This is a round-up

The Independent - Caring costs - but so do riots

"It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped."

Barbara Ehrenreich for CiF - How America criminalised poverty 
  
"In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalisation of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty. So concludes a recent study from the National Law Centre on Poverty and Homelessness, which finds that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with the harassment of the poor for more "neutral" infractions like jaywalking, littering, or carrying an open container."

Ekklesia - Rich thugs, poor thugs  

"I oppose the corporations who have looted the treasury through their tax avoidance, the bankers who assaulted society through the financial crash and the arms dealers who profit from selling weapons to tyrants. I oppose Cameron, Clegg and their gang of thugs who are launching a daily assault on the poorest members of society with their vicious cuts to public services and the welfare state."

Rachel Held Evans - My story is more interesting than that  

"I am not a supporting character in a story that a man is writing. 
My story is more interesting than that. 

I am not defined by my sexuality, my past, my marital status, or my body. 
My story is more interesting than that. 

I have not cried into my pillow waiting for someone else to give me purpose and direction in life. 
My story is more interesting than that." 

Elizabeth Esther - How to live a good love story: a top-eleven list for my daughters 

"1. Avoid advice from middle-aged, unmarried men who have yet to live one successful love story. 
2. Be wary of the man who always refers to women as “girls.”..."

Another Angry Woman - When not reporting a rape seems like a sensible option  

"Layla Ibrahim was attacked and raped by two men. She was courageous enough to report this to the police, even though the police had a track record of repeatedly arresting her twelve year old brother and failing her sister after a beating, due to being a mixed-race family in a predominately white area. Despite overwhelming forensic evidence, the police chose not to believe Layla. She was sent to prison for three years."

The F Word - When we are very wrong  

"We must always respect the lived experience of those we have privilege over, and take note when they take the time to tell us about it. So if a black woman challenges something racist said by a white woman, or a disabled woman challenges a disablist attitude, or a working class woman challenges middle class privilege, it is time to listen."

Thought Catalog - Surviving an 80s childhood  

"If you survived a childhood in the 80s, you’re probably starting to feel a bit long in the tooth, even though you’re not really. You just can’t help feeling old when you’re at a bar and you meet someone who was born in 1993. If you survived a childhood in the 80s, you may, from time to time, wonder what growing up with an iPhone, Katy Perry and the Internet must be like, and how you survived without all the things that seem so intrinsic to your survival now." 

Thought Catalog - Surviving a 90s puberty

"You wish could still throw your phone against a wall and it wouldn’t break. You miss how everything was riddled with layers of meaning, and you probably have a secret yearning for the earnestness of the decade that defined your coming of age. You revel in having grown up through the 90s, because it’s sort of like being part of a secret, special club that no one understands except the ones that were there with you, and even still they don’t really understand you; because despite your cynicism, you still hold onto a scrap of that poor, tortured, isolated, misunderstood soul a puberty in the 90s gave you."

Cosmopolitics - Fundamentally fearful fashion


"What’s ‘fun’ or ‘fearless’ (hah!) about feeling unable to wear even a loose, opaque, drapy garment without an expensive, uncomfortable underdress to control your unacceptable (and entirely natural) curves? Curves which you’re elsewhere instructed to ‘flaunt’: wearing nothing but a bra (‘be sure to flaunt the cutest of bras!’ Let’s infantilise feminine sexuality!) and an unbuttoned cardi, apparently, is a good idea."