Talking Points Memo says

MSNBC announces Ed Schultz's "triumphant return" to the airwaves after all that 'slut' unfortunateness.

Source: Talking Points Memo

Wouldn't it be interesting if progressive and human-potential activists (feminist and otherwise) spent a tenth of the time slamming MSNBC's decision to "triumphantly" reinstate Schultz, who used the word "slut" in it's usual sense, than they've spent slamming the founders and imitators of SlutWalk Toronto, who organized their protests because they deplore use of the word "slut?"

Because Great Sticks of Butter there's a lot of heated opposition to SlutWalk.  And meanwhile, of all things, MSNBC executives have been more publicly demonstrative against Schultz!

And by that I don't mean that MSNBC execs have been all that great shakes.  Just that too many of the people* who might otherwise have sent testy letters to the network have been otherwise distracted.

I mean, not everyone's been thrilled with the name (I'm not thrilled with it) but you know what?  A lot of people have been thrilled by its spontaneous, non-organized emergence from a single online protest into a very wide-spread, frustration-fueled cluster of independent public actions.

For instance via Jill Filipovic, Jessica Valenti has written

[T]he success of SlutWalks does herald a new day in feminist organizing. One when women’s anger begins online but takes to the street, when a local step makes global waves and when one feminist action can spark debate, controversy and activism that will have lasting effects on the movement.

Source: The Washington Post

Yeah, this is definitely important for a lot of reasons.  Almost none of which have anything to do with the name itself.

Could the organizers in Toronto have come up with a title that was less offensive to collar buttoners of left and right? Sure, if they’d formed a committee and made an org chart and focus-grouped it and recruited Significant Board Members from Around the World and waited for the same brigade of professional-left activists and assholes to show up offering logistical support in exchange for including speakers for their laundry list of unrelated outrages that have diluted every other attempted march and demonstration for the last 20 years. And if they’d known or cared their rump outburst of irritation at a specific word uttered by a specific cop in a specific city in Canada was going to spread to 75 cities and counting then they might have done so.

But they didn’t because, um, they were too busy taking direct action against a direct insult by someone who was so “well-intentioned” but wrong he didn’t even know he had his head up his ass.

And dear sweet mother of pearl, that something like that should take off spontaneously? That it should have bypassed a bunch of amen choir members who’s “activism” consists mainly of leaving gotchas in other bloggers comments? Horrors!

I’m not a huge fan of “reclaim the word X” initiatives (almost 40 years after appreciating a friend’s “That’s Mister Faggot to you” button the word “fag” has lost only a little bit of its sting) I appreciate SlutWalk not just because their intention is more about deploring then word than celebrating it. Because, yeah, it’s pretty much always been a slur and in this instance the Toronto cop’s intention was pure unadulterated anticipatory victim-blaming.  But because they're actually doing something!

It's not that it's the first it’s the first spontaneous mass feminist demonstration ever (heh, um, no.)   Instead it’s the first in North America to originate and translate from the internet to civic action.

I mean yes, yes, the 1970s were a wonderful time for women’s marches! I remember hitch-hiking along with friends to rallies between in Boston and D.C. And goodness knows the sacrifices and successes women made 150 years ago, and 100 years ago, and 50 years ago.

But in the last 20 years though? Well, there was the million-women march (ooh, wonderful giant puppets and always good to see those Free Tibet signs!) And there have been some excellent hyper-local Take Back the Night events.  But otherwise? Not so much. Which is why, at least to me, this is so promising. Because, yeah, we really, really do need to see more activism that's not managed, and not arranged by professionals, and not so routine that the press already knows where to setup their cameras.

But as my dad used to say “you can’t steer a parked car.” I think instead of trying to put the brakes on Slutwalk it might be cool to start crowd-sourcing new points for real-world activism. I mean, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to get a rally going before the mainstreamers, t-shirt vendors, and the YSA “volunteers” and PETA demonstrators sign-waivers could set up for the cameras and otherwise get in the way? I say yes. Too many other people are saying no way… because a handful of non-professional organizers were too focused to pick the “right” name.

Who knows?  Maybe Ed Schultz will to a segment knocking SlutWalk.  To make "amends."

$%!#@y

* By which I mean people on the left: since Schultz used the word to label a conservative wingnut the right-wing noise machine was on it instantly.  Which is probably why MSNBC suspended him at all.