The Slack engineer who got thousands of tech workers to pledge not to build tools that target Muslims and immigrants
The election happens. The next day at the Slack office, people were quite literally sobbing in the cafeteria. I was mostly keeping my shit together until my parents called from Canada. I went into one of the little phone booths and just sobbed on the phone. It took a bit of time to grieve, but then you also have to act. The space that Maciej1 created in Tech Solidarity was incredibly important. To show up at that first meeting at the Stripe offices and see hundreds of other people who are figuring out what the hell to do next was incredibly gratifying. “Oh, Joe who works over at the security team at a text-editor company actually cares about the fate of Muslim people in America.” There were lots of pleasant surprises like that.
Category: Racial Equality
Fifty shades of white: the long fight against racism in romance novels | Books | The Guardian
The subtext of the event was clear: it was not just a celebration of romance novels, but a celebration of diversity within an industry that has long been marked by pervasive racism. For decades, publishers had confined many black romance authors to all-black lines, marketed only to black readers. Some booksellers continued to shelve black romances separately from white romances, on special African American shelves. Accepted industry wisdom told black authors that putting black couples on their covers could hurt sales, and that they should replace them with images of jewellery, or lawn chairs, or flowers. Other authors of colour had struggled to get representation within the genre at all.
via Fifty shades of white: the long fight against racism in romance novels | Books | The Guardian
Ironic Racism Is Just Racism – MEL Magazine
Remember them when right-wing ideologues, who would rather be spewing the same Islamophobic garbage they’ve poisoned us with since 9/11, take a brief pause to condemn “hate” and “violence” — without speaking to the seed of that rage. Or when the edgelords of 8chan and YouTube defend their toxic content as “just memes” and “trolling” — as though humor is never a weapon (or a recruitment tactic). Remember, too, that hate can’t be pried from the crucible in which it was forged. There’s no such thing as ironic racism — not when defenseless human beings were massacred in their place of worship.
Much of the media narrative around the attacks has been centered on the alleged shooter’s manifesto and all the shitposting it contains. Frankly, let me save you some time: Where the alleged killer’s polemic is concerned, you can skip most of it. You already know this person, one in an endless sequence of men radicalized online. Their fixations vary mildly, but all rise from a single bedrock. Strip away the pages upon pages of self-mythologizing, and you will eventually find it, stated in very few words:
For Immigrant Families, WhatsApp Is a Lifeline — and a Rare Connection to the Worlds They Left Behind – MEL Magazine
The third one, Shah explains, is the most chaotic: “It’s a mix of everyone, and new people get added to it all the time. It’s the place for ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties,’ by which I mean people who you’re not sure how you’re related, but everyone insists you are.” Adding to the chaos of this group of more than 70 people is the fact that there are no neatly defined rules or guidelines; it’s the exact opposite, actually — a group where anything goes. “A few months ago,” Shah says, “this huge argument broke out between some of my extended family in London and their cousins in Delhi. It went on for hours. I’m sure it started off as an argument about a debt that needed to be paid from a couple of years ago. Then it turned into this huge argument about who stole what from who and who wronged who back when they all lived in India.”
Affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard in judge’s hands
BOSTON — A federal judge will now decide whether Harvard University intentionally discriminates against Asian-American applicants, an allegation made in a 2014 lawsuit that was debated in a final round of arguments Wednesday.
Lawyers for both sides clashed at Boston’s federal courthouse, largely recapping cases they made during a trial that ended in November. The case will be decided by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, although any ruling is expected to be appealed.
The case carries implications for other U.S. schools that consider race in admissions decisions as a way to bring a diverse mix of students to campus. It has added fuel to a national debate about whether and how race should influence admissions.
via Affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard in judge’s hands
Stephanic Borowicz’s Racist Prayer as Movita Johnson-Harrell Sworn-in
s Pennsylvania made history on Monday, swearing in the first Muslim woman elected to the state House, one Republican lawmaker prayed to Jesus for forgiveness.
State Representative Stephanic Borowicz, a newly-elected state representative who opposes abortion and loves Donald Trump, kicked off the Pennsylvania House session’s opening prayer by asking God to watch over fellow Republican leaders, including the president. “Lord thank you that he stands behind Israel, unequivocally.”
She continued in a 100-second display of pure Islamophobia: “God forgive us. Jesus, we’ve lost sight of you, we’ve forgotten you, God, in our country, and we’re asking you to forgive us.”
via Stephanic Borowicz's Racist Prayer as Movita Johnson-Harrell Sworn-in
Thousands of ICE Employees Have Access to Massive, Nationwide License Plate-Tracking System
Records obtained by the ACLU of Northern California in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit show that local city governments are piping automated license plate reader (ALPR) data to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the organization wrote on Wednesday.
The ACLU-NC wrote the records show that more than 9,000 ICE officers have been granted access to an ALPR database run by a private company, Vigilant Systems. More than 80 law enforcement organizations in more than a dozen states have also begun sharing license plate data with ICE, and in some cases “local police [have handed] driver information over to ICE informally, violating local law and ICE policies,” the ACLU-NC wrote.
via Thousands of ICE Employees Have Access to Massive, Nationwide License Plate-Tracking System
Misty Copeland Honors Mentor, Ballerina Raven Wilkinson
“To be a black ballerina today … is extremely difficult. So I cannot imagine what it was like for Raven in the 1950s,” said Misty Copeland when reflecting on her friend, mentor and shero, Raven Wilkinson.
In 1955, Wilkinson became one of the first black women to dance with a classical ballet company. Pursuing a career in ballet during the Jim Crow Era was no sashay across the stage—Wilkinson had plenty of naysayers, and even a run-in or two with the Ku Klux Klan. Still, Wilkinson danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo for six years, and in that time was even promoted to soloist.
Copeland, who herself made history as the first black principal ballerina at the American Ballet Theater, learned who Raven Wilkinson was by watching a documentary on the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
Sexual Abuse of Immigrant Youth in Federal Custody is Rampant, According to HHS
These numbers point to a reality that has been clear for a long time: that putting immigrants in detention creates conditions that are ripe for abuse and exploitation. The HHS numbers echo a ProPublica report from July 2018 that found hundreds of incidents of abuse at ORR-run shelters housing immigrant children, from sexual abuse to other violent incidents. In 2017, one worker at a Southwest Key detention center in Mesa, Arizona was charged with sexually abusing at least eight immigrant boys under his care, and last year, another worker at a Phoenix shelter run by Southwest Key was arrested after he was alleged to have molested a 14-year-old girl. As Lisa Fortuna, the director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Medical Center, told ProPublica at the time of the ORR shelter system report: “If you’re a predator, it’s a gold mine.”
via Sexual Abuse of Immigrant Youth in Federal Custody is Rampant, According to HHS
Stop Snitching On Malia Obama, a Normal 20-Something
The children of presidents have never been off limits: Chelsea Clinton was mocked relentlessly by right-wingers and comedians. The Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, gained party girl notoriety after trying to use fake IDs to buy alcohol. And Malia and Sasha Obama, as the first black first daughters, have faced a combination of tabloid fixation on their personal lives and racist bullshit: in 2014, a Republican communications director resigned after suggesting that the then-teenage sisters were scantily clad and disrespectful during the annual Thanksgiving turkey-pardoning.
But with the modern ubiquity of cameras and social surveillance basically becoming a form of recreation, the Obama daughters are uniquely vulnerable to these invasions of privacy. She’s surrounded by narcs, essentially—from cab drivers to Ivy League assholes—who are happy to sell-out this famous private citizen to the vultures happy to smear or try to embarrass her for clicks.