They will not see us bleed

sorasusi: Hey, White Liberals: A Word On The Boston Bombings, The Suffering Of White Children, And...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:09:14 +0300

Hey, White Liberals: A Word On The Boston Bombings, The Suffering Of White Children, And The Erosion of Empathy

glitterlion:

Hey, White Liberals*:

I needed to break protocol to reach out to you and let you know that you’re killing me. No, worse. Much worse. You’re robbing me of part of my humanity.

In lots of ways, really, and frequently, but right now let’s just talk about this one way:

Your constant prioritization of the lives of white people over the lives of people of color is taking a serious toll on my psyche and those of many in my community. And by that I don’t mean what you might expect. Most of us already know that racism and its BFF white privilege have detrimental effects on people of color. Racial oppression leads to any number of unhealthy conditions, including high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, diabetes and even asthma. But what I’m talking about is something different. Something I’m going to call DSWP: desensitization to the suffering of white people.

A few days ago, I was having lunch with a good friend who is Korean-American, and she told me that when she heard about the bombings at the Boston Marathon—the marathon itself being something she knew nothing about and immediately associated with white people—she found that she had a hard time…well, caring. I’m sure that sounds shocking to many people. But it didn’t shock me. Because I was having the same feelings myself.

I really noticed it a few months back, during coverage of the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings. As news outlet after news outlet flashed photograph after photograph of mostly white children across TV screens and computer screens alike, I felt something I hadn’t remembered ever feeling before upon hearing of the brutal murder of children: I felt numb. Not numb in the way that people in shock feel numb. Not numb because of the great weight of what had happened. This was a different kind of numbness.

I couldn’t help but think about Trayvon Martin. He wasn’t an elementary school kid when he was shot and killed by a racist with a gun, but he was just a 17-year-old boy, unarmed, walking down the street with a bag of Skittles. I thought of countless other Black youth who have been murdered by crazed gunmen, usually with badges and police uniforms, in the last few years. I also thought about the hundreds of brown children in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been killed by US forces on the ground and by drone strikes. I thought about how many times I didn’t see any of their faces, smiling and innocent, splashed across the TV or the internet for days and weeks on end. I thought about how white people I know weren’t posting links to stories about those children and what had happened to them. That they weren’t writing Facebook statuses about how unbearable those kids’ deaths were. And, seeing pictures of those little blonde children—because the blonde ones are always featured most prominently—I felt numb.

And it wasn’t just me. The same was true for many of my majority-POC friends and many people in my community. Many of us seemed unable to feel what a person should be able to feel when another person, especially a child, has their life taken away. After all, we had always been able to feel it before. I thought about the numbness of my friends and about my own lack of connection, and I wondered what was happening to us. I didn’t wonder for long, though, because the answer is really simple: you are happening to us, white liberals.

It shouldn’t have to be this way. While many white people may not be capable of connecting emotionally to the humanity of people of color, we POC have always been capable of connecting to yours. Because all our lives we are told white people’s stories—through news, television, movies, etc.—our ability to see white people as people has been pretty solid. (This is also probably due to the fact that we have never needed an excuse to kidnap, enslave, or mass murder you, which is always easier to do to a race of people when you can deny their humanity). But even in the face of all the evil that white people have perpetrated against us, most of us, in the face of some individual white person or small group of white people in pain or suffering, have still been able to feel compassion. Sympathy. Empathy. But lately…it’s getting more and more difficult to feel those things (for examples, see hereand here).

Some of it has to do with the fact that the wars and subsequent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have gone on for more than a dozen years. For many of the younger folks I know, that’s the better part of their entire lives. It’s a whole third of mine. For a dozen years we have watched as the mainstream media has ignored the deaths of so many brown children, day after year after decade. I mean, they were ignoring the deaths of Black children all over the world, including here, way before that, but we didn’t have to see them ignoring it so blatantly every morning and afternoon and evening and night on TV (that 24-hour news cycle is a bitch; they have time for everything except our stories). Also, before the internet, and specifically before bloggers, the killing of black children by police officers had much less chance of even being known about outside of the community in which it happened. So, you know, you could at least feign ignorance. But now we know how often these things are happening. And we know how often white people don’t have a damn thing to say about it.

