Mixed Feminist @themixedfeminist - Tumblr Blog

"very guilty and problematic client" holy copaganda batman

let’s start parsing who does and doesn’t deserve representation and assign moral weight to agreeing to protect their rights I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong

cdarklock

The purpose of a defence attorney is to make sure the police have done their job. The prosecution says "they did the thing" and the defence says "well can you prove it?" and if they can't, the defendant goes free because the prosecution fucked up.

All they have to do is their job. As long as they don't fuck up doing ther job, the guilty will go to prison. The reason the guilty go free so often is because the police are constantly fucking up and not doing their damn job.

parkchanwoohoo

It's very telling that these people can't really conceive of a situation where they might be wrongfully arrested for something and labeled "very problematic and guilty" and may, in fact, need exactly the kind of legal representation that they're side-eyeing. Even in the realm of thought experiments there are the categorically ""problematic"" and they can't even imagine a world where they could ever be lumped in with them, even wrongfully, because surely people would OBVIOUSLY know they're innocent, surely this only happens to Others

derinthescarletpescatarian

#even if the client is totally guilty#the defense attorney's job is still to make sure they're treated fairly#even guilty people should not be abused by the system because no one wanted to speak up for them#once again as soon as we decide some people don't deserve rights#we're on a fast track to no one has rights

iridescent-sunshine

People don't realize that a defense lawyer is not them saying, "No, they didn't do it." Defense is actually the lawyer bringing up every possible reasonable doubt there could be for consideration, because when you are found guilty, you are supposed to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The cops say, "This is the evidence we have that they did it." The defense says, "But have you considered...?" And it's the jury's job to say, "Yes, we have considered it, and we still think everything points to you being the one that did it."

That's the system. Nobody is avoiding accountability if everyone is doing their job the way it's intended.

ferrousferrule

This is how we get "copala harris" by the way, is you people not knowing how law works.

If you want fair trials you need someone saying "I will defend this person to the best of my ability" and then doing it, or it's not fair.

maykitz

the persecution of lefthandedness is insane to think about because it was so intense for so long, in some places still is, without any clear profit motivation. sheer love of the game. as late as the 70s at least they were smacking my stepdad's hands for it with a wooden ruler at school, to this day he's in weird ambidexterity situation where he's not great with either side and notably clumsy due to poor hand-eye coordination. just wtf

seeingteacupsindragons

It is fascinating to me that people also think of handedness as an example of bigotry that just...went away. As you note, it...hasn't in some places. I know people who grew up in the mid-late 90s who still had this problem.

But also, and this is really important to keep in mind regarding bigotry that still causes in many ways larger problems, that the structural problems are not actually fixed.

If you go to any computer lab or public library, the mice will be on the right side of the computer. Sometimes they can be moved. Sometimes they can't. Many computer mice are curved to only fit in right hands.

It is impossible to find lefthanded scissors without going to a specialty store, because most scissor makers don't even make them. And it's not just a matter of grip; the slicing side of the blades is obscured if you use righty scissors in your left hand, so your cut is off.

All those signing pads with the little chained styluses? Almost always on the right side, often not even long enough to stretch to the left. Makes signing for lefties extremely difficult.

I caused actual muscular problems in college having to twist around in order to write at right-handed desks in college when there weren't enough lefty desks--and there never were. Some classrooms didn't even have a single one.

I could go on.

But the point is, bigotry isn't just a mindset shift. People can't just decide they're not bothered by that particular difference anymore and everything's fine, because society is still structured and designed to cause problems for marginalized people. And they're never even going to notice all the little ways their life is bent to convenience them that inconveniences others.

alteredpanel

jmtorres

like not to get off topic but as someone (female, queer, if it matters lol) who could never drink coffee black, I fucking adore blonde roast because it doesn't need as much cream and syrup to counteract the burnt flavors

fucktoyfelix

This is actually a useful thing to understand how to spell out. What exactly is wrong with puritanical attitudes towards sexuality? TW: Discusses body image issues, suicide, STIs, sexual assault etc

1. It fosters fear, disgust and loathing of our bodies. By hiding the human body as soon as we are born, and treating it as an object of inherent shame: THAT creates trauma. Shame is one of the primary sources of trauma, its the fuel and lets trauma burn. Those raised in nudist societies, and children raised in households where nudity is treated in a neutral and non-sexual tend to have a much more positive relationship with their bodies as adults. This makes complete sense when you think about it. Going through puberty not knowing if your body is "normal" terrifies children in ways that stick with them for life. In fact, most cultures outside of the Unites States aren't as strange about non-sexual nudity actually...and are healthier for it. We can't have body positivity as long as we are literally criminalized for having an uncovered body. 2. It creates fear, shame and disgust about sex. Most people have sex at some point in their lives. No one would be here at all without it. Most people have sexual desires which lie outside their control. When people are ashamed of those desires, it leads to self hatred, and depression and anxiety. This shame is just as traumatic as bodily shame. When sex is normalized, and treated with the same candor as any other hobby: it becomes less apt to traumatize people.

3. Puritanical attitudes towards sex limit sex education. When people are too ashamed to talk about sex, people don't learn about pregnancy, stis, or consent. All of these things can and do kill people when they aren't addressed with an open dialogue.

Sexual shame leads to people too ashamed to buy condoms, to talk to their doctor about birth control, to ask their partner to use protection, to get tested...the negative health impacts of sexual puritanism have a massive negative effect on society.

4. Sexual shame leads to poorer communication in relationships. Ohh if I had a dime for every person i knew who ruined their relationship because they felt too guilty to talk to their partner about their sexual feelings...Not just that, but the general body shame that comes with puritanism blocks people from connecting to one another too. Have you ever avoided getting close to someone because you were ashamed of your body? If not, I guarantee you know someone who has.

5. Misogyny! Puritanical sexual believes hold that women are not capable of sexual agency. That only men should initiate sex. That women should only ever want babies and not pleasure from sex. All of this rolls right into the next one:

6. Victim blaming in sexual assault. When women are the gatekeepers of sex, its easy to blame them when they 'fail' to protect their chastity when someone violates their trust. This isn't something that just effects women: as the same attitudes hold that men are not capable of experiencing sexual assault. The lack of education and discussion about sex in a sex-negative world inherently prevent the open dialogues necessary for creating and maintaining consent culture.

7. Suppression and marginalization of the queer community. If we're too ashamed to talk about sex, we'll be too ashamed to talk about sexuality. Puritans can't accept any deviation from gender norms either. Anything other than sex between a cis man and a cis woman for the purpose of making a baby is a deviant kink, a mental illness, and needs to be wiped out. Its important to point out that many queer people hold puritanical values about sex: believing that they can achieve sex negativity and queer liberation at the same time. However, sex negative movements always rise with censorship and discrimination of queer people...because queer people are inherently considered deviant by the vast majority of sex negative "allies". It's very dangerous to forget this.

8. Censorship of art. Who decides what is sexual and what is not? Its easy to agree that sex needs to be hidden...but it never takes long before the definition of what is "sexual" expands. Even women's breasts are considered sexual in the United States. Its so normal for Americans to think of them that way that women can't feed their children in public. Drag queens face violence for reading at libraries. Books get taken off the shelves. Artists are bullied offline.

9. Censorship of scientific exploration. Scientific research into reproductive health, sexual behavior, gender identity and more are often hindered due to the "moral objections" of puritans, delaying progress and understanding. That's just off the top of my head. I think its time for people to take how problematic 'puritanism' is more seriously. As we see fascism rear its ugly head all over the world, we're going to see a lot more talk about 'degenerates'...and we know where that kind of talk leads.

papercrane

Add 'censorship of medical care'. See the famous example that people are not taught how to perform CPR on women since having a training dummy with uncovered "female breasts! gasp!" would be 'sexually explicit'. So no one is taught how to give women CPR and more of them die as a result. But there are lots of other examples; women's health and sexual health is riddled with failings because we can't stop seeing their very bodily existence as sexually obscene. Better they just die than someone see them without clothes on once.

mariacallous

The New Yorker Daily How Bad Is It?

The East Wing of the White House is being demolished to make room for the construction of President Trump’s proposed ballroom.

How normal is this sort of White House renovation?

“The White House wants you to believe this is totally normal, citing all the renovations, big and small, made by past Presidents. They are right that changes were made. But they are dead wrong about how this is being done. With the exception of F.D.R. secretly building a bunker under the East Wing during the Second World War, past renovations of this size were debated, funded by Congress, and done only after the need was manifest. None were rushed and done at the whim of a President.”

— George E. Condon, Jr., the White House correspondent for National Journal and a past president of the White House Correspondents’ Association

mohanovitch

Um. So one question, from a non-American who’s kind of out of the loop on this issue:

Who’s funding the renovation?

biglawbear

We don't know! There's no transparency about it! And he lied about the East Wing! It could be taxpayers! It could be shady donors! It could be using the cryptocurrency he's been grifting! We don't know! We don't know! We're in hell!!

argyraeus

batboyblog

2026 House Elections

The Democrats House elections arm announced a jaw dropping 35 Republican seats it's targeting in its opening list for the 2026 (expect it to grow, first lists are always the most conservative target list)

So Check here if you're in one of the listed seats because control of Congress will rest on your vote, and getting out to volunteer will have a huge impact on what our country will look like.

Alaska

Volunteer

Alaska-At-Large: Flip

Volunteer

Arizona

Volunteer

AZ-01: Flip

AZ-02: Flip

AZ-06: Flip

Volunteer

California

Volunteer

CA-09: Hold

CA-13: Hold

CA-22: Flip

CA-27: Hold

CA-40: Flip

CA-41: Flip

CA-45: Hold

CA-47: Hold

Volunteer

Colorado

Volunteer

CO-08: Flip

Volunteer

Connecticut

Volunteer

CT-05: Hold

Volunteer

Florida

Volunteer

FL-07: Flip

FL-13: Flip

FL-27: Flip

Volunteer

Indiana

Volunteer

IN-01: Hold

Volunteer

Iowa

Volunteer

IA-01: Flip

IA-02: Flip

IA-03: Flip

Volunteer

Kentucky

Volunteer

KY-06: Flip

Volunteer

Maine

Volunteer

ME-02: Hold

Volunteer

Michigan

Volunteer

MI-04: Flip

MI-07: Flip

MI-08: Hold

MI-10: Flip

Volunteer

Missouri

Volunteer

MO-02: Flip

Volunteer

Nebraska

Volunteer

NE-02: Flip

Volunteer

Nevada

Volunteer

NV-01: Hold

NV-03: Hold

NV-04: Hold

Volunteer

New Jersey

Volunteer

NJ-07: Flip

NJ-09: Hold

Volunteer

New Mexico

Volunteer

NM-02: Hold

Volunteer

New York

Volunteer

NY-03: Hold

NY-04: Hold

NY-17: Flip

NY-19: Hold

NY-22: Hold

Volunteer

North Carolina

Volunteer

NC-01: Hold

Volunteer

Ohio

Volunteer

OH-07: Flip

OH-09: Hold

OH-10: Flip

OH-13: Hold

Volunteer

Oregon

Volunteer

OR-05: Hold

Volunteer

Pennsylvania

Volunteer

PA-01: Flip

PA-07: Flip

PA-08: Flip

PA-10: Flip

Volunteer

Tennessee

Volunteer

TN-05: Flip

Volunteer

Texas

Volunteer

TX-15: Flip

TX-28: Hold

TX-34: Hold

Volunteer

Virginia

Volunteer

VA-01: Flip

VA-02: Flip

VA-07: Hold

Volunteer

Washington

Volunteer

WA-03: Hold

Volunteer

Wisconsin

Volunteer

WI-01: Flip

WI-03: Flip

Volunteer

Control of the US House in 2026 runs through these seats, the map will expand, and it'll expand faster of Democrats see fired up volunteers ready to go in their target races. If you march in a protest you have no reason not to sign up to volunteer with your state party, so look, do you live in one of these districts? close to one of them? sign up! get going!

etakeh

You likely have the right to access records that explain why your insurer denied your claim or prior authorization request. Use ProPublica’s

Hey y'all. Here's something for you.

petermorwood

Reblog and Signal Boost for US followers.

maaarine

Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? (Celeste Davis, Oct 6 2024)

"White flight is a term that describes how white people move out of neighborhoods when more people of color move in.

White flight is especially common when minority populations become the majority. That neighborhood then declines in value.

Male flight describes a similar phenomenon when large numbers of females enter a profession, group, hobby or industry—the men leave. That industry is then devalued.

Take veterinary school for example:

In 1969 almost all veterinary students were male at 89%.

By 1987, male enrollment was equal to female at 50%.

By 2009, male enrollment in veterinary schools had plummeted to 22.4%

A sociologist studying gender in veterinary schools, Dr. Anne Lincoln says that in an attempt to describe this drastic drop in male enrollment, many keep pointing to financial reasons like the debt-to-income ratio or the high cost of schooling.

But Lincoln’s research found that “men and women are equally affected by tuition and salaries.”

Her research shows that the reason fewer men are enrolling in veterinary school boils down to one factor: the number of women in the classroom.

For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.

