Category: Arts & Culture
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Was there a conspiracy to create “white Jesus”? And what does this have to do with the Doctrine of Discovery?
The historical Jesus had brown skin, so who is the white guy Christians have been worshipping? Some believe it is a 16th Century Italian playboy, Cesare Borgia. Borgia’s father, Pope Alexander IV, is responsible for the 1493 Papal Bull that launched the genocidal Doctrine of Discovery. But did he also replace images of Jesus with…
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An Autistic Professional Calls for Autonomy for Neurodiverse People
Marginalized people, or really just those who are down on their luck, are especially reliant on people’s good will and good opinions of us because we need others’ help. This leaves us especially vulnerable to people who seek to take advantage. We can be manipulated by those who think we won’t realize that what they…
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Reflecting on Bad Boys II in 2020 (or, How the Bad Boys Franchise Helped Normalize Police Misconduct in America)
Bad Boys for Life, the third in the Bad Boys franchise, just hit theaters. So it’s a good time to remind you that Michael Bey’s sequel Bad Boys II was a big red warning flag of all that is wrong with America in 2020.
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Happy Fortieth Birthday Millennials
Did you know that the oldest millennials turn forty this year? The defining end and beginning of a generation is ambiguous. Some put the cutoff at those who graduated high school in 2000, others define it by ten-year periods, putting the start at those born in 1980…and anyone who was born in 1980 will be…
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“I am 69 years old. I will never not be a racist.”: Reflections from a South African Expatriate
I am a racist. I grew up white in apartheid South Africa. My neighborhood, buses, trains, movie theaters, restaurants, schools, beaches were all strictly segregated. Even park benches were marked “Whites Only.” People of color were known as “Non-Europeans.” Non-Europeans built and cleaned and maintained my buses, trains, movie theaters, restaurants, schools, beaches, park benches.…
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Fighting displacement with clay: A subversive real estate office is coming to Oakland
In 2015, shortly after being displaced from her San Francisco Apartment, Cassie Thornton came to possess a large truckload of clay. This clay was being removed from the construction site for Salesforce Tower when Thornton walked by and was enamored. Since then, Thornton has been the caretaker of the clay. “At times the clay has…
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Resisting the planet-killing banks with style and mirth
Last week, Alexandra Casio-Cortez flayed a Wells Fargo Bank executive on Capital Hill for the role his bank played in backing the Dakota Access Pipeline. Well Fargo is one of many megabanks funding countless big oil projects, including DAPL and the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline. A 2018 report shows that Wells Fargo invested more than $4.6…
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Throw a Creative Mischief Party to Plan for the Next March or Rally
When you find out about the next rally or march, you may wonder how you can increase your impact. There is one thing you can always do, and it’s both easy and fun: throw a protest party to prep for the protest. By protest party, I don’t mean a kegger or a party with streamers…
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No Safe Spaces: A Poem by Fred Dodsworth
Standing midst the flames like wolves’ tongues surrounded by shattered lives, the sun sets in the East this time, a dark orange pallor casting its sickly shadow over dreams once offered. “It’s a republic if you can keep it…”
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Good Queer Decolonial Fun: The She-Ra Reboot
Just like the old show, the new She-Ra is all about coalition-building towards decolonization, but it incorporates a lot of what folks have learned about organizing and hegemonic power over the last 25 years—even if its gloss is superficial, there’s definitely enough material in each episode to use as fodder in a “talking to your…