Anton LaVey, Lawrence Wright and the Semi-Reliable Narrator

My favorite LaVey/Barton picture

In a 1991 Rolling Stone article entitled "Sympathy for the Devil: It’s not easy being evil in a world that’s gone to hell," Lawrence Wright found several of Anton LaVey's autobiographical claims to be partially or wholly untrue. Since that time his findings have been reproduced in various documents intended to "debunk" LaVey: estranged daughter Zeena's "Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality" is probably the most notorious and widely distributed. Most of these pages are obvious hatchet jobs which are best ignored. But for those who wish to study LaVey and his cultural impact Wright's research is not so easily dismissed. Like Burroughs and Warhol, LaVey's persona is a major part of his oeuvre. How do we determine where facts end and fiction begins -- and when does it matter?

LaVey long claimed experience as a lion tamer and calliope player in the 1947 Clyde Beatty Circus and later work with an unnamed carnival through 1948. Contacting the Circus World Museum, Wright finds no evidence placing him with Beatty at that time, but notes that several of the acts LaVey allegedly played for actually worked with Ringling Brothers. Let's put aside for a moment the possibility that LaVey traveled with a smaller show -- there were many traveling the California coast in 1947 and 1948 -- and assume LaVey made the whole thing up. Why? What did he hope to gain from presenting himself as a carny and, indeed, from making it a central part of the Anton Szandor LaVey persona?

The carny is charming, fascinating and not to be trusted: exaggeration and hyperbole are all part of his game. Like any barker, we can hardly expect LaVey to let the facts get in the way of a good spiel. This is an easy enough way to dismiss the whole problem -- and LaVey. But it is more useful as a clue in how one should read LaVey's work. He may use colorful language or fanciful stories, but it is all in good fun. The boasts will typically be benign, impressive-sounding but empty upon close reflection. Much of LaVey's so-called fraud is mere puffery. Consider this example from Wright:

[LaVey] said he was the official organist of the city of San Francisco until 1966, playing “the largest pipe organ west of Chicago" in the Civic Auditorium, where so many conventions were held. "I played official banquets, political functions, basketball games.” (There actually was no position as city organist in San Francisco, according to Julie Burford at the Civic Auditorium. Carole LaVey's divorce pleadings state that her husband's sole income was $29.91 per week, derived from playing the Wurlitzer organ at the Lost Weekend nightclub and "various infrequent affairs at the Civic Auditorium.")

LaVey may have granted himself an imaginary title, but those divorce papers show that he did in fact play the largest pipe organ west of Chicago on multiple occasions. And while others have questioned the nature of his relationship with Jayne Mansfield, consider this comment from a retired San Francisco police inspector (and yes, that's his real name):

"I remember Jayne, all right," says Jack Webb. In the early days of the church, Webb used to drop by for some of the rituals, along with several other San Francisco cops. "One night she was lying naked on Tony's grand piano. I'll never forget that sight."

While we still have no clue as to what Mansfield and LaVey did or did not do in bed, that unofficial police report suggests their relationship may well have been more than friendly. I've found a similar trend in cases where records are available -- and keep in mind some of these incidents happened 70 years ago: more often than not the data supports LaVey's claims .

Sometimes names are changed to protect the innocent: he called his parents "Joe and Augusta" rather than "Michael and Gertrude" because he wanted them kept out of the spotlight. (Seeing as how Lawrence Wright contacted LaVey's 87 year-old father in the course of this interview, we can understand his concern). And, unsurprisingly, the man who wanted "total controlled environments" also wanted total control over his personal image. Even more than the typical man of his era, LaVey hated showing weakness. Yet for all that he was surprisingly honest and self-effacing as often as boastful.

Wright is a decent writer and a competent journalist. I can't fault his research skills or his turn of phrase. And there is one transcendent moment where he almost Gets It, the point when he realizes "'Anton LaVey' was itself his supreme creation, his ultimate satanic object, a sort of android composed of all the elements his mysterious creator had chosen from the universe of dark possibilities." But he never takes the next step, never realizes "Hey! Lawrence Wright can be MY supreme creation." Instead, because he can't figure out LaVey's theology or grasp some Great Truth, he concludes "LaVey is like so many other self-created American legends; the whole point of his existence is to be understood immediately."

DBTWP 10.2.2 Wherein VanUlfur and Violentacrez teach us about Privilege

Taking umbrage at my earlier posts wherein I speculated on reasons why he might take Mr. Brutsch's situation so personally, Gawker personality VanUlfur commented:

VanUlfur @Kenaz_Filan
Lol, you're so incredibily butthurt. Congratulations on your blog, I bet its a huge hit online. Glad I contributed to your self-righteous path to the truth. You're the perfect example of how bigotry and the misinterpretation and displacement of sentencens can lead to a faulty and mischeavous conclusion. But you know what, VanUlfur is someone you don't even now, and to use my sentences and judge me like a perv is somthing ou have the right to. Go and be happy with it you assless nun.

