I’d love to read this.
California-native, femme writer, theorist and feminist who likes pretty things. Bloodstream of ink, lyric heartbeat. I queer everything.
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Rap music is so diverse in its themes, its style, its content but when it becomes a vehicle to be talked about in mainstream news, the rap that gets in national news is always the rap music that perpetuates misogyny that is most obscene in its lyrics and then this comes to stand for what rap is. Really its for me the perfect paradigm of colonialism, that is to say, we think of rap music as a little third-world country, that young white consumers are able to go to and take out of it whatever they want. We would have to acknowledge that what young white consumers, primarily male, oftentimes suburban, most got energized by in rap music was misogyny, obscenity, pugilistic eroticism and therefore that form of rap began to make the largest sums of money.
bell hooks, cultural criticism — rap: authentic expression or market construct?
BAM. there it is.
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American feminist: Our liberation is intersectional, intergenerational, queer & trans inclusive.
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Former sex trafficking victim shines light on dark underworld of Super Bowl
Feb. 1 2013
Amid the parties and fun of Super Bowl 2013, authorities say, there is a dark underworld of girls and women being forced into the sex trade. Sitting in the festive lobby of a New Orleans hotel, festooned with San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens decorations, Clemmie Greenlee, a former victim of sex trafficking from Nashville, recalled being brought to cities around the South to prostitute for those attending such large-scale events.
For Greenlee’s pimps, the influx of people provided a massive money-making opportunity.
“When they come to these kinds of events, the first thing you’re told is how many you’re gonna perform a day,” she said Friday. “You’ve got to go through 25 men a day, or you’re going through 50 of them. When they give you that number, you better make that number.”
Having been abducted and gang-raped by her captors at age 12, Greenlee said, she was one of about eight girls controlled by a ring of pimps, men who injected them with heroin and, at times, kept them handcuffed to beds. For trying to run away, she was once stabbed in the back.
Now 53, Greenlee works at Eden House in Uptown New Orleans, the first shelter for sex-trafficking victims in Louisiana; the center opened in October 2012.
“If you don’t make that number (of sex customers), you’re going to dearly, dearly, severely pay for it,” Greenlee said. “I mean with beatings, I mean with over and over rapings. With just straight torture. The worst torture they put on you is when they make you watch the other girl get tortured because of your mistake.”
Sex and Super Bowls
In the past year, authorities in Louisiana have been working to raise awareness about the rampant sex trafficking that has historically accompanied the Super Bowl. While there is a widespread perception that human trafficking is a problem only in foreign countries, data from the U.S. Department of Justice show the average American prostitute begins working between the ages of 12 and 14.
Established in 2006, the Louisiana Human Trafficking Task Force, comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, plus faith-based and nongovernmental organizations, has been meeting regularly to try to increase trafficking arrests and rescue the victims.
As a tourist destination, New Orleans attracts sex workers year-round, said Bryan Cox, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans. But many of those young women are not here by choice. So, in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, both outreach and undercover efforts have ramped up.
Those efforts have paid off to some degree already. As of Thursday, at least eight men had been booked with sex trafficking and five female victims had been rescued from their clutches, Cox said, noting that such cases are investigated jointly by the New Orleans Police Department, State Police, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, among others.
Two of the women, ages 21 and 24, were brought to Covenant House, a homeless shelter for young people at the edge of the French Quarter, according to executive director James Kelly. After taking a shower and spending the night, however, the women left without accepting the services Kelly and others were trying to offer them.
“We believe they went back to turning tricks,” Kelly said. “We did our best to try to care for them and try to get them to stay, but they were 21 and 24, and there was no way we could force them to stay, and neither could the FBI.”
Such behavior is common, Greenlee said, noting that she had repeatedly returned to her captors after stays in the hospital or jail, mainly out of fear. She said many times, the women are brainwashed; they believe they have no other options, no future to pursue.
“They’re terrified,” she said. “You can say you’re going to save us, you can say we don’t have to worry about the pimps no more. We already know what power they have shown us. So either you come back to them, or you find out two days later they either got your grandmother or they just broke your little baby’s arm.
“There’s no such thing as we want to go back to these guys,” she said. “We do not feel that no one — not even the law — can protect us, and we do not want to die. I’d rather live in that misery and pain than to die.”
Messages on bars of soap
Aside from police sting operations, advocacy groups and local police agencies have been trying to combat the problem by handing out pamphlets to local hotel concierges, bartenders and club bouncers, asking them to be on the lookout for women who appear fearful and show signs of being controlled by the men they’re with. One of the signs a woman is being trafficked is that she is not allowed to speak for herself, advocates say.
Some groups have been handing out to hotels bars of soap that have a sex trafficking hotline phone number on them, hoping that women who are desperate to escape will see the number on the soap bar and take a chance on a phone call that could save them. Other groups have been providing strip clubs with posters that urge people to call in tips.
For Greenlee, her chance at a turnaround came from a similar help card in Nashville. Having run away from her captors in her 30s, she said, they did not chase after her because she had “aged out.” Living in an abandoned house in Nashville, shooting heroin with other junkies and prostituting herself, she had lost all hope of a normal life.
But one woman, a former sex worker who knew Greenlee and had graduated from Magdalene House, a safe house program in Nashville — the philosophy of which Eden House was based on — visited Greenlee almost weekly. She would leave little cards with the Magdalene House telephone number on them. But having given up, Greenlee shunned the woman and her cards.
After about five months of cards piling up, one day Greenlee woke up and realized she needed to take the chance. She was 42 years old. “I went to the phone and I pulled out some of them 99 pieces of paper that girl had left.
“The one thing I had in my head was, ‘If I learn how to live and heal, I can get back and get those girls. I can go back and tell people what they do to us,’” she said. “I’m not ashamed of what done happened to me. I don’t care if I never get a husband. It just don’t make no sense that we had to go through this.”
“It’s not as easy as saying, ‘Call this number, escape,’” said Kara Van De Carr, executive director of Eden House. “But women who have hit rock bottom and realize they’re going to die in that lifestyle will try anything to get out.”
Authorities urge those who suspect trafficking to contact local police or the Department of Homeland Security at 1.866.347.2423. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center also staffs a toll-free 24-hour hotline at 888-373-7888.
Trigger Warning. But a story that needs to be told and shared.
(via mysunshinesammy)
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A new documentary on "queer" identity, politics, and lived experience➜
Right now, my partner Jess Salgado and I are starting a queer film project called “Queering Boundaries,” and we need the help of the whole queer community!
It will be a short documentary on the term “queer” as an identity, politics, and lived experience. We are looking for people to help out in anyway they can—being interviewed, assisting with the actual filming, or connecting us to people who might be interested in the project. We especially want queer-identified folks who want to share their experience/understanding/personal definition of “queer.” You can read more about us and the film on our Facebook page. If you could post this to your page, that would be wonderful!
We’d appreciate any help we can get (note: we are located in the San Francisco Bay Area). Thanks!
P.S. Queering Boundaries is also on Twitter (@QueerThis) and Tumblr: queeringboundaries.tumblr.com.
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“Radical compassion, on the other hand, stands in solidarity with those who are suffering. It examines the interpersonal, systemic, institutional and structural reasons for suffering. It seeks to locate the individual sufferer within the greater social context. It understands that suffering is systemic and that those under more axises of oppression generally suffer more. Radical compassion seeks to challenge these causes of suffering and allows the sufferer the freedom to react and engage with their suffering in anyway that they see fit. In other words, those who are suffering are allowed to rage and scream and be angry and still receive compassion. Radical compassion does not pity the sufferer. Rather, it seeks to fight with the sufferer to end suffering. “
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“Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world. First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it? Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that? End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either? You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count? And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.) In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born! Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage? “Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.”
— In reply to a ‘pro-life’ blogger: STFU, Conservatives: When I say I’m pro-life… (via grrrltalk)
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Jimmy Kimmel: What if we forget? What if I forget to vote?
Michelle Obama: If you forget? Well, I have a plan for that, Jimmy.(via wickedclothes)
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He’s said federal disaster relief for flood victims is “immoral,” and “makes no sense at all.”
(via wickedclothes)
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A group of creative writing students risk everything to inspire change in their impoverished community.
“Romeo Is Bleeding (working title) is a documentary about young artists inspiring change in an impoverished city. The students of Richmond California’s creative writing group, RAW Talent (Richmond Artists With Talent), are no strangers to trauma. Their city is small but the homicide rate is abnormally high, with teens killing each other over turf divisions between North and Central Richmond. In a community so deeply entrenched in a cycle of retaliation, there are many dead-end streets and few positive outlets. Yet the students at RAW Talent have found their voices through spoken word poetry and are determined to change Richmond with their art.
The film will follow the students and staff of RAW Talent as they prepare their biggest show to date, Te’s Harmony, a modern re-telling of Romeo and Juliet set in Richmond. The Shakespearean masterpiece has been reworked into spoken word poetry and Richmond vernacular, creating an allegory for the conditions haunting Richmond and its youngest citizens. RAW Talent students see their own story reflected within this tragedy, and dare to believe in a different ending.
Leading RAW Talent in its efforts is Donte Clark, RAW Talent’s first member and greatest success story. Donte turned his life around after being introduced to poetry, transforming from a troubled student into a community leader and role model. Now Donte is the Assistant Director of RAW Talent, a teacher, and the playwright behind RAW Talent’s adaptation.
Donte has devoted his life to creating a peaceful Richmond, because he has experienced first hand how violence and trauma can derail young lives. Along with the rest of the RAW Talent staff, Donte works every day to change the inner-city perspective of masculinity and end the cycle of violence in Richmond. Undeterred by the dangers associated with being the voice of peace, Donte continues to inspire change through his art, and the succesfful production of Te’s Harmony would represent his greatest achievement yet.”
(via abiosis-apoptosis)
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i’m worried that young people who support obama and turn the debates into like memes and shit aren’t actually going to vote. like it doesn’t matter how you feel or how many gifs you post. you actually have to vote or it won’t count for anything in the end.
Too true. I hope ya’ll are registered to vote! I am!
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➜When the presidential debates are on, I hide in my bed reading Lord of the Rings. I know how that one ends. The Dark Lord doesn’t win.Margaret Atwood, Speaking at Princeton University on 10/16/2012
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Obama’s odds of winning the election if it were held today have plummeted from a peak of 98.1% two weeks ago to a 56.1% chance now. This election is definitely not going to be an easy victory for Democrats. The odds of us hearing “President Romney” next month are all too likely.
Ok, folks! You better get out there and vote next month! My future is counting on it. If Romney is elected, we may have to move out of the country just to be treated like human beings.
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➜I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this “In order to love you, I must make you something else”. That’s what domination is all about, that in order to be close to you, I must possess you, remake and recast you.
bell hooks, Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies
Just wanted to share this quote, in light of having read something that truly disturbed me. Though we may have been hurt by people and politics in our past, that is no reason to turn on them with a volley of public insults. No real dialog can happen in that kind of situation, only defensive and painful statements. To strip someone so bare before strangers—she was so graceful in her replies, and yet you insulted her to the very core of her identity, this person who had been your friend up to that moment. No learning can happen if you only surround yourself with people just like you. You cannot bend everyone to your opinions if you have no eyes and no ears for other people’s experience. That is being just as closed-minded as the people you rail against. If you are so hateful to your past, that hate just multiplies inside you. It is that past that has shaped you—why don’t you try to look at the possibilities of re-shaping those painful memories, rather than throwing everything and everyone out associated with them? Your utter scorn and disrespect gives no credibility to your “collegiate education.” I am so ashamed.
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Just a few months ago, a Michigan state representative was banned from speaking on her own legislature’s floor after saying “vagina.” In Virginia, a squeamish lawmaker simply called it “V.” This year, several states also enacted laws mandating that abstinence be stressed in sex education classes, bringing to 26 the total number of states with such policies. Meanwhile, Todd “legitimate rape” Akin schooled us in medieval biology. ‘Nuff said.
Somehow, we’ve arrived at a place where euphemisms are preferable, ignorance is tolerated, and politicians are seeking to turn back the clock on a woman’s right to dictate the terms of her personal and professional future.
So, in recognition of World Contraception Day, we put together this slideshow. Pulled from archives at the National Institutes of Health, these vintage contraception ads from around the globe date back as far as 1969. They tell it like it is—with humor, a few tacky hairdos, and a bluntness that will surely please anyone who’s tired of the talk-arounds.
From Mother Jones
(via sextoysinthenews)
