#culturestrike

Welcome to our first 2018 editorial cartoon!

Anyone else catch the Golden Globes this last weekend? There’s lot to be said about #timesup and all of the actresses who attended the awards show wearing black, but undoubtedly, Oprah’s acceptance speech (after receiving the Golden Globe Cecile B. DeMille Award) is the highlight that everyone is talking about.

Opinions about Oprah’s speech immediately cropped up throughout the Internet. While there was widespread appreciation and support, there was also plenty of know-nothings complaining about Oprah getting political during an awards show, and leftists questioning whether Oprah was the right person to deliver such a potent, important, and timely message.

Maybe the presentation was not entirely perfect in messaging and inclusive of all the issues that are important in the social justice realm. But it is a wildly successful moment of cultural intervention. Oprah’s reach is unfathomable for many of us. She has influence that many on the left wish we had. She is a cultural icon of our time, and to have her use her platform to further the message of the #metoo and #TimesUp movement is incredibly important.

It must have also been a gargantuan undertaking for the activists who organized all the celebrities (including Oprah) to be on message and to make a statement in a high profile awards show. It made the message more culturally visible, and while many may feel like the moment could be co-opted by celebrities who aren’t close to the grassroots efforts, the fact that the conversation has now proceeded to be amplified by the likes of Oprah is a big opportunity.

Whether you agree or disagree that Oprah was the correct messenger, one thing is for sure: the platform for the conversation around equity for women in our society has just gotten larger, more prominent, and louder. And we think that this is a good thing in the grand scheme of our goals as cultural workers.

Kudos and congratulations to the amazing and unmatched Oprah!

Artwork by @juliosalgado83. Blurb written by @eslvis.

#culturestrike #editorialcartoon #oprah #goldenglobes #goldenglobes2018 #timesup

Welcome to another @culturestrike editorial cartoon.

Last week, the Trump administration made the move to dismantle Temporary Protected Status (TPS), leaving nearly 300,000 people vulnerable to deportation.

TPS is a program that grants a temporary visa to refugees that allow them to live and work in the U.S. while also giving them some protection from being made to return to their home countries. The U.S. has granted TPS to refugees from 10 countries, all which have been devastated by natural disasters or wars: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

It’s difficult to look at the termination of this program and not wonder what will become of this nations, especially since many of them have experienced U.S. interference in some way, whether military or bureaucratic. So how can we end the program and begin sending people back to countries where there is still an immense amount of disparity and violence? How do we reconcile this move with the sins of American presence and intervention in these various nations?

The U.S. should not remove the program and destabilize the lives of 300k refugees once more. Doing so just adds more unnecessary trauma and anxiety to the lives and complexities of the refugees who have built here. Putting an additional 300k people in the crosshairs of DHS’ detention and deportation machinery is as cowardly as it gets.

Artwork by @juliosalgado83. Blurb written by @eslvis.

#culturestrike #editorialcartoon #trump #immigration #savetps #savetpsnow #migrantpower #immigrantart

These last several weeks have been a very trying time for undocumented people in the United States.

Here, Julio Salgado tries various methods of relaxation as he grapples with stress and anxiety, but like the DREAM Act and C.I.R., things don’t necessarily turn out the way he wants.

#undocuhealth #undocuhealing #culturestrike #immigration #defenddaca #socialjustice #racialjustice #immigration #immigrantart #defenddaca #socialjustice

Make sure to swipe left to view all videos.

New video, featuring the amazing @yosirey. To view and share video from our YouTube account, please go to bit.ly/1800savedaca, or click on link in our bio section.

DACA has been rescinded by the Trump administration. This has meant that DACA recipients from across the country have seen their inboxes flooded with media requests. As the moment is important for many, journalists, media makers, and content creators -who are on deadlines- often lose sight of the fact that undocumented people are actually living this moment in a very real and personal way.

We created this video as an attempt to ask of those journalists and media makers to examine their real intent in telling undocumented stories, to ask them to respect the agency of those who become subjects of those stories, and as a call-out to all undocumented content creators to CREATE YOUR OWN MEDIA!

#culturestrike #immigration #immigrantart #defenddaca #socialjustice #racialjustice

NEW PODCAST EPISODE, featuring the amazing and talented San Jose undocuqueer poet/artists, Yosimar Reyes.

Link: bit.ly/cspodcast7, (or click on link in our bio section).

In this 7th installment, @yosirey, @eslvis, and @thechoselyfe discuss: the end of DACA, and climate change as it relates to the undocumented experience in the United States.

Please take a listen, and if you like what you hear, give it a like and a share to help spread the word! #culturestrike #defenddaca #daca #immigrantart #immigration #podcast #migrantpower #not1more

Swipe left!

How much do you know about immigrant detention in the United States?

Check out our new video! To see the whole video, go to: bit.ly/detfacts (or click on link in our bio section).

#culturestrike #immigration #immigrantart #schoolsnotprisons #socialjustice #prisonindustrialcomplex #endfamilydetention #not1more

Welcome to another @CultureStrike editorial cartoon!

Last Friday, in the even of Hurrican Harvey’s landfall, Trump went on television to announce his pardon of former “Sheriff” Arpaio. Trump explained that he had waited until the storm made landfall to make the announcement, as he was under the assumption that the ratings would be higher, as people were tuned in to keep up with news around the hurricane.

