‘Demeaned and Humiliated’: What Happened to These Iranians at U.S. Airports – The New York Times
UnAmerican bullshit.
We have become the bad guys. 100%.
Category: Race,
‘It’s About Power’: D.C. Students Seek To Remove Bias In School Dress Codes
“Too many dress codes are rooted in really dangerous sex stereotypes about what we think a girl should look like, and what we think a boy should look like,” says Nia Evans, lead researcher of the report. “And those are really outdated binaries that we’re moving away from as a culture.”
…“Dress codes aren’t even meeting the goals that they’re intended to meet: to limit and reduce distractions or foster a sense of professionalism,” Evans says. “Students that we worked with have said, ‘I’m actually not learning either of those things. I’m just getting punished for the fact that I have a curvy body or I’m wearing my hair in a head wrap.’
…The study also found a correlation between how strict a school’s dress code is and the racial makeup of the student body. High schools with majority black students (schools where African American students make up more than 50% of the students enrolled) have more dress code restrictions than other high schools. Majority black schools also suspend girls at nearly double the rates of other schools, according to the study.
Researchers found that black girls in the District remain 20 times more likely than white girls to be suspended, despite no evidence of more misbehavior.
“Black girls deserve to bring their authentic selves to school, and we should hold our schools accountable to that,” Evans says.
…“Girls felt creeped out by their classmates and teachers commenting on how they looked and it empowered students to scrutinize each other, which makes them feel even more self-conscious,” Zerwitz said in the report.
… Many took aim at the stereotypes embedded in dress codes, rules that deny girls class time, and the “culture of harassment that paints girls as distractions.” [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]
‘It’s About Power’: D.C. Students Seek To Remove Bias In School Dress Codes | WAMU
hmmm
A Cop Was Just Charged With Murder Less Than 24 Hours After He Shot and Killed a Black Man Handcuffed in a Police Cruiser
Another day. Another cold-blooded cop murder. At least he was arrested. Progress?
Travel ban expanded to six new countries
The Trump administration on Friday announced an expansion of the travel ban — one of the President’s signature policies, which has been derided by critics as an attempt to ban Muslims from the US — to include six new countries.
Immigration restrictions will be imposed on: Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar (known as Burma), with exceptions for immigrants who have helped the US.
Travel ban expanded to six new countries – CNNPolitics
hmmmm
Publisher Cancels ‘American Dirt’ Book Tour After Threats
Flatiron Books, publisher of the controversial new novel American Dirt, has cancelled the remainder of author Jeanine Cummins’ book tour after what it called “specific threats to booksellers and the author.” This follows several individual event cancellations.
Cummins received a hefty advance and a big promotional push for American Dirt, which follows a Mexican mother and son fleeing drug cartel violence. Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club, and prominent authors showered it with praise. But critics have called the book inaccurate and full of harmful stereotypes, and questioned whether Cummins was the right person to tell that story..
…Miller also addressed specific concerns around the promotion of American Dirt, saying “we made serious mistakes in the way we rolled out this book. We should never have claimed that it was a novel that defined the migrant experience; we should not have said that Jeanine’s husband was an undocumented immigrant while not specifying that he was from Ireland. …We can now see how insensitive those and other decisions were, and we regret them.”
Miller said “we wish to listen, learn and do better,” but called for “a two-way dialogue characterized by respect,” saying that “while there are valid criticisms around our promotion of this book that is no excuse for the fact that in some cases there have been threats of physical violence.
Publisher Cancels ‘American Dirt’ Book Tour After Threats : NPR
oy….
‘There was always a “but” ‘: How Kamala Harris’s staff and supporters see her exit from the presidential race
Amittedly, as a self-avowed criminal justice voter(s) who is less than in love with Kamala’s record in Law Enforment the Senator had a tough road to haul if she was ever going to earn the Peanut Gallery’s primary vote. …But for many reasons (liking her as a person, not to mention how important it is that our representative government actually looks likes our population) the Peanut Gallery was really rooting for her to go further into the process than she did. I think that’s why the Peanut Gallery was so pissed about about how awful her campaign was. Her ground staff deserved better, she deserved better, and the public deserved a better chance to get to know her than any of us got.
#1 – There never is a “next” anybody. Never ever ever. It’s just not real. Plus, it hampers the new persons ability to define themselves.
#2 – If they were better than what came before, attacking previous administrations of ones own party will always come back to bite you or the party i the ass. (Like say, a bruising primary that labelled a candidate destined to become the nominee in following contests as untrustworthy and dishonest. Ahem) Every. Single. Time.
#3 – There is no denying the difficulties presented to a candidate who is a woman or a POC. There is also no other way to surmount those challenges than a good organization. She had some good people but her organization was amateur-ish, unrealistic, and generally ill-suited to run for anything anywhere but California.
She. Never. Had. A. Shot. A better organization, one that was realistic about the different ways one must campaign in different parts of the country, could have given her one but in the absence of that? She never had a shot.
And quite frankly? If one can’t even field an organization that is able to speak to people in different regions, how could one ever hope to carrying on foreign affairs?
Andrew LaMar Hopkins: A Painter Resurrects Louisiana’s Vanished Creole Culture
In 1830, the moment in time Mr. Hopkins is fond of using for many of his creations, free Creoles of color in New Orleans owned some $15 million of property in the city. Mostly French speaking, these artisans, shopkeepers and artists were in no small part responsible for the look of the French Quarter — its ironwork, decorative plaster, its architecture and fashionable shops. Like white Creoles, some owned slaves, and some later fought for the Confederacy. Despite many laws restricting their rights they played a significant role in civic life.
…Creole is a long-embattled term, perhaps best defined now as a person whose background and identity is traceable to colonial French Louisiana and/or its Franco-African culture.
…The city of New Orleans historically demanded detailed inventories of the possessions of deceased citizens, and he studied these lists to ground his rooms, from their locally made armoires and Campeche chairs to neo-Classical French porcelain and wall clocks. The furniture is as important as the people, whether it appears in the cottage of the powerful voodoo queen Marie Laveau or in the salon of John James Audubon, the white Creole naturalist renowned for his “Birds of America.”
A Painter Resurrects Louisiana’s Vanished Creole Culture – The New York Times
hmmmm
BSU students protest after professor calls police to remove student from class
The professor shouldn’t have called and university police shouldn’t have come.
The Problem With ‘Electability’
Discussions of electability are often really about identity — and they tend to come down negatively on nonwhite and non-male candidates.
…How comfortable should we be, as a society, with discouraging members of traditionally marginalized groups from pursuing political office because other Americans might have a negative view of those potential candidates’ gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics (or some combination of these characteristics)? After all, a candidate can change her ideology if her platform isn’t appealing to voters — but many of these traits are immutable.
This is not a theoretical issue.
…Discussions of electability matter in a system where a huge part of who wins is who runs in the first place, and a major factor in who runs is who other people encourage to run. If people are telling women and members of minority groups that they can’t win, that could be a factor in the underrepresentation of minorities and women in politics.
…Because the U.S. is majority white, and because a significant number of Americans have some negative views about nonwhite people and women, a heavy emphasis on electability can be tantamount to encouraging any candidates who aren’t Christian white men either not to run in the first place — or to run only if they are willing to either ignore or downplay issues that involve their personal identities.
The Problem With ‘Electability’ | FiveThirtyEight
hmmm
The Public Charge Immigration Rule, the Refusal to Admit Immigrants Fleeing Nazi Germany, and Trump’s War on Lady Liberty
[in the 1930’s] Congress …established annual immigration quotas that discriminated against certain national origins, but White House officials considered even these quotas to be too generous. They brandished an obscure provision of immigration law that excluded visa applicants “likely to become public charges.” A …stricter interpretation of the public charge provision …[was proposed to] effectively reduce the quotas by as much as 90%.
…In 1933, in the first term of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, his Administration considered changing the public charge clause to allow for the entry of more refugees from Germany. (At the time the United States did not distinguish between immigrants and refugees, nor was there any such thing as political asylum.) …There were State Department officials who thought American Jewish protests against Nazi persecution were exaggerated and artificial, part of a Jewish scheme to ease American barriers to increased immigration.
…A November 1938 poll, taken immediately after Kristallnacht, showed that 71% of Americans opposed the entrance into their country of a larger number of German exiles, while only 21% supported it. A few months later, 66% of a sample opposed bringing 10,000 refugee children to the U.S. beyond what was permitted by the quota; only 26% supported it.
