ESCAPE FROM MIDWICH VALLEY

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[schoolhater]

reject the western gaze!

mutual aid means no hierarchy between givers and receivers

a new mutual aid org, Bridge of Solidarity, has been established in the gaza strip by 17 year old poet yazan mohammed in response to the exploitative practices conducted by some charities and encouraged by the existing charity-based model of fundraising for gaza. according to BoS: "the western attention economy and pity economy plays a large role in who lives or dies in gaza." essentially, people need to make themselves marketable in order to receive lifesaving aid; people who are not marketable die. yazan himself wrote about the damage this can do to one's self image, which you can read here.

after trying for a year to respect his own privacy, my friend siraj was also pressured into posting images of his son's emaciated body in order to gain sympathy from westerners.

we cannot keep forcing people to do this anymore.

here's a declaration of their values from bridge of solidarity's most recent post:

Our organization is against the Western gaze. We refuse to humiliate people. We refuse to force people to take photos. We refuse to force people to take photos with our flyer or logo. People will receive aid freely without being forced to pose. We will respect people's privacy completely. Our principles include autonomy, dignity, sovereignty, mutual respect, and mutual aid.

this org will prioritize giving aid to people without phones or social media, who do not speak english, and who do not have outside support or living parents. these are the people who are not palatable to westerners but who deserve to live with as much dignity as everyone else

as of five days ago, BoS are working on a water truck delivery

Bridge of Solidarity

(Arabic below) 

[sivavakkiyar]

India recognises 125 million Scheduled Tribes at home but denies their Indigenous status globally, Adivasi groups tell UN

At the UN in Geneva, Adivasi rights groups challenged India’s refusal to recognise Adivasis as Indigenous Peoples globally, raising violatio

Organisations representing Adivasi and Indigenous communities have urged the United Nations to address India’s refusal to formally recognise Adivasis as Indigenous Peoples under international law, despite identifying more than 125 million citizens as Scheduled Tribes within the country.

The Adivasi Mahasabha Foundation, India Indigenous Peoples, Adivasi Samanvay Manch, Indigenae Global Confederation, Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (North East Zone), Bodo National Students Union and Indian Social Institute raised the issue at the 19th Session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The session was held from 13 to 17 July at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Through a series of statements, the groups raised concerns over the exclusion of Adivasis from formal participation in UN bodies, violations of community consent in mining and development projects, legislative inaction, threats to Indigenous languages and the use of Indigenous knowledge in artificial intelligence.

Their interventions covered Indigenous participation at the UN, the approaching twentieth anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the future work of the Expert Mechanism, follow-up to its previous studies, proposals to the UN Human Rights Council and the protection of Indigenous languages.

The groups said India could not continue operating one of the world’s largest systems of tribal, Indigenous and Adivasi recognition domestically while refusing to recognise the same communities as Indigenous Peoples internationally.

India identifies more than 125 million citizens as Scheduled Tribes and provides a constitutional framework for their governance under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. However, according to the groups, the country has refused to formally recognise its Adivasi population as Indigenous Peoples under international law for nearly two decades after voting in favour of UNDRIP in 2007.

“The state cannot have it both ways,” the statements said.

The groups also referred to the 2011 Supreme Court observation by Justices Katju and Mishra in Kailash & Others vs. State of Maharashtra that “all Indians are indigenous.” They described the position as a legal fiction that erases the distinction between first peoples and later settlers.

According to the organisations, the Indian state has used this position to negate its international obligations instead of resolving the question of Indigenous recognition. “If everyone is indigenous, then no one is displaced, and no one has a claim,” they argued.

[probuccalfat]

i have not been able to forget this for 16 years

[combat-unit]

@heliopixels -> @combat-unit

[laserwalnut]

Tie Nut & Bumbling Idiot

[thegenderdruid]

it's truly insane how much more functional society would be and how much happier everyone would be if every job was perpetually 10% overstaffed (and people who weren't needed could chill and rotate in when needed while still getting paid) instead of 10-50% understaffed but that wouldn't be 'efficient' (in the short term, for shareholders) so fuck everyone I guess

[fatehbaz]

awesome morning in awesome nation-state:

-- tried to get insulin; had to pay out of pocket because former employer fucked up paperwork and never told me. and health insurance is tied to employment in the US. and diabetes meds aren't subsidized.

