#dismantling racism from the inside

[decolonize-the-everything]

Tumblr socio-political observation time

Identifying with fandoms and movements and brands to validate yourself has led to a society where your interests define you and your character instead of your character defining you and your interests and I think as a whole that's why performative activism is so rampant

(and likewise it's probably why people are so protective of the things that bring them a sense of self and why it's so important those things remain politically neutral and separate from politics but that's another post)

I dont necessarily think it's a Bad as in something that makes you evil but it is bad in that we now have a lot of people doing things in good faith that some are doing in bad faith and all these people are being painted the same because as a whole we arent critically engaging with ideas anymore

As a millennial I know am very much responsible for creating that climate. I think a lot of us grew up thinking that we could shame people into being "good" the same way that we were shamed growing up anytime we had an opinion that differed from our bigoted genx & boomer parents.

It manifested in a lot of ways but one of the prominent examples that most of us will remember is doxxing. Now I want to be clear that I never did this myself but doxxing, call out posts, block lists, etc were everywhere from I wanna say about 2007 to 2017 when I'd say it's status as a common social behavior started to be frowned upon and ineffective.

We were trying to hold people accountable with those actions.

I think that very much backfired. Bigots just got better at hiding and they learned to co-opt our language and mental health terms to gaslight us when we did call them out until those words became meaningless to use. It's simple to not appear bigoted now. Just don't share anything from known bigoted brands or companies and don't follow anyone problematic. Easy.

Cuz those define you and your character, right? Isn't that why y'all still put "supports x" as reasons for your own call-out posts? That's what validates or voids your good person card. At least, thats what everyone made it seem like a decade ago.

The millennial failure was how superficial it all was. We weren't dismantling anything. We were shaming support of x, y, & z as a way of shaming bigots and racist comments and calling them out, but we weren't actually learning to recognize or dismantle racism itself and that's how 10+ years later most of us are watching our kids deal with the same shit we did except now they're also struggling with critical thinking skills inside and outside the classroom.

I think a lot of millennials mixed up righteous anger with doing what's right. Thinking that because we were angry about bigotry and taking it out on bigots that meant we couldn't be bigots. I mean everyone is a little bigoted but not like Bigots™ are bigots, you know?

And then we refused to put ourselves under that microscope or think about that any further. We stopped thinking about a lot of things, I think. We started accepting that we would be told what was okay to believe in or say and I think a LOT of millennials esp white millenials still wait for someone else, especially a Black person to speak on something so they can see the "right" side they're supposed to take.

Someone please learn something from this. This is still very much racist and avoiding the issue is still very much enabling white supremacy.

It will only go away if it's directly addressed.

•••

So I'd like to submit a formal request to bring back one good thing from back then. White responsibility for white supremacy.

Some of us may remember some posts that said if anyone should be responsible for engaging with white supremacists and helping them break down their beliefs it'd be white ppl ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that its dangerous work for anyone else to do (for obvious reasons) and besides that white supremacists won't listen to anyone else. And allies did.

Bring that back.

The defensive white retaliation to this idea is seen on any mutual aid post in comments like "fuck your emotional labor, I don't owe you anything" or "idgaf if youre black/disabled/gay/whatever I don't owe you shit." So for the people getting ready to type something similar in my notes: This is a white supremacist defense mechanism that reinforces BIPOC isolation through individualism without seeming malicious on the surface. We all owe each other something tho; it's how a community operates and how humanity has survived for so long. Don't fall for this line of thinking and don't bring that nonsense to me.

White supremacy won't go away on its own and white supremacists sure as hell won't go away by letting them fester behind block lists until they're old enough to run for senator so if you can handle this task then respectfully, do it.

"but white supremacists are a waste of time to talk to" yeah for those of us who they'd rather see dead.

The labor and time it takes to make a white supremacist see you as a human who says words worth listening to so that you can then have a good faith conversation about politics is not WORTH the effort and risk to safety for the people who they hate. Especially not if we're doing it and getting death threats 9x out of 10 or they just wanted us to waste our time and exhaust us out of being effective

So if you are not included in the list of people that white supremacists want dead then it is worth your time and in fact is arguably one of the most productive ways to spend your time.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[justforbooks]

White supremacists, Incels, White nationalists, National Socialists, Proud Boys, Christian extremists… In order to showcase their behaviour in their natural habitat, Talia Lavin goes undercover online as a blonde Nazi babe, a forlorn incel and a violent Aryan femme fatale.

Lavin is every fascist's worst nightmare. She is loud, Jewish and unapologetically anti-racist, with the investigative skills to expose online hatemongers. While searching the dark web, she discovers a whites-only dating site, a popular extremist YouTube channel run by a teenager, the everyday heroes of the anti-fascist movement and much more. Lavin then turns the lens of anti-Semitism, racism, and white supremacy back on itself in an attempt to dismantle the online hate movement from the inside.

Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the Web - and shows us how we can fight back.

Perfect for fans of Louis Theroux, Jon Ronson and Michael Moore, Lavin's debut book is a seamless balance of hard-hitting research, humour and shocking stories. It is a fascinating expose of the dark web and how it harbours the rage and views of far-right extremists today.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[kick-a-long]

Forgot to explain antisemitism to my husband for the hours and months and years required for an interfaith relationship before marriage,

But he believes me unconditionally. I’m lucky I picked a good one. We even talked honestly about where we would run to (and what would happen to his law license) which he usually laughs off. The difference this time? He works at a very leftist ngo and has seen the statements his colleagues have been making.

Not all Jewish/goy unions are like this. I’m very very relieved that I got lucky.

For example:

Alice Walker, deeply and unapologetically antisemitic, was not always that way. her first marriage was to a Jewish man who worked in tandem with black organizations to legally dismantle black discrimination in the south. His family hated her for not being Jewish and for being black. They were awful. But their marriage ended many years later when she became very conspicuously antisemitic and refused to listen about its history.

My own mother converted to Judaism and was FAR more observant than my Jewish father but later in life became what I would generously call “Jewish hostile” when their marriage began breaking down.

I always knew there was a possibility of me becoming more Jewish or marriage related friction causing that same kind of situation. But we’ve been married 5 years and together 13. He has spent his time, body and soul helping poor renters protect themselves from being evicted. He doesn’t have illusions about the poor being “innocent victims” or even expecting his clients to be “worthy of help.” Some of them have threatened to kill him, one spent everyday spending hours yelling at him and then got her mother to call to do the same. He doesn’t need “good” clients to help him. I know that he’s a believer that all people are capable of switching between monsters and humans but that doesn’t diminish his work to help the vulnerable. In some ways he has a more Jewish perspective on humanity than I did.

If you’re Jewish and losing friends because they were easily converted into conspiracies and antisemitism try to keep your partner in the loop without letting your anger and suspicion get between you.

