BAD BETI

Feeling Rebloggy [Surprisingly enough to some,] this isn't sugar skull make-up. It's generic skeleton make-up. There is a particular design and aesthetic to sugar skull painting, and it usually involves simple flower designs and bright colors."

~Siboney Ornelas

This is not cultural appropriation. This is Bad Beti

"The concept around being a "Bad Beti" means bad girl/daughter, because there are so many expectations women have to follow under south asian culture that are actually really harmful and restrictive. So the point of this is to make her look really bad / evil / scary and not your [girl] next door future wife. The point is to represent yourself as a Desi but bring out that "badness" that is often condemned. So essentially it is depicted by a skeleton drawing on the face... I can see why it looks similar to sugar skull...

~Hira Kalyal

* * * * * * * * 

This more like Sugar Skull Make Up To Me

COMING 2 AMERICA 2B WINNING

If you are in another country dreaming of coming to the land of the free, it's not likely that your dreams contain positive images of black and brown people --not if you are looking at White American news, White American television, and White American movies. So when people from other countries come to the U.S. they are coming here fulling intending to align themselves with the winning team, the white people. --- not the lazy, stupid, criminal black and brown Americans they've seen transmitted into their home country.

As I've said before, a few people that I've known over the years, born elsewhere have informed me that, when they first came to America, they expected all the black people to be criminals. They were actually surprised to meet black people who have jobs, children they take care of, fathers living in the home with their children. 

It may surprise some to learn that some of the foreigners coming to America are surprised that Black Americans are normal human beings with average amounts of love, pettiness, generosity, and greed attached to their souls are not only white people from Europe.

Part of the strife between Black Americans and Africans in America is born of the absorption of anti-black stereotypes prior to arrival in the United States. Black people from the Caribbean can look down on American Blacks as well

But I don't want to put all the blame for anti-blackness or anti-black-american-ness at the feet of white people.  Human beings like to look down on other human beings. In the United States in 21st century the social order has white people on top. People coming to the United States from all other countries, predominantly white, black, asian, etc., all of them want to align themselves with the winning team when they get here. Black and brown people just aren't the exception we'd like them to be. 

When the Irish came to the United States they were depicted as monkeys and such in the newspaper. They were truly discriminated against and were not considered "white." Italians weren't always considered white either.  But the Irish,  **using the enemy of my enemy is my friend** technique, were rapidly able to become white.  What the Irish did was yell their hatred of blacks to the roof tops, change their clothes, and lose their accent and a claim to whiteness was theirs.

And the closer to white, in appearance, you are, the more likely you are to be successful at joining the socially winning team called "white people."  But as I stated above, dark-skinned people like Africans can also join whiteness by declaring a common frenemy.  And there are all sorts of dog whistles a light-skinned or dark-skinned foreigner can blow to declare themselves.

And I think we, as people of color, have to do a better job looking out for those who want our support but don't want to support us back. We crave unity. And that's a good thing. But there are black and brown people, light and dark, that only see us as bodies to stand upon to raise themselves up.



More to come in Part 2http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/09/does-coming-2-america-2-win-means.html

Updated 9 15 16

A BRIEF HISTORY OF AFRICAN FEMINISM

Feeling Rebloggy, 2013

Can I start this post with saying, “SIGH”. Reason for my exasperation is the continued suggestion that feminism is “unAfrican” – whatever “unAfrican” means. Personally, I missed the how-to-be-an-African memo!

The truth is that feminism is an absolute necessity for African societies. We rank lowest in the global gender equality index, have some of the highest numbers of domestic violence, the highest number of female circumcision and other harmful traditions (need I go on). Yet I keep landing on articles like this and thiswhich both start promisingly then go on to make claims such as “…the first objective for the Nigerian woman is the imperative of family building as the first step in nation building”  and “African women do not feel the same urgency or need to be liberated from their traditional gender roles” respectively. Really? Or this fella, who earnestly wonders, “What is wrong with a woman being successful, and still bowing to her man?”

Dude…

~MsAfropolitain

Read More: 
http://www.msafropolitan.com/2013/07/a-brief-history-of-african-feminism.html

How DOES She Do It All?

