Incite Needs Help Evacuating Women

I came across this call for help at WOC PHD.  Please do all you can to help these vulnerable women who still have not recovered from Katrina.

Dear INCITE! friends and supporters,

On the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government criminal negligence and assaults on the low income people of color on the Gulf Coast, our sisters from INCITE! projects in New Orleans (including the local chapter, the Women’s Health and Justice Initiative, and the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic) are bracing for the potential landfall of Hurricane Gustav, which is currently projected to hit the Louisiana coast on Monday or Tuesday at a category 4 or 5. Voluntary evacuation of New Orleans has already begun, and mandatory evacuation could be declared as early as today. INCITE! organizers in New Orleans have made over 700 phone calls to women of color and their families that make up the constituency of the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic, working to prepare and implement evacuation and safety plans.

Your assistance is urgently needed to help the low-income women of color and their families evacuate safely if need be, stay safe for the duration of the evacuation, and return to the city as soon as possible so as not to fall prey to the pushout that has kept so many folks from being able to return to New Orleans since Katrina. Local organizers are using whatever resources and funds at their disposal to help women and their families evacuate, bond people being held in Orleans Parish Prison out, and support those who make the choice to stay in whatever way they can.

Your support is urgently needed: financial donations of any size are needed and would be greatly appreciated.

Donations online are preferred because we can more quickly send the funds to our folks in New Orleans .
You can send your donation to INCITE online by going to this website:
http://incite-national.org/index.php?s=137
Click the Donation button
Put New Orleans in the “Purpose” line

Or you can write a check directly to WHJI and send it to:
PO Box 51325
New Orleans , LA 70151

This money will go directly to supporting the hundreds of low income women of color that are the constituency of the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic.

Once again, the particular vulnerability of low-income women of color and single female-headed households (including folks with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women) has been erased in the face of disaster and overlooked in the days leading up to the storm. With few resources, facing challenges and concerns for their families of their own, INCITE! New Orleans and WHJI have stepped in to fill the gap. Please send all your support, solidarity, sisterhood and strength their way, and join us in hoping for the safety and well-bein g of the people who are already suffering from Gustav in Cuba , Jamaica , and Haiti , and willing the storm to subside or veer off safely before it strikes the Gulf Coast .

We will keep you posted as things develop.

peace,
INCITE!

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RNC Raids: The Police Violate Rights

Police have been conducting raids in anticipation of civil disobedience at the RNC.  Theses incidents are being ignored by the mainstream media. Ask yourself who  these agents of socialization are there to protect and inform.

These are clearly gestapo like tactics.  It is particularly hypocritical that at an event that is meant to celebrate democracy and freedom such blatant authoritarian behaviour on the part of the government is occurring.  If it were not for the freedom of information that the internet allows such incidents would be occurring in isolation. 

These events are meant to inspire fear and stifle dissent in the population.  The ruling elite is well aware that an informed active populace is a threat to their minority control.  This is why the media is ignoring these stories, and this is why the police are taking so called preemptive action. Tyranny can only stand when none rise up to oppose it.

See Feministing for more.

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Sex Trade Workers Are Prey For Serial Killer In California

Let's share a nightmare together shall we.  Let's pretend that in our deepest of dreams there is a man roaming the streets randomly killing innocent white school girls for twenty-three years.  Let's imagine that this man is so violent he kills 11 of these suburban princesses.  Lets imagine that these young women are not only white but from a middle to upper class background.  How many eulogies do you believe would be written for them?  How many tears do you think would be shed for their loss?

Do you believe that the police would be besieged with demands to bring this murderer to justice?    Would they create a task force specifically designed to follow each and every lead regardless of how pointless it seemed?  Do you believe that the media would converge from all over the nation to make sure that everyone was aware of the tragedy that was occurring in California?  Perhaps Anderson Cooper would become the face of the investigation as Americans sat with baited breath hoping beyond hope, that this terror would be brought to an end.

In truth what I have described is completely plausible if  someone had been killing the daughters of bodies that matter in this society today.  Unfortunately the nightmare is real, woman are being killed but they are not members of the privileged class.  The women that are being murdered are African American sex trade workers.  Over the last twenty three years, eleven women and one man has met a gruesome fate at the hands of what police now believe to be a serial killer. 

