i wish this could be the last thing i write about race.

I feel like being a person of color and having an opinion about it is a lot like owning a weapon—a very large weapon, a weapon that you cannot conceal, a big scary weapon. The thing about carrying a bazooka or a broadsword or a missile launcher is that you’ve really got to pick your battles very carefully. It also gets very tiring to wield a weapon repeatedly, and it’s tiring enough carrying it around everywhere you go.

(That being said, I could never imagine what it’s like to be a woman in this world, or even a woman of color.)

dt0theanielle:

buzzfeed:

The books that will move you, inspire you, make you cry, make you think, make you laugh. Are there any books that you would add?

I need to get moving on these babies. 

I’ve got, like, 7 months to read these.

Source: buzzfeed

fastcompany:

  • Charles Dickens was a proponent of strict routine—and walking. He worked from 9.a.m. to 2.p.m, without fail, and needed complete silence. At 2.p.m. he would go for a 3-hour walk and returned, the book notes, bursting with energy and ideas.
  • Maya Angelou likes writing in hotel rooms. She talks about checking into her sparse hotel room and working from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., accompanied by a dictionary, a Bible and a bottle of sherry.

The daily rituals of the world’s most creative people

brianfulda: This is Kenneth. He approached me last week in a busy parking lot as I was getting into my car. He was holding a brand new box for a T-mobile phone and a couple of credit cards. Within seconds of meeting him he began to tell me his misfortune of running out of gas. Of course, I was skeptical from the get go, since he was holding items of value in his hands. But as I listened to his story, my heart began to lighten up. There was something genuine about this man. He just wanted a few bucks to get back to his house. After listening to his story, I opened my wallet and handed him the last six dollars cash I had. I wished him luck and expected him to leave, but to my surprise, he stuck around.  He then leaned on my car door like a friend would, still talking to me about his difficulties lately. Before I knew it, this larger, elderly gentleman was in tears, explaining how hard of a time he’s been having. His mother and his son died in a car accident four months ago. He said to me with glistening eyes, “you just never expect for your own children to go before you, you know?” I swallowed and felt a weight in my throat. I later found out he was involved in the accident as well. At this point, I knew he wasn’t trying to milk any cash out of me since he had seen me pull the last money out of my wallet for him. I asked him if I could take his picture and he agreed. While I photographed him, he told me he doesn’t practice religion but he does believe in God. “It’s so hard for me to believe in a higher being right now. If there is a God, why does he torture me like this? Sometimes I hate to say it, but I just don’t really feel like living anymore.” This shot was his facial expression just after he finished that sentence. A long pause between us occurred. I had to remind him that life is an ongoing test, and that he’d made it through all of the hardships before. This is just the hardest one yet. Everything we go through is an experience to help us make it through the next chapter. He put his arm around my shoulder and told me I’m a good man. And just like that, off he went. Now, a week later, I am going through some hardships of my own. As I sat in bed last night, I stumbled across this photograph on my camera and remembered Kenneth’s story. It’s easy to pity yourself in your own misfortune, but it’s also even easier to forget how little your own life hurdles matter in the grand scheme of things. Today, I’m grateful for Kenneth coming into my life, even if only for a few minutes.
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brianfulda:

This is Kenneth.

He approached me last week in a busy parking lot as I was getting into my car. He was holding a brand new box for a T-mobile phone and a couple of credit cards.

Within seconds of meeting him he began to tell me his misfortune of running out of gas. Of course, I was skeptical from the get go, since he was holding items of value in his hands. But as I listened to his story, my heart began to lighten up. There was something genuine about this man. He just wanted a few bucks to get back to his house. After listening to his story, I opened my wallet and handed him the last six dollars cash I had. I wished him luck and expected him to leave, but to my surprise, he stuck around. 
He then leaned on my car door like a friend would, still talking to me about his difficulties lately. Before I knew it, this larger, elderly gentleman was in tears, explaining how hard of a time he’s been having. His mother and his son died in a car accident four months ago. He said to me with glistening eyes, “you just never expect for your own children to go before you, you know?” I swallowed and felt a weight in my throat. I later found out he was involved in the accident as well. At this point, I knew he wasn’t trying to milk any cash out of me since he had seen me pull the last money out of my wallet for him.
I asked him if I could take his picture and he agreed. While I photographed him, he told me he doesn’t practice religion but he does believe in God. “It’s so hard for me to believe in a higher being right now. If there is a God, why does he torture me like this? Sometimes I hate to say it, but I just don’t really feel like living anymore.” This shot was his facial expression just after he finished that sentence.
A long pause between us occurred. I had to remind him that life is an ongoing test, and that he’d made it through all of the hardships before. This is just the hardest one yet. Everything we go through is an experience to help us make it through the next chapter. He put his arm around my shoulder and told me I’m a good man. And just like that, off he went.
Now, a week later, I am going through some hardships of my own. As I sat in bed last night, I stumbled across this photograph on my camera and remembered Kenneth’s story. It’s easy to pity yourself in your own misfortune, but it’s also even easier to forget how little your own life hurdles matter in the grand scheme of things. Today, I’m grateful for Kenneth coming into my life, even if only for a few minutes.

