Megan Lee (via sociolab)
(Source: docs.google.com, via lifeinthemargin)
When you discuss the wage gap, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Only white women make $0.77 to a man’s dollar.
- Black women make about $0.68 to a man’s dollar.
- Latina women make about $0.58 to a man’s dollar.
Intersectionality matters.
And men of color make less than white women.
I don’t know how to feel about the fact that Asian women were left out of the original post. I’m pretty sure I’ve read that they actually make a little more than white women do, but even then, I know my mom doesn’t, and I don’t know how much I’m going to make when I’ve graduated college and start my post-graduate career.
Well, these are statistics. Of course, they don’t account for every individual’s unique experiences and wages. Statistically, we (Asian women) are said to make more than white women. But that doesn’t mean that there are those of us who don’t make a lot of money, just like there are individual black and Latina women who make much more than the average income.
It’s hard to think of Asians as a cohesive bloc w/r/t economic statistics. They make up a very small percent of the population and also live in areas that are more expensive so that skews the result. Asians are also kind of over-represented in STEM which means people think all Asians are rich or have access to good jobs.
Asian men make the most out of any group and Asian women are 2nd but you cannot really look at this as a good picture of Asian America since the data sets are so skewed.
Yeah, for sure. It’s just sort of odd reading these statistics that come up on my dashboard and knowing that my family falls outside of certain ones. Thank you both for reminding me of what you did.
Earlier tonight, I was thinking about how part of the reason it can be so hard for first-generation Asian Americans to succeed here, especially if we don’t go into STEM or some other well-paying fields, is because we don’t have connections. The closer I’ve gotten to adulthood, the more often I’ve heard that everything is about connections—-either establishing them, or using the ones you already have. Now I am an adult, and I’m realizing how that lack of connections will affect me in the future.
Since my family immigrated here from China and Hong Kong in the 80s, they don’t have the connections that many American families do. When they arrived, they had to learn English, find jobs they could survive on, and adjust to New York as best as they could. Doing any one of those things by itself is already hard enough, so I can only imagine how difficult it must have been trying to do all three at once. I should mention that out of all my relatives who immigrated, only about half of them actually managed to learn enough English to communicate, and they are my mom, uncle A, aunt P, great-uncle B, and great-aunt P; the other half, my uncle M, aunt H, and maternal grandparents only know a little. Yet, they were able to create lives for themselves in this city, where you don’t necessarily have to know English to survive. For all of that, I’m grateful.
However, the downside is that I don’t have connections like some other people my age do. A lot of places with good jobs are “old boys’ clubs” where you’d need the right connections to get in, right? I’m not sure if I want a career at that type of establishment, but if I did, it would be easier to if my family had been here for generations and thus had the chance to establish the necessary connections.
I don’t know why I’m only just realizing this. I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about privilege, immigration, and how the two are connected, especially with regard to my own life and what it all means for my future. /rambles forever, ahhh.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
(via cosmopolitan-fascist)
How Student Debt Impacts Students of Color
On July 1 the interest rate on federally subsidized Stafford Loans will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent if Congress doesn’t act. Though this rate hike will have devastating consequences on more than 7 million students nationwide who currently hold a Stafford Loan, change will hit students of color especially hard.
The facts below show how students of color depend on financial aid to finance their college education and how they are uniquely impacted by student debt.
1. Students are having trouble paying back their college loans. Studies show that only 37 percent of students are able to repay their loans on time. Students of color are more likely to depend on financial aid to attend college and have higher trends of student debt.
2. For the first time, student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt in the United States. Student college loan debt is now higher than all credit card debtin the country put together. Nationwide, student debt is at $867 billion compared to credit card debt at $704 billion.
3. People of color, particularly African Americans, are graduating with more student debt. African American students in particular are graduating with much more debt than white students. A 2010 study by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center found that student loan debt levels of $30,500 or higher were more common among 27 percent of black bachelor’s degree recipients compared to 16 percent of their white counterparts.
