I decided to make something for myself today! I made this necklace a while back and it was snapped up immediately at UpMarket. I liked it so much but I made another with a matching pair of earrings. Brass with marquesite turquoise and gold plated chain and hooks. #sundarajewelry #artisanjewelry #handmade #brass #turquoise #earrings #necklace #jewelry
Mom sat next to this guy at the deli and overheard him talking about some “$100 million dollar deal” and took this awkward photo. She texted me it and said any idea who this is?”
apparently Stan Lee makes cameos in people’s lunch outings now.
Trump is that annoying kid in class who plays tag but quits when he’s it, takes all the toys and doesn’t share, makes fun of everyone else, but then screams and cries when he doesn’t get his way or gets caught being a shit head.
Trump is literally the rich spoiled brat
This is what happened to all the high school villain rich kids from the ‘80s named Chaz and Russell. Their very essence (and daddy’s money) invaded this stale piece of cheeto-dusted Wonderbread and it is now running for president.
Whoa man. Trump didn’t grow up in the 80’s. Don’t lump my generation in with this entitled fuckstick. He was born in 1946.
Shoutout to all my girls who are bigger than, taller than, or weigh more than their boyfriends and feel subconscious about it bc our society puts so much emphasis on girls needing to be Less Than boys in every single way, especially physically.
Never apologize for the space you occupy in this world.
I would read it because I always read FAQs, because I have an actual phobia of taking on the phone. I would never phone you, haha! (That sounds bad, but ya know what I mean, hopefully.)
I have a phobia of talking on the phone too! Which is why I wrote the FAQ hahaha
When I put up an FAQ on my site? I was fully aware that nobody was going to read it.
Nobody reads anything (except maybe me and five other people in the world).
The first post on my Facebook page points people to the website. It’s pinned so no matter what I post it’s still the first thing you see. And virtually every single day I have to answer queries about where my physical store is located.
I dunno man it’s just how it is. I didn’t expect any different.
But it’d be nice if someone read my FAQ you know? Just for the appreciation aspect.
When you come across a post on your dash and you’re like Yes I’m gonna reblog this, this is awesome! and then you realize you’re about to reblog yourself reblogging.
While the racist reaction to her casting in The Hunger Games is perhaps what Amandla Stenberg is still most publicly associated with, in the mere three years since, she’s become a bold, outspoken, feminist role model. “That’s the least I can do, is try to start a conversation, try to get people thinking about a certain topic,” she told Mic.
I don’t know why I bother having an FAQ on my website. I should just leave my phone number with a message that says call me 24/7 because I end up answering all the questions myself anyway. Nobody ever reads it.
The GOP establishment has been plotting to consign Donald Trump to the electoral scrap heap ever since he entered the race. The question we should ask is why.
One hopes his enemies would be motivated by disgust for his sexist and racist remarks. But Trump has articulated positions that, however crude, are squarely in the party’s mainstream. Marco Rubio opposes abortion even if a pregnancy is the result of incest or rape. Jeb Bush sees no reason for the federal government to allocate a half billion dollars to women’s health, and urges workers to work harder as a part of the cure for our economic malaise. Trump’s statements on immigration are just more bombastic versions of his opponents who want to seal the border with Mexico and deny undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
And it can’t be because Trump displays a libertarian strain. His main antagonist, Rand Paul, a staunch libertarian, is tolerated by the war-mongering Republican leadership, even though he has expressed disagreement with the Bush administration’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So why is Trump the enemy, really? The GOP will say it’s because he’s a clown, he has no experience, he can’t win, he’s more a celebrity than a politician. This might all be true. But there’s another big reason they’d rather not talk about.
At the debate and numerous public appearances, Trump has matter-of-factly stated that he is an equal opportunity donor to Republican and Democratic candidates—not for the purpose of civic duty or altruism, but in exchange for influence. He has openly deemed his gifts to politicians a business expense. He went so far as to declare, before 24 million viewers at the debate, that he uses his donations to obtain favors from legislators who are all too eager to bow to his requests. He not-so-subtly implies that politicians are bought and paid for by him and other financial moguls. And he expects a fair return for those dollars, measured in policy rewards like zoning adjustments, subsidies for building projects and long-term tax relief.
In short, he lets the cat out of the bag about something the political system has spent more than a century to disguise.
Not necessarily. It all depends where on the spinal cord the person is injured. Paralysis- the inability to move does not always come with parasthesia- inability to feel.
Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk) has been widely hailed as a highly significant voice in Caribbean and American fiction. She has been dubbed “one of our most important writers,” (Junot Diaz), with “an imagination that most of us would kill for” (Los Angeles Times), and her work has been called “stunning,” (New York Times) “rich in voice, humor, and dazzling imagery” (Kirkus), and “simply triumphant” (Dorothy Allison).
Falling in Love with Hominids presents more than a dozen years of Hopkinson’s new, uncollected fiction, much of which has been unavailable in print, including one original story. Her singular, vivid tales, which mix the modern with Afro-Caribbean folklore, are occupied by creatures unpredictable and strange: chickens that breathe fire, adults who eat children, and spirits that haunt shopping malls.
I honestly love drunk girls so much, last night I was at a party and a girl started crying because she loved my hair
One time in college, I had a fight with my boyfriend and was sitting outside crying, and a drunk girl came over and gave me a leaf to make me feel better.
amazing
i was on the train and 3 drunk girls saw me and said i had nice brown eyes so they sang “brown eyed girl” to me
I threw up at a frat party and I was crying in the bathroom and a drunk girl went upstairs to get me a shirt and came back with a sweater and a kitten.
Amazing
Drunk boys: will gather into a huge pack and harass people passing by.
At the last party I went to three drunk girls fishtail braided my hair by committee
a drunk girl drew an eye on the back of my hand and then patted it with satisfaction and whispered “count olaf”
this is a nice post
once at a barbecue a drunk girl gave the surgical scar on my shoulder a butterfly kiss and said “you’re cured”
A drunk girl at a bar I was at became worried that I wasn’t getting enough nutrition and proceeded to hold peanuts to my lips and just keep saying “peanut peanut” until I would eat it. And after I allowed her to feed me a peanut she pet my hair and said “Thank you”.
Both Nicholson and Duvall have said that the film was one of the hardest of their careers; in fact, Nicholson considers Duvall’s performance the most difficult role he’s ever seen an actor take on. Duvall also considers her performance the hardest of her life. [x]
See this picture? This comes from a town in Canada where a 24 pack of water bottles is 104 dollars and formula milk for a baby is priced at 55 dollars a pack. What’s more, a pack of diapers is 95 dollars and one head of lettuce is 26 dollars. Inuit people are starving in a country known for it’s generosity.
If you don’t believe this is true, you can find more images like this here. This is the only grocery store these people have in their small towns, and many people are going hungry & elderly are dying faster.
You’ll send aid to foreign children that are starving, so why won’t you pay a little extra to feed the people in your own country who work hard & still can’t afford the prices for healthy food for their families?
Please have a heart and reblog this photo to raise awareness that even in our own countries people are starving, join the movement and show the government that we won’t sit by and watch people starve.
If you think this will make your blog ugly you’re wrong. Children in a first world country are getting sick & starving, and nobody is even aware it’s happening. You can let people know by reblogging and showing you care. People I am close to, my friends and future in-laws are going through this.
Love how little attention this post gets from my beach blog followers.
Ok I didn’t think this could possibly be for real, but I found a news source on the matter. This is insane.
YES, this is real.
the way the Canadian government treats the native people here is actually disgusting. The reserves sometimes have a lower life expectancy and the general living quality of third world countries. This isn’t common knowledge and it needs to be.
I was scrolling through Facebook today and I saw a funeral arrangement announcement on the page of someone I knew.
I never really understood exactly who she was. All I knew is that she lived with my aunt and her now ex husband and my four cousins for a while when I was a kid and she was in her teens. She had my uncle’s last name so I guess she was a member of his family somehow.
I have one vivid memory of her. It was Carnival time and I guess my brother and I were staying at my aunt’s home. I was maybe 8 or so.
Joanne decided she was going into town for J’ouvert which is the pre-Carnival festival that takes places in the wee hours of the morning where revellers cover themselves in mud, paint, cocoa and oil. I’m talking the kind of oil you drain from your engine.
Joanne wanted to look sexy (I guess) and decided upon a pair of skin tight WHITE jeans. I didn’t know what J’ouvert was really about back then. To me it was something scary and forbidden to children, unlike Carnival. My cousin Hayden teased her about her choice of clothing but she insisted she would manage to keep them clean. She was just going to spectate. I guess she’d never experienced J’ouvert either because anyone looking remotely clean is liable to become a target. And that’s exactly what happened.
The next morning she showed up looking decidedly worse for wear. She was absolutely covered in paint and mud. Our guess was she eventually gave up trying to keep clean and joined in. She looked tired, but happy. She laughed about her naiveté. We envied her freedom. None of us were old enough to go anywhere without our parents yet.
I don’t remember when she stopped living with them. One day I went over and she was no longer there. No explanations. Eventually that marriage broke up and my cousins all migrated and everyone scattered.
Decades later she found me on Facebook and added me as a friend. I have exactly one message from her, where she wished me a happy new year. We never even knew each other well enough to catch up.
Now she’s gone. There are hints of family discord on her Facebook page. By the looks of it she was having a tough time. The last photo of her shows her bloated and unrecognisable. I don’t know how she died. But I hope wherever she is, she’s at peace now.
I wonder if all those staunch anti abortion activists ever wonder why a woman would choose to get an abortion?
Or do they think women who do that are just a bunch of godless careless uneducated sluts?
It’s as if they don’t realise that choosing not to carry a pregnancy to full term might actually come from a place of legitimate concern. For one’s own health (mental or otherwise). For the health and welfare of one’s existing partner/children. For economic reasons.
Or how about some people just don’t want to be parents?
I sat at a table once and heard a guy loudly declare that people who didn’t want children shouldn’t have sex.
I guess that means that every time he gets in his car it means that he really wants to be in a accident. Because people who don’t want to have a car accident should never engage in the very activity that causes it.
I just don’t know where people get off with that self righteous fucking bullshit.
What’s it to you anyway? Who’s gonna pay for the child? You? Financially, physically, mentally, is it on you? So how is it your business?
You don’t do anything about the children that exist NOW. So why the fuck do you care about a bunch of cells. Oh because life is so precious. Yeah. Tell that to the kids who can’t get adopted. Tell that to the kids who are unwanted and neglected and abused. Tell that to the kids whose parents couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of them.
You care about LIFE? Then put your money where your mouth is and do something about people ALREADY LIVING.
The actress that plays the hijabi hacker Trenton in Mr. Robot…
Is the same woman that danced her butt off in the “Turn down for what“ video. Her name is Sunita Mani
That is all
She is also a dancer, playwright, comedian, and writer with a background in improv comedy! More info about Sunita Mani here. She sounds so awesome! I’m gonna watch Mr. Robot tonight.
In my half awake stage this morning I had a vision of a bracelet in copper with enamelled tips. It was so pretty.
Now I have to buy an enamelling kit to make my vision a reality. I’ve wanted to get one for a long time but I could never really justify the purchase. Now I know what I want to do with it. I’m getting it. Yay!
Chris is presenting his business proposal for his MBA today.
He started it many years ago, and when we got together I nudged him to finish it. This was really the only part he had left to do. Unfortunately it came at a really stressful time for him jobwise but he’s soldiered through. I’ve helped him where I could with designing the template of the slides, and the logo for his proposed business. He’s going to do a run-through on me before he goes.
Abortion is a good choice, if you feel it’s the choice for you. ❤
I hate this post, its disgusting how many people think it’s okay to kill children. How selfish.
Eat a bag of dicks
If you believe that these children aren’t terribly killed every day or either don’t acknowledge the fact IT IS MOST CERTAINLY A LIFE, then you are just as disgusting as the one choosing to kill, killing, and supporting the killing. Such a good comeback, but yet there is a tiny life inside of the woman’s body (Its not even her choice, because that life isn’t her body, it’s the childs body.) , and it is being brutally killed, but heartless people like you don’t acknowledge that. Instead you say “Eat a bag of dicks.” What a childish thing to say. You know the truth, I know the truth, everybody does. They’re taking lives away, for no good reason. Other than that women are selfish and uneducated on the abortion subject. You are just a horrid, ignorant human being, who believes it’s okay to kill children. You are just as bad as the murder behind the abortion.
I got an abortion so my children could have a roof over their heads and food on the table. I knew exactly what I was doing when I got an abortion, and your insurmountable condescension is unwarranted and your bullheaded ignorance is disgusting.
