Year: 2017

Donald J. Trump might say he loves to read, but what we know for sure is that the president loves to tweet. So, “The Daily Show” announced Tuesday that it has decided to open The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library to commemorate the many great tweets of our current commander in chief. 

Certainly, we should properly recognize great moments in American presidential history like this one:

The show said in a release that this is going to be an “actual library” located in New York City. It will be open to the public for free for a brief period starting in June. 

“It will be so tremendous that you’ll get tired of the tremendousness, so it will then close only a few days later,” the show said in the press release. “Sad!”

What, exactly, does any of this really mean? We can’t say for sure, but here is the most specific the release got: 

The exhibit will feature a fully interactive and hands-on experience for hands of all sizes, giving patrons the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to memorialize and celebrate the many “unpresidented” moments of President Trump’s Twitter history. More details to be announced later.

“The Daily Show” is currently in the midst of trying to figure out the greatest Trump tweet of all time in the bracketed styling of March Madness, so we’re just going to assume it’s related to that. 

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, Tracy Morgan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Moore, Padma Lakshmi and a whole host of other stars are teaming up for Stand for Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU. Donate now and join us at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, March 31, on Facebook Live. #standforrights2017 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Kat Lazo wants people to stop thinking machismo goes hand in hand with being a Latino man. 

The video producer took on Latino male stereotypes in the latest installment of We are mitú’s series The Kat Call. In the three minute piece, Lazo explained what’s wrong with portraying Latino men as “innately machista.”

Lazo begins by showing how the media often depicts Latino men as womanizers or criminals. These images, she explains, have real-life consequences. 

“The media has always played a big role in influencing public opinion,” she said. “And these over the top sexual and aggressive messages of Latino men influence how teachers view Latinos boys, how the police interact with Latino men or how employers view Latino applicants.” 

The producer also breaks down how chauvinism and machismo have less to do with being Latino and more to do with the fact “we live in a male dominated society.”

Watch Lazo’s video above.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

A 14-year-old Maryland girl reported this month she was raped in a high school bathroom by two older boys. The accused assailants, also students at Rockville High School, reportedly solicited the young woman for sex in the hallway, and forced her into the restroom when she refused, according to CNN.

It’s a terrible story.

But in the weeks since, discussion has mostly focused on the immigration status of the accused assailants. The alleged attackers, aged 17 and 18, are undocumented immigrants.

Community members, political leaders, right-wing media outlets and President Donald Trump’s White House point to the crime as an example of why the U.S. needs to crack down on illegal immigration.

In the past several days, school leaders have been inundated with “hate-filled, racist and xenophobic” calls, and threats “saying they’re going to shoot up the illegals in our school,” said Montgomery County schools spokesman Derek Turner.

The reaction misses the point, say leaders in the fight against sexual assault at schools.

Sexual assault in K-12 schools is “all too common,” committed by all types of students ― regardless of immigration status, said Alexandra Brodsky, a fellow at the National Women’s Law Center. As of September 2016, the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights was conducting 99 investigations into school districts over occurrences of sexual violence and assault.

“We have heard about countless stories about white, native-born men and boys [committing sexual assault] and never hear politicians calling for a ban on boys in schools and a ban on football players entering the country,” said Brodsky.

Instances of sex crimes in schools should spur conversations around consent, healthy relationships, and support for survivors, Brodsky said.

But in the case of Rockville High School, the rape has been used to promote “draconian immigration enforcement,” she said.

We have heard about countless stories about white native-born men and boys [committing sexual assault] and never hear politicians calling for a ban on boys.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer last week made himself an example what Brodsky fears. He sounded off on the assault, calling it “horrendous, and horrible, and disgusting,” and added, “I think part of the reason the president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this.”

Rockville students Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17, have been charged as adults with first-degree rape, according to CNN. Sanchez-Milian reportedly fled Guatemala to escape gang violence. His father was arrested last week after a review of his immigration status. Montano is from El Salvador.

Each of the teens had been detained crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2016, the Baltimore Sun reported. Because they were unaccompanied minors, they were released to relatives in the U.S. under rules designed to avoid the long-term detention of children.

Defense lawyers have characterized the episode in school as a consensual sexual encounter.

Some parents and community members are calling for increased monitoring of undocumented students in the school system. They have packed town-hall meetings, demanding answers about how such a crime was allowed to occur inside a school building. 

“This little girl’s rape is the fruition of liberal policy in this county,” Sam Fenati, a Montgomery County resident, told WTOP last week after a community meeting with school officials. 

In response, school leaders have highlighted security protocols and policies dealing with new students. The district does not collect information about students’ immigration status, and schools cannot legally require that students prove their citizenship. 

However, by focusing on the alleged perpetrators’ immigration status, community members  and government leaders are obscuring more urgent questions about how to prevent sexual assault, said Esther Warkov who founded the nonprofit Stop Sexual Assault in School after her own daughter was sexually assaulted at school. She sees the Rockville reaction as a “diversionary tactic” that allows political leaders to skip the hard work of looking at sexual violence as a “systemic problem.”

