Sunday Linkfest!

Because I'm lazy today (and have to write this statement of interest which I didn't do last night because I was busy watching Ghibli films to see if my DVDs are still working since Totoro is skipping, I shall just link out and maybe post an excerpt.

The inside of Filament Magazine.

Remember Madonna was booed in Romania for speaking out against their treatment of gays and gypsies? Hindu and Jewish leaders lauded her for it.

Here is an open thread on comics and PoC at Racialicious, particularly in light of Disney buying Marvel.

Dark is beautiful, indeed:

This past Memorial Day, I opened the medicine cabinet at my aunt’s house looking for toothpaste only to find a tube of Fair & Lovely staring back at me. My heart sank. I yelled for my 10-year old cousin. “What is THIS?” I asked her, holding the tube gingerly.

“What?” she said innocently, “It’s just suntan lotion so I don’t get dark.” I looked at the ingredient list. Indeed, among the ingredients was “sunscreen.” I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was the same girl who had teased her seven-year old darker-skinned cousin so much that a year later, the poor kid still adamantly states “I’m not pretty.” Little wonder given that our mothers come from a country where bridal makeup still means you pancake the woman in white foundation from the neck-up and then hide her hands under her dupatta so the color disparity doesn’t show.

Diversity is the Spice of Life, unless You're the Spice:

What I’m not digging are the insulting efforts to attract swingers of color. Posting *a* Spanish word and having various, ahem, “ethnic” graphics shows cultural imcompetency because 1) a word doesn’t signify any understanding of the complexities that are Latin@ ethnicities and their sexualities and 2) showing random artifacts of what one thinks are cultural emblems of a particular group to represent an entire ethnic group does not show how accepting zie is about the group.

Idealize this: Solidarity Tip Sheet.
Tip #1: Realize that, no matter how much you know, you actually don’t know shit.

Sexual Assault Prevent Tips Guaranteed to Work!!

Domestic Violence is a "Pre-Existing Condition"
"it is still legal in nine states for insurers to reject applicants who are survivors of domestic violence, citing the history of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition"

Followed up at Pandagon: Health Care Reform and Domestic Violence

Perversely, if you understand domestic violence, it’s easier for you to see why insurance companies would do this than it might be for someone who doesn’t realize that it’s about more than just hitting, but that it involves the abuser pulling his victim into a cycle of dependence and stalking in order to control her. Once a man has hit a woman, the odds of him doing it again are astronomical, and the odds are that he will escalate the level of violence as well, because part of being an abuser is testing your boundaries and seeing how much you can get away with before she leaves. For those of us in the humane world, the fact that a woman who has been slapped today is in grave danger of receiving a massive beatdown in the next few months or years is a tragedy that we should seek to prevent. From the insurance company’s perspective, however, a woman who is slapped today is likely someone who will incur a massive hospital bill in the future, and that’s all they need to know.

Anti Abortion Group Wants to make Birth Control Illegal in Florida. (Look, it's not like we didn't see this coming.)

Remember the Men, a 101 aimed at people who need convincing that feminism encompasses everybody. Read the comments!

What is the Role of Privileged White Women in the Reproductive Justice movement?

Trying to Understand the "Help" Phenomenon in Native Communities

... I’m trying to understand the phenomenon that has many non-Native people purposely going North, or going South, essentially going out of their way in general, it appears, to go and live in a Native community to “help” or to “help while working”. That is to say, there seems to be a shift in going to live in an Aboriginal territory, do your thing, and then leave. To clarify, I’m not talking about the cultural exchanges or instances where communities themselves are inviting people to contribute. This is where non-Aboriginal folks are seeking out positions or trying to create stuff that is far away from them, in the hopes of either “helping us” or “learning” , by trying to “show us the way” (and yes this kind of sounds all too familiar to the early days of colonization).

Also, Expecting Flu Assistance, Reserves get Body Bags from Ottawa. To which I respond, WHAT THE FUCK, CANADA??????????????

Women in Academia Especially Can't Have It All.

The Free Library of Philadelphia is closing. h/t dmp

Questioning the boundaries of Love and Lust (or, why the hell do we make such a fuss when the people we love want to have sex with other people?)

We are socialised into believing that engaging in sexual activity or developing romantic attachments to someone other than the partner we are already with is the deepest possible betrayal of that person. It’s ‘cheating’. For the most part, when we start a new relationship, it goes without saying that we have now ‘committed’ ourselves to that person, that we will not get up to any sexual mischief with anyone else, and should we be drawn to another person, we will do all we can to fight off those feelings and remain ‘loyal’. But no one ever seems to stop and ask why.

Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

Stuff that Boys Can Do: stories of anti-misogynistic acts.

When Your Male Privilege Stops Applying to your Situation, It Goes Beyond Inconvenient, Doesn't It? A look at male privilege (or lack thereof) in all-male settings.

Obama calls Kanye a jackass. Off the record, of course, but still amusing.

Hot Pink Grasshopper Discovered in Britain.

Things I did yesterday

- Wake up late

- Hang out with Jarvis

- Did some dishwashing

- Bought a ticket to Canadian Carnage

- Paid my phone bills

- Bought a skipping rope

- Watch Howl's Moving Castle with Jarvis

- And proceeded to 'test my DVDs to see which would skip and which wouldn't' which entailed watching Castle in the Sky, Porco Ross, Nausicaa, and Princess Mononoke.

AND I WONDER WHY I GET NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED SOMETIMES.