Had I continued with my pregnancy, I wouldn’t have been able to work and I wouldn’t have been able to provide for my kids or my partner. Had I continued with my pregnancy, my partner and I would be struggling to pay for a 3-bedroom apartment, since – legally – you can only have 2 people/bedroom. Had I continued my pregnancy and adopted out, I would have struggled with emotional and mental turmoil and the costs of labor AND the cost of having to take time off work to give birth.
There are tons of reasons why people get abortions. They cannot mentally, emotionally, or physically cope with pregnancy (or adopting out or life as a parent;) financial reasons; they can’t take the medicine they need; their workplace will treat them different (if not fire them while pretending it’s not about the pregnancy.)
So don’t tell people who get abortions they are heartless, cruel, horrid, ill-educated on the subject, or otherwise. You have absolutely no fucking room to talk, yet people like you spout this rubbish all the fucking time, drowning out people who actually have this experience.
The non-sentient life of fetuses are not worth more than myself, my family, any pregnant person, or any born person. If you think otherwise, you have screwed up priorities.
Since I don’t like slurs having to do with genitalia: Go eat a bag of shit, you pretentious fucknugget.
Would you mind telling me why it’s a struggle? Just curious for another point of view.
I grew up surrounded by white people and feeling like I didn’t fit in. And when I started to take interest in the opposite sex, I quickly found a lot of the white boys I was interested in had very problematic mindsets in regards to race that were hard for me to navigate. And as I’ve gotten older I’ve dealt with so many “you’re the first black girl I’ve ever done (insert activity here) with” which has always been unsettling for me both for it being a problematic comment and for the fact that I don’t like other people trying to sum up my identity for me. Then my experiences thus far being involved with black men have for the most part made me feel like I’m “too white” for various reasons even including them being uncomfortable around my family. And relationships I’ve had with people of other races have also often times gone the way of those with white men, because anti-blackness is not a white phenomenon. So I mean really a ton of it just has to do with me having a lot of trouble coming to terms with my own (racial) identity as I’ve grown up, but it certainly had made it difficult to find a way to have a healthy relationship. I also think I should add that part (although a tiny part) of my hesitation towards having kids is all the trouble I had with that. And since so many people want to have kids it leaves me in another weird place when approaching relationships.
I don’t know if any of that really makes sense? I’m feel like I’m having trouble articulating my thoughts at the moment and putting the connections I make from one thought to another into words. It’s very much all just personal experience anyways and I don’t know if it’s similar for anyone else, but it feels worth it to share.
It actually makes perfect sense to me. I grew up in Venezuela in an environment that was almost exclusively White/Latino (although at the time there was no concept of Latino and most also identified as White). It was extremely isolating. I was always aware of my skin colour. My friends often negated my Blackness because I was mixed, and because their exposure to Blackness came through American media or the people who were cleaning their homes, and I did not look like either.
I always felt like the other. I didn’t fit in in a world where class was synonymous with colour and I defied the norms. When I moved to the States for college (in Miami), like many West Indians, I did not fit in with the Black community. Culturally I couldn’t connect. But I had no issues after that when it came to dating as Miami had many West Indians and Latinos with whom I could connect. I think I have only dated a White American once. My race was not an issue, nor was his, he was just kind of weird. I’ve never dated a Black American who was not of West Indian heritage. He was also mixed race like myself (Haitian).
I’ve only had the experience once of having someone make the comment “I’ve never been with a Black girl,” in my life (they didn’t get with me either by the way). It froze me in my tracks. I’ve never defined myself by my race in that way. I’m a person. That’s it. It was off putting and I was taken aback. He was English. Needless to say that’s where it ended. I cannot imagine telling someone that.
Fortunately I live now in my home country and there are many people like myself who are mixed. My race only comes up when people are intrigued by what my ethnic origins are. It has never been an issue.
Being talented is having a natural aptitude for something, and you do, therefore you are.
I’m not denying that I have talent. Of course I do. I just don’t excel in the world of other people who also have the same kind of talent.
But I think the thing that’s always bothered me is that I’ve never really developed any kind of style. So there’s no signature look to my work.
Well I did once have someone observe that my work was very feminine, which is a really interesting observation to make about art, but it’s true. But my stuff is all over the place. Even with my jewellery. I know it’s because I get bored so I keep trying new things. Which quite frankly is just how it’s going to have to be because I cannot make the same thing over and over and feel like I’m enjoying what I’m doing. But I think that bothers me on some level too.
However it may just mean I have a never-ending reservoir of creativity that keeps producing new and fantastic things. So maybe I should call that my style and embrace it.
