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[aromanticaardvark]

[image description: image of an Aardvark with grey, yellow and white in the background. Text says “Parents say they just want you to be happy and get married” at the top and “Oxymoron” at the bottom.]

[heartless-aro]

Here’s an old aro meme from 2011, which was before the rise of the “Ace Discourse” around 2015 (which may have started out as backlash in response to The Trevor Project deciding to include asexual people around that time). This meme format uses an aardvark to represent aromantic people. At the time, axolotls were often used in similar memes to represent asexuals, so the aromantic aardvark was chosen as the aromantic equivalent of the asexual axolotl. Aardvarks were considered to be somewhat of a mascot for the aromantic community for some time, though they have become less popular as a symbol in recent years.

[nillthirteen]

This reads like a museum guide showing one of the most prestigious pieces in an exhibit

[true-cat-enjoyer]

@21st-century-minutiae

[manicpixienitemaregirl]

Idk who OP is but yeah

[intersexfairy]

why not both though

burn down what refuses to change

change everything else you can

and protect the people

[vacuously-true]

The reason for "not both" is that you basically can't protect regular people and also burn down all the things that need to change, in the way OP is referring to people using the term. Because regular people who don't deserve to get hurt are always caught up in the workings of even the nastiest systems. OP is not opposed to destroying those systems! OP says so: they must be carefully dismantled. But not burned down (quick, violent, leaves dangerous debris, makes it difficult to salvage material to build from, hurts people in the process). For example, a program that unfairly distributes aid, such that the people getting aid do need it but also people who need it aren't getting it, needs to change. But if you burn it down before you have something in place to replace it, people may literally die in the meantime.

It's really an issue of what is meant by "burn it down." Like, prev, if when you say "burn it down" you already have built into that an understanding of trying to protect regular people from getting hurt, then OP basically isn't talking about you. But there are quite a lot of people who are angry at the systems we have in place and want to "burn it down" without a plan for what comes next and without regard for the homeless, the disabled, and others who may not be getting ADEQUATE aid from the systems in place but would certainly die or suffer immensely without them or a ready replacement. Again, if you already know better, and that's not what you mean when you say burn it down, then OP basically isn't talking to you. OP is talking to the people specifically whose "desire to eat the rich is greater than their desire to feed the poor." OP isn't saying you can't do both! OP IS saying that if your plans to eat the rich include starving the poor, which is more common than you might think, you need to reassess.

[true-cat-enjoyer]

Yes the system provides aid, yes people would die without it, yes we cannot just burn it down.

but People are dying right now because of that same system. The state defends capital and it will and already has killed to do so. It kills every day someone goes hungry. It kills every day someone is denied medical treatment. It kills every time a bomb is dropped to defend the bottom line of a multinational corporation. It kills every time a policeman shoots. We cannot afford to wait until we have a replacement but if we burn the system down people die anyway.

The state will not allow you to supplant it. The Black Panthers fed hungry children and the state imprisoned them, hunted them, and killed them. Mutual aid, organizing, protest: these tools can help treat the gaping would but they cannot destroy the blade that made it.

Capital hates you. You see that hate in every glistening building, every lavish dinner, every opulent yacht. The state is Capital's blade. A Blade we cannot burn because we need it. The people in hospitals need it. The people in subsidised housing. The people getting food need it. But more than tread the wounds it makes the state could be used to remake the world. Not just to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and house the homeless but to make to a society where no one needs fear those ancient enemies of all humankind. So we must wrench the weapon from the hands of those that hate us. We do not burn the system down. We take it however we can, be that voting protest or yes, even violence, if the situation calls for it, and with it change the world.