- MilbyDaniel: Iraq 101. MilbyDaniel pulls out some eye-opening facts from Mother Jones’ study, The Iraq Effect, which examines changes in Iraq and in the world since the invasion. Among the observations: since the start of the so-called War on Terror, the incidence of global “terrorism” has increased sevenfold. (“Terrorism” has to go in quotes since the label is applied so subjectively; you know, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter and all.)
- Jay Sennett: Transsexuality Is a Crime Per Se, on the recent decision in the Florida city of Largo to fire the city manager because she came out as trans. From one of the people who demanded her firing: “I do not feel he has the integrity, nor the trust, nor the respect, nor the confidence to continue as the city manager of the city of Largo.”
- Alas, A Blog: The Long Beach Beating Case and Race, in which Amp addresses comparisons that some have drawn between the Long Beach case (in which three white women were attacked, allegedly due to their race, by Black youth) and the case of Billy Ray Johnson (who was almost certainly attacked because of his race and disability by white men.)
- The Unapologetic Mexican: Overlords in Name and Deed – I’ve never written much about my experience of being arrested and jailed for – what was it, 46 hours? – during the RNC. But nezua’s done a good job of describing the experience and its implications here.
Archive for the 'linkage' Category
- Via UBUNTU! by way of brownfemipower – “Duke-ing It Out in the Court of Public Opinion,” an op-ed on the Duke rape case from Wendy Murphy, a former prosecutor and law professor at the New England School of Law.
- Piny from Feministe critiques the woman-disregarding concept of “fetal abuse.”
- Via Poplicks’ Question of the Week: the Cartoon Network has decided to stop airing Speedy Gonzales cartoons because of their racist depictions of Mexicans. The question: do you agree?
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is preparing to release a report on the state of our environment, which will include predictably grim news on the centuries of global warming ahead of us. One of the many disasters we may bring about: the loss of the Great Barrier Reef.
- Prometheus 6 calls out John Ridley for his nonsensical criticism of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for not rallying around a Black-on-white “hate crime: “So what about it, pal? How long have you been writing about Black folks? What was the last one that didn’t slam the majority of those Black folks it mentions? Aren’t you just the latest in a long line of negros hired to whisper dark nothings in white folks’ ears and throw sand in Black folks’ eyes?”
I’m wrapping up my holiday visit with my parents, so here are some quick links of notes.
- Life Support for Feminist Health Care?, on the more-than-worrisome decline of available feminist health care for women, especially low income women, in the US. From the article: “A true societal commitment to quality, funded health care for poor and marginalized women … still eludes us.” (Found via Feministing)
- If you’re a New Yorker like me, you’ve undoubtedly heared those awful words over the subway train PA system: “We’re being held in the station due to a sick passenger.” After once seeing a man die on the subway (an awful experience), I always wonder and worry about what’s going on and how serious the situation is. Well, according to the MTA, the most common “sick passenger” situation is people fainting because they’re on crazy “diets” that amount to not eating at all for big chunks of time. So now when I’m feeling murderous* on a stopped train, I know to blame fatphobia, most likely tempered with a good dose of sexism. (Or, I can just Blame the Patriarchy, of course. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
UPDATE: After reading other bloggers and media outlets’ take on this, I’m starting to agree with them – maybe this is a bit of non-scientific woman-blaming going on. After all, the “statistic” about the prevalence of diet-related fainting only comes from one person’s observations and conjecture, rather than actual tracking. However, I have to say, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about many people in NYC dieting in unhealthy ways, even to the point of fainting. And that’s not woman-blaming; like I said above, it’s fatphobia and patriarchy blaming.
- For the first time since the Beefeaters began guarding the Tower of London, a woman will join their ranks. Happily to me, she’ll be wearing the same awesome uniform as all the others.
- CNN accidentally ran the caption “Where’s Obama?” during an ad for a segment on Osama bin Laden. Oops! Senator Barack Obama’s spokeperson responds: “Though I’d note that the ‘s’ and ‘b’ keys aren’t all that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake.”
* Note that my murderous feelings are not directed towards sick passengers themselves, of course. However, other New Yorkers might understand and agree that there are few things more maddening than being stuck in a subway tunnel for an indefinite amount of time, especially when one is running late, as one almost always is when the subway is involved, and especially when the conductor reassures you that “we should be moving shortly” for minutes on end.
