Look At My Junk!!

an 85 year old Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was tackled to the ground and murdered in SF

an assailant pushed down a 91 year old Asian man, followed by 2 other elderly men and women, in oakland

a 52 year old Asian-American woman was shot in the head with a flare gun 

there have been over 20 assaults and robberies in Oakland’s Chinatown targeted towards the elderly in the past 2 weeks

a 61 year old Filipino man’s face was slashed on the subway in nyc & no one assisted him

a Vietnamese community center burned down in oakland

this is not new – since the pandemic began, attacks on Asian-Americans have spiked:

an 89 year old Asian woman in brooklyn was set on fire in July

an Asian woman in brooklyn was doused in acid in April while she was taking out her trash

almost 3000 hate incidents against Asian-Americans were reported from march to the end of 2020 (keep in mind, most incidents are unreported)

this is what happens when white supremacists refer to the coronavirus as the “china virus” & “kung flu” and promote rhetoric that harms Asian communities. today is the start of lunar new year celebrations & attacks are expected to increase. as a response, local governments across the us have stationed increased police presence in chinatowns, but a white supremacist police system, which will not protect our elders and will also threaten Black lives and safety, is not the solution. most asians are unwilling to report hate incidents because we do not believe police will help, and last week, police shot and killed Christian Hall, a 19 year old Chinese-American, during a mental health crisis. we can’t accept tactics that uphold white supremacy. what we need is aid for our communities:

thread of donation links

sign up to accompany elderly Asians while they run errands, etc

gofundme for funds to distribute amongst Bay Area + elsewhere community organizations

gofundme for Vicha Ratanapakdee

gofundme for VACCEB (the community center)

keep up with Stop AAPI Hate

Like. I’m not surprised this is happening.

1. Request a mail-in ballot.

2. Do not mail it.

3. Google your supervisor of elections to see where you can drop off your mail-in ballot. It’s usually NOT THE POLLING PLACE.

All states allow this! Here is what you’re accomplishing by doing this:

1. Your ballot gets in on time no matter what happens to the USPS.

2. You don’t have to worry about standing in long lines and risking infection. You’re just stopping by to drop it off.

3. You voted! Hooray! I have no doubt Trump and his supporters are doing to try to call into question the legitimacy of mail-in voting (which is more enthusiastically embraced by Democratic supporters, especially now.)

Also, when you drop it off, find out how to track it online to make sure it is verified. California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado have systems that can track your ballot just like tracking a package from Amazon.

All CA vote centers (which are open for weeks to a month before election day) have ballot drop-off boxes too! Many government buildings have them as well, so there’s no need to wait until election day when it’s crowded to drop them off. The list of drop-off sites is always posted on each county’s voter info website.

All states allow this!

NOT all states allow this.

EDUCATE YOURSELF ON WHERE YOU CAN DROP ABSENTEE BALLOTS. SOME STATES MAY REQUIRE YOU TO MAIL THEM. If you don’t feel safe doing that, then mask up and take advantage of extended voting periods and cast your ballot before the actual election.

Also, not all states are allowing voters to vote absentee excuse-free. Many require voters to have a “valid excuse” for absentee voting, and some are quite strict on who qualifies (and Oklahoma requires absentee ballot affidavits to be notarized AND limits the number of affidavits a given notary public can notarize to TWENTY without “special authorization.”)

LGBTQ+ Pride in New York City, 1994

if you want to save the USPS i am BEGGING you call your representatives directly to DEMAND they co-sponsor and vote for:

1. the Delivering for America Act (call HOUSE reps). This attempts to reverse the bullshit Trump is doing.

2. USPS Fairness Act (call SENATORS). This is a MAJOR repeal of the bullshit the Bush admin and the Republicans did in 2006 that fucked over the USPS in the first place.

3. HEROES Act (call SENATORS). This is the coronavirus omnibus that includes IMMEDIATE USPS relief. Make it clear you want the USPS portion to be included.

These pictures are what happened in poland following the arrest of Margot from anarcho queer collective @stopbzdurom (on ig) translated to “stop bullshit” for fighting homophobic and pro life propaganda in Poland.

For context: After the Re-Election of Andrzej Duda, from the conservative, corrupt, nationalist party PiS, who made his whole campaign about fighting LGBT “ideology” and dehumanising lgbt people in poland, things have quickly become worse than ever for us here. Its not unusual to see trucks with anti lgbt and pro life propaganda on them, calling gay people p*dophiles who want to adopt children to r*pe them. Me and my girlfriend stumbled into an anti gay protest like that in Kraków a month ago, one of polands most progressive cities. The protest was backed and protected by a police car and the protestors were holding a banner calling LGBT people pedophiles. Margots organisation was fighting these state backed initiatives by destroying public propaganda, organising lgbt dance events in places of white nationalist rallies and organising anti homophobic protests.

After Margots organisation destroyed pro life propaganda in Warsaw a few months back, she got arrested for the first time, taken from her house by undercover police men into an unregistered police car, without shoes or clothes. Nobody knew where she was for a few days and there was no information about her. She got found through a big social media action.

You may have seen the pictures of religious and significant statues in warsaw being clad with pride flags on social media, this was margots initiative. This is why she has been arrested again.

Margot is facing 2 months arrest in a polish men’s prison, which could mean death and hard physical abuse to her. All of that for hanging gay pride flags in public places. This is a textbook political arrest. Lawyers and politicians from leftist parties have been trying to help her, but the police wont let them reach her. The polish prime minister is on twitter saying she deserves this for “the profanation of national and religious symbols”.

Please spread this throughout social media and dont let it go unheard. Public outrage is the only way we can free her and fight polish governments political repression of anyone disagreeing with the current regime and real time descent into a dictatorship. Public outrage and bad press for poland is the only thing the government is afraid of.

If youre in Poland, join todays protest in Warsaw (plac Defilad) at 18:30 in solidarity with Margot.

follow and support her collectives page on instagram @stopbzdurom and follow @grupastonewall for updates on her situation and protests.

We’re OK with letting them have this BAR though:

Don’t talk to bigots. Don’t ‘debate’ bigots. Don’t let them talk you into ‘having a civil conversation.’