In 1969, Yoko Ono coined the phrase, and I quote, “Woman is the N****R of the World.” Shortly thereafter, she and her husband, the late John Lennon, wrote and he recorded a song with that same title. According to Wikipedia (which is ALWAYS questionable), at that time (don’t know where they would stand today) Dick Gregory and Ron Dellums defended the […]
Racial Justice
Going Postal, Occupying Wall Street and KKK Analogies: Editors’ Picks, 9/23–10/1
When a woman of color says something you don’t like about politics, naturally her race and gender are to blame. Or so we’d be led to believe by the backlash this week against Melissa Harris-Perry (for those not familiar, an esteemed black feminist scholar, frequent MSNBC commentator and author of an acclaimed new book on the […]
The Cost of a Non-Diverse Media
“I had journalists say to me: ‘I saw the women on the field. But they were so pitiful-looking that I didn’t film them,’” recalls Gini Reticker, director of the 2008 documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which documents women’s peace efforts in Liberia. While she had trouble finding footage of Liberian women’s peace actions, […]
Troy Davis and a New Fight Against The Death Penalty: Editors’ Picks, 9/18-9/24
Like countless people across the globe, this week we were glued to coverage of the impending execution of Troy Davis. In 1991, Davis was convicted of, and sentenced to death for, the 1989 murder of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia. There was no physical evidence against Davis, and the prosecution’s case […]
Pioneering Trans Kids, Slave-Inspired Earrings and Gaddafi’s Guards: Editors’ Picks, 8/28-9/3
The Washington Post reports that five of Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s female bodyguards have come forward to say that they were systematically raped and abused by the now fugitive Libyan leader, his sons and other members of the regime. Since the 1970s, Gaddafi has maintained an elite team of about 30 women, known as his Amazonian guard. […]
Scapegoating Black Women in a Recession
You know the media spin cycle and the propagandists are winning when you advise a young, promising black woman undergraduate student about her prospects for doctoral studies, and she immediately takes herself out of the running. Not because there are fewer fellowships to help pay for graduate school or because she wants to pursue a […]
Gender and Race Determine the Worth of Your Degree
Researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce have compiled a new report on how education affects people’s earnings, based on 2007-2009 American Community Survey data. Not surprisingly, higher education significantly increases lifetime earnings of U.S. workers: But education doesn’t pay off equally for all groups. Women make less at every level of […]
The Terrible, Awful Sweetness of The Help
If Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help was an angel food cake study of racism and segregation in the 60’s South, the new movie adaptation is even fluffier. Like a dollop of whip cream skimmed off a multi-layered cake, the film only grazes the surface of the intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender and geohistory. Let […]
Why I’m Not Looking Forward To The Help
I picked up a copy of Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel The Help at an airport bookstore. I figured the four-hour flight to Texas would be enough time to absorb 544 plot-driven pages, and reading the novel during one of my frequent trips south seemed appropriate. For some readers, The Help calls up memories of being […]