Some bitches really say “nonbinary people can’t be lesbians/included in lesbianism because the word originated from Sappho and it would be dishonoring her legacy” then make a group chat called “___ Goblins” and refer to the members of the group chat as goblins.
It’s my ex, my ex is bitches.
I can’t recommend Melanie Gillman’s webcomic As the Crow Flies enough for anyone who thinks the story of a Black queer kid and a white trans girl supporting each other through a cissexist White Feminist™ Christian camping trip sounds interesting.
____________
[image description: panels from As the Crow Flies in which three middle school girls sit on the ground in front of a mountain lake with a background of rocky cliffs and green shrubbery. One of them, Adelaide, is white with black hair and bangs, a pointy nose, and a tank top. In the middle is Charlie, who is black with short black hair, glasses, and a green shirt. Last is Sydney, a white girl with shoulder-length orange hair, a black shirt, and a green skirt. Here is the dialogue they share in speech bubbles throughout the depicted panels: Adelaide: “Sort of related to that – do you ever wonder…why does everyone call God a ‘he’ anyway? If God really is the infinite, all-encompassing being everyone says – why call God a ‘he’? Wouldn’t that be – sort of a limitation?” Charlie: “I have trouble with the idea that God could probably be any gender, but ‘just happens’ to be the gender with the most privilege.” Adelaide: “Especially a God we’re supposed to believe is a champion of the poor and the meek.” Charlie: “Haha, right. Even the way people paint God – God almost never looks like most of the people on the planet. Just the most well-to-do slice of it.” Adelaide: “Most of them aren’t very historically accurate, either.” Charlie: “Yeah, that’s the thing people always bring up. But it’s also – what do all those paintings say about which bodies we think are and aren’t capable of godliness?” Sydney: “It’s telling how people act like it’s an insult if you describe God any differently. Like - try calling God a ‘she’ in church. But I mean, why not?? It’s not like God ever came down and said, ‘Hey Abramosesbediah, just wanted you to know I’m a pasty straight dude’” Adelaide: “Seems like the fairest thing would be to keep shaking up the depictions.” Charlie: “Hang a few paintings where God’s a Peruvian grandmother.” Sydney: “A Black women’s wrestling champ!” Adelaide: “A kid in a wheelchair.” Charlie: “Maybe…someone who doesn’t need a gender at all?” Sydney: “A femme lizard-human-cyborg hybrid.” / end id]
hey do you think you could expand a bit on separating the art from the artist? clearly you’ve done it with jk rowling but what are your thoughts on it as a general idea?
okay, but you’re not going to like the answer.
here’s the truth: you can’t separate the art from the artist. not entirely. HP Lovecraft was an incredibly talented, but much more incredibly racist man. It would nice to say you don’t agree with his views but you can enjoy his works without that leaking in but…. well, I’m afraid that would be misunderstanding his books entirely.
Consider, for a second, that Lovecraft’s works were horror stories about extradimensional alien monsters having mutant children with humans, they were about invasions from distant monsters, they were about the purity of quaint European towns being tainted. Consider how this may have all been inflicted by the fact that he just simply despised anybody who wasn’t white. Consider how is opinions on “mixing the races” might fight into this; consider why being unable to maintain the “purity” of white Europe was the scariest thing of all to him.
This extends to Rowling too.
I would love to say we can just acknowledge that she is an awful, racist, antisemitic, transphobic person and then say “but at least her books are good,” because, well, they are, aren’t they? I would say so, for sure. But to suggest that one can separate her from them is…. ridiculous.
Consider why an antisemitic woman wrote about a species of goblins who live among us, but who for the most part keep to themselvesand are maybe a little bit oppressed by the institution, but also hold all the cards, all the money, run the banks.
Consider why a racist woman would write about a species of slaves who loved being enslaved, who enjoyed working for no pay, and cleaning up after humans, with the only small caveat of that they didn’t want to be beaten. Imagine that only the most radical of their species wanted to be free, and he still spent the rest of his life working for no pay and helping out a little white boy and his friends wherever he could. Consider why the only person in the story who thought they should be free, that they should have rights, was treated as an overzealous joke, who was acting against the wishes of those slaves who really LOVE being enslaved. Consider that Rowling went on to say that she kind of considers that girl to be black, now.
