It's easy to be peeved at Bobby Jindal, the South Asian-American conservative and Louisiana governor, has carelessly been referred to the "right's Obama." His post-State of the Union rebuttal was robotic and uninspiring, to put it lightly. And, it seemed so out of place to see a young man of color dismissing the first state of the union speech of this administration, which was by and large, a job well done. Nevertheless, it was disappointing to hear liberal commentator Chris Matthew's disparaging statement about the GOP's "outsourcing" of the Republican response, to someone who had "nothing to do with Congress."
Matthews' has since had a messy backpedal-but right-wingers are already jumping on the opportunity to call a liberal, racist.
This week the North Dakota
legislature took a huge step towards unusual and dangerous legislation.
The House has passed and sent
on to the North Dakota Senate, a bill that would give the rights of
personhood to "any organism with the genome of homo sapiens."
This is a unique piece of legislation.
No other state has passed a similar bill, and a ballot measure in Colorado
on the same issue was defeated with almost three quarters of voters
rejecting the proposal.
The law is also dangerous.
Lawmakers who support it publicly claim that this bill is not about
abortion, and yet the strong lobby in favor of the bill is not so shy
in their declarations that Roe v Wade should be overturned.
In North Dakota, where there is only one abortion provider for the entire
70,704 square miles state, this will no doubt put a women’s right
to choose in jeopardy. But beyond individual choice, this bill is also
detrimental for other reasons. As Lynn Paltrow, Founder and Executive
Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, pointed out during
a recent panel on Power and Sex “if fetuses are people, women
are not.” The risk of this type of legislation is that it takes rights
away from women, not just to a right to choice, but the rights to regulate
our bodies, movements and actions in any number of ways.
___________________________
Your can download the full
discussion Lynn Paltrow was a part of at Miro.
Or watch it at Fora TV.
Posted by sheryl-ann simpson on February 27th, 2009
What do states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina have in common?
Each state has high rates of unemployment-in December, South Carolina was the second most unemployed state in the U.S. Each has large communities of color, particularly Black communities, and all have Governors who are seriously considering saying "no" to federal stimulus money.
Not for partisan reasons, of course, but because they are concerned about the required changes to unemployment insurance that come with the money. These changes would raise the floor of coverage, and make it easier for low-income workers to gain coverage when needed.
How are Governors justifying not taking millions of dollars to help their states? There is the outright offensive declaration of Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi that he does not want to be bullied in to giving benefits to people who just refuse to work, but most are going with the idea that they are very concerned that they will have to raise state taxes to pay for the changes.
It's hard to see these Governors as anything but irresponsible, and partisan, especially as this mandate to protect the most vulnerable workers is not simply a top down federal initiative, but instead reflects changes that most states have already made. Additionally, staff within state governments, are pointing out that the boost from the stimulus package will actually strengthen their state's unemployment programs in the long run.
Here are some of the news and culture items that caught our eye this week.
An unprecedented joint statement was released from the Treasury Department, federal bank regulatory agencies and the Federal Reserve indicating they were taking first steps toward bank nationalization. NYT
President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress to give his assessment of the U.S. economic standing. NYT
The murder of Aasiya Hassan in Buffalo draws widespread attention. CNN Musilmah Media Watch devoted a great deal of time analyzing the media coverage.
Funding for abstinence-only programs continues. Feministing
North Dakota is close to expanding the definition of personhood. AP
Posted by sheryl-ann simpson on February 25th, 2009
The conflict in Sri Lanka is over twenty-five years old, and while government claims to have ended the war attracted some attention in the U.S., what really piqued interest around the world was the news of a "female suicide bomber." In many ways the attention seemed to circle as much around the fact that the bomber was a woman, as that a bombing had happened at all.
Where and when "female" needs to be tagged on to a description is an important question in terms of media representations in all walks of life. Is someone a politician or a female politician, a doctor or a female doctor, or for that matter a nurse or a male nurse. But in discussions of war, and particularly for those of us interested in genuine peace, the fact that what is newsworthy is not primarily an act of violence against people, but the fact that the attacker was a women poses a different kind of challenge.
The problem isn't that people don't think of suicide bombing as an equal opportunity position, but that women are so seldom the subjects of sentences about war, violence, or attempts to build peace.
Quick grammar review-subjects in sentences get to do things: He saved the girl. He killed the woman. He helped the mother. Objects get things done to them: the girl, the woman, the mother.
