Yes this idiot thinks that minorities are to damn stupid to think for themselves.
I’m sure this Hillary supporter has hot sauce in her purse right?
Two professors from San Diego State University claim in a new book that farmers’ markets in urban areas are weed-like “white spaces” responsible for oppression.
Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco are part of an anthology released this month titled “Just Green Enough.” The work, published by Routledge, claims there is a correlation between the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and gentrification.
“Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” the SDSU professors write, the education watchdog Campus Reform reported Wednesday.
The geology professors claim that 44 percent of San Diego’s farmers’ markets cater to “households from higher socio-economic backgrounds,” which raises property values and “[displaces] low-income residents and people of color.”
“The most insidious part of this gentrification process is that alternative food initiatives work against the community activists and residents who first mobilized to fight environmental injustices and provide these amenities but have significantly less political and economic clout than developers and real estate professionals,” the academics write.
The authors claim that negative externalities of “white habitus” formed at farmers’ markets can be managed through “inclusive steps that balance new initiatives and neighborhood stability to make cities ‘just green enough.’”
Referring to the Christmas day post which he has since deleted, Hamilton wrote on micro-blogging platform Twitter Wednesday that ” I was playing around with my nephew and realised that my words were inappropriate so I removed the post. I meant no harm and did not mean to offend anyone at all. I love that my nephew feels free to express himself as we all should.”
Continuing to disavow his instinctive reaction upon seeing his nephew wearing girls clothes, Hamilton wrote: “My deepest apologies for my behaviour as I realise it is really not acceptable for anyone, no matter where you are from, to marginalise or stereotype anyone.
“I have always been in support of anyone living their life exactly how they wish and I hope I can be forgiven for this lapse in judgement.”
Forced Transgender Boy Quickly Returns To Normal After Removal From Mother’s Care
In the original video, which has now been removed from social media, the celebrity racing driver told fans as he pointed the camera towards a young boy wearing a princess dress and holding a wand: “I’m so sad right now. Look at my nephew.
“Why are you wearing a princess dress? Is this what you got for Christmas… Boys don’t wear princess dresses!”
Hamilton was attacked on social media and in print by transgender activists and there have been calls for the driver to be stripped of his MBE, an award from the British crown for services to sports, for his use of social media.
Government Confirms Compulsory Sex Ed for Young Children Will Include Transgender Issues http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/12/19/compulsory-sex-ed-young-children-trans/ …
Government Confirms Compulsory Sex Ed for Young Children Will Include Transgender Issues
The government has confirmed that children will learn about transgender issues s when compulsory sex education is brought into primaries.
breitbart.com
The Metro free newspaper reports some were concerned about the sincerity of Hamilton’s apology after he ‘liked’ a number of tweets defending him, including one that criticised the “PC brigade”, which said: “You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong Lewis. You should never have to apologise to the PC brigade who are getting worse every year. Have fun with your family and don’t worry what others think.”
The princess dress episode is not the first social media incident for the driver. Breitbart reported in 2015 after Hamilton was ordered by his race boss to take down a video and photographs of himself enjoying time on a rifle range hitting targets with an AR-15 rifle.
Hamilton removed the posts at the instructions of his employer but was otherwise unapologetic, remarking: “I went to the shooting range, shot some fun targets. It was a lot of fun.”
Every Damn Things Seems To Trigger Me And So What If I Love Bernie Sanders.
While most of us are spending the day opening gifts and hanging out with family and friends, some are determined to find everything wrong with Christmas.
According to some on the left, here are five problematic things about Christmas:
Mistletoe:
Some feminists decided that the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe promotes a “rape culture,” with one feminist Twitter account writing that under the mistletoe, “male misogynistic tendencies to manifest themselves in reality.”
It is likely that the anti-mistletoe campaign started as a prank on feminists, but many feminists actually joined in earnestly.
‘Sexist’ Christmas Songs:
Feminist website Bustle has previously assembled a list of “sexist” Christmas songs. In the article titled, “8 Christmas Songs That Are Totally, Terribly Sexist,” Kadeen Griffins lists classics like, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
She writes that “(s)ome of your favorite Christmas songs are kind of really sexist,” and that these Christmas songs “reek of a bit of antifeminism.”
