the (r)evolution has begun...

THIS WEEK: love does not hurt...

2009-11-29T11:04:00.000-08:00

Encore performances of

Love Does Not Hurt...

Thursday, December 3, 6pm Reception, 7pm Showtime
Satruday, December 5, 8pm

Tickets $10 students with valid ID / $15 General Admission / Groups of 10 or more, $10 each.Love Does Not Hurt...

written & directed by
AquaMoon

choreographed by
Ni'Ja Whitson and AquaMoon

featuring
Krishauna Anderson, Rebecca Cotter, Shanara Fornett, Carmen Jones, Tierra Winston, R. Kova Hayse, Boaz McGee, Michael Johnson, Chris Jones, Mike Smith and Kenton Williams Chantal' Hill, Jessica Newman and Devon Thompson.

AquaMoon returns to Links Hall after exceptional audience attendance in a 2 night only encore performance of love does not hurt…love does not hurt…is a synergetic and multimedia performance and art exhibit that unapologetically addresses violence against womyn, by speaking healing and love into existence. Both men and womyn are given voice on the inner most details in this pattern of abuse. There is no finger pointing, but the empowered evolution of five couples journeying through intimate partner violence.

Buy your tickets for Love Does Not Hurt...http://linkshall.org/09-pp-dec.shtml

Turkey, dressing and domestic violence...

2009-11-29T11:01:00.000-08:00

To the families that were affected by domestic violence this holiday week, we speak your name and lift you up in prayer.

http://domesticviolencenews.blogspot.com/

Saturday/Sunday Audience Responses...

2009-11-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Audience responses...

Saturday’s responses to image of the womon on the cross:

The painting depicts a womon who loved with her sexual being, however the heart on the floor in a pool of blood clearly indicates it was a slow painful experience and she feels trapped or stuck in pain.
The image appears to be showing a womon going through sexual violence. As seen by the blood flowing down her private parts.
The image represents faith and self-preservation.

Sunday’s responses to image of the womon on the cross:
· Never thought of a womon on the cross before.
· This image means pain, suppression, hurt, broken womb--a reflection of the world today.
· Bloodshed should only be done by Jesus--that already happened. Terrible.
· Jesus sacrificed himself so that we don’t have to. We should not crucify ourselves because of guilt or because we feel deserving, it is not our burden to bear.
· I understand the concept of the Black woman sacrificing herself for the love of her family and her need to provide for her family (physical and cultural family). However, I think you all’s analogy doesn’t remember that Jesus rejected the religion he fought against. Where is the rejection of the abuser in our society? Why are the criminals welcomed back into families?

Sunday’s response to the statement, “love does not hurt”:
· Love is a verb. And yes love hurts. There should not be physical or emotional violence in love. I don’t condone rape and dv, so when I say love hurts, it’s because I know we are all in a process of growth and empowerment of ourselves and community. The hurt I speak of is the hurt when we are critics of ourselves and when we’ve lovingly come to others to stop the cycle of violence in our communities. Encountering the violence and facing our part in the system hu4trw. Out of love we will change all of that with the love and support of one another.

October 30: love does not hurt! Opening Night responses....

2009-10-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 30
Opening Night audience comments on what "love does not hurt…" means to them
*"Love is caring about yourself, your community, your God and your family. The phrase "love does not hurt" is powerful in itself. Love doesn’t hurt, shouldn’t hurt and won’t hurt. I hate that domestic violence is only in the media when it’s someone famous. We as a community need to stop ignoring this problem."
*I think of the Bible –I Corinthians…love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious, boastful, arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way.

We asked, "Would you recommend this production to someone else?
The responses were:
Yes, because this topic is always swept under the rug.
Yes, informative and a healing tool for our communities.
Yes, especially to high schools. Need more workshops for young people.
Yes, because this production can benefit every human being it’s not only for those experiencing DV, it’s also for everyone in a relationship.
Yes, Domestic Violence Awareness should be discussed more so that those who are unaware can recognize the signs and help when possible.

What does your love look like?

2009-10-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

Domestic Violence Awareness Month...

What is domestic violence?
Domestic Violence is a pattern of physical, sexual, spiritual, emotional, psychological, and /or economic abuse, threats, intimidation, isolation, or coercion used by one person to exert power and control over another person in the context of a current or former dating, family, household, or care giving relationship. (We also include teen dating violence in this.)

Events commemorating this month...
http://spokenexistence.com/2009DomesticViolenceAwarenessMonthEvents.html

love does not hurt... campaign
http://spokenexistence.com/love_not_hurt_campaign.html
October 25, Sermons
October 28, Community Forum
October 30-November 1, love does not hurt... play

Purchase tickets for love does not hurt... play

Violence affects girls too...

2009-10-02T03:58:00.000-07:00

Violence affects many girls, young women, report states
Study cites 'lack of security' -- but groups aim to help
By Joanna Broder Special to the Tribune September 30, 2009

Eighteen-year old Chelsea Whitis tries to forget what happened that night two summers ago. While walking near her family's home in southwest Evanston, a man grabbed her from behind and dragged her into a nearby alley. He ran off when a car turned into the alley.

Now a senior at Lane Technical High School in Chicago's North Center neighborhood, Whitis keeps memories of the attack bottled up inside. She hasn't had any professional assistance to help her cope.

"I just feel like I'm never going to be safe," she said. "I'm so close to my house and I get attacked. ... I never feel safe."

A report released earlier this month found that many girls in Chicago and Illinois "face serious violence in their lives," including physical and sexual abuse, threats and injury in school, and assault on the streets. The report, "Status of Girls in Illinois," -- notes that 10.7 percent of girls in Chicago's high schools skipped school in 2007 because of safety concerns -- nearly double the national average of 5.6 percent -- and that "many girls also report a pervasive feeling of threat and lack of security."

The report pulls together existing survey data about girls in Chicago and Illinois and makes recommendations about a variety of development, health and wellness issues such as access to health care, mental and emotional health, sexuality, safety and substance abuse. It also found that depression and other forms of mental illness pose a serious health issue for area girls.

The report, released Sept. 10, draws mostly from well-known national surveys, including the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey of more than 14,000 high school students from across the country. That survey asks about students' sexual behavior, tobacco and alcohol use and other risky behaviors. It also includes statistics from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, which said there are more than 1.5 million girls age 17 and younger in Illinois.

Alida Bouris, an assistant professor in the school of social service administration at the University of Chicago, called the report "ambitious." Bouris, who specializes in how parents can influence their children's sexual behavior, said the report shows that overall most girls in Illinois are doing well, but some are developing key health issues in adolescence and young adulthood that have long-term effects for their health and well-being.

Melissa Spatz, the executive director of Women & Girls Collective Action Network, the lead group behind the report, said that nonprofit groups serving girls need the type of statistics outlined in the report when applying for funding, but lack the time or manpower to find them.

"We wanted to gather this information in one place and put it out there so that it could impact policy; it could impact funding," Spatz said. The network, which helps women and girls develop leadership skills, led the collaboration of at least 30 area groups in producing the report.

In response to the violence girls face, the report recommends that policymakers pay closer attention to the stories that girls can share about their experiences.

Whitis, who was assaulted but not raped that night two years ago, belongs to the Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team, a group of girls ages 11 to 21 that came together in 2003 with the goal of raising awareness about street harassment and domestic violence.

In 2007, 36.9 percent of young women in Chicago's high schools said they had been depressed in the last year. More than a third (36.1 percent) of girls across the state who said they needed mental health care did not get any type of treatment.

Lisa Machoian, who has a doctoral degree in psychology and wrote the book "The Disappearing Girl: Learning the Language of Teenage Depression," said the high rates of adolescent depression in Illinois resonate with what she sees in her clinical practice in Cambridge, Mass., where she treats girls and young women who have anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.

Beatrice, 19, who asked that only her middle name be used, was on a self-described path toward prison given the way she acted out as a youth. She once knocked out two of a boy's teeth when he refused to let her ride his scooter. Beatrice found her way to clinical services at Alternatives Inc. when she was 9. The center, on Chicago's North Side, serves the emotional health and development of young women. Since then, she and her family have received free counseling services. Her mother's meager health insurance coverage would have made it difficult, if not impossible, to get therapy elsewhere, she said.

Today, Beatrice, a college student, has learned how to express her feelings through words and not aggression. She has become a resident adviser at Northern Illinois University and a youth leader at Alternatives Inc., where she talks to other girls about issues of social justice and police brutality.

Spatz said she hopes that for all the problems highlighted in the report, it also conveys how, when girls get opportunities to overcome the challenges they face, they often thrive. The report profiles programs for adolescent girls throughout the city that are helping to make a difference in their lives. One such program, Girls in the Game, provides girls ages 7 to 18 the chance to play sports, develop leadership skills and learn to have a healthy lifestyle. "If you work on their strengths, it very much helps girls blossom," Machoian said.

The report is available online at statusofgirls.womenandgirlscan.org.

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

OCTOBER: Domestic Violence Awareness Month

2009-10-01T08:38:00.001-07:00

For Events Click Here...

TAKE ACTION TODAY TO OPPOSE THE BAUCUS HEALTH REFORM BILL!...

2009-09-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

Per Women Raising Voices...
http://www.raisingwomensvoices.net/

The long-awaited Senate Finance Committee health reform bill has finally emerged from the anti-democratic and painfully extended negotiation process created by Committee Chair Max Baucus of Montana. The Baucus bill is bad for women and bad for our families in many ways. We urge women's health advocates to contact your Senators, especially if they are members of the Senate Finance Committee, and demand that the Baucus bill be amended in the Senate Finance Committee mark-up meetings next week and on the floor of the Senate. Deadline for submitting amendments is tomorrow, Friday September 18, so we must act quickly! If your Senator is not a member of the Senate Finance Committee, ask him or her to contact Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus to oppose this bill in its current form.

What is wrong with the Baucus bill? The Baucus bill fails to make health insurance affordable for women and our families. It sacrifices important features of the other proposals, such as the public plan option, in what appears to have been an unsuccessful attempt to woo Republicans. Not a single Republican has agreed to support it yet.Raising Women's Voices strongly opposes the bill as it stands today and is calling on Senators to amend and improve it in the Finance Committee mark-up next week and on the floor of the Senate. KEY PROBLEMS THAT NEED

TO BE ADDRESSED:
The bill imposes politics and ideology on what should be a purely medical decision - the question about what services an insurance plan will cover. It singles out abortion for special exclusions, rather than treating it like other medical care, by adopting language that was developed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as a compromise to prevent anti-choice legislators from using the health reform bill as a vehicle to impose sweeping new restrictions on abortion. Reproductive health services are basic health care for women, and we urge the Finance Committee members to follow the lead of their colleagues on the Senate HELP Committee by passing legislation that puts the decisions about which services will be covered by insurance in the hands of medical experts and consumers who will make their decisions based on medical standards of care and scientific/medical evidence, not politics or ideology.

The bill fails to make health insurance affordable for low- and moderate-income people. It would mandate that everybody buy health insurance, and impose sizeable penalties on those who don't, but it doesn't make it possible for people to actually afford the insurance. One analysis found that a family of three earning $55,000 a year would be expected to pay $7,100 a year for insurance premiums, more than either the House bill or the Senate HELP committee bill would require. That's far too much to be affordable, and it doesn't even count out-of-pocket costs for co-pays and deductibles that will be charged on top of premiums!

The bill allows and even encourages insurance companies and employers to continue practices that are particularly damaging to women. It allows insurance companies to charge older people up to five times as much as younger people. The House bill allowed only a 2 to 1 ratio. Women, who live longer on average than men, are more likely to bear the costs of this age rating.

Moreover, the bill creates a disincentive for employers to hire low-income workers and especially low-income, single parents - the vast majority of whom are women.

The bill fails to ensure that all residents receive equal access to health coverage. We believe that health reform should give legal immigrants access to affordable coverage in the same way that it does for American citizens. Legal immigrants should have access to tax credits through the exchange, should be eligible for Medicaid without a waiting period and should not be subject to excessive verification requirements. In addition, we oppose efforts to bar people, regardless of immigration status, from using their own funds to buy health insurance through the exchange.

The bill does not establish an health insurance system that will provide a full range of choices to consumers, lower costs and make insurance companies accountable. The Baucus bill does not include a public insurance option, but instead provides a government-subsidized monopoly for private insurers. A robust public health insurance option would effectively compete with private insurers, giving people meaningful choice in their insurance purchasing decisions, helping to control costs and bringing greater accountability to the insurance industry. The co-op proposal included in the Baucus bill will not meet these objectives.

TAKE ACTION Please urge the members of the Senate Finance Committee to amend this bill so that it will represent a meaningful opportunity to make quality, affordable health care available to all women. Contact them TODAY, so your thoughts may be considered during the mark-up process.

Email your comments to your own Senators. In addition, please copy us at info@raisingwomensvoices.net so we know how many of you have raised your voices for quality, affordable health care that meets women's needs!

Let them know that you want their leadership in establishing quality, affordable health care for all women.

Remember to act quickly - now is the time to raise our voices and let the Senators know what we need.

Domestic Violence...a pre-existing condition...

2009-09-17T12:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/when-getting-beaten-by-yo_n_286029.html

With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to how broadly insurers interpret the term to maximize profits.

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.

Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.

In human terms, it's a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.

In 2006, Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), now a member of leadership, split the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee 10-10. The tie meant that the measure failed.

All ten no votes were Republicans, including Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), a member of the "Gang of Six" on the Finance Committee who are hashing out a bipartisan bill. A spokesman for

Enzi didn't immediately return a call from Huffington Post.
At the time, Enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "If you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state," he said, according to a CQ Today item from March 15th, 2006.

Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for an insurance industry trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), said that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has proposed ending the discrimination. "The NAIC has a model on this that we strongly supported. That model bans the use of a person's status as a victim of domestic violence in making a decision on coverage," he said.

During the last health care reform push, in 1993 and 1994, the industry similarly promised to end discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
Murray pushed to include the domestic violence concern in this year's comprehensive health care bill. "Senator Murray continues to believe that victims of domestic violence should not be punished for the crimes of their abusers. That is why she worked to include language in the Senate HELP Committee's health insurance reform bill that would ban this discriminatory and harmful insurance company practice," said spokesman Eli Zupnick.

In 1994, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), now a member of Senate leadership, had his staff survey 16 insurance companies. He found that eight would not write health, life or disability policies for women who have been abused. In 1995, the Boston Globe found that Nationwide, Allstate, State Farm, Aetna, Metropolitan Life, The Equitable Companies, First Colony Life, The Prudential and the Principal Financial Group had all either canceled or denied coverage to women who'd been beaten.

The Service Employees International Union asked members to write letters to Congress regarding the exclusion and have quickly generated hundreds, says an SEIU spokeswoman.
The relevant provision:
SEC. 2706. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANTS AND BENEFICIARIES BASED ON HEALTH STATUS.
'(a) IN GENERAL.--A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish rules for eligibility (including continued eligibility) of any individual to enroll under the terms of the plan or coverage based on any of the following health status-related factors in relation to the individual or a dependent of the individual:
(1) Health status.
(2) Medical condition (including both physical and mental illnesses).
(3) Claims experience.
(4) Receipt of health care.
(5) Medical history.
(6) Genetic information.
(7) Evidence of insurability (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence).
(8) Disability.
(9) Any other health status-related factor determined appropriate by the Secretary.
UPDATE: The eight states that still allow it are Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to a report by the National Women's Law Center.

UPDATE II: Scratch the Tar Heal state from that list. North Carolina insurance commissioner Wayne Goodwin had his staff research the state's law and his attorneys concluded that insurers in that state would not be allowed to use domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Group plans were specifically forbidden from using it thanks to a 1997 law, he said. For individuals and non-group plans, it's more complicated.

"Though there is not a specific statute for individual plans or non-group plans, there is another statute that our attorneys here tell us addresses this issue. For example, North Carolina law defines what a preexisting condition is. Now, here in North Carolina, it says a preexisting condition means - quote - those conditions for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was received or recommended within a one year period immediately preceding the effective date of the person's coverage." Domestic violence, he said, doesn't met the state's definition of a medical condition and so can't be used as a pre-existing condition.
Wyoming Department of Insurance staff attorney James Mitchell said the state's insurance laws do not ban insurers from using domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, but his staffers were unable to find cases of insurers having done so and he said they had not received any complaints. "We are not aware of any policies that have been submitted to us that addressed domestic violence as a pre-existing condition," he said. The remaining six states have yet to respond.

UPDATE TO UPDATE II: A few readers have noted that the ambiguity of North Carolina's law regarding individual and non-group plans could still leave domestic violence victims vulnerable to discrimination. And Commissioner Goodwin himself, in a Facebook note summarizing my conversation with him, does say "that North Carolina's law on this subject vis-a-vis individual/non-group plans could be clarified and made more direct, and that we should also consider the NAIC national model law on the subject, too. The legislature doesn't return until

May 2010, so there is time to work on the best way to clarify this issue for folks while educating them in the meanwhile."

He posted his response on the FB page of journalist Christine Tatum, who had posted a link to this story and asked her friends to contact him. Goodwin noted on her wall that allowing insurance companies to discriminate against domestic violence victims is a tragedy and something he wouldn't allow in his state.

North Carolina, however, given the fuzziness of the law, still belongs on a list of states whose laws could be clarified to assure that domestic violence victims aren't denied coverage or charged higher premiums. Forty-two states have made that specific clarification and the Senate health committee bill would do so nationally.
If you're an attorney with experience in this field and want to weigh in, write me at ryan@huffingtonpost.com.

UPDATE III: Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney provided the following statement through a spokeswoman:

Mississippi does not at this time have a law which bans insurance companies from considering domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. However, the reason there is not such a law is that there has not been a problem with insurance companies denying coverage or refusing to pay the claims of domestic violence victims in this state. If it were an issue, the Legislature and the Department would have addressed it by now.The Mississippi Department of Insurance is unaware of any insurance company operating in this state that would deny coverage if the applicant had been a victim of domestic violence. Nor have we received any complaint from a consumer stating their insurance company refused to pay their medical bills incurred from domestic violence. Such action by an insurance company would not be tolerated by the Department.It is the position of the Department that if an insurance company denied payment of a claim incurred in an act of domestic violence, such action would be a violation of the Unfair Trade Practices Act, as promulgated in Miss. Code Ann. §§ 83-5-29 through 83-5-51, and the Department would take the appropriate action.Should the Mississippi Legislature choose to
enact legislation addressing this issue, the Mississippi Insurance Department would be very supportive of the passage of such legislation.

UPDATE TO UPDATE III: Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney was much blunter in an interview with the Jackson Free Press:

"The truth is we've got eight states in the union that count domestic abuse as a pre-existing condition, and Mississippi is one of them," Chaney told the Jackson Free Press. "I've got to get some of my lawyers to do some research on this, but we have only six mandated (conditions that must be covered) in our state statues, and we have 25 or more optional coverages, but domestic abuse doesn't seem to be one of them."

Chaney said all insurance companies in the state can take advantage of the state's limited coverage mandate, and that he would prefer the state to change its law to force insurance companies to cover victims of domestic abuse.

"Would I do something about it? Hell, yeah, I'd do something about it, but I'm a regulator, not a legislator. I have to come to terms with that every week," Chaney said. "The whole situation is bad. Let's say a woman works with a company that had Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and she gets beat up in her house and Blue Cross says 'we're not covering you because getting beat up is your pre-existing condition.' That's terrible."

Read the whole story here.

Domestic violence victim: 'Silence only empowers the abuser'

2009-09-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

chicagotribune.com

Domestic violence victim: 'Silence only empowers the abuser'
Carolyn Mahoney uses the story of her near-fatal beating at the hands of her ex-husband to show that domestic violence can affect anyone

By Amanda Marrazzo
Special to the Tribune
September 4, 2009

On a bright, crisp morning nearly five years ago, Carolyn Cox should have been merrily preparing for her first trip to Europe, but instead she was fighting for her life after being brutally beaten and locked inside a carbon monoxide-filled garage in her Bull Valley mansion.The attacker was her husband of more than 40 years, millionaire businessman Billy J. Cox, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the Dixon Correctional Center for attempted
murder.Meanwhile, the now remarried Carolyn Mahoney shares her story with audiences across the country about living decades in silence as an abused wife. "Sometimes I just want to put it in a box and I don't want to get it out," said Mahoney, sitting in the airy sunroom at the 15,000-square-foot, $2 million home she and Cox built on an 11-acre wooded lot in 2001.Since Cox's conviction in April 2007, Mahoney has told her story about 30 times to college sororities and family and women's groups around the country. In October, she will speak at Purdue University in Indiana and Auburn University in Alabama.Mahoney, 67, prepares mentally and emotionally for each speech and is exhausted after each one, she said. She details the morning of Sept. 13, 2004, and how Cox bludgeoned her with a blunt object -- which has never been found or identified -- in the head and face while she slept, then dragged her bloodied body down a hallway and locked her in the garage where two cars were idling.Recounting her story is painful, but "I was told once by a young girl, 'I am living your story,' " Mahoney said. That chance to help women in similar circumstances is what keeps her talking, she said.Mahoney tells of frightening moments throughout her marriage and how her husband's aggression increased over the years. It began early in their years together with insults, belittling and oppressive control such as not allowing her to attend her family's church, she said. The abuse increased to shoving, slapping, then punching and kicking, and she would respond by making excuses for him, she said."I had this illusion we were doing all the right things," she said. "There were no domestic shelters 40 years ago. It was a secret. You do not tell neighbors, family. You make things work."But Mahoney said she learned firsthand that "silence only empowers the abuser."No one suspected what was going on behind closed doors, Mahoney said. She has a master's degree, and Cox has a doctorate. Cox invented the agricultural chemical that helped to build his successful company, Exacto Inc. in Richmond. They were worth millions of dollars. They were country club members who supported local theater and arts. Mahoney emphasizes during her speaking engagements that domestic abuse knows no prejudice and involves people from all socioeconomic backgrounds."I am the face of domestic abuse," she said to an audience in a half-hour documentary about her. DVDs of the show sold for $20, with proceeds benefiting Turning Point, a McHenry County domestic violence agency and shelter."She has been instrumental in moving the issue of domestic violence out of the shadows and into the light because she is willing to be public about her story," said Jane Farmer, the agency's executive director. "It tells people it truly can happen to anyone."During his trial, Cox's attorneys insisted that he had no idea what happened to his wife that morning. Cox testified that he had been on the back end of their property for about six hours clearing brush and bird-watching. He claimed that the first time he saw his wife was when he opened the garage door to see the police officer outside the garage and his wife limp and bloody on the ground between two vehicles. Defense attorney Mark Gummerson argued that she had hurt herself when she fell off a ladder in the garage.The Coxes were scheduled to travel with friends to Europe that day. Police were called to the property for a well-being check after family and friends had been unable to reach the couple that morning.Jurors found Cox guilty of attempted murder and because he was considered a flight risk, he was immediately handcuffed and taken to jail. Officers who searched him in the jail found he had $10,000 in cash. Cox has appealed his conviction.Mahoney still bears faint scars of the near-fatal beating. She has had three major surgeries and has a metal plate in the left side of her face to help rebuild her cheekbone and eye socket. She lives with double-vision, some hearing loss, dental problems and balance issues."It is a miracle that she survived her brutal attack that day," said Nichole Owens, chief of criminal prosecutions for the McHenry County state's attorney's office. "Carolyn triumphantly overcame her tremendous physical and emotional obstacles and has become a passionate advocate for domestic violence victims."She tried to divorce Cox, but the proceeding was put on hold during the criminal trial. The divorce, ending a 47-year marriage, was made final in 2008, with Mahoney awarded Exacto stock, her home and other properties. Cox got 25 percent of the assets.About 18 months after the attack, Carolyn Cox, with encouragement from her daughter, tried online dating and met Dennis Mahoney, an attorney from Wisconsin. Mahoney, 67, supported her during the criminal and divorce trials and continues to back her mission to help women in abusive relationships.On July 5, in front of about 50 guests, the couple were married in the living room of the home where Carolyn Cox was almost killed. She wore a pale pink dress and he a modest suit. Her great-grandson was the ring bearer and great-granddaughter the flower girl. "This home, everything you see is a part of me," she said. "The house was not at fault. I wanted to have the wedding here to make new memories, new life, happy memories."
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
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Abuse UnChecked...

