11 3 / 2013
"
Further, though, the TOMS campaign — like the million shirts — misses the fundamental point that not having a pair of shoes (or a shirt, christmas toy, etc.) is not a problem about not having shoes. It’s a problem of poverty. Shoelessness, such as it is, is a symptom of a much bigger and more complex problem. And while donating a pair of shoes helps shoelessness, it does not help poverty.
Things like jobs help poverty. Jobs making things like shoes, for example. But TOMS doesn’t make its shoes in Africa, it makes them in China where it’s presumably cheaper to make two pairs of shoes and give one away than it is to get people in a needier community to make one pair of shoes.
The result of this setup, as Zizek explains most succinctly, is that on a big-picture level, TOMS (and other buy-my-product-and-donate companies) are busy building the exploitative global structure that produces economic inequality, while on the other hand pretending that supporting them actually does something to fix it.
It doesn’t. It just gives people shoes.
"
The 7 Worst International Aid Ideas (via stfuconservatives)
false generosity at its finest
(via le-kif-kif)
10 3 / 2013
![tranqualizer:
HELP ME SAVE MY LIFE
[Jessica is to the left of the photo, to the right is her mother, Silvia]
Jessica’s Story
My name is Jessica Sánchez-Rodriguez and I am an undocumented, disabled 18 year old currently living in Charlotte, NC with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. 17 years ago I crossed the border with my mother, Silvia, in order to receive life saving medical treatment. For years I was traveling to Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina, a two and half hour trip from my home, in order to receive medical care. Because I am undocumented and no longer a minor I no longer have access to the medical help I received before.
I have been living in the United States since I was 11 months old and have been educated here for 13 years. My parents, while undocumented, pay taxes yet I am still unable to receive government help. Access to Medicaid right now would mean that I would not have to continue to wait for an emergency surgery that would save my life.
Right now I need an emergency surgery to connect a catheter to my bladder and without financial assistance a surgery like that will cost my family $45,000 dollars.
I am starting this fundraiser because I want to do whatever it takes to get this surgery. $45,000 is not something we can afford on our own. Please donate whatever you can and help me save my life.
~Jessica
Advocates from all across the U.S are saying that 2013 is the year for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, as communities are organizing to ensure that all 11 million undocumented immigrants have a just pathway to citizenship, Jessica is one of millions of immigrants who is blocked from health services only because she lacks a social security number. Not having access to social services also means that she can’t get financial assistance to pay for a much needed, life saving surgery. Jessica cannot continue to wait.
WHAT’S IN THE $55,000 GOAL?
$45,000 for the surgery
$10,000 to cover specialist/doctor costs for follow ups and the fees charged by WePay/GoFundMe
Need to know more about spina bifida and hydrocephalus?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/9dc472ee741c8d28a765557ac639f8e5/tumblr_mjgdhu1aNK1qb18gbo1_500.jpg)
[Jessica is to the left of the photo, to the right is her mother, Silvia]
Jessica’s Story
My name is Jessica Sánchez-Rodriguez and I am an undocumented, disabled 18 year old currently living in Charlotte, NC with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. 17 years ago I crossed the border with my mother, Silvia, in order to receive life saving medical treatment. For years I was traveling to Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina, a two and half hour trip from my home, in order to receive medical care. Because I am undocumented and no longer a minor I no longer have access to the medical help I received before.
I have been living in the United States since I was 11 months old and have been educated here for 13 years. My parents, while undocumented, pay taxes yet I am still unable to receive government help. Access to Medicaid right now would mean that I would not have to continue to wait for an emergency surgery that would save my life.
Right now I need an emergency surgery to connect a catheter to my bladder and without financial assistance a surgery like that will cost my family $45,000 dollars.
I am starting this fundraiser because I want to do whatever it takes to get this surgery. $45,000 is not something we can afford on our own. Please donate whatever you can and help me save my life.
~Jessica
Advocates from all across the U.S are saying that 2013 is the year for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, as communities are organizing to ensure that all 11 million undocumented immigrants have a just pathway to citizenship, Jessica is one of millions of immigrants who is blocked from health services only because she lacks a social security number. Not having access to social services also means that she can’t get financial assistance to pay for a much needed, life saving surgery. Jessica cannot continue to wait.
WHAT’S IN THE $55,000 GOAL?
$45,000 for the surgery
$10,000 to cover specialist/doctor costs for follow ups and the fees charged by WePay/GoFundMe
Need to know more about spina bifida and hydrocephalus?
(via givemeavoice)
10 3 / 2013
Bartending Experience
So yesterday was my first gig as a bartender. it was at my sister’s friends B-day party. man did i mess up alot, but it the overall learning experience was worth it. i got a lot of bad looks sometimes when i would be taking my time pouring this cranberry juice or opening this bottle moscato. but i liked it, i also think ive mastered the keg now.
anywho, i don’t think they’ll hire me again, but if they do, ill be sure to tell them that they can pay me less until i get better at the job. bartending’s kinda cool, talk to folks, eavesdrop. the tips were okay, but im surprised they still paid me the agreed amount, i thought they would’ve docked my pay, which I would have understood. the job was tough, but like I said - enjoyed it overall.
P.S. it did help that i was dressed up pretty snazzy, i sucked at drinks but at least i looked good haha
P.S.S. it was also cool people-watching and making observations, a party with alcohol really reinforces the ascribed gender roles and you see how each person is supposed to live up to their expectations, sex-wise
i.e. “stop being a pussy and have another beer” as opposed to a guy telling a woman “damn, you’re going to have a 3rd beer?”
09 3 / 2013
This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.
That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.
This is why we download.
Alternatives to buying overpriced textbooks
BookFinderSpreading this shit like nutella because goddamn textbooks are so expensive.
not necessarily art related but as someone who couldn’t afford their textbooks this semester this is a godsend
to all my fellow struggling students out there.
Bless
i wish i knew about this before renting a spanish book (used) for 90 bucks and still having to buy the textbook for 120 bucks smh. fuckin’ robbery.
you would think people would be excited we want to learn and give us these stacks of paper for free
reference point for my future self
(via le-kif-kif)
09 3 / 2013
"
A gang rape happened in Ohio and no one heard about it. A gang rape happened in India and everyone heard about it (as we should). The American media has represented India as a misogynistic country where women need to be constantly wary of the men that surround them. And after that gang rape, large-scale protests blocked the streets and clogged the media. Now, I am in no way saying that rape and domestic violence are not problems in India. As an Indian-American woman who has been to India many times and is incredibly familiar with the culture, I am in no way denying that. Rape, in India, is a serious problem. Rape, especially in lower class areas in India, is an extremely prevalent problem that needs to stop being ignored and taken seriously. Violence against women in India is a serious issue.
But violence against women in America is also a serious problem. Violence against women in South Africa, and Sweden, and Chile, and Thailand, is a serious problem. Violence against women is a serious problem. Period. Full stop. While our media went out representing India as a typical place for these deplorable events to happen, another woman’s similar story went ignored and without subsequent societal action. This country outright refuses to admit that it is a rape culture.
Our media and our country are so obsessed with presenting foreign countries as worse than us or uncivilized or, most importantly, undemocratic, they will blast our radios and timelines and homepages with news of rapes in India, but refuse to acknowledge that the same thing happens here and is happening here.
"
(Source: feminspire, via le-kif-kif)
08 3 / 2013
[TW violence against women, violence against children, gun violence]
A version for tumblr that can be read without opening a new tab, since plenty of people would scroll past this story otherwise.
The bravest woman on Earth.
(via black-culture)
07 3 / 2013
28 2 / 2013
"we’re afraid the others will think we’re agringadas because we don’t speak Chicano Spanish. We oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be “real” Chicanas, to speak like Chicanos. There is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experience."
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (via cielito-lindo)
For fucking real.
Like I feel like there’s this weird competition among some latinas I know in trying to see who is more learned, progressive, outspoken, has sharper analysis…has accepted themselves more. Where’s our collective? Why aren’t we growing food together or writing theory and books about dream interpretation?
Instead we’re all trying to survive and make it on our own, and we make it seem like we owe our progress to ourselves but we don’t live in a vacuum…
(via frascodebesitos)
(via maria-grazia)
