The Commute to Work Just Got a Little Cheerier, Atlanta!

In case you live outside the greater Atlanta, GA area you may not have seen some of the new billboards sprouting up around the city:





I came across this post about them, titled "On Personhood: The Dehumanization of Black Women & Children", on Feministing.com. The hoopla over the billboards brings up 3 of my favorite controversial topics: race, abortion, and feminism.

Firstly, let's talk about the use of the term "Endangered Species". Femme writes, "This billboard dehumanizes both black women and children, by asserting that black children are an "endangered species," which animalizes them". I can't help but think, are black children being compared to the rhino?

Don't get me wrong, I can understand why pro-lifers would use a controversial image to try and incite support. Fashion labels and politicians do the same the thing all the time. But it seems a little much to insinuate that all black children will disappear thanks to rampant abortions. It seems that TooManyAborted.com, whose slogan is "No hype. Just truth.", is inferring that women just LOVE getting abortions. Not that getting an abortion is a difficult choice to make for a woman, a decision that takes time and a lot of thought. More specifically, the movement seems to hold that black women, on whom "57.4 percent of abortions in Georgia" are performed, cannot get enough of abortions.

Not to mention the way in which this movement insinuates that abortions by white women are perfectly fine while abortions for black women should be stopped. How does this double standard help anyone, especially the black community? And how is this a representation of a true pro-life group? Isn't a life a life regardless of race?

It's all a little over the top for me.

Loretta Ross is quoted in Femme's post as maintaining that, "Controlling our fertility was part of our uplift out of poverty strategy, and it still works". I happen to agree. Women having children for whom they cannot or will not care for is not going to improve anyone's life. And let's be real here, Planned Parenthood was not formed in order to wipeout the black race. People request to have these services in their communities. If there was no demand for them, they wouldn't be there.

Mums the Word on Moms of the Congo.

February 26th, 27th, and 28th I will be involved in a production of the Vagina Monologues at my university. Our spotlight focus is to raise awareness for the women of the DRC (The Democratic Republic of the Congo).




The women in the DRC suffer systematic rapes on a massive scale.
Amnesty International writes:
"Rape, sometimes by groups as large as twenty men, has become a hallmark of the conflict, with armed factions often using it as part of a calculated strategy to destabilize opposition groups, undermine fundamental community values, humiliate the victims and witnesses, and secure control through fear and intimidation. It is not unusual for mothers and daughters to be raped in front of their families and villages, or to be forced to have sex with their sons and brothers. Rapes of girls as young as six and women over 70 have been reported. Young girls are also regularly abducted and held captive for years to be used as sexual slaves by combatants and their leaders."

Naturally, I wanted to draw a little extra light upon the subject by posting an entry about it here, it seemed fitting and is something I am very passionate about.

Which is why I find myself, time after time, overwhelmingly frustrated with the lack of coverage the subjugation of women receives both in the mainstream media and in the World Wide Web 2.0.

If you're looking for women looking pretty, on the runway or the red carpet, giving housekeeping tips, and even doing things with farm animals that are illegal in half the western world, no problem! A few clicks and choice words into the google machine and you've got what you were looking for.
If you're looking for real, solid information on the systematic rapes, genital mutilation, or stigmatization of rape victims in the third world it becomes far more difficult to find anything which is both reliable and recent (the article linked to on the stigma of rape is from 2004).

I find it overwhelmingly tiresome that if women are not looking clean and pretty, or calling each other names, or stealing each other's men they can find very little voice across the internet.
This kind of treatment is, in my opinion, a subjugation all its own. It's like telling women to be pretty, petty or in porn, otherwise they're not going to receive much attention.

Given there are many sites that are dedicate to women's rights, but many are sub-sites for bigger webpages, for example the section of change.org that is dedicated exclusively to women but other sites are few and far between, barely any are both dedicated exclusively to activism for these kind of atrocities against women and many, like Whole World Women are sadly outdated.

Let me put it to you this way;
If there was some sort of armed conflict in a remote part of the world which resulted in men, on a massive scale (we're talking hundreds of thousands) being brutalized and subsequently having their penises cut off. Then after suffering that kind of brutality these men, these victims, were often put to death because "they aren't really good for much else", the US (and most western countries) would be there with tanks, and soldiers and penis replacement surgery.

What little is being done for the women of the Congo and countries the world over is heartbreaking, it is insult added to injury that those us who do not suffer as they do, don't have the time or interest to shed a little light on the subject.

"My dick is sort of like a white supremacist."

By now everyone has heard of, commented on, and posted a blog about John Mayer and his interview with Playboy. In addition to Mayer making himself look like a freaking lunatic, the interview got me thinking.

Just how "racist" are we when it comes to dating?


I began with the dating sites.
There is a bevy of racially guided websites:
Sites like Black Planet,Black Singles and Black Scene offer African Americans the opportunity to meet exclusively other African Americans.

JDate matches up Jewish singles (On a side note: Lorraine and Marv are the cutest couple I've ever seen).

Muslima offers the slogan "International Muslim Matrimonials".

My favorite was Afromance. It couples only black women with only white men. It all seems very exclusive and weirdly niche, but it has an AWESOME name.

Even eHarmony offers members the chance at Christian dating, Black dating, Jewish dating, Hispanic dating and even Senior dating. Each tangent site is complete with a promising picture of it's own demographic.

Something that I found increasingly intriguing was when looking for "White Dating Sites" I could either only find links to White Pride sites or discussions like this one on whether or not all white dating sites would be inherently racist?

This is something that I have yet to understand. It's okay for everyone else on the planet to romantically, genetically, emotionally, and physically segregate themselves based on the race they feel most comfortable with but when white people do it, its racist? As someone who cannot stand double standards, this kind of irked me.

Actually while reading a post on Salon.com titled Dirty Secrets About Dating and Race I found that a study done by George Yancey shows that Americans are more open to interracial dating than they have ever been.

So what is the deal?
Why not get out there and mingle?
Get outside your comfort zone and have a romantic adventure?

OR has Web 2.0 made it too easy for people to stay hiding within their own races and outside the realm of possibility?

It seems to me, in the end, that John Mayer just vocalized what a lot of people think. He doesn't seem to have any problem people outside his own race but he's certainly not going to mix genetic material with them.

The Right to Rule (or not)

I recently came across The Huffington Post article titled: No, We Can’t: The Impossibility of a Black British Head of State. I immediately thought to myself 'Obama! Obama!' (in unabashed American hubris), but this article wasn't about the British PM. It is, interestingly enough, about the British figure-head, the Monarch.

The article pretty much states that because the British Monarch is chosen on the basis of bloodlines, it makes “the current method of appointing the head of state racist by default.”

Now, I’m not claiming to know much more about the royal family or how monarchy works for our friends across the pond other than that William is the hotter prince (and he is). So, when I read this next bit I was a little confused.

“Equally appalling, this exclusion of non-white Britons excites no public outrage, not even from liberals, the left and African British ant-racist campaign groups. They just accept it as ‘the British way’ of doing things. Only the Green Party is calling for a democratically elected head of state.”

Doesn’t an elected head of state, whether powerful or powerless, make a country, essentially, a democracy? I’m all for equal rights but this article, by Peter Tatchell, seems to warp a few important details.

Tatchell touches lightly upon the idea of what would happen if a Black person (for that matter an Asian, Middle-Eastern, Hispanic, Muslim or Jewish person) were to marry into the royal family and produce an heir. The article even goes as far as predicting when the death of the prince would be and thus bring about the rule of the next possible bi-racial king or queen.

My question regarding this entire argument is why Tatchell is not questioning the British Prime Minister's race? In addiciton to this oversight, there is no mention in the entire article that the House of Lords, to this day, is not an elected congressional body. By the way, both the House of Lords and the PM hold more power than the British Limited Monarch.

What Tatchell is selling is not an idea of equal rights for the British races but one of democracy. He goes on to write about Ireland's democratic presidency and How Britain's could work similarly. It's obvious that this writer doesn't really care about the civil rights of non-whites, he's just manipulating the idea of injustice to push his own political agenda.

In my opinion, this is an example of the worst kind of commentary on civil rights when it comes to the internet/new media. It comes from a noted, reliable source, is written by someone who should know what he's writing about and yet it still offers very little in terms of real reference-able information. It robs the reader of what he/she wants most from the internet (not porn); something they can quote in coffee shops to sound smart.

To put it briefly; It's rubbish.

Hello and Welcome.

(None of the images posted belong to me, nor do I take any credit for being or taking any of them)


When people think about civil rights they tend to immediately think the American Civil Rights Movement and of figures like Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X (Which, don't get me wrong, is awesome). What the internet, or more specifically Web 2.0 has done is open the world up to new ways of sharing information. When it comes to civil liberties and human rights this means an opening up to injustices the world over right at your fingertips.

Not only is there a new, massive, audience for those looking to learn about civil rights movements the world over but the internet has also given millions access to the other side of the movement. The KKK has it's own (strikingly friendly) website on which you can read blogs, buy t-shirts and even learn about White Pride Homeschooling for the little ones. You can even follow the Klan on Twitter (ah, the marvels of modernity).

At the same time, the website for the Black Panther Party, www.blackpanther.org is outright scary. The main index page is just an ominous panther across a yellow backdrop with rotating black and white pictures on either side of it.

It's amazing what a little color and internet know-how can do for the image of a movement.

Interestingly enough, while looking for information on China's stance on Human Rights there seemed to be little more than Wikipedia and newspaper articles as well as the occasional random checklist to inform upon (but you can google on your own).

Which brings me to my original point: There is little to be said that hasn't already been said on the internet. The Topic of Civil Rights is no exception, and my aim will be to find some of the really interesting tid-bits on it and post on them.