Hey y’all!

I was just doing my normal internet surfing, riding the news wave and trying to find something that hasn’t bombarded your TV or social media outlets yet. What I stumbled upon is so ridiculous and infuriating I just could not let it go.

So, the University of Wisconsin – Madison has come up with a new policy that states good grades should be distributed equally among different races. Known as the “Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence,” this policy calls for “proportional participation of historically underrepresented racial-ethnic groups at all levels of an institution, including high status special programs, high-demand majors, and in the distribution of grades.”

I’m sorry, WHAT!?! Obviously colleges like the idea of diversity — they promote it every chance they get — but if you go back and actually read what the policy calls for then you’ll see that while they may be promoting diversity, they are also promoting racial oppression. “Historically underrepresented racial-ethnic groups” — it is stated right there. In most cases white people have not been historically underrepresented. So what UW-Madison is saying is let’s give out free grades to students who are not white and who may not have worked as hard as other students. What about those students who are “historically underrepresented” who work their asses off to get those good grades? Why should they have to work so hard for their grades but their peers simply get handed the same grade because of their race or ethnicity?

By all means please promote diversity at a university, it is one of the best ways for people to learn from one another. But handing out grades based on race is a slap in the face to every student and professor at any university.

W. Lee Hansen, professor of economics at UW-Madison, was outraged by this policy and shared his opinion. “Suppose there were a surge of interest in a high demand field such as computer science. Under the ‘equity’ policy, it seems that some of those who want to study this field would be told that they’ll have to choose another major because computer science already has “enough” students from their ‘difference’ group.” Professor Hansen goes on to say, “Especially shocking is the language about “equity” in the distribution of grades. Professors, instead of just awarding the grade that each student earns, would apparently have to adjust them so that academically weaker, ‘historically underrepresented racial/ethnic’ students perform at the same level and receive the same grades as academically stronger students.”

How would any professor or student be okay with even the idea of this policy? How did UW-Madison get away with putting this policy into effect! Each student had to work hard to get into the university but now all of a sudden the school is saying that no matter what you did in the past if you are considered “historically underrepresented” you can simply show up to class and still get a good grade.

What’s the point of going to college if this is how it is going to be? These kids are going to end up with a four-year degree that they did not earn but simply purchased. If that’s the case why not just close down all institutions and require people to write a check for $80,000 – $125,000 to the government and have them hand out degrees.

Instead of promoting hard work, dedication, and real education, UW-Madison has basically said, “Come to UW-Madison where you pay tuition and we will give you the grades.” Is this really the kind of reputation that a university wants to have? Is this the kind of reputation that any student graduating from this institution wants to have? I know if I were ever in a situation where I was going to hire someone I would never want to hire the graduate from UW-Madison because he may not have understood the purpose of college and may not have learned anything except that things can apparently just be handed to you.

Life does not work that way. Life is not easy or fair and part of that statement includes the idea that school is not easy. You get the grade you worked for, not the grade that was assigned to you because of your race.

Too many of today’s youth are just expecting a hand out. They aren’t being taught the value of a dollar or a strong work ethic. Here comes the reference again, Idiocracy at its finest.

I also find it very interesting how hard generations before us fought for equality but here we are creating more separation than ever before. Is it not obvious to the world that subtle lines are being drawn in the sand? No one is created equal anymore. We might as well throw out the Declaration of Independence and forget about our past because nothing has really changed. People talk about how racism and sexism are still very alive in our world and how things need to change for the better. But how can anything change when universities are promoting policies that demonstrate separation over equality? Equality is not being promoted in this “Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence” policy at all.

You want to be equal? Take the same classes as your peers, work as hard as you can and get the grade you deserve. That makes you equal with your peers, not waiting around for a professor to give you an A for a class that you probably barely attended, never studied for and possibly slept through.

Shame on you University of Wisconsin – Madison for not only promoting racial and ethnic oppression but for also basically telling your students that they aren’t smart enough to get the grades on their own. Not to mention telling the world that handing out grades because of race or ethnicity is okay, thanks for basically showing the world that the fight for desegregation in all aspects meant nothing. I’m sure Medgar Evers, Betty Friedan, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King, Jr. are all turning in their graves.

 —

Allison Dawson (@AllyD528) Born in Germany, raised in Mississippi and Texas. Graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University. Currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative.

Featured image courtesy of [Okandasan via Flickr]

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post University of Wisconsin Policy Calls for Grade Distribution by Race and Ethnicity appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, how many of you are John Green fans? I hope every single one of you raised your hand. He’s basically perfection.

Not only does he write awesome books, but he also posts weekly vlogs on YouTube with his brother, Hank. The two of them cover everything from goofy details about their daily lives to politics and religion. And they do it HYSTERICALLY. Seriously, I never knew I could be so entertained while watching a video about the American healthcare system.

Anyway! One of John Green’s wonderful books, The Fault in Our Stars, has been made into a feature film. It’s hitting theaters next month and stars Shailene Woodley.

So much gorgeousness is happening here, you guys.

Shailene is pretty awesome, making some queer-ish, feminist-y comments about love being independent from gender, doubting our society’s obsession with marriage and monogamy, coming down on Twilight for promoting an unhealthy and abusive relationship dynamic, and advocating for more nuanced, kickass roles for women in movies.

She’s pretty rad.

But! Shailene was recently asked if she identifies as a feminist. And she said no. Cue collective exasperated sigh of disappointment.

Why is this apparently feminist star eschewing the feminist label? Because, it seems, she doesn’t actually understand what being a feminist means.

“No,” said Woodley, when asked if she considered herself a feminist, “because I love men.” She went on to say that feminism means giving undue power to women at the expense of men, an arrangement that wouldn’t be beneficial to anyone.

But, see, that’s not what feminism is. That’s not what it means. Not even a little bit. Feminists aren’t power hungry man-haters looking to depose men from their porcelain thrones of fragile masculinity. We’re not looking to climb over the men, flip the oppression coin, and unfairly win some sort of gender pissing contest where vagina-bearers come out on top.

Feminists are people who come in all shapes, sizes, and genders — some of them are men, go figure! — who believe in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Just ask Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the TEDx talker who came up with this perfectly coined definition of feminism. This isn’t power grabbing. This isn’t renewed, rearranged sexism.

Feminism is a commitment to ending gender-based oppression. And that’s something that both men and women will benefit from.

Because, let’s be real. We live in a world where gender-based oppression is a huge fucking deal. There’s so much of it, in fact, that every week I’m swamped with potential stories to cover here on The F Word. My email inbox is consistently flooded with article recommendations from friends, family members, and coworkers, all alerting me to the latest crazy incident of racist, sexist, homophobic bullshit to hit the airwaves. There’s always too much to cover on any given day.

This week, for example, we’ve got Monica Lewinsky. Vanity Fair has debuted an exclusive essay by Lewinsky, breaking her decade-long silence regarding her past as the White House whore. “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” she writes, going on to express her deep regret and remorse for her affair with former President Bill Clinton — which, she insists, was totally consensual.

But does consent really exist between an intern in her early 20s and her boss — a man who’s not only twice her age, but who’s also the President of the United States? The leader of the motherfucking free world asks you for a blow job, and what do you do? Report him to human resources?

I feel like the U.S. military’s Commander in Chief probably pulls rank on that one, no?

Yes, yes he does.

We live in a world where the man who abused his position of power to score sex from a hot, 20-something staffer, is now getting paid millions of dollars in speaking engagements. Meanwhile, his well-educated, exceptionally capable whore has been unable to land a full-time job ever, AT ALL, because of her “history,” a media sensation that’s transformed her from a person into a joke.

This is a world that needs feminism.

Then, we’ve got Emily Letts, an abortion counselor at a clinic in New Jersey who filmed her surgical abortion and posted it online, to show other women that “there is such a thing as a positive abortion story.”

The short video, featured below, is not graphic or violent, shows only the top half of Letts’ body, and focuses on her emotional and physical experience during the procedure. As a counselor, Letts wanted to share her experience to diffuse some of the frightening misinformation surrounding abortions, modeling one possible solution to a very personal, complicated situation.

Letts’ video and her accompanying essay for Cosmopolitan are helping women across the country come to safe, informed decisions about how to handle an unexpected pregnancy. They’re also helping to chip away at the deeply ingrained stigma our country holds against women who take control of their bodies and reproductive systems.

We live in a world where those are two goals that cause a huge chunk of the United States to respond with anger and vitriol, calling Letts a Godless Baby Slaughterer Witch from Hell. I give it about five minutes before death threats start rolling in.

This is a world that needs feminism.

And then, we’ve got 300 girls in the Nigerian village of Chibok who were abducted from school, OF ALL PLACES, and are now being sold into sexual, marital slavery for a few dollars a pop by Boko Haram, an Islamist fundamentalist group.

