Soy Latina

A Latina Teen "Comes Out" As Black : NPR

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:42:56 -0400

A Latina Teen "Comes Out" As Black : NPR:

When Elaine Vilorio moved to the US as a young child, she encountered new notions of race. Now a high school senior, she talks about crafting an identity that’s ‘racially black and culturally Hispanic.’

bad-dominicana: the90sfreak: bad-dominicana: google dora...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:51:34 -0400

bad-dominicana:

the90sfreak:

bad-dominicana:

google dora images and what do i find, but vicious racialized misogyny, on fanpop.com.

a little girl pregnant and thus sexualized (the kind of child we offer little to no support in these cases), drinking, smoking, on welfare, coz shes a latina, right? thats just how we do. how we all end up, no? the little innocent heroine saving everybody in every episode is not safe from that destiny. they made sure to add tattoos and bamboo earrings so you know shes lower class and from the hood, too.

“bad mothers” but we good enough to raise your kids for pennies, tho.

so in summary lower class pregnant little latina girls are the butt of lots of jokes coz that shit cant be hard enough as it is. and theyd need welfare more than anyone but whites get most of it so?

you have to use them as the symbol of all thats terrible and wrong about latinas. even if those babies arent usually born of consensual sex. and theres little to no support for them before or after theyve bared children.

and, ya know, what kinda little girl would be pregnant, drinking and smoking? one whos been neglected and had a really hard, horrible life, who deserves a whole lot of love and support, not really to be the butt of racialized misogynist jokes?

if we can love those little girls i promise alot of the worlds ills will be gone then and there.

this picture reminds me of this ad for the lyndon b. johnson presidential campaign:

white people have been hypersexualizing children of color, especially little girls, for ages.

why is whiteness so cotdamn predictable and repetitive? i cant.

you look great! have you lost weight?

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 14:58:24 -0500

you look great! have you lost weight?:

xtremecaffeine: broadist:

ATTN: “You look great! Have you lost weight?” is not a compliment. I know it has been the go-to praise-route towards many women since the inception of puberty, but I’d like to put an end to it. Why do I hear this like a broken record every holiday?

Some alternatives:

You look great! How are your new jobs going?

You look great! How is your blog doing?

You look great! Things seem to be going really well for you lately.

You look great! You’ve been smiling all weekend.

You look great! I love your dress/hair/shoes/demeanor.

You look great! You seem really happy.

You look great! (Period).

I don’t know who started the rumor that “Have you lost weight?” is just about the goddamn nicest thing you can say to a (fat) woman. Let me assure you: it’s not. I haven’t done anything right or wrong or good or bad for appearing to weigh less than the last time you saw me. Don’t congratulate me.

Use your head. Or, at the very least, be more creative with your compliments.

Photo

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:34:43 -0500

"Self-loathing is not a fucking character-builder. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you..."

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:33:59 -0500

“Self-loathing is not a fucking character-builder. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you better. It’s just an ever-deepening, creepy-ass trap; a trap that is a huge moneymaker for corporations that do not have and never will have good intentions. You’re not disgusting. You’re not freakish. You’re not ugly. And you’re never going to be perfect. And holy shit, that is so okay.”

- Jane, Casual Blasphemies (via aquarie, hunger-painsss)(via choosechoice) (via mooontea) (via feministpraxis) (via beautyofthesoft) (via myhappyfat) (via nataliemeansnice) (via nicoleamaria) (via marfmellow) (via decolonizeyourmind)

thepeoplesrecord: Chicago registers 500th homicide in...

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:33:25 -0500

thepeoplesrecord:

Chicago registers 500th homicide in 2012
December 30, 2012

A Thursday evening shooting in the west side of Chicago marked a milestone for the Windy City: for the first time since 2008, the city can likely claim 500 homicides in a single year.

With still a few days to go until the new year, 40-year-old Nathaniel T. Jackson became the five-hundredth person killed in Chicago, Illinois since the start of 2012.

In 2011, the city saw only 435 homicides.

Superintendent Garry McCarthy confirmed to the Chicago Tribune late Thursday night that the passing of Mr. Jackson marked murder number 500 for the Windy City, and that no suspect had been identified by the police at that point. On Friday afternoon, though, the department issued a statement to the press reclassifying a death earlier in the week as being still under investigation. With that update, the slaying of Jackson makes him one murder shy of the 500 mark, but with a homicide rate of more than one per day, that milestone is expected to be met before 2012 comes to a close.

Discussing the grim news on Friday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said it was “an unfortunate and tragic milestone, which not only marks a needless loss of life but serves as a reminder of the damage that illegal guns and conflicts between gangs cause in our neighborhoods.”

Emanuel, a former Obama administration staffer known like the president for his staunch pro-gun control stance, condemned the National Rifle Association earlier this month after the NRA’s vice president asked for armed guards in every school across America.

“That is not the right answer for our society, our schools and most importantly our children,” Emanuel said.

Even as adamantly opposed to guns on the streets as Emanuel is, however, the mayor has a seemingly impossible task of turning around a surge in violent crimes as murders have skyrocketed under his administration. According to the police statistics provided to the Tribune, “homicides were up 17 percent over last year in Chicago, and shootings had increased by 11 percent.”

All the way back in June, Roseanna Ander of the University of Chicago Crime Lab warned The Daily that Chicago was already on the path to having a particularly bloody year.

“Violence has always been most pronounced on summer weekends in Chicago,” Ander said, adding, “One likely factor is the warmer-than-usual weather and the early spring. Over 80 percent of shootings occur outdoors and in public places.”

Ander’s prediction proved right, and as the summer months progressed matters were only made worse. In late August, 19 people were shot in a single evening in Chicago. It may have been a big number at the time, but was only a few shots beyond what the city saw months earlier.

“Over the Memorial Day weekend, in a 72-hour period, we had 12 people killed and another 45 people shot.” WBEZ Chicago Public Radio host Robert Wildeboer told National Public Radio during a July 10 interview.

“Thirteen people were shot in one 90-minute stretch, and so that’s really focusing public attention on this issue right now,” Wildeboer added. “You know, just last night, eight people were shot in the city of Chicago. But some of the numbers were just so shocking, A, that murder’s up 40 percent over last year. B, there have been a number of really violent weekends in Chicago where the numbers are just so striking, everybody’s just, like, what in the world?”

The last time Chicago saw this many deaths in a single year was 2008, when 512 people were killed. Meanwhile in New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the murder rate in the Big Apple is down nearly 19 percent in 2012.

“I’m thankful for the fact that this year there will be the lowest number of murders that we’ve had since we started to record them in 50 years, even though the population is as high as it’s ever been,” Kelly tells reporters this week.

Source

These numbers must become a part of the national conversation about gun violence; however, this issue is deeper than just guns. It is about poverty, crumbling communities & poor education systems. This country is leaving the most vulnerable in Chicago in the dust with more than one homicide every day.

When you fetishize someone because of their ethnicity, you're being racist.

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:35:19 -0500

bookishboi:

You are not complimenting me.

I do not feel special, nor am I grateful for your attention.

Your attention is disturbing and feels abusive to me.

You’ve reduced me to an object of your unwanted desire.

Leave me alone.

In the Still of the Overnight: Why Women are Allowed to Hate Men

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:52:02 -0400

In the Still of the Overnight: Why Women are Allowed to Hate Men:

inthestilloftheovernight:

This interaction occurred on facebook after a friend of mine was bullied on tumblr due to her dismissal of racism against white people (if this concept is news to you, here’s a simple explanation). Although I could write a blog detailing exactly what was problematic with both this white…

peroquevaina: fuckyeahsexeducation: plannedparenthood: SCREENI...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:15:49 -0400

peroquevaina:

fuckyeahsexeducation:

plannedparenthood:

SCREENING IS CRITICAL Mujeres! Share this important info with amigas, mamas, hermanas e hijas.

* not just women

in addition, checking monthly for lumps is critical!!! my mother’s best friend in DR didn’t know what this was, so my mother taught her. it turns out that she had a huge lump and was in stage 4. this infographic made me really sad because she died after a long struggle and metastasis, but she could have found it earlier and survived had she known to check for lumps. it is essential to start self-checking early!!

thenonprophet: (via Cagle Post » Development Before and...

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 01:24:04 -0400

thenonprophet:

(via Cagle Post » Development Before and After)

"You see, I think the current voting rights fight isn’t just about politics. Instead, I think of it..."

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:47:36 -0400

“

You see, I think the current voting rights fight isn’t just about politics. Instead, I think of it as just one more battle within a larger war over who gets to be an American, and who among Americans gets to control the meaning of America. That war is not just about political rights, it’s about who controls our culture, and that’s something to be very concerned about.

Why? Because culture is at the heart of identity. Our identities, how we are defined, whether or not we are recognized as who we believe ourselves to be and found worthy, drives our politics. When our identities are threatened, we will do almost anything to protect ourselves.

Food, especially food that “swings American,” is a great gauge of American culture and identity. For instance, we think of hamburgers as an all-American food. But hamburger is named after Hamburg, Germany. The hotdog also has German roots. But these are, truly, American foods. Just as American as choy suey, General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies, all also invented in America but that we, nonetheless, think of as Chinese.

I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, back when that La Choy commercial was considered about as offensive as selling water softener as an “ancient Chinese secret.” That was a much more naive time for whites. That naivete was rooted in the unquestioned dominance of whiteness. In fact, so dominant were whites that American was synonymous with Caucasian.

But the racial equity movements of my childhood would soon shatter that naivete, pulling whites into a struggle to maintain their cultural dominance that made the contours and vulnerabilities of whiteness visible to whites, perhaps for the first time. Until then, being the assumed racial and cultural norm of America was fundamental to white identity and to the ethos of American exceptionalism.

But when white cultural advantage was challenged, white folk mobilized. KKK membership grew, White Citizens Councils formed, and the Republican Party stepped in to provide a political vehicle for white backlash that is still in effect today.

And now, as the racial demographics of the U.S. and the world turn to the increasing numerical advantage of non-whites, the backlash movement that peaked in the 1990s is resurgent. Membership in racist Patriot groups and vigilante border patrols is on the rise, and Tea Parties and groups like True the Vote are wreaking havoc on our political process. And they’re not nearly done yet. The global scale of white conservative ambitions can be measured by the body count in what increasingly appears to be a permanent war against the so-called Muslim world, the popular support for which is founded in Islamophobia.

It is in this context that the current voter suppression efforts we are seeing around the country should be understood. Overcoming these efforts in this election cycle is only one among many battles. Unless we see that battle as connected to the battles for immigration rights, religious freedom, racial equity and gender equity, reproductive and sexual freedom, and the battle to curtail the ambitions driving the expansion of American empire, we are missing the dynamics of the larger war and may soon find much more than voting rights among its casualties.

”

- Scot Nakagawa, “Voting And The Battle For White Cultural Dominance,” RaceFiles 9/28/12
Omfg. Exactly!

"You see, I think the current voting rights fight isn’t just about politics. Instead, I think of it..."

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:46:49 -0400

“

”

- Scot Nakagawa, “Voting And The Battle For White Cultural Dominance,” RaceFiles 9/28/12
Omfg. Exactly!

Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) creates a fund to support undocumented students

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:25:31 -0400

Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) creates a fund to support undocumented students :

This is pretty cool. Go Hampshire. You do not have to be a wealthy school to make progressive moves in the right direction.

"The racial category Asian lumps together widely diverse groups with no common language, phenotype,..."

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:53:52 -0400

“

The racial category Asian lumps together widely diverse groups with no common language, phenotype, or culture who come to the U.S. under vastly different circumstances…

How do you mash together Laotian war refugees and Japanese business investors and come up with an average or mean experience?…

So let’s get it straight. The term “Asian” in the U.S. was chosen by Asian American activists as an alternative to the pejorative “Oriental.” The Oriental is the creation of Europeans for whom the Orient was an object of curiosity and a source of riches to be studied and exploited. In modern times, the study of the Orient, especially in contrast with the civilized world of the Occident (aka Europe), solidified an idea of Orientals as exotic, potentially dangerous Others.

Activists back in the 1960s decided they wanted to reject the label Oriental and call themselves Asian American instead. Subsequent generations of Asian Americans have gathered as a coalition under the Asian American banner in order to resist being treated like Orientals. But don’t get it twisted, the idea of an Asian or Oriental race is a creation of white people, not of Asians.

”

- Scot Nakagawa breaks down the Pew study and race in so many succinct, clear words that I was a little too angered to come up with 2 weeks ago.

Also,

“reports like this are powerful molders of Asian racial identity, popularizing ideas about Asian traits, capacities (and threats), and, of course, always in comparison with the supposed failures of Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans.”

fuck. that. noise.

(via baysian)

everyone should read the entire response. for reals.

(via strugglingtobeheard)

True. All racial categories are creations of white supremacism. Without white supremacism, there are no White people, no Black people, no People Of Color, no Asians, no Latinos. Without racism, there’s no race.

(via zuky)

People have asked what counts as “Asian” on this blog, and I’ve consistently said it’s a geographical umbrella for this reason. It’s not about one particular ethnicity or race, but about the Continent and the multitude of peoples and cultures therein. A category, certainly, but hardly a monolith.

(via asianhistory)

"The allure of the American Dream (and the dominant immigrant assimilationist narrative) is such that..."

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:38:00 -0400

“The allure of the American Dream (and the dominant immigrant assimilationist narrative) is such that if you work hard enough, at some point you will make it. At some point you will have arrived and your name, your legacy, will be a part of fabric of The United States of America. Arrival has everything to do with economic gains (in a traditional understanding). What happens to the allure then when ‘arriving’ is no longer feasible to the newest Americans? When economic mobility is stifled and wealth continues to concentrate itself in the top echelons of society, is the American Dream still true?”

- Just a thought.

fuckyeahginatorres: When I became an actress I quickly realize...

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 17:51:38 -0400

fuckyeahginatorres:

When I became an actress I quickly realize that the world liked their latinos to look Italian. Not like me. So I wasn’t going up for Latina parts. I was going up for African American parts. […]

Regardless of the fact that I spoke the language better and understood the culture better, those [stereotypical latina] weren’t the parts that…I could take seriously. Suddenly you have to explain why I look how I look. And then it gets complicated. And nobody wants complicated.

Gina Torres | Black & Latino

Your Culture Sucks!

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 23:54:33 -0400

Everyone loves the Beatles. Young peeps hang posters, buy LPs, and download digital versions of the albums from greatest rock band that ever existed. Everyone loves the Beatles, except for me.

When I confessed this to my roommate (No, B I am not batshitcrazy for The Beatles) he was completely taken aback. (How can you exist in modern society without worshipping the musical grounds upon the which the holy Beatles have tread? Why would you choose to do that, don’t you know ANYTHING?) Remember, everyone loves The Beatles.

How could I not, right? I’m a person and part of that everyone.

Well, I grew up listening to 80’s r&b, R&B classics, 90’s hip hop, Salsa, Merenge, Disco, Freestyle, Old School Motown, Neo-Soul, Classic Soul and the obligatory top 40 hits. No Beatles. They just weren’t culturally relevant to me and it felt fake to pick it up in high school and college in order to fit in, so I didn’t. Loving the Beatles is cultural, but I don’t subscribe to that culture.

To this he replied: “Well then your culture is wrong! Your culture sucks!” And although he was joking it was still painful to hear. Wait, so my culture doesn’t count because I don’t listen to and love with every fiber of my being a single band? THAT makes me and my life experience invalid?

Um. No. FALSE. I understand that they were great. I understand the cultural importance, the musical importance, I recognize their legacy, but I do NOT have to like them. Nor does my dislike make me any less credible or vaild. Furthermore, statements like these are small every day versions of cultural imperialism. Your culture is not greater than mine. The Beatles aren’t objectively better than the entire reportoire of Motown or the history of great Salsa music. My culture is not wrong, cultural arrogance is.

That being said, I know many Latinos that love the Beatles and Salsa.

And this is the lament of Latin@s in the diaspora...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:52:10 -0400

pinkyandtheredrussian:

… viewed as a foreigner in one and a gring@ in the other.

… never speaking the right language and never speaking with the right accent.

… viewed as too conservative and too liberal.

… belonging to two lands yet at the same time belonging to neither.

Photo

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:58:32 -0400

Philadelphia woman faces $600-a-day fine for feeding needy neighborhood kids

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:05:52 -0400

Philadelphia woman faces $600-a-day fine for feeding needy neighborhood kids :

sinidentidades:

A Pennsylvania woman who offers free lunch every day to low-income children in her neighborhood faces a $600-a-day fine next summer if she continues because she did not clear the food giveaway with township officials.

Angela Prattis donates her time to distribute the meals — supplied by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — and adheres to strict paperwork, like filling out weekly reports and being visited bi-weekly from a state worker, MyFoxPhilly.com reports.

“Angela saw it as a way to contribute to the community in a positive way,” Anne Ayella, a member of the archdiocese, said. “There was nothing in it for her.” Prattis laughed and said, “I don’t make a dime.”

Prattis lived in the township for three years. She reportedly distributes the meals to the 60 or so children at a gazebo on her property during the summer months, when children are home from school.

The Delaware County Times reports that another resident alerted the council about the distribution a few weeks ago. The council investigated and ruled that the practice is not permitted without a variance, the paper reported.

“You have houses here, the roofs are falling in, and they could be focused on a lot of more serious issues than me feeding children,” she said.