I learned about the murder of Kitty Genovese in two separate psychology classes, at two separate universities. It was studied as an example of the “bystander effect”, which is a phenomenon that occurs when witnesses do not offer help to a victim when there are other people present.
I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didn’t do anything because they “assumed someone else would”. Nobody intervened until it was too late.
What I was not told was that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian who lived more or less openly with her partner in the Upper West Side and managed a gay bar.
Now… is it likely that people overheard Kitty’s cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didn’t care?
Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didn’t know she was gay, or didn’t care.
But it’s a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And it’s a dishonour to her memory.
RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.
Stephen Miller is an unelected sledgehamner of human rights crimes. True evil.
“When the handle has snapped off the basket that held all your eggs…” gone girl tier monologue
A: occupied Poland.
First Felon has over 3500 court cases.
Now that he is a convicted felon, fraud, and adjudicated rapist, he wants to skip judicial process and one-way ticket innocent people to concentration camps in El Salvador.
“How we relate to the pain of others is a question that always lurks beneath our politics, but it’s one that is particularly relevant now. In its first months, the Trump administration has begun to implement a radical rightwing regime featuring mass deportations without due process, draconian cuts to domestic and foreign aid programs, and venally self-interested foreign policy – a set of policies that amount to a prescription for mass suffering and death. Whether Trump succeeds or fails in his quest to remake US society is very much a question of how much of the pain of others Americans are willing to abide in the pursuit of making America great again. The rightwing movement against empathy seeks to dismantle and discredit one of the essential tools for any society – our capacity to recognize and respond to suffering. We should see the campaign against empathy by Trump supporters for what it is: a flashing red light warning of fascist intent.”
— Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy
If anyone has taken their eyes off what's happening to federal workers in the US right now, here's some highlights that we're hearing from our comrades across the government who have not yet been fired:
In one building (hosting multiple agencies), the locks on the bathroom were changed so employees no longer have any access to a bathroom during the workday. People are peeing in trash cans.
Elsewhere, multiple agencies have reported that hand soap is no longer being supplied in the bathrooms.
Toilet paper supplies have not been adjusted to meet the needs of a vastly increased number of in-office employees.
Employee-owned coffee and coffee makers have been stolen or thrown away without notice (it was already illegal for taxpayer dollars to be spent on supplying federal employees with amenities like coffee, so many offices have coffee supplied by pooled employee funds).
Meanwhile, many offices don't even have potable drinking water (recurrent legionella outbreaks), so employees have to bring their own water from home.
Despite an explosion in the number of workers in offices, cleaning budgets have been slashed and many offices are not being cleaned regularly enough to remain sanitary. Pests like roaches and rats are a problem.
The firings continue, legal and illegal. Entire programs are being cut. Managers have no idea when they might lose staff. Employees are getting fired at 6pm on a weekend or finding out when they're unable to log into their computer or when they receive a shipping label in the mail to return their equipment.
Through all of this, the DOGE employees in federal workplaces are enjoying incredible and expensive luxury: AI-powered sleep pods, entire dormitories so they can live in federal buildings, nurseries for their children on site, free food and beverages, laundry services, and who knows what else. They have special security to restrict access to their areas of the buildings, including armed guards.
And I'm not just saying this to lament how bad it is for federal workers. I'm saying this because, as workers are reporting this to one another, the response is, inevitably: "This is illegal." "Yes, but who would I report it to? OPM? They're a DOGE puppet. OSHA? They've cut OSHA. The Inspectors General? Cut. The NLRB? Cut. My union? No longer recognized."
There is no one left to enforce these laws, so taking away access to basic sanitation is now effectively legal. They are doing this to federal workers, who historically have been some of the best-protected workers in the country. They are doing this specifically because it demonstrates to the public sector that it is now legal to do these things to their own workers.
Call/email your Senators and Representatives. Even Especially if they're Republicans.
By the by, you know what's a fun and easy thing to do as you're scrolling through your social media feed and checking your messages?
If you see an ad for a fascist, one of their orgs, or any of their pet projects, report it as a malicious ad.
If you see an account rattling off fascist bullshit in the comments on whatever platform you're browsing, block it and report it as spam / bot / hate speech / misinformation as appropriate.
If you get a text or an email from one of those organizations, block the address but also flag it as phishing. Not just spam. PHISHING.
This accomplishes three things.
One, it cleans up your feed, your messaging, and your inbox.
Two, it weeds out bots and psyops accounts and General Assholes.
And three, if enough malicious ad reports and phishing flags are submitted, the companies posting the ads may have trouble posting material in the future, since their accounts may be suspended, their emails will be marked as phishing, and their ability to reach people will be reduced.
Sure, it's a small impact. Sure, it's not a guaranteed success.
But EVERY SINGLE WRENCH we can throw into the machine of fascism breaks some small part, causes some small delay, prevents things from rolling forward smooth and easy.
And the more of us that do it, the harder it will be for that machine to keep rolling.
Think of it as the online version of tearing down posters and disrupting communications.
Make them take time to create new accounts. Make the algorithms work against them. Make them have to adjust and pivot again and again. Make them spend that time and money and effort to get their propaganda through.
Nobody needs to do everything. But everyone should do something.
Keep Going.