But each artist has a unique expression of talent. Not all artists are “equal” in their ability true, but you can’t really compare after a certain point anyway. If your talent speaks to someone then to them, you are very talented, ya know?
Well yes, but I suppose there’s a difference from how an artist might judge themselves or another artist, to how someone who’s not an artist might judge them. I know a lot of artists, so among them I am nothing special.
I know lots of people who are way, way, way more talented than me.
I have some skills that I’ve built on but I’ve never focused long enough on anything to really develop any real kind of style or proficiency.
I’m super ok with that. Art has to be fun for me. If it’s not fun I’m not doing it. So you know I can draw a bit and paint a bit and do stuff that the average person would find good.
But in the world of artists… I’m nothing special. Not at all.
We are not seeking “equality” with men. We are inherently equal. We are seeking liberation from male social, political, economic, and other forms of oppression. Until this difference is recognized and prioritized among all feminists and feminist allies, the seeking of anything will be at men’s discretion, and that is anti-feminist.
The whale seemed to stare straight at him. Fisherman Ivan Iskenderian watched it swim within a metre of his boat in Sydney’s Middle Harbour.
As the whale rose from the water, he saw a plastic bag and some fishing line stuck near its enormous mouth. He reached out his hand and snatched them away.
His friend Michael Riggio snapped a photograph of the close encounter, near Roseville Bridge, calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime” selfie.
One of the guys I used to work with has started his own agency.
I was looking at the work he was posting on his business’s Facebook page and I noticed that he seemed to be posting work that he did at the agency. I say seemed because it’s possible, but highly unlikely, that he walked away with all those clients. Plus I saw work that I recognised from when I worked there too.
I feel really uncomfortable about that. It feels disingenuous. It’s not wrong of him to post work he did, but it seems to imply that these are his current clients. I’ve always made it clear on my portfolio who my employer was when I created my work.
It’s bugging me because between yesterday and today my feed has been full of his work (which I must say is spectacular). It’s none of my business. But it’s just bugging me.
Myth #4: He holds his feelings in too much, and they build up until he bursts. He needs to get in touch with his emotions and learn to express them to prevent those explosive episodes.
My colleagues and I refer to this belief as “The Boiler Theory of Men.” The idea is that a person can only tolerate so much accumulated pain and frustration. If it doesn’t get periodically vented – kind of like a pressure cooker – then there’s bound to be a serious accident. This myth has the ring of truth to it because we’re all aware of how many men keep too much emotion pent up inside. Since most abusers are male, it seems to add up.
But it doesn’t, and here’s why: Most of my clients are not unusually repressed. In fact, many of them express their feelings more than some nonabusive men. Rather than trapping everything inside, they have an exaggerated idea of how important their feelings are, and they talk about their feelings – and act them out – all the time, until their partners and children are all exhausted from hearing about it all. An abuser’s emotions are as likely to be too big as too small. They can fill up the whole house. When he feels bad, he thinks that life should stop for everyone else in the family until someone fixes his discomfort. His partner’s life crises, the children’s sicknesses, meals, birthdays – nothing else matters as much as his feelings.
It is not his feelings the abuser is too distant from; it is his partner’s feelings and his children’s feelings. Those are the emotions that he knows so little about that he needs to “get in touch with.” My job as an abuse counselor often involve steering the discussion away from how my clients feel and towards how they think (including their attitudes towards their partner’s feelings). My clients keep trying to drive the ball back into the court that is familiar and comfortable to them, where their inner world is the only thing that matters.
For decades, many therapists have been attempting to help abusive men change by guiding them in identifying and expressing feelings. Alas, this well-meaning but misguided approach actually feeds the abuser’s selfish focus on himself, which is an important force driving his abusiveness.
Lundy Bancroft, “Why Does He Do That?” (via spitefulbitch )
For further insight, look up ‘Aggrieved entitlement’
When I was 14 or so, I asked my grandmother why we didn’t have a “white club” at school. I don’t recall her response, but I do remember feeling particularly smug and vaguely angry that there was a “Latino” club and a “Chinese” club but not a “white” club.
Oh the unfairness! Oh the disparity! Why do we celebrate their heritage but not ours?
And I didn’t think about race again, at least not much, until I dated an African American man in college and a stranger whispered “nigger lover” in my ear one night as he walked by us in a grocery store. Disgusting.
