P For 'Pay It No Mind'

To paraphrase John Mulaney, “You know how I know it isn’t like the n-word? Because we’re saying the word twink, and we’re not even saying what the n-word is.”Your friend is free to not like the word twink or want it applied to him, especially since he is straight, but it is absolutely not the same as the n-word, what the fuck.

First of all, let me just say that 

STRAIGHT PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE WEIGHING IN ON QUEER COMMUNITY TERMS. 

His discomfort with our community terms is his problem, not ours. 

Twink is, generally speaking, a neutral word, often used as a self-descriptor, and has decades of use both in the queer community and the tabletop gaming community. ‘Twink’ in the RPG community refers to someone whose stats are min-maxed or optimized heavily, usually for combat; they’re also called ‘munchkins,’ and ‘twink’ is also a verb, as in ‘can you help me twink out my character’s sheet for knife fighting.’ 

So, yeah, if you told someone in my particular cross-section of nerdy queerness that twink is like the n-word you’d get laughed off our RPG Discord full of queers. 

That’s why I ask my followers to submit pictures of themselves doing those activities so we can all see ourselves represented and that we are not alone in doing them! 

The 40% blanket

Fisheye Placebo by Yuumei

May Allahﷻ grant them paradise, ease the pain of their families, and make our mosques more full than they’ve ever been before. We fear no one, we will continue to go to mosques, wear our hijabs, and be proud of being Muslims. We do not fear people, we do not fear guns, and we do not fear death. They can kill Muslims but they can’t kill Islam.

And honestly, to be killed for being a Muslim is a death I wouldn’t mind.

“And do not ever assume that those who are slain in Allah’s cause, are dead;

in fact they are alive with their Lord, receiving sustenance.”

The year is 1995, congress member Bernie Sanders stands in opposition of a homophobic statement said by Duke Cunningham. Cunningham derisively refers to “homos in the military” to support his argument while (strangely) discussing the Clean Water Act. Sanders, having none of it, quickly rises to the defense of thousands of men and women everywhere. Sanders ire is such that he repeatedly disrespects the Chairman by speaking over him in order to say his piece. [Video Source]

What does this say for Sanders? Well, that’s for you to decide. But to me, it says that for 20+ years strong he has shown his public support for LGBT+ persons everywhere, even in the face of ridicule and disrespect. Unlike some, Sanders has always been vocal about his beliefs concerning the LGBT+ community, and he has always held them. Key word always, and not just when doing so might garner him support for his campaigns. 

BONUS:

1. If you want a kid to clean, first you have to teach them to even see mess. They don’t! But it does stress them out.

“Okay, let’s look for something out of its place. If it’s on the floor, it’s out of place. If it’s on your bed and it’s not a blanket, it’s out of place.”

2. Go by category, it’s easier to find stuff to put away if your search engine has a specific target, and it’s more satisfying and efficient to put away a big chunk of mess at once.

“Got something? Ok, are there other things like it? Let’s find all the BOOKS. I will HELP YOU.”

3. Important!! Don’t walk away from a kid with focus issues expecting them to instantly learn a task and finish it! You are setting them up to fail! The first several times you need to be there for the whole process and demonstrate by helping. That motivates them. They feel less panic that you’ll bail and they’ll be stuck alone not knowing what to do next. Narrate what you’re doing, too. Help and supervise less as they seem to need you less.

“I’ll get the books on the floor, can you help me get the ones under your bed? I can’t fit!”

4. In my experience most kids, but especially kids with ADHD would walk to the fucking moon to help you, they just need a clear plan, keep the criticism light, short, and to the point, and ffs PRAISE THEM when they do things right, cause we’ve all (I hope) seen the statistics on how much more negative interaction they get compared to other kids (and rejection sensitive dysphoria is a motherfucker). But more than praise you need to show them how what they did was good for THEM. Do nooooooooot take this opportunity for an ‘I told you so’ or a ‘finally’ or you will suck out all their accomplishment.

“Hey, great job, you found that horse you were missing because you cleaned! And your room looks so nice! It’s really comfortable to play in now, and you did that.”

5. Emphasize it does not have to be perfect or complete to be worth doing. I don’t want to will my kids my paralysis of inaction because I can’t start part of something unless I can do all of it.

“We don’t have time to do the whole room, but let’s pick up the legos before bed so you don’t hurt your feet. And then it’ll already be done tomorrow!”

This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion

Here she is being walked to school under the protection of Federal Marshals because angry white people were ready to harm or kill her. 

Here she is in 2010, eight years ago. 

The generation that enforced segregation is not dead, fucko. They were our fuckin grandparents, and it was not that goddamn long ago. 

I’m 31.

My MOM was born the year before school segregation ended.

She was NINE when MLK was shot.

She remembers race riots in her school over school segregation ending in our home state.

My MOTHER lived through this. She’s 61 years old–which means while her own health is shot, people from her generation will be around for another twenty to thirty years.

1956. This is not colorized. IT WAS SHOT IN COLOR. Look at that–segregation was still ongoing in the age of neon lights.

Same exhibit. 1956. Banana splits, poodle skirts, and the ability to get “colored” drinking water only from the white folks’ backwash. You can see the pipe connecting the white tank to the colored fountain behind the little girl in the light pink dress.

Less than ten years later. That’s Martin Luther King, Jr. in the middle. Have you ever seen him in a color photograph before? There are many, but for some reason … maybe because black-and-white makes things look old … nobody ever uses them.

Look at the bank logo in the back. Colored squares like that were a thing in the mid-to-late 1960s. The slicked-down hair on the Black girl in front says we’re not yet to the mid-1970s, and since these signs all say “Honor King” it’s quite likely this is 1969-1970. You know what else was happening in 1969? Not Woodstock, not the moon landing, although both of those things happened. No, something we think of as being much more recent.

THE INTERNET STARTED.

1969 was the launch of ARPANET, which would later become the Internet. BLACK PEOPLE WERE STILL MARCHING FOR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS WHEN THE INTERNET WAS STARTED.

This picture was taken sometime between 1956 and 1958. I don’t have a precise date on it, but the sleeveless sundress says later 1950s, the hair on Orange Plai says this was after Elvis, and the stars on the flag say that’s not a modern 50-star flag, which was first used in 1959. (We had a single year, 1958, with 49 stars.)

Ah yes. It was so long ago. Let’s get some more perspective:

Donald Trump was eight years old when school segregation was declared illegal in 1954. He was nineteen when the police beat and shot at peaceful Black protest marchers in Selma, Alabama and twenty-two when MLK was assassinated by the FBI for trying to encourage desegregation.

Hillary Clinton was seven when school segregation was declared, eleven when it went into effect, and eighteen when Selma happened.

Bernie Sanders was thirteen when the integration ruling occurred, 19 when Ruby Bridges started going to a formerly all-white school, and twenty-four when Selma happened. Joe Biden is only a year younger than Bernie.

Elizabeth Warren was eleven when Ruby started her new school, fifteen when Selma happened, eighteen when MLK was shot.

You will notice that all of these people are running for President, or were rumored to be running for President, this year. They’re not just alive, they’re thriving. And they were all alive for desegregation–in fact Trump, Clinton, and Sanders were all old enough to either endorse or oppose what happened at Selma.

But let’s keep looking, because they’re probably outliers, right?

Hm. Three of MLK’s children are still alive. They’re between 56 and 62 years old. (His elder daughter died of unknown causes; her family suspects an undiagnosed heart condition.) In fact one of his siblings is still alive, and she was born before him! She’s 96.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Yeah, she was 21 when school integration was made the law of the land. And she’s still serving on the Supreme Court.

But tell me again how long ago it was.

While working at school some teachers and I were setting up a fence around the pool and I got my hand jammed in between two very heavy pieces of metal.

I went to the doctor and they recommended I get an x-ray. My American ass was like “oh fuck last time I was offered an x-ray in the states it would cost me upwards of $1000 because that was my deductable. (:

I did the X-ray and guess what it cost in Japan? (: (: (: