PhDiva

"Prison is the only form of public housing the government has truly invested in"

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:05:21 +0200

“Prison is the only form of public housing the government has truly invested in”

- Marc Lumont Hill at the talk ‘End Mass Incarceration’ - Riverside Church, Harlem New York 2012. (via icecreamritual)

"All girls continue to be taught when they are young, if not by their parents then by the culture..."

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:09:56 +0200

“All girls continue to be taught when they are young, if not by their parents then by the culture around them, that they must earn the right to be loved — that “femaleness” is not good enough. This is a female’s first lesson in the school of patriarchal thinking and values. She must earn love. She is not entitled. She must be good enough to be loved. And good is always defined by someone else, someone on the outside.”

- bell hooks in Communion: Female Search for Love (via bhargette)

A Stitch, and Cultural Healing, in Time | HandEye

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 02:09:43 +0300

A Stitch, and Cultural Healing, in Time | HandEye:

a really wonderful article about my landlady and her embroidery collective…

al-smooth: Beautiful, despite your fascist standards. —...

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 10:47:56 +0300

al-smooth:

Beautiful, despite your fascist standards. — Egyptian graffiti

aboutmaleprivilege: (Cis?) Male privilege is being able to say “I don’t agree with their social...

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 21:45:48 +0300

aboutmaleprivilege:

(Cis?) Male privilege is being able to say “I don’t agree with their social policy, but I vote on economic issues because they are more important to me.” Male privilege is knowing that even if the part that gains power enacts reprehensible policies, you won’t be directly affected.

i have literally never understood people who say things like this. probably because to me, as a person with a vagina, they’re not “social issues,” they’re the essence of my autonomy and freedom.

took a little girls’ trip to butare last week. we visited...

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:29:25 +0300

barber shop in Butare (Huye)

took a little girls’ trip to butare last week. we visited the rwanda institution of national museums, which houses the ethnographic museum. inside is a replica of a “traditional” hut, which is pretty much designed for tired girls who don’t have time for a nap. we settled down inside to relax and drink some water and talk some smack. then we went for ice cream at inzozi nziza, and dinner at a place that i can’t spell, where we had possibly the most delicious potatoes (ibirayi), rabbit, and fish i’ve ever had in my entire existence.

we also visited the genocide memorial at murambi, which is about 31km down the road from butare in gikongoro. murambi is not really a place to take pictures, as it is the most graphic of the genocide memorials. murambi was a trade school set to open in 1994, but instead was the site of the massacre of an estimated 50,000 tutsis who were ordered there by local officials. they are still in the process of exhuming the mass graves, and they have taken 2000 of the bodies and displayed them in the classrooms, preserved in lime. the last time i visited, i actually was sick. this time i managed to not throw up, but it was still really upsetting. the room with the children’s bodies is the worst, i think (not that any of the rooms are easy to see). i’m still not really sure how i feel about it as a memorial.

"In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn."

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 17:24:27 +0300

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.”

- Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents (via postmodernismruinedme)

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their..."

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 15:12:34 +0300

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

- George Orwell (via humanformat)

Which means North America is populated by destroyed people.

(via zuky)

but most importantly each other’s (his)tories, and how their oppression is different, but in some ways interconnected

(via creouniverso)

motherjones: 25 states offer no protection to mothers of...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 21:40:58 +0300

motherjones:

25 states offer no protection to mothers of rape-conceived children whose rapists demand custody rights.

Do you live in one of them?

"Women who are fat are said to have ‘let themselves go.’ The very phrase connotes a loosening of..."

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:04:26 +0300

“Women who are fat are said to have ‘let themselves go.’ The very phrase connotes a loosening of restraints. Women in our society are bound. In generations past, the constriction was accomplished by corsets and girdles…. Women today are bound by fears, by oppression, and by stereotypes that depict large women as ungainly, unfeminine, and unworthy of appreciation…. Above all, women must control themselves, must be careful, for to relax might lead to the worst possible consequence: being fat.”

- Letting Ourselves Go: Making Room for the Fat Body in Feminist Scholarship, by Cecilia Hartley

mtvgeek: Yeah…so this exists. (via MTV Geek - The Daily Geek:...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:41:03 +0300

mtvgeek:

Yeah…so this exists.

(via MTV Geek - The Daily Geek: The ‘Dark Tower’ Movie Is Dead, ‘Avengers’ Bloopers And More)

GOP Logic

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:41:22 +0300

32,000+ pregnancies from rape every year: "Really rare"
10 cases of voter fraud over 12 years: An epidemic that must be stopped by any means necessary, constitution be damned!

thisisthinprivilege: Thin Pagan privilege is not being told that you’re a bad Pagan for your body...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:22:43 +0300

thisisthinprivilege:

Thin Pagan privilege is not being told that you’re a bad Pagan for your body shape, or that your body isn’t as sacred as other people’s, or that you don’t have Right Relationship with your body.

thisisthinprivilege: Thin Pagan privilege is not being told that you’re a bad Pagan for your body...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:21:22 +0300

thisisthinprivilege:

Thin Pagan privilege is not being told that you’re a bad Pagan for your body shape, or that your body isn’t as sacred as other people’s, or that you don’t have Right Relationship with your body.

canadian-communist: livealifethatscompletelyfree: But you...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 02:08:17 +0300

canadian-communist:

livealifethatscompletelyfree:

But you guys, Mitt is a JOB CREATOR, durrrrr…

A job creator that likes to fire people ;).

Rape exceptions: Even if Todd Akin believed in them, they don't work.

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:46:13 +0300

Rape exceptions: Even if Todd Akin believed in them, they don't work.:

“Believing that rape is a “legitimate” reason to abort may make you slightly less horrible than Todd Akin, but you’re still a misogynist who thinks that having sex requires forced childbirth as punishment.”

Rape exceptions aren’t legitimate - Salon.com

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:37:17 +0300

Rape exceptions aren’t legitimate - Salon.com:

“I think there is no reason that a woman should have to justify to some outside party, including a politician, why she no longer wants to be pregnant.”

"Despite the fact that sexual harassment is shown to have a more damaging impact on victims than any..."

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 19:31:08 +0300

“Despite the fact that sexual harassment is shown to have a more damaging impact on victims than any other forms of school bullying, teachers are less likely to intervene in incidences of the former. Why? Well, as Jena’s teacher said to her, ‘boys will be boys’. The sexual harassment of girls is viewed as ‘normal’ behaviour for boys. And it is precisely this naturalising of the act, this insidious complacency it elicits, which has enabled sexist bullying and harassment to flourish in classrooms across the world.”

- The Equality Illusion, Kat Banyard (via petitefeministe)

This is Thin Privilege: whatwouldmommywear: thisisthinprivilege: Thin privilege is structural,...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 04:20:22 +0300

This is Thin Privilege: whatwouldmommywear: thisisthinprivilege: Thin privilege is structural,...:

thisisthinprivilege:

activistblogofm:

whatwouldmommywear:

thisisthinprivilege:

Thin privilege is structural, it doesn’t care why people are thin. Getting called names for being thin isn’t comparable to what fat people have to face. At the very least, being very thin isn’t seen as some kind of moral failing. Being very fat…

This is honestly my problem with the conversations surrounding this privilege.

You treat the issue like racism or sexism or ableism or heterosexism or classism. You treat it like one group is privileged and not hurt by the objectification, and the other group is totally oppressed.

You don’t treat it like the double-sided sword that it is.

Hold the phone. All oppression is a double-sided sword. Oppression is bad for society, in a direct and profound way for oppressed groups, and an indirect way for privileged groups. For example, thin privilege intersects with male privilege, equivalently, fat discrimination intersects with sexism. That’s a huge part of what was shown in the poster that placed women side-by-side who on the one hand spent their time helping others or creating things, and on the other hand spent their time being professionally or personally objectified.

The patriarchy is bad for everyone: men are told they need to objectify women and that their worth lies in acquiring the highest status trophy woman (or number of trophy women), that they can’t emulate so-called ‘feminine’ traits, and so on. Yet, male privilege exists, and women are oppressed.

Fat discrimination is bad for everyone: thinner people are objectified and policed to stay as thin as possible, and told that if they ‘slip up’ or ‘let themselves go’ at any time they will lose their humanity. Also, there’s a competitive, nasty aspect of being thin which means thin people get lashback for embodying the ideal the rest of us are told to strive for at any cost (much like the a large-breasted, white, blonde, thin-waisted, young female gets lashback for being the ‘attraction ideal’ that the rest of us are told to strive for at any cost). Yet, thin privilege exists, and fat people are oppressed.

What is it going to take to convincingly argue that fat people are oppressed? Our children are getting taken away from us. We’re being barred from organ transplants, joint surgeries, fertility treatments, adoption, immigration. We’re being discriminated against in pregnancy and subject to high-risk surgeries at much higher rates than thinner women. We’re being sold dangerous, deadly, long-term ineffective body-mutilating services by our own doctors. There’s a ‘fat tax’ on health insurance, flying, clothing oneself, furniture and athletic equipment. There are social barriers to us dating, joining clubs, going out dancing, going to restaurants, going outside. We’re subject to damaging messages about people like us when we consume nearly any kind of media at all (in a very media-pervasive age). And it’s only getting worse and will continue to get worse as the ailments and expense of an aging population are increasingly blamed on fat people (like they have been for the past decade, at least). (some references!)

Yes, other groups have it worse (and historically much, much worse). But since when does talking about one form of oppression cancel out another? Why shouldn’t we try to understand the entire system of oppression and privilege, being activists where we see fit and respecting the activism we don’t participate in directly? Why does saying ‘thin privilege isn’t like classism’ mean that thin privilege is therefore not a thing, or that people who talk about thin privilege aren’t also talking about class privileges in another forum (or even the same forum, since there’s intersectionality)?

Fat discrimination, and hence thin privilege, are real. Oppression is a double-sided sword: it’s directly very bad for the oppressed, and indirectly bad for the society as a whole, and has side effects that can mean bad outcomes for the privileged.

aliasspace: topherlooks: Dowling Duncan and redesigning the...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 02:02:36 +0300

aliasspace:

topherlooks:

Dowling Duncan and redesigning the American Dollar:

Why the size?
We have kept the width the same as the existing dollars. However we have changed the size of the note so that the one dollar is shorter and the 100 dollar is the longest. When stacked on top of each other it is easy to see how much money you have. It also makes it easier for the visually impaired to distinguish between notes.

Why a vertical format?
When we researched how notes are used we realized people tend to handle and deal with money vertically rather than horizontally. You tend to hold a wallet or purse vertically when searching for notes. The majority of people hand over notes vertically when making purchases. All machines accept notes vertically. Therefore a vertical note makes more sense.

Why different colors?
It’s one of the strongest ways graphically to distinguish one note from another.

Why these designs?
We wanted a concept behind the imagery so that the image directly relates to the value of each note. We also wanted the notes to be educational, not only for those living in America but visitors as well. Each note uses a black and white image depicting a particular aspect of American history and culture. They are then overprinted with informational graphics or a pattern relating to that particular image.

$1 – The first African American president
$5 – The five biggest native American tribes
$10 – The bill of rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution
$20 – 20th Century America
$50 – The 50 States of America
$100 – The first 100 days of President Franklin Roosevelt. During this time he led the congress to pass more important legislations than most presidents pass in their entire term. This helped fight the economic crises at the time of the great depression. Ever since, every new president has been judged on how well they have done during the first 100 days of their term.

Love these.

these are great. i wish they’d do this. our money is so boring compared to everybody else’s.