Common sense, finally!

In light of this

HOUMA, La. (AP) — School officials in Terrebonne Parish are considering a policy that would require all commencement speeches to be in English.

The proposal comes after Hue and Cindy Vo, cousins who were co-valedictorians at Ellender High School, delivered part of their commencement addresses last month in Vietnamese.

Cindy Vo, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, spoke about high-school memories, friends and the future. Then Ms. Vo, 18, recited a sentence in Vietnamese dedicated to her parents, as they watched. She told classmates that the line, roughly translated, was a command to always be your own person.

David Bourg, the secondary education supervisor with the Terrebonne Parish School District, is forming a committee of educators to study the graduations at the four high schools and to make recommendations to the school board. Officials are also considering other proposals, like requiring a prayer during the ceremony.

“As board members, we get to observe the different ceremonies, and there’s some inconsistencies I think the board, or administration more importantly, needs to address,” said Rickie Pitre, a board member. “I don’t like them addressing in a foreign language. They should be in English.”

...


Ms. Vo said her statement in Vietnamese was aimed at her parents, who do not speak fluent English. “Out of the whole speech, it’s one sentence dedicated to them to give thanks,” she said. “Mine was personal and general for the entire Vietnamese community and something I wanted to share with graduates.”

The fact that Obama said this

You know, I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, "We need to have English- only." They want to pass a law, "We want English-only."

Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.

You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right?

You know, no, I'm serious about this. We should understand that our young people, if you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get ajob. You are so much more employable. You can be part of international business. So we should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age, because children will actually learn a foreign language easier when they're 5, or 6, or 7 than when they're 46, like me.

Makes me want to jump for joy. Why the FUCK are some white Americans so fucking bigoted and fearful and insecure? And to think that the asses live in a piece of Louisiana that speaks a derivative of French, if I remember correctly, they are Cajuns, I think? Can'tthey see the irony in their racism?

The History Lesson

Via: zarq

How the Republicans Claimed the "Patriotism" Mantle in Presidential Politics

Patriotism is justifiably a perennial election issue. Never fixed by a single definition, it has always been subject to debate. And presidential contests are referendums about national identity. This year both candidates have just put their names to short essays in Time explaining what love of country means to them. McCain's described a familiar, traditional patriotism. He stressed military service and other forms of sacrifice to "protect the ideals that gave birth to our country: to stand against injustice and for the rights of all and not just one's own interests." Though his essay paid lip service to Americans' differences, it emphasized "the duties, the loyalties, the inspirations and the habits of mind that bind us together as Americans."

 

Obama's essay focused less on responsibilities than on rights. It celebrated "the idea … that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door … that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution." More than McCain's, his contribution dwelled on the value of America's diversity—"We are a nation of strong and varied convictions and beliefs. We argue and debate our differences vigorously and often"—even as he suggested that those differences exist within a context of shared underlying values.

Each essay, it so happens, falls within a tradition embodied by its author's party. Since the end of World War II, the conservative version of patriotism that the Republicans have championed has rested upon a steadfast protectiveness of American values in the face of enemies—proven through a muscular, nationalistic military posture. Impatient with critical perspectives, conservative patriotism advocates an unhesitant participation in collective rituals like waving the flag, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and even public prayer. McCain, who is fluent with words like valor and sacrifice, firmly belongs to this tradition.

Postwar liberalism has defined love of country differently. It calls for candidly identifying what's wrong with America in order to improve it. It tends to regard collective gestures like the Pledge of Allegiance as hollow, tokenistic, and even potentially coercive—and thus antithetical to the individualism that lets free thought flourish. To conservative patriotism's semper fidelis, liberal patriotism counters with e pluribus unum

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Via: torchbearers

Female, Muslim, and Mutant: A Critique of Muslim Women in Comic Books – Part 1 of 2

