You know...

there's so much trouble in the world. and yet, there is so much good. it's hard to reconcile. since graduating, i've been really fortunate in getting to explore the kind of work that interests me. i've learned a lot, earned some, and have had the space to really think about who i am, what i want and why i'm choosing to travel this path. it's been a gift.

and now, strangely, all this movement is happening after such a long lull. there are issues that are causing me to be unable to sit back and await the outcome without making some sort of statement. work that i am doing that is pulling me to more work. crises in the world that require attention and action. that require me to wake up and live.

1/10/09

Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writers


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel dropped bombs and leaflets on Gaza Saturday, pounding suspected rocket sites and tunnels used by Hamas militants and warning of a wider offensive despite frantic diplomacy to end the bloodshed.

Egypt hosted talks aimed at defusing the crisis, but war had the momentum on a bloody day on which more than 30 Palestinians, many of them noncombatants, were killed.

At hospitals, distraught relatives — men in jeans and jackets and women in black Islamic robes — sobbed and shrieked at the loss of family. Flames and smoke rose over Gaza City amid heavy fighting.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas predicted a "waterfall of blood" unless all parties adhere to a U.N. call for a cease-fire. But Israel has said the Security Council resolution passed Thursday was unworkable, and Hamas, the Islamic group whose government controls Gaza but is not recognized internationally, was angry that it was not consulted.

A top Hamas leader said the Gaza war has killed the last chance for settlement and negotiations with Israel.

Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal condemned Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip as a "holocaust" in a fiery speech broadcast on the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera. Still, Hamas teams were in Cairo to negotiate over an Egyptian-proposed cease-fire.

At least 814 Palestinians, roughly half of them civilians, have died since war broke out on Dec. 27, according to Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have been killed.

Weary Palestinians watched from apartment windows as thousands of leaflets fluttered from aircraft with a blunt warning: Israeli forces will step up operations against Islamic militants who have unleashed a daily barrage of rocket fire on southern Israeli towns.

"The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) is not working against the people of Gaza but against Hamas and the terrorists only," the leaflets said in Arabic. "Stay safe by following our orders."

The leaflets urged Gaza residents not to help Hamas and to stay away from its members. There was no immediate sign of an escalation, though earlier in the day, witnesses said Israeli troops moved to within one mile of Gaza City before pulling back slightly.

Israeli defense officials say they are prepared for a third stage of their offensive, in which ground troops would push further into Gaza, but are waiting for approval from the government.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information, said the army also has a fourth stage planned that calls for a full reoccupation of Gaza and toppling of Hamas.

The leaflets reflected Israeli efforts to cast Hamas as the source of the conflict that has brought additional misery to Gaza's 1.4 million people, who live in poverty in the densely inhabited shard of land along the Mediterranean. Israel hopes the suffering will erode support for Hamas, which won 2006 elections and engineered a violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007, overrunning the forces of its Palestinian rival Fatah.

For now, though, the fury of the Israeli onslaught has deepened bitterness toward Israel among trapped Gaza residents. Traffic through border crossings with Egypt and Israel is heavily restricted, and many Gazans survive on international handouts or goods smuggled through tunnels that are also used by Hamas to bring in weapons.

Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 after years of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, and has attributed many civilian casualties in the past two weeks to Hamas's alleged use of civilian areas as hiding places and staging grounds for attacks.

On Jan. 3, Israeli ground troops moved into Gaza, but they have largely avoided deployment in built-up areas where they would be more vulnerable to hit-and-run assaults. Israel holds elections in one month, and its leaders know staunch support for the military campaign could dwindle if the forces take heavy casualties.

Hamas fighters launched 15 rockets at southern Israel in a daily ritual that has severely disrupted life for hundreds of thousands of civilians. Three Israelis were injured in the city of Ashkelon.

The Israeli military said aircraft attacked more than 40 Hamas targets including 10 rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, an anti-aircraft missile launcher and gunmen. At least 15 militants were killed, it said.

In the day's bloodiest incident, an Israeli tank shell killed nine people in a garden outside a home in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, said Adham el-Hakim, administrator of Kamal Adwan hospital. The nine were from the same clan and included two children and two women.