This is also true when it comes to the disappearances of black and brown women and children, which are all but ignored in the mainstream media. When our children go missing, there’s barely a teardrop in the news cycle. When white children go missing, it’s a national event.

Why don’t our children get to be children? Why don’t they ever get to be innocent?

What all this has resulted in is the displacement of compassion and empathy with anger and resentment. Because when the names of slain white children are spoken, I can barely hear them anymore. My ears are plugged with the unuttered names of the Black and brown children whose lives didn’t mean enough to be spoken aloud on CNN. When I see photos of their smiling white faces, I can only imagine the smiles of fallen Black and brown children whose faces never grace the news.

I feel as if something important, something essential to my humanity, is being drained away every time you ignore the suffering and death of people who look like me and my family and my friends and my community, while devoting endless hours of attention to the suffering of people who look like you. Each time, I feel little less…well, I feel a little less.

And I’m not happy about it. I don’t feel good about it. I don’t want to be someone who can’t empathize with people who don’t look like me. I don’t want to be like you.

The only way to stop this is for you to stop ignoring our lives and our deaths and our stories. For you to put the names and faces of those Black and brown children in your news and on your Facebook pages. It is not enough for you to say, when confronted, that you care. You need to act like it. Because a part of our humanity—our empathy—is eroding. And that’s not a good thing for any of us.

*I’m speaking to white liberals because I don’t expect anything from conservatives.

Mia McKenzie is the author of The Summer We Got Free.

All work published on BGD is the intellectual property of its writers. Please do not republish anything from this site without express written permission from BGD. Yes, linking to this post on Facebook and Twitter or elsewhere is okay.

Mia McKenzie is an award-winning writer and the creator of Black Girl Dangerous. She’s a smart, scrappy Philadelphian with a deep love of fake fur collars and people of color. She’s a black feminist and a freaking queer. She studied writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the winner of the Astraea Foundation’s Writers Fund Award (‘09) and the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award (‘12). You can find her short stories in The Kenyon Review andmake/shift. Her debut novel, The Summer We Got Free, is a finalist for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award and has been described by author and critic Jewelle Gomez as “a brilliant tapestry filled with exuberance and anxiety.” Her recent live performances include Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance, Mangos With Chili Presents: WHIPPED! QTPOC Recipes For Love, Sex & Disaster, and Black Girl Dangerous: Mia McKenzie on Being A Queer Black Femme Nerd In A Ridiculous World, the last of those being a signature reading of her diverse works, performed at universities across the country. Her work has been quoted onThe Melissa Harris Perry Show and recommended by The Root, Colorlines, Feministing, Angry Asian Man, and Crunk Feminist Collective, among others. She lives in Oakland.

"True gender equality is actually perceived as inequality. A group that is made up of 50% women is..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:59:11 +0300

“True gender equality is actually perceived as inequality. A group that is made up of 50% women is perceived as being mostly women. A situation that is perfectly equal between men and women is perceived as being biased in favor of women.
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.”
My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part.”

- - Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege. (via seaofbadstories)

I might have reblogged this already but it’s so good I don’t care.

(via stfufauxminists)

Kyriarchy in action.

(via transstingray)

Also the study where they had women and men talking in a discussion and when women spoke around 30% of the time, men perceived them as dominating the discussion. They didn’t consider it “equal” until something like 5-10% of women talking.

(via dumbthingswhitepplsay)

Voila. A beautiful example of why fighting for equality becomes a gross exaggeration in the eyes of the oppressors.

(via curiouslycool)

I’m planning my wedding and basically being told that if I don’t take my fiance’s last name, people will judge me… . I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling the pressure from all sides, including from my fiance. I don’t want to make my name longer and I don’t want to be Dr. _____ someday when I had always dreamed of having my family name. And my name just sounds better. -____-

(via knowledgeequalsblackpower)

"For the last three decades many Americans have puzzled over a system that gives an R to a movie in..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 22:09:47 +0300

““For the last three decades many Americans have puzzled over a system that gives an R to a movie in which a women is carved up by a chainsaw and an NC-17 to one that shows a woman sexually pleasured. From such ratings one might conclude that sexual violence against women is OK for American teenagers to see, but that they must be 18 to see consensual sex. What message does this send to the kids the MPAA presumably means to protect?””

- Carrie Rickey

(via we-are-star-stuff)

"In the 101 top-grossing family films…from 1990 to 2004, of the over 4,000 characters in these films,..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:35:52 +0300

“In the 101 top-grossing family films…from 1990 to 2004, of the over 4,000 characters in these films, 75% overall were male, 83% of characters in crowds were male, 83% of narrators were male, and 72% of speaking were male. When the American Psychological Association commented on this research, they said, ‘This gross under-representation of women or girls in films with family-friendly content reflects a missed opportunity to present a broad spectrum of girls and women in roles that are non-sexualised.’”

- Natasha Walter, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, pages 69-70, 2010. (via bitemebeautiful)

Bringing this back as people have started reblogging this again and EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS.

(via bitemebeautiful)

"Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:44:45 +0300

“

Let me tell you some things.

I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.

First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?

Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?

End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?

You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?

And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)

In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!

Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?

“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.

”

- In reply to a ‘pro-life’ blogger: STFU, Conservatives: When I say I’m pro-life… (via grrrltalk) emphasis mine. (via fuckyeahfeminists)

Activists in China launch trans visibility campaign

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:41:12 +0300

Activists in China launch trans visibility campaign:

gaywrites:

An LGBT rights group in China called Queer Comrades is launching a campaign to raise awareness of transgender people and trans issues.

As part of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia next week, the group will hold a special event that will educate the public about transgender communities. The event will include a showing of Brothers, the first documentary about trans men in China, and organizers are already reaching out to media for coverage.

‘Chinese society is currently still largely unaware of the plight of transgender people in China, who face stigma and discrimination on a daily basis,’ said a statement from event organizers Queer Comrades.

‘With the event, we focus on bringing attention to transgender communities in China and increasing public understanding of transgender issues.’

Awesome!

man scrolling through tumblr sees a feminist rant about hating men

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:30:09 +0300

iphisquandary:

plot twist: the man thinks, ah, she is simply expressing her frustration as a member of an oppressed group, whilst hating the construction of masculinity that was designed to keep her down, not all individual men such as myself…this is absolutely not the same thing as sexism and not a personal attack on me *keeps scrolling*

kanaya-maryammm-or-fmmm: it’s okay to be genderfluid but usually a girl it’s okay to be genderfluid...

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:55:40 +0300

kanaya-maryammm-or-fmmm:

it’s okay to be genderfluid but usually a girl

it’s okay to be genderfluid but usually a boy

it’s okay to be agender one day and bigender the next

it’s okay to not identify as any specific gender

it’s okay to keep your gender to yourself

your gender is your own goddamn business

ryuredwingsreturn: superblys: haramgirls: patron-saints: ...

