One Tweet Destroys the Stanford Rapist’s Dad’s Disgusting Defense of His Son

Rape Culture and Violence Against Women

https://mic.com/articles/145425/one-tweet-destroys-the-stanford-rapist-s-dad-s-disgusting-defense-of-his-son#.n1XSlU0Jx

American Intellectuals' Widespread Failure to Stand Up to Billionaires and Authoritarian Power by Robert Jensen

http://www.alternet.org/books/widespread-failure-intellectuals-stand-authoritarian-power-america?paging=off

[This article is an excerpt from We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and Speaking Out, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/148195847X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER.]

Given the considerable resources in the United States spent to subsidize intellectual work, why are so many intellectuals -- journalists, academics, writers -- not critiquing the many hierarchical institutions and not highlighting the disastrous consequences of these systems? Why are so many intellectuals instead providing support for the institutions and systems? Why is the majority of intellectual work in the United States not challenging but instead helping to prop up the unjust distribution of wealth and power, and the unsustainable extractive/industrial system? Both intellectuals and the people who provide the resources that allow intellectuals to work should ponder this crucial question.

I am not suggesting that to be a responsible intellectual one must agree with me on all these issues, that anyone who does not agree with my approach to these issues is a soulless sell-out. My argument is that if we take seriously the basic moral principles at the core of modern philosophical and theological systems we claim to believe in, in light of the data on social injustice and the serious threats to ecological sustainability, these questions should be central in the work of intellectuals. Based on my experience as a journalist, professor, and political activist -- a life in which I have always worked in intellectual professions and interacted with many other intellectuals in various settings -- I have learned that the story is complicated but that a sharp critique of intellectuals as a social formation is warranted.

First, let’s recognize that intellectual work generally comes with considerable privilege. That does not mean that intellectuals don’t work hard, make sacrifices, or feel stress. But in general, intellectuals are compensated well for work that is not physically hazardous and can be rewarding on many levels. There are many intellectuals-in-training (graduate students) and underemployed intellectuals (adjunct faculty) who face overwhelming workloads and few perks, and so we should be cautious about generalizing too much about the category of “intellectual.” This analysis focuses on those doing intellectual work with the most privilege and the most autonomy.

Ideally, we pay intellectuals to help us deepen our understanding of how the world works, toward the goal of shaping a world more consistent with our moral and political principles, and our collective self-interest. What are the forces that keep people, especially relatively privileged people, mute in the face of such a clear need for critical intellectual work? The first, and easiest, answer is individual self-interest -- the status and economic rewards that come to intellectuals who serve power. Upton Sinclair put it most succinctly: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

No doubt some intellectuals make calculations about how to use their abilities to enrich themselves, but in my experience such crass greed is relatively rare. I suspect that a desire to be accepted by peers is at least as powerful a motivation for intellectuals to accept the status quo. Humans are social animals who generally seek a safe and secure place in a social group, and there’s no reason intellectuals would be different. Even when concentrated wealth and power do not threaten people with serious punishments, the desire to be a well-regarded member of an intellectual community is a powerful conformity-inducer. When one’s professional cohort works within the worldview that the wealthy and powerful construct, the boundaries of that world seem appropriate. Curiosity about what lies beyond those boundaries tends to atrophy.

Those forces have been in play for a long time, but another potentially crucial factor is the way in which confronting the reality of injustice and unsustainability can be morally and psychologically overwhelming for anyone. As the documentation of human suffering and the threats to ecological sustainability accumulate, in an era when multiple communication channels make it easy to be aware of more and more of this information, that awareness can seem to be too much to face. The desire to rationalize the suffering and imagine an easy escape is easy to understand.

Rationalization #1: Justifying Hierarchy

When humans suffer in extreme situations, such as war or natural disasters, most people in most situations find it easy to care and respond. When the suffering is ongoing and apparently endemic to the systems of the world, staying connected to that suffering is more difficult. In such situations, it can be attractive to find ways to justify hierarchy and the resulting suffering, rather than to challenge power.

