#Boycott Target

Boycott

…As a result of Target’s transgender bathroom policy, the retail chain has now become the target of a boycott. Though not as substantial as the boycott which has sighted North Carolina in its crosshairs (costing the state PayPal, a plethora of performing artists, and even the business of multiple municipalities), the newly implemented Target boycott could end up costing the company’s bottom line.

Apparently, to some, it’s legitimate for states to try to promote “bathroom bills” and other anti-LGBT legislation, but it’s crossing a line for a corporation to take as stand against discrimination. Target, as the first national retailer to publicly weigh in on the LGBT subject publicly, is bearing the brunt of conservative anti-LGBT activism.

[…]

Now, The American Family Association is calling for a boycott of Target, and has gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures of those who intend to boycott the retail giant. Target is also dealing with backlash pertaining to its transgender bathroom policy on social media.

[…]

On Saturday, April 22, Breitbart reported that over 250,000 people had already signed the boycott petition circulated by the American Family Association. According to the American Family Association’s Director of Government Affairs, Sandy Rios, Target “jumped into” the transgender bathroom debate, effectively saying that “men who claim to be women may use whatever bathroom or changing room they choose.”

According to Rios, a “gender neutral” bathroom would be enough to satisfy herself and her organization, although she doubts that such a compromise would “satisfy the left.”

The AFA would be satisfied with a “gender neutral” lav? Somehow I don’t think so. I think they want nothing to do with unisex lavs. What I think they do want is for Target to install a brand new lav labeled “freaks”.

The American Family Association president had some words to share about the Target transgender bathroom policy himself. As Yahoo! News reports, Tim Wildmon posted an open letter to the public regarding his thoughts on the Target bathroom policy. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t impressed.

“Target’s policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims. This means a man can simply say he ‘feels like a woman today’ and enter the women’s restroom… even if young girls or women are already in there.”

Wildmon must be absolutely thrilled that’s he found a way back into the limelight. Please, Tim, do us a favour and crawl back into your cave.

Full article here.

Sunday Facepalm

220px-Representative_David_Brumbaugh

Rep. David Brumbaugh. Wikimedia.

Oh hey, God will pick up the tab, no worry.

I guess ‘God’ only cares about economy of Oklahoma, and will only care if good ol’ Dave there legislates all those potential sluts into order. Perhaps the pile drive of the patriarchal thumb is what will fix economies all over. That’s a theory of economics, ennit?

Abortion rights groups warned that the legislation is unconstitutional and that it could invite a legal challenge if signed into law. A 2011 Oklahoma law that essentially banned drug-induced abortion was ruled unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court.

“I’ve heard almost every argument today about judicial challenge to this legislation and after much prayer and study, I ask myself this question,” Brumbaugh said. “Do we make laws because they’re moral and right, or do we make them based on what an unelected judicial occupant might question or overturn?”

Supposedly, laws are made to ensure freedoms, rights, justice, (yeah, I know) and to protect people. Those pesky freedoms and rights have been dismissed, there’s no concern for justice, certainly no empathy or mercy to be found, so who is it you’re trying to protect? Oh, clumps of cells. Forgot about those blobs for a moment, what with them not being people or anything.

He compared passing the abortion legislation in the face of a possible legal challenge to the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights Act and the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

“Don’t let people tell you, ‘Unconstitutional arguments, Roe v. Wade,’ all this,” Brumbaugh said, referencing the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

I swear, one of these days I will actually drop dead from irony poisoning. Oh well, Dave’s bottom line message? Ignore the law until I make up one I like!

It Takes A Village To Bully A Transgender Kindergartner

Nova Classical Academy. Credit: CBS/WCCO

Nova Classical Academy. Credit: CBS/WCCO

This is a long article, so just snippets here. Full Story Here. The pockets of bigots in Minnesota certainly showed up in this case.

