Got my 2017 Powerful Women wall calendar up! Doesn't it look awesome?? #ToryNova #GirlPower
Claire Keane
Sade Olutola
Monterey Bay Aquarium
One Nice Bug Per Day

titsay

izzy's playlists!

tannertan36
AnasAbdin
we're not kids anymore.

Discoholic đŞŠ
Three Goblin Art
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Sweet Seals For You, Always

#extradirty
will byers stan first human second
Show & Tell

oozey mess
DEAR READER
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

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@outerspacezombiekiller
Got my 2017 Powerful Women wall calendar up! Doesn't it look awesome?? #ToryNova #GirlPower

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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I plan to block it so the lace opens up a bit more, but I am tentatively calling my first hat design a success! #knitting #knittersofcolor
Back in June when I got sticker shock over the price of large gardening containers, I asked my dad to build me some planters. It took longer than I'd hoped, admittedly, but announcing that I'm moving to Texas at the end of August with my partner seemed to be the motivation he needed đ I'm not sure if he had to buy additional supplies after his first trip to the store, and he already owned the tools needed, but I've seen 4 planters made from the $80 I gave him initially - a third one that's not pictured is going with me and the fourth was actually the first "trial" one he made for my mom. Not bad, if you ask me! Now I just have to re-learn how to garden going from zone 4b to 8a. #gardening #greenthumb #handmade
Twelve little fake strawberries to protect my plants! What do you think - will these fool the birds? I plan to make more, but waiting for paint to dry before starting the next color is PAINFUL!
Blooms! #gardening #greenthumb #plantstagram #canna

