tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-23T17:04:21Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11483 2013-05-23T17:02:04Z 2013-05-23T17:04:21Z

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the recent shooting death of a black gay man a hate crime.Police said Elliott Morales, a 33-year-old ex-convict, was yelling anti-gay slurs before he allegedly shot to death Mark Carson, following a...

The NorthStar News ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the recent shooting death of a black gay man a hate crime.

Police said Elliott Morales, a 33-year-old ex-convict, was yelling anti-gay slurs before he allegedly shot to death Mark Carson, following a brief argument Friday night in New York's Greenwich Village.

Carson and his friend walked away from Morales and his two friends, but Morales followed Carson to continue his end of the argument.

Carson, 32, was shot once in the face, and he died instantly. Morales attempted to escape by running and blending into the crowd, but police caught him with a pistol, believed to be the murder weapon.

"This clearly looks like a hate crime," Kelly said during a Saturday news conference. On Sunday, prosecutors charged Morales with murder as a hate crime.

Carson's murder is the second involving a black gay man in four months. Marco McMillian, an openly gay black men who was running for mayor of Clarksdale, Miss., was found murdered February 27 near a Mississippi River levee.

Read the rest at The NorthStar News
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11476 2013-05-22T17:49:34Z 2013-05-24T09:50:48Z

The San Francisco Department on the Status of Women joins other organizations in condemnation of the May 13 assertion by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto that the system of sex slavery imposed by the Japanese military in Asia during World War...

Emily Murase ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The San Francisco Department on the Status of Women joins other organizations in condemnation of the May 13 assertion by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto that the system of sex slavery imposed by the Japanese military in Asia during World War II was “necessary” to provide relief to soldiers.

This statement is very damaging. To justify the exploitation and suffering experienced by the women, some just girls, who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during World War II is a flagrant denial of basic human rights. Sex slavery is never “necessary.”

Here in San Francisco, we are a human rights city where a landmark 1998 Women’s Human Rights Ordinance recognizes the right of women to be free from violence. We are part of an international movement to eradicate gender-based violence. In March, Department staff led a delegation of women leaders from around the Sam Francisco Bay Area to participate in the UN Commission on the Status of Women meetings based on this year’s theme of addressing violence against women. Sexual violence as an instrument of war was a major discussion topic.

San Francisco’s commitment to fight violence against women is clear: just two months ago, Mayor Edwin Lee, District Attorney George Gascon, Susan Swan of V-Day, and Marily Mondejar of the Filipina Women’s Network, and President of the Commission on the Status of Women Julie Soo hosted over 2,000 participants at the One Billion Rising dance action to end violence against women at San Francisco Civic Center, part of Eve Ensler’s global campaign against gender-basedviolence, including many events in Japan.

San Francisco’s sister city relationship with Osaka, the third largest city in Japan, is the nation’s oldest, dating back to 1957 under then-Mayor George Christopher. A long line of San Francisco Mayors have invested in this important relationship. The recent statement by Mayor Hashimoto is counter to our values and it is our duty as a sister city to condemn his remarks. As a city, we continue our efforts to engage in people-to-people citizen diplomacy and to connect with non-governmental organizations in Osaka and San Francisco that are holding leaders accountable in the fight against gender violence.

I am joined by other leading organizations in the Japanese American community such as the US Japan Council that asserted, “Statements that are demeaning to women or that are historically inaccurate are inappropriate and harms the relationship between Japan and its allies.” In addition, the San Francisco – Osaka Sister City Association released the following, “Statements that justify controversial wartime abuses and devastating violence against women are damaging to international relations, and contrary to the mission of the Association.”

As the head of the Department on the Status of Women, and a board member of the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City Association, I stand together with women’s groups in Japan and around the world to urge Mayor Hashimoto to take immediate steps to repair the damage resulting from his inflammatory statement, and to publicly recognize the tremendous human suffering and human rights violations of the wartime sex slavery system against women.

Emily M. Murase, PhD is executive director of the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11472 2013-05-21T23:00:00Z 2013-05-22T01:20:15Z

Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX – Daniel Rodriguez has been a part of the immigrant rights movement for as long as he can remember. He is gay, 27 and a law school student who hopes to become an immigration attorney one day.

Rodriguez has no doubt that LGBT rights should be part of comprehensive immigration reform. But these days he finds himself in an uncomfortable position.

“This is one of those times in which our community has to sacrifice something to have a win,” said Rodriguez.

In the coming days, the Senate could consider an amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would allow U.S. citizens to sponsor their same-sex partners to get a green card.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said on Tuesday that he would not introduce the amendment in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and intends to present it on the floor of the Senate instead.

LGBT rights advocates expressed disappointment that the amendment was withheld Tuesday, the last day of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

“We are disappointed that Senator Schumer and his ‘Gang of 8’ colleagues accepted a false choice between LGBT families and immigration reform,” said Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality Action Fund, “when the truth is that including LGBT families from the outset would have strengthened the bill.”

When Leahy announced the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), the controversial amendment was criticized nationally. Some Republicans and Democrats said that adding protections for same-sex couples could kill the immigration reform bill.

But those who identify as both queer and undocumented, or “undocuqueer” as they call themselves, beg to differ.

“I agree that it could hurt immigration reform but I don’t think that it would kill it,” said Rodriguez, who is the chair of Somos America, a broad coalition of pro-immigrant groups in Arizona. “I think it’s important to discuss it.”

Still, Rodriguez says that if he knew that an amendment like this would kill immigration reform and he had the power to stop it, he wouldn’t support it.

“It’s hard to the point that it verges on being hypocritical,” he said. “We have built this idea of the American dream for equality, for us to be included. It’s really difficult being that we’ve done it for so long, that in order to get there it may be that we have to put somebody down.”

Dago Bailon, the Arizona chair of the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP), said the chances that the amendment might pass the committee or the Senate floor are slim.

“At the end of the day, I have to ask if I’m willing to sacrifice my family for this issue, at the end of the day if we can have immigration reform without this. We’ll still be OK,” said Bailon, 26.

Both Bailon and Rodriguez, who have work permits under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, have family members who are undocumented.

The argument against UAFA

President Obama has voiced his support for LGBT rights to be included in any comprehensive immigration bill. But Leahy's amendment has been sharply criticized by members of the Gang of Eight, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida.

“It will virtually guarantee that it won’t pass,” Rubio told Politico in an interview.

Two other Republican members of the group – John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- also made clear their opposition to the amendment, saying it would “kill the bill.”

Democrats like Chuck Schumer found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Schumer had voiced his support for gay rights in the past, but was unwilling to support the amendment, saying he believed that voting for it would cause the Republicans to walk away from the bill.

Opponents of UAFA argue that under the current immigration proposal, all undocumented people regardless of sexual orientation would be able to apply for a provisional status.

But immigration attorney and LGBT advocate Regina Jefferies explained there is a big difference between getting a temporary work permit and having a chance at a green card through marriage to a U.S. citizen. This last option is not open to same-sex couples, even if they are legally married in one of the 12 states that allows same-sex marriage.

“People are not aware of the special impact that being in a same-sex married couple has when one of the members is from another country,” she said. “We have too many U.S. citizens living in exile because they can’t sponsor their spouse.”

Bailon and other advocates believe that an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) could make a difference in allowing same-sex partners a chance at immigration equality like any other couple.

DOMA prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples for various benefits including the right to sponsor a spouse for a green card.

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns it this year, immigration attorneys argue that it will open the door for same-sex couples who were married in states where same-sex marriage is legal to have a chance to apply for a green card through marriage.

Yet, that could be an administrative nightmare, according to Jefferies.

“It will be an unbalanced treatment of LGBT couples,” she said. “You’ll have situations in which people from one state or another won’t be able to petition for a same-sex spouse but they’ll be able to do it in another place.”

Paying lip service to LGBT rights

Youth advocates for immigration and LGBT rights like Mohammad Abdollahi, a member of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance and founder of DreamActivist.org, say there’s a split within the movement when it comes to Leahy’s amendment.

While some national organizations support the amendment publicly, he said, behind closed doors there’s pushback against it.

“Their support is not real,” he said.

Furthermore, the argument that repealing DOMA would address the needs of gay couples nationally doesn’t work, according to Abdollahi.

Under UAFA, petitioners would have to prove that they are in a committed relationship as “permanent partners.”

“Marriage law is state by state; we still have to fight every single state,” he said. “If it passes in immigration reform, it’s a federal change, regardless of laws on marriage.”


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11469 2013-05-21T19:58:40Z 2013-05-21T20:00:27Z

Louisiana Weekly ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
There is no “type” of woman that has an abortion; the reality is that roughly one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Though anti-choice activists would have us believe otherwise, abortion is a common medical procedure.

The narrative of who obtains abortions does not vary by state; what does vary are the obstacles that she must hurdle to obtain safe, legal, non-judgmental reproductive care that supports her right to determine whether or not to become a mother.

In speaking with women on the abortion fund hotline, it is notable that these women forgo paying their electric bills and rent, or go without food because insurance companies in Louisiana are prohibited from providing abortion coverage. Restrictive laws, specifically mandated waiting periods and in-person counseling, force the women with whom I speak to, to take several days off from work, often without pay, arrange child care, and negotiate transportation with someone is supportive of their choice. Read more here. 
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11468 2013-05-21T19:40:45Z 2013-05-21T19:42:32Z

Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The randomness of Carson’s death has shocked the city’s LGBT community. “Mark is not going to die in vain. We are not going to get beat up in vain,” one rally participant told Mother Jones. “Gay rights, we’re still fighting for them, and the fight is not over. We need to protect each other.” To see photos go here.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11422 2013-05-14T17:08:00Z 2013-05-14T17:10:19Z

TC Daily Planet ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The debate on the bill, which began about 1:50 p.m. after a couple of amendments were debated and defeated, offered an extraordinary and emotional look into a conversation over marriage rights that has divided the state for years but appears to be on the brink of a sudden and decisive conclusion. There were several riveting moments, including a heart-felt floor speech in Spanish — her first-ever — from Richfield DFLer Patricia Torres Ray.

A historic occasion in its own right, Torres Ray used her native tongue to explain to her family and Spanish-speaking friends — most of whom oppose same-sex marriage — why she was voting in favor of the bill.

Read more here.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11396 2013-05-09T08:05:00Z 2013-05-10T21:44:57Z

Arturo Varela // Translated by Elena Shore ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHILADELPHIA -- For Ada Bello, a 79-year-old LGBT rights activist, growing up on the island of Cuba was “terrible” due to the risk of being identified as a lesbian. So in 1959, when Bello was in her 20s, she emigrated to the United States, where she became one of the early pioneers of the LGBT rights movement in Philadelphia.

“One’s behavior was enough for them [the Cuban government] to take legal action against you,” said Bello, remembering her youth on the island. “Even though men were the most affected, women had less freedom.”

