Amplify has the stories you need to hear! With so many great contributors from all over the world, you definitely don’t want you to miss out on the top insightful and informative stories of the week. Check in each week for a list of must-read posts. Whether it’s a national story or a individual experience, these are the issues you care about!

May 6- May 12

Stats this week: 19 blogs by 13 writers

My Love Letter to You on the Third Day of Motherhood- by Amplify_Staff

Inside this post:

Please don’t allow their way of doing things to influence how you define yourself as a mother. Please remember that motherhood is not defined by marital status, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. Society (and in my experience other mothers and teachers) will lead you to believe differently. But motherhood is an equal opportunity that welcomes anyone with the desire to care for and love a child.

Philadelphia's Equality Forum is a yearly event happening at the end of April/early May each year in which various workshops are done, culminating in a Sunday social event at the Piazza in Northern Liberties. Due to other commitments, I was unable to attend most workshops, however, I was able to attend three on Saturday.

The @ symbol does just that by challenging a gender binary and dichotomy that has been implemented to privilege men, masculinity, and maleness especially in romance languages such as Spanish. It is also inclusive of our transgender and gender queer community who are often excluded and omitted on a regular basis.

by Bianca Laureano

Last year Hip Hop is for Lovers (HH4L) became a live broadcast online. Since then, the expansion and attention HH4L has received is phenomenal. This is expected as the two women who are the driving force, creative energy, and developers of the series are fantastic. I asked Uche and Lenée if I could feature them for the Media Maker’s Salon as their form of media is one that is so accessible! They agreed. I should share that Lenée and I are homegirls, chosen family and that I am a regular listener, tweeter, and fan of HH4L.

Uche and Lenée both identify as 30 something Black women from the US who are English speaking. Lenée identifies as a “queer working class, anti-academic and Spanglish speaking” Black woman and Uche as a “hetero” African American woman. Their identities are important because this impacts the media they create, conversations they have, and education they provide on HH4L.

What is HH4L? When and where did it begin?

Uche: Hiphopis4Lovers.com conception came from a conversation. First it was a microblog on tumblr and was almost a mixtape but now its a full on radio show and now
budding network. We discuss Love, Sex, intimacy and Hip Hop Music every
Wednesday 8pm-10pm and we have The XD Experience every Thursday
9pm-11pm.

What was the motivation for beginning HH4L? What are some goals you have for the project/program?

Uche: The Motivation for HH4L in the beginning was to create a space where people we could talk about sex and Hip Hop in a real adult way. To address the issues in intimacy and sex that the hip hop generations faces on a daily basis.

My ultimate goal would be to change the culture of how sexuality, sex and intimacy is viewed, and discussed in the culture of Hip Hop. To create a space for adults who still engage in the culture of Hip Hop to deal with issues facing them in their personal lives.

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Thursday, May 17 Is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia!
A day to put LGBT rights on the global agenda

It is well-known that the LGBT community continues to face discrimination, stigma, and violence worldwide. No less than 76 countries around the world still consider homosexuality illegal and in 5 of them, homosexual acts are punishable by death. In almost all countries, transphobic laws limit the freedom not to act as socially determined by one person's sex at birth.

May 17th provides an opportunity to pay tribute to the progress that has been made towards achieving LGBT rights as well as to draw attention to the persisting and unacceptable inequities still affecting LGBT people around the world and how this impacts LGBT youth in particular.

Now, it's your turn to raise your voice!

From May 16 to 18, Amplify will host the FIRST International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia Blogathon.

You can commemorate International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) by sharing your thoughts on Amplify! Here are some questions to help you think about what you might want to write.

• What is it like for LGBT youth in your country?
• Do they have education, sexual and reproductive health services, and economic opportunities? Why or why not?
• What do you see as priorities for advancing LGBT youth rights in your country?
• How can LGBT youth be sustainable agents of change? Tell others about your own or other young people's efforts to improve the rights of LGBT youth.

Join Amplify and write a blog post for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia!

You can also check out the office International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia website at www.DayAgainstHomophobia.org

Want to spread the word? Connect with youth activists worldwide through new media:

• Like the IDAHO Facebook Page.
• Follow @IDAHOMOPHOBIA on Twitter to get the latest news, events, and resources.
• Watch the IDAHO YouTube videos from across the world.
• Subscribe to the IDAHO RSS feed.

