Verb Noire Announcement (Call for Submissions)

So, as some of you may have noticed I haven’t been around overly much lately. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s just that I’m in the middle of starting a small press with a friend. Verb Noire is intended to be a platform for all those stories that have been hidden for so [...]

The New York Post cartoon: this is my unsurprised face.

By now most of you have heard about the racist cartoon published in The New York Post. There’s a lot of good commentary out there on this already, and some calls to action, which I strongly urge all of you to heed.
That said, I haven’t said much about this before today because [...]

What Is Cultural Appropriation?

A few years ago at WisCon (the feminist SF convention) there was a panel about Cultural Appropriation that sparked an online discussion about the topic that is generally referred to as the Great Debate of DOOM. This was partly due to the wide-ranging nature of it (over 20 blogs, I believe) and due to [...]

Mehserle arrested

I’m tired, ya’ll. Too tired to be angry. So tired of all this shit. The tiredness won’t last forever, of course; I’ll rebound, as I must. But I need a break.
In the meantime, though — I’m cautiously heartened by this.
Mehserle was arrested in the New Year’s Day shooting of Oscar Grant, [...]

S.O.S., Different Year

Happy New Year, all. Took me only 5 days to get angry about something; a new record for me! Well, more annoyed than anything else. Who can really afford to get angry about all the stupid crap we see in the media? Us WoC gotta watch that blood pressure, after all. [...]

Another News & Notes Roundtable

Quick heads up that I was on the blogger’s roundtable for News & Notes yesterday.  We didn’t get a chance to talk about the BlackBird browser, but we did talk about shoe throwing, weight gain, and smoking presidents (elect).

NPR Cancels News & Notes

The economic crisis is affecting NPR, naturally, and one of their responses has been to cancel two of their shows, News & Notes included.  I believe the story is that the show doesn’t bring in enough money in donations and has low ratings. I would be very interested in seeing the ratings breakdown of all [...]

M. Night, say it isn’t so!

I don’t post much about TV stuff because I don’t watch a lot of TV. But when I do, because my tastes have always been eclectic and a little weird, I tend to watch weird eclectic stuff. Thus was born my love of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s a children’s cartoon. [...]

BlackBird Browser — Because The Internet Isn’t Black Enough

I know I put this in the BlackLights yesterday, but I’m still so appalled by it that I think it deserves its own post.
In case you didn’t see it, there’s a new browser out called BlackBird, aimed at the Black community.  It’s essentially Firefox but rebranded, a new black and white theme, and some add-ons [...]

Ignorant Parents In Danger Of Raising Ignorant Children

So here’s the story as I understand it.  Every year at this elementary school they celebrate Thanksgiving by having the kids dress up as pilgrims and “indians”.  Parents, mainly those of Native descent, have begun to object to this for several reasons.  1. It’s a completely inaccurate portrayal of what went on when the pilgrims [...]