Texas Textbook: Mexicans Want to Destroy Civilization.

(Momentum Instruction/Texas Education Agency)

(Momentum Instruction/Texas Education Agency)

A proposed textbook about Mexican-American history that would be read by Texas high school students is filled with inaccuracies and stereotypes about Mexican Americans, said a coalition of educators opposing the publication of the textbook.

Latino activists and educators have been urging the Texas State Board of Education to allow for more coverage of Latino Americans in the textbooks it reviews, so when a textbook on Mexican Americans was included among the textbooks to be considered for the school year of 2017-2018, it appeared to be a win for those advocates. But when excerpts from the textbook were released, it became clear to advocates for more inclusion of Latino American history that the book was far more harmful than helpful.

Among the issues educators, scholars, and activists take with the book is its representation of Mexican Americans as lazy. The coalition, called The Responsible Ethnic Studies Textbook Coalition, includes the ACLU of Texas, Texas Latino Education Coalition, and Mexican American School Board Members Association. On Monday, this newly formed coalition criticized what they called “offensive cultural stereotypes,” according to The Washington Post, that were found in excerpts that called Industrialists “driven” but said Mexican laborers “were not reared to put in a full day’s work so vigorously.”

Scholars have also objected to a passage of the textbook that equated the Chicano Movement in the 1960s that encouraged Mexican Americans to fight for better working conditions and voting rights with a “revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society,” according to The Washington Post.

[…]

As for how it has been received by the board members themselves, reactions have been mixed. According to the Austin-American Statesman, Texas Board of Education member Ruben Cortez Jr. said of the textbook, “Based on the initial conversation with these experts, I don’t believe that this book should see the inside of any classroom in any shape, form, or fashion… If it’s as bad as they’re all telling me, there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to support this book.”

However, fellow board member David Bradley, who didn’t want a Mexican-American heritage textbook in the first place, according to the Statesman, said, “It’s really kind of amusing. The left-leaning, radical Hispanic activists, having pounded the table for special treatment, get approval for a special course that nobody else wanted… Now they don’t like their special textbook?”

Christ, I loathe smug morons like Mr. Bradley, dedicated in every way to obscurantism. No, no one has pounded the table for special treatment, this is a simple request to be accurately included in history texts, rather than having the standard “white men good, everyone else bad” version of history. This does not mean padding a book full of bigotry and harmful stereotypes, then calling it good. Considering the high percentage of Hispanic people in Texas, perhaps you don’t want those children absorbing the “lazy, can’t work” poison, you might get what you paid for. Not that bigots are good at thinking past their own noses.  Can we get textbook proposal and approval the fuck out of Texas, please?

Full story here.

Misogyny, GOP Style.

Merchandise on display outside the RNC. Credit: Kira Lerner.

Merchandise on display outside the RNC. Credit: Kira Lerner.

CLEVELAND, OHIO — Each day of the Republican National Convention, as tens of thousands of delegates, reporters, and curious onlookers pushed and shoved their way down a single narrow street leading to the arena’s main stage, a group of vendors hawked t-shirts and buttons attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Delegates and other convention-goers eagerly purchased items that called Clinton a “bitch” and a “tramp,” suggested she be imprisoned, and described her “fat thighs” and “small breasts.”

Mary Patterson, a guest of a delegate from Racine, Wisconsin, perused the merchandise on Sunday morning with her friend, Carol McNeill-Skorupan. Both women stopped in their tracks to buy pins featuring Clinton’s face and the words: “Life’s a bitch. Don’t vote for one.”

“This sums it up right here,” Patterson told ThinkProgress. “She comes off as a bitch, quite honestly. She doesn’t have a warm personality. She seems very cold. It has nothing to do with the gender.”

Her friend agreed. “She is just not a pleasant person,” McNeill-Skorupan said. “Her husband had some charisma, which allowed him to get away with a lot of things, obviously. But she does not have it and she does not have a winning personality. She is kind of a screamer. In my mind, if you’re just out there screaming, you’re negative, you are not positive, you’re a bitch.”

Interesting how screaming and being negative makes Ms. Clinton a bitch, but it makes Trump not only a viable candidate, but a good one. But that’s not anything to do with sexism, no. Nope, not at all.

A few paces down, wearing a rubber Hillary Clinton mask and holding a large neon yellow sign reading “Trump vs. Tramp,” sat Florida resident and longtime political gadfly Bob Kunst.

“Is this sexist? Go fuck yourself. Excuse my language,” he told ThinkProgress when asked about the sign.

“I could have said she was a killer, but this rhymed,” he continued. “This is the door-opener. This gets people’s attention. It works.”

Yes, sexism has worked remarkably well all these centuries, because there are always a wealth of fragile white men to latch onto it.

There’s much more on the not only embedded sexism in the GOP, but their most serious celebration of it at Think Progress. I need more tea.

Child Resurrected.

