I’m afraid of Americans

This is super real.

Completely accurate.

@pre-successful America exposed. 

It’s hilarious watching non-Americans react to this with fear because I read it just nodding along like “yes, in fact this is How Things Are, there you go”

If you ask an American how they are and they respond “Super.” that means they want to die

ACCURATE

If they say they’re peachy it means they’re tired of existence

If they say “Living the dream,” it means “please kill me, I hate my job so, so much.”

also “that’s a great question” means “I have no freaking idea”

if asked “how are things going?” and they reply “its going” it means theyre in the middle of a mental breakdown

this is all accurate and i hate it

My Best Friend reblogged this.

I’VE BEEN FUCKING TELLING PEOPLE THIS SHIT FOR YEARS!!!!!

One more thing that’s fucked in America.

did not know this wow

(i.e. perfectly legal slavery)

New Orleans is one of the hardest hit cities in the United States, but I haven’t seen that point get much national mainstream media coverage. Furthermore, the racial disparities in access to medical care and healthcare outcomes in general in Louisiana are staggering, and this crisis has made that clearer than ever. This is truly atrocious

link to their gofundme

CANONICALLY YES 😂

Americans disrespect those who are do-gooders and caregivers.

This is a very importantly framed series of points. 

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT EXHIBIT B

americans are wild.

theres a convo on reddit going on rn abt how europeans see americans working conditions and a bunch of americans are like "its really not bad unless you work an entry level job, i have a medium wage job i got with my degree and i get about 15 days of paid vacation a year and i even get some sick days and can accrue more, the people complaining are low wage workers who should get something better"

like. you realize that for a fulltime job 20 paid vacation days are mandatory here right? and that even entry level job offer more paid vacation days? and that any ot you work gets paid more AND counts as more vacation time right? like if your work week is 38 hours and you work 40 hours a week you get paid overtime AND an extra paid 12 vacation days a year right? and that sick days are mandatory to be paid by your employer right? that theres no limit on sick days, right?

you realize that what youre listing as good benefits is literally the bare minimum here right?

DIRECTORY OF CRIMINAL SYSTEM BAIL FUNDS

National organizations funding bail across the U.S.

Local organizations funding bail for immigrants

Arizona Tucson Second Chance Bail Fund Colorado Colorado Freedom Fund California Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund Immigrant Families Defense Fund The Orange County Justice Fund Connecticut Connecticut Bail Fund Immigrant Bail Fund Florida LGBTQ Freedom Fund Hawaii Hawaii Community Bail Fund Illinois Champaign County Bailout Coalition Chicago Community Bond Fund Iowa Eastern Iowa Community Bond Project Kentucky Louisville Community Bail Fund Louisiana New Orleans Safety & Freedom Fund YWCA Greater Baton Rouge Community Bail Fund Massachusetts Massachusetts Bail Fund Minnesota Minnesota Freedom Fund Nebraska Omaha Freedom Fund Nevada Vegas Freedom Fund New York City Bronx Freedom Fund Brooklyn Community Bail Fund Lorena Borjas Community Fund WSLS Bail Fund New York State Columbia County Bail Fund EOC of Suffolk Inc. Charitable Bail Fund OAR of Tompkins County Bail Fund Syracuse Jail Ministry North Carolina Southern Coalition for Social Justice Bail Fund Alamance County Community Bail Fund North Carolina Community Bail Fund of Durham Oregon Portland Freedom Fund Pennsylvania Dauphin County Bail Fund Philadelphia Community Bail Fund Philadelphia Bail Fund Tennessee Hamilton County Community Bail Fund Memphis Community Bail Fund Nashville Community Bail Fund Texas Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee Fianza Fund Community Bail Fund of North Texas Virginia Richmond Community Bail Fund Roanoke Community Bail Fund Charlottesville Community Resilience Fund Washington Northwest Community Bail Fund Wisconsin Free the 350 Bail Fund

DIRECTORY OF IMMIGRATION BOND FUNDS National organizations across the U.S.

Arizona Pima Monthly Meeting Immigration Bond Fund California Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund Immigrant Families Defense Fund Orange County Justice Fund San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium – Borderlands Get Free Fund Colorado Immigrant Freedom Fund of Colorado Connecticut Immigrant Bail Fund Iowa Eastern Iowa Community Bond Project Massachusetts Beyond Bail & Legal Defense Fund Michigan Kent County Immigration Bond for Our Neighbor’s Defense Fund Minnesota Minnesota Freedom Fund New Hampshire NH Conference UCC Immigrant and Refugee Support Group New York LIFE Bond Fund (New Sanctuary Coalition)New York Immigrant Freedom Fund Ohio (includes Northern Kentucky) 3R Fund for Immigrants Texas Fronterizo Fianza Fund Hutto Community Deportation Defense & Bond Fund RAICES Texas Bond Fund Vermont Vermont Freedom Bail Fund  Virginia Cville Immigrant Bond Fund Washington Fair Fight Immigrant Bond Fund

“When did slavery end in America?”

If you ask a white teenager, you might get the answer, “Four hundred years ago.” But that’s not the answer. Four hundred years ago was 1615, when the Jamestown colony had only existed for eight years and chattel slavery was just beginning.

Others might say, “When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, of course.” But that’s not right either. That only freed slaves in Confederate territory seized by the Union. The Union slave states—Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and the then-in-formation West Virginia—were exempt and allowed to keep their slaves, along with Tennessee, which had more or less been returned to the Union, and Union-loyal areas of Louisiana (including New Orleans) and coastal Virginia. Because it was unenforceable in most of the Confederate states, only about 1-2% of slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Well, then,” they might say, “it was definitely when the Thirteenth Amendment was passed.” And still, they would be wrong. While that pivotal law did free the vast majority of America’s slaves, the text of the law is this: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.“

So when did slavery end in America? The answer is, “Never.”

As discussed in the PBS documentary Slavery By Another Name (available in full by clicking the link), as the federal government withdrew funding and support for Reconstruction, the South began a system of leasing prisoners—allowed by law to be used as slaves—to the plantations to replace their free labor. Those affected by this system were treated even worse than those held in bondage under slavery before the Civil War, as slaves were an expensive investment—the $800 average cost of a slave in 1860 is roughly $21,000 in today’s dollars—but leased prisoners were replaced by the prison if killed and payment continued as scheduled, deincentivizing what little humane treatment was afforded slaves.

It was so profitable and in such high demand that, within ten years of its implementation, the stereotype of black people in America had changed. Prior to the Civil War, the stereotype of black people was that we were inherently docile, servile, and loyal. This only makes sense, because if we were viewed as inherently violent and thieving and criminal like we are today, why would they have trusted us with their livelihoods, their crops, and their children? (Side note: this is also where the stereotype of black people loving watermelon came from—the idea that if we were just given a cool slice of watermelon on a hot day, we would work forever). But once they were no longer allowed to own us outright and had to lease us from prisons, police and judges did everything in their power to make sure they had a robust source of free labor. Black people were arrested on false or trumped-up charges, and within ten years, the recorded arrest and conviction rate for black people had skyrocketed so much that the stereotype was entirely inverted from what it had been previously.

The prison system may have stopped leasing prisoners to plantations, but they still lease prison labor to corporations and local governments. Prisoners—primarily black, of course, because we are targeted—are forced to fight wildfires, manufacture consumer goods, and even make goat cheese for Whole Foods. Our economy was built on slave labor, and it still runs on it to a disconcerting extent. And to make that work, black and Latino neighborhoods are targeted by law enforcement and manipulated through things like school closings and schools being unfathomably underfunded to ensure an ever-growing population of prisoners, an ever-growing population of slaves.

So the next time someone asks you when slavery ended in America, tell them the truth. Tell them, “Never.”

Read this because it’s so fucking important to know.

know your rights and don’t be afraid to share your experience

The creator of this game is getting attacked and defamed by oil lobbyists and racists 

(and let’s be honest, the venn diagram circle of “oil lobbyists” is just a small circle in the larger circle of “racists”) and could really use support and advocacy:

tweets via @nativeapprops on twitter. Here’s the link to that “Framing Indigenous resistance as terrorism” piece, and here’s the game’s creator’s twitter.

And here’s the game website:

https://www.thunderbirdstrike.com/

You can download it for Windows now here (it’s free), iOS and Android versions coming due out in December.

@tainbo

Non-Sexual and Non-White Intimacy

Alrighty - I’ve gotten a lot of questions from aces who’re hella confused about sensuality, and I’ve decided to point out something that I debated for a long time against sharing:

With all the ‘gal pal’, ‘bromance’, and ‘white people’ jokes we see, we risk missing on some important details involving sensuality and platonic intimacy. There’s an entire side to the ‘intimacy’ discussion that most of you aren’t aware of, and being unaware isn’t an ok thing; y’all don’t know about the diversity of intimacy because of neo-colonialism, whitewashing, and gentrification. 

Water births being a ‘white hippie’ thing. Two men kissing ‘obviously’ being a case of heternormative washing. And so on. Behind a few of these bromance/gal pal/yt people joke hide not only whiteness, but a rhetoric that erases asexuality/aromanticism. And it’s time to address that. 

Why? Because American views on intimacy erases non-American people of color, and also forces compulsory sexuality upon people in the ace spectrum. Being an ace of color, my patience is tried.

Listen; America is notoriously neurotic when it comes to intimacy. And only periodically throughout the centuries. In so many other places, kissing on the mouth is what friends and family do. My cousins and I were breastfed until past kindergarten, by our mothers, aunts, babysitters, and friends of family. I’ve seen, touched, and hugs many naked friends throughout my life, all ages across. What western culture sexualizes, not everyone agrees with.

Sexual attraction is described as the compulsion to commit sexual acts with a specific object of desire. Romantic attraction much the same, except not explicit. Sensual attraction similar guidelines, and so on. So what happens when one person’s ‘sexual attraction’ is another’s ‘I just want a goddamn cuddle, is that so damn important?’

When we see vintage footage of old-timey Americans who kiss, cuddle, and embrace each other’s bare skin, there is no doubt that many of them are same/multiple-gender-attracted. But a lot of you say so with absolutely no comprehension of the diversity of physical intimacy, and how different it is around the globe.

In so many other countries and cultures, you regularly cuddle, kiss, and touch your friends. When someone pulls out a camera and says, ‘smile!’ you drape your arms lovingly around your mate, and kiss them on the neck. And that photo is uploaded to facebook and all that jazz. 

In modern day America, holding hands is literally second base. Our desire for physical intimacy has been heavily sexualized. And for some people, that’s a huge deficit to their wellbeing and themselves.

As an ace of color, I really don’t appreciate my desires for physical intimacy to be sexualized. I am very much compelled to touch, cuddle, and kiss people. Sometimes it’s romantic in intent, most of the time it’s not. But because of who I am, my actions are very much scrutinized as sexual. Which is very white sexuality and I want none of that in my life.

Thank god someone said it. I always want to kiss and touch my friends, I consider sleeping with them totally normal, and lots of manners of casual touch to be normal, but I don’t fucking touch them because….Culture. And then in my long term relationship I have a hard time with intimacy because it’s always attached to an expectation of sex or feels like it is and I get nervous. I’m an intensely cuddly person who literally never cuddles. I don’t know what happened here (I’m lying I know) but our society is SO WEIRD about physical intimacy and we’re all fucked up but like, a lot of the cultures that aren’t mainstream here allot for physical intimacy which in turn has to be treated differently if it can be somewhere it’s judged by the Average American Eye.

I think I’ve kind of always known there was something wrong with how we were raised and not something wrong with me specifically, but it doesn’t help that WHERE in the US I grew up is so intensely puritanical. 

I remember when I was about 4 I had a nightmare and my brother invited me to sleep in his bunk with him. When mom came to wake us up for school, she screamed at us about how inappropriate that was, and I remember that was the very last time I was ever cuddly with my brother. That incident caused my sense of intimacy to be warped dramatically. I was always allowed to be cuddly with mom or other little girls who were my friends, but I wasn’t allowed to be the same way with boys who were my friends. To this day intimacy on any level with a woman feels more natural than the same with a man. 

Also, the bath image above from My Neighbor Totoro intensely infuriated my mom. She kept going on about how no grown man should be bathing with daughters and about how creepy it was. She then went on to say that it’s disgusting for any adults to bathe with their children after a certain point. But I don’t understand that logic at all.

Americans are taught that bodies are shameful and that sharing our bodies in any ways other than what’s deemed as acceptable by our culture is the most shameful, sinful thing you can do. This kind of platonic or parental intimacy is so shamed that we’re /forced/ to have an unhealthy relationship with it by the time we leave home. And when intimacy of any kind is demonized like it is, we end up with situations where parts of the human body are sexualized because they are taboo. Even now, women are being constantly shamed for breastfeeding their children, teenage girls are forced to cover up shoulders and collar bones for fear of being distractions to boys…

And for what? All because Americans shame displays of non-sexual intimacy and up-sell sexual intimacy to the point of causing the sexualization of non sexual body parts and so on. It’s so ridiculous, but American culture is just really weird like this.

“Americans shame displays of non-sexual intimacy and up-sell sexual intimacy to the point of causing the sexualization of non sexual body parts and so on.”

^^^THIS^^^

folks in North America and a larger extent ‘White British Colonized’ places- have ‘flattened’ human interaction into touching=sex, nude=sex, affection=sex and to finish it all off Sex=BAD.  This strange hyper-sexualization and parallel rejection of sex has created an entire culture of touch and affection starved people. With all the psychosis and trauma that goes with isolation and rejection. 

It is critically unhealthy. We’re primates. We belong in communities- that groom, cuddle, and show genuine warm affection with one another. 

I like this discussion.

As both an asexual and aromantic person this kind of thing has been the bane of my existence my entire life

Kissing was a platonic thing for the longest time here. Then you white people came and ruined it.

Really. You should read this.

@dmc-dmc you should REALLY read this

This is pure evil. @feelingwomanish i don’t even know what to say. Anyone who sees this PLEASE READ and fill out the petition!!!!!

Link to petition

Guys if ur gonna scroll past this at least read number 5. I haven’t seen stuff to confirm this but i just looked it up and it’s true, and they didn’t even warn the community that they were going to be doing military testing. This is unprecedented torture by the government.

A story of Capitalism and how money is more precious than little children.

JFC

If you would report an undocumented immigrant to ICE you would have reported me to the Nazis and I don’t fucking trust you

A note:

I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:

Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.

Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.

And then, if you’re asked: no, you haven’t seen anyone residing illegally in the United States. Just people visiting.

Very good very important addition

Essentially, this is the civil society version of a work-to-rule strike.

Don’t do more than is expressly asked of you, and do what you are asked with such an intense attention to protocol that not asking you at all becomes more effective than even bothering.

In this case:

“Have you seen an illegal immigrant?”

“Could you describe an illegal immigrant, officer?”

*officer describes a person who is in the country without appropriate paperwork, or who has crossed the border illegally*

“No, sir, I haven’t seen any illegal immigrant.”

And this is correct. You have NOT seen an illegal immigrant, because you have no way of knowing if Jose Fulano is here legally or not. And since you can’t see his paperwork (or lack thereof), and did not personally see him cross the border illegally, you are only answering precisely the question asked.

I’m not American, and I have like, three followers, but this is important.

The phrase “I don’t remember” is your friend.

if u ever wonder how europeans can rely on trains so much to travel thru entire countries

this is why

(312km/h is about 194mph)

? Yea is this not the same everywhere??

doesnt seem to be

Also, most areas in America don’t even HAVE passenger rail anymore

The automotive industry purposely tried to kill off trains here in America

Public transit in general if we’re being honest.

As an europeean, what the fuck america?

if you ever see something weird about america chances are it’s because some powerful industry decided to kill something that would have worked towards the public good for profit

This is great thank you