Michael Harriot at The Root reviews research from the ‘tell me something I don’t know’ department:
A new study in the budding academic field of spending valuable research dollars to prove stuff we already know has exposed the little-known fact that racism exists in the education sector.
Tulane University’s Education Research Alliance for New Orleans released a study examining discipline records from Louisiana’s Department of Education and found startling disparities in the way black students were treated when compared to white children.
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Tony Rehagen, at Pacific Standard, profiles a young Native American hip-hop artist, who is trying to dispel misconceptions and myths about Native Americans in the real world of now:
He speaks softly into the microphone, first in his native Lakota, then in English: “Hello, relatives. My Lakota name is Walks With Young People. I also go by Frank Waln. And I welcome you with an open heart and an open handshake.”…
Waln, the headliner, is something different. After his introduction, he is joined by the Sampson Bros., Sam and Micco, performance artists whose faces are painted colorfully beneath full and uttering Native dance regalia. Waln bends to his laptop, triggering a barrage of hip-hop beats that blasts across the venue. As the Sampsons dance to the music, the diminutive Waln springs into action, grabbing the mic from its stand and spitting lyrics at the crowd. Pain and anger are palpable in his voice as he bobs and weaves and hacks at the air with his free hand, fighting some unseen onstage foe.
The enemy is ignorance, which reveals itself plainly in Waln’s new song “What Makes the Red Man Red,” his send-up of the racist tune “What Made the Red Man Red” from Disney’s 1953 film Peter Pan. Waln’s song samples the tune’s chorus and the film’s offhand references to Native Americans as “aborigines” and “Indians.” That is, before Waln drowns them out with a sharp verse.
Your history books (lies)
Your holidays (lies)
Thanksgiving lies and Columbus Day
Tell me why I know more than the teacher
Tell me why I know more than the preacher
Tell me why you think the red man is red
Stained with the blood from the land you bled
Tell me why you think the red man is dead
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Latino Rebels posted this message from Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and a true American hero:
My name is Carmen Yulín Cruz and I am honored to be mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Two months ago, devastated our island. We have no food, no water, no electricity and we were unable to take care of the most weakened amongst us. We thought help was on its way, but the Trump administration wasn’t up to the standards. They simply didn’t do their job and they didn’t treat the people of Puerto Rico with the respect and dignity that we deserve. Now the Congress of he United States continues to impose crippling policies on Puerto Rico. A 20 percent excise tax which will raise the cost of imports of Puerto Rican products will continue to devastate our economy. Inequality, an impoverishment of our population is the rule of the day. So I want to thank everybody on the Unity March for Puerto Rico for having one voice in one country and for letting the world know that we are not forgotten. We need the help, but most of all, we need the big heart of the American people, to pour itself into Congress and to the Trump administration and tell them no, we are not done and we will not be done until everybody in Puerto Rico has been treated with respect and dignity. Thank you for not forgetting us. Thank you for keeping the spirit and the fight. Thank you for keeping Puerto Rico alive.
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Barbara Sostaita, reporting for Feministing, gives us the story of María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, an indigenous woman running for president of Mexico (which is in itself a life-threatening political gesture for those not part of the corrupt government/cartel alliance):
A 53-year-old indigenous woman is running for president of Mexico. María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, known to most as “Marichuy,” is a traditional Nahua healer from southern Jalisco, and could become the first indigenous woman elected to Mexico’s highest office…
Indigenous communities in Mexico still suffer from the corporate destruction of their ancestral lands, environmental degradation, and limited access to healthcare, employment, and education. While Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto portrays himself as a champion of indigenous rights and boasts about investing a record 21.5 billion pesos in infrastructure for indigenous peoples, the recent earthquakes in Mexico City revealed the deep inequalities that continue to exist. The southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas were among the hardest-hit and slowest to rebuild after the disaster. They also have some of the largest indigenous populations in the country and already suffer from inadequate infrastructure and severe poverty…
Even after centuries of attempts by the state to erase and eliminate their voices, Marichuy’s candidacy demonstrates that indigenous peoples in the Americas continue to fight for self-determination. The campaign is a long shot – Marichuy needs to collect 866,593 signatures in 17 states to be included on the ballot as an independent candidate.
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Will Kohler, at the website back2stonewall (‘We’re Here, We’re Queer, F@#king Deal With It’), tells us the lives of LGBT Russians are becoming worse by the day:
‘Hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Russia have doubled in five years, researchers said on Tuesday, in the wake of a law banning “gay propaganda”.
Murders accounted for almost 200 out of 250 crimes analyzed...’
In 2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law the draconian anti-gay bill banning the promotion of “homosexual propaganda.” Putin attempted to downplay accusations of anti-gay bigotry by claiming sexual minorities are “full fledged members of our society and are not being discriminated against in any way.”
Only 65 out of the 250 crimes were prosecuted.
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Caitlin Doyle-Markwick, writing for Overland, explains the economic framework of male domination, which creates the conditions for sexual assault, harassment and discrimination:
The general response to this perpetual crisis of abuse falls far short of offering any answers for how to understand and, more importantly, how to challenge the systemic sexist abuse that #MeToo highlights. But as so many have already said, we cannot respond to the courage of so many women to speak out by throwing up our hands and blaming sexism on human nature or a nebulous notion of patriarchy. We have to be able to point a way forward that goes beyond individual solutions and deals with the economic system that produces sexism.
It is important that we challenge the sexist ideas of men – and women – that is undeniable. But that cannot be the beginning and end point in the fight against sexism. And it cannot be the beginning and end of our analysis of sexism. All too often the despair that this approach generates leads to calls for punitive measures that have been shown consistently to fail. Of course, victims are entitled to justice. But again, this does nothing to deal with the root of the problem…
Absent from the discussion so far has been the question of the basic economic conditions that, time and time and time again, allow women to be placed in situations of vulnerability and subordination. While bourgeois feminism (absorbed into mainstream discourse in recent decades) focuses almost exclusively on individual success, questions of economics have fallen by the wayside in this discussion.
As I try to emphasize— economic justice and social justice are intertwined.
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Priyanka Borpujari, in The Diplomat, (which bills itself as ‘ the premier international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region) reports on the increasing frequency and destructiveness of flooding in India due to global warming:
This year, floods in Bihar killed 370 people and rendered more than 12 million homeless. And this unpredictable pattern of heavy rains, stagnant water, and flooding during non-monsoon months has been constant evidence of climate change in India. Equally rearing its ugly head is drought: nearly 25 percent of districts across India experienced heavy rainfall in just a matter of hours, even as 40 percent of districts faced drought this year.
previous Alternative Voices Roundup compilations:
Alternative Voices Roundup: Other voices around the net.
Alternative Voices Roundup: Other voices around the net. (Oct. 29, 2017)
Alternative Voices Roundup: Other voices around the net. (Nov. 6, 2017)
Alternative Voices Roundup: Other voices around the net. (Nov. 12, 2017)
Alternative Voices Roundup: Other voices around the net. (Nov. 19, 2017)