tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75187698338880188752024-03-04T23:07:34.743-05:00The Chronicles of NonsenseI chronicle nonsense, mostly about the news, sometimes about pop culture. If you don't think it's nonsensical, then yell at me in the comments.Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.comBlogger309125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-48880840228561156642020-03-05T23:04:00.000-05:002020-03-07T10:48:00.984-05:00Death of a Friend<div style="text-align: justify;">
The past week has been a hell of a year. Perhaps you had read my guide as to what to do when you find out that one of your best friends is an “alleged” sexual predator. Perhaps at the time, I was feeling every emotion at the same time, and I cannot say I’m completely over those feelings.</div>
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Now let’s explore another hypothetical situation. Let’s say that throughout the week, others came forward, either to you or your other friends, telling you what he had said or sent them. Your eyes cannot unsee that, nor do you want them to. You need to know what happened, because you feel like you need to make amends for what he did, but you have no idea how to do that, since you did none of these acts. On the same token, you don’t want to see any more, because it keeps getting worse. You likely are paralyzed with the guilt of not knowing what to do.</div>
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What is your responsibility? I honestly do not know. I do know that all the women who came forward need and deserve all the support that they can get, whether you know them or not. The difficult part is that you don’t know them personally. Tracking them down and reaching out could re-traumatize them, also. All you can do, in most cases, is hope that they are being supported.</div>
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The next thing you think about is what needs to be done to make sure your friend never harasses or assaults women again. I like to believe in rehabilitation. There should be a long road before someone is completely beyond help. This is This is where the largest conundrum comes. Do you stick to your friend and make sure he gets whatever he needs to not do what he has done? Do you leave him and tell him he needs to find that help on his own? The fact is that he likely won’t get better without support. So will you be that support, or not? What kind of friend are you if you don’t give him that support?</div>
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But what kind of friend was he? Some of those women are also your friends. Associating with a known “alleged” sexual predator, THEIR predator, is not being a good friend to them, is it? How could you look them in the eye and still associate with their “alleged” assailant? But how could you call yourself a friend if you abandon your friend who so obviously needs some support to rehabilitate?</div>
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There is no perfect answer to questions like these. It is just a matter of the choice: stick with your friend and possibly be the support he needs to be better, or not. You will not feel good either way. The only things that are definite are that the people who came forward regarding his advances and worse need to feel safe again, whether you are part of that path or not. Also, one of your closest friends, who “allegedly” sexually harassed and possibly assaulted people, needs to never do it again, and though it is his responsibility, you feel compelled. You get multiple emails and calls from people telling you to not internalize all this, to know that you are not the one who hurt these women, and it was his choice to do that. You understand that, and you try your best to not take in all of that responsibility that is not really yours, and you are trying to not, but it is admittedly difficult.</div>
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Then, perhaps, this friend came out publicly with a statement through a local media outlet, and implicated a person who had nothing to do with the exposure of his actions in casting the bad light on him. Maybe there was no admission of guilt, and no owning of all the actions that came to light, just throwing someone under the bus who had nothing to do with the situation. At that point, maybe your decision was made for you. There’s a good chance you are finished with him. There is no way you can talk to him until he owns his actions and apologizes to the multiple people he tried to blame for exposing his own actions and makes right with them, in whatever form that takes. You are done, and he is finished in your mind. Problem solved. But why do you still feel like hell? Why does your gut have the same feeling you had when one of your friends died of leukemia?</div>
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Because your friend, who you trusted, who you defended against detractors, isn’t dead. He never existed. You defended a façade of a person all this time. And you will forever feel indebted to the people he hurt, no matter how much people tell you otherwise.<br />
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I can’t tell you how to move on from this, but I’ll let you know if I figure that out.</div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-42776455730480811922020-02-28T17:07:00.001-05:002020-02-28T17:08:28.580-05:00Steps to Take When You Find Out One of Your Best Friends Is an "AlLeGeD" Sexual Predator<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-051269e8-7fff-a20d-2e37-149d6a0da540"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Listen to the victims’ accounts.</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-32239909-7fff-fece-fe14-3f0374bcfaad"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Get nauseous, angry, and morose simultaneously.</span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-eb9aae9a-7fff-ded1-1c31-13288ecd4b08"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Ask him “What the fuck”, and wait impatiently for his response.</span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ce6d2c86-7fff-0ac1-83a0-89881c7bb0dd"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Reread the victims’ accounts, and not give a damn about what he says, because now you are recalling all of the good times you had developing a friendship, and reading the testimonies of these people he “allegedly” hurt, and are coming to the awareness that these things happened in parallel to each other throughout the years.</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-794fafc8-7fff-379d-75a9-91cd4763bdd5"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Cry a little.</span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8e0cf0ba-7fff-57bc-66b7-75568d3b7ad4"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Feel guilty for crying.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-15c5906e-7fff-8fa5-5b6d-b6c8503731be"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Recollect all the warning signs that you shrugged off as “quirks”. And feel betrayed by the facade.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-cdca3aea-7fff-00d4-198c-2e3d8ab8c367"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Realize that you know some of the women, and feel like you betrayed them.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-98c707e7-7fff-239a-4a45-bec6e5c03692"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Recall the time you were assaulted and had no one to help you. Recall the second time you were assaulted and you DID speak up, and it nearly cost you your job. Think, "Is this a good time to even bring this up?" And then decide not to.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-1e99554a-7fff-4dba-2170-ff39fa6356c5"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Cry a little more.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7e33438d-7fff-54f0-3e61-b962d4527122"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Remember that none of this shit is about you or him. It is about his victims, and you need to heed to what they say. Give them space if they want space. Listen to them if they want to be heard. If they want to let it all out in a flood of tears, then have some tissues ready. And for the love of everything, do better, because you obviously were slacking.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-73fddc73-7fff-77a8-94f4-9856b9076096"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Probably find a therapist, because holy shit...</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-6508455562975652022019-01-25T09:35:00.002-05:002019-01-25T09:35:36.415-05:00Cloudy with a Chance of Negroes<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzox9KjTDggxOnSEJ4VUvKJxOmP2J2l4pHI49zpNmnt6l3zKGIf6iOAASC5vDcYPy6TZ6UQQOsvZyGNtRXzz3P06pwGeUrT0A13Alc4k9JQ_u2aZ079f7JwB_gkJcNF3h-4pKehdMGtE/s1600/Screenshot_20190124-172014_Twitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1079" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzox9KjTDggxOnSEJ4VUvKJxOmP2J2l4pHI49zpNmnt6l3zKGIf6iOAASC5vDcYPy6TZ6UQQOsvZyGNtRXzz3P06pwGeUrT0A13Alc4k9JQ_u2aZ079f7JwB_gkJcNF3h-4pKehdMGtE/s320/Screenshot_20190124-172014_Twitter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Jeremy Kappell finally blocked me. I’ve been sending him
Martin Luther King speeches that flesh out the shallow Martin Luther King memes
he’s been posting since he was fired for (accidentally) calling him a “coon” on
live television. I’ve also been sending him essays from James Baldwin and Angela
Davis. I sent him links to books like “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White
People to Talk About Racism”. I sent him a few articles that explicitly
articulated how lazy and boring it is to continue to depict Martin Luther King
as some sort of saintly figure that everyone loved, when the complete opposite
was the case. I highly doubt he paid attention to any of that information.</div>
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It seems the breaking straw was when I responded to him (finally) meeting with a prominent black person in the community, and his takeaway was that she was "over-sensitive" to racism and and blind to "REAL" racism. Because what the world needs is another oblivious white man to tell black folks how and when to react to HIS definition of racism.</div>
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His actions spoke to that. He did everything that every white person does when
caught doing something egregiously racist, accident or not. So here is a list
of things you should NOT do, should you find yourself in a pickle because you
transposed the first letters of “Neil Rigger”:</div>
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<ol><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjendy8RX2N5GdMW02KSvP2tk9vKMNd_GDgb4vkoYFbwmO01yhCsgIKFV4Du4_Z8ohyjbrmQRe0qjlPNRn4RtjP5fcIrGMYti9L8zcb5HXVr492eAgwK0saqJ-Z00aCMUFpvhLjzKoTPmE/s1600/Screenshot_20190124-172037_Twitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1584" data-original-width="1079" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjendy8RX2N5GdMW02KSvP2tk9vKMNd_GDgb4vkoYFbwmO01yhCsgIKFV4Du4_Z8ohyjbrmQRe0qjlPNRn4RtjP5fcIrGMYti9L8zcb5HXVr492eAgwK0saqJ-Z00aCMUFpvhLjzKoTPmE/s320/Screenshot_20190124-172037_Twitter.jpg" width="217" /></a>
<li>DO NOT claim that the people who heard/saw you
do the racist thing didn’t hear/see what they heard/saw. We are not idiots, and
we can detect your gaslighting a mile away. DO learn how what you did is
problematic, and own that.</li>
<li>DO NOT make your apology about you and how you
are hurting. We don’t give a fuck. Also, DO NOT use terms like “if I hurt you”.
The second you put “if” in an apology, you make your apology conditional, and
you cast doubt on the people to whom you owe an apology. DO tell the people
affected by your words that you are sorry.</li>
<li>DO NOT expect things to go back to “normal” just
because you apologized. If you break a vase, you may be able to glue it back
together, but people will still see the cracks. Even if someone forgives you, no
one owes you shit. DO make strides to be better THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS.</li>
<li>DO NOT try to get “forgiveness” from people
outside the community you hurt. It does not matter how famous representatives
of a minority group you got on “your side”. Minorities are not a hive mind, and
their opinions are based on what you gave them to ponder. So one or two of their
opinions mean nothing to what you did. DO seek out people IN your community and
see what you can do to be better.</li>
<li>DO NOT think that boasting about a bunch of
interactions with the minority group you slighted is “building bridges”. This is
what I call “pulling a Lonsberry”. Bob Lonsberry regularly finds a negro with
whom to take a selfie. Light negroes, dark negroes, faux negroes, real negroes,
rich negroes, poor negroes, house negroes, field negores. All negroes he can. That
doesn’t erase the horrible things he has said about Puerto Ricans, or the
condescending tone he uses to talk about black folks, or the pictures of urban
squalor that he takes during his “runs”, ot the fact that HE CALLED A BLACK
MAYOR AN ORANGUTAN. It speaks volumes to what you think of people that you
believe they would fall for such a vapid action. We are not props for your
redemption tour. DO engage in discussions with people, and learn about what
they need and how you can help.</li>
<li>DO NOT think you have ANY business telling a
member of a minority group what “real oppression” is. You have their
oppression, so you have no business speaking on it. Perhaps hearing about the
myriad of ways someone experiences racism/sexism/homophobia/ableism is painful
to your delicate ears. Good. It is 100x more painful to experience it day to
day than it is for you to hear it. Sometimes a small thing like someone
screaming “nigger” at you will snowball into you on the ground with a bruised
abdomen and a gun to you head. You never know. But listen. You might learn
something. Railing about “political correctness” inevitably makes you look like
an asshole who doesn’t care. Try respecting what someone tells you.</li>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-78920731539757531212018-05-10T11:08:00.001-04:002020-05-26T15:35:14.519-04:00The SNITCH Act: for White Folks Who Call Cops on Black Folks Minding Their Damn Business<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Fdt02j9qZZW4uDJrqIH1gavxQfwMoLnA2_qMPdSz75DoU6Wt3XwZw3URLAA3jXLyH7lzG6NsUML3OHvYBeExRJu9saW3JFam2dP904v_WpW4rfopFFEvh_hXZwrx3b-MNen4U9-vggE/s1600/Wypipo+Tom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="563" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Fdt02j9qZZW4uDJrqIH1gavxQfwMoLnA2_qMPdSz75DoU6Wt3XwZw3URLAA3jXLyH7lzG6NsUML3OHvYBeExRJu9saW3JFam2dP904v_WpW4rfopFFEvh_hXZwrx3b-MNen4U9-vggE/s320/Wypipo+Tom.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of Afropunk.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am tired, y’all…Damn near every week, I hear a story about police who interrupted a black person (or any other shade of brown) from doing something mundane, be it waiting in a coffee shop or sitting in a park. The <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/02/us/starbucks-arrest-agreements/index.html" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/02/us/starbucks-arrest-agreements/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Starbucks incident</a> was not an anomaly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A pair of <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/native-american-brothers-touring-dream-school-patted-questioned/story?id=54960410" href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/native-american-brothers-touring-dream-school-patted-questioned/story?id=54960410" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Native American brothers were questioned on a Colorado State University</a> tour because they were too quiet. Talking was not required for this tour, and if you’ve ever been on a college tour, you usually want to keep quiet so that you can LISTEN TO THE TOUR GUIDE. It wasn’t the tour guide who called the cops; it was a parent of someone on the tour guide. It’s bad enough that the university was likely built on the graves of someone’s ancestors, but to have their legitimacy question for being polite? What the hell?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This week, <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://fox2now.com/2018/05/09/a-black-yale-graduate-student-took-a-nap-in-her-dorms-common-room-so-a-white-student-called-police/" href="http://fox2now.com/2018/05/09/a-black-yale-graduate-student-took-a-nap-in-her-dorms-common-room-so-a-white-student-called-police/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">a black Yale grad student was questioned in her own dorm</a> because she was sleeping in a common study area. Before anyone claims that she should have slept in her room, and this would have been avoided, 1.) fuck you, and 2.) College kids live on naps. They sleep wherever they can whenever they can. The library, the dark corner of the cafeteria, under a work bench in the engineering building, in the foyer of the science building; EVERY part of a campus is fair game. The black woman who was studying in the common room and took a quick nap did what every other college student does. How dare she be human???</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One woman in Oakland had the caucasity to not only <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.newsweek.com/lake-merritt-bbq-barbecue-video-oakland-racist-charcoal-east-bay-black-family-919355" href="http://www.newsweek.com/lake-merritt-bbq-barbecue-video-oakland-racist-charcoal-east-bay-black-family-919355" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">harass a group of black people barbecuing in the park</a>, but when the police didn’t come for 2 hours (because barbecuing while black is NOT a crime), she made up a story of how THEY were harassing HER, and then when she found a cop, she started crying on command.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are examples of inconvenience. I could go on with my personal experiences of being “suspicious” while enoying life. <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://www.popville.com/2018/05/suspicious-man-walking-on-the-bike-path-with-a-baby-kingman-island/" href="https://www.popville.com/2018/05/suspicious-man-walking-on-the-bike-path-with-a-baby-kingman-island/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">A brother can’t even walk his baby in a stroller in peace</a>. Sometimes these calls end in death, like when a <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nypd-officer-fires-5-shots-killing-black-man-holding-object-that-looked-like-shower-head-in-brooklyn/ar-AAvtHoi" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nypd-officer-fires-5-shots-killing-black-man-holding-object-that-looked-like-shower-head-in-brooklyn/ar-AAvtHoi" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">mentally ill but harmless black staple of a Brooklyn neighborhood</a> was gunned down because a white person thought the shower head he was carrying was a gun. I guarantee that there will be no punishment for the officer OR the person who called.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And that is the problem. Part of the tensions between police and people of color are caused by people calling the cops when they are not needed. No one likes their schedule interrupted for bullshit, even if their schedule is <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/15/i-was-just-reading-a-book-canadian-cops-called-on-black-man-reading-c-s-lewis-in-his-car/?noredirect=on" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/15/i-was-just-reading-a-book-canadian-cops-called-on-black-man-reading-c-s-lewis-in-his-car/?noredirect=on" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">reading a book in their own car</a>. It wouldn’t be a big deal if white folks were ecumenical with their nervousness and called the police on white folks who were minding their goddamn business as well. I straight up saw a bunch of white kids skateboard INSIDE a store, past a sign that explicitly said, “no skateboards or bikes”, but no one lifted a finger, and the shop owner was too busy eyeing me looking at a shirt, which is what you are supposed to do when shopping for shirts. It wouldn’t be a big deal if our lives were not in jeopardy with these calls, and the misjudgment of the slightest movement, like <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Amadou_Diallo" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Amadou_Diallo" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">reaching for our identification</a>, could be the last thing we ever do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For this reason, there needs to be a punishment system for white folks who call the police on us for living. We need to push for legislation that. With much thanks to a friend for the name, I propose the “Stop Needlessly Involving The Constabulary, Helen”, or the SNITCH Act, for short. People who violate the SNITCH Act would be severly punished. But since fining and jailing people never goes over well, and since Americans HATE apologizing, why not have a tiered system that will hit these SNITCHers where it hurts?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">INCONVENIENCE A POC FOR 0 TO 3 HOURS: White caller is not allowed to talk about <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">The Wire</em> or <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">Breaking Bad</em> for a week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">INCONVENIENCE A POC FOR 4–7 HOURS: Previous punishment, and no Taylor Swift for one month.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">INCONVENIENCE A POC FOR 7–10 HOURS: All previous punishments, and caller must watch both the original “Roots” and the 2016 remake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">INCONVENIENCE A POC FOR 11+ HOURS: All previous punishments, and caller must delete pictures of them in Africa, Asia, and South America with little brown kids.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">IF POC IS HANDCUFFED: All previous punishments, and caller must surrender all Sriracha from home and office.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">IF POC IS ARRESTED: All previous punishments, and caller is banned from purchasing avocado products for a year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">IF POC IS KILLED: All previous punishments, and caller must wear a locket with a picture of the person for whose death they are indirectly responsible for the rest of their lives. Also, no more brunch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I should call my local lawmaker right now. We need to get the SNITCH Act pushed through and signed. However, I’m typing this and laughing quietly to myself, so I should expect someone to suspect me of robbing this coffee shop any second now. Until then, Stop Needlessly Involving The Constabulary, Heather.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stop SNITCHing.</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-37694389786812740292018-05-10T09:23:00.000-04:002018-05-10T09:23:15.361-04:00Eric, You Ignorant Slut<h3 class="graf graf--h3" name="3264" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eric Schneiderman didn’t have to be an abuser. He did that all on his own.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schneiderman, the NYS attorney general who filed cases against trump regarding sexual allegations and misappropriating funds, resigned after several women came forth with allegations of their own. They all claimed that Schneiderman beat, hit, or slapped them, not at work, but during sex. They all claimed it came from out of nowhere. What the unholy hell, Schneiderman?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It sounds like Schneiderman has a kink. He likes a little rough play. It’s a kink. Kinks are fine. Nobody wants to admit it, but a LOT of people have a kink of some sort. That Schneiderman’s was rough play is not a big deal. What IS a big deal, is that he DIDN’T TELL HIS PARTNERS before engaging in his kink. So now he is out of a job, because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. No one should feel bad for him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We SHOULD feel bad for the kink community. Actions like Schneiderman’s are why the “kink community” is portrayed as a morally bankrupt group of people who need to create their own secret networks and sometimes use aliases in searching for like-minded people. Sexually conservative people will point this out as an example of why people should be punished for having a quirky thing they like to do during sex, and why sex should ONLY be for procreation, and anyone who veers from that goal deserves all the physical and social punishment that they may receive should it be exposed that they are into a quirky thing. The irony is that it is a guarantee that those conservative soap boxers are also the ones with “quirky things”. Regardless, the kink community will be demonized and shamed some more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is that this could have been easily resolved, and it would not have been a big deal, had Schneiderman just told the women he hit in bed that he likes to do that. If they were up for it, they would have gone with him. If not, then they could have finished their duck a l’orange and go their separate ways. His statement was trash, as he didn’t even acknowledge that what he did was wrong. “In the privacy of intimate relationships”, he said, “I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity…I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in non-consensual sex, which is a line I would not cross.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="e8eb" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But he DID! Those women consented to sex, not getting hit during sex. Because of that, he crossed a line, and he IS an abuser. I don’t know why men have such a hard time understanding consent. They either think it is an impossible cryptex, or they think that once “yes” is said once that it’s a golden ticket to ALL parts of the Chocolate Factory. Consent is neither, and all you have to do is talk to someone to know that. America is so sexually repressed that we can’t even talk about sex openly to discuss this. Sex education needs to be done in and out of schools, and it need to be more than teachers saying, “Wait until marriage or you’re a slut…except you, Chad; you’re the man”, or parents saying, “IDK, just wrap it up; I don’t wanna be a granddad early”, or just saying nothing. ADULTS need sex education classes to unlearn all the bullshit they were taught when they were kids. I’ll bet all types of assaults would go down if this country were more open about sexuality. It is not enough to point someone to Google to learn. Teenagers and adults (especially cishet men) need to sit in a class and learn/re-learn sex and sexuality, or things like this will keep happening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schneiderman had consent to have sex, and all he had to do was ask, “Hey, are you into rough shit, like slapping?”, and he would still have a job. Now he is jobless, an abuser (at best), and in not understanding how consent works, he pretty much put kink on trial. Again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eric, you ignorant slut.</span></div>
Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-71511656785781744552018-05-09T11:41:00.001-04:002018-05-09T11:47:35.366-04:00Everyone Is Assault-Adjacent<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
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Dammit…I thought Cosby Showed my arm. Today I learned that I patronized a business that harbors/is run by an “alleged” sexual predator. In cases like these, I my knee jerk reaction is to junk the product and get a replacement one, if any at all. However, this time the product is a TATTOO, and I can’t get rid of my forearm. I need it for activities.<br />
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I did not get my ink done not by the “alleged” assailant, but by an artist in his employ. Still, my heart sank. My money indirectly went into the pockets of someone who “allegedly” perpetuates the very type of behavior I’ve been rallying against for nearly 20 years. I told other people to go to that shop! I told them to go to my artist, but what if she wasn’t there, and they had to deal with him? How many women to whom I talked did I send into a lion’s den? The women who WERE inked by him probably have some very mixed feelings right now, and hopefully some men with some humanity do as well.</div>
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The “good” news is that despite the excessive amounts of victim-blaming the victim who spoke out has received by some “men” (And A LOT OF WOMEN! WTF!), the word is out on this tattoo shop, and I doubt that many decent people in town will bother to patronize his business, especially since her courage to speak out has inspired others to give reviews with their accounts of his unwanted behavior with them. Just as good news, the artist who did my work has left that little shop of horrors, and she will set roots in a new location and flourish even more. I can’t say it’s all a happy ending, because I cannot speak for the dozens of people with whom this guy was verbally and physically inappropriate, but at least moves are being made.</div>
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The only problem is, will there be a next time? The answer is yes. If you live in the United States of America, you are either assault-adjacent, or you are in denial about being assault-adjacent. Someone you know has been assaulted whether you know it or not. Someone with whom you share witty banter while getting your coffee may have been an assaulter. That is because America is so busy pointing out how dangerous it is for women in brown countries that it ignores the fact that is just as dangerous as hell here.</div>
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All of our histories and tangible items have the potential to have a dark side to them. What we do with that knowledge is on us. I still love what a member of that shop placed on my arm. It is a little bit easier since she has since left the shop, but even if the “alleged” assailant worked on me, the reason and story behind WHY I designed my piece and committed it to permanent scars on my body is not diminished. I’m not patronizing that shop anymore, however. Like the Cosby Show, the crimes of the real Cosby don’t diminish the value of the story of the Huxtables, but we still need to remember that Bill Cosby is a serial rapist, which is why the Cosby Show is not in syndication anymore. Nothing is simple anymore. I know there is an idea among some that since we live in a capitalist society that economic activism is pointless. That is just an excuse to be lazy. If you can decide to not patronize a shop because the clerk looked at you funny, you can definitely not patronize one because the owner assaults his female customers, or because corporate donates its money to hate groups, or because you’re tired of its racially insensitive ad campaigns. Maybe your one decision will not make a difference, but at least you can sleep at night.</div>
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As for the local shop itself, if it goes down because of this, then it goes down. Anyone who decries the social action taken by the victims as trying to shut down a guy’s livelihood, just keep in mind that this all could have been avoided by the guy NOT “allegedly” ASSAULTING ANYONE. Good luck to the artist who left the lion’s den.</div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-23729729117663202362018-03-07T15:56:00.002-05:002019-02-26T12:13:14.624-05:00#KillmongerWasWrong #FightMe<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ryan Coogler is a damn genius. I fell into a hotep trap watching <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Black Panther</em>. Some of y’all have been saying #KillmongerWasRight, been changing your online names to #Killmonger4Ever, identifying with his struggle for greatness against all odds.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hL0xPhxoicBKEXmKyv3V8e4V9B0VPWXrjDgyl_0flHndV-EkLlRkqtOf6THY6x1SzefXURTbxwTjf_ld0z-ty0JPmHlPc-C5NtWSJi2YwltACQOJorX3ou7LCTqzzCL03FGzLWmKwnE/s1600/killmonger-1280-1498675302957_1280w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hL0xPhxoicBKEXmKyv3V8e4V9B0VPWXrjDgyl_0flHndV-EkLlRkqtOf6THY6x1SzefXURTbxwTjf_ld0z-ty0JPmHlPc-C5NtWSJi2YwltACQOJorX3ou7LCTqzzCL03FGzLWmKwnE/s320/killmonger-1280-1498675302957_1280w.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That’s cool, but just like in the comics, Killmonger was wrong as fuck. In both versions, he thought he was OWED the throne due to jilted feelings and a family spat. He ain’t shit! I totally get the perspective in the movies, though. He wanted to disseminate the technology and knowledge of Wakanda to the African Diaspora. They had suffered so much out of Africa for years that they need relief. The added mass murder is not a great bonus though.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We should have known Killmonger wasn’t right. Besides the all the murders, his origin story was basically that his father set him down and told him, “We wuz KANGS!” Nothing positive could have come from fake wokeness. You’re kaping for Killmonger now, but wait until he starts going off on a tangent about how garlic is poison or toothpaste is mind control or women’s periods are not natural. And I’ll BET you that nigga is a flat-earther.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then he died saying some hotep shit. Something like, “Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.” Motherfucker, you are from EAST Africa! And they were thrown from the boats, and your ass is half Wakandan! Shut yo ass up and die!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCLJ-7p340wila8eoWAKZyJBL39-UarMZyfZUKzwxBwzWy5AcGBXb-GaQ5CNHudGRGOjePhSmkR7aOXeKQ13m11TbjnYiJQ5KBs5IaKd-JDo9d8W6BkJungH8n1d7mGBCriQesKwl6pM/s1600/Nakia+Shuri.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="979" data-original-width="1004" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCLJ-7p340wila8eoWAKZyJBL39-UarMZyfZUKzwxBwzWy5AcGBXb-GaQ5CNHudGRGOjePhSmkR7aOXeKQ13m11TbjnYiJQ5KBs5IaKd-JDo9d8W6BkJungH8n1d7mGBCriQesKwl6pM/s320/Nakia+Shuri.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway, Killmonger was not right. NAKIA was. She left Wakanda because she was frustrated with the lack of helping others. She was out in those streets HELPING the indigent instead of training to kill. Nakia wanted to bring Wakanda to the world, not with a bomb, but with an open hand. It was ALWAYS Nakia. We wuz blind!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That’s okay, though. We all make mistakes, and I’m sorry. Historically, we have been listening to the loudest over the wisest, and look where that got us. Next time, just remember: Listen to black women.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">#NakiaWasRight</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-17421959318953266632018-02-27T14:57:00.000-05:002018-02-28T12:41:51.503-05:00What You Deserve After Apologizing for Your Misdeeds<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-d8d5-e18b-41e0-30ba833c2521" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A while ago, a “comedian” posted some extremely harsh things about a friend of mine that I will not repeat here. It was misogynistic, sexist, slut-shaming, and triggering to ANYONE who has experienced sexual trauma. Within minutes, he was banned from most comedy venues, and hardly anyone fucks with him. He apologized directly to the person for what he said, as well as a few of the people who banned him from venues and performances. I’m not sure if anyone responded to him, but that doesn’t matter. Regardless, after a few months, he was back to being a shitty person, claiming he was being marginalized because of his disability while harping about how he had apologized for what he did/said, so it is unfair that he is still banned at most places. Often, he would say something shitty, and when people responded to his shittiness, he would defend himself by saying something like, “And don’t bring up that thing I said, because I apologized for it”, whether anyone brought it up or not.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The past few years have produced is a LOT of guys apologizing for their past actions thanks to people coming forward about abuse they’ve suffered. Now we’re at a point where the question keeps coming up: How long do we punish these people? When is their penance finished? The real question is why are so many people caping so hard for these dudes who fucked up?</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For one thing, Most of those “apologies” are trash. They haven’t even scraped the surface of trying to empathize with the victims and actually addressing for what they did. Instead, they are essentially apologies for getting caught, some bad thing that is happening to them right now, and then a reference to the women they know so that they can prove they are not predators.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">News Flash: Whatever chronic ailment or issue you have does not give you a pass for shitty behavior. You have a permanently atrophied leg? Sorry for you, Kevin, but what about that leg made you send rape threats ti Stacey? Was it typing for you while you were asleep? Also, the “I have black friends” defense doesn’t work when you say/do something racist, so don’t try to replace “black” with “women” and think it will fly. GTFO. For the few that DO sound sincere, people think that this is an absolution of their past crimes. So you fucked up. Apologize, and apologize sincerely. And what’s next?</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can show you’re atoning by perhaps reading literature by women regarding the impacts of what you did. You could donate to causes that that provide services for at-risk women and girls, or victims of abuse. IF your transgression wasn’t too egregious, you could even volunteer. At the very least, you can examine your behavior, what is wrong with it, and change for the better. And for all of your efforts, what to you deserve to receive?</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Not a goddamn thing.</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You don’t even deserve forgiveness from the victim you assailed. If they decide to never speak to you again, then so be it. If they request you leave a venue where they are, respect it. You committed the crime. This is your time. Forgiveness is a gift bestowed upon you. After whatever fucked thing you did, do you really think a gift is in order? I don’t punch someone in the face and expect them to come back at me with a bouquet of flowers.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And what of general society? Is there a statute of limitations on how long a person should be publicly shunned by the public? Is it a week or a few months in the digital stockades? Who knows, but anyone decrying these men losing roles and promotion deals because of what came out about them and what they did need to sit down. Logan Paul made the interview rounds saying he deserves a second chance after his callous video regarding finding a the body of a person who completed suicide. No motherfucker, you don’t. You WANT a second chance. You don’t GET one unless someone wants to give it to you, but in no way is anyone obligated to give you a second chance.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even if the victim forgives you, that does not absolve you of what you did by the rest of society. The survivors of the Charleston Shooting forgave the murderer almost the next day. He STILL KILLED PEOPLE though, and society deems that a punishable offense, which is why he is in jail right now. Roman Polanski’s victim said SHE forgives him, but he is still wanted. Actions have consequences.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, men (specifically fuckboiz), if you find yourself in a position where you have done something wrong, remember that the apology/forgiveness cycle is not transactional. Even if you have apologized sincerely for what you’ve done, then you should expect nothing in return. Work on being a better person than continually bringing up the time you apologized for that fucked up thing you did.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-82134077417912683512018-02-26T13:08:00.000-05:002018-02-27T14:54:16.727-05:00What Cancelling your Cable Service Can Tell You about Toxic Relationships<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-d8d4-242d-a7cd-83deeb8858e5" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I recently cancelled my Spectrum internet service. The nine years I spent with them and the six months after dropping them has taught me a lot about toxic relationships.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sweet talk means nothing if they don’t back it up.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had been dealing with Spectrum since they were Time Warner. The “honeymoon phase” is real. However, as I got used to having Spectrum, they would do things out of the blue, like jack up my rate for no good reason. One time, I moved not even two blocks, but that warranted Spectrum to raise the cost of dealing with them by $10, and then the cost went up slightly periodically until I went from a starting cost of $75 to $101 per month! I didn’t even notice the micro-incrementing, and that is what they were counting on.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gaslighting is a sign.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One time, my service went out, but every time I called customer service, all of a sudden it would work while I was on the phone with them. Then a few days later, it would go out again, and I would call again, and it would magically work again! I finally had them come to my house and fix whatever was wrong, TWICE. It turned out there actually WAS a problem. There was a broken connection outside my house. They charged ME for the issue that was THEIR fault, though.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The breakup.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After 9 years, I was fed up. I called Time Warner (who had changed their name to Spectrum and promised it had changed), and out came all the bargaining. They offered me all the extras: VoIP phone, cable, free HBO, free Showtime, butt stuff, free Starz, all for $29.99 for a whole year! They had been offering to upsell me all this on my already high bill while we were together, and now that I said I was leaving them, they suddenly want to give this all to me with no strings attached? I never even asked for any of this, but now they were desperate! But I didn’t fall for it. I told them to leave me alone, and I would mail them their things.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making a person drop of YOUR stuff at THEIR house is a goddamn power play.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spectrum told me that I could not mail their router to them. I HAD to come to their house to give it to them. I didn’t ask for this router. THEY brought it to my house. THEY should take it out of the house. I was courteous enough to offer to mail it to them. That way, we wouldn’t have to see each other, nerves raw from the breakup. Exes who make you go to their house to give them their own stuff are just manipulative.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t call me; I’ll call you.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I thought I was done with spectrum, but then came all the emails and letters, asking me how I’m doing without them, promising me sweet deals if I get back with them, telling me how bad I am fairing without them and their good service. I am not having any of it, though. I didn’t even open their letters after a while, and I had their email filter straight to the trash bin. Then they starting CALLING me. That is when I lost it. I was trying to get ready my daily workout, but Spectrum wanted to hassle me about getting back together.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How are you doing without us? Who is your new carrier? Are they treating you well? Will you come back to us?”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am doing fine. Who I am with is none of your business. How they are treating me is none of your business (but they are treating me great). I will NOT come back to you.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If you come back, we’ll lock you in at $19.99 for the first year! You’ll get internet, voice, cable, HBO, Showtime, FMF threesomes, Cinemax, Starz, AND the NFL package!”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I DON’T WANT YOUR SERVICES. LEAVE ME ALONE. No matter how sweet they sound, I was with Spectrum for 9 years and KNOW how this plays out.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Calling an ex on a number that they never gave is creepy AF.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, I lost it one day when they called me AT MY JOB. They didn’t even say anything different. They offered the HBO, the Showtime, the anal play, the phone, the internet, the Cinemax, all for a low, low price. However, Spectrum called me at my JOB. I never gave them my work number. I don’t like getting personal calls on my office phone. You do NOT mess with my money because you are in your feelings about a breakup that happened 6 months ago.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Acting nice in public is just that: an act.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After calling me on my work phone, after I told them numerous times to lose my contact information, I put them on blast publicly. I went on a tweet storm and detailed every manipulative thing Spectrum did to me while I was with them, and every time they tried to get back with me after I left them. Then they publicly responded to me as if they were surprised that they had done something wrong. Then they finally claimed that they would stop bothering me for good, but it might take them 60 days to do so. We are at Day 30. So far, I’ve only received one piece of mail a day after I went of on them. Perhaps the deluge has stopped. However, I still am worried a Spectrum service rep will be outside my window holding up a boombox playing our song.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second guessing is okay, but staying firm is important.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few days ago, I thought that perhaps I was too harsh. What if it turns out I need Spectrum in the future? Was I too cruel? Then while on business travel, a commercial came on the TV at my hotel. It was Spectrum. They were offering high speed internet for $29.99 with no extra obligations or caveats…but under the flashy “$29.99” image, some small print stated, “when bundled with another service”. THAT’S ANOTHER OBLIGATION OR CAVEAT, SPECTRUM! You ain’t shit! I hope nobody falls for your bullshit. I’m glad I dropped you. If you can, don’t deal with Spectrum. Their business model is Thirsty Emotionally Abusive Ex, and they get away with it because they are usually the only game in town.</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-62474114701260325672018-02-26T13:06:00.002-05:002018-02-27T14:51:54.018-05:00What My Totaled Car Told Me about the Struggle<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-d8d1-d520-509a-26889a0cb246" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I totaled my car last week. We had a good 10 year run. 160,000 miles on her. I promised I would drive that car until I run it into the ground, and that is exactly what happened. My previous car, I said I would drive it until it burst into flames, and that is exactly what it did, with me in it. You would think I’d learned my lesson about being careful what I say. But just in case, my next car, I’m going to drive it until is becomes a multi-million dollar collectible antique.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The entire ordeal of the accident may have been a sign of providence regardless. It happened on Black History Month, and it became a pretty good analogy for the plight of people of color.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was trying to not harm the black woman before me.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black women have it hard enough in this country. They are often the most criticized for no reason except that people think they have authority to do so. People do not care about the suffering they endured, but their contributions to the world are always used without credit given. It’s not just white men shitting on them; it’s black folks also. So when I tried to brake and realized I would not be able to stop, I sacrificed my safety to keep from hitting that woman’s Honda. I almost hit a tree, but instead I flattened a street sign, so…silver linings? Although, my car dying because of a tree would have a little bit more historical reference…Regardless, we need to be better at heeding to black women and not trying to ram them off their roads to success.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone blamed the Black Ice.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is little more frightening while driving than applying your brakes and your car not so much as slowing down. Though I was going a steady 30mph, I skidded a frozen part of the road. I was done for. I blamed it on black ice. The woman who I almost hit blamed it on black ice. The white guy driving behind me blamed it on black ice. The officer who came after I called 911 said it was DEFINITELY the black ice…at least I THINK he was saying “black ice”. Regardless, we were all in agreement that Black Ice is terrible.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what MADE the Black Ice so insidious? Why were the roads so slippery? This year we suffered over 400 centimeters of white snowy oppression. It was everywhere, reshaping the landscape that did not ask to be reshaped, creating hazards as it blanketed the region. Everything native to ground was disappeared, and those dark roads were set upon by the snow. But ultimately, I must take responsibility for my own actions, as well. I’m not saying black ice wasn’t the culprit, but when you look at the background, of how it came to be, you get a bigger picture of what is REALLY going on. #StayWoke Also #TenAndTwo.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mediocre white dudes WILL insert their opinion where it is not needed or wanted.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As soon as I got out of my car to examine the damage and make sure I didn’t hurt anyone else, the white guy who was behind me got pulled over to make sure I was okay, looked at my car, and said, “You could probably just drive it home and take care of it! Just take off that ripped part of the fender, and you’re good.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK, first of all, leaving the scene of an accident is illegal. My fender is halfway off, and I am pretty sure a street sign counts as public property. I am not catching a charge for vandalism AND damaging my car, even if it were drivable. Second, white guy’s car was white with a grey door. Pardon me if I don’t take advice from someone who didn’t take care of his OWN car well. Most importantly, no matter how much he insisted I could just drive off, with a ripped fender, a dangling headlamp, and a flat tire, THERE WAS A STREET SIGN UNDERNEATH MY CAR. I kept telling him that, but he just glossed over that. “Just drive off”, he said. Just fuck off, Stephen with a V! You don’t know the severity of the damage done to me car’s body! Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean the signs aren’t there! I TOLD you about the signs, and you ignored it or made it seem less important than what it was. Your refusal to listen to me is part of the problem!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ultimate vindication when nobody saw.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hours later, the tow truck came and frantically worried about my undercarriage. “See?!”, I wanted to tell Stephen with a V in the two-tone car. Even the experts are worried about that sign. They care! Tow truck guy was very worried that I may have punctured the gas tank or severed a brake line. “See?!?!”, I wanted to tell Stephen with a V in the two-tone car. Had I just driven off, I could have not been able to stop or blown up! Waiting for a tow was the smart thing to do! Two days later, the insurance claim adjuster called me up with the bad news: My car was totaled. The cosmetic damage wasn’t a big deal, but the damage under the car was too expensive to fix. “SEE?!?!?!”, I wanted to tell Stephen with a V in the two-tone car. I was right the whole time; and you didn’t see them SIGNS! You ignored them! Much like the effects of redlining and micro-aggressions, the damage to people of color is validated by professionals who know what they’re talking about, but by that time, mediocre white dudes have completely checked out of the conversation and moved on. I was vindicated to the wind…also, RIP my car.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes doing the right thing hurts you.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would have rather not totaled my car, but it could have been much worse. I could have gone slower even though was going the 30mph speed limit. I could have turned left and veered into the oncoming traffic side and hoped that no one was in that lane. I could have crashed into the woman in front of me and cause a chain reaction, blocking the road for however long it would take to clear however many cars from the road. I could have hit the tree and DIED…it was a pretty sturdy tree. Instead, I jumped a curb and ran over a sign. Painful as it was for me, it was not so for everyone else. A lot of times we need to sacrifice our own comfort and stability for the greater good. We should remember that as we go through life trying to do better for our community.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No matter how much we are set back, we WILL get ahead.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The new car I bought is dope, so at least something good came out of this. Nigga, we gon’ be alright!</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-22236376318397880362018-02-26T13:04:00.001-05:002018-02-27T14:49:18.672-05:00The Top 26 Dumb-as-Fuck Reasons Why People Mistakenly Thought I was Gay<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-d8cf-9d51-5d07-39dc782ddb2c" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout my life, people have mistakenly thought I was gay. I get that I am sometimes unconventional and thumb my nose at the image of the stereotypical heterosexual man that society perpetuates, but I always think it is pretty obvious that I am straight until someone says, “Oh, I thought you were gay!” This doesn’t bother me as much as it did when I was a young moron who tried hard to be a “man’s man”. “Man’s man”, incidentally, is probably the gayest was to describe someone as hyper masculine. I hear that and think, “Oh, dude’s got a boyfriend. Good for him!” Now it is just funny, and it shows how toxic masculinity has infested even the most seemingly progressive of individuals. Friends have told me that that someone asked if I was gay, and even had a discussion behind my back about it. Unless you are doing some low key matchmaking, why is my sexuality even a topic of discussion? THen when I ask why they even thought that, I’d get a myriad of answers:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. “You just scream ‘gay’!”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hear this one the most, and I believe it is because the person is going through all the factors they took into account to label me, and are realizing how sexist and homophobic they really are without realizing it. I would hope that this means they won’t make assumptions about people with a lack of evidence, but I also hoped that Santa Claus was real for a long time, too, so…</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Never met a black man “speak so well” and am “so smart”.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This one is my favorite, because it is not only kind of sexist, it is also definitely racist. Because I “speak well” and am “smart” AND black, I HAVE to be gay in order for those three Venn diagrams to merge? Do you think that black men are grunting Neanderthals who cannot properly put subjects and verbs together in a coherent manner? News flash, Neanderthals were primarily in Europe, which I guess I know because of my gay-ass intelligence. Congratulations. You have insulted gay people AND people of color, all in one sentence. Also, this is the one I’ve heard the most after #1.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. I have a bachelor’s degree.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This goes in with the “so smart”. Do they think then that RuPaul has a PhD? Was Liberace just a living computer? It is just funny, because people say, “That’s gay”, for things that are dumb, but they assume I’m gay because I’m smart. What happened to your brain that you made so many incoherent logical leaps?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. I dress well.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I blame Queer Eye for the Straight Guy partially for this lapse in logic. Besides the fact that fashion trends and what is “masculine and feminine” in dress will change from decade to decade, I also know that I have never seen a woman go for a guy wearing a burlap sack and rope belt, so perhaps I should step up my dress game.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5. I wore heels for a charity event to fund a battered women’s counseling group.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Going in with the changing fashion trends, Men USED to wear heels, but now that is a “women thing”. I wore heels for charity, and someone thought I was gay. That would mean that three entire local county police and fire departments hire exclusively gay men, because they were all at the event as well, in heels. That would be surprisingly progressive for Monroe County.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">6. I don’t really like sports.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a child, sports were boring and cutting into my cartoon watching time. It had nothing to do with a desire for dudes. When I was a teenager, I was “gay” for being black and not able to play basketball, so once again, racism and sexism have merged to make a dumb fuck opinion. As an adult, I started liking soccer but was told that’s the GAY football, so I guess every other country except the US is gay as fuck. Recently, I was assumed to be gay because I stopped watching NFL all together for social/political reasons. I guess giving a damn about CTE, domestic violence, and black men’s free speech rights is some gay shit.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7. I walked away from a petty fight.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One time I ignored a guy who was ready to throw down over three spilled tater tots. HE bumped into ME, and got belligerent, and later a person I met at the time asked me if I’m gay, the reason being I didn’t want to fight. Those tater tots were good, but they were not “Knock a nigga out” good. Chocolate lava cake, however…</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8. I listen to people when they talk.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women talk all the time about how their significant others don’t listen to them. I listen to people so that I know what they like, what a good gift for them would be, if there are off-limit topics for them, and for that, someone thought that, “no straight man is that good a listener”. I mean…that is a positive stereotype for gay men, I guess, but really? I am doing the thing that you complain that straight men don’t do.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9. I said, “Excuse me”.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nowhere outside of a Ludacris song is, “MOVE BITCH! GET OUT THE WAY”, received well. Yet me wanting to get people out of my way without body checking them is supposedly an indicator that I kiss dudes. The person who thinks this must think Canada is Fire Island.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10. I said, “Pardon me”, instead of, “Excuse me”.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This would mean every British man with manners is gay, too.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11. I don’t have a dream car.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some guys are into cars. I just want something with all-wheel drive, good gas mileage, and maybe a backup camera. I couldn’t give two shits about a HEMI. And still, someone thought that I was in the closet because I couldn’t rattle off a year, make, and model with engine and detail specs. That was our second and last date.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">12. I like “white music”.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black people invented rock and roll, but I’m gay for listening to Living Colour, a band of black people? He also thought REM was country music, so…</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">13. I eat “so neatly”.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having dexterity to manipulate utensils is not an indicator of homosexuality. It is an indicator of HUMAN EVOLUTION.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">14. I didn’t laugh at a joke.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wasn’t even a homophobic joke. It was just not funny.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15. I use chapstick.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Real” men have cracked lips, I guess.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">16. Because I was lounging in my profile picture.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“He thought you were gay.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why? How?”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Because you were relaxing in your profile picture.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What the fuck? HE is relaxing in HIS profile picture! Do I need to fuck a bald eagle while doing my taxes or something?”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">17. I have a lot of female friends.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This comes from the bullshit idiocy that people of different genders cannot be platonic friends. This was on a first date. It was also a last date.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">18. I have a lot of male friends.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having too many male friends and not many female friends? Too coincidental! But it’s homosocial, not homosexual.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">19. I have LGBTQ+ friends.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This came from a person who most definitely has also said, “I can’t be racist! I have a black friend!”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">20. I volunteered for the Out Alliance a few times.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because giving a shit about people’s rights is mad homo, yo!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">21. I called out sexism.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not being sexist and a man is often misconstrued as the man being gay. That being a common misconception does not absolve it from being dumb as shit.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">22. I am over 30, and I dance.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The exact words, “I don’t dance, because any man over 25 who dances is a FAGGOT”. The F-word almost felt like he was trying to punch it out.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">23. I raised my arms above nipple level once while dancing.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does that mean AT nipple level is bisexual or intersex?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">24. I raised an eyebrow.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ANY PHYSICAL EXPRESSION OF EMOTION IS GAY. Hear that, every goddamn comedian in the world?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">25. I like cats.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK…”manly” men are often associated with precise yet brutal violence. Cats are tiny serial killers, and they play with their food. Wouldn’t affinity for them be manly AF? I’m living with a murderer! This is why the lion, not the hyena, is king of the jungle.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">26. Because I asked, “What about me makes you think I’m gay?”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just…what?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are more moronic reasons thought I was gay. This list could go for at least 4 pages. Not one of them has anything to do with actual sexuality, i.e., kissing and/or fucking a dude. They all have to do with either “traditional” gendered behavior, or just fuckery. The fact that more “progressive” people fall into this inane thought process tells me that people are not anywhere near as progressive and open minded as they think they are. It also tells me that toxic masculinity is a cancer that has infected and festered every part society, and we need to do more to extract it.</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-65934721741124384202018-01-12T09:08:00.001-05:002018-02-27T14:47:46.571-05:00Donald Trump Could Use "Nigger" as a Pronoun, and It Wouldn't Change a Thing<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-d8cd-ef6c-93e1-0701bb2c4702" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been so focused on how grotesquely misogynist Tang the Conqueror is that I nearly forgot how grotesquely racist he is. His platform was always a diverse one of racism, misogyny, LGBTQ-phobia, and a smattering of poverty shaming and gaudiness. I know that white evangelicals think he’s the “Christian” choice, but Jesus would slap the shit out of the Kumquat Kaiser.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, after he called countries in Africa and Haiti “shithole countries” and lamented why we can’t get more Norwegian immigrants into the country, I’m reminded how racist he is. This doesn’t change anything, though. The people who support him, the ones who claim they like him for his straight talk and “saying what he means” will defend him by saying he didn’t mean that. Tsangerine Tsar can get on live television, open a speech, “We need to get the niggers out of Chicago”, conclude it with, “…and we’ll bomb the shit out of those North gooks”, all while wearing a Grand Dragon robe, and they will deny that he is racist.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is because in order for them to admit that donald trump is a racist, they must not only admit that they are wrong, but they must also admit that they, too, might be racist. And make no mistake: every single person who voted for Donald Trump is a racist at some level.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The obvious ones are the white supremacists: the David Dukes, the Sebastian Gorkas, the growing number of neo-nazis and klansmen who literally where their racism on their sleeves. Not even Cuck a l’Orange is at this level of bigotry. He is at the second tier: the gaslighters. These are the ones who are savvy about fooling people into thinking that they are not. They use coded language and will not shut the fuck up about Chicago. They use drug laws to crack down on brown and black freedom, like Jeff Sessions is doing now. They second you call them out, they’ll claim that they are not, because look! Steve Harvey Omorosa Ben Carson is my friend! They are full of shit, and every marginalized person yelling that the emperor has no clothes is frustrated at the massive group that make up most of the racists today: the “I’m not racist” racists. These are your relatives, your friends, your colleagues that say off-color things thinking that they are stating fact when they are really repeating stereotypes that have no foundation in reality once you dig down into the history of what “factoid” they stated. They probably have a black friend and can’t understand how they can be racist if they have a black friend. They probably believe that Hispanic people are naturally lazy and that black people have an extra tendon in their legs that make them jump higher. They most definitely have a copy of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus somewhere mixed in with their Jim Patterson and Danielle Steele novels.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “I’m not racist” racists perpetuate racist, sexist, and LGBTQ-phobic tropes that plague society without even knowing it, which is dangerous enough. But we’re now at a point where they will not want to admit that they are wrong, which means they will only dig down and get worse. Like racist Pokémon, after facing facts that go against things they thought to be doctrine, they will evolve into gaslighter racists.</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-52786758277583494252017-11-24T17:01:00.000-05:002017-11-24T17:01:04.888-05:00Beware the Zen Bro<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear mediocre white dudes,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You may not think you’re a mediocre white dude MWD, but you probably are. There are not too many extraordinary white dudes. There aren’t too many extraordinary people in general, but white mediocrity has been hailed as excellent for so long, so this is why I address you mediocre white dudes. So if you don’t know if you are a mediocre white dude, take this easy test:</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are you </span><a href="http://www.history.com/topics/john-brown" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Brown</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are you Jon Hamm?</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are you even Jon Stewart?</span></div>
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</ol>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you answered “no” to these difficult questions, then consider yourself mediocre...actually, I just saw the last season </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mad Men</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If you answered “yes” to Question 2, just consider yourself mediocre for now, until you do more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Mirror</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> episodes. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to business:</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-2ba5480f-f005-8cdb-8e61-75e58217d2be"></span><br />
