Emphis

I think sometimes. Join me.

[bandar-khader]

أصعب حرب اهليه بين عقلك وقلبك

(via bandar-khader)

“Worst civil war, is the war between your mind and heart.”

(via arab-quotes)

[emphis]

i feel. not good. mmmmmm.

[emphis]

.

[emphis]

hahahahah fuck, i’m crying. i feel lost, i feel slightly not here, and i’m suddenly afraid. i don’t know if this is pent up stress, if i’m not coping with thesis and all this family stress, if this apathy and background depression is finally catching up to me, if this is just a normal part of the cycle,

i don’t know. i’ve been on edge for nearly two weeks, and i know i’m going to feel blank and better after this, but i’m slightly scared of going back to that blankness. i feel half frozen by the fear of being alone. i feel half frozen by the knowledge that life goes on, and i will learn how to cope. i’m afraid because time goes on, people don’t live forever,

maybe it’s cause i feel like i’m starting to watch my parents grow older. and i keep thinking about what it would be like if they’re not around. i’m not afraid of not being able to cope -- i know from experience that i will adapt, and learn to cope whatever happens. but i think i am afraid of that? moving on, scares me. i don’t know why. i’m afraid of closing chapters. i’m afraid that one day, all the shitty things will pile up and i won’t be able to escape the feeling that i’m just living in a giant nightmare i can’t wake up from. half the time now, i feel like i’m in a waking dream. i feel like i’m banking on the fact that i can wake up, that i have a reset button. i feel like i’m living the beginnings of a nightmare, and all i want to do is go to sleep.

i know that the cliche solution is to enjoy, and make the most of the time i have left with them, but that feels like trying to patch a wound before it even happens. what good is that?

what’s exhausting is knowing that no matter what happens, i’ll pick myself back up again, that i’ll move on, plod along in life, live, cope, adapt. i want to know when i can stop picking myself up again. i want to give up, and just stop, but i know that i won’t, and that’s so

tiring

i’ve stopped crying, and now i’m just tired and blank again. i don’t know. i don’t know anything.

[emphis]

i am so tired

[captainkerouac]

Yes emphis

[emphis]

I can’t believe you. I’M JUST AN EGG.

[gothhabiba]

I’m really not a fan of the ~travelling the world is necessary to broaden your mind~ idea

obviously it’s classist and ableist because not everyone has the money, free time, and / or the ability to jetset around the globe at will,

but it’s also really insidiously racist. the white people who espouse this idea tend to have a ~the world is your oyster~ kind of mindset and a really nasty entitlement to the countries and cultures of non-white people. treating Asian / African / Latin American countries as your own personal playground without thought to the people who actually live there is seriously disrespectful

not to mention that these people often tout this kind of international travel as a cure for racism or narrowmindedness, as if just being around a lot of brown people automatically makes you find it within your heart to consider us human, as if you’re doing us some kind of huge favour by oversimplifying and misrepresenting our cultures and taking your welcome in our homelands for granted

[gothhabiba]

plus these are the kinds of people who will act really presumptuously towards brown people living in the West, assuming some kind of familiarity with or even superiority over us because they think that they understand our countries, cultures, languages, foods, customs, experiences, etc. as well as or better than we do

you do not understand my culture because you’ve been to my country, or because you’ve been somewhere (that you think is) vaguely near my country. and especially considering the massive wealth disparities between white people and people of colour in the West, displaying this kind of smug superciliousness to people who’ve never been able to afford a trip to their own homeland is especially rude and hurtful

I mean by all means travel if you want to but don’t act like it makes you better somehow and don’t act like it makes you exempt from being a racist piece of shit because it really, really doesn’t

[gothhabiba]

ALso there’s something really sinister about treating countries that your ancestors colonized (+ from whose colonization and continued exploitation you materially benefit) as your personal sources of ‘inspiration’ or ‘enlightenment’ or whatever,

especially when coupled with the aforementioned habit of these kinds of people to lord their travel over the children / grandchildren / etc. of brown immigrants who have never been to their own countries because their ancestors were more or less forced out of them due to said economic exploitation

travelling to brown + Black countries with this mindset is a blatant display of the fruits of colonialism + you are continuing your ancestors’ bloody work

[gothhabiba]

honestly I’d go so far as to say that white people travelling to / living in colonised countries is unavoidably racist + neocolonialist considering the surrounding historical and sociopolitical context

just like getting tattoos and piercings, just like converting to certain religions. colonialist history makes these actions inherently + unavoidably racist on some level

but I’m not saying that white people should never do these things and I don’t think that anyone really is saying that (I mean, probably partially because we know that it wouldn’t work + that we’d get attacked for it, but you know)

all that I am asking and all that anyone is really asking is that youacknowledge that context, acknowledge the very real harm from which you benefit, which you passively contribute to and which you are capable of actively contributing to, and do your very best to mitigate it. really really think about how your actions speak, work to analyse + change your mindset if necessary and do as little harm as possible

but most white people really aren’t receptive to this kind of nuance. they interpret any attempt to remind them of this context and any request / demand that they remember this context + act with sensitivity to it as a personal attack when in fact that is very, very far from what is actually being said

[c0ld-h4nds-deactivated20181105]

Reaching for the stars

[jewishwyvern-deactivated2015100]

So, it is racist for people to want to go and experience different cultures, talk to different people from that culture, understand that culture and see that “different” does not mean “better” or “worse"? 

