Diversity

WOC Phd links me to 2 articles by Gay Prof, on the subject of diversity in academia. The goodness of these articles cannot be overstated. Get thou to the links and read!


Where is the Diversity?Choice Quote:"The stories of minority groups in this nation are not simply festive, colored pegs that can be plugged into a core white background. The history of race in this nation is the history of this nation."



Enough Minorities, Minority Enough? Part 1 Choice Quote: "African Americans, Latino/as, and Asian Americans in the humanities often have to walk a complicated tightrope between expectations about their racial identity and their academic scholarship. Many (Most? All?) departments depend upon positions focused on minority scholarship as the major (only?) method to increase the racial diversity of the faculty. Minority scholars are therefore viewed with suspicion if they are seen as not sufficiently “academic” enough and “distanced” from their subject matter. If minority faculty advocate for increasing the role of Latino/a Studies or African-American Studies, they are seen as “pushing an agenda” or simply wanting to hire their friends. The intellectual value that comes from a more diverse faculty is not seriously considered (much less the need to reinvent the way that we all teach U.S. history at the university level)."


Enough Minorities, Minority Enough> Part 2 Choice Quote: I can't decide.

(no subject)

So the Seal Press Saga got even worse when I was not looking and WOC Phd, has decided to girlcott them. And then, lovely woman that she is, she announced alternative presses. And I leap for joy.

Soft Skull Press, Red Bone Press, Suspect Thought Press and my absolute favorite, South End Press are the new guys in town from my point of view.

South End Press is particularly great. From the first book that hits your eyes upon opening the website:When the Prisoners Ran Walpole, an account of the time in 1971 when the prisoners were put in charge of the Walpole's Massachusetts Correctional Center, with apparently great results, to the The Toolbox for Sustainable City living: A do-it-yourself guide to Biopiracy, a report on the unethical and deeply fucked up ways in which Western corporations are stealing the resources and knowledge of the South, patenting it and then forcing the denizens of the South to pay them for their own knowledge, Food for Our Grandmothers, which is a collection of essays by Arab-Canadian and Arab-American feminists, A nice collection devoted to Native American topics, to say nothing of health, media studies, I'm having a ball. And then a rather interesting coincidence occurs.

Follow the link and click on the second video

Notice what his argument is about? The serious lack of transportation and how that affects his livelihood? I ignored it at first, wondering why he doesn't have a car (oh privilege!) And then I saw this Highway Robbery:Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity WHUT? I wondered. So I skipped down to the description:Coast to coast, equal access to healthy, reliable, and practical transportation eludes many people, the majority of them poor people and people of color. The effects of this injustice are broad and deep. Access to transportation, public and private, determines the physical and social mobility necessary for admission to larger social, economic, and civic worlds. For millions of people, exclusion from transportation networks means drastically compromised life choices. Their jeopardized health and limited economic opportunities are then compounded by the day-to-day indignities and feelings of frustration and isolation resulting from publicly funded segregation. Highway Robbery asserts that staying the current course will further polarize communities on the basis of class and color, and the powerful evidence marshaled by the authors in this anthology demands that cities and states revisit their public transportation agenda

*Blink*

Whereupon this book has leaped-frogged up to number one on the books that I MUST get as soon as money is with me.

Obama Reality Check

I've got to say that Obama needs some serious education on feminist and gay issues, to begin with. And he needs to take his Puritanical, religious streak the fuck out of the business of governing Americans fairly. And he also needs to learn that he is running for President of ALL AMERICANS, and that includes gays, women and fucking atheists as well. And finally, he needs to look closely at the logo of his party. Cause it AIN'T a fucking elephant. Its a goddamn donkey. As in, he's a DEMOCRAT, NOT A REPUBLICAN. And he needs to start acting like one. Because at the moment, I am sick and fucking tired of giving him the benefit of the doubt. Shakesville has some really cool posts on the subject:

How a President's faith can affect us all


Its time to get Obama Skeptical


What you don't know can hurt you



And this is the BASIC STUFF!

*sigh* Apparently a political party that wants to lead us into the fucking 21th century with justice, rights and liberty for all is too much to ask.

On street harassment

I am not here, on the earth, for you to judge me. I’m not waiting to see what number you hold up. If you think you get to judge me, my appearance or anything else about me, and you don’t even know me, and I haven’t entered any competitions, you are a self-centered entitled asshole. If you think I will appreciate your display of assholery just because this time it confirms that I win in the context of patriarchy, which still means losing because patriarchy treats me as less than human, you’re steeped in male privilege and clearly think too little of me to be mistaken for someone who would give me a worthwhile compliment.

You are welcome to approach me if you would like to offer me the opportunity to engage with you. But it needs to be an offer, not something you yell and back up with threats so that I have no choice in the matter, so that you can show me how you have power over me, so you can intimidate me, so you can force your desires or your judgment on me. You need to not corner me, you need to not follow me when I walk away from you. You need to not tell me I’m mean when I say no, because you are not so universally desirable that the only reason a person would want to leave you would be for the sake of being mean, and because you know perfectly well that when you say that you’re trying to manipulate me into staying, and my opinion matters, it shouldn’t be about trapping me into doing what you want.


