Featured Post: ideas

The Digital CultureSHIFT: Moving from Scale to Power to Achieve Racial Justice

Racial justice thought leaders spoke at this year's Netroots Nation on race, technology, media activism, and building our movements on and offline. Read the full transcript from the keynote panel.

  • 18MR logo, default featured image

    PRESS ADVISORY: 18MillionRising.org (18MR) Pulls Hoax on Gap Inc., Corporation Responds by Shutting Down www.gapdoesmore.com

    releases • May 20, 2014

    Gap Inc. has proven that it is more willing to villainize a small non-profit organization with a staff of only three than it is to step up to the plate and answer hard questions about the way the company treats the very people who sustain the business. Despite Gap Inc.’s efforts to silence the voices of workers and activists around the globe – of which 18MR is its most recent victim – the questions remain: Why has the company refused to compensate the families of injured and deceased factory workers? Why does the company continue to avoid signing the Bangladesh Accord – choosing instead to collaborate with Walmart, a corporation notorious for creating fronts for unregulated, false accountability? Read More

  • 18MR logo, default featured image

    PRESS ADVISORY: 18MillionRising.org (18MR) Targets Gap Inc. With Prank Raising Tough Questions About International Labor Abuses

    releases • May 20, 2014

    The facts are that Gap Inc. has made no move to sign the legally binding Bangladesh Accord, or to pay the compensation it owes for lives lost at Aswad despite ongoing international protest from garment industry workers and activists. Since 2005, over 1,800 workers have died in industrial accidents at Bangladeshi factories supplying western brands and retailers. Spouses have been widowed, children have been orphaned, and entire communities left impoverished and traumatized – all for the sake of profits. This is not about a hoax on the company, it’s about justice for the workers who make the company possible. Gap Inc. has refused so far to “do more” for the most vulnerable workers in its supply chain, so now we are demanding more. Read More

  • LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling watches from the sidelines, a stern look on his face.

    Deeper Than Words: Donald Sterling's Racism and the Model Minority Myth

    ideas • May 7, 2014 • By Soya Jung

    The fact that Slate found no public complaints against Sterling by Asian American groups or individuals should not shock us, nor should the complicity of Sterling’s Korean-born guards in discriminating against non-Asian people of color. This is how the model minority myth works, and has always worked. It maintains systems of racialized advantage and disadvantage by rewarding assimilation to whiteness and justifying the criminalization of blackness. Read More

  • 18MR logo, default featured image

    PRESS RELEASE: 18MR.org Launches #ElPaso37 Campaign to Release Punjabi Asylum Seekers, Joins Forces With Community Groups

    releases • Apr 23, 2014

    18MR partners up with United We Dream to kickoff a 3-day protest, during which community members, activists, and organizers from across the country will inundate ICE with phone calls expressing concern about and demanding the release of the #ElPaso37. 18MR is also partnering with the Jakara Movement to provide social media coverage for a caravan of young South Asian students who will drive from Northern California to El Paso, culminating in a protest outside the El Paso Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center on Saturday, April 26, at 12:00 P.M. Central Time. Read More

  • A collage of three images: on the left, an old photograph of a young Native American woman in a white shirt, dark skirt, and tie. On the top right, a pair of women, one older and one younger, standing in a field, hugging. On the bottom right, a woman in a t-shirt and shorts holding a very young baby.

    Hot Summer Oklahoma Sun

    identities • Apr 13, 2014 • By Maggie Hundley

    Grandma would tell me who I was, even though I didn’t know it myself. Summer, Fall. Pumpkins, corn, beans, sofke. We are Creek. Lazy living room days. Picking biscuit dough from the tiny crevices of her silver-coral-turquoise rings on brown-skinned fingers. Looking at her Indian figurines, I wondered, is this me? Was I the vanquished Indian, riding the horse whose head hangs low in the painting on the wall? Or was I the one that sifted the corn through Great Grandma Susie’s charred basket? Read More

  • Two young teammates with backpacks, wearing sweatpants, smile in front of a school building.

    Why I Support Affirmative Action: One Asian American Perspective

    communities • Mar 19, 2014 • By Jason Fong

    SCA5 raised the ire of some Asian American organizations who felt it would hurt Asian American applicants by decreasing the available spots on college campuses. Some, such as the 80-20 National Asian American Political Action Committee, have gone so far as to say that 'SCA5 is a ‘Yellow Peril Act’, a 21st century version of the ‘Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882’, aimed specifically to impose a quota-like ceiling on the AsAm students. . . .' This sort of rhetoric might be effective in rousing up supporters, but it both misrepresents the intended purpose of SCA5, which is to work towards greater access for underrepresented groups in higher education, and minimizes the ugliness and racism of some aspects of U.S. public policy. Read More

  • A Filipina woman in a black tank top lights candles on an altar in front of lush vegetation.

    Stop the madness: Help the Philippines tackle climate change

    identities • Nov 10, 2013 • By C.M. Samala

    Filipinos know about extreme weather. It’s a republic of more than 7,000 islands that sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, making it prone to earthquakes, typhoons, and volcanic eruptions. In America, they’re called “natural disasters.” In the Philippines, it’s “weather.” And then Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda in the Philippines) happens... Naderev “Yeb” Saño described the phenomenon succinctly and accurately — “madness.” When Filpinos start worrying about weather and commenting on it, it's time for all of us to take note and pay attention. Read More

  • An infographic. Title: 'Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders on Food Stamps.' Over 1 million Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders receive SNAP benefits. Today, SNAP benefits were reduced to a mere $1.40 per person per meal. SNAP BASICS section: SNAP stands for 'Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,' otherwise known as food stamps. 47,669,430 Americans rely on SNAP. The average individual gets $133.19 per month. The average household gets $275.42 per month. SNAP HOUSEHOLDS BY RACE section: a pie chart showing beneficiaries of SNAP by race, with the 2.2% AAPI figure pulled out. The caption reads 'AAPIs are only 2.2% of the households out of the general population who receive SNAP benefits...' AAPI SNAP HOUSEHOLDS section: ...but controlling for the number of households in each racial group, the numbers look much different. A series of bar charts show that overall, 11.9% of AAPIs receive SNAP. 7.8% of Asians recieve SNAP, which is disaggregated into 20.9% of Cambodians, 32.7% of Hmong, 16.3% of Laotians, and 11.9% of Vietnamese. 22.3% of Pacific Islanders receive SNAP. Separated, statics show not all Asian American communities are equally prosperous. Southeast Asian American families tend to struggle the most with food access. The footer reads: FOOD ACCESS IS AN ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUE, with the 18MR.org logo.

    Today, millions of Americans edge a little closer to hunger.

    communities • Nov 1, 2013 • By Cayden Mak

    The cuts are affecting Asian American & Pacific Islander families differently than you might think. Read More

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