thisishangingrockcomics:

This is why I think wearing bindi if you’re not a part of the culture is a form of cultural appropriation:

  • If it’s in the context of a form of cultural exchange (i.e. an Indian, Hindu, or person of any other race, religion, culture, or ethnicity which wears bindi) than that person is giving you the privilege of allowing you to wear it. But if you take it upon yourself to put it on you’re taking something of culture significance to someone, to an entire culture/ethnicity/religon/race of people, and bastardizing it for the sake of fashion.
  • There are a lot of Hindu and Indian women who aren’t offended by it, but I don’t think it’s fair to justify cultural appropriation by pointing to the people who aren’t offended- what are you going to say to the many people who are offended?
  • To the people who want to make the argument that they hold little cultural significance anymore: that is because white people stepped in and decided they were a fashion statement therefore robbing bindi of their cultural significance. 
  • And- maybe this is just me- but the whole “it’s not cultural appropriation because I know the ~significance~” thing strikes me as bullshit. To me it sounds like: “bindi are so pretty and cool and trendy I want to wear them but to avoid being called racist I’ll read the Wikipedia page about their significance and only listen to people who tell me they’re not offensive oh see now your argument is invalid and you cant touch me because I know the ~meaning behind them.~” See, I think that’s convoluted thinking because your intention there is wearing them as a fashion statement- so you learn about them to justify wearing them because they’re pretty, instead of say, learning about the culture, what bindis mean, then taking an interest in wearing them (on that note: having interest in a culture and their practices doesn’t give you permission to step in and steal something of importance to said culture.)

That’s all I really have to say about the issue. I’m not and won’t to claim to be incredibly well educated regarding the subject and obviously I can’t lend much perspective because I am white, but when people of the culture you’re taking something from say that what you’re doing is offensive and wrong? I think you should listen to them.

Here are some posts regarding the issue from PoC’s perspective that I think you should read if you’re interested:

http://bonjoursex.tumblr.com/post/12983003733/darkjez-ask-you-say-cultural-appropriation

http://earth2snowflake.tumblr.com/post/23068174279/underwhelmingly-white-girls-who-want-my

http://insanepoet9.tumblr.com/post/23024257231

http://2girls1truthblog.tumblr.com/post/23648121418/free-lies-daughterofhungryghosts-so-today-we

http://earth2snowflake.tumblr.com/post/23104872838/evomit-studies-and-is-very-interested-in-the-culture

That last bulleted point for ALL the cultural appropriation and just about everyone who defends it with that argument and the mentality behind it.

(via rectal)

Source: thisishangingrockcomics

Anonymous asked: So it appears that there are a lot of WoC that were pretty put off about your tweet comparing the victim blaming of Trayvon Martin to the victim blaming of rape victims. I must admit that I am pretty nervous to confront a prominent feminist that I look up to greatly, but I will also have to admit that the comparison somewhat disappointed me. I don’t disagree with you entirely - there are definitely parallels, but white feminists comparing their struggles to PoCs has always seemed inappropriate.

unholy-coffee-erection:

jessicavalenti:

I’m unsure why you believe that victim-blaming in sexual assault is a “white” feminist issue - women who aren’t white, cis, straight are disportionately victim-blamed, but that’s a point for another conversation.

By tweeting that discussing Trayvon Martin’s possible marijuana use was as relevant as discussing whether a rape victim ever had a beer, I wasn’t conflating rape with Martin’s murder - I was making an analogy about victim-blaming. It’s a similar analogy that was made by many, many others re: blaming Trayvon for wearing a hoodie. 

The point of the tweet was to point out the shamelessness with which the media is attempting to blame Trayvon Martin. Creating an analogy to make that point doesn’t shift focus away from Martin, or “compare struggles” - it highlights the ridiculousness and unjustness of the situation. I hope that clarifies the tweet a bit for you. Thanks for taking the time to ask. 

… anyone wanna tackle this? or not. no obligation. but… hoo boy.

I’m not even tackling this myself:

“Rape and misogyny are rape and misogyny, and lynching and racism are lynching and racism. Not the same thing. So please don’t attempt to turn a conversation about racism into a conversation about patriarchy.”

“I recognize that you’re critiquing the media discourse, but you’ve unintentionally, perhaps-turned something about race into something about patriarchy, and I’m afraid doing this reinforces the disappearance of racial problems in mainstream feminism.” @thomcourtney

Valenti should really just pay attention to the conversations she’s having on twitter and read the full message before jumping to defend herself.

(via poison--paradigm)

Source: jessicavalenti

Trigger Warning: Eating Disorder

adentrodemisojos:

ladyatheist:

myrrhactivism:

camirebolledok:

ladyatheist:

[Anonymous asked you: I’m in recovery from an eating disorder. A big part of my ED was going vegan. I noticed how much I lost, and it became an addiction. If I go vegan again, I WILL backslide into my ED, considering it already happened once. I’m sorry, but my life is more important to me.]

Veganism has helped many people with EDs too. I hope the person gets better though. Once it’s gone, veganism shouldn’t be a problem.

Hello, vegan person with ED here. Being vegan certainly made it easier to starve myself, but the two were not related.

I’ve been vegan for 5 years and mostly recovered from my ED for 4. You can be vegan and recover from your disorder. And you must, for the sake of the animals that die to become your food. It’s ok to need help but it’s not ok to use your ED as an excuse.

Please please read this. I know I should not engage in discussion in the english side of tumblr but I  HAVE to do it now. I feel obliged to inform people that says that people HAVE to go vegan of a few things.

I live in a country in which soy is the top exported good.  many multinational companies use my country’s land to plant soy. Soy is used for many things, and among them it is used to replace meat and produce a drink that replaces milk and many other foods that are very frequent in vegan diets. Now, while it must seem like a good thing to not kill animals and eat soy-based products as a source of protein I can’t even begin to explain how nocive and criminal the soy producing companies around the world are. I can tell you that in my country even cattle farming is done in a more enviromental-friendly way than soy production even as it sounds crazy. (And it is, because the system used for cattle breding, called something along the lines of extensive husbandry or extensive farming  is vastly different of the intensive model  used in the  USA, you can look it up  because I doubt I have the language to explain it well.)

Soy Companies are destroying vast lands of forest and jungles  to plant soy as much as they can, until the soil is left  virtually void of minerals and  useless, so they go  plant somewhere else. And they plan to keep that up until there is no more fertile soil in my land. And they CAN do that, because soy is such a great bussines that they become richer and richer and richer everytime.  The jungles and forest I mentioned that are destroyed are the homes of animals and people that loose their homes and their food  sources.  Many  animals DIE  becuase of soy production, and so does many people.   Casually, the people who suffers more are rural workers, many of whom live in really miserable conditions and many of whom are native american.  Also, those jungles and forest are  full of many endangered animal and vegetal species that are lost forever. This is happening in the Chaco and the  Amazonas. 

This happens because these companies bribe, coerce and intimidate senators and government figures to be allowed to do that to the land and our people. They  associate with and support finnancially the most opressive political parties in our country.  They have their workers in really horrible conditions and they show criminal behavior to the worker unions. 

Also,  there are a few companies, like the most important soy companies in the world, that do many other terrible things. They  have copyrighted seeds so when farmers want to plant soy they have to buy only to them and pay rights to the company for their production. They sue farmers for using their seeds  without paying rights… wich means that whoever you buy soy from you are ultimately  benefiting THAT huge company anyway. I won’t type the name because it’s like Voldemort.  You can see a bit  of that in Deborak Koons García documentary, the future of food.  There are other movies and sources of information but sadly the most that I know of are in spanish.


Please think that taking care of the environment is a lot more than protecting a part of it, the furry, big eyed part of the environment that has the ability  to stare acussingly at you. It’s a lot more than caring for the animals because we can tell that they can feel pain ( and if so, does that mean that  we should kill beings unguiltily because they don’t feel pain?), or becuase they’re cute, or because we like them and feel empathy for them. Taking care of the environment is taking care of how much impact  every action humans have on it. Forcefully, because we exist, we will have effects on the environment. We will serve from it, but thepoint is doing so with respect.  You can eat a cow, but if you eat the cow make sure that nothing is wasted.  Make sure of not wasting anything because an animal died. Eat that with respect, knowing where it came from. Use every part of the cow.  The same way your intestinal bacteria feeds from you now and will eat you when you die, we feed from nature and nature feeds from us.  You can decide not to wear leather, but will you buy plastic instead? You can decide not to eat meat, but will you buy soy instead? 

Please think again. Look at the bigger picture to know if you ARE taking care of nature or not. 

And if you decide to eat soy products don’t be offended if I paraphrase you, and tell you MUST, for the sake of the world, the endangered species, the fertility of the soil of my land, the welfare of MY PEOPLE, my people’s ability to fight for their rights without the interference of  multinational companies, the lives of my native american brothers and sisters, my country’s working class, our trees, our flora, our fauna, our soil, our culture, our lives, and the safety of future generations  eliminate soy as a part of your diet.  It’s NOT ok to use your simpathy for animals as an excuse for contributing to what is done to the environment  while feeling wholesome about it. 


I really am telling you this guys to she dlight about what happens here everyday. Of course it’s not your fault if you don’t know this things  but please please listen. 

Look at that sexy bolded font in the latest commentary.

(via ladyatheist)

Source: ladyatheist

pompadoursandpincurls:

British accent diverged from American accent, not vise versa.

Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. That’s not too surprising.

What’s surprising, though, is that those accents were much closer to today’s American accents than to today’s British accents. While both have changed over time, it’s actually British accents that have changed much more drastically since then.

First, let’s be clear: the terms “British accent” and “American accent” are oversimplifications; there were, and still are, innumerable constantly-evolving regional British and American accents. What most Americans think of as “the British accent” is the standardized Received Pronunciation, also known as “BBC English.”

While there are many differences between today’s British accents and today’s American accents, perhaps the most noticeable difference is rhotacism. While most American accents are rhotic, the standard British accent is non-rhotic. (Rhotic speakers pronounce the ‘R’ sound in the word “hard.” Non-rhotic speakers do not.)

So, what happened?

In 1776, both American accents and British accents were largely rhotic. It was around this time that non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper class. This “prestige” non-rhotic speech was standardized, and has been spreading in Britain ever since.

Most American accents, however, remained rhotic.

There are a few fascinating exceptions: New York and Boston accents became non-rhotic. Irish and Scottish accents are still rhotic.

If you’d like to learn more, this passage in The Cambridge History of the English Language is a good place to start.

Cambridge History of the English Language

WHAT. WHAT. I CAN’T EVEN. WHAT.

(via cage-veil-cunt)

Source: kellyegan

fuckyeahmexico: fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory: Two Tarahumara (or Rarámuri) men from the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, photographed by the Norwegian explorer Carl S. Lumholtz in 1892. Dos Tarahumaras (o Raramuris) de Chihuahua. Fotografia del explorador Noruego  Carl S. Lumholtz en 1892.
View Separately

fuckyeahmexico:

fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory:

Two Tarahumara (or Rarámuri) men from the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, photographed by the Norwegian explorer Carl S. Lumholtz in 1892.

Dos Tarahumaras (o Raramuris) de Chihuahua. Fotografia del explorador Noruego  Carl S. Lumholtz en 1892.

Source: Wikipedia

fuckyeahmexico: mensesss-s: The truly remarkable thing about them is an ancient religion which has bred into them a moral code so strict that they are unable to tell a lie. Psychologists suggest that over the centuries this value system has actually caused physiological changes in their brain that preclude speaking anything but the truth. Nor can they cheat or fail to aid a fellow tribesman. Los Raramuris siguen una religión antigua, un código moral tan estricto que no son capaces de decir una mentira.Los psicólogos sugieren que a lo largo de los siglos, este sistema de valores realmente ha causado cambios fisiológicos en el cerebro que impiden hablar nada más que la verdad. Tampoco pueden engañar o no ayudar a un semejante de la tribu.
Pop-upView Separately

fuckyeahmexico:

mensesss-s:

The truly remarkable thing about them is an ancient religion which has bred into them a moral code so strict that they are unable to tell a lie.

Psychologists suggest that over the centuries this value system has actually caused physiological changes in their brain that preclude speaking anything but the truth. Nor can they cheat or fail to aid a fellow tribesman.

Los Raramuris siguen una religión antigua, un código moral tan estricto que no son capaces de decir una mentira.

Los psicólogos sugieren que a lo largo de los siglos, este sistema de valores realmente ha causado cambios fisiológicos en el cerebro que impiden hablar nada más que la verdad. Tampoco pueden engañar o no ayudar a un semejante de la tribu.

Source: mensesss

The first fucking no means no. For fuck’s sake, brotips. See brotip #993
Pop-upView Separately

The first fucking no means no. For fuck’s sake, brotips.

See brotip #993

Source: brotips

I want to live.

deliciouskaek:

See, this has nothing to do with you, white folks. You, as an individual, may not have done anything to me, another individual.

But I can almost guarantee that something you have said, something you have done, something you have worn, something you have repeated, something you have sung, something you have been a party to has been at the expense of a person of color.

And now I’m going in. Today is the fucking day.

I won’t speak for all of us. I am not all of us. But damn it, I am tired of it. I am tired of biting my tongue for fear of who I may offend. If I’m offending you, you are most likely the person who needs to read what the fuck I’ve been saying. 

For the most part, PoC who are talking about racism are not talking about it for SJ points. FUCK SOCIAL JUSTICE, for real. Fuck all that shit, because it’s really nice to sit behind your computer and speculate on how the experience of racism must be, but this is my fucking life.

THIS IS MY LIFE. THIS IS ALL OF OUR LIVES.

And I want to live.

And — and here I will speak for folks — we are tired of playing. We are tired of you playing your SJ games with our lives. This shit cannot continue. People are dying.

PEOPLE ARE DYING.

And I want to live.

I’m sure George Zimmerman or whatever the fuck his name is didn’t think he was a racist either. He probably never expected to be confronted with a decision as to whether a young Black boy walking down the street was dangerous or not. He probably never thought about because he already thought about it. The decision was already made. He decided that stereotypes were more important than facts, and it cost that boy his life. he decided that academia was more important than the lived experience of the folks he studied (likely for no reason than it was a requirement), and it cost Trayvon his life. He decided that a young man with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea in his pocket was a danger to him and his community based on nothing but the idea that he somehow didn’t belong, that somehow, Trayvon’s very presence anywhere near that gated white community was wrong.

And Trayvon Martin is dead.

And I want to live.

And this shit happens all the time. Not once in a while, not here and there, but all the fucking time. And damn it, this shit needs to stop.

So I’m reversing this shit today, white folks, spilling the tea all over your shit. Stop telling us to stop being ignorant, when it is your ignorance and your enforcement of that ignorance that is killing us. Stop telling us to try harder when it is your policies and enforcement of those policies that is stopping us in our tracks. Stop it. 

Stop it.

Stop pointing at the few of us who have achieved your lily-white dream and asking why we aren’t more like them when it is the society you have built that keeps us from being like them — assuming we even want to be like them.

Stop assuming that what we want is anything like what you want. You want success? You want to get by on a day job? You want clean streets and picket fences? Fuck you. I WANT TO LIVE. I  want to know that my son isn’t going to end up dead on the side of the road because some overzealous asshole with a gun decides he’s not good enough to walk down that road.

You want to be treated as an individual, and not lumped in with the rest of them? Fuck you. I WANT TO LIVE. I want to know that I’m going to be able to not have to look over my shoulder in your neighborhoods. Fuck, even in mine, as your desire to experience urban life destroys my community. I want to be sure that there isn’t a Zimmerman in a car next to me at a stop light with his hand on a weapon as I cross the street. I want to be sure that the Zimmermans who have already acted on their “not-racist” ideas are going to be held accountable, because every time they’re not, that’s another day, another instance where I have to look over my shoulder, where I have to fear for my life.

You want to be recognized for your non-discriminatory behavior? For trying to help? Fuck you. I WANT TO LIVE. I want you to recognize me as a person, not a fucking project. I don’t want to be seen as a part of something you need to fix, to save, to rescue. I don’t want to be lifted onto a pedestal, I want the tools to build the ladder my damn self. I want the shitty policies and laws and injunctions be lifted so that I and people who look like me can exist beside you, or not. I want you to stop fucking up my world so I can live in it the same as you do. I want you to stop fucking up my life, so that I can either get by or fuck up on my terms. I don’t want your terms, your way. Not anymore.

Fuck. 

I just want to live.

This.

(via sinidentidades)

Source: deliciouskaek