Dylan Digits

so-treu: topsidepress: DONATE HERE Cathy Brennan, radical...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:32:24 -0400

topsidepress:

DONATE HERE

Cathy Brennan, radical “feminist” terrorist, has set her sights on a young black activist in Baltimore County, MD. Phylicia Sampson is being taken to court by Brennan, a notorious harasser of trans women and their supporters. Sampson is a recent college grad with few resources, no car and no way to fight back without your help.

As a community, we’ve suffered Brennan’s assaults for a long time—her blog is the best known for outing trans women’s personal information. She believes trans women are men who are infiltrating the feminist community and expends her resources fighting them. The idea that she is now taking her harassment to a legal venue is horrifying. That she has selected a young black woman with few resources to fight back is repugnant.

We can’t let Cathy Brennan get away with this! Share Phylicia’s campaign on Facebook, twitter, tumblr and instagram. Here are some things you can do TODAY to help:

Tell your friends why it is important that they donate to this campaign.

Donate what you can.

Write to your favorite feminist blog and ask them to cover this campaign

DONATE HERE

SUPER. DUPER. SIGNAL BOOST Y’ALL.

chamanismo: justfalana: so-treu: ethnicnraunchy: chamanismo: Without ‘Cultural appropriation’...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:14:00 -0400

chamanismo:

justfalana:

so-treu:

ethnicnraunchy:

chamanismo:

Without ‘Cultural appropriation’ we wouldn’t have Ska, think about that, think about it long and hard.

That’s not cultural appropriation…you shouldn’t use words if you don’t know what they mean…

and besides the white boy ska that OP is referring to is a shittier take on actual ska and Jamaican music. like, super shitty.

Was that an argument for or against cultural appropriation? Because the recreated ska is horrendous.

‘Recreated’ ska?

If you weren’t there, Britain was transformed into a mail order version of The Wailin Wailers album cover almost overnight, though it probably didn’t know it at the time. Before the birth of the woeful sports casual, the working class dressed up for the weekend and the easily attainable and striking evocation of mid 60’s Jamaica was too irresistible for those who founds punks sartorial alienation just that bit too alienating.

(emphasis mine)

That’s from the “about the band” portion of The Specials’ website (who you invoked as real ska). Absolutely, 100% appropriation/recreation of an era— sound and look included— in Jamaican pop history.

"If we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:08:04 -0400

““If we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones.””

- Jane Espenson (from interview with Advocate.com)\

I dunno how many which ways this needs to be said

(via alienswithankhs)

SIGNAL BOOST: Help Navigatethestream get to Starr King School for the Ministry

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:06:50 -0400

SIGNAL BOOST: Help Navigatethestream get to Starr King School for the Ministry:

navigatethestream:

The Imam Dream:

I’ve been admitted to Starr King School for the Ministry to pursue a double Masters in Divinity and Masters in Social Change degree for the 2013-2014 school year. Starr King is a Universalist Unitarian divinity school committed to theological education that is multi-religious and rooted in anti-oppression praxis. They are one of the few Christian divinity schools in the United States committed to training non-Christians to become spiritual leaders. Their faculty is composed of people from a wide range of faith based traditions, most notably Ibrahim Farajaje and Ghazala Anwar, two well know queer Islamic studies professors.
I have been given the incredible opportunity to attend Starr King School for the Ministry in the fall and work with Ibrahim, Ghazala, and other members of the Starr King family.

My ultimate goal for attending Starr King is to become an imam. I want the ability to lead prayers, hold spiritual space, and spiritaully support LGBT Muslims in a variety of ways. I’ve already started to do this via the queer muslims tumblr that i moderate, but I want the ability to do this in more than just an online capacity (and improve the online capacity that i do it in currently). I also want the ability to create more resources for LGBT Muslims that are spiritually affirming and are located in an anti-oppression praxis.

This isn’t an easy goal to accomplish. Many people believe traditional Islam maintains that Muslim women are not suited for spiritual leadership, let alone a queer Muslim woman like myself. Subsequently, finding people who are willing to train women and LGBT identified Muslims to have the necessary bodies of knowledge and skill sets to become an imam is a hard road to come by.
So finding faculty at Starr King who believe in support women’s spiritual leadership and queer spiritual leadership has been nothing short of amazing.