2009-09-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

Abuse Unchecked: A Husband Shoots Wifeas a Community Watches (corrected version)By Byron Hurt

On Tuesday, September 1, I spoke to more than 2,000 incoming freshman students at Montclair State University in New Jersey. As part of their New Student orientation, the Department of Student Development and Campus Life invited me to campus to show clips from my documentary film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, and to address the issue of men's physical and sexual violence against women. In my speech, I spoke about the urgent need for men to act as proactive bystanders in the face of such violence.

As I spoke to the students about gender-based violence in north Jersey, Lenox Ramsey, 25, taunted, chased, and then finally shot his wife, Kaidan Ramsey, 22, in broad daylight in Brooklyn, NY near Medgar Evers College. Surveillance tapes show a terrified Kaidan running for her life as
people on the street watched, doing nothing.

As a man, I know how easy it is look the other way and ignore male abusive behavior when it happens, especially when it happens publicly. I've been in situations like this and I know how paralyzed one can feel - not knowing exactly what to do. I have been in situations where I have failed to act and remember feeling horrible for lacking the courage to raise my voice. I have also been in situations when I have acted, and fellas, it's not as difficult or scary as you might imagine.
I understand the fear people feel when faced with intervening when a man is abusing a woman on a busy street. We are afraid the abuser will turn his rage onto us. This fear is real and has to be acknowledged. But as a community, we cannot remain silent and tolerate this kind of violence. We must speak up loudly and boldly when men physically or sexually assault women. Honk your car horn, yell and shout, call 911, or try to somehow distract the abuser from attacking his victim - even if it is for an instant. But please, do not remain silent. Help the woman out. Please understand that I am not suggesting that you jump in front of a bullet to save someone's life. You must be street smart and use wise judgment at all times. I am, however, suggesting that you do something as opposed to doing nothing at all. At the end of the day, we all have to look ourselves in the mirror knowing that we did the right thing when it mattered most to someone else.
As a nation, it is vital that we ramp up efforts to educate boys and men about patriarchy, sexism, male privilege, and how men's violence against women is ultimately about men maintaining power and control over female bodies. Men and women working in the gender violence prevention field have long called for men and women in positions of leadership to make gender violence prevention a priority in schools, churches, corporations, and in the military. Educating boys and men in prevention programs is one of the keys to drastically reducing all forms of gender violence.

Men, this has to stop. Men's violence against women is pervasive worldwide, and we can no longer deflect this issue onto women as if they are the cause of the problem and should fix it by themselves. Each day, new stories emerge about men who abduct, rape, beat, harass, and kill women. We do not need any more statistics to prove that men's violence against women is a real problem. It is real and it happens each and every day, all over the world.

We cannot be silent anymore. Non-abusive men who respect women and who are against men who abuse women have to speak up when incidents like this occur. You do not have to be an expert or know the latest statistics. All you have to do is care, have courage, and speak up in defense of the women you love. (Read Jackson Katz' Ten Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence at www.jacksonkatz.com)

Through my filmmaking, writing, and community outreach, I will continue to do all that I can to ally with women and educate as many non-abusive men as humanly possible. By raising our voices, men and women can use our influence to collectively send the message to other men that the abuse of women is not cool and should not go unchecked within our communities.
If you have a mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt, or female friend that you love and care about, then you should be an advocate for them and tune in to the issues that affect them daily. Men's violence against women is one such issue that affects the women you love.

# # #
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti-sexist activist. Learn more at www.bhurt.com.
NOTE TO READERS: Feel free to cut and paste my statement and forward widely along with the link to the article and disturbing video footage of the shooting: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_brooklyn_gun_horror.html
I also recommend that you Google, buy, and read these five books to learn more about what we as men can do to help end violence against women:
• The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help - Jackson Katz• Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power - Edited by Shira Tarrant• The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life - Edited by Kevin Powell• NewBlackMan - Mark Anthony Neal• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love - bell hooks

Tell them what health care looks like for you...

2009-08-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Have you reached out to Senators and Reps to let them know what you want included in the Health Care Reform bill?

If not, here's their contact info.

Senators:
Rolland Burris http://burris.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm
Dick Durbin http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Representatives:
Bean, Melissa L., Illinois, 8th
Biggert, Judy, Illinois, 13th
Costello, Jerry, Illinois, 12th
Davis, Danny K., Illinois, 7th
Gutierrez, Luis, Illinois, 4th
Foster, Bill, Illinois, 14th
Hare, Phil, Illinois, 17th
Halvorson, Deborah "Debbie", Illinois, 11th
Jackson Jr., Jesse L., Illinois, 2nd
Johnson, Timothy V., Illinois, 15th
Kirk, Mark, Illinois, 10th
Lipinski, Daniel, Illinois, 3rd
Manzullo, Donald, Illinois, 16th
Quigley, Mike, Illinois, 5th
Roskam, Peter J., Illinois, 6th
Rush, Bobby L., Illinois, 1st
Schakowsky, Jan, Illinois, 9th
Schock, Aaron, Illinois, 18th
Shimkus, John, Illinois, 19th

Also, here's a link to a Side by side comparison of healthcare reform proposals
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/healthreform_sbs_full.pdf

They've started working on the health care reform bill...

2009-06-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Per Raising Women's Voices for the health care we need!
http://www.raisingwomensvoices.net/

The Senate HELP Committee has started work on its health care reform bill - and they need to hear from you. The bill represents a giant step forward in our efforts to get quality, affordable health care for all women, but some Senators have introduced amendments that would be very damaging to women's health and that would advance political agendas over accurate science and medicine. A few examples of what these damaging amendments propose:

Require doctors to disseminate information that is not supported by science to women seeking pregnancy-related care, including abortion.

Require parental consent for students who get services at school-based clinics.

Violate patients' rights and erode clinicians' duties to their patients by encroaching on the right to receive health services and information, including contraception, fertility services and other health care necessary to meet established medical standards of care.

Impose barriers to health care for immigrants by requiring that they be citizens for five years before participating in certain programs.

Establish a program to promote crisis pregnancy centers that withhold full, accurate information about options from women facing an unintended pregnancy, and in some cases use deceptive, inaccurate and even intimindating tactics to influence their decisions.

Scale back substantially the effort to strengthen and restore authority to the Office of Women's Health that we depend on to provide leadership, expertise and guidance on women's health concerns within the Department of Health & Human Services.

TAKE ACTION Please urge the members of the Senate HELP Committee to vote against all amendments that threaten women's health. Contact them as soon as possible, so your thoughts may be considered during the mark-up process.

Email your comments to help_comments@help.senate.gov and we encourage copying your own congressional delegation on the message as well. In addition, please copy
info@raisingwomensvoices.net so we know how many of you have raised your voices for quality, affordable health care that meets women's needs!

Let them know that you want their leadership in establishing quality, affordable health care for all women and that you want to see the bill go forward without damaging amendments like the ones being offered by Senators Coburn, Enzi and Hatch.

If you have questions or comments, please email info@raisingwomensvoices.net. Remember to act quickly - now is the time to raise our voices and let the Senators know what we need.

Description of Policy Options
Expanding Health Care Coverage:
Proposals to Provide Affordable Coverage to All Americans
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/051109%20Health%20Care%20Description%20of%20Policy%20Options.pdf

Girls/Women....Speak Out for HEALTH CARE!

2009-06-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

Peace,

We invite you to this very important and pressing Speak Out/Town Hall Meeting next Thursday, June 18 (refer below for details). We will be discussing health care for women and our families. This is time-sensitive b/c we need to act while legislators are on recess and are in-district (in their Chicago offices, not in Springfield).

There are women and teenage girls that can not afford even the most basic care of getting their annual pap smears. We have clinics closing ie. Pilsen Women and Family Clinic and the U of Chicago Women's Clinic. We have to make sure that the new health care bill includes our whole bodies, especially our reproductive health.

For many of us our primary care doctor is our Ob/Gyn so we have to make sure that we use the power of telling our stories as a means of getting our health care needs included in the health care reform bill. And let's not forget that we are speaking out for those that may be voiceless--for instance children, the disabled, the differently minded, incarcerated women, sistas surviving on the streets etc.

Please, forward this email to all of your friends, family, neighbors, students and/or co-workers.

We deserve quality, afforadable and accessible health care,
AquaMoon
camil and veronica

Speak Out!
for the health care we need
Thursday
June 18, 2009
United Church of Hyde Park
1448 E. 53rd Street
7-9pm
RSVP at SpeakOut@spokenexistence.com
To share your story at the speak out call 773-955-2709

Come share your stories about how you’ve struggled
with the current health care system
and what needs to change.

For example—your experiences with doctors, clinics, hospitals, insurance providers, and age, size, race, class,
gender or disability insensitivities.

Health care is a human right...
We deserve affordable, accessible and quality health care.

Fed up with our broken health care system? Angry about expensive health insurance that doesn’t pay for the care that you and your family need? Outraged that insurance companies, in some states, can deny coverage of ‘pre-existing’ conditions such as, breast cancer, and other life-threatening illnesses? Can't afford your annual Paps or HPV screening? HIV/AIDS resources not accessible? Can't afford counseling or disability services? Then join the Illinois Raising Women’s Voices and the national Raising Women’s Voices Inititiative in sending a strong message to Congress that the current system is unacceptable and real health care reform is fair and just!

We will be joined by Byllye Avery...

Byllye Avery is co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need. A dreamer, a visionary and a grassroots realist, she has combined activism with social responsibility to explore women’s health issues. Founder of the National Black Women’s Health Project and the Avery Institute for Social Change, Byllye Avery has dedicated the last 30 years to inspiring women with her experiences, wisdom and spirit.

There’s just a real special magic that happenswhen women come together to work togetherin an effective way for a common cause.– BYLLYE AVERY

Why should women raise our voices for health care reform?
Byllye: The reason why women should raise our voices is because we have a unique perspective about health care and what our health care needs are, and our perspectives need to be in the mix.

Our bodies, our lives, our health and our priorities are different from men’s. Ifyou don’t get the voices of everyone you run the risk of developing services that are ineffective and that don’t meet the people’s needs. Also, we’re the caretakers. We take care of everybody -- lot of the time before we take care of ourselves -- and we make spaces for our lovers, our sisters, our aunts, our children and our families, so it’s very important.

There’s power in our collective voices. It’s really easy to not do something... But it’s much easier go along when see other people are doing something. You become motivated, you want to join. Our whole notion is to do good in the world, to unite with other people. There’s just a real special magic that happens when women come together to work together in an effective way for a common cause.

Sponsored by: Raising Women’s Voices, Black Women for Reproductive Justice, AquaMoon, American Civil Liberties Union, Chicago Foundation for Women, Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health and more...

Dating Bill of Rights...

2009-06-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have a right to:

Ask for a date
Refuse a date
Suggest activities
Refuse any activities, even if my date is excited about them
Have my own feelings and be able to express them
Say, "I think my friend is wrong and his actions are inappropriate"
Tell someone not to interrupt me
Have my limits and values respected
Tell my partner when I need affection
Refuse affection
Be heard
Refuse to lend money
Refuse sex any time, for any reason
Have friends and space aside from my partner

I have the responsibility to:

Determine my limits and values
Respect the limits of others
Communicate clearly and honestly
Not violate the limits of others
Ask for help when I need it
Be considerate
Check my actions and decisions to determine whether they are good or bad for me
Set high goals for myself

From the Domestic Violence Advocacy Program of Family Resources, Inc.

Harm Reduction NOT Judgment...

2009-06-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

To successfully use a harm reduction approach it takes the removal of ego or the notion that you know what's best for someone else. This approach can be applied to everyday life. You dont have to be a service provider, social worker or label yourself an advocate to apply these things to how you deal with family, friends and community. What is harm reduction...Harm reduction, or harm minimisation, refers to a range of pragmatic and compassionate public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with drug use and other high risk activities [1]. Many advocates argue that prohibitionist laws cause harm, because, for example, they oblige prostitutes to work in dangerous conditions and oblige drug users to obtain their drugs from unreliable criminal sources. This usually involves softening punishments on risky behaviour, assisting people to stop the behaviour and addressing the reasons people engage in such behaviour.

http://eminism.org/readings/harmreduction.html#principles
Toward a Harm Reduction Approach in Survivor Advocacy
by Emi Koyama
Reprinted from the Spring 2001 newsletter of Survivor Project. Jump to principles of harm reduction in survivor advocacy.
There is no question that everyone who takes part in the movement against domestic and sexual violence is working to reduce and eliminate harms of violence in our society, but not all of us come from the specific perspective known as the harm reduction approach. How, then, is the harm reduction approach different from other approaches, and why is it important?
Harm reduction is a philosophy first developed by people organizing against HIV/AIDS crisis and other health issues among injection drug users. Harm Reduction Coalition states: "Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce negative consequences of drug use, incorporating a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence. Harm reduction strategies meet drug users where they are at, addressing conditions of use along with the use itself." HRC further states the following principles: Harm reduction:
· Accepts, for better and for worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
· Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
· Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being--not necessarily cessation of all drug use--as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
· Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
· Ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
· Affirms drugs users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use, and seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.
· Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination and other social inequalities affect both people's vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
· Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit and illicit drug use. Harm reduction approach stands in stark contrast to the law enforcement efforts to criminalize and prosecute drug use as well as to the medical community's efforts to pathologize it. Although there are different sets of implications arising from these competing frameworks, they both threaten to take away drug users' self-definition and to reduce the impact of serious social problems such as poverty and racism to individuals' moral or biological flaws.
Simply put, harm reduction is the opposite of these paternalistic approaches exemplified by law enforcement and medical communities. By "meeting drug users where they are at," providing clean needles, gears, and accurate information about safe usage, harm reduction approach aims to save lives without relying on coercion.
Sadly, paternalism also exists in the movement against domestic violence, often in the form of official shelter (hotline, etc.) policies as well as unofficial pressures compelling survivors to act in certain ways.
An example--an old one in fact--would be how advocates frequently pressure victims of domestic violence to leave their abusers through scare tactics and guilt trips. Of course, this tendency has began to shift as we learned the fact that leaving the abuser is the single most dangerous act a victim could take and therefore we should be weary of pressuring someone to leave when s/he is not ready to do so. However, as long as we pretend to know better than the survivor does what is in her or his best interest, we are bound to make the same mistake over and over. Instead of waiting for new researches to tell us which direction we need to push survivors to, we should adopt as a fundamental principle that survivors can decide for themselves what should be done in order to be safe, and stop pressuring them in any direction--that is the harm reduction approach to survivor advocacy.
Redefined in terms of domestic violence, harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce negative consequences of certain survival and coping mechanisms survivors use. It believes in creating a larger pool of options survivors can choose from, rather than narrowing them down through paternalistic guidance. In simpler terms, I am referring to many coping mechanisms that others call "maladaptive" or "unhealthy": alcohol and drug use, self-hurting, survival sex, irregular eating and sleeping patterns, as well as being in contact with the abuser.
Of course, harm reduction would not deserve its name if it merely stepped back and sat by idly as survivors engage in these behaviors; on the contrary, harm reduction, if executed correctly, requires us as advocates to do much more work than if we were working from the paternalistic approach. Under the paternalistic approach, we simply ban those behaviors we deem harmful, label survivors who use such coping mechanisms pathological or uncooperative, sending them to "treatments" or kicking them out of our programs. In a shelter working from the harm reduction approach, we need to get over our presumptions and judgments, realistically assess actual dangers, provide accurate rather than exaggerated information, and assist survivors develop strategies to do whatever it takes for them to cope while staying relatively safe from extreme dangers. No coping mechanism is "maladaptive" or "unhealthy" in itself unless and until the survivor herself or himself decides it is--at which point we offer resources that can help them develop alternative coping mechanisms. The guiding principle here is to create more options rather than less.
Harm reduction does not mean that "anything goes" either: when one survivor's coping method directly threatens the safety of others, including that of her or his children, an intervention is warranted. This includes situations where the survivor is high from using drugs and acting reckless, for example. But even then, we can address negative impacts of the particular coping mechanism and how to keep it from harming other people without labeling and banning such coping mechanisms as maladaptive or pathological. In such a situation, the role of the advocate is to assist the survivor and everyone else affected come up with a way to remove the harm rather than instructing her or him what coping method can be deployed. Survivors' their own voices must play a prominent role in determining the parameters of any interventions that affect them.
Another situation where an advocate need to intervene is when the survivor's behavior is causing an imminent life-threatening danger to herself or himself, such as when she or he is unconscious from overdosing on drugs, bleeding heavily from cutting up the vein, or refusing to eat for an extended period of time. Because the purpose of harm reduction is to reduce harm as survivors engage in whatever behavior they need to in order to feel safe and in control, overlooking any behaviors that lead up to death defeats the purpose.
Harm reduction approach in survivor advocacy is fundamentally feminist, and is true to the roots of our movement of survivors creating resources for other survivors. It demands that advocates accept survivors as the source of authority and expertise in issues that concern them, rather than relying on so-called experts to determine what they need. It seeks to empower survivors to reduce the harms of their coping mechanisms rather than to modify their behaviors.
It is an alternative to the paternalistic ways survivors are treated within abusive relationships and then by legal and medical establishments. It is a natural progression of our movement whose purpose is to empower survivors in their own unique ways rather than merely secluding them from the rest of the mean world.
And it is possible, if we as the advocates stand up to our funders, boards, and legal and medical experts and state clearly that we will not be part of a system that routinely deny survivors' right to self-determination. A true advocacy is about creating more options rather than less, and we owe it to the survivors who come to our programs.
Harm Reduction Principles in Survivor Advocacy
based on the model by Harm Reduction Coalition; adaptation by Emi Koyama
· Accepts, for better and for worse, that survivors learn to cope in whatever ways that reduce their pain and increase their sense of control, including those traditionally viewed as "unhealthy" (e.g. staying or maintaining contacts with the abuser, alcohol and drug use, wrist cutting and other self-harm, survival sex and sex work, irregular eating and sleeping patterns), and chooses to work to minimize their harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
· Understands each method of coping as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from recklessly extreme to no action, and acknowledges that some ways of doing it are clearly safer than others.
· Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being--not necessarily cessation of all activities deemed unhealthy or unsafe--as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
· Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who are coping with the effects and aftermath of abuse and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
· Ensures that survivors themselves--both those receiving services currently and those who have in the past--routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
· Affirms survivors themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their various coping methods as well as the authorities on their own experiences, and seeks to empower them to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of survival and coping.
· Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, discrimination and other social inequalities affect both survivors' vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with the effects and aftermath of the abuse.
· Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with certain coping methods survivors may employ.

Black womyn and children go missing all day, everyday...

2009-05-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Visit this blog...

http://blackandmissing.blogspot.com/

Walk Test Can Predict Course of Heart Failure for Black Patients

2009-05-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

interesting read...

The six-minute walk test, a simple, inexpensive diagnostic test, can reliably predict risk of death or re-hospitalization in African-American patients with heart failure, according to a study by a cardiologist now at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. "The six-minute walk test is basically just what it sounds like," said Dr. Thomas Stamos, assistant professor of cardiology at UIC and principal investigator of the study.

In the study, which was conducted at was conducted at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, 200 African-American patients, 125 men and 75 women, who were admitted to the hospital with decompensated heart failure (patients whose heart failure has caused their lungs to fill with fluid and who may have fluid in their legs) were asked to walk for six minutes, usually just up and down a hospital corridor. The distance that they are able to walk was then measured. The six-minute walk test has been successful in previous studies in predicting the course of heart failure. But the usual cause of heart failure in African-Americans patients is hypertension rather than the cardiovascular disease seen in the white patient population, says Stamos, and African-Americans often respond differently to medications used to treat heart failure. "There was a possibility that African Americans would have a different response to the six-minute walk test," said Stamos. "It was important to prove that this test could reliably predict outcomes in this patient population."

