gender
Democracy Now!: Tues. Oct. 19 2010
For over four decades, Angela Davis has been one of most influential activists and intellectuals in the United States. An icon of the 1970s black liberation movement, her work around issues of gender, race, class and prisons has influenced critical thought and social movements for years. She is a leading advocate for prison abolition, a position informed by her own experience as a fugitive on the FBI’s Top 10 most wanted list forty years ago. Davis rose to national attention in 1969 when she was fired as a professor from UCLA as a result of her membership in the Communist party and her leading a campaign to defend three black prisoners at Soledad prison. Today she is a university professor and the founder of the group Critical Resistance, a grassroots effort to end the prison-industrial complex. This year she edited a new edition of Frederick Douglass’s classic work, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. We spend the hour with Angela Davis and play rare archival footage of her. Democracy Now! is a daily independent newshour.
Email this pageGRITtv: Sarah Palin: Sex, Lies & Book Deals
Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue: An American Life" comes out Tuesday, and she doesn't appear likely to fade from public prominence anytime soon. Pundits and political observers wrote her off after the Republican ticket's loss in 2008 and again after her rather unconventional exist from the Alaska governorship, but Palin remains popular with the Republican base and has demonstrated her ability to drive the discourse, whether it's her Facebook post about "death panels" or jumping into the race in New York's 23rd district. Richard Kim, senior editor at The Nation, is co-editor of "Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare," which collects essays from around the progressive media analyzing the mysterious appeal of Sarah Palin, Rebecca Traister of Salon, Max Blumenthal, Daily Beast contributor, and Shannyn Moore of Smart Radio in Alaska to talk about the books, the Right, and why Palin just won't go away.
GRITtv: The F Word: The Kind of Bias Jeff Sessions Can Support
I said it in June, I'll say it again. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is up for confirmation and some jackasses are still ? still -- saying she has to explain her "wise Latina" comment? Altogether now - what did Sotomayor say? "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." And what was she talking about? Trigonometry? The price of milk? No. The topic under discussion was race and gender discrimination. Talking about judging such cases, Sotomayor argued that the experience of facing discrimination might lead to a better decision about discrimination. As I said in June, maybe it?s different on the moon--but here in the real lived USA--for centuries, white males have been the norm and all "others" have had a different experience. A different experience ? not of snow or math or what the constitution says ? but of discrimination. At the time I was finding it hard to believe that in a season that saw the killing of an off duty police officer by an another police officer in New York, in part because he was black, and the planned assassination of a doctor in Wichita because he helped women, it?s hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would disagree with Sotomayor that difference exists in the United States.
GRITtv: Got Docs? Against A Trans Narrative
Jules Rosskam's "Against A Trans Narrative," looks at Trans Identity through the lens of personal experience. The film combines dramatic reenactment, spoken word theater-styled performances, as well as commentary by the film's own participants to address issues such as clashing views on feminism and sexism. The Feminist Review has called the film, "...arguably the best movie about gender I?ve ever viewed." Take a look.
