in the last act, after she has betrayed the queen and confessed to doing so, which is right from the depths of honesty and contains, not one, but two mood swings. Ah, well. In actual news, one of out lost submarines (which the Navy refers to as being “on Eternal Patrol”) has been found, off the coast ofJapan’s largest island, just about where it disappeared in 1944. There’s more information here.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

PolitiZoom – Trump Thanks GA For ‘Total Exoneration’ Which Didn’t Take Place.
Quote – Once again we gather together, friends, to ask the eternal question: Is Donald Trump really that stupid or does he think that we are? Or, could it be both?… [A]pparently Trump didn’t get [the] memo. He’s off on a mad tangent now, that the redacted report which was released today is a “total exoneration” of him, because it doesn’t mention him by name. Whut?
Click through for details. I think he knows very well what the situation is and is just hoping to convince others. Why, since convincing others won’t stop prosecution? No – but it very well could get his dupes to take up arms.

The 19th – We asked lovers of Black literature to curate a Black resistance reading list. Here’s what they chose.
Quote – Each year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, a group [Carter G.] Woodson founded, provides a theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme is Black resistance, which the group hopes will highlight the myriad ways Black people have used “to advocate for a dignified self-determined life in a just democratic society in the United States and beyond the United States political jurisdiction.” One way that Black people have always resisted oppression was through the use of the written word. During enslavement, reading, writing or teaching enslaved people to read and write was a crime punishable by torture, imprisonment or death.
Click through for full list. I wish I had had a list like this when I was in high school. i lived in a very white neighborhood until the age of five, and then moved into another one where I grea up. And went to very white schools. So white that I cannot remember anyone even mentioning black people until I read Huckleberry Finn and a couple of Rex Stout’s “Nero Wolfe” novels. At least all three of those were positive about black people – and “Huckleberry Finn” was also dismissive of whites who thought themselves superior, so I guess it could have been worse. And at least I did support the civil rights movement from the day I knew there was suxh a thing.

Food For Thought

Brilliantly created by our very own SoINeedAName:

Video Thread 2/18/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:51 am Open Thread, Politics

Feb 182023

Glenn Kirschner – Georgia grand jury report re: Trump’s election crimes concludes witnesses lied, recommends charges.

Farron Balanced – Trump Lawyer Offers Dumbest Explanation Ever For Stolen Classified Document Folder

Really American – Chip Franklin SKEWERS Donald Trump for his obsession with public execution.

Brent Terhune – Satanic Ritual at the Grammys

Abandoned Lamb Runs To Human Mom

Beau – Let’s talk about Ohio, trains, coverage, and a lack of answers….

Open Thread February 18, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:46 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 182023

Yesterday, the sun was shining and the temperature got up to the mid-40’s, so I was able to get to the mailbax and get my package and a letter from Virgil with some paperwork. He wanted me to see it because he didn’t understand it, and he wasn’t able to explain it to me on the phone. In all honesty, i don’t know how much of his failure to understand it was because he didn’t want to. It was the results of his parole board hearing from fall of 2022. That was either his second or third hearing, and he was turned dow (again) for exactly the reasons I keep telling him about – and which, when we discuss them, he admits I’m right. The bottom line is that, between his old head injuries, his years as an active alcoholic, now the incipient dementia, and I think there must be at least a little bit of not wanting to, he does not have the discipline to create a parole plan which would satisfy the board. (And if he did, he would not have the discipline to carry it out.) That’s the bottom line. On acount of his age they also looked at types of special release programs, so it isn’t like they are not trying. However, before he can qualify for consideration for that he must have served 20 years or more, and he doesn’t have quite 12 years yet. Also, they note that what his physical and mental issues are do not fall into a category such that they cannot adequately care for him. He doesn’t need heavy pain meds, or MRIs,or any kind of treatment which requires special equipment or special knowledge. They are actuall better positioned to care for him than I would be – their staff doesn’t have mobility or energy issues (it’s a full time job for me to take care of myself). There is actually nothing in these documents which I haven’t gone over with him before, multiple times. And I expect to be going over it multiple times again. He might be able to remember it if he wanted to – or he might not – but he doesn’t, so he won’t.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Mother Jones – Meet the Religious Crusaders Fighting for Abortion Rights
Quote – If state courts don’t grant the plaintiffs relief, their decisions may indicate a judicial bias in which the freedom to exercise one’s chosen religion only applies if it is congruent with the court’s religious preference. On the flip side, if courts judge these religious freedom cases in a manner consistent with how the US Supreme Court has been interpreting other religious freedom cases in recent years, the lawsuits could roll back some of the nation’s harshest abortion restrictions in the states where they are being argued, and serve as an instructive guide for religious groups in other states to follow. “If the recent understanding of free exercise holds,” Micah Schwartzman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia, tells Mother Jones, “I think there are really powerful claims in these abortion cases.”
Click through for full story. Frankly, it bothers me that decent people need to cite their – our – religious beliefs in order to bring decency to government. GFovernment should have no truck with any religious beliefs – those are personal. But if we must fight fire with fire, then we must.

