#when BLM protests were at their height

[roachemoji]

As much as I dislike Twitter, and frankly most other socmeds at the moment, I'm very scared watching how quickly it's declining, how quickly everyone's engagement is dying. I understand where people are coming from when they say not to put all your eggs in one basket, to branch out and post elsewhere, but people do understand how difficult that is, right?

As an artist you're doing the jobs of 6 people when posting online, and then to have the added expectation put onto you to join other sites, learn their algorithms, learn their trends, cater your art to the people who use it on top of all of that? And to have to do that 3 or 4 times??? Even more because you never know if the next new socmed will be The New Big Thing!!! No wonder everyone is so fucking burnt out.

This isn't even mentioning all the machine learning bullshit that's happening right now and the exploitation of every single creative across the fucking board.

People rely on Twitter.

People's LIVELYHOODS rely on Twitter.

As shitty as it's been in the past it's also one of the most reliable places I've seen people get engagement. Art shares, Portfolio day, Ocs shares, Raffles - the speed I've seen people reach emergency funding goals? I know it's kinder to some more than others, but it used to be much kinder.

It's terrifying watching what was once a pillar of engagement and outreach crumble. I'm very scared for our futures.

[anarchotahdigism]

I know i say "wear a mask and riot" and "fuck a peaceful protest" but I'd had a nice long post about how digital work and advocacy is praxis (or can be) on my old account. Right now, COVID is spreading and killing thousands of people in the US alone and nearly all """radicals""""" and """""leftists"""" are philosophically no different than the fascists they claim to oppose because they are so thoroughly wedded to eugenics that they refuse to wear and enforce masking. COVID causes long COVID in 10-30% of cases so the so-called US alone may well be a majority disabled nation now due to rampant eugenics forcing the spread of COVID. Long COVID is a rotting death and makes everything an order of magnitude more difficult if you still are able to do the things you were prior. Repeated COVID infections means you're guaranteed to be immunocompromised permanently and disabled in other ways you'll likely find out the hard way. With 40% of cases being asymptomatic and most only showing severe symptoms after 2-3 infections, and many starting to drop dead after 3 to 5 infections, many people accrue damage from and spread COVID without realizing it until it is far, far too late. As a result, it's guaranteed that the ableists have disabled and killed people. They've kept disabled people like me who are high risk out of radical spaces & communities. They've abandoned solidarity for everyone but the abled, ableist middle class while focusing most of their efforts on electoralism, despite the clear and constant failures of such actions. The BLM Rebellion of 2020-2021 had significant---albeit broadly temporary--impacts on electoral politics, society, and communities because it was a constant and ongoing rebellion that was also much more disability inclusive than prior leftist movement moments. For the first time, people recognized the need for remote actions & support because while masking was at the high water mark, more abled people understood that a lot of us disabled could not and would not risk COVID but we had had skills vital to the project. Things disabled people were absolutely critical for during the BLM Rebellion: police scanner observation and transcription, evacuation coordination, event & route planning, translation services, postering, graphics art & design, self defense seminars, radio nets, mutual aid fundraising, mutual aid distribution, bail fund coordination, zine writing, mask & test distributions, contact tracing (remember this??!??!), car brigades, organizing medical supplies, teaching first aid skills, and countless other roles often organized & performed remotely. For every fighter, there are at least a dozen support roles and with some thought and effort, those roles can be aided or done digitally. Posting on its own can be praxis in that it shares information, knowledge, tactics, demonstrates that there are other radicals out there willing to do what they can, normalizes radicalism, and in some cases, regimes pay close attention to internet support.

During the height of the Jina Amini rebellion in 2022, the Iranian regime tried to cut the internet repeatedly to stifle information out of and into Iran to hinder protest coordination and outrage. It also paid extremely close attention to when the rebellion was trending and refrained from reprisals until the mass attention of the internet citizenry turned away. Posting literally helped save lives by forcing the regime to wait, buying people time to organize, prepare, and act accordingly in Iran and internationally. Personally, I will always remember and be grateful for the Palestinians who turned out across the world, but especially in occupied Palestine, for Iranians. Iran is not the only regime that will wait until posts slacken and attention wanes before massacring people. If you are disabled, if you have arrest risks, if for any reasons you don't want to be involved in a radical riot, but you want to support those who can and do, there is so much you can do year round but especially things kick off!! Any skills, resources, knowledge, or support you can organize or contribute is valuable! eSims for Gaza right now are monumental in ensuring Gazans can coordinate information, requests, record Israeli occupation war crimes & apartheid cruelty, and many disabled graphics designers are offering their services in exchange for esim donations. It's been incredible to see.

