The dark side of Dubai - Johann Hari - Commentators

The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history. But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. I. Karen Andrews can't speak. Her story comes out in stutters, over four hours. II. III. IV. V.

Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person... Years ago, some feminist on the internet told me I was "Privileged." "THE FUCK!?!?" I said. I came from the kind of Poor that people don't want to believe still exists in this country. So when that feminist told me I had "white privilege," I told her that my white skin didn't do shit to prevent me from experiencing poverty. After one reads McIntosh's powerful essay, it's impossible to deny that being born with white skin in America affords people certain unearned privileges in life that people of another skin color simple are not afforded. "I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented."" If you read through the rest of the list, you can see how white people and people of color experience the world in two very different ways. I do understand McIntosh's essay may rub some people the wrong way. And no, I couldn't go shopping without fear in our low income neighborhoods. I know now that I AM Privileged in many ways.

Respectability politics Respectability politics or the politics of respectability refers to attempts by marginalised groups to police their own members and show their social values as being continuous and compatible with mainstream values rather than challenging the mainstream for its failure to accept difference. The concept was first articulated by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in her book Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880—1920. In the context of Black American history, respectability politics was practised as a way of attempting to consciously set aside and undermine cultural and moral practices thought to be disrespected by wider society, especially in the context of the family and good manners.[1] The development of African American politics of responsibility has been traced to writers and activists including W. Campaigners for gay rights have also struggled with the issue of respectability politics.