on leadership, suicide and murder

http://blog.diasporafoundation.org/2011/11/16/ilya-zhitormirskiy-1989-2011.html

Ilya Zhitomirskiy was, publicly, a bright, energetic, idealistic star. He did not fail.  Rather, the world he was working to change failed him:

In the wake of the passing this weekend of Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the four founders of much-hyped open-source social network Diaspora, an unsettling conversation has begun within the tech community. Zhitomirskiy‘s death, rumored to be a suicide (sources close to CNN Money have confirmed but officially the cause is unknown), has ignited what many see as a much-needed and long-awaited dialogue in the industry: the mental health repercussions of the immense pressure and scrutiny—both internal and external—that young tech founders weather in their quest for the new American Dream.

quote from http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2011/11/16/ilya-zhitomirskiy-diaspora-suicide-speculation-depression-stress-anxiety/, emphasis mine

Does it matter whether Naomi Wolf is right?

I’m sure some folks are following the debate prompted by Naomi Wolf’s provocative piece, which her editors entitled, “The shocking truth about…” bla bla. Here’s the latest irrelevant response I’m aware of, at the Crooks and Liars blog site:

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/naomi-wolf-defends-herself-ignoring-her-gra

“Wait, what do you mean when you say, ‘latest irrelevant response?’ Do you mean to say [most] of the response has been irrelevant? So what is relevant, then?” Why, thanks for asking! Here’s what I mean:

what Naomi is writing about — regardless of the extent to which it is true yet, and regardless of the semantic debates surrounding the questions of evidence — are things that have happened and are currently happening elsewhere (e.g., Arab Spring). American population control is much more entrenched and internalized, and i think nicely summarized in this comparison of Orwell v Huxley

Wall Street feels Urban Outfitter’s Oppressive Pain

http://blogs.wsj.com/runway/2011/10/21/navajo-no-more-urban-outfitters-receives-cease-and-desist/

Urban Outfitters’ headaches increased today, with a change.org campaign demanding they remove their “Navajo” collection from stores in Europe and other international locations.

A lot of words and phrases come to mind (see this blog’s tags).  Poooooor Urban Outfitters.   Excuse me if I fail to shed a single tear for them.

My response to this framing:  [Dear Christina Binkley of the Wall Street Journal] your lead sentence is backwards. it was the Navajo Nation — and other natives — whose headaches increased because of Urban Outfitter’s incredibly disrespectful, insulting and poor taste.

Whitewashing “Akira” (via COLINRESPONSE)

Background: Akira was/is a masterpiece. Hollywood is going to crap all over said masterpiece with a racist live-action redo of the movie.

Concerns: The redo will be both subpar AND racist, since the ONLY people considered for the lead roles are shiny light-bright star-white actors (WTF?) when there are PLENTY of (arguably more-)talented people to pick from who are, you know…not. white.

Game plan is simple: Boycott the new life-action movie. Haven’t seen it? Watch the original (for free, even! see below). Still really really want to see the movie? I absolutely would NOT recommend that you go to a website like www.bitsnoop.com, snag a torrent file, and download it for free via P2P networks shortly after (or even slightly before) it hits the theaters. That would be wrong. Because it wouldn’t be supporting Hollywood’s hackish racism.

AKIRA (アキラ) is a 1988 Japanese animated science fiction film. It was written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, who based it on his manga of the same name. The film is set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019. The film’s plot focuses on Shotaro Kaneda, a biker gang member, as he tries to stop Tetsuo Shima from releasing Akira. The film became a hugely popular cult film and is widely considered to be a landmark in Japanese animation … Read More

via COLINRESPONSE

“why not dogs?”