I figured he was a strange exception of horrible racist creature. He was, after all, approximately 97 years old. (Well, 70, but he appeared 97 to my fresh young eyes.)
And then, a few months later, when my boyfriend’s roommate took me aside and asked why I have to “take a good black man who was in college,” when so many black men were incarcerated. I concluded she was crazy. And mean.
She hurt my feelings. Poor Janelle.
Beyond these few moments, and a couple others, I didn’t really think about race. Well, I thought about how people made arguments “about race” when clearly they were not. I mean why do they make race an issue? It’s obviously not.
Oh yeah, I had America all figured out: If ya work hard, you get ahead. And if you don’t get ahead, it’s because you made bad decisions. And if you get arrested it’s because you’re breaking the law, and people who break the law are more likely to be black. Obviously. That’s why they’re always getting arrested. (How’s that for some cyclic logic?)
I knew this to be true because:
America was awful to black people but that was fixed during the Civil Rights movement;
Therefore, we are all on equal footing now and if you don’t succeed it’s because you aren’t trying.
I learned it in school. It was fact. School teaches the truth.
And then, graduate school, and Professor Lee.
Oh, shit.
“Not all white people are white supremacists, but all white people benefit from white supremacy.”
WHAT THE WHAT?
She made us repeat it like a mantra. At least 3 times. I read Tim Wise’s White Like Me (I have mixed feelings about him now, but I digress) and bell hooks and David Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness and learned how our economic systems benefit from racism and we read about thehistory of American immigration laws (have you ever read them?) and colonialism in the Philippines and elsewhere (yes, America has colonies but we call them “territories”), and we read about redlining and white flight (ever wonder how black people ended up in urban centers?), and we read some DuBois and Omi & Winant and literature by people of color and all of the sudden I realized I had been fucking lied to.
I understood America through white eyes. I understood the world through the mainstream, polished glasses of a nice clean history of “we used to be bad now we’re not the end.”
Go team.
I discovered I was white.
“Not all white people are white supremacists, but all white people benefit from white supremacy.”
She wanted us to see that as individuals, not all white people are bigoted. But she also wanted us to see that every white person – whether they are bigoted or not – benefits from the racially structured hierarchies in America. They benefit from racism.
Yes. Even me. Even though I am not “racist.”
How? And she explained whiteness. She explained that “white” is the standard. White is the background against which difference is measured.
In other words, it’s “white” until further notice. It’s “white” until proven otherwise. It’s “white” or it’s the “other,” and it has nothing to do with actual numbers, percentages of “minority” population. It has to do with power. It has to do with the culture of power. What do I mean? If a comedy film features a white family, it’s a comedy. If it features a black family, it’s a blackcomedy.
Think about it.
White is the standard. And I’m white. Therefore, I am standard, and that benefits me.
When I walk into a room, I don’t fear that I’m representing my whole race. I have never acted badly then thought to myself “Oh shit, I sure hope they don’t hate all white people now.”
Or, in other words, even though pretty much every Columbine-type-school-kid-murderer is white, I’ve never developed a distrust for white, socially awkward high school kids.
A few do not represent the whole.
“Privilege is passed on through history.”
Whatever. I grew up POOR!
But then I thought about how, in the late 1940s, my grandmother was the first woman editor of the University of Washington’s newspaper. After she graduated, she and my grandpa bought and ran small newspapers in northern California. The family business they built employed my family members for 40+ years.
In the late 1940s, black people were not allowed to sit in the front of the bus.
How can I deny that my grandparents’ access to education and economic success did not materially affect me in a positive way, directly, through my father? I thought about the loans my parents were able to take with financial backing from my grandparents, and how that benefitted me. My life. My quality of life. The neighborhoods we lived in. The schools we attended. My cultural knowledge.
“Why don’t we have ‘White History Month?’”
Because White History Month is every month other than February, asshole.
Oh, shit indeed.
“The culture of power determines which version of history is told and retold.”
Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement, women were stuck in the home while men went to work and supported them. But then women were liberated and able to get jobs working outside the home.
Right?
WRONG. White, middle to upper class women were “stuck in the home.” Women of color have ALWAYS “worked out of the home.” In fact, the women of color were probably working in the homes of the white women about which our history is written.
So one of the most oft-repeated, trusted narratives about American history erases the history of women of color. It is dead fucking wrong. It isn’t even kind of right. They are erased. Non-existent. Unseen.
