Excuse me, WTF did Bill Maher tweet?

I don’t even know where to begin with this one because between smacking a bitch up and the genocidal nature things are taking in Gaza, I’m at a loss.

Dealing w/ Hamas is like dealing w/ a crazy woman who's trying to kill u - u can only hold her wrists so long before you have to slap her
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) https://twitter.com/billmaher/statuses/489930991956262913">July 18, 2014

There is a kind of beauty to this kind of flippant sexism. Like, of course, you have to hit “crazy” women, which is a great insult to Gaza because who wants to be a woman? Iamiright? Aside, a dude who restrains both of my hands without permission is going to be kicked in the balls. Just sayin’.

Bill Maher’s Twitter’s account had this posted at the end of last week. As everyone, even Rebecca Rose at Jezebel—where I originally read this—understands Maher gets to have his own opinions has radically anti-Muslim as they maybe. Obviously, I disagree with Maher’s opinion on Gaza, mostly because we have fundamentally different perspectives on religion. See I think religion is fine as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. Maher believes all religion is detrimental however, Judaism appears to be the least bad while Islam the worst. In this respect Maher follows in the long list of anti-Muslim atheists, which as an atheist I can tell you they are our shame.

Personally, I love the way Maher has conflated two seriously different situations (while both serious, no hierarchy here) as an attempt to make violence funny. As we have learned from the great rape joke controversy of our time, jokes about unbelievable violence are only funny when you are making fun of the perpetrators of violence. What is happening in Gaza isn’t funny. The massive number of women in violent situations is not funny. Put these things together and you get really not funny. Of course, there is some man out there just waiting to mansplain humor to me, as if I’m not the funniest person you know. Save it son; the adults are talking.  

As I said last week, I’m tired of crazy being used as an insult to dismiss women and discount anything they have to say. I’m also real tired of the US and the United Nations doing nothing about Gaza. We’re watching pre-genocidal actions, and that is being kind. Five hundred Palestinians have been killed as of Monday. That is about one percent of the estimated population of Gaza, a lot of them children, and it has been about a week. Israel is bombing hospitals and killing children; this is their strategy. They want Palestinians to flee and essentially give up Gaza. That is what Israel wants. We need to be talking about that. We need to talk about how Israeli’s have gone on record as saying kill all the Palestinians.

Of course, the white, hetero, cis dude of the Bat-Signal went up because who know who is struggling here: Bill Maher. The struggle is real guys, and Maher has to be Maher every fucking day. I can just not watch his show.

Israel forced birth control shots on Ethiopian women

Can everyone get behind Israel’s treatment of others is a little ridiculous? This is incredible and such a violation of human rights. John Thomas wrote about this story. Israel was accused of forcing Ethiopian women into accepting Depo-Provera injections (a birth control administered every three months with long lasted side effects) in an attempt to lower birth rates among black immigrants about five years ago, but for the first time ever they admitted this.

Israeli Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights (an advocacy group for women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrant’s) in Israel wrote a letter demanding the Israeli health authorities cease administering the injections. The letter also demanded an investigation into the practice. It looks like the Ethiopian women were targeted resulting in a birth rate half of what it was ten years ago.

Ethiopians experience a variety of discrimination in Israel including in housing, educations, and employment. This leads to the inevitable question of whether the Israelis are a racist state and or trying to perform an ethnic cleansing. I think this is curious given their treatment of Palestinians. So the answer is yes, they are a racist state, but with more victims than we previously thought. The assertion in this case is that it was an “unspoken [official] policy aimed to reduce the births in a community that is mostly black and poor.”

Just to be clear for those playing at home, controlling women’s reproductive freedom is an attempt to control women. When the state does it, it is institutional misogyny. Depo is a serious contraceptive, you know how some birth control have a failure rate, human error etc.? Well Depo, I’m sure does too, but they don’t like to give it out stateside, well to most women because of the long lasting effects. Poor communities have an institutional memory of being given the shorts to control reproduction often tales go along the lines of had to take the shot to receive benefits. I’m not sure this is true. What is true, was a study conducted by the company that made Depo on black women on welfare in Atlanta Georgia, with little follow up on the effects. The notable different between IUDs and Depo is the lasting effects. The IUDs can be removed easily. Depo shots can have side effects for a lengthy period. So there isn’t really any turning around mid-stream here. You know what else is true? Controlling women’s reproduction as a form of control of women (micro) and a population (macro). I give you rape as a tactic of war and forced sterilization.

There is something every sinister about all of this.