These are the seventeen goals the United Nations has for the world over the next fifteen years.
They fall under three umbrellas:
Ending extreme poverty.
Fighting inequality and injustice.
Fixing climate change.
The first obstacle is to promote the goals until everyone knows they exist, so it will be embarrassing for world leaders to fail to meet them. I am pro this, so I’m telling all of you. The world has goals! Comforting.
You can find more info GlobalGoals.org, and if you want to tell people too, #GlobalGoals is the tag. The organization and efforts already underway are inspiring. Go have a look.
This post is inspired by Shot@Life, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation dedicated to using vaccines as a cost-effective way to save children’s lives in developing countries.
Hi guys, I need your help. This post is part of an online relay through the United Nation’s Shot at Life program. The goal is to get vaccines for kids who wouldn’t otherwise get them. For the month of August:
One Comment, One Share, or One Like = One Vaccine
By literally pushing some buttons we can protect kids against measles, pneumonia, diarrhea, and polio. During Shot@Life’s Blogust, several bloggers have been helping to secure sponsor donations. I’ve also been asked to share a quote that inspires me, so I decided on one that reminds me of you guys:
With your help, I’d like us to secure 1,000 vaccines. This feels like a reach, so will you help? Any one of these simple actions equals a vaccine:
– Leave a comment on this post about a good deed someone has done for you. Can you comment twice? Yes, yes you can.
– Mr. T Baby on Instagram, click the heart.
– Facebook, like, comment, or share.
– Pinterest, repin the quote or heart it.
– Twitter Jedi Baby!, Fave, reply, or RT, the latter being the gold star.
– Your megaphone: If you use the hastag #blogust or include @shotatlife to spread the word on any of your social accounts, each of those actions counts towards a vaccine too. (If you do that, please cc me in whatever medium so I can say thanks. You are my people.)
The push of a button potentially saves a life. We live in the future, my friends. Shot@Life hopes to generate funds for 50,000 vaccines, and there’s a counter on the site that currently reads 37,902. Let’s move that needle. As it were.
Thanks so much you guys. You are kind ones.
***UPDATE: WE DID IT!!***
Wow. Thank you guys so much! Here and across social networks, we triggered over 1,000 donated vaccinations in a single day. Wow! Thank you, sweet people. You are pretty great.
Brad and I were talking the other day about why some white people freak out when you talk about racism. My theory was defensiveness. This piece I, Racist outlines it perfectly:
What [white people] are affected by are attacks on their own character. To my [white] aunt, the suggestion that ‘people in The North are racist’ is an attack on her as a racist. She is unable to differentiate her participation within a racist system (upwardly mobile, not racially profiled, able to move to White suburbs, etc.) from an accusation that she, individually, is a racist. Without being able to make that differentiation, White people in general decide to vigorously defend their own personal non-racism, or point out that it doesn’t exist because they don’t see it.
I also like this simple bit about the way violent crime is perceived:
There’s a headline from The Independent that sums this up quite nicely: “Charleston shooting: Black and Muslim killers are ‘terrorists’ and ‘thugs’. Why are white shooters called ‘mentally ill’?”
10 Ways You Can Help the People of Ferguson from the Huffington Post:
• Support efforts requiring all state, county and local police to wear [dashboard and] body cameras.
• Advocate for the removal of the Pentagon’s “1033 Program” by signing the petition here
• Send condolences to Michael Brown’s family here.
A protestor retreats after being treated for tear gas. Photo Credit: Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images
President Obama’s Press Conference
“We need to recognize the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges we still face as a nation. The fact is in too many parts of this country distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color.”
“We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades. I have witnessed that in my own life, and to deny that progress is to deny America’s capacity for change.”
2 Timothy 1:7 – For the spirit of God does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. Photo by: Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images
Brown Family’s Statement
“Join with us in our campaign to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera. We respectfully ask that you please keep your protests peaceful.”
Dasha Jones, 19, is arrested for unlawful assembly during a protest outside the Ferguson Police Department in Ferguson, Mo. on the evening of Nov. 20, 2014 from Time Magazine
“I’m frustrated with myself for expecting, if only for a moment, that people who have historically not valued black life, would actually value black life. More than anything, I’m sad. I’m just sad. This is no way to live.” – Dr. Yaba Blay, director or Africana Studies, Drexel University
“Even as I expected the decision to be what it was, it still hurts deeply. Who can be shown their babies’ lives don’t matter and expect to feel anything but pain and rage? And fear? The decision leaves me in fear for the safety of the children I love so deeply.” – Asha Bandele, Author
Satire and Social Commentary
Young man wears a shirt mimicking popular shirts with names of television show characters, but supplanted by names of black children and young men killed through abuse of power. Photo by Time. (If you’d like one, it’s part of the And Counting collection sold here.)
