drive away home

Geeky, queer, Japanese American living in Japan. Likes fantasy, politics, manga, and working towards equality.

[angryanticolonialist]

When people say “culture is meant to be shared” I’m literally like ???? Because that has literally never been the purpose of any culture. Culture is about identity, community and family. It’s about tradition. It is not and has never been about “sharing”.

[thegaylists]

queer Asian musicians

Hayley Kiyoko - Japanese-American lesbian pop artist. She became a tumblr sensation when her MV “Girls like Girls” went viral on tumblr a few years back. She also coined the term twentygayteen and has been dubbed our lesbian jesus! Her first album “Expectations” was released earlier this year and its gaaaaay.

Sofya Wang - First generation Chinese-American lesbian pop artist. Her single “Boys Aside” was released in 2017, and several other singles were released this year. Her career is just kicking off, but I think we have a lot to look forward to!

Rina Sawayama - Japanese-British pansexual pop/contemporary R&B artist. She was born in Niigata, Japan and raised there until age 5. She came out by releasing the single “Cherry” and has said many of her songs are about women!

Thao Nyugen - Vietnamese-American indie/alt singer. She fronted the band Thao & the get down stay down and also collaborated with fellow lesbian artist Mirah to release music under Thao & Mirah. Give “With a girl like you” a listen.

Holland - First openly gay K-Pop Idol to debut! He’s 22 years old and his first song “Neverland” was released January 2018. He’s released a few more singles since and is huge with international fans.

MRSHLL - While Holland is the first openly gay K-Pop Idol, MRSHLL is the first openly gay Korean musician to ever begin his career in Korea. He’s a R&B artist and just released his first EP this year.

Poppy Ajudha - Queer British-Indian Soul/Jazz/Experimental artist. Her first EP “FEMME” was released this year and I can tell we have lots to look forward to from her.

Leo Kalyan - British-Pakistani dance/electronic singer who is gay & Muslim! He came out in his music video for “fucked up” and has released a few singles this year! He’s also just a very eloquent and inspiring guy.

Japanese Breakfast - The indie/experimental pop solo project of Michelle Zauner, a Jewish Korean-American queer/bi woman. She says she chose her name because she strongly identified with Japanese culture growing up, since it was the closest thing she could find in popular media that resembled Korean culture.

[thegaylists]

Mabel Ye - Queer illustrator & independent music artist. Her drawings are really cool and you can find her instagram here. Listen to her album “Songs for a girl + other things.”

Qiao Qiao - China’s first openly lesbian singer. She released her first (and only, as far as I can tell) single in 2006, titled “Ai Bu Fen” or “Love does not discriminate.” The only photo I could find of her was from a tv show she was a guest on “gay connections.”

Vardaan Arora - Indian born queer pop artist & advocate for more queer South Asian representation! He’s open about his mental health issues and has amazing music. Check out his latest single “What if.”

Secret Guyz - A 3 member J-Pop group comprised entirely of trans men. You can find their music on youtube!

Ki-Yo - Openly gay Japanese pop singer, composer, and lyricist. He came out in 2015 during Tokyo Rainbow Pride and was featured in the photography project “OUT IN JAPAN.”

Harisu - Transgender Korean pop singer, model, and actress. She is the Republic of Korea’s first transgender entertainer and in 2002 became the second person in Korea to legally change their gender. She identified as female from an early age and derived her stage name from the phrase “Hot Issue.”

Doris Muramatsu - Member of queer folk group “Girlyman.” Listen to everything they’ve ever made because it’s all amazing.

[theoldreclaimingasia]

More!

[kailere]

“Unappropriated Beauty“ is a poster ad campaign tackling the issue of cultural appropriation in a non-accusatory, educational way. These adverts are size-compatible to fit in different settings, including bus shelters, billboards, mobile devices, and magazines. The goal of this project is to educate the consumers of appropriative media so that they are better equipped to decide for themselves what is and what is not cultural appropriation, and therefore lowering the tolerance for appropriation being applauded in the media.

[vincent-van-gtg]

[fitnessdesire]

Can’t risk it

[laderdesders1]

The duck of creativity. I waited so long for it.

[dankmemeuniversity]

[keybladesoras]

DAY IS MADE!

[liho907lilo]

Everyone going shopping on Black Friday, be aware of three things:

The retail workers are working 12 hours shifts. We are threatened with losing our jobs if we don’t show up unless we’re dying in the hospital. I had an assistant manager show up with fucking strep because he would’ve been fired otherwise. Yes, he did infect 7 and hospitalize 2 coworkers; who knows how many members of the public he infected.

The stores have, maybe, 5 of that special cheap thing you’re after. Corporate does this on purpose, and stores are not allowed to order enough. The prices aren’t even that much lower. They lie about how expensive something is to fool you into thinking you’re getting a discount. You aren’t.

Most of the workers you will come across will be new hires for the sole purpose of being bodies for about three months before they’re fired. They actually don’t know anything because they’ve been working there for maybe two weeks, and have had no real training. I was once hired at Staples a week before Black Friday and expected to know how to deal with phones, coupons, the online ordering site, and AS400 after five 6-hour shifts. This is the kind of person you will likely be dealing with at Black Friday.

Do me and my retail family a favor and don’t shop Black Friday. Any company that needs a sale day like Black Friday to get their sales out of the red doesn’t deserve to be in business. 

[gothtigger92-deactivated2021052]

This also goes for anyone that works shipment too. We’re suddenly expected to stay as late as they want you to even if they know you don’t have a car and rely on a ride to get you to and from work and know you can’t stay late. Shipment workers will suddenly start getting berated for not getting things done and it is by far the most stressful time to be a shipment worker for any store. Especially when they throw in new hires that don’t know how to process things and are expected to work at the same pace as the people that have worked there for a while.

Retail is shit around the holidays, especially Black Friday

[jedi-giraffe]

ok fellow millenials, it’s time to kill black friday

[cincosechzehn-deactivated201901]

LET’S KILL BLACK FRIDAY

[eroticcannibal]

If you absolutely have to shop on black friday (it happens, we poor, in the past it’s the only way I’ve been able to afford a decent phone or christmas presents for my kid) Be. Fucking. Nice. Plan exactly what you need to buy ahead of time, find out the actual usual price, decide if it’s worth it. Stick to your list, get in and out as quickly as possible, don’t make life harder for the staff than you have to. DO NOT fight with other customers over items. If they start a fight just walk away. If it can wait, then wait for the christmas sales, it’s slightly less hectic. But most importantly, Be. Fucking. Nice. Those of us who’ve worked retail or are close to people who have are more than willing to step in if you get out of line, and we can’t get fired.

[micdotcom]

Watch: Latina journalist Maria Hinojosa epically shuts down a condescending Trump adviser on the word “illegals”

[fundipp]

EAT HIM ALIVE

[wanhedaheda307]

That’s my girl

[tami-taylors-hair]

A Remote Tribe In India Fired Arrows At And Killed An American Missionary Who Illegally Tried To Visit Them

"If they’d welcomed him with open arms, he could have decimated the entire tribe."

I’m glad this article highlights that if this man made it to shore and had extended contact with these people, he would have exposed them to diseases they’ve never seen before and potentially killed them all. There’s a reason it’s illegal to go there, and Jesus isn’t gonna protect them from chicken pox or the flu. 

[1000heartbeats]

He was told not to go near these people and he refused to listen. Let this be a lesson to those who think they can go places and do whatever they want with no repercussions.

[dicapito]

Exactly. Like, we are supposed to feel bad for someone who was already warned to not to go there? In what world? I feel for his family and all but this could have been prevented by his own hands.

