Reprogram

materialworld:

via What Sistas Want, What Sistas Believe: Black Feminist Twelve Point Plan - Black Feminist Working Group

1.WE WANT FREEDOM. 

We believe that freedom is only possible through individual and community self-determination. In order for the black community to achieve self-determination all systems of oppression must be dismantled.

2. We want a reformation of the criminal justice system, the abolition of the prison industrial complex and the implementation of community based models of justice and accountability.

This system has routinely targeted Black folks in the form of police brutality and covert corruption in the penal system that has led to the mass incarceration of Black people. The prison system violates human rights, causes the separation of families and capitalizes off the neo-slave labor of Black and Brown bodies that has been the basis of a profitable prison industrial complex.

3. We want control over our reproductive health and believe it is essential to building and maintaining strong black communities.

The United States government has, from its inception, consistently attempted to regulate, scapegoat and profit from the reproductive capabilities of black people. The denial of reproductive justice and autonomy began during slavery and continues today in the form of sterilization abuses, purposeful prescription of harmful contraceptives, and the targeting of black women as eugenicists for demanding access to safe and legal abortions. We demand an end to the pathology and criminalization of black motherhood and families the right to affordable and safe reproductive health care for all.

4. We want an end to all forms of physical, emotional, and sexual violence against black children.

We oppose the continued removal of black children from their homes by state agencies and see it as a part of a continued assault on black families and a form of cultural genocide. Children in general, and black children in particular, are seen as less than human which makes them easy targets in a system where dependence is seen as weakness and vulnerability. Therefore we recognize that dismantling systems of oppressions that promote hierarchies of dehumanization are in the best interest of black children. Specifically we want to break the cycles of violence that exist in our communities.

5. We want media to reflect the diversity of who we are, to include our voices, value our bodies and our stories.

We believe that the media both mirrors and shapes society. Therefore there is a need to develop a critical eye towards our media consumption, as the media is a system that perpetuates oppression. We believe in a shared responsibility to consume, demand and create the messages and representations that truly reflect our humanity.

Rest at the link. Credit notes from original post = This twelve point platform was created by the Black Feminist Working Group (BFWG). (Iresha Picot, Kimberly Murray, Tiamba Wilkerson, Nuala Cabral, Darasia Shelby and Ladi’Sasha Jones). This document is inspired by the work and legacy of the Combahee River Collective and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

nuestrahermana:

If I were in NY I would be printing these and handing them out but also adding the National Lawyers Guild number to it: (212) 679-6018

If you haven’t seen the disturbing images & videos of the Occupy Wall Street Protests… Check #Occupy Wall Street #Occupywallstreet

TW TW TW

Women being penned in and maced for no reason. People being arrested simply to be “examples”. Throats being smashed in to concrete. Not good. I am sending my well wishes to all involved in the protests.

afrolez:

I’ve been informed that one of the (Black) women SlutWalk NYC organizers asked the woman to take her placard down. She did. However, not before there were many photographs taken….

Now, my question is why did it take a Black woman organizer to ask her to take it down. What about ALL of the White women captured in this photograph. They didn’t find this sign offensive? Paraphrasing Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I A Woman (too!)?”

ERADICATING RACISM SHOULD NOT BE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF PEOPLE OF COLOR.

How can so many White feminists be absolutely clear about…

read more

nuestrahermana:

“In 1986 Iturbide was asked to participate in a photographic event to document the U.S. for the book A Day in the Life of America (1987). With an introduction from a friend, she made the acquaintance of a group of Mexican Americans living in the White Fence barrio of East Los Angeles.

The White Fence family befriended Iturbide and showed her the rituals and painted walls of their local cholo culture, which identified them as something other than Mexican or American. The 1980s cholo fashion—men wearing chinos or jeans with sleeveless white T-shirts or plaid Pendletons, longish hair sometimes in a hairnet, and evident tattoos, and women in tight jeans, halter tops, and heavy makeup —was heir to the pre-World War II Mexican pachuco, or zoot-suit attitude. Along with this costume, there was often signing, tagging (or graffiti), and other gangster activity passed back and forth across the U.S.Mexican border.”

edwardianera:

Postcard view of woman pavement artist, Kingsway, London, WC2, UK, circa 1910

(via coolchicksfromhistory)

ourladyj:

Here are my boobs, if you still wanna call me a boy (which you still do).

You classify my health as experimental (and therefore uninsurable).

You keep the science of trans people in the dark, without research or proper care.

How long will you consider us less than women?

(via ourskin)

juliosalgado83:

For the past 14 years, my mother has been cleaning houses for a living. I still remember the first time I cleaned a stranger’s house with her. I was in charge of the bathrooms. I hated it.

I would sit on the side of the bath tub and look at the cleaning supplies in front of me. Ajax. Windex. Clorox. Dr. Clean. That shiny bald head always looking back at me. 

“You’re doing it all wrong mijo,” my mother would say. She would kneel down next to me and show me the proper way to apply the Ajax on the walls. Most of the time, my mind was some place else. “Did you get that?” she’d ask. I’d just nod my head yes.

She would quickly get up and run back to the kitchen. Or throw a new load of the stranger’s laundry. Or do their beds. Or kneel back again and clean under the couches. Always moving quickly. Quicker than me. Not once complaining. 

“Even if you see 5 cents or five dollars, you are not to take a single penny,” she’d tell me over our lunch break. “We might be poor, but we don’t steal.”

Every time I aced a test, she would brag to her bosses in her broken English. I would thank them for congratulating me and go back outside to clean their patio.

I can’t ever thank that woman enough for making me the man I am now. 

To support the rights of domestic workers, please visit http://www.domesticworkers.org/

dowe:

An anonymous sculptor has been leaving gorgeous carved-book sculptures in Scotland’s libraries, along with little notes of encouragement. Some are left out in the open; others are hidden away and may have sat a long time before being discovered.

Having been on display in the Scottish Poetry Library for a few months, the poetree is now kept behind the counter for safety, but if you ask nicely I’m sure they would let you have a look.

The National Library’s gramophone is in a display case near the front door.

The Filmhouse’s cinematic diorama is currently not on display.

The Scottish Storytelling Centre’s dragon is probably going to estivate during the Festivals to avoid any possible manhandling by infant hordes but will surely make a return in the autumn.

(via feminismisforreal)