4. Youth unemployment (ages 16 to 24) is higher for people of color, making student debt a significant financial burden. Youth unemployment is highest among youth of color, with rates for African American youth at 30 percent and Latino youth at 20 percent, compared to the white youth unemployment rate of 16 percent.
5. Students of color rely on other forms of financial aid, such as Pell Grants, which are also facing significant cuts. Students who will lose eligibility or be cut from the Pell Grant program—a means of access to higher education and social opportunity for low-income families—will likely turn to loans to make up the difference. At a majority of historically black colleges and universities in particular, two-thirds or more of all enrolled students receive Pell Grants, with more than 90 percent of students receiving these grants at eight such institutions of higher learning.
6. While educational attainment increases among Latinos, the achievement gap continues. From 2001 to 2011 the number of Latinos with a bachelor’s degree or higher education increased 80 percent from 2.1 million to 3.8 million. But there’s still an achievement gap: By 2012 only 14 percent of all U.S. Latinos over the age of 25 had bachelor’s degrees, compared to 34 percent of whites. A 2009 Pew Hispanic Center survey found the most common reason for the gap was pressure to support their families financially, forcing them to choose between college and their families. This means that low-interest-rate loans are that much more important to Latino youth in completing their college careers.
7. More students of color are taking out private loans, exposing them to more financial risk. There was an approximate 16 percent increase and 12 percent increase among black and Hispanic students, respectively, that took out private loans, from the 2003–04 to 2007–08 school years. While federal loans have lower interest rates than private loans, doubling the rate will bring the two closer together, making students of color more vulnerable to defaulting on their loans.
8. Students of color are more likely to enroll in for-profit schools, which currently account for nearly half of student loan defaults. For-profit colleges and universities tend to have higher tuition, increased dropout rates, and insurmountable debt for students. This puts economic and academic barriers on students of color, making it more difficult for them to graduate.
9. Students of color with higher student debt are left with fewer options. Deferments and forbearances often provide short-term debt relief, but the interest on the loans may accrue and capitalize during the forbearance or deferment period, making the loans more expensive in the long term.
10. Student debt hinders students of color from homeownership. Past-due payments hinder borrowers due to lower credit scores and having their wages used for loan repayment. According to the Federal Reserve, fewer young people are getting mortgages—just 9 percent of 29-to-34-year-olds got a first-time mortgage from 2009 to 2011, compared to 17 percent in 2001.
Allowing Stafford Loan interest rates to double would make the cost of college skyrocket—the cost of college for those relying on Stafford Loans would increase by 20 percent. Given that students of color are more likely to rely on financial aid to finance their college education and graduate with higher student debt, increasing these interest rates would disproportionately impact them. We need to focus on making college more affordable, particularly at a time when students need a good education to be competitive in the international economy.
How can we be graduating with more student debt when we all go to college for free? /sarcasm
I laugh to keep from crying. I need a job so fuckin’ bad, yo.
(via indigocrayon)
Under increased anti-choice pressure from the state, Planned Parenthood has suspended all medical abortions at its Wisconsin clinics.
The suspension comes two weeks after Gov. Scott Walker signed a law that levies felony charges at abortion doctors who fail to conform to the state’s newly installed guidelines. The guidelines require a person seeking medical abortions to visit the clinic three different times–in order to prove she is not being coerced–before taking the RU-486 pill.
RU-486, commonly referred to as the “abortion pill,” is usually taken in the first nine weeks of a person’s pregnancy. For many people, it’s the preferred method of terminating a pregnancy because it can be done in the comfort and privacy of their own homes. According to Planned Parenthood Wisconsin, medical abortions account for 25 percent of abortions in the state.
Planned Parenthood Wisconsin made the decision to end medical abortions at its clinics because the law puts doctors at risk, said public policy director Nicole Safar. She called the law “one more piece of very anti-women health legislation” because of its criminalizing intent.
