Hyper-Masculinity, Twin Peaks, & Gendered Violence

The reinforcing messages sent from “breastaurants” like Twin Peaks and Hooters are quite clear”: inscribed gender roles and promotion of socially constructed norms of female beauty, which are exclusionary hegemonic ideologies in terms of body size and shape and standards for skin and hair type. These establishments endorse a consumeristic colonization of women’s bodies for the edification of the objectifying male gaze.

Turning Again: Been Down in the South

The Christian response to nonviolent direct action in 1963 sounded similar to many critiques of Baltimore’s uprising today: yes, injustice is wrong. But we must be patient. Don’t stir up trouble. But when you come to a dead end, nonviolence teaches you to look for a resurrection.

Social Contexts of Youth Bullying

What kinds of messages are we sending our youth? Do we truly understand our own complicity in the bullying we see in our schools? Unless and until we grapple with the ways in which our society promotes and gives justification to such bullying, we will never truly solve these problems.

UK Muslim Climate Action Campaign Gains Big Support

The “Islam is Green” climate action campaign is centered around the Muslim understanding that humans have been given the role of caretaker of the Earth. We must protect it and maintain it, just as we would our own garden with blossoming fruit trees and vegetable plants. Members of the Islamic Education Research Academy and Islam is Green climate action campaign encourage all of us to be caretakers of our extended garden.

Cartoons of Free Speech or Hate? Redux

Though the AFDI’s Islamophobic and racist actions is doing have been classified as “free speech,” that does not mean that we have to tolerate it by not speaking up. We have the right, as well, to take this case to the court of public opinion and call it out for what it is: a hateful reaction to an already minoritized and misunderstood group of people.

Pay to Play: The Creeping Privatization of Public Education

Anyone with a child in a California public school knows how thoroughly riddled with private-school fundraising many schools have become. But without such stopgaps, public schools have no art, theatre, debate, music, robotics, sports, or field trips—and some public schools lack all of these! Generous and public-spirited parents try to fill the enormous gap left by Proposition 13, but inevitably, when a small group coalesces around a favored activity, the precious cornerstone and sign of democracy—universal access— is eroded.

Acceptance Weighs More Than Denouncement

Contrary to the expectation of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, Muslim leaders have condemned violence and supported the right to free speech. Most openly exhibit tolerance and follow the Qur’an when it states “And the servants of the Gracious God are those who walk on the earth in a dignified manner, and when the ignorant address them, they say, ‘Peace!’