California is poised to approve reparations of up to $25,000 to people who decades ago were among the thousands of residents — some as young as 13 — sterilized by the state because officials deemed them unfit to have children. The proposal is unique because it would apply to more than just victims of the eugenics law that was repealed in 1979. The state also would pay female prison inmates who were coerced into getting sterilized.
While the genius of Joni Mitchell is now a settled matter, when she first arrived in Los Angeles in 1967 there was only the idealized moniker “a girl with everything", meaning that she could sing, play an instrument, write a song and, of course, that she was blond and thin and pretty. Such was the world of gendered low expectations that Joni Mitchell’s career was born into.
“I want to dedicate this award to the director of intimacy, Ita O’Brien,” Coel said. “Thank you for your existence in our industry, for making the space safe. For creating physical, emotional and professional boundaries, so that we can make work about exploitation, loss of respect, about abuse of power without being exploited or abused in the process.”