The people who are against digital activism are ableist and racist and ignorant as hell beyond that. You can make an impact and even save and change lives while homebound. Begging genociders to stop profitable genocides has never and will never work. Riots & boycotts work because they directly confront and attack power and if those actions are supported by communities, they can continue for quite some time, as we saw with the BLM uprising. Regimes do not fall because people ask regime leaders to please stop committing atrocities; they fall when the people are able to bring to bear the sum of their hopes and wrath and bring the fight to those who have been oppressing them. That requires inclusive community & an outright rejection of the regime and its systems of cooptation & recuperation.

If a revolution or movement isn't inclusive, if it excludes the disabled, the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, it's not a revolution or movement, it's just another genocidal regime change.

[bellamer]

Y'know what, I'm glad Across The Spiderverse didn't come out during the height of the BLM movement and protest because I'd go search for a Miguel x Black!Reader fanfic and some white liberal trying to be woke would write something about Miguel watching his black wife get gunned down by police while out shopping or some shit

Or maybe that was just an MCU fandom thing. I'm still traumatized by that T'Challa x Reader fanfic where the author didn't specify what the "angst" was and I ended up reading up to the point where the cops called the Reader slurs and gunned her down despite being the queen of Wakanda and having guards with her

Also the Steve x Black Reader where it took place in the 1930s and the reader ended up getting harrassed by the KKK

Also the Tom Holland x Reader where reader was harrassed by racist Tom Holland fans online and got attacked

Yeah, looking for !Black Reader fanfics during those times were rough. And you could tell when the writer wasn't black.

And it was EVERYWHERE like you couldn't find one without the tags "racial slurs, racism, hate crime, ect..."

We have life hard enough and we cant even take solice in fanfiction to escape for like 2 minutes.

[neechees]

There's ppl who still believe that all those BLM accounts were Russian "spies" on tumblr when BLM protests were in high gear? Seriously? Tumblr staff is known for refusing to ban fash/t.erfs/white supremacists/nazis etc but then wiped all evidence of a tumblr user so much as pointing out a tumblr staff member was still into HP (a fact that was already public by said staff members' own blog by their own volition)? Staff who regularly ban trans girls for innocent posts? And we know that they hide tags of things like BLM & Palestine & were red flagging posts about Native Americans that didn't violate any tumblr guidelines as "nsfw"? But it's impossible that tumblr staff were just deleting outspoken Black users at the height of BLM as a movement & then lied about it?

[sleaterkinnie]

remember how insane it was on the internet in summer of 2020 when all the riots and protest were happening amidst this deadly pandemic and people were LITERALLY being like if you DONT post about a dying black man on your instagram story or twitter then you are RACIST and committing a REAL HATE CRIME in this dire time and you HATE black people and love police. hashtag KILL COPS!! ACAB!! which then led to the most uninformed posts youve ever seen in your life made out of pure panic and guilt instead of like. yknow. anything else. it led to white teenagers on tiktok saying shit like hello kitty says acab!! (im not racist im not racist im not racist please pleas e) and you know i think a lot of those people have not progressed since then and still believe the height of activism is saying BLM ACAB in their bios bc then it makes them automatically “not racist” because thats what people (USUALLY WHITE PEOPLE) were telling you on the internet when this was all happening

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Douglas Murray

Published: May 16, 2024

Remember when we were all told to “Mask up”? Well perhaps it’s time for us to change that rule. How about: “Mask off.”

It still astonishes me how many New Yorkers still scuttle around this city with their N95s clasped to their faces. Assistants in shops. Straphangers on the subway. Even people hurrying through the windy streets.

With some people I get it. A few have underlying health conditions — like morbid obesity. Or different-bodyness. Or whatever it is we’re allowed to call what we used to term “overweight.”

And sure some elderly folks now on their 9th boosters have decided to treat COVID as they once did the winter flu season.

But how to explain all the young people — particularly the young protestors — who seem to be so unnaturally scared of COVID?

How to explain all those rage-filled keffiyeh-wearing students who just happen to mask up whenever a camera is around?

Perhaps the students at Columbia and other campuses really do have a mortal fear of COVID.

In which case let me set their minds at rest.

New York State no longer has a COVID-19 problem. At the height of COVID, in the week ending April 11, 2020 the CDC reported that there were 6,900 total NY State COVID deaths that week. By last month the total was down to 15 deaths in a week.

What is more, young people are at the lowest risk of dying from COVID. Last year COVID was the eighth leading cause of death for young people in the United States.

According to the official data people aged 18-29 comprised just 0.7% of COVID-related deaths in the US. And that is from a group that makes up 16.4% of the total US population.

College-age Americans are more likely to die by homicide, suicide or being hit by a bus than they are through complications caused by COVID.

