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Indian women have been granted an unprecedented break–8 women-only commuter trains. Was anyone else struck by this headline news, and by “struck” I mean,… did you pause?
On these trains known as Ladies Specials, a weight has been lifted. Men are not there to do what they reportedly do onboard every day–pinch, grope, molest, threaten and shout insults at the women. Apparently, this harassment is the norm. Apparently, it was bad enough to warrant the government stepping in.
Imagine a women-only train. It might be like a big slumber party. In my world, it would manifest as a man-free subway at 4am on a Saturday night. Oooooo. How fucking freeing! What about a man-free traveling experience? I would drive across America or any wild country and push deep into the night, until I collapsed alone and sleepy in my car, a tent, or a grassy ditch on the side of the road. I’d be relaxed, watching the stars sparkle without letting my imagination roar me into at least twenty minutes of heart palpitations: A man is going to find me here and hurt me. A man is going to find me here and hurt me. (An aside: I know plenty of women who are braver than me on that front.) Though I am deeply nourished by the different men in my life, I am also convinced, after 30 short years of living, that this fear of men is inherent in all women, even those who refuse to admit it.
Why? There are so many books that attempt to pin it down, so many poems. No need to descend into the messy discussion of biology (predators, the mechanics of body parts, sowing seeds, choosing carefully for your womb and all that fraught stuff). Instead, here’s some wisdom from a man on the topic… Read more…
I’m watching Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s 2008 documentary “The Garden,” a film about urban farmers in South Central Los Angeles and their fight against developers.
And I’m nearly speechless.
For 14 years, 350 familes grew their own food on this 14 acres, once scorched by riots and pain. It was the largest community garden in the U.S.
In 2006, the garden was bulldozed – all 150 plant species – and plans are underway to build a Forever 21 warehouse and distribution center on this land. This, even though the farmers had raised the money to buy the property from the developer. He’s on record as saying, his words smacking of self-righteous privilege, “Even if they raised $100 million, this group could not buy this property… It’s not about money. It’s about I don’t like their cause and I don’t like their conduct. So there’s no price I would sell it to them for.”
A flood of words get jammed in my fingers when I try to express how I feel about this. Did I mention that most of these farmers are Latinos and Latinas from the community? Are you surprised?
What I can manage to stammer is that this is the mark of everything wrong about the United States, about our dominator society. This is a prime example of what will destroy our national soul.
In the movie, there is footage of heavily armed police officers storming through tall rows of vegetables. If it were fiction, it would be hilarious. But it’s real, and it’s powerful and embarrassing.
The footage of carefully tended, productive, green vegetables, fruits, herbs, being torn up to put in concrete buildings just wrecks me. I feel that loss viscerally, and it makes me hungry for the social upending that will bring in a nurturing, partnership society. Right NOW.
This week, I’m sharing my own work, because I’m so dang proud of it. Chris & I, along with our incredibly talented Austin-area friends, created this 2 minute water conservation PSA in response to RainBird’s “Intelligent Use of Water” film contest. Austin is in the middle of the worst drought in 50 years, and last week, officials announced even tighter water restrictions, so this awareness-raising contest comes at a crucial time.
We had a great time making this film, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy!
Small Changes from Jennifer Gandin Le on Vimeo.
Written by Jennifer & Christopher Gandin Le
Edited by Matt Donaldson
Music by Liz Clark
Starring our brilliant friends and cohorts!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Remember studying The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in Civics class? We read excerpts and made gagging noises when we got to the parts about rat pieces and feces found in American food. Maybe we didn’t quite understand the other call for social reform in the book: to end the profound mistreatment of immigrant workers at the turn of the century. 1906 seemed like another world. We had no idea how close this book hit to home, to now.
Everyone who eats should watch Food, Inc. Or at least the trailer.
Should you buy popcorn and M&Ms? Probably not– unless you can down them during the previews. This documentary isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s tasteful and informative. Most importantly, it argues for our right to knowledge, to be able to find out “what’s in the kitchen.”
This week, I got an exciting e-mail from my friend and fellow 2006 REAL Hot 100 winner, Deanna Zandt. She’s a media technologist and a leading expert in women and technology, and she’s about to add “first-time author” to her resume.
She’s signed with the Berrett-Koehler publishing group to write a book about “the social media moment as a huge opportunity for social change and action.” Women, people of color, queer people, and many more have too often been left in the dust of technological advances (see film, TV, and radio in their formative years). Deanna will use her experience in the feminist community and bring in experts from the fields of racial justice, LGBTQQI organizing, the front lines of the class warfare, and more, to assemble strategies for widening the diversity of voices in social media.
Deanna is a sharp, compassionate, thoughtful person, and her book is going to help women and other sidelined communities release their fear and take advantage of the new technologies. The last thing we need is another place where the dominant culture creates uncontested content that blocks out all other perspectives.
