What To Do When You Are Victimized By Art
25 04 2007I actually find this incredibly hilarious. After commenting on an article from my school newspaper’s blog, criticizing the bad journalism of the article, my blog has apparently caused such an uproar at the South End that I’ve been banned from commenting. From the comments section:
Nadia -
Your name linked to a weblog with banner showing a person holding a gun was offensive to many and I personally found it disturbing.
While we support your right to free speech and expression, there are guidelines for morally/socially acceptable content. The South End, and myself, do not support linkage to such gross and disgusting images.
Your posts have been disabled, and your IP address has been banned. If you remove the name link, we will reinstate your posts and your ability to post on TSE’s (our) weblog.
Thank you,
Kyle Stefan
Editor-in-chief
…
Posted by: Kyle | April 25, 2007 at 10:04 AM
On this blog, my focus is art, media and culture from my Arab American feminist viewpoint. It says so right up there in the corner. The image in my header was made by a famous Iranian American artist named Shirin Neshat, who I assumed many readers would be familiar with, as her work frequently pops up in the blogs, livejournals, myspace profiles, etc. of young women of color, and because I have also posted about her work previously, and I credit her at the bottom of the page. Her work is very important to me, and the connections between culture, media representation, identity, stereotype, globalism and colonialism are very emblematic of what I hope to achieve with this blog, and also what I am very passionately into exploring right now. I also identify with the multiple perspectives she is working with. Click here for an interview with the artist.
I think it’s kind of funny that the image in question is considered “gross and disgusting”? Let’s talk about why that is. Would it still be considered as such if the gun was pointed at someone else, say a Muslim man? If you are a white male, looking at a photo of a Muslim woman pointing a gun at you, how do you feel? What do you feel when you look at a photo of a white male pointing a gun at a Muslim woman? You’ve seen those photos and that footage on the news. Think about the fact that Shirin Neshat’s photo is staged in a studio, while the other is real.
My comments on the article have been removed, but I’ll try to summarize what I said: This article is ridiculous, it fails to acknowledge that genocide is still occuring as we speak, and saying “Never Again” isn’t going to change that. I also responded to the quote, “I think it’s good because of the anti-Israeli sentiment on campus,” he said. “It shows another side of the coin.” by saying that Holocaust remembrance is not the other side of the anti-Israeli sentiment coin, and that that it’s untrue to paint it as such. I didn’t mention Palestine.
This comment was followed by a couple of comments in which people basically freaked out on me, and spent a bunch of time constructing this straw man argument without actually responding to the things I had said. Then links to my blog were posted all over the message board of a pro-Israel website, I assume in an attempt to rally a lot of people to leave mean comments on my blog (this is a phenomon you find in online culture, I think it’s called “trolling,” and I’m happy to report that I didn’t get a single hateful comment, thankfully). I actually appreciated this because it ensured that a lot of people saw my post on non-Zionist Jewish activists.
Would my usage of the image in question be so agregious if it weren’t for my stance on Israel? What if the same photo was linked by someone writing with hatred, contempt and fear of Muslims? Who knows. But it’s funny that the South End’s editor is trying to flip the situation as though I am the victimizer. It’s also sad that it did not occur to him, and whoever assisted him on his decision to ban me from commenting (like I care), that this just might be art. I don’t mean to sound stuck-up, but get some culture! Really, what did ya’ll think this image was? To be so threatened by it says a lot about biases and bigotries, so I would like to invite anyone who felt threatened or oppressed by my header to deeply think about where that comes from.
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. I wonder if it’s offensive to say, “Kiss my Mexican ass south end”??? what delicate sensibilities people have these days. I have to agree–I doubt there would be such an outraged reaction to a pic of a muslim/arab woman being threatened or even blown away by guns of u.s. soldiers. But then, they could be all sanctimoniously “sorry” and “devastated” by the brutality, rather than outraged and sickened.
whatever.
stand strong mujer.
Nadia,
You were insensitive by trying to make a political point after an article about Holocaust memorial day. Calling the whole article ridiculous is shameful. If you were Jewish you would be offended also.
For those who didn’t know what the picture at the top of your website was, I can see how they thought it was threatening. Linking your site with that potentially threatening picture on a college website after the V-Tech massacre was idiotic. You are trying to play the “they acted differently because I am Arab and Muslim” card but that is only so you can avoid taking responsibility for your actions.
