Nuestra Palabras, a Houston-based alliance of writers, artists and activists (with a show on Pacifica Radio’s KPFT) brought a caravan of 1,000 banned books into Arizona.
Tony Diaz, a co-founder of Nuestra Palabras, discusses the Arizona book ban on Latino Studies texts and the 2011 Libro Traficantes caravan in the video below.
Trailer for the documentary film on the media literacy project based at Sonoma State University.
September 11. After an 18-hour flight from Johannesburg, where I had attended the World Conference Against Racism, I was seated in a San Francisco-bound United Airlines jet plane at JFK International Airport in New York, when the captain announced that a hijacked plane had been crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC). Continue reading ANTI-IMMIGRANT RACISM AND THE MEDIA. by Arnoldo Garcia.
“Most of them are kind of cuckoo and not real clean.”
From a Matier and Ross column in the San Francisco Chronicle (11/17/99) headlined “Influx of Homeless People Angers Youth Hostel Tenants,” this quote is emblematic of the tenor of reporting on the homeless by San Francisco’s dailies. The story follows the standard frame: Dirty, smelly homeless people are ruining the enjoyment of facility X (the hostel) by upstanding group Y (tourists). City department Z (the Office on Homelessness), while trying to do its best, is just too overwhelmed to make anyone happy. Middle- or working-class citizens are interviewed about the latest dilemma, and lo and behold, out from their mouths pop prejudice and stereotypes about the homeless. A reaction quote from advocates for the homeless rounds out the picture. Continue reading Commentary: S.F. DAILY PAPERS PIT MIDDLE CLASS AGAINST HOMELESS, by Ben Clarke
Media coverage plays a crucial role in educating the public on disability issues. It could–and should–be helping people understand that these are civil-rights issues. But more often than not, reporting on disability perpetuates negative stereotypes or fails to tell the story from the perspective of people with disabilities. Continue reading REPORTING ON DISABILITY, by Suzanne C. Levine
Three years after the federal government ended subsistence guarantees for low-income people–and after hundreds of thousands of people have left or been kicked off the benefit rolls–welfare is no longer considered newsworthy. And the people, the vast majority of them children, whose lives have been irrevocably altered by benefit cut-offs simply aren’t worthy of public attention. That’s the conclusion that emerged from an exhaustive five-month study of welfare coverage in five major California newspapers. Media Alliance and media advocacy organization We Interrupt This Message surveyed the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, and Contra Costa Times from January 1 through May 31 of this year, analyzing all stories containing the word welfare in either the headline or subhead. We wanted to know how mainstream papers have approached the issue, and what this coverage has contributed to public perceptions and policy. Continue reading WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH WELFARE REFORM?, by Camille Taiara
A survey of mainstream media reporting on U.S. military aid, the “drug war,” and human rights in Mexico.
Since 1994, more than 2,000 people have been killed or disappeared in Mexico.1 The victims have included journalists, human rights advocates, religious workers, and indigenous peasants. In 1997 the Mexican government’s own human rights commission received well over 8,000 allegations of human rights violations.2 Continue reading THE MEXICO CONNECTION, by Sharon Donovan and the Media Alliance Latin America Committee
Curriculum from 2009-2010 Raising Our Voices Workshops Continue reading Raising Our Voices Digital Literacy Curriculum