VanUlfur @VanUlfur
I should've said assless monk. Completely forgot you were a guy and not a fat lesbian.

Apologies as required for my "bigotry... misinterpretation and displacement of sentencens." (The last presumably meaning "taking comments in their entirety and providing links to the conversation from whence they originated.")  I do hope my direct quoting of his words does not lead people to "judge [him] like a perv," or even like a slope-browed monkey-spanking misogynist.  But since he serves as such an excellent bad example let's unravel his latest comments.

VanUlfur @defiler2k
But dude, then you have to shut down sites that show gore and decapitations and shit. Because reddit does allow those things to be posted. And this is truly about free speech, and most of these commenters are treating this as if the guy commited any crime. Because he had his lofe destroyed by what gawker did, and if his villeness was indeed to such an extent, he would have been imprisioned for it. Nothing he did was illegal, and to judge him based on moral values, is indeed concerning in a democratic society. 

I've avoided talking about privilege so far.  It's definitely an important topic when discussing race relations, but it's also a nebulous one.  An individual holds or lacks privilege across any number of different axes.  A Latino man might have heterosexual privilege to marry and kiss his partner in public without fearing violence  and the male privilege of walking alone in public without fear of sexual assault without having white privilege.  As a result discussions about privilege often get sidetracked into tiresome theoretical arguments.  Thankfully, Violentacrez and his defenders provide an opportunity to show the ways this theory plays out in practice.

VanUlfur's argument is that "[n]othing [Brutsch] did was illegal" and that he is being treated "as if [he had] committed any crime." Brutsch has made similar arguments, and with some justification.  Violentacrez was tolerated largely because he was removing upskirt photos, child pornography and other clearly illegal content.  (It also helped that /r/jailbait/ was one of the site's most popular subreddits).  As Adrian Chen noted in his original article:

Administrators realized it was easier to outsource the policing of questionable content to Violentacrez than to dirty their hands themselves, or ostracize him and risk even worse things happening without their knowledge. The devil you know. So even as Jailbait flourished and became an ever-more-integral part of Reddit's traffic and culture—in 2008 it won the most votes in a "subreddit of the year" poll—administrators looked the other way. "We just stayed out of there and let him do his thing and we knew at least he was getting rid of a lot of stuff that wasn't particularly legal," Slowe said. "I know I didn't want it to be my job."

Most of the photos I have seen listed as "creepshots" are disembodied close-ups of breasts or backsides. They are definitely creepy and inappropriate and make many people, particularly women, feel uncomfortable. But while they are certainly in a legal grey area, it would be difficult to get an arrest warrant for the person moderating the community -- or even, in many cases, for the people taking the surreptitious photograph. This isn't necessarily so much about "free speech" as about limited police resources and a certain degree of cluelessness and misogyny among many law enforcement professionals.  But Brutsch and his defenders took this inaction as a sign that so long as they followed a few rules they had a right to post whatever they wished -- and to do so anonymously.

Meanwhile, some of the women who objected to the creepshot community -- and to the dark underbelly of Reddit in general -- started taking matters into their own hands. Tracking down the people who post creepshots, they not only posted their personal information but began contacting employers, family members and others about the "predditors" in their midst.  This was greeted with outrage by the creepshotters, who insisted they were doing nothing illegal and that this was a violation of Reddit's long tradition of supporting free speech and anonymity.

And here is where they made their first mistake.  Anonymity has been an important part of online culture for decades.  Today every online outlet from major media to your grandfather's blog features commenters opining passionately behind pseudonyms.  The Internet has provided many with a safe space to explore sexuality, gender, spirituality and other topics: the artifice of online identities has allowed them to express their true selves.  Given all that, it's easy enough to think that there is some right to online anonymity. But that anonymity is not a right but a privilege, what Merriam-Webster defines as "a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor."

Brutsch took that privilege for granted, and made little effort to separate his online and offline identities.  So did other "creepshotters" who suddenly found their Facebook and OKCupid profiles appearing on Predditors. And when they complained they found few defenders ready to stand up for their rights.  Tumblr took the Predditors blog down briefly, but soon reinstated it and is presently taking the same hands-off approach Reddit takes toward its subreddits: this includes ignoring complainers. As "Samantha," the 25 year-old woman behind Predditors, explains:

Reddit's defense of [CreepShots] is that it's 'technically legal.' So I'm doing something that's technically legal, but will result in consequences for their actions. These fuckers think they can get away with it scot free, which is one of the reasons why sexual violence is so prevalent around the world.

