“Your goal, Poor Person, should you choose to accept it, is to forget about any presumption of haves and have-nots. Your job, Poor Person, is to get as far away from the have-nots as possible in thought and deed and investment. Otherwise, you will tip people off to the fact you are or have been poor. They are only supposed to suspect that you have been poor when you approach the dais to give a motivating speech, or when you are filling out an application to fund more education for yourself, or when you have fallen upon dire straits but grow accustomed to those circumstances with aplomb. Then, dear Poor Person, and then only may you say, “I did not always blithely accept the presence of Nice Things in my life; I lived a joyless existence under the poverty line.” After that statement, you counterbalance those tales with your jaunts to an expensive school among Those Who Have a Lot, the blatantly poor, and the secret poor. You omit the mental gymnastics you played to hide how much you wished that Those Who Have a Lot knew you when, so they’d understand how much it hurt when they’d pipe up in class about how poverty is a birthright of the irresponsible and the deranged, the deviant and the demented. Instead, you speak of overcoming the Blue Bloods, the Jacks and Jills, the Nouveau Riche as a general learning experience that the only time you can say, “I wasn’t that upset or deprived or needy when I was poor” is to yourself or to your progeny, as a whispered admonishment when they laugh at a homeless man on the street or when they sneer at a story of a single mother with four kids and a 58″ flat screen television in her home.”
—from the “poor people aren’t supposed to want nice things,” written by one brilliant ass black woman! :)
September 2010
“
After the birth of her baby, Cruz gave a statement to a hospital translator. The translator couldn’t understand her, since Cruz only speaks Chatino, an indigenous language from the state of Oaxaca. So Cruz brought in a relative who speaks Chatino, but the hospital turned down his offer to translate.
The Puerto Rican translator concluded from a statement she could not understand that Chatino was a prostitute (aren’t all immigrant mothers, y’know?) and was planning to give the baby up for adoption. Chatino, meanwhile, was trying to explain that she actually worked at a Chinese restaurant, lived in an apartment, and wanted to keep the baby. The translator’s interpretation gave the MDHS what they needed to take the baby. Allegedly, they colluded with the Tynes and a judge to deny Cruz custody and give the child to the white couple.
It took Cruz a year to regain custody of her daughter, via a lawsuit filed with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance. She and her daughter are now living in Mexico.
I’d like to see this as one horrific, isolated incident of the state’s supposed “protection” of children gone madly awry, but instead I think the flagrant violation of immigrants’ rights is more of the norm, or is at least a constant threat. TIME documents two more cases of children being taken from indigenous parents who could not speak English or Spanish and were therefore deemed “unfit” to care for their infants. Despairingly, it seems institutionalized racism and the suppression of women’s rights are the default, and more and more immigrant women like Cruz are forced to wage battles like this one to change that.
” —Indigenous Oaxacan Woman Sues Missisippi Hospital For Taking Her Baby(via ihatethismess)
(via adailyriot)
(via so-treu)
you named me; claim me.
(from jill scott’s “do you remember”)
i’m experiencing an extreme amount of anxiety around my parents’ recent reunification. for reasons i won’t necessarily go into on tumblr (at least not right now), i’m do doing a lot of crying, talking to any of my friends who’ll listen (while i wait for that good good therapy appointment), & pondering exactly how in the entire fuck i’m going to unpack all of this without driving myself crazy.
so, i’m blogging about it when the mood strikes. i may or may not be publishing all of these posts — they may possibly live in draft mode forever. they’re long, ranty, & possibly nonsensical. but if i write them on paper, i will burn them. the internet is great that way — i can’t burn it, & i can measure my progress.
i grew up in a house with no fewer than 3 adults present at all times. visiting uncles (2), resident maternal grandparents, and mother. no father. he never spent one night in that house after my mom put him out, & i know that he has been (& probably always will be, even beyond the grave) on my grandfather’s shit list. i know that he and my mother attempted to reconcile (at whose behest, i do NOT know) when i was maybe 10 or 11… & that it failed. & that he’s still in arrears for child support for me (i turn 30 on october 7), as well as both my sisters, who are 28 & about-to-turn 26. i know that he has hidden repeatedly from family court, from my mother, & from his own blood when it suited him. i know that he has at least two children outside of his marriage to my mother. & i know that neither he nor my mother ever filed for divorce, for reasons somewhat unknown to me. (though i can guess, & might even be right) what i don’t know about my father? A LOT. i barely know his birthday, i only really know his mother’s name, his sisters’ names, & where he met my mother. sort of. there’s a big question mark. so many things i have no concept of.
& now, about 25 years after my parents split up, they appear to have gotten back together. after not having spoken to each other, as far as i know, since about 2000. i have to wonder what the motive is. my father has a pattern: disappear, show up when in need, disappear, show up at milestone events, disappear. i turn 30 in a few weeks. my middle sister is married. my baby sister is one year shy of a master’s degree. my father has, as far as i know, decided that it’s time to engage w/ his daughters the way he should have all along. with email to me, with phone calls to my sisters, & by showing up at celebrations & inviting us to dinner. inviting (& expecting, according to his words) engagement after years of radio silence.
