a place to talk.

A Place to Talk is a blog dedicated to having open coversations.

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Guess who’s back?... back again.

Sorry I’ve been gone! Will be posting soon! Also make sure to watch the debates on Monday night! Here’s a link to the debate schedule: 

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/20/presidential-debate-schedule/

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Why reverse racism isn’t a problem and people need to get over themselves immediately.

It's so frustrating that people genuinely do not believe that this shit still happens. When I say shit I mean, white supremacy. Then people cry “now the problem is reverse racism” or “why can’t we have a white history month?” or my personal favorite, a men’s history month. Where have you been for the past 400 hundred years my friends? In schools or universities, African studies, multicultural studies, or women’s studies are subcategories in the arena of “actual history”, which, whether you like it or not primarily focuses on white, privileged men. To be deduced to a subcategory is something white men will never know. African American history isn’t technically American history, and that women’s studies should be separate. Or how Latin American history is never talked about. Frankly, black people get a couple weeks, if that, to talk about our history and everyone else is left out.

Going back to the “why can’t there be a white history month?” or “why can’t there be a men’s history month?”. Be glad you don't have to have a month to celebrate your pride. The only reason black people, women, or any other race besides people of European decent have a month is because at some point in time in this country they were not treated like human beings, or not given equal rights. So it's frustrating when people say that black pride means white hate. No, black pride means being proud to be black in spite of the fact that we once used to pick corn with chains around our faces so we couldn't eat the corn we were picking. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact that we used to be lynched for sport. It means being proud to be black in spite of Jim Crow laws. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact we once were not able to attend universities. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact we once were not allowed to vote. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact, that even when we were allowed to vote we were met with opposition. It means being proud to be black even though we are murdered by police. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact that people still fear us. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact that we were not given reparations for slavery. It means being proud to be black even though people will label us as the racist when we speak about white supremacy. It means being proud to be black in spite of the fact that  people believe being proud to be black means white hate. It means being proud to be black in spite of all the obstacles and oppression we have and still face.

So I’ll say it for anyone who won’t say it for themselves. I AM PROUD TO BE BLACK, I AM PROUD TO BE BLACK. 

Peace and love always,

Mahala

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

OH. MY. GOD. Please, someone stop this man. "Rep. @leezeldin: “You can easily argue the President of the United States is a racist”"

[buzzfeedau]

25 Photos That Show What Obama’s Presidency Means To Young Black Americans

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

BREAKING: Pro-choice advocates just won the biggest Supreme Court abortion case in decades

The Court voted 5-3 to strike down two major anti-abortion provisions in Texas.

Never thought I would say this, but thank you Texas. Thank you. 

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Just thought you guys should know👍🏾

- Mahala

[nbcnightlynews]

JUST IN: Pres. Obama designates Stonewall National Monument in New York City as the first national monument honoring LGBT rights in the US - via NBC OUT nbcnews.to/28VQqMj

[mepassistant]

So... how bad is this gonna be for the UK?

The basic scenario will be bad for the UK (can’t be expecting a happy ending after 43 years of spitting in the face of your partners). From there the scenario only gets worse and worse depending on how much the remaining EU members are willing to send a message.And with today’s announcement that the UK doesn’t want to activate article 50 right away (meaning more or less that they want to blackmail the EU), a lot of people in the EU are already on the war path.

Bottom line is, the UK will get a deal eventually that will allow it to function even outside the EU but it’s gonna be painful, and even more so for the UK. And I’m not even touching the canyon that was drawn between England/Wales and Scotland/Northern Ireland.

So if you got an Irish passport, you better use it.

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Its important to not demonize white people, while speaking about white privilege. Some people will take things out of context, they won't admit to the history and the facts. They will assume that saying Black Lives Matter means that white lives do not. All I want is for people to understand that white privilege exists, while also being able to understand that my contempt for white privilege is not a contempt for white people.

Love is love, and people are people. I want to live in a world where this issues no longer are longer relevant. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Peace and love.

- Mahala 

[vox]

House Democrats are entering Hour 24 of their sit-in on gun control. Things got a bit chaotic Wednesday night. 