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:55:08 +0300

ryuredwingsreturn:

superblys:

haramgirls:

patron-saints:

Women from Iran’s female police force, established in 2003. These ladies undergo a three year training program requiring intensive military courses including judo, fencing, firearm training, and laying mines. They serve alongside their male counterparts, work regular beats, and they do it all in hijab. Respect.

the bottom left picture made my night

can i just direct your attention to the middle right picture

These ladies look like they could bust you up big time.

davidlynching: fun fact: iraq, pakistan, afghanistan and saudi arabia have a higher percentage of...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:10:07 +0300

davidlynching:

fun fact: iraq, pakistan, afghanistan and saudi arabia have a higher percentage of women in the government than the us & the uk

another fun fact: white people tend to get very angry when you point this out to them

bisexual-community: Information on the struggles that face Bisexual...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:50:15 +0300

bisexual-community:

Information on the struggles that face Bisexual people

elcocotecomera:

abisexualfeminist:

Information on the struggles that face Bisexual people.

Bisexuals constitute the largest population within the LGBT community, but few services exist to address their specific needs.

One in two bi women and one in three bi men have attempted or seriously considered suicide. This is significantly higher than the rates for heterosexuals, lesbians, and gay men.

Bisexuals experience higher rates of hypertension, depression, poor or fair physical health, smoking, risky drinking, and other mood or anxiety disorders.

Bisexual men were 50% more likely to live in poverty than gay men, and bisexual women were more than twice as likely to live in poverty as lesbians.

In 2008 and 2009, not a single grant in the entire country [Ed Note: in this case the USA but is (mostly - excepting recently the Netherlands) the same worldwide] explicitly focused on bisexual issues.

Take a minute to consider that.

PLEASE consider redirecting your donation of volunteer hours and $$’s to Groups that actually Support you.For example:

American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB)

BiNet USA

Bisexual Resource Center (BRC)

and your own national, regional and local Bisexual Groups.

koreaunderground: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visiting...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:34:54 +0300

koreaunderground:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in 2012

What Japanese history lessons leave out

by Mariko Oi

Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.

[…]

I asked the children of some friends and colleagues how much history they had picked up during their school years.

Twenty-year-old university student Nami Yoshida and her older sister Mai - both undergraduates studying science - say they haven’t heard about comfort women.

“I’ve heard of the Nanjing massacre but I don’t know what it’s about,” they both say.

“At school, we learn more about what happened a long time ago, like the samurai era,” Nami adds.

Seventeen-year-old Yuki Tsukamoto says the “Mukden incident” and Japan’s invasion of the Korean peninsula in the late 16th Century help to explain Japan’s unpopularity in the region.

“I think it is understandable that some people are upset, because no-one wants their own country to be invaded,” he says.

But he too is unaware of the plight of the comfort women.

Former history teacher and scholar Tamaki Matsuoka holds Japan’s education system responsible for a number of the country’s foreign relations difficulties.

“Our system has been creating young people who get annoyed by all the complaints that China and South Korea make about war atrocities because they are not taught what they are complaining about,” she said.

“It is very dangerous because some of them may resort to the internet to get more information and then they start believing the nationalists’ views that Japan did nothing wrong.”

I first saw her work, based on interviews with Japanese soldiers who invaded Nanjing, when I visited the museum in the city a few years ago.

“There were many testimonies by the victims but I thought we needed to hear from the soldiers,” she says.

“It took me many years but I interviewed 250 of them. Many initially refused to talk, but eventually, they admitted to killing, stealing and raping.

read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21226068

amischiefofmice: Donald Glover talking about the comments he...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:10:40 +0300

amischiefofmice:

Donald Glover talking about the comments he received during his campaign to be the next Spider-Man (x)

“I was talking about it with Dan Eckman, who directed my Bonfire video. Can you imagine that trailer? That would be dope. Like it makes sense… a poor black kid in Queens. Like it just fits.”

wow this just broke my heart a little bit

"Social justice movements tend to spring up around issues that most people don’t get. Social justice..."

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:54:54 +0300

“

Social justice movements tend to spring up around issues that most people don’t get. Social justice movements tend to spring up around issues that, to most people, don’t seem to matter that much. If people understood that the issues mattered, then organized movements to promote them wouldn’t be necessary.

