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 [...]
“There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives.” – Audre Lorde Dear Mainstream LGBT Movement, In a recent advertisement for a local “Give Out Day” event, the organization, South Carolina Equality, asserted that only five percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons...
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By David J. Malebranche His 26 year old body was calculating comfortable, sprawled over a disheveled collection of towels and sheets constituting a makeshift mattress, littered with blood-tinged gauze pads, a towel soiled with oral secretions and a crusty suction tube. Upon seeing me enter the room, his weary eyes shifted from his digital...
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By Gowri Vijayakumar Embedded within a recent New York Times piece about sex work in India is a problematic set of assumptions—a conflation of individualization with autonomy, linked to the strange implication that women’s autonomy is dangerous, a gateway to disease and social breakdown. Because I study sex work and HIV prevention in India,...
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Today marks the conclusion of our Forum on World AIDS Day, but we are committed to making space for critical conversations on HIV/AIDS throughout the year. Indeed, we must remember, as writer and visual artist Ted Kerr reminds us: ”Every day is World AIDS Day, once a year the media remembers.” As we bring this...
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I first met award-winning Black lesbian filmmaker tiona.m. (Tiona McClodden) in Atlanta in spring 2005 when she was working as a freelance videographer at Spelman College. I was in the near final post-production stages of my film NO! The Rape Documentary when I was an Artist-in-Residence at Spelman College’s Women’s Resource and Research Center’s...
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By: Lillian Rivera, MPH & Edgar Rivera Colón, PhD December 1st, World AIDS Day, represents a multitude of things to people involved in addressing and living with the enduring global pandemic. Our own lives would have been very different if the HIV/AIDS crisis had not visited and wreaked havoc upon the communities of our concern...
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By Sandy Guillaume As the United States prepared to mark another World AIDS Day (WAD), I wondered to myself: What catchy slogan will be used this year to call attention to the never-ending fight to eradicate HIV/AIDS? This year’s slogan, “Working Together for an AIDS-Free Generation,” assumes that we are actually “working together.” But...
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I was in my early teens when an aunt shared that an estranged and presumably “gay” cousin, one whose name was the same as mine, had died of an AIDS-related illness. Our names were not the only similarity we shared, it seemed. I also recall the mysterious and hurried death of an older second...
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The U.S. Positive Women’s Network (PWN), a national membership body of women living with HIV, is devastated to hear the tragic news that a young woman living with HIV in Dallas, Texas, was murdered for disclosing her HIV status to a partner. PWN calls for immediate action to eliminate HIV stigma and violence against...
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By Sonia Rastogi Hype of the HIV epidemic in the U.S. has died down in the media and in the minds of many Americans. What many do not know is that we are sitting on a human rights crisis. Yes, “we have the science to end the epidemic” as they say and will say...
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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
7 May 2013
30 Apr 2013
25 Apr 2013
20 Apr 2013
The Guardian