links for 2011-03-05

By On March 5, 2011 · 6 Comments
  • Right On!: For Girls Who Love Themselves Enough to Talk Back to Lil Wayne | Colorlines
    "Rapper Lil Wayne has certainly had his fair share of critics, but probably none quite like this. Two girls, ages 9 and 10-year-old, recently took to YouTube to rap an official letter to Weezy about his disparaging lyrics about women. They’re going by the name Watoto From the Nile, and in a professionally produced video and song, both rap over the beat to Wayne’s song 'I’m Single.' And you know what? It’s good. Really good. 'I’m a girl that’s only ten/But for my sisters I must represent,' the first girl raps. Then the nine-year-old takes her turn. 'My daddy told me I’m a queen/But you call women other things/It makes me mad/I can’t pretend/Sir/Don’t call me out my name again.'”
    (tags: via:molecularshyness rap blackgirls sexism misogyny righton)
  • Up Against the Open Shop – the Hidden Story of Silicon Valley's High-Tech Workers | Truth Out
    "The struggle of these workers, almost all immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Philippines, demolished some of the most cherished myths about the Silicon Valley workforce. It showed workers there are like workers everywhere. Under the right circumstances, even in the citadel of high tech's open shop, people are willing to organize for a better life. 'We said at the beginning that if the company was going to close, let them close,' said Sandra Gomez, a leader of the Versatronex strike. 'But as long as the plant was open, we were going to fight for our rights.'"
    (tags: via:mamitamala california technology latin@s unions blacks racism)
  • Right On!: Gaming Industry Finally Recognizes the Work of a Pioneer | Inside Bay Area
    "Later Friday the International Game Developers Association will honor Jerry Lawson for all he's done to move the state of the art forward.The honor has been a long time coming.It was back in the mid-1970s that Lawson developed the first video game console system, breaking ground in more ways than one. You see, Lawson, 70, is black. And while we often try to pretend that's neither here nor there, the truth is it is here — and it was even more-so there, when Lawson arrived in the valley in 1968."
    (tags: via:InfodivaMLIS415 gaming blackmen technology righton history)
  • Acquittal of the Negress Minnie Gaines | DCentric
    "A desperate black victim of domestic violence named Minnie Gaines confesses to bludgeoning the father of her unborn child– who was white. Progressives fret about whether an all-male jury will treat her fairly. The public is riveted to the scandalous news story.

    "If all of that sounds unfamiliar, there’s no need to ratchet up the radio or turn on the TV. Gaines went to trial in 1869. She is a part of D.C. history, yet a cursory search of the internet yields nothing about her besides the blurb to the right, from the New York Times."

    (tags: via:justchecking washingtondc interracialrelationships law violenceagainstwomen blackwomen whitemen justice&sentencing history)
  • Dr. Seuss, Rap and Racism | NYTimes.com
    "Looking into these connections, doing research, in fact, on Seuss’s avant-garde sympathy for African-Americans (long before the rise of the civil rights movement), I discovered something that surprised me, even though it has been written about before — I think I may have been reading “The Foot Book” when the news broke. During the Second World War, Seuss drew dozens of cartoons for the left-wing tabloid P.M., in which he nobly advanced positions that were anti-isolationist, pro-integration and philo-Semitic, while at the same time publishing a series of caricatures of the Japanese and Japanese-Americans that are revolting to look at now."
    (tags: via:InfodivaMLIS415 anti-asian racism rap blacks literacy)
  • I Can't Files: Are Whites Racially Oppressed? | CNN.com
    This meme again…–AJP

    "Call it racial jujitsu: A growing number of white Americans are acting like a racially oppressed majority. They are adopting the language and protest tactics of an embattled minority group, scholars and commentators say."

    (tags: via:robschmidt white whiteness whiteprivilege whitesupremacy icantfiles)
 
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  • Eva

    The Watoto from the Nile track was awesome! Those little girls are stellar examples of how creative and powerful young women can be. Wow.

  • http://www.wix.com/ladydai/houston-hotel-italia Houston

    Re: Right On!: For Girls Who Love Themselves Enough to Talk Back to Lil Wayne | Colorline

    I am a tad older than most of your readers but the article states that the little girls were rapping. However, I listened to it and they sound as if they are singing. Am I wrong?

  • Anonymous

    Are whites racially oppressed? No.

    This has been another edition of Short Answers to Stupid Questions.

  • Anonymous

    That CNN article is unbelievable. They wrote an entire article about whether Whites are racially oppressed, and didn’t once mention the huge disparities in wealth, income, health care, housing, hiring, education, etc. between Whites (on average) and POC (on average)? That is ridiculous.

  • BSK

    “We went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden becoming whites, the new victims.”
    “You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. Whites are the new minority group.”
    “U.S. Census Bureau projections that whites will become a minority by 2050 are fueling fears that whiteness no longer represents the norm.”

    I couldn’t get past these three quotes.

    The first one demonstrates the sense among whites that being denied unearned privilege = oppression. This is the equivalent of someone who found a $100 bill on the ground everyday outside his house claiming he was robbed when he walked outside to an empty stoop one day.
    The second is both ignorant in its insistence that whites are no longer in control or the majority. They are still very much in control and represent a majority of the American populace.
    The third demonstrates the inherent hypocrisy of this movement. Why is being a numerical minority suddenly an issue when it’s white folks but never seemed to matter when it was other folks? And what is wrong with whiteness no longer being the norm? It’s been the norm for a few centuries (and unfortunately will likely remain the norm for many more)… where has that gotten us?

  • Anonymous