1. “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” Has anyone ever actually listened to the lyrics of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”? That song is terrible! Thankfully, I don’t hear them playing it on the radio much, but the fact that it’s a novelty song that has been around since the ’70s doesn’t change the fact that it details a poor woman’s drunken death. To my knowledge, Santa doesn’t even get in trouble for it — unless you count in that TV film, wherein Grandma survives and Santa was framed.
Most Offensive Lyric: “It’s not Christmas without Grandma. All the family’s dressed in black. And we just can’t help but wonder, should we open up her gifts or send them back?” Priorities, much?
2. “All I Want For Christmas Is You”
To be fair, I’ve already written a separate article about how “All I Want For Christmas Is You” could stand to be more feminist. And by written a separate article, I mean I rewrote the song entirely. However, despite being one of my personal favorite Christmas songs, I don’t like the idea that the woman narrating the song doesn’t want anything for the holidays except a man — and that she’s relying on another man (Santa Claus) to get the aforementioned man for her.
Most Offensive Lyric: “Santa, won’t you bring me the one I really need? Won’t you please bring my baby to me?”
We are going to go eat and throw-up, then we will say I’m triggered.
3. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”
The fact that we have an entire song devoted to a woman’s infidelity — with Santa Claus, no less — but no such fun Christmas carol for a guy — despite Mrs. Claus being a thing — really says it all. (And giving this classic Christmas song another listen reveals that there might be something a little more insidious than simple infidelity at play. The child who snuck out of bed and witnessed this alleged instance of cheating apparently thinks it would be hilarious to report this back to Dad… for some reason.)
Most Offensive Lyric: “Oh, what a laugh it would have been if Daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night!” Um.
4. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”
Listen, I understand that it’s a traditional fact that guys like to play with guns and girls like to play with dolls (or something), but we don’t need to reinforce gender stereotypes in our Christmas carols, okay? Update yourself to the modern century, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!” Let’s have the boys put aside the pistols and the girls put aside the dolls and roll out some gender neutral gifts, shall we?
Most Offensive Lyric: “A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots Is the wish of Barney and Ben. Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk is the hope of Janice and Jen.”
5. “Santa Baby”
I mean, the entire song is essentially someone trying to seduce Santa Claus in order to get a bunch of Christmas presents. Male or female — though the song is traditionally sung by females and directly references being a “good girl” — it’s still a bit awkward to be breathily requesting that Santa get you cars and rings because you called him baby. All the women who independent, throw your hands up at me!
Most Offensive Lyric: “Think of all the fun I’ve missed. Think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed. Next year I could be just as good… if you’d check off my Christmas list.” Sigh.
6. “Twelve Days of Christmas”
o be fair, “Twelve Days of Christmas” and I have always had problems with one another, mainly because when I was a child I had no idea what they were talking about with some of the items my “true love” was giving to me for Christmas. However, now that I am an adult, I realize how weird and awful it is that my true love is sending me people for Christmas, let alone crowds of people. Take back your ten lords a’ leaping, sir! I’m not into slavery.
Most Offensive Lyric: “On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: eight maids a’ milking…” a.k.a. the exact moment my true love started sending me people.
7. “Santa Tell Me”
“Santa Tell Me” might have only just come out, but, yes, I’m going to call it out for sexism. Don’t get me wrong. I love Ariana Grande’s latest Christmas hit and I’ve listened to it several times since its debut. However, I have to be the one to reiterate something that many Christmas songs don’t seem to realize: you don’t need to be in love with someone, or in a romantic relationship, to feel happy or fulfilled this Christmas. Say it loud, say it proud. Can someone please write a song about that? (Taylor Swift, I’m looking at you.)
Most Offensive Lyric: “Now I need someone to hold, be my fire in the cold.”
