Archive for March 9th, 2009
Program to Help Latino Seniors In Cyberspace
9:00 pm By la Macha · Internet|Media|media justice · Comments Off
9 Mar 2009Via New America Media comes the news that elderly Latin@s are being targeted in the digital divide:
A recently launched nationwide program will aim to help elderly Latino/Americans get comfortable in cyberspace in an effort to overcome one of the widest gaps in the so-called “digital divide” between those who are able to access and use the Internet and others who are not.
Wanda Rodriguez-Mercado, a project coordinator at the Pasadena-based National Association for Hispanic Elderly, a non-profit group that helped test Generations on Line Espanol, said she expects the program to make a big difference in the lives of senior citizens.
“In working with Hispanic and Latino elders every day, I know the thrill of discovery for them and the disappointment when they know something is beyond their reach,” Rodriguez-Mercado said. “I watched a woman in her 70′s go from shy to confident when she was able to use the Internet and quickly become a mentor to others.”
The issue of access is not going to just go away. As the article states even younger Latin@s are not always using the internet because of language barriers. But even so, it’s really great to see that elderly populations are getting attention they deserve and are recognized as important internet consumers.
Oprah discusses Chris Brown and Rihanna
9 Mar 2009When I saw this, I was vaguely irritated by the screaming white woman–why is it that white women always feel that they know the most about black women and abuse? There are two black women and two men of color on that panel…is it necessary for a white woman to be screaming over the black women speaking truth?
I also appreciated Oprah’s words–she’s clearly speaking from one survivor to another–and I felt that the way she spoke was not condescending or irritating. She’s been there and she clearly knows what needs to be said.
But at the same time, I must ask–where are the prominent men of color and/or black men speaking out to Chris Brown? And I’m not talking some community activist man of color that works mostly within the black community, I’m talking big talkers that interact regularly with white audiences (ala Oprah) like Bill Cosby or Jesse Jackson. These men have so much to say about how poor black women conduct themselves (having multiple babies with multiple partners, having children out of wedlock, etc)–but in a clear case like this where a man has clearly violated and abused a woman on the deepest level–they are silent. Tyler Perry just sat there like a bump on a log and then says the reason Brown should be concerned is because “he could’ve killed her.” Um….would this have been ok if it were “just” a slap in the face? (also notice how Perry said *if* this happened? Dude. It happened. Everybody from Rihanna to Chris Brown to onlookers all say that he did it.)
It shouldn’t have been Oprah saying what she said, it should’ve been Tyler Perry. And Jesse Jackson, and Bill Cosby and Al Sharpton. I would even argue that President Obama should be speaking very clearly about this. All of them should be hosting conversations about domestic violence on their shows. All of them should be talking about male sexuality, masculinity, maleness, and how that all interacts with violence.
It’s time for domestic violence to stop being a “woman’s” issue and start being a community issue. That can only happen once men join the conversation, however.
Bebo Goes Latino
12:47 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Internet|Marketing|social networking · Comments Off
9 Mar 2009
Do you use Bebo? Wait…I mean, have you even heard of Bebo? I had (but since I write about this kind of stuff I have to know) but I personally don’t need another social network, what with all the time I already spend waste on Facebook (ed. note: why not join us?), but Bebo hopes the rest of you are not like me:
AOL-owned social network, Bebo, announced Monday that it has launched a U.S. site for Latinos. According to the company executives, they decided to open a version of its site catering to the Latino community after enjoying success in offering a similar experience to those in the U.K., Ireland, Poland, and elsewhere.Along with the launch of the new site, Bebo also announced that it has partnered with Hearst Magazines Digital Media and AOL Latino to incorporate offerings from both companies into Bebo. Hearst will be providing interactive content syndicated from its MisQuince Magazine and AOL Latino will give users access to music and entertainment. The new site is live now
Did you say AOL? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
I’d be interested to hear what you guys think about Bebo and its new Latino encarnation (when the link to the site actually starts working — WTF? Not very good sign to be broken on launch day…). Will you use it? Why or why not? Would you be more inclined to use a unique Latino social networking site rather than a general market one “adapted” to supposedly fit Latino needs? Let us know what you think.
Via / WebAware
Paulina Rubio Settles Hitting Incident Out of Court
12:30 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Chismes|Controversia|Justice|Media · Comments Off
9 Mar 2009Do you guys remember this little piece of chisme history?
This incident came to be known as “el carterazo”, because PauPau hit a papparazzi, one Luz Amanda Orozco, with her cartera when the star was approached by Orozco at Miami International Airport in 2006. What came out of that incident, in addition to embarassment, was a lawsuit, filed by Orozco who demanded half a million dollars from La Chica Dorada.
There’s no telling what’s been going on behind closed doors, but it seems that Pau’s legal nightmares are over, as the pair seems to have reached a settlement. People en Español reports that the legal secretary handling the case was informed by attorneys today that there will be no suit, as some kind of agreement (mum’s the word) has been reached.
Via / People en Español
Colombian Gay Activist Murdered
10:24 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Colombia|GLBT · Comments Off
9 Mar 2009
I wasn’t aware of the work of Alvaro Miguel Rivera, a Colombiano living and working in a FARC controlled area of Colombia who was dedicated to LGBT individuals and HIV positive people in what could be called one of the most homophobic regions in the country: El llano oriental (Colombia’s rural eastern plains).
From Blabbeando:
Back in 2001, Alvaro was living in Villavicencio, Meta, in a region set aside by the government as a ‘safe haven’ zone where FARC guerrilla members could walk around without fear of government intervention (it was part of a failed effort to reach peace with the armed insurgents). Alvaro, who had finished a degree in Agricultural Engineering, worked in a region known for it’s cattle ranches and was already known as a public advocate for sexual minorities and those who were HIV positive.
He loved Villavicencio, not the least because his family lived there. But, as FARC troops began to move in, Alvaro began to receive anonymous phone calls, felt he was being followed by strangers, and reported harassing calls to his employers with the intent to tarnish his repuation. In April of 2001, he finally reported it to the local authorities and they told him that they could only wait until something actually happened to take any action. Police only began to investigate when Alvaro went public sending a series of e-mail messages to different organizations (at the time, I translated some of them on his behalf, and alerted human rights organizations in the United States, including IGLHRC).
All this in a worsening environment for those in the area who were HIV positive. In October of 2001, El Tiempo reported that the FARC had begun to require local residents to get tested for HIV and were giving a week-long ultimatum for people who tested positive to leave the region.
A week after the article was published, Alvaro actually reported having attended a meeting held between local hospital personnel and members of the FARC in which the FARC agreed to temporarily suspend the program. El Tiempo had reported that by then, they already had access to testing equipment and had tested more than 3,ooo individuals for HIV.
The ‘safe haven’ zone might have been lifted since then, but the death threats and harassment against Alvaro continued, forcing him to leave a place he loved so much. He decided to move to Cali – the third largest city in Colombia, following Bogota and Medellin – where he became the Director of Colectivo Tinku, a local LGBT rights organization.
He also became one of the founders and leaders of the local gay chapter of the Alternative Democratic Pole political party (which is why, the moment I read “Pole LGBT leader murdered” headline, I feared it might be Alvaro).
Alvaro was murdered in his apartment on Friday night. I am saddened not just at the loss of Alvaro’s life pero also at the fact that even with my own following of events in Colombia around the FARC, that I didn’t know about Alvaro’s work.
How Latin American Women Celebrated International Women’s Day
8:26 am By Blogs Media · Chile|Cuba|Latin America|Peru · 1 Comment
9 Mar 2009A Russian neighbor last night asked me in the street, “What are you? Are you Spanish?”
I shook my head and said, “No, my family is Puerto Rican.”
“So not European?”
“No, Caribbean”
” So you don’t celebrate International Women’s Day?”
“Of course I do”
and we proceeded to congratulate each other on being women.
Yesterday was International Women’s Day and Latin American Women celebrated all we do and continue to do around the world.
The Chilean Planning Ministry is venturing online for their Women’s Day Campaign, and for today, they bring us a poem read by several women. The poem is Ode to the Washerwoman by Pablo Neruda, which paints us the image of a woman washing laundry for a living at night, with a lit candle and the moon as company:
La nocturna
lavandera
a veces
levantaba
la cabeza
y ardían en su pelo
las estrellas
porque
la sombra
confundía
su cabeza
y era la noche, el cielo
de la noche
la cabellera
de la lavandera,
y su vela
un astro
diminuto
que encendía
sus manos
que alzaban
y movían
la ropa,
subiendo
descendiendo,
enarbolando
el aire, el agua,
el jabón vivo,
la magnética espuma.
