the dodo might hold the crown as the most famous extinct animal, and granted, they deserve it. they were the first species that humans acknowledged they had led to the extinction of. that’s a really significant title! but comparatively speaking, the death of a species of fat flightless pigeon with no natural predator on a tiny island isn’t half as horrifying as what happened to passenger pigeons.
the sheer scale at which these birds existed, and their subsequent extinction, is something i cannot wrap my head around. i know what happened – i’ve read novels upon novels about this, i’ve seen the pictures, i know all the details, but the more i think about it the more i realise i can’t possibly process it to its fullest extent because i wasn’t there. i didn’t live through that. i’ll never be able to fully understand how sudden it was.
these birds were over 5 billion strong at their peak. when they travelled, they allegedly blacked out the sun for thirty minutes at a time. they formed rivers in the sky, and there’s art and record of this from dozens of people. it wasn’t just one person’s poetic interpretation. these birds existed in an overwhelming quantity, and no doubt because of that that people took them for granted.
they were plentiful. they were obnoxiously plentiful, and yet humans took them out so cleanly and quickly and efficiently that from this species, from this five billion-strong species, we have only a single picture of a passenger pigeon squab.
these birds faded out of existence in the span of someone’s lifetime.
And now you know why we have the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It’s not to inconvenience those who whine when you can’t keep a crow feather you found on the ground or a taxidermy owl without papers at an antique shop. It’s because by the time the law was passed in 1918 the commercial hunting of birds was so incredibly destructive that it was already to late for several species, and many others were on the brink.
We have a HUGE abundance of wildlife compared to how many places in the US were by the turn of the 20th century. Not just birds, but mammals and other species. From the MBTA of 1918 to the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940, all of these and more are there to keep us from doing the same damned thing we did before. Only now we have SO MANY MORE PEOPLE who are sucking up even more habitat and other resources wildlife need.
i’m so done with the way girls in twenties are treated. i’m so done with people who literally create timetable for us. 20- 24 find a guy, 24-26 make him propose to you, 27-29 get married. i’m so done. i’m do not want to get 2 a.m texts from my best friend who is freaking out that she is gonna die alone. i do not want see my 20 years old friend wasting her time on some guys who are not even interested in her. i do not want see us falling for every nice guy who does not look creepy. i do not want to see girls get sad or paranoid just bcos they do not fill in the schedule. you are ok. you should enjoy your life at its fullest and one day you will find 10/10 so do not pursue 6 just because you do not want to be single. it is ok and one day you will find someone. do not split your love with people who does not deserve it. keep it for yourself and when time will come you will know. i know it hurts. i know you wish u could just open part of yourself and release the buzzing love. but not every kind of love is romantic. show it to your family, friends, plants, yourself.
Not a real criticism, just an expansion really, but … it’s not just the timetables we need to get away from, but the goal itself, I think. “One day you will find someone,” sounds comforting, but the reason it doesn’t lay fears to rest is because we are all smart enough to know it’s not necessarily true.
My aunt is over sixty, never married, and never, so far as I am aware, ever even had a great romance. She dated a lot, but never clicked and now seems to have given up. My mentor is over seventy, divorced her asshole husband more than half her life ago and has never found anyone since.
We all know women (and men) like these. And because we know them, we know that “one day you will find someone,” is just … hogwash. Because sometimes you just … don’t. Or sometimes you do, but he turns out to be a cad. Or you do and the universe rips you apart in the most unfair way possible. And because society has us so fixated on finding “our other half” or whatever, we view these women as cautionary tales.
But …
My aunt trains dogs. Her schipperke is the national champion for his breed. She spent so much of her life as a librarian, nurturing the love of books in kids, myself among them. I ride horses because of her, and it’s one of the very few things I do that makes my soul feel at peace.
My mentor is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in her state. She has devoted her life to fighting to ensure that everyone gets a vigorous defense. Because of her countless people have had the opportunity to turn their lives around. Because of her, they’ve had a life to turn around. Because of her, the prosecution and the police in her jurisdiction are forced to behave ethically and adhere to the rule of law. She’s still, even now fighting to abolish the death penalty. It’s because of her that I am pursuing the life I am.
These women’s lives are not nothing. In fact they are a whole lot of something, and it makes my heart hurt that I ever, in my dark 3 am’s, thought of their lives as something to be avoided at all costs.
So love your family, your friends, your pets, your gardens. Love your job or your hobby or your raison d’ etre, whatever it is. Love sunsets and the smell of rain and yourself, and don’t love these as something to do as a placeholder until the buzzing, romantic love comes, but love these as things worth loving all in themselves.
It’s fucking hard some days. The dark 3 am’s still come sometimes. But most days, I am so much more at peace knowing that I am not incomplete or waiting, but that my life, if it ended today, is worth it because of the platonic, familial, friendship love I have shared. And if the other kind does come someday, that’ll be nice, but it won’t make any of the others less. It’ll just be caramel sauce on a sundae–tasty and wonderful, but the sundae was perfect without it too.
Woke up to this. If you are unaware, Nationalist is code word for Nazi. White Nationalists are Nazis with a different name. They are for “ethnic cleansing” which means Genocide. Nazi announces he is a Nazi.
And he wants to get rid of trans/non-binary folks. The same thing first happened back then when Nazis took down the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Science of Sexuality). They had so much data about trans folks in general and Nazis burnt it down with all the records and data. This is how a fascist regime starts.
