for me being bi has contributed a huge amount to noticing all the ways in which romance and friendship run together and i think in general people would benefit from recognizing that romance and friendship are socially constructed categories used to describe a vast, nebulous, and often overlapping range of feelings
Every Relationship is actually a specific, unique thing. We invented Shorthands, such as Friend or Husband, to help describe recurring motifs in Relationships. But. The labels are simplifications. They will always fail to adequately contain the entirety of the Relationship.
I highly recommend watching this testimony from Aliya Rahman, the disabled woman who was dragged out of her car and kidnapped by ICE on her way to a doctor appointment in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.
Thank you members, for taking the time to be here today, and thank you staff for making this happen.
My name is Aliya Rahman, and I am a resident of South Minneapolis. I am a Bangladeshi American born in Northern Wisconsin. And I’m a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury.
Not all autistic brains do this, but mine fixates on sounds, numbers, and patterns. And while what the world saw happen to me exactly three weeks ago today on video was a terrible violation it is still nothing compared to the horrific practices I saw inside the Whipple center.
So I am here today with a duty to the people who have not had the privilege of coming home, and I offer this data because these practices must end now.
On January 13th on the way to my 39th appointment at Hennepin County’s traumatic brain injury center, I encountered a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles and no signs indicating how to get around it. I had not wanted to pull in to a blocked, chaotic intersection, but verbally agreed to do so and rolled down my window after an agent yelled, “Move! I will break your f-ing window!”
His first instruction.
Agents on all sides of my vehicle yelled conflicting threats and instructions that I could not process while watching for pedestrians.
Then, the glass of the passenger side window flew across my face.
I yelled, “I’m disabled!” at the hands grabbing at me and an agent said, “Too late.”
I felt immersed in a pattern, and I thought of Jenoah Donald, an autistic black man killed by the police during a traffic stop in 2021.
I remembered mister Silverio Villegas González, who was killed by ICE in his vehicle last year.
An agent pulled a large combat knife in front of my face, which I thought was for cutting me, and later learned was used to cut off my seat belt. Shooting pain went through my head, neck, and wrists when I hit the ground face first and people leaned on my back.
I felt the pattern, and I thought of mister George Floyd, who was killed four blocks away.
I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled. I now cannot lift my arms normally.
I was never asked for ID.
Never told I was under arrest.
Never read my rights.
And never charged with a crime.
Approaching the Whipple center, I saw black and brown bodies shackled together, chained together, being marched by yelling agents outdoors. I continued to hear the word “bodies”, because that is how agents referred to us:
“We’re bringing in a body.”
“They’re bringing in bodies 7, 8 at a time, where do I put ‘em?”
“We can’t use that room, there’s already a body in there.”
You have no reason to believe you will make it out alive if you’re already being called a body.
Agents repeatedly had to stop and ask how to do tasks. I received no medical screening, phone call, or access to a lawyer. I was denied a communication navigator when my speech began to slur. Agents laughed as I tried to immobilize my own neck. I asked for my cane and was told no, pulled up by my arms and prodded forward in leg irons by agents laughing and saying, “Walk! You can do it, walk.”
Agents did not know if the facility had a wheelchair.
When I was finally placed in one to be taken to interrogation an agent taunted, “You were driving, right? So your legs do work.”
I pleaded for emergency medical care for over an hour after my vision had become blurry, my heart rate went through the roof, and the pain in my neck and head became unbearable.
It was denied.
When I became unable to speak my cellmate pleaded for me.
The last sounds I remember before I blacked out on the cell floor were my cellmate banging on the door, pleading for a medic, and a voice outside saying, “We don’t wanna step on ICE’s toes.”
When I opened my eyes at Hennepin County’s emergency room, I learned I was brought there to be treated for assault.
The impacts of DHS detention on my physical, mental and financial well-being and safety have been very severe, but I do not deserve more humane treatment than anyone else, US citizen or not. And I am here today with a strong spirit and a duty to the many people who haven’t had the privilege to tell their stories or see their loved ones come home. I am extremely distressed by the pattern that violence from law enforcement has been happening to black and indigenous communities for centuries, and to DHS survivors for over 20 years.
We call ourselves a civilized nation, but we lack rules and accountability around what a person claiming to be law enforcement is permitted to do to another human being.
I am not afraid, and I’m not afraid to keep working on this problem even after ICE is gone. Thank you for your time.
medieval lit is really fun. there will be a footnote that is like “nobody knows what the author meant there and scholars have been debating it for centuries” 
translator’s note: again, we’re sure the scribe was the funniest guy in Plantagenet England and was getting all the tavern wenches but we can’t for the life of us figure out what he was talking about
Rare testimonies from inside Gaza that reached the Daily Mail reveal how Hamas members are blackmailing and exploiting women, especially wid
Hamas gunmen stand guard on the day that hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, are …
Accounts describe widows and displaced women being sexually exploited and blackmailed by the terrorists.
Gazan women living under Hamas rule are describing sexual abuse by men in senior positions, sexual extortion in exchange for aid or money, and exploitation by those in positions of power, according to testimonies obtained by Britain’s Daily Mail.
The accounts are emerging amid growing concern that the terrorist organization has reasserted control in much of the Gaza Strip, while global attention is fixed on Iran.
A Gazan man, who identified himself as a member of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the “military” wing of Hamas, confirmed to the Mail the dire situation facing widows. He said he had reported to the leadership that some Al-Qassam members were exploiting martyrs’ widows” in a tent in the Gharabli area of Deir al-Balah.
He said he was ordered to remain silent. “We told them this was an insult to our honor and pride,” he said, adding that he destroyed the tent in anger.
