Yanar Mohammed Reports on the Protests and Revolutions for Freedom

image is from here

All that follows is from MADRE News website, *here*.

The Day of Iraqi Rage

Posted on: Thursday, March 3, 2011

Keywords: Iraq, Middle East

We just received the following update from Yanar Mohammed, the director of our partner organization in Iraq, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). She writes about the spread of demonstrations from the wider region into Iraqi cities and about the violent tactics that Iraqi security forces are using against protestors.

---

Last Friday, February 25, was a historic day in Iraq. The revolution earthquakes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya sent shockwaves in our direction.

(Photo at left: Yanar Mohammed, OWFI Director)The main squares of most Iraqi cities were filled with protestors raising the same demands of providing electricity, employment, an end to governmental corruption, and a plea for general freedoms.

Although the government announced a curfew and closed all streets from vehicular movement, and the highest religious clerics discouraged the people from protesting, almost 70,000 people gathered in the main squares in all of Iraq, united around their main demands.

For the first time in eight years, the demonstration united people of different religions, ethnicities, sects, and political affiliations to denounce the extreme and continuous corruption and demand a share for the people in the countries resources from oil.

OWFI plays a role in the political participation of women within movements for national freedoms and liberties in Iraq. Although our numbers are small when compared to the huge demonstrating masses, the purpose was to help organize some of the freedom-loving youth groups which had started from facebook, but grew and multiplied in February. OWFI was one of the organizers of the demonstrations in Baghdad and Samarra raising slogans of change, right to work, and of course, equality.

--------

Al Tahrir Demonstration in Baghdad

Although the demo was announced as a peaceful one, the security forces ended it at 5pm by throwing sound bombs, splashing hot water, shooting plastic bullets, and live bullets at the demonstrators.

When we would not move, but chant slogans of relentless struggle, the security trucks began to drive down the square to chase and shoot us with live bullets, and beat up many of the demonstrators who fled into the alleys surrounding Al Tahrir square. One of our male supporters was shot in the knee, while two others were beaten by the US-trained anti-riot police and the Iraqi army. Almost 20 people were shot in that day around the square, although the announced numbers were much less. Some died while the wounded were detained.

For those of us who ran to safety, we had to walk 5 hours in order to reach our homes in streets where cars were not allowed to drive.

-----

In the western city of Samarra, OWFI women and men were leading the demonstrators, and raising banners demanding support for the widows who are a majority among the women of Samarra. It was a precedent for a tribal community protest to be led by women.

At the same time in most Iraqi cities, the army shot the demonstrators in the evening, attempting to disperse the demonstrators. 7 were killed in this city, while 15 were wounded.

-----

Demonstrations happened in parallel in the Kurdish North and the South, making it clear that nobody cared for the artificially created division lines of sunni, shia, Arab, Kurd, Turkmen, etc… It was a day of a unified struggle against corruption, oppression, basic rights and freedoms.

-----

While most demonstrating groups carried banners demanding reform of the government, the shooting and harassment of the demonstrators by anti-riot police and by the army shifted the slogans toward ones which rejected the oppressive measures.

------

OWFI had carried the banner of "change" since the beginning of the demonstration, and advised groups of cooperating youth demonstrators to do the same. The opposition media picked up the slogan and announced it on local TVs:"…that OWFI activist Yanar Mohammed will demand (Change) in the coming demonstration next Friday."

------

We are organizing for the coming Friday, hoping that the streets will be open, and that the army will let us into Al Tahrir square after 30 hours from now.


Wish us good luck,

Yanar Mohammed

Photos:

[Yanar also sent the videos below with this note: "please take a look at the short video clips we took of the demonstration before the shooting. We were still smiling as the shooting had not begun."]

You Can't Inspire, Sustain, or Spell Revolution Without LOVE

photo of James Baldwin is from here

photo of Audre Lorde is from here

photo of Andrea Dworkin is from here

What follows is written with gratitude and love to James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987), Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992), Andrea Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005), and Chrystos (born November 7, 1946), whose photo appears below.

And to She who speaks wisdom, whether I listen to Her or not.

One my deepest frustrations about white and male people--including myself--is our inability or unwillingness to ground our political actions in radical love. Radical politics must have a root spiritual base, because the struggles will always been more challenging than we can endure. And so we need forces beyond our individual selves to access when we are feeling or are beaten down.

photo of Malalai Joya is from here

photo of Yanar Mohammed is from here

photo of Vandana Shiva is from here

I've seen revolutionary activists who act with love. Malalai Joya and Yanar Mohammed are among them. So too is Vandana Shiva. I call upon the love found in the work of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Audrea Dworkin; I keep their spirits and their work in my heart. They transformed rage into a deep loving regard for humanity. It was still rageful, at times, but not without love as its base. I'm not saying they didn't hurt, exploit, or abuse anyone. I know better. But in their life-long radical political practice, they made sure to keep a profound respect and deep regard for humanity as a foundational revolutionary value.

