ONE SLACKER, TOO MUCH TIME

I’m not talking about this.  I have no desire to really be a part of this conversation because Miley Cyrus doesn’t exist to me and I don’t feature her.  I purposely didn’t watch the VMAs because of her.  I think she’s an immature brat who can’t see more than two feet in front of her face, who selectively chooses her issues to make her own personal revolution, who doesn’t think or care about the broader picture, and has no desire to listen to anyone’s opinion outside of her own.

That said, I am tired of the white pushback (specifically women and gay men) against Nicki Minaj.  I keep seeing it over and over on social media from people I know and I’m like…really?  You really rock with me but you’re truly that simple?

Listen.  I’m 100% not interested in any more white people telling Nicki what she should have done or how she should have handled it or what her tone should have been. 

Did they all forget that this stemmed from Nicki calling out white privilege in the first place? 

And then a white woman (Taylor Swift) inserting herself and making it about her? 

And then ANOTHER white woman (Miley Cyrus) playing the tone police and telling Nicki her message was worthless because she didn’t deliver it the right way? 

And then white people stepping in all late and after the fact to point the finger AT NICKI who was in the right from jump?  Even damn Courtney Love had something sideways to say about Nicki, and I’m pretty sure that wheffah threw a damn shoe AT MADONNA during an MTV interview.  It’ll be interesting to see how this affects Nicki’s career, because Hollywood hates a Black woman who refuses to cower.

People are intentionally obtuse when Nicki is concerned, like her ass and her antics negate her position or her message.  Miss me with that.  All y’all out here standing up for feminism and throwing the white cape on for Miley’s right to flash her tiddies and wear truly hellacious scraps of fabric she’s trying to pass off as outfits are rudely silent on Nicki’s right to do the same.  If Miley didn’t want to get clapped on, she shouldn’t have inserted herself into a conversation nobody invited her to join.  And Nicki Minaj is no less intelligent, insightful, or feminist just because she markets her ass alongside her talent in an industry where sex sells because men made it so.

And that’s all I have to say.  What’s REALLY good, White Gays?

Boise, like many cities — the number of which has swelled since the recession — has an ordinance banning sleeping or camping in public places. But such laws, the DOJ says, effectively criminalize homelessness itself in situations where people simply have nowhere else to sleep. From the DOJ’s filing:

When adequate shelter space exists, individuals have a choice about whether or not to sleep in public. However, when adequate shelter space does not exist, there is no meaningful distinction between the status of being homeless and the conduct of sleeping in public. Sleeping is a life-sustaining activity — i.e., it must occur at some time in some place. If a person literally has nowhere else to go, then enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance against that person criminalizes her for being homeless.

Such laws, the DOJ argues, violate the Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, making them unconstitutional. By weighing in on this case, the DOJ’s first foray in two decades into this still-unsettled area of law, the federal government is warning cities far beyond Boise and backing up federal goals to treat homelessness more humanely.

“I was born into the brick kilns. I started working at the age of 12. The work never ended. We’re expected to make 1,000 bricks per day. We work from 5 AM to dusk. I tried to organize the workers recently to demand fair wages. We held meetings at night, but one of the workers informed on us. The owners called me to the office and beat me. They made the other workers join in. Then they took off all my clothes and tied me to a tree. I begged them not to do it. They left me there for hours. I tried to escape at night. I padlocked my family in the house and I ran into the fields. I came straight to Fatima. Before we could return for my family, the police had helped the owners break into my house. And my daughters were paraded naked in the streets.”

(4 of 7) (Lahore, Pakistan)

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This is the fourth post in a series on Syeda Ghulam Fatima. Known to her admirers as Pakistan’s Harriet Tubman, Fatima has worked tirelessly to eradicate bonded labor—one of the last remaining forms of modern slavery. This man is one of millions of bonded laborers in Pakistan, and one of the tens of thousands who has turned directly to Fatima to help him escape the violence and cruelty of the owners. Fatima has been electrocuted, shot, and repeatedly beaten for her activism. Despite her outsized impact, she operates on a very small budget. So we are raising money to help her in her mission.

She’s been dubbed the “mother of the atomic bomb”, because she explained what happened in the first fission experiments before anyone else in scientific publications, but she had no role in the Manhattan Project, or the development of any wartime use of fissionable elements.

The extremely radioactive element 109, meitnerium, is named after Prof. Meitner.

[Note: When J. Elliot refers to her being classed as one of ‘your people’ in relation to black people of color, it’s based on her reputation of being an outspoken, anti-racism ally].

“And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention.”

Learn About Bernie Sanders Sweeping Policy Platform To Combat Racial Inequality HERE.

Sanders addressed the issue in front of more than 20,000 supporters in Portland, drawing his largest crowd yet.