8. “Baby It’s Cold Outside”
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” is a Christmas song so problematic that many covers just outright change the lyrics. You know why. You knowwhy. If you don’t know why, let me be the one to ruin this for you: there’s a line that subtly references the female singer being drugged by the male singer. That alone makes the entire song ten times creepier and ten times more sexist than it would be otherwise, hence why that line is frequently removed.
Most Offensive Lyric: “The neighbors might think… (Baby, it’s bad out there.) Say, what’s in this drink? (No cabs to be had out there.)” Cue shuddering.
‘Racist’ Jingle Bells Song:
Boston University professor Kyna Hamill recently wrote about “Jingle Bells” and its supposed racism, Fox News reports.
She writes that the song has “racist origins,” pointing to its performances in blackface from the 1800s.
She also writes, “Although ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ for most of its singers and listeners, may have eluded its racialized past and taken its place in the seemingly unproblematic romanticization of a normal ‘white’ Christmas, attention to the circumstances of its performance history enables reflection on its problematic role in the construction of blackness and whiteness in the United States.”
Wrapped Gifts:
According to a“Religious Diversity and Holidays” memo given to some University of Minnesota students and staff, “bows/wrapped gifts” are not “appropriate.”
I know I am a professional victim.
Also listed as not appropriate on that list is Santa Claus, bells, doves, and menorahs, The College Fix reports.
Hallmark Christmas movies:
Some have taken issue with Hallmark Christmas movies, as they are full of largely white and straight people.
An article published to Slate.com bleats that the movies, “brim with white heterosexuals who exclusively, emphatically, and endlessly bellow “Merry Christmas” to every lumberjack and labradoodle they pass. They’re centered on beauty-pageant heroines and strong-jawed heroes with white-nationalist haircuts.”
It continued, “There are occasional sightings of Christmas sweater–wearing black people, but they exist only to cheer on the dreams of the white leads, and everyone on Trump’s naughty list—Muslims, gay people, feminists—has never crossed the snowcapped green-screen mountains to taint these quaint Christmas villages. “Santa Just Is White” seems to be etched into every Hallmark movie’s town seal.”
Salon.com also wrote an article about the movies, saying the Hallmark channel gives a “homogeneous view of the holiday,” that’s “leaving minority actors out in the cold.”
In all seriousness, go hangout with your friends and family. Merry Christmas.
Exclusive: Prominent lawyer sought donor cash for two Trump accusers
A well-known women’s rights lawyer sought to arrange compensation from donors and tabloid media outlets for women who made or considered making sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump during the final months of the 2016 presidential race, according to documents and interviews.
California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.
The women’s accounts were chronicled in contemporaneous contractual documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill, including an exchange of texts between one woman and Bloom that suggested political action committees supporting Hillary Clinton were contacted Bloom, who has assisted dozens of women in prominent harassment cases and also defended film executive Harvey Weinstein earlier this year, represented four women considering making accusations against Trump last year. Two went public, and two declined.
In a statement to The Hill, Bloom acknowledged she engaged in discussions to secure donations for women who made or considered making accusations against Trump before last year’s election.
“Donors reached out to my firm directly to help some of the women I represented,” said Bloom, whose clients have also included accusers of Bill Cosby and Bill O’Reilly.
Bloom said her goal in securing money was not to pressure the women to come forward, but rather to help them relocate or arrange security if they felt unsafe during the waning days of a vitriolic election. She declined to identify any of the donors.
And while she noted she represented sexual harassment victims for free or at reduced rates, she also acknowledged a standard part of her contracts required women to pay her commissions as high as 33 percent if she sold their stories to media outlets.
“Our standard pro bono agreement for legal services provides that if a media entity offers to compensate a client for sharing his or her story we receive a percentage of those fees. This rarely happens. But, on occasion, a case generates media interest and sometimes (not always) a client may receive an appearance fee,” she said.
“As a private law firm we have significant payroll, rent, taxes, insurance and other expenses every week, so an arrangement where we might receive some compensation to defray our costs seems reasonable to us and is agreed to by our clients,” Bloom added.