If you’re interested in technology and social justice, you should be reading Deanna’s blog. Also, the publisher doesn’t offer advances, so Deanna is fundraising for living expenses this summer while she writes the book in 4 short months. Even if you have $10 to spare, visit her Feed The Author page and join supporters like the Hightower Lowdown, and Don Hazen and Doug Kreeger (editor and board member of AlterNet). It’s a fantastic project in which to invest.
Her full fundraising letter below the cut.
There’s a free party happening on the East River in Manhattan today from 3pm-7pm, and it celebrates the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the U.S.
DJ Dhundee and DJ Tyler Askew will be spinning, there’s free BBQ all day long, and there’s free beer for the 1st hour. It’s at Solar 1, on the East River Waterfront at East 23rd St, NYC.
Go soak up some of the beautiful day in the company of beautiful, happy people and families!
Yesterday afternoon, I streamed President Obama’s much-anticipated speech in Cairo addressing Muslim communities of the world. Curled up at my tiny desk with computer and alocasia polly plant, I listened via the echo of my iPod buds. Why? Because my boyfriend’s brother, Mike, was hunched over his computer about 10 feet away (so it goes in this city apartment) focusing on an important email about his Fulbright placement in Turkey. I didn’t want to disturb him.
As the President’s speech unfolded, time stopped and some part of me zoomed-out. Mike is about to spend a year in a very Muslim part of a Muslim country; President Obama is asking us all to lay down our fear; it is 2009 and life is rich. In an unprecedented tone for an American President, he lauded the rich contributions of Islam in founding the modern world, spoke of the thriving American Muslim community and quoted the Koran, the Talmud and the Bible. The clear message: Fear gets you nowhere. (He’s choosing love over fear! I kept thinking, in reference to my friends who speak that way).
What started with the humility of “words alone will not meet the needs of our people”lead to “violence is a dead-end, not a sign of courage or power” and we must “chose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past” and that a “woman denied education is a woman denied equality” and finally telling young people that we have the chance to “re-imagine the world.”
All of this positive speak was buoyed by the President’s acknowledgment of the hard sustainable work necessary to undo centuries of tension. While shifting the model of leadership, President Obama called out to the citizens of the world to step it up. After the 57 minutes speech, I recounted the particulars to Mike…. Read more…
On Monday, President Obama officially proclaimed June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. This made my jaw drop and my heart soar. Yes, there is much more work to be done to truly “turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists,” as Obama asks Americans to do. But formal acknowledgments are a big deal in our country, and this is definitely an important first.
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On a fluffier note, check out this re-recording of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” with the vocalist singing/narrating what’s actually happening in the video (which is, by the way, completely creepy). Clever and hilarious!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
With all due respect for the original intentions of this holiday, I’d like to draw attention to the world’s loss of different type of hero earlier this month. Augusto Boal was a chemist from Rio de Janeiro, who began studying theatre in the midst of his research at Columbia University and wrote and directed his first play in New York in 1955. Boal returned to Brazil the next year, where he began creating what he called Newspaper Theatre– political shows packed with audience engagement, performed in the countryside for the purpose of addressing local problems. By 1971, Brazil’s military dictatorship began to see Boal’s theatrical activities as a threat. They imprisoned and tortured him for three months.
Boal complained of knee pain at a plush hotel in Hollywood, but then laughed and told me that he wasn’t sure if it was from the torture or because he was in his 70s. His smile was contagious. His bravery unimaginable. This particular workshop, led by Augusto Boal and his son Julian, was not only on Theatre of the Oppressed (his first book and life’s work) but also on Legislative Theatre. Imagine if before voting, Congress watched a short play about the possible effects of the law they are about to pass. Now imagine Congressmen getting up on stage to explore other outcomes and to express their ideas. Twenty laws were passed this way in Rio De Janeiro when Boal was a City Councilman.
via Marissa
Another hilarious one from Shoot the Messenger, the group who brought you the Brownbow Coalition Storm is Gathering video.
dis·place·ment n
1. the moving or movement of something from its usual or correct place
I have been consumed with the Swat Valley story. Even calling it a “story” shows the distance I have from it–sitting in the library, typing on a computer, going outside to eat my avocado sandwich in a park. According to the United Nations, approximately one million people have fled northwest Pakistan since August. Right this minute, as the Pakistani government attempts to fight (or in the words of Prime Minister Gilani, “eliminate”) Taliban militants, Pakistani families are walking or busing towards refugee camps, where they hope to find food, space, toilets. “Massive displacement,” is the phrase emblazoned across newspapers. Real people uprooted from homes, routines, community, and forced to migrate to safety, if there is safety.
I wonder what this would look like in New York City, Read more…
My friend, Geoff, with Shoot the Messenger Productions, shot this Very Serious response to the National Organization for Marriage “Gathering Storm” video. (That’s his handsome fake-moustachioed mug in the screencap below.) It’s going to be aired on Rachel Maddow’s show tonight.
