We’ll be back on Tuesday

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Good morning, loyal readers. We’re taking today off because it’s Memorial Day weekend. We’ll be back on Tuesday.

In the meantime, here’s a video of a red panda playing in the snow. This is obviously a very serious and important feminist issue.

Have yourselves a great weekend, and if you’re going out in the sun, don’t forget to wear sunscreen!

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What We Missed

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Bryan Safi on why you should be excited about Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality.

“A better country for immigrants is a better country for all. A better country for gays and lesbians is a better country for all. We’re all in this together.” Dolores Huerta, folks.

A new study finds that people objectify naked women in photographs, but not naked men. They see naked men as people.

Since Arizona Congressman Trent Franks thinks he’s entitled to restrict abortion rights in Washington, D.C. some District residents have asked him to take care of their potholes, too.

The Feminist Spectator on “Scandal.”

 

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How President Obama “speaks” about race

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The New York Times finally tells the story of my favorite picture from Obama’s presidency.  The now famous photo is of five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, the son of a White House staffer who was leaving his post on the National Security Council.  The photo is displayed in the West Wing and has remained there for three years, even as others are replaced by more recent photos on the walls around it.

Via The White House/Pete Souza

In their re-telling of the story, Jacob’s dad and his family were leaving after taking a group picture with President Obama in the Oval Office, he tells the President his son has a question:

“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He lowered his head, level with Jacob, who hesitated.

“Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.

As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Mr. Souza snapped.

“So, what do you think?” Mr. Obama asked.

“Yes, it does feel the same,” Jacob said.

The White House photographer snapped the shot hastily, and admits that he didn’t have the best angle and that some of the photo is out of focus.  But the deep meaning of the photograph remains: the nation’s first black president is demonstrating to a little black boy that yes, I am just like you.  Jacob’s father says that, “It’s important for black children to see a black man as president. You can believe that any position is possible to achieve if you see a black person in it.”

For all the unfair criticism that President Obama gets from the right for “playing the race card,” and from some in the black community who feel he doesn’t directly address race enough, the president somehow manages to make such profound statements about race. And he does it without having to make a speech or label his policies “The black agenda.”

As the first black president, Obama has to very delicately address issues of race, and he seems to have found that doing so without having to explicitly label it is sometimes the most powerful and memorable way.  The photo of Jacob is meaningful to so many people because in many ways, it reflects a new era.  If I have a son one day, when he says, “I want to be president,” I can show him this picture and say, “Yes you can.”  And of course, I look forward to the day when I will be able to say the same thing to my daughter as well.

 

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Brazilian airline kicks passenger off for sexist comments about pilot

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While American Airlines is busy kicking passengers off planes for being pro-choice, Brazil’s Trip Airlines is kicking them off for being sexist. Via The Huffington Post:

A Brazilian airline says one of its female pilots tossed a passenger off a flight because he was making sexist comments about women flying planes.

Trip Airlines says in a Tuesday statement the pilot ejected the man before takeoff as he made loud, sexist comments upon learning the pilot was a woman. The jet continued on to the state of Goias after a one-hour delay.

The passenger involved in Friday’s incident has not been identified. He was met by police at the plane and escorted out of the Belo Horizonte airport. Police at the airport have not responded to calls and it isn’t known if the man has been charged with anything.

Trip says it won’t tolerate disparaging remarks made about any of the 1,400 women working for the airline.

Damn right. Everyone knows that women are just as capable of flying planes as men are. Provided they’re not on their periods and as long as they’re not wearing a skirt that reveals their ankles.

 

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Air Force Academy graduates first openly gay cadets

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Via Getty Images

Yesterday was an historic day. The President spoke at the commencement ceremony of the Air Force Academy, and nearly eight months after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the Academy graduated its first openly gay cadets.  The cadets were not identified but school officials confirmed that since repeal of the policy at least four cadets from the graduating class are openly gay.

In his commencement address, President Obama said the graduation marked “a new feeling in America.” The cadets are graduating into a world without Osama Bin Laden, a world where we have ended the war in Iraq, and where we have finally begun the process of drawing the war in Afghanistan to a close.  The President also highlighted the Air Force’s contributions to those conflicts as well as our brief involvement in the conflict in Libya.

“Even as we’ve done the work of ending these wars, we’ve laid the foundation for a new era of American leadership,” Obama said. “And now, cadets, we have to build on it. Let’s start by putting aside the tired notion that says our influence has waned, that America is in decline. We’ve heard that talk before.”

The upbeat speech was the last of the President’s graduation addresses for this year, and it will certainly go down in history – not because of anything Obama said, but because of the young cadets who the first to graduate in this new era of equality in the military.

Watch the president’s commencement speech below (Transcript here):

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