Even better news for the mask-wearers — NY State is one of the most vaccinated populations in the world. Fully 81% of NY State’s population is fully vaccinated. While a full 95% of the state’s population has gotten one dose of the vaccine or more.

So rejoice, oh brave protestors. The masks can come off!

And yet, with something like inevitability, there is one thing you can predict about protestors in New York today.

Which is that anytime that they are protesting they will be strangely scared of COVID. At the height of the BLM protests in 2020 you might say that there was some excuse for this.

There’s nothing like a fear of COVID to keep you cautious as you smash up a store.

Indeed I am sure that it was always perfectly natural that people swiping a set of sneakers for social justice would at the same time mask up to protect their respiratory system.

But why is that in 2024 today’s brave protestors in New York are nearly always wearing a mask?

Why should it be that the students making their demands for ceasefires in the Middle East and humanitarian aid at home have to holler their demands through a piece of cloth?

What is it about the outside trouble-makers who come onto this city’s campuses that makes them at one and the same time brave enough to cause disruption to students and citizens and yet terrible hypochondriacs over COVID?

Well I would like to suggest a reason. And it has nothing to do with CDC data, vaccination rates, COVID or anything similar.

The reason is that they are bullies. And like all bullies they are at the same time terrible cowards.

Despite pretending that they are world-beating revolutionaries the protestors who now push people in this city around are trying to keep their identities hidden.

Perhaps it is because they are professional agitators — drafted in by a range of left-wing “grass-roots” organizations to cause trouble. That is certainly what many people — including the police — believe.

Perhaps these people want to cover their faces because the media in this country might just notice that the same professional revolutionaries tend to turn up wherever there is trouble, almost as if they are paid to do so.

Presumably they want to keep their identities hidden as much as possible.

But what about the students at Columbia and elsewhere who want to sit in their tents and “bravely” protest about something they don’t know anything about?

Maybe, just maybe, they too are not actually afraid of COVID. What they are afraid of are the opinions they are espousing.

Because they know, at some level, that bullying other students and shrieking about things they don’t know about is not a good look. They want to intimidate people, but they never want to be intimidated themselves.

So I have a suggestion. At all future protests in New York State let’s have a masks off policy.

The KKK was the last organization in America that was so proud of their beliefs that their members covered their faces during protests.

Now “Students for Jihad” are doing the same job. For strangely similar reasons.

So let’s demand they take the hoods off too.

Sorry — I meant masks.

Shame of a canceled commencement

Talking of Columbia, yesterday morning I was invited to give an “alternative” Commencement address to students who have completed their studies.

Since the leadership at Columbia had canceled their official graduation ceremony, a number of faculty and student leaders arranged an alternative event for students and their families.

Attendees at the event in the city included students who had served in the US military, Jewish students, Christian students and conservative students. All from a bewildering variety of backgrounds.

We also heard from one of the students who had protected their campus when student radicals were trying to trash it earlier this year.

It was a great honor to speak with them all. And a great pleasure to give them a few words of advice as they set off on what I’m sure will be great and adventurous careers.

But what an indictment that students at Columbia who can actually think have to organize a graduation for themselves.

==

These privileged, entitled students at elite Ivy League colleges being paid for by their daddy want to agitate and roleplay as revolutionaries today, without negatively impacting their ability to work for a Fortune 500 company or get into a prestigious law firm tomorrow. They're fucking hypocrites.

You saw them as they were being arrested and their masks removed - many of them resisted and tried to hide their faces.

[princessflorida]

I'm sure I'm probably not the first person to think of it or do it, but do y'all remember during the height of the BLM protests in the US when we were all across social media (those who actually cared) flooding the tags like backtheblue and bluelivesmatter with as much BLM content as possible?

It aggravates them and frustrates them yes, but more importantly what it does is force them to be exposed to information from the other side whether they like it or not, and gives them no outlet to post purposeful misinformation (blatant lies) and racist content. Why not do this with #freepalestine? Why not tagflood all the zionist tags so every single time they try to look for content that coddles them to feel better about genocide, they see what is actually happening instead? All across the world, across all platforms, don't even let them be able to search for content that with pacify them like a baby with a binky so they can't use it as their haven for "oh but the situation is so complicated" or "if you don't support israel you are antisemitic and hate jewish people" or "so you support hamas? you support terrorism?" etc bullshit misinformed talking points they yell into an echo chamber to make themselves think they're smart and won a facebook argument meanwhile thousands of people, mostly children, are being bombed and ground invaded by israel and cut off from necessary supplies like food, water, and medical care during this settler-colonialist, end-stage-genocide apartheid attack.

