Seizure of indigenous land, 1776-1887

an important reminder as ‘4th of July’ rolls around

I am a fucking delight, I whisper to no one as I put something witty in the tags.

CISFORMERS

They’re just cars wtf that sucks

Statement of Concern from Arizona Critical Ethnic Studies

The members of Arizona Critical Ethnic Studies are deeply concerned by a recent incident involving an Arizona State University (ASU) police officer and an ASU faculty member. We call for a swift and thorough investigation into this matter.

On the evening of May 21, 2014, Dr. Ersula Ore, a professor in the English department at ASU, was walking home from campus after teaching a summer course. Dr. Ore, who is African American, was stopped and questioned by a male ASU police officer patrolling the area in his vehicle. After a short exchange with the officer, a brief physical altercation ensued in which Dr. Ore, who was wearing a dress, was forced up against the officer’s car and then onto the ground, fully exposing portions of her lower body to the public. Eyewitness accounts of the incident, including video evidence, support Dr. Ore’s assertion that the officer did not clearly inform her regarding why she was being stopped or inform her of her rights, and engaged in excessive force during her detention. Despite these questionable circumstances, however, Dr. Ore has subsequently been charged with felony aggravated assault on the officer, among other charges.

We are troubled by the responses of the media, University, and ASU Police Department about this incident. Media versions have presented a sensationalized, one-sided story that differs substantially from Dr. Ore’s and eyewitness accounts. Officials at ASU, in response to questions about the incident and possible racial profiling, have sought to distance the University, stating that 1) because the incident occurred on a public street between parts of campus, it was technically “off campus,” so Dr. Ore was a private citizen; and 2) although they will comply with any investigation, there is no evidence of racial profiling. We find these responses insufficient. First, the officer involved was an ASU police officer and the University is responsible for the conduct of its employees, including its police force. Second, whether as a private citizen or as a member of the ASU community, Dr. Ore has the right to expect dignified and humane treatment by ASU’s police officers. ASU, as a public institution, has a responsibility to ensure this occurs. Third, ASU has not undertaken a thorough investigation into the matter, so how can officials claim that there is an absence of racial profiling? In a state and metropolitan region in which racial profiling has been proven to be widespread, the ASU administration’s lack of concern for the well-being of an ASU community member of color is unacceptable.

Given that the mission of the ASU Police Department is, “To enhance the quality of life by providing a safe and secure environment through professional and proactive law enforcement services in partnership with the University community,” this incident clearly warrants further inquiry from ASU.  We ask the ASU administration to conduct a comprehensive investigation into this matter as well as an audit on the conduct of its police force vis-à-vis racial profiling.  How can ASU ensure a safe, secure, and just environment for its faculty, students, and staff if it disclaims any responsibility for the actions of ASU police officers? The following questions should be starting points for its audit: In the ASU Police Department, what training is in place to ensure that its police officers are knowledgeable and well-trained to be in compliance with laws prohibiting racial profiling and excessive force? What monitoring systems exist to ensure accountability? How does the department respond to racial profiling complaints?

Dr. Ore, the ASU community, and the broader public deserve a full and just investigation into this incident.

Arizona Critical Ethnic Studies is a network of college and university educators and independent scholars throughout Arizona.

No black person is ever safe.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST

do you ever think about how we’ve set up our communities so that:

NSFW. No really. SUPER NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

But it is hilarious and you need to watch this in a safe place where people won’t give you horrified looks.

Thank you

it took them until the second season for the married gay couple who have a kid to kiss onscreen. which they proceeded to do once. it lasts less than a second. there's normative father-daughter hugging in the foreground to distract from it. and they called the episode "the kiss" and the running joke was how inhibited Mitchell is about physical affection.

seriously I just watched the clip, knew it was coming, and I still missed it.

socially well-adjusted non-pathological ladyfolk a: anonymously harass women on the internet, and b: shit all over other people's genders and lives, and most importantly c: keep their mouths shut and know their place when strangers shit all over them on the internet.

sisterhood is powerful, but you know what's more powerful? saying women are mannish because they don't fit your narrow conception of acceptable femininity!

this message brought to you by Authentic Female Female-Bodied Feminism.

This is re: my Odd Future post.

First of all, many thanks to mai’a, whom I’m pretty sure most folks reading this are already following, but should be if they’re not.

Second, I’m not quite sure that I did anything to justify the sexism and homophobia in OF’s music; in fact, I’m pretty sure I called it out.  But I think that what makes it possible to ignore the fact that I was calling it out was the fact that I was also trying not to couple that critique with a retreat into a kind of smug critical self-satisfaction where I get to feel morally superior to or smarter than what or whom I’m critiquing.  

