The LatiNegr@s Project

jhameia: bitchouttahell: cleophatrajones: yannickbrouwer: Thi...

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:16:37 -0400

bitchouttahell:

cleophatrajones:

yannickbrouwer:

This little company from Kenya makes toys from slippers that wash up on the beach. Pictures by Ben Curtis

How glorious is this?! Upcycling at its finest…

I have a couple bracelets made from the same stuff! yay

The company’s name is Ocean Sole: http://www.ocean-sole.com/

brazilwonders: Casa de Mãe Badia - Recife, Pernambuco (by...

Sun, 19 May 2013 04:11:10 -0400

brazilwonders:

Casa de Mãe Badia - Recife, Pernambuco (by Heitor Salvador)

questionsofmethod: los rakas - abrazame (uproot andy hold yuh)

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:05:35 -0400

questionsofmethod:

los rakas - abrazame (uproot andy hold yuh)

The Noble Qur'an - القرآن الكريم

Sat, 18 May 2013 19:37:19 -0400

The Noble Qur'an - القرآن الكريم:

honeyedfire:

The Noble Qur’an in many languages in an easy-to-use interface.

beautiful website…i love that you can hear the recitation.

floricanto-desnuda: pocproblems: I hope he learned a lesson...

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:25:00 -0400

floricanto-desnuda:

pocproblems:

I hope he learned a lesson from this.

i don’t care; i’m completely amused and so is she *s

daily acts of subversion

Urgente: El Senado de Puerto Rico aprobó el Proyecto 238 que prohíbe el discrimen por orientación sexual e identidad de género.

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:16:23 -0400

fyqueerlatinxs:

Hola. Favor de compartir esto, que es muy importante:

La lucha no termina, ahora le toca a la Cámara de Representantes. Esta semana, se llevará a votación no tan sólo el Proyecto 238, sino que también llevará ante su consideración el Proyecto de la Cámara 488 que añadiría la orientación sexual, la identidad de género y el estado marital a las protecciones de la Ley 54 de violencia doméstica y les pedimos que por favor compartan esta petición: http://www.lgbtpuertorico.com/peticion/discriminacion/

Y que llamen a los Representantes de la Cámara: http://www.lgbtpuertorico.com/hacemos-un-llamado-por-la-igualdad/

Gracias

[shared with us by daleapapachoalosito]

brazilwonders: Brazilian people (by Mathias Ortmann)

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:59:40 -0400

brazilwonders:

Brazilian people (by Mathias Ortmann)

bronxdoc: Dozens of children and Bronx residents attend a...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:00:18 -0400

bronxdoc:

Dozens of children and Bronx residents attend a screening of the award winning documentary Rafea: Solar Mama. The films director Mona Eldaief joined Bronx activists Kelly Terry-Sepulveda of The Point CDC, Jose Made of Accion and Sonia Russell of COSIA. The panel was moderated by Jean West. Students and residents stayed after the film for a lively discussion about women’s empowerment in today’s world. Rafea examines the struggles of a Jordanian Bedouin women who strives to become her country’s first solar engineer and improve her community.

goad666: Chief Jake Edwards (Onondaga Nation) Dismantling the...

Sat, 18 May 2013 09:00:18 -0400

goad666:

Chief Jake Edwards (Onondaga Nation) Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery

Where the United States acquired their ability to create democracy and Destroy its true application. If you take the time to watch this. I am honored. Chief Edwards begins in his language but transitions into english.

Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery - O’odham Territory ASU April 19, 2013

Someone Actually Stole My Guitar Last Night

Sat, 18 May 2013 07:07:11 -0400

seanpadilla:

On the evening of Friday, May 18th, while I was playing bass with Zest of Yore at Red 7 in Austin, TX, someone walked into the venue’s “green room,” took one of my electric guitars out of its case, and walked out with it.

For the sake of my own sanity, I’m going to assume that it was an accident, due to the fact that there were six people who played guitar on stage that night, and instruments and equipment can easily get lost in the shuffle. I don’t entirely BELIEVE that it was an accident (why leave the case behind?), but I’m trying to have faith in people.

Anyway, this guitar is a right-handed baby blue Squier Jagmaster with a burgundy pick guard. I don’t know the serial number, but it does have one identifying customization: It has strap buttons on both sides of the neck, due to the fact that I play it upside-down left-handed. I’ve owned this guitar for 15 years. My mother bought it for me as my high school graduation present. It’s the guitar that I wrote “Steal My Guitar” about; yes, that song is based on a true story.

