Rachel’s Good News

Congratulations to my blogging friend, Rachel, who announced today that she is pregnant with twins!

Go over there and give her some love. Now!

Best wishes, Rachel, from my corner of the blog world.

Benazir Bhutto, R.I.P.

Heartbreaking news.

Many people have been writing about her death today, and so I’m not sure what I can add, other than that my heart goes out to her and her people, and to point you to Sylvia, who has collected a bunch of the amazing testimonials to a truly wonderful and brave woman.

I think Nezua sums up how I feel about her death:

PERHAPS the most obvious admission that a person can make stating that they are personally incapable of changing the world’s destiny with their own abilities and gifts and unique vision is to simply take the life of those who make it their mission to do so.

And Shark-Fu on the future of Pakistan:

Freedom requires opposition…dissent and the passionate defense of the right to voice dissent…not religion, or constant agreement or any of the love it or leave it bullshit those who fear the masses toss out as if an argument where a terroristic threat.

Silence the opposition and you smother freedom.

Smother freedom and the will of the people will struggle to catch fire.

I think that’s why Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan despite all the risks….because of the risks…to nurture the fire.

May Benazir Bhutto always be remembered and may her work, her courage, her hope continue on.

The Poetics of Naming

“I want to feel passion, I want to feel pain. I want to weep at the sound of your name. Come make me laugh, come make me cry… just make me feel alive.” — Joey Lauren Adams

Whose House? Nez’ House!

Damn, everybody’s branching out these days. Check out Nezua’s new blog, House of Nezua, for “more personal, less formal (oh shit you thought we were loose up in here?), non-politics, day in the life junk,” as he puts it.

You know the drill: read, bookmark, add to your feeds.

Donna Darko Has a New Blog! Aradhana, Tell Us About Your Good News Soon, Please!

Donna Darko has her own blog now. How cool is that?

Get to linking and adding to your feeds right now or you are dumb.

And damnit, I’m beside myself waiting for the exciting news that Aradhana speaks of.

This is Not a Weezer Video

Watch Sudy bring the noise (via BrownFemiPower, the Amazing)

Say it Ain’t So.

Link Love – The Cultural Imperialist Edition

I will be forever annoyed by folks that think that they can experience “the other side.” Every time I read about college kids or other supposed activists going homeless for a few days ( with the full knowledge that if it gets too rough they can always pack their bags and go back to the cozy comfort of their apartments) in an attempt to understand the homeless plight, I want to find these people and slap the privilege out of them. So you can only imagine how annoyed I was after reading Fatemeh Fakhraie’s post at Racialicious on an experiment that Danielle Crittenden of the Huffington Post blogged about.

So Ms. Crittenden decides to put on a niqab…for what? For giggles? She never really explains her reasons for doing so, but makes it very apparent that wearing a niqab is a bad idea because it’s “oppressive”. Does she want to see what it’s like to be a Muslim woman who wears niqab? Does she want to understand the prejudice that these women face?

No. After reading her posts, it’s obvious she just wants to play dress-up. She doesn’t attempt to adhere to any principles of Islam while wearing the niqab, nor does she take it off in her home like most niqabis would, nor does she even attempt to start a dialogue with any Muslim women—niqabis or not.

This experiment reminds me of one of Tyra Banks’ experiments: you remember when she put on a fat suit? Yeah. That one. She put on a fat suit under the guise of “seeing how the other half lives” but really just used it as a self-indulgent exercise in vanity (kind of like everything else Tyra does, bless her heart). This one seems really no different.

So, we read the first paragraph of Ms. Crittenden’s post “Islamic Like Me: Taking On The Veil”, and already, I want to throw my computer out the window.

“‘I wonder what it’s like to wear Arabic dress?’ I said one day to my husband. His eyes sparked with interest. ‘You mean as in I Dream of Jeannie?’ ‘No. I mean those black cover-ups they wear in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.’”

(Long sigh). So, we begin with the blatantly incorrect idea that all women in the Middle East wear “Arabic” clothing, even if they are not Arab or Muslim. We see later in her posts that her idea of “Arabic clothing” is a niqab and abaya—ignoring several other traditional dress styles that Arab women wear. And, of course, her husband throws in the sexualized Orientalist fantasy of I Dream of Jeannie. Fantastic!

The rest of her dialogue follows an alarmist mentality, complaining that American feminists don’t give a “peep of protest” against “people right here [presumably, big bad Muslims] who want to shroud women … to make us all submissive and invisible.” She ends her silly conversation with an ominous-sounding “It’s coming here too. It already is here.” What’s coming? Is Godzilla here? And the Big, Bad Muslims made him wear a burqa?!

Ah, cultural imperialism. Gotta love it. Go read Fatemeh’s post. It’s a good one.