Jezebel has apparently decided to gin up some page views by running a bizarre, victim-blaming, slut-shaming, skeevily prurient screed on Amber Cole, the 14-year old African American girl who was videotaped giving oral sex to some boys; the video got posted online and, despite the fact that it was, you know, child porn, went viral. The story itself is appalling; so is the screed, written by a guy pretending (for rhetorical effect) that he’s Cole’s father. It reads like something you’d find on The Spearhead.
The piece starts off melodramatically:
I am Amber Cole’s father. I am angry, confused and completely at a loss. I love my daughter. I want to guide her without suppressing her. That is not always easy. Children need protection from their worst inclinations. That is not always easy. I am trying to convince her that the world will still love her if she keeps her clothes on.
Just to remind everyone again: the author is not actually Cole’s father. (And Amber Cole is apparently not her real name.)
The screed quickly descends into an attack on the girl’s mother that reads like something you’d read in the comments section of The Spearhead or In Mala Fide:
She would listen to her mother, if her mother was not busy. Doing something, anything that is not parenting. I want her mother to spend less time being “empowered” and more time being aware and engaged with our daughter.
And it only goes downhill from there. We get a section essentially blaming girls at large for the incident, because they allegedly ignore the “nice guys” who would never make such a tape. We get a section blaming the “mother’s boyfriend, Karrine Steffans or Kim Kardashian” for teaching the girl to be “proficient at such a difficult act. … I want to know why my 14 year-old knows so much about oral sex.”
And then we get a ridiculous race-baiting rant about white feminists and the Slutwalks:
White feminists can teach their own little girls to find empowerment through their crotches – my brown little girl cannot afford to be that carefree and cavalier with her life choices. Slutlife is the hard, lonely vocation of rich, educated, privileged white women who will fuck The World, contract social diseases and still, somehow find a husband. No black woman ever got far being a slut. I want to know what kind of women “slutwalk,” while young impressionable girls of all kinds look on with wonder and admiration.
After placing blame for the whole thing on just about every girl and woman in the world, the author comes to the father:
I am Amber Cole’s father. Don’t ask where I was that afternoon, because you already know. I was at work, just like you. I do not live with her, cannot always talk to her, cannot always be there. Not the way I want, and there are few laws to help me. To protect me and my rights.
Because that’s the real issue here: Father’s Rights.
And then the big reveal:
I am Jimi Izrael. I am not really Amber Cole’s father. But she is my daughter.
You do not think so. But she is your daughter too.
Go read the whole thing. It’s appalling. Then read Jeff Fecke’s takedown of it on Alas, a Blog.
Ironically, Jezebel ran an excellent piece on the subject about a week ago.
WTF, Jezebel? Are page views really that important?
EDITED: I reworked a bit about the (real) father that I originally formulated badly.
Maggie’s stalking you, David.
Which is cute, in a stalky sort of way.
“I usually see the opposite of this, whereby guys who are focused on looks are called shallow jerks, but girls who ignore the average-looking good guys in favor of the handsome douchebags are said to be exercising their free will and nobody is allowed to question it on pain of being called a whiner and a Nice Guy. Whatever.”
Throughout my life it’s always been the guys who are more focused on looks. I also see many average looking guys with attractive women, very rarely do I see the opposite. Anyway, my issue isn’t so much with shallowness as it is with hypocrisy. Being shallow is obviously not a positive trait but if people want to be shallow that’s their prerogative. It’s just when those shallow people accuse others of acting the exact same way, that’s what’s annoying. Maybe those shallow guys are just accusing shallow girls of behaving the same way and that’s why the girls are being defensive about it. Sometimes we don’t notice our own faults until we notice them in others.
Bullshit. Good looking guys are NEVER told that they should “lower their standards” and go out with less attractive women. But attractive women are told this all of the time, and not just by MRAs. It’s a cultural norm that if a woman says she can’t find a man, the first thing she’s told is that she needs to lower her standards.
“Bullshit. Good looking guys are NEVER told that they should “lower their standards” and go out with less attractive women. But attractive women are told this all of the time, and not just by MRAs. It’s a cultural norm that if a woman says she can’t find a man, the first thing she’s told is that she needs to lower her standards.”
