Gaycation - “USA”

What's Wrong with Cultural Appropriation? These 9 Answers Reveal Its Harm

If cultural appropriation doesn't seem like a big deal to you, you're missing something big. Here's what you need to know.

1. It Trivializes Violent Historical Oppression

2. It Lets People Show Love for the Culture, But Remain Prejudiced Against Its People

3. It Makes Things ‘Cool’ for White People – But ‘Too Ethnic’ for People of Color

4. It Lets Privileged People Profit from Oppressed People’s Labor

5. It Lets Some People Get Rewarded for Things the Creators Never Got Credit For

6. It Spreads Mass Lies About Marginalized Cultures

7. It Perpetuates Racist Stereotypes

8. White People Can Freely Do What People of Color Were Actively Punished for Doing

9. It Prioritizes the Feelings of Privileged People Over Justice for Marginalized People

“If you’re wondering what the big deal is about cultural appropriation, I’ve got you covered.

Read on for some perspective on why people might get upset if you borrow from another culture.”

Read the whole article on @evrydayfeminism at: http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/

why is this so hard to understand 



Mercury is officially “out” of retrograde! Know what that means? That the planet doesn’t appear to move backward in the sky due to our motion relative to the “backdrop” of space, because that’s what retrograde notion is – an optical illusion.

So, observers from our past who knew nothing of celestial mechanics and orbital motion (let alone that we are among billions of other solar systems in the universe) perceived Mercury’s odd “movement” as some kind of foreboding communication from the cosmic beyond which indicated a disturbance of reality, rather than consulting (and trusting) an actual astronomer on this “phenomena”.

Still blaming Mercury retrograde for your problems? Congratulations, you’ve managed to remain ignorant after nearly 500 years of scientific progress.

“Astrology is bunk, it’s fraud.” – Carl Sagan

Orphaned children and the abandoned dogs they love

In Bangladesh, an Australian photographer finds a tight-knit, motley family

Margaret Hamilton (b. 1936) is a computer scientist and engineer who, as Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, played an important part in the Apollo space programme. Her division was responsible for developing the onboard flight software for the missions that put the first men on the Moon, and she was the supervisor and lead programmer of the project.

She graduated with a degree in abstract mathematics, during a time when computer science and software engineering were not yet disciplines in their own right. She worked for the SAGE Project, used by the military in aircraft defense. Since 1986 she has been the CEO of Hamilton Technologies, an organization which she founded.

This Private 787 Dreamliner Jet Is Even More Luxurious Than You Can Imagine

#UnfairAndLovely: South Asians Fight Back Against The Stigma Surrounding Dark Skin 

One of the campaign starters had the best thing to say about it, too.

There’s even more evidence that Europa could hold life

Jupiter’s moon Europa likely holds a huge, salty ocean beneath its frozen shell — and according to a new study, it may be more like our own oceans on Earth than anyone expected. What that means for the chances of life there.

Follow @the-future-now​

وجمعة مباركة للجميع

While these may be controversial & provocative, Muslims have no right to be offended by it. What’s offensive is that atheism is punishable with the death penalty in Saudi Arabia & many other Muslim-majority countries both in the middle east & outside of it. Not all Muslim-majority countries have the death penalty, but there are other punishments like prison, lashes, annulment of marriage, loss of child custody & family inheritance, seizure of property, loss of employment, & others.

Even if these laws didn’t exist, atheists still experience oppression from society. Most will not come out to their families for fear of being disowned, kicked out, or even worse, killed. If the apartheid laws weren’t bad enough, you still have to worry about how your family, friends, & neighbours will react to your lack of faith. So these pictures aren’t offensive, they’re resistance against oppression & apartheid. When you oppress a group of people so much & take away their right to live, expect the frustration to be released one way or another, even if it pisses off your oppressors.

While one can try to argue that the death penalty has nothing to do with Islam, the politicians & clerics who advocate the law use Sharia, verses from the Quran, & hadiths to support it. Only a tiny minority of clerics & fiqh experts oppose it, & they are constantly being accused of apostasy themselves.

Thirteen countries punish atheism with the death penalty. These are Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Qatar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, & Sudan. All are Muslim-majority & use Sharia to varying degrees, except for Nigeria but the death penalty only applies in certain Muslim-majority states in the north.

Until these laws no longer exist & atheists can finally live, Muslims have no right to be offended by legitimate resistance & our response to oppression.

Testimonies from Saudi atheists I personally know:

“It’s hell. Religion is always pushed down our throats. We’ve worked so hard to get rid of the brainwash we’ve been receiving all our lives just to put on a mask every fucking day in front of people. A socially acceptable mask. It’s like we’re in a zombie apocalypse & we’re disguising as zombies to not have our brains eaten. You MUST agree with them. You MUST wear that mask every fucking day of your life. You start to get less & less chances in life of taking that mask off & relaxing for a bit & the more you wear that mask the more painful it gets because that fucking mask is poisonous. But you wear it anyway because the alternative is getting killed.”

“The first thing I’d start with is how hard it is to live a double life. Religion & the place I’m living in are some of the reasons why I’m suffering from severe depression. Religion haunts me. I’m always having nightmares that I’ve been caught & will face beheading. My life is in danger 24/7.”

“In Saudi Arabia, god is your judge, jury, & executioner. God is not in the sky but on the ground in the form of long bearded men with evil in their eyes. God wanted me dead but now god can’t reach me (thanks to getting asylum). How godly of him.”

“Being an atheist single mother is terrifying. I’m always paranoid someone will find out & take my son away from me because I’m an “unfit mother”. It breaks my heart that I have to lie to him about god & religion because he’s too young to realize how dangerous speaking the truth is.”

“I can’t think of anything that would describe it better than hell. It’s way too risky to say anything.”

“I seriously don’t want to think about this shitty place we live in becuse I’m already depressed as fuck.”