Got Soul?

Erase all notions of positive stereotypes. They benefit the status quo. Because there are "positive" stereotypes in addition to the negative ones in every group, people "claim" the positive side because at least it's better than the negative. So people try viciously to prove the "positive" or accept it, and don't eliminate either. So quite clearly, both effectively stay in tact.

One of those we don't think about is the fact that black women can "sing" more strongly than white women. Seems "positive", so positive in fact that we get upset when white female soul singers come out. Actually, those white female soul singers are doing us justice. They show that black women are NOT genetically stronger in vocal range. Because, unfortunately, one cannot embrace the "positive strong black singer" stereotype and deject the "black women are loud" stereotype. They come from the same "stock".

I love Mary J, Jennifer Hudson, and a variety of other "strong" vocal singers. But when we contrast them against Mariah Carey, or other falsettos it is clear that stereotypes have created a DEMAND for a particular type of black female singer. Mariah, being lightskinned, and a "high pitched" singer plays into her femininity where as Mary J being a dark, "bold", and "strong" singer plays into the opposite.


Black women being "soulful" strong singers SUPPORTS the argument that our natural voices are louder, our bodies are stronger, and that "strength" is the justification for how we deserve to be treated. We can't escape that.

Agree, disagree?

What to do?

How awesome would it be to have a room with a bunch of these in different positions?

I'm just thinking about ideas to organize my 300+ books. My parents have given me an expiration date on the other 200 or so I have at home (they will keep them for me but not forever). As of now I found some vanity shelves outside, and have put most of them on those. But that shelf is incredible.



In further news, I have borrowed about 5 books from the library.

So far "Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girls?" is incredible. Everyone should pick it up.

School is for dummies.

What if monotonous biology/chemistry classes were replaced with understanding your bodies chemistry and the basics of health. What if we knew what the basics of what doctors know? What if you could determine whether or not you even need to go to the doctor when you see symptoms? What if in the event that you even need a doctor, your doctor and yourself could compare notes about your symptoms?

What if instead of reading dead and outdated authors such as Charles Dickens and books like "The Great Gatsby"-English classes taught you how to read legal documents, the law, how to analyze what others write, and how to develop the analytical skills necessary to effectively write and therefore communicate?

What if Math classes where numbers were a source of hell, boredom, and frustration were replaced with showing the student how to budget money, how to read financial documents, and how to file your taxes for example?

What if Gym classes, which are a source of hell for teenagers who are uncomfortable with their bodies (and how they fit into gender hierarchy), were replaced with nutrition courses? What if instead of Gym being about comparing meat with jocks, were about holistic nutrition, how to eat to live?

What if instead of dating history as "being in the past", "it didn't happen to us", or "thank god America is free", we learned that what we had in common with those of the past. What if we learned how similar our struggles are with those in our history as a whole, instead of totally disconnecting from it? What if instead of boring Social Studies courses about how great our dead white presidents were; we could create a better future outcome in societies, by simply looking at older societies?

If these things were accomplished, what would that mean for the American Economy? If we knew how not to be sick, what would happen to the pharmaceutical industry? What would happen to a lot of jobs, that actually, discourage the development of students?

We alllll know what the current American Education system has created.


AMERICA

HATES

THINKERS.

When will we learn?

i know i am

VOTE MCKINNEY! VOTE MCKINNEY! VOTE MCKINNEY! VOTE MCKINNEY! VOTE MCKINNEY!

Vegan

At the core of my heart is my commitment to the non-human people of this world. To work toward a goal of harm reduction and walking lightly, I live as a vegan. To me, being vegan includes not ingesting the bodies or secretions of non-human animals. I do not wear things that are made from the bodies of animals. It also means that I do not participate in the various events that feature non-consenting animals including zoos, rodeos and aquariums.

My deep commitment to our furred, feathered and fined sisters and brothers is rooted in many things.