And once Gawker Media got involved Brutsch's privilege of anonymity ran headlong into real First Amendment rights.  As law professor Richard T. Karcher explains in "Tort Law and Journalism Ethics:"

The duty owed by the press to private figures under defamation law tends to be more in line with the duty of the press under journalism ethics principles because both duties generally seek to ensure the truthful and accurate dissemination of information to the citizenry.  However, there frequently exists an inherent conflict between tort law and journalism ethics codes when the press reports on matters involving public figures and public officials.  The conflict arises from the actual malice burden created by the seminal 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, where the United States Supreme Court articulated the oft-cited standard: 

The constitutional guarantees require,  we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

The Supreme Court thereafter extended the New York Times actual malice standard to public figures—those who “by reason of their fame, shape events in areas of concern to society at large”—including entertainers and sports participants, such as athletes, coaches, league officials, athletic directors, and front office personnel.

One can (admittedly with some effort) feel a certain sympathy for Brutsch.  When he said on CNN that "I treated Reddit as a game," he was likely telling the truth.  The "shock and gore" school of trolling has many avid adherents who compete to post the most outrageous material.  /picsofdeadbabies/ and /niggerjailbait/ were a ploy to gain attention, not a statement of belief.  Violentacrez was just fooling around and if anyone didn't get the joke, that was their problem.  He played by the rules and his opponents didn't: they ignored a cherished social contract and ruined his life.  (More precisely they cost him a job, but in this economy and with this publicity one can forgive Brutsch for a bit of hyperbole).

It's easy enough to ignore privilege and to assume your prejudices and preconceptions are the default standard.  In fact, one of the best ways I can explain privilege is to point out that you can safely ignore just about everything I've written on the subject.  You can spend the rest of your life being That White Person and surrounding yourself with Those White People.  Chances are good you'll never get called on your acts or your attitudes by anyone with the power to do anything about it. Then again you just might.  And when and if that happens you'll find privilege can be granted or taken away at will.

DBTWP 10.2.1 More commentary on Violentacrez: for Tony Sidaway

First, I thought I'd provide some more sample comments from VanUlfur.  You remember VanUlfur from our previous installment: he's the guy who can't understand why nobody blames the teens who pose provocatively in lingerie and the 12 year-old girls who take nude self-portraits.  Well, here's VanUlfur responding to a Gawker article entitled "Camera Catches Men Staring at Women's Asses, Much to No One's Surprise."

phunkshun 1 of 130 replies @Louis Peitzman  Reply 2 months ago
Guilty as charged. Every single ass too, I do not discriminate. If you are a woman and you're in my general vicinity, yes I have looked at your ass. I can't help it. 

John Coctostan 1 of 4 replies @phunkshun  Reply 2 months ago
I kinda take pride in being a connoisseur of nice asses and appreciate a fine looking derrière. The lines of a Ferrari, the beauty of a fairway, they get treated as sights of beauty because they resemble the shape of a females curves and nothing adds to sightly bends like a perfectly toned gluteus maximus. 

VanUlfur 1 reply @John Coctostan   2 months ago
I just looove the internet. Thank you.

Gee, to think this is the same guy who said of Brutsch and his /creepshots/, "Would I do what he did? No, I was taught otherwise." But wait! There's more! Here are some further thoughts from VanUlfur on the Violentacrez scandal.

VanUlfur 1 reply @Ginmar Rienne  Reply 3 days ago
My god, it's like talking to a fucking stack of bricks... Where did I blame girls for guys like this? And when will you learn that girls nowadays are pretty aware of what might happen if they post their butts online? Should they not be held account? And you call pthers hypocrites? Such idiocy... And who advocated him to go you ignorant twat? I only said that it could have been resolved lawfully without him being exposed like this. Go get a dildo or something. Hey, and don't forget to post it online because your free to, and if anyone uses it for jacking off creepness its their fault, not yours. So go ahead.

Ginmar Rienne 1 reply @VanUlfur  Reply 3 days ago
You're blaming girls for being preyed upon, and when you run out of the paltry supply of words you have you resort to insults. Fuck off, Bieber. 

VanUlfur 1 reply @Ginmar Rienne   3 days ago
that's just ma thang gurl. Now show me some tits

Nope, no misogyny or issues with women here.  And yes, this is the general level of discourse from the people who are standing up in support of Brutsch. Which brings us to an objection Tony Sidaway made on G+ concerning that earlier post.

It's a weak argument because you first surrender the privacy right of the victim

I'm not surrendering the privacy rights of victims.  I'm choosing not to explain why victims should have those rights. Because anybody who needs that explanation is most likely incapable of understanding it.  And because time I spend explaining is time we're not focusing on the real issue here.  Which is the creep(s) who violated those rights while demanding that their own be respected.

Teaching VanUlfur and pals about the morality of creepshots would be like teaching music theory to the congenitally deaf.  So I accepted their premise.  Then I applied the same standard to Brutsch that they applied to the "camwhores" whose photos he distributed.  Because if we are going to demand that women (underage and otherwise) protect their privacy and blame them when it is violated, we can hardly expect any less discretion from a middle-aged computer programmer.  And that's generally when  I'm met with stony silence, or with obscenities.  (I suppose I should be happy I, unlike Anita Sarkeesian, have to date received no rape threats).

Let me let you in on a little secret: despite my earlier disclaimer I am not entirely unfamiliar with the fine art of Internet trolling.  In skilled hands the troll is a formidable weapon.  A well-crafted troll can spark discussion or shut it down.  It can spread across forums or it can be aimed with devastating effect at a carefully chosen target.  Which is exactly what happens when these proponents of teen responsibility and beacons of Internet freedom are hooked on their own lure.  The polite sneer vanishes and you get to see the bile and the misogyny behind that oh-so-rational questioning.

Because they were trolling too, you see.  They just wanted to rile up the feminazis and dykes, to prove those bitches took everything too seriously. And when their game gets turned against them by somebody who was trolling back in the halcyon days of alt.fuck.the.skull.of.jesus, they flop about in a most delightful fashion.  This is the kind of verbal sparring that drives the best online discussions.  It combines the fine arts of polemics, satire and abnormal psychology in a blend which can be infuriating, offensive, and impolite but is rarely boring.

Here I must disagree with many (including my favorite war criminal) who have called ViolentAcrez a troll.  What Brutsch did wasn't trolling: it was shock and gore ala rotten.com.  It aimed at triggering the gag reflex: it pushed the envelope for the sake of pushing. Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" is the quintessential example of a well-done troll.  /niggerjailbait/, /picturesofdeadbabies/ and /beatingwomen/ are the efforts of an overgrown toddler finger-painting with his own feces.  One provides fuel for intelligent and passionate conversation: the other just attracts flies.

DBTWP 10.2 Violentacrez, Trolling and the "Right to Anonymity"

Yet another claim which has been raised in Brutsch's defense is:

If women don't want their pictures distributed they shouldn't post them online, and if women don't want men taking sexy shots of them they shouldn't dress sexy. 

Here is a typical comment in this vein:

From Vanulfur: Now stop and think about jailbait. Why do you so adamantly call "rapists" fat sweaty dudes who make sexualized comments on photos posted by teens online? You want the freedom to post your breasts online, or to pose in "sensual" lingerie positions with your teen friends and freely post those pics on social networks, and you seriously expect guys will see it and do nothing? Come on...

Let us put aside the fact that Facebook's privacy settings are notoriously opaque (not to mention leaky).   Let us even ignore the moral issues with blaming naive teens rather than the middle-aged men masturbating to their bikini pictures. For the sake of this argument, we will accept that the girls and women whose photos appear in /jailbait/ and /creepshots/ are responsible for any embarrassment they may suffer.  And, accordingly, we will assume that Michael Brutsch was responsible for protecting his anonymity and keeping his secret identity as Violentacrez, well, secret.

Here's Adrian Chen, from the article which originally revealed Violentacrez' name:

I had initially told Violentacrez I was interested in profiling him in light of the new controversy surrounding creepshots. I arranged the Gchat interview without hinting that a former online friend had tipped me off to his real identity during the Jailbait scandal, after the friend had become disgusted with his obsession with underage girls. Since then, Violentacrez had recorded the geek podcast The Drill Down with other high-profile Reddit moderators, outing his voice. All I had to do was call up Michael Brutsch and match his voice to Violentacrez's. My plan that Wednesday was to have the chat with Violentacrez before calling Brutsch. I didn't want to risk calling Brutsch first, only to have him shut down completely once he realized he was outed. 

Unfortunately, I've never been good at keeping secrets. My poker face is so bad it can be read even through a computer screen, apparently. In our Gchat, I pressed Violentacrez about his anonymity enough that he grew suspicious. We were chatting about why he feels comfortable attending IRL meet-ups of Redditors if his anonymity was so important to him when he caught on.

Brutsch shared his offline identity with several online friends.  He attended and was photographed at numerous Reddit meetups in his area.  He even appeared on a popular podcast as a call-in guest, and apparently made no effort to disguise his voice.  If we're going to cast aspersions on the "camwhores" and "teen sluts" who distribute risque pictures, surely we must acknowledge the role Brutsch played in his own downfall.

Herr Reichsmarshall Adolf Grossenstrudel (affectionately known as "Der Reichsmarshall") had a long if not necessarily honorable career on Usenet.  Upon hearing a despised member of alt.satanism was terminally ill, Der Reichsmarshall offered condolences and called dibs on his gold teeth.  He chastized the Holohoaxers of alt.revisionism, telling them he won all his medals fair and square.  Later he showed up on a Burner list, informing them that he had heard of this "Burning Man" and wanted to offer his expertise.  ("Ein camp full of artists, degenerates, drug addicts and anarchists in der middle of novhere? Zis ist not unfamiliar to der Reichsmarshall.")

