17
Jun
YA books about LGBT characters of color
Find out more about these books at malindalo.com
Esquire Theme by Matthew Buchanan
Social icons by Tim van Damme
17
Jun
YA books about LGBT characters of color
Find out more about these books at malindalo.com
As we continue to process the events of last Friday, in which 22-year-old Elliot Rodgers went on an anti-woman shooting spree he deemed “the Day of Retribution” in order to punish those women who rebuffed him, one hashtag has been proliferating immensely on Twitter. With “#YesAllWomen,” many Twitter have been sharing their experiences as women in a culture where they do not feel safe.In a break from our usual format, we are sharing some important writing on the shooting in Santa Barbara by a gunman who sought revenge against womankind for having refused to offer him sex and love.
Jessica Valenti writes at the Guardian about the mistake of identifying this incident as one person’s isolated delusion. Violence against women happens worldwide and every day on unfathomable scales. The gunman’s terrifying views have been shared so widely because they resonate with people. Shame from rejection is a powerful emotion, and is so often redirected as misplaced anger. And, tragically, fear of retribution for simply exerting our autonomy is a daily reality for many women, as the #YesAllWomen hashtag makes plain.
We will never stamp out violent incidents altogether, but it is a heartless mistake to continue ignoring the readily identifiable forces that drive violence against women. To be clear, nobody “owes” anybody else sex. Women do not exist for other people’s pleasure.
01
Jun
Rest in power sister
Civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama has died at the age of 93. In this interview learn how her activism began when she and her family were held in a Japanese American internment camp. She also recalls how she cradled Malcolm X’s head after he was gunned down in the Audubon Ballroom.
31
May
“I’m strong. I have 55 doctorates. My last was from Columbia University. I teach all over the world. So, the pressure on me, the challenge on me, was always mitigated by love. That is to say it was softened by love because my grandmother loved me, my uncle loved me, and my brother loved me. I came through that. I have come through so many challenges because of love.”
(Source: sonofbaldwin)
In the past, these Americans would have been labeled “quadroons” or “octoroons.” Today their options are so much broader. What can they teach us about race in 2014 and in the future?an interesting convo that many latinegrxs may have already be experiencing. what, if anything, may the US learn from looking to all of the Americas and Caribean around this topic?
blah blah blah the biracial boom is a myth. sometimes i think it all really boils down to experiences, which are obviously influenced by how the world sees you.
30
May
Forty-five years after her first UCLA teaching gig attracted the wrath of Gov. Ronald Reagan , Angela Y. Davis is back on campus this semester, as regents’ lecturer in the gender studies department. Her Thursday address in Royce Hall, about feminism and prison abolition, sums up some but not all of her work — a long academic career paralleled by radical activism. President Nixon called her a “dangerous terrorist” when she was charged with murder and conspiracy after a deadly 1970 courthouse shootout. She was acquitted, and since then, the woman born in the Jim Crow minefield of Birmingham, Ala., has written, taught and lectured around the world. Her iconic Afro has morphed from its 1970s silhouette; her intensity has not.“I still believe that capitalism is the most dangerous kind of future we can imagine.”
President Obama continues to deport queer and trans immigrants. The Obama administration has deported a record number of more than 2 million deportations, which has resulted in the separation of parents from their children and queer and trans immigrants from their families and communities. There are more than 267,000 undocumented queer and trans immigrants living in the United States who continue to be persecuted by the current inhumane immigration policies of the White House. Queer and trans immigrants are coming together to demand President Obama to stop all deportations of LGBTQ undocumented immigrants and our families, and expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for all undocumented immigrants in this country.
Famila: Trans Queer Liberation Movement and DeColores Queer Orange County are brining together Queer and trans immigrants from across the country to proclaim “liberation and not incarceration” and denounce the deportations separating our families and communities. We will continue to organize and mobilize in order to ensure all of our families are safe and remain together. Queer and trans immigrants rise up to demand “not one more deportation” of our queer and trans undocumented brothers and sisters and our families.
Endorse Queer & Trans Immigrants in Saying “Liberation and Not Incarceration”
28
May
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Power is being able to say complete and utter nonsense and have it be believed, powerlessness is where no matter how much cogent evidence and proof one has, to not be believed.
(Source: 46004070)
27
May
Inspired by the truth and power of #ITooAmHarvard, people of colour who are students at University of Oxford in the U.K. created #ITooAmOxford to speak of their experiences with racism on campus. The photographs are diverse (there’s more on their site) and here I included some of the ones of Black women/women of African descent (my apologies if I misread any genders) as I did when I posted my now viral post on I Too Am Harvard because again it reveals the racist assumptions about both their intelligence and appearance, something I dealt with as a Black woman when I was younger and in undergrad/grad. I also noticed the sense of “place” and nationality that impacts the stereotypes that they face.
This is a point for the lies about racism being uniquely American to stop. Now. Today. I am tired of weekly emails from Whites ahistorically announcing how racism does not exist in the U.K. It is not their place to make that determination anyway; only Black and other people of colour can. The person who experiences the oppression, not the oppressor, the oppressed, not the privileged, speak truth to the experiences.
These students are speaking their truths. Do not ignore them. Their lives matter. They deserve better than the stress and even physical/mental health issues that dealing with racism can cause. Stereotype threat is real and impacts academic performance and health.
I wish these students the best. Much love. ❤