[kaijutegu]

please, I am begging you, PLEASE look at this extremely good image my friend just texted me

[memescomedy]

[doesthendnlive]

[when-did-this-become-difficult]

the text of the bill here

al jazeera article explaining what happened here (article published 11/14/18)

KEY QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE:

If Congress does not pass legislation protecting the tribe and the legal challenge fails, the Mashpee would be stripped of their right to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over their land.

Jessie Little Doe Baird, the tribe’s vice-chairwoman, told Al Jazeera that loss of jurisdiction would prevent the tribe from running indigenous language schools, tribal courts, and housing projects, as well as its own police.

“We have our own police force, which is important because they’re tribal citizens and since we’ve had our own police force, none of our men have been beaten or shot, which we’ve had before with non-tribal police,” she said.

[carrionthrash-deactivated201904]

Fucked up how women are expected to preform femininity to such an unreasonable, expensive and time consuming degree right now. Obviously that’s been an aspect of patriarchy forever but theres a late capitalist spin on it in our current period that’s just so extreme and unrealistic.. I feel like this is something people don’t see as getting worse but in, say, the 70s it was totally normal for women to go outside without foundation on. The degree to which women are expected to compete with other women in the amount of money and unpaid time they spend on their appearance every day has accelerated along with the acceleration and of global capitalism in general

[carrionthrash-deactivated201904]

There’s a massive feminist movement erupting in South Korea right now where women are posting pictures of their destroyed makeup collections in protest of the massive amounts of sacrifice they’re expected to make towards conventional beauty just to be employed or viewed as normal. I know liberals like to talk about this stuff being a choice but when thousands of people are saying that it ISN’T a choice for them, and is in fact something they feel cornered into that’s actively harming them, that’s something worth listening to

[shimmercatt]

*w*)/~

[angelictroublemaker]

[Art of Rose Tico. She is holding a tool and has her arm up, shading her eyes. She’s wearing work clothes. x-wing fighters rise up in the distance behind her.]

[mango-habanero-autism-deactivat]

The home ethnicity DNA test industrial complex is causing real harm to Native American communities, refugees, Jewish people, and like other forms of “forensic science”, will mainly harm already vulnerable people if it becomes more cemented as a science instead of as biometric astrology, and yet, I’m supposed to tolerate it because white people are getting bit in the ass by their own construction of whiteness as supplanting culture and heritage in favour of dominant power, and it hurts their feelings that they “don’t know who they are”? 

[hundondestiny]

it’s also being used to exploit the experiences of disconnected diasporic groups, such as African Americans, by promising a connection to their home culture that they cannot actually be given. The tests themselves are fraudulent at best, but it’s even worse when you’re telling people whose cultures and histories have been forcibly erased that it will restore what (the creators of) these institutions robbed us of. There’s also the ADDITIONAL fine print that allows these companies to “own” the DNA samples that are submitted, and to use them for nefarious purposes, such as supplying DNA to police for targeting criminals and their families. It’s an entirely garbage institution that does no good to anyone.

[long-ago-1234567890]

i’m a jew whose family was torn apart in the decade before the holocaust and i was hoping i might be able to use one of these things to find and connect with lost relatives… hearing that these things are scams is heartbreaking. they shouldnt be able to present themselves as legitimate. and “owning” your dna?? wtf

[striehart]

I know it’s cracked but this article actually breaks it down pretty effectively from my memory, by someone who interviewed a person working for a DNA testing company here

[tariqah]

remember that statistic that came out a while ago that said if England tried to repay the value of everything they stole from India (just India, mind you), the entire country of England would go so bankrupt it would cease to exist? Like chop chop baby let's hurry up and get this bread

LETS GET THIS BREAD

[datarep]

Time Lapse of the Land Taken From Native Americans

via reddit

[jisdu-tsalagi]

I will reblog this EVERY GODDAMN TIME so people can understand how the US government taking more and more land from Natives is nothing new (even the land originally promised after being kicked off their original, sacred lands) and they NEED to be fucking stopped. They need to be held accountable for the destruction of our people not just then but also now.