Today I’d like to share with you two quotations. One is from Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader whose legacy we honor today. The other is from someone who considers himself the leader of a human rights movement that follows in the footsteps of King.
The first quote:
Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The second:
[Name redacted], I hope you are looking forward to our date. I certainly am. … [I]t is clear that you have gone to great lengths to keep your image off the internet.
Nice try.
Is that a threat? No, it is a promise. Big difference.
As we have been saying here for years, the time for collegial, polite discussion and negotiation with these piles of refuse is over. …
We have people working on securing her image. Meantime, $100.00 to the first person who gets us a clear image of her which we can verify. Something large and clear enough to be used as a feature image is preferred.
As you have probably gathered, the first quote comes from Dr. King. It’s from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, in which he sets forth a powerful argument for the transformative power of nonviolence, which, as he notes, “nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”
The second quote comes from Paul Elam of A Voice for Men. I’ve taken the liberty of redacting the name of his target.
Yes, this self-described “humanitarian” is launching yet another campaign of doxxing and intimidation aimed at an ideological enemy who just happens to be female. And once again, as he so notoriously did several years ago, Elam is offering a bounty for the personal information of one of his targets – in this case a clear photograph of her face.
It’s a strategy that draws not on the tactics of Martin Luther King but on those of his enemies – in particular the Ku Klux Klan, which in the 1960s posted “wanted posters” featuring the faces of civil rights activists, including King himself. Some of those whose faces appeared on these “wanted posters,” most famously King himself, were later murdered.
In more recent years, anti-abortion activists have posted similar “wanted posters” featuring the pictures and addresses of doctors who perform abortions – some of whom were themselves later murdered.
Now AVFM has taken up this classic technique of intimidation.
Last year, AVFM activists – including the site’s “activism director” Attila Vinczer — posted hundreds of wanted-style posters of feminist philosophy professor Adele Mercier on and around the campus of Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. The year before, a Men’s Rights group in Edmonton closely associated with A Voice for Men put up similar posters targeting Lise Gotell, the chair of women’s and gender studies at the University of Alberta.
We can only assume that Elam has a similar campaign in mind for his latest target.
So what are Elam’s charges against this new woman to hate?
According to him, the woman, a professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, accused AVFM activist Sage Gerard (aka Victor Zen) of “demonstrat[ing] a desire to kill women” in a complaint she filed with the KSU administration.
Elam has posted the complaint on his website. Her name appears nowhere in the complaint, nor does anything about Gerard wanting to kill women.
[ Clarification: Elam has now posted a separate campus police report about an incident in which Gerard came to the office of the Interdisciplinary Studies department requesting to see the professor; the police report contains her name as well as notes from the officer saying that “she has seen the cartoons, videos and blogs online and believes Gerard demonstrates having violent fantasies about hurting and murdering women.” ]
This anonymous complaint, along with another complaint about Gerard, were evidently triggered by a video Gerard posted last year of a late-night “sticker run” he made on the KSU campus.
The video, which Gerard filmed and narrated on the fly, is more than a little creepy. In it, Gerard describes his preparations for his “activism” as if he were launching some sort of covert operation; at one point he talks about hiding his stickers in the sleeves of his jacket. As he heads out the door to start his stickering, he announces “let’s go fuck with people.”
Gerard clearly sees what he’s doing as a deliberately provocative act. He talks about putting AVFM stickers in places “where they cannot be ignored” and about his desires to “push the boundaries” by plastering them in places they’re really not supposed to be put – most notably in a women’s bathroom where, thankfully, no women were present.
Weirdly, given that he later posted the video on his YouTube channel, Gerard also took steps in the video to conceal his identity and cover his tracks, wiping his fingerprints off of some of the stickers after pasting them in a bathroom. Later, apparently wanting to look as much like a serial killer as possible, he dons latex gloves.
At one point, Gerard jokes about how he’d like to paste one of the stickers over the mouth of a feminist to shut her up.
