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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1347
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 10:46 am: | 
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Discuss
http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/mclune.html
When White Males Attack:
Larry Flynt, Racism and The Left
by Jennifer McLune
There are a lot of issues toward which he [Larry Flynt] has progressive
attitudes (Black women were naked and spread-eagled in Hustler long before
they were in Playboy.)" --"Carly-Sue”
The above quote, taken from the message board of a young hip feminist
magazine, reveals how effective Flynt has been at becoming in the minds of
many progressive folk an anti-racist. This image of him as progressive on
race appears in spite of Hustler's long history of racist caricatures of
Black people, people of color, and Jews.
One of his most recent viscously racist assaults has been on Aura Bogado, a
Latina Feminist and Free Speech Radio News anchor at KPFK. In her article
“Hustling the Left”, she exposes the war declared on her when a personal
email ended up in the hands of Hustler editors in which she stood up to
Larry Flynt and challenged The Left to look critically at building
coalitions with pornographers.
Larry Flynt has been quite successful at positioning himself as a
progressive media mogul rebelling through an empire of smut in the interests
of American Democracy. He takes pride in exposing right wingers for the
hypocrites they are and heralding the righteousness of "healthy heterosexual
American male sexuality." However, the image of Larry Flynt as progressive
on issues of race in light of Hustler's attacks on Aura Bogado, its long
history of racist caricatures, and the very idea that showing naked Black
bodies for pornographic consumption is a new and revolutionary act must be
analyzed and uprooted.
When did it become progressive for a white man to make money from displaying
"Black tail?" Isn't this what they did to us on the slave auction block?
Just because Hustler beat Playboy to the "Black butt" market doesn't make it
a magazine Black women should be proud of. White males, as did the European
colonial powers, competed for Black bodies and lands for profit. Whoever got
there first was the winner but in their game of unbridled access we were
always the losers. White male objectification of Black women's bodies for
profit and pleasure is nothing new but it only becomes progressive when we
continue to accept that a woman's sexuality be defined by her ability to
cause erections. It only appears progressive when we've been effectively
convinced of the inevitability of the sex industry and misogyny owning our
sexual imaginations.
The idea that providing images of naked Black women for a predominantly
white male audience is revolutionary and anti-racist is historically
inaccurate and dangerously offensive. As if sexual desire has some innately
equalizing effect on the power relations that exist between the consumer of
the image and the consumed. As if white men haven't proven that they can
fuck us and hate us at the same time. So, how are white men who secretly
jerk off to spread eageled Black women rebelling?
There's a reason why these Black women are naked and not them. It is about a
legacy of brutality and exploitation that began before they were born but
which afforded these white boys privilege and power over these women just
because they were born white and male.
Larry Flynt was quick to label Aura Bogado a racist and FemaNazi. Apparently
the only position he wants to see a brown woman in is naked and gagged in
silent submission to his misogynistic agenda. Larry Flynt, the poster boy
for angry white males everywhere, eagerly uses "the race card" to defend
himself when he is called out on his gender and race privilege and condemned
for the hatred he has perpetuated through Hustler Magazine. White men like
Flynt who belittle a person of color for standing up to the systematic
privilege of whiteness and maleness will at the same time cloak themselves
as victims of "reverse racism." A woman of color becomes the enemy
disserving of punishment when she refuses to be silent or complicit in his
devious attempts to make himself into a rebel victim that The Left should
support.
According to the logic of the war declared in Hustler against Aura Bogado
and other radical feminists who fight against porn, historical and
institutional legacies of white supremacist patriarchy are not real but only
the figments of an overactive imagination. Apparently "reverse racism" as
defined by white males to be any resistance to their sense of absolute
entitlement to exploit the bodies of women and people of color is the real
threat to our democracy that The Left should rally against. When Flynt
attacks Bogado as an angry white male against a big brown feminist he's
declaring that a man's right to pornography and "pussy" is as fundamental
and worth fighting for as the Manifest Destiny of white folks claiming all
lands, all peoples, and all resources for themselves. His racist and sexist
cartoon caricatures of Bogado expose the underlying defense of whiteness and
maleness that fuels his rage.
Sexual liberation has always meant something different for Black women. We
were never allowed the sanctity of our own bodies. We were bought and sold,
shackled and naked in the street for everyone's gaze and consumption. We
were property for sex and labor. Middle class white women like Susie Bright
have the privilege and option to play bad girl. Just being born Black and
female in a white supremacist patriarchy brands you a bad girl. No props
needed.
