What it is

May 7, 2007 at 6:14 pm | In breaking news, hawaii, poverty, the forg | 11 Comments

I ain’t no spring chicken when it comes to what will and won’t get media coverage. I also know how important it is to get alternative messages into mainstream media. But will someone please tell me what is alternative about this article by Jennifer L. Pozner?

The anti-Rosie backlash is indicative of nothing so much as the stiflingly limited range of debate allowed within the corporate media, whose garrulous gatekeepers want to erase true leftist dissent in America. Over the past year, O’Donnell has brought a consistently progressive, feminist voice to ABC’s kaffeeklatsch and, in doing so, allowed daily television viewers entree into discussions wholly missing from the mainstream media lineup. She burst onto the public stage like a lefty tornado, loud and insistent, using her daytime post like a bullhorn at a peace march. (Who else on network television would have allowed actress Olympia Dukakis to declare that “The world can’t wait to drive out the Bush regime” during an interview about her latest romantic comedy?)

If you follow the link, you’ll learn this piece was published in the American Prospect. This is the cultural commentary of the mainstream feminist left; this is what’s wrong with our media, that Rosie O’Donnell, our very own ‘lefty tornado’ and bastion of progressive values, (and who will probably have her own show a week later,) is leaving The View.

Ms. Pozner is the executive director of Women in Media and News (WIMN), and has recently made several TV appearances discussing Rosie and other important issues affecting the portrayal of women in the media today. Believe me, I’d love to get a minute to talk to all those folks watching Fox News and share a few things, but what purpose does it serve to go on their morning show and chat about Rosie O’Donnell? Way to challenge the status quo. I want more women in media and news, too, but guess what, I’m going to be a party-pooper and ask a few questions about what you’re doing if/when you get a voice in mainstream media. It’s not enough to just show up. Maybe you shouldn’t show up if that’s what they want you to talk about.

So, then, what should we talk about?

Okay, I’ll give you an example. There is an affordable housing crisis in Hawaii, which means more and more people are resorting to living (not camping — living) on those world-famous beautiful beaches. And it’s bothering the tourists. Solution? Let’s close the beaches at night, give all the homeless people two months to leave, thus chasing them around every beach on the island of Oahu. Here’s an excerpt from the linked article:

Much attention on Hawaii’s homeless has focused on Ala Moana, Waikiki and Waianae. But tucked away on the North Shore is a small but growing number of homeless people — the next group to be forced to move as the city continues cleaning beach parks across the island.

“No one was really surprised,” said Kathy Yamanouchi, who lives in her van with her boyfriend. “We were just waiting for them to come here.”

Yamanouchi will receive her bachelor’s degree in social work from Hawaii Pacific University this month. She studied often by candlelight and lived off her financial aid, but could not afford rent.

This woman is about to get her fucking BA sleeping on a beach. Does this sound like a feminist issue? Others quoted in the article include a grandmother raising a family of seven and another family with a five-month old daughter.

Last year, the city began shutting down Ala Moana Beach Park at night, forcing many homeless people to move. Seeing the move as a success, the city closed and cleaned Maili Beach Park in Waianae in March, also displacing dozens of homeless people.
Prior to the closing, the state had opened several shelters for homeless in Waianae. In announcing the plans for the North Shore two months in advance, the city is hoping the state, churches and local organizations will do the same.

“We’re hoping in that time the state will provide some facilities for the homeless people living in those parks,” said Bill Brennan, city spokesman. “We have a model that seems to be working well that began at Ala Moana Beach Park.”

However, many homeless people said they do not want to live in shelters because they are crowded, regulated and filled with others they do not want influencing young children.

“They feel like they’re in a jail,” said Repercio, who said she will likely move her van somewhere else if the city kicks her out of Mokuleia Beach Park.

We have families who are living in vans and tents because they can’t afford rent. We need affordable housing. Not shelters or other temporary solutions. Not more pro-marriage propoganda funded by millions of dollars of federal money. Not more articles about what the corporate media has against ‘women’ (make it a mantra: What kind of women?). In an ideal world we could talk about both issues and both would get attention, but right now, what is getting left out? What story is not being told, so that when the next Katrina hits everyone will be surprised again at the level of poverty in America?

In other words:

What she said. What she said. What she said.

Will you listen?

11 Comments »

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  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen. I have a little more feminist hypocrisy to share but I’ll do it by email.

    Comment by saltyfemme — May 8, 2007 #

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  2. Thank you! Sometimes I’m tired of talking about celebrities in the way you gossip in High School about the popular crowd. Let’s talk about something that matters, something that can actually bring about deep thought and conversation. Thank you for the reminder of focus.

