The Falcon's Pen is Sharp And Quick

Audre Lorde, from "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" (1981)

important and encouraging

Found a great (free) documentary on the Freedom House Ambulance Service here- https://www.wqed.org/freedomhouse/ (has captions too)!

Yknow. If you’re like, a tow truck driver or something. And you get a call. “Oh no, there’s a strange camper van parked on my street for two days” like

If you get there and someone’s living out of that van. You can just. Not tow them. Like. Let them know what’s up so they can find a friendlier place to rest maybe but just. Idk. Tell your boss it was gone by the time you got there or something. Don’t do shit like that to people who are already struggling.

Maybe you’re not a tow truck driver. Maybe you’re someone with some other kind of power. You can just. Lie. Protect people. Say no. Pretend you didn’t see it. Move on. Let people live. Have some class solidarity, use your power for good. You have choice. You have agency. You have compassion. Don’t let being an employee strip you of that.

This is Sarah Grimké.

She was born to a rich plantation family in the American South during the time of slavery. She owned a slave, Hetty, a girl her parents gave her when she was a child. She was absolutely the sort of person whose racism you could justify as being ‘of her time’ and ‘just the way she was raised’.

And she cited the injustices she saw growing up on the plantation as the motivation for her becoming an abolitionist as an adult.

When she was a kid, she tried to give bible lessons to the slaves on her Dad’s plantation, and taught her own slave to read and write. As an adult, she and her sister campaigned for the end of slavery. When she found out that one of her brothers had raped one of his own slaves and gotten her pregnant three times, she welcomed her nephews into the family and paid for education for the two that wanted it.

This was a woman who was raised in a culture of slavery, looked around her as a child and said “hey, wait a minute, we’re all assholes!” and spent the rest of her life trying to put things right.

It absolutely was a choice.

This is something I’ve been forced to learn in the past two years. The world around me is turning into something I was raised to believe could only happen in history books, or maybe in other parts of the world that sort of belonged in history books.

The more I see this happening–and the more I learn about the past and how hard people did fight to stop Hitler from initially rising to power, or to point out the humanity of slaves–the more apparent it becomes that we have always had these choices, and they’ve always been the same.

And we’re always going to have genuinely appealing opportunities to make the worst possible choices again, no matter how much more modern the world appears.

George Washington owned slaves right? Most of the founding fathers did, and in grade school, to smooth over that abuse of humanity by an American hero, we as children were told “Yes, George Washington did own slaves but he freed them when he died.” And you infer that he didn’t like slavery but it was an economic necessity.

And then you’re in your mid twenties watching a food show on Netflix and you learn that because Pennsylvania was a Quaker colony, they led the nation in emancipation and if an enslaved person was in Philadelphia for more than six months, they automatically became freed. And the young nation’s early capital was in Philadelphia, where Washington brought his household of enslaved people with him. And he took them back to Virginia every five months for a time so as to start that clock over and keep them enslaved.

There’s a trend with historians to want so badly to maintain the prestige of George Washington and an exceptional and morally pristine figure. And true, there are many instances in his writing where he sounds like his opinion on slavery as an institution is turning and that he knew slavery was wrong. But his actions. He literally had to do absolutely nothing to free his household staff, and took great pains to keep them enslaved.

It’s important to remember that too. That there were people in positions of enormous power, who know what they’re doing is wrong, and choose to do it anyway.

Do not let anyone tell you his teeth were made of wood.

the allergy i am seeing grow up around small talk in any form is troubling to me. do you know how to make friends with people in your physical environment? it typically starts with small talk. do you want to live in community? small talk. do you want to have the type of relationship with your neighbors where you can run over and borrow a battery for your smoke detector when it starts beeping at 10pm? small talk!! do you want leeway from your coworkers when you fuck up something small? you gotta be able to build a relationship and that's small talk, baybeee.

"but i don't need friends and i don't care about community!" okay, lone ranger, what about the people in your community who need you? "but i have social anxiety!" me too, bud! we simply must soldier on. making up lists of questions to ask people helps. and people are predisposed to be generous, i've found. even if you make some kind of mistake, what is this but the natural give and take of human interaction? nobody is perfect.

you were not put on this earth to live by yourself and then die. you need people and people need you. treat those around you with curiosity and generousness of spirit and you will gain so much goodwill in return.

