Sonia Ossorio, President, National Organization for Women | Human Trafficking

 

Host Sheryl McCarthy talks with journalist and activist Sonia Ossorio, president of NOW-NYC about pressing issues currently facing American women: abortion rights, contraception, sex education, the distinction between “legitimate” rape and faux rape, among others, and NOW-NYC’s mission. (Taped: 09/07/12)

 

Source: www.youtube.com

Social media stands in support of 16-year-old rape victim with #IamJada

theGRIO REPORT – This week, Jada resorted to social media to use the platform as a way to speak out against her sexual assault and draw support from users as a way to combat rape culture.

Source: thegrio.com

 

Stand up. Speak out. Fight back!

 

Border Angels – The Power of One

 

Since 1994, 10,000 people have died trying to cross the border between the United States and Mexico, according to Enrique Morones founder of Border Angels. Among those who attempted the journey are men, women and young children. Due to harsh weather conditions, tough terrain and often the expensive price migrants must pay to smugglers, however, many do not make it across.

Founded by Morones in 1986, Border Angels is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance to undocumented immigrants. After bringing food and water to migrants who were living in the canyons of North County San Diego, Morones and the Border Angels expanded their operation by going out to the desert to place water near the recently constructed wall dividing the United States and Mexico, also known as Operation Gatekeeper.

“Before Operation Gatekeeper, one or two people died every month,” said Morones.

“After Operation Gatekeeper, one or two people die every day.

 

Click through to read more.

 

Source: misaelvirgen.blogspot.com

Ex-BET Host Takes Stand On Immigration

 

The former host of ‘106th + Park’, Rocsi Diaz, is making her directorial debut in “The Secrets of Strangers,” a public service announcement that chronicles undocumented immigrants who share their illegal status with American strangers.

It is the first to premiere from a three part Youtube series launched by Welcome.us, a nonprofit organization, that’s celebrating this June as the first annual Immigrant Heritage Month.


Welcome.us 
seeks to inspire Americans to share their stories of how their personal or their family stories of immigrating into the country.

 

Source: newsone.com

Angelina Jolie Opens Sex Violence Summit With Aim to End War Rape

 

 

ABC News’ Hamish Macdonald reports:

LONDON – Actress Angelina Jolie opened a high-profile global summit in London today, aimed at ending sexual violence in conflict and emphasizing the message that victims have nothing to be ashamed of.

Rape in war zones is widespread and affects hundreds of thousands of people, many in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

“It is a myth that rape is an inevitable part of conflict; there is nothing inevitable about it,” Jolie, special envoy to the U.N. Commissioner for Refugees, said in opening the London conference. “It is a weapon of war aimed at civilians. It has nothing to do with sex, everything to do with power.”

 

Click through to read more. 

 
See on abcnews.go.com

Immigrant from Fiji confronts twisted U.S. Immigration Laws

 

Awesome speech by +Prerna Lal

 

“Prerna Lal is a law student at The George Washington University Law School. She was born in the Fiji Islands, came to the U.S. with her parents when she was 14, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area…”

 
See on www.youtube.com

Undoing Border Imperialism: Harsha Walia

 

“Harsha Walia has played a central role in building some of North America’s most innovative, diverse, and effective new movements. That this brilliant organizer and theorist has found time to share her wisdom in this book is a tremendous gift to us all.”—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

Undoing Border Imperialism combines academic discourse, lived experiences of displacement, and movement-based practices into an exciting new book. By reformulating immigrant rights movements within a transnational analysis of capitalism, labor exploitation, settler colonialism, state building, and racialized empire, it provides the alternative conceptual frameworks of border imperialism and decolonization. Drawing on the author’s experiences in No One Is Illegal, this work offers relevant insights for all social movement organizers on effective strategies to overcome the barriers and borders within movements in order to cultivate fierce, loving, and sustainable communities of resistance striving toward liberation. The author grounds the book in collective vision, with short contributions from over twenty organizers and writers from across North America.

Harsha Walia is a South Asian activist, writer, and popular educator rooted in emancipatory movements and communities for over a decade.”

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

I’ve started reading this book and I highly recommend it.

 

@getgln

See on www.amazon.com

Biracial Woman Talks To KKK Members To Confront Racism Face-To-Face

See on Scoop.itCommunity Village Daily

 

“Most people would be afraid to confront a member of the Ku Klux Klan to talk about racism, but one filmmaker has made it her mission to do just that.

Mo Asumang, daughter of a black Ghanaian father and a white German mother, is literally challenging racism head on.”

 

Click through to WATCH video

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

She’s super brave. I’m scared to death of the KKK. Although, I’ve read that some will have a dialog if you engage with them – just like in this video.

People apply labels to groups, then that label makes us frightened. But they are human. And often the ‘normal’ person is the one who does something crazy.

I think many people, including the media, the military, and religious groups attempt to over simplify the complexity of human relations, especially the fact that everyone has the capacity to do good or bad.

The human mind is so interconnected and influenced with the culture and community that it lives in, it’s easy for humans to get their ideas twisted, and many never have the opportunity to study philosophy, anthropology, sociology, biology, intercultural studies, nor the opportunity to travel the world. And even with the power of the internet (YouTube ‘university’) – there is still so much ignorance and hate.

The world is in a constant battle between ignorance and knowledge, bad and good, yin and yang.

 

See on www.huffingtonpost.com

#YesAllWomen: Isla Vista attack puts a spotlight on gender violence

After the deadly Isla Vista rampage by an alienated young man who used social media to announce his plans to kill, social media struck back — with the hashtag #YesAllWomen .

See on www.latimes.com