WOMAN
LOVER
JOURNALIST
WIFE
MOTHER
FRIEND

[ Soledad ] O'Brien said sometimes she has to pour her whole self into her work and at those times she's probably a crappy mom. But at other times she puts work on hold so she can focus solely on her family, even if that makes her a bad journalist in the eyes of others. She said she realized she can't always be great at all her roles in this world and that's OK.

[A]nother woman juggling a career with motherhood....was asked the key to balance. She leaned into the microphone and said, "Balance is a unicorn."

 ~Writeous Babe

Of course, you've heard women say, "Nobody asks men, 'How do you do it all' " And that is very true. Nobody does. When Marcia Clarke was trying O J Simpson for murder, people asked with outrage, "Who is taking care of her children?" to which I and several others responded, "The same person that is taking care of her male co-worker's children - the spouse."

The other thing that gets to me is that a man can stand up at a microphone, after 30 years of service in the Senate or something, and publicly say to crowds of people and multiple television cameras that he worked 80 hours a week while his wife did virtually all the raising of children without anybody uttering the words "You were a bad father," even though he was.


Rarely will anyone claim that a man was a bad parent if his job is either very powerful or earning him and his family millions of dollars per year. Even those who like to wag their fingers at mothers (but not fathers) who don't worship "balance" have no problem if a man is an absentee father if the power or the money is rolling in.  

There are supposed to be two parents, last I heard. Heterosexually speaking, a mom and a dad may not be interchangeable in their functions and their talents. And that's probably a good thing. But when one PARENT is busy and not there for the child, the other parent should make themselves unbusy and present. And hopefully the unbusy and present parent is not ALWAYS the same parent over and over again.. 

A child needs BOTH parents to be parents, yes? 

When two people are functioning as partners and parents --once the mother separates from the child after birthing and breast feeding-- there really shouldn't be a reason for a mother to feel guilty because she's not with her children 24/7. That's what husbands, mothers, in-laws, and the rest of the village is for, yes? 

The reasonable reason to feel guilty, I would think, is when your child barely recognizes you and doesn't seek comfort from you, because you've become a virtual stranger due to being at work all the time -- no matter how much money and/or power is rolling in. When fathers learn to feel this same reasonable guilt for the same reason and take steps to avoid ever having to feel it, we'll all be better off.

Maybe one day Soledad and mothers all over the world will stop calling themselves the occasionally "crappy mother" as measured by an unrealistic standard and get used to the idea that fathers should feel just as responsible for the day-to-day raising of their children.

Maybe if men feel just as responsible for the day-to-day raising of their children too, maybe they won't count themselves as good fathers once they are divorced and only see their children every other weekend. And if men don't feel like "good fathers" for seeing their children every other weekend, maybe they'll be more invested in staying married --which, again, requires day to day engagement with their children and their wife.

The days of a man being "just a provider" ought to be over by now. And the days of men feeling like "the beast of burden" of their families would be over by now if the men and women who love hard gender roles and also the idea that motherhood is somehow more magical and important than fatherhood would stop and smell the rosy feminism just waiting for them to partake.


File this under *Feminism was supposed to make life better for men (fathers) too.*

Read Morehttp://www.writeousbabe.com/2016/06/why-i-dont-believe-in-balance.html

HOW THE PANAMA PAPERS WIND UP BEING A WOMEN'S ISSUE

The Panama Papers that were hacked or leaked from a law firm in Panama reveal what 99% of us already believed.

The rich people are removing their money from their own countries and putting that money in other country's banks etc. so they don't have to pay taxes on it.

That means that these rich people are failing to contribute to their country's back bone, the financial foundation of the government and government services. Now that's a bad thing, just based on general principle, when you're a billionaire playboy. But it's much, much worse when you are the leader of a country failing to contribute to your country's financial infrastructure.

And a few leaders in a few countries have gotten their hand caught in this Panamanian cookie jar. The Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmunder David Gunlaugsson, was forced to resign.

The ugly Americans lucked up this time around.

There haven't been too many white rich men like Donald Trump caught up in this scandal, not in the numbers I assumed there would be, because "the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of the scandal doesn't like taking on American clients, one of its founders says." 

If this law firm had liked taking on Americans, even if they hadn't gotten one the richest presidential contenders caught up in this mess, it might have made more of a positive impact for Bernie Sander's campaign.

Think about it.

