I Demand Change

[thefeministlesbian]

In light of recent events I am posting this here

[victusinveritas]

CeCe Rogers on Facebook writes: "Two Black Tennessee lawmakers were physically escorted out of chambers this week while Republicans quietly held a hearing to approve gerrymandered maps that would eliminate the state's only majority-Black congressional district.

No referendum. No special election. No public vote.

Because they know what happens when voters actually get a say — just look at Virginia, where the people spoke so loudly that Republicans had to drag the courts in to override them.

This isn't new. During Reconstruction, Black Americans held more congressional seats than at any point in the prior 90 years of American history. And white supremacists spent the next several decades tearing that down, through gerrymandering, poll taxes, and voter intimidation.

150 years later, the same tools. Different suits.

The audacity of escorting Black lawmakers out of their own chambers while dismantling Black political representation, and then telling us the courts aren't political, is breathtaking. These are the same courts they're counting on to make it stick.

This is a coordinated, multi-front assault on Black Americans. And we need to say it exactly that plainly."

[bemusedlybespectacled]

since I’m thinking about this instead of studying for bar prep:

people in general tend to assume that a person who’s been arrested is either innocent or guilty. and if they’re guilty, then they deserve fewer rights than the innocent person.

like, if the police break into an innocent person’s house and look for drugs, we recognize that it’s a bad thing and a gross violation of rights. but if the police break into someone’s house and do find drugs, well, that’s just what they deserved. we’d all be upset if the police started randomly murdering people on the street for no reason, but many wouldn’t mind if the police started randomly killing known child molesters. it’s not okay if the police plant evidence to frame an innocent man for murder, but if they know he’s the murderer and plant evidence to help the case along? well, that’s unfortunate but necessary.

there are three problems with this:

You cannot always know with certainty who’s innocent and who’s guilty;

A two-tiered “innocent” and “guilty” legal structure will always be used against innocent marginalized people;

Even guilty people have rights.

this happens a lot on tumblr. not exclusively on tumblr (it’s also a major aspect of most “gritty” police dramas and almost all comics), but it’s definitely there. like, calls to summarily execute rapists sound great in theory, because we all agree that rape is evil. except for when it’s used to kill innocent black men who looked the wrong way at a white woman. 

and there are people who will say that no, of course, the problem isn’t summarily killing rapists, the problem is summarily killing the wrong people (that is, innocent people). which, again, you can’t know who’s innocent and who’s guilty - lots of innocent people aren’t sweet old ladies who’ve never done anything wrong, or have perfect alibis and never contradict themselves. hell, being guilty of a crime in the past doesn’t mean that they committed this specific crime that they’ve been accused of.

and even if they are guilty - even if they are stone-cold, unrepentantly guilty - they still have rights. that’s what “innocent until proven guilty” means. it means that stripping someone of their legal rights is a big fucking deal, so no matter how guilty Obvious McCriminal looks, you still have to follow the rules we’ve set in place to prevent abuses. 

like, it’s not that every person who’s ever been treated shittily by police and the court system is actually innocent, so therefore the system is bad. it’s that we have a system that treats people like shit once we’ve decided they’re guilty, regardless of when the decision is made, and we’re okay with that. after conviction? definitely. after arrest? yup. before arrest, because we just have a feeling about them? sure.

and I get why people make posts or write stories about guilty people being treated badly. wanting vengeance is a powerful emotion. grief and anger are powerful emotions. it is not unnatural to want to hurt people who have hurt others. people like the idea of karma, of cosmic scales balancing out the hurt and suffering inflicted by a person by making them suffer back. I’m not saying that no one is allowed to have those feelings. 

I’m just saying that there are implications behind them that are deeply disturbing (“if I decide you’re guilty, you’re less of a person to me”) and that it’s the primary driving force behind most of the issues in our criminal justice system.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

actually, since this post has become relevant (again), I’d like everyone to join me in a little thought experiment: why do the police bring up a murdered person’s criminal record when they are extrajudicially killed?

like, we can all agree that the sentence for drug possession, drunk driving, trespassing, etc. is not execution, and even if it was, that’s after they’ve been arrested and convicted. cops are not judges, so it’s not their call to decide if someone is guilty or to punish them for it. so why does it matter if someone is “a known criminal,” or if they have drugs in their system, or if they have a gun on their person?

“well, obviously it’s to bias the public against the person who was killed,” you might say. okay, but why is that?

it’s because they know that we think of guilty people as less than human, and innocent people as blameless. therefore the murdered person deserved to die (because guilty people deserve what they get), and the cop is innocent (he was just trying to protect people!). if it didn’t work as a tactic, then they wouldn’t do it!

it is this mindset that permits the police to murder. we cannot stop police violence unless we dismantle the idea that being guilty of a crime negates your humanity and your civil rights.

[fahbee]

(source)

Bonus:

[elierlick]

Yet another new study debunked the basis for the anti-trans sports bans. It was never about sports but for creating legal avenues for exclusion and abjection. This is one of the largest analyses ever conducted, involving 52 studies and 6,485 trans people. Read the study here.

