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–Francesca Menes is a rising star in Florida politics.
-She was recently named as the Treasurer for the Florida Democratic Party and has long been an immigration rights activist.
-Her well run campaign for Florida House District 108 has some wondering what her political future is, but she hasn’t figured that out yet.
A nine-year career and numerous accolades including the Miami Herald’s “20 Under 40 Emerging Leaders in South Florida” award, already follow 32-year-old Haitian-American activist Francesca Menes.
And after a strong but ultimately unsuccessful campaign for State Representative in District 108 last year, many in local political circles are wondering what the future is for the millennial leader.
Born to Haitian immigrants in Miami, Menes saw from a young age what public involvement can do for the causes that she cared about.
“One of the first protests that my mother took me to that I can remember was when the coup happened in Haiti for Aristide,” Menes said in an interview with RISE NEWS. “Fifty-Fourth street was shut down with hundreds and thousands of Haitians, who were basically singing in the street ‘democracy, democracy for Haiti.’”
Growing up in Miami, though, Menes remembers not interacting with other groups besides her fellow Haitian-Americans.
She said that Miami, despite being a melting pot of many cultures, is still segregated — Cuban-Americans are in Little Havana and Haitian-Americans are in Little Haiti.
That’s something she has always tried to change.
First at Edison Senior High School in Miami, and after her family moved to Kansas City, the Central Classical Greek and Computers Unlimited Magnet High School, Menes was involved in debate and remembers learning about and debating many different issues.
“That is what helped solidified me in many ways was seeing how we can debate both sides of an issue, and actually try to push something for our communities,” Menes said.
That appreciation for debate continued at Florida International University where Menes became involved in on-campus progressive groups.
The child of Haitian immigrants, Menes views the issue as a calling for herself.
“Being in college, I was part of that radical feminist group that just wanted to shut everything down,” Menes said. “We weren’t happy with the way FIU was operating, how they were completely out of loop, and how conservative the university was.”
After graduating from FIU in 2008 with a Bachelor’s degree in political science and women’s studies with a minor in philosophy, Menes served two years through AmeriCorps in the Public Allies program at Catalyst Miami, which according to Menes’ website “focuses on developing the next generation of leaders who are committed to long-term social change.”
Immigration law and enforcement is now an issue at the forefront of American public discourse, and President Donald Trump has made it one of his priorities.
The Trump Administration recently announced that it would be ending Temporary Protected Status for nearly 60,000 Haitians who currently live in the United States.
That means that those people will either have to fix their immigration status by July 2019 or risk deportation.
The child of Haitian immigrants, Menes views the issue as a calling for herself.
She has worked as the Policy and Advocacy Director for the Florida Immigration Coalition for multiple years. In that role, she helped push the state legislature to grant in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.
Menes has certainly caught the eye of more established members of the Haitian-American political firmament.
“It is always amazing to me because, and I saw this working in Tallahassee, there is this conservative wing that is like ‘small government is better.’ And the more power that is at the local level the better,” Menes said. “What I learned over time is that it benefits them. If you are going to protect your communities and we [the Trump Administration] don’t like the way you are going to protect them, we are going to take away the ways to protect them, and that is basically what Trump attempted to do even though it was challenged over and over in the courts.”
While she may sound like a candidate, Menes is currently not considering running for office.
Menes said that it was members of her community who pushed her to run in 2016 for the Florida House of Representatives in District 108 (an area that includes Little Haiti, Liberty City, Miami Shores, and large parts of North Miami).
She ultimately lost to Roy Hardemon in the seven-way Democratic primary.
In the aftermath of her strong electoral showing and the decimation of the Florida Democratic Party in 2016, Menes was picked to be the Treasurer for the state party.
“At the moment I do not have a yes or no answer [whether or not I am going to run for office again] because when I decided to run it wasn’t me it was a community that asked me to run, and I had that support system behind me to know that I wasn’t going into this alone,” Menes said.
But Menes has certainly caught the eye of more established members of the Haitian-American political firmament.
