colored queer waters

mofo-ehmo: 100 Years of Black Film

Sat, 25 May 2013 22:17:58 -0500

mofo-ehmo:

100 Years of Black Film

i’m watching the sex and the city movie its at the part where jennifer hudson’s...

Sat, 25 May 2013 21:49:09 -0500

i’m watching the sex and the city movie

its at the part where jennifer hudson’s character is leaving because she got engaged

and carrie is all like “what will i do without out you?”

i just wanna yell at the t.v “live bitch! go back to a world where there wasn’t a drop of color until you needed a black shoulder to lean on and some basic ass advice!”

if your life somehow managed to function without having any people of color before, you’ll fucking keep on living after the one who makes a guest appearance finally leaves

she didn’t give you any special or significant advice that you couldn’t have found in a pocket quote book at barnes and noble

its bad enough black woman get pigeonholed into those sort of roles in movies like this

but when a main white character just has to ask “what will i do now that you’re leaving me?”

i just wanna scream

Woolwich suspect's friend arrested after appearing on Newsnight

Sat, 25 May 2013 21:26:02 -0500

Woolwich suspect's friend arrested after appearing on Newsnight:

Man detained after claiming on television that Michael Adebolajo was tortured in Kenya and harassed by MI5 agents

i just power cleaned my room while listening to the itunes version of my twerkin for divine...

Sat, 25 May 2013 21:15:23 -0500

i just power cleaned my room while listening to the itunes version of my twerkin for divine liberation playlist

i dusted a corner of my room, swept and mopped the floor, recycled a bunch of papers

chucked out the ayn rand

and a good portion of the new age/hippie dippie/appropriative white people “spirituality” books

my nose is on fire from kicking up so much dust

but it was totally worth it

tqpinkmoscatomuse: Trans in America Mixtape This video was...

Sat, 25 May 2013 20:34:35 -0500

tqpinkmoscatomuse:

Trans in America Mixtape

This video was initially a component of a larger project that discussed quotidian transphobia, the challenges of addressing it, and the possibilities for a more egalitarian society. By stringing together a series of quotes and clips of trans-people speaking about their experiences, American hostility towards transgender identities, and self-acceptance, this video seeks to raise awareness about transgender history in the US.

The “Trans in America Mixtape” seeks to disrupt notions that suggest that history is linear or tending towards progress. It also seeks to combat the white-washed queer histories and stories that ignore the synergistic oppressions faced by queer people of color and poor queer people, specifically those who identify as transgender. Granted, all voices are not heard and the voices heard in this video are overwhelmingly feminine-identified individuals or/and women. This is not meant to be an end all be all, or a sole representation of trans-people, rather it is intended to open a dialogue. This project also attempts to carve out a space for telling history through multimedia that is both engaging and accessible.

COMMENTARY: Remembering Sakia Gunn, a homophobic murder that went largely unreported

Sat, 25 May 2013 19:43:36 -0500

COMMENTARY: Remembering Sakia Gunn, a homophobic murder that went largely unreported :

Untold numbers of hate crimes against LGBTQ people of color not only go unreported in mainstream papers, but they rarely see the light of day in queer ones as well.

derica: Panel Discussion: Zina Saro-Wiwa, Awam Ampka, Mahen...

Sat, 25 May 2013 18:51:33 -0500

derica:

Panel Discussion: Zina Saro-Wiwa, Awam Ampka, Mahen Bonnetti and Claudia Cairlman, 2010

Topics include: a Nigerian film aesthetic; a wider black African aesthetic; Nollywood and the aesthetics of African cinema; the future of African cinema

Changes In DSM-5: Racism Can Cause PTSD Similar To That Of Soldiers After War

Sat, 25 May 2013 18:05:58 -0500

Changes In DSM-5: Racism Can Cause PTSD Similar To That Of Soldiers After War:

computerblu:

nezua:

Updates to the recently released DSM-5 could potentially transform how race-based traumas are diagnosed in ethnic minorities.

finally we are seeing PTSD in the context of everyday life. not everyone is a soldier, so basing all research around vets is not useful to most of the population, tho this is how PTSD is almost always talked about. and as this article makes clear (and what many of us already knew), trauma in this culture needs no bombs to scar you. this is a promising sign, because of that.

unfortunately it means if a new category or criteria are codified in the treatment field via DSM, you’ll be medicated and such, if diagnosed. not society. you will carry the stigma of what others have done to you through their own racism with another (or first) diagnosis); the doctor is NOT going to go out and diagnose society and make it change. which is what would really help.

on the other hand, if you need treatment for PTSD and have had a hard time convincing the therapist of why, this will give some added data to support you. so it’s a tiny step, but a good one.

As interesting as the term “racial battle fatigue” is, I’m just going to flash a yellow warning sign here. The move to diagnose people, especially people who experience emotional and spiritual consequences from racial violence, seems dangerous. The medical industry and our culture in general tends to pathologize people and medicalize their efforts to survive through violence, instead of seriously attending to the political context of injury.

I mean, as the article notes, PTSD is most often associated with soldiers — and that diagnosis hasn’t exactly transformed the way we handle medical support for veterans and people on active duty, military culture, and, of course, war.

But besides the fact that it’s unlikely to have the effect that I think people would hope it would, employing the medical industrial complex to “diagnose” us into showing that racism is a real, valid thing that causes actual injury ignores how it is itself a major system that helps operationalize and normalize racial violence.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t go to their therapists if that works for them, but I’m saying, as always, there’s a larger, messier, more devastating context here.

my thoughts on the march against monsanto rally in Chicago

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:19:00 -0500

so i met up with maiqilai in downtown chicago for the march against monsanto rally. we honestly didn’t wind up staying that long. after standing in the cold for forty minutes listening to speeches and what not we decided to leave and go to a nearby Native Foods Cafe.

at Native Foods we couldn’t help but arrive at the same conclusion “how does a rally have signs advocating for banning monsanto and down with monsanto, yet the speeches we heard focused exclusively on labeling GMO products so consumers can make informed choices, never actually mentioning banning monsanto?”

we heard speech after speech about how we need to pressure Illinois lobbyists to create legislation around labeling GMO products. essentially labeling GMO products was the emphasis of the rallying cry.

fundamentally, it was disappointing.

I wasn’t surprised. I am deeply skeptical when middle and upper middle class white people mobilize around anything anymore. the same apprehensions about Occupy Wallstreet and the abject refusal to adopt anti-racist, decolonial rheotoric bubbled to the surface.

except this time i was standing in the freezing cold listening to how the big solution to a corporate agri-business giant like Monsanto was to label foods so consumers “can make an informed choice” about the foods they consume.

the people speaking at march for monsanto are right in that people should be able to make informed decisions.

but informed decisions alone don’t dismantle superpowers like Monsanto within a capitalist structure like the U.S political system and economy

informed decisions about the consumption of GMOS doesn’t guarantee that once people are “informed” they will have the class and race privilege to access alternatives. organic food isn’t’ grown everywhere, isn’t made accessible everywhere and to everyone.

informed decisions……..i’m sorry but lobbying the same government that just sold your right to healthy food by the pesticide ridden pound to the highest bidder is a joke. we’re really going to ask the U.S government to create holistic and well intentioned standards for determining what gets labeled a GMO products and what doesn’t for the purposes of informed and then by default “ethical” consumption? our government has demonstrated its preference for profits over people. how many more times are you going to keep organizing movements under the assumption that they really care about you?

its like yeah, label foods GMO or not GMO. and in the meantime, for all the fundraising March Against Monsanto is doing towards their cause they can put it towards

create collective funds so underserved communities can get grant money to buy plots of land and start community gardens that belong to that community
create a free database of farmers markets, co-ops, grocery stores that don’t stock monsanto (in more than just rich white areas)
lobby state governments to include incentives for SNAP/food stamps users to shop at farmers markets and organic grocery stores
lobby the federal government to increase the amount of money given to people on food stamps across the board so its a living amount and people are able to buy non-GMOs if they want
and if lobbying the government doesn’t work create locally owned and operated non-GMO food banks which give out healthy food while employing community members
do teach ins around the writings of Vandana Shiva and other authors with decolonial, anti-racist, anti-classicist food justice praxis

like there are far better community oriented solutions than just demanding a label on products for the purpose of “informed consumption”

demanding a label is the least we can ask for when it comes to our food. the absolute very least

rehearsing—-interaction: Reasons being a cranky, socially...

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:13:43 -0500

rehearsing—-interaction:

Reasons being a cranky, socially awkward/anxious person who hates going to bars and clubs does not help: Missing the chance to see CARMEN FUCKIN’ CARRERA perform at a party hosted by the LGBT organization you do outreach for. >_< Other DC area and non DC area peeps please go to La Fiesta and various other Latino Pride events. Do it for those that can’t. ;~;

"The story of progress up from slavery is a lie, the longest lie. The story of progress up from..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:27:08 -0500

“The story of progress up from slavery is a lie, the longest lie. The story of progress up from slavery is told juridically in the form of the rule of law. Slavery is the rule of law. And slavery is death.”

- Perfecting Slavery by Anthony Paul Farley

lines like this be killing me. do you know how much depth there is in those 4 sentences. like really…????? ugh.
(via strugglingtobeheard)

Soy fe@ y content@: Privilege

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:22:30 -0500

Soy fe@ y content@: Privilege:

trannypowah:

I’ve been seeing a spate of middle-class white trans people (women and men) starting “transition fundraisers” or “surgery fundraisers” because their health insurance denied them. I see this and I just fume, because I barely have the money I need to support my family, let alone…

thepeoplesrecord: “I can’t believe this is even a thing” of the...

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:40:17 -0500

thepeoplesrecord:

“I can’t believe this is even a thing” of the day”: Community furious over Bronx bus company’s ‘Ghetto’ tour
May 20, 2013

A bus company that bills one of its tours as a real-life ride through an actual inner-city ghetto has been packing the seats, as tourists from Europe and Australia have flocked for the up-close-and-personal glimpse into one of America’s crime-ridden areas.

The Real Bronx Tours offers the trip three times a week, billing it as “a ride through a real New York City ‘GHETTO,’ ” complete with stops at food-pantry lines and “pickpocket” park, The New York Post reported.

The tour is $45, The Post said.

A sampling of stops: Tour guide Lynn Battaglia singles out a housing project, before idling nearby a historic church and citing crime and poverty statistics from the South Bronx in 1970, The Post reported. Then on to East 140th Street, where Ms. Battaglia gives a history of the word “pig” as a reference to police officer.

“The policeman, his name is Patty, and he would walk up and down that street, and if he ran into an alcoholic, he’d beat them mercilessly,” she said, in The Post. “So they’d call him ‘Patty the Pig.’ “

Other sources actually say the reference to cops as pigs began in London in 1811, The Post said.

Area politicians aren’t happy with the theme of the tour.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz called the guide “the biggest fool on the planet,” in The Post. “They should tell people about The Bronx that we all know, and that’s The Bronx that’s had the lowest crime rate since 1963 last year. To have foreigners come and gawk at a long line of people who are less fortunate than they are and to make money off of that … is pretty disgusting.”

Source

TW: Rape, Sexual Violence anarcho-queer: ‘Hero Cop’ Charged...

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:53:00 -0500

TW: Rape, Sexual Violence

anarcho-queer:

‘Hero Cop’ Charged with Raping Two Women at Gunpoint

According to several reports coming out of Philadelphia, a former “hero cop” who was once rewarded for his bravery in the line of duty with a seat next First Lady Michelle Obama during a presidential speech is being held on $60 million bail (apparently one of the highest in Philadelphia history) for allegedly raping two women at gunpoint, among some other pretty terrible things.

Richard DeCoatsworth, a 27-year-old former police officer who attended President Obama’s first congressional address in 2009, has been charged with more than 32 crimes in three cases, including a domestic violence incident back on May 9 when he allegedly assaulted his live-in girlfriend. The most recent reports of stomach-churning violence from the ex-cop, however, claim that DeCoatsworth forced two women to take drugs and perform sexual acts on him.

NBC10’s account of DeCoatsworth’s misdeeds is fairly brutal, so be prepared:

A source tells NBC10 former officer Richard DeCoatsworth, 27, met one of the women at a bar on North Front Street two weeks ago, then forced her into prostitution at a Days Inn hotel along Roosevelt Boulevard.

Between 2 a.m. Thursday and Friday evening, DeCoatsworth went to the woman’s home along North Howard Street in the Fishtown-Kensington.

Once he arrived, DeCoatsworth forced that woman and a second woman, both in their 20s, to use drugs and perform oral sex on him at gunpoint, according to the source. The alleged victims reported the assault Friday only after DeCoatsworth went home, according to police.

Police raided DeCoatsworth’s house on the 2700 block of Salmon Street in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday. He was charged with rape, sexual assault, terroristic threats and related offenses. Police also confiscated drugs and guns from the home, according to a source. No word yet on what kind of drugs were removed from the home.

Bail has been set at $25 million for each of the victims in the rape cases. Another $10 million in bail was added for the May 9 domestic abuse, bringing DeCoatsworth’s grand bail total to a staggering $60 million, reportedly one of the largest in the long, sordid history of Philadelphia crime.

News of DeCoatsworth’s arrest didn’t come as a surprise to at least one of his neighbors, who, on the condition of anonymity, described him to NBC10 as “a thorn in the side of the neighborhood for so long.” Since his 2007 hero-making incident when (as a rookie officer) he chased after a suspect who shot him in the face, DeCoatsworth has had what one might charitably call a history of violence: in April 2009, his gun reportedly “went off” while he was assaulted trying to disperse a crowd, killing the suspect who assaulted him, and in September 2009, after stopping a motorcyclist, DeCoastworth and a fellow officer shot and wounded a second man who jumped on the motorcycle and allegedly drove at them (local witnesses claimed that the two suspects did nothing wrong).

In 2011, Internal Affairs investigated an alleged physical confrontation between DeCoatsworth and another officer. Later that year, DeCoatsworth retired from the police force on disability.

Summer Spotlight #1: Project Fierce Chicago: How can I Help?

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:07:01 -0500

Summer Spotlight #1: Project Fierce Chicago: How can I Help?:

marchoftigers:

EVERYONE IN THE #pocinneed TAG:

Please help signal boost the article in this link! It pertains vital information for Fierce Chicago’s Community Housing initiative, and I’d appreciate it if the word got out a bit.

She Governs Herself: ♡ (A)POC all weekend ! ♡

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:20:26 -0500

She Governs Herself: ♡ (A)POC all weekend ! ♡:

xcedarxsmoke:

Anarchist People of Colour and Indigenous People at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair

facebook event

Join us for a series of workshops, tables, panels, and potlucks, organized by an informal network of anarchist and anti-authoritarian people of colour! These events…

femmedreamboat: TW: Talk of intimate partner violence,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:33:40 -0500

femmedreamboat:

TW: Talk of intimate partner violence, abuse.

For Ursula: Writing Black Femmes Back into Radical Queer Community by Cyree Jarelle Johnson at the 2013 Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference, Amherst MA.

thenationmagazine: We talked with Kalpona Akter, the executive...

Sat, 25 May 2013 10:47:07 -0500

thenationmagazine:

We talked with Kalpona Akter, the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, about how American consumers can best pressure US corporations to protect workers abroad. Read the full interview here.

GPOY: on my way to the March for Monsanto in Chicago

Sat, 25 May 2013 10:25:00 -0500

GPOY: on my way to the March for Monsanto in Chicago

going to the chicago march against monsanto today with maiqilai today

Sat, 25 May 2013 08:40:33 -0500

i haven’t been to a demonstration in Chicago since i went to anti-war protests in high school. my joint problems have made it hard for me to stand for long periods of time and then subsequently walk a long distance. but i’ve been relaxing so much i think i’m up for it today.

i’m hoping to meet and network with other folks of color who are interested in food justice, food justice goings on in chicago for when i visit or ever decide to live here in the future

and i’m praying its not swimming with white folks with no race/class analysis to why they are against Monsanto. I’m not interested in hearing middle and upper class white people bitch about how their nearby whole foods have been infiltrated with genetically modified organisms and NOW they’re magically upset about GMOs.

but we’ll see