Category Archives: sexism

Donald Trump accuses NFL players of ‘total disrespect’ as protests continue | Sport | The Guardian – “But his calling the widow of a fallen soldier a liar is not disrespectful”

On Monday morning, Trump tweeted his displeasure. “Two dozen NFL players continue to kneel during the National Anthem, showing total disrespect to our Flag & Country,” he wrote. “No leadership in NFL!” The president’s viewpoint will play well in large parts of America. Surveys have shown a majority of white Americans disapprove of the protests; in contrast a majority of African Americans view the players’ stance favorably.

Source: Donald Trump accuses NFL players of ‘total disrespect’ as protests continue | Sport | The Guardian

Nivea’s latest ‘white is right’ advert is the tip of a reprehensible iceberg | Media | The Guardian

Shadism, pigmentocracy – the idea of privilege accruing to lighter-skinned black people – and other hierarchies of beauty are a complex picture in which ads such as Nivea’s are only the obvious tip of an insidious iceberg. Celebrities with darker complexions, such as the Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech – nicknamed Queen of the Dark – and actors such as Lupita Nyong’o, are so often discussed in the context of having achieved the seemingly impossible by being both dark and beautiful, that they become the exceptions that prove the rule.It is often observed that light-skinned black women are more likely to become global superstars, the Beyoncé-Rihanna effect. They are, however, still black women and therefore not immune from the pressure to lighten – most recently by fans following a new Photoshopping trend of posting pictures of whitened versions of their faces and remarking upon the improvement.In countries such as Ghana, the intended audience for the Nivea ad, and Nigeria – where an estimated 77% of women use skin-lightening products – the debate has so far, understandably, focused on health. The most toxic skin-lightening ingredients, still freely available, include ingredients such as hydroquinone, mercury and corticosteroid. It’s not unusual for these to be mixed with caustic agents ranging from automotive battery acid, washing power, toothpaste and cloth bleaching agents, with serious and irreversible health consequences. There is no suggestion that global brands such as Nivea or Lancôme are using any of these illegal and harmful ingredients, and African countries are moving towards greater regulation of the products themselves. Ghana, for example, has banned hydroquinone.These powerful corporations are, however, still freely operating in a context where millions of low-income women experience the high-end messaging of their glossy billboards, but can only afford to opt for cheaper, black market products. Advertising standards have been enforced against beauty conglomerates for adverts that are overly retouched, but only India, another of the biggest markets for skin lightening products, has banned adverts depicting people with darker skin as inferior. Maybe it is time that changed. This is an industry expected to reach $31bn by 2024, as growing awareness of dangerous, toxic products drives extra demand for a “fairness solution with natural, herbal and organic ingredients”, according to market analysts.

Source: Nivea’s latest ‘white is right’ advert is the tip of a reprehensible iceberg | Media | The Guardian

Highlighting rift between Israel and U.S. Jews, Netanyahu won’t address annual Jewish Federation confab – U.S. News – Haaretz.com – ultra-right wing everywhere cannot stand diversity and sides with bigots of worst type!

Many American Jewish leaders were livid with Netanyahu when in June, under pressure from his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, he decided to back out of his commitment to create a special area at the Western Wall where Reform and Conservative Jews could hold mixed-gender prayer services. The overwhelming majority of affiliated Jews in North America identify either as Conservative or Reform. The decision to create the egalitarian prayer space had been approved by his government in January 2016 but was never implemented.

Source: Highlighting rift between Israel and U.S. Jews, Netanyahu won’t address annual Jewish Federation confab – U.S. News – Haaretz.com

Trump feud continues as Florida congresswoman calls John Kelly a liar | US news | The Guardian – Kelly lied to score points for his boss and dis a Black-African-American woman Congressperson!