The Nib – The Black Radical You’ve Never Heard Of
Quote – In his 1884 book “Black and White,” [T. Thomas] Fortune railed against the concentration of wealth as the enemy to black and white laborers alike. “I am opposed to aristocracies and so-called privileged classes, because they are opposed to the masses. they make inequalities, out of which grow all the miseries of society, because there is no limit to their avarice, parsimony, and cruelty.”
Click through for full graphic. I certainly had never heard of him. Has anyone? Maybe it’s time we did.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 2/17/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:15 pm Open Thread, Politics

Feb 172023

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ won’t charge Matt Gaetz for alleged sex-trafficking: how fed prosecutors make charging decisions

The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – February 14, 2023

Thom Hartmann – Is Neo-Fascism Taking Over America?

Rocky Mountain Mike – Bang Bang (Joe Biden Shot It Down) – Featuring Mary in Ann Arbor

Feral Cat Hated Everyone Until She Fell In Love With Another Kitty

Beau – Let’s talk about McConnell pushing Scott out there…

Open Thread February 17, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 172023

Yesterday, when I checked around noon, the sun was bright, and a ggod deal of snow had melted, although the temperaure had not yet reach freezing (and would not all day.) I would have had a dry path from my door to the driveway, but not all the way to the mailbox. So the small package which was delivered Tuesday had to wait. Freezing temperatures shouldn’t hurt it as long as it’s dry. Also, it occurred to me that tday, February 17, is my PEBD (Pat will remember that acronym.) In plain English, it’s the day I signed the contract which both entitled and obliged me to report to Officer Candidate School to learn to be a Marine officer. The acronym stands for “Pay Entry Base Date,” I took my oath that day, and all my pay raises based on longevity went into effect that day in whatever year. And that original day was 57 years ago this year. Amazing. One more thing – I doubt anyone missed thepartial release of the Special Grand Jury report in Georgia, but just in case, here it is.

Cartoon – 17 0217Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

The 19th News – An Oklahoma judge just transferred a lesbian mom’s parental rights to her son’s sperm donor
Quote – Legal experts warn that the case could have substantial implications for marriage equality nationwide. Advocates battled a number of cases to enshrine same-sex marriage protections after the Supreme Court granted those rights nationwide in 2015. Among those fights was the right of parentage. The 2015 Supreme Court case Pavan v. Smith found that it was unconstitutional to treat queer couples differently than heterosexual couples when it came to presuming parentage. If married heterosexual couples were presumed to be parents of children born during their marriage, the same must be true for LGBTQ+ couples. However, laws vary state to state.
Click through for story. This case is so unusual I would hope it would not be much of a precedent – but with MAGAts you never know.

Letters from an American – February 12, 2023
Quote – On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. Exactly 100 years later, journalists, reformers, and scholars meeting in New York City deliberately chose the anniversary of his birth as the starting point for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)…. The spark for the organization of the NAACP was a race riot in Springfield, Illinois, on August 14 and 15, 1908. The violence broke out after the sheriff transferred two Black prisoners, one accused of murder and another of rape, to a different town out of concern for their safety.
Click through for full letter. The NAACP is still around; over a hundred years later, it is needed as much as it has ever been.

Food For Thought

Just one from a remarkable set of photos – Five-year-old girl recreates photos of influential black women.

As Seen from Afar 02/17/2023

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 8:40 pm Blog News, Politics

Feb 162023

Painful periods? Spain just passed Europe’s first paid ‘menstrual leave’ law

From Euronews.next. By Camille Bello & Laura Llach

Spain has just passed a law allowing those with especially painful periods to take paid “menstrual leave” from work, in a European first.

The bill approved by Parliament on Thursday is part of a broader package on sexual and reproductive rights that includes allowing anyone 16 and over to get an abortion or freely change the gender on their ID card.

