a catskill eagle

nitanahkohe: yeah it really bugs me when ppl who claim to be radical activists don’t know shit...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:53:34 -0400

yeah it really bugs me when ppl who claim to be radical activists don’t know shit about the history of where they live or the indigenous people(s) who call it home.

when i give a talk or presentation, part of my self-introduction is always who i am, where i come from, which people(s) i belong to, and acknowledgement and thanks to the people(s) whose homeland we’re on. “Hello, my name is [Nita] and I’m a current grad student at [university] in the [dept of _____]. I’m Tsitsistas; I grew up in Natinixwe territory and now currently live on Nimíipuu land. I want to acknowledge that we are on [______] land, and thank the [______ people] for allowing us to meet here on their homelands. Néá’eše for inviting me to speak on [insert topic of presentation here].” it takes 10 seconds and isn’t hard to do, but it’s a base-level act of solidarity to assert indigenous land claims and to remind your peers that you (and probably they) are a visitor on colonized land. moreover, at least for me, culturally, i was raised to consider where you come from and which people you are a part of an integral part of who you are, so you’re not really honestly introducing yourself if you don’t share those things (at least in my perspective). i was taught to speak from the heart, which is rooted in your communities and cultures. i don’t know how to translate it into a phrase that non-Natives would automatically understand, but people who grew up around Native communities know the importance of doing some things “in a good way”—introducing yourself without sharing above is robbing your words of power and truth because you’re not speaking in a good way (honest, strong, humble, community-driven, respectful).

i also believe that that simple introduction isn’t enough. you should know the history, some basic (publicly-accessible) elements of the culture of the regional peoples (ie if you live in NorCal and can’t recognize a tradish basketweave pattern you probably deserve a good upper cut), and the geography (land claims, traditional land use, village sites, massacre sites, battlefields, etc). that information isn’t hard to find and a lot of it you can learn in passing just by actually joining in on the public Native-hosted events. if you’re not living on your ancestral land, you’re living as a settler (indigenous & POC people can be settlers! in fact the varying nations of the Americas have very long histories of exploiting non-indigenous POC specifically to use them to “settle” colonized lands), and you owe it to the people whose land you’re on to give them the respect and solidarity they deserve.

you SHOULD know the history and the people of the land you’re standing on. you owe it to them, you owe it to yourself, and you owe it to any kind of loving community you hope to someday be a part of on that land.

thepeoplesrecord: iamnotlosthere: bornfromoblivion: iamnotlost...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:52:47 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

iamnotlosthere:

bornfromoblivion:

iamnotlosthere:

bornfromoblivion:

iamnotlosthere:

bornfromoblivion:

iamnotlosthere:

Then don’t get loans, and work for your money. I’m taking out zero loans and paying outright with no help of parents or outside sources. Education is a privilege not a right.

I hate to disagree with ya, Laiky cause I love you. But it’s not always that easy. My best friend in the world has had a job for nearly 3 and a half years and has saved every cent of her money for school and still had to take out loans. And right now she can’t afford to go to grad school, and her work is cutting back her hours. I’ve been working for 4 and a half years, have saved all my money and still need to take out a loan or two so I can stay in school.

The point is - school is outright way too expensive. I mean, my other friend’s school is nearly $40,000 for a year. And it’s all so we can sit in a room, and get lectured by a teacher. It’s a slight upgrade from high school and yet people are going into extreme debt over it.

Then go part time, or defer. Most schools have a deferment program. It might take longer, but if school is of high priority, than make it work. Sure, some schools could stand to be less expensive, but you can’t expect handouts.

Well, that’s the thing. No one is expecting handouts. And education is a right, one that everyone should have. Sometimes deferring is just simply not an option. My best friend took her first two years of college during high school - she saved money but that doesn’t make it easier. My first two years of college are paid for but I still have to take out loans.

And the thing about college is - if you don’t pay them outright on the due date - you get kicked out. You don’t get a grace period, that’s it you’re done. So people need loans to stay in school. A loan is an incredibly valid and smart way of going about paying for school. Almost 90% of people who go to college get them, hardly anyone (unless you’re rich) can pay outright. You could be saving for 10 years and STILL not have enough money to pay the college directly. But not everyone has the option of waiting 10 years to start going to school.

