28 June, 2008
· Filed under animal rights, discrimination · Tagged stereotypes, pit bulls, Palm Valley Animal Center, Weslaco, Edinburg, pets, breed specific legislation
I apologize for the lack of posts this month. I’ve been travelling, working, and slowly losing my mind. I started this post last week and now I’m finishing it because it still rings true.
There are a few things I love dearly in life. Hanging out with dogs is one of them, and it’s even better when those dogs happen to be of the bullie variety. At some point in my life, I fully intend to start my own pit bull rescue.
Naturally, every time I read stories like this, my heart sinks a little because I know that the anti-pit bull fervor will go back up to a fever pitch and that a whole bunch of ignorant things about pits will make it into the media, thus perpetuating the “pit bull=bloodthirsty killer” stereotype.
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21 June, 2008
· Filed under cultural insensitivity, discrimination, racism · Tagged civil rights, Eurocentrism, Karen Salazar, LA school district, minority history, Rio Grande Valley
via Angry Brown Butch
I love love love hearing that teachers like Karen Salazar exist. I just wish I was hearing about her under different circumstances (such as being the recipient of a Teacher of the Year award). But no.
Salazar was recently fired from her job as an LA school teacher because her curriculum was deemed too “Afrocentric.” According to Salazar:
I am being fired because I am trying to ensure that my curriculum is relevant to my students’ daily lived experiences, and in the process, create a space for them to be critical of Eurocentric society and curricula that only serve to reinforce their dehumanization, subjugation, and oppression …
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18 June, 2008
· Filed under exploitation, general government fuckery, rape, sexism · Tagged Daniel Day, Days Inn, Melanie Ross, Representative Burke Day, Supreme Court of Georgia
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now, mostly because I wanted to wait until summer/travel season really kicked in. But please, if you’re travelling this summer, boycott Days Inn.
via Feministing
Melanie Ross thought Daniel Day [the son of Georgia Republican state Rep. Burke Day, whose family founded the Days Inn hotel chain], her college classmate, was fun and a decent date – until they were having sex and she told him he was hurting her. She asked him to stop – and he didn’t. After that, Ross broke up with Day, and avoided him.
Unfortunately, because of events a month later, Ross is now suing Day for civil sexual battery.
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7 June, 2008
· Filed under cultural insensitivity, film, racism · Tagged Apocalypto, brown people, cannibals, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Jack Sparrow, King Kong, Orlando Bloom, Pirates of the Caribbean, primitive savages, Spielberg, Ve Neill
*spoiler alert for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull*
For me, I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was 2005’s King Kong. Before then, I’d certainly noticed that the jungle people in these “explorer” movies were, brown primitive savages, while the heroes were always white men, but it had always just been some short “hmm,” footnote in the back of my mind.
I don’t know what is was about King Kong in particular that made it click (maybe it was the fact that they pulled out all the stops to make the natives look extra extra “tribal”), but the whole primitive savage thing in that movie quickly wore thin and just thoroughly pissed me off.
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1 June, 2008
· Filed under animal rights, border wall, cultural insensitivity, environment, general government fuckery, racism · Tagged burial grounds, Congress, Department of Homeland Security, endangered species, Michael Chertoff, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Native Americans, Real ID Act, Texas
via No Border Wall
I was pretty peeved when Michael Chertoff pulled section 102 of the Real ID act out of his ass in order to waive federal environmental laws in April, which would push past his opposition and allow him to do whatever the hell he wants (in this case, take away people’s land to build the border wall). I’m horrified that the wall is going to cut through the wildlife corridor and cut off endangered species from mating routes (and their food/water sources). Obviously, Chertoff doesn’t give a shit, even though ecologists and scientists are telling him that building the wall there is plain stupid.
What I didn’t realize was that Chertoff waived 36 federal laws. Thirty six:
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