IndieJesus2

a great work in progress.

The same Mayor overseeing the closing of fifty-four schools and six community mental health clinics under the justification of a “budgetary crisis” has announced that the city will be handing over more than $100 million to DePaul University for a new basketball arena. This is part of a mammoth redevelopment project on South Lakeshore Drive consisting of a convention center anchored by an arena for a non-descript basketball team that has gone 47-111 over the last five years. It’s also miles away from DePaul’s campus.

Muslims make up just 6% of the population of Europe, and have consistently committed less than 0.5% of the terrorist attacks over the last 5 years. Much is still unknown about the attackers, yet already there has been a widespread consensus that this is the result of Islamic extremism. Today all Muslims in Britain are being blamed for the actions of two men. Particularly shocking was the BBC’s Nick Robinson rushing to say the men were of “Muslim appearance”, and the reporter on ITV news describes it as the “day that Baghdad style violence came to South London.”

The media’s repeated scapegoating of the Muslim population and its continual ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative must be challenged. It is time we recognise and fight against the distorted depictions of Muslims we see every day in the media. When a Muslim murders a white man it is denounced as terrorism and considered worthy of rolling news coverage but when a Muslim is killed in a racist attack, like the one on 75 year-old Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham earlier this month, it is treated as a one-off murder and largely ignored. These blatant double standards are not acceptable.

Black people, who make up 22% of the poor, receive 14% of government benefits. White people, who make up 42% of the poor, receive 69% of government benefits.

racismschool:

Just so we’re all clear on what we just read. Black people make up 22% of the poor but only 14% of the government benefits. Meaning, 8% of poor Black people are not taking government benefits when they need them.

While, white people make up 42% of the poor but receive 69% of the government benefits. Meaning, there are white people who are classified as middle class who are receiving government benefits. 

…but welfare queens and stuff.

[Edit] Correction to above comment

(via browngurlwfro)

Kanye West is white America’s worst nightmare. Because as much as one may attempt to dismiss him — by calling him an asshole or classless or deranged or various other adjectives that fill the comment sections of literally every article about him — you still have to turn on your regularly scheduled late night comedy program and stare him in the face. You can’t avoid Kanye. He’s made very sure of that.

[…]

Kanye is not a “new slave” in the same sense as the victims of the prison industrial complex, but he is still trapped in a world that expects him to not only be complicit with the struggle of his people, but to be appreciative that he is not one of them. And on top of all that, while he gets to exist in the world of the 1%, having the money and signifiers of success still aren’t enough to make his (white) 1% peers actually even respect him.

[…]

The ideals of Public Enemy are as relevant today as they were in the 80s, but hip-hop was nowhere near as dominant and omnipresent a cultural force as it is at this moment; to compare the reach of their messages is silly. Upper-middle class white families did not have to deal with Public Enemy if they didn’t want to. Similarly with politically-minded “noise rap” artists that have been name-dropped in reviews of Kanye’s new material — it’s all well and good for Death Grips and Blackie and even Killer Mike to espouse similar messages and sounds (and honestly, the sonic qualities of “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead” are hardly at the top of the list of why they’re important), but none of them have anywhere near the amount of visibility and influence as Kanye, even if they did hit it first.

[…]

People in current positions of comfort and stability are so willing to dismiss the transgressive thoughts of an angry black man that they will use any convenient excuse to diminish from them; if someone says something that makes you uncomfortable, why not immediately change the subject to his girlfriend’s ass or that time he yelled at a papparazzi or that time he got drunk and embarrassed a white girl? When was it exactly that Kanye shifted, in the eyes of the mainstream, from lovable polo-wearing backpacker to perpetually and unanimously An Asshole? When, precisely, did everything he said get immediately categorized as a “rant” or “controversial” regardless of the actual content? I want to say it was around the time when he said that George Bush didn’t care about black people on live tv. Hmm. Odd.

—Meaghan Garvey, Who Will Survive In America? (via machistado)

Loved that they named the article after the last words poetically repeated on Kanye’s album ‘My Dark Twisted Family’.

(via mohandasgandhi)

The 2008 version of Candidate Obama was absolutely right when he decreed that government whistleblowers are engaged in “acts of courage and patriotism” that “should be encouraged rather than stifled.” The presidential version of Obama is wrong — dangerously so — in his still escalating assault on the sources and journalists who make that possible.

mohandasgandhi: Google Search Equates “Gayest” With “Worst” The use of “gay” as a pejorative is nothing new, but it’s still somewhat surprising when a search for the “gayest trends” on Google yields the “worst trends.” And it’s not simply a matter of websites conflating “gayest” and “worst” on the pages Google brings up: the word “worst” is bolded on Google, highlighting it as a match for the word “gayest.” This phenomenon has been recognized in the past, but with little response. A current Change.org petition has, at press time, 18 signatures. There have also been a couple complaints made on Google’s product forums, one in 2012 and one in 2011. A Google spokesperson issue[d] the following response— Google’s results, including when a search term is synonymized with another, are a reflection of content on the web and how people search. These results are determined by algorithms and we don’t manually correct this process, but we are always looking at how we can improve our algorithms. Not cool. ‘We are always looking to improve our algorithm’s.’ Seems pretty easy to come up with Gay ≠ Worst.It’s probably cause they’re too busy dreaming up their own island or playing ping pong.

mohandasgandhi:

Google Search Equates “Gayest” With “Worst”

The use of “gay” as a pejorative is nothing new, but it’s still somewhat surprising when a search for the “gayest trends” on Google yields the “worst trends.” And it’s not simply a matter of websites conflating “gayest” and “worst” on the pages Google brings up: the word “worst” is bolded on Google, highlighting it as a match for the word “gayest.”

This phenomenon has been recognized in the past, but with little response. A current Change.org petition has, at press time, 18 signatures. There have also been a couple complaints made on Google’s product forums, one in 2012 and one in 2011.

A Google spokesperson issue[d] the following response—

Google’s results, including when a search term is synonymized with another, are a reflection of content on the web and how people search. These results are determined by algorithms and we don’t manually correct this process, but we are always looking at how we can improve our algorithms.

Not cool.

‘We are always looking to improve our algorithm’s.’

Seems pretty easy to come up with Gay ≠ Worst.

It’s probably cause they’re too busy dreaming up their own island or playing ping pong.

don't call me a feminazi: A bill that would allow guns in bars and restaurants serving alcohol? Sounds like a GREAT idea.

youdontevenguns:

kristinastewartcolbert:

youdontevenguns:

kristinastewartcolbert:

youdontevenguns:

kristinastewartcolbert:

youdontevenguns:

youdontevenguns:

kristinastewartcolbert:

image

They allow guns in bars and restaurants here in Ohio and…

Just wanna add, there was a shooting at a bar in Columbus that killed a man. So his first line about no shootings happening in bars is bullshit.