One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition! (…)

Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens.

Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!

It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.

Morty Schapiro, economist and former president of Northwestern University has noticed this trend when studying college enrollment numbers across universities:

“There’s a cliff you fall off once you become 60/40 female/male. It then becomes exponentially more difficult to recruit men.”

Now we’ve reached that 60% point of no return for colleges.

As we’ve seen with teachers, nurses and interior design, once an institution is majority female, the public perception of its value plummets.

Scanning through Reddit and Quora threads, many men seem to be in agreement - college is stupid and unnecessary.

A waste of time and money. You’re much better off going into the trades, a tech boot camp or becoming an entrepreneur. No need for college. (…)

When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important.

Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. (…)

School is now feminine. College is feminine. And rule #1 if you want to safely navigate this world as a man? Avoid the feminine.

But we don’t seem to want to talk about that."

xcziel

very good tags from @downwarddnaspiral

van-del

literally saw this tweet this morning

werpiper

behold, the privileging of ignorance.

amuseoffyre

It's also interesting to look at the way the gender-shift in roles changes how the roles are perceived.

Secretaries are a perfect example. Back in the day, secretary was a prestigious position, usually the right hand of a figure of authority. The term comes from the 1400s, or thereabout, and the fact that high political offices are still referred to as Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State show how important the position was.

There were, of course, women doing the secretarial tasks - for example Marie Maitland transcribed the family folio in the 16th century though skeptical Victorians insisted a woman couldn't have so fair a hand and Dido Belle wrote her uncle's correspondence in the 18th century, which was noted to be unusual for a woman to do such a task - but secretarial duties primarily fell to men.

However, outside governmental roles, as more and more women entered the workforce, especially during and after the World Wars, and were very good at secretarial work, the gender dynamic shifted.

The number of male secretaries diminished rapidly and with it, the respect due. Misogyny coloured how secretaries were treated, no matter how skilled or professional the women in question were, and even now, there are still the stereotypes of the sexy bimbo secretary.

derinthescarletpescatarian

If we get enough women all over the workforce and then push workers' rights far enough that raising a family on a single income becomes viable again, maybe we can create a world where the manliest thing to be is a tradwife.

chrysocomae

Only in the United States at the exact time a pundit is getting shot, so were schoolchildren at Evergreen High School in Denver, Colorado. Charlie getting shot isn't a unique experience here. It is the 46th school shooting of the year. 47th happened at the same time.

The shooting was reported Wednesday at Evergreen High School, about 30 miles west of Denver.

I don't think the Second Amendment is worth anyone dying for, particularly innocent schoolchildren.

frociaggina97

"i don't care if they make their whole way though uni with chatgpt" i think you guys are so internetpilled that you have forgotten there are actual jobs out there that require people to know what they are doing in any way possible or else people die

frociaggina97

i know a lot of people study just to get paid well but girl this is engineering be for fucking real take this seriously

ironborealis

114 people died in the Hyatt Regency collapse, and in the US it's the third largest structural collapse fatality count, behind 9/11 and the Pemberton Mill collapse in 1860.

I've learned about this tragedy in my physics classes, to demonstrate tensile strength, and as a reminder about the importance of calculations being done right. I've also learned about it in my legal classes as an example of construction defect lawsuits. I've seen it referenced in disaster response classes.

Between AI and the current Presidential administration, we're barrelling right back towards this nightmare.

There are multiple errors that resulted in this collapse, but these stand out to me:

1. Kansas City was facing high unemployment and needed to attract jobs and business into the city. So the planning and inspection departments may have looked too closely at the designs.

2. An engineering firm too lazy to double check their designs or design changes by the manufacturer before approving them. The error that resulted in the collapse was one that the owner of the engineering firm said that a "first year engineering student" would spot.

3. The steel manufacturer treating preliminary plans as final plans, not verifying the math on their end.

The bridges' original design could only hold 60% of the minimum load required by city code. The design changes recommended by the manufacturer halved that. Less than a year and 3 weeks from opening to the public, the whole thing collapse.

Articles about the collapse say that everyone "trusted" the other party to have done the calculations correctly.

A significant portion of the population trusts what the computer or AI tells them, without checking. Imprecisely calibrated AI hallucinate information. The US economy is going into a downturn and federal regulatory agencies are being gutted.

We are going to see the Hyatt Regency Collapse repeat over and over for decades, not just in buildings, but in medicine, manufacturing, the environment, etc.

Some of this we're just going to have to weather, but the message for AI users comes straight from IBM (once the world's leading computer manufacturer) back in 1979:

"A Computer Cannot Be Held Accountable. Therefore A Computer Should Never Make A Management Decision."

The owner of the engineering firm that designed the Hyatt Regency spent the rest of his life lecturing on the disaster, to serve as a warning to his fellow engineers about the real-life consequences of sloppy design.

I don't think Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk will have the courage or the honor to do that when OpenAI / Meta / xAI are responsible for getting people killed.

So if you're going to blindly trust the AI to do critical work tasks, I hope you're prepared to be making an apology tour for the rest of your life if it all goes wrong.

unprettyextra

Five years ago, the Supreme Court decided that nonunanimous jury verdicts are unconstitutional. But for this Louisiana prisoner — and hundreds of others — “tough on crime” state leaders have ensured that doesn’t change anything.

kereeachan

What’s a Jim Crow Jury, you ask? WELL once certain civil rights started getting enforced and black people could serve on juries, quite a few states decided that in fact unanimous jury verdicts were no longer needed, even for life imprisonment! Because hey, even if you get one or two black folks who go “I think this is a setup/the prosecutor is racist/whatever so I won’t vote to convict” they could be overruled by the rest!

While such juries have been ruled unconstitutional, the ruling was NOT made retroactive. States have had to do that themselves. And GUESS WHAT? A lot have not, or have made the barriers to relief so high they might not exist. There are over 1000 people like the man the article focused on in Louisiana alone, all convicted by split juries.

And prosecutors didn’t even say they got it right to prevent retrials. Nah, it’d just “tie up state courts” and that’s enough to let these folks keep suffering.

jauntylittlefrillyboy

I think the solution to kids on the Internet is to have specific, kid friendly spaces on the Internet. Kids wouldn't come across "adult content" on YouTube if barbie dot com still had flash games and this is a hill I will die on.

ailithnight

This with the addendum that I don't think it is the responsibility of the not kid-dedicated websites to keep kids off their platforms. It is the responsibility of adult figures in a kid's real life to teach them how to safely navigate the internet and to keep an eye on what they are doing until they are mature and responsible enough to do so on their own.

jauntylittlefrillyboy

I like that phrase, "kid dedicated." We have a lot of kid dedicated spaces irl (parks, schools, theme parks, etc) but kids can also be in non kid dedicated spaces like grocery stores. We don't expect a grocer to babysit kids, we shouldn't expect it of online spaces too.

fandomsandfeminism

Neopets and Club Penguin were vital components of a healthy internet ecosystem.

Kids deserve kid spaces, and without kid spaces, increasingly there is pressure for ALL spaces to be ~kid friendly~ which is bad for everyone.

holy0ak6-deactivated20240421

squeeblr

via bree newsome bass on twitter:

“The widely circulated timeline created by @Zerflin does a great job in showing how recently slavery & segregation occurred & that they lasted longer than the modern era.

“I'd like to offer this timeline as another way of viewing the same period of history to show the constancy of both Black resistance in US & efforts of the white power structure to maintain racial caste since 1619.”

https://twitter.com/breenewsome/status/986427881680228354

queen-mihai

This second picture is MUCH more accurate!

queen-mihai

I had the exact same experience the second time I looked at this picture as the first time. I was looking like "what is this green line? Like suddenly everything is OK? It's not. Racists are still trying to push us back to 1619. Nothing has been fixed. We still need to fight. Hard!

eviltmbg

thinking about this again

cyberm0sh

hey fun fact this album is actually named after a book called steal this book (first edition came out in the 70s)

here’s the 2023 version, it’s got everything from how to apply for work, ways to feed yourself for cheap, how to start your own printing workshop, bunch of stuff. the pdf is tiny so personally i have it downloaded on my phone

2023 edition of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book.This book provides a huge wealth of information about practical living.Great thanks to the l

occupationalperspective

cryoverkiltmilk

This is amazing, and I'm embarrassed to admit something I never considered.

The public restroom is almost inarguably THE WORST possible place to ever have to 'feel your way'!

kiragecko

[Video shows a woman with a white cane pointing to a braille sign outside of a bathroom that includes a map. We zoom in on the sign while she taps parts of it and says,

I'm at a Guide Dog center here in Australia. This is a legend, a tactile and Braille map of the bathroom, right outside the door.

