Among blacks, 67% say people should be more careful with language to avoid offending people of different backgrounds, while just 30% say too many people are easily offended by language these days. Among whites, opinions are reversed: 67% say too many are easily offended, compared with 32% who think more care should be taken to not offend others.
Category Archives: Feminism
Man cleared of raping teenager in his sleep – “Swedish Judges – some – suffer from an infinite capacity for self-delusion to excuse rape.”
The condition of sexsomnia, from which the man is not believed to have been suffering at the time, according to Aftonbladet, came to national attention in 2014 when a suspected sleeping rapist in northern Sweden was cleared by an appeals court.
Source: Man cleared of raping teenager in his sleep – The Local
We killed Qandeel Baloch – The Ladies Finger
What Qandeel did was represent a changing Pakistan: a Pakistan where a viral celebrity could engage with mainstream media and thus the rest of the country, despite being provocative. We began to witness a nation that was now questioning its own conscience as a result of her growing popularity, presence in TV shows and rise to becoming a household name despite being labelled a ‘slut’.The irony of Qandeel is that she came home for just one week, before leaving for abroad (presumably Dubai) with her parents to seek safety from the death threats she was receiving. Little did she know that the biggest threat to her, as is the case with most women in Pakistan, is the threat at home. Threat from the ones you love and love you back from the ones you grew up and the ones who have known you since you were a baby and the ones who are supposed to protect and nurture you from the hate that is often found swirling around in our toxic society: Your family.Fariha Altaf, tweeted that she spoke to Qandeel the night she was killed and she sounded so happy and excited. Just like that — a woman loved by many, a human with a life of hopes and dreams, was taken away from us. She died at the hands of her brothers for living her life on her own terms.The murder of Qandeel Baloch sends a very frightening message to every woman in Pakistan: WE WILL CONTINUE TO BE KILLED. They will find a reason for all of us, one by one until we can challenge this toxic brand of masculinity and honour.
Source: We killed Qandeel Baloch – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger
Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, Dallas | Race Files – Truth is not easy but it opens doors
“Was he colored?” That’s what my grandmother would say whenever she heard news about a criminal act. She knew that if the alleged perpetrator were “colored” his criminality would be read not simply as the act of an individual, but as an expression of an ingrained racial tendency. Somehow being Black meant that the actions of every random thief, rapist or murderer who was also Black redounded to you and your people. I imagine most Black families had a version of “Was he colored?” And I wouldn’t be surprised if Muslim American families have an equivalent expression today. Untying the knot of individual culpability and the consequences of racial belonging is nowhere near as straightforward as it might seem.I was on a dance floor on Thursday night, desperately trying to shake off the news from Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights. My phone was in my back pocket and, like an idiot, when it buzzed with an incoming text, I left the dance floor and stepped outside to the news from Dallas. Though the action was still unfolding, I immediately surmised that the shooter was “colored,” and that he had been trained by the U.S. military.It has fallen to President Obama, time and again, to make sense out of the incomprehensible and bind the wounds of a nation apparently bent on self-destruction. In the aftermath of Dallas, Obama quickly condemned the despicable violence of a demented, troubled individual. The president’s intent was clear and laudable. He sought to defuse tensions by definitively asserting that the shooter’s action was not associated with a political movement or a particular organization, that his murderous deeds should in no way be linked to African Americans in general. He struggled to shift the focus from “Was he colored?” to “Clearly he was crazy, right?”But before boxing Micah Johnson up and setting him aside as deranged and demented it’s worth asking a few questions. Honestly, good people, did anybody in their right mind – that is, not troubled or demented – think that the police could continue to pick off Black people at will and on camera without producing a Micah Johnson? And is troubled and demented shorthand for “traumatized by repeated exposure to the graphic depiction of the murder of people who look just like me?” Or for “agonized by the fact that the officers of the law who placed a handcuffed man in the back of a van and snapped his spine in an intentionally “rough ride” were neither held criminally accountable nor labeled troubled and demented?” Or for “depressed beyond imagining and haunted by the ghosts of the men and women whose lives were snatched by the side of the road, down back alleyways, and in precinct stations from one end of the country to the other before the era of cell phone video?” Or for “pierced through the heart by the voice of four-year-old Dae’Anna, comforting her mama?” Because if demented and troubled is shorthand for any of that, then Micah Johnson may have been a lone gunman, but he is far from alone.That whoosh you heard on Friday morning was the sound of people rushing to condemn the Dallas shootings, or to extract condemnations from others. There is, of course, no moral justification for gunning down police officers. And, retaliatory violence aimed at the armed representatives of the state, beyond being a suicidal provocation, also shuts down all avenues for advancing the cause of racial justice. But there is a lot of room for reflection between the cheap polarities of condemn or condone.So here we are, once again, with calls from all quarters for dialogue across the racial divide. But if the long years before the emergence of the various movements for Black lives have taught us anything, it is this: our purported partners in dialogue simply turn their backs and leave the table as soon as the pressure is off. This moment calls for the vigorous defense of our right to continued protest and the intensification and elaboration of multiple movements for Black lives – for the sake of our ancestors and the generations to come. And for the sake of this country that is our home.
Trump and Ginsburg: Donald Trump calls on Supreme Court judge to resign | In English | EL PAÍS – No limit to how far he will go to bully and demean women! What a “guy!”