The Israeli military, however, said its forces did not carry out attacks in that area on Saturday.

Struggling to keep peace efforts alive, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Abbas urged Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce.

After meeting Mubarak, Abbas warned there was no time to waste in ending the bloodshed in Gaza.

"If any party does not accept it (the truce), regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility. And if Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood," Abbas said.

Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party, which dominates the West Bank, are fierce political rivals.

Hamas officials from both Gaza and Syria are also in Cairo for separate talks with Egyptian officials on a truce. Israeli officials were in Cairo earlier this week.

U.S. President George W. Bush spoke by telephone to President Abdullah Gul of Turkey, which is involved in Mideast peace efforts, about the situation in Gaza, said a spokesman for the National Security Council in Washington.

"President Bush emphasized the importance of bringing an end to rocket fire against Israel and preventing arms smuggling into Gaza as the basis for a durable cease-fire," spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on a peace mission to the region, visited the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and saw a fireball from a large detonation in Gaza. He felt the pressure from the blast, which caused windows to rattle.

"We are standing here while the fighting is still on back there," said Steinmeier, who later traveled to Israel. "It is right and correct to be concerned about the injured and the dead, but the European foreign ministers must do more so that words can be turned into deeds."

The United Nations estimates two-thirds of Gaza's 1.4 million people now lack electricity, and half don't have running water.

The Israeli military announced a three-hour halt to operations in Gaza on Saturday to let medics use the lull to rescue casualties and aid groups to rush through food distribution.

But for the second straight day, fighting continued even during the lull.

Israel has called for the three-hour breaks in fighting for the past four days. But aid groups say it isn't enough time to do their work.

All deliveries were coming from supplies already in Gaza. U.N. officials said a halt on aid shipments into Gaza through Israeli-controlled border crossings remained in effect.

The ban was imposed Thursday after the U.N. said two of its contractors in a truck were shot and killed by Israel. The Israeli military said Saturday that its own investigation concluded that its soldiers were not involved.

Also Saturday, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in European cities and Lebanon, shouting protests against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

___

Barzak reported from Gaza City and Torchia from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Frieder Reimold contributed to this report from Rafah at the Gaza-Egyptian border.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090110/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

Shock at Senegal gay jail terms

A man walks past a giant Aids symbol at a conference on Aids and sexually transmitted infections in Africa in Senegal in December 2008
The men belonged to a group set up to fight HIV and Aids

The jailing in Senegal of nine gay men for eight years over "indecent conduct and unnatural acts" has been condemned by an international gay rights group.

Homosexual acts are illegal in Senegal but the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) told the BBC it was "shocked by the ruling".

The judge added three years to a five-year sentence, saying the men were also members of a criminal group.

Most of them belonged to an association set up to fight HIV and Aids.

"This is the first time that the Senegalese legal system has handed down such a harsh sentence against gays," said Issa Diop, one of the men's four defence lawyers.


The extremity of this sentence [and] the rapidness of the trial all really shocks us in a country which has been moving so positively towards rule of law
IGLHRC's Cary Alan Johnson

Mr Diop said he would be appealing against the sentences.

The IGLHRC's Cary Alan Johnson said he was "deeply disturbed" by the case.

"There have been pretty consistent human rights violations… in Senegal," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme from Cape Town in South Africa.

"But the extremity of this sentence [and] the rapidness of the trial all really shocks us in a country which has been moving so positively towards rule of law and a progressive human rights regime."

'Schizophrenic'

The head of a gay rights organisation in Senegal told AFP news agency that the situation for gay people in the country was getting worse.

"Many gays are already fleeing to neighbouring countries because of our living conditions," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Senegal is a predominantly Muslim country and gay men and women remain socially marginalised.

Mr Alan Johnson said Senegal was "schizophrenic" in its attitudes.

Religious attacks on gay and lesbian people were on the increase, he said.

While Senegal recently played host to a major conference on Aids and sexually transmitted diseases, where "the needs of men who have sex with men were prominently featured", he said.

