Kathleen Kennedy's comments on hiring a female director for 'Star Wars' highlights the gender gap in Hollywood.
Although every director hired for Star Wars so far has been a man, Lucasfilmpresident Kathleen Kennedy says that she’s confident a woman will someday direct a Star Wars movie.
Kennedy, who started her career in Hollywood as a secretary, became a constant collaborator with Steven Spielberg and eventually succeeded George Lucas as president of LucasFilm. So she knows a thing or two about the gender gap in the industry.
She had previously been a camera operator at a local San Diego TV station—a job she later found she only got because the station had to hire a woman due to a lawsuit. But to her, the inequality hasn’t changed much in the decades since the 1970s when she started in the business, noting at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday that there wasn’t a single woman operating a camera at a recent Saturday Night Live taping.
Today marked the start of COP21 in Paris, a meeting of world leaders aimed at negotiating a climate change agreement that will frame the global agenda on this issue for the next decade and beyond. According to our recent data, a global median of 54% consider climate change a very serious problem. Moreover, a median of 78% support the idea of their country limiting greenhouse gas emissions as part of an international agreement in Paris.
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face in our global hunger games. Sign the petition to encourage global leaders at COP21 to take action on climate change!
Stories like that of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish shore after drowning on the journey to Greece, and Osama Abdul Muhsen, the Syrian refugee father who was kicked and tripped on camera by a Hungarian journalist, have shown how the Syrian refugee crisis is experienced on a human level. But the severity of the crisis becomes much clearer when you zoom out and see how it unfolds on a continental scale.
Most of the world's 19 million refugees are not Syrian — about 4 million are from Syria — so the story of the global refugee crisis is far from just a Syrian story. And many of the stories told in this map, particularly the difficult journeys into and then across Europe, apply to migrants from other countries as well, such as Eritrea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many others. This map focuses on Syrians because the Syrian refugee crisis is itself an important story, and also because it is representative of the broader refugee crisis.
Read more about the global refugee crisis at Vox.com
Check out this #AllDistrictsWelcome toolkit to learn more about how you can help refugees in your area.
AFL-CIO is dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of workers. Currently, they coordinate 56 unions and 12.5 million working people. Find out how you can support workers by visiting the AFL-CIO’s Action Center.
Submit your three finger salute and your story of revolution using #MyHungerGames
But the degree of concern about climate change varies markedly from country to country.
As world leaders gather in Paris this week to fashion a global climate change accord, their citizens are sending them two different but not necessarily contradictory messages.
“People say ‘go out and get a job.’ When I’m constantly feeling insulted all day and being made to feel like nothing, how am I supposed to walk into an interview and present myself in a (confident way) that (says) 'you should take me in because I’m great.’ You’re treated like a ghost, like you don’t exist. People don’t want to admit that (homelessness) is a huge problem and no safety net for people like us. So we get ignored.”
Tiana Miller, NYC comedian, on being homeless with a mental illness. #MyHungerGames #UROK The Harry Potter Alliance
Tiana Miller is a comedian in NYC who talks about her experience as a homeless minor in New York City struggling with addiction, mental illness, and multiple sclerosis. Finding adequate mental health care remains a struggle, despite getting clean and off the streets, but Tiana offers frank, honest and inspiring advice to anyone in a similar situation.
Tiana Miller performs all over NYC and has been featured on Funny or Die. She has a podcast called Everything We Are Doing is Bad with fellow comedian Carolina Hidalgo.
Want to make a difference? Research the free and low-cost options for mental health care in your community and report your findings to Project UROK to help build a map of low-cost options!
Want to tell your #MyHungerGames story? Make your own text or video post by visiting our Submit page!
For years, asylum-seekers, refugees and irregular migrants made their way to Indonesia to board rickety boats for the dangerous trip to Australia. Saransika, a 14-year-old refugee from Sri Lanka, lost her family on the high seas and struggles to come to terms with her loss.
More refugees than ever are risking their lives at sea. Read more about the UN Refugee Agency’s campaign to provide protection at sea: http://www.unhcr.org/5486e6b56.html
In December of 1960 I came to this country as an 11 year old. I was an avid reader in Cuba, reading up to one book per day. Since I did not speak English and there were no books available in Spanish, at that time, I was hungry for the stories that had fueled my vivid imagination.