For one, I am a Jew. In Ashkenazi culture, we are taught to think about WHO we are eating or wearing. For example, we are meant not to eat the body of an animal along with her secretions. For me, being vegan is what kosher principles are all about: just because something is available to me to eat does not justify uncritical consumption. And my privilege as a human in this world does not justify my using other animals’ bodies at my whim.

I am a feminist. I believe in looking critically at the way female people are treated in society. I want to tease out misogynistic saturation in my life. When I think about the consumption of bodily secretions I know that these are female bodies from which milk and eggs are sucked. I know how raw, bloody and full of pus my own nipples would be if I had metal suction cups forcing liquid from them for hours on end. My own menstrual cycles let me feel the pain of those whose bodies are starved so they will be shocked into an unnatural egg cycle. I am left horrified. I wonder if this abuse of female bodies would be appropriate in a feminist, non-patriarchal society.

I am human. I know that no person can kill animal after animal on an assembly line without suffering irreversible psychological damage.

Pure logic. If we were not stuffing non-human animals full of grain and corn, those foods could be fed to the millions of people who are hungry around the world. I refuse to exercise my first-world privilege by eating flesh because I know that a cow or chicken has a relatively small body compared with the amount of grain s/he must eat.

I have been criticized before that I am exerting my privilege as a first-worlder by being vegan. This weak argument often sounds like “Some people don’t GET to eat meat” or “it’s so white to be vegetarian, people with culture eat meat”. Just because endless consumption is available to me as an american DOES NOT mean that I must participate and more importantly, to participate creates a world of suffering from humans to non-human animals to the environment as a whole. There are cultures throughout history and across the world that encourage their people to think critically about what they use, take and eat. Jewish, Rasta, Buddist, Hindu and Muslim cultures all ask you to think about what you are eating.

Please do not censor your comments. I want to have a space where we can speak openly about each others’ thoughts and beliefs.

On race construction

found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/herzogbr/2228668286/

Please consider an earlier post on this blog "On Whiteness" for more

Other Blogs

Comrades-
I have added more links under "sites we dig" and I recommend that you check out:

http://jwablog.jwa.org/
http://www.angrybrownbutch.com/
http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/
http://www.shalomveg.com/

I think their names speak for themselves- I am loving this blog thing- please add more links to "sites we dig" or put them in the comments here and I'll put them up for you.

love,
Comrade AJ

Inspirational Revolutionaries

<---Kola Boof
poet, novelist, womanist, embracer of true matriarchal African relgion


Emma Goldman ---->
anarchist, healer, began revolutionary work in her LATE TEENS!!, inspiration, founded the ACLU **BISEXUAL JEW**




Look these womyn up, read their works and about them. They are our sisters and ancestors we shall continue and support their work!

love,
The Anarchist Jew ;)

Event!- Seder in the Streets! Sun, April 6

Comrades-

This looks like a lot of fun- it is a celebration of Purim. It's hosted by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice: http://www.jfrej.org/. Please lemme know if you want to go because I do!!

Join us as we return to our roots:
Ancient Egypt & the Lower East Side

A raucous event tying together the struggle for Domestic Workers Rights & Housing Justice, Lower East Side Jewish history, & the holiday of Passover.

What: Music! Food! Justice! Fun for all ages!

Performance & Passover Sing-Along with Chana Rothman! check her out: http://www.chanarothman.com/bio.html

When: April 6, 2008 2-4pm
Where: Seward Park, entrance located at East Broadway and Canal St. [F train to East Broadway]

RSVP: alana@jfrej.org 212.647.8966 x 11 or click here

love,

Comrade AJ

She has many thoughts - a topic for 3/19

Comrades and prospective lovers-

This will be why I find, when arguing, the word and concept of "natural", a thoroughly unconvincing and useless argument. When discussing the habits of human culture, or, more specifically, to explain the way things "ought" to be and why; people often invoke this absolutely indefinable thing called "nature".

Many times I have been told that human consumption of flesh is “natural thing” that us people do because we have "evolved" this way. Along the very same lines, a perfectly convinced person will tell me that hetero sex, and the way we are meant to do it is also, "natural." People become quite offended if I suggest that a womon is not “naturally” nurturing or, that the category of “womon” is not a naturally-explainable concept.

Let us try to define "natural"--> is it how we interpret the way animals live and behave? Is it what the people who paid the scientists would like us to believe so that they can make monetary and branding profit? Science is the stuuu-dddy of nature, right? Well, from the beginning, this religion of science is skewed in its own favor. If you believe that humans engage in friendships, but other animals are incapable of friendship based on some pre-conceived prejudices, will a scientist be able to see other animals’ relationships with any clarity?? If one believes that there are (only) two sexes in all species, can one find a third?

So often, though, the descrepincies are painfully obvious. I am told that one bunny humps another bunny because he wants to mate and make bunnies with his own sperms. When the bunny doing the humping has a vagina, we say that she is asserting dominance. Convienently different explainations of the same behavior made on the basis of gender, to support the patriarchy.

We construct the definition of intellect based on our very own bodies and lives. We prove human habits and cultures scientifically to give give the power structures more power. These power structures are the systems that we are brainwashed into the systems habit and fear called religion, science, the state, and other human cultural traditions/habits.

Ah, the convenient self-affirming system of money. Long live the free market!!

Firstly, how dare we as human beings with our own awingly varied cultures, even begin to imagine that we could understand something as alien to us as another species’ culture? How could we begin to define the relationships that animals have?

Because they are not like us and by some cruelty, their lives are in our control? This gives us the right to enslave, experiment on, murder and eat the bodies of other animals?

(Too often, when "natural" proves to be an unusable argument, the dear debater will turn to an argument involving a "god" that they themselves never worshiped.)

Much love,

Comrade Anarchist Jew

A bulletin I forgot to repost. On Bullshit science and neo-eugenics.

"People shouldn't have kids unless they can afford them".

It may be sorta true. But I'm tired of hearing this.

People should have kids when they deem themselves ready, should be the replacement.

Hmmm.

If people "waited until they had money" to have kids the third world would be extinct. And people of color would've made up like .5% of the American population by 1960. Because when people say "overpopulation" they don't mean whites or the elite, do they?

So only wealthy people should have kids then? Very similar to Margaret Sanger's approach, but just the newer version.

Abortion is an undeniable right that is necessary whether in capitalism or not. But what would make it MORE necessary in capitalism?

-The fact that undesirable candidates should not produce offspring. Kids need two parents, one male one female to be "stable". Yet, patriarchy produces shitty fathers for very logical reasons whom even if they are in the home are not "really there". (most of you know what I mean). While most children whether they are rich or poor never spend any reasonable amount of time with their fathers, then what difference does it make in the first place? Even married mom's are single mom's when it comes to raising children.

-Being "married" before having kids is certainly an easier solution but it is designed to of course leave black women and non-straight people in general out of the suitable "parent" category.

-Wait until you have a "house" to have kids. Newsflash. Most people whom are low income, rent their homes.

-In order to "plan" to have kids you have to be suburban, married, parents must be stabilly employed, you must have a mini-van etc., is this the new way of saying "whites are more fit to have children"? And that poor women "cannot afford them" so should not have them until they "can"? And if people are born into their class, doesn't this mean NEVER?

-With all the crazy fucked up and mentally unstable people across the board, it is clear that your social status has nothing to do with your effectiveness as a parent.

I am confused/torn on this issue of . But me and peeps discussed it at dinner and I thought this was worth bringing up.

On an unconnected note:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/570880

Not only are black women naturally "stronger" and built for sexual exploitation and labor, but science has now confirmed that our vagina's/reproductive organs are "naturally" stronger too. What other conclusion could POSSIBLY come from this article (It is meant for doctors, not patients whom now have internalized this idea making it alllll the more dangerous).

ALIEN Germs

I sicky.

I have a stomach ache out of this world and a sore throat. I must have caught wind of some form of extraterrestrial bacteria. I am leaving work early. I hope I can come, I really do, but I think the best thing to do is go home and rest.

k. gonna go wallow in germs

~S