Additional Resources:

• Click here to learn more about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) rights.
• Click here to read more about LGBT rights in the Caribbean.
• Click here to download GLBTQ-related publications and pamphlets from AdvocatesForYouth.org.

Advocates for Youth is proud to join a coalition of organizations participating in Strong Families’ Mama’s Day 2012 — a campaign to lift up and celebrate the mamas and others among us who do the amazing, inspiring, and often grueling work of raising our kids and anchoring our families.

Mama’s Day is a way to build a new definition of mamahood – a diverse collection of voices to explore and appreciate the complexities of building our families - beyond just Sunday brunch once a year. As Strong Families explains:

We are all engaged in families and communities in motion--from immigration status to sexuality and gender, from health and ability to disability and transformation. Day to day, the most constant thing is a commitment to figuring it out.

We wanted a way to recognize the day that would bring us back to it's roots. Originally a cry against the Civil War, Mother's Day was meant to be a radical revisioning of what is possible when you put mothers at the center of things.

From now through Mother's Day, our blog will feature posts by mamas on an amazing range of topics, from nursing and working, to being pregnant while gender queer, to race, immigration and mamahood. Click here to learn more and get involved.

“My name is Sandra Lubian.I am 18-years-old and a senior in high school, and I have a 9-month-old baby named Adrian Giovanni. He has to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I first found out I was pregnant on my 17th birthday. My boyfriend at the time and I didn't know what we were going to do, and we especially didn't know how we were going to tell our parents. I mean we didn't know what we would need to raise a child, especially since we were still children ourselves…”

“Who knew that your heart could expand this much and feel so overwhelmed with love and joy? I know; it feels wonderful and extremely scary at the same time. To hold this little one in your arms and feel the awe of the beauty and perfection that is your son. You helped to create this wonderful being. And now you have the honor, privilege, and the responsibility to care for, nurture, teach, love, discipline, and guide him for the rest of your life. Terror is right on the cusp, as you hold your son tighter with the vow to protect this special little boy with all of your being; because you know that as the mother of an African American male, that your protective instincts will be called upon sooner than you would like.

I know that your initial instinct will be to try to shield him from all that is ugly and unjust, but you know that will be impossible. You can’t keep him locked up from the challenges, ignorance, and fear that he will face because of the color of his skin. I wish that I could have given you this letter the day that we were preparing to take him home, but it has taken me 15 years of motherhood to figure this out for us. The only thing that you can do is to love him, teach him, trust him, and let him go (and I have so much more yet to learn).”

by Bianca Laureano

“So if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.”

Gloria Anzaldúa, “How To Tame The Wild Tongue” in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 2007. pg. 59.

Earlier this week I created a post on The LatiNegr@s Project about our use of the @ symbol. It stemmed from a question about if this was an appropriate term and form to use in a academic paper by a student in college. I was humbled and thankful to be asked this question and responded by providing this statement so the student could have a citation to support their use of the @ symbol.

Since writing that post many folks have had something to say and shared an opinion. For those of you uncertain about how Tumblr works, you can look to the bottom of the page and see who has responded and in what way, sometimes clicking on a person who has “reblogged” the statement can also show more input. I’ll get into some of their suggestions and thoughts in a moment. Before that I want to make a few things clear: The post I wrote was specific to LatiNegr@s. It discussed the code-switching that occurs, as a first language for some of us, in our daily lives and among LatiNegr@s. As a result, many comments and suggestions asked about other ethnic and racial groups using the @ symbol. I think this is fantastic!

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Yesterday, in an exclusive interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, President Obama announced his personal support for same-sex marriage and discussed his journey to acceptance.  He observed that changing attitudes among young people had contributed to his own change:

“It’s interesting, some of this is also generational,” the president continued. “You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same sex equality or, you know, sexual orientation that they believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it.

You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”

This post is a contribution to Strong Families' Mama's Day 2012 — a campaign to lift up and celebrate the mamas and others among us who do the amazing, inspiring, and often grueling work of raising our kids and anchoring our families. Click here to learn more and get involved.

My name is Sandra Lubian.

