#tukes

The support and solidarity I received from my chosen family not only lifted my veil of shame, it also pushed me to retrieve the sections of my humanity that had been rendered invisible by the power my abuser held over me. And just as the placards held up by Tukes’s supporters called attention to the systemic and institutional, I began to understand and locate my abuser’s power in the same way. Shailja Patel, a Kenyan feminist activist, poet, and author of Migritude, asserts that if “you want to understand how power works in any society, watch who is carrying the shame and who is doing the shaming.” Because of my abuser’s power over me—power expressed through months of manipulation and white entitlement to my time, space, and ultimately my body—I internalized their violence as something that I unquestionably deserved. Informed by their whiteness (whether intentional or not), my abuser marked and recognized me, a queer Black South African femme, as a body safe to violate. Thus, my own story can be located and understood within a global, imperialist, white supremacist, heteropatriarchal matrix where certain bodies are coded as more vulnerable to sexual violence than others. So many of these bodies are connected by complex interlocking histories and present realities of colonization, apartheid, settler colonialism and slavery—and the systemic erasure of these aspects contributes to our silence. Leah Horlick, an award-winning queer Canadian poet, activist and community organizer, speaks about these vital connections in 2015’s For Your Own Good, a landmark poetry anthology exploring queer sexual assault. She writes, “I have connected with many brilliant, articulate racialized and dis/Abled youth, trans* women, and sex workers who have always been at the forefront of calling out queer in-community violence—because they overwhelmingly experience the most severe, isolating, sexualized, and fatal abuse at the hands of our so-called queer and feminist ‘communities.’” Just as I drew strength from my chosen family to puncture the silence and shame I internalized about my sexual assault, I choose to believe that the collective silences we break around queer sexual assault can stir strength and courage in others. Whether or not survivors have their own chosen families, those of us who have the immense privilege to speak can gently nudge others to shed the shameful veil so many of us wear. I know this because Timothy Tukes’s silent protest roused me into writing these words. Through both tiny and large expressions of solidarity, we can be each other’s chosen families.

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Kyllä on pinnassa 20kv kaapelointi. Tästäkö se hinta sitten koostuu kun mennään sieltä mistä aita matalin. #maakaapeli #eltell #sähkö #aliurakoitsija #halvinvoittaa #sähköverkko #valvonta #tukes (paikassa Alahärmä, Länsi-Suomen Lääni, Finland)

Pensioner had built a rodent repelling device from electric plug, electric wire and two screwdrivers. One screwdriver was connected to the line and another to neutral. For unknown reason he either grabbed metallic parts of the screwdrivers, or exposed wire, when electric plug was connected to the the socket. Man was electrocuted and he later died to his wounds in hospital.

#kaivostoiminta #tukes #malminetsintä #uraani #sikamaista #touhua #kaivos #eteläpohjanmaa

Pamietamy!!