My mind don't sleep

I had a disturbing exchange with a high school-aged person today that prompted this…

Beer, wine, mead, and cider are fermented beverages.

Mead is made from honey.

Cider is made from apples.

Beer is made from grains.

Beer tastes like beer because they flavor it with hops.

They used to flavor beer with dandelions.

Ain’t that cute?

All beer is either ale or lager.

Ale is fermented at room temperature.

Lager is brewed and store cold.

Barleywine, bitter, porter, and stout are ales.

Pilsner and bock are lagers.

Most of the crap people drink in America is pale lager.

Mosft of the crap people drink in Ireland is dry stout.

Butterbeer isn’t real.

(Except actually I think it is, and I heard it tastes like cream soda)

Miruvor isn’t real, either, but it probably would taste like squash.

Ent-draught isn’t real, either, but shit, it would be awesome if it were.

Wine is made from fermented fruit juice, usually grapes.

Red wine is made from red grapes.

White wine is made from green grapes.

The name of the grape is the name of the wine (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot are all varieties of grape)

Unless you live in France.

In which case, the name of the place supersedes the name of the grape.

(for example: Burgundies are made in Burgundy, France, but Burgundy wine can be Pinot Noir or Chardonnay)

Champagne is any sparkling white wine.

However, Champagne can also be wine that comes from Champagne, France.

Drink red wine with beef. Drink white wine with fish.

Act like it tastes good. 

Keep a Diet Coke in your bag for later.

You’ll be fine.

Brandy is distilled wine.

Cognac is brandy aged in oak barrels.

Don’t fuck around with the French about their cognac.

Fortified wine is wine with added alcohol.

Sherry is fortified white wine made in Spain.

Port is fortified red wine made in Portugal.

Vermouth is fortified white wine plus grape spirits.

Sweet vermouth has added sugar.

Dry vermouth has added spices like nutmeg.

Liquors are distilled spirits that contain ethanol.

Liqueurs are liquors that have sugar and flavors added.

Liquors can be made from grains, fruits, or vegetables.

Grain alcohol is liquor made from grains. Duh.

Gin, Vodka, and Whisky are grain alcohols.

Vodka is grain alcohol and water.

Be careful with vodka. Homemade vodka is poisonous.

Gin is (basically vodka) flavored with juniper berries.

Absinthe is (basically gin) flavored with anise.

Whisky is grain alcohol aged in wood barrels.

Malt whisky is made from barley.

Grain whisky is made from all the other grains.

Scotch is whisky made in Scotland.

Bourbon is Kentucky whisky mostly made from corn.

Don’t fuck around with the Scottish.

Don’t fuck around with people from Kentucky, either.

Tequila is liquor made from the blue agave plant.

Rum is liquor made from sugarcane.

Schnapps is liquor made from fruit “must” (smashed fruit that still contains seeds and skins).

American schnapps is grain alcohol mixed with fruit flavors and sugar syrup.

Drink apple schnapps only while playing Tekken 2.

Sake is rice wine that’s brewed like beer. Or something.

Avoid these cocktails: Grog, Long Island Iced Tea, Manhattan, Dark and Stormy, Jack and Coke, Piña Colada, Scorpion. They contain huge amounts of alcohol and/or a huge number of calories. That Long Island Ice Tea is the worst motherfucker of the bunch. Just avoid them. Have a lemon drop martini instead.

Don’t drink on an empty stomach or you’ll puke.

Don’t drink too fast or you’ll puke.

Avoid Long Island Iced Teas. Like I said.

Don’t drink and drive because you might kill my Mom. You fuckers.

If your friend has had too much to drink and needs to crash, make sure she’s lying on her side so she doesn’t choke on her own vomit. 

Don’t leave a drunk friend alone.

Passing out is a sign of being severely goddamn sick. If someone drinks and passes out? They are dying right now. Call 9-1-1. 

If you are drunk, don’t drink coffee or caffeine to get sober. Sip cold water and nibble some saltine crackers.

Don’t be a fucking idiot. Don’t smash my mailbox.

Really, do you need to drink? 

You probably don’t.

But now you know some stuff. Maybe.

Thank you to @super-sortahuman for the term HHD. 

Y’all fucked for 6 hours and this person still smells like dreams coming true and Axe. 

They NEVER warned you about their stroke game and when you finally experience it, you almost ask them to marry you, TWICE within the hour.

They don’t kick you out afterwards and actually rub your back and ask if you hungry or want something to drink.

If you do decide to leave, they walk you to your car. Like….

Your homies had to convince you to go to work the next day and not pull up on them ass naked with canned fruit and gummy worms.

You sent a “good morning” text with a nude, your social and Hulu Plus password.

