Category Archives: Stuff

Dalits

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A Dalit is an “untouchable” in India. As I was reading this article in the NY Times I kept thinking, kind of sounds like the gap between the wealthy and the poor here in America… and then this paragraph:

“Dalits still lag behind the rest of India, but they have experienced gains as the country’s economy has expanded. A recent analysis of government survey data by economists at the University of British Columbia found that the wage gap between other castes and Dalits has decreased to 21 percent, down from 36 percent in 1983, less than the gap between white male and black male workers in the United States. The education gap has been halved.”

I bolded the text to signify what stood out to me.

Read the full article here…http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/indias-boom-creates-openings-for-untouchables.html?ref=world

notjustmythoughts.

 

Buying Congress

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Is this really the first time someone has thought that people are buying Congress? I’ve been saying this from the very beginning. Congress makes strides for the rich, because ultimately they are the ones who have funded “them” (the representative/senator/president) getting into office. No money = no campaign train, which in turn means not getting your word out there, which in turn means you wouldn’t win. So you win with financing from people, but when wealthy people end up contributing more money combined than money from smaller individual donations you have a skewed perspective on winning tactics. It is no longer about the people of the nation, but rather the people with money that donated and how you can get more of their money and also keep them on “your team” going into the next elections…

What does this means? Well, dig in your pocket and come up with a little under 30K for a donation and you too might have a voice… Of course, my version of irony…

The Bronx median income is about 17K/yr … now doesn’t it kind of make sense as to why the Bronx is often the forgotten borough? And the average medium income is a little more than 26K… 

And even though this article in the NY TIMES (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/deep-pockets-deeply-political/?hp) is an opinion piece, I kind of feel like they make these stories “opinion” to undermind people into thinking it really isn’t so.

Check out the article. It’s worth your time. Notjustmythoughts.

Loopholes and roundabout tactics

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/nyregion/new-york-developers-take-advantage-of-financing-for-visas-program.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Have you read this article in the NY Times? It SCREAMS shadiness if you ask me… This seems like bribery in so many ways. How can you take $500,000 (legally) from a foriegn investor to guarentee them a 2 year visa?? AND THEN on top of that, how can you rezone an area just to say that it is in a needy section of NY when in fact it is not? This is allowed?!?!?!?!?!

Come on people!!!! These aren’t..they can’t be…no notjustmythoughts

Gentrification

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Gentrification, what are your thoughts?

I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. I can see the benefits of gentrification. Big business isn’t always bad – bring jobs into an area. New housing isn’t always bad – nicer apartments, more apartments…

But when I think about it deeper, the jobs that big business provides usually only pay slightly more than the minimum wage. An example of this… 116th and Pleasant Avenue in El Barrio (Spanish Harlem). There is a Costco, Old Navy, Target, Bob’s Furniture, and a Petco (and I believe a few more stores). This seems good. They boasted they would bring a few thousand jobs to the community… but you find out later that a lot of those jobs are at $8/hr. If you know Manhattan – this isn’t much at all compared to the cost of living. Also, a lot of the jobs are part time… big businesses’ way of not providing health insurance to its employees… and furthermore… these businesses said “jobs in the community”, but employees are from outside fo the community too… so in reality.. what have you given this community? Traffic… more pollution from the idling traffic and the truck deliveries to the stores…decrease in sales to the mom & pop shops…

And the apartments… The buildings are nice to look at… but when you look at them… for the last 2 years… they seem completed… no construction workers/work is visible…but the windows are all bare… you notice empty apartments… why would this be? Well, one building in particular is within 2 blocks of a drug rehabilitation facility. You see (at all times of the day) addicts walking the streets… they you investigate further and learn that these apartments are actually condos. Where a one bedroom will run you about $300k. This is in a community where it is mostly Hispanic and where the average annual income lies around $17k. These apartments in turn have not benefited anyone. Not the people that already lived in the community and not the gentrified people the new buildings hoped to gain…

and even if these apartments were filled with the gentrified people, what benefit is that really? They probably wouldn’t go to the Mexican grocery store owned and run by a family of LEGAL immigrants or first generation Americans. For sure they wouldn’t buy their groceries from the Associated nearby… once they look at the almost old “fresh” produce they will run (and the quality of produce… let’s leave that for another post). Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s will likely benefit from them.. except there isn’t one in the community…

So what is the benefit of gentrification? My conclusion: more money for real estate investors and building owners…  

Is it always a moneys game?

Are these notjustmythoughts?

Poverty Porn?