We zoom back out while she continues, with large hand gestures,

Do you want to know what the hardest part of my day is, as a blind person? 'Cause it's probably not what you expect. It's not the fact that I can't drive, though it's not ideal. It is the fact that public bathrooms are all designed differently. Do you know how stressful it is, when I have to pee in public on my own? My boyfriend leaves me at the door of the women's room, and I have to walk into the great unknown. Is there going to be a line? Where in line am I supposed to stand? When I find the toilet - well, first off, when I'm with my guide dog I need the accessible stall, so I have to feel my way to the big stall. Then, when I get there, hopefully it's open. If not, I stand. I wait. I get in. I have to find where is the toilet paper? Where is the toilet? I have to hope to God it's clean 'cause I can't see it. Then I have to find the flusher - is it a pull, is it automatic - who knows? Then I have to find my way to the sinks. Where is the soap? Where is the dryer?

She turns back to tap excitedly on the sign.

Hello! We have found the solution.

She starts telling us what the sign says as her fingers skim over it.

So, up here it says 'female and ambulatory toilet map', and then it tells me 'A-T' means it's the 'ambulatory', which means it's the larger accessible stall. 'T' means 'toilet'. Um, down here we have, like, 'D' means 'dryer'.

She moves down to the map, showing us the location of the three stalls along the back wall.

So then I go here, and I know that this stall would be the one that my guide dog and I would use - 'cause it's the 'A-T', the bigger stall. Next to it, the two ones to the right are both normal sized toilets.

She goes back to the top left corner of the map to follow the left wall towards the front of the room. Halfway, she gets to,

Down here we have 'D', so this means it's the dryer for drying my hands.

She continues down, and at the front of the room takes turns tapping two squares for 'B', and one between them for 'S'.

We have 'S' and 'B', which means I now know: if I'm at the sinks, the soap is in between the two basins.

We zoom back out, but then she remembers something, so we go back to look at the opening at the bottom right of the map.

I want this! ... Ooh! And I know, look, here I walk in the door, so I immediately orient myself: toilets are right in front, I would go far left. Right next to the door is gonna be my sinks.

We zoom back out so she can finish,

Like, this, this is a game changer! This is a game changer. I want these everywhere. This is my plea. My next campaign. How to make toileting more accessible to everyone.

End ID.]

elodieunderglass

Thank you for the video description!

depsidase

runcibility

[waving] Hi, hello, it's me, the old gen-x'er on your dash! How's it going kids? [bad, it's going bad, I know, sorry for asking]. Let me tell you a personal story of how I watched exactly this play out in my social circles.

Anecdotally, my fellow cohort of gen-x'ers were convinced this was going to be the solution, the ticket, the fucking way. Inevitably, all we had to do was outlive these old mayonnaise white devils, because that's where the racism was societally stored - like a big racism appendix that would get removed someday.

We thought we knew what was up because we were cool white kids who listened to Public Enemy. And because we thought we were largely inoculated against racism, it was just a long cool slide into the Clinton years and we'd be set.

So we didn't question shit like South Park. We didn't question shitheads like 'ironic' (at the time) racists like Weev in our IRC channel. We had zero fucking awareness of how racism shifted, because the only examples of racism we were ever taught either wore a white robe & burned crosses, or sig-heil'd and lived in misery. We shamefully thought racism = southern*, and since we were alt-goth kids living on the west coast, we were fucking sorted out and safe.

It wasn't on our radar. We weren't ready. We hadn't listened to anyone, because we thought we'd learned enough to not be a problem, and wasn't that enough?

We didn't clock or understand the way racist language shifted into a new economic handwringing. We fell into stupid rhetorical traps that snuck racism into concerns about unhoused people and substance abuse. We refused to recognize and realize our own inherent racist attitudes because of the sunk cost fallacy of wanting to believe we really didn't have to do anything other than be cool and wait it out.

I watched some people absolutely lose their shit when called out on this and flounce directly into the arms of right wing philosophy (always some variation on "left wing politics has gone too far!" when it's pointed out how they're upholding inequality with a cherished attitude or anecdote they've leaned on for years to prop up the mythology of their self-worth).

No one was ready to realize they weren't good just by being alternative. And some of them cracked apart.

Racism has a full time advertising budget ready to repackage and rebadge it minute to minute, and you always have to do the work. It never ever fucking stops. And making sure you're always doing the work has the very valuable side-benefit of keeping you in touch with yourself and what you're about.

You gotta do the work. It never stops.

*-this fucking haunts me so much.

anais-ninja-bitch

oh, this gets a reblog

transgothzoey

From a state hearing in Texas

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