"There's both a movement towards progressive and inclusive culture but at the same time very, very strong movements towards oppression, specifically towards sexuality," he added.

In February 2008, a magazine editor received death threats after publishing pictures claiming to depict a wedding ceremony between two men.

Several men were also arrested in connection with the publication but later released.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7817100.stm

everywhere is fucked.

http://www.ktvu.com/video/18406962/index.html

Law enforcement officials urged patience while they investigated details surrounding the fatal New Year’s Day shooting of a 22-year-old man by a transit agency police officer.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Chief Gary Gee said on Sunday that the agency is “committed to completing an unbiased, thorough and detailed investigation” of the shooting death of Oscar Grant.

“This case is not even four days cold. We’re in the early stages of the investigation and we will do a very thorough job,” he said.

Several unanswered questions remained after BART officers went to Oakland’s Fruitvale station to investigate reports of a supposed brawl on a train on which Grant was riding around 2 a.m. Thursday.

A friend of Grant’s who was with him on the crowded Oakland train station platform at the time of the shooting said Grant pleaded with officers not to harm him.

“Oscar yelled, ‘You shot me! I got a four-year-old daughter,”‘ said Fernando Anicete. “Oscar was telling us to calm down and we did. We weren’t looking for any trouble.”

Anicete was among more than 50 people attending a tearful news conference in Oakland on Sunday where Grant’s family announced they planned to file a $25 million claim against the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency this week. A claim is the first step in the process of suing the agency.

The family’s attorney John Burris said the shooting was intentional, and that he planned to ask Alameda County prosecutors to seek criminal charges against the officer. Burris said Grant, of Hayward, Calif., posed no threat to officers when a bullet entered his back and ricocheted to his lung area, killing him almost instantly.

and on the matter of Somalian piracy... (big surprise here).

You Are Being Lied to About Pirates
Johann Hari
Columnist, London Independent
Posted January 4, 2009 | 08:53 PM (EST)



Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.


Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.


Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.


The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.


Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.
"

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters.
"

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.


No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them.
Is this so different?

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.


The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.
" Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?


Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his articles, click here. or here.


POSTSCRIPT: Some commenters seem bemused by the fact that both toxic dumping and the theft of fish are happening in the same place - wouldn't this make the fish contaminated? In fact, Somalia's coastline is vast, stretching to 3300km. Imagine how easy it would be - without any coastguard or army - to steal fish from Florida and dump nuclear waste on California, and you get the idea. These events are happening in different places - but with the same horrible effect: death for the locals, and stirred-up piracy. There's no contradiction.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

occupation is a crime

This is a report from Rachel Maddow's show. It gives a good visual perspective of the conflict and the immense injustice of it all.

It's worth taking a look.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

We need to take strong action to show our disapproval of the Israeli actions! Not everyone wants to, or can, protest in the streets, but we can all unite to boycott products and send an economic message (which, sadly, seems to be the only kind that is heard). Just like divestment in apartheid South Africa, we should stop economically supporting this regime. If the U.S. government insists on sending millions or billions of dollars in aid and weaponry, let us stop purchasing products that support Israel.


Here is a website that can tell you what products to boycott:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php

And here is an example from Canada, where an academic union is looking at banning professionals that support the Israeli offensive:
http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20090105%2fcupe_israeli_090105

I hope Obama speaks out on this, as Bush's position in defense of Israel has been made clear.

cultivating beauty

now that i am nearing the end, i can see goodwill in people again; i can make conversations; i can smile with strangers. being so caught up in the production of material for critical review created such a narrowing of my perspective that i could no longer really see or feel beauty. i am happy and relieved that that is changing- happy and relieved...

this process has been a tremendous amount of work, but completing it successfully is enormously rewarding.

now to find work where i am making a difference and being challenged personally and intellectually to continue my growth! only, this time the challenges will be interpersonal and not with books and papers. :)

oh.

went camping recently... here are some good pics.

update

i've been away quite a while. things were hectic, but the pace is slowing. i will be graduated in a week! ha! Richie Spice is doing a concert in Philly soon! yay! my sweet and i are doing well! woohoo! and my homie, the friend of my heart, is in palestine/israel! eek! check out their blog on the experience:

poc-delegation.blogspot.com

ok bbs. that's all.

ok. more songs i love

licky with princess superstar



the best!