When women are always the objects in our sentences about war-victims of violence, or in need of protection-we are left with no language, except maybe sensationalism, to discuss acts of violence carried out by women in war. We also have no way to discuss the violence women experience within military forces, and we are more likely to ignore the hard work of women in Sri Lanka and around the world to improve their homes by trying to build peace and security.
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Informative and accessible, the latest edition of Feminist Africa collects a variety of stories and ideas about women's activism in the face of militarism and conflict across Africa. Co-editor Amina Mama joined us as a speaker at the last BrownBag discussions, and you can listen to the event at prx.org or blip.tv.
In the fall of 1999 a group of women got together at Angela Davis' house for the first Sisters of Fire Awards where they did something women don't do enough-take the time to celebrate our accomplishments. Since then, WCRC has honored women and organizations around the country, who are working in diverse ways to improve the well-being of women and girls of color.
This year we need your help. Is there a woman of color or organization whose work inspires you? Then nominate them to be a Sister of Fire at the 11th annual celebration, by filling out our simple online form.
And if you need some inspiration you can revisit some of the past Sisters of Fire through images and pictures as well as video and audio of past inspiring speeches.
This week President Obama ordered 17,000 more troops into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and support the forces already on the ground there. This news comes directly after the first large victory of his presidency, the passing of the economic stimulus plan, as we all work to change the tide of crisis, recession and job loss at home. The U.S. economy is the largest military economy in the world, and this decision proves that the U.S. economy still favors the military now more that ever, and is still committed to sending valuable tax dollars into a never-ending war overseas with no end in sight. As the number of those active duty members lost in Afghanistan and Iraq grows to nearly 5,000, and the numbers of wounded veterans grows even higher, we must remain vigilant of the Obama administration's choice to send more troops into harms way. It's not only 17,000 more troops deployed, that's 17,000 more families, wives, husbands, mothers, children, brothers, sisters and friends who will be serving with them in worry, phone calls and sleepless nights, as they await their loved ones return. As we push for better veteran care upon their return, we must remain watchful of the administration's continuing escalation of militarism in a region where civilian deaths were up 40% in 2008, and is the highest since the Taliban government was removed in 2001. When will the senseless killing and wounding of civilians, largely women and children, stop? Sending more troops in won't help the situation, and will only increase the problem of meeting our veterans' needs as they return home.
Posted by sheryl-ann simpson on February 18th, 2009
“Appointee for Secretary of Labor Friend of Labor!”
It might not seem like a news headline, but Senate Republicans in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held up the vote on Hilda Solis' nomination primarily on this charge.
The official accusation circled around her membership on the board of American Rights at Work, a group that does education and outreach to promote the ability of workers to unionize. Her voting record, supportive of unions, was also a sore spot for some.
While there's no question that where there is corruption in unions, as in banks, and governments, that it would be great if it could be cleaned up. There is on the other hand an increasingly common notion that unionization equals corruption and that unionized workers are somehow to blame for the economic slowdown. The facts seem to point in a different direction. In the auto industry for example, union shops are the more productive ones.
With unemployment hitting 7.6% last month what is much more interesting about Ms. Solis are all of the initiatives she's involved in that no one is talking about. Take her work around green jobs, for instance, one creative idea that is gaining traction to add back jobs to the economy with living wages.
You can check out Hilda Solis' voting record for yourself at Open Congress.
Do you find yourself spending a lot of time worrying about, avoiding thinking about, or obsessing over your money? Chanda Jones is one of those rare people who loves budgets, and lucky for the rest of us she's willing to share her secrets.
Chanda is a financial advisor who focuses of helping women gain solid understanding of their finances and build tools and habits to take the next step to gain control of them. Chanda joined the EJHR working group to do a quick primer and help folks get off to a solid start for the new year.
Listen to Chanda's greetings and ideas for getting it under control in 2009.
Ahh, the dulcet tones of Rush Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" ringing in our ears, House Republicans standing firmly against the most progressive economic stimulus plan that we've seen in a long time, and the troubling expected introduction of an anti-immigrant policy that will be sure to derail the passage of the bill in the Senate….just another day in our brave new world.
Conservative shock jock Rush Limbaugh is being credited with mobilizing his listeners to call House Representatives and Senators to dismantle the Obama administration's economic recovery bill which includes, among other things, attention to public housing, funding for community organizing groups, millions of green jobs to double clean energy production in three years, provisions for health care for the unemployed and a tremendous investment in education, which is anticipated to avert thousands of personnel layoffs in schools. And, finally so many years after Hurricane Katrina, infrastructure improvements are being given much overdue attention.
To be sure, the plan is not picture perfect. While 1/3 of the plan is dedicated to spending on infrastructure improvements and 1/3 to other spending efforts, 1/3 is focused on tax cuts, particularly for some of the very businesses that got us in to the mess that we are in now. Verizon, for instance, is afforded nearly $1.6 billion dollars in tax cuts without the mandate to generate a single new job. These tax cuts are not going to help the communities that are most affected. The plan should reinstate the Medicaid Family Planning State Option-which would make sure that poor women would get access to the care they need. In addition, the plan itself has largely been recognized as only meeting 1/3rd of what is needed to get us out of our national rut with regards to its scope. What is also needed urgently is a fearless examination of the principles and policies that under gird our economic system. After all, it is the unabashed race for capital that has landed us in a time and space that has allowed for such a dramatic economic divide.
Rush and others like him have callously channeled Darwin-stating that the economy will right itself, as free market capitalism should, and those that are not fit to succeed will simply fade in to the sunset, leaving the more hearty to serve as public examples of survival. Therefore, such an economic plan is frivolous in their minds. And, despite Obama's mantra for bipartisanship, he's getting an awful lot of pushback from Republican leaders who are not so sure how to navigate all this bridge building.
I'm hoping that Rush Limbaugh finds something more constructive to do with his time. More importantly, I hope that the left can find it within ourselves to follow our own clarion call to put the pressure on representatives and senators to do the right thing when it comes to this bill, to continue to highlight what is good and forward looking about it, and with great precision, point out those pieces that are not conducive to rebuilding a healthy economy. I'm also hoping that we use this window of opportunity to examine our economic systems, including the ongoing impacts of the US system on the global economy, and work directly with our communities to use our collective imaginations in proposing a new way forward.
An empty desk with mountains of cascading papers and an antiquated computer monitor. A typical snapshot of an administrator’s desk inside a welfare agency in Detroit—this is the image accompanying a recent New York Times frontpage article on the shrinking distribution of welfare in the midst of an economic crisis. The office is a monument to a “state of neglect”—and seems to showcase the way in which poor and low-income people are the enduring objects of oversight—economic crisis or no. With unemployment soaring, and expected to reach nearly 10% by 2010, state assistance to families is shrinking amidst pressures to balance deficit budgets, which have long privileged tax cuts for the wealthy and special interests.
While some indicate that across the board reduced welfare distribution has everything to do with the lag-time between job loss and a decision to seek help, placing the onus on the individual’s “lack of responsibility”—what we know more certainly is that we are feeling the continued ripple factor of the failed welfare “reform” of the ‘90s that created a net of bureaucracy fraught with limitations, and operated with the underlying assumption that welfare recipients sought assistance in the absence of initiative to seek out jobs, which were supposedly, in great abundance to those who would seek them.
In this economic moment, however, it is hard to deny the deeply flawed reasoning that has guided the welfare system over the past decade. Jobs in the service and industrial sectors are collapsing every day, and protections for those who are on the frontlines are few and far between. While the Obama administration seems to be paying heed to the need for strengthening organized labor and improving the state of the middle class with a new task force and executive orders, it is hard to see the immediate impacts of these steps for those who have long-flown under the radar of policy makers, and who have not been able to approach the notion of asset development when more urgent needs around services have not been addressed.
In California, reports indicate that as the state takes another led-footed step its dirge towards bankruptcy, not only will tax payers not expect to see their refund checks, but those who receive state aid will receive IOUs. With 1,200,000 plus recipients of welfare in the state of California alone see chart on State-by-State Welfare Assistance, and over 2,300,000 receiving food stamps, we can expect a tremendous depression for poor people here and nationally—a depression which current statistics, it seems, do not even know how to capture.
On January 20, I had the great privilege of walking in the frigid morning air, watching the sunrise over the U.S. Capital, standing in a crowd of millions to bear witness to the dawning of a new era. It was nothing less than a pilgrimage. All of us—people young and old, and overwhelmingly of color—slowly crept along the streets, bundled in our heavy coats, scarves and gloves, toes numb through thick socks, to the National Mall. We waited—surviving the below-freezing temperatures, the size of the crowd broke the cold slice of wind, and kept us standing.