The researchers found "a clear difference" between patients who could walk at least 200 meters in six minutes and those who couldn't, Stamos said. Patients who walked 200 or more meters -- about twice the length of a football field -- had substantially lower risk of either returning to the hospital or dying during the course of the study. "We hope this study can help us decide which patients we should concentrate our efforts on," said Stamos. "If we know that a patient is at very high risk, we may be more aggressive with their medical therapy, we may have them follow-up in the clinic more frequently and keep a closer eye on them in order to prevent these negative outcomes." The patients were followed for 40 months to see how frequently they were forced to return to the hospital with heart failure as well as what percentage died during the course of the study.

The researchers found that 40 percent of patients who were only able to walk less than 200 meters died in the 40 months following their original hospitalization versus only 19 percent of the patients who were able to walk more than 200 meters. Patients were also re-hospitalized more often if they were unable to walk more than 200 meters. About 70 percent of the patients who were unable to walk more than 200 meters were re-hospitalized during that 40 month time period versus 52 percent of the patients who were able to walk farther. "With this very simple test, we were have a very powerful tool for predicting both who is at highest risk of dying in this period of time, as well as who would be re-hospitalized with heart failure, giving us a chance to plan appropriate treatment," Stamos said. Other contributors on the study are Dr. M. Tarek Alahdab of UIC, Dr. Ibrahim N. Mansour of Stroger Hospital, and Dr. Sirskarn Napan of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine at Springfield.

The study was published in the March issue of the Journal of Cardiac Failure.

http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/newsbureau/cgi-bin/index.cgi?from=Releases&to=PrintRelease&id=2475&fromhome=1

Sounds real 'cute' on paper...

2009-05-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

But how will it play out? That's the question...Will we be used as guinea pigs and continue to be pathologized and receive subpar care?

We Can Make the South Side a Model for Health-Care Reform

Eric Whitaker, MD, MPH, vice president for strategic affiliations and associate dean for community-based research, wrote the following op-ed for the April 23, 2009 edition of the Chicago Tribune.

I was born in a legendary Chicago hospital that has nearly disappeared.

Michael Reese Hospital was once a showcase of the South Side, a first-class research center that served as a beacon for people from many walks of life. Scientists there helped develop electrocardiography, found new links between cholesterol and heart disease, and did groundbreaking work on insulin. When my mother studied to be a nurse, Reese and Cook County Hospital were the only teaching hospitals in town that welcomed black trainees.

Once I dreamed of practicing medicine at Reese. Now the hospital is bankrupt and will close soon. The last time I drove past, all the lights were out.

Reese's fate gives a sense of the vast health-care challenges in underserved areas like the South Side. Tight financial resources here can make it difficult to sustain advanced-care centers such as Reese and the University of Chicago Medical Center, where I work.

Yet my home community desperately needs the best care available. We contend with widespread poverty and some of the nation's highest rates of chronic disease -- diabetes, hypertension, asthma.

We don't have to accept a future of declining community health and struggling hospitals. If we take the right steps now, the South Side could become a national model for how to build an innovative and sustainable health network. We'll need to put aside institutional turf and accept that no single medical center can meet all of our patients' needs.

The best strategy would combine the strengths of many South Side centers and treat them as one "virtual hospital," which patients can access in different locations depending on their medical needs.

Such an approach makes economic as well as medical sense. It would sustain the area's network of community hospitals and clinics, and connect low-income patients with the primary care they need to prevent serious complications of chronic conditions. My hospital has worked on this through the Urban Health Initiative, which strives to match patients with local clinics and physicians.

But we will not reach any of our goals without restoring trust within the community. Our patients don't always trust that if we refer them to a different institution, they will still get care of the highest quality. And hospitals often distrust each other, fearful that the patients they refer elsewhere will never come back.

The hospital where I work has not always been a good partner for this kind of collaboration. The U. of C. has been seen as detached from its medical neighbors and at times arrogant and overly competitive.

I think we can change those views and build a true partnership on the South Side. More faculty and residents from my hospital are fanning out to smaller centers where they are sharing knowledge and helping new groups of patients. Many of our patients who voluntarily transfer to those centers report greater satisfaction than they had at our hospital. That's humbling, and a sign that we can learn a lot from our neighbors.

Together we can learn more about our patients' unique health problems. The health disparities that exist between rich and poor are a huge problem for Chicago, yet we still don't know enough about why they persist. For example, why are diabetic adults on the South Side nearly three times more likely to be hospitalized than diabetes patients in the rest of the state? We suspect that diet, genetics and a lack of preventive care all play a role, but we don't know the specifics -- or how to correct the problem.

That's why a coalition of groups from around the city will soon embark on the South Side Health and Vitality Study, an ambitious effort to understand and begin remedying these glaring gaps in health outcomes. We want to create a resource that patients and researchers will draw on for decades, much as the Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts has shaped ideas about cardiovascular disease.

No single hospital will solve the South Side's health disparities by working within its own four walls. And no center here can thrive without strong affiliations -- that's one lesson of Reese's demise. But if we learn to trust one another and work together, we can help our patients and prevent more hospital lights from flickering out.

"University of Chicago shutting Community clinic"

2009-05-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

Event: Save University of Chicago Womens Health Center at 47th and Woodlawn

RallyHost: Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP)

Date/Time: Friday, May 29 at 10:30am

Outraged community to march on U of C to save women's clinic

Patients, community, workers, students launch

campaign against patient dumping

Following the recent announcement that the University of Chicago intends to close the 47th st. Women's Health Center, outraged patients, community members, workers and U of C students are announcing a campaign to fight the plan starting Friday May 29th with a press conference at the clinc (near Woodlawn and 47th st.) at 10:30am after which they will march to the U of C administration building for a 12pm rally.

"The University of Chicago has treated our community like a guinea pig since its inception. Now that they are at the Forefront of Medicine, they want to treat us like we are toxic waste. We as patients need this clinic and other local clinics cannot handle the dumping the University is planning,” says Deborah Tayler, a patient at the clinic and spokeswoman for Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP).

The action is being called by an ad hoc coalition of groups that sees the clinic closures as part of the University's broader effort to push poor people - especially people of color - out of the Medical Center and out of the community. The Coalition for Healthcare Access Responsibility and Transparency (CHART) is composed of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), the Illinois Single Payer Coalition, U of C Students for a Democratic Society, Students Organized and United with Labor and the Southside Solidarity Network as well as several members of Teamsters Local 743. CHART is following up the protest with a forum moderated by Cliff Kelly called “Whose Hospital: A Community Forum on the U of C Medical Center” on Wednesday June 3rd at 6:30pm on the U of C campus in the Harper Building at 1116 E. 59th st room 140.

May 29 Actions to Save Clinic
10:30am- Press Conference at clinic 1301 E. 47th St.
11:15am- March from clinic to campus
12noon- Rally at U of C Admin Building – 5801 S. Ellis

Chicago Tribune Article about the closing...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/health/chi-tue-uofc-clinics-0519-may19,0,6041102,print.story

Go meet your Congress(wo)man

2009-05-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-Harlem, spoke at a community forum in Manhattan this morning, organized by the National Coalition on Health Care.

RWV co-founder Lois Uttley, a Rangel constituent, was there and filed this report:

Fate of public plan in Senate's hands
The House of Representatives will include a public plan option in its health reform bill, but the fate of a public plan ultimately will be decided in the Senate, Rep. Charles Rangel said today. That plan "would be subsidized based on one's ability to pay," he said. Rangel said his fellow New York Democrat, Senator Charles Schumer, is trying to come up with a public plan proposal that will attract bipartisan support, because Republican votes would be needed to approve a plan with 60 votes. Schumer is proposing a public plan "that does not knock out private plans," Rangel said. "We don't know where that is going." He expressed hope the Senate "will have some sort of public plan that we can build on" when House and Senate conferees get together to negotiate one health reform bill later this year. One questioner told Rangel that "many of us hope that eventually it (a public plan) will beat out private insurers." Rangel, laughing, cautioned: "Don't say that!""Well," the questioner continued, "how do we make sure the public plan doesn't get beaten down?" Rangel replied: "I think you need both of them (private and public insurance plans). If the private sector believes they are being pushed out of business, then they need to look at cutting their profits." Rangel was critical of Republicans for opposing a public plan, calling that stance "unacceptable." The GOP in House, he said, is showing "no leadership." He admonished them: "They can't walk away from health reform."

Why not single payer?
The Director of Physicians for a National Health Program's NY Metro Chapter asked Rangel why single-payer advocates are not being included in the health reform debate in Congress. Rangel replied: "Because we want to get a bill passed. We would be asked, Do we want a government takeover of our health system? I would say yes. A lot or people would say no. Then we would have a debate, but not a bill."

How will benefits be determined?
RWV's Uttley asked Rangel how benefits packages will be determined under national health reform, noting that many groups are concerned about whether breast cancer treatment, care for chronic conditions, comprehensive reproductive health care and other services will be included. We have all been told these decisions will be determined by an independent commission later on, she said. Rangel said simply that "benefits will be determined by medical standards of care."

Get out there and meet your members of Congress!
"I've been in the Congress for close to 40 years, and this is the most revolutionary time I've every read about, let alone participated in," Rangel said. "Finally, we have a President with vision." But, he said, members of the public cannot be silent about health reform. "

You have to know the name of your Congressman and let them know we need health reform."

Comprehensive Sex Health Education...

2009-05-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

The Reproductive Health and Access Act (HB 2354) would require all Illinois public schools to teach medically-accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual health education. Parents would be allowed to remove their child from the class if they do not want them to participate.In addition, the bill also prohibits government interference with an individual's decision to use birth control, continue with a pregnancy, or terminate a pregnancy and ensures that government-funded health care programs, such as Medicaid, cover basic reproductive health services, including family planning, pre-natal care, and pap smears.

Currently, Illinois schools are not obliged to teach comprehensive sexual health education, or any sex education at all. If sex education is taught, the Illinois School Code does not require course materials and instruction to include information about contraception.Individuals have the right to education that promotes lifelong responsibility. We know that informed youth make healthy decisions. Students must be taught medically-accurate, age-appropriate, science-based sexual health education that is inclusive of all individuals.

The Reproductive Health and Access Act currently has 37 co-sponsors. On March 11, the bill passed out of the Illinois House Human Services Committee. On April 2, the entire House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill.We need you to take action! Please contact your state representative by email, letter, phone, or fax and tell her or him to vote in favor of the Reproductive Health and Access Act (HB 2354)!

For more information, visit the Illinois Campaign for Reproductive Health and Access website http://www.illinoisreproductivehealth.org/.

Home Birth Safety Act...

2009-05-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

HB0226

Synopsis As IntroducedCreates the Home Birth Safety Act. Provides for the licensure of midwives by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Creates the Illinois Midwifery Board. Sets forth provisions concerning qualifications, grounds for disciplinary action, and administrative procedures. Imposes conditions on any rulemaking authority. Amends the Regulatory Sunset Act to set a repeal date for the new Act of January 1, 2020. Amends the Medical Practice Act of 1987 and the Nurse Practice Act to make related changes.House Committee Amendment No. 1Provides that a licensed midwife is prohibited from performing an abortion.

Why license certified professional midwives?

The vast majority of Illinois has no licensed home birth care at all. In the three counties with some licensed home birth providers, there are still not enough. This leaves Illinois women with poor choices for home birth care: hiring an underground network without good access to collaborative care, importing a midwife from another state or giving birth "unassisted" (without any professional help at all).

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=226&GAID=10&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=40333&SessionID=76

Chicago Moratorium on School Closings...

2009-05-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

House Bill 0363...Provides that there shall be a moratorium on school closings, consolidations, and phaseouts in the school district in the 2009-2010 school year, and provides that any of these actions that are subsequently appropriate shall be carried out no sooner than the end of the 2010-2011 school year.

Synopsis As IntroducedAmends the Chicago School District Article of the School Code. Requires the Chairpersons of the House of Representatives' Committee on Elementary & Secondary Education and the Senate's Committee on Education to each appoint 5 members to a Special Joint Chicago Education Facilities Subcommittee. Requires the Joint Subcommittee, with the help of independent experts, to analyze past school district experience with respect to the closing or opening of schools, school repairs, school additions, school phase-outs, school consolidations, and school boundary changes; to consult widely with stakeholders about these facility issues; and to examine relevant best practices from other school systems for dealing with these issues systematically and equitably. Provides for a draft policy and a final proposed policy. Provides that there shall be a moratorium on school closings, consolidations, and phaseouts in the school district in the 2009-2010 school year, and provides that any of these actions that are subsequently appropriate shall be carried out no sooner than the end of the 2010-2011 school year.

Effective immediately.House Floor Amendment No. 2

Deletes everything after the enacting clause. Reinserts the contents of the bill as introduced with the following changes. Makes changes concerning the General Assembly's findings. Provides for a Special Joint Chicago Education Facilities Committee instead of a Special Joint Chicago Education Facilities Subcommittee, with members appointed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate as well as additional members. Makes changes concerning expert assistance, the gathering of evidence, the committee's duties, a draft policy, hearings, and proposed law. Removes the moratorium provision. Effective immediately.

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=363&GAID=10&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=40579&SessionID=76

August 1: The next in the round...

2009-05-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Stay tuned for the agenda, but mark the date on your calendar.

We meet on different days, times and locations to better fit in the full and busy lives of sistas.

in the round...

Saturday, August 1

1pm

Brainerd Branch Library

1350 W. 89th Street

(89th and Loomis)

Also, we will start planning for a 2010 in the round... conference in the fall. Contact us if you'd like to be on the planning committee intheround@spokenexistence.com.

End Involuntary Sterilization in Illinois...

2009-05-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

Sign petition here: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/hb2290/.

What would you do if you were a person with a disability, and your legal guardian decided to have a doctor operate on you so you couldn’t have babies? What would you do if your guardian didn’t even tell you about this, or tricked you into doing it? This is called involuntary sterilization, and in Illinois it happens more often than you think. Involuntary sterilization is when your guardian and your doctor agree to tie your tubes or do a hysterectomy/vasectomy without your permission or knowledge. We are one of 16 states nationwide with no laws to protect people with disabilities who have guardians from sterilization.

Now we have a chance to change that. Today, there is a bill in the Illinois House of Representatives called H.B. 2290. This bill would update a law called the Probate Act of 1975. H.B. 2290 would add to the Probate Act by saying that a guardian would need to get a court order to have a doctor do a sterilization on a ward with a disability. The exception would be if you might die or be seriously harmed without it. Otherwise, a court would have to say that sterilization is ok, and the court would have to do their best to figure out whether the person with a disability is ok with it or not. Right now, we do not have that kind of protection at all.
H.B. 2290 is an important bill that protects the bodies of people with disabilities who have guardians.

Remember, not every person with a disability has a guardian. Most people with disabilities make decisions about their own lives. A guardian makes decisions for a person with a disability who needs help with decisions. A person with a disability who has a guardian still can often make their opinions known, and it is important to respect that opinion.

So what can you do to help? We need this bill to pass the Illinois House of Representatives NOW! If you live in Illinois, contact your state representative and ask them to sponsor H.B. 2290 TODAY! You can find out who your representative is at the Board of Elections webpage. If you are with an organization, have your organization join our list to support H.B. 2290! Let’s make this happen today! Check back at this page for updates.

Organizations Supporting H.B. 2290:
American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois Chicago Foundation for WomenEquip for EqualityFRIDAIllinois Network of Centers for Independent Living (INCIL)Katie Watson JD, Assistant Professor, Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

For more information, or to sign onto our list of organizations supporting H.B. 2290, contact FRIDA member Michelle Robbins at (915) 496-5468 or free_our_people@yahoo.com. To read the bill, go to the bill online.

JUNE 18: Speak Out for health care...

2009-05-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

Join us...June 18

Come share your stories about the health care system.
For example—your experiences with doctors, clinics, hospitals, insurance providers, and age, size, race, class, gender or disability insensitivities.

Health care is a human right...

We deserve affordable, accessible and quality health care.

RSVP at SpeakOut@spokenexistence.com

We will be joined by Byllye Avery...

Byllye Avery is co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need. A dreamer,

a visionary and a grassroots realist, she has combined activism with social responsibility to explore

women’s health issues. Founder of the National Black Women’s Health Project and the Avery Institute for

Social Change, Byllye Avery has dedicated the last 30 years to inspiring women with her experiences, wisdom and spirit.

There’s just a real special magic that happens
when women come together to work together
in an effective way for a common cause.
– BYLLYE AVERY

Why should women raise our voices for health care reform?

Byllye: The reason why women should raise our voices is because we have a
unique perspective about health care and what our health care needs are, and our
perspectives need to be in the mix.

Our bodies, our lives, our health and our priorities are different from men’s. If
you don’t get the voices of everyone you run the risk of developing services that
are ineffective and that don’t meet the people’s needs. Also, we’re the caretakers.

We take care of everybody -- lot of the time before we take care of ourselves --
and we make spaces for our lovers, our sisters, our aunts, our children and our
families, so it’s very important.

There’s power in our collective voices. It’s really easy to not do something... But
it’s much easier go along when see other people are doing something. You
become motivated, you want to join. Our whole notion is to do good in the world,
to unite with other people. There’s just a real special magic that happens when
women come together to work together in an effective way for a common cause.

Resources....

2009-05-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

ICAH Illinois Caucus of Adolescent Health http://www.icah.org/
Girl World http://www.alternativesyouth.org/content/view/48/82/
FUFA Females United For Action http://womenandgirlscan.org/females-united-for-action/
YWEP Young Women's Empowerment Project http://youarepriceless.org/
YWAT Young Women's Action Team http://www.youngwomensactionteam.org/
SYC Southwest Youth Collaborative http://www.swyc.org/
Women and Girls CAN http://womenandgirlscan.org/
Kuumba Lynx http://www.kuumbalynx.org/
RVA Rape Victim Advocates http://www.rapevictimadvocates.org/
Chicago Hip Hop Initiative http://www.chihiphop.org/

Youth initiated, school based daycare center....

2009-05-04T09:38:00.001-07:00

STUDENTS AT SIMPSON ACADEMY FOR YOUNG WOMEN CREATE SCHOOL-BASED DAYCARE CENTER

Chicago—March 25, 2009—The Night Ministry, in partnership with Alternatives, Inc., is pleased to announce the support of the Simpson Academy for Young Women. Throughout the 2008-2009 school year, the students at Simpson Academy have been working on plans to open a school-based daycare center for their children.

The daycare center presentation will take place at the Simpson Academy Cafeteria, 1321 South Paulina Street on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 12:30pm.

The Simpson Academy for Young Women is now the only school in Chicago that serves pregnant and parenting girls between the ages of 11 and 18. Simpson offers a general education curriculum in a nurturing environment that includes social work services and counseling services for students and their families. In their Job Readiness class, the students were surveyed and recognized a pressing need for a day care center, especially since Simpson is a school for pregnant and parenting girls. As part of their curriculum, the students collaborated to research and develop a viable plan for a school-based daycare center from a teen parent’s perpective. In creating their center, students created a budget, daily schedules and activities, menus, safety regulations, and staff.
The goal of this project is to promote healthier families and decrease subsequent pregnancy with teen parents. Funding is from by The Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services.
For more information about the Daycare Center Presentation at Simpson Academy for Young Women, contact Carmen Curet at 773.506.7474 X226. For more information about the Response-Ability Pregnant and Parenting Program in Lakeview, please call Melissa Maguire at 773.506.6007.

Alternatives, Inc. is a not-for-profit youth and family service agency established in 1971, serving Chicago's northeast communities of Uptown, Edgewater, Rogers Park, Lakeview, North Center, Lincoln Square and West Ridge. The agency's mission is to facilitate personal development, strengthen family relationships, and enhance the community's well being. The organization has grown from a small, single site offering substance abuse services to a multifaceted agency that employs 50 full-time staff, manages over 175 volunteers and serves over 3,000 youth and families annually.

The Night Ministry connects with Chicago’s vulnerable youth and adults, providing basic supplies, self-care supplies, free healthcare, housing and supportive services for youth, referrals to other resources, and more. We offer services at the moment of need on the street, a mobile health bus, and our shelter and supportive services programs for homeless youth.

Chicago: League of Black Parents...

2009-05-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

Per the Black Star Project...

League of Black Parents Meeting, Saturday, May 9, 2009, 10:15 a.m. at 3509 South King Drive, Chicago, Illinois

Dear Prospective League of Black Parent Member:

Across the United States, the educational, social and economic outcomes for most Black children are a catastrophe! In the new global educational and economic order, many, if not most, Black American children cannot compete.

The principles that guide the League of Black Parents include:
Black parents are responsible for the education and well-being of Black children.
Black parents must organize and work together to educate and save their children.
Black parents must invest as much time in educating their children as they invest in their jobs, personal entertainment and social lives.
Black parents must connect to community resources to assist in raising their children.
Black parents must create their own Individual Education Plans for their children.
Black parents must meet for 90 minutes a month on issues concerning their children (preferably at a League of Black Parents Meeting).
Black Parents must work with schools, faith-based institutions and community-based organizations to properly educate their children.

Our actions, or inactions, will determine the future of our race. Please join Black parents across America who know that if we are not organized, our children will not be recognized. If we do not speak up, Black children will have no voice. Black parents must advocate as well as educate. We must take responsibility for the education of our children.

By joining the League of Black Parents, you will also join our community-based Black Star PTA chapter so that we can take advantage of existing resources. Our next next monthly meeting of the League of Black Parents in Chicago on Saturday, May 9, 2009, at 3509 South King Drive, Suite 2B, at 10:15 am.

Annual membership for the League of Black Parents is $50.00. Everyone is invited to join. Please contact 773.285.9600 or blackstar1000@ameritech.net for more information or to become a member of the League of Black Parents. Membership is open to parents, educators, clergy, community members and students of all races, ethnicities and faith backgrounds.

We want to start chapters on the south side, the north side and the west side of Chicago as well as in western suburbs, southern suburbs and northern suburbs. We also want to start chapters in other cities. Thank you for being in the vanguard of educating and saving Black children.

May you realize your best,

Phillip Jackson Executive Director
The Black Star Project
773.285.9600

Fiesty...Assertive...Unladylike...Aggressive...

2009-04-27T07:25:00.001-07:00

Don't Call Me Sassy!

celebrating girlhood,womonhood, surviving and being healthy sexual beings

bring yourself, bring your daughters, mothers, sisters and friends

performance & community discussion

Thursday, April 30

7-9pm

Jane Addams Hull-House

@ The University of Illinois at Chicago

800 S. Halsted

$5 suggested donation

(Note: no one will be turned away for lack of funds)

Name calling:

feisty, assertive, unladylike,

abrasive, fast, aggressive, wild and sassy!

