QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

(via deeplezstonerwitch)

A straight white woman with a red equal sign as her profile picture is trying to tell me right now about how good marriage is for queers

I literally cannot today

ninjabikeslut:

Additionally the cis/trans* binary also furthers centralization and colonialism, assimilating and categorizing all identities outside of itself. Like all forms of representation, the cis/trans* binary as an all encompassing set of categories is both flattening and inadequate….

"We really can’t talk about a queer “community” unless we’re talking about/with trans women of color. We certainly cannot be in “solidarity” unless we’re recognizing the diversity of the queer and trans communities, hiring them into our orgs, and advocating for/with folks, even when they are silent/silenced."

BlaQueerPoz aka Tabias Wilson (via blaqueerpozitivity)

(via cantbereallife)

(Source: rihannaeverything, via youaintthatfierce)

hauteproportions:

blackwomenworldhistory:

ause

dglsplsblg:

Artwork by S. Ross Brown

This is just the best thing ever

(via rentless-mistress)

(Source: gayerthanjew, via afrafemme)

africandiasporaphd:

TODAY: International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

March 25th is United Nations International Day of Remembrance of Slavery Victims and the…

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(via grrlyman)

INAPPROPRIATELY DRESSED FOR A HIKE

"

So let’s get real for a moment. Asian America is made up of over 45 distinct ethnic groups speaking over 100 language dialects. Among these groups, some, such as Hmong Americans, are among the poorest in the U.S. by ethnicity.

Moreover, statistics concerning our success exaggerate. The reality is that larger Asian American family incomes result in part from a larger number of earners per household. Asian Americans actually trail whites in per capita income. And the most successful Asian American ethnic groups—the Taiwanese, Indian, Malaysian, and Sri Lankan American minorities—include a large share of members who were drawn to the U.S. as business investors or highly skilled workers. That means that Asian Americans are by no means representative of Asians globally. U.S. immigration policy plays a role in constructing the Asian American “race.”

But regardless of the disadvantages some of us face, many Asians do enjoy privileges beyond the reach of other people of color. That might explain why some Asian Americans are bought into model minority stereotyping. Their attitudes mirror many on the right whose response to Asian American protest against Asian stereotyping goes something like can’t you people take a compliment?

But this Asian complicity with the stereotype is dangerous. Why? Consider this.

As I’ve pointed out before, the model minority stereotype originated as a tool to leverage white resentment toward the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. In the midst of widespread black protest, the Asian model minority debuted in the media as evidence that racism will fall to quiet hard work, self-sacrifice, and compliance with authority. The model minority was contrasted with “problem minorities” in order to undercut support for reform. Between the lines, the suggestion was that black culture, not white racism, was the reason for black poverty, and black protest, for that reason, was neither legitimate nor helpful to black people who would do better to fix themselves than to try to fix the country.

Yet Asian Americans have prospered, and more, some would argue, than other people of color, as a result of desegregation, voting rights reforms, and programs like affirmative action. When we play into “problem minority” racism we threaten these gains.

Now, I get that the relatively small share of the U.S. population that is Asian American makes us less a threat to white racial domination than, say, Latinos or African Americans. And, for that reason, when Newt Gingrich refers to “entitlement junkies” and Mitt Romney disparages the 47%, they don’t have us in mind. But, we ought not kid ourselves. Dodging these attacks doesn’t make us safe.

Asian Americans may be only 6% of the U.S., but Asians are a very large percentage of the global population. And Asian countries such as China, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are considered threats to American posterity. Playing to racism by exaggerating that “threat” is becoming a popular strategy of elected leaders trying to win political points with an increasingly resentful public.

The combination of xenophobic Asia-bashing and model minority stereotyping makes Asian Americans targets of resentment. And certain realities are causing that resentment to rise.

Privilege without power makes us vulnerable. To build power in a country whose racial demography is tilting against whites, we would do best to build bonds of cross-racial solidarity with other people of color. To do that, we must look beyond our common suffering and accept accountability for the privileges that divide us.

Scot Nakagawa, “Challenging Asian Privilege,” ChangeLab 3/14/13 (via racialicious)

(via arleen-elena)

"Puppy’s murder made me aware that we were not safe or untouchable and that if someone does touch us, no one gives a shit. We only have each other. We always knew this, but now we needed to take a step towards doing something about it. So I started looking out for myself and the girls who worked on the street with me. We girls decided that whenever we got into a car with someone, another girl would write down as much information as possible. We would try not to just lean into the car window but get a guy to walk outside the car so that everyone could see him, so we all knew who he was if she didn’t come back. That’s how it started. Since no one was going to do it for us, we had to do it for ourselves."

