Posts Tagged: young people
Art After Dark: Behind Closed Doors
View image | gettyimages.com Art After Dark, is an annual student -directed production encompassing the talents of students from Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Clark Atlanta University. Art After Dark t analyzes black love, sexuality, black beauty, and spirituality through dance, singing, music, spoken word, comedy, and acting. This year’s theme, Behind Closed Doors, critically demonstrated that beauty, pain, and spirituality related to love can be filled with awkward moments that we can all relate too. As with many productions that occur on Spelman’s campus, the spectators were friends of the performers and did not hold back. They yelled out the names of their friends with pride and the audience laughed at times of humor. Kudos to the performers for sharing their talents and using their bodies to relay well-received… Read more »
5 Things I Learned From Lobbying at the Capitol
Yesterday I did something I wouldn’t have expected myself to do in a million years. I went to my Texas State Capitol and lobbied for a package of reproductive healthcare bills under the ‘Trust. Respect. Access.’ campaign. We had bills that addressed the need for comprehensive sex education in schools, to bills that addressed the state-mandated 24-hour waiting period for abortions. But all the bills really simply fit into the platform of ‘Trust. Respect. Access.’ which means that we: Trust Texans to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions Respect the knowledge of healthcare professionals and their medical and ethical judgement about the care each patient needs. guarantee that everyone in Texas, if so chooses, gets Access to a safe, compassionate, and timely abortion. I learned so much from the training before… Read more »
5 Reasons Why I Can’t Watch The Duff
View image | gettyimages.com From the moment I saw a trailer for the The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) , I knew I did not want to watch it. Granted, I have not read the book either. Even so, I know that The DUFFmovies is not for me. From what I understand, the story is about an adolescent girl named Bianca (played by Mae Whittman) going through the trials and tribulations of high school. An “attractive guy” in her class points out that she is the DUFF of her friend group. Her “unkempt hair,” lack of make-up, and aptitude for chemistry makes her unattractive and thus undesirable to others. I can’t find myself within this narrative. I am just not looking forward to finding a person of color serve as… Read more »
Queer & Feminist Musicians That You Should Be Listening To
We need more female-identifying musicians, and as activists we need to seek them out and listen to them! In high school, I played music quiet a lot and was in a few bands. This is probably because I went to a performing arts high school, but I did notice a disparity in female artists being the only girl in the guitar department. The music scene continued to be male dominated in college, but recently I posted a status on my Facebook to request anyone who was not a white straight man to reach out to me if they were interested in starting a band. The status got a lot of attention compared to most of my posts (almost 40 likes!), but unfortunately I only received three serious inquiries to play…. Read more »
Kansas Sex Education Fight May Return in 2015
In 2007, the Board of Education in Kansas updated its policy with regard to sex education, removing the prior policy of recommending abstinence-only until marriage curriculum, and replacing it with a recommendation for an abstinence-based curriculum that includes factual information on STI and unintended pregnancy prevention. While this policy, which remains intact, does not have the ability to require any specific curriculum for an individual school district, it has helped improve young people’s access to the information they need. Many school districts have adopted an abstinence-plus curriculum, which falls in line with the recommendations from the Board of Education. This policy also does not include a requirement for any specific type of parental consent mechanism. Instead, the decision what type of parental consent is required has been left to individual… Read more »
Police Violence Against Women, Girls, Queer People of Color
During this outpouring of demonstration and activism against the racist American system that does not indict killer cops, and media release of accounts of police brutality, let’s not forget that black girls and women are also murdered by the police. In the recent weeks we have seen many stories that highlight injustices of police brutality, and many of these have prominently featured the killing of black men. It is important to think about how the deaths of unarmed, innocent people at the hands of the police are not isolated incidents. Black men are uniquely impacted by this violence, but the brutality is also not just against men. Children, women, and queer folk of color are also facing death and abuse by the system. Perhaps, it is simpler for the media to… Read more »
A College Student’s Guide to Surviving Winter Break
For us college students, this time of year is dominated by stress of finals, projects, and papers. But when all of that is over for the semester, that stress doesn’t necessarily go away. Thanksgiving break is over, and for some of us that was a short glimpse into what the several weeks of winter break will offer us. I grew up in a small town, with a very conservative group of family, friends, and neighbors. Growing up, I had little exposure to the issues and ideas that I am passionate about at this point in my life. In a lot of ways, leaving the nest to go to college was a liberating experience for me, although my university is about as midwestern as any. I’ve had the incredible opportunity to… Read more »
Challenging beauty expectations can start but not end with a new Barbie
This past March, a man by the name of Nicholay Lamm decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to help him raise money to create a new kind of Barbie doll. 8 months later, thanks to nearly 14,000 supporters, Lamm is now able to ship 19,000 new dolls to people. what makes his dolls so different? The whole premise of his design was to make a “normal” presenting Barbie doll with the physical proportions of an average 19-year old girl. He succeeded and named his creation, “Lammily”. She has made news once again because this week Lamm debuted a new accessory for the doll in the form of stickers. There is now the option to purchase stickers for the doll that represent normal physicalities, including freckles, acne, scars, stretch marks, and… Read more »
Young, Pregnant, and At Work
Written by Kelsey Ryland, URGE Law & Policy Fellow The Supreme Court will hear the case of Peggy Young v. United Parcel Service (UPS) on December 3. Kadijah wrote about the case for us, but in short: Ms. Young, a pregnant UPS employee, was instructed by her doctor to request light duty, but UPS refused to accommodate her request. UPS routinely accommodates other workers with injuries or other limitations. The 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act should protect workers in this situation, but two lower courts have supported UPS. Now the Supreme Court will hear the case and determine whether or not the Pregnancy Discrimination Act has enough force to protect pregnant workers. Protecting pregnant workers is a reproductive justice issue that hugely impacts young people. This isn’t the 1950s anymore and most… Read more »
Why don’t you just leave?
I was born in Kansas. I have always lived in Kansas. All of my family and friends also live in Kansas. I love living here. I don’t plan on leaving my home any time soon. However, there is just one problem: Kansas doesn’t always love me back. You see, in Kansas, people that think like me have very little political power. As advocates for reproductive justice, our concerns and campaigns often come up short. We live in an extremely anti-choice political culture. Kansas has some of the strictest abortion-related laws in the country. It can be a very challenging and frustrating environment to do this work. The solution we are always offered to remedy this situation is to leave. Many people might ask us why we don’t leave if we… Read more »
