Creeping Sharia: Norway get first halal hospital

“This morning Ahus hospital and the Islamic Council of Norway (IRN) signed an agreement that ensures that the hospital will serve halal food. Thus, from Monday the hospital will serve several halal meals for their Muslim patients.

The meat will come from Nortura, approved by IRN. The food is also marked with a visible logo from IRN. Ahus is the first hospital in Norway with such approval. Food with halal labelling is intended for Muslim patients.”

http://www.osloby.no/nyheter/Ahus-blir-Norges-forste-halal-sykehus-7215797.html

http://islamversuseurope.blogspot.ca/2013/05/norway-gets-its-first-halal-certified.html

Teenage girl raped on way home to family’s £2.5m mansion by serial offender after getting stranded outside nightclub

  • Arshad Arif raped a 17-year-old as she tried to get home from a night club
  • She borrowed his phone and he put her in a taxi then raped her in a flat
  • The rape bore similarities to another attack he was convicted of in 2004
  • He had been out of prison for just over two years when he carried out the second rape last November

Halal Certification Stamp – Today Tonight (Australia) 07/03/2012

Miami-Dade Police Choke Black Teenager Because He Was Giving Them “Dehumanizing Stares”

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/05/miami-dade_police_choke_black.php

 

Fourteen-year-old Tremaine McMillian didn’t threaten police. He didn’t attack them. He wasn’t armed. All the black teenager did was appear threatening by shooting Miami-Dade police officers a few “dehumanizing stares,” and that was apparently enough for the officers to decide to slam him against the ground and put him in a chokehold.

During Memorial Day weekend, McMillian was rough-housing with another teenager on the sand. Police approached the teen on an ATV and told him that wasn’t acceptable behavior. They asked him where his parents were, but MicMillian attempted to walk away. The officer jumped off the ATV, and tried to physically restrain the teen. According to CBS Miami, police say the 14-year-old kid gave them “‘dehumanizing stares,’ clenched his fists and appeared threatening.”

McMillian says he was carrying a six-week old puppy at the time and couldn’t have been clenching his fists because he was feeding the dog with a bottle. He claims that during the confrontation the dog’s front left paw was injured while officer forcibly separated him from the dog.

The officer then forced McMillian to the ground and put him in a choke hold.

 

the incident was caught on a cell phone video and obtained by CBS Miami.

 

Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta told CBS Miami that McMillian tried to pull away, so that constituted a “threat.” The teen was charged with a felony count of resisting arrest with violence and disorderly conduct. Zabaleta claims with a straight face that flailing one’s arms and clenching one’s fists constitutes a threat, and is not swayed by McMillian’s insistence that all he was doing with his arms was carrying a puppy.

“At that point we are not concerned with a puppy,” Zabaleta told the station. “We are concerned with the threat to the officer.”

American Community Colleges Are Segregated and Unequal

 

 

More than 40% of American college students are enrolled in a community college. The problems facing community colleges resemble the problems facing public schools more than the problems facing larger universities. In particular, racial segregation and inequality.

While large private universities are mostly concerned with how to manage their endowments and cultivate student bodies in their own hand-picked image, community colleges— which accept the majority of applicants, and serve mostly their local areas— have much less control over their own fates. We already know that community colleges as a whole lack adequate funding. And new research papers say that community colleges also face the sort of racial inequality challenges that plague America’s public schools.

Inside Higher Ed reports that only one fourth of community colleges “can be considered racially integrated,” due in large part to the fact that they tend to draw their student bodies from surrounding geographic areas, and America is, you know, still a vastly segregated country. Even if you don’t see segregation itself as a problem, its side effects most surely are:

For example, there are 85 students per staff member at predominantly white colleges, according to the study, and 294 students per staff member at predominantly nonwhite colleges.

Another study of California community colleges found that schools with the highest minority enrollments had the lowest rates of students graduating and transferring to four-year colleges. Why? For one thing, schools with high minority enrollment “typically receive less funding from local governments, according to the study. And state support doesn’t cover that gap.”

It’s certainly not a problem that can be fixed only with money. But it certainly is a problem that can’t be fixed without money. We’ve designed a society in which a college degree is the basic price of admission to a middle class lifestyle. Exclusive, well-funded colleges, by definition, cannot enroll everyone who wants a college degree. Community colleges, therefore, represent the most accessible path to the American dream. We should either fund them and fix them, or change the assumption that a college degree is a basic necessity. Otherwise, community colleges are just the final stop on a lifelong trip of underfunded public educational disappointment for non-white Americans.

http://gawker.com/community-colleges-are-segregated-and-unequal-510089964?utm_source=feedly

A Fetus Is Not a Person if it Costs us Money, Says Catholic Church

January 24, 2013  |
 http://www.alternet.org/belief/fetus-not-person-if-it-costs-us-money-says-catholic-church

You know how the Catholic Church is always going on and on … and  on and freakin’  on … about the sanctity of life and also a bunch of vague concepts about liberty ‘n stuff? We can’t have abortion because every sperm is sacred. We can’t have insurance coverage for women’s health care because  something about Taco Bell and freedom. We can’t even  fund cancer screening because apparently Jesus was cool with women dying of undetected breast cancer.

And all of this—all of it—goes back to the Church’s insistence that life begins with your very first hell-worthy dirty thought and must be protected at all costs, despite all consequences, including, of course, the consequence of dead women, whose lives are not nearly as valuable as the “life” of an unborn fetus. In just the past year, the Church has called upon its faithful followers to march, to starve themselves, to go to jail, to even take up arms—all to protect those fetuses. No exceptions. None. Not if the fetus is already dead inside the womb. Not if the fetus is going to kill the actual living woman carrying it. No goddamned exceptions EVER.

Well, except for one: when it’s going to cost the Church money.

Turns out, when a man sues a Catholic hospital for malpractice because his wife and the twins she was carrying inside her died when she turned up in the emergency room and her doctor never bothered to answer a page—well, things get a little tricky. Yes, the Catholic hospital adheres to the strict Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church, as set forth by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And yes, those directives include the claim that “[t]he Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn” and a mandate to uphold “the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death.'” But come  on. That obviously does not apply when Catholic Health Initiatives, the Church-affiliated organization that runs the Church-affiliated St. Thomas More Hospital where a young woman and her two unborn fetuses died, is the lead defendant in a lawsuit:

Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that  those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

Thank you, counselor, for totally undermining everything the Catholic Church has ever said about women and health care and fetuses and the “sanctity of life,” just to save a buck, thereby confirming how very empty and meaningless all that rhetoric really is. Praise the Lord.

EXCUSE ME? Muslim ‘morality’ police chastise a Canadian woman for her ‘slutty’ attire

this occurred here in Canada

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/05/30/excuse-me-muslim-morality-police-chastise-a-canadian-woman-for-her-slutty-attire/

Italy: Muslim Attacks Sex Shop Then Shouts About the Glory of Islam

French firms see rising religious demands at work

Listing faith-related problems, the new study said some men refused to take orders from a woman boss or shake hands with women and some refused to handle alcohol or pork products.

Other problems include employees wanting to pray or wear religious garb at work. Some employees try to impose their religious standards on colleagues, such as preventing non-observant Muslims from eating at work during Ramadan.

Smaller towns and rural areas had far fewer problems, the study said. Fewer than five percent of human resources managers in the western region of Brittany reported any difficulties.

The survey, conducted by university researchers in Rennes and the international recruitment agency Randstad, was released as French lawmakers prepare new legislation extending strict public service bans on religious garb at work to some private firms.

Unrest rocks Myanmar after woman ‘torched’ by Muslim in unprovoked attack

 

 

Papa John’s drivers fired after leaving racial slur on customer’s voicemail

Two Papa John’s delivery drivers were fired after accidentally butt-dialing a customer and leaving a racist voicemail.

The duo — who worked at the Sanford outlet in Orlando — was heard mocking the man for not leaving a tip.

The angry client posted audio of the message.

Just Beware of the “Just Energy” door-to-door scam [Video]

one came to my door yesterday

The Deerfield Diaries

As the last of this year’s graduates from Algonquin College leave the neighbourhood, and the new crop of students move in, the energy re-sellers looking to take advantage of the newbies flock to the neighbourhood.

If you haven’t already had the “pleasure” of meeting somebody from Just Energy (www.justenergy.com) you will soon be summoned to your front door by a knock, or that obnoxious doorbell we all have and hate. What you will find is a friendly person wanting to talk about your household’s energy consumption and, guess what, how they can save you money! Sounds great right? Wrong. 98% of the people who sign this contract lose money! Here are the stats.

Here’s how it works:
A young, usually attractive, person will visit your house holding a clipboard, binder, or folder and an official piece of ID hanging around their neck, or clipped to their pocket…

View original post 515 more words

Europe’s tolerance tested by Islam

Europe has welcomed immigrants with the idea they would become part of the established culture but some groups are taking advantage of the largess.

HERNDON, Va., May 28 (UPI) — In 1995, herpetologists began observing frogs in the U.S. with various mutations and genetic defects. Suspecting the cause was environmental rather than natural, they launched a decades’ long study linking pesticides and other toxins to disturbing nature’s balance.

If so few herpetologist observers could identify such a dangerous trend evolving and isolate its cause, why then is it so difficult for social scientists to do so concerning human behavior within democracies that is disrupting stability’s natural balance?

A series of articles by author Soeren Kern underscores this trend in Europe.

Switzerland is a land famous for not having had to fight a war for centuries. Generations of its citizens have proven adept getting along with all cultures. With no standing army, it opted instead to provide for its national defense with a people’s militia.

But recently, to enhance public safety, it armed transport police as robberies and assaults on Swiss trains have drastically increased — the crime rate having doubled since early 2011. A society once secure in the warm glow of peaceful human co-existence now suffers from insecurity as 70 percent of voters say they want an increased police presence.

In Sweden this May, riots broke out in Stockholm as hundreds of mostly young people torched vehicles, set fires and threw rocks at police. The unrest spread to 15 other parts of the city with police stations, schools and community centers set on fire.

In London, youth gangs verbally harass passersby. Their main targets are women and gays. But more aggressive gangs warn non-members they intrude on the gang’s turf at their own risk.

Just like herpetologists isolated pollution as disrupting nature’s balance for frogs, the cause for the above changes — ongoing in Switzerland, Sweden, England and elsewhere — is more obvious. A pollutant, again, is at fault — one disrupting security’s natural balance within these democracies.

These countries, long embracing Christianity while welcoming other religions, opened up to Muslim immigrants who have used that openness against them. With Muslim immigrant populations radically growing in these countries, the “guest” is brazenly taking on the role of “host.”

In March, Swiss authorities acknowledged significantly increased recruitment of jihadists and of women being forced into marriage. Muslim gangs have been forcing disadvantaged children to convert to Islam and then sell drugs for them.

Ironically, while indications are otherwise, a governmental study claims all is well. With 5 percent of the Swiss population now Muslim, it downplays Islam-related violence, putting responsibility upon natives to be more accepting, less labeled as Islamophobic.

A Swiss Islamic group, publicly declaring its intentions to impose Shariah law on Switzerland, enthusiastically supported the study’s results. Meanwhile, its critics dismiss the report as a “case study in political correctness.”

As the government soft-pedals Islam’s impact, the natives are getting restless. A recent poll is most telling: 50 percent of those asked say they see Islam as a threat; 58 percent say it doesn’t belong in the Western world; two-thirds say Islam conflicts with their values.

Interestingly, the early 2011 date marking the start of increased criminal activity coincides with Switzerland having opened its doors to a massive influx of Muslim immigrants escaping the Arab Spring’s violence.

Meanwhile, Muslims say others are politically insensitive to their “suffering,” making outrageous charges.

They complained to Swiss Airlines about “offensive” advertising, simply for depicting a plane bearing the Swiss flag’s red and white cross with the words “Cross is Trump” (as in the card game). Outraged Muslims alleged it a “Christian slogan used as a provocation and attack against Islam.” As a Christian symbol, they say the cross “no longer corresponds to today’s multicultural Switzerland.”

Yet they build mosques in Switzerland with defining domes and minarets symbolic of Islam.

Islamic groups report their intention to establish their own parliament in Switzerland based on Shariah. This is an effort to get Shariah’s “nose under the tent” so jurisdiction will grow, initially as a “parallel” system of law but eventually replacing Swiss law.

With the most generous immigration laws in the world, Sweden attracts hundreds of thousands of Muslims — now comprising 5 percent of its population as well.

Offered free housing and welfare benefits, poorly educated immigrants unable to speak Swedish are hard-pressed to find work. While openly accepting such welfare, they criticize their hosts, seeking to impose their own non-productive culture upon them.

Their hosts’ reward for their generosity is the creation no-go zones where non-Muslims are unwelcome. In England, Muslim gangs ban non-Muslims from even walking by a mosque.

