courtesy of @depressedaliencomic

#about

Actually, Let’s Not Be in the Moment - The New York Times (via brutereason)

Andrea, a poster from Petals: Black Girls Can’t be Innocent? (via fightingmisogynoir)

Working Class White Voters Becoming Less Religious - The Atlantic (via sociolab)

By doing this in his first week, it shows that trump *prioritizes* policies that lead to maternal death. He’d rather let people die than have access to health care.

This is very important.  

Feminist texts written by women of color

This list is stil a work in progress, but I really wanted to get it posted.  I have either read parts of/all of the texts below or they have been recommended to me.  Please reblog and add your own suggestions to the list.  Each time someone adds something new, I’ll go back to this original post and make sure to include them.  Thanks and enjoy!

Books

Anthologies

Essays

Other authors and poets you should know

David Graeber (via peculiarist)

But What If Instead You Didn't Read Another White Dude

So it’s Women’s History Month, and you’d like to read some female authors. “But where do I start?” You cry. Your high school reading list was a long line of white dudes and your college syllabi weren’t all that different, and you can only reread Pride and Prejudice so many times. It’s okay: we’ve got you covered. As a starter pack, here’s a few famous books by male authors, paired with a book by a female author you could read instead.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road → Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Kerouac’s famous stream-of-consciousness ode to the beat generation is one of the classic travel narratives of American literature. Solnit also contemplates travel, but from a very different perspective. Her book addresses the issues of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown. Less a work of theory than a conversation with a friend, Solnit draws to the heart of what compels us to wander - “a series of peregrinations, leading the reader to unexpected vistas.” (New Yorker) 

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms → Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

Ernest Hemingway’s first novel is about the romance between an expatriate ambulance driver and an English nurse, thinly based on his own experience during World War I. Nightwood, published in 1936, is also a modernist novel focusing on Robin Vote and the American Nora Flood, two women seeking inner peace in their relationship with each other. Djuna Barnes dwells on both the glory and isolation that come with being an outsider, and her novel is also based partly on Barnes’ own life.

Jonathan Franzen, Purity → Rachel Cusk, Outline

Franzen’s most recent novel focuses on the journey of young woman Pip (real name Purity) and her journey to figure out her identity. Rachel Cusk’s novel, told in ten conversations, draws a spare portrait of a novelist teaching creative writing in Athens, seeking to come to terms with a tragedy in her past. Her elegant prose and highly intelligent writing create a compelling portrait of how we hide ourselves from others.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian → Gil Adamson, The Outlander

Like Cormac McCarthy’s dark, hyper-violent Western, The Outlander takes place in the early 19th century in southern Alberta. About a woman who flees into the wilderness after murdering her husband, Adamson also dwells on the hardships and brutality of the American West, but from the point of view of a female protagonist trying to escape her vengeful pursuers, retreating ever deeper into the wilderness of both the mountains and herself.

John Updike, Rabbit, Run → Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton

Updike is well known for writing portraits of the lives of the small town middle class. My Name is Lucy Barton is a book about the relationship between an estranged mother and daughter and the complicated love between them. Her style is undramatic and never sentimental, focusing on that which is often unspoken and only implied to create a subtle portrait of two small town women.

Norman Mailer, An American Dream → Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays

Frequently both called authors of “creative nonfiction”, Norman Mailer’s book follows a decorated war-hero as he descends into murderous insanity, while Joan Didion writes about an unfulfilled New York actress telling her story from a psychiatric institute after a mental breakdown. Joan Didion dwells compellingly on themes of alienation and the breakdown of the elite, and the disintegration of American culture and morals.

Charles Bukowski, The Pleasures of the Damned, Poems 1951-1993 → Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

Anne Sexton’s deeply personal, confessional poetry can be compared with Bukowski’s writing on his relationships with women, alcohol, and writing. Anne Sexton’s poetry was frequently daring, dwelling on taboo topics such as abortion, menstruation, adultery, and drug addiction in a dramatic, sometimes rough voice.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath → Carola Dibbell, The Only Ones

In the 30s, John Steinbeck addressed economic injustice in his story of a family of Dust Bowl migrants struggling to make their way. Carola Dibbel writes a modern day story grappling with modern inequality, set in a near future plagued by disease and disparity, centering around a woman who finds herself at the mercy of dubious experimentation just to survive.

Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land → Octavia Butler, Lilith’s Brood

Instead of picking up Robert Heinlein’s science fiction story about a strange man from Mars who teaches Earthlings his customs, try Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy (published in one volume as Lilith’s Brood) about Lilith Iyapo and the Oankali, an alien race seeking to save the Earth by merging with mankind, and the struggles of humankind of maintain their own culture and identity while mercing with another species. Lilith’s Brood exhibits all of Butler’s deep understanding of human strengths and flaws.