There is a saying in Brazil and its meaning has been widely translated
throughout the African Diaspora wherever white men exploited the bodies of
Black women for pleasure and profit: "A white woman to marry, a mulatta to
screw, and Black woman to work." Thus the idea of a liberating "sex work"
has a precarious implication for Black women for whom the threat of rape was
always a part of the job. Enslaved Black women were at the mercy of their
masters and not much changed when Black women began to earn a wage. While
working as cooks and nannies which continues to be the type of work most
associated with Black females, they were often brutally raped by the fathers
and sons of the families they worked for.
The links between Black women and illicit sexuality began in the antebellum
south. White men justified the sexual terror they inflicted on Black people
by creating the image of the wanton Black whore who could not be raped or
defiled because her sexuality was insatiable and impure by nature. We had no
claim to womanhood, motherhood, or humanity. We are the original "dirty
girls," the first sex radicals without the sanctuary of gender. We were used
for our wombs and still worked like our men. There was no sanctuary to be
found in the way our bodies were branded and exploited. They systematically
raped Black women and branded us whores even as they'd lynch a Black man for
even glancing in the direction of a white woman. In the image of the Black
whore and Black rapist white men had found their authority to terrorize and
punish others for the very acts only they committed.
Like Flynt, these rapists and lynch mobs of angry white males blamed the
people they oppressed for what they did to them. Black women were whores and
Black men were sexual predators even though the raping of resources, lands,
and people fell solely on one group: White Men. Black people were “asking
for it” just as women are “asking for it.” Flynt enjoys expressing his
hatred and rage at women by calling it "sex" just as the lynch mobs who
terrorized Black communities called it "justice." Justice meant maintaining
white power just as misogyny fuels the woman-hating spectacle of porn,
defined as sex. White men directed their rage at enslaved and subjugated
people even as those very people were left powerless to defend themselves
without deadly consequences.
Woman hating as rebellion against a feared feminist onslaught on male
privilege is nothing new. White men like Flynt who blame women for all their
problems and who punish them are cheered on and rewarded as heroes in a
woman-hating culture. Leftist males who are threatened by feminism or female
leadership within progressive movements can find reassurance in the rhetoric
of libertarianism used to justify the inevitability of the sex industry and
that a patriarchal order of things is left unchallenged somewhere.
How dare a woman oppose a man's right to porn? Didn't we radical feminists
get the memo that we are now in times when only feminists with “a sense of
humor" get heard, white males are the new victims, and women choose to be
objectified? It takes courage and clarity to relentlessly name and resist
misogyny in spite of "The Times." We are expected to change our response to
misogyny even as it reinvents itself with more clever and dangerous
disguises. Patriarchy has become such an elusive neck to snap, such a
seductive enemy that continuously tries to distort our interests until they
become its own. Refusing and resisting pornography requires that women
reject the new guises under which misogyny shields itself from criticism:
free speech, libertarianism, the rights of angry white men, "female
empowerment." In spite of the names we are called to berate us into fear and
silence we still speak out and fight back. We are not the passive pleasing
"girls" pornography wants us to be.
So Larry Flynt wants our sympathy. So Larry Flynt wants our support. In a
white supremacist capitalist patriarchy a rich white man still has the gall
to call himself the victim. He's an innocent white male being attacked by
big bad brown feminists. His whiteness is his claim to innocence. His
maleness is his right to anger. Women are not entitled to innocence or
anger. Our anger is labeled man-hating hysteria, our innocence must be
proven. A woman who calls Flynt a misogynist hates men because as a white
male he represents the plight of all men. White men are the new victims and
they'll manipulate the visions of progressive movements to uproot their
power in directions that further their agendas.
The rhetoric of sexual liberalism touted as liberation and free speech has
effectively seduced The Left. The rights of women not be objectified, bought
and sold in the sex industry has been sacrificed in order to court a
clientele of angry white men convinced that women and people of color, the
largest segment of the sex trade, are at the root of their problems. Angry
white men want their porn and pussy and anyone who stands in their way will
feel their wrath. Women are guilty, hated, and taught a lesson in the pages
of Hustler. We are beaten, gagged, raped, and tortured. We are made to pay
for being women.
Jennifer McLune is a Radical Black Feminist freelance writer, activist and
librarian who lives to stop the machine of white supremacy and the madness
of hip hop male chauvinism.
Copyright © 2005, Jennifer McLure, All rights reserved.
relevant links to this article
http://www.hustlingtheleft.com
http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/Bogado1.html
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Tonya
Newbie Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 22
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 12:07 pm: |
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SO this is the only injustice against black women huh?
Whatever. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1351
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 01:10 pm: |
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I don't believe it says this is the ONLY injustice against blackwomen. It is pointing out that this is often viewed as a positive thing or a favor for black women.
What do you think? Is Larry Flynt wronged by the criticism levlelled against him? |
Libralind2
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Libralind2
Post Number: 178
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 02:38 pm: |
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Just playing devils advocate..if you will..I suggest the women who "allow" Flint to put thier naked bodies in his mag know full well what they do..no..?
