Author Archives: WilhemiBanniste

GOP Candidate: Mitt Romney’s "47 Percent" Remarks Are Even More True Today

Mother Jones

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A GOP House candidate in Nevada has been caught on tape telling a crowd at a fundraiser that Mitt Romney was right to say that 47 percent of the country mooch off the government. Cresent Hardy, the Republican candidate for Nevada’s 4th district, added that since 2012, when Romney made his remarks, the “47 percent” has only grown.

“Can I say that without getting in trouble, like Governor Romney?” Hardy said, at a fundraiser held last Thursday at the Falcon Ridge Golf Club. “The 47 percent is true. It’s bigger now.”

Hardy’s remarks refer to the leaked video of Mitt Romney telling donors, behind closed doors, that 47 percent of the country are people “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.” The video was released by Mother Jones.

At last week’s fundraiser, Hardy reportedly blamed the country’s troubles on women, minorities, and young voters, since those groups voted for the president in large numbers. Jon Ralston, a top Nevada political commentator, reported Hardy’s comments on his show last night.

This is not the first time Hardy has disparaged voters on the campaign trail. A video posted by the Nevada Democratic Party in February shows Hardy claiming that people in “welfare districts” drive Escalades—a callback to the “welfare queens” trope of the 1980s.

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GOP Candidate: Mitt Romney’s "47 Percent" Remarks Are Even More True Today

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New Photobook Documents the Travails of Transgender Cubans

Mother Jones

Malu with her parents and sister, in front of their home. Mariette Pathy Allen

Of all the allies in the global fight for LGBT equality, Cuba may be the most unlikely. For decades, the island was notorious for its crackdown on “social deviants”—an underclass that included homosexuals, transgender people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and anyone critical of the Castro regime. The 1960’s were especially bleak. Deemed unfit for the revolution, gay Cubans were banned from joining the military or becoming teachers. Thousands were confined to isolated labor camps. Conditions deteriorated further in the ’80s and ’90s as Cuba quarantined HIV-positive citizens, many of whom were gay.

Mariette Pathy Allen’s new photobook, TransCuba (Daylight Books), captures a country slowly outgrowing its history of persecution. Shot in 2012 and 2013, the book is haunted by the trauma inflicted by Fidel Castro’s government. But it is optimistic about life under his brother, Raúl, who assumed the presidency in 2008. Since the change in power, Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health has approved state-funded sex reassignment surgery, and the government has relaxed many discriminatory policies targeting sexual orientation and gender. In 2012, Adela Hernandez became the country’s first openly transgender person elected to public office. Perhaps most shockingly, in a 2010 interview with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Fidel Castro called his decision to imprison homosexuals in the 1960’s “a great injustice….I’m not going to place the blame on others,” Castro said, “We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death.”

Despite its progressive reforms, Cuba continues to have serious problems, particularly with transgender rights. “I see transgender Cubans as a metaphor for Cuba itself: people living between genders in a country moving between doctrines,” Allen writes. The women she documents are grateful for the increasing tolerance, but they still suffer from entrenched stigmas. Natalie, for example, was denied a factory job because of her appearance. She began hooking to make ends meet, and picked up HIV at age 18. She also had a run-in with police that escalated, at which point an officer “hit her until he didn’t feel like it anymore.” She was imprisoned for inciting violence.

Allen’s other protagonists share similar tales of woe. Amanda, a 36-year-old prostitute with HIV, tried twice to get to the United States, and twice failed. She was taken to Guantánamo Bay, where she begged her English-speaking captors to return her to the streets of Havana.

Another subject, Alsola, spent two years studying psychology and medicine at a school in Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second largest city. School policy mandated that students respect the dress code of their birth gender, so she dropped out rather than conform. “My life is nothing special,” she says now.

Allen’s portraits are moving proof to the contrary. TransCuba follows her two previous photobooks—Transformations (1989) and The Gender Frontier (2003)—capping a loose trilogy that is one of contemporary photography’s most poignant explorations of gender identity. Her portraits, whether shot in Cuba or the United States, remind us that looking is a political act, and seeing a revolutionary one. Although Allen’s subjects face the camera instead of a jury or a firing squad, their expressions bear the same frank entreaty for compassion. To quote Yanet, another Allen subject: “We all have implausible dreams, things that make no sense, we all have fantasies.” TransCuba is a testament to the difficult, intoxicating, sometimes tragic work of realizing who we are.

Alsola, Santiago de Cuba Mariette Pathy Allen

Charito at home with her week-old piglet, Camagüey. Mariette Pathy Allen

Paloma with her boyfriend at Mi Cayito beach, near Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

Partners Nomi and Miguel at Malu’s apartment, Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

Laura at home, Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

Erika at home, Cienfuegos. Mariette Pathy Allen

The view from Natalie’s window in Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

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New Photobook Documents the Travails of Transgender Cubans

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