“In my five years on Twitter, I’ve been called ‘nigger’ so many times that it barely registers as an insult anymore,” explains attorney and legal analyst Imani Gandy. “Let’s just say that my ‘nigger cunt’ cup runneth over.”
In an increasing number of countries, rapists are now filming their rapes on cell phones so they can blackmail victims out of reporting the crimes.
A Facebook user posted a video documenting the gang rape of a woman by the side of a road in Malaysia. The six minutes of graphic footage were live for more than three weeks, during which Facebook moderators declined repeated requests for removal. It had been viewed hundreds of times before a reader of Soraya’s forwarded the video to [us] with a request for help. We notified a contact on Facebook’s Safety Advisory Board, and only then was the video taken offline.
When it comes to copyright and intellectual property interests, companies are highly responsive… But, says Jan Moolman, who coordinates the Association of Progressive Communications’s women’s rights division, “‘garden variety’ violence against women—clearly human rights violations—frequently get a lukewarm response until it becomes an issue of bad press.”
Soraya, Bates, and Jaclyn Friedman, the executive director of Women, Action, and Media, a media justice advocacy group, joined forces and launched a social media campaign designed to attract advertisers’ attention. The ultimate goal was to press Facebook to recognize explicit violence against women as a violation of its own prohibitions against hate speech, graphic violence, and harassment. Within a day of beginning the campaign, 160 organizations and corporations had co-signed a public letter, and in less than a week, more than 60,000 tweets were shared using the campaign’s #FBrape hashtag. Nissan was the first company to pull its advertising dollars from Facebook altogether.
Southworth calls [Facebook’s] representatives “thoughtful, passionate, concerned, and straddling the line between free speech and safety.” But, sometimes, progress feels slow. “The teams who handle these cases are just swamped,” she explained.
Researchers and industry experts are beginning to consider the effects of that context. Ninety percent of tech employees are men. At the most senior levels, that number goes up to 96 percent. Eight-nine percent of startup leadership teams are all male.
It’s not hard to imagine how unconscious biases might affect systems architecture, including the ways companies handle moderation requests.
My friend Mai flew to Ferguson a couple weeks ago and took some beautiful portraits of people around town. You’ll find them all on Faces of Ferguson but here are a few of my favorites:
Brad: Have you watched this video on feminism and video games? It’s like 25 minutes long.
Me: No. Man, I don’t even know if I can do it. The sexism in video games is so rampant it’s too exhausting. Do you have it pulled up?
Brad: Yeah.
Me: How many times is she called a c**t in the comments? Are there any rape threats yet?
Brad: Comments are disabled.
Me: Yeah, of course they are. What’s her name?
Brad: Her user name is FeministFrequency.
Me: OK, so she published a feminist thing about gaming that’s getting attention. I’m Googling FeministFrequency and “rape threat.”… Bingo. Top result.
If you go to Feminist Frequency’s Twitter account @femfreq, you’ll see that things have escalated recently, someone threatened her life quite graphically and published her address. So that’s a delight.
“There is nothing based on the facts that have been placed before us that can justify the execution style murder of their child by this police officer as he held his hands up, which is the universal sign of surrender.” Statement from Michael Brown’s family and their attourney
A neighbor witnessed the shooting and live-tweeted it. (Distant photos of Michael Brown’s body and the officer standing over him are visible in this thread.)
“The chief in the St. Louis suburb where an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by police says the officer didn’t know the teen was a robbery suspect at the time of the shooting.” –Associated Press
“The officer who shot Ferguson teen Michael Brown stopped Brown and another teen because they were walking in the street, not because of a robbery a few minutes earlier, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said Friday afternoon.
Jackson said the officer was aware cigars had been taken in the robbery of a store nearby, but did not know when he encountered Brown and Dorian Johnson that they might be suspects. He stopped them because they were walking in the street, Jackson said.
But Jackson told the Post-Dispatch that the officer, Darren Wilson, saw cigars in Brown’s hand and realized he might be the robber.” – St. Louis Post Dispatch
Michael Brown’s friend/acquaintance gives an emotional account of what happened with both the robbery and the shooting.
