Sometimes it's ok to throw rocks at girls

As a South African literature specialist, discussions of the diamond industry often make their way into my classes. DeBeers, the diamond company founded by Cecil Rhodes in South Africa in 1888 is known for an advertising campaign that it started in 1938: “It dreamed up the notion that a diamond ring should be an essential display of love and status, its gift a rite of passage. In the ensuing decades De Beers and its marketers penned slogans—memorably, ‘a diamond is forever’—and invented social rules, urging men to spend two months’ pay on a gift for their affianced. That benchmark not only permitted high margins, but suppressed the second-hand market—to the benefit of both the firm and its customers, who could be reassured their investment would hold its value.”[1]  Basically, DeBeers created a market for diamonds that hadn’t existed prior, and the company did so by inflating demand for a limited commodity.  By the end of the 20^th century, 80 percent of all brides received a diamond ring as a symbol of engagement.

Of course, these diamonds were mined by black South Africans who were effectively enslaved by the colonial policies of people like Rhodes and then under the auspices of apartheid.  And so-called conflict diamonds, the products of the labor by enslaved adults and children, continue to make their way into the U.S. Even when the diamonds are certified “conflict free,” the gemstone industry remains steeped in its legacy of colonial exploitation of indigenous labor and its simultaneous commodification of women as consumer goods to be purchased with expensive rocks. And that’s what allows the consistent and increasingly sexist billboard propaganda of Spicer Greene Jewelers in Asheville to perpetuate the marketing myth and women must have diamonds, that men are required to buy them for us, that, most recently, “sometimes it’s ok to throw rocks at girls.”

Her it is.

In various parts of the world, women are still stoned to death for marital infractions, most often on presumption that they have committed adultery. The fear that women might transgress the mandate that is offered by the “diamonds are forever” slogan (even if that transgression occurs because the woman is raped) incurs a sentence where men throw rocks at women and girls until they are dead.[2] 

Not in the US, you say. We don’t stone women to death, here. Well, men kill women all the time, but not generally with actual stones. In a 2016 report by the Associated Press, FBI and state cime data showed that 6,875 people were fatally shot by romantic partners during the period from 2006 to 2014, and of those, 80 percent were women: “On average, that works out to 554 annual fatal shootings of an American woman by a current or former romantic partner during the nine years examined, or one every 16 hours. Of the female victims in the AP’s study period, 3,100 — or roughly 56 percent of the total women killed — were shot by husbands, ex-husbands, or common-law husbands. Another 1,953 women were killed by their boyfriends.”[3] A google news search for “man kills wife” on March 23, 2017 pulls up numerous stories with headlines such as these: “Pennsylvania man Kills Pregnant wife with Sword,” “Man Kills wife with Hatchet” (Florida), “Man shoots, kills wife, injures sister-in-law in Pasadena Restaurant.” The list goes on and on. And on.

In other words, many of these women were sporting a “rock” that had been “thrown” at them by a suitor. 

Spicer Greene’s billboard on I240, of course, is meant to be funny.  But it isn’t, not in a country where women are still conditioned to be objects purchased with gemstones that carry with them a history of the enslavement of millions of people, not in a society where men feel entitled to murder women whose bodies and minds to which, in one way or another, they feel that have an unquestionable right, and not in a society that has just seen the most explicitly misogynist election in our nation’s history, one where it was seemingly ok for people like Trump adviser Al Baldasaroto to say things like “Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot.”

Gemstones are pretty.  They sparkle.  But the history of how they made their way from the mine to the hand of the blushing bride, how they are implicated in a racist and sexist legacy that’s all about commodification and property is worth knowing. And I hope that Spicer Greene’s billboard and the marketing strategy behind it is more reprehensible to you for knowing it.

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[1] http://www.economist.com/news/international/21717369-production-worlds-most-valuable-gem-may-be-about-peak-report-de-beerss

[2] The most recent coverage of such an instance was last week: http://dunyanews.tv/en/World/378408-Afghan-woman-stoned-to-death-by-Taliban-for-adulte

[3] https://www.thetrace.org/2016/02/woman-shot-killed-frequency-domestic-violence/

So I wrote a letter to the electoral college....