Word. I’ve been told to lower my standards even after I mentioned I don’t expect any financial support or “free dinners”, I don’t care if he drives and career doesn’t matter. I don’t even want to get married. All I ask for if someone I’m attracted to and a similar lever of intelligence. And when I say attracted to, I don’t mean Brad Pitt look-a-likes. I don’t go for men that look like that, or even conventionally attractive uber masculine men. Nothing wrong with them, just not my cup of tea.
To be told even after all of that that I’m still asking too much really shows you how much society tells women to be happy with next to nothing and to expect as little as possible. Better not talk about what you want either or else you’ll be called a bitch too.
Blitzgal: Then I can only conclude we live in very different cultures. Over here, whenever a guy says he prefers women who look a certain way or (god forbid) expresses disapproval of a girl’s looks, weight or whatever, everyone will immediately jump on him for being a shallow, sexist jerk. Meanwhile, if you dare question a woman’s choice to ignore genuinely good guys and only date good-looking assholes you are labeled a misogynist and “Nice Guy whiner”. It just seems like guys can’t win either way.
Quackers: Yeah, that was pretty much my point about hypocrisy and double standards.
Other than random feminist slander, how did “The Spearhead” come to be the focus of this absurd internal power struggle between two feminist organizations?
@Broseidon: Your first mistake was to assume that ‘Nice Guy whiners’ are genuinely good guys. They’re not. The fact they’re in denial about it changes nothing.
And another thing that burns me up, all the gals going “ohh, I just want a guy who’s nice and funny and intelligent, I totally dig shy nerdy guys!” when what they actually want is a Calvin Klein underwear model who’s also smart and possibly wears glasses.
Word. I’ve been told to lower my standards even after I mentioned I don’t expect any financial support or “free dinners”, I don’t care if he drives and career doesn’t matter. I don’t even want to get married. All I ask for if someone I’m attracted to and a similar lever of intelligence.
Really? That’s all you want, and you can’t find one. Then you’re either an uber-genius, someone with very high standards of “attractiveness” or aren’t telling the whole story.
BlackBloc: Yes, I actually think most of them are. My whole point was that they were being unfairly labeled.
Broseidon… That’s actually… not how dating works? Dating is hard, no matter who you are. Even if you’re just looking for someone you’re attracted to with similar interests, there’s a whole other human involved. Finding someone who’s attracted to you, interested in dating you, and compatible with you on top of someone who makes you feel those same things IS difficult whether you’re conventionally attractive and low maintenance or not.
Shora: Of course you need to find someone who’s also into you. But if dating is so hard, why do I see some people hooking up with someone new practically every week while others just seem to have this repulsion field around them where nobody wants to come near them?
Broseidon: If scruffy skinny hipster-esque (minus the pretension) geek is what’s considered the standard of attractiveness for males these days, then I give up. The last guy I dated was your stereotypical geek and still lived with his parents. I’ve concluded that I must be either too unattractive or too introverted. Either way that’s why I get annoyed when I hear the same old “bitches be shallow its so easy for them to get men” screed.
Broseiden? Quackers? Maybe dating is just really hard for some men and some women. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to with who is shallow, or hypergamous, or who pays for dinner, or who looks like Megan Fox and Brad Pitt. Maybe all the talk about alphas and nice-guys and beauty standards and all of it, while interesting and, at times, valid is just a way of trying to make sense out of something that sometimes makes no sense.
It isn’t a jigsaw puzzle, with a picture you can reference for completion. If Quackers says that she wants a genuinely nice guy, to whom she’s attracted with similar intellectual capability and interests, the fact that you think that those are easy qualities to find, doesn’t mean tht she’s having an easy time finding them.
And if you only like women who meet your definition of attractive, and aren’t overweight, etc. it doesn’t necessarily make you a shallow person. Just understand that some women also have physical requirements for attraction. And get the chip off your shoulder and stop assuming every good looking guy is an asshole. There are plenty of assholes who aren’t particularly good looking.
Broseidon: If scruffy skinny hipster-esque (minus the pretension) geek is what’s considered the standard of attractiveness for males these days, then I give up.
