tagged w/ Discrimination
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Here’s some hard evidence that fat people are discriminated against: A nail salon charged $5 extra on a customer’s bill for a manicure, pedicure and eyebrow arch at a nail salon because she’s obese. Michelle Fonville was paying her bill at Natural Nails in DeKalb County, Georgia, when she noticed an extra charge. The nail salon owner, Kim Tran, told her it was because she’s overweight and she was charging extra in case Fonville caused damage to the salon’s chairs she’d been sitting on. Bitch, please! Even if Fonville was too overweight for the salon chairs, you can’t just tack an extra charge on someone’s bill arbitrarily. (Otherwise we’d all be getting weird charges tacked onto our bills.) This incident sounds more like a case of “we’re charging you more to dissuade people like you not from coming back” to me.
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-nail-salon-charges-fat-woman-an-extra-5/#When:16:30:16ZHere’s some hard evidence that fat people are discriminated against: A nail... more
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Can Mississippi high schools get no love from the ACLU? There was the Constance McMillen fracas that got Itawamba County School District to fork over $35,000 and institute a non-discrimination policy. And now the civil liberties group is going after the Wesson Attendance Center for excluding lesbian Ceara Sturgis' yearbook photo where she sported a tuxedo.
(The school ended up printing yearbooks without even including Sturgis' name.)
A federal lawsuit claims Sturgis' rights under Title IX and the 14th Amendment were violated. At the very least, they could've printed the superlative "Most Likely To Sue."Can Mississippi high schools get no love from the ACLU? There was the Constance... more
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“First They Came” is a very powerful two-minute short film by Florian Malak. The film was produced as a social campaign based on Martin Niemöller’s famous dictum “First they came…” about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power, and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
The film presents a particularly timely and forceful message in the face of the present-day rapidly rising wave of discrimination against everyone who is perceived as different. It doesn't matter who you are or where you've come from, or what you believe in or what you do, freedom of speech is a civil liberty.
This piece includes a number of color photographs, as well as the short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/first-they-came/“First They Came” is a very powerful two-minute short film by Florian... more
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Bishop Harry Jackson, of Maryland's Hope Christian Church, was on hand at NOM's D.C. tour stop to discuss "out of control radicals" who, "in the name of civil rights" are "stealing others civil rights." Sometimes I play a game where I remove the proper nouns from his speech, and I find it impossible to tell whether he's bashing equality supporters or religious conservatives.Bishop Harry Jackson, of Maryland's Hope Christian Church, was on hand at... more
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A Chicago couple faces federal discrimination charges after allegedly refusing to sell their South Side home to a black couple because of their race.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced charges against Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia, and their real estate agent Jeffrey Lowe after they allegedly took their home off the market when a black couple submitted the highest offer, Fox Chicago reports.
According to a complaint filed by HUD, the Sabbia's 5,000-8,000-square-foot home on the 3300 block of South Normal had been listed for $1.799 million, and had been on the market for two years. In January, the home was taken off the market when radio personality George Willborn and his wife, businesswoman Peytyn Willborn, made a $1.7 million offer to buy the home--the highest offer received on the property.
After accepting the price and preparing for a final sales contract, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Sabbias then refused to sign:
HUD said that in an interview with an investigator, the real estate agent for the property, Jeffrey Lowe of Lowe Group Chicago Inc., said Daniel Sabbia told him he would rather not sell to an African-American.
The couple then took the home off the market--claiming they could not find a suitable new home and wanted to keep their children in the same schools. But, after Willborn filed a complaint, the deal was apparently back on. From Fox Chicago:
After the Willborns filed a complaint with HUD, Lowe contacted them and offered to sell the home, with all its furniture, for $1.799 million, the complaint alleges. And two months later in March 2010, the home was re-listed at that price.
"Racial fairness is important at all income levels," John Trasviña, HUD assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity said in a statement. "Civil rights enforcement must be the effective shield against housing discrimination that in this case wealth was not."
The complaint, which alleges violations of the Fair Housing Act, will lead to a hearing before an administrative law judge, according to the Sun-Times. It could be moved to a federal court if any person involved wants it to be. The Sabbias could be fined up to $16,000 and a judge could also award punitive damages.A Chicago couple faces federal discrimination charges after allegedly refusing to sell... more
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Tomorrow, TIME Magazine will treat newsstand customers everywhere to one of the most rank propaganda plays of the Afghanistan War. The cover features a woman, Aisha, whose face was mutilated by the Taliban, next to the headline, "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." Far more people will see this image and have their emotions manipulated by it than will read the article within (which itself seems to be a journalistic travesty, if the web version is any indication), so TIME should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for such a dishonest snow job on their customers. Readers deserve better.
Let’s clarify something right off the top when it comes to this cover: Aisha, the poor woman depicted in the photograph, was attacked last year, with tens of thousands of U.S. troops tramping all over the country at the time. This isn’t the picture of some as-yet-unrealized nighmarish future for Afghan women. It’s the picture of the present.
Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) recently published report on this issue, The "Ten-Dollar Talib" and Women’s Rights, provides key context for the struggle for women’s political equality in Afghanistan:
Afghan women assert their rights in what is already a deeply hostile political environment. Any assessment of women’s rights, and indeed the prospects for long-term peace and reconciliation needs to be made in the context of the very traditional and often misogynistic male leadership that dominates Afghan politics. The Afghan government, often with the tacit approval of key foreign governments and inter-governmental bodies, has empowered current and former warlords, providing official positions to some and effective immunity from prosecution for serious crimes to the rest. Backroom deals with abusive commanders have created powerful factions in the government and Parliament that are opposed to many of the rights and freedoms that women now enjoy. As one activist told us, “We women don’t have guns and poppies and we are not warlords, therefore we are not in the decision-making processes.”
This is something that folks who put together TIME’s cover better understand right now: the fox is already in the hen-house. There is a very powerful set of anti-women’s-equality caucuses already nested within the Afghan government that the U.S. supports. These individuals and groups are working to reassert the official misogyny of the Taliban days already, independent of the reconciliation and reintegration process. Given the opportunity, these individuals and groups in the U.S.-backed government will manipulate the reconciliation and reintegration process and leverage armed-opposition-group participation in the process to push through policies they’d prefer already as compromises with their "opponents." This is why the propaganda of TIME’s cover is so pernicious: the women of Afghanistan are caught in a vice already, stuck between their opponents in the insurgency and in the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. If one is concerned about the rights of women in Afghanistan, the question is, how do we give women the most leverage possible in this situation?
Further, TIME’s incendiary headline, "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan," is a total misrepresentation of the issue discussed in the article. Here’s Aisha in her own words:
"They [the Taliban] are the people that did this to me," she says, touching her damaged face. "How can we reconcile with them?"
Here’s another quote from another woman that gets at the issue much better than TIME’s headline:
"Women’s rights must not be the sacrifice by which peace is achieved," says parliamentarian Fawzia Koofi.
And another quote:
"When we talk about women’s rights," Jamalzadah says, "we are talking about things that are important to men as well — men who want to see Afghanistan move forward. If you sacrifice women to make peace, you are also sacrificing the men who support them and abandoning the country to the fundamentalists that caused all the problems in the first place."
If we are to believe the setup on the cover and in the article, the women of Afghanistan see two options: the U.S. can "stay" and ensure the rights of women, or we can "leave" by route of selling them out. But that’s neither what the women’s quotes say nor what Human Rights Watch found when they interviewed 90 "working women and women in public life living in areas that the insurgents effectively controlled or where they have a significant presence to illustrate the current nature of the insurgency." While they found an intense anxiety over the consequences of the Taliban regaining a share of national power, they also found that:
"All of the women interviewed for this report supported a negotiated end to the conflict."
The quotes of the women in TIME’s article express anxiety about the Kabul government negotiated away women’s rights to warlord war criminals, not us "staying" or "leaving." See what TIME did there? They’ve taken these quotes from Afghan women and manipulated them to portray a false dilemma.