So, student exchange programs are inherently racist? Does that mean that Chinese and Japanese tourists are racist?

Actually, I have another question. Is the Chinese creation of Thames Town also an example of cultural appropriation and therefore racist?

The town, created in 2006, is primarily used for middle-class couples to take “English themed” wedding photographs, so that must also be “problematic” and racist, yes?

I suppose, though, that does not count, since “white people” have never colonised China. Also, since the Chinese are not white, I suppose that somehow, this is not an issue, which would be double-standards, but that is not exactly new.

After a quick glance at OP’s blog, she describes herself as:

½ Arabised Amazigh (1st generation born in the U.S. Moroccan-American immigrant)

¼ Mestiza (Mayan / Spanish)

¼ white

upper middle class

which I believe is very interesting. It appears that this rant must come from the Moroccan side of her heritage. I also presume that the comment about “converting to certain religions” being racist must be a subtle nod towards Islam, considering the Islam tag on her blog.

Why do I find this interesting?

She speaks of white people colonising different countries, but both Islamic Caliphates and Spain colonised Morocco in its past. Morocco’s Islamic culture will therefore be a result of early Muslim colonisation, the colonisation that she calls “racist.” Since Morocco’s official state religion is Sunni Islam, I would imagine that the earlier Islamic colonisation has had a greater effect on the nation’s history overall. 

I would also be very careful when trying to state that people converting to a particular religion are racist, implying that certain religions are for “people of colour” only, and therefore implying that they can be “appropriated.”

It is very, very hypocritical for either Muslims or Christians to say that their religions could be “appropriated,” since Judaism is the first Abrahamic religion and the other two “built” on it. If we were going to go down that route, it is only logical to then go further and say that Islam and Christianity “appropriated” Judaism.

Then again, as religion is personal faith, it would be idiotic to claim that, so it is also idiotic to claim that being a certain religion is “racist.” Or are all Imams etc that happily accept and support white converts somehow “race traitors”? No, they are not. They are religious people that are following their teachings to the best of their ability.

What does strike me, on this site, that people of certain extractions go on and on about “their cultures” and how angry they are about “white people” appropriating them from “white” countries, where they act like they can speak over the indigenous people that actually, currently live there. If a parent is from there, for example, they can listen, but as soon as they travel there or want to explore that country’s culture for themselves, they ironically become the same “Western colonists” that they are so angry about.

US citizens of Irish extraction cannot speak over people that were born or live in Ireland, for example.

And as for the fact that this woman admits that she is “upper middle class” says that she is one of those “classist” people that speaks over people that are actually lower class and poor.

In short: this post is a train wreck.

[c0ld-h4nds-deactivated20181105]

Beautiful.

[waltdisneyfilms]

[grandenchanterfiona]

You know what makes me the saddest about Lilo and Stitch?

When she gets kicked out of the dance class, she’s the only person we know for sure is native Hawaiian in her age bracket in the class.

There’s Myrtle, who is white, Elena who is white (f she’s the blonde one), Theresa who’s background is unclear, and Yuki who is implied, based on the name and the large Japanese population in Hawaii, to be Japanese. 

She is taking a dance class of a dance traditional to her people.

And she is kicked out primarily because a white girl, Myrtle, is bullying her. 

How fucking sad is that?

[draelogor-blog]

Dude.

This always got me about the movie. I always

wanted

to punch

myrtle

IN THE FACE AND EXISTENCE 

[rjthedetective-deactivated20131]

Also, the hula dancing runs in the family, as we find out in the sequel that her mother was a dance champion. It’s clear in this scene that the deaths of her mother and father are still fresh in her mind and I think the dancing reminds her of her mother and happier times. Maybe they practiced together frequently? Idk, it’s just the vibe I get. That Lilo is there to do her mother proud, rather than to make friends and socialize like the others there.

[sockh3ad]

Her face says it all. Look at how happy she is!

[nerdfaceangst]

Everyone who liked this, everyone who validated this, you need to unlike it right NOW.

As a Native Hawai’ian, I have a problem with this post.

A fucking big problem.