The law gives the right to a three-day “menstrual” leave of absence – with the possibility of extending it to five days – for those with disabling periods, which can cause severe cramps, nausea, dizziness and even vomiting.

The leave requires a doctor’s note, and the public social security system will foot the bill.

The law states that the new policy will help combat the stereotypes and myths that still surround periods and hinder women’s lives.

Equality Minister Irene Montero, an outspoken feminist in the leftwing government, hailed “a historic day of progress for feminist rights”.

“There will be resistance to its application, just as there has been and there will be resistance to the application of all feminist laws,” she told parliament.

“So we have to work (…) to guarantee that when this law enters into force, it will be enforced”.

‘A lightning rod for feminists’

“The days of (women) going to work in pain are over,” Montero said last year when she unveiled her government’s proposal.

But the road to Spain’s menstrual leave has been rocky. Politicians – including those within the ruling coalition – and trade unions have been divided over the policy, which some fear could backfire and stigmatise women in the workplace.

Worldwide, menstrual leave is currently offered only in a small number of countries including Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Zambia.

Italy flirted with the idea in 2016, proposing a bill that would have given three fully paid days off to workers who obtained medical certificates, but the proposal failed to progress before the parliamentary term ran out in 2018.

“It’s such a lightning rod for feminists,” Elizabeth Hill, an associate professor at the University of Sydney who has extensively studied menstrual leave policies worldwide, told Euronews Next.

The debates around menstrual are often intense, she said, with concern focused on whether such a policy can help or hinder women.

“Is it liberating? Are these policies that recognise the reality of our bodies at work and seek to support them? Or is this a policy that stigmatises, embarrasses, is a disincentive for employing women?”

According to the Spanish Gynaecology and Obstetrics Society, around a third of women who menstruate suffer from severe pain known as dysmenorrhea.

Symptoms include acute abdominal pain, diarrhoea, headaches and fever.

‘Stigmatising women’

Some Socialists have voiced concern a menstrual leave could backfire against women by discouraging employers from hiring them.

“In the long term, it may be one more handicap that women have in finding a job,” Cristina Antoñanzas, deputy secretary of the UGT, a leading Spanish trade union, told Euronews Next when the draft bill was first unveiled.

“Because we all know that on many occasions we have been asked if we are going to be mothers, something that must not be asked and that men are not asked. Will the next step be to ask us if we have period pains?”

Spain’s other main trade union, Comisiones Obreras, has supported the idea of menstrual leave. But it has raised concerns over the details of the policy, and whether women would have to prove they suffer from a condition known to worsen period pain – such as endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome – to claim this menstrual leave.

“How many women are we leaving out?” Carolina Vidal, its confederal secretary for Women, Equality and Working Conditions, told Euronews Next last year.

“In many, many cases periods become unbearable and disabling, but they are not considered illnesses”.

In the end, it will be up to doctors to judge whether the pain is disabling and also how many days of sick leave would be needed.

The law states the right to a “three-day medically supervised leave, with the ability to extend to five, for those with disabling periods: severe pain, cramps, cramping, nausea, dizziness and vomiting that some women suffer every cycle”.

Menstrual leave is part of sweeping new legislation introducing new reproductive rights. Under the new laws, Spain will also roll out free feminine hygiene products in certain public facilities, such as educational institutions and prisons.

When it was first unveiled last year, the draft bill also aimed to scrap or slash VAT on specific feminine hygiene products. That provision was ultimately left out but is expected to be revived in the government’s next general budget review.

Teenagers as young as 16 will now be allowed to seek an abortion in any public hospital without needing their parent’s or legal guardian’s consent.

The law also includes a new paid prepartum leave from the 36th week of pregnancy up to the moment of birth, the provision of free contraceptives and the morning-after pill, as well as the prohibition of surrogacy, declaring the practice a form of violence against women.

I posted this article to show how rapidly things can change in a nation in the hope that changes in the opposite direction will be of a very short-lived nature and common sense will prevail in America.

Spain dropped the fascist yoke that it acquired in 1936 under Franco as late as 1973, but it continued under the stringent rules of the Catholic Church, which had supported Franco in a close relationship, even though it was abolished as the state religion in 1978. However, like Ireland, Spain became more secular over time and now only about one-third of Catholics in Spain are practising members of the church. This led abortion to be decriminalised in 1985 and further liberalised in 2010. With these additional laws, Spain has transformed into one of the most progressive countries in Europe.

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