For Black girls and womyn these words often have a negative connotation.

How are Black girls and womyn tracked, alienated and stigmatized with these names?

Panelists:

Keisha Farmer-Smith- manager of Girl World, Alternative Inc.

Renisha Campbell- public health community organizer

Sharon Powell- sex health educator

Mariame Kaba- program officer for education and youth development

at the Steans Family Foundation
Dr. Stephanie Brown- health educator

Moderator: Amina- femcee and hip-hop activist

Don't Call Me Sassy performance:

Written and Directed by AquaMoon

Performed by:

Rebecca Cotter, Shanara Fornett, Carmen Jones and Tierra Winston.

April 30 is Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Attendees are encouraged to bring poems

celebrating womyn surviving all forms

of violence and being healthy sexual beings.

Please RSVP at
DontCallMeSassy@spokenexistence.com

Co-Sponsors Campus Advocacy Network (CAN), Student Outreach Services (SOS) & Men Against Sexual Violence (MASV)

For more information visit:
http://spokenexistence.com/DontCallMeSassy.html

Womyn's health and the environment...

2009-04-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.womenandenvironment.org/aboutwve/whyawomensorganization

Why a Women's Environmental Organization?

WVE focuses attention on the environmental issues directly affecting women because while harm to our natural environment affects all of us, women and children are more frequently exposed to chemicals in the home, and we carry the health impacts of these exposures in a unique way. Furthermore, women possess important social, political and economic potential to influence environmental policy-making.

Environmental Impacts on Women
Most chemicals used today have never been tested for their risks to human health. Of those that have been tested, most have been evaluated for their acute impacts to adult males in industrial settings. The chemical exposure routes and health impacts on women are different and have historically been routinely overlooked. Trends in certain diseases in women are on the rise for reasons we cannot currently explain, although environmental chemicals are suspected of playing a role. WVE believes that toxic chemical exposures and impacts to women deserve greater attention to better protect public health for all.

First, women are exposed to chemicals differently than men, more frequently encountering toxic chemicals in the home. For example, women are significantly greater users of personal care products including soaps, cosmetics, lotions and the like. Surveys conducted by the Campaign for

Safe Cosmetics indicate that women use an average of nine personal care products each day – exposing themselves to a mixture of over 100 individual chemicals. Twenty-five percent of women (but only one in a hundred men) report using an average of 15 products daily[i]. Similarly, women are more greatly impacted by the chemicals in cleaning products in the home. While gender roles have changed culturally over time, a national study showed that women today are still doing over 70% of the housework in the average home[ii]. Women who spend most of their time at home may also have a higher exposure to potentially hazardous cleaning chemicals. Unfortunately there is little regulation determining what kinds of chemicals can be used in these products, leaving the door open to a variety of toxic exposures. These small daily exposures can lead to chemicals building up in our bodies, which add up over a lifetime of use.

Second, women carry the impacts of toxic chemical exposure differently than men. Many chemicals accumulate in fat and women generally have a higher percentage of fat tissue than men. For example, in 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that women, as compared to men, had significantly higher levels of 10 of the 116 toxic chemicals they tested. Three of the 10 chemicals were phthalates – a group of chemicals found commonly in health and beauty products that are linked to birth defects[iii]. Women are also the first environment for the next generation. Many chemicals stored in a woman’s body are passed onto her child during pregnancy and later through breast-feeding. A 2005 study by the

Environmental Working Group revealed that at least 287 hazardous industrial chemicals pass through the placenta to the fetus[iv]. Synthetic chemicals are so prevalent in a woman's breast milk today that, if bottled for sale, most breast milk would not pass FDA regulations. While studies still document that breastfeeding remains the best option for building infant immunity, the quantity of chemicals to which we are exposing our young is of grave concern and poses an unnecessary burden on the developing child.

Thirdly, we are also seeing an increase in women’s health problems potentially related to environmental chemical exposure. Over the last two decades, breast cancer rates have risen from a lifetime risk of one in 20 to one in eight[v]. The onset of puberty is occurring at an earlier age among young girls, with girls starting menstruation on average a few months earlier than they did 40 years ago, and developing breasts up to one to two years earlier[vi]. Endometriosis, a leading cause of female infertility, is far more common today than it was 50 years ago, affecting an estimated 5.5 million women in the U.S. and Canada[vii].Furthermore, minority racial populations of women bear a greater burden of chronic diseases in the United States that have been linked with exposure to toxic chemicals. For example, according to the CDC, African-American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than are women of any other racial or ethnic group. Autoimmune diseases such as lupus affect women at a much higher rate than men. Lupus affects African-American women at three times the rate of white women. Lupus is also more common in women of Hispanic, Asian and American Indian descent.[viii] African American, American Indian, and Puerto Rican infants have higher death rates than white infants. In 1998, the death rate among African-American infants was 2.3 times greater than that among white infants.

Women Influencing Environmental Policy
When surveyed, women consistently rate the environment as one of their greatest concerns. Focus group data gathered in Seattle in 2002 indicate that women are more concerned about dangers posed by toxic chemicals than are men. Nationwide polling shows that women feel this concern regardless of their political party affiliation; a majority of both Democratic and Republican women described themselves as very concerned about chemical pollution in our environment. Generally, women also remain the primary providers of healthcare oversight for their families. A poll conducted by the federal Office of Women’s Health found that nearly two-thirds of women indicated that they alone were responsible for healthcare decisions for their family, and 83% had sole or shared responsibility for financial decisions regarding their family’s health. Women also hold tremendous consumer power. It is estimated that women make 80% of all household buying decisions. Corporations can be persuaded to change their ways when the majority of their consumers make their demands clear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[i] Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Survey, June 2004. Reported at: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/research/exposures.php
[ii] Bird, C (1999). Gender, Household Labor, and Pyschological Distress: The Impact of the Amount and Division of Housework. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol 40, No. 1; March 1999.
[iii] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) 2003. Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Department of Health and Human Services. NCEH Pub No. 02-0716. January 2003.
[iv] Environmental Working Group (EWG) 2005. Body Burden 2: The Pollution in Newborns. July 2005. Available at: http://archive.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/
[v] Breast Cancer Fund (2008). State of the Evidence: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment, fifth edition. 2008 Available at: http://www.breastcancerfund.org/publications
[vi] Steingraber, S. (2007). The Falling Age of Puberty. The Breast Cancer Fund. August 2007. Available at: http://www.www.breastcancerfund.org/puberty
[vii] Women’s Foundation of California (2003) Confronting Toxic Contamination in Our Communities: Women’s Health and California’s Future. 2003.
[viii] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2008) Eliminate Disparities in Lupus (Online Factsheet). Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities (

Goddess...

2009-04-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

i tried to have a fight with god,

but she loved me enuf to win

that battle-- i am glad about

that...sometimes, we so busy

fighting ourselves that we miss

that the sky is luscious and beautiful. (c)vpb

i wrote this last year and as i sat on the stoop this morning, squninting at the sun, day dreaming, writing and sipping my green breakfast shake i remembered these words. And what a beautiful Saturday for a homegoing...continue to smile upon us Nichole.

evolving,
moon

Chicago: Update on Center for Women and Families...

2009-04-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Details of the 4/23 noon rally (in front of UIH, 1740 W Taylor Street) and 4/23, 7pm vigil (in front of clinic, 1858 West 18th St) are coming soon...stay tuned.

In case you didn't sign the petition:
UIC Students:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/uichealthcareforwomenandfamilies/
Community Supporter: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Rhealthcareforwomenandfamilies/index.html
UIC physician/provider:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pilsenclinic/
UIC public health:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sphhealthcareforwomenandfamilies/
UIC medicine:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savepilsenclinic/index.html

More Information about the Center for Women and Families...

The University of Illinois Health system is closing Center for Women and Families in Pilsen, located at 1858 West 18th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60608. It saw approximately 6500 patient visits this past year. The clinic provides needed prenatal and pediatric care for mainly Spanish speaking, low-income women and families, for whom distance from care will be a great obstacle due to financial, language, and cultural barriers. Closing this clinic is a direct contradiction of the UIC mission statement which states that UIC "focuses on healthcare for under-served areas along with the advancement of biomedical knowledge and practice." (more on this Urban Mission http://www.uic.edu/index.html/welcome.shtml)

It is within our power as students of this University to state first, that we do not accept this closing as a contradiction of the University's Urban Mission and, second, that we have been educated by the University of Illinois to understand that moving prenatal and pediatric care- OUT of a neighborhood and away from a vulnerable, low income population, is both ethically controversial and a recipe for adverse health outcomes.

For more information from the perspective of the community of Pilsen:http://www.extranews.net/news.php?nid=4692 http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=32583

Detail of the services that the clinic provides:http://uillinoismedcenter.org/content.cfm/women_families

what?

2009-04-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

forget the pirates, what about the toxic waste that's dumped in somalian waters by the european union? dont believe the hype that is projected loudly on the t.v.

grrr,

moon

RIP: An angel and ancestor Nichole L. Shields...

2009-04-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

One of Chicago's literary sistas has made her transition. It's hard to type that. I am very stunned right now b/c i just talked to this sista via email on Thursday, so to receive an email that she passed on Friday is blowing me.

Nichole L. Shields.

We always had a running joke b/c we'd call each other 'the other Nic(h)ole'. One of my middle names is also Nicole.

This sista was very inspirational and helpful to me when I started UnSilenced Woman Press and in offering guidance when I published my first book of poetry and prose. In addition, she has also been very supportive of the work we do as AquaMoon. Oh an, she gave camil a blurb for her book...

She said the following about butta to fly by camil.williams (Aqua)

"camil’s voice resonates all that a conscious writer of the 21st century must possess: truth, respect for language, insightfulness, and a sincere heart.

Nichole L. Shields
Author/Gwendolyn Brooks Archivist

For what would have been Mama Gwendolyn Brooks 90th earthday AquaMoon and Brooks Permission did a poetry reading in honor of Mama Gwen. I think that was the last time I actually saw Nichole read poetry.

This sista was a peach. Down to earth. And o' so classy. Her short do, tall stature and distinct voice were all distinct, but it is her generosity and kind heart that I will remember and miss the most.

My favorite poem by Nichole was also her signature piece...

Momma in Red

They said that the only reason
my momma wore a red
dress to her daddy’s funeral
was because she hated him
and was just being sassy

I know she wore it
because it was
the only one she had!

How befitting the title of her first book, One Less Road To Travel.

Life is too short, no matter how long it is....

Love,
Moon

STAND..."Die In"

2009-04-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

We did a performance/Q & A at Queens College in Flushing, New York. After the Q & A, we participated in a "Die In" with the students of the Queens Chapter of STAND: Ending Genocide in Darfur. The "Die In" was done in solidarity with those suffering in the Sudan. About 1:30pm - April 1, on the lawn of Queens College, we layed down in the form of a peace sign. Okay, Aqua layed down and I was the photographer, and I handed out leaflets to passerbyers. I handed out quite a few leaflets nad engaged several students in conversation about Darfur. We stand in solidarity with these students who are committed to activism. Below are some of my pics from the "Die In." Also, big hug and thank you to Dr. P. Nadasen for always being so supportive of our work.

In progress,
Moon

Discovery High School in the Bronx...

2009-04-09T07:29:00.001-07:00

When we were in NYC we did a performance and workshop at Discovery High School in the Bronx. Shout out to the students that touched our hearts and inspire us to continue to do the work that we do. We are also students of life and we've learned something from each person that we've encountered on this journey.

Love,

Moon

April 9: Fight for Justice

2009-04-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

WORLD LEADERS ARE MEETING TO DISCUSS HOW TO COMBAT RACISM AND THE UNITED STATES REFUSES TO OFFICIALLY PARTICIPATE!! WHY?

FORUM ON DURBAN II (WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM) AND HOW THE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM AND THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL ARE LINKED

Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn,
Thursday, April 9th at 6:00 p.m.

SPEAKERS:

Standish Willis, civil and human rights lawyer, leader of National Conference of Black Lawyers, and attendee at the Durban I conference in 2001

David Stovall, Assistant Professor of Education at UIC and long-time community activist, volunteer teach at Little Village/Lawndale H.S. for Social Justice

Ali Abunimah, writer and commentator on Middle East and Arab-American affairs and founder of Electronic Intifada. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Lebanon's Daily Star and Ha'aretz. He is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli Palestinian Impasse

Lynette Jackson, Professor of African History and Gender and Women’s Studies at UIC, Advocate for refugee and human rights in Africa who has visited refugee camps in Sudan and Kenya, Moderator

The United States' refusal to officially participate in the World Conference Against Racism (Durban II) gathering in Geneva at the end of April is an outrage given the long and bloody history of racism in this country and worldwide. We understand that the reluctance to fully affirm Palestinian human rights is at the core of the U.S. refusal as well as a desire to suppress demands about reparations by African Americans and others. Please join us on April 9 to learn more about these issues and sign a petition demanding the U.S. reverse its decision: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/YES2DURBANII?e

African Americans for Peace and Justice in Israel and Palestine
In collaboration with Arab and Jewish Partnership for Peace & Justice in the Middle East
http://www.arabjewishpartnership.org/
http://africanamericans4palestine.blogspot.com/

We desire quality and assessable healthcare...

2009-04-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Organizers of the Raising Women's Voices Speakout and Conference for the healthcare that we need...

We are back from New York. There's a lot to post but it will take me a few days to bring ya up to date. I'll start with the conference we attended. Raising Women's Voices for the healthcare we need.

We are planning a Speak Out here in Chicago with Black Women for Reproductive Justice so stay tuned for that.

Ponder this point...

WOMYN GET SECOND CLASS HEALTHCARE...NOW WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO ABOUT IT?

In progress,

Moon

Updated Website...

2009-03-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

in the round has been updated.
http://spokenexistence.com/intheround.html

Day 7: Congratulations...

2009-03-26T05:57:00.001-07:00

We've made it... *doing the cabbage patch and the running man*

So, how ya feeling?

We'd like to congratulate you on making it to Day 7 of Spring Cleaning Your Body. We trust that you've learned something about yourself and your body and we look forward to seeing you on a regular basis here on in the round... Also visit the in the round pages on our website.

This has been an amazing journey and I've felt your energy as we've progressed through the 7-Days. Writing the blogs everyday has been therapeutic for me and has helped to keep me focused so yay for me! *go Moon, go Moon...doing the moonwalk...lol lol lol*

Come back tomorrow for "what's next..."

Visit our website for today's food tip on Raw Foods and Enzymes.

Love ya,

Moon

Day 6: Let's Activate...

2009-03-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

Visit our website for today’s food tip about Coconut Oil...

Happy Wednesday and Day 6...Wow, how fast these days have been moving.

Yesterday was a demanding day at work, but I made it through and making it through this sunny day as well.

Aqua and I went to an Ella's Daughters meeting afterwork yesterday-- we were replenished by the sistas at the meeting. What's Ella's Daughters? -- cuz yahll know my mama's name is not Ella, but Ms. Lisa. (i'm silly today...) In short, Ella's Daughters is a network of artists, activists, scholars and writers working in the tradition of Ella Baker. Who is Ella Baker? Do yo herstory lesson here.

Oh yeah, I forgot to post this yesterday...sign this petition to demand that the U.S. participates in the Durban II Conference.

This Conference is the follow up to the 2001 World Congress Against Racism Conference. All I gotta say is how can this county, with it's history of racism, not participate in this conference. The U.S. needs to own up for its foulness and be at this conference!

Visit the African Americans for Justice and Peace in Palestine/Israel blog, a Chicago-based group to find out more info about the Petition and more information about why solidarity among oppressed people is so important. AquaMoon is also in solidarity with the movement that's promoting a peace and just Palestine/Israel.

Okay, this is for the brothas. Sistas, forward this to all the men you know.

Male Ally Conference at UIC: Engaging men to end violence against women.

To kick off the conference, Byron Hurt, one of the nation's most widely-known male anti-sexism activists, will be screening his award winning documentary "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes." Immediately following the screening AquaMoon will be a part of a panel discussion to discuss masculinity in hip-hop. Friday April 24th at 7:00 pm James Stukel Towers Events Center 1235 S. Halsted StreetFree and open to the Public

Note: Friday's event is open to all (men and womyn)Saturday and Sunday is for men only. Sistas dont get mad, just like we need to go behind closed doors and discuss us and deal with us, so do the men. Parking is available for a fee at the Maxwell Street Parking structure located east of Halsted Street with entrances on Maxwell and Union streets. There is also limited street meter parking on Halsted St. and Roosevelt Ave.

The rest of the conference on Saturday and Sunday, April 25-26 is ONLY for men. The conference is free and open to male-identified persons.

Keynote speaker: Byron Hurt, director of "Beyond Beats and Rhymes" Men Against Sexual Violence is proud to announce the first annual Male Ally Conference at UIC. The Male Ally Conference is a two day event that seeks to engage men in ending transphobia, homophobia and violence against women. The conference will take place April 25th & 26th 2009, at UIC's Student Center East, The Illinois Rooms, 750 S. Halsted Chicago.

The conference features men from all communities leading workshops on race and masculinity, disability and masculinity, trans-masculinity, and unlearning homophobia. During these workshops men will have the opportunity to talk about what it means to "be a man" and how race, transgender identity, sexual orientation, and disability intersect to change this meaning from community to community. Men will also learn about what they can do in their everyday lives to stop a culture of violence.

The second day of the conference takes theory to action with exercise to encourage coalition building and networking. During day two conference participants will also have the opportunity to share ideas for further action and education on our campus and in their home communities."

The conference is free and open to all male-identified persons. If you require an accommodation in order to participate, please contact the Office of Women's Affairs at (312) 413-1025 two weeks prior to the event. If you would like more information about how to get involved or how to attend, contact Stephen Adler at masvuic@gmail.com.

As far as my food intake yesterday, I had several small meals because of my busy day:

Green morning smoothie: lecitin, flax oil, cocunut oil, green meal mix and I primarily used watermelon and added a coupla chunks of cantalopue

Sunflower sprouts, strawberries, avocado and a handful of cashew and almond salad

An apple

A snack bag (ziploc baggie) of wheat pita chips

Romaine lettuce, tomato, cucumber and three olives salad

1/4 a chocolate chip cookie

2 cups of Raw spinach

Plenty of water

in progress,
Moon

Day 5: Bringing Sexy Back...

2009-03-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Visit our website for today’s food tip about Avocados...

My fav food is guacamole so how could we not tell you about avocados. Today is dedicated to avocados….lol lol lol lol. And avocados are SEXY too! *wink*

Speaking of sexy, our cast is bringing sexy back. Forget Timberlake, our cast is bringing being healthy sexual beings back instyle for womyn of color. Yesterday's rehearsal was awesome. Yah'll dont wanna miss, "Dont Call Me Sassy."

Yesterday's cleansing was good, great actually. I added spirulina to my green morning smoothie, for some added energy. In addition, I used a mix of watermelon, cantalopue, black and blue berries in the smoothie, it was quite tasty even with the extra greeness of the spirulina. Spirulina is nasty, but it's good for ya.

Sunday night I prepared meals to take with me on Monday and that was very helpful throughout my very demanding day.

Love,
Moon

Day 4: What am I hungry for...

2009-03-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

Visit our website for today’s food tip about

Artificial Sweetners...

UNEDITED

Peace peoples,

This is the mid-way point. How ya doing?

THE COMMENTS/QUESTIONS/CONCERNS/SUGGESTIONS YOU’RE EMAILING, CALLING AND TEXTING US, PUT IT ON THE BLOGS INSTEAD, COMMENT ON THE BLOGS PEOPLE and we’re asking this of you because there aint "nuffin" to be ashamed of and your comments/questions/concerns/suggestions will help all of us. We are doing this together. And remember the ground rules of in the round, this is not a spectator event. This is reciprocity, give and take. Don’t take more than you need and you give something to the process as well.

A few tips and points of clarity as we proceed:

NO meat includes no fish and shrimp.
As far as rice and pasta. Minimize it and if you do have it, eat whole-wheat pasta or brown rice.
FYI: Flattop Grill has brown rice, rock on wit yo bad self Flattop.
Do NOT overdo it on the fruits, remember green is the magic word. Green vegetables.
As we proceed from here, minimize your contact with toxins, i.e. Household cleaning products and harsh chemicals (even relaxers).
Stop eating at 7pm. No more food intake after 7pm. This allows for better digestion.
Sleep: For the next three days get 8-10 hours of sleep. Allow your body to rest.
Portions are important that is why I refer to things as handful or tablespoon. I aint into weighing food but simple measurements to know my intake.
For those of you that want to continue with the cleansing some of us are going 30-days and we’ll build up to a fast. So email us to let us know if you want to go beyond the 7-Day Cleanse. aquamoon@spokenexistence.com

I will definitely be doing the 8-10 hours of sleep effective tomorrow cuz tonight, I’ll have a late evening and I’m on deadline for a project at my full-time gig so today is my hump day.

Tonight Aqua and I are teaching our Communiversity course this evening at the Chicago Freedom School. From the (B)lack (A)rts (M)ovement to Hip-Hop. Check out the Chicago Freedom School and the amazing work that they're doing.

In addition, we have rehearsal with our cast directly after Communiversity. It’s quite settling, comfortable and refreshing to be working with members of our cast again. These sistas got these personalities that compliment each other and us. They keep us laughing, true to ourselves and making sure that we are writing and executing our craft responsibly. There is a different process for Aqua and I when we're preparing material for the two of us and when we're creating for a cast. Come to think about it, I think we're freer when we're writing works that others will perform. But we're also harder on ourselves when we're writing for a cast stage production. We get real anal...lol lol lol. We think that there should be integrity in being a writer, especially writing works for others to bring to life on the stage. Big shout out to all the actors and actresses we’ve worked with since the beginning. It’s also good to see our cast members hone their skills and have life experiences that add to their craft.

I digress to yesterday’s post about the female condoms. You have to use your fingers to insert and guide the female condom to your cervix...I was thinking yesterday that this would be a challenge for many of us because we think touching ourselves is nasty. Well, I dont think touching myself is nasty *insert smiley face here* but I am a sista so we reflect each other.

