So today, in mentoring, we had racial profiling. The coalition of Indian dudes had been sent by the TA to retrieve some mentees. In the halls, a rumor started- that there were thugs roaming the halls! The school nurse freaked out, even though she was assured that the young men were merely mentoring people after school. One of the guys was like "Was it my Bob Marley shirt?" Luckily, our teachers assured him that the nurse was a douche.

Here's a messed up story. At anime club, this guy tried to use the restroom, but the door was locked. We couldn't think of a satisfactory way to explain this, so the matter was dropped. A few weeks later, I was sitting around in gay history class. We were talking about the Atlanta Public library raid back in the 50s. Suddenly this guy busts out about how people who have sex in public bathrooms should be locked up with the key thrown away because that made the bathroom a sexually predatory space. We all looked at our teacher, who explained to us that one of the bathroom in the building I have anime club in was used as a tearoom for guys on the down low(ok, she didn't say 'down low' but we all knew what she meant.). So yea, that's messed up, and that's why men can't pee during anime club. So the moral of the story is to not be homophobic or else weird people will come and suck dick in your public bathrooms.

Finally, Princess Peach gets her own game. While the princess, and Zelda have gotten ass kicking time in the Super Smash Brothers series, I would have totally played Super Princess Peach back in the day. I had to be satisfied with Final Fantasy 6(ok, it was called 3 back then), with the asskicking Terra and Celes..

In other news, feminste linked to a website about how Planned Parenthood is suffering from lack of funding.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive. I don't know, in my understanding, it seems too easy. We inside ourselves may see ourselves in the five policemen, the kid who spreads lies so easily, or even the politician who writes death dealing laws. That's all very well and good, but in reality, our oppressors will see our forgiveness, and tell themselves that what they are doing is right- the self delusion is simply that strong.

We'll gain clarity- but how would that affect people who refuse to hear our voices saying "I forgive you"? I simply am not sure if I can trust people who hate us so much to really see our forgiveness at all.

I didn't go to any classes today due to my oversleeping,sore throat,and some class cancellation on the teacher's part. So here's a stupidly complicated way of playing rock paper scissors.

I made miso stew with carrots and salmon for dinner. I feel less sick, but I'm still a bit hungry. I seem to need a lot of fat to be full. It's terrible. Also I got a 4.5 on the essay section and am haunted by the idea of my recommendation forms and envelopes languishing under piles of papers on a desk.

Look! Aquarium pictures. I had fun, but I overexerted myself, and I really want to do takeout today. While I was out playing, Octavia Butler died. While it's not possible to replace her, let's work hard to honor her work by writing many more great stories, and reading a greater variety of work that covers more issues than the narrow Eurocentric fantasy/sci fi that is often pushed as the only stuff available.

Because she lived, she was able to give us a different and more considered view of the future. Because she lived, she was able to give many people the courage to write. She is one of my personal heroes, although I've never met her. I would urge people who are not familiar with her work to try it. Maybe in her honor, we should redouble our efforts to create more outlets for people of color in speculative fiction. Our voices are ready to be heard.

ETA: Here's an article with more information on this saddening event. More on this from the Woman of Color Blog.

I have to admit I really like SuperS. Yea, it's weird with the whole a girl and her horse bit, not to mention the weird subtext with the Amazon Trio's attacks- why are their victims only those they are attracted too? Also, what's with the crying and screaming? Not to mention, once Sailor Chibi Moon 'charges' them with sexual assault- what are they teaching kids nowadays? But the Amazon Trio themselves are fun, because the writers have fun with the prissy, manipulative Fish Eye, the selfish lady killer Tigers Eye and of course, Hawk's Eye whose favorite tactic is the sob story. Of course, I like how none of the characters dream of being a CEO or anything. It's always like "Oh, I want to fix a car" or "I make tasty stew!" This is extremely in contrast to real life, in which if you said your dream was to make tasty lunchboxes, you'd be laughed at. But since only a few people can get phds, become doctors or even get married(I in particular am doomed to be alone), the rest of us are screwed in reality, so yea, there's escapism.

What Not to Do While in the Military.(NSFW) More info.

Oh yea, and the Radical Women of Color blog carnival is linked at blogcarnivals.com. Also, what's the best book about African Muslim women you have ever read? Non fiction is best, but hey, I'll take anything. Thanks to this post, I found an old song that I had almost forgotten about in a version which is totally great.

Black history facts I learned in AA Lit: Nella Larsen got a Guggenheim fellowship. William Attaway wrote The Banana Boat Song(Day Oh). Gwendolyn Brooks earned a Pulitzer Prize and was generally awesome. Unrelated to black history: Both of Lil Jon's parents are professors. Dave Chappelle's mother helped set up a black studies department.

At the risk of being late to the aquarium, I'll say this: yes, the insistence on civility *is* a silencing tactic. Among others- accept without question what a white, or male person says, but expect people of color and women to have higher standards of evidence, don't allow people of color or women to react against obvious lies, like 'women who have abortion are sluts who hate babies' or black people steal white people's 'spots'- expect a small careful civil debunking of every single little lie, no matter how obvious, let anti feminist men and women have the last word on sexism or white people define what racism is- even if they haven't studied race one bit! Excuse racism as the problem of a 'minority' contrary to fact, or sexism as the problem of those savages over there. Due to these tactics, white liberals/ liberal men(and woman hating women) can think they are good people, while also having fun by helping oppression along.

This post exemplifies why I am slightly addicted to older men. I don't want to hang out. I certainly don't like hooking up. Friends with benefits? Do I look like a sorostitute to you? I have *some* self esteem,k,thx. I want structure. I don't want ambiguity and wiggle room. I don't want to be the girl who slaps a guy in the face because she isn't *really* his g/f. Or the girl who doesn't get the call or the girl who is casually thrown aside the minute something else comes along.

The record set straight about Andrea Dworkin.

Race *and* babies? I'm so on this story.

I got to see Damali Ayo today and it was awesome. I have so much to say, but I feel crappy so this may not be organized. I did get a book signed, but was too shy to say much about it, and also someone else is doing art called apologies from the white race which I got to see after the talk was over. The performance was so cathartic to me, because it simply was in good space. Here is someone admitting that people touch her hair and do that whole compare arms things. Here is someone who is also outraged when people say there's no racism in their town.(Afterwards I was eating Emory's great catering, ok, it was for Taiwanese night, but it was still good, and some girls were talking about this guy who was like there's no racism in Mexico because no one asks my race).

Damali had been working in the schools all day before this, and shocking the kids. I think the best part of the performance was the visual art- for example, the picture for 'remember, you represent your entire race' had a black woman giving an X symbol with her arms and the white woman's posture was complementary to that. I also like how she finds linkages in her work- whether it's from seeing that the blue she chose for her race cards was the same blue that they use for American flags to being able to understand how wide blackness really is.

Basically, it was simply a great eye opening show. I liked the five minutes of white history, and also the panhandling for reparations part. (It ended in interracial hugging). There were so many highlights that I can't categorize them all- I do admit that I was amused by two Asian kids and their black friend posing with the my new black friend background- the thumbs up and pointing made the funny, there. Well, the point is that damali is awesome and you should all go to her stuff and read her stuff. I think I might even wear green pantyhose with purple. She really pulled that off. She's my new hero, but not only for the fashion tip. Oh yea, and apparently the quotes from rent-a-negro are real. Also, she said I was so cute. She's so amazing I was barely annoyed. I also *need* a I love all the white people in Atlanta shirt.

Michael Eric Dyson writes *fast*- good ol' Colbert plays the annoying white guy as Michael Eric Dyson talks about Katrina, race, and his new book.

Free event, w00t!

The whole point of the partiarchy is to define beauty. By beauty, I mean that unerring standard with so little wiggle room- you must be tall, , white(or at least not too ‘ethnic’), thin(and no, having hips and thighs and a thin torso doesn’t *count*), have straight hair(maybe curly but not too much, certainly never nappy!), wear makeup every day, wear impractical clothes and shoes, have a thin nose, not be too dark, not have hair except for on your head(oh, and your head hair has to be long too!) and the whole shebang.

I hate that *standard* because it’s got a lot of rules and takes up a lot of time, and many of the provisions are impossible for me to reach, and yet I’m still evaluated by this crazy standard for no good reason.

<---I hate comments stuck in moderation, so I'll post it here.

From Mamita Mala:

The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fundraising. Please send your books to:

Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112
We all should get in on this. I wonder if it's ok to send books from amazon to the library...

Shannon still can't draw.

Today at mentoring we had like twenty pizzas because of a mixup about picking up the pizzas. Also, our mentoring was in disarray. Before the mentoring started, there had been a fight between two girls who weren't in our program. To make this more upsetting for the girls, according to some people, the officer who broke up the fight slammed the girls on the ground, handcuffed them and pulled one of the girls' hair. One of our mentees, the cousin of one of the girls who were fighting, felt that she wanted to fight the other girl, and one of the mentors tried to talk her out of it, but perhaps this was unsuccessful. Also, apparently the facilitators didn't know the rules of the trust game that had been proposed, so we didn't get to that.

Anyway, when we went to the classroom, we had a different one than the one that we had earlier. The classroom was much friendlier than the other- instead of desks there were large tables, one of which was being used to store art supplies. On one of the white boards, there was a poem by e.e. cummings with the label 'concrete poem by e.e. cummings'. Also, on the window was a random poem, and on the ceiling was a cheery drawing of a road and flowers labeled writer's block. On the top of a shelf near the window with the poem were colorful biographies of Toni Morrison and Nikki Giovanni.

It was very nice, but the video we watched about charter school kids marching in lines and signing contracts made me go to sleep. Zzzz..

My gay history paper is all done but the editing, so I was able to take a break between it and my community psych response paper, and read about how stupid yahoo is. Oh yea, and now that I'm a 1/4th through with my psych paper, does anyone know how to put pdfs for download on your blog?

GEH, Protein Wisdom is having problems so here is a comment I meant to post but couldn't:

In fact, black imprints are publishing at huge rates and showing tremendous sell through. That's actually the crux of the problem. I personally do not feel comfortable about being represented by someone who is ignorant of my experience. In TV, and in the movies, there are very few representations of the black experience that are truly owned by black people. So the same stereotypes tend to be reproduced, and basically, it's boring.

This issue did not come up in a vaccuum, with hypotheticals and what ifs and suchlike as some may believe. There's a long history of white representation of blacks in demeaning and insulting ways- stretching from minstrel shows to the rap videos of today(who watches that stuff? white people.) Thus, there is a market and a desire to have your experience represented by someone who has undergone at least a part of your experience.

Maybe in a perfect world where whites are not so deeply ignorant of black people, or in the hands of a master who can write about anyone so realistically that it doesn't matter, we wouldn't have an AA lit section. But if wishes were fishes, we'd all have a nice fish fry. Not to mention, sometimes I'm tired about hearing about white folk or reading from the white point of view. Most of the books in 'fiction' are that way, and yea, sometimes I don't feel like digging through them to discover a new black author. With the advent of the internet, it's become easier, but sometimes I like impulse buys.

Oh yea, and a black author discusses this. I don't get why a non black person thinks they can't go into the AA lit section, or read books about other cultures in general. I read about India, Egypt, Nigeria, Nepal, China, Europe, white folks from America in books all the time, and I can relate, and my head, in fact, does not explode.

The real story of Glory Road is more complex and difficult than Hollywood protrays it as. We need movies representing things more like they really happened, and less like they were supposed to happen.

On a white board near the dorm kitchen I noticed this message "Drunk girls who come and write random shit are only good for passing around Pike[i.e. a frat with a bad rep who has been kicked off campus] Anyway, I erased the last part. If you guys see any misogynist or pro rape culture messages, please erase them or put something else on top of them.

3.4, but my paper is still muddled. I turned it in anyway, since a paper that is muddled is better than no paper.

2.6. It seems like I need to go and eat something to improve productivity.

I'm skipping class to work on my paper(I only have 2 pages and I need at least 3) If you wonder why I blog instead of diving into my work with no distractions- it's only the distractions that make it possible for me to work, it's better to crank out a few sentences than be frozen completely in fear. Oh yea, and uh..Iraq.

Tigtog reposted this on the comments of this pandagon post. If you're a male, or a woman who would risk being caught in a men's restroom(sorry, I have hangups about embarrassment), could you post this in a men's restroom?
Good post, and it deserves a repost of what many will have already seen:

RAPE PREVENTION ADVICE FOR MEN

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don’t rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.

If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching tv, don’t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.
If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.

If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and It’s your turn, don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.

Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.

Don’t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.
Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.
Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.
Don’t perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

It seems that kids are being prevented from getting free tutoring. Who plans these things, anyway?

Here's a good poem. I simply can't write my paper. I have the worst writer's block I've had in my life. Not to mention the nausea.

Thanks for the creepiness, guys. There's something creepily patriarchal about all this, but I'm not sure what it is.

I've found a new white wing lie. Here's a comment from this post on the Olympic hero Shani Davis:

This thread reminds me of something I heard at Home Depot.

I was in the paint department and heard a young black employee telling a white employee what had happened to him earlier in the day. A couple black guys he knew confronted him at work and berated him for having a regular job. That's similar to what happens to some black high school students when they do well in school - they are berated for "acting white." I've heard that some good black students even hide the fact that they are getting good grades because otherwise they would be harrassed.

I don't know what the solution to all this is and, because I am white, I don't pretend to understand it completely. But it looks to me as though social pressure from some blacks is preventing other blacks from reaching their full potential.

As long as people are acting in a responsible manner, they should not be harrassed by others.

So we see the 'acting white' (i.e. black kids are too lazy to achieve in school) lie has mutated. Now us black people are so lazy we don't want to have jobs. That's pretty *convenient*,eh? The lie about the schools is debunked here, and I'm going to post the full article in case they put it behind a wall later:

When Bill Cosby spoke out publicly in May against dysfunction and irresponsibility in black families, he identified one pervasive symptom: ''boys attacking other boys because the boys are studying and they say, 'You're acting white.''' This idea isn't new; it was first proposed formally in the mid-80's by John Ogbu, a Nigerian professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, and it has since become almost a truism: when smart black kids try hard and do well, they are picked on by their less successful peers for ''acting white.''

The only problem with this theory, according to a research paper released in October, is that for the most part, it isn't true. Karolyn Tyson, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and William Darity Jr., an economist at Duke and U.N.C., coordinated an 18-month ethnographic study at 11 schools in North Carolina. What they found was that black students basically have the same attitudes about achievement as their white counterparts do: they want to succeed, understand that doing well in school has important consequences in later life and feel better about themselves the better they do.

So where does the idea of the burden of ''acting white'' come from? One explanation the authors offer will make sense to anyone who has ever seen a John Hughes movie: there's an ''oppositional peer culture'' in every high school -- the stoners and the jocks making fun of the nerds and the student-government types. When white burnouts give wedgies to white A students, the authors argue, it is seen as inevitable, but when the same dynamic is observed among black students, it is pathologized as a racial neurosis.

More insidiously, the authors say, the idea that failing black kids pull down successful black kids can be used as an excuse by administrators to conceal or justify discrimination in the public-education system. The one school where the researchers did find anxiety about ''acting white'' was the one in which black students were drastically underrepresented in the gifted-and-talented classes. And significantly, at this particular school, the notion of the burden of ''acting white'' was most pervasive not among the black students interviewed by the researchers, but among their teachers and administrators, who told researchers that blacks are ''averse to success'' and ''don't place a high value on education.''


Note, I'm less likely to believe stuff like this because I was teased by blacks, whites, and maybe the occasional Asian for being a nerd. This sort of mutation of the untrue and cruel lies about black people is why I say you can not ignore them. If they are undebunked, they spread like a cancer.

Such cute lunchboxes. I am going to hell,though, for being like "heart shaped pepperonis? Staying at home? I bet her husband is rich."* Ok, now that I've stopped being a bad feminist, oh, look how cute it all is!


*Even though I'm middle class, having a stay at home mom still has the same connotation that say, having a maid, does. i.e. you're way richer than me. Apologies to people who are poor but somehow have a nonworkoutsidethehome mom.

Ok, it seems that blogger works now. So in tribute, there's no dick. I need to get less work, so I can get more dick. Yea, I'm a slow writer if there's a bunch of rules about being organized and like signposts or whateverthefuck that stupid shit is. Oh yea, and if I have to write about a dumb topic like twoness or whatever the fuck I'm supposed to be writing on. I'm tempted to give it all up for dead and write a comic about why an ipod is a necessity for life.

I feel like I need to ask stuff of random internet strangers. Random people of the internet, should I post an ad for my business on craigslist? I'm thinking of boycotting as I don't want to seem like I endorse acting like an asshole about the whole fair housing lawsuit.

This lawsuit will likely be dismissed as groundless, but more importantly the craigslist community will be recognized for its exemplary record in promoting fair housing for all, while fully respecting each person's constitutional right to free speech and free association.

What's with the whole 'free speech' thing? It's on my list of code words now. Also, I'm certain 'free association' has been used as a code word for a long time, for 'we don't want to associate with you n words"

Though possibly well-intentioned, this lawsuit ignores the essential nature of craigslist, demanding that we cease treating our users with trust and respect, and instead impose inappropriate, mistake-prone, and generally counter-productive centralized controls (such as manual review by our staff of the nearly 2 million free housing ads of unlimited length posted each month, a volume of ads greater than that received by all US newspapers combined), controls which would actually be less effective in catching discriminatory ads than what we have in place currently, and which would vastly reduce the number of legitimate non-discriminatory ads that the site could process.

So you can't simply have a filter that tosses out ads that say NO MINORITIES or white family wanted from your housing site? If you really care about fair housing, you don't say you're committed to it- you actually commit to it. If you don't care, fine, if you're just a venue, fine, but don't insult everyone's intelligence with BS like this:

Ironically, if this lawsuit were to succeed the net effect would be to deal multiple blows to everyone's hard won civil rights - by significantly reducing access to equal opportunity housing, by undercutting our fundamental free speech rights, and by intruding on important privacy rights - thereby doing a great disservice to the very persons these lawyers purport to represent

If you have a site with all actual equal opportunity housing, that would reduce the amount of equal opportunity housing? Yea right. the free speech thing is BS- advertising is subject to regulation. Privacy? Don't make me laugh. Basically, he could have argued his point without all these stupid fig leaves. Ebay does the whole 'we're only a venue' thing without acting like idiots, although they have submitted to some FCC regulations, I believe.

OMG, Hare Nochi Guu!!! Also, a very large clue about Guam. Also, blackfolk take on white privilege. I am soooo tempted to sell buttons saying "too many crackas, not enough white people". Yes, I know I'm evil,k,thx. In more news, there's crazy mess on TV.

Life tips: it's more comfortable to wear a thong while riding a stationary bike. Also, assign your tasks a random number and do the one that comes up. Also, apparently if you allow yourself to have a goof off day, it'll make you not want retail therapy. I have to read The Slave Girl now.

I wish my printer worked, so I could stick this stuff around. I'd boycott hotels if I had the money to stay in one.

Pinko Feminist Hellcat gives us all a clue on the Danish cartoons things, and I'm going to randomly go off on a rant, here,ok? Nothing annoys me more than the whole 'white people can't be expected to be decent people or get the same information that people with a whole lot less resources have' thing. What's up with that? I don't get it. I've seen white people turn out learned books on racism, so it's not like white people are biologically unable to say "Hey! There's a difference between the time that black kid beat me up for insulting his sister, and hundreds of years of racism and daily racial insults towards people of color!" And as for the idea that the information is hard to get- if any white person is on the internet and doesn't know the basic facts about say, whether Martin Luther King Jr was FOR black people or FOR white people(difficulty: he was black and led many blacks in marching in the streets for rights whites didn't want them to have), well, that's their own damn fault.

We need to shift the 'your own damn fault' thing to the people who deserve it. For example, many black kids at my high school were shortchanged because of a racist tracking system. Most whites would think this was their own damn fault, but somehow magically miss the fact that they vote in the idiots who think this stuff is a good idea! Seriously, we have the people sitting on top of the 'hierarchy' here, as far as money and politicians paying attention to them, and somehow, magically, they can't vote for schools to be integrated or for anything that would improve the lot of black folks?(OK, and white folks, too- I mean really, giving people crap education isn't advancing science for you guys either)

Not to mention, they also claim that they can't say "You know, that is racist" to other white people. I've heard white people say those words in different sequences, so it's not like they can't say them. Intrepid researchers of white people, Joe Feagin and Eileen O'Brien noted that white folks would rather keep the peace with racist cobags, rather than step up to the plate. Note that it is very possible that these two people are white- but somehow they managed to notice when white guys said something racist! So I'm learning more towards it's your own damn fault if you're a racist.

And if you don't know what 'racist' means, that's your own damn fault too. We need to restore a sense of responsibility here. It's weird to me because black folks are always talking in our community about what we need to do better, but apparently to some folks, being born white means you never have to learn, grow, or say 'dude, I was a fuckup'. Like fuck that shit. I of course simply refuse to think that white folks can't be prodded into a semblance of acting decently, because seriously, that's too depressing to contemplate. I mean really, the idea of a large chunk of the population having something terribly and immutably wrong with them is pretty creepy, and I don't get why, even if it's to get out of being decent, whites would subscribe to this notion.

Ok, I ranted, but I should give this link while I remember it. The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen is amazing, and you all should read it.

WTF? The second comment here is an article. I guess we should all work harder to recruit Latinos, comment section weirdness or not. In totally unrelated news, I doodled on the internets.

Heh, bad words, but awesome stuff. Also, while brownfemipower has an interesting post, I can't wholeheartedly agree. Me and white people have a room mate effect- familiarity and the same stuff over and over build contempt and arguments. For me, well, there's other groups- but the biggest group I've interacted with are Asians, which are really a bunch of other groups, and there's not really a unified Asian ideology in my view, unlike the white ideology which I shorten as this- 'whites are better than everybody else, fuck you'. Also, the fights between us seem to be sort of subgroupings of the whole white power thing. Like white people say 'Oh, Asians are smarter' to try to bring down black folks, and yea, some Asians believe it, but it's more like a manifestion of the bigger problem. It's like that with the Hispanic workers too. Basically saying they work harder than us is just set up so we'll fight among ourselves instead of noticing who is trying to get all the power for themselves by spreading racist lies. It's like how some black people are Uncle Ruckuses- it sucks that they've internalized the idea that there's a racial hierarchy, but you know, being in the group that is always on the bottom, I also notice that one group is always on the top too(and it's not any of you other POC groups)

Oh yea, and contribute to the radical women of color carnival.

I'm pretty angry at Hugo today, for his support of the shock troops of white racial terrorism. He pulled up the old 'civility' canard, which of course, as feminists have pointed out is the defense of the white supremacist patriarchy, because white males define civility- how else could it possibly be 'civil' to compare real racism that is killing people to everyone not sucking white men's dicks? I was fairly civil considering the fact that these men were trying to push women of color out of what they had staked as 'white men's space'.

I think Hugo should be stronger about this, because just because a few women like me are strong enough to stand up to the harrassment doesn't mean that racial terrorists are not having a chilling effect on which spaces women of color can discourse in on the internet. If we can't say "Hey, some white guys said some racist stuff to me" on the net without hysterics about how oppressed white men are from the waste of flesh crowd, where can we say it? We all have an obligation to stop racism where we find it- and part of that mission is to prevent white men from crowding out discourse with their attacks on people of color who do not know their 'place'.

To allow people of color to criticize whites is yes, for them to step out of their 'place', but that place should not be allowed- it is uncivil and unfair for me to have my people slandered with lies, while whites shout down any who tell the truth about them.

Tidbits on Jim Crow, Dave Chappelle and stuff. I remember an ad for a Drawn Together where Foxy was drawn as a Jim Crow type rendering but it looked like some mess, so I didn't tune in. Here's a modern version of this art which at least self aware(see artist's statement, but it still looks like the older art at least in part. The reason why he could draw on this tradition is that we recognize it) Oh yea, and black robot and white robot.

I hate America, so I started a new blog for comics. Please enjoy my lack of talent. There are comments so you can mock my work. Now if only the phrase hegemonic masculinities didn't make me want to run away screaming...

My stomach hurts, so here is some of my schoolwork. The second article is One Drop of Blood from the New Yorker, 1994 by Lawrence Wright. I don't know how to upload pdfs so I don't know how to share it:

I think the juxtaposition of the two articles is very interesting. Peggy McIntosh’s article explains the concept of white privilege and the article about race and the census illustrates it, although indirectly. I have read the McIntosh article before, and find it very compelling. I especially enjoy McIntosh’s attempts to explain white privilege in the ways she notices them in her own life. However, I think a way to strengthen her analysis is to write in the many ways that people of color seem white privilege working in their environments. For example, we see white privilege working even in contexts such as mentoring. The fact that some of our mentees do not even have phones, something that many people in America, the richest country in the world, take for granted is not the result of accident or the moral qualities of the mothers of these young people. From my own experience, I have found that people of all cultures and ‘races’ have a mixture of different moral qualities and personality types, yet in our country, the people at the bottom, and the people who are most despised for being poor, happen to be mostly the same color. Even when many whites live in poverty, they are not the faces of poverty- so they can wear whatever clothing they like, without sneers about how their clothing is too fancy for them, and buy what food they want on their small stipends without having it scrutinized for being what some checkout clerk thinks a welfare mom should eat. Also, the stereotype of the welfare queen has a black face. When politicians want to defund our public resources, they pull from the vast pool of cultural memes about black and brown people: about how they are lazy, don’t have the same values as ‘regular’(read white) people,etc, and the people mostly fall for it.
This brings us to the second article. While sometimes having some important points on the complexity of race, it also has a few points that show the viewpoint of the author as being situated in an interesting place. For example, the article makes the argument that multiracialism is a ‘threat’ to the entrenched ‘entitlements’. This takes a very white washed view of the current situation in which the threat to more equitable treatment of people of color is that some of them may identify themselves as more than one type of person or that they might just check ‘multiracial’, which seems to me like another way to mark ‘other’, which as noted in the article, happens already. However, the real threat, which is not even mentioned in this article, which of course references the mythical huge amount of set asides, is really white resistance to the few racial set asides we have, and of course, cultural myths about black and brown people. Like note the idea that the government helping non white people based on race causes racial strife. White people have benefited from government programs like preferential treatment in housing loans and the GI Bill, but somehow that doesn’t cause racial strife. White privilege obscures the fact that racial strife is caused by the racial interpretation of events by white people and others who buy into the ideology of white supremacy, and the invisibility of the many ways the government has benefited white people. I think his argument is a red herring- we’d administer the set asides as we already do, because people of color have been multiracial for years, but people are generally comfortable checking whatever group they identify most with.
Another problem I had was that the authors were frightened of the complexity of the social construction of race instead of embracing it. Race is socially constructed, so of course it’ll change over the years. That’s why I approve of asking people their race instead of having independent observers try to guess their race or find out using ‘blood quantums’, because race is about how you identify, although it is partially ascribed. Light skinned blacks aren’t going to be able to opt out of racial discrimination just because they checked the ‘white’ box, for example. Not to mention, the idea of ‘race blindness’ is basically white privilege in action- only if you do not have to deal with problems based on your race, can you say ‘oh, let’s just not talk about race’, and think it’ll be gone. If the author had really thought about what Peggy McIntosh was saying in her white privilege article, we could have gotten somewhere, but now we merely have a slightly useful history of racial confusion afloat on a sea of insidious assumptions.

I'm tempted not to go to gay history today, although I've thrown up already. I hope I get better so I can go to mentoring, but on the other hand, the girl giving me ride might not appreciate that. This passage is from Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold.

So today in African History, we randomly got into a huge discussion of the cartoon scandal. While some guys were like blah blah blah prejudice cakes, here's the interesting parts of the discussion. One girl with short hair talked about how she went to France, and the French people acted like they weren't racist, but she was skeptical of this claim. Also, a guy who is probably a Muslim said that when all people have is their religion, and you spit on it, they get really mad. I said that maybe they are really mad about politics, and was a bit harsh on the prejudicecakes guys . For example, when one of the guys say "Well this Picasso guy got killed, I said Van Gogh" and when he was like "Well, was it in Sweden?", me and half the class said "Denmark". We also talked about the case of the woman who nearly got stoned in Nigeria. A girl from Nigeria talked about the divide between the South and the North, and how that affected things. One of the blahblahprejudicecakes guys acted like we didn't have violence against women in America, but the girl with the short hair said that wasn't true, and a girl with longer hair compared abortion clinic bombings to the excesses of Sharia law. I have to agree with that.

Nothing chaps my ass more than people acting like a bunch of white men killing women with pens and laws is somehow superior to a bunch of black men killing a woman with sticks and stones. The woman ends up dead in either case.

A black woman invented laser eye surgery. A black man helped pioneer refrigeration in trucks. Here's a website about black inventors. What does this all have in common? A white person will say these don't count, and the reason there is racism is because a little kid did a report on George Washington Carver.

Also, in the words of the 'oh so not racist', guess the racial background of this asshole cop. The reason why the NO refugees are 'wiseasses' is probably similar to the reason I'm a 'racist'- they got sick of dealing with your shit. Oh, a kid who was mentally disabled got beat up- yea, that's really reflects on all refugees- for all you know homegrown Houston kids could have beat him up. Maybe this idiot should work for folks to get resettled well instead of bitching in the newspaper. OH! That might actually WORK. Oh, so crime has gone up since hundreds of new people came into the area? Maybe you should take a statistics class, idiot. Or a logic class. This happened before this, and this happened after, so they must be related is a classic fallacy. Also, I may not be an expert in urban policing, but maybe you're not SUPPOSED to 'jack people up'? Also, why is this even in a newspaper at all? More propaganda for the war on black people?

Today's Boondocks was really random. However, I have to admit I liked how it exaggerated white privilege so we could all enjoy laughing at it. Also, yea, Bill Cosby is annoying.

Today I made miso soup. I used the first recipe here as an inspiration and used cabbage for the greens. Also, I used a package of miso cup for the miso.

This one guy linked me to this Operth concert. None too shabby.

Another post which is awesome:

[How Refreshing]to see that times haven't changed. As a dye-in-the-wool Southern BLACK man, I can remember the arrogance, ignorance, and willful stupidity of my white Southern instructors, parents, and their larvae when it comes to the Confederate Flag.

During my ninth grade year, those Confederate flag loving creatures went through the painstaking effort to LYNCH nine ravens from a tress on the outside of the school. Of course, a Confederate flag was unfurled behind their artistic creation.

Then there were the roving bands of pimply-faced, chicken-necked teenage white males who wore t-shirts with the flag in an attempt to intimidate Black students. They were no different from the Black "gang members" that my principal was so busy trying to expel.

Oh, and then there was the time that some Black students, in an effort to fight back, worse some Malcolm X t-shirts in response to the insulting t-shirts, bumper stickers, caps, and other paraphranelia that those Rednecked idiots wore on a daily basis. They were suspended for wearing "provacative, inciteful, and hateful" clothing. Never mind the fact that we were terrorized by those smug, self-satisfied-looking white boys.

They knew it was about hate.

They knew that it made us Black students feel uncomfortable and powerless.

They knew that wearing those shirts would stoke anger, hatred, and fear.

You see, my liberal white teachers were open-minded on every issue EXCEPT the Confederate flag. No -- it was a sign of HERITAGE and HISTORY -- not hate. Oh, I can recall the times where my history teacher would regale us with stories about how his great-grandfather served in the Civl War. He would show off the scabbard and sword that he used in battle. At the end of this sermon, he made sure to tell us that this war was about STATES' RIGHTS and not Slavery and he reminded us that Lincoln would have maintained slavery if it would have kept the union together (recent evidence now shows that this was a lie -- Lincoln was shot because he had the temerity to propose giving Black males the right to vote).

When I went to college, the white fraternities would hang Confederate flags from their bannisters or place the flags on their t-shirts to discourage Blacks from pledging. Sigma Chi and Kappa Sigma were the worst. And, to add insult to injury...they issued a statement in the student newspaper accusing the Black community of racism and narrow-mindedness for not participating in their activities. How ingenious!

And -- isn't it curious that most modern Confederate paraphranelia uses some of the most provocative and hateful speech? Here are some of the lovely bumper stickers I get to read when I make my daily commute to work here in Atlanta -- all of these sayings are on a Confederate flag motif:

"IF I'D KNOWN THIS WOULD HAPPEN, I'D HAVE PICKED MY OWN COTTON!" (my favorite)

"WHY APOLOGIZE FOR BEING WHITE?"

"WE MAY BE POLITICALLY INCORRECT, BUT WE VOTE"

I could go on...

The flag is about hate, not heritage. Since they can no longer legally terrorize us (overt acts of racism is frowned upon but times are changing -- the white backlash against the Civil Rights Movement has come full circle) now, they are pulling out their only trump card. It is just like the word nigger, the Confederate flag is something that we Black folks can never come up with a retort that matches it in ugliness, hatefulness, and venom. They know this. They know it causes impotent rage. That is what thrills them so.

That IS the Southern point of view; it has been this way for the past half century when they revived this despicable flag. Nothing has changed. Even Jefferson Davis, the patron saint of the South said that the flag should never be unfurled after his side lost the war.

I hate the flag and what it stands for.

I hate the poeple who wear the flag.

I hate the people who apologize for those who wear the flag and try to justify keeping it out in the open.

Displaying this flag is akin to flying a swastika and claiming that it a celebration of Indian/Aryan pride. But -- it is so American to display the flag of the loser. I mean, do the Japanese still fly the Kyokujitsu-ki? Does Germany still fly a Swastica-motif flag? I do not understand it. It is idiotic!

The people from this guy's school are all cobags. Although, I was annoyed that after our school banned Confederate flag clothing, and especially Dixie Outfitters(warning if you open that link at work, people will think you're a racist), some white people were like OMG, why are black people allowed to wear FUBU. That sort of stupidity gives the lie to the notion of white supremacy.

Now that I have time and energy to go on livejournal, I notice good posts:

The top 10 things that white people need to realize should not be up for discussion,

1. Whether Hitler was an intelligent guy.
2. Whether slavery was really that bad.
3. If black history, native american history, hispanic history and asian history months are really necessary?
4. If the confederacy and the south and the whole of America is still racist.
6. If they are racist, if they say racist things or have racist actions.
7. If they are racist if they hold onto a racist culture.
9. If saying nigger is the same as when black people do it.
10. Part of the reason the South has such a racially charged atmosphere (although maybe not as much for southern whites) is because it has tried so hard to hold onto to it's racist heritage. Instead of acknowleding it was wrong and no amount of "revisionist history" can change that.

I have had the fear of whiteness instilled in me for a lifetime, there's no fucking way, anyone could justify the confederate flag to me. Ever. No way. And there is no way that anyone could tell me that the modern South isn't still suckling from a racist confederate teet and if that person could, I can pretty much guarantee they haven't had to deal with blind white kids calling them nigger and coon and talking about their Southern history, because they think the person they're talking to is white (until they say that they are black), but I have.

I agree, except for the fear of whiteness. In my case, familiarity breeds contempt- the type that will get you put on blast. So shut the fuck up, ok? Southern heritage, my black ass. Also, tip: if you say the same idiotic things as everyone else in your group: you're in a collective. Also, you're a cobag.

Today I made this recipe, except with margarine and I put baked apples on top. 110 grams means one cup, people. I'm glad about this week's grocery bill- $4 spent on couscous,a dozen eggs,3 apples and a thing of fruit leather. Also, I want to write on the mechanisms of the 'white people are all racist 'stereotype', so I'll write it here. You see, I don't believe in the dumbass 'all stereotypes have a grain of truth' bs. A lot of stereotypes about less powerful groups are basically media created. For example, if you believed the media, all Muslims everywhere are all like (offensive stereotype follows) dirka dirka Mohammed Jihad and blacks are all criminals who have ten babies for welfare checks or whatever. However, I don't believe in these stereotypes because well, the facts seem against them. For example, there's some Muslims that go to my college. According to the stereotype, they'd be blowing up everything because we have girls who lie around in bikinis around the dorm. Due to the lack of this happening, I have to conclude the stereotype isn't true. Other forms of evidence can dismantle stereotypes. For example, welfare moms don't get that much cash. My cousin gets like 500$ a month and she was three kids. That's not enough money to have a lavish lifestyle on, and plus having babies is a big hassle, so the idea that black women are popping out babies just for welfare makes no sense.

But the idea that whites are racially insensitive is well, less easy to fix. The problem is that it's hard for a black or brown or yellow person to walk around the society and not encounter at least fifteen or so white people who make comments about whether people are 'qualified' for school or why we should be colorblind and not worry about racist comments or that they are just too sensitive. Not to mention white people who think it's ok for them to say the n word or to wear stupid t shirts or wear Confederate flags. This happens to us in real life. It's not something we see on the news. According to the news media, no one is racist except for the Klan and those Nazis.

So basically, when the 'stereotype' comes out of our experience, it's hard for us to forget it. The only way to change it is to stop making excuses and to actually get off your ass and stop being racist.

The plot of Sailor Moon S is more complex than the 'plot' of the War on Terror as it was sold to us. Spoilers coming! In Sailor Moon, there's the inner sailor senshi who want to save the world, but using idealism, the outer sailor senshi who want to save the world, but using pragmatism, the Tomoes, who are ordinary people possessed by evil powers, the Death Busters who want to destroy the world, but mostly for reasons like I want to be the chief executive or I am hot for the professor, and Pharaoh 90, who wants to rule the darkness after the world is destroyed. In contrast, in Iraq War has us, the good guys, the evil terrorists who hate freedom, and the Iraqi and Afghan people who want to be brought democracy and to be free of the Taliban. Why the 'plot' of the war is simpler than a cartoon for schoolkids, I have no idea. Also, the villains have less complex motivations, too. The villains in Sailor Moon want anything from fame to the love of a professor. In the war on terror, apparently the villains just hate America's freedom, and there's no deeper explanation besides this.

Man, that's a dumb plot. Can you imagine a kid's cartoon made on the war on terror? I totally wouldn't buy that one.

I have to admit that I hate white people. They have lost my trust. Some may say that this is the same as racism. I have to say no. Sure, maybe if a white person talks about how much they hate blacks in front of me, I may put them on blast. However, they have a whole society saying that I am just whining about racism and that they are in the right for saying hateful things. Also, the thing is that they hate blacks, because of a bunch of stuff someone else made up. I have lost my trust in whites because of their actions. Every time they defend someone saying something racist, every time they say we people of color just aren't good enough, every time they say that we're all a little bit racist and only a few whites are racist, and why don't we all be colorblind- they seem like liars.Whenever they say they are defending equality by increasing inequality, they seem like liars. Whenever they give whites a free pass to hurt people of color, while scolding us for being angry, I feel like I can't trust them to be honest. When I hear them say that whites are oppressed, and that only a few whites are racist, despite tons of evidence to the contrary, I feel like I can't trust them on basic questions of fact.

If I can't trust someone to be honest about their intentions, I can't really like them. If someone can't be trusted to have basic human decency- making excuses about how it's so hard to be a decent human being doesn't count- how can I take them on their word for anything? So yea, you all are considered racist until you prove otherwise. Of course, merely not being a complete asshole is enough for me, but if it's too hard, you might want to go fuck yourself. Oh yea, and if you say I'd be more popular with the guys if I let them spew racist abuse in front of me, you should kill yourself, as you are a disgusting waste of flesh.

Yay, more Dykes! Also, anyone who thinks Janis should take street harassment as a compliment is totally a moron. How old is Janis? like 12? Anyway, asking women for oral sex on the street seems totally not cool. I mean, what could possibly be the point? It's not like anyone would smoke your bone because you yelled it at them in the street! Of course, I think even being told about how my backpack is too heavy by random strangers is a bit odd, so...

Between 1804 and 1808, Usman Dan Fodio defeated most of the rulers of the Hausa states and established a new capital in Sokoto in (1809). From there, the caliphate evolved over time. With UsmanÂ’s death (1817), he was succeeded by his son, Muhammad Bello (d.1837) his brother, Abdullahi Dan Fodio, was given authority over the western territories, based in Gwandu.

The Sokoto Caliphate was a loose confederation of emirates that recognized the leadership of Usman Dan Fodio as "Commander of the Faithful." By mid-19th century there were about 30 emirates linked to Sokoto, including the large market state of Kano. The caliphate stretched from present-day Burkina Faso in the west, to Cameronn in the east. Emirates tended to their own political affairs, although succession disputes were often referred to Sokoto. (In 1893, a Kano "civil war" emerged between two candidates for emir, with the "anti-Sokoto" candidate prevailing).

We learned about the Sokoto Caliphate today in African History class, as an example of Islam in Africa. Here's a bit more about it:

Usman dan Fodio's jihad created the largest empire in Africa since the fall of Songhai in 1591. By the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Sokoto Caliphate was at its greatest extent, it stretched 1,500 kilometers from Dori in modern Burkina Faso to southern Adamawa in Cameroon and included Nupe lands, Ilorin in northern Yorubaland, and much of the Benue River valley. In addition, Usman dan Fodio's jihad provided the inspiration for a series of related holy wars in other parts of the savanna and Sahel far beyond Nigeria's borders that led to the foundation of Islamic states in Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, and Sudan. An analogy has been drawn between Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the French Revolution in terms of its widespread impact. Just as the French Revolution affected the course of European history in the nineteenth century, the Sokoto jihad affected the course of history throughout the savanna from Senegal to the Red Sea.

This has been your black history moment for today.

I'm ridiculously happy that I got 3 DVDs of Azumanga Daioh for $27(this includes the cost of shipping) Next week I'll be searching for deals on the 4 dvds of Sailor Moon S I do not own. It is awesome. I borrowed the the seasons S and SuperS from a schoolmate.

I have to admit a secret problem I have- I like to collect DVDs. When I buy anime, I only want authentic licensed copies. I do not know exactly why, but I guess it's because I'm an elitist. I mean, what's cooler- scoring copies with decent subs and sometimes official extras for 7 bucks, or buying a cruddy DVDR with the wrong artwork and all Chinese names in the subs from the Chinese Yakuza? I am also an elitist about pirating. I believe it is stupid to pay money for pirated anime. If an anime isn't licensed- download it. Don't pay a bunch of people who are probably gangsters! If it's official, save your god damn pennies or buy used. Nothing pisses me off more than the type of person who is usually mad if a black person(because you know we're all on welfare!) walks by clad in Rocawear instead of rags or maybe sackcloth and ashes, walking down the street moaning about how anime is a right or some dumb shit. If you think that is so, you're a dumbfuck. Thank you.

WTF? There was snow in Memphis today. According to my mom, it started around 1 pm. According to my dad, it was hard to get home from work because people can't drive in snow.

Stuff I found in my mailbox:


MARTA back in black --- for now
Paul Donsky - Staff
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Booming sales tax revenues and rising ridership helped MARTA post an
operating profit for the first six months of its fiscal year.

MARTA had projected to be running a $10 million deficit in its
operating budget at this point, but the transit system is $9 million
in the black for the period that ended Dec. 31.

MARTA officials cheered the news, but they cautioned that the numbers
are only a snapshot and that the financial picture might be far
different by the end of the year.

Ridership has fallen from post-Hurricane Katrina heights, with fare
revenues coming in below projections in November and December. Sales
tax receipts have slipped as well, falling $2 million below
projections for December.

MARTA also has filled several vacant positions that helped salary
costs come in $4 million below projections in the first six months of
the fiscal year.