If your partner is Jewish and you aren’t, remember there is no Jewish history about finding lasting safety. Believing that you (Jewish) must be kind and respectful of others culture and defending peoples rights and also that at any given moment you (Jewish to any 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, degree) will have to drop everything and RUN because the people you helped, the people you loved, want you dead, are the twin beings inside almost every Jew.

One of the reasons why you don’t see a lot of Jews attacking the character of “good” anti Zionist Jews, is we all get it. They think they can bargain their way out of antisemitism. Just like house slaves that thought they could escape being a “real” slave by fully buying into racism (and maybe getting off on the power of being the slaves elevated by slave owners for hating blackness.)

It’s a lot to ask of any person to “get” the cultural history let alone the cultural trauma they partnered into. Forgive, forget, but don’t be shocked if either of you sounds a little nuts sometimes. I sometimes go full doomsday prepper on him. And he lets peoples shitty behavior slide when I would go full flaming sword. It’s important to remember the daily reality.

Politics is NEVER as important as deep love between two people. It’s essential to remember that and remind loved ones you want to keep of that. Politics is theory and your life together is reality.

I used to like the idea of relationships as romantic and dreamy, now I thank god it’s reality. It’s hard as a rock and just as flexible sometimes. That has its cons but I’ll take every single one for the pros.

Ride or die for each other is what it means. Be ride or die and expect nothing less from any partners in your life. Ask them for it but only if you can truthfully tell them they have it from you. You can’t be the singular unique person that anyone loves if you are only your identity and vise versa.

[duckiemimi]

there's this tweet about jjk opinions and i came across this one. i badly want to know your take on this, only if you're comfortable to do so!

"gojo definitely wants to change the system and cares about the youth but he is still serving the system and some of his methods and part of his mindset regarding the students end up unintentionally perpetuating and catering to the traditional jujutsu society"

hi!! thank you for asking me this!!

there’s a quote by Audre Lorde that describes this perfectly:

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

perhaps using a statement on racism and homophobia to point out characterization is a little dramatic, but since jjk (and media in general) is essentially commentary about the actual society we live in, i thought it was fitting.

i’ve talked about what i presume geto’s motivations are before, that staying would mean being complicit in a system that preys on the very thing it needs to sustain itself. i think the way he saw it at the time was that the foundation of a long-standing institution cannot be uprooted from the inside, especially with the same methods used to build it.

but unlike the institutions that chain us in the real world, organized jujutsu is needed. perhaps not as it is now, but its base functionality as a shield against uncompromising non-human creatures is crucial to the survival of the human race as a whole—as in, without distinction between sorcerers and non-sorcerers. so as long as humans, non-sorcerers, exist, emotions that contribute to the creation of cursed spirits will exist, too.

i think the problem with gojo’s mindset stems from his isolation from community, and how it narrows his parameters on what can be done. as he was before, he couldn’t fathom bringing about change beyond what he experienced throughout his life at the time (a limited point of view). he lived his entire life as a tool for the very system he was trying to change. he wasn’t just inside the system, he was embedded into it since birth, a baby-shaped building block.

as hungry as he was for change, if he continued to see through his vision without looking through anybody else’s eyes besides the six he owns, then he would’ve ended up running in a tail-eating circle, perpetually wearing himself out for virtually nothing. in a sense, he’s similar to geto this way. they were both adamant about their own views without truly consulting the community they were apart of. with great power comes great arrogance, conscious or not.

but i’d argue that gojo has changed, is still changing, and will continue to change in the future. while i’ll need more than just an epic battle between him and sukuna, i’d say that without the skeleton of the system now (the head of the beast cut off, overthrown), he’d see more ways to create a better one from scratch, no blindfold on. and especially now that he’s with his allies—interdependence and connection are very important lessons in his character arc.

now imagine a system created by collaboration! a system made by sorcerers for sorcerers, and maybe in the far future, one made by sorcerers and non-sorcerers for sorcerers and non-sorcerers!

[contemplatingoutlander]

The Overton Window: How Trump and the MAGA movement normalized autocratic, theocratic, and neofascist ideas 

According to Vox: 

There’s a concept in political theory developed by Joseph P. Overton which suggests that there’s a “window” of acceptable ideas and policy proposals in public discourse. Everything inside the window is normal and expected, while everything outside the window is radical, ridiculous, or unthinkable. And Overton argued that the easiest way to move that window was to force people to consider ideas at the extremes, as far away from the window as possible. Because forcing people to consider an unthinkable idea, even if they rejected it, would make all less extreme ideas seem acceptable by comparison -- it would move the “window” slowly in that direction. [emphasis added]

I thought I would share this old video from Dec. 2017 that looks at how Trump’s first year in office moved the Overton Window much farther to the right than it had before Trump became president. 

The video is well worth watching, because in retrospect, it was prescient of the huge right-wing shift in today’s political discourse and policies in which:

Election deniers came very close to becoming secretaries of state and governors in swing states.

Red states have passed numerous bills that prevent the discussion of racism, sexism, and LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and numerous red states passed draconian laws banning abortion.

The Supreme Court is poised to support the discredited Independent Legislature Theory that could decimate the ability of the American people to elect a president of their choosing.

The Supreme Court has crippled the Voting Rights Act and red states are passing numerous voter suppression laws.

The gun lobby (and their acolytes in the Supreme Court) have created a nightmare where open carry laws are multiplying and gun control laws are being overturned.

Red states like Florida are legislating (or pushing to legislate) the teaching of a distorted, whitewashed history of the U.S., that emphasizes its founding as a “Christian” nation.

The Supreme Court has made it much harder for the Environmental Protection Agency to do its job at this critical time when the disastrous effects of climate change are accelerating.

Republicans are openly talking about dismantling programs like Medicare and Social Security.

The Supreme Court seems poised to overturn affirmative action in universities.

Some republicans are openly talking about banning birth control and same sex marriage and reinstituting sodomy laws.

[edited]

[grandhotelabyss]

Thoughts on NrX? Do you agree that they basically reverse enginered marxism, but are too emberasssed to admit it do to their surface level dislike and signaling to anti-comunists?

NRx is Marxist in narrative structure but with a different protagonist: the owner rather than the worker. But since the actual protagonist of Marxism turns out to be the intellectual-bureaucrat rather than the worker, I don't see as big of an ethical difference as you might expect. NRx, too, might end up having a secret protagonist. I should quote the peroration of Reality Spammer's essay cited in my last response:

Nick Land at this point must certainly have earned the title of the most important philosopher of the past half-century. Everyone now is thinking in relation to accelerationism. In the context of the growth of acceleration, neoreaction, the dissident right, is Elon like the Stalin to Nick Land’s Marx? Elon of course almost certainly does not know who Land is. But they share the same triad of objects of zeal — a sense that the industrial process must intensify in an uninterrupted way, racism, and a joy in spreading irreverence as far as possible. Racism, this all-too-human passion as old as man, becomes the weapon to dismantle the human plane, by accelerating its internal differences until it breaks. The emergence of this pure demonic theater of simulacra where the formality of a public sphere once lingered is its shattering into entropic fragments as it splits apart, a spiral into radio static and catatonic schizophrenia.

On this account, NRx uses race the way Marxism uses class: to start "a war inside society" (per Boris Groys) that they hope to win. I'm not entirely sure this is how it's going to work, though, even as NRx seems more and more poised to get its way with the rise of a figure like Milei and the potential or even likely return of Trump amid the atmosphere of Elon's X. Is the left really so terminally depressed, so self-immolationist, that it now understands "irreverence" and "racism" as inextricably synonymous? Did Bakhtin laugh in vain?

The peroration of Land's own epochal "Dark Enlightenment" manifesto derives its indeed right-Marxist vision of our immanent self-transcendence via self-conscious speciation from a series of novels by Octavia Butler that I admittedly haven't read. (I browsed through them. I like Butler—Kindred and "Bloodchild" in particular, and I did find those two texts sort of reactionary—but the Xenogenesis books Land cites seemed a little pulpier than I wanted to deal with. I suspect such subject matter might require a prose style akin to Bradbury's, Delany's, or Ballard's, more visionary and iridescent. Dick and Herbert, whom I also admire among science fictionists, have the same plain-prose problem.)[*]

Is the famously racist NRx then an Afrofuturism, given that I claimed 10 years ago that it was also a queer theory? (Consider also the gender accelerationist blackpaper, which renders NRx a trans theory.) Why assume that dismantling the "human plane" must lead by logic to racism? Maybe it will lead to the disarticulation of race, as surely as it's led to the disarticulation of gender. (When I was in grad school, everybody blamed humanism for creating racism!)

This isn't an endorsement of NRx, and I don't dispute the personal racism of some of the people involved, but I'm not persuaded by the equation between tech accelerationism and white supremacism. There's as much reason to think it could go the other way. Here the specifically racist libertarians mirror the Afropessimists as well as the Marxists. But it's not necessarily how the resolutely optimistic Frederick Douglass, for example, would have thought about it when he saw technological development as part and parcel of individual equality: the camera disclosing the soul in every skin.

(I know my critics think I am too cavalier on the subject of race. I just think it's going to disappear. I don't think it stands a chance. Reality Spammer says, "There is a sense in which 'everyone is racist' is simply an analytic a priori." And there's a sense in which it's not. NRx's biological racism won't work, not only because race is a construct, but because biology is too. Science waits upon art and magic; leave Steve Sailer to his golf course. From Melville's repeated image of the oceangoing vessel as Anacharsis Cloots delegation of universal humanity to Morrison's concluding vision of the Black Madonna onshore awaiting such ships of holy fools to dock in Paradise, this is an American prophecy.)

Reality Spammer is right, I suppose, about the vulgarity of Ye, Elon, etc., but, leaving aside the eloquence of the vulgar (as if "beautiful big titty butt-naked women" played no role at the root of the human imagination), there is a world elsewhere, even in right-wing world. The queer-femme wing of the new right is reading Gone with the Wind, sure—I've never read it myself—but they're also promoting Pamela, the first novel to sentimentalize, aestheticize, and universalize bourgeois hegemony, and so the secular type and pattern of all future individual liberation narratives, not excluding Douglass's. This is something like what I had in mind 10 years ago when I said we'd know if there was anything to neoreaction if it went from black to pink, aesthetically speaking, from Gothic to sentimental, from Lovecraft to Joyce. Another recent favorite of this group, Poor Things, a socialist novel written by a Scottish nationalist, was converted for the atopic-utopic purposes of global cinema into a post-woke porno-libertarian fable. It ends in the multiracial queer paradise of a walled garden, secured in part with the earnings of sex work to refuel the professionalization of a new cadre of techno-experts symbolized by Bella's journey from one type of working girl to another.

The "human" is not a self-evident category, even if I'd prefer to travel under its banner myself. The neoreactionaries, like their soixante-huitard precursors, were only anti-humanists insofar as the human was a Hegelian synonym for the state (and antonym therefore both of the individual and of empire, a word Blake, Shelley, and Whitman used without negative connotation to signify a post-national world-polity). What the human might become in an age of accelerated techno-capital is unclear—if such acceleration even works; if we don't regress all the way back to the forest, the desert, and the cave in the conflagration of the rules-based international order, victims at last of Enlightenment's dialectic—but why should we forfeit our species's name at the very hour of the potential triumph of our species-being as the aesthetic angel-animal who is both subject and object of its own thought? As the first review of my latest novel tells us, "the 21st century isn’t likely to become any less weird."

"There are no sides," the defeated white witch admonishes her successor of imperial realpolitik at the end of Dune Part Two. (How's that for a reversal of the moralistic speech concluding The Two Towers? Herbert's Cold War realism portends no less of a Republican victory than did the reanimation of Tolkien's World War II moralism two decades ago, but how different are today's Republicans?) I am personally ready for anything. Or at least I'm trying to put on a brave face. I have read Arendt and Adorno, not to mention Ruskin and Thoreau, and have every single fear about these developments everybody else does. Still, NRx might turn out to be a humanism after all, and therefore neither especially new nor meaningfully reactionary.

We see, now, events forced on which seem to retard or retrograde the civility of ages. But the world-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms and waves cannot drown him. He snaps his finger at laws: and so, throughout history, heaven seems to affect low and poor means. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.

____________________

[*] In Land's Compact articles on the English canon, he was so magnanimous as to promote Butler, alongside some nameless "Jews and Scots," into a DEI English "para-canon." Seeking to establish the paradox of a people-who-are-not-a-people, the maritime liberalism-imperialism of an "out-breeder culture," he identifies the central revolutionary dialectic within English literature, which can be described ethnically as Anglo vs. Norman, politically as left vs. right, religiously as Nonconformist vs. Anglo-Catholic, or aesthetically as Romantic vs. Classical, with the latter side relegated always to the role of ineffectual (indeed sabotaged) brake on history's runaway train. As I hinted in my most recent Invisible College lecture, you can use even Jane Austen to stage a global revolution. To this revolution are we "Jews and Scots" summoned, those of us who have spiritually interbred with this literature which was not the literature of our forefathers—my forefathers had no literature, you see, and so I had no choice—whether we are the Pole Conrad, the Dutch-American Melville, the African-American Butler, or the Italian-American Pistelli.

[aromantisk-fagforening]

A useful reference in the right against the white supremacy ideology: white supremacy culture .info by Tema Okun.

[Art by Melanie G. S. Walby]

Characteristics of white supremacy culture

[box] A culture is a way of life for a group of people. The behaviours, beliefs, values and symbols they control. Generally without thinking about them. &. That are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. [box end]

[characteristics]

either/or (binary) thinking

worship of the written word

objectivity (the idea that it exists)

perfectionism

individualism

quantity over quality

power hoarding

fear of open conflict

a sense of urgency

defensiveness and/or denial

paternalism

progress defined as more/bigger

the belief in one “right” way

the right to profit

the right to comfort.

