Clipmarks | dmegivern's Diversity collection

A Force Behind Hate

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:42:36 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Good to know who the hate mongers are

Think Locally, Act Hatefully

Ken Hutcherson has had a busy winter. The football star-turned-megachurch preacher started off January by taking on one of the largest corporations in the world but ended up embroiled in a fight with his daughter’s high school.

Hutcherson has made rabidly anti-gay activism his defining cause, especially as an advocate for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In 2004 he joined James Dobson and other Religious Right leaders for an anti-gay rally on the National Mall, asserting that he represented “God’s people” and that he knew exactly what was on God’s mind: “There are absolutes and I’m absolutely right on this issue. God does not want marriage to be redefined.”

Hutcherson launched a program to convince activists to buy Microsoft shares and donate them to his new AGN Financial Network. Then, according to the plan, Hutcherson could overturn gay-friendly policies at shareholders’ meetings.

Has Class Trumped Race?

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:38:53 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.racialicious.com

Has Class Trumped Race? Part 1 - Understanding Privilege

There is also an interesting post called “Being Poor” by John Scalzi (apparently written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.) At the end of a long list of scenarios, he writes:

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

1. Has anyone close to you ever overdosed on drugs?

3. Has anyone in your family’s social circle ever been in prison?

4. Has your family ever been foreclosed on?

5. Have your parents ever been bankrupt?

7. Have you seen a dentist in the past year?

9. Did your parents use pay-day loans?

12. Has anyone in your immediate family ever delayed an important medical procedure because they didn’t have the money?

13. Did you ever move in with relatives because of financial problems?

15. Was one or both parents often unemployed and looking for work?

16. Was your family ever evicted?

Privilege Goes Viral

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:35:14 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: educationandclass.com

Privilege Goes Viral

And I fascinated by the almost universal denial of privilege among all of these people sitting at their computers with the leisure time to participate in such exercises.

But I’m highly intrigued by the seemingly contradictory responses in many of these posts.

On the other hand, many of these writers simply assume — and often viciously assert — that they and their families are “better” than people who did not grow up with the sorts of things on the list, because any parents who worked hard and cared about their kids would obviously provide the same things that they, themselves, enjoyed as children.

How is it that so many people can simultaneously disdain the poor and working class while also pretending to live in solidarity with “real” people who had to work for everything that they have? To argue that while they simultaneously enjoyed a great deal of material privilege growing up, they are not “privileged” people because their parents worked hard for what they had?

Tearing Down the Gates: Higher Education and Social Class

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:59:56 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.petersacks.org

"Tearing Down the Gates" is about educational injustice. While we often hear about the economic divide between the rich and the poor in America, this book locates the fountainhead of these growing economic disparities in one of our most cherished democratic institutions: our education system.

The book tells the stories of several young people born into different sides of America’s class divide and how their educational opportunities are being shaped by their class status more than ever. The book shows how the actions of schools, colleges and universities, and even government agencies, exacerbate the widening opportunity gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged young people.

Educational opportunity is the key to a middle-class life in the United States, yet the widening class divide results in an untold loss of human talent. Over time, this emerging crisis will derail the American Dream -- not just for some, but for us all.

Tags: class

Behind the Anti-Immigration Scenes

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:58:11 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.splcenter.org

The Teflon Nativists

FAIR Marked by Ties to White Supremacy

In Their Own Words
Read More

The forces seeking to sharply reduce the number of immigrants coming to America won a stunning victory last June, when nativist anger at an "amnesty" for the undocumented scuttled a major bipartisan immigration reform package backed by President Bush. Many members of Congress were completely unprepared for the flood of angry E-mails, phone calls and faxes they received — an inundation so massive that the phone system collapsed under the weight of more than 400,000 faxes.

They should not have been surprised. The furious nativist tide was largely driven by an array of immigration restriction organizations that has been built up over the course of more than 20 years into fixtures in the nation's capital.

At the center of the Tanton web is the nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most important organization fueling the backlash against immigration.

Tags: immigration

White People and Privilege

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 22:08:12 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

White Liberals Have White Privilege Too!

Ten misunderstandings white liberals have about race.

On the other hand, the website www.blackpeopleloveus.com, featuring a liberal white couple, Johnny and Sally, enters murkier territory. Well-intentioned Johnny and Sally hang out with their black friends, who, as the namesake indicates, love them. Part of the site's subversion -- and subsequent confusion -- comes from the fact that its humor is not so separate from liberal Americana. We could meet a Johnny and Sally at a cocktail party, and maybe already have. One black "friend's" testimonial -- "Johnny is generous enough to remark upon how 'articulate' I am! That makes me feel good!" -- carries a zesty punch in light of Joe Biden's recent remarks on Barack Obama.

Jonah Peretti, co-creator of blackpeopelloveus.com (and also of Nike Sweatshop E-mail fame) said that the Web site's purpose was to "draw attention to the unintentionally offensive comments made by well-meaning white folks."

Lakota Nation Drops Treaties with US

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:31:43 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: afp.google.com

Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:03:35 GMT

clipped by: sohil

Clip Source: www.un.org

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Tags: human rights, human, united states, un, bush, bush administration, war on terror, united nations

If The World Were a Village of 100 People

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:38:15 GMT

clipped by: bhjoco

Clip Source: geography.about.com

If the world were a village of 100 people...

61 villagers would be Asian (of that, 20 would be Chinese and 17 would be Indian), 14 would be African, 11 would be European, 9 would be Latin or South American, 5 would be North American, and none of the villagers would be from Australia, Oceania, or Antarctica.

At least 18 villagers would be unable to read or write but 33 would have cellular phones and 16 would be online on the Internet.

There would be 18 cars in the village.

63 villagers would have inadequate sanitation.

33 villagers would be Christians, 20 would be Muslims, 13 would be Hindus, 6 would be Buddhists, 2 would be atheists, 12 would be non-religious, and the remaining 14 would be members of other religions.

One villager would have AIDS, 26 villagers would smoke, and 14 villagers would be obese.

Tags: world, population

A Brief History of The United States of America

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:37:19 GMT

clipped by: laceym

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: humor, history, politics, nra, kkk, slavery