Melanin Infused Produce 🍒

The tweet is by verified user mitskileaks, display name mitski, and reads: “I used to rebel by destroying myself, but realized that’s awfully convenient to the world. for some of us our best revolt is self-preservation”.

The first quote reads: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” Below this is text attributing the quote to Audre Lorde. The text is in all caps, and at the side is a picture of Audre Lorde speaking.

The second quote reads: “I did the being edgy and self-deprecating thing, it gets old. I wanna be soft and easily impressed. I wanna appreciate all the little things that make me happy the same way I’ve dwelled on every single thing that upsets me.” The text is in all caps, and displayed on a poster on the side of a wall.

behind the music with @taylorswift

Pygmalion / Galatea

~ A Trans Retelling ~

It’s a breezy summer day and the rustling from the leaves outside sound like whispers from my small apartment. I’m sitting in front of my laptop, silently studying the 1.6 billion faces speaking simultaneously in front of me. It’s Monday, the day of the weekly conference call between all Muslims. We have been required to attend this Skype meeting from the the tender age of fetus, but I had never spoken in one of them before. 

That changes today. 

“Hey guys, what if…” I start to say. 

Nobody hears me, but I refuse to be silent. How could I show my face again on Tumblr if I couldn’t even save my mayonnaise friends from death? How could I expect to earn their respect? Anon was right; why hadn’t I done this before? Thousands of lives had paid the price for my ignorance, but not anymore.

“What if you guys….. stopped killing people.“ 

Suddenly, silence. 

1,643,398,023 pairs of eyes are on me. My heart is in my throat as the ISIS leader gives me a blank expression. 

A single tear rolls down my cheek. "Please.” I say with a broken voice. 

He is moved. 

My fingers are almost shaking as I carefully type in the ten digit phone number I have had memorized my entire life. The buttons on my home phone seem to glow a bit more dull, and even the ringing of the phone from the other end seems to be agonized, almost as if the world is telling me to hang up. But I refuse to give up; I can’t let my lily-white friends down. Not again.

The phone rings once. Twice. Three times. Still no answer. Just as I am about to hang up, there is a click.

All I can hear is heavy breathing.

“Hello….” I say quietly, my voice shaking. “Is….. Is this Muslim?”

There was a long silence before I heard a voice answer “ya lol.”

“I was thinking………..” I begin cautiously. “Maybe murder is…………bad.”

“Habibi, I…..I don’t understand. What are you trying to say….?” The voice seems shaken.

“What if…….world peace is good and killing people is…………not good”

He lets out an audible gasp. “Are you saying ISIS is…….bad?”

“Maybe death is…….not good.” I continue. My heart is racing. I remind myself that I am saving thousands of lives, and inhale.

The silence from the other end of the line is almost deafening. He seemed to be thinking, as if he had never considered this idea before in his life. Truly I had opened his heart and his mind. This…. This could end terrorism.

“Muslim….Please.” I whisper.

I hear a tear roll down his cheek, with my Muslim Communication Hearing™, and hold my breath as he finally breathes out his next words.

THAT’S THE POINT THOUGH.

They’re children.  They’re literally students sitting in class.  They’re 14, maybe 15 years old (I can’t remember which season specifically this is from).

That’s what grooming is.  An adult, who is fully aware of what they’re doing, taking advantage of a teenager or a child and manipulating them or brainwashing them because they’re too young to actually understand what’s happening.

Tiffany thinks he’s talking about gardening.  And even when Quinn is relating and thinking back on the story, she still doesn’t really understand what was going on.  It wasn’t until her older sister and mom could process the scene through their adult brains that consequences were had.