During a debate at the University of Oregon, a man stands up to speak about the 'Feminism is Cancer' movement. "I had some friends who died of cancer," he says. There's an awkward silence in a room previously bursting with chatter.

"When they died, I thanked god they didn't have feminism." Mic drop. Punchline delivered, he sits down and enjoys the immediate response from the crowd, who whoop and cheer their appreciation.
Welcome to the Feminism Is Cancer movement, started by alt-right darling Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart journalist and entrepreneur-turned agitator who refers to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as 'Daddy'.

Yiannopoulos has even run a Feminism is Cancer event as part of his Dangerous Faggot tour of college campuses up and down the US, which draw a huge crowd – most of whom are desperate to offer up their own crowd-pleasing #feminismiscancer story.

His maverick-style debates touch on the importance of free speech and equality – but above all, he's a fervent detractor of feminism who pulls no punches when it comes to sharing his opinion, telling one of his detractors "I don't give a f*ck what you think".

In a recent survey, that Yiannopoulos believes lost him his Twitter verification, he asked people whether they would rather their child had feminism or cancer – 55% of people chose cancer.

George and Amal Clooney greeted the Pope Francis on Sunday night at the Vatican.

The actor is collaborating with the Pope's foundation, "Scholas Occurrentes," as an ambassador for one of its arts projects.

Scholas Occurrentes is an arts organization founded by Pope Francis that aims to bring together children from different backgrounds, with the hope of achieving peace and understanding.

Currently, the program can be found in 82 countries and 400,000 schools, according to the Associated Press.

In the bizarre world of some Bernie Sanders supporters, our meaningless presidential primary was yet more evidence that Hillary Clinton is stealing the election. The rift in the Democratic Party might be even bigger than the GOP’s before this strange campaign is done.


Last Tuesday, the state reported the results of our mail-in primary. Donald Trump won on the Republican side. Somewhat surprisingly, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders for the Democrats.

That’s where the problems began. To some Sanders supporters, who believe everything from the newspaper to the vote-counting machines are against them, this result was not just surprising. It was literally unbelievable.

“She hasn’t won anything — you mean STOLE the primary,” one Sandersnista wrote on the Seattle for Bernie Sanders Facebook page

“It’s not about who votes, it’s about who counts them,” asserted another.

“I don’t know a single person who voted for this woman. NOT ONE!” wrote a third. “I have posts and posts of people showing their ballots for Bernie. I don’t trust it, I absolutely don’t trust anything anymore.”

Here goes some MSM spin: I asked the state Elections Department to check out the reported ballot problems. Stuart Holmes, an Election Systems Supervisor, said the state hasn’t had a single complaint.'

So I sent him the names of every local Sanders voter I could find who said on Facebook that their ballots weren’t counted. He entered them in the database and found that all their ballots were counted (except for one, who didn’t appear to exist — it might have been a fake Facebook name).

After all, working-class whites didn’t leave the Democratic Party over insufficiently populist policy and rhetoric. The liberal economic reforms of 1960s—and Medicare in particular—paid benefits to white working-class families throughout the 1970s and ’80s, even as the group moved to a decisive break with the Democrats. No, the proximate cause of the break was the Democratic Party’s close identification with black Americans, who—after the riots of the late ’60s and ’70s—became identified with urban disorder and welfare.

Specifically, whites were bewildered and infuriated with liberals who defended rioting communities—correctly noting the decades of deprivation and abuse that led to those violent outbursts—and pushed anti-poverty programs to address the underlying conditions. Black incomes rose while at the same time, many white incomes were beginning to stagnate or even fall. Why was the government spending our tax dollars on them, working-class whites asked, when they destroy their neighborhoods and refuse to work, and we’re losing our jobs and our homes? In Nixonland, historian Rick Perlstein captures the basic attitude by relaying this comment from a white construction worker, directed at George McGovern, “They’re payin’ people who are on welfare today doin’ nothin’! They’re laughin’ at our society! And we’re all hardworkin’ people and we’re gettin’ laughed at for workin’ every day!”

Here it is: I agree that social liberalism isn't quite the deal killer it used to be. Scheiber and Teixeira are right about that. It's still an issue—especially gun control, which remains more potent than a lot of liberals like to acknowledge—but it's fading somewhat in areas like abortion and gay marriage. There are still plenty of Fox-watching members of the WWC who are as socially conservative as ever, but I think it's safe to say that at the margins social issues are becoming a little less divisive among the WWC than they have been over the past few decades.


