Sparrow's Aviary

This blog used to be all about music, but now it's mostly about oppression and mental illness. Music still happens occasionally, though.

[amodollface]

One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn’t rise and your blood shouldn’t boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you—as will happen to any abused woman from time to time—he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy.

Lundy Bancroft (via amodollface)

[theverge]

DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE FINALLY UNITING AGAINST DONALD TRUMP’S RACIST FASCISM 

After Trump released a statement saying he would prohibit entrance of all Muslim people into the US, the rest of the 2016 presidential candidates took to Twitter in protest. About time.

[fullygrownadultbabytealeaf]

When white people try to explain why there are no POC in  a movie because of the time period.

[highlights-of-the-lowlife]

Stop vilifying adults that live with their parents.

We’re still deep in one of the worst economic recessions of modern times. For many of us its not a choice but a requirement in order to survive. For many of us we have disabilities that make finding accommodation that suit our needs a lot harder and a lot more expensive.

Many of us pay into the household. Many of us are trapped in abusive households because we don’t have the means to leave. We aren’t moochers or afraid to leave the nest. The world simply isn’t built to support us anymore.

[solitarelee]

This is actually an incredibly western (and specifically American) thing. In a lot of other countries and cultures it’s NOT AT ALL uncommon for an adult to still live with their parents. As a second generation immigrant, it’s BEWILDERING to me. My cousin still lives with our grandmother; it’s important. She needs someone to watch after her, and she has the space… why wouldn’t he? This obsession with “adults” being “fully independent” of their parents is a fully American, bizarrely capitalist notion and it needs to be stomped into the ground.

[saladinahmed]

“A Fair Acrobat Soundly Thrashes A Man” (1898)

[nevaehtyler]

It’s been a year since the grand jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo who choked Eric Garner to death. #JusticeForEricGarner

[asieybarbie]

Jessica

[micdotcom]

Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim ban has dominated the political conversation since he rolled it out in a Monday press release, on The Tonight Show Tuesday night, Sanders minced no words in explaining what’s really behind it.

[thewritershandbook]

[beastmonsterthing]

me trying to fix my life

[sparrowelle]

Actor over 40: action hero, love interest to 20-something female protagonist, superhero, dramatic lead, half of a buddy comedy duo, head of important organization, complex villain

Actress over 40: somebody's mother

[pissfreak]

the most confusing thing that happens to me at work is customers…gendering drinks?? a woman ordered a java chip frappuccino for her husband and was like “haha its a girly drink for a guy right” and then that same day some guy ordered a drink with extra caramel and whipped cream and was like “oh i guess its obvious this is for my wife and not me lol” LIKE??? ITS A DRINK???? WHAT ARE PEOPLE DOING!!!!!!

[whoisdangerwoman-deactivated201]

LGBTQ & Homeless???

Our hypothermia beds are officially open tonight

Casa Ruby 2822 Georgia Ave, NW Suite #3 Washington DC 20001

Need a ride call the shelter hotline to be picked up

1-800-535-7252

[rollingstone]

Scott Weiland, the original voice behind Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has died. He was 48.

[durgapolashi]

Eartha Kitt speaking truth to power at a 1968 luncheon at the White House hosted by Lady Bird Johnson which resulted in Kitt being blacklisted in the US for nearly a decade.

[threesideddream]

let it be known that on January 18th, 1968, Eartha Kitt stood in a room full of white women at The Women Doers Luncheon, GOT IN LADYBIRD JOHNSON’S FACE, and told her that the government was sending the best of the youth off to be shot and killed and, in not so many words, that THAT was the reason the youth were rebelling. She ALSO stopped President Johnson after he made a statement claiming that mothers should be responsible for stopping their kids from becoming criminals and asked about “the parents who have to go to work, for instance, who can’t spend time with their children as they should”. It was brushed off by LBJ who only mentioned the funding for day care centers put in place by the recently passed Social Security bill, and then more or less said that the women at that luncheon should figure it out for themselves.

She was blacklisted, but she defended every word she said that day. 

[standardreview]

gifs via

[blacklabelpusssb-deactivated201]

SHERO

[kattipatang]

I feel exhausted when it comes to many human beings as of late.

Today while I was on public transit, the usual happened- every seat on the train was taken and the seat beside me was the only one that was free, but no one chose to sit there, and instead everyone stood. Nothing out of the ordinary for a turbaned and bearded guy in North America.

However, one woman put the icing on the cake. She was having difficulty standing on the moving train, so I offered the seat beside me. She looked at me, shook her head, then looked the other way. Her friend also asked her to sit down, but she refused again. As they were leaving, he asked her why she wouldn’t sit down. Her answer: “I don’t feel safe sitting next to someone that looks like that.”

As the door closed behind them, I looked on- shocked at what I just heard. Other people had clearly heard what she said, but didn’t really react or say anything. I decided to get up and stand as I didn’t want to face the same BS again.

A Punjabi Uncle Ji had seen what had happened and he came over to talk to me. I thought he would say words of encouragement, but instead he told me that I should “change my look,” tie up my beard to make it look smaller, wear a shorter gatra so my kirpan isn’t seen, and tie a more “appropriate” turban (aka the patiala shahi, not my dumalla).

Angered, I left the car at the next station and boarded the next one. The Paris attacks may be over, but the attacks on brown bodies have just begun. In the UK, someone tried to push a hijabi woman onto the tracks of an incoming train. In Ontario, a woman was attacked in public, and a Hindu mandir was vandalized.

I am tired of microaggressions. I am tired of racism. I am tired of the fact that we try to hide the fact that racism is a HUGE issue in Canada. I am tired of people in our community that cannot stand for their own people. I am tired of respectability politics.

I refuse to watch brown people continue to be demeaned, harmed, hurt, and insulted in such a manner. I refuse to tolerate this BS where something like this happens and onlookers do nothing. I refuse to change who I am, leaving behind the practices and traditions of my people to make myself more palatable for racist and xenophobic bigots.

I refuse to be a pawn for your idiotic hate.

[bimbutchpride]

Ruth C. Ellis was a black lesbian who in the 1930′s was making safe spaces for black LGBT+ people in Detroit. She was known for throwing good parties and taking in homeless LGBT+ people. She was 101 when she died. Please know of her existence.

The Ruth Ellis Center was established in 1999 to carry on her legacy of helping homeless youth in Detroit