Girls and womyn, especially Black girls and womyn, get okay with looking at yourself and touching yourself. If you have never looked at your vagina make it into a ceremony— your own private ceremony. Buy a hand-held mirror at the Dollar Store and decorate it. Bedazzle it, get some paint, glitter etc and decorate it. Burn some candles, play inspirational music and sit with yourself, and when you are ready look inside of yourself. It aint nasty.

We must demystify our vagina and get away from thinking it is nasty or that we are nasty for looking at ourselves or touching ourselves. The world has told us that we are nasty, dirty and bad. NO we are NOT. Reclaim your power. It aint nasty to know what you look like ‘down there’ or how parts of yourself feel. A man or another person does not have to show you or guide you on how you feel or what makes you feel good, find out for yourself. Know you, know your body, ALL OF YOUR BODY. Know that "Divine Thang," that is your sacred seat, your core, that is priceless between your legs. Honor her, don’t be scared of her or let anyone tell you she or you are nasty.

I don’t have any cute transition here so I stand solid in my female warrior stance as I go from talking about vaginas to talking about food…lol lol lol.

Food yesterday was a bit of a challenge but I made it through. I had to get Oprah with myself. "Moon, what are you hungry for, this is not about food…" lol lol lol lol. But seriously, I had to sit still and have a moment, actually momentS, of clarity with myself. It’s simple, I was hungry for some rest, I had a full day and night on Saturday, and my body and brain needed to rest. I needed to be centered so yoga was good yesterday.

I like yoga because unlike team sports, yoga is all about me. With yoga I give myself permission to be selfish and focus on me. It’s about me reaching my level and not comparing myself to the other sistas. Me, me, me…Even with in it being about me, I do not shut myself down. I remain open to nonverbal communication and communing with the other sistas so that we can share energy and space as a part of our sacred wombon sista circle.

I am a part of a sacred wombon sista circle and we met yesterday. We’ve been practicing yoga...tho I was tired I pressed my way through but, by the end of yoga, the last coupla poses— I was done, couldn’t even concentrate just wanted to lay on the mat. lol lol lol. I had a 30-second delay all day…And when we came out of a cat cobra pose (iont know the technical name for it) to go into a downward facing dog I was like, "nope, my body is done." I lay on the mat and waited the three minutes for the ‘melt into the floor’ cool down.

It’s funny cuz we’ve gotten to know the music our instructor uses, so we know when she is going to say, "and hold in this position breathing deeply…" lol lol lol. Anyhoo, I call it ‘melt into the floor’ because that’s what you do. You lay flat on your back and let it all go, no tension complete nothingness. Feet fall to each side, arms to the side, palms down— for me, this is surrender. I give it all to the Most High. I was dragging, but I am glad I participated. I got some good deep breathing in and I did push myself on a few of the poses that normally challenge me.

Meals:

Green Smoothie (green meal, lecithin, flax oil, coconut water, a coupla chunks of frozen cantaloupe and frozen blackberries) I freeze FRESH fruit for the smoothies, instead of using ice.
Guacamole (yummy yummy, my favorite), lettuce, corn tortillas and refried black beans. I limited the refried black beans to two-tablespoons.
The refried black beans were calling my name, lol lol lol, but people resist refried beans if you can during this cleansing, they are fattening.
Since I had the refried beans, I modified my last meal of the day and increased my vegetables. Spinach and raw okra and just a tablespoon of potatoes.

People, control the starches. For many of you doing the no meat, dairy etc is pushing it, but also be cognizant of your carb/starch intake. I aint saying eliminate it, but definitely reduce it the last days of this 7-Day journey.

Before going to bed last night. I packed up food for today. I even packed up enough food for dinner so that I wont be depriving myself while at Communiversity and rehearsal. Preparation is important.

Have an inspiring day and much love,
Moon

Day 3: Female Condom Upgrade...

2009-03-22T05:54:00.000-07:00

Visit our website for today’s food tip about the hazards of Flaming hot cheetos...

Moving right along…We are now in Day 3 of our 7-Days of Healthier Eating. Hopefully you have settled into the spring cleaning of your body.

Yesterday was cool for me, minus the mucous. Mucous was coming out of all ends...lol lol. As a part of my cleaning I take fenugreek pills and a bentonite/psyllium/water mixture to help to pull out toxins and mucous. I also do shots of wheatgrass to help with the mucous as well.

It’s all-good. I embrace all the yucky details of cleansing...lol lol lol

Aqua and I went to a Female Condom and HIV/AIDS workshop with the Chicago Women's AIDS Project yesterday. We did an opening performance at their conference last year and was so inspired by the womyn the Project supports and offers resources to. These womyn are reflections of our mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts and grandmothers. It was good to see so many sistas out, especially the teen girl groups that were present. These young ladies were empowered, and vocal about sex, myths and the abstinence only education that they’ve been taught in school.

What trips me out about abstinence only education is not only is it "abstinence only," it’s abstinence only "til marriage." The til marriage part places a religious connotation on there that assumes that everyone is a christian or even religious.

What about those girls that will not marry, what about being a healthy sexual being, what about being responsible and mature, what about other options?

Abstinence only has not worked. Illinois statistics are crippling. In addition, MOST of this abstinence only rhetoric is geared towards girls. Are we the sole keepers of this thang called procreation? No we are not, tho we carry babies, it takes two (for the most part). As much attention should be placed on boys.

I am a proponent of comprehensive sex education as a human right. It was a sista from the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health at the workshop with the statistics/info that places the reality of the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only sex ed into perspective...it has NOT worked.

Concerning the female condom. The FDA has approved the FC2 (female condom 2). This one is
more affordable.

Sistas be empowered by having your own protection and brothas support us as we empower ourselves. We can make love and be safe at the same time. Oh and sistas the ring, which is flexible, can be used for clitoral stimulation, what a nice perk!

For a female condom demonstration, go here:

Ladies be patient with this. Before using the female condom (FC) with your partner, make a date with yourself and practice putting it on. Candles, incense, a glass of wine, jazz and get comfortable with putting on the condom.

After the Female Condom workshop, we headed to Logan Square for the planning meeting for Chicago’s Hip-Hop Heritage Month events. This year’s calendar of events is going to be engaging, fun, innovative and and and just downright awesome. Yes, I said awesome, I'm bringing the A-word to hip-hop....lol lol lol. Visit the Chicago Hip-Hop Iniative website to stay abreast.

A few years ago, with the Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative, we started the Bgirl Power component of the Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month. We are so glad that the Initiative has been holding it down every year to make sure girls and womyn are included in Hip-Hop Heritage Month. Girl Power!

This year's theme: And it don't stop...the movement continues!

As you can see, we had a full day and we maintained our No Meat. No Dairy. No Soda. No Junk Food.

What did I eat yesterday?
Breakfast: Green Smoothie (green meal, lecithin, flax oil, coconut water, a coupla chunks of frozen mangos and frozen blueberries) I freeze FRESH fruit for the smoothies.
Snacks: Apple, a strawberry and a handful of grapes
Lunch/Dinner: Foot-long veggie-patty sub from Subway (still be healthy while you’re on the go) and steamed okra/string beans. Oil and vinegar on the sub and even mustard is better than the dairy-based mayonnaise etc.

And I had plenty of water throughout the day...

Empowered,
Moon

Day 2: The magic word is "GREEN"....

2009-03-21T03:18:00.001-07:00

Visit our website for today’s food tip about Alkaline foods…Ph Balance.

So, how was day one? Any withdrawals or was it breezy?

Day 1 was cool for me. I started the day off with a green smoothie (green meal powder, banana, lecithin, coconut oil, flax oil and coconut water). Yummy, green stuff rocks. Sidenote: I was going to put a glass of green stuff as the image on the cover of my next book. Hi-larious. Last spring/summer when I was in the belly of writing the book, I was also doing a lot of cleansing so I was inundated with green. (NO, The Green Bible is not my book...lol lol lol.)

Green is also my favorite color. My grandmother can not understand why, which I cant understand why pink is her favorite color.

For a snack, I had a slice of cantaloupe and a handful of raspberries.

For lunch I had, steamed broccoli and string beans w/multi-colored bell peppers, a puff cake with agave nectar and hummus, and some hyssop tea.

For dinner I had, a spinach salad with strawberries, cashews and avocado. And some mint tea.

Oh yeah, to help break down my food I take vegan enzymes pills with my meals.

To help keep me committed to this process, one of my goals is to get up between 4 and 6am. I use this time to write, meditate, do yoga or belly dancing, or just to day dream. This helps me to stay focused.

Lastly, as you purge, consider doing a forgiveness list...Number a piece of paper 1-20 and write I forgive______________ completely and totally. Write the names of the people that come to mind. I know, some of us hold onto thangs...but a part of this spring cleaning is to let go of those things that got us all jammed up. Not only food got us jammed up, but past hurts, emotions, 'i aint good enuf' thoughts etc. Forgiveness aint about the other person(s), it's about you. Letting yourself free from the discomfort of what was done. Let it go, let it flow...And if you need to forgive yourself, forgive you as well.

I was hipped to this exercise in an online class I did with Daily Om and I do this exercise often. Funny thing happened the first time I did the exercise, I freaked myself out because I wrote God's name down. After I wrote it down I looked all around me like God was about to come get me and beat me up...lol lol. I mean, I was really scared and a lil ashamed. Some nerve, how I'm gonna be mad at God and need to forgive her? Yeah, that was a big deal for me to realize that I needed to forgive God, and forgiving her helped in my evolution and growth.

Have an easy Day 2,

Moon

Day 1: Who am I...

2009-03-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

Day 1 of

Spring Clean Your Body...

7-Days of Healthier Eating

Visit our website for today's food tip about dairy.

No Meat. No Dairy. No Junk Food. No Soda

We start this journey off with a question:

Who am I?

With the beginning of spring, this is a good time to ask yourself this question. Who am I? Also, what am I doing....What do I want...What do I need?

The Spring Equinox represents equal day and equal night, new life, growth and a time of letting go of stifling behavior patterns, stifling people, negative energy and self-destructive habits.

Write down your intentions for the season and for the rest of the year. If you did this during the winter solstice look at what you wrote in December/January and decide if there is anything you want/need to follow up on.

Plant new 'seeds' or re-imagine those 'seeds' that need nurturing and tending to. 'Seeds' are thoughts, affirmations and goals. Your goals can be something as simple as "everyday I will meditate for five-minutes ,"or as grandeur as, "By the end of the year I will relocate to another state." With your intentions, write down a plan. Don't just let your intentions dangle out their in the wind, put some spunk, good vibes, discipline and dedication, behind them.

Now that we are thawing from the winter, this is a time to check in with 'self'.

Close your eyes and do a body scan. Asking each part of your body, "How are you doing?" Listen to your body, not with judgement, but with patience and love. If anything is not as you would like it then make the concerted effort to change it.

Throughout the 7-Days of Spring Cleaning Your Body check in with yourself everyday. Spend time with yourself by taking a walk, journaling, reading a book, gardening or simply sitting and staring out of the window. It is okay to tend to self, it is okay not to be rushing or always on the go. It is okay to tell the job, school, children, partner, dog, bills, "Wait, I need to take time for myself!" This isnt being lazy or irresponsible, this is being centered and being responsible for your own well-being.

These 7-Days are all about you. Do you...

Breakfast, lunch and dinner....

2009-03-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Cleansing Plan Breakfast suggestions

Fruit salad with oats -- Fresh fruit salad sprinkling with oats.
Fresh fruit smoothie -- Fresh fruit, unsweetened organic apple juice and ice (you can add lecithin and flax oil)

Cleansing Plan Lunches/Dinner suggestions

Vegetable soup Large bowl of vegetable or lentil soup (either homemade or supermarket ‘fresh’)
Baked potato with fresh herbs and vegetables-- One day bake a coupla potatoes that you can eat during the week. Whatever vegetables you have in the house steam them put a tablespoon of olive oil (extra virgin) on them and season with herbs and viola!

Salads

A coupla times in the week cut up fresh vegetables and fruit. Eg. Green/red/orange/yellow peppers, broccoli, okra, strawberries etc. Have some raspberries, blackberries, avocado, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and whatever other goods you picked up at the store and each day mix and match the vegetables in a salad. Sprouts are great as well. (Sprouts: mungbean, lentil and whole green peas are awesome!) Plus sprinkle a few raw almonds or unsalted cashews on top.
For dressing, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)

OH, if you cant afford to buy organic then clean your fruits and vegetables with white or apple cider vinegar.

Raw Kale Salad

Fresh kale chopped up, chopped red peppers, onions, garlic and cilantro. Massage olive oil into the kale and then mix the rest of the ingredients in.

Broccoli and Cranberry Salad

1 large bunch of broccoli, broken up into bite-sized bits3/4 cup dried cranberries, sweetened in apple juice1/2 - 1 cup raw soaked almonds blended with water and herbs in
3/4 cup cashewsred onion, diced (opt.)
http://www.fromsadtoraw.com/Recipes/BroccoliandCranberrySalad.htm

Cabbage greens

Grated red cabbage, carrots and string beans steamed and seasoned to taste.

Hummus

2c. chickpeas, soaked 24 hours and sprouted 72 hours4 cloves garlic, chopped 1/2 c.raw tahini (or to taste) 2 tbsp. nama shoyu or 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 2 lemons, juiced (to taste) 1 c. fresh parsley or more, to taste red onion, chopped, for garnish chives, for garnish parsley, for garnish extra virgin olive oil
Combine chickpeas, garlic and 1/2 cup water in a food processor and process until well mixed. Add tahini, nama shoyu or sea salt, lemon juice and parsley and process until very smooth. Adjust consistency with more water if necessary, and add seasonings and lemon juice as desired.Garnish with chopped red onion, chives, or parsley and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. http://www.fromsadtoraw.com/Recipes/RawHummus.htm

Cleansing Juice and Vegetable recipes

Broccoli & Chickpeas

6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped1/2 medium brown onion, finely chopped1/2 tsp of dried chilli flakes1/4 cup of olive oil1 large head of broccoli, chopped into florets, 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinse3/4 tsp of sea saltA handful of basil, roughly chopped. Juice of half a lemon....Just before serving, add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Snacks...

2009-03-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

Cleansing Plan Snack suggestions

Chopped raw okra

Unsalted, unbuttered popcorn (sprinkle some garlic powder on it for taste)

Strips of red peppers

Raspberries

Blackberries

Avocado slices

Seasonings, Greens and Teas...

2009-03-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Seasonings
Herbs and Sea salt….better yet, Himalayan Salt.

Greens
And do NOT overdue it on the fruit. And become very good friends with Green vegetables. You want to get to the point where you body is craving ‘green stuff’.

Teas
Drinking tea is good during cleansing, cold or hot. Try Mint or Ginger. (let us know how you like it…)Do NOT use sugar or its substitutes use honey or agave nectar if you need some sweetener.

To the smokers that are doing 7-Days of Healthier Eating...

2009-03-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

So, you've set a goal for yourself-- 7-Days you're giving up the ciggys! Yay! We are very proud of you and we want to offer you some support. We trust that 7-Days will lead to 14-Days, 30-Days, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year...FOREVER.

Here are somethings to help you:

You can buy the teas loose or in the bags, actually for many of these you'll have to buy loose. If you buy loose teas, make sure you get the tea strainer, infuser, or the individual bag filters to put the loose tea in to steep.

Teas:

Mullein Leaf, Damiana Herb, Coltsfoot Herb, Red Clover, Wild Lettuce and Ginseng Leaf.

Essential Oils can help with withdrawal the withdrawal side effects such as irritability, anger, anxiety, stress, nervousness, fatigue, restlessness and panic. You can use them as a spray or dab it on your skin. If you are putting it on your skin, test it first to make sure you are not allergic. Put a small dab on your wrist.

Essential Oils:

Lavendar, Geranium, Frankincense and Sweet Marjoram, Sandalwood, Orange, Chamomile, Eucalyptus, Fennel, and Grapefruit.

Lastly, try tea tree oil sticks.

You can buy all of these things at the health food stores.

NOTE: No member of AquaMoon, SpokenExistence, Inc/Foundation or UnSilenced Woman Press is a licensed physician, dietitian, nutritionist or doctor. We will not diagnose, prescribe or treat illness or disease of any kind. All information that we provide is for informational purposes only. You should consult your physician.

Side Effects of Cleansing/Detoxification...

2009-03-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

Positive side effects of cleansing/detoxification

Most people who undergo the detoxification process will have general feeling of well being especially after a body cleanse. In most cases, the most noticeable positive effects of detoxification are loss of weight. If you have been a bit over weight before you started the detoxification process, you can expect to shed off a few pounds after the process. The loss in weight is usually attributed to your reduced intake of food during detoxification.

Aside from loss of weight, you may also experience an increase in your energy level. As your body gets rid of all those pollutants and toxins, you will begin to feel more alive and energetic. There are a number of people who claims that they have never felt so highly charged until they went through the detoxification process. You can feel some tingeling in the body, and a "clearer" sight.

Not so pleasant side effects of cleansing/detoxification

The downside of detoxification is that during the detoxification process, you may begin to feel some negative side effects.

Headaches, sore muscles, cranky moods, insomnia and the general feeling of being physically weak are common during the first few days of the detoxification process. People who are coffee addicted may have stronger "pull out" effects, as usualy their PH Balance is not the best.

According to experts, these detoxification symptoms are but the normal reaction of the body to change. Note that when you undergo a detoxification process, you change your daily routine thus your body’s daily activities are altered. For instance, instead of eating a full western meal, you switch to some light meal with plenty of fibers.

Your body will need to get used to lesser amount of food intakes that is why there are some people who are undergoing the detoxification process who feels lightheaded or a bit dizzy at times. If you start feeling dizzy and lightheaded, do not be alarmed. Give your body time to adjust to the changes. In a few days, you will start feeling a lot better.

Another common reaction to detoxification is anxiety and restlessness. In most cases, this condition could lead to insomnia or inability to sleep soundly. If you start feeling restless and cranky, don’t be alarmed. Contrary to what you might be thinking at the moment, you are not about to lose your mind or something. You must remember that the detoxification process has disturbed your system by extracting all pollutants in your body and this could have some temporary side effects. If you feel nervous and cranky, try taking a walk or doing some yoga exercises to calm yourself.

As you could a get a little bit moody, try to be alone during long detoxification treatments. Clean your mind and not only your body.

But don't worry, there are also positive effects...and that's why we're doing this for the positive effects that outweigh the not so pleasant one.

Adding a spritual detox to your 7-Day Journey...

2009-03-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you that are doing the 7-Days of Healthier Eating...Spring Clean Your Body with us, here's a deeper level to take your cleansing-- if you choose...

What is a Spritual Detox? by Ron Northcutt

Some people have wanted to know more about "Spiritual Detox"... this is a movement of major energies that is usually associated with jumping to a higher vibratory level. Just like a Physical

Detox, it can be very mild or very powerful, and can manifest on many levels.

First of all, you need to remember that this is a good thing! Detox (or speedbump) is a signal that you are evolving and releasing old patterns. Your vibration is going higher. Rejoice! The challenge is to be able to see the rebirth within the death... because that is also what this is. Its a death of some part of your ego or small self. Its a death to the idea of "who you are" and your mask identity. Its a death to your old frequency and pattern.

Life is constant change, and change is death. Each moment, we die and are reborn... so this more palpable experience of death/rebirth should be no more troubling.

WARNING: Some of you with a very strong ego will continue to deny the detox... this is only going to prolong the discomfort. You MUST be vulnerable if you are to receive the Divine.
It is the emptiness of the cup which makes it useful.

You may also be tempted to externalize the problems and project them upon a certain event or person. This is an attempt to avoid the ego-death. Just remember - if you do not OWN your circumstance, then you do not have the power to affect change! The "blame game" is only going to weaken you.

Accept the reality of the detox and accept the lessons its bringing you.

Avoid denial or blame. Embrace your circumstance and allow yourself to feel.

Drop the story - experience the energy/emotion/moment.

Its ok if it feels bad - keep your head up and KNOW that it will pass (like any other storm).

Drop the story

Accept that you will probably have some "housecleaning" to do afterwards, storms often will remind us of work left to do or issues that need to be resolved.

Drop the story.

You have asked for this - you have asked for Divine source to make you whole and evolve your spirit. You have asked to be more open and to have more abundance in your life. You have asked for this great change.

Accept that you need this experience in order to grow, and feel how much more powerful and peaceful you are becoming. Experience the new level of acceptance and awareness that you are feeling. Above all, feel the bliss and joy thats bubbling up even now.

This Divine source energy is whats transmuting your life and changing the very nature of your spirit... cleansing and purifying you... removing all of the negative blocks, pain and anchors holding you back.

You have asked for this clarity.

Remember your faith in the Divine - relax, release and float. Just like the peaceful, blue ocean, when we relax, we float.

Spring Clean Your Body....

2009-03-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Cordelia's Top 3 tips to kick start your spring detox:
Water – We hear it all the time, but it bears repeating. Your body is 2/3 water, and water is essential to all the processes in the body. To improve your mood, skin and metabolism try to drink at least 8 – 8 oz glasses of water a day.
*Morning lemon drink – Starting each day off with warm lemon water stimulates your liver to detoxify your body - your skin will look better, you'll feel great, and you might even lose some weight! It is one of the easiest things you can do to increase your overall well-being. Just squeeze half a lemon into a glass, and fill with warm water.
*Eat your greens – Leafy and green vegetables like kale, spinach, and broccoli are jam packed with vitamins and nutrients to help restore vitality, and have even been shown to be effective at protecting you from certain cancers. Kale is particularly good for the liver, as it is a bitter green, which stimulates the production of bile, increasing your digestive ability. *Get more greens into your diet by putting them in salads, juicing them, making green smoothies - banana and kale is a surprisingly tasty combination, or lightly steaming them. *To be holistic – “detox” your environment and lifestyle as well. Take more walks outside, spring clean your house with non-toxic cleaners, start a new hobby – all of these things will “detox” your mind and your body.Read more: "Spring Detox Do's and Don'ts: Gentle, effective and oh so good for you."