Yet making this dream come true has become complicated financially. After waiting two months for a financial aid package, I only received $5500 worth of institutional grants to put toward my $20,058 yearly tuition. I’m also not guaranteed work study because Starr King has a limited amount of work study grants to distribute.
This means I am left to take out loans for the cost of tuition, plus the cost of housing (Starr King doesn’t have on campus grad housing), and other non-tuition related expenses until I can find a job after relocating to the Bay Area.

The Breakdown:
Tuition at Starr King for a double Masters in Divinity and Masters in Social Change is $20,058 per year for four years. After receiving $5500 in intitutional aid with no guarantee of getting a federal work study grant, I still need $14,558 for the first year’s tuition.
The $14,000 will be going to helping fund my first year’s tuition.
The remaining 6,000 will help me put a down payment on an apartment and pay rent until i find a job in the bay area.

Why you’re nothing short of amazing for helping me out:

My family has no ability to help me finance my graduate school education ever since my grandmother’s apartment burned down in January.

Since my grandmother’s apartment fire my family has been pooling their resources together for the cost of her medical care related to carbon monoxide poisoning and the cost of restoring her apartment. On top of helping my grandmother get back on her feet my mother is already paying $100,000 in loans related to my undergraduate education at Hampshire College.
Whereas usually I can count on my family to help me off set the cost, that is not the case this time.

By donating to my campaign, you’re helping me achieve my dream in the wake of financial hardship and familial tragedy.

By donating to my campaign, you’re saying you believe in the power of women’s spiritual leadership and queer spiritual leadership. You’re saying LGBT Muslims deserve spiritual leaders who are committed to creating radically affirming, anti-oppressive spiritual spaces.

so-treu: ethnicnraunchy: chamanismo: Without ‘Cultural appropriation’ we wouldn’t have Ska, think...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:05:19 -0400

so-treu:

ethnicnraunchy:

chamanismo:

Without ‘Cultural appropriation’ we wouldn’t have Ska, think about that, think about it long and hard.

That’s not cultural appropriation…you shouldn’t use words if you don’t know what they mean…

and besides the white boy ska that OP is referring to is a shittier take on actual ska and Jamaican music. like, super shitty.

Ow, my eyes hurt from rolling too hard at the OP. :(

Picked up a second setup because the first one was so damn heavy...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:49:25 -0400

Picked up a second setup because the first one was so damn heavy I couldn’t do a damn trick on it, damn. So glad I went through the local shop again.

Now I’m on a bus out to the Apple store to get my Mac fixed and jammin to pandora. Question: what’s the silliest gimmick of rap history, style wise? My money has to go on the riggedy-riggedy-roo, hibbety-hoo jibba jabba of Fu Schnickens and Das Efx.

trill-wave-feminism: Ladybug Mecca via blowout comb photos |...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:47:34 -0400

trill-wave-feminism:

Ladybug Mecca via blowout comb photos | GORILLA VS. BEAR

bostonreview: Ta-Nehisi Coates in comments to his article on...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:42:06 -0400

bostonreview:

Ta-Nehisi Coates in comments to his article on teaching writing at MIT (via Jamison Foser)

TNC’s banhammer comes down swiftly upon the heads of those who would mistake snark, snobbery, and dishonesty for valid contributions to the greater discussion. And that’s why I read his spot.

Just saw a post from VH1 on my dashboard.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:06:57 -0400

soafrolicious:

I would never ever follow VH1. But it’s a paid post. I don’t have a choice but to see white women’s bodies splayed across this experience I’ve spent the past 3? 4? years curating.

This is tumblr on yahoo. Welcome.

I hear you. Here’s what fixed it for me:

1. Added Tumblr Savior to my browser (http://bjornstar.com/tumblr-savior)
2. added “sponsored_badge_icon” (without quotes) to the blacklist

Now when paid posts come up they’re a single line notification that a post containing that phrase (sponsored_badge_icon) happened and I can scroll right past with without another thought.

knowledgeequalsblackpower: fyeah-history: Eli Whitney’s Patent...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 23:20:57 -0400

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

fyeah-history:

Eli Whitney’s Patent for the Cotton gin, March 14, 1794
Eli Whitney (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825) was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Whitney’s invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States (regardless of whether Whitney intended that or not). Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost many profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention into securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed continental army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825.

