henna vs. world @brownwomanspeaks - Tumblr Blog

We live in a society that kills disabled people, directly and indirectly,

benefits are slashed so that disabled people who can;t work cannot get financial support and are often driven to starvation or suicide

police officers often kill disabled people, especially schizophrenic people and can often get away with it, especially if the victim was black

hospitals are underfunded, in places where you need insurance, disabled people can be denied it and many other obstacles to healthcare mean that disabled people can die because they cannot access life-saving support

hate crimes against disabled people are generally ignored and are extremely prevalent, often leading to disabled people being killed by people who have been harassing them for a while

groups such as autism speaks promote the idea that disabled people are burdens on society and families, this often leads to parents killing their disabled children saying that they couldn;t deal with them anymore

There’s more examples but this is honestly horrifying for me to write

But when you look at all of this and then try and argue how you think disabled people should have a “right to die” I want you to ask yourself whether we are even being allowed to live

Shoutout to #theAerogram for featuring me!

Broken Motherland

The wrinkles on her forehead bend and curve like the Chenab filling and defining her face. Deepened with wisdom and worn with time, I cannot imagine her without them. Hands so delicate, hands that tilled the land, the land of the five rivers from which she came. Hands as antique as the pendant she wears around her neck. Covered in white from head to toe, she walks with a sadness none can fathom. The sites she must have seen, the losses she must have endured. The blood on their hands, on her hands though she’s tried to wash it away. The stain stays.

A line. A simple line, arbitrary at the time, on parchment. With some divine power he wielded his pen. A line on a paper that created a rift, a rift so deep it parted bloodlines. A rift so deep we fell inside, inside into the divide, down with our humanity we fell. They fell, she fell and no one could help them up. Midnight. 12 strikes a new day, new nations born, born from the womb of a broken mother a mother abandoned by her children, consumed in themselves they abandoned her, their mother who had given them everything. She lives only as a memory, distant and fading. A memory of life before, before her tryst with destiny, before the irreparable harm done by her children. Still, she waited. She waited and waited at the door for them to come and take her. But time didn’t allow it. Instead it striped her body and soul of any hope she had left till she’s empty. Her children are gone, never to return. They’ve gone too far and far apart that she cannot reunite them. She cannot call them back for they do not hear her pleas. She is broken. I hear the birds still sing in the land of the five rivers. They sing again, but with a different tune. Time heals all wounds, they said. Your heart will be whole again, they said. She listens, but she no longer believes. Still I see her sometimes looking at the door, with a broken heart once full of hope. She looks and waits until the clock strikes twelve.

that moment when a cis-gender heterosexual male tells me there’s nothing wrong with the phrase “behind every successful man is a woman” and then proceeds to interrupt and speak over me in a group discussion...

#male privilege #check yourself #sexism #cis privilege #fuck you #real life #heternormativity

first week in france

NOTE: I don’t have anything against Christians. It's Christian supremacy I don't like. I don't like any type of supremacy for that matter...

So apparently it was orthodox Christmas and Epiphany and other things I have no clue about. Two girls from the UCs I was hanging out with were talking about Jesus and these Christian events. I had accompanied them so when they turned to ask me something, I admitted that I knew nothing about said events because I'm not Christian. They were surprised I hadn't heard of these specific events because they are so common to them. I said something to the effect of "I'm kind of afraid of Christianity". This whole conversation was in French so that's the translation of what I said. My admitting this feeling I've had for decades because of various experiences actually pissed off one of the girls. She asked me why I said that. I told her that I find the power Christianity has over others who are not Christian scary. I explained that in the history of colonialism, Christianity was a tool of the colonizers and many were obviously oppressed through this process. I said that the everyday subtle Christian dominance in western countries that exists is also something I don't like. I told her that I've also had personal experiences in churches, Christian schools and with some Christian people that didn't leave me with a positive feeling.

First I should mention to you that I'm a Sikh WOC and she's a white Russian (I'm guessing she's some kind of Christian because she got hella angry). She started by saying I was over-generalizing about modern western countries and the presence of Christianity. Then she said other belief systems oppress and have oppressed many people. She said it wasn't right to bring up colonialism because a lot of other things were happening at that time that didn't have to do with Christians (LOL does that mean colonialism is finally over??!!). She said that if I'm afraid of Christianity, she's afraid of atheists because of the history of Russia and how the atheists oppressed the religious and how religion was the only thing that kept some people alive (BUT like how tf does that counter my experience?). Her lecture about the oppressive atheists was lengthy and accusatory towards me, as if I was one of them or something. Basically, I couldn't claim to be afraid of Christianity because it's unreasonable/incorrect to say so. But she never asked my religion or asked about my experiences.