Many of them, in fact. Here’s some recent words from two of them.
My friend Dean writes about polyamory in “For Lovers and Fighters” on Make. This article really resonated with me, as a currently poly person, in so many ways. In it, he touches on many things: “how interrogating the limits of monogamy fits into [his] queer, trans, feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-oppression politics,” how we treat people we’re dating or in a romantic relationship with vs. how we treat our friends (and how we might do well to treat our friends more like our dates and our dates more like our friends, sometimes), and how polyamory is emergent in communities that question and break gender rules and norm. He also talks about the negative aspects of the relative popularity of polyamory in some communities – how sometimes polyamory is seen as more “radical” and right on, while monogamy is seen as a throwback; how poly people can hold themselves up to stringent and unrealistic standards of behavior, with any jealousy or insecurity yielding feelins of shame and inadequacy. Dean writes:
It seems like the best answer to all of this is to move forward as we do in the rest of our activism, carefully and slowly, based on our clearest principles, with trust and a willingness to make mistakes. The difficulty of having open relationships should not be a reason not to try it, but it should be a reason not to create new punishing norms in our communities or in our own minds. We’ve done difficult things before. We struggle with internalized oppressions, we chose to live our lives in ways that our families often tell us are impossible, idealistic or dangerous, and we get joy from creatively resisting the limits of our culture and political system that are both external and part of our own minds.
In a post entitled “The internet ate my subculture,” Anne writes about whether something has happened in recent years to “completely destroy american public culture,” and whether that something might be the internet. She writes:
Is it totally trite to blame MySpace? Or Friendster? Or hell, livejournal? The timing is right. They keep everyone “connected” without having to, y’know, do anything together except catechise our daily living and fuck. Memoirs are now the best-selling genre of new book. Coincidence? We can get all the kudos and sexiness we need without ever leaving the house, without ever extending ourselves beyond our individual choices of which job, which identity, which sound card, which sex act we prefer. Narrativize it, publish it, let the appreciative comments pour in…
Since I’m a little behind on the blogging, and since I realized that I rarely link to those blogs that I read regularly, I figured I would redress both situations in one fell swoop.
- AngryBlackBitch masterfully calls out Dick Cheney, and the government at large, for his hypocrisy-laden “tough talk” for Russia. This government doesn’t seem to do much of anything right, but it sure is damn skilled at pot & kettling.
- ABB also makes excellent points about how “full of shit” all the people are who are getting their knickers in a twist over the Spanish version of the national anthem.
- For examples of said knicker-twisting, take a look at the firestorm that ensued over at VivirLatino when they posted about it. And, amusingly enough, today they posted about how the Anthem has been translated into other languages many times before – including a Spanish translation commissioned by the Department of Education in 1912.
- Speaking of firestorms, this link is mega-late but I just want to give belated props to Nubian for her commitment to keep on keepin’ on despite ridiculous and problematic responses to really good things she’s written.
- In related news, belledame takes on hierarchies of oppression and “Foobar cannot oppress fweebah” (as she so amusingly puts it) mentalities.
- As a side note: being in the tech world, I’ve often seen “foo” and “bar” and “foobar” being used as variables of a sort, but never knew where the hell they came from. Thanks again, Wikipedia!
- Also in response to the whole “gender trumps race” drama, Nappy spins out some very good words about the whole business.
- I had no idea that May is National Asian American Heritage Month. Luckily I have Jenn at Reappropriate to remind me. I’ve never been a huge fan of america parcelling out a month at a time to pretend to care about people of color but, you know, for what it’s worth, cheers.
- Angry Indian writes about the racial profiling, absurd drug law enforcement, and disregard for freedom of religion at work in the charges facing Paul Skyhorse Durant. america’s imposition of its own often thoroughly fucked laws upon Native people is much like waltzing up into someone else’s house and trying to impose your own rules and philosophies on them in their own home. Oh, except you also steal the deed to their house, first.
- Brownfemipower at Woman of Color Blog has been posting a lot of good stuff lately. As part of a series of entries entitled “the nation/state and violence against women of color,” she posted the text of this Democracy Now interview with women who have recently been deported as part of the recent crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
