October 2011
“We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.”
—David Graeber at the Guardian, in the best piece I’ve read yet on Occupy Wall Street (via judyxberman)
September 2011
“Over the past 25 years, Muslim majorities have elected five women as heads of state in the Muslim world (Tansu Ciller in Turkey, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh, and Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia). Notwithstanding our verbiage of female empowerment and liberation, we have yet to elect a single woman as president in the US. The Quran is the only sacred text that devotes an entire chapter to the rights of women. In fact, women in Europe could not inherit property independent of their husbands up until the 18th century. Islam over 1,400 years ago gave women the rights of inheritance, work, and hold public office. But the misperception of a Muslim woman that is veiled and oppressed guides our thinking.”
—Dr. Ali M. Nizamuddin is a ISPU Fellow and an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. (via ffeimo)
“Free speech is the cornerstone of genuine democracy, but when writers publish disinformation dressed up as fact, lies as truth, slander as objective evaluation and call it free speech, they are devaluing its very essence and betraying all those who’ve fought for it.”
—Dr Anita Heiss
“
More Hispanic children are living in poverty than those of any other race or ethnicity, marking the first time in U.S. history that the largest group of poor children is not white, according to a new research study.
In a report released Thursday, the Pew Hispanic Center said 6.1 million Hispanic children are poor, compared with 5 million non-Hispanic white children and 4.4 million black children. Pew said Hispanic poverty numbers have soared because of the impact of the recession on the growing number of Latinos in the country.
Though the number of poor Hispanic children is at a record high, black children have a higher rate of poverty — 39 percent compared with 35 percent for Hispanic children. In contrast, the poverty rate for white children is about 12 percent.
” —Hispanic kids the largest group of children living in poverty - The Washington Post (via chandapw)
“The first step toward change is awareness.”
—Nathaniel Branden (via simplyisis)
“Can we forgive ourselves? The nearest we can come to forgiving ourselves is to realize that we are different now from that person who transgressed and that we would not make the same mistake today. Life demands mistakes and demands that we remember them. So we must be philosophical about our past mistakes. And that is about as close as any of us can get to forgiving ourselves.”
—Claire Weekes (via psychotherapy)
“I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”
—Desmond Tutu (via madametoutnoire)
“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.” This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.”
—Noam Chomsky (via cultureofresistance)
“It is a wonder of American politics, this absolute and astonishing lack of shame on the part of the modern GOP. They have spent the last thirty years stifling a minimum-wage increase, they blocked legislation to help 9/11 responders pay for very present health concerns, and spent the latter part of this last week trying to screw disaster relief funding for people who lose homes to tornadoes, floods, wildfires and earthquakes. They hate Social Security and Medicare down to their gold-plated bones. Now they are deliberately and intentionally stifling the very economy they themselves tore up, for no other reason than to win the next election.”
—Class Warfare My Ass (via azspot)
when considering revolutionary tactics
keep mothers and children in mind
your revolt is worthless if it harms mothers and children
your vision is incomplete if it does not include mothers and children
recommendations i’ve received concerning organizations/groups that cultivate correspondence between the incarcerated and the non-incarcerated:
- Books Through Bars
- Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network
- Black and Pink
- The Prisoner Correspondence Project
- Write A Prisoner
- The Jericho Movement
- Write to Win Collective
- Bent Bars Project
Many thanks to chelseaunfun, oceanicheart, girlslikethis, mutedheartbeats, combat—wombat, and martaunderthesea!
“Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
—Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (via latikaaaa, simplicityduplicity)
“
As many as 15 percent of freshmen at America’s top schools are white students who failed to meet their university’s minimum standards for admission, according to Peter Schmidt, deputy editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education. These kids are “people with a long-standing relationship with the university,” or in other words, the children of faculty, wealthy alumni and politicians.
According to Schmidt, these unqualified but privileged kids are nearly twice as common on top campuses as Black and Latino students who had benefited from affirmative action.
” —Ten myths about affirmative action (via linzyxxxxx)
SPENT: A Poverty Simulation →
playspent.org
Can you make it through a month living in poverty?
