Blink. Think. Breathe.

Ruby Bridges was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis in 1960.

This movie made me cry, I was so heart broken by how Ruby Bridges was treated! She was only 6, but was so strong. She is a very brave girl and she did not care what the white folks called her.

People are simply disgusting to minimize people by skin color!

Ruby Bridges in 2010 

“As Bridges describes it, “Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.“ Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, “She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn’t whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we’re all very very proud of her.“ 

U.S. Marshals escorted Bridges to and from school

As soon as Bridges entered the school, white parents pulled their own children out; all the teachers refused to teach while a black child was enrolled. Only one person agreed to teach Ruby and that was Barbara Henry, from Boston, Massachusetts, and for over a year Henry taught her alone, “as if she were teaching a whole class.”

Every morning, as Bridges walked to school, one woman would threaten to poison her; because of this, the U.S. Marshals dispatched by President Eisenhower, who were overseeing her safety, allowed Ruby to eat only the food that she brought from home.

Another woman at the school put a black baby doll in a wooden coffin and protested with it outside the school, a sight that Bridges Hall has said “scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us.” At her mother’s suggestion, Bridges began to pray on the way to school, which she found provided protection from the comments yelled at her on the daily walks.”

More info on Ruby Bridges on Wikipedia

THIS SHIT WAS ONLY 58 YEARS AGO. PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS RACIST TERRORISM AND ACTS LIKE IT ARE STILL ALIVE, AND THEIR KIDS ARE IN THEIR 40′S AND 50′S. 

This is literally how she looks in 2017. 

When a man starts explaining a concept you already told him you understand, instead of saying “I know” over and over until you die, try one of these:

Ok, which aspect is confusing you?

It seems like you have the basics down; Would you like me to recommend some good articles so you can get a more nuanced understanding?

If you need to bring up a topic you think he’ll argue against, ask him if he knows what it is, nod along as he tells you, and then build on the argument he’s just made for you by laying the base. 

aka, I had a mansplaining coworker who used to trigger the shit out of my PTSD, so one day I asked him if he knew what “trigger” meant as a psychological term. He proceeded to explain my own panic attacks to me and ended up having a facial Oh Shit when I responded with “Yes, that’s exactly what happens to me when you do X, I’m glad you understand.”