[visual description for characteristics: each point is written inside a simple potion bottle that is see-through.]

[bottom icons: poison (with crossed bones), don't breathe in.]

symptoms and antidotes dismantling racism .com/white supremacy culture. (note: this link seems dead).

[transcript end]

(disclaimer that the creator specifically says not to use this as a competitive tool, nor as a weapon to accuse, shame, and blame in ways that perpetuate disconnection. but instead as a way of understanding and striving towards your own antiracist goals, and additionally to avoid going absolutist and entirely run from anything remotely similar. But yeah just read the thing yourself if you feel like it.) (source: that same page but the bottom section)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Reid Newtown

Published: Nov 27, 2023

I grew up attending integrated public schools in Atlanta. From the start, I was used to being in the minority: I’m white and my friends were almost all black or Hispanic, and when I was a freshman in high school, in 2010, I came out as a lesbian. Neither my race nor my sexual orientation mattered to my friends. One reason for that was dance and music and the belief that my friends and I shared that art can change people, give them purpose, communicate something beautiful and transformative.

I moved to New York City when I was 18, but the day after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, I was back in Atlanta visiting my parents, and I drove to my friend Sean’s house. He lived in a quiet, black suburb called Camp Creek filled with orderly, identical homes.

That night, I remember wanting to wrap my arms around my friends, to be there for them in what felt like this unbelievably dark moment. As the protests turned to riots closer to the heart of the city—just a few miles east of Camp Creek, near Centennial Olympic Park—Sean’s neighborhood stayed quiet.

But as soon as I stepped foot inside Sean’s house, I was greeted by the family dogs, and smelled the grill being fired up. There was a bowl of potato salad on the counter. Our mutual friend Khalil greeted me as if nothing was wrong, sweeping me off my feet into a familiar dance lift we’d done a thousand times. “Reidist!” he said.

Sean’s mom told me she was so glad I was safe, away from the neighborhoods being vandalized and, in some cases, set on fire. She shook her head as she prepared the hamburgers and hot dogs, as she always did in the summer. There were violent clashes all that night, and the mayor issued a 9 p.m. curfew, which meant, as usual, I would be sleeping over.

That night, all of our friends were there. There was a sense of deep-seated grief, and people wanted to be together, and they wanted to cry and hug and share stories. My friends—all black men in their early twenties—recalled run-ins they had had with the cops.

Being pulled over for no obvious reason while police dogs searched their car. Being roughed up. Being cuffed. Being called racist slurs. Being taken down to the station for questioning when they had done literally nothing. In the coming days and months, we donated to bail campaigns and posted a black square on our Instagrams. In June, we marched, and chanted, and we waved signs and demanded justice.

That summer, the world seemed upside down, violent, crazy. We wanted to make it right. What I couldn’t see then was that, far from making it right, we were on this spiral, and it was taking us somewhere dark: The world I had grown up in was being dismantled, and it was never coming back.

* * *

I grew up going to public schools just north of downtown. My kindergarten class resembled one of those stock diversity photos with one kid from every race sitting at a table together. I didn’t think twice about it. They were my friends.

I frequently had friends over at my house. My mom—everyone called her Mama Newt—hosted everyone no matter what they looked like or where they came from. No one left Mama Newt’s kitchen hungry.

[ Reid’s mother, “Mama Newt” ]

In middle school, the black kids started sitting with the black kids at lunch. The Hispanic kids with the Hispanic kids. The white kids with the white kids. I agonized over where to sit. All of my friends were at different tables.

I loved to dance, and I became captain of the step team. I was the only white girl on the team, and I stuck out, but the girls didn’t treat me any differently. There were jokes about how surprising it was that I had rhythm; we all laughed about it. Race was present, but it didn’t feel overbearing.

In high school, race and racial identity became more important, more talked about, inescapable. The dance studio was the only classroom that reflected the school’s diversity. Most other classes were de facto segregated based on students’ academic track.

The dance crew—we were like a sitcom. There was Sean, the music theater geek who was also a first-rate swimmer. Then there was Khalil, who was a firecracker gymnast and cheerleader—and hilarious. (People compared him to Kevin Hart.) Then there was Isaac, who was tall and lanky, a lacrosse player and preacher’s son. And then there was me. They called me “lil sis,” which I loved, maybe because I’d never had siblings. As an only child, my friends really felt like family.

[ From Left to Right: Sean, Khalil, Reid, Isaac, and Kwame ]

The studio was like a race-blind utopia, and it felt unreal, because it was: the moment you stepped out into the hallway, the intimacy and warmth gave way to a kind of unhappy, low-level tension.

Usually, that tension resided just beneath the surface. But not always.

I remember one day in 2011 there was supposed to be a big fight between the black, white, and Hispanic students. There had been an altercation a few days before between rival gangs, and it was near the end of the school year, when fights were more common, and someone started a rumor about a “race war.”

I stood in the middle of the courtyard and looked around at the various corners full of people siloing themselves into white, black, and brown factions. I had no idea which corner I belonged in. In the Hispanic section, I glimpsed Jessica Sanchez, who had taught me in the sixth grade how to throw a punch. I wondered what would happen if I had to punch Jessica Sanchez.

Luckily, security stopped it before it started, and everyone eventually returned to class as if nothing had happened.

The point is, the racial tension notwithstanding, we seemed to be moving in the right direction. Maybe I was blind. Maybe my whiteness made it impossible for me to see what was really going on in other people’s heads. I don’t know. I found my tribe wherever I found kindness and laughter. Wherever the bass was bumping, and people were dancing. The rest always seemed to work itself out.

* * *

In 2014, I moved to New York to go to Fordham University and the prestigious Ailey School of Dance. Alvin Ailey, who founded the school in 1969, was known for having said that “dance is for everybody” and “we are all human beings and color is not important.” I loved the power of art to transcend difference.

[ Reid and a fellow classmate at Ailey School of Dance ]

My high school sweetheart, a black woman I naively believed I would one day marry, started her freshman year at Harvard, where she immersed herself in the spoken-word poetry scene and acquired a new racial consciousness. I remember taking the five-hour bus from New York to Cambridge only to find myself sitting alone in her dorm, excluded from the party and poetry slam she’d gone to.

She said that she no longer felt safe being near me because I was white, that any physical affection I offered was me attempting to colonize her body.

Six months into college, she broke up with me.

At the time, I thought this was an anomaly—a sad derangement that came out of elite places like Harvard. I had no idea what was coming.

Dance distracted me from the hurt. My goal had been to make it to the professional Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since I first saw Ailey’s Revelations performed at the old Fox Theatre, in Atlanta, and that feeling intensified after I attended Ailey’s Summer Intensive when I was 16—now that I was at the dance school I felt like I was on the cusp of getting in.

A hip injury put an end to that dream, but it didn’t really matter. I went on to dance professionally elsewhere—among other gigs, I spent three seasons as a dancer and stunt double on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—graduated from Fordham in 2018, fell in love once again with an older, Bengali-American woman, got my own apartment in Queens, and moved my dog, Tiger, a Pekingese-poodle mix, from Atlanta to New York.

I also started to think beyond the narrow confines of a New York City progressive, which felt increasingly small and myopic. I read books like The Coddling of the American Mind and The Problem with Everything and The Rise of Victimhood Culture. I started to disagree, silently, with my friends.

Then, in early 2020, my girlfriend and I broke up, and Covid happened. I was furloughed from my day job as a technician at a physical therapy clinic, and my dance gig auditions came to a halt. I got depressed being all alone in my apartment, and I flew home to Atlanta to be with my family.

A few days after I got home, George Floyd was murdered.

Suddenly, I felt this thing I had never felt: people viewing and talking to each other through the lens of race. Yes, I know, that lens had always been there. But there had always been other people, ideas, forces to counteract that. Our impulse to divide had always been eclipsed by a more powerful desire to come together.

But now the fissures were opening up, and it was impossible to sew them together. I remembered being broken up with six years earlier by my critical-race-theory-poetry-slam girlfriend, and suddenly it seemed like millions of people were breaking up with each other, walling themselves off. When I showed up at Sean’s house that night, his mom’s familiar embrace almost made me cry. Between social distancing and racial siloing, physical affection had started to feel foreign. I leaned into her hug hard, and she had to steady herself to keep herself from falling backward.

When the lockdowns ended, I went back to New York, but I couldn’t stay for long. My mom had always had multiple sclerosis, but now it was getting worse. My parents were everything to me: They’d supported my dancing; they’d supported me when I came out. Now, my mother was struggling, and my dad, forced to juggle full-time work and full-time caregiving, was overwhelmed, drowning in responsibility. I had to go home, and I wanted to. 

At the time, I didn’t know you can’t ever really go home again.

* * *

By spring 2022, things were finally reopening, and we all wanted to go out and dance.

That night, at a club in midtown Atlanta, I was, as usual, the only white person. I was used to that, but this time it was different.

As I danced with my friends to classic southern hip-hop songs like “Knuck if You Buck” by Crime Mob, “It’s Goin’ Down” by Yung Dro, and “Walk it Out” by Outkast, I could feel the eyes around me searing into my back and head and legs and face. People pulled out their cameras and filmed me in disgust—as if I had two heads. They said things like: “Who does she think she is?” and “She shouldn’t be allowed here—I don’t care if she can dance.”

The worst part wasn’t how it made me feel, how out of place I felt in this world I had once thought of as an extension of home. The worst part was that the people in that room felt threatened by my being there. This seemed crazy to me, but it was undeniable. They genuinely felt unsafe and uncomfortable because of the color of my skin. They viewed me as an oppressor and a grifter looking to take—to appropriate—what wasn’t mine.

The world of dance, which had given me that precious language to communicate with anyone irrespective of who they were or where they came from, was fragmenting—consumed, like everything else, by our seemingly inescapable racialization and tribalization.

A few weeks later, I received an invitation to a party. At the top of the invitation bold letters stated:  “THIS IS AN ALL-BLACK EVENT.” I responded to the friend who sent it to me and asked if they meant to wear all-black clothes. She responded, “Nah, it’s for black people only, but you know you’re the exception.”

I did not attend.

The self-segregation was suffocating. The most meaningful art and friendships in my life had come out of piercing through racial boundaries. Expanding my horizons. Now, it seemed like those horizons were closing in on me, my friends, the wonderful, collaborative, fluid, undulating world of dance that had infused my life with so much meaning. It felt like something was being lost forever.

I know, I know—we’ve been in this moment for three years, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that setting aside my race, my whiteness, is a privilege. Does that mean we shouldn’t aspire to live in a world in which we all set aside our immutable traits? That we shouldn’t try to see beyond race?

Which brings me to the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.

After a couple of years of dating as a gay woman in New York, I was feeling discouraged. Everyone I had gone out with was a hyper-political leftist. They always seemed to be in the middle of a rant. Every date gave me an uneasy feeling for fear of saying the wrong thing—my views on race, sex, gender, you name it, were not in lock-step with those of my fellow LGBT New Yorkers. On edge and worried I would never find my person, I had almost given up dating entirely.

Then I connected with Bianca. She’s an elite marathoner and the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and she’s perfect: measured, kind, curious. The only woman I’ve ever met who could convince me to run a 5K and the only one who’s made me rethink some of my opinions about politics, identity, life, and the world.

I like to believe we were always meant to be, but I also know I would never have arrived at this place were it not for the ups and downs of the last few years. Before the summer of 2020, it was easier to feel or think or exist outside our superficial differences. We didn’t talk about these things with the same frequency or intensity. There weren’t as many landmines. Now, it’s more important than ever to discuss our differences—while also trying to see beyond skin color and demand that we’re seen the same way.

A few months ago, I had a ring made for Bianca using the diamond from my late grandmother’s wedding ring. I haven’t proposed yet, but we’re thinking maybe a small wedding with family down the line. As for Sean, Khalil, and Isaac—they’re planning on being my three best men.

[ Reid and Bianca ]

==

"Critical theory is a universal solvent, and the problem with a universal solvent is finding a container that can hold them. Spill enough and dissolve society." -- James Lindsay

[ukrfeminism]

Women and children have been failed by the Metropolitan Police, with racism, misogyny, and homophobia at the heart of the force, a blistering review says. 

Baroness Casey says a "boys' club" culture is rife and the force could be dismantled if it does not improve.

Her year-long review condemns systemic failures, painting a picture of a force where rape cases were dropped because a freezer containing key evidence broke.

The Met's Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley admitted "we have let Londoners down".

The report has prompted a strong reaction, with the mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence saying the force was "rotten to the core".

Home Secretary Suella Braverman warned it could take years to address some challenges, but was confident Sir Mark and his team would deliver the change the public expects.

Baroness Casey was appointed to review the force's culture and standards after the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, in 2021. 

During the course of her review, another Met officer, David Carrick, was convicted of a series of rapes, sexual offences and torture of women. 

The 363-page report condemns the force as institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic, referencing racist officers and staff, routine sexism, and "deep-seated" homophobia. 

But Sir Mark told Radio 4's Today programme that while he accepted the "diagnosis" of the report he would not use the expression "institutional racism", describing it as ambiguous and politicised.

He said "hundreds" of "problematic" officers have been identified since he took over the force, and said the report has to be "a new beginning". 

Baroness Casey said the capital "no longer has a functioning neighbourhood policing service" and policing by consent was broken, especially for "communities of colour", who are "over-policed and under-protected"

The report says leadership teams at the top of the Met have been in denial for decades, and there has been a systemic failure to root out discriminatory and bullying behaviour.

