dotellstories:

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.

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.

“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)

laborreguitina:

lati-negros:

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. 

laqrcollective:

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.”