If a bunch of millionaires, some of them attached to the too-big-to-fail shenanigans of 2007/2008 that nearly tanked this country's economy, a whole bunch of senators and representatives might have to sit up and pretend that they are up for the new United States that Bernie proposes. 

The article below, however, only addresses how this is a world wide issue for women, a feminist issue, without going into the details of the feminization of poverty.

The release of the Panama Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is the biggest data leak in history, and this time it’s some of the world’s most powerful people who have cause to worry, with the spotlight finally falling on their own secretive tax arrangements....

If you look at the names of politicians and business leaders in the leaked documents you will see that those benefiting from using tax havens are overwhelmingly male. This perhaps reflects the fact that positions of power are currently mostly held by men.

On the other hand, we know that those who are worst impacted by the consequences of tax dodging are the world’s poorest, who are disproportionately women and girls. Financial secrecy and tax dodging, and the resulting lack of public funds, threatens women’s and girl’s access to public services, increases the care work they do for free and shifts the tax burden onto those who can least afford it.

Read More
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/08/why-panama-papers-are-feminist-issue

A WOMAN OWNING HER SEXUALITY ISN'T BASED ON SUPPLY AND DEMAND

...BUT SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION IS

a repost

 
"[H]ow do you raise a boy to respect women
if you can't get your husband, father, brothers
to respect women?

Seems like a circle without end, [doesn't it?]

But the thing I DO KNOW is
that we as women
are going to have to stand apart
from these backward men,
wherever they are,

....and wrangle our sisters back into line as well.

The demand for
cheap, easy and objectifying sexuality
(on stage like Lady Gaga etc)
is always going to be there.
We have to decide not to supply it.

We cannot mistake THAT for "sexual freedom."
                                                              -bell hooks

* * * * *

(link to bigger picture https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2s935wQhfdskvrhdpsgDbZ1gsTaF0CPi_idlzc2qeUmFaGk3Dme6SnwdA39AvZ3vnGo2SfzEfaH8Q1Q4HKZsu_0WxX0B0yUy9ooX2hyU71Sw9Im0odmz8WGlGmnWuMp3VihOfh3k-MRQ/s1600/Sexual+Freedom.JPG)

Sorry to be rude. But I've seen some younger feminists defend some behaviors, defend some beliefs that would have to climb 10 flights of stairs to rise to the level of stupid. Deciding that your desire to be mostly naked in public is synonymous with ownership of your sexuality is one of those beliefs.

Thank goodness, by the way,  it seems like two-thirds to three-quarters of black and brown feminists are not  going for this nonsense, regardless of age, no matter how often it's dished out. Some 1000 commenters on a black feminist page recently pushed back against this idea with a clearly articulated "NO!"  They made it clear that there were not "proud" of the Beyonce for "owning her sexuality"  by wearing *the naked dress* to the Met Gala in 2015.

But there were also half as many who drank the coolish-aide and defended Bey

 

Dear Misguided Feminist,

Yes, it was bad when women had to be covered from head to toe like American Gothic Woman on the left - in order to be seen as good and worthy of respect. In the times reflected by *American Gothic Woman*  women's  sexually was as good as caged then put in an elevator that was sealed in cement then thrown into the ocean; Women did not own their sexuality in any way, shape, or form. But requiring people (not just women) be clothed in public isn't the enemy of all sexual freedom. Female nakedness  isn't synonymous with owning one's sexuality. If it was men would dress like the model below all the time.

 Male Model Owning His Sexuality
Fashion-ist-oh fashion with a strategic hole
shows a man's flaccid penis
(Paris Fashion Show link below)

The mostly-naked video vixen --who allows men to throw cash at her thong-bare ass then slide a credit card down her crack  is not someone to idolize. Believe it or not, the behavior displayed in Nelly's "Tip Drill" is not something to aspire to in the name of owning one's sexuality.

Rhianna's 2013 or 2014 even more naked dress --the same Rhianna, who has been banned from social media at least once for nakedness(Twitter?) -- may not be exactly the same as Credit Card Ass, who doesn't appear  to deserve a name. But I don't know that Be' and RhiRhi are any free-er than Credit Card Ass or any of the other sisters in the 'Tip Drill' video. (I refuse to provide a link)

The women in that music video were clearly high...high on the attention of men. And people who are addicted to anything, including getting men excited, are not free.


Regardless of what conclusion you come to about Beyonce and Rhianna suffering from the very same addiction as Credit Card Ass and the gang, there's one thing most feminists should be able to agree on:

If what a PERSON is wearing would get her or him arrested in 99 out of 100 grammar schools, that outfit is fit for private dinners, private shows,  and the bedroom, not the street or the stage.

That said, men being able to police women's clothing and behavior should be fought. We, as women, have a lot more freedom and choices about our appearance and our sexiness (or non-sexiness) and I'm glad. And as much as I hate the term "slut shaming" I do agree that slut shaming  should be fought. For so long as the Leonardo Di Caprios are rumored to be screwing 10 to 20 "models" a night sans any name calling --that isn't REALLY envy in disguise-- that battle is on!


However,

showing as much of your ass

as you can possibly get away with

has little or nothing to do with owning your sexuality

but tons to do with

being weak-minded enough

to believe you can't even feel alive

unless

you see desire

in the eyes of every man you meet.*


This is not sexual freedom, ownership or your sexual self, or even sexual power. It never has been has been. It is an enslavement of the mind that is as old as humanity. The feeling of power that depends on the reaction of men is entirely from outside self. And something about Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, and Jennifer Lopez's behavior (Met Gala Naked Dress Competitors) that seems very familiar.

I mean, don't men who have to have a flashy car and lots of money to attract women seem shallow and powerless in very much the same way as naked-as-possible woman? Aren't they flip sides of the same coin?


Don't get me wrong. I'm glad feminists gave up trying to B-minus versions of men. The giant shoulder pads of the 1980s were symbolic of that attempt. And I'm glad today's female feminists have decided that there is power in the ways that women do things, in the ways that women approach things. Some of our ways are actually better. And part of seeking equality will be seeking to prove some of women's ways are better and bringing men into the light. But along the way we are going have to be a little more conscious and a lot more self-observant if we're going to look forward and understand that seeking a bad thing's opposite is not always good (American Gothic Woman vs. Credit Card Ass)

Skin and Image Bleaching Controversy Left
Black Face Coat Controversy Right
Romanticizing IKE BEATING TINA in a song, post-feminism claims, not shown

By the way, while intelligence isn't the end-all/be-all of everything good either, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that thinking isn't the strong suite of most actors, singers and whatever Kim K is. They probably shouldn't be looked to for anything except acting and singing -- and maybe their ability to move large numbers of people to support the cause of your choice. What they do or say probably has little or nothing to do with a grown, thinking woman owning her sexuality.

Besides, if a woman's career depends on that woman shaking her mostly naked butt for people who have paid $200 a ticket to see said butt, then where does the ownership of that sexuality lie?

That is, if Beyonce, Rhianna, and Gaga know that they dare not fail to supply the exact sexuality that the ticket holders expect and demand, then don't the ticket buyers own their sexuality? Don't managers and record companies dependent on the naked booty shaking own part of their sexuality too? Couldn't they be sued for turning into Joni Mitchell or Whitney all of a sudden, fully clothed for an entire two or three shows in a row?

I don't think Beyonce, Rhianna, and Gaga own a damn except their material possessions. But maybe that's just me.

Forget Beyonce
"Beyond The Lights" shows a better example of a woman coming to own her sexuality
Good for young teens I would think

NAKED DRESS COMPETITORS (I must admit. Beyonce wore it  or didn't-wear it the best)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/met-gala-2015-who-was-793472


PARIS FASHION WEEK MALE MODELS
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2015/01/23/full-frontal-nudity-hangs-out-at-paris-mens-fashion-week/

MISTAKING HERO LESSONS FOR HISTORY LESSONS

Do you think race relations would be much improved if schools taught the actual true history of this country?

*******
This question was asked in a group I belong to. It's been asked many times. 

So let's skip over the part where we discuss the fact that there isn't one true history. This question is not about differing perspectives anyway. The question is really about making an attempt to stop telling blatant lies, deliberately leaving out the deadliest parts of racism, and minimizing genocide into something called "manifest destiny" within children's history books in the United States.

********
I don't know how it would get done, as dedicated as people are to seeing "me and mine" in the best possible light and white people have too much power as compared to others for now. But if it could get done, there's no doubt in my mind that there would be a positive difference.