Until their issues are properly understood, most social justice movements, almost by definition, are going to look whiny to most people. If you can’t understand why the things people are complaining about matter, those people are going to look whiny to you. That is, they’re going to look like they’re complaining about things that don’t matter.

Something to keep in mind when you’re thinking about accusing people in a social justice movement of being whiny: every social justice movement looks whiny if you don’t understand their issues. A lot of the time, the fact that calling attention to their issues is perceived as whiny is precisely the reason why the movement is necessary in the first place.

”

- A Thought on Social Justice and Being Whiny | Research to be Done (via brute-reason)

scyllaya: littleredridingglare: starsglowforyou: This is...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:39:21 +0300

scyllaya:

littleredridingglare:

starsglowforyou:

This is what’s happening on Venezuela right now. Please reblog to spread the word. We had a fraud on the presidential elections. People are getting killed for defending their rights. I know what happened in Boston is extremely horrible too and I am really sorry about that but maybe you can help us too. Please guys reblog this so the whole world can know the truth!

I am putting this on various tags so more people will see it. I know this has nothing to do with Owl City or One Direction or whatever but please we NEED your help

Yo I’m gonna be honest my friend from Venezuela is literally outside with a shotgun right now protecting her food because of the riots. Her friends got shot and it’s dangerous to go outside right now.

I’m not saying one problem is worse than the other, but people should know about this as well.

Venezuela Death Toll Rises To 7 In Election Fallout Clashes (via HuffingtonPost)

renkris: glittertitties: etherealmermaidprincess: In case you forgot, the SPLC classified MRA’s...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:10:46 +0300

renkris:

glittertitties:

etherealmermaidprincess:

In case you forgot, the SPLC classified MRA’s as a hate group last year.

cry, hatemongers

“virulent misogyny, spreading of false anti-woman propaganda and applauding and even encouraging acts of domestic terrorism and extreme violence against women and children, up to and including murder. “

anxiolyticsallday: For the love of god why the fuck isn’t this...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:32:02 +0300

anxiolyticsallday:

For the love of god why the fuck isn’t this reblogged 100000 times but a dog with a water bowl in its mouth is come the fuck on people.

"I’ll state the obvious: you shouldn’t get consent because it’s sexy. You should get consent because..."

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:57:27 +0300

“I’ll state the obvious: you shouldn’t get consent because it’s sexy. You should get consent because it’s the only way to be certain that you’re not assaulting someone, and not assaulting someone is the only way to be a minimally decent human being. If getting consent is also a huge turn-on, that’s great, but it’s just the icing on the wonderful cake that is not assaulting people.”

- “Consent Is Sexy” Is Useful But Also Kind Of Sketchy » Brute Reason

THANK YOU.

(via waronxmas)

"What students need isn’t a lecture on abstinence. They need a community that sees sex as about..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 23:21:47 +0300

“What students need isn’t a lecture on abstinence. They need a community that sees sex as about mutual pleasure and intimacy, not point scoring or getting something, and that doesn’t shame or problematize female sexuality. Heterosexual women need male partners who are respectful, generous in bed and emotionally competent, and who treat women like people regardless of whether those women are girlfriends, one-night stands or friends with benefits. Sex, be it in a committed relationship or a more casual arrangement, doesn’t have to be the fraught power play or unpleasant interaction merely tolerated by young women. Sex is sex. Human beings throughout all of history have enjoyed it for very good reason. Consensual, mutually pleasurable sex is, for many people, at the top of their “favorite things” list.”

- In defence of hooking up – in university and beyond | Jill Filipovic | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk (via sexisnottheenemy)

dr-sam-merlin-holmes: I just want to point out that, if this is...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:37:42 +0300

dr-sam-merlin-holmes:

I just want to point out that, if this is indeed true, which I don’t doubt, it’s actually missing nearly 4 pages worth more of sharks.

There’s only 7337 sharks on those images
it’s missing about 4080

so… image all the images above and add in 4 more images full of sharks
that’s a looooot of sharks