Re cares about stuff and junk

direwolfhugs:

squintyoureyes:

I wish people would stop assuming that all or most homophobic people are themselves secretly gay, and they’re all self-hating and projecting. Internalized homophobia exists, but that attitude erases the fact that systematic oppression is real. It places the onus of homophobia on its victims/treats it like it’s somehow just an intra-community problem that straight people don’t need to worry about or challenge each other on. That’s not how identity and oppression works; it’s as ridiculous as saying all racists are secretly PoCs.

YES YES YES YES THANK YOU

This attitude also positions anti-queer bigots AS the victims, going with an old fallacy about how bigotry/abuses of power just come from insecurity, and if those with systemic power just felt better about/more comfortable with themselves they wouldn’t hurt the rest of us. It doesn’t MATTER why someone is a bigoted shithead, doesn’t matter whether they’re potentially hurting themselves too. What matters is that they need to STOP.

Kyriarchy will always hurt everyone in a society, in ways both visible and unseen, but it doesn’t hurt everyone equally, and the people who abuse power, whether it’s real power or a false/negotiated/temporal power, are almost unequivocally already seen as more human by society at large than the people they’re abusing. The humanity and emotional experience of people upholding hateful power structures is not in danger of being forgotten any time soon (in terms of what they’re experiencing as they uphold those power structures, at least); the humanity and emotional experience of the people they’re wielding power against is where the emphasis and sympathy - the listening and caring - most needs to be happening.

jayisabird:

mxghouls:

attention homestuck fandom: crossdressing and genderfluid are NOT synonyms and should not be paired together as if theyre the same concept bc they have basically nothing to do with each other

IN FACT, its really fucking offensive, because while genderfluid people can crossdress just like anyone else, the idea that crossdressing indicates gender fluidity makes it sound like youre saying that when someone dresses in a way that fits their gender at that moment then theyre crossdressing! when in fact! if they are dressing to fit their gender they are not fucking crossdressing bc crossdressing means the opposite of that! you binarist shits!

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS 

FUCKING THIS

I SEE THIS EVERYWHERE AND IT PISSES ME OFF

anlamasanda:

Wow. I come in all determined to resume personhood and practically the first thing I see is people being willfully and maliciously ignorant.

This is harmful: Making queer characters fall outside standards of behavior/appearance prescribed for their designated genders just because they’re queer, or vice versa, and systematically failing to develop them beyond those two characteristics (especially in conjunction with “eternal supporting character” syndrome).

This is not harmful: Making a character who is queer and falls outside those standards, well-developed or one of many…

(This is also harmful: Only making queer characters which fall within standards of behavior/appearance prescribed for their genders because isn’t it enough that they’re queer? who wants to see those other kinds of people anyway? why are you so fixated on labels and don’t be silly of course it’s not labeling for them to be straight or thin or or or or? but thinking about queer + standard-breaking takes up all the space in my head and mysteriously leaves no room at all for actual characterization???)

marshmallowmegamama:

“white hispanic”

is just pinching me in the wrong direction.

There has to be a better way to address the way white people are choosing to hide from/skirt out of accountability for white supremacy existing. i.e. the “yeah, well, zimmerman is *hispanic*” move. otherwise known as the “none of this is our fault” move or the “you just hate white people” move. otherwise known as the “there’s nothing wrong with the system or how we understand race in the US, because this is a case of spics killing negros” move.

1. “white hispanic” is a name imposed on Latino communities by the US government. while some of us certainly identify as “white” or “hispanic”—the level of confusion last census trying to understand the difference between “ethnicity” and “race” and trying to figure out how to put ourselves into boxes that don’t claim us or that we don’t claim was a major MAJOR political moment for a lot of us. just ripping off “there’s white hispanics, you know” is not respectful of the complication and conflict in our community around identity. it’s too easy. and it’s racist. who gets to decide that I am white and hispanic all at the same time? do you know how laughable that is? especially considering that the name i *choose* to identify as “chican@” (or “mestiz@”) addresses the complications of trying to say “what i am”? that we have actual academic theory, criticism and analysis around our identities and we have politically moblizied around that work very often?

2. in short, unless a person self identifies as white hispanic, you probably shouldn’t be using it. because when you gloss over the complicated reality of how latin@s are racialized in the US—*even when you’re doing it to a murdering sack of shit*—you are reinforcing the “rightness” of white supremacist united states—AND OF WHITE PEOPLE—to decide who racialized people “really” are.

3. zimmerman has a peruvian mother. that could mean many MANY things about how he identifies. if she is born in peru and immigrated here—she may be extremely wealthy and able to afford the move—and thus identifies as being from peru, but being *white* (or of the elite classes there, not sure how peruvians have worked out their racial categories, if it’s the same as in mexico or what the hell)—which would mean that zimmerman is white peruvian. not white hispanic. or, she may have been extremely poor, which would make her more inclined to be from the indigeous community, which would make zimmerman mestizo.

either way. the elements that are missing are 1. accountability. i want to be hearing from folks from peru and with peruvian backgrounds about how they understand blackness in peru. about what the immigration experience does to their understanding of positionality (i.e. you can be white elite in peru, and lousy spic in the US). about how that positionality intersects with blackness once they get to the US. or: how does their immigration experience interact with blackness in the US? how can we confront and hold accountable the latino community that zimmerman came from, if we don’t acknowledge that he is *what he and his community call themselves which is very very VERY rarely “white hispanic”?

which leads us to 2. assimilation. the assimilation process would’ve begun with ZImmerman’s mother. and she would’ve continued it with her son. because some people *want* to assimilate for safety reasons or for upward mobilization reasons—and other people fight it but simply don’t have any choice (try teaching your kid spanish and english when you’re working 70 hours in the fields).

but mexicans coming in to the US often have a really fucked up relationship with black people *because* of assimilation—i.e. the compare/contrast situation—”*we* work! we work hard! we’re just here to take care of our families! we don’t cause trouble! not like those black people do!” the complicated thing here is that “we’re just here to take care of our families!” is an actual political talking point for immigration safety—politically, it has kept a LOT of immigrants safe—“don’t break up their family!” “respect the integrity of the family!” oh, and immigration is centered on familial lines—you can help bring other family members into the US, not good friends or coworkers. so it’s a necessary thing—and yet, it *always* comes with that extra baggage where we believe our own story telling. “we’re good because we love our families—*not like the blacks*!”

is this same storyline going on with peruvians? do you see why it’s important to know? because if we settle with “white privilege” or understand “assimilation” as solely an experience of attempting to be white *rather than* an experience of fighting for resources—you’re going to use different tactics to deal with the shit—and those tactics are NOT going to get to the root of the problem.

4. the “yeah but…” move by white folks is serving as a way to make the injustice committed against trayvon martin be about *zimmerman not getting punished*—rather than *trayvon martin being killed*. YES, it is disgusting and wrong that zimmerman has not been  punished. *but the injustice here is that there is no systemic value of trayvon martin’s life*. and the *reason* there is no value on his life is because of *white supremacy*. which every single white person in the US is accountable towards above and beyond the life of trayvon martin. because as long as they call it “white privilege” and they mark “privilege” as social value (they’ll listen to me cuz i’m white) rather than systemic value (the system *cares* if i die) and as long as “privilege” is defined as “i don’t have think about things” rather than “i get 100times more fucking resources than anybody else *based solely on the fact that I am white*” white supremacy will never EVER end. which means that people of color in general and black people specifically will *always* be systemically held as *less valuable* than white people. Or: *less deserving of resources*.

i ask people *again*—look at where the money is going in Florida. Look at who has the resources. pay attention to how slavery has shifted and manifested itself in florida. remember that slavery is the site where unequal resource distribution began. look at incarceration rates in florida. pay attention to immigration systems and how immigration laws are being enforced. 

pay extra special attention to the tourism industry and how frantically white floridians are swearing that they have everything under control and how righteously white northerners (or white travellers in general) are threatening to boycott or expressing worry or concern about things. notice how *none of them have a problem with using a white supremacisty heteropatriarchal tool of control (prison) to fix the problem of anti-black violence.* how quick and easy it is for them to say—throw the bastard in prison for life! without looking at the fact that zimmerman would be sharing prison space with 12-14 year old black children who are *also* in prison for life. notice how the driving force behind their boycott is how it *makes them look* to be vacationing in a blatantly white supremacist state. they want the dream land escape vacation. so those fucking crackers in florida better get their shit together if they want MY money.

white folks have a LOT they need to be discussing amongst themselves right now. deciding what george zimmerman *really* is is not one of the things they really need to be discussing.

(Source: marshmalllowmegamama, via impromptuonedykedanceparty)

kemetically-ankhtified:

by: Nah Dove (Temple University)

References

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found this while working on a paper for my Black studies class. interesting sources to check out (i’ve read a few: Welsing, Diops, Nobles), for those who are interested.

knowledge is power, especially for black women.

(via jayisabird)

crankyskirt:

To be filed under “things that should probably be way bigger news stories”: rebels just declared northern Mali as a new country. Today. Yes, today.

Shit’s been popping off in Mali since the start of the year, but it hasn’t made nearly as much press as them white boys playing Where’s Waldo with Kony. Check the Wiki for some background basics.

From the Telegraph:

Mali’s desert Tuaregs on Thursday mounted their flag on the former governor’s building in Gao, to become the seat of what they call their new state of Azawad, as they prepared to announce its independence to the world.

The heavily-guarded building MNLA call the ‘Palace of Azawad,’ is in central Gao, the city which, according to MNLA spokesman Mohamed Ag Attaher, has now become the new capital of Azawad.

Meanwhile in Bamako, the Malian capital that lies in the southern part of the country, citizens rallied to state their allegiance to a united Mali.

Gao resident Alassane Maiga said: “Mali will always be one Mali. I’m ready to go today to dislodge the rebels. To free my aunts, our mothers, who are screaming there, every minute on the phone. They need my help. It’s my mission.”

(Source: telegraph.co.uk, via impromptuonedykedanceparty)