If a block representing only 5 percent of Sweden’s population aggressively seeks to impose its culture upon the host majority, one can only imagine what the future holds that minority grows.

What has enabled democracies to survive after opening their doors to immigrants is a willingness to assimilate voluntarily. Because Islam prohibits assimilation, Islamists asserting incompatibility of their religion with democracy are absolutely right.

Thus, the mission of Muslim immigrants becomes one of transitioning the host democratic state into an Islamic one. An Islamic leader, told Sweden historically is a Christian state, commented: “So it was perhaps before … Now it is a new era.”

A similar claim in England met with the response: “This is not a Christian country. To hell with Christianity. Isa [Jesus] was a messenger of Allah … Allah is great! We are coming!”

Swedes, too, now sense Islam’s threat “to destroy the West from within” is real.

A radical imam in England warns: “This is a wake-up call for society to ask ‘Where are we headed?’ There is a clash between Islam and liberal democracy in hotspot areas of London.”

This cleric has led an effort to convert 12 British cities into independent Islamic states. His bravado is motivated by a Muslim population that has doubled and “white British” in London becoming a minority for the first time.

Unbelievably, a British newspaper suggests those concerned about the increasing Muslim population are “Islamophobes.”

Muslim immigrants follow a modus operandi in imposing Islam upon a democratic state’s majority — witness the German government’s recent attempt to hold a conference on German-Muslim relations to engage “moderate” Muslims to combat Islamism.

The government’s concern was Muslim violence becoming endemic in countries like Sweden and Switzerland. Substantive discussion on the matter was sought but attending Muslims became offended at the suggestion Islam could become radical. Instead, they pressed the government to make “Islam equal to Christianity” in Germany.

At the same time Muslims avoided substantive discussions addressing Western concerns, they also suggested they only sought equality with Christianity. Readers of the Koran know it preaches Islam’s superiority to all other religions — thus, equality is a no-go.

A rational non-Muslim call to discuss such concerns is denied by Muslims claiming Islamophobia.

Islam has disrupted stability’s natural balance within Europe’s democracies. It is an intolerant toxin that leaves “freedom’s canary in the mineshaft” gasping for air.

(Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt, a retired Marine infantry officer, served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf War. He is the author of “Bare Feet, Iron Will–Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields,” “Living the Juche Lie: North Korea’s Kim Dynasty” and “Doomsday: Iran–The Clock is Ticking.” He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.)

(United Press International’s “Outside View” commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

 

 

 

 

Why I’m Tired of Being an (Asian) Actor

a theater is hiring a white man to be a chief of a native tribe which is based on Asian and pacific tribes. it’s time Asians stop asking racist theatre companies and racist movie makers for acing jobs.

Why I'm Tired of Being an (Asian) Actor

The Call

So, one day, I got a call for an audition at a Big New York Theater (BNYT).  The character description read:

30s-50s. (actually ageless) The tribal chief of the NaKong of the lost city of Pahatlabong – a very war-like people. Proud of his culture. Very smart and very observant. Truly a fish out of water . . .  he speaks only a few words of English, but picks up on many English customs during the course of the play. MUST BE A GREAT PHYSICAL COMEDIAN.

Okay, great.  A tribal chief.

An indigenous person.

A native.  I could look ‘native’.

“NaKong “ and“Pahatlabong” sound vaguely Pacific. 

Pacific Islander?  I’m Filipino.  Check.

This is great.  There are only a handful of actors I know that could go out for this.  For once, I’m happy I don’t look Chinese.  Very few of my East Asian actor friends…

View original post 2,038 more words

Islam’s War of Annihilation Against India’s Hindus

A thought-provoking essay written by Narain Kataria, president of the Indian American Intellectuals Forum, sounds a familiar alarm. “Hinduism Faces Eclipse” reveals that “the anti-Hindu forces within and without India are working in tandem on an insidious mission to destroy our civilization and culture, and obliterate Hinduism from the Indian soil.” Kataria further contends that Indians are not facing terrorism, but worldwide jihad, which he calls a “fully globalized franchise…working overtime to destroy all non-Muslim nations.”

Muslims currently comprise 20 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population, the rest of which is overwhelmingly Hindu. But as Narain points out, Indian Muslims have engaged in a series of attacks on Hindu citizens, temples, religious festivals and unarmed pilgrims. He reminds us that a month after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, a proclamation was issued on Al Jazeera television promising that “Hindu India” would also be targeted for jihad. Two months after that, a suicide squad assaulted India’s Parliament House in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, killing 9 and wounding 18.

Since then thousands of terror attacks have besieged India. The city of Mumbai alone has been terrorized on four separate occasions. On March 12, 1993, 13 separate explosions in various parts of the city killed 257 and wounded more than 700. Most of the terrorists involved received arms and training in Pakistan, and Indian authorities contend the Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was actively involved as well. On July 11, 2006, a series of pressure-cooker bombs exploded on commuter trains, killing 209 and wounding over 700. Once again, the ISI was involved, along with the Pakistani Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, according to Mumbai police. On November 26, 2008, another wave of terror attacks perpetrated by Muslims targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a tourist restaurant and a crowded train station. Another 166 people were killed and more than 300 were wounded. And on July 13, 2011 three separate bomb blasts killed 26 and injured 130.

As recently as July 2012, riots in the state of Assam initiated by Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh resulted in at least 74 deaths. Several Hindu women were raped and then chopped into pieces during the attacks.

 

more at

 

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/islams-war-of-annihilation-against-hindus/

Tiger is the tip of the iceberg: Fried chicken, monkey chants and bananas in sports

by Stefen Lovelace | May 23, 2013 at 11:33 AM

 

Tiger is the tip of the iceberg: Fried chicken, monkey chants and bananas in sports

 

By now you’ve heard the comment. A noted PGA Tour veteran made an off-color joke about Tiger Woods, referencing fried chicken. After the incident, and the subsequent backlash, the professional backtracked, said he meant the comments in jest, and claimed there was no racist intent. The golf and national media examined the golfer’s comments and motives, and Woods – almost begrudgingly – accepted the golfer’s apology.

The incident I’m referring to happened in 1997, when Fuzzy Zoeller’s poor attempt at a joke led him to say that Woods would serve fried chicken and collard greens at the annual Masters dinner. Sadly, the description also applies to an incident that happened on Tuesday – more than 16 years after Zoeller’s racist comments – when Sergio Garcia cracked that he would serve Woods fried chicken if he had him over for dinner.

These two racist moments – so far apart in timing yet so similar in meaning and context – showcase just how little progress has been made in changing racist perceptions in sports.

Thursday, George O’Grady seemed to make the Garcia episode worse by claiming that most of the golfer’s friends are “colored athletes in the United States.” The Tour has accepted Garcia’s apology.

Other sports are guilty, too

These stereotypes exist in sports such as hockey. The number of black players competing in the National Hockey League is small, but the number of racist incidents seems to grow each season. Philadelphia Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds is often the victim of the more heinous acts.

In a 2011 preseason game in Ontario, Canada, a fan threw a banana onto the ice as Simmonds was attempting a shot during a shootout. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman went out of his way to say that the act was done by one individual and was not representative of Ontario or the millions of other hockey fans.

Yet just sixth months later, Washington Capitals winger Joel Ward scored the game-winning goal in the 2012 Stanley Cup first round playoffs against the Boston Bruins. He didn’t get much congratulations for his performance. Instead he was peppered with racial insults and threats by angry Bruins fans on social media.

And while we’ve made such little progress in the States, overseas the racism towards black players is even more horrifying. Simmonds now plays in the Czech Republic, and in his third game with new team Liberac, he was subject to “monkey” chants by the opposing team’s fans.

Hockey is considered tame in comparison to the national racism that goes on in soccer. Garcia’s comments rightfully dominated the American news cycle this week, but an underreported story happened on Monday, where several top Italian teams are being fined for their fans racist chants at black players. When the vice president of the team that a star black player plays for is making public racist comments, I think it’s safe to say that the sport has a racism problem.

Racist episodes not going away

All of these incidents – most happening in just the last couple of years – showcase a trend of racism in sports that shows no signing of going away. Often black athletes are forced to take the higher road. They accept apologies, say they’re used to this type of abuse, and try to use it as fuel to be better.

But they shouldn’t have to. It’s 2013 and a 33-year-old golfer is still making blatantly racist comments about the most popular golfer in the world. On one hand, it’s deplorable that a thought like that crosses his mind. On the other, it’s shocking that he would even have the audacity to actually voice that opinion publicly.

Woods response to Garcia was perfect. On Twitter, he rightfully called the comment “wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate” but offered Garcia a lifeline by saying he was “confident that there is real regret that the remark was made.” He’s doing his best to condemn the statement, but also begin the process of moving on.