Sometimes I wonder if part of the pact whites and men make in order to maintain their whiteness and manhood (or whatever I, as intergender, hold in myself) is that we give up our capacity to love, deeply, radically, and in ways that will support and sustain revolutionary action. Because what I see is that we whites, for example, too often use disagreement as a way to disconnect. And there's too little love to be found in the oppressive institutions we passively and actively support.

There will always be compelling reasons to part company. And we will always have reasons to turn away from one another, in hurt, in anger, while triggered, when too tired to speak what needs to be said to move forward towards healing. But we cannot afford to not move forward, more deeply into ourselves, in community, if we are to create a movement that can resist the forces of the white Master. When we are using  and holding tight to all the most anti-humane tools of the white Master, we can be sure he will continue to rule our lives and destroy the lives of those of us with fewer privileges and dominant social visibility.

In North and Central America, African American, Caribbean, Latina, Asian, and Indigenous women are systematically disappearing without regard or notice from whites and men. This gross human destruction is due, often enough, to men's and whites' violence and our refusal to join forces with Black and Brown women globally to intervene and stop the atrocities which appear in many forms.

Girls and women across ethnicity are incested, battered, raped, trafficked, and enslaved by men--of all races. Why do men, collectively, care so little about this? Is it really because men need some women to be tortured and terrorised, exploited and violated, in order to have a good life as men define it?

This is not to say that people of color have some God/dess-given ability to love. To survive being oppressed and abused, we often absorb society's messages about us, too often open- or close-hand delivered by our alleged loved ones--family members and people in our communities. This lack of love may be delivered with looks and tones of voice that lack compassion, care, regard, and respect. And internalised oppression and self-hatred are viciously successful means through which the oppressor maintains his rule.

But class and race privileged do make disconnection into a kind of sign of righteousness, I find. I see that in the white blogosphere, and offline also. If you're REALLY radical, you'll shut up, shut down, or shut out those who disagree with you. You'll cut people out of your life so swiftly because, well, you can afford to do so.

I know from some of the women of color in my life that this "deleting" of people is a luxury many women of color cannot afford. To cut people out is, often enough, to be entirely without support--however uneven that support is. And with no friends there is also no institutional support. In a society that is founded on your invisibility or that requires your slavery, imprisonment, destruction, or death, without human contact there isn't much else. There's no summer home with a room of one's own in which to write and gaze out at the sea. There's no police force that isn't terroristic. There's no court system that wants to see you and justice meet. Every white-man-made institution is designed to make women of color do the hardest work of all people for the benefit of the very few who do not ever have to work so hard, collectively. Exhaustion and exasperation doesn't make love easy.

So why is it that whites and men are so versed in uncompassionate action when we are disproportionately cared for and about by other people? When we have more social resources with which to take care of ourselves? When we make all kinds of pacts to stick together when challenged by women of color but not so much when we challenge each other?

Watching the news, seeing the revolutionary struggles that have been occurring with amazing bravery and compassion for one's citizens being oppressed, I am reminded of how much love is missing from the more privileged classes of people who might join forces with the most disenfranchised among us.

I'll pray to the Goddess that somehow, She will lead us to each other across difference, across disagreement, and across the divides that become chasms and mass graves most often for those of us who are neither white nor male.

photo of Chrystos is from here

Chrystos once said to me, after an embrace, "Make beautiful things."

Disrespect and disharmony aren't all that beautiful, are they? While honesty requires telling truths that can be unintentionally hurtful, it ought not require any willfully harmful action. Goddess help me understand the difference, with what I do and what I receive that others do.

Goddess be with me and help me through my triggered states of being. Goddess bless me, and those working for a better, more beautiful world. Goddess inform my choices about how to act towards my enemies, my friends, and all our relations.

"The Afghan War is Brutal, Expensive, Unpopular, and Ineffective" by Sonali Kolhatkar

photograph of Sonali Kolhatkar is from here

What part of the article that follows does the U.S. Government not understand?
 

What follows was found *here*.

Published on Thursday, March 3, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

The Afghan War is Brutal, Expensive, Unpopular, and Ineffective – So Why Are We Spending Billions on It?

Leading Afghan Feminist Wants the U.S. and NATO to Leave Her Nation

by Sonali Kolhatkar

"The sad truth is that Obama’s war policies have turned out to be even more of a nightmare than I expected.” – Malalai Joya, A Woman Among Warlords

While millions of Americans are experiencing unemployment, wage stagnation, rising tuition, dwindling social services, and poverty at levels not seen since the Great Depression, an unjustifiably large proportion of our taxes are being used to cause death and destruction in Afghanistan. With Afghanistan being the longest war the U.S. has ever officially waged, we should carefully examine the costs of the war - financial and otherwise - and ask ourselves, is it really worth it?