LiLi |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1352
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 03:38 pm: |
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Libralind2:
Everybody keeps missing the point here. The question is not about the women in the pictures, the question is about people crowining Larry Flynt as some kind of First Amendment hero.
But, let us go on to your position. Can third parties be harmed (or at least reasonably offended) by the consenting activities of someone else?
Remember that story that the old sarge told in "A Soldier's Story"--movie with Adolf Caesar, Howard Rollins and Denzel Washington--about the brother who let the white soldiers string bananas around his waist and call him king of the monkeys?
How about how excercised some people get about rappers calling each other niggas or using the word? Or calling other women bitches and hos?
I haven't seen a "Hustler" magazine in a while--I stopped looking at them when they had the amputee centerfold--I recall they featured gross looking women--not sexy at all. And the child molester cartoon hero.
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Tonya
Newbie Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 23
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 06:25 pm: |
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Larry Flint decided to put black women in his magazines during a time when black women were not considered beautiful enough to be in those kinds of magazines.
It was like how it is today with most rappers who don't think black women are beautiful enough to be their video Whores.
Was Larry doing black women a favor?
I guess it depends on how you look at it.
Tonya |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 634
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 09:15 pm: |
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I can't say that I have ever read/seen the inside pages of Hustler. But is this really the content?
Women are guilty, hated, and taught a lesson in the pages of Hustler. We are beaten, gagged, raped, and tortured.
If so, then I would say this goes beyond your basic "calendar girl" type porn and I'd be uncomfortable with it no matter the race of the women involved.
the question is about people crowining Larry Flynt as some kind of First Amendment hero
Yes, I agree that this is the key question. Someone who exercises their right--whatever it may be--is not a hero: He or she is merely a citizen. I do not see him as heroic. Afterall, he was not a starving artist struggling to keep his arts grants or something but a millionaire struggling to maintain his (very lucrative) business interests.
Having said that, tho, I can definitely see Tonya's point. Like I said, I'm not a Hustler fan, but I do recall some level of happiness when both 007 and Captain Kirk kissed Black women on the large and small screens. No, it ain't worthy of a civil rights monument. But it made me happy nonetheless... |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 635
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 09:16 pm: |
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Now, on the other hand: "Racism and the Left"--That's a whole other juicy topic that I could talk about all day! |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1354
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 10:52 am: |
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Yvettep:
The layouts he had in there were disgusting and raunchy looking. Like dope addicts. I repeat there was the one with the amputee, and she wasn't wearing her prosthesis.
Tonya:
There were plenty of those magazines putting black women in them. Playboy had been doing it for years before Flynt even started publishing--not to mention hordes of porn mags and stag film makers that were sold out of adult bookstores.
To try to make this man out to be a sort of liberator of black women is a sign of just how degenerate the idea of black freedom has become.
I remember the cartoon he had with the Chester the molester character who was trying to trap a little black girl by using a watermelon as bait. |
Tonya
Regular Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 27
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 11:47 am: |
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That's disgusting Chris!!! I did't know his magazine was that bad.
Chester the molester?
Watermelon as bait?
That's horrible!
Thanks for the info.
Tonya
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 640
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 12:57 pm: |
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Gotcha, Chris. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1357
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 01:59 pm: |
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Scroll down and check this out
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLENC/ENCYC137.HTM
This is just the tip of the iceberg. His pictorals and articles were nothing short of slimy--I could load you guys up but I don't think nobody wants that on this site. |
Tonya
Regular Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 33
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 03:30 pm: |
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Fascinating stuff Chris, keep it coming.
Tonya |
Tonya
Regular Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 34
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 03:49 pm: |
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OH DAMN CHRIS!!! On second thought, dont keep it coming!!!
I need to start reading the whole thing before I comment.
Damn!!!
Tonya |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 3889
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 11:39 am: |
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I must have missed a couple of NAACP or Operation Push speeches or memos. Because I don't recall EVER thinking that Larry Flynt was some great liberator of Black women. Flynt is, to me, just an especially blunt pimp of the prurience of White males. He's not especially unique or creative in that regard, though, to his credit he has often been rather daring.
I think, by-n-large, you can't have the SUGAR of freedom without the SHITY Flynts of the world.
Moreover, I've often been amused by how feminists can in one sentence exclaim how women are every bit as strong, smart, willful and capable as men yet in their next statement decry how women are being constantly degraded, manipulated and overwhelmed by evil men...especially when these women are VOLUNTARILY engaging in the very activity that is being condemned.
Hey ladies: If you don't won't to rile the misogynistic tendencies of men, then don't disrobe and pose "spread eagle" in front of cameras! |
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