My friends and I got together and said we have to do something. We realized there’s power in numbers. We have a great opportunity right now to change the scope of the world.

I saw Baby Names trending, and was surprised that with everything going on in the world, something like that would be getting traction. So naturally, I had to go and take a look, and I just...wow. Go off babynames.com. GO OFF.

Ok guys, gals, and non binary pals! I went onto twitter, and pretty much regretted it instantly. Today during a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, UK, the protesters pulled down a statue of a man (and I won’t dignify him by using his name) who was responsible for the transport of 86,000 people for slavery in America. You can read about that here. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary say this ‘…thuggery undermines the point the protesters are trying to make’ which is a load of garbage since the glorification of a man whose ships chucked 19,000 black men, women, and children overboard because they got sick and therefore were ‘useless cargo’ really doesn’t gel with ‘black lives matter’. Chucking that statue in the sea is exactly what he deserved. 

Nevertheless, racists on twitter are now using strawman arguments to whip out Herodotus and say we should pull the Pyramids down because they were ‘built by slaves.’ As an Egyptologist there’s so much wrong with that statement I don’t even know where to start. a) they were built using a large group of permanent stone masons, and then seasonal corvee labour, i.e. the conscription of workers not currently farming (off season), to spend 3 months working on projects for the King (it seems odd to us now, but it was an honour to work on projects for the King), b) these workers were paid (in bread, beer and other goods - non monetary economy) and had access to doctors and good medical treatment (tombs show that people had injuries that were healed well and they for lived decades afterwards), c) these workers were Egyptian. Here are three articles on it: one, two, three. 

The construction of the Pyramids using corvee labour in no way resembles going to another continent, kidnapping people from said continent, putting them on ships in horrific conditions, chucking them overboard if they got sick, arriving in a new country, selling them, erasing their identities by giving them the names of the people that bought them, and then forcing them to work for you or killing them for not doing so. 

The building of the Pyramids did not lead to a continuing 400 year suppression, exploitation, and murder of black people for the monetary benefit of white people. 

The building of the Pyramids did not cause systemic racism within police forces and governments around the world. 

The building of the Pyramids has not caused black people to be misdiagnosed and undertreated by doctors

The building of the Pyramids has not caused the pay gap between white women and black women

The building of the Pyramids did not cause the murder of Trayvon Martin for being suspicious with a bag of skittles

The building of the Pyramids did not cause the murder of Breonna Taylor when police unlawfully burst into her home and shot her to death

Systemic racism, continuing glorification of those that began this, police brutality, and the unwillingness of those in power to do anything about it has caused this. 

Get your racism the fuck out of my discipline

(also if the furries and k-pop stans could go hijack that trending topic too, that would be great. Y’all out here doing us a solid)

“it’s okay to disagree” is for things like “i like chocolate and you like vanilla” not for whether or not people deserve fundamental human rights, what the fuck

I’m pretty impressed by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson’s words

Thank you so much for sharing this @clintfbarton and I absolutely agree.

I mean, they're actually citing parts of the UNCRC in their warning so 👏👏👏

John Boyega joins Black Lives Matter protest in London

“Look I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this but, fuck that.” - John Boyega

John Boyega at Hyde Park demonstration #BlackLivesMattter

I’ve been very quiet these last few days – as a white British person, it seemed more important to keep quiet, listen and put the work in offline to make sure I’m part of the solution and not part of the problem, than to performatively demonstrate that I care. (If I had an audience, it would be different, but let’s be honest – I don’t.) There are a great many petitions and donation links circulating at the moment – if your Tumblr dash and Twitter feed look anything like mine, you’ve seen them twenty times already today, and these are proof that there’s a lot we can all do from behind our computer screens.

However, most of these links are, understandably, US-focused, so for those of us in the UK it can be difficult to know the best way to help. One thing many of us might not have been aware of is the fact that the UK sells tear gas and rubber bullets to the US. There has rightfully been a lot of discussion about how the UK is far from innocent when it comes to racism and police brutality, but our goverment’s direct role in supporting and exacerbating the violence currently occurring in the US is often overlooked.

Like many people, I was ignorant of the danger posed by rubber bullets – the name is disingenuous for something that can be profoundly disabling if not fatal. A photojournalist lost her left eye a few days ago and is now partially blind (she’s already working again and being extremely badass about the whole thing). Tear gas is evil at the best of times, but during a pandemic that affects the respiratory system, it is unfathomable. To continue to sell these weapons to the US makes our country complicit in the lives lost and injury caused.

There’s been a call for these sales to be suspended (see article linked above), which would send a clear message that the UK does not condone this brutality. It’s only a drop in the ocean when it comes to putting a stop to the harm caused by the UK arms trade more generally, but it’s a drop that would help.

So please, if you’re in the UK, write to your MP in support of suspending these sales. While you’re there, ask them to condemn Trump’s response, and demand that the government release the delayed report about BAME Covid-19 deaths. It’s easy to feel helpless adding your name to dozens of change.org petitions, but there are concrete issues you can approach your elected representatives about, and these are some of them. None of us can fix the world, but we can help.

You can write to your MP very easily using WriteToThem.com. You don’t need to be registered to vote, you just need to live in their constituency. If you have a home and term-time address (e.g. you’re a university student), you have two MPs. You don’t need to know their name, because WriteToThem will find them for you. You don’t need to send a long, thought-out email (although that’s great!), you just need to make it clear to them that this is an issue their constituents care about.

The world is awful right now.  Let’s do what we can to make it a tiny bit less awful. <3

A rough script to send to your MP:

Dear [MP’s NAME],

In light of the George Floyd protests across US, I am writing to ask you to support the call for the UK to suspend export of tear gas, rubber bullets and riot shields to the US amid excessive use of force by the police force.

British law says such exports should not go ahead where they are likely to be used for “internal repression”. The police response has seen security forces ramming crowds with cars, deploying gas and baton rounds against peaceful demonstrators, and arresting and shooting at domestic and international journalists covering events. These actions must be condemned.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

I have done this for my local MP. However, if you are doing this PLEASE change up the wording for the email as they have a spam detector and will auto delete emails that are copy and pasted word for word.

A few small tweaks can help put more pressure on your local representative to take action.

Done and shared.

Thank you for making people aware of this @finnlongman and to @siriuspiggyback and @itsagifnotagif for the additions <3

HUGE list of free (!!) books by black authors and revolutionaries. includes writings by toni morrison, james baldwin, assata shakur, angela davis, malcolm x, audre lorde and frantz fanon.