When Dave and Hannah Edwards were lucky enough to win the lottery to enroll their child at Nova Classical Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, they were excited about the charter school’s small classrooms, the kind teacher they’d met, and the special attention their kid would receive. What they didn’t anticipate was an entire community rising up against their family as they became the latest victims of an anti-transgender backlash sweeping the country.

Over the course of the school year, the kindergartner would transition from a gender non-conforming boy to a transgender girl. At every step of the way, the Edwards sought accommodation from Nova to help protect her from bullying and make sure her classmates understood who she was, and at every step of the way, a growing force of anti-transgender parents shut them down, creating a public spectacle and only increasing the harassment their daughter experienced.

[…]

Letters and emails started pouring into the school board. Nova Classical Academy has a “Public Comment” submission form on its website, and it then formally publishes all of the comments it receives as part of the Board’s notes. These, combined with listening sessions, “Climate Committee” meetings, and the school board’s regular meetings created nearly weekly opportunities for concerned parents to share just what they thought about transgender people.

Just because the student deserves to be safe and respected, wrote parent Vince West in October, “that does not mean, nor does the law imply, that we have to celebrate gender non-conformism (or any controversial moral difference) in school (or anywhere).”

“Given the current climate at Nova, we are opting our children out of any teaching that goes against the natural order of gender identity on the 16th and any other teaching on this topic on some future date,” wrote parent David Bursey. “We all have differences. We recognize them and respect them but we don’t need to call attention to them and celebrate them as a school.” In another email, he explicitly opposed allowing transgender students access to bathrooms and sports teams that match their gender, adding that he even thinks respecting their preferred names and pronouns “is treading on murky territory.”

A November letter from Bob and Carolyn Hayton, parents of five students in the school, insisted, “I don’t have to inform the school leadership that transgenderism is a behavior and thought mentality that is novel and only lately approved of in common culture. I have no ill will to any transgender people. But it is foolish to assume that such behavior is normal and should not raise any eyebrows. For children to find such things either alarming or strange is natural.”

NO. No, Bob and Carolyn, you are so wrong. Transgender people are not brand new on this planet, and in many cultures, including my own, they have been accepted for who they are. Your ignorance does not erase history. Perhaps you could work on educating yourselves?

Eventually the school started censoring certain parts of the messages it received before distributing them. It was unclear what criteria it used for which portions it censored, and more importantly, the censorship did not work in some cases. Though the text looked redacted in the distributed PDF files, it could still be highlighted and read simply by copying and pasting it. ThinkProgress easily retrieved the censored text from the documents still available on the Nova website. For example, here is an excerpt from a letter submitted in December by Nova parent Paula Rothstein that was entirely blacked out but still totally readable:

And what exactly is the “need” of this child? A boy in kindergarten would like to be accepted as “girl”? Well, as a woman, I take offense at any boy who is pretending to share my gender when he quite clearly NEVER can nor ever will. Women go through far too much as REAL women to have a man who is immune to the unique challenges and pains we must endure pretend he is one of us. He is not. He never can be. And yet those responsible for fueling this agenda want to be granted access to our private restrooms, our locker rooms, etc.

Much more here. Honestly, what in the fuck is wrong with people? If I had the answer to that… I loathe the “can’t ever be a real women” argument. I’m still furious over an argument I had about this with someone years ago. Yeah, okay, so some women don’t go through periods. I didn’t have to go through the internal agonies and external torments of discovering I was trapped in the wrong body. I wish people would think.  So, this sterling example of a woman above, is she proud about taking on a kindergartner? There’s zero sense operating there.

My ride showed up. Celebrate love, celebrate life.

