I really hate that these days you express an opinion and everyone comes for you because you didn’t include everyone else’s perspective. Just because I say I like pink for example, everyone pops up with “what about all the people that pink is really traumatic for? Do you ever think about that? It’s not all about you” etc etc. Obviously everyone has a different lived experience and I can only speak from mine. Not undervaluing yours or anyone else’s. I’m just spewing my (uncontroversial) thoughts out there. If it was about people’s human rights then sure, I’d get it. But no. People need to stop coming for people out of habit.
I’m sure most people will find the events of yesterday sad, terribly tragic or whatever word you want to use. It seems the only thing anyone can agree on currently is that it’s awful Caroline Flack felt there was no other way out. But I wanted to address some things more coherently than I was able to in shock yesterday, because I feel there are important points to be raised (besides the obvious) that I haven’t seen on the internet yet.
I find most celebrity deaths sad. But last night and earlier today, I cried for Caroline Flack and her family/friends. I don’t think I even cried when Alan Rickman died and I adored him. It took me by surprise for a while, because while I knew I liked her (and I was glad she won Strictly), I hadn’t realised I liked her that much. But then lying in bed last night, struggling to sleep for all the thoughts whirring in my head, I realised what it was that had made me so much more inescapably sad about it all. In 2013, I experienced trolling for the first time. I’m not even sure if it was called trolling back then, it feels like a lifetime ago thankfully. I’d been bullied before of course, quite badly in fact in my first year of school (which was only discovered when I came home with my back black and blue from repeated events and as I bent forward my shirt accidentally revealed what was happening). But the beauty, if you will, of that bullying was that when I went home it was over. The bully lived nowhere near me as far as I know and I had a very happy home life, not perfect, but happy. However, over the 13 years between these incidents, the internet had blown up. I’d joined Twitter just over a year earlier and was at college, very happy with my A levels, my friends and my relatively new boyfriend. Someone at the college decided they’d taken a dislike to me. To this day I don’t know why. But they saw fit to take photos of me without my knowledge or consent, critiquing every little thing about me, from my laugh and smile, my dress sense to how I interacted with my boyfriend. Alright PDA’s aren’t everyone’s thing and looking back I cringe, but did I deserve a whole group of people I didn’t know spreading vicious comments about me? No. It wasn’t until someone I’d known years saw it about on Twitter and showed me that I knew what was going on. Thankfully I had a fierce friend at college who was willing to defend me to the death. We reported it to the principle together and they had a word and stopped it happening. But here’s the kicker. This all kicked off over the half term holidays. I had to wait two weeks for it to get sorted out. Thankfully I threw myself into my homework, kept to myself and tried to divert attention from me in any way, and it worked. But at the time, my mum was furious saying that had I been a more fragile person, I might never have been able to come back to college because so easily it could have all got too much. At the time I thought she was being overdramatic, but back then my mental health was pretty good and I’d never known what it was like to be so low. I’ve since learned that’s a very real reality for so many people, celeb or civilian. Imagine seeing hundreds or thousands more tweets slagging you off than I saw. Easy to see how that’s too much. It hurt me sure, but never once was I suicidal, I could still see how much I had to live for. Had it carried on relentlessly, things may have been different. I never thought I’d say it about that experience, but I was lucky.
Now imagine you’re not just seeing it on Twitter. You’re seeing it on every media platform. From when you check your phone in a morning, to when you nip out to buy milk and you’re plastered all over the front page. It’s on TV when you want to just flick through channels, no down time from it, no let up.
The other thing I wanted to address is that people don’t feel any sympathy for Caroline because of the trial due to start next month. They’re using the mere allegation as a fact and asserting that she was, categorically, a domestic abuser. Truth be told, I don’t know what I feel about that, I still don’t know if I believe she was abusing him or not, there’s things on both sides that don’t add up or you could argue for/against and talk yourself round in circles for hours. But that’s not the point. Sadly, the pressure got too much before Caroline could prove her innocence or the CPS could prove guilt. But the reason I bring this up isn’t to debate guilt or innocence. The point I’m making is we’re seeing this time and time again now. It’s so difficult because nobody wants to be on the wrong side of it and look back on history thinking ‘why did I believe him/her when they were guilty?’ Nobody wants to make life harder for victims by not believing them. I certainly don’t want to see victims suffer at all, let alone any more than they already have. But also, as Paul Bettany tweeted a year or so ago trial by Twitter is dangerous. Anybody can say anything on Twitter now, without any proof required and ruin somebody’s life. How many tweets were there boycotting Johnny Depp and actively encouraging others to ruin his life in one way or another? Thousands. Probably millions. Far more than I could be bothered to scroll through. Fast forward a little bit and audio is leaked where Amber Heard admits to abusing Depp. Rather than the other way around. How many tweets did I see apologising for believing her without proof and vilifying him? I saw 3. Especially if you’re already in a dark or vulnerable place, seeing all those tweets with death threats etc and people absolutely convinced you’re a horrible person/criminal, again I can see how suicide seems like the only way out. It seems like we’ve forgotten how to question things/people/behaviours/stand up for right or wrong without just slinging mud, insults and threats. I’ve known people be falsely accused for various things before and it’s always so damaging, beyond people’s belief. But again, as social media has developed, it all just seems to be getting worse and yet more inescapable.
Traditional print media/online journalism I’m not even going to touch. Because so much of what has been said already I agree with/have reposted. I’m sad to say, I doubt it will change much. Especially since they’ve already been at it photographing Caroline’s ex-fiancee in his first moments of grief.
And just in case anyone is upset by anything I’ve written here, I’m human. These were the jumbled up thoughts in my head that I thought I’d try to make sense of/shed some light on and give my opinion. It’s just that opinions. You don’t have to agree with them or even read them. But my intention is never to upset/offend/anger. Honestly, generally I always aim to please people, always have. If I’ve made a mistake in what I’ve said, feel free to correct or educate me. All I ask is you do it nicely. I’ve always quoted this but it seems more appropriate now than ever - “In a world that has decided that it’s going to lose it’s mind, be more kind my friends, try to be more kind.” (Frank Turner)
hearing the john mulaney “do my friends hate me or do i just need to go to sleep” bit is the best thing to have happened for my mental health because every time i’m afraid my friends hate me it’s around the time i should be going the fuck to sleep
I read somewhere “if you feel like everyone hates you you need to sleep and if you feel like you hate everyone else you need to eat” and it was honestly world-shattering and I wish I’d heard it years ago!
Somebody I know died. We weren’t best friends or family, but at one time we were friends. I feel weird, I have no right to be upset, not like her relatives or best friends. But it’s just so bloody tragic and I really liked her and I feel a bit numb. And because we weren’t that close I don’t have an outlet for all the weird feelings. So here we are.
A lot of people are calling this dangerous, but the thing is; Dalmatians are literally bred to run along horses. Back when horse drawn carriages were the main form of transportation, Dalmatians would run by the carriage and snap at anything that came near the horses to act as a buffer. They really are best friends! If you put a Dalmatian next to horse even if they’ve never seen one before, they’ll be super excited because of years of evolutionary friendship! So there’s no danger here! These two animals are just happy buddies!
probably the funniest interaction i’ve had with someone i do not know is the day i had jury duty so my friend pop dropped me off at it and went to class downtown with the agreement she’d pick me up after she got out of class, and if i gout out of jury duty early she’d pick me up from the houston library which was a couple blocks down and easy to walk to and a place you could stay all day with no questions asked
anyways while there i started drawing and this dude kept getting closer and closer till he was like in the chair next to me and was like ‘what a beautiful drawing’ and i’m like thanks but
him saying that reminded me i had been in that position for a couple hours and i really needed to pop my neck so i did
and he immediately called me a disgusting bitch and got up and slammed the chair he was in back into the table and was like ‘can you believe this woman’ to several people who were just trying to read some research books and
I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:
Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.
Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.
And then, if you’re asked: no, you haven’t seen anyone residing illegally in the United States. Just people visiting.
Essentially, this is the civil society version of a work-to-rule strike.
Don’t do more than is expressly asked of you, and do what you are asked with such an intense attention to protocol that not asking you at all becomes more effective than even bothering.
In this case:
“Have you seen an illegal immigrant?”
“Could you describe an illegal immigrant, officer?”
*officer describes a person who is in the country without appropriate paperwork, or who has crossed the border illegally*
“No, sir, I haven’t seen any illegal immigrant.”
And this is correct. You have NOT seen an illegal immigrant, because you have no way of knowing if Jose Fulano is here legally or not. And since you can’t see his paperwork (or lack thereof), and did not personally see him cross the border illegally, you are only answering precisely the question asked.
So, I’m a lawyer, who deals with immigration though does not specialize in it. But here’s the thing(s):
1) Even someone who’s working could be here on a migrant (or other sort of) visa (hey, there are a few thousand per year, and *someone*’s got to get them, right?) or could be waiting for their case to resolve in immigration court, after having come to America to join a born or naturalized American family member.
2) Even people who are working improperly could have come into the country legally – and just overstayed their visa or be violating the conditions of their visa, and you have no idea what the niggly little regulations that govern that might be.
3) If a law enforcement officer asks you about a neighbor/friend/etc., take this moment to remind them that, unlike them, you cannot ask a random person off the street for their ID and be entitled to a response.
4) Even if someone has told you that they are undocumented, you still don’t know, do you? Humans lie all the time. How could you know for sure? You can’t, because they can’t prove that they have a lack of papers. Just because you haven’t seen papers doesn’t mean they don’t exist!
5) Don’t ever talk to cops in general. Why are you talking to a cop? Stop that, as soon as it is safe and feasible.
adulthood is just a constant struggle of, “man, i want cookies for breakfast, but I also recognize this is a bad nutritional decision. On the other hand, the only one who can stop me is me. i know that fucker’s weaknesses. i could totally take me in a fight.”
Fun fact: There are a lot of rivers in the UK named “avon” because the Romans arrived and asked the Celts what the rivers were called. The Celts answered “avon.”
Fan Fact #2: When Spanish conquistadors landed in the Yucatán peninsula, they asked the natives what their land was called and they responded “Yucatán”. In 2015, it was discovered that in those mesoamerican languages, “Yucatán” meant “I don’t understand what you are saying”
