Sister Souljah on Larry King Live Part 1, Part 2 (1992)
Rap artist, activist and author Sister Souljah addressing the controversy that arose after remarks she made following the 1992 LA Riots. Sister Souljah was quoted as saying: ”If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” As a result Bill Clinton infamously compared Sister Souljah to white supremacist and Klu Klux Klan member David Dukes. In this interview Sister Souljah puts her comments into context while providing a sharp social analysis of White supremacy, racism and capitalism in America and their toxic impact on the socio-economic infrastructure of American society. She also explains why she proudly identifies as an African and why she chose to express herself through Hip-Hop music. The Guardian later described Sister Souljah’s comments as a key event in the history of Hip-Hop.
Watch this. You just… should. Almost 20 years ago - how much has changed?
JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. JP Morgan has contracted to provide food stamp debit cards in 26 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. JP Morgan is paid for each case that it handles, so that means that the more Americans that go on food stamps, the more profits JP Morgan makes. Yes, you read that correctly. When the number of Americans on food stamps goes up, JP Morgan makes more money. In the video posted below, JP Morgan executive Christopher Paton admits that this is “a very important business to JP Morgan” and that it is doing very well. Considering the fact that the number of Americans on food stamps has exploded from 26 million in 2007 to 43 million today, one can only imagine how much JP Morgan’s profits in this area have soared. But doesn’t this give JP Morgan an incentive to keep the number of Americans enrolled in the food stamp program as high as possible?
We were talking about poverty being profitable. When you get paid for every time you handle a food stamp case and the amount of people who are on food stamps has risen from a recession/depression, which was caused in part by the same institution raking in money off of food stamps, that is the epitome of cashing in on poverty.
This is what happens when we privatize services… it becomes more about private profit than public good.
More #occupywallstreet wisdom. Via Evan O’Brien.
on the backs of slave labor and stolen land.
Sticky-sweet image aside, Nestle’s crimes against man and nature include massive deforestation in Borneo — the habitat of the critically endangered orangutan — to grow palm oil, and buying milk from farms illegally-seized by a despot in Zimbabwe. Nestle drew fire from environmentalists for its ridiculous claims that bottled water is “eco-friendly” when the exact opposite is true. Nestle attracted worldwide boycott efforts for urging mothers in third-world countries to use their infant milk replacer instead of breastfeeding, without warning them of the possible negative effects. Supposedly, Nestle hired women to dress as nurses to hand out free infant formula, which was frequently mixed with contaminated water, or the children starved when the formula ran out and their mothers could not afford more and their breast milk had already dried up from disuse. Nestle, of course, denies contributing to the death of thousands of infants.
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend — unless she lives in the Ivory Coast. “Blood” or “conflict” diamonds are the name given to minerals purchased from insurgencies in war-torn countries. Prior to 2000 when the U.N. finally took a stand against the practice, DeBeers was knowingly funding violent guerrilla movements in Angola, Sierra Nevada, and the Congo with its diamond purchases. In Botswana, DeBeers has been blamed for the “clearing” of land to be mined for diamonds — including the forcible removal of indigenous peoples who had lived there for thousands of years. The government allegedly cut off the tribe’s water supplies, threatened, tortured and even hanged resisters.
If you do not like sex work, or more specifically, women taking their clothes off for money, then you better be out in the streets working every fucking day to overturn capitalism. And until that day comes, dance on!
All labor under capitalism is exploitative. All women are objectified. Maybe your real problem is with women attempting to control that objectification and exploitation.
THIS
Yes but in the meantime under capitalism, we can prioritize forced labor and horrifically unsafe and violent conditions and support workers’ rights to either negotiate better conditions or safely get the hell away from it. This is true for agriculture, manufacturing, and sex work. A large number of the world’s sex workers are not Carol Queen readers stripping to feel sexually empowered or camgirls getting some college money. They’re addicts and victims of human trafficking/sex tourism and they have been directly coerced into the sex industry. They’re experiencing concrete violence or the threat of it daily. You can’t exactly unionize under a pimp or mafioso. When feminists need to talk about the later, the conversation should not be dominated by the former like it has been for the past 25 years. The fact that radfems get it wrong too doesn’t make the “sex positive” alternative of ignoring people’s actual conditions any better.
^^^^^^^^^ this
also radfems are inconsistent in turning objectification into self-emancipation. this is a logic that needs to be panned out and poked for inconsistencies. on the one hand, a women is incapable of objectifiying herself (only menz can do that, regardless of how willing the participants) but when she willingly engages in sex work, she is controlling the means of production so she is somehow not objectifying herself. Commodification is commodification, folks.
By Liz Stanton, CPE Staff Economist
- You’ve Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond.
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.- Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value.
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.- Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value.
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers’ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original “value.”- Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS.
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.- Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats.
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.- Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People’s Rights.
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.- Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds.
More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.- Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa.
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.- Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors.
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.- Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling.
Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 million small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.Which is why I always say, “A partner that I know will be worth keeping will know that I don’t support the diamond
cartelindustry and will therefore not propose to me with a diamond ring.”
So no. Diamonds are NOT a girls best friend. But they’re bffs with they homeboy corporate greed…
“Retail giant Walmart has added a new range of anti-aging make-up to its shelves - aimed at young children. The new ‘Geo-Girl’ beauty line is said to be aimed at the ‘tween’ market of 8-12 year olds, and will include blusher, mascara, face shimmer and lipstick that is ‘mother approved’, as well as anti aging products.
According to the marketing team behind the line the formulas are designed for ‘young skin’ and contain natural ingredients.”
No words.
That is actually disgusting. They only want to sell you things, the result, girls are buying into this idea of what a “true women” is so early on. We have tweens getting plastic surgery and implants. I can’t even…
first of all, isn’t this just a new version of Yaz? Another version that is necessary because Yaz & Bayer keep getting sued? Thanks, i’ll pass.
But we need to stop turning feminism into a commodity. Advertisers treat femininity as though it’s something that can be realized through buying shit. It’s like “you’re a strong, powerful women with choices, but before you can be happy, buy all this shit.” The problem I have with this consumer culture, is that out lives are defined by what we consumer. Our purchases make up, or are at least designed to portray, the type of life we live. But what does that mean for the people who literally don’t have the ability to consume?
Another thing about this commercial is that it pits women who want to be mothers against women who would rather wait. I read this book about the abortion and politics of motherhood, and essentially the debate on abortion boils down to women arguing on who’s lifestyle is the best: mother or career women. Each side demonizing the other. As if your happiness must be defined against other lifestyles. Look, people want different things in life. Yes, choice is great, but women can also choose to be mothers.
Also, this commercial is kind of fear mongering “take these pills because if not you’ll get pregnant and your life will be forever ruined and you’ll never be happy and all your choices will disappear forever.“
—
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (via rosietherioter)
It’s amazing, and saddening, how relevent these words still are today. If anything, i don’t think he realize how much worse we would get when it came to global exploitation of labor.
Globalization hurts women across the world. If you watched Slumdog Millionaire, you’d probably think outsourcing stops at tech support phone lines. yeah, no. sweatshops employ women and children at degradingly low wages. they are treated horribly, besides they’re CHEAP DISPOSABLE LABOR.
no one should be treated by less than human, but this is what happens when we are told to consume to the point where companies have to virtually enslave the desperate poor of the third world to make random shit we don’t need.
go to college? have one of those nice champion hoodies? yeah, sweatshop labor. its a lot more pervasive than we realize.
YAY CAPITALISM! -_-‘
