Life Mission :)

There’s now a smart menstrual device called my.Flow

Meet my.Flow. It’s not a tampon covered with sensors, but rather a special tampon string connected to a wearable sensor. It will monitor your tampon and send you alerts via an app on your phone. Is this really the best solution to the menstruation problem they’re trying to solve?

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Things brown/south asian tumblr will probably never address:

Antiblackness that actually involves the input of black south asians & black people in general

Ignoring the fact that South Asia is comprised of 8 countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Maldives, and Sri Lanka.

Lack or complete ignorance of north east indian culture and peoples.

Cultural hegemony India tends to have over representing South Asia

Discussion of caste which doesn’t reduce it down to an old practice that doesn’t actively shape an individual’s life in a variety of ways that are not exclusive to socioeconomic struggles.

How the discussion of the South Asian diaspora focuses mainly on those living in the West.

Hindutva

Steve McCurry making a name for himself off of the exploitation and exotification of South Asian faces and bodies (see: Sharbat Gula: known globally merely as “The Afghan Girl”

Ignorance of the issues Adivasi peoples face across South Asia.

Exploitation of the bodies of South Asian women for surrogacy by Westerners.

Savarna appropriation of Avarna arts redeeming it anew with culture now that it’s been mutilated by forward castes. (ie: Appropriation of Sadir into modern day Bharatnatyam)

The creation of good and bad brown/south asian dichotomy in the West Post 9/11 (ie: Indian peoples are characterized/seen as intelligent spiritual peaceful people while Pakistani and Afghani peoples are characterized/seen as violent terrorists or oppressed women who are labeled under islamophobic terms such as “radical muslim”

The lack of discussion about the South Asian diaspora in the Caribbean and South America.

Discrimination against Black African students living in South Asia.

Portrayal of Hinduism & Buddhism as peaceful religions while Islam is portrayed as violent and backwards.

Complete ignorance or writing off of Southern & Northeast Indian cultures by North Indians and Northern South Asians alike as not being authentically Indian or only discussing it when talking about the different regions of India.

Shadeism

How Bollywood has stolen, appropriated, and made racist caricatures of Indians and Non-Indians who are not Savarna North Indians. (See: Chennai Express, blackface meant to represent native Hawaiian peoples seen in the Hawa Hawai song in Mr. India, Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen, etc)

Misogyny and sexual violence against Dalit women.

Erasure of brown skin in South Asian media, replacing brown skinned South Asian women with extremely light skinned South Asian or white women calling them the ideal faces of South Asian womanhood and beauty.

Feel free to add to this

Muslims, dalits and tribals make up 53% of all prisoners in India - The Times of India

Muslims, dalits and adivasis — three of the most vulnerable sections of Indian society — make up more than half of India’s prison population, according to an official report.

“Poverty is more prevalent among these three communities and that becomes an obstacle in dealing with the legal system,” said Colin Gonsalves, human rights activist and lawyer.

“Our system has an ingrained communal and casteist bias. Also, the proportion of these communities in the police officers and even judiciary is less. These are key factors behind this shocking imbalance,” he added.

Planet Series - Beau Wright

It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Cheez-y

Mac N’ Cheez (#bestcatnameever) is a 7-week-old kitten whose hind legs are temporarily paralyzed. So, the good folks at Massapequa Pet Vet built him a “wheelchair” out of K’nex. While they work on his treatment, he gets to scoot around the office on his rad new rig.

Godspeed, Mac N’ Cheez and get well soon.

Travel Sketches of México by Parker Jones

Parker Jones is drawing the Mexican landscape while cycling 3,000 miles south from the US border. Parker Jones is a freelance designer based in Lake City , Utah. 

You can see more of his work on Instagram or his website.

Life in Technicolor: Glasses for the colorblind

With so much of our world color-coded, life can be quite tricky without the ability to see the full range of the rainbow.

For the 13 million Americans (and 300 million people worldwide) with color vision deficiency or blindness, living with the inability to detect red, blue, green or a mixture of these colors means having to learn to discern traffic lights or subways lines based on order and patterns rather than color, or having to ask someone whether the piece of meat they’re about to ingest is actually well-done.

However, EnChroma, one of several emerging startups founded by University of California alums, is changing the way people with color vision deficiency experience the world. They make eyewear that corrects for the most common color blindness. 

According to Marc Levin, a neuro-ophthalmologist at UCSF, the lenses work by changing how light is received by the brain for those whose eyes lack sensitivity to red and green light wavelengths. It filters out light that the red and green light-absorbing molecules/photopigments in our eyes sense most similarly. This helps the brain receive more distinct color wavelength information.

While their glasses currently only work for people with red-green color blindness, the company hopes to eventually create lenses that will also help individuals with more severe color vision deficiencies.

GIF source: Valspar Paint

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Watch: John Cena continues, “So, let’s try this one more time. Close your eyes.” 

Leslie Odom Jr. discusses diversity at The Hollywood Reporter’s 2016 Tony Award Roundtable