& my wall is up. & right now, that’s more than okay with me (because, why the fuck NOT)? & i don’t buy the “every child needs a father” shit because most of the people i know are living testaments to the idea that every child needs a loving, supportive environment. & he sent me some money (via my mother) as a means of gaining an in with me. & i shut him the fuck down. & i told my mom to stop tryna make him someone he isn’t. to me, anyhow. & now, there’s a stalemate. i don’t feel that my very clear boundaries are being respected. i am aware that there’s been some sharing of information between my parents that i asked remain confidential. & there appears to be a failure to respect my autonomy as an adult.
& i’m not a lot clearer on this than i was when i opened up this post.
but i’m gonna publish it. because it makes sense to get it out.
August 2010
black eyed pea salsa. →
deliciousbitches.blogspot.com
from my food blog, which i eventually plan to move to wordpress & launch as a full-on site sometime this fall. after i get a new laptop.
i mean, i really really feel anymore, like all these magazines are not fetishizing *women*--but fetishizing *whiteness*--they aren't saying "look at how fuckable this *woman* is" they are saying "look at how fuckable *whiteness* is." which calls for an entirely different way to understand gender as it plays out in pop culture, i think.
this is such a great thought. & i loveloveloveloveLOVE it.
and i think i may have already said that at some time in my life, but who knows. maybe it was just an idea i had and forgot to say out loud. :P
Tim Wise : Conservative Character Actors →
thelifeinrose.tumblr.com
And so, after Beck’s weekend rally, which coincided with the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, Beck explained that while he disagrees with the part of the civil rights movement that was about social justice and economic equity — which is to say he disagrees with pretty much all of it — he agrees with the other part. You know that one line, literally, one line from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech — the one about how we should judge people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
It is always this line to which conservatives make reference. For years they’ve employed it so as to attack affirmative action. If King believed in character over color, they intone, he would have opposed such programs in employment or college admissions. Of course, that’s the kind of thinking that follows when you don’t actually listen to the entire speech from which the one line was taken, or read any of King’s writings.
…
But it’s not only the mischaracterization of King’s views on affirmative action that should trouble us. Even the claim by conservatives that they believe in judging people only on the basis of character is a lie. After all, it isn’t the character of individual Muslims that leads them to oppose the building of Cordoba House in downtown Manhattan. They are judging on the basis of what other, totally unrelated Muslims did on 9/11.
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-conservative-character-actors/19613992
“Except for the fact that Malcolm’s father was murdered by white supremacists who were never brought to justice, his memories of the KKK terrorizing his family, his general experience of white supremacist violence reinforced or tacitly approved of by the state, being assassinated at 39 instead of making $32 million a year fantasizing about it on television, Beck and Malcolm…still have just about nothing in common. Both may have had a somewhat bitter reaction to the perception of race-based oppression against their people; only one of them actually lived that experience in any real way or got a decent book out of it.”
—
Adam Serwer
the rest, here.
(via thesmithian)
“I am pro-life, and I’ll answer the next question. I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.”
—
From this article on the Huffington Post.
Followers in Colorado, this is a big problem for your state. With amendment 62 on the ballot I was already concerned about the women in Colorado but now that Ken Buck (and the owner of that quote up there) is the likely forerunner for the Republican ticket (and Tea-Party backed), your votes are incredibly important this year. I urge all of you who are of voting age to do so this year and let Mr. Buck and the people behind amendment 62 know that you do NOT support this kind of legislation.
The damage that either electing him or passing amendment 62 could do to the availability of abortion services in the state (and possibly nationally if amendment 62 gets to the Supreme Court…because you know if it’s passed it will be challenged and appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court like Roe v. Wade was) is a serious threat to women who seek abortions. Please make sure you vote this year, regardless of your state, and be sure to elect pro-choice politicians.
Our ability to control our bodies should not be used as a political football and pro-choice candidates, like Ann Mclane Kuster running in New Hampshire, will help ensure we have the right to choose.
Love,
Rabble
(P.S: A pro-choice candidate currently running for the senate in Colorado is Michael Bennet. He is backed by NARAL and supports a lot of awesome stuff unrelated to abortion rights, as well. Check out his website to read up on him and his policies.)
(via rabbleprochoice)
(via sluthaditcoming)
FYI: Possible trigger warning
It’s terrifying to me that soon, in this country where a woman’s right to her own reproduction have been upheld by the Supreme Court, there will be an entire and massive expanse of land where abortion services are gone.
Colorado wants to pass an amendment to the state constitution that has failed before, to recognize a fetus as a legal person. To the south, Oklahoma has passed a serious of slut-shaming, paternalistic measures that burden doctors and traumatize patients. To the east, Kansas is still reeling from the brutal murder of Dr. George Tiller, gunned down in church simply because he chose to help women that no one else would.