At left, 2015 photograph of CHILD prior to conservation treatment. At right, CHILD after treatment in January 2016. All images courtesy of MoMA, New York

At left, 2015 photograph of CHILD prior to conservation treatment. At right, CHILD after treatment in January 2016. All images courtesy of MoMA, New York

Bruce Connor’s sculpture, CHILD, done in 1960 in response to the execution of Caryl Chessman, has been quietly falling apart for 50 years. It has long been thought to be outside of restoration abilities. It has now been restored, and is on exhibit. The full story of the restoration is fascinating, and I’m glad to see this disturbing and thought provoking piece back in the public eye.

Child1

Child2

Since its acquisition nearly half a century ago, the exhibition Bruce Conner: It’s All True marks the first time CHILD has ever been exhibited at MoMA. Details of the restoration are here.

Via The Creators Project.

Losing That Little Blue Checkmark. Permanently.

Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos (Screenshot)

Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos (Screenshot)

Yesterday, it was noted that Leslie Jones had been harassed off Twitter by a torrent of racist shit, and of course, asshack Milo Yiannopoulos was leading the charge. Milo is a remarkably untalented person, who has relied on Twitter to make hay for him, thanks to their rather nonchalant views about harassment. Not that Milo has any idea of how to actually do anything, but he’ll have to make do without Twitter.

Twitter has permanently banned a rightwing writer and notorious troll for his role in the online abuse of Leslie Jones over her role in the Ghostbusters reboot.

Milo Yiannopoulos, the technology editor for Breitbart.com, tweeted as @Nero. Before he was banned, he had more than 338,000 followers and called himself “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet” for his provocations online.

No, Cupcake. You aren’t fabulous at anything.

Yiannopoulos has been suspended from Twitter several times in the past for violating its terms of service, and had his verified status revoked earlier this year, prompting the hashtag #JeSuisMilo among his supporters.

But claims that he had fanned the flames of the harassment of Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones on Twitter led to a “permanent suspension” from Twitter on Wednesday.

Yiannopolous told Breitbart.com his suspension was “cowardly”, and evidence that Twitter was a “no-go zone for conservatives”.

“Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.

“This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.”

[…]

Before he was banned, he told Heat Street that “of course” he had no regrets about his behaviour towards Jones. “But feminists, on the other hand, should have regrets that they have taught strong women that they are victims and attacked people for having different opinions to them on Twitter.”

A spokesman for Twitter said in a statement that “permanent suspension” was one of a number of steps that had been taken to address the uptick in offending accounts since Jones began rallying against her abusers.

There’s more at The Guardian. Okay, Twitter. This was a good first step. Don’t stop now, please.

Partridge Peas.

From Kengi:

The partridge peas are blooming! I’ve been doing some reading up on them and they are so interesting. The stems that lead from the stalk to the leaves (which I now know is called a petiole) have nectaries on them which attract the pollinators. I always see ants and little flies crawling on them, and now I know why. They also have strange little nubs on the petioles which, it turns out, are the anthers normally found on the end of a stamen on other plant’s flowers. The yellow anthers produce reproductive pollen and the red anthers produce food pollen.

And there is a Cardinal in the flower (last photo). Click for full size.

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© Kengi. All rights reserved.

Shredded Holiness.

I’m finally getting a start on a piece I’ve had in mind for the last couple of years, titled Rendered Harmless. This will be smaller than originally planned, 41″ x 48″ (1.04m x 1.22m). This involves shredded holiness. While bibles are a dime a dozen at any charity / thrift shop, it’s not so easy to find a used Quran here, so that I’ll probably have to buy new.

So, shredded bible (a start at least.)

Sbible

Inside the bible was a church card, and I had to smile when I looked at the back of it:

Sbible1

“I feel pretty, oh so pretty.” Someone really liked West Side Story. :D

Twitter, Oh Twitter.

I keep telling myself I need to activate my twitter account, rather than let it sit and molder. I did tell myself that. Today, I’m more than happy to let it sit an molder. Banal bigots who think they are clever have gleefully harassed actress Leslie Jones away. Twitter makes a lot of noise about harassment, but it seems they never bother to actually do anything about it.

…a Twitter spokesman told the Daily Mail, “This type of abusive behaviour is not permitted on Twitter, and we’ve taken action on many of the accounts reported to us by both Leslie and others. We rely on people to report this type of behaviour to us but we are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to prevent this kind of abuse. We realise we still have a lot of work in front of us before Twitter is where it should be on how we handle these issues.”

I don’t think you are trying enough. The article notes that asshack Yiannopoulos was right back on Twitter, joining in the harassment and encouraging others to do the same. The tweet I included above is one of the mildest. If Twitter ever decides to grow the fuck up and be responsible, I might consider doing something with my account.

Via Raw Story.

29.

