current events

Follow posts tagged #current events, #news, and #nsa in seconds.

This is what the school-to-prison pipeline looks like. This is how black youth criminalized.

She was doing a science experiment
She’s being charged as an ADULT
She’s being charged with a FELONY

If this all goes the way the prosecution wants, this young woman will be LEGALLY discriminated against for the rest of her life. No voting, housing discrimination, employment discrimination (as if getting a job while black isn’t hard enough), etc. etc.

#venice biennale

*****THIS POST WAS WRITTEN AT 1:18PM ON 14/12/2012 BASED ON INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT THE TIME. DUE TO THE SPEED OF THE INVESTIGATION AND BREADTH OF COVERAGE, BY THE TIME YOU SEE A REBLOG, INFORMATION VERY WELL MAY HAVE CHANGED AND RENDERED THIS POST OUTDATED OR IRRELEVANT. DON’T MESSAGE ME, DON’T COMPLAIN ABOUT IT, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO RIGHT BY THE FAMILIES THAT LOST THEIR CHILDREN OR LOVED ONES BY NOT BEING A GUN-TOTING ASSHOLE*****

There have been no confirmations that the terrorist who committed the shooting had a mental illness.
Blaming mental illness provides a scapegoat for the pro-gun lobbyists.
Blaming mental illness indirectly blames all mentally ill people, the vast majority of whom are nonviolent and never would be violent.
Blaming mental illness for “isolated incidents” and “sudden breakdowns” STILL ALLOWS FOR PEOPLE WHO WILL OR MAY “break down” TO BUY GUNS.
Blaming mental illness means that you’ve already stopped seeing the terrorist as a gun owner and gun user first and foremost, which means you’ve already divorced yourself from seeing this as a human tragedy committed by a violent human.
Mental illness or not, the terrorist was a civilian who was able to purchase a fucking huge gun, legally, in the United States, then walk into a school and murder children. Whether he had a mental illness or not, if he had not been able to purchase the gun, he would not have been able to use it to MURDER CHILDREN.

so fucked up. Now bear with me - this is the Daily Mail so they won’t be the most feminist in covering this, but it is agreed that this is an effed up situation.

The nine-year-old girl who gave birth in Mexico will never have another child after she was sterilized by the doctors who delivered her baby - against her family’s wishes, it was revealed today.

The youngster was given the procedure following the shock delivery without the consent of her own mother.

She has now reported the Zoquipan Hospital in Guadalajara to the local human rights commission which is investigating.

I hope something good comes of this. No one deserves to have their reproductive rights violated - even if they’ve given birth at 9. Unacceptable.

Also kind of surprised this hasn’t been given more attention in the feminist news cycle.

A misreading of the verdict in a strange and upsetting Texas case has gone viral, since Gawker claimed: “Texas Says It’s OK to Shoot an Escort If She Won’t Have Sex With You.” Texas law does not say that, and the jury didn’t say that either. Pushing the idea that an “Insane Texas Law Made it Legal for a Man to Kill a Prostitute” is irresponsible; it misinforms the public and sends a terrible message to violent misogynists.

It is not in dispute that the defendant, Ezekiel Gilbert, paid the victim, Lenora Frago, $150 for 30 minutes of escort services advertised on Craigslist. After Frago refused to have sex with him, the defendant shot her. Frago was paralyzed and the defendant was charged with aggravated assault. When she died seven months later Gilbert was indicted for murder instead.

At trial, defense attorneys made the shocking argument that Gilbert was justified in shooting Frago because she had stolen from him and Texas law permits the use of deadly force to defend one’s property at night. That a defense was raised in this case based on Texas’ awful defense of property law is certainly newsworthy and even more reason to reform that law. But there is no evidence that the jury acquitted based on the defense of property law in the first place.

The much more plausible reason for the verdict is that the jury believed the defendant’s claim that he didn’t intend to shoot the victim. Per Texas’ homicide statute, the prosecution needed to prove that Gilbert “intentionally or knowingly” killed Frago or intended to cause her “serious bodily injury.” The defense argued that Gilbert lacked the requisite intent for murder because when he shot at the car as Frago and the owner of the escort service drove away, he was aiming for the tire. The bullet hit the tire and a fragment, “literally the size of your fingernail,” according to Defense Attorney Bobby Barrera, hit Frago. Barrera does not believe the jury acquitted because of the defense of property law. He believes they acquitted because they believed Gilbert didn’t mean to shoot her.

Another reason why we need to be thoughtfully critical of the media we consume. Gawker isn’t exactly known for its accurate, fact-based headlines. They wrote something and the media rang with it! It’s still upsetting that he was acquitted, but at least let’s not misread the situation for what it really is.