a magpie collection

Happy mušḫuššu monday everybody

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Progressives on Tumblr: I have the gender.

Me: You’re sure? You have the third gender and it isn’t exclusivily for males?

Progressives on Tumblr: This is correct. I have a socially functional third gender that is completely different from masculinity and femininity and isn’t sex-exclusive. I do not have a fringe identity for male crossdressers.

Me: Excellent! Please show me the gender.

Progressives on Tumblr: Here you go! *Effeminate male in a patriarchal society*

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

You’re being selfish. you’re being shallow. Why are you so obsessed with genitalia? You’re telling me that all you’re interested in is sex? Have you considered a sexless relationship? You can always try and see how you feel. Just because you didn’t like it once doesn’t mean you will never like it. Let’s talk about why you’re so fixated on genitalia. What if you found you soulmate, but it turns out they’re the opposite sex, you would really just lose interest? Look how you’re hurting all these people - you’re saying you find them repulsive? How do you think that feels?

seriously, you’d think homosexuals in times and places where having homosexual sex could result in their death, would have worked that out centuries ago. it seems like quite a simple solution. and before you say “oh yeah but not as many trans people were out back then so they couldn’t just date a trans person” hmm i though trans people have always existed? obviously most wouldn’t have actually transitioned, and if they did than the relationship wouldn’t have helped as much with getting out of the danger of being in unconventional relationships, but if a lesbian who faced persecution or execution for being a homosexual could simply unlearn her genital preference and locate a man who has a “womanly spirit” or the “mind of a woman”, regardless of if he actually identified as trans, that should’ve done the trick right? because sexual attraction is based on internal identities right?

no one has had a good answer for me yet….

atheist accelerationism: the world needs to get as bad as possible as fast as possible in order to trigger a collapse of the current economic and socio-political structure