Bloom told The Hill she had no contact with Clinton or her campaign, but declined to address any contacts with super PACs that supported the Democratic presidential nominee.
Josh Schwerin, the communications director for Priorities USA Action, the largest pro-Clinton super PAC, told The Hill that the group had no relationship with Bloom and had no discussions with her about supporting Trump accusers.
One Bloom client who received financial help from Bloom was New York City makeup artist Jill Harth.
The former beauty contestant manager filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Trump in 1997 and then withdrew it under pressure. The news media discovered the litigation during the election, and Harth’s name became public in the summer of 2016. She asked Bloom to represent her in the fall after hearing Trump describe her allegations against him as false, and became a vocal critic of Trump.
“I consider myself lucky to have had Lisa Bloom by my side after my old lawsuit resurfaced. She advised me with great competence and compassion,” Harth told The Hill.
Harth said she did not originally ask Bloom for money, even though her cosmetics business suffered from the notoriety of the campaign stories about her.
But later, Bloom arranged a small payment from the licensing of some photos to the news media, and then set up a GoFundMe.com account to raise money for Harth in October 2016. “Jill put herself out there, facing off with Donald Trump. Let’s show her some love,” the online fundraising appeal set up by Bloom’s husband declared.
The effort raised a little over $2,300.
Bloom then arranged for a donor to make a larger contribution to help Harth pay off the mortgage on her Queens apartment in New York City. The amount was under $30,000, according to a source directly familiar with Harth’s situation. Public records show Harth’s mortgage was recorded as extinguished on Dec. 19, 2016.
Harth said the payments did not affect the merits of her allegations. She alleges that during a January 1993 meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the future president pushed her up against a wall and groped her, trying to get his hands up her dress.
“Nothing that you’ve said to me about my mortgage or the Go Fund Me that was created to help me out financially affects the facts or the veracity of my 1997 federal complaint against Donald J. Trump for sexual harassment and assault,” she told The Hill.
“Having to retell my experiences of Donald Trump’s harassment is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Trump has steadfastly denied assaulting or harassing women, even after a videotape surfaced in September 2016 in which he can be heard boasting that famous men like him can grab women by the genitalia without consequence. Trump has dismissed the tape as “locker room talk.”
Harth is currently writing a memoir about her whole experience, but without Bloom’s help.
Bloom acknowledged arranging financial help for Harth, who she said had lost income because of the publicity surrounding her allegations.
“She endured a tidal wave of hate for it. It was very painful for her. And as a New York City makeup artist, Jill lost jobs after she came out publicly against Donald Trump. I believed that people wanted to donate to help her, so we set up the GoFundMe account,” she told The Hill.
The Hill does not identify the names of victims of sexual assault or harassment unless they go public on their own, like Harth.
But one woman who did not go public with allegations agreed to share her documents and talk to The Hill about her interactions with Bloom if The Hill honored its commitment to maintain her anonymity.
Both that woman and Harth, who were friends, stressed that Bloom never asked them to make any statements or allegations except what they believed to be true.
Their texts and emails indicate Bloom held a strong dislike of Trump though. Bloom is the daughter of Gloria Allred, another prominent attorney who is representing a number of women who have made accusations of sexual misconduct against Trump.
In an email to the unnamed woman, Bloom said that her story was “further evidence of what a sick predator this man is,” referring to Trump.
Documents also show Bloom’s efforts to get alleged victims of sexual assault or harassment to come out against Trump intensified as Election Day 2016 approached.
When Harth, for instance, informed Bloom she had just made a Facebook post urging other women to come forward about Trump in October 2016, the lawyer texted back: “Wow Jill that would be amazing. 27 days until the election.”
And when a potential client abruptly backed out of a pre-election news conference in which she was supposed to allege she was sexually assaulted at age 13, Bloom turned her attention to another woman.
That woman, Harth’s friend, went back and forth for weeks with Bloom in 2016 about going public with an allegation of an unsolicited advance by Trump on the 1990s beauty contest circuit.
“Give us a clear sense of what you need and we will see if it we can get it,” Bloom texted the woman a week before Election Day.
“I’m scared Lisa. I can’t relocate. I don’t like taking other people’s money,” the woman wrote to Bloom.
“Ok let’s not do this then,” Bloom responded. “We are just about out of time anyway.”
The woman then texted back demanding to know why there was a deadline. “What does time have to do with this? Time to bury Trump??? You want my story to bury trump for what? Personal gain? See that ‘s why I have trust issues!!”
The woman told The Hill in an interview that Bloom initially approached her in early October through Harth. She said she considered coming forward with her account of an unsolicited advance by Trump solely to support her friend Harth, and not because she had any consternation with Trump, who ended the advance when she asked him to stop, she said.
The woman said Bloom initially offered a $10,000 donation to the woman’s favorite church, an account backed up by text messages the two exchanged.
“Please keep the donation offer confidential except to your pastor,” Bloom wrote the woman on Oct. 14, 2016.
When Bloom found out the woman was still a supporter of Trump and associated with lawyers, friends and associates of the future president, she texted a request that jarred the woman.
“When you have a chance I suggest you delete the August 2015 Facebook post about supporting Trump,” Bloom texted. “Otherwise the reporter will ask you how you could support him after what he did to you. Your call but it will make your life easier.”
The woman declined. “I hate to say it, but i still rather have trump in office than hillary,” the woman texted back. Bloom answered, “Ok I respect that. Then don’t change anything.”
Eventually the two decided the woman’s continued support of Trump was a benefit to her narrative if she went public with her accusations, the messages show. “I love your point about being a Trump supporter too,” Bloom texted on Oct. 14, 2016.
The text messages show the woman made escalating requests for more money.
By early November, the woman said, Bloom’s offers of money from donors had grown to $50,000 to be paid personally to her, and then even higher.
“Another donor has reached out to me offering relocation/security for any woman coming forward. I’m trying to reach him,” Bloom texted the woman on Nov. 3, 2016. Later she added, “Call me I have good news.”
The woman responded that she wasn’t impressed with the new offer of $100,000 given that she had a young daughter. “Hey after thinking about all this, I need more than $100,000.00. College money would be nice” for her daughter. “Plus relocation fees, as we discussed.”
The figured jumped to $200,000 in a series of phone calls with Bloom that week, according to the woman. The support was promised to be tax-free and also included changing her identity and relocating, according to documents and interviews.
Bloom told The Hill that the woman asked for money as high as $2 million in the conversations, an amount that was a nonstarter, but the lawyer confirmed she tried to arrange donations to the woman in the low six figures.
“She asked to be compensated, citing concerns for her safety and security and over time, increased her request for financial compensation to $2 million, which we told her was a non-starter,” Bloom told The Hill. “We did relay her security concerns to donors, but none were willing to offer more than a number in the low six figures, which they felt was more appropriate to address her security and relocation expenses.”
The woman said that when she initially talked to Bloom she simply wanted to support Harth and had no interest in being portrayed as an accuser or receiving money. But when Bloom’s mention of potential compensation became more frequent, the woman said she tried to draw out the lawyer to see how high the offer might reach and who might be behind the money.
Just a few days before the election, the woman indicated she was ready to go public with her story, then landed in the hospital and fell out of contact with Bloom.
The lawyer repeatedly texted one of the woman’s friends on Nov. 4, 2016, but the friend declined to put the woman on the phone, instead sending a picture of the client in a hospital bed.
Bloom persisted, writing in a series of texts to the friend that she needed to talk to her hospitalized client because it could have “a significant impact on her life” and a “big impact on her daughter” if she did not proceed with her public statement as she had planned.
“She is in no condition for visitors,” the friend texted Bloom back.
“If you care about her you need to leave her be until she is feeling better,” the friend added in another text.
Bloom hopped on a plane from California to come see the woman on the East Coast, according to the text messages and interviews.
The next day, the woman finally reconnected with Bloom and informed her she would not move forward with making her allegations public. Bloom reacted in a string of text messages after getting the news.
