Thank you for all of your well wishes and continued support!
As I mentioned last week, my dad passed away here at home with us. It was a hard death, but I’m glad he’s no longer suffering.Through it all, we have gotten so much support from family and friends. I know we’ll survive this; we’re a strong family.
Unfortunately, despite my dad finally being at rest, we still have a frightening amount of medical debt. Collection agents have been calling around the clock (even on the morning of his funeral), but we simply don’t have the money to pay since the funeral costs were around $6,000, that being the “cheapest” package they had.
Most of the agencies we have been in contact with have made it clear that a lot of this debt could be wiped clean if we sent in official death certificates. However, those cost money to get and the number of them that we need will cost us around $200 out of pocket. We can’t even come up with the money to pay these agencies, how can we be expected to come up with that money to cover that cost?
I’m hoping you all can help me this last time. My estimate is that we need around $400 to pay the bare minimum to the agencies we owe money to for this month and to cover the cost of the death certificates. If I can raise this much, we can finally get out of this financial hell once and for all.
If you can donate, please click the link above or click the donate button in the about section on my blog. Seriously, every amount counts. As always, thank you for your support and please reblog and signal boost even if you can’t donate.Thank you!
June 2013
Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?
Most people haven’t heard of him.
But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo.
His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.
He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his “business transactions” as philanthropic and scientific efforts under the banner of the “International African Society”. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, torture, and his private army.
Most of us – I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high – aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Its bad to “say racist things” (sometimes), but quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.
Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. Its 49 pages long. Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind – this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history.
When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.
There’s a Wikipedia page called “Genocides in History”. The Congolese Genocide isn’t included. The Congo is mentioned though. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga and ate them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history and talked about for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking who’s interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multi-national incidents where a tiny minority of people were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict no less). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Conglese people in the process doesn’t make the cut.
You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture doesn’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.
Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. Of course I don’t want to pretend that in the Congo he was the source of all evil. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But this doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide are hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.
Tony Bourdain referenced this on his program about a week and a half ago. The mention wasn’t very lengthy, but it was enough to make me actually look it up.
I was absolutely horrified.
- God: I love all my children equally.
- [Earlier in the Bible]
- God: I don't care for Job.
If you’re in a relationship with another gay man, do you two have to like…fight to the death to determine which one of you gets to be the head of the household? Or…
A straight white man goes into the jungle and stumbles across a beautiful iridescent beetle, completely unfamiliar to him. “What the fuck, is this some kind of tumblr social justice shit?”
So guys, I’m still broke, still jobless, and still stuck in a state with none of my or my child’s things. To everyone who donated before, thank you so much. It helped me get some clothes for me and the baby, diapers, food, and internet access so I could apply for jobs. However, I have bills I need to pay and necessities I need to buy. If you can spare a few dollars, that would be so freaking amazing and I’d love you forever.
Anyone who donates $1 to her I will draw you a quick one character portrait sketch and anyone who donates above $5 I will draw full body sketch, anyone who donates above $10 I will do you a flat colored portrait, and $20 will do you a colored full body. If you donate higher let me know we will work something out. These are negotiable to other things.
Send me a submit with a pic of the receipt and your request.
anyone who’s ever tried to even out their eyeliner. (via whatscraicen)
EXCUSE ME, SPEAK FOR YOURSELF.
beysus came before yeezus don’t worship false idols
i don’t understand why kylie minogue isn’t a big deal in america.
like
why?
I think if Kylie Minogue’s discography had an okcupid profile, it would say “I don’t want to hear or be heard by straight people.”
Actual Black Person.: grrlyman: Recently, an Asian drag queen submitted a video to…
Recently, an Asian drag queen submitted a video to hellnoracistdrag of one of her performances in which she does blackface and attempts to dance and she tagged it #freepublicity. It’s sad for a few reasons. First of all, girl’s so stiff every move she tries looks like the robot,…
You know, IMHO, it goes beyond race. Most of drag is making fun of women. I still enjoy it, but why do so many drag queens have to act ditsy in drag? Being racist is definitely worse especially when it comes to woc… I don’t know just drag isn’t a safe place for women in general.
My fellow white people, I have come to collect our trash. Originally, tumblr user grrlyman made this post about racism in drag. What you see above is a white person taking that post about racism in drag (without even including the full text of that original post) and not only derailing it completely, but also interjecting their unnecessary and unwanted white opinion, which includes the choice phrase “IMHO it goes beyond race.” First of all, let me just say: no. Secondly, as white people we have no right to to take the words of a POC about racism and force them into an unsolicited dialogue about whatever the fuck else we want to just shove in there. Nobody asked us what we think and the world does not need more white voices interrupting. When a POC goes out of their way, time and time again, to speak out against racism, it is not an invitation for us to got “but also, here’s what I think.” No. Racism is not a discussion to be had between POC and white people. If a POC chooses to speak out against it, them educating us about it is more than we deserve and we need to sit down, shut the fuck up and listen. Grrlyman asked that we collect this garbage, but if I have overstepped any boundaries as a white person, please tell me to shut the fuck up.
All You Need to Know About Irrational “Self-Defense” Laws in Three Pictures
That’s Ezekiel Gilbert. He was acquitted yesterday in the murder of Lenora Ivie Frago, who had taken $150 from Gilbert for sex and then refused to have sex with him or give him the money back. So he shot her, not wanting to kill her (and it did take her a few months to die). But because Texas allows people to use deadly force in order to retrieve stolen property (and because the sex did not occur, despite prostitution being illegal, the money was considered stolen), Gilbert, for lack of a better phrase, got off.
That’s Ralph Wald. He was acquitted last week for the murder of Walter Conley. Conley had been in the middle of having sex with Wald’s wife, so, like any reasonable person, Wald claimed that he assumed his wife was being raped and shot Conley dead. His defense was Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows anyone who believes that he or she is facing danger in his or her home to use deadly force. Wald said his wife was in danger, so he shot first and asked questions later. Oh, wait, actually he didn’t do that last part. He told police he was glad the guy was dead.
That’s Marissa Alexander. Last year, in Jacksonville, Florida, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a shot in the air to warn her husband, Rico Gray, to back off her. He had been arrested previously for domestic violence against her, beating her when she was pregnant, and on that day in 2010, he “approached her in a rage” when Alexander drove up to their house to get clothes. She was trying to move out and get away from Gray. Before she fired the shot, he had chased her through the house, broken down a door to get at her, and cornered her in the garage. The judge said she should have fled instead of firing twice into the air. At trial, her Stand Your Ground defense was rejected because the jury did not believe she faced imminent danger. She was convicted of aggravated assault and given the mandatory sentence. She is still in prison.
Look at the pictures. Here’s your homework assignment. See if you can figure it out: What is different about Alexander?And on Monday, 06.10.2013 a white man who profiled, stalked and murdered an unarmed 17yr old black male will go on trail asserting the defense that it was he who was threatened by someone armed with skittles and iced tea
Tell me again about how post-racial America is and how there’s no war on women, particularly those of color
Oh yeah, and let’s don’t forget: SCOTUS appears to be ready to repeal Affirmative Action… because ~*equality*~
men make me uncomfortable
There are 3 bird feeders in my backyard that I always keep full. One is a little platform nailed to the top of the fence, while the other two hang from a post in the yard. I was washing the dishes today and looking into the backyard wondering why I hadn’t seen a single bird eat from the hanging feeders this year, when suddenly a perfect dove landed on one and began to eat. I just stood there watching it, happy that they finally seemed to realize “holy shit there is food here” when all of a sudden my cat Sister hurls herself out of the grass and surprise attacks the dove! It got away unharmed, minus a few feathers. And now I know why my birds won’t go anywhere near those fucking feeders (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Not everything is healthy at Whole Foods. Two employees at the natural foods supermarket chain in Albuquerque, New Mexico are saying that they were suspended for speaking Spanish to each other during work hours.
Bryan Baldizan told The Associated Press he and a female employee were suspended for a day after they wrote a letter following a meeting with a manager who told them Spanish was not allowed during work hours.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Baldizan, who works in the store’s food preparation department. “All we did was say we didn’t believe the policy was fair. We only talk Spanish to each other about personal stuff, not work.”
He said Whole Foods officials told them about company policy and issued the suspensions.
One Whole Foods executive told NBC Latino that the company believes in “having a uniform form of communication for a safe working environment.”
Fuck whole foods.
In South Korea, shutter sounds on cameras and phones have to be at 64db, so they can be heard at pretty much any level of background noise?
In Japan, shutter sounds are voluntarily mandatory, and any phone headed for Japan has to have a shutter sound that you can’t remove, including Apple products?
And that the shutter sounds also extend to the sounds made when focusing?
And only up until recently could you remove the shutter sounds on all Korean/Japanese made smart phones that were headed to the world market?
And that there is no actual argument that can be used in the discussion about disabling shutter sounds other than “it’s annoying”?
And that that’s a fucking ridiculous argument anyway.
I think it should be a legal requirement to have shutter sounds/focus sounds on all smart phones. If not to protect national security~ then at least to protect the privacy of citizens, particularly women who find themselves at the mercy of people taking “creep shots”.
Never forget when Mark Aguhar said “your camera phone is a product of rape culture.”
if you go to condomusa.com you can get free condoms
Edit: You still have to pay 6 bucks for shipping on a single order of 8 free condoms (only one free package of 8 condoms per order), which isn’t really “free” IMO. Also you have to wait for them to arrive. Lord knows if I have the chance I ain’t waiting 5-8 business days to fuck. I condone just stealing condoms from anywhere that doesn’t keep them locked behind glass.
if you go to condomusa.com you can get free condoms
people literally spray deer piss on themselves and hide in trees for hours on end like
