17 May 2013
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help [...]
20 May 2013
By Molly Baker On April 23, University of Arizona student Dean Saxton, better known as Brother Dean, stood on a bench brandishing a sign that bluntly stated in bold, black letters “You Deserve Rape.” Saxton proceeded to verbally harass many women that walked by on their way to class, calling them [...]
15 May 2013
By Mohadesa Najumi When I think about what modesty means in today’s political, cultural and religious environment, I am inclined to believe that the concept itself does not involve choice, or any dimension of freedom or independent thought. Rather, modesty constitutes a dictatorial concept forced upon women whether they agree [...]
13 May 2013
By Kristen Reynolds As I sit here on the eve of my graduation, cataloging what I’ve learned over the last few years as a Black woman coming into (what I hope is) consciousness – I feel a great deal of shame. Shame and, if I am going to be incredibly honest, [...]
7 May 2013
*Trigger warning* Sometimes I feel like the NRA is actively just trying to lose all the credibility it has left in this world. Just when you thought the NRA’s annual convention in Houston this weekend couldn’t draw any more negative attention, it goes out and casually promotes a company selling a product [...]
29 Mar 2013
By Monica Torres When I sign my name, it’s Monica, not Mónica. When I order pupusas at my favorite restaurant, the waiter will give my accent an approving nod, as if to say, you’re one of us. But it will only take a harder question for me to reveal the [...]
18 Mar 2013
By Alexa Lambertis At an early age, I was exposed to a woman who essentially changed my life. A sweet lady with a southern background, she was introduced to me as a family friend. I met her in her own home, where we would spend a majority of our time [...]
High stakes test question: A female science student conducts an experiment with chemicals that explodes in a classroom, causes no damage and no injuries. Who gets to be the adventurous teenage genius mad scientist and who gets to be the criminal led away in handcuffs facing two felonies to juvenile hall? If you’re a...
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Seventeen year-old Jamion Allen is a senior at Washington Prep High School, a predominantly African American and Latino school in South Los Angeles. Over the past two years, she has been one of the major voices in the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP), Gay/Straight Alliance and No Haters club at Washington Prep, sponsored by the...
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As the lead attorney for Proposition 8 trotted out the standard Christian fascist “marriage is only for procreation” party line before the Supreme Court yesterday, I was reminded of a 2012 Los Angeles Times story about the changing demographics of California families. The article leads with an idyllic portrait of a white lesbian-headed family...
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For the past several months, Crenshaw Boulevard in predominantly black South Los Angeles has featured a series of striking billboards condemning homophobia and its role in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The billboards are the work of the black gay activist group In the Meantime Men, headed by Jeffrey King. Sounding a “code red alarm” on...
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By Sikivu Hutchinson On Violent Silence: When I was five years old I was sexually assaulted by neighbors. Ours was a tranquil post-white flight neighborhood of single family homes, obsessively tended lawns and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses home improvement. It was the mid-seventies; before black women’s experiences with rape had come into broader public consciousness through works like...
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Standing in line at the California Science Center the day of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary school, my students wondered aloud about the race of the shooter. “More than likely he was white,” they agreed. As the only people of color waiting to be admitted to the exhibit, their open question about...
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By Sikivu Hutchinson The 24-hour prayer sessions are the true test of a warrior for Jesus. They require Herculean stamina, the patience of Job, the rigor of elite marathon runners hitting the wall in a fiery sweat pit at high altitude, primed for God’s finish line. In many small storefront Pentecostal churches these “pray-a-thons”...
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By Sikivu Hutchinson In the 1990s, The O.J. Simpson murder trial polarized America and highlighted domestic violence as a national cause célèbre. At the center of the storm was Simpson’s wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, a blond, Orange County-bred woman who’d suffered years of domestic abuse by NFL legend O.J. Simpson, deified as a pop culture god. After Simpson...
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By Sikivu Hutchinson By banning so-called gay teen conversion therapy with his approval of SB 1172, California Governor Jerry Brown smacked down the forces of homophobic bigotry, psychological terrorism, and flat earth anti-science idiocy. Sponsored by California state senator Ted Lieu, the bill was supported by the American Psychological Association and California’s Board of...
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Over the past few months, the GOP has proudly reveled in Ronald Reagan’s old chestnut that “facts are stupid things.” First, Anne Romney told us at the Republican National convention that her bootstraps moxie enabled her to work hard enough to marry a multi-millionaire. Then, Mother Jones magazine broke the story that Massa Mitt Romney rhapsodized...
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17 May 2013
Assata do not dry like dissipated plums under castro’s bronzing sun you mural fortress you live memorial spirited artifice rouged sea salt that marinates america’s wound Assata you like stripped bone road unaware of which exit is free birth brown coagulated rhythm redefined reborn rumba queen Assata dusk breath [...]
16 May 2013
“Affirmation” by Assata Shakur* ___ I believe in living. I believe in the spectrum of Beta days and Gamma people. I believe in sunshine. In windmills and waterfalls, tricycles and rocking chairs. And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts. And sprouts grow into trees. I believe in the magic [...]
16 May 2013
for Assata Amira Nakati Carter-Goff on her tenth birthday call down the name freedom call up the spirit of no matter what now call your shared name liberation veins steel will fierce focus shielding sacred smile laugh your own name radiant as cuba laugh your yawning name into language [...]
7 May 2013
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The Guardian