February 2012
15 posts
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5 Reasons You Should Never Agree to a Police... →
Scott Morgan, Associate Director, FlexYourRights.org
Whether or not you ever break the law, you should be prepared to protect yourself and your property just in case police become suspicious of you. Let’s take a look at one of the most commonly misunderstood legal situations a citizen can encounter: a police officer asking to search your belongings. Most people automatically give consent...
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Audacia Ray: Things I Once Valued But Now Think... →
audaciaray:
I haven’t blogged step-by-step about all the things that have changed in my brain over the last couple of years with regards to the work and activism I’ve been involved with for the last decade. But things have shifted a lot for me, and hopefully also in how I do my work (forget about intentions,…
Valuable read on reassessing one’s political touchstones when the...
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“Like much prison abolition work, the call for this anthology comes from...”
– Anthology Call for Submissions • Survivors in Solidarity with Prison Abolition
I’ve written a little bit previously that I hope provides a few strategies for being in solidarity as a survivor, so I’m really glad this is happening on a larger and more intentional scale. Please pass on.
(via...
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WHITNEY HOUSTON 1963-2012 →
DREAM HAMPTON TAKES A LOOK AT THE LEGACY, THE LIFE AND THE LOSS OF WHITNEY HOUSTON
- We’ll miss you Whitney xx
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The Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race and... →
The Anna Julia Cooper Program in Gender, Race, and Politics in the South is endowed with the multifaceted mission:
to move beyond the black/white paradigm in the study of race while still paying attention to this historically important divide;
to focus specifically on the social and identity cleavages within racialized communities, specifically the intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and...
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To My Old Master →
In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according tonewspapers at the time, he...
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WatchCheck out this amazing project. Really beautiful exploration of sexuality and disability.
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“”Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen...”
– - Judge Stephen Reinhardt in the majority opinion.
Well, that’s good news. In case you haven’t heard, a federal appeals court declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional today.
Read more about it.
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“I see a gay male couple walking hand in hand down the street. They also do not...”
– an excerpt from: Opinion - The bearable whiteness of being gay by Rob Smith
Interesting thoughts on the experience of racism within the gay community…and, well, everywhere else too.
January 2012
51 posts
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Parent Magazine Gets It So Wrong. →
The article’s eight suggestions on dealing with gender identity issues are all about assuaging parent’s anxiety rather than addressing the fundamental homophobia or transphobia in this country that makes parents “worried” in the first place. Wouldn’t it be great if there were an article like this that instead of telling parents that their children are just going through some developmental norm by...
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WatchI can’t remember if we’ve shared this or not, but it’s worth posting again either way. Amazing video, amazing work. Check out the DOPE Project on facebook.
Overdose is the leading cause of death for the 15,000 injection drug users in San Francisco. The majority of these deaths are preventable. This compassionate short video follows two drug users through a groundbreaking...
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“I have spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality...”
– Author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander, on Fresh Air.
Read excerpts and listen to the full interview here.
POZ: Less than 1 in 2 HIV-Positive U.S. Residents... →
pozmagazine:
Less than half of people living with HIV in the United States are being retained in ongoing medical care, according to a new analysis by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigators published online ahead of print by the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes….
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Skid Row residents discuss what it's like to live... →
socialworky:
“Let me invite everyone down to Skid Row, the world’s largest recovery community,” said Kevin Michael Key, a member of the Los Angeles Poverty Department Theater Troupe. “Drugs and alcohol—there’s a multitude of treatment facilities but there’s a difference between treatment and recovery. Recovery happens out in the street.”
Key himself is a Skid Row resident and a “recovering...
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Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA →
By Bill Quigley
One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. [more] Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. [more] Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. [more] Four. Leave the rest of the world alone. [more] Five. Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights. [more] Six. Defend our earth. [more]...
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“She has less tolerance for the skepticism she says her relationship has sparked...”
– Great quote from Cynthia Nixon from the NY Times article Life After ‘Sex’
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Obama Administration Approves Rule That Guarantees... →
Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra,...
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It did not start with Stonewall: Black lesbian... →
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“There is a disturbing trend happening across the country,and we can now add one...”
– From: Arrested for Carrying Condoms? - NC Harm Reduction Coalition on Daily Kos, 1/13/12
Criminalizing condoms totally undermines public health.
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The US schools with their own police →
More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour?
- Outrageous and terrifying. Read the whole story here.
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WRITE CLUB San Francisco: Hot. Buttered. Toast. →
writeclubsf:
Once again, it’s on.
Write Club San Francisco cordially invites you and the five to seven people you’ll tell about this invitation to The Make-Out Room Tuesday, January 17 for a live spectacle of literary swordsmanship, the likes of which can only be seen the third tuesday of any month in…
Go & cheer for Miss Maggie Mayhem — if she wins, the prize money gets...
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“As of January 6, 2012 the wait list to receive lifesaving AIDS medication...”
– ADAP Watch: AIDS Drug Wait List Hits 4,606 - AIDS Issues Update Blog, Housing Works, Kenyon Farrow , January 10, 2012
Totally unacceptable.