Spring Detox Grocery List

Spring Cleaning for Your Body
Fit YogaMarch 2006A time characterized by birth, renewal, and energy, spring is possibly my favorite season. Seeing the way rain enlivens the world after months of dormancy is absolutely awe-inspiring. Days become longer and the sunshine warmer; birds begin to sing and buds prepare to blossom. In sync with spring’s revival, our bodies also shift into a higher gear, letting us experience a welcome surge of energy. Almost instinctively, we clean out our closets and throw open the windows to let in fresh air. But why limit spring cleaning to just our homes? Our bodies need it as well. Though we may not give it much thought, we often accumulate toxins in our bodies during the wintertime. Because we spend long hours indoors, we breathe less fresh air, we don’t exercise as much, and we’re generally not as active—after all, who wants to go jogging in a blizzard when the couch looks so cozy and inviting? But following months of shorter, darker days and heavier foods, the surging energy of spring brings cravings for freshness, cleansing, and rejuvenation. From March to May is the body’s natural time for cleansing and detoxification. A spring detox, in fact, revives your energy, brightens your complexion, and strengthens your immune system while helping you drop excess winter weight and eliminate toxins. As usual, Mother Nature provides exactly what we need. Asparagus and baby vegetables like carrots, beets, green beans, and new potatoes pour into the markets. Purifying herbs, such as parsley and basil, are once again fresh and local. Such lively, colorful produce is concentrated with nutrition and vitality—perfect for making potent detox juices and quick, cleansing broths. During the springtime, it’s also good to give your body a break by eating less. You may even wish to do a partial fast. Avoid heavy, rich foods that are hard to digest. Focus mainly on warm, light foods that counter the damp coolness of the spring season. Cook with spices like coriander, fennel, cumin, and turmeric to enhance digestion and brighten your skin. Instead of drinking coffee, warm up with cleansing teas, such as ginger or clove. Include lots of wholesome spring veggies in your diet and let them do what they do best: stimulate the kidneys, liver, and digestive tract to release long-stored toxins. Take spring cleaning to the hilt and let it rejuvenate your entire body.

Countdown Wed and Thursday....

2009-03-18T09:16:00.001-07:00

How ya doing?

You getting ready-- preparing yourself?

Have you gone grocery shopping yet?

By the way, isnt this the cutest picture... *this is when you say, "Awe"*...lol lol lol

Alrighty, so for Wednesday and Thursday here ya go! Oh and dont forget to visit the website and post a comment here on the blog. You never know how your words of encouragement, or an update on how you're progressing through this process will be helpful to the next person. Come on, give it a try!

Keep reading for the Wed and Thurs prep info.

In solidarity,
AquaMoon

Wednesday, March 18
Thought for the day: Wellness is a state of mind!

Food for the day: Eat 1 meal that has no meat, dairy, nothing processed, and no soda.

Mind/Spirit: Sit in complete silence with your eyes closed for 5 minutes today.

Body: Park your car a block away from where you are going, once today. If it's a parking lot, park on the otherside of the lot. Get off the bus a block away from where you're going.

Thursday, March 19
Thought for the day: I am a work in progress!

Food for the day: Eat 2 meals that have no meat, dairy, nothing processed, and no soda.

Mind/Spirit: Sit in complete silence with your eyes closed for 10 minutes today.

Body: If you have the option, dont go to the bathroom that is closest to you, go to the next one. *so that means you cant hold your 'tinkle' until the last minute.*

For those that want to go even deeper into what these 7-Days can do for you, go to bed asking yourself, "Who am I?" We'll let you know on Friday, Day 1 of Spring Cleaning our Bodies, why that question.

NOTE: No member of AquaMoon, SpokenExistence, Inc/Foundation or UnSilenced Woman Press is a licensed physician, dietitian, nutritionist or doctor. We will not diagnose, prescribe or treat illness or disease of any kind. All information that we provide is for informational purposes only. You should consult your physician.

Countdown: 3 days until Spring Cleaning...

2009-03-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Throughout the day, whenever you think about it say to yourself.

I can spring clean my body for 7-Days.

Once again, place no judgement on this statement. We are mentally preparing ourselves for this journey.

Also, for one meal this day, cut your meat intake in half and add more vegetables. Drink water (room temperature) instead of a flavored beverage with your meal.

NOTE: No member of AquaMoon, SpokenExistence, Inc/Foundation or UnSilenced Woman Press is a licensed physician, dietitian, nutritionist or doctor. We will not diagnose, prescribe or treat illness or disease of any kind. All information that we provide is for informational purposes only. You should consult your physician.

The countdown for 7-Days of Healthier Eating...

2009-03-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Peace all,

So, we're starting the countdown for 7-Days of Healthier Eating.

Friday, March 20, is the first day of spring (spring equinox) and National Meat Out day.

We've taken this a step further and last year we started 7-Days of Healthier Eating....Spring Clean your body.

For 7-Days -- No Meat. No Dairy. No Soda. No Junk Food. (and if you smoke, no cigs)

Let's give our bodies a break from meat, dairy, soda and junk food...one day at a time, for seven days. This is a whole body journey because as you release toxins it will clear you up mentally as well. So, just as we need to spring clean our house, opening up the curtains, putting away the storm windows and plastic window covering, dusting the corners we also need to do that for our bodies, mind body and soul!

The Spring Equinox is a time of renewal and replenishment. More than just physical activity, "spring cleaning" removes any stagnant energy accumulated over the slumber of the winter months and prepares our physical/mental/spiritual bodies and the actual homes in which we live, for the refreshing and nurturing energy of spring and summer.

We will be blogging and offering support during these 7-Days so come back everyday and tell us how you are progressing as well.

Preparing yourself for the 7-Days:
1. Between now and Friday go grocery shopping. Hint, you will mostly be shopping on the periphery of the store. Mostly in the fruits and vegetables section. If you're doing organic make sure the plu (the sticker on the fruit/vegetables) starts with a '9'.

Monday, March 16, Throughout the day, whenever you think about it, say to yourself.

I appreciate my body.

Place no judgement on this statement. Do not start saying to yourself that you need to lose weight or that you need to hit the gym...none of that. Just appreciate your body as it is. The body that has gotten you this far and is still working, in spite of everything and anything.

NOTE: No member of AquaMoon, SpokenExistence, Inc/Foundation or UnSilenced Woman Press is a licensed physician, dietitian, nutritionist or doctor. We will not diagnose, prescribe or treat illness or disease of any kind. All information that we provide is for informational purposes only. You should consult your physician.

The Mix It Up Grants Program

2009-03-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

Youth Social Activist Projects Supported
http://www.toleranc e.org/teens/ grants.jsp

The Mix It Up Grants Program, administered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, funds small-scale youth-directed activist projects that focus on identifying, crossing, and challenging social boundaries in schools and communities. Grants of up to $500 are provided for projects led by youth (ages 13 years and older) that bring together different youth groups, clubs, or community groups. Funded projects should step outside of the box and incorporate fresh ways to engage in and encourage socially just behaviors. Requests may be submitted at any time. Visit the website listed above to review examples of funded projects and download the application guidelines and forms.

"If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough." --Audre Lorde

White House Council on Women and Girls: Women and Girls Must Keep Speaking Up

2009-03-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

White House Council on Women and Girls: Women and Girls Must Keep Speaking Up
by Gloria Pan

After the 2008 Elections, more than 50 women’s groups sent a letter to the administration asking President Obama to resurrect the White House Office on Women created by the Clinton Administration. Today, the leaders of those women’s groups met at the White House to witness President Obama’s signing of an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls. While the new Council does not have Cabinet rank, nor does it even have a permanent office with full-time staff to work on women’s issues, it appears to be much more than what was asked for last December and more than what anyone thought women could expect from even this most sympathetic of Presidents. With the stroke of a pen, Barack Obama transported women from the dark backstage of the policy-making world to center stage. While euphoric, we are rather stunned to find ourselves suddenly in the footlights, no longer just an afterthought for our government.

While societal attitudes have certainly come a long way in the last 50 years and there are more opportunities than ever for women, gender parity has remained elusive. That’s because we’re still inhabiting a social infrastructure — the thinking and culture and standards of practice that dictate how things are done, especially in venerable old institutions like the government — bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers. Since then, the infrastructure has grown into sprawl and strengthened into sclerosis, its heft allowing only so much adjustment to make room for women, the Feminist Revolution notwithstanding.

Consider American diplomacy. It has a distinctly masculine way of looking at the world, reinforced by the way the State Department, the military and other government services do research, produce reports, hold regular meetings, approach issues, etc., because that’s the way those things have always been done. Without the will to review and revise the way those things "have always been done," there could only be slow and painful evolution, not real change to enfranchise women, no matter how many of us joined those ranks.

According to the White House press release, the Council will "provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls and to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families." Initial Council members will comprise the entire Cabinet, including the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security, as well as the US Ambassador to the United Nations, the United States Trade Representative and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors. Wow.

The Council will be chaired by White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, with White House Office of Public Liaison Director Tina Tchen serving as executive director. Jarrett, of course, is the official Old Friend in the White House, which means she’s got Obama’s ear. Before practicing law in Chicago, Tchen was state vice president of the Illinois chapter of the National Organization for Women and was one of the leaders in writing and lobbying successfully for the Illinois Criminal Sexual Assault Act. Tchen was apparently so effective a NOW officer that then-President Ellie Smeal begged her to put off law school. "She’s really one of our own," the political director of a major women’s advocacy organization told me.

The Council’s first order of business will be to ask each agency to analyze their current status and ensure that they are focused internally and externally on women. With such a direct, public, and point-blank approach, and the agencies answerable to two no-nonsense women exercising their power straight from the inner circles of the administration, there should be little wiggle room for foot-dragging or obfuscation, though we should expect the usual raft of excuses when we start seeing some results.

During its first year, again from the press release, the Council will also focus on the following areas:
Improving women’s economic security by ensuring that each of the agencies is working to directly improve the economic status of women.

Working with each agency to ensure that the administration evaluates and develops policies that establish a balance between work and family.

Working hand-in-hand with the Vice President, the Justice Department’s Office of Violence Against Women and other government officials to find new ways to prevent violence against women, at home and abroad.

Finally, the critical work of the Council will be to help build healthy families and improve women’s health care.

Again, wow. It’s like a fairy godmother found the feminists’ Christmas list and decided to grant all the big-ticket items.

We did not have the tools to begin dismantling an obsolete government infrastructure, erected by men to serve the ways of men. By establishing the White House Council for Women and Girls, it seems that President Obama has given us those tools. But the Council’s existence does not mean that women can finally relax; we know too well that only we can be our own best advocates. The President has exerted his will from above, and it’s up to women to continue to express our will from below, from the grassroots; there’s lots of ground to cover before the two sides can meet. And since the Internet has freed women’s voices from every cranny of society, we have no excuse to be absent as the Council carries out its work. More than ever, we must use our blogs, discussion lists, Facebook pages Twitter, and every other digital avenue to speak up, comment, challenge, suggest and scold. It’ll be our only guarantee that those tools from the President won’t get rusty with disuse.

http://www.fem2pt0.com/?p=807

Real Sex Ed Returns...But will Democrats axe abstinence-only? by Steve Yoder

2009-03-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to eliminate ineffective federal programs. Now that he's president, many Democrats know where he should start.

The largest federal abstinence-until-marriage programs began 12 years ago when Republicans inserted funding for them into the 1996 welfare reform act. Under the Bush administration, the programs thrived, growing from $80 million in 2001 to $176 million in 2008. Bush increased funding for one abstinence program in 2005 even after it received a "results not demonstrated" rating from Bush's own Office of Management and Budget. Still, the last few years have brought good news to advocates for comprehensive sex education, even before the November election.

Change on the way?
In the research arena, a consensus is emerging that abstinence-plus programs--those that also include information about contraception--outperform those focusing exclusively on abstinence. Research on virginity pledges published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics is the fifth major study since 2007 to conclude that abstinence-until-marriage approaches either have little effect on teen behavior or fare worse than comprehensive sex education programs in changing behavior.

State-level politics on teen pregnancy are also shifting. Despite budget pressures, half of the states refuse federal Title V block grants that fund abstinence-until-marriage programs. The grants require programs to teach individuals up to age 29 that "sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."
Another shift is that the nation now has a president with a record of supporting comprehensive sex education. In 2007, as senator, Obama co-sponsored the Responsible Education About Life Act, which would have provided grants to states to provide abstinence-plus education. (The bill died in committee.)

Blue Dog politics
The Democrats' big tent could limit how far they push on abstinence policies.
Since Democrats took control in 2006, Congress has yet to cut even a dollar of abstinence education funding. Democrats have treated abstinence programs as a bargaining chip in negotiations over health and education funding, while Republicans have protected them as a core priority.

For example, even though the Title V abstinence program expired in 2003, Republicans have gotten temporary renewals by attaching the program to medical assistance for welfare-to-work recipients.

Congressional Democrats have supported ongoing funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education -- the largest federal abstinence program -- in exchange for Republican votes on a multi-agency appropriations bill that funds labor- and health-related programs. In the current Congress, the swing voters on sex education funding will likely be the Blue Dogs -- House Democrats from conservative districts.

Reps. John Barrow (Ga.), Zack Space (Ohio) and Jim Matheson (Utah) represent such districts. They also serve on one of the House subcommittees that oversee abstinence-only funding. In These Times called their offices three times for their positions on funding for abstinence-until-marriage and comprehensive sex education, but their offices had not responded by press time.
None of the three were among the 164 co-sponsors of last year's Prevention First Act, which would have provided new funding for comprehensive sex education. The bill died in their subcommittee.

Abstinence-only activists may be targeting the Blue Dogs for support. Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, describes her lobbying strategy this way: "Since many abstinence-education providers and abstinence-education supporting parents voted for Obama and the current Congress, cutting abstinence education funding could certainly alienate these constituencies."

Asked to assess the prospects of a policy shift, Heather Boonstra, a senior policy associate at the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), a research organization supportive of comprehensive sex education, says, "I don't think that it's a given. There are promising signs, but, of course, the administration can only go so far because it will require an act of Congress to either get rid of these abstinence-only programs entirely or to fund more comprehensive approaches."

Battle of two budgets
The Obama administration and Congress do not have long to ponder a decision on continued abstinence funding.

For fiscal year 2009, the previous Congress passed a continuing resolution that included full funding through March 6 for the Community-Based Abstinence Education program. The second major abstinence program, Title V block grants, has funding under a separate law through June 30.

But the Democrats may get tough, says William Smith, vice president for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). Departing from their previous bargains, Democratic lawmakers included money for welfare-to-work medical assistance in the current version of the stimulus package, but nothing for Title V abstinence block grants. "I just can't imagine that Republicans will hold out on the stimulus bill [to retain abstinence funding]," Smith says.

For its part, the Obama administration will release its proposed fiscal year 2010 budget this spring. In January, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor told the Associated Press that he would not discuss what the president would propose.

But Marcela Howell, vice president of policy for Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit that favors comprehensive sex education, notes that a group of reproductive health organizations met with the president's transition team and received assurances that the administration favors funding a comprehensive approach to sex education.

Abstinence-only proponents are not giving up. In November, roughly 200 to 300 organizations supporting abstinence -- including "healthcare providers and schools," according to Huber -- signed a letter to Obama requesting a meeting. Huber says that they have not received a response but will "pursue appropriate channels to communicate our message."

They also contend that funding for comprehensive sex education already exists in the federal budget. Huber cites a December 2008 report from Bush's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) comparing federal funding for abstinence with a category of programs it called "education and/or awareness about pregnancy and/or STD prevention." Funding for that category, according to the report, outstripped abstinence funding by nearly two to one.
But Adam Sonfield, a senior public policy associate at AGI, says the report's analysis is misleading because the second category -- "education and/or awareness about pregnancy and/or STD prevention" -- is not comprehensive sex education. For example, 79 percent of the money that HHS includes in that category is actually welfare reform money that states can use to "reduce incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancy," according to the report's appendix. Says Sonfield, "There's no reason to think that any of this is dedicated to comprehensive sex education."

Several outcomes are possible for the budgets, including eliminating abstinence funding altogether, changing existing abstinence programs to be more flexible (by dropping the requirement that grantees teach abstinence until marriage) or creating a parallel track of dedicated comprehensive sex education funding while leaving abstinence programs in place.
Reversing worsening trends

The worst outcome of upcoming congressional struggles would be the elimination of all money for teen pregnancy prevention, says Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unintended Pregnancy, which favors an abstinence-plus approach.
"Particularly given that the teen birth rate is now on the increase for the first time in 15 years, it seems a particularly poor time to consider not funding any approach to preventing teen pregnancy," he says.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Jan. 7 that teen birth rates increased in more than half of U.S. states between 2005 and 2006, and rose overall nationally for the first time in 15 years. Rates were particularly high in the South and Southwest, with the highest recorded in Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. A January AGI analysis found that in all three states, if sex education is taught in school districts at all, it must focus on abstinence.
Even if the new administration and Congress were to embrace comprehensive sex education, the upward spike in the pregnancy rate might not turn around immediately. But those who advocate a new course say that for today's children -- who will, after all, be the adolescents of tomorrow -- it would be a sound start.

Says SIECUS' Smith, "I think we should have every confidence that change is coming in this area."

Steve Yoder is a freelance journalist based in Willow, New York.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4279/real_sex_ed_returns/

All Power to the People...

2009-03-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Visualizing a Revolution: Emory Douglas and The Black Panther Newspaper
by Colette GaiterJune 08, 2005

Depending on a person’s politics, age, race and class, mention of the 1960s and ’70s radical “Black Panther Party” can elicit a range of responses. One extreme: the Panthers were a bunch of charismatic, grandstanding violent thugs, exploiting oppressive conditions to promote their own pathological agendas, and the United States is fortunate that the FBI and police stopped them before they started a bloody civil war. The other extreme: the Black Panthers were brilliant revolutionary visionaries who tried to expand the African American civil rights struggle into an opportunity to end Western imperialism, global racism and capitalist exploitation of working people. The truth is somewhere between those extremes. To understand the Panthers’ mission, it is more important to consider the range of possibilities than to pinpoint an exact ideological location.

In 1966, after civil rights legislation was passed and before many more inner city blocks would burn in riots, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Oakland, California. Like other African American communities in post-civil rights America, Oakland’s black ghettos had disproportionate poverty and unemployment rates, substandard education and health care. The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation states that, “The Black Panther Party boldly call[ed] for a complete end to all forms of oppression of blacks and offer[ed] revolution as an option” (Ref. 1).

But police brutality was the most galvanizing issue for the Panthers. After riots in Detroit, Watts, Harlem, Rochester, New York, Jersey City and Philadelphia (Ref. 2) in 1964 and 1965, in which mostly black people were killed, police “occupied” black ghettos across the United States, often ignoring basic civil rights and breaking the law to “maintain order.” (Ref. 3) A generation of young people like Flores Alexander Forbes of San Diego became receptive to the idea of armed retaliation.

“I was 16 years old, and after having read the Black Panther newspaper and most of my older brother’s Black history and literature books that he brought home from UCLA, I was convinced that this was my calling. I had heard from my brother and his college friends that the brothers up north in Oakland had a program to deal with the ‘man.’

...In general, I wanted to be a Black Panther so that I could help my people overcome the oppression they and I were experiencing. In particular, I wanted to get back at the San Diego policeman who had been harassing me since I was 12” (Ref. 4).

The Black Panther newspaper, started in 1967 as The Black Panther Community News Service, regularly reported incidents of police brutality and promoted organized armed resistance as part of the solution to oppression of black people in America (Ref. 5). In a 1967 moment of synchronicity, the young Black Panther and artist Emory Douglas met Panther leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, who had published the first two issues of The Black Panther newspaper using a typewriter and copy machine.

Understanding the emerging visual media culture, Cleaver and Newton wanted to graphically show the party’s work assisting people in their communities and prepare oppressed people for violent revolution, if necessary, in pursuit of psychological and economic liberation. They found the man to do this in 22-year-old Douglas. That night Douglas committed himself to creating and maintaining the organization’s visual identity and produced The Black Panther until it ceased publication in 1979 (Fig. 1).

No stranger to the criminal justice system, as a teenager, Douglas was sentenced to fifteen months at the Youth Training School in Ontario, California. He worked in the prison’s printing shop. Later he studied commercial art at San Francisco City College (Ref. 6). At his first meeting with the party’s minister of defense, Huey Newton, and minister of information, Eldridge Cleaver, he volunteered to go home immediately and get some supplies to make the paper look more professional.

Continuing a long tradition of resistant and revolutionary art, concurrently practiced in conflicts all over the world, Douglas was the most prolific and persistent graphic agitator in the American Black Power movements. Douglas profoundly understood the power of images in communicating ideas. The newspaper’s back page poster was often reprinted separately, sometimes in color. His posters were not displayed on pristine gallery walls, but were pasted on abandoned buildings in ghettos, and the newspapers sold on street corners and college campuses all across the United States. At its peak in 1970, The Black Panther had a weekly circulation of 139,000 (Ref. 7).

Inexpensive printing technologies—including photostats and presstype, textures and patterns—made publishing a two-color heavily illustrated, weekly tabloid newspaper possible. Graphic production values associated with seductive advertising and waste in a decadent society became weapons of the revolution. Technically, Douglas collaged and re-collaged drawings and photographs, performing graphic tricks with little budget and even less time. His distinctive illustration style featured thick black outlines (easier to trap) and resourceful tint and texture combinations (Fig. 3).

Conceptually, Douglas’s images served two purposes: first, illustrating conditions that made revolution seem necessary; and second, constructing a visual mythology of power for people who felt powerless and victimized. Most popular media represents middle to upper class people as “normal.” Douglas was the Norman Rockwell of the ghetto, concentrating on the poor and oppressed. Departing from the WPA/social realist style of portraying poor people, which can be perceived as voyeuristic and patronizing, Douglas’s energetic drawings showed respect and affection. He maintained poor people’s dignity while graphically illustrating harsh situations (Fig. 5 ).

Political cartoons showing policemen and those in power as pigs became another of Emory’s signatures (Fig. 6). He was not the first to use pigs to represent police (Ref. 8), but he certainly helped make “pig” the preferred epithet for law enforcement officers in the 1960s and 70s counterculture. His cartoons extended the pig icon to represent the entire capitalist military/industrial complex (Fig. 7).

