I loved these photos taken by Roopa Singh at the India Day Parade in Manhattan, New York. Members of the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA) wanted to participate in the parade, but were turned down by the FIA (Federation of Indian Ass-ociations). So what did they do? They showed up anyway -- to protest their exclusion. Nothing to FIA, not even FIA itself.
You can see more of Roopa's photos here.
Just before Valentine's Day, a Facebook group called "Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward
Women" urged people to send pink underwear to the head of Sri Ram Sena, a right-wing group in India that had viciously attacked women drinking in a bar.
In the same spirit, I'm urging everyone to send panties to any Saudi women they know. I'm also urging President Obama to order the Air Force to drop thousands of panty packages on Saudia Arabia. Each package would carry a letter:
Dear Friend:
Please find enclosed panties of various sizes and colors. Keep the ones you like and pass the others to your friends and relatives. This is a gift from me, Michelle Obama, to the women of Saudi Arabia (and only the women!).
I recently learned how difficult it is for you to buy underwear, how you're forced to deal with men working in lingerie shops. As a 20-year-old Saudi woman told BBC News, "Girls don't feel very comfortable when males are selling them lingerie, telling them what size they need, and saying 'I think this is small on you, I think this is large on you'." To be honest, I don't even like it when Barack tells me that my panties are too small for me.
"What do you know about bras and panties?" I said to him. "Just worry about your stimulus package."
"I am," he said.
He thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't. I've had to correct him so many times. I'm sure you know what that's like. Men in Saudi Arabia seem to think they know what's best for women. They tell you what to wear, whether you can work and how you can travel. It's a wonder they don't tell you when you should have your period.
Freedom comes in small steps, so consider these panties a small step. You didn't have to buy them from men. In fact, the planes that dropped them on you were being flown by female pilots. I made sure of that. I wanted you to get a bunch of panties, but not get your panties in a bunch.
Michelle Obama, First Lady
Sometimes it's worth fighting for your rights. Not only will you get justice for yourself, you'll help others avoid the same plight.
An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.
Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.
"The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling," said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.
Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: "We will not be silent."
He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like "wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber,'" the ACLU said. [Link]
That's crazy, of course. The message on his T-shirt was harmless. He shouldn't have been punished for everyone else's ignorance. What would come next, a law that only English words are permitted on T-shirts?
Jarrar's case will probably make it easier to wear certain types of T-shirts while flying. But if you're going to wear any of these, do so at your own risk:
It's a new year (and also a new day), but one thing we can still count on is people of Islamic and/or
South Asian background being pulled off planes.
Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark. [Link]
A suspicious remark? I wonder what it was. Did one of them say to another: "You take the window seat. I may need to get up during the flight." Or did he say, "Good news, Kashif! The flight attendants are all female!"
Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother's wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.
"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety." [Link]
Ah, I can see why the other passengers were concerned: "Those Muslims are talking about airport security. They know where the jets are. OH MY GOD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"
Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. He said five of the six adults in the party are of South Asian descent, and all six are traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. ...
AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran's handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline's part.
"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them," Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions." [Link]
I love the way he phrased that: "It just so happened that these people were of Muslim faith and appearance."
If he was being truly honest, he would say, "Of course, they looked like Muslims. Had they been white, the pilot would have gone to them and said, 'Ah, I see that you've spotted the jets. Would you like to take a tour of the cockpit?'"
AirTran's slogan, by the way, is "go. there's nothing stopping you." Perhaps they should change it to: "go on another airline, Muslims. there's nothing stopping you."
Photo by James Willamor
We don't know his name, but there's apparently a UPS driver in California who's having a little too
much fun on the job. No, he's not opening all the Victoria's Secret packages and trying on the lingerie inside the brown van. He's making up nasty names for his customers. Well, at least one of them.
Balbir Singh, a turbaned Sikh, signed for a package for his son Anant, who was at work at the time. He didn't think the incident was terribly remarkable, describing it as "business as usual."
"I came and opened the door. He gave me the package and I signed. No other talking. Nothing," Singh, said.
A few days later, his son, Anant was expecting another package so he logged onto the UPS delivery tracking website to check on its status. He accidentally entered the tracking number of the package his father had signed for earlier in the week; that was when he found the derogatory term marked in the "signed by" portion of the tracking slip.
"I was amazed," Anant recounted, "I printed the paper and read it again, and it said signed by a "'terrorist.'" [Link]
If the UPS driver actually believed that Balbir Singh was a terrorist, then he ought to be taken to court. Isn't there a federal law against delivering packages to terrorists?
The Singh family has lived in Bakersfield for many years and are disgusted with insensitivity of the comment, deeming it "totally uncalled for."