I lived with my aunt and uncle in Miami because my parents had stayed behind in Cuba and my other two siblings had other relatives. In January of 1961 I started school in the sixth grade without knowing a word of English. My aunt took me to the public library, which is still standing to this date. A small building built of coral rock. It was a child's dream come true, except that I could not read any of the books. I began to read the Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. They were simple and with lots of pictures. From there I graduated to the lives of revolutionary heroes; Betsy Ross, John Paul Jones, etc.
Once again, I could get lost in my own little world. The library became to me an escape from the harsh reality of living without my parents, not having a lot of friends, being made fun because of my accent. To this day, the library is a place of solace for me. I can read the latest magazines free, can view movies that I did not get to see in the theater, hear guest speakers. Also, besides reading, when I am out of town I go to the library so that I can use the internet for free. The library has evolved into the 21st century and I am a happy participant of its growth and the feeling of contentment it gives me.
Books open up a world of education and creativity that can help children grow into happy, successful adults. Right now, Congress is reviewing a law that could provide funding for school libraries - if they don’t get left out. Tweet about why you love #SchoolLibraries and let your Senators know to vote ‘YES’ on the Every Student Succeeds Act!
The Truth Behind The Hunger Games and Dollar General: the Reality of Violence against Native Women and Children
By Mary Kathryn Nagle. Cross-posted from OpportunityAgenda.org.
In 1978, the Supreme Court stripped Tribal Governments of their criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit crimes on tribal lands (United States v. Oliphant, 435 U.S. 191 (1978)). The majority of violent assaults committed against American Indians, however, are committed by non-Indians. As the DOJ noted in its 1999 Report, “[a]t least 70% of the violent victimizations experienced by American Indians are committed by persons not of the same race.” Dollar General is now using that law to protect themselves after a manager assaulted a young Cochtaw employee.
On December 7th, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Dollar General Corporation v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Native activists and lawyers will be fighting for the right to for tribes to protect their people from violence - while Dollar General will be fighting to protest their bottom line.
Read more about the case and the ties between The Hunger Games and the stories of Native women after the cut. Show your support for Native women and children - now and on December 7th - by joining the Thunderclap and using #ShameonDollarGeneral.
The stories that fascinate us the most are the ones that tell us truthfully who we are, or allow us to disguise where we have come from. The Hunger Games does both. This fall, as families flock to the theaters to watch a young woman’s epic battle to save her community, I wonder how many Americans will see the cultural appropriation and fetishized fantasy embedded within The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games invites Americans to escape the reality of their nation’s violent legacy by creating a story where a “Native” woman’s battle for her community’s survival is pure fantasy. Although the star of the movie is not identified as “Native,” she is cloaked in imagery that contemporary Americans associate with American Indians: a braid, a bow and arrow, and a brave, dark gaze of determination. In 2011, The Hunger Games was filmed in the mountainous forests of North Carolina, on the same ground where my People, the Cherokee, sought to escape the United States soldiers who arrived to annihilate their way of life through forced removal in May, 1838.
The Hunger Games is not a pure product of imagination, but rather, it reflects the culture that created it--a culture whose origins involve an unprecedented, hemispheric campaign of violence against indigenous people--a violence that targeted Native women and children in particular. Every Indian Nation in the United States has its story of survival. And although physical warfare between the United States military and Indian Nations has concluded, the practice of non-Indian violence against Native women and children has not.
By placing the violence of this continent in a dystopian future, stories like The Hunger Games allow this violence to continue. Non-Native Americans are drawn to stories like The Hunger Games because they create a fantasy that serves to disguise the reality we live in.
That reality is grim. Today, reports from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) reveal that Native women are more likely to be battered, raped, or sexually assaulted than any other U.S. population. One in three Native women will be raped in her lifetime, and six in ten will be physically assaulted. On some reservations, the murder rate for Native women is ten times the national average. Native children suffer similar rates of trauma and sexual abuse, as their rates of violent victimization ranks 2.5 times higher than the national average for all other children.
By using Katniss to evoke the idea of a “Native” woman, The Hunger Games invites Americans to transform the violence that took place in the Cherokee mountains of present-day North Carolina into a dystopian fantasy. While The Hunger Games depicts the violent fight for survival in the Cherokee mountains as a battle fought in a dystopian future, as a Cherokee woman, I recognize this fight as the battle my grandfathers fought in the 1830s. It is the battle we still fight today.
