Let's look at an ad's intended message.
Let's also look at its unacknowledged message.
The ad is in opposition to the Jackson County charter change initiatives about whichI have written several times. I favor the initiatives.
Here's how the emailed ad starts:
The denoted burden of the ad is that the three measures to update the county charter are a deceptive ruse, fooling people into supporting something dangerous. It leads with this vivid image, easily understood -- a perplexed young woman.
The ad argues that making the commissioners nonpartisan, increasing their number from three to five, and reducing their pay is somehow a progressive "mind virus" woke Democratic plot to make Jackson County more like Portland. I disagree, but that is not the point of today's blog post. My point is the choice of image, and the signal that it sends to women, particularly young women.
The intention of the ad is not an argument that young, attractive women are too dim-witted to understand complicated things. The ad author probably wanted some eye-catching image to show a baffled person. The image serves that purpose, with fingers to temple, mouth askew, and furrowed brow.
Very possibly this ad offends no one who saw it in its original circulation. I suspect the ad was sent mostly to people in middle age and older, and mostly to Republicans. They may not give the image a second thought.
But a person with daughters or nieces might see an unsaid message to be absorbed by young women: "Oooh. This is too complicated for me. Silly, dumb me." That message is not the text of the ad. It is the subtext. It is part of the slow accumulation of messages that young women get as they absorb our culture. They get "silly me" messages in images like this that steer them away from STEM classes and discourage ambition and achievement. It is teaching them the unspoken estimations of their capabilities.
The "silly me" message is cultural background noise. Here is a thought experiment that brings the background noise into consciousness. Imagine the person depicted in the ad was someone identifiable as Native American, Jewish, Black, or elderly. Then we would instantly notice the secondary message, that ballot initiatives are too complicated for Native Americans, Jews, Blacks, or seniors to comprehend, because, after all, they are likely dim-witted. But put a young woman there, and who notices any message?
Young women notice, even if they don't realize they notice.
I want to be cautious here. I think the concern about micro-aggressions has gone overboard and is backfiring politically. I think some people are too quick to find offense. I think all of us are better off if we have some resilience and thicker skins. Cultural change is slow, and some people bring up the rear. Smokers used to think they could smoke anywhere, and now they don't. Most people now pick up dog litter on sidewalks. Progress happens. But if everyone walks on eggshells, we have political backlash, which we are experiencing now in the "war on woke."
But I bring up the depiction of this young woman to raise the consciousness of people who wonder where all that sensitivity to "systemic" prejudice and implicit bias comes from. People who see petty insults in hidden places aren't wrong.
Ideally, people will be more respectful, and ideally people will cut some slack to people who aren't. We are all feeling our way here.
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Note: The ad was sent to me as an email, and it is too long to send the whole ad. It mostly attacks the imagined politics, motives and mindset of the initiative volunteers, not the initiatives themselves. Example:
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10 comments:
OK, I'm curious. Was there additional text, or a link to information that might dig a little deeper and explain why to vote NO?
If there is one thing we know about this day and age is that fewer people know how to dig deeper, so whatever catches one's attention needs to have additional context easily available.
Otherwise, the only result is to follow what is recommended - vote NO!
Since I haven’t seen that ad, the first question it raises in my mind is, who paid for it?
When the signatures were being gathered, there was a lot of hopeful talk about the bipartisan support the measures were receiving. But even though county commissioners should be nonpartisan, the office gives local Republicans one more soapbox and I didn’t think they’d give it up without a fight. Instead of being surprised, proponents should be ready to respond in kind.
Isn't "anticipating unintended consequences" impossible? Or are we omnipotent?
Asking for a friend...
There is ZERO transparency as to who funded this package of lies and disinformation, save a link to a PAC where donations will allegedly go, in order to fund more lies and disinformation.
I'm still trying to figure out how allowing Non-affiliated Voters to vote in Primary Elections causes Primaries to disappear? I think the Repukes who claim Biden was not elected are running scared, thus this hamhanded attempt at more Voter Suppression.
It's best to understand the why and how of state primaries. There is a difference on those primary dates as to what is being voted on, and who is permitted to vote in one of those elections. These elections are different from the annual election day where federal and state officials are elected by the people.
Recently, some states are deviating from normal federal election rules: allowing non-citizens to vote in some elections.
Primary elections select political party candidates, local and state measures, judicial positions, and many other items. The November elections have similar slates.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/who-controls-primary-elections-and-who-gets-to-vote is an article explaining some of the rules and how they've been put in place or challenged.
Me? I think only registered Republican voters should have a voice in determining who the Republican candidates should be. Same goes for Democratic candidates. Many of the smaller parties do not primary their candidates, and instead use other methods to select their candidates.
When it comes to other matters like non-partisan positions and measures, I think voting should be limited to US citizens, and perhaps legal residents (or green card holders). The last thing we need is for visitors, visa holders, and/or illegal immigrants and migrants determine our laws and/or selecting our public office holders.
Peter seems to me to be adding 2 and 2, and getting 4,000,000 as a result.
Follow his logic, and you get to a place where only white males can be depicted as perplexed and uncertain. Is that where we want to end up?
I think that currently there is way too much “reading into“ going on on all sides, much of it in very bad faith (although I do not mean Peter when I say this).
I think Michael Trigoboff is right, which I tried to express in the closing paragraphs of my post. And yet, the profiling/ insult is indeed apparent to some people and not others.
And as I said, people who feel dissed should probably ignore it.
My effort to be sensitive came up yesterday when I quoted from the Gospel,of John. The quote I wanted was the sentences that whatever Jesus was doing here isn’t of this political world; it is spiritual. But the quotation had a middle sentence where Jesus was said to have been quoted saying that if this were a worldly mission his followers would not have let him be turned over to the Jews. I felt bad about editing out Jesus, but I knew that would strike some people as being anti-Jew. I purposely found a translation — one of a dozen— that said “Jewish leaders” instead of “the Jews” so I used that one. I didn’t censor Jesus, but I found a translation that did the censoring for me.
Nevertheless,a Jewish reader complained that I chose an anti-Jewish quotation. If the ad author had depicted a perfectly normal-looking person from the streets of a perfectly American city of Brooklyn, then, indeed, the secondary meaning would have been apparent. He would have found a ditzy Jew to exemplify not understand the ballot issue. That would be especially inflammatory amid the controversies re Gaza. Why show a perplexed Jew just now some readers might ask. They would be right. I might say they should ignore it. It is just a person, don’t make a mountain out of a microaggression. They might not think it micro. Others might ask why pick a perplexed young ditzy-woman just now.
The ad did not use a Jew, nor a Palestinian, nor a perfectly normal woman wearing a cross like the one Laura Ingraham or the senator from Alabama used. People wearing crosses are common in Medford. They wear them proudly. That would have been an implied insult, though, because some would take offense, especially now, during Easter. Of course, the Jew or Palestinian might wonder why have a ditzy one of them, especially now.
But a young woman — well she is anonymous and neutral. Maybe not if you are a young woman.
Peter Sage
There are plenty of seriously malicious items out there that people should find offensive, such as Trump’s racist tweet that Blacks killed 81% of White homicide victims.
This ad is not one of them.
She looks a little like AOC. But no young woman would be offended. They don’t vote and have no idea what a charter is. Ask someone her age what’s is a commissioner? And where and what is a Jackson County?
Supporters need to advertise how this will result in better representation in government. That should be a winner in the state of Jefferson.
I also support this measure.
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