------------------------------------------


mash-up of ciara, new order and princess superstar

love

is like honey on my tongue
potatoes and beans in my belly
cloying and heavy
comforting and sweet

a treat

lastly, richie spice

i'm busy on this thing today!

richie spice has the sweetest voice to me; brown skin was constantly on replay for months. plus, he's really, really handsome- i think it's the lips, but it might be the eyes.

enjoy the music i left today... i listen to many kinds, and these are some of the best of the best!


blood again

the way you're living is sickening
they got us chasing while they're winning

bomb drop again
hear seh dat anotha 25 dead up again
suicide bomber den a who sen dem
dis ya one a go straight to all bush (seven?)
how much more youths you a go mek lose dem head?
how much more youths you a go chop down dead?
talk bout some a shotta and dem don have no head
whey dem ya man ya come from?
dem a mus living dead



brown skin


righteous youths

when i tell you that the time is getting difficult
i don't want you to worry, i never want you to fret...

and only that same old babylon trying to run things to a wreck

if you think that his majesty's sleeping
you better think twice
he would never make them babylon
mash down zion heights

when there's a whole barrage of righteous youth man out there
and we ain't givin up, no where
there's a whole barrage of righteous youth man in town
and we ain't goin down, no we're never gonna stop
no way


grooving my girl

wanna keep you moving, my girl
grooving my girl
i can see the angels in your eyes...

LOVER'S ROCK, YOU KNOW? MAKES ME WANT TO SLOW DANCE REALLY CLOSE (AND MAKE OUT:p).



youths dem cold

in the streets is getting hot
and the youths dem a get so cold
searching for food for the pot
and they'll do anything to fill that gap

as federation comes and grows
you got to make preparation while the youths dem grow
if what you reap is what you sow
the youths them are the light and the future
so endorse them you know
if education is the key
tell me why the bigger heads a mek it so expensive fi we
give them key, oh set them free...

sizzla kalonji

since i'm posting songs i love...

rise to the occasion



it's for you to make the best in life
now that you've got the chance
get up and stand
do what you're doing
it's alright

you've got the clearance, that's the reference,
perseverance for the utmost that should be your preference...
talent is your evidence
help those afar off
teach those in your residence...
you got it with a clear conscience
-------------------------------------------------------------------

THIS SONG IS SO INSPIRING (TO ME), AND IT'S ONE OF MY BEST-LOVED SONGS. SO IF YOU LISTEN TO NOTHING ELSE, LISTEN TO 'BE STRONG.'



be strong

yes, you've got to be strong
and be all the best you can
the world is out there- conquer your fears
and don't you wait to long

damn nothing comes easy
you got to work hard, i'm telling you
hope and pray for the best, cause i believe in you...

give thanks for you living your life
for us being here
there's good in us and we always want to bring it out
show the world what we got

THEN---

you can chase the wildest dreams
swim the ocean shore
sail up into the sky
as simple as it seems,
there's so much more
surely worth giving it a try

confidence in yourself
there's much to accomplish, so never fail
there's new lives to explore,
new mountain peaks to scale

i know that you can be
anything you want
all you got to do
is work toward it

i know that there is love
for each and everyone
all you got to do is
give love a chance...

only for us to learn, fire burn
aye my people why won't you rise?
it's your turn...

I COULD DIE!!!!!!! THIS SONG IS SO AMAZING! i live for him!!!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


woman i need you

let us be together
goodness is what i revere
look on the joy we bring...

friends come and tell you words
listen girl, i'm the one that you deserve
so let me take you by the hand
both of us will walk this earth
love come first
don't you know what life really worth?

i need you, like never before
african woman you're the one i adore...

queen ifrica

Genocide

babylon a use might and a try fight right...
bloodsucking vampires, so they crawl by night.
we a go burn dem burn dem, til dem know themselves
wipe the tears from your eyes, love will never leave us down, i wear a upful crown
yeeeh!



