BRAND X

—

Richard Cross, Senior Special ICE agent. Via Foreign Policy

Wells Genesis

Rawleigh 

Whimslee

Falls

Pastel

Anessa

Zeppelin Ziggy Knight

Cattabrie

Aspynn

Cambriss

Guinevere Elowen

Callista Jolene

Kreed

Osiris

Noniveig

Kanon Bear

Mnemosyne

Obsidian

Pantera

Selleck

Poetry

Vasilisa

Edelweiss

Bohannon

Valencia Soleil

Miliea

Tolightacandle

and, lastly,

- Space Cowboy .19′

You’re at a house party off-campus—perhaps you’re coming out of the bathroom after finally breaking the seal or you’re walking out of the kitchen, drink in hand—and you notice a black woman who looks much more wasted than you do, being led into a bedroom by a relatively sober guy. Being the good feminist you are, you register that the situation looks suspect. What do you do?

According to a new study, white women aren’t likely to intervene and help. The study, published in The Psychology Of Women Quarterly, posed a similar scenario to 160 white female undergraduates. The students were randomly assigned whether the intoxicated woman in the story had a “distinctively black name"—LaToya—or an ambiguous name—Laura, as a control.

When asked to report on their intent to intervene and how they viewed the situation and the potential victim, the white undergrads said they would be less likely to help when they perceived the woman who was at risk of being sexually assaulted was black, because they felt “less personal responsibility.” Secondarily, they also “perceived that [the black victim] experienced more pleasure in the pre-assault situation” at a slightly higher rate than the control group. (The control group given the scenario with the non-racialized name uniformly perceived the victim to be white.)

“We found that although white students correctly perceived that black women were at risk in a pre-assault situation, they tended not to feel as personally involved in the situation,” the researchers at SUNY Geneseo, Jennifer Katz and Christine Merrilees, said in an interview with PsyPost. In other words, “despite their shared status as women, white female bystanders in the current study may have felt that a Black woman’s plight was not as personally relevant because race has a more powerful effect than gender on intent to intervene and feelings of responsibility to intervene,” they write in the study.

Previous research has found that white people, in general, are less likely to help black victims. A 2008 study on racial bias in helping behavior troublingly found that “as [a situation’s] level of emergency increased, the speed and quality of help white participants offered to black victims relative to white victims decreased.” When the victim was black, the white participants also viewed the situation as less severe.

I really feel you on this. Finding a good doctor is hard, let alone a good therapist. It’s so hard for people to not bring their own personal bias into their work, and by hard i mean, impossible. Finding the person who’s going to be willing to learn and really listen is hard, but it’s worth it. Those kinds of people are the kind we need more of in the world for it to be a better place.

I’m sorry that you haven’t found a good therapist. I really hope you do. If any followers know resources for finding good therapists in various regions, please comment.

I found this quote that says:

it is when I stopped searching for home within others

and lifted the foundations of my home within myself

i found that there were no roots more intimate

than those between mind and body

that has decided to be whole

~ Rupi Kaur

I think I have finally recovered from my situation dealing with both my older sisters. The grief of losing my sisterly relationship with them has subsided. We don’t talk like we use to… in the sense of how much we talk and how we talk to each other and even though I miss that deeply…I had to let it go.

So I thought to myself “What now?”

I was taking medication for nine months to help cope with anxiety and waves of depression. I was doing well as far as not having panic attacks or worrying too much about things I couldn’t control. I even went to visit my birth mother by myself and felt emotionally safe enough to do that. She was very comforting and I felt like I just really needed to hear her voice.

I have been dealing deeply with myself since May. Self care has not really been a priority for me. I have been living off of basically cereal and cool blue gatorade…ripping and running back and forth to work and trying to make time..literally for my boyfriend( I don’t really like using the word boyfriend).

Right now the home within myself is junked up with depressive stuff. I can barely make it to work on time because I don’t want to leave my bed. Sometimes I start crying for no apparent reasons. I find myself coming up with excuses not to hang with friends or with my boyfriend because I just don’t want to. I am “on break” with my therapist which is mandatory. I stopped taking my meds because I felt like I was becoming emotionally numb. I felt like I was externally expressing my emotions in situations that called for emotions. A few days ago I had a bad panic attack at work and I think I have to start the meds again. I stopped taking them because I thought I was ok. Maybe not.

But here is the game changer:

I know I am about to root down and find my home. When a seed takes root it has to break open. That breaking is what I am experiencing right now and it is painful. There is uncertainty of what this is going to look like but friends I deserve to be the flower for once in my life. Does anyone watch A Million Little Things? Maggie told Rome who is dealing with depression that he gets to be the flower.

I am grateful to have a community of people and you all who love and support me. It will get better friends.

Peace & Love