I’m extremely lucky and privileged to have parents and family that help me pay for school. I paid for a third of tuition my first two years and have been paying for all my textbooks (mind you, a whopping $400 for a semester). But not everyone has family that can help them like mine do. That’s what loans are there for - to help those of us who need help paying for school. Sure, if you can avoid them - good! But the point is, school shouldn’t cost as much as it does.

The access to education is a right, not education itself. If loans are no big deal, then why complain about the debt? You have to pay for the loans that you take out. If you don’t expect to pay them back, then that is expecting a handout.

I’m not rich, and I’m paying outright for tuition, books, and all the other random fees. I’m part time and I’m gonna end up taking about 6 years to get a BA, but I’m doing it because I don’t want loans and debts, and I don’t want my family having to take care of my education.

Deferment should never not be a possibility if the school offers it. It’s the student’s own choice if they don’t do it.

If loans are valid and smart, what’s the problem? I mean, like I said, sure, some schools could stand to be a little cheaper.

That’s your choice and that’s fine. But not everyone wants to spend 6 years devoted to their bachelors degree. And you can plan on getting out in 6 years all you want but to be honest it may take longer. Because it is also the truth that some people won’t even be able to finish their BA in 4 years doing full time - like I am. (I have to take an extra semester).

Why shouldn’t people be allowed to complain about their debt? Yes, loans are sometimes a necessity and no, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But that doesn’t make it any easier. This photograph isn’t about a person expecting that they shouldn’t have to pay back their loans. They are upset that the cost of college is at such a high expense that they will be forced to pay it off for half their lives.

Deferment is a possibility. But if someone gets into the school of their dreams that just so happens to be out of their outright price range - they shouldn’t have to defer. They should be able to go right that second! They should not have to defer and defer and defer and defer until they manage to scrape up $50,000 for the year. If they want to go to that good school, they shouldn’t be shamed for taking out loans or complaining about the INSANE debt just because someone decided to take a different approach or because someone has more money than they do.

My point is. This photograph isn’t a statement about “we took out a loan that we didn’t expect to have to pay back, we want a handout.” This photograph is a statement towards how expensive schools are - because why on Earth does a school need to cost nearly $100,000? They are saying that education shouldn’t be a debt, and they’re right.

You’re plan works for you and that’s great! But not everyone can defer, not everyone has the money to pay outright, not everyone has family to help them, some people do have family to help them, some people go to a cheaper community college and some people got into the school they always wanted that does cost a lot more! Everyone’s situation is different and for you to say they shouldn’t complain, they should just do exactly what you’re doing or just not go to school or just defer - is like a smack in the face to them. It’s a smack in the face to people who work their fingers to the bone and can’t go to school, to people like me and my best friend who save all their money but still need to take out loans.

Things don’t always go like people plan. This person hates that school has to cost an arm and a leg and they’re making a statement. And you’re saying that they should just get over themselves and “work for their money”. When you don’t know how long or how hard they have worked for it. Your plan doesn’t work for everyone else.

That’s not what deferment is. Deferment is your school payment being spread out monthly (or however often any specific school has it set at) instead of all at once. My plan is the only plan in the scheme of things, really. Work for you money, go to school. If you have to take out loans, do it. But you know going in how much it’s going to cost. If you don’t like it, then don’t go to school. It’s as simple as that. If you want the schools to change, then do something about it. Standing in the street with a sign isn’t gonna get anything done.

My school is planned out for the most part. Unless I start going full time, which I might do in a couple of years, it will take me six years for a BA.

Mhm, please keep us updated on your big success.

Sorry but “you know going in what it’s going to cost” is sheer bullshit on about a hundred levels. Do you have any IDEA what has happened to the cost of education in this country (or most other industrialized countries) in the past 20 years? Considering even if they had the spare money, your parents would have had to start saving for you when you were born to reach the amounts people have to pay now- it’s also not a predictable amount. In many cases its 10-16x what it was 10 years ago.

Do you know how much it cost to go to public university in California 10 years ago? 20 years ago? In 1976 UC Davis costed about $220/quarter. Now it costs $4600/quarter. And a lot of that has been in the past 10 years, not steady, because it wasn’t until the 90s that the state systems started to really cannibalize themselves and the bigger universities started to turn themselves into real estate and private investment entities. In the last five years, student fees have doubled for University of California and Cal State students. For community college students, they’ve leapt by 80%.

So all of a sudden we’re supposed to have known that the education system would abandon its public mission (and states would abandon their support of it) - the mission on which most of the land-grant universities were founded (and which kept other school fees down through competition)? don’t be silly.

And “if you don’t like it, don’t go to school” is sadly, deeply ignorant. I can only assume you haven’t dealt with the job market in this country in the past 10-15 years? Do you know what kinds of work is out there for people who don’t have college degrees, how little it pays and how insecure it is? I don’t know what you’re learning in college, but you aren’t learning to be very thoughtful about how the world really works, and you are awfully quick to suggest other people bear costs that they are not equipped (through no fault of their own) to bear. One of the things that college is less able to teach you these days because of the focus on training students as workers and cutting costs on actual teaching, is critical thinking, and also learning to analyze patterns and systems in the real world. I would encourage you to do some actual research into the situations you are apparently just generalizing from your own life about. You’re being shortchanged in your own education if you don’t learn how to do that, and you will never learn how to actually understand what’s happening in the world.

this is a strugglingtobeheard appreciation post because she has to deal with so many fucking idiots its srsly bullshit and I love them and hope them all the best every day.

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:19:28 -0400

so-treu:

<3 <3 <3

Remember when

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:05:39 -0400

biyuti:

blackamazon:

So remember when I said that peopel were watching WOC on tumblr and it had value and some asshole tried to laugh at me saying I was over estimating their importance.

Even though NYT took ideas from WOC . and schools put up people’s Tumblr posts as ways to learn and Yale grads told about the plagiarism problem and their are digital feminist archival meetings

Then femfuture raised 20 grand to talk about why they should be leaders using ONLY examples pretty much of WOC and LGBTQ and poor people organizing

But only white women’s writing with chosen WOC

remember when Racialicious has a WEEKLY post on Tumblr goings on.

And everybody said oh no it’s all in your head etc

And

that this traffic was why we can’t download our stuff anymore and why the block feature is funky

Remember that

Remember how folks mocked me about how I said that the platform means fuck all it’s the connection and the ability to monitor discussion and influence and pinpoint actual versus just number junky people

and then tumblr sold for 1.1 Billion

and suddenly it’s a concern

Good times

i remember this well.

i also remember people telling us that we shouldn’t bitch so much about the functionality of the site because tumblr was ‘free’

despite the fact that all we do on here, the writing, talking, discussing, sharing is exactly why

tumblr is valuable enough to be worth 1.1 billion

and all the people just scoffing at the tumblr social justize warriorssssss

when tumblr is such a valuable data mine

that despite never making a single profit

it gets bought for a billion

and people can make actual money off of the ideas we discuss here.

Azucar’s 2 Year Anniversario (Sat. May 18) & the borders of “Global Bass” | DUTTY ARTZ

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:52:26 -0400

Azucar’s 2 Year Anniversario (Sat. May 18) & the borders of “Global Bass” | DUTTY ARTZ:

Co-written by DJs Ushka and Ripley.

When we talk about “global bass” as a genre and scene in New York, it’s not always clear what fits into this recently generated category. Who gets to claim “global bass” and what does it represent? This desire to cookie-cutter a range of musical genres as a way to identify a “scene” has in its doing led to the lack of inclusion, in media accounts, of many communities who are engaging with global music and culture in meaningful ways, with amazing music.

One party space that’s been slept-on is Azucar (bi-line: a queer Latin dance party), that for the last two years has made its home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn at One Last Shag. The music –spanning Latin pop, punk, bass, salsa, kuduro, dancehall, you name it– keeps this bar space with a backyard packed to the brim, but the music also has deep roots. That’s what has helped it become a once-a-month home for diverse queer community of color and allies. It’s one of those parties born out of intentionality. The promoters Ivette González-Alé and Crystal González-Alé, and the venue itself are clearly invested in building a community – which involves honoring existing communities that lack social spaces: queer, latino and immigrant communities, and also invested in supporting talented deejays also conscious of who they want to be playing to. Among the roster of deejays that have set the scene for this familial dance community Azucar has built over the last two years are deejays like Precolumbian, Shomi Noise, Nolita Selector, DJ Nopales, Andalalucha, Dj Cristy Road, Mursi Layne, and Dj Angel boi.

