Grieving the passing of this legend. Jeri Taylor brought the world of Star Trek leaps and bounds, and it’s because of her that we #JC fans exist💯 To top it off, she was an angel of a human being… RIP🙏🏼

Glynis Johns in Mad about Men (1954)

Man, what I wish people would talk about in meaningful interviews like this is that the people making this legislation and banning these books think if the kid doesn’t have a word for what they are–or if they do and they only ever hear about what they are reaping eternal ans indescribable torture, never a happy ordinary life–that they just wont be Queer★.

They genuinely believe that a suicidally depressed+ “cisgender” “heterosexual” child is better off than a happy, thriving Queer★ child.

They genuinely believe that a dead “cisgender” “heterosexual” child is better off than a happy, thriving Queer★ child.

They genuinely believe in their own heads that they’re fighting a battle for children’s souls–or that the people who genuinely believe that are a voting bloc they can’t afford to lose.

They want obedient children who grow up into obedient adults, not knowledgeable and self-empowered children who scream “NO,” and run away when their youth pastor tries to rape them.

The fear that their child might be “possessed by a demon of rebellion” is far, far greater than their desire to protect their child from real abusers who self select into positions of authority over children in communities known to shelter abusers.

The only counter to that thinking, that lifestyle choice, is complete and unyielding rejection of it by the community¹, at least for now: “what you’re doing is child abuse, and your child’s right to not be abused ranks over your right to "teach them your religion” and “parent them according to your morals and conscience.”

1. Look, you have to put a tourniquet on the stump before you can think about reattaching a missing limb, and what the Millerite Family Of American Christian Apocalypse Cults, who have significantly influenced American Christianity as a whole is, is a missing limb in our community.

Talking about community in community outreach and deradicalization and family reunification is something we can talk about after Queer★ children are no longer dying of their progenitors’ “parenting choices” and after houses of worship in general are no longer funneling child rapists into positions of authority and then protecting them from the consequences of their actions.

For now, pass me the fucking bungee cord, our nation is bleeding out here.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Gloria Richardson, an influential yet largely unsung civil rights pioneer whose determination not to back down while protesting racial inequality was captured in a photograph as she pushed away the bayonet of a National Guardsman, has died. She was 99.

Tya Young, her granddaughter, said Richardson died in her sleep Thursday in New York City and had not been ill. Young said while her grandmother was at the forefront of the civil rights movement, she didn’t seek praise or recognition.

“She did it because it needed to be done, and she was born a leader,” Young said.

Richardson was the first woman to lead a prolonged grassroots civil rights movement outside the Deep South. In 1962, she helped organized and led the Cambridge Movement on Maryland’s Eastern Shore with sit-ins to desegregate restaurants, bowling alleys and movie theaters in protests that marked an early part of the Black Power movement.

RIP a proud mom that got to live long enough to see her daughter change America.

#BlackHistoryFact  - African American Inventor Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner is known for developing the sanitary pad  

MEFeater Magazine

The Forgotten Black Woman Inventor Who Revolutionized Menstrual Pads

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was a self-taught inventor who created the sanitary belt and filed five patents in her lifetime.

Toni Morrison

"I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."

Rest in Power.

The Queen of Soul, the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and one of the greatest singers of all time, Aretha Franklin will be missed. Rest in Peace. “Aretha Franklin” by kalinatoneva: http://bit.ly/2MAUsfX

Mugshot of a teenage girl arrested for protesting segregation, Mississippi, 1961.

Her name is Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. Her family disowned her for her activism. After her first arrest, she was tested for mental illness, because Virginia law enforcement couldn’t think of any other reason why a white Virginian girl would want to fight for civil rights. She also created the Joan Trumpauer Mullholland Foundation. Most recently, she was interviewed on Samatha Bee’s Full Frontal on February 15 for their segment on Black History Month. Don’t reduce civil rights heroes to “teenage girl”.

She’s still alive!!! She’s 74.

Thank you Joan. 

From her wikipedia page: 

(Here’s a documentary about her in case you’re not big on reading. )

Her great-grandparents were slave owners in Georgia, and after the United States Civil War, they became sharecroppers. Trumpauer later recalled an occasion that forever changed her perspective, when visiting her family in Georgia during summer. Joan and her childhood friend Mary, dared each other to walk into “n*gger” town, which was located on the other side of the train tracks. Mulholland stated her eyes were opened by the experience: “No one said anything to me, but the way they shrunk back and became invisible, showed me that they believed that they weren’t as good as me. At the age of 10, Joan Trumpauer began to recognize the economic divide between the races. At that moment she vowed to herself that if she could do anything, to help be a part of the Civil Rights Movement and change the world, she would.

In the spring of 1960, Mulholland participated in her first of many sit-ins. Being a white, southern woman, her civil rights activism was not understood. She was branded as mentally ill and was taken in for testing after her first arrest. Out of fear of shakedowns, Mulholland wore a skirt with a deep, ruffled hem where she would hide paper that she had crumpled until it was soft and then folded neatly. With this paper, Mulholland was able to write a diary about her experiences that still exists today. In this diary, she explains what they were given to eat, and how they sang almost all night long. She even mentioned the segregation in the jail cells and stated, “I think all the girls in here are gems but I feel more in common with the Negro girls & wish I was locked in with them instead of these atheist Yankees. 

Soon after Mulholland’s release, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton E. Holmes became the first African American students to enroll at the University of Georgia. Mulholland thought, “Now if whites were going to riot when black students were going to white schools, what were they going to do if a white student went to a black school?” She then became the first white student to enroll in Tougaloo College in Jackson, where she met Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Ed King, and Anne Moody.

She received many letters scolding or threatening her while she was attending Tougaloo. Her parents later tried to reconcile with their daughter, and they tried to bribe her with a trip to Europe. She accepted their offer and went with them during summer vacation. Shortly after they returned, however, she went straight back to Tougaloo College.

She ultimately retired after teaching English as a Second Language for 40 years and started the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation, dedicated to educating the youth about the Civil Rights Movement and how to become activists in their own communities. 

I watched a YouTube video once (by a guy who’s name escapes me) about the importance of making sure the stories of white activists are told. His point was that it’s not about lavishing praise on them just because they were white and “woke”, it’s about letting other white allies see that others have come before them who were willing to sacrifice and do the hard work. This way they can see themselves in someone and realize that destroying inequality isn’t a fringe interest or just an “us vs. them” issue. It has to be ALL OF US.

Mugshot of a teenage girl arrested for protesting segregation, Mississippi, 1961.

Her name is Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. Her family disowned her for her activism. After her first arrest, she was tested for mental illness, because Virginia law enforcement couldn’t think of any other reason why a white Virginian girl would want to fight for civil rights. She also created the Joan Trumpauer Mullholland Foundation. Most recently, she was interviewed on Samatha Bee’s Full Frontal on February 15 for their segment on Black History Month. Don’t reduce civil rights heroes to “teenage girl”.

Holocaust survivor and advocate for Palestinian human rights Hedy Epstein has died. May she rest in peace.

Hedy Epstein, 1924-2016.

זכר צדקת לברכה

She also was a Ferguson protestor.

May her memory be a blessing.