Responding to the furore on his Twitter profile on Tuesday night, Trump said simply: “Resign” following up on comments suggesting that Ginsburg was no longer coherent, saying: “Her mind is shot.” The Republican candidate then told The New York Times that the judge’s remarks were “highly inappropriate”, adding: “I think it’s a disgrace to the court, and I think she should apologize to the court” and then saying: “I would hope that she would get off the court as soon as possible.”
Source: Trump and Ginsburg: Donald Trump calls on Supreme Court judge to resign | In English | EL PAÍS
Ieshia Evans, woman in protest photo, describes Baton Rouge arrest as ‘work of God’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Ms Evans, the mother of a five-year-old son, travelled to Baton Rouge “because she wanted to look her son in the eyes to tell him she fought for his freedom and rights,” according to R Alex Haynes, who said on Facebook he had known Ms Evans since childhood.A jail log from the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office showed an Ieshia Evans, 35, was booked on a charge of simple obstruction of a highway and had been released from custody.Reuters could not reach Ms Evans for comment.After her arrest, Ms Evans ended another Facebook post with: “Peace, love, blk power!#blacklivesmatter.”She asked friends not to give interviews on her behalf, saying she wanted to tell her own story, but later said she was not ready to speak to reporters.”I want to get home to my son,” she wrote. “I’ve been through a lot.”
Dismantle Fear and Ignorance to Eradicate Racism, Raise Consciousness, and Embrace Equality. | Rebelle Society
One night after leaving work with my manager, who was also a friend, she asked me to hail her a cab. “Hey, I follow your orders at work, but once we leave the building, we’re equals.” I felt annoyed by her demanding behavior.“Look,” she said, her eyes averted with embarrassment, “they won’t stop for me.”I didn’t get it. I totally thought she was messing with me.“And why won’t they stop for you?”“Because I’m black.”No way. That couldn’t be true. It was the late nineties. Surely, we had evolved to see beyond the color of someone’s skin. I told her as much.She sighed. “Okay, stand back and watch.”She stepped up to the curb and I stepped back by the building. One free cab passed her by, then another. When the third one passed, my jaw dropped and I had tears in my eyes.“See?” she said. She looked embarrassed, and I felt like the biggest jerk in the world for not believing her. Upset that humanity still didn’t seem to remember.We traded places. No sooner did I hold up my hand that a cab came to a screeching halt in front of me. I opened the door for her to climb in. He looked back at her and then forward, rolling his eyes.
Six More Women Say They Were Sexually Harassed By Roger Ailes: Gothamist
Following Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson’s allegations from earlier this week that she’d been fired from the station after rebuffing sexual advances from CEO Roger Ailes, at least a dozen more women have contacted Carlson’s attorney claiming they too were harassed by Ailes. Six of these women shared their stories with NY Mag, and they are harrowing indeed: one woman even says Ailes once pulled out his genitals, which were “red like raw hamburger,” and asked her to kiss them when she was only 16 years old.NY Mag interviewed Kellie Boyle, a former Republican National Committee field adviser; Marsha Callahan, a former model; and four women who wished to remain anonymous, all of whom say they were harassed by Ailes while trying to get a job from him. Boyle told the publication that Ailes blacklisted her when she was supposed to sign a major contract with the National Republican Congressional Committee in 1989. “[H]e said, ‘You know if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the big boys,'” she said. “[H]e said, ‘Well you might have to give a blowjob every once in a while.’”
Source: Six More Women Say They Were Sexually Harassed By Roger Ailes: Gothamist
Serena Williams steps up pace as she dismantles Annika Beck in style | Sport | The Guardian
Against Williams – the second oldest woman in the draw behind her sister Venus – she looked as though she was fighting in the wrong weight division. Williams sent down one serve at 123mph and her average first serve was well over 100mph in both sets; Beck’s average speed in the two sets was 86 and 88mph, about the same as Williams’s second serve. Nor did Beck’s ground strokes have the muscle to trouble her opponent.
Source: Serena Williams steps up pace as she dismantles Annika Beck in style | Sport | The Guardian
Netanyahu asks to expel Arab MK, Hanin Zoabi, from Knesset – PNN
Earlier on Wednesday Zoabi caused an uproar on the Knesset floor when she strongly condemned the Israeli forces’ videotaped attack on Turkish activists who were killed during their participation in Freedom Flotilla in 2010. The murderer has to pay compensation for the families of Turkish victims, she said during a debate discussing the newly-signed deal between Israel and Turkey. Zoabi considered the deal as a “murder confession.”Zoabi demanded the Israeli government issue an apology both to the “political activists” aboard the Mavi Marmara, on which she sailed in solidarity, and to herself, from those who “incited against [her] for six years.”During the debate, Israeli MKs tried to physically attack Zoabi following her address. Several MKs began shouting and moved toward the podium to complain. “Come hit me! Come hit me!” Zoabi shouted to the MKs who were pointing and yelling at her.As MKs mobbed the stage, Zoabi shouted “they murdered” and “shut up” repeatedly.When Deputy Knesset Speaker Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beytenu) asked her to apologize, Zoabi said: “The Israeli soldiers who murdered are the ones who need to apologize! You need to apologize!” The Joint List strongly denounced the attack, considering it a “fascist assault.” It added, “The racist and bloody attack against Joint List MKs has notably escalated, calling for an end to the continued incitement against Arab MKs and Hanan Zoabi in particular”.
Source: Netanyahu asks to expel Arab MK, Hanin Zoabi, from Knesset – PNN








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