mercuriosity, posts by tag: usa - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

31 January 2011 @ 08:20 pm

Re: H.R.3, the No

Taxpayer Funding for Abortion

Bodily Autonomy for Women Act:

Chipping Away at Roe...and the Definition of Rape
There are so many rape culture tropes being served here, I could frankly spend the entire day documenting the innumerable manifestations of misogynistic fuckery at work here.

But instead I'm going to focus on but one truly shocking aspect of this proposed legislation which probably won't get a whole lot of attention: The proposed law effectively, if not by design, gives veto control over terminating pregnancies resulting from rape to the rapist.

See also #dearjohn: No On 3, for things you can do to express your extreme displeasure with this proposed legislation.

Re: Egypt:

Washington's Sudden Embrace of Al Jazeera Won't Erase Past US Crimes Against the Network
For people who have followed Al Jazeera's history with the US, the fact that it is now perceived by the White House and the American public as a force for democracy and freedom is an ironic, some would say hypocritical, development. The contrast between Washington's posture toward al Jazeera from the Bush era to the Obama presidency could not be more stark.

Re: Puerto Rico:

Protests and Arrests Continue at the University of Puerto Rico
This is a struggle that has been going on for months with very little coverage in the U.S. media even though Puerto Rico is a colony of the U.S. I ask again, were this happening at a university in Indiana, would it be so ignored?

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30 January 2011 @ 02:24 pm

Hmm, another article in the NYT about us mixed race young uns and how we even have our own campus clubs and whatnot: More Young Americans Identify as Mixed Race.

I always have a mixed (ha!) reaction when I see headlines like this. On the one hand, yay media coverage acknowledging that we exist! On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I've seen exactly this headline at least once before in the past year. The great part is that you can keep reusing it, probably for the foreseeable future, without ever having to say anything new or challenging. Throw in something about Obama (setting up a false opposition between being black and being multiracial, while you're at it), census data, "people of the future", blah blah blah, HEY PRESTO, you've got yourself an article!

Unsurprisingly, the comments are full of the same fail I've come to expect whenever an article like this is published; i.e., a lot of people Not Getting It and saying, "Why are we still talking about race?" and "Ultimately we're all multiracial anyway"--hahahahahaha NO. Trigger warning as well for outright racism and even fat-hate (wtf?).

Apparently, this is meant to be a whole series of articles. I wish I could say I'm excited to see the rest of them...

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10 January 2011 @ 05:56 pm

Or you could just read Liss at Shakesville, who as usual says all that needs to be said and says it better than just about anybody else.

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15 October 2009 @ 07:57 pm

My jaw dropped.

Interracial couple denied marriage license in Louisiana

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday.

MY BRAIN JUST EXPLODED.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

No shit! Huh, I wonder why that could be.

"I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Newsflash: Your black friends hate you.

My mind is well and truly boggled. How can this man still have a job? Unless he is secretly a progressive JP using this stunt to draw attention to how ridiculous it is to deny any couple the right to marry...right, right?? DON'T LET ME DOWN, WORLD.

Current Mood: WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

Via autophanous: Sign this statement of support for Lt. Dan Choi, who may be discharged from the army for being gay.

I am so sick of hearing debate over whether Sonia Sotomayor will "let" her ethnicity or life experience as a Latina woman influence her decisions as a justice. Right, because white male judges' decisions are never influenced by their whiteness or their maleness. They're white! They're male! They're the default!

asd;lhfkjdfh;asdf;lh;

I'm going to go ahead and say that if the picture accompanying this article doesn't creep you the fuck out, there is something wrong with you.

I don't care how "different"--apparently hellish and apocalyptic--a world we live in post-9/11, I will never believe that the answer is arming children with toy guns and training them to view life as a Rambo-like, vigilante adventure. This is not a goddamn anime. The whole thing reads, honestly, like a bunch of adult men vicariously acting out their creepy macho fantasies with a bunch of kids who think the whole thing is like a really cool video game.

Call me crazy, but I think: if the world is violent, the last thing we ought to be doing is hardening kids to that violence.

Also:

There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them. [...] Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct.

An online training program? What is it, one fucking Powerpoint slide that says, "DON'T SEXUALLY ABUSE CHILDREN"? If someone managed to reach adulthood without getting that message, I'm not sure a remedial course is going to help much.

LOL, IRONIC KAKASHI ICON. I KNOW, OKAY.