the view

thank you barbara walters for helping Elizabeth Hasselback understand that having polish and italian cultural roots is different than having african american cultural roots..."it may be hard for you to understand as a white mother"

my favorite quote by Elizabeth Hasselback "I don't see race, I don't see gender...i'm a happy liberal and all i see are rainbows."

The whole reverand Wright and Obama ordeal is getting oldddd. that's all I have to say. I know these videos are old though. haha.

disappointment

Received this in my email today. So I guess Ellender High School wants to preserve white people tradition by having only native english speaking students be qualified for valedictorian.


JACL disappointed over proposed policy to discriminate against bilingual student speakers

Washington, DC – The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) is disappointed over the recent decision by the Terrebonne Parish school board in New Orleans, Louisiana, to consider a policy that would require commencement speakers to speak solely in English.

The proposed policy arose after two Vietnamese American co-valedictorians at Ellender High School each incorporated a few sentences of Vietnamese into their commencement speeches at graduation. The students thanked their first-generation immigrant parents for their hard work and translated the words for fellow students to hear.

“It is deeply concerning that a school would think to censor students for their bilingual abilities,” said Floyd Mori, JACL National Director. “Their multicultural roots should be celebrated, not punished, and moreover we believe the school should embrace the values of these students who publicly stated a profound respect for their parents in a way that they could clearly understand.”

The JACL urges the Terrebonne Parish to strike down such a discriminatory policy and encourage tolerance of diversity and multiculturalism.

Dove is Amazing

Disneys tries to do good

*Quick update about Etheline.* Where is Etheline? I'm sure her fabulous writing and humor is greatly missed by our non-existent audience. She doesn't currently have internet at her home and she will be back shortly! I promise!!

anyway, Wall-E is a must see!





Wall-E is a big surprise considering Disney's history of racist films. While Disney is known for their over sexualized female characters, hyper masculine male characters and lack of visible characters of colors, Wall-E escapes gender stereotypes with gender neutral characters "Wall-E" and "Eva." Below is a preview of the romance that occurs between "Wall-E" and "Eva."

with very little dialogue between Wall-E and Eva, the viewer can decide how they choose to perceive the existing love between the two. There are no distinguishing society defined features that makes one robot obviously one gender. Children who see this movie can still feel the romantic chemistry with out being told what this romantic chemistry has to look like in order for it to exist (i.e. it has to exist between a slim waisted woman and a buff man with arms bigger than his face.) With hardly any dialogue, our imaginations let us decided how we want to perceive Wall-E and Eva.

As it was noted earlier in this blog, this movie and how the romantic chemistry is portrayed is a lot different from the types of films disney has been known to make.

Think I'm crazy? Or an overly sensitive woman? You must be blinded by your nostalgic love for Disney. Watch the following video with an open mind, Please.

The part that was most disturbing for me was when Tinkerbell clearly thought her thights were too big... this is an image of a female fairy that has the waist the size of her neck complain about the size of her thighs. Are you fuckin kidding me?

the good news is that there are corporations out there that are actively working in the media against the distorted reality of beauty. such as Dove. I'm only buying Dove products from now on. You have power as a consumer!! (as I have learned from Inga)

There is hope, there should always be hope.

<3olives

the courage to heal

1 in 3 girls are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of 18.

(The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Lauren Davis)

One of the worst effects of child sexual abuse is knowing that those around you don't support you and don't understand you because our culture neglects the issues and encourages survivors to stay silenced. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to heal a survivor.

Ladies First