Also read: What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong?"
But if that's the case, why does the WWC continue to loathe Democrats so badly? I think the answer is as old as the discussion itself: They hate welfare. There was a hope among some Democrats that Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform would remove this millstone from around Democrats' necks, and for a few years during the dotcom boom it probably did. The combination of tougher work rules and a booming economy made it a less contentious topic.

But when the economy stagnates and life gets harder, people get meaner. That's just human nature. And the economy has been stagnating for the working class for well over a decade—and then practically collapsing ever since 2008.

So who does the WWC take out its anger on? Largely, the answer is the poor. In particular, the undeserving poor. Liberals may hate this distinction, but it doesn't matter if we hate it. Lots of ordinary people make this distinction as a matter of simple common sense, and the WWC makes it more than any. That's because they're closer to it. For them, the poor aren't merely a set of statistics or a cause to be championed. They're the folks next door who don't do a lick of work but somehow keep getting government checks paid for by their tax dollars. For a lot of members of the WWC, this is personal in a way it just isn't for the kind of people who read this blog.

Take that crutch away and the electoral arithmetic becomes so dire that GOP strategy will have to change simply to remain competitive. True, a more moderate and reasonable Republican party would attract more voters who now vote Democratic, but overall it would be a plus for progressive governance by improving the climate for legislation that actually addresses social problems.

Is there reasonable hope that such a coalition can be formed? We believe there is.

Start with the evolution of the white working class itself. Over time, we expect that generational change will make the white working class more liberal and open to progressive agendas. This will occur as white working-class Millennials gradually take the place of generally more conservative white working-class Baby Boomers and older Americans.

Democrats generally receive greater support among Millennial white working-class voters than among older white working-class voters. This gap peaked in 2008 when Obama’s margin was 30 points better among 18-29 year old white working class Millennial voters than among their older counterparts.

This generation gap is partially explained by the fact that white working class Millennials are substantially more liberal on social issues. For example, in the 2012 National Election Study, 54 percent of white working class Millennials thought gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry, compared to just 34 percent of older white working class cohorts. They are also more likely than older cohorts to be secular in religious orientation, another indicator of liberalism. In the 2012 Democracy Corps post-election survey, 33 percent of white working class Millennials reported no religious affiliation
compared to 14 percent of their older counterparts.

To be a black woman is to receive uniquely targeted messages about one’s body. The black female body is hypersexual or hypermasculine or both, but it is never our own. It is too obscene to be treated with respect but too alluring not to emulate. We are hip-hop vixens or mammies or (starving?) Africans. Black American women eat unhealthily, we are told, and so our happiness makes no sense. Our bodies do not deserve to celebrate, to move, to occupy space.

Exact statistics on the prevalence of eating disorders and disordered eating among women of color are often unavailable, but the National Eating Disorders Association notes that reports are on the rise. Most media discussion of disordered eating revolves around a single narrative: the experiences of primarily (upper) middle-class, heterosexual white girls and young women. When eating disorders — and body image struggles more generally — are dismissed as “white-girl problems,” black women have trouble finding both social recognition and helpful care.
What follows is an online conversation between eight black women about the messages we receive about our bodies, the ways they change, and how being black women complicates it all.

How are black women’s bodies talked about within (y)our own communities?

Driadonna Roland: I feel like the only body that is talked about favorably is a Nicki Minaj body — the exaggerated Coke-bottle, video-girl look that is literally not real life. So if men in my community discuss black women’s bodies, they only celebrate a specific ideal that is often unattainable. They don’t mean me. They don’t mean the majority of black women you see in your daily life.
Essence Gant: I’m from the South, so the conversations I’m used to hearing about our bodies are generally positive. Maybe it’s because comfort and soul food tends to make us thicker, and that’s something we’re taught to celebrate; “fat” or “plus-size” in New York would be “thick” and “curvy” in the community I grew up in. I feel like black Southern beauty standards have given more women more leeway and opportunity to be included in the beauty conversation. We love Jill Scott’s curves just as much as we love Naomi Campbell’s long legs.

Very interesting interview

https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahgiorgis/no-one-is-running-to-buy-me-mangoes-yet?utm_term=.fdb9x5X2d#.trqdj83Pq