"You won't see the savings in the last six months you did in the first
six months," Richard McCrillis, MARTA's interim general manager,
recently told its board of directors.

The local economy may be cooling a bit as well, with Delta Air Lines
in bankruptcy and the upcoming closing of the Ford and General Motors
assembly plants. Georgia State University, which provides MARTA's
sales tax revenue projections, recently revised its estimates
downward.

Sales tax proceeds and passenger fares account for about 80 percent of
MARTA's operating revenue.

Davis Allen, MARTA's acting chief financial officer, said he expects
the transit authority to end the year with a deficit, though he
predicted it would be shy of the projected $15 million shortfall.

"We've been getting a handle on our spending for the last two to three
years, and right now you are seeing the fruits of that," Allen said.

MARTA's long-term financial outlook remains grim. Despite rail and bus
service cuts, layoffs, furloughs and other cost-saving moves, the
agency expects to run through its reserve fund in two years and run an
annual operating deficit of $60 million by 2010.

But officials hope the good short-term news resonates with the
Legislature's MARTA oversight committee, which has locked up two bills
that would allow the transit system to shift about $15 million a year
in capital funds to its operations budget.

State law requires MARTA to spend half its revenues on capital
projects, such as new buses or train cars, and half on operations,
such as paying drivers and maintenance workers. The Legislature has
given MARTA permission to spend 55 percent of revenues on operations,
but that waiver is set to expire at the end of this year.

The legislative oversight committee, under Chairwoman Jill Chambers,
has spent the past year investigating --- and criticizing --- MARTA's
spending practices. Chambers has said she won't move the bills out of
her committee until MARTA gets its finances in better shape.

She said she hasn't decided the bills' fate but was glad to hear of
MARTA's six-month surplus. "I think it's great," Chambers said. "It's
a good start to getting them where we need to be. Maybe we can build
these reserves back up."

MARTA'S FISCAL YEAR TO DATE OPERATING REVENUES
............................Actual ........Budget.....Difference
Sales tax..............$78,469,000....$76,226,000.....$2,243,000
Passenger fares........$47,883,000....$46,375,000.....$1,508,000
Station parking ........$1,280,000 ....$1,322,000.......($42,000)
Lease income............$4,436,000 ....$4,337,000 .......$99,000
Federal aid............$18,535,000....$18,535,000.............$0
Other ..................$6,721,000 ....$5,596,000.....$1,125,000
Total ................$157,324,000 ..$152,391,000.....$4,933,000
---
MARTA'S FISCAL YEAR TO DATE OPERATING EXPENDITURES
............................Actual ........Budget ....Difference
Salaries ..............$92,774,000....$97,046,000 ....$4,272,000
Benefits ..............$33,496,000....$38,793,000 ....$5,297,000
Contractual services....$7,996,000 ....$8,871,000 ......$875,000
Materials/supplies ....$14,193,000....$14,670,000 ......$477,000
Other ..................$6,993,000 ....$8,121,000 ....$1,128,000
Casualty/liability......$3,271,000 ....$4,490,000 ....$1,219,000
Miscellaneous ............$269,000 ......$670,000 ......$401,000
Other non-operating ......$658,000 ......$855,000 ......$197,000
Total ................$159,650,000 ..$173,516,000....$13,866,000

I got a 730 verbal, and 360 math. I blame the patriarchy. Why my math genius dad couldn't have been in charge of my early childhood education is all the patriarchy, I saw.

Day by Day makes me so mad that I feel like rioting, but luckily people making fun of it cool me down.

I was amused by this image. The armbands say 'a'.

GRE takers- it's time for the words of the day! Also, I'll be studying this til I fall asleep. This site is also helpful. Stupid number properties! All this studying is totally not preserving my sexy!

Asshats, knock it off. Apparently craigslist has been sued. So here's the fair housing act, so you can learn to not make racist ads. Help craigslist! Flag prohibited ads!

Go kids! Go kids! It's your birthday! Wooo! I got a 4 in AP English too! (and a 5 in AP History) Black folks with high AP scores, represent! And all y'all wish me luck on the GRE tomorrow!

Jill talks about how Iran called the bluff of the people who were like 'it's just free speech!". I agree with her. Just offending to offend is stupid. I also would like to note that the girl I saw today in the dorm hallway in beautiful flowing white garments and a headscarf, and that one guy who always holds the door for me both have nothing to do with people burning down an embassy. Thank you. Also, more background on this story by a Dane. Condi Rice blames Iran and Syria for the problems. I'm not sure if I agree with her version of events or not. Also, tip: America is NOT the leader of Europe.

I'm still reading Kozol's Shame of the Nation. It is such a beautiful book. Reading his passionate plea that recess, the arts, history and geography not be stricken from the schools that millions of young people go to makes me tear up. I admire how he constructs the argument with images, and then ties it all together with ringing words. Yes, he's my hero! Also, this was my 2000th post on this blog.

Today at mentoring, I scored 3 liters of soda. 1 liter of ginger ale, and 2 liters of Sprite. Also, we played charades with a bunch of kids who said this was boring, and wore t shirts with words they probably didn't know. (well, I didn't know exactly what 'fetish' meant when I was 14, anyway). We also sat around and discussed beauty standards(well, not directly, but we were in the vicinity). I thought it was cute when a mentee was explaining Coretta Scott King's funeral to her mentor, and how all the various mentees referred to the bulletin board about her and her life. It really sucked how the bus was late. Our ride wasn't able to drive us home, so we went with our teacher, who explained race to one of my Indian classmates who didn't get the concept.

Iran fights fire with fire! It seems we are all going to die. That sucks. In other news, Hotaru has the same school uniform as Haruka and Michiru! What's up with that? Also, offensive Danish fucksticks are shown to be liars.

On fark, hiliarity ensued.

Greg_S: Mega Man for President? Never.

Don't forget, Mega Man also has a fairly clear anti-business and anti-technology record. His destruction of Metal Man's factory in 19XX severely endangered the innocent workers present, who filed safety complaints similar to those filed by the power workers in Elec Man's plant, and Fire Man's foundry. He repeatedly stifled Dr. Wily's attempts to improve on the condition of robotics, and stole various innovations for his own purposes, never crediting Drs. Wily or Cossack. We could go into the environmental damage his battles have caused, or the abuse of his dog, or nonsupport for alternative energy due to e-tank addiction, but his violent responses to Dr. Albert Wily's peaceful attempts to better civilization are all we need to know about this terrorist.

/Paid for by Wily Castle Veterans for Truth//It's late, so I approve this message.

I decided on Either/Or by Elliot Smith, My Better Self by Dar Williams and In The Reins by Iron and Wine. How should I use my remaining four downloads?

Jonathan Kozol is my new hero. Within the first few pages of his amazing book The Shame of the Nation, he made me feel like an inheritor of his mission to help children. Also, he makes beautiful pointed commentary on the unfairness of segregation schools using the voices of children. This is a beautiful showing of the ancient literary art of show, not tell. He also talks about how we as a nation have abdicated our responsibility for the nation's children. I'm only on page 40, so more greatness is expected to follow.

I love living under a rock. It lets me be really sincerely shocked when I get a free trial of emusic, download Snowglobe's newer album, and discover that they have a new melodic sound that is really awesome. I also got the Forgotten Arm by Aimee Mann and Who's Your Professor Now by Sam Prekop. I can't decide which Dar Williams album to get- I already have The Xtians and the Pagans and As Cool as I am off Mortal City...

A former plant worker said the attacker had made racist comments in the past, and at least six of the victims were minorities, but investigators have refused to discuss a motive in the slayings.

Dude, that's fucked up.

Background about the offensive cartoons. Please read the whole article. I got this article from the guy at slacktivist. Also, historical depictions of Mohammed(warning: the link has some respectful depictions, but others not so much. Please be respectful of the faiths of others,ok? )

You better give to Ornicus, or like, a foot and your ass will become best friends!*

*a foot of bad karma!

Read this- get a clue.

...butt naked detransform for Uranus...eh! Also, rainbow moon heartache is the girlyest attack ever. I don't get why they don't translate the daimon names- like the one in the episode before this was utomodachi(tomodachi=friend) and this episode is ubara(bara=rose) I have to admit I like Hotaru, as I am frail too. Not terribly so, but it's hard to explain why you can't go without eating for more than a few hours or need a lot of sleep..I'm hoping to cut down to 8 hours a day!

I read on Steve Gillard's blog, that Coretta Scott King died of ovarian cancer. My grandma died of ovarian cancer too- maybe you'd like to support the ovarian cancer research fund? This cancer kills a lot of women.

This user icon reminded me that this movie is out. I totally want it! I guess if I study hard for the GRE I can buy it. Yay! Geh, I totally hate studying!

Wow, I'd like to buy these fabulous potatoes, but I don't want to say, grow them from seed... I guess I should get a car someday..

I have to say I agree. Good sense tip: If you know that something insults people's religion- don't do it unless you have a darn good reason. It's the 'n*gger rule'- you need a damn good reason to say it,ok? Reciting Huck Finn-OK. Randomly saying shit- Not.

In other news, I am mourning my food hygiene tragedies, but then I discovered that if you put half a tomato, some black pepper and some mozzarella cheese on spaghetti, it becomes a tasty lunch, I cheered up.

Tim Wise urges white people to get a clue on his new website. People like him, according to White Men on Race, will lead to the creation of a less racist society. Also, here's an adorable piece from the acknowledgements of that book:

"Most importantly, she[Eileen O'Brien] is thankful for her new daughter, Kaya O'Brien-James, who kicked in her belly as she wrote chapter and nursed as she did final editing. Kerry O'Brien was a helpful aunt, holding a newborn Kaya while the conclusion was written. Kaya, who is both African American and white, is a constant inspiration, reminding us of the possibility of a more harmonious racial future for the United States."

Steve Gillard continues talking about how some Danes wrote checks their booties couldn't cash. Seriously, I was near a fucking terrorist attack, and I have less hate for Muslims than some of these idiots who haven't even looked a Muslim in the face. We can't stop the 'war', unless we are willing to respect the other side and not fan the flames.

Racist kids act like assholes. This is why all Confederate clothing should be banned in schools. Sure, white people pissed and moaned when they were banned in my high school, but it sends a clear message to racists- do that shit on your own time- it's not OK in public. The father of the racist asshole was grumbling about the 'Southern point of view'. I understand that white people have a different culture than the rest of us. But seriously, the fact based view is the best view. The South lost, guys in pointy hoods flew their shitty flag over lynchings, and asshole Senators flew it in support of segregation. Here's John Scalzi on why if you fly a confederate flag, you're a jackass.

Not to mention, schools aren't obligated to preach the Southern point of view, since it's about as valid as teaching kids the earth is flat. How come when they celebrate their heritage they never celebrate the good parts, like bluegrass or the inventiveness of blacks, both slaves and descendants in creating a wonderful cuisine and music or the cultures of the Native Americans of the South? Why is it always about your 'state's rights' to enslave other people,eh?

Using this idea, I mixed white vinegar, quinoa, italian seasoning, a tomato, and some black pepper up and had it for dinner. Also, a tip for white people: don't say niggah, especially if you're a teacher. It sounds really offensive. Remember, don't be this guy:




Just say no to being a stupid white person!

I feel sort of sad that the people in South Central who will lose their community farm. I can't exactly do much to help,though. Also, apparently there are moderate Republicans. Steve Gillard tells us not to randomly insult people's religions for no reason.

Your Black History Moment for Today. This piece of text is from Out of the Past.

I watched episodes 109-111 of Sailor Moon today. I have to say that episode 110 is one of the best directed Sailor Moon episodes I have seen. It was directed by Ikuhara(also, the director of the wonderful Utena!) , and it shows. He's one of my favorite anime directors along with Akitaro Daichi and Anno(for his work on Kare Kano). Anime directors are important because the stories are told very visually. This direction is why more than ten years after this anime's release, we are still talking about it. I think one of my new goals will be to watch all of Sailor Moon! Oh, cool fact I learned Osamu Dezaki is the director for Onii-sama E. Now that anime has skillful use of still shots, I'll tell you. It's hard to keep anime looking good on a low budget.

This is an awesome cartoon. Click on artist's statement.

Now it's time to quote from white men on race, with of course annotations from me:

"The strong emphasis on the [so called] cultural deficiencies of Americans of color becomes a means of evading the issue of discrimination still practiced by many[that means you,ok?] white Americans. A color blind view is often linked to cultural deficiency theories that put the blame for continuing problems on the victims of discrimination." -White Men on Race, p. 192

"In communicating that the comfort and stability of white social spaces are more important than speaking out against racial hostility or discrimination, many whites convey the impression that they value the feelings of other whites above those of the targeted people of color... Weighing on person's modest discomfort against another person's often substantial pain and agony , and finding the former more important, sends a troubling message about the latter's worth as a human being" p. 188

And don't think we don't notice it either,ok? This book is very good- both calling out the moral laziness of powerful white men, and also being an interesting ethnographic study of the white person, with their unusual beliefs on power, chronology, and a lot of other things.

Wow, the radical women of color carnival is out! Moveon.org wants you to give them money.

It's Black History Month!

Vicente Guerrero has been a towering figure in the Americas, masterfully commanding Mexico's liberation army during much of its independence movement, and later assuming his country's presidency where he again fought off foreign invaders. Born poor to a Black Indian family and growing up without formal schooling, he taught himself to read and write as he trained his troops in the Sierra Madre mountains. He was able to help write Mexico's constitution, free its slaves, take steps to educate and elevate its poor and people of color, and serve as his country's first president of African and Native American descent.


Link to more. I might do this every day. I am taking African History and Gay History this semester, so awesomeness may occur!

I'm amused that the comic genius Will Eisner made a version of Sundiata. Also, apparently this book includes one of my favorite childhood stories. I especially loved how the sons had really unlikely powers- yea, dude has the power to breathe the breath of life into a body, yea. But I guess a lot of stories have unlikely events in them from reincarnation to eating entire walls.

This is also a good recipe. I used quinoa,salsa and black beans as my ingredients. Collective Efforts is a good group, too. I got a copy of this from one of the folks in my Community Psychology carpool.

"Whites holding on to the dominant perspective prefer to focus on troubled families, values and cultures as sources of black problems rather than confronting persisting discrimination and systematic racism"- White Men on Race, p. 128

How convenient that they happen to avoid personal responsibility! According to my African History teacher, some Africans are sad about the slave trade and feel guilty about it. So suck it up, dudes.


In other news, we have a few chapter of this books, Out of the Past, on online reserve for my gay history class. It's a very good book.

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WTF? (NSFW) Well, that's a good way to enforce celibacy I guess.