Just one week after the 15-hour Senate filibuster on gun control, House Democrats are staging a sit-in to force a vote on the same topic. Among the unusual things that happened Wednesday night:

Democratic House members shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at the top of their lungs at House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Democrats physically sitting on the floor in an apparent attempt to slow Republicans’ access to vote.

Congress members yelling at each other, culminating with Republican Louie Gohmert and Democrat Corrine Brown screaming in each other’s faces and had to be physically separated.

Read more: This is how wild Democrats’ sit-in over gun control got Wednesday night

[allthecanadianpolitics]

NDP (one of Canada’s major political parties) Leader Tom Mulcair stands with House of Representatives Democrats in the USA who are currently staging a sit-in, demanding changes against gun violence.

More info here:

House Democrats stage a sit-in for gun reform. The cameras are off. Here are their tweets.

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

FOLLOW VOX ✨🇺🇸

http://vox.tumblr.com/

[vox]

[Donald Trump] defaulted and bankrupted his company not once, not twice, but four times. He’s written a lot of books about business, and they all end at Chapter 11.

Hillary Clinton referring to four of Trump’s companies that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (via vox)

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Since the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer in 2013 and the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the phrase “black lives matter” has become a rallying cry for a new chapter in the long black freedom struggle. But this new movement’s penchant for disruptive protest and impassioned public speeches about persistent racial inequality have been disconcerting to many Americans who wonder what the end-game is for this new generation of protesters. Do black lives matter more than white lives? bystanders ask. Why can’t black people simply address the crime problem in their own communities? others want to know. And if the problems are really this bad, can’t voting for new political leaders solve them? sympathizers wonder. These are just some of the many questions surrounding this new movement. But the young people taking to the streets in protest have a righteous cause. They deserve a fair hearing. And we can begin by debunking a few myths about what the Black Lives Matter movement is and what it isn’t. 1. The movement doesn’t care about black-on-black crime. The idea that black-on-black crime is not a significant political conversation among black people is patently false. In Chicago, long maligned for its high rates of intraracial murder, members of the community created the Violence Interrupters to disrupt violent altercations before they escalate. However, those who insist on talking about black-on-black crime frequently fail to acknowledge that most crime is intraracial. Ninety-three percent of black murder victims are killed by other black people. Eighty-four percent of white murder victims are killed by other white people. The continued focus on black-on-black crime is a diversionary tactic, whose goal is to suggest that black people don’t have the right to be outraged about police violence in vulnerable black communities, because those communities have a crime problem. The Black Lives Matter movement acknowledges the crime problem, but it refuses to locate that crime problem as a problem of black pathology. Black people are not inherently more violent or more prone to crime than other groups. But black people are disproportionately poorer, more likely to be targeted by police and arrested, and more likely to attend poor or failing schools. All of these social indicators place one at greater risk for being either a victim or a perpetrator of violent crime. To reduce violent crime, we must fight to change systems, rather than demonizing people. 2. It’s a leaderless movement. The Black Lives Matter movement is a leaderfull movement. Many Americans of all races are enamored with Martin Luther King as a symbol of leadership and what real movements look like. But the Movement for Black Lives, another name for the BLM movement, recognizes many flaws with this model. First, focusing on heterosexual, cisgender black men frequently causes us not to see the significant amount of labor and thought leadership that black women provide to movements, not only in caretaking and auxiliary roles, but on the front lines of protests and in the strategy sessions that happen behind closed doors. Moreover, those old models leadership favored the old over the young, attempted to silence gay and lesbian leadership, and did not recognize the leadership possibilities of transgender people at all. Finally, a movement with a singular leader or a few visible leaders is vulnerable, because those leaders can be easily identified, harassed, and killed, as was the case with Dr. King. By having a leaderfull movement, BLM addresses many of these concerns. BLM is composed of many local leaders and many local organizations including Black Youth Project 100, the Dream Defenders, the Organization for Black Struggle, Hands Up United, Millennial Activists United, and the Black Lives Matter national network. We demonstrate through this model that the movement is bigger than any one person. And there is room for the talents, expertise, and work ethic of anyone who is committed to freedom. Protesters in Washington, D.C., after a grand jury decided not to charge a police officer in the death of Eric Garner. Getty 3. The movement has no agenda. Many believe the Black Lives Matter movement has no agenda — other than yelling and protesting and disrupting the lives of white people. This is also false. Since the earliest days of the movement in Ferguson, groups like the Organization for Black Struggle, the Black Lives Matter network, and others have made both clear and public a list of demands. Those demands include swift and transparent legal investigation of all police shootings of black people; official governmental tracking of the number of citizens killed by police, disaggregated by race; the demilitarization of local police forces; and community accountability mechanisms for rogue police officers. Some proposals like the recently launched Campaign Zero by a group of Ferguson activists call for body cameras on every police officer. But other groups are more reticent about this solution, since it would lead to increased surveillance and possible invasions of privacy, not to mention a massive governmental database of information about communities of color that are already heavily under surveillance by government forces. 4. It’s a one-issue movement. Although it is true that much of the protesting to date has been centered on the issue of police brutality, there is a range of issues that movement work will likely push in years to come. One is the issue of our failing system of public education, which is a virtual school-to-prison pipeline for many black youth. Another is the complete dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Many of the movement’s organizers identify as abolitionists, which in the 21st-century context refers to people who want to abolish prisons and end the problem of mass incarceration of black and Latino people. Three other significant issues are problems with safe and affordable housing, issues with food security, and reproductive justice challenges affecting poor women of color and all people needing access to reproductive care. As I frequently like to tell people, this movement in its current iteration is just over a year old. Give it

No one else is speaking up for us, so we have to figure out how to do it for ourselves. 

As a black woman, I live in a country where I’m considered pretty much irrelevant. 

 I’m annoyed that bad cops can get away with murder, I’m annoyed that black women are seen as one dimensional beings, I’m annoyed that black men are feared. I’m annoyed that we still have to fight this fight.

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Guns in the hands of bad people is not a good thing. So I really don’t understand how this is not a gun issue as well..I really don’t care what has to be done, but this needs to stop happening. - Mahala

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

When people preach hatred, it’s not that hard of a leap to act on that hatred. The problem isn’t just the people who act on their hatred, its anyone who will set there and listen to hateful and oppressive words without questioning it. Growing up I went to a Christian school. I think it was in 7th grade that we had these special classes on media and sex. It was in the class about sex that the topic of gay people was brought up. I really don’t remember what my teacher called the topic, but the majority of the class was spent on discussing gay people. Which looking back seems completely crazy for a teacher to speak to a room full of 7th graders about gay rights, especially when its not meant to empower gay people, but to preach more hatred. The only thing I remember from that class is my teacher telling us to “love the sinner, but hate the sin”. 

I knew that what I was being told was inherently wrong, I just didn’t know how to articulate well enough why what I was being told was wrong. I raised my hand and said something my dad had told me earlier that week, that scripture/ the Bible was used to justify treatment of slaves. My teacher basically said something to the effect of “well I’m sorry that happened”. Well….you should be sorry, we should all be sorry that slavery happened…I still wasn’t able to se his point. But anyways, it didn’t take too long after that for me to see that I couldn’t love someone, but hate who they are. It would be like asking a racist to love me, but at the same time hate me because I’m black. There is not rational way to justify hatred, so people will always look to a higher authority to do so. God is generally the go to. 

Love is love, there is no way around it. You either chose to love or you chose to hate. 

-Mahala

[aplacetotalk-blog1]

Gun Control in the U.S.

            Hello Everyone! In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting, I wanted to talk about something that has been brought up time and time again. Gun violence. In my opinion, it's common sense: adding more guns isn't the solution to the problem. Unfortunately, common sense is subjective, and I know people will disagree with my stance on gun control. Do I know all of the answers? NO. But, I do believe that if there is any way to limit gun violence or acts of terrorism, we should be united in achieving that goal. The United States of America....pretty ironic isn't it? Even in times of crisis we're not united.                      Anyways, back to my point. I've never understood America's obsession, YES, obsession with guns. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting that we have one, a serious problem. A serious problem that we are in serious denial about. My thoughts go out to the families of the victims of the shooting. Here's a video from Vox explaining gun violence in the US. 

https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y

- Mahala