 
Afghan activist and former Member of Parliament, Malalai Joya, wants the U.S. and NATO out of her country. She will soon embark on a new US speaking tour to help reinvigorate the war debate.

The war costs taxpayers between $500,000 to $1 million per soldier in Afghanistan every year. Since President Obama deployed thousands of more troops than Bush, the escalating war has come with a bloated price tag. So far, we have spent $336 billion on the war, and if Congress approves a request for additional funding, that number will go up to $455.4 billion – nearly half a trillion dollars. According to CostofWar.com, just the $120 billion in additional funding could fund 1.6 million elementary school teachers for a year, 1.9 million firefighters for a year, or $5,550 Pell Grants for 19.3 million students. A single month’s expenses on the Afghanistan war could pay for 46.9 billion meals for the hungry each month. Six months’ worth of Afghanistan war expenses could pay for school supplies for every single child in the world.

In addition to its financial price, the Afghanistan war is costing real human lives. Over the course of the entire war, at least 1,400 U.S. troops have been killed and over 10,000 wounded. The rate of deaths is also increasing, as more than a third of the total troops killed (499) died just during the past year. The price paid by ordinary Afghans is even greater. Not counting so-called insurgents, at least 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 were wounded in just the first 10 months of last year – these are most likely conservative estimates. The rate of Afghan civilian deaths is up 20 percent compared to the year before, directly corresponding to the increased troop levels under President Obama. In fact, over the course of the war, U.S.-led military actions have resulted in more direct civilian deaths (5,791 - 9,060) than “insurgent”-led actions (4,949 - 6,499).

Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan has no more legitimacy than Egypt’s embattled Mubarak regime. The 2009 elections in which President Hamid Karzai claimed victory were condemned internationally as fraudulent. Released documents showed that 100% of votes from dozens of polling places in provinces like Kandahar were for Karzai. Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission received thousands of complaints of fraud. Journalists easily purchased voter registration cards on the black market. Despite documentary evidence of criminal activity implicating top government officials and Karzai himself, the U.S. continues to legitimize the central government as the only alternative to the Taliban. There is also little criticism beyond vague assertions of “corruption” of members of the Afghan Parliament. Many Afghan MPs have a history of bloody war crimes, particularly during the post-Soviet era of the early 1990’s when tens of thousands of civilians were maimed, raped, and killed often with U.S.-supplied weapons. Today, those same men, considered the Taliban’s ideological brethren, control private militias, suck up millions of dollars of aid for their private gain, terrorize civilians, and are neck-deep in the drug trade.

It is no wonder then that leading Afghan activist and former Member of Parliament, Malalai Joya, wants the U.S. and NATO out of her country. Having come face-to-face with the brutality of war and the power that U.S.-backed war criminals wield, Joya has been demanding an end to the occupation for years. In her book, A Woman Among Warlords, just out in paperback, Joya explains the situation of ordinary Afghans: “[w]e are caught between two enemies – the Taliban on one side and the U.S./NATO forces and their warlord allies on the other.” She goes on to say that “for our people, Obama is a warmonger, like Bush. He follows the same disastrous policies, only with much more determination and force.”

Joya is the most outspoken Afghan to have been elected to Afghanistan’s Parliament. She is beloved by her people for daring to speak out against U.S.-backed war criminals that dominate the government and is targeted by those very warlords. In fact, Joya has survived at least 4 assassination attempts. She represents a majority of Afghans that want neither a foreign occupation with its fundamentalist lackeys in government nor their enemies the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Despite this, her opinions are rarely reflected in U.S. media.

By most accounts, violence is increasing. According to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), attacks in Helmand and Kandahar rose by 124% and 20% last year compared to 2009. Furthermore, the violence has now spread to parts of the previously more peaceful North and East, but the U.S. military and its spokespeople continue to cast their failures as successes. For example, in a recent letter to U.S. troops, General David Petraeus said, “Throughout the past year, you and our Afghan partners worked together to halt a downward security spiral in much of the country and to reverse it in some areas of great importance.” He went on to cite specific progress in the Afghan capital Kabul as well as the traditional Taliban strongholds of the Helmand and Kandahar provinces, ignoring the fact that the number of attacks there are increasing. The ANSO, which provides security advice for organizations operating on the ground in Afghanistan, said in its quarterly report, “No matter how authoritative the source of any such claim [of progress], messages of this nature are solely intended to influence American and European public opinion.” As Malalai Joya says in her book, “It is all a lie – dust in the eyes of the world.”

