Racism Tag

09 May

Posted at 06:00h in Uncategorized

So we just had Mother's Day--fitting, because last Tuesday the United States Supreme Court ruled that every American woman must become a mother. The forced pregnancy ruling that was leaked from the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is on one hand not at all surprising, in that we were expecting it, but on the other hand is an utter astonishment, because of its complete gall, an audacity, an atrocity. I and others, far more learned in law, have already and will in future make clear why the haphazard, erroneous reasoning cited by Alito in his draft is egregiously wrong, biased, myopic, and in brazen contradiction to the Constitution and to jurisprudence itself. Which is not to even begin mentioning the death-knell effect this ruling will try to ring on American women—more than half the population of the country—or blatant ignoring of the fact that over 54...

06 May

Posted at 06:00h in Uncategorized
Rather than go bonkers over Trump and his minions defying Congress and the Constitution while lying lying lying, or the carnage in Venezuela spilling onto the rest of the continent, or so many other choices for driving one up the wall and through the ceiling, I had to do something positive. Fast.

04 Jun

Posted at 06:00h in Uncategorized

Recently I spoke with one of the gutsy professional cheerleaders who has registered a formal complaint with the EEOC regarding NFL sex discrimination. You probably have read about the horrendous treatment meted out to cheerleaders, by management and team owners, as well as by boozed-up, testosterone-poisoned fans at games. She said something that particularly struck me as familiar. In dismissing the notion that perhaps sexism was inherent in cheerleading itself, she repositioned it as "dancing." It actually is, of course, requiring dance training plus sometimes onerous gymnastics—but without the respect paid to the Rockettes as artists or to gymnasts as sportswomen. 
Yet cheerleading isn't simply dancing, and isn’t gymnastics. Cheerleading has been created, formalized, commercialized, and positioned by team owners and fans as sexist entertainment, and they treat it as such, despite the expertise of those performing the cheerleading. Strippers also call themselves dancers. But you...

15 Jan

Posted at 06:00h in Uncategorized

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul. That's a statement attributed to Socrates, and you may have heard or read me quoting it before. It bears repeating. The etymology of the English word "language" tells quite a story. It stems from the Old French langage: "speech, words, oratory; a tribe, people, nation"; from the Latin vulgate linguaticum, from Latin lingua: "tongue," also "speech, language," from the pre-Indo-European root dnghu- "tongue." Interesting how closely related it is to "tribe" or "people," isn't it? You are what you say. The ultra-right’s assault on language has escalated to a linguistic battle–now being waged even across official Washington—in an attempt to shift public perception of key policies by changing the way the federal government talks and writes about climate change, scientific evidence, disadvantaged communities, and other issues. Surely we remember George Orwell’s chilling novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which the totalitarian state’s mottos were “War...