Wilson said Trump’s comments were “not a good message to say to anyone who has lost a child at war”.Advertisement“You don’t sign up because you think you’re going to die,” Wilson said. “You sign up to serve your country. There’s nothing to misinterpret. He said what he said. I just don’t agree with it. I just don’t agree with that’s what you should say to grieving families.”Johnson’s mother was also offended by Trump’s tone, telling reporters this week: “President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband.”Kelly also attacked Wilson for allegedly taking credit for securing funding from Barack Obama for an FBI field office, at a 2015 ceremony which he also attended.Wilson said she was not a member of Congress in 2009 when the funding mentioned by Kelly was secured. Her role, she said, was in having the building dedicated to two FBI agents who were killed in a 1986 shootout in Miami.“That’s a lie,” Wilson said of Kelly’s characterization. “How dare he?”She added: “I feel sorry for General Kelly. He has my sympathy for the loss of his son. But he can’t just go on TV and lie on me.”A video of Wilson’s remarks at the ceremony, published by the SunSentinel on Friday, support the congresswoman’s account. She briefly discusses her efforts to dedicate the building for the fallen agents, but at no point takes credit for securing funding.Wilson said she was seeking answers about the attack in Niger, in which Johnson reportedly became separated from the rest of his unit. The Pentagon has offered few details, prompting the Arizona senator John McCain to threaten the White House with a subpoena to elicit more information.“Why did it take 48 hours to find him?” Wilson said. “Was he still alive? Was he kidnapped? I am distraught and so is the family. There are so many questions that should be answered.”

Source: Trump feud continues as Florida congresswoman calls John Kelly a liar | US news | The Guardian

Twitter and White Supremacy, A Love Story | Dame Magazine – does anyone need another reason to leave Twitter? Encourage celebrities to leave as well!

Indeed, the kind of harassment Leslie Jones faced is exactly what Black women have had to deal with on Twitter, day-in, and day-out, for years.  But without the prominence of being Leslie Jones, one doesn’t get the benefit of personal intervention from Jack Dorsey.“It’s the gamificiation of hate,” says author Mikki Kendall. “I was going to leave Twitter at one point. It just wasn’t usable for me. I would log on and have 2,500 negative comments. One guy who seemed to have an inexhaustible energy would Photoshop my image on top of lynching pictures and tell me I should be ‘raped by dogs,’ that kind of thing.” When Kendall was living in Tennessee, she says she received a picture of her and her family in a photo that “looked like it had been sighted through a rifle.” She was also doxxed—that is, had her address posted online. She moved shortly thereafter. “I had two minor children in my home then. I had to do something different.” She lives on the southside of Chicago now and says she feels much safer.  “No one’s going to come for me here. If they do, I’d like to watch them try.”Kendall has been deft at figuring out tech-savvy ways to both document and battle online harassment. She did a “race swap” experiment with a white guy—they traded Twitter avatars. “For me, it was like, Oh my God, it’s so quiet! People told me how smart I was and perceptive,” she says. Kendall has also figured out how to turn the tables on the algorithms by coding her own auto-blockers that sniff out potentially harmful Twitter accounts and blocks them.When I asked her why she thought Twitter wasn’t more responsive to reports of abuse on the site, she said, “Being a white guy on Twitter is a whole other world. I think that what’s happening with Jack and Biz (Twitter executives) is they’re experiencing a whole other Twitter.”White supremacists have used Twitter to target Jews, as well, in ways both banal and life-threatening. In June 2016 several highly visible Jewish political reporters began to report a barrage of online harassment that involved a symbolic gesture: triple parentheses placed around their names, like (((this))). The ADL added the triple parentheses to their catalog of hateful symbols. One report called them “the digital equivalent of a yellow star,” intended to separate Jews from the rest of the population and pave the way for worse.