    Comment by LRapps — May 8, 2007 #

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  3. Great post. One thought: I hate the implication, all over contemporary politics, and encouraged by disempowerment machines like FOX News, that we ought to be grateful to celebrities for their political views. It ends up championing the discontinuity between Olympia Dukakis making a romantic comedy, and her making an offhand derogation of Bush. In other words, it subordinates politics to entertainment, viewpoints to personalities, in order to turn dissent into a meaningless pageant. That certainly deserves the kind of bottom-up lashing you manage so marvelously right here.

    Comment by Joseph Kugelmass — May 8, 2007 #

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  4. This reminds me of the people who came out of the woodwork to protect Angelina Jolie when Nezua wrote about her adoptions being a form of colonialism. What is with these liberals who must protect the wealthy and powerful? But you mention the problems of poor people, brown people, foreign people, etc and they either give a blank-stare-no-response or a tsk-tsk-how-sad not these fiery impassioned declarations. I’m thinking that Jolie and O’Donnell can take care of themselves.

    Comment by Donna — May 8, 2007 #

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  5. Exactly. Makes Paris Hilton going to jail seem a bit less newsworthy, doesn’t it? (Although apparently not to her.)

    Comment by thishighway — May 8, 2007 #

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  6. right on, petit. you are truly outrageous. if this is what happens after you take a break from blogging, you need to take a break about once a month! (rag sisters rock!)

    seriously tho–this is so right on. esp the part where you say that they are both important issues, but right now, some things are more important than others. people act like cuz you keep bringing up that there are worse things in the world than to X, that what you’re saying is that there problems really don’t count. And that’s not it at all. it’s just some times, not having a home, being imprisoned for being a brown kid, being blown up by phosphorus bombs, going hungry etc–that has a way of being more pressing and urgent that being called a dyke because you don’t shave your legs. Or being called a slut because you pole dance. I don’t like that rosie’s getting slammed (and actually, i think it has more to do with her being queer than progressive), but dang, can the few women who *are* getting on television speak out about the little girls who are being imprisoned for three months at a time rather than poor poor ro? for some reason, I have a feeling her millions will get her through all this.

    Comment by brownfemipower — May 9, 2007 #

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  7. i mean, it’s like they’re consuming each other aren’t they? they keep yacking and yacking about stuff that people could really give a shit about. it’s like they’re having their own fucking blog wars between each other.

    Comment by brownfemipower — May 9, 2007 #

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  8. well yeah exactly. it’s just live and on television and watched by more people.

    and you know: well, again, i cheerfully cop to my own cheap schadenfreude and indulgence in flame wars, but–that’s what it is, an -indulgence.- yeah, sooner or later you have to decide what’s more worth the energy and time. and: what i -really- dislike is this -unexamined- idea, okay, that we all need to wait for/rely on the Important People to speak up for us because we can’t do it for ourselves.

    and, the Important People are the ones who got to the front of the line by

    1) connections

    2) privilege

    3) shouting loud enough to get there in the damn first place.

    as for not possessing “privilege,” you recognize it, but: that would be the least within any one person’s control.

    but as for the other two: well? the third partly depends on risk-taking, which privilege can be a cushion for, true, but at the same time: we do all have a voice. if there are internal and/or external things keeping us from using them, then THAT is the first thing that needs “examining.” but that’s -all- we can do is USE them. we cannot control whether or not other people listen or not. just speak with the confidence that this needs to be spoken, and if it’s spoken loudly and enough, it will be heard.

    and 1) is what we really need to rethink; because “connections” is exactly what we do and have every time we post a link to someone else. wherever two or three people gather together. -horizontal- connections.

    it all started -somewhere.- somewhere back in the murky distance, someone or something clawed out of the primordial ooze and said/thought,

    “I’m gonna do whatever it takes to survive.”

    so now, in theory, we’ve evolved, and we reach a turning point.

    IS this the world we want? Is this, truly, “survival of the fittest?” Fittest to do -what?- Why are the “fittest” seemingly the inane, the shallow, the glitzy, the cowardly, the greedy, the vain–if we judge by who’d got the voice and who’s got the stage? Why are the “fittest” not -smart compassionate people who know how to listen and how to adapt?-

    Comment by belledame222 — May 12, 2007 #

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  9. [...] on how the definition of ‘alternative media’ seems to be a bit skewed these days to some mainst…. And why everyone should shut up about Rosie for the love of all things feminist and more freaking [...]

    Pingback by salty sunday « salty femme. — May 14, 2007 #

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  10. And just as sad? Once that woman has her BA in social work, she probably STILL won’t be able to afford the housing there.

    Comment by Dewey — May 20, 2007 #

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  11. [...] distorted focuses of feminism and liberalism in Don’t include me; so does Petit Poussin in What it is. Listen to these women, they’re so [...]

    Pingback by Voxival II « Vox ex Machina — May 25, 2007 #

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