Not sure if sarcastic, but it’s pretty much true. The leading men of yesteryear have been replaced by Zach Braff, Michael Cera and Justin Bieber.
The last guy I dated was your stereotypical geek and still lived with his parents. I’ve concluded that I must be either too unattractive or too introverted. Either way that’s why I get annoyed when I hear the same old “bitches be shallow its so easy for them to get men” screed.
Can’t judge unless I see a picture of him, but if true then congrats, my original post doesn’t apply to you.
Well first of all, hooking up is not the same as dating. Hooking up is a lot easier than dating, at least in my age group, for a lot of people.
And well… I don’t know? I don’t know these people. Some of it could be that they’re not conventionally attractive, but that’s obviously not the whole story because I see such people in relationships ALL the time. Some of it may be that they view women as “other” either by pedastlizing them or looking down on them (neither of these is a great way to get a relationship). Others may just be straight up socially awkward, or just not fun people to be around. Who knows? Dating is complicated.
Nobinayamu: I was nodding in agreement with your post until the last two sentences.
And get the chip off your shoulder and stop assuming every good looking guy is an asshole. There are plenty of assholes who aren’t particularly good looking.
I don’t recall ever saying or even thinking that. I know plenty of good-looking nice guys and ugly jerks too. My point wasn’t about them.
I don’t see why this takes congratulations? I don’t see what about personal preference takes congratulations. She’s just stating that not everyone works the way you think they do, and using herself as a reference
Dating is complicated.
Damn, ain’t that the truth.
“I don’t see why this takes congratulations?…She’s just stating that not everyone works the way you think they do, and using herself as a reference”
Which is why I said “congrats, then my point isn’t about you”. Seriously, now, you’re just nitpicking.
I still don’t see why that takes congrats.
I’m not nitpicking, but that seemed really presumptuous and condescending, which is why I called it out.
Oh, I’m sorry:
I must have interpreted your above statement too broadly, then.
Nobinayamu: very well said * embarrassed for derailing the topic*
Broseidon: nah not being sarcastic. Although none of those 3 guys really caught my eye (not that they are unattractive or anything) Are you sure those are the mainstream for attractive men now though? because I still hear the nice guys always bringing up Brad Pitt. I think those guys you listed fit a niche market to be honest. Also at the risk of sounding like a hipster, I liked those types of men before it was trendy haha. Anyway, its not a requirement for a man to look like that for me, merely what catches my eye at first. Its not the buff alpha overconfident guy.
Yea, will stop derailing now. I think its safe to say the majority of people suffer in this dating thing, but at least we’re not alone.
Are we really doing this? Are we really letting Broseidon drag us into yet another round of MRA dating complaints in a thread about a 14-year-old getting publicly humiliated…at best? With the worse options including gang rape?
Broseidon, your whining is irrelevant here, and in context, even more disgusting than NWOSlave. At least his evil is on-topic. Fuck. Off. Go to the forum or something. That’s what it’s for.
I’m not nitpicking, but that seemed really presumptuous and condescending, which is why I called it out.
Sorry, that wasn’t intentional. I do tend to adopt the general tone of the community I’m in, so that’s probably the reason.
I must have interpreted your above statement too broadly, then.
Right, “women who date good-looking assholes” does not equal “all good-looking guys are assholes”.
Also at the risk of sounding like a hipster, I liked those types of men before it was trendy haha. Anyway, its not a requirement for a man to look like that for me, merely what catches my eye at first. Its not the buff alpha overconfident guy.
Ok, I believe you. 🙂
Broseidon, your whining is irrelevant here, and in context, even more disgusting than NWOSlave. At least his evil is on-topic. Fuck. Off. Go to the forum or something. That’s what it’s for.
I was directly responding to statements made by Quackers and CassandraSays in this very thread. People also continued to respond to me afterwards. So why don’t _you_ fuck off, Ms. Backseat Moderator? Bonus points for claiming I “dragged” anyone into this discussion, as if I forced them to answer and they had no choice. Btw, you shouldn’t be using the pronoun “us” as I don’t recall anyone talking to you.
Justin Bieber is an example of attractive guy nowdays?
Really?
Wow..