John Trudell (Santee Dakota) walked on in December, 2015. His last words: My ride showed up. Celebrate love, celebrate life. I still haven’t come to terms with this entirely. John Trudell touched so many lives, he was the voice for so many people, a lot of them voiceless. He was a part of my life from childhood and the occupation of Alcatraz. I’ve listened to him throughout my life, heard his words, sang his words, read his words, his words have inhabited my heart. So, what to share? Once again, I’ve been listening to the words that have been part of my skin for many decades, how can I decide? Maybe you’ll go look for yourself, find those words that speak to you, that find their way to your heart. For me, I guess it will always come back to one of JT’s central messages, that human beings were losing their understanding of being human. So, Bone Days it is, specifically, Crazy Horse.

We Hear what you say
One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land
How do we sell our Mother ?
How do we sell the stars ?
How do we sell the air ?
Crazy Horse
We hear what you say

Too many people
Standing their ground
Standing the wrong ground
Predators face he possessed a race
Possession a war that doesn’t end
Children of God feed on children of Earth
Days people don’t care for people
These days are the hardest
Material fields, material harvest
decoration on chain that binds
Mirrors gold, the people lose their minds
Crazy Horse
We Hear what you say

One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land.

Today is now and then
Dream smokes touch the clouds
On a day when death didn’t die
Real world time tricks shadows lie
Red white perception deception
Predator tries civilising us
But the tribes will not go without return
Genetic light from the other side
A song from the heart our hearts to give
The wild days the glory days live

Crazy Horse
We Hear what you say
One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land
How do we sell our Mother
How do we sell the stars
How do we sell the air

Crazy Horse
We hear what you say
Crazy Horse
We hear what you say
We are the seventh generation
We are the seventh generation

John Trudell, Bone Days.

Elephant Art

If you find yourself in the market for something truly special, consider elephant art.  I’m in love with Aleena’s Garden Dance, and have been saving pennies, but I wouldn’t hold even the thought of a grudge if someone snapped it up. It all goes to help the artists, and to enable other artists to be rescued.

Garden Dance, © Aleena (May).

Garden Dance, © Aleena (May).

Aleena was born on May 6, 2004. Her father is Phra-may and her mother is Poomphaung, another Novica-featured elephant artist. Aleena’s nickname is May and she weighs 3,329 pounds. The young pachyderm is very friendly. She is practicing to play in the elephant orchestra, however she is already a skilled painter. To read more about Aleena, click the link and scroll down.

Music Lover, by Nammoey.

Music Lover, © Nammoey.

Born in 2009, Nammoey is a young female who survived elephant traffickers thanks to the forest officers who work to enforce the Wildlife Preservation and Protection Law. They found her near the Salween River in Sobmoey, Mae Hong Son, and placed her in the care of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center-TECC. To read more about Nammoey, click the link and scroll down.

Autumn Flower, by Bai-Tong.

Autumn Flower, © Bai-Tong.

Bai-tong enjoys painting so much that she sometimes takes a firm grip on the paintbrush and refuses to return it to the trainer. She is much loved by the TECC staff and every tourist who has seen her. To read more about Bai-Tong, click the link and scroll down.

REZILIENCE

rezilience

The REZILIENCE Indigenous Arts Experience will be an immersive, all-ages experience that focuses on modern Indigenous art processes. Artists include nationally and locally recognized entertainers, muralists, multimedia artists, poets and a contemporary Indigenous art market.

It is a grassroots effort tied into the airwaves of social media, and all generations of the entire community are welcome. Tickets can be bought for the on-campus events or just the music concert. This movement trends new generational events that compliment social gatherings like Pow Wows but are becoming their own thing in Indian Country.

The event takes place on April 30 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center near downtown Albuquerque.

Executive Director Warren Montoya said, “We aim to be inclusive, not exclusive, it is not a space for the most elite, but we are not aiming to provide all the answers either. We are building a community platform from which we can all have an opportunity to speak on the resilience of our peoples.”

“This event is a movement based in creativity. It is our creative practices that have facilitated cultural longevity, community building, knowledge growth and healing for generations. REZILIENCE will be the new model of unity for indigenous cultures worldwide.”

Full Story Here.