millennial: oh that’s ok no worries :)

 baby boomer:

We are short staffed almost 97% of the time at my retail job. Because corporate has figured out you can overwork 4 people at minimum wage instead of paying for the 8 people you should probably have to be on the clock.  

Baby boomers grew up with stores that were adequately staffed, with workers who most likely had weeks of training for their jobs as opposed to the 1-2 shadow shift training we get now. Also those workers most likely were able to be full time if they wanted. Now retail, except for management positions, is mostly made up of part time workers, because you don’t have to give them benefits. So you have a workforce of perpetually underpaid, overwhelmed, undertrained people trying to do their best all while dealing with an entire generation of people who refuse to acknowledge that the system has changed and the average retail worker has NO control over that change and is being taken advantage of.

Fat activism started as a legitimately radical offshoot of queer and feminist activism and not as a modeling campaign.

FAT activism is NOT body posi. It is not a way to make individual people feel slightly better about their oppression while not challenging it at all.

Body posi is what happens when capitalism co-opts a radical movement, specifically radical fat activism. 

I do not and never will care about body posi because body posi only cares about making the world safe for medium sized women, while pushing out the FAT people who did the work in the first place.

Fat activism is a systemic critique of the ways that fat people are discriminated against and harmed by systems of fatphobic oppression.

Within that critique, diet culture is the name of the system of oppression against us.

Within this system, a decision to engage in dieting is framed as an individual choice, when the ability to make free choices within the system is largely an illusion. 

You may think you are “choosing” dieting, but when the punishment for not choosing it is so great, are you really making a free and non-coerced choice? Clearly the answer is no.

But within a system of punishment and coercion, you may not be completely free to make a choice, but you can decide to stop making fucking blog posts about how much you love the coercion. B/c at that point- you have become another cog in the punish & coerce machine.

There are frequently people involved in plus size blogging who decide to not only lose weight, but to take a sponsorship from a weight loss company and then they get upset when people are unhappy with that. 

B/c plus size blogging has decided to no longer be a political community and that is a shame b/c it used to be. 

And it’s a double shame b/c that’s how people get into being FA adjacent from looking for clothes, and now they’re just getting some weak sauce co-opted body posi instead of real liberation politics.

Right now you might be asking “What happens when four straight men are having lunch together?”

Well what do you think?

They ask for a table for six. I shit you not.

I was airing my humorous grievance to our daytime bartender who only nodded and said. “They order wine and ask me to bring it in a pilsner glass.”

The cocktail server corroborated this saying some straight men will demand he show them the glass a drink comes in to make sure it’s suitably “masculine” looking before they order it.

And the dishwashers hate this because it makes their jobs much more complicated. It’s really not fun to have to drop what you’re doing to scrub dried red wine out of the bottom of a narrow pilsner glass. Especially when they have literally THOUSANDS of other dishes you have to do in a short amount of time.

Straight men ask for special accomodations for their straightness all the time.

That being said, Disabled folks, chronically ill folks, folks with severe allergies and other special needs:

NEVER feel ashamed to request the accomodations you require to enjoy your time at a restaurant. Hand to God we are happy to do it for you- a person who actually needs it.

In a Heartbeat - Animated Short Film (2017)

A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.

© Beth David and Esteban Bravo 2017

It’s here! After a year and a half of hard work, we are both so excited to finally share our film with you. Thank you all for your support and encouragement - this film means the world to us, and your kindness and enthusiasm has made this journey all the more meaningful. It is our great pleasure to share with you this labor of love, and we hope with all our hearts that you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.

<3

Feed the Protest (Alimenta la Protesta) helps get food and water to the protestors

Donate medical supplies for the med students from Universidad Central de Venezuela who are helping treat victims | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Santuario Luna - Organization dedicating to helping and saving stray animals caught in the midst of the violence. I could only find the website in Spanish, but you can find the donate button at the bottom of the page

If you have sewing skills, you can make and send vests designed to protect against high-impact blows for the protestors with this pattern here. Again, it´s in Spanish but there´s very helpful images

Comparte por una vida (Sharing for Life) feeds malnourished Venezuelan children victims of food scarcity and extreme inflation that causes what little food there is to be basically unattainable (instagram)

Sun.Risas is a nonprofit that helps children around the world and has a Venezuelan effort. Donate | Most needed supplies | Instagram