Douglas’s statement “Without the party, the [Black Panther] paper wouldn’t have had the same impact” (Ref. 9) reiterates the symbiotic relationship between the party’s and the paper’s mission. The party’s Ten Point Program outlined an agenda that included obtaining full employment, decent housing, education, and health care, and finally “people’s community control of modern technology” (Ref. 10). The Panthers’ community programs, like free breakfast for children, clinics, schools and arts events were featured in the paper, representing implementation of the ten points. Most of the back-page posters directly referred to one of the ten points, illustrating tight coordination between the paper, the party and the mission.

The leaders believed that The Black Panther was not just reporting news, but causing radical change. Like Emory’s drawings, the paper was a tool for liberation, visualizing violent confrontations with perceived oppressors. The drawings showed brutal realities of post-civil rights ghetto life for African Americans. Encouraging metaphoric (fighting oppression through self-help) or physical (armed confrontation) revolutionary action, Douglas’ harshest images simultaneously elicited revulsion at the graphic violence and attraction to the idea of effective self-defense (Fig. 8).

Douglas understood and effectively used visual semiotics before its theory and methods were widely understood and routinely taught in graphic design programs. He fought the revolution with more than presstype and Xacto knives. Because of his leadership role in the party, in producing the paper and participation in the Panthers’ range of community programs, he was closely watched by law enforcement officers. The level of surveillance was so intense the FBI knew the paper’s weekly choice of PMS color (Fig. 9). As the paper’s circulation grew, so did the FBI’s efforts to shut it down. They contaminated printing facilities, enlisted Teamsters to refuse shipments and even convinced United Airlines to cancel the paper’s bulk mail rate discounts (Ref. 12).

Individual members of the party were clearly targeted, as well as the overall infrastructure. In 1969 alone, 27 Black Panthers were killed by police and at least 749 arrested. The police raided offices and seized documents, sometimes without a warrant (Ref. 13). The next year, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, declared the Panthers “the greatest threat to U.S. security” (Ref. 14). Federal law enforcement agencies responded by attacking the organization through COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence propaganda), sabotage and infiltration, contributing to the party’s demise.

In retrospect, it is clear that the Panthers were not the terrorist threat the FBI feared. It does not matter whether the Panthers intended to wage a large-scale retaliatory attack against perceived agents of oppression such as police, politicians and Western ideology. Douglas’ call to revolution, in the form of thousands of drawings, cartoons and page layouts, survives as a lasting vision of empowerment. For 13 years, every week in the pages of The Black Panther, Emory Douglas gave “all power to the people.”

References (1) Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. “What Was the Black Panther Party?” (2) Nelson, Jill, ed. Police Brutality. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000). p. 39-42. (3) Carson, Clayborne. Foreword. Foner, Philip S., ed. The Black Panthers Speak. (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002). (4) Forbes, Flores Alexander. “Point No. 7: We Want an Immediate End to Police Brutality and the Murder of Black People: Why I Joined the Black Panther Party.” Nelson, Jill, ed. Police Brutality. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000). p. 225. (5) Foner, Philip S., ed. The Black Panthers Speak. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002. p. 8. (6) Doss, Erika “Revolutionary Art Is a Tool for Liberation.” Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, ed. Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. (New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 179. (7) Memo, FBIHQ to Chicago and seven other field offices, May 15, 1970. Cited by Ward Churchill, “To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy: The FBI’s Secret War against the Black Panther Party”, Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds. Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. (New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 86. (8) Doss, Erika, “Revolutionary Art Is a Tool for Liberation.” Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds. Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. (New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 183. (9) Rein, Marcy, “The More Times Change... The Bay Area Alternative Press ’68-’98”. (1998). Media Alliance. Media File. Vol. 17 #5. (10) The Ten Point Plan (11) Rein, Marcy, Ibid. (12) Churchill, Ward, “To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy: The FBI’s Secret War against the Black Panther Party”. Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds. Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. (New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 86. (13) Nelson, Jill, ed. Police Brutality. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000). p. 41. (14) Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, p. 187. Cited by Ward Churchill, “To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy: The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party.” Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds. Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. (New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 83. Additional online references Gaiter, Colette. “The Revolution Will Be Visualized: Emory Douglas in The Black Panther.” Bad Subjects. Issue #65, January 2004. Emory Douglas Revolutionary Art Work - Index Position Paper #1 on Revolutionary Art (PDF) Art for a Change: Black Panther Artist: Emory Douglas Images courtesy of San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society Library and Archive, The Center for the Study of Political Graphics, and Emory Douglas. All images ©2005 Emory Douglas

About the Author: Colette Gaiter is a professor in the Interactive Arts and Media Department at Columbia College, Chicago and a new media artist and designer. She has exhibited her work internationally at the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), SIGGRAPH, and in numerous galleries, museums and public institutions in the United States. http://www.digidiva.net

2009-03-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

Trailer to Broken Social Contracts© 2008/75 mins. is a feature length documentary where Breaking Silences left off.It discusses how two historically black colleges confront accusations of sexual assault on their campus. Broken Social Contracts depicts the necessity for conversations in the black community on our relationships. Can dialogue go beyond music videos and lyrics? Activists, students, and scholars weigh in our communities gender roles...trailer includes Mark Anthony Neal, Duke Univ. Prof.--Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Spelman Prof.,--Cynthia Neal Spence, Spelman Prof.--(Bilal) Mark King, Morehouse Prof.--Johnnetta B. Cole, President Emerita (Spelman & Bennett Colleges),-- Pearl Cleage, Writer/Activist--M.Bahti Kuumba, Spelman Prof.--Patrica McFadden, Activist,---Andy Lowry, Spelman Prof.--Adia Harvey, Georgia State Univ. Prof--Mychael Bond, Brittny Ray, Star Tolerson, Marcus Edwards, Tony Anderson, Tiara Dungy & Spelmans Violence Against Womens Class.

View the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlN4nKLIOYM

For screenings and presentations you may contacat Laura at ---laura@laurarahman.com

Chicago: Stop the Closure of the 18th St. Women's Clinic

2009-03-02T15:25:00.000-08:00

Protest the Clinic Closing!

Wednesday, March 4th
4:30pm-5:30pm
at 1858 West 18th Street

Sponsored by U.I.C.A.B.C. (uic.nocuts@gmail.com) and Pilsen Alliance

Protest UIC's closing of the clinic! This clinic serves primarily Latina women from Pilsen in OBGYN services, with exams and things like free walk-in pregnancy tests. This is a core example how the budget cuts at UIC are effecting real people. What happened to UIC's urban mission!?!? What about the neighborhoods and communities that UIC's buildings have been built among? What about a public university hosipital system like UIC serving ALL the public including low-income and Latina residents in Pilsen!?!?

Get involved and help give a stronger voice to the people this university truly belongs to. Help protect UIC as a public university that should provide living wage jobs to the people of Chicago and an affordable high quality education to ALL the people of Illinois including under represented Latinos and African Americans from UIC's neighboring communities, and keeping open clinics that serve the people of Chicago!

We must get the attention of administrators, board of trustees and state legislators who must properly fund UIC and save our university!

Please give email us if you have questions or would like to find out more about getting involved.

Univ of Illinois-Chicago: Keep the clinic open!

Pregnant Women in Pilsen need this clinic!

UIC students, UIC workers and the Pilsen community are outraged!

What happened to UIC?s commitment to the community!?!

Administrators, UIC Board of Trustees and State Legislators must properly fund UIC and save our clinic!

Apartheid Week...South Africa and Israel

2009-03-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

Events
Apartheid in South AfricaScreening of “Have You Heard From Johannesburg”Tuesday, March 3rd @ 2pmLocation: 750 South Halsted Street Chicago, IL, Room 605 SCEDiscussion led by Professor Prexy Nesbitt
Prexy Nesbitt is an internationally known speaker on African issues, global education, US Foreign Policy and racism. The recipient of numerous awards and honors including: the Alston/Bannerman Fellowship Award, Antioch College’s Horace Mann Award for Service to Society and the King/Mandela Distinguished Service Award from the Washington Office on Africa, Mr. Nesbitt has delivered innumerable public speeches at various venues on three continents over the last thirty years.

Gentrification: From Chicago to JerusalemScreening of “Jerusalem: Eastside Story”Wednesday, March 4th @ 4pmLocation: 750 South Halsted Street Chicago, IL, Room 605 SCEDiscussion led by Professor David Stovall
David Stovall is an is an Assistant Professor of Policy Studies in the College of Education and the Department of African-Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His scholarship investigates four areas 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) concepts of social justice in education, 3) the relationship between housing and education, and 4) the relationship between schools and community stakeholders. Since 2003 he has worked with community organizations and schools to develop curriculum that address issues of social justice.

The Movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)How to Defeat Israeli ApartheidThursday, March 5th @ 1pm
Location: 750 South Halsted Street Chicago, IL, Room 613 SCEDiscussion led by Kevin Clark
Kevin Clark, member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and long time activist discusses the growing global and national BDS movement aimed at ending Israeli apartheid in Palestine. He will share strategies and techniques in organizing and implementing a successful BDS campaign on college campuses, while also sharing his experiences during the BDS movement against the South African apartheid regime.

Solidarity with Million Woman Rise in London...

2009-03-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

Sistas in London organising a million woman march...

http://millionwomenrise.com/

The Million Women Rise Coalition is a diverse group of individual women and women representatives from the Voluntary and Community Sector who are united by our outrage at the continued daily, hourly, minute-by-minute individual and institutionalised male violence enacted against women worldwide. We believe that every woman and child has a right to live free from violence and that ongoing violence devastates not only the lives of the individuals directly affected but also the communities of which they are part. We have come together to organise a national demonstration against violence against women. The Coalition has no formal or informal links to any particular or specific feminist or political networks. The Coalition is not partisan and brings together women who want to highlight the continuation of all forms of violence against women and demand that steps are taken to put an end to this.

http://millionwomanrise.blogspot.com/

The women organising the march say that "enough is enough” Never has the rape of a woman’s right and dignity been so systematic and coordinated, the health and lives of women have never faced such peril."The women's march has been organized by ordinary women fed up with violence against women in all its forms."Something has to happen for women and now"The Million Woman Rise is expected to include a day of speeches, prayer and music. Hundreds of thousands of women are expected at Saturday's rally, which is aimed at addressing violence against women through a show of political, social and economic solidarity.Stop violence against women in all its forms click here to join MILLION WOMEN RISE, NATIONAL WOMENS MARCH AND RALLY, SATURDAY 7 MARCH 2009

Beyond Chris Brown and Rhianna

2009-03-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

Young ladies speak out...

Females United For Action is a multiracial, multicultural group of young women with a lot of guts. I was first introduced to the group in 2006 when I wrote about the teens' effort to go after a local radio station that had billboards and other ads disparaging women. In this essay, Alex Pates, 15, and Ansheera Ace Hilliard, 17, take on the controversy surrounding singers Chris Brown and Rihanna, and how the media help to shape views on domestic abuse.

A lot of gossip has been surrounding singers Chris Brown and Rihanna. They were said to be dating, but lately rumor has it that they were on shaky ground: Cuddly one minute and confrontational the next. During the weekend of the 51st Grammy Awards, Rihanna checked herself into a hospital with bruises, bite marks, a black eye, and a bloody nose. Whether all the details being gossiped about in the press are fact or fiction, Rihanna did have physical evidence showing that she was abused.

Many articles say that an eyewitness pointed to Rihanna’s boyfriend, Chris Brown, as the abuser. It has been confirmed that Chris Brown did turn himself in to the police, and was soon released on a $50,000 bond. Rihanna's representative said that she is doing well and is thankful for the support that she is getting.

The Los Angeles Times reported that, according to the LAPD, “Chris Brown is under investigation for alleged domestic violence felony battery.” Recently Chris Brown released a statement. “Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired,” wrote Brown. “I am seeking the counseling of my pastor, my mother and other loved ones and I am committed, with God's help, to emerging a better person.”

BLAMING THE SURVIVORMost people look at the surface of this situation and ask questions like: Did Chris Brown really beat Rihanna? What did she do to make him beat her? The media is supporting this kind of survivor-blaming analysis when they report the story. For example: “The fight was ignited when singer Chris Brown got a text message from another young woman.” And: “Sources allegedly close to Brown say that the fight leading to the domestic violence incident occurred because Rihanna gave Chris Brown herpes.”

But let’s step back and look at it on a broader scale. Does a man ever have the right to beat a woman? Why is it that if a woman is beaten, she is always said to be the one who has provoked it? Why is it that so many abuse cases get overlooked or thrown under the table?
It's important to remember that although women and gender-queer people are the majority of violence survivors, men are survivors, too.

According to the Berkeley Media Studies Group's, “Distracted by Drama: How California Newspapers Portray Intimate Partner Violence,” in many articles studied, the survivor of violence was blamed. The newspapers gave many excuses for why women were abused, shifting the responsibility for violence from perpetrators to survivors of violence. They used the word “victim,” but we would use the word “survivor.”

• The victim may have contributed to the violence by wearing sexy/revealing clothing or engaging in flirtatious behavior.
• The victim may have provoked the problem in another way, perhaps having been married many times, being argumentative, nagging, flaunting success, etc.
• The victim may have contributed to the problem by being unfaithful/dating others.
• The victim may have contributed to the problem by staying with a violent partner/failing to cooperate with police/continuing to see a violent partner.

Can you believe these excuses? Let’s take a closer look at this. If a woman cheats, wears sexy clothing, stays with the violent partner, becomes proud and speaks about her success, speaks her mind, or verbally challenges her partner, she is liable to get abused. Do you see any problems here? We do! What about the man? Can he wear sexy clothing? Can he date other women? Can he boast and talk about his success? Of course he can, because he is a man, right? This shows how the survivors are always blamed as the cause of their own abuse, because we are taught there is no way the man could have done this on his own without being provoked. The issue is so serious, but is so overlooked, and the blame is always on the survivor.

MAKING EXCUSES FOR ABUSERS
Even when media doesn't put all the blame on the survivors, they make excuses for abusers. In that same study by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, they also gathered data about ways that newspapers downplayed the abusers' responsibility: Here were the ways newspapers framed their stories:

• The suspect may have acted violently at least partly due to drinking or drug abuse.
• The suspect may have acted violently at least out of love for a spouse or children, including fear of losing children.
• Violence arose in part from a flawed relationship with blame on both sides, e.g. they fought a lot or engaged in verbal quarrels.
• The suspect may have “snapped”, acting spontaneously and out of character.Love does not mean abuse. There is no good excuse for abusing someone, sober or not.

WHY DOESN'T SHE LEAVE? WHY DOESN'T SHE STAY?
When you see that a woman is in an abusive relationship, one question that usually follows is “well, why doesn’t she leave him?” That is what we saw when we were reading about Rihanna and Chris Brown and their situation. On bossip.com, someone posted that, “She needed to leave him after the 1st punch. If she is still there after that then she deserves the 2nd 3rd and 4th.” We think that that is horrible and untrue.

When a woman is in an abusive relationship, you never know her situation. She could be scared to leave him, especially if he is beating on her. Look at Rihanna and Chris. He choked her and knocked her out! Also we read that people think that Rihanna needs to get back with Chris and help salvage his career.

We think that this is so untrue. We think that he is getting what he deserves. She shouldn’t have to feel responsible for what is happening to him. He needs to know that hitting a woman is unacceptable. We hear so much of what will happen to Chris Brown’s reputation and career if these allegations are proven to be true.

We hear how all Chris Brown’s sponsors and endorsements will back down, and how his entire career may go down the drain. Now we ask, what is going to happen to Rihanna? We never hear, on a well publicized scale, how this is going to affect her career. We do not even hear how she may be damaged mentally, physically, or emotionally after this incident of abuse. You would think that because she is a survivor of abuse, people would be concerned with her well-being.
As far as Rihanna goes, this is what we do know. Last summer, Rihanna had released a statement saying how she starting building her career from endorsements before she even released her hits. The LA Times recently reported that Rihanna had the reputation of representing “something very positive and in particular a strong female role model, and when she is associated with a situation like this it can have an impact.” They quoted a marketing executive as predicting that companies are likely to shun her in the future.

IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT CHRIS & RIHANNA
On September 17, 2008, 78% of identified domestic violence programs in the United States and territories, which totaled 1,553 programs, participated in the 2008 National Census of Domestic Violence Services, conducted by the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Every year, this organization conducts a 24-hour survey of domestic violence programs across the country to capture a day-in-the-life snapshot of domestic violence service provision in the United States. This is the data that was reported:

• Over 20,300 adults and children sought refuge in emergency shelter in a day.
• More than 10,000 adults and children were living in transitional housing.
• Over 30,300 adults and children received non-residential services, such as counseling, legal advocacy, and support groups.
• Over 21,500 domestic violence hotline calls were made.

On top of all of this, an additional 60,799 adults and children were provided additional domestic violence services. All of this data came from a 24-hour time period. 24 HOURS! If these are the numbers of women and children trying to escape violence in one day, imagine what those numbers would be in a week, a month, or horrifically, a year. This information shows how many people are seeking support services for domestic violence. But imagine how many more people never seek help. If you look at police reports of domestic violence, you only get part of the story.
Women and genderqueer people, especially people of color or poor people, are often overlooked in today's society. When is the day going to come where violence against women and gender queer people is going to get the attention that it deserves?

WHAT WE DEMANDEvery time there is a story like this we never hear anything from the survivor’s point of view. We really want to know how this is affecting Rihanna. What is life like for her now? We feel like in situations like this the young woman of color is always left out and forgotten about and more likely than not the blame is put on her. She is put to the side and told to get on with her life. But that is not so simple.

There are scars that will never heal and wounds that will never close. We will probably never even get to sympathize with her. We want there to be something out there that tells the story from the perspective of the survivor.

We think that when the media blames survivors, and questions their decision whether or not to leave, it can scare a survivor away from getting help, because it seems like nobody will sympathize with her or even believe her. Or even worse, she'll be blamed for the abuse.
We want young women and genderqueer youth of color to have our voices in the media so that survivors don’t look bad and they aren’t made to look like trash or like they deserve the violence.

ABOUT FUFA Females United For Action, or FUFA, is a Chicago-based group of young women and genderqueer youth who are interested in doing healing and organizing around the issues that are most important to us. We are led by and made up mostly of young people of color. You might know us from our 25 Pegaditas campaign, where we went after the radio station La Ley for their offensive billboard ads where they promoted the abuse and mistreatment of young women of color.

FUFA is part of a bigger organization, Women & Girls Collective Action Network. We use media justice work and other tactics to challenge violence against girls, women, and genderqueer people. We at Women and Girls CAN believe it is possible to end violence against women, girls, and genderqueer people. We believe in the power and knowledge of survivors and resisters of violence. We believe that communities have the potential and the responsibility to be more accountable to members of their community in ending violence against women, girls, and genderqueers.

Photos: The first is Alex Pates, testifying at an FCC hearing in September 2007. The second is Ansheera Ace Hilliard.

You can learn more about FUFA at:www.womenandgirlscan.org http://www.myspace.com/femalesunitedforaction http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2977/portrait_of_the_activists_as_young_women/

African Americans and Suicide...

2009-02-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

African American Suicide Fact Sheet
· Suicide is the third leading cause of death among black youth, after homicides and
accidents.
· While Caucasians are twice as likely as African Americans to complete suicide, the
rate of suicide is growing faster among African American youth than among
Caucasians.
· From 1980 - 1995 the rates of suicide among black children 10 n14 years of age
(233%) and black teenagers 15 - 19 years of age (126%) years had greater
percentage increases than white children (120%) and white teenagers (19%).
· From 1980 - 1995 the suicide rate increased 214% for 15-24 year old African
American males; it increased 93% for African American females. However, since
1995, these rates have decreased 16% (1998) for males, while remaining steady
for females (1998).
· African American females are more likely to attempt suicide but African American
males are more likely to complete suicide.
· Firearms were the predominant method of suicide completion among African
Americans, accounting for 65% of all suicides among 15-24 year olds and 58% of
all suicides among 25-34 year olds.
· In 1998, African American deaths certified as suicide occurred at the rate of 5 per
day.

Myths
· African Americans are too psychologically unsophisticated to experience
depression and suicide.
· Only middle class Caucasians complete suicide.
· Depression is a personal weakness rather than a medical condition.
· There is no cultural difference in the expression of suicidal behaviors.
Things We Can Do to Help
· Help remove the stigma that suicide contradicts gender and cultural role
expectations:
o Religious stigma of suicide as the Aunforgivable sin.
o African American men are macho and do not take their own lives.
· African American women are always strong and resilient and never crack under
pressure.
· Remove barriers to treatment.
· Better access to mental health treatment.
· Remove stigma associated with mental health treatment.
· Increase awareness in cultural differences in the expression of suicidal behaviors:
o African Americans are less likely to use drugs during a suicide crisis.
o Behavioral component of depression in African Americans is more
pronounced.
o Some African Americans express little suicide intent or depressive
symptoms during suicide crisis.
o Differences in classification by medical examiners.
· Develop liaisons with faith community.
· Recognize warning signs and help a friend or family member get professional help.
Warning Signs of a Suicidal Person

A suicidal person may:
· Talk about suicide, death, and/or no reason to live
· Be preoccupied with death and dying
· Withdraw from friends and/or social activities
· Have a recent severe loss (esp. relationship) or threat of significant loss
· Experience drastic changes in behavior
· Lose interest in hobbies, work, school, etc.
· Prepare for death by making out a will (unexpectedly) and final arrangements
· Give away prized possessions
· Have attempted suicide before
· Take unnecessary risks; be reckless, and/or impulsive
· Lose interest in their personal appearance
· Increase their use of alcohol or drugs
· Express a sense of hopelessness
· Be faced with a situation of humiliation or failure
· Have a history of violence or hostility
· Have been unwilling to connect with potential helpers

For More Information
National Organization For People of Color Against Suicide
http://www.nopcas.com/

American Association of Suicidology
4201 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 408
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: (202) 237-2280
Email: info@suicidology.org www.suicidology.org

Nova Henry and Ava Curry...we speak your names!