His behavior in the video and in his interactions with others on campus, as well as his affiliation with AVFM, clearly rattled some on the KSU campus. The anonymous complainant to the KSU administration suggested that Gerard’s actions were creating a “hostile work environment” for some faculty and staff and making students fear for their safety.
Elam has posted the actual complaints, which, in what seems to be a pretty clear violation of privacy, were sent to Gerard with the identity of one of the accusers laid bare. Here’s the anonymous complaint that Elam has attributed to his current target:
Among other similar offenses by the same individual, a KSU student (Sage Gerard) posed as a custodian and entered the women’s bathrooms on campus, placing stickers intended to intimidate women. … Gerard’s behavior indicates contemplation of violence against women (he posts art depicting guns pointed at women’s symbols, as well as other violently anti-feminist themes). His behavior has created a hostile work environment for multiple KSU employees who do not only fear intimidation and harassment, but actual physical violence against themselves and their families. KSU students have also expressed real fears for their own physical safety on campus . . . I do not feel safe on this campus. As an advocate of women, I feel strongly that I am at real risk of becoming the target of violent retaliatory actions perpetrated by Sage Gerard and the organization sponsoring him, A Voice For Men.
Emphasis mine.
The KSU administration investigated these complaints, and concluded that Gerard was not responsible for creating a hostile work environment, and that his speech was protected under the first amendment. The complaints were dismissed; no charges against Gerard were even filed.
He was asked to stay out of women’s bathrooms in the future. And the KSU counsel who prepared the report also had this suggestion:
We do recommend that Mr. Gerard continue to refrain from further contact with the persons who made the hotline reports (or those who Mr. Gerard believes may have made them), to avoid any real or perceived retaliation. In addition, we recommend that Mr. Gerard refrain from further contact with the members of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department to avoid escalating the situation to the point that it becomes a hostile environment in the legal sense.
That’s right. Gerard wasn’t charged with anything. He faced no sanctions. He was simply asked not to contact those on campus he was making uncomfortable.
But apparently this “no contact” request is so offensive to Gerard and his AVFM comrades that they have decided to launch the very retaliation campaign that the KSU complainants were afraid of. Thus, once again, proving their critics have been right to label them a hate group in the first place.
AVFM’s new target joins a long list of women (and a few men) who have been doxxed and/or harassed in retaliation for their “crimes” against Paul Elam’s delicate sensibilities.
Elam started off this parade of harassment shortly after this site started by attempting to get a woman fired from her job at a women’s shelter for a comment she made here in which she wondered aloud if Elam had a criminal record.
Since then, Elam and his AVFM cronies have:
Started Register-Her, a fake “Offenders Registry” designed to vilify and intimidate women. (The site is now in the hands of AVFM defector John Hembling.)
Gleefully participated in the unending harassment of a Canadian feminist that one AVFM author dubbed “little red frothing fornication mouth,” for her crime of … arguing with some AVFM activists at a demonstration once. Unflattering images of “Big Red” at that demonstration have since been plastered all over the internet; she even has a page devoted to her on KnowYourMeme.
Launched a years-long harassment campaign against feminist writer Jessica Valenti. Starting with a 2011 post in which Elam himself attacked her as a “stupid, hateful bitch,” the hate campaign has moved on to labeling her a “child abuser,” posting her personal photos on AVFM without permission, putting her on Register-Her.com, and libeling her by making up inflammatory quotations and attributing them to her. (AVFM’s “social media director” and serial quote-fabricator Janet Bloomfield was evidently permabanned from Twitter for her persistent harassment of Valenti.)
Supported GamerGate’s harassment of cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, with AVFM’s PR whiz Bloomfield doing her part by blatantly libeling her on Twitter.
Launched a campaign of vilification against a Chicago-area “mommy blogger” for writing that she felt uncomfortable with the idea of a male day care staffer taking young girls to the bathroom.
Along with an assortment of white supremacists and online assholes, joined in a hate campaign against a young woman wrongly accused of trashing applications from white guys as a staffer at a college admissions office. Elam declared the woman, by name, to be a “warped by ideology” with “deep seated prejudices that guided her unscrupulous actions.” The blog was a hoax, and the woman Elam so eagerly vilified had nothing to do with it.
Published an article falsely accusing a male feminist blogger of being a “confessed rapist,” because, as Elam puts it, “karma is a BITCH.” (AVFM’s defense? It was being “satirical.”)
Accused a former AVFM staffer, with no evidence, of absconding with money donated for a men’s shelter.
Attacked feminist and skeptic Rebecca Watson on numerous occasions, including a post from Elam in which he used the term “whore” several dozen times.
And of course AVFM has accused me of everything from starting Reddit’s terrible BeatingWomen subreddit to somehow faking my site’s traffic stats on Alexa. (AVFM has never even bothered to provide “evidence” for any of their various accusations against me, perhaps because none of them are even remotely true.) Elam has posted bizarre sexual fantasies involving me, called me a pervert, and publicly suggested that I kill myself. One of AVFMs most, er, enthusiastic activists once left me a creepy, threatening voicemail at 1:38 AM. And AVFM “activism director” Attila L. Vinczer has tried to dox me, with somewhat comic results.
This isn’t even close to an exhaustive list of AVFM’s assorted retaliatory campaigns against feminists and other critics.
AVFM has made it very clear to the world – through its actions and its rhetoric – that if someone starts putting up AVFM posters or stickers on your campus or in your neighborhood, you have every reason to worry.
AVFM is not a civil or human rights group by any stretch of the imagination. It is a hate group, plain and simple, less akin to Martin Luther King Jr. than it is to those who so stubbornly fought against him.
NOTE: Here is Sage Gerard’s (aka Victor Zen’s) video of his sticker “activism.” You can probably see why people found it a little unsettling.
EDIT: Watermelon Sugar made an excellent point about the intention, which I neglected to mention in my previous post. : 3
The problem being that those reactionaries are co-opting an incident to not only smoke-screen their Islamophobia but other bigoted views as well. It’s another case of people silencing the speech of others by arguing…free speech.
One cover features Boko Haram as stereotypical black “welfare queens” and, even with the context, it doesn’t really explain why they had to be portrayed that way except as shock value – but apparently I “don’t get it” and should shut up. Same goes with a cartoon where they portray a black female politician as a monkey in order to supposedly mock the politics of the National Front part. Okay, I get that (kinda), but it still doesn’t explain why the aforementioned politician has to look like a racist caricature of black individuals that’s been around for a long time – but apparently I still “don’t get it” and should shut up.
What annoys me about the “it’s satire!” excuse is that it doesn’t to bother to consider that, y’know, such a thing can be done badly. Colbert’s joke? Yeah, it was satire…which nonetheless used a racist caricature of Asians. Intent might be important, but the action moreso – no one can read another’s thoughts. It shows that plenty of people, even when putting a lot of thought into this kind of thing, still have blind-spots that have them unintentionally “punching down” as they are trying to “punch up.”
With the tweet about Quvenzhane Wallis, it’s almost hard to even justify that as “satire” at all. I mean, what’s the joke there other than calling a young girl a “c*nt”? Maybe it was trying to mock the gossipy nature of Hollywood media – which I’m all for – but why go after her, of all people, and like that? It’d of worked if, say, it was a fake quote from a fake paparazzi – that’d give it some some context – about any of the numerous adult celebrities at the event. It’s trying to go for absurdity while ignoring it’s rather mean-spirited to go after a child. It’s purely “punching down” regardless of intent.
Yeah, it’s the difference between saying “the person who admitted to various illegal things otherwise known as Violent Acrez is Firstname Lastname” and saying “and here is his boss’s telephone number, and also his mom’s, and here are some photos of his kids and where they go to school, and btw this is the route he takes to get to work”. The intention of doxxing is either to use the threat of it to get people to shut up or for people to use the information to harass the person. Naming names when someone has committed a crime is closer to investigative journalism.
I’m uncomfortable relying on intent, because intent isn’t magic, and it also isn’t visible so I can’t actually know what someone’s intent is. If doxxing is bad, then it’s bad independently of the intent behind it.
When someone uses a pseudonym on the internets, just attaching that pseudonym to a real name would be doxxing. Wouldn’t it? Putting someone’s full name, address and phone number up somewhere so that even folks who can’t do any digging at all can harass them is obviously bad. And that would be bad regardless of the intent behind it.
Does just naming a name count as doxxing? Is that where I’m going wrong, in classifying this as doxxing?
Policy of Madness: With internet doxxing, you’re talking about posting people’s addresses and contact details too. It’s the difference between “Here’s the latest heinous shit from Paul Elam” and “Here’s the latest shit from Paul Elam, 123 Fake St, Townsville, Klondike 53226 OOPS NO-ONE SWAT HIM KEK”.
The rationale was that she’s so sweet and adorable that obviously nobody could say something like that about her sincerely, but that surely someone would say it anyway, and it was playing up how these kinds of insults are made almost by reflex. Again: good message, but a child was not the correct medium for that, with the error compounded by racism in the choice to utilize an African American child specifically.
And apparently I’m way behind in this convo.
I was in a situation some years ago where some of my fellow feminists uncovered the real name and location of a virulent antifeminist based on his public journal entries and his oft-repeated story of how he was expelled from college and then sued the college. They didn’t go public with it, they kept the knowledge within a small group of half a dozen people. They sleuthed out his identity because based on his public journal entries he was dangerous.
PoM–
Unlike naming names (which Cassandrakitty–I think?–mentioned, is more akin to investigative journalism), doxxing is more a form of vigilante justice. In responce to a (precieved) wrong, extensive personal information is published to a wide audience. Most times, it includes a call to action as well–as with the AVFM articles under discussion here, where Elam says the faculty member is “first in line for a spanking” or some crap like that and says she must be held accountable for her precieved wrongdoing.
Does that make sense? I’ve been running all day, so I am mega drained and all fuzzy-headed.
It does make sense, and I know what doxxing is, but I’ve heard “this pseudonym belongs to a person with This Real Name” referred to as doxxing. I’ve always accepted that as a form of doxxing, but if there’s a “doxxing is never good, ever” rule then there’s a problem with either the rule or the inclusion of naming names in the term.
What I understand from the Charlie Hebdo… thing is
1) They were trying for satire of racism
2) The failure state of satire of racism is racist satire, and many people believe CH fell into this because
(a) They relied on gross racist caricatures.
(b) Some of their cartoons (esp. the monkey one and the Boko Haram sex slaves one) seem to throw victims under the bus to make a point about the (white French) political opposition.
3) Other people are concerned about the fact that this is getting bandied about after CH staff and others were massacred, and not before.
4) On the other hand, most of the critics I know are American and may not have heard of CH before now, and also there is honestly not much to discuss about the murders. They are horrible. Extremist islamism is a threat, though mostly to their unlucky neighbors. Boko Haram just murdered several thousand people–there aren’t enough people left alive to count the dead.
5) But violent, anti-muslim/racist violence in Europe and America is also a thing, and one more amenable to cultural change from the people discussing the CH cartoons.
So I honestly am still kind of confused by the whole thing.
Naming names isn’t doxxing because names aren’t unique. Many people share names; very few people share names, addresses, phone numbers, workplaces etc.
The addresses are the most worrisome part – let’s be honest, not all of the MRAs want to stop at harassment…
Aha haaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaa! That video made me laugh my head off. Sneaking around like a real bad ass fugitive in the middle of the night to put a load of poxy stickers in the women’s toilets. I can’t take him seriously (maybe it’s my Aussie humour) but it was certainly cringeworthy how great he thinks he is. Break my bad .. sticker. He needs to grow the fuck up.
Saywhat? No charges AT ALL for Gerard? Like, not even a slap on the wrist for vandalism by sticker? Outside the issue of whether it’s harassment, even my hippie-ass campus didn’t protect sticking shit everywhere that some poor underpaid cleaner has to scrape off as freezepeach. That would not fly there even with stuff that DIDN’T publicize a hate group and allude to kyriarchal entitlement as a human right. Like, I thought “you can’t put fucking stickers all over shit without permission” was one of readings in Respect of Shared Property 101.
I don’t know much about Charlie Hebdo, but I do read The Onion quite a bit. Regarding Quvenzhané Wallis, I think they dismissed the person who sent that Tweet after the quick public denunciation of it, and then they issued an apology. Yeah I don’t know where the oversight was on that crap — it was in incredibly poor taste and completely disregarded all the rules of good satire, first and foremost is that it’s generally used to lampoon the powerful, not the powerless.
This, all of it. And he impersonated a janitor to do so, too, if I’m not mistaken. And made a lot more work for the real ones, too, since a lot of sticker adhesives are a real bastard to unstick without damaging the surface underneath. At the very least, he should be made to pay the cost for their work hours, plus any property damage incurred.
Plus, he has really fuckin’ creepy hands. So grody that I need lotsa kitties to bleach my mind of the thought of those hands creeping all over the ladies’ room, and the metaphorical violation that implies.
@Boogerghost, Bina,
But men aren’t privileged, are they? No sirree, they’re terribly oppressed by feminism, which occasionally manages to persuade university judicial system to kindly ask them to please not impersonate custodial staff in order to break into and vandalize the women’s bathrooms again.
AVFM is clearly a feminist-goading group. They seem to find joy in that. It may be giving them too much credit to label them as anything else.
@BarnBurner,
Aw! Did you think that everyone forgot who you were and wouldn’t notice that you are telling us to not believe men who say that they want to do violence to women and who are in the process of trying to release one woman’s personal information all over the internet? If you’re telling us to assume that these guys are All Talk instead of taking precautions when they express intent to illegal stuff (on top of all the illegal stuff that they’ve already done), then you can fuck off.
I’m going to ignore BarnBurner and watch Bina’s 20-minute cat video instead. JOIN ME IN KITTY HEAVEN.
Do the cats have any ibuprofen? Cause I could use some.
It’s not like anti feminists ever hurt women. Why can’t we just settle down and be cool? Damn wandering uteri!
I’ve got some codeine.
Just as much help as if the kitties had exactly what you want. None.
Hope you feel better soon.
I see the one convo is over now, but I’d like to point out to whoever implied that everyone here often responds with rainbows, and that “crazy”-wielders are overly sensitive — now wait a minute.
I’ve come here almost daily for roughly two years. I’ve tried to comment maybe 10-12 times, and no one ever, ever responds. I introduced myself three or four times to no avail, and I’ve watched other newbies be completely ignored as well, unless of course one screwed up, then they’re “corrected” repeatedly until finally they’re too ashamed to move on. It feels like a clique, which is sort of true for most sites, but it’s strong here. And that sucks.
I also think some of you are just as insensitive as the “crazy”-wielders. The one gif implying that she (the current “crazy”-wielder) sit down and chill? And the general whoa-what’s-with-all-the-feels-man attitude. What even? Who cares if she or anyone else is overly sensitive? Maybe there’s a reason. Doesn’t everyone deserve compassion? Jeez, come down.
End my rant.
This is why I don’t like facebook or any other websites like it (I have an account for being elvis fan club and candy) because there are threats, harassment and disgusting images of abused people and animals but God forbid we have pictures of women breastfeeding!
http://www.somegif.com/gifs/13613451651248535655.GIF
I looked up ‘goading’ it says ‘to provoke or annoy’. sending threats, invading women’s spaces, harassing, sending personal information to others and more is not ‘goading’ they’re more like terrorists to me.
Bina
http://giphy.com/gifs/aww-shrek-AJUB4zXLWDkZy