The consequences of being identified as a lesbian in Cuba were serious.  For some families, it was an affront to their honor that meant having to leave the country entirely.

“I didn’t feel any remorse for being a lesbian, but I knew I was going to have to live my life in the shadows,” said Bello. “So I decided the only solution was to leave the country.”

In Cuba, Bello knew two or three other gay women. At least she thought they were gay, “because in many cases they wouldn’t even confide in each other, out of fear” – no doubt a scenario that is difficult to imagine today.

As a young woman, Bello moved from Matanzas, a town where everyone knew each other and gossiped, to Havana.  She soon discovered that the university community there was just as small as the city where she grew up.

Just before the revolution, in the midst of conflicts between students in Havana and the police, the university shut its doors. When Fidel Castro assumed power shortly thereafter, it didn’t make much of a difference for her or for other gay people on the island – at least at first.

“But then they started to persecute people they considered to be a threat to society,” said Bello. “That included homosexuals.”

Those who were identified in the raids were confined to labor camps.

“When the world learned this was happening, there was a lot of pressure on the Cuban government,” said Bello, who recalled the impact of the Spanish documentary “Improper Conduct,” which exposed the persecution of homosexuals and intellectuals in Castro’s Cuba during the beginning of the Cuban revolution.

“That was a very important moment, when the practice started to change,” said Bello.

By then, Bello had already left Cuba and was attending college in the United States. At that time, getting into an American university was reason enough to be allowed to leave the island.

“When I got to Louisiana I found I had a lot more freedom because no one knew me, and I had a lot more privacy than I did with my family in Cuba,” said Bello. “I was near New Orleans, a big city with gay and lesbian bars.”

After graduating with a major in chemistry, she went to work, always being discrete, afraid that if she were discovered she could lose her job.

The American South, which at first had offered her so much freedom, eventually seemed too small for her and in 1962 she moved to Philadelphia, where she would become a true pioneer in the movement for gay rights.

In the City of Brotherly Love, Bello was a founding member in 1967 of the local chapter of the organization known as Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), which led a year later to the creation of the Homophile Action League (HAL).

“We held peaceful protests against the raids the police were conducting on gay and lesbian bars. They were arresting the customers at night and weren’t letting them go until the morning,” said Bello. “We challenged the police and they realized that there was a group of people that was watching what they were doing and they couldn’t just act unjustly.”

From 1966 to 1968, on the Fourth of July in front of Independence Hall, the first demonstrations for the rights of the LGBT community were held in Philadelphia. Bello participated in the last of these.

A year later the Stonewall riots broke out in New York, a series of violent demonstrations by the gay community against police raids, considered to be the most important events that led to the LGBT liberation movement and the struggle for gay rights.

After helping to organize the first gay rights march in the Big Apple in 1970, HAL organized LGBT conferences until the organization stopped operating in 1972.

“After Stonewall, the methodology was different. It was no longer a question of covert action, but of integrating into the political process, and that required another type of structure,” said Bello.

She later joined different organizations in Philadelphia, such as the William Way Center and the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force — which was responsible for the inclusion in 1983 of the protection of homosexuals in a local ordinance that previously only protected against discrimination based on race or religion.

Today, one of the streets where police used to carry out raids on the LGBT community in Philadelphia is named after Barbara Gittings, one of the activists Bello worked with in the struggle.

Bello later shifted her focus to her career, but she didn’t give up her activism.

“When I came to the United States from Cuba, I thought I had arrived in paradise, that I’d found a lot of freedom,” said Bello. “Then I saw all the battles that had to be fought, and that led me to activism.”

Although there is still a long way to go toward equality for the civil rights of the LGBT community, Bello believes that in her 79 years she has seen major changes both in the United States and in her native Cuba.

“In those days, it seemed like it was going to take an eternity, but the speed of the change has been incredible,” said Bello. “Back then we were fighting because they considered us criminals. Now we are fighting for marriage equality, and we have to keep fighting so we don’t return to the past.”

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11358 2013-05-02T07:05:00Z 2013-05-02T15:19:28Z

Jason Collins received kudos from the president, first lady, a former president and many others for having the courage to break one of America's last great barriers. He became the first openly gay active player in one of America's major...

Keli Goff ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Jason Collins received kudos from the president, first lady, a former president and many others for having the courage to break one of America's last great barriers. He became the first openly gay active player in one of America's major professional sports. Collins has handled the situation with pure class, and refreshingly, the sports world has, for the most part, responded in kind.

In addition to the doors Collins has potentially opened for other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender athletes with his announcement, the grace he has displayed has hopefully closed the door on one cultural pastime: outing.

After this year's Super Bowl, the first in which there were players vocally expressing support for LGBT Americans, speculation began that perhaps an NFL player, or two or three, might soon be ready to publicly acknowledge being gay. This then led to further speculation regarding who those players might be. Recently, certain outlets began openly naming one player in particular, whom I will not be naming in this piece. The reason? Because I don't understand the purpose of outing and never have.

Let me clarify. I certainly didn't shed any tears when conservative Sen. Larry Craig was caught in a compromising position in a men's bathroom and was subsequently accused by a number of men of having been caught in similarly compromised positions before. I shed no tears because Craig had a record of actively opposing LGBT rights, including anti-discrimination measures, as an elected official. Therefore, his apparent hypocrisy made his sex life very relevant. But I have never understood how it is relevant beyond that limited set of circumstances.