As has been said on many occasions, sex trade workers constitute an extremely vulnerable group of people within our society, and when this is combined with racial discrimination it can lead to a permanent outsider status.  These people were devalued not only because they were sex trade workers but because they were African American as well. 

Daily  sex trade workers go missing and the police barely take the time to investigate.  It is more important to divert resources to finding the robber who stole a rich mans stereo, than it is to get justice for sex trade workers.  Millions of dollars are spent on the useless war on drugs yet the time and money to find an obvious predator cannot be found.  What does this tell us about which bodies matter in this society?

We can learn much about our social world from examining what we ignore, and why.  In a country that constantly preaches individualism over communal thought, is it any surprise that social malaise renders us incapable of valuing the lives of those that are the most vulnerable amongst us?  In a society that is based upon exp0loiting the 'other' can we truly be surprised that we view their bodies as disposable refuse?

The blood of the 'other' is cheap in our world.  Human suffering is something to be ignored in the face of achieving greater profits and privilege.  To be counted in this world you must have power, and an African American woman who works in the sex trade will never have access to the proverbial golden fleece.  She will search in vain for understanding, she will labour only to find her efforts disregarded and demeaned.  When the time comes for the rent, the land lord hand extended will be waiting.  Every single purchase that she makes, she will pay taxes to support a system that wants only her money and sees in her not potential, but a body that may be worked to the dust.

These women have been waiting twenty-three years for justice, over half of my lifetime.  I fear that unless pressure is brought to bear they will remain among the countless cases of unsolved murders simply because in their lifetimes their bodies were positioned in  a socially stigmatized group.  If you believe in justice, seek it for those whom society has devalued and demeaned. A fair and equal society can only exist when all bodies are counted, and when all bodies are deemed worthy of respect.  So I say to you as I have said before, all bodies matter, we only have to believe in the validity of equality.

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Buying Back My Daughter: The Global Sex Trade Must End

The above is a small trailer for the film Buying Back my Daughter.  It is disturbing as it reveals the true cost of poverty. Cambodia is an impoverished third world nation and as a result young women are being sold into sex slavery to support their families.  These women clearly do not want to sell their children but feel that they have no other choice.  As  western women our first impulse may be to judge the parents for their decisions, but to do so is to neglect our culpability in the sex trade. 

As western citizens daily we participate in trade that has a negative impact on the rest of the globe.  When we grocery shop, or make debt laden trips to Walmart, what we are doing is supporting a global economy that exists through the exploitation of cheap labour in third world countries.  When we purchase a bunch of bananas for thirty-nine cents a pound what this means is that the worker that grew and picked those bananas did not get paid. We exist with a sense of entitlement. Through an accident of birth westerners have come to see consuming as an inalienable right despite the fact that our over consumption of the worlds goods relegates the majority of humanity to poverty and suffering.

It is no accident that those largely effected by the global slave trade are girls and women.  Female bodies are deemed meant for consumption by patriarchy and since patriarchy largely controls global trade, female bodies have become just another commodity no different than a shipment of wheat, or coffee. Through the global slave trade we can see how the interaction of gender and class work together to limit the life chances of women all over the globe.  These women exist without power because they are poor and female. Patriarchy has worked to create a disconnect in our minds, and this is only proof of the validity of interconnectivity.

As we learn about the terrible crime of the global sex trade it is quite easy to dismiss it because we feel powerless to create  change.  This is an expression of western privilege. If it were our daughters that were routinely subject to this kind of treatment, we would not be able to turn such a callous eye to this situation.  Since women are sold because of poverty the best way to combat the sex trade is to combat poverty.  We know that western corporations profit from cheap third world labour and therefor it is time to start demanding that these corporations pay a living wage. We can further refuse to support unfair labour practices by not purchasing items we know to be made through labour exploitation.  Do not purchase items blindly, take the time to investigate the companies business practices.  Teach these corporations in the only language that they understand - profit margins, that human lives are worth more than capitol. Everyday acts have the potential to make a large difference if we all commit to change. As I have said before and will continue to say, all bodies matter.