I've been talking about relying on the experience and expertise of others when discussing cross-cultural issues.  Given my *cough* limited experience with trolling, I am going to allow Der Reichsmarshall to provide his thoughts on the Violentacrez story.  I should also note that there has been some idle and utterly untrue speculation that I am Der Reichsmarshall. But. Zey. Can.  Prove.  NOTHING.... *ahem*

Anyway, here's Herr Grossenstrudel.

It is mein pleasure to be on der Internet again.  Money vas tight after mein layoff at Blackwater.  (Vaterboarding? PAH! No one told der Reichsmarshall zis vas amateur hour!) But  mein grandson -- der Third Reichsmarshall -- introduced his Grandpa to der Etsy.   Und so de Reichsmarshall has a new market for mein varehouse full of vintage eyeglasses.  But ve digress.

Herr Brutsch, your heart ist in der right place.  (You could skip der miscegenation, but nobody's perfect.)  Trolling ist like genocide: go hard or go home. But vhile you go hard, you do not go smart. Does der Reichsmarshall go to meetups und say "Guten Tag.  Ich bin ein var criminal. But you can call me Adolf?"  NEIN!  Der Reichsmarshall ist just an aging drummer boy, und in der vars he used to play; und Herr Knopfler, it stops THERE.

But der Reichsmarshall ist not ein gloomy Gestapo.  Herr Brutsch vill return to his Violent Acrez as surely as ve vill return to der Champs-Elysees.  Ve Germans take a licking und keep on ticking.  (Und no, Herr Brutsch, I do not vant to hear again about your stepdaughter).  However zis reminds me: mein grandson says der steampunks of Etsy might have ein interest in slightly used pocket vatches.  Und so it's back to mein other varehouse.  Until der next time I remain

Herr Reichsmarshall Adolf Grossenstrudel
Der Original Net.Nazi

In the immortal words of Gilbert Gottfried, "I'm sorry. That last one was in poor taste."

My Paraguayan expatriate acquaintance does have a point.  If you want to be anonymous, you need to take steps to preserve your anonymity.  And you have to remember that your "culture of anonymity" means nothing to people outside that culture.  They did not sign on to your social contract or agree to your clubhouse rules; they have no vested interest in protecting you from the consequences of your actions.  If you push their buttons they may push back in ways which you did not expect: the results may range from embarrassing to catastrophic.

DBTWP #10.1: On Violentacrez and the Fine Art of Trolling

On October 12, 2012  Gawker identified notorious Reddit troll "Violentacrez" as a Texas computer programmer named Michael Brutsch.  As Adrian Chen said:

Judging from his internet footprint, Brutsch, 49, has a lot to sweat over. If you are capable of being offended, Brutsch has almost certainly done something that would offend you, then did his best to rub your face in it. His speciality is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, but as Violentacrez he also issued an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed, all on the sprawling online community Reddit. At the time I called Brutsch, his latest project was moderating a new section of Reddit where users posted covert photos they had taken of women in public, usually close-ups of their asses or breasts, for a voyeuristic sexual thrill. It was called "Creepshots." Now Brutsch was the one feeling exposed and it didn't suit him very well.

Brutsch lost his job soon after being outed.  (Given EEOC regulations about hostile work environments this is hardly surprising.  How many women or people of color are going to feel safe with the moderator of subreddits like /creepshots/, /chokeabitch/ and /niggerjailbait/ in the next cubicle?)  Outraged at this Threat To Free Speech, many Redditors responded by banning all links to Gawker. Meanwhile other Redditors have begun naming and shaming creepshot posters and other "sexual predators." This has caused one writer at Manolith (which describes itself as "the ultimate portal for all men and best place to get your testosterone on!") to complain:

Predditors is a Tumblr site that is currently posting names, addresses and photos of men that it says are active in the Reddit creeps community. The site doesn’t really offer much in the way of proof and seems destined to falsely implicate at least one innocent person, but this is the Internet and people don’t really think about the potential ramifications of their actions.

I presume it is clear that "Don't be THAT White Person" includes "Don't be THAT White Person who takes upskirt photos of strange women and posts them on the Internet" and "Don't be THAT White Person who moderates forums like /beatingwomen/."  But for those who missed that - and even for those who didn't - there are many lessons to be gleaned from the strange sad saga of Violentacrez.   Let us consider the objections raised on Brutsch's behalf.

He wasn't doing anything illegal!

