Japanese Ukiyo-e: Sunset Glow at Otemon Gate. Hasui Kawase. 1952
Japanese Art: Evening Primrose. Yumeji Takehisa. 1918
Growing up amidst male socialization when one’s gender identity is not consistent with it is a horrifying and traumatic experience. Nothing about it is in any way a privilege, and one does not internalize or adapt to it in a manner at all similar to how a cis man does. Rather than it being a means through which one develops confidence and a sense of power and entitlement, eventually taking one’s vantage point for granted, it is instead a painful, self-erasing performance one has been forced to adopt. One has a constant inner checklist of the behaviours and mannerisms you’re supposed to display in order to avoid being seen as girly and consequently ridiculed or beaten up. Instead of gaining the benefits of being the “superior” class within our cultural gender dynamics, you’re instead experiencing an extremely harsh, constraining prison of gender’s unspoken rules and regulations. Instead of internalizing a sense of being the default, favoured, normal gender, you internalize scripts, shame, self-hatred and the need to police your own gender- police your expression, your personality, your interests, the ways in which you interact with others, anything that could end up with you getting ‘caught’ and revealing how you’re not normal, you’re inferior, broken and wrong.
Natalie Reed, Talkin’ ‘Bout My S-S-S-Socialization (via transfeminism)
Yes. This is how it was for me, too.
(via kiriamaya)
Aaron Douglas. Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery through Reconstruction, 1934
(via dusttracksonaroad)
A change in policy: Twitter announced Thursday that it would begin restricting Tweets in certain countries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popular uprisings recently sweeping across the Middle East.
“Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world,” the Twitter blog said.
Read more: Twitter to restrict user content in some countries
Not cool.
(via youarenotyou)
Large scale slices of fruit. Oil on canvas by Dennis Wojtkiewicz.
(via lovebelikeawhirlwind)
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, 1972
Tomorrow’s Invasion Day (Australia Day) marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most important protests in Australian Aboriginal history.
All my solidarity.
(via adailyriot)
Guys, ACTA does not go into effect tomorrow, nor is a vote happening tomorrow. While the petition on AccessNow is, I’m sure, an extremely impressive benchmark (100,000, guys, we did it!) we don’t need 100,000 signatures or 150,000 or whatever number they’ll adjust it to when they hit 150,000 (as they should, because they’re trying to drum up support, and numbers breed urgency.)
On Thursday, January 26th, 2012, the Polish government is planning to ratify ACTA. There were, as you might expect, protests—intense ones—and you should definitely contact your government if you are Polish. According to a member of the European Parliament, discussions on ACTA in the EU will start on the first of March, and while the EU did initially promise to ratify ACTA, severe doubts have been raised by EU committees. Continuing to quote Marietje Schaake, member of the European Parliament:
TL;DR: Important dates for ACTA in the European Parliament:
- 29 February/1 March: Discussion in international trade committee,
- April or May: Vote in international trade committee,
- 12, 13 or 14 June: Final vote in plenary (most important vote).Okay, that’s it! Please do consider signing the petition as this is still super important!
(via blackamazon)
Police involvement in ‘human safaris’ exposed in the Andaman Islands
© Survival InternationalBritish newspaper The Observer has revealed evidence of police involvement in ‘human safaris’ in India’s Andaman Islands.
The scandal, first exposed by Survival in 2010, involves tourists using an illegal road to enter the reserve of the Jarawa tribe. Tour companies and cab drivers ‘attract’ the Jarawa with biscuits and sweets.
The Observer has obtained a video showing a group of Jarawawomen being ordered to dance for tourists by a policeman, who had reportedly accepted a £200 bribe to take them into the reserve.
One tourist has previously described a similar trip: ‘The journey through tribal reserve was like a safari ride as we were going amidst dense tropical rainforest and looking for wild animals, Jarawa tribals to be specific’.
In recent weeks the Islands’ administration has again ruled out closing the road, known as the Andaman Trunk Road revealed for the first time that it plans to open an alternative route by sea to bypass most of the Jarawa reserve.
Survival has called for tourists to boycott the road, which the Supreme Court ordered closed in 2002. Working with a local organization, SEARCH, Survival has distributed leaflets to tourists arriving at the Islands’ airport warning of the dangers of using the road.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘This story reeks of colonialism and the disgusting and degrading ‘human zoos’ of the past. Quite clearly, some people’s attitudes towards tribal peoples haven’t moved on a jot. The Jarawa are not circus ponies bound to dance at anyone’s bidding.’
Why are they blurring out the face
It’s just a white man continuing his legacywho does this surprise? because it damn sure ain’t conscious PoC.
(via adailyriot)
0228 A misty morning ride on a shikara—Dal Lake , Kashmir (by ngchongkin)
(via lovebelikeawhirlwind)
Like a Restless Wind (2011) by Stella Im Hultberg.
Because of Edison’s patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North American east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disney’s biggest hits ever.
So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it’s all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.
The reason they are always complaining about “pirates” today is simple. We’ve done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between each other, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases takeover 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It’s all based on the fact that we’re competition. We’ve proven that their existence in their current form is no longer needed. We’re just better than they are.
(Source: static.thepiratebay.org, via so-treu)
The real reason MegaUpload was shut down?
In December of 2011, it was reported by Digital Music News that the creators of MegaUpload were rolling out plans for a new cloud based music service that had the potential to change the music industry.
Called Megabox, it would have created an alternative to record labels as a means for artists to sell their music on-line, cut out the middle man and allow artists to keep 90 percent of their earnings.