I don't know what form that positive difference would take. However, I see so clearly the link between...


1) not knowing your own history and the survival white supremacy
2) not knowing your own history and thriving of male supremacy



 ...that it seems obvious that breaking those links would necessarily have an effect.      


Most people would agree that an individual person's history and knowledge of that history makes that individual person who they are.  All your experiences create who you are, create your personality. What's in a person's memory, what an individual chooses to remember and chooses to repress (pieces of their personal history) also shapes a person into who they are because what you choose to hold in your memory and choose to erase enhances or limits the effect of your experiences.   
      

  

And I don't think the basic principles of this changes much when you move from talking about individuals to talking about groups.      


A group's history and retained knowledge of that history makes a group who they are. White people, and many other Americans, like to believe in a kind of individuality that isn't real. We are social. We do have group habits formed by our shared history.      


For example, the white individual has a racial identity and acts out race just like everybody else that's not white. White people have white experience. But white individuals collectively, their group, tends to think of their own raced experience as "normal" with everybody else too focused on their skin color/ethnicity -- which is why (history-less) colorblind ideology was only ever popular with this group now called "white people." (You can only believe you are blind to race when it never really existed for you in the first place. )   


Individuals honest about who they are, good or bad, are often decent human beings if they make efforts in that direction. Let's assume for now that this describes a kind of personal transparency that breeds integrity. It follows then that groups of individuals like this, who are honest about who they are, good or bad, will be comprised of decent human beings.

On the flip side...

--if you lie to yourself about how good your group is then there's no effort that needs to be made; We're the good people. --if lie to yourself about how good your group is then the individuals within that group have to lie and cover up in order to fit in. 

--If you lie to yourself about how good your group is then you have to lie for your ancestors as well--- ala Ben Affleck   

These truths are most evident when you look at the current behavior or white people and compare it to the accuracy of white history as taught in school history books. Yet, the more I read black history written by black people, especially black history as written by black women, the more I'm realizing that black people have the very same tendency to mistake hero lessons for history lessons.  



Black women writers seem to write more intimately than black male writers, probably due to gender expectations. They have taught me so many things about Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Josephine Baker, Walter White, Booker T Washington, and Ida B Wells that made me sad and sometimes angry.   


These historical figures had their flaws, motives, and personal interactions revealed and examined by the women writers I've been reading lately. It's crystal clear to me that the books that I've read on black history before were more dedicated to making heroes out of these flawed human beings than creating an accurate picture of these human beings.  That means the writers of these black history books of mine aren't so very different in mindset from Ben Affleck.  

Again, if you lie to yourself about how good your group is then the individuals within that group have to lie and cover up in order to fit in. If you lie to yourself about how good your group is then you have to lie for your ancestors as well. And once you start lying collectively about your ancestors you have dishonest history books in school.    

  
It's a simple fact that people like to paint pretty pictures of me and mine. But this damages us long into adulthood and damages the collective us for multiple generations.  


 Recently I read a black history book that was in part about Walter White, head of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955, a black man who wasn't just light-skinned but looked completely white. In fact, he use to pass for white while spying on KKK meetings -- then get run out of town by white people trying to kill him when they found out. Not more than a few weeks had passed before I read an article about how White married a white woman then announced in "Look" magazine that he thought some sort of skin bleaching system was going to be the end of racism -- a fact completely omitted when talking about Walter White by most magazines and black history book writers ala Affleck.    


When you choose having history over having heroes you might wind up having discussions about the gap between Walter White's obviously heroic decision to be black instead of deciding to pass, even putting his life in danger then Walter White's apparent desire to want blacks to be able to pass into whiteness like he could/did(?) nearer the end of his life. 

  Colorism, class, and light-skin were very much connected long before Walter White and the NAACP's birth through the height of the NAACP's influence in the 1950s and 60s.  And what was going on in the NAACP was a reflection of what was going on throughout most sections of that smallish section of middle-class black America in the early 20th century.  If we, as black people knew our black history and especially black female history that involves colorism and class, we wouldn't have been surprised by the multiple black attempts to absolve Rachel Dolezal.    


There are  many discussions black people don't have due to our dedication to having hero lessons instead of history lessons.    


