Hasta La Gadget!

by Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Solidarity Legal Support (Palestine Legal) and cooperating counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

Across the country, as the movement to advance Palestinian human rights gains traction, a counter-effort is underway to silence the voices of Palestine human rights activists. In recent months, there have been numerous stories in major media outlets – The New York Times, most notably – repeating the claims of Israel advocacy groups that anti-Semitism is on the rise on U.S. college campuses and that the rise is attributable to increased activism for Palestinian rights, including calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) from Israel.

These stories ignore the reality faced by students, professors and ordinary people speaking out for Palestinian rights. As revealed in data published this week by Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights, there is a distinct trend of falsely equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism or support for terrorism. Palestine Legal responded to over 80 such accusations on campuses around the country in the first four months of 2015 alone.

These accusations are not occurring in a vacuum. They are part of a well-resourced effort by dozens of Israel advocacy groups, encouraged by the Israeli government itself, to malign and deter Palestine activists from speaking out about human rights abuses. They serve to justify legal threats, disciplinary action by universities, legislative initiatives against BDS, and the smearing of individuals for their views supporting Palestinian rights.

Indeed, at the heart of the opposition to Palestine activism is not any refutation of the substantive human rights issues that activists raise. Rather, it is the disingenuous claim that those advocating for BDS or criticizing Israeli state policies against Palestinians are motivated not by a real concern for Palestinians or human rights, but by a hatred of Jewish people.

This narrative has been facilitated by Israel advocacy groups’ attempts to redefine anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israeli policies and to make such criticism suspect if one is not simultaneously criticizing all other human rights violators in the world. This new definition is being used by the U.S. State Department for the limited purpose of identifying instances of anti-Semitism abroad, but it has reared its head in student government resolutions condemning anti-Semitism and in a California state resolution doing the same.

Over 250 members of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Academic Advisory Council wrote to the State Department demanding that this new definition be revised “to prevent the charge of anti-Semitism from being misused to silence critics of Israel.” This new definition would violate First Amendment principles if used to restrict speech activities on Israel/Palestine, as has been encouraged.

Palestine Legal has consistently challenged major media outlets to consider this larger context of the Israel/Palestine conversation when reporting on campus activism. The repeated exclusion from these discussions of the experiences of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and other diverse advocates – including many who are Jewish – is troubling. Those who do not hue to the party line of unequivocal support for Israel face real consequences when they speak out for Palestinian rights. From a professor fired for his Tweets lamenting Israel’s killing of Palestinian children in Gaza, to students disciplined for peaceful protests, or subjected to racial, ethnic and religious slurs and death threats for expressing their views, the message is clear: those who criticize Israel will be shunned and even punished. These consequences are reinforced by universities that condemn initiatives to divest from corporations facilitating Israeli military abuses, and legislatures that declare BDS to be anti-Semitic. And yet, they are rarely reported.

Rather than honestly reporting on the widespread suppression of this dissent, outlets like the Times have instead adopted the narrative that it is those who support Israel who are under attack, whose rights to feel “comfortable” supporting Israel are being undermined by those who stand up for Palestinian human rights.

But there is another story here. And that is one where students of all colors, religions, genders, classes and orientations are connecting the experiences of marginalized communities and communities subjected to militarized and racialized policing to those of a colonized people subjected to discrimination and military occupation. There is an awakening going on, and it will continue, despite attempts to stifle it. This is the real story.

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Jamie Foxx impersonated Doc Rivers on “The Tonight Show” Tuesday, nailing the Clippers coach’s raspiness, cadence and just about everything else.

If only Rivers and his team could have avoided blowing a 3 to 1 game lead over Houston in the NBA Playoffs, maybe he could have avoided being the subject of a celebrity impression.

But the Clippers’ loss is late-night television’s gain.

Foxx’s Rivers impression begins at about the 5:41 mark in the clip.

H/T Bleacher Report

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On April 20, 2015, the phrase #BlackLivesMatter became a Time Magazine headline, minus the hashtag and with a period at the end. Perhaps the imprimatur of Time now means that Black lives do matter, unequivocally, full stop. However, a change in punctuation that creates a declarative sentence in black and white cannot stop the systematic victimization of African American citizens. On May 1 Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby ruled Freddy Gray’s death a homicide and issued warrants against six police officers involved with charges ranging from misconduct to assault to involuntary manslaughter to one count of second degree murder. This action might be understood as a form of “progress,” although the threats of further death and destruction represented by the civil unrest there seem to be a deeply motivating factor.

Since February 2012, when Trayvon Martin was killed in Sanford, Florida, #BlackLivesMatter has traveled the globe and energized activists. Now we have to ask ourselves what the now-familiar phrase has become. It has a powerful place in our digital culture as a marker helping us find others outraged by the same injustices. This repetition of outrage, however, might also lead to cries of despair if the unjust acts cannot be systematically addressed. As one month slides into the next, I begin to wonder what the phrase does for actual black lives. Perhaps it has now grown into a cliché that does nothing.. In the last month alone, according to social media search and analytics site topsy.com, the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has been used over 250,000 times on Twitter, about twice the number of people living in Charleston, SC and five times that of Sanford, Florida. It suggests affinity, even solidarity and sympathy, but it avoids the real questions: How do Black lives matter? To whom? In what ways?

When popular social sentiment becomes headline, it seems as if the cause has “arrived.” But the Time cover represents not a Black life but a death. The cover photos show Officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott in the back. The subtitle reads “This time the charge is murder.” There is nothing at all about life here. What we see here is the near pornographic display and repetition of killing. It is the end of life which is making news, not life itself. What we are really saying here is Black Deaths Matter. But that is nothing new in America. American history is riddled with the spectacles of dead African Americans. In the early 20th century, one could buy postcards of lynchings. The exposure of Black murders has been, over time, not a way of preventing such deaths, but a method of weaving them into the American consciousness. If it is black death that feeds the flow of news and discussion, the hashtag itself is deeply misleading.

