gonna grow you a place safer than this

(guy whos scared of everything and feels guilty about everything) sorry i got scared and felt guilty

thinking about how my mom spent like 2 years getting downright vicious about the houseless folks who were camping in the woods past her house (to the point of getting a BB rifle that looked like a real fucking gun to threaten them with when they crossed in front of her house??) and justifying it with White Lady Fear a la "what if one of them does something to me! I am but a helpless white woman living all alone!!" and like...

y'all, she terrorized those people. every single time she saw someone outside, she was riling her dog up to bark, waving a gun in their faces (that for all intents & purposes they certainly thought was real), yelling at them, calling the cops (thank god the 2 rural-ass cops didn't actually give a shit), etc.

and she justified it with fears of womanly fragility & inability to defend herself, and I believe how afraid she was! she talked about fearing they would break into her house at night and sexually assault her, and I believe she was legitimately afraid of that. she's been victimized in many of the ways she was afraid of being victimized by them.

the thing is that it doesn't matter how real the fear is.

nothing ever happened, nobody ever tried to threaten her, nobody tried to break in, nobody even approached her. she initiated every single interaction. when she told them not to go through her yard, they did the best they could to respect that without giving up their camping spot; which was on someone else's property, who didn't mind them being there (not to mention one of them is actually indigenous to this specific land!)

she was a thousand times more threatening to those people than they ever were to her, but her fear of them was still real. and that's exactly what made her so dangerous.

I need cis women to internalize this ASAP. your fear is real, and it can and will hurt others. your fear is real, and it is harmful. your fear is real, and your hurt is not deserved, and you still need to grow & heal & prevent it from causing harm.

OP I hate to break it to you but if 1. Just 1 of those men gets the jump on your mom with ill intent she's robbed or raped or dead.

You acknowledge that her fears are justified. You also acknowledge that she has been "victimized" this way in the past. "It doesn't matter how real her fear is." There is some major privilege checking that needs to happen here. You ever stop to think that maybe the reason you have the ability to be so free of fear right now is because your mother probably fought tooth and nail to protect you?

And somehow SOMEHOW she's the bad person for taking initiative to protect herself. I'm sorry but this is myopic at best and victim blaming at worst. Also spoilers: The "rural-ass" cops (who are all bastards) don't give a fuck about it because your mom is a woman and women get raped and murdered "all the time." Those cops prolly go home and beat their wives. I've been actively being followed and stalked and ducked into a diner I saw with cop cars in front and slid into their booth and pleaded for help. You know what they said? "Call us once something happens."

After that I started carrying a gun. And I had to pull it twice. If I hadn't I wouldn't be here right now.

Your mom is fucking based and good on her for defending herself when no one else will. Have some damn sympathy for your mother.

Oooh, I got one!

So here's the thing: my mom wasn't in danger of these folks any more than she was the housed neighbors who lived much closer by, the housed people who walked through her yard trying to get to the park, or the wealthy guy who owned the land adjacent to hers who walked through her yard to mow the grass there.

She wasn't afraid of the housed (mostly white) people who "tresspassed" doing any of those things to her. So what was different?

Not her personal history. The people who victimized her were intimate partners (not strangers), and they were white, housed, and similar to her in age and culture.

I'll tell you what was different: homeless people, especially homeless people of color, are a group that privileged people (especially white women) are taught to fear. Culturally, we believe that these people are inherently dangerous. This fear causes us to enact violence against them at worst, or socially ostracize them at least, which furthers their oppression.

This is especially obvious in the case of the indigenous homeless woman my mother also regularly initiated confrontations with to threaten. I'm sure women of color are still scary and masculine to you for totally unknown non-racist reasons, but I encourage you to ask yourself what, exactly, she needed to be afraid of in this scenario.

And I encourage you to question who police typically mistreat more frequently and severely: wealthy white cis women, or homeless people of color?

When I say I am surprised and grateful that the cops did not use this white woman's fear as justification to brutalize and steal from homeless people, I am speaking to a pattern of violence and system of oppression. It's incredibly fortunate that this happened in an area where not only is police presence low to begin with, but the police themselves also didn't take action regardless of the fact that the land the homeless folks were staying on was owned by people who did not mind their presence, and did not want them removed by police, in the first place.

And finally: if you think my mother's inclination towards violence starts and ends at random strangers, you are frankly fucking stupid. I have a complicated relationship with her at this point, but my mom has been the single largest source of violence (from physical to emotional) and trauma in my life for as long as I've been alive. You are not defending heroic, admirable, and innocent white lady you think you are.

You keep putting "white" in front of woman like that magically makes white women immune to crimes like assault or rape or domestic violence. I assure you that reality does not support that conclusion. Also like her skin color somehow makes her fears and trauma invalid.

I am also not "stupid" for not knowing things you didnt mention or omitted. Now it sounds like your mom is an abusive, blatant racist? I don't know. I just draw a line at invalidating women's justified fears, trauma and right to self defense.

Stuff like this is just shit you lose the capability to think when you've actually had to decide you're going to kill someone in self defense. And honestly, good. It's good not everyone is that way. But it's important to have a little damn empathy for people who DO live in situations where they can't have the luxury of living or thinking like YOU do.

"It doesn't matter how real the fear is." Uh. Yes it does. It absolutely matters because that fear is what keeps those people alive.

op's mother is not living in a situatio where she "had to decide you're going to kill someone in self defense." as OP has clarified, nothing has happened. the unhoused people living near her have done nothing to her.

you have correctly identified that for a certain kind of person-- particularly cis, white women-- fear is a kind of power than enables a host of wildly antisocial behavior without consequence. you are advocating for fear because it is power and it is power you want to weild, perhaps to do things like "decide to kill someone."

"I'm not stupid for not knowing things you didn't mention or omitted."

what you are is an asshole for making an opinionated, judgmental post as though you could reasonably assume facts about OP's situation, instead of, say, asking a few good-faith questions before putting your foot directly into your mouth.

or, for that matter, demonstrating reading comprehension. OP never said their mother's fears were justified. you read that into the post yourself.

I appreciate the backup, and yall are very correct.

Just to add & make sure this is super clear:

I say "white woman" in this post because white women hold an extremely specific kind of power over people of color under white patriarchy, and it is the exact kind of power she is wielding here. This is specifically a racialized dynamic.

White women are subjected to misogynistic violence (most often by white men, and partners/family members), which creates a very real, very justified fear of further violence. Patriarchal white supremacy then feeds into this fear, and directs it incorrectly at strangers, men of color, people of color generally, and other marginalized groups; including homeless people, like I'm speaking to in this post.

White women are not the most frequently subjected to misogynistic violence among all women, but they are viewed as the most "valuable" and worthy of protection under white patriarchy. A white woman who fears homeless people of color is a danger to those people. When she calls the cops on them, she is enacting a specific form of racialized violence with a long, long history; this is how white patriarchy wants, expects, and has told her to act. White patriarchy now has a justification for enacting violence against these homeless people of color, via cops, without facing scrutiny: they were defending the honor and safety of a fragile, helpless white woman in danger.

You are playing directly into this system. You are falling for white patriarchy's ploy.

There are other ways to go about protecting oneself, and I don't take issue with, for example, ensuring your doors lock properly or taking action to keep safe if someone demonstrates real intent to harm you (I have had to do the same, ironically only in defense of my mother and brother).

This post isn't telling anyone what to do; it's a story I shared because I think it speaks to a number of nuanced issues in an elegant way. There are a lot of different messages you can take away from it, and of course it's filtered through the perspective of a total stranger- so maybe take this more as fiction than something you can weigh in on as judge and jury. The meaning you draw from it is your own.