Yet in the past several years, outing has become almost accepted practice. In 2008 the appropriately titled LGBT publication Out placed images of Anderson Cooper and Jodie Foster on the cover of its "Power 50" issue. Neither had publicly intimated that he or was gay at that point. To be clear, neither had ever denied being gay, either. Apparently some people had a problem with that. But here's a question: Why?

When I interviewed CNN anchor Don Lemon years ago, the day he publicly acknowledged being gay, I asked him to help me understand, as a straight American, what I view as a blatant double standard between the respect and privacy heterosexuals are allowed, versus what gay Americans are granted today.

For instance, public figures who are perceived as being straight are given the leeway to say things like, "I'd prefer not to discuss my private life." The reaction is usually, "Good for him [or her] for preserving some semblance of normalcy in the age of Twitter and staged paparazzi shots." But if there is even the slightest speculation that a celebrity might not be straight, then "I'd prefer not to discuss my private life" is interpreted by some members of the media and LGBT community as "He's obviously ashamed of who he is and has a duty to the entire community to be out and proud!"

Again, my question is, why?

I have had a number of conversations with gay friends -- some of whom are public figures -- on this very topic, with all of them having varying perspectives. But during our interview, Lemon gave one of the most thoughtful answers I have heard on the topic, which I will do my best to paraphrase here. He essentially compared being closeted today to a black person's passing for white 50 years ago. You may not be actively lying, but you are being complicit by not vocally speaking the truth and thereby being a default beneficiary of a discriminatory system.

I see his point. But speaking as a black American (which Lemon is as well), I can't say that I entirely agree. Had I been alive during the civil rights movement and someone said to me, "You know, it turns out I know President Johnson's cousin. The president is actually part black," my instinct probably would not have been to out him on the cover of Jet magazine but, rather, to let him live his life -- trying to help me get my rights as the civil rights pioneer he was -- and then, when he was ready to come out as a black American on his own terms, to support him doing that. (As a historical side note, it is widely rumored that President Warren G. Harding was part black. Opponents tried "outing" this secret, which Harding pointedly never denied but merely laughed off.)

Now, if the same person had told me decades ago that Strom Thurmond had a black daughter and had proof, I wouldn't have been able to print that news on the cover of Jet quickly enough. This revelation, which was confirmed within the last decade, proved that Thurmond, one of the most outspoken racists of the last century, was a hypocrite. Because he was a government official who affected civil rights legislation, the public definitely had a right to know. Just as the public had a right to know that the late Rep. Henry Hyde, who was prosecuting President Clinton for the Lewinsky scandal, was also having an affair, just like the president he was condemning.

But when there is no hypocrisy involved, outing is really nothing more than bullying. Which is ironic, because some of the same individuals, outlets and institutions promoting outing likely decry the bullying of gay students in schools.

Everyone has a right to find and declare his own identity in his own way, in his own time and on his own terms. Jason Collins found the right moment for him to tell the world his truth. Because of him, the journey will hopefully be a little easier for the next gay athlete who comes out.

But perhaps an even more important part of his legacy will be that Collins proves that the most effective role models are those who have embraced being one, not those forced into the role by others who feel it is owed to them. Here's hoping that his courageous move will not only inspire others to show equal courage but also inspire the public at large to display more compassion and kindness toward those who are not quite ready to follow Collins' lead yet but who may be one day.

Keli Goff is The Root's political correspondent.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11351 2013-05-01T07:05:00Z 2013-04-30T23:19:12Z

Sandip Roy ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=54 At 5:44 PM on April 1, John Pack Lambert, a 32-year-old student of history at Wayne State University took a small step for one man which proved to be a giant leap for mankind.

And I mean MANkind, not humanity.

Lambert moved Patricia Aakhus, author of The Voyage of Mael Duin’s Curragh from American novelists to the category American women novelists.

Two minutes later, teen romance author Hailey Abbott suffered the same fate.

Then Megan Abbott.

At 8:51 PM Lambert, the one-man army to engender order in the universe, created a new category, Nigerian women novelists and put Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie there.

James Gleick’s account in the New York Review of Books of how Wikipedia fell into the great gender gap is a riveting read, a sort of detective story for category-geeks. (Read the full story here).

The next day Lambert was briefly sidetracked by a discussion of whether there should be a Category:Jeans enthusiasts (for “celebrities and famous people who are always wearing or frequently spotted wearing jeans”), but then he got back to work and A. L. Kennedy, till then a Scottish novelist, became a Scottish woman novelist. On April 3 he created a category for Greek women screenwriters; so far it has only one member.

The rest of the world cried “Sexism.” Leading the charge was Amanda Filipacci, one of the women writers who suddenly found herself banished to the ante-chamber while the men hogged the living room. (Sounds like an old-fashioned Indian wedding.)

Filipacci complained in a post on The New York Times:

People who go to Wikipedia to get ideas for whom to hire, or honor, or read, and look at that list of “American Novelists” for inspiration, might not even notice that the first page of it includes far more men than women. They might simply use that list without thinking twice about it. It’s probably small, easily fixable things like this that make it harder and slower for women to gain equality in the literary world.

Even Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales was gobsmacked. In a post titled WTH, he wrote:

My first instinct is that surely these stories are wrong in some important way. Can someone update me on where I can read the community conversation about this? Did it happen? How did it happen?

Lambert stoutly defended himself to Gleick. “This whole hullabaloo is really missing the point,” he said. “The people who are making a big deal about this are not being up-front about what happens if we do not diffuse categories.”

