Category: RawStory

Articles originally posted on RawStory.com

Worst analogies of the week: why marriage equality is like serving ‘bacon-wrapped shrimp’ in Jewish delis

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images via wikipedia
images via wikipedia

In an age of terrible, hyperbolic, trivializing analogies, it takes a special one to really stand out. Here are the best, or worst, examples of terrible comparisons from the week.

Black people… they’re just like zoo animals.  Benjamin Cole, a top advisor to Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) wrote the following about two Black people he saw outside of his Washington DC apartment: “So apparently the closing of the National Zoo has forced the animals to conduct their mating rituals on my street.” Cole, the former Baptist pastor and energy industry spokesman is not just a brilliant anthropologist/ zoologist/ racist, but a sharp political aid, because he posted these thoughts on Facebook. See other racist gems from Cole, here.  Shock accepted Cole’s resignation on Thursday. So, we are now back to living in that post-racial world in which Rosa Parks ended racism and the President is Black.

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The Grammys have nominated at least 5 men charged with domestic violence or assault

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image via wikipedia

Sunday’s Grammys are being applauded for highlighting domestic violence. President Obama delivered a PSA on sexual and domestic violence, and the White House’s “It’s On Us” campaign. Then activist Brooke Axtell performed spoken word about her experience as a survivor of sex trafficking and domestic violence. And finally Katy Perry sang a song, “By the Grace of God,” which may be about domestic abuse as well. The Grammys are getting criticized, however, for undercutting their anti-domestic violence messaging by having nominated Chris Brown, who pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, in 2009. And R Kelly married an underage Alliyah, when she was 15 and he was was 27, and was indicted on charges of making child pornography after a video surfaced in which he is seen having sex with and urinating on a 14-year old girl. He was ultimately acquitted but has settled several cases of sexual assault out of court.

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This week in rape culture: it’s not rape if you’re married, contact the rapist, or work in prison

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image via shutterstock
image via shutterstock

There’s so much rape culture in the world it’s nearly impossible to keep up! So, I’ve taken the liberty of gathering just some of the best examples of rape culture from this week. It turns out a lot of things we think of as rape aren’t really rape at all. This is great news for all of you out there who thought you were victims or survivors of rape. Congratulations! You’re not!

So here, without further ado… I present… #YouKnowYoureNotRapedIf

1. You are unconscious but your non-rapist is your boyfriend or husband. State Rep. Angela Romero (D-Salt Lake City) presented a bill which would clarify the state’s legal definition of rape. Up until now, rape was defined as taking place when “The victim has not consented and the actor knows the victim is unconscious, unaware that the act is occurring, or physically unable to resist.” Romero, being the extremist, man-hating, feminist that she is, wanted to remove, “the victim has not consented.” Her radical reasoning is that, “if somebody is unconscious you probably shouldn’t attempt to try to have sexual relations with them.” In other words, you shouldn’t be allow to have sex with someone who is unconscious and then say it’s not rape because they didn’t “say” no.

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Vatican releases then removes bizarre ‘what you think about being a woman’ video

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Screen Shot 2015-02-04 at 1.46.22 PM

Nothing shatters the image of an out of touch, sexist Catholic Church like an all-male summit on women. So, in a great P.R. move, the Vatican is hosting a Plenary Assembly entitled, “Women’s cultures: equality and difference,” from February fourth to February seventh. (Then again, given that the Vatican did appoint someone with Hitler Youth experience to be god’s messenger on earth, this is a relatively minor misstep.)

But even given the insular, boys-only nature of the Assembly, as well as the Vatican in general, the video released to publicize the event is shockingly bizarre, embarrassing and cringe-inducing.

Incorporating cheesy wipes, and interesting fonts, the video stars Italian actress Nancy Brilli, who does some dramatic head moves appropriate for a Pantene commercial and says things like, “I’m sure you’ve asked yourself, who you are, who you do, what you think about your being a woman. Your strengths. Your diffIculties. Your body. And your spiritual life.” She then encourages women to put their work online with the hashtag, or, as Brilli says, “ashtag,” #LifeOfWomen. She signs off by saying, “You– [shampoo ad head move]–Yes you–are important!”

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Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand! 8 scary quotes from the mother of the Tea Party

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image via wikipedia

Happy 110th birthday, Ayn Rand!  Born Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, in Saint Petersburg, Rand wrote The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, founded Objectivism, and helped give rise to the Libertarian and Tea Party movements, though she would certainly be mortified to see some of the people (i.e. all the religious ones) who her attribute their political beliefs to her ideology. To celebrate the guru of selfishness, let us look at scary quotes which range from denouncing altruism as evil to warning against female presidents.

1. It’s not that I dislike altruism, it’s just that it’s evil. During an interview, Mike Wallace said, “You say that you do not like the altruism by which we live.” Rand responded by correcting him ever so slightly: “I will say that, ‘I don’t like’ is too weak a word. I consider it evil.”

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Black Lives Kind of Matter: Marissa Alexander free after 3 years, Civil Rights heroes clear after 53

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image via youtube
Originally posted on RawStory

File these stories under “This week in Justice Delayed/ relative progress/ baby steps/ Black Lives Matter a Little” news: a Black woman who never should have been convicted for firing a warning shot to scare off an abusive husband is “allowed” to serve the rest of her sentence at home under house arrest. And a judge threw out the convictions of 9 Black men who had sat at an all white lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961.

Marissa Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in jail for shooting a wall and harming nobody. She was attempting to scare off her abusive then-husband, Rico Gray, who had admitted to and against whom she had a restraining order. Thinking he was not at home, Alexander went to their former house to get some belongings. The two got into an argument and, according to Alexander, Gray threatened her. Gray corroborates Alexander’s story: “I was in a rage. I called her a whore and bitch and … I told her … if I can’t have you, nobody going to have you,” he said, in a deposition. When Alexander retreated into the bathroom, Gray tried to break the door. She ran into the garage, but couldn’t leave because it was locked. She came back with a registered gun, which she legally owned, and yelled at him to leave. Gray recalls, “I told her … I ain’t going nowhere, and so I started walking toward her … I was cursing and all that … and she shot in the air.” Gray himself understands why Alexander fired the warning shot:

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Ten portraits secretly drawn by an Auschwitz prisoner

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Image via CNN
Image via CNN
Originally posted on RawStory

Today, Tuesday, January 27th, marks the seventieth anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, the death camp where the Nazis killed 1.1 million people between 1940 and 1945. 90% of those killed there were Jews and Auschwitz.was where one out of six of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were murdered. But the camp also housed, and killed, Polish people, Soviet political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, “homosexuals,” and Romani.

One of the people who survived Auschwitz,was Franciszek Jaźwiecki, a Polish political prisoner and artist, who captured the faces of his fellow inmates through the hundreds of portraits he drew.  As Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art historian the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, writes, “the most interesting in these portraits are eyes — a very strange helplessness.” Sieradzka also suspects Jaźwiecki saw the portraits as future artifacts, since almost every portrait featured the prisoner number of the subject, which made them identifiable.

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Your end-of-the-week indulgence: Obama’s SOTU zinger remixed

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image via youtube

In case you missed President Obama’s amazing ad-libbed zinger of a comeback from this week’s State of The Union Address, here it is presented in its true essence: a music video.

When President Obama said, “I have no more campaigns to run,” some Republicans cheer and clapped. And without missing a beat, our commander in chief said, “I know, because I won both of them.” LIKE A BOSS!

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9 Sitting members of Congress who voted against Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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image via wikipedia
image via wikipedia

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! To celebrate, let’s honor the currently sitting politicians who voted against making this day a federal or state holiday!

First, some background. Congressman John Conyers, (D-MI) first introduced legislation for a Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday on April 8, 1968, four days after he was killed.  When Conyers brought the bill to the floor in November 1979, it failed by five votes. A bill was finally passed in 1983 and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, who only signed it because his veto would have been over-ridden.

So, let’s take a look at the politicians who are still in office and who voted against honoring Dr. King through a federal holiday.

1. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

 

See the full list here

 

France turns anti-semitic, unfunny ‘comedian’ Dieudonné into free speech hero by arresting him

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image via wikipedia

Really, France? The country that prides itself on its liberté responds to an unfunny, hateful and stupid Facebook comment by arresting the idiot who posts it? The week after holding a march honoring free speech as well as those killed over exercising free speech? France does have a long tradition of conditional liberty. I think we all know the famous quote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, unless you post it on Facebook, in which case you deserve to be arrested.”  (This quote is really, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It is misattributed to Voltaire but is actually a phrase used by Evelyn Beatrice Hall to describe Voltaire’s position.)

On Wednesday, French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who goes by his first name only, was arrested for being an “apologist for terrorism” over a post he wrote on Facebook on Monday: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly,” mixing the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan in solidarity with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting with a reference to Amédy Coulibaly, the man who killed four people at a kosher supermarket last week.

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