Mountain Dew sells racism and violence against women
PepsiCo has pulled a Mountain Dew commercial that social commentator Dr. Boyce Watkins calls “arguably the most racist commercial in history.” [Content warning for racism, battery, and basically everything that's wrong with the world]
...read moreHelp Georgia high-schoolers throw their first-ever integrated prom
Four Wilcox County high school students are raising money to hold an integrated prom. Racially integrated. Because they don’t have one, because ever since the school itself integrated 30 years ago, the parents have been throwing separate proms. The school declined to get involved, so the girls are doing the entire thing themselves. “If we don’t change it, nobody else will,” one girl says.
...read moreBlacksweet: Grappling with skin color in Indonesia
Indonesians idealize whiteness. It permeates every aspect of an Indonesian woman’s life, from clothing to beauty regimens. My relationship with skin color is complicated here. Having brown skin allows me to blend in more in crowds. Most Indonesians love Indians, having been raised on a plethora of ‘90s Bollywood movies.
At the same time, I sometimes find myself wishing for a little of the unwanted attention my white Fulbright friends receive. Indonesians don’t clamor to take pictures with me or seek to practice their English – I’m hitam manis. Instead, my skin color means I have to fight for my claim to be American.
The innocuous question, “Dari mana?” (where are you from?) is one I sometimes dread in the taxi.
...read moreAdria Richards, Sexual Assault and Victim-Blaming
Over at the Guardian, I’m writing about Adria Richards, and how victim-blaming for cyber harassment parallels victim-blaming in rape cases:
...read moreOf course it’s possible to disagree with Richards’ actions while still focusing on the real problem: misogyny online and in tech spaces. But it’s really not possible to pontificate at length on what Richards should have done without obscuring the fact that when women speak out, we’re met with rape threats.
New York City to teen moms: You suck, and your kids hate you.
An ad campaign by the NYC Human Resources Administration would like you to know that your kids hate you for being a teen mom. Or, more accurately, that your future kids will hate you if you become a teen mom, much like the kids of current teen moms hate them. Because Daddy left, and now he’s absent and stuck with child support, and Mommy’s alone and poor, and the kid will never make anything of herself, and why did you not just keep your legs together, Mom?
...read moreOn defending (and failing to defend) Quvenzhané Wallis
Numerous blogs have noted the silence among many white, mainstream feminist sites about the horrible treatment of Quvenzhané Wallis at the Oscars. And they’re right. I had stuff planned out, and then I looked at so many other posts going up that said Holy shit, can you believe that happened? That’s not okay at all in ways far more eloquent than I, and then went on to say far more poignant and intelligent stuff than I’d think to say, and I felt mine was redundant. That’s a seriously fucked up way of thinking.
Here’s what I should have said.
...read moreWhat Racism Looks Like
As usual, Ta-Nehisi Coates is correct, and cuts right through the standard rhetoric to truth:
...read moreIn modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist. In 1957, neighbors in Levittown, Pa., uniting under the flag of segregation, wrote: “As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens, we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.”
VAWA and the far-right GOP
I’m writing in Al Jazeera today about how the fight over the Violence Against Women Act exemplifies the increased extremism of the Republican party. A bit:
...read moreCan fashion fix fashion?
I worked briefly in fashion — briefly, for a couple of years, because in general it’s not a healthy industry to work in. But the fact is, I still enjoy it. Clothes are so pretty, y’all. And Jill is absolutely right that there is no shame in thinking that clothes are pretty, and that fashion is seen as frivolous more because it’s a “woman thing” than for any other reason. But what about all the truly problematic aspects of industry fashion?
Eh…
...read more“Racism Still Exists”: The Power of Art
I frequently hear people say that art has no political power, that it is merely aesthetics and/or money. Many countries repress the power of art by punishing the artists. Here the dominant culture disparages art’s power and commoditize it and among other things turn it into a speculative consumer product. Nevertheless, art in our country can be politically powerful and these posters tell it all.
...read moreWhat would King learn from us?
An elementary school teacher told a story to me once. I was still struggling to learn English, so over the course of the year I asked her often to retell the story.
Years ago in Alabama, the wife of a young preacher received a delivery of red carnations from her husband. They were beautiful, but as she touched them, she noticed they were artificial. When her husband came home, she asked about the flowers. He said, “I wanted to give you something that you could always keep.”
...read more
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