politics

This is rather long, but inside of it is an explanation of why burqa and veil bans do not belong in the law books of liberal democracies:

Five arguments are commonly made in favor of proposed bans.  Let’s see whether they treat all citizens with equal respect.  First, it is argued that security requires people to show their faces when appearing in public places.  A second, closely related, argument says that the kind of transparency and reciprocity proper to relations between citizens is impeded by covering part of the face.

What is wrong with both of these arguments is that they are applied inconsistently.

It gets very cold in Chicago – as, indeed, in many parts of Europe.  Along the streets we walk, hats pulled down over ears and brows, scarves wound tightly around noses and mouths.  No problem of either transparency or security is thought to exist, nor are we forbidden to enter public buildings so insulated.  Moreover, many beloved and trusted professionals cover their faces all year round: surgeons, dentists, (American) football players, skiers and skaters. What inspires fear and mistrust in Europe, clearly, is not covering per se, but Muslim covering.

via Veiled Threats? – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.

In a major arrest, LAPD finally captured the man who murdered 11 women (a 12th escaped) over the course of 3 decades. The women were mostly poor Black women — victims whose deaths often don’t get the necessary investigative attention. But my mother, Margaret Prescod, insisted that the police do their jobs, helping to build a coalition that would keep the police on their toes.

Way back in the 80s, LAPD Chief Darryl Gates was quoted as saying, “Get Prescod off my back” in the LAT in an article about this same case. Also, they photographed my mom, my dad, and me for a feature in the LAT that included a picture of my mom leafletting in Beverly Hills (see below for an image). This capture is partly due to the incredible, unfailing energy of my mother who never quit prodding the police about the case. And I’m sure that won’t end until the killer is found guilty. We’re all safer thanks in part to her work. Thanks Mom!

Margaret Prescod, who founded the Black Coalition Fighting Black Serial Murders and worked heavily with the families of the victims in the case told CNN she spoke with the Grim Sleeper Task Force who informed her of the arrest Wednesday.

Prescod said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, head of the task force, told her that unlike a previous arrest in the case that turned out to be wrong, he was sure they had gotten their man this time.

“He told me that what they have is very solid,” Prescod said.

Prescod said she is “cautiously optimistic” about the development because there was an arrest years ago in the case, which police touted as solidly based on ballistics evidence, but turned out to be false.

If Franklin turns out to be the Grim Sleeper, “it would be a huge relief, not only for the [victims' families], but for the entire community that remained at threat,” Prescod said.

“We are mortified that it has taken this long to make an arrest but nevertheless, one is always glad when there is a breakthrough and we can only hope right now that it is a solid breakthrough.”

Prescod told CNN she had spoken with several of the victims’ families, some of whom are members of her coalition, to tell them about the news.

She said family members were screaming and shouting on the phone when she told them the news, elated that perhaps they could find closure in the deaths of their loved ones.

Arrest made in Los Angeles Grim Sleeper serial killer case – CNN.com.

On a side note, I just had to call my mom to tell her that like they did last year, CNN AGAIN got the name of her organization wrong. They are fighting *back* serial murders, not *Black* serial murders. CNN can’t read.

I was just four when this photo was taken, but I actually remember the photo shoot! Click on it to see an image large enough for you to read the beginning of the article.

One of my pet peeves in life is the way people sometimes don’t pay enough attention to causal relationships. This is probably because I am a theoretical physicist who specializes in general relativity. Paying attention to causality is crucial in my line of work and can make the difference between fancy math tricks that yield physics information and fancy math tricks that have no possibility of a relationship with reality. Anyway, because of this central role that being careful about causality plays in my work, I often cast other critical thinking endeavors in terms of questions about timeline.

We often talk about the importance of learning history so that we do not repeat humankind’s mistakes over and over again. But it’s clear that we are selective about the history that we learn/teach our children. For example, the Holocaust is a major feature in the curricula of many American school districts. But how many people know that the Taliban rose to power with significant American assistance, as part of a Cold War anti-Soviet strategy?

Playing a little game of being especially attentive to causality, how many people know that before the rise of the Taliban, some Muslim states were banning the veil and requiring men to wear Western dress?* Well, I had a guess about this, but didn’t formally know until I read Lila Abu-Lughod’s Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others.

Doing a little causal addition, it’s clear that there is a definite relationship between US interference in foreign governments and social movements and the enforcement of the burqa/niqab on women in at least one country.

I think the next appropriate question to ask is: how many places are women facing patriarchal oppression because the men imposing it had help from Western governments?

And as we ask that question, we must ask of ourselves: how serious can the Western world be about “saving” Muslim women when the Western world is the reason they need to be “saved” and the Western world isn’t acknowledging the enormity of that fact? Didn’t we learn in kindergarten that honesty is the best policy? Maybe not.

If we can acknowledge the causal relationship between imperialism, colonialism, and the oppression of women, we might be able to genuinely ask ourselves and Muslim women of all shades and veil/non-veil shapes: what do you need from first world feminists? What is your movement? Where do you want to go? Lead us!

*This clearly needs to be unpacked in the context of Western colonialism, but that will have to wait for another day.