The 1986 case United States v. Dost established a six-point "Dost Test" to determine whether pictures of a minor could be considered child pornography.  The sixth point, "Whether the visual depiction is intended or designed to elicit a sexual response in the viewer," would be pertinent here. One could easily make a case that photographs of bikini-clad fourteen year-olds in a subreddit entitled /jailbait/ would fail that tast, and that the posters to and editor of that subreddit could be liable for prosecution.

In a 2009 Virginia case, Earl Dupree Wilson was convicted of a misdemeanor for "attempting to unlawfully photograph a non-consenting twenty-year-old female’s “intimate parts or undergarments covering those intimate parts” not visible to the general public." His conviction was affirmed on appeal, with Judge Elizabeth A. McClanahan noting:

Guided by these principles, we reject Wilson’s argument that Code § 18.2-386.1 does not criminalize acts committed against a person in a public place because such a person cannot possess a reasonable expectation of privacy.  Under our construction of the statute, a person may, in fact, possess a reasonable expectation of privacy when being victimized in public.

Brutsch is in Texas: here's what the Texas Penal Code has to say on the subject: 

Sec. 21.15.  IMPROPER PHOTOGRAPHY OR VISUAL RECORDING.   

(a)  In this section, "promote" has the meaning assigned by Section 43.21.
(b)  A person commits an offense if the person:
(1)  photographs or by videotape or other electronic means records, broadcasts, or transmits a visual image of another at a location that is not a bathroom or private dressing room:
(A)  without the other person's consent; and
(B)  with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person;
(2)  photographs or by videotape or other electronic means records, broadcasts, or transmits a visual image of another at a location that is a bathroom or private dressing room:
(A)  without the other person's consent; and
(B)  with intent to:
(i)  invade the privacy of the other person; or
(ii)  arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person; or
(3)  knowing the character and content of the photograph, recording, broadcast, or transmission, promotes a photograph, recording, broadcast, or transmission described by Subdivision (1) or (2).  [emphasis added]
(c)  An offense under this section is a state jail felony.

Brutsch's conduct falls in a legal grey area at best.  There is absolutely no question that Chen had the right to out Violentacrez.  The identity of the person behind /creepshots/ and /jewmerica/ is certainly a newsworthy concern.  What's more, Brutsch is a public figure who even sells merchandise connected to his Violentacrez persona.  Brutsch has no recourse in any civil court, nor can he claim that Chen was "stalking him."  And while Reddit culture treasures anonymity and holds strong taboos against people who "out" other redditors, those taboos do not have the force of law behind them.

Which brings us to a warning which I'm going to be repeating several times in this series: don't assume the rules and morés of your culture apply everywhere you go.  What is acceptable (or at least tolerable) on your favorite forum may still get you in trouble with your spouse, your family, your community,  your employer or even your local law enforcement officials.   And while you may think your secret identity as HeManWomanHater or PoliticallyIncorrectAngryCaucasian is safe, you could well be in for an unpleasant surprise if you push the envelope too far.

Of course, there's also a silver lining to this cloud.  Some will point to Brutsch as an example of "political correctness" at its worst: an innocent man with unpopular hobbies crucified by an army of self-righteous feminist harpies.  But while Brutsch is suffering some temporary inconvenience, it is only after years of posting ever more offensive material for his rabid fan club.  If you're worried about getting called on the carpet for your political views, ask yourself if they involve pictures of dead babies, creepshots, jailbait, domestic abuse, and stories (now deleted) about the time you performed oral sex on your 19 year-old stepdaughter. If not, chances are you've got nothing to fear.

DBTWP 9: Affirmative Action: Myth, Reality and Texas

whatshername has expressed concern that I was not challenging the underpinnings of white racism.  I can understand where she is coming from, and I want to address her comments in greater detail as time allows.  But for now I wanted to take some time to look at what most white people consider the most egregious example of "reverse racism" -- affirmative action programs that favor blacks and other minorities over white people.

I've met quite a few white people who believe that federal and state laws force companies to choose any black applicant over far more qualified whites.  Many others assume any POC in a position of authority was put there to fill a quota and remains there despite being spectacularly incompetent.   In an article I referenced earlier, George Will suggests liberal guit will drive whites will re-elect Barack Obama even though "administration is in shambles." From the other side of the conservative bell curve Donald Trump has combined Birther rants with repeated allegation that Obama was only admitted to Columbia and Harvard because of his race.

This term the Supreme Court will be hearing Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a case which is likely to have a significant impact on Affirmative Action programs no matter how the court decides. Even before they hand down their decision, the documents at hand can help illuminate the real impact race-based preferences have had on white people.

A talented cellist and Honor Roll student with a family legacy at UT, Abigail Joan Fisher "dreamt of going to [the University of Texas] ever since the second grade." When she was rejected and saw others in her class admitted with lower scores and "the only difference between us was the color of our skin" she decided to take a stand:

I was taught from the time I was a little girl that any kind of discrimination was wrong. And for an institution of higher learning to act this way makes no sense to me. What kind of example does this set for others? A good start to stopping discrimination would be getting rid of the boxes on applications -- male, female, race, whatever. Those don't tell admissions people what type of student you are, or how involved you are. All they do is put you into a box, a theoretical box. 