They are Chapter 10. They are a chapter that ends with “but then Martin Luther King, Jr., and all is well.”
They are Chapter 10. I am chapters 1 through forever, and every day I cash in on that fact, whether or not I support the systems making that happen for me.
I realized the reason I had never thought about race was because I was of the privileged one, because I didn’t have to, NOT BECAUSE RACIAL DISPARITY DIDN’T EXIST. I didn’t have to think about race because I was having a fundamentally different life experience than people of color. But I could ignore them, because of my privilege.
I was able to hang out in meltin-pot, “post-racial” land was because the structures of that society allowed (and encouraged) me to “not see race” while continually feeding me narratives about “equality,” “multiculturalism,” “color-blindness” and “ghetto urban lifestyles.”
I spent a lot of time in graduate school in the library, writing at a computer. Like, hours. Whole days. When I had to pee, I would ask the person sitting next to me to watch my stuff so I didn’t have to pack it all up and carry it down the hall to the bathroom. I did it a 100 times.
Once I looked over at the person next to me and my first thought was “Oh you can’t ask him. He’ll steal your stuff.
He was a young black man wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt.
I was sickened at myself. I was horrified at my response. There was absolutely nothing different about him than the 100 other people I didn’t hesitate to ask, except he was black.
I realized that not only do I benefit historically and presently, every day, from the color of skin, I have also internalized cultural narratives regarding blacks and whites that manifest whether or not I support them.
“Hey, would you mind watching my stuff for a minute?”
But what now?
Does it mean my grandmother’s accomplishments are less badass? Nope. Does it mean I do not “deserve” success? Nope. Does it mean that I am a bad person? Nope.
It means that we live in a highly racialized society rooted in a history of discrimination and that we have a long way to go. It means that I have had an advantage over people of color. Yes, always. Yes, no matter what. Because even if you’re poor and white you can join the culture of power by learning the walk and talk. But you can’t change your skin color.
From the day I was first introduced to this “other story,” I couldn’t get enough. Not because I’m some sort of saint or conspiracy theorist, but because I was curious. I was interested out of a sense of shared humanity. And I was fucking angry that I had been swindled. I wanted the truth. Or, I wanted a fuller picture. I wanted more sides.
That, my friends, is pathetic in its privilege.
I learned in graduate school what every person of color knows through life experience. I learned in graduate school that we weren’t “fixed” during the Civil Rights movement.
But when this information was presented to me I felt a sense of relief, because I think deep down I always knew something was terribly wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I don’t understand the white rage I keep reading on the internet.
Just another dead thug.
He got what he deserved.
Run over the protestors. They’re making me late for work.
STOP PLAYING THE “RACE CARD.”
I don’t understand it. What’s at stake, people? What’s at stake in accepting that racism exists? Or even entertaining the thought? Are people really so stupid they can’t fathom that other people might be having a different experience than they are? Is it really that hard to comprehend that something can exist EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T PERSONALLY SEE IT?
(Although you’ll see your privilege if you’re willing to examine your life honestly.)
Why the hell are people so unwilling to listen?
Let’s think about this for a moment. A whole community of people are saying this exists. Data shows racial disparities in economic, education, justice, and healthcare systems. Basically, ALL OVER THE PLACE. Unarmed black boys and men are killed without recourse. Repeatedly. The comment sections of these crimes are riddled with assholes shouting “Good. One less loser.”
But people still claim “Racism doesn’t exist.” But here’s the thing: The only way you can discount the words, lives, efforts and voices of hundreds of thousands of people is THROUGH THE RACISM YOU CLAIM DOESN’T EXIST.
You can only ignore them if they’re aren’t worth hearing.
You can only ignore them if they’re liars. If they’re just looking for a handout.
If they’re not human like you.
You can only ignore them by using the very narratives you claim aren’t happening.
And let’s be honest, we can only ignore them because it’s easy, because we’ll never have to walk a day in their shoes, and it’s just so much more pleasant to turn away, look away, focus back on our lives.
But the sand is getting skimpy and our heads are showing. At this point, if we’re not part of the solution we’re part of the problem.
I’m using my voice to talk to you. I’m using my voice to talk to my kids. But it isn’t enough. We’re looking for places to volunteer. I’m looking for actions I can take.