29th President Warren Harding promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights, but did little to that end. Whitehouse.gov

29th President Warren Harding promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights, but did little to that end. Whitehouse.gov

Less than three months before Warren Gamaliel Harding was elected 29th president of the United States, he stood on his front porch in Marion, Ohio, and promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights.

Harding, then a U.S. senator, announced his bid for president in June 1920 and subsequently gave hundreds of official and off-the-cuff speeches to audiences numbering in the tens of thousands—all from the comfort of his front porch.

This “front porch campaign” reached a total of 600,000 visitors who traveled to Harding’s crushed-gravel lawn “by car or chartered trains, representing Republican state delegations or farmers or veterans or businessmen or blacks or women or first voters, or, even, traveling salesmen,” David Pietrusza wrote in his 2007 book, 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents. “Each contingent, properly escorted by a brass band, would march up ‘Victory Way,’ festooned every twenty feet by white columns surmounted by gilt eagles.”

On August 19, Harding met on that porch with about 20 delegates of the Society of American Indians who, “arrayed in tribal feathers and beadwork,” attended the speech to plead “for extension of their racial rights,” the Lancaster Eagle reported. Harding, who would inherit a country still recovering from World War I, replied that the United States “might do well to bestow ‘democracy and humanity and idealism’ on the continent’s native race rather than to ‘waste American lives trying to make sure of that bestowal thousands of miles across the sea.’”

[…]

Eight months after taking office, Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, a monument for service members who died without their remains being identified. Crow Chief Plenty Coos (or Plenty Coups) was invited to participate in the ceremony and, “attired in full war regalia, feathered bonnet, furs and skins of variegated colors,” was seated on the platform with Harding and military leaders from Europe, the Associated Press reported on November 14, 1921.

“Thus the uniform of the first American took its place with those of its Allied Powers in the last war,” the AP reported. “A group of Indian braves appeared in the audience, tiptoeing in their beaded moccasins down the aisle to their seats.”

Warren Harding meets with Indian chiefs in Washington D.C., the day before he dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va., in November 1921. (Courtesy Library of Congress)

Warren Harding meets with Indian chiefs in Washington D.C., the day before he dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va., in November 1921. (Courtesy Library of Congress)

After the burial ceremony, Plenty Coos laid a coup stick and the war bonnet from his head on the tomb. Although organizers had insisted that Plenty Coos remain silent during the ceremony, the chief addressed a crowd of about 100,000 spectators in his Native language.

“I am glad to represent all the Indians of the United States in placing on the grave of this noble warrior this coup stick and war bonnet, every eagle feather of which represents a deed of valor by my race,” he said. “I hope that the Great Spirit will grant that these noble warriors have not given up their lives in vain and that there will be peace to all men hereafter.”

Full Article at ICTMN.

“Can you say ‘pest control?’ Gotta get one. ”

Jeffery Lovell -- (Chicopee Police Department)

Jeffery Lovell — (Chicopee Police Department)

A couple of teens were doing a very teenage thing, drinking and looking for a friend’s house. They didn’t find their friend, but they found a gun fondling lover of the 2nd amendment, and death.

A Massachusetts man, who used his Facebook page to promote the Second Amendment, is being held without bail after shooting through his front door and killing a teen who mistakenly knocked thinking it was a friend’s house.

Jeffery Lovell, 42, was charged with murder after killing an unidentified 15-year-old  Saturday evening, reports MassLive.

According to prosecutors, “detectives were able to determine the victim, accompanied by a friend, were consuming alcohol at a near-by home that afternoon. The investigation indicates that the two friends were apparently confused while walking in the neighborhood and arrived at the address where the incident unfolded, believing it was the home of a friend, and began knocking at the door.”

Police state that Lovell went to his front door, gun in hand, and after trying to speak with the teen, shot him through the door after a pane of glass was broken.

I can certainly understand calling the cops if someone’s knocking broke a pane of glass anywhere on my house. That might be what I’d do. I have had very drunk people wander into my house, more than once. One time at about 2 or 3 in the morning. Got up, told them they were in the wrong place, waited for the penny to drop, and escorted them out. Being drunk should not result in a death penalty. It’s true that I don’t live urban, and I don’t deal with a high crime rate where I am. Back when I did, I would probably have been more inclined to call the cops.

MassLive reported that Lovell’s Facebook page featured a photo of him posing with a gun as his profile picture, along with posts promoting the Second Amendment.

While the Facebook page has been shut down, Lovell’s Pinterest page is still live and features multiple photos of handguns as well as a rifle under which Lovell wrote: “Can you say ‘pest control?’ Gotta get one. ”

Lovell was set to be arraigned in in Chicopee District Court on Monday.

This is what happens when you fetishize guns – you start viewing people as pests, as something beneath you, to be crushed, while you envision yourself as the great and grand defender of freedom, the guy in the white hat. And now a 15 year old person is dead.

Via Raw Story.

UPDATED.