I have a couple of posts in the works, one on racism and the hate mail my "Making Whites" teacher received and another on Homo/Transphobia. Just haven't had a chance to put them together as I'd like. But as it's that time of the week again, check out the best of the blogosphere from the last week!
Dr. King Assassination - 41 Years Later
Cop-killers, policing, crime and justice: Talking about Lovelle Mixon
Actual Rape Victim Jailed for “False Report”
Oscar Grant protests miss the big picture
The Global North Meets The Global South And Racoons Become Food
Michelle O Ain't Trying To Be Jackie O
It's Out There
And then, I saw them. Two young women sharing an intimate moment out on the paths of the school for the whole world to see. It was an odd moment. One of the women was of a dark completion, she had very similar features to a friend of mine who's mother came from Tennessee and her father from Tehran. The darked girl was doing her utmost to look butch. She has her short hair spiked as best she could, and she her face had that fuck-you-world look that only proud young lesbians can really pull off.
Her friend was a little taller, a lot blonder, and maybe a little nervous looking.
I walked right past them, but I was touched by the beauty and goodness of the world. That there is a place, are places where folks can be themselves, can love whoever they like in healthy ways and not have to hide behind walls and roles and ideas of strength and power and all that bullshit. Gods, I miss there not being a fucking leash around my neck.
Weekly Immigration Wire: Resurrecting a Failed War on Drugs
Derailing For Dummies
Fucking Ratios, Part 1
*Trigger Warning* Maybe It Wasn’t Illegal
Underground and mirrors: homebirth to be forced underground.
Why feminist labor support? And what's feminist labor support? (the final installment of a four-part series)
acupuncture thoughts
Sex Work And Compassion: The Angry Family
Shell in court over alleged role in Nigeria executions
Interracial Spectacle: Thoughts on Power Dynamics
But, outside of the little BDSM role play thing, in mainstream pop acts, these bodies get read in the most conventional sense. More importantly, in mainstream arenas, certain bodies get penalized more than others. These realities, at least to me, are some reasons why I can't "fantasize" some kind of "race play" where I'm in the subordinate position in an interracial relationship. I live that reality all the time!
A Witch Takes Responsibility
As the Jains make clear, it's impossible to "harm none." Take a step and you'll crush some life forms. Sweep the way before you, as the Jains do, and you have to first kill some plants to make a broom, or disturb the biosphere to harvest the dead grasses. Do some magic to find a job and you disadvantage the other job applicants. Send reiki to your seeds, to help them to grow vibrantly, and you condemn the unblessed seeds of some weed to falter.[...]The circle of life includes both life AND death. The Goddess is both Demeter AND Kali, both Innana and Erishkegial, both the bountiful Empress and Shelia Na Gig, waiting to suck us back into the Earth and make worm food out of us the moment that we falter. You either see the beauty and perfection of that or you don't.
Irish Activist Aims For U.S. Support to stop highway at Tara
D.C. Will Recognize Your Marriage
Iraq shoe thrower's jail term cut
Judge: U.S. withheld evidence of Guantanamo witness's mental illness
Disappointed in my alma mater
Out of Chicago comes an upsetting story of a woman who was raped, did “everything she was supposed to,” and couldn’t prosecute her attacker because the people who examined her at University Health Services didn’t do a rape kit (or, and this is the disputed part, tell her she needed to go to the emergency room for one). She is now suing the University of Chicago, and although it seems like the lawsuit is running into difficulties in a legal sense, there is no doubt in my mind that the university failed to have clear policies in place that would have protected her.
Working at 84 Isn’t She Lucky
Obama Official and GOP Are Protecting John Yoo
Native Student Among Whites Speaks Out
Rosebud woman nominated to lead IHS
Rosebud Sioux tribal member Yvette Roubideaux, 46, was nominated March 23 by President Barack Obama to direct the IHS. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first American Indian woman to ever lead the agency.
Follow up on Z's Science Project
My nephew's project, alone among all of them, was not displayed. After much back and forth with various people, my sister learned that apparently some people were uncomfortable with his conclusions. Specifically the part where he said that what he really learned from this project was that some people don't want to be called boys or girls, and that those people need an "other" option.
whatsername says: Oh the horror!!!
Can a White Woman Be a Womanist?
whatsername says: I was thinking about this myself not very long ago. That I wished there was a word that labeled one as a white woman who centered women of color in your analysis. But somehow I knew I couldn't possibly claim "womanist". Even with a much loved Mexican grandmother I have been raised white. I have always thought of myself as white. And so I am. Even if I'd prefer to be Chicana or mexicana, and Womanism is not meant for me. Still, Renee points out here that like men and feminism there is a term for women like me, "pro-Womanist" as men are "pro-Feminist". That works for me.
Dworkin
I still remember an old therapist asking me, before I was ever sexually active, "what using dildoes would mean to me." My response, "it seems like it would feel good to be inside somebody," was insufficiently introspective, and I was asked again what it "meant."
I was a marked case, and there was something unsettling or confusing or to be worked through about my desires and feelings. I countered asking if she would ask a male patient why he'd want to penetrate his partners, or if "That would feel good" would count as an answer from him.
Is Sex Positivity Bad For Feminism?
Your hairy legs could be mass murderers even now
The Lure of Online Feminism: Relationship Building and the Internet
Seeing the Light: Some God-Talk to Begin Holy Week
stuff white people do: ignore or stand up to racism
Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery
And The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
But dear reader, I've got to put off the trans stuff until it's over. These people in the unit, they aren't stupid. They've got eyes. Maybe I've already gone too far, maybe I've fucked myself a little. All I can do now, I guess, is avoid going any further. For the next year and change, I can't move a pinky toward transition.
Not enough? Check out the picks of these fabulous women: Ojibway Migisi Bineshii, and Renee.
