Check out the colors of change campaign for Trayvon.
There is an interesting campaign to mail a package of skittles the police chief who chose not to arrest Zimmerman. I’m thinking about mailing some skittles to US Attorney General Eric Holder.
Category Archives: human rights
Jasiri X: Trayvon
Filed under colonialism, hip hop, human rights, juxtaposition, media, memorial, protest, representation, resistance
Cultural assimilation vs. Marketing: the Nike Black and Tan edition
Thanks to kicksonfire for the image.
Nike’s new shoe, the Black and Tan, has been released presumably to take advantage of St. Patrick’s day drinking/marketing opportunities. Whoops. Turns out that the Black and Tan is a sour brand in Ireland because of the hated military/police group which murdered and terrorized civilians during the early twenties.
The Black and Tans were a colonial army recruited from England ostensibly to police the people of Ireland. The lack of oversight and genuine racism in the face of a guerrilla uprising led to a terrible disdain for civilians. The roughshod police force (their name is a reference to the haphazard uniforms of the unit) was almost 7-10,000 strong and recruited from former World War I veterans.
In retaliation for attacks on police forces, the Black and Tans attacked civilians, burned homes and businesses and in one case refused an entire village food. Consider the documentary The Burning of Cork.
The Nike marketing error is evidence of the smooth appropriation transforming actual Irish history into a bizarre tourist narrative emphasizing drinking, leprechauns, and Irish-affiliated brands. These tourist realities corrode against the actual history of Sinn Fein, Home Rule, and the bodily struggles associated with Irish Nationalism.
The assumption of Nike, that their party, party, party language was the universal meaning points to a kind of linguistic arrogance. NPR’s Melissa Block and Robert Siegel interviewed Brian Boyd of the Irish Times on the Nike apology.
BLOCK: Now, Nike has released a statement saying: We apologize, no offense was intended. At the same time, Nike says the sneaker has been, quote, unofficially named by some as the Black and Tan.
SIEGEL: That said, if you look inside the shoe – as we have done with online photos – you see an image of a pint of beer with two colors, black and tan.
BLOCK: Brian Boyd of The Irish Times has reported on some outrage over the shoe. But really, he says, it’s not about a shoe. It’s about a holiday.
BOYD: It’s how the Americans view Saint Patrick’s Day and view Irish culture and history. And it’s the very fact that some people are saying that these are beer-themed sneakers, that the only way to celebrate a national holiday of a country with a very rich culture and a very rich history and literature, et cetera, is to pour massive amounts of alcohol down your body.
It’s how the American treat St. Patrick’s Day. So we’re using this story to say, look, it’s the silly Americans, stupid Americans, look what they’re doing again. They’ve got it all wrong.
via Nike Kicks Up Controversy With ‘Black And Tan’ Shoes : NPR.
Filed under capitalism, colonialism, communication, human rights, juxtaposition, learning, police, propaganda, protest, representation, resistance
Women behind the wheel: Saudi drivers and M.I.A.
When we amplify cultural appropriation with glossy mediated representations trimmed from context we often get something spectacular. Witness M.I.A.’s new video. Is it a sensationalist exploitation of vague Arab identity? Is it a mediocre song with a snazzy video? Is it an anthem for Arab women’s power and emancipation at a particular moment when Saudi Arabian women are fighting for the right to drive?
Saudi Arabia is the only country that bars women from driving. But the topic remains a highly emotional issue in the kingdom, where women are also not allowed to vote, or even work without their husbands’, or fathers’, permission. For religious puritans, the ban on women driving is a sign that the government remains steadfast in the face of a Western onslaught on Saudi traditions. A political cartoon here once depicted car keys attached to a hand grenade.
via Saudis Arrest Woman Leading Right-to-Drive Campaign – NYTimes.com.
Maybe these sultry hooded women are representations of the terrifying hand grenade of women’s emancipation? M.I.A. is certainly in charge — note that she and the other women are suggested as the stunt drivers in her video. Not quite the dis-empowered sultry video vixen.
Let’s also note the Saudi stunt driving tradition which has provided some of the visual antecedents for M.I.A.’s video.
I think it is a smart way to make the argument. It’s a savvy juxtaposition — to connect the stunt driving (socially acceptable youth rebellion) with women driving (absolute moral panic). But the construction of the argument relies on some of the most blunt images of Arab and Muslim cultures.
Cultural appropriation has a couple of dimensions. One is the absorption of specific cultural traditions into a generic western culture (German sausages become hot dogs which then become America’s national food). A second dimension is the insistence that citizens hide their specific culture: language, food, sexuality in order to gain the benefits of citizenship.
In this case, I think the risk is the other-izing jump to rescue Arab women from their oppressive men. In the buildup to the US-Afghanistan war, the Taliban’s treatment of women was a central theme used to drum up support for military intervention. I think this is an insincere secondary objectification of women’s struggles, a hijack of liberation and autonomy. The American invasion of Afghanistan has not helped the women of Afghanistan and the emotional concern that made ‘Afghan women‘ a news cycle trope seems to have dissipated.
We tend to represent the Arab-other in murky abstractions of difference and this video is a slight variation of an Orientalist theme.
Filed under capitalism, colonialism, communication, feminism, human rights, juxtaposition, music, protest, representation
Based superstructure: apple sweatshop economics
Pretty good example of Apple’s race to the bottom in terms of semi-legal-seemingly-nice-guy-global-gangsta sweatshop economics.
Apple typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Apple calculates how much it will pay for a part. Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits.
So suppliers often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies.
via Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China – NYTimes.com.