Woods showed incredible grace throughout the whole episode. It’s the type of grace that comes from having to deal with similar situations like this throughout his entire career.

This wasn’t the first time Woods has heard from a colleague that he likes fried chicken because he’s black. And if history holds true, it probably won’t be his last.

Unpaid internships and a culture of privilege are ruining journalism

Rolling Stone magazine drew the ire of journalists across the country last week when the owner, Jann Wenner, named his 22-year-old son, Gus, the head of the magazine’s website. Naturally, this move has been seen as blatant nepotism. Gus has been working on the website for a whopping six months and is, by most accounts, grossly underqualified for his position. Apparently, privilege has no place in journalism, where the playing field is even and journalists are given opportunities based on merit and hard work alone.

If you’re a journalist nodding along with that last paragraph, then answer this question: does your publication use unpaid interns as the prevalent mode of determining full-time jobs? If so, then I’m sorry to inform you that your publication is perpetuating a privilege-based upward mobility, and it’s ruining journalism.

As my classmates and I were finishing up our studies at Northwestern’s graduate school of journalism, we were naturally bombarded with stories and speeches from people who were actually successful in the field. Nine out of 10 had the same story: in order to succeed, you have to take an unpaid internship in New York for months or years; you build your resume and eventually land yourself a job.

One senior member of a leading national magazine when asked how someone could pay the bills to affording life in New York while working a full-time internship famously told us that if we couldn’t pull an unpaid internship off, then we didn’t want to succeed badly enough. When we asked how he pulled it off, he told us about how he lived in his parents’ spare apartment upstate while working his internship.

And therein lies the issue with unpaid internships. The practice of asking recent graduates to spend their days working for free while paying rent and living in a city like New York is a barrier for entry to students from mid- to lower-class backgrounds.

Take these two hypothetical examples: two students, one from a single-parent, lower-class household in Gary, Indiana, and another from a wealthy family living in Worcester, Massachusetts whose parents are willing and able to support. An unpaid internship is much easier to work through for the kid from Worcester, who doesn’t have to worry about earning money with a night job on the side. So many of my classmates decided to just get paying jobs outside of journalism in lieu of slaving away for a couple of years, hoping they’d get a shot at a magazine or website of repute, while classmates with deeper pockets went straight to New York to eat up internships.

All of my classmates were qualified to work in any newsroom or publication in the city, but those who could afford the lifestyle got their feet in the door with internships. Sure, it’s possible for someone to work 40 hours a week without pay while also waiting tables at night, but it sure is easier when you don’t have to worry about earning a living – or paying student loans.

But it’s not like even these “lucky” enough chosen to be unpaid interns have it easy or fair. Oftentimes they work full-time hours without earning any money or receiving any benefits. Even if they perform well at their jobs, there isn’t a guarantee they’ll actually get hired, so there’s no end in sight for their unpaid labor. Basically, publications employ slave labor for people with degrees.

So why should you, the reader, care about unpaid internships for jobs you don’t want? These practices have gone a long way to damage the fabric of journalism, and have changed the way issues are reported and the quality of the product you consume on a daily basis.

Recently, I wrote about how stories of crime in New Orleans or Chicago’s Southside are under-reported on the national level, and one of the reasons is the fact that voices from these areas aren’t making it to the national conversation to influence the direction of national discourse. Media workplaces are becoming populated by those who can afford the jobs. Those who can’t are being shut out.

After the Boston bombings, it seemed like every news station had someone present who could talk about the Boston suburbs. How many outlets had employees at the ready to explain a New Orleans second line, or what it was like growing up during those scary Chicago summers?

As a consumer, I find opinions or perspectives reflecting my own come few and far between. How many journalists can say they have firsthand knowledge of the mentality of someone from the inner-city? Many of these voices have been muted just because they simply can’t navigate the landscape of privilege that most modern journalism encourages.

The journalists who can tell my story – the story of urban or inner-city America – have taken a job in marketing while disseminating their opinions on blogs, which only small portion of the general public ever see. This is a loss to the art of journalism and its ability to tell the whole American story.

Until publications find that more well-rounded reporting is more important than cutting financial corners, they’ll continue to alienate a large portion of the American population, and the stories that lay in the shadows of America’s dark corners will never come to light.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/28/unpaid-internships-privilege-ruin-journalism