brass knuckles and pocket protectors for all

Courtesy of Muslimah Media Watch, re: media discussion of Muslim women's clothing:

[E]ven for this segment of the population for whom clothing is something imposed on them, should what they wear really be our biggest concern? My impression is that if a woman is in a situation where she truly does not have any say in what she wears, chances are she is probably facing greater abuse (or threats thereof) than the cloth that she is wearing on… Continue

One of the things I got addicted to while on study abroad (besides street noodles with Sichuan hot sauce at 3 AM and being the tallest person on the subway) was fashion magazines. I don't really buy them here anymore, but I'd flip through my roommate's all the time. I justified it by claiming to be practicing my Chinese, but really I was interested in seeing how fashion was presented in an Asian context. That, and I like clothes. (What, I have to be deep all the time? LOL)

The local versions of… Continue

This post is just as much for me as it is for anyone reading who's gonna be around for the Festival. It's a no-shit premise that there's plenty to do in New York, so I'm not going to rehash anything that you could get from a tourist website. If you're into checking out galleries, here are a couple exhibits that'll be going on that merit a look while you're in the area.

(Full disclosure: I know fuck all about art, except that I like certain stuff and don't like other stuff. Take that as a discla… Continue

I love this essay because it makes satiric mention of all the bullshit literary devices used to exotify Africa and Africans. I think this is true in a lot of literary/media characterizations of people of color in general - they're not so much real people as they are a jumbling of stereotypes. Fortunately, there are young authors like Uwem Akpan and… Continue