I realize that writing a letter to the electoral college asking people to consider acting as unfaithful electors is unlikely to make any impact, and I also realize that such action may be very misguided. But as I thrash about endlessly trying to take action against what I perceive will be a calamitous four to eight years,  I caved and wrote to the electors because not-my-president elect's choice of climate change denier Scott Pruitt to head the EPA put me over the edge, into another full-blown state of panic (these have been coming in waves since November 9), and I felt, once again, that I needed to do any and everything possible to deter what seems more and more inevitable: the end of days. 

Anyway, there's a handy web cite called #AskTheElectors, which provides a tool for contacting everyone in the electoral college, so I used it and sent what I thought was a very thoughtful, polite, and informed entreaty for the electors to please consider being unfaithful.  I'll post it below, and it's also posted on the #AskTheElectors page.  

I didn't really expect anyone to respond, but a few electors have -- either via a form letter or directly to me -- and those responses are fairly appalling.  I'll post the responses below, and I'll update them if and when I receive more.

My letter:

Dear Electors;

Thank you for your participation in our democratic process and for the care and thoughtfulness that I feel certain must be a part of your decision making process.  I am a college professor at a university in rural North Carolina; a state where my family has lived since the 1700s. Over the course of Governor Pat McCrory's time in office; I have watched as funding for our public schools and universities has been cut; environmental protections have been gutted; fair access to the right to vote and access to women's health care have been limited. McCrory finally conceded to Roy Cooper just this week; and I am hugely relieved; even as I know that Cooper will have a difficult (if not impossible) time enacting significant change; given the republican supermajority in our legislature.  Nonetheless; I now have some hope for the future.

The future after the 2016 presidential election; on the other hand; terrifies me. Given the things that he said and did prior to the election; I was already worried about what a Trump presidency would mean for the rights of the citizens of this country and for the health of the planet.  I worried about the overt and explicit racism that has now; as expected; lead to an increase in hate crimes and harassment.  I worried about the misogyny that I watched be made acceptable by a candidate who has a vile record of using the most reprehensible rhetoric about women -- not to mention assaulting them with impunity -- and as a woman; I watched the campaign play out in ways that challenged my own sense of self; my self worth; my value as a human being.  And I watched as a qualified woman lost the election to an incompetent man; a person with no experience in politics.

Now I am watching as our president elect appoints cabinet members with no experience; people who I fear will do irreparable harm to the most vulnerable members of our society.  The president elect has chosen white nationalist Steve Bannon as his chief strategist.  He has chosen school voucher advocate Betsy DeVos as his secretary of education.  But the choice of Scott Pruitt; an avowed climate change denialist to head the Environmental Protection Agency; is the choice that terrifies me the most -- and it is the reason for which i am writing to you today. 

This choice is clearly about the influence of the fossil fuel industry; it has nothing to do with protections of any kind; except for the protection of that industry.  This is about dismantling; not leading; the EPA.  It's about denying our responsibility to care for our natural resources not only for the citizens of this country but also for the rest of the world.  The pick of Pruitt signals the unmaking of our country and our planet.  Four or; heaven forbid; eight years of what happens next will take us to places from which it will be impossible to return.  It will lead to damage impossible to repair.

I write to ask that you please vote for Hillary Clinton on December 19.  I realize that you're unlikely to do this; but I also feel that I have a moral and ethical obligation to ask you; to try to convince you of the gravity of your choice; and the reality of what it means to do otherwise.  Thank you for your service to our country; and thanks as well for taking the time to read my letter.

Thank you for your time and consideration, I appreciate and respect the role you serve in our electoral process.

Sincerely,

Laura Wright

And the responses (verbatim):

1. From L. Scott Mann

Texas Elector, Congressional District 19

Good Citizen,

I am sorry that, because I have received more than 60,000 emails, I can no longer personally respond to you. I gave up after about 1200. Given that the content is fairly universal, I am comfortable offering this universal response.

