Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
We should be more pro-active or we’ll see more of such sad fates of honest people.
And the utterly ironic thing is I’ve seen repeated tumblr posts of that iconic photo absolutely slagging the shit out of Peter Norman as “lol white guy so uncomfortable” “Why the fuck isn’t he supporting them”, etc etc.
As an Australian this post surprised me. I knew none of the above.
People need to learn this shit so they can emulate it - this is what it means to stand in solidarity with people; it tends to be a difficult, quiet thing that costs you, and yet it’s the right thing to do.
The head of Atlanta’s police union confirmed Wednesday June 17th, 2020 that officers from the Atlanta Police Department in Zones 3 and 6 walked off the job Wednesday afternoon.
Police are doing what they call theBlueFlu: a strike action, especially among police officers, in which workers are absent on the pretext of “sickness”.
we gotta stop making comments about how cops need to go to psychiatric institutions or GUARANTEE their next move will be to claim they shouldn’t be punished or held accountable and instead should be given public resources (money) to get care
there is no reason good enough to arrest a 6 year old, this is purely racist
WHAT THE FUCK
WHAT KIND OF THREAT DO YOU EVEN MANIFEST THAT SIX YEAR OLD CHILD HAS TO YOU TO EXCUSE THIS???
THIS IS FUCKING DISGUSTING AND PEOPLE ARE FUCKING MONSTERS FOR DOING THIS/IGNORING THIS/EXCUSING THIS
HOW IS A SIX YEAR OLD BABY THREATENING ENOUGH TO WARRANT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOUR? WHAT POSSIBLE DEFENSE DO GROWN-ASS OFFICERS HAVE FOR PULLING THIS SHIT?
People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and “rational” is probably one of my big pet peeves
Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes I’ve met eventually whip out something about evolutionary biology and they never, ever, ever, ever have the slightest shadow of even a half-right idea what any of it means or ever cite a claim ever actually made by a scientific study.
Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:
Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.
“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.
“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.
“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.
Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.
People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.
No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.
Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.
Some of us did, however, cross-breed with Neandethal man. It is exclusively non-African races, such as white people, who still carry hybrid human/Neanderthal genes. Whoops, sorry “white purity” skinheads, you’re actually mixed with a whole other species.
Just had to reblog this because I am honestly so tired of people claiming that Africans are “less evolved” than everyone else
My addition to the above list:
Epigenetics does not have anything at all to do with genetic memories. It is a thing that affects characteristics like health risks, and this speculation floating around about how phobias could be related to some ancestral trauma is complete and utter nonsense.
It’s only a matter of time before such a claim is used as another pseudoscientific tool in the arsenal of people claiming that bloodlines have anything to do with the validity of one’s worship of European pantheons. “My ancestors were Swedish, and because of epigenetics I have genetic memories passed down from those ancestors, so therefore my connection with the gods is better than yours!”
Just, no. Stop. STOP.
gonna also chime in here:
saying the “male brain” works one way and the “female brain” works another way is ludicrous. for so many reasons, even beyond the obvious of imposing that tired old either/or mentality with regards to maleness and femaleness
occasionally you will read about how a study suggests that “men are naturally better at spacial reasoning” or “women are naturally better at cooperation”, but for one thing, given how early the brain wires itself and how easy it is to influence the wiring (like, disturbingly easy), and given the tremendous social expectations we face from pretty much the moment we leave the freaking womb, it’s impossible to study gender differences in a vacuum.
like, do your findings prove that “women are better at reading faces”, or do they prove that, when you are part of a group that has been socialized since birth to be “nice”, to take care of other people, and to above all avoid making folks angry, you damn well have to learn how to read the room, and read it fast.
also, the “left brain, right brain” thing is bunk. there are not, like emotion-driven people and logic-driven people. everybody is primarily emotional. that circuitry is older and reacts much faster, and this is why nobody is immune from sometimes making wildly irrational decisions.
I have had to deal with people in the past who almost religiously subscribed to the male brain/female brain thing and would constantly point out any little thing that confirmed their bias. It was fucking insufferable. It was patently clear they were ignoring the exceptions outnumbering their rules to go on insisting their traditionalist view has never been wrong.
This deserves reblogging every time
The misinterpretation of epigenetics really pisses me off because the fact that environmental stressors can have a long-term impact on gene expression should motivate us to eliminate poverty, especially childhood poverty, but instead we’re using it to revive tired white supremacist myths.