“I am confused because you sent me so many nice texts Wednesday night after my other client wasted so much of my time and canceled the press conference,” Bloom texted on Nov. 5, 2016. “That meant a lot to me. Thursday you said you wanted to do this if you could be protected/relocated. I begged you not to jerk me around after what I had just gone through.”
A little later, she added another text. “You have treated me very poorly. I have treated you with great respect as much as humanly possible. I have not made a dime off your case and I have devoted a great deal of time. It doesn’t matter. I could have done so much for you. But you can’t stick to your word even when you swear you will.”
After the woman was released from the hospital, she agreed to meet Bloom at a hotel on Nov. 6, just two days before Trump unexpectedly defeated Clinton.
The woman told The Hill in an interview that at the hotel encounter, Bloom increased the offer of donations to $750,000 but still she declined to take the money.
The woman texted Bloom that day saying she didn’t mean to let her lawyer down.
“You didn’t let me down,” Bloom texted back. “You came and spoke to me and made the decision that’s right for you. That’s all I wanted.”
Bloom confirmed to The Hill that she flew to Virginia to meet with the woman after she had changed her mind several times about whether to go public with her accusations against Trump.
“We invited her to meet with us at the hotel restaurant and she accepted. Ultimately, after another heartfelt discussion, she decided that she did not want to come forward, and we respected her decision,” Bloom told The Hill.
Bloom said the donor money was never intended “to entice women to come forward against their will.”
“Nothing can be further from the truth. Some clients asked for small photo licensing fees while others wanted more to protect their security,” she said.
Bloom declined to identify the name of any donors who would have provided money for women making accusations against Trump.
Harth and the woman who decided not to go public said they never were given any names of donors.
But Bloom told the woman who declined to come forward that she had reached out to political action committees supporting Clinton’s campaign.
“It’s my understanding that there is some Clinton Super Pack [sic] that could help out if we did move forward,” the woman wrote Bloom on Oct. 11, 2016. “If we help the Clinton campaign they in turn could help or compensate us?”
Bloom wrote back, “Let’s please do a call. I have already reached out to Clinton Super PACs and they are not paying. I can get you paid for some interviews however.”
The woman who ultimately declined to come forward with Bloom told The Hill that she stayed silent for an entire year afterward because she did not want to call attention to her family.
She said she supported Trump in 2016, and that he she held no resentment about the early 1990s advance because Trump stopped it as soon as she asked him.
She said she remains friends with many people associated with the president to this day, including one of his best personal friends and a lawyer who works for one of the firms representing Trump.
The woman said, however, no one associated with the Trump White House or the president forced her to come forward or made any offers to induce her to talk to The Hill. She said she agreed to do so only after she became disgusted to learn this past October that Bloom had agreed to work in defense of Weinstein.
“I couldn’t understand how she could say she was for people like me and then represent someone like him. And then all the money stuff I knew about. I just became frustrated,” she said.
Bloom dropped her representation of Weinstein as the accusations piled up against him, telling Buzzfeed that it had been a “colossal mistake.”
Nearly from the beginning, Bloom made clear to the woman she would have to pay her law firm a commission on any fees the attorney arranged from media outlets willing to pay for the woman’s story, according to a copy of a contract as well as a text message sent to the woman.
“Outlets with which I have good relationships that may pay for your first on camera interview, revealing your name and face: Inside Edition, Dr. Phil, LawNewz.com,” Bloom texted the woman just weeks before Election Day. “My best estimate of what I could get for you would be $10-15,000 (less our 1/3 attorney fee).”
“If you are interested I would recommend Inside Edition or Dr. Phil as they are much bigger. Dr. Phil is doing a show on Trump accusers next Tuesday in LA and would fly you here and put you up in a nice hotel, and pay for your meals as well, with your daughter if you like,” Bloom’s text added. “Media moves very quickly so you need to decide and then once confirmed, you need to stick to it.”
Representatives of “Inside Edition” and “Dr. Phil” said they did not pay any Trump accusers for appearances last year.
Bloom’s firm sent the woman a “media-related services” contract to represent her for “speaking out against Donald Trump” that laid out business terms for selling a story in the most direct terms.