Thank you for your communication and for your passion for the Republic. I prefer writers to rioters.

Several things merit mentioning. First, you have every right to lobby an elector. I welcome the contact from a fellow American.

Second, this is not a pure democracy, it is a republic. The corollary to that fact is that even if the majority did rule, and it does not, there was no absolute majority winner in this election.

Third, the Electoral College does not exist in order to give you a "do over" because you don't like the results; it exists to preserve the nature of the the republic.

Finally, your feelings notwithstanding, it is not my duty to care one whit what the plurality or majority of Americans want. My job is to represent the decision of the winning party in the Texas Presidential election.

It's not that your feelings don't matter at all, they just don't matter here. The law and U.S. Constitution do.

For those who believe I should change my vote to HRC because of your intense feelings about Donald Trump, surely you must know that for every person who feels you have elected the worst person to ever hold the office, there is another who would have felt exactly the same that had we elected HRC: that she is unfit for office and her husband has committed multiple sexual assaults.

Nevertheless, I think it safe to say, my good citizen, you would not have agreed with electoral nullification of a Clinton victory. Nor would I.

This is why we have elections.

If you disagree with the electoral college concept, and some do, you have the opportunity amend the constitution. But elector nullification is not the answer.

I will vote my conscience. You need have no fear. I have never intended to do anything more or less.

Please allow me to illustrate my point from America's favorite pastime, baseball. In the 1960 World Series the Pirates beat the Yankees 4 games to three. But, the Yankees scored a total of 55 runs while the Pirates could only muster 27 total runs.

Unfair? No, those are the rules of baseball. We choose the winner of the World Series by number of games won, regardless of the disparity of the total runs. If the rules were different, teams would strategize differently and the result would likely be different. That the Yankees outscored the Pirates in 1960, or that the Cubs tied the Indians in runs scored this year, is nothing more than an interesting statistic.

In a Presidential campaign, if the rules were different, candidates would strategize differently and the result would likely be different. Donald Trump won according to the rules. Everything else, including the popular vote, is merely an interesting statistic.

Indirect election of the chief executive is the rule under parliamentary forms of government. No one in Canada or the United Kingdom votes for Prime Minister. The election is indirect.

In closing, I am delighted that many are reading the Federalist Papers. I've been reading them for twenty years. They are a fascinating insight into the minds of the framers of the Constitution, aren't they? The Anti-Federalist papers are equally educational. I recommend them for your reading also.

Yes, I agree with Hamilton in Federalist 68. No, I do not believe that the election of Donald Trump rises to that level.

If you have read this far you deserve my thanks, and to know that I do browse for responses. I read them and sometimes respond personally as time allows.

May God bless America and may God bless the great state of Texas.

Best regards,

L. Scott Mann

Texas Elector, Congressional District 19

OK, fine.  He also includes a bunch of links that might be "of interest," including this one about how most letter writers are women who are scared because Hillary scared them.

2. Alex Kim

Elector, Texas Congressional District 24

Thank you for writing.

I am receiving about 4,000 emails a day so I have set this to an auto-response.

You should know that I have no interest in Hillary Clinton becoming our next President.  I reject the Democratic Party principles and I reject Hillary Clinton.

I will not do anything that will open a path for HRC to become our next President.

There is no such thing as a national popular vote.  The only vote that matters to me as a Texas Elector is the Texas vote.

We are not a democracy, we are a republic, for good cause.

We all have differing opinions and I respect your part in the political process, but frankly, the political opinions of non-Texas voters means nothing to me.  I do not vote or get involved in your state, I am not sure why you are trying to interfere in mine.

I encourage you to be more active in the political process where your vote matters.

Best Regards,

Alex Kim

Elector, Texas Congressional District 24

3. John Haggard, Michigan (and by far my favorite for so many reasons)

Laura see you are a Professor and I assume you are sending these email on School time and being paid for this when your job is to teach the students what is in the English book and not what you think.   Problem with education today is the instructors like you teach the kids what you think and not what is in the books.   Again you are on the College time card.   Thanks John

Yeah, just me over here, being a dangerous professor....  Cheers.