Revolutionary.

yarrahs-life: UGHHHHH his cool tho!!! faints Coolest dude...

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:03:18 -0400

yarrahs-life:

UGHHHHH his cool tho!!! *faints*

Coolest dude ever

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Wed, 01 May 2013 17:27:42 -0400

anarcho-queer: America Only Gets Outraged About Gun Violence In...

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:26:48 -0400

anarcho-queer:

America Only Gets Outraged About Gun Violence In White Neighborhoods

On 24 April in the town where I live, a wonderful town that I love, a woman was shot to death in front of her four-year-old son, Joshua. According to authorities, she was a college student.

A young woman, obviously invested in education, undoubtedly with dreams of a good life for herself and her child, struck down. It’s a sad story, a tragedy worthy of deep sorrow and serious reflection about gun violence and gun policy, especially when added to the fact that it was the fourth fatal shooting in my town in a week. Despite the obvious potential of such a story to poke at the hearts and minds of anyone who hears about it, most people won’t hear about it. It won’t get in the 24-hour news cycle. And it certainly will not spark a national debate about gun control. Why? Because the woman who was killed, Donitra Henderson, was a black woman and she died on a street corner in Oakland, a predominantly black and Latino town, in front of her black child.

Gun violence affects black and Latino people in poor, inner-city neighborhoods on a regular basis. As The Washington Post reported, black people are 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun crime, and yet our deaths by gun are much less likely to result in national conversations in which liberals and conservatives duke it out over the second amendment. We become statistics, just one more added to the number of gun deaths in the US in a particular year, and that’s all.

As I wrote in my recent blog post, “Hey, White liberals: A Word On the Boston Bombings, the Suffering of White children, and the Erosion of Empathy,” if you’re not white, your tragic death doesn’t feel quite as tragic to the American media or the collective American conscience, which are inextricably linked. It does not inspire the kind of national outrage and grief that white deaths, and especially middle-class and affluent white deaths, inspire.

There is a certain level of indifference in this country to the deaths of people of color. But there is also a double standard in the narrative around gun violence, depending on where it takes place and who is affected by it. When it happens to wealthy white folks in the suburbs, it’s a tragedy visited upon those who didn’t deserve it. When it happens to black and Latino people in a city, it’s our own fault.

Take, for example, President Obama’s speech in Chicago about gun violence where he talked about policy change, but also focused a lot on the structure of the black family, saying:

“There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families – which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood.”

Compare that to speeches he made following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a predominantly white area, where a gunman murdered 26 people, including 20 children. The president never connected the violence there with the structure of anybody’s family or with the failure of any white parents. Even though the shooter, Adam Lanza, was raised by a single mother. Instead, he promised the people of Newtown that lawmakers would stand beside them and create policy to protect them. Those are two very different messages.

One reason this double standard is so easy to apply is that the question of why gun violence happens so much in inner cities is brushed over or ignored. There are many factors: the effects of racism on individuals and communities, failed education systems, high unemployment, etc. These are rarely discussed in connection to gun violence on a national level.

Without that connection, and thus with no greater social ills to help explain it, it’s seen simply as the fault of the people who live in those places, as if they have some inherent defect in their families and their communities. And because it’s our fault and not, as in the case of violence against middle-class white people, a national tragedy, it does not warrant a national conversation.

This double standard leads to the further devaluing of black and Latino lives. It also contributes to the sporadic nature of the national gun control conversation itself. Because gun control is only talked about on a national level when multiple murders happen in affluent white places, it’s talked about a few times a year at most.

If the conversation were shifted to include the tragedies of people in the inner city, if our lives were valued enough by the American media and the collective US conscience to warrant that conversation, it would be an ongoing debate. Maybe then it would at least have a chance at leading to some actual change. Which would be great. Especially for those of us who are most often affected by it.

Can You Feel Your Heart As It Hits The Ground?: When something weighs so heavy on your heart and your mind you can't physically hide it.

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:35:10 -0400

Can You Feel Your Heart As It Hits The Ground?: When something weighs so heavy on your heart and your mind you can't physically hide it. :

sara-graclyn:

I don’t know what I was expecting, or why I thought I’d have a chance. I fought so hard to make it to this point in my life, I thought I deserved to happy. Not everyone is that lucky, no matter how good of a person you are, how much you love, and try to hang in there, some people aren’t meant for…

Been there…

hybridmindthoughts: Yale, Stanford, MIT, Cornell, and many...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:30:03 -0400

hybridmindthoughts:

Yale, Stanford, MIT, Cornell, and many other universities around the world have introduced free open courses in subjects like physics, biology, and chemistry. In many cases, there is a semester’s worth of recorded lectures, along with exams to test your knowledge. If you have ever wanted an Ivy League science education, here’s your chance!

Complete list here: http://bit.ly/10OPhfE

"Beginners get excited when they know the answer. Masters get excited when they don’t."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:52:27 -0400

“Beginners get excited when they know the answer. Masters get excited when they don’t.”

- Joel Marsh on Experience (via thehipperelement)

Here/Taste/This: Don't Disrespect Me! Black People and Displacement...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:14:19 -0500

Here/Taste/This: Don't Disrespect Me! Black People and Displacement...:

heretastethis:

We are lightning in a field of dry summer brush, exploding where we make contact and roaring outward in every direction in search of still more fuel. Our damaged life force becomes live wire, becomes fire, and the fire is insatiable. We are Black people. And we are terrified and paranoid about…

Ms. Lauryn Hill: It was reported yesterday that Ms. Lauryn Hill has been charged with...

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 02:32:00 -0400

Ms. Lauryn Hill: It was reported yesterday that Ms. Lauryn Hill has been charged with...:

mslaurynhill:

It was reported yesterday that Ms. Lauryn Hill has been charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to file taxes. These charges were incurred for the years of 2005-2007, during a time in which Ms. Hill had removed herself and her family from society, in order to keep them safe, healthy,…

"If you wish for light, be ready to receive light."

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:15:46 -0500

“If you wish for light,
be ready to receive light.”

- Rumi (via shaktilover)

Moscow Protesters Strike Again - This time, in a ring Earlier...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:13:09 -0500

Moscow Protesters Strike Again - This time, in a ring

Earlier today protesters in Moscow hit the streets in a flashmob, protesting for fair elections during the presidential vote next Sunday. The action is called the “White Ring” because protesters held hands to form a many kilometer line, down streets and across a bridge, in the snow. The some-11,000 protesters wore white ribbons, held white umbrellas or scarves, the symbol of the opposition in the protests these past months.

Organizers say this show not be considered a rally - that the White Ring sends a different message:

“This day we gather without banners, slogans and speeches. We will stand and keep silent, shoulder by shoulder, hand by hand,” the announcement reads. “We will create our common White Ring which we will conclude in the central Moscow, around the Kremlin.”

This is beautiful how so many people can come together for a cause

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Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:31:11 -0500

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Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:20:13 -0500

"Black People in America have a much greater inner power than they realize, but they must re-discover..."

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:09:23 -0500

“Black People in America have a much greater inner power than they realize, but they must re-discover themselves in order to use it.”

- Na’im Akbar (via cultureofresistance)

Culture Of Resistance: Richard Heinberg: Life after the end of economic growth

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:06:23 -0500

Culture Of Resistance: Richard Heinberg: Life after the end of economic growth:

cultureofresistance:

The tide of economic growth that has flowed since the second world war may finally be ebbing. For politicians and most economists, this is like saying the sky is falling. Growth has become guidepost and grail, the sine qua non of economic existence. Growth is necessary to job creation and the…

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:28:10 -0500

waheedpix:

Holiday

1950’s

©WaheedPhotoArchive, 2011

"The astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike,..."

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:00:16 -0500

“The astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themselves?”

- Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (via cultureofresistance)

struggleisthehusstle: Praying

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:57:45 -0500

struggleisthehusstle:

Praying

struggleisthehusstle: Praying

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:16:20 -0500

struggleisthehusstle:

Praying

Photography by Adam Basil

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:15:45 -0500

Photography by Adam Basil

Photo

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 12:01:01 -0500

Revolutionary.

yarrahs-life: UGHHHHH his cool tho!!! *faints* Coolest dude...

Photo

anarcho-queer: America Only Gets Outraged About Gun Violence In...

America Only Gets Outraged About Gun Violence In White Neighborhoods

Can You Feel Your Heart As It Hits The Ground?: When something weighs so heavy on your heart and your mind you can't physically hide it.

hybridmindthoughts: Yale, Stanford, MIT, Cornell, and many...

"Beginners get excited when they know the answer. Masters get excited when they don’t."

Here/Taste/This: Don't Disrespect Me! Black People and Displacement...

Ms. Lauryn Hill: It was reported yesterday that Ms. Lauryn Hill has been charged with...

"If you wish for light, be ready to receive light."

Moscow Protesters Strike Again - This time, in a ring Earlier...

Photo

Photo

"Black People in America have a much greater inner power than they realize, but they must re-discover..."

Culture Of Resistance: Richard Heinberg: Life after the end of economic growth

waheedpix: Holiday 1950’s ©WaheedPhotoArchive, 2011

"The astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike,..."

struggleisthehusstle: Praying

struggleisthehusstle: Praying

Photography by Adam Basil

Photo

yarrahs-life: UGHHHHH his cool tho!!! faints Coolest dude...