robotdoves.blogspot.com

Keep in mind, there were no historians, sociologists, or other experts present...

2010-03-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?ref=education

I encourage you to read this article, because it is shocking and horrible. Essentially, texas conservatives were able to change school curriculum in their state and tailor it to their made up, racist version of history. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the article:

"Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.” "

This is so racist. These people are trying to create a 'final solution' for their curriculum, 'purifying' it with only white history. Texas is 37% Latino!

"The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution."

The separation of church and state as a liberal bias...interesting.

"Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported."

I am confused by this...they want to portray the Black Panthers in a negative light and thereby discredit the positive image of the civil rights movement while including the fact that republicans supported civil rights legislation? I don't get it.

"Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism."

Oh yeah, the internment camps were definitely not motivated by racist fears. That's like saying that this is the case in the Holocaust because gays and political dissenters were in concentration camps with the Jews. I can't even understand why this is necessary or how it benefits the conservative agenda. It's just more racism! Just like the civil rights movement junk they are adding.

"They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.” "

Yeah, real tricky guys.

"n the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said."

What the fuck???? This is messed up. I'm sure they're going to help a lot of suicidal teens and teens with eating disorders by telling them to blame themselves.

"“We are adding balance,” said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”"

Yes, this all does seem very balanced.

I find this so upsetting. I hope the people of Texas scream out for justice!

rage

2009-12-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

"Real warriors do not think in terms of challenge, nor are their minds occupied with the battlefield or with past or future consequences. The warrior is completely one with bravery, one with that particular moment. He or she is fully concentrated in the moment because he knows the art of war. You are entirely skilled in your tactics; you do not refer to past events or develop your strength through thinking about future consequences and victory. You are fully aware at that moment, which automatically brings success in the challenge."

- Chogyam Trungpa (from here)

Too often do we let our experiences of the past or our expectations of the future impact our decisions in the present. yes, it is helpful to understand our past, and the role it has played in the flowing creation of who we are. Learn from mistakes, move past regrets, etc. But sometimes, diessecting our past, to understand every occurence, the why's of everything, can hold us back.

and that is what I have found most appreciative, so far, of Cornel West's autobiography Living and Loving Outloud.

West speaks about an intense rage he had growing within him as a child, and the bad decisions that came from it. He reveals how the rage has impacted him in many different ways, how the rage has drove him to be where he is today. But he never once discusses possible theories about why his rage is there, where his rage comes from, he doesn't even acknowledge the curiosity that I am sure he was struck by, about where this rage manifested itself from.

the perfect love song

2009-12-23T22:43:00.000-08:00

the perfect love song. which isn't about a moment with him, or her. it's about the moment of revelation, of learning/understanding your own mess of complexities, and loving the confusion, and frustration that comes with trying to untangle ourselves. I'm really diggin' Macklemore's new direction, incorporating live instruments and straying away from what would be known as traditional hip hop with an emcee and DJ.

I look forward to the day, where Love is no longer a romanticized fabrication of this culture, of which I, also, fall victim to. But instead, Love becomes a bigger thing, about self, learning to love self and shining that self love to something bigger, something larger. as Cornel West says "Justice is what the language of love looks like in public." But how can we learn to love publicly if we can't love ourselves. We all got the blues.

female artists are taking over.

2009-12-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, but is it just me, or does it seem like females have been taking over music. especially with Alicia's recent release of the Element of Freedom, with Janelle's release of her first album, the Ark Android, coming soon (hopefully, although i saw a release date of Dec 2010, and i really don't want to wait a whole year..) , and with Erykah's comback with the return of the Ankh.. I can't think of a single male artist that lives to the creative and imaginative artistry of these three ladies (and these are the only ladies that I can think of at the moment, I'm sure there are more than just these three that are doing big things..)

Janelle Monae, The Ark Android

finallyyyy suite 2 & 3 will be coming out in one, entire album entitled "The Ark Android," a self realisation album. Cindi, the android from the first suite, realizes her gift and calling to lead the androids to freedom. Janelle parallels this to ways that we can all learn what our "own superpowers" are and use these powers to transform our own communities. amazing. This is what music should be about. I just reeealllly hope the release date is sooner than december 2010, maybe the source of where I saw this december 2010 release date made a typo and they really meant January 2010... Actually when I first saw the release date of December 2010 for some reason I thought it was December 2009, and i got reeeallly excited but after doing google searches for about 30 min. and coming up with nothing, i looked at the date again and realized that I really saw December 2010. heart breaking.

Alicia Keys, the Element of Freedom

Honestly, when Alicia Keys came out with her first single before the album dropped, Doesn't Mean A Thing, I wasn't really feelin it. Doesn't Mean a thing had a pop-ish, main stream sound to it that I just wasn't really drawn to. however... after listening through her album I realized that Doesn't Mean a Thing was only the tip of an iceberg of what her album had to offer. She uses the universal theme of love to convey a message of freedom and self-love, she begins with the quote "And the Day come that the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud, was more painful than the risk it took to bloom, this is the Element of Freedom." Some favorites Love is Blind, Empire State of Mind II, Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart (the beat and instrumentals are amazing in this one) and of course her collaboration with Beyonce in Put it in a Love Song.

Erykah Badu: Amerykah

the sequel to Erykah Badu's 2006 New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War could be coming in 2010. New Amerykah Part Two: Return Of The Ankh. below Erykah Badu shares a little bit about the concept (source)

Erykah Badu Levitates from Creative Control on Vimeo.

anddd look who's back! =)

Corinne Bailey Rae "I'd Do It All Again"

Corinne Bailey Rae MySpace Music Videos

2010 will be a good year. happy holidays <3

the noisettes

2009-11-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

Precious Jones

2009-11-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

After watching the trailer for Precious, the new Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry film based on the novel "Push" by Saphire, I decided to check out the book. Here's the trailer

The book, was not what I was expecting. I mean, I'm not even sure why I created such dinstinct expectations, but I was expecting for this book to be written in a style similar to how memoirs are written. But actually, this book was written completely from the perspective of Precious (who is the main character in the book). You meet Precious when she's 16, but memories keep revisiting her consistently bringing her back to ages 6, 7, 8, all the way to 12. At first this kind of caught me off guard, because everything is written in her perspective, just think about the way we think, and having that being translated into a novel. But then I realized it's impact, that because of how it's written you enter Precious' mind and share the journey with her. At one moment she's ranting angrily about her mother then memories of being raped by her father emerge themselves (major trigger warning btw I had trouble sleeping last night.) The way it's supposed to immitate the works of a mind just allows you to completely immerse yourself into her world. The book is called "Push," because throughout the whole book you can feel the different factors in her life that push Precious to keep on living, to keep on going.

I bought the book just last night and just finished it (quick read) so I'm still trying to digest it. It'll be interesting to see how it gets translated into a feature film.

quick note

2009-11-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

So in my previous entry about Ft. Hood, I feel like I Maybe jumped to conclusions myself before doing enough research. and I don't think I made it clear enough that what happened in Ft. Hood was a big tragedy and my heart does go out to all the families that lost a soldier in that tragedy as well as those who have survived it.

However, I think sometimes, when a tragedy of this size happens, we (like myself) can have a tendency to jump into exploring the why's of it, how could something like this happen? That's when you explore the intentions, thinking and rationale that has led the perpetrator to commit such heinous acts. Which is why I felt the previous post that had the comments made from DJ, the Exec. Director of the NAPAMHA which focused on mental health factors and environmental factors that are incredibly important consider, especially if we need to implement preventive measures to avoid another tragedy like this.

Ft. Hood

2009-11-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

The tragedy of Ft.Hood at this point remains fresh in news coverage. I am concerned about possible repercussions that might come up later, specifically directed towards certain communities. Below is an email I received from the director of the program I'm interning at, she forwarded an email from the executive director of the National Asian Pacific Islander Mental Health Association which makes important comments about what to keep in mind when thinking about Maj. Hasan's experience within the military, such as his mental health (which is a conversationg that is for the most part disregarded in the media) and the importance of not jumping to any conclusions:

The shooting last week at Ft. Hood raises again the very painful reminder of what happens when mental health problems are not properly addressed. There are other issues that will also be raised including the apparent harrassment Maj. Hasan experienced as a Muslim and the failure of those within the system to understand the magnitude of his conflict in engaging in a war of Muslims on Muslims. If this proves to be true, this would not be the first time that prejudices in the miliary have taken a serious toll. We offer our support to Secretary Shinseki who will hopefully find ways to address mental health issues and the impact of racism and other forms of oppression in the military.

As mental health advocates, clinicians and those interested in improving the mental health of our communities, NAAPIMHA continues to be concerned with how mental health issues are dealt with. The shooting at Ft. Hood will also inevitably draw comparisons with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, how we look at both Maj Hasan and Seung Hui Cho and the impact this has on our communities. A particular challenge is making sure this is not seen as "something Muslims do" just as it was critical for the Korean and Asian American community to not own the responsibiltiy of what happened at Virginia Tech, nor was it something that happens when you "let foreigners in". That having been said, we also cannot ignore the important role that culture, race, language, religious beliefs, immigration status, etc. play in defining who we are, how we think, how we behave and how the world interacts with us. Sometimes we do not have the choice to not own the problem because others are quick to generalize and lay the responsibility and "blame" on our shoulders. When these issues are not understood and themselves become the source of conflict, they become important variables that must be addressed.

Tragedies like these also add to the stigma surrounding mental health - people with mental health problems are seen as dangerous, making it even more difficult for people to seek services. In the case of Maj. Hasan, he was trained as a psychiatrist and from what little information that is available, was apparently a good clinician. This only complicates the picture and asks that this situation be handled with sensitivity and respect. Where do those who counsel others receive counsel themselves? The VA, like so many other systems, is known for its lack of sufficient mental health providers to handle the heavy caseload. This is a common problem found throughout the service delivery system but becomes even more critical because of the intense nature of dealing with PTSD and other war related traumas. This is also not unlike the situation we see within our community based organizations where refugee mental health workers must work over time because no one else is there to relieve them.

My guess is Ft. Hood will remain in the public eye for some time to come as did Virginia Tech. Hopefully it will not have the media frenzy that plagued the campus and made students and community members wary to talk to anybody. It is interesting to note that the killings at the immigration center in upstate Binghamton, NY in April was in the news for only a brief few days even though 14 people were killed. One conclusion that may be drawn from this is that the loss of immigrants is not as important as college students or soldiers. We as a country have also become immune to the daily killings of one person at a time and only pay attention when there is a mass killing. That in many ways is the real tragedy. The experts agree that it is not possible to predict who will become a mass killer but we do know that prevention does work. Hopefully we will find ways to prevent violence in the future.

We will continue to work with others in the mental health field in the next few days, weeks and months ahead. There are lessons learned from previous tragedies and we welcome your thoughts, your concerns and recommendations.

dj

DJ Ida, PhD
Executive Director
National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association
1215 19th St. Suite A
Denver, CO 80202
303-298-7910
720-939-6494 cell

Precious

2009-11-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry Presents...

opens in Bellevue, WA November 20th 2009 at Lincoln

what I'm listening to now

2009-10-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

I love fall. It's my absolute favorite time of the year.

So it's definitely been awhile. I definitely hope to be posting more often. There's been some high's and low's, maybe more low's than highs. But I guess it's all about perspective.

here's some music i've been rotating on my play list, not really new stuff though.

"Whale Song" for Modest Mouse from Bent Image Lab on Vimeo.

500 days of summer

2009-08-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed 500 days of summer. It was definitely a fun, feel good movie. My father brought up a good point about this movie, that it reveals the story of one young boys fairy tale fantasy of romance. In this movie, traditional gender roles are reversed, the women is the care free, detached independent player in the "relationship," and the man is the one who falls for ideals about soul mates and sappy true love. Comparing this movie to other mainstream ones, you don't see these kinds of gender roles play out. So it's kind of cool, to see a mainstream movie where the male lead is putting his emotions out there like that.

rey ortega

2009-08-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

- Grow- by Rey Ortega

finals have ended for summer school finally, while it didn't really end with a bang, except maybe the bang of my electricity going out at 12:10 AM while I was taking my online final...but nonetheless I am DONE! and will never be taking 16 credits during the summer ever again, unless I absolutely have to.

But now, I can definitely start tackling the long to do list that has been sitting at my desk for about a month and a half. Starting with paying my internet bill that was due today, but I forgot the answer to my security question to get into my online account... but anyway.

Rey Ortega.

Ortega had a featured artist profile in the August 09 edition of a magazine called Juxtapoz (http://www.juxtapoz.com/)

Below is what was featured with his profile and below is an excerpt from his profile.

"Even though I draw weird monsters and such, I feel like my works are deeply personal, even embarrasingly so. " - Rey Ortega

You can almost sense the level of vulnerability through such an imaginative character. I have a strong curiosity as it is, so I think his work really taps into my imagination as I begin to wonder about these characters and monsters he creates. the characters always seems to be captured at an intriguing level of embarassment, confusion and vulnerability. I suppose I can relate to those kinds of emotions pretty strongly.

http://reyortega.wordpress.com/

http://www.rey-o.com/

2009-08-15T23:56:00.000-07:00

-Etheline

Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland

2009-08-07T15:41:00.001-07:00

stumbled on this from here

Tim Burton's : Alice in Wonderland (Teaser) from Vanspauwen Glenn on Vimeo.

I don't know how I feel about this dress almost falling off of alice tho, but nonethess it's something to look forward to!

Twice

2009-08-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

Little Dragon - Twice

sleepyhead

2009-08-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

At work, when we close I usually slip in a CD of my own. When this song came on my co-worker froze in place, and said "I think I've heard this song before." after a few moments of silence he says "oooooh. when I was at neighbors[a night club] this song came on and about 6 guys in white underwear and big panda heads came out and danced a choreographed dance to this song. I felt like i was high."

man I wish I was there, that sounds tooo awesome.

an ode to the solo life

2009-08-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know, the cover of this book isn't the most appealing. A good friend convinced me to read it, but when she came by my work to drop the book off I almost changed my mind. But I think the author is just trying to reach out to a certain audience. But anyway, I'm usually not into "self help" books. When I'm feeling down or a bit uninspired I look for poetry, or biographies to lose myself in. But never straight up, quotes of inspiration. I always felt like those kinds of books are so fake, manipulative and hallmark-ish I guess. But I guess I judged before I even tried. This book, Kiss Me, I'm Single, an ode to the solo life by Amanda Ford, is amazing. The Author Amanda ford explores singlehood as a form of empowerment. She says that often times women get lost in their relationships, lose a sense of themselves and then the relationship fails, which leads to women blaming themselves, lowering self esteem and self confidence. What I like most about this book is that it doesn't go into theories of the why's of everything. It simply addresses the now, and what you can do for the now to live a more fulfilling life.

I've definitely have had my sour luck with men. I think it might be the environment that I've been meeting them, the club. Yes I know, I've been telling myself for over year that the club is NOT the place to meet a potential hubby, i mean not to say I'm out looking for one at this age. But still, everytime, when some drunk dude who probably won't remember what I look like, or who I am in the morning, is asking for my number, I tell myself why not, he could be interesting and maybe I'll learn a thing or two from him. And it's not that all men at clubs are sleeze balls, the two most sleeziest men I have ever met I did not meet at a club in seattle, one was a mutual friend, the other I met in a club in vegas. It's just, when you meet a guy in a club, and date them, it just seems like both ends are taking the dating relationship less seriously. And the circumstance underwhich you guys met is usually somewhat superficial, he was looking good in that plaid shirt so you scooped him out, or he thought you were looking good or whatever. Anyway, needless to stay I haven't had a serious BF since my ex highschool sweet heart, and that was a loooong time ago.

Anyway enough about my boring and non-existent love life. I really appreciated this book cause for the longest time I thought there was something seriously wrong with me, I have probably dated over 6 guys within the past year, and who knows how many within the year before that. They NEVER worked out. at the point of deciding to just be friends or whatever I'd be all bummed out, feeling rejected. But after a couple days I'd say, "man thank god, what was I thinking." It's the same old cycle. and I think I figured out my problem, I appreciate people, for who they are, but there's a difference from appreciating an individual and the beauty that carries with them, (we all have individual beauty) with simply having an honest and strong connection with someone, having good chemistry.

A good quote

"Love has nothing to do with another person. Love is a state of being. It is the way in which you interact with life. Make this your mantra 'Love has nothing to do with another person, but is the condition of my own heart.' "

and my heart has been cut and stomped on, for reasons unrelated to love. So I know what I need to do for the time being and stop losing myself in false idealizations of the potential soulmate.

can you tell me how to get to Sesame Streeet

2009-08-04T23:31:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool Jazz rendition of the Sesame Street theme song led by big band trumpeter Maynard Gerguson, I had no idea that Sesame street has been around this long, definitely one of my favorite TV shows growing up.

constant surprises

2009-08-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of understanding the events that happen in our lives as constant surprises.

www.little-dragon.se

hellzbellz

2009-08-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

(Taken From http://hellz-bellz.com/)

I've never really been into fashion. But lately I've been appreciating fashion as a form of self expression. I've been following the Hellz Bellz blog lately. Hellz Bellz is an independent urban apparel brand (I don't know if that's the right label) for women. Their brand "reflects a woman deeper than the hyper-feminine stereotype. Hellz calls to all women to confront conformity, tear down boundaries and rewrite the rules." (Taken from their website) When reading about their capsule summer collection, this is what I cam across:

A concise yet bold collection, this limited 6 piece line extends Hellz’ ongoing graphic themes incorporating the idea of empowered defiant women that exude nothing but vicious confidence. Hellz Creative Director, Lanie Alabanza-Barcena expounds, “Inspiration for the graphics were drawn from familiar faces of fashion icons and iconic fashion brands who celebrate them.

fashion can mean much more than those shoes do not go with that top, but it can provide an outlet for self expression, creatively bending cultural boundaries and social norms.

for the love of boxing

2009-07-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

The blog, for the love of boxing, was shared with me by a good friend. (Thanks Nick). Emily is a female amateur competative boxer, who stumbled upon the sport of boxing, but quickly began to experience the spiritual and philosophical journey's that came with boxing. I think it's a given, that boxing is a very male dominated sport, not to mention the ways a women boxer is living in contradiction to female standards of beauty and femininity, which is why I find her blog to be really interesting, particularly this entry where she discusses a little bit about her, "adventures," I guess, of being a female amateur competative boxer. She dives deeper in exploring her place as a female boxer by looking at the ways that she responds to other female boxer. Here's an interesting excerpt:

"I hear myself speak truth to wanting more women to take up boxing – to go for it, to give of themselves and take a risk, even professing I’d like to make a vocation of it. The outrage that it struggles to receive recognition as a real sport. I’m proud of to be amongst the advocates, making history just by doing what we do. And yet the judgments, the skeptical assessments of whether the desire to box is authentic seep out of me. I remember acting very protective toward anyone who didn’t take on training like their life depended on it – as if my own life depended on it. Part of me hates being a woman who will never just be a wall of lean muscle, a vessel without a cycle, an apparatus of pure function devoid of vulnerability. The so-called tough-girl charade exposes who I really am, it represents parts of me I am desperate to dissociate from. Honestly, I’ve often felt more threatened than heartened by the courage of other women trying something new."

Influenced by a good friend who boxes, I've actually thought about boxing myself. For self defense (boxing seems more appealing than a self defense class cause it seems that through boxing you strengthen your muscles in addition to learning how to throw a bad ass punch) but more importantly, for an outlet for pent up emotions and anger.

So a friend and I will be taking our first class this Sunday! :)....

<3Olives

update.

2009-07-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Sorry there has been a lack of postings for a week or two. Summer craziness has picked itself up a little bit these past couple of weeks, leaving me a bit distracted and unfocused.

However, this summer we are hoping to add more authors :) enhancing the richness of the blog. Hopefully Etheline will grace us with her reappearance soon too.... she is deeply missed.

Things will pick up soon, a blog is in the works, especially after finding out a good friend of mine is actually interning at TITS. ... hehe.

Hope the summer is serving everyone well!

Also, if anyone knows of someone who has survived sexual violence in any form, share this blog with them. One of the most beautiful thing someone who lives a life of tragedy can experience is an understanding of the cause of their sorrow. With sexual violence, because we live in a world that silences and isolates survivors, a survivors understanding of their own experience is usually painful and lonely. Sometimes healing can be done through hearing the stories of other survivors. In http://loveejane.blogspot.com/ a survivor documents her journey with poems, and short passages. The reason I post that here is cause while I know this blog doesn't get much traffic, it still gets a little traffic, and you never really know.

Many of those that I love are survivors, and the scariest thing about this culture we live in is that it prevents survivors to bond together through their experiences, instead, while living in close proximity with one another they are isolated and separated by walls of shame, pain, guilt, and self-doubt. Therapy alone doesn't heal, it takes communites to dedicate themselves to social change, and we do need to reach a place where we care about the experiences of those around us, survivors or not.

and this spoken word poem below is by far my favorite I've ever seen performed, and I've seen her perform this one three times.

<3 olives.

M.I.A.

2009-07-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

via: http://www.myspace.com/afua81

janelle monae

2009-06-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

I must say I feel honored to be a part of the generation that Janelle Monae is from, well kind of I think she might be a little older. But I guess it's a commonality that I'd like to think we have....

sincerely jane

2009-06-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

I am counting down the days until Seattle's Music festival, Bumpershoot! Janelle Monae will be taking the stage on Monday!!! :)

Anyway, I always appreciate it when an artist shares the story behind the creation and meaning of their art, bringing it to life.

Below is an excerpt from an interview on NPR with Janelle Monae about the making of Sincerely Jane. (youtube of the song below)

it was a letter written to me from my mother, I had left Kansas, I grew up in one of the poorest county's in Kansas, at an early age I was exposed to those around me who had gone to really dark places in their lives because of drugs. One of the lines that I written "are we really living or just walking dead?" and that's just a question that i've asked myself and challenged people in my life to ask themselves too.

We wanted to make the french horn cry, because the letter was so touchy. when people actually listened to it, we wanted them to hear those french horns crying, the strings pleaing, and with my voice, I wanted to touch the corners of their heart

myspace.com/janellemonae for more.

Crips and Bloods, made in America

2009-06-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, the "Break the Silence" folks, went to a documentary screening of Crips and Bloods, Made in America at the Langston Hughes performing arts center. This documentary received a lot of national attention. It's narrarated by Forest Whitaker and one of the producers of the film is Baron Davis, a former(?) NBA star who grew up in LA.

This was an incredibly informing and beautifully moving documentary. It begins with exploring the ways that the legacy of slavery in this country kind of provided a historical context for the role racism plays in gang violence. Then it provides a long timeline of gangs in LA, the rise and fall of gang violence and different factors that contributed to the rise and fall (civil rights movement, neighborhood ordinances that contributed to racial segregation that kept people of color in ghettos, lack of resources for extra curricular activities for the youth in these communitites, etc.) It definitely explored police brutality, and how when a group of people are continually being treated like they are worthless by those that are supposed to protect your community, a message becomes instilled in your mind about your own worth, and you then become "an instrument of your own oppression." (There was a really awesome quote someone they interviewed had said about that, but I can't remember it, just the last part which i quoted)

Overall I really appreciated the documentary, and I feel like as a community member, we are fed by the media images and perceptions of what gang violence is. Often simplifying this issue as something isolated, something that's happening now, disconnected from the past, sensationalizing the issue that the youth are "out of control and violent." etc. The more who see this documentary the better.

However, there is definitely an entire conversation missing from this documentary, an issue that the documentary completely over looked, which was kind of a disappointment. The documentary was definitely from a male perspective, with out acknowledging the different ways that gang violence might impact women and young girls in these communities. While I understand that gang violence for males and females is an entirely different experience, and so to focus on the male perspective in some way can make sense, but this should at least be acknowledged , and it wasn't, which made it seem like when discussing gang violence it would be expected for there to be a focus on the male perspective, making the female perspective invisible, forgotten and ultimately unimportant.

Through the documentary they interview current/former crips and bloods (who are all men except for a 5 sec comment by a young women who was a former gang member), asking all sorts of questions about their experiences. One question asks about their home life and there is definitely a pattern of a single mother home, and feelings of being un loved by her. One interviewee mentioned watching his father "beat the shit" out of his mother... then it moves onto the experiences of the mothers who lost their sons, not really exploring the violence that might be prevalent in their lives. Or the violence in the lives of the young girls who live in these communities, and how the male gang members perpetuate violence onto the young females in their communitites through sexualized violence like domestic violence or rape. And how many of these young single mothers are survivors of this kind of violence and how might it affect the home environment where they raise their sons, only continuing a cycle of violence.

Anyway, I think youtube's site is down, but when it's up and working again I'll post a trailer of the film or something.

Mos Def - Quiet Dog

2009-06-11T13:20:00.001-07:00

From his most recently released album "The Ecstatic"

Theophilus London...

2009-06-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

SABALI (GREYXSAGE) Live at Webster Hall from Theophilus London on Vimeo.

Please come to Seattle ... or Portland or Vancouver..

http://theophiluslondon.wordpress.com/

the model minority myth

2009-06-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Nicholas D. Kristof. Well known for his Sunday OP-ED Column in the NY times where he usually writes about a social and/or economic problem in third world countries. He has focused a lot on the sex trafficking industry I think he's actually pretty well known for bringing national attention to the sex trafficking industry through his blog. I think Hilary Clinton even used Kristof's blog for something... I tried looking for it. But there's a research paper that's waiting to be researched.. so maybe I'll insert some links after I have a little more time to look around...

Oh and his blog is featured as one of our links on the side. I read his blog a lot in the winter just cause we were working on the conference so I was kind of more engaged in issues about sex trafficking. Well for one of my research papers I'm actually going to focus on the sex trafficking industry, so I thought a starting point would be to check out Nicholas Kristof's blog, especially since I haven't checked out his blog in awhile... so I was a bit caught off guard when reading this in his most recent entry.

My Sunday column looks at three groups that have been unusually successful in the United States — Asian Americans, Jews and West Indians. Read the column, but in a nutshell it argues that they have succeeded in part because of an emphasis on diligence and education.

I think it's obvious what I was kind of surprised by, so of course, before I jumped to any conclusions with the hopes that Kristof and all the work he does in third world countries he would be a little bit aware of the ways the model minority myth actually functions as a stereotype which places a lot of limitations on asian americans. why does kristof racialize asian americans but for the other groups of people discussed, they are identified with their ethnic identities... but anyway, so I clicked on the link to his Sunday column.. and was, ...disappointed. Maybe it was cause based on the excerpt above I sort of made up my mind about what his sunday column was going to be like, so I was unable to read it in an unbiased manner. However, I guess I'll lay it down about what I think about it and then you can make up your mind yourself.

Firstly, I get the purpose of his Sunday Column (I think), it seems like he wants to reiterate the idea that education is the solution to a lot of our societal problems both here in the U.S. and in third world countries. So he gives examples of three groups of people that have made it in the U.S., especially, he emphasizes, due to their cultural focus on education (with no mention about economic advantages). Overall though I feel like the entire article carries a bunch of implications about who the article is targeted to (minorities who aren't making it.) There is a strong focus on behaviorial factors that might have been culturally influenced, although these "behaviors" are the reasons why these groups have made it. I mean I think it's especially interesting that there is no mention of the economic factors that play into some of the successes of these groups. I will offer some quotes that show this:

One large study followed a group of Chinese-Americans who initially did slightly worse on the verbal portion of I.Q. tests than other Americans and the same on math portions. But beginning in grade school, the Chinese outperformed their peers, apparently because they worked harder.