There is wide consensus on the values that are central to constructing a decent human society: justice, equality, compassion, honesty, opportunity, sharing. It is difficult to imagine such a society without these basic elements: (1) the belief in the inherent dignity of all human beings; (2) a sense of solidarity with at least those in one’s community, if not beyond; and (3) a commitment to achieving a rough equality so that everyone has access to the material requirements for a decent life. That list does not assume that people are morally perfect or perfectible, but instead articulates common aspirations for ourselves, others, and society.

How do we explain the fact that most people’s stated philosophical and theological systems are rooted in concepts of equality, solidarity, and the inherent dignity of all people, yet we allow violence, exploitation, and oppression to flourish? Only a small percentage of people in any given society are truly sociopaths, those who engage in cruel and oppressive behavior openly and without a capacity for empathy. In my experience, the most common way in which people make their peace with that contradiction is to accept the claim that hierarchy and injustice are inevitable, and that the best we can do is try to smooth off the rough edges of such systems. The process can be summed up like this:

--The systems and structures in which we live are hierarchical.
--Hierarchical systems and structures deliver to those in the dominant class certain privileges, pleasures, and material benefits.
--People are typically hesitant to give up such privileges, pleasures, and benefits.
--But, those benefits clearly come at the expense of those in the subordinated class.
--Given the widespread acceptance of basic notions of dignity, solidarity, and equality, the existence of hierarchy has to be justified in some way other than crass self-interest.
--One of the most persuasive arguments for systems of domination and subordination is that they are “natural.”

So, oppressive systems work hard to make it appear that the hierarchy -- and the disparity in power and resources that flow from hierarchy -- is natural and, therefore, beyond modification. If white people are naturally smarter and more virtuous than people of color, then white supremacy is inevitable and justifiable. If men are naturally stronger and more capable of leadership than women, then patriarchy is inevitable and justifiable. If rich people are naturally clearer-thinking and harder-working than poor people, then economic inequality is inevitable and justifiable. If the strong are, well, stronger than the weak, then the strong will rule.

As John Stuart Mill noted in his argument for women’s rights, “[W]as there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?”  For unjust hierarchies, and the illegitimate authority that is exercised in them, maintaining their naturalness is essential. Not surprisingly, people in the dominant class exercising the power gravitate easily to such a view. And because of their power to control key intellectual institutions (especially education and mass communication), those in the dominant class can fashion a story about the world that leads some portion of the people in the subordinated class to internalize the ideology. A social order that violates almost everyone’s basic principles is transformed into a natural order that cannot be changed.

Rationalization #2: Celebrating Technology

Facing the ecological realities is even more overwhelming. People once spoke of “environmental problems” that seemed limited and manageable, but now the questions are about whether a large-scale human presence on the planet will be viable within the foreseeable future. An honest assessment of the state of the ecosphere is frightening, and it is easier to believe that the world’s systems can magically continue rather than thinking about how radical changes in those systems are necessary -- and how even with such radical changes there is no guarantee that we can avoid catastrophe.

That frightening possibility is why the culture in general, and intellectuals in particular, are quick to embrace technological fundamentalism, a form of magical thinking that promises a way out of the problems that the extractive/industrial economy has created. Technological fundamentalists believe that the increasing use of evermore sophisticated high-energy advanced technology is always a good thing and that any problems caused by the unintended consequences of such technology eventually can be remedied by more technology. Perhaps the ultimate example of this is “geo-engineering,” the belief that we can intervene at the planetary level in the climate system to deal effectively with global warming. Given massive human failure at much lower levels of intervention, this approach -- which “offers the tantalizing promise of a climate change fix that would allow us to continue our resource-exhausting way of life, indefinitely”  -- is, quite literally, insane.

Those who question such “solutions” are often said to be anti-technology, which is a meaningless insult. All human beings use technology of some kind, whether stone tools or computers. An anti-fundamentalist position does not assert that all technology is bad, but that the introduction of new technology should be evaluated carefully on the basis of its effects -- predictable and unpredictable -- on human communities and the non-human world, with an understanding of the limits of our knowledge. We have moved too far and too fast, outstripping our capacity to manage the world we have created. The answer is not some naïve return to a romanticized past, but a recognition of what we have created and a systematic evaluation to determine how to recover from our most dangerous missteps.