You can bash Israel without coming off as anti-Semitic, but you apparently have not learned how to make that distinction very well. I would suggest you take some sensitivity training. Unfortunately you are no better than Don Imus.
You have a lot of soul searching to do.
it is irresponsible to pretend or say that other genocides have not happened since the Holocaust, and it is irresponsible to pretend that Israel is the answer to the horror of the Holocaust. the article in question painted an inaccurate version of recent and contemporary history, and i thought it was important to note this. i think it’s insensitive to desecrate the memory of those who died in the Holocaust by including a plug for Israel in the article, when the connection between the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel is largely mythical, and i think it’s insensitive to erase the memory of the victims of the post-Holocaust genocides and deny recognition to people currently battling against genocide.
on the internet, it is customary for commenters to link to their own blogs when leaving comments, and that’s what i did. i take full responsibility for this, and i’m not playing any “card.” no one before now has expressed any feelings of being threatened by the header. i posted several times about the virginia tech shootings, and none of those readers objected to the image. i say this not to belittle the claim that it’s threatening, but to support my belief that the outcry over this has less to do with the image itself and more with political stances of mine, namely my status as a Palestinian person (which is always a political stance, whether you like it or not), and also the fact that the person in the photo appears to be Muslim.
i did not bash israel in my comment to the article in question, which would be evident to all viewers if it hadn’t been censored from the website. it is conveneint that my comment was removed, but the responses, which do not in any way address what i said and construct straw man arguments against me, were left up. why are those comments alllowed to stay? also, i’d like to know, in your opinion, how one can “bash Israel without coming off as anti-Semitic”? i didn’t even bash israel and i am being accused of being anti-semetic (again, palestinians are SEMETIC peoples as well).
and now i’m being compared to imus? wtf? i don’t have time for this. i really have been soul searching, and i don’t think i’ve done anything wrong. in this situation, i have recognized familiar tactics and the same old psychological and emotional violence, familiar because i’ve been through it before, and i don’t have time to rehash the same old over and over with someone who isn’t going to thoughtfully consider what i have to say.
this is all the explanation i feel i need to offer at this time, and any more comments in the vein of the one above will be ignored.
and thanks for the support bfp!
oy. the phrase “get your head out of your ass” comes to mind after reading kevin stefan’s letter to you.
i agree with you.
don’t let them get you down!
Hmmm, sounds like a bit of DARVO, doncha think?
oh South End, grow up.
This is probably the same squad of hipster college kids who will defend to the death the latest inane ‘I Made a Mold of My Cock’ art piece in the name of artistic expression but will decide that a picture of a visibly muslim woman holding a gun is “gross and disgusting”. Double standard, eh?
I just had a conversation with J.Rae the other night about how the rhetoric of ’safety’ is used to silence people. I’m going to chalk that nonsense with south end as yet another example.
As a Christian woman, I do not find the image offensive, but I do find it rather revealing. It seems that you are very comfortable associating your gender and your belief system with violence, hatred, death, and conflict. From the behaviour of your co-religionists worldwide, I see that this view of your religion is widespread. I’m sorry for you.
I would be offended if you had a picture of an obviously Christian woman in such a pose, as it is antithetical to our belief system. I would consider that to be an affront to my faith and to my gender. I’m guessing that you do not find the photo to be an affront to your faith. All I can say is that I find that to be…revealing.
Amy,
Have you ever seen the picture “nursing mother with gun”? I’ll try and find a link to it but I imagine you can guess what it looks like from the description. It’s a very common image in photos, murals and stencils all over the world, including on the side of a catholic church in Estili, Nicaragua.
There are plenty of people throughout the developing world, especially in Latin America, who have been inspired by catholic doctrine and the words of Jesus to become anti-colonial, anti-imperialist revolutionaries.
I’m no art scholar but I do know that the juxtaposition of a beautiful woman and a firearm is a pretty common image and is incredibly popular amoung feminist artists and the left so it seems really, really disengenous for people to zoom in a violent interpretation of this piece just because the woman portrayed is Muslim and the artist is Iranian.
