#inequity

[whatevergreen]

Assata Shakur - Free All Black Liberation Fighters

Poster, 1973

"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property."

"It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals are. Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of Third World brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. As was proved by Watergate, the top law enforcement officials in this country are a lying bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff have been implicated in the Watergate crimes."

"They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people."

"They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs."

From a letter Shakur wrote on July 4, 1973 from prison

The full letter and poster source:

. https://rozsixties.unl.edu/items/show/59.html

[lyra-gutters]

I hate how all the support on the internet goes to people who, like, already have tens of thousands of followers. Want to support a disabled person? Support the one who already has no problem getting $500 from MA per week because they have 25k followers! meanwhile there's thousands of multiply marginalized disabled people who don't have the energy, willpower, or education/skill to "humanize" themselves on this website & amass followers & who can't even get $50 in ten days of constant begging. It's a fucking problem.

[civanticism]

Civanticism Wisdom ֎ Truth ֎ Balance ֍ Virtue ֎ Empathy

[space-homosexual-the-third]

It's really surprising as a transgender and disabled person when I'm talking to others and they don't really seem to know about the day-to-day struggles of just... existing? It's not surprising and I don't blame them, but I always forget that some people just have completely different experiences. Like for me, using my school bathrooms is a big deal, something to be avoided at all costs. I have to use the girl's restroom because there's only two gender neutral bathrooms in the school (first and second floors) and the second floor one has been locked since the third day of school because people vape in there. The first floor one is locked half the time too, and I don't feel safe using it because the air is usually unbreathable with smoke from vapes, and half the stalls are missing toilet seats or are occupied by people having sex or something. I'm more masculine than feminine but I present very fem, and I don't want to change that, but in a high school, I'm honestly just too afraid to use a men's restroom.

And as a disabled person, so many small, day-to-day things just become impossible for me. I have so many small rules and rituals for myself that I need just to do normal things, but I'm so used to it that I forget most people don't think twice about something that for me is all but impossible.

Whenever I notice these kinds of equity gaps, it always makes me wonder what I'm missing, because I am privileged in a lot of ways. It's something I try to think about in my day-to-day life.

[existennialmemes]

Guarantee every person on earth: suitable housing, diet & palette appropriate food, clean water & air, healthcare, education, and the means for reasonable leisure and enrichment, then let's see if we still have a violence problem.

[daneverr]

why I say kill the rich instead of eat the rich:

For one: there is vast sums of unknown money left outside where companies do most of their business or in small island countries to specifically hide their money. A simple tax would not solve this. It would need a full intervention and crack down to undo this system

For two: the degree of wealth inequality is unimaginably huge and to solve it would require a huge effort in re structuring the economy which would be hard to put especially with resistence and even without would at this point be difficult to do

For three: to some degree rich people can flee to other countries if the threat of taking their power is high enough, so at minimum much of the west would need to be at once united to effectively tax the rich, which of course wouldn't exactly be easy to organise, especially ahead of time.

Combined I believe the vast amount of effort and the huge change needed to actually take away the power of the ultra rich to influence politics and to take enough of their money to get back to 1990s levels of equality would require such unity and organisation and effort that, there is no reasonable way to believe there would not be push back. A coop would happen over far less. Many companies lose their shit at a 2% tax, let alone fundamental forced change. I don't think this would be peaceful and it will likely involve conflict to some degree, largly comparable to a war, and in a way you do not hesitate to kill. If killing a few billionaires to save millions of life's from death would be necessary I think that is a very easy version of the trolly problem and should be taken. Eat the rich is more moderate and doesn't take in the immense difficulties in actually really solving the vast inequality in today's world.

[yipyipallyall]