I didn't do this for recognition. I just want to stand up and say this isn't right, because it isn't. I hope that by doing this other students in years to come won't have to worry about the color of their skin when applying to college. If people say anything about me, I hope they say I didn't take this sitting down. I didn't accept the process, because the process is wrong.

Several of the justices have raised pointed questions about the role race plays in determining admission to UT.  Justice Stephen Alito mockingly asked:

How do they figure out that particular classes don't have enough? What, somebody walks in the room and looks them over to see who looks Asian, who looks black, who looks Hispanic? Is that how it's done?

Among the people presenting amicus curae briefs in support of the University are the family of Heman Sweatt, whose 1950 Supreme Court case forced the University of Texas to integrate its law school; the ACLU; the United Negro College Fund; and the American Bar Association. Briefs in support of Fisher have been offered by (among others) the Falwell family's Liberty University;  Congressman Allen West, a black conservative; and the Asian American Legal Foundation, which argues

In the name of racial diversity, racial preferences in college admissions programs in general, and at the University of Texas at Austin (“UT”) in particular, discriminate against Asian-American applicants by deeming them overrepresented relative to their demographics in the population and thus less worthy of admission than applicants of underrepresented races. At highly selective schools, such discrimination imposes an admissions penalty on Asian Americans equivalent to hundreds of SAT points relative to Hispanic and African-American applicants, and a lesser, but still significant, admissions penalty relative to White applicants.

Amidst all these arguments it may be easy to miss an important point: the "racial preferences" used by the admissions office play a very small role in determining who does and not  attend the University of Texas.  This is not the first time UT has been in court over the issue: in 1996 Cheryl J. Hopwood successfully challenged race-based preferences at UT's law school in Hopwood v. University of Texas.  In response to this, the University of Texas announced a new policy: they would now offer automatic admission to all Texas high school students who graduate in the top 10% of their class.

Texas neighborhoods (and thus Texas schools) are largely segregated. This meant that the top 10% of all students in a largely black neighborhood in Houston or a largely Mexican town near the border would be admitted alongside the top 10% from a lily-white Dallas suburb.  Thanks at least in part to this policy, there is now a large "minority" presence at the University of Texas. In UT's incoming Class of 2010, only 47.6% of incoming students self-identified as white.

80% to 85% of all freshman slots are filled by students admitted through this "Top 10%" policy -- and competition is extremely keen for the remaining spaces. Evette Dionne explains further in her excellent "Open Letter to Abigail Fisher"

You knew that the institution automatically accepts the top 10 percentile from every high school in Texas and that the average SAT score is in the 1200s. It is common knowledge that UT is one of the most prestigious institutions in the United States, so it is challenging to gain admission.

Before securing those letters of recommendation and forking over that expensive application fee, you knew that despite your legacy as the child of UT graduates, a spot on the coveted honor roll and a lifelong affair with the cello that admission wasn’t guaranteed. 

In blaming affirmative action for that denial letter, you have failed to mention that you graduated number 82 in a class of 674 with a 3.59 grade point average on a 4.0 scale, which alienated you from the automatic admissions bunch. You conveniently omit that you scored an 1180 on your SAT, which is way below UT’s average, so that automatically diminished your chances of being accepted.

Even Fisher's attorneys estimate that race was decisive for, at most, 33 of the 7,478 students admitted in 2008, and that 96 percent of the African-American and Hispanics who got in that year were admitted because they’d graduated at the top of their high-school classes. For its part, the University of Texas argues that Fisher would not have qualified for admission even if she had received extra points for "special circumstances" like socioeconomic status and race.

People of good will can arge the benefits and drawbacks of race-based preferences. In the case at hand it seems beyond debate that Fisher was at best a marginal candidate and that the vast majority of African-American and Hispanic students at UT neither benefitted from nor required any sort of affirmative action.  Fisher's attorneys not only concede the latter point but have made it a major part of their defense:  the fact that race matters so little in UT admissions proves to them that it should not matter at all.

DBTWP #7C: And if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao...

Replying to DBTWP #7A, whatsername said:

See, the things that The Professor is talking about, is not what I'm talking about in my comment, and isn't the way I've seen other white people mean when they say "reverse racism" (which I've seen the most of in discussions about affirmative action/ethnicity based scholarships and the like).

If anyone wants to come in and discuss how they experienced reverse racism because of affirmative action and ethnicity-based scholarships, they are welcome to do so.  I will listen to their accounts seriously and provide what thoughts I can.  I will not question their experiences, but I reserve the right to be critical of actions and assumptions or point out ways they may have handled the situation better.  They may find those thoughts valuable and applicable to their situation.  Or they may disagree completely and find other venues.  It's a free Internet.