Diffuse is geek-speak for moving things from a parent category to a sub-category. American novelist, said Lambert was just too big to be useful. “It is really a holding ground for people who have yet to be categorized into a more specific sub-cat,” said a user called Obi-Wan Kenobi. “It’s not some sort of club that you have to be a part of.”

May the force be with Obi-Wan Kenobi but really? If that’s the case why not move the men out to Male American novelists? There was a proposal to do that. It got shot down fast. That is our problem in a nutshell. We categorize by minority and therefore it’s hard to escape bias.

So after The New York Review of Books (again!) scooped all the big pubs by tracking down the mysterious Misha, the so-called Svengali alleged to have “radicalized” the brothers Tsarnaev, many commenters complained that he was described as half-Armenian. Why not describe him as half-Ukrainian complained angry readers, probably Armenians.

On the flip side, Indian American publications routinely complain that Kamala Harris is described as California’s first African American Attorney General when she is also its first Indian-American Attorney General.

But Wikipedia’s women problem is different. It’s not about the clumsiness of describing Kamala Harris as California’s first female African American Indian American attorney general. Like much of the online world Wikipedia has a gender gap. But as it has become the default go-to site for information, its gender gap is showing in embarrassing ways.

In 2011, Noam Cohen wrote in The New York Times that the contributor base was barely 13 percent women. That means there’s gender bias that shows up in the very act of deciding what topic is worthy of meriting a wiki entry and how long it is.

A topic generally restricted to teenage girls, like friendship bracelets, can seem short at four paragraphs when compared with lengthy articles on something boys might favor, like, toy soldiers or baseball cards, whose voluminous entry includes a detailed chronological history of the subject.

For example, during the royal wedding in 2011, Wikipedia members debated furiously about whether Kate Middleton’s dress deserved an entry. Wiki founder Wales thought it did because it had more social and cultural interest than “100 articles on different Linux distributions, some of them quite obscure… and (they have) virtually no impact on the broader culture.”

Well intentioned, I am sure. But a problematic example to use to try and fix a real gender problem. As one reader said at that time:

“I really see this idea that keeping this article does something to remedy the gender imbalance here to be facile at best and insulting at worst.”

Pardon me, Wiki, but your slip is showing.

It’s a knotty problem that goes beyond one OCD history student. How do you create categories without creating hierarchies? Especially given the fact that a “gay writer” is happy to claim a Lambda award given out for LGBT writing and a woman politician is grateful for support that comes her way thanks to a group like Emily’s List which wants to encourage women in politics. But neither want those honours to disqualify them from being “writer” or “politician.”

The problem is not one of the categories you belong to but the ones you don’t – this idea that somehow a woman American writer is not an American writer as well.

So in the world according to Wikipedia Maya Angelou belongs to 20th century women writers, African-American memoirists, African-American women poets, African American writers, American Activists, American dramatists and playwrights, American people of Sierre Leonean descent – everything but 20th century writer.

But the first categories Salman Rushdie belongs to are 20th century novelists and 21st century novelists.

Until Wikipedia understands that the difference between the two entries is not just one of ordering but of perspective, it’s doomed to keep falling face first into the gender gap.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11341 2013-04-29T21:52:27Z 2013-04-29T22:04:30Z

New America Media ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated, becoming the first professional male basketball player to do so.  “Jason Collins’ courage should be commended,” Andre Banks Executive Director and Co-founder of All Out said. “Our members clearly agree. Hundreds of people signed a note thanking Jason Collins for breaking his silence within minutes of his announcement.”

“We hope more professional athletes come out.” Andre Banks noted. “Not only will they have an active fan base ready to support their careers, but their position as a positive role model will save lives and reduce bullying. Collins may not realize this yet, but he is a hero.”

Meanwhile,The Rev. Al Sharpton released the following statement:

The announcement made by NBA center Jason Collins today about being a gay male marks the first time a professional athlete has openly confirmed his sexuality. This is a breakthrough moment in sports and another step towards tolerance and fairness in the African-American community.

I salute the courage and candor of Mr. Collins and think he has made a great contribution to this country and I call on others in the civil rights community and the African-American leadership of all fields to embrace this development. We can’t be custodians of intolerance and freedom fighters at the same time. In order to fight for anyone’s civil rights and self expression we must fight for everyone’s civil rights. God Bless Jason Collins for helping to show us the way.

Spike Lee, among other celebrities, took to twitter to congratulate him.  "Orange And Blue Skies Salutes Jason Collins. Thank You For Your Courage,A Slam Dunk Against HOMOPHOBIA.And Dat's Da "FREEDOM"Truth,Ruth." Lee Wrote.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11291 2013-04-20T08:10:00Z 2013-04-18T18:51:52Z

Amy Huang ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
“I remember my brother and I would just sit and watch kung fu movies. He was interested in kung fu, and that made me interested as well. But my mom always said ‘no’ to me learning. She always felt that’s what boys do,” reflects Yang.

After 10 years, Yang is now an avid kung fu practitioner and instructor at Seven Star Women’s Kung Fu — a nonprofit martial arts school dedicated to creating a nurturing environment for women to learn practical self-defense skills, build strength, thereby improving the health, safety, confidence and well-being of women in the Seattle area.

In 2003, Yang decided to try a beginner’s cycle class at Seven Star with a friend.

“When I started, I thought this would be fun a good exercise. But as I progressed, I became more serious and then I started teaching,” says Yang. “However, my underlying theme is also about getting a good workout and having fun.”

