33rd Carnival of Socialism

Jim Jay blogs:

The 33rd Carnival of Socialism is out now over at Harpy Marx. A damn fine job it is too!

we don’t need another anti-racism 101

Mai blogs:

i used to be an antiracism trainer for a progressive organization a few years ago.  i was really really good at.

this year i finally realized after a lot of soul searching that teaching white folks how to be good allies is not helpful to anyone.

…

its like us giving white folks all the correct rhetoric just allows for them to be able to better racists, because they are able to justify their racism using anti-racist rhetoric.

in that they are able to say things like: i realize that such and such is a function of racism and then they continue to do the same fucking thing that they just acknowledged was racist.

[Hat Tip: Restructure]

Happy Birthday Oscar Grant

xMabaitx blogs about race, racial identity, skin color, and Oscar Grant:

I have determined that my former desire to ”fit into” a certain racial or ethnic distinction has very little bearing on my own sense of personal self-worth. The greater issue rather is how the white man’s ideas of race and ethnicity consequently force unwanted social meanings upon my body.

Rights of Nasty People

Ettina blogs:

Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen, a woman with Asperger Syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, has finally been given the care she needs, after much protest. She is severely disabled and was cut off from home assistance, only managing to stay alive because her friends were willing to feed her (she needs tube-feeding).
In protest, she started a hunger strike, which she called off in order to stay alive (possibly she figured out that her starving to death wouldn’t bother someone willing to deny her such basic care as tube-feeding and diaper changes).

What Does Tyler Perry Really Want?

I enjoy his plays and movies but I’ve always felt the same as Nichole here about his portrayal of women, which is not all that great:

There is little to dispute that [Tyler Perry’s] target audience is Black women, so let’s look at the message we’ve received so far from the play. A beautiful, ambitious driven woman is a promiscuous, shrill bitch and a danger to the home. A good woman doesn’t turn heads with her beauty, is soft-spoken, religious, and will wait- sexually and emotionally- for the right man to come along. We see this play out as well in the movie version of Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?

Democrats and Republicans

Raw Dawg Buffalo blogs:

I was optimistic that Obama meant what he said, and would do accordingly. But I am slowly becoming disillusioned. He spoke of change, and not having the “good old boy” network of “Washington Insiders” in his administration – yet he does. I won’t even get on the usual talk of tax reduction, war ending and other stuff that all democrats and republicans chant like some Taoist mantra.

Poetic Propaganda

Crip Chick blogs:

I had the honor of joining radical women of color (many of who are your favorite bloggers, BrownFemiPower, Black Amazon, Little Light, Mamita Mala, Sudy, Nadia, and sooo many more) in putting together an amazing album that chronicles experiences around struggle, love, motherhood, redemption, healing and community. You can cop the CD in January, along with a zine and listening party curriculum, so be prepared! More details to come soon but stay on this— there are only 200 copies currently available.

[Hat Tip: brownfemipower]

Journalism at its Worst

As’ad blogs:

You read this headline in the New York Times this morning: “Pakistan’s Spies Aided Group Tied to Mumbai Siege.” But as you actually read the article you learn that American intelligence agents make that allegation…

[Hat Tip: Hossam]

Chicago Workers Demonstrate Power of the Takeover Strike

Nezua blogs:

T’S A BIT INFURIATING to see the same old dynamics play out in the country, especially with a brand new set of circumstances. That is to say, the top dogs get away with murder and the little gals and guys take the blame and get the shaft. So it was with a Chicago factory and its workers until they decided to get all united about things and flip the script, 1930s solidarity style:

Chicago – Workers who got three days’ notice their factory was shutting its doors voted to occupy the building and say they won’t go home without assurances they’ll get severance and vacation pay they say they are owed.

Gentrification and Community Organizing

Jack blogs:

This Friday I’m heading to Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn for the premiere screening of Some Place Like Home: The Fight Against Gentrification in Downtown Brooklyn, a documentary by Families United for Racial and Economic Equality. FUREE, a community organization lead by and comprised primarily of low-income women of color, has been rallying the community in a fight against the rampant development that’s going down in Downtown Brooklyn and the surrounding area. While developers, big business, and politicians alike claim they are only trying to improve the community, the development is being conducted with little care or concern for the residents and small business owners who are already there. Some Place Like Home documents the struggle of FUREE, the neighborhoods’ residents, and small businesses against the forces that are trying to push and bulldoze them out. Check out the trailer below.

Terror Attacks in Mumbai and Responses

Apurva, a blogger from India, writes:

In the midst of all this, we had Mr Advani talking about the need for stricter laws to control terrorism. If that is his solution, I wonder in which India he lives in. Stricter laws have never been a deterrent for crime anywhere in the world and least of all in India. If that were the case, dowry deaths would be non-existent by this time. Untouchability would have been a thing of the past. His unimaginative and primitive mind can only think of draconian laws that will inevitably be used to harass the minorities and the powerless. As John Oliver says in the above video, “when you’re a bankrupt ideology pursuing a bankrupt strategy, the only move you’ve got is the dick one.”

Help Mumbai

The blogger at A Book Without a Cover blogs:

Ways you can help, visit here and here.

Mumbai is the target again!

Madhat gives us links to photos and blog posts from India on the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Again, I Laugh at a Nation United in Ignorance أه يا أمة ضحكت من جهلها الأمم.. تاني

With Meena has harsh words for his country:

نجلاء الإمام المحامية و رئيسة جمعية لحقوق الإنسان تدعو الشباب العربي للتحرش بالإسرائيليات و اغتصابهم كنوع من المقاومة و بعد كده بنتسائل ليه الغرب بيتهمنا بالتخلف و الإرهاب أما تكون دي رئيسة جمعية لحقوق الإنسان هيفتكروا المواطن العادي شكله عامل ازاي؟؟

Nagla Al Imam, a lawyer and head of a human rights organization, invited Arab youth to sexually harass and rape Israeli women as a form of resistance … and then we wonder why the West accuses us of backwardness and terrorism … if this is how the head of an NGO thinks, then what would an average citizen be like?

[Hat Tip: Marwa Rakha]

White Culture

Restructure blogs:

White liberals* in North America often say things like, “White people have no culture.” For the overwhelming majority of white liberals, to be white is to be boring. Some white people even claim that they are “jealous” of people who are not white, as if non-white people have “culture” that white people do not, due to the sole fact they have a higher concentration of melanin in their skin, eyes, or hair.

Of course, the very definition of culture necessitates that white people have a culture.

Facing Race 2008: The Compact for Racial Justice

Tammy shows us a video in where she:

…outlines Applied Research Center’s Compact for Racial Justice at the 2008 Facing Race Conference.

Organizing in San Francisco

Kiwi, a rapper and organizer in the Bay Area, blogs about organizing in San Francisco:

So it hasn’t taken me that long to discover the challenges and politics of doing community-based work here in San Francisco, especially in the South of Market, an area that has been long-coveted by developers, business people, yuppies and hustlers alike for its proximity to bustling downtown. In less than a week of being here, I’ve heard concerns about city budgets being cut, inter-agency conflicts, CBO-hating from the Mayor’s office, and so forth…

If I didn’t know any better, the City of San Francisco is literally the real-life version of “The Wire,” full of dynamics and complications happening on all levels of the hierarchy that ultimately end up impacting the most marginalized population that lives here: poor and working class people of color….

Asian American Views on the Elections

Clair, at Hyphen Blog, gives us some links to Asian American news and views on the recent elections.

BFP on feminisms

Brownfemipower:

one of the big tricks that i discovered had been pulled on me was the trick of getting me to believe that there was such a thing as a “Feminist Movement.” there’s not. but i thought there was. and being a believer and student of ‘movements’–what are they, how are they made, where they come from–i sit back now, and am sort of amused by my naivete. i actually believed that just because people *called* themselves feminists, that must mean there *is* a Feminist Movement of some sort.

…

never belonged to a Feminist Movement, i belonged to a movement led and created and owned by *radicalized* women of color. Those women of color are, were and will always *remain* accountable to other women of color, whether those women are radicalized or not. I belong to a movement started by Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, and sustained by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, Sista II Sista, the Zapatistas, UBUNTU, SPEAK, the AMC and so so so so many others. There is a melding of action with theory–a connection between the streets and academia.

Letter to the Man Who Yelled at Me

Jeannie Choi blogs:

I am writing you this letter after much internal debate to inform you of the many realizations that erupted within me after our very brief encounter yesterday. I am writing you this letter because there is a lot I have to say to you. I am writing you this letter because after a great deal of thought, I’ve decided that you might like to know what you did, what I should have done, and what I hope can happen between you and me in the future.

First, what you did. Yesterday, as I was walking down Columbia Road, you saw me from a distance. I did not see you, because I was on the phone. But you certainly saw me. You saw me in my summer dress, walking quickly because I was late for dinner with my cousins, chattering away on my cell phone, laughing at something my friend said. You saw me. You saw my black hair, my sloped forehead, brown eyes, and undoubtedly in your mind you thought something along the lines of chink, gook, oriental, Chinese chick who doesn’t speak English. And for some reason, for a reason that I can’t understand, you proceeded to get right in my face and yell at me. And if you can’t remember what it is you yelled—Well, I do and I probably will forever:“Ching chong ching chong f***ing CHINK!”

[Hat Tip: Phil]

Trans-cultural Adoptee Short Films and Panel

Sume blogs about an upcoming on May 29, 2009 in Australia:

This will be a half-day event in Australia run by a volunteer committee made up of trans-cultural adoptes. It aims to present a selection of short films about trans-cultural (and trans-racial) adoptee experiences, and will also feature a panel session featuring adoptees and special guests who are adoption educators, authors, artists and researchers.  The event will be held around the country. The event will also produce a publication of film maker and speaker biographies, film reviews, interviews and list of adoption resources.

A Blogger on White Privilege

Gabriel blogs:

Being White in American society (possibly European society as well because they’re douchebags too) means that you know that people that look like you run society. If something goes wrong in your life then (barring unique circumstances like being from Appalachia or something) you can take solace in the fact that you’re White and just integrate yourself into a high social or economic class by befriending (or marrying) another White person better off than you. You have the benefit of living in a world superpower where the default rules of the society were set up by people in similar social locations to benefit people like you. This is not by any means to say that all White people actively participate in the privilege, because they don’t. However all White people do all participate. Simply put, American society is easier for those (of all colors) who have lighter/fairer skin.

McCain and Campaigning

Jeff Chang blogs:

I was stomping around the house, scaring the kids, yelling at the radio and the television, and generally not digesting my dinner.

Here’s why…

McCain argued last night that he has “repudiated every time someone has been out of line.” But he continues to allow his VP nominee—someone CNN’s Leslie Sanchez once said was “a vice president for the rest of us”—to insinuate Obama is not like the rest of us. He continues to flog non-stories about ACORN, a federation of community organizations working for poor people led by a woman of color, and Bill Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical who now is a respected voice in education.

Blog Action Day 2008 Philippines

Today is Blog Action Day 2008 for the Philippines:

Cyberspace group Bloggers Kapihan over the weekend called on Filipino bloggers all over the world to join the Blog Action Day 2008 on Oct. 15 by taking on the issue of poverty through text, photos, music and podcasts, video and microblogging.

The event website is at http://blogactionday2008.bloggerskapihan.com/ where Bloggers Kapihan posted instructions and resources for interested bloggers.

“On Oct. 15, we urge bloggers to unite and discuss poverty. It may be an essay, a story on how they may once be poor or their fears about falling to the ranks of the unemployed. It may also come in the form of a video or a podcast,” said Bloggers Kapihan…

The Markets

Lenin blogs:

Markets, if not an expression of aspirations implicit in human nature, are supposedly indispensable to any happy human prospect. Free market ideology has it that markets are the most efficient delivery system for goods; that competition will drive innovation and flexibility; that consumer-led demand will ensure that people get what they want (within their means); and that waged labour will incentivize hard work and thus produce growth. This fabular conception advises the most rudimentary assumptions of policymakers (who then go on to violate their own assumptions in practise) and a great majority of the intelligentsia. And, within its own terms, it has a certain allure. It is not obviously utopian, and doesn’t assume basic human goodness. In fact, it states quite bluntly that what humans had often considered the main source of evil, the accumulation of wealth, was the progenerator of unprecedented good. Adam Smith thus famously argued: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages.” Moreover, in the context in which the classical liberal economists were writing, it made a great deal of sense. The absence of that context makes any attempt to apply such precepts to today’s reality absurd.