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The disrespect hurled at Williams, much of it focused on her body, has been rampant – even among her peers. In 2012, tennis player Caroline Wozniacki stuffed her bra and shorts to imitate Williams during an exhibition match against Maria Sharapova. The crowd and commentators at the match laughed, while outlets like Yahoo! Sports described the incident as “hilarious.” (Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic have also imitated Williams’ physique in the past.)

On the surface, it may look like playful athletic ribbing, but these kind of incidents, coupled with the language so often used to describe Serena as an athlete, speak to a kind of dehumanization specific to black women. As Ms. Magazine writer Corinne Gaston puts it, the policing of Williams’ body “comes gift-wrapped in a triad from hell: misogyny, racism and transphobia.”

So while it’s certainly important, it’s not enough to point out that Serena isn’t in fact “built like a man,” using photos of her in shapely, curve-hugging dresses to illustrate the point. This isn’t about the fact that Williams isn’t tall, slim and a size two. It’s about the fact that she isn’t white. We can certainly have a conversation about how the sports world expects physically powerful women to look like dainty supermodels, but the fact remains that muscular tennis stars like Martina Navratilova, Justine Henin, Victoria Azarenka, and Samantha Tosur aren’t subject to the same disdain and body-focused critiques that Williams is.

Rather than focusing on the body dysmorphic beauty standards of tennis, and the inherent sexism that drives it – a piece I’d love to read – the New York Times instead focused on the otherness of Serena Williams’ body. Female tennis players were asked to discuss their own bodies in contrast to Williams’, as if she were the epitome of everything they strive not to be: muscular, yes, but also black.  

Williams is simultaneously sexualized and caricaturized, othered and exoticized. Her body is a representation of her athletic skill. But rather than being celebrated, it’s been scrutinized mercilessly, turned into a kind of spectacle for white amusement, with painful parallels to Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman.

i wrote a little about Serena Williams, you can read the full article here

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Temporary jobs or not, you should still be able to house yourself on a minimum wage salary.

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Mosby says Gray did not commit a crime to warrant his arrest. But, in our white supremacist, capitalist society a crime was committed: the crime was being black. Being a person of color, (especially poor and working class) means that your status (the intersection of your race, gender, sexuality, class, and more) is criminalized, not necessarily your actions. Case in point, Freddie Gray did nothing other than be a young, black, man.  

It is interesting that these officers are being charged but I don’t for a second believe it reflects any systemic change or advancement.

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#SaveOurKids (2/4/15): Meet Jessie. Jessie was an unarmed 17-year old queer non-binary Latin@ gunned down after going on a joyride with friends in Denver. Police originally claimed that she had attempted to hit them with the vehicle, which is why they open fire on her. Witnesses, including the 5 other passengers in the vehicle (which the police showed no regard for when they shot into the car) refute this claim. Jessie was shot 18 times, including once in the neck, which is when witnesses said she lost control and hit one of the officers in the leg. The officer suffered a minor fracture. Officer’s then proceeded to yank Jesse’s lifeless body out of the car and search her rather than call for emergency services. Many will tell you Jessie deserved to die for stealing a car, just like Mike deserved to die for stealing cigarillos. The truth is that these kids died because the officers saw no value in their life. We know different— we know better. Rest in power, Jessie. We fight for you now too. #staywoke #farfromover

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Yessssss

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Apologies for the terrible image quality - I’m lacking scanner access at the minute so I had to take these photos on my phone

I was reading hyperbole and a half’s blog entry explaining their experience of depression and decided to make another sketchy comic based on my experiences with anxiety, which is another mental illness I think people tend to misunderstand quite frequently

Hopefully this will be of use to some people - whether they suffer from anxiety themselves or if they just want to know more about it

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Heteropatriarchy is alive and well.

Women Artists Visibility Event: The Museum of Modern Art opens but not to women artists, NYC on June 14, 1984 Shot by Clarissa Sligh

Despite the increased visibility of women artists by 1984, most were not included in mainstream gallery or museum exhibitions. When the Museum Of Modern Art opened the exhibition the “International Survey of Painting and Sculpture,” with great fan fare, of the 169 artists chosen, all were white and less than 10 percent were women.

Women artists were incensed. The Women’s Caucus for Art and other women’s groups in the area organized to protest the underrepresentation of women artists.

Included in the photographs are Lucy Lippard, May Stevens, Linda Cunningham, Emma Amos, Sabra Moore, Sharon Jaddis, and Alida Walsh. The posters were pasted all over Soho, a vastly different place from the Soho of today.

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As you all know, this blog focuses on old printed materials (flyers, posters, newspapers, etc) from social movements around the world. It’s a history blog, basically.

Well for once I’m going to break protocol and post an amazing flyer from an upcoming demonstration! This event is happening in West Philadelphia, but it’s a part of a National Day of Action in solidarity with fast food workers fighting for $15/hr and union representation.

It’s a really important national campaign and frankly this flyer is absolutely beautiful. So I hope that you all don’t mind that I interrupted the regular historical programming for something a little more contemporary!

I’ll be there! 3pm, April 15, at the corner of 40th and Walnut in Philadelphia, PA!

Flyer art by Kriston Gibbs!

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There was no Nazi atrocity--concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood--which Christian civilization or Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world."

W.E.B. DuBois, The World And Africa (1947)

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It’s interesting to me that most often the people who write and share articles/think pieces on “call-out culture” are oftentimes working from the standpoint of being white, white passing, or non-Black people of color, and therefore, having full or some access to white supremacist power through...

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radicale

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Rad.

New York City: People’s Power March Against Racism to Honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, January 15, 2015.

March from the African Burial Ground National Monument to the Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street, the massive city jail, and City Hall.

"Enough is enough! We are tired of the white supremacy and racism that’s so prevalent in the U.S.! We are tired of the constant NYPD repression, occupation and murders within communities of color . If Dr. King were alive today, he would be in the streets with our anti-police brutality movement. Let’s organize student strikes, community strikes, workers strikes, and march!"

Photos by redguard

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from Martin Luther King Jr's speech "Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break Silence"

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my current reading list

Sister Outsider—Audre Lord Emma Goldman—autobiography Queering Anarchism—anthology Decolonize Transgender 101- Biography of Leila Khaled Caliban and the Witch—Sylvia Federici Alexander Berkman essay/introduction to anarchism

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thoughts on transmisogyny and liberation

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2014/12/transgender-teen-commits-suicide-cites-christian-parents-in-blog/ We have so much work to do and she's right that it starts with education. We have to educate ourselves--if you don't understand what it means to identify as trans, what preferred pronouns are or why they're important, or how race and class factor into the oppression of trans people then EDUCATE YOURSELF. Read a book or a blog. Ask your friends but please don't ask people who experience that oppression to educate you. If we're going to bring down capitalism, white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, colonization, and abolish prisons, police and all forms of oppression then we need a COLECTIVE movement which means that we need to be proactive about raising our political consciousness. Read, talk, ask questions--it's okay to get things wrong and to mess up but it's not okay to be apathetic or complicit in oppression. Rest in power Leelah.