(of course there are also many christians who have interpreted the bible to believe they should behave in a violent and hateful way against people who are unlike them but pointing out that all major world religions have been used to justify violence and oppression should be a no-brainer)
Amy, I’m rather sorry for you that you have such a simplistic understanding of the meanings of that picture. You are really interpreting the picture with your preconceived notions of what Muslims believe. And that is offensive. “It seems that you are very comfortable associating your gender and your belief system with violence, hatred, death, and conflict.”
As a historian and student of art, I find it so interesting how Christians in the West have such an ahistorical view of their own faith and how it developed, the wars that were fought in the name of the cross (the same cross that embelleshed the shields of Crusaders who sacked Constantinople who massacred civilians in Jerusalem). I can conjure a long list of historical incidents where Christianity was used to justify bloodshed. No ideology is immune, even modern secularism has caused mass blood shed.
That form of dress, the woman covered in covered in a dress that sybolizes multiple things. Not every Muslim woman, ex-Muslim woman, Middle Eastern woman wear chador or all black. A number of Muslim women see it as a liberation too, a number see it as repressive.
Amy, if you are truly interested in what us Muslim women think. If you are interested in what can be truly revealed. You need to enter in a conversation and be willing to challenge your preconceived notions. Why don’t you let us speak for ourselves and stop painting us into some cartoonish monolith.
I think I found the pic from Esteli Nicuaraga:
http://downtheroad.org/images/Photo_Album/New_Folder6/D00025.JPG
Amy your thought process is amazing. I’m going to try and find some images now of white americans posing with guns…it might take me all day, but just you wait, your mind will be BLOWN.
The article’s connection of supporting Holocaust rememberance and fighting genocide with support for Israel is absurd. The absurdity, however, is granted in a paranoia that was induced by the Holocaust.
I’m Jewish. My father survived as a child in hiding in Europe during WWII. Even today most of the other Jews I know, people who were born and raised in the U.S. and are doing well here, either also hold Israeli citizenship, even though they only visit once every couple years, or have all the paperwork ready along with directions to the nearest Israeli consulate just in case a Hitler arises in the U.S. That is unlikely to happen but the fear is pathological.
In the 1920’s Germany was the most friendly country to Jews legally and socially in the world. By the 1940’s Germany had killed one third of the world’s Jewish population. Before 1939 almost every major Jewish organization and Orthodox Judaism overwhelmingly were against Zionism as either a foolish trend that would needlessly uproot Jews from their real homes and countries or as a revolt against Torah.
After the Holocaust Zionism became the default position among almost all of Europe’s Jews and most of those in America too (it took longer to catch on among Jews in the rest of the world). The reaction was one of fear and also pride in being able to survive. But it is that fear, that even our best friends will turn on us in a pinch, that has made Israel so central to post-Holocaust Jewish identity that a criticism of Israel is often treated illogically like support for the Nazis. And until we can talk about that illogical fear and ways to dispel it, something the writers of the article to which you responded missed an opportunity to do, that fear will be used as an excuse to label any critic of Israel anti-Semitic and oppress the Palestinian people horribly, because in the mind’s of people afraid of another Holocaust anything short of all out genocide is justified as self-defense.
Anyway, what I am trying to say quite badly, is that your point was prescient, this kind of paranoia is ridiculous, and the criticism of you for pointing that out was unwarranted. At the same time I think you could repeat it a million times and keep running into a brick wall because until Jewish leaders and the Jewish community start dealing with the fear that the Holocaust induced there will continue to be a knee-jerk reaction that shuts such points of view out, ignores anybody else’s suffeirng, and justifies any behavior in the name of Israeli security. Exactly how you could, and it really is obviously not your resonsibility to do so, get through to people who are still so gripped by that fear that they cannot see past it to consider logical criticisms of Israeli oppression, I do not know.
rachel,
thank you for your comment. your point is so important:
“until Jewish leaders and the Jewish community start dealing with the fear that the Holocaust induced there will continue to be a knee-jerk reaction that shuts such points of view out, ignores anybody else’s suffeirng, and justifies any behavior in the name of Israeli security”
i was just discussing this topic with some friends the other night, about what it does to people when their conception of self is so greatly influenced by tragedy and genocide. when something like the Holocaust is part of your hisotry, there is always that possibility of past events reoccuring, even when a group seems fully assimilated or in a position of power. [my thoughts on this are heavily influenced by a book called "memory effects: the holocaust and the art of secondary witnessing" by dora apel, which you would probably be into if you haven't read it already.]
