I have quite a few posts for this round-up.
Historically, the knowledge produced about black women has incorporated attributes from both the black racial identity and the female sexual identity. Black women are labelled strong due to their past role as enslaved workers in American society. Since strength is traditionally viewed as a male quality (see analysis of Rosie the Riveter), the label strong allows black women to be black and female simultaneously. The strength of the black identity is constantly at odds with the perceived weakness and lack of control of the female identity. You will remember that the conceptualization of women within the law renders them out of control of the value of their work and the value of their reproductive health (their bodies). The intersection of these often contradictory legal identities creates a legislative conundrum for members of both the black and female identity groups.
The “widow penalty” is an obscure interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that puts widows or widowers of U.S. citizens at risk of deportation if they have not been married for at least two years and are waiting for an application for permanent residence (the “green card”) to be approved. I say it’s an “interpretation” of the INA because several federal courts that have ruled on the issue have disagreed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) interpretation of the statute. More on this below.
**contact your Senators and Congressional Representatives to end the widow penalty**
How unfortunate.
That.poor.family.
Seeing people “worse off” reminds me how small my struggles are in the scheme of things.
(Thank you, dear Lord.)
But I don’t get it… if she needs help in the bathroom,
She should stay home
They have internet programs now, and books,
Why does she even come?
She’s a detriment to others.
What selfish parents.
Our children shouldn’t have to sit next to her.
This is sickening.
A tube! I don’t want my kids to watch her eat!
If a machine has to breathe life into her lungs,
Is she really worthy of this air?
What if she DIES in the classroom?
I don’t want my kids to watch someone die!
Why are her parents sending her to school?
Anyways, if I was them, I’d want to be with my daughter in her final days…
These are all comments made by people on a Chicago Tribune story that FRIDA recently posted about a young school girl in Illinois who wears a big yellow Do Not Resuscitate* sign on her wheelchair.
“We’re not terrorists, we’re teenage girls in a summer media program.”
My oldest son has an Autism Spectrum Disorder. His actual diagnosis is Hyperlexia PDD/NOS (pervasive development disorder/not otherwise specified). He is awkward socially, but no more than any other teen boy. It hasn’t stopped him from having dozens of friends. When he was really young I avoided giving him his actual diagnosis, I didn’t want him to learn from others - what he couldn’t do. And so he didn’t know that he isn’t supposed to have alot of friends. He didn’t know that he isn’t supposed to be a good student who gets mostly Bs and Cs with occasional As. He didn’t know that he isn’t supposed to love and be loved. He didn’t know that he is supposed to be helpless and silent.
What else is there to do but cheer at the thought of tasting man flesh?
Last week the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story on the inspiring ingenuity of William Kamkwamba, a 20-year-old high-school student in Malawi who built his first windmill from blue-gum trees and bicycle parts after seeing pictures in a textbook when he was 14 (thanks, Angela!). Mr. Kamkwamba informs us on his blog that next week he’ll be making his first trip to the US and is excited to see snow and try Chinese food.
The use of sexualised violence to dominate and control people isn’t addressed by consent-based activism, and often there’s no legal protection against this kind of assault because it occurs in government institutions or is otherwise mandated by the state.
Far too often in both the glamour cosmo blah blee world AND in some bastions of feminisms ( I am drunk I don’t feel like referencing)
The goal seems to be this mindless ” It’s okay you SHOULDN’t HAVE TO WORK To get off /get rights/ enjoy sex”
and the only thing i can come up with is
Is that that stance makes it easier to sell us shit
Audre Lourde’s
USes of the Erotic was a great analysis of how the process of arousing our erotic sensibilities was an AMAZING tool in learning to be revolutionary and caring for our selves.
IT’s easier to skip that step.
SO it takes two women from Murka being raped before our government pretends to begin caring about violation of human beings. Should we guess how many Iraqi women have been raped? No, let’s not do that.
“This Is My Home” is a documentary about the fight for public housing in New Orleans. Most of the city’s public housing withstood the hurricane with little or no damage, yet thousands of families are still shut out of their homes and remain displaced across the country. “This Is My Home” is a tribute to the perseverance of the displaced residents of New Orleans, and it is a call to action for the public, politicians, and all justice-minded people to support their right to return home.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In normal times, redevelopment of public housing to make way for mixed-income neighborhoods might have gone largely unopposed. But passions are high in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, where residents are desperate for cheap housing.
You don’t fight rape by enjoying sex more, just as you don’t fight eating disorders by enjoying starving, binging, or vomiting (or even eating in and of itself) more. They’re both symptoms of other problems, and the solution here proposed is not only so far from incomplete as to be a joke in its phrasing, it borders on the insulting to the many people who have already worked hard at empowering female sexuality and been rejected by the mainstream feminists. Why reinvent the wheel? Well, if it was invented by a bunch of queer women of color and of all sorts of sizes and shapes, you can bet Feministing will find some flat-stomached white women can ‘invent’ their own, Jen Sincero style.
Great roundup! Thanks, Sylvia.
Thank you, Sylvia, for the mention in your roundup. I appreciate your links to my blog.
Thanks for the links Sylvia, I’m especially interested in that last one, I think I have a big ass post to write in the next couple days…
Pretty!!
No seriously, great roundup, Sylvia, lots of meaty stuff beyond the colorful layout. Though I do like the touch of razzle dazzle.
Yes! Wonderful roundup.
a cheer for the razzle dazzle! we have important fights and ideas to kick around, but we like to be pretty while we do it!
I hadn’t seen these. Thanks for including me in this round-up, Sylvia. I’m going to check out all of these links.