First off, Hawai’i is massively diverse. Massively. Almost no one is pure Hawai’ian. The speculation that Lilo is at all pure or the only part Hawai’ian is laughable. There’s a very very slim margin that she would be at all. Secondly, just because it’s “not confirmed” doesn’t mean those girls aren’t. There are thousands of Japanese-Hawai’ian girls. Thousands, and thousands more of even more mixed races who are Hawai’ian. My sister is a shade away from blonde, and as pale as snow white, and she is just as half-Hawai’ian as I am - even though I look more “authentic”. I know many beautiful Hawai’ian girls with clouds of red hair and creamy complexions from mixed bloodlines. If you want to get “authentic” and go off of Lilo’s appearance, to us locals, she looks half-Asian. She looks definitely hapa at best.

It angers me beyond all reason that this has reposts, reposts from people who don’t understand the Native Hawai’ian culture, much less the culture that sprung from it which envelops our islands. You are reposting blind ignorance. Who are you to decide who looks more Hawai’ian? Who are you people to assume our culture and that this girl takes it more seriously than the others? Because she gets a backstory?

The amazing thing about my culture, MY culture, is that hula opens its arms to all. All children here are welcome to it. It is passed on to them and their blood does not dictate their passion nor their eligibility. “Lilo is there to make her mother proud, rather than to make friends and socialize”. Do you have any idea what a halau is? You don’t, no, none of you do. You have no idea what a halau is. A halau is your family, a halau are your friends, your only social circle when you are fully dedicated. My mother IS one of the queens of hula who trained under Maiki Aiu and she still talks to her hula sisters daily. They were part of her life. It isn’t enough to just hula, or learn it, and put blinders on the sides of your head. If you don’t live it with your hula sisters and brothers, then your story is nothing. You go through motions and you tell no stories.

Don’t try for one moment, to make that scene out like it was Lilo being bullied by a white girl. Yes, Hawai’i is still being raped by the ideologies of white appropriation, but do not for one moment think that these girls may not be Hawai’ian. Do not think for one moment that you have the right nor the knowledge to sweep onto the internet and start reposting like a fucking idiot about a culture and mixed bloodlines and races you don’t really understand aside from “the white man hurt them”. You damage people like my sister, like my cousins, all equally as proud and maka’a’inana as I, simply because they don’t look like me.

You have no right to use this scene as commentary, because you have not even a shade of an idea of the damage you do with it.

[lierdumoa]

I find this commentary particularly relevant in light of the similar POC erasure that took place in Mad Max: Fury Road fandom.

[fashion-runways]

RAMI KADI Couture Fall/Winter 2016 – Light / Dark

[emphis]

birds: what a beautiful morning

birds: but you know what this needs

birds: yelling

[jkottke]

Unlikely simultaneous historical events

A poster on Reddit asks: What are two events that took place in the same time in history but don’t seem like they would have?

[quantumblog]

Spain was still a fascist dictatorship when Microsoft was founded.

There were no classes in calculus in Harvard’s curriculum for the first few years because calculus hadn’t been discovered yet.

Two empires [Roman & Ottoman] spanned the entire gap from Jesus to Babe Ruth.

When the pyramids were being built, there were still woolly mammoths.

The last use of the guillotine was in France the same year Star Wars came out.

Oxford University was over 300 years old when the Aztec Empire was founded.

[seasonsmayklaine]

Pablo Picasso died the year Pink Floyd released “Dark Side of the Moon” (1973) 

Prisoners began to arrive to Auschwitz a few days after Mc'Donalds was founded. 

Coca-Cola is only 31 years younger than Italy. 

Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth II were born in the same year. 

The Ottoman empire still existed the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.

[wander-in-arda]

Martin Luther King Jr. is only 6 months older than Anne Frank.

[endingthemes]

Charles and Erik + Texts: Part 2 (insp)

[jamexmcavoy-deactivated20150919]

(x)

[thelunarboy]

if anyone ever asks me what tumblr is i’m gonna show them this video and just walk away

[thehawkeyeninja]

GOD ITS 5AM AND IM TRYING TO HOLD IN MY LAUGHTER FUCK

[dickalici0us-deactivated2016021]

This is tumblr AS FUCK

[steevoooo-deactivated20180127]

I cannnnnnoottttt

[nubbsgalore]

[nubbsgalore]

the silfra canyon of the mid atlantic ridge in iceland’s thingvellir national park has on one side the north american plate and on the other side the eurasian plate. the two plates are moving apart, widening the size of the atlantic ocean by about an inch a year. 

the water’s clarity, it bears noting, is the result of melted glacier water from langjoekull, which is filtered through underground lava rocks.

photos by chad copeland, magnus lundgren and alexander mustard

[foodiebliss]

[emphis]

ahahahhaha they broke up again.