oh Shit it's the Spanish Inquisition

It manifests in our lives all the time and it is inherently destructive. It makes relationships and interactions adversarial for no good reason. It undermines cooperation and good civic order. It worsens some types of crime. It creates trauma, especially in children.

Imagine approaching unexpected or unacceptable behavior from a perspective of "how can this be stopped, and prevented" instead of "you’re going to regret this!”

Imagine dealing with a problem or conflict from the perspective of “how can this be solved in a way that is just and restorative” instead of “the people who caused this are going to pay.”

To answer your second question: No, most of the US is not a desert, the deserts of the US are mostly limited to the west and southwest of the country. A quick glance over wikipedias list of the population of US cities indicates around 5-6 million people in total live in deserts in the US. That said, the definition of desert is variable, and you don't have to be in a desert to be in the red on your water budget. Los Angeles, the second largest city in the US with 3.9 million people, is not technically in a desert, but it doesn't have enough water for self-sufficiency. It can only exist because of an aqueduct that redirects a huge portion of a watershed from elsewhere in the state. Another river, the Colorado, doesn't even make it to the sea anymore because of how much of it is used. Even much more non-desert places can see issues with rainfall or snow pack that can lead to water shortages, and there are huge swaths of places in the US where groundwater is drawn up far faster than it can be naturally replaced (which is an exceedingly slow process) to the point that some parts of the US have been sinking to lower elevations due to the lack of water in their aquifers. And in ALL OF THESE PLACES, PEOPLE GROW FUCKING LAWNS. like. Lots of people do. Almost everyone in suburbia continues to grow and care for and overwater lawns. Even in deserts. Even in droughts. Even in places that see a handful of inches of rain per year. People keep growing lawns. It is the *default* that is expected of you.

If you want to know why it's the default, I'm not in a state to give that answer honestly, but look up HOA's, american suburbanization, white flight, levittowns, plantations, and french aristocracy. it's a long (and very racist) line.

Why do a lot of…Asians so to speak are scared towards people of Africa descent?

Like this tweet

I mean if it look like very rough African person from a third world country I get it. But like the average black person, unless it some idiot from the ghetto that got lucky to visit Japan, means no harm.

Also discovered a story where I remember American racism towards black people is a pale imitation of British racism towards blacks

But am I going to be seen as scary if I visit Japan? I’m 5’6…my dad is 5’6 and half…yet I’m a short black guy…

But I’m confused since Europeans and Americans usually brought their black slaves or black employees (because they can pay them cheaper)

But what makes people of African descent look scary to other people and surprisingly the Japanese as well? Is it our bone structure, our muscles can look more prominent because of our darker skin tones, how we can be tall (but that skip my dad side of the family!)

Ofc I’m not saying ALL Asians are like that towards black people. Because in the west, we were viewed as uncivilized people for centuries but it seems it some parts of the East we can look like superhuman to them.

You know in the Chronicles of Oda Nobunaga, he said that Yasuke seems to posses to the strength of ten men.

Like…I know there a lot of factors, could black people to be stronger on average back in the past due to our ancestors evolving Africa’s harsh and sometimes extreme environments?

Also very dumb dumb question, I got a good chuck of European dna. Like 20% iirc

But what am I mostly still of the West African Genome despite my people being here for 400 years? Is it because of segregation? Don’t know how genes work

Are there any records of Chinese immigrants being shocked to how Black People looked like when coming to USA and Canadian

Random…why do Chinese people have similar urban culture as black people.

And yeah my autism is saying fuck social cues rn.

But why are there so many Asian shops and such in low income black communities? Not saying they can’t profit there, but maybe I was born in 2000. I thought most Asian Americans live in majority white and middle neighborhoods.

So why are many in the past and some now live around black neighborhoods

With the new Harry Potter series she will be making a reported $20 million per-season renewal + other performance dependent royalties. She has been open across multiple interviews regarding her intentions to use said funds to push forth even more trans targeted legislation in the years to come.

This isn’t a “she gets paid no matter what” situation. The more eyeballs on this show the more money she has to actively harm vulnerable communities. By engaging with it you are directly supporting this and otherwise making a conscious choice to consume HP over doing the literal very least possible to not destroy the lives of trans people across the world.

If my stating the objective facts above upsets you then feel free to unfriend and move along. Your nostalgia-goggles feelings for a tired, problematic franchise mean nothing to me compared to the welfare of my trans friends and loved ones."

If you care more about badly written children's books and imaginary wizards more than you do about real people in the real world do it far the fuck away from me.

Don't try to be in my life.