Miss Major, Black trans woman and former sex worker discussing the killing of a fellow sex worker (via theraceproblem)

(via treatquestion-deactivated201305)

"Here is a bare-bones description of my own feminist vision: this is a vision of the world that is pro-sex and -woman, a world where women and men are free to live creative lives, in security and with bodily health and integrity, where they are free to choose whom they love, and whom they set up house with, and whether they want to have or not have children; a world where pleasure rather than just duty and drudgery determine our choices, where free and imaginative exploration of the mind is a fundamental right; a vision in which economic stability, ecological sustainability, racial equality, and the redistribution of wealth form the material basis of people’s well-being. Finally, my vision is one in which democratic and socialist practices and institutions provide the conditions for public participation and decision making for people regardless of economic and social location. In strategic terms, this vision entails putting in place antiracist feminist and democratic principles of participation and relationality, and it means working on many fronts, in many different kinds of collectivities in order to organize against repressive systems of rule. It also means being attentive to small as well as large struggles and processes that lead to radical change—not just working (or waiting) for a revolution. Thus everyday feminist, antiracist, anticapitalist practices are as important as larger, organized political movements."

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 3-4 (via tiiigerstyle)

(via navigatethestream)

treatquestion:

holdin-fort:

Member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) guarding Federal officers and locals at Wounded Knee, South Dakota - 1973 

 

The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement(AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The grassroots protest followed the failure of their effort to impeach the elected tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents; they also protested the United States government’s failure to fulfill treaties with Indian peoples and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_incident

Image: Black and white photo of Indigenous brown-skinned person with long, black, braided hair wearing cargo pants and a plaid jacket holds a scoped rifle in one hand in front of a line of white pale-skinned people with their hands behind their heads.

(via treatquestion-deactivated201305)

"‎”Being the supreme crossers of cultures, homosexuals have strong bonds with the queer white, Black, Asian, Native American, Latino, and with the queer in Italy, Australia and the rest of the planet. We come from all colors, all classes, all races, all time periods. Our role is to link people with each other — the Blacks with Jews and Indians with Asians with whites with extraterrestrials. It is to transfer ideas and information from one culture to another. Colored homosexuals have more knowledge of other cultures; have always been at the forefront (although sometimes in the closet) of all liberation struggles in this country; have suffered more injustices and have survived them despite all odds. Chicanos need to acknowledge the political and artistic contributions of their queer. People, listen to what your jotería is saying."

Gloria Anzaldúa, La conciencia de la mestiza (via ryangitana)

(via joteria)

jakke:

Anarchists have launched a “ghetto revolt” against “capitalist assholes” and “gentrifiers”, claiming responsibility for a number of attacks on Vancouver property in postings on an anarchist website.

They’ve claimed responsibility for smashing the windows of the Bank of Montreal branch at 2515 East Hastings Street on the evening of March 13. “BMO was targeted not only because it is a symbol of capitalism but because it banks with Compliance Energy Corporation,” the post reads. “They are in the coal industry.”

Unnamed parties also took credit for the theft of a sign from Save On Meats restaurant at 43 West Hastings Street “to let the gentrifiers know that they have entered an area with a long history of class warfare”. They also blasted PiDGiN at 350 Carrall Street as a “restaurant for the wealthy and well-dressed bourgeois/up-and-coming class”.

Oh fuck right off. The fact that actual DTES organizations (i.e. groups run by and for actual poor people who would be displaced by gentrification) have lent zero support to your petty little window-breaking campaign should indicate that OH HEY here’s what you’re basically accomplishing:

1. Smashing up windows that are covered by insurance anyway
2. Discrediting any other anti-gentrification activism (especially anything done by the poor people who actually live there!) by forcing them to issue lengthy disclaimers about your bullshit whenever they protest anything
3. Increasing police presence in neighbourhoods full of poor people likely to get harassed by police

When they post these pictures of my fellow twentysomething white dudes grinning enthusiastically about the ~naughty mayhem~ they’re about to cause it’s like OKAY WE GET IT YOU FEEL LIKE V FROM V FOR VENDETTA but actually you are changing nothing at all about the rapid gentrification of the Downtown East Side AND ALSO you are making it way more difficult for the people who actually live there and have to face police harassment and the steady decline of the services they depend on. Like, the fact that you’re a twentysomething white dude with (I’m guessing) half a geography degree and a part-time barista job and a hefty parental subsidy means that you can go break a window and run home to your Main Street apartment and be all giddy about your ~strike against The Man~ but holy fuck you are making nothing better and everything worse and you don’t understand that if you weren’t exactly who you are the police would be breaking your skull in.

Initially I thought the “ghetto revolt” thing had something to do with the Warsaw ghetto revolt (seventy years ago this Passover) and I was really furious but pretty sure they just have no clue what they’re talking about.

(via treatquestion-deactivated201305)