In This for My People: Nia Robinson on Race, the Environment, and Climate Change

“Race is the number one determining factor for whether or not you live in a community with a toxic facility,“ said femme-tellectual Climate Justice Goddess Nia Robinson, facilitating a teach-in about race and the environment at Mount Holyoke College this March.

“I grew up in the shadow of a toxic incinerator,” Nia once told the author of Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists, “in a city with one of the highest pediatric lead poisoning rates and an extremely high asthma rate. Nature is great, but that’s not why I’m in this. I’m in this for my people.”

From guest lecturing in classes to speaking about human rights, race, and the environment on a Five College climate panel; facilitating discussions for local students, activists and community members, and radio interviews, Nia offered her critical perspective on some of the biggest challenges facing our world to the Pioneer Valley this March as the first of four Five College Social Justice Policy Practitioners in Residence.

Missing the Target: Stigma, Criminalization, and Sex Selection Abortion Bans

New issue of DifferenTakes! (Download for free & visit the archive.)

Only a few months into 2012, we’re riding an aggressive wave of anti-abortion, anti-contraception legislative attempts and public commentary. The disturbingly titled Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which passed through the House Judiciary Committee with unanimous Republican support in late February, distills these recent efforts to further stigmatize and criminalize reproductive health care.

The idea that we can determine a single reason why people seek abortions, and use that to legislate on their bodies, medical providers, and families is divisive, misleading, and dangerous. In this issue of DifferenTakes, health care advocate Jaspreet Chowdhary examines the push for racial profiling in prenatal care from her perspective as an Asian and Pacific Islander (API) cultural defender, gender equality warrior, and new mama.

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Meet Michael Tobias: Ecologist, Animal Lover, Anti-Immigrant Activist

What makes environmental racism so insidious is that at first glance, it seems to rely purely on numbers and nature: two realms that purportedly exist outside of politics. However, ecologist Michael Tobias has made his career out of drawing connections between these apparently disparate ways of seeing the world. He relies on the assumption that numbers are indisputable and separate from politics, to issue his new public-service announcement—a to-the-point tally of the increasing populations of California, the United States, and the planet. Ominous background music and lighting accent his urging for “a serious dialogue” about curbing population growth—with clean water, air, food, and our children’s future listed as the victims of our inability to enact such austerity measures.

At first, it seems very straightforward: acting for the health of our planet helps everyone, regardless of political affiliation, race, class, gender, or nationality, ecology says. It ensures enough resources to continue going around, now and in the future. However, this viewpoint both fails to account for the true misdistribution of resources currently in effect today, and also aims not for an equal distribution of future resources, but for a continued disproportionate favoring of resources for the Western, white world.

How about the animals, though? Surely animal rights exist outside the realm of human bigotry, right?

Ten Reasons Why Militarism is Bad for Queer People!

New edition of a classic DifferenTakes article! (Download for free & visit the archive.)

Ryn Gluckman’s original 2003 article about the ways war and other forms of state violence hurt queer bodies and communities has been one of the most popular in our Ten Reasons activist tool series. It was written nearly a decade ago, as the United States embarked on wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In the wake of 9/11, the political culture was fraught with competing frameworks of desire for punishment through military invasion, or anti-violent reconciliation. While the electrifying public debates of the immediate descent into war have now diminished, the lasting effects of ongoing violence — within the two invaded countries, in overseas detention centers, and in United States courts, hospitals, and veterans’ homes — have grown even starker with time. Now, as LGBTQI service members, equality advocates, and anti-violence activists all approach their work in a post-Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell context, Ryn’s message about the legacy of war is more important than ever.

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Rick Santorum and the Restriction of our Right to Birth Control

In October, Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum elucidated his thoughts on birth control to the evangelical Christian blog CaffeinatedThoughts:

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” (Starts around 17:00 minute mark).

While Santorum is certainly not alone in his opposition to non-procreative sex, he has been particularly public about the issue, even asserting that married couples should not be engaging in sex for pleasure. The former Pennsylvania senator has also stated his opposition to the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling that invalidated a Connecticut law banning contraception. Santorum said he still feels that a state should be able to make such laws. In light of the ongoing Republican war on women’s bodies, what does Santorum’s threat to cut America’s access to birth control truly mean?

Like other conservative candidates, Santorum supports the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, which provides low-income people with contraception along with other vital medical care. For people who rely on such organizations for their contraceptive needs, federal funding cuts literally take away their birth control. In December, Santorum signed the Personhood Pledge which claims, contrary to all scientific evidence, that the morning after pill, the birth control pill, and the IUD induce abortion, and should therefore be banned. Santorum is committed to overturning Roe vs. Wade and appointing Supreme Court justices who will not uphold our constitutional right to privacy.

Santorum’s hostility towards birth control illustrates the ideological disconnect between anti-choicers and the majority of the American public – 99% of sexually active women have used at least one contraceptive method and rely on contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies and limit the spread of STDs. In turn, contraceptive services provided by publicly funded clinics prevent millions of unintended pregnancies each year. It is no secret that the assault on reproductive freedom is a key part of the Republican agenda. Rick Santorum, who has made the contraception issue central to his campaign, stands ready to restrict a woman’s right to make her own childbearing decisions and deny millions of Americans access to imperative health care. The America envisioned by Rick Santorum and social conservatives like him is one that unfailingly aligns itself with the goals of the antiabortion movement, and as the presidential elections loom in the coming year it is imperative, now more than ever, to demand our right to bodily autonomy, health, and reproductive justice.

This article was written by Senti Sojwal. Senti is a third year Hampshire student from New York City, currently studying abroad in Havana, Cuba and concentrating in race, gender theory, and creative writing. In her academic and creative work she has been exploring the ideas of cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, identity politics and feminist theory. In the past she’s worked with sexual health awareness initiatives in Pune, India, volunteered with NARAL Pro-Choice New York, and helped organize the annual From Abortion Rights to Social Justice conference last spring. 

Why Population Alarmism is Bad News Bears

Beyoncé and Jay Z just had the 7 billionth-or-so baby to ever be born. The only people on planet Earth who aren’t excited to welcome wee Blue Ivy Carter’s into the world are this guy and his more contemporary counterparts. But seriously, alarmist rhetoric about population numbers must stop. It is dangerous, divisive, and a gross distortion of reality.

Some journalists who cry wolf about ‘overpopulation’ claim to be “breaking the silence” on a taboo subject. In actuality, these ideas are part of a long-standing tradition rooted in white supremacist, eugenic thought. The latest spotlighted ‘issue’ may shift from hunger and poverty to political instability and war, or most recently, climate change, but the basic idea stays the same:

• One, that reproduction—especially that of women of color, poor women, and disabled women in the global south and global north–is a threat.
• And two, that people who reproduce are responsible for large-scale social ills.

Trusting Women: This Week & Every Week

It’s official, folks: Trust Women Week is here! Time to get loud and proud about the trust YOU have that women are the real experts when it comes to decisions about their bodies and their lives.

Sunday was the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision decriminalizing abortion in the US for the first time since the 1880s. To commemorate this moment, over 50 reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations (including PopDev) have joined the Silver Ribbon Campaign‘s virtual march, focusing on shared messages as literal and virtual banners, including:

 

• Her Decision, Her Health
• Fix the Economy, Support My Autonomy
• U.S. Out of My Uterus
• Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights