(((Matza Masorti)))

You see a post like this? Where OP might hurt/kill themselves? You hit that button that I circled

Hit that.

Click Suicide or Self-harm Concern

Yes.

Fill in the rest of it, and hit submit. The “content you reported” will fill itself in

Tumblr will follow up and help them.

Warning: this is only for mobile. If anyone knows how to do this for desktop, please add it!

This could SAVE SOMEONE’S LIFE.

YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE NOT TO REBLOG THIS.

I DON’T GIVE A FUCK IF IT DOESN’T GO WITH YOUR BLOG’S THEME.

And yes, REBLOG. Liking does no shit at all. This isn’t ig.

You reblog, people see it. You don’t, people don’t see it. This shit’s that simple.

You are chased out of your village the moment your powers bloom at fifteen years old, and the skies turn black with your fear. A rock hits you between your shoulder blades just as you make it to the main road and you stumble, falling to your knees in a mud puddle at the very moment the skies open up.

“She’s cursing us!” the midwife who delivered you screams over the thunder. “She’s damning us with her!”

Your mother is crying, but she doesn’t raise a hand to help you. She did everything she could, keeping your Role a secret all these years. She won’t risk anymore with another little girl to take care of.

No one tells you that you have a choice. No kind stranger drags you out of the rain and into the warmth of their home where a wise sage tells you it is not how we are born, but what choices we make.

Instead, you take the little pack your mother hid for you in the depths of the forest and sling it over your shoulder. There’s money, provisions, and more wraps to cover the evil mark on your left bicep.

“Your destiny will find you,” your mother told you only hours ago. “I forgive you for it.”

She meant the words as a comfort, but you only heard condemnation in it. Without having killed so much as a fly, she is already blessing you with forgiveness.

5. Walk with your keys in your hands and keep a key between each finger

6. If they put you in the trunk kick out the headlights

E.g.

don’t do that!!!

don’t put your keys between each finger:

if you hit someone with them, it will bend back and hurt your knuckles

you need to be facing an attacker in order to hit them, so if someone attacks you from behind you won’t have the upper hand

it isn’t sturdy, so if you punch someone, it will move (it will hurt, but it’s not ideal)

instead, hold your longest key in your fist like this (it’s just a quick sketch, hope it gets the point across) (sorry if i described it badly, can anyone else describe it better for the blind peeps?)

if you hold it this way

it’s sturdier, meaning it will do more damage, and won’t bend back, hurting you

and you can hit an attacker from any direction, even if they come from behind

Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.

This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.

A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.

Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.

One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.

Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.

Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.

Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.

people have tried to create a peaceful, oppression-free society before, but it turns out that’s really hard.

The reasons it’s really hard are almost entirely practical and many of them are the boring and logistical sort of practical.

Every communist revolution was started by people who hoped for a better world, and they all ended in the rule of an oppressive dictatorship which murdered anyone who was ‘deviant’.  And where you couldn’t even complain your sink was stopped up without risking going to the gulag.

because it comes off as “in defense of the status quo” neo-liberalism and I think it’s a lack of clarity on those two points in my most well-intentioned interpretation of it

to the numbered points:

1. kind of a no duh, but that doesn’t mean you stop trying

2. practical in that they are material, structural, and systemic. advocating revolution is where so many of us end up because we recognize that the necessary structural and systemic changes, whether they occur through legislation or armed struggle, are revolutionary

3. the incrementalism is full-on west wing brain. change is incremental only because the system (I’m talking about the American system here but generally this applies to most governments) has been structured to neuter political movements, funnel revolutionary energies into flaccid electoral politics, and generally stall any real attempt to change things long enough for the people in power to co-opt the movement and insure they stay in power while placating just enough people and not actually really changing the underlying structure

last point to OP’s statements is that this outlook must also necessarily either ignore or take as necessary that the current system is actively and purposefully harmful to the point of enslaving and murdering millions around the world. the current system is DEEPLY flawed and causing people to die. so that’s maybe a wash at best

I wish my reply with the comments about infrastructure and foodways and so on was the version of this post that was circulated, because it much better illustrates what I’m talking about. Tl;dr—it’s impossible to completely destroy the structure of our current society in one fell swoop and build a better one all at once. Access to food, housing, resources, electricity—even down to the basic necessities of life, inequality and capitalist priorities are built into the system.

Say, for example, that you wrest control, by force, of the power grid from the power companies that control it. No more electricity bills. Basic, life-sustaining utilities should be a human right.

Now, who controls the resources that go into producing electricity? Who ensures that the scientists who develop alternative energy technologies are appropriately compensated for their work? Who maintains power plants? Who oversees how they are run? Who sends people to do repairs when an ice storm puts people out of power? How are those repairmen and women being compensated for their work? Who decides who works for what region?

If you don’t figure this out quick, everything falls apart and people freeze and/or starve.

Okay? Now imagine doing this not with electricity, but with Literally Everything.

It’s called a “system” because it’s made of one fuckthousand complex interlocking parts that are literally impossible to take apart and put back together entirely. Bit by bit, or partially, sure. But taking apart the system all at once involves taking apart things like “how people get food” and “how people access clean water” because those things are fundamentally controlled by the system.

The audience for this post is the people who literally have not thought about that, and seem to think that a more humane world will simply fall together once we kill all the powerful people. The people who have bought into this glorious, propagandized version of revolution where only a few little cogs in the machine need to be guillotined and then everything will work just fine.

In history, when power vacuums suddenly occur, that doesn’t create a utopian society. It creates a flaming trash fire. This was literally an intentional strategy used by colonial forces during decolonization (air quotes) in the 60’s. The colonial powers would suddenly withdraw from the colonized area, leaving the nation wildly unstable, which resulted in them remaining dependent on the colonial power even though “independent” in name.

Literally this morning in my postcolonial lit class we were talking about something relevant to this. LOTS of military dictatorships sprung up in the wake of colonialism. Atrocities happened. We’re talking horrendous brutality, mass rape, things like that.

In America, we’ve got more deeply ingrained issues—our infrastructure and foodways are so fucked that local communities are not self-sustaining, and major interruptions in transportation or business will cut people off from essential resources unless there’s a system in place to aid people.

calls to eat the rich and stuff like that are rallying cries. simple, evocative, and captivating to draw in audience. when it gets right down to it, whether the rich people in power live or die is of no consequence. what matters is the distribution of resources and how labor is used and it is appropriate to call the necessary changes to this system revolutionary

I get it, it’s hard to imagine a system dramatically unlike the one we’re currently stuck in. but that’s always been the case. things are set up to keep this system plodding along as long as we stay in line and ignore the global slavery, the destruction of the environment, and the wealth inequality which has never been greater. we’re living the flaming trash fire right now

for one thing, there’s a conspiracy-theory-esque point of view I keep seeing that implies bad things that happened in communist nations are all U.S. propaganda, or that somehow the deaths caused by leaders in those nations are made-up or exaggerated numbers, or in general that things were way, way better in the USSR than we have learned in school. I’ll be the first to point out the propaganda in textbooks, but that doesn’t mean blind anti-intellectualism is better. I’m sorry, there isn’t a widespread conspiracy to hide how utopian Soviet Russia was?

There is so frustratingly little interest in learning from the mistakes of the past or even learning what they were. The propaganda is everywhere but you have to follow up on it instead of just believing the opposite of everything history books taught you in school. No single realization or rejection of an idea is going to get you to the point where you Understand the Truth. Just…commit to learning.

There is also the belief that America today is As Bad As Things Could Possibly Get, leading to the attitude that practically any destructive action is constructive, which is both untrue and frightening. You don’t have to believe that things couldn’t possibly get worse to believe that they are bad. Around the time of the election and before I saw people arguing that America, as an oppressive colonial power, is and always has been fascist, which in my opinion is stripping “fascist” of its historical context (if anything, ideas that evolved in America formed a PREDECESSOR of fascism) but to me it seems like it should be painfully obvious that we haven’t hit rock bottom.

But it isn’t. And several people have responded to this post with essentially “but people are already dying so ‘people will die’ isn’t a good argument.”

Okay, but more people can die faster, and in larger numbers. We should still care about the possibility of causing people to die and think of ways for that to not happen.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I may be the actual only human being on Tumblr with a post this popular that I not only don’t regret making, but am actually HAPPY whenever I notice a surge in its circulation. 

I never intended this to gain any traction at all (you’ll notice there’s no sources or anything–this was a personal ramble, prompted in good humor by a friend after I jokingly said that I wished someone would give me an excuse to cry about Carpathia on Tumblr so I could get it out of my system.) I literally expected to get, like, maybe 20 likes and a reblog, from friends, indulging me in my nonsense.

It just….means a lot to me that it’s touched so many people. I see a lot of tags to the effect of “HOW DARE YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS AND MAKE ME CRY ABOUT A BOAT” that are often really funny, but overwhelmingly the tags on this post are from people saving it for a rainy day, or remarking in a sort of quiet awe that they never even really thought about her role in the story–and God knows I never did, I learned it by complete accident much as most of the people who’ve found this post. 

And so many of you guys are taking strength and reassurance from the reminder not only that people are capable of amazing things together, but simply that kindness matters and that a simple, tiny act of compassion is never wasted. I’m just really glad to have been able to do that for some folks.

If I can just add one personal note. I need to emphasize something I only touched on in the original post.

I need to emphasize that Carpathia failed.

A lot of the tags and comments have a tinge of…despair, or guilt, or wistfulness about things like this happening so rarely. Or inadequacy, or just being overwhelmed or unhappy about not being in a position to step up in a comparable way. And I want to gently bring up the fact that this is still the sinking of the Titanic. 

They did not get there in time. They did not save the ship. It can be argued that they may not even have saved a single life; we have no way of knowing. This was still a horrific maritime disaster mired in arrogance and incompetence and a lack of care.

If the response to this story shows anything, it shows this: It matters that they tried. 

Even though they got there too late, even though the ship still sank. It matters that they tried. The difference between making the best reasonable speed after confirming the seriousness of the situation, and the miracle they pulled off–it matters. It makes all the difference. Even if it made no difference at all. Not one of you read this and concluded that I was stupid for caring so much when the Titanic still sank and all those people still died.

You don’t have to fix the world. You’ll likely be cold and sick and miserable and testy and scared, and unprepared, and in over your head, and entirely too small to be of any real use. It feels stupid, passing out blankets and coffee in the middle of an ice field knowing what just happened. It’s hard to feel anything but useless when all you can do is tap a wireless transmitter and promise help that you know will come too late.

last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off

a FIRE ALARM

everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face

“i can’t go down the stairs”

but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”

“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”

“i’ll carry that too”

and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors

basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted

thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.

the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire. 

if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out. 

Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.

It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.

As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor... BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR... because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.

IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.

These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.

High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly. 

So I appreciate the fact that you felt strongly enough about this to break your blog’s character in asks to bring this to my attention by answering this as openly and honestly as I can.

Firstly, Clover was never written as gay. Never. Not for a single second in his conception was Clover ever intended to be a love interest for Qrow nor was Clover ever written as a gay man. Period.

Secondly, Clover was never ever stated to be “explicitly promised” representation for the mlm community. That is an entirely untrue statement with no actual basis for truth behind it. There’s no documentation of this anywhere, there’s no draft where he was, none of that is true at all in any way, shape, or form.

Third, I have also stated many times that I do understand how a misunderstanding in how the audience perceives a character vs what the actual written intent was can hurt, saying that I’ve felt that burn before, and very much understanding how a fandom can feel a bit upset by it. But the fact that various creators, for many shows, have come forward to say “hey, not the intention” - such as the case with many folks feeling Jenny was tran-coded in My Life As A Teenage Robot, which actually took the creator 21 YEARS to actually acknowledge that fact despite it being spoken of many times - and expressed their concerns and understanding toward those communities affected by it... shows a sign of actually caring. Of which many folks working on this show did the same thing and did so immediately after the first sign of the misunderstanding.

Fourth, as the voice of a character that is a blatantly stated and explicitly promised bit of representation for an entirely underrepresented community of people it’s extremely frustrating to see a character that was never intended to be seen as and surely was never ACTUALLY written as a representation for a marginalized group of people being held up as an example of representation while my own character, who actually is a real example of representation, being constantly demonized and overlooked.

Fifth, the cast and crew of the show (including myself) have received more death threats about this than I think most of you care to actually acknowledge. Am I saying that you, specifically, issued any of those threats? No. But the fact that a lot of folks just forget that that happened is pretty telling to me.

So you asked “How can you continue to support and advertise, in good conscience, for a company that has repeatedly baited and insulted its LGBT+ fanbase” ... the answer is because the actual representation for the LGBTQIA+ community that was explicitly stated and promised  was actually handled incredibly well, had time and care put into it, was thought about from concept, to design, to casting, to written dialogue. And that representation was not hidden, not coded, but bluntly stated both by creators outside of and inside of canon, and proudly on display in the show. 

The final big reason that I can firmly state all of these things? Is because this isn’t just a fictional situation. The people behind the scenes making this show possible actually stood up, stood by, and have put more effort into actually supporting the LGBTIQA+ community than most folks will ever even know or see. In a very real and tangible way these people have physically fought for the rights of people like me to be able to do what I do and, more importantly, to actually be able to live my actual real life with less fear of being actually harmed.

To top it all off, I’m deeply hurt by how things are said by the fandom some days.

I see all the comments saying May isn’t good rep because she doesn’t look or sound manly enough to be a trans woman and that Joanna or Robyn looks more trans than May does and worse being said about her.

Clover being mlm was always just a head canon that the fandom leaned into, it was never ever stated to be canon at any point during the production of the show or creation of the character.

I do understand the hurt that some folks feel about it, trust me I do, but I’ve received death threats over this head canon while actually having put time, effort, and part of myself into actual on-screen representation ... having had that real work ignored with me and my co-workers continuously being harassed despite not a single shred of tangible evidence to back up the reason for the harassment.

TLDR: 

Clover was never intended to be seen as gay, ever, and the fact that the fandom latched onto this head canon and has pushed it that it was always actually canon, in a very negative way, has only harmed both the fandom and staff.

Having a head canon is great, I love them, but seeing a creator (or group of creators) explicitly come out and debunk that head canon as to not spread a toxic and hurtful message that could easily spiral out of control and blatantly ignoring it because it doesn’t fit in with your own narrative does not make that head canon into canon and will only make getting actual intended representation for that group much harder in the future.

A gif of a flagpole with trees in the background. The rainbow pride flag and the Black Lives Matter flag are waving on the flagpole.

She’s technically a monster too. She might not look it at first glance and seems mostly human, but it isn’t deniable even despite her looks compared to the other monsters. 

But she realizes that she is still not like the rest of the monsters either and may not have entirely the same experiences as them, which is why she feels that she might not belong to or deserve to go to the support group. By sometimes passing as human, she feels she isn’t worthy of the space. 

The sad reality though is even though she’s mostly human in appearance, that tail she has undeniably would still cause her some struggle. Humans are still gonna look at that tail and think she’s a freak. There are probably still accommodations she needs because of the tail that she may still struggle to have access to. Even if it is just the tail, that tail is still enough to other her from humans and cause her problems and discrimination. 

She should get to belong in that support group even if she gets told she’s not monster “enough”. She still shares some of the same struggles as them that are caused by being a monster, and needs support. 

