♐babbaloo♐

Both of those examples are not racism nor sexism, because both of those depend on power + prejudice. While women can be prejudiced against men and POC prejudiced against whites, that doesn’t magically make those things as bad as sexism and racism. People who are sexist and people who are racist do not deserve respect; women and POC who are “prejudiced” because they have been treated like shit deserve respect and to be listened to, since they get talked over by whiny people who cry “treat others like you want to be treated!” but never actually hold up their end of the bargain. Instead, you use this to justify institutionalizing your prejudices and to gloss over the problems that created this response.

starbucks (@starbucks) logo traces roots back to Africa.

Info via citizins (@citizins) 

When you see that Starbucks logo, you probably think the same thing as me: “There’s that ‘smiling mermaid’ logo, there must be some good, but overpriced, coffee nearby”. Well what isn’t known to the world is that this is a picture of Yemaya, also know through out West Africa and the Caribbean as Yemoja,Yemowo, Mami Wata, Janaína, LaSiren (in Vodou) is an Orisha – said to be a Goddess of the traditional Yoruba religion that was brought by the enslaved Africans of what is now Nigeria to the west. She is the patron of women, in particular, pregnant women. When slaves were transported across the ocean, it was said to be Yemaya who protected them on their journey and kept them safe. She is kind and giving. She takes a long time to anger but when she does, watch out, you have a hurricane on your hands. She is said to be the “mother whose children number as the fish in the sea” and that is why she is presented as a two-tailed mermaid.Yemaya is said to bring forth and protect life through all the highs and lows, even during the worst atrocities that can be suffered. She reminds women to take time out for themselves, to nurture their own needs and to respect their deserved position in life.

You might not care now, but when you want to get some and cannot you’d care.

And sure, it should not be free or whatever, but that doesn’t mean ban. 

He went down to Oxford Town Guns and clubs followed him down All because his face was brown Better get away from Oxford Town

Surya Bonaly

The main thing to understand about Surya Bonaly’s career as a skater is that figure skating is racist as fuck and she never fit the image of a skater, to judges or to commentators. Race and colorism were a huge fucking factor in how she was evaluated and discussed—she’s French, born in Nice, but her (white) adoptive parents lied and said she was born off Madagascar and abandoned by her birth parents to make her seem more ~exotic~, to give you an idea.

Commentators were especially horrid to her and loved to praise her for her “athletic” style but would always criticize her for not being ~artistic~ enough and she always got dinged on artistic presentation. She would always do well in the short program on technical marks and then the long program would be her achilles heel because of how heavily artistic presentation was weighted. (For the younger among you, this is pre-SLC so this is when the old judging system was still being used.) 

More proof of how fucked skating is: Surya is also the only woman to my knowledge to ever land a quad toe loop in competition or even attempt one and to this day they don’t want to credit her with actually landing it, because all four rotations were not completed in air. Granted, there is a fair case to be made that it was only a triple, but don’t doubt that race played a role in that. They hated on this woman from the minute she got on the ice.

A. Not everyone uses condoms right now, especially people who don’t have penises

B. Some people without penises really need to use condoms 

For some education on why you should use condoms, even if you don’t have a penis or don’t use a penis in sex:

The rate of HPV that’s spreading and how easily it’s spread is scary, and can lead to full-blown cancer. Someone in my family had pre-cancerous cells found in them and they still have to get regular check-ups to be screened for cancer in their cervix. There are also a ton of other STI’s that can be had from fluid contact (vagina to vagina included, or even from fingers, tongues, etc.) and shared toy use.

Also, a lot of common toys, especially dildos, are made from materials that can’t be sanitized effectively, so not only does that increase a risk of passing along STIs, but it also can lead to bacterial infections from the toys never being able to be truly cleaned, or other nasty reactions from non-medical-grade PVC or other materials that your body doesn’t like.

Dear lord, I have to explain a Simpsons episode that came on almost 20 years ago in reference to this picture.

The episode, Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy, was inspired by real world events, namely a talking Barbie who ended up saying a bunch of vapid, cliched teen talk. A group of anti-consumerists calling themselves the Barbie Liberation Group took some of these dolls and switched out the circuitry that made them talk with those of talking G.I. Joes at the time. 

Lisa bought a talking Malibu Stacy doll (the equivalent of a Barbie doll in the Simpsonsverse)  expecting it to say something as iconic as someone of her pop cultural stature should say. Instead, 

Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl. [giggles]

The situation has infuriated Lisa, who confronted the makers of Malibu Stacy. They treated her condescendingly and let her go her way. After doing some research, Lisa enlists the help of Wayland Smithers (the owner of the world’s largest Malibu Stacy collection), who gives her the address of the original creator of Malibu Stacy, who is inspired and decided to help her rectify the sexist Talking Malibu Stacy with a more positive, empowering doll. Once the creators of the original Malibu Stacy hears about the new Lisa Lionheart doll, they come up with a plan to counter its potential popularity. 

On the day Lisa Lionheart is revealed, a new shipment of Malibu Stacy dolls is unpacked.

She now has a new hat.

That’s all. It’s still the same status quo, but folks are acting like they’re doing something dramatically different, which they aren’t. It’s just the old doll with a new hat, and the fans eat it up, and Lisa is left disappointed that despite confronting those in power about the problems she had with Malibu Stacy, they remained doing the same old tired stuff without changing a thing.

Except the hat. That’s new.  

Like I said, Cartoon Network recently got put on blast by one of the most prolific producers of action entertainment, who suggested that the reason high-rated shows like Young Justice, Green Lantern, and similar shows (definitely including ThunderCats and Sym-Bionic Titan in this discussion) got the boot is because they attracted more females than males, and the network felt that girls weren’t the target for merchandisers. The whole thing seems screwy and wrong, but not surprising, especially considering they gave the whole “merchandise wasn’t selling” excuse to shows that had no merchandise like Green Lantern: TAS (counting the leftover movie merchandise is not actually merchandise for the better-received show) and Sym-Bionic Titan, a show that just screamed mecha sets. 

And yet, I’m very cynical when, out of the blue and almost a year after its initial announcement,Cartoon Network is planning to finally announce the premiere of a new Powerpuff Girls special (the first made without series creator Craig MacCracken at the helm) less than 24 hours after the Dini interview got traction throughout the internet. 

What Cartoon Network is doing is essentially giving the audience a Malibu Stacy with a NEW hat. Nothing changed. Just something to quiet the masses who are easily distracted who are still huge fans of the original PPG series and will tell you to shut up about the misogyny that suddenly isn’t there. 

Underwater Photography by Kurt Arrigo

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Photographer Parker Fitzgerald (on Tumblr) and floral designer Riley Messina in the artistic collaboration: Overgrowth.