Daddy

daddy don't touch me there
i'm gonna tell on you one day, i swear
can't you see i'm scared
you're supposed to be my father

to all the mothers out there
give a listening ear
pay attention even if the man a pastor
you haffi make sure before you trust him wid your dawta
plus him wi even try fi tek yu son as brawta...

if you know seh it a gwaan and turn a blind eye
then yuh judgement a go pile up bout a mile high


--> and, while i don't agree with 'before you know it is another baby,' i love this song too!


Below The Waist

you know me nah go box yuh down baby
no, me jus wan hol you down baby
him say, gwan go put on you thong, baby
and before you know it is another baby

you know we only going through a phase
so come tell me sorry soft inna me ears

nuh nasty up me house when me jus done shine
mi cyaan search you phone, but you waan search mine
a war when de whole a dat combine



love her!

what does it all mean?

on a personal level it's murky, because i care for him and we have established a real bond with each other. i felt betrayed, but i worry that i am also betraying something larger, breaking some ethical code.

he makes me happy. shouldn't i be able to enjoy that? how can i if he's unaware- if, at any moment, he'll slip into a comfortable whiteness and choose not to challenge racism or white supremacy?

this is confusing and challenging and necessary. we must confront this stuff if we're going to make it work.

hmmm. like i said:

love is the only way to sustain any such effort. a commitment to love on a grand or minor scale. it will take a lot, but thankfully love is infinite- so, we'll see...

then there's this

Marriage squeeze

A new term has arisen to describe the social phenomenon of the so-called "marriage squeeze" for African American females.^[11] The marriage squeeze refers to the belief that the most eligible and desirable African American men are marrying non-African American women, leaving those African American women who wish to marry African American men with fewer partnering options. According to Newsweek, 43% of black women between the ages of 30-34 have never been married.^[12] Several explanations of this phenomenon have been advanced. It may be due to the lingering effects of social ostracism to which white American men who married African American women were subjected in the past, although a recent survey found that one in five white Americans would consider marrying across the color line.^[13] It may also be the result of a desire among African American women to marry African American men due to concepts such as racial loyalty, and the internalized stereotypical belief that non-African American men would not find them attractive.^[13] There is also the lingering belief that negative social stereotypes preclude them being viewed as anything but sexual objects by non-African American men.^[13] Lastly, there is a desire among educated women of all races to "marry up" or at least within their social and economic class. With the great disparity that exists between African American women and African American men in this respect^{[citation needed]}, black women often face either "marrying down" or not marrying at all, when they choose to restrict their marriage prospects to African American men.^[14] Another confounding factor for African American women may be the disproportionate mortality rate between men and women in the black community: there are only approximately 85 males for every 100 females by the time they reach their child-bearing years.^{[citation needed]} Also, rates of incarceration for marriage age African American males are far higher than rates for females, further contributing to the male/female gap. As of 2002, 10.4% of all black males between the ages of 25 and 29 were sentenced and in prison. ^[15] The African American male-female disparity is highest between the ages of 25 – 29, when for every two African American men there are nearly three African American women. ^[16]

[edit] Education and interracial marriage

Using PUMS data from both the 1980 and 1990 US Census to determine trends within interracial marriage among White Americans, African Americans, Hispanic or Latinos, and Asian Americans, it may be seen that endogamy (marrying within race) was more prevalent for African American men at lower education levels.

In 1980, the numbers were as follows: African American males without a high-school diploma participated in endogamy at 96.5%; for those who received a high-school diploma, 95.6%; for those with a college degree and above, the percentage of endogamy dropped to 94.0%. However, the rates for African American women changed very little with different educational levels. For the African American woman who had not received a high school diploma the rate was 98.7%, high school diploma was 98.6%, with some college it was 98.2%, and college degree or higher, 98.5%. During this time there was a significant increase in marriages between whites and African Americans, maintaining that African Americans are most likely to marry whites over other groups.