In conversations that Ushka has had with Ivette and Crystal, they’ve talked about the waxing and waning of spaces for queer communities of color and the ways in which even in “alternative” party spaces for queer communities, people of color were not dominant. As parties that were former staples in the Brooklyn queer community of color reached their time (ex. Khane Kutzwell’s Sweatparties,Tikka Masala’s That’s My Jam and Ms. Thang), new spaces like Azucar and Brooklyn Boihoodwere born to fill the gap. What Azucar has done over the last 2 years provided a necessary social base, and a key aspect for keeping music exciting and sustainable.

Tomorrow (Saturday May 18, 2013) Ushka and I (Dj Ripley), who have each played Azucar parties before, have been invited back to deejay their 2-year anniversary party, alongside Azucar resident DJ Shomi Noise and guests DJ Oscar Nñ, DJ Mursi Layne, and DJ Nolita Selector. It’s a great moment to praise the way that Azucar has grounded and supported the global bass music scene in New York and beyond. It’s also in line with what drew Ushka and I to Dutty Artz : a focus on music that links and crosses borders, supports resistance, alters the contours of mainstream discussions and fosters the life that grows in cracks in the system.

We wanted to emphasize how these parties and DJs have been part of the creation of cultural establishments for a diverse range of immigrant sounds and are actually rooted in communities of immigrants & in regions that are constantly being “mined” for musical inspiration. It would be trivial and simplistic to relegate them only to being “queer or gay nights” or “lady dj nights” – instead they require that we interrogate the exclusivity of this so-called “global bass” scene and in fact (re)evaluate the role of community creation within any scene. Here, it is actually Latino, African, South Asian, Black, and Caribbean people on the dance floor and behind the decks. Here, all sexualities and gender identities are being celebrated. If there’s a recipe for a music scene with a long healthy life that sustains its members, it should include both those things.

"Three times a week, Real Bronx Tours takes riders — mainly white Europeans and Australians — on a..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:32:58 -0400

“

Three times a week, Real Bronx Tours takes riders — mainly white Europeans and Australians — on a trip that includes stops at food-pantry lines and a “pickpocket” park.

Last week, on the first stop of the $45 tour, guide Lynn Battaglia, from Pittsburgh, pointed out a housing project. She then mocked the Grand Concourse, modeled after a Parisian boulevard.

“Do you feel like we’re on the Champs-Elysées?” she teased a couple from Paris.

As the bus idled across from historic St. Ann’s Episcopalian Church, Battaglia launched into a description of the crime, poverty and violence that plagued the South Bronx during the 1970s recession.

…

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz slammed the guide as “the biggest fool on the planet.”

“They should tell people about The Bronx that we all know, and that’s The Bronx that’s had the lowest crime rate since 1963 last year,” he said.

“To have foreigners come and gawk at a long line of people who are less fortunate than they are and to make money off of that and to view them as they are some sort of entertainment is pretty disgusting.”

”

- Politicians Furious Over Bronx Bus Company’s “Ghetto” Tour (via supersoygrrrl)

this is disgusting.

(via bapgeek)

Ghetto Tours…… just FYI, this is why I don’t like people. This shit right here.

(via kyssthis16)

This vile racist classist condescending fuckery needs to be trolled at the very least. A counter tour? Street theater? Something.

floricanto-desnuda: pocproblems: I hope he learned a lesson...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:23:34 -0400

floricanto-desnuda:

pocproblems:

I hope he learned a lesson from this.

i don’t care; i’m completely amused and so is she *s

Gina Calaya, arrested for Tucson murder at 14, released at 34

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:25:19 -0400

Gina Calaya, arrested for Tucson murder at 14, released at 34:

thisisrapeculture:

socialismartnature:

When then-14-year-old Gina Celaya killed the man who tried to rape her, the state of Arizona sentenced her to life in prison.

Today — after twenty years in prison, and almost as many years of legal battles fought from state courts up to the federal court of appeals — Gina is finally free.

That’s the American “justice system” for you. Serving up injustice to poor people, people of color, and women, since 1776 … She has served more years in jail than the number of years she had been on this Earth at the time of her supposed “crime.”

Meanwhile, actual murderers and rapists walk around freely if they wear a police badge or serve in the U.S. military.

There are no words for how much I fucking hate this country.

