Latest Posts by icannotspelldefinnnately - Page 6

name one native american intellectual off the top of your head, name one native american actor or actress off the top of your head, name one native american senator, one native american news anchor, or an author or a tv personality or a singer or a poet or a comedian, name a single native american teacher you’ve had, can you? probably not 

ok so now think of one native american cartoon character you know of or a sports team relating to native americans whether it’s their actual name or their team logo, or a town you live in or near with a “native” name bet a lot of these things came to you right away i bet you didn’t even have to think 

needing native representation in media, education and government are not decoy issues, the commercialization and appropriation of native cultures are not decoy issues, the lack of native representation is institutional oppression at work 

Resource is from victoriaalxndr on Twitter!

Anyway, daily reminder from a culturally isolated Romani person.

Gypsy does not mean wanderer.

It literally means ‘people from egypt’ or similar, as europeans believed Romani people were from Egypt. It has become known similar to nomad due to how our ancestors have been forced to be nomadic due to racism and ostracization, but it is a SLUR.

Romani people are STILL being forcibly sterilized.

Romani people are STILL being forced into ghettos.

Romani people are still facing violence and danger in countless European countries- and recently, I’ve seen the beginnings of the extremes in the United States.

Have a little fucking respect and DON’T USE A SLUR THAT’S BEEN USED FOR CENTURIES AGAINST US.

And for the love of whatever’s up there, ESPECIALLY do not use it to describe your witchcraft. It is playing on the ‘magic gypsy’ trope, and is EXTREMELY insulting.

non romani people, please reblog this.

THIS IS URGENT! 

chrystul kizer is a black teen who was sex trafficked. she killed her traffickers to escape and is being charged with life in prison. her hearing is TOMORROW! and her family still needs about $10,000 more to get an attorney and pay bail. you can sign a petition for her charges to be dropped here and you can donate to the fund her mother set up here. please, please reblog this like wildfire today. her fucking life literally depends on it. 

since I’m thinking about this instead of studying for bar prep:

people in general tend to assume that a person who’s been arrested is either innocent or guilty. and if they’re guilty, then they deserve fewer rights than the innocent person.

like, if the police break into an innocent person’s house and look for drugs, we recognize that it’s a bad thing and a gross violation of rights. but if the police break into someone’s house and do find drugs, well, that’s just what they deserved. we’d all be upset if the police started randomly murdering people on the street for no reason, but many wouldn’t mind if the police started randomly killing known child molesters. it’s not okay if the police plant evidence to frame an innocent man for murder, but if they know he’s the murderer and plant evidence to help the case along? well, that’s unfortunate but necessary.

there are three problems with this:

You cannot always know with certainty who’s innocent and who’s guilty;

A two-tiered “innocent” and “guilty” legal structure will always be used against innocent marginalized people;

Even guilty people have rights.

this happens a lot on tumblr. not exclusively on tumblr (it’s also a major aspect of most “gritty” police dramas and almost all comics), but it’s definitely there. like, calls to summarily execute rapists sound great in theory, because we all agree that rape is evil. except for when it’s used to kill innocent black men who looked the wrong way at a white woman. 

and there are people who will say that no, of course, the problem isn’t summarily killing rapists, the problem is summarily killing the wrong people (that is, innocent people). which, again, you can’t know who’s innocent and who’s guilty - lots of innocent people aren’t sweet old ladies who’ve never done anything wrong, or have perfect alibis and never contradict themselves. hell, being guilty of a crime in the past doesn’t mean that they committed this specific crime that they’ve been accused of.

and even if they are guilty - even if they are stone-cold, unrepentantly guilty - they still have rights. that’s what “innocent until proven guilty” means. it means that stripping someone of their legal rights is a big fucking deal, so no matter how guilty Obvious McCriminal looks, you still have to follow the rules we’ve set in place to prevent abuses. 

like, it’s not that every person who’s ever been treated shittily by police and the court system is actually innocent, so therefore the system is bad. it’s that we have a system that treats people like shit once we’ve decided they’re guilty, regardless of when the decision is made, and we’re okay with that. after conviction? definitely. after arrest? yup. before arrest, because we just have a feeling about them? sure.

and I get why people make posts or write stories about guilty people being treated badly. wanting vengeance is a powerful emotion. grief and anger are powerful emotions. it is not unnatural to want to hurt people who have hurt others. people like the idea of karma, of cosmic scales balancing out the hurt and suffering inflicted by a person by making them suffer back. I’m not saying that no one is allowed to have those feelings. 

I’m just saying that there are implications behind them that are deeply disturbing (“if I decide you’re guilty, you’re less of a person to me”) and that it’s the primary driving force behind most of the issues in our criminal justice system.

[[This is Isaiah Hine’s high school presentation on white fragility. You’re not going to get a simpler explanation, in my opinion, so if you’re white you should really read this. Below are Isaiah’s notes on each slide.]]

—

What is White Fragility?

Robin DiAngelo is a professor at Westfield State University and author of What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy.

I’m sure you’ve all seen these ‘defensive moves’ in action before. “I didn’t mean anything by it” “I wasn’t trying to be offensive” “I have a black friend” “Not all white people”

People are often more worried about being called a racist than actually doing something racist. In America white people often don’t even have to consider race. They often think of themselves as “raceless” white is conditioned to be the norm and everyone else is considered “raced” or “colored”. White fragility allows white people to govern when and how race is discussed. White people expect to be educated on racism, and in a nice way.

—

Why Is It A Bad Thing?

White people never learn as a result and are allowed to continue saying and doing racist things. White people prefer to hear these things from other white people but because other white people don’t know enough about racism, they cycle continues. When people of color do things like the BLACKLIVESMATTER movement, many white peoples responses were “all lives matter” this is white fragility. Proclaiming that black lives matter does not inherently mean that other lives don’t. This statement is made because society continually shows us that black lives don’t matter in america and these are the lives that need the affirming. We already know that white lives matter, it doesn’t need to be stated. White people are very used to being the center of things and when they aren’t it makes them uncomfortable.

—

Why Does This Happen?

Most people don’t fully grasp the idea of systemic racism and that we live in a racist society that perpetuates racist ideas. We are socialized into white supremacy.

okay but more of us need to say we are antifa - like if everyone who opposes fascism and trump just refers to themselves as antifa, its going to be harder and harder for moderates and conservatives to write it off as a “terrorist group.” 

i know people who are trump supporters. talking to them is the perfect opportunity to say “i’m antifa” or “i support antifa” watch them freak out and then follow up with: “antifa just means anti-fascism - it’s not an organization.. are you for fascism? because i’m anti-fascist.” 

i cant believe i have to say “normalize antifascism” but here we are

This is fucking 1984

hi can we normalize the idea of choosing not to drink

lmao i lost at least 7 followers after reblogging that…. anyway if you exclude nonbinary people you’re ignoring the white stripe of the trans flag; aces and aros are not straight and thus lgbt+ because theyre literally not attracted to the opposite sex, trans women are real women, and physical dysphoria is not required to be considered trans

REBLOG!!!! SPREAD THIS PLS!!! EVERYONE IN OR AROUND VIDOR PLEASE STAY SAFE!!!

#HisNameIsJustinHowell

Donate if you can.

Nah dude, some police are genuinely trying to make the world a better place. They go through a lot of shit so that they can try and help people. I hate most of the shit police do. I don't like being told what to do either. But people are fucking killing cops. That's people killin people and it's fucked. You're the death of your own cause if you condone violence and murder ya dumb fuck. Black lives matter, let's protect them by not murdering good people and giving nazis any sort of argument.

Gonna break down this response as clearly as possible. 

The origins of the police are evil. 

It has been shown repeatedly that the police were formed to oppress the working class and (1, 2) and enforce white supremacy (1, 2, 3). In fact, the early U.S. police grew directly out of slavery.

The police aren’t the people you think they are.

The police don’t care about you – they don’t even have a constitutional duty to protect you. They’re allowed to take your property without your consent (the NYPD seizes so much property they can’t even log it in their computers). In fact, cops are more likely to steal your property than burglars are. They commit hundreds of crimes and human rights violations against people like you & me and get away with it because they cover for each other.

Cops tend to be unusually aggressive, authoritarian, and secretive (Greene & Heilbrun, 2011). They are more than twice as likely to commit domestic violence than the rest of the population, and (once again) they cover for each other when doing so. The police are on the side of neo-Nazis (1, 2). In fact, many times the police themselves are the neo-Nazis/klansmen (1, 2, 3). And even besides all this, cops do all kinds of other shady shit – for instance, undercover police are used to instigate fights during protests and rallies.

The police terrorize those of us who are marginalized.

The police disproportionately arrest Black people for drugs even though white people use drugs more often. They disproportionately pull Black people over for traffic stops. The police terrorize people with disabilities.They are viciously anti-indigenous – and always have been. Police terrorize sex workers. There are countless examples of police brutalizing homeless people (1, 2, 3). The police have a lengthy history of brutality against the LGBT community (1, 2). They terrorize women of color and get away with it (1, 2, 3). They kill massive numbers of people each year – and a disproportionate number of their victims are Black and native. On top of that, recent data suggests cops may kill up to twice as many people as we even thought they did. And while police love to defend themselves by saying they have the most dangerous job, that’s not even close to being true.

The police’s best kept secret: We don’t need them! 

A world without the police is completely possible (1, 2, 3, 4). We have resources for resolving violence as communities without the need for state intervention (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – as some examples). We as communities are better capable of resolving violence than the police are, because we don’t have the vested interest in the status quo that they have. Even if a few cops are well-intentioned here or there, it doesn’t change that the role of the police is to work against the vast majority of us in the interests of the (white) elite few. 

Why are you so invested in the police when they are complicit in your dehumanization?

One big Damian fic rec post

Hi everyone! Thank you very much for your asks @effectsofentropy​ and @alollinglaughingcat​ and Anon!  Since they were a little similar, we mods decided to answer them in one big post instead of three separate ones.

As always, please mind the tags before reading, feel free to add your favourite - this is just a sample, there are many, many beautiful fics out there - and have fun!!

Keep reading

reminder that this blog, while not politically focused, supports BLM. bootlickers and racists aren’t welcome here, and never will be.

i know there’s a lot going on but ICE are now one step closer to literally creating gas chambers. they are spraying a chemical called HDQ neutral roughly 100 times a day, every 15 minutes at the adelanto detention center (one of the biggest in the country). people are getting rashes, headaches, their insides are bleeding, etc. the guards are wearing gloves and masks but the detainees have NOTHING. and here’s a quick reminder - america inspired the nazis to create gas chambers when they gassed latino people during the 1917 bath riots. 

here’s a petition to sign. it’s close to it’s goal. if there’s anything else we can do to help i’ll update this post.

hey! since we’re very close to pride month, friendly reminder to use cishet instead of straight! let’s not forget about straight trans people!

spring cleaning xx

So here's a wild idea: cops should never kill anyone for any reason in any circumstance. A cop killing someone represents, at best, a failure to correctly deescalate the situation. Any cop who kills anyone should be immediately banned from being a cop ever again AND put on criminal trial (no internal investigations). If they are found not guilty of murder, then they can go get another job doing something else. But no one who has ever killed another person should still be a cop.

No matter what a post on tumblr tries to tell you, your moral and ethical stances will never be determined by what you reblog and what you scroll past. Don’t let manipulation tactics force you into doing anything you don’t want to do.

WHITE PEOPLE REBLOG THIS ONE:

when you are in public with your black friend/friends DO NOT make jokes, or loud jokes about crime. do not yell at people when you are walking down the street, do not make jokes about robbing or stealing. YOU might be able to make those jokes by yourself, but when you are in presence of a black person, the effects can be DIRE.  

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but this feels vaguely relevant…

Read the full text of It Can’t Happen Here on Project Gutenberg: X

hello! if you’ve posted ANY video regarding the protests in Minnesota, DELETE THEM. DELETE THEM NOW. PEOPLE WILL BE FOUND AND ARRESTED OR MURDERED. THIS IS SERIOUS. THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO PEOPLE IN THE FERGUSON RIOTS, DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN

IF YOU ARE STILL PROTESTING, GO HOME. THEY ARE SENDING THE NATIONAL GUARD THERE AND THEY HAVE APPARENTLY BEEN AUTHORIZED TO USE LETHAL FORCE. GO HOME, FIGHT ANOTHER DAY

if you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor

Rutger Bregman is the Dutch historian who became a global sensation after an appearance at this year’s Davos summit, where he accused attending billionaires of ignoring taxation. Now he has created another viral moment in an extremely uncomfortable interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.

Bregman so riled Carson with his accusations of hypocrisy, critiques of Fox’s conservative agenda, and attacks on Donald Trump that the TV host called him a “moron” and angrily told him: “Go fuck yourself.”

Source

Lot more people around the world are going to watch this now than if it actually aired. Speaking truth to power is the best viral content!

meirl