I hope people who are in favor of this genocide see everything I tagflood and not only get angry at the lack of pro-genocide, islamophobic, xenophobic, and yes, antisemitic content (there's so much on the pro israel side primarily from americans, you'd think they wouldn't because their pro israel but it really goes to show what numbnuts the vast majority of americans are. they don't actually care, they're just racist or obsessed w white christian rapture/holy war rhetoric) but also open their eyes and have to see what's really going on so they can't pretend anymore. And if they still don't care, keep forcing them to witness the things they performatively support. Where I live in america is so bad, even the people who claim to be progressive and did things like publicly support BLM and trans/gay rights are CRICKETS silent about this. Free Palestine!

[lboogie1906]

Philando Divall Castile (July 16, 1983 – July 6, 2016) was fatally shot during a traffic stop by police officer Jeronimo Yanez of the St. Anthony police department in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area.

He was born in St. Louis. He graduated from Saint Paul Central High School in 2001 and worked for the Saint Paul Public School District (2002-16). He began as a nutrition services assistant at Chelsea Heights Elementary School and Arlington High School. He was promoted to nutrition services supervisor at J. J. Hill Montessori Magnet School, in August 2014. He was stopped by the police at least 49 times in 13 years for minor traffic and equipment violations, the majority of which were dismissed.

He was driving with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter when at 9:00 p.m. He was pulled over by Yanez and another officer in Falcon Heights, a suburb of Saint Paul. After being asked for his license and registration, he told Officer Yanez that he had a firearm (he was licensed to carry), to which Yanez replied, “Don’t reach for it then”. He responded “I’m, I, I was reaching for...”, to which Yanez replied, “Don’t pull it out”. He replied “I’m not pulling it out”, and Reynolds said, “He’s not...”. Yanez again repeated, “Don’t pull it out”. Yanez proceeded to fire seven close-range shots at him, hitting him five times. He died of his wounds at 9:37 p.m. at Hennepin County Medical Center, about 20 minutes after being shot.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Reynolds posted a live stream video on Facebook from her and his car. The incident gained international interest. Local and national protests formed, and five months after the incident, Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. After five days of deliberation, he was acquitted of all charges in a jury trial on June 16, 2017. After the verdict, Yanez was immediately fired by the City of Saint Anthony. Wrongful death lawsuits against the City brought by Reynolds and his family were settled for a total of $3.8 million. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #blm

[happi-meals]

My sister bought me a Thug Kitchen cookbook years ago when i was vegan. I never rlly used it so i never rlly cared to look up the brand or the ceos, so finding out theyre 2 white ppl is a first for me lol.

I learned that they changed their name to 'Bad Manners' after the height of the BLM protests in 2020. But even tho i dont think the name is racist, and never rlly did, I do now think its a bit insensitive and tasteless and the change after 8 yrs of the name def seemed like a PR move more than anything. Oh well, better late than never lol

I also just watched their cookbook trailer which is 9 yrs old now. Its pretty cringe given its upper middle class posh white family juxtaposition to language and humor that associated with thuggery and vulgarity. But its whatever. Theres many worse issues but this was definitely a notable instance of lack-of-tact in retrospect.

But i didnt buy the book for myself lol. Ill still use the recipes. My book is practically brand new and the recipes from what i remember from skimming are pretty good, and of course, all vegan and aim to be affordable, which I like.

Finding out they were white ppl and that they changed their name due to a climate of social pressure after almost a decade of defending their antics was just a little amusing to me lol.

[messenger-of-stupidity]

American politics below. Also, talking about protests, authority figures, abortion rights, and past personal rights movements

I was talking to my mother this morning about the difference between the US and communist countries. (For context, my mom is divorced and is dating a guy from Czech. He grew up when Russia had a communist hold on the country. He immigrated to America in the late nineties)

We got to talking about American ideals. (It's a strange phone call for six in the morning, but whatever) The first pride event was a riot. It's one of the most American experiences you can get. Trans Women and Leather people were on the front lines, throwing bricks and high heels at police.

A government is infringing on personal rights. People get rightfully upset. Peaceful actions aren't working to create change. So you have to resort to violence to create any semblance of change. If you didn't know any better, you'd think I was talking about the American Revolution.

The same thing happened during the height of the BLM movement in 2020/21. Change wasn't happening by passive actions, so large amounts of people all over the country had to make the government listen for once. Thomas Jefferson believed we had to have revolts every couple of decades, so resentment wouldn't build up into a large bloody conflict within the country. Revolts make people listen.

It's probably going to happen again depending on the results of this year's presidential election. Personal freedoms are backtracking (i.e. Abortion Rights being overturned for one.) and it's eventually going to make enough people upset that the government isn't actually representing properly that they'll revolt again. Except so many issues are present that it won't be about one thing. It's going to be messy and people are going to be passionate about it. They want police defunding or reform so the persecution can cease. They want the government to stay out of their reproductive health care. They want protective unions. They want paid sick days. They want more environmental protection (permafrost is starting to melt, which is releasing more carbon and likely trapped diseases that we have no immunity against), ect.

It's interesting to know that we're going to continue living through huge amounts of history being made. I only hope it goes in the right direction and we don't turn more fascist than we already are.

In Czech and other Communist rules countries, people just disappeared for organizing protests or even just asking questions. Your body might never be discovered, and others didn't dare ask about you because they didn't want to disappear as well. Authority forced people to give them power. While here, mass amounts of people banding together can take a large amount of authority away from those in authority.

During the BLM movement, the protesters outnumbered the police, so the National Guard was called in. It got the governments attention. I don't know, maybe I'm going in circles.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting morning conversation and I have an art class to get to.

[imjustli]

I just came to think of a video that some (probably right wing) YouTuber put out after/during the BLM protests in 2020. Even at the time I was questioning the scientific integrity of this "study", as he was a white man conducting it. Now, with more experience and knowledge on scientific field work, I will go through and explain why it was fucking trash.

He is a white man. If you want to compare the reactions you get from carrying a Black Lives Matter sign in a white neighbourhood, and carrying an All Lives Matter sign in a black neighbourhood, you can't be a sole white man doing this, but you would also need to have one black person (since the white person was a man, this should also preferably be a man) helping out. You can perform it together or separately, maybe both for the sake of comparing more sets of reactions. Though it should be mentioned that both the white person and the black person should be in both places on their own, if the study requires them to perform it separately.

In the white neighbourhood he stood outside of what looked like a convenience store, while in the black neighbourhood he stood by what i think was some kind of sport area, like a basketball court or a skateboard park? These places are obviously not the same, as the convenience store is likely going to pull more matured people, who are less likely to get into fights, and more likely to understand they are purposefully being provoked. The basketball court, on the other hand, are mainly used by teens and young adults, who's brains are still not fully developed, and who are therefor more likely to start a physical fight with a person who is trying to provoke them.

Taking photos of, and filming strangers, even with scientific intent, should be avoided when it can, and their faces especially shouldn't be visible. If i remember correctly there were multiple faces in that video, or at least there were a lot of side profiles that would've been easily identifiable. I doubt the people in the video gave consent.

The amount of people shown in the video was also disproportionate. There were a lot more white people shown, but the clips stayed longer on the black people. This again, goes back to location. Was this the optimal place to find a similar amount of people in a similar demographic? Also, by the looks of things, more time passes in between the clips of the black people, and they seem to take place during a longer time frame. Those clips are also noticeably out of order, as they jump back and forth between clips of the same people. The clips of white people seem largely unedited. Was this because there were less reactions from black people? Or were the reactions less of what he had hoped for? The differences in the editing of these two places makes is less believable that this video was an accurate representation of what happened. Though, in his defence: This was in 2020, still at the height of the pandemic. Most of the anti-vaxx and anti-mask movements were found among Trump supporters, who are, you guessed it, mostly white. This would affect the amount of people at a store, and what type of people he found there. Was this an optimal time to perform the study? Not by a long shot. But this was also the height of the BLM movement, and so the choice was understandable. If that was the reason why the editing styles are so different, it should've been disclosed that he didn't meet as many black people that day.

Like I said above, the time frame seems very different between the white neighbourhood and the black neighbourhood. Did these happen on the same day? Were there other things people were involved in that would make a difference between how many/what demographic of people he met at that specific time? Lack of transparency between what day and time he was at a what place is in general something that impacts the scientific integrity of the"study".

The amount of locations were insufficient for a question as big as he made it. He was studying the difference in how anti-BLM and anti-ALM aligned people (it might've been BLM protesters, versus ALM protesters. But I honestly can't remember, and God I hope not, because if so he went about it in the completely wrong way) reacted to him with these signs. This would require him to visit several neighbourhoods in several cities, in order to get the most accurate result, and even then he probably could've only made the comparison for a specific US state. If his question had mentioned the city where he conducted the experiment, he still would've probably benefited from looking at a few different neighbourhoods, but the result would've been slightly more accurate.

Except, of course: that's still not what he actually studied. While it is a fair assumption to make, that the people in the black neighbourhood were aligned against ALM, and that the people in the white neighbourhood were aligned against BLM, just making that assumption is not really sufficient. What he really studied was how people in a specific majority-black neighbourhood, reacted to someone with an ALM sign, compared to how people in a specific majority-white neighbourhood reacted to someone with a BLM sign. The result is still not accurate, due to all the reasons listed above, but at least that is what he tried to study.

[khiphop-discussions]

I'm not really familiar with Owen, could you please make a post about what he did/siad? The khh/krnb industry is so wild it's hard to keep up with everyone andd everything they do/have done😂

Whew....where do I even start? It's actually a long laundry list.

So the most recent was when he said he doesn't care about BLM at the height of the protests during the pandemic. He said bascally "yall cant cancel me. I'm still getting money" or whatever. He eventually apologized after many people called him out. This is literally the only thing he's ever apologized for. So on one hand I believe him cause he DOESN'T EVER apologize for anything. No matter HOW bad his reputation and hate gets. But on the other hand I kinda wonder did the heat just get WAY too intense this time and so he gave a fake apology.

His other controversies include:

Saying "why do you guys care. you're not here parents." when a mkitrain member (neil) tried to get or did get nudes from a minor

Said he wants to "rape white bitches"

and honestly? I think there's more. I'm not even gonna lie but I can't remember them all. However, these are the really extreme ones that most people really hate him for and rightfully so.

I also don't like him but I kinda just try to ignore him now cause I got tired of talking about all the crazy, terrible shit he does.

While I HAVE publicly acknowledged that he was nice, polite, and humble when some acquaintances I met in Korea approached him in Hongdae one night* , I AM NOT a fan or apologist of his. I honestly lowkey regret even putting that out there and HEAVILY debated whether I should say it or not before posting. However, it was after a lot of people were surprised/annoyed that him and Ph-1 were friends again and I was trying to give context to why people in the industry will still tolerate his presence or even befriend him. I was shocked he wasn't a complete dickhead IRL tbh.

In addition, that was one experience that made me realize why some fans (and other rappers) will defend certain people (especially Owen) so hard. Cause I DEFINITELY used to be one of those "OMG so and so still has fans??? How is that even possible?" type of people. It's possible they met these people IRL before (obviously not in all cases) and had nothing but good experiences. So I was trying to basically convey that information to other people to help them understand a bit better. I feel like if something is true there's no reason to not say it but I still halfway feel like sometimes it can be unnecessary to say even if something is the truth. Regardless, I don't think that came off the way I really wanted it to. I think it might be something people have to experience personally like I did OR just be on a platform where long form text can add more nuance. Twitter is VERY bad for nuance LOL. Even if you make a thread, the first post ALWAYS gets more views than the subsequent ones so many people will miss the details/nuance even if you go out of your way too add it.

So ANYWAY, I just wanted to go more in depth here while we're on the topic of Owen just in case anybody remembers that tweet about him from not that long ago.

*this was a LONG time ago in Summer 2019. I've never had any direct interaction with him cause I ACTIVELY couldn't stand him back then but I wanted to observe the KHH scene while I was there so I observed everybody whether I liked them or not. Also, the acquaintances told me what happened in the conversation when they left and came back to where I was sitting. Just to be clear. These acquaintances were ALSO not fans of Owen and one didn't know who he was at all. One knew who he was but didn't know much about him. They saw him perform earlier that night. Hence why they approached.

[girlqueens]

Week 6

1. What are your thoughts about Darnella Frazier's role as a bystander who chose to document a crime and became a brave citizen journalist in the process? What would you do in a similar situation?

I think Darnella Frazier is a hero. Too often do we see people who turn a blind eye to the crimes that are going on around us in everyday life. Darnella realized that the damage that could be done to a whole population of people was was worse than the damage that could be done to her if she spoke up. Fear did not stop her from doing the right thing. This event, reminds us how important bystanders are how much of a difference we can really make. Our country is supposed to be a democracy, the people are supposed to monitor and speak up about the wrong doings of the government and its officials. If I were in Darnella's position or a similar one I wouldn't have done anything different. It's important to capture proof of these wrong doings and possibly interject in them to stop them from happening again.

2. Have you participated in Black Lives Matter marches and protests? Please share your experiences and your photographs in your post and in the thread below.

I have not participated in any BLM marches or protests due to the height of them being during covid lockdown, which hindered me from being able to participate but I did do everything I could to participate online. I reposted videos documenting injustices, spoke about them on social media platforms, I provided links and names/addresses of Black owned and led businesses and foundations for people to support. To this day, I still try and support as many black owned businesses as I can. Here is a list of Black owned businesses and black led-foundations you can support:

3. Choose one of the following young women BLM leaders who began their activism as teenagers and write a one-paragraph bio about them. Post a one-line summary in the thread: Zee Thomas, Shayla Turner, Brianna Chandler, Tiana Day.

Tiana Day, was just a normal teenage girl who had never been involved in any type of protest before and didn't consider herself an activist until she saw the George Floyd video. She then went on to organize many protests including the first ever Black Lives Matter protest on the Golden Gate Bridge. She also discovered that she came from a long line of activists within her family that were also apart of the fight against racial injustice and police brutality. In her quest for more youth to join her in the fight for racial equality, she went on to create a nonprofit, "Youth Advocates for Change", who's mission is to encourage and normalize youth voices and to help inspire youth to take action on different social injustice issues. Since, the organization's creation there are now more than 150 chapter members all throughout the U.S.

4. What is your assessement of Amy Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor and the ensuing exhibition held at the Speed Museum? Does it do her justice? (see video clip)

I found Sherald's portrait of Breonna to be extremely thought provoking and inspiring. It is a reminder of Breonna's story and that she would want us to keep fighting for what is right. The look in her eyes in the painting stares right into your soul. I find her eyes to be extremely uplifting, in a way saying "you know what you need to do now." The ensuing exhibition was also incredible. Watching that video clip brought tears to my eyes. You could feel the emotion of the space through the screen. It perfectly depicted how long this fight has been going on and makes whoever views it wonder when enough will finally be enough. When will the injustice be over? This space absolutely does her justice, I felt the emotion of the space and I wasn't even in the space.

[truthdogg]

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is acting as a referendum on whether or not the Black Lives Matter protests had a point

Black Lives Matter protests began in 2013 in response to killers of black Americans avoiding vigorous prosecution. They were not motivated by self esteem issues or to put black lives on a pedestal. They started out of frustration over black deaths and beatings with no justice, and police involvement in the long and seemingly unchanging history of that. The BLM protests were fundamentally about ending the acceptance of everyday violence against black people. Since that violence has so often been at the hands of police, it rapidly focused on whether police should be able to (or indeed, be expected to) shoot to kill suspects, and to torture people in their care and custody.

In most places, police themselves aggressively counter-protested any change in how they’re expected to do their jobs. There were notable exceptions, of course, but those were rare. The use of deadly or extremely violent force against suspects and bystanders is a staple of American policing, and many departments defended that vigorously, often by using some of those same violent tactics against protesters. Cities like New York & Seattle saw especially egregious behavior from law enforcement during the protests, with kettling, beatings, hitting citizens with cars, use of teargas and rubber-coated bullets, and tactics designed to create the conditions for a riot.

The national broadcast of these tactics only polarized political positions even further. While many of us expected video of protestors (especially young or elderly white protesters) being bloodied by police batons to lead to a greater acknowledgment that this behavior needed to stop, it did not. Instead, the protesters were typically called rioters and looters, and blamed for the violence itself. In fact, at the height of the protests it was often easy to tell someone’s position on the movement by whether they used the word “protester” or “rioter.”

Minority or female cops have always been more likely to face charges than their white male counterparts after the killing or beating of a suspect, and black and indigenous citizens have always been much more likely to be killed or beaten. But that is a feature of the system, not a bug, and it’s a major part of why so much of white America doesn’t see a problem with how things are. I’ve personally often heard the argument that the death of one white police officer is justification for deadly violence against any black suspect. When I’ve called people out for judging an entire diverse race by the actions of one person, they’ve simply refused to accept that’s a racist lens, and insisted they’re merely being practical. After all, the proliferation of guns in the US makes every traffic stop a mortal danger.

There was almost no nuance in these positions, and young Kyle Rittenhouse deliberately and squarely placed himself into the middle of this political fray. Protesters were arguing that police must curtail the the use of deadly force, and if they cannot, we must curtail the use of police. Counter-protesters argued that deadly force and extreme violence against suspects and bystanders are uniquely required here in the US, and that slowing their use will put police, and by extension all of us, in danger.

By arriving at the scene to “support the police” with a loaded AR-15, it was clear from the start that this meant supporting police ability to kill suspects. And that’s no surprise. Indeed, that’s what the counter protests were all about. That was their explicitly stated argument—police exist to maintain order, and if you are perceived to violate or undermine that order you may be killed. Anything less, the argument followed, and we could be facing total anarchy.

Rittenhouse wasn’t alone in this position. In fact it wasn’t even a shocking or unique position—it was just the other side of the argument. Like others, he arrived to help police maintain order, to stand in support of them in what he perceived to be their fight. True to how he saw police action (and clearly how many other Americans see it as well), he was there to assist in deadly violence against protesters if he thought any of the counter-protesters (or police) were threatened.

In the America of 2020, this was not an unusual position to hold. Lots of Americans believed the police should use deadly force against crowds if they think the crowd may turn on them. And in this case, by specifically protesting against police behavior, the crowd had turned against police simply by showing up. After the violence at the Capitol on January 6 (and now that the right-wing isn’t in charge of the federal government) that position isn’t as clear, but the prevailing attitude among the right wing of the time was that if you opposed police with a show of force, you were a bad person who deserved to meet a brutal and perhaps deadly reaction.

This is the political battle that’s now playing out publicly in the Rittenhouse trial. The trial is working as an official test of whether the Black Lives Matter protests of the past several years were legitimate, or whether deadly force is required against any challenge to white control and its violent enforcement of order.

This is partly why the trial is receiving more public commentary and displays of emotion than the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. That trial has much more in common with killing of Trayvon Martin, the 2013 spark that began the BLM movement, and will reflect on whether the justice system has changed in this short time. It is hugely important, and will also reflect attitudes on vigilantism and the threat to people of color, likely even more so. The Rittenhouse trial is different however, because it is a continuation of the polarization of the protests themselves.

The public perception of whether or not the teenage killer was justified have almost nothing to do with the facts of the case. We can argue those circumstances ad nauseum without convincing each other of anything. After all, Rittenhouse has admitted to the shootings. Instead, our personal opinions on his guilt stem from how we sided during the protests. Do we think police must be defended with deadly force against any perceived threat? Can others act on their behalf? Or do we think it’s unnecessary, that the lives of protesters and suspects are just as valuable as anyone else’s?

So far, the trial appears to reflect those opposing political views, but it should ultimately rest on the specific facts of Rittenhouse’s exact actions and state of mind before, during and after the deaths. No matter how it ends, however, it will still be seen as a referendum on whether we believe black lives do indeed matter, even though all three of his victims, one survivor and two dead, were white.

[talkingtea]

Oh my anon, the Marlize actress was chef's kiss. Real talent. And quickly became friends with Candice in real life. I also noticed that when the Sue actress finally got to have some real one-on-one scenes with Iris, she speaks highly of Candice more. I will always side eye her for following Candice at the last minute during the height of the BLM protests, but in her latest interview where she talks about how they related to each other about how this industry is, idk maybe she finally saw for herself what the "mean girls" group was doing bts.

I hope this doesn't mean we won't see them act together on the show anymore. Sue and Iris is the friendship we were supposed to have a long time ago. It's comic canon legendary! It seems like every time Candice/Iris gets close to another actor on set, they're gone. I have always believed it was intentional. Look at how it never makes sense onscreen. They isolate Iris, therefore they isolate Candice. And GG's goofy ass is none the wiser. I used to bring this up all the time to the podcasts on anon, but even though the pattern is clear as day, they would still give tptb the benefit of the doubt. And now that this Zaslov dude is in charge from Discovery, given what's been canceled already, he might be the one delaying her fate with the show even further. What do you all think?

In terms of the Warner Bros Discovery deal we think the Flash is so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things that none of the higher ups are even worried about it, much less actively interfering in it.

And while we love the Sue/Iris friendship, its clearly it only exists because they don’t know what to do with Sue without Ralph and because they want to keep Iris isolated from the main characters and storyline but they still need her to interact with someone.

[holeymolars]

some of my fav things i saw at the museum of welsh life yesterday!

1. A reconstructed church with restored murals on the wall, I think from the 16th century.

2. A teapot featuring the Ladies of Llangollen, two high class ladies who ran away together to live in Llangollen in the 18th/19th century

3. An antique framed slogan that reads: "Christ is the Head of this house the Unseen Guest at every meal The Silent Listener to every conversation" from a restored house around the early 20th century.

4. A BLM display from 2020, featuring picket signs and photos from the protests in Wales.

5. A sign reading: Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau is Wales' National Anthem. James James, a tavern harpist in Pontypridd, wrote the melody in 1856. In 1899, Madge Breese sang the anthem on the first record ever made in the Welsh language. The anthem was sung at the start of a sporting event when Wales beat the All Blacks in 1905.

6. Some sheep on the grounds of the outdoor museum.

7. A photo of a black Welsh family in traditional Welsh dress, from the 1970s.

8. The Neanderthal boy complete body reconstruction from his remains.

9. A photo from inside a reconstructed school room. The object that looks like a small brick attached to a string was known as the Welsh Knot. In the 19th century, if children were caught speaking their native language of Welsh in Welsh schools, they would be forced to wear the Knot and pass it on to other children who were caught using Welsh. Whoever had the Knot at the end of the day would be caned. At the time, English colonisation of Wales was at its height and Welsh was regarded as "the Devils language".

10. A little frog we saw! We had to move him out of the way so he wouldn't get stepped on.