Consider why JK Rowling, an open and proud transphobe, wrote Rita Skeeter as having a large square jaw, thick “manly” hands, and dressing incredibly gaudily with the most obvious fake nails and fake teeth and fake hair and fake everything. Consider why a woman who tweets about how trans women are “foxes pretending to be hens to get in the hen house” might write this Rita Skeeter to then illegally transform her body in order to spy on children.
Harry Potter is full of Rowling’s bigotry, start to finish. Not even tangentially, like, “oh the goblins are bad, Rita Skeeter is bad, the house elves are bad, but most of it’s good!” because the deeper you dig and the longer you think the more you realise the entire story is based on her prejudices.
Harry Potter pretends to be an aracial story about found family, but if that were true, why are Harry’s distant ancestors important to who he is today even in the seventh book? Why does Harry have to live with his cousin and aunt and uncle? Because magic inherently prefers blood ties. Whilst Rowling was writing a story that seemed to say, “your heritage is not that important and doesn’t make you better than others” she was still writing a story about a boy who got all of his money through his bloodline, who was protected by living with his bloodline, no matter how evil, who was uniquely able to stop Voldemort because his bloodline passed down the invisibility cloak for generations and generations. Any step Harry takes he is compared to his perfect parents who were exactly like him — he looks just like his father, but he has his mother’s eyes, you know! — consider WHY a woman who is racist might’ve written a story like this. A story that on its surface, condemns a blood caste, but still in every step it takes, validates the idea that blood is thicker than water, and your geneological origin is what makes you special.
You can enjoy Harry Pottwr, of course you can. There are fantastic parts. I love a small group of teenagers deciding to become anarchies rebels and train to fight against fascism in secret. I love the murder mystery plots, I love how the series tells kids that it’s a good thing to be brave, and a good thing to fight injustice, and a good thing to challenge the government. But I cannot separate it from its author because it is such a product of its author. All of the structures of the world, the way things work in the universe, and drenched in Rowling’s beliefs, her bigotries. Of course they are: she made them.
Again. This doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy it. But I think we are past the day where we can pretend that disavowing a bigoted author is enough, and that that somehow separates the text from its bigotry. I think we are past the day where we can pretend that Harry Potter isn’t a deeply, inherently bigoted piece of media. Even the bits we love. I think we are beyond the day where we can truthfully pretend to separate it from her, because she is present through all of it. We MUST recognise its flaws. We MUST admit that she is in every part of it.
#this is a brilliant post that sets up an answer the anon’s question#which is that separating art from the artist isn’t about ignoring who the author was#but rather ignoring what the author tells you their work means#rowling will never say her work contains the things rightful pointed out here#but she doesn’t get to make that call#we all have eyes and can look for ourselves#and who she is is part of what we must look at (via @ratherembarrassing)
THIS RIGHT HERE
You guys are dangerously close to realizing specifically what kinds of people they keep from voting and why.
Oh and we have privatized prisons which allow companies to actually make money off of keeping people incarcerated
Here’s what’s really perverse: prisoners, who cannot vote, still get counted in the U.S. Census. The more prisoners a county has, the more representation it gets, even though the prisoners cannot vote. See how that works? The more black and brown people they lock up, the more government resources and political representation they get. Even though those prisoners have no say and cannot vote.
If county-A has a population of 50 voters but no prisons, and county-B has a population of 50 voters and 50 prisoners, the county with the prisoners gets more government funding and more political represention. This is sometimes called “prison gerrymandering” and it is used in redistrictring.
Not so fun Fact: Southern states that reliably vote for Republicans also have the highest prison population in the United States. (source). So mass incarceration is a double whammy. It’s both a form of voter suppression and a tool to strengthen white people’s political power.
Reblogging cos wtf (I’m not even American but I feel like more people should know this)
✨Shoutout to the corruption that is the United States government✨
“do your parents know?”
bitch, the only thing my parents know about me is just enough to identify me on a morgue table.
what it mean when everything she do make u smile
you got caught up in some shit bro you in love :^/
:/
Honestly something that bothers me more than most things is having my compassion mistaken for naivety.
I know that another fish might eat this bullfrog right after I spend months rehabilitating it.
I know that turning a beetle back onto its legs won’t save it from falling over again when I walk away.
I know that there is no cosmic reward waiting for my soul based on how many worms I pick off a hot sidewalk to put into the mud, or how many times I’ve helped a a raccoon climb out of a too-deep trashcan.