…After the rapid German conquest of France, pervasive concerns about American security fostered a fearful and resentful climate of opinion; Roper Poll in June 1940 found that only 2.7% of Americans thought the government was doing enough to counteract a Nazi “Fifth Column” operating in the U.S. German Jews were not immune from these suspicions. Some Americans thought Jews could be coerced into spying for Germany based on threats to their relatives in Germany; others, including a former undersecretary of state, thought that inherent “Jewish greed” might lead refugees and immigrants to work for the Nazi cause. By mid-1941 the State Department instructed consuls to deny visas to applicants who had relatives living in the totalitarian countries of Germany, the Soviet Union, and Italy.
… Only in January 1944 did the Roosevelt administration, responding to some criticism and internal pressures, change course again, establishing a War Refugee Board to try to save the lives of civilian victims of Nazi persecution. The Board helped tens of thousands of Jews survive in Europe in the last 16 months of the war.
…The same vague language in the public charge clause that allowed Hoover to cut quotas by some 90%, and that allowed some State Department officials in Roosevelt’s first term to maintain that the German quota was unfilled because of the lack of “qualified” applicants, was set to be put to new use earlier this month.
The Public Charge Rule and Immigrants Fleeing Nazi Germany | Time
sigh…
Ohio Judge Robert Ruehlman says he calls ICE on defendants he suspects are undocumented
He focuses on people who need interpreters or speak Spanish, have international connections or are accused of serious drug crimes.
sigh…
Neo-Nazi Rinaldo Nazzaro running US militant group The Base from Russia
Neo-Nazi Rinaldo Nazzaro running US militant group The Base from Russia – BBC News
Scum.
And on the somebody’s thinking is broken front: that’s a lotta vowels for the name of a man claiming to be a Nazi.
‘They Sprayed Her Blood All Over Her Fellow Students’: Cops Assault Teen In Viral Video
Attorney Paul Jubas has been retained by the girls family to take legal action.
“Sergeant Christopher Mordaunt and Officer Tommy Trieu committed a crime when they brutally assaulted this tiny girl,” he said in a December Instagram post. “They sprayed her blood all over her fellow students and incited riot-like conditions on a school bus. Everything was calm on this bus until these officers began their vicious assault. To make matters worse, other videos prove they lied in their affidavit of probable cause.”
‘They Sprayed Her Blood All Over Her Fellow Students’: Cops Assault Teen In Viral Video | News One
daaa faaa?!
Unity Requires Recognizing That Warren Is Telling the Truth
People say hurtful things all the time. Often, they don’t mean it. Language is an imperfect tool for communicating thoughts. But when you are an “other,” when you are a minority or part of a disadvantaged group that has historically been shut out from power, and when the person saying it is a member of an advantaged group, you notice the hurts.
…I believe Warren heard what she heard. But I also believe Sanders doesn’t remember saying it.
…Part of the privilege of not being a minority is the option to not be distracted by the hurts you unintentionally dish out to others.
…If you want to make a person go from zero to nuclear, tell them that a hurtful experience in their own life didn’t happen. Tell them something they thought about and wrestled with and made peace with and were ready to move on from didn’t actually exist in the first place—simply because you say it didn’t exist. Do it on national television with everybody they care about watching. See how that works out for you.
…What I said to my wife was, “Wow. Well… I’m sorry now—if that helps.” And, of course, it did help, because treating people like they are intelligent beings capable of accurately recalling the pains and disappointments in their own lives is a winning strategy in a successful relationship.
…Unity can’t mean that women are not allowed to remember what’s happened to them. Unity should celebrate forgivingness, not demand forgetfulness.
Unity Requires Recognizing That Warren Is Telling the Truth | The Nation
hmmm
The NRA Supported Gun Control When the Black Panthers Had the Weapons
In contrast to the NRA’s rigid opposition to gun control in today’s America, the organization fought alongside the government for stricter gun regulations in the 1960s. This was part of an effort to keep guns out of the hands of African-Americans as racial tensions in the nation grew. The NRA felt especially threatened by the Black Panthers, whose well-photographed carrying of weapons in public spaces was entirely legal in the state of California, where they were based.
…Members of the group began to follow police cars and dispense legal advice to African-Americans who were stopped by the police while legally carrying their weapons. The group referred to these activities as “police patrols.”
…The Black Panthers were “innovators” in the way they viewed the Second Amendment at the time, says Winkler. Rather than focus on the idea of self-defense in the home, the Black Panthers brazenly took their weapons to the streets, where they felt the public—particularly African-Americans—needed protection from a corrupt government.
