sketchblog

What we are seeing right now in the United States is the re-colonization of a nation.

The return of enslavement in the form of mass incarceration and for-profit prisons, the legalization of murdering protesters, the criminalization of free speech, criminalization of the press, and protest itself. Fighting back against a hate crime is a hate crime, here.

The return of classifying people indigenous to the Americas as “removable aliens”, no similarity acknowledged about the second coming of genocidal monster Andrew Jackson, and his completely illegal “Indian Removal Act”, which no one stopped, and led to the Trail of Tears and the annihilation of several entire peoples and cultures.*

The return of eugenics and mass murder of the disabled, in the form of repealing the Affordable Care Act, gutting Medicaid, and leaving the disabled, chronically ill, victims of accidents or violent crimes, and anyone living in poverty to die in the gutters.

The return of child labor, including literally taking children out of school and putting them IN MINES, complete environmental and corporate deregulation, giving the thumbs up to poisoning thousands of children and allowing it to continue, the denial of science in favor of quasi-religious tyranny leading to a devaluation of human life the likes of which have not been seen since the 17th and 18th centuries, in my opinion.

The return of overtly, violently racist white nationalism upheld and legislated by casting specific marginalized groups as subhuman Others who must be ousted in order that this concept of a “nation” remain safe only for a select, chosen few. Including those who already live here LEGALLY.

Living here means waking up every morning and tasting ashes, knowing it will bring several reminders of your impending dehumanization, destruction, and death. Entire departments of our government are resigning. Entire departments have been gagged and censored. Entire sections of our society have already been abolished. What I’ve said here already isn’t even close to everything; they are moving quickly in hopes that it will be too fast for anyone to stop it.

What we are witnessing and being subjected to is the wholesale dismantling of a society.

* [”The Mass Murderer on Your 20″, Arthur Chu]

The deservedly single biggest issue that gets brought up regarding his term is the minor matter of masterminding a genocide. The Trail of Tears is one of the largest-scale acts of ethnic cleansing in history, with its explicit end the eventual annihilation of the Five Civilized Tribes as peoples in the name of “progress.” Jackson brazenly, callously spat on treaties that had been established with our erstwhile allies in the name of convenient access to cheap land.

A gigantic aluminum serpent was completed in 2012 by artist Huang Yong Ping. It lays along the shore of the Loire River near Nantes, France. It is nearly 425 feet and mirrors the curves of the Saint Nazaire bridge nearby.

Huang Yong Ping (Chinese: 黄永砯; born 1954) is a French contemporary artist and one of the most famous Chinese Avant-garde artists. Born in Xiamen, he was recognized as the most controversial and provocative artist of the Chinese art scene in the 1980s.[1]

Huang was one of the first artists to consider that art was a strategy.[1] He was a self-taught student educating himself under three well-known men. Joseph Beuys well known German artist and art theorist, John Cage an American music theorist and philosopher, and Marcel Duchamp a French artist that’s associated with Dadaist and Surrealist. He then graduated in 1982 from CAFA in Hangzhoue. In 1986 he formed Xiamen Dada. Huang Yong Ping has four periods associated with himself, anti-artistic affectation (fan jiaoshi zhuyi), anti-self-expression (fan ziwo biaoxian he xingshi zhuyi), anti-art (fan yishu), and anti-history (fanyishushi). In 1989 at the age of 35 Huang Yong Ping went to Paris for the Magiciens de la terre exhibit. He then ended up immigrating to France and living there ever since. Many of his pieces today are on a large scale, making them not auction-compatible.

if you prefer facebook as a platform, the post is here: https://www.facebook.com/LauraMakesArt/posts/785714959570

If you are an LGBT teen and need someone to tell you that they love you, please message me. I am all ears.

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For all my white friends who are now huddled together and scared, you have to understand something. I’ve felt this uncertainty and lack of safety for my whole life. Many of you were ansgty teenangers in the bush era like I was, but while you watched chappelle show and didn’t get his jokes until 10 years later, or you watched boondocks but didn’t understand why I always said “it just makes me depressed”… I need you to clutch onto the pit in your your stomach, the nervous jitter that your hands are making as you try to type your posts, because that’s not new.

Little Rock Nine entered high school in 1957. My family lived through it.

Martin Luther King died in in 1968. My parents lived through it.

The Million Man March was in 1995. I was alive.

My uncles narrowly escaped going to war in vietnam, they just got their right to get married and did right before I moved to this red, red state

“The world is going to end” has been being scrawled onto every writing surface since we knew how to do it, because it’s so comforting to think that it can’t get much worse than this so let’s just lay in the fetal position and let the darkness take us.

You are feeling a sting of defeat and facing the grim reality that every rapper on the planet has known since their parents sat them down and explained why some white person followed them around the grocery store. Why someone called you a nigger at the pool.

When I was 13, I was at a convention with my mother, some NBC event, and when a security guard tried to stop her from walking into the back she flashed her badge and said “Oh I’m allowed to be here” and walked right through. I heard that guard call her a nigger under her breath, I was 13 and thought “Mom doesn’t need to deal with that one.” and said nothing.

Why? I knew she had heard it before and would probably hear it again. I knew I would too. And I did. I play games, and I’ve watched white teens go from the days of xbox live being an abhorrent shit show where generally I would be asked if I was “a girl, or a 12 year old” from my voice. I would say “whatever you want” and proceed to hear them toss the most heinous shit out. I’ve been called a nigger a faggot and a cunt in the same sentence (Thanks Xbox live! Really miss you.) and people wonder why I’m not afraid of the words?

If you are scared right now, let me level with you. This is the kind of shit minorities, women, and lgbt folk deal with every day, and have realities worse than you have dealt with. If you are able to stay here and stand your ground, you need to. The million man march was in 1995. Get your timeline in order and remember that these problems didn’t go away. No we were not living in a liberal utopia where racism had died, no it is not enough that you have a black friend but just want your protest vote to go down in history.

You have a real obligation to me and your country. The people who voted for trump are the same people who think I should just “go back to africa.” I live on the land that my grandfathers both served risked their lives to protect. I live in the nation that my mother, aunts and uncles survived overt and long lasting segregation and had no option to flee to other white people.

I cannot pretend to be white. I cannot stay quiet and clutch onto an image that I belong here. I cannot clutch to a fantasy that I can run away. I don’t have ancestors in the UK, or french canadian blood. I’m an american today, and was yesterday. And so has my family been through extreme and tumultuous times.

Today you can be sad, if you want. It is a cold and rainy day here in texas, but if you know me, and have a lick of courage, I want to embolden you to use your voice every second you can. Vote, find activism, wear rainbows, wear BLM tees, put your fucking fist up. You have a huge luxury of a system that looks on you sympathetically in ways it has never looked at me. They can’t shoot you and get away with it.

The only reason that we are here today, is because everyone on the other side was so scared that they put aside their huge disagreements with a man so that they could get their party back in power. And you might think every trump supporter is a fucking idiot, but liberal pettiness arguing about who is more woke is what got us here. Congratulations.

You aren’t woke (and you’re not going to canada) So, you need to get to work, and if you haven’t ever made a stand on an issue either way, today is the day you learn how.

A recent cartoon for New Scientist magazine.