I just read this morning that a true sista, supporter and inspiration to all her friends and readers, BrownFemiPower has shut down her blog. Devious Diva, another sista blogger explains why

My good friend and inspiration, brownfemipower, has taken down her blog. The reasons are complicated if you haven’t been following. They are simple if you have.

It started with three small words but those words had a whole history behind them that some people chose to ignore or trivialise.

Soon after that, a blogger who should know better chose not to credit bfp for being a source, an inspiration, a catalyst for her article.

Only new, inexperienced bloggers do not link. You only have to have been reading blogs for about five minutes to realise that links are important But this is not just about blogging.

This is about being ignored, marginalised, trivialised and hurt. Again.

Please read this incredible post from Problem Chylde*** which breaks down the whole issue far better than I could. An amazing work of love and impeccable research. The links in the main body of the post are to bfp’s work which is now down.

I feel full of sadness and anger that a beautiful inspiring woman of colour should be hurt in this way - much love to you dear friend and the memories of your words and the short time we spent together last summer will remain precious in my mind. The blogosphere is surely less of a place without your voice!

And while I am at it I’ll echo the words of Kevin over at Slant Truth -

I’m sick and tired of Obama supporters and Cllinton supporters–the hardcore partisan ones at least. You’ve all managed to turn the Oppression Olympics into the Oppression Wars. Nice that. If this is progressivism, I think I’ll go hang elsewhere.

*** PLAGIARISM EXPLAINED

Tags:
Blogging
Woman of Colour Blog

The UN decides Water is NOT a basic right.

The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water to be recognized as a basic human right.

Instead, a special resolution proposed by Germany and Spain at the UN human rights council was stripped of references that recognized access to water as a human right. The countries also chose to scrap the idea of creating an international watchdog to investigate the issue, choosing instead to appoint a new consultant that would make recommendations over the next three years.

I don’t get this, how can this be possible - there is some seriously skewed up and frightening thinking going on here. This comment says it all

Interesting how the logic of psychopathic capitalism works. You are a human being. As such, you need water simply to stay alive. But if we recognize it as a human right, then we will not be able to bottle it and sell it to you. Therefore it is not a human right. If you cannot buy it and you incidentally die, that is not our problem.

British but the wrong colour - Black more on travel terror in Europe and the daily Question, are you really Breeish?

However to that police officer, that immigration officer, that airline worker and any other officialdom you come across as a citizen of the united Kingdom, it is a matter of Yes British but not the right colour and it seem frustrating that almost on a daily basis the posse ion of the UK passport is not enough as a tool of identity to an adopted homeland, You have to prove your commitment over and over again.

So here we are Black British and Proud but yet continue to face discrimination from British Institutions, Immigration officials questioning your possession of the British passport , British airline giving you 7 to 8 looks and interrogating you in spite of your possession of a valid British passport.

I am beginning to have serious thoughts about what People of Colour are doing in this country. Just maybe it is time for us all to rethink our lives and begin to consider returning home. It is only going to get worse. Already you have to show your passport if you: register at a doctor, rent accommodation, rent a van, rent storage, go to the dentist, even the gym asked for passport ID.

Nasra Al Adawi interviews Marian Douglas of Marian’s blog. Marian started the Facebook group “Women of Colour. Here she speaks about being an Afrodescendant of the Americas

I come from the population of the Americas which is the Afrodescendant people. Afrodescendants of the Americas are the largest population of African people outside Africa. We are all over the Americas, not only in the United States. My ancestors were trafficked from several different parts of Africa. They were the people who survived what is called “the Middle Passage” – that is, the ship voyage of thousands of miles and several weeks – 2 or 3 months, I think – across the Atlantic slave trade. Researchers say that Afrodescendants are 33% or one-third of the entire population of the Americas.

The annual “Images of Black Women” film festival runs from Friday 29th through to Sunday 2nd March. The festival opens with “Talk to Me”

The true-life story of Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene Jr during the mid-to-late 1960s, in Washington D.C. A story of friendship between two men Petey Greene & Dewey Hughes. The film’s centre point is the devastating effect of Dr Martin Luther King’s assassination on America.

Saturday 1st March is International Women of Color Day

“In the 1980s the U.S.-based National Institute for Women of Color, founded by SHARON PARKER, designated 1 March each year to celebrate & honour women of color in the USA - Native American, Black, Latina, and Asian and Pacific Islander women………….In 2008 Women of Colour Day is now GLOBAL. WE ARE NETWORKING: recognising each other and ourselves, the world’s majority population - women.

Saturday’s film is a comedy
/love story, “Phat Girlz,” about a plus-size African American woman struggling with self-esteem issues. Followed by panel discussion on ‘mainstream influences’ on the way Black women feel about themselves, plus Q&A with the film’s actor Jimmy Jean-Louis. £8 Cons £7

The Women of Colour group will meet at 4:00PM in the lobby of the Tricycle Cinema on Kilburn High Road. Nearest tube station is KILBURN on the Jubilee line. Come out of the station and turn right - 10 minutes walk.

“If you have come to help me, please go away. But, if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together.”- Lila Watson, Aboriginal Woman Activist

Tags:
Black Women
Film
International Women of Color Day
London

* Red Day - Speak out against violence against women of colour.

Red is the color of courage, of embarrassment, of indiscretion, and of blood. On days that aren’t today, people emphasize the latter three qualities more than the former quality. Courage.

It takes courage to speak out against violence in the face of intimidation and centuries of being undervalued. Red is the color of courage, of ownership of sexuality, of beautiful faces when screaming at the top of their lungs that they’re human.

Also over at Document the Silence

* Haiti Action reports that another Lavalas activist has now disappeared. Dr Maryse Narcisse was kidnapped at gun point in front of her home last Saturday. She is now the second Lavalas activist to have disappeared in the past three months. On August 12th Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine disappeared and has not been seen since.

Dr. Narcisse holds an impressive resume as an advocate for healthcare and human rights for Haiti’s poor majority. Following the brutal military coup against Aristide in 1991, she courageously assembled a team of community-based providers in one of Haiti’s largest regions and assisted them in developing HIV/AIDS prevention interventions. Dr. Narcisse was also the national coordinator of the Expanded Immunization Program (EPI), director for Education and Development of Human Resources, and General Director for the Ministry of Health during Aristide’s last administration. In her capacity as General Director for the Ministry of Health, she oversaw the development and implementation of national health policies. In her role as Minister-Counselor at the Permanent Mission of Haiti to the UN, the focus of her work was on social affairs including education, health, gender issues and human rights.

* New Scientist traces wo/mans journey out of Africa (subscribers only online)

Before Nike and Macdonalds Homo sapiens branded and conquered the world, from frozen artic ice to blazing deserts and green forests. After staying in Africa for 10s of thousands of years [200,000 to 150,000] around 80,000 years ago there was a huge population explosion which led to people finally moving out of Africa. First to Asia and Australia, then to Europe and finally about 20,000 years ago to the Americas. A fascinating piece on the journey of wo(man) based on archaeological finds and DNA genetic material scientists have come up with two possible routes of migration. Having said that, I am very wary of any scientific findings which as we all know have been used to underpin all sorts of social constructs and origins of disease such as the following one on the origin of AIDS in the US

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday.

Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed.

The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognized by scientists as a disease in 1981. Many people had died by that point.

“It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses,” Worobey said in a telephone interview.

The researchers conducted a genetic analysis of stored blood samples from early AIDS patients to determine when the human immunodeficiency virus first entered the United States.

In short, one Haitian immigrant sometime in 1969 is responsible for the the spread of the AIDs virus in the United States - and how did it get to Haiti - well yes guess where from? Leslie Flemming of Haiti Action has responded to the report broadcast on a Bay area CBS affiliated station

Dear Mr. Rosenheim:

Your newscast Monday night (October 29), and your website today (October 30)
featured a segment “New Research Traces U.S. AIDS Epidemic to Haiti,” with
Manuel Ramos credited on the website and Dana King reporting on television.
Neither the newscast nor the website elaborate on the evidence for this
dangerous claim. Instead, the report features “Patient Zero” and previous
information about how it had been previously believed that he spread the
AIDS virus in the U.S. Only two sentences mention Haiti in the 3-4 minute
televised report, and both sentences are entirely unsupported. The
statement at the top of the televised report and on your website
“Researchers have traced the start of AIDS in the U.S. To Haiti back to the
1960s, years before it became an epidemic” taints an entire country, yet
again, virtually no evidence is provided–not even the origin or the names
of the author(s) of the claim. How is this good journalism?

The highly respected, internationally acclaimed American Medical
Association’s Outstanding International Physician (2002) Dr. Paul Farmer
long ago thoroughly discredited the myth that AIDS came to the United States
from Haiti. In his book “AIDS and Accusation,” (first published in 1992,
with a new edition in 2006), Dr. Farmer shows how the Haitian AIDS epidemic
was brought to Haiti by North American tourists. Farmer’s book is used in
anthropology courses in universities and in medical school curricula across
the country and internationally.

Haitians have been unfairly stigmatized in the past. It saddens me that
your irresponsible reporting continues that practice.

Leslie Fleming

Some Techi links:

* Check out Afrosphere’s Pageflakes 8 flakes covering Black history, entertainment, fashion, books, politics and news.

* Ken Banks, Founder, kiwanja.net has started a new group on FaceBook - FrontlineSMS Supporters Group with the aim of building up a network of supporters who can pass on the message of Frontline and Mobile Technology

The FrontlineSMS software is free to all non-profits, whoever they are and wherever they operate
Positions:

1. Mobile technology has the potential to revolutionise the work of grassroots NGOs in developing countries
2. Not all non-profits are yet reaping the benefit of this revolution
3. FrontlineSMS has the proven potential to bridge this gap

Social networking sites are popping up all over the place ever since the new Ning “Create your own social network” was set up. There is the “Black Women in Europe” network and now “Women of the African Diaspora”; “African American Opinion Blog Network”, “News Junkies”, “On Road Media”and probably hundreds more! Enough no more social network invites please please!

Tags:

Haiti
USA
AIDS
Africa
Rape
Violence against women

More bell hooks on YouTube

Tags:
bell hooks
Racism
rap
America
Popular Culture