information addict

[T]he Reagan/Bush administrations also realized that racializing welfare by painting it as a program that unfairly benefited Blacks was a sure-fire way to win White votes. This context created the controlling image of the “welfare queen” primarily to garner support for refusing state support for poor and working-class Black mothers and children. Poor Black women’s welfare eligibility meant that many chose to stay home and care for their children, thus emulating White middle-class mothers. But because these stay-at-home moms were African American and did not work for pay, they were deemed to be “lazy”.

- Patricia Hill Collins, “Get Your Freak On” (via wretchedoftheearth)

It was supposed to be a triumphant moment for Brazil.

Gearing up for the 2016 Olympic Games to be held here, officials celebrated plans for a futuristic “Olympic Park,” replete with a waterside park and athlete villages, promoting it as “a new piece of the city.”

There was just one problem: the 4,000 people who already live in that part of Rio de Janeiro, in a decades-old squatter settlement that the city wants to tear down. Refusing to go quietly and taking their fight to the courts and the streets, they have been a thorn in the side of the government for months.

“The authorities think progress is demolishing our community just so they can host the Olympics for a few weeks,” said Cenira dos Santos, 44, who owns a home in the settlement, which is known as Vila Autódromo. “But we’ve shocked them by resisting.”

Favela residents are using handheld video cameras and social media to get their messages across. And they are sometimes getting a helping hand from Brazil’s vibrant and crusading news media, arguably the envy of other Latin American countries.

Not only have the news media and newly-created blogs focused attention on the evictions, but they have also dogged officials with their own pursuit of corruption allegations swirling around the Olympic and World Cup plans.

-

“Slum Dwellers Are Defying Brazil’s Grand Design For Olympics,” New York Times, 3/4/12 (via racialicious)

I really enjoy the Olympics but I hate what they do to a host country. The host is always like “uh let’s just sweep these poor people under the rug and pretend they don’t exist. nothing to see here!”

Poor people have shitty lobbyists

-

Jon Stewart (via anticapitalist)

If you had to sum up the entire wage disparity and income inequality argument in a single sentence.

-Joe

(via stfuconservatives)

This is a problem, because that’s actually a very shitty way to manage a budget. You skip over the great 2-for-1 deal on laundry detergent because you’re not out of laundry detergent yet. It’s kind of opposite of the way we bought food when I was a kid — where you should be stocking up because buying in bulk is cheaper and the stuff is on sale, you wait until you’re scraping the residue off the lid. Then you have to take whatever goddamned price the store gives you that day, because you can’t wash your clothes otherwise.

If you think that’s a minor thing, realize that you’re applying this to everything you buy. You’re not buying the dryer because Sears is having their once a year “Get these fucking dryers out of our warehouse 50 percent off sale,” but because the dryer that’s been making that funny noise for a year and a half finally broke. You have to take the first one you see, at whatever price, because your wet clothes are sitting there getting moldy. That “wait until you’re desperate” mindset means your money just doesn’t go as far.

- The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor | Cracked.com

According to the Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program, 41 percent of beneficiaries live in a household that has earnings, with paychecks the primary source of the income. Thirty-four percent of beneficieares are white, 22 percent black and 16 percent Hispanic. (Twenty percent of recipients did not report their race.)

- Gingrich Pushes Back Against Charges of Racism - NYTimes.com (via sexartandpolitics)

There are more than five times as many vacant homes in the U.S. as there are homeless people, according to Amnesty International USA. Since 2007, banks have shuttered about 8 million American houses, almost doubling the previous number, while 3.5 million homeless shiver in the cold. Experts expect 8 million to 10 million more foreclosures in the years ahead. —ARK

-

Vacant Houses Outnumber Homeless People in U.S. - Truthdig

i am going to be sick.  i am going to be fucking sick. 

(via guerrillamamamedicine)