In the Fall of 2012, DH Starr approached me about Featherweight publishing an anthology that he was a part of. It was a special project being organized by Michele Montgomery. All the authors wanted to donate their royalties from the anthology to charity. They wanted the monies to go to a specific cause—-they wanted the money to go to a charity that worked with LGBT homeless teens.
The inspiration for the anthology was a picture that they had seen with the text over the image that said “40% of homeless youth are LGBT. The #1 reason they’re on the streets in family rejection.”
Once we got to final editing stages we realized, we didn’t know WHICH charity to donate the monies to. There are so many great charities out there working with LGBT youth that we weren’t sure which to choose. We wanted to make sure that no matter how much, it would make a difference. So the search was on.
I was pleasantly surprised to come across one that had the name of the anthology almost exactly—-Lost-n-Found Youth, Inc. It seemed like fate talking to me and after speaking with one of the board members, I was convinced of it. You see the board member told me that the day before we spoke, they received a call from a teen that had been on vacation with his parents and when they found a gay romance on his eReader, they left him on the side of the road. Yes, you read that correctly, abandoned him for reading a gay romance.
Our hope is that with these stories, these teens realize that there are many out there that care about them. That no matter what anyone says—-THEY MATTER.
Kris Jacen
MLR Press
hugewiener:
There was a party on May 3rd at the University of Southern California with the majority of attendees being African-American and Hispanic USC students. The party was registered with the school, and there was another party directly across the street being attended by mostly Caucasian/White students. Both parties had similar noise levels according to dozens of accounts from both sides (source).
Two cops arrived to the party with the minorities and told them to lower their noise level; the party’s host told the attendees to go inside the house and they resumed the party in there with lower volume. A few minutes later the cops came back and students began leaving, and the cops arrested the host. More and more cops began to arrive and soon a helicopter came. All of this was while the students were filing out and more and more cops entered the home; furthermore, the white party continued across the street and some officers even went there to tell them to stay inside and safe. A white student told reporters that “basically they didn’t stop our party at all. They had no problem with us.” (source).
As the minority students saw all the cops and attempted to leave, some were tased, and some were slammed to the ground and arrested. Many resisted on the grounds that they had no idea why they were being arrested seeing as they were leaving peacefully and were over the drinking age (the party required ID). Even more cops arrived (source)(video).
Later that night at about 4:30am, a resident at the house where the white party was thrown was awoken by thudding. He rose to see two LAPD officers trying to speak to his roommate. They ordered him to wake up everybody in the (co-ed) house and as they did so they stumbled into two female residents shirtless and asleep, and one of the officers simply stared. (source)
The reason that they were in that house was to gather statements about how LAPD acted correctly against the minority students but the students at the white party’s house gave factual statements that did not incriminate the minority students how the officers wanted. They have complained about their home being entered without a warrant in the middle of the night but have yet to hear back.
On Tuesday USC will have an open forum in regards to the racial profiling that happened (at the party and in the past) at the school but that is not enough; this has to be more than a local issue and should be made known nationally. USC has issues with racial profiling and it is time that it stops. Anyone can help by signing this petition and making it big. (Photograph source)
Racism, pure and simple. This sort of shit HAS to stop!
shadodwlr:
Awesome!
That would be a fabulous episode. LOL.
I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown, eat interesting food, dig some interesting people, have an adventure, be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about, I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking twelve miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people — Americans and Europeans — come back and go, “Ohhhh.” And the lightbulb goes on.
epubagent:
Yessssss!!!
I would absolutely do that.
