The World In Shades Of Gray

I’m a cultural anthropologist, work in the nonprofit sector, and I’m in grad school. I love art, history, science, political theory and philosophy 📚

[magicratfingers]

desperately want to draw want nothing less than to be drawing

[magicratfingers]

this is how many pillows I want

[quintuplequay]

Where does the you go. In this scenario

[magicratfingers]

? what do u mean

[batbetbitbotbut]

Ah another fan of the classic children's roleplay, "neolithic burial"

[magicratfingers]

yeah u get it

[queerliblib]

it’s a beautiful day to check out a book from the library

[meeliesaysno]

its a beautiful day to return a book to the library unread after it auto renews 3 times

[ksfoxwald]

The library says thank you for boosting our circulation stats and the book will still be here later if you want it another time <3

[anthropologist-on-the-loose]

It is not nearly common enough knowledge that most Native tribes in the U.S. don't actually own all of the land within their reservation. There are millions of acres of reservation land that tribes don't legally own and they have no control over how that land is used. Like, there are a lot of different concepts tied in with the land back movement, but a major one is literally just getting reservation land back into tribal ownership.

[anthropologist-on-the-loose]

@ball-lightning The answer is going to look different for every single tribe, depending on their culture, geography, and history. It may even look different for different reservations within the same tribe based on their specific local history. I have not done much scholarly work on the broader land back movement; it's important to preface my answer with the fact that my understanding is going to be largely influenced by the tribes I work with.

Where I'm located, "land back within the reservation" would look like:

Local, county, state, and federal governments giving back any land they own outright (and ideally giving it back instead of selling it back, especially since those governments usually got the land for free through tax forfeiture anyway), and

All land within reservation boundaries - regardless of who owns it - being subject to tribal jurisdiction regarding land management.

Private landowners already have to abide by whatever local laws apply regarding land use - zoning, permits, mitigation, all that type of stuff. Land back would mean that non-tribal landowners within a reservation would have to abide by tribal laws regarding land use, and those laws could be enforced with penalties and fines the same way other governments enforce their own land use laws.

"Land back within the reservation" means creating legal* and financial pathways that will facilitate land returning to tribal ownership, and in the meantime letting tribal governments have the final say about what happens to the land within their own borders.

*Part of the problem is that the laws around tribal land ownership are a snarled mess of tribal, federal, state, and local laws tangled up with centuries worth of changing federal policies built on top of each other. It's complex enough that people get masters and doctorate degrees in Indian Law as a specialist legal field. I'm not even touching on the whole trust land thing right now, which is an entirely different infuriating can of worms legal battle.

[asmrgaret]

it’s weird that professional letters are supposed to start with “dear.” i don’t even call my mom that

[asmrgaret]

my darling hiring manager. my springtime rose. if hired i will bring a strong work ethic to this position

[vintagewildlife]

"I can't believe humans would hunt the thylacine to extinction, humans are fundamentally evil" Hey, did you know that extinction was long thought to be impossible, and within 50 years of humans realizing that extinction via overhunting was a possibility it practically stopped happening? Did you know that humans are so desperate to prevent more losses that they're funneling millions of collective hours and billions of euros into helping other species? Hours and euros that could be spent on humans, and species on whom humanity's own survival does not depend? Did you know that due to an accidental introduction of rats, the Lord Howe Island stick insect population was brought down to 24 individuals and now there are tens of thousands of them?

This bug. This bug that, to most humans, is utterly useless, relatively gross, and completely foreign. Humans saved it because humans do not want to cause another extinction ever again if they can avoid it.

[untimelytophat]

@crabussy

[crabussy]

as someone in the field of ecological conservation, I can promise without a shadow of a doubt that people DO care. SO MANY people care.

I have to race to sign up to volunteer trips because even with dozens of spots available, people rush to devote their unpaid free time to helping the environment. these trips often fill up within hours. people care.

you will see a lot of bad news because that is the kind of news that people pay the most attention to. I know this more than you'd think from my optimism- not only do I live somewhere facing some of the most extreme ecological issues on the planet, I also spend my time studying the Bad Stuff every single day.

to see all of this firsthand and stay hopeful is proof enough that there IS hope. I promise there is good news, brilliant news, all the time. it's just less visible. but it's no less important or impactful.

