Archive for November 17th, 2008
Connecting Social Justice Movements
3:25 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Environment| Immigration · Comments Off
17 Nov 2008
I’ve been wanting to post about this for a while, but kept forgetting to. In light of the total screw up of the gay community on how to organize with and across different community boundaries, I remembered and now I am posting!
But before describing the day, one may ask, what does this have to do with the climate?
(aside from bad puns about melting the ICE…)Yesterday I felt the power of youth, and the moral legitimacy of young people speaking truth to power – of being bold and not letting injustices stand; of offering leadership; of youth organizing for a better world. A Youth Climate Movement holds this same power, and as young climate activists strive to integrate a deep understanding of power, race, class, and gender into our movement, we would do well to explore the links between our work and the struggles of immigrant youth and their families across the country.
Far too often, mainstream organizations will throw their hands up in frustration and whine about, “We’re not supposed to save everybody, we’re an organization that focuses on X!”
What alliances like the anti-ICE and pro-environment alliance does is show that you don’t have to give up your organization’s center in order to connect your fight to the fight of other social justice centered organizations. But you do need to be willing to extend yourself to people you don’t normally talk to and extend yourself to people you normally may not feel inclined to hook up with.
Filiberto Ojeda Rios Film festival Presents La Operacion
3:15 pm By Maegan La Mala · Activism| Events| Health| Movies| New York City| Puerto Rico| Women| history · 2 Comments
17 Nov 2008
This month is Puerto Rican Heritage Month ( I bet you are surprised I haven’t mentioned it before). In honor of the struggles and history that make Puerto Ricans who we are today and what drives us pa’lante siempre, ProLibertad, an amazing organization doing important work around the issues of Puerto Rico and her political prisoners is holding the Filiberto Ojeda Rios Film Festival.
The Filiberto Ojeda Rios Film Festival 2008 is an initiative of the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign to showcase films that speak to our experience as a colonized people fighting for independence and self-determination!
We have named the film festival after assassinated Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios because his death raised consciousness throughout the Puerto Rican Diaspora; his murder illustrated the colonial oppression Puerto Rico faces and has radicalized a generation of young activists to continue the fight for independence.
We hope these films will do the same. Join us on our three consecutive Fridays!
Don’t support the Hollywood machine that feeds you nonsense, sex, violence and cheap humor! Learn about yourself, your people, and your struggle!
This Friday’s film is la Operacion, a film I have written about and referenced often. Pero for those who have not been paying attention:
La Operacion/The Operation
This documentary brings to the foreground the problem of widespread
sterilization among Puerto Rican women through the use of personal testimony, newsreels, and government propaganda excerpts. The procedure is so common that more than one-third of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age have been sterilized. Begun in the 1930’s as a means of curbing the surplus population, it continues to be reinforced politically and socially in the Puerto Rican communities.
$5 donation/Best offer at each film!
Friday November 21st, 2008 @ 8pm @ The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (that’s the West Side Highway) between Bank & Bethune Streets.
This is not just history. It is directly tied into how women’s cuerpos are used today as projects and not respected, how the language of choice is often manipulated to help some while harm others and devalue our lives and how and when we continue to bring forth new lives or not.
Drug Related Violence in Mexico Continues
3:08 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Drugs| mexico · 2 Comments
17 Nov 2008
The BBC News is reporting that the drug related violence in Mexico was especially intense this weekend: Eleven were killed, including a young girl:
A teenage girl was among 11 people shot dead in suspected drug-related violence at the weekend in the northern city of Tijuana, authorities in Mexico say.
In one attack, masked gunmen opened fire in a pool hall, killing five people, while the girl, 14, and two men were killed in a shootout in a street.
This violence came shortly after at least one thousand people marched through Tijana demanding and end to the violence. Even worse, this violence comes after the brutal kidnapping/murder of a young boy earlier this month:
Kidnappers grabbed a 5-year-old boy from a gritty Mexico City street market, then killed him by injecting acid into his heart — a new low even for Mexico’s brutal kidnapping gangs.
The boy, Javier Morena, was the oldest son of a poor family that sold fruit at a market in the tough neighborhood of Iztapalapa, proof that the plague of kidnappings for ransom afflicts the working class as well as the wealthy.
So what is Mexican president, Felipe Calderon doing about all this? Congratulating himself on job well done. Of course.
Mexico has made “important achievements” in fighting drugs under the current administration, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on Sunday.
Some 43 tons of cocaine have been seized in the littorals of the country since his government took office in December 2006, Calderon said at the welcoming ceremony in Acapulco Port for the arrival of School Vessel “Cuauhtemoc” after its international tour.
“The trafficking of that dangerous drug” was controlled, Calderon said.
For some reason, I’m thinking that concentrating on how great it is to find drugs is not quite what most Mexicans are hoping for when little boys are getting their hearts injected with acid. For some reason, I think those people might be hoping for a focus on human life and safety.
You can always count on the Mexican government to be in step with it’s people.
HPV Vaccine being Pushed On Young Mexican Girls
1:10 pm By Maegan La Mala · Health| Women| mexico · 1 Comment
17 Nov 2008
When I took my 11 year old to the doctor a few weeks ago I was asked if I wanted her to have the Gardasil vaccine. I declined. End of story. Pero as we have been following here, mujeres who want to enter the United States don’t have the option of refusing the fairly new shot that is said to prevent the human papillomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer.
Continuing with the trend of using women of color bodies as test subjects, Mexico City is will begin to offer the vaccine for free on December 1st, targeting girls between 11-13.
Lunes Libro : Digital Copy of Fidel Castro’s Libro : La Paz en Colombia
11:10 am By Maegan La Mala · Books| Colombia| Cuba · Comments Off
17 Nov 2008
Last Week we told you about Fidel Castro’s latest book, La Paz en Colombia. Now you can see read the entire book via a digital download.
In the book, Fidel develops three central ideas: one, the characterization and development of the deceased FARC chief, the evolution of the guerrilla movement and his role in the complex Colombian political framework; secondly, the incidence of the oligarchic power, its instruments of exploitation and repression and its alliance with U.S. imperialism in the genesis of and constant exercise of violence; and thirdly, the real nature of Cuba’s links with the Latin American revolutionary movements and its long and sustained contribution to the search for a just, realistic and humanitarian solution to the armed conflict that is bleeding Colombia.
Hola!
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- Transgender Day of Remembrance and Latin@s
- Dear Troll(s):
- Puerto Rican, Latino Clergy, Theology Professors, Community Members To Condemn Brutal Hate Killing of Gay Puerto Rican Man
- Vigils for Justice y en Memoria de Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado
- Russell Athletic rehires fired union organizers
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