If they asked you to have kid, there would be no questions asked.

They don’t brag about the dick game and that’s how ya ass got caught off guard.

They told you they had a bad day and you went outside and flipped ya middle finger up at the sky while yelling at clouds because your good Humble Hood Dick had a bad day and you feel like it’s the universe’s fault. Bonus if you asked the sky why good dick has bad days.

Every time y’all have sex, you can’t remember details of your childhood all of a sudden.

You cry just thinking about another person having access to your HHD. 

HHD will fuck away your car note and still take you out to eat afterwards.

Y’all can actually laugh at stuff and be goofy during sex.

HHD is soooo pretty! Looks like it got its own coconut oil regime. 

Most importantly, Humble Hood Dick does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 HHD does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Hey Arnold!

The everyday life of Arnold, a 4th-grader in a nameless city that resembles Brooklyn, who lives in a multi-racial boarding house with his grandparents and a motley assortment of neighbors and friends.

Season 1

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | Episode 15 | Episode 16 | Episode 17 | Episode 18 | Episode 19 | Episode 20 |

Season 2

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | Episode 15 | Episode 16 | Episode 17 | Episode 18 | Episode 19 |

Season 3

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | Episode 15 | Episode 16 | Episode 17 | Episode 18 | Episode 19 | Episode 20 | Episode 21 | Episode 22 | Episode 23 | Episode 24 | Episode 25 | Episode 26 | Episode 27 |

Season 4

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | Episode 15 | Episode 16 | Episode 17 | Episode 18 | Episode 19 |

Season 5

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | Episode 15 |

The Movie

This won’t be cute because I’m mad as fuck.  Thought I should put that disclaimer upfront before you keep scrolling and get your feelings hurt.

If you are a white 20something from Elsewhere, USA moving into a densely populated metropolitan area where the rent is cheaper in an “up and coming” neighborhood, and you decide to take the larger apartment on the brown side of town so you can have more space for your bike and your art projects at the expense of displacing Black and brown people, the least you can do is respect the fact that these people were there for decades before you and have their own customs and way of life.  If you feel the need to start calling the cops every five goddamn minutes as soon as you move into your Victorian in Oakland or your Brownstone in Bed-Stuy you are actual fucking garbage.

Y'all, these assholes are calling the cops ON BLACK CHURCHES for making too much noise during choir practice and hosting parties at night ON THE WEEKEND when you’re supposed to have a party anyway.  I’m so sick of reading about white people in brown spaces who don’t give a fuck about the neighborhoods they’re invading like a plague of locusts.

“Why don’t you guys just get the fuck over it ” - Becky voice .

“Why are you resisting ? Be peaceful .”

In the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the researchers describe three experiments that provide evidence backing up this assertion. The first two featured 94 and 91 white Americans, respectively, who were recruited online via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

“Participants completed two ostensibly unrelated surveys, the first regarding beliefs about inequality in America, and the second about childhood memories,” the researchers write. In the first, they were asked the degree to which they believe white people have “certain advantages minorities do not have in this society.”

Half addressed this touchy question cold, while the others did so after reading a paragraph describing the reality of white privilege in such realms as academics, housing, and health care.

The “personal memory” questionnaire included five items addressing hardships, including the assertion “I have had many difficulties in life that I could not overcome.” Participants expressed their level of agreement with each on a one-to-seven scale.

“In both experiments, we found that whites exposed to evidence of white privilege claimed more hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege,” the researchers report. In other words, evidence that their race was an advantage prompted white people to move toward a victimhood mindset.

The final experiment, featuring 234 white Americans from a national online pool, found “people claim more life hardships in response to evidence of in-group privilege because such information is threatening to their sense of self.” What’s more, “these denials of personal privilege were in turn associated with diminished support for affirmative action policies—policies that could help alleviate racial inequity.”

Altogether, the results suggest “[white] people may accept that in-group privilege exists, but change their perceptions of their own lives in order to deny the role of systemic advantages in their success,” Phillips and Lowery conclude.

In other words, to deny the affects of white privilege in their lives, white people will immediately drum up stories of hardships they’ve gone through as if to say that they themselves made it through hard work NOT because of any systematic advantages for whiteness or systematic disadvantages for non-whiteness. It’s the lie of meritocracy that America has been telling the world for centuries and whites have a personal stake in believing it because without it they would have to admit that the bulk of their entire person is based on lies. Again, truth is not really America’s (or white America’s) thing. The threat to their core belief (which is based on lies) is what white people feel when confronted with evidence of white privilege. It’s that cognitive dissonance that Frantz Fanon talked about in “White Masks”

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.