Flags waved and cheers erupted, as we watched the ceremony on the jumbotron screen next to the Washington Monument. The air fell silent during his speech. We hung on his every word as the world looked on. We were millions strong, braving the weather, to show our support not only for Obama, but to show the world that we stand ready to bring about peace, justice and well-being to our lives and communities, both at home and abroad. We have a lot of work to do.
We know the problems all too well. They’ve grown and compounded over the years. With U.S. military veteran suicides at an all-time high, the Iraqi people’s very survival torn apart by an on-going occupation, the promise of a U.S. military escalation in Afghanistan, decreasing economic and job opportunities at home, and violence on our own streets in Oakland - we can look to women’s voices and leadership in the coming years to lead the way. Women of color are hit the hardest here at home and around the world. And from this very place, we know what solutions are needed to heal our communities, to create jobs, to foster peace in a militarized culture.
Mothers, sisters, aunts, soldiers, veterans, students, youth, teachers, grandmothers and workers: let’s uphold these ideals of peace and justice. Let’s remind Obama and keep him and our country on track to achieve the hope that we stand in at this moment.
Posted by sheryl-ann simpson on January 27th, 2009
Our last BrownBag of the year was all about gentrification and community. Vanessa Moses of Just Cause Oakland , and Diana Wu of Asian Neighborhood Design facilitated a lively and informative conversation about the general housing and foreclosure situation in the Bay Area, and shared some of their strong work bringing together community members and supporting community organizations working towards justice in urban development. If you haven't before, I would highly recommend checking out their work.
The week after the BrownBag I had the opportunity to attend the Urban Habitat State of Region Summit. And if there were any lingering doubts in my mind that gentrification and urban change were women of color issues this event put them to bed. The State of the Region Report presented, by Professor Manual Pastor, was an eye opening look at some of the statistics behind growing inequities in the Bay Area. One point that stuck out was that the Bay Area is becoming a diverse but segregated region, with many communities of color leaving San Francisco, and living in increased segregation from each other in the different sub-regions of the Bay.
It wasn't all bad news though, Phaedra Ellis Lamkins of Working Partnerships USA & South Bay Labor Council made a marvelous presentation about some her organizations' work including a living wage agreement brokered with Southwest Airlines, and the San Jose Airport. Victories like that one are important examples of what someone else said during the day, that now is the time to make business and government leaders understand that it's time for the equity agenda to become the new competitiveness agenda in cities. You can learn more about Urban Habitat's Social Equity Caucus by visiting their website at www.urbanhabitat.org
Here's a quick post about the gentrification BrownBag from one of the participants
Posted by miriam ching-louie on January 26th, 2009
Gospel Fact: Esteemed Preacher Poet Joseph Lowery is one of WCRC's Granddaddies. Verily I say unto you, according to the Book of Amen!, Chapter Four Hundred Years, Verse 19:60, Grandpa's Southern Christian Leadership Conference via our Grandmother Miracle Maker Ella Baker begat Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which begat Black Women's Liberation Committee. Which begat Third World Women's Alliance (Verse 19:68.) Which morphed into Alliance Against Women's Oppression (Verse 19:80.) Which, together with uppidity sisters from several lost tribes, begat Woman of Color Resource Center (Verse 19:90.) A sacred, spicy lineage indeed.
Gospel Fact: Grandpa Lowery had himself some fun at Brother President's Inauguration, just a stone's toss from the idiot prince whom the Rev had excoriated at Widow Coretta's funeral for "weapons of misdirection" and "for war, billions more, but no more for the poor."
Gospel Fact: This Tuesday, Brother President, Sister First Lady, Sasha, Malia and Grandpa Lowery got cheered by several thousand faces wet with history in the Oakland Arena, rocking among ocean swells of youth suited in navy warm-up suits bearing the names of their schools and organizations. And you'd better believeth the assembled congregation booed lustily whenever Pharaohs I or II or Bunkerman Cheney sullied the quadruple screens sized in Biblical proportions.
Don't you hella love Oakland?
In prayer & peace,
Miriam, your humble servant named after Moses' big sis
My name is Fatemeh Fakhraie, and I'm the founder and editor of Muslimah Media Watch, a website dedicated to critiquing and analyzing worldwide media and pop culture images of Muslim women.