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Palin: Sexism Is Wrong

I came across this image at shakesville where they are keeping a record of the sexist attacks that have been aimed at Sarah Palin since her announcement as McCains VP pick. The speed at which the patriarchal juggernaut has moved to use sexism to discredit her is astounding.  Limbaugh (my favourite ass wipe) has already referred to her as the "babe on the ticket." 

As someone who is pro woman, and pro child in all things I feel that it is necessary to say that regardless of Palins heinous politics, or standing as a colluder, the sexist attacks are patently wrong.  When one woman is devalued in this way, we all are. 

While I believe that it is wonderful that feminists have gone on the immediate defensive, as a WOC I cannot help but be reminded that it took African American women pointing out the sexism faced by Michelle Obama for it to be recognized by the feminist movement.  There was no instantaneous reaction to her being constructed as an angry black woman.  In fact many prominent feminists to this day have still not spoken publicly against the attacks that Michelle received and continues to receive.  What this tells me, is that feminism is still a movement that protects, validates, and honours white women. 

I will speak out against the sexism faced by Palin because I believe that it is the right thing to do.  I firmly believe that all bodies matter, however I cannot help but feel angst that this sentiment is not returned.  I won't play the oppression Olympics and point out that Michelle is stigmatized by both race and gender. I won't rehash the reasons why black women occupy the bottom of the race and class hierarchy, however I will say that this election continues to reveal which bodies truly matter in feminism.  If we are to achieve any kind of cohesion as a movement to advance womens rights we need to begin to acknowledge that sexism is wrong regardless of which body it is aimed at.  All women matter.

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Code Pink Protestor Faces Police Brutality

H/T Feministing

No matter what you think of Code Pink and their activism, this woman did not deserve to be called a bitch and summarily thrown to the ground.  Watching the coverage of the DNC convention one would never believe that this kind of social protest occurred, and yet as this video and this story made clear, all was not peace and love. Social activism is part of a proud American tradition.  Stifling descent no matter how disagreeable is the surest path to fascism.

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Colluder of The Week: Sarah Palin

McCain made it official this morning and chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Despite the constant republican barrage about experience, he chose a woman with zero foreign policy experience.  At the age of 44 she is also younger than Obama, who has been criticized for his youthful zeal.

So what makes Palin worthy of the colluder of the week award?  Well of course the obvious, supporting John McCain.  Here is a woman who is willing to stand side by side with a man that called his wife a cunt.  Honey, if he can call his wife that imagine what he really thinks of you.  Since you are not his sugar mama, I suspect that he will be entering you in nude mud wrestling contests to make you earn your keep.  Hey maybe you and Cindy can wrestle together and the GOP's can debate the merit of your attributes while the real men deal with the issues. 

Even without her support of the raving misogynist McCain, Palin is a problematic figure.  She is firmly anti-choice (again I won't say pro life because none of these oxygen thief fundies really are). I think I am most stunned with her reference to the 18 million cracks in the ceiling. " It turns out the women of America aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," she said.  Despite some of the dirty politics played by Hillary, she never once wavered on a womans right to choose.  Palin is not a crack in the ceiling, she is an express elevator ride to the basement.  What women do not need is to be made slaves to their biology.  Becoming a mother may have been a path to fulfillment for her, but not every woman is capable or wants to become a mother. I think that perhaps she has read A Handmaids Tale once to often...She smacks of Serenna Joy.

If only being anti-choice were the only negative on this colluders resume,  I could perhaps forgive her.  Sadly the woman has sipped enough kool aid to be  pro death penalty (yeah no  conflict with her "pro life" stance) and anti gay marriage. In what is perhaps the greatest of flaws, she also believes in...wait for it...drum roll....creationism....Yeah, throw out the science and rationale thought, lets just go with a faith based understanding of the universe.  Dear God, save this woman, or in biblical terms that she can understand, woman heal thyself.