For example, I've seen discussions of Booker T Washington's accomplishments and influence, the building of Tuskegee being one of the most significant. I've read some discussion of his accommodationist attitudes toward white people. But there is virtually no discussion of how his accommodationist and classist attitudes may have manifested itself years after his death in the black doctors of the Tuskegee Institute, the ones who knowingly participating in the Tuskegee Experiment for years after they knew rural black men had been infected with syphilis while being denied treatment just to study how they suffered and died.


Black people want hero lessons instead of history lessons as badly as white people do, if not more so.     


Some of us have become so ashamed of poverty and the outcomes of poverty and want shining examples of black worthiness. We have become so dedicated to this craving for heroes that Bill Cosby can say the vilest things about the poorest and weakest of us and we continue to worship him because of the positive things he images he presented of us in a sitcom.  But the worship of Cosby is probably less about his accomplishments and twice as much about the fact that he is high up, shiny gold, rich, and black. Long before it became clear that he's very, very likely a rapist, we did let go of his achievements. Collectively, we could no more easily give Cosby up than white feminists want to give up Margaret Sanger.
     

from Charles Blow's 2010

"Let's Rescue The Race Debate"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20blow.html?_r=0

  
If we mistake hero lessons for history lessons, we will surely repeat our mistakes. And we cannot afford to repeat mistakes. White people repeat their mistakes too. However, socially, they are sitting on top. They can afford to make the same mistakes to a certain extent (The 1%, mostly white, may destroy the planet with fracking...but other than that and maybe serial killing, whites are sitting prettier than we are)   


  All this is why I conclude that telling the truth about our collective history isn't just about reducing oppressiveness of white people or the oppressiveness of men, it's about building our own self-awareness, individually and collectively. Building that self-awareness may reduce oppressiveness but it stops a large segment of the oppressed from agreeing with the oppressor be the majority of white people or the majority of male people.  

 If we are HONEST about those we claim
as "us"  and as heroes both
we can be honest about ourselves.  
If we can see heroes as people
just like us
we can be braver.
That is,
if I can accept that Ida B Wells
was imperfect just like I am fairly imperfect 
then my ability to do heroic things
just like Ida B Wells
won't seem so far fetched, right?
We'll be more willing to step out, take
chances, and take action
in anti-sexism and anti-racism struggles, both  


If we are honest about heroes having flaws  
then we can be honestly decide
that someone we thought of as a hero
really doesn't deserve to be called "hero" 
Achievements or no acheivement
some things don't allow a person   
to be called "hero" anymore.  
We may still see and still talk 
about an ex-hero's contributions as contributions  
even if those contributions came from an ugly soul  
OR  
we can talk about the contributions
while not speaking of the person at all    

  

Booker T Washington

Yes choices will always have to be made about how we tell ourselves our collective memories, our history. Still, there is nothing but gain to be had from telling versions of the truth as best you can in school history books.      


If you don't know your individual history, you don't know who you are. If you don't know your collective history, you still don't know who you are. Some people read more history after they are grown, but that reading list is selective. In school you are supposed to be getting the big picture painted for you. And most of us should have the same base in addition to the oral histories we are taught at home.      

We, as Americans, need a common history to work from if we're going to be a less fragmented society. If we're going to be a pluralistic society where groups respect one another's differences, we have to know what the differences are and how those differences came to be despite our having a shared history. 

   
That means the shameful parts of our history will have to be discussed.   People, including children, should feel bad on and off during the process of learning our history. History is a mixed bag. The history of humans is not predominantly filled with glory unless you lie about it a lot.     


When I was in school, I felt bad when hearing about black history, which consisted of slavery and suffering for civil rights. I think white kids felt slightly embarrassed until that fifteen minutes in 12 years of schooling was over. The white kids might have felt equally embarrassed or awkward for another 15 minutes when discussing Native Americans. If history in school is taught more honestly, white children will join the rest of us in that what white kids hear about **them and theirs** will go from 90% glory and triumph down to 50% or less glory and triumph.     


Racial/ethnic history isn't the only adjustment that needs to be made in school history books though.  


 Reading the same black history written by black women has made me realize how much black men write about themselves to the exclusion of all else too, just like white people do.       


Oppressors need push back. If they don't get it, they erase you. You have to push to get your share of the space that's available. Oppressors are taking up too much space, that's what "oppressor" kinda means.  One of the most important forms of push back, one of the most important ways of claiming  ~a space that should always have been yours~ is by getting accurate history books into schools.