I am 18-years-old and a senior in high school, and I have a 9-month-old baby named Adrian Giovanni. He has to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I first found out I was pregnant on my 17th birthday. My boyfriend at the time and I didn't know what we were going to do, and we especially didn't know how we were going to tell our parents. I mean we didn't know what we would need to raise a child, especially since we were still children ourselves. We went through a series of trials while I was pregnant. School seemed kind of hard — walking around getting glares from people I didn't even know, trying to stay awake during all my classes and keeping up with all my school work, even though I was exhausted.

When some of my friends found out that I was pregnant, some started putting me aside. I didn't know that it was going to be like that. I think many girls don't realize that these things happen when you get pregnant. Lucky enough for me, my baby's father, (my boyfriend), stuck around and helped me through everything. He proposed to me on New Year’s, and a month later after Valentine’s Day we got married. After we got married a lot of people would tell us negative facts about how teen parents that get married don’t last the first year together. Beating the odds, we have now been married for a-year-and-half now and still going strong.

I know that I was very lucky that my husband stayed with me, and I am one of the few of my mother friends that do have that support of a husband. I kept going to school and finished my junior year without any problems. I missed no days of school and aced all my EOCs. When summer came, it didn't even feel like summer. I spent most my days inside because it was so hot and sticky. While the rest of my friends went out, traveled, and did whatever they wanted, I was just stuck at home with my little belly watching TV and eating. I was no longer apart of the social life I once was. I wasn’t invited to any of their pool parties, no more sleep overs, or summer events that I used to attend every summer. My whole life seemed like it had been altered to another universe, but that was nothing compared to what changed my life forever in July!

At end of July after waiting anxiously for 37-and-a-half weeks, and eight hours and fifteen minutes of labor my beautiful son was born. It had to be the most amazing moment in my life, to see this precious little boy that had been growing inside of me these past few months. After I had him I immediately started texting everyone in my phone to tell them that my baby boy had been born. After texting what seemed like a million people, I only got five responses for the people I texted. This moment in my life is also where I realized who really my true friends were. Those same people who came were the only ones that would always text me to see how I was doing my whole pregnancy. I learned then that I would have people come in and out of my life all the time and that the only people I would ever be able to depend on would be my family. That day was one of the toughest for me; feeling depressed about how I once was everyone’s best friend, yet no one really cared about their “BEST FRIEND” anymore ever since she had a baby.

As tough as it was I learned a life lesson and moved on quickly to filling the mother role. Having a baby at a young age is not necessarily a bad thing; it has helped me to mature and open my eyes more to see the reality of life. I have learned to think as an adult and be responsible not only for myself but also for my husband and son. Being a mother will always be a blessing, no matter what situation, whether you’re young or old, single or married, whatever race you are, you will always be appreciated for the sacrifices that you have done to provide to your family.

Republicans have gotten their briefs in a twist about Democrats trying to update the Violence Against Women Act to be inclusive of Native American and LGBT survivors of violence and to make it easier and safer for undocumented survivors to report abuse. Unsurprisingly, Congressional Republicans- being unable to overcome their misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia- have come up with their own version of the bill in an attempt to save face. What makes the House GOP version so gross is that aside from ignoring the needs of Native American and LGBT survivors, their bill would allow immigration officers to inform the abusers that their partner has reported them for domestic or sexual abuse and are applying for immigration status, putting them at risk for further or increased violence.

As VAWA is currently written, undocumented spouses of American citizens or legal residents who are experiencing abuse are able to discretely self-petition for a U-visa, a form of legal residency that will allow them a pathway to citizenship. This process is handled by a branch of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, based in Vermont. Their staff are “highly trained in secrecy and in dealing with domestic violence situations.” The ability of undocumented survivors to self-petition protects them not only from additional violence, but from their abusers using their immigration status as a form of control to continue the abuse. There is also a provision that allows undocumented witnesses of the abuse to apply for a U-visa if police or prosecutors can certify that they were helpful to the case.

The Republican proposal for VAWA is drastically different. Their version requires that instead of working with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, undocumented survivors must contact their closest immigration office. These officers, who are not specifically trained to handle domestic violence cases, would be permitted to inform and question the abuser while their partner is self-petitioning for a U-visa. There would also be a 60-day limit on the time a survivor has to report the abuse to immigration authorities. Proving the abuse would also be much more difficult, as the requirement of “a preponderance of evidence” (most likely true) would be increased to “clear and convincing evidence” (obviously true), and undocumented witnesses who are granted U-visas would not be permitted a path to citizenship.