And nowhere is this fight more important than in the United States Supreme Court. The devastating impact of this continued violence against Native women and children is compounded by the legal framework the United States Supreme Court has created. In 1978, the Supreme Court stripped Tribal Governments of their criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit crimes on tribal lands (United States v. Oliphant, 435 U.S. 191 (1978)). The majority of violent assaults committed against American Indians, however, are committed by non-Indians. As the DOJ noted in its 1999 Report, “[a]t least 70% of the violent victimizations experienced by American Indians are committed by persons not of the same race.”
The Supreme Court’s decision in Oliphant created nothing less than a crisis for Tribal Governments. Suddenly, after Oliphant, Indian Nations could no longer prosecute 70% of the violent crimes committed against their women and children.
Although the Supreme Court professes to have stripped Tribal Governments of their inherent criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, the Court has never eliminated the civil jurisdiction a Tribe may exercise over non-Indian conduct on tribal lands. That is, although after 1978 Tribal Governments were no longer permitted to prosecute non-Native men who murder, rape, or assault Native women and children on tribal lands, the law continued to permit Native Survivors to bring civil tort claims against their assailants in Tribal Court. Since 1978, for many Native women and children survivors, a civil tort suit in Tribal Court has been their only opportunity to obtain any legal remedy or relief.
Dollar General Corporation, however, now asserts that Native women and children who are assaulted by a non-Indian on tribal lands should not be permitted to bring tort claims against the non-Indian assailant in their own Tribal Courts. Instead, Dollar General suggests that Native survivors should only be permitted to bring such claims against non-Indian perpetrators in Tribal Court if and only if the perpetrator issued his “express consent” to tribal jurisdiction prior to assaulting the Native woman or child. Native women and children, however, do not consent to being sexually and physically assaulted on their tribal lands. Dollar General’s assertion that the consent of the perpetrator should be placed above the profound lack of consent from the Native survivor is the direct result of a country that continues to fictionalize violence against Native women and children.
On December 7, 2015, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from both the Tribe and Dollar General’s attorneys concerning whether the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians’ Tribal Court may exercise its inherent civil jurisdiction over a case filed in Tribal Court concerning the conduct of Dollar General’s employee-supervisor who sexually assaulted a young Choctaw working in a store that Dollar General leases from the Tribe on tribal lands. Following the sexual assault, the youth’s parents filed civil tort claims in Tribal Court against Dollar General seeking compensation for their child’s pain and suffering.
In Dollar General Corporation v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Dollar General has asked for nothing less than the wholesale elimination of all tribal court civil jurisdiction over non-Indian conduct on tribal lands. Instead of accepting responsibility for the tortious and harmful conduct of its employee, Dollar General seeks to avoid accountability through the use of jurisdictional gymnastics, litigious tactics that could have far-reaching and devastating consequences for the ability of Indian Tribes to protect their women and children.
This Fall, as Americans lose themselves in the romanticized nostalgia of The Hunger Games, I hope they consider the epic battles our Native women and children continue to face each and every day. Until the Supreme Court acknowledges the inherent sovereignty of all Indian Nations to protect their women and children, Americans will continue to need stories like The Hunger Games to distract them from the reality contemporary American society has refused to face.
Mary Kathryn Nagle is Executive Director of Yale's Indigenous Performing Arts Program and a partner at Pipestream Law Firm, P.C.. She is also a 2014 Creative Change alumna.
A son to Palestinian refugees, Hassan grew up in a refugee camp in Syria. As an adult, he joined the Palestinian political party FIDA - a decision that put him in danger.
As time went on, Hassan's writing and activism saw him increasingly harassed by the Syrian authorities. By now he had sons of his own. He worried desperately for their safety. Leaving Syria seemed like their only choice. "I took my sons and ran away," he says.
Hassan brought his sons to the UK, where they quickly settled into school. But there was no news on the family's asylum claim. “I had an interview appointment in December 2007,” Hassan remembers. “When I got there, they said: ‘I’m sorry we don’t have an interpreter. We will call you." That was the last Hassan heard about his case for seven years.
While waiting, the family lived on asylum support – just enough to cover their basic needs. “We could not make any plans,” remembers Hassan. “If we had to buy a shirt or trousers, we had to make a plan for that”. Almost all the family's support was spent on basic food.