I created MMW because, as a feminist and a Muslim, I found that both feminist and Muslim media largely left untouched the problems of Muslim women's media representation. Sometimes, I found that feminist and Muslim outlets contributed to or exacerbated one-dimensional and/or negative images of Muslim women just the same as mainstream media. Muslim women are often portrayed in the media in incredibly problematic ways, and these weren't being discussed often enough. For Muslim women, oppression in the media is often multi-layered, and sexism, Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia often intersect. So I created the website to give us the analysis we need, examining movies, news stories, advertisements, etc., in a way that takes into account the different types of oppressions that Muslim women face. It's a space where we can reclaim ownership of our representation.
And are you a young-or not so young-women of color organizing in your community? We'd love to share your stories and you work with the whole Speak Fierce! community get in touch at blog@coloredgirls.org
Listening to his benediction reminded me why I sometimes feel a disconnect between, now, President Obama's promises and ideas, and the earlier Civil Rights era. While both Lowery and Mr Obama spoke of a need to work together, and a spirit of sacrifice, Rev. Lowery, who was an integral part of that earlier time and movement, also filled his prayer with words and ideas I feel as though I seldom hear from the new administration. One important phrase being 'poor people', coupled with an unabashed use of the word 'justice'.
Obviously, there is a huge difference between a benediction and public policy, and I don't expect the Obama administration to announce "the beating of tanks into tractors" as part of the employment stimulus plan--although it is a really lovely image--but I would love to see this reminder that the middle class is not the only class, and this time around not even the only voting class, translated into some serious initiatives to restore a notion of the rights of people living in poverty, and some acknowledgments of the previous policies and actions that have worked to strip away that idea.
One of my favorite Martin Luther King Jr quotes is "power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic." It's great that the love seems to be back in power, but now it's time to use that love to empower.
All those who love justice and mercy say amen indeed. ________________________ check out this re-post from illdoctrine.com at RaceWire of this and nine other great MLK Jr. quotes.
It is a great pleasure to share a moment through blog with “Women of Color” about this herstorical/historical time in elections. My family is from the island of Tonga in the South Pacific. I grew up watching my father work hard and supporting our family through landscaping, a highly seasonal job. I was fortunate that my mother was a stay-at-home mom who worked hard to nurture our educational dreams and to keep us grounded. I never forget the journey that my family has come through and all the challenges we faced trying to first find landscaping jobs, make ends meet and navigate our way through the educational system.
I know that we have power in our voices. All the struggles we went through as a family, I know that I’m not alone in that type of struggle. Other Pacific Islanders struggle, Hawaiian, Chamorros, Fijians, and Samoans struggle just as we did. We can do one of two things: complain or do something about it. I have chosen to encourage others to use their privilege of voting to project that voice and have that voice heard. There are laws that affect us directly and that is something I want my community to know. I and my best friend, Amelia Niumeitolu, started a voter registration and information site on bebo.com, a site that is highly popular among Pacific Islanders worldwide. We wanted Pacific Islanders worldwide to be informed of the historical events happening in America and how it will affect our Pacific Island community in terms of presidential candidates to state-specific Propositions. We have power in offering the future of our Pacific Island generations to come a pace and example that we can set for them. I have great hope for our Pacific Island people and that we can and will be seen and heard within civic engagements and public policy. I am a mother of two and currently studying at California State University, Northridge. Although it is a challenge to be a mother, student, and work—it is rewarding to do something that I believe in and am passionate about to help my community. My hopes are that my passion will ignite in someone else the passion I feel to help our Pacific Island community be more active, more involved…and of course, hope that it becomes contagious!
Asena Taione lives, work, goes to school and organizes in Los Angeles and started the amazing Obama for ‘Ofa—which translates as love—group on the Bebo social networking site.
And are you a young—or not so young—women of color organizing in your community? We’d love to share your stories and you work with the whole Speak Fierce! community get in touch at blog[at]coloredgirls.org
Radio is such a great medium for expressing ideas and telling stories. It can suck you in even while you’re driving or doing the dishes. Every year the Third Coast Festival hosts an awards ceremony to celebrate the best radio stories of the year.
This years’ Silver medal in the documentary category went to a story called Growing Up in the System. In Growing Up Shirley “Star” Diaz tells her story of aging out of the foster care system. She carried an audio recorder with her for months recording her thoughts and capturing the voices of friends and family. The documentary was produced as part of the Radio Rookies youth program at New York public radio station.
