The Big Isms

Martin Luther King, Jr. said repeatedly that the world was in dire need of a new organization, "The International Association for the Advancement of CreativeMaladjustment." Apparently none ever was created in a formal sense… until MindFreedom and the Mad Pride movement. VIA

King’s image of creative maladjustment is certainly evocative and implicitly cautioning against pathologizing protest (a trend in psychology at the time). He is certainly saying that accepting an unjust society should be questioned. But there is no critique there of diagnosis. He gave one of the “creative maladjustment” speeches at the American Psychological Association, who he was challenging in his inimical, powerful, and eloquent way. His problem with the APA was that these were a bunch of almost exclusively white, privileged people who were part of an unjust society. He was asking them to stop smugly seeing themselves as doing good by helping distressed people, and instead recognize how th…

Martin Luther King Day 2019Published January 21, 2019 A Letter to Our Youth: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, “I Have a Dream” is a powerful, eloquent, sacred vision and prayer for the future of the United States of America. “I Have a Dream” magnifies the urgency for us to teach the footprints of our past, the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, slavery and Jim Crow. The footprints are etched into every fiber of our social educational and political way of life, influencing our rule of law. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, “I Have a Dream” is not just a speech, it is a way of life we all must strive for if we truly want our democracy to mature to the sacredness that our flag represents. I take great strength and hope from “I Have a Dream.” I strongly believe in the youth of America and take inspiration from them, knowing our future is in good hands. ―Billy Mills

Toledo, Ohio (CNN)
It took 14 months for the noose to show up.
Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors.
A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa."
A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan.
Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls.
In Ohio.
In 2018.
READ: Inside the GM plant where nooses and 'whites-only' signs intimidated workers - CNN

This book will break your heart (in a good way) Amazon Review March 23, 2018

This book is not easy. It is uninterested in your comfort. In fact, dis-ease is a core theme, along with the trauma of being othered in various ways. It didn't occur to me that nature, here in the U.S., could be associated with danger, that trees are a constant reminder of the horrors of racism, that camping is predominantly part of white culture for historical reasons. Similarly, while I have thought about the corrosive pollution (and loneliness) of city living, removed from nature, I never tied it so neatly with racism the way Vernon deftly does in this impressive autobiographical exploration. And if that was all this book explored, it would still be worth your time, but that is merely the opening salvo of an emotional tour de force. The generational trauma of parental abuses, the intense pain of peers ostracizing with sexual and racial slurs, the fetishization of queer black bodies, it's…

Antisemitism Is RacismBy Scot Nakagawa on Jan 13, 2019 08:48 pm

I believe that the reason that so many progressives, including racial justice progressives, don’t understand the threat of antisemitism and even, really, that antisemitism is in fact racism!!! is that we understand racism wrong, or at least incompletely. Here’s what I mean. U.S. residents, for the most part, think of racism in terms of effects […] more




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Cancer is increasingly a microcosm of the inequality that defines our time. As the gap between the haves and have-nots widens, the income gap in cancer deaths will continue to grow, too.
The cancer death rate in the US has dropped by 27 percent since 1991...
Some people face real barriers accessing treatment. Some of the latest cancer treatments can cost as much as half a million dollars in the US, and even if your insurance covers them, living outside of certain US cities could make getting the treatments almost impossible. 

Source: We’re making real progress against cancer. But you may not know it if you’re poor. - Vox