I know things suffer, and things struggle, and things die uselessly all day long. I’m young and idealistic, but I’m not literally a child. I would never judge another person for walking by an injured bird, for ignoring a worm, or for not really caring about the fate of a frog in a pond full of, y’know, plenty of other frogs.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But I cannot cannot cannot look at something struggling and ignore it if I may have the power to help.
There is so much bad stuff in this world so far beyond my control, that I take comfort in the smallest, most thankless tasks. It’s a relief to say “I can help you in this moment,” even though they don’t understand.
I don’t need a devil’s advocate to tell me another fish probably ate that frog when I let it go, or that the raccoon probably ended up trapped in another dumpster the next night.
I know!!!! I know!!!!!!! But today I had the power to help! So I did! And it made me happy!
So just leave me alone alright thank u!!!!
THIS.
I heard a story about this, a parable I guess.
There was a big storm and a ton of starfish were washed onto the beach, stranded much further up than they could get back and beginning to bake in the post-storm sunshine. A little girl was walking down the beach, picking up starfish and throwing them back into the sea. Some guy comes up and asks her what she’s doing. “Saving the starfish,” she says.
He looks around at the huge beach and the hundreds of starfish, and says “You can’t possibly save them all. I’m afraid you’re not gonna make much of a difference.”
She throws another starfish back into the ocean, and replies “It made a difference to that one.”
Yeah, I mean, we know we can’t change all the things. But have you ever noticed how much better life is when you’re around people who change things when they can?
Kindness is a choice. Even if it’s small, it’s worth it.
This is what I’m talking about, when I say that kindness and compassion do not equate with ignorance, stupidity, or naivety. Being cynical does not make someone more intelligent or more worldly.
Kindness is not weakness.
Kindness is brave. Especially when you also know that your kindness might not be returned, may even be met with anger or cruelty. It’s reaching out with an open hand, knowing that it’s just as likely to be bitten as it is to be held.
Kindness is hard. If you can’t find it in yourself to be kind, then fine. But don’t make it more difficult for those that can.
in order to lead a happy life im gonna have to disappoint my parents a bit
not to be dramatic but this post genuinely made me consider my priorities in life and the choices i need to make for my own wellbeing
I’m not very happy with these, they’re (particularly mareep) hard to shear without looking wonky.
Trans women can be lesbians
Reblog this extra hard m'ladies, m'dudes, and m'thudes because the terfs are already pissy.
That moment when you vaguely wonder if someone has a hand fetish but it’s like. Not enough to be a PROBLEM
A surprisingly quick update: she’s just touch starved. She mistook her touch starvation for a kink. Honestly, mood.
That moment when you vaguely wonder if someone has a hand fetish but it’s like. Not enough to be a PROBLEM
Congratulations.
it’s funny cause EVERY SINGLE time I see this, I’ve been scrolling for 30 seconds tops
Very top of my dashboard.
I was in line at Aldi and this girl with two toddlers in front of me had her card declined and she looked so fucking sad and said “let me call my husband real quick” and it was only 18 dollars, so I just paid for it, and she was very sweet and then as she walked off, the lady behind me said `”You know that was probably a scam, right?” and like, even if it was, like what a sad fucking scam, right? 18 dollars at the Aldi. If you’re “scamming” me for some Tyson chicken and apple juice and cauliflower, then just take my fucking money.
“A scam” people are fucking wild.
This happened to me, too. A woman had used WIC for the majority of her stuff (which I say from personal experience is such a long and embarrassing process) and to buy the remainder of her groceries, which included diapers and wipes, she used a card, and it got declined. I bought the other $30 of her groceries because hey, I’ve been there, and now I’m not. She was extremely emotional and began to cry and even hugged me. My mom called me on the drive home and could tell I had been crying myself, asked what was wrong, and when I told her what happened, she berated me for being “duped.” I couldn’t believe she could be so disappointed in one of her children for doing something- nice? Is that the hill you want to die on? Getting mad about people needing groceries?
I once paid for a woman’s bill at the vet…it wasn’t a big one, but she was trying to pay for some medication for her dog, and her card was declined. And her lip started trembling, and she says “I don’t get paid until Tuesday, would he be ok until then?”