TIME Magazine throws out this useless bromide: "For Afghanistan’s women, an early withdrawal of international forces could be disastrous." Early compared to what? How can a pull-out almost a decade into a conflict be remotely described as "early?" Even if we build a shining utopia for women while U.S. troops were there in large numbers, women’s rights would evaporate the day after we departed if U.S. troops were the force holding them in place. That’s what Afghan Women’s Network’s Orzala Ashraf meant when she told Rethink Afghanistan that,
"I don’t believe and I don’t expect any outside power to come and liberate me. If I cannot liberate myself, no one from outside can liberate me."
The struggle is the liberation as Afghan women discover and use their power. Grassroots involvement in social struggle is what creates societies rooted in democratic values, not men with guns from other countries.
Although you wouldn’t know it from TIME’s editorializing within the article or from the horrendously misleading cover, the issue is not even remotely "if" we leave Afghanistan. We will. The questions are "When?" and "How?"Tomorrow, TIME Magazine will treat newsstand customers everywhere to one of the most... more
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A Sudanese court ruled that 19 men violated Sudan's morality codes after being discovered wearing women's clothes and dancing during a raid on an alleged "same-sex wedding" party, sentencing them to 30 lashes and a fine, Reuters reports(http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Sudanese-flogged-for-being-gay-20100804):
"Many of the defendants tried to hide their faces from the around 200 people who watched as they were lashed straight after their sentencing. The men had no lawyers present and said nothing in their own defence.
The trial judge said police had raided a party thrown by the 19 men and found them dancing 'in a womanly fashion', wearing women's clothes and makeup. He said there was a video of the party and that one woman who was present had fled the scene...Local newspapers reported that the party was held to celebrate a same-sex wedding, propelling it into a talking point all over Khartoum's conservative Muslim society.
The court on Wednesday made no mention of a marriage ceremony. One lawyer present, who declined to be named, said legal advocates would have been afraid to take on such a defence."A Sudanese court ruled that 19 men violated Sudan's morality codes after being... more
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Erin Vaught headed for Indiana's Ball Memorial Hospital when she found herself coughing up blood. When she arrived at the emergency room, she was "treated," all right. With transphobic behavior by the hospital staff, who eventually refused her care.
In a disgusting episode of the exact opposite of the Hippocratic Oath, hospital staff laughed and taunted Erin over being transgender. One nurse asked Erin's wife Amanda whether Erin "was a he or a she? Or a he-she?" Others referred to her as "it" and a "transvestite." And then Erin was told she could not be treated because of her "condition." No, not her medical condition, of which Erin didn't know what the problem was (hence the visit to the hospital), but her "transvestite condition."
Ball Memorial Hospital, whose Facebook page was flooded with messages after Erin posted about it, says it prides itself on "compassion," "respect" and "customer care/service." It does not have a policy including transgender people.Erin Vaught headed for Indiana's Ball Memorial Hospital when she found herself... more
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Nearly four years ago, Bremen Community School District 228 Superintendent Rich Mitchell was fired after his contract had been extended through 2009. Last week, the Cook County Human Rights Commission figured out why: because he is gay.
Mitchell was interviewed for the leadership position in 2004 by the local School Board, according to a statement from Lambda Legal. While being interviewed, board member Evelyn Gleason allegedly asked two other members if they knew Dr. Mitchell was gay.
Evelyn Gleason was opposed to hiring Dr. Mitchell because of his sexual orientation.
Though his contract was extended, things began to get more difficult for Dr. Mitchell. Evelyn Gleason became president of the School Board, The Huffington Post reports.
Gleason’s new role allowed her to not only change the district’s legal council, (replacing the firm with her son’s law firm) but it allowed her to “do what she’d always wanted: get rid of Mitchell,”Nearly four years ago, Bremen Community School District 228 Superintendent Rich... more
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Mark Olmsted is clearly one of the hottest writers today with features stories at the Huffington Post and The Queer Times. In this piece he tackles his onw Inner Racist. I hope everyone can grow from his own experience.
http://thequeertimes.com/2010/07/confronted-racist/Mark Olmsted is clearly one of the hottest writers today with features stories at the... more
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A conservative legal group says it will appeal a federal judge's decision to throw out a lawsuit brought by an Eastern Michigan University student who says she was kicked out of a master's degree program because of her religious views against homosexuality.
