death to feelings

[nevver]

Seizure of indigenous land, 1776-1887

[thecaptainsaid-deactivated20160]

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

[adogadogonedog]

today an instructor told a story about a horrible monster and a noble, bearded hero. and their competition for the love of a fair princess.

you know how this goes: monster traps princess, hero defeats monster, princess has no real function except to be fought over and be grateful for being saved. oh, and be pretty. she was pretty, and had a pretty voice. thereby giving her value worth fighting over.

and I was grumpy about it, and about watching my kids be totally enthralled by a story where ladies appear only as sexualized macguffins. and me and my other dyke coworker grumbled about it a little.

but then when I talked to the story teller, he wasn’t grumpy or mad or defensive. I said “you just reinvented the plot of super mario brothers” and “your audience isn’t only boys, and your job is to tell stories that are empowering to everyone, not just stories that tell boys their job is to fight monsters and win women”

and it was like I’d blown his mind. he’d just been trying to make shit up and be entertaining, and hadn’t even realized that his story has been told so many times that we don’t even think of it as a story anymore, it’s just the frame you build a story around. he was a little bewildered, and super excited to work on his stories and make them better.

so: today I taught a boy about patriarchal narrative structure, and about how being a feminist will make you a better storyteller.

[cameralinz]

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

[primiera]

CISFORMERS

They’re just cars wtf that sucks

[sinidentidades-blog]

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.

[heir-n-reign]

No black person is ever safe.

[dynastylnoire]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST

[pinebark]

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

our primary response to harm (insofar as we actually respond at all) is expulsion/exile

resisting or even questioning that impulse is considered siding with those who harm or possibly even tacit admission of one’s own membership...

[adogadogonedog]

maturity

when you’re a grownump you know how to solve problems. like when you want hamburgers for dinner and realize you only have hotdog buns, you can make all your hamburgers hotdog-shaped.

[iamagadfly]

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.

[kateordie]

Thank you

[secondstringheroine]

How do you feel about the portrayal of gay people/issues in the tv show 'Modern Family'?

I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever watched an episode or two.

There was nothing horrible or offensive in what I did see about the gay couple depicted, save that it was yet another display of white, cis gay men which is becoming ever more conventional.

Other than that I thought the jokes were tired and that it just wasn’t overly funny.

[adogadogonedog]

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.

[adogadogonedog]

Educating a Friend

Me: So, let's say that you're at school and you see a guy you know. I mean, you guys talk every once in a while and he's pretty cool, but you're not like friends or anything. You just talk to him every once in a while.

Guy Friend: What's his name?

Me: I don't know. Frank?

Guy Friend: No.

Me: Okay, fine. His name is Will. Okay?

Guy Friend: I don't think it really suits him, but okay.

Me: ...So anyway, you're at school during lunchtime and you see Will. So, you notice Will's not eating anything. That's when you realize that Will has no lunch, no money for lunch, and no way of getting either. He's just sitting there like he normally would. He's not acting any differently and he's not asking anyone for anything. Not money, not a fry, not even a salt packet, but you know he's gotta be hungry. So, what do you do?

Guy Friend: Do I have any money?

Me: Yeah. You have enough for you and another meal.

Guy Friend: Duh, I buy him lunch.

Me: Okay, cool. So, like you said, you buy him lunch. You buy your lunch and you buy his lunch and you go over and hand it to him. And, he says, "Wow. You know, that's really nice of you, but I wasn't gonna ask anyone for lunch. I was probably just gonna wait until I got home to eat." And, then you say--

Guy Friend: Nah, it's cool.

Me: Exactly. You say, "Nah, it's cool. I'm just being nice. It's a gift." And, Will says, "You know, that's awesome. You're really nice, bro." And, after that, you guys start hanging out. You guys are like really good buds. You are always hanging out and laughing and just having a good time. So, you guys are friends for a few months, and it's tons of fun. Then, one day, you go up to Will and you say, "Hey, Will, you know, I've been thinking, and I kinda want that five bucks."

Guy Friend: What five bucks?

Me: Hold on. I'm getting there. So, Will says, "What five bucks?" To which, you reply, "Well, we've been hanging out for a long time and it's been really fun, but like, I've done a lot of really nice things for you. Like, I'm always nice to you and I always listen and do things you wanna do, so I was thinking that because I've been so nice, you should pay me back that five bucks I spent to get your lunch right before we started really hanging out."

Guy Friend: What? Why would I--

Me: I'm not done yet. So, then Will looks kinda hurt and he says, "But I thought you were just being nice. I thought that was just a gift." So, you say, "Whether or not it was a gift, don't you think you kinda owe me that five bucks since I've been so nice to you?" And, Will says, "No. I don't think I owe you that!" And you get mad, so you say, "Well, I think that you do, so I think you're being really shitty and stuck up about this and I feel like I've been completely wronged."

Guy Friend: Oh, my God. That's so fucked up of me. I would never do that to Will. Will was nice. We were buds. That's way screwed.

Me: I know, right? Hey, just wondering, have you ever heard of this fictional place called "The Friendzone?"

Guy Friend: Well, yeah, but...

Guy Friend: ...

Guy Friend: ...

Guy Friend: oh

[vicoactive-blog]

typical entitled, sociopathic male.

yeah totally dude that’s me in a nutshell yup like yeah dude f’shure

[adogadogonedog]

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.

[lowendtheory]

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.

[tonidorsay]

Adult Trans women are adult human females

[temporaryproblematicurl-deactiv]

Um

[stfutransactivistbullies]

NO THEY AREN’T.

[skysquids]

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.

[gynecomastodon]

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

[adogadogonedog]

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."

[adogadogonedog]

when i go to the dog park, i get to see my dog get spooked by other dogs, and then growl while swinging around to face them with her hackles raised, to cover up this moment of vulnerability and fear. it doesn't really matter how friendly the other dogs are, or how completely nonthreatening their body language is.

when i let my dog out in the front yard to go to the bathroom, i get to see grown men get spooked by the sudden appearance of a dog, and then immediately grumble something aggro (usually to the effect of "yo, put a chain on that fucking dog") while swaggering to the other side of the street, to cover up this moment of vulnerability and fear. it does not matter how completely my dog ignores them, or how completely nonthreatening her body language is.

and then when i go on tumblr, i get to see TERFs seeking out trans ladies to berate us over how triggered they are by our bodies, and how any response but "you're right, my body is made of rape" is, in fact, male energy made of rape.

when my dog is standing with her tail between her legs, growling defensively at other dogs who are wagging their tails and just want to smell her nose, or when she chases a sunbeam down the stairs to gnaw, whimpering, at the spot where the light hits the floor, i tell her to stop not because i think she should never be nervous about a dog getting in her space, not because any dog should have free reign to attack her, and not because i think it's wrong for her to chase things or make noise.

i try to take her outside, or give her a treat, or do something to take her mind off of the trigger she's reacting to, and then when she's calming down, i often find myself nuzzling her, and scritching behind her ears, and saying "i know babe, you were having a feeling, and you were trying to do a thing. but the thing you were having a feeling about wasn't what was actually happening just now, and the thing you were doing was just making you feel it harder."

and then, because she's a dog, and dogs are wise, she usually sniffs her own butt, to make sure everything's normal, and then licks my face.

just because we've got trauma doesn't mean that the defense mechanisms we build up around those traumas are helping us. just because something's a defense mechanism doesn't mean it can't hurt other people. 

being traumatized doesn't automatically turn all the things you do into good ideas.

[vicoactive-blog]

*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...

[adogadogonedog]

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. 

[0drawingablank0]

YONG

[adogadogonedog]

I want to go here.

[fakescience]

Why Are Tears Salty?

[adogadogonedog]

feelings are hard to do.