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Just another day in media’s unfair portrayal of minorities.  This article is about the Native Americans – the Lakota Indian Reservation specifically. 20/20 had a special titled “Children of the Plains.” This piece was an unfair characteristic of the Lakotas without touching on the deeper issues that create the poverty in their communities…

this is all too familiar… BUT the Lakotas fought back putting out a video. So I know for certain that the unfair portrayal of minorities in the media is notjustmythoughts… check out the article by colorlines.com it icludes the video. http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/12/native_american_youth_to_abcs_diane_sawyer_were_more_than_poverty.html

And so I’m angry

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This is just the kind of thing I’m talking about…

RACE, RACE, RACE!!!

This is happening to American Muslims… I know it’s a religion, but it’s a race issue! I mean Jewish is a psuedo race, when it’s a religion and ethnicity… so I guess that’s the same for Muslims… Either way… this is the stuff that makes me angry!

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/lowe-explanation-bailing-all-american-muslim-high-comedy-premise-weren-t-sad-article-1.990400

He, called me IGNORANT!

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http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html

I responded to someone’s blog with a comment about “White Privilege”… would you believe the person responded back to me saying I was ignorant and that race doesn’t always have to do with the issues of society.

I am not big on judgement, but I do presume this person was a white male. Just the way he responded I could feel that his privilege has clouded his thoughts into believing that is something that does not exsist.

My belief is that race is inherently imbedded into every aspect of society. How could it not be…this country, from the moment Europeans set foot to land, persecuted those who were unlike them (Native Americans). Then it moved on to Slavery. Then the abollishment, that really was something that just happened and not necessarily what Lincoln set out to do. But even with Abollishment… we had Jim Crow and other segregation laws. Racism is something that is imbedded in the very nature of what it is to be America.

Now, just to clarify. I am happy to be American. I am thankful for the privilege that comes with being an American… and that American Privilege has sometimes clouded my ideas of other people…. but then I started traveling… and educating myself more… on things that maybe this country hasn’t shared so openly (and we know the gov’t hides things!) and sometimes… well sometimes I don’t like being an American… all the things that happened to get me here… I guess that’s really what I don’t like.

And now that I rambled a bit… I say all this, just say, check out the article on white privilege… It’s a real thing and white people write about it. 🙂

notjustmythoughts, keep reading friends and share your thoughts with me. I love to read your comments!

Racism Manifests

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check out this article. It’s from 2005, but really, not much is different: http://blackcommentator.com/131/131_guest_black_struggle.html

Personally, I very much believe this (racism manifests) is real. I am Latina, but face a lot of the same fates. The racism I have faced is not in the form of Jim Crow or the ‘new’ immigration laws of Arizona or Alabama (yes I liken these to Jim Crow), but I have faced it. Here are some way’s I have seen it manifest…

I have never gotten a job where I went on the interview with my curly hair. In fact, I was turned down for the position and one year later was called back to work with this person’s associate. I wore my hair straight for that interview and got the job. Seeing the person who turned me down – well they “didn’t recognize [me] with straight hair.”

Whether my hair is curly or straight I often hear, “your black right?” I am not offended. Black (and every other race/ethnicity) is beautiful, but really? Why, I always ask. I have never received a reply. I believe this is a racist statement because my hair is on the verge of kinky.

People refer to all seemingly immigrant Hispanics as Mexicans.

On the note of Mexicans: the Coto/Margarito fight, someone commented about Margarito, “get him, he’s a damn illegal.” In fact, Margarito was born in California – though of Mexican decent. I sharply turned around with a scathing look and accused this person of being racist. He denied it of course. I told him how he was racist (by making such a comment of being illegal just because the person is Mexican) and realizing he was in a room full of Hispanics back tracked his statement. I did not speak to him again. 

Let’s not (or maybe we should) get started on the news. This is the GREAST racist tactic of all. Blacks and Latinos don’t grace the front page of the paper – they are mug shot there. What I mean, never the story of positive only a negative will be on the front page if they are Latino or Black… unless of course they are athletes…

I guess that’s all we are good for eh? crime, violence, or sports.

We have Obama you might say… well people have been hanging that man to dry since the day he was announced president.

I have tons more examples, these were just the first to escape my finger tips. The article I included really resonated with me because of the words “racism manifests.” I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

These can’t be, no… notjustmythoughts…share yours…

HB 56

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http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/news/watch-rock-center-special-report-crisis-alabama

Must see video. I can understand the concerns over immigrant workers, but at the same time, there are benefits to immigrant workers. Small family owned business depend on the help they get from these workers. The danger they pose to the economy NOT being arround surpasses the pros.

I know these are notjustmythoughts.

Link

I have to thank a great lady for putting me on to this film. Julia Andino, thank you.

I hope that some of you will take the opportunity and let me put you on to this movie as well. It is fascinating. Annie Leonard is a great orator in her tale about the stuff in our lives from it’s extraction of materials from the planet to the waste we dispose when we are done with said stuff.

Please take the time and share in Annie Leonard’s thoughts. I know for certain with this one… notjustmythoughts.

Click the link or paste into your browser for the movie: http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/