A common thread among these three groups may be an emphasis on diligence or education, perhaps linked in part to an immigrant drive.

Among West Indians, the crucial factors for success seem twofold: the classic diligence and hard work associated with immigrants, and intact families. The upshot is higher family incomes and fathers more involved in child-rearing.

and on a quick side note, I dont really understand why in the beginning of the column, and in his little blog entry about the column, he uses "asian americans" as an identfier when he's actually strictly talking about Chinese Americans. I mean, when discussing Asian Americans, Chinese Americans are the only ethnic group he cites in his article. How did Asian Americans become Chinese Americans? where as the west indians and jews remain west indians and jews throughout the article??... I know being "politically correct" can get annoying and pointless, but I think language matter. I think Kristof's slip of using Asian Americans when he really meant Chinese Americans, or East Asians contributes to the stereotype that Asian Americans in the U.S. are of a similar experience. He is somewhat on point in talking about China's history in confucianism, a lot of East Asian countries share this history, but definitely not all asian countries.. I actually don't know that much about Asian history though..

But I mean aside with the issue of language and stereotyping, Kristof definitely picked three minority groups to focus on, but that is not how he frames his article. He simply states:

In the mosaic of America, three groups that have been unusually successful...

So he just says, three groups, but the three groups are minorities, well I mean it's arguable about whether or not Jews are minorities, maybe more so 2 of the three groups are racial minorities. Just cause there is a focus on racial minorities, as the reader, I can't help but assume that there are some implications with that. I mean why not cite why white people are successful. Kristof says that Asians take up 20% of the student population at Harvard, who's the 80%, white people probably...

There's just a harmful stereotype that perpetuates cycles of poverty within communities of color, which is the whole work hard ethic thing which blames those in poverty for their problems. This overlooks a lot of factors that can play into one's life, esp. societal factors. So in reading this article, besides the obvious problems with the ways he used the "asian americans" when he's really just talking about "chinese americans,"... I'm just worried about the reeeeaaalllly subtle implications this article suggests about ppl of color who haven't made it, and still aren't making it. .....

Anyway, I'm just creating tangents. The main point is, Nicholas Kristof should stick with issues of the third world.

day dreaming

2009-06-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

Lupe Fiasco feat. Jill Scott- Day dream, this was the song that started a very long and committed relationship for me with both artists, Lupe Fiasco and Jill Scott. Lupe Fiasco is definitely by far one of my favorite hip hop artist. Since then my music taste has broadened a little bit and shifted, but these two remain classics in my itunes alongside alicia keys, gnarls barkley, erykah badu, cunninlynguists (regrettably), India Arie, John Legend, etc. I know I was a little late in the game with discovering these two, but this was the song that stole my heart.

Favorite Verse:

"And now hold up your chain slow motion through the flames

Now cue the smoke machines and the simulated rain

But not too loud 'cause the baby's sleepin

I wonder if it knows what the world is keepin

Up both sleeves while he lay there dreamin

Me and my robot tip-toe 'round creepin"

I love this performance, just how Lupe brings in the live orchestra, electric guitar, keys, and the instrument that makes the "ding" noise.. and Jill Scott's vocals are amazing too. she has amazing control on her voice.. this is what got me hooked on her. I'm sad I missed her at the paramount last year, hopefully she'll return to Seattle.

and the video is crazzyy. I really feel like music videos tell a lot about the artist, because it really shows how the artist chooses to visualize their music.

Here are some other crazy cool music videos:

Janelle Monae - Many Moons
(this has been posted in our side bar for awhile.. haha)

Lauryn Hill - Everything is Everything

okay that's all i can post for now... too many you tube users are now disabling embedding on their you tube videos.

music that never get's old.

2009-06-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

Korean Pop Star Featured on BET? is this a break through?

2009-06-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

So today on 106 and Park, SE7EN's new "smash hit" with Lil Kim "Girls" was featured. Se7en is a south korean internationally known pop star. I don't really know much about him, but initially in hearing BET introduce the video I was kind of taken by surprise, not sure if I heard right when they said "south korean pop star." especially since Asian Americans don't have much visibility in the mainstream music industry.

however, after watching the video, and listening to the song I had feelings of uncertainty about how I feel about an Asian American popstar emerging into the mainstream music industry. In his new single, "girls," he refers to girls as accessories, literally.

Trying to make you my accessory/ All Girls are necessary

I Mean there's more to the lyrics too, but I just don't feel like getting into it right now. And of course in the video he's surrounded by the prototype video girl. Soo I'm thinking this music video pretty much looks exactly like any typical mainstreamed MTV/BET/VHI R&B music video. But in referencing an older post, there are problems with the ways many of our most popular artists of color have been bamboozled into the mainstream music industry only to further perpetuate stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, essentially affecting our own understandings of gender identity.

This video is no different. I hope for Asian Americans to continue to become visible in the media through various outlets. But I'm not sure if visibility means being bamboozled by the industry is better or worse then being invisible.

oh and look, in April, a lucky girl can win a date with Se7en, and get the opportunity to "Accessorize" him.. ...

free the toes!!!!

2009-05-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

thanks nick.

Nneka Live

2009-05-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Madcon - Dandelion

2009-05-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

myspace.com/madcon

Wales

2009-05-19T01:39:00.000-07:00

In Wales, A teenager that was placed with a family by a social service agency raped and sexually molested two of their children. The teenagers background of sexual molestation was not revealed to the family prior or during the placement.

On the BBC you'll find how apologetic the council of social services is, and they are taking necessary discplinary actions. That's pretty much what takes up the entire article

I'm more curious about how the hell this even happened. Possibly more details about whether or not it's protocol to reveal a teenagers background when being placed, and if so, what happened in this specific situation? What are the factors that influenced the social workers to either 1) not tell the family about the teenagers sexual abuse history, and yes he has one (2) forget to tell the family about the teenagers sexual abuse history, or (3) why they even thought of placing a teenager who has been charged molesting multiple children in a family with two young children.

Sexual violence is a serious thing, and its pervasiveness will affect entire communities.

artist watch: Theophilus London

2009-05-14T17:00:00.001-07:00

sick remix of Solange's Sandcastle (bad quality, sorry)

wearable porn.

2009-05-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

so, the porn industry has many many problems that creates and perpetuates violence against women. So how about wearable porn then? a t-shirt that not only sells sexualized images of nude women, but literally objectifies women in these images... literal objectification, not the concept of objectification that we might see on a societal level, but actual literal objectification where the nude bodies of women are turned into objects, such as "dead weight" or "platter"...(See below) and we all know what that the violent sexual objectification of women leads to.

AND these t shirts come in women sizes too.
and here's their "about me" description from their website:

Two In The Shirt is a fresh new company with a focus on bringing tastefully provocative clothing to the forefront of fashion. The name 'Two In the Shirt' is derived from the acronym T.I.T.S., which is quite fitting considering the nature of the clothing itself.

T.I.T.S. merchandise consists of men's and women's apparel printed with original designs. Each design showcases classy prints of nude or nearly nude women.

"Like a training bra, support T.I.T.S."

I love how they try to stay as neutral as possibly, as if they are completely unaware of the types of images they have on these t shirts, and they don't really give any reason to the purpose of the brand. and they claim their images to be classy... ("showcase classy prints of nude or nearly nude women.") ????

so why does it matter? i mean who actually is aware of the existence of TITS? right?? well besides the fact they have 3250 friends on myspace and a myspace picture album of people wearing their shit... they have also collaborated with karmaloop (whom I will never buy clothes from ever again) on a T shirt... and T-Pain has been spotted sportin their shit.

indie fashion seems as its growing but I feel like I'm seeing a trend of having images of nude or nearly nude women on Tees.... I don't know much about fashion, but I hope to explore more into that. I mean sitting at home from your computer browsing through fashion blogs and online stores, it's hard differentiate between what are actual trends and what might just be trying to be trendy, I mean you can market anything as you'd like online right? But this is really, scary to be honest, the idea of indie fashion trends totally supporting and perpetuating larger societal ills, a little ironic isn't it?

<3 Olives

Burger King, Square Butts

2009-04-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

Burger King Commercial for their new Burger King Kids special.

What the hell?

2009-04-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share some pictures of some manequins in a bridal store here in Puebla Mexico... I'm not really sure what to think.

blame it on the al-al-al-al-alcohol

2009-04-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

so it's been a minute since we've posted anything. There are a lot of things going on though, lots of "postable" material, including a review on the superhero movie rave Watchmen which I have a lot to say about.. and Afghan's new law that requires Shiite women to sleep with their husband on demand, etc...and a friend notified me of a recent tyra episode where they explore the pressures of boob and ass enhancements for women that often come from their boyfriends.

But what this blog is about is Jamie Fox's recent (Well maybe not recent) song about taking advantage of women when they're drunk (Blame it on the alcohol). As a women, it's happened to me, it's happened to all of us. And to hear about it in a song is disgusting. Unfamiliar with the song? well I've provided some excerpts from the song that, I think, really speak to the point Jamie Fox is trying to get across.

Ay she say she usually don´t

But I know that she front

Cause shawty know what she want

But she don´t wanna seem like she's easyyy

I ain´t sayin what ya wont do

But you know we probably gon do

What you been feeninn deep insiiiide

don´t liiiiee noww

Girl what you drinking?

Go on let it sink in

Here for the weekend thinkin we can

See where we can be if we press fast forward

Just one more round if you´re down I pouring

Fill another cup up

Feelin on yo butt what?

You don´t even care now

Girl I kno you feel good

Just like you look

Couple more shots you open up like a book

I ain´t trippin (cause ima read ya)

Shawty I ain´t trippin (I jus wanna please ya)

This song, and video, is problematic. It further engrains the idea that women are dispensable to a man as he pleases. Just give her a couple of drinks, get her feeling "loose," even if she shows disinterest to you, she actually wants you, she really does, she just doesn't want to appear easy, but of course, regardless of how she's acting, as a man you're convinced, actually, your ego convinces you that deep inside she wants, this justifies your actions, giving you permission to take advantage, like touch her ass, which to your surprise she didn't even notice. (refer to lyrics)

This just continues to perpetuate the idea that a man has entitlement to a women's body, sexually objectifying her. But what's new with club hits right?

<3 olives

and we are BACK

2009-03-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile since we've made a post. A lot has happened, school related. But now that we are wrapping up the winter quarter (I am now currently in the Library working on a research paper that I started on Sunday, but was given half the quarter to work on. It was due at 2:00 PM but my professor gave me an extension... yet I still find some way to do something other than work on this damn paper......so much for second chances) anyway now that we are wrapping up the winter quarter, you will be seeing more blog posts. :) Etheline is going to Mexico, so hopefuly she will be able to reccount some of her experiences on here.

Anyway, I was inspired to post after reading the most recent posting from Angry Asian Man.

Lori Phanachone, a Laotian high school senior at Storm Lake high school, born and raised in the states, has a 3.9 GPA, ranks seven in her class of 119 and has been offered numerous college scholarships has been asked to take a language tests for all ELL/ESL (English Language Learner or English Second Language) Students simply because on her school registration she indicated that English was not her first language. She has never been in an ELL or ESL course.

English is not my first language either, mandarin was. But while growing up in American (white) public schools, I just lost interest in maintaining my mandarin and now I can only speak broken mandarin. So broken to the point an older chinese women told me that my chinese was bad. anyway...

As angryasianman points out, engligh not being the first language spoken in the household is common for second generation asian americans.

But I found this story to be incredibly inspiring to hear about a young asian american girl who knows her rights and is speaking out for them.

Go Lori!!

To Support Lori:

Paul Tedesco, Storm Lake School District Superintendent: http://www.apaforprogress.org/ptedesco@slcsd.org
Teresa Coenen, Storm Lake High School Principal: http://www.apaforprogress.org/tcoenen@slcsd.org

Gina Loring

2009-02-02T10:42:00.001-08:00

PORN PORN PORN PORN

2009-02-01T01:17:00.000-08:00

The documentary, "Price of Pleasure" which deconstructs the the porn industry, is available online to watch for FREE. A phenomenal and much needed documentary that I discovered on THIS blog that everyone should look through! they have some good stuff on there!!!

Some favorite quotes from the film...
"Pornography, that which we call a fanstasy in the porn industry is then what we experience in the real world."
From a team of lawyers who work for "sanctuary for families", an organization that legally advocates for DV survivors and their children: " in 70% of the cases involving sexual abuse, pornography is involved."
"The pornographers want you to think after you're done watching porn, you can just zip up your pants, then zip that part of your brain away to proceed with your life, but it doesn't work like that, that part of your brain leaks into every aspect of your life. Porn infiltrates into your consciousness unwantingly."

the film also brought up an incredibly important case, In 2002, Ashcroft vs. Freespeech ammended the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (which banned child pornography) to allow the simulation of child pornography. So basically visually convincing the audience that a 40 year old man is fucking a 9 year old girl while she's enjoying it is perfectly fine as long as in "real life" its just an 18year old girl who looks 9.

It's an incredibly powerful film.

"Pornography takes violence against women and sexualizes it, when you sexualize violence against women you render the violence invisible."

2009-01-24T11:57:00.001-08:00

oh, and check this out!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99838343

2009-01-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

I should have posted a month ago, but Olives' posts were so cool that I took it easy for awhile. Anyway, I'm back now to write about what's been on my mind lately.