Marleine Bastien, the executive director of FANM, whose mission, according to their website is to “empower Haitian women and their families socially, politically and facilitate their adjustments to South Florida,” recommended Menes for the Miami Herald’s “20 Under 40 Emerging Leaders in South Florida” because of her hard work and dedication to helping all immigrants.
“Her work has benefited immigrants in general, especially what she had done at FLIC,” Bastien said in a piece published by the Herald. “Anti-immigration laws have been defeated in Tallahassee because of her no nonsense leadership, and hard work. ”
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Is Bumble Really More Empowering For Women Than Tinder?
Finding true love just got easier due to the latest trend of dating apps available on smart phones.
Users are literally finger tips away from connecting with the right person, but who will make the first move?
There is a broad range of dating app, such as OK Cupid and Tinder, but the app that caught my attention was Bumble, often referred to by many as the “feminist app.”
It works just like any other dating app, where users set up a profile of themselves and swipe right if they have an interest in someone.
But here’s the catch, women make the first move.
Men and women both make their own connections, but once a connection is made, women only have a span of 24 hours to initiate a conversation before the connection disappears.
Then men only have 24 hours to respond to that first move by the woman.
But is the ability to make the first move more empowering for women?
For many yes, women have the control in this scenario, making men wait by the phone for the first response.
It is a total inversion of the typical dating app experience in that way.
Women at a Bumble event in Melbourne, Australia. Photo Credit: Bumble/ Facebook
Women have men wrapped around their fingers waiting for that first text message.
Dating is not easy and having the courage to be the first one to reach out to a possible connection can boost the confidence of many women.
Bumble changes the stereotypical role of waiting three days for the guy to call, pushing for women to take action within a 24 hour time frame.
For others, being the first to say “Hello” is easier said than done.
For those too shy to make the first move then have a limited time frame before the connection is lost.
There is pressure to initiate the conversation, which for many can feel more disappointing than empowering.
Some simply have no idea what to say, which happens sometimes, and that should be okay.
Everyone has different experiences with dating apps, both good and bad, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Many women have reported good feedback from using Bumble and have had good conversations with their connections from going on dates to just establishing friendships.
That is the beauty of dating apps you have control to choose the person you want to have a connection with, and Bumble offers a different perspective on who makes the first move.
There is no instruction manual or rule book to follow when it comes to finding love, and everyone is entitled to go about that journey the way they choose.
So is Bumble more empowering for women than Tinder?
It certainly has the potential to be.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Bumble/ Facebook
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No Internet, Leonardo Dicaprio Did Not Get Raped By A Bear
Despite reports to the contrary, world renowned actor and philanthropist Leonardo Dicaprio did not get raped by a bear in his new film The Revenant.
Drudge Report had exclusively reported that the actor’s character was raped twice by a bear in the survivor film set in the 1820s.
“The bear flips Leo over and thrusts and thrusts during the explicit mauling.
‘He is raped — twice!'”
This of course is not even close to being true according to Fox, the studio that produced the picture.“There is clearly no rape scene with a bear,” A Fox statement obtained by The New Republic said.The film centers around the life of Hugh Glass, a real life explorer who was brutally mauled by a bear and left for dead. Glass survived the attack after a harrowing 200 mile journey to the nearest American outpost.
WATCH: Trailer for The Revenant.
Cover Photo Credit: Youtube (Fox)/ Screengrab
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For All The People That Think “Locker Room Talk” Is No Big Deal- Just Read This
The following piece was originally posted on Facebook. We have republished it here with the permission of the author.
By Ashley Draper Sanchez
Many people who know me now, don’t know about or have only heard me tell of my days as a teenager with extremely large breasts.
My first memory of realizing my body was different than others was in the 5th grade.
My teacher handed me a note and told me to give it to my parents, and not to read it. Of course the very first chance I got, I tore it open.
It was a letter from my teacher, asking my mother to please take me to get a bra as my playtime in PE had become “distracting” for everyone else.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was excited to need a bra! Even at the age of eleven I knew that a bra meant womanhood-maturity!
I was always an older soul in a little body and thought that this would be a step towards being taken more seriously. That night we ventured to the local department store, and I’ll always remember the size of my very first bra; 32 B. I remember my mom being shocked. My physical development had seemed to happen overnight. I blame the hormones in the milk
We drove home and as soon as we got there, I ran to my room and put it on. I turned to face my baby pink full length mirror hung on teddy bear wallpaper.