Julea Ward says she was removed from Eastern's counseling program because she refused to counsel gay clients, saying she believed homosexuality was morally wrong.
She sued the Ypsilanti school last year, alleging a violation of her constitutional rights.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh ruled in favor of the university and granted it summary judgment.
Alliance Defense Fund attorney David French says the group will appeal the decision.A conservative legal group says it will appeal a federal judge's decision to... more
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A Swedish lesbian couple who tried to get a mortgage say they were shocked to be told by a bank clerk that they should reconsider their relationship and live apart.
Sara Evaldsson, 29, and Maria Engström, 31, decided to move in together after living 100 miles apart and found a two-bedroom property in Västerås.
The couple believed they had got a bargain price for the new home and were confident of securing a mortgage, as both were in employment and had good credit ratings.
Ms Engström told English-language newspaper The Local that a female clerk at Swedbank told them that the 490,000 kronor (£43,000) loan they wanted to borrow was "a lot of money" and insisted that a ten per cent deposit would be necessary.
She said that when she and Ms Evaldsson questioned the decision, the clerk replied: “You should reconsider your personal situation and continue to live in different places.”
The couple, who said they were "shocked" by the clerk's remark, have reported her to Sweden’s Discrimination Ombudsman.
They then obtained a mortgage from rival bank Nordea and since renovating the apartment, have had it valued at 800,000 kronor.
Anna Sundblad, Swedbank’s head of press relations, told The Local that the bank would work with the Discrimination Ombudsman to investigate the incident.
She said: “We take these kinds of incidents very seriously. We have a clear policy that we never discriminate on the grounds of religion, gender or sexual orientation. We also aim to set a good example in questions like this – we sponsor the Stockholm Pride festival for instance.”A Swedish lesbian couple who tried to get a mortgage say they were shocked to be told... more
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GUERNEVILLE, Calif.—Sonoma County has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit by an elderly gay man who said social workers kept him from seeing his dying partner in the hospital.
Clay Greene, 78, of Guerneville filed a lawsuit earlier this year, claiming the county's Public Guardian program discriminated against him because of his sexual orientation.
Greene accused social workers of denying him hospital visitation rights to see his partner, Harold Scull, despite signed wills, medical declarations and powers of attorney naming each other as spouses. The couple was not married nor registered as domestic partners.
The lawsuit also alleged that after Scull's death, social workers forced Greene into a nursing home and sold the couple's property, including art and heirlooms.
The county's lawyer, Gregory Spaulding, denied the discrimination claims but admitted mistakes in selling the couple's property.
Greene was kept away from Scull because of previous domestic violence allegations, according to the county. According to a sheriff's report, Scull went to authorities with a black eye and said Greene threatened to kill him, though Scull was later unwilling to lodge a formal complaint.
"The county remains confident in its position that there was no discrimination in this case," Spaulding said, noting that the plaintiff removed the discrimination allegations from the lawsuit three weeks ago.
Under the law, officials can sell property worth $5,000 or less to cover medical expenses, but the couple's property sale brought in more than $25,000 at auction, Spaulding said. Errors in that case have led to revised policies at the Public Guardian's office, he said.
Spaulding said the county settled the case Thursday to avoid further expense.
"It just made economic sense to stop the bleeding," Spaulding said. "To end the case and avoid all expenses and costs."
Calls to Greene's attorney, Anne Dennis, were not immediately returned Friday.GUERNEVILLE, Calif.—Sonoma County has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit... more
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HIV/AIDS-related stigma is not a straightforward phenomenon as attitudes towards the epidemic and those affected vary massively. Even within one country reactions to HIV/AIDS will vary between individuals and groups of people. Religion, gender, sexuality, age and levels of AIDS education can all affect how somebody feels about the disease. AIDS-related stigma is not static. It changes over time as infection levels, knowledge of the disease and treatment availability vary. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/426-stigma-related-to-hivHIV/AIDS-related stigma is not a straightforward phenomenon as attitudes towards the... more
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(CBS) Willie Adams' 60-acre Georgia farm has been in his family since 1938. He wants to hold onto its red clay and green pastures for generations to come. The fight to keep it is increasingly stressful.