i heard about a session that will be going on at the US social forum this summer (in atlanta, ga) that deals with what you are talking about. it is for jewish people, and will be facilitated by a jewish woman who works with survivors of sexual assualt. within that framework, the issue of dealing with historical trauma will be addressed. i don’t remember any more of the details, but i will leave another comment here when i get them.
for immigrants, a lot of times, it seems like the traumatic circumstances under which they emigrated aren’t dealt with, then those issues are left for the following generations to deal with. the question of how to identify and place yourself following war, genocide, displacement, etc (and i am by no means attempting to homogenize these experiences) is so huge, and there is often not much space made for these discussions and self-relfections.
i guess i don’t know what else to add. this issue is so huge, it feels overwhelming. i’ll comment again with the information about the us social forum session.
margari and leah, thanks for your responses! i love that nursing mother with a gun painting. and check this out, from digitalgravel.com:
click here because i can’t post the photo
i believe it’s a photo of a catholic woman holding a gun. but how could that be? when i saw it, i had to laugh, because even though madonna has used so much religious imagery in her work, no one takes her to be the representative of all catholic women.
[...] through all of this, analyzing my reaction and what was wrong with it, I thought of a comment left by another Rachel on a previous post, on the way (in her words) the absurdity of conflating support for Israel with support for [...]
This is the Managing Editor at the South End. It was brought to my attention that you contacted Jean Johnson about a comment that she supposedly left. That was not Jean, it was our ex Editor and ex News Editor Adam Steinberg who has a problem with Kyle, our editor in chief. He dealt with his personal relations toward Kyle in an immature manner and that is also unacceptable.
The reason your comment was taken down is not because we don’t believe your opinion should be voice - I am strongly opinionated. It is not because we are racist - I am Chinese. It is not because we are anti-feminist action - I am a woman. The reason your comment was disabled is because you posted an image with a gun pointed at the camera only days after the Virginia Tech shooting, a sensitive subject for Universities nationwide. Like you said, students were freaked out, and as a campus newspaper, we reserve the right to disable comments that make students, faculty, and all readers fearful.
We do not want a fight. We just want understanding. Please email me with more concerns. carolynsuechin@gmail.com
this is the response i emailed carolyn. i have asked for her permission in posting her response to me, and if i get it i will post it here.
–
Carolyn,
Thank you for emailing me, and for clarifying the issue I contacted Jean about.
If the issue with my comment was just that it linked to my blog, where an image made by artist Shirin Neshat is used in my header, why was the entire comment removed? Why wasn’t it edited so that the link was removed? I run a blog myself, I know that it is possible to do that. I was asked by Kyle, in the comment that he left on that article, to remove the link. This was after he informed me that my IP address (which was an on campus IP address at an apartment I don’t live at anymore) was banned. There was no possible way for me to remove the link.
If my comment were edited so that the link to my blog no longer appeared, that would be understandable, given the Virginia Tech justification you and Kyle have both given. But my comment was entirely erased. Meanwhile, other commenters are allowed to wage verbal assault against me, and not only am I not allowed to speak for myself, but I can’t even rely on the original comment to speak for me because it was erased.
I appreciate your effort to reach out to me. I don’t want a fight either, but I have been treated unfairly in this situation. The fair way to handle it would have been to de-link to my blog, but leave my comment up. There is already an unfavorable climate on campus for anyone speaking out on contentious issues, and I continue to feel like this was another manifestation of that. As I previously stated, I understand your position as a campus newspaper in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, and while I may disagree, I would have understood if the comment had been edited so that the link did not appear, but that isn’t what happened. The explanation Kyle gave would have made sense, had that been the case, but because my entire comment was erased, I don’t buy it.
Thank you,
Nadia
As Carolyn has asked that I not reprint her emails to me, I will paraphrase and include my responses:
In response to the last email from me posted, she said that she was under the impression that the image was posted directly on the comments of the article in question. She goes on to say that I was right and to apologize for the misunderstanding.
This is my response to that:
Carolyn,
Have you seen the article and comment thread in question? It is here: http://thesouthend.typepad.com/tsenews/2007/04/wsu_holocaust_m.html
The first line of Kyle’s comment directed towards me was: “Your name linked to a weblog with banner showing a person holding a gun was offensive to many and I personally found it disturbing.”