Access to abortion is already extremely limited in Wisconsin, which requires mandatory counseling, a 24-hour waiting period and parental consent for minors. There are only five private abortion clinics in the state, three of which are run by Planned Parenthood.
Anti-abortion advocates, such as the Wisconsin Right to Life, claim this law protects domestic violence victims from being coerced into abortions. But by limiting options and resources for people seeking abortions—especially those from low-income backgrounds—the state of Wisconsin is practicing its own form of reproductive coercion: keeping unwilling people pregnant.
(via cosmopolitan-fascist)
Abuse happens, period. It doesn’t matter what, some people will do anything to get an “advantage” in the world. But since such abuse is statistically uncommon, while it might be aggrivating, you don’t rip out the safety net from everyone else benefiting from the programs just because a few people fuck up—that’s like saying that no one should be allowed to drive, because some people drive drunk.
The widespread myth of the “Welfare Queen (or sometimes, though less frequent, King)” you have just described (thanks, Reagan!) does nothing but harm the reputation of those who abide by the assistance program’s rules and regulations. It’s these harmful stereotypes, which you are actively perpetuating, that turn those who are privileged enough to not have to rely on assistance against their fellow human.
What do I think? What do I think?
I think you don’t fucking know a person’s circumstances, and you shouldn’t fucking judge them. Who knows when the Mercedes entered their lives? You certainly don’t—you don’t know them, so you assume the car is brand new, and it just helps to reinforce your hateful bullshit. It could have been a gift, it could have been purchased prior to the crisis or unfortunate circumstances that lead to them needing government assistance.
Or, more importantly, it could be none of your goddamn business what kind of car they drive.
So, poor people don’t get to enjoy “good” food? Why? Because they’re poor? Because they deserve to be punished? Because why waste such good lobster on such a waste of person, right? Jesus christ, fuck you. I work in a grocery store—no matter WHAT a person paying with E.B.T. buys, it is ALWAYS scrutinized and judged, in ways that absolutely no one else’s groceries do.
A single mother comes up and buys a basket full of frozen foods, and my coworkers roll their eyes, thinking her lazy, thinking that their “hard-earned tax dollars” shouldn’t be paying for junk food. And they ignore the chorus of shouts and playful laughs of the kids running around her, her children, and the exasperated and exhausted expression on her face, because it wouldn’t help to fuel their self-righteous, “I’m better than you!” hate storm to think that maybe, just maybe the quick dinners are all she can do, because unbelievably she DOES work and DOES try to make ends meet, while at the same time attempting to raise her children and make time for them and their school and their love and their raising, and meals might not be a top priority for her.
A man shows up with a cart full of natural foods, good-for-you foods, healthy foods—sometimes, there might even be a steak or lobster. He buys mostly vegetables and fruits, and seems conscientious of the things he buys—and he pays for it with his EBT card. IMMEDIATELY a chorus of “Well I don’t get to eat that well!” starts up, once again making his private shopping trip suddenly open for comment and criticism.
You just can’t fucking win, people are programmed to judge you for what you buy no matter what—they are programmed to judge EVERY ASPECT OF YOU AND YOUR LIFE that would otherwise be considered rude or hateful behaviour—so what do I think about the people who use their food stamps to buy steaks? Or who seem frustrated because a food product they want isn’t covered? I don’t fucking care. Just because you’re poor, broke, or just plain in need of a little help doesn’t give me the right to turn what you buy and eat into public dialogue.
tl;dr: I don’t feel anything except extreme outrage at the self-righteous pricks who get to decide what another person “deserves” in life, and whether you intended it or not, your message reeked of judgmental implications.
Awesome reply by my incredibly brilliant girlfriend, you can find her blog here.
Rebloggable!
(via cosmopolitan-fascist)
![abaldwin360:
fuckyeahfeminists:
[TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE]
holdontoyourassbutts:
[image: A bill from a collection agency for a hospital bill in the amount of $44,249.85]
A few years ago, I was uninsured and couldn’t afford to get my insulin, Depakote, and anti-depressants for weeks at a time. I’d start rationing insulin when I had one bottle left in an attempt to stave off ketoacidosis.
