Colorlines Magazine articles from December 2004

Colorlines Magazine archives from December 2004

Sex and gender.(publisher's note)
December 22, 2004... At the Still We Rise march for poor people during the Republican National Convention, one man held a homemade sign printed with the words "Abstinence Kills" and, on the next line, "No Thrills." I saw this as a reminder that the prospect of a...

One Michael Moore is worth a hundred cult-crit professors.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2004... Dear Editor: David Leonard's article in ColorLines (Fall 2004) on "white populists" in the mass media left me wondering whether he actually reads or watches the very people he attempts to critique. Say what you want about Michael Moore,...

Who gets to live where?(in focus)
December 22, 2004... I'm a single mom who's raising an eight-year-old son on my own. He's a good kid. I'm just working hard, trying to make my life better. I came from Jessie's House (a homeless shelter) and now I'm volunteering there. I want to give back. I hope I...

Saving yourself: a martial artist explains how she teaches self defense for women, and why she does this work.(to the point)
December 22, 2004... I came into self-defense through martial arts. In 1992, I took a five-minute self-defense class at a women's festival: how to use your voice, do a power yell and a palm heel strike, where you strike the nose with the heel of your palm. It had...

Britain's war over managed migration: an interview with British immigration activists Milena Buyum and Don Flynn.(q & a)
December 22, 2004... The debate over immigration has become a global one. According to Geneva-based Migrant Watch, over 130 million people live outside the countries in which they were born. All over the world huge streams of migrants are fleeing war, repression...

Immigration reform--uniting blacks and immigrants.(q & a)
December 22, 2004... If you listen to President George Bush, the only way Mexicans can avoid the deadly and illegal trip across the U.S. border is to come as guest workers--temporary contract laborers for U.S. industry and agriculture. The 8-14 million immigrants...

Life under occupation.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2004... A U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, de facto rulers of Northern Babil, Iraq, provides security for visiting Marine Civil Affairs Team as children watch in the city of Musayyib. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A U.S. Marine...

Playing with race: on the edge of edgy sex, racial BDSM excites some and reviles others.(bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism)(Cover Story)
December 22, 2004... Mollena Williams is gregarious, the kind of woman who makes a point of saying, "How are you today?" to the Walgreens cashier. She has a short afro and laughs easily. She works as an administrative assistant and at night, she pens her theater...

Menage a trois in red, black and blue: an erotic tale of our times.
December 22, 2004... This is a story about sex. It's about the pushing and the shoving, the sweat and the funk, the caresses and the smacks and the back-scratching attainment of the big O. This is the about calculated flirtations and tricky negotiations that with...

Black, white and seeing red all over.
December 22, 2004... I have an affinity for black men, particularly artistic, culturally aware brothas--poets, musicians and artists who sport dreadlocks or untamed afros. Since the late 1980s, my neighborhood of Ft. Green, Brooklyn has been the place to find them...

Defining our own sexual liberation.
December 22, 2004... We believe it makes sense to live a life that allows us a right to enter into multiple intimate relationships. The notion of finding everything you've ever wanted in one person, whether a friend or lover, is a huge expectation for any person to...

Young and out: anything but safe.
December 22, 2004... Sakia Gunn was trying to get home. She was 15, hanging out on the piers, laughing with the other kids, queer and colored, their teenage arms embellished with rainbow-colored bracelets. But the way home for queer kids is often littered with...

Toward reproductive freedom: if women of color can frame reproductive rights as both health and social justice issues, that would be one of the most significant outcomes of the historic March for Women's Lives.
December 22, 2004... To hear some women tell it, the March for Women's Lives was the largest, most diverse reproductive rights gathering in history. More than a million women and their supporters turned out April 25, 2004 in Washington, D.C., including a strong...

In search of the race card: what did Kobe Bryant's case reveal about the racializing of sexual violence?
December 22, 2004... Having paid too much money to watch my favorite team lose by too many points, I walked dejectedly to my $20 parking space. It was after a recent Lakers' game in Los Angeles, and I passed several vendors selling everything from hot dogs to...

Virulent virqinity: "abstinence-only" sex ed programs are putting youth at risk.
December 22, 2004... "What does penetration mean?" The question is not that unusual in my job directing a peer education program for high school students. Yet I was taken aback because the young person who asked is sexually active. This young woman of color is...

How can I be down? A bisexual black man's take on "the down low.".
December 22, 2004... In a conversation about the "down low," a white co-worker and intermittent sex partner of mine told me, "Well, what needs to be said first is that these men are bisexual. They just need to have the space to come out." I told her I thought that...

High-speed outsourcing: jobs, workers and rights in the age of capital flight.(feature)
December 22, 2004... It's a hard issue to wrap one's head around. Free market champions, such as the likes of Microsoft and Dell, tout outsourcing and offshoring as the logical developments of a global economy based on accelerated innovation and technology; the...

Beyond bars: community-based responses to gender violence.(feature)
December 22, 2004... Before Misty Rojo moved out to escape her husband's battering, he told her he would rather kill her than see her with someone else. After 10 years of this kind of abuse, Rojo feared for her life and bought a gun. She moved into her own home,...

Locals turn on Asian women's shelter.(feature)(New York Asian Women's Center)
December 22, 2004... On a quiet street in Brooklyn, a typical brownstone opened its doors some months ago as a shelter for battered Asian immigrant women. There were only small indications--a tricycle out in the courtyard, an Asian woman walking into the house. The...

Kepping Chinatown: mainstream America's first Asian-American solo rapper battles myths, markets and the tightrope line between exposure and exploitation.(culture)(Biography)
December 22, 2004... Before a single album sale, Jin tha MC's story already rings like a well-worn street tale. Born in Miami, raised on bok choy and Biggie, Jin (nee Jin Au-Yeung) hustled hip-hop undergrounds while most kids his age were sweating high-school...

Drag Kings, Sluts & Goddesses: the Boston-based lesbian theatre troupe tackles big issues with dance, music and irresistible sexual confidence.(culture)
December 22, 2004... "We will do anything sexual on stage," says Mia Anderson, "bondage, SM, orgies, rough sex. We won't do total nudity because of legal issues, and besides, it's not sexy. And we won't do stereotypical humor, like Asian and black jokes." ...

An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire.(books)(Book Review)
December 22, 2004... An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire By Arundhati Roy (South End Press, 2004) Arundhati Roy pulls no punches. She is not the sort to beat around the bush. Roy's aim, when she speaks to packed audiences or writes her incisive essays, is...

The Isley Brothers.(race records)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
December 22, 2004... THE ISLEY BROTHERS Taken to the Next Phase/Columbia One cowers at how many babies were probably made to the criminally smooth sounds of the Isley Brothers. Here, a talented generation of new jacks like Questlove, Mos Def, Raphael...

The Mighty Imperials.(race records)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
December 22, 2004... THE MIGHTY IMPERIALS Thunder Chicken/Daptone New York's Daptone label returns with yet another installment of gritty time-warp funk, this time courtesy the Mighty Imperials. Meticulously engineered to sound just like James at his...

Manzel.(race records)(Sound Recording Review)
December 22, 2004... MANZEL Midnight Theme/Dopebrother This compilation pays tribute to Manzel, an obscure, spaced-out late-1970s outfit spearheaded by a young, funk-loving army lieutenant. After middling success, Manzel all but disappeared until sides...

Pharoah's Daughter.(race records)(Sound Recording Review)
December 22, 2004... PHAROAH'S DAUGHTER Out of the Reeds/Tkadik This enchanting classic of the New Jewish Renaissance finds a proper reissue through iconoclast John Zorn's always-noteworthy Tzadik label. Featuring the haunting voice of Basya Schechter and...

Deep Dickollective.(race records)(musical group)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2004... DEEP DICKOLLECTIVE The Famous Outlaw League of Proto-Negroes/SugarTruck With proud, hardcore rhymes that assial all sorts of old-world typecasting ("I Am") and grungy, jazz-influenced, kitchen-sink production, there's nothing subtle...