“They tap my phones,
They read my mail,
They say they’ll throw me straight in jail
Should I fail
To pay my student loans.”

— Mary Prankster

(Source: thinksquad)

It’s a class, white and hetero-normative privilege to imply that all women survivors of rape and, by extension, intimate partner violence will be supported after they stop said terror by shooting a gun. Just ask Marissa Alexander. When you and yours are automatically criminalized; when police are doing arbitrary stop-and-frisks in your neighborhood to pad their numbers; when you’ve been routinely stereotyped as, say, a Jezebel, or a welfare queen, or a ratchet princess, or a hoodrat, or an overheated Latina, or a “mannish” aggressive, chances are your gunfire won’t be perceived as defensive. The same goes for girls and women who are assaulted when drunk or high. And, as Maxwell pointed out, most women are raped by people they know. They could have a gun but hesitate to shoot their roommate’s friend, or their ex-coworker after his going away party, or their second cousin, or the person they’ve been dating for four months.
Sunday’s verdict in the horrific Steubenville, OH, rape case drove home this kind of complexity.

Let’s not forget, he turned down the reward money and said it should go to the victims instead.

(Source: bassquiat)

africanfashion:

For those of you who criticize Janelle’s signature monochromatic look. From her speech on “Black Girls Rock”:

“When I started my music career, I was a maid. I used to clean houses. My mother was a proud janitor. My stepfather, who raised me like his very own, worked at the post office and my father was a trashman. They all wore uniforms and that’s why I stand here today, in my black and white, and I wear my uniform to honor them.

This is a reminder that I have work to do. I have people to uplift. I have people to inspire. And today, I wear my uniform proudly as a Cover Girl. I want to be clear, young girls, I didn’t have to change who I was to become a Cover Girl. I didn’t have to become perfect because I’ve learned throughout my journey that perfection is the enemy of greatness.

Embrace what makes you unique, even if it makes others uncomfortable.” - Janelle Monáe

thepeoplesrecord:

The troubling viral trend of the “hilarious” Black poor person
May 7, 2013

Charles Ramsey, the man who helped rescue three Cleveland women presumed dead after going missing a decade ago, has become an instant Internet meme. It’s hardly surprising—the interviews he gave yesterday provide plenty of fodder for a viral video, including memorable soundbites (“I was eatin’ my McDonald’s”) and lots of enthusiastic gestures. But as Miles Klee and Connor Simpson have noted, Ramsey’s heroism is quickly being overshadowed by the public’s desire to laugh at and autotune his story, and that’s a shame. Ramsey has become the latest in a fairly recent trend of “hilarious” black neighbors, unwitting Internet celebrities whose appeal seems rooted in a “colorful” style that is always immediately recognizable as poor or working-class.

Before Ramsey, there was Antoine Dodson, who saved his younger sister from an intruder, only to wind up famous for his flamboyant recounting of the story to a reporter. Since Dodson’s rise to fame, there have been others: Sweet Brown, a woman who barely escaped her apartment complex during a fire last year, and Michelle Clarke, who couldn’t fathom the hailstorm that rained down in her hometown of Houston, and in turn became “the next Sweet Brown.”

Granted, the buzzworthy tactic of reporters interviewing the most loquacious witnesses to a crime or other event is nothing new, and YouTube has countless examples of people of all ethnicities saying ridiculous things. One woman, for instance, saw fit to casually mention her breasts while discussing a local accident, while another man described a car crash with theatrical flair. Earlier this year, a “hatchet-wielding hitchhiker” named Kai matched Dodson’s fame with his astonishing account of rescuing a woman from a racist attacker. But none of those people have been subjected to quite the same level of derisive memeification as Brown, Clark, and now, perhaps, Ramsey—the inescapable echoes of “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife!” and “Kabooyaw,” the tens of millions of YouTube hits and cameos in other viral videos, even commercials.

It’s difficult to watch these videos and not sense that their popularity has something to do with a persistent, if unconscious, desire to see black people perform. Even before the genuinely heroic Ramsey came along, some viewers had expressed concern that the laughter directed at people like Sweet Brown plays into the most basic stereotyping of blacks as simple-minded ramblers living in the “ghetto,” socially out of step with the rest of educated America. Black or white, seeing Clark and Dodson merely as funny instances of random poor people talking nonsense is disrespectful at best. And shushing away the question of race seems like wishful thinking.

Ramsey is particularly striking in this regard, since, for a moment at least, he put the issue of race front and center himself. Describing the rescue of Amanda Berry and her fellow captives, he says, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”

The candid statement seems to catch the reporter off guard; he ends the interview shortly afterward. And it’s notable that among the many memorable things Ramsey said on camera, this one has gotten less meme-attention than most. Those who are simply having fun with the footage of Ramsey might pause for a second to actually listen to the man. He clearly knows a thing or two about the way racism prevents us from seeing each other as people.

Source

Now that you know this is a thing, please stop sharing these memes. Poor Black people speaking candidly about various serious incidents isn’t a hilarious joke.

fauxmosexualtranstrender:

fuckyeahfeminists:

rhrealitycheck:

Cost Of Birth Control Higher In Some Low-Income Neighborhoods Than In Wealthy Ones

Researchers focused on the price of seven commonly-used contraceptives — including various forms of the pill as well as transvaginal options like the ring. They cross-referenced the price information across various counties with median household incomes from the 2010 census.

Nearly every prescription contraceptive was more expensive in low-income zip codes, the researchers found.

In most cases, price differed by just a few dollars. For two of the contraceptives, the cost was significantly less in the wealthiest zip codes.

Researchers said they don’t know the reason for the price discrepancies. Certain neighborhoods may not have a large, chain pharmacy that offers lower prices and runs specials, Zite speculated.

“There is other research that has shown that a lot of needs for health, like fruits and vegetables, are more expensive in lower-income neighborhoods,” Zite added.

uh oh is this going to start another fight that healthy food isn’t actually expensive and poor people just dont try hard enough to eat well because “duh my family eats sooo many veggies with little money, so everyone is able to do it!”

wut? people are systemically kept in poverty?!

but but american dream and upward mobility and and…. bootstraps! 

Hey, fiscal conservatives. You really want to be fiscal conservatives? Stop more unplanned people from happening if you’re truly concerned about “more people sucking on the government teat!”

(Source: The Huffington Post)

vochoice:

Rep. Moore Tells Anti-Choice GOP Where to Shove Black Genocide Lie

In 2011, Rep. Gwen Moore breaks down the reality of having black babies, and the falsity of the “black genocide” lie. Let’s just use it as a reminder.

Fuck those shitbricks and their disrespect, talking when she’s speaking. She still slammed her point home on their racist, sexist, classist asses anyway.

furose:

sulitati:

to-get-to-terrapin:

niggaimdeadass:

gatsbysfuneral:

sulitati:

La Cosecha / The Harvest (2011)

“Every year there are more than 400,000 American children who are torn away from their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat.  Zulema, Perla and Victor labor as migrant farm workers, sacrificing their own childhoods to help their families survive.  The Harvest / La Cosecha profiles these three as they journey from the scorching heat of Texas’ onion fields to the winter snows of the Michigan apple orchards and back south to the humidity of Florida’s tomato fields to follow the harvest and provides an intimate glimpse into the lives of these children who struggle to dream while working 12 – 14 hours a day, 7 days a week to feed America.”

just goes to show you that not consuming animals does not mean you are supporting a system that is cruelty free 

^^^^^^^

THANK YOU 

SHIT

LOL other than the fact that humans can CHOOSE this lifestyle and aren’t SLAUGHTERED in the process unlike an animal, idiots.

Nobody in my family chose this, you privileged little girl.

One average, one farm worker dies per day because of the heat. Many are beaten because they dare to stop to drink water. Do you know how many construction workers die every day? How many men that work in food processing? I bet you didn’t hear about the man that was cooked alive in a pressure cooker. We are slaughtered, just not with a knife. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you? They probably don’t teach you that in your classrooms.

Do not insult my family for being forced to work in these conditions because we did what we had to do to feed our families. 

BOOM GOES THE FUCKING DYNAMITE ^^^

And who the fuck would use “LOL” when talking about slaughter, of animals or human beings?

hannahology:

iamkissedbyfire:

ponyfiasco:

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU

Economic conservatism is inherently classist, geared towards the benefit of the ruling class, which is always predominantly white, male, cis, straight and able bodied?

the problem with people claiming that they’re “economically conservative” is that they’ve probably never taken an economics class and have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. economics offers tons of (proposed, theoretical) solutions to a lot of problems that “conservatives” constantly bitch about but they’re not willing to listen. economists make bad politicians because “economic conservatives” do not care about economics, they care about cutting “entitlements” and spending money on shit that they want to. they care about their ideology of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” while most economists acknowledge that poverty traps are a thing that exist and that our current system is awful to people on welfare and that the system is not really designed to help them that much.

I had this exact conversation with a friend last night.  I tried to explain that fiscal issues affect social issues and vice versa.  It’s another form of cognitive dissonance to believe that these things are completely exclusive.

By being fiscally conservative, you’re not actually being socially liberal (no matter how much you say you are) if you’re supporting an institutionalized form of oppression that hurts people of color, women, students, the lgbtq community, and those who aren’t able-bodied (as well as several other groups crushed beneath conservative “economics.”)

Hey you. Get back up there and read that. And show it to the next white dude-bro you see raving on about Ron Paul.

(Source: drugdoer)

sinidentidades:

People starving when tons of unsold food is thrown away globally because people couldn’t afford to purchase the food, that’s violence. 

People dying and going bankrupt to pay for their healthcare, that’s violence. 

People being evicted from their homes when there are more houses than there are houseless people, that’s violence.