If it’s lives that matter, what is the effect of repeatedly viewing death? For my own part, it has gotten to the point where I can no longer watch. When upcoming “new video” is teased as news, I have to turn away from the spectacle of trauma that feeds the news machine and the produces the distilled outrage of social media. If it is black death that feeds the flow of news and discussion, the hashtag itself is deeply misleading.

When social sentiment becomes slogan, we risk mass producing an emotional response that runs the route of the worst kind campaign slogan. It is an advertisement of a kind of political credential or ideological belief that is an end in itself, rather than a means to transformation. There is no magic in these words that stops the killing of citizens by the forces that should be protecting them. As a kind of ritualized phrase, we use #BlackLivesMatter to tell us that they do, when the evidence at hand suggests that we are rather whistling past the graveyard.

There are people deeply and sincerely invested in #BlackLivesMatter. Alicia Garza, one the the founders of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, smartly tapped into the power of social media to create awareness of an issue and energize people toward potential action. We should not doubt the sincerity of her convictions or depths of her political and social analysis. The problem with hastags, however, is that they don’t always carry a great deal of depth with each usage.

The sheer number people using #BlackLivesMatter attests to our belief in the power of words to effect change. And of course, few people are suggesting that we stop there. The good intentions expressed by the hashtag will go to waste unless translate into more meaningful and concrete actions. And perhaps they will. My colleagues in the Dartmouth College Teaching Collective are currently offering a rigorous course by that title, and students are enthusiastic. Enthusiasm born from a limit of 140 characters, however, is sometimes difficult to sustain and also lacks a depth of understanding. The blacklivesmatter.com website urges us to: “Get Active, Get Organized, Fight Back.” That is a fight that has been going on in various ways for centuries, and it remains to us to continue the battle. To do so we also need to get educated. It’s not enough to express a moral outrage over such incidents. We need to know how and why such things are part of the fabric of American life, rather than an anomaly. Such knowledge cannot and must not be limited to Black people alone. It must stand at the core of how we see the United States. Black History Month, is not a month. It is every minute of every day. We cannot understand who we are as a nation or where we have come from, without deepening our understanding of how #BlackLivesMatter.

Let us continue to speak up, speak out and show the world our political sentiments, but let us also move to action. If each hashtag becomes a direct contact with someone involved with Black lives, what could happen? What might be trending three years from now? If we can tell our friends and family how and why Black lives have, historically, not mattered as much, can we transform and reform minds? We can avoid a morbid melancholia over Black deaths and instead link together all our lives and work towards a vision in which they matter.

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“The eyes are the window to your soul.” – William Shakespeare

“Your eyes are sparkling now! I had no idea what your eye color was. I could not easily see your eyes before”. This is a very common reaction of friends and family when seeing their loved one for the first time after their hair color has been transformed to one in their optimal color palette. It is always so beautiful to easily see someone’s eyes as I do believe they are the window to a person’s soul.

Part of my color analysis training included the study of eye patterns. I was fascinated to learn what an individual’s eyes can reveal about them. Now a few years later after starring into hundreds of eyes, I am still amazed at how unique everyone’s eyes truly are. It is fascinating to me and I personally am a huge fan of doing everything appearance-wise to easily show-off a person’s eyes. Eyes hold so much power.

Is your current hair color choice making it difficult for others to see your eyes? Easy and quick ways to find out include:

– Asking someone who does not know you extremely well what your eye color is. If they really have to stare deeply into your eyes to reveal your eye color or if it takes them some time / thought, it is quite possible you are not wearing your most optimal hair color.

– When you look in the mirror or when someone looks at you, are your eyes or their eyes more naturally drawn to look at your hair first before your eyes? This is a sign your hair color is overpowering you.

– When you look in the mirror or when someone looks at you, are you eyes lacking vibrancy or sparkle? This is a sign your hair color choice is overpowering you.

If you don’t know your optimal hair color palette, I recommend finding it out before coloring your hair for the first time or making your next hair color appointment. Professionals to seek advice from include a hair colorist with training or experience to help reveal your best colors and / or a color analysis professional.

My wish is that you easily and effortlessly allow those around you to see your eyes and the beautiful window to your soul.

I hope this blog post inspires you to wear your authenticity!

Carol Brailey is an Image Consultant who specializes in color analysis. More of her color blogs can be found at carolbrailey.com and virtualcoloranalysis.com.

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Allen Iverson doesn’t regret much, especially when he comes to his tattoos. But there was one piece of body art that he eventually decided was a pretty bad idea.

“I can say my kids, my mom, my grandma, my girl. And then everything else I love those too because they all mean something,” the former NBA superstar told The Huffington Post about his favorite tattoos.

“Except this one right here,” he added, pointing to a large tattoo on his right forearm. “My friend … used to tease me about a tattoo I had right here, but it was so big and what he was teasing me about — he said it looked like a flying monkey. It’s supposed to have been a grim reaper holding a ball. But it did look like a monkey.

“He was teasing me so much that I had to cover it with the panther. I had to,” he continued. “It had to be something big. So this really is the only one that don’t mean anything. This was just a cover up.”

Iverson points out the area of his forearm where
he got the one tattoo he ended up regretting.

Previously:
Allen Iverson On Why He Respects NBA Coaches So Much
Allen Iverson Has Some Convincing Advice For Journalists
Allen Iverson On Race And The Justice System

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.