It says the force, the biggest in the UK, has failed to protect the public from officers who abuse women and Baroness Casey said she could not rule out more officers like Couzens and Carrick being in the Met.

Teams tasked with tackling domestic abuse are understaffed, overworked and inexperienced, despite cases doubling in 10 years, it said.

The Met has not made its publicly-stated policy to crack down on abusers an "operational reality", the report found.

Baroness Casey told the BBC that rape detectives are working with insufficient resources while "the guys that hold the firearms get any toy they want".

The report says that discrimination "is often ignored" and complaints "are likely to be turned against" ethnic minority officers, to the point where black officers are 81% more likely to be in the misconduct system than white colleagues.

It concludes: "Deep in its culture it is uncomfortable talking about racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of discrimination."

The report also reveals:

Dilapidated fridges were repeatedly found overpacked, and when a freezer broke down during last summer's heatwave the evidence inside had to be destroyed, meaning cases of alleged rape were dropped

Discrimination towards female colleagues; bags of urine being thrown at cars; male officers flicking each other's genitals; and sex toys being placed in coffee mugs

Initiation rituals included people being urinated on in the shower

One Sikh officer had his beard trimmed; another had his turban put in a shoe box; and a Muslim officer found bacon in his boots 

Almost one in five of Met employees surveyed had personally experienced homophobia

Baroness Casey said austerity had "disfigured" the Met, and pressures like court backlogs and London's expanding population have put the force under further strain.

But she says not enough had changed since the 1999 Macpherson report, published after Stephen Lawrence's murder, which labelled the Met "institutionally racist".

Baroness Doreen Lawrence said the force has had almost 30 years since her son's death and the recognition of institutional racism by Sir William Macpherson to put its house in order.

"It has not done so, either because it does not want to or it does not know how to," she added.

In a Commons statement, Ms Braverman said there have been "serious failures of culture, leadership and standards".

She said it is vital that the law-abiding public "do not face a threat from the police themselves", and that officers not fit to wear a uniform are "driven out".

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said she was concerned her counterpart had delivered a "dangerously complacent" statement by "astonishingly" setting out no action.

She called a lack of mandatory requirements for vetting and training underpinned by law a "disgrace", and urged Ms Braverman to ensure any officer under investigation for domestic abuse or sexual assault is automatically suspended.

The review made 16 recommendations, including for:

A new team to reform how it deals with misconduct cases, and an immediate overhaul of vetting 

Greater independent oversight and scrutiny, regular progress updates overseen by the mayor, and independent progress reviews after two and five years

A process to "apologise for past failings and rebuild consent"

The Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit - which Couzens and Carrick had been members of - to be disbanded in its current form, and all firearms officers re-vetted

A dedicated women's protection service and a broad new strategy for protecting children, including preventing "adultification"- where black children are treated as adults and as a threat

A fundamental reset of stop and search in London, including introducing an independent monitor

If sufficient progress is not made, dividing the Met into national, specialist and London responsibilities should be considered, Baroness Casey concluded.

Asked if he would tell his daughters they could trust the police, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told BBC Breakfast: "I need the answer to that question to be 'yes' and at the moment trust in the police has been hugely damaged."

Responding to the report, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Sir Mark should "go further and faster" to uncover the Met's systemic problems.

He said: "The biggest danger today is that this just becomes another report."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said today was "one of the darkest days in the 200-year history" of the Met, but he was not surprised as it chimed with his own personal and professional experiences.

He insisted the force did not need to be broken up, but said systemic issues needed addressing.

Four groups - the Runnymede Trust, Inquest, Liberty and Stonewall - said they "stand united in our call for the roll back of the policing powers" of the Met, and it was increasingly clear communities "do not consent to the violent, predatory and discriminatory policing that we are currently offered".

[vizthedatum]

Sexuality and gender clarification

Yeah - I can't have sex with cis people anymore.

My sexuality is t4t demisexual sapphic - and I do not care if you pass or not. I do care if you have given serious thought (whether that's internal or external) about the gender binary or felt dysphoria of any kind.

--

I am trans, autistic (awaiting diagnosis), queer, chronically abused, and very vulnerable... and I'm mentally ill (PTSD, anxiety, depression, and possible ADHD (awaiting diagnosis also lol)).

But let me be absolutely crystal clear and precise:

Transness isn't what I'm mentally ill about - it is society's suppression of our innate sexual biodiversity and freedom of expression that is disgusting. And, when you tell me that it is wrong or abnormal, I realize that you hate humanity - that you need to be loved more so that you can love yourself.

Alok Vaid-Menon has been talking about this for years.

Trans hate... is human hate. Not only are the people who do not conform to society's arbitrary rules about gender in danger.... the ones who do conform are in danger too.

Women's rights activism was such a huge win - feminism was such a great thing.... but we need to take it further. So let's dismantle racism and white supremacy... but what does that mean? What's next? (Not that any of those issues are really "dismantled" lol)

Assignments that separate us and partition our privileges hurt us. The oppression of evolution of who we are as people hurt us.

--

The more I wake up from unmasking my neurodivergence, narcissistic abuse, and all the events of my life, the more I can see myself.

I cried this morning - I cried because the outfit and look I put on yesterday? I wanted to have zero breasts and a dick the whole fucking time. I cried because I'm a very feminine trans man but people will see me as a "woman" and then place the onus of proving my gender expression onto me. I cried because I need my sexual partners to VISCERALLY understand who I am on the inside... and want me even more because of it - I am more SO MUCH MORE than what my body looks like - and I want that to be evident when people touch me, regardless of what body part they're touching.

I want my transness to be sexually attractive as much as all my other parts.

(I mean - why do you think I fell so hard for my ex/spouse? That was a part of it. They were part of my journey into self-acceptance. All of it can be true, whether you fucking believe it or not)

I am deeply troubled by how much I masked my transness, polyamorous tendencies, my neurodivergence... it was such an act of self-harm.

I masked first out of survival. Then I did it because it was convenient. Then I became complacent. Then I realized I was dying and I was doing it to myself.

And now? I'm resisting and becoming free. There will be ups and downs, and I'm not quite sure how to navigate everything, but I need to keep listening to myself.

Because what other choice is there?

[female-malice]

With her feet rooted on the ground and her voice steady, Colette Pichon Battle seems to be the type of person most of us would want nearby in a crisis. When she speaks about climate change displacing millions, she uses measured words to describe strategies to dismantle structural racism, build alliances in community, and provide legal services for equitable disaster recovery. As I listen to her TED Talk, I’m reminded of a cheer from my high school in coastal Alabama: “Rock, rock, rock, rock, steady, eddy, eddy, eddy, rock! Rock steady.” So I wasn’t surprised to learn she describes her superpower as “seeing patterns in chaos,” an apt skill for the organization she founded, the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, now called Taproot Earth.

Working on the frontlines of climate disasters caused by hurricanes, sea level rise, and fossil fuel companies, she knows that recovery for industries has been quick, and recovery for communities has been slow. From Houston, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida, her work brings climate change to the community level, especially with women at the heart of neighborhoods and households.

“We found that the folks most willing to get to know each other were actually women,” she said in an interview with Reimagine. “When women talk about their communities, it’s sort of like women talking about their children . . . So a lot of the moral fabric and the moral movement of a family and of a community is done through the women.”

She and her staff used a meeting format called the People’s Movement Assembly, which involved Black, Latina, and Asian American women learning about each other’s lives and agreeing to reach a vision together. From there, groups of women followed through on actions, such as talking about the climate crisis and extractive industries with elected officials in Louisiana who needed the vote from people of color.

In Bayou Liberty, just north of New Orleans, Colette grew up in the house built by her grandfather, where her mother was born. There, water was a way of life: “The bayou is green and lush and all the things that equal bountiful life,” she told TED Radio, “But it is also watery and muddy. You can smell everything.”

She remembers the names of particular hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, much as I did growing up in Alabama. During the eye of the storm, family members would get into flat-bottomed boats called pirogues to check on neighbors before retreating to safety inside while the other band of the hurricane passed. But the water became unrecognizable given the severity of Hurricane Katrina. As an adult, Colette practiced law in Washington, DC, but after the destruction of Katrina, she vowed never to leave her beloved Gulf Coast again.

When she first saw the Louisiana flood maps at a community meeting, Colette says her life changed. The maps explained how the thirty-foot surge from Hurricane Katrina could flood her community as well as those in Mississippi and Alabama. She realized the land lost from sea level rise was the buffer to her own home—a buffer predicted to disappear. “I wasn’t alone at the front of the room,” she explained. “I was standing there with other members of south Louisiana’s communities—Black, Native, poor. We thought we were just bound by temporary disaster recovery, but we found that we were now bound by the impossible task of ensuring that our communities would not be erased by sea level rise due to climate change.

“I just assumed it would always be there. Land, trees, marsh, bayou. I just assumed it would be there as it had been for thousands of years,” she said. “I was wrong.” Knowing climate is predicted to displace more than 200 million people by the next century, Colette advocates for preparing for global migration by restructuring social and economic systems rooted in justice, such as investing in public hospitals before the impact of climate migration or additional storms like Hurricane Ida. It’s not like we don’t know what is coming, and Colette knows preparation is a life-and-death matter.

“Climate change is not the problem,” she said. “Climate change is the most horrible symptom of an economic system that has been built for a few to extract every precious value out of this planet and its people, from our natural resources to the fruits of our human labor.”

What holds clear and steady is her belief of what can be done now. “It’s already possible, y’all,” she often tells people, with the practical sense of someone who can get things done. Colette knows women who have the most to lose from climate disasters also know what it’ll take to plan for the future and anticipate the storm.

Reprinted with permission from Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice by Mallory McDuff © 2023.

[55555-555-5]

Hundreds of people came to the Women’s Memorial March in Vancouver on February 14th to honour and express their thoughts on missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, 2 spirit and non gender peoples. I feel so blessed to be welcomed into the space like I was, there was so much love and compassion in the air that we were all just soaking in. The speeches and stories of mothers, daughters and loved ones that went missing on Main and Hastings were intense and emotional. Like one of the women pointed out, it’s so beautiful to see people showing up at marches and rallies, but we need to see action from those inflicting the harm. So far nothing but empty promises from the government of Canada and police forces. When will these girls be looked for? When will you listen to Indigenous family members when they say their child hasn’t come home? The police have proven time and time again that they do not want an indigenous presence. They are the ones committing continued genocide against Indigenous peoples. People like to say that it’s one bad apple when a cop does harm, but the whole saying is supposed to be “one bad apple spoils the bunch.” All cops are bastards, yes even your family member or friend. There’s no “changing from the inside” when the whole structure of policing was built on racism and protecting the rich. Defund and dismantle the police, there are other ways to keep us safe and it involves us becoming a real community. We have to start by loving ourselves. By loving ourselves truly we can love others and participate in the collective consciousness. We can’t ever stop talking about it and we can’t ever stop improving ourselves and our knowledge. As white people who live and benefit from stolen land, the injustice indigenous people face has literally everything to do with us. The genocide never ended, we have to keep working together and listening and showing up for each other. Love will be the match and community will be the fuse. Thank you again to the DTES community for showing so much love, I’m so grateful that I could be a part of this movement.

[champagnepodiums]

What I love is that now Harry and Meghan say they did not leave because of privacy. I get that there was other more important issues, racism being at the top.

BUT

Harry complains time and time again about the press. About how they are responsible for his mother death. They hide their children. They curate what photo goes out. etc. And now we get a tv reality show and a book talking about their private life but also others ?

The guy only attacks people that are not as popular as he is. I guess there will be no words on the queen who led the family while Meghan was not protected, thought about suicide, was a victim of racism inside the family, protected her son in the sex scandals. No the queen was a saint she was too popular he won't talk badly about her. They are really fighting monarchy, colonialism and racism. LOL.

I mean be real it's about drama, fame and money.

Maybe the RF is right if they don't talk about it they can go on forever. They don't care what Americans think about them they are leading another country. People seem to forget that part sometimes. It's not a worldwide contest. They are not actors fighting to headline a movie and getting great reviews. It's politics.

I will say -- I applaud both W/K and H/M for how they restrict press access to their children. That did not happen for W/H so I am glad that they have been able to protect their children.

BUT everything else -- I agree. Harry comes off as a hypocrite. He wants to 'dismantle the monarchy' but he also wants to continue to benefit from the monarchy. I think that's the thing that gets me -- he's not really trying to dismantle the monarchy, he's trying to force his family to give him what he wants. He's throwing a public tantrum.

People always talk about Diana and how she'd be proud of Harry but I disagree. I think she'd be appalled.

[knifegrrrl1312]

hhelo friends do you want to see all the books i took out from the library? :) (tbh i only started reading like 2 of them but im so excited for these books)

im sso excited for this one i have not started reading it yet ive never read anything by emma goldman yet until now

i tthink this was recommended to me by someone dont remember who but im so excited to read it ive heard alot of people talk ab this book in transfemme circles online

i saw ppl talk ab this book on the r/anarchy subreddit in relation to the school system and how academia would change under anarchy, and it piqued my interest have not started reading it yet but i will let u guyz know what i think of it, ive not read anything by paulo freire yet and i hope to read more of his works in the future

i started reading this but i did not get far however so far this book is spectacular, this book pays tribute to the indigenous women and leaders who have led resistence movements and are responsible for many of the institutions in winnipeg today that help indigenous families and created alot of change in the north end community in winnipeg. Even if you dont live in Winnipeg i think you should give this one a read and learn about indigenous resistance movements here. :)

i have not started reading this one yet however just by reading like the tidbit inside i can tell this is going to be an important book. I always wanted to learn more about this topic specifically and luckily this book was right there on the shelf calling to me. It refrences an incident in 2012 oregon when a woman named Julie Keith opened a package of halloween decorations for $5 at Kmart and found an SOS letter handwritten in broken english inside. The letter said: "Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Rights Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank you and remember you forever."

This seems like a dark yet very important read and although i havent started it yet i think others should def check this book out.

I started reading this one and again did not get v far since all these books are still so new but it details the authors journey of teaching her son to think critically usually via media like movies and whatnot showing him how movies teach people to be misogynistic and view women a certain way (i feel like that was worded v clunky) This book made me think of my brother and how my parents made sure to teach him to not bully girls in school and to this day my brother is very respectful to women, when he talks to them he even talks in a softer voice almost idk reminds me alot of my little brother.

i have not started reading this one yet but anti-racism is very important to learn about, people are taught that racism is a binary thing and that just "not being racist" is enough. But to dismantle racism would be to consistently identify it especially within ourselves, im really excited to read this one and possibly challenge myself and educate myself on this particular topic

im so excited to do the recipes in this book, they arent very hard. I saw that this book has a recipe for mexican wedding cookies and as a mexican living outside of mexico i usually resort to baking my cultures delicious goods since i cant find anywhere that sells them where i live. I just love baking its so fun, im so good at it too since im rly good at following instructions lolol

[ramrodd]

America's Descent into Dysfunction: With Adam Kinzinger

COMMENTARY:

I watched Liz Cheney on Colbert and the thing all of you guys need to confront in yourself is that January 6 began with William F. Buckley and you were totally invested in the process leading to January 6 until Bike Pence  was faced with the existential choice between his eternal soul or Donal Trump. I had a similar choice in Vietnam, between continuing to believe in myself or continuing to beleive in the Big Green Machine, Until that instant, they were one, It was a no=brainer: I quit believing in myself and got out as quick as I could with the modest honor of service as my inheritance,

What I propose is that you restore the Party of Lincoln Coalition . of the GOP to the dominant leadership role of the Republican Party and  flush all things William F. Buckley and his Nazification agenda of the Sharon Statement. Rebuild on the foundation of the Gettysburg Address and the tirangulation of Nixon, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jack Kemp, which was Stage 2 of Eisenhower's 1956 Presidential Platform for the  transformation of the Quantity of the Military Industrial Complex of the Cold War for Aerospace=Entrepreneurial Matrix of the Eisehnower-von Braun Star Wars economics illustrated in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When I got back from Vietnam in 1971, everybody inside the Beltway was committed to establishing a NASA-Soyez lunar base by 2001 except for the Plumbers and the distribution of the Powel Doctrine, who were committed to blowing up he Nixon0Moynihan-Kemp transformation process as the leading edge of the January 6 revolt.

Like Nicole Wallace, you were Fellow Travelers with the Buckley-0January 6 agenda, dedicated to Steve Bannon's goal to dismantle the administrative state and overthrow the Constitution

PETE Buttigieg is the way Jack Kemp Republicans acted during GHW Bush's administration, when he was determined to restore the pre-Reagan capital trajectory. America was a cunt hair away from the critical mass required to trigger the final paradigm shift into Stage 3 of Eisenhower-von Braun Star Wars economics Trump's creation of the US Space Force makes this paradigm shift inevitable, the only question being sooner or later. If you, Michael Steel, ran as a Jack Kemp Republican, which you are, on the Celebration of the creation of the US Space Force  by Trump and a commitment to  re-inventing constituency with Biden's Build Back Better $7 trillion capital budget you will pull  your fellow RION's out of the cesspool of the Nazification of the GOP and through the looking glass of  Jack Kemp's handbook for the politics of  Eisenhower0von Braun Star Warts economcs of Starship America.

Michael, you are not the BOP's vversion of Barack Obama: you are the 2nd coming of Jack Kemp, if nnot Lincoln. Among other things, I believe you can capture 60% of the black male vote, Speking as a relative of Woodrow Wilson, you are the antidote to the structural racism of the Presbyterian Church and the cure for the evil enchantment of the Nazification of William F. Buckley's plot.

[chloesunit4]

Race in the fashion industry

The Black Lives Matter movement has prompted studies of a variety of businesses, none more so than fashion. In a recent interview with British Vogue, design mogul Virgil Abloh stated that fashion's problem is "so systemic and deep that it can't even look at itself when it represents itself." In other words, the lack of diversity in fashion has grown so entrenched that it is no longer evident inside the business.And he is correct. In 2017, Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) professionals made up only 8.7% of the designer fashion sector. Of course, despite all of the challenges within the business, fashion is working to level the playing field in terms of inclusion. Projects like Good On You and Labour Behind the Label raise awareness of labour rights throughout the world, assisting companies in strengthening their supply chains. Meanwhile, questions of representation in the sector have been raised closer to home. Back in the 2000s, the conversation about inclusion in fashion was restricted to models, with demands for catwalks to include models of all races and ethnicities. According to Glamour Magazine, there is currently a 2% rise in models of colour appearing on prominent fashion week catwalks each season, demonstrating gradual strides towards more diverse representation. However, the debate has expanded beyond models to include fashion workers from all sectors, including design, editorial, and supply. Meanwhile, several platforms have been established to celebrate black creatives in the fashion business, providing them with a forum to present their work and experience. Sites like The Fashion and Race Database and Black in Fashion Council were created with this goal in mind, providing for empowerment and a feeling of community within the industry as a whole.

So, what's next? Of course, acknowledging the problem is the first step towards rehabilitation. We may begin to understand the "why" of the industry's lack of inclusion as we become more aware of it. Part of the cause might be systematic racism in higher education. In the United Kingdom, white students made up 77.3% of the 2018/2019 class. Only 6.8% of the total intake was black. Simply said, if black creatives are not provided with the same educational chances as their white counterparts, they will be denied career prospects in the future. Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done. The dominant beauty standard in the Western world is still white. Furthermore, we are not past tokenism in the marketing, imagery, and catwalks we are presented with, as brands look to protect their own image rather than considering diversity as inherent to their business; this is all the more prevalent when we consider the lack of representation of black and minority ethnic leaders within the fashion industry. According to Business of Fashion authors Jason Campbell and Henrietta Gallina, "only with a new order in fashion, where black people are represented in the corridors of power, will our significance and ongoing contribution to the fashion industry be recognised with true rigour and vigour." Only with black people in positions of leadership can we begin to accomplish the difficult and essential task of dismantling and rebuilding fashion's racist system in our collective and more equitable image."

referencing:

Pure London. (2020). The question of race in the fashion industry. [Online]. Pure London. Last Updated: 17 November 2020. Available at: https://www.purelondon.com/pure-london-blog/the-question-of-race-in-the-fashion-industry [Accessed 2 September 2023].