WCRC’s own radio training program TEMPO is getting ready to start a new session in 2009, but in the meanwhile you can listen to past TEMPO stories at www.coloredgirls.org/tempo, and at Public Radio Exchange (PRX) where you can also discover other independent voices.
Exactly as the name suggests the campaigners are reaching out to people around the world to support their efforts to push for greater equality in the treatment of women in Iran. In our Peace and Solidarity work we try and point out the impacts of government violence around the world so this is a great opportunity for all of us to follow the lead of this strong group of women and support their work.
You can read more about the campaigners here, and you can sign their petition here.
Thanks to the Muslimah Media Watch Blog for turning us onto this campaign.
________________________
These young women are following in a strong tradition of women organizing in Iran. Earlier this month the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), human rights organization of Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, was closed by the Iranian government a move that Ebadi describes as illegal.
Earlier this week in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), thousands of people poured into the streets for a huge demonstration demanding an end to the sexual violence that has become all too common-place in the ongoing military conflict in the DRC. [read more]
WCRC will focus on the DRC in January, exploring the impacts of the ongoing war on women, as well as talking about what people in the United States and other Western nations can do to support, and work in solidarity with the women of DRC.
In the meanwhile here are some links about the abuse and activism of women in this ongoing war.
It's easy to be peeved at Bobby Jindal, the South Asian-American conservative and Louisiana governor, has carelessly been referred to the "right's Obama." His post-State of the Union rebuttal was robotic and uninspiring, to put it lightly. And, it seemed so out of place to see a young man of color dismissing the first state of the union speech of this administration, which was by and large, a job well done. Nevertheless, it was disappointing to hear liberal commentator Chris Matthew's 
What do states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina have in common?
This week President Obama ordered 17,000 more troops into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and support the forces already on the ground there. This news comes directly after the first large victory of his presidency, the passing of the economic stimulus plan, as we all work to change the tide of crisis, recession and job loss at home. The U.S. economy is the largest military economy in the world, and this decision proves that the U.S. economy still favors the military now more that ever, and is still committed to sending valuable tax dollars into a never-ending war overseas with no end in sight. As the number of those active duty members lost in Afghanistan and Iraq grows to nearly 5,000, and the numbers of wounded veterans grows even higher, we must remain vigilant of the Obama administration's choice to send more troops into harms way. It's not only 17,000 more troops deployed, that's 17,000 more families, wives, husbands, mothers, children, brothers, sisters and friends who will be serving with them in worry, phone calls and sleepless nights, as they await their loved ones return. As we push for better veteran care upon their return, we must remain watchful of the administration's continuing escalation of militarism in a region where civilian deaths were up 40% in 2008, and is the highest since the Taliban government was removed in 2001. When will the senseless killing and wounding of civilians, largely women and children, stop? Sending more troops in won't help the situation, and will only increase the problem of meeting our veterans' needs as they return home.
It might not seem like a news headline, but Senate Republicans in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held up the vote on 
On January 20, I had the great privilege of walking in the frigid morning air, watching the sunrise over the U.S. Capital, standing in a crowd of millions to bear witness to the dawning of a new era. It was nothing less than a pilgrimage. All of us—people young and old, and overwhelmingly of color—slowly crept along the streets, bundled in our heavy coats, scarves and gloves, toes numb through thick socks, to the National Mall. We waited—surviving the below-freezing temperatures, the size of the crowd broke the cold slice of wind, and kept us standing.
Listening to his benediction reminded me why I sometimes feel a disconnect between, now, President Obama's promises and ideas, and the earlier Civil Rights era. While both Lowery and Mr Obama spoke of a need to work together, and a spirit of sacrifice, Rev. Lowery, who was an integral part of that earlier time and movement, also filled his prayer with words and ideas I feel as though I seldom hear from the new administration. One important phrase being 'poor people', coupled with an unabashed use of the word 'justice'.
It is a great pleasure to share a moment through blog with “Women of Color” about this herstorical/historical time in elections. My family is from the island of Tonga in the South Pacific. I grew up watching my father work hard and supporting our family through landscaping, a highly seasonal job. I was fortunate that my mother was a stay-at-home mom who worked hard to nurture our educational dreams and to keep us grounded. I never forget the journey that my family has come through and all the challenges we faced trying to first find landscaping jobs, make ends meet and navigate our way through the educational system. 