Filed under capitalism, colonialism, human rights, propaganda, representation
His name is Lakhdar Boumediene, we locked him in Guantanamo
The New York Times published the testimony of a survivor of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Lakhadar Boumediene worked for Red Crescent helping orphan children when he was accused of a bomb plot and was taken to Guantanamo Bay.
I went on a hunger strike for two years because no one would tell me why I was being imprisoned. Twice each day my captors would shove a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so they could pour food into me. It was excruciating, but I was innocent and so I kept up my protest.
via My Guantánamo Nightmare – NYTimes.com.
He was freed after finally getting a (civilian) judicial review of his case.
Filed under communication, human rights, prisons, propaganda
Turning Randall Terry gay
Progressives might be losing in this country, but they do seem to be having more fun.
Anyone who has been disappointed by the horrifically bad aim of most glitter bombings can see that this is by far the most successful glitterbombing ever; so good job, crazy dude.
via Man With Boot On His Head Glitterbombs Anti-Gay Racist Randall Terry / Queerty.
Filed under communication, human rights, protest
Femonomics on forced sterilization
I am appreciative of the thoughtful engagement given to a doctor who brags about sterilizing an Tanzanian woman while saving her life during childbirth. I first read about it on Feministe, but followed the original authors back to a new intellectual hotspot: Femonomics. Check out my favorite two paragraphs:
No matter how benign this paternalism masquerading as benevolence might sound, forced sterilization is a crime that is committed against women (and sometimes men, such as in Indira Ghandi’s India), stripping them of free agency and human dignity. Patients get to decide what medical procedures are performed on them for a variety of reasons. They get to decide because there is no medical procedure that does not have risks as well as benefits, no matter how enormous the benefits or how small the risks. They get to decide because lots of things that doctors used to think were really good (e.g., hormone replacement therapy) are sometimes really bad. They get to decide because what makes sense for one person may not make sense for someone else. Fully informed consent, where someone is told of the risks and benefits of a procedure, and allowed to make their own, non-coerced, lucid decision, is one of the hallmarks of ethical medical care.
In the case of sterilization specifically, the stakes can be incredibly high. For some women, being able to produce children may be their guarantee of economic security. If they stop producing, their husband may seek another wife, and cut off spousal support. In Zambia, infertile women have told of being divorced and treated as a burden by their community. In South Asia, failure to produce children has been offered up as one predicator of bride burning. In an environment where women lack access to many conventional forms of capital, their ability to produce something valued by society in the form of children may be vital to their physical and economic security.
via femonomics: Involuntary Sterilization, Cowboy Doctors, and the West in Africa.
Filed under colonialism, feminism, health, human rights
Groupthink and the border patrol
How do they get all those border officers to think alike? They fire the dissident ones.
Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.
Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”
via Officers Punished for Supporting Eased Drug Laws – NYTimes.com.
Filed under communication, human rights, learning, police
Engaging with Burma but at what cost?
photo by Paula Brownstein, from the Guardian
A couple of decades after a military dictatorship started to lock up and exterminate the local Burmese populations, the United States has decided to check in. Above we see Hillary Clinton shaking hands with Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
I’m not a romantic about international affairs. I know that ugly stuff happens. But the Burmese government is truly nasty.
What would fuel such a sudden rush to check in on Burma? In my opinion there are two elements which bring US-Burma relations to the forefront.
1. Many US businesses have been salivating to set up work in the dictatorship. Turns out that when the military leaders can just shoot labor union organizers and lock up those who complain about bad working conditions, business profits can soar. A couple of years ago, French and US energy companies built a massive natural gas pipeline through the dictatorship. Unocol hired a consultant to see just how much evil they were on the hook for (public relations-wise).
And consider this: according to company sources, Unocal hired a former Pentagon analyst to investigate whether the army was abusing human rights along their pipeline. And he warned Unocal executives that Myanmar’s military was committing “egregious human rights” violations. According to company sources, the consultant flatly told executives that when they keep insisting that slave labor is not being used to support the project, they appear “at best naïve and at worst a willing partner in the situation.”
via American Radio Works – Blood and Oil in Burma.
2. American force projection is taking serious losses. Talk about going from a dominant first world power to a second-tier nation in the span of a couple of years. Military backlash in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, Yemen, and everywhere an American soldier shows his head. Check out the softpower backlash in every place where US aid money is deposited in the bank accounts of local elites. Bottom line, the United States empire is running out of “little buddies.” The bid to drop money and relations on Burma is a last-gasp effort to shore up the US empire. The fact that we have to turn to Burma is in itself evidence of just how little clout the US wields.
Filed under colonialism, human rights, propaganda
Juxtaposition: the tear gas edition
Artifact 1. The editor-in-chief of the Bay Citizen was gassed in the #occupy oakland actions.
I looked down and my hand was black, my four fingers covered in toxic chemicals. I couldn’t feel my hand much but could clench it and unclench it and assumed I was okay. My blue flannel shirt also was black, stained where the canister had struck me and discharged. I was soaked in tear gas, but for some reason it was having less of an effect than the burning on my hand.
Another strange but not entirely unexpected thought popped into my head: 6 inches lower and it would have hit me in the crotch.
Artifact 2. South Korean debate involves MPs using tear gas in the parliament building.
An opposition MP set off a teargas canister in the South Korean parliament in a failed attempt to prevent the ruling party passing a free trade deal with the US.
Proponents said the deal, the largest US trade pact since the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), could increase commerce between the two countries by up to a quarter. But the opposition claims it will harm South Korean interests, putting jobs at risk.
via South Korean MP lets off teargas in parliament | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Filed under colonialism, documentary, human rights, juxtaposition, resistance
Life of refinement 