(via adjacentjason)

Source: brianfulda

5 Mentalities The Perpetuate Rape Culture [TW]

loveyourrebellion:

Rape culture is bullshit, am I right? So, let’s break this shit down logically: how can we dismantle rape culture? One way is erasing ideologies and values that perpetuate rape culture, so below are 5 mentalities that perpetuate rape culture because awareness is key.

5. She’s a Slut

Clutch Phrases:

  • “Sluts deserve to be raped.”
  • “It’s not like she was a virgin.”
  • “Who knows if it was even rape; she’s slept with so many guys.”
  • “You can’t believe a slut.” 

Slut shaming is the foundation for many of the mentalities that uphold rape culture, including She Was Asking For It and Victim Blaming. Bringing a person’s sexual history into question validates the actions of rapists, because, really, any woman can be classified as a slut just by doing, well, nearly anything.Out alone at night? Slut. Drunk? Slut. Dressed up? Slut. Pre-teen wearing make up? Slut. You don’t have to fuck a lot of people to be a slut. Calling someone a slut is often justified when someone dresses a certain way or is of a certain class/race/sexual orientation/body size. Anything and everything can make you a slut, because slut shaming isn’t about what’s “right” and “wrong;” it’s about controlling women’s sexuality and their bodies; it’s about telling them they are worth their vaginas; it’s about making them fearful of sex, their bodies, their own sexualities, and pretty much the world at large. And if you don’t think slut shaming plays a role in rape cases that see trial or are reported, I am not sorry; you are wrong.

4. She Should Learn to Protect Herself

Clutch Phrases:

  • “If more women protected themselves, there would be less rape.”
  • “Give women guns and see how the rape rate drops.”
  • “Do these things/follow these rules to protect yourself and you’ll be rape proof!”

So, okay: maybe that last phrase isn’t word for word, but you’ve all heard the precautions: don’t wear your hair in a pony tail; walk with your keys out; don’t go out alone at night; don’t live alone; don’t wear tight/revealing clothes; beware of men pretending to be police officers, etc. etc. etc. Doesn’t this all sound like the responsibility for rape is being put on the victim? As if you could follow all these strategies and make yourself rape proof. Or as Wanda Sykes joked, leave your pussy at home.

Since you can’t leave your pussy at home, there’s always a lot of talk about how women can carry guns or learn self defense to prevent rape, but as the articulate Zerlina Maxwell so eloquently stated on Fox News this past week:

“I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there…You’re talking about this as if it’s some faceless, nameless criminal, when a lot of times it’s someone you know and trust…If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.”

Enough said.

3. She Was Asking For It 

Clutch Phrases:

  • “She was asking for it.”
  • “Women secretly want to be raped.”
  • “She was wearing/doing X so she wanted it.”
  • “She was drinking/doing drugs/out late/without a man/alone.” 

The absolute absurdity that anyone asks to get raped is completely stunning. There is literally nothing a person can do to ask for a heinous act of violence: not dress a certain way, not identify a certain way, not act a certain way, etc. It should be clear by now that these mentalities don’t serve to protect women; they create boundaries in which we are to live policed by the threat of sexual violence. By telling us we cannot go out late or drink or have any sort of life outside of our homes without the threat of rape, you have effectively removed our humanity. There is no autonomy in following a strict set of standards, lest we risk violence and the label of “asking for it.” The myth that some women asked to be raped means that those “some women” behave/look a certain way, and to avoid being raped, a woman should operate inside the boundaries set out by society. Of course, that does not work. Women are raped regardless of age, race, sexual orientation, or marital status because rape is not an act of desire/sex; rape is an act of violence. 

2. Boys Will be Boys

Clutch Phrases:

  • “Boys will be boys.”
  • “Rape is biological.”
  • “That’s just the way men are/the world is.” 

When the phrase “boys will be boys” is used in regards to sexual violence, it is normalized. That is, it is assumed that every male identifying person is a rapist. Boys will be boys = that’s the way boys are: they rape. I don’t know about you, but I expect a lot more out of humanity than the innate, biological need to rape. Telling me that men cannot control their “desire” for someone, or must expel the fruit of their loins, or have some “point of no return” removes their capacity for logical thought: dick gets hard; brain shuts off. What’s really going on is that a lot of men don’t see women as people. Yes, you read that right. Objectification leads to dehumanization.(And you can’t commit a crime against an object, can you?) The rationale that “men are that way” or “that’s the way the world is” suggests that women are fish in water: that the threat of violence is an immovable, unchangeable part of society, and that women should learn to deal with it (re: protect themselves/follow the rules) instead of trying to change it. I, for one, I am not buying it. Instead, let’s follow the 5 Ways We Can Teach Men Not to Rape by Zerlina Maxwell.

1. Victim Blaming

Clutch Phrases: 

  • “She didn’t fight/say anything/say no/yell.”
  • “What was she doing there/with that man?”
  • “Why didn’t she try to run?”
  • “What was she wearing/doing?”
  • “Where was she/who was she with?” 

How can a rapist ever be at fault if there are always reasons why the victim is to blame? The entirety of this list all adds up to blaming the person who was raped for being the target of a violent crime. One of the most common arguments (behind, of course, the sexy clothing excuse) is that women do not struggle enough, do not say no, or cannot say no. Listen: silence is not a yes; no is not a yes; only yes is a yes. This bullshit about women “saying no when they mean yes” only perpetuates the mentality that some women are asking for it. Sadly, victim blaming is deeply embedded into society; so far, in fact, that it is often used in the most subtle ways and the most disgusting ways. In turn, rapes are under reported and under prosecuted. And when rapes are reported women undergo an invasive examination of their entire lives while their story is speculated on and their experience discredited.

So, if you find yourself or someone you know falling into one of these mentalities about rape and rape survivors, think about the consequences of perpetuating those ideas, and whether they are really creating the kind of world you want to live in. 

By Angela Page

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

Source: loveyourrebellion

RE: the last reblog.

Imagine if I had something really important to do in 9th grade, and I was just starting a book, and I had to use that bookmark to mark my place between the words “CATCHER” and “IN.”

Or maybe I’m just starting Moby Dick, and I start reading that first sentence:

Call me—

“NOPE, SHUT IT DOWN. TOO MUCH SUSPENSE ALREADY. TIME FOR THIS PLACE-MARKING BOOKMARK.”

walex:

victoria-q-nerdballs:

emchughes:

darienlibrary:

yaybuttons:

just-a-skinny-boy:

Guys.

It’s a book mark that marks your spot in the book.

I get not being able to remember the exact page number but not knowing where you left off on the page? Tsk tsk

Wait a second. Do people actually stop reading in the middle of a page? If I stop reading in the middle of a page it’s because I’ve suddenly realized it’s my subway stop or someone has called me or my doorbell is ringing. I certainly don’t have time to strap a bookmark into my book and line up a rubbery index finger.

If there are people who stop reading right in the middle of a page, I would like to know those people. I bet they have exciting personalities!

I always stop reading in the middle of a page! If I finish a page, I feel compelled to flip to the next page, and if I stop reading at the beginning of a page, I always have to flip back to the previous page the next time I pick the book up to remember what I was reading. It’s easier for me to remember what was happening if I stop in the middle.

These are things I think about now, I guess.

Same! And I never mark my place, either, I always just guess at it. That’s how it took me two years to read A Feast of Crows.

You people stop reading in the middle of CHAPTERS?!?!

Yo…let’s just look at the picture—this dude stopped reading MID-SENTENCE MID-WORD.

Source: just-a-skinny-boy