“You will compensate the Firm thirty-three percent (33%) of the total fee that you collect, whether the media deal or licensing fees is for print, Internet, radio, television, film or any other medium,” Bloom’s proposed contract, dated Oct. 10, 2016, read. The woman said she signed the contract.
When Bloom found out in early November that the woman and the friend had discussions with CBS News about doing an interview on their own, the lawyer texted back: “CBS does not pay for stories.”
A little later Bloom sent another text suggesting the arrangements she was making could be impacted by the unauthorized media contacts. “You and your friends should not be shopping the story it will come back to bite you,” Bloom texted. “And this whole thing we have worked so hard to make happen will go away.”
Women had accounts banned from Facebook for responding to male trolls with sentences like ‘men are trash,’ in part because the company classifies white men as a protected group.
When comic Marcia Belsky sarcastically replied “men are scum” to a friend’s Facebook post back in October, she never anticipated being banned from the platform for 30 days.
That was exactly what happened.
Belsky was shocked at the severity of the punishment considering her relatively innocuous comment, and immediately spoke to her fellow female friends about the ordeal. They could relate.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, countless women have taken to Facebook to express their frustration and disappointment with men and have been promptly shut down or silenced, banned from the platform for periods ranging from one to seven days.
Women have posted things as bland as “men ain’t shit,” “all men are ugly,” and even “all men are allegedly ugly” and had their posts removed. They’ve been locked out of their accounts for suggesting that, since “all men are ugly,” country music star Blake Shelton “winning the sexiest man isn’t a triumph.”
“I personally posted men are scum in November and I received a seven-day ban. It’s still ongoing. Two days and 23 hours left,” said comedian Alison Klemp.
Kayla Avery, a comedian in Boston, said she’s been banned close to 10 times by Facebook and is serving out the end of her third 30-day ban.
One of the first times she got banned was when her page was flooded with male trolls calling her derogatory and sexist terms. Avery posted “men continue to be the worst” she said, because she said she “felt helpless to stop their hate.”
“There was one guy who was threatening to find my house and beat me up,” she said. “I got banned before I could even successfully report it.”
In late November, after the issue was raised in a private Facebook group of nearly 500 female comedians, women pledged to post some variation of “men are scum” to Facebook on Nov. 24 in order to stage a protest. Nearly every women who carried out the pledge was banned.
“It wasn’t the best protest because it clearly didn’t work,” said Klemp. Avery said she is still suffering the consequences after posting “men are trash” on that day.
On Nov. 28 a Twitter thread by comedian Rae Sanni documenting her experience of being banned by Facebook went viral and countless other women began to share their stories.
The problem has become so widespread that Avery even created a website to document these women’s tales. The site, FacebookJailed.com, shares women’s experiences of being punished by Facebook for making benign comments about men or standing up to trolls, sometimes juxtaposed with Facebook’s inaction against men who have hurled insults or racial slurs back.
“Comedian and writer Rae Sanni has been targeted by nazi trolls who hurled dozens of threatening and violent messages and comments at her for days,” a recent post reads. “Rae Sanni was banned by Facebook while her abusers are free to say sh*t like this without being in violation of community standards.”
The post features screenshots provided by Sanni where Facebook does not deem comments calling her the N-word hate speech.
When reached for comment a Facebook spokesperson said that the company is working hard to remedy any issues related to harassment on the platform and stipulated that all posts that violate community standards are removed.
When asked why a statement such as “men are scum” would violate community standards, a Facebook spokesperson said that the statement was an attack and hate speech toward a protected group and so it would rightfully be taken down.
As ProPublica revealed in an investigation in June, white men are listed as a protected group by the platform.
A Facebook spokesperson clarified that this is because all genders, races, and religions are all protected characteristics under Facebook’s current policy. However, it’s clear that even with 7,000 Facebook content moderators, things slip through the cracks.
Female comedians have speculated that it’s internalized misogyny on the behalf of Facebook’s content moderation team that leads to punishment such as banning to be doled out unequally. Several have tried posting “women are scum,” had their friends report the posts, and subsequently suffered zero consequences.
