If we use the intentions and feelings of privileged people to determine when bigotry occurs, you will find that no one is bigoted by that definition.
ethics & philosophy
ideals, breaches, disappointments and inspirations
Quicklink: What would it take to trust Komen again?
Crunchy analysis from Mother Jones. Komen’s anti-choice VP may have resigned, but the board itself is still stacked with problems.
Clarke and Dawe on cynical bread and circuses churnalism
Apropos my rant yesterday about journalism standards, Mr Clarke and Mr Dawe spoke about this sort of thing last week. Play along on Twitter with #IfThePressGalleryReportedCricket
Weekend Womenscraft: baking for AdaCamp
The Ada Initiative, a group promoting women in open source and open culture, had their first AdaCamp in early January. In order to save some money, and because I like food to be inclusive for everyone, Brianna and I volunteered to do all the baking ourselves.
Pinkwashing cancer – Pink Ribbons, Inc. asks who’s benefiting most?
Pink cancer marketing globally diverts generous people’s donations away from the organisations doing most of the work towards organisations who are just better at marketing – the filmmakers determined only 15% of monies raised in North America go to research prevention, and 5% to research environmental causes of breast cancer. Does this sound like the best use of donors’ money? And what about all the non-pinkified cancers?
Reminder: 9 of the 10 hottest years on record occurred since the year 2000
And that’s just one of the datasets supporting the fact that the planet’s climate is warming. The Bad Astronomer provides a case study of the tactics of climate change denial: it’s a textbook case of denialist sleight of hand, of distraction, distortion, error, and misdirection.
Scarily, this is NOT a parody
This is people saying what they really truly think – 700 Club on Why Atheists Should Hate Trees
Susan G Komen Foundation Follows Pro-Life Line; Stops Contributing to Planned Parenthood
Yet again, the pro-life movement betrays its classism – forget all those other reproductive health care services Planned Parenthood provides – services that help poor women survive and thrive in pregnancy and birthing, and that keep them healthy to raise their children.
Hating Australia Day from afar
Today is the second Australia Day since I moved to the United States. One of the most surprising things for me to experience out of Australia was people saying–even in the American South!–Australia’s really racist, isn’t it? And personally, I hate that. I hate that there is such a strong implicit idea of who an Australian “is,” and how racist and dependent on assimilation that is. I hate the way that is enforced with violence and ugly rhetoric, and I hate the policies that our country mobilises against Aboriginal communities and refugees.
And yet. For all that I hate what Australia Day represents, I am more homesick than usual today.
On the ethics of ignoring your power: The Feministe controversy
There are some tough questions here, but also, some solid suggestions on what can be done to improve big feminist sites like Feministe for the people outside of mainstream power bases.
Hoyden About Town 