I also suffer from severe chronic migraines, and the only thing that makes them bearable is Depakote. I had to ration this as well, and when it ultimately ran out, my migraines would keep me in my house for days at a time, curled up in pain and vomiting up anything I ate.
The same thing happened with my anti-depressants, so not only was my diabetes spiraling out of control and my migraines keeping me from working or going to school (I dropped out for a semester), but I also sank deep into depression.
Eventually, I ran out of insulin and went into diabetic ketoacidosis, which basically means that my blood sugar levels were so high for so long that my blood was turning acidic and wreaking twenty kinds of havoc on my entire body.
I ended up in the ER, then intensive care for three days, then a regular ward for two more days while they ran a billion tests on me.
A week after I got out, I got a bill for roughly $15,000, none of which was covered by my non-existent insurance, and none of which was able to be written off using the hospital’s charity program. I also wasn’t eligible for COBRA because it had been less than 12 months since I was last on my dad’s insurance.
A day or two after I got the bill, I tried to kill myself because 1.) Where the fuck is a 21-year-old diabetic college student who can’t even go to school because of his migraines supposed to get $15,000 (plus an assortment of other medical bills from the past 8 months), 2.) My migraines were still untreated because I couldn’t afford to get the prescriptions they’d given me at the hospital, and 3.) The single bottles of the two insulins I use that they’d given me at the hospital were going to be empty pretty fuckin’ quick.
So I spent my last $10 on a bottle of vodka, got trashed, and cut my wrists.
Luckily, I was so drunk I couldn’t really work the blade properly, so I passed out and woke up in a puddle of blood and spilled liquor ten hours later.
I drove myself to the ER once again, and this time ended up in the psych ward for four days before I promised not to kill myself and demanded to be discharged.
That bill totaled about $25,000. I guess psych wards are expensive.
I got evicted from my apartment in the midst of these health crises, lost my job at Burger King (as if that would have paid my medical bills), and lost what little state aid I was getting in the form of food stamps, because I’d lost my BK job.
So I was hungry, homeless, sick, and I still couldn’t afford my damn medication. I spent a month or two living in my Dodge Neon with my cat, buying food from gas stations and grocery stores that I knew didn’t use electronic check readers so that I could write checks for money that I didn’t have in my account.
Eventually, I started to gather my shit together, and I moved back in with my parents 1000 miles away (where I ended up in the hospital AGAIN, but was able to get the bill written off as charity).
The only reason I’m able to afford my medications and doctor visits now is because the healthcare reform mandated that insurance companies cover dependent students until they’re 26, rather than 18 or 20 like it was before.
tl;dr: healthcare is important and everyone ought to have access to it, even sick people. If you think only rich and healthy people should have healthcare, that’s fine, but I still think you’re an asshole :)
No one should have to deal with this. Yet another reason why we need comprehensive health care coverage available in this country. And on a related note: welfare reform because one should NOT lose food stamps because they LOST their job.
Folks can argue politics and what they “want their tax dollars going on” all day, when I see something like this it makes me wonder why so many people in general are against public healthcare.
This isn’t a person who simply didn’t “work hard enough” or was being a lazy mooch on society, this is someone who damn near died because they couldn’t afford their medication and then attempted suicide because they felt they had no other options.
In this day and age medical care should be a public service. We have enough money to fund wars and give breaks to huge corporations that make billions of dollars, but when it comes to something like this there seems to be huge swaths of people that don’t understand or don’t want to look at the human aspect of it.
It makes me sick that we have developed this consumer culture where the first things that come to mind when someone suggests that we provide public healthcare is “WELL WHY DON’T WE JUST HAVE THE GOVERNMENT PROVIDE EVERYONE WITH HOUSES TOO.”
Fuck that line of thinking. You can survive without a house. There are those who can’t survive without adequate medial care and access to their medication.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2yl9lkylP1qd1as0o1_1280.jpg)
[TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE]
[image: A bill from a collection agency for a hospital bill in the amount of $44,249.85]
A few years ago, I was uninsured and couldn’t afford to get my insulin, Depakote, and anti-depressants for weeks at a time. I’d start rationing insulin when I had one bottle left in an attempt to stave off ketoacidosis.
I also suffer from severe chronic migraines, and the only thing that makes them bearable is Depakote. I had to ration this as well, and when it ultimately ran out, my migraines would keep me in my house for days at a time, curled up in pain and vomiting up anything I ate.
The same thing happened with my anti-depressants, so not only was my diabetes spiraling out of control and my migraines keeping me from working or going to school (I dropped out for a semester), but I also sank deep into depression.
Eventually, I ran out of insulin and went into diabetic ketoacidosis, which basically means that my blood sugar levels were so high for so long that my blood was turning acidic and wreaking twenty kinds of havoc on my entire body.
I ended up in the ER, then intensive care for three days, then a regular ward for two more days while they ran a billion tests on me.
A week after I got out, I got a bill for roughly $15,000, none of which was covered by my non-existent insurance, and none of which was able to be written off using the hospital’s charity program. I also wasn’t eligible for COBRA because it had been less than 12 months since I was last on my dad’s insurance.
A day or two after I got the bill, I tried to kill myself because 1.) Where the fuck is a 21-year-old diabetic college student who can’t even go to school because of his migraines supposed to get $15,000 (plus an assortment of other medical bills from the past 8 months), 2.) My migraines were still untreated because I couldn’t afford to get the prescriptions they’d given me at the hospital, and 3.) The single bottles of the two insulins I use that they’d given me at the hospital were going to be empty pretty fuckin’ quick.
So I spent my last $10 on a bottle of vodka, got trashed, and cut my wrists.
Luckily, I was so drunk I couldn’t really work the blade properly, so I passed out and woke up in a puddle of blood and spilled liquor ten hours later.
I drove myself to the ER once again, and this time ended up in the psych ward for four days before I promised not to kill myself and demanded to be discharged.
That bill totaled about $25,000. I guess psych wards are expensive.
I got evicted from my apartment in the midst of these health crises, lost my job at Burger King (as if that would have paid my medical bills), and lost what little state aid I was getting in the form of food stamps, because I’d lost my BK job.
So I was hungry, homeless, sick, and I still couldn’t afford my damn medication. I spent a month or two living in my Dodge Neon with my cat, buying food from gas stations and grocery stores that I knew didn’t use electronic check readers so that I could write checks for money that I didn’t have in my account.
Eventually, I started to gather my shit together, and I moved back in with my parents 1000 miles away (where I ended up in the hospital AGAIN, but was able to get the bill written off as charity).
The only reason I’m able to afford my medications and doctor visits now is because the healthcare reform mandated that insurance companies cover dependent students until they’re 26, rather than 18 or 20 like it was before.
tl;dr: healthcare is important and everyone ought to have access to it, even sick people. If you think only rich and healthy people should have healthcare, that’s fine, but I still think you’re an asshole :)
No one should have to deal with this. Yet another reason why we need comprehensive health care coverage available in this country. And on a related note: welfare reform because one should NOT lose food stamps because they LOST their job.
Folks can argue politics and what they “want their tax dollars going on” all day, when I see something like this it makes me wonder why so many people in general are against public healthcare.
This isn’t a person who simply didn’t “work hard enough” or was being a lazy mooch on society, this is someone who damn near died because they couldn’t afford their medication and then attempted suicide because they felt they had no other options.
In this day and age medical care should be a public service. We have enough money to fund wars and give breaks to huge corporations that make billions of dollars, but when it comes to something like this there seems to be huge swaths of people that don’t understand or don’t want to look at the human aspect of it.
