Airmail

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What counts as activism? Why didn’t the kind of emotional self-care me and my girls were doing—talking to each other about all the fucked-up shit we were going through as brown girls—count? Why didn’t my best friend driving her elderly East African mother to the doctor and renegotiating her way through the layers of the racist, sexist, condescending bullshit medical system count as activism? Did staying alive count as activism? Did re-learning Tamil, one of my Sri Lankan family’s languages, count? Did cooking good Sri Lankan food and learning how to cook those recipes I didn’t have female family members around to teach me count? As a South Asian femme immigrant who was having a shitty week, did shopping at the MAC counter and finding the perfect shade of fuchsia lip gloss for my milk-tea skin count?

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The task of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much personal integrity as possible; it is to dismantle those systems.

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The 8th Fire: Interview with Taiaiake Alfred, Mohawk scholar, writer and outspoken activist

He teaches at UVic. I’ve heard him speak before and he is amazing.

I’m placing this here mostly as a bookmark as I haven’t had a chance to listen to him.

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Girls Action Foundation :: National Day of Action 2012

etiquette-etc:

A call to ACTION

You want to change the world but you’re not sure where to start, right? Common wisdom says we should start from home – however you define ‘home’! This Valentine’s Day, we’re encouraging you to Take Action about something that matters in your community!

Why Valentine’s Day?

Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what Valentine’s Day is usually made of…or is it? For the 8th consecutive year, Girls Action Foundation is flipping the script on sending chocolate and shining light on girls and young women who are making an impact in their communities instead. This is your turn to Take Action.

How to participate?

REGISTER YOUR ACTION

Click here to REGISTER your proposed action and apply for funding.

Registration opens on December 8th, 2011 and closes on January 8th, 2012.

‘ACTION LOVE LETTER’

We think what you’re doing in your local communities is really important and we want to spread the word! In fact, we want to send a collective ‘love letter’ to all girls and young women across the country.

Using social media (FB, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr), we’re inviting you to post an image (graphic, cartoon, photo, etc.), audio, video, poem, or spoken word piece that tells us why you want to take an action and what impact you hope to make in your community. If you’re not doing an action, we still want to hear from you! Let us know what message you want to send to girls and young women in Canada?

Send us your social media posts, we’ll gather your messages and send a collective love letter to girls and young women across Canada! The Action Love Letter will be published on social media and on our website on February 14th.

BLOGGING CARNIVAL

Every year, Kickaction.ca hosts a four-week-long blogging carnival.

Starting on February 14th, Girls Action’s National Day of Action, bloggers from across Canada share their experience, their knowledge and their opinions on issues related to young women. We are inviting you to take part in a carnival of discussion by logging in and speaking up. Let us know if you’d like to be a blogger!

To view last year’s themes and blogs, click here.

To find out more about the National Day of Action, contact Karine at karine@girlsactionfoundation.ca.

If you’re in BC you can give our BC Interconnector, Melanie, a call at (604) 376- 3847 or send over an email to her at melanie@girlsactionfoundation.ca Otherwise, you can also call our headquarters at 1.888.948.1112.

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andheartisdaft:

bidyke:

The Revolution Starts at Home - in PDF!

I was looking for a good reason to stay up late, and here it is! Also, definite trigger warning here for detailed discussion of sexual violence and abuse; please do click through with caution.

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We need to move the self-care conversation into community care. We need to move the conversation from individual to collective. From independent to interdependent.

Too often self-care in our organizational cultures gets translated to our individual responsibility to leave work early, go home- alone- and go take a bath, go to the gym, eat some food and go to sleep. So we do all of that “self-care” to return to organizational cultures where we reproduce the systems we are trying to break; where we are continually reminded of our own trauma or exposed and absorb secondary PTSD, and where we then feel guilty or punished for leaving work early the night before to take a bubble bath.

Self-care, as it is framed now, leaves us in danger of being isolated in our struggle and our healing. Isolation of yet another person, another injustice, is a notch in the belt of Oppression. A liberatory care practice is one in which we move beyond self-care into caring for each other.

You shouldn’t have to do this alone.

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A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline zine

fuckyeahradicalliterature:

The paper versions of this zine are now sold out, but there’s a digital download of it (an an audio version too). Please pass it on.

http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com/p/queer-and-trans-fat-activist-timeline.html

(via locomotives)

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etiquette-etc:

Join us for a weekend of skills-sharing, network-building, and action-oriented discussions on poverty in Victoria!
Cracks in the Concrete is a weekend-long event of teach-in/learn-in workshops, skill-sharing, discussion and strategizing that aims to inspire, strengthen and connect groups and individuals working on poverty issues in Victoria, on Lekwungen, Esquimalt and WSANEC territories.
We hope to: * Provide a public venue for groups and communities working on poverty-related issues to share their work * Foster solidarity and collective action among different organizations * Provide a forum for new and experienced activists to build and hone their organizing skills.
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There is no pre-registration, but please follow this link (http://cracksintheconcrete.org/accessibility/) to pre-arrange specific accessibility options.
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FREE morning snacks (available at 9:30 am), lunch (both days) and dinner (Saturday). Please contact us if you have any serious dietary restrictions.

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BIG FANCY: being bad ass and tough means having an open and tender heart

innerfatgirl:

last night i was thinking about what my tender heart would look like if i could see it. i am sad to say that the heart i saw in my head looked far too weathered and weary for my age.

i think it is really important that we continue working really hard at learning how to take care of each other and…

(Source: mmmajestic)

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ephemera and shit: 10 ways to be a body-positive advocate!

tangledupinlace:

elitita:

1. Be yourself. Whatever size, color, religion, gender, race, or sexual orientation. Don’t make apologies for yourself. Believe in the righteousness of your cause. Believe that hate helps nobody.

2. Understand that you’re beautiful. Understand that…

(Source: laborreguitina)

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Activists turn British banks into creches, classrooms and launderettes in protest over public service cuts

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“This is a muzzle I’ve put on myself. Out of a really embarrassing need to be liked. Because even after you’ve learned to love yourself, and gotten respect from some of the smartest people currently working and writing in social justice, you still have all of those old ideas about queer identity in your head. You still see yourself as a monster, or a jester, or a Tom of Finland picture. Something hideous, something that should remain silent and polite and inoffensive, until its voice is deemed safe enough for general consumption.

Finding your own voice is only the first step. You still have to speak in that voice without flinching. Without feeling like you need to apologize for it or explain it. You still have to teach other people how to treat you. At some point you just have to stop being polite, and start getting real. You have to stoke the engine of your activism and polite, submissive anger isn’t an adequate fuel source.”

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Colorlines' Predictions-and Wild Dreams-for Racial Justice in 2011

“Prediction:

Activism through design blows up even more in 2011. It’s already a growing trend with graphic design, architecture/urban design, product design. We’ll see even more projects like the DREAM Act and SB 1070 poster campaigns.”

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