#Malala stands in solidarity with Nigerians & people everywhere calling for action to #BringBackOurGirls pic.twitter.com/woAjreav0W

— Malala Fund (@MalalaFund) May 4, 2014

These girls, who range in age from 9 to 15 years old, haven’t been found, which is SHOCKING considering how little media or political attention their abductions have warranted. (Please re-read that sentence and multiply the sarcasm factor by infinity.) And why were they abducted? Because Boko Haram is opposed to women in Nigeria receiving Western educations.

That’s right, folks. We live in a world where girls are violently denied educations and sold into slavery — all while making fewer headlines than Kimye.

This world needs feminism so badly that I have to come up with creative ways to squeeze multiple stories into a single blog post — and I never manage to cover them all. It needs feminism so badly that I had an entire post written about this racist, sexist,  douchebag extraordinaire from Princeton who’s not apologizing for his white privilege, and I SCRAPPED it, because there were too many other stories that were even more important to cover this week.

So, to Shailene Woodley, and to all the other people in the world who are hesitant or unwilling to adopt the feminist identity, please listen.

Feminism is not man-hating. Feminism is not power-grabbing. Feminism is not dangerous, destructive, or harmful.

Feminism is empathy. Feminism is self-love, and love for your fellow human beings. Feminism is working to end the oppression of all people — men, women, queers, people of color, poor people, disabled people — so that all of us can live happier, healthier lives.

Being a feminist means that you believe in social, political, and economic equality between the sexes. Being a feminist means you believe in ending oppression.

And sadly, this column is proof that there aren’t enough of us.

So, please, get next to feminism. Feminists are changing the world for the better. And we need you.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Mingle MediaTV via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post An Open Letter to Shailene Woodley: What Every Not-a-Feminist Needs to Hear appeared first on Law Street.

This Wednesday, October 11, will be the 25^th Annual National Coming Out Day. Yay! A day devoted to all of us queers coming out of the closet and running around with reckless, rainbow abandon is super awesome, right?

I remember the first time I was actually out on National Coming Out Day. I was 17, and it was my senior year in high school. I had been coming out, bit by bit, for the last three years, and I was finally at a point in my life where literally everyone who knew me, knew that I was gay. I was also the president of my high school’s Gay Straight Alliance, which made it pretty much impossible to deny that I wasn’t a huge lezzer. So there was that.

Anyway! To honor the special occasion, me and all of my lovely, wonderful fellow GSA members wore purple that day—a sign of queer solidarity—and organized a bake sale. All of the proceeds went to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Now, there are tons of LGBT nonprofits we could have donated to. But we chose this particular one because, in October of 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked in Laramie, Wyoming. He died just in time for National Coming Out Day, making his organization an especially fitting one to benefit from our bake sale that year.

But what exactly is Matthew Shepard’s story, and how has he affected the LGBT community today? That’s a pretty complicated subject, so let’s settle into our rainbow-pride Snuggies and dive right in, mmkay?

In case you don’t already know the story, Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old college student in Laramie, Wyoming. One night in October, two men abducted him from a local bar and drove him out into the rural, Wyoming night. They beat, robbed, and tortured him, leaving him tied to a fence to die. The next morning, a cyclist rode by, initially mistaking him for a scarecrow. Matthew was rushed to the hospital, but his injuries were too severe and he never woke up. He died on October 12, 1998.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation, which does lots of great work, was a direct result of Matt’s death. His mom, Judy Shepard, founded it with the goal of making the world a better and more accepting place, where people like Matthew won’t be harmed.

On that front, Matt’s legacy has affected us queers in a good way. He’s given us an organization that travels the country, spreading the noble message that it’s OK to be gay. He’s given us a poster child—unequivocal proof that it’s hard, and sometimes dangerous, to be queer. Perhaps most importantly, he’s given this country a vocabulary to talk about sexuality and violence. Those are all great things.

But. There have also been some not-so-great ramifications.

In 2009, the federal government passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It was meant to expand upon already existent hate-crime laws to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. It was (and still is) a pretty big deal. Judy Shepard campaigned fiercely for its passage.

Now, at first glance, this little piece of legislation sounds awesome. It means that members of the LGBT community deserve to be valued and protected under the law. It sends a message to homophobic douchebags who want to hurt us—you won’t get off easy.

But, that’s just at first glance. Looking beneath the surface, the Shepard Byrd Act does more than just make prison sentences lengthier for gay bashers. It also funnels a whole lot more money towards state and local law enforcement agencies, and expands the policing power of the federal government.

In short, it makes the U.S.’ police state more powerful.

And you know who gets hurt the most by the U.S. police state? Queer people of color.

Since the 1980s, surveillance and policing in the U.S. have grown exponentially, with incarceration becoming the preferred method of dealing with economically and socially marginalized communities. Over these last 30 years, the U.S.’s federal prison population has risen by 790 percent, while crime rates have remained relatively stable. No other country in the world incarcerates more of its citizens than the U.S., and a disproportionate amount of those inmates are poor, queer, and/or of color.

But how can that happen? Surely, heterosexism, racism, and transphobia can’t possibly be an institutional part of our justice system. This is AMURRICA, the land of the free!

If only. While we’re prancing about in our rainbow, edible underwear for National Coming Out Day, let’s take a second to reflect on the origins of the annual Gay Pride Parade.

Gay Pride wasn’t a thing until 1969, when police raided New York’s Stonewall Inn. Back then, cross dressing was illegal, and if anyone was caught wearing fewer than three pieces of gender-conforming clothing, he or she (or ze!) would get arrested. That meant a ton of trouble for butch lezzies–identifiable by their dapper menswear–trans folks, and drag queens. And what happened if you got arrested for your gender-non-conforming attire? Likely, you’d get beaten and raped. Just ask Leslie Feinberg. This shit used to happen ALL THE TIME. (And it actually still does.)

Then, in 2003, Lambda Legal won the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized homosexuality. That’s right, folks. It was ILLEGAL to be gay (or at least, to have super hot gay sex between two consenting adults) up until 2003.

I kid you not.

So basically, up until a measly 10 years ago, the cops were trained to arrest us. They were taught to see queer folks as criminals. They were encouraged to treat us with violence and contempt, because we were nothing but perverted delinquents. Historically, queers have had a really terrible relationship with law enforcement as a whole.

Nowadays, even though it’s no longer explicitly illegal to be queer, we’re still targeted. After all, old habits die hard, am I right? Cops routinely troll cruising spots, targeting gay men, they still raid our bars, beat and humiliate us, and they still rape us, all the goddamn time. And that’s just what happens to gay people. Imagine adding all of that targeted bias to issues of race and criminalization, or poverty, or gender variance. It gets so much worse.

Trans women of color know better than any of us what happens when you take all of that intersectional oppression into account–they’re routinely stopped by cops and arrested for solicitation or prostitution, based solely on racist, sexist, transphobic assumptions of criminality. Have you ever been accused of solicitation while you’re walking your dog? Probably not. This is a case of literal fashion police, except there’s no Joan Rivers and it’s not funny at all.

Not to mention, racism, sexism, and transphobia aren’t exclusive to the cops. Lots of people have less than warm and fuzzy feelings towards queers, and that makes it exponentially harder for us to get jobs. I’ve written about how difficult it can be for butch women to score employment, and that goes quadruple for trans people of color. With little or no opportunities for traditional employment, queers are often left with no other options besides sex work to support themselves. And of course, sex work is illegal.

So, to recap, poor queers of color are funneled into the prison industrial complex in two key ways: they’re unfairly targeted for arrest, and they’re forced into criminalized activities because of a lack of other viable options. Both of these realities are a result of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.

So you can see how it’s problematic that a piece of legislation, which is supposed to protect queer folks, actually strengthens an institution that specifically targets and harms us.

Because, ultimately, the cops aren’t using all that new money to find and punish white supremacists or gay bashers. More likely, they’re using it to harass, criminalize, and incarcerate poor people, queer people, and people of color.

Now, that’s not to say that all cops are bad, racist, homophobic pigs. Absolutely not. I’ve got an old friend whose father serves as a local Chief of Police, and I respect the hell out of him.

It is to say, however, that statistically, poor people, queer people, and people of color are targeted and harmed by the criminal justice system. As a result of that reality, funneling more money into that system is not a great strategy for protecting us.

But these facts often get ignored when we talk about Matthew Shepard. As a middle-class, gender-conforming, white man, his chances for having a run-in with the police were relatively small. No one would have stopped him while he was walking down the street and accused him of solicitation. Incarceration was not something Judy Shepard feared for her son.

And it’s no coincidence that Matthew became the gay hate-crime poster child. Many, many queer people have been violently murdered in the years before and after his death, and the majority of them were transgender women of color. Ever heard of Gwen Araujo? Probably not. And there’s a reason for that.

Reifying a white, cis-gender, middle-class gay man as the face of the LGBT community allows us to ignore the complex issue of intersectional, multifaceted oppression—where race, gender, sexuality, and class status are all inextricably linked.

So this National Coming Out Day, remember Matthew Shepard, but question the piece of hate crime legislation with his name attached to it. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Ludovic Bertron via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Come Out, Come Out — and Go to Jail? appeared first on Law Street.