With Kamala Harris making history as the first Black, Indian, and female Vice President of the United States, thus becoming the most powerful and highest ranking woman America has ever seen, there’s been more disinformation about her swirling on the Internet than ever before. Some of it is misguided – people who believe the sourceless accusations they read and think they’re doing good by spreading it – but a lot of it is intentional, malicious. 

I think it’s worth examining our Vice President’s record based on context and facts. We owe it not just to ourselves but to those around us to have a nuanced and accurate conversation about those in power that relies on data and expert information, not simply blog posts of unqualified armchair pundits who say what we want them to. 

And when we look at the context and facts surrounding Kamala Harris, it’s clear that she’s on the right side of history. She’s someone who, despite the occasional misstep, has indeed made it her life’s work to reform the criminal justice system, to advance progressive causes, and to protect and defend the American people. 

First, let’s dispel the disinformation. The myth of the “SuperCop” that has been affixed to her represents a willful misinterpretation of the criminal justice system that is specifically designed to smear an accomplished and progressive Black woman. There are three common refrains here: first, that she locked up thousands of Black people for marijuana possession; second, that she jailed truant parents; and third, that she singlehandedly kept thousands of prisoners in jail to feed California’s prison slave labor complex. All of these are patently false:

As San Francisco DA, Harris and her office had a policy of refusing to seek jail time for marijuana possession, instead reducing the charge to a misdemeanor and directing individuals to drug education programs (this is in the context of a nationwide push for heavier drug sentences and tough on crime policies, mind you). The leader of the public defender’s misdemeanor division during this time says that Harris “was probably the most progressive prosecutor in the state at the time when it came to marijuana.”

Harris never – I repeat, NEVER – locked up a single truant parent. There’s no basis to this accusation. 

Under California law, state lawyers are not required to go to the attorney general’s office in cases involving prisoner release. The prisoners who were kept in jail were by and large involved in cases she was not aware of. In one instance, however, a member of her team argued against releasing prisoners because of its impact on the prison labor force. Harris, however, immediately rejected that argument and completely disavowed it. Not in 2019, not in 2020, but as soon as it happened.

So, the myth of the SuperCop that has dogged Harris is not based in reality. What, then, did she do with her positions of power?

Harris co-founded the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids, with the LA Times commenting that “whereas police focused on the crime of selling sex, Harris saw young girls as victims driven by economic necessity, drug addiction and domineering men.”

She led a state task force to address the crisis of human trafficking.

Harris launched the Back on Track program, which provided young, first-time offenders with an opportunity to pursue an education and employment instead of jail time.

As Attorney General of California, she refused to defend Prop 8, which declared marriage as between a man and a woman, in court, and when it was overturned she immediately ordered state officials to begin issuing marriage certificates to same sex couples.

As California Attorney General, Harris launched a first of its kind implicit bias training program for all law enforcement.

As Senator, Harris introduced a bill to provide the American people with $2,000 a month payments during the pandemic.

In the Senate, Harris introduced a bill to reform the broken cash bail system.

Harris introduced a bill to finally make lynching a federal crime.

Harris introduced legislation in the Senate to legalize marijuana.

Harris introduced a bill in the Senate to provide a refundable federal tax credit for renters who pay more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.

In 2019, Kamala Harris was ranked the most politically left of all US Senators.

Let’s be clear. Let’s speak truth. Not only is the mythology surrounding Kamala’s record based in facts specifically designed to smear her, but she has proven herself to be a progressive champion with a record of accomplishments. Is she perfect? Of course not. There are real conversations to be had about the efficacy of some of her positions, policies, and platforms. But we can’t have these conversations clearly or in good faith if they’re mired in lies. Kamala Harris is progressive. Kamala Harris has done good for the American people and will continue to do good. She is an ally to the progressive movement, and any attempt to alienate her, to other her, to dismiss her, does real harm to any agenda that purports to want to fix the broken systems in this country.