Today I read in the news that the Pope has decided to lift the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, a holocaust denier. Well, a holocaust half-denier I guess, who believes that "two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers." The article doesn't make it clear exactly why he was excommunicated and is now being reinstated, but I get the sense neither one has to do with his beliefs regarding the holocaust. Of course commentators and spokespeople from Israel have already spoken out about the damage this will do to the Catholic church's relationship with Israel and the Jewish community. So, um, why did the church do this? I don't fucking know. But if we don't start respecting each other soon (not just Catholics and Jews, but everyone) what is going to happen? Hundreds and hundreds of kids died in Gaza this month. But actually, 5,000 kids die of preventable diseases every day. We're in a really weird place and beyond even caring about each other or loving each other, we don't even respect one another's lives. And how do we heal from that?

There is another interesting news story today. 700 immigrants held in detention on the Italian island, Lampedusa have escaped and are holding a protest chanting "Freedom" and "Help us!" They were in a detention center built for 850 that is currently holding 1,800 people. It is so overcrowded that detaineed were being forced to sleep outside in the cold at night. The island is in between Africa and Italy and gets a lot of immigrants from Somalia and Eritrea fleeing wars and poverty. They used to allow the immigrants to go to mainland Italy, but have now stopped that program despite the fact that this tiny island got nearly 40,000 immigrants coming to its shores in 2008. Luckily local residents are opposing the building of a new facility that they worry would be more like a prison. Anyway, best luck to the escaped detainees! Freedom!

Zion I - Make U Fly

2009-01-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

The Girl Effect

2009-01-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

"70% of the world's out of school children are girls."

-The Girl Effect

Happy New Years!

2009-01-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

Good-bye 2008! As we welcome the New Year I attempted to give our page a fresh new look but failed miserably. I don't know why the banner isn't positioned where it's supposed to be. Maybe it's just too big? Hopefully when Etheline returns from her travels and begins to blog again she won't be too upset that in an attempt to make our page look less "plain," it now just looks... I don't even know how to explain it. Hopefully it'll look a littler better by the end of the day but I doubt it.

So, to make up for our blog's lack of "freshness" for the new year I will post something fresh and cool. When I first heard Solange's music it didn't really stick with me too much, but her music videos are something else. Her music videos, well at least the two of them that I've seen, are visually incredibly creative crossing lines of imagination with bold and bright colors.

I feel like it’s always interesting to see how an artist chooses to visualize their music in their music videos. For example lots of main stream hip hop artists don't have much of a creative stretch beyond half naked girls shaking their booty around, so it's refreshing to see something different.

Sandcastle Disco - Solange

"I Decided" Official Music Video - Solange

hip-hop songs for the Soul

2008-12-28T22:30:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to the women, who are sick and tired of hearing radio stations, music television channels, and DJ's spinning in nightclubs main streaming hip-hop "top 40" songs that minimize women to their body parts that serve only to provide sexual pleasure for men.

I'm just sick and tired of hearing in our media how these main stream artists perceive their interactions with women, oversexualizing women and defining them by their round booty and nice breasts.

When I'm at the club I just want to jam and have a good time with the girl friends, but it can get a bit irritating in hearing about lil wayne's fantasy to be licked like a lollipop, then hear about Ludacris' attraction to a women with a "round butt and a pair of double D's" despite her "gapped tooth and a mean overbite" and to top it off, I don't really appreciate crowds of men, in unison with Birdman yelling"bitch if you can't swallow, shut up bitch gargle." and then there's Kanye who offers to put some "black inside you." and Pharrel who is interested in her "High maintenance, high fashion," and "high heels."

The problem is not necessarily the music, but the music that is chosen to be played by these institutions (clubs, radio stations, television channels). The message is clear, men are interested in what women can offer for them on an extremely sexual, shallow and superficial level.

So in this blog, instead of bashing on Nelly, Ludacris, Lil Wayne, T Pain, Birdman, Akon, etc I will highlight some personal favorite hip-hop artists that have created songs that you can jam to while simultaneously leaving you with feeling as if for once, as a women, it's not about your breast, your booty, or how much you want to get fucked cause they can "see the desire in your eyes," but instead, it's about you as a women with soul.

Inverse - HipHopSoul

Lupe Fiasco - Go Go Baby

Q-Tip - You

Theophilus London - Blues

Blue Scholars - Life & Debt

Common - The Light

The Roots feat. Erykah Badu - You Got Me

more to come....

on a personal note. Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's only been me updating our blog lately. Etheline is currently traveling the world. I know her clever wit and talented writing is missed, now you're just stuck with me. Jumbled thoughts that don't really make sense cause I usually write on impulse which is usually sparked by a reaction to something.

Anyway, so with the 7 inches of snow here in Seattle and not having enough plows to clear the roads I had some down time to do some reading.

I just finished Bell Hooks' "All About Love: New Visions"

I expected her to offer a critique on the ways in which our patriarchal society impacts heterosexual relationships. But instead she brought the discussion on love to a very personal level which I truly enjoyed. For example, she did expose how societal expectations influence men and women differently, but mainly to illustrate that it can sometimes interfere with the important role that honesty plays in true love.

On a personal note, I used to be one of those girls that thought if I were to admit that I bought into the Hollywood notion of Love, that is to be romantically swept off my feet by the man of my dreams, it would mean I was weak and incapable of living as an independent women. While that really isn't my ultimate romantic fantasy, I continued to allow others to perceive me as a woman who had no interest in a romantic pursuit. The desire for romance was there, but because I pretended as if it didn't exist, it entered my sub conscious affecting me in ways that I was completely unaware of. This "I don't need romance" was a very naive attitude and it led to very very naive decisions in terms of relationships and love. After reading Bell Hooks book, I feel as if I have a bit of a better understanding as to why I have felt a strong disconnection from how I thought I understood love to how love was being manifested in many of my previous relationships.

Using many examples from her own life Bell Hooks explores everything from how childhood experiences may influence our expectations during adult life relationships, the classic "why we often make irrational decisions when we feel that we are in love," and even the importance the role community plays in love. But most importantly she completely dispels the hollywood myth of romance while instilling a strong sense of hope for true love.

I'm beginning to acknowledge my own spark of hope of meeting another individual in which I can make a honest heart to heart connection with, connecting beyond all the layers of our complexities that exist within us all. But for now, the love I have for what I do, for my education, my passion and my dreams, and most importantly for my family and friends is more than enough for me.

"We should translate our beliefs about love into concrete action. Justice is what the language of love sounds like when it speaks in public." - Michael Eric Dyson

happy holidays.

"ego - distant, salvaging what little masculine space I can forge in truth."

2008-12-23T11:07:00.000-08:00

Sorry the posts have been so short lately. I think it's the holiday season, if you're in seattle, you'd know that we've received at least (maybe more) than 5 inches of snow. Anyway, I cruised on this youtube video from this you tube channel. I really have no idea who this guy is except his name is Nico and he's part of a spoken word group called ill-literacy... and the performance below is pretty damn amazing.

Tara Hardy

2008-12-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

I actually had the extraordinary privilege to see Tara Hardy perform this poem live at the Seattle Women of the World Slam Finals.

Nicole Kidman

2008-12-07T00:20:00.000-08:00

(Taken from here)

Press Conference on Results of ‘Say No To Violence Against Women’ Campaign
November 25th, 2008

A total of 5,066,549 people had joined UNIFEM’s “Say NO to Violence against Women” campaign, adding their names to a call to make that issue a top priority for Governments worldwide, Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

“As long as one in three women and girls may be abused in their lifetimes, ending violence against women must be everybody’s business,” Ms. Kidman said, expressing her pride at having served as the campaign’s spokesperson.

“Together, we can do so much,” she said. That’s why on this International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, I have a message for our global team of goodwill ambassadors: please stay involved. Our Say NO network is a precious resource on which to build a formidable international movement that says NO to violence against women and girls, and really, really means it.”

Announcing the results of the campaign along with Ms. Kidman were the Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Inés Alberdi; Piet de Klerk, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the United Nations; and Marie Nyombo Zaina, grantee of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women.

Ms. Alberdi explained that, launched a year ago, “Say NO” was an awareness and advocacy initiative that UNIFEM had designed to feed into United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s campaign on the issue. Through the campaign, she said, “we have built a large, new constituency with great potential for further mobilization in the years to come”.
The campaign also served as an effective platform for decision-makers to publicly express their political will, she explained. No fewer than 29 Heads of State and Government, and 188 ministers representing 60 Governments had added their names to it, as well as more than 600 parliamentarians from over 70 countries.

Atrocious crimes against women had made headlines in recent weeks, she continued. In Somalia, a brutally raped girl had been stoned to death for alleged adultery; in Afghanistan, a group of young girls had been attacked with acid, having provoked the Taliban by going to school.
Now, it was important to use the momentum achieved through the campaign to implement laws and policies already in place, she said, urging the adoption of accountability standards with minimal standards of protection and response. Among the actions needed, she listed prompt police response, health and legal services, shelters and safe options for victims, national around-the-clock hotlines, accountable judiciaries and national action plans.
She added that the new momentum on the issue was evident by the increase in resources. Through the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, which UNIFEM manages on behalf of the United Nations system, new grants amounting to more than $19 million would be provided this year –- more than the total disbursed since the Fund’s inception in 1996.

Ambassador de Klerk emphasized that promoting equal rights and opportunities and combating violence against women were priorities for the Government of the Netherlands, which had contributed about $8 million to the Trust Fund. Nationally, increasing attention was being paid to domestic violence, which was not just a family affair. Bilateral programmes were carried out in 16 countries, and support was being provided to some 20 international non-governmental organizations.

Altogether, the Netherlands would invest approximately €60 million in the fight against gender violence over a period of three years, he said. Next March, the country would host an international conference on violence against girls. Furthermore, it had put forward several General Assembly resolutions on violence against women. Most recently, the Assembly’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) had approved, by consensus, a draft presented by the Netherlands, together with Belgium, on combating impunity for violence against women. More than 100 Member States had co-sponsored the resolution, but it was not only States that should act. “We all have to act together: men, women, communities, civil society organizations, the private sector and international organizations. Everybody can make a contribution,” he said.
Ms. Zaina said that she was herself a victim of violence, having been forced into a polygamous marriage. She had later obtained a degree and created an association in defence of children and women. In 2002, she had spearheaded the creation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo of the “National Network of NGOs for Women’s Development”.

Thanks to the grant from the Trust Fund, her organization could provide a range of services to survivors of violence, she said. One of them was a woman who had been gang-raped by armed men in front of her husband and four children. The father and sons had later been shot dead, and her daughters had been raped and taken away from her. In order to help women survivors like her, it was important to fight impunity, train legal personnel, provide treatment and care for victims of sexual violence, and set up refuges and shelters. Most importantly, however, was to end the war, especially against women and children. She urgently appealed to the international community to help support the Congolese people in their peace negotiations.

Ms. Kidman, replying to several questions regarding her year as a spokesperson for the Say NO campaign and the initiative itself, said that this year the focus had been on creating public awareness and overcoming the stigma attached to the issue. Part of the problem was that perpetrators were often not prosecuted. One reason the initiative had targeted decision-makers was that “that’s where laws are upheld, or laws get changed”. Trying to make violence against women part of the public vernacular, the campaign had actively used the Internet and created discussion.

“And I am here to act as a voice,” she said, adding: “I do not have the answers; I’m willing to do as much as I can and work with these people who are quietly doing such an enormous job. These are the people that do the work, and I am out here because I can use my voice to help their voices be heard.”

Responding to a 10-year-old girl, who is running a school paper, she said that girls and women often did not know what was considered a violent act or abuse, and it was important to discuss that issue, both within families and at schools. Both young girls and young boys needed to be educated in that regard.

Asked about the reasons for her personal involvement, Ms. Kidman said: “I think, in some ways, I have always been heading towards wanting to put some meaning into my life. The reason I chose this subject was because I was raised by a mother who was very passionate to have her daughters educated and wanted her daughters to have equal opportunities, and I am the product of that. So now I am hoping to pass on to the next generation and work in a greater capacity than just as an actress”.
* *** *
source

my response to a blog in response to my post that was in response to a comment..

2008-12-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

Keeping an open and honest dialogue is important, even if my past couple of posts maybe have suggested otherwise.

So first off, my blog post in response to this comment which led to this response which has led to this post..... I feel there may have been a bit of a misunderstanding from the beginning. First off, my own personal approach to this blog, and I speak for myself not for both Etheline and myself, is that this blog, for me, is not an Academic Blog. I have not taken any Women Studies courses, I haven't studied and/or researched feminist theories in academic settings. This blog is simply about my own personal interpretations of feminism as it relates to my day to day life with the idea that any woman can choose to relate to feminism with or without academic knowledge.

I apologize from my strong reaction, but found it difficult to openly accept the criticism that most feminist views are anti-intellectual being placed on this blog, I felt like that comment alone was not offering much for dialogue. At this point, I feel as if myself and Christian are in a different place with our understandings of feminism.

With that said I do plan to respond to Christian's response, in reading his response I still disagree with the idea of most mainline feminism being anti-intellectual, but I may have to do a little research on my own before I can offer a well thought out response.

But for now, thank you Christian for offering your insights on our blog, although it may not have seem like it, it's much appreciated.

In the Mean time... who picked up Q-Tip's newest album "The Renaissance" ? I was never big on A tribe Called Quest, never really got into hip-hop till a couple years ago, and I still wouldn't consider myself a hip-hop head cause I don't live and breathe it. But hip-hop makes up a large part of the songs on my itunes and I have mad respect for it's culture and the music that comes from it. Anyway, I hardly fall for celebrities, but I first fell for Q-Tip, with out really knowing who he was when I watched one of Spike Lee's worst films "She Hates Me."

<
I think it was the black framed glasses that got to me haha. Anyway, I'm really enjoying his newest album, "The Renaissance."
We Fight/We Love ft. Raqhael Saadiq - Q--Tip

<3Olives

2008-12-05T00:38:00.000-08:00

In other news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7766354.stm

hahahaha!

