What Pacific Islanders Want You to Know – BuzzFeed
Reading Time: < 1 minute I had to teach myself about myself.
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So You Wanna Go To Pride: A Straight Person’s Guide To Not Being The Worst
Reading Time: 4 minutes June is finally here if you didn’t know it’s LGBTQ pride month. It’s a month where suddenly you see a lot more rainbow motifs, drag queens in the daylight, and ad campaigns with two women kissing. Pride is nothing new, most likely you’ve been to a few parades. However, as June Pride makes its way into the mainstream media and normalized as a month-long party holiday, as straight people it never hurts to reflect on what this month means to you and more importantly what it means to LGBTQ people everywhere. Here are a handful of guidelines for all you well-meaning hets out there to make it through pride month as an ally and not a total ass.
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Where Would You Be Hiding If You Were Melania Trump?
Reading Time: 4 minutes I can’t imagine how miserable Melania Trump is right now. Even Michelle Obama referred to living in the White House as being in a very nice prison. However, Michelle Obama was there because she loved her husband. There was a strong sense they made decisions about their lives together and there were in it together with all of us. Melania isn’t in this with anyone. She’s in that prison alone and it’s probably a nightmare.
Which is exactly how many of us feel right now.
This has to be a nightmare and we just want to wake up. But we can’t, and neither can Melania.
Culture Confusion, Masculinity, and the #Metoo Movement
Reading Time: 5 minutes To face your humanity means to come in contact with your own frailty and failure. It means to accept that you are broken and that you have tender places. It means to accept that you do not have all the answers. And you do not have to.
You see, precious reader, violence always begets violence. I think, as a community, we are also responsible for putting men on this pedestal that they are supposed to live up to. And they can’t. They are just human. It is violent to ask a person to be more than human.
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Kim Kardashian West Takes a Stand on Something That Matters and the Internet Goes Insane
Reading Time: 4 minutes Here’s the thing: It’s not a theory, it’s a fact. Black people and White people in the U.S. are not sentenced the same for similar crimes, especially when it comes to drug-related offenses. There is no one more vulnerable to the criminal justice system than a black woman without resources.
Alice Johnson’s story isn’t about prison reform. It’s about sentencing reform and it’s long overdue. The fact that it took a meeting of the likes of Kim Kardashian West and Donald Trump to put this story in the media headlines is a clear demonstration of how far we have to go when it comes to even an awareness about sentencing inequity let alone reform.
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The success of nonviolent civil resistance: Erica Chenoweth at TEDxBoulder
Reading Time: < 1 minute Between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns. Erica will talk about her research on the impressive historical record of civil resistance in the 20th century and discuss the promise of unarmed struggle in the 21st century. She will focus on the so-called “3.5% rule”—the notion that no government can withstand a challenge of 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or (in extreme cases) disintegrating. In addition to explaining why nonviolent resistance has been so effective, she will also share some lessons learned about why it sometimes fails.
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Model Feminist?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve long had a contradictory relationship with the beauty industry. On one hand, I think physical beauty is meaningless, revealing nothing other than our genes, our talent with makeup, and/or the skill of our plastic surgeon. Having a fit body does require work, however, no amount of working out can give a person long legs. On the other hand, humans are hard-wired to respond to whatever beauty standard currently prevails (and beauty is cultural and dynamic, though the internet has made the standards more and more similar, if my brief exposure to last year’s Miss Universe pageant is any indication). But on yet another hand (work with me here), I can’t say I’m immune to such things, as a longtime admirer of the male form and subscriber to both Vogue and Elle. Which have excellent articles, but are mainly about pretty people in pretty clothes.
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PLEASE STOP SHARING THAT STORY ABOUT 1500 KIDS MISSING
Reading Time: 5 minutes So those kids are released and then they are no longer ORRs responsibility or problem. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
One analogy I heard from my dear friend who I won’t tag without her permission, is that ORR is basically a jailer. Do you want the jail keeping track of where every former inmate is?
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Meera Vijayann – Find Your Voice Against Gender Violence
Reading Time: < 1 minute This talk begins with a personal story of sexual violence that may be difficult to listen to. But that’s the point, says citizen journalist Meera Vijayann: Speaking out on tough, taboo topics is the spark for change. Vijayann uses digital media to speak honestly about her experience of gender violence in her home country of India — and calls on others to speak out too.
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Meghan Markle’s Blackness: The Lot of Black People Hasn’t Changed Just Because a Woman With African Heritage Has Joined the British Royal Family
Reading Time: 4 minutes The lot of black people hasn’t suddenly changed just because a woman with African heritage has joined the British royal family, any more than the election of Barack Obama—whose family is decidedly regal—made everything all better. It was clear that a number of white guests didn’t quite know how to react to the inclusion of black culture. And yet, as much as I tried to stay indifferent, I got chills. I even choked up a bit. But why?
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