It’s nobody’s damn business if women wear a burqa

Most of my dust-ups & unfriendings on social media have been over anti-semitism or defense of the burqa as a civil liberties issue. When it comes to anti-semitic hatred it’s an expeditious thing. Press the block button & they’re gone. But you just can’t believe people give a rat’s ass about what women wear or why they feel the need to vilify veil wearers as robotically controlled. So sometimes you find yourself irresistibly drawn into debates on the matter. At what point in life do you smarten up & avoid the Facebook brawls?

Let me just make one point now that burqa opponents don’t want to hear: when you go after the rights of women to wear the veil in a climate of Islamophobia, you open the women to attacks in the courts & the streets & you undermine civil liberties, most importantly freedom of religion.

The Ebola epidemic is not a libertarian “distraction”

Esther Tokpah (Michel du Cille:The Wash. Post) Dec 10 2014

There’s an obnoxious meme circulating on Facebook: “Ebola just up & vanished & you can’t wonder what they were distracting you from.” With just a little effort the paranoia behind this meme would be dispelled by googling the CDC site where up-to-date figures on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa are posted. As of a few weeks ago there were nearly 18,000 cases & 6,500 deaths in the ongoing epidemic. The disappearance is only from front page media.

The epidemic is not some kind of libertarian distraction; it is a catastrophe for the people of those countries who are losing beloved family members, especially those being orphaned. To speak so frivolously of such horrific human suffering is shameful. Remember this little girl? This is 11-year-old Esther Tokpah from Monrovia, Liberia, who lost both parents to Ebola. She’s not front page but she is a person, not a distraction from more important political events.

(Photo be Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

Black women are also victims of killer cops

Finally the police murder of Black women is erupting in the news–not as an adjunct or “ladies auxiliary” to the US war on Black youth but integral to it. Many would attribute the omission to male supremacy & that element cannot be denied. But the more likely cause is complete ignorance of police brutality in the Black community which has gone on unabated for decades now. There have been several more police murders of Black teens since Michael Brown was shot & most would be unable to cite their names or the circumstances of their deaths.

Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, & Eric Garner turned the media narrative upside down. The fight-back in Ferguson put police brutality in the spotlight but previously most people were indoctrinated with the story that Black youth were feral, lawless, drug peddlers. That narrative is shredded but the history of the war on the Black community remains unknown. Part of building the new civil rights & Black power movement will be educating ourselves & others about the scope of police brutality in this country. That means getting to know the names of those hundreds of young men & women who died so brutally & honoring them by building solidarity.

This report entitled “Operation Ghetto Storm” is a useful source of information: https://mxgm.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/04/operation_ghetto_storm_updated_october_2013.pdf

First of 43 disappeared student teachers in Mexico found burned to death

A. Mora (Reuters) Dec 14 2014

We should take a moment to honor the life of 19-year-old Alexander Mora, one of the 43 student teachers disappeared in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. His charred remains found last Sunday near a garbage dump have been identified by DNA testing.

Alexander was one of 8 Mora children from the small town of El Pericon, Guerrero. He helped his family work the fields but according to his father Ezequiel, his dream was to become a sports teacher & so he became the only one to leave their town to attend teacher college. His sister Edith said “”My brother was killed like an animal, but he was an innocent boy who knew nothing about life.” Unfortunately he knew enough to take a stand against injustice & that was his death sentence.

Protests continue demanding the recovery of the other 42 students. Families of those still disappeared reject the government’s scenario of what happened because it still can’t provide a consistent one. Mexican tyranny has been operating with impunity for a long time. It’s not accustomed to making an accounting & certainly not to telling the truth.

We honor our young brother Alexander; may he RIP. May international outrage over his gruesome murder continue to fuel solidarity & demand justice for his death.

(Photo by Reuters)

Malala Yousafzai and the war-makers

“Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard?”

This is from the Nobel peace prize acceptance speech of Malala Yousafzai. While we do not agree with the Guardian-UK that this is “a searing attack” on the bellicose regimes, the subjects of her criticism must have winced at her selection for this loathsome honorific. Who indeed could she be speaking of but the US, UK, other NATO nations, & Israel? She certainly wasn’t referring to Cuba that sends doctors to fight epidemics, unlike the US & UK that send troops or Israel shamed into some supplies.

Young Malala didn’t deserve this prize because it puts her in the company of monsters like Kissinger & an entire roster of war criminals including Barack Obama. Let’s hope she takes the money & runs, that she charts an independent course from the handlers grooming her to serve power & not justice, & that she truly becomes an outspoken opponent of wars.

“Searing” criticisms are when you name names, denounce in detail & not just abstractly, & dissociate from creeps like Modi of India, Obama of the US, & other dignitaries of neoliberal decay. We look forward to that development in young Malala & think she’s got it in her. Every indication is that her spirit is stronger than the blandishments offered to corrupt her. Many people are just not for sale.

“We will be back!”

HONG KONG (2) Dec 13 2014

In the past several days police have been forcibly evicting democracy protesters from the encampments they’ve held for over two months in the financial & commercial districts of Hong Kong. Cops brought in wrecking crews to dismantle the barricades & arrested any who resisted. This is the Admiralty district where financial institutions are located.

In one area of Admiralty protesters left graffiti saying “We are dreamers.” Here they left the inscription “We will be back.” And those inscriptions can pretty much stand as metaphors for all the massive social upheavals across the world in the past several years. The conclusion not to draw is that these social struggles have been decisively defeated for all time & so were never worth fighting in the first place. The most apt word to use here is that social transformation is a dialectical process, a complex dynamic where there are routs, retreats, crushing defeats, even massacres. Egypt surely stands as the worst of all that. And still activists publicly defy the military regime. And still in all these places rebellion against tyranny, whilst silenced, continues to seethe at the most profound levels because the unbearable conflicts of neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, are not mediated by repression.

Cynicism, & lord knows, misanthropy have no place in social transformation because they lead in the wrong direction–from defiance against tyranny to the line of least resistance, sucking down beers in front of a TV watching sitcoms. This is why the Palestinians are so important. For 66 years “We are dreamers” & “We will be back” has been written all over their struggle. Now as Palestinian solidarity crescendoes around the world to forge a mass movement so too does the eruption of mass opposition to racist tyranny in the US. Racism is the common denominator of those struggles & one of the most oppressive forces in the world today. The potential of Palestinian & Black power to change the balance of neoliberal terror cannot be overestimated. Moving those struggles forward will resonate among others forced to retreat from battle & give them new energy, new sources of hope & courage. That solidarity thing is a mighty potent force.

“We will be back!” Such a simple declaration of defiance so promising for the human race. “We are dreamers!” The clarion call of all who work to make this world suitable for human beings to live & love in.

(Photo of Admiralty district, Hong Kong by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Using Google Glasses to document injustices

Here’s a useful tip from an electronic-savvy Black activist I met today at the “Stop Police Brutality” rally. He said to minimize problems of “driving while Black” he wears Google Glasses, which I had never heard of. He said they transmit video directly to his electronic devices, including YouTube.

“Minimize” would be the operative verb since as we know from Eric Garner, indisputable evidence of a police crime against a Black person may not hold up in court. Such is the state of US justice. But it doesn’t hurt to gather evidence anyway because the movements for social justice can find a way to use the truth.