My favorite is: “If gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, we will have no choice but to switch to digital TV.”
So, what’s the appropriate greeting today: “Happy April Fools’”? I hope you haven’t been tricked too severely. (My long-time favorite resource for verifying questionable information is Snopes.com, by the way. For future reference.)
I’ve been thinking about fools and sacred clowns today, appropriately enough. One of the movies I saw at SXSW was The Yes Men Fix The World, a documentary about the culture jamming activists called the Yes Men. This group uses inventive mischief and deceit to expose the wrongdoing of powerful corporations and governmental offices. The movie features Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, but they’re only two members of the larger group.
The Yes Men have created politically-charged hijinks like:
That’s right, folks, I watched six movies in twelve hours today. I think it’s my personal record. Even more surprising than the sheer amount of movies is the fact that they were all good — in fact, four were excellent, moving films.
In the interest of my bedtime and ability to do this again tomorrow, here are my top four, in the order I saw them, and with high recommendations that you see all of them if you get the chance:
1) Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
This movie follows Youssou Ndour, Grammy Award-winning Senegalese singer and hero, over two years as he releases “Egypt,” an ambitious and controversial album on which he sings about his beloved Islam. (Western listeners not familiar with his name will certainly recognize his voice — he sang backing vocals on Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”)
Ndour’s story and the movie’s telling of it brought me to tears several times; from the sheer power of his voice in performance, to the scenes with his grandmother, the film was beautiful and I want to see it again.
Trailer, and three more stellar films after the jump.
If you’re texting, you’re absent.
I may not be the most superb multi-tasker, but I don’t consider anyone present or participatory if they’re pushing little buttons at the same time their ears are supposed to be open. So this is my classroom policy. Evidently it is not the modus operandi of the U.S. House of Representatives. Am I expecting too much that congressmen would refrain from posting information about their exact location in Iraq and Afghanistan or that they might actually listen to the President’s speech without concurrently informing people of their thoughts and whereabouts?
“Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour,” texted Texas Rep. Joe Barton. Or his staffer. How would we know the difference? Even Maya Angelou on Twitter wasn’t really Maya Angelou.
What does it mean to be American? This is a question perhaps better pondered from beyond America’s borders than from inside them. The mantras of our common story tell us some: the opportunities, the plenty, the melting pot. But this is a flexible definition, and what it means to be American — the way we look at ourselves and the ways we are perceived by others — is not static.
The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was an event that shook the globe, causing people from around the world to reevaluate this question. On the international political scene, this seems to have benefited us, gaining us some traction in terms of popularity and renewed influence, as well as a general sense of benevolence toward what was seen as the correct choice. And we, as Americans, seem to like this latest version of ourselves reflected in this historical decision.
However, another portentous result transpired November 4, 2008. While one political tide continued its turn that started during the Midterms two years ago, a competing undertow dragged us back out to sea. Three states, most infamously California, voted to add same-sex marriage bans to their books, bringing the total of states with similar legislation to thirty. While America with one hand demonstrated itself to be surprisingly broadminded — getting back to the business of being American, many seemed to think — with the other hand it showed that there are still American citizens who are not welcome to the equal treatment that our national ethos would have us believe. Read more…
The world tuned into our election, and they have kept watching. Newspapers track Obama’s attempts to rescue America’s economy while struggling European nations pass stimulus packages through their own legislatures. Meanwhile, those of us who are still receiving emails from lists we joined during that unprecedented surge of political activism that resulted in our new Administration are once again being needled from our inboxes to get involved. Meetings in living rooms, public support strategizing, and letters to Congress abound. These efforts test our most cynical instincts: do we really have a voice in this government? Read more…
Courtney on The O’Reilly Factor:
At the end of the segment, Bill promises to apologize to Courtney if she can show she publicly defended Sarah Palin. It turns out, our equal-opportunity feminist did. Email Bill if you want to hear an apology.
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I mean, come on. You can’t hold back the tides of change, evolution, and love.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
“In America, they hunt black people.” These words were spoken four years ago during my first months in Spain — by a German, of all people.
The movie “Crash,” which I despised, was adored by many of my Spanish friends who saw it. They loved how it presented a long-awaited honest depiction of America: one riddled with large and small currents of bigotry.
It was difficult for me to hear these opinions, not because I have a knee-jerk opposition to criticism – if anything, living abroad has only illuminated the nuances of my country’s shortcomings – or because they weren’t at some level true. It was because of the blatant double standard. With easy blinders-on righteousness, Europeans have long enjoyed disparaging what they perceive to be America’s inherently racist society without taking a sidelong glance at the glaring inequalities of their own lands. My anger resulted, therefore, from the bravado with which the pot was calling the kettle racist. Read more…
