Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

mindlessly listening to henwood’s archived radio programs, i’ve just come across the excellent work of a woman who works with an org that has pulled about the numbers to reveal how the toxic loans were concentrated in poor neighborhoods. NEDAP is the org http://www.nedap.org/ good stuff: http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20081011-Sat1000.mp3

At 11:38 AM 11/6/2008, Jeffrey Fisher wrote: i think it’s the way we fetishize voting and elections in this country, isn’t it? that voting is actually doing something, and then nothing else is required? it will be interesting to see if they can hold it together. it would pretty genuinely change american politics if they [...]

we had a discussion about whether people of color and others should vote in solidarity with people of color. Julio Huato and John Thornton (NDN) felt that this was important, that people of color and progressive whites support the struggles and wishes of people of color. my responses: John T wrote: ” The idea of [...]

an awesome interview with Laura D’Agustin, who also has a new blog, where I found this interview. the rest of it is about the panic that surrounds sex work, border crossing, and the rescue industry: Most people do not arrive penniless, they arrive with their own or borrowed money, even if the amounts don’t seem [...]

http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2008/1006.html The Movement for Democratic Change: The Continuity of its Theoretical and Practical Weaknesses By Sehlare Makgetlaneng* June 10, 2008 “The fight against Zimbabwe is a fight against us all. Today it is Zimbabwe, tomorrow it will be South Africa, it will be Mozambique, it will be Angola, it will be any other African country. [...]

Uhuru Movement leaders were arrested last night in Alabama. On the way to the airport they stopped for gas near their home, which is in the vicinity of the Alabama A&M University, where the Black Arts Festival had just concluded. There they saw police harassing an African couple. They exercised their legal right to photograph [...]

Justice for Javon Dawson! Watch the new video on YouTube (Tune in Sunday at 10:00 and 11:00 U.S. Eastern Time to Uhuru Radio for updates and analysis on the case) ST. PETERSBURG, FL ­ On Monday, June 9, Keon Dawson turned 14 years old. While many 14-year-olds might spend their birthdays celebrating, Keon spent his [...]

Black is the new black: It also lines up perfectly with even those younger blacks who’ve never ventured beyond the veil but who, minus the shadow of segregation, have concluded that their skin is as worthy as the next man’s. This is why all the fuss over how much or how little Obama addresses racism [...]

Glen Ford at BAR, Obama’s ‘Race Neutral’ Strategy Unravels of its Own Contradictions. Excellent analysis, as usual. The title refers to someone’s reaction at the lbo listserv. it just cracked me up that a radical — a marxist radical and not some wimp ass version of such called “progressive” or some shit — actually thinks [...]

i still haven’t had much time but i did stumble over some of the recent events re brownfemipower, amanda marcotte, appropriation, and racist imagery. i suppose, having been accused of appropriating for writing the old bitch lab/queer dewd blog, i should be sympathetic. obviously i’m not but i did have to laugh when, recounting events [...]

i am supposed to be going through all the boxes we brought here from storage, repacking some stuff and organizing, as well as getting rid of what i should no longer be packratting. for instance, i unpacked a box and found some baby power, a brand called “kids” that I probably bought at discount 15 [...]

hmmm. couldn’t resist. i visited amazon and this book was screaming at me to buy it, buy it, buy it. I can’t wait to read it and can only hope i have time! i finished a couple of books in the last couple of weeks and am currently reading Katherine Newman’s No Same in My [...]

According to a Pew poll, atheists are the most reviled group in the nation: An atheist 65% Someone in “their” 70s 50 Muslim 48 Homosexual 46 Mormon 32 Hispanic 15 Woman 11 Black 4 It’s interesting, given the way an LBO list member, Charles, keeps insisting that blacks are more discriminated against. For those who [...]

i miss limpdick for this reason only. thank god for internet radio and youtube: Omali Yeshitela: Barack Obama and the crisis of the imperialist state and economy. Not that anyone reading this needs to be reminded of Yeshitela’s message.

i give up on the u.s. left. we were having some discussion of racism and i pointed out that there is racial bitory/prejudice (individual level behavior) and there is structural racism (which isn’t necessarily about people having bad ideas about blacks or mexicans, etc. etc.) well, what came out of that was that it turns [...]

There’s been an on-going debate about Obama’s candidacy. A fellah named Julio Huato argued that Obama’s presidency would create a worldwide upsurge in the self-assurance of black people across the globe and seeing as how they are the most oppressed in this country and globally, then it would be a good thing: “But the strongest [...]

OK. I alluded to this analysis already, but I hadn’t realized I wasn’t very clear until I repeated myself and realized, fromt he response, that it was too opaque the 1st time. Here, I’m showing Obama’s rhetoric consists of empty signifiers. How his speeches are “all things to all people”. What makes white ppl so [...]

Monthly Review Press has just published a book by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger, titled “On the Global Waterfront.” It details an important laobr struggle on the Charleston, SC docks and tells us much about the US labor movement, racism, global capitalism, and the heroism of dedicated. mostly black, dock workers. “On the Global [...]

note to self: don’t write posts at 6 am. I wrote some of below over course of a few days. Was editing it. Hit Publish instead of Save. I’d intended to put it away and edit it properly. So, very very sorry about the totally incomprehensible material below. Aiyiyiyiyi. will swing by and fix it [...]

red is missing there. Forgot to mention that I’d also picked up Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation Between African Americans and Hispanics by Earl Ofari Hutchinson. It was featured on the new book shelf and caught my eye — and turned out to be fascinating in light of the debates that erupted [...]

In my post on the book, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie, I noted that Maza’s argument is in line with something others have noted about the marker “yuppie”. Its usage indicates that it’s an identity against which people nearly always define themselves in opposition. People don’t want to be called yuppies and, if they [...]

thinking a lot about home lately as we try to figure out where we should live. i realized that i want to be home, someplace a little more settled. i have moved four times this year and i’m tried of not really having my own place. i’m terrified of buying because i don’t want to [...]

Last year, brownfemipower criticized u.s feminism because its rhetoric desexualizes women of color — a discourse that also exists within a wider u.s. discourse where women of color are racialized by hypersexualizing their bodies as well. And this can seem puzzling. How can both be going on? It’s also harder to illustrate, I think, because [...]

Hillary’s Real MLK Problem Barbara Ehrenreich At first I took it as another, yawn, white rip-off of black culture and creativity: the Rolling Stones appropriating the Bo Diddley beat, Bo Derek sporting corn rows, and now Hillary giving Lyndon Baines Johnson credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you had to give this [...]

Note: I still haven’t decided whether I want to make this blog more public, so let me think on it before you link. I was thinking, Amber and Anthony, that you’d want to link. This continues the series on trafficking started yesterday… and yeah, it’s related. :) I was walking home from work last night [...]