There are other blog posts that I have promised to make. I’m still working on them. In the meantime, here’s a cool blog whose owner has has good links and great blog posts: Feminist Texican

Blogeando: Latinos Are Blogging, Are you Engaging Them?

Lean in close to your screen. I have something to tell you. Latinos use computers. It’s true. Know what else? There are more Latino bloggers than general market bloggers. I didn’t believe it either, but this week has seen a spate of industry reports saying exactly that and more.
Depending on the source, there is anywhere from 5.4 percent to 7.5 percent more Hispanic bloggers than whites in the U.S. The gap is due to the “liberating” effects of new technology, the skill set that online adroitness offers working-class Latinos and stay-at-home moms, and the longstanding cultural value on collectivism over individualism.
Not only are the numbers higher, but blogueros’ communities and commenters are more active and vocal than their general market counterparts. Latinos’ drive to blog is less about grandstanding and more about conversation. (Perez Hilton notwithstanding.)
In a handful of days, a trio of reports confirmed what Hispanic PR professionals have been buzzing about for years. Latinos are online and engaged more than nearly every other group (Asian-Americans are the leaders). AOL and Cheskin released their fascinating and beautifully designed Hispanic Cyberstudy on January 26, a day after BlogWorldExpo rolled out their list of power “blogueros”provided by the founder of LatISM (Latinos in Social Media). Florida State University’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication gave us a sneak peek at their forthcoming report about Latinos online.MORe

Intent: It’s fucking Magic!

Today, someone said a slur. It actually doesn’t matter what slur it was, because you see, he didn’t intend to hurt anyone and therefore it couldn’t possibly be a slur. Much like how intent magically protects the actions of all privileged fuckjobs, intent means that anything you say, no matter how many groups it hurts, what awful views it enables, no matter what systemic bigotries it props up through the usage of language that enforces social concepts that crush a marginalized group, it mystically negates all of that.

So if you out a trans woman? Your uncanny intent wraps around her and protects her from murder, harassment, degendering and objectification by the people you just outed her to! If you say something ableist, you’re not actually contributing to the system that demeans PWD because your intent will gird your words with alchemical shields, made of eldritch power themselves, that prevent the words from creating and furthering social associations between disability and being bad, wrong, broken or unwanted! I know? Isn’t it grand? I love magic!MORE

On gender, rape, and media narratives TRIGGER WARNING for RAPE aND ISSUES SURROUNDING IT BELOW THE CUT.

I remember Michael Mineo vividly. I wish I didn’t, but I don’t think I can ever forget that moment, as I sat alone in my apartment watching the evening news, when his humiliated face flashed upon the television screen. He had just been raped by NYPD officers and was being “interviewed” as he sobbed in his hospital bed.

My blood ran cold at that moment as I watched in sick shock. Did they really just flash a sexual assault victim’s name and face all over the news while he was in a hospital gown, crying in bed and trying to bury his face in his hand?

Yeah, they did.MORE

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Latino Farmers Discrimination Case

The Supreme Court has refused to hear the Garcia v. Vilsack case, a lawsuit field by Mexican American farmers decades ago charging discrimination in lending and other benefit programs. The suit has lagged, neglected by government representatives, which have used legal technicalities to bar settlement.

Here’s the single, most important issue about this case: No one denies that the discrimination happened.

Yet year after year, the case keeps resurfacing without resolution. MORE

Two-Minute Movie Reviews

This did, then, leave me with this question: what would a non-stereotypical, non-sexist mainstream romantic comedy even look like?MORE

The Next Seven Generations: Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality for Native Youth

I founded the Native Youth Sexual Health Network three years ago. Being involved in sexual and reproductive health and justice affirms that we are now taking back what has been so harshly exploited, and letting it out on our own terms. I believe it is all of our responsibilities to put it out there as it once was: strong, sexy, powerful, and unapologetic.

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Utilizing cultural competency in this work means using what we already have in our culture to empower our youth to lead healthy, strong lives. “SEX” has become such a dirty word in our communities, when, in fact, it is the foundation of all humanity and is related to every social issue on some level. The time has come to bring it back to the basics and strengthen our identities from the ground up. As I have listened to my grandmothers explain to me, sex used to be sacred and even upheld as an enjoyable part of our life as First Nations people.

Colonization, Christianization, and genocidal oppression have drastically severed the ties to traditional knowledge that would enable us to make informed choices about our sexual health and relationships. The fact is that many of our communities are reluctant to go anywhere near the topic of sexual health because it is viewed as “dirty,” “wrong,” or a “Whiteman’s thing.” We carry a long history of being sexually exploited from the early Pocahontas and Squaw days right up to the modern oversexualization of “easy” Native women that permeates so much of the media.MORE

The Continuing Conquest of Native America

I remember being horrified a few years back when Wal-Mart decided to open a store near Teotihuacan less than two miles from the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. Wal-Mart had already begun to rule the earth back then and was poised to destroy what little bit of culture in the United States remained. Mexico was next on the list. Unlike countries such as Germany that could resist some of Wal-Mart’s power (e.g. only letting Wal-Mart in with a unionized workforce), Mexico is a poor country with a corrupt government. How could Mexicans protect their cultural values and history? Surely, building a chain virtually on the site of the pyramids would be so ridiculous that not even the corrupt or easily corruptible officials charged with approving such a project could get away with such desecration. Of course, I was wrong. Wal-Mart won approval for the site and was even allowed to level an area that contained a small temple. That temple is now the Wal-Mart parking lot. MORE