Seven years later, Hassan and his sons suddenly received a letter rejecting their asylum claim. Without an interview, court appearance, or any communication from the Home Office, they were to be made homeless and left without any support almost immediately.
Read more of Hassan’s story.
Refugees and asylum seekers face immeasurable obstacles while searching for basic health and safety. Many government officials around the world are trying to close their doors and make it even more difficult. The European Chapters of the Harry Potter Alliance are answering the call with their new campaign #AllDistrictsWelcome. Check out their toolkit to see how you can help refugees.
BuzzFeed News spoke to refugees on the Greece-Macedonia border on Wednesday.
Maream, who fled Syria with her husband and two-and-a-half-year-old son, had recently qualified to be a pharmacist. A month ago, she was forced to flee.
“I studied to be a pharmacist while I was pregnant at home,” Maream said while waiting to board a train. “Then my life was snatched away without any warning. Now, I worry that I’ll have to do my training all over again. Five years, it took me five years to complete it.”
If she had stayed in Syria, Maream said, she wouldn’t have been allowed to leave her home, much less work, and her son would not have been able to attend school.
“I was just afraid, we were afraid,” she said. “If I stayed, I’d have nothing. I want a good life, I want to work, I want to do things, I have dreams too. I wish I am able to do that.”
A week previously, the family had travelled through Turkey before they reached the sea to cross to Greece.
“I can’t swim, and they took our life jackets from us. They told us there was a boat for us, but it was so small. We were at sea for three hours – just us, the sky, and water. Nothing else, nothing around us.”
Maream doesn’t know where they will be heading, but all she wants is to be in a safe place.
“I want to go to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning, I want to not fear that my husband or child is in danger, or dead.”
Europeans looking for more information on how they can help welcome refugees can check out our #AllDistrictsWelcome toolkit for resources and action plans.
Access to quality, low-cost mental healthcare services is crucial to the wellbeing of those who need it. Heather’s #MyHungerGames story proves how beneficial resources and information can be to finding those services.
Research free and low-cost options for mental health care in your community. Report your findings to Project UROK ([email protected]) to help build a map of low-cost options.
"I thought I was going to die. They didn't care about me or give me any food… They sold us like animals, but we are not animals-- we are human beings."
- Cambodian trafficked into the Thai fishing industry
Men and boys from surrounding countries are being lured into Thailand by traffickers with promises of good jobs and generous wages. But once there, they don’t speak the language and are vulnerable to being forced to work in the fishing industry as modern-day slaves.
READ these real-life stories from experts at Human Rights Watch Asia, Freedom Fund, Slave Free Seas, and more.
“We were about to get prepared for our 35th anniversary. August 9th, we’d actually just culminated a project where we were talking to residents of our ward about conditions in the ward. That included discussions around both policing and housing, specifically, and up until then, we’d been doing work around police and repression for years. And even the year before, when Cary Ball Jr had gotten shot twentysome odd times, we were lucky if we got thirtysome odd folks out to respond. And that had been the norm in terms of dealing with police repression. We had case, after case, after case, where as hard as we would work to get attention, it was really hard to stir people’s emotions enough to come out, let alone feel any sense of empathy about what was going on and get engaged. That was the world before August 9th.”
-- Montague Simmons, Director of the Organization for Black Struggle, #UnitedWeFight
Youth are leading the movement for racial justice. Want to support them? Visit blacklivesmatter.com. Feeling creative? Show what racial justice looks like using this Art Kit by Until We Are All Free.
#TransAwarenessWeek is over, but it continues to be necessary to uplift trans voices and fight for their equality and safety. Our communications director Jackson Bird uses his own voice and the power of his platform to increase awareness every day.
Ursula Rakova heads Tulele Peisa, the organization that is facilitating the relocation of the Carteret Islanders to the mainland, Buka. In this video, she talks about why the Carteret Islanders are moving and how king tides and frequent storms have affected their way of life.
A team from 350 Papua New Guinea recently travelled to Buka to collect stories from the people of the Carteret Islands- the world’s first climate change refugees. The team, headed by Arianne Kassman, 350 Papua New Guinea Coordinator, collected first hand accounts of climate change realities in the Carterets. This is part of the “Frontline Truths” project from the Pacific Climate Warriors at http://350.org/frontline-truths/.
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face in our global hunger games. Sign the petition to encourage global leaders at COP21 to take action on climate change!
prguitarman
ellievsbear
amandla
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
