June 2013
44 posts
“Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently.”
—Samuel R. Delany (via theparisreview)
Before you talk about how long ago slavery was, just remember that there are towns across America where black prisoners work on plantations. Where black prisoners count for the census so those cities get more federal funding. These black prisoners can’t vote but their bodies are counted as political capital. This aint too different from the 3/5 rule.
“I think this mythology—that of course we’re all beyond race, of course our police officers aren’t racist, of course our politicians don’t mean any harm to people of color—this idea that we’re beyond all that (so it must be something else) makes it difficult for young people as well as the grown-ups to be able to see clearly and honestly the truth of what’s going on. It makes it difficult to see that the backlash against the Civil Rights Movement manifested itself in the form of mass incarceration, in the form of defunding and devaluing schools serving kids of color and all the rest. We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In my own view, it’s our refusal to deal openly and honestly with race that leads us to keep repeating these cycles of exclusion and division, and rebirthing a caste-like system that we claim we’ve left behind.”
—Michelle Alexander on the mythology of colorblindness (via thepeoplesrecord)
Seven Surprising Facts About Asian-American and Middle Eastern Boys →
sara-huynh.tumblr.com
-Racial profiling is a routine part of life for Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander boys. In 2006 in Oakland, Calif., those of Samoan descent had the highest arrest rate of any racial or ethnic group, coming out to 140 arrests for every 1,000 Samoans in Oakland.
-Asian-American, Pacific Islander and AMEMSA youth are the most frequent targets of school bullying. More than half of Asian-American teens are bullied in school. At 54 percent, the rate far exceeds the rates reported by white teens (31 percent), Latino teens (34 percent) and black teens (38 pecent). And yet, youth rarely report the incidents of harassment, fearing retaliation or because they lack the linguistic capability to voice their needs.
-The rates of bullying are higher for turbaned boys. For South Asian boys who wear turbans, nearly three-quarters, or 74 percent, report facing some religious or racial bullying. It’s common for turbaned youth to be called terrorists.
-Asian-American LGBTQ youth in particular deal with homophobia, transphobia and racism in school. Nearly one-third of Asian-American LGBTQ youth reported dealing with harassment based on their race. And in a California report of LGBTQ youth, Asian-American youth reported the highest incidence of bullying of any group of students of color.
-More than 40 percent of Hmong youth live in poverty. Rates for other Southeast Asian youth are similarly high. Thirty-one percent of Cambodian youth live in poverty, compared to 27 percent of black youth and 26 percent of Latino youth. Almost half of Bangladeshis too (44 percent) are considered low-income, along with 31 percent of Pakistanis.
-Many Asian-Americans are undereducated. Among the broader U.S. population, 19 percent of people in the U.S. lack a high school degree or GED, but more than 40 percent of Cambodians, Laotians and Hmongs, do not have a high school degree.
-One in four Koreans in the U.S. is undocumented. And one in six Filipinos is undocumented. And between 2000 and 2009 the undocumented Asian Indian population grew 40 percent. The nation’s immigrant community is broad and multifaceted; these statistics attest to that.
“Except you can’t show a topless woman on TV - and you can’t defibrillate a woman in a bra. So victims of heart attacks on TV are *always* male. Did you know that a woman having a heart attack is more likely to have back or jaw pain than chest or left arm pain? I didn’t - because I’ve never seen a woman having a heart attack. I’ve been trained in CPR and Advanced First Aid by the Red Cross over 15 times in my life, the videos and booklets always have a guy and say the same thing about clutching his chest and/or bicep.
And people laugh when I tell them women are still invisible in this world.” —
And people laugh when I tell them women are still invisible in this world.” —
Things I did not know, but should.
(via elfgrove)
This is a post that might save a life.
(via str8nochaser)
My mom worked for 25 years as an ER nurse and is convinced that a lot of women die simply because folks only know heart attack symptoms that occur in males.
(via darkjez)
Society thinks our bodies are so scandalous that it’s better to put our lives at risk than to show us how to stay safe
(via callingoutsexists)