It makes me sick that we have developed this consumer culture where the first things that come to mind when someone suggests that we provide public healthcare is “WELL WHY DON’T WE JUST HAVE THE GOVERNMENT PROVIDE EVERYONE WITH HOUSES TOO.”
Fuck that line of thinking. You can survive without a house. There are those who can’t survive without adequate medial care and access to their medication.
(via hana-no-hikari)
So, about those fauxminists. You know the ones. They’re those supposed feminists who are all for gender equality who somehow manage to be either racist, classist, ableist, and/or transphobic, to name just a few oppressive behaviors.
In other words, fake feminists. “Feminists” who want equality only for white, cisgender, middle-class, non-disabled members of the cause.
Maybe I’m too idealistic, but isn’t feminism supposed to include everyone who believes in gender equality? It sounds like a simple, even rhetorical question, but after reading some of the oppressive, hateful, “I’m white/cis/middle-class/non-disabled and I’m right” kind of bullshit from people who are supposed to want gender equality for all women, I don’t know. I didn’t realize this until recently, but I guess I always thought that mainstream feminism is supposed to include everyone and account for factors like race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and dis/ability. This is at least partly because I’m a WOC and I cannot, I will not, separate my race and my gender. I’ll give you a real-life example of why I literally cannot do that:
There’s this auto repair shop in my neighborhood that I avoid because of the men there who like to make certain remarks. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve passed by and received unwelcome comments that often started, “Ni hao,” paired with a nod, a smile, and sometimes a wolf whistle or other disgusting reaction. In case you don’t know, “Ni hao” is how you greet someone in Mandarin Chinese. I wrote in a previous post that I hate this because I don’t speak Mandarin, Mandarin is not the only Chinese dialect, and I’m not a foreigner and should not be treated as one. In addition, hearing “ni hao” as verbal sexual harassment is all the more unwanted because I’m not some exotic China doll men have the right to speak to like that.
So, to the fauxminists who insist that addressing race and racism distracts from the real cause of feminism, this is why I cannot separate race and gender issues. My feminism must include discussions of race and racism because I am a woman of color, because I am a Chinese American feminist and I won’t have feminism any other way. As Flavia Dzodan would say, “MY FEMINISM WILL BE INTERSECTIONAL OR IT WILL BE BULLSHIT!” You would do well to listen to her.
Prabal Gurung (via thatkindofwoman)
I like this quote except for the “bimbo” part. I am taking “bimbo” to mean a sexually active woman, though a quick Google search also tells me that it can also be used to describe a woman who seems to lack intelligence or a good education. What is wrong with being a so-called bimbo, exactly? There’s nothing wrong with being sexual, and there’s nothing wrong with being seemingly unintelligent or improperly educated; let’s stop with the slut-shaming and classism/other isms already. I understand that Gurung is referring to women who purposely act stupid on TV, but that still doesn’t justify the misogyny and classism I see here.
(Source: editor-in-chic, via inkflowers)
by Laura A. Hughes, Executive Director of the Ruth Ellis Center
(via thelittlekneesofbees)
Feminism is about WOMEN’S RIGHTS. Why must we take the burden of ALL social justice, thus not fulfilling our main goal? My feminism will be about women’s rights, or it will be bullshit. There’s an anti-racism movement, there’s a LGBT movement, there’s a vegetarian/vegan/animal rights/environmental rights movement, and these movements do not include anything about women’s rights, so why must feminism accomodate all of them to not be deemed “useless”?
WHY ARE WE DEVIATING FROM OUR MAIN OBJECTIVES? I understand women may be oppressed by their race and sexual orientation and many other things, BUT, feminism is designed to grant them political and social equality based on their sex, and does not need to be perfect in every other way. I’m so sick of the political correctness, the constant “omgz you’re so transphobic”, the “my feminism will be intersectional” and the “omg, if we don’t involved this marginalised group, and that one, and that one and that one and all of them, feminism can’t exist!!!!!!!!”