The 1990 results show that rates of endogamy dropped for both males and females, albeit more for the African American male. In 1990, an African American male with a college degree and more was participating in endogamy at 90.4%; for an African American female with the same educational level, 96.4%. The results for the propensity of individuals at higher educational attainment levels to participate less in endogamy over the 10-year period were similar across races, including whites, Hispanics, and Asian Americans.

[edit] Immigrants and interracial marriage

It is found that racial endogamy is much stronger for immigrants as compared to natives.^[17] Immigrants of African descent are 4.9 times more likely than African Americans to marry interracially.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, immigrants of African descent have the highest rates of endogamy of immigrants. Also, African immigrants are much more likely to marry other same-race immigrants and African Americans, than to out-marry racially. Native-born white Americans are also 1.6 times more likely to marry a native-born African American than an immigrant of African descent. Female immigrants of African descent are generally more likely to marry native-born whites than their male counterparts.

[edit] Interracial marriage versus cohabitation

Rates of interracial cohabitation are significantly higher than those of marriage. Although only 7 percent of married black men have white wives, 13 percent of cohabitating black men have white partners. Black women are one-and-a-half times more likely to cohabitate with a white partner than to marry him. 25 percent of married Asian women have white spouses, but 45 percent of cohabitating Asian women are with white men—higher than the percentage cohabitating with Asian men (43 percent).^[18] These numbers suggest that the prevalence of intimate interracial contact is greatly underestimated when one focuses only on marriage data.^[18]

i don't know

it's more than a black-white thing. it's more than a you-and-i thing. if we are to be a we, i have to release some of the resentment that i've been pushing down over the years. if we are to be a we, you have to raise your awareness of race and ethnicity matters. it's not impossible, but i'm not the i-see-no-color person, though i do know that race doesn't exist genetically and that we are all human at the end of the day. things would be easier if i were that person, but i'm not.

context. we live in contexts. history is relevant. the past shaped the present. we all are shaping the future. you and your ideals don't live in a vacuum. i can't just be with you and your ideals. i need to know that you acknowledge and are aware of the world around you; of the injustices, the limitations, the challenges and the benefits that exist on the basis of race and ethnicity. i need to know that you are not just your history or the benefits accorded to your race; i have to acknowledge you and your ideals. it has to be a collaborative effort in the micro and macro, in our partnership and in the world.

love is the only way to sustain any such effort. a commitment to love on a grand or minor scale. it will take a lot, but thankfully love is infinite- so, we'll see...

looking at reality according to Wikipedia:

Asian and American Indian

Historically, Filipino Americans have frequently married American Indian and Alaskan Native people. In the 17th century, Filipinos were under Spanish rule. The Spanish colonists ordered the Filipinos to trade between the Philippines and the Americas. When Mexico revolted against the Spanish, Filipinos escaped into Mexico, then traveled to Louisiana, where the exclusively male Filipinos married American Indian women. In the 1920s, Filipino American communities grew in Alaska, and Filipino American men married Alaskan Native women. On the west coast, Filipino Americans married American Indian women in Bainbridge Island Washington.^[4]

[edit] Asian and White

Marriages between whites and Asians are becoming increasingly common for both gender combinations (Lange, 2005). In 1990, about 69 percent of married 18-30 year-old Asian women were married to Asian men, while 25 percent of married Asian women had white husbands. ^[5] In 2006, 50 percent of U.S.-raised, married Asian women were married to Asian men, while 41 percent of U.S.-raised, married Asian women had white husbands. 60 percent of U.S.-raised married Asian men were married to Asian women, while 30 percent of U.S.-raised, married Asian men had white wives (2006 U.S. Census Bureau). C.N. Le estimated that the gender gap is smaller among the American-born or 1.5 generation Asian Americans.^[6] Asian Americans of both genders who are U.S.-raised are much more likely to be married with whites than their non-U.S.-raised counterparts. Not all Asian ethnicities have similar intermarriage patterns, for instance, South Asian Americans were overwhelmingly endogamous, with a small amount of outmarriage to other ethnic groups. The interracial marriage disparity for South Asian Americans was low with outmarriage to whites slightly higher for Indian American males whereas all other major Asian groups had more outmarriage for women.^[6] A 2001 U.S. national survey indicated that 24% of the respondents disapprove of marriage with an Asian American. ^[7]

Black and White

Although mixed-race partnering has increased, the United States still shows disparities between African American male and African American female endogamy statistics. The 1990 census reports that 17.6% of African American marriages occur with White Americans. Yet, African American men are 2.5 times more likely to be married to white women than African American women to white men. In the 2000 census, 239,477 African American male to white female and 95,831 white male to African American female marriages were recorded, again showing the 2.5-1 ratio. In 2007, black-white marriage remains a rare event: 4.6% of married Blacks marry whites, and 0.4% of married whites marry blacks.^[8]

Asian and Black

With African Americans and Asian Americans, the ratios are even further imbalanced, with 598% more Asian female/Black male marriages than Asian male/Black female marriages. ^[2] However, C.N. Le estimated that Asian Americans of the 1.5 generation and of the five largest Asian American ethnic groups had black male/Asian female marriages 272% more than Asian male/black Female relationships.^[6] Even though the disparity between Black and Asian interracial marriages by gender is high according to the 2000 US Census, ^[2] the total numbers of Asian/Black interracial marriages are low, numbering only 0.22% percent for Asian male marriages and 1.30% percent of Asian female marriages, partially contributed by the recent flux of Asian immigrants. Filipinos appear to be the Asian group most likely to marry African-Americans. ^[2]

Historically, Chinese American men married African American women in high proportions to their total marriage numbers due to few Chinese American women being in the United States. After the Emancipation Proclamation, many Chinese people immigrated to the American South, particularly Arkansas, to work on plantations. The tenth US Census of Louisiana counted 57% of interracial marriages between these Chinese Americans to be with African Americans and 43% to be with White American women. After the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese American men had fewer potential Chinese American wives, so they increasingly married African American women on the west coast.^[9] In Jamaica and other Caribbean nations as well many Chinese males over past generations took up Black female wives gradually assimilating or absorbing many Chinese descendants into the black community or the overall mixed-race community.

[edit] White and American Indian

The interracial disparity for American Indians is low. According to the 1990 US Census (which only counts indigenous people with US-government-recognized tribal affiliation), American Indian women intermarried White Americans 2% more than American Indian men married White women.^[10]

What Can the White Man Say to the Black Woman?

By Alice Walker, address in support of the National March for Women’s Equality and Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., 22 May 1989

What is of use in these words I offer in memory of our common mother. And to my daughter.

What can the white man say to the black woman?

For four hundred years he ruled over the black woman’s womb.

Let us be clear. In the barracoons and along the slave shipping coasts of Africa, for more than twenty generations, it was he who dashed our babies brains out against the rocks.

What can the white man say to the black woman?

For four hundred years he determined which black woman’s children would live or die.

Let it be remembered. It was he who placed our children on the auction block in cities all across the eastern half of what is now the United States, and listened to and watched them beg for their mothers’ arms, before being sold to the highest bidder and dragged away.

What can the white man say to the black woman?

We remember that Fannie Lou Hamer, a poor sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation, was one of twenty-one children; and that on plantations across the South black women often had twelve, fifteen, twenty children. Like their enslaved mothers and grandmothers before them, these black women were sacrificed to the profit the white man could make from harnessing their bodies and their children’s bodies to the cotton gin.

What can the white man say to the black woman?

We see him lined up on Saturday nights, century after century, to make the black mother, who must sell her body to feed her children, go down on her knees to him.

Let us take note:

He has not cared for a single one of the dark children in his midst, over hundreds of years.

Where are the children of the Cherokee, my great grandmother’s people?

Gone.

Where are the children of the Blackfoot?

Gone.

Where are the children of the Lakota?

Gone.

Of the Cheyenne?

Of the Chippewa?

Of the Iroquois?

Of the Sioux?

Of the Mandinka?