“Our government should be focusing on widespread sexual harassment, sexual assault and violation of students’ civil rights,” said Warkov. “It’s easy to look like you’re doing your job when you focus on two perpetrators.” 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

WASHINGTON ― There was barely any standing room left at a recent town hall meeting on the unacceptable number of missing black and Latinx teenagers in the nation’s capital.

The March 22 gathering was tense. Local D.C. police attempted to answer questions from the predominantly black residents of Ward 8. Residents shared a range of stories about family members who had run away, who had been abducted and returned home safely, and who had never come home at all. The police chief was there.

But photos of the event, circulated later on social media, revealed a disturbing truth: Few, if any, white people showed up for the meeting.  

The lack of white faces at an event about missing girls of color provokes a familiar sense of outrage. White people don’t turn out for protests condemning police violence, calling for a living wage or pushing for immigrant rights at the same rates as black and Latinx folks.

White feminists, in particular, have been criticized for their tendency not to show up for issues pertaining to women of color. Signs from the Women’s March on Washington, a large-scale movement to protest the policy stances of President Donald Trump, targeted these women, asking them if they would be attending the next Black Lives Matter protest and reminding us all who helped put Trump in office.

It’s not as though the issue doesn’t affect everyone. Children of all races go missing. But black and Latinx kids are less likely to return home, more likely to be written off as runaways, and often don’t get as much media attention when foul play is suspected.

The minimal white attendance at the town hall highlights the hypocrisy of the All Lives Matter crowd. That phrase, constructed to both mirror and contradict Black Lives Matter, supposedly advocates for the lives of all people by cautioning against focusing on one demographic. The same criticism applies to Blue Lives Matter folks, who attack the Black Lives Matter movement any time a person of color commits an act of anti-police violence. When white people kill police, they usually have nothing to say.

In reality, All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter are racist attempts to distract from the black-led push against police violence. If the people crying those slogans cared about each life, as they proclaim, they would be fighting to save black and Latinx kids, too.

The missing white people at last week’s meeting also highlighted the terrible power of residential segregation. Washington remains one of the country’s most segregated cities. The town hall was held at a school convenient for many worried black residents and completely off the radar for most white residents ― because everybody knew who wasn’t coming anyway.

They probably won’t show up until white children go missing en masse.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

A new PSA is showing how language can subtly reinforce rape culture. 

The 30-second video is simple but powerful, focusing on a text message conversation between two guy friends. As the conversation goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that a non-consensual sexual interaction between one of the men and a woman may have occurred the night prior. The PSA takes the casual language used between two bros and makes its subtext the actual text. 

When one guy asks his friend if he remembers that “drunk chick” he was “talking to” at a recent party, the chat autocorrects “talking to” to “targeting.” When the friends asks if he “got some,” the guy responds, “Well… I had to encourage her a bit.” “Encourage” quickly autocorrects to “force.”

The spot was created by marketing company Mekanism for sexual assault awareness and prevention organization It’s On Us, which was spearheaded in 2014 by former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s On Us Director Rebecca Kaplan explained to The Huffington Post why it’s so important to call out these subtleties of language. 

“At It’s On Us, we believe it’s important to highlight the subtle and common language that perpetuates rape culture because it’s so pervasive in our society and often goes unnoticed,” Kaplan said. “When we don’t check ourselves and our friends who are using that type of language, we make it acceptable. This is dangerous because language can make rape culture acceptable, and even perpetuate it.”

Towards the end of the video a voiceover sums up the PSA: “Don’t ignore the subtexts.” 

As Kaplan added: “What we say matters and this video was created to demonstrate that it’s on all of us to choose our words wisely.”

Head over to It’s On Us to read more about the organization’s work. 

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

The Associated Press made an inclusive acknowledgement of the spectrum of gender identity on Friday by announcing that the 2017 AP  Stylebook will contain the singular “they” pronoun.

The AP Stylebook provides guidelines for journalists for everything from punctuation to, in this instance, how to refer to marginalized communities. 

According to the AP, while the singular “they” will be included in the print edition of the 2017 stylebook later this year, the change has already gone into effect for online subscribers.

A portion of the entry reads:

In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person’s name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If they/them/their use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun. Be sure that the phrasing does not imply more than one person…

“They” is oftentimes used as a singular pronoun by individuals who don’t feel comfortable identifying with he/his or she/hers pronouns.

The AP also noted that they now consider LGBTQ an acceptable acronym, following suit with GLAAD’s standards change in 2016 to add the “Q” to LGBT.

H/T NNN

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Do you like sexy women? Sure, we all do. Well, you know what the sexiest thing of all is? Receiving the necessary healthcare coverage necessary for being a living woman!

In this Funny or Die video, Blac Chyna, Rebecca Romijn and Nina Dobrev have a favor to ask. They want to stay sexy, but to do so, they first need women’s healthcare to stay alive.

