Jamia A. Wilson

Netroots NY: Herding Bloggers for Your Cause Some might say that trying to get bloggers to write about things upon request is tougher than nailing jello to a tree…the bloggers and netroots outreach specialists on this panel will prove otherwise. Learn how to make friends with bloggers and get them to help spread the good word with tips and tricks and a few case studies too.

"The Soundtrack Series is a live storytelling event based on music. On the fourth Thursday of every month at (Le) Poisson Rouge, host Dana Rossi invites five guest writers to get on the mic to tell the hilarious or heartwrenching stories they forever associate with a song from their past"

Join Laura Barcella, the editor of Soft Skull Press' "Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop" me, and fellow contributor Gloria Feldt at this fun event.

"Last March The WTCI convened an international summit - Endangered Species Preserving The Female Body. We launched the Endangered Bodies Campaign- partnering with like-minded body positive organizations in 5 different countries who are engaged in the the same fight to free women's/girls' bodies from commodification and objectification
At this year's Indwelling we are excited to honor Jamia Wilson of SPARK- an organization committed to fighting the sexualuzation of girls in the media.
Please join us for a rousing celebration of the revolution so far!

$25 Registration / $15 Students / underwritten tickets available

--Honoring Jamia Wilson, SPARK

--For the last 30 years, The WTCI has offered a Speakout, a time honored traditional forum for women to find their individual voice and share experiences, allowing the personal story of each woman to be heard, dignified, and transformed by our coming together"--WTCI, NYC

[In]Visibility of Girls Like Us: Why Race and Class Matter. Panel Featuring MEV Cohort Member Joanne Smith

February 27, 2012
MEV Cohort Member Joanne Smith of Girls for Gender Equity will be featured in a panel "[In]Visibility of Girls Like Us: Why Race and Class Matter". During the event, Rachel Lloyd's new memoir Girls Like Us! will be released. A book signing will follow. The event is taking place Tuesday, February 28th from 7 to 9 p.m. at the CUNY Grad Center (365 5th Avenue, New York, NY; Room C 203/204 & 205).

Panel:

Rachel Lloyd, Founder and Executive Director of GEMS

Salamishah Tillet, Co-Founder of a Long Walk Home

Jamia Wilson, Vice President of Programs, Women's Media Center

Joanne Smith. Founder and Executive Director of Girls for Gender Equity

Zerlina Maxwell, Staff Writer at Loop 21, Contributer to Feministing, Ebony and the Grio.

By Maddy Gyory, Women's Media Center

On Monday November 14th, Jamia Wilson, Women’s Media Center’s VP of Programs, and Gloria Steinem, Women’s Media Center’s Co-Founder and Board Member, joined author and activist Letty Pogrebin and journalist Abigail Pogrebin on the Today Show. Watch as they discuss what feminism means today, 40 years after the first issue of Ms. Magazine was published.

Anita Hill 20 Years Later: Sex, Power, and Speaking Truth
Panel I: Witnesses-"What Happened?"

Using Knowledge, Advancing Activism
How can activists use knowledge to advance their campaigns? How can scholars and activists work collaboratively to produce and promote knowledge that is grounded in feminist and social justice frameworks? Activists who have been able to produce and use knowledge to initiate change across numerous issues will contribute to this conversation about the uses of knowledge in activist work.
Panelists: Patricia Berne (Sins Invalid), Rinku Sen (Applied Research Center), Dean Spade ’97 (University of Seattle School of Law), Jamia Wilson (Women’s Media Center), and moderated by Laura Flanders ’85 (GRITtv)

Thelma and Louise 20th Anniversary Screening and Panel with Nona Willis Aronowitz, Jaclyn Friedman, and Sofia Quintero

This conference offers adults who work with young people a day to unite, learn and strategize together around how to address the root causes of teen sexual violence. We look forward to your participation!

The REVEAL conference will:

~Empower, advance and acknowledge young female spiritual leaders

~Endow young women with skill sets for dialogues in faith and feminism

~Encourage women to create communities to foster growth and healing

~Excite and inspire the emergence of the divine feminine

The REVEAL conference will be held annually in New York City and will provide an unprecedented opportunity for young female spiritual leaders to present their trail-blazing work to the wider world. It is essential for these young leaders to convene together to inspire women of all ages to become determined and fearless about using their own spiritual voices in the face of injustice.

The REVEAL conference will honor, encourage and call forth all emerging young female spiritual leaders to let their voices burn just a little bit brighter to stir up the soul-voices in some of us that still need help finding their expression. The REVEAL conference will dare all women to let her soul reveal its inviolable strength. REVEAL wants for nothing but complete justice for women in the world especially in the realm of the sacred.

Through fiery keynote speakers and experiential, interactive workshops, the REVEAL conference will empower and inspire young women to take themselves and their spiritual voices seriously. It will also serve as an opportunity for local New York non-profits of varying faith traditions and leading women’s organizations to network and collaborate as well as to present their services and information to participants.

Women of Spirit and Faith exists to invite the many brilliant threads
of feminine spiritual leadership into relationship and
to support emerging patterns for transformation.

Ain't I A Woman: Women of Color Speak On Activism
April 11th, 2011, 6PM - 12AM
Mixer 6PM ** Panel 7-9PM ** Party 9-12AM

Website: aiaw.tumblr.com
...
Long after Sojourner Truth pondered the question - "Aint I A Woman?" we continue to face a white supremacist culture that undermines women of color, young women, undocumented immigrants, and the LGBTQ community. We're convening this panel to ignite a discourse about the experiences of women of color in the feminist movement and beyond. On this night, six outstanding feminists and activists will go head-to-head to discuss race in the feminist movement today.

We know that the movements to eradicate racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism are inextricably connected. We reject the silencing and subjugation of women of color and aim to create a safe and courageous space to raise our voices, confront tensions, celebrate our triumphs, create collective solutions and share our stories. Through this sharing, we can create a united front so that, instead of surviving through silence, there can be a dialogue on how to battle institutionalized oppression.

Speaking our truth is crucial to our survival. By gathering together and learning from our shared and individual tales of love and struggle, we will each emerge with new perspectives that will enable us to engender the change we envision for the world.

In the words of bell hooks, “There can be no feminist revolution without an end to racism, classism, ageism…”

Round One: Latoya Peterson, Founder of Racialicious
Elizabeth Mendez Berry, Journalist
Jamia Wilson, Moderator

Round Two: Lori Adelman, Program Associate at International Women's Health Coalition
Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, Reproductive Rights Activist
Amanda Marcotte, Moderator

Round Three: Jessie Daniels, PhD, Author and Sociology Professor at Hunter College
Anna Holmes, Jezebel Founding Editor
Lena Chen, Moderator

Music by DJ Lobotomy Copter throughout the night, http://on.fb.me/gRnBsN

**$10 Suggested Donation (but no one turned away for lack of funds)
**We encourage live tweeting during the event using the hastag, #AIAW

** For more info, contact Morgane at refusethesilence@gmail.com with the subject line: "Ain't I A Woman"

**For more information and tickets, visit: www.galapagosartspace.com

Engendering Technologies—Women Take Charge

24 February 2011, Thursday, 4:00-5:30 pm

10th Floor Room, Church Center

United Nations Building

777 UN Plaza (corner of 44th St. and 1st Ave.),

New York

In collaboration with the IAWRT USA Chapter

with support from Forum for Women and Development (Fokus)
Dates:
24 Feb 2011

Right now Congress has 1 agenda item: to take away your access to reproductive health care. It's time to fight back! Join us in Foley Square, 1-3 pm, Saturday, 2/26. I'll be speaking at the rally along with many other passionate people who care about reproductive justice for all.

Ready to rumble? I'll will be joining Choice USA on 1/20 in DC to go head-to-head w/ rockstar RJ leaders! RSVP: http://bit.ly/wearethechampions
http://www.choiceusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=346

Thank you Fair and Feminist for creating a space for young feminists to raise their voices and re-claim the conversation!

Dearests,

I intend to create Citizen Expat, an online community that will provide American expatriate progressives with a netroots organizing center that will enable them to remain connected and engaged in the movements they care about at home on the internet and on the ground.

Utilizing user-driven media, Citizen Expat will provide them with an interactive blog that will enable progressive expats to educate each other and engage in discourses across borders. Moreover, Citizen Expat will provide a space for progressive expatriates to make their individual voices heard as a powerful collective force in the US political discourse.

Why?

During the 2008 presidential campaign, we witnessed the power of global
support in the fight for progressive social change. President Obama, a former expatriate represents a community of people whosevoice is often silenced or ignored. Expatriate voices matter, and absentee ballots, long-distance phonebanks, and expatriate campaign contributions helped us win in 2008. According to the Obama campaign's website, Expatriates for Obama hosted almost 400 events, knocked on approximately 300 doors, made almost 10,000 calls, raised $56,000, and wrote approximately 9,000 blog posts. They made change thousands of miles beyond the beltway, enabling progressives to win some of our key battleground states.

I aim to recruit current and former "expats" to help with online and offline volunteer blogger recruitment strategy and provide a space on

the site for progressive career and networking opportunities. I intend to recruit speakers and guest bloggers who can use webinar, podcast, radio, and video to provide strategic planning advice, speak about policy advocacy for constituents living abroad, and provide media advice and training. Finally, I plan to implement an interactive too listing progressive expat events worldwide and a media contact list for members of the media to pull from to speak with progressive "experts" living around the world. I plan to explore ways to provide on the ground support to Citizen Expats organizers in their campaigns and initiatives as needed.

In a June 24, 2008 "Minneapolis Star Tribune" article, Hillary Brown, a
young member of the Berlin chapter of Young Democrats expressed
"Americans abroad were the first to sense diminishing support [for the US]
overseas, and they're ready for a change". "European countries that were
former allies no longer embrace Americans. Instead of being welcomed, you
have to defend your country's politics."

I lived abroad for 11 years as an African American expatriate in Saudi Arabia. My parents moved to Saudi Arabia in 1980 when I was six years old, and I spent most of my youth growing up as an expatriate.

I am passionate about this vision. Technology will allow us to create change that we could never imagine before, and it is important that we take action today!

I own the domain name for this initiative and would love to work with others who are interested in helping me make this a reality. We will need resources and support to make the meaningful impact this project is sure to manifest!

With warm and sincere solidarity and love,

Jamia

Vote for me here: http://tinyurl.change.org/yhnMN

Can I count on you to help me raise funds for Haiti? Please donate to my fundraising site to help heal Haiti! Partner's in Health needs our support to provide vital resources and support to Haiti. Make an impact today! Thank you!

Great NYC events this week -


TUESDAY (TODAY):
Teach-in with eyewitness reports. Speakers include Arang Keshavarzian (NYU Mid-East and Islamic studies professor), Golnoush Niknejad (Founder of www.tehranbureau.com online news magazine), Kouross Esmaeli (journalist and filmmaker)

-NYU Cantor Film Center
-6:30-9:30pm
-Live webstream: www.voicesfromiran.com

WEDNESDAY:
Vigil for Iran
Union Square
7-10pm

THURSDAY:
Book Discussion: Iran Un-Interrupted with Professor Hamid Dabashi
Alwan for the Arts Center
7pm
http://alwanforthearts.org/event/366



FRIDAY:
Amnesty International Rally
Columbus Circle / Central Park Merchants' Gate
6:30pm


Please spread the word!

Check out my interview with Travis Sullivan, bandleader of Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra on WTNRRadio.com. I interviewed Travis as a guest on DJ Lobotomy's show The Freakshow on We Take No Requests Radio.

DJ Lobotomy's announcement about the show is below:
Summer's heating up!! We've got some amazing artist showcases lined up for you this season and as a token of our appreciation, here's a free mp3 giveaway from the uber talented SBX :)

GLORY
Free download available at:
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/699806972/dd495e9e23392a5a5b4afd13b44106f9

In addition to today's brand new Freakshow, we have SBX returning to give us a preview of his newest album, the "HipHopPopPunkRock" tongue-twister vibe :p, tattoos, aliens, midgets vs. overgrown ronald mcdonald people, and to discuss his live band in the making - you'll hear more about the tour dates and lineup as soon as they are announced.

We are excited to break new ground with the appearance of Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra where visionary pop meets cutting edge jazz. Jamia Wilson interviews Travis for The Freakshow and discusses the evolution of his big band, the inspiration derived from dancer in the dark Bjork, and the future of their sound beyond genre politics. More details can be found at:

http://www.bjorkestra.com/live/

Stay tuned every Friday on WTNRRadio.com, world time baby . . . xoxoxoxo!

DJ Lobotomy

My thesis is done! If anyone wants to check it out and give me feedback drop me a line! ")

I began the thesis with this poem that I love:

i am accused of tending to the past

i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother's itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning languages everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.

Lucille Clifton

I am currently in the process of working on my MA thesis in addition to my full time job working at NYU. My thesis topic is one that I am passionate about, and I am excited to be a part of a program that allows me to transcend the confines of independent disciplines. My thesis title is "Soul Intact": Nina Simone, Black Feminist Consciousness and Disidentification.

In my paper, I will investigate how Nina Simone utilizes the experience of alienation to inspire black feminist discourse. Next, I will examine how Simone constructs herself as a metaphorical border through performative and corporeal representation. Finally, my project will illustrate how Simone disidentifies with dominant culture, playing off of her “otherness” to spark transformative critical dialogue.

Nina is so powerful that I never tire of listening to her music, reviewing her letters, or marvelling at all of the reminders of her vibrant life that I am uncovering. I hope that Nina's legacy lives on beyond the entertainment people receive from her music, and that her message seeps into the pores of those who she touches with her lyrics and sound.

The following poem says it all:

WHY I LIKE NINA* cause she grew me up first like a wild vine clinging to walls and shocking small trees with my grip second like a river cold and fast chasing itself out of mountains to get pure third ... she sings where tears ought to be instead she sings *

Nina Simone Feminist Studies 19, no.3 (Fall 1993). ? 1993 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 653--Rachel E. Harding