This is a rambling response to a question someone I respect posed in her blog:

How can you advocate for a bill to “protect animals and their owners from harm” and eat another animal that night for dinner?  How can you allow another animal to go through the terrifying, horrendous, oppressive, and murderous process that it takes to get its body or its products onto your plate?  Because it’s not as cute as a dog?

domestication itself is oppressive.  we shouldn’t “own” anything.  we shouldn’t have “pets” — that’s just another euphemism for anthropocentric system of the enslavement and control of other species.  and we shouldn’t be thinking in inherently abusive and exploitative terms such as “resources” (“sustainable resource management” is an oxymoron). [all that begs the question, what SHOULD we be doing?]

Bambu for Women’s History Month

The two songs below are two small (and important) reasons why Bambu is one of my favorite artists/activists of any kind, anywhere

1. Something

March, in case you were unaware, is Women’s History Month. Los Angeles’ own, Bambu, leaks a song that takes a look at domestic violence from a personal perspective. The song speaks on his family history with violence in the home, as well as his own struggles with it, even touching on the normalcy of such violence against women in our own Hip Hop culture. For this one, DJ Phatrick stepped out from behind the turntables to produce, sampling Adele’s “Someone Like You.” A video is set to drop at the end of the month and the song will also be included on Bambu’s …Exact Change… re-release bonus EP, Short Changed, dropping on April 29, 2011 through Beatrock Music Label.

2. The Queen Is Dead…. an older song calling out sexism in the “conscious” and “progressive” elements…

Bambu explains the track here (track #5)

If you haven’t yet, also check out his “Old Man Raps” (explanation is track #7) and “Crooks and Rooks” videos, as well.

Quote of the Day: Diamonds and Sex Trafficking

“A diamond is forever”

Here’s some cultural context for you in an analysis of this new phenomenon of the “GFE” in prostitution:

[...]Dude, talk about buying someone heart and soul.

Then of course there’s the entitlement aspect. The men who engage in such a thing not only believe that it’s right and appropriate to buy away a woman’s loathing of them and that she should act like she likes it, but they also believe that they, for whatever reason, have a right to a relationship. They have a right to buy another human being, use it, discard it, and she should pretend that she enjoys it.

A local anti-sexist activist of faith here (where I live) regularly talks about how “the culture is a pimp for all our girls and women.”   In other words,

Corrective: Socialism and Solidarity

Apparently there are jackasses everywhere…even in Sweden.  Darn.  Since Mr. Angst has a “righteous, rude and restless” pop-up requiring a login to Twitter which prevents me from posting a comment in response, my response to a few of his asinine conclusions are below:

socialism is incompatible with solidarity.

Fundamentally, this is because socialism doesn’t fight poverty. Socialism fights wealth.

Monetary wealth is a proxy for purchasing power.  Purchasing power is relative.  There is no monetary wealth without monetary poverty.  Fighting monetary wealth fights monetary poverty.

immigration: yet another example of sexist piggybacking on racism

i do not have a witty title for this.

A great introduction to and reposting of an equally-great article in Latina Magazine, embedded ironically amongst adverts featuring toothpick-skinny white models and french-sounding perfumes.

Let’s call it the intersection of racism and sexism, via immigration.  I fully and whole-heartedly support this blogger’s message to “these people condemning refugees,” amounting to a resounding

 

fuck you for every asylee you want to send home. These people need help, and you are sending them back to hell and, in many cases, certain death. I am not exaggerating to make you feel guilty — this is truth, and I hope you never have to live in the same terror these people do[...]

I will leave the story as to why there was even a copy of Latina Magazine in my house in the first place for another day…

Canaries in the Cultural Mine: Suicide and Justice

In my experience, few people doubt that when someone commits suicide, it means something was terribly wrong. However, too often we draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the person committing suicide. We often assume in the absence of information that the cause of the suicide was purely internal (e.g., psychological) rather than external (e.g., environmental; social or cultural). We also tend to label people who commit suicide as “selfish.” This assumption is often completely wrong.

In his essay, “Of collateral damage and roosting chickens…” Tim Wise uses the “Canary in the mine” analogy to describe how racism amongst the white working class actually does considerable damage to the welfare of white workers: