QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

thepeoplesrecord:

The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention to demand Manning’s freedom.

Click here to see what your city is doing for the Sept. 6 action. We’ll be at the DC event; hope to see you there!

"The whole deal is to keep black and white people, workers, low-income people, against each other. Because if they become unified, there’s gonna be problems."

Spike Lee on racism, Read: The Fix Is In - Salon

via Salon

(via brooklynmutt)

(via mermeanie)

"Legalize Gay? Who, in the wake of Prop 8, is illegal for being gay? Sure, gays and lesbians might not be allowed to marry in California but Prop 8 has not meant that those with otherwise unblemished records can no longer leave their houses, or buy cars, or keep their jobs. Do people wearing this t-shirt have a clue what it really means to be illegal? To be, for instance, an “illegal alien” who gets swept up in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid and be deported soon thereafter? To not be able to travel freely because they lack the proper documentation? To pay for their school tuition and rent in cash because they lack social security numbers?"

Yasmin Nair, in Legalize Gay, Or: So You Think You’re Illegal? for Queercents (via hfml)

Ms. Nair is fucking fabulous and on point in real life. I aspire to be like her in the future!! 

(via fivelettered)

(via fivelettered)

A Brief History of White Androgynous Radical Queerness

crankyskirt:

myintersection:

In the beginning, while people pillaged the world through imperialism, colonialism, slavery, genocide, Manifest Destiny, occupation and subjugation of people of color. They take what they want for capital gain. These practices continue to this day.

Next, white people use more violence to continue their hold over the world by suppressing the cultures of global indigenous peoples. This includes physical and psychological warfare. Indigenous people are tortured and killed for practicing aspects of their culture that don’t benefit whiteness. This includes matriarchy and gender fluidity (i.e. “third” genders and what would be called today “queerness”).

White heteropatriarchy, including the gender binary, is forced upon these cultures. People who resist are brutalized. This goes on for generations, until it is fearfully instilled into the people.

But, there are always people of color resisting along the way.

Flash forward to the 20th century, where anti-assimilation queer people of color organize, riot and refuse to be silenced. Some white people are there, but for the most part they are too busy trying to expand the limits of white patriarchy to include themselves.

When more white people begin to realize their efforts are futile. They take a cue from their forefathers, and begin to takeover the queer movement. They become the poster children for the movement. They accuse people of color of derailing the movement by talking about racism. Many even accuse people of color for being responsible for the cissexist heteropatriarchy that oppresses them in the first place.

The white queers believe in the ideals of second-wave feminism that views femininity as intrinsically weak, and masculinity as inherently oppressive and adopt androgyny, claiming it to be truly radical. These same radical queers mock queer people of color for being to rigid in their gender presentations.

They continue to silence queer people of color through academicizing their struggle and appropriating it to no end. Take a look at Paris Is Burning and tell me what you see.

Today, queer spaces are white, rank androgyny as most desirable, and when we’re lucky will pay lip-service to the anti-racist movement that once was the cornerstone of queer liberation, conveniently forgetting that it was whiteness that put us in the place we are in today.

Damn right.

(via fivelettered)

cassket:

I’m traveling on the east coast right now, which has thrown me back into the kind of queer, mostly female assigned community that exists in the “I date women and trans men” frame (I’m not saying this doesn’t happen on the west coast – but I’ve found alternatives way more easily). This is a big part of what my Girl Talk piece was about, but I want to address this particular issue really directly.

“I date women and trans men” is the definition of cissexism. It’s basing your frame for sexuality on the gender coercively assigned to a person by their doctor at birth, not on that person’s actual identity. In this case, we’re talking about folks who were assigned female. Of course, “women” means cis women – trans women totally drop off the map.

Chart via TransFusion

My critique of this frame isn’t about everyone on the trans masculine spectrum, where there’s a ton of complex gender and sexuality diversity (though there is an important conversation to have about the privileging of masculinity here as well). I’m talking about how this approach to sexuality addresses people who were assigned female at birth but are men.

It’s incredibly undermining to frame sexuality in a way that lumps these men in with all female assigned folks instead of with cis men. It’s a failure, in the realm of sexuality, to recognize thattrans men’s male identities are just as legitimate as cis men’s. If you’re going to base sexuality on gender, better base it on people’s actual genders.

I get why a lot of female assigned folks exist in this frame for reasons that aren’t overtly about undermining trans identities. There’s a ton of gender based trauma out there, and I understand that folks associate this with cis men, and not with trans men. But that’s not a reality-based approach to gender. A lot of that trauma gets easily linked to genitals, but this isn’t about bodies, it’s about patriarchy. I think this sexuality frame is a big part of why so many trans men get away with (and are sometimes even encouraged to practice) unchecked misogyny and male privilege (remember, power is complicated. You can experience both male privilege and cissexist oppression). Real talk: being trans doesn’t prevent you from perpetrating hurt and violence in the realm of sexuality.

My trans brothers deserve better than sex in a frame that undermines their identities. This doesn’t mean queer cis women and gender non-conforming female assigned folks can’t fuck trans men, but then they owe it to these guys to reframe their sexuality in a way that’s not undermining – to recognize that they sleep with men, and to question why they’re OK with sleeping with trans men and not cis men. I just don’t think it’s OK to process your sexual trauma in a delegitimizing way through the bodies of folks who’ve often faced tons of trauma at the intersection of gender and sexuality.

The problem isn’t one sided: trans guys owe it to themselves to not accept a misgendering sexuality frame just because it makes it easier to get laid, but that shit’s complicated in a cissexist world. It’s unfair to place all the responsibility for fixing this problem at the feet of the people who’s identities are being undermined. I want to encourage trans guys to stand up for what they deserve, but a lot of the responsibility for fixing this shit belongs to the people doing the undermining.

I do put a little more responsibility on trans men for letting this frame push their trans sisters out. This approach to sexuality totally erases trans women by excluding us from the group of sexually existing queer women. Yes, it’s also incredibly undermining of trans women’s identities by moving us out of the category “women” when it comes to sexuality. Ultimately, this frame goes back to the gender coercively assigned at birth for trans women as well. It’s a way for transmisogyny to advance unchecked, because trans women totally drop out of the conversation. It’s part of the broader problem of privileging masculinity over femininity, and specifically  of privileging masculinity in female assigned folks and hating on and marginalizing femininity in male assigned folks. The problem goes beyond gender theory about masculinity and femininity – this is about really specific, really real transmisogyny. Even when some femininity is accepted, it’s in female assigned folks. Trans women (even the butch ones) get left out in the cold. (I think it’s time for everybody to re-read Julia Serano’s groundbreaking bookWhipping Girl with their sex brains on.)

There’s a lot of resistance to thinking about the politics of sexuality in this way, which I totally get. Our sexualities are our own, they’re personal, and in such a puritanical world any critique of sexuality can seem messed up. But our desires are absolutely influenced by our cultural context. When you really look at the way patterns of desire map onto what bodies are privileged and what bodies are marginalized, it becomes obvious that our desires are political. I am absolutely not about critiquing the way one person falls for another. The problem is with a community trend. When we leave sexuality trends unexamined, sex becomes a space where privilege and oppression run amuck.

It’s well past time to say enough. If queer community wants to be about a gender and sexuality revolution it’s got to take these questions seriously. Its got to address the ways cissexism overdetermines community approaches to sexuality. This is an ongoing process involving lots of thought, critique, and, well, processing. We’ve got to be able to move from the broad and systemic to seeing how cissexism plays out in our personal lives, including in relation to who and how we fuck.

#14

tranzient:

blaquerose:

karnythia:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

thisisblackprivilege:

Black privilege is being able to get money easily if you’re in poverty.

It’s harder for non-black people. Now, we have affirmative action, welfare, etc., all catering to black people.

Surely you should be able to link to some statistics proving the Black people benefit the most from welfare and affirmative action.

Surely you should.

Seeing as you’re interested in FACTS, right?

So put your money where your mouth is.

Now you know those stats showing that white women benefit the most from affirmative action & more white people get welfare are anathema to this fool. Next you’ll bring up who welfare was invented to help & really fuck up their whole world by pointing out that black people were excluded from it.

As a Welfare worker I can tell you this is wrong. The majority of the people who come into my job applying for Welfare are white. I speak to at least 20 people a day as a screener, and I see about 2 black families of those twenty. Probably 7 latin@ families. An asian family every other day. The rest are all white families.

And with what little amount of money a person can get from Welfare (an amount which you can barely survive on, and amount that is far less than the average rent in the area I work in for a two bed room apartment), those 2 black families, 7 latin@ families and asian family every other day take that money and they are thankful for what little help they can get, they go live in shitty apartments or with other families in a cramped house so that they can afford to pay rent on the meager amount they get from us a month. They bust their asses to SURVIVE.

But those white people? They are upset with the money they get. They wonder why if they paid taxes their whole lives, that they can only get such a small amount of money? They say it must be all of the POC coming in and taking all of the welfare money and all of the illegal immigrants who come in and stole welfare aid (nevermind the fact that you CANNOT RECEIVE AID if you are not a US Citizen or a Permanent Resident of more than 10 years). They say if POC would just get jobs and get off welfare we’d have more money to give them (yet somehow turn around and say that POC are taking all of their jobs, so that’s why they can’t find one). They say this to the other white applicants in the lobby or the WOC workers who are trying to help them get back on their feet. Out fucking loud.

Wanna know what white privilege is?

White privilege is being able to have the balls to go to a welfare office, be surrounded by other white people who are also applying, and complaining about how POC are taking all of the governments money, meanwhile POC are working shitty jobs and living in shit neighborhoods refusing to get the aid they NEED to help their families, because they will be shamed the minute they step into the building.

boom

(via strugglingtobeheard)

"I feel like I have a responsibility to my community and other young girls to help redefine what it looks like to be a woman. I don’t believe in men’s wear or women’s wear, I just like what I like. And I think we should just be respected for being an individual…. I’ve been in Vogue, now, and different publications, which is cool, because I think that it just shows a different perspective of how women can dress."

Janelle Monáe (via ladyatheist)

(Source: brashblacknonbeliever, via dammitcaleb-deactivated20130328)

androgynousblackgirl:

Ugandans haven’t been sitting on their asses doing nothing about Kony and the LRA rebels for the past 20 years. This war has lasted over 2 decades and it’s disrespectful to the countrymen & women who’ve actually been doing something about this war all along, even before this viral campaign, to see comments like,”we should let the Ugandans fight their own battles”…”why did the kids let themselves be abducted?”.

Trust me; if we had the resources that the western world had, we would’ve dealt with this war on our own, we don’t want anymore hidden agenda-attached aid to be held over our heads. We’re happy about the campaign, it’s great exposure, it’s a good cause but i also wanted to pay homage to a strong Ugandan lady who was one of the pioneers of the fight against Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army; Betty Bigombe.

In 1988, President Yoweri Museveni appointed her “Minister of State for Pacification of Northern Uganda, Resident in Gulu,” a post in which she was tasked with convincing the LRA rebels to give up their struggle.Unable to convince any other government members to go with her, including her own aides, Betty Bigombe set off North to hear the Acholi grievances and find a way to bring hope in a hopeless and hurting land. Her journey took her through mined roads, past destroyed military vehicles and deep into the jungles where abducted child soldiers stood guard in the bushes with Ak-47’s. Fearing she would not return alive, she sent letters to her children and the president expressing her last will that her children be given education and care.Following the failure of military efforts to defeat the rebels, Bigombe initiated contact with rebel leader Joseph Kony in June 1993. This began what would be known as the “Bigombe talks”. Read more of Betty Bigombe’s full inspirational story AND watch Betty’s 2008 PBS interview 

(Source: masembe, via dammitcaleb-deactivated20130328)

jcfitzner:

schwarzegestalt answered your question: things i think about whilst trying to sleep

Personally, I find sort of stereotypical flamboyancy sort of irritating. I think it’s a mark of desperation and insecurity.

Wow. Good job reinforcing my point about heteronormativity. You know what’s a real sign of insecurity? Men who are made uncomfortable by femininity. What’s really irritating is people like you who seem to think that there is only one right way to be male and whose misogyny and femmephobia pop to the surface as soon as they see someone whom the assume to be male, acting or speaking in a manner that goes against their preconceived (and artificial) notions of proper social behaviour.

Your narrow and limiting views are what make you uncomfortable and irritate you. Your problem is yourself, not some femme guy or genderqueer person who is more in touch with their core self than you will likely ever be.

The only thing stereotypical about flamboyancy is your reaction to it. You dislike it because it reminds you that you’ve living in a tiny little fucking box of your own creation, and other people have decided to fuck that noise and live naturally and authentically. You have no understanding whatsoever of the courage it takes to be openly flamboyant and how deeply secure you have to be with yourself. 

Gender essentialism, femmephobia, misogyny, sexism and heteronormativity are ugly, deeply unattractive things. I’m only impressed that you managed to exhibit so much idiocy in so few words. You might want to work on that.

kthxbai

(Source: iconoclasticallyqueer)

"It’s shallow to think you should be sexy forever. To want to be sexy forever. You know there’s a reason that before we found a cure for AIDS or cancer, we got a hair-growing pill and a boner pill. ‘Cancer? We’ll get to it! We’d like to get people hard first. What is the point of keeping them alive if they can’t get rock hard erections?’"

Bill Maher (via cocknbull)

(Source: invisibella, via cocknbull)

ayiman:

knightoftaurus:

fyeahhistorymajorheraldicbeast:

THE VIKINGS MADE IT THERE CENTURIES BEFORE COLUMBUS, YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

The Beast Says: Actually, I think the Native Americans get that honor. By virtue of being, you know, there for, what, 30,000 years before the Vikings showed up? Vikings finding whortleberries ≠ Vikings ~discovering~ a continent. 

HIGH-FIVES TO THE BEAST!

(This date could possibly be longer, as older theories about Native people crossing over to *~*The New World*~* are becoming obsolete and are on their last leg.)

Mainstream archaeology has relied on the “Clovis-First” model in the Americas.  The Clovis culture is about 13500 years old, but while the establishment rigidly supports it, it is slowly being eroded by finds throughout the Americas, and it is a theory that has never been accepted by the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

Of course, the archaeological establishment never asked in the first place, which is typical.

• Bluefish Caves near Old Crow, YT at roughly 25000 - 40000 y.b.p.  
• Monte Verde in Chile at about 14800 y.b.p, predating the Clovis culture by about 1000 years.  This one has serious legs in mainstream archaeology. 
• Topper, in South Carolina, which is at about 18500 years.  Again, predating Clovis by about 3000 years or more.

All of these remain seriously controversial, which is torques me right off.  Some of the arguments against indigenous rights to the land are based upon the idea that the Clovis culture is relatively ‘recent’ compared to others like the Solutreans, and that in adhering to the Land-bridge theory (which is bullshit), mainstream archaeology (and by extension, everyone else) maintains that our ancestors were immigrants themselves.

So like, open season on land and injuns because we don’t apparently belong here either.

and fuck that, really.

(via dammitcaleb-deactivated20130328)

(via locomotives)

cassket:

HUNGRY…

Please Spare a dollar, thanks

or

Please do work one day a week to undo the oppression that cursed me into poverty, put my kind in prison, causes our babies to die, ignores mental instability and blames us for addictions please?

This was taken from an upcoming issue of Geez Magazine that my prof is an editor from. The section is on “Naming our Privilege” and my debate with two class members about racism, stereotypes and privilege is what sparked this to become part of the magazine. My prof said that what I said influenced him to put this in the magazine.

(via pretzlcoatl)

(via dammitcaleb-deactivated20130328)

"

The male-dominated movie studios were initially uncomfortable with her character’s number, Farris says. “I think when the movie was with another studio, before I was attached to it, the studio wanted to lessen the number to 16. They just thought 20 was way too high. And now it feels like 20 is kind of low. But what was driving those questions was, ‘Is this going to put an audience off?’ ”

Maybe. But it’s not the number itself, rather the concept of being obsessed with it that New York women say doesn’t add up. They find it insulting that the idea that real adult ladies like the one Faris portrays in the movie still worry about such a notion.

Numbers-nervosa is “unrealistic and antiquated,” says Jessica Valenti, author of The Purity Myth. When asked if she could envision a movie being made about a guy, she says, “I could see a movie about being the exact opposite, like about a guy thinking he hasn’t slept with enough women, or needing to sleep with a certain amount by a certain time.”

Sheila McClear, on What’s Your Number? in the New York Post (via rkb)

(via cocknbull)