Nevaeh now wears a scarf to cover several bald spots and her singed
hair. She was left with first-degree burns, but it could have been worse
according to Tanya Robinson, Nevaeh’s mother.
“The doctor told me her hairstyle saved her life,” Tanya recalled. “Had it been different, she might not be here.”
This isn’t the first time Nevaeh has experienced bullying. Two years ago, another student broke her thumb.
I’m walking into that school like
Hate crime. It should qualify as one.
Nevaeh is thirteen years old. This happened at Gompers School in the Philadelphia School District. The school district has not issued any comment, but y'all can make yours:
Samuel Gompers School
Address: 5701 Wynnefield Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19131
District: The School District of Philadelphia
Phone: (215) 581-5503
The School District of Philadelphia
Address:
440 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19130
Phone: 215-400-4000
This happened October 25, 2018. This isn’t some random post that won’t die. It’s happening now. Call. Demand accountability and this be treated as a hate crime.
Bonus: Other modern moments similar to this dynamic:
White women didnt’ ask to be used this way by racists. We really, really didn’t.
didnt a white girl just get busted for saying she was gangraped by a bunch of black men this year. and then days later came out as a liar? Rhetorical question, yes the fuck she did.
Like… In a post about white women using their victimhood as a weapon, you identify as a white woman and proceed to play the victim. Sit with that. And be a more critical thinker.
The lack of self awareness is staggering
if she wasn’t so shite at makeup she could’ve fooled people
this is the story of the girl lying about being gang raped x that @sojournerlies was referring to
“In 1994 Susan Smith claimed that she’d been carjacked in South Carolina by a black man who drove away with her two young sons (ages 3 years old and 14 months). For nine days, she made dramatic pleas on national television for their rescue.“
In 2007 Amanda Knox was accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. Naturally, she was like, “Uh uh, not me!” and blamed Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, her boss, and Lumumba was arrested.
In 2010 Bethanny Storro claimed that she was attacked outside a Vancouver, Wash., coffee shop by a black woman who approached her and asked her whether she wanted something to drink. She claimed the woman said, “Hey, pretty girl,” and then threw a cup of acid in her face, disfiguring her. Police went on to investigate and started to think that Storro wasn’t telling the truth. And she wasn’t.
After Storro held a news conference shortly after surgery, with her head wrapped in gauze, she was booked as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but she canceled the appearance after Oprah’s staff did some digging and things weren’t adding up.
In 2013, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, Storro discussed how she used the acid on herself in a failed suicide attempt because of a then-undiagnosed mental illness called body dysmorphic disorder. The illness causes an obsession with minor or imagined physical flaws. She admitted that when she was a national story, she felt that she “mattered.” She said, “In that moment I felt like I was cared for and I mattered.” She also claimed that she didn’t mean to blame it on anyone else. Right.
source for these 3 stories here x (i only put the women/’recent’ liars, the whole list has a lot more disturbing lies and terrifying outcomes for Black people who were falsely accused)
this is probably the most infamous case, screenshot taken of this article x
Brooklyn nun lying about being raped by a “hulking black man” x
White Woman Claims She Was Robbed By Black Man Then Arrested For Lying x
all of this is on the first 2 result pages of a lousy google search
bonus content:
so get your head out of your ass and stop wailing when we’re called out on racism and look around you instead of trying to make excuses for yourself/ourselves and try to silence Black folks
White women and their feminism speaks to agency of a woman and their choices but the minute it’s about racism, it’s all about how they were tricked, forced, or manipulated into being racist and how the real culprit is white men. Like they break their backs to play the victim even if it means they use the same sexist tropes
Welp…
Me and every one of my white followers needs to read and reread this. We are implicated. We are responsible. We are the ones who must make change.
Every last one of us is related to people who evolved in Africa.
Some groups of sub-Saharan Africans remained in Africa, while others left Africa and spread across the world.
Everyone – and I mean everyone – is therefore genetically at least partly African.
People who have descended from those African groups that left Africa have a series of genetic adaptations and mutations that have helped them adapt to the environments they settled in. European “White” people are almost entirely the product of changes that have occurred in the last 8000 years or so.