"The chief executives of Ford and GM have even offered to work for $1 a year if Congress approves the emergency aid."

Are you kidding me? That's so ridiculous. How big of them, they are such sacrificing individuals. I'm sure it'd be really hard for them to survive on the meager millions of dollars in their savings accounts. Hahaha. No sarcasm, that article realy made me laugh.

Now who was it who said we live in a country where we criticize the poor for being on welfare and not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps while we give billions of dollars of bailout money to the people who got the economy into trouble? To the richest of the rich to get them out of trouble? Oh yeah, Michael Erick Dyson. Pull yourselves up car execs! This is America!

The anti-intellectual feminist, part 2

2008-12-04T23:56:00.000-08:00

So Olives and I were texting one another about her recent post "the anti-intellectual feminist" and she suggested I add my point of view to the discussion. So let's see...

So far the history seems to be: Olives says she understands where I'm coming from with my coworker and discusses her frustrations with the tendencies of many to trivialize and mock feminist critiques. In response commenter Christian calls feminism "Extremely anti-intellectual" and says that "a lot of what's being said on behalf of feminism sounds like a lot of whining." Not perhaps an extremely intellectual critique of feminism in itself. Also, the comment doesn't seem to address exactly what Olives what talking about (which was the difficulty in expressing feminist views and getting brushed off or laughed at); to me Christian's comment seems more like an opportunistic attack on feminism that found a target one day. On the other hand, Christian has made many comments on our blog before and since then, and I find it useful to have an unsympathetic regular reader. Anyway, I've digressed substantially from giving a history of "the anti-intellectual feminist" discussion. Part 3 is Olives' response: efficiently breaking down the anti-intellectual-because-it's-only-feuled-by-passion argument (a point which Christian has since conceded), questioning the existence of the entire discipline of women's studies if feminism is anti-intellectual (people seemed distracted by her use of the university as an example, but given the existence of thousands of books and scholars I'm going to go out on a limb and say her point still stands strong), and finally critiquing the notion that it is necessary to separate emotion and intellect in order to have a respectable argument. And she threw some humor in there. Now, I don't know that I can defend Olives' choice to fight fire with fire (i.e. when she called our unfriendly commenter awkward and called him out on the whole Neil Strauss thing), but she took that stuff out so she's clearly self-editing. And that part aside (because hey, you'd be fuckin pissed, too) I want to applaud Olives for her to the point take down of the unfriendly commenter. Olives, you are a testament to the intellect of feminism! And let us not forget that without passion our intellectual ideas wouldn't start many movements. I betcha the unfriendly commenter voted for Obama, right?

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

2008-12-04T14:31:00.000-08:00

Last night CBS broadcasted the Victoria's Secret fashion show, and of course I have something to say about it. Now I admit that my intentions in watching it in the first place were to criticize it. And I know that's a flawed method, but I've seen the show in past years, read the catalogue, and been to the store so please excuse my poor research tacticts. Let's say I went into it with a hypothesis, because yes I think my guess about the content was educated. And if they had wanted to prove me wrong that would have been great, but guess what? They didn't.

This years theme seemed to be bondage and fairies. The same confusing message our society has been sending women for a long time now: to be sexually attractive you must somehow appear innocent and virginal as well as extremely sexual at the same time. Furthermore, many of the models looked packaged with strands of fabric, jewels, and belts. Packaged commodoties for the consumption of the audience and tv viewers.
The show also had various "backstage moments" before and after commercial breaks in which you could watch the models run from place to place in their heels and underwear or short pink robes. Viewers could see Karlina Kurkova dancing around and singing to the song being played and every model who walked by blew kisses to the camera or gave a sexy wink. One of these interludes was a "comedy skit" in which a model brandishing a pink riding crop with which to threaten the other models instructs them on a map which way to walk on the runway (up and down, that is). Here again we see the same mixed messages as well as the encouragement of stereotypes about the anti-intellectual nature of models. In another one of these interludes they show the bleeding ankle of a model who sustained her injury while walking the runway in her heels. They aren't taking the heels off of her, though, just wiping up the unsightly blood with a tissue so she can walk in them attractively once again. Wow.
Usher was the musical guest this year and had the privilege of singing tunes fully clothed from head to foot in the middle of the runway while models in their underwear flirted with, kissed, and held hands with him.
Yep, the models walked up and down the runway all night, and despite any pain they were enduring, fulfilled their purpose as objects of the fashion industry to display robotic comfort and to be "sexy."

stardom

2008-12-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

Guess who's getting featured in one of SU's student run newspapers! yours truly. ;) (etheline and olives) Check out our first story in the Participator,since we have a new outlet to hopefully increase the traffic of our blog, definitely expect more updates. =)

Olives and Etheline are feminist bloggers and undergraduate students at Seattle University. They like to address broad issues of feminism, but particularly issues in the Seattle community. Their blog can be found at robotdoves.blogspot.com. The following is a dialogue between Olives and Etheline:

Olives: Where does the name Robot doves come from?

Etheline: Our blog deals a lot with confronting and challenging culturally enforced notions of femininity. Sometimes juxtaposing stereotyped symbols of femininity can be a useful way to engage in a discussion about the ways in which these stereotypes fail to hold up to reality. That's what the title Robot Doves is about.

Etheline: One of my favorite quotes that you posted on our blog is the one by Jessica Valenti (founder of feministing.com): "When you're a feminist, day-to-day life is better. You make better decisions. You have better sex."

54% of college age women say they have had sex that they regret. According to a study done at Standford University, women in college orgasm less than half as often as college males during hook-ups. Olives, what do you think is the reason behind these statistics?

Olives: Well the next quote from that study explains it: there is a social focus of sexual activity on male pleasure. There's a culturally embedded notion in our society that if you're a woman and you're open about your sexuality, or you enjoy casual sex, you're not meeting the societal standards of purity, in other words you're dirty, you've "been around." On a socially subconscious level, men tend to be more attracted to women who are "pure," and "virgin like." I think your blog post about dictionary definitions truly speaks to the lopsided expectations of women and men when it comes to sexual standards. Could you speak a little bit about that?

Etheline: Well, when I wrote that post I was interested in getting at the true meaning and power of words. For example, people throw words like 'slut' around all the time to describe pretty much anyone (or specifically, any woman) they want to put into that category, but very few people can give an exact definition of what makes a slut. Because their purpose is to define words, I looked at what dictionaries have to say about the word slut as well as a few others. As it turns out, the dictionaries' definition of these words are just as broad as the ways in which people use them. These descriptions show how subjective these terms are but fail even once to describe them as derogatory or insulting. But of course the frequent use of these words has a profound influence on establishing the exact standards you were talking about. What's your view on refuting messages like these?

Olives: I think it's important for women to understand that it is ok to be as sexual as they desire, to experience pleasure and embrace their sexuality. It's oppressive when a woman can't freely enjoy their sexual nature.

Etheline: So why do you think feminists have better sex?

Olives: Usually feminists are more conscious of the ways society enforces cultural norms. It's empowering to reach a consciousness in which you can separate what society has defined you to be and how you choose to define yourself to be. As Jean Kilborne points out so well, our culture is oversaturated with sexualized images of women. But this truly is only one side of a bigger societal ill. Men face extraordinary pressure to live up to unrealistic standards of masculinity. But there's more of that on our blog as well…

Robot Doves further explores these issues and represents the continuous dialogue between Olives and Etheline. Anyone is welcome to contribute their voice to the conversation.

the anit-intellectual feminist movement

2008-12-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

After going through older entries, I cam across this comment from this post:

i think, in my opinion, why people cannot take most feminist views with any seriousness is because (to me) it's EXTREMELY anti-intellectual. to put it even more bluntly, a lot of what's being said on behalf of feminism sounds like a lot of whining, not well thought out argumentation.i personally can't take any position seriously when logic is replaced with pure passion and citations from "authority."

this comment is almost laughable. Anti-intellectual? Pure passion?...what I think he was really trying to say was that feminists were too emotional about how they were victimized which inhibits all their ability to think on any rational or logic level. basically a lot of women got pissed and created a movement out of it. I never thought I'd ever be quoting Dinesh D'Souza, but as he would say, I think the train has left that station. Most that currently criticize the feminist movement don't use that sort of naive and uneducated criticisms anymore. Cause, like I said, it's straight up laughable.

Most universities, that is, a hub for people to engage in intellectual thought, HAVE a women studies department. SO is it really "rational" and "logical" to claim that a university would spend money on an academic department that was thought to be "anti-intellectual?" and even looking at the bigger picture of feminism, I don't really see how breaking down the systemic ways that women have been historically oppressed in this country is anti-intellectual. This requires connecting complex theories with empricial data to make sense of the fucked up social fabrication of this culture. Oops, I said "fucked up," is that an illustration of my emotions inhibiting my ability to articulate myself, forcing me to resort to elementary curse words.

Why separate your mind and heart? Why not have an emotional concern about what intellectual thought your mind takes in?

Here is an example of Intellectual thought at it's finest, Erykah Badu breakin it down on how to make it in the music business as a women. I know I already put up this video but it's just ooooo gooooooodddd

The small victories in a feminist's life

2008-10-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

Olives' quote a couple of weeks ago about the perks of feminism got me thinking about the benefits of feminism in my own life. I had a couple this week that made me realize that just living life in a way that is atune to the various injustices placed on women has at least had a small influence on the world. Often Olives and I talk about the frustating tendency of people to reject our criticisms of culture on the basis of our womanhood, or the frenquency with which people think our views are funny and not to be taken seriously. This week, though, I realized that beyond people's initial reactions to my comments and their propensity to laugh at yet another piece of feminism, I might actually be getting my point across.

First there was the friend who I was hanging out with when I got Olives' email about Hustler's latest porn movie "Nailin Palin." I was horrified and told my friend all about it. He listened and tried to mask the humor he found in "Nailin Palin" while I showed him the promotional materials for it and tried to get over my shock. Of course I was frustrated that he just thought the issue was funny and didn't seem upset at all that it was happening, the most he agreed to at the time was that it was kind of messed up. But then, magically, a few days later he brought it up again and told me he had discussed it with his roommate and that she had also been upset by it. Then we talked about it more and it seemed he saw how messed up it was. Or at least, me expressing my views had planted something in his brain which then caused him to spread the message further and engage in dialogue about it.

A similar thing happened with my roommate the next day. She's not really "into" feminism and seems to harbor a benevolent tolerance for my usual commentary about news media, advertising, etc. But while we were doing our homework on Sunday she turned her head up to look at me and said, "This picture in my textbook is perfect material for one of your feminist criticism things." I laughed because, although she was not saying "This picture is cleary sexist, offensive, and damaging to the perception of women in our society," she also kind of was. She was acknowledging the fact that I would have a problem with it, which is in a way acknowledging that there is a problem with it--a problem which she recognized and paid attention to because she has a feminist in her face all the time.

I'm not trying to blow myself up into some kind of feminist hero opening people's minds. I'm just saying that maybe the things that we often find discouraging might actually mask a bit of the positive influence we have. Here's hoping!

Latte Liberal Seattle

2008-10-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

I don't think I really understand the culture of Seattle. The gentrified city of rich "intellectual" liberals that kicked out those living in supposedly old run down apartment complexes to build "cool," "hip" and urban condo's. Local coffee shops and boutiques exist alongside these condo's making what we call "urban villages." No one likes suburbia anymore. I get a lot of dirty looks when I say I'm from Bellevue, the subrban neighborhood that Bill Gates lives in. Bellevue actually has it's own problems of racial tensions, but what city doesn't? anyway...

So we have a local newspaper called "The Stranger." I personally don't know too much about this newspaper (in terms of its popularity and if anyone really reads it. I guess as a nation we don't really read mainstream newspapers anyway.) however it's free in practically every coffee shop in Seattle AND it's free at our school, alongside the Seattle Times, the New York Times, and the Seattle Post Intelliger. So my guess is that this newspaper has some sort of importance in terms of it's role in the Seattle Culture...

So as I was strolling out of the library the other day, a pretty strong image caught my attention, and it was the so called "cover art" of last week's edition of the Stranger... which is linked below from http://www.thestranger.com/ ...

Then of course right below the "cover art," in bold it says:. THE OLD SOUTH'S NEW RACISM. So my first reaction, (not knowing that The Stranger has a habit of displaying "cover art" that has no relevance to what might be the "cover story.. ) is wow, perhaps they are addressing the ways in which this country uses native culture to sexualize native women (i.e. pochahontas). Even though that would have nothing to to do with the old south... but anyway.. so this women on the cover is a "i'm not sure what race" but she's wearing an igloo type eskimo hat thing so maybe some Alaskan indigenous tribe? (yeah i know that language in itself is coming from my own ignorance, but I guess it makes my interpretation of this photo a better depiction of how the common American would interpret it..) Then of course there is her "club" which I think just looks like a baseball bat that's supposed to be covered in blood? So she's a warrior? and historically as a nation we have associated warriors and "Savageness" with native Americans.. BUT of course she's a sexy warrior cause she's topless and you can see her breast, you just can't see her nipple.. and you can just about look up her skirt as well. AND she has dark hair and heavy make up.

So anyway, I open The Stranger to see what the cover art is all about and instead I find pages of escort ads.. personal ads.. etc. some writing in there.. but nothing of relevance to the cover. I look back at the cover and read the title "THE OLD SOUTH'S NEW RACISM" and realize that right underneath it is written "what I learned when I called my relatives to talk about Obama. p. 22" Ironic isn't it? Finally it has come to my senses that the cover art has abosolutely no relevance to any of the newspaper's content!

One of my biggest pet peeves is when there is art that objectifies women for no reason! and we call it is the freedom of artistic expression. So they decided to put this "photograph" of a sexy naked women, purposely making her race a mystery, exotifying her with stereotypical native accessories (that doesn't sound like the right word but I don't know what else to put..) for absolutely no reason but it's artistic contribution!!!! bul shit.

SO I took a picture of the cover on my phone and showed it to Etheline, and she had quite the same reaction telling me "i'm going to go kill myself now."

So after knowing that I'm not being oversensitive and overly critical, as many like to say I am, I look for The Stranger's website online, thinking that maybe I could find more information about this newspaper. Maybe I was taking this newspaper too seriously?? but instead, what I found, was a gallery of the cover art of every single issue since 2004. and look what I found!

(note: of course I picked and choosed which ones I wanted to put on here..)

and this is, by far, my favorite:

are you fucking serious? While it's not explicit, it's pretty obvious that this women is giving a man a blow job AND he's using her body has a leg rest at the same time. WTF. do I really need to go into detail about why this piece of "cover art" is fucked up? I think not, Jean Kilbourne does it better.

http://guerrillagirls.com/

Not to go election crazy but...

2008-10-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

This article is beyond messed up:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/10/22/surging-obama-campaign-suggests-us-racism-on-the-wane/

Some key quotes from this amazing piece of news media:

"Predujice lingers, but there’s evidence it’s becoming a thing of the past."

"For at least four decades now, it’s been socially unacceptable to be overtly racist."

"People may be more willing to vote for a minority now because the country is doing so badly."

Really? Overt racism has been socially unacceptable since 1968? And more importantly, what about the underlying implications of that statement in realtion to the title of the article? That overt racism is the only legitimate problem. That because people may be more inclined now to hide their racism than they were before the civil rights movement, that racism is less of a problem. That the prejudice millions of people hold on the inside that influences their every day actions doesn't matter if they don't say it out loud. That private and public racism aren't the same thing and don't share similar importance. What the heck?

And the "thing of the past comment," I mean... what is there to say? It's funny, right? Well, kind of.

The last quote. I mean, shit, the last quote. That one is actually a quote by someone they interviewed for the article which the journalist uses to back up their own claims, not to discuss or question. Even the choice to include it in this article is messed up. I know it's the christian science monitor, but people read this shit.

Ugh.

Colin Powell Endorses Obama

2008-10-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Best moment of Colin Powell's life. I'm so happy! His statements about the criticisms of Obama as a Muslim echo everything I've been thinking about that issue. That was so awesome of him. You have to watch it for yourself:

Who else has stopped to say "wait a minute, it is wrong that people think it would be so bad if Obama was muslim" instead of "it's so terrible people keep saying that about him"

In the words of a friend "This kind of makes up for him lying about all of that Iraq war WMD stuff"

accountability

2008-10-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Honestly, the world would be a better place if every individual held the value of "acccountability" close to their heart. I truly believe that being human means you will have flaws. I have yet to meet an individual that has a perfect morality, they've never cheated, made a hypocritical statement, or attempted to put down another individual. That is why accountability would improve the quality of our society, if we, as human beings, knew how to hold other human beings accountable for their flaws, because having flaws is just a part of human life.

How is this relevant to the content of our blog? Well I've been reading some work by Bell Hooks. Prior to reading her work, as some of my previous blog may have illustrated, I had an aggressive attitude towards the ignorance that men are constructed to live by. It was very hurtful for me to see men put down women in such a comfortable manner. I reacted to this sort of behavior in a very divisive way. and after reading some of the work of Bell Hooks I realized the importance of relationships among men and women. Healthy friendships among men and women are a way to heal from our sexist society. Healthy relationships does not mean you're cool with that one dude even though he tries to sleep with you every other week. Healthy relationships as in a man and woman are able to respect one another as equals, as in he doesn't perceive you as a sexual conquest and pressure you to have phone sex or reveal some intimate details about your sexual life...

Accountability is incredibly important. Men who grow up in a society like the one that exists in the United States are being conditioned to desire the idea of sexually objectifying a woman. Looking at Jean Kilbourne's work it's easy to see that wherever you look in the media, the objectification of woman exists. This gives the general public the acceptance of putting woman on this level of objectification. It affects woman and men in a different way. It affects woman in that it confuses their role about their own interactions with men. Often times you see women dehumanizing themselves because they believe it's their role to interact with men in that manner. You see men bringing out the worst of woman by placing sexual expectation on them, whether jokingly or not, it's still an expectation that has the potentional to feed into a women's confusion.

Why is it so difficult to live our lives freely as we please?

full frontal feminism

2008-10-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

"When you're a feminist, day-to-day life is better. You make better decisions. You have better sex."

-Jessica Valenti, founder of feministing.com

The Secret Life of the Bees

2008-08-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited for this film, it looks like it's one of Alicia Keys' biggest role in film. Did I mention I'm going to see her perform in September!!! =)

It's good to be back

2008-08-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I watched a horrifying BBC documentary about the rising popularity of vaginal cosmetic surgery called "The Perfect Vagina". I had previously read an article about hymen replacement surgery gaining popularity in the muslim community due to the pressure for brides to bleed on their wedding nights. The article focused on young muslim women in Europe dealing with the dichotomy of living within two cultures and when I read it I was heartbroken. This BBC documentary went much further, though. It profiled English women (one in particular was 21 years old) who find their vaginas ugly and go to doctors (all of whom profiled were men) who perform procedures such as cutting off parts of women's inner labia or clitoral hood. The documentary showed where images of "ideal vaginas" come from: from porn, obviously, and showed the experiences of women who served as models for an artist in Brighton. This artist created a giant vagina mural by making moulds of women volunteers' vaginas and stacking them up into a wall. The women's main reaction when they saw the wall was "Wow, they all look so different!" They all seemed to have the perception that there was some kind of "normal" or "standard" vagina that most women had and many of the women were initially nervous to compare. What an interesting perspective!
Moving onto the part of the documentary which disgusted me right to my bones: the doctors. They focused on two male doctors, both of whom are extremely convinced that they are doing these women a service by mutilating their cunts and telling them that they are improving them. One of them talked about one of his patients who was 16! I told my step mother about the documentary and she brought up her fear of the long term physical and psychological effects on these young women. Will they be able to experience pleasure in the same way? And what message is being delivered?
This is a new trend apparently that is growing quickly in popularity. Is that not horrifying? Women are now being chopped up all the way to the part of us that delivers life and we're being told that our vaginas can be ugly and imperfect and that a doctor cutting off half of our labia will make us more beautiful?
I really don't think I can keep discussing this right now...

welcome back my good friend!

2008-08-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Hello Etheline! Welcome back! I don't think I was holding up too well being the only blogger on this blog for a month or so. As you saw, I received 0 comments. Our limited readers (being me, and you, and sometimes sara, and matt when I force him to read, but now we broke up, so it's just me, you and sometimes sara.) missed your humor, just in that little paragraph that you wrote I was laughing for quite awhile.

anyway! so back to business....

so this co-worker of yours huh? I know it must be frustrating cause I've entered a stage of my life where I expect every female to support the actions of another female, to unify together in the struggle against oppression!!!! But of course this is a very naive lense to perceive the united states of america by. But i'm in beginning stages of my feminist identity. Anyway... I would say it's honestly no surprise this co-worker of yours responds in such "militant opposition" to your ideas. As a society, this culture is irritated and annoyed by the feminist voice, they don't take feminism seriously, and it'll be awhile until they do. So to counter such absurd ideas I feel like many times individuals like to make a mockery of what we stand for. "You think females are oversexualized and objectified? well it's not different than men, have you seen the commercial from axe??? they totally oversexualize the man and make the woman seem like some goddess that the man is obssessed about." You have no idea how many times I find people mocking my ideals. Namely my no ex-boyfriend did it ALL THE TIME. I just laughed along at the time, but now looking back on it he never really understood the ideas I tried to share with him, he just thought my righteous -ness and passion for these issues was "cute" and "funny." No wonder that relationship didn't work out.. Anyway.. so back to this co-worker of yours. Yeah well she's just irritated by anything that relates to feminism just as any other individual of this country that bought into the medias oversaturated images of what they want us to think.

i'm sorry you were so frustrated at work! To share some of the frustration, I work in retail. I can't even count HOW MANY TIMES a co-worker and/or manager will tell me they aren't racist right before they tell me a story of when a black person came in and tried to steal. It's very interesting and complex and I plan to write more on it later!

good to have you back etheline!

<3 Olives

I'm still around!

2008-08-03T06:50:00.001-07:00

Hello limited readers of this blog, just thought I'd toss in a post to establish my continued presence here. I had a bit of limited internet access and now I'm across the antlantic for awhile. Hopefully soon I'll be able to provide some of my cross cultural comparisons or something akin to Olives' LA insights. For now I'm just recovering from the last of my jet lag and planning some more exciting adventures than staying in watching films and reading all day.
I just finished working a short summer job and one of my coworkers got me thinking. When I (often) challenged the comments my coworkers would make that tended toward sexism she seemed to always feel it necessary to say things like "well I objectify men!" as if to say that her views of some men as sexual objects somehow overshadows, and thus nullifies, the larger gender imbalanced social forces at play. Why? Why such a militant opposition to my point of view from another woman? At first I thought she was trying to seem cool infront of our male coworkers, but when we were alone she made the same statements and seemed really threatened by what I was saying. Maybe the things we have yet to overcome are intimidating and it's nicer to ignore them? Or maybe her statements are her way of trying to empower herself?
Any thoughts Olives?

the view

2008-07-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-09T23:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

Disneys tries to do good

2008-07-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

*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

2008-07-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles!

2008-06-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

A glimpse through Olives' eyes as she walks through City Walk (June 2008)

"Oh Andy! My hot tub overflooded and ruined my cell phone, my non-fat cappucino maker exploded and ruined my pretty hair and expensive clothes, then the top of my convertible that you bought for me is stuck shut! and now I have a head ache. this is the worst day ever because that's all I do during the day is go in my hot tub, drink cappucino's and drive my convertible. As a helpless and dependent woman I don't have the emotional strength to take conflict like a man and so now I'm drenched in my own tears and self pity. but don't worry Andy I was still able to cook you dinner!"

And of course, if you're a woman and you want to be a super hero you have to have size D breasts, a nice ass and a size zero waist because as a super hero you'll be wearing skimpy out fits and you want to be sure that you look appropriate in them. Men also have to be able to sexualize you in their fantasy in order for you to have any 'super hero' worth because men who enjoy comics are insecure perverted superficial low lifes that fantasize about sexy woman with super powers. Okay maybe not men who enjoy comics, but those old white men who owns Marvel does.

and nothing beats a scary movie than a scary movie with a naked women in it.

and last but not least naked woman magnets with bottle openers as heads.

Jean Kilbourne speaks of our society's tolerance and what will lead later to acceptace of the objectification of women.
ex/ "hahah that's so funny! naked woman magnets with heads as bottle openers"
placing humor on this frightening image and idea accepts it, it accepts the idea and image of a woman in which her body is sexualized on a bottle opener which is an object. I'm no jean kilbourne so I don't make sense go to jeankilbourne.com and get your knowledge on!!!

but overall i had a blast in LA!! =)
<3olives

Why Sexism is a myth.......

2008-06-02T16:07:00.001-07:00

source

My political science professor spoke of our country being inable to participate in intellectual political dialogue.....

I mean how much more intellectual can you get then "Clinton's nagging voice looses the male vote."

I need to watch more TV....

<3 olives

the male race and superficial machismo

2008-06-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have a tendency to use nights of heavy intoxication as an outlet in dealing with bigger societal oppressors such as racism and sexism.

I would intentionally find a way to start some sort of heated argument in a social setting (clubs, parties, bars), while heavily intoxicated. (My friends are very loyal as they stood by me for years through the instances in which I expressed my self while intoxicated) Some examples are things like hip hop and snoop dog, the concept of a tramp stamp, jokes about domestic violence ("your girl's going to get a beat down tonight! hahahha!!!" can you believe it? someone actually said that shit to my friends boyfriend) and whether women could be competent leaders (yes, some douche bag at a party actually told me he thought there was a reason why there are more male leaders than female leaders in this world...how did we get to this topic? okay fine, I may have badgered him a bit to get that opnion out, but still.) etc.

And often times, while heavily inoxicated, I would intentionally search out a man in a social setting with the intention of confirming my own views about sexism.

For example:

me: "hey let me buy you a drink!!"

random guy at the club: "really? okay!!"

me: "Do you like Lil Wayne?!?!?!?!?"

random guy at the club: "yea... why?"

me: "You sexist bastard how can you support someone who says 'shut up bitch swallow.' ?"

With no academic background in sexism as a socially constructed oppressor, I had no way to transcend my own anger of some of the experiences I've had. There was a lot of anger boiling inside of me that I did not understand and the only way I felt I could provide an outlet was by getting heavily intoxicated and verbally attacking every man I saw in sight. Yeah, I know. My behavior was incredibily divisive, which came to my realization thanks to Obama, and I could have used my experience and passion in a more constructive manner.

Anyway, that was a long tangent of what this blog is really supposed to be.

But the truth is, I spent too long placing blame on the wrong person. It's not the individual man's fault for how male culture influences men to be the way they are.

While sexism undoubtedly puts the women of this country at a huge disadvantage, and one of the reason is due to the systematic ways this country gives power and privilege to the men of this country. However, men, as well as women but in a different way, have it pretty damn hard.

There's this societal expectation for men to live up to unrealistic standards of masculinity. Men are encouraged to participate in overly sexualized behavior, aggression and homophobia. And often when they exhibit such behavior they are praised by our culture. and this is different than you hanging with your homies and your pissed cause you got kicked out of your club cause your homie started a fight. This is a bigger societal issues where our society and culture is telling men that they should embrace their masculinity by living up to this machismo.

Why do men fall into this temptation of hyper masculinity so easily? What about our culture encourages and praises this type of behavior? I mean, why do men feel they have the authority to grab a women's ass at the club? Why do they feel they have the authority to continue to attempt to dance intimately (aka freak dance) with another woman in the club even when she given him the cold shoulder more than once.

There are probably many different things that cause the perpetuation of that sort of behavior. But one thing for sure is how the media sexualizes and objectifies women. (Source)

I went to see Jean Kilbourne speak a year ago about the images of women in the media and it has changed the way I've looked at the media forever.

that's only 6 minutes of her entire lecture.

but anyway, so basically our culture is oversaturated with these sexualized images of women, sending a message to the men of this country that the degradation of these women is a way to further satisfy your masculinity.

But this is only one aspect of the whole picture. I'll add more on later, because this is a pretty big issue. Especially when you start intersecting gender roles and race. For example, do men of color of this country have different expectations of masculinity that they are told to live up to? Which brings the conversation back to the blog about hip-hop. The documentary posted in that blog talks about the hypermasculine behavior in main stream hip-hop.

I guess the point of this blog is to say, men, you guys got it hard. Being encouraged to be sexually aggressive and demean women while living in a box of homophobic attitudes is incredibly unhealthy for the mental and emotional health. I'm not saying that all men are like that, but our culture tells men that that is what they should be like. And it's hard, to live so detached from your emotions in order to embrace the superficial machismo. But without it, can men get what they want in this society? Do they actually taste over the power and privilege this country was designed to give "masculine" men.

but this conversation isn't possible with out acknowledging the degradation that women have to experience when everything around them (I mean that is what the media is, everything around you) is telling you that you need to sexualize yourself without actually having sexual desire. Hmm.. so how do you get sexualized if you can't have sexual desire, cause according to this blog our culture does not encourage women to explore themselves sexually.

hmm.. things just don't line up quite well. I just think we live in a country that thrives on contradictions. I won't even get started with that..
<3 olives.

Who is running things?

2008-05-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Who is writing history? Who is writing text books? Who is composing legal documents? Who is writing our dictionaries?

Well let's just see...

The 2nd definition of colonialism in the Oxford English Dictionary:

2. The colonial system or principle. Now freq. used in the derogatory sense of an alleged policy of exploitation of backward or weak peoples by a large power.

Also, Olives' entry about dictionary.com having exoctic dancer/stripper in the definition disturbed me, but I thought "hey, it's dictionary.com" so I consulted Webster, the all-american dictionary, well lo and behold!

Main Entry:
1ex·ot·ic
Pronunciation:
\ig-ˈzä-tik\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Latin exoticus, from Greek exōtikos, from exō
Date:
1599
1: introduced from another country : not native to the place where found 2archaic : foreign, alien3: strikingly, excitingly, or mysteriously different or unusual 4: of or relating to striptease
— ex·ot·i·cal·ly \-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb
— ex·ot·ic·ness \-tik-nəs\ noun

Well I never, of or relating to striptease? Well that is just stated in such an articulate manner, I dare not question it.

Let's continue this journey of the dictionary. What else has webster got for us?

Main Entry:
1whore
Pronunciation:
\ˈhȯr, ˈhu̇r\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English hore, from Old English hōre; akin to Old Norse hōra whore, hōrr adulterer, Latin carus dear — more at charity
Date:
before 12th century
1: a woman who engages in sexual acts for money : prostitute; also : a promiscuous or immoral woman2: a male who engages in sexual acts for money3: a venal or unscrupulous person

Oh I seeee, whores are whores because they are immoral. And unscrupulous? Well they define that as unprincipled. Wow, I'm learning so much. It's really good for my conscience to know that whores are immoral and have no principles because now I don't feel bad at all for blaming them for being in their situation and not questioning the societal forces that put them there. Oh but wait, there are no societal forces, they were destined to become whores because they have no morals. Funny there is no common use word for the people that visit whores. Hmm. Also, aparently only the female whores are immoral, that "also" addition seems to be missing from entry 2.

Anyway, moving briskly along.

slut
Main Entry:
slut
Pronunciation:
\ˈslət\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English slutte
Date:
15th century
1chiefly British : a slovenly woman2 a: a promiscuous woman; especially : prostitute b: a saucy girl : minx
— slut·tish \ˈslə-tish\ adjective
— slut·tish·ly adverb
— slut·tish·ness noun
— slut·ty \ˈslə-tē\ adjective

Wow, nowhere does is call this word unacceptable, insulting, or even derogatory. And did you know webster is "The common type of english language dictionary in the united states."? "The phrase Webster's has become a genericized trademark for dictionaries." Good, so this is in all of our dictionaries.

Let's revisit Oxford shall we. The dictionary of the intellectuals. THE DICTONARY really. I mean, ask any english professor, they worship this thing. But what does the OED have to say about sluts?

1. a. A woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance; a foul slattern. b. A kitchen-maid; a drudge. rare. c. A troublesome or awkward creature. Obs.1

2. a. A woman of a low or loose character; a bold or impudent girl; a hussy, jade. b. In playful use, or without serious imputation of bad qualities.

3. A female dog; a bitch. Also attrib., as slut-pup. ?orig. U.S.

4. a. A piece of rag dipped in lard or fat and used as a light.

5. Special collocations, as slut's corner, a corner left uncleaned by a sluttish person; also fig.; slut-, slut's-hole, a place or receptacle for rubbish; also fig.; slut's-pennies, hard pieces in a loaf due to imperfect kneading of the dough; slut's wool, the fluff or dust left on the floor, etc., by a sluttish servant or person.

Well that is...thorough. These old English men sure do respect and admire women. I love that in definition 2 when they talk about a woman of "low or loose character" they have that it is playful. Nobody better be using that word "playfully" with me.

I feel like I'm digressing from my original point. After all, I gave you a lot of definitions. And I think my point is obvious: the books defining the words that make up all the books we read and the conversations we have are bringing women down.

But what about that first definition?

The 2nd definition of colonialism in the Oxford English Dictionary says that colonialism is now used in a "derogatory" manner to talk about "an alleged policy of exploitation of a backward or weak peoples by a large power." Damn! So it is colonialism that is a foul, insulting, and derogatory word, not slut or whore. Because you know, colonialism should be used in a positive sense since it is only alleged and the people who were colonized were "backward" and "weak" anyway. Well that's lovely coming from the English who colonized freaking everyone and have killed countless millions with their diseases and weapons and "civilization." Good for the English.

-Etheline

are feminists asexual?

2008-05-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Are feminists asexual? Well, under the assumption that only women identify themselves as feminists. Cause men could never be asexual. Men are sexual animals....and that sort of behavior is completely appropriate. right? A feminist, that is a former straight women that has a bitter and intense resentment towards the male race. I mean feminists are the ones that are challenging the society's definition of what it means to be a women. They are the ones that have fully embraced what it means to them personally to be a women, breaking free from how this culture defines who they are supposed to be, what they are supposed to look like, and how they are supposed to feel. (source)

"In a recent survey of more than 4,000 college students across the country, a sociology professor at Stanford University found that women in college orgasm less than half as often as college males during hook-ups." (source)

"There is a social focus of sexual activity on male pleasure. In almost half of oral sex reports, only men received it, and women were the sole receivers 16 percent of the time. Minnie-Bruce Pratt, a women's studies professor, said this inequity is due to the double standard that teaches women to resist expressing their sexuality and for men to enjoy it. "I think that women not being able to ask for what they want in sex, that is, show they have desire, comes from a very embedded notion in this culture that if you're a woman and you like sex, there's something dirty and wrong with you," she said. (Keep in mind this is a bigger societal issue with our culture sending a message to young women that they should not sexually express themselves. This is not about a man and women in a bedroom along, and the men telling the women he'll do anything to please her.) Because of this societal pressure, women may be less likely to explore themselves sexually." (source)

Now back to the original question, are feminists' asexual? Well using common sense and logical rationale, the answer is no. Our society pressures young women to be sexually pure. They are not allowed to have sexual desire and drive with out being placed in a box of negative labels like slut and easy. As I mentioned before, feminists are actively fighting against the bigger societal oppressors that keep the women of this country from fully embracing themselves as a woman. If anything. feminists are often fully aware of the importance of embracing their sexual freedom.

As a woman you DESERVE to COME just as much, if not more, than the man you're sleeping. You won't regret it, trust me.

source Christa Bell
<3 Olives

Sexual violence in Native American and Alaska Native communities

2008-05-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Native American women. Yeah, we've suffered. I'd say most of the women in my family have survived sexual violence and all the people in my family have been affected by it.

I was supposed to provide some resources demonstrating how sexual violence affects indigenous women in our country for an event that Olives put on a few days ago. Unfortunately, I was unable to speak with anyone or find the kinds of resources I wanted to on this issue in time for the event. Now that I have found some things, I'll share them here.

"Native American and Alaska Native women are more than 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than other women in the United States in general. More than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetimes. In at least 86% of reported cases of rape or sexual assault against Native American and Alaska Native women, the perpetrators are non-native men. The US government has created a complex maze of tribal, state, and federal jurisdictions that often allow perpetrators to rape with impunity. Sexual violence against indigenous women is also the result of a history of human rights violations against Indigenus people in the US. Indigenous women were raped by settlers and soldiers as a tool of conquest and colonization. Impunity for perpetrators and indifference toward survivors contribute to a climate where sexual violence is seen as normal and inescapable. Native American and Alaska Native women's organizations and tribal authorities have brought forward proposals to help stop sexual violence against Indigenous women--but the federal government has failed to act. In failing to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence, the US is violating women's human rights."

(Source: Amnesty International USA)

The above text came from a slideshow at www.amnestyusa.org/maze that shows Native American and Alaska Native women who have survived sexual violence. It's a really amazing webpage with a lot of information about the issue. You can watch videos made by the advocates, press conferences, and read survivors' stories.

One statistic that many people find surprising is the fact that over 86% of the perpetrators are non-native men. This is probably due to the problems with federal law and sovereignty that prevent tribal police and courts from detaining and prosecuting non-tribal members. That means, crimes committed on the reservation, including rape, by non-native people cannot be prosecuted. How is that for justice?

What also greatly disturbs me about this information is the fact that there seems to be a direct corrolation bewteen the high rate of sexual violence toward Indian women and the fact that nothing is being done to stop it. To me this means our main failure as a society is in not educating people enough around the issues of sexual violence. If the only thing stopping rape and sexual violence is the law, we are not doing enough. If men don't sexually violate women only out of fear of the legal consequences, we are failing. The laws around tribal jurisdiction need to be changed so that Indigenous women get justice. Our education needs to change so that Indigenous women and all women get justice. Women need to be empowered from a young age and educated about the options that face survivors. Women and men also need to be educated about the history of sexual violence, why it is unacceptable, why we all need to be advocates for ending this violence, and what we can do to stop it. What a revolution it would be to include this in our K-12 sex-ed programs!

That message aside, Indigenous women are still suffering sexual assualt in horrifying numbers. And I don't think that jurisdiction is the only problem. When women do survive sexual assault and can't get any justice in court, they have nowhere to turn. There are frighteningly few resources for survivors on reservations or in Urban Indian communities. I read about a place in Alaska where there is only one safe house for 500 miles in an area where not only is more than one house needed, but women do not have even the means to get to this safe house. One more quote from www.amnestyusa.org/maze "The Indian Health Service (IHS) is the principle and in some areas, sole provider of health services for these women. However, despite its prevalence, IHS continues to lack consistent protocols and resources for treating sexual assault survivors."

So, I filled out one of the pre-written letters on the website to the director of IHS just because it was such a simple step. After reading all of this information I wonder how I can do more. I work in the same building as the Seattle Indian Health Board and don't even know what kind of resources they provide for sexual assault. Maybe I can get involved with the issue in Seattle and get more people involved...thanks Olives for encouraging me to look up this information for your event, sorry I didn't bring it to the actual event!

-Etheline

Exotic, like sex in the Jungle.

2008-05-07T17:17:00.000-07:00

Why is it when a woman who looks "exotic," she then has a certain level of beauty that only one of a mixed race background can achieve.

Don't play stupid, I'm not going to sit here and try to legitamize that claim. I bet you anything that when I got out to the club, if I were to tell every guy I meet that I was not only Taiwanese, but Taiwanese AND Chinese (even though they are the same race) it would give me a certain glow of sexiness. Shoot, what if I were to throw in some European ethnicity like French or Italian in there? That's exotic. Sexiness to a whole different level!

Anyway, it's pretty clear that exotic = a sexualized "beautiful." What inspired me to write this blog?

Well I stumbled upon an amazing artist by the name of Janelle Monae on someone else's blog. So I was surfing the net for information about her latest EP that came out in August and stumbled upon a very interesting review. Here is an excerpt from one.

Even before I found out anything about her, I was captivated with her exotic look, her charisma, pure star power, and energy. I thought to myself, 'this woman is just too spirited to be one of those average video girls.' A year or so later, I found about Janelle Monae and realized that she was the woman.

This Amazon customer is commenting on her appearance in the Outkast video "Morris Brown." Janelle actually does not have any vocals in the song, but has a couple of appeareances in the video (hence the this women is too spirited to be one of those average video girls, because video girls of course have no spirit.)

Anyway, so what really disturbed me was the "captivated with her exotic look." So you know what's really great? Just now, I looked up "Exotic" on Dictionary.com to get some inspiration for this blog. (I'm supposed to be working on an application for something but I went brain dead.) but anyway... check out how Dictionary.com defines "Exotic."

ex·ot·ic
ɪgˈzɒtɪk/ –adjective
1. of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimatized: exotic foods; exotic plants.
2. strikingly unusual or strange in effect or appearance: an exotic hairstyle.
3. of a uniquely new or experimental nature: exotic weapons.
4. of, pertaining to, or involving stripteasing: the exotic clubs where strippers are featured. –noun
5. something that is exotic: The flower show included several tropical exotics with showy blooms.
6.an exotic dancer; stripper.

I don't even need to write this freakin blog. I think that the fact that dictionary.com has "an exotic dancer; stripper" under the definition for exotic is enough to prove my point.

Janelle you Badddd.

Oh damn!

2008-05-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

Just had to share:

So, I am a member of this website called Shelfari where you can post the books you've read or want to read and share them with other people, get reccommendations, etc. One part of the site is to read and write reviews of the books on your "shelf" and I got an email with the tag line "see what other people are saying about the books on your shelf!" and just in passing I saw that a person had written this yesterday about "To Kill a Mockingbird":

quoth says
Agree with almost every word of most of your post, indrani. Except this part: "Gives you a picture of the real America (I have never been there)". The book depicts a very prejudiced period of America. Very true and realistic given the time period and setting. Thank God, however, most areas of our country has "grown up" since then. We've got much more growing to do , of course. But it is a "period piece", keep in mind. :)

Is this person for real? Yes, thank God we are out of the prejudiced period of America! I would have hated to live at a time when people were discriminated against based on race, class, gender, ability, or any of those things. We are so lucky! And what's with the fuckin smiley face? As in, here's my last condescending sentence where I talk down to you like a child and spray bullshit about grown-up america that is so distant from the terrible (almost unimaginable, since they happened so long ago) things depicted in "To Kill a Mockingbird," and I'm going to tack a smiley face on the end of it just to really bring home the greasy idiocy of my opinions.

Hell no!

-Etheline

the shit-head, my lab partner, and other white men

2008-05-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

Marching behind this big huge globe today with thousands of other people was definitely the highlight of my day. Obviously any crowd that big is full of energy, but it was the speeches beforehand that really struck me. The best was the archibishop from Seattle, here's his quote from the Seattle PI:

"Seattle Catholic Archbishop Alex Brunett, addressing demonstrators before the march at Judkins Park, said his church "respects the law" but "cannot ignore the human needs of immigrant workers and their families when the law fails to protect their basic human rights.""

He also talked about how every person is welcome at any Catholic institution and that no one needs documents in a Catholic school, hospital, or any other Catholic social service. What. A. Badass.

Being Catholic, you don't get tons of opportunities to be freakin' proud and happy about stuff like this. I won't go on about this topic just incase Olives doesn't want me to de-secularize the nature of our blog.

Of course, whenever you hit the high of thousands of people claiming their freedom and humanity there has to be the obligatory ignorant shit-head who brings you back down a little. I had to leave the march early with a few friends and we walked back through the traffic-jammed streets. One of my friends still held her Mexican flag up proudly. We were still super pumped, talking about the awesomeness of the march when aforementioned shit-head leans out of his car window and actually yells "Go back to where you came from!" (that statement is, like, really out of fashion now isn't it? someone should tell him about all the new, more fashionable racist one-liners)

Now, being me, I couldn't keep myself from giving him the finger and telling him that he needed to take his ass back wherever the hell he came from because my ancestors are fucking from here. Last time I checked the only legal documents his ancestors came with were a bunch of guns and poisonous diseases. Anyway, I wasn't really too mad about it all seeing as thousands of people were triumphantly taking the streets and keeping his ignorant self stuck in the biggest traffic jam of his life. Because, if it had been a contest, we won.

In other news, my lab partner definitely thinks I'm whacked. Just because I seem to always misunderstand how every single measuring instrument works and because I thought it was super mind-blowing and awesome that my astronomy professor has looked back to almost the beginning of time. (It is awesome by the way, because the way light years work means that whenever you look at things in space, because of the time it takes light to travel that far you are seeing them as they were in the past which means the oldest things we can see are just not that long after the big bang. Tell me how that isn't something you would get excited about?). Anyway, he secretly loves being my lab partner.

Seeing as I added "and other white men" to the title I guess I should include some:

Here's a shout out to you Vanilla Ice, Chevy Chase, guy who I don't know who always says hi to me, Elvis, Stephen Hawking, Dad, and Tony Blair.

Ok, shit, I really need to study.

-Etheline

Hip-hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

2008-05-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

Etheline and myself were up late painting last night. Luckily I'm on duty this Friday night which means I get to pull together the Friday night program. So I was using my genuis artistic skills to paint a vibrant poster that would convince residents that their friday night would be well-spent in the halls with me, versus getting drunk at a house down the block...

and Etheline was trying to make brown with our six primary colored paints we had. (she's really into trees) What we ended up with was four bowls of some purple-ish/ grey-ish color. I thought it was quite the color though.

Since I highly doubt any of my lovely residents would be willing to sacrifice their friday night with their favorite resident assistance, I thought here would be a great place to advertise for my program =).

Xavier Friday Night Programs presents a screening of:

"Hip-hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes"

Friday May 2nd 8:30 PM

Hip-hop is a man's game... but does it have to be?
"Beyond Beats & Rhymes" takes an in-depth look at masculinity and manhood in rap and hip-hop, where creative genius collides with misogyny, violence and homophobia, exposing the complex intersections of culture and commerce.
Join Xavier residents in the screening of this documentary followed by a brief dialogue afterwards where residents can share their own experiences and perspectives on hip-hop.

What?! Shocking I know! Misogyny??! Violence?!? Homophobia??! How could hip-hop have any relevance to all these larger societal oppressors?!?! I mean Lil Wayne? Souljah Boy? Eminem? no wayyy......Snoop Dog?? Snoop Dog has been helping children.. right? Here, I'll even show a picture of Snoop Dog in his finest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to hate on hip-hop, nor do I mean to "villafy" these talented artists. I actually admire hip-hop, although differently than a hip-hop head may. Some of my favorite artists and musicians happen to be hip-hop artists, for example Lupe Fiasco (whom I happen to be in love with), Common (whom I quote often: "when we lessen our women our conditions seem to worsen"), blue scholars, Macklemore's alright... Hip-hop has done amazing things, there's just something transformative about hip-hop. Something about the ways in which it can cross cultural boundaries and bring together those that would normally choose not to engage in one other. Or perhaps, that would be my own biased assumption..

Okay lets start with Lil Wayne. I actually was okay with Lil wayne when I first heard him in Duffle Bag Boy (What?? Duffle Bag Boy?? that's like, so recent, Lil Wayne goes WAY BACK. Yeah, well I already mentioned that I'm not a freakin hip-hop head, so stop judging me on the basis of one.) Anyway, sorry it just seems like whenever I show the slightest interest in hip-hop that is not mainstream, I feel like hip-hop heads around me are just glaring through me as if I was some sort of poser. It's as if hip-hop heads are protective about who loves their music. It's music, no one owns it. For example, I was at the bar at the Cunninlynguists show and a male asked me what I was doing there. "Why are you here? You don't listen to Cunninlynguists." What the hell? Girls can't listen to some good hip-hop like Cunninlynguists? Actually I sort of understand now why any man would assume that females would not be interested in Cunninlynguists, they are closely affiliated with Tonedeff (.. at a previous show Tonedeff pointed to me and some girls around us during his performance and alluded to something about a threesome. What surprise huh? a man making sexual references to a group of females without these females doing the slightest thing that would even hint at something suggestive like a three some, but what's new? I was at a party once my freshman year, and this is freshman year when I took my first sip of alcohol. A guy told me him and his girl wanted to have a threesome and if I was interested. First of all I highly doubt it was him AND his girl that wanted it, why didn't the girl come ask me, obviously it was his idea. Pervert.) also, Cunninlynguists and PackFM are affiliated with one another as well. If you are unfamiliar with Pack FM's work let me give you a preview:

Now here's a story 'bout a girl that I'm sure you all know

She turns around when they yell (Ho-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)

You always see her at the shows, Gucci glasses on her nose

Too much make up on her face or hardly wearin any clothes

She ain't interested in flows, and she knows it's a fact

She's always early but ain't trynna see the openin' act

She wants the dough she could stackShe startin' local wit rap

She in the front row but really trynna go to the back

Oh, excuse me, let me introduce you to the groupie

Flash the car keys and the sharpie, you can autograph the coochie

Now ask yourself, "How many stars can one chick date?"

Her little black book resembles Kay Slay mixtapes

She got 2 Source covers, 4 Grammy nominees

A hot 16 in the cypher'll prolly have her on her knees

But she'll have you beggin' please, cuz she's always on her toesAnd there's a simple way to call her, let me tell you how it goes...

Hook:

Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi (Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi)

(She's a...) Ho-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh (Ho-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)

(She's in...) Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee (Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee)

(Now if you know her say...) Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay (Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay)

Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi (Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi)

(She's a...) Ho-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh (Ho-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)

(She's in...)Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee (Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee)

(Now if you know her say...)

Whoa-oh-oh (Whoa-oh-oh)V

:Now when you see her at a show

You wanna get this girl to blow

Just tell her you could flow

(Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hiiii)

You don't really have to prove it

She don't listen to the music

The truth is she kinda stupid

(Ho-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)

Don't get gassed if she hollas

Cuz she's all about the dollars

But I tell you this, she swallows

(Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hiiii)

He actually decided to perform this song at the Cunninlynguists show, which I found particularly intersting because this song is not one of his most popular songs. It's not on any of his myspaces, I can't find it on imeem or youtube, I feel like he's aware that it's a shitty ass song but yet he felt the need to tell us this story about Suzy live, at his show, where I, a woman, could've been a Suzy. I really could have, I have Docle & Gabbanna glasses, and I wear make up, I wasn't dressed half naked, but I have before. But anyway, I'm not going to dedicate this blog to PackFM, not quite. I need more time to write a blog dedicated to him, and I work in about 10 Minutes. This blog was supposed to be about Lil Wayne. I guess we'll just to wait on that. Have you heard his club hit "pop bottles?" If not, here is a preview.

I love how Lil' Wayne's verse just fits so well with the topic of the song. But of course the ways in which we rate a quality of the song is probably not in the cohesive-ness of the content of the lyrics.. which makes it perfectly okay for Lil' Wayne to throw in a "shut up bitch swallow" here and "shut up bitch gargle" there....

I should head out to work, but I do want to dedicate a blog to Lil' Wayne, and more specifically why it's important to acknowledge that there is a difference between mainstream hip-hop and just hip-hop. There are a lot of hip-hop artists that use misogynistic undertones, I'm sure, but why does Lil' Wayne stand out to me? Because everyone loves Lil' Wayne. TRL, MTV, the clubs.. they all play Lil' Wayne. He's POPULAR. so yes, it bothers me that an artist is deemed popular when he says stuff like "shut up bitch swallow, and if you can't swallow, shut up bitch gargle." But ofcourse it's Hip-hop, so it matches well with his "image." Can you imagine Jack Johnson saying that...? Think about it, at the club, you see Jack Johnson bust out on his guitar to the tune of Banana Pancakes "can't you see it's just raining? if you can't then well, shut up bitch. Can you please swallow, and if you can't well then gargle" Of course, Jack Johnson is white, that would be too much of a paradigm shift for this society to handle. Perhaps I shouldn't have racialized that, because we all know what Eminem likes to say in his songs..

"Now I don't wanna hit no women when this chick's got it coming

Someone better get this bitch before she gets kicked in the stomach

And she's pregnant, but she's egging me on, begging me to throw her

Off the steps on this porch, my only weapon is force"

but Eminem is a rapper, so this sort of language fits well with the "nature" of hip-hop. They "jive" well together. anyway, so then why did I have to racialize lil' wayne and Jack Johnson? Whether or not we choose to see it or not, mainstream hip-hop is racialized. We would rather see the "minorities" of this country take part in misogynistic lanugage, and homophobic tendencies rather than perfect white people.

Just imagine if everyone in Nelly's video "tip Drill" was white. Only minorities can pull off the graphic sexual images and intense degradation of their women with out being labeled as "porn." And Tip Drill is a club hit as well.

okay I'm really late to work. But come out to my program if you're in the area! I promise to be open minded, well I'll try my best. But the awesome Know choice and Akrish might be facilitating the dialogue, and they are a lot more open-minded than I am,

they're sexist though. jk.

Positivity is important. Which is why I'll make one last video post that is a bit more uplifting.

let us close with the wise words of Ms. Inga Muscio (actually Etheline found this quote..)

"The only Bush you can trust is your own Bush."

That's right ladies, hopefully your bush is still there.

<3olives

Christo couldn't wrap all the funky fun in our blog!

2008-05-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

These are some art installations by Christo. Basically he and his wife wrap huge things like bridges and islands and trees in fabric. It's sweet.

Anyway, first things first, my condolences to Olives for being demoted to a blog that, instead of promoting cool local artists, is 50% only promoting me. This is all very good from my end of things though, because Olives is way funnier than I am and can maintain the integrity of this blog while I laugh at her video posts.

Yes, Olives really is condescending to blog with someone who can't even make brown paint. Isn't brown the color you always accidently get when you're trying to make dark red or dark green and then you get pissed off because you were trying to paint something besides a piece of wood or a picture of me featuring my hair? I'm over it.

Well...that's it. You bad, Olives!

-Etheline

Introductions

2008-04-30T22:41:00.000-07:00

Hello, welcome to our blog. A little bit about how our blog got started...

I had the privilege to be a member of a blog among some very talented artists, however after I posted my first post, the other bloggers decided that my content did not jive well with the overall feel of the blog. This was a bit of a disappointment, because I was excited to be a part of a blog which served the purpose of promoting local hip-hop artists. But I guess I see their point. I intended on bringing a critical perspective to hip-hop, which I could see as a barrier to increasing their fan base.

anyway, so a good friend (Etheline) and I decided to make our own blog.

Well I'm not even sure what our audience base will be like, but I suppose this is a start.

you bad badu, no one can do it badu like you do!

<3 Olives.