IBARW: Sex
Jul. 28th, 2009 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseIBARW stands for "International Blog Against Racism Week" and I found out about it through ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparkymonster on my friends list. I hope I'm doing this right.
I've just finished watching a History Channel documentary about the sexual revolution and how 1969 was a seminal (arrrgh, not the best pun, but unfortunately the best word) year for the evolving mores. Just as we can point to 1968 for the political side, pretty much worldwide, in the United States at least, it's easy to point to 1969 for firsts or lasts about sex.
All of this is well and good. I would have liked a little more background, although, among the "fun facts to know and tell" I came away with: DC had laws on the books that forbade anything other than the missionary position. I really hope that's changed, otherwise a girl could get arrested.
Why is this an IBARW post? Because from what I could tell, other than the first ten minutes of the second hour, only white people had sex. Mostly only men and blonde women had sex (Seriously, there were surprisingly few brunettes shown, and I didn't see a single redhead.).
In some ways this could be justified, Gays got about the same amount of time, mostly devoted to Stonewall, at the end of the second hour, and the Women's Liberation Movement didn't get too much more in the middle of the second hour.
But sex for POC was A) limited only to African Americans and B) related to black men and white women. Oh, there were a couple of comments about young black women being allowed to get laid, and in the later segment about gay liberation there were pictures, no spokesmen, of young gay black men, but most of the segment revolved around the film 100 Rifles, and how Jim Brown being allowed to act like a lover rather than a rapist with his white co-star was a bench mark.
Some little bits were discussed about about miscegnation, but they used Birth of a Nation as the relevant cultural touchstone. One would think that the Supreme Court ruling in Loving vs Virginia in 1967 might be mentioned, but one would be wrong. Everyone, including Jim Brown, harped on the fact that the big fear was how much black men wanted to rape white women.
Not one mention was made of the oppression black women suffered from white men, nor of the possibility of a loving relationship between a black woman and a white man. For that matter, there wasn't a mention of a loving relationship between a black woman and a black man.
More than any other segment, this seemed tacked on. The only time we saw black commentors was during this segment. While the legacy of slavery was mentioned, it was predominantly about the oppression of black men. And the one black woman seen commenting talked about how there were ten white women for every black man. (In fairness, I believe she was answering a question put to her. We never hear an interviewer, but the framing of many of the "talking heads" sections was such that I'm fairly certain they were responses to specific questions.)
In 2009, this should not be how we frame our discourse about race or sexuality.
sparkymonster on my friends list. I hope I'm doing this right.I've just finished watching a History Channel documentary about the sexual revolution and how 1969 was a seminal (arrrgh, not the best pun, but unfortunately the best word) year for the evolving mores. Just as we can point to 1968 for the political side, pretty much worldwide, in the United States at least, it's easy to point to 1969 for firsts or lasts about sex.
All of this is well and good. I would have liked a little more background, although, among the "fun facts to know and tell" I came away with: DC had laws on the books that forbade anything other than the missionary position. I really hope that's changed, otherwise a girl could get arrested.
Why is this an IBARW post? Because from what I could tell, other than the first ten minutes of the second hour, only white people had sex. Mostly only men and blonde women had sex (Seriously, there were surprisingly few brunettes shown, and I didn't see a single redhead.).
In some ways this could be justified, Gays got about the same amount of time, mostly devoted to Stonewall, at the end of the second hour, and the Women's Liberation Movement didn't get too much more in the middle of the second hour.
But sex for POC was A) limited only to African Americans and B) related to black men and white women. Oh, there were a couple of comments about young black women being allowed to get laid, and in the later segment about gay liberation there were pictures, no spokesmen, of young gay black men, but most of the segment revolved around the film 100 Rifles, and how Jim Brown being allowed to act like a lover rather than a rapist with his white co-star was a bench mark.
Some little bits were discussed about about miscegnation, but they used Birth of a Nation as the relevant cultural touchstone. One would think that the Supreme Court ruling in Loving vs Virginia in 1967 might be mentioned, but one would be wrong. Everyone, including Jim Brown, harped on the fact that the big fear was how much black men wanted to rape white women.
Not one mention was made of the oppression black women suffered from white men, nor of the possibility of a loving relationship between a black woman and a white man. For that matter, there wasn't a mention of a loving relationship between a black woman and a black man.
More than any other segment, this seemed tacked on. The only time we saw black commentors was during this segment. While the legacy of slavery was mentioned, it was predominantly about the oppression of black men. And the one black woman seen commenting talked about how there were ten white women for every black man. (In fairness, I believe she was answering a question put to her. We never hear an interviewer, but the framing of many of the "talking heads" sections was such that I'm fairly certain they were responses to specific questions.)
In 2009, this should not be how we frame our discourse about race or sexuality.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-29 01:13 pm (UTC)And I agree. This sort of program is definitely not what we should frame our discourse about race and/or sexuality.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-29 05:42 pm (UTC)This line sums up some stuff about entertainment in general that people have been trying to drill into my privileged white brain all week. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-29 05:44 pm (UTC)Well, you said the documentary was about sex, not ancient mythology, so I guess that makes sense!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-29 08:00 pm (UTC):: In some ways this could be justified, Gays got about the same amount of time... ::
I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea that one can justify shortchanging one marginalized group just because other marginalized groups were similarly shortchanged. It sounds like the documentary was grossly heteronormative and white-centric, but one doesn't excuse the other.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-30 12:01 am (UTC)I had a vision of a bunch of producers sitting around and going, "In the second hour..." and putting in things that weren't either male oriented (Playboy, Penthouse) or counter-culture (The Doors with Jim Morrison's arrest, Haight-Ashbury, Sandstone Retreat, Esalen, and Oh, Calcutta) -- because who would really be interested in PoC, Women, or Gays. *eyeroll*
They were very dismissive of anyone who wasn't permissive as well. Me, I'm fairly permissive, but not everyone is and I think they should have shown that, without going straight to Anita Bryant extremism, as well.
no subject
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