Let me reiterate. FEMINISM IS ABOUT WOMEN. It must stay this way to be effective and must not get caught up with trans politics and other issues, because they have their own platforms in which you can be active. We must bring back radical feminism. We’re all too fucking afraid to offend someone by being politically incorrect to make a global change. The only case in which this is acceptable is when one’s dealing with abuse and rape victims, in which it is absolutely disgusting to trigger someone.
Hey look everyone.
It’s like the quintessential STFU Fauxminists post.
SO BASICALLY FEMINISM IS JUST ABOUT WHITE, CIS, ABLE BODIED BIGOTED ASS WOMEN.
COOL, CHECK. THIS IS WHY NOBODY WANTS YOUR FUCKED UP MOVEMENT ANYWAY.
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAH
@hedonisticparadise: If feminism is about women’s rights, and women come in all races, ethnicities, genders, classes, and abilities, etc., then why wouldn’t it account for all of the racism, (cis)sexism, classism, and ableism that affect women who are not white, cis, middle-class, able-bodied/able-minded, etc.? I identify as a feminist, but you can’t expect me to set aside my Chinese heritage just so I can participate in feminism without “deviating from [your] (white, cis, middle-class, able-bodied/able-minded) main objective.” The fact that I am a Chinese American female, that I am a woman of color in a white-dominated patriarchy, will always affect my feminism. I don’t expect you to be able to empathize (since you’re not Chinese American, but even if you were, not all people of color will necessarily feel the same way on a subject), but I do expect you to have respect for people who want to participate in feminism.
To quote Flavia Dzodan, MY FEMINISM WILL BE INTERSECTIONAL OR IT WILL BE BULLSHIT.
(via cosmopolitan-fascist)
like seriously I am side-eyeing the fuck out of anybody who claims to care about Native or indigenous issues and doesn’t feel even the slightest compulsion to even just a base-level solidarity for all the California rez kids that ride school buses for hours to get their education, and as of August 2012 won’t have access to that education because the school buses have stopped
There are no words. Except for maybe horrible.
(via cosmopolitan-fascist)
While the practice of race-based affirmative action in higher education has been extensively debated, a larger and older form of preferential admissions treatment has received remarkably scant attention.
more.
the world is not ready for this, who are whites gonna blame their mediocrity on now?
These are photos of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation: An Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Here men, women and children are forced to live in appalling poverty stricken conditions because of the neglect and ignorance of the Government whose members live in luxury while these people struggle in cramped conditions with little food and no running water. Many are unaware of this and others just choose to turn a blind eye but we need to get the truth out there and encourage more and more people worldwide to speak out against this as it’s completely disgusting and unacceptable for the U.S in today’s modern society. Reblog and help increase awareness and if you would like to help further you can find out more or make a donation here, every little bit counts. http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/
INTERESTING, 15 NOTES.
AND YET, A PHOTO THAT I POSTED YESTERDAY OF A TACKY/RACIST BELLY RING HAS 3000.
Oh weetz, darling. Don’t you know that no one cares what out life is actually like? They just want to play pretend Indian.
My sister spent a week up that this exact reservation and what she told me and the pictures she showed me matches up with this. The ones I’ve seen in Arizona and Utah look like and sound like this too. It’s no exaggeration.
Native American reservations are by far the most poverty stricken communities in the entire country and represent a massive scar in American history. Yes, most American citizen have no clue about how bad these living conditions are unless they live near a reservation.
(via decolonizeyourmind)
- Lived in a country where the color of skin excludes you from moving up to the upper echelons of your career choice.
- When someone can call you a racial slur and when you react back, you get expelled and they get a minor warning.
- When your teacher purposely skips an entire unit on your continent’s history claiming that it’s not necessary to learn.
- When your friends use racist jokes in an ironic way in an effort to show you how “they aren’t racist”.
- When you have been hired by a group of people to entertain them because of where you are from, and they treat you like animals in a zoo.
- When descendants of your race have had their identities so erased and eradicated that they can’t find their roots on a simple geneology search on Ancestors.com — they have to spend thousands of dollars to reconnect.