I have dedicated several blog posts to colluders since starting womanist musings. I have continually referred to them as dangerous, and I believe the point is proven by Palin.  If McCain gets elected in Novemeber I am sure a good deal of his success will be due to his partnership with this colluder.  Patriarchy counts on women like Palin to internalize their values.  Just like every other movement on the planet, without the participation of women it would fall flat on its face.  It is women that perform all of the support labour that men either are unwilling to do, or have classified beneath them.  How ironic that if McCain and Walin are elected it will be a historic first...a woman VP. Too bad it will be a colluder who is willing to throw the best interest of women under the bus so that she can achieve access to power.  Hand in your vagina Palin, woman you may be,  but pro woman you are not.

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Everyone Wants A Wife: Domestic Labor and Gender Division

According to a study cited in the MailOnline "most men want a traditional wife".  When a list of priorities were listed what is obvious is that  men want a domestic servant rather than a partner.  You know after much thought, I cannot blame them.  I would love someone to do all of the cooking, cleaning and child care.  I would love for someone to cater to my every single whim simply because I was blessed to born with a vagina.  Why shouldn't I be entitled to that kind of gender worship?

Imagine a world where being born with a uterus coded the body with unearned privileges.  What would it be like to know that my sex meant that not only am I a  person of value, but that my words would hold weight when I chose to speak?  Consider for a moment what it would be like to be immediately deferred to as a rational voice of reason, based on the assumption that all women are naturally calm and thoughtful individuals.   Imagine a world wherein female is not considered a pejorative.  The fact that the number one thing a woman wanted in a mate was the ability to listen speaks volumes about how we value men and women.

The mail further states,  "figures from the Office for National Statistics bear out the claims. More than 2.1million women say they do not work because they are ‘looking after their family or home." This is offered as proof that women wish to return to the much mythologized fifties lifestyle of the stay at home wife.  What this fails to recognize is that though white middle/upper class women were stuck in the gilded cage of the household, women of colour daily reported to work.  The life of a stay at home mother  was never an option for us.  Since the days of slavery our gender has been no protection against cruelty and exploitation.  Though women were constructed as the fairer sex, the term woman was subsumed by white women. In slavery we bore the weight of the lash, and in freedom we have continued to labour never once receiving our due.

If women are returning to the household today it is due in large part to the fact that services that were once covered by the state are increasingly being downloaded to the nuclear family.  Companies are increasingly unwilling to make compromises that allow women to balance childcare and eldercare, while being gainfully employed.  Making the "choice" to stay home when all the other avenues to continue to work are closed off or are indefinitely forestalled, is not a choice.  A choice in absence of alternatives is a forced decision. 

Choosing to stay home and raise children, or care for elder parents is not only a sacrifice, it is a gamble.  Depending on a man for economic security leaves a woman in a precarious economic position.  Husbands loose jobs, and husbands die, thus leaving the sole responsibility for raising minor children and supporting the household on women.  Even staying out of the workforce for a short period of time can have a serious impact on a womans lifetime earning potential.  Often women are not able to re-enter the workforce at the same level that they left it at.  This is further compounded by the fact that absence from the workforce effects the amount of social security and old age pension that a woman receives.  Payout is based on your lifetime earnings and five years is a long time not to be contributing. 

It is quite obvious why men want a return to traditional gender roles.  Not only would they gain a domestic live in servant, their financial earning power would result in an uneven division of power within a relationship. For patriarchy to succeed women must be convinced into believing that our so-called role as natural caregivers is valued, which is clearly not the case.  In every single instance in this society, every form of labour that is valued is remunerated.  Despite the fact that the work in private sector upholds and maintains the work performed in the public sector it is not counted in the GDP or the GNP of any country. Though our work is necessary it is not valued enough to be counted much less paid.  This amounts to gender slavery based in the idea that a woman should sacrifice based in love.

Well love starts with self love.  Value yourself and don't be a dupe to patriarchy. If your man wants a live-in caregiver, let him move in with his mother who didn't have the good sense to raise a feminist son in the first place.