CARTOON: WHY MAKING FEMINIST CHOICES AREN'T AS SIMPLE AS "YES" or "NO"

This short cartoon goes a long way to explaining how women, including feminists, are making choices every day that are influenced by surroundings, even things we are trying resist within our surroundings. Excusing what we do with the words, "Well, it's my choice" doesn't always justify, clarify, or legitimize a thing. And more often that not, "an excuse" isn't even necessary


But being clear within yourself about what you are doing, when, and why is always necessary.

To thine own self be

as true as possible

Feeling Rebloggy on Make Up

                                                                                                        EverydayFeminism.com

Read More Of This Education Cartoon Here:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/choices-not-always-feminist/

Google Takes A Stand Against Revenge Porn

feeling rebloggy

- fastcompany.com

"Google will soon begin pulling revenge porn from its search results, on a per-request basis. In a blog post, Google Search senior vice president Amit Singhal wrote that the search giant will honor requests to take down nude or sexually explicit images posted without a person’s consent"

Read More: 
http://www.fastcompany.com/3047679/fast-feed/google-to-exclude-revenge-porn-from-search-results


http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/19/google-revenge-porn-search-results/28983363/

LOVE LETTER TO A NEW FATHER

from printerest

Feeling Rebloggy


You're an "all in" kind of dad, and hesitation is not part of your process. Save for labour, delivery, and breastfeeding, I'd be hard-pressed to find any other act of parenting that you haven’t been able to do. Your fatherhood is more than presence—it is deliberate action and intentional love; a fertile soil where our daughter can take root and thrive.

- For Harriet 

Read much more: http://www.forharriet.com/2015/06/letter-to-my-husband-blessing-in.html#ixzz3divLPzyq   Follow us: @ForHarriet on Twitter | forharriet on Facebook

"PRINCELESS!" Comic Books For The Next Generation

"Adrienne Ashe never wanted to be a princess. She hates fancy dinners, is uncomfortable in lavish dresses, and has never wanted to wait on someone else to save her. 

However, on the night of her 16th-birthday, her parents, the King and Queen, locked her away in a tower guarded by a dragon to await the rescue of some handsome prince. 

Now Adrienne has decided to take matters into her own hands!

- Come join the Eisner-nominated team of Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin for a tale of swashbuckling in the face of sexism. Princeless is the action/adventure for the girl who's tired of waiting to be rescued and ready to save herself!"

A FEW REVIEWS TO READ
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13262276-princeless-1


PRETTY GOOD PRICE AT ABE'S BOOKS
http://www.abebooks.com/Princeless-Vol-1-Save-Whitley-Jeremy/15100982705/bd?cm_mmc=gmc-_-gmc-_-PLA-_-v01

A FEW REVIEWS TO READ
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13262276-princeless-1


PRETTY GOOD PRICE AT ABE'S BOOKS
http://www.abebooks.com/Princeless-Vol-1-Save-Whitley-Jeremy/15100982705/bd?cm_mmc=gmc-_-gmc-_-PLA-_-v01

BLACK WOMEN Without Whom We Might Not Be Here

The first time I heard Gloria Steinem say that “Black women invented feminism” I automatically assumed that she was simply shining her on, buttering up the Jet Magazine interviewer, saying whatever she needed to say to ingratiate herself to a black audience. Not kind, but that’s the truth of it. That’s what I thought.

That’s what I thought until I realized Steinem was telling the truth.


In the United States, black women have always been outside the traditional women’s roles, as defined by white women. Always.

As slaves, we always worked inside and outside the home. And Harriet Tubman took the non-traditional woman identity several steps further.

Tubman freed slaves, acted as a union spy during the civil war and freed more slaves, argued for a woman’s right to vote, and created a ‘Home For The Aged” for ex-slaves too old to work anymore. Who knows how much hope she gave to the black people she didn’t personally save?

If it wasn’t for this black suffragist/feminist a lot our black ancestors wouldn’t have survived. This means a lot of us wouldn’t be here if it weren't for Harriet Tubman

Post slavery, it took both black husband and black wife working to make enough money to survive. Twenty years after slavery ended an emerging middle class eventually included Ida B Wells, a journalist who owned her own black newspaper and investigated lynching in such a methodical way  (publishing her results in her 1892 pamphlet called “Southern Horrors”)  that it’s not overstating it to say that she was one the world’s first sociologists -- maybe even before Emile Durkheim who didn’t introduce the concept of “anomie” which garnered him the title of “The Father Of Sociology” until one year later in 1893.