I looked at myself, thinking “I look like the ladies in the magazines!” I smiled widely. As a 5th grader I felt a sense of worth in my appearance.
I want you to let that sink in and think about it for a moment.
It didn’t take long for that feeling to go away. Just one short year later (and one full cup size bigger) I entered the world of Junior High.
And as soon as I crossed the threshold of my middle school, the lie I believed (that looking like a magazine cover would make me happy/loved/respected), melted away into the ugly truth behind a very real rape culture driven by female objectification and misogyny.
I spent the majority of those middle school years in the counselor’s office, and made excuse after excuse to not have to face my classmates on a daily basis. I was shamed by my classmates male and female alike for the way I looked.
By the time I was in eighth grade I weighed barely 100 lbs, but wore a DD cup bra. I was assaulted and tormented on an almost daily basis. Let me just recount some of the incidents I clearly remember:
The boys would whisper and plot…and then “accidentally” bump into me and grab my breasts. This was almost a weekly occurrence.
Sitting in the courtyard, a group of eighth grade boys took turns throwing stuff in my direction to see who could score a “basket” in my cleavage. My worth that day was relegated to “3 points”.
An older student approached me, and asked if I could settle a bet with him and his friends, “How big are your nipples?! They must be huge!”
Many boys claimed to have made out with me, slept with me, and felt up my breasts. Some said they were fake, others said they were real. No one cared I had hardly ever held a boys hand in real life.
On what I am guessing was a dare, a boy leaned over in algebra and undid my bra in the middle of a test.
I got a special note from my doctor that I wouldn’t have to participate in PE, because during my first semester I was traumatized as I had to run a lap around the gym to the audience of boys in the stands cheering me on and catcalling as I jogged by.
The author (L) with her husband.
In the cafeteria in 6th grade, I was asked by a boy if I could squirt some milk into his cup because the lunchroom was all out. He then offered to let his black friend do it so that the milk would be “chocolate”.
In 7th grade a group of girls would whisper the word “slut” whenever I walked by. I didn’t even know what that word meant.
In 7th grade I had a guy ask me if he could see how many pencils he could stick in my cleavage. I let him, and then cried for 30 minutes in the bathroom afterwards. My worth that day was 7 pencils.
I was offered $25 to let a group of boys see my boobs.
One day I wore a graphic t-shirt that said 49 on it. The rest of the day I was called “49 DD”.
From that day forward (much to his shagrin) I wore my older brother’s oversized shirts to school.
I cannot count the times my bra straps were snapped, or the many incidences in which I would look over a see a group of boys making “motor boating sounds” or even the amount of times males would lose their filter all together and yell out something like “damn girl! Your tits are huge!”
I moved schools and states in 10th grade. It didn’t take a full day at my new school for the rumor of me being “a stripper in downtown Atlanta” to take hold.
My breasts were fondled, mocked, ogled, hit, objectified…and as they were all of those things, so was I.
By the time I was in high school, I looked in the mirror and had the same thought I had that day I tried on my very first bra, “my worth is based on how I look” but this time there was no smile. I was so much more, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I funny…and kind? Wasn’t I smart? I thought I was. I was failing many classes because I spent them crying and hiding.
From the time I was 11 until I was 18, even adult men would ogle me in public. My sweet grandma on my mother’s side, who has a pretty severe case of dementia, can still recount with gusto being with me in the grocery store when I was 13 and hearing a grown man make a loud comment about my breasts. My sweet grandma went off on him, and then I consoled her.
My father was a minister and I recall finding a letter written to him from a member, about me being a “distraction” at the church.
Now I was keeping people from God. What kind of foul creature was I?
I had money thrown at me out of cars.
Grown men in cars would roll down their window and ask me how much for a “titty f***?”
This is just a sampling for you. A “locker room talk” pupu platter, if you will.
I graduated high school weighing 105 lbs with FF breasts. The moment I turned 18, I submitted a claim to insurance to have a reduction done. I was told over the phone it would take 30-60 days to hear back but to please fax my photos and documentation. They called me back two hours later with a fully funded approval for surgery.