"High blood pressure," said Adams. "Almost a heart attack. Oh yes. Yes. A lot of stress."
Adams is one of a dwindling number of black farmers, some 30,000 in all, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds. They're hoping Congress will at last end decades of discrimination against them and appropriate the $1.25 billion they and their ancestors won in a settlement with the Department of Agriculture in February.
A court found the farmers have been systematically denied aid solely because they were black, loans, grants and subsidies that white farmers received.
Adams says USDA officials always claimed to him and other blacks that they lacked the funding. He says he saw that the USDA had the funds available for other people, though.
Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack says those days must end.
"I made it as a goal when I took this office that we would try to reverse that history," said Vilsack.
As for the settlement compensation, Congress has yet to approve it and even if it does, "It would be a very bittersweet victory for us because I have seen so many black farmers pass while waiting for justice," said president of the National Black Farmers Association John Boyd.(CBS) Willie Adams' 60-acre Georgia farm has been in his family since 1938. He... more
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CORNWALL GAY PRIDE 2010
THEME: The Circus
(See video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQsvszHFM8E )
Cornwall (UK) PRIDE 2010 have chosen not to have a direct LGBT (Lesbian, Gay. Bisexual & Transgender) political message but rather the ‘Circus’ as its theme
Circuses are historically & traditionally synonymous with FREAK SHOW exhibitions — such as those with extraordinary diseases, conditions or deformities from that considered normal and socially acceptable
It is therefore interesting that the Cornish, Cornwall PRIDE 2010 chose ‘Circus’ as its theme, given gay people are still perceived as outcasts or freaks and not an accepted by many as part of ‘normal’ society
PRIDE WAS/IS A PROTEST: Stonewall was a riot AGAINST police homophobia
Gay PRIDE came about as a result of the STONEWALL riot in New York against police homophobia. However, some PRIDE events have degenerated into little more than hedonistic freak show carnivals with no discernable lgbt (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) political message
The gay rights & equality message is lost, as those with primarily commercial and/or authoritarian self-interest take over running Gay Pride events, excluding many lesbian & gay equality campaigners, groups & interests
Give historic origin of both Gay Pride & Stonewall, ironic that in 2010 in Cornwall (UK) there remains a serious & sinister problem of protected homophobic attitudes & practices within Devon & Cornwall Constabulary
The Latin word circus comes from the Greek word kirkos, meaning "circle" or "ring"
In Ancient Rome, thousands were slaughtered at ‘circus’ for entertainment of the masses
In later centuries the circus became synonymous with sideshow freaks, gypsies, outcasts & animal cruelty. The circus was often perceived as sanctuary for criminals, runaways & those ostracised as freaks by normal society. Changes in popular culture, entertainment and better education led to decline of circus FREAK SHOW as a form of mass entertainment
Those taking part in Circus freak shows were often exploited by those who stood to gain financially, drawing parallels with gay ‘Pink Pound’ exploitation by some
Animal use in the circus also a matter of controversy, as animal-welfare groups have documented many cases of animal cruelty in the training of circus performing animals
The clown: Coulrophobia is an abnormal or exaggerated fear of clowns
In July 2006 the ‘Bestival’, a three-day music festival held in England, had to withdraw a request to festival goers to come dressed as clowns due to the unexpectedly high rate of ‘coulrophobia’ among the potential audience & serious Health & Safety issues .
Many children & adults are genuinely terrified of clowns.
