This is probably one of my favorite installment of shit/things [insert group of people] say to [insert another group of people] videos. Every white, cis, feminist, anarchist, anti-capitalism activist needs to watch this video as I’m sure they’ve on occasion made these absurd, ignorant statements in the name of being progressive.
It’s hard for me to like Mitt Romney. I used to have some respect for him as a moderate Republican, but he’s slowly making his way down towards the top of my Politicians I’d Like To Disappear list. In an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, the likely GOP presidential nominee said he’s not concerned about the “very poor” as they have a safety net and the “very rich” as they are doing “just fine.”
Romney said he’s concerned about the average Americans who have been battling a terrible economy since President Barack Obama took office. Here’s the exact exchange:
“I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he said. “We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich; they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90%, 95% of Americans right now who are struggling, and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.”
When pressed by CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien about his remark about the very poor, Romney cited food stamps, Medicaid and housing vouchers.
“You can choose where to focus,” he said. “You can focus on the rich; that’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor; that’s not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.”
Because, you know, only middle-income Americans have been the only ones hurt by the Great Recession…
How can one not be concerned about the very poor, yet advocate fixing the safety net “if it needs repair?”
The Republican crop of presidential candidates have been on this kick of not necessarily scapegoating the poor and the struggling, but of dismissing their plight as unimportant or not distinct enough to garner their attention. What do you make of Romney’s comments? A simple gaffe or a reflection of the type of campaign he will run?
A Virginia state senator is looking for some “gender equity” when it comes to reproductive health.
To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.
“We need some gender equity here,” she told HuffPost. “The Virginia senate is about to pass a bill that will require a woman to have totally unnecessary medical procedure at their cost and inconvenience. If we’re going to do that to women, why not do that to men?”
Of course, the amendment was rejected by the Republican-controlled Virginia State Senate, but did pass the ultrasound requirement bill on a voice vote.
The senator noted it was “only fair, that if we’re going to subject women to unnecessary procedures, and we’re going to subject doctors to having to do things that they don’t think is medically advisory.”
I just want to commend this politician for actually standing up and speaking out about the clear double standard and medical hypocrisy anti-abortion rights politicians continue to engage in. I hope to see other pro-choice politicians and activists alike begin publicly addressing this sexist attack on women’s rights.
Courtesy DA Youth
Many of us in the U.S. wouldn’t get riled up when we see advertisements such as this. However, in South Africa, some folks are outraged at the ad, according to the Washington Post. The poster, created by South African’s Democratic Alliance Youth, was for the organization’s 2012 membership campaign.
The poster has dominated conversation among politicians and the media in South Africa, the Globe and Mail reports. While many have been supportive of its message, some have taken issue with the poster’s supposed promotion of sex.
Others have traded racist remarks on the Democratic Alliance Youth’s Facebook page, with one commenter posting a photo of an all-white, blonde family with the remark “Now that’s how it should be!” People who do not support the poster have also made parody versions of the image that some might consider to be more offensive.
Some black South Africans have objected to the fact that the man is white and the woman is black, because it implies a certain dominance among traditional cultures. “Who is the head of a house? Yes, a man, and the man makes the choices and the women listens,” wrote one commenter on the Facebook page. “So to some it has been offensive that the man is white and the woman is black, because it places the black nation under the head of the house, so to speak.”
On its Facebook page, DA Youth Federal Chairperson Mbali Ntuli defended the group’s poster:
If there is anything that this poster has brought to the attention of us all it is that we need to decide as young people; do we want our generation to continue to be unable to shake race as our defining narrative? I think that this is one of those questions which our generation was going to have to answer one way or another eventually.
No matter how uncomfortable this conversation may be for some we must fight to have it as young South Africans, we fight because we appreciate that young South Africans before us had no voice and we fight because we represent so many young South Africans that STILL have no voice.
This poster was intended to start that conversation. The conversation is about race, but more than that this poster speaks to the principle of tolerance. This image could be replaced, as you may have all already seen from the parodies, by numerous others that all speak to the same principle. I have seen two young men or women, I have seen one of a Muslim and a Jewish person embracing, one of a Tamil and Hindi person and numerous others. The point is that we live in a country full of people that have forgotten how to tolerate people that seemingly don’t see the world as they do. On the other spectrum, and this is evident from the parodies and people’s responses, we are living in a country full of people that already do tolerate others views. This is the voice we should be encouraging to speak, that we should be giving a platform, that we should be reassuring that it is ok to not want to confine yourself to a socially constructed box, that it is ok because there are many of us who don’t fit neatly in those boxes either, many of us right here in the DA. That is who we need to be getting to believe in OUR vision for SA.
Part of addressing the issue of intolerance is about bringing people’s prejudices to the fore. This is done not with the intention of being belligerent and attacking people but about maturely acknowledging that people have them and getting them to talk about it. We need to ask them why exactly it causes them so much discomfort? We must facilitate, and more importantly, lead this discussion.
Part of me wants to stick up for the organization and defend its use of an interracial couple in the ad campaign. As someone who is in an interracial relationship with a white man, I can’t comprehend the reasoning of those who oppose the poster, particularly those who believe replacing the black woman with a white woman would somehow make it more appealing. However, part of me understands that apartheid ended only 20 years go and there are still great inequalities among whites and blacks in South Africa, thus maximizing the racial tensions already present. It would also be unfair for me to use my American influence and give an opinion on why South Africans should embrace the poster.
What do you think of the poster and the controversy surrounding it?
I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. The skinny via Rawstory, which quotes Tennessee Republican State Senator Stacy Campfield making these outrageous false claims:
“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community,” he told Michelangelo Signorile, who hosts a radio program on SiriusXM OutQ. “It was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”
“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex.”
It is generally accepted that at some point HIVcrossed species from chimps to humans, but there is no evidence that this was caused by bestiality. Rick Sowadsky of the Nevada State Health Division AIDS program noted in 1998 that it highly unlikely that HIV was transmitted through inter-species sexual contact, given the behavior of chimps and the differences between the sexual anatomy of humans and other primates.
According to the the Center for Disease Control, male-to-male sexual contact has been the most common way to transmit AIDS, followed by injection drug use and heterosexual sex.
Campfield briefly gained national attention in 2011 when he introduced legislation that critics derided as “the don’t say gay bill.”
“[Homosexuals] do not naturally reproduce,” he told Signorile. “It has not been proven that it is nature. It happens in nature, but so does beastiality. That does not make it right or something we should be teaching in school.”
Yes, blame it on the gheis for unleashing their repulsive, multi-sex partner lifestyle onto the rest of us so-called “normal” heterosexual folks…
This reminds me of a situation in which I was in college. We were working on a public relations project in which we would promote a local nonprofit organizations. One of my classmates admitted she was taught that only members of the GLBTQ community got HIV/AIDS and it was because they were sinners, disobeying God’s law. More recently, I even had a former co-worker, who admitted that when she found out her brother was gay, he was going to catch AIDS and die.
Fortunately, the classmate and former co-worker came full circle and recognized the errors in their discriminatory beliefs, but we can’t say the same for the Sen. Campfield. He is apparently sticking by his story:
10News sat down with the senator where he confirmed his statements, but said it was taken out of context. He said that he acknowledges that heterosexuals can contract the virus. He meant that certain groups are at much higher risk for AIDS.
“A lot of people trying to gloss over and say it’s an every person disease but really it’s just those high risk people that are most likely to contract or spread that disease The odds of a regular man getting it from a regular woman are very low,” he said.
We asked, “What do you mean by ‘regular?’”
He said, “someone who is not from Africa, someone who is not a homosexual, someone who is not an IV drug user, someone who is not sleeping with someone who is one of those things.”
Senator Campfield sees nothing wrong with his answers.
“I didn’t say I was a gay/AIDS historian. I didn’t say I know the facts backwards and forwards I just said what I’ve heard and the facts back me up,” he said.
I should note the Senator is the chief sponsor of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would bar teachers from talking about homosexuality with students. The bill is currently being considered in the Tennessee state house.
Wait…GLBTQ folks, Africans and IV drug users aren’t “regular” people?!
A twenty-something black woman fed up with the degradation and subjugation black women are faced with each day. It's time we stand up and demand better. It's time for a revolution!
