Amsterdam

How much is a revolutionary worth?

About 49 Euros.

In all my years, and they are going to be 40 this next June, I have never, EVER felt comfortable with these posters of Ché Guevara. I find them utterly problematic. Not because I don't think that revolution as a meme is not valid. What bothers me about this particular picture is the almost saintly qualities invested on the man.

Revolution is not pretty, it's never peaceful. Revolution is disruptive and always at a cost. Revolutions are not carried on the shoulders of messiahs, saits, martyrs or virgins. Revolutions are waged by people, common everyday people. Revolutions are not waged by icons or memes but flesh and blood and very mortal people.

What is even more upsetting is that this image of Guevara was popularized by Fidel Castro himself. He sold la revolució as if it were the rapture.

» email this story | 625 reads

The eaglette has landed

... with none other than with Perez Hilton. We're staying at the Lloyed Hotel and strongly contemplating going to a Liza Minelli concert like the queen and fag had we are.

The flight was uneventful but I am exhausted. Will check-in later. I will leave most of my Amsterdam blogginng to the "Counter Talk" section unless it's something more 'articleish', like my coming post on the Red Light District. But since I will be blogging about the trip, I did a little pimping up of the blog to mark the festivities.

Let the righteous liberal flaming begin.

Smiling

Submitted by liza on 15 February 2006 - 7:50am.
Events | Holland.com | Amsterdam | Holland

» email this story | 979 reads

Buy it!

Visit our sponsors

culturekitchens

The Publisher
Liza Sabater

Daily servings of political dissent
culturekitchen

Grassroots News and
Activism for New Yorkers
Daily Gotham

Feminist Bloggers
Network
BlogSheroes

A new kind of vouyerism
Voogling

Art + Code + Philosophy
Potatoland.blog

Got any dirt, tips, leads or money for us? Then drop us a line or two at editors [at] culturekitchen [dot] com or use our general contact form to reach everybody in the editorial team ASAP.

Words to live by

Image found at Jim Crow Museum
of Racist Memoribilia :
Jezebel Stereotype

The power of slaveholders to exploit, expose, and control the sexuality of black women was overwhelming. Slaveholders could keep black women and their children in a state of near-nakedness while asserting that modesty and civility required full clothing. They could and did encourage frequent slave pregnancies through a variety of punishments and rewards. They then interpreted black womenâ€™s evident fertility as evidence of their uncontrolled sexuality.

The insatiable, sexual black woman did important work for Southern society. The myth of Jezebel created space for white moral superiority. Because she was a seductress, Jezebel justified the sexual brutality of Southern white men. Jezebel not only protected white menâ€™s morality, so assured the purity of white women by offering a sexual alternative to white prostitution.

The point here is that Jezebel is more than a demeaning and false stereotype of black women [...] Jezebel is a deliberate characterization that does a specific service in the context American politics and society.

— Melissa Harris-Lacewell, blackprof.com: A little on the history of the "Nappy Headed Ho"