Famous as she was, this Mother Of Sociology, Ida B Wells kept her last name when she married and hyphenated it into “Wells-Barnett,” one of the first women to do so. Black women would continue to use both last names for decades afterwards (think: Coretta Scott King) Wells-Barnett had four children after she married, yet continued her anti-lynching and anti-racism activism with her politician husband, Ferdinand Barnett, who sometimes asked her to get on a train to go investigate a lynching.

Ida B was also a founding member of the NAACP.

Without Ida B Wells-Barnett’s ability to be persuade people to get behind her and her anti-lynching campaign, a lot of our black male ancestors wouldn’t have survived. The NAACP also wouldn't have had a foundational cause, lynching, to work on and establish itself.  All this means that a lot of us wouldn’t be here if it weren't for Ida B.  

Pauli Murray, a founding member of  The National Organization for Women (NOW) worked with Ruth Bader Ginsberg on Reed v. Reed  a case recognized for pioneering work on gender discrimination.  (This case established that men could not be given preferential standing in cases of inheritance, simply by virtue of their gender.) 

Then NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall called Murray's 1950 book States' Laws on Race and Color the "bible" of the civil rights movement.

Without Pauli Murray and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, some of our ancestors wouldn’t have survived. And that means some of us wouldn’t be here. And some of us, as women, wouldn’t currently be EQUALLY able to inherit property from our parents if we have male relatives, among other things.

Black feminists started “Black Lives Matter” Without Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, black men would be dying at the hands of white police without notice. We have no idea if the pace of black deaths at the hands of police has slowed from what it was before #BlackLivesMatter because it wasn’t nationally tracked or even reported nationally by the main stream media (MSM) as it is now. But the outrage over what is happening to black men is spreading beyond the black community. The publicity is paying off or will pay off.

A feminist, Ava Monet joined the “Say Her Name” protest, using her poetry to make sure that the 1 in 5 female black people that die, on average, at the hands of white police are not ignored.

A feminist, Shonda Rhimes, showed us how to brown Hollywood without begging, how to use effectively acknowledge and use  white privilege ( via using a white female lead for “Grey’s Anatomy”) , via moving on to light privilege (via using a lighter-skinned, black featured female lead of "Scandal"), effectively enough to put a black woman, Kerry Washington (another proactive feminist) in the protagonist's role of a prime time TV show for the first time in 38 years  AND get a black woman with black features, Viola Davis (another feminist), into the lead role of a hit show like “How To Get Away With Murder.”

And a feminist, Beverly Bond created “Black Girls Rock” to raise the esteem of black girls, ignored and erased from every facet of society, including black society, more often than not. 

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This should remind women- and men - of how many women fought and died for simple rights taken for granted

Feminism - the concept that the fight for equal rights for women makes for a better world for both sexes - is a term that is primarily dissed and degraded by men and is why most women today are afraid of or embarrassed by the label. 

Reclaiming and un-tarnishing a label is a start, a change for the betterment of all womenFeminists today love to criticize the faults and imperfections of the early movements without realizing how important they were to their present success (as well as how critical the future will be of their own shortcomings).

To me, trying to sweep feminism under the rug is like trying to say we are "colorblind" and racism doesn't really exist. Sexism exists too. And erasing the label, getting rid of the joining together of people under the banner of "feminism dishonors all those who have struggled to get this far and minimizes the struggle that still remains. Being afraid to call something “feminism” is a bit akin to ‘AllLivesMatter".

Sure, it's about everybody, but black people are the most immediately impacted, so let's not water down the [original] slogan.
Black Lives Matter.

~ Caren Sharp (paraphrased)

Black Women's Lives Matter Too. 

Black Feminists Make Sure ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER.

 BLACK FEMINISTS HAVE ALWAYS MADE SURE THAT ALL THE BLACK LIVES THAT MATTER ARE WORTH LIVING

I can't even imagine how powerful black girls and therefore black women would be if they knew their own history. I truly cannot imagine it.