While this explanation is tidy, it’s almost certainly false. Facebook employees receive extensive training around specific issues and their work is regularly reviewed to account for any personal biases.
But the system is far from perfect.
One issue with the way Facebook moderators currently review posts is that many “problematic” posts are viewed individually, without context because of privacy concerns. Facebook moderators also aren’t able to view personal or demographic information about the original poster. This means that they sometimes don’t know whether a piece of content was posted by a black queer woman or a white straight male.
It also means the moderators don’t know whether the poster has a history of spreading messages related to white supremacy, or has participated in targeted harassment campaigns against specific groups before.
With hate speech in particular, the person writing the post is just as relevant as what is being said. The fact that Facebook’s moderators aren’t always given this information means that sometimes benign statements can be misinterpreted, and vice versa.
Context also matters. One reason female comics often seem to run afoul of Facebook’s guidelines is that the company’s content moderators fail to recognize the humor in their posts. Popular tropes such as “ban men” are interpreted literally under Facebook’s current set of community standards, and women suffer the consequences for attempting to express themselves.
In the past, ironic misandry has been a popular way for women to deal with living in a world where they’re exposed to frequent abuse at the hands of powerful men. Yet, if a woman takes to Facebook to vent about how she “wants to imprison men and milk them for their male tears,” she could quickly lose access to her account.
Trolls know this. “The ironic thing about Literal Nazis is that they have weaponized taking things literally,” BuzzFeed writer Katie Notopoulos wrote recently.
Feigning outrage at statements that were clearly not written to be interpreted that way has become a favored tactic of the alt-right, Gamergate, and movements known for their coordinated harassment efforts. When moderators can’t make this distinction they punish innocent parties and embolden trolls.
“There was one guy who was threatening to find my house and beat me up. I got banned before I could even successfully report it.”
— Kayla Avery
Meanwhile, outright false and defamatory information—like Pizzagate communities accusing private citizens of pedophilia because of their political beliefs—still thrive on the service.
Facebook’s spokesperson stressed that it was working on a fix to this and the company plans to look at ways to eventually apply its policies in a more granular way. In the future it hopes to take into account the history of oppression with different genders and ethnicities, etc. when reviewing posts, but stressed that Facebook is a global platform.
In the meantime, two women who are both not in the comedy world but have had their content flagged or removed said the bans have made them feel much less comfortable posting on Facebook about sensitive topics like the #MeToo movement.
Avery said that posting on Facebook, no matter what issue, can feel like walking across a minefield.
“I get cold feet to post stuff, especially if I try to share something that’s going on that I want to bring attention to. because I feel like I’m going to get in trouble somehow,” she said. “Sharing anything is nerve racking. It’s like, ‘What’s ok? What’s not ok? What’s going to cross the line this time?’ It makes me feel crazy, like Facebook is gaslighting us.”
Heather Fink, also a female comedian, said the problem has also begun to spread to Instagram. She has had several posts there removed where she said she was simply talking about her Facebook ban and now no longer trusts the platform to ensure her voice is heard.
The #MeToo movement has been perpetuated via social media thanks to the open nature of most platforms and the ability for women to speak out publicly in their own words. If Facebook’s community guidelines are being enforced irregularly, whether intentional or not, women say it stifles their ability to speak truth to power and share their stories.
“Facebook is absolutely silencing women.”
— Heather Fink
“Social media is how we communicate. Preventing women from expressing themselves like this is an intimidation tactic,” said Meredith, a social-media strategist who has had several of her friends banned.
“This feels like a deliberate and systematic act—and whether it was or it wasn’t, it needs to be addressed publicly by Facebook and Instagram, especially as we’ve seen plenty of examples of true, dangerous hate speech remaining on these platforms even after being reported.”
Avery said Facebook’s banning policy itself ties into the #MeToo movement.
“How else can we have a genuine reaction to what’s going on?” Avery said. “Facebook is absolutely silencing women.”