We’re at a crossroads. This cannot go on. We’re crushed under the weight of hatred, history, silence, violence, bullshit media and the insidious defense of systematic unequal distribution of resources, and at some point, none of us will be able to breathe.
It feels small and pathetic to be one person in this mess. I feel stupid and vulnerable and slightly insane to be writing this here, now. But fuck my feelings. Fuck feeling uncomfortable. Fuck the nonsense that keeps us quiet and content and cozy in our little post-racial dreamland.
They can’t breathe, and I’m breathing just fine.
And that is precisely the problem.
FUCKING SPREAD THIS TRUTH AND GIVE THAT PERSON A MEDAL DAMMIT
Share!!!!
WHY DOESNT THIS HAVE MORE NOTES?????
Wow….can this please make it over to white tumblr
READ IT ALL
AMAZING essay.
I encourage all of my white followers/mutuals, my hate-readers, and anyone who thinks Caucasian Slurs is anything less than modern art to read this fucking essay.
I just read an article about twenty year old woman who drowned in Dubai because her father would rather see her dead than dishonored by the touch of a man, in this case the two lifeguards whom he forcibly restrained from coming to her assistance.
My question is, if the touch of a man would bring dishonor upon you, then what does that say about men?
When I reblog a post asking for asks I always try to send one the way of the person I reblogged it from. I think it’s only polite. That’s my tumblr etiquette.
“When you’re a girl, you have to be everything; you have to be dope at what you do, but you have to be super sexy and sweet and you have to be this and you have to be that – I can’t be all those things, I’m a human being.”
Back in colonial days and reading African novels a lot of Africans who first saw Europeans were terrified and almost thought it was an omen or signs of bad fortune to come
WHO THE HECK IS FUMBLING AROUND TO FASTEN THE CLASP BEHIND THEIR BACK
Back clasper always.
I feel compelled to add my commentary because 99% of the time I do the “straps on shoulder, clasp back, adjust boobs in cup as necessary” method, but I have one [1] bra where one of the hooks is bent at a completely unfix-able angle, which necessitates that I fasten it in the front and turn it around, and I am here to tell you that method is for the GD BIRDS AND Y’ALL ARE CRAZY!
Back clasper with light swearing.
A better question is: Who the heck over the age of 13 is fumbling around while fastening the clasp behind their back?
Come here, young one. Internet Big Sister Semper Idem is going to learn you. You know how you figured out how to take your bra off without taking off your shirt? This is even easier.
This was also my question. I’ve been clasping my bra behind my back for 25 years, I’ve mastered it at this point. It would be much more of a struggle to spin it around my guts, what even is that?
Farkhunda Malikzada, an Afghan woman and religious scholar who was brutally murdered by a mob in the streets of Kabul in March for being falsely accused of burning the Quran and the people who were supposed to protect her, the police, stood back and watched as the innocent women was being beaten to her death. Absolutely horrific – where is the justice
@ feminists where u at
Farkhunda Malikzada was a devout religious scholar. She got into a dispute with a vendor in the market who was selling charms which she believed to be against their religion. He loudly and falsely accused her of burning pages of the Koran.
A mob descended on her. They beat and kicked her, hit her with rocks and planks of wood. She begged for mercy and protested her innocence to no avail. The police stood by and did nothing.
After that they drove over her body several times with a car. They threw her over a bridge, dragged her into a river. And then they set her body on fire.
The entire scene was captured on video as people stood by and recorded the assault.
Someone contacted me on Facebook about carrying my jewelry in their store. She said she really loves my pieces and she’s renovating and rebranding her store (a spa) to reopen in September and she really thinks they would be a big hit with her clientele.
I’ve been having a lot of conversations like that but they don’t always pan out. But she was very eager to make my line part of her store’s new look. Her commission was beyond reasonable as well so it’s something I would like to explore.
I told her to take a look at my site and tell me what she felt would best sell and that I would work on some pieces for her opening. She wants to do a formal launch so that could be really good exposure for me.
I’m not holding my breath however. People don’t always follow through so I’ll take this with a grain of salt. In a worst case scenario it won’t work out and I’ll have some extra pieces to sell. It’s a win win for me not matter what.
Yes, but luckily I was in AC for most of the day with the exception of walking to my car. Let’s just say it took a bit for the car to cool down and I had to be careful putting my seatbelt on and touching the steering wheel.
I know all about that. We often air our the car and turn the AC on before we get in. Save a life.
soulsistrin 