—

gotta share @telesilla’s tags -

#that was (give or take) around the time of the bronze age collapse #crete was no longer a major player #and the known world was kinda in turmoil #and yet someone planted an olive tree #i’m not saying there’s a direct parallel #but you know…systemic collapse thanks to many things including climate change #and it sucked for a lot of people #but they still needed olive oil #and idk man…maybe plant a tree #because the world has ended so many times #but the tree is still here #and so are we

Archaeology can be

- Getting enough proof for the Department of Transportation that the local tribes are correct, there is an ancient burial site there, the DoT cannot thus build the highway there

- Identifying and cataloguing mass graves that the government claims does not exist and assisting with both identification and reuniting remains with surviving loved ones

- Investigating impacts of climate anomalies on premodern agricultural communities, which helps other climate scientists with their models

- Rescuing sites from natural disasters or wars and helping local authorities safely take possession of artifacts

- Assisting with locating and disposing of old munitions

And so forth.

Archaeology is actually a pretty hard science. It is an applied science, and it has multiple applications. Most archaeologists are effectively grossly underpaid manual laborers during dig seasons, and it's not 1912 anymore. There are codified ethical standards. If you take a bone home from a dig without proper custody you will never work in the field again.

All amazing points and so important to take in. I think I have done a couple of these, but not habitually or intensely. But it's good awareness for me.

[image description: a tweet by user @indigenousAI saying

"fun fact: as a DV survivor i cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public. anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug"]

I don’t know of the original poster might not be aware

but!

if you’ve been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, you can enroll into the address confidentiality program (free of cost!) and be registered to vote as an absentee voter and your name and address will not be made available for the public

it is super easy to get enrolled - the application takes like 5 minutes, but it has to be with someone who is certified to do it (most likely an advocate! try going to a family justice center in your area or calling the Attorney Generals office in your area!!!!)

ALSO : 

you don’t need to have any police reports or have a protection order to qualify!!! you just have to sign stating that you’ve been a victim of one of the aforementioned crimes.

Links to the info for every state in the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_confidentiality_program

this is really important so i’m posting it here because it’ll probably get removed and the original poster may be banned, but this is literal documentation and proof that terfs and transphobes are directly connected to the far-right and have roots in racism, homophobia, misogyny, and antisemitism. it really is all part of the same oppressive system, so there is no disconnecting transphobia from conservatism. there is no such thing as a progressive transphobe as much as they may want you to believe. it has nothing to do with biology or protecting women or children, none of it is founded in science or logic, it is purely hatred and and attempt to justify bigotry.

[Transcription:

I got radicalized into the far-right on TikTok.  Well, technically I didn’t, but an account that I made did, and this is a graph of what that looked like.  I just published this study, and I’ll link it in the comments, but I’ll also break it down right now, here.

So I wanted to examine whether or not transphobia is a gateway prejudice that leads to like, broader far-right radicalization.  It’s been pretty clear for a while now that the far-right is transphobic, but we wanted to see whether being transphobic alone was enough to lead you to the far right.

So I made a brand new TikTok account and followed 14 creators known to post transphobic content.  Then I started scrolling my ‘For You’ page, and I started exclusively engaging with transphobic content, and I documented the main narratives of the more than 400 videos recommended to me.  We also double-blind coded this, meaning that another researcher also watched every video and coded the narratives, and then if we ever disagreed, more researchers would come in and perform a tie-breaker.  Once we removed sponsored videos and videos that had been taken down before they could be double-coded, we were left with 360 videos.

Of the 360 total videos, 103 were homophobic or anti-trans, 42 were misogynistic, 29 contained racist narratives or white supremacist messaging, and 14 endorsed violence.  Obviously, TikTok didn’t just like give us neo-nazi content immediately.  I actually didn’t get my first Nazi symbol until video 141.  But the more I interacted with transphobic content, the more I was fed not only more transphobic content, but also homophobia and misogyny and racism and antisemitism.  So I didn’t actually have to interact with racist content to be fed white supremacist content, I just had to engage with transphobic content.

What you see in this graph is the TikTok algorithm starting off with a normal feed — memes, recipes, whatever — and then going “OHH, you’re transphobic!  Have you tried hating the gays?  What about women?”

So, it appears that transphobia can radicalize a TikTokker.

Around video 400, you’ll notice an interesting spike in far-right figures, hate symbols, antisemitism and calls to violence.  That’s when I reached fascist TikTok and set my phone on fire.  400 videos might sound like a lot, but if a user watches each video for an average of 20 seconds, they would end up watching 400 videos in just over 2 hours.  So, a user could basically download the app at breakfast and be fed the overtly white supremacist, neo-nazi content before lunch.

-pauses, purses lips-

That’s not good!

/ end transcription]

Link to the study:

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktoks-algorithm-leads-users-transphobic-videos-far-right-rabbit-holes

I’m going to emphasise a point here that a lot of replies seem to be missing: she only ever engaged with transphobic content.

There’s been studies looking into online radicalisation that have worked by engaging whatever the algorithm puts in front of you and seeing how quickly it falls into the deep end—this is not that.

This was a study where she only engaged with videos containing TERF ideas and transphobia, and TikTok started mixing in homophobia, misogyny, white supremacy and nazism on a “users who like A may enjoy X, Y and Z, also” basis, even as she continued to only engage with the content explicitly about transphobia.

Which is to say that if a person joins TikTok to connect with TERF activists and influencers, they’re going to find themselves surrounded by all of the aforementioned in the span of hours.

Because despite the image TERFs like to put out, their closest friends when it comes to taking action, are homophobes, misogynists, and fascists. Enough so that TikTok recognises them as sharing interests within hours.

Poison goes where poison’s welcome. - sir terry pratchett

People who make their identity out of hatred are often friends with others who do so too.

some tweets i saw and said “yEAH” to

a muslim professor in TX put it much better though:

tl;dr: muslims are not your boogeyman, scapegoat, dramatic comparison, or punchline

advocate for reproductive rights without playing into islamophobic, bigoted rhetoric

—

Ann Bauer, ““Sponsored” by my husband: Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from”, http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_its_a_problem_that_writers_never_talk_about_where_their_money_comes_from/ (via angrygirlcomics)

This is so important, especially for people like me, who are always hearing the radio station that plays “but you’re 26 and you are ~*~gifted~*~ and you can write, WHERE IS YOUR NOVEL” on constant loop.

It’s so important because I see younger people who can write going “oh yes, I can write, therefore I will be an English major, and write my book and live on that yes?? then I don’t have to do other jobs yes??” and you’re like “oh, no, honey, at least try to add another string to your bow, please believe that it will not happen quite like that” 

It’s so important not to be overly impressed by Walden because Thoreau’s mother continued to cook him food and wash his laundry while he was doing his self-sufficient wilderness-experiment “sit in a cabin and write” thing.

It’s so important because when you’re impressed by Lord of the Rings, remember that Tolkien had servants, a wife, university scouts and various underlings to do his admin, cook his meals, chase after him, and generally set up his life so that the only thing he had to do was wander around being vague and clever. In fact, the man could barely stand to show up at his own day job.

It’s important when you look at published fiction to remember that it is a non-random sample, and that it’s usually produced by the leisure class, so that most of what you study and consume is essentially wolves in captivity - not wolves in the wild - and does not reflect the experiences of all wolves.

Yeah. Important. Like that.

(via elodieunderglass)

There’s a particular attitude I often see on the internet that goes something like “If you aren’t part of a particular marginalized group, then you could never understand their experience, so don’t pretend to relate.” And while obviously you’re never going to relate to every aspect of that identity unless you are also of that identity, I feel like this attitude really diminishes opportunities for finding kinship and bonding in similar experiences even if those experiences aren’t exactly the same and/or are the result of different identities.

For example, I’m white and neurodivergent, and I was talking to a Black neurotypical friend about masking, and how I feel like I have to change the entire way I present myself in order to not be considered weird in public. She responded with “Oh, some of that sounds kind of like code-switching— how I have to switch away from using AAVE in white-dominated settings in order to be accepted.” And then we bonded over how frustrating and ridiculous it is that AAVE and stimming are both considered unacceptable in “professional” settings.

Another time, a straight Jewish friend was telling me about a book she had just finished reading, which was written by a Jewish author and had a Jewish main character. She was saying that it was really nice to read a book written by a Jewish author, because even when gentile authors do their research and write a pretty accurate Jewish character, they never quite feel Jewish— you can always tell the author was a gentile. And I said “Oh that sounds kind of like when I read queer characters written by straight authors— you can always tell the author was straight even if they do their research and get things fairly right. So even though I’m happy when any book features queer characters, it’s really especially nice to read queer characters written by queer authors.” And we bonded over this similar experience, and we were both excited that the other understood even if we were coming to this experience from different angles, and then we swapped book recommendations. This conversation is also a great example of when that internet attitude DOES apply— when someone outside of a particular group is trying to understand that group’s entire experience well enough to accurately write the world as seen through their eyes. They’re never quite going to get it right, and that’s ok! It just means it’s important to also have Own Voices authors writing those types of stories also.

Sometimes it seems like people who have been in internet circles exhibiting this attitude for too long are afraid to ever try to relate to the experiences of anyone in any groups other than their own for fear of causing offense, which is honestly pretty counterproductive. Understanding each other and bonding across groups should be the goal! Relating to each other is not a bad thing!

i’d add that these points of what COULD be solidarity are also used AGAINST others by malevolent anti-worker racist forces, and you hate to see it. see: some thumbfaced cop yutz whining about how the irish were slaves* but you don’t see THEM complaining, THEY pulled themselves up and never asked for handouts. :( they could instead be going “hey wow we both got screwed over, and we could have banded together as workers, and yet” *they weren’t but they were discriminated against in other ways i guess

They certainly were, and that actually adds to the point of this post-

When the Irish were suffering through the potato famine(the English being a major facet to how badly they suffered), the Choctaw sent what they could to help, $170, because they empathized with their plight.

There is a sculpture in Ireland commemorating this, called Kindred Spirits.

And recently Irish donors cited that gesture as they raised $2 million in aid for the Navajo and Hopi tribes for the fight against COVID.

This post is great because goddamn is this a problem in internet social justice stuff, and I wanted to add one of the best takedowns of it that I’ve encountered. It’s from an anthropology paper from the 80s where the author is working through four “pitfalls” of performing materials from a culture other than your own, mostly with an eye to white anthropologists performing materials from nonwhite cultures. One of the “pitfalls” he lays out is exactly this – the refusal to even try and engage with another culture, because you believe you couldn’t possibly understand or relate and so therefore you shouldn’t bother:

– Dwight Conquergood, Performance As A Moral Act (1985)

(I would also generally recommend this paper for anyone who’s trying to talk to anxious white liberals, because I think the framework is really useful for people who’ve never had to think about intercultural communication before and are worried about fucking up. Showing them the major ways of fucking up, including that refusing to try is fucking up, means that they can direct that anxiety to looking for whether they’re falling into the pitfalls.)

[ID= sculpture of multiple large metal feathers /end ID]

The thing, though, is a lot of “you wouldn’t understand” gets used as a weapon to silence debate. It’s just another form of the Oppression Olympics where the team that wins the gold gets to control the debate, and the team that wins the silver… is just another villain.

It’s a particular favorite tactic of TERFs where you’ll hear them say shit like “Well, I’m a lesbian, so you shouldn’t be arguing with me about the use of the word ‘butch’”.

You’ll see this sort of thing in the extreme fringes of all sorts of movements, and it’s a wonderful way to get people to insulate themselves from “the enemy”, which is really everyone who’s not specifically of the same identity… and of course, those people of the same identity who are willing to interact with “the enemy”.

Okay so we can't stop people from twitter or Tiktok coming here or back here, which ever, it's a free app/web page we can not stop them

however you, yes you, get to decide how you react to them. Here's the thing, toxic, gross, people who used to abuse us on Tumblr before jumping to twitter, only have the power you give them so

You see a call out post? nope, no you did not, don't you spread that nonsense what did cumbreath1279 every do to you any ways? you see anon hate about your art, fanfic, who you are as a person? ha ha no you didn't, delate that shit and move on. You are a random person online, you don't need to be "held accountable" for your fan art or what you ship or what shows you like, don't don't let monsters who love the sense of power trick you into thinking you do.

thats how we keep the Tumblr we've come to enjoy, the less toxic one, don't feed the trolls.

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.

This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.

I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.

I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!

And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??

If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.

Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.

So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.

And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.