-- bike by city center, cops doing their morning scolding/intimidation of the two dozen homeless people that sleep near the steps/entrance of federal courthouse since city outlawed them from laying/sitting elsewhere

-- guy on bus watching insta clips of based-fascist vtubers

-- had to fill-out annual department hire paperwork at HR at school, there's a printed-out sign that says something about "the US Department of Homeland Security now REQUIRES that blah blah blah" with a big scary emblem

-- returning paperwork to counter, HR is like "you didn't fill out a SELECTIVE MILITARY SERVICE sheet?" and i was like "but i'm legally female at state/fed level?" in half-jest because may as well fill it out to avoid government scrutiny, and she's like "but you weren't always?" (how sure are you?) and i'm like "well i'm over 26 years of age" and she's like "well just to be safe" and then i was like "is there anything else the US Department of Homeland Security and/or armed forces would like from me?" but i was too deadpan for joke to land and she just went "i don't know?"

-- sit down to fill out some docs and a new foreign student is being guided through paperwork by an HR person. student is from Vietnam. he asks if he can claim a dependent for taxes. HR person is like "why, aren't you alone?" and he's like "i have nine-month-old daughter and a wife?" and she's like "oh well as a migrant here for under [x amount] of years, your wife and child don't technically count as dependents, so no"

-- biking to campus through super-sanitized "progressive" neighborhood. home with fancy landscaping obviously calculated to superficially appear somewhat in synch with local region landscape yet all shrubs/flowers actually from Europe and team of four guys just unloading pesticides all over the manicured yard (right next to "natural area" hiking trailhead)

-- frown and turn head other direction, directly across street and a cop is parked at the curb just sitting in driver's seat giggling and watching shit on his phone in like a giant military-esque black SUV

[laserwalnut]

Tie Nut & Bumbling Idiot 2

[combat-unit]

@heliopixels -> @combat-unit

[gigglybumbug]

randomly getting intensely interested in some bullshit like

[hagiomoto]

The Sameer Project desperately needs your support right now. They’ve had to scale back some of their operations due to dwindling funds. Please consider setting up a recurring donation to help sustain their important work!

General Fund: Shelter, Goods, Activities x The Sameer Project

ALTERNATIVE DONATION OPTIONS

The Refaat Alareer Camp x The Sameer Project

The Sameer Project, a mutual aid organization led by three Palestinians in the diaspora, are the proud directors and funders of three tent e

Food & Water x The Sameer Project

Translating Falasteen (Palestine), in collaboration with The Sameer Project, launched a fundraising campaign to support families in Gaza fac

[gigglybumbug]

randomly getting intensely interested in some bullshit like

[randomvintageeurope]

[mimicofmodes]

I love the outfit being displayed here, that topstitching is fabulous and the shirtwaist is lovely, but holy moly that is perhaps the most blatant editing of a waistline that I've ever seen ... I'm guessing that the original is a glass plate negative and a print made from it in the period would have had more editing happening during the process, but I'm glad we can see how that worked.

[determinate-negation]

our century of america is collapsing

[molsno]

I don't know which trans girl needs to hear this but you don't need to have sex ever if you don't want to. no matter who your partner is. if the thought of having sex makes you feel anxious or uncomfortable, or even if you're just not in the mood for it, you don't have to. it doesn't matter if your partner really wants it or if they'd feel insecure that you don't find them attractive or whatever, you can just say no. don't let anyone pressure you into sex that you don't want. you are not a sex object made to please other people. you deserve to have your boundaries and sexual autonomy respected, and that includes the right to have no sex whatsoever, if that's what you want.

[scribeherself]

people will say “they’re only friends” and then show me two people who would crawl through broken glass to hear the other laugh once. two people who have memorized each other’s coffee orders, fears, childhood stories, and emergency contacts. two people who would haunt each other’s houses as ghosts. be serious.

[scribeherself]

Just an FYI—the original intention of this post was to challenge the way people say only friends, as though friendship is somehow lesser than other forms of love. As if being deeply known, cherished, and chosen by another person could ever be a small thing. Normalize profound platonic love. Some of the most fulfilling, transformative, and enduring relationships we will ever have are friendships. 🫶🏼

[vaguely-problematic]

[necromancelena]

I'm going to fix everything in the next three hours everyone wish me luck. if i dont then probably ill dig a hole and lie down in it for a bit in the rain/sun/whatever outside looks like these days

[necromancelena]

the hole isnt even that bad