BACK UP! concrete diaries from Nijla Mumin on Vimeo.
"...Black Male Outsider functions as a pedagogical autobiography of black male liberation. With unbridled candor, it lays bare my yearning to be free from years of internalized wounds of white supremacist thinking and patriarchal masculinity. At risk of sounding overly dramatic, I am no longer afraid to admit that embracing black feminist thought was a life saving action for me." -xvi"The more i scraped through the thickly layered, crusted-over pain of past boyhood hurts and heteronormative notions of masculinity attached to feelings of racial inferiority, the clearer I began to see the work in this memoir as spiritually grounded."-xix"We promote the belief that all men should be in perpetual process of soul work toward the rejection of white supremacist patriarchy." -xix
Close your eyes, imagine being on a street, in what many people would consider a dangerous neighborhood, at ten o'clock at night, imagine that you are there in the middle of December, and that you are naked. Imagine how vulnerable and frightening it would be. Now imagine that blood oozes from wounds on your head, that you are cut and bruised from head to toe, and you are shaking uncontrollably from much more than the winter cold. Imagine a fear so violent and so overwhelming that it is literally shaking your entire body in it's fury. For JD, imagination isn't required to conjure up this image, she has her memories, because she lived it. I try not to think about the half hour which came before this, when coming home from one of her two jobs, JD came upon four men breaking into a car on her street. Before she even knew what was happening they attacked her, striking her with such force on the back of her head that her skull was split. They thought she was a man, and they intended to rob her, but when they realized that she was a woman, a lesbian, the assault took an entirely different turn. They began beating and sexually assaulting her in the back of her own car, taunting her when she pleaded for them to stop. When one of the men saw some people walking up the street, they quickly shoved her into the car, and drove to an abandoned apartment building, where they continued to rape, and beat her. The entire time the assault took place they hurled insults about her femaleness, and about her sexuality, they were clearly offended by her being a lesbian, and it was their intention to make her pay for that offense.No one deserves having their humanity assaulted in this way. I imagine that the path of survivorship and healing for this woman is just beginning. It is good to see that she obviously has a dedicated support system around her. I encourage people to visit the blog to see how they can help, there is a drive to just help her make this month's rent at this point.
YES! An archaic and oppressive law leftover from British colonial rule finally falls in India. I can only hope and pray that this indicates a domino effect for other former British colonies! If you grew up with Ovaltine, Enid Blyton, tea, marmalade, and your parents remember when money was shillings, you mus know is you mi chattin to! Heh. This is great news people, this will be a huge step for human rights. In places where old colonial "buggery" laws still exist (like Jamaica), violence towards LGBTQ folks are not only "justified" by interpretations of religious text (religious text that usually also recommends stoning adulterers to death. Not seeing that so much.), but also are given more cultural legitimacy when the law says same-sex sexual activity is illegal. At some point, it becomes forgotten that these were not our laws, and it becomes ingested along with other toxic, community fracturing and disenfranchizing elements of colonialism. I blogged more about Jamaica and historical factors that contribute to our brand of homophobia here.Amazing. May the decolonization process continue for all former colonies, more power, more power! And may other straight allies also step up to these useless and hateful laws, so our LGBTQ brothers and sisters don'thave to do this alone!In what many are calling "India's Stonewall", the New Delhi High Court on Thursday decriminalized homosexual intercourse between consenting adults, by striking down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This law labels gay sex to be an "unnatural offense", punishable with up to ten years in prison.
Drafted in 1860, this Colonial-era law was brought into effect by the British, and was in line with similar anti-homosexuality legislation passed in England at the time. In the past decade, gay rights activists and lawyers have strived hard to abrogate Section 377, calling it "inhuman", and as the Naz Foundation, which filed the petition to abolition 377 in 2001 argued, a violation of constitutional rights to privacy and equality.
For Rochelle Hamilton, starting high school was the beginning of relentless harassment from teachers and school staff because she’s openly gay. One teacher told her, "You're going to hell. This is a sin." Another said, "What's wrong with you? What are you, a man or a woman?" After months of asking the school and the district to intervene—to no avail—Rochelle and her mom reached out to the ACLU for help. Together, we took on the school district—and won.
Get this: the security staff yells at us that we need to form separate lines for “men” and “women”-- I kid you not! Binary gender lines at a queer event in San Francisco, organized by a bunch of queens who dress as nuns. The security staff is frisking people and making people throw away water bottles, asking us if we have any drugs or sharp objects -- wait, I thought this was a public street, I didn’t realize we were visiting our friends in the tank at 850 Bryant.
But there’s more -- just as Hilary and I are trying to make our way through the crowds to get to one of the exit checkpoints, we spot a few friends, and guess what? This year, the Dyke March got stopped at 17th and Sanchez, stopped by the line of straight male security guards who demanded that all the dykes walk single-file through the frisking station. That’s right -- on the one day of the year when dykes actually flood the Castro, it’s important to make sure there’s extra security! Outsourced security, no doubt.
When my own experience of abduction and torture ended and I was reunited with my family it was not a second birth for me, I realized that it is a continuing journey for the search for truth and justice. Repressive governments and military use torture as a form of control, to instill fear in people in debilitating ways, so they stay quiet and lose their light inside. But I realized no amount of pain or suffering or fear can stop that earth in me to keep rising. Instead it gave birth to new births. My experience has convinced me even more of the value of freedom and justice and the importance of fighting for and upholding the principles of human rights and human dignity.This woman has such a strong fire blazing in her heart. I'm glad she is on our side. Welcome home Melissa.
BAYAN-USA, an alliance of 14 Filipino American organizations and chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan Philippines), is calling on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Department of National Defense, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to immediately surface Melissa Roxas, an American citizen of Filipino descent who was abducted in the Philippines on May 19. BAYAN-USA also urgently calls on our representatives in the U.S. Congress to act quickly to ensure the safe return of Roxas.
Roxas is a well-known Filipino American activist, who served as the first Regional Coordinator of BAYAN-USA in Los Angeles and co-founded the cultural organization Habi Arts. Roxas is an active human rights advocate and was instrumental in organizing a BAYAN-USA contingent that participated in the International Solidarity Mission in 2005, an international fact finding mission that called attention to the escalating human rights violations in the Philippines. Roxas went to the Philippines in 2007 to pursue human rights work, where she became a full time volunteer health worker. She was abducted on May 19, 2009 at approximately 1:30 PM in Sitio Bagong Sikat, Barangay kapanikian, La Paz, Tarlac. She was with two other volunteers, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc.
Based on reports filed by the human rights group KARAPATAN and the La Paz police, Roxas and her companions were taken by at least 8 armed, hooded men riding two motorcycles and a Besta van without any license plate numbers. There has been no word on the whereabouts and condition of Roxas and her companions since the abduction. The circumstances of Roxas’ abduction typify the abductions and enforced disappearances of over 200 innocent civilians, allegedly last seen in the hands of suspected state security forces.
To report leads, or to connect for action contact:
Kuusela Hilo
BAYAN-USA Vice Chair
vicechair@bayanusa.orgRhonda Ramiro
BAYAN-USA Secretary General
secgen@bayanusa.org
In this groundbreaking new look at rape edited by writers and activists Jaclyn Freidman and Jessica Valenti, the way we view rape in our culture is finally dismantled and replaced with a genuine understanding and respect for female sexual pleasure. Feminist, political, and activist writers alike present their ideas for a paradigm shift from the “No Means No” model—an approach that while necessary for where we were in 1974, needs an overhaul today. Yes Means Yes brings to the table a dazzling variety of perspectives and experiences focused on the theory that educating all people to value female sexuality and pleasure leads to viewing women differently, and ending rape. Yes Means Yes aims to have radical and far-reaching effects: from teaching men to treat women as collaborators and not conquests, encouraging men and women that women can enjoy sex instead of being shamed for it, and ultimately, that our children can inherit a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished. With commentary on public sex education, pornography, and mass media, Yes Means Yes is a powerful and revolutionary anthology.
Women's activist groups in Kenya have slapped their partners with a week-long sex ban in protest over the infighting plaguing the national unity government.
The Women's Development Organisation coalition said they would also pay prostitutes to join their strike.
Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organisations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.
She said the campaign would start from her bedroom and that emissaries had been sent to the two leaders' wives, Ida Odinga and Lucy Kibaki, urging them to join in and lead from the front.
"Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: 'Darling can you do something for Kenya?'"
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The jury found 32-year-old Allen Andrade guilty of both first-degree murder and of a bias motivated crime or hate crime. It is believed to be the first conviction in state history for a hate crime against a transgender person.I'm not sure if this sets a nationwide precedent, but i wouldn't be surprised.
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