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your input is not always needed or wanted.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If black folk, or people of color in general, are having a good time, discussing things in our communities, let us talk. If your black friend reposts an article from Ebony or Extraordinary Negroes or BET or any other source that is black focused, by all means read it! You could learn something. But think very hard about whether your input is necessary and whether what you’re saying is even relevant to the subject. Your ancestors have injected themselves into our conversations enough, and because of that, we can’t find our ancestors. My DNA report says “definitely England and Scotland, and...uh...I dunno...Angola? Something African”. Stop “But-Her-Emailsing” us. This is not a refusal of allyship. This is a reminder that sometimes allying requires other leaders than yourself.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are nowhere near as enlightened as you think you are.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I don’t care what Carter G. Woodson books you read or how many African American Studies electives you took. I don’t care that you read the the narrative </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">12 Years a Slave</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> before you saw the movie. You cannot know what it is like to be a person of color in this country. Just because you don’t see something that someone has done as being racist or racist adjacent doesn’t mean that it is not. You are not “above race”.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Talking about race doesn’t make “the divide” wider. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The divide has been there. Not talking about race is what has let racism permeate throughout the US so much that it is ubiquitous and noticeable nearly everywhere. Seriously, do you think the Grand Canyon came about by the Indigenous people talking about it for years? When black folk talk about it, we’re not stoking flames. We’re pointing out that the house has been on fire all this time. Talking about race doesn’t make more divisions any more than a doctor talking to about your chain smoking has caused your emphysema.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We fucking know race is “just a social construct”.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> MWDs love saying this, as if we weren’t aware of that. You’re not making a brilliant revelation. Political borders are social constructs too, and they are always discussed and fought over. Hell, our idea of personal property is a social construct. I’ll be sure to remind you of that when I take the Xbox out of your house after you tell me that verbal diarrhea.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fuck the Tone Police.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Women know about this as much as people of color and LGBTQ people do. They say “men are trash” and some MWD comes out of the woodwork to say #NotAllMen. A person of color will say, “Dear White Folk”, and an MWD will say that we’re lumping them all together. If we say something rightfully out of frustration, then our “attitude” while saying something is the problem, not the problem itself. This calling out a person’s mood instead of acknowledging what they are saying is nothing but cowardly avoidance of the issue, which is an issue in and of itself. I wonder if I ran into your house and said, “Call 911! I am having a heart attack!”, you’d respond with, “Whoa, calm down. I don’t like the way you’re yelling at me. Please be civil.”</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no such thing as “black privilege”,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> so please miss me with that sentiment. People point to how black folk “get” affirmative action or how we have special scholarships and grants because we’re black. Socially, we seem more intimidating because we look much stronger, or we look older when we’re young and younger when we’re old. That is not privilege. That is what 300 years of white supremacy has “granted” us, and they are burden. Looking older when we are young is why so many young black kids are targeted by the police before they learn how to drive. Looking younger when older is why black professionals are talked to like they are interns when they’ve been at the job the longest. All of those grants and scholarships we get because we are black is because we were shut out of opportunities, specifically because of our race, often at the mandate of the government. So yes, you can say we all have “privilege”, however the only type of privilege that is static by design is white male privilege.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">STFU about “generalizing”.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Of course we know and acknowledge that not EVERY white person is a certain way. We also know and acknowledge that our response that if you are not the people guilty of the sins we discuss then you shouldn’t worry about it, is similar to what you say when we bristle at the generalizations thrown at us. However, not one piece of legislation has been passed based on any black person’s saying “white folks do X”, especially none that put their lives in danger. Plenty of laws were passed based on a few MWDs saying, “Black folks to X”, and black folks have died because of those laws. When you can show me when a black person’s “white people” quip has killed a white person, then we might get all specific with “white people, but not all white people; just these types of white people; actually just Greg and Steve”. Is that fair? Don’t talk to me about “fair”. We have 300 years of legislated and social “unfair” put on us that make me not give two shites about what you think is “fair”.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Above all beware the Zen Bro,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and beware BECOMING the Zen Bro. All of the previous items are tactics of the Zen Bro. You think you sound intelligent by stating that “generalizing” is bad, and you don’t see race, and all this talk of race and gender is causing more divides. You may think that you have reached some sort of “awareness” of what the “real” issue is. You may think that the one quote you looked up from Martin Luther King that ISN’T from “I Have a Dream” is going to blow all these black people’s minds. You ain’t reached shit, and the only thing you’re blowing is your own ego’s dick. We see through your “Zen Bro” façade. You aren’t doing anything but the same tired tactics to silence oppressed peoples that we have seen before. You are not smarter about a subject than the people who have been living and experiencing this shit all of their goddamn lives. Get off your high horse, and STFU...respectfully. I don’t want another citation from the Tone Police.</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-32270343932841919782017-10-25T10:50:00.000-04:002017-10-25T10:50:18.490-04:00About ALL of Your Dumb Blackface Costumes<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t think enough people know exactly how black paint on white faces affects their black and brown friends. I’m not just talking about frat bros going to Halloween parties as “gangsters” or trying to get through </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tropic Thunder</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (goddammit, RDJ), black face in general is just not cool. Don’t dress up as a shadow, don’t be a hockey puck, don’t be a domino piece, and don’t be a demon. Well…do so, but expect ALL of the side-eye.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am sure saying these things will produce some blue-eyed eye-rolling, but you can’t be mad at us for just being tired of seeing white people in black faces. With all of the other shit that we have to deal with in the day, The LEAST you could do is put the Dove brand black face paint down and think for a minute. Lili Reinhart got a bit of a drag this week when she didn’t really think. She posted a picture of herself in head-to-toe black makeup with the caption, “Found my Halloween costume!! Inspired by the color of my soul.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GET IT??? Because she is saying that her soul is dark! She’s a demon on the inside! It’s FUNNY, EVERYONE!...But it’s really not. Lili Reinhart is probably not racist, and at least in this instance she had no racist intentions. To her credit, in the obligatory process of deleting the picture and penning an apology tweet, she did not mention her presence of black friends, so that’s a start. She learned a lesson, I hope.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the image of black being something bad, I concede that nearly every culture has had a fear of the dark and total absence of like. This is because before we had 24 hour lights, things that go “bump” in the night could and would literally kill you. So of course the shade is the hue of darkness, evil, fear, etc. in societies on EVERY continent.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That black shade has been applied in ancient depictions of Satan and demons in general, too, especially in Christianity. Demons were nearly always black as night in paintings and etchings. Hell, if you look at the deities throughout the world, you’ll see a distinct and stark lightening of their depictions after Europeans colonized those regions. Skin lightening cream is a multi-million dollar industry as well. In lore, when St. Nicholas was transitioning from historical figure to benevolent NSA spy for children, he was often depicted with a black-as-night devil that he had captured and enslaved. SInterklass made him either build toys or mete out punishment of bad children. That demon evolved into the Krampus and Zwarte Piet. The former stayed black as hell, but maintained his standard demon shape: hybrid goat-human with pointy ears and sometimes horns. Zwarte Piet, however, went from enslaved demon to enslaved “blackamoor”, so not only is he black and creating mischief, he’s a Muslim dude dressed up to look like a damn fool. That transition links demons to black people, as in black skinned people are descended from demons. Zwarte Piet is essentially an enslaved demon, afro and all. Where in literal hell does one get a hold of shea butter and Afro Sheen?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The idea that black people came from demons is not even new. It was one of the many justifications for establishing the construct of racism that permeates today. It also was the justification for torturing enslaved Africans as if they were not human. If they’re damned already, then why not mutilate them? In theatre and cinema, if white people in blackface weren’t acting like shuckin’ jivin’ fools, they were beastlike, devilish super predators, pouncing on and defiling innocent white women. This is part of the reason why the myth that black people, especially larger ones and especially men, are often seen as being more brutish, violently impulsive, stronger, more impervious to pain, etc. I guarantee this is why in nearly every publicized police shooting of an unarmed black man, there is mention of how “large and intimidating” the victim is.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is why blackface is so offensive, and also why thinking just putting on some black paint sans horns, tails, leather wings, etc and saying you’re your own dark soul or a demon is not a good idea. It’s also why just putting on black face paint is just a bad idea, intentions pure or not. I’m willing to give anyone a pass, but only if the perpetrator promises to think and reflect.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So perhaps you think before you slap that brown/black face paint on your face. Maybe consider that especially in this timeframe, while we have a racist sack of carrot puree who hired literal nazis to his cabinet, while violence against brown and black people by white dudes has risen, while my street harassment quota while I’m committing a BWB (biking while black) has doubled, that perhaps you can go without the makeup to make the costume.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the white people who are incredulous that someone wrote an article about Lili Reinhart’s “joke”, you have no right to be incredulous at our shade. Something will be said no matter what the costume is. Bowling balls, giant loafers, Ipod commercial shadow…hell, don't even be Groot unless you have a mask. Someone will rightfully drag you. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at your European ancestors who have made blackface so toxic that it inevitably gets a negative reaction, from receiving minor shade to catching repeated hands. THEY ruined blackface, not us. You don’t see anyone named Adolf or walking around with a tiny moustache and Bieber swoop either. You, not we, can get over it.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-d8ab0c9d-5402-5bf6-7424-8cb0ebfe01ec"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-14199144382719512252017-10-18T18:06:00.001-04:002017-10-18T18:06:26.113-04:00Facebook Doesn’t Give a Damn About #MeToo or Your Sexual Assault<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Facebook doesn’t give a damn about women and black folk. I present the latest evidence.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My friend participated in the #MeToo hashtag by telling her story of sexual abuse in her status. Less than a day later, she was notified that not only was her story flagged for “abuse”, her account is suspended. SHE told a story about how SHE was ASSAULTED, yet SHE was the person who is being punished, much like what happened to her when she tried to get justice. Facebook loves punishing the victims of abuse while they let abusers run rampant. The only Face they care about are white male faces.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Below is her fiance’s words about what happened, and a resharing of her story, because it needs to be told. Facebook is perpetuating the rape culture that they claim they want to end.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CONTENT WARNING: Detailed information regarding my partner’s sexual assault.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday, as many of you know, my fiancé ALW courageously shared her story of when she was drugged and sexually assaulted during her senior year of high school. The amount of love and support she received (much that came from survivors of sexual assault themselves) was heartwarming, to say the absolute least.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, she received a message from Facebook letting her know not only that her post had been taken down, but that her commenting, messaging, and posting privileges had been taken away from her as well. The reason Facebook gave was “to stop behavior that others may find annoying or abusive”.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s put it this way - Facebook is silencing someone who used their media platform to bring more than a hundred people together after something traumatic happened, as well as erasing every bit of the support that was given (and for the record, the ONLY person who voiced any opposition to the status was Nick Colakovski, the man who assaulted her).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “Me too” movement is successfully bringing millions of people together to stand in unity, and Facebook is choosing to cater to the ones that seem to find it “annoying” or “abusive” (which, given the topic at hand, should be a joke).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is rape culture. I encourage you all to share and circulate this post, to show you stand with survivors and to show Facebook that we will not let survivors of sexual assault that are brave enough to come forward be silenced.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Show rapists and those who sexually assault others that they don't have power over the situation anymore. They can try to remove the post, but they can't remove the message. And if they try to remove the post, just keep sharing and reposting it so even more people can see.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's work together to make sure survivors are supported and that people who sexually assault women are held accountable.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is ALW's original post:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me too</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDciFxc9CJ-rL37Kqu5aJ5mmDnZ3B6iE4bJ6QnOwrwkhTN2MhQf-zag3QvMYRHLFXuVMDrfiY6Js3bKGFXYXW2IAMI7Qt_YNdZwh9MqimqOxUWYsrVaOfkexDYoo2L_uIf5h34W9MVXEA/s1600/ALW+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="538" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDciFxc9CJ-rL37Kqu5aJ5mmDnZ3B6iE4bJ6QnOwrwkhTN2MhQf-zag3QvMYRHLFXuVMDrfiY6Js3bKGFXYXW2IAMI7Qt_YNdZwh9MqimqOxUWYsrVaOfkexDYoo2L_uIf5h34W9MVXEA/s320/ALW+2.jpg" width="217" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the past year or so, I've battled with myself over whether or not I should write an essay about my experience with sexual assault. It's something I have kept bottled up for such a long time, mostly because I've been scared, deathly afraid, that this intimate and horrifying moment in my life would be met with negative attention or worse, apathy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The reason women take so long to publicly come forward after an event like this is that opening up this incredibly vulnerable moment in your life is not worth it if you will not receive support and sympathy. Wounds like these stay fresh for a very long time, and I have debated myself many times on whether opening up my story to public scrutiny will simply undo the healing I've managed so far. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrCJUPG6AxEq_W9QvqS6BXBCrcmTPFO0BEoom0ln1BlY_3ZVuNv3orvgG6OVUligNg4T8EEQqxA56i5-ZuAMlBGmoSLI7qgJTerAoCU_aPiSfJnmP7RQxV7SGO5n61Rq0Lp5hDhf7EOE/s1600/ALW+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrCJUPG6AxEq_W9QvqS6BXBCrcmTPFO0BEoom0ln1BlY_3ZVuNv3orvgG6OVUligNg4T8EEQqxA56i5-ZuAMlBGmoSLI7qgJTerAoCU_aPiSfJnmP7RQxV7SGO5n61Rq0Lp5hDhf7EOE/s320/ALW+3.jpg" width="228" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I am stronger now, and I know that even if my story reaches one woman and lets them know that they are not alone, or reaches one man and shows him the reality of rape culture, that my trauma can be a force of good for someone. So without further ado, here is my story:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was senior year in high school. I had never been that popular, but at this point I had a solid group of friends and felt generally happy. I started hanging out with some kids from Brighton, one of which happened to be an ex from over two years prior of a member of my friend group. She got upset, and I was abruptly excommunicated from all of my friends.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfy-gapGuPVagAE9IJB7wvv2FtEx8b6SNgW9X5sCL0C1kLfbm2j9qcklWUWkmSRf1TWH9EmHZ7hlv4rW4MqR-pe0_rF6OLA3yK0bBIBc7noyRRhx_kCcJgGlo_NLZ1cf4gniuwSDP3WAQ/s1600/ALW+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfy-gapGuPVagAE9IJB7wvv2FtEx8b6SNgW9X5sCL0C1kLfbm2j9qcklWUWkmSRf1TWH9EmHZ7hlv4rW4MqR-pe0_rF6OLA3yK0bBIBc7noyRRhx_kCcJgGlo_NLZ1cf4gniuwSDP3WAQ/s320/ALW+4.jpg" width="217" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As time passed, I began to date the boy in Brighton, all while trying to find other friends to replace the ones who had abandoned me so readily. A popular bad boy from school, Nick, invited me over to hang out one afternoon and I jumped at the chance since he had always seemed cool and I wanted to find a new friend group so desperately. I knew my dad had heard of Nick since he and his friends had a reputation of druggies, so I told him I was going to hang out with some preppy kids from school, and he dropped my off at Nicks house after school.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj394oO0-HMkIv1_O61W0VCc9AzY3_qLYJaxiIr-k_dEpvILGK2RDQ4mmZTL1un007-eZVBv1lc9J5x2L-WLCANZGsI35FTcCz6_FcE0d4xKIUXJ7cySw9dgf8P4J5YAVmoNHBvlp9DqBg/s1600/ALW+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj394oO0-HMkIv1_O61W0VCc9AzY3_qLYJaxiIr-k_dEpvILGK2RDQ4mmZTL1un007-eZVBv1lc9J5x2L-WLCANZGsI35FTcCz6_FcE0d4xKIUXJ7cySw9dgf8P4J5YAVmoNHBvlp9DqBg/s320/ALW+5.jpg" width="224" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was very naive at this point in my life. I had never even smoked weed. But here I was, knocking on the door of a local druggie looking for friendship. He seemed cool enough at first, we watched some TV and talked about random stuff. I had a headache, and he grabbed me a pill and said "here this will help." I asked him what it was, and he wouldn't tell me. I was an idiot to take it, but I wanted to seem cool and I figured it was just extra strength Advil or something and he was just messing around.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I started to feel a bit dizzy. What was going on? Nick came over to me and offered me a listerine strip. I was perplexed but didn't have enough mental coherency to say no. He told me to put it under my tongue, and it tasted bad. I was starting to feel very confused. Why was the listerine strip orange? Why did it taste so bitter?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLANsHC1RVZV5lUWj8gp9Y2aK3dyUDSbBIcrZPB64_PNlR_srf8kPyxlP6H_NPrIM_rELEPXVooz9IUoibUcWCR0Vb4UkvrKDSnu1hRo7Hz5wOHga6TS3-obLovUatv4fUSTDnS8hfVCY/s1600/ALW+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLANsHC1RVZV5lUWj8gp9Y2aK3dyUDSbBIcrZPB64_PNlR_srf8kPyxlP6H_NPrIM_rELEPXVooz9IUoibUcWCR0Vb4UkvrKDSnu1hRo7Hz5wOHga6TS3-obLovUatv4fUSTDnS8hfVCY/s320/ALW+6.jpg" width="225" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The answer was: Nick had given me a Klonopin and a suboxone strip. Two extremely powerful drugs, one of which is synthetic heroin for recovering addicts. As I started to slip in and out of consciousness, Nick began kissing me. I still remember the taste of cigarettes. I clearly and with as much energy as I could muster said "no, stop, I have a boyfriend," but although my mouth was working, my body wasn't. I couldn't fight back. I remember shaking and crying and for some odd reason became fixated and embarrassed about the fact that I hadn't shaved. I continued to say no and feebly try and push him off until I passed out.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I woke up, I was naked except for my underwear. There were several people standing around the bed. I didn't have time to take in the scene before promptly dashing to the bathroom and vomiting. As I crawled back to the bed, I saw two of Nick's friends, John and Taylor, who had also gone to school with me, talking to a shirtless Nick who was in his boxers.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYVNfgSkm2wS2-xq1MuLeehny1YzqZ2sflEmvfxXtI0crGhEFXatwzMi9rLIeKOlJGVybBiJ_t8wZtVJcdmT8jX9WSa39gqO6PBgyzpJgySyYVW2VMTtT4EfSfgJ7BnnOFswSjj-5u4Q/s1600/ALW+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYVNfgSkm2wS2-xq1MuLeehny1YzqZ2sflEmvfxXtI0crGhEFXatwzMi9rLIeKOlJGVybBiJ_t8wZtVJcdmT8jX9WSa39gqO6PBgyzpJgySyYVW2VMTtT4EfSfgJ7BnnOFswSjj-5u4Q/s320/ALW+7.jpg" width="219" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I collapsed on the bed, wrapped my nakedness up in a comforter, tried to process what was happening. Nick was saying, "I don't care what you do with her, just take her somewhere else. My dads coming home soon and I'll be in deep shit if she's still here." My mind was starting to race, I was panicking. I was scared.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, a blessed thing happened that in all likelihood saved my life. My phone started going off, and kept on going off over and over. I managed to crawl over to it, and saw my dads name on the screen. He told me he had felt weird after dropping me off, and that he had googled the address and found out Nick lived there. He was heading over there now and I was in so much trouble.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was more grateful than I had ever been in my life. I struggled to get dressed, all the while Nick's friends leered at me and even offered to help me get dressed. I had enough clarity to tell them to back off. I stumbled down the stairs and out to my dads car, thank god he'd arrived.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I got in the car, my dad immediately noticed something off. I had huge, I mean golf ball sized, hickeys up and down my neck and chest. I was slurring my speech and kept falling asleep. He immediately drove back to Nick's house to ask what had happened and called an ambulance. He pulled into Nick's driveway and his dad, a doctor, answered the door.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53_38VAoH1HXaMHz2Dc2QiI0mxqQRn8ax1YtFzJ5ScVl1ihnVRAL_3E2wm-iupGjTntUSSw0sC4gc-gGeRZWjYqBgW_U85d3fNiHp6byFrM3Fm2UP2r39AsEBqqVuWCi27dsHQLlmAE8/s1600/ALW+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="661" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53_38VAoH1HXaMHz2Dc2QiI0mxqQRn8ax1YtFzJ5ScVl1ihnVRAL_3E2wm-iupGjTntUSSw0sC4gc-gGeRZWjYqBgW_U85d3fNiHp6byFrM3Fm2UP2r39AsEBqqVuWCi27dsHQLlmAE8/s320/ALW+8.jpg" width="260" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My dad told him what condition I was in and informed him that he had called an ambulance, and the mans first response was: "can you please move your car off the driveway? We're getting it redone." My father remained parked solidly in the driveway until the ambulance arrived. I vaguely recall Nick coming out to the car and apologizing. Of course my dad didn't know how far his abuse had gone, otherwise Nick probably would've gotten mowed down right in his driveway.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ambulance took me to the hospital where I remained for several days. The combination and strength of the drugs Nick had given me had compromised my heart, and although I don't remember it, I wavered close to the boundary between life and death for some time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYfuchCZzShPMh1eXF56Tbc1P68hYXB6zGz9_kNcYXq_KTBGWEu5PZvgCoJlDRWodki5M3tYl3MwFyyb80XnT2sBgy8N-QI9k3H7Uub5MvRbdoOxZIbAWgjSqTukobMfdRze6lsXRAoU/s1600/FB_IMG_1508357860421.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv12MdLwbHT_9x8foGGqcDmrYX3v3uR3hOV4zfsFN514qLeciRnPcCAmHoBolQcChIvmvyxvpbrDp0zuMqGm3KfbDNUhxrQrY9tDOIgjPs7N5zgTVpvWGXeLwQDkuqA3aFVRm6tTcvNwQ/s1600/FB_IMG_1508357844780.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
the first 24 hours in the hospital, where I was recovering not only from my first time ever having drugs like that in my system but also from an overdose, is when the police came. I had consented to a rape kit, which involved pictures of my various hickies and bruises, of my genitals, and an in depth examination similar to a gynecologist visit. They said they'd get the results back soon.<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then the police came, as they do when rape kits are done, to interview me. I don't even remember the interview. I don't even know what I said. I was so hopped up on the drugs Nick gave me and the drugs the hospital gave me that I'm sure much of what I said was incoherent gibberish. However, as I later came to find out, that interview was counted as evidence and what I said then, not when I was sober and could actually recollect the events, was the only statement they would take.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDciFxc9CJ-rL37Kqu5aJ5mmDnZ3B6iE4bJ6QnOwrwkhTN2MhQf-zag3QvMYRHLFXuVMDrfiY6Js3bKGFXYXW2IAMI7Qt_YNdZwh9MqimqOxUWYsrVaOfkexDYoo2L_uIf5h34W9MVXEA/s1600/ALW+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I eventually came back to my senses, covered in bruises from the assault and from the IVs, and called my old best friend, the girl I had been close like sisters with for years before I had been kicked out of our friend group. I told her what happened, I was completely distraught. I called my boyfriend as well, and told him what happened. He was sympathetic enough and said we'd talk about it when I was out of the hospital.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I finally did get out of the hospital, I didn't know what to do with myself. I had to go back to school where I had no friends, carrying the weight of this trauma on my shoulders. The morning before my first day back I picked out a nice outfit, a skirt, a long sleeved shirt to cover my IV bruises, a scarf to cover the bruises on my neck and chest. I also threw on a pair of heels, because I wanted to feel pretty and confident.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As soon as I arrived at school, the formspring messages started pouring in. For those of you who don't know or remember formspring, it was a platform to ask anonymous questions online, similar to Sarahah, except everyone else could see the questions and answers as well on a feed. People were messaging me things like "ur lying about being raped who would dress like a slut after something like that?" I knew then that my best friend of years had told someone what happened to me. She took away my anonymity and forced me to relive my trauma on my first day back to school. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My boyfriend broke up with me the next time I saw him. He didn't believe I had been assaulted, he thought I had cheated on him. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rest of my senior year continued like that. I eventually made new friends, but John and Taylor, Nick's friends who had been there at the time of the assault, were part of the group too which made me uncomfortable. I repeatedly asked John why he didn't do something. I asked both of them if they would testify if I brought the case to trial. Both refused. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How naive I was to think the case would ever go to trial. 7 months later and my rape kit came back. Negative. The nurse told me all that means is that he could have used a condom. I have never been able to remember what happened that afternoon in his room, and I don't know whether to be angry or thankful. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After my rape kit results came back I met with an RPD detective to talk about pressing charges. My dad came with me. I told the detective clearly and succinctly that I wanted to press sexual assault charges. Even with a negative rape kit, there were still two witnesses that could be subpoenaed, there was photographic evidence of hickies, my hospital records would show that I had been unable to consent due to the large amount of drugs Nick had given me. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The detective said I would never win. He said that Nick told detectives I had consented to both taking the drugs and the sexual activities. Despite my insistence to the contrary on both counts (I hadn't willingly taken suboxone knowing it was a drug, and I very clearly articulated my lack of consent before passing out) it was my word against his, and his wealthy and connected father had pulled some strings. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I insisted I wanted to take the case to court, and the detective said he would get back to me. He never did. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the years passed, I heard stories that similar things had been done by him to other women. He was arrested for other things eventually. But then, once I thought the wounds of trauma had healed, he began popping up. First at the grocery store, then at the gym. Then, I found out he went to my college. The first time I saw him there it was like a lightning bolt of ice raced through my body. I started hyperventilating. The worst part is, I doubt he even remembers what he did to me. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wish this story had a happier ending. I tried to do the right thing, I thought I had enough evidence on my side. But until this day, I have never felt comfortable publicly acknowledging this story. Nick Colakovski sexually assaulted me, and I let my shame keep me silent. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrCJUPG6AxEq_W9QvqS6BXBCrcmTPFO0BEoom0ln1BlY_3ZVuNv3orvgG6OVUligNg4T8EEQqxA56i5-ZuAMlBGmoSLI7qgJTerAoCU_aPiSfJnmP7RQxV7SGO5n61Rq0Lp5hDhf7EOE/s1600/ALW+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will be silent no more.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Attached are screenshots between J and ALW after the assault.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYfuchCZzShPMh1eXF56Tbc1P68hYXB6zGz9_kNcYXq_KTBGWEu5PZvgCoJlDRWodki5M3tYl3MwFyyb80XnT2sBgy8N-QI9k3H7Uub5MvRbdoOxZIbAWgjSqTukobMfdRze6lsXRAoU/s1600/FB_IMG_1508357860421.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-size: 14.6667px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="899" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYfuchCZzShPMh1eXF56Tbc1P68hYXB6zGz9_kNcYXq_KTBGWEu5PZvgCoJlDRWodki5M3tYl3MwFyyb80XnT2sBgy8N-QI9k3H7Uub5MvRbdoOxZIbAWgjSqTukobMfdRze6lsXRAoU/s320/FB_IMG_1508357860421.jpg" width="179" /></a></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv12MdLwbHT_9x8foGGqcDmrYX3v3uR3hOV4zfsFN514qLeciRnPcCAmHoBolQcChIvmvyxvpbrDp0zuMqGm3KfbDNUhxrQrY9tDOIgjPs7N5zgTVpvWGXeLwQDkuqA3aFVRm6tTcvNwQ/s1600/FB_IMG_1508357844780.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="899" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv12MdLwbHT_9x8foGGqcDmrYX3v3uR3hOV4zfsFN514qLeciRnPcCAmHoBolQcChIvmvyxvpbrDp0zuMqGm3KfbDNUhxrQrY9tDOIgjPs7N5zgTVpvWGXeLwQDkuqA3aFVRm6tTcvNwQ/s320/FB_IMG_1508357844780.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>
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<img alt="Image may contain: text" height="320" src="https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22552677_1639414629455739_779386456555299203_n.jpg?oh=ebadaeb7b7c72b631e218a169dcf4c4b&oe=5A771010" width="179" /><img alt="No automatic alt text available." height="320" src="https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22491976_1639414689455733_4295859849119829538_n.jpg?oh=e6305324521cf7dbc37fa9f5c3570dbf&oe=5A6E5113" width="179" /></div>
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<img alt="No automatic alt text available." height="320" src="https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22540231_1639415992788936_6520874894037565826_n.jpg?oh=a86390e26e96b3c89f9d5eaf295812d6&oe=5A7454F5" width="179" /><img alt="No automatic alt text available." height="320" src="https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22549840_1639420429455159_4881866172190631358_n.jpg?oh=4c164cc920301fdace07206f3bf8be2e&oe=5A665AC5" width="179" /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53_38VAoH1HXaMHz2Dc2QiI0mxqQRn8ax1YtFzJ5ScVl1ihnVRAL_3E2wm-iupGjTntUSSw0sC4gc-gGeRZWjYqBgW_U85d3fNiHp6byFrM3Fm2UP2r39AsEBqqVuWCi27dsHQLlmAE8/s1600/ALW+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-7e776d92-3173-c777-680c-13f37c5c6ecc"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-47036672773307975582017-10-13T10:31:00.003-04:002017-10-13T10:31:53.322-04:00Why #WomenBoycottTwitter, As If You Didn't Know<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After at least twenty years of predatory sexual behavior toward women, Harvey Weinstein is out of his company, and he may face criminal charges. That’s twenty years of him behaving badly, twenty years of people around him either denying or ignoring what he was doing, and twenty years of women who may have come forward to report his abuses being silenced or dismissed as crazy or opportunists. This tale is as old as time, and I wish we’d be better at handling these situations, but time shows that no one with power is REALLY interested in adjusting the status quo. Whether the victims are women or children, the abuse will go on for years, and when the shadow is too big to ignore and there is no choice BUT to shed light to expose it, the victim, not the assailant or his enablers, is accused of not coming forward sooner.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter, in the wake of women from all over the entertainment industry speaking about Weinstein, bravely took a stand and said they would have no more abuse of the people about whom they REALLY care on their platform. They suspended the account…of Rose McGowan, one of the first people to publicly report Weinstein’s abuse. Congratulations to you, Twitter. You just proved the diseased point that every victim of sexual misconduct has been saying. You don’t give a shit about victims, only the people in power. Twitter, though not as bad as Facebook when it comes to reporting and kicking off abusers of their service, still allows abuse and threats to go on hours, days, weeks, before they do anything about it, if they do anything at all. The only “abusive” thing in Rose McGowan’s tweets in the aftermath of the Weinstein fiasco was when she told Ben Affleck to “fuck off”. I tweet “fuck off” to the President nearly every day, and I have not been touched. One can assumed that Rose believes that Affleck is one of the many men and women who tacitly protected Weinstein and his open secret, either by defending him and attacking victims or living in denial and ignoring them. Either way, “fuck off” is probably one of the most innocuous of attacks one can lob on Twitter.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A person sent me death threats for weeks one time on the platform. I reported him the first time he said I’d be “next” after I lamented about the inaction in the Freddie Gray case. Nothing happened. He threatened to hang me. Nothing happened. He said it was time for a “drag” (Google James Byrd, Jr). Nothing happened. He said he was going on a “coon hunt”. Nothing happened. Finally, after weeks of reporting and seeing nothing happen, after screen shooting nearly everything @joahu4 said to me, I blocked him. That should not have been the case. He was explicitly violating Twitter’s own rules, yet Twitter did nothing. A year later, it seems the account is dead, but whether it was the user’s volition or Twitter FINALLY doing what it was supposed to do, it shows that Twitter does not give a damn about victims. My situation is only some digital trolling and nothing new for me online.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rose McGowan is not only an ACTUAL victim of an assault; she is brave enough to talk about it. She brought it to the courtroom, where though the case was settled monetarily, Weinstein got away with admitting nothing. She was the person who got to say, “I told all of you!”, and for that, SHE was punished. This is much like when fuckbois say, “If you were attacked, you need to speak up”, but then when the attacked speak up, the same fuckbois say, “No way that happened! You’re lying!”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think this is just a long way of saying that there are too many fuckbois running Silicon Valley. They are showing their asses every day that they keep suspending black, brown, queer, and female participants of the online world but keep allowing abusive MRA, white supremacists, and LGBTQ-phobes run rampant until they absolutely HAVE to say something to save face in the real world. But what are you gonna do? Fuckbois gon’ fuck. I hope #WomenBoycottTwitter lasts a week. You motherfuckers need them more than they need you. You have no idea.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-42b57485-1624-ae9d-46e0-ebd3a4472025"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-21711022345902374012017-10-12T16:22:00.003-04:002017-10-12T17:52:44.872-04:00For the First White Rapper to Say, "Fuck Trump"<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would like to give props to the first white rapper to voice the theme “Fuck Trump”: MAC MOTHERFUCKING MILLER. Were I an alien who just arrived to earth, though, I would think that Eminem was the loudspeaker for the new hip-hop generation. He isn’t a “rare white artist speaking out for his black fans” as CNN said. His anti-Trump rap isn’t “different” as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The New York Times</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> claims. It’s not even anything different from what he’s done for years. “He wrote “Mosh” for Bush II. Ain’t shit changed, except that people are treating MAC MOTHERFUCKING MILLER like the black people who invented rock ‘n’ roll while acting like Eminem is the Jerry Lee Lewis who “innovated a sound”.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know that the world is going crazy over Eminem’s freestyle he filmed during the BET Awards. He did precisely what a white person given time in a black space, using what was originally a berated black form of musical art at that, should do: said his piece, did not overstep, and did not stay too long. He also said all the right things. I know this because they are things that black folk have known and said all along. He put them to verse. Cool.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was not the first, though. Don’t be fooled by the “liberal left wing” media and their marveling at Eminem’s “heroism”. He was not even the first WHITE rapper to say “fuck Trump”. He may be the rapiest, but definitely NOT the first. MAC MOTHERFUCKING MILLER called out Trump after he wrote a song CALLED “Donald Trump” in 2011. It was more a song about getting rich (not a beef song), but then Trump tried to start beef with him on Twitter in 2013, to which MAC MOTHERFUCKING MILLER said, “Um, no. Fuck you”, and then and in 2015 he went on the air on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Nightly Show</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to read Trump for 3 minutes. He was so amped, he called out privileged (white) people who said that they were going to move to Canada if he got elected. MAC MOTHERFUCKING MILLER is the man, and he’s getting treated the way Sammy Davis, Jr. was when he had the audacity to die the same weekend that Jim Henson died. No respect.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s not forget that black folk have been putting the “fuck Trump” theme in the ether for a long time. The Game made “El Chapo”, Rick Ross and John Legend made “Free Enterpirse”, and Waka Flocka made “RICO” in 2015. YG made TWO “fuck Trump” songs called “FDT” in 2016, one featuring Nipsey Hussle and a second with Macklemore, another white rapper who said, “fuck Trump” before Eminem. Anderson .Paak’s “Come Down” remix, Ty Dolla $ign’s Blasé”, A$AP Ferg’s Flem, Emilio Rojas’s “I Hate Donald Trump”, will.I.am’s “Grab ‘Em by the Pu$$Y, Common and Bilal’s “Letter to the Free” Amine’ Caroline”, Kendrick Lamar’s “The Heart Pt. 4”, Joey BadA$$’s “Land of the Free”, and Wale’s “Smile” have been out there, some for the last 2 years. They hardly got the attention that Eminem is getting. The best one, A Tribe Called Quest’s “We the People” was performed even liver than Eminem’s freestyle and began with Busta Rhymes calling out Trump by name! and I don’t doubt that someone like Public Enemy or someone dissed Trump on wax after his words about the Central Park Five, or any of the other racist stuff he’s done in the last 40 years.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t have Eminem’s first 4 albums. The man has real talent. He also has a serious issue with women. Half of all of his early songs are berating or hurting women in some way, from “’97 Bonnie and Clyde” to “Stan” to “Superman”. Hell, he did what is rightly considered one of the dopest freestyle cyphers with Yasiin Bey (When he was Mos Def) and Black Thought, and he couldn’t go 16 bars without talking about raping someone to the point that they “thought they liked it”. His BET performance was good, but despite what the “liberal” media is hailing, The first and best diss of Donald Trump by a white rapper is MAC MOTHERFUCKING MILLER, and you can make a 2-hour Spotify list of dope anti-Trump hip-hop. It can be its own genre: Trump Trap.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…OK, I apologize for writing “Trump Trap”. That’s a bridge too far.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-0e130bbf-123f-c09d-83da-e3d044c47523"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-81675069636278246972017-10-11T08:07:00.002-04:002017-10-11T08:09:46.771-04:00Dear "Liberal" Man, Check Yourself<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear “Liberal” Cis-Man,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get your shit together, check yourself, and collect your mans, too. If Harvey Weinstein’s case has shown us anything, it’s that Hollywood and news media are not the progressive bastions that detractors claim, and liberals, especially “liberal” men, need to check themselves for the trash behavior they attribute to their opponents. They especially need to call out their male cohorts who are acting up, and they need to do it early, not after 15 or 20 years of them being shit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Minorities already know that Hollywood and the media being aggressively liberal is a myth. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every time a movie casts a round-eyes for an obviously Asian character or a bunch of white people for a period piece in ancient Northern Africa or Persia, we are reminded of Hollywood’s obvious, blatant, and often deliberate, blind spot. Women have been little more than props in most works on screen or in print. They are either victims of horrendous acts that must be avenged, or perhaps they were “crazy” psychos who deserved their comeuppance. Perhaps they are shiny prizes that the main character must earn through arduous trials, be it fighting monsters or turning form nerd to cool kid.</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fridging</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was a thing before the term “fridging” existed. There is a damn good reason why Allison Bechdel proposed her test for movies. And don’t get me started on the ableism. From Blofeld to Dr. Doom, there is not enough time to list off all of the “villains” in stories who have some sort of physical disability or have been “horribly disfigured”, yet I cannot find examples of a person turning suddenly evil after being permanently debilitated. If they ARE assholes, they were </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">likely assholes before their accident. Don’t tell Hollywood that, though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The news media is not much better. Compare the way a black unarmed victim of a violent </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">crime is treated compared to a white armed perpetrator of crime. For the former, if the person has so much as a detention from middle school, you’d best believe that it will be covered in the nightly news. What was he wearing? Was he wearing gang colors? Did he talk back? Surely, he did SOMETHING to spook the officer and force him to kill him. Even when no person was killed, media find a way to demonized victims. When that child fell in the gorilla pit at the zoo and Harambe was shot in order to save the kid, the child’s parents criminal records (all of which were long ago and not major) were brought up! So we now </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know that in the world of news media, a dangerous animal’s life is more important than a black child, his parents, and a zoo’s shitty security. Conversely, the latter will always be considered a tragic figure who somehow “lost his way”. He was an honor roll student, ran track, was an Olympic class swimmer, had a wife and children, was in the local Rotary Club, but he must have had some mental illness or something to make him snap! So in order to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exonerate a white man from responsibility, they throw the mentally ill under the bus. Even when they say that they are doing evil for evil’s sake, they are still pitied. The murderer who shot up a predominantly black church explicitly stated he wished to kill black people to start a race war, and his past was STILL depicted as stable, as if that even mattered. The man who murdered a black man with a sword in New York City was described as “well dressed” when he was arrested. Oh, good! I’m glad he had the time to clean himself up after murdering an innocent man, unlike all those slovenly black children who were murdered in hoodies! How gouache!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment case is not the outlier. It’s not “just a few bad men” making the industry look bad. Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Stephen Collins, Jeffrey Jones, etc are more the norm than we want to think. However, instead of listening to victims of their crimes, we rattle off all of the progressive groups that the accused chairs, we hold up all of the great charities he’s started, all of the women that he knows that prove he CAN’T be the misogynist predator that his victims accuse him of being, and then we accuse the victim of attempting to “ruin a good man” or doing it for money and/or fame…until 20 years later when the physical evidence is nearly lost, but there have been too many multiple reports from other women to deny that something is definitely wrong, at which point we accuse the victims of not coming forward soon enough. We pick apart what she said. We ask the woman that if she knew that said powerful man is rumored to be a predator, then why would she work with him? Not once, in the many years of said assailant’s behavior, has someone thought to tell him to NOT be a said assailant? It is all on the woman who was assailed? Imagine being beaten to a bloody pulp, and instead of arresting the beaters, YOU get arrested for an unrelated thing?</span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/arrest-warrant-issued-man-brutally-beaten-charlottesville-rally-n809291" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Because that happens as well</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If this phenomenon is happening out in the open, you can best believe that it is happening in private as well. This is where you, the “liberal” man”, need to check yourself, and then check others around you. “Liberal” men will be quick to point out all of the sexual assault cases of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump, but will hem and haw with excuses and diversions when someone brings up Anthony Weiner or Bill Clinton or Hugh Hefner. I get the idea of “protecting your own”, but that protection should not extend to acts of unwarranted violence against people they claim to want to protect. Even if not a violent act, using the mask of liberalism to coerce women into your bedroom has no honor. Hoisting up Jemele Hill onto a pillar does not give you the green light to call Ann Coulter a “cunt”. You really don’t care about women on a whole if you tweet out that you hope Tomi Lahren deserves to be raped. Calling a political opponent “retarded” or making fun of their “gimp” leg makes you look hypocritical, especially after you spent 5 minutes ranting about how Trump did it once. Calling Caitlyn Jenner a “dumb tranny” negates your claim that you are an LGBTQ ally, especially when you can easily talk about her very real vehicular homicide. Your pink Pussy Hat doesn’t grant you immunity from criticism when you mess up. “But I’m an ally! Look at my Atwood library!” That does not fly. You’re doing the “I have a black friend” equivalent to excuse your misogyny…also…Don’t LET me hear you say the N-word.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plenty of “Liberal” men have used what power they have to hurt others who they claim to support. I’m thinking of people like Joss Whedon, Harvey Weinstein, and Hugh Hefner, off the top of my head. Yes, they’ve done a LOT to push more forward-thinking themes and trying to normalize women’s roles in front of or behind the camera. That doesn’t mean we can excuse their “minor” indiscretions of spousal psychological abuse and infidelity, incessant sexual harassment and possible assault, and assisting sexual assault possible economic terrorism. I am just as guilty as anyone else from slipping (not to that extent), and I’ve been called out for it. It doesn’t feel good, but I welcome it…later. I’ve stopped calling myself a “feminist” or “ally” because of the hypocrisy of “liberal” men. You’re making the people who actually WANT to put in the work bad names. It’s better to do the work that needs to be done, and then if a person from helped group believes me to be a true ally (or preferably cohort), then I know I’m doing it right. More men who wish to be allies need to do this, and check the men who slip. So check yourselves, and check your mans, and if you need to collect, then do so.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e8a1cc80-0b53-34cd-05b4-f4a86f752531"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-61363838645632190312017-10-02T15:16:00.001-04:002017-10-02T17:53:22.981-04:00Like Johnson & Johnson, No More Tears. Just Repetition<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every time there is a mass shooting in America, I simultaneously feel despair for the numbers of victims who have been killed or injured and guilt over worrying whether the shooter is a person of color or of a different religion than Christian. This country is famous for demanding answers from every group except for straight white men. If the shooter is Muslim, then the person is “radicalized” whether the person has any ties to any terrorist movement. It it’s a black person, then he is either a gang-related or the person is part of some fringe anti-white group. Again, it matters little if said black or brown person actually WAS in a gang, or if he was in whatever organization that people have deemed “fringe”. The important thing is that the narrative is perpetuated. In all cases, a “representative” of the group MUST come forward and answer for the crimes of the person who they most likely never knew. This is the way of the news cycle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Las Vegas, it turns out that the shooter passed the “active shooter” brown paper bag test, so that entails a whole new narrative. Despite early bullshit reports that the assailant was an ISIS recruit, it turns out he’s as WASPy as WASPs can be. NOW the killer is a “lone wolf”, motives still pending, but you’d best believe that he will be accused of being part of either side of the political spectrum by the opposing side. He’ll be associated with some sort of mental disorder, and his upbringing will be depicted as pristine and saccharine as can be, and since he’s dead we “just don’t know” what could have gone wrong. There are so many of these “lone wolves”. If only there were a term for a group of wolves…a word in which you could PACK all of these white assailants with extremely similar personality traits with excessive fragile toxic masculinity who must unleash their angst physically on on other people…</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Either way, it will be “too soon” to talk about gun regulation. It will be “too soon” to discuss all of the gun related violence, and any attempt to so much as allow the CDC to do research on the effects of gun violence or simply study the safe practices of gun owners will be demonized as an attack on personal liberties and an insidious attempt to take legal firearms from American citizens. The NRA may make another terrorist-style propaganda video where they depict anyone who doesn’t like them, so non-violent protesters, victims of gun violence, living relatives of victims, political opponents, and black and brown people, as gun grabbing monsters who need to be shot.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a few weeks, this will die down, and we will go about our business bringing up inconsequential data points, and eventually, we’ll move on to other pressing issues, ad infinitum, until the next mass murderer shoots up another public place, and then we well do this all over again: Brown paper bag test, narrative based on test results, “too soon”, dog whistle terrorist NRA statement, lull to zero state until the next shooter.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-09d7801f-de81-976e-be3c-c867af446c88"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rinse, Repeat.</span></div>
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Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-84968639917727577902017-09-26T15:31:00.001-04:002018-09-05T10:49:59.155-04:00FINE! Let's Pretend It's About a Damn Flag and a Song!<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">UPDATE: </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Puerto Rico's death toll from Hurricane Maria has risen from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://wjla.com/news/nation-world/in-puerto-rico-death-toll-from-hurricane-maria-reaches-16" style="text-decoration: none;">16</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/health/puerto-rico-gw-report-excess-deaths/index.html" target="_blank">nearly 3000</a>,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=China+imprisoning+wyighurs&oq=China+imprisoning+wyighurs&aqs=chrome..69i57.14182j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">China is denying that they are holding over 1 million Uighurs in prison, despite all evidence to the contrary</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fg-germany-far-right-20170926-story.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Germany’s election just yielded 12.6% win for an alt-right and blatantly racist faction</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and we all remember how that worked out last time. But no, let’s ignore all that very scary shit to talk about how black people protest, because our jaundiced Julius Caesar wanted to focus on that all goddamn weekend, and it spilled into Monday, and NOW TUESDAY. Take the match away from your Nike gear for a minute, and listen up!...unless you're IN your Nike gear. In which case, have at it.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s get one thing straight. NO ONE KNEELING IS DISRESPECTING THE NATION, THE ANTHEM, OR THE AMERICAN FLAG. Kaepernick himself said as much. He stated why he was kneeling: to bring attention to the unfair treatment that black and brown people STILL face today. Originally he was sitting, but he had a conversation with a Nate Boyer, a former Seahawk and military veteran,</span><a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/heres-how-nate-boyer-got-colin-kaepernick-to-go-from-sitting-to-kneeling/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who told him it would be better/more powerful to kneel, as that could not be misconstrued as disrespect</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. He likely forgot that Colin Kaepernick is black, so anything he does will inevitably be scrutinized and framed negatively.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kneeling is NOT a form of disrespect.</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuflection" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not in the history of modern civilization has kneeling for ANYTHING been a form of disrespect for ANYONE</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It has ALWAYS been about respect for superiors, physical or metaphysical, reverence for the fallen, or a manner to tie one’s shoes. Season 7 of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Game of Thrones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ENTIRE plot has revolved around Jon Snow’s knee and to whom he’d bend it…also consensual incest and dragon proprietary rights. But STILL, Sersei and Daenerys weren’t begging Jon Snow to disrespect them. This explanation has gone off the rails, much like the point of the original protest. And that was precisely the goal of the “respect the anthem” faux patriotic rhetoric. People are not offended by an act of non-disrespect. They are mad that black people are exercising their rights as if they’re American, and they must now think about things about which they are uncomfortable.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Detractors further prove that point by pointing out from whence Colin Kaepernick came. He is biracial and was adopted by a white family that was well-off. He went to a good university and made millions. For this, he is framed as unfit to protest anything. He’s “ungrateful”. He is “disrespecting his upbringing. How disrespectful is an athlete being if it turns out their parents are proud of their actions</span><a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/352060-kaepernicks-mom-says-trump-comments-make-her-a-proud-b-report" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and after said parents are ostensibly called a bitch by the goddamn president of the United States</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? What is the economic echelon at which one should protest injustice of a community? What is that sweet spot between “Get a job you lazy bum” and “why are you whining you’re rich”? What color grade must one’s parents match where getting good grades, going to college, and attaining a coveted spot on a national sports team precludes one from speaking out about something in which they believe? No one has illustrated the enigmatic metric for when someone has a “right” to protest, though. Except for the team owners, no critic is paying these athletes’ salaries. They didn’t put them through college or took their tests for them. I’m quite certain that their parents didn’t take them aside and say, “Now young Colin, I’ll feed you and house you and help you with school, but by no means say anything about institutional racism when you grow up.” The term “Ungrateful” is just a kind way to say, “Shut up, you uppity niggers”.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When a black person’s station in life is brought up, it is often married with what they SHOULD be doing instead of kneeling, as if that is the only thing that they are doing. “Put your money where your mouth is instead of disrupting my Sunday sportsball time!” The fault of that argument is that not only are humans capable of performing multiple tasks at once, but also, Colin Kaepernick himself has invested nearly $1 million of his own money to the causes in which he believes and hours of volunteer time. This is possible, because he is human. Many protesters are met with this, as if they only know how to make picket signs and stand and yell their grievances. When it comes to activism, protesters, much like improve troupes, use the “yes, and…” approach to activism, where while they are planning for their next demonstration, they are also getting meetings with elected officials, running voting drives for people vulnerable to disenfranchisement, holding tutoring sessions for youth, etc. To think that a person is kneeling and ONLY kneeling is a derision of their character as a human being. It is lazy racism to think that a person is so lazy that they can only do one thing.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that we know why these NFL players, especially Colin </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kaepernick, took a knee during the anthem, let’s all pretend that the people </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who don’t like these uppity black millionaires exercising their rights as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American actually ARE protesting the fabric of America, including the anthem, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the flag, and the veterans. When this country was born, blacks were not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">included in the “We the People” part. It wasn’t until Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3 that “Negroes” were acknowledged. At that, it was only for state </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">representation. The plantation owners of the South didn’t like that their states </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">would have lower representation due to their lower populations in relation to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">their Northern colleagues. This compromise would boost their numbers, meaning</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they would have more representatives and more influence in Congress. The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Constitutional Convention decided that 3/5 was a reasonable ratio to count </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">black folks to bolster the South’s numbers. So not only were black people not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">considered 100% human, they were being used to uplift whites both on paper and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">physically with no hope of returns for their efforts. The Electoral College is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actual plantation math. When that wasn’t enough, a Civil War broke out. After </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the North won, Reconstruction was supposed to help, but it collapsed, and Jim </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crow was law. Then came US government-mandated segregated housing, hospitals, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">schools, and even retail venues in both the North and the South. Oregon was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">originally founded to be a bastion for whites only. Any time a black (or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chinese) community got “too successful”, white neighbors would burn it to the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ground with residents still in it, and the survivors would be pushed farther </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">into a non-visible corner. Even Central Park was built at the peril of a nice </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">black neighborhood. confederate monuments popped up any time people of color made </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a modicum of headway in vying for equality. Thousands of people have been </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hanged over the years. If anyone has a right to kneeling to mourn the lack of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American inclusion, it is people of color.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then there are all the wars fought. Black people fought in nearly every war in this country, all the way back to the American Revolution. They fought with valor and honor. They risked their lives and were often put in even worse positions than their white counterparts. They were told they couldn’t handle leadership positions, deep sea diving, piloting planes, Marine training, Special Forces training, and every time, they unequivocally proved those notions wrong. Despite that, they received fewer Medals of Honor, fewer Purple Hearts, fewer accolades from the country for which they risked their lives. When they came home, instead of ticker tape, they were greeted with the same abuse and murder that they often fought against overseas. White residents would accuse black soldiers of stealing their uniforms.</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/15/restaurant-denies-free-veterans-day-meal-to-black-veteran-after-man-in-trump-shirt-accuses-him-of-lying/?utm_term=.0716923dde9e" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> One black veteran was accusing of lying about his service and denied service at a restaurant just last year</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. How is that “paying respect to veterans”? Beside the fact that they are not railing against the congress people who continually either vote against or do nothing about legislation to improve the VA system, detractors need to admit that they only care about white veterans.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bristling at the thought that one only cares about white veterans? About to create the #AllVeteransMatter hashtag? I’ll ease up on that, and talk about the national anthem that kneelers are supposedly disrespecting. First, here is the whole thing:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A home and a Country should leave us no more?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #632523; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No refuge could save the hireling and slave</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #632523; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And this be our motto - “In God is our trust,”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That third verse, tho…That is the banger. “No refuge could save the hireling and slave, from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.” That line refers to the black slaves who attempted to and did escape slavery to</span><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/essays/black-soldier-and-sailors-war/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fight for the British for their freedom</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Francis Scott Key was calling for the deaths of black British regiments in the war. He wanted them to suffer. Black soldiers fought on both sides of this conflict, though. So was he just against blacks who fought against the US? It is doubtful. He was a slave owner himself, after all, and of the Africans in America,</span><a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/wheres-debate-francis-scott-keys-slave-holding-legacy-180959550/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he said that they are</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community”. So I don’t think he was a fan.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1833, he was</span><a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/wheres-debate-francis-scott-keys-slave-holding-legacy-180959550/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">City District Attorney for Washington</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, where he worked hard to stifle the efforts of abolitionists. He did little to punish the instigators of pro-slavery mobs, and he defended a series of gag rules to table anti-slavery petitions (sound familiar?). After a riot against a free black restaurant owner, Key sought to prosecute Reuben Crandall for simply HAVING abolitionist literature in a trunk. This trunk was found by US marshals who were off-duty slave catchers. Their search of his property was legally murky at best (sound familiar?). Key wanted him hanged for this, but he Crandall was acquitted.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One time, as documented in</span><a href="https://books.google.com.br/books?id=xVRQ8NsrP5MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Snow-Storm+In+August:+Washington+City,+Francis+Scott+Key%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22There%20is%20neither%20mercy%20nor%20justice%20for%20colored%20people%20in%20this%20district%20%22&f=false" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Snowstorm in August</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about the 1835 race riots, a free Potomac woman was fleeing from police constables trying to attack her, and she fell off a bridge into a river and drowned. Nothing was done about this, of course, and an abolitionist newspaper pointed that out. “There is neither mercy nor justice for colored people in this district…No fuss or stir was made about it. She was got out of the river, and was buried, and there the matter ended.”</span></div>
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<a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/08/28/colin-kaepernick-is-righter-than-you-know-the-national-anthem-is-a-celebration-of-slavery/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead of even attempting to bring to justice the constables who caused this crime</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Key railed against the paper who published the critique, saying that the newspaper intended to “to injure, oppress, aggrieve & vilify the good name, fame, credit & reputation of the Magistrates & constables of Washington County.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bottom Line: Francis Scott Key was a piece of shit. He made a shitty song that called for the deaths of black folk, and he always thought of black folks as lower than human and only good for subjugation. So IF all this kneeling were about the national anthem, IF it were about the fabric of the United States and the American flag, then why not? Who in their right mind would pay reverence to an institution that was born with the idea to only gain free labor and congress seats from them, that after slavery still intended to humiliate and denigrate them, whose national song is one that is a call for their deaths for the crime of striving to be the free person that the institution claims as its cornerstone, whose author thinks so lowly of them? Before anyone PMs me and says that if I don’t like it here (something I didn’t say, btw), then I should go back to Africa, you’d better damn well have all the visa papers filled out for me and the boarding pass.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you want black people and other people of color to be truly equal, or just to develop Stockholm syndrome so that you can ignore their voices a little bit longer? They’re not “ungrateful” or “disrespectful”. Just be honest and say what you really mean. They’re just like the rest of us: uppity niggers who are expressing themselves the way you don’t want them to. Every American who claims to believe in equality needs to ask themselves a question: If you are mad at black athletes for kneeling for a song that literally calls for their deaths, written by a person who never cared about their lives, then who is the real patriot here?</span></div>
Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-23965028547626971642017-08-17T16:05:00.000-04:002017-08-17T16:05:18.049-04:00The Audacity of Dopes: "Many Sides", My Black Ass.<b style="font-weight: normal;"><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-1a0f1af2-f1cb-3ca2-4fe3-38f2eb62ca29" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So...Charlottesville. I have few words that I said over Twitter. I have been straight up yelling at people who try to compare a philosophy of murder with a philosophy of civility. YOUR president wants to talk about there being violence on “many sides”. YOUR president took two days to call out the Klan and the American Nazi Party as hate groups. That’s because YOUR president knows who his base voting bloc is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I can discuss how confederate monuments that disgrace public lands is essentially state sanctioned domestic terrorism. I just watched the Vice documentary about the entire incident, both at night and during the day. I watched that car plow through a crowd of people walking up a street from three angles. </span><a href="https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">You need to see that video</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, but take into account these quotes that stood out in the video:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL, White Nationalist</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"[Whites] generally are not inclined to such behavior." 3:00</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'm trying to make myself capable of more violence." 3:43</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We're not nonviolent. We'll kill these people if we have to!" 6:30</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">DAILY STORMER JOURNALIST ON A BUS</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We are stepping off the internet in a big way...there were hundreds and hundreds of us. People realize that they are not atomized individuals; they are part of a bigger whole, because we have been spreading out memes, we have been organizing on the internet, and so now they're coming out, and you can see we greatly outnumbered the anti-white, anti-american filth, and at some point, we will have enough power that we will clear them form the streets forever. That which is degenerate in white countries will be removed...we're starting to unveil our power level. You ain't seen nothing yet." 8:15</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">WHITE NATIONALIST ON THE PHONE DURING A MINOR CLASH</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'm about to send at least 200 people with guns to get them out if you guys don't get them out." 9:15 [talking to police]</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This is the largest nationalist rally in 2 decades here in the United States." 10:40</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">11:39 CAR MURDER</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">TIMOTHY PORTER, Counter Protester, Activist</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"They just literally came down the street at 80mph to fucking hit us right now! There's bodies laying on the ground right now! We told City Council we did not want them here.They let them come. We told the police we did not want them here. They let them come. I had to jump out of the way; I almost got hit by the car my fucking self. I seen bodies flying getting hit by that car. I see people and blood on the fucking ground. This is my town! We did not those motherfuckers here! And now we got bodies on the ground, and they trying to revive somebody right now." Timothy Porter 12:40</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">UNIDENTIFIED COUNTER PROTESTER, MEDIC</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I ran up because they were screaming, 'Medic, medic, medic', and there was a guy laying on the side, and there was a woman laying there, hardly breathing, and uh, They were rolling her over, and she died. I help do CPR on her." 14:00</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MONTAE TAYLOR, Local Resident</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"I have a great-grandfather who literally told me the same stories of what I've experienced today. And the fact that I can look at whats going on and see what my grandfather was talking about, it's not scary, but It's appalling. And the fact that we have a president that can go on TV and talk about, 'People were wrong on many sides', and not even acknowledge the young woman who lost her life, as a result of people who he has notably and knowingly incited is appalling to me, but honestly, I can't say that I'm surprised." 15:30</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">TANESHA HUDSON, Local Resident</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We need you guys at every meeting that's for equality and togetherness and unity. We need everybody to make Charlottesville a real place of resistance." 16:00</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This has always been the reality of Charlottesville. you can't stand in one corner of this city and not look at the master sitting on top of Monticello. He looks down on us. He's been looking down on this city for God knows how long. This, This is Charlottesville." 17:00 </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"I came pretty well prepared for this thing today. [Unpacks and identifies all guns and other weapons on his person and in the room] I'd say it was worth it. We knew that we were gonna meet with a lot of resistance. The fact that no one on our side died, I'd say points for us. The fact that none of our people killed anybody unjustly, I think is a plus for us. I think that we showed our rivals that we won't be cowed." 19:45</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I think it was more than justified. the amount of restraint that our people showed out there, I think is astounding." 20:30</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I think a lot more people are gonna die before we're done here, frankly...These people want violence, and the right is just meeting market demand." 21:10</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All the violent rhetoric came from the organizers of the rally. They came to worship the stone and metal idol of Robert E. Lee, and they were ready to fight. The Antifa,</span><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/08/what_the_alt_left_was_actually_doing_in_charlottesville.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"> by many accounts</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, were in defensive mode, but may have been goaded at times deliberately. “Hatred and violence on many sides”, my black ass. Heather Heyer’s blood is on the people on the fence as much as the people who organized this event.</span></div>
</b>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-61843252104343656252017-08-11T19:28:00.000-04:002017-09-19T13:03:48.657-04:00The Audacity of Dopes: The White Mens' Burdening<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mediocre white dudes are going to be the downfall of the world. I spent my entire life learning about the ones who got us here, the “extraordinary” white dudes, if you will; the ones who spent the good part of that last 50-600 years molding the world in their image, conquesting and erasing societies, rewriting borders, rewriting history to make sure they were always on top. I really thought that the architects of the social constructs that perpetuate misogyny and the concept of race and the othering of any sexual orientation outside of “heterosexual” would be the ones to destroy us all. It was these “extraordinary” white dudes who spent the a half millennium sculpting the world into a place that caters to them and where we all pretty much cowtow to them and think of them as the default when someone says “a guy”. Extraordinary whites dudes have done so much in subjugating everyone who is not a white dude that it would take another half millennium to unlearn and expunge the residual ramifications of the the legal and social structures that they put in place to stay in power.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Extraordinary white dudes are not the ones with their fingers on the Button, though. Their dumb sons and nephews are. Mediocre white dudes are running the show. Extraordinary white dudes are no longer doing as much evil these days. A lot of them are trying to undo the damage of previous evil extraordinary white dudes, but they are being silenced by mediocre white dudes. We admonish people for daring to want an education. The bar is so low for white dudes’ success that sometimes doing NOTHING is seen as cause for reward. In the past few weeks, bland-ass white dudes have been lauded for figuring out that brown people are human and for body shaming their loved ones. I had one try to explain to me the concepts of racism and equality by quoting a voraciously racist philosopher. One even had the audacity to distribute a “manifesto” about the how the tech world’s lack of women and people of color is because of their inherent inferiority, and programs to bring more in are “harmful”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rochester professional dog whistler Bob Lonsberry went to the Rochester, NY Puerto Rican Festival as though he were going to a war zone in Syria to report on the Thunderdome-esque “chaos” of the festival. He even prefaced his trip to the festival by linking/not linking a crime that happened a week before the event to it. Then he wrote a long essay about how he “learned” that the Puerto Rican Day Festival is all about families celebrating their heritage and having a good time. The air was full with love and pride, as are all cultural/arts festivals. These people aren’t animals. They’re people. No shit, Bob. Instead of people admonishing him for his manner of talking about people as though he went on safari, even so far as to title his “heartwarming” essay “I Went to the Riot Last Night”. The praise and accolades that rained on him were astounding. Even Puerto Rican people were so proud of Bob for learning that Puerto Rican people are PEOPLE! It is as if he hadn’t demonized the festival in previous years or talked about how many arrests there were 15 minutes later (St. Patrick’s Day usually has the same amount of arrests), or talked about how the police were the ones who kept the damn festival in line, or “wondered” whether the event planners should pay for police overtime (spolier alert: EVERY FESTIVAL IN ROCHESTER PAYS FOR POLICE OVERTIME). He was praised for pretty much doing nothing. Also, HE SPELLED HIS OWN NAME INCORRECTLY IN HIS OWN ESSAY.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robbie Tripp made headlines because of a long instagram he made about his wife. He stated that he loves his wife and her ”curvy body”. He talked about how he was teased for liking thicker, chubbier girls in high school. He talked about how he picked up some books on feminism and learned how it’s okay to love side rolls and thighs. Then he went on to paraphrase “Baby Got Back” and say that “Her shape and size won’t be on the cover of Cosmopolitan, but it’s the one featured in my life and in my heart”. Does he really think we don’t remember, “So Cosmo says you’re fat/ Well I ain’t down with that/ ‘Cause your waist is small and your curves are kickin’/ And I’m thinkin’ ‘bout stickin’”??? I’m surprised he didn’t say something about workout tapes by Fonda. So basically, Tripp is tripping. He took the time out of his schedule to objectify his wife in order to pat himself on the back for doing a “charity” to this woman who he insinuates would be alone without his altruism, all while doing a light gentrification of a 25 year old club banger. For this, he got a few articles written about him Even Buzzfeed did a whole article with more pictures of his wife, Sarah (He didn’t mention the name of his wife who he loves so much, with her “curvy body”).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I love my wife”. That is where he should have ended that post. “I. Love. My. Wife.” Nothing else was needed. The kicker? Sarah isn’t even all that big! She’s gorgeous, yes, but all these rolls he’s talking about must be in his head. And she has her own-ass fashion blog and brand! She will be alright without him and his pseudo altruism. Robbie Tripp wants an award for doing the VERY LEAST of what a husband is supposed to do: love his damn spouse unconditionally, yet he fucked that up by talking about her “conditions”. GTFOH.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The latest in white male mediocrity is James Demore, the now former Google software engineer who took it upon himself to write a 10 page manifesto decrying diversity measures in tech. Whether he had any good ideas or new measures is irrelevant, because the premise of his entire argument hinged on explicitly stating that women are biologically inferior to men. The tenor of the essay hints to him referencing points of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">evolutionary psychology</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to draw his conclusions. Most scientists think of evolutionary psychology as about as invalid as eugenics or phrenology. Most MRAs love it, because it validates their misogynistic, sad-boy rants. I refuse to link Demore’s screed, but I’m happy to quote a scientist who read an analyzed the document:</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 41.25pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally read the Google manifesto in full. As an engineer, I believe that it is on us as engineers to check those within our communities, but to also educate ourselves and others, and advocate for change in the profession. This man's worldview is deeply problematic. It's rooted in what he views as an unquestioned assumption that anything "feminine" or "nonwhite" is inherently inferior. But the thing that bothers me most is that we as a profession have such low standards for engineers that he was allowed to make it through the ranks of Google and probably would have ended up in leadership if he had not written this.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 41.25pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not only would he be a bad leader, he is a bad engineer. Engineers need the ability to think critically, research the history and context of a problem before submitting a solution, not blindly submit to authority, apply skepticism, and recognize their role and influence in organizations and society.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 41.25pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This man demonstrably does not have these skills. But unfortunately, engineering culture does not put much pressure on him or men like him to develop them.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 41.25pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We as engineers can do better than this.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: -1.5pt; margin-right: -0.75pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TL:DR: Demore made the sexist version of </span><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-real-problem-with-charles-murray-and-the-bell-curve/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bell Curve</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, likely because of his anxiety over more women and minorities gaining foothold in the industry. Just as Charles Murray did to people of color in 1994 with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bell Curve</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Demore used skewed “science” to endorse discrimination of women without saying it outright. I know he sounded kind of smart, but the paper was is the science project equivalent of making a shitty baking soda/vinegar papier mache volcano and calling it “hard geological research”.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: -1.5pt; margin-right: -0.75pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nevertheless, the more real scientists and engineers, both men and women, wrote why Demore’s disaster was so wrong on so many levels, more mediocre white dudes ran to his defense with faux platitudes like, “I’m not defending him, but…”, and “If I could just play devil’s advocate…”. I will give it to mediocre white dudes; they will cape hard for each other. Talk about solidarity! I have not seen a status or essay regarding the fallacies of his claims that weren’t inundated with a peacock’s plumage of “um actuallies” and “he brings up some good points” in the comments, especially if they were women who wrote or just shared other’s writings. White mediocrity seems more insidious than white supremacy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">This not to say that people of color can’t be guilty of fuckery as well. Misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and many other institutions have thrived under the White supremacy umbrella, and I’ve written plenty about them, too. However, white mediocrity is incredibly pervasive, though, and besides, this is an essay focused on the dangers mediocre white dudes. This is not just about this essay, or some moron who thinks he’s “woke” because he hung out with the brown people he subsequently dog-whistled the day after. This isn’t about some moron who needs to objectify his wife in order to make himself look good. We’ve been giving out participation trophies to mediocre white dudes since we made it socially acceptable to wave the flag of the losers of a Civil War in public. There's currently a mediocre white dude initiating international crises via Twitter and in news conferences. I'm almost at the point where I think white supremacy isn't the structure activists need to work to topple. White mediocrity has supplanted white supremacy, and every time a wack-ass white dude pats himself on the back for doing not a goddamn thing or is violently angry that a woman or person of color is successful, I am more certain that mediocre white dudes will destroy the world.</span></div>
Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-12158944725279511762017-08-07T15:24:00.001-04:002017-08-07T15:24:23.305-04:00Colin Kaepernick Is Guilty of a 1931<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just so we’re clear, these are the things you can do and still play in the NFL:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drive with a Suspended License (14601)</span></div>
</li>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hit and Run (20001, 20002a)/Reckless Driving (23103)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DUI (501, 502)</span></div>
</li>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Disorderly Conduct (647) /Public Drunkenness (647F)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drug possession (11351)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unlawful Gun Possession (417)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dog fighting (905A)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Domestic violence (273D)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sexual assault (243.4, 261, 262, 288)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Assault (240) and Battery (242)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do any of these things and you might get a suspension from playing. You might even have to miss a whole season.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s a list of things you CANNOT do and still play in the NFL:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take a knee during the national anthem.</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently taking a knee is more important a crime than women’s lives, dogs’ live, and anyone’s lives who were affected by a player’s aggressive drunkenness or poor driving skills. It is strange, because you’d think there would be a penal code number for it if it were so heinous. Would be a 1776? Maybe call it an 1812? 1814? Ooh, how about we call it a 1931? That’s when Congress decreed it be THE national anthem. Let that sink in: nearly 60 years AFTER the abolition of slavery, Congress passed a law to make a song that explicitly called for the deaths of black people who dared dream of freedom the National Anthem.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regardless, Colin Kaepernick, The hardened criminal who maintained a 4.0 GPA through high school and college, who dominated in every sport he played throughout high school and college, who spent six years playing for the San Francisco 49ers, who spent millions of his own money supporting charities and schools throughout the world, threw it all away by taking a knee in peaceful protest of systematic racism and police brutality.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How DARE he!” exclaimed people who were likely sitting in their Lay-Z-Boys stuffing nachos in their faces while the Anthem was playing. “How can he disrespect the veterans!? He should be locked up for treason!”</span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/31/us/veterans-for-kaepernick-trnd/index.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot of veterans didn’t seem to mind, though</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/kaepernick-brings-love-somalia-nfl-execs-show-hate-article-1.3003365" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The owners and execs had a big problem with Kaepernick, though</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You’d think, though, that since he committed a 1931, the police would have arrested him. Instead, it seems his punishment is to not get hired anywhere. As of August 7</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Colin Kaepernick is still a free agent. I hope he learned his lesson. You can do a 501, a 243, a 262, a 14601, even a 905A, but Lord; help you if you do a 1931. So many people have been permanently scarred by a black man exercising his right to free speech in a public place. I know they claim that Kaepernick is just “not as good”, but some think there</span><a href="http://www.barstoolsports.com/barstoolu/richard-sherman-listing-every-quarterback-that-is-worse-than-colin-kaepernick-by-name-is-so-mean-and-hilarious/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are worse quarterbacks than Kaepernick</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and it is telling that one team</span><a href="http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/08/jay-cutler-dolphins-quarterback-colin-kaepernick-ryan-tannehill-injury" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pulled a quarterback out of retirement</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> rather than sign Kaepernick.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The owners, and everyone who has been rooting for Kaepernick’s unemployment at best, drawing and quartering at worst, needs to confront the fact that their only issue with Colin Kaepernick is that he is black and he dared to speak his mind. You cannot handle the truth of his statements, and it frightens you. Colin Kaepernick is going to be all right, no matter what. Since he wasn’t signed, I cannot fuck with the NFL this year. The organization does not give a damn about its players, only the money it can make. It doesn’t give a damn about its fans, and it definitely doesn’t give a damn about how its actions and inaction affect the welfare of its employees and the public. Why else would they underpay official cheerleaders? Why else would it pay so much to not acknowledge the effects of concussive hits? Why else would it STILL have a team named the “Redskins”? NFL execs would make an expansion team called the East St. Louis Niggers if they thought they could make a buck, with no regard for anyone except who handles their cash.