There is no justice system.

I hope no one ever interferes with her life again.

"immigrants, poor people, queer people of color, disabled folks, women (esp trans women of color) and..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:19:50 -0400

“

immigrants, poor people, queer people of color, disabled folks, women (esp trans women of color) and gender-nonconforming folks if you are in academia and you don’t feel smart enough, remember that you are in the playground and training grounds of the elite. academia was not designed to include you. you are surviving something that has been systemically designed to exclude you in order to keep power in the hands of white, middle class, able bodied cis-men.

knowing this, don’t let academia train you to believe that elitism is the right way to make it through school. you can learn shit, hold the knowledge of your people in your heart, discard shame for your humble beginnings and/or marginalized identities. move through this experience knowing that the changes it offers you don’t have to include accepting academic elitism, inaccessible language or superiority. you can can simultaneously own the privilege that comes with being college educated and connections to your roots. academia does not have to kill your spirit.

”

- fabian romero- indigenous immigrant queer boi writer, facilitator and community organizer (via jatigi)

What You Should Know About the Philly Student Walkout | The Nation

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:17:54 -0400

What You Should Know About the Philly Student Walkout | The Nation:

strugglingtobeheard:

afrofuturistaffair:

Running a massive deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars, Philadelphia’s school system is planning to eliminate all sports, extracurricular activities, counselors and libraries—beyond which, for schools eviscerated by austerity politics, there’s not much left to lose. At noon today, May 17, thousands of students are expected to walk out of class and flood downtown. [Afrofuturist Affair: The walkout happened, and it was peaceful, well-organized, and productive].

“It’s time that the City Council and Governor Corbett started listening to students,” says Sharron Snyder, a junior at Benjamin Franklin High School and an organizer with the Philadelphia Student Union. “If they spent even one day in my school, they would know that already we don’t have the right resources to succeed.”

Walkout organizers state, “We are willing to break the stereotypes and expectations of urban youth, and are taking this opportunity to tell the world that urban school districts deserve funding, and it is your responsibility under the Commonwealth Charter to provide us with more than a ‘bare bones education.’”

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174401/what-you-should-know-about-philly-student-walkout#ixzz2TZyv1nes

so basically all the mechanisms that make school worth any bit of time are being eliminated? and as my friend commented since he from the area, all them private schools will be creaming the crop of athletic and smart children maybe take them into the fold, maybe not. but the kids who can afford it are unscathed. there is no point to school with no library and no extracurriculars and sports. like… wut? you just want me to take classes all day with no guidance and no mentorship and no place to study and no way to let off steam and play sports and stay active. then there is no point of school. this is horrendous and i applaud these kids so much. these mostly Black students are fighting for their right to an education and it’s brave in the face of all that is happening.

Queer, Gifted & Black: jezebel and the phenomenon of using tumblr users' words, largely those of woc, without asking

Fri, 17 May 2013 02:38:10 -0400

Queer, Gifted & Black: jezebel and the phenomenon of using tumblr users' words, largely those of woc, without asking:

strugglingtobeheard:

angryasiangirlsunited:

so today, we got a message here on AAGU about a jezebel article where the user had seen our name. the jezebel article is about the mindy project and how all of mindy’s love interests on the show are white. the article then goes on to say:

A poster on the tumblr…

Relevant to the entire evening convo they are doing this to more than one person

kalisherni: mutinousmindstate: Image by Anirvan Chatterjee...

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:47:08 -0400

kalisherni:

mutinousmindstate:

Image by Anirvan Chatterjee circa 2013.

dalit panthers !!!!!!

Former NASA Engineer Awards Kiera Wilmot Scholarship to Space Academy

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:14:38 -0400

Former NASA Engineer Awards Kiera Wilmot Scholarship to Space Academy:

jalylah:

As a show of support, former NASA engineer Homer Hickam awarded Kiera a scholarship to attend the United States Advanced Space Academy (ASA), a branch of the famous Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama!

YESSSSSSSSS!

"Some of these music blogs could actually benefit from hiring people who REALLY understand the..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:33:35 -0400

“Some of these music blogs could actually benefit from hiring people who REALLY understand the culture of R&B to write about R&B. Some of these music blogs could actually benefit from hiring people who REALLY understand the culture of hip hop to write about hip hop. Like you really should know about deep Brandy album cuts before you are giving a “grade” or a “score” to any R&B artist. And ivy league credentials don’t give you any insight on “grading” a rapper’s body of work…when you’ve had no access to the REAL culture. There are SO many gifted writers who truly understand. Who didn’t get hip to R&B & Hip-Hop via the crossover artist of their childhood. Just hire them please, so you can stop insulting peeps’ knowledge. So you can stop acting like it just popped off last year for R&B. Like it just got interesting and experimental. So you can stop praising every rapper who raps over a trap beat, but can’t form literate sentences and then you market it as some hip shit. And that wasn’t a rant. It was an observation and a request.”

- Solange Knowles

Please school these children Solange. (This was taken from tweets that she shared this morning.) I cannot think of anything more irritating and reprehensible than having cultural writers write about something they know little of, and having some abstractly-related degrees as “proof” of their qualifications. And to be clear, no shade on formal education. I have 3 college degrees. The point is, having them does not make me an expert on something as intricate as Black music MORE than the experience of listening, studying and embracing (and for some people, creating) said music LONG before said music reaches the final stage of the cycle of cultural appropriation when (primarily White) people deem it “acceptable” and “mainstream.”

(via gradientlair)

I feel this so fucking much. Sometimes I read reviews of an R&B or Hip Hop album and there is just so much eye-rolling that I just can’t finish the damn thing.

(via chasingdunamis)

Now that I live in New York again, I see how much the publishing industry is tied to specific social circles, especially the Ivy League. (Not that some folks Solange may be talking about might not be at Ivy League schools I suppose, but it feels incredibly insular. People get writing jobs (or found magazines) because of who they went to school with, they all cycle through the same social scenes and know each other. I never realized before how much that really shapes who gets published in these places. Even just being back in NY one year I have watched the trajectory of people from elite academic institutions trickle up into elite publishing institutions (such as they are) and the more elite (and likely to be paying) writing gigs online too. That totally contributes to the lack of knowledge about cultures that aren’t rooted in inherited money and prestige.

WUTS UP DOGE: blacksentai: lahoops: evolutia: foraminifera: My “white privilege” is...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:28:36 -0400

WUTS UP DOGE: blacksentai: lahoops: evolutia: foraminifera: My “white privilege” is...:

blacksentai:

lahoops:

evolutia:

foraminifera:

My “white privilege” is negated by this little problem called SEXISM, wherein I still receive less money for the same job that a man has.

Not it isn’t. If you are white you have white privilege. Not only are white females the primary beatifically of affirmative action but they still make more money than other women who are People of color.

So needed to bold that.

White women actually make more money than me, a black man. White chicks love throwing all dudes into the same mix. Like racism isn’t a factor everywhere.

Tried to reblog the op directly but couldn’t.

But that, foraminifera, is ridiculous. Aside from the previous, and true, point made about Black men, Black women (and other women of color) are likely to have it worse than white women on pretty much every scale of quality of life, from infant mortality to pay/salary to access to scholarships to life expectancy to likelihood of incarceration to (un)employment to being on the receiving end of violence, to deportation. So your statement also erases those simple realities, and is oppressive to your fellow women as well, undermining any kind of feminist leanings you might have (if feminism is to be actually useful to all women).

TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:21:21 -0400

TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly:

readabookson:

janetmock:

elsabordelamorydeldolor:

TSQ is a new interdisciplinary academic journal that will change the way the world thinks about transgender issues.

Folks, I’m proud to be on the editorial board of this journal, please support this project and share with your networks.

Yes! We need more for us, created by us publications.

boost

deliciousKaek: peaceshannon: today, i want to share the story of finding my mother....

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:52:28 -0400

deliciousKaek: peaceshannon: today, i want to share the story of finding my mother....:

peaceshannon:

today, i want to share the story of finding my mother. as most of you know, i went on k-pop star in order to try to gain enough media attention to get myself in other newspaper articles, in the hopes that someone who knew my mother would recognize me.

actually, just by…

deafmuslimpunx: No Queer Is An Island: An Interview with Ryka...