I’ve already talked to the staff of the venue about it, and I’ve already filed a police report. If you have any information about where this guitar could be, please let me know privately. If you’re the person who has this guitar, please give it back to me, and I won’t ask any questions. If you’re reading this @ all, I’d appreciate it if you could share this info with as many fellow Austinites as possible.

austin homies help our homeboy sean get his guitar back!

reclaimingthelatinatag: Tania León, (born on May 14, 1943...

Sat, 18 May 2013 07:05:42 -0400

reclaimingthelatinatag:

Tania León, (born on May 14, 1943 in Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. She has been profiled on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and independent films. She has lectured at Harvard University and at the prestigious Mosse Lecture series at the University of Humboldt in Berlin and was the Andrew Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Scholar at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa. León was also Visiting Professor at Yale University, Guest Composer/Conductor at the Hamburg Musikschule, Germany and the Beijing Central Conservatory, China. Her honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Symphony Space’s Access to the Arts Award. León has also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, and SUNY Purchase College, and has served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A Professor at Brooklyn College since 1985, she was named Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York in 2006. In 2010 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One of her most notable career highlights has been a Latin Grammy nomination for her composition Inura in 2010. [x]

beautone: Patti LaBelle & Celia Cruz - Quimbara at the 1998...

Sat, 18 May 2013 07:02:50 -0400

beautone:

Patti LaBelle & Celia Cruz - Quimbara at the 1998 Alma Awards

colorfulcuties: ♥

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:44:18 -0400

colorfulcuties:

♥

reportagebygettyimages: Tomorrow, Sebastian Liste will join a...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:41:42 -0400

reportagebygettyimages:

Tomorrow, Sebastian Liste will join a panel of photographers including Larry Towell, Paolo Pellegrin, and Steve McCurry at the opening of an exhibition of their photographs at La Galerie de l’Instant in Paris.

Caption: SALVADOR DE BAHIA, BRAZIL – DECEMBER 13, 2009: A woman smokes during a Candomble celebration in a favela in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. Candomble is an Afro-Brazilian religion which mixes animist beliefs brought by slaves from Africa with Catholicism introduced by Portuguese colonizers. (Photo by Sebastian Liste/Reportage by Getty Images)

Scholars against Scientific Racism

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:37:34 -0400

Scholars against Scientific Racism:

latinosexuality:

Please enter your information below if you would like to sign this statement against scientific racism.

Open letter from scholars opposed to scientific racism

We are a group of 72 scholars (and counting) opposed to scientific racism - the use of science or social science to argue that a racialized group is inferior. Jason Richwine’s dissertation is an example of scientific racism and this work has no place in twenty-first century academia.

In 2009, Jason Richwine successfully defended a dissertation at Harvard University where he wrote that Hispanic immigrants have a substantially lower I.Q. than the white native-born population and that, because of the hereditary nature of I.Q., this fact should be taken into consideration when designing immigration policy. In May 2013, Richwine’s views came under public scrutiny after he co-authored an immigration policy report for the Heritage Foundation.

Richwine’s dissertation is problematic for three reasons: 1) it is part of a tradition of scientific racism; 2) it is based on discredited ideas of intelligence testing; and 3) it relies on an unscientific relationship between racialized categories and genetic makeup. Ideas of racial inferiority have been used justify slavery, forced sterilizations, the Holocaust, and all forms of contemporary racism and sexism. These ideas have no place in 21st century social science because of their historical use to justify genocide and mass sterilization and their lack of scientific rigor.

Richwine makes a connection between the genetic makeup of Hispanics and their I.Q. However, there is no genetic basis for racialized differences. And, Hispanic is an ethnic category made up of people of every racialized category. A Hispanic is a person with roots in Latin America who lives in the United States. Their ancestry could include people from any continent. The claim that Hispanics share a genetic makeup that could differentiate them from white Americans is not debatable; it is untenable.

Intelligence testing is also deeply flawed. Stephen Jay Gould points out that the primary error in intelligence testing is that of reification – making intelligence into something by measuring it. Intelligence tests attempt to measure a wide range of abilities. The score on these tests is named an “intelligence quotient” or I.Q. Gould contends that these tests are flawed and do not meet their stated goal of measuring innate intellectual ability.

To the extent that it is true that Hispanic immigrants score lower on these tests than white Americans, this is a result of unequal educational opportunities, not genetics. Diego von Vacano, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School, points out that

“the rudimentary statistical analysis of the kind that Richwine carried out ignores the important interface between social realities and genetics. … [I.Q. scores] reflect the intertwining of some aspects of mental capacity with education, life experiences, socioeconomic status, and other contingent contexts.”

Despite the fact that this perspective is widely accepted among scholars, Richwine chose to rely on the scientific racism tradition of his discredited predecessors, such as Charles Murray and J. Philippe Rushton, and attributed the differences to genetics. His argument that I.Q. scores should inform immigration policy hearkens back to the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century – during which time about 60,000 people were forcibly sterilized in the United States, on the basis of their purported intellectual unfitness.

As academics, we find it appalling that, in 2009, three professors at Harvard University were willing to guide and approve a dissertation in this academic tradition. There are three central problems with Richwine’s work that should not pass muster in any dissertation committee: 1) the argument that I.Q. scores are an indication of innate intelligence; and 2) the assertion that I.Q. is a genetic trait; and 3) the presumption that Hispanics, as a group, share a genetic makeup. All these ideas have been discredited and all are linked to an unfortunate history of scientific racism.

The idea that I.Q. scores could be a reflection of a heritable trait is one of the pernicious ideas that led to the Holocaust as well as eugenics programs and restrictive immigration policies in the United States and elsewhere. Apart from its ugly history, scientists do not have a clear understanding of the extent to which intelligence may be a heritable trait. Even if some aspects of intelligence are based on heritable traits, there is no doubt that environmental factors shape one’s ability to score highly on an intelligence test. Nevertheless, in his dissertation, Richwine eschews this evidence and argues that “the low average IQ of Hispanics is effectively permanent.”

It is clear that Richwine’s dissertation is thin – with weak statistical analyses and a literature review that relies too heavily on racist and substandard publications by Charles Murray, Richard Herrnstein, and Philippe Rushton. But, this dissertation should never have been written in the first place. Before Jason Richwine began the work that was to be his dissertation, he would have had to consult with scholars in his department to ask them if they would be on his doctoral committee. At that point, they should have explained to him that this work carries on the tradition of scientific racism, and has no place in twenty-first century scholarship. Instead, three scholars - George Borjas, Richard Zeckhauser, and Christopher Jencks - agreed to supervise this scientifically racist dissertation and approved granting him a PhD degree from Harvard University.

Dean Ellwood at Harvard Kennedy School takes the position that this dissertation is part of an academic debate. We are not against academic freedom. However, there is no academic debate on whether or not Hispanics as a group are less intelligent than native-born whites. There are debates on whether or not Hispanic is a pan-ethnic, ethnic, or racialized category. There are debates on how and whether or why we should measure intelligence. There are debates on the extent to which intelligence is a heritable trait. But, there are no debates on whether or not Latino immigrants have the intellectual caliber to be part of the United States. Those kinds of debates happen in nativist and white supremacist circles, which have no place in academia, which prizes arguments and debates based on valid constructs and scientific evidence.

Disney Launches Quinceanera Dresses for Latinas

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:37:09 -0400

Disney Launches Quinceanera Dresses for Latinas :

peroquevaina:

latinosexuality:

oh really? how else you gonna try to pimp our cultural practices…..?

ewwww

Latino Rebels: The Making of REBEL: The Story of Loreta Velázquez, Civil War Soldier and Spy

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:34:20 -0400

Latino Rebels: The Making of REBEL: The Story of Loreta Velázquez, Civil War Soldier and Spy:

latinorebels:

We here at Latino Rebels are thrilled to learn about “REBEL,” a fascinating documentary premiering May 24 at 10pm EST on PBS (check local listings). The film tells the story of Loreta Velázquez, the untold story of “a Cuban raised in New Orleans, who disguised herself as a man to fight in the…

fuckyeahmarxismleninism: New York City: More than 200 striking...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:33:57 -0400

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

New York City: More than 200 striking members of the Legal Services Staff Association (LSSA) and supporters picket outside the main office of Legal Services NYC, May 16, 2013.

Members of the Legal Services Staff Association (LSSA), the union representing over 200 attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, process servers, and other professionals employed with Legal Services NYC (LSNYC), today rejected management’s contract proposal which demanded unprecedented cuts to health care and retirement benefits. Employees at LSNYC, the nation’s largest provider of low-income civil legal services, are on strike for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Read more here about the issues behind the strike.

Photos by redguard

Blogathon (May 15-17) for the International Day Agianst Homophobia and Transphobia - Amplify

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:00:13 -0400

Blogathon (May 15-17) for the International Day Agianst Homophobia and Transphobia - Amplify:

latinosexuality:

h/t to urooj

Juvenile Sentencing: Life in Prison Isn't the Answer

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:00:14 -0400

Juvenile Sentencing: Life in Prison Isn't the Answer:

latinosexuality:

Your Take: Despite Supreme Court ruling, states still condemn young offenders to lengthy prison terms.

homie vincent sutherland wrote this. i’m proud to say i know him