Expecting the undocumented to rely on the kindness of local immigration enforcement officers- especially in states such as Arizona with racial profiling laws like SB 1070- is practically the same as expecting them to not report the abuse at all. The 60-day time restriction is problematic for two reasons; One, it assumes that reporting domestic violence is easy, and something that is generally recognized and acted upon quickly; and two, they’ve ordered that U-visas for witnesses only be made available while the case is open- which puts police and prosecutors at a disadvantage from offering their certification for fear that once they receive the U-visa the witness will be less inclined to involve themselves in assisting the case.

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This post is a contribution to Strong Families' Mama's Day 2012 — a campaign to lift up and celebrate the mamas and others among us who do the amazing, inspiring, and often grueling work of raising our kids and anchoring our families. Click here to learn more and get involved.

By Ebony Ross, Advocates for Youth

Who knew that your heart could expand this much and feel so overwhelmed with love and joy? I know; it feels wonderful and extremely scary at the same time. To hold this little one in your arms and feel the awe of the beauty and perfection that is your son. You helped to create this wonderful being. And now you have the honor, privilege, and the responsibility to care for, nurture, teach, love, discipline, and guide him for the rest of your life. Terror is right on the cusp, as you hold your son tighter with the vow to protect this special little boy with all of your being; because you know that as the mother of an African American male, that your protective instincts will be called upon sooner than you would like.

I know that your initial instinct will be to try to shield him from all that is ugly and unjust, but you know that will be impossible. You can’t keep him locked up from the challenges, ignorance, and fear that he will face because of the color of his skin. I wish that I could have given you this letter the day that we were preparing to take him home, but it has taken me 15 years of motherhood to figure this out for us. The only thing that you can do is to love him, teach him, trust him, and let him go (and I have so much more yet to learn).

On this third day you are wondering about the kind of mother you will be. You are a single, 25-year old mother, and even though you thought that you were ready; after all, you finished college and have your first professional job; you know that you have so much to learn, and no one in your inner circle to turn to for guidance. So you will attempt to reach out to the other mothers (all of them at least 10 years older) at day care and eventually PTA. But most of those mothers will unfortunately be so focused on being the “best” mom and instead of offering you support and guidance, will instead judge and reproach your ideas and way of doing things. They will harp on how they don’t allow their children to eat sugar (ever), and that they only purchase organic fruits and vegetables from their farmer’s market, that their children’s play dates are scheduled from now until they begin their private pre-kindergarten classes that they have been waitlisted for since their second week of pregnancy, and will look at you like you are an abusive parent because your newborn doesn’t have a resume. Please don’t allow their way of doing things to influence how you define yourself as a mother. Please remember that motherhood is not defined by marital status, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. Society (and in my experience other mothers and teachers) will lead you to believe differently. But motherhood is an equal opportunity that welcomes anyone with the desire to care for and love a child.

You, my friend, love your son; trust your gut. You know what feels right. You are a natural at this. If scheduling your son’s every moment for the first 18 years of his life doesn’t feel right to you (and it doesn’t), then find a different way of doing things that feel right for the way that you want to live. Continue reading and seeking like-minded people that believe in the intellectual, spiritual, and nurturing development of your son. Don’t pay attention to the naysayers and ridiculous articles that blame single mothers for an array of societal challenges – because these people obviously have never sat down and really talked to a single mother about the challenges that they address head-on and win on a daily basis. The work that you are doing as a mother is so much bigger than those articles and the hate espoused by extreme conservatives that are trying to shame you for being the super hero that you are.

Instead, tuck in your cape, put your wand in your diaper bag, and keep it moving. You have so many more important things to focus on than how people are judging you. You have a son that is depending on you to prepare him for his contribution to this world. As you continue to grow as a woman and a mother, remember to reach out to and be receptive to other mothers that are seeking the guidance and support that you so desperately sought early on. Be kind, open and giving. Share what you can and be open to learning from them. I am 15 years in, and I am still asking questions, seeking answers and doing whatever I can to give my son the best that I can to prepare him to become the man that I know that he has the potential to be. The love is constant; the terror ebbs and flows. Just keep loving him, trusting your gut, and let go a little bit more each year.

Love,
You