Cornwall (GAY) Pride Sat 28th August Truro Cornwall UKCORNWALL GAY PRIDE 2010
THEME: The Circus
(See video…... more
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People in Opposition to Comcast Cable – Part Nine
Vice President Lance Bruce of the Wilmington Branch of the NAACP speaks to the Cable Video and Telecommunications Commission about Community Television. Complaints about Comcast Cable have caused the residents of Wilmington, Delaware to challenge the cable franchise agreement. Comcast Cable’s franchise agreement with the City of Wilmington is up for renewal this year. The current agreement expires October 2010 and the city leaders are upset about the Comcast Cable rumors to shut-down “live” community access to cable channels 28 and 190. The Leased Access Producers Association (LAPA) has hired a lawyer to review the current franchise agreement with Comcast Cable and the City of Wilmington, Delaware. The Cable Video and Telecommunications Commission of Wilmington has held Community Needs and Assessment meetings with citizens as well as mailing out a survey to residents on the road to evaluate the future of technology within the city. Community producers and supporters of LAPA demand that the City of Wilmington, Delaware require that the leased access studios stay open and continue “live” cablecast. They call for the cancellation of the franchise agreement with Comcast Cable and the establishment of a democratically elected board that represents the technological future of the city. LAPA believes the people own the right-of-ways and the air waves not a corporation or the government. Wilmington’s cable channel 28 was the stepping stone to the political support of current Vice President Joe Biden, who appeared on many “Live” local channel 28 television shows over the years to sustain his career.People in Opposition to Comcast Cable – Part Nine
Vice President Lance Bruce of... more
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People in Opposition to Comcast Cable – Part Eight
Elder McDuffy speaks to the Cable Video and Telecommunications Commission about Comcast Cable stopping “live” community television. Comcast Cable wants to withdraw community “live” programming from Wilmington, Delaware. In addition, Comcast Cable wants to shut-down Wilmington, Delaware’s Community Television Channel 28 and Channel 190. Community leaders and residents speak out against Comcast Cable and the monopoly grip the corporation has on the future of technology in the city. Minority leaders in Wilmington, Delaware verbalize their concern against Comcast Cable during the franchise renewal process. Wilmington, Delaware community leaders want: channels for governmental meetings to be aired, educational channels for the local schools, public channels for the citizens-at-large, continued live leased access television, and fully-staffed production studios that trains people in media making and citizen journalism. Comcast Cable had promised a component of cable television would give citizens access to local television but refused to develop access television after they were awarded the city of Wilmington’s franchise agreement. Now the residents are set to drop Comcast Cable as a video service provider during the franchise renewal process. Wilmington residents want local community channels to continue “live” cablecast. Comcast Cable’s franchise expires October 2010. The people own the right-of-ways and the air waves not a corporation or the government. Wilmington’s cable channel 28 was the stepping stone to the political support of current Vice President Joe Biden, who appeared on many local channel 28 television shows to sustain his career.People in Opposition to Comcast Cable – Part Eight
Elder McDuffy speaks to the... more
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People in Opposition to Comcast Cable – Part Eight
Elder McDuffy speaks to the Cable Video and Telecommunications Commission about Comcast Cable stopping “live” community television. Comcast Cable wants to withdraw community “live” programming from Wilmington, Delaware. In addition, Comcast Cable wants to shut-down Wilmington, Delaware’s Community Television Channel 28 and Channel 190. Community leaders and residents speak out against Comcast Cable and the monopoly grip the corporation has on the future of technology in the city. Minority leaders in Wilmington, Delaware verbalize their concern against Comcast Cable during the franchise renewal process. Wilmington, Delaware community leaders want: channels for governmental meetings to be aired, educational channels for the local schools, public channels for the citizens-at-large, continued live leased access television, and fully-staffed production studios that trains people in media making and citizen journalism. Comcast Cable had promised a component of cable television would give citizens access to local television but refused to develop access television after they were awarded the city of Wilmington’s franchise agreement. Now the residents are set to drop Comcast Cable as a video service provider during the franchise renewal process. Wilmington residents want local community channels to continue “live” cablecast. Comcast Cable’s franchise expires October 2010. The people own the right-of-ways and the air waves not a corporation or the government. Wilmington’s cable channel 28 was the stepping stone to the political support of current Vice President Joe Biden, who appeared on many local channel 28 television shows to sustain his career.People in Opposition to Comcast Cable – Part Eight
Elder McDuffy speaks to the... more
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