Sunday reader time!

Ugh...
Its gonna be a quadruple espresso day...I can tell.
Okay! On to the readings!

-White People Think That People of Colour Have More Culture @Restructure! There isn't much I can say that the post doesn't say better. This is the first time I have read anything over there, but I think it will get added to the blogroll. Quote:

"White liberals* in North America often say things like, “White people have no culture.” For the overwhelming majority of white liberals, to be white is to be boring. Some white people even claim that they are “jealous” of people who are not white, as if non-white people have “culture” that white people do not, due to the sole fact they have a higher concentration of melanin in their skin, eyes, or hair.

Of course, the very definition of culture necessitates that white people have a culture." (emphasis in the original)

Go read it. I'll wait.

-Bjork turned 43 on Friday: For those of you who don't know me well, I am a pretty huge Bjork fan (plus we are both Scorpios. Woo-woo geek joy!!!) and the post I linked to has some great videos of hers as well as audio tracks. It also has a link to one of the issues she is active on at the moment, concerning environmentalism in Iceland.


-Quickhit: Lauredhel reports on some particularly egregious Aussie racism.

-Quickhit: Vatican "forgives" John Lennon. @Shakesville.

-Notorious Heterosexuals over at Pam's.

"If anyone wants to make the argument that no LGBT people should be allowed to marry because some go to circuit parties or some lose their temper when their rights are violated, I will reply with some of the most awful and vicious things heterosexuals have done and paint the speaker with the same brush.

I have had it.

If I am responsible for every gay faux pas, then every heterosexual is guilty of every awful act of every other heterosexual."

-Social institutionalization of heteronormative families: This article is written in very specific sociological language, but it is also very very good.

"It seems to me that as a society, we’d be better off supporting individuals and their decisions about the way they want to fashion their life commitments and relationships (sexual or otherwise), rather than catering to one specific template, and then blaming non-traditional families for their struggles that is actually created by their lack of support in our marriage-centric society."

-Trans Murder Apology @The Jaded Hippy about the tendency in some circles to blame transpeople for "getting themselves murdered" by "lying" about who they "really" are:

"It's not her words or her lack of words that creates this "lie", it is her very existence, and more importantly, his response to her existence. He is attracted to her, and by his definition she is not a "real" woman, but in fact a man. Thus he was attracted to a man, in his mind. If this is what he is in fact responding to, as I'm arguing, then his resulting rage is rooted in homophobia.

These responses from these men aren't about the T/I person. They are purely about themselves and their fear of what their attraction to a person with an intersex/trans history means in relation to their self identity as a heterosexual male."

(Edited to remove "feminist" upon clarification from the original author)

-God Angrily Clarifies "Don't Kill" Rule: Special press conference!

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"