I’m curious as to why a poem by Gabriela Mistral, the first mujer Latin American Nobel Prize winner, wasn’t used.
In Peru, women members of the Colective Canto a la Vida marched in Lima, demanding the respect of women’s rights as well as sexual and reproductive rights: the right to therapeutic abortions, against forced sterilizations and for access to the Day After Pill.
In Cuba, the 8th Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) is held a discussion on the organization”s daily and international work and female presence in the country”s economic life.
Latina Lista featured the words of Latin American women confronting violence in their lives.
How did you celebrate International Women’s Day yesterday?
Via / Global Voices Online, Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo/The Intelligent Aboriginal News Service
Latino Priest Surrenders Today to Serve Sentence for Protesting the School of the Americas
7:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Justice|Latin America · Comments Off
9 Mar 2009
Dictators and torturers are made not born and many have been created in the School of the Americas. Father Luis Barrios of San Romero de Las Américas in Harlem, NYC was arrested on November 23rd, 2008 at Fort Benning, Georgia where the School of the Americas is housed. Today, Reverend/Activist Luis Barrios will meet with his community and supporters at 1:30 PM Monday March 9th, 2009 in front of the Metropolitan Correctional Center at 150 Park Row in New York City. Luis has been ordered to surrender before 2 P.M. to the M.C.C. to begin serving a two Month sentence for demonstrating his (and our) opposition to the existence of the United States School of Torture, the “School of The Americas”.
Read his powerful statement on why breaking the laws of man are justified when those laws are based on injustice.
I am a transgressor, in favor of peace with justice
Fr. Luis Barrios’ testimony in court
January 26, 2009G. Mallon Faircloth
U.S. Magistrate Judge
Post Office Box 117
Columbus, GA 31902-0117Honorable Judge Faircloth:
On Sunday, November 23rd, 2008, I, along with other human rights activists, crossed the gates of Fort Benning. I did so with a photo of Monsignor Oscar Romero, the former Archbishop of San Salvador. Upon his assassination, this brother, this companion, and this spiritual guide, was converted into our Saint Romero of The Americas. His assassination was planned and executed by graduates from the School of the Americas, with the blessings of the US Government, following a speech in which he pleaded for the army to stop massacring the Salvadoran people. In El Salvador, as well as all of Latin America, thousands of other women, men, and children have also been assassinated by agents of the School of the Americas. These silenced human beings, along with Saint Romero, deserve justice. To Saint Romero, as well as to the other victims, justice is what I am respectfully requesting here.
Hon. Faircloth, my meditation for that day, while I entered Fort Benning, was and still is this: I wish for this individual sacrifice to be transformed into a collective of spiritual ethics. Therefore, I confess in front of this court that I am not guilty of committing any crime against humanity. However, I’m guilty of being a transgressor of any “law” that pretends to justify the injustice of oppression, exclusion, or assassination. I do so because these are not laws!
I learned the spirituality of transgression from my brother and companion Jesus Christ, who in each of his actions in his native Palestine, while walking with the people, showed through a subversive ministry that it was necessary to violate the unjust laws of the Roman Empire. He was condemned for being a transgressor. Thus, I have learned from him to transgress against injustice, and against the immorality of disorder that we see in our society, to benefit humanity. This transgression, my action, is not only morally right, but it is also an obligation. This is a way of building a new world, a better world.
With no pretensions of being compared to Jesus, which would be nothing but a lack of respect on my part, I only wanted to follow his example, in the most humble way. This time, I transgressed and trespassed the gates of Fort Benning, with a strategy of peaceful resistance, founded in the basic principles of civil disobedience, an approach also known as “non-violence”.
My intention through the transgression of the gates of Fort Benning was, and still is, to be able to demonstrate that from its inception in 1946, the School of the Americas, disguised since 2001 as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is one of those military institutions that pretends to justify oppression, exclusion, and assassination, behind the semantics of national security and/or protection of democracy. When in reality its goal is to validate and protect the political, military, and economic hegemony of the United States in Latin America.
