coinoperatedgrrrl-blog

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

This is a true fact.  Although, honestly, I always get frustrated by people who refuse to use (or challenge/disagree with the idea of using) "they/them" when someone explicitly prefers those particular pronouns because, according to these self-proclaimed grammar police, that individual's choice of pronouns are "not grammatically correct," and therefore invalid. Grammatically correct? Why does it really, truly matter whether or not someone's preferred pronouns are grammatically correct? If using they/them pronouns helps ANYONE to feel safe and respected and listened to and not silenced, then I say (please excuse the profanity but it seems too fitting to not say): Fuck the grammar police. Respect the individual.  In short: respecting a person's identity is at least a million times more important than following supposed grammar rules.  #rantoftheday #trans #pronouns #genderneutralpronouns #grammarpolice#respectthepersonnotthesystem 

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

ATTENTION

THE WHITEHOUSE.GOV PETITION TO LEGALLY RECOGNISE NON-BINARY GENDERS IS ENDING ON MARCH 21ST, 2014 THIS SATURDAY.  I DONT CARE IF YOURE NOT NON-BINARY, I DONT CARE IF YOU DONT HAVE AN ACCOUNT, IT IS UNBELIEVIBLY EASY TO MAKE ONE.

MAKE AN ACCOUNT.

SIGN THE PETITION.

WE HAVE TWO DAYS.

TWO DAYS TO GET 58,000 SIGNATURES.

PLEASE REBLOG THIS POST, EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SIGNED IT.  WE NEED TO GET THE WORD OUT.

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

This is a resource post for all the Good White Person™s out there. You know, the ones who say things like “It’s not my fault I’m white! Don’t generalize white people!”, or “I’m appreciating your culture! You should be proud!”, or “Why do you hate all white people, look I’m a special snowflake who’s not racist give me an award for meeting the minimum requirements for being a decent human being”. Well, if you are actually interested in understanding racism and how it ties into cultural appropriation, please read instead of endlessly badgering PoCs on tumblr with your cliched, unoriginal arguments and repeating the same questions over and over.

On White Privilege aka don’t blame me just because I’m white:

It’s Not My Fault I Was Born White: Basics of White Privilege x

Racial Divide x

Endless Examples of White Privilege x

You Cannot Know What It’s Like To Be A Racial Minority x

Intersectional Feminism x

White Privilege Does Not Mean White People Have Perfect Lives x

White Privilege and White Supremacy: A Presentation x

You Will Never Experience Racism x

Understanding White Privilege x

White Privilege and Double Standards x

Systematic White Ignorance x

The Invisibility of White Privilege x

The Luxury of White Privilege x

White Privilege: The Harry Potter Analogy x

Privilege Denial Bingo x

Privilege and Cost x

Check Your Privilege 101 x

Whiteness x

Whiteness is Not A Culture x

White Privilege and Racism x

Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk About Race x

When White Anti Racists Talk About ~Their Struggle~ x

White Privilege As A System x

On Reverse Racism aka you are being racist against white people:

Are White People Racially Oppressed x

White People, the new Racial Minority x

People Don’t Value Pale Skin!! x

There Is No Such Thing As Reverse Racism x

Racism vs. Not Racism x

But White People Are Discriminated Against In Foreign Countries x

The Myth of Reverse Racism: Why Cracker is Not N**** x

Satire: A Step Wise Guide on Being Reverse Racist x

Racism Against White People vs. Racism Against POCs x

On Cultural Appropriation aka I’m just appreciating your culture:

The Basics x

Identifying Appropriation x

But When We Wear It … x

Why Can’t I Wear It (Hipster Headdresses) x

Not Yours x

If You Take The Bindi x

White People Do It Better x

Multiculturalism and Appropriation x

Cultural Appropriation and Portrayals In Print Media x

Diminishing the Cultural Significance of the Bindi x

The Cultural Appropriation Bingo x

Why We’re Fed Up of Your Responses x

Identities Are Not Costumes x

Hinduism And Appropriation x

Religion and Privilege x

Bindis Are Cool x

Exotic India x

What’s Wrong With Cultural Appropriation x

Racism, Bindis and Ganesh Tattoos x

BUT YOU’RE SPEAKING ENGLISH! x

Cultural Appropriation Trolls x

Guide to Being An Appropriating Douchefuck x

New Age ~Culture Mixing~ x

In case you’re tired of the prose, here’s poetry x

Why You Shouldn’t Wear A Bindi x

Appropriating and Sharing x

Our Culture is A Punchline Until It’s a Trend x

Homage Or Insult x

Tattoos and Appropriation x

Bollywood is Not Synonymous With Indian x

College Party Costumes and Stereotypes x

Dotheads x

Bindis and Racist Humour x

Hindu Iconography x 

Misuse of Hindu Iconography x

Your Appreciation Doesn’t Help Us x

Assorted Vials of White Tears and Miscellaneous Antidotes aka I can’t change that I’m white/not all whites are racist/we are all humans:

Unoriginal Arguments Refuted x

Quick Checklist: You Might Be Racist If x

Your Opinion Isn’t Necessary x

I’m Not Responsible For My Ancestors x

The Kumbayah Myth x

Proud to Be White x

Good White Person x

We Don’t Hate White People x

Brutality of Colonialism And Why You Can’t Tell Us To Forget the Past x

People Who Claim Not To See Race Are More Likely to Be Racist x

All Races are Beautiful Said the White Girl x 

Race Blindness Is A Luxury x

Well, You’re Racist For Calling Me Racist x

I’ve Read About Its Significance, I Know What It Means

Angry Because Someone Called You Racist x

We’re Not All Like That x

People Only Care About This Trivial Shit On The Internet x

I Can’t Apologize for Being Born White, It’s Not My Fault x

Why Can’t You Tell Me What I’m Doing Wrong x

It’s Easy to Be Color Blind When You’re White x

A Diagrammatic Guide To White Tears x

Conversations I’m Sick Of Having With White People x

Why Do You Hate White People x

I’m Trying To Be Cultured x

Sisyphean Conundrum x

What is Your Problem x

We Are All Human, We All Bleed Red x

It’s Just A Bindi x

How Not To Respond To Accusations of Racism x

I’m Italian And 0.009% Native American x

What White People Think Racism Means: A Venn Diagram x

White Guilt x

White Pride!!!111!!! x

I Like *Insert Foreign Country* I Want To Live There x

You Have So Much Hate, Fighting Fire With Fire Won’t Help x

BooHoo, Don’t Call Me Racist x

Not Everything Ended With Your Ancestors x

The Racist Reaction x

I Don’t See Why That Is Racist x

Crummy Apologies x

Okay. I agree. I’ve been socially conditioned not to notice racism and recognize my privilege. What can I do?

Listen x

A Step Wise Guide x

I don’t care about this bullshit; you’re making a big deal out of nothing, go home and delete your blog:

The Clueless White Person Bus x

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

Inspiration of the night...

To forgive oneself for being human, and to love and celebrate one's own humanness, is a terrific and terrifying feat. It means, to begin, admitting to imperfection and all that being imperfect entails: making mistakes, hurting others, letting oneself and others down, failing miserably... And, also, being imperfect means learning to honor our imperfections, cherish the opportunities and lessons that these mistakes and failures provide to us, and embrace the emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical growth that imperfection allows us to discover and nurture.

The moral of the story? We are all imperfect, each and every one of us, and we all make mistakes and hurt people that we love. The fact is that just because we make mistakes and hurt others and cause pain or offense or insecurity in others, does not mean that we are bad, wrong, terrible people. Just because you do something wrong does not make you a wrong person. Learn from the wrong thing, learn the lesson that you did not know, and move forward. Failure does not mean just making a mistake; failure is making a mistake and never moving on or learning/gaining/growing anything from that experience.

Appreciate your mistakes, for they are really the only way we can learn to grow and evolve as individuals, as communities, and as humankind. 

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

1. Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

2. Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human...

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

The average length of a hug between two people is 3 seconds. But researchers have discovered something fantastic. When a hug lasts 20 seconds, there is a therapeutic effect on the body and mind. The reason is that a sincere hug produces a hormone called “oxytocin”, also known as the love hormone. This substance has many benefits in our physical and mental health, helps us, among other things, to relax, to feel safe and calm our fears and anxiety. This wonderful calming is offered free of charge every time we have a person in our arms, who cradled a child, we cherish a dog or cat, we’re dancing with our partner, the closer we get to someone or just hold the shoulders of a friend. (via facebook)

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

Hi. I’m someone who’s day to day life is greatly affected by the ebb and flow of the healthcare industry. Without a prescription drug and regular treatment my health fails and I fall apart. So I think it’s important that you tell me why health care reform isn’t important. While I think The...

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

By Deepti Rao

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

can we stop referring to all sex that could possibly result in pregnancy as “heterosexual reproduction” now

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

I am sexist. I don’t want to be sexist, but I am, and in my thoughts, assumptions, preferences, and behaviors I contribute to the oppression of women and femininity in small ways every single day. Why? Because our culture and our world is sexist. Because oppressive beliefs are everywhere, stated as fact, used to sell products and ideas, and woven into the very fabric of our society, and despite my attempts to question and resist them, I can’t escape them. I am also racist, homophobic, ableist, sizeist, ageist, trans*phobic, classist, and more (no, the fact that I am female and queer does not make me immune to sexism and homophobia—oppressing ourselves is a part of being oppressed). I don’t want to be any of those things, which is why I am actively working to educate myself, to become conscious of my bad behaviors, and to unlearn my problematic beliefs. But because I have, willingly or not, internalized the oppressive messages that run rampant in this society, I am all of those things.*

Rachel Stark (x)

Choosing against what society feeds us in order to make our own opinions.

(via sadiemagazine)

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

tattoos come into my life a lot, but this one broke my heart open.

neil and i both see a lot of tattoos of our words and works on people’s skin, and we have lots of weird tattoo anecdotes. last night I signed the inside of a girls thigh at the littlefield show and recommended that she walk home bowlegged because seriously that shit will sweat right the fuck off on a hot New York night. neil proudly tells the tale of the time someone got his signature on their arm in a signing line and then returned to the same signing line three hours later with saran wrap covering the freshly inked proof.

some people get my face tattooed on them. that always feels surreally challenging, to look at my own visage staring back at me from somebody else’s arm or back, like knowing I have sister-spy-selves all over the world, hiding under hoodies in the deep winter.

if you hadn’t noticed, i’ve been battling a kind of depression for the last few months. circumstances make it pretty understandable, i’m facing some crushing personal and business problems and feeling lonely and at loose ends in pretty much every department. the last time i was this low i was in college - unable to get out of bed and skipping classes. it wasn’t until i escaped the setting that things turned around. maybe tour will help. it never does.

anyway, i’m not so fucking depressed that i couldn’t write a song, which was the saving grace of last week, and having the house party in nashville actually directly kicked my ass to finish what i’d started, which was a massive blessing because i have a bad habit of finishing songs 59% and then leaving them for years unless i have an active instant-gratification motivator (usually a show, and even better if its a show for 50 people in a house, where i feel safe to fuck it up).

so as i was writing and wandering from the verse into the first chorus, the words “i am bigger on the inside” spilled out and i thought…i can’t fucking use this. can i?

it had ricocheted from doctor who into my incredibly dark mood, and i felt conflicted…on the one side my little sobbing song and on the other side, hoards of people in tardis t-shirts. fuck it. yes.

and i used the lyric.

i played it, two hours after finishing it, for a teeny room of 15 people at the nashville house party and cried through most of the second and third verse.

a few days later i flew to milwaukee to play for pride festival. i was having a rough night. the darkness was getting the better of me. against all better judgment (it was an outdoor festival celebration of YAY) i stuck the song towards the end of my set - a quiet, 8-minute introspective and repetitive ukulele song that I couldn’t play through without my throat getting stuck because it was just too fucking sad.

the crowd had never heard the song, because it didn’t exist anywhere. i cried through verse two and three again and it was fine except that I went straight into the ukulele anthem afterwards and had a giant shiny glean of weeping-snot on my upper lip for the whole song. whatever. yes.

after the show i signed for a few hundred people. a boy asked me to write the chorus lyrics on his chest. the next day, he sent me this picture. he’d had them tattooed.

beat that, neil gaiman, i said, as i showed him the tweet, collapsing into a pile of useless blubbering on the floor of my mind.

but actually…there is no competition.

and this is what i see and understand about him, about me, about you, about doctor who, about coincidence, about the millions of ingredients and chances that lead us to this moment right here where we are facing each other (maybe through a screen, maybe not).

we are all connected - there is no way out, nor should there be.

say yes.

love amanda

p.s. the body & the tattoo belong to gavin michael batker, @shizaminnelli on twitter.

p.p.s. i hope to record the song soon. stay with me.

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

tattoos come into my life a lot, but this one broke my heart open.

neil and i both see a lot of tattoos of our words and works on people’s skin, and we have lots of weird tattoo anecdotes. last night I signed the inside of a girls thigh at the littlefield show and recommended that she walk home bowlegged because seriously that shit will sweat right the fuck off on a hot New York night. neil proudly tells the tale of the time someone got his signature on their arm in a signing line and then returned to the same signing line three hours later with saran wrap covering the freshly inked proof.

some people get my face tattooed on them. that always feels surreally challenging, to look at my own visage staring back at me from somebody else’s arm or back, like knowing I have sister-spy-selves all over the world, hiding under hoodies in the deep winter.

if you hadn’t noticed, i’ve been battling a kind of depression for the last few months. circumstances make it pretty understandable, i’m facing some crushing personal and business problems and feeling lonely and at loose ends in pretty much every department. the last time i was this low i was in college - unable to get out of bed and skipping classes. it wasn’t until i escaped the setting that things turned around. maybe tour will help. it never does.

anyway, i’m not so fucking depressed that i couldn’t write a song, which was the saving grace of last week, and having the house party in nashville actually directly kicked my ass to finish what i’d started, which was a massive blessing because i have a bad habit of finishing songs 59% and then leaving them for years unless i have an active instant-gratification motivator (usually a show, and even better if its a show for 50 people in a house, where i feel safe to fuck it up).

so as i was writing and wandering from the verse into the first chorus, the words “i am bigger on the inside” spilled out and i thought…i can’t fucking use this. can i?

it had ricocheted from doctor who into my incredibly dark mood, and i felt conflicted…on the one side my little sobbing song and on the other side, hoards of people in tardis t-shirts. fuck it. yes.

and i used the lyric.

i played it, two hours after finishing it, for a teeny room of 15 people at the nashville house party and cried through most of the second and third verse.

a few days later i flew to milwaukee to play for pride festival. i was having a rough night. the darkness was getting the better of me. against all better judgment (it was an outdoor festival celebration of YAY) i stuck the song towards the end of my set - a quiet, 8-minute introspective and repetitive ukulele song that I couldn’t play through without my throat getting stuck because it was just too fucking sad.

the crowd had never heard the song, because it didn’t exist anywhere. i cried through verse two and three again and it was fine except that I went straight into the ukulele anthem afterwards and had a giant shiny glean of weeping-snot on my upper lip for the whole song. whatever. yes.

after the show i signed for a few hundred people. a boy asked me to write the chorus lyrics on his chest. the next day, he sent me this picture. he’d had them tattooed.

beat that, neil gaiman, i said, as i showed him the tweet, collapsing into a pile of useless blubbering on the floor of my mind.

but actually…there is no competition.

and this is what i see and understand about him, about me, about you, about doctor who, about coincidence, about the millions of ingredients and chances that lead us to this moment right here where we are facing each other (maybe through a screen, maybe not).

we are all connected - there is no way out, nor should there be.

say yes.

love amanda

p.s. the body & the tattoo belong to gavin michael batker, @shizaminnelli on twitter.

p.p.s. i hope to record the song soon. stay with me.

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

The flowers on my porch say, "Good morning, World!"

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

Started the morning with a group of 3rd graders at the Art Center for a theater production. They’re new to the space and to me. The following conversation about gender ensued: Kiyani: Umm Miss, these boys are saying mean things about you. Me: Oh yeah, what are they saying? Kiyani: They’re saying that you’re a boy. Me (to the group of girls that have now surrounded us): Do you think I’m a boy? I took off my fitted and smiled at them. They paused. Kiyani: No, you’re a girl. Other girls: Yes, you’re a girl. No you’re a boy. Me: Well it’s ok to not know and it’s ok to ask questions. I’m a girl. These are just the types of clothes I like to wear. My name is Gabby. Kiyani: Hi, Miss Gabby. I’m Kiyani and I think those boys are just jealous cuz you’re clothes are mad nice. Um, J, I told you she was a girl. J (little boy in similar clothing to me turns around): No you’re a boy. You look like Justin Bieber. You’re a boy. Me: Thanks but hey, I’m a girl. Maybe some other people dressed like me might be boys or might not want to be a boy or a girl but thanks for saying I look like Justin Bieber. J: You’re welcome. Kiyani: See you can be whatever you want, J. Me: Even Justin Bieber. Done. Gender 101 to 3rd graders. It was an intense way to start the morning but was a fun and interesting conversation to have with kids. Especially since it was one they started and not something contrived to get them talking about gender. It’s weird for me because I don’t choose my clothes by what makes me look more male. I wear what I think looks good and makes me feel confident. Little kids say what they think and I respect that. More people should. Happy Friday. Who knew the Biebs would be such a crucial aspect of discussing gender presentation and identity?

(via quirkyrican)

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

reminder:

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

saying you’re an “old-fashioned guy” doesn’t excuse the fact that you’re being a sexist asshole

[coinoperatedgrrrl-blog]

Feminism by Cody Alice Creates on Flickr.