You may remember friend of SP Mean Asian Girl from her previous guest post, The Fantasy of Being White. We loved that post so much that we asked her to weigh in on that most vexing of seemingly innocuous little internet games: the Facebook celebrity twin meme. Thanks, MAG! — Sweet Machine Oh? No! Or, … Continue reading »
Filed under Intersectionality …
“but who can distinguish one human voice amid such choruses of desire”
America lost a great voice this weekend: the poet Lucille Clifton died. She was 73 years old. Clifton wrote wonderful, poignant, witty poems whose formal simplicity belies their emotional and political depth. She wrote of the realities of living in a large, black, female body in a racist, sexist culture; she survived cancer and wrote … Continue reading »
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to remember transgender victims of violence. Here’s a list of the people we’re remembering in 2009. Please take a moment to read their names and stories — what is known of them — and think about these people, mostly young women, who suffered often exceptionally brutal violence … Continue reading »
High five a gay kid today
There’s a really wonderful article in the NYT magazine this week about queer teenagers and how cultural changes have made it safer (in many but not all areas of the US) to come out in middle school. The gist of the article is that the increased visibility of queer people in the culture at large … Continue reading »
Quote of the day: Normal
I take the war on terror personally because the war on terror is really a war on difference, because my body strikes terror in the hearts of other Americans. My body and the bodies of the people I love are the most intimate sites of American imperialism. Because our sex anatomy isn’t normal, they operate … Continue reading »
“This is what happens to black men in America”
Alternate title: Jesus H., Fellow White People, Shut Your Mouths and Use Your Brains for Five Minutes, Would You? So, I can’t stop thinking about Henry Louis Gates, Jr., being arrested at his own home last week. Very short version: He got home from a trip to China, found his front door jammed, let himself … Continue reading »
Guest Post: The Fantasy of Being White
By Mean Asian Girl I’m a friend, neighbor and grad-school classmate of Kate’s, but while I’m a faithful reader, I’m not much of a commenter. Every once in a while, however, here is a post that resonates with me to the point that I really have to say something. This was one of them. Me and … Continue reading »
Read ‘Em
-Lauredhel: Fat acceptance and Oppression Olympics fail on The Gruen Transfer An excellent elaboration of Rule 11, among other things. The critique of the panellists completely fails to connect this one simple fact: That arguing “you wouldn’t tell racist or homophobic jokes, so why tell fat jokes?” misses the point that people do tell racist and homophobic … Continue reading »
Yes Means Yes! Virtual Tour: Q&A with Kimberly Springer
OK, so nobody who reads this blog can be unaware that Yes Means Yes! is out, and I’m in it, and you should buy it, and I FELL DOWN FOUR TIMES FOR YOU PEOPLE. But we haven’t talked much about the other contributors so far. Because, you know, I really like to talk about myself. … Continue reading »
Quick Hit: “Racism without Racists”
Nicholas Kristof: The racism is difficult to measure, but a careful survey completed last month by Stanford University, with The Associated Press and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable. Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such … Continue reading »
