Today in drama, we had two boys act as a gay couple, and this one homophobic kid in my class gets up, and he’s like “i’m going to shove that homosexuality up your ass!” and one of the boys acting gay turns to him, looks him dead in the eye and asks “isn’t that the point?”

Yesterday my mom posted a picture on Facebook of my 5 year old brother Sam wearing a pair of shoes he picked out for his first day of preschool. She explained to him in the store that they were really made for girls. Sam then told her that he didn’t care and that “ninjas can wear pink shoes too.” Sam went to preschool and got several compliments on his new shoes. Not one kid said anything negative toward him about it.

However, my mom received about 20 comments on the photo from various family members saying how “wrong” it is and how “things like this will affect him socially” and, put most eloquently by my great aunt, “that shit will turn him gay.”

My mom then deleted the photo and told Sam that he can wear whatever he wants to preschool, that it’s his decision. If he wants to wear pink shoes, he can wear pink shoes.

Sam then explained to her that he didn’t like them because they were pink, he liked them because they were “made out of zebras” and zebras are his favorite animal :)

What does it say about society when a group of adults could stand to take a lesson in humanity from a class of preschoolers?

When Peter Pan tells you to grow up you’ve surely got a serious problem.

^

Let’s also give a shout out to that awesome parent who let their son dress however he wanted. 

reblogging again

Now that is how you tell someone to grow up.

When you’re Peter-Fucking-Pan.

go tell’em, Pete!

Excerpt:

Asian Women are  ____________________

In response to the vandalism and hate crime at UCLA, VSU started a photo collage that mimics the signs that were posted on the VSU office and in Ackerman Union.  We asked people to write what they thought Asian women embody. These were some of the responses  

I started reading and was like “what the actual fuck” before reaching the end

bless you 

Holy crap. 

Worth reading…

god bless ur sol omg

Technically, the Bible never really said anything about homosexuality. People just interpret it the way they see it to fit their ignorant, bigoted needs. Not to mention, the book went through centuries of translating and abridging and rewriting. Relying on an archaic tome for all of your philosophical, moral, and life needs is anachronistic, especially because it has most likely been rewritten to manipulate and brainwash by rich, wealthy, white guys (lookin' at you kings of the past). Food for thought.

Romney doesn't actually care about women, pass it on.

Oh god, not this again. Really? Really?

Just going to ignore the speech he just made? Completely?

Obama says he cares you believe him, Romney says it NO WAY

Somebody give me solid proof that Romney has actually ever cared about women.

Give me solid proof that Obama does. The fair pay bill and other things? He was president for 4 years. Romney also talks about women’s rights. How do you know he won’t do the same? You have no proof either. So just stop slamming the guys. Both of them.

WELL WE CAN START WITH THE FACT THAT OBAMA HASN’T BEEN ADVOCATING FOR OVERTURNING ROE v WADE OR GETTING RID OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD OR IGNORING WOMEN’S ISSUES UP UNTIL LIKE JUST NOW OR ASSUMING EVERY WOMAN NEEDS FLEXIBILITY IN HER WORKSPACE BECAUSE SHE NEEDS TO FEED HER KIDS OR SLAMMING SINGLE-PARENT HOMES OR LIMITING WOMEN’S ACCESS TO BIRTH CONTROL AND CONTRACEPTIVES seriously, person

@sillylaureate: Really? Are you fucking high? If a person who’s notorious for being homophobic says they aren’t homophobic, are you seriously going to believe them? If they genuinely turned a new leaf, people would know. Romney doesn’t give half a rat’s ass about women and has never indicated that he will. He uses female-empowering rhetoric to back up his claim but there is not citation that helps him with his case. (not to mention, he also happens to be notorious for being a homophobic bigot).

My new favourite meme.

I don’t even know what started this, but holy hell do I agree with this meme’s existence.  I have to deal with too many of these assholes in real life.

GLAD YOU ASKED. I made this meme LAST year, when, during Nanowrimo prep (that’s National Novel Writing Month), I noticed people were commenting on the exclusion of POCs in the Fantasy genre. Someone told me their ancestors were probably beardy unwashed white guys chugging mead in beer halls. 

IN FACT, this is the EXACT quote that inspired my other posts:

It made me angry! REALLY ANGRY. So I made GEE, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO RESEARCH WRITING CHARACTERS OF COLOR TASTEFULLY. Then I made that meme. This has been in my blog for eleven months now. It’s weird as hell to see it yanked from me, posted by someone else w/out credit or the CONTEXT of the original post and the original comment and why he’s the Beardy Unwashed White Fantasy Guy meme, but there it is. These are all mine, and I wrote them and this is why. 

#receipts.

All these stupid shits who think their ancestry existed in Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings...smh. But ace meme. I love it.

Stop for a moment and read this headline on Fox News’ website.

What is the first thing that comes to mind?

Being a journalism major I can tell you that this headline was written extremely well. The phrasing is impeccably planned and deliberate in its purpose to deliver both a factually accurate message, along with a not-so-subtle false one.

You see, Obama did in fact make a phone call to thank the Libyan president following the attacks and deaths at the U.S. Embassy. The gratitude delivered to him was that resulting from President Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf reaching out and giving his condolences, his remorse and disdain for a few extremists that reside within his nation, and his full support in investigating this tragedy.

But Fox News knows that the majority of its viewer and readership won’t read past the headline. In fact, journalists know that a well-written headline should convey the core topic of the article, to catch attention and immediately make a statement without the reader having to read any of the actual article. What Fox News has done with this headline is purposefully sway readers into beleiving that our United States President made a phone call to THANK the Libyan president for the attacks and deaths of our fellow Americans. Crazy right?

Not. The scary part is that most people who see this headline are going to think just that. Regardless of the facts. Regardless of what should be common sense in that our own President would NEVER thank anyone for damage and death caused to his citizens.

This is irresponsible journalism, just one example of thousands of poor decisions that Fox “News” makes on a daily basis to feed its own fire and to steer its ignorant and ill-informed followers in whichever direction they see fit. But why not just call it what it really is?

Legal brainwashing and defamatory propaganda, not unlike that of Nazi Germany (Godwin’s Law or not) or Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

American terrorism, right here, right now.

^Perfectly explained.

Source

It’s good to know that we weren’t the only ones driven crazy by people who “axe” questions.

The irony of this post is that:

1. theyuniversity should educate itself about metathesis. 

2. pronouncing the word /ask/ like /axe/ or /aks/ or /ax/, is a remnant from Old English. Which means that this pronunciation has been well-established linguistic feature for over 1000 years. Just guess how common it is for most English speakers world wide to pronounce the word /ask/ like /axe/?

I have always found it to be interesting that prescriptivists, particularly ones who have “studied” English, are ever so eager to act as an authority on language; yet they seem to know so little about the history of their language. This willful ignorance allows them to continue to pass on incorrect information. Whether or not their intent is to be an authority matters very little. Their actions are patterned and are steeped in arrogance.

theyuniversity is very good at teaching English grammar, but their prescriptivism causes them to be inflexible and intolerant of the common grammatical forms that they perceive to be “incorrect.”  

When something gets associated with Black people, all reason goes out the door to claim its inherent badness.

i will always remember one of my most distinct us vs them moments as a child revolved around axe vs. ask. my “friend” at the time had said to me (and they are white) “why do all Black people say axe instead of ask?” and with this tone like… wtf is wrong with Black people. and i dunno if i said it like that or not, i may have but it was never an issue. and that was one of those moments like, well i don’t do that. and i didn’t know why it was wrong. or if i even did. and tried to hide it. so i remember practicing saying ask right. and that was probably a point in my life where i really internalized “proper” ways of speech in ways even education couldn’t reinforce. through pure shame. i didn’t want to sound stupid or have people ask me those questions and so i watched how i spoke. and eventually Black people asked me why i talked white, but it really isn’t until about a few years ago i really would have been able to articulate the numerous reasons why i don’t speak aave unless i feel extremely comfortable.

btw, the op is a racist piece of shit.

I used to say “axe” until all my white friends were like ” Axe? Don’t you mean ask? You talk funny. Why do you say it like that? HA HA HA.”  I stopped saying axe shortly after. Conforming to the majority. hm. 

shamed out of talking how we talk. this is a damn shame. so many others have this experience. ruining our linguistic heritage.

Theyuniversity isn’t really about sociolinguistics. Yeah, it’s fucked up and racist the way we teach grammar to kids and the way one set of linguistic standards is valued over another, but that’s a blog that puts grammar shit in really simple terms. Students love it and they learn from it. Whether we like it or not (and I don’t like it), that’s the way students need to know how to talk and write if they want to be successful. That first response didn’t even really make sense (are we going to apply every historical definition and spelling to modern day communication and just arbitrarily pick which one we want to use each time, because I’m pretty sure that’s the same logic racists used awhile back to say it was totally cool to call certain black people niggers), but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m in favor of doing what you have to do to make it, and right now, a big part of making it for black people is learning to code switch. It’s not cool, but it’s the way it is. I don’t see the point of throwing shade on theyuniversity for teaching grammar if your gripe is with the racial politics of language itself.

@dionthesocialist: Why does it have to be that way? Why can't we teach people to be more tolerant? I mean, Americans butcher the English language all the time. Why not have other forms and teach people to understand that, instead of acting like ignorant, bigoted jackasses, it'd be okay to speak that way? I agree with you that it's important to have the tools necessary to survive in a Euro-American-centric culture/society, including speaking, reading, and writing. However, it's also important to help people see why this kind of narrow-mindedness isn't okay so that they learn to recognize discrimination where it exists. Something's gotta give eventually. That's how shit progresses.

And this is why we fight

Kyra Kruz, who was recently murdered in Philadelphia, with my sibling Che Gossett. 

From Che:

“Kyra Kruz and I at Pride 2011, looking magical and fabulous! (She did everyone’s makeup and designed all the costumes for the parade theme). Her life was violently taken last week. Anguish and outrage about routinely learning of trans women of color who’s lives are prematurely ended by anti-trans violence, be it interpersonal or institutional. Honored to have known Kyra, to have laughed with her, briefly organized a sex worker support group with her, worked in queer and/or trans spaces with her, she brought so much brilliant light and love!”

rest in power, Kyra. 

-

[more information on Kyra’s murder here]

M