Yang’s love for martial arts grew deeper to a point where mastering her skills became an integral part of her life. Throughout Yang’s 10-year involvement with martial arts, teaching and transforming women has been her core focus and inspiration.

“I teach at an all-women’s school and I enjoy it,” says Yang. “In a school with only women, there’s less to worry about being self-conscious. I definitely feel empowered teaching at an all women’s school.”

In 2008, Yang started teaching at the school. As she progressed and got more involved with Seven Stars, instilling confidence for other women became an important component of her teaching philosophy.

“I became a more confident person,” says Yang. “I want to be able to instill confidence for other people. I want to help someone be transformed.”

As Yang meets more women through teaching, she has the opportunity to hear stories about how martial arts has helped them achieve overall confidence and self-defense skills to protect themselves in moments of danger.

“One woman at our school was attacked at an empty parking lot, but she scared them off,” says Yang. “She was confident and didn’t end up getting hurt.”

Those are the stories that continue to drive Yang to continue teaching and improving as a martial artist.

“I’m at a point where I want to get better. I want to learn how to teach,” says Yang. “Teaching is very hard, but it’s been an exciting learning experience for me in more ways than one.”

Along her journey of teaching other women, Yang also had the opportunity and privilege to meet other women with the same passion for martial arts. Yang recalls attending a Pacific Association of Women Martial Artists (PAWMA) event, where women from all over the world attend a weekend-long seminar once a year to teach, learn and train in different types of martial arts.

“It was so inspiring to see, meet and learn from so many accomplished and talented women,” says Yang. “The teachers are always some of the highest-ranking of their styles.”

During last year’s PAWMA seminar, Yang met Sensei Keiko Fukuda, a Japanese-American martial artist who was the highest-ranked female judoka in history and also holds the 10th dan from USA Judo.

“She is the first, and so far, the only woman to ever reach the 10th dan in Judo. Before her, women were only allowed to reach 5th dan,” says Yang. “She was 99 when she taught the class and has since passed. I feel honored to have had the opportunity to be inspired by her — a true trailblazer.”

In July 2012, Yang received her black belt, the highest-ranking belt at her school. Today, Yang is still practicing her art in various forms and working with a male trainer in Portland, Ore. After all she’s accomplished, Yang continues to envision the future of her teaching and training.

“In five years, I want to continue teaching,” says Yang. “I’ve been doing it for 10 years now, but I am going to continue.”

If anything, Yang was discouraged to do kung fu while growing up. Yang recalls the difficulty of telling her mother when she decided to pursue martial arts. Now, Yang is breaking stereotypes and building a platform for women to learn practical self-defense skills while building strength and confidence through martial arts.
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Bee Vang ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The orientalism described by Edward Said reaches well beyond its genesis and debilitates the present. Particular to the racedness of male-bodied Asians are tropes of culturally-bounded, perversely or nonnormatively sexual, and manipulative and calculating; this has transmogrified into the pathological desire to accumulate wealth with the rise of the Pacific. Because of economic threat in the “Century of the Pacific,” America’s anxieties render Asian men as alien (perpetual foreigners), feminine (as docile Orientals with inhuman efficiency) and therefore homosexual – as derived from their putatively perverse nonnormative gender. This denial of both a viable subjecthood as American and of a penis (through feminization and homosexualization) enframes Asian males in what Kara Keeling has called the cliché.

Enter Jeremy Lin; perhaps, I mused, such a cliché could be exploded. Lin inspired me to ruminate on my body and the experiences that have conditioned it so, to find in the multitude of my social existences what future I may envisage in the wake of Linsanity. I gaze upon Lin, the space he traverses on the basketball court, his butch body presence, and yet as I look on, through his jock veneer, the Asian male cliché taunts me. That enthralled gaze through which I, too, consume him renders even my pleasure in spectatorship moot, unresolved, so much so that I cannot and will never see Lin without seeing my overdetermined self; it is as if his body becomes my own. Why am I inexplicably able to feel some sensation in me when I slip into a Jeremy Lin Knicks jersey? From where does this excitement come? A feeling of ambivalence seeps through my psychic life, and I begin to doubt that I should embrace this coming moment as a promising eruption. For in this moment, perhaps all I can share with him is being reduced to my (yellow) body.

I am wary of any optimism that unreflexively affirms that which is perceivable in the sight of Jeremy Lin. The image of Lin as tall, muscular and macho occults what else is relentlessly being seen; his athleticism cannot eschew being refracted through an Asian male cliché. When Lin lost the game, he became “the chink in the armor” (emphasis mine). “Chink”…. “Gook”…. Somehow, despite the sting of that vestigial racism imposed upon us, many of us still wanted Lin’s athletic achievement to be perceivable as Asian. For us, a shot at shattering the stultifying cliché was more important than evading racialization. Problematically, this shattering could only be conceived in the form of heterosexualization.

In the shadow of a guardedly hopeful Jeremy Lin hetero-masculine explosion, lurks a countervailing image that, unlike Lin, conjures a more enigmatic male-bodied Asian cliché in the form of a pop music video. What Korean singer PSY embodies in Gangnam Style, his indeterminate sexuality and gender performance, his inscrutably unmacho dance and costume styles, some would say, lie on the cusp of a recurrent male-bodied Asian that signifies lack. Arguably, PSY’s lack was expressed as his ineligibility for American inclusion when, despite his topping the song charts, protesters denounced his American Music Award. Even before PSY, though, all-American Lin had been made to stand for racialized sexual lack even when he was victorious: black Fox sportswriter Jason Whitlock could not resist reinscribing indignity, tweeting after Lin’s big win for the Knicks, “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight”….

I don’t want to insinuate a Black-Asian dichotomy; indeed, our histories of racialization complement one another (one embodying bestialization and excess, the other invoking defectiveness and impotence). At the same time I feel a pounding against my flesh. While I can only venture into Fanonian terrain, I am torn because I dread the possibility that oft-forgotten Asians will be forever punished for dereliction of their “of-color” being in aspiring to whiteness. And yet, “honorary” whiteness notwithstanding, we remain incontrovertibly yellow; hence, enshrouded in a double silence, we occupy the space of an inchoate social existence that derives from exclusion from person-of-color solidarity and complex subjectivity. If all the exclusion indelibly a part of my “dangerous” Asian male “privilege” suffuses my desire to speak with only a modicum of fevered indignation, then it is, at last, my Hmong-bodied self who must be heard.

I am doubly afflicted with two contradictory images that, regardless of my intended identifications, bind me to my flesh. For what is utterly deathly about this silence is that because of my yellow body, I and my Hmongness perennially fade out in favor of what is visible on the skin. How Hmong have come to be racialized by way of becoming Vietnam war refugees (though actually from Laos where a Secret War was waged) and consigned to the invisibility of the Fourth World (subpopulations without a spatially-bounded nation or a sovereign state) is even more particular, but egregiously unknown. Indeed, Hmong in Asia – without written language until the twentieth century, subsisting on a slash-and-burn agriculture, made to emblematize, like minstrels, the antithesis to progress and civilization – remain among the people without history. Could our exit from the proverbial “stone age” and into history, in a blink of the Western imperial eye, be through a kind of CIA-conferred soldierhood that morphs into American gangsterhood, in a bedeviled upending of the effeminate Asian male cliché?

Being counterpart, as both Fourth Worlders and therefore “noble savages,” to orientalism’s beloved male-bodied elite butterfly (as so aptly captured by David Henry Hwang), Hmong would be butch to Asian femme, just as proletariat is butch to bourgeois femme. In this case, the immiserated Fourth World is strangely both butch and constitutive outside, in a twisted way registering as lack in an Asian American context that has normalized the perversely sexualized and femme gendered as the space of model minority Asianness. In America, the deal we are offered is inevitably classed: we get to be tough men through demonized street gangs and guns. It is because it is possible for me to dodge this Hmong cliché by passing as non-Hmong Asian that I see through to unravel the antinomies of a Hmong/Asian masculine body that is and is not mine. Is it that this passing allows me to alleviate the weight of a history that haunts me and denies me ascendancy to subjecthood that makes it so seductive?

This piece is a prolegomena to a longer co-authored essay tentatively titled “The Wretched of the East.”


Bee Vang attends Brown University where he is pursuing an independently designed major in “Geopolitical Epistemologies” which synergizes philosophy, cultural studies, and political economy with critical race, gender/sexuality, and media studies. Vang spent the last two summers in China investigating rural development, popular and performance cultures, and global economics. Beyond his intellectual pursuits, he also works on projects to advance social justice through media, performance, organizing, and writing, especially on issues related but not limited to Asian America. In particular, Vang is committed to dovetailing the arts with political analysis through film, stage and television acting and production and through media activism. He is currently on hiatus from his studies and is working at two non-profit organizations in New York City: Asian Cinevision/Asian American International Film Festival and WhyHunger.


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Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The lack of legal protections in two-thirds of the states for members of the LGBT community means that more people live in poverty and have a harder time making it simply because their rights aren’t on an equal footing with other Americans. This is even more the case for LGBT women and people of color, where employment discrimination fuels an even broader economic crisis.

But these hardships can be rolled away, and we need not wait for members of Congress to finish “falling all over themselves” to make it happen. As a report released earlier this week by a coalition of non-discrimination organizations lays out, President Obama can take unilateral action right now to help more LGBT Americans secure jobs, improve living standards and live out their dreams.

As Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said to me recently, “Hopefully 2013 will be the year that President Obama fulfills his written 2008 campaign promise and signs an employment non-discrimination executive order.” A Freedom to Work online petition already has over a 185,000 signatures pressing the president to do just that. Read more here.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11221 2013-04-04T18:05:00Z 2013-04-05T02:43:58Z

Viji Sundaram ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=68
Editor’s Note: Modern technology has brought us a new kind of rape whistle – an electrified bra that shocks anyone who touches it and sends out a GPS signal to police. But the invention is just as ludicrous as its predecessor -- and once again puts the impetus of preventing rape on women, instead of where it belongs: the education of men and boys.

A group of female engineering students in India has unveiled a new electrified bra to protect women from getting raped. The bra, according to reports, not only shocks the attacker the moment its pressure sensors get activated; its built-in GPS also alerts police and the victim’s parents to the location where the attack is taking place. The designers of the bra, which is called Society Harnessing Equipment, or SHE for short, eventually hope to connect it with smart phones via Bluetooth and infrared technology.

I am sure the female engineering students in Chennai who designed this piece of lingerie did it with the best of intentions, following the national uproar that was generated by the rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi last December, and several other well-publicized rapes that have occurred in the country since then. (Not to mention around the world -- just this week in Brazil, an American tourist was gang raped for six hours on a mini bus in Rio de Janeiro.)