Hon. Faircloth, historically my pastoral and academic activism has taught me that apathy in front of unjust laws is an offense against peace with justice. Furthermore, it has taught me that it is my duty not to remain silent against injustices, on one side, and to fight rebelliously until justice prevails. This is the motivation behind my transgression on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008.
Hon. Faircloth, within this context, it is necessary to understand the political violence exercised by the School of the Americas, as well as the impunity that is granted to its graduates. In other words, this institution is a symbol of U.S. despotism towards our Latin American countries. That is why, whenever there is dissidence directed against U.S. expansionist policies, such in the cases of the Cuban revolution, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, the Bolivariana in Venezuela, the Bolivian revolution in Bolivia, or the popular revolution in Ecuador – only to mention a few, the U.S. government has consistently aimed to block and defeat democratic governments, in favor of other governments that would help advance US interests. This is what is known as political terrorism.
The advancement of U.S-sponsored political terrorism and the effect on its victims can best be summed up by the words of Father Roy Bourgeois: Here is the School of the Americas. It’s a combat school. Most of the courses revolve around what they call “counter-insurgency warfare.” Who are the “insurgents?” We have to ask that question. They are the poor. They are the people in Latin America who call for reform. They are the landless peasants who are hungry. They are health care workers, human rights advocates, labor organizers. They become the insurgents. They are seen as “the enemy.” They are those who become the targets of those who learn their lessons at the School of the America.
Similarly, it is incorrect, Hon. Faircloth, your intention to send a message of neutrality, within the false context of interpreting some laws and applying their sentences. Your duty as judge and citizen continues to be protecting Justice. This partial neutrality, linked to injustice, makes you guilty of all the crimes committed by the School of the Americas and its graduates. Allow me to remind you that you have a moral responsibility in front of God and in front of Her people, to reject and combat unjust laws.
Even more relevant still, Hon. Faircloth, you could become part of the Amnesty International Campaign to push the United States to recognize, support, and submit to the International Criminal Court regulations. It is an embarrassment that a country such as the United States, which holds democracy as one of its core values, has been able to sabotage an international institution that guarantees communal existence, within a framework of respect, justice, and peace. It is not a secret either that this anti-democratic strategy only serves to guarantee USA’s impunity in relation to the crimes that this Criminal Court is to judge.
Hon. Faircloth, if you, or your system, plan to punish me through incarceration, aiming to correct or modify my behavior as a transgressor who favors justice and peace, I would like to let you inform that this is not possible. I do not believe in punishment. I believe in the restitution of justice, and that is the reason why I am here today. Hon. Faircloth, if it is your decision to send me to jail, what I would like to make clear is that by doing so, you will be guilty of keeping silent and embracing apathy. Furthermore, you will be an accomplice to the crimes originated at the School of the Americas. This fact will be part of both of our histories.
I will not try to escape from the consequences of my actions. This would do nothing but diminishing the validity inherent in these actions of civil disobedience. Nonetheless, Hon. Faircloth, remain assured that I will enter and later leave the gates of any jail standing up. Neither you nor your system will take away my dignity. The only thing that would be achieved is converting me into a prisoner of conscience, into an anti-terrorism activist.
Therefore, if these proceedings of punishment are meant to force me to ask for forgiveness, this will not be achieved. I will not kneel and beg for forgiveness. For it is to my Latin American people only that I ought to ask for forgiveness, for not acting earlier. I am a free person. You could incarcerate my body, but you would never imprison my love for peace with justice, because my conviction has made me free. These principles would fly away from jail at their leisure, beyond any prison bars or unjust gates that you may see fit for me.
Therefore, Hon. Faircloth, there are transgressors that have contributed to moving forward positive changes in history, because they dared raising their voices when injustice reigned, and when hope from the peoples remained unseen. Today it is my turn. I hope I will be able to make a contribution as well. I hope you also understand that with my solidarity love, the most important sacrament, I’m putting the system on trial. God bless us.
In peace with justice, San Romero vive!
Father Luis Barrios
Lbarrios@jjay.cuny.edu
Hola!
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