Monday, May 7, 2012
Interesting!

Interesting!

Not being racist is not some default starting position. You don’t simply get to say you’re not a racist; not being racist — or a sexist or a homophobe — is a constant, arduous process of unlearning, of being uncomfortable, of eating crow and being humbled and re-evaluating. It’s probably hard to start that process if you’ve been told that every thought you have is golden and should be given voice, and that people who are offended by what you say are hypersensitive simpletons. PostBourgie  (via meow-sense) (via mostsmartest) (via aprestigiousblog) (via brazenbitch) (via crunkfeministcollective) (via thisnewscandal)

Needed to hear this. #racism #equality #wisdom #goodreminders  
Tuesday, May 1, 2012

whoneedsfeminism:

I need feminism because queer women and women of color are still often excluded from and shamed in mainstream feminism.

Sunday, April 29, 2012
For doctors and medical workers, the woman bleeding from a botched abortion was a familiar figure in hospital emergency rooms in the 1950s and ’60s. Entire wards were given over to patients suffering from septic abortions. Women tried to abort themselves with abortifacients or irritants administered as douches: Lysol, soap, kerosene, vinegar, powdered mustard, bleach, among others. They used, or others on them, garden hoses, syringes, telephone wire, coat hangers, nut picks, pencils, catheters, and chopsticks. They were brought into hospital wards by the hundreds, bleeding from perforated uteruses. In 1962, for instance, Cook County Hospital in Chicago treated nearly five thousand women for abortion-related complications. Police crackdowns forced women to self-abort or resort to untrained specialists, with the result that deaths increased, doubling in New York City between 1951 and 1962. In the 1960s, they accounted for nearly half of maternal mortality.

The Feminist Promise,

A passage from a book I read for my history class. I actually cried a little when I read it - it was so horrible. Hey guys. THIS is what you’re asking for when you ask for abortion to be outlawed.

(via brightthings)

Friday, April 27, 2012
LOL 

LOL 

(Source: goodbyeforeverfatty)

CISPA can no longer be called a cybersecurity bill at all. The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government’s power. Leigh Beadon, after CISPA was modified and the voting schedule was moved up so the House could pass it before anyone had a chance to read it or respond to it. (via jonathan-cunningham)
People of color, women, and gays — who now have greater access to the centers of influence that ever before — are under pressure to be well-behaved when talking about their struggles. There is an expectation that we can talk about sins but no one must be identified as a sinner: newspapers love to describe words or deeds as “racially charged” even in those cases when it would be more honest to say “racist”; we agree that there is rampant misogyny, but misogynists are nowhere to be found; homophobia is a problem but no one is homophobic. One cumulative effect of this policed language is that when someone dares to point out something as obvious as white privilege, it is seen as unduly provocative. Marginalized voices in America have fewer and fewer avenues to speak plainly about what they suffer; the effect of this enforced civility is that those voices are falsified or blocked entirely from the discourse.

Teju Cole.

Boom.

(via plays-with-squirrels)

(Source: mehreenkasana)

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

here-is-the-place:

When people say these books are children’s books, as if to demean them, I balk. These books dealt with themes that adults do not fully understand or wish to. It dealt with racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, prejudice, and general ignorance. These books taught us that it doesn’t matter how you were raised, but that you get to choose to be kind, loyal, brave, and true. They taught us to be strong under the pressures of this world and to hold fat to what we know to be right. These books taught me so much, they changed me as a person. So just because they’re set against a fantastical backdrop with young protagonists does not mean that their value is any less real.

(Source: fhlostonsparadise)

Awww, this is way too cute. #dip #desiwedding #silly

Awww, this is way too cute. #dip #desiwedding #silly

Monday, April 23, 2012

I was doing an interview once, and this guy goes, “So you must be pretty psyched about all this ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ stuff?”

And I was like, “Um, yeah, I am.” I have no idea why though. I had nothing to do with that movie. It’s just some people that kind of look like me are in this movie that everyone loves, and winning Oscars and stuff.

And then I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are white people just psyched all the time?” It’s, like, “‘Back to the Future’! That’s us! ‘Godfather’! That’s us! ‘Godfather Part II’! That’s us! ‘Departed’! That’s us! ‘Sunset Boulevard’! That’s us! ‘Citizen Kane’! That’s us! ‘Jaws’! That’s us! Every fucking movie but ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘Boyz n the Hood’ is us! We are white people! Suck our dicks!”

Aziz Ansari, “Are White People Psyched All The Time?” (via loveyourchaos

(Source: fuckyeahdesipeople)