George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire → Robin Hobb, Farseer Trilogy

An epic fantasy that, like the A Song of Ice and Fire series, features complex and treacherous politics and deeply flawed characters, Robin Hobb’s series tells the story of a prince’s bastard son, trained as an assassin, who finds himself caught up - and overwhelmed by - the intrigues of the powerful people around him - all while the strange menace of the Red Ship Raiders continues to threaten the Six Duchies.

I will be reccing Octavia Butler with my dying breath

Link to NPR: A new treatment strategy is being tested out in India, where there are only three psychiatrists for every million people.

In the Netherlands, abortion is freely available on demand. Yet the Netherlands boasts the lowest abortion rate in the world, about 6 abortions per 1000 women per year, and the complication and death rates for abortion are miniscule. How do they do it? First of all, contraception is widely available and free — it’s covered by the national health insurance plan. Holland also carries out extensive public education on contraception, family planning, and sexuality. An ethic of personal responsibility for one’s sexual activity is strongly promoted. Of course, some people say that teaching kids about sex and contraception will only encourage them to have lots of sex. But Dutch teenagers tend to have less frequent sex, starting at an older age, than American teenagers, and the Dutch teenage pregnancy rate is 9 times lower than in the U.S.

I endorse evidence-based medicine, and evidence-based activism.

The Netherlands also has better overall welfare systems in place to financially support women and families so people don’t have to worry about how they would support a child or their whole lives falling apart if they did choose to have a child.

Look at some of the benefits they receive (according to this NYT article) http://tinyurl.com/jhmsp2m

——- “Logging into my bank account, I noted with fleeting but pleasant confusion the arrival of two mysterious payments of 316 euros (about $410) each. The remarks line said “accommodation schoolbooks.” My confusion was not total. On looking at the payor — the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, or Social Insurance Bank — I nodded with sage if partial understanding. Our paths had crossed several times before. I have two daughters, you see. Every quarter, the SVB quietly drops $665 into my account with the one-word explanation kinderbijslag, or child benefit. As the SVB’s Web site cheerily informed me when I went there in bewilderment after the first deposit: “Babies are expensive. Nappies, clothes, the pram … all these things cost money. The Dutch government provides for child benefit to help you with the costs of bringing up your child.” Any parents living in the country receive quarterly payments until their children turn 18. And thanks to a recently passed law, the state now gives parents a hand in paying for school materials.”

“Payments arrive from other sources too. Friends who have small children report that the government can reimburse as much as 70 percent of the cost of day care, which totals around $14,000 per child per year.”

“The Netherlands has universal health care, which means that, unlike in the United States, virtually everyone is covered, and of course social welfare, broadly understood, begins at the beginning. In Julie and Jan’s case, although he was a struggling translator and she was a struggling writer, their insurance covered prenatal care, the birth of their children and after-care, which began with seven days of five-hours-per-day home assistance. “That means someone comes and does your laundry, vacuums and teaches you how to care for a newborn,” Julie said. Then began the regimen of regular checkups for the baby at the public health clinic. After that the heavily subsidized day care kicked in, which, Julie told me, “is huge, in that it helps me live as a writer who doesn’t make a lot of money ” —–

Reducing the number of abortions goes BEYOND sex education and birth control.

This is why American intersectional feminists are so adamant that feminism requires that we fight to change and improve public welfare systems and how the government treats the poor in general and particularly WOC.

as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.

There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared. 

Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually. 

If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”

“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”

“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”

“Cool.”

It’s not hard.

You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.

this is a good post.

Thank you, I was trying to sort this out in my head but you explained it very well.

#free exchange of culture is great - taking that culture without invite and pretending yours is an original take#(worse still profiting off it)#is cultural appropriation (by @gnimaerd)

I also think it's important to identify the underlying white supremacy and colonialist attitudes associated with true cultural appropriation. If a cultural expression is denigrated when it is performed by a person of color or a member of a marginalized group, yet is celebrated when it is performed by a white person or member of another privileged group, that is appropriation. If you cannot appreciate culture unless it is used by white people as a trend, you are supporting appropriation and structural violence.

Why odds are against a large Zika outbreak in the US

Is the United States at risk for a large-scale outbreak of Zika or other mosquito-borne disease? While climate conditions in the U.S. are increasingly favorable to mosquitos, socioeconomic factors such as access to clean water and air conditioning make large-scale outbreaks unlikely, according to new analysis of existing research—but small-scale, localized outbreaks are an ongoing concern.                                

In their forthcoming paper in the Journal of Medical Entomology, “Factors of Concern Regarding Zika and Other Aedes aegypti-Transmitted Viruses in the United States,” Max J. Moreno-Madriñán of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and independent research entomologist Michael Turell argue that a leading factor in outbreaks of Zika, yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya—all transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito—is low socioeconomic conditions in developing countries.

“Factors of Concern Regarding Zika and Other Aedes aegypti-Transmitted Viruses in the United States,” by Max J. Moreno-Madriñán and Michael Turell, will be published in the Journal of Medical Entomology on January 3, 2017. DOI: 10.1093/jme/tjw212

Aedes aegypti mosquito.

‪To err is human. To err repeatedly is research.‬