NEWSWOMEN OF COLOR

Update: Summer's Eve has pulled some of their offensive ads; however, they refuse to admit to the racism or apologize. ESC Forever is asking that people continue to sign the petition to to end the entire campaign -- and don't give Summer's Eve any more credit than they deserve. You can read more here.

Last year, Summer's Eve ran an ad in Women's Day magazine called "Confidence at Work: How to Ask for a Raise". The ad featured a list of ten tips and first on that list was the suggestion that women should make sure to start off every work day feeling fresh by using Summer's Eve products.

After an outcry from women offended by the implication that using feminine hygiene products is the first step to career success, Summer's Eve agreed to pull the ad and issued an apology. They also created a Twitter account called Eve Cares to field the complaints. Director of U.S. Marketing Angela Bryant promised that Summer's Eve would do better in the future, and said, "Moving forward, Summer's Eve wants to not only connect with our customers, but to be an active leader on the issues that matter to women. We just engaged a progressive communications team, and in the next several weeks, we'll be talking to women all over the country about the issues that matter to us as women. We're insisting on open and frank discussions to make sure all of our future marketing and education efforts are relevant and respectful."

Summer's Eve recently unveiled their new ad campaign, called "The V", and it's safe to say that Bryant's promise was not kept. The press release announcing the new ads described an "empowering" campaign featuring "strong female archetypes" like Cleopatra, and stated that "Summer's Eve is not a means to confidence, rather it's a celebration of confidence, of being a woman, and taking care of their bodies." Missing from the press release was the fact that Summer's Eve makes products like douches that are considered by women's health experts to be unhealthy and unnecessary for women who want to "feel fresh" and take good care of their bodies.

On May 15, 2011, Psychology Today magazine published an article by London-based evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa entitled “Why are Black women less physically attractive than other women?” The piece asserted “objectively” that in “fact,” Black women are uglier than all other races of women. But in fact, there is nothing objective or factual about these conclusions. This article (along with a number of other articles by Kanazawa) perpetuates the worst traditions of racial pseudo-science and scientific racism in Western thought. It is unfortunate that Psychology Today decided to use Kanazawa’s false and sensational narratives about Black women’s bodies and lives to drive viewership to their site. Black women’s bodies should not be forced to act as vehicular transport for the racist and sexist baggage of pseudo-science.

A swift online response and petition here at Change.org, written by a collective of black women, and endorsed by over 40 black women and men, engendered over 40,000 signatures. Meanwhile, the student governing body at the London School of Economics, where Kanazawa teaches, unanimously called for his termination.

In contrast to this immediate protest from the public, Psychology Today’s response has been tepid and lethargic. Almost two full weeks after the offending article first appeared, Kaja Perina, editor-in-chief, issued a lukewarm apology:

Sunday, 91-year-old Recy Taylor went to church in Abbeville, Alabama. Now a Florida resident, she made the trip to her old hometown for a special purpose: Taylor was finally receiving an apology from the State of Alabama for its "morally abhorrent and repugnant" conduct in response to her 1944 gang-rape.

The group of white men who admitted to the assault were never brought to trial, while Taylor and her family suffered threats and slander from law enforcement engaged in covering up the crime. Not even the concerted efforts of Rosa Parks and the NAACP could overturn the racist structure of the time to bring justice to this young Black woman. The long-overdue apology came after nearly 20,000 Change.org members signed a petition from Taylor's youngest brother, Robert Corbitt, demanding an apology from the City of Abbeville and State of Alabama. Having won this amazing state level victory, Corbitt's campaign now turns its focus to the city.

Change.org members like you are bringing about some amazing successes on the Recy Taylor campaign: yesterday, the Alabama Senate passed the resolution apologizing for the state's role in covering up the African-American woman's Jim Crow-era gang-rape.

The resolution, introduced in the House by Rep. Dexter Grimsley, passed by voice vote in both branches of the legislature. Now, the bill to "declare such failure to act ... morally abhorrent and repugnant" heads to Gov. Robert Bentley for his signature. And there are high hopes that this final step will come soon: according to the AP, Bentley "sees no reason why he wouldn’t sign it."

Change.org has been working closely with Taylor's devoted youngest brother, Robert Corbitt, whose petition on Change.org has attracted almost 20,000 signatures asking for an apology from the state of Alabama and city of Abbeville. This outpouring of support motivated Grimsley, Abbeville's state representative, to introduce the resolution that unanimously passed the House last month, making it seem like the official apology would be a sure thing. But after the resolution languished without being brought to a floor vote in the Alabama Senate, advocates rallied once again, with the Alabama NAACP joining the campaign and calling state senators to urge them to take immediate action on the apology.

Yesterday was International Domestic Workers Day, and you don't have to look very far to find hardworking domestic workers facing exploitation and in need of your support. In America, labor law excludes domestic workers from basic protections, like the right to sick days, overtime pay, or notice of termination. The nannies and nurses who take care of our children, our sick, our elderly should hold a respected position in our society -- in our families too -- but instead they're often underpaid and overworked. It's all up to the whim of the employer whether they're treated fairly.

But California domestic workers say: no more. Stephanie Hallett at Ms. Magazine's blog reports that a rally yesterday called for the passage of a state bill that could change all this for them: a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. This move has precedent in New York's decision last year to pass their own DWBOR, which came about after years of effort by organizations like like Domestic Workers United and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who are also involved in the California push.

A huge milestone in the campaign for justice for Recy Taylor today: the Alabama State House passed an apology for authorities' mishandling of the African-American woman's 1944 gang-rape. This comes after over 16,000 Change.org members signed a petition run by Taylor's brother, Robert Corbitt, asking for an official apology from the city of Abbeville and state of Alabama. And we're closing in on our goals. "Change[.org] really made a change," Corbitt said.

The resolution (HJR194), introduced by Democratic State Rep. Dexter Grimsley, an Abbeville native himself, offered now 91-year-old Taylor "deepest sympathies and solemn regrets" from the state for the travesty of justice that occurred when she was a young woman. The strongly-worded legislation further denounces the fact that the admitted perpetrators got off without even having to face trial as "morally abhorrent and repugnant." In addition to covering up the assault, law enforcement at the time smeared Taylor's reputation and were caught blatantly lying in order to discredit her.

On Tuesday, Abbeville Mayor Ryan Blalock and Alabama State Rep. Dexter Grimsley held a press conference in front of members of Recy Taylor's family and offered personal apologies for her 1944 gang-rape and the failure to investigate or bring the perpetrators to justice. In addition, Rep. Grimsley -- an Abbeville native himself -- has vowed to introduce a resolution for an apology in the Alabama House, to bring about the formal recognition now Recy deserves. This is excellent progress, so keep the pressure up!

In an article by Ben Greenberg in Colorlines, Rep. Grimsley credits the Change.org petition, which now has over 14,000 signatures, with influencing his interest in Recy's case. Danielle McGuire book, At the Dark End of the Street, was the first work to bring the case back to light. As a young African-American woman during the Jim Crow era, when Recy was gang-raped by a group of white men who admitted to the assault, racist law enforcement made certain none of those men (now all deceased except perhaps one) would ever see trial. Now 91, Recy has a final desire for some justice in the form of an apology from the city of Abbeville and state of Alabama. "I think more people should know about it … but ain't nobody saying nothing," Recy says. The petition on Change.org, sponsored by Recy's brother, Robert Corbitt, is asking Alabama officials to fulfill her wish.

What's in fashion for spring? According to one branch of Dillard's department store, racism and anti-abortion extremism.

The American Independent reports that the Southern department store giant's Memorial City location in Houston, TX, is set to sponsor a fashion show fundraiser for Heroic Media. That's the Austin-based outfit behind a series of race-baiting anti-abortion billboards creating controversy across the country.

Last month, Life Always -- which shares an owner and a North Austin office with Heroic Media -- erected a billboard in New York City with an image of a young Black girl next to the words "the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb." The billboard directed viewers to crisis pregnancy centers, which are non-medical, ideologically driven outfits that use shame, misinformation, and scare tactics to convince women not to have abortions. Change.org members joined the successful push to get the offending billboard taken down almost immediately.

Last month, I wrote about Recy Taylor, an African-American woman gang-raped during the Jim Crow era. Her confessed assailants never faced any consequences, a miscarriage of justice that caused international upset. Now, her brother, Robert Corbitt, has launched a petition on Change.org requesting an apology from the state of Alabama and city of Abbeville. Mr. Corbitt spoke with us via phone from his home, still in Abbeville, Alabama, and we're running this interview in honor of International Women's Day. Please join the 1,000 Change.org members who have signed the petition so far.

Change.org: What led you to begin investigating your sister's case?

Robert Corbitt: I was talking to her one day, and the rape came up, and she got teary-eyed and started to cry, and right then I felt there was a need for something to be done about it. I found that she was still hurting, pretty bad, after 65, 66 years or something like that. And that’s how I really got started with it, right there. I started to look up court documents and things that I could find. I went to the library, and I spent hours there looking for newspaper clippings from the microfilms, and never found anything there -- I found pages missing, and I start to realize that some of the pages had been removed. ... I tried out the courthouse, they couldn’t find anything on Recy Taylor, so I presumed that everything was missing or had been taken out of there, too.

The NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted have all campaigned on Patricia Wright's behalf, seeking to free a woman whose should never have been put behind bars. The tale of events that landed her in prison is absurd, but her sentence of life without parole, and the fact that she is now dying of stage IV breast cancer, is no laughing manner.

Fourteen years after the murder of Wright's ex-husband, Willie Jerome Scott, an LAPD "cold case" task force resurrected the incident. Well, that seems good, right? We don't want to let murderers go free just because a few years have elapsed. Except that, as Wendy Jason reports on the Criminal Justice cause, the task force seemed to be most preoccupied with locking somebody up than finding the perpetrator. Investigating Scott's nephew, they discovered him already serving time for a violent crime, so they moved on — rather than think that, you know, somebody incarcerated for a related crime might be more likely to be the guilty party. I mean, it wouldn't be any fun to prosecute somebody already in jail. Scott's jealous lover had already died, so they didn't bother looking into his involvement, and they never located the male sex worker last known to have been with Scott.