"We All Breathe The Same Air."

"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

John F. Kennedy

Talkin' Bout A Revolution-Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman's lyrics gives voice to the voiceless.

Talkin' Bout A Revolution by Tracy Chapman on YouTube 

Children of India

Photo credit: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Ignorance Breeds Violence

As a member of a society that is compelled to label all humans like inanimate products on grocery store shelves, I define myself as a middle-aged, cissexual woman, and with that title comes no particular insight or expertise surrounding the topics of gender or gender identity. My thoughts are sparked by a quiet evening of idleness that progressed to a night of aimless and frenzied Google-searching that eventually led to the discovery of a disturbing video that has stealthily embedded itself into my mind and now steals my sleep each night.

The video is a mere three minutes and two seconds long which hardly seems time enough to evoke any sweeping effects on its viewers, especially when compared to the fourteen hundred and forty minutes that it takes to complete one day, or the forty one million minutes that mark an average human’s lifespan; yet, I know these three voluntarily relinquished minutes of my life will effect the remainder of my existence.

Taped by a young man who found amusement in the events that unfolded before him, his laughter, heard throughout the gruesome footage that he captured on his cellular phone, creates an incongruous mixture of emotions as my eyes see a woman being beaten nearly to death while my ears acknowledge the backdrop of his ill-fitted chuckling. This disconnection further assails my already struggling sensibilities as three eternal minutes of merciless brutality end with the unconscious victim in the throes of a violent seizure and the amateur videographer’s laughter enduring until the bitter end of the clip. 

Without a grasp on the context of this repulsive display of kicking and head stomping, an initial assumption of racial motivation manifests as the victim is a young white woman and the two culprits are young black women. Further enlightenment and contemplation proves this a definite hate crime with the eventual realization that the object of the hatred of the two assailants, who are teenaged girls rather than young women, is the transgender status of the woman they brutalize. These two rogue teens—whose ignorance prevented them from understanding that a transgender woman is a woman—claimed outrage over seeing a man enter the ladies’ room of a public eating establishment as the justification for their sociopathic behavior.

Each time I think about this violent spectacle—one that I initially felt unfortunate to have stumbled upon—queasiness overtakes me as the realization that this scene is but one instance in the daily glut of stares, verbal attacks, taunts, and physical assaults that transgender people endure the world over. I was meant to see this video so that the stark reality of how far humanity still has to travel before humans are accepted for who they are, rather than what we think they should be, would be more evident to me and force me to speak out. All of us, without regard to the hetero-, homo-, bi-, cis-, pan-, a-, or trans- prefixes that society uses to label our sexuality, need to raise awareness and defend each other’s right to be ourselves and live freely and safely in our world.    

Invisible Women

Whether women wear burqas and hijabs (veils) by force or by choice remains unclear to me. Some Muslim women say that they choose to wear their veils for religious or personal reasons, and they want the right to wear them without criticism or insults from those of us who do not understand them. Fair enough. But, if these women shroud themselves by choice, why do I see no joy in their eyes?

Photo credit: shesoverseas.com

Photo credit: AP/Fred Ernst

Photo credit: Natalie Behring-Chisholm/Stringer/Getty

Photo credit: Walter Callens

Photo credit: religionnerd.com

Photo credit: babasteve on flickr

Perhaps it is the words of the Muslim cleric Sheik al-Hilali that disturb me the most. He compares unveiled women to pieces of uncovered meat and men to cats who have no control over their actions. He suggests that a group of Muslim men who received 65-year jail terms for being gang rapists are the victims of vile women who caused their own rapes. Here are his words:

There were women, he said, who 'sway suggestively' and wore make-up and immodest dress "and then you get a judge without mercy and gives you 65 years. But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he said, referring to the women victims.

Addressing 500 worshippers on the topic of adultery, Sheik al-Hilali added: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it..whose fault is it - the cats or the uncovered meat?

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

He went on: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred."

My translation of the cleric's offensive words: Women must remain invisible by covering their heads and faces or men will rape them. 

It seems to me the men should be the ones covering their faces.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

In the 2001 post-9/11 terrorist frenzy, President Bush authorized warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Administration with Congress further expanding the program in 2008.

In 2011, President Obama again expanded governmental surveillance powers and signed the National Defense Authorization Act. He released the following statement at the time of its signing: “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

Some of the 2011 bill's most controversial provisions include the military's ability to "indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge."

Now, in 2012, the Senate has failed to reform the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It's time for Americans to write to their elected officials, including President Obama, and urge them to vote with the Constitutional Rights of the citizens who elected them as their priority. 

Find your elected officials HERE.

The TSA vs. The Rest Of Us

Those of us who value human dignity and the right to privacy knew that airport body scanners were a bad idea. With multiple documented victims of enhanced security procedures, it is painfully evident that none of us are allowed to protect our bodies, our dignity, or our privacy anymore. A woman who was detained by the TSA because they didn't like her attitude, a sexual assault victim who was forced to endure an intense screening procedure after the TSA thought they detected an anomaly in her bra, and a bladder cancer survivor whose clothes were soaked with urine after the TSA broke the seal on his urostomy appliance during a closed-door pat down, all have no recourse for the injustices they endured. Their only crime was attempting to board an airplane during the 'war on terror' era in America.  

This 2010 poll, published in the Washington Post says most Americans support invasive screening to combat terrorism, rather than support and protect their right to privacy. Screening advocates still voice support of TSA's invasive procedures and often consider those of us who prefer to keep our dignity as: unjustified in our outrage, supportive of terrorists, and people who have something to hide. 

"Taking Sense Away" offers a fly-on-the-wall look at airport screener training as trainees are taught that passengers with nothing to hide have no problem with going through invasive radiation scanners and, most importantly, they are taught that they “can’t trust the general public.” This dehumanization process creates an “Us versus Them” mentality between screeners and passengers which will make the use of full-body scanners a more common practice, body scanner manufacturers richer, the TSA more powerful, and personal privacy obsolete.

Rape Is Not A Women's Issue, It Is A Human Issue

Until the world stops viewing women as inferior beings who are undeserving of equal treatment and protection, brutal gang rapes like the one these women are protesting will continue. One expert attributes the high incidence of rape of Indian women to a "crisis of Indian masculinity." Some rape cases take 10 to 15 years to go to trial and, rather than condemn the rapists, the female victims are often ostracized and shunned by society and their families. This is not a women's issue, this is a human issue, and the world should be outraged enough to speak out against it.

Full Story

UPDATE 12/29/12: The 23-year-old victim of an hour-long beating and gang rape in India has died. Officials say the six cowards who murdered her are in police custody and being charged accordingly. It is interesting that their names and pictures have not been released to the media as this appears to be another case of Indian officials protecting rapists and disregarding crimes against women. India needs to expose the culprits to the world and finally start defending their citizens -- all of their citizens -- including women. Rather than scurrying to protect elected officials,

police forces should hang their heads in shame for the lack of protection they provide to the sisters, daughters, and mothers of their country. Rape is a shameful crime committed by weak men, and the world is now watching you, India.