This isn't oppression olympics. I never said anything that gave the impression I was invalidating her family's experiences. I simply expressed the fact that I personally am sometimes afraid of Christianity. But her tone, her body language and words completely shut me up. Rather, I felt completely invalidated and immediately regretted expressing my fear. Needless to say I didn't say much during the rest of the three hours we spent together. It's rare I find myself in a situation with friends in which I feel uncomfortable by a friend's words. Maybe I should have feigned knowledge about those Christian events, like I'm accustomed to doing in school and in other spaces. To me and other non-Christians, Christian supremacy in America (and basically the entire “West”) is pretty apparent. Sometimes it’s low-key oppressive and other times high-key.

Being in an American space with UC students in a French city isn't as great as I thought it would be. The problem isn't being in the land of a colonizing power (i.e. France), but rather the Americans who come here (i.e. UC students). Last week another girl in my UC group made fun of the "PC police"(politically correct police) at her school who used the word "triggering". Apparently it’s unnecessary to have trigger warning and apparently invalidating people's experiences, even among one's UC-educated peers, isn't uncommon. I crave my Berkeley bubble because at least there, I can feel safe.

#christianity #christian supremacy #poc #woc #oppression olympics #france #berkeley #russia #atheisim #politically correct

thawrah

Immigrant children, They say you’re unworthy of Either country’s blood. Immigrant children, Don’t believe them - you’re simply Strong enough for two.

pyotra

In the forest Seethamma gives birth No water to wash her thighs, and Hanumanta Builds a bridge over the ocean To the mother who loves me I’ll be a good daughter, To my enemy who rejects me I’ll be a naked sword flashing A daughter’s born and the house falls to pieces A son’s birth sets rejoicing even the latch On the door, the pictures on the wall What a match for a girl soft as jasmine It was like setting the grass afire Like pouring water over hard rock Lives of women without children: Like oxen hired out Like a plantain leaf discarded after the meal Those who couldn’t say enough about the couple Turn their faces now from the widow Her life’s become a stinking drain A fig tree in the barren woman’s yard On every branch a parrot sits Saying, ‘Your labor’s only for others’.

a folk song from Karnataka, translated from Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana.

“Most folk literature belongs to the indigenous traditions of the different regions. As is common in agricultural societies, women are the principle makers and users of these songs, which accompany sowing, transplanting, weeding, reaping, and threshing in the fields, as well as the husking, pounding, and grinding of grain by hand. The rhythm of the handmill, or the rhythm of pounding, forms the basis of the meter in most of the verse. But lullabies and songs women sing while they are swinging have different rhythms and different meters. In many regions women sing while attending childbirth and announce the event in song. Marriages are celebrated with different songs for each stage in the ceremonies. Every tradition has the tearful lyrics sung when the daughter leaves home after marriage, and women’s keening marks the passing of life.”

–Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the Early 20th Century (1991)

micdotcom

Stunning art redefines being transgender and resilient

Nov. 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, where we mourn those that have died as a result of violence against transgender people. With 2015 being one of the worst for transgender violence, activists in the trans movement have an especially important message — and it’s being told through art.

#dalitwomenfight opening night at Betti Ono Gallery. Catch one of their events while they're touring California. Berkeley, Stanford, SF are up next week! (at Oakland, California)

#dalitwomenfight

micdotcom

“Almost without fail, everybody I talked to recommended someone else that I should talk to because her story was so incredible,” Kauder Nalebuff told mic. Nalebuff has compiled dozens of astonishing first period stories into an anthology titled My Little Red Book.

That so many women willingly and eagerly shared their “forbidden” stories, she added, proves just how much “we are hungering to hear these stories. We are hungering to tell them. The very act of sharing them is political; it’s freeing.”

browngirlmag

brownwomanspeaks

interesting piece that mirrors a lot of the thoughts I had in India when I was surrounded by non-christian religious practices but kept thinking of “God” as an old white man...

#hinduism #gender #gender terms #god #goddess #christianity #christian supremacy

idk what i’m supposed to do with this anger i feel but i’ll keep trying to figure it out, figure out my place/not take up space & find my duty in this mess. orgs like #asians4blacklives (re)affirm my faith in my API community because i see people putting in work and trying to dismantle the patriarchal white supremacist system america’s got going on. (at Oakland Asian Cultural Center)

#ftp #blacklivesmatter #asians4blacklives #a4bl #fuckthepolice #solidarity #allyship #people of color #oakland

micdotcom

Eyricka Morgan was a black transgender woman. She was a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She was an activist. She was fatally stabbed in September 2013. She was my friend.

On Saturday, Tamara Dominguez became the latest trans women of color to be murdered in the United States, when she was repeatedly driven over by a truck in Kansas City, Missouri. Dominguez is among at least 17 trans women of color who have been killed in the country so far this year.

Like Eyricka, Dominquez’s life was violently taken from her with no widespread public outcry. We must not be silent. — Darnell L. Moore for Mic