So I just told them to add the $20 something onto my bill, and I thought she was going to break down crying right there.
And I don’t care if it was a scam or not. Just do nice things for people sometimes.
Do good recklessly.
I think “Do good recklessly” would be fantastic word art to hang on one’s wall. Artistic people, go!
So this has happened to me but from the other side. Several years ago when my oldest was around three or so, I had my debit card decline at Walmart. It wasn’t a scam or a mistake, I was genuinely broke. Out of money. I checked my bank and discovered I had something like 7 dollars left to my name and a hungry kid and nothing to eat at home. So I sat there trying to come up with the best way to stretch that tiny amount of money to feed my kid. Not even to feed me. I can live on popcorn or something if I have to but my kid was three and he had to eat. So there I am trying really hard not to cry while I slowly take things out of my basket to get it down to under 7 bucks, when a lady tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and she smiled at me and started putting the things back in my cart. I opened my mouth to tell her that I didn’t have the money for them but she stopped me right away and said “Don’t worry about it. It’s gonna be fine.” Then she handed the cashier her credit card and said “Ring up all of it.” My kid got to eat because of her. I got to eat because of her. I had laundry soap and deodorant because of her. She could’ve just ignored me silently struggling in that line. She could’ve decided I was a scam and gone home feeling good about avoiding being duped. But instead she chose to help me and she saved us. So maybe the person struggling in front of you is trying to put one over on you or maybe they are just sad and broke and trying to figure out what to do. You get to decide which you want to believe and what you want to do. But I’ll tell y’all, no one has ever been more beautiful to me than that lady in that line who saved me and my baby. Be like her. Be beautiful.
One time, my dad and I were living the grocery store and there was a guy outside asking for money to buy some stuff to take home for his kids. It was around Christmas time. My dad asked him if he could give him groceries instead of money, and the guy immediately said yes, so my dad gave him one of everything we bought (meat, rice, some chocolates, milk, oil). At that time, my dad hadn’t gotten his paycheck because the company he worked for was going through a tough time, but he didn’t care, he saw an opportunity to help someone and he did.
Another time, my dad gave 50 bucks to a guy who said he needed to buy medicine for his kids. I told my dad he was probably going to spend the money on alcohol or something, but my dad said that “whether he was lying or not says something about HIS character, but hearing someone in need and choosing not to help when I have the means to says something about mine”.
I never forget that.
louder, for the people in the back
I had this conversation on a trip through NC this weekend. About 15 miles down the road, the conversation settled on this: I’d rather be duped 10 times over than have ever withheld something out of cynicism.
I was just reading this and I just started to cry there ARE still good people on this planet and I’m glad to know that there is
the-ace-from-space (or some shit I don’t remember) —> the-asymmetrical-plant
I also changed basically everything else about my blog sorry
in case you haven’t heard it today, or don’t fully realise it yet: i promise you that most people in this world are kind, loving and understanding. the people around you want you to succeed, they do not want you to fail. your friends don’t hate you, they love you, and they want to see you grow and prosper.
the world is not as bad as it seems. don’t forget that.
Sounds fake but ok
good news: it’s not fake. everything i said is true. being dismissive towards good things is a damaging mindset to have. you’ll feel a lot better if you have some trust and if you’re willing to consider optimistic viewpoints.
Is this what non depressed people feel like ? Damn. You’re so lucky
i’m extremely mentally ill and extremely depressed at that. deflecting good advice that encourages you to think positively about life by claiming that the person who said it is not depressed (when i very much am) is also a very damaging mindset to have.
OP is the opposite of the “Then Perish” meme. All of OP’s replies read as “Then Prosper”.
Hey all y'all, it turns out that saying positive things and encouraging others with them even when you don’t quite believe them yourself is an excellent coping strategy for clinical depression. I know it’s hard to understand when you’re in the pit, and if I’m honest it’s still hard for me to grok, but the more you say positive things, the more they start being true. If that means lying to yourself, lie! Your brain chemistry is already lying to you about bad things, you may as well lie right back about good ones.
“Your brain chemistry is already lying to you about bad things, you may as well lie right back about good ones.“
Wow. That is a really fucking good point.
THEN PROSPER
Casual reminder that depression and PTSD *literally actually* warp your perception of reality.
i may not have any braincells, but i make up for it by having many heartcells
Pure of heart, dumb of ass.