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tangentially related: Someone who tried to make an inane case for “reverse racism” said to me that “Racism and bigotry infect ALL of [us]”. That is the only part of his statement that is true. It DOES infect all of us. The only difference is that the side effects are more dire the darker you are, and they positive the lighter you are.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-be0285ca-be26-a625-2457-bdc3858604bf"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-52978956575564204612017-08-03T15:05:00.000-04:002017-08-03T15:05:33.387-04:00Facebook Is American AF<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In February while deplaning, I posted a status about the racist history of the nursery rhyme </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eenie Meenie Miney Mo</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on Facebook. As I walked through Terminal 5 toward the baggage claim, I responded to friends’ comments and questions as they didn’t know about this. While I watched the baggage claim conveyor buzz and groan to life, I wrote out the original version of the rhyme:</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-6cbbff3c-a97a-c976-e0b8-e8ab34a94b55" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catch a nigger by his toe,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If he won't work then let him go;</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Skidum, skidee, skidoo.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But when you get money, your little bride</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will surely find out where you hide,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So there's the door and when I count four,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then out goes you.”</span></blockquote>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I picked up my bag and headed toward the taxi stand, I received a Facebook Review message saying that my comment was taken down because it was anonymously deemed offensive. That was a span of five minutes that it took between me getting to the baggage claim and retrieving my bag that someone “anonymously” deleted my comment.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have pretty much let anyone whose constitution is so fragile that they can’t handle a matter-of-fact discussion about American history self-purge themselves from my friends list, and the people with whom I was conversing all were interested and engaged in the conversation, so I can’t imagine that one of them all of a sudden became so offended that one quote would set them off. Also, 5 minutes? Really? I submitted a multiple reports about a group called “Rochester NY Crime” who regularly used “Ebonics” to post pictures of apes and primates in police uniforms and suits, describing them as black police officers and the mayor. For my efforts, I received multiple responses days later from Facebook’s review board saying that these racist depictions of African Americans as apes and chimpanzees didn’t violate their policy on hate speech. So it took them days to review my reports, but it took only 5minutes for them to delete my “offending” comment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would say I’m surprised by Facebook’s Shenanigans, but it’s not the first time I’ve experienced the Review Board’s nonsensical actions. I reported two memes that depicted nude black women that claimed that they were brainwashed whores or were accompanied with a paragraph that basically condoned and called for spousal rape. If the words weren’t offensive enough, so many women have been admonished by the FB Police for sharing breastfeeding photos that it seems it would be a no-brainer that full frontal sexualized nudity should be a guaranteed deletion of the post. NOOOOPE. Those posts depicting nudity didn’t violate their terms on depicting nudity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So When is Facebook going to admit that they just don’t give a goddamn about people of color and women, and especially people of color who ARE women? We aren’t fooled by Facebook’s presentation of a giant “#BlackLivesMatter” banner at their headquarters last year. We remember Mark Zuckerberg having to reprimand staff for crossing out “Black Lives Matter” on the company’s chalk wall, where employees can write and doodle whatever they want.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More telling than these two minor gestures (certainly the VERY least Facebook could do), FB Police have suspended Shaun King’s account when he posted a grotesque hate mail he received. It wasn’t King’s words. It was words directed at him. He shared it to show the bullshit that people of color receive for merely talking about issues in this country. A few hours after King tweeted about him being suspended and a few articles chronicling Facebook’s actions against King, he received a message saying that the suspension was “accidental”, and his account was unlocked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Damon Young of VerySmartBrothas.com wrote an article about the Alton Sterling decision entitled “</span><a href="http://verysmartbrothas.com/of-course-the-officer-who-killed-philando-castile-was-acquitted-because-nigger-hunting-season-is-always-here/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of Course the Officer Who Killed Philando Castile Was Acquitted, Because Nigger Hunting Season Is (Always) Here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”. The VSB Facebook page was sent to jail for that. A few days later, after VSBFB was released on Parole,</span><a href="http://verysmartbrothas.com/facebook-sent-me-to-jail-for-writing-ngger-in-a-piece-about-racism-while-emails-calling-me-ngger-still-sit-in-my-inbox/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Damon wrote about how his piece caused the suspension</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but the flood of hate mail using the offending word caused no suspension of those offending letter writers, despite his reporting of them to the FB Police.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most recent prominent figure to go to Facebook Jail is</span><a href="http://www.ijeomaoluo.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ijeoma Oluo</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She made a joke about visiting a Cracker Barrel:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“At Cracker Barrel 4 the 1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">st</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> time. Looking at the sea of white folk in cowboy hats & wondering “will they let my black ass walk out of here?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her making light of a potentially tense situation granted her the most vitriolic drag this week on Twitter. The responses were the classic “go back to Africa” jabs and name-calling, but she also received a ridiculous amount of death and rape threats. For three days. Over a joke tweet. The hate crossed over to her Facebook account, and she reported everyone who attacked and threatened her. When Facebook did nothing, Oluo screenshot and posted the attacks. At that point, Facebook suspended HER, not the people attacking her. Later,</span><a href="https://medium.com/@IjeomaOluo/facebooks-complicity-in-the-silencing-of-black-women-e60c34434181" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tellingly after she wrote a piece about the incident</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Facebook’s response,</span><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/02/another-black-activist-ijeoma-oluo-is-suspended-by-facebook-for-posting-about-racism/?ncid=mobilenavtrend" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FB Police ended the suspension</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, saying it was a “mistake”. Of course. It was a “mistake”. Everything must be fine now, yes?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a novella-long Terms of Service agreement and an elaborate “Community Standards” page that plainly point out that the type of harassment that King and Young and Oluo and I received are supposedly not allowed, yet who was punished? Not the perpetrators, but the targets. This is much like the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution gallantly hailing the autonomy and respect and rights of men, but they blaringly forget that people of color and women live in this country, too, until the 13 Amendment…19</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Amendment for women. The US loves to suck its own red, white, and blue dick, touting how it has respect for all, that everyone gets a fair share. Call it out own inequities, though, and you’ll be punished soundly. But give it a few years, and the US will be all, “Oops, we made a mistake there. You guys are more than 3/5 of a human, Here’s a 13</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Amendment for you. You know what? Let’s throw in a 14</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Amendment, too.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It doesn’t really matter, though, because the US still let Jim Crow rise, and there’s a loophole in the 13</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to begin with. Then we start raising noise about THOSE inequities, and we’re beaten and lynched some more, and then women start raising their voices, and FINALLY the US says, “Oh shit! Our bad. Hey, how about a 19</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Amendment, for the ladies? Oh, and here’s a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” It doesn’t say a damn thing about the Japanese internment or the gratuitous amount of murders of civil rights activists and the municipal subjugation of women, though. To this day, the US loves to look at itself as a bastion of liberty, but there are still major problems, and instead of fixing them, it tries its best to silence the people pointing out the problem.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the Facebook model: Suck its own white and blue dick while touting how much of a great forum it is for everyone. Claim it will not tolerate any type of abuse from its members. When abuse happens, shut the abuser up until enough bad press is put forth that it concedes it made a “mistake”. Facebook didn’t make a mistake, though. It works exactly as it was designed. I have friends who were kicked off after they reported harassment. I still have three “pending” reports that I filed weeks ago when someone attacked me. I don’t expect them to be resolved. Facebook just doesn’t give a damn about its brown people or women (and probably its LGBTQ population), but it will roll out those platitudes as soon as it sees others looking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“wElL iF yOu DoN’t LiKe It, WhY dOn’T yOu LeAvE?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because, Karl, Facebook is ubiquitous for social interactions now. Many social media sites have come and went, but Facebook has stayed, despite many reports of their slow demise. Despite its issues, it is the way to stay in contact with distant relatives and friends, get their brand out, find out local happenings, etc. The Facebook policing issue also reflects the whiteness of the culture that created Facebook and its unwillingness to listen to marginalized groups. They’d rather not deal with the problems they want addressed and only throw them a bone every once in awhile. This is an industry that people say that people of color must enter in order to gain lasting wealth, since we missed out on/were legally omitted from gaining wealth the way generations of white middle class families did. Why would one want to enter a job force that is known to be hostile from the gate? The “why don’t you leave” mantra doesn’t resolve any of that. It allows the problem to fester until it is a full-blown cancer on the site and the workplace from whence the site came. “Just leaving” instead of addressing this is as callous as telling a woman who was sexually harassed in the workplace to “just leave”. The harasser is still there, unpunished, and likely getting worse because of lack of real reprimand. Just like I can’t pack up and go to another country (mostly because I was fucking born here and have a right to be here), I won’t “just quit” Facebook, lest it become another Stormfront, but with more misogyny.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bottom line, Facebook is American as fuck.</span></div>
<br />Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518769833888018875.post-76842737512801082402017-08-01T12:20:00.000-04:002017-08-01T12:44:08.668-04:00I Read an Essay About a Riot That Didn't Happen<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PEOPLE OF COLOR ARE NOT ZOO ANIMALS. You cannot go on “human safari”. We are not zoological exhibits by which for you to be entertained. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dances with Wolves</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sucked. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avatar</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ferngully</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are only cool if it’s fake and animated. We are human beings, and we deserve the respect that human beings deserve.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One would think that statements like these would be a no-brainer; this world has a history of exhibiting human beings, often people of color, as though they are zoo animals. All the way back to the 16</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Century, Cardinal Hippolytus de Medici “collected” people from Africa and Asia. The Barnum and Bailey Circus would display humans in their side show as “freaks”. They weren’t always people with genetic variances. Sometimes they were enslaved people or albinos or pygmies. And we cannot forget the plight of Saartje Baartman, also known as the Hottentot Venus. Her humiliation didn’t end at death, as she was dissected like a high school frog in a lab. This practice didn’t end after the 19</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Century. Well into the 20</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “savages” form sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia were displayed like exhibitions. As recently as 2005, an African village was depicted in Augsburg Zoo. Shit just doesn’t change.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, the trend has been to not remove us ethnics from our “natural habitat”, but to watch from afar, as if we are birds or something. Then a slew of think pieces and article discussing how INTERESTING we are appear. And before you back me up by berating those damn conservatives and their denigrating ways, a lot of traditionally liberal venues talk of their wonderment with us Coloreds. I’ve seen articles by white authors on Slate and Salon and HuffPo and Gawker (RIP) about the entertainment they get from getting out their binoculars and spying on Black Twitter from afar. Oh, it’s such a JOY! Look at the Negroes manipulate the language we pushed on them! It’s so cute! It should be also noted that these supposed liberal bastions are where I see most of the cultural appropriation and obliviousness, like when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tried to rename Bantu Knots or when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vogue</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> announced that big butts are now “in”, thanks to Jennifer Lopez, or when GOOP…actually, I can’t claim anything about GOOP. If I want to see that level of white fuckery, I’ll walk around the Pittsford Wegmans parking lot.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The newer version of treating brown people like we’re exhibits is to go into deep into the Mist and examine us first hand, Dian Fossey style. The only problem with this approach is that WE ARE NOT GORILLAS. In April, one</span><a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/local/the-red-line-daily-racial-transformation-marta/Uowu4tz4U1Qv2SLUFAIqQM/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melton Bennett rode the Red Line in Atlanta</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to witness the change in demographic from his suburb to downtown Atlanta. His report was an exquisite example on how to properly demonize black people, all while justifying why everyone should move out of cities. He didn’t talk to any of the passengers about where they were going, or if they were regular riders. He just witnessed strangers being strangers, minding their business or holding conversations with the people they knew, and then he punctuated his treatise by pondering what Martin Luther King would think. Invoking MLK is the go-to for oblivious white people in order to shame black people for something they don’t understand or like. Here’s a news flash. MLK would have done whatever present black people are doing, because MLK did those things. MLK would have blocked traffic in protest, He would have stormed Town Hall and addressed legislators directly, and he would have done what black people were doing on the train: he would have minded his own business, sat his ass down, and gotten off at the stop where he needed to get off.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here in Rochester, Bob Lonsberry of WHAM 1180AM did a</span><a href="https://wham1180.iheart.com/content/2017-07-31-lonsbery-i-went-to-the-riot-last-night/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“man on the street” editorial of the annual Puerto Rican Festival</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. He started out the Wednesday before he wrote of his travels “into the wild” by announcing in a tweet that he read this on Monday:</span><a href="https://twitter.com/BobLonsberry/status/890913775901134848" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Police and organizers say last night’s writing on North Clinton had nothing to do with the Puerto Rican Festival”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Oh, good. So the “riot” that occurred an entire week before the festival started had nothing to do with the festival. Whew! What a relief! Not to mention that there is no report of a riot happening in the first place.</span><a href="http://www.whec.com/news/large-police-presence-on-north-clinton-avenue/4550213/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is one story of a person being pistol whipped on the Saturday prior</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but I would assume a riot has at LEAST ten people involved, not two. His feed was then filled with pictures of the Festival, some selfies with a few people, and a LOT of praise for the police for “keeping the peace”.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then he sat down and wrote the essay entitled, “LONSBERY: I Went to the Riot Last Night”. This is brilliant, because people who don’t read articles will see that title, and they will fortify their bigotry by sharing and saying, “SEE??? They rioted at the Brown People Gathering! They are nothing but animals! We need to deport them all!” that definitely happened a few times, including the call for deportation. Don’t tell the bigots that Puerto Ricans are US citizens. We colonized and annexed it It’s been a commonwealth of the United States since the Spanish-American War. For those that DID read the article, Lonsberry started out eager to see a shit show, describing the last night of the Puerto Rican Festival as the “most predictable and embarrassing dates on the Rochester calendar”. Much to his disappointment and then enjoyment, he didn’t see much violence. He did describe in detail how the police DID shut down a few skirmishes and impromptu parades, but for the most part, he was amazed at how many families and friends were out enjoying the good weather and general feel of merriment. He DID mention the rollover crash that occurred on Remington Street, but he went right back to talking about how good the coloreds who enjoyed the festival were. I really hope he enjoyed the cookie he got for learning that Puerto Ricans are human beings, and that only a small percentage of festival goers caused any trouble.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot of people are praising his article, including Puerto Ricans and otherwise opponents of Lonsberry. He does deserve some credit for going out and seeing what people are doing instead of just griping about what the news reports. However, he wrote as if he came looking for negative things to report. He came looking for a zoo, and then was “pleasantly surprised” that the zoo didn’t happen, and the “exhibits” were people. It all reeks of that scene in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Color </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Purple when that white lady talked about how “clean” Oprah’s kids were, as if she was complimenting them, right before Oprah knocked her ass out. It’s good that people want to reach out and learn about other cultures, but it’s better to do it by interacting, not by looking for some terrible thing and then snapping a few selfies.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lonsberry could have left it at that, but then he spent the next day on Twitter with his tongue up the collective anus of the RPD, talking about how if it weren’t for them, the festival would have been chaos, and then making the “profound” statement the Puerto Rican Festival goers should pay the officers weekend overtime. Spoiler Alert: THEY DO. For every festival in the city with police protection, the festival is responsible for that bill. He then wondered why the principle of barring the festival doesn’t apply to the PR Fest because of the rolled over car,</span><a href="https://twitter.com/BobLonsberry/status/892374513500999680" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">citing the death of a girl at a lakeside Adirondack festival</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> last year. This, of course, let his base masturbate to their own claims of “reverse racism” and “PC gone amok”. The rollover crash that happened was the first time it happened at the Fest. This year. There were no reports of crashes like that last year or the year before or the other 6 years I’ve lived in Rochester.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would not be as skeptical of Lonsberry’s intentions had he not laid them bare before, during, and after his piece. The dog whistling of the linking/not linking the North Clinton incident to the festival, the constant idea that the police were the reason the festival went so well with minimal incidents, the post-festival wondering why it’s allowed to occur after a death that happened 2 two days prior, all point to his real intentions. That is not to mention his general condescension of the people who he all of a sudden realized were families and “good people”, only after he gave up looking for trouble. Bitch, we know we’re good (I’m actually Panamanian, but you get it). He was quick to announce that there were 15 arrests at the Festival, but I can’t recall a time where he listed the arrest and violence stats for St. Patrick’s Day, or Park Ave Fest, or Corn Hill Fest. St. Patrick’s Day usually averages the same number of arrests, by the way. I have seen as many or more crimes occur at all three of those events, sometimes in plain view of police officers, but I can’t seem to find his long treatises about how those festivals need to be “cleaned up” or any Dian Fossey-style integration and observation of the bellies of those beasts.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it looks more and more like Lonsberry just wanted to get that "Dances with Ethnics" merit badge and cookie, and he did. Kudos to him. I hope he enjoyed his cookie, and I hope he got his sewing badge so that he can affix his “I know brown people” pass to his lapel.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-0a462858-9e97-3e8f-0425-c5d2a1648360"><br /></span>Chris Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08065436060857109694noreply@blogger.com0