This is apparently a hotter take than I thought but: hating on lawyers as a profession, calling them inherently dishonest etc. is politically reactionary. It discourages defendants from seeking legal counsel, puts forth the idea that it’s inherently suspicious to insist on seeing a lawyer before you answer police questioning (your constitutional right!) etc. which ultimately just benefits the state in making it easier for them to convict you. This is one of those things that “progressives” who were raised conservative often don’t realize is one of the parts of their parents’ worldview they should question more, but they should. Not only are lawyers not The Problem with “our system,” but having someone who is educated in the law whose job is to represent your interests in court — getting one regardless of your ability to pay, even! — is in fact one of the best parts of it.

different thing but same vein: I've noticed this hard switch recently from "recommending therapy for everything" to "all therapists are evil actually" and neither is good.

first off, therapy isn't a be all end all of fixing problems. you should have genuine emotional connection with plenty of other people, and you should not be friends with your therapist. lots of things people recommend therapy for are things that therapists can't do anything about. the world is very fucked right now. therapy is for dealing with internal problems, not for someone to blindly assure you not to worry about politics. there's also a lot of issues in psychology, like basing all research on middle class white boys and discrediting psychologists who experience the issues they're studying. and then there's the prices and wait lists. these are real problems!! plus, therapy requires effort on the patient's end. you can talk to a therapist for a million years, but it won't do shit unless you do something.

but therapy can be good. a lot of people who go into psychology do it because they genuinely care. a lot of them do it because they've experienced issues and want to be there for someone the way someone may or may not have been there for them. your friends are probably great, and they know you, but they're not psychology experts and they have their own issues. a good therapist is a trained professional who is there specifically for you. they're a resource. and yeah, some of them are dogshit. it happens. some people in every field are dogshit. but a lot of them are trying their best. besides, if you go to a therapist miserable about living under capitalism and climate change, you can't exactly get mad when they don't fix that.

therapists are like any other field. some of them are amazing. some of them are complete garbage. but if you ask a doctor to do a politician's job, it'll go as well as if you asked your pilates instructor to insulate your house.

like lawyers, therapists aren't the problem in the system. they're educated professionals who can do you worlds of good. the problems go a lot deeper into the medical field, just like the problems in the justice system.

Men in Black (1997) dir. Barry Sonnenfeld

I use this scene to explain implicit bias to people. his first instinct is to assume the aliens are violent and the girl is innocent, but instead of acting on those assumptions he takes time to recognize his bias, look at the situation again, and then act. 

I watched this with my dad when I was fairly young, and I remember thinking that this was why he got chosen; before he even really knew what was going on, he didn’t assume that aliens were dangerous monsters.

I want to rage, to erase this crushing sense of helplessness in my lungs. To snarl instead of sobbing. I wanted to be shocked at this injustice. To be surprised and treat this as a horrific incident and not just a symptom of a bigger problem.

But I've witnessed how racist bigots reacted to Floyd, the instinctive racist response and "jokes" when people identified China as the one who was at fault with the whole COVID-situation, and how I immediately thought that those "low-key" racist thoughts will escalate someday to deadly actions. I listened to some of my friends when they said that I'm exaggerating.

And I wish- I wish I was. I wished that they were right and I was wrong. But look at our bloodied history. Look at where we are now.

One step forward, eight bloody steps back.

....stay safe.

Note: links and infographics came from @IHugDreamie in twitter. Her thread was informative and useful. #no hate #StopAsianHate

PLEASE DON’T SCROLL

even if you only reblog, that’s enough

1st of February, 2021

i was debating on whether or not i should post this on tumblr but seeing as there haven’t been posts about this yet, here it is. i’m exposing my real location and nationality but it doesn’t matter.

if you have been active on twitter, you may already know #savemyanmar is trending. long story short, there has been a military coup. several nations have released statements but i want to share insight on what’s happening in the country.

memes about a coup have been circulating around for a couple days and when i slept at 2 am last night, we were still under the rule of the National League for Democracy (NLD). while they are not technically democratic, they are the closest we’ve got. when my mother woke up at 6 this morning, she was notified that the country was now under the rule of the military.

banks services are no longer available. wifi was cut at around 7-8. some people got wifi again earlier but many got it barely thirty minutes ago. this is bad for businesses especially ones that require international communications. additionally, international students like myself are experiencing anxiety; how do we pay for and attend classes if we’re not sure wifi is a given?

myanmar has a long, complicated history with military governments. the last time the military went into rule was in 1962 and only stopped in 2011, following the 2010 elections. there was a huge protest in 1988 lead by students that resulted in lots of death. during the military junta, resources like rice, water, oil, were scarce. the gist is military rule is bad for us.

all of my followers are not myanmar citizens, i’m sure but as part of the international community, please help us. here is a petition that you can sign (although i’m not sure if that can do much). there may be protests in front of myanmar embassies so look out for those. most of all, please help spread awareness. 

the people here are coping with dark humor, primarily in the form of memes but we don’t know how long this rule will last, even though the official statement said only a year. here’s something that pretty much sums up our coping mechanism:

again, even a reblog helps

update :: all telecommunication means will be cut off at 12 am MMT

Thousand of people in Thailand are taking to the streets in defiance of a government protest ban amid outcries against alleged corruption (warning: distressing)

follow @nowthisnews for daily news videos & more

Just in case you already forgot what happened in the past because of historical revisionist.

Btw, andami rin palang inutang ni Marcos ano?? Does it remind you of some idiot?? Me too.

What is happening in Poland?

CW for homophobia/transphobia/misgendering/deadnaming and police brutality

more info & whole thread in the source link

~ credits to pisspigwife69 on Twitter ~

@one-time-i-dreamt

Maligayang Araw Ng Kalayaan

Happy Independence Day

The police in the Philippines are monsters who deserve no rights and they can die and go to hell for all I fucking care

The police can fucking die and I don't care.

Link to the original post in reblog. Everyone should see this and know.

Friendly reminder that the Philippine police can fucking die and it would only be a favour to everyone