Source: Twitter and White Supremacy, A Love Story | Dame Magazine

Challenging racial supremacy — from Charlottesville to Tel Aviv | +972 Magazine

as long as our recognition and understanding of racial supremacy begins and ends with groups of enraged men chanting and beating up people of color, leftists, and anyone else they see as a target, we will never approach the depth of reckoning needed to effect meaningful change.Racist mobs are not the load-bearers of supremacy; they are its outgrowths. Income inequality; disparities in incarceration rates; education gaps; housing discrimination; lack of representation: these are the constant reality of the effects of racial supremacy, and they pose a far greater challenge than the iconography of statues, ruins and flags. It is our tragedy, and our indictment, that it takes physical violence to make us see what has always been there.———————As I was writing these words on October 7, a group of torch-carrying white supremacists—led by Richard Spencer—again gathered at the Lee statue in Charlottesville, not two months after one of their number murdered Heather Heyer. May her memory be a blessing, as well as the memory of all those killed by the racist mentality she died protesting.

Source: Challenging racial supremacy — from Charlottesville to Tel Aviv | +972 Magazine

Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations – The New York Times

 

In the early stages of promoting Trump’s tax cut, they have made a series of statements that are blatantly false — not merely shadings of truth or questionable claims but outright up-is-down falsehoods mocked by various fact-checkers. The statements make the two look more like Trump press secretaries than serious business executives whom members of Congress can trust.They fall into two main categories. The first is who benefits from the tax plan. “Wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut,” Cohn said on “Good Morning America.” He was echoing a promise that Mnuchin had made before the inauguration: “Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.”No one needs to read a sophisticated analysis (although you can do that, as well) to know these claims are ridiculous. Trump’s tax plan is reducing the top income-tax rate to 35 percent, from 39.6 percent. It is deeply cutting corporate taxes, which benefits people who own a lot of stock. It is eliminating the estate tax.Want to guess how many families in New York State — population 20 million — are wealthy enough that they’re likely to pay any estate tax next year, according to an estimate based on I.R.S. data? Just 470. The number is so low in Montana, Vermont, West Virginia and four other states — likely fewer than 10 families in each — that the I.R.S. doesn’t provide details, to avoid privacy concerns.There is no way to make up for tax cuts this large by eliminating deductions, as Mnuchin claimed. The administration isn’t trying very hard, anyway. The deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest, including on second homes, will remain.

FBI terrorism unit says ‘black identity extremists’ pose a violent threat | US news | The Guardian – The FBI at risk of being arm for KKK

DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, likened the “black identity extremist” monitoring to the FBI’s highly controversial domestic counterintelligence program known as Cointelpro, which was used to target political groups and activists like the NAACP, Martin Luther King Jr, socialist and communist groups and anti-war protesters.“We knew that we were likely being watched,” said Mckesson, who has spoken out about being monitored by the US government and FBI. “This is confirmation that the work of social justice continues to threaten those in power.”

Source: FBI terrorism unit says ‘black identity extremists’ pose a violent threat | US news | The Guardian

{“ROTFLMAO”} Conservative Pennsylvania Congressman Resigns Amid Abortion Scandal – The New York Times

Representative Tim Murphy, an outspoken abortion opponent embattled by allegations that he encouraged his lover to terminate a pregnancy, announced Thursday that he would step down from his House seat this month.Speaker Paul D. Ryan said on Thursday afternoon that Mr. Murphy, a Republican who has represented his conservative Pennsylvania district since 2003, had sent him a letter of resignation, effective Oct. 21.

Kim Wall ‘stabbed 15 times’ onboard Danish inventor’s submarine | World news | The Guardian

The suspected killer of Swedish journalist Kim Wall will be detained for four more weeks after a Copenhagen court heard that 15 stab wounds had been found on her body.Peter Madsen, 46, faces a murder charge over the death of the 30-year-old journalist, whose headless, dismembered torso was found floating off Denmark’s capital city 10 days after she boarded the inventor’s self-built submarine for an interview.Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen told the court that cause of death had not yet been formally established, but that the multiple knife wounds had been inflicted “at the time of death or shortly afterwards”.Traces of Madsen’s DNA had also been also recovered from Wall’s body, as well as traces of a saw blade consistent with the removal of her head and limbs after her death, Buch-Jepsen said. An examination of Madsen’s computer had also uncovered material featuring women being tortured and killed.

Source: Kim Wall ‘stabbed 15 times’ onboard Danish inventor’s submarine | World news | The Guardian