AMEN.

ALL MEN WERE CREATED EQUAL...

cripchick pointed me to this incisive piece of commentary by Queer Women of Color Blog

I'm kinda tired of hearing some folks for either Clinton or Obama say "it's about time we had a woman candidate." Or "it's about time we had a Black candidate." No it's not. It's not about time. The time, folks, has come & gone & has been past due for many many moons. This country has been overdue for a minority candidate for a long while & by now we should have had a bisexual, transgender, half Asian, half Black, half Dutch, half Jewish, wheelchair using former mental health patient by now.

...

Take for example the Constitution of the United States. It says:
"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

This statement was created 221 years ago by our founding "fathers" and though it's debatable what those words actually meant & who they were meant for back then, one thing is clear to me: US citizens are meant to be equal and are supplied by their Higher Power fundamental rights that cannot be taken away. So it has taken 221 years to achieve in this country the idea that the statement I just noted might be something that guides our society and leads us all to joy & freedom. The idea folks.

David Patterson back gay marriage in New York

Dear Obama,
See this?

THAT is what you should be doing. Okay?



Hattip Rod 2.0

Word

“I refuse to limit my God, to lock God into my cultural understandings because culture is fickle.
...

“And culture is often wrong. Culture was wrong about slavery. Culture was wrong about women. Culture was wrong about Africans and Indians, and culture was wrong about Christ,” he said. “I have been the pariah among many of my clergy colleagues who somehow see me as defective or not quite saved because I won’t join them in their homophobic gay bashing and misquoting of scripture.”

-Rev Wright


From the Washington Blade

I would like many believers much better if they understood this and refrained from trying so hard to impose their morality on us all.


EDIT: Forgot to credit. Via:miaryann 

I feel like vomiting: Murder by Spreadsheet.

Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases.With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

The system means that the burden of expensive health care can now affect insured people, too.

No one knows how many patients are affected, but hundreds of drugs are priced this new way. They are used to treat diseases that may be fairly common, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, hepatitis C and some cancers. There are no cheaper equivalents for these drugs, so patients are forced to pay the price or do without.

The system, often called Tier 4, began in earnest with Medicare drug plans and spread rapidly. It is now incorporated into 86 percent of those plans. Some have even higher co-payments for certain drugs, a Tier 5.


Insurers say the new system keeps everyone’s premiums down at a time when some of the most innovative and promising new treatments for conditions like cancer and rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis can cost $100,000 and more a year.

But the result is that patients may have to spend more for a drug than they pay for their mortgages, more, in some cases, than their monthly incomes.

Private insurers began offering Tier 4 plans in response to employers who were looking for ways to keep costs down, said Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents most of the nation’s health insurers. When people who need Tier 4 drugs pay more for them, other subscribers in the plan pay less for their coverage.

But the new system sticks seriously ill people with huge bills, said James Robinson, a health economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is very unfortunate social policy,” Dr. Robinson said. “The more the sick person pays, the less the healthy person pays.”

Traditionally, the idea of insurance was to spread the costs of paying for the sick.

“This is an erosion of the traditional concept of insurance,” Mr. Mendelson said. “Those beneficiaries who bear the burden of illness are also bearing the burden of cost.”

...

Although Kaiser advised patients of the new plan in its brochure that it sent out in the open enrollment period late last year, Ms. Steinwand did not notice it. And private insurers, Mr. Mendelson said, can legally change their coverage to one in which some drugs are Tier 4 with no advance notice


Daily Kos breaks down the absolute lunacy of this:This reality has hit a nerve. I'm not surprised. It's frightening to read about an anonymous citizen who's losing access to a drug that is quite literally keeping her alive. You know that it's only a matter of time until someone in your own family faces the same insurance industry grim reaper in a business suit.

Just Pay Your Taxes--and shut-up:

Not to digress, but it's April 14th, I just mailed my taxes. Did you? Everyone I know is talking about their taxes. You know what they're saying and asking? I'll tell you. They're wondering what do we get for our tax dollars? Everyone knows that we're the only Western nation where healthcare is a privilege, not a right. Stupid us.

In every other civilized nation, taxes fund single-payer healthcare--but not here. But we just keep paying, stupid us. Don't forget as you wait on a long slow line at the post office, that your money is paying for heavily taxpayer subsidized Congressional health benefits. That's right, healthcare for them, but not for us. Stupid us.

In the United States we find all the money we need to occupy and destroy a sovereign nation, but providing basic healthcare to all our citizens is an expense we just can't afford. Stupid us.

Class Warfare, and Yes, I'm a very Bitter American:

Back to the New York Times, this is from today's paper. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the scum at AHIP are setting up a huge class warfare endgame.

Here's how it goes. If health insurers pay for the expensive medication of your very sick neighbor, then your insurance premium will go up.

So let's just pit neighbor against neighbor, American against American. Cancer patients against the still healthy.


Please take note of the record earnings this year by some insurance companies highlighted in the article.