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, Tracy Morgan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Moore, Padma Lakshmi and a whole host of other stars are teaming up for Stand for Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU. Donate now and join us at 7 p.m. Eastern on Friday, March 31 on Facebook Live. #standforrights2017 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

One boyfriend is putting his Disney fanatic girlfriend in “a whole new world” with nothing but his stylus pen and some epic drawing skills. 

Amin Fouzi and his girlfriend Lyana Azman are both 21-year-old students from Malaysia who are currently studying in Melbourne. Last week, the couple was waiting for food at a restaurant when Amin snapped a quick pic of Lyana.

This wasn’t just any dinner with bae photo, though; Amin proceeded to turn the pic into bonafide art on Instagram Stories: 

Lyana, a huge fan of all things Disney, was very impressed. 

“I didn’t know he was actually going to draw me as Snow White, so when I saw it, I thought it was so cool,” she told The Huffington Post. “I especially love the ‘poisonous apple’ line, referring to my iPhone.” 

Since then, Amin has turned Lyana into a number of classic Disney princesses. Here’s his take on Mulan: 

And here’s Alice from “Alice in Wonderland:” 

Heres’s Lyana wearing Aurora’s iconic pink gown from “Sleeping Beauty”: 

Lyana told us that her boyfriend finishes each drawing in less than five minutes.

“Every time Amin has to draw anything, he can do it in a short period of time and they’ll all come out amazing,” she said.

Her favorite Instagram doodle is one depicting her as Belle from “Beauty and the Beast:”

“I love it because she’s my favorite Disney princess and also because I just watched the new live-action movie!”  

People on Twitter ― where Lyana first posted the pics ― are super impressed with Amin’s drawings. 

Yep, we’d have to agree. 

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The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Texas was wrong to rely on an outdated medical standard to assess the intellectual disability of a defendant facing the death penalty. The decision effectively gives the prisoner, Bobby James Moore, the opportunity to be re-sentenced, most likely to life in prison.

The justices have been raising the bar on the sentencing of people with mental disabilities over the last several years. In a landmark 2002 ruling, the court said the Constitution prohibits states from imposing the death penalty on the intellectually disabled. In 2014, the justices explained that courts determining intellectual disability can’t just rely on rigid metrics and must look to the judgment of medical experts.

Tuesday’s 5-to-3 decision said the factors that the Texas state court considered in weighing Moore’s level of impairment create “an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed.”

Among other factors, the Texas court had turned to a 1992 manual for assessing mental disabilities, which has since been superseded by a more updated version that takes into account developments in mental health science. The standards adopted by the state court were “wholly nonclinical” and not in accordance with “the medical community’s diagnostic framework,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Moore v. Texas was based on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, which has been interpreted to bar the death penalty both for children and for people like Moore, who has an average IQ score of 70.66. Moore, now 57, was convicted of capital murder in 1980.

Ginsburg noted that Texas couldn’t “satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts,” such as public education or the juvenile justice system, and “yet clings to superseded standards when an individual’s life is at stake.”

“If the States were to have complete autonomy to define intellectual disability as they wished,” Ginsburg wrote, the 2002 decision exempting the intellectually disabled from execution “could become a nullity, and the Eighth Amendment’s protection of human dignity would not become a reality.”

“States have some flexibility, but not unfettered discretion, in enforcing” the Supreme Court’s prior rulings in this area of law, Ginsburg added.

The decision was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

The majority’s approach “constitutionalizes rules for which there is not even clinical consensus,” Roberts said, and provides little guidance to states on what constitutes a proper assessment of intellectual disability.

The bottom line for the dissenters was that “clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards; and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment.”

A spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general’s office said the state was disappointed in the ruling but declined further comment.

In an unrelated decision issued last month that also looked at the Texas death penalty system, the Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing for an inmate who had been condemned to death on the basis of racist testimony introduced by his defense attorney. Roberts was in the majority in that case.

The issue of capital punishment deeply divides the justices. Breyer has on repeated occasions called for a case to consider whether the death penalty itself is unconstitutional.

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday demanded a journalist stop shaking her head while he answered a question during the daily press briefing.

April Ryan, the Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, asked Spicer how the administration would work to revamp its image amid investigations of potential ties to Russia, mentioning a report that Trump officials tried to stop former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying on links between Trump’s campaign staff and Russian officials.

Spicer accused Ryan of having an agenda, arguing “if the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russian connection.”

“It seems like you’re hell-bent on trying to make sure that whatever image you want to tell about this White House stays,” Spicer argued later.

Ryan interrupted to further question Spicer, and as their exchange continued, the press secretary ordered Ryan to stop shaking her head while they talked.

Ryan tweeted after the briefing ended:

She also appeared on MSNBC to discuss the moment, saying “you cannot ignore as a reporter” the issues she questioned Spicer about.

“Sean is being the White House press secretary, talking about and trying to make this administration look better than what it does right now, and unfortunately I was road kill today,” Ryan said.

Watch a video of the moment above.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices