Mercy without justice is sentimentality

I never noticed this horn he carries around before. Why doesn’t he use it?

Inquisitor: *goes to do something dumb*

Inquisitor: *steals horn* *Blows horn of disapproval*

Solas: Inquisitor-

One, I don’t want other people to think I’m a racist.

Two, I don’t want to have to do more work on this than necessary.

And it sort of works, for some definition of works. Thanks to tireless activism, those of us who want to actually end racism, and not just avoid being seen as a bad thing, keep moving the bar on what it means to be a racist. But we’re pushing up against a group that is not engaged.

And I get it. Grappling with internalized racism is not fun. And for most white people, especially those not in urban areas, it doesn’t actually affect them too much.

So for the last 50 years, the bar is mostly “If I’m less racist than my parents, I’m probably fine.” And we are! We really are. Young white people don’t have a problem with people of color in all kinds of jobs, even authority positions. We forget interracial marriage was even a controversy. We acknowledge that there’s advantages to being white, and think there shouldn’t be so many.

But we still demand that PoC perform whiteness. The guy in a suit who works at a bank? Cool. The guy in the hoodie listening to hip-hop a little too loud on his headphones? Probably a thug, the police should keep an eye on him. Being culturally black is probable cause still, a priori, for police violence, and white America is quick to introduce doubt as to the PoCs motives.

And we really don’t like it when someone speaks a language or dialect that is not standard White English. (British or Australian accents are fine. African American vernacular, not as much.)

If we continue to push like this, maybe the post-millennials will push past this. Maybe the generation after that will actually address the economic horror that was slavery and the repercussions through the century. Maybe in 200 years racism will actually be something only weird fringe hate groups practice, and then fizzle and die out.

Sophie Scholl’s last words: 

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

shanidar 1 is a neanderthal who, at a pretty young age, was hit in the head hard enough to blind him. this also led to that side of his brain shutting down and withering his right arm, and possibly crippling his entire right side. not only that but his skeleton also shows that at some point, he broke a bone in his foot and, in addition to the other factors, resulted in a noticeable limp. there are some sources which say he likely had degenerative diseases. (arthritis was really common in neanderthals) 

going off of widespread ideas of “”primitive”” (no longer the word used in anthropology/academia to describe early-modern humans) societies, shanidar probably died really young, deliberately abandoned or killed. i mean, he was severely crippled, blind, etc., he couldn’t contribute anything, he would have been a “”burden to society””, right? 

except he lived to be between 40 and 50 years old. (about ~80 in human years)

this means that his social group had to have taken care of him for a minimum of two or three decades without his ‘contributing’ anything significant to the group. this discovery (and Shanidar III’s) was huge because it basically proves that early humans had a concept of hospice. early modern humans cared for the sick and the elderly, greatly extending their lifespan, simply because they cared. 

I suggest you to listen this while reading

Inspired by @watch-over-junkrat‘s headcanon.

Keep reading for an extra scene and extra feels.

Leopard by © pravirpatel

This has been a baby turtle (and tortoise) post.

(Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)

Bonus:

Defenders #11 - “A Dark and Stormy Knight” (1973)