Anna Gustafson @annawithantlers - Tumblr Blog

porkskins-deactivated20150630

*raises glass* i want to make some toast

shinji--moon-deactivated2017123

writing an email to my teacher like, “ … i can’t … give this presentation … because i have to first make sure i am not dead or dying by the end of the week ….. … “

glittergeek-blog

“Mother,” I slowly repeated in Korean. “I am not a boy. I am a girl. I am transgender.” My face reddened, and tears blurred my vision. I braced myself for her rejection and the end to a relationship that had only begun. Silence again filled the room. I searched my mother’s eyes for any signs of shock, disgust or sadness. But a serene expression lined her face as she sat with ease on the couch. I started to worry that my words had been lost in translation. Then my mother began to speak. “Mommy knew,” she said calmly through my friend, who looked just as dumbfounded as I was by her response. “I was waiting for you to tell me.” “What? How?” “Birth dream,” my mother replied. In Korea some pregnant women still believe that dreams offer a hint about the gender of their unborn child. “I had dreams for each of your siblings, but I had no dream for you. Your gender was always a mystery to me.” I wanted to reply but didn’t know where to begin. My mother instead continued to speak for both of us. “Hyun-gi,” she said, stroking my head. “You are beautiful and precious. I thought I gave birth to a son, but it is OK. I have a daughter instead.”

Andy Marra, The Beautiful Daughter: How My Korean Mother Gave Me the Courage to Transition (via killtimebaked)

buttonpoetry

If a bullet goes through you, there’s also the clothing.

Aziza Barnes - “I Could Ask, but I Think They Use Tweezers” (via buttonpoetry)

sugarmoonaki

In about 45 minutes, the police will raid of what’s left at standing rock. Please pray for those who chose to stay to make a statement that WE are still here and we will continue to resist. Our ancestors weep for us.

vesica-urentis

thanks Obama

reblog between now and jan 20th 2017 to thank Obama

(expired reblogs still count)

vesica-urentis

thanks Obama

reblog between now and jan 20th 2017 to thank Obama

(expired reblogs still count)

theafricanunicorn

My skin is literally glowing 😭 @cynthianyongesa

shinji--moon-deactivated2017123

Keep reading

eveewing

“I think of too many of my white graduate students at Harvard who somehow feel perfectly comfortable calling me by my first name, but feel reluctant to refer to my white male colleagues– even those junior to me– in the same way. And I think about how my black students almost always refer to me as ‘Professor Lawrence-Lightfoot’ even when I have known them a long time and urge them to be less formal. The title indicates their respect for me, but also their own feelings of self-respect, that part of them that gets mirrored in my eyes. And besides, if their mothers or grandmothers heard them call me by my first name, they would be embarrassed; they would think that they had not raised their children right. So I completely understand when one of them says to me (n response to my request that he call me Sara after we have worked together for years), ‘I’m sorry, that is not in my repertoire, Professor Lawrence-Lightfoot.’

These private daily encounters with white and black students are punctuated by public moments– too numerous to recall– when the humiliation of being called by my first name seems to demand an explicit response; when I feel I must react to the assault not only for my own self-protection, but also in order to teach a lesson on respectful behavior. I regard these public encounters as ‘teachable moments.’ I make a choice to respond to them; a choice that I know will both help to shield me and render me more vulnerable.

A few years ago I was asked to speak at a conference at the University of Chicago, a meeting for social scientists and their graduate students about race, class, gender, and school achievement. The other speaker was Professor James Coleman, a distinguished sociologist, a white man several years my senior who was well known and highly regarded for his large-scale statistical studies on educational achievement. Both of us came to the conference well prepared and eager to convey our work to fellow scholars. The language of the occasion was full of the current rhetoric of our disciplines; focused, serious, sometimes esoteric and opaque. I say all this to indicate that there was nothing playful or casual about either of our presentations. Neither of us said anything that suggested informality or frivolity.

When we had finished speaking, the moderator opened the floor for questions, and several hands shot up in the air. The first to speak was a middle-aged white man who identified himself as an advanced graduate student finishing his training at another prestigious university. He began, ‘I would like to address my question to both Professor Coleman and Sara…’ I could feel my heart racing, then my mind go blank. In fact, I could not even hear his question after he delivered the opening phrase. I saw there having a conversation with myself, feeling the same rage that my parents must have felt sixty years earlier in Jackson, Mississippi. How can this be? How can this guy call him ‘Professor’ and me ‘Sara’? And he has no clue about what he has done, how he has injured me. I’m not even sure that the others in the audience have heard what he just said; whether they’ve recognized the asymmetry, the assault. Somehow, I must have indicated to Jim Coleman (we were friends and colleagues) that I wanted to respond first. He must have seen the panic in my eyes and my shivering body. I heard my voice say very slowly, very clearly, ‘Because of the strange way you addressed both of us, “Professor Coleman and Sara,” I am not able to respond to your question. As a matter of fact,’ I say, leaning into the microphone, holding onto it for dear life, ‘I couldn’t even hear your question.’ The room was absolutely still. I was not sure that there were any people out there who had any idea how I was feeling, any idea that I was on fire. But my voice must have conveyed my pain, even if the cause was obscure to them. ‘Would you please repeat your question?’ I asked the man, who had by now slid halfway down his seat, and whose face revealed a mixture of pain and defiance. ‘And this time, would you ask it in a way that I will be able to hear it.’ …My ancestors were speaking, reminding me of my responsibility to teach this lesson of respect; reminding me that I deserved to be respected.” - Prof. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect: An Exploration, Chapter 2

bellygangstaboo

msladyjay

GO 👏 THE 👏 FUCK 👏 OFF. Also, the American educational system is trash. I applaud this child’s parents for giving her a voice and standing up against bias authority.

fridakahloblvd

(Can someone caption this?)

nico-incognito

Classroom full of mostly black and brown students:

Black student: [unintelligible—and then] …and then throwing everything away beneath it because it doesn’t pertain to you. I’m sorry —

White teacher: —you know what, I’m sorry -I’m sorry…

Black student: —No, no, no…I let you talk -I let you talk, you’re gonna let me talk.

[Other students gasps]

White student: Go ahead. Finish.

Black student: I’m sorry that this is the way that it is. You’re right, it is fucked up. But white people control everything…and that’s not fair. And when anybody, any other minority tries to say anything about it or change it, we’re complaining or we’re ungrateful or all this other stuff because we still have this or that. But then you say something about ‘Oh, I don’t want—there’s too many Latinos and there’s too many—’

White teacher: I didn’t say that—

[Various students disagree]

White teacher: I said I want to control the border!

Black student: You said you don’t want this to turn into a Latin country because there’ll be too many

White teacher: I did not say that.

[Various students disagree]

Student 2: You said you want to preserve the American culture.

Black student: There is no American culture. American culture is EVERYTHING.

[Various students agree]

Random: Mayonnaise!

[Students laugh]

Black student: And because you are white and so closed-minded, you refuse to accept that, you refuse to accept—

White teacher: Don’t tell me I’m closed-minded—

Black student: Everything you’ve said to me is closed-minded.

White teacher: Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m closed-minded.

Black student: You don’t need to agree—I -I’ve had conversations with people that don’t agree with me, but if they at least listen and try to accept—you’re not accepting the truth.

White teacher: Why do I have to accept what you think is right?

Black student: You need to accept the truth! Not what I think is right, what is actually happening right—

White teacher: Well, let me tell you what I think. You said white people have been in control of everything….who is the president of the United States right now?!

Students: A black man!

*Various sounds of incredulity*

Black student: WITH A WHITE CONGRESS! WITH A WHITE SENATE! WITH WHITE EVERYTHING ELSE! HE DOESN’T HAVE THE CONTROL OF EVERYTHING!

Random: GO OFF

Other Random: GO OFF–

*The class is in an uproar*

Random student: YOU ARE SO PRIVILEGED THAT YOU JUST DON’T SEE IT!

White teacher: Do we have to yell?!

Black student: Yes, because I’m mad.