This will spread and spread and spread until we as a nation are back in 1972. The#mce_temp_url# wealthy will fly to Canada or the few American cities where the procedure is legal. The upper middle class will either exhaust all of their financial resources to afford to do the same, or to raise a child they were not prepared for. And everyone else will die from back room abortions performed with coat hangers, or sharp objects, or vacuums. These women will bleed to death, die from infection, and have their reproductive organs mangled beyond repair. I apologize if this is too graphic for some of you, but this is a subject on which we cannot afford to euphemize.
So I guess the next question I have for you, Mr. Burns, is what the fuck is wrong with you?
(via stfusexists)
Indianapolis Woman Alleges Brutal Police Beating That Caused Miscarriage — The Curvature →
thecurvature.com
Police officers should never enact violent assaults against the citizens they are hired to protect. They certainly shouldn’t enact them as a response to a citizen’s supposed audacity to verbally disagree with them. That “talking back” is what apparently prompted the officer’s outrage and beating shows the extent not only of police authority and power, but also of the expectation that this authority and power will not ever be questioned.
“
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as “Captain R”, was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
The manner of Iman’s killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was “scared to death”, made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.
After the verdict, Iman’s father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never intended to hold the soldier accountable.
“They did not charge him with Iman’s murder, only with small offences, and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my daughter so many times,” he said. “This was the cold-blooded murder of a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill Palestinian children.”
” —Not guilty. The Israeli captain who emptied his rifle into a Palestinain schoolgirl(via ihatethismess)
the fuck? I bet if i posted this on the other site I frequent, the same asshole would defend him saying “oh she probably was being threatening”
(via blackenedbutterfly)
(via exiledsoul)
CHANGE ONE WORD IN YOUR USERNAME INTO VAGINA
(via ohlooknospaces)
getsvaginaoff
vaginalouiscotton
gerardvagina-
vaginabob, LOL
-cinematicvagina
vaginadriver
Sannalovesvagina…lol wait wut? xD
… vagina.
vaginabutterfly. It’s beautiful.
a cute non vagina -_-
vaginabitch. XD
jadedvagina
radically hott vagina. it’s like i new about this meme months ago.
vaginagirlfresh. :D
Lolololol, did you know I have a tumblr now? XD
i don’t think i did, darling! :D
“The reports have led certain commentators to describe sex with disabled people as “one of the last taboos”. Amazing. Simply by having sex and being physically abnormal, I am engaged in some debauched endeavour, of which most people dare not speak. Such a thrill!”
—Disability Bitch gets a bit of hot action (via FWD) (via notemily) (via so-treu)
oh, really?
Play
“I can’t stand “real” men. Masculinity is trash. Go cry in a corner, write in a diary, hug your mom. Please. I’ve felt the painful consequences of this posturing for too long; seen fragile men who never should have been told to be anything else in the first place crack under the weight of our flawed expectations. Let our boys paint. Let them wear skinny jeans and read Ellison. However soft spoken or uncoordinated, leave them be. If you don’t, you and me will have a serious problem.”
—
Joshua Bennett (via sophisticatedinsanity) (via lo-vereigns) (via treyfaithfilled) (via girlinboyclothes)
this quote has made my fucking day.
“
Let’s think about what it means to live in a society where teenage girls are given the OK by both parents and surgeons to have drastic, expensive procedures done to live up to an impossible beauty standard. If we’re going to talk about an obesity epidemic among young people, we have to discuss the epidemic of media bombardment with images of celebrities, male and female, with bodies that the majority of the population can never hope to attain, but are programmed to berate themselves and others for not attaining said body. And when doctors get in on the act, well, bad things happen. Things like doctors removing 80 lbs of fat from 16-year-old kids only for them to gain it back and start hating themselves again, and spurring said doctors once again to urge them to lose weight for their health.
Sometimes it’s all too much.
” —Size Matters: Before and After by Tasha Fierce @ Bitch (via pluseyes) (via southernqueer) (via ourchangingsky) (via fuckyeahangryfatgrrrls) (via adailyriot)"Ben & Jerry's donates money to abortions"
Well, just WHERE THE FUCK were Ben and/or Jerry when I had to pay for my abortion out of pocket? Shit. I could have used a gaht damb donation. I already had two kids and couldn’t afford another. Hell, why do you think I was at “Tha Clinic” in the first damn place?
I swear I see some of the stupidest shit on Tumblr.
“War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.”
—(via dontdrinkthetarwater) (via fuckyeahradicalquotes) (via curate) (via lalunafemme) (via journey2enlightenment)
In transition, out of rhythm.: 20 Types of Marijuana Dealers →
thoughtsblunted.tumblr.com
- Shady – This is the guy that tells you in order to get it you have to meet him two blocks down, around the corner, through an alleyway, and on the fire escape, just to get a dime.
- The Aggressor – The hustlers are the ones that advertise way too much. They will run up to you if they see…
(this is for @runawayvag)