As if this wasn’t ridiculous enough, Border Patrol in Texas issued a statement saying that their checkpoints would remain open during the storm, so long as their officers were safe. As people were making their way from the coastal borderlands and away from the approaching storm, it became clear that Border Patrol was using this opportunity to detain any undocumented people or any migrant who didn’t have the appropriate documentation with them.

How deeply ingrained is this country’s xenophobia that the President of the United States could go on television to announce his pardoning of one of this country’s most infamous racist power-tripping law enforcement officer as a CATEGORY FOUR hurricane was about to make landfall? How terrified is this country of immigrants that we are okay with Border Patrol checkpoints slowing down the process of people arriving to safety from this year’s most destructive storm if it means that a few undocumented people are detained?

This weekend was bad news. Arpaio will not face justice for all the horror that he brought to Maricopa County. Houston cannot seemingly count on 45 for his input to relieve their situation. Border Patrol is cruel and useless. And though this time of year is technically normal and ripe for tropical storms for Texas, they will only get worse as climate change continues to worsen. And as the environment turns against us in these horrible taxing storms, it’s clear that our government has other priorities.

This doesn’t bode well for us.

Art by @juliosalgado83. Blurb written by @eslvis.

#CultureStrike #editorialcartoon #climatechange #hurricaneharvey

Welcome to another @CultureStrike editorial cartoon!

This past Monday, a series of emails between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service were obtained by The Guardian that demonstrate how the Trump administration is dealing with climate change: they are simply changing the language (read more here: bit.ly/biancaeuphemisms).

Bianca Moebius-Clune, the director of soil health, wrote a list of words to avoid using, and offered a list of euphemism instead. “Climate change” became “weather extremes.” “Reduce greenhouse gases” became “build soil organic matter.” “Climate change adaptation” became “resilience to weather extremes.” The list extends to other terms, all reflecting the politics of the Trump’s administration to censor science.

Bianca wrote, “We won’t change the modeling, just how we talk about it… tamp down on discretionary messaging right now.”

The Trump administration is clearly putting politics above science, hoping that by changing the language, the impact of reality won’t be as severe, or that the problem will disappear. It won’t. Given his communications team’s approach to reporting the reality of the white house, changing the language does not alter reality. It just changes a truth into a lie.

But maybe Bianca and the Trump administration are onto something. It’s taken many years for “climate change” to become a part of our lingo, considering the calamities that are forthcoming if big changes aren’t made. But for many people, “climate change” doesn’t encapsulate the real dangers and urgency that it deserves in order to start shifting our culture to address this issue and save ourselves. The Trump administration is taking this issue to heart, but in a very destructive direction.

Maybe “climate change” can be a term that we can retire in the future in favor of a term that is more relevant, truthful, and immediate to our communities. One thing is for sure, though: climate change is real, regardless of what anybody decides to call it.

Artwork by @juliosalgado. Blurb written by @eslvis.

#editorialcartoon #climatejustice #environmentaljustice #climatechange #culturestrike

Check out our third installment of our newly launched podcast, co-hosted by @thechosenlyfe and @eslvis.

bit.ly/cspodcast3 (direct link in our bio)

In this episode, we debrief about: The Breakfast Club’s transphobic radio cast and Janet Mock’s response, Former “Sheriff” Arpaio being found GUILTY, “Pharma Bro” also being found GUILTY of fraud, the Trump administration going after affirmative action in universities on behalf of mediocre white students, some of the White House DRAMA! (The Mooch is GONE! Trump’s leaked transcripts, andTrump Jr.’s rendezvous with Russian ambassador), the introduction of the RAISE Act, and we end the episode with an ode to Cardi B!

Enjoy, please spread the word, and if you’re on Mixcloud, give us a follow! =)

#culturestrike #podcast #talkshow #talkpodcast #socialjustice #racialjustice #immigration

Welcome to another @culturestrike editorial cartoon!

Last week, @newsweek published an article titled “Humans Have Produced 9 Billion Tons of Plastic Throughout History” (to read article: bit.ly/9billiontons). Half of all the plastic ever produced by human kind has been produced in the last 13 years, the vast majority of which people use for a very short time or for single use!

The vast majority of plastic ends up in landfills or somewhere in our environment, particularly in the ocean. One study has found that approximately 270,000 tons of plastic are floating atop the ocean surface, with millions of more tons on the ocean floor!  Of the 9 billion tons of plastic produced, only 9% has ever been recycled.

It takes a significant amount of energy and resources to make plastic. For instance,17 million barrels of oil are used per year to make the bottles for bottled water (enough oil to fill a million cars for one year), and it takes THREE times the water to make a bottle as it does to fill it!

So how do we stop poisoning our environment with plastic so that we don’t end up in a scene like that of “Idiocracy?” Here are five easy cut-backs that you, as an individual, can make to stagnate your reliance on plastic:

1. Stop using plastic straws! 500 million are used and thrown away EACH DAY!

2. Say no to plastic bags at grocery stores! Get you some reusable cloth bags!

3. No more plastic cutlery.

4. NOOO plastic water bottles! Get yourself a reusable water bottle!

5. Ixnay on the styrofoam containers! Styrofoam is not recyclable and is terrible for the environment.

Our reliance on plastic is something in our culture that we can curb. If we don’t, we can very well turn our home into a giant plastic dump, as we definitely have the ability to cover this planet with layers of plastic several times over.

Artwork by @juliosalgado83. Blurb written by @eslvis.

#culturestrike #art4change #climatejustice #environmentaljustice