But the technological fundamentalists see no reason to consider such things. They have faith in human cleverness. The title of a recent book by an environmentalist -- The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans  -- sums it up: Technological fundamentalists believe humans can play God and control an infinitely complex universe with enough competence to save not only ourselves but the planet. There’s nothing new about that arrogance. In 1968, Stewart Brand began the Whole Earth Catalog with that famous line, “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”  Four decades later, with the evidence of human failure piling up, Brand remained the loyal technological fundamentalist, arguing that his suggestion had become an imperative: “We are as gods and HAVE to get good at it.”

Our experience with the unintended consequences of modern technology is fairly extensive. For example, there’s the case of automobiles and the burning of petroleum in internal-combustion engines, which give us the ability to travel considerable distances with a fair amount of individual autonomy. This technology also has given us traffic jams and road rage, strip malls and smog, while contributing to rapid climate change that threatens sustainable life on the planet. We haven’t quite figured out how to cope with these problems, and in retrospect it might have been wise to go slower in the development of a system geared toward private, individual transportation based on the car and spend more time considering potential consequences.

Or how about CFCs and the ozone hole? Chlorofluorocarbons have a variety of industrial, commercial, and household applications, including in air conditioning. They were thought to be a miracle chemical when introduced in the 1930s -- non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-reactive with other chemical compounds. But in the 1980s, researchers began to understand that while CFCs are stable in the troposphere, when they move to the stratosphere and are broken down by strong ultraviolet light they release chlorine atoms that deplete the ozone layer. This unintended effect deflated the exuberance a bit. Depletion of the ozone layer means that more UV radiation reaches the Earth’s surface, and overexposure to UV radiation is a cause of skin cancer, cataracts, and immune suppression.

But wait, the technological fundamentalists might argue, our experience with CFCs refutes your argument -- humans got a handle on that one and banned CFCs, and now the ozone hole is closing. These gases, which were once commonly used in air-conditioning, were regulated in 1987 through the Montreal Protocol, which has reduced damage to the ozone layer. The oldest and most damaging CFC coolants have been largely eliminated from use, and the newer hydrochlorofluorocarbons that are now widely used have little or no effect on the ozone layer. That’s all true, but unfortunately we now know that the HCFC gases contribute to global warming. Scientists estimate that up to a quarter of all global warming will be attributable to those gases by 2050, so that “the therapy to cure one global environmental disaster is now seeding another.”

So the reasonable question is: If the dangerous HCFCs that replaced the dangerous CFCs are replaced by a new chemical that appears harmless, how long will it take before the dangerous effects of that replacement become visible? There’s no way to predict, but it seems reasonable to ask the question. Society didn’t react to the news about CFCs or HCFCs by thinking about ways to step back from a developed world that has become dependent on air conditioning, but instead continues to search for replacements to keep the air conditioning running.

Intellectuals are in the business of assessing problems and offering solutions. Technological fundamentalism allows intellectuals to offer solutions that don’t threaten existing institutions and don’t make demands on society in general, which allows intellectuals to retain their status and level of comfort, at least in the short term. The obvious problem is that if we look only for “solutions” that don’t disturb existing systems, and those existing systems are unsustainable, then our solutions are at best irrelevant and at worst will exacerbate the fundamental problems and make it harder for people to imagine new systems.

This is not an argument to abandon all attempts to improve technology, stop exploring ways technology can contribute to a healthier planet, or halt research on renewable energy. A sensible approach to our cascading ecological crises is to pursue multiple strategies that mitigate the worst of what exists today while planning for a radically different tomorrow. Technological fundamentalism is dangerous because it encourages us to focus on the former and ignore the latter.

The problem, succinctly stated: When intellectuals limit themselves to inquiry that stays safely within existing systems, they are being unrealistic. That claim turns the tables on establishment intellectuals, who routinely criticize more radical colleagues for not being realistic. But imagine that you are riding comfortably on a train. You look out the window and see that not too far ahead the tracks end abruptly and that the train will derail if it continues moving ahead. You suggest that the train should stop immediately and that the passengers go forward on foot. This will require a major shift in everyone’s way of traveling, of course, but it appears to you to be the only realistic option; to continue barreling forward is to guarantee catastrophic consequences. But when you propose this course of action, others who have grown comfortable riding on the train say, “Everybody likes riding the train, and so telling us to get off is not realistic.”

In the contemporary United States, we are trapped in a similar delusion. We are told that it is “realistic” to capitulate to the absurd idea that the systems in which we live are the only systems possible because some people like them and wish them to continue. But what if our current level of First-World consumption is exhausting the ecological basis for life? Too bad; the only “realistic” options are those that take that lifestyle as non-negotiable. What if real democracy is not possible in a nation-state with 300 million people? Too bad; the only “realistic” options are those that take this way of organizing a polity as immutable. What if the hierarchies on which our lives are based are producing extreme material deprivation for subordinated people and a kind of dull misery among the privileged? Too bad; the only “realistic” options are those that accept hierarchy as inevitable.

The ultimate test of our intellectual abilities is whether we can face the possibility that there may be no way out of these traps and yet continue to work for a more just and sustainable world (more on that later). That is not easy, but to be a responsible intellectual is to be willing to get apocalyptic, and the first step in that process is to give up on the myth of neutrality. Intellectuals shouldn’t claim to be neutral, and the public shouldn’t take such claims seriously.

-----------------

Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is also the author of Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue, http://www.amazon.com/Arguing-Our-Lives-Constructive-Dialog/dp/0872865738/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361912779&sr=1-10.
Jensen can be reached at rjensen@austin.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html. To join an email list to receive articles by Jensen, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html. Twitter: @jensenrobertw.

Unnatural Causes

The video Unnatural Causes: http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/

From: Martha Matlaw

Last night, my video group watched "Unnatural Causes" which is sort of like "Race: The Power of an Illusion" except that it looks at structural racism and its relationship to health care as opposed to housing/wealth.  If you've never seen it, the video is AMAZING.  There's a 29 minute clip specifically about the impact of race on health, but all of the dvd chapters are eye-popping. (ex: Another segment, "Place Matters," clearly demonstrates how health and longevity directly correspond to your street address.)

Anyway, it turns out that the Boston Health Commission has identified structural racism as the number one health problem in the City of Boston, and they have been doing AMAZING work with youth and the community in general.  Their staff receives ongoing antiracism training from ARC/Color Lines (see urls below), and a number of neighborhood health centers have organized youth to create multiracial "Race healing and reconciliation" teams.  This Thursday, one of the teams is facilitating a "a participatory activity that tests your ability to build an equitable community in the face of systemic obstacles."

This initiative reminds me of the work done by Deborah Prothrow-Stith in the 1990s (?or 80s), when she defined violence as the number one health problem and then provided violence prevention trainings and curriculum to educate and organize youth and the community.

 http://jamaicaplainforum.org/

Here are some good statistics about racial inequities relating to race and health in Boston:

http://www.bphc.org/chesj/resources/Documents/presentations/Center%20Presentations/Taking%20Action%20-%20The%20Boston%20Public%20Health%20Commission's%20Efforts%20to%20Undo%20Racism.pdf

http://colorlines.com/archives/author/terry-keleher/

http://colorlines.com/

 

Potty Mouthed Princesses Make and Important Point

If you think the f-bomb is bad, you should learn about sexism.  http://www.bustle.com/articles/45282-these-little-girls-drop-f-bombs-to-promote-feminism-and-its-both-adorable-and-empowering-video

10 Things You Should Know About Hate Groups

Hate groups range in ideology from religious bigotry to anti-immigration, and from anti-LGBT to white supremacists and racist skinheads. Most hate groups are short-lived but some, like chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, are active for decades. The most violent are racist prison groups.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/07/10-things-you-should-know-about-hate-groups-154712

A "Not Sexy" Issue

The issues facing mothers and children aren't “sexy”, but they deserve your attention

Israel/Palestine Conflict Illustrated

Scroll down for explanations of who is who in this video:  http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/this_land_is_mine/

Gun Violence VIctims

Click link for entire article: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/15/who-gets-shot-in-america/

Before starting work on Gun Report, I had my own ideas about gun violence: Most of it probably resulted from gang activity, I assumed, along with the marital domestic shootings we so often read about.

More than 350 posts and 40,000 deaths later, here is what I learned.

Gang shootings are prevalent, especially in former hubs of industry now in economic decline in Ohio; the Flint/Tri-Cities region of Michigan; in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana; Newport News, Va.; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Carjackings and home invasions often appeared in my Google news searches. I was surprised to learn that suburbs were a magnet for gun violence, perhaps mirroring the housing implosion, which decimated the suburbs and propelled people to cities, where there are always jobs.

Not that nation’s largest cities are exempt: Miami, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Dallas are notable examples. (Less so New York, possibly because of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, which was ruled unconstitutional.) Drive-by shootings still plague northern and southern California; Los Angeles, Fresno and the entire east side of the state are rife with gang activity. Tennessee, Alabama, and Missouri also frequently popped up in this regard.

What was also notable was where the shootings aren’t: Maine, Hawaii, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, and New Hampshire were rarely mentioned in the report. Why? Weapons don’t easily flow into Hawaii, surrounded by the Pacific, and Montana and Wyoming are sparsely populated, mostly by experienced, rural gun owners. But homeowners in these states are also armed against home invaders, and as we saw in Montana in May, tragedy can result.

But while half of the shootings I featured were the result of a crime, the other half, I was most surprised to learn, resulted from arguments — often fueled by alcohol — among friends, neighbors, family members and romantic partners. More and more, people are solving their differences not with their fists but with guns. Husbands and wives are shooting each other, as are sisters and brothers. In many homes across America, loaded guns are easily accessible, and children find them, accidentally shooting themselves or each other. One hundred children died in unintentional shootings in the year after Newtown, which breaks down to two every week.

A year and a half later, you might expect that I’d have a solution to the country’s scourge of gun violence. But there is no one answer. It’s a favorite talking point of the right, but it’s true: Criminals will always find a way to get guns. But a lot of the people I covered weren’t criminals until the bullet left the chamber. How do you prevent a law-abiding person from obtaining a gun when he or she hasn’t done anything illegal yet?

Disney Expanded - What Can Disney Teach Us?

Why do you think projects like these are politically and socially important?
It's important to challenge stereotypes. The images of normalcy and beauty that the media portrays are very limited, as well and the ideals of gender and sexuality. In order to create acceptance, we need to start with our media. Why not start with more diverse character designs? "Ideal human traits" should apply to everyone, not just a limited few.

Why hide behind a man?

Genderbent Disney Transforms Classic Movie Character?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/gender-bending-disney-characters_n_5133573.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Swapping Gender?
http://www.clipd.com/movies/37502/30-disney-characters-swap-genders-and-the-results-are-magical?utm_source=fbk&utm_campaign=dsk-37502-fa&utm_medium=referral&pid=null#slide/0

Disney Princesses With Beards By Adam Elli?
http://www.boredpanda.com/disney-princesses-with-beards-adam-ellis/

Disney Princesses Re-imagined As Different Ethnicity?
http://www.boredpanda.com/disney-princess-race-reimagined-lettherebedoodles/

Unhappily Ever After?
http://www.neoncantina.com/real-endings-favorite-disney-movies-messed/#.U5tX8IZgogI.facebook

Why are Disney Princesses all White?
http://sfglobe.com/?id=942&src=share_fb_new_942

Disney Princesses Dress Up as Superheroes?
http://geekologie.com/2013/10/because-its-cheating-to-trick-or-treat-a.php

If Disney Princesses Had Normal Sized Waists?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lorynbrantz/if-disney-princesses-had-realistic-waistlines

Id Disney Princesses Had Normal Sized Eyes?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jenlewis/if-disney-princesses-had-normal-size-eyes

Re-imagined as Men?
http://uproxx.com/webculture/2014/05/disney-princesses-as-princes/

What 9 Disney Princesses Would Look Like As Guys?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kierawrr/what-9-disney-princesses-would-look-like-as-guys-4gx1 

Turn Your Princess-Obsessed Toddler Into a Feminist in Eight Easy Step?
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/turn-your-princess-obsessed-toddler-into-a-feminist-in-eight-easy-steps/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1 

Bruised And Bloodied Disney Princesses Remind Us Domestic Violence Can Happen To Anyone?
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/09/disney-princess-domestic-abuse-saint-hoax_n_5567711.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063 

Historically Accurate Clothing?
http://hellogiggles.com/watch-disney-princesses-get-historically-accurate-makeover

New Disney Princess "on Tap"?

http://www.clickhole.com/article/awesome-disney-has-created-its-first-ever-indian-p-1910

Disney as "Cups"?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/dannnnnnnnnnnny/your-favorite-disney-princesses-as-lukewarm-bowls-1eatz#.hyqKrNG4qp

Realistic Hair?
http://www.boredpanda.com/disney-princesses-realistic-hair-loryn-brantz/

Realistic Bodies?
http://www.answers.com/article/19529/top-natural-dog-foods-for-large-breeds?paramt=31&param4=fb-us-de-entertainment-chr2&param1=eat&param2=57491181&param5=10152106688416186&param6=6045087526386

Disney Animal Characters as Human?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/disney-gets-humanized#.qiPmDyXa3A
https://www.distractify.com/disney-humans-1210152216.html?ts_pid=2&ts_pid=2

Disney in Same-Sex Relationship?
http://www.wittyfeed.com/story/6586/6/What-If-Disney-Characters-Were-In-Same-Sex-Relationships 

Princesses in Old Age?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lorynbrantz/aged-like-a-fine-wine#.eiJQDn1Y0z

With No Make Up?
http://www.mtv.com/news/2239230/disney-princess-without-makeup/?xrs=_s.fb_main

Imagined As Different Races?
http://www.clipd.com/movies/34651/18-disney-princesses-reimagined-as-a-different-race?utm_source=fbk&utm_campaign=dsk-34651-fa-rtrl-15092810&utm_medium=referral&pid=null#slide/2 

Woman Uses Hijab to Model Characters
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jennaguillaume/this-hijabi-makeup-artist-transforms-into-disney-princesses?bffbmain&utm_term=.sryGVBbd5#.atN37GY4d

Disney Princesses Reimagined Years Later As Queens
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/disney-princesses-as-queens_us_5931b911e4b075bff0f3420f?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_term=nosplashcard&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
Modern
http://www.boredpanda.com/disney-princesses-reimagined-as-modern-girls-anoosha-syed/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=BPFacebook 

Here Are All Your Favorite Disney Princesses, Ranked From Least To Most Feminist
 https://www.buzzfeed.com/beatrizserranomolina/all-your-favorite-disney-princesses-ranked-from-least?bffbmain&utm_term=.yb4KXW5rb#.aa8NMaork

TRIGGER WARNING Photographer Uses Disney Princesses To Draw Attention To Real-Life Issues
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/disney-princess-real-life-issues_us_5911f227e4b05e1ca2023a03?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Illustrator Accurately Reimagines What Disney Movies Would Look Like If They Were Made In 2017 
www.boredpanda.com/disney-characters-today-tom-ward-studios/?page_numb=1&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=boredomtherapy

ALTERNATIVES
Bratz Dolls as "Mighty Girls"
http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10223 

Barbies Invade Classic Paintings To Bring Women Back Into Art History
http://www.boredpanda.com/classic-paintings-barbie-dolls-catherine-thery/

Roxbury, MA in the News for Turning School Around

The Surprisingly Simple Change in Massachusetts
There's a widely held assumption that hiring more security guards (with guns!) will solve violence and other problems in our schools. After one school churned through five principals in seven years and become known as a "dropout factory," a principal decided to turn that idea on its head. The results are absolutely miraculous.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5apq8l9OoR8

Artist with Physical Disabilities in New Jersey

Domestic Violence

"Watching this public service announcement, created by Women’s Aid in the UK, was a jolt of harsh reality. Millions of women are violently ‘taken’ by surprise like this everyday, and live in constant fear. I commend Keira Knightly for filming this. The statistics at the end of the video, are sadly worse here in the U.S. The message, however, is universal.

http://samuel-warde.com/2013/07/keira-knightley-says-cut-cameras-keeps-rolling-in-this-powerful-womens-aid-video/?fb_action_ids=10151565623648261&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=above-post&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Domestic violence is the No. 1 cause of injury to women. The incidents add up to more than all the rapes, muggings, and car accidents women experience each year. One out of every four women in the United States will be physically injured by a lover in her lifetime. That translates into a woman being assaulted every nine seconds in America. Immigrant women are beaten at higher rates than US citizens, and African American women are subjected tothe most severe forms of violence. Not surprisingly, a shaky economy just makes these numbers worse."

QUOTES FROM Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

by James W. Loewen. Simon & Schuster, 1995

"Historically, American Indians have been the most lied-about subset of our population" (99).

Did Europeans "civilize" the Americas? Actually, anthropologists tell us that "hunters and gatherers were relatively peaceful, compared to agriculturalists, and that modern societies were more warlike still. Thus violence increases with civilization" (101-2).

"..textbooks cannot resist contrasting "primitive" Americans with modern Europeans" (102).

"In what ways do we prefer the civilized Third Reich to the more primitive Arawak nation that Columbus encountered? If we refuse to label the Third Reich civilized, are we not using the term to imply a certain comity? If so, we must consider the Arawaks civilized, and we must also consider Columbus and his Spaniards primitive is not savage" (102).

"Europeans persuaded Natives to specialize in the fur and slave trades. Native Americans were better hunters and trappers than Europeans, and with the guns the Europeans sold them, they became better still. Other Native skills began to atrophy" (103).

"..because whites "demanded institutions reflective of their own with which to relate," many Native groups strengthened their tribal governments... New confederations and nations developed.. The tribes also became more male- dominated, in imitation of Europeans.. [there was] an escalation of Indian warfare... [the slave trade helped] to deagriculturize Native Americans. To avoid being targets for capture, Indians abandoned their cornfields and their villages" (105-6).

"Europeans did not "civilize" or "settle" roaming Indians, but had the opposite impact" (107).

"…from the start in Virginia.. settlers fled to Indian villages rather than endure the rigors of life among the autocratic English. Indeed, many white and black newcomers chose to live an Indian lifestyle... some Natives chose to live among whites.. The migration was mostly the other way, however.. Europeans were always trying to stop the outflow. Hernando De Soto had to post guards to keep his men and women from defecting to Native societies... right up to the end of independent Indian nationhood in 1890, whites continued to defect, and whites who lived an Indian lifestyle, such as Daniel Boone, became cultural heroes in white society" (109).

"Not one American history textbook mentions the attraction of Native societies to European Americans and African Americans" (109).

"According to Benjamin Franklin, "All their government is by Counsel of the Sages. There is no Force; there are no Prisons, no officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment." Probably foremost, the lack of hierarchy in the Native socieites in the eastern United States attracted the admiration of European observers. Frontiersmen were taken with the extent to which Native Americans enjoyed freedom as individuals. Women were also accorded more status and power.. than in white societies of the time" (109-110).

Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden of New York in 1727 said, "Here we see the natural Origin of all Power and Authority among a free People" (110).

"Indeed, Native American ideas may be partly responsible for our democratic institutions. We have seen how Native ideas of liberty, fraternity, and equality found their way to Europe to influence social philosophers such as Thomas More, Locke, Montaigne, Montesquieu, and Rousseau... Through 150 years of colonial contact, the Iroquois League stood before the colonies as an object lesson in how to govern a large domain democratically" (111).

"Both the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention referred openly to Iroquois ideas and imagery... As a symbol of the new United States, Americans chose the eagle clutching a bundle of arrows. They knew that both the eagle and the arrows were symbols of the Iroquois League... John Mohawk has argued that American Indians are directly or indirectly responsible for the public-meeting tradition, free speech, democracy, and "all those things which got attached to the Bill of Rights." Without the Native example, "do you really believe that all those ideas would have found birth among a people who had spent a millennium butchering other people because of intolerance of questions of religion?"" (111-112).

"For a hundred years after our Revolution, Americans credited Native Americans as a source of their democratic institutions... When colonists took action to oppose unjust authority, as in the Boston Tea Party.. they chose to dress as Indians, not to blame Indians for the demonstrations but to appropriate a symbol identified with liberty" (112).

"Indian warfare absorbed 80 percent of the entire federal budget during George Washington's administration and dogged his successors for a century as a major issue and expense... [in many cases] the settlers were Native American, the scalpers white" (116).

"All the textbooks tell how Jefferson "doubled the size of the United States by buying Louisiana from France." Not one points out that it was not France's land to sell--it was Indian land... Indeed, France did not really sell Louisiana for $15,000,000. France merely sold its claim to the territory... Equally Eurocentric are the maps textbooks use to show the Lewis and Clark expedition. They make Native American invisible, implying that the United States bought vacant land from the French... [Textbooks imply that the Indians were naive about land ownership, but] the problem lay in whites' not abiding by accepted concepts of land ownership" (123).

"The most important cause of the War of 1812.. was land-- Indian land... The United States fought five of the seven major land battles of the War of 1812 primarily against Native Americans... [a] result of the War of 1812 was the loss of part of our history. A century of learning [from Native Americans] was coming to a close... until 1815 the word Americans had generally been used to refer to Native Americans; after 1815 it meant European Americans... Carleton Beals has written that "our acquiescence in Indian dispossession has molded the American character." ... destroyed our national idealism. From 1815 on, instead of spreading democracy, we exported the ideology of white supremacy. Gradually we sought American hegemony over Mexico, the Philippines, much of the Caribbean basin, and, indirectly, over other nations... We also have to admit that Adolf Hitler displayed more knowledge of how we treated Native Americans than American high schoolers who rely on their textbooks. Hitler admired our concentration camps for Indians in the west "and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination--by starvation and uneven combat" as the model for his extermination of Jews and Gypsies" (123-126).

Yet we "still stereotype Native Americans as roaming primitive hunting folk, unfortunate victims of progress" (132).

For more on this topic, read Helen Hunt Jackson's famous indictment of Native American policies, A Century of Dishonor.

Also, see her fictional account of the racism Mexicans and Indians both endured at the hands of White and Mexican settlers, Ramona.

More quotes from the book are here:  http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/First_Thanksgiving_LMTTM.html

Thanksgiving quotes from the book are here: http://nativeamericanresources.blogspot.com/2007/11/lies-my-teacher-told-me-everything-your.html

GREAT LESSON PLANS FOR THE BOOK HERE:  http://liesmyteachertoldme.wikispaces.com/home

Photo Gallery: 20 Memorials to Native Americans
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/gallery/photo/photo-gallery-20-memorials-native-americans-155013

How White LGBTQ People Can Be More Inclusive of People of Color

http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/02/how-white-queers-can-be-more-inclusive-of-queer-poc/
As a minority group that regularly battles prejudice, violence, and ignorance from governments, hate groups, and the like, LGBTQ people know what it’s like to be discriminated against.
That’s why the gay community tends to pride itself on being anti-discriminatory and accepting of people from all walks of life.

Unfortunately, the gay community is not devoid of casual racism. Even though, in theory, people should know better, certain forms of racism in the LGBTQ community have become so normalized that they get brushed off as minor.

Before I go on, let me define the kind of racism I’m talking about to avoid confusion. Racism, in an institutional sense, is race-based discrimination from a position of power or privilege.
This means that a gay person with white privilege can be racist toward gay people of color and people of color in general.

I’m not talking about mustache twirling, KKK-grade, Hitler level racism that’s so obvious anyone with any sense of human decency would banish it from their mind.

I’m talking about the “little” things, like the fetishization of black men by gay white men, the stigmatization of Asian men by gay men of other races, mainstream LGBTQ campaigns with little racial awareness, and racial “preferences” that can be innocuous, but at times reflect an underlying prejudice.

This article goes on to detail  how you can make sure that LGBTQ spaces are as safe and inclusive for everyone as possible with three steps you can take to support people of color and be more racially aware.