A weekly news round up on the state of Body Politics & Body Justice

 

• “A woman’s reproductive health and rights should not depend upon her zip code, but increasingly they do. The Population Institute last week released its annual 50-state report card on reproductive health and rights, and it points to alarming disparities. Four states received an A (California, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington), but 19 states received a failing grade and the U.S. grade fell from a C to a D+.” Planned Parenthood’s political arm said Thursday that it would back former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the election, marking its first-ever endorsement in a presidential primary.

 

• As I looked for information on and proposed actions for the mass assaults and sexual violations that took place in Cologne Germany on New Year’s Eve, there seemed to be a vacuum. The reality of sexual abuse has taken a circumstantial side note to German politics around immigration. Then I came across this essay for Vice by Stefanie Lohaus and Anne Wizorek  “Ever since New Year’s Eve, German media have largely been discussing the violence at Cologne’s central train station in terms of a rape culture that was imported into Germany—simply because the perpetrators in this case looked “Arab” or “North African,” according to witnesses. The only point being, of course, that the men weren’t white. That’s an idea that renders sexualized violence and theft harmless by trivializing and exorcizing both notions. The fact that our society and its institutions aren’t in any position to protect those affected by the violence and identify its culprits doesn’t in any way mean that there’s never been sexualized violence in Germany before. In fact, Germany’s rape culture is deeply rooted in our collective psyche.”

 

• Indian Country Today Media Network reports on a recent school board meeting at McLoud High School to change the name of the mascot, Redskins. Bella Cornell, a 14-year old girl from the Choctaw Nation, provided testimony on why the name should be changed and was met with a verbal assault. ‘ Multiple psychological studies have empirically shown Native American mascots harm the self-esteem of Native American youth and indoctrinate racial stereotypes in non-Native children.”

 

•  Diva Magazine reports that Opoku-Gyunah, founder of UK BLack Pride, Rainbow List judge, was named a 2015 recipient of one of the UK’s most prestigious honors to civilians, the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE). However, she declined.  “I don’t believe in empire. I don’t believe in, and actively resist, colonialism and its toxic and enduring legacy in the Commonwealth, where – among many other injustices – LGBTQI people are still being persecuted, tortured and even killed because of sodomy laws, including in Ghana, where I am from, that were put in place by British imperialists.

 

• And for some really good news, Say Yes To The Dress: Atlanta will feature its very first transgender bride-to be tonight. “I tried on three dresses and took details from the first and the second dress and put them together to make it perfect,” Precious Davis told PEOPLE Magazine. “It was everything that I had envisioned. I am a queen, and I am stately, and that is the way that I present myself so that dress was the epitome of everything that I have ever dreamed of.” We say YES!