The way people cope with racism influences how distressing the encounter is. When racism is ignored or left unchallenged, it is more traumatic.
Johnny Weir does Bad Romance.
Katha Pollitt on the Catholic Church sexual abuse.
Alice Walker on womanism, feminism, Tibet, Gaza, and a whole variety of other subjects. And she has about 300 great book recommendations, all of which I am adding to my to-read list. One pertinent quote about women’s liberation:
As long as the world is dominated by racial ideology that places whites above people of color, the angle of vision of the womanist, coming from a culture of color, will be of a deeper, more radical penetration. This is only logical. Generally speaking, for instance, white feminists are dealing with the oppression they receive from white men, while women of color are oppressed by men of color as well as white men, as well as by many white women. But on the joyful side, which we must insist on honoring, the womanist is, like the creator of the word, intent on connecting with the earth and cosmos, with dance and song. With roundness. With thankfulness and joy. Given a fighting chance at living her own life, under oppression that she resists, the womanist has no or few complaints. Her history has been so rough—captured from her home, centuries of enslavement, apartheid, etc.—she honors Harriet Tubman by daily choosing freedom over the fetters of any internalized slavery she might find still lurking within herself. Whatever women’s liberation is called, it is about freedom. This she knows. Having said this, I have no problem being called “feminist” or “womanist.” In coining the term, I was simply trying myself to see more clearly what sets women of color apart in the rainbow that is a world movement of women who’ve had enough of being second- and third-class citizens of the earth. One day, if earth and our species survive, we will again be called sacred and free. Our proper names.
Lilith Fair, the women-centric music festival, listed a crisis pregnancy center as a beneficiary of the money they raise. After pressure from pro-choice groups, they dropped the CPC — but they also dropped NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. They’ve kept on maternity homes that may be anti-choice and anti-contraception. Very disappointing.
Scott Roeder, the man who killed abortion provider George Tiller, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison before he is eligible for parole. He will likely die behind bars.
The Ellen Willis Archives, created by her daughter (and author and Feministe guestblogger!) Nona Willis Aronowitz. They celebrate Ellen and her work as a radical leftist, feminist, journalist and pop culture philosopher.
The myth of mean girls: The media hype around female bullying is mostly bull. By any standard, violence among teenage girls has decreased. And I love the op/ed’s conclusion: “Why, in an era when slandering a group of people based on the misdeeds of a few has rightly become taboo, does it remain acceptable to use isolated incidents to berate modern teenagers, particularly girls, as “mean” and “violent” and “bullies”? That is, why are we bullying girls?”
After getting pummeled in the health care debates, where should the pro-choice movement go? And Jodi Jacobson breaks down what the bill means for women’s rights.
Over at Racialicious, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano writes about Ricky Martin coming out, saying that “Perhaps for the jaded queen living in urban U.S., the oversaturation of gayness in the media has deemed Ricky insignificant and worthy of our dismissal. For that frightened and confused 12 year old in rural Chihuahua, it’s monumental.”