If – IF – anyone is “racially pure” (a horrible phrase and concept), it’s people whose ancestors never left sub-Saharan Africa, AND whose ancestors never had children with anyone who had any ancestors who were from anywhere other than sub-Saharan Africa. The rest of us – which is pretty much everybody – are all cousins.
if ur a nazi or neo-nazi or support nazi ideologies let this be a fucking harsh message that ur not welcome on this blog and I hope you get socked in the face
Oh boy if you’re mad about the US separating children from their parents, putting people in camps, and having a zero tolerance policy towards asylum seekers that has led to deliberate extensive cruelty as a futile deterrent wait until you hear about Australia.
…what’s going on in Australia?
Buddy! Strap in because there are two parts to this:
The past 100+ years of ripping kids from their families, racism, and attempted genocide
The past 20+ years of racism, but now island torture prisons! LEVEL UP!
Australia has had a long history of separating children from their parents. The government decided that mixed raced children of Indigenous Australians were not OK so literally kidnapped them and raised them to assimilate into white society and “breed the colour out.” This started about 1905 and ended about 1970. We call them the Stolen Generations. This has had long lasting negative effects on Indigenous Australians as it was a decades long attempt to absolutely destroy their culture and commit genocide. “But that was the past?” Surprise! By “ended in 1970″ I mean “the reasons in which we en masse tear children away from their families now has a different reason” and Indigenous children are now being taken away at even higher rates than during the stolen generations. Australia saw its Indigenous population, thought “how do we destroy their culture?” and when we were done thought “gee, how do we blame them for having all these issues in their communities?”
BUT THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING!
Fast forward to now: Trump is using kids as political leverage to stop people from coming to the US right? Buddy he’s ripping Australia off. Scott Morrison, Minister for Immigration at the time once did that.
OK so for context: when people try to come to Australia via boat seeking asylum because they’re fleeing war/persecution we do either 2 things: turn them back and let them just… die elsewhere… Or we lock them up in detention centres on Manus/Nauru Island. That’s where we keep them indefinitely in bad conditions, give them dodgy medical care, smear them in the press, and react indifferently when they die from suicide/negligence/assault… and cover up sexual assaults from guards and the incredibly high rate of self harm and depression even in children. The entire idea is to be as cruel as possible so other people hear about it and go “geez, let’s not go to Australia. They’ll literally torture us before they give us a protective visa.” And when I say indefinitely I mean indefinitely. Some refugees have spent 5 years wasting away in these prisons. Some children have spent their entire life in these prisons. And the government openly admits that they’re genuine refugees. They’ve been rigorously vetted and known to be safe people with no intention of harming us but it’s the zero tolerance principle. You tried to come here via boat? You go jail but we call it “detention.”
The main line of attack against refugees: “they’re just coming here to take advantage of our welfare.” Oh no! It’ll cost the taxpayer money to subsidise a refugee to live in a safe country! So instead of having them “rip off” the taxpayer with a couple hundred a fortnight we’ll just lock them up on an island where it costs $1 million per person on average over the past 4 years and operational costs have wasted $5 billion in 4 years. Why help someone for barely enough money to survive when you can torture them and keep them imprisoned for several times more!
Scott Morrison, or Sco-Mo as we kids call them, loved the US’s Muslim Ban idea by the way. He said it was proof that the rest of the world was “catching up to Australia.” Yeah. Geez guys. What took you so long to be as bad as Australia?
Mandatory detention has had bipartisan support from the two major parties since its creation by the Keating government in 1992. We have been keeping people in prison for seeking asylum for 26 years.
We also don’t want to get rid of them. There was a deal under the Obama administration to take some of these refugees but this process has carried on into the Trump administration. He was livid the idea that he should uphold this deal because 1) OooOBaMaaaa!! 2) REFUGEES?? In America??? So that’s currently going nowhere. Meanwhile New Zealand, our good ally and close neighbour, has said “I’ll take some of them” and the current PM (Turnbull) has said no. His excuse? We have a deal with the US. We should see where that goes. It’s going nowhere. So he conveniently can just pretend his hands are tied and let refugees continue to be tortured and die under his care.
(And he hasn’t said it but I bet he’ll never let refugees settle in New Zealand because if they become NZ citizens they’ll have travel rights to come to Australia without the same visa restrictions as other countries AND THEN THE REFUGEES WOULD WIN).
So let’s top this all off with the icing on the cake: a phone call between Trump and Turnbull when Trump was getting acquainted with all the world leaders last year. Turnbull explained our zero tolerance refugee policy and the cruelty as a deterrent that is employed and Trump said “That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am.”
“That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am.”
Let that sink in.
And that’s where we’re up to now in modern history. See everyone likes to go to the obvious big example we have of the Nazis and their camps but the truth is… this never stopped. There are similar examples of this abhorrent behaviour happening right now and have been for decades. Governments have been putting people in camps and trying to destroy cultures, or ethnicities, or deny people safe havens from wars, and be utterly heartless and deliberately cruel since forever. This is the ongoing drive of conservatism: keep people out, keep people a certain way, and the current example in the US is just that bubbling over the horribly inescapable surface. We are deluded to think that this cruelty took a 70 year respite when WW2 ended and it’s taken this long to get this strong.
The world has always been racist. Trump just doesn’t bother to filter it. And Australia just wants to keep it on an island so no one can see it.
Also, that Australia/New Zealand immigration deal? Australia has slowly been taking away the rights of New Zealanders resident in Australia - including children born in Australia to Kiwi parents - and making it nigh-impossible for them to actually get Australian citizenship, basically all because of paranoia that brown people will move from NZ to Australia. They’re aggressively deporting Māori and Pasifika New Zealanders, even those who may have come as small children and have no memory of New Zealand, both for things like being convicted of any crime and for things like “being of bad character”. Or, rather, they don’t deport them. They put them in offshore prison camps and tell them they can’t leave until they agree to leave Australia. (It’s not that these things don’t affect Pākehā NZers, it’s that we’re not the real targets.)
During our election campaign last year, the Deputy PM of Australia openly said that if Labour were elected to government it would be bad for Australia because they would encourage refugees to try and get to Australia hoping to be taken by New Zealand. They have an island fortress mentality Trump hasn’t even started to achieve.
And the thing about Australia – there isn’t the coverage that America has. Not even in our own country. It’s hard to find out what’s happening – visas for journalists to visit Nauru are prohibitively expensive – and … no one really cares. It’s so entrenched that it’s the status quo, and when I called my MP and senators to go, WTF guys? the response was like, “…oh yeah, thanks for your feelings, cool, bye”.
I honestly tune out a lot of the coverage because, at this point, I don’t know what to do. Both major parties support these policies, so I vote for the Greens. I contacted my representatives. I walked in protest marches. I donate to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and other charities.
So I guess, if I have advice for Americans, it’s to not let this become the status quo. Because you’ll wake up one day and it will have always been like this.
Holy shit, I knew it was bad here but I didn’t know it was that bad. Why don’t we hear about the depth of these things in Australia, how can they keep us so in the dark?
What you can do to help the Human Rights crisis in Australia:
If you are Australian:
Keep up to date and informed. The only major media outlets that routinely reports on this issue is The Guardian Australia. They are free online but consider donating if you can to keep it free access.
The Saturday Paper is another independent online news source that reports on this.
Follow or sign up to GetUp!. GetUp! is Australia’s largest progressive grassroots activist group and has lots of campaigns and information about this issue and many others, such as climate change, economic justice, and democratic and civil rights. Donate if you can, sign their peritions, follow their campaigns.
CONTACT YOUR MPs AND SENATORS. This is really important, especially if they are supporters of the policy. Keep public pressure on then, make them feel it. Letter templates are good, but personally written letters/emails are better. Call them if you can. And respond to them with your displeasure if they send you a cookie cutter response of their party’s policy on “stopping the boats”.
SHOW UP TO PROTESTS. Another really important one. Even if you just show up and march, your physical presence counts. They’re not as scary as it might seem.
DONATE. I really cannot stress this enough, if you can afford it, donate.
WHO SHOULD I DONATE TO?
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) provides financial and legal support, as well as counseling and community services, to refugees already in Australia.
Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) are a group of state-based advocacy groups that support refugees in Australia and advocate for those trapped in Australia’s offshore detention regime (link is for the Sydney group but contains links to other states).
GetUp! is one of the best to donate to for political action. They have options to donate to the organisation as a whole, or to specific campaigns.
If you are a member of the Australian Labor Party, please do what you can to bring up this issue and pressure the party leadership to change its policy.
If you are NOT Australian
Do what you can to contact your government and representatives to bring up this issue and pressure Australia to change their policy.
SPREAD THIS POST AND OTHERS LIKE IT. Australians do not have the numbers and influence on his site that Americans and British have. Please spread this information and resources so that other Australians might see it and feel like they have some power to change it or even know about it.
If you are a New Zealander: please continue to keep the pressure on your government to call out Australia and offer to take refugees.