It’s not only because I think that style of critique has led to barely disguised displays of racism.  It’s also because I think that style of critique often allows us 1) to get away with learning very little about what we’re criticizing by applying the same critical formula to everything and anything, so long as we can show evidence of the ways in which it is misogynist and homophobic—and, for that matter, racist; and 2) to imagine our criticism as transcending the object of our critique by oversimplifying it (i.e. “TTC says stuff for attention”) or by performing a weird kind of doublespeak where we claim in one breath that it has no meaning and then, in the next breath, point out the homophobic and sexist meaning that is everywhere in it.

One of the cool things about the internet, and about tumblr especially, is the way that it allows for the quick propagation of all sorts of antiracist, antisexist, antihomophobic, etc., ideas.  The appearance of sites like Color Lines, Jezebel, Racialicious, Feministe (sites which vary greatly in quality and ideological orientation), among others, have all been really important in popularizing antioppression ideas in general, and in producing a class of people able to problematize and critique oppressive discourses, especially those that can be found in popular culture.  

One of the not so cool things about the internet is that it has helped to produce a class of people who are, relatively speaking, quite comfortable in their general anti-oppression stance.  Anti-oppression discourse, nowadays, isn’t even about a politics (i.e. working collectively to change the world you inhabit) as much as it is about style—about speaking the right language, using the right terms, expressing outrage at the right moment, etc.  Unlike previous generations of people discussing anti-oppression ideas, we who are members of this class don’t need to go to long, drawn-out meetings or to join activist groups in order to satisfy our desire to be against oppression.  The discussion, in many ways, comes to us—just follow the right people, read the right blogs, etc.  Anti-oppression, that is, arrives to us with the slick, polished sheen of a mass-marketed commodity.

Without even talking about the billions of people who cannot access this kind of discourse precisely because the very late capitalism that provides us with cheap-ish computers and internet access needs to keep their wages incredibly low in order to do so, I’ll end by saying this: I believe that there’s a difference between producing evidence of oppression, explaining oppression, and fighting oppression.  One can produce evidence of oppression without being able to explain why oppression happens.  My problem with the Jezebels and Racialiciouses of the world, as well as with a lot of stuff I see around here, is that they glorify their own capacity to produce evidence about oppression without explaining it.  Or if they do explain it, the explanation tells us very little: it relies on the fact that we know oppression is bad and the fact that it feels good to know that.  This, I think, is why sarcasm works so well on Jezebel and various other liberal feminist blogs—it allows its reader to ignore the lack of analytical depth by allowing her to substitute the feeling of Knowing Better Than Someone Else Does.

You might think that people who analyze oppression professionally would at least think about the question of who benefits from oppression, a question that necessitates at least a critical view onto capitalism.  The problem is, of course, that those who produce evidence of oppression professionally have a class interest in not explaining or learning to explain who benefits from oppression.  Folks like (Racialicious founder) Carmen Van Kerckhove have found creative ways to make a living off of talking about race (and talking about talking about race) without explaining much at all save the fact that racism exists, a fact that we seem not to be able to be reminded of enough.

But the fact that an entire industry has emerged to produce evidence about oppression without doing much at all to fight it should tell us something about where we’re at in terms of capitalism.  Anti-oppression has become a commodity, too, and “we” are part of the machine by and through which that commodity is made and consumed.  I’m not trying to trivialize or downplay the existence of oppression—oppression exists, and exists on a scale any in ways I am not even in a position to know or speak about.  But I am trying to begin to understand how capitalism has enabled people—especially upwardly mobile, college educated people like me—to generate an anti-oppression discourse that allows many of us to feel as if we are doing much more to fight it than we actually are.

Adult Trans women are adult human females

Um

NO THEY AREN’T.

legally and medically speaking, we are.  also according to us, so according to feminist epistemology.  its basically only yall and the christian fundamentalists that deny this.

lol @ “stfutransactivistbullies” what a snappy title! =P

wow. also their tumbl is 30% "hey trans people fuck you you're horrible" and 70% "it's so hard to be a transcritical feminist on the tumbles because people are just so CRUEL about it."

*trans woman minding her own business* *is suddenly surrounded by a pack of radfems* RADFEMS: “Why do you want to fuck us so bad? Huh? Huh? You can’t, you gross man! You’re gross! You rapist!” TRANS WOMAN: “I was actually just reading this bo-“ RADFEMS: “Gross rapist male! You just want to fuck...

to be fair, sometimes we make the mistake of reading not a book, but instead a thing on the internet. 

which reveals our deep-seated need to symbolically penetrate things. like the internet, i think.

radfems, by contrast, never symbolically penetrate anything. which is confusing, because they also use the internet. often to insert themselves into situations where they can belittle, demean, and shame other women.

but i think when they do it, it's not patriarchal or penetrative. probably because essential womanhood.

but not gender! just womanhood. 

YONG

I want to go here.

Why Are Tears Salty?

feelings are hard to do.