It is clear that I did not post a picture directly on the site. I do not know that that is even possible; on the blog service that I use, commenters can’t post images.
Would you mind if I update the comments section of the post you commented on with our correspondence? I can also edit the initial comment you left me so that it doesn’t show your email address (for spam purposes) if you wish. I have already gotten this comment (which I will decline from allowing to show up on my blog since the commenter has left me several threatening comments already) in reaction to your comment:
“”Like you said, students were freaked out, and as a campus newspaper, we reserve the right to disable comments that make students, faculty, and all readers fearful.”
That clears it up. It wasn’t your ignorant and anti-Semitic comments about Holocaust Memorial Day, or the actions of a rightwing pawn of Zionists who took control of the paper after all.
Your post was just removed because of your creepy picture, and your ignorance in posting it on a college website the day after the largest shooting massacre in U.S. history.
The lesson for Nadia: You can be racist all you want, just use digesting words instead of pictures.”
Can you see why I am extremely irritated by this situation? This is what I have been dealing with. Not only did I not post any picture in my comment, but I did not make any anti-Semitic comments. If it had not been removed, everyone would be able to see that. Since it was removed, people can say whatever they want about what the content of it was. I would like my original comment restored, and if you wish to edit it so that it no longer links to my blog, that is fine. As long as my original comment is restored, everyone can see what I said, and they can also see that the subsequent response makes no sense and fails to address what I said.
If I come off as angry, I apologize, but you, Kyle, and whoever else made this decision need to realize what it’s repercussions have been for me. People posting from WSU IPs have left me comments threatening to prevent me from getting a job. People posting from non-WSU IPs have advocated that I be “eliminated.” People posting at the South End blog have been allowed to defame me, calling me anti-Semitic, racist, and labeling me as critical of Holocaust Memorial Day [edit: this should read Holocaust Remembrance Day] itself, which is basically a thinly veiled way of calling me a Holocaust denier.
I will go ahead and post my initial email to you here: http://nosnowhere.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/what-to-do-when-you-are-victimized-by-art/
I hope that you give me the go ahead to post your response, so that the issue is out in the open.
Thank you,
Nadia
—
Her response to this was to tell me that they (presumably meaning the South End) feel that the issue is done with, and she would rather I not post her emails to me.
My response:
Carolyn,
You guys made a mistake. You admitted that in your response to my email to you. What are you going to do to fix that? All that I have asked for is for you to reinstate the original comment that I left. We both agree that I have been treated unfairly, but yet you are saying that you believe the issue is done with. That is easy for you to say; you aren’t the one being made to deal with frequent hateful comments as well as allegations of racism, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial.
I won’t post the email you sent to me admitting that the South End treated me unfairly, or this one, but I will paraphrase them and post my responses. I have already exhaustively explained why it is necessary for this matter to be out in the open.
What is your response to the rest of my email, meaning everything besides the question of whether or not you mind me posting our correspondence? I had hoped you would have some sort of response to what I’ve been made to deal with due to Kyle’s oversight in removing my comment.
I didn’t do anything wrong or out of the ordinary, but I have been made out to be public enemy #1, and the South End is fully complicit in this. I am being more than fair in my request that you all reinstate my comment; I hope that the South End decides to finally treat me fairly.
Nadia
[...] Nadia blogged about this incident of censorship, the comments started pouring in our her site. Carolyn Chin, managing editor of The [...]
Nadia,
I just stumbled upon this earlier tonight. I too have been disturbed by the trend of censorship at The South End.
I’m the former editor-in-chief of the paper (3 editors ago) and I don’t like the direction I see the paper heading in.
Namely, that comments are completely banned from their site now. I think this is anti-democratic and against the spirit of an independent student newspaper.
The point is, whether or not people agree with your points, you have a RIGHT to make them known. And clearly, the banner on your sight is art/social commentary and not threatening.
To remedy this comment-blackout situation, I’ve created a new site/blog called “Wayne State University / The South End review” as a community project to shine light upon issues at the newspaper and other shared concerns.
I blogged about your experience and I hope you and others will participate in this new project.
Cheers.
-Adam
http://tsereview.wordpress.com/