Fierce...Flawless...

Mississippi could soon jail women for stillbirths, miscarriages

Sat, 25 May 2013 21:48:30 -0400

May 23, 2013

On March 14, 2009, 31 weeks into her pregnancy, Nina Buckhalter gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. She named the child Hayley Jade. Two months later, a grand jury in Lamar County, Mississippi, indicted Buckhalter for manslaughter, claiming that the then-29-year-old woman “did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill Hayley Jade Buckhalter, a human being, by culpable negligence.”

The district attorney argued that methamphetamine detected in Buckhalter’s system caused Hayley Jade’s death. The state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the case on April 2, is expected to rule soon on whether the prosecution can move forward.

If prosecutors prevail in this case, the state would be setting a “dangerous precedent” that “unintentional pregnancy loss can be treated as a form of homicide,” says Farah Diaz-Tello, a staff attorney with National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a nonprofit legal organization that has joined with Robert McDuff, a Mississippi civil rights lawyer, to defend Buckhalter. If Buckhalter’s case goes forward, NAPW fears it could spur a wave of similar prosecutions in Mississippi and other states.

Mississippi’s manslaughter laws were not intended to apply in cases of stillbirths and miscarriages. Four times between 1998 through 2002, Mississippi lawmakers rejected proposals that would have set specific penalties for damaging a fetus by using illegal drugs during pregnancy. But Mississippi prosecutors say that two other state laws allow them to charge Buckhalter. One definesof manslaughter as the “killing of a human being, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another”; another includes ”an unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth” in the state’s definition of human beings.

The cause of any given miscarriage or stillbirth is difficult to determine, and many experts believe there is no conclusive evidence that exposure to drugs in utero can cause a miscarriage or stillbirth. Because of this, prosecuting Buckhalter opens the door to investigating and prosecuting women for any number of other potential causes of a miscarriage or stillbirth, her lawyers argued in a filing to the state Supreme Court—”smoking, drinking alcohol, using drugs, exercising against doctor’s orders, or failing to follow advice regarding conditions such as obesity or hypertension.” Supreme Court Justice Leslie D. King also raised this question in the oral arguments last month: “Doctors say women should avoid herbal tea, things like unpasteurized cheese, lunch meats. Exactly what are the boundaries?”

Full article

content notice: eating disorders and medical negligence

Sat, 25 May 2013 20:36:30 -0400

tinyhomosexual:

telegantmess:

tinyhomosexual:

Everyone from relatives to my regular customers has congratulated me on my weight loss. Everyone knows it was a dramatic loss in a short period of time, but nobody has expressed concern. Even when I told my old therapist how much weight I’d lost, he said he thought “it could just be dieting.”
I bet if I’d gained that much, people would have been concerned. If I’d already been considered thin and had lost an equivalent percentage of my body weight, I would have been forced into treatment.

It’s like there is this total cognitive dissonance going on here, because Eating Disorders = BAD, but You Were Fat and Now You Are Less Fat = GOOD, therefore I can’t possibly have an eating disorder??????

I couldn’t get treated for mine at all because I didn’t lose enough weight for it to count. I lost a fifth of my body weight in a month, but my bmi was still “obese” therefore I did not meet the necessary diagnostic criteria. I actually had one doctor congratulate me on it when I was trying to explain that I had started having weird heart issues around the time I lost the weight.

She chalked my heart issue up to my still being fat.

[made a new post since we’ve veered off a bit from the original post]

That’s the problem with doctors and general therapists versus mental health practitioners (and other related workers) who deal specifically with EDs.

Fun fact: 2/3 of those with active restrictive eating disorders are not clinically underweight, nor have they ever been. Most people get lumped into the amorphous category of “ED-NOS,” because of the arbitrary criteria separating out anorexia and bulimia. But as far as a lot of people know, it’s not a “real” eating disorder unless you’re making Kate Moss look fat by comparison. It’s just too bullshit for words right now, sorry.

My heart rate hovered in the realm of 44-52 bpm. I’d almost black out every time I stood up. I cried over having to eat rice. I counted an “acceptable” number of raisins to put in my tiny portion of oatmeal each morning, and you bet I put every last one of those raisins into my food log. I even logged the number of pieces of chewing gum I had, because they counted towards my calorie allotment. My goal weight went from what is considered the thin end of “normal” to what would be a normal weight for a ten-year-old.

I was starving to death and it was completely insane but I felt fully convinced that I was doing what was right. I felt healthier and cleaner and better and stronger while my organs were cannibalizing themselves and starting to fail. I saw the face of god in the number on the scale and I would gladly become a martyr in its name.

It has taken me three months to learn to eat like a normal person, and even then I can only manage to do it some of the time. I have panic attacks in grocery stores because no food feels “safe.” It will take me over 45 minutes to eat a normal meal. My hair is falling out by the handful. I buy clothes in the children’s department and still get paralyzed by the fear that I won’t fit through a doorway or on a chair.

I would have died long before I was underweight. Honestly, if I’d continued the way I was going, I probably would have died of heart failure sometime this spring.

And as sick as it is, I still feel a little proud of myself for losing so much weight so quickly. There is a small part of me that loves it when I starve and thinks it’s the greatest talent I have.

But it’s totally okay, and I was never in any real danger because I didn’t have a “real” eating disorder.

“ED-NOS” is the thing that finally made me realize how much bullshit I had accepted about fat and health.

After I finally was able to talk to my doctors about the behaviors I had taken up, and how fast the weight had dropped and they thought it was fine despite all of the awful issues I now had that I hadn’t had before purging and starving myself, it was like a moment of clarity.

Like, I know that I am sick, I know what made me sick, and the people who are supposed to be the authority on that care more about my body size than the fact that I am sick. They even wrote their classifications to intentionally exclude me and anyone like me from being considered sick based on nothing more than the size of our asses. How can I trust their authority about my health with regards to my weight at all?

Black people, who make up 22% of the poor, receive 14% of government benefits. White people, who make up 42% of the poor, receive 69% of government benefits.

Sat, 25 May 2013 19:24:29 -0400

Black people, who make up 22% of the poor, receive 14% of government benefits. White people, who make up 42% of the poor, receive 69% of government benefits.:

notesonascandal:

theraceproblem:

racismschool:

Just so we’re all clear on what we just read. Black people make up 22% of the poor but only 14% of the government benefits. Meaning, 8% of poor Black people are not taking government benefits when they need them.

While, white people make up 42% of the poor but receive 69% of the government benefits. Meaning, there are white people who are classified as middle class who are receiving government benefits.

…but welfare queens and stuff.

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT!

Black people make up 22% of the poor BUT only 14% of the government benefits.

White people make up 42% of the poor BUT receive 69% of the government benefits.

This needs to go viral.

This is essential piece of information revealing racial bias AGAINST Black people in receiving government benefits.

Never again do I want to hear about White people living in poverty.

Never again do I want to hear about Black people living on government benefits.

Reblog this. Over and over again. POST IT ON EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA SITE WHERE YOU HAVE AN ACCOUNT.

"A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say,..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 18:12:19 -0400

“

A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly: “Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?”

He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?” The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness.

The armor-plated defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.” Whoa.

”

- Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85% (via mchotdog)

what a radical idea yo

(via matthewdgold)

Bam. Kids “misbehave” for actual, real, valid reasons. And have feelings.

(via amydentata)

For fuck’s sake, it takes the people in charge so long to figure shit like this out! Good for Lincoln High!

(via psychetimelapse)

This needs to be the policy EVERYWHERE…

(via 3dela)

No, but actually, this shit works.

When I was in high school, I had a few actual, genuine professors who wanted to know what was up. They showed me that, unlike everyone else in my life, I could trust them, and they cared about me.

One time, in the middle of class, I stood up and walked out. I was upset, frustrated, and angry. Just, incredibly angry. I got into a fight with my dad on the way to school, and the class was my 1st block, and I was boiling. I walked out, because I knew that if I didn’t, I would hurt myself. I stepped outside, fully waiting for a dean’s asst. to come get me and take me to the dean’s office, but my professor, instead, came out and sat down with me, asked me what was going on.

Instead of writing me up for cutting, or giving me detention, he talked to me for about ten minutes, and then asked me to come back after school.

Later in my career, I would be approached by dean’s assistants, custodians, and other professors. I was treated like a human being. Even in college, I am continually treated like a human being, and every time it fucking astounds me.

I’m still not used to it, and still don’t believe that it happens.

(via thekitegetsaway)

"Oh, I know, I know. Those shows are aimed at 3 to 11 year olds. That’s always the cry of creators..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 17:00:10 -0400

“Oh, I know, I know. Those shows are aimed at 3 to 11 year olds. That’s always the cry of creators who have to “defend” their cartoon characters against the gay thing. But that’s some kind of ridiculous. The problem with that argument is that it supposes the only thing gay characters in gay relationships would do is have gay sex. Like if you tell a kindergartener that Princess Bubblegum and her sometimes arch-nemesis/sometimes BFF Marceline are lesbians, the first thing she is going to do is ask how scissoring works. She won’t. You know how I know? Because she didn’t ask whether or not Ariel and Prince Eric do it missionary-style.”

- Heather Hogan for AfterEllen (X)

That’s what I’ve been saying for ages. Thank you, Heather!

(via relax-o-vision)

The “but its for kids!” argument also completely erases the fact that KIDS CAN BE QUEER. its not like that’s something that magically appears from the ether one day because they huffed glitter or someshit.

I remember being 12 and 13 and finding queer subtext in things that I am absolutely sure the authors did not put there because I was trying to identify myself with the media I was consuming.

"The reality is that the governments of the very countries we live in are, in fact, men’s rights..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:05:03 -0400

“The reality is that the governments of the very countries we live in are, in fact, men’s rights organizations.”

- Jocelyn (via gaymermaids)

Look I’m quotable!

(via proudlybigotedmisandrist)

nezua: dansphalluspalace: magic-murder-bag: youmissyouroldfami...

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:37:18 -0400

nezua:

dansphalluspalace:

magic-murder-bag:

youmissyouroldfamiliarfriends:

class-snuggle:

tombomp:

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/337968073522946048

I can’t believe this.

OH MY GOD HAHAHAHAHAHAH

It got better

uhoh and defenders are already derailing like

SOCIOLOGY IS NOT A ~RRRREEEAL SCIENCE!!ONE!11!~

do you know how much shit was considered real science until subsequently debunked?

Alchemy.

Holy water.

The earth being flat.

what is all this CONTEXT nonsense??

to be real, this is sad. very, very, sad. a human can get this old and basically be babbling aloud. “what’s so great about truth?” very, very, sad, that a fool like this can have even one fan, even one fellow collaborator in his very small plot to become less and less sentient.

Post-Post-Secondary Education in the Post-Affordable Era

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:09:37 -0400

amydentata:

Original image by sd-stock.

My first foray into college did not end well. I knew my extreme poverty would pose a problem, but the common refrain in response to my situation was, “You don’t want to be stuck working at McDonalds, do you?” I heard it from friends, family members, and every mainstream media outlet. I caved to the pressure. I accumulated thousands of dollars of student loan debt—I’m sorry, thousands of dollars in student loan investment, as the loan sharks called it while cackling and rubbing their hands together with glee.

My college investment abruptly ended after the housing bubble burst. In the aftermath of the resulting financial crisis, which was caused by predatory lending to begin with, lenders tightened loan restrictions. I left school with a long history on the Dean’s List and no degree.

When I couldn’t find a job and could not afford my loan payments, the same sharks told me, “You should have thought about this before you signed up for loans.” Students are expected to predict the future. If we can’t discover—via clairvoyance apparently—epidemic levels of banking fraud? If we can’t predict a global economic meltdown? Then we are at fault. The same is true if we aren’t rich enough to afford lawyers to translate the fine print of loan agreements into human-speak. We are also to blame if we can’t afford a personal financial advisor to help us make the best decisions. (The school’s financial advisors, working at a for-profit college, were well-versed in getting stuents to sign up for loans at all costs. A federal lawsuit is now pending.) The Financial Predation Industry loves to blame its victims.

(read more)

Re: The "Didn't You Know Colbert is Satire" Apocalypse

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:41:57 -0400

amydentata:

seewetter:

I like to think that it would be obvious…but it isn’t:
If a fake news program actually delivers the news, then a fake cissexist joke can actually be cissexist. Especially when the butt of the joke always includes trans* women, even when Colbert’s persona is *also* being mocked.

Contrast that with the “gay weather” jokes or the “colourblind” mockery, where Colbert’s persona is 100% the target of ridicule.

But instead of poking fun at “psychic karyotypers” or at the policing of cis people, the object of ridicule on the Colbert Report when it comes to jokes about trans* people is trans* people. Sometimes not exclusively, but always and without fail.

nullvoidandnevermind:

Context makes a huge difference in these matters. He satires homophobia, he invokes transphobia. I know it sucks, his show is funny, to be honest I like him, that’s what makes his transphobic remarks hurt all the deeper. Same with Jon Stewart.

Thank god, I was starting to think I was the only one who actually understands how satire works.

mattreadsthings: qkazoo: nicalea: glitter nail polish the times i feel the most alive are when my...

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:14:06 -0400

mattreadsthings:

qkazoo:

nicalea:

glitter nail polish

the times i feel the most alive
are when my fingernails are painted with glitter polish,

i like to catch those sparkles out of the corner of my eye
like some secret i keep with myself

like some whisper of fog
like some tension wrapped up lace,

once upon a time,
someone told me that my high waisted

identity needed to be turned street side out,
trash bagged and discarded

because femme is degrading
and high heels must make your back ache,

and why would you choose to be degrading
when you could choose to be ten swords of freedom,

when you could be butcher belly
and drag the other women down with you

because first comes the scapegoating of femininity,
next comes the overcoats and skin as strategic armor,

i tried to leave the curious confines of the moon, 
i turned my television thoughts off rerun, 

i said yes to the phantoms, 
no to surrender, 

claimed i was a phoenix, 
screamed like petrified wood

in bright red boxer briefs, bound down chest,
and an erect middle finger with chipped glitter,

femme is the most brutal form of resistance,
it’s got its rage all woven up snapped bubble gum
blossom love full of limp wrist gorgeous,

femme is something i have trouble defining
because to me it looks like a tongue unfolding

grand staircase, ability to lift and climb
and still have an elevator for accessibility,

my femme is privileged because of white skin,
i don’t forget to count my privileges,

femme is not just ‘girl’ or ‘woman’
femme is not just femininity,

femme is fuck your rape jokes,
a pipe bomb for misogyny,
a switchblade into michigan womyn’s festival,
free cece,
r.i.p, r.i.p.,

because femme is a spell casted broomstick,
vases of fresh water and shock bright flowers,

femme is pronouns for days
and typewriters all synced up to tell stories

of every holy perspective filtering out our mouths,
so, meet me at the lake as a form of resistance,

meet me with glitter nail polish and
whatever makes you feel the most fierce

as forms of resistance,
meet me with your fist as sweet as a lace glove,

meet me to keep rubbing flints
to set the world on fire,

i don’t want to be femme
because of how someone else’s hands

have wrapped their fingers
through the emotions embedded in my hair,

i want to be femme because of how my wrist falls
at the sound of crows mouthing a crooked heartbeat

unearthing the bones that have laid silenced
growing calcium weapons
that choir together in a vocal riot.

-nic alea

I’m digging through Nic’s poems right now, and I found this one, and I was reading it to Milo and I started crying and I could hardly see to read the last few lines.

I got to the end and then just started ugly crying

God:

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:46:27 -0400

pragnacious:

sterwood:

The creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority

Well, God exists and is the ruler of the universe and arbiter of moral authority. It has to be true, the dictionary said so.

Checkmake Dawkins

What now, asshole? What now?

annaham: jennifergearing: satanic2chainz: class-snuggle: tomb...

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:18:54 -0400

annaham:

jennifergearing:

satanic2chainz:

class-snuggle:

tombomp:

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/337968073522946048

I can’t believe this.

………….

who let this man be a scientist

AHAHAHAH AHAHAHAH THIS IS LIKE SOMEONE DECIDED THAT I NEEDED A SINGLE THING TO SHOW PEOPLE EXACTLY WHY I HATE RICHARD DAWKINS.

WHAT A DINGUS. A+

[Description: Tweet from the feed of Richard Dawkins, which reads: “@mapledaroni Where the hell does all this bollocks about “context” come from? Sociology, presumably?”]

iinventedeverything: and right now all the suburbs are screaming and moaning cuz the EM wants to...

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:51:15 -0400

iinventedeverything:

and right now all the suburbs are screaming and moaning cuz the EM wants to sell off art peices from detroit’s museum to pay debtors.

i read that news and i admit, my heart sunk and i got teary eyed. but you know what? where is all the outrage over detroit schools being systemically dismantled? or the water being privatized?

all of the other “assets” the EM is talking about selling off, white folks don’t have a problem with, and in fact, as in the case with the water, most of them applaud, cuz the suburbs need cheap water and omg, teh criminalz of detroit are ruining everything and charging us waaaaay too much!

but selling off ART? BRING ON LAWYERS, PROTESTS, AND ANGRY FACEBOOK COMMENTS!!!!

QPoC Summer Spotlight #1: Project Fierce Chicago!

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:23:23 -0400

blackamazon:

marchoftigers:

Hello! My name is March of Tigers and to help get the word out on projects and initiatives done by Queer People of Color(QPoC), I’m doing a series of Summer Spotlights. Summer Spotlights are exactly that: Spotlights on several QPoC projects over the course of this summer! Hopefully my attempts at raising awareness will help these projects get along faster!

The first Project being talked about today is Project Fierce Chicago! Their goal is “Putting the community back in community housing”.

Project Fierce Chicago is a grassroots group of youth service providers, housing advocates and radical social workers. Motivated by the need for additional housing resources available for LGBTQ young folks, we came together and decided that instead of waiting for institutional support from the city or state, we will work to address this issue ourselves through a community-driven project!

That being said, I wanted to do my part to help, so I decided to interview them in order in ask “what do you need” in detail. They were happy to respond, and they’ve got a lot of detailed, resourceful responses for all of us to read and share!

What got you started on this idea for a shelter?

This shelter was actually the brain child of one of our Leadership Team, Cassandra Avenatti. Her experiences working with many of the LGBTQ homeless youth in Chicago made her realize how much of a need there was. She then contacted several other youth service providers and housing advocates who were frustrated by the lack of housing resources available for the LGBTQ young folks.
We came together and decided that we didn’t need to wait for institutional support from the city or state, but could utilize our skills and resources to address this issue ourselves! And then Project Fierce Chicago was born!

Read More

SIGNAL BOOOST!

girljanitor: A View on Race and The Art World via PBS.org In a...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:56:07 -0400

girljanitor:

A View on Race and The Art World

via PBS.org

In a current exhibition on Italian Renaissance art that is on display at the Philadelphia Museum until Feb. 13, 2005, a focal work is a portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici. Unfortunately, however, the unique opportunity that this small, but important show might have offered to the national conversation on race has been ignored.

Down through the centuries, most scholars have accepted that Alessandro de’ Medici’s mother was a slave woman and she was so identified by Alessandro’s contemporaries. But the subject of the African ancestry of Alessandro, the first Duke of Florence, is being downplayed by the curators of the Philadelphia exhibit, entitled “Pontormo, Bronzino and the Medici.”

Due to a kind of snobbery endemic to the field - a subject which Phillipe de Montebello at the Met in New York so unabashedly has talked about - it is not just the Philadelphia Museum but the American art establishment in general that appears to be having difficulty coming to terms with this Medici scion from whom descends some of Europe’s most titled families, including two branches of the Hapsburgs.

In just the last three years, for example, a portrait of Alessandro’s daughter, Giulia, Princess of Ottojano, and another portrait of the Duke himself have appeared in two major exhibitions in the U.S.: one at the National Gallery in Washington in 2001 and another at the Art Institute of Chicago in an exhibit which a few months later travelled to the Detroit Institute of the Arts where it closed in 2003. However, as with the current Philadelphia exhibit, little was done by the curators of these shows to draw the public’s attention to either the Duke’s color or his place in history.

In the only reference to the Duke’s color in the entire 173-page catalogue of the Philadelphia exhibit, Karl Strehlke, the curator and organizer writes, “Some scholars have claimed that Alessandro’s mother was a North African slave. This cannot be confirmed, however, and the text of a letter that she wrote to her son in 1529 suggests that she was an Italian peasant from Lazio.” Such a statement can only be described as disingenuous.

Based on what Lorenzino de’ Medici, Alessandro’s kinsman, wrote about her in his Aplogoia, all scholars who have dealt with the subject accept that the servant whom he cites as the Duke’s mother, is one and the same Simunetta from Collavecchio in the province of Lazio. Besides her being specifically identified as a “slave” by the historians Bernardo Segni and Giovanni Cambi, both contemporaries of the Duke’s, Cardinal Salviati, a relation of Alessandro’s, describes this woman as “una villisima schiava.” And, in point of fact, the question of identity that Lorenzino de’ Medici does raise, and Segni repeats, is not whether Simunetta was Alessandro’s mother, but whether the “mule driver” she subsequently married was Alessandro’s father instead of one or the other of two candidates still attributed with his paternity.

As Christopher Hare in his work, Romance of a Medici Warrior, explains, “[Alessandro] was reported to be the son of the late Lorenzo dei Medici, Duke of Urbino, but the affection shown him by Clement VII, gave strength to the general opinion that the Pope was his father. In any case his mother was a mulatto slave, and Alessandro had the dark skin, thick lips and curly hair of a Negro.”

Like Hare, one need only to browse through the images of the Duke published in Carla Langedijk’s two-volume work, Portraits of the Medici, to verify contemporary descriptions of his apearance such as Ceccherelli’s “capelli ricci neri e bruno in vise,” (brown in complexion with very curly black hair) or Scipione Ammirato’s “color bruno, labbri grossi e capegli crespi.” (brown, thick lips and kinky hair.)

Granted, the majority of paintings, coins, medallions, etc. depicting Alessandro de’ Medici were done after his assassination in 1537. However, they were the work of artists who had known him personally. The African traits of the Duke that appear in Giorgio Vasari’s frescos in the Palazzo Vecchio, for example, are just as pronounced as in the more familiar image attributed to the school of Bronzino. Furthermore, in Vasari’s own description of the work he did for this commission, the accuracy of the innumerable portraits he executed and the public’s ability to identify them, especially after their demise, was the source of a great deal of pride for him.

But what could be more decisive proof of Alessandro’s African ancestry than the following taken from Scipione Ammirato, the court historian of Alessandro de’ Medici’s successor, Cosimo:

“Non sono per tacere l’opinione,che in quel eta ando attorno intorno la nascita di Alessandro, la qual fu, che egli fusse nato d’ una schiava in quel tempo, che il padre e i zij rientrarono in Firenze. Il che peravventura pote procedere per esser egli stato di color bruno, e per aver avuto i labbri grossi, e i capegli crespi.”

What makes the omission of Alessandro’s race in the current Philadelphia exhibition problematic, especially after criticism by the Washington Post and the New York Times for the similar omission in the National Gallery’s exhibition, is the fact that besides being the first black head of state in modern western history, Alessandro de’ Medici’s race was quite pivotal to the Grand Ducal and the most politically powerful period of Medici history.

Pope Clement VII, Alessandro’s father, who also was born illegitimate, obviously felt that his illegitimate son would need every political bootstrap he could obtain for him if Alessandro were to survive as the legal representative of the family. Hence the bargain Clement struck with the Emperor Charles V in 1529 to have Alessandro created Duke of Florence even though the family had assiduously avoided such honorifics so as not to appear insensitive to the republican aspirations of the population.

Considering not only the racial problems America is still struggling with but also the high proportion of African Americans in Philadelphia, the curators’ treatment of the subject of Alessandro’s African slave mother is troubling. All the more so considering how important a role the de’ Medici have played in European history and culture and the implications this holds for undermining the racial preconceptions that people of color must still contend with today.

Moreover, it seems to me that in addition to the elitism of the rarified world of the art connoisseur, the old bugaboo of political correctness is also to blame. For those who push the victimization paradigm of the African American experience, there can be no room in the discourse on race for “narratives” that do not fit the stereotype.

But such a stance is misguided. A study of this particular branch of the Medici family would provide us with a unique and invaluable insight into how one of the most powerful and influential dynasties in Europe was forced to deal with the issue of race so early in the history of the African slave trade.

art credits:

1. Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503-1572), Portrait of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, after 1553. Oil on tin, 16 x 12.5 cm.

2. Giorgio Vasari(Italian, 1534) Portrait of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici.

3. Jacopo Pantormo, Alessandro de’ Medici. 1534-35. Oil on panel, 101 x 82 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

4. Unknown

clumsyoctopus: my ad for beauty products girls putting makeup on like warpaint and kicking people...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:27:56 -0400

clumsyoctopus:

my ad for beauty products

girls putting makeup on like warpaint and kicking people in the face

old ladies wearing eyeshadow and getting flocked by hunks who carry them away and crown them queens of their own country

girls putting on makeup and then just sitting and eating doritos in front of the computer all day because fuck it that shits for you

ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN PLINKY-PLONKY MUSIC AND EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION AND BEING CONDESCENDED TO

girljanitor: girljanitor: Self Evident Truths S. Ross...

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:32:41 -0400

girljanitor:

girljanitor:

Self Evident Truths

S. Ross Browne

Reblog with artists’ statement:

Self Evident Truths

I derived the title for my current series from the United States Declaration of Independence. I can only wonder how the Native Americans and un-emancipated Africans interpreted the document and specifically the phrase: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal…”

My artwork is a modern study in dichotomy and perception from a historical context using portraiture as the interpretive engine. I explore the nuances that relate to my evolving view of the world and transversely the worlds culminating view of me, through the often-occluding filters of culture and race. My intent is to foment thought and discussion by exploring ‘cultural identity’ via the multiple allegorical streams the paintings provide.

I often use the image of the black woman in unaccustomed/atypical context; derived to create a visual tension between historical fact, misinformation and myth. The viewer is lured into the possible narrative of the depicted figure by her beauty, strength and grace; however immediately enters an intellectual menagerie where they are confounded by the disconnected visual clues. Is she slave or slaveholder? Is she captive or free, is she servant or served? Is she factual or fictional in a historical context? All of these questions and more provide basis for the individual viewers journey of allegorical interpretation.

The images are imbued with cultural and ethnic symbolism that provides insight into the historical context of the painting. Yet, the icons, combined with my personal visual vocabulary, may remain unseen or misread by the “unknowing” eye; the eye that never learned the historic bases for all the possibilities in the lives of these women. In a society that often make instant cultural judgements based on visual cues that are often stereotypical, but not always, I feel offering ethnic imagery that defies common visual library of the modern citizen may challenge each individuals biases and foregone conclusions of their own notions of what race represents in history and therefore in humanity. In some of these paintings there are often the image of a human skull in one way or another. This symbolism is here to remind us of our shared humanity and also as a symbol of change and the very different and personal ways African Americans view and experience transition throughout the course of history.

The images beg the question: Is “Truth” self-evident? Who’s “Truth”? How does knowledge, experience and perception of one’s “self” determine what is evident? If the view of oneself is skewed is it possible to see another clearly?

It is my goal that these images will use technical virtuosity and compelling compositions to make this series visually arresting, but also to help deliver the structured lessons in historical interpretation and omission, African/European cross-cultural influences, and the socio-political impact and power of portraiture.

crossedwires: niqaeli: I admit, I don’t know Cho that well, so...

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:05:02 -0400

crossedwires:

niqaeli:

I admit, I don’t know Cho that well, so I am glad there are other readings to be had!
And if he is just calling it out simply because he’s tired of it and he feels comfortable doing so even on his own films now, I think that’s fantastic. There’s certainly plenty for him to be calling out.

Heh. Well, I don’t know John Cho either. But he has talked about race & representation before* (and not in a ‘we’re all human, it doesn’t matter’ way), so it’s not completely ‘out of character’ for him to bring it up. I think it probably would be easier on him if he didn’t say anything, but I’m glad he does.

*Re Harold & Kumar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHEkLBZI1IM 4:07 mark): If you have a Korean and an Indian guy as your leads, you must address race at some point in the movie. You must, because the audience is noting it, really. The other thing is, I think, comedy at its best, treads in taboo waters a little bit. It has to have that transgressive quality to it, and race is the biggest taboo in America. I mean, people are very reluctant to talk about race and yet when you do jokes about race, uh, that work, people are very happy to release tension and laugh about it. But it has been interesting. I’ll make an observation. During the first tour for the first movie, we were talking about race all the time with journalists. It was almost like a process— looking back, the first movie was more concerned with race, but we talked about it so much, I felt that it was in a way…a way of justifying our presence in a motion picture.

And from an interview in 2009 http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/090703/article.asp?parentID=110145>:

JC: I recall from the Harold and Kumar movies is my struggle with the advertisers.

APA: What happened there?

JC: There was all this racial humor in the movie, and the advertising department wanted to say “Starring the Asian guy in American Pie, and the Indian guy from Van Wilder…” and they did go with that, and they submitted that to me for approval, and I said, “I don’t like it.” They asked me why, and I explain it to them, and that was tricky because it’s difficult explaining to my own representatives, why that didn’t jibe with me, because everyone kind of felt like it was keeping in tone with the movie. And I said, “I don’t like it. We’re poking fun at racism in the movie all the time, but it puts the audience on the wrong side of the racism joke.” So they were playing with the wording a little bit in the edits, and they kept coming up with versions to make me happy, but they were essentially the same thing, and I finally said, “you are not going to make me happy. You’re dancing around it, and you’re clearly attached to this idea, and I want you to know that no version of this idea will make me happy. And if you’re afraid that I won’t show up to do promotion because of this bitterness, you can rest assured that that’s not true. I consider promoting a movie part of my duties, and I will show up nevertheless. But you can either use this campaign and know that I’m unhappy, or you can change it and know that I’m happy. That’s it. Stop trying.” And eventually they went with it, and it’s one of those things where I look back and I’ve very proud of the movie, but that’s the thing I remember.

APA: Last question…for Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, Viva La Union recorded a song for the soundtrack with the line, “I want my own Chinese baby” — what’s that about?

JC: When I was thinking about it, I thought of a literal baby. There’s a kind of lack that children fill, that’s just the dark side of being a parent, I think. And there’s an accessory quality to Chinese babies in America, and I just think it’s funny. I just liked it. And you know, I would know people who would fawn over Asian babies more, and it got me to thinking, there’s this belief that Asian babies are really cute, and it got me thinking that our whole race is infantilized to some degree, and it manifests itself in different ways. You infantilize a woman, and she becomes eroticized. You infantilize a man, and he becomes emasculated. You infantilize a baby [laughs] — and it’s possible, it appears that you can infantilize a baby even more. [laughs] The babies need to be cuter than white babies. And it’s just a weird thing that I felt like said something about mainstream America’s relationship to Asians in general. So that’s where it came from.

Also this interview: http://blog.angryasianman.com/2008/04/q-with-john-cho.html

“And yes, I do feel a responsibility, and always have, and it’s been an odd burden for me. Even when I started and no one gave a shit, I was trying to avoid doing roles—and it’s no accident that I’ve never done something with a chop suey accent. It’s no accident that I’ve never played those parts. I strongly believe there are a lot of Asian American actors who think that that’s the price to pay before you get to wherever you’re going. And I take real issue with that. Because you have to maintain integrity from the start, and on a personal level, you have to not do something that’s going to make you sick to your stomach.

