On Friday, September 7th, six activists from Chicago South Asians for Justice stood up in the middle of the plenary panel of the World Hindu Congress in Chicago to voice their resistance to the Hindu nationalist political movement currently ascendant in India. Chanting “RSS turn around, we don’t want you in our town!,” the activists—mostly…
Category: movements
Tech Workers Revolutionary Roundup
Happy Prime Day, everybody! That’s right: on July 16, the world witnessed a half-priced online commerce holiday, as Amazon slashed rates so online shoppers could know, in concrete terms, how little the company values/pays its workers. While some of the world was shopping, many were resisting, as Amazon warehouse workers went on strike against low…
Who Gets to be Naked at Harvard University?
Every semester at Harvard University, students take their clothes off. The event is called Primal Scream, and it happens on midnight before the first day of final exams. As the hour approaches, there is a palpable buzz in the central quad, the Harvard Yard. Students gather in various states of undress: towels and trenchcoats, gym shorts…
Justice for Asifa: Sexual Violence, Religious Conflict, and the Politics of Outrage
On January 17, Muhammad Yusuf Pujwala and Naseema Bibi saw the body of their eight year old daughter, Asifa Bano. The child, a member of the nomadic Bakerwal community, a Muslim herding community residing in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, had been missing for several days. While her parents hoped for her safe return, they…
Farmers march, students strike, and women rise: This week in Indian social movements
You don’t need me to tell you that these are dark times. From Mississippi’s recent (and definitely unconstitutional) banning of abortion at 15 weeks, to Trump’s revolving-door series of government appointments which are now slated to include a known torturer, the news is bleak. And it’s not only in the U.S.: Authoritarian right-wing governments are on the up worldwide. Including in…
How Mental Health Activists Are Fighting Racism
Find the original article on Talkspace. During the Civil Rights Movement, white psychologists invented a so-called mental illness. Dubbing it “protest psychosis,” these psychologists used the racially-motivated “syndrome” to explain away the reasonable rage of black Americans demanding an end to segregation. Sixty years later, racial disparities in the mental health care system remain, including lack of…
Woman Imprisoned for Converting to Islam Tells Indian Supreme Court: “I Want Freedom”
Read the original article at Feministing. On Monday this week, a young Muslim woman faced the Indian Supreme Court, finally allowed to speak after being imprisoned for converting to Islam and marrying a man of her choice. After months of petitions, news coverage, and speeches from everyone but her, she said laid out her demand clearly: “I want freedom.” In…
We need to confront gendered violence in movement spaces.
Read the original article at Feministing. It’s easy to talk about gendered violence from conservative men because, well, their ideology is often consistent with their douchebaggery. When you’ve devoted your entire career to ranting against abortion rights on television or groping your way to a white-supremacist presidency, there’s a pretty clear and obvious connection between your stated values (sexist)…
What Does it Mean to Break Silence?
Read the original article at Feministing. After the Trump — and the Cosby — and the Weinstein — and the Toback — revelations, we heard the same question asked over and over again: How can everyone know that sexual harassment and assault are happening, and still not admit that it is happening? Why are sexual assault and harassment so often “open secrets”? When we say that rape culture is a…
We will fuck up. Let’s confront that and do better.
Originally published at Feministing My mother marched. My father, my sister, my cousins, my aunts and uncles. My Grandma, sitting home in her chair recovering from a broken hip, watched the crowds gather, a huge colony of pink-hatted ants on the tiny screen, and her heart marched. And my own heart, large and porous, flew…
