Oh I’m an asshole.

So today pulling into Stop and Shop, this lady cut me off and nearly drove into me, and then, when I tried to pass her, she swung to the right and nearly hit me again, and then flipped me off.

So somebody is having a bad day and taking it out on me. That’s fine. It’s harmless, and I don’t know what’s going on in this woman’s life. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt she’s not just a piece of shit and is just having a bad day.

But then I park and she follows me, and gets out of the car and starts swearing at me and getting in my face.

Now I go from “indifferent” to “I’m gonna fuck with this woman’s head.” Now I would say I’m a gentleman of size, and in all black and bemohawked I probably look spookier than I actually am, so props to this lady for getting in my face. Now of course I’m not going to hit her, or even threaten violence. That’s shitty. Nobody should get threatened with violence.

Instead, I take a step back, narrowing my eyes like I’m studying her face really closely, and then I touch one of the several piece of “occulty” jewelry I’m wearing (none of which, by the way, are magicked in any way at all). Then I mumble some nonsense under my breath, and then make the fig gesture and the horns at her.

She stops, wide-eyed.

“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO TO ME?”

I chuckled, and shake my head. “Nothing at all.” I say in a not-terrible convincing voice. “But every time something bad happens to you today, you’re gonna be thinking of me.”

Then I winked at her, and walked away.

Leverage Did It Well

I didn’t notice this the first time I watched Leverage (or the sixth), but when I posted a GIF of Hardison last week I noticed something…

The line is adorable, the writing fantastic, but the big thing I noticed is YOU CAN SEE HARDISON. Aldis Hodge is lit up so you can see his face easily.

Here’s another GIF.

And another…

So, here’s the thing. In most shows black actors fade in the background. They’re lit incorrectly and the dark background combined with the dark skin means the character vanishes. Especially on shows with cops and a lot of white people. 

Poor David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) of Numb3rs is invisible in every night scene because he’s not lit up correctly. 

Before the advent of colored TV there were more black actors. They were common almost. But with color came the problem that a dark background makes a fair skinned person stand out while making a darker skinned person vanish. The Hollywood solution was to stop hiring darker skinned people. (Not a good idea).

In the first GIF Hardison is in a darker room. He should have vanished, they back-lit him, had ground lights, and framed him well. 

Same with the second on, notice the light on his head. He’s glowing like an angel.

Third GIF… notice the lamp placement? The light almost washes out the color of the green towel behind Hardison, but it means the viewers see him perfectly. And isn’t that really the goal? 

this is obviously about racism but also some part of you looks at this gorgeous human and thinks “OF COURSE THEY WANTED HIM BATHED IN SOFT LIGHT SO THAT WE COULD ALL GAZE UPON HIM AND BASK”

There’s a bit in one of the DVD commentaries where they talked about working with the lighting and not shooting until everyone is lit.

To be honest, yes to the above but also the real skill is when Hardison and Parker share a scene. Because they’re about as polar opposite as can be in terms of ideal lighting … But if a cable show produced on the smell of an empty rag can pull it off, no one has any excuse.

Leverage used a lot of the same crew that Star Trek:TNG and DS9 had used. The lighting techs were equally adept on those series. TNG was typically lit very bright, DS9 typically lit very dark, but you could always see what was happening. (And they both aired long before High Def televisions, so no excuse there!) You could hang out in Engineering with dark skinned Geordi and pale skinned Data and clearly see what they were both doing. You could hang out at the bar with a gray Cardassian, an orange-ish Ferengi, a brown Klingon, a black human, and a white Trill without losing focus on anyone. You could take in all those lovely makeup and costume details the various aliens had, whether it was a night shot or a bright morning, without having to squint.

I especially appreciate that kind of talent when I think about the last season of Game of Thrones, where they chose to do a huge night battle with a thousand extras, dressed them all in stylized costumes and intricate battle makeup, spent millions of dollars on fancy special effects, and then decided to light the whole episode so darkly that most viewers could barely see any of it.  

very cool how the gender binary in the emerging trad terf synthesis is like, there are two genders, the one that does bad things and the one that bad things are done to. the only thing in the world is immorality and it flows from unexperiencing agents to unacting experiencers.

which naturally appeals to people who would like to be perceived as inherently lacking the capacity for immorality. for whatever reason

anyway remember bell hooks’s very cogent critique of second-wave feminist organizing in ‘sisterhood: solidarity between women’ where she argues that by “bonding as ‘victims’, white women’s liberationists were not required to assume responsibility for confronting the complexity of their own experience … Identifying as ‘victims’, they could abdicate responsibility for their role in the maintenance and perpetuation of sexism, racism, and classism.” it’s not by accident that terf gender essentialism dovetails so much with other biological-determinist & essentialist assumptions including Extremely Racist Ones   

Ruby Bridges is 68. This is not ancient history. Not even close.

I know Ruby. She's a really nice person. The idea that they would try and write what she did as a girl out of history is shocking to me on so many levels, the simplest of which is just, but don't they know how lovely she is?

awesome story. black doctors and nurses are the best.

We need more of this

I'm not a PoC but this is just incredible, *exceptional*, culturally sensitive patient care, period. Absolutely should be shared with every healthcare professional I know.

We should always keep in mind that we are treating an entire person, not simply their condition, and the effects seemingly minor kindnesses can have on them long after they leave our care.

If you want to support black doctors who are just starting out, Farrah-Amoy Fullerton, a fourth-year med student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham just set up a way for people to help black fourth year med students transition to their residencie. This often means moving to a new city where they won't get a paycheck for weeks. Black students are also less likely to have access to generational wealth to keep them afloat during school. So if you have a few bucks and want to buy a graduation gift for a future black doctor, check out this article or search #medgradwishlist on twitter.

We need more black doctors to because doctors are often untrained on how to diagnose conditions in black peoples vs white people and are taught black have a higher pain tolerance and just a whole bunch of other ridiculous things........ black people need black doctors

Don't get me wrong the USA is a hell country and most of what is considered usamerican culture is a fucking NIGHTMARE and a lot of us are suffering both in and out of the country bc of it but. There's certain things that people outside of the USA make fun of and not in a jovial way that I'm like hmm. Fucka you actually

"why are the food and drink proportions so big" why shouldn't they be??? What's so bad about nobody feeling like they're still hungry and also often times it's with the intention of having leftovers bc you're not expected to clean your plate at restaurants. Also who doesn't like a large beverage????

"americans are so FAT and LOUD and CHEERFUL" yeah and our meat is also fucking huge. got any other cool and rad things about us???

"ugh [insert food that is usually either southern food or immigrant food but especially biscuits and gravy for some fucking reason???] Looks so gross and unhealthy why would you eat that??" Because it's fucking good and tasty what're you talking about

"why would you take a road trip???" Well historically it's because due to the infastructure and lack there if that was established in the 1940s and continues to this day road trips are often the cheapest and most accessible form of travel and they come with the added practically that depending on what supplies you bring what season it is and what car you have you can sleep in said car during the journey which is an added level of both convenience and cuts down on costs further.

For most people though it's because it's fun go grab a bunch of snacks and a friend or two and go some place it rules

"cringey Americans use FAHRENHEIT for WEATHER" my thermostat is always set at 69 😎😎😎😎

lil matt damon SNAPPED

He looks exactly like Matt Damon

the finger points 😭😭

Him and this gif have the same energy

He dragged him for not listening lmao

The guy in the corner has the face of a man who has witnessed a murder and is absolutely loving it

That teacher is working so hard to keep his cool but I am a teacher, I speak teacher, and that man is having the best day of his entire career

One day we need to have a conversation about how the majority of HR professionals are white women and how they operate as the single largest barrier to entry for non white people in corporate.

I but like this is just one of many reasons y’all have to stop believing that white women are this ultra oppressed group with limited power. Yesterday a white woman in HR submitted a report to me trying to throw out a perfectly qualified black woman’s resume because she “giggled too much” in her screening.

When we have a salary budget of 6 figures, who do you think says “but I think we can get them for 60”.

White women are powerful. Very very powerful. Don’t believe the damsel in distress hype.

The next time you go through an interview process, I want you to count how many white women you have to go through before you even get to the white man in charge.

Addendum: nowadays, the first person that contacts you is probably a recruiter, someone you’ll never see in person that reads 800 resumes a day. They just need the numbers and don’t care who gets hired as long as someone gets hired. The second person you talk to? That’s the corporate white woman in HR. If she arrived late to your interview, if she was mean to you, if she changed the conditions that first person had outlined in order for you to get the job, if she lowered how much money you were going to get paid (or refuses to tell you), etc, call the recruiter. Even if you get a formal rejection (you probably won’t), call the recruiter, and tell them what happened at your interview. Racism and disclination hinder the effectiveness of recruiter’s work by adding secret “must be white and must vibe with the HR gal” scouting requirements; recruiters hate that no matter their stance on you personally, your race, sexuality or anything. Recruiters need the numbers. Trust me, they’re having calls with the HR white women asking WHY you were rejected, and getting vague ass answers, if they get answers at all. BUT If they get enough of YOUR calls that convey “the woman was rude to me so fuck this job”, they have evidence against her and can report her. I’ve seen them go after being reported a couple times, and look, it’s not about the company caring about you, or racism or anything.

It makes the White Guy on Top lose money. Call the recruiter. Be polite, but be clear. The recruiter wants you to get that job. (To make money, of course.)

gotta be honest and say it's a insane to me that a bunch of people 'misremembered' nelson mandela dying in prison in the 80s even though he lived to become the president of south africa in the 90s and instead of thinking 'wow, i really should learn a bit more about international politics outside of north america and europe because not knowing such a basic fact like this about one of the most influential political figures of all time is kind of embarrassing', they became convinced that this was proof that parallel realities exist and they were somehow having memories of an universe where mandela died in prison somehow. that's presumptuous on a level i can barely conceive of

"you're just racist"

when the Final Girl has an adhd infodump moment

So I used to have a Russian friend who had a pretty thick accent and like a lot of Russians tended to eschew articles. She would say things like “Get in car.” And stuff.

Well one day this asshole who had been kind of tagging along with us asks her why she talks like that because it makes her sound dumb and I still remember her response word for word.

“Me? Dumb? Maybe in America you have to say get in THE car because you are so stupid that people might just get in random car, but in Russia we don’t need to say that. We just fucking know because we are not stupid.”

One time I was proof reading a paper for a Russian student. As I was correcting her paper with her, the many mistakes in her grammar started weighing on her. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, almost sobbing,

“In Russian I am so intelligent and clear. In English I am like [an] idiot”

Respect to anyone trying to master a foreign language. I get so sad thinking about that student.

Full offense but people who make fun of someone else’s accent or belittle their limited vocabulary when they’re speaking a language not native to them are fucking disgusting and are just begging to be punched.

They’re speaking your language because you don’t know theirs. That’s not something they should be made fun of, it’s something that should be commended because learning a language is hard fucking work.

I hate people who do this so much.

Do terfs/gender critics realize they're being racist by ignoring or demonizing transgender people?

Multiple gender identities beyond female and male exist in many cultures, dating back thousands of years.

Your "radical feminism" is racist my guy. Not very intersectional of ya.

As the VJ started giving bullshit racist excuses about “narrow-casting” and making things more palatable for white 17 year olds in little towns, Bowie pressed even further and said, “Surely, [black artists] mean something to black 17 year olds. They are a part of America, too.” This goes on for several minutes and Bowie never lets up. Finally, after more bullshit from the VJ, Bowie says “Interesting…” The VJ thinking he may have won Bowie over says, “Yeah, valid point, right?” And Bowie corrects him with a ridiculing laugh and says, “No, I UNDERSTAND your point of view.” In other words, I understand you and MTV are a bunch of racists assholes. I highly recommend everyone find this video and see the entire exchange…and god bless that cameraman for getting that tight shot of Bowie’s “Bitch please” eyes

Oh my god, Bowie was having NONE of it. His entire demeanour was just unimpressed to put it very lightly. Also shout out to the camera person who thought the zoom in on Bowie’s face was needed because it totally was. Also here is the link for y’all to watch it. Please do:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg

Yasss Jamaica🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