They were also going to have a program called Megakey that allowed artists to offer their music free and still generate revenue.
This came just a week or so after Universal filed to have a promotional video by Megaupload removed from youtube that featured A list artists, that Universal had absolutely no claim to.
Was Megaupload taken down because it was a threat to an existing business model, that makes a lot of people a lot of money?
It’s starting to look that way.
Also, for your reading enjoyment, here is an interview with the founder of Megaupload concerning the youtube video take down, and his previous problems with Universal.
Sources:
Mystery surrounds Universal’s takedown of Megaupload YouTube video on C|NET
MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox… on Digital Music News
Post on google plus by Shauna Myers “Why was MegaUpload really shut down?”
(via genderbitch)
Just so we’re all clear.
Re: this post.
Let me break it down for the bunch of people who just do not get what I was saying.
It was not about the specific girl in the short video from Jane Elliott’s workshop.
Let me repeat that.
It was not about or towards that person on a personal level.
My anger and fuck you is directed to the responses I saw to her being upset, in a situation that she volunteered for. It is anger about when the racism and discussion about racism is magically erased when a White person gets their feelings hurt.
The term White Lady Tears is applied when White people, often women use their tears and hurt feelings to manipulate or bully people of color into silence because it’s uncomfortable and yes it hurts when you do or say something hurtful and are called on it.
My fuck you is directed at the people who participate in that behaviour, who perpetuate it with their silence and in doing so perpetuate the racist bullshit I deal with every fucking day.
In this context, that girl in the video was the catalyst for an outpouring of OH NOES that did not extend to the actual lessons Ms. Elliott has worked for a long goddamn time to teach. Nor did those specific reactions extend to those of us who simply because of the color of our skin experience those things every day of our lives.
Further let me put it this way with something that yes actually happened to me.
In most of my classes through high school, I was often the only student of color. Or sometimes there was maybe one more.
In a class I was sitting in a note was passed around all about how (this is verbatim) “we only have to do this because of the darkie” during Black history month.
Rather than any of the white children being reprimanded or anything the teacher read it aloud, glanced at me and threw it away.
When I went to the teacher in tears I was told to “just ignore it”.
A few weeks later, another note was found saying that someone in the class was a slut. One girl (yes a White girl) decided it was about her, burst into tears and the ENTIRE CLASS had to apologize.
What lesson do you think I learned from that experience and the many like it I’ve experienced in my life? The lesson is that I as a Black child/person do not matter as much as the White child/person.
I say fuck you to a system that does that to me and has been doing it to me since the day I was born.
If what’s important to you are the hurt feelings of someone when they are caught or called out for their bad behavior bye.
You don’t get it and likely will have the supreme privilege of never getting it.
Now how to tell if you are doing this to a person of color me in particular.
- Complete refusal to understand or even acknowledge the context of what I said.
- Using a tone argument.
- Calling me names based on an out of context phrase.
- Sending me messages telling me I’m being mean.
- Not saying to people who may be doing these things to stop.
- Only having empathy for the people in the position of power.
Also if you are using the tumblrs you can use the googles.
I won’t do it for you because it’s not my job to prove or give evidence of these things.
Furthermore understand if you understand nothing else that while the video was an experiment, the things I’m talking about are my actual life and real pain and real anger.
If you can do none of these things, do not talk to or about me. Keep it to yourself.
and you know what .
Personal anger at this person is PERFECTLY FINE. This exercise was given to students who knew it was happening, she tried to interrupt and disrupt an exercise for EVERYONES learning that she agreed to , that she was aware of and she consented to because it got too much for HER PERSONALLY.
If this is a group of leaders , she basically said
FUCK OUR AGREEMENT it’s not worth my discomfort, it says something to me that the only RESPONSE she got was someone makings use to add ” and Latino’s” to the apologies she should give.
And if you add ” oh but black people” I would go yes that has happened and she SHOULD del awful
Tales of an exhausted educator
I am an educator. Not a teacher by training, profession, or plan; not compensated; rarely appreciated. But I educate. Mostly, I educate white people. I don’t have to do this, and I often resent doing so, and it comes at great personal cost. But life has taught me thus far that if I wish to be respected and understood as a whole human being, I must teach white people to see me as such. So, mostly, I do it for myself. And I do it for other people like me who lack the words, opportunity, energy, platform, or ability. I wrote this weekend about an unsettling exchange with a white, male authority figure. I took the risk of reporting a racial microaggression to him, in response to a recent request of his that I help elucidate the ways in which our academic environment is unwelcoming to students of color. In response, I was accused of sounding racist against white people, admonished to be more sensitive to white people, and requested to educate him at length about why and how the incident was offensive. This led to me feeling anxious, having my one day off this week marred by worry and apprehension, taking hours out of my time to find additional resources for him to read (focusing on scholarly articles so that he will be open to the ideas within them), writing and re-writing my thoughts with extreme care, concern that I would be reprimanded for speaking out, difficulty sleeping, second-guessing myself, and feeling unpleasantly vulnerable. Despite this, I am still engaged in an e-mail conversation with this man. Because the alternative is to let him go blissfully on ineffectively leading, teaching, and mentoring people of color in his sphere of influence. And it always comes down to this: someone’s gotta do it. I guess it has to be me.
I want the bolded tattooed on White people’s foreheads.
The two words most White folks need to say to people of color who are educating them (and chances are, if we’re talking about race with a White person, we are educating them whether they acknowledge this or not) should be: Thank you.
(via madamethursday)