2009-02-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

Chicago police have arrested a man they believe killed ex-Chicago Bulls player Eddy Curry's 10-month-old daughter, Ava, and her mother Nova Henry, who is also the mother of Curry's son.
The Henry family was notified after midnight that Nova Henry's ex-boyfriend, a Chicago man, was in police custody and authorities intend to charge him with two counts of murder.
Chicago police confirmed that the man had been arrested and that murder charges were pending, but further details were not immediately available. The Tribune is not naming the man because he has not been charged.

Asst. Supt. James Jackson said police arrested the suspect early this morning but wouldn't say exactly when.

"We have somebody in custody at this time. Over the weekend there should be some movement (on the case)," Jackson said.

Nova Henry, 24, and daughter Ava were found shot to death in her South Loop townhouse on Jan. 24. A 3-year-old boy, Henry and Curry's child, also was in the apartment. He was discovered asleep on a chair, his hands and feet stained with blood.

According to court records, DNA tests confirmed Curry is the father of both children.
A day after the killings Chicago police detectives traveled to LaPorte County, Ind., to try to speak with Nova Henry's ex-boyfriend after tracing his cell phone to a hotel there. But sources said the interview wasn't fruitful. The man was charged by LaPorte County police with trespassing after he allegedly refused to leave the Comfort Inn in Michigan City, but he was released on bail.

According to court records, the ex-boyfriend appeared in court as a lawyer for Henry in a paternity suit as recently as September against Curry, who now plays for the New York Knicks.
In April 2007, Henry obtained an order of protection against him that prohibited him from having contact with her and her son after he was alleged to have threatened them, according to court documents.

The man was charged with domestic battery for allegedly trying to push Henry down the stairs and with phone harassment. The charge was eventually dismissed and the order of protection was dropped.

The man has also been arrested in other domestic batteries, according to court records.
A week before she was killed, Henry installed a Brinks home security system in her South Loop townhouse, a home she moved to just after Christmas to escape the ex-boyfriend, who she believed was stalking her.

Yolan Henry, the mother of Nova Henry, said she was glad the man was in police custody.
Henry said in a statement from the family that Noah Curry has been in her custody since Jan. 24 and that she has been concerned about the child's safety because he was in the apartment at the time of the killings. She said the Curry family has had security the entire time after the horrific tragedy, while she has had to depend on family members to protect Noah.

Since the murders, Noah hasn't been able to attend school or follow his daily routine, Henry said.
Henry said her family is thankful to the Chicago Police Department for their "tireless efforts."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/02/eddy-curry-nova-henry-ava-shot-bulls.html

What keeps you up at night?

2009-02-24T23:03:00.000-08:00

The Unknown

Domestic Violence

2009-02-24T22:58:00.000-08:00

We speak your name! Aasiya Z. Hassan
On February 13, 2009, in Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo, 44 year-old Muzzamil Hassan, a prominent Muslim businessman was arrested for having be-headed his wife, 37 year-old Aasoua Z. Hassan. Aasiya’s crime? She dared to obtain an order of protection which forced her violent husband out of their home.

Ladies, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month do we want to organize an event, vigil, march or something during this month?

Why is America so violent?

2009-02-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

We’ve being indoctrinated by fear
Individualism
Prideful People
2nd Amendment

Turn off your t.v. campaign

2009-02-24T22:56:00.001-08:00

The logistics????

RECESSION: Signs of the time...

2009-02-24T22:55:00.000-08:00

Communal living
Store up can goods
Plant a community garden

Technology getting the best of us...

2009-02-24T22:54:00.000-08:00

Being tracked by chips in ids and passports
Blue lights on corners
Analog going digital

Prison Industrial Complex...

2009-02-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

Youth wrongfully imprisoned
Judges are accepting bribes for imprisoning innocent people
Corporation of America has made a business out of prisons ie. Just in Time Beds

Tools for healing...

2009-02-24T22:48:00.000-08:00

Womb wellness
Getting in touch with your own reflection
Meditation
Breathing
Womb Dancing
The Art of Storytelling
Letting go
Purging

Clinics that cater to the poor and uninsured closing...

2009-02-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

University of Chicago Women’s Health, Pediatric and Medicine Satellite Clinics, which primarily serves Medicaid patients is closing in June.
For example: 47th Street Clinic
Where are the clinics that are closing?
Who is the alderman of these communities?
What action can we take?
U of C is private, not public, so what U of C officials should letters of contention go to?

Arab and African American relations

2009-02-24T22:42:00.000-08:00

Before we can get to a point of solidarity, there has to be an honest dialogue on the lived experiences of African Americans with Arabs in African American communities, and vice versa.

Spiritual Warfare

2009-02-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Look at yourself in the mirror, deal with your own demons.

Womyn's Safety...

2009-02-24T22:37:00.000-08:00

If you are single or live in a house of womyn and children:

Buy some men’s shoes from the thrift store and keep them on your porch or outside the door of your apartment.
Your voicemail say, "We are unavailable to take your call." Say ‘we’.
Put a timer on your lights so they go off at different times
Do not go home the same route
Establish boundaries for your personal space
Walk down the street with confidence
Loving yourself is listening to your intuition that is guiding you against violence

Yes Means Yes...

2009-02-23T15:18:00.001-08:00

I've been reading an anthology Yes Means Yes...

And a key question that comes out of it is, "Does the absence of no, mean yes?"

What do you think about this question? What's your views?

Book description: In this groundbreaking new look at rape edited by writer and activist Jaclyn Freidman and Full Frontal Feminism and He’s A Stud, She’s A Slut author Jessica Valenti, the way we view rape in our culture is finally dismantled and replaced with a genuine understanding and respect for female sexual pleasure. Feminist, political, and activist writers alike will present their ideas for a paradigm shift from the “No Means No” model—an approach that while necessary for where we were in 1974, needs an overhaul today. Yes Means Yes will bring to the table a dazzling variety of perspectives and experiences focused on the theory that educating all people to value female sexuality and pleasure leads to viewing women differently, and ending rape. Yes Means Yes aims to have radical and far-reaching effects: from teaching men to treat women as collaborators and not conquests, encouraging men and women that women can enjoy sex instead of being shamed for it, and ultimately, that our children can inherit a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished. With commentary on public sex education, pornography, mass media, Yes Means Yes is a powerful and revolutionary anthology.

Peace,
veronica precious

Post-race debate...Are we there yet?

2009-02-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ndigo asks us this question...what do you think?

http://www.ndigo.com/coverstory.asp
Post-Race USA—Are we There Yet? By Lenox Magee

With Barack Obama ensconced as the nation’s first black president, plenty of voices in the national conversation are trumpeting America as a post-race society—that race matters much less than it used to, that the boundaries of race have been overcome, that racism is no longer a big problem. Whether you describe it as the drawing of a post-race age or just the browning of white America, we're approaching a profound demographic tipping point.

Post-White America
Culturally, America is already post-white.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton, in a now-famous address to students at Portland State University, remarked:
"Today, largely because of immigration, there is no majority race in Hawaii or Houston or New York City. Within five years, there will be no majority race in our largest state, California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States. No other nation in history has gone through demographic change of this magnitude in so short a time ... [These immigrants] are energizing our culture and broadening our vision of the world. They are renewing our most basic values and reminding us all of what it truly means to be American.”
Demographically, we're headed there, too. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042.

“The shift in demographics is not going to take away the engagement with the question of race in America,” says Jennifer Baszile, author of The Black Girl Next Door. “I don’t think that’s true. It may shift it, but I don’t think it’s going to change it. Just because Whites are diminishing in number doesn’t mean those questions about race are going to go away.”

Jennifer Baszile
Baszile’s memoir tells the story of a post-racial Obama era: the tale of an upper-middle-class African American family striving to get ahead while sensing that they are somehow too black and not nearly black enough. It’s a story about class as much as about race and about the elusive, sometimes almost spectral limits of segregation. In the late 1970s, Baszile, 39, and her family were one of the few black families in the neighborhood, a scenario that's become familiar in American social history. A young Jennifer had to fight for herself when she was called “nigger” and challenged to fisticuffs by three white boys.

“I think that people are being overly optimistic. And I think that a lot of America have answered the question on whether we live in a post-race society,” says the Yale history professor. “They’re saying: ‘Obama is our first black elected president,’ and in the next breath they say, ‘this must mean we live in a post-racial world.’ No! As much the symbolic and substantive significance as Obama is, I don’t think that’s the only measure of success of race relations and racial progress in this country. I think when you look at schools, when you look at colleges, and when you look at the higher echelon of Corporate America, this is not a post-racial society.”

Color & Corporate America
Steven Rogers, Gordon and Llura Gund Family Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship and the director of the Larry and Carol Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice, agrees that it’s completely naïve to think racism is far from over, especially in the business world.

“I don’t believe that it’s remotely true that we live in a post-racial society,” Roger says. “I think it’s a naïve world that people are conjuring up that won’t have any real relevance to the real world. Such a statement, in my opinion, implies that there will be this utopian world, and my question is: as a result of Obama’s election, does that mean that this is the best it is ever going to be for Black people? This is the best we’re going to get? I believe it’s a very dangerous notion that everything is colorblind, in the sense we, African Americans, stand to lose the most.”
Rogers believes celebrities continue to promote this “new day,” but he doesn’t think that’s realistic.

“I live in the business world where I serve on the board for several Fortune 500 companies, and I’m constantly complaining and encouraging the CEOs of these predominantly white companies to employ the opportunity with African Americans. The business world I live in is comprised of 48 percent of people that didn’t vote for Obama. When I went to the business meetings the day after Obama won, there wasn’t jubilation or anything; it was dead silence and no discussion.”

Arts & Entertainment
Over the past 30 years, few changes in American culture have been as significant as the rise of hip-hop. Jay-Z, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Russell Simmons have changed life as we know it—and on their own terms. Sean Combs, a hip-hop mogul and arguably one of the most famous African Americans on the planet, grew up during hip-hop’s late-1970s rise, and he belongs to the first generation that could make a stable living working in the industry. In the late 1990s, Combs made a fascinating gesture toward New York’s high society. He announced his arrival into the circles of the rich and powerful not by crashing their parties, but by inviting them into his own spectacularly, over-the-top world. Combs began to stage elaborate annual parties in the Hamptons. These “white parties”—where attendees are required to wear white—quickly became legendary for their opulence as well as for the cultures-colliding quality of Hamptons elites paying their respects to someone so comfortably nouveau riche. Prospective business partners angled to get close to him and praised him as a guru of the lucrative “urban” market. And Russell Simmons, a music, fashion and television mogul, or the rapper 50 Cent, who has parlayed his rags-to-riches story line into extracurricular successes that include a clothing line, book, video game, and film deals; and a startlingly lucrative partnership with the makers of Vitamin Water, are no different.

During popular music’s rise in the 20th century, white artists and producers consistently “mainstreamed” African American innovations. Hip-hop’s ascension has been different. Eminem notwithstanding, hip-hop never suffered through anything like an Elvis Presley moment, in which a white artist made a musical form safe for white America. But hip-hop—the sound of the post- civil-rights, post-soul generation—found a global audience on its own terms.

In theater, writer and director McKinley Johnson, whose play, “Eye of the Storm" is based on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s mentor, Bayard Rustin, says the journey to Post-Race USA may come at a substantial price for performers.

“To do so means everyone must deny their existence . . .and their humanity . . . and their uniqueness and that's what's disturbing about this question,” McKinley says. “As we go into this new millennium, black theatre-performers should not seek to blend but rather to continue developing the voice we have. Thespians of any color have a hard time excelling. Competition is fierce. The best we can hope for and experience is personal gratification and growth.”
Just as Tiger Woods forever changed the country club culture of golf and Will Smith changed stereotypes about the ideal Hollywood leading man, the youth market is following the same pattern. Take, for example, the Cheetah Girls, a multicultural, multi-platinum, multiplatform trio of teenyboppers who recently starred in their third movie, or Dora the Explorer, a bilingual 7-year-old Latina adventurer who is arguably the most successful animated character on children’s television today. There’s no doubt that mainstream America is being redefined.

What about Racial Purists?
Recently, former Klansman Elwin Wilson apologized to the "whole world" for beating black Congressman John Lewis during the Civil Rights era. Some might call it a start to the post-racial movement.

But Charles Wilson, 46, is a part of the National Socialist Movement, one of America’s largest Nazi Organizations, a kind of Ku Klux Klan for the next generation. Their ultimate goal is to create a place where only whites will live together in peace—a place where they can be proud of their European heritage.

“A clean, white place, where you wouldn’t see a lot of cops because you wouldn’t need them,” he says. “Where there wouldn’t be any lip-flappin’, chicken-wing slappin’ rap music … where you’d have meaningful art by white artists … and children would be raised from an early age to respect their culture and society.

“That’s our motivation. That’s our goal,” Wilson tells N’Digo. “We’re trying to make a difference.”

If the Post Race USA is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like and how will urbane Americans fit into it? Stay tuned.

Hot Blog!Black, White and Political All Over by Tiana Reid
Yoga, snowboarding, Apple products, the Sunday New York Times, Mos Def, sushi, vintage clothing, and coffee. All stuff that I, daughter of a white mother and a black Jamaican father, like. Incidentally, it’s all stuff that white people like, according to Christian Lander, McGill grad, in his flippant blog “Stuff White People Like.”

My first glance at the blog made me feel uneasy, as it does for many, because we tend to get huffy when stereotypes are kicked around, even in a comedic manner. Lander is addressing the meaning that society attaches to the things on the list. They are deemed white. My uneasiness quickly turned to queasiness; do my love for raw fish and my MacBook make me white? Or less black? The blog hit home because, being biracial, I have struggled with internal conflicts of race, culture, and self-identity since I was old enough to be aware. When I was 12, I started to snowboard and for a couple of years, I never mentioned to my black (and white) friends where I was each and every Saturday, thinking that they would disapprove, discredit me and label me whitewashed.

After a few deep yoga breaths, I calmed down and realized that the list is not hateful and was meant to be, and is, humorous. The bright satirical critique includes “knowing what’s best for poor people,” “being the only white person around,” “having gay friends,” “unpaid internships” and “Asian girls.” After hundreds of years of minorities being turned into a punch line, Lander is flipping the script and playing on stereotypes of the upper-middle class––white or not––with their consumerist narcissism coupled with a search for authenticity.

While some people, like Lander, are openly discussing issues concerning race and identity, others—particularly, upper-middle class liberals—have begun to sweep race issues under the rug. The term post-racial emerged in the mainstream media as a reaction to the enthusiasm surrounding Barack Obama’s campaign in the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 2008. The idea that we are living in a post-race society, where race has little or no significance, is a fallacy as many whites still claim to have moral, economic, political and social ascendancy. The tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina proves that race and class seem to matter not only in terms of social race relations but also in governmental reaction (or non-reaction). Other issues, such as the Jena Six assault and the controversy surrounding affirmative action, substantiate that our society is not beyond race.

As the United States inaugurated its 44th president, a mood of change continues to swoop over the entire world, somewhat owing to the color of Obama’s skin and the barriers that have been crossed as a result. The Atlantic magazine’s cover story for its January/February 2009 issue was entitled: “The End of White America” featuring a heroic close-up of half of Obama’s face. The author, Hua Hsu, postulates the end of “white America” and a demographic shift that will bring those who are today racial minorities, to be a majority of the population by 2042. More interestingly, Hsu affirms that “whiteness is no longer a precondition for entry into the highest levels of public office.” This bold statement is misleading.

Case in point is Jesse Jackson, who was twice a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1980s, and was deemed “too black” by American society and thus has had limited mainstream political success. With Obama as president, the public is looking beyond skin color and toward personal character, which is a positive step. Yet it can be argued that Obama’s skin color was easier to look past than Jackson’s in-your-face “black and proud” character.
In terms of Obama’s campaign, whether constructed deliberately or constructed by society and the media, race was used as an instrument rather than a liability in the political sphere, in which Obama transcended the negative stereotypes that blackness so often tends to encompass.
Western society may be taking race less seriously. Nevertheless, the New York Times article, “Poll Finds Obama Isn’t Closing Divide on Race” reveals that 60 percent of blacks find race relations to be generally poor, compared to 34 percent of whites. It seems clear that the notion of post-raciality is mostly a white concoction.

Race matters, even if it matters in different ways than it did decades ago. Social and political discussion, balanced dialogue, and most importantly, racial awareness, not ignorance disguised as post-raciality, will give rise to racial progress.

Blindness-blindness should never be equated with racial equality or racial harmony.

Booklist...

2009-02-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

What ya reading?
Post your suggested readings with a synopsis.

Grandmothers Counsel the World by Carol Schaefer
In some Native American societies, tribal leaders consulted a council of grandmothers before making any major decisions that would affect the whole community. What if we consulted our wise women elders about the problems facing our global community today? This book presents the insights and guidance of thirteen indigenous grandmothers from five continents, many of whom are living legends among their own peoples. The Grandmothers offer wisdom on such timely issues as nurturing our families; cultivating physical and mental health; and confronting violence, war, and poverty. Also included are the reflections of Western women elders, including Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Carol Moseley Brown.

Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing by Caroline Myss, PhD
Encoded within your body, teaches Dr. Myss, is an energy system linking you directly to the world's great spiritual traditions. Through it you have direct access to the divine energy that seamlessly connects all life. On Anatomy of the Spirit, Dr. Myss offers a stunning picture of the human body's hidden energetic structures, while revealing its precise spiritual code and relationship to the sacred energy of creation. Our most revered wisdom traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism, hold in common essential teachings about seven specific levels of spiritual development, the stages of power in life.

Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought Edited by Beveryly Guy-Sheftall
A path-breaking collection, gathering articles from the 1830s to today. Almost 600 pages of the likes of Sadie Alexander, Frances Beale, Angela Davis, Frances Harper, bell hooks, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Sojourner Truth, Alice Walker, Ida Wells-Barnett, and several dozen more.

The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Dr. Frances Cress Wesling
During the course of the struggle of African people against European racism, brutality and domination, many innovative thinkers have risen from our ranks. The greatest and most courageous scholars have devoted their lives to the pursuit of an explanation for the virtually inherent animosity most white people appear to have toward people of color. Unlike her predecessors, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a brilliant, Washington, D.C. psychiatrist has rejected conventional notions about the origin and perpetuation of racism. Dr. Welsing's theories, lectures and scientific papers have provoked controversy for over twenty years. Now the compilation of her work in The Isis Papers is destined to change the course of history.

When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone
An early contemporary proponent of the worship of the prehistoric Mother Goddess, Stone analyzes the creation story in Genesis from a non-Christian perspective. To her, the tale is an allegorical story about the Hebrew deity Yehwah supplanting the Mother Goddess, represented by the tree of life and the serpent, and Hebrew religion supplanting the worship of the Goddess. Stone claims that the forbidden knowledge concerns sex, sexuality, and reproduction, specifically the knowledge that men have a role in reproduction, and that the story describes the process by which traditional matriarchal societies were thrust aside by patriarchal societies. To Stone, "The Adam and Eve myth. . . had actually been designed to be used in the continuous Levite battle to suppress the female religion." [page 198]

A Course in Miracle
Introduction to A Course In Miracles...This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary.Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

the (r)evolution has begun...

THIS WEEK: love does not hurt...

Turkey, dressing and domestic violence...

Saturday/Sunday Audience Responses...

October 30: love does not hurt! Opening Night responses....

What does your love look like?

Violence affects girls too...

OCTOBER: Domestic Violence Awareness Month

TAKE ACTION TODAY TO OPPOSE THE BAUCUS HEALTH REFORM BILL!...

Domestic Violence...a pre-existing condition...

Domestic violence victim: 'Silence only empowers the abuser'

Abuse UnChecked...

Tell them what health care looks like for you...

They've started working on the health care reform bill...

Girls/Women....Speak Out for HEALTH CARE!

Dating Bill of Rights...

Harm Reduction NOT Judgment...

Black womyn and children go missing all day, everyday...

Walk Test Can Predict Course of Heart Failure for Black Patients

Sounds real 'cute' on paper...

"University of Chicago shutting Community clinic"

Go meet your Congress(wo)man

Comprehensive Sex Health Education...

Home Birth Safety Act...

Chicago Moratorium on School Closings...

August 1: The next in the round...

End Involuntary Sterilization in Illinois...

JUNE 18: Speak Out for health care...

Resources....

Youth initiated, school based daycare center....

Chicago: League of Black Parents...

Fiesty...Assertive...Unladylike...Aggressive...

Womyn's health and the environment...

Goddess...

Chicago: Update on Center for Women and Families...

what?

RIP: An angel and ancestor Nichole L. Shields...

STAND..."Die In"

Discovery High School in the Bronx...

April 9: Fight for Justice

We desire quality and assessable healthcare...

Updated Website...

Day 7: Congratulations...

Day 6: Let's Activate...

Day 5: Bringing Sexy Back...

Day 4: What am I hungry for...

Day 3: Female Condom Upgrade...

Day 2: The magic word is "GREEN"....

Day 1: Who am I...

Breakfast, lunch and dinner....

Snacks...

Seasonings, Greens and Teas...

To the smokers that are doing 7-Days of Healthier Eating...

Side Effects of Cleansing/Detoxification...

Adding a spritual detox to your 7-Day Journey...

Spring Clean Your Body....

Countdown Wed and Thursday....

Countdown: 3 days until Spring Cleaning...

The countdown for 7-Days of Healthier Eating...

The Mix It Up Grants Program

White House Council on Women and Girls: Women and Girls Must Keep Speaking Up

Real Sex Ed Returns...But will Democrats axe abstinence-only? by Steve Yoder

All Power to the People...

Trailer to Broken Social Contracts © 2008 by Laura L. Rahman

Chicago: Stop the Closure of the 18th St. Women's Clinic

Apartheid Week...South Africa and Israel

Solidarity with Million Woman Rise in London...

Beyond Chris Brown and Rhianna

African Americans and Suicide...

Nova Henry and Ava Curry...we speak your names!

What keeps you up at night?

Domestic Violence

Why is America so violent?

Turn off your t.v. campaign

RECESSION: Signs of the time...

Technology getting the best of us...

Prison Industrial Complex...

Tools for healing...

Clinics that cater to the poor and uninsured closing...

Arab and African American relations