But on a political level, how are things supposed to ever change if there’s someone willing to do it? I can tell you now, having worked in the business, that you can gather an army of people to hold picket signs and stand outside the studio, and say, “we destest this portrayal”… but it doesn’t matter if there’s a guy—who they know, a peer—who’s willing to do it, who stands in front of the crew and does the buck-tooth accent. If he or she is willing to do it, it makes the protestors look like extremists. It makes this guy look like the normal guy. Because we all work in the same industry. So the willingness of one actor negates a thousand protestors and a thousand angry letters.”

(So I can see why Butawhiteman Cantbekhan playing Khan would be deeply upsetting to him, even if Cho wasn’t in this movie.)

"Worse, by ignoring or underemphasizing the vexing issue of environmental causes, the breast cancer..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 21:37:22 -0400

“

Worse, by ignoring or underemphasizing the vexing issue of environmental causes, the breast cancer cult turns women into dupes of what could be called the Cancer Industrial Complex: the multinational corporate enterprise that with the one hand doles out carcinogens and disease and, with the other, offers expensive, semi-toxic pharmaceutical treatments. Breast Cancer Awareness Month, for example, is sponsored by AstraZeneca (the manufacturer of tamoxifen), which, until a corporate reorganization in 2000, was a leading producer of pesticides, including acetochlor, classified by the EPA as a “probable human carcinogen.” This particularly nasty conjuncture of interests led the environmentally oriented Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC) to condemn Breast Cancer Awareness Month as “a public relations invention by a major polluter which puts women in the position of being unwitting allies of the very people who make them sick.” Although AstraZeneca no longer manufactures pesticides, CPC has continued to criticize the breast-cancer crusade — and the American Cancer Society — for its unquestioning faith in screening mammograms and careful avoidance of environmental issues. In a June 12, 2001, press release, CPC chairman Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., and the well-known physician activist Quentin Young castigated the American Cancer Society for its “longstanding track record of indifference and even hostility to cancer prevention … Recent examples include issuing a joint statement with the Chlorine Institute justifying the continued global use of persistent organochlorine pesticides, and also supporting the industry in trivializing dietary pesticide residues as avoidable risks of childhood cancer. ACS policies are further exemplified by allocating under 0.1 percent of its $700 million annual budget to environmental and occupational causes of cancer.”

In the harshest judgment, the breast-cancer cult serves as an accomplice in global poisoning — normalizing cancer, prettying it up, even presenting it, perversely, as a positive and enviable experience.

”

- Barbara Ehrenreich - Welcome to Cancerland

some of the language/arguments in this are outright offensive (how she talks about people of color)—but this is absolutely one of those essays that you should read critically, especially now w/all this angelina jolie stuff going on.

ps. thanks to isabella for passing it on…
(via iinventedeverything)

nezua: thepeoplesrecord: TW: Police brutality - Judge tosses...

Fri, 24 May 2013 21:09:34 -0400

nezua:

thepeoplesrecord:

TW: Police brutality - Judge tosses indictment in Ramarley Graham case, says grand jury was misled
May 15, 2013

A judge has thrown out the indictment against an NYPD officer charged in the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old in his Bronx home last year, but said prosecutors can present the case again, NBC 4 New York has learned.

Officer Richard Haste, 31, had been indicted on manslaughter charges in the February 2012 shooting death of Ramarley Graham and faced up to 25 years in prison.

On Wednesday, a judge dismissed the indictment on a technicality, siding with defense lawyers who had argued prosecutors gave flawed instructions to the grand jury that indicted Haste.

The Bronx district attorney’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Graham’s family left the courtroom after the judge’s decision, cursing and calling the officer a “murderer.”

Graham was shot to death in the bathroom of his home on East 229th Street after police chased him inside.

Security video showed Graham entering his home, and police running after him. Police at the time said officers witnessed a drug deal and pursued Graham, believing he had a gun.

They went in and found him in the second-floor bathroom, and shot him in the chest. He died shortly afterward.

Police said later that Graham was not found with a gun.

Source

“This is an outrageous miscarriage of justice and an insult to the family and supporters of Ramarley Graham. We demand that a new Grand Jury is convened immediately and that the case is re-presented.” - Rev. Al Sharpton

Pictured: Ramarley’s parents, Franclot Graham & Constance Malcolm

Judge is like WHOA WAIT A MINUTE, WE ALMOST CONVICTED A COP!!!

There’s nowhere to go for justice, so we all rely on the same crooked systems that have historically, and still to this day legitimize torture, invasion, occupation, genocidal expansion on the continent, illegal weapons, war crimes, interment, and land theft.

i hope he gets found guilty the second time, too. though i don’t understand how the prosecutors can “present the case again,” given laws against double jeopardy. maybe i don’t quite understand how to reason out the slickness in my lil layman’s world.