What I find “humorous” is that white people always accuse Black people of “playing the victim” but yet they are the one who play victim the moment they can use it to deny the truth of white privilege. To deny truth, they quickly play the victim. Black people don’t play victim. We are being targeted and victimized for the benefit of whiteness and yet still we stand, fight, produce, live, love, laugh, smile, create, contribute and more. We simply speak the truth about how we are sinned against (to quote Ida B. Wells). Truth doesn’t create victims but for whites, they roll out that victim card to protect and perpetuate lies. That’s despicable but that’s white fragility for you tho.

What’s sad is when Black people (and other non-whites) join in with and back that bullshit. They’ve been so brainwashed into thinking “white is right” and they are so desparate for white approval that they can even see when bullshit is being fed to them and they just repeat it like trained dogs. That saddens me most of all.

You can buy the research paper here if you want to 

The disturbing part is the more information I have about their thoughts and psyche, the less I want to have anything to do with them. I don’t know if ignorance is bliss but when I knew less about this sort of stuff, I was more apt to hang out with them. 

I get that the point of filler questions is to make the person taking the survey not realise what’s going on, but the procedure itself doesn’t do much to hide out that they’re researching about privilege and inequality, which doesn’t really offer a blind testing atmosphere which kinda leads me to feel iffy about the results. 

My biggest concern just go back to the survey items, as they are what make or break a paper. The paper doesn’t lay out the limitations of its own survey items, which always exist within a research paper. The survey items don’t serve its purpose in terms of being clear and concise; if I could get my hands on those childhood memories, or their economic stability growing up, the conditions in which they’ve grown up in in comparison, or anything related to those categories in which I could get a clearer answer - I would be rather appreciative. 

However, this study does nothing but raise more questions in terms of why they chose to leave out their potential limitations, the fact that they will have z variables within their research that they should have addressed and maybe even explored, and the fact that the life hardships survey items are so seemingly half-assed. 

Moreover, the way they use correlation in terms of stating their point within the discussion makes it sound more like causation than there is correlation, which is a major faux pas in the psychology and research field. How are you going to use “Correlate” and “prerequisite” in the the same place without making it sound like you’re insinuating to a causation that you haven’t quite proven with shoddy survey items?

This research could have been highly informative. It could have explained an array of questions to several people about the structures of systematic privileges and their ways of affecting lives. However, in my opinion, it falls short in terms of actually explaining why white people do what they do - especially with a small number such as 400 to represent millions of people within the U.S. alone. The whole discussion after the results are simply presumptuous in nature and don’t flesh out the survey answers well with the reasons I gave above. 

This is being used to dehumanise a demographic, to claim that they are sociopathic, violent, unfeeling brutes that pose a risk to you with their very existence. Crimes committed by a small handful of people (not exclusive to any one race or sex) in a position of power (you know what they say about power) in one country are being used to represent an entire demographic world-wide and when they are told that it is their responsibility, their fault and that they need to apologise for it or otherwise flagellate themselves, of course they’ll be defensive. Recounting hardships when confronted with another’s experiences is not demonstrating a lack of empathy, quite the opposite in fact, more often than not it is saying “I understand and here’s why”. I was never sure if it was an aspie thing but whenever someone was upset or worried about something that had happened I would empathise by mentioning a similar experience I or someone else had gone through, it’s a good way of trying to figure out solutions as well. I guess I’m half sociopathic subhuman beast though because one of my parents is just a little too pale for their humanity to be recognised.

For most of you above, your responses show that you are the ones lacking empathy. You see someone being confronted with situations they had no hand in creating and expect them to apologise for them, or claim responsibility or recognise that it’s just not the same when it happens to them because they don’t feel things the way we do. I don’t see how anyone could naturally come to that conclusion. They are empathising in the way most humans do, by showing that they understand. How do most people understand what something is like? They experience it. Ergo they would demonstrate their understanding by sharing their own experiences. If this was the other way around, you would be using that as an example of their superior empathy. That’s the problem with studies, you can make them mean literally anything. Then claim that your interpretation of the results applies only to groups you don’t like

nothing like the white tears of white people who grew up poor and white who think whiteness didn’t give them any advantages because they were poor. mmmmm delicious ignorance. 

that’s like me saying that because i grew up poor, being a male, able bodied and hetro gave me no advantages over a poor, female, disabled gay person. again, delicious ignorance. so tasty!

so much delicious ignorance in all the replies above. we got a slice of “white people are the victims in tis study” with a side of “do you expect them to apologize” and “not enough white people were surveyed! that’s not fair”…  i’m full!

We all start in the same place: no money, no resources, no contacts, no experience. The difference is that some people — the winners — choose to start anyway.