The fact that the engineers felt it necessary to design such a bra shows that Indian women have little faith in the sweeping rape law the Indian government passed last month to protect women against sexual violence. India has never had trouble enacting laws, just enforcing them. And as every Indian knows, any law can be bypassed by greasing the right person’s palm. Why should the rape law be any different?

And how can you blame women for not expecting much from the law? The practice of dowry (money or property brought by a bride to her husband at marriage) is still almost endemic in India, despite the fact that an anti-dowry law was passed in 1961. In 2010, there were 8,391 reported cases of dowry deaths – young women who were murdered or driven to suicide by their husbands or their in-laws for not bringing in an adequate dowry -- according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Women’s rights activists say that for every dowry death reported, there are dozens that go unreported. Of the reported cases in 2010, only one-third of the perpetrators were convicted.

The majority of rapists, too, get off scot-free. And not just in India.

In most African countries, rape convictions are not common. Worse, affected women don't get immediate access to medical care, and DNA tests to provide evidence are unaffordable. Which is perhaps why two years ago in South Africa, Dr. Sonnet Ehlers designed a female condom with “teeth” to it. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line the inside of the latex condom and attach to a man’s penis during penetration. Once Rape-aXe, -- as the condom is called – lodges in the penis, only a doctor can surgically remove it. While doing it, the doctor can summon law officials to arrest the man.

But if the electrified bra and the condom with “teeth” are meant to empower women, these inventions only show the state of women’s powerlessness -- and their lack of faith in laws meant to protect them.

India’s new rape law, which, in addition to harsher sentences for rape and acid attacks, criminalizes “eve-teasing” which, as Lavanya Sankaran points out in a column in The Guardian, is a “coy and euphemistic name for the sexual harassment – the stalking, groping and lewd comments – that every Indian woman is forced to navigate every time she walks out of her home.”

The law also expands the definition of rape and clearly states that the absence of physical struggle doesn’t equal consent. And no longer will misogynist police officers be able to not register complaints and compromise survivors’ rights during investigations.

All of that sounds wonderful, but is the law really going to protect women? Not until there is a change in culture, beginning with the way mothers and fathers teach their sons to be men. After all, as Sankaran notes, social pressure in India is far more powerful than any law.

The solution is not to get women to buy a new high-tech kind of rape whistle. The mindset of men must change, and the change has to begin at home.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11217 2013-04-04T00:00:00Z 2013-04-04T00:44:47Z

Editor's Note: The author of this commentary, Alejandra Alarcon, 18, writes for Coachella Unincorporated, a youth-led community media organization founded by NAM to serve residents of the rural Eastern Coachella Valley. I've never had any reason to think that I...

Alejandra Alarcon ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Editor's Note: The author of this commentary, Alejandra Alarcon, 18, writes for Coachella Unincorporated, a youth-led community media organization founded by NAM to serve residents of the rural Eastern Coachella Valley.

I've never had any reason to think that I wouldn’t be able to someday marry the person I truly love. That's something that isn't true of many of my closest friends who are gay. So why should I care about the issue of marriage equality? After all, I’m not gay, and discrimination against gay people doesn’t really interfere with my daily life.

The answer is that I don't have to be gay or even a victim of discrimination to understand what it feels like for someone else to be judged unfairly for something they have no control over, especially when that judgement is directed at the people I love the most.

My mother, an immigrant from Mexico, has been a U.S. citizen for 12 years. She’s worked for the local school district for seven of those years, yet doesn’t receive the same benefits as other district employees in higher positions. Instead, she has remained in the same low-paying position, and I can’t help but think that it has something to do with the way she speaks English, which influences the way others perceive her.

It’s not that she doesn’t make every effort to adapt -- at home, she asks my siblings and I to speak to her only in English so she can practice. As a result, I’ve seen her English improve. Yet she still hasn’t been able to get a promotion, and that’s been tough for me to see. And of course, it’s not just about her – it’s a situation that affects our whole family.

Because of who she is and the way she speaks, my mother is still the “other” -- unworthy of what most take for granted, despite her contributions.

Which is all to say that for me, the fight for marriage equality and gay rights is not just about gay people gaining the right to sign a legal document of matrimony. It’s about fighting for things that are much bigger -- the right to love, free expression and an end to discrimination in all its forms.

I’m not alone in my thinking. I come from a generation where being homosexual is a storm in a teacup – it is not a big deal at all.

During a recent psychology class at College of the Desert (the local community college) our instructor asked: “If you were told the sexual orientation of your unborn baby and had the power to change it, would you?” Some students in the room snickered, as if the question made them uncomfortable. During the course of the discussion that followed, however, a clear majority of students said they would not choose to change their child’s sexual orientation if they knew he or she would be gay. A few did admit to preferring that their baby be straight, but only so their child would not have to suffer the social discrimination that comes with being gay.

Despite the progressive attitudes among young people, it’s still hard to be bold and honest about who you are when the law of the land says that who you are is fundamentally less equal. Some of my gay friends here in the Coachella Valley are still uncomfortable with expressing their love to their partners in public spaces. It’s sad to see my friends put on a different mask – it’s a reminder to me of how far we have to go as a society in embracing civil rights for all.

But the attitudes I see coming from my generation give me hope. And when we do inevitably overcome this struggle, we will surely look back at this point in time just as we now look back on the 1960s, when interracial marriage was illegal.

Let’s hope that the Supreme Court agrees with my generation. It is time to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. It is time to do away with the concept of the “other.” It is time to allow my friends and loved ones to have the same dreams as me.

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