But if you ask me, the most important takeaway here is this: fear is dangerous, and it's worth examining. Even when that fear is entirely rooted in reality.

Who benefits from your fear? Who is telling you to be afraid, and why? What can you do to remain safe without harming others, and without feeding into systems of oppression? Are you really in danger, or do you just feel like you are? Do you need protection, or do you need comfort?

And the second most important takeaway, imo, is not to assume that you know a stranger's situation based on one post you disagree with.

I think that this is something that white women like me need to look at and face in the mirror every goddamn day. Do you know why we need to do it?

Because white women in the US consistently and in overwhelming numbers vote against their own best interests out of FEAR of some “other” that’s being specifically stoked by so many sources to prevent us from banding together.

We need to SEE how our fear has been created and manipulated to keep white men in power. And OP’s mom? Great example of that. OP’s mom is using her previous experiences as a weapon against the people her abusers told her were at fault. WE DO THAT AS WHITE WOMEN DAILY. We were raised to do it. It was ingrained into us by literally everything around us and we need to hold this mirror up and look into it and see OP’s mom in our mirror and fucking realize what we let our fear do.

The crazy thing is that OPs mom is more likely to create the situation that shes was using her fear to avoid. She didnt want to get raped/assaulted so she regularly threatened people with guns and weapons? Thats going to cause people who would have left her alone to start being aggressive toward her because SHE IS A THREAT. If she is pointing guns at people, people are going to starting thinking “gotta get her before she gets me”. Shes literally creating the situation shes trying to use her trauma to “avoid”.

also the way that the nimona movie showed that hate is a taught behavior?? the way that gloreth, the hero worshipped for slaying monsters, was fully accepting of nimona until her mother told her what to believe? until that generational bigotry was passed down? the way the director’s motive wasn’t even power like most evil government figureheads in media, but rather a fear of monsters destroying the kingdom because that hate had been instilled in her too, like it had in gloreth? the way ballister was also indoctrinated into hatred of “monsters” until he was just as outcast as one? because only then was he willing to change and learn?? and how even people with good hearts and good intentions like ballister and ambriosius and even the queen herself are still capable of perpetuating bigotry and unnecessary violence when they don’t take the time to understand or learn about the “others” they supposedly hate????????? i need to lie down

I absolutely love how Lucifer is able to draw out the desire in people and that Michael is able to draw out fear. It’s a perfect representation of their characters.

Lucifer is freedom, passion, excitement. He asks for your desires so that you can truly be free from every concern and pursue only what you want.

Michael is the authoritarian, the one in control, the constrainting and the familiar. He asks for your fear so he knows exactly how to keep you in line and how to keep people where he needs them.

It’s just....such a good comparison of their characters.

Holy shit

I know that Michael’s knack of drawing out a person’s deepest fears is meant to be a direct contrast to Lucifer’s ‘deepest desires’, showing just how opposite the twins are. 

But I recall the one phrase most commonly used by angels in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is ‘Do not be afraid’; whether the person whom the angel has appeared to is terrified of the message they bring, or the sight of the angel themselves.

Meanwhile, here’s Michael essentially saying ‘Be afraid. Be very afraid.’ 

Holy shit

okay so OBVIOUSLY there’s bill too but also like? i think one of the reasons that cybermen affect thirteen so much whereas the dalek didn’t??? is because her entire attack strategy is in finding weak points in her enemies mind/emotions etc and using them against them. but cybermen don’t HAVE those

she goaded the dalek into making mistakes but she can’t DO that with the cybermen because they don’t get angry. even with the lone cyberman, like his emotions are muted?? she says all that shit to him and hes just like. yep that’s correct.

thirteen doesn’t really show fear that often. she is angry and she is righteous and she is so so gleeful in her destruction, but she’s never scared.

until she’s finally up against a foe who she can’t verbally rip to pieces.

previous doctors’ main weaknesses were foes who used their own insecurities and actions and beliefs against them (mainly daleks, pyschics, etc). thirteen took that weakness and she weaponised it

Holy shit

the web is the funniest entity bc it's like... the fear of being controlled. the fear of losing your own agency. the fear that you're being manipulated. the fundamental terror that others are taking advantage of you in ways that you don't even understand... And Also Spiders Are There

alright so i didn't read the tags the first time and don't know this podcast so i just assumed it was a post about the nature of the internet and went "yeah that's fair"

Lmao same

For just a moment there, I thought maybe.

This scene, like so many others, broke my heart.  

This scene was proof positive that the Master’s self-destructive tendencies, which began with Missy, only continued into the Dhawan face, and it is one more reason why I found the new canon so difficult to bear: for his sake.  

He feels that he is an extension only of the Doctor, when he has spent several lifetimes arduously building up a record of infamy just to prove to the world (and therefore, external locus of control, himself) that he is worthy of not only renown, but regard, period.  

His need in Spyfall for the Doctor specifically to kneel and call him by his moniker, a moniker all about autonomy and control; his comments in Spyfall that killing people make him feel that he’s doing what he should; his comments in Timeless Children that he has no better self; his comments here,  that “I am death”; his every action; ALL of these things point to the belief that he can be no more than a REACTION, and that that reaction must be OPPOSITIONAL to a force of light and creation and hope. It must be darkness and destruction and despair.  He’s become more dependent than anyone, and he knows it.  He’s destroyed his own planet to prove a point, and still the rage and the helpless despair linger, because of that belief. 

And what’s worse, this is a belief he has always held, a fear he has always had: that his world pivots around the Doctor, but hers can go on thriving without him. Now, to him, because of a genetic sequence, it’s “proven true.”  

He wants to die. And the Master has never wanted to die before. And it’s devastating, because, as Sacha Dhawan himself said, despite the Master never gives up, he’s indomitable, and something about that makes him admirable. 

Where is that indomitability now?

  In gestalt theory, one part of an artistic composition being  changed–one color, one passage of value or perspective–means that every part is changed. Now that the Doctor’s fundamental selfhood has changed, so has the Master’s. 

And that bothers me a LOT. 

HOLY SHIT

        ❝That’s extortion.❞

This is the look of horror when a dad hears his 5-year-old daughter say shit right after him.

Lmao yesss XD

Elsa stripping down like that and running into the ocean and using her magic to run across it gives me so much life. I mean she was challenging herself and facing a major fear and she was killing it.

FUCK YEAH

Perspective. 

“Looting? I thought these were supposed to be nonviolent protests”

I know it’s incredible! People are literally coming out of the woodwork to comment on this photoset to focus on the looting headline with “well yes it is nice they were helping people hit with the tear gas, but stealing is still wrong uwu” as if they’re back to kindergarten morality.

Like everyone who’s gone to boot camp I’ve been tear gassed. They put about 50+ of you in a gas chamber and toss it in. You have to stay there until your rank is allowed to exit. Before that though, you have to say your name, rank, and social security number. You then exit and file into ranks (again) outside and are not allowed at any point to rinse your face or eyes for the entire day.

That right there? Easily the worst part of boot camp. My eyes were literally swollen shut. I was blinded for a good 30 minutes and my chest hurt for days.

I have zero problem and not and ounce of judgement for people raiding a mcdonalds that can easily afford to repair damage for ANYTHING to help ease the shittiness that is being tear gassed. Esp because every one of us in boot were medically sound to deal with tear gas. Children, asthmatics, people prone to panic and anxiety attacks, the elderly as sooo many more are NOT going to handle tear gas well at ALL.

Or that smoke the police use either.

It’s easy to sit there and judge someone from the safety of your home and say things like “it’s just tear gas” or “it can’t be that bad”.

Fuck you. As someone who HAS been gassed, you need to stfu.

I remember all the preparation they did to get us ready for the gas chamber in boot camp. We were taught how to handle ourselves, how to control our breathing, not to touch anything, how to avoid the worst of the gas. But it still didn’t matter. I remember taking in that first breath and feeling like I had just been kicked in the chest. I remember a few guys in my platoon falling down and vomiting. We knew the gas wasn’t as bad on the floor but we were the fifth platoon through and the vomit kept us from bending over more than absolutely necessary. I remember a few guys, guys in peak health training to be infantrymen, breaking ranks and running for the door only to be dragged back in kicking and screaming until they said name, rank and serial. They were expecting it, trained for it, bragging about how it wouldn’t bother them. I remember standing there with all of the mucus from my nasal cavity on the front of my ACUs and thinking to myself “This is the nonviolent option?” Covered head to toe and my skin still itching I looked down at the silver wedding band hanging next to my dog tags and realized that the gas had eaten little pits into its surface. I stood there and thought of all the news reports I had seen over the years. The uprisings and revolutionaries being gassed, the crowds running from men in masks. That’s the moment I got it, staring at my ruined wedding band, that’s the moment I realized terrorism isn’t about bombs or who is using them. It’s about controlling people through fear. It’s about removing their ability to act reasonably, to make them seem like the monsters. Terrorism is about triggering people to fight or flight then blaming them for not being rational. It’s about power. Remove someone’s power to act with reason, and you remove their humanity.

Oh fuck

My god this commentary is perfect. Also a reminder that it turned out this “looting” was not that at all, the police bust that window with a bullet and the staff were gracious enough to hand milk out it seems, the protestors did not break in but even if they did just look at what they were trying to do with that milk, look at what they went through. The immense endurance that’s been shown by the people of Ferguson in the face of all this is incredible.

Holy shit

i swear to god, men raising their voice is the most terrifying thing in the whole world. they dont understand, like its an immediate panic response, game over

I actually had no idea women found this so scary

my downstairs neighbors fight on a regular basis, and every time he starts yelling i’m a little afraid he’s going to kill her. i have no reason to think this except that he is a man and he is angry

My math teacher has a loud voice and a temper and he scares the living shit out of me almost everyday. He’s made me and other kids cry more than once and he and his teacher buddies make a joke out of terrifying students.

this was women in general? i knew my gf didn’t like it but I was unaware if this affected most women

Yes, it does

As a woman, I had no idea it effected other women like this. I was too afraid to even talk about it. I thought I was weak. Thanks for bringing attention to this.

My dad thinks it’s funny that I used to cry when he raised his voice. I freak out whenever some one does. Once my director did, and I started crying I couldn’t stop. I’m glad to see I’m not alone…

This is so important– seeing how common this is– and I also want you all to know that this is not normal. It isn’t something instinctively ingrained into women, to be afraid of men. There is no natural state of men being a threat that women constantly have to be afraid of. This is cultural. So many women and girls here have a mutual understanding of this feeling, and I think it really shows an unsettling truth about our society, particularly about how men are raised to act and how so many women have this defensive reaction gradually develop. It’s so important that these people have their voices heard, because it teaches us about problems that we just can’t deny the existence of any longer.

I’m glad I’m not the only one

My fellow men, pay attention. I didn’t realize how scary this could be until one of my exes explained it to me, and it’s heartbreaking.

Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)

Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.

I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.

I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.

Don’t tell me it’s too hard, that you just can’t do it, or that you “shouldn’t have to.” I’m 53 years old and just now getting the hang of it, and if this old dog can learn something new, so can you.

Note to guys: It really, REALLY doesn’t matter if you’re thinking, “but I would never…”

History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…

We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”

We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.

The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”

It’s telling that so many people will hear a story of long-term abuse and say, “why did she stay with him?” and not “why did he treat her like that?”

This made me cry.

Don’t skip over this.

This is really fucking important guys

Noooo my babies 😢😭