- When you are portrayed only one way in the media and therefore, when you do not fit that image, you are deemed either “a credit to your race” or “different”.
- When people can dress up as any anonymous person of your race and call it a fucking costume.
- Flipped through hundreds of fashion magazines and count on one hand the representations of your race.
- When a police officer can burst into a part in your dorm, break into a bathroom while you’re sitting on a toilet, and hold you at gunpoint. (Yes, this happened to me).
- When you are made to believe that your skin color makes you unattractive on a global level, and therefore, you must chemically change it, your eye color, and hair color/texture, in order to feel more accepted in a society that was built on telling members of your race that you are barely a second-class citizen.
- When every time a discussion about race comes up in class, everyone looks to you as a representative a your entire race, simply because you’re the only one in there.
- When a teacher of the race-in-power can accuse you in plagiarism on a handwritten in-class essay simply because someone of your race isn’t expected to have good diction.
- When in order to learn about your continent’s history, you have to take that class separately as an elective, or force your teacher to discuss the unit on it.
Privileged people will demand facts. Statistics. Your stories about oppression? Your experiences? They are not enough to convince privileged people that what you have experienced is real. After all, you are not a white man. Your experiences don’t automatically gain the “normal and natural” status. Your experiences may not be credible at all. They have no reason to believe your stories, because again, as white men, they don’t and can’t share them. Nevermind that all they have is anecdotal evidence, their personal experience to back up their beliefs. They are white. And male. And many other normal, natural things that make their opinions and experiences normal and natural…and yours kind of aberrant and not trust-worthy.—Robot Heart: Sex, Religion, and Politics
I’m not going to sit here and let someone tell me that we live in a post-racial anything just because we have a president who is black (and you all only claim he’s black when POC talk about racism and how it’s still alive and well, but he’s biracial when POC try to claim his as black).
I’m not going to sit here and let someone who is so privileged because of their skin color tell me that “not talking about it will eventually make it a nonissue”. You don’t think some of us have tried to function in a society without calling attention to our race, only to realize that because of the scaffolding of racism and white supremacy this country was built on that attention would be called to our race, whether we wanted it or not?
I am part of Manga African Dance—a non-profit organization that works to preserve indigenous African culture through dance, fashion, and education. Do you think, when our group gets hired to perform somewhere that I don’t get hit with racism?
Just this summer, I was in Alabama doing a performance at the Jacksonville Public Library. I actually had a white man sneer in my face when I was teaching about dances of the Disapora and how most dances and traditions done in America can be traced back to West Africa, where the Slave Trade was thickest.
Just this afternoon, I had to perform at the Congressman John Lewis’ Annual Multicultural Festival, and I had black college students come up to me and thank me for pointing out the missing links between Africans and their Black American and Afro-Caribbean/Brazilian descendants.
How many of you can go to Ancestry.Com and do a simple search of people who are related to you all the way back to their country of origin without spending more than a handful of dollars?
Blacks in America have to spend hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars to trace their ancestry by blood (not name) to see where in Africa they may have come from. They have to spend thousands of dollars to fly back to a continent their ancestors were unwillingly stolen from just to get some sense of connection.
So, when we live in a society where it’s okay to simply erase an entire race’s ancestral history from before slavery, and expect them to be okay with it; when you think just ignoring the misrepresentation of our race and culture in the media—the lampooning and caricaturizing of our very genetic make-up—just because it’s not offensive to you? I don’t care what you have to say. You can’t tell someone what is or isn’t offensive to their own race. When I see white kids getting Blackfaced and throwing on afro wigs and basically dressing up as a Black person as their Halloween costume, do you have any idea how disrespectful that is? How would you feel if someone dressed up as you for Halloween? So no, I won’t ignore racism, prejudice, or any other form of oppression. And when people tell me to? I only have one thing to say:
I haven’t been to your Tumblr in I can’t even remember how long, but I love your writing and your fearlessness for exposing the truth.