Like Malalai Joya, most Afghans are painfully aware of the war’s spiral into violence and mayhem: a November 2010 survey by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research found that favorable opinions of the U.S. have hit an all-time low of 43% among Afghans. More than twice as many Afghans now blame the U.S. and NATO for violence compared to a year ago. Afghans are also less optimistic about the availability of jobs and economic opportunities, freedom of movement, and the rights of women compared to a year earlier. Americans share the Afghan opinion that the troops should leave. A CNN Opinion Research poll last December found that 63% now oppose the war.

In the last chapter of her book, Joya details her recommendations on how the world can really help Afghans, the first of which is to the end the U.S.-NATO war. She also explains the real humanitarian needs of the Afghan people that the international community could fulfill, and how this would have to go hand-in-hand with disarmament, especially of the warlords that have enjoyed foreign support for so long. Finally, Joya ardently demands all foreign troops to withdraw from her country, making a strong case for how any outbreak of civil war could be minimized through responsible international diplomacy.

According to Joya, “the truth about Afghanistan has been hidden behind a smoke screen of words and images carefully crafted by the United States and its NATO allies and repeated without question by the Western media.” Joya will speak directly to American audiences this spring in a nationwide tour intended to expose the brutality and futility of the war and clear the smoke screen. Her speaking tour comes ahead of a major push by antiwar activists to organize bi-coastal events protesting the Afghanistan war on April 9th and 10th 2011. Starting in mid-March, Joya will begin her tour in New York. From there, she heads to New Jersey, Washington D.C., Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington state, and California. Joya’s tour will culminate with her participation in San Francisco’s April 10th Antiwar Demonstration. Details of Malalai Joya’s Spring 2011 tour are online at www.afghanwomensmission.org.

Joya’s words can help Americans clear the “dust from our eyes” and face the reality that for all our sakes, the Afghanistan war must end sooner rather than later.
 

Sonali Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a US-based non-profit that supports women's rights activists in Afghanistan. Sonali is also co-author of "Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence." She is the host and producer of Uprising, a nationally syndicated radio program with the Pacifica Network.

Got Cash? Money can't buy me love but it's what you'll need to get a Green Card and become a U.S. citizen. Details below.

John Lennon's Green Card. Image is from here

Then President Richard Nixon didn't want John Lennon to be a permanent resident of the U.S. He wanted him out of the country. Nixon and his government thugs worked very hard to get him out because they feared John could be a leader of radical revolutionary movements to end corrupt and horrendously murderous military actions in Southeast Asia being defended and promoted by Nixon. They lost, but it took a long, expensive battle for John to be able to live here, until he was assassinated by a white man who was free to travel from Hawai'i to New York, no problem.

Money speaks. It is fluent in many languages.
Money keeps people from being homeless.
Money keeps people from being poor.
Money purchases food, water, and health care.
Money keeps people from being exploited and assaulted in various ways.

If you're poor, where you can go, what you can do, where you can visit, vacation, take holiday, is all very limited. I remember reading a book by a Black Caribbean woman (I can't find the book. It was either by Michelle Cliff or Jamaica Kincaid. It may be a written piece recited by Ms. Kincaid in the must-see movie, Life and Debt. It may be in Ms. Cliff's book, Abeng.) But the writing described, quite emotionally and effectively, the experience of a woman, a woman who was poor, Black, and Caribbean, who was watching white tourists get off a cruise ship, not feeling resentment so much as a longing to be able to travel on a cruise ship some day. (If anyone knows the work, please email me or submit it as a comment to this blog post.)

One privilege, or form of institutionalised, regionalised power is the ability to move about. From place to place. To move from one region to another. To leave one's own country or return to it. Ableism isn't only an issue of getting from home to car to office building. Or from building to street. It may be a matter of getting off the street, after years of living on it. Or a matter of getting safely away from a child molester, batterer, or serial rapist who gave you his last name. Or out of a country that has targeted you and your people to be harassed and murdered.

As you glance over the privileges or entitlements offered below, ask yourself: Which people in the U.S., or anywhere else in the world, have them? Black people? Brown people? Muslim people? Indigenous people? Asian people--particularly Central Asian people? Women across ethnicity? Children? Trafficked and enslaved people? Poor people? Working class people?

What follows is from here: http://usimmigration.visapro.com/EB5.asp

I.	Benefits of the Green Card: EB-5

A.	You have unlimited right to live anywhere in the U.S.

B.	You do not require an employment authorization to accept employment

C.	You can develop and run your own business

D.	You do not need a family member or employer to sponsor you

E.	You can sponsor Green Cards for your relatives

F.	You can become a U.S. citizen once you have been a permanent resident for more than five years

II.	Requirements for the Green Card: EB-5
	You may be eligible for Green Card through investment by having invested or be in the process of investing the required amount of money in a new commercial enterprise in the U.S. The investment must benefit the U.S. economy and create the requisite number of full-time jobs for qualified persons within the U.S.

A.	Creating a New Commercial Enterprise
	You may create a new commercial enterprise by:
	1.  Creating an original business 2.  Purchasing an existing business and simultaneously or subsequently restructuring or reorganizing the business such that a new commercial enterprise results 3.  Expanding an existing business by 140 per cent of the pre-investment number of jobs or net worth, or retaining all existing jobs in a troubled business that has lost 20 per cent of its net worth over the past 12 to 24 months

B.	Investing in a New Commercial Enterprise
	You must have invested or be actively in the process of investing at least $1,000,000 in the new commercial enterprise, unless the investment is to be made in a targeted employment area, in which case the investment must be at least $500,000

C.	Benefit the U.S. Economy and Create Jobs
	Your engagement in a new commercial enterprise must benefit the U.S. economy and:
	1.  Create full-time employment for not fewer than ten qualified individuals, or 2.  Maintain the number of existing employees at no less than the pre-investment level for a period of at least two years, where the capital investment is being made in a "troubled business," which is a business that has been in existence for at least two years and that has lost 20 per cent of its net worth over the past 12 to 24 months

What does "Hispanic" mean from an American Indigenous perspective?

image is from here

There is a discussion of Indigenism here, but to me it is too located in an understanding of Indigenism as part of a larger non-Indigenous spiritual movement. Correctly or not, I prefer to see Indigenism as its own phenomenon, defined on its own terms, not measured against anglo-, euro-, or white-centric concepts and politics:

http://goddrinksbeer.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/indigenism-and-native-revivalism/ 

Race, ethnicity, culture, nation, country, regional affiliation, affiliations by language and ancestry, all factor into how people identify themselves, with the exception of some whites, who have this whole purity complex going on that often results in grim and gruesome atrocities like slavery, ghettoisation, and genocide.

In the U.S. the term "Hispanic" has many meanings and is considered respectful and disrespectful, depending on who you speak with. Depending on who you are. Depending on your privileges, raced power, and history of exclusion or destruction by Anglo-, European-, and/or white-identified people.

What seems obvious, is  that white-identified people will do their best to fuck over everyone else to promote a rather sick and predatory idea of their own supremacy. Currently, this is a distinctly Western European and North American phenomenon--with variations in the UK and Australia. A friend in Spain who identifies as Hispanic, who is of Eastern European, Dominican, and Puerto Rican heritage, has been informing me of how very different 'race' issues are in Spain compared to the U.S. I remember hearing from someone in Greece who also informed me he wasn't "white". (He was not Indigenous, Asian, Brown, or Black.) At the time, I found this to be a kind of privilege-denial typical of whites. But I'm increasingly realising that the race system we have here in the U.S. not only doesn't apply to other parts of the world, but it isn't appropriate to overlay our race-terms on people in other regions.

To give one example of how problematic it becomes to apply U.S. terms to the world, here in the U.S. "Black" is generally synonymous with "being of sub-Saharan African descent". But in Australia, "Black" may refer to the Indigenous or First People of Australia. And, needless to say, the Indigenous people of Australia are not from Africa.

"Brown" is a term that is increasingly used here by me to refer to people of many ethnicities, ancestries, nations, and regions. At this point, "Black and Brown", to me, refers to most everyone on Earth. It refers to the people who are the majority population. It is inclusive of people of African, Asian, and Indigenous Nations or continents. The first people of the Americas, for example, are brown people. They are not, in terms of hue of skin, "red". The term "red" is controversial, for good reason. "Redskins" in particular, is a term which physically disgusts me. I find it disgusting and repugnant that U.S. sports teams and the U.S. media still exploit this term and invisibilise past and current genocide by doing so. From Wikipedia, on "Redskin":

Historic use

The term was a myth used throughout the English-speaking world (and in equivalent transliterations in Europe) throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a common term of reference for indigenous Americans. The term was once in common use, as evidenced in Western movies, but is now largely considered a pejorative and is seldom used publicly (aside from the football team - see below). As with any term perceived to be discriminatory, different individuals may hold differing opinions of the term's appropriateness.

The terms "Red People" and "Red Skinned" have also been used to refer to the people of the Indian sub-continent (Wells).

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the term "redskin" came from the reddish skin color of some Native Americans, as in the terms red Indian and red man, and the OED cites instances of its usage in English dating back to the 17th century (and cites a use of red in reference to skin color from 1587). Multiple theories fight for prominence as to the true historical origin of the word 'redskin.' One theory, mentioned above, is that the term was meant as merely a physical indicator, similar to the words "white" and "black" for Caucasians and Africans, respectively. Another theory holds that it was first used by Native Americans during the 1800s as a way of distinguishing themselves from the ever-growing white population. An often mentioned third but not proven origin involves the bloody skins (red-skins) of Native people as "prizes," in which they would be scalped after battle and their skins bought and sold in local towns. To date there is no historical documentation or evidence to support this theory.

Many Indigenous people in the U.S. do identify positively and meaningfully with the term "Red". See, for example, this book by Vine Deloria Jr., God is Red: A Native View of Religion. I support any people who are struggling to survive white oppression and racist oppression, naming themselves/ourselves, and controlling and promoting their own programs and agendas for liberation.

White supremacy is not the only form of race supremacy in the world, but I'd argue it is the most globalised and genocidal. While in other regions of the world there are racist ideologies not organised around a notion of whiteness, it appears to me to be the case that nowhere in the world are white people facing genocide or endangered collectively due to racism. (Unless, perhaps by white racism and white supremacist genocidal practices which may kill everyone on Earth.)

"Whiteness", to me, is unequivocally and undeniably the most vicious 'race'. Manufactured and consolidated by Western European men, it was formed and promoted as some kind of ethnic/blood Truth. It is a racial identity that comes with an obsession with "purity". I am also finding that among white activists, there is a kind of enforcement or collective anxiety about political purity. Always problematic for us whites, this matter of impurity. And we'll go on and on mass murdering Black and Brown people who are not willing to become "white" or "european-identified" in one way or another. And even when they do, we want them dead, or working for us, or we want what exists inside the parcels of earth that is their homeland.

I really like this video. On YouTube it is titled:

Do American Indians Look "Hispanic" or Do "Hispanics" Look American Indian?

Good news but also Tragic and Sad News: The Atlanta Woman Who Had Not Been Identified Has Been, By Her Mother, The deceased young woman's name is Thandiwe Hunt. She was 20 years old.

Portrait of Thandiwe Hunt, 20, (died 2011) is from here. (Thanks to Renee for posting this.)

Two days ago I posted a very tragic and urgent message that an African American woman who was found dead in a wooded area in Atlanta was not yet identified. An investigator contacted me--she contacted many people, actually, and I reported on this here: http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2011/02/feminist-action-alert-please-help.html.

So I sent that link and related links from Atlanta to many bloggers and activists. Only one woman replied. That was Renee @ Womanist Musings. I want to publicly thank Renee for her concern and regard for this deceased woman and her living loved ones. This was Renee's post: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2011/02/do-you-know-this-woman.html

No one else responded to me to let me know whether or not they posted this anywhere. (Not one white activist.) But even more shocking news from the investigator, a very compassionate woman, was that no one but me responded to her emails at all! What the hell is THAT all about????? (Yeah, we know what that is all about.)

The update is that this deceased woman has been identified by her mother. With what gratitude there can be in this situation, we can be grateful she has plenty of support around her. Thank you to all who said prayers.

Here is the latest press release. [Source: here]

Deceased Black Female Identified


The Fulton County Medical Examiner has identified the deceased black female found near Park Avenue SW in Atlanta on February 2, 2011. She is Thandiwe Hunt, a 20-year-old. Investigation continues into the cause, manner, and circumstances of death.

Posted by:
Randy Hanzlick, MD
Chief Medical Examiner, Fulton County
Posted at 715am, March 1, 2011

Charlie Sheen, Hugh Hefner, Piers Morgan, Dr. Drew, and Dr. Phil: The Sad, Sexist State of U.S. Television

Breaking news on Charlie Sheen: Brooke Mueller, his ex-wife, has files a restraining order against him.
For more, see:
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2011/03/01/2011-03-01_brooke_mueller_files_restraining_order_against_estranged_husband_charlie_sheen_t.html

Posted prior to above news:
Have you seen THIS print ad featuring Piers Morgan? It's about as absurd a print campaign as any I've seen, and that's say a whole lot! I would have thought this was some kind of SNL send-up of Piers Morgan, but no. He does it all by himself.

Celebrity news

Piers Morgan strips for Burger King's new meat scent

Burger King, the fast food chain, has launched a meat-scented cologne in Britain with Britian's Got Talent's Piers Morgan stripping off for the advertising campaign.

Image 1 of 2

Piers Morgan strips for Burger King's new meat scent 

Image 1 of 2

Flame is available in Selfridge's department store for £4.99 

8:29AM BST 15 Jun 2009 

The "masculine" body spray reputedly smells like grilled beef and has been designed to boost the libido.

Called Flame, it is available in Selfridge's department store for £4.99 from today.

The meaty cologne, which was released in the United States last year, is the latest in a long line of eye-catching publicity stunts by the chain.

The firm offered burger vouchers to Facebook users who delete ten people from their friends list as part of its Whopper Sacrifice promotion.

Flame is being advertised in Britain with a revealing photo of Britain's Got Talent panellist Morgan lounging in front of a fire with only a stretch of fabric to cover his modesty. A caption beneath reads: "The scent of seduction". [source: here]

TRIGGER WARNING for what follows next: for discussion about predatory sexually abusive behavior by a young man, including against his two-year old daughter. (That isn't called anything like that on TV.)

Yesterday was not a banner day for pro-woman programming on television. Well, no day is really. But yesterday a couple of programs aired that demonstrated to me that unless radical feminists take the airwaves, we're kind of doomed to "not get it" about male supremacist oppression, exploitation, control, and violence against women.

One show was Dr. Phil, which featured, through the second half hour, the tale of a "tortured" young white het man who is sexually attracted to his two year-old daughter. The father has been compulsive ("addictive") about masturbating since age nine--between ten and twenty times a day. That's a lot. (I'm only surprised he hasn't rubbed it down to a mere nub by now.) He's been "addicted" to internet pornography. (Note the lack of agency--the victim status that men hate to see in women who are victimised by men). Most recently his viewing habits have including overtly violent, misogynistic images of machines hurting women and also he's been viewing images of pre-teen girls. (And why hasn't the FBI broken into his home and removed his computer??) He's admitted to getting an erection twice with his toddler daughter on his lap. Dr. Phil didn't see that as abusive to her at all. He took that as "a warning sign", though.

Yes, Dr. Phil did see this as a problem for the man (to be dealt with through in-patient psychotherapy, so he can "heal" from his "sickness"). But his behavior, to date, was not seen as a current and past problem for the daughter. I disagree and don't understand why Dr. Phil didn't welcome the man to take a lie-detector test about whether or not he'd sexually abusing his daughter in more overtly invasive and/or predatory ways. Dr. Phil took the man's word that he hadn't harmed his daughter--or any other girl or woman, not long after the man admitted he was a compulsive liar.

Dr. Phil wanted to be sure the daughter was safe. But who did he say was responsible for keeping the girl safe? The mother, of course. Because we all know men are not responsible adults who manage their feelings and sexual impulses. The program was titled "Secrets Gone Wrong", not, for example, "How to Intervene to Stop a Father from Raping His Two Year-Old Daughter After Already Being Sexually Abusive". Here's more on that:

Dr. Phil speaks to families dealing with the aftermath of secrets revealed. He reaches out to a teen struggling to deal with guilt and loss, and a family torn apart after the father confesses the secret he’s kept for years.

This episode contains strong sexual content. Viewer discretion is advised.

---

A Secret Obsession
Mark says his secret obsession has caused him to lose everything he’s ever cared about and now it’s tearing his family apart. His girlfriend, Jessie, says she was shocked when Mark confessed what he's kept secret for years, and she doesn’t know how to help him. Find out why she’s now afraid for their 2-year-old daughter.

“To expose your daughter to him in the condition he is now is dangerous.” 

Dr. Phil’s Final Thoughts
“I’ve always believed that secrets don’t get better with time. If you’re living with something — whatever it might be — being alone with a secret is not a very productive thing to do. There’s help, whether you go to your church, or you go to a trusted friend, you go to a hotline and reach out for help. If you’re suffering in isolation about something, reach out, get help.” [source: here]

Later than night, the white Brit who is obnoxiously heterosexual, named Piers Morgan, had a show with one guest: Charlie Sheen. (Piers took over the Larry King Live show time slot on CNN at the beginning of this calendar year). His format, like Larry's, is usually a celebrity interview show, with generally one guest per hour-long episode.

This week he's already had on Hugh Hefner and his fiance, Crystal Harris, who is old enough to be younger than his granddaughter (Crystal Harris is 24). Also on the show was his son, Cooper, who is old enough to be his grandson (he was born September 4, 1991, which makes him 19 years old). I suppose we should be grateful his soon-to-be wife will be a few years older than his youngest son. (Hugh is the father of four: Christie Hefner (born 1952), David Hefner (born 1955), Marston Hefner (born 1990), Cooper Hefner (born 1991). Crystal was born on April 29, 1986. Hugh is busily promoting himself as a key figure in social change movements through the 1960s and 1970s. As if he fought for justice for women or something.

But last night he had Charlie Sheen on, another anti-feminist who proclaims himself to be god's gift to women.

Before getting into that, here's a celebrity news story about Hughs and Sheen:

Hugh Hefner Playmates versus Charlie Sheen Goddesses.
Charlie Sheen has been living the pimp life for a while now. The actor slash drug fiend is no stranger to controversy, as he has made tabloid headlines many times for his various run-ins with the law and porn-star party shenanigans. But lately the 45-year-old star has been comparing himself to Hugh Hefner. Do you see the similarities?

Sheen currently lives with two of his girlfriends, whom he refers to as his “goddesses.” He also lives with his soon to be ex-wife and their twin sons. At the height of his polyamorous affairs, Hefner was dating 7 women, including “Number One” girlfriend Holly Madison. Charlie Sheen has been arrested for doing coke, having committed battery, and for felony menacing. Hefner was only arrested in 1963, for selling “obscene literature.”

Charlie Sheen has been on Celebrity Rehab and Two-and-a-Half Men. Hugh Hefner has starred in his own reality show, has had a documentary made about him (Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel), and was the host of two TV shows: Playboy’s Penthouse, and Playboy After Dark. Charlie Sheen is rich. Hugh Hefner is richer. Ultimate, Hugh Hefner reigns supreme as the ultimate and original playboy, while Charlie Sheen falls short.

As of now, though, Charlie Sheen is currently dating two women while Hugh Hefner has settled down and is engaged. Sheen’s goddesses are Natalie Kenly (ex-nanny) and Rachel Oberlin (porn star). According to Kenly, “We run errands, we eat, we play with the kids. I watch a lot of Two-and-a-Half Men.” Oberlin is also optimistic about the relationship, saying, “I’m behind Charlie 100 percent in whatever he’d like to do.” [source: here]

When Andrea Dworkin wrote about women's active (not passive) collaboration with  male supremacists, this is an example she was talking about.

There are (only) a couple of things I agree with Charlie Sheen about: Dr. Drew's advice about addiction can be silly to the point of being pathetic. And Charlie calling a Jewish man by his Hebrew name isn't necessarily virulently anti-Semitic. He'd like to remind us that the Jewish man, a producer of Sheen's uber-successful CBS TV show, has allegedly called Charlie "Carlos Estevez" (which is his birth name). Charlie asked Piers (I think this might be the exact wording), "Is it anti-Latino for someone to call me Carlos Estevez?" Well--maybe. I'd argue that YES, it is anti-Latino for that particular white man to call Charlie by that name--without Charlie's permission or welcoming the man to do so, and YES, it is anti-Semitic for Charlie to call a Jewish man by a Hebrew name he doesn't use professionally. Does it warrant pages upon pages of press? No. Which is why I'm done discussing that portion of the interview.

I guess this means I really only have one thing that I agree with Charlie about, and honestly, I don't know that much about Dr. Drew. I remember him from back in the day when he co-hosted an MTV program called "Love Line" which had very little to do with love and a whole lot to do with young people calling in with sexually explicit questions. I think I watched the show for a whole week starting on a Sunday or Monday because a young white het man told me how good it was. Dr. Drew made some good points about mutuality and responsibility among and between girls and boys, women and men. But beyond that the show was pure sensationalism. I gave up watching it that Friday.

The portion--which was sort of woven through the hour--that I'd like to focus on was how Piers made it EVER SO CLEAR to Charlie, who he respects, and to his audience, that he does not think Charlie's private life should effect his career or show's status at all. Now, let's have a look at ol' Piers Morgan. I can tell you what I remember about him, clear as day. When he hosted a really awful show--well, usually awful, occasionally inspiring--called "America's Got Talent", he was almost visible "erect" when young women would come out scantily clad and perform for the audience (and, by the look in his eyes, just for him). He'd practically stuff a dollar bill in her attire. To me--and this is no great limb I'm going out on--he came across as a man who enjoys his trips to strip clubs, and also, quite possibly, has enjoyed renting women for sexxxist activities. The pro-misogyny boy-bonding between Piers and Charlie was puke-worthy. If the show were allowed to go X-rated and Piers were bisexual, Piers would have been giving Charlie a blow-job, right there, to show his admiration for Charlie's private (well, not-so-private) sexist escapades. We can note that Charlie thinks he should get a raise if/when he's brought back to his show, Two and a Half Men (with one man with a proverbial dick-for-brains).

When [Piers] Morgan asked him whether he felt any responsibility as a role model when he’s the star of Two and a Half Men, “the number one family comedy,” Sheen snickered that the content of any given episode of Men is “juvenile or gross,” containing a quantity of lewd jokes that “eclipses stuff I do on my most epic nights.” [...]

Sheen said Mel Gibson had called with comforting words — “He’s a stone cold dude,” Sheen said of Gibson. “Sean Penn was over [at my house] the other night and we had a few laughs,” he added.  [source: here]

Are we surprised Charlie, the grand-standing egomaniac, has received support from Mel Gibson, the raging egomaniac? No.

So many pimps and playboys (read: sexual perpetrators against girls and women), so little maturity and ethical, responsible behavior. And some men say feminists don't respect men: how about men respecting themselves--and girls and women--enough to not be predators and pimps?