[lucieslucidity]

post so nice had to reblog it twice and force it down everyone's throats

[the-haiku-bot]

post so nice had to

reblog it twice and force it

down everyone’s throats

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[briannyssey]

everything surrounding the id laws that just passed in Kansas is fucking horrible

[briannyssey]

[terramythos]

Hey Bri I hope you don't mind me sharing this on your post but in case anyone reading this is in Kansas or knows trans people in Kansas, Colorado is nearby and considered one of the safest states for trans & queer people. I know relocating is logistically expensive and challenging for many reasons, especially for people in a vulnerable situation, but if it is an option anyone is considering, there is a nonprofit here that may be able to help.

Steps These steps are intended to be a linear process to get you out of there and resettled here. But we get it, you’re a big kid and can do

[wizardarchetypes]

Now is the time to support relocation services in any way you can.

Trans Continental Pipeline-Donate to help queer relocation!

At TCP, our mission is to help Queer and 2SLGBTQIA+ people move from unsafe environments to Colorado and provide connections and resources t

[theconcealedweapon]

[buffalo-tracks]

Internet archive links to books I've started to recommend if you care about indigenous people and anti-colonialism.

The Wretched of the Earth

Discourse On Colonialism

Making Space for Indigenous Feminism

Settlers: The Mythology Of The White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern

Red Skin, White Masks : Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition

Borderlands/La Frontera

As We Have Always Done

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Books I couldn't find on the archive but still recommend you purchase or check out at the library:

[boybeetles]

A lot of people seem to mix up ‘community’ with ‘friend group’ so when they read ‘no one should be abandoned by the community. No matter what they did’ they think it means ‘you have to be friends with abusers’. When in reality it means ‘no matter what someone does they shouldnt be left to go homeless and be denied financial, housing, medical, etc aid’

You don’t have to be friends with these people, no one is saying that. It’s just saying that you should support rehabilitative justice, support programs that help homeless people, support funding for free medical services, and make sure they don’t turn away anyone who needs help.

[castametric]

[chicar]

Part 1

[snowriddenwolf]

Your reminder that climate change and ecological destruction are not inevitable or irreversible. We can and have made things better!

[politijohn]

Source

Source

[shadow-banned-the-hedgehog]

[mlembug]

"the average income in <X> is <Y> of <currency>" cool, what's the median

[unyielding-pussy]

Average isn't useful here. however, after a little bit of research, apparently the median income in the US is $24,327, which means the reality is actually much worse than this meme makes it seem. yay!

[asteroidtroglodyte]

[wirelessmousegirl]

According to time magazine, median annual rent is $13,896, which means rent alone is 57% Of the median annual income, awesome!

[transexualpirate]

"at least venezuela lost a dictator" "the good thing about trump's invasion" "maduro deserved it" oh my god some of you are dangerously susceptible to fascist propaganda.

unfriendly and honestly hostile reminder that trump isn't invading venezuela because maduro is a dictator, or because of drug cartels. he's doing it only and exclusively because they have desirable oil reserves and no other reason. reminder that venezuela is a comparatively poor country that will never financially recover from this. reminder that venezuelans are suffering with the bombing and the air strikes. reminder that trump did it to steal from them and no one did anything. reminder that this sets a dangerous precedent and now all trump has to do to invade another country is claim they're in a dictatorship. reminder that trump is a fascist dictator.

this will only be bad, for venezuelans and for all of latin america (and possibly the whole world) in the long run. trump did this not to help the venezuelans or their country, but to steal their petrol and get away with it. and he will. because that's what dictators do.

[leonkennedysprostate]

for those wanting to help venezuelans affected by the bombings through donations, these are currently the best ways to go. will add more links as more is set up

cruz roja (red cross)

doctors without borders

[lets-steal-an-archive]

Here's a simple way to find a Nexstar channel near you:

Remember the channel you watched Supernatural on?

Or Riverdale?

Or The Vampire Diaries + the spinoffs?

Or the Arrowverse shows?

That's the channel.

[bundibird]

In australia, we had this piece of shit shockjock radio host move to Melbourne and be awarded a HUYUUUGE pay packet in a brand new contract. This guy is a racist, sexist, misogynist, classist, piece of shiiiiit.

Well a melbourne community launched an an anti-advertising campaign against him. Listened to find out who was advertising during his show. Then called or emailed those companies to say, "Hey, are you aware that your product/service is being advertised on Kyle Sandilands show? Today, he said [heinous thing]. Is that what your company stands for? Is that what you want to be advertising next to?"

Folks------ advertisers left the radio station in DROVES.

We are talking multiple millions of dollars in advertising that was pulled from the radio station. The radio station is in an absolute crisis about it. Theres talk of firing Sandilands and just paying his contract out, because that will be cheaper than how much theyre hemmoraging from list ad revenue.

Targeting the advertisers works. It works fantastically.

[politijohn]

Source

Source

[silvermoon424]

On one hand: the increasing level of political violence in the United States is very concerning, especially considering our gun problem. I do not want to live in a culture where assassinations are frequent, and it’s legit terrifying how much of a powder keg we’re in.

On the other hand: Charlie Kirk reaped what he sowed. It’s impossible to overstate the level of harm this man did. He acted as a propaganda arm for fascists and billionaires, advocated against the rights of women and minorities (he proudly said he would force his 10yo to give birth if she were raped and impregnated), and railed against reforming the very gun culture that killed him.

So yeah. Bye, bitch.