Of the Ibo?

Of the Ashanti?

Where are the children of the Slave Coast and Wounded Knee?

We do not forget the forced sterilizations and forced starvations on the reservations, here as in South Africa. Nor do we forget the smallpox-infested blankets Indian children were given by the Great White Fathers of the United States government.

What has the white man to say to the black woman?

When we have children you do everything in your power to make them feel unwanted from the moment they are born. You send them to fight and kill other dark mothers’ children around the world. You shove them onto public highways in the path of oncoming cars. You shove their heads through plate glass windows. You string them up and you string them out.

What has the white man to say to the black woman?

From the beginning, you have treated all dark children with absolute hatred.

Thirty million African children died on the way to the Americas, where nothing awaited them but endless toil and the crack of a bullwhip. They died of a lack of food, of lack of movement in the holds of ships. Of lack of friends and relatives. They died of depression, bewilderment and fear.

What has the white man to say to the black woman?

Let us look around us: Let us look at the world the white man has made for the black woman and her children.

It is a world in which the black woman is still forced to provide cheap labor, in the form of children, for the factories and on the assembly lines of the white man.

It is a world into which the white man dumps every foul, person-annulling drug he smuggles into creation.

It is a world where many of our babies die at birth, or later of malnutrition, and where many more grow up to live lives of such misery they are forced to choose death by their own hands.

What has the white man to say to the black woman, and to all women and children everywhere?

Let us consider the depletion of the ozone; let us consider homelessness and the nuclear peril; let us consider the destruction of the rain forests_in the name of the almighty hamburger. Let us consider the poisoned apples and the poisoned water and the poisoned air and the poisoned earth.

And that all of our children, because of the white man’s assault on the planet, have a possibility of death by cancer in their almost immediate future.

What has the white, male lawgiver to say to any of us? To those of us who love life too much to willingly bring more children into a world saturated with death?

Abortion, for many women, is more than an experience of suffering beyond anything most men will ever know; it is an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.

To make abortion illegal again is to sentence millions of women and children to miserable lives and even more miserable deaths.

Given his history, in relation to us, I think the white man should be ashamed to attempt to speak for the unborn children of the black woman. To force us to have children for him to ridicule, drug and turn into killers and homeless wanderers is a testament to his hypocrisy.

What can the white man say to the black woman?

Only one thing that the black woman might hear.

Yes, indeed, the white man can say, Your children have the right to life. Therefore I will call back from the dead those 30 million who were tossed overboard during the centuries of the slave trade. And the other millions who died in my cotton fields and hanging from trees.

I will recall all those who died of broken hearts and broken spirits, under the insult of segregation.

I will raise up all the mothers who died exhausted after birthing twenty-one children to work sunup to sundown on my plantation. I will restore to full health all those who perished for lack of food, shelter, sunlight, and love; and from my inability to see them as human beings.

But I will go even further:

I will tell you, black woman, that I wish to be forgiven the sins I commit daily against you and your children. For I know that until I treat your children with love, I can never be trusted by my own. Nor can I respect myself.

And I will free your children from insultingly high infant mortality rates, short life spans, horrible housing, lack of food, rampant ill health. I will liberate them from the ghetto. I will open wide the doors of all the schools and hospitals and businesses of society to your children. I will look at your children and see not a threat but a joy.

I will remove myself as an obstacle in the path that your children, against all odds, are making toward the light. I will not assassinate them for dreaming dreams and offering new visions of how to live. I will cease trying to lead your children, for I can see I have never understood where I was going. I will agree to sit quietly for a century or so, and meditate on this. (love this)

This is what the white man can say to the black woman.

We are listening.

have you ever

seen someone you're totally into become a stranger over a matter of hours? i swear i love this guy, but i can't be with him- with the person i saw today. i just can't. so that's that.

the end.

by the way

i'm totally self-absorbed.

absolutely narcissistic.

isn't it apparent?

just so you know that i know.



AND


i love this woman:


she's coming to philly in january, but it's for npr. she'll be in brooklyn that night. maybe i'll go catch the show.

i live for her!