I’m not a fan of the term “ally” as it has a performative ring. It implies doing as opposed to being. But I’ve come to accept the word as a metonym for a larger concept: good people. Better people.
—@clayrivers
Beware a white woman writing YA with Black girl protagonists, while pulling shit like this--and because most of her audience are also white people, she gets away with her #racist stereotypes and sells better than Black women writing authentically.
Today in Labor History October 2, 1937: Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the execution of Haitians living in the border region of the Dominican Republic, resulting in the genocidal Parsley massacre of up to 35,000 Haitians. Trujillo was obsessed with race. He’d use pancake make-up to lighten his skin color and hide his Haitian roots. And even so, the wealthy Dominicans still snubbed him for his working-class family origins. One week prior to the massacre, he publicly accepted a gift of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, whose racial theories he clearly embraced. He used racism to distract Dominicans from their poverty, which had been exacerbated by the Great Depression, and by Trujillo’s corrupt rule.
Edwidge Danticat’s historical fiction, “The Farming of Bones,” takes place during the time of the massacre.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon The very same guy, Rafael Trujillo, was tolerated by US governments until his execution in 1961.
Then in 1966, after inciting a military coup against the democratic elected socialist Juan Bosch, Trujillo's close adviser Joaquín Balaguer was put to govern the Dominican Republic, of course backed by the US.
Balaguer was yet another racist and caudillo who governed for a long period.
@eivind@bookstodon It's seemed to me for a long time that Europeanization is really Romanization.
Europe has been perpetuating the errors of Rome since they first saw them. Rome -is- civilization, to Europe, and to America. We are still making their mistakes.
"Empty shelves with absolutely no books". Students, parents question school board's library weeding process.
Books published in 2008 or earlier removed from school library amid confusion around new equity-based process in Toronto. Really? Censorship or ineptness?
One thing a lot of white people, especially white men, get wrong is thinking that understanding a Black person’s experience is a zero-sum game in which they either understand every conceivable nuance about the Black experience or they understand none of it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
—@clayrivers
It’s very much like fish not realizing they’re in water — until they’re out of it. I didn’t know what “privilege” was back in the ‘70s, because the meaning didn’t exist then. But dang it, I knew it when I saw it being exercised.
Mah juxtaposes the petrochemical industry’s destructive corporate worldviews with environmental justice struggles in the US, China, and Europe: multiscalar activism—a form of collective resistance that spans local, regional, national, and planetary sites and scales and addresses the interconnected issues of #EnvironmentalJustice, #climate, #pollution, health, extraction, land rights, workers’ rights, systemic #racism, and toxic #colonialism
I have not read this yet but looks like a LOT of resonance with #OilBeach. "Most large petrochemical facilities are located in coastal regions, near to ports, for access to shipping lines. Tightly enclosed behind security gates, they resemble cities with tall towers and giant cylindrical storage tanks. They flare and steam and crackle.
How do these petrochemical plants relate to the ports? How are they regulated? Who are
the main global corporate players? Who are the biggest polluters?"
If anyone for some reason is looking for a review essay assignment on #petroleum, #shipping, #capitalism, Mah's Petrochemical Planet would go well with Oil Beach and Negative Ecologies by David Bond.
💛 “10 Steps to Being an Ally to Marginalized Groups”
Being an ally shouldn’t be a badge someone wears, like liberal street cred. It’s fundamentally a way of seeing the world in which you understand that every person is deserving of the same human rights and a chance to succeed in life.
—@Sherry_Kappel
@clayrivers@Sherry_Kappel@BigAngBlack@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon
"...but anti-Black racism can be found everywhere" Yes definitely. I grew up in the Deep South and moved to NL the first chance I had. Was surprised that racism have different "flavors." In NL we are only beginning to come to terms with our colonial past lately. Thank you for this and your other comments; they are helpful and on point (for me).
Ah, yes. The Deep South. I’m glad you were able to receive them in the spirit intended. Racism is just one of those topics that seems to grow in scope the more it’s examined. But it really comes down to being prepared to do the right the thing when the time comes; be it internally, interpersonally, or systemically. The key is to not give up. Too much is at stake. 🙂
💛 “Remember When You Couldn’t Call Someone a Racist? I Do!”
In fact, getting caught saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, or in the wrong place at the wrong time, could make for consequences that could be life threatening.
—R. Wayne Branch, PhD
A powerful, moving piece of writing. I was in Chicago until June ‘69, I remember reading about it, the Birmingham Bomb too, at least a sermon in church. Angela Davis on Democracy Now on 60th anniversary is so clear, insightful, and heartbreaking eloquent . Everyone should read it for truth and inspiration! When I was living on N.54th St in Phila there was a current song: ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ Yes, it will be and it is.
Today in Labor History August 30, 1948: Fred Hampton revolutionary activist and chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party was born. He founded the antiracist, anti-class Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that included Black Panthers, Young Patriots (which organized poor whites), and the Young Lords (which organized Hispanics), and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change. In December 1969, the Chicago police & FBI drugged Hampton, shot him and killed him in his bed during a predawn raid. They sprayed more than 90 gunshots throughout his apartment. They also killed Black Panther Mark Clark and wounded several others. In January 1970, a jury concluded that Hampton's and Clark's deaths were justifiable homicides.
Stephen King refers to Hampton in his novel “11/22/63” (2012). In that book, a character suggests that if you could travel back in time to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination, it could have a ripple effect that also prevented Hampton's assassination.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon Stephen King is sorely wrong about that (and that's one of the biggest issues using authors with weak racial analysis as a quoting source).
You are probably right. Kennedy wouldn't have ended racism. He certainly wouldn't have ended capitalism. Therefore Hampton would still most likely have been the same sort of activist that he was.
However, King was writing fiction, not nonfiction. It was speculative. I did not use him as a source for anything. Merely mentioned that he wrote this speculative piece.
A Texas A&M Regent says "McElroy’s hiring would derail the “purpose” outlined for the journalism program: “to get high-quality Aggie journalists with conservative values into the market.”
Tell me again how liberals are controlling university values? /s
@djvanness@academicchatter High quality journalists with conservative values? Don't they know how these cancel each other out and you can't have both at the same time?
Elon Musk says a left-wing political party in South Africa is promoting white genocide for singing apartheid-era song “Kill the Boer.” He’s echoing a far-right conspiracy.
“That Musk weighed in … through the hysteria of [far-right provocateur Benny] Johnson, who erroneously, though tellingly, labeled Malema’s EFF as ‘South Africa’s Black party’, is revealing. The specter of ‘white genocide’ is a long-standing trope among US white nationalists.”