Echoing the history of sterilization of African American, Native American and Puerto Rican women, which included testing toxic birth control dosages on women in PR, the latest reproductive rights outrage is taking place in Israel, where it has been disclosed that Ethiopian Jewish women (members of the Beta Israel) have been given Depo-Provera without informed consent.
President Barack Obama views a portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama before
a church service at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.,
on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
From Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall: Guided by the ancestors
When I heard these words spoken by President Obama at his second inaugural
We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall
and the echo of those same words in the invocation delivered by Myrlie Evers-Williams
we celebrate the spirit of our ancestors, which has allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised votes, to today’s expression of a more perfect union…
we ask for your guidance toward the light of deliverance and that the vision of those who came before us and dreamed of this day, that we recognize that their visions still inspire us. They are a great cloud of witnesses unseen by the naked eye, but all around us, thankful that their living was not in vain.
I was moved.
Today, Myrlie Evers-Williams will become the first woman and the first layperson to deliver the invocation at a presidential swearing-in ceremony. Just as the use of Martin Luther King Jr’s bible is symbolic of the civil rights struggle in this country, Mrs. Evers-Williams is herself a living legacy of that struggle, which continues.
Far too many young Americans do not learn this history, nor make connections to the past as part of where we are today and what the future holds for us as a nation.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA, on Jan 15 in 1929.
Oh, I know we celebrate his birthday later on this month, but I wanted to think about him as a young child, and as a young man before he went on to become an icon of the civil rights movement.
He was not so very different from many young black men born into a black middle class family.
Like many members of the black middle class his father, Michael was a preacher.
Like many members of the black middle class his mama was a teacher.
Like many members of the black middle class, the family roots were not far removed from poverty.
Inmate from the documentary “The House I Live In”
The War on Drugs, a label we inherited from Richard Nixon, is a lie. It is simply a war on people, and has had the most dire effect on people of color, whether inside the borders of the U.S, or as a part of destabilizing military interventions in other countries.
If you have not yet watched the documentary film The House I Live In, it is a must see. It was the winner of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-Documentary.
40 years to Justice: the Wilmington 10
It’s hard to believe that 40 years have passed since the conviction of the Wilmington 10, in 1972 for trumped up charges relating to a firebombing in the city of Wilmington in 1971. At the time I was editing the newspaper for the Black Panther Party Revolutionary People’s Communication Network, and we not only covered the trial and convictions, but corresponded with Ben Chavis, the alleged leader of the “conspiracy” while he was in jail.
Elated, exhausted and still wired up and fired up from last night’s electoral and popular vote victory for our POTUS, the first thoughts I had this morning were about the unending meme steam those of us in communities of color had to endure through-out the entire election season.
Yeah. I am sittin’ here gloatin’.
All the TM lame-stream concern trolls masquerading as pundits have now proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they suffer from anal-rectalitis.
Let’s see.
Remember all the “black people were gonna abandon the President” themes?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yea, those Latinos sure don’t show up to the polls.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Don’t forget the ignored Asian-Americans and Native Americans.
More very loud guffaws from my mouth.
As a Sistah, want to thank all those Republican legi-rapers for motivating women of all colors to say NO WAY to Willard.
Too tired to do a sophisticated analysis of the numbers right now. I’m sure there will be plenty time in the days to come, and the yapping class has already started their inane babble this morning, so I have turned off the teevee, and sit here chortling with glee.
Thank you and muchisimas gracias to every single person who got out and voted against a solid wall of Tea-Republican efforts at voter repression and chicanery.
Yo Romney…I know you are a religious dude.
Well, so are many of us and there is an old saying in the black community:
“God don’t like ugly”.
That’s right.
She doesn’t.
(cross-posted at Daily Kos)
Hola Moosies!
I’m in a New York state of mind and decided to chill out to some neighborhood folks doing the Boricua thing for Obama. (for Spiffy)
Leslie Gore was part of the musical soundscape of my teenage years, and I like the real women in this video supporting women’s rights and calling out the R’s.
I rarely write anything about Israel. Nor do I get involved in I/P debates. That does not mean I have no interest in that part of the world-I simply spend most of my international focus elsewhere. But for many years I have followed the fate of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. So when I stumbled across a mention of Eritreans in Israel in a stray headline, I was curious, and followed up. One link led to another-almost all of them either in The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, British or Canadian papers:
Racist Riots in Tel Aviv Show A New Level of Intolerance in Israel
Israelis attack African migrants during protest against refugees