Category: Media and Culture,

Why the U.S. Women’s Chess Champion Refuses to Play in Iran 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,, Middle East,Leave a comment

In February 2017, the Women’s World Chess Championship will be held in Iran. The U.S. champion, Nazi Paikidze-Barnes, will not be there.

Nazi Paikidze-Barnes has refused to participate in protest of the Islamic Republic’s compulsory dress code, which mandates that all women wear hijabs, or headscarves, in public. The law is strictly enforced regardless of a woman’s religion or nationality, and therefore would include all 64 competitors at the tournament. “I think it’s unacceptable to host a WOMEN’S World Championship in a place where women do not have basic fundamental rights and are treated as second-class citizens,” she posted on social media. She also wrote that she wouldn’t “wear a hijab and support women’s oppression even if it means missing one of the most important competitions of my career.” (Based on the formula of the tournament, she will not be eligible to compete again until 2019.)

Iranian activist and journalist Masih Alinejad says…  “This is a discriminatory law, it’s not a cultural issue,” she told VICE Sports last week. “The government of Iran forces all women—non-Iranian, non-Muslim, and children—to wear hijab. All women should stand up and speak out. By accepting compulsory hijab, you are giving the Iranian government more power to oppress women.”

…”Nazi is not boycotting the games but it is the Islamic Republic which is boycotting Nazi,” Alinejad said. “She has earned the right to compete in an international tournament and it is the Islamic Republic which puts another hurdle in front of her and says, ‘You can only compete if you conform to our dress code.’ Where in the FIDE regulations does it say that countries can impose religious rules on players?”

Gary Walters, the president of the U.S. Chess Federation, agrees—and has expressed support of the U.S. champion. In Walters’s words, “We reminded FIDE that the forced wearing of a hijab or other dress is contrary to FIDE’s handbook.” (Statute 1.2 reads, in part, that FIDE “rejects discriminatory treatment for national, political, racial, social, or religious reasons, or on account of gender.”)

Why the U.S. Women’s Chess Champion Refuses to Play in Iran | VICE Sports

booo, FIDE!

Women, Stop Listening to Sexist Relationship ‘Experts’

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

I’ve spent several days thinking about Rev. Run, Tyrese, Amber Rose and their conversation about sexual consent on OWN’s It’s Not You, It’s Men. In short: Amber Rose had to explain that “no means no,” Tyrese talked about women’s sexual energy practically forcing men to “grope” them and Rev. Run threw in a heavy dose of respectability politics to justify men being disrespectful to women.

It was … troubling, to put it mildly. These two men, who are hosting a show about relationships, also wrote a best-selling book about relationships (hence the show), and there they sat, on national television, unable to grasp basic concepts like consent and that what a woman wears isn’t a pass to treat her badly or fondle her. These are the men, the supposed-to-be-enlightened ones, advising women about relationships? Seriously?

Women, Stop Listening to Sexist Relationship ‘Experts’

Amen, girl.

Calais ‘Jungle’ camp to be cleared out by end of day 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Middle East,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The authorities have said that nothing will be left of the notorious Jungle, home to around 6,000 migrants until a week ago, by Monday evening.

Calais ‘Jungle’ camp to be cleared out by end of day – The Local

They came with nothing, to the promise of safety and welcome.

Instead they were greeted by fear, hostility, and indifference.

The little they built for themselves taken and destroyed and still they are offered no help, no relief, nowhere to go.

Humanity is a disgusting cesspool and politicians who refuse to help Satan’s playthings.

These Korean Adoptees Grew Up Like Typical American Kids. Then They Learned They Weren’t Citizens. 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Modern Parenting,, Race,Leave a comment

These Korean Adoptees Grew Up Like Typical American Kids. Then They Learned They Weren’t Citizens. | The Nation

This is an absolute crime against some of of our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. This needs to be fixed right the fuck now, for ever child who was ever adopted into the United States. Period.

Mass. cop’s wife faked home robbery, blamed Black Lives Matter, police say 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

The house had been tagged with graffiti that appeared to reference the Black Lives Matter movement, which Maria Daly said had been left by the alleged intruders

Mass. cop’s wife faked home robbery, blamed Black Lives Matter, police say – CBS News

Exonerated or not the optics of this are terrible. The officer should be suspended without pay as along as he lives in the same residence with this woman.

Episcopal Church Executive Council stands with Standing Rock

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Religion,, The Americas,Leave a comment

[Episcopal News Service – New Brunswick, New Jersey] The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council asked Oct. 22 that law-enforcement officials “de-escalate military and police provocation in and near the campsites of peaceful protest and witness of the Dakota Access Pipeline project.”

…The Rev. John Floberg, council member and supervising priest of the Episcopal churches on the North Dakota side of Standing Rock, told the council’s Joint Standing Committee on Advocacy and Networking for Mission Oct. 21 that the way the protest has been conducted has been “the most powerful experience I have had in my 25 years on Standing Rock.” And, yet, he said, he has been shaken by the racist responses that the protest has generated elsewhere in the state.

… The resolution asks the Episcopal Church at all levels to prayerfully and financially support the planned winter encampment, which it says is the Sioux Nation’s “right for peaceful assembly and protest.”

On the closing day of the meeting, Floberg presented to the Archives of the Episcopal Church housed in Austin, Texas, the now-tattered Episcopal Church flag that flew over the Oceti Skowin Camp in North Dakota for months. The flag, he said, was the only Christian church flag among the 300 flags of tribal nations that flew over the peaceful-protest encampment.

…The Episcopal Church’s entry into the protest is rooted in its 2009 repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, Curry said. “Part of that action was to say we have got to find more just, equitable and fair ways of being in relationship with our brothers and sisters in the Native communities in our country,” the presiding bishop said.

Episcopal Church Executive Council stands with Standing Rock

hmmmm

I’m Indian, I’m dark, and I don’t care. 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Race,, Southern Central Asia,Leave a comment

I love being an Indian, truly I do. With the country’s powerful history, one of a kind culture, and to-die-for food, how could one simply not? 

But behind India’s beautiful face, there is a growing disease that our society continually fails to recognize- colorism.

Colorism is a term coined by author Alice Walker, and is defined as a discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone among people of the same racial and/or ethnic group. Also know as, internalized racism.

I’m Indian, I’m dark, and I don’t care. – aswathithomas

hmmmm

Police, Officials Resign After Small Missouri Town Elects First Black Female Mayor 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Gulf Coast Region,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

Most of the police force and several officials resigned after the small town of Parma, Missouri elected its first African American woman as mayor,

Police, Officials Resign After Small Missouri Town Elects First Black Female Mayor | Huffington Post

In other news outlets the former chief is shrilly screaming up and down that he is not a racist. He cries about how as a public official whose contact info and residence are public information as if this is a new development instead of a condition of his career.He makes slyly disparaging and blatantly racist generalization about the mayor’s family.

In other words, this little piggie cried, “weh, weh, weh,” all  the way to his indisputably bigoted home.

Trump Finally Pissed Off the Wrong Women. All of Them.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Elizabeth Warren swirling the word “nasty” around in her mouth like a sommelier enjoying a fine wine only served as the latest reminder to a certain Trumpy flavor of man that, at this point in the 2016 campaign, women don’t need their approval to exist, or even to succeed. In Tina Fey’s 2011 memoir Bossypants, the comedy maven recounted an exchange between former SNL castmates Jimmy Fallon and Amy Poehler. The story goes that Amy told a dirty joke, and Jimmy fired back that he didn’t like it. Amy responded, “I don’t fucking care if you like it.” [emphasis: mine] Fey advises all women in the workplace to conduct themselves similarly: do what you want, fuck ‘em if they disagree.

The world has coddled Donald Trump into believing that women who have somehow failed to meet his antiquated standards of femininity should feel chastened. Men like Trump expect women to feel like failures when a man calls them anything less than pretty, sexy, pleasant, nice. But the world outside of Trump Tower has been moving at a much faster pace than the creaky machinery between Trump’s ears. In the voting booth, compliance is optional. Deference to the whims of men is unnecessary, if not undesirable.

Trump Finally Pissed Off the Wrong Women. All of Them. – The Daily Beast

hmmmm

Fleeing ISIS’ assault on girls and women 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Middle East,, Modern Parenting,Leave a comment

Things had been getting worse for women in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, [emphasis: mine] the rise of sectarian strife and fundamentalist Islam. But in the summer of 2014 came the biggest blow when ISIS enforced its extreme ideology in northern Iraq.

…Tales of rape and other horrific abuses of women had spread across Nineveh; of the capture and enslavement of non-Muslim women from Yazidi and Christian communities, acts that ISIS claims are justified in the Quran.

So Zainab, who is Muslim, was married off at 16 to save her from ISIS. Three months ago, she became pregnant. In the madness of escaping her ISIS-held town, she lost her baby. She says little about it except there was a lot of blood.

…But what happened to her is also an assault. She was a child still and robbed of her freedom, her life’s trajectory altered because of an ideology that does not value her worth as a woman. Early marriage for girls has emerged, sadly, as a coping mechanism under the militants.
…I ask about her journey from Mosul, why she fled in her condition. Her initial answer is wholly expected: “I was afraid for my daughter.”
She continues: “But I was afraid as much for my son. He would have been brainwashed by them and one day forced to join their ranks.”

…The prospect of a military victory over ISIS in Mosul offers glimmers of hope for a better future, but the women are unsure if life can ever be the same again.

How long, they ask, will it take to reverse the damage that has been done; to undo a perverse way of thinking that does not see women as human beings? How long before they can walk in the streets without constantly surveying their surroundings?

Fleeing ISIS’ assault on girls and women – CNN.com

Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhh!

Violence apparently escalating on both sides of Dakota Access protests 

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

“From dog attacks, to local women being stripped naked and left that way in jail overnight, to arrests used as a tool for intimidation — these reports are very disturbing,” WDN President Donna P. Hall said. “The DOJ must act immediately to investigate local North Dakota police and hold them accountable for any abuses of power.”

Violence apparently escalating on both sides of Dakota Access protests – UPI.com

The fact that the Justice Department is not there already is a crime in itself.

Behind Temple attacks, rage often comes with exclusion

On By peanutgallerynhIn Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

…For more than a decade, on whip-thin streets with names like Sydenham and Colorado, longtime community residents and their children watched white men from other places come in to build new rental housing. That same community sought jobs on those worksites, but contractors who required union labor and unions that were largely white and male excluded community workers. Then community members were forced to watch as Temple students were welcomed into that same new housing by landlords who used various methods to exclude community residents from renting them.

…”From the point of view of the longtime residents that were still there, there were some pluses and minuses: improved amenities, sometimes the university police patrols the area so community residents feel like they have extra security, retail options and grocery stores and stuff like that. But they also feel that there’s noise; the students don’t respect them, don’t understand them, don’t respect the neighborhood. Some longtime residents feel they’re not as comfortable in the neighborhood as they were.”

And therein lies the problem.

In a city where poverty is concentrated outside the universities, we can’t truly expect the poor to watch jobs and wealth and excess pass them by without any reaction at all.

…Temple University, my alma mater, has reached out to the community with scholarships for local youth, according to spokesman Ray Betzner. They’ve put reading programs in place, tutored high schoolers and even talked to their own students about respecting longtime community residents. But Temple would be wise to reach out into the community with an eye toward creating stronger relationships and greater opportunities for the young people who’ve been pushed aside by a generation of exclusionary development.

Behind Temple attacks, rage often comes with exclusion

hmm