I have physical scars that remind me of that time in my life, but the emotional scars are far more prominent. I struggle daily with self worth.
It’s something my husband and I are working through together, but it affects me and my marriage every single day. The only reason I made it through as in tact as I did is because I knew Jesus, so I ultimately knew I was loved and had worth in who I was in him.
Sometimes the assault was physical, sometimes it was verbal but let me tell you the damage is the same.
For those of you who don’t think “locker room talk” has lasting effects, watch my face when I receive a compliment and witness my inability to comprehend your sincerity.
For those of you who don’t think it’s “that big of a deal” watch my breathing get faster when a male approaches me without my husband near.
For those who’d call it harmless, if you could only see how many tears I shed some mornings as my husband consoles me while I breakdown about my “worthlessness” and inadequacies.
These boys and men, they felt a sense of ownership over me and my body. A seemingly innate dominance, and what’s worse, I was dehumanized through the process in which they exerted their false sense of ownership.
Where did they learn that this was okay? Who told them this was acceptable? There are so many answers to this question.
But the biggest one is; American Culture. The porn industry, the media, the President (yes, Bill Clinton was president at the time and I was compared to Monica Lewinsky more than once). A women’s worth lies in their sexuality, and the men get to assign that worth.
The scars of youth don’t heal as quickly as we would want. Photo Credit: Chad Cooper/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
That is what our children are being taught on a daily basis.
“Boys will be boys!” Do you know how many well intentioned people told me that to console me? Guess what affect that had? It set up a pattern of “settling” from me that led me into some unhealthy and abusive relationships.
Last night when I heard Donald Trump brush off his comments as “locker room talk”, there was a feeling of desperation and panic that rose up in me that I hadn’t felt for 15 years.
My 5 year old daughter lie asleep in her room mere feet away from my TV screen. In one moment I could see her closed door, behind which she slept peacefully unawares, and his face on the screen at the same time. And I was angry.
By elevating and looking past this type of behavior you are saying it’s okay.
You are telling young boys that degradation is normal, that assault is okay, that you can tear down half the human race and still rise to the most powerful and venerated position in the world.
This is not progress. There is no policy, no bill, no appointment that is more important to me than stopping the evil that is rape culture.
Because that’s what this falls into. I don’t subscribe or adhere to any type of excuse that allows humans to brush off reproachable behavior. This idea that “it’s just the way they are” or “they’re going to do it anyway” has to go away.
We have to start expecting and demanding more of ourselves as human beings, and a big part of that is NOT electing someone who engages in the verbal or physical assault of someone else.
Many people would say Hillary has verbally assaulted victims, and that’s fine if you believe that. Don’t vote for her either.
This isn’t an endorsement of a candidate. It’s a denouncement of behavior we’ve clearly approved of or settled for, to bring us to this place in history.
Real, good, amazing people exist out there. Unfortunately none of them are running for president.
It’s a broken system, it’s a broken country. But can we come together and agree that our daughters deserve more?
Can we teach them to raise their standards and not tolerate behavior or treatment that diminishes their worth as human beings?
Can we start by raising OUR standards as a country? By demanding and raising up leaders who have vision, experience, plans, AND integrity? No more excuses. No more “boys will be boys” and “politicians will be politicians”.
America, all I can do is tell you the same thing my sweet amazing husband has to tell me almost daily, to get me into the right frame of mind when I doubt my worth and tears fill my eyes. And hope you believe it.
“I love you. You are the standard by which I measure everyone else. I struck gold when I found you, and I’m the luckiest person in the world to call you home. You deserve the best”
You do. I do. WE do. My five year old daughter does. STOP the madness. Don’t settle, America.
No matter what happens on November 8th, I will teach my daughter and my sons that it’s not okay. It’s not the way it is or the way it’s supposed to be.
And even if we can’t get there now, maybe the next generation of voters will demand more from each other and God willing, more from their leaders.
My first and last political post of the season. Carry on.
This was originally posted on Facebook by Ashley Draper Sanchez.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Jenni C/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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