On Facebook James Jones made this comment.

I think that it goes to the idea of the "other". Many people treat their "other" badly. When a PoC does it to a white person it isn't institutional but it is something that white people experience on a daily basis. Also, as you pointed out, the idea of bigoted, prejudiced, and racist meaning three very different things is an extremely fine hair to split for most people. 

"Othering" is an excellent term for much of what I have seen reported as "reverse racism."  It's that moment when you become conscious you are reduced to an object, to somebody else's idea of what, not who, you are. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and when you're part of the majority culture it's something you don't often experience. And when you are in a racially tense situation -- and I think most would agree there is a great deal of racial tension in contemporary America -- it's easy to look at someone on the other side and see The Enemy.

So I don't find it all surprising that people of color and white people experience mutual feelings of hostility and suspicion on a daily basis.  And I think it's worthwhile for everybody to talk about those feelings honestly and with the expectation they will be heard.  "Being heard" doesn't mean unconditional agreement.  But it does mean that you can speak without being told that your experience never happened because it cannot happen and you are a racist for even thinking it happened.

Returning to whatsername:

And I absolutely do think we should talk about the kinds of thing you're talking about Professor, in the context of inter-racial relationships those sorts of things are really important. That is NOT what I was talking about in my comment that Kenaz is responding to. I was talking about the Tufts survey and similar things to that. Not about dismissing personal stories out of hand, but about hearing them and having the conversation about them in a critical/analytic/knowledge producing way. That's not always going to mean the story is patently ridiculous. The Professor's surely isn't. But that Tufts survey? Yes, yes it is.

So the Tufts survey is "patently ridiculous."  How so? What specific problems do you have with its methodology? Bear in mind that "We should ignore this survey because I don't like the results" is not a specific problem with methodology.  At least not with the survey's methodology. The survey was measuring white beliefs on discrimination: it was not concerned with whether or not this discrimination is real but whether it was perceived as real.  You may say the beliefs which the survey reported accurately (or within a reasonable margin of error) are patently ridiculous.  But that still doesn't speak to the fact that they are widely held and thus need to be addressed.

If I am hearing you correctly, you are concerned because I am willing to let white people talk about their experiences of "reverse racism" instead of cutting them off at the pass and telling them there is no such thing.  The fact that I provided excerpts from and links to two different pages laying out the problems with the term seems unimportant.  Simply opening the discussion is enough to make my motives questionable.

But the way I'm reading this series, and the whole "Don't be that White person" idea, is that this isn't about challenging people in a real way, it's just about informing them about things that might piss other people off, which in my view teaches them how to avoid those things, but I don't really know if it at all develops an understanding about why those things are important enough to piss people off in the first place, particularly if we're not going to challenge misconceptions and RACISM inherent in -some- of the responses one is surely to get about a topic like "reverse racism". And that concerns me.

Another comment from James Jones sums up what I am trying to do with reasonable accuracy.

When someone is learning table manners they don't have to know that the reason one doesn't put one's elbow's on the table is because in the middle ages one didn't have as much room as we do now at the dinner table and putting your elbows on the table deprived people of much needed room to eat. You just need to know not to put your elbows on the table. 

Not all of us have any interest at all in becoming activists or allies or are activists in completely different areas. Some of us just want to know the inter-racial equivalent of which fork is the right one for salad so we can learn it, use it, and get on with our lives. No personal transformation, no racial dark night of the soul, no deep introspection.

I have no intention of making DBTWP a list of "Dos" and "Dont's" for being a Good White Person.  In fact, I want to make it very clear that it is up to the individual person of color to say what is or is not racist.  If a POC complains about your statement or action, you know at the very least that you have made this individual uncomfortable and you should avoid this behavior in their presence in the future. And if this person gives you information as to why it is offensive, or you hear similar complaints from multiple POCs, you may want to consider avoiding this behavior altogether.  This means listening to criticism and acting upon it. Because in the end the only way to not be "That White Person" is to be sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.

Frankly, I think the "consciousness-raising" school of activism has all the strengths and weaknesses of its Maoist antecedents.  Before anyone thinks I've gone all Fox News, let me note that the Communist Party's record on the civil rights movement was exemplary and its contributions to the struggle greatly underappreciated.  But consciousness-raising has been co-opted by the bored bourgeois for decades.  It has largely become Anti-Racism Performance Art that makes the white folks feel virtuous but does little else.  Besides that, I have an inherent distaste for systems which raise your consciousness by browbeating you with slogans until you admit the error of your ways. So while I acknowledge this school has many strengths and use it as a model for dealing with racism, I do not consider it the only or even necessarily the most desirable one.