The conversation of privilege, and who has access to privilege, is one of the conversations that tumblr seems to be the worst at having, so let's talk it through!

A lot of people have the misconception that privilege works like an on/off switch. Either you 100% have it, or you don't.

But privilege works less like a switch, and more like a mixing board.

(ID: a mixing board with many toggles, sliders, and dials)

Privileges interact with each other in different ways, and different privileged people may have more or less access to those privileges if they face oppression in other ways.

A white man and a Native american man may both benefit from male privilege, but a Native american man does not have the same access to male privilege that a white man does. A gay man does not have the same access to male privilege that a straight man does.

A disabled white person does not have the same access to white privilege that an able white person does. A white transgender person does not have the same access to white privilege that a white cisgender person does.

A cisgender Black woman does not have the same access to cisgender privilege that a white cisgender woman has.

While a post op masc presenting trans man with 10 years on testosterone may benefit from male privilege a closeted, fem presenting transgender man does not have that same access.

Privilege does not exist in a vacuum. Misogyny, racism, transphobia etc are not just individual acts, they are SYSTEMS of oppression, and those systems intersect with each other.

Intersectionality was coined by Black american activist and author Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe the relationship between anti-Black racism and misogyny and the way that intersection impacts Black women. Feminist scholar Moya Bailey would later coin the word misogynoir to describe this specific intersection in 2008. Transmisogyny, coined by white american feminist author Julia Serano in 2007, is another example of one of these crucial intersections, and describes the deadly intersection of misogyny and transphobia that transfeminine people face.

Tumblr gets so hyperfocused on individual forms of oppression that we forget to consider intersectionality, and the way that our individual experiences of oppression and privilege interact. This is not serving any of us. It's on each and every one of us to learn about our privileges and find a way to use them for the common good.

Some forms of privilege, like white privilege or class/wealth privilege are near universal, and can override some forms of oppression. Consider how often white wealthy autistic men have their bad behaviour excused and explained away, in a way that would not be done for a poor, racialized autistic woman. Looking at you, Elon!

In the americas wealth and whiteness are privileged above all else. If you're a white marginalized person, you need to be aware of the ways that your white privilege lifts you above the racialized members of your community.

I'm First Nations, I experience oppression and racism based on my Indigenous background. I'm also light skinned, and I have a white mother. Even though I'm not (fully) white, I have more access to white privilege than visibly First Nations people because of my partial white ancestry, and my mother's white privilege. When I was young we were very poor and often utilized the local food bank. The resources were limited, and sometimes people were turned away due to low supply. If there's not enough to go around, who do you think is more likely to be prioritized: a brown Native mother with Native kids, or a white mother with Native kids? I materially benefited from HER white privilege.

Privilege is also not static. It may change as a person's circumstances or identity change. As a child I was darker skinned than I am now. As I aged, spent less time outdoors, and became lighter skinned, I gained more access to white privilege. I also used to need mobility aids 24/7, as my health has improved and I gained more mobility I also gained more access to the privilege that able bodied people have.

My being a light skinned Native with partial white ancestry means that non-Native people are more likely to listen to me than they are darker skinned Natives. This gives me an opportunity to share information about my people and our history that other natives may not get. That's privilege.

Your homework is to think on your specific intersections of privilege, (and we ALL have some kind of privilege) and consider the ways that you can use those privileges to lift up less privileged members of your community.

Thanks for reading.

They want buckskin and face paint, drumming, songs in languages they can’t understand recorded for them but with English subtitles, of course. They want educated, well spoken, but not too smart. Christian, well behaved, never question. They want to learn the history of the people, but not the ones that are here now, waving signs in their faces, asking them for clean drinking water, asking them why their women are going missing, asking them why their land is being ruined.

They want fantastical stories of Indians that used to roam this land. They want my culture behind glass in a museum.

(I'm holding your hand while i say this)

You might be right.

You might have opinions that you feel have veered off into unacceptable territory. You might have come to feminism with a "fuck all men, we should start treating them like shit, see how they like it" mentality. You might have come to anti-christian nationalism with a "christianity is so patriarchal and imperialistic, anyone who practices it hates me and i hate them" mentality. You might have come to environmentalism with a "there are too many people on this planet, we need a new plague" mentality.

You might have noticed your opinions slipping further and further into radicalization but you might also feel like you started on that path from a genuinely good place and you've had only the best of intentions.

But (and this is the part you need to internalize), it is not too late to course correct.

Whenever I worry that my desire to make a better world has led me to accept opinions, beliefs, rhetoric etc. that I don't actually agree with, I take a step back and ask myself three questions:

First, am I assuming that other people are not people in the exact same way that I'm a person?

The root of all evil is the incredibly tempting tendency to treat other people like they're not exactly as much of a person as you are. So take a beat and ask yourself if you're treating them like they are.

(This can go in both directions by the way! Treating someone like they're less than a person is obviously harmful and dehumanizing but treating them like they're more than a person can lead to objectification, tokenization, and more. Not good stuff.)

Second, am I thinking from a place of love or hate?

The saying "you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor" will untangle you from so many impossible ethical dilemmas, I promise you.

And third, am I putting my anger somewhere useful?

This is actually a two part question because the first step is asking yourself, "Am I directing my anger towards the person or institution I am actually mad at?" If the answer is no, then you are effectively yelling at a Walmart employee about how evil the Walmart corporation is and expecting them to be able to do something about that.

Then you move onto the actual question, "Am I putting my anger somewhere useful?" If the extent of your civic engagement is getting into fights on social media, I can assure you the answer is no.

So for example...

Let's say you are a girl in your early-mid 20s. You learned about feminism from your friends and maybe a teacher or professor or two and you've accepted the fact that patriarchy is real and harmful to women but you find yourself repeatedly thinking "Ugh, I wish all men could just fuck off and die. I should be able to treat them exactly as terribly as women have been treated since the beginning of time."

This is an understandable thought. I see how you got there. Misogyny is incredibly exhausting to deal with, many men have done exactly zero work to become less misogynistic, and living your life with the crushing weight of "a significant portion of the world's population do not think of me as a full and autonomous person" is very very difficult.

So what do we do about it? What is our response.

Here is where we pause and ask the questions.

First, am I assuming that other people are not people in the exact same way that I am a person?

Am I treating "men" like a monolith in the same way that misogynists treat "women" like a monolith? Yes? Okay then what's the reality? (Hint: it is always more complex than you first think).

For me, the reality is that "men" includes my best friend from college who loves me and the world so much he's spent 12 years learning about feminism and gender theory just so he could be a better person, a better friend. It includes Brennan Lee Mulligan (and Lou Wilson and Zac Oyama and more) who prove to me that it is possible to be a public figure without promoting toxic masculinity. It includes my favorite professor who still checks in on me and my career, even years after I stopped being his student. It includes trans men I want to celebrate and love, both for their trans-ness and their maleness. It includes so many men whom I love and who love me. Which brings us to....

Second, am I thinking from a place of love or hate?

When I have the knee-jerk thought "I wish all men would just fuck off and die" what am I actually saying? I'm saying I wish the world were safer and kinder and better for women. I'm saying I want women to live the lives they want to live, regardless of whatever a hateful man might think about it. I'm saying I want a higher quality of life for women.

And so....

Third, am I putting my anger somewhere useful?

Do I actually think all men should die? Do I think men should be violently eradicated from the planet?

No, that's ridiculous and not useful at all and certainly not coming from a place of love.

So instead I'll ask myself "How can I make my anger work for me?"

Well, what do women need to have a higher quality of life? They need to be paid a fair wage, they need access to high-quality health care, they need subsidized childcare and birth control and abortions and education. So those are the things I will fight for. Those are the things I will talk about.

It manifests in our lives all the time and it is inherently destructive. It makes relationships and interactions adversarial for no good reason. It undermines cooperation and good civic order. It worsens some types of crime. It creates trauma, especially in children.

Imagine approaching unexpected or unacceptable behavior from a perspective of "how can this be stopped, and prevented" instead of "you’re going to regret this!”

Imagine dealing with a problem or conflict from the perspective of “how can this be solved in a way that is just and restorative” instead of “the people who caused this are going to pay.”

you are also not in the right if you are pro endo harassing someone who is anti endo.

Real shit op, this is in fact the basis of purity culture in a way; that there is an objective correctness or truth to a matter, that there is a "right." I fucks heavy with ur opinion that it's subjective and I agree; I just wonder why so many diiscoursers feel the need to tout their "rightness" when it is inherently an opinion based conversation. I'll b so real; purity culture is a term I've been building for a while and this blog is a little bit of my way of trying to see what other ppl think of the idea :). Genuinely Tysm for being willing to engage with me on this I appreciate it a lot. This blog isn't a "gotcha" like 'aha you're a moral puritan!' Idgafffff. This is about pointing out the inherent cognitive distortions that come with cultural Christianity (arguably moreso cultural Catholicism but we can talk more about that on another post)

Ps; I have a tag #what is purity culture (added to this RB) that I'm gonna be using to try and elaborate on what my concept of purity culture is.