Another Gazan man confirmed that a similar thing happened to his neighbor, who was blackmailed by “one of the Hamas charity organizations. They wanted her to prostitute herself in exchange for a food parcel, an aid voucher, or 100 shekels [about $33].”
These testimonies come against the backdrop of broader allegations of sexual violence during the conflict, including testimony from several former hostages such as Romi Gonen and Arbel Yehoud, who told the Mail that she was sexually abused every day in captivity after being abducted from her kibbutz on Oct. 7, 2023.
Meanwhile, Hamas, which has refused to disarm as part of a ceasefire agreement, continues to rule almost half of the Gaza Strip with an iron fist. According to sources on the ground who spoke to the Mail, the exploitation of vulnerable women and girls is routine.
Abdullah, a pseudonym, a journalist with Jusoor News, spoke to the Mail from his hiding place out of fear that Hamas would find him. “Unfortunately, there are many such cases. It is a very widespread phenomenon. In every area, many women are exploited, especially widows and divorceés, because they have no support or income. Their vulnerability is being exploited, and the situation is getting worse by the day.”
‘You cannot expose me. I am the government here.’
Noor, also a pseudonym, a divorced mother of four who was displaced from her home during the war, spoke to the Mail from Gaza in a whisper over the phone, for fear of being caught. She described sexual coercion in exchange for aid, which began when a religious figure started harassing her at the lowest point of her life.
“I wasn’t getting any aid, so I went to a charity. I am a mother of four, displaced by the war and not part of a recognized displacement camp, so I got no assistance. I went to an Islamic charity that distributes aid to the displaced and needy in Gaza. I was received by a man who looked religious, like a sheikh. He said he would stand by me and help me. I told him I was separated from my husband. He said, ‘Oh, separated? A beautiful woman like you?’”
He took Noor’s phone number, which she said she believed would lead to fatherly support, but instead, he suggested a late-night video call.
“From the beginning, the way he spoke to me felt like harassment. I’m much younger than him. I trusted him because he was an older man. I saw him as a father figure. He’s my father’s age, but he harassed me directly. I was afraid, of course. He chased after me. I asked him how he could speak to me like that, and I told him he should be ashamed. I said I would expose him. He said, ‘You cannot expose me. I am the government here.’”
Noor said this reflects a broader pattern in which vulnerable women become targets because they have no breadwinner and depend on aid. “They exploit women’s distress, but the women are too afraid to speak.”
He would not let her leave
Another woman reported: “One charity in Gaza is unfortunately the biggest perpetrator of these acts. From its chairman to its doorman, it is done by all the employees and members there, as if the organization was set up for the purpose of sexual harassment, psychological abuse and the harassment of young women.”
During the war in the Gaza Strip, the AP news agency documented several incidents in 2025, including the case of a 38-year-old woman who believed she would finally receive the help she needed for her six children. After weeks of struggle, she was told that a certain man could help her with food, aid and work.
She turned to him after being separated from her husband and forced to close her business, but then he took her to an empty apartment, complimented her and ordered her to remove her head covering. She said he told her he loved her and would not force her, but at the same time would not let her leave. Eventually, she said, sexual contact took place. She declined to provide further details, saying she felt fear and shame.
“I had to cooperate because I was afraid. I wanted to get out of that place,” she told AP. Before she left, she was given 100 shekels. Two weeks later, she received a box of medicine and a food parcel. “The job she had been promised never materialized,” the report said.
Abdullah, the journalist, added: “Hamas exploited media channels and spread exaggerated or false numbers. Hamas lied about everything. They stole the aid, created the hunger narrative, and the naive West believes it. They have no respect for anyone.”
He described threats to his life, including armed men arriving at the place where he was staying. “If I had been there, they would have shot me.”
#why does this only really have notes from jumblr and allies#the answer to both questions is that this movement of Jew hatred in the name of Palestine doesn’t care at ALL about the Palestinians#they only care when they can use it to demonize the Jews#free gaza from hamas
And when its time to discuss pedophilia in ancient greece and rome, they always name pederasty. Pederasty pederasty pederasty. And its not as if the normalization of teen boys sleeping with grown men is not horrific and disgusting, but i have to notice how they always focus on the male children, as if it wasn't standard for fifteen year old girls to get married to men twice their age, as if child sex abuse is horrifying only if it happens to the boys, because to the girls it is normal, guaranteed, its their role, times were different back then
Humans invented writing as a way of communicating information and it’s pretty great on the whole but we maybe did not adequately prepare for depreciation in legibility
"The Fencing World Championships will introduce the "Sword Tip Visualization System." This system was developed by Japanese engineers, used at the Tokyo Olympics, and can track and display the sword tip's movement trajectory without any markers." (X)
you have to consciously unlearn racism and continue to watch for it because it will come out without realizing. because so much of society is structured around it. shrugging and going "i dont care" or "i dont know how else to say it" means you are okay with being racist and hurting other people with how much you dont give a shit about them.
the reason dog whistles are effective is that on the surface they are plausibly innocent. in fact, many people who adopt the language are genuinely ignorant of the secret meaning.
which is to say, if you say or write something that you thought was fine and normal. then a marginalized person in the notes goes HEY WTF. pause and listen. it's (usually) not a personal attack, it's someone saying "hey! you harmed me!!". Instead of answering "no I didn't and how dare you call me racist", try "huh? I don't want to hurt people, can you expain?"
I have lost count of the people who have used antisemitic dog whistles, and when I approach them politely, instantly double down and in the process call me a hypersentive lying zio manipulator etc.
rent-lowering gunshot time. i think a reflexive anti-AI stance can be reactionary because there are legitimately good use cases for the technology in scientific research, although it is often overhyped. i also think most people use AI in incredibly stupid ways