“These ideas eventually infiltrated into the NRA to shape the modern gun debate,” explains Winker. As gun control laws swept the nation, the organization adopted a similar stance to that of the activist group they once fought to regulate, with support for open-carry laws and concealed weapon laws high on their agenda.
…In the 1920s and 1930s, the NRA supported restrictions on who could carry guns on the streets in order to decrease hostility towards European immigrants—who were known to openly carry weapons at the time—within the country. And after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, the NRA backed the Gun Control Act that passed the same year, which put substantial restrictions on the purchase of guns based on mental illness, drug addiction and age, among other factors.
The NRA Supported Gun Control When the Black Panthers Had the Weapons – HISTORY
hmmm
DNA tests stand on shaky ground to define Native American identity
Walajahi explained to the crowd that DTC ancestry kits fall short on accuracy because they only offer a probability toward a certain ancestry. So, a test that claims an individual has Native American ancestry, could be wrong.
…Ancestry kits can’t determine Native American identity. Community relationships, traditions, and shared experiences are more important aspects of identity.
…“Using a genetic test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation…is inappropriate and wrong,” said Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. in a public statement. “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens.”
Sovereign tribal nations determine their requirements for membership. A genetic ancestry test is rarely involved. A history of traditions, passing down crafts and skills, and a sense of cultural continuity set the baseline for tribal membership.
…With no regulatory body to oversee their methods, Hull hopes the companies come together to create a set of standards on their own ensuring that they use consistent language to help the public understand how to interpret genetic information.
DNA tests stand on shaky ground to define Native American identity | NHGRI
hmmm
DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers in Their Own Land
The DNA industry has, in fact, found a way to profit from reviving and modernizing antiquated ideas about the biological origins of race and repackaging them in a cheerful, Disneyfied wrapping …offering a 21st-century version of pseudoscience that once again reduces race to a matter of genetics and origins.
…If Native Americans are reduced to little more than another genetic variation, there is no need for laws that acknowledge their land rights, treaty rights, and sovereignty. Nor must any thought be given to how to compensate for past harms, not to speak of the present ones that still structure their realities.
…They conflate ethnicity with geography, and geography with genetic markers.
…In this way, race and ethnicity are separated from and elevated above experience, culture, and history.
…In North America,” the company blandly explains, “Native American ancestry tends to be five or more generations back, so that little DNA evidence of this heritage remains.” In other words, 23andMe claims DNA as conclusive proof of Native American identity, then uses it to write Native North Americans off the map altogether.
…“DNA is not a liquid that can be broken down into microscopic drops.… We inherit about a quarter of our DNA from each grandparent—but only on average.… If you pick one of your ancestors from 10 generations back, the odds are around 50 percent that you carry any DNA from him or her. The odds get even worse beyond that.”
In reality, such testing does not tell us much about our ancestors. That’s partly because of the way DNA is passed down through the generations and partly because there exists no database of ancestral DNA. Instead, the companies compare your DNA to that of other contemporary humans who have paid them to take the test. Then they compare your particular variations to patterns of geographical and ethnic distribution of such variations in today’s world—and use secret algorithms to assign purportedly precise ancestral percentages to them.
…Native American nations are political and cultural entities, the products of history, not genes, and white people’s assertions about Native American ancestry and the DNA industry’s claim to be able to reveal such ancestry tend to run roughshod over this history.
…The recognition of tribal sovereignty at least acknowledges that the existence of the United States is predicated on its imposition of an unwanted, foreign political entity on Native lands. The concept of tribal sovereignty has given Native Americans a legal and collective basis for fighting for a different way of thinking about history, rights, and nationhood. Attempts to reduce Native American identity to a race that can be identified by a gene (or a genetic variation) do violence to our history and justify ongoing violations of Native rights.
DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers in Their Own Land | The Nation
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House to investigate Trump ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy
“As we have previously written to you, MPP is inconsistent with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) statutory authority, while exposing thousands of people to threats of murder, sexual violence, and kidnapping as they are forced to wait in extremely dangerous conditions before their asylum claims may be heard,” the letter reads.
“As of today, there are 31 active travel advisories for Mexico, including 5 warnings in which the State Department explicitly advises Americans against travel. It is difficult to understand why this administration is sending children and families to areas where they will face certain harm,” the members wrote.
…”It is imperative that the United States end this reckless course of action and reaffirm its commitment to the principles of due process on which this country was founded.”
House to investigate Trump ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy | TheHill
hmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 