At the end of the 18th century, slavery in the United States was a declining institution. Tobacco planters in Virginia and Maryland had exhausted their soil and were switching to wheat. Wage labor was increasingly replacing slave labor in both the urban and the rural areas of the upper South.

And then came cotton.

Before the cotton gin, long-staple cotton was grown, because it was easier to separate the cotton from seeds, but it could only be grown within thirty to forty miles of the coast. These limitations did not allow the growth of enough cotton to support world demands. Short-staple cotton could be grown inland, but took too much time to pick out the sticky green seeds, so it was not popular or very profitable. Without the cotton gin, growing and cleaning cotton was arduous and time consuming.

Farmers did not want to grow cotton but tobacco was becoming less profitable because it was excessively supplied and caused soil degradation.

After the invention of the cotton gin (in 1793), cotton surpassed tobacco as the dominant cash crop in the agricultural economy of the South, soon comprising more than half the total U.S. exports.

Between 1803 and 1838, the United States fought a multifront war in the Deep South. These wars culminated in the ethnic cleansing of the Deep South. By the end of the 1830s, the Seminole, the Creek, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw and the Cherokee had all been “removed” to lands west of the Mississippi (The Trail of Tears).

Native land provided the foundation of the leading sector of the global economy in the first half of the 19th century. Hundreds of millions of acres of conquered land were surveyed and put up for sale by the United States.

The concomitant rise of industrial capacity in Britain and the urban North made possible the profitable cultivation of cotton in a vast region of the lower South, one that stretched from South Carolina to Louisiana, which came to be called the “Cotton Kingdom.”

Between 1820 and 1860 more than a million enslaved people were transported from the upper to the lower South, the vast majority by the venture-capitalist slave traders the slaves called soul drivers. The first wave cleared the region for cultivation. “Forests were literally dragged out by the roots,” the former slave John Parker remembered in “His Promised Land.” Those who followed planted the fields in cotton, which they then protected, picked, packed and shipped — from “sunup to sundown” every day for the rest of their lives.

Eighty-five percent of the cotton Southern slaves picked was shipped to Britain (Industrial Revolution).

Farmers could now grow cotton for a greater profit. One gin could clean up to fifty five pounds of cotton per day, that is fifty five times more than a slave could clean. Requirements for cotton in the North were increased by the inventions of the Industrial Revolution (mills, steam boat, trains, etc). Lower prices meant that American farmers could compete in the world wide cotton industry

The amount of raw cotton produced doubled each decade after 1800. In the 1850’s, America was providing three-quarters of the worlds stock of cotton.

Convinced of the supremacy of its commodity at home and abroad, the South was confident of success if secession from the Union should lead to war (The Civil War).

When the cotton crop came in short and sales failed to meet advanced payments, planters found themselves indebted to merchants and bankers. Slaves were sold to make up the difference. The mobility and salability of slaves meant they functioned as the primary form of collateral in the credit-and-cotton economy of the 19th century.

Enslaved people were the capital: four million people worth at least $3 billion in 1860, which was more than all the capital invested in railroads and factories in the United States combined.

(via NYT: King Cotton’s Long Shadow, A Simple Machine, A Lifetime of Transformation, Cotton: White Gold of the Delta)

go donate and/or support this please

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:43:40 -0400

go donate and/or support this please:

shrewdimentary:

they give free binders to minors in need, spread the word

Oh no, I spent the afternoon making graphics for skateboard decks. Repeat to self: I do not have the...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:22:00 -0400

Oh no, I spent the afternoon making graphics for skateboard decks. Repeat to self: I do not have the resources or desire to start a skateboard company. I do not have the resources or desire to start a skateboard company. I do not have the resources or desire to start a skateboard company. I do not have the resources or desire to start a skateboard company. I do not have the resources or desire to start a skateboard company.

ETA: But I have the resources and desire to start an imaginary skateboard company. Hey, it was fun when I was 12 and it’s fun at 36.

justrunningscared: Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:17:07 -0400

justrunningscared:

Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999)

dir. Jim Jarmusch

"Visually, Badu is presented in a series of photographs in which she sports a hat as well as hair of..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:23:06 -0400

“Visually, Badu is presented in a series of photographs in which she sports a hat as well as hair of varying lengths. “The Learning Curve” was also accompanied by a segment called “Hair Wars: Vibe Takes a Look at Badu’s Most Famous Dos and Don’ts.” This segment is pretty mindless, and typically so. Still, it makes Badu’s point about how “saviors” are identified by appearance, not substance; how “certain” people want the look of “consciousness,” the “trend” of it, rather than what would be the substance of “consciousness” itself; and how completely unconscious the “conscious” are about their routine notions of consciousness, musical and non-musical.”

- Queens of Consciousness & Sex-Radicalism in Hip-Hop: On Erykah Badu & The Notorious K.I.M. by Greg Thomas

The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 1 no. 7 (2007)

HELLO!

(via toniangelougiovannihughes)

jsmooth995: Rap history. I loved SE3 but then it all fell...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:54:34 -0400

jsmooth995:

Rap history.

I loved SE3 but then it all fell apart when Humilli-T went solo. His first joint, “Passing Grade” (“Teacher, teacher, put me to the test/ She said T’s OK but not as good as the rest”) was solid but the follow-up, “Please Listen To This (If U Have The Time)” couldn’t keep the momentum going.

The G.O.A.T. D.U.P.A.C. Wi.P.E. (Greatest Of All Time, Dependent Upon Place And Context, With Probable Exceptions) project that the remaining members of SE3 went on to do was just awful. “Til The Break Of 10:30 PM (Later If Your Pops Says OK)” was not the party hit they had hoped for.

"In the 1980s, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and Prince were among the African..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:08:38 -0400

“In the 1980s, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and Prince were among the African American artists who crossed over. They are black, but their presence on pop stations and pop charts put them in a different category. Money they earned is moved, with the artists, to the pop division where they are promoted to the pop market (NAACP 1987:4). Rank and file black performers are handled by black music divisions with small budgets, promoted to black-oriented stations with smaller audiences, and usually enjoy smaller sales. Paul, a music industry professional with a decade of experience working with major labels, makes an important - and facetious - point about race and crossover. “Within the record companies because of the separation, you have the pop/rock department and…you have a black department,” he explained. “It’s not called the white department, black department. It’s called ‘rock and pop’ and ‘black.’ Which is not the same type of category because there’ve been cases of black artists who sort have graduated to being pop, like Lionel Richie. Maybe he’s not black anymore. I don’t know.” When black artists cross over into pop success they cease to be black in the industry sense of the word. They get promoted from racialized black music to universal pop music in an economically driven process of racial transcendence.”

- Maureen Mahon, Right To Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race (via blackrockandrollmusic)

I just called in sick. Why do I always feel so guilty advocating for myself? I spent an hour testing...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:44:00 -0400

I just called in sick. Why do I always feel so guilty advocating for myself? I spent an hour testing my symptoms— ok, I walked up all the stairs in my house, so just how tired am I?— because I couldn’t trust myself.

I just told someone else on tumblr this morning that they were worth it, so why can’t I feel that way for myself?

Why is trusting my own needs and speaking them as truth the most fundamental struggle in this life?

(Rhetorical questions of course but hell I’d gladly read what y’all have to say.)

chauvinistsushi: youngblackandvegan: theotheryang: creapy: tu...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:15:28 -0400

chauvinistsushi:

youngblackandvegan:

theotheryang:

creapy:

tumblrs obsessing over the watermelon video when this one exists

She’s the funniest, why am I just hearing about her?

“i’m ready for take off”

fuckin hillarious

she makes me want to have glorious sex with her soooo baddddd

Scientific fact.

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:03:00 -0400

Scientific fact.

SRLP Contributes to Social Security Victory! - SRLP (Sylvia Rivera Law Project)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:33:09 -0400

SRLP Contributes to Social Security Victory! - SRLP (Sylvia Rivera Law Project):

thespiritwas:

This is a huge deal for many low income, disabled people of color who are trans and gender non conforming! So many people worked on this for so long, congrats to all!

!!!

We are excited to share today that the Social Security Administration has finally changed the gender marker policy from one that requires a form of surgery that is permanently sterilizing to one that only requires a doctor’s letter that affirms their patient’s self determined gender.