“You didn’t have to shoot him eight times… You just shot all through my baby’s body.” -Michael Brown’s Mother, Leslie McSpadden (via Brittany_noble)
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isSlim=1
“It was just horrible to watch, and it hurt him a lot. I saw it in his eyes.” -Dorian Johnson, who was walking with Michael Brown when the 18-year-old was shot and killed by a police officer
Timelines
• Timeline from CBS Local in St. Louis”
August 11: “It is announced that the FBI is opening a parallel investigation to that of the St. Louis County Police Department concerning possible civil rights violations.”
• Audio recap of early events in Ferguson from KMOV Reporter Brittany Noble
“Sunday night I saw lots of crowds of people, I saw police trying to work with those crowds and calm them down, but then the crowds became so violent, kicking the police cars and putting their hands surrounding the police and trying to intimidate them that police were almost leaving the area… It’s my understanding that the family is very disappointed with some of the violent reactions from the community.”
• 32 Powerful Images from Ferguson After the Death of Michael Brown, Buzzfeed
• Detailed breakdown and analysis by Dara Lind on Vox. Ed: This is the most organized thing I’ve seen so far if you want details.
“Part of the reason we’re seeing so many black men killed is that police officers are now best understood less as members of communities, dedicated to keeping peace within them, than as domestic soldiers.” America is Not Safe for Black People by Greg Howard
Mario Anzuoni for Reuters
“Police forces usually fall into one of two categories, though there some grey situations between the two. You either protect the rule of law and the population, or you’re the type of police force that’s there to protect the regime. What’s happening in Ferguson is what regime protection forces do, not what rule of law police do.”
“They have the toys, and they just want to play with them, to put it bluntly. They look like guys playing army.”
– Jason Fritz, an Iraq war vet and specialist on policing in conflict zones on Vox
Child uses a rag to shield his face from tear gas. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
“[In Ferguson] three police officers out of 53 are black. Brown’s shooting was the first homicide recorded in Ferguson this year.” – Zachary Wilcha in Untied Mag
From What I saw in Ferguson by Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker:
“There’s not a tradition of unrest in St. Louis. Even in the sixties, when the rest of the country was exploding, you didn’t have that kind of thing here. And if there was some kind of problem it almost never lasted more than a day.” – Activist Etefia Umana
“The people who live in Canfield Green, the apartment complex where Brown was shot while on his way to visit his grandmother, not only witnessed his death but were subjected to an undignified wake: his prone figure sprawled on the street for four hours in the unforgiving August sun, with blood on the asphalt—an indignity in sharp contrast with the quick departure of the officer from the scene.”
Social Media
• Ryan J. Reilly, reporter arrested in McDonald who says an officer slammed his head against a vending machine.
• Ferguson board on Pinterest by Jenifer Ancona
• The alleged name of Michael Brown’s shooter is reported on Twitter by Anonymous, and the account is suspended:
“Unfortunately, Mike Brown is but the latest in a series of disturbing events regarding police behavior against people of color. New York City’s “stop and frisk” policy is but a minor example of the micro-aggressions black men face on a daily basis. Many black people I know have their own stories about being followed in a store or stopped for “driving while black”, or other encounters in racial bias. But too often, this bias turns violent. Just this summer, an Arizona professor was thrown to the ground by a police officer for “jaywalking” to avoid street construction at the crosswalk . . . at the same time groups of white people can be seen crossing behind the altercation in the dashcam video. A few weeks ago, a grandmother was jaywalking and a highway patrol officer took her to the ground and brutally beat her, punching her in the face repeatedly – which was caught on tape by a stunned stranger. Earlier this month another man was stopped by police for selling cigarettes and was put into a choke hold and killed.” – Kristen Howerton, Racial Bias, Police Brutality, and the Dangerous Act of Being Black
“I’m tired of turning on the news and seeing a story of some unarmed black person gunned down or otherwise killed, and being horrified, but even more horrifically, not all that surprised.” – Karen Walrond, Affected
Today’s Google Doodle celebrating John Steinbeck is perfect.
I looked around for a way to buy these illustrations as prints through the Google Doodles Store on Zazzle and at the Google Store, and couldn’t find anything in either place.
I wonder why Google doesn’t sell these through a print-on-demand service and donate proceeds to a non-profit. It looks like they’re doing something similar with a Google Doodle scholarship program.
Does this already exist? And if not, what are the hurdles to getting that done?
Mighty Girl 