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Whew! 10 lbs each of Rainier and Bing #cherries! Looking forward to preserving these this weekend! Canning, freezing, dehydrating, and of course, #makeitboozy
I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard itâs in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldnât be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldnât shock me if it wasnât. Many hate us and wish we didnât exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many donât see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all Godâs children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, Iâm scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?
This Season of Orange Is The New Black Walks The Line of Exploitation *spoilers*
Photo Orange Writers Room | Words By @zoraandlangston
I knew I was in for a ride this season when Leanne & Angie had a little discussion about Dominicans. As a Black American who lives in New York and went to high school in Teaneck, NJ, I am well aware of the tension between Black Americans and Dominicans who do not identify as Black or Afro-Latinx. I did not want to see that discussion between two white people nor did I think it appropriate. However, I am used to racial missteps on OiTNB as I found last seasonâs episode about Chang questionable (I wasnât alone.) Things continued to get fishy for me when the Black characters had a discussion about race and mostly reached consensus on the fact that Black people can indeed be racist. Now, I have a hard time believing that these Black characters who have been written by the show as among the most well-read people in the prison, who have discussions about pharmaceutical companies and their role in capitalism, and who are interested in reading The New Jim Crow, would ever come to that conclusion. I also have a hard time believing Taystee who, along with Poussey, is the most avid reader of the bunch would suddenly have trouble understanding the vocabulary of the other inmates and would need to check in with Caputo about commonly used phrases but I digress. What Iâm getting at here is that when I saw the picture of the OiTNB writerâs room it all suddenly made sense.
Iâm among the first of my friends and family to finish this season of Orange is The New Black and I often describe this season to them as an âendless parade of triggers.â If you are Black, Brown, TGNC, or struggling with mental health, this season is disturbing in a deeply personal way. And the fact that the writers room is white makes that even more disturbing. But, it clarified what I saw this season. It cleared up for me the fact that no one thought that in a world where Black people die at the hands of police and the media works overtime to justify their killings and the actions of the people who killed them, that it was maybe a bad idea to: take a white, male, character, spend an episode playing up how good of a guy he is, have him accidently kill a Black character; play up his agony over it; and then have Caputo verbally vouch for him in case the audience hadnât had it hammered home for them what an innocent puppy the writers wanted us to know that he was. It also cleared up for me how anyone thought it would be entertaining and quirky to have Black viewers see one of our worst nightmares play out in a scene in which Caputoâs new girlfriend pulls a gun out on a Black couple and threatens to kill them for inquiring on the whereabouts of Sophia only to have it played for laughs when it turns out Caputo and his girlfriend are turned on by the incident. It makes sense that the only time we see Sophia is when she is a mere shell of herself in solitary confinement and even those brief glimpses feel like afterthoughts and donât involve any real larger commentary. It made sense, suddenly, the overuse of racial epithets, the playing off of racial stereotypes, the racist incidents easily forgiven by Black inmates, a Non-Black character using the N word in conversation with a Black person with no real repercussions and so much more.
Whatâs worse about all this is that in my everyday life as a Black person I see the media spin machine work overtime to humanize white killers of Black folks. I see the media and other people work overtime to justify acts of injustice committed against Black people. Now, thanks to Orange is The New Black I get to see it in one of my favorite fandoms. I argued with Non Black fans about how repulsive all this was and they argued that the show is just exposing âreal life.â I argued that humanizing the killer of the inmate and having him kill her in the way that he way that he did was not some sort of strategic choice on behalf of the writers. No, they were just reflecting the real world. I insisted that this is not how the real world works as most of the people, especially officers, who kill and brutalize Black folks know full well what they are doing. They are not merely accidents as presented in the show. But, of course, my voice and the symphony of other Black voices in agreement were not believed. Which is why it was bittersweet to hear it from one of the writers herself:
âWe did flashbacks for Bayley to humanize that side of the experience.â
After the murder we spend more time with Bayley and watching Alex and Piper run around the prison on some silly task than we do on the inmateâs prison family, girlfriend, and blood family in their grieving processes.
As a Black person, this season has been as another site called it âtrauma porn written for white people.â From the formation of a white supremacist group, the ceaseless targeting of Black/Brown people, the constant barrage of racial slurs/stereotypes, and more. Now, I realize that I am watching a show that has made a name for itself on making statements about the realities of prison. Iâm not surprised by the depiction of the horrors of prison and the for-profit-prison industry. I actually applaud the show for depicting the complete lack of regard for human life in the for-profit-prison industry: Correction and the PR people for MCC were nice touches. I even appreciate how real they kept it about the racism, sexism, and the sheer brutality of the people who work inside prisons. I do not, however, think it was responsible to have the show essentially make sacrificial lambs out of their characters of color in what felt like an ceaseless spiral into misery. I also do not think it was necessary to have Black viewers (who have to deal with the murders and brutalization of Black people every time they open their laptops, turn on the news, or feel their heart rate increase around police officers) deal with the senseless murder of their own for entertainment value as well. I do not believe it was cool to have Black viewers sitting through some Leave It to Beaver flashbacks of the person who killed her to really drive it home that the real tragedy of this situation is the person who killed the inmate.
Iâm tired of Black/Brown/Queer characters dying and suffering to make a point to white, cis, Hetero, audiences. Iâm tired of white writers milking very real stories that we have to live with offscreen to teach other white people about the real world. And Iâm tired of them doing it wrong.
To have their viewers of color sit through 13 episodes of racial epithets, stereotypes, and racial profiling just to have a beloved Black character killed by someone the writers put so much energy into making us feel sorry for is dishonest and inappropriate. Rarely, are the cops who murder and brutalize Black people 1. Remorseful or 2. People who just made a mistake. If that were the case these murders and acts of violence wouldnât be happening at such alarming rates and wouldnât be such a huge part of the entire history of this country. The writers had a chance to make a commentary on that. They had a chance to expose the real racial bias that has reached such a boiling point in this country. But just like a lot of news outlets theyâre expecting us see this poor innocent white male as the real tragedy in a Black death. I understand that part of Orange is the New Blackâs âthingâ is to humanize characters we arenât expected to love or view as complex but sometimes itâs inappropriate and insensitive. The choice they made in having that particular character killed was also a very specific choice. This character was prepping for life outside of prison and was a fan favorite:
âAnd ultimately Jenji made a point that has really stuck with me, and that Iâve used as my centering device throughout the season â and that is, whatever character we chose, she wanted it to feel like that character had a future on the outside of prison ahead of them, so that the loss of that future would really be felt.â
This just goes to show why fans are starting to write âOiTNB is a show with people of color not for people of color.â Because no one in that white writers room was thinking of the fact that Black people already feel that loss. We already carry that pain. A point about whatâs happening in America at this moment couldâve easily been made without triggering and further hurting audiences of color. There were plenty of white characters who were in actual real danger all season and yet none of them died. Black/Brown characters however are searched, locked in solitary and appear almost as a second thought, forced to eat live animals at gunpoint, sexually harassed, forced to fight by prison guards, forced to stand for hours in their own pee, and forced to endure medieval punishments.
Orange is the New Black had a chance to make statements. They set up so much to show what a racist, corrupt, and inhumane institution the prison industry is. They set up so much to make a commentary on the kinds of people allowed to work for this institution and how the very nature of said institution feeds into and supports their behavior and then at the last minute decided to go All Lives Matter on us. And they took their characters of color (and, by proxy, their audience members of color) and put them through the ringer in a way that I felt was completely overboard and exploitative this season.
https://www.philadelphiaprintworks.com/blogs/news/this-season-of-orange-is-the-new-black-walks-the-line-of-exploitation-spoilers
Somebody got herself a fabulous new toy. It's my first cast iron! #castiron #betterwithbacon #nowwerecookingwithgas