"All of my community who wears a turban and belongs to the Sikh faith are not terrorists," Anant stated, "We are a peace-loving people and are part of the community."
Anant's father, Blbar Sing responded by saying, "Terrorist is a bad word. People should be educated. Sikh's are not terrorists, not every Muslim is a terrorist." [Link]
I think Balbir Singh (aka Blbar Sing) could have phrased that last line better. How about this: "The vast majority of Sikhs and Muslims are not terrorists, just as the vast majority of UPS drivers are not racist pigs."
This story is a couple of months old, but I just came across it and can't help sympathizing with Dr.
Sivaprasad Madduri, the Missouri urologist who found himself on a plane with nowhere to go.
On June 26, 2008, I traveled from St Louis to Las Vegas to attend AAPI annual convention by Southwest flight 1226. Two hours into the flight, I tried to go to the bathroom ( I take a blood pressure medicine with diuretic that makes one 'go' more often). As I was sitting in row six, I walked to the front lavatory. The flight attendant, named Lora Lee Minton, abruptly stopped me and essentially shouted at me, "Go back! This bath room is occupied, and you cannot stand here."
Shocked and dumbfounded at this unfriendly behavior, I went back and sat in my seat. Two minutes later, I saw the lavatory door opening and I got up and walked towards the bath room again. The same flight attendant (Lora Lee Minton) screamed at me, "I told you not to go to that bathroom," and started pushing me into my seat. I was totally confused at this erratic behavior, and told her that I had been taking medicine and I had to go to the toilet. I even tried to walk past Ms.Minton as I was very uncomfortable.
"I told you not to go," she pushed me into my seat! I was lost. I flew many times but had never experienced a rude and unfriendly behavior like this. Confused and not knowing what to do, I went back and sat in my seat. I saw the pilot came out of the lavatory, walked into the cockpit and closed the door behind him. Later I could use the bathroom. [Link]
Poor guy. He wanted to pee badly, but not only was the bathroom occupied, the flight attendant was just plain rude. The least she could have done was offer him a cup.
Continue reading "The urologist who wasn't allowed to pee" »
The Indian accent just doesn't get enough respect in the West. Some people make fun of it, others just
don't understand it. A man with a thick Indian accent wouldn't be able to order pizza in America.
Indian man: "I yam vanting a large peeja please."
Waitress: "Picture? We don't have pictures here.'
Man: "No, peeja! I yam vanting peeja!"
Waitress: "Pee jar? Sorry sir, we don't allow that here. You'll have to use the restroom."
The Indian accent is even getting the short end of the stick in India.
LONDON, Nov. 28 An Indian-born British man dismissed from a New Delhi call center for not sounding English enough has won a discrimination lawsuit in England.
Chetankumar Meshram, 27, works for the Talk Talk Direct telecommunications company in Northampton, and last year accepted a two-month transfer to New Delhi to work in the company's call center.
However, just three weeks into the job, he was told his accent "wasn't English enough" and he had to return home, The Times of London reported Wednesday.
"I know I speak with an accent but my job out there was to give technical advice, not to give expertise on how to communicate," said Meshram, who was born in India, and emigrated to England two years ago, the report said. [Link]
I wonder whom he was giving technical advice to. Was it Indians, Britons or Indians pretending to be Britons?
The Bedford Employment Tribunal agreed with his claim he had suffered both direct and indirect discrimination and awarded him $10,000 compensation for hurt feelings and expenses. [Link]
Only ten grand? The man lost his job and had "hurt feelings"! Surely his "hurt feelings" alone are worth 50 grand. And if he's married, his wife probably had "hurt feelings" too. And what about his children? What about his parents? What about his dog? All those "hurt feelings" should add up to a million bucks.
I wonder what he's going to do with the money. I hope he isn't going to use it for "accent-reduction" surgery. Having an Indian accent could be really useful in the future, especially when India starts outsourcing its jobs to the West.
The Olympics are more than eight months away, but already China is trying hard to get some negative
publicity for it.
Beijing is seeking women presenters for medals ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics -- but only those who are tall and thin need apply.
Hundreds of young women will be recruited as volunteers to present medals and raise flags at ceremonies for the Games, which open on August 8, but they must meet stringent criteria. [Link]
Let me get this straight: You can't be short, you can't be overweight, and you can't have any testosterone? Perhaps male volunteers are being used for other tasks, such as beating up all the protesters.
"We have some very clear conditions and demands," explained Zhao Dongming, director of the Cultural Activities Department at Beijing's Organizing Committee for the Games.
"We have certain requirements for their height, since they are to present the medals to our athletes. They need to be of a height between 1.68 and 1.78 meters. That's above average." [Link]
1.78 meters? That's about 5-foot-10, tall enough to play center on the Indian basketball team.
There's no height requirement for the athletes -- some of those weightlifters are pretty short -- so why should there be one for the volunteers?
There was no requirement on their weight, Zhao said, but he added: "Generally speaking, they can't be too fat. Their figure should be good. They shouldn't be too heavy."
The guidance was so the women, who must be between 18 and 25 and university students, would fit into the uniforms being prepared for them, he said. [Link]
Ah, the uniforms. I knew there was a logical reason for this. It doesn't matter what you weigh, as long as you can fit into a Size 2 dress.
You also have to be 18 to 25 and a university student? I'm really disappointed in the Organizing Committee. If they had tried harder, they could have discriminated even more. They could have required all the women to be English-speaking, light-skinned and well-endowed.
Come on, China, we expect more from you.
Photo by Marc van der Chijs
Archbishop Desmond Tutu isn't pleased about the Anglican Church's stance on homosexuality and has given the
church, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, a tongue-lashing.
Archbishop Tutu referred to the debate about whether Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, could serve as the bishop of New Hampshire.
He said the Anglican Church had seemed "extraordinarily homophobic" in its handling of the issue, and that he had felt "saddened" and "ashamed" of his church at the time.
Asked if he still felt ashamed, he said: "If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes.
"If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God." [Link]
St. Peter: "Archbishop Williams is on the phone, God. He wants to know if you love homosexuals."
God: "Tell him not to worry. I love him very much."
St. Peter: "God says he loves you very much, Archbishop Williams."
Archbishop: "Ah, just as I thought. He loves me, not them."
In the interview, Archbishop Tutu also rebuked religious conservatives who said homosexuality was a choice.
"It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual.
"You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred.
"It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society." [Link]
St. Peter: "Archbishop Williams is on the phone again, God. He wants to know if homosexuality is a choice."
God: "Tell him it would be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to hatred."
St. Peter: "God says it would be crazy to choose homosexuality, Archbishop Williams."
Archbishop: "Ah, just as I thought. Homosexuals are crazy."
Bushra Noah, a Muslim woman in Britain, wants to be a hairdresser, but can't find a job because she wears a
headscarf for religious reasons. Hair salons, it seems, expect their hairdressers to display their hair. Noah isn't happy about that and is suing a London hair salon for religious discrimination.
Sarah Desrosiers, whose Wedge salon specialises in "urban funky" cuts, says she turned down applicant Bushra Noah because she was "selling image" and needed her staff to display their hairstyles to the public. [Link]
You can also sell image with a headscarf, can't you? I'm sure Noah would have been willing to wear an "urban funky" headscarf. Or at least an "urban funny" one.
Ms Noah, 19, is claiming religious discrimination and suing Ms Desrosiers for more than £15,000 for injury to her feelings, as well as an unspecified sum for lost earnings.
Ms Desrosiers, 32, who set up her business in King's Cross 18 months ago, has already spent more than £1,000 fighting the case and says that if she loses she will be forced to close.
She denies any discrimination and says she rejected Ms Noah because she was unwilling to show her hair at work.
"I sell image - it's very important - and I would expect a hair stylist to display her hair because I need people to be drawn in off the street," said Ms Desrosiers. "It's the nature and style of my salon that brings people in and someone having their hair covered conflicts with that. If someone came in wearing a baseball hat or a cowboy hat I'd tell them to take it off while they're working. To me, it's absolutely basic that people should be able to see the stylist's hair." [Link]
A headscarf is different from a baseball cap, though, even if some men follow baseball religiously. Maybe it's because I'm a man, but I wouldn't care if my hairdresser didn't display her hair or if she was bald. I'd be concerned, however, if she had a bad hairdo, almost as concerned as I'd be if my dentist looked like this.
I've often wished we could get all the racists together, the brown racists, the black racists and the white
racists. A fight would inevitably break out and, with a little luck, we'd have fewer racists in the world. My wish may never come true, not in the way I imagine it, but I'm getting a little satisfaction from what's happening in Cullman, Alabama, where the KKK is in conflict with ... well, the KKK.
Members of one Ku Klux Klan organization say they will assemble at the courthouse Nov. 10 to show their opposition to another Klan group that plans an anti-immigration rally there that day.
Ken Mier, who described himself as an investigator for the Alabama Ku Klux Klan and the national office of the Ku Klux Klan LLC, said in an e-mail to The Cullman Times that his group is against the tactics of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which held an anti-immigration protest last month in Athens."We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment," he said. [Link]
It's about time the KKK realized the ignorance and stupidity of the KKK. These losers ought to go to school and get an education, instead of trying to feel superior to other races. I'm hoping the KKK ends up drumming some sense into the KKK. Perhaps someday my dream will come true and Wal-Mart will see a big drop in sales of white bed sheets.
DEAR ABBY: I hate you. How dare you support gay marriage? How dare you ruin the sanctity of marriage? -- TWICE-DIVORCED REPUBLICAN
DEAR TWICE-DIVORCED REPUBLICAN:
I believe if two people want to commit to each other, God bless 'em. That is the highest form of commitment, for heaven's sake. ... Women were once considered chattel, and slavery was regarded as sanctioned in the Bible. However, western society grew to recognize that neither was just. Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain have recognized gay marriage, and one day, perhaps, our country will, too." [Link]
DEAR ABBY: I still hate you. Why don't you move to Canada? -- TWICE-DIVORCED REPUBLICAN
DEAR TWICE-DIVORCED REPUBLICAN: I'm willing to move to Canada -- as soon as you move to Iran. We'll both be happier.
It takes guts to change your position, to admit that you made a mistake, especially when you're a Republican politician
and will be called "a flip-flopper," "a waffler" or, worst of all, "a liberal." So I have to give Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego, a lot of credit for switching his position on same-sex marriage and doing what the second most powerful man in America just can't get himself to do.
Mayor Jerry Sanders abruptly reversed his public opposition to marriage for same-sex partners and revealed that his adult daughter is a lesbian.
Sanders on Wednesday signed a City Council resolution supporting a challenge to California's gay marriage ban. He previously promised to veto it.
The Republican mayor said he could no longer back the position he took during his election campaign two years ago, when he said he favored civil unions but not full marriage rights for homosexual couples.
He fought back tears as he said he wanted his adult daughter, Lisa, and other gay people he knows to have their relationships protected equally under state laws.
"In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships their very lives were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana," Sanders said. [Link]
Yep, it's a lot easier to oppose same-sex marriage when no member of your family is gay or lesbian, when it doesn't affect one of your own.Sanders obviously has a conscience. Dick Cheney is still searching for his, probably in the same place that he's searching for WMDs.
Continue reading "Homosexuality inside the Republican family" »
Homosexuality is against the law in many parts of the world, including India and most African countries.
In Uganda, it carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment and 95 percent of Ugandans seem to like it that way. Katherine Roubos, a 22-year-old from Minnesota, has been writing about gay issues in the East African country while interning at the Daily Monitor. In a recent piece, several gays and lesbians described their struggles to her. One 30-year-old man said he once thought he would "grow out of it," but has come to accept his homosexuality.
I am hiding, constantly wondering who is watching, afraid of accusations, but on the other side, I am happy because I have a community and I am following my heart. I have been with my partner seven years and we are very much in love.
When the people talk about gays and lesbians they run directly to talk about sex. But it is love between us, not just sex. When we are together, we are happy, just like a newly married couple would be. We trust and love each other.I am very religious, but it is hard for me to go to church because I don’t feel safe there. But I was created by God, created like this; God did not make me wrong.
[Link]
He feels unsafe in church! Where's he supposed to go to feel safe -- the dark alley behind the bar?
In his superb book Maximum City, Suketu Mehta has an insightful passage about the challenge of
entering The Taj hotel in Mumbai:
[The Taj] is less a hotel than a proving ground for the ego. The Taj lobby and its adjoining toilets are where you test your self-worth; theoretically, anyone can come in out of the heat and sit in the plush lobby, on the ornate sofas, amid the billionaire Arabs and the society ladies, or relieve themselves in the gleaming toilets. But you need that inner confidence to project to the numerous gatekeepers, the toilet attendants; you need first to convince yourself that you belong there, in order to convince others that you do. And then you realize that the most forbidding gatekeeper is within you. [Link]
Very true, but you may need more than inner confidence to get into some hotels. You may also need the right attire and skin color, even if you happen to be a person of great achievement, even if you happen to have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was wearing a Mayan dress, the traditional attire of indigenous people in central America, and the hotel's response was also traditional: throw her out.
Staff at Cancun's five-star Hotel Coral Beach appear to have assumed this was another street vendor or beggar, so without asking questions they ordered her to leave. Except the woman was Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel peace prizewinner, Unesco goodwill ambassador, Guatemalan presidential candidate and figurehead for indigenous rights.
The attempted eviction, an example of discrimination against indigenous people common in central and south America, backfired when other guests recognised Ms Menchú and interceded on her behalf.
The human rights activist was in the Mexican coastal resort at the request of President Felipe Calderón to participate in a conference on drinking water and sanitation and was due to give interviews at the hotel.[Link]
Continue reading "The challenge of getting into a posh hotel" »
| Blog: |
| Nshima & Curry |
Topics: |
| humor, columns, satire |