[shamebats]

"Because I Love You" by Lex Marie.

[shamebats]

She spent hours upon hours just beating the canvas with a belt...

[gay-milton-quotes]

when you look at the finished painting, you can almost see letters - but there aren't any. It's all noise. a lot of adults process this sort of beating by insisting there is a lesson in it. with the title and artist statement in mind, it's like they're trying to read a message of love written in that chaotic canvas.

[batrachised]

love the phrase "but I digress." yes I temporarily got lost in the moors I wander in my mind but don't worry I'm self-aware about it

[bewbin]

in World War 1 around 8 million horses died but in World War 2 it was under a million which can only mean horses started to evolve bullet resistance

[lordoftablecloths]

im sorry i couldnt just let these slide

[validblogname]

one fight at a time

[lizardlicks]

Black Hills drilling project canceled after backlash from tribes

A South Dakota mining company has canceled a drilling project in the Black Hills after opposition from Native American tribes and local grou

[wizxrdpendrxgon]

The backlash was a major lawsuit from 9 tribes alongside other lawsuits from advocacy groups like NDN Collective. You can support NDN Collective by donating to them here.

[escuerzoresucitado]

[noahverrier]

My oil painting of Gatorade Arctic Blitz

[moth-grrrl-mavis]

This is the modern equivalent of all the paintings of bowls of fruit you see in museums

[artdetails]

Mark Rothko, Earth Green (detail), 1955

[fidelcostco]

can't believe the only options are 30 minutes early or 10 minutes late. if only there were some other way. but what can you do

[mushroom-soup-is-my-religion]

[depsidase]

[depsidase]

[beardedmrbean]

Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.

Kids books is probably not the best way to word it, you can enjoy them at every age, including your childhood, as you get older you may find new truths in them, but they're still good for any age.

[gothhabiba]

men make it absolutely impossible to practice humility

[gothhabiba]

what you say: “I think this is the case”

what men hear: “I have no idea whatsoever, but here’s a totally random guess”

what you say: “I’m not an expert on this subject”

what men hear: “I don’t know anything about this subject and need its bare fundamentals explained to me”

what you say: “I could be better read in this area”

what men hear: “I have never read anything in this area”

[gothhabiba]

like okay fuck it nevermind I’m actually an expert in every subject I’ve ever read or heard about. in fact I know everything.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

If anyone's ever wondering why I come across as such an arrogant bitch on Tumblr it's because I used to work in science with a lot of men and never readjusted my communication style afterward.

[respectissexy]

This is one of my biggest seemingly low-stakes feminist soapboxes. Women are often encouraged to take hedging, consensus-seeking, and checking-in phrases out of their speech in order to seem "more confident". And listen, of course you do not need to say "I think" when you actually know for pretty damn sure, or double-check every little thing you say, or apologize for things that are out of your control.

But there are men in my life who I respect, who I think are generally good communicators, but who have admitted to me that if they do not know the answer to something they will just state their best guess in a confident tone of voice, with no hedging or clarification to warn the listener that what they just said was pulled from their ass.

I once asked my high school boyfriend what noise a platypus makes and he confidently told me "oh they quack" and I said "really? that seems like they'd have different noise-making structures than ducks since they're not birds" and he said "oh yeah you're probably right. I was just guessing." And had no idea why I was mad! I was like, so if I ask you a question you might just bullshit me?? What if I had believed you and gone and repeated that to other people? I could have looked like an idiot. I could have spread misinformation to a ton of people! But I have told that story to other men and had them say "oh yeah I totally do that."

This is so much worse communication than just saying "I don't know but I think..." There shouldn't be campaigns training professional women to sound "more confident," there should be campaigns training professional MEN to stop doing whatever THAT is!

[gothhabiba]

[ID: Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place saying “okay, but that’s worse. You do see how that’s worse, right?” End ID.]