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The Truth About Obama

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Daddy's Little Girl Issues A Beat Down

I am normally against violence in every form but I have a confession to make, occasionally an incident happens that just plain and simple tickles me.  According to the Daily News, Arnelle Simpson became upset when she learned that O.J gave money to his new girlfriend when her mother was struggling to earn a living working at Walmart.  She was further enraged by said girlfriends drinking problem.  For probably the first time in his life O.J. caught a beating from a woman.  That's right, daddy's little girl  gave him the shove of a life time. According to the National Enquirer, (take with a grain of salt) "which first reported the row, quoted a source saying O.J. was "cut on the back of his head, blood was coming out the side of his mouth and his lip was cut."

Whether or not you believe that O.J killed his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson,  what cannot be denied is that he violently beat her.  I will never forget listening to the chilling 911 call she made during his trial.  I will not forget viewing the pictures of her bruised and battered body.  Those that celebrated his not guilty verdict could only do so by failing to acknowledge what this man is.   The juice, with his charming smile and football superhero status is a violent, angry man and that should never be forgotten.

Though Arnelle did call 911 to get aid for her father, there is a part of me that believes that he does deserve to suffer. He deserves even for just a moment to feel the pain, isolation, betrayal, hurt, and fear  that Nicole felt every single time he lifted his hand to her. Though I am sure that it did not teach him any lasting lessons, in what was probably the first time in his adult life  the Juice learned what it was to truly be vulnerable to one that is stronger.  That this person was a woman, and his daughter only makes it  a case of  poetic justice.

Domestic violence is something that affects women globally across race, and class divides.  According to endabuse.org, "Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime." Domestic violence  is the secret shame that its victims live with, often creating elaborate tales to explain away the bruises and black eyes.  We live in a society that is intent on victim blaming, and women that are assaulted or murdered by their abusers are often constructed as ball busters. Often the social refrain is why didn't she just leave him. This anti-woman hatred further enables these incidents of violence to not be taken seriously. "Approximately two-thirds of reported domestic violence incidents are classified as "simple assaults," which is a misdemeanour rather than a felony. But up to 50 percent of these "simple assaults" result in physical injuries that are as, or more, serious than 90 percent of all rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults." (NOW Legal Defence Fund).  Yet many of these so-called simple assault regularly escalate and lead to death for the victim. According to the, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief: Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, at 1 (2003) "In 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. In recent years, an intimate partner killed approximately 33% of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims."

While domestic violence affects women from all races and class backgrounds, it is occurring at alarming rates within the black community. Much of this has to do with the fact that black women occupy the bottom of the race and class hierarchy.  bell hooks theorizes that the black woman has no institutional other and this is made obvious by our continual abuse and marginalization.  According to the US Department of Justice, African-American women experience significantly more domestic violence than White women in the age group of 20-24. Generally, "Black women experience similar levels of intimate partner victimization in all other age categories as compared to White women, but experience slightly more domestic violence. (Estimates are provided from the National Crime Victimization Survey, which defines an intimate partner as a current or former spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend. Violent acts include murder, rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.)"  The American Bar association cites. "Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races."  Domestic violence is the unspoken crime in the black community.  It is quite at odds with the medias consistent portrayal of the long suffering, tough, angry black woman.  That our blood continues to run like a river down the streets is something that is rarely discussed much less acknowledged.

Though we claim to live in an advanced and liberated society, how can this be truth when daily women are beaten and killed by those that claim to love them? Intimate partner violence is hidden from view.  Inside of our suburban Leave it to Beaver homes women are crying out in pain.  This is not an issue that we can afford to take lightly.  Though there are domestic violence shelters many are struggling to stay open in light of the recent down turn in the economy.  Where will women and children turn the next time a man decides that he has the right to violate their bodies? 

To those that are daily living this horror, know that it is not your fault.  This is an issue of power, and nothing you did or ever could do would make you deserving of having your body violated in this manner.  Please seek help.  The next time he lifts his hand to you, it could result in your death. 

National Domestic Violence Hotline

1-800-799-7233 or
1-800-787-3224 (TDD)

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

1-303-839-1852

Resource Center on Domestic Violence, Child Protection and Custody

1-800-527-3223

Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence

1-888-792-2873

The Battered Women's Justice Project

1-800-903-0111

 

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Man, The King Of The Castle

I simply could not resist posting this.  He might just think twice before he decides who the boss is eh?

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