Week One: Selling Food Stamps for Shoes...

While the official U.S. unemployment rate is hovering around ten percent, the crisis is not hitting all parts of the income spectrum equally. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University reports that the unemployment rate in the lowest income braket is ten times that of the rate in...

An Endangered What Now?...

Anti-abortion groups Georgia Right to Life and the Radiance Foundation have partnered to erect 65 billboards like this one across Georgia, and plan to put up 15 more. The billboard features a black baby’s face and copy that reads “Black children are an endangered species.” Their website...

Can I Get a Witness?...

Last week, during one leg of my hellish commute, I picked up one of the free tabloid papers that are 50% ads, 23% sports, 23% celebrity gossip, and 4% “news,” digested into its blandest, most thoughtless form.   It’s one of the last places I expect to find counter-cultural messages....

Is Feminist Punditry Really Possible? (...

Lately I’ve been realizing that feminist discussions tend to go better in general when we all give each other the benefit of the doubt.  Just look at that sex work discussion we have two days ago before about comment 125 (although I admit, I have NOT been getting laid enough lately), and you’ll...

Well, Women Are Fighting To Be Heard...

Emily Gould, of former Gawker fame and current proprietress of Emily Magazine, has written an article on More Intelligent Life entitled “What Are Women Fighting About?“  Before I even get to the meat of it, allow me to remark that though the title may not be Gould’s own fault, woe...

Privilege Is As Privilege Does...

Recently I was talking to a friend (not a Harpy, actually) about the feminist blogosphere generally and she said, “You know, sometimes I just get to a point where I’m all Jan Brady and I think to myself, ‘Privilege privilege privilege!’ ” Now, I gave my friend the benefit...

The First Lady’s Roots...

According to aides and relatives, First Lady Michelle Obama grew up with a vague sense of her ancestry. The New York Times recently traced Obama’s lineage back to her great-great-great-grandmother, who was a slave in South Carolina. I’ve read about, and seen, this story about Michelle Obama’s...

Asian-American Women and Suicide...

Asian-Americans as a group have lower rates of contemplating and attempting suicide than the national average. But according to University of Washington research, American born Asian-American women are more likely to think about and attempt suicide than the general population. Almost 16 percent of...

OMG!!! REVERSE RACISM!!! (Or Not)...

My television habits generally consist of baseball games and the Academy Awards. MTV is never on my personal radar; in fact, I have not watched it since 1994, back when they still played a lot of music videos. So I had no interest in watching the Video Music Awards last night, nor did I care who won...

Policing Ourselves and Each Other...

There is an interesting conversation happening at Racialicious, which was inspired by this post about racist criticisms of the “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Four out of the five “Real Housewives” in that cast are black, and, as Tami says: A foray into online coverage, blogs and...

From the Divide and Conquer files...

In my obsessive quest to read anything and everything “health care reform” (health insurance reform?) over the weekend, I came across a powerful post from Maxwell Reddick at soulbrother v.2. He tells the story of black farmers and white farmers in the late nineteenth century, who were both...

Some Self-Examination...

Excuse the navel-gazing. I am not a perfect writer or thinker by any stretch of the imagination.  I have been considering, off and on, a discussion I had with commenter Cheryl Trooskin-Zoller on this post since I had it, about my whitewashing of Audre Lorde a little while back.  (Note I do not use...