Grant Morrison, the X-Men writer who created Dust, said in an interview, “It can only happen at Marvel. As Wolverine comes closer to unlocking the dark secrets of his past, an Afghan Muslim mutant joins the X-Men. You want daring? You want different? Then meet Dust as New X-Men challenges the rules again.” Though the word “awesome” may initially spring to mind when one reads this statement, it can be strongly argued that the male gaze is still in effect. For those who are unfamiliar with the terminology, the “male gaze” is essentially female characters being depicted and presented in ways their heterosexual male writers, artists, and audiences would like to see them. In the case of Dust, we can make an argument for the western male gaze: an “oppressed” Muslim girl is rescued from Afghanistan by Wolverine, a western male mutant. Wolverine is told that the Taliban were trying to remove Dust’s burqa, obviously to molest her, and since there doesn’t seem to be other Muslims around to take a stand against the Taliban’s perverted behavior, who better to rescue her than Wolverine, or shall I say, western democracy? The scenario of Dust fighting the Taliban, as admirable as it is, occurs enough times in later issues that it makes one question if this is how western male writers, artists, and readers want to see a Muslim super-heroine, i.e. to rebel against her oppressors, the mutual enemy of the U.S. government?

To support this argument even further, there are many factors to consider, including political context. For example, Dust makes her first appearance in New X-Men # 133 which was published in December 2002, a little over a year after September 11^th, 2001. In the issue prior to her debut (issue # 132), Morrison writes a tribute to the victims of Genosha, a fictional mutant homeland, where 16 million mutants were killed. There were two direct references to September 11^th used in Marvel’s advertising of the comic book, calling the Genosha tragedy “the X-Men’s own 9/11.” The final page of the comic book shows the X-Men team crying at their loss. Next month, in issue # 133, we open to a full page of Wolverine slaughtering Taliban militants. Maybe I missed something, but the last time I checked, super-heroes don’t kill their enemies, no matter how destructive or deadly. I suppose Muslim radicals are exceptions! Even worse, we see Pakistani terrorists hijacking an Air-India plane while Professor Xavier and Jean Grey are aboard. Xavier uses his psychic abilities to convince the Pakistani hijacker, whose name happens to be Muhammad, to put down his weapon and surrender to the Indian authorities. Muhammad begins to cry and as he is arrested, he says, “It’s true, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life!” Morrison takes revenge on Muslim extremists by (1) brutally slaughtering them (via Wolverine) and (2) passively using mind tricks on them (via Xavier), and the best part is that he gets to (3) rescue an “oppressed” Afghan Muslim adolescent girl and take her home (via Wolverine again)!

Well, almost “home.” Wolverine carries Dust back to an X-Men headquarters in India – no X-Men headquarters in Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, I take it – where Jean Grey kindly encourages Dust to reveal herself from concealment. “It’s ok, Sooraya,” Jean says, “You can turn back into human form now.” Finally, Dust appears in her black burqa saying “Toorab! Toorab!” Wolverine remarks, “It means ‘dust.’ It’s all she says.” Wow, the Arabic word for dust, “toorab,” is all she says? How cute! Not only does Morrison introduce us to a super-powered Muslim girl, but also to somewhat of a doll that exclaims “Toorab! Toorab!” whenever she gets excited about transforming back into human form. I can just picture Wolverine’s conversation with her while flying to India: “So kid, what’s your story?” “Toorab! Toorab!” She reminds me of those hooded Jawa creatures from “Star Wars” who live on the desert planet of Tatooine, always bustling around and saying the same things over and over again in their alien language. By the way, shouldn’t she be speaking Farsi or Pashto since she is Afghan, not Arab?

We not only see a political slant here, which in turn justifies the western male gaze, we also see a female Muslim character that doesn’t have much of a personality. Morrison doesn’t even return to her character after this issue; instead he hands her over to other writers, but perhaps for the better, since they make significant improvements (which I will discuss later). Another thing is in play here and that’s male dependency, something that I discussed in a previous essay of mine, “The Objectification of Women in Graphic Novels.” Although one could argue that Wolverine is practically an indestructible character with his adamantium skeleton and rapid healing factor, it’s hard to believe why Dust would need any rescuing, considering her superpowers and her human enemies. If she was being recruited, the situation would be different and we wouldn’t see any sign of male dependency, but since we see a man rescue her, we assume that Dust’s superpowers are inferior: she is not nearly as powerful as male characters like Wolverine. We have seen female characters rely on their male counterparts in comic books many times before: Super Girl, Bat Girl, Spider Girl, the Huntress, She Hulk, Lois Lane, and so on. What’s important to look at here is that there is not a single positive male Muslim character in Dust’s debut issue – there are the Taliban militants that want to molest her and there are the Pakistani hijackers – but the Muslim women, who Morrison couldn’t possibly kill off since they’re “victims” in the Muslim world, are innocent, good, and “crying for freedom,” therefore they must be “saved” by western men. The racism and sexism work hand-in-hand.

Read the rest

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Black hair, comics and you

Black hair, comics and you.

If you have been sent here, the likelihood is that someone asked you to draw a black woman at one point and you completely screwed it up. I kid! I kid! Seriously though, I'm here to help. Together, you and I will go through some of the most popular hairstyles for black women. Never again will you have leagues of black women giving you the side-eye and bitching you out in blogs. Ready? Let's go!

Hairstyle # 1 – Naturally Straight

This one is the easiest style to draw, so let's get it out of the way first. Some black women do have naturally straight hair. My aunt has it. Ananda Lewis has it. You already know how to draw this. Damn near every female character in comics has hair like this. Just do what you've always done and you're good to go.

Characters: Storm (Black Panther), Empress (Young Justice)

Example 1

The Objectification of Women in Graphic Novels

2. Women as Sex Objects
The role of women changed dramatically during World War II when patriotic characters emerged and surprisingly attracted the interest of new readers, who were both males and females. Arguably, the most noteworthy character was Wonder Woman. As mentioned above, she possesses enormous super-human strength, has the ability to fly, and can overcome any obstacle that comes in her way. . Even more interesting is how her love interest, Colonel Trevor, is constantly being rescued by her, as if he is the male version of the aforementioned Lois Lane. Rather than the male rescuing the female all the time, it is reversed in the Wonder Woman comics. In the following years, other strong and super heroine characters surfaced like Miss America – the female version of Captain America – Mary Marvel, Super Girl, She-Hulk, and many others. They carried the symbolic message that “girls could do anything boys could do, and often better, especially if they stuck together” (Robbins, 2002).
However, despite these new portrayals of strong and powerful female characters like Wonder Woman, something else was occurring: they were being depicted as sex objects. As stated by Michael Lavin, “powerful super-heroines like DC’s Wonder Woman or Marvel’s She-Hulk may easily overcome the most overwhelming threats and obstacles, but they are invariably depicted as alluring objects of desire, wearing the scantiest of costumes.” The images of women with large bust sizes, slim figure, bare legs, and half-naked appearance became enormously popular after the success of Wonder Woman. Believe it or not, comic books were filled with so many sexual images of women that they were known as “headlight comic books” — a crude and stereotypical reference to the female anatomy. Comic book historian Ron Goulart writes: “In the days before the advent of Playboy and Penthouse, comic books offered one way to girl watch” (1986). A prime example of “headlight comics” was in Bill Ward’s “Torchy,” a series that ran from 1946 to 1950. The comic books contained dull and uninteresting storylines where the scriptwriters were merely making an excuse to draw Torchy as a tall, bare legged blond, who walked around in her underwear.
The escalating amount of sex and violence in comic books eventually led to complaints, particularly by psychologist Fredric Wertham who held a symposium in 1948 on the “Psychopathology of Comic Books.” He also wrote a book, Seduction of the Innocent, which correlated a connection between “juvenile delinquency and comic book reading” (Lavin, 1998). As a result, the Comics Code Authority established a written code which set the guidelines for comic book publishing. During this time, the comic book industry took a remarkable new turn where the constant objectification of women was seized. But this period where comic books were geared more towards girls and teenagers wouldn’t last long. Super-heros reemerged in the late 1960’s, along with their scantily-clad super-heroines and damsels in distress. Women were drawn in the same stereotypical fashion, but this time, the artists took it one step further on the skimpy scale. Consider the White Queen, a female villain that appeared in the X-Men comics during the 1980’s. She was “the stuff of male sexual fantasy: a push-up bustier, panties, and high-heel boots, all in white” (Lavin, 1998). Observe the image below and judge for yourself:

Worst Romance Novel Cover 2007

( not work safe )

Via: smart bitches, trashy books