it makes me want to die!! it is the end omfg!!! we won’t survive now!
(Source: ruinedchildhood, via danstoncoeur)
Columbia Doesn’t Feel So Great About Its Whites-Only Fellowship - COLORLINES
It only took them close to a century, but let’s give credit where credit is due: Columbia University doesn’t want to have a whites-only fellowship anymore. Last week the Ivy League school filed an affidavit in Manhattan Supreme Court, the New York Daily News reported, to support a change of terms in an extremely specific endowment left by a Lydia C. Chamberlain of Des Moines, Iowa. The affidavit was filed in support of a similar move made by JP Morgan Chase, which is the designated fund administrator now.
Chamberlain, who left her $500,000 estate to the university in 1920, required that the trust only be used to benefit white students who hailed from Iowa. In order to qualify for the graduate and traveling support, students had to also commit to moving back to their home state for at least two years, and were barred from studying law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary surgery or theology, the NYDN reported.
“Circumstances have so changed from the time when the Trust was established” that it’s “impossible” for Columbia to comply with the terms of the trust, the university’s filing says, according to the NYDN. “Columbia University is now prohibited by law and University policy from discriminating on the basis of race.”
Columbia once defended the program, though. In 1949 the NAACP called on Columbia to give up the discriminatory scholarship. The college declined to do anything then. The fund is worth $800,000 now but has not been awarded since 1997.
(via randomactsofchaos)
Working Families Flexibility Act Passes House Over Opposition Of Democrats, Labor
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Depression-era statute that serves as the bedrock of U.S. labor law, hourly workers must be paid time-and-a-half for every hour they work over 40 in a week — both to reward workers for their extra hours and to discourage employers from pushing workers too hard. The Republican measure would instead give employers and their workers the choice to use earned “comp” time instead of pay, an opportunity already afforded many public-sector employees.
According to Democrats, such an option would be ripe for abuse by employers, and in practice it might not be an option at all for some workers.
By lowering the cost of overtime for employers, labor advocates worry the measure would dilute the primary governor on the 40-hour week and pressure workers into taking comp time rather than pay, even if their choice is ostensibly protected by law. The bill would give workers the option to “cash out” their accrued comp time at a later date if they choose, but Democrats noted that such a situation would amount to an interest-free loan for employers. Labor unions and worker advocacy groups strongly opposed it.
In a sign of the union opposition to the bill, Chris Townsend, political director for the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America union, told HuffPost that such a measure could “liquidate the whole concept of paid leave.” Rather than giving workers the standard two weeks of vacation or a handful of sick days, Townsend argued, employers could invite workers to “earn” their time off by working overtime.
If you want to give workers the ability to commit time at home, advocate for mandatory paid sick leave and paid time off.
All this does is erode the 40-hour work week, which really does help families achieve balance, and cut costs for employers who work their employees in excess of 40 hours a week. Time-and-a-half is better than comp time because 1) an employer can arbitrarily decide when a worker can and can’t take their comp time, meaning it might not be flexible for employees at all, and 2) workers aren’t paid the extra dollar amount for working in excess of a standard work week. It will be a 1:1 payout situation instead of a 1.5:1 payout, and the point of making overtime more expensive is that working in excess of 40 hours a week is difficult for families and makes work-life balance almost impossible to achieve.
You might as well call this bill “Work Harder for Less Act.”
(via randomactsofchaos)
"
Under patriarchy, white men have disproportionate political, social and economic power. Violence is male-dominated just as most aspects of political and social life are controlled by white men. War propaganda in the West has often employed gendered notions of manhood to encourage young men to fight. Utilising the idea of the sacred patriarchal lineage, men are reminded that their fathers and grandfathers sacrificed and fought and if they are ‘real men’ and not ‘cowards’ then they should too. Enemies are feminised and demonised while the home front is also equated with women as young soldiers are encouraged to feel as if they are going to war to protect female relatives and loved ones.
……
In order to prevent working-class whites from realising what they have in common with the global majority, narratives of white supremacy and the economic and socio-political benefits of being white (aka white privilege), often succeed in encouraging racism, and can also lead to an increase in the popularity of fascism.
"- Unpicking the narratives: only by rejecting patriarchy and imperialism can we end war, Sofia Mason (via maarnayeri)
(via randomactsofchaos)