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:44:34 -0400

deafmuslimpunx:

No Queer Is An Island: An Interview with Ryka Aoki

Chemist. Poet. Fifth-degree black belt. Meet Ryka Aoki, author of the new Lamba Literary Award-nominated book of poetry (and more), Seasonal Velocities. In this interview, we discuss her previous job doing weird science (really, really weird science), publishing her book with a brand-new DIY all-trans press, and her Lamba Literary Award nomination. Highlights include:

how judo prepared her for a life in the social justice movement,

how being an abuse victim helped prepare her for an MFA in poetry,

why your “movement” work doesn’t have to end in becoming jaded and burning out.

Check more episodes of this queer and trans people of color podcast here.

Loose Exclusive for Cluster Mag Loose is a documentary about the...

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:18:11 -0400

Loose Exclusive for Cluster Mag

Loose is a documentary about the physical, emotional, and spiritual experience of its subjects’ gender transitions, but Loose is not like other documentaries: it’s never the same from one viewing to the next. Rather than being screened the film is “played”—performed live like a DJ set—and mixed improvisationally to create a site-specific work. Loose also asks more questions than it provides answers, diverging significantly from an ethnographic format that often seeks to explain entire groups of people to outsiders.

The documentary is best experienced as a live show, with director and producer D’hana Perry at the controls, blending interview footage with psychedelic abstractions and experimental electronic music, making ample use of their disorienting, hard editorial style. D’hana is a DJ, party-starter and renegade sociologist with a refreshingly critical eye for power dynamics and little desire to participate in the film festival circuit.

In March, rapper and Loose interviewee Micah Domingo got together with art historian and DJ Brian Friedberg—a.k.a. Rizzla—to interview D’hana Perry at their home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All three are recent Brooklyn transplants and members of the multidisciplinary #KUNQ collective. In the last three years they have performed side-by-side in clubs and community spaces from San Francisco to Boston and Montreal. Their shared history, common influences—or rejection thereof—and intimacy are evident in the following living room chat, where they touch on “daps from dudes,” gendered DJ styles, and why the cyborg as a theoretical construct is just plain funny.

For the online version of this article, D’hana Perry provided a brand new cut of exclusive footage from Loose ongoing development with an accompanying soundtrack that includes artists like Fatima Al Qadiri, Nguzunguzu, fellow #KUNQ member Blk.Adonis, and Rizzla himself.

Music:
Unknown - NGUZUNGUZU
目線 Juke - GEN
Black - Ginger Does’em All
Raisin (False Witness Remix) - Jean Nipon
Super Twister - DJ Mike Q
Hydra - Fatima Al Qadiri
PNP - Rizzla & Blk.Adonis
Bankhead - Kingdom

LOOSE Participants:
Charley
Kai
Kortney
Micah
Mykal
Oscar
Tre’Andre

iinventedeverything: A group of around a...

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:09:40 -0400

iinventedeverything:

A group of around a hundred African-American students had gathered on Lynch Street (which at the time bisected the campus) on the evening of Thursday, May 14 to protest the United States invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.^[2] By around 9:30 p.m. the students had started fires, thrown rocks at motorists and overturned vehicles, including a large truck. Firefighters dispatched to the scene quickly requested police support.

The police responded in force. At least 75 Jackson police units from the city of Jackson and the Mississippi Highway Patrol^[3] attempted to control the crowd while the firemen extinguished the fires. After the firefighters had left the scene, shortly before midnight, the police moved to disperse the crowd then gathered in front of Alexander Hall, a women’sdormitory.

Advancing to within 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 m) of the crowd, at roughly 12:05 a.m., officers opened fire on the dormitory.^[4] The exact cause of the shooting and the moments leading up to it are unclear. Authorities claim they saw a sniper on one of the building’s upper floors, and were being sniped in all directions. Later two city policemen and one state patrolman reported minor injuries from flying glass^[5] and an FBI search for evidence of sniper fire was negative.^[6] The students say they did not provoke the officers. The gunfire lasted for 30 seconds, and at least 140 shots were fired by a reported 40 state highway patrolmen using shotguns from 30 to 50 feet. Every window on the narrow side of the building facing Lynch Street was shattered.^[5]

The crowd scattered and a number of people were trampled or cut by falling glass. Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior, and James Earl Green, 17, a senior and miler^[5] at nearby Jim Hill High School, were killed; twelve others were wounded. Gibbs was killed near Alexander Hall by buckshot, while Green was killed behind the police line in front of B. F. Roberts Hall, also with a shotgun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings