Privilege Denying Gay Couple

it's a problem.

Ratchet Gurl Sailor Moon: Adoption and Designer babies

jigglemahpuffslikearealnigga:

innocentlyimpure:

jigglemahpuffslikearealnigga:

That korean post is not the first time that one, the US participates in illegal, harmful adoptions from POC nations. It kinda happens a lot. Like during the earthquake in Haiti were people were adopting and shipping out children who’s parents were looking for them all over the place, some thinking…

A family in my town adopted three Haitian girls after the earthquake. When I saw them a couple of years of go, two of the girls were gone. :/

And shit like that is harmful to the children. You can’t just adopt without knowing the full background of the children and make sure no one is missing them.

(Source: themostaintshitniggatoeverbeshit, via themostaintshitniggatoeverbeshit)

One study found that the earnings of female transgender workers fell by nearly one-third following their gender transitions. Interestingly, that same study found that the earnings of male transgender workers slightly increased following their transition. As such, transgender men may actually experience a wage advantage rather than a wage penalty.

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Oops (via autumn-fhtagn)

This, of course, only confirms what we’ve already known for ages: trans men may not be quite as privileged as cis men, but they are absolutely privileged over not only trans women, but also over cis women.

(via freedominwickedness)

I’m not sure if I think all trans* men are privileged over all cis women, intersectionality and all that, but, yeah. Patriarchy is awesome, amirite?

(via rustbeltjessie)

Oh the tangled web oppression weaves.

(via amydentata)

(Source: marxvx, via criticalqueer)

acoiteanoite:

Mariene de Castro cantando no SAMBABOOK JOÃO NOGUEIRA

um ser de luz

*em homenagem a Clara Nunes

(via navigatethestream)

theatlantic:

Sugar-Based Graffiti That Confronts America’s Legacy of Slavery

Miller has been making wall paintings from piped frosting since 2001; more recently, she’s experimented with pieces that use hardened sugar tiles. For the piped graffiti, she employs a recipe for Royal Icing, otherwise known as the glue that cements gingerbread houses. The saccharine goo is made with “meringue powder, water, and powdered sugar,” Miller says. “It dries really hard, almost like plaster.”

The artist hasn’t been fooling around with frosting for more than a decade to prep for Ace of Cakes. The art contains a subtext that’s as bitter as gall: She wants us to remember the era when European powers enslaved a huge chunk of Africa to sustain their precious New World sugar plantations. During a 300-year span that began in the 16th century, “white gold” became so treasured that it accounted for a third of Europe’s whole economy; more than 10 million African slaves made the horrific “Middle Passage” to the Americas to help feed the beast.

Read more. [Images: Shelley Miller]

White artist alert. Whenever educated well-meaning white artists take on slavery and/or its legacy it’s always done in a way that obfuscates the issue and breeds violent mistrust in me about their intentions.

Here, the choice of medium, subject and (perhaps) setting highlight the irony, yes but I don’t know how it “confronts” the legacy of slavery. If the millions of humans trafficked over centuries still remain dehumanized in the image, even for a historicizing end, what does that do?

 Why do enslaved Africans only appear in silhouette or not at all, save for a vague reference to “cargo”? This was already a common trope in the artform of the time—the use of silhouetted  decontextualized black bodies as art is not an innovation on the form nor is it a confrontation of the history.  Where are the millions of active european/white participants/co-conspirators in the slave trade? We usually only talk about ships captains and slave masters but it took worldwide collusion to pull this off and they did us the favor of leaving their imprint on the artform by having portraits made of themselves in this very tile. Just look at ONE GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH on the word “Azulejo” and you will see europeans prominently featured and contextualized and romanticized. Who are these people and what was their role in the global slave trade? There’s enough material there for any white artist to complete 500 MFA’s without even laying one greasy little irresponsible finger on black human imagery but I digress.

Also consider who was producing these tiles and where the artform even came from? Hint: the word is of Arabic origin. You think 15th century white europeans asked nicely and paid royalties for the know-how and credit for this artform? Who do you think got their hands burned in the kiln once these tiles became all the rage in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies and needed to be mass-produced? What wealth enabled the commission of these works in new world churches and mansions?

Finally, these works were commissioned in places and by institutions that have demonstrated their ineptitude and unwillingness to actually “confront” race and the legacy of slavery. I’m not surprised that it’s a white person who gets a shot at helping them pretend to be “delving into the subject” but we shouldn’t look at this art as divorced from the identity, privilege and motives of its various individual and institutional makers. 

What do I make of a band of cultural thieves stealing the form and narrative of a stolen people to make it as artists in the new world? If we continue to celebrate whites doing the painful irony softshoe and calling it contemplative confrontation of history via art then this is what we will continue to get. BULLSHIT.

(via aliahatch)

when lucifer is thrown out of the arduously self-created idyll of hell and into the body of a human female in twenty first century london, far from wreaking havoc, the fallen angel wants nothing more than to return home. whilst attempting to come to terms with strange visions of a blindfolded man and trying to navigate the city with no money and no real identity, lucifer tracks down as many occultists, mystics, religious experts, and possible lunatics as she can in order to find a way back to the pit. soon, though, it becomes apparent that she is beyond help and as her few remaining powers begin to wane it seems that, much to her furious dismay, she is all out of options. then, one night, lucifer encounters a blind teenager walking through clapham common with his dog. the boy, referring to her as lucy furr, offers to help her find a way home and, at first, it seems as though he has entirely misunderstood where exactly “home” is. however, lucy soon discovers that this is not the case.

when lucifer is thrown out of the arduously self-created idyll of hell and into the body of a human female in twenty first century london, far from wreaking havoc, the fallen angel wants nothing more than to return home. whilst attempting to come to terms with strange visions of a blindfolded man and trying to navigate the city with no money and no real identity, lucifer tracks down as many occultists, mystics, religious experts, and possible lunatics as she can in order to find a way back to the pit. soon, though, it becomes apparent that she is beyond help and as her few remaining powers begin to wane it seems that, much to her furious dismay, she is all out of options. then, one night, lucifer encounters a blind teenager walking through clapham common with his dog. the boy, referring to her as lucy furr, offers to help her find a way home and, at first, it seems as though he has entirely misunderstood where exactly “home” is. however, lucy soon discovers that this is not the case.

(Source: lorastyrelled, via anotsosadsong)

24 hour fasting, to support Chief Theresa Spencer

(Source: jalwhite, via dcloveandjustice)

queerhairyvag: colorfulqueerdom: thegang: South African government minister Lulu Xingwana walked out of an “innovative Women” exhibit because it featured  Zanele Muholi’s photographs of nude lesbian couples. She reportedly found the photos “immoral” and “against nation-building” even though she donated money to the exhibit where Zanele’s work was listed in the exhibition’s catalogue as:”without precedent in South Africa, where there are very few instances of black women openly portraying female same-sex practices.” Here’s what Zanele had to say in response: “There is nothing pornographic. We live in a space where rape is a common thing, so there is nothing we can hide from our children…Those pictures are based on experience and issues. Where else can we express ourselves if not in our democratic country?” She added: “Children need to know about these things. A lot of people have no understanding of sexual orientation, people are suffering in silence. We need to educate people about homosexuality. We need to have very good treatment and respect from the minister.” The Innovative Women exhibition features work by 10 artists including Muholi, photographer Nandipha Mntambo, and painter Bongi Bengu, who also curated it. (source)

queerhairyvag:

colorfulqueerdom:

thegang:

South African government minister Lulu Xingwana walked out of an “innovative Women” exhibit because it featured  Zanele Muholi’s photographs of nude lesbian couples. She reportedly found the photos “immoral” and “against nation-building” even though she donated money to the exhibit where Zanele’s work was listed in the exhibition’s catalogue as:”without precedent in South Africa, where there are very few instances of black women openly portraying female same-sex practices.”

Here’s what Zanele had to say in response:

“There is nothing pornographic. We live in a space where rape is a common thing, so there is nothing we can hide from our children…Those pictures are based on experience and issues. Where else can we express ourselves if not in our democratic country?”

She added: “Children need to know about these things. A lot of people have no understanding of sexual orientation, people are suffering in silence. We need to educate people about homosexuality. We need to have very good treatment and respect from the minister.”

The Innovative Women exhibition features work by 10 artists including Muholi, photographer Nandipha Mntambo, and painter Bongi Bengu, who also curated it.

(source)

cosmicyoruba:

This is Area Scatter. Area Scatter used to be a male civil servant but after spending some time in isolation transformed into a female entertainer.

Area Scatter was popular back when and their occupying a traditional role really shows that such “evil things” are not Western introductions. These are the Nigerian histories that people want to wipe away and say never existed. It is a good thing that at least the video remains, we should all download it in case it is removed from Youtube then someone would say that there were no transgendered people in Igbo society.

(Source: thefemaletyrant, via wrcsolace)

“Kuzco is my favorite Disney Princess”

feministdisney:

nicktomlinshaw:

feministdisney:

Just to be clear about why I roll my eyes over the whole “Kuzco is my favorite princess” thing people like to say on tumblr all the time:

If Kuzco himself identified as a princess, I fully would support that.  Fabulous.  You call yourself whatever you want.   No reason to see either the role of “princess” or Kuzco’s  gender as inherently restrictive forces that have any real (rather than socially given) set definitions.

HOWEVER, he does not identify as a princess in that movie.   So it again becomes this thing where we get this semi-rare character that subverts several gender roles- he’s a guy that behaves in a way society has come to label/code as “feminine” or “girly.”   Specifically, he is a bit of a immature brat, concerned with his appearance and social status, etc.

image

By not judging these things as necessarily “just for girls,” we could help to open up more options for young boys so that they are not always forced to perform in a hyper-masculine manner regardless of their desires.   Like it’s okay to sashay a bit and not necessarily be “gay” or “girly.”  It’s okay to have an opinion about clothing without it being a grand statement on your entire identity. [this isn’t to say it isn’t problematic the way they seemed to intentionally try and code the most bratty Disney character ever as more what they think “feminine” is, creating an unnecessarily link between implied femininity and undesirability, but leaving that aside for now]

But by saying he must be a “princess,” in other words indicating we think he is “like a girl” (since princesses are otherwise always girls, in media) we end up re-asserting the idea that a certain set of behaviors are only things “girls do” even though it’s a boy doing it!     Enforcing the gender binary: stop that ish in its tracks.  Also: he is not gay just because his mannerisms are not stereotypically masculine (one of the other phrases that often gets reblogged is that he’s ”the first lesbian/gay princess/character/whatever”).  That also reinforces unhelpful stereotypes about sexuality and gender.

THANK YOU I AM SO SICK OF PEOPLE CALLING HIM THAT FOR THAT REASON AND WAS GOING TO MAKE MY OWN POST BUT THIS IS IN MUCH BETTER WORDS THAN MINE AND THANK YOU SO MUCH.

this topic came up the other day but I only said I didn’t like the Kuzco thing without re-iterating why, so here you go

PLUS RACE…Kuzco’s choices of gender presentation and identification being simultaneously limited by Disney’s and by audience’s inherent race bias. Disney’s been alternately emasculating, infantilizing and/or dehumanizing masculine characters “of color” since well before Looney Tunes. They do their fair share of hypersexualizing, demonizing or erasing feminine characters of color as well. If the audience can make Kuzco a “princess”—against his cartoon “will”—instead of acknowledging him as an effeminate leading man/boy of color, then it forwards the racist project carried out whenever a character of color’s gender presentation is depicted in mainstream media. Kuzco was made non-threatening by the industry, whether well-meaning audiences like it or not, because white supremacy demands that the dominance of white male heterosexuality never be challenged. Even if it never appears as an actual character, it is always offscreen policing the gender rules for everyone else. #noonefuckslikegaston 

This isn’t meant to downplay how refreshing it really is to see alternatives to violent hypermasculinity on screen but it’s just a reminder that these are intentional  choices made within a decidedly racist and sexist industry. They are thus imbued with inherent racism and sexism that can’t be forgotten because it happens to serve an “alternative” (and yes, I would say even white feminism is alternative to disney’s worldview) aesthetic. 

(via seriouslyamerica)

As many as 15 percent of freshmen at America’s top schools are white students who failed to meet their university’s minimum standards for admission, according to Peter Schmidt, deputy editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education. These kids are “people with a long-standing relationship with the university,” or in other words, the children of faculty, wealthy alumni and politicians.

According to Schmidt, these unqualified but privileged kids are nearly twice as common on top campuses as Black and Latino students who had benefited from affirmative action.

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Ten myths about affirmative action (via linzyxxxxx)

This is EXTREMELY blatant on college campuses. The fact that these things need to be clarified is sad.

(via newwavefeminism)

Legacy is the real affirmative action…and yet we don’t see certain types of entitled people suing to dismantle that.

(via invisiblelad)

Berea is one of the few colleges that doesn’t do legacy admissions. The results of this policy are revealing; Black students at Berea graduate at a higher rate than white students— a reversal of the national average. 

(via fromonesurvivortoanother)

(Source: sociolab, via fromonesurvivortoanother)