It’s what happened to Jews in Germany in 1938 when their passports were declared invalid. That is what is beginning to happen here, now, to Hispanic citizens along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Oh, is it bad to compare the GOP to Nazis? Well, if members of the GOP do not like being compared to Nazis, they should consider not behaving exactly like Nazis.
Hispanic U.S. citizens, some of whom were in the U.S. military, are not being allowed to renew their passports. This is reportedly happening to “hundreds, even thousands” of Latinos, according to a report in the Washington Post. They’re getting letters from the State Department saying it does not believe they are citizens. The government claims their citizenships are fraudulent. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center—U.S. citizens,” Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville, told The Washington Post.
The Washington Post also reports on ICE officials coming to citizens’ homes and taking their passports away. This is an escalation from a few months ago, when Americans were detained by ICE officials just for speaking Spanish to one another.
The administration is currently launching an effort to take citizenship from people who they suspect of fraud in obtaining it. Fraud in these cases is exceedingly rare. The last time the government tried to strip people of their citizenship was, according to Columbia Professor Mae Ngai, during The Red Scare of the 1950s. As Ngai remarks, McCarthyism is not typically remembered as a good period in American history.
There is good reason to believe that this could portend still worse things to come for the U.S. Hispanic population, unless people begin to speak out loudly, and fast.
First, they came for the Hispanics and I did nothing.
Then they came for (fill in the blanks) and I did nothing.
Then, when they came for me, there was no one to do nothing.
GUYS.
SILENCE IS COMPLICITY.
IT WILL HAUNT NOT ONLY YOU BUT YOUR CHILDRENS CHILDREN.
DONT BE SILENT. PASS THIS AROUND. Let everyone know it’s happening!
Ruby Bridges was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis in 1960.
This movie made me cry, I was so heart broken by how Ruby Bridges was treated! She was only 6, but was so strong. She is a very brave girl and she did not care what the white folks called her.
People are simply disgusting to minimize people by skin color!
Ruby you might not think you’re a hero… But to other people you are! You are A HERO and you are A PERSON WHO MADE AMERICA CHANGE!
this is white culture, this is their history, this is their legacy…being enraged at a damn baby just because she’s black.
she’s still alive by the way
Ruby Bridges in 2010
“As Bridges describes it, “Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.“ Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, “She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn’t whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we’re all very very proud of her.“
U.S. Marshals escorted Bridges to and from school
As soon as Bridges entered the school, white parents pulled their own children out; all the teachers refused to teach while a black child was enrolled. Only one person agreed to teach Ruby and that was Barbara Henry, from Boston, Massachusetts, and for over a year Henry taught her alone, “as if she were teaching a whole class.”
Every morning, as Bridges walked to school, one woman would threaten to poison her; because of this, the U.S. Marshals dispatched by President Eisenhower, who were overseeing her safety, allowed Ruby to eat only the food that she brought from home.
Another woman at the school put a black baby doll in a wooden coffin and protested with it outside the school, a sight that Bridges Hall has said “scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us.” At her mother’s suggestion, Bridges began to pray on the way to school, which she found provided protection from the comments yelled at her on the daily walks.”
THIS SHIT WAS ONLY 58 YEARS AGO. PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS RACIST TERRORISM AND ACTS LIKE IT ARE STILL ALIVE, AND THEIR KIDS ARE IN THEIR 40′S AND 50′S.
DON’T LET RACISM APOLOGISTS GET AWAY WITH “WHY ARE YOU LIVING IN THE PAST,” BULLSHIT ARGUMENTS. WE ARE LITERALLY STILL DEALING WITH THE FAMILIES THAT FORMED HATE MOBS OVER BLACK CHILDREN ATTENDING SCHOOL WITH WHITE KIDS.
This was her then:
This is literally how she looks in 2017.
She’s literally not even old.
Some of those people in that crowd are VOTING this year. Their children raised by them are voting this year. And they want to Make America Great Again.
Doctor Who has received significant viewer and critical acclaim for an episode, featuring Rosa Parks (Vinette Robinson) that tackled racism and discrimination.
The storyline also did not attempt to influence the event, or in any way inspire Rosa for her actions that day.
Rather, they helped protect the circumstances so that the event did happen.
Not only did the episode highlight racist attitudes in the past, they also highlighted how racism continues today. Ryan (Toisin Cole) talked about being stopped by police and Yaz (Mandip Gill) opened up about being the abuse she has experienced as a Muslim.
They also contextualised Rosa Parks’ story, highlighting the future difficulties she faced and the continued fight for civil rights.
Notably, this was also the first episode in Doctor Who history to have been written by a person of colour.
It was also pointed out that the episode was aired on the same day as a black woman was racially abused and was made to move on an Ryanair flight.
And at the end of the episode, The Doctor highlighted that Rosa Parks not only changed the world but the “universe,” pointing out an asteroid that has been named after her.
October 14, 1977, Anita Bryant is pied for her antigay bigotry at a press conference in Des Moines, IA.
It was 40 years ago today…
Never gets old.
40 years on and it still is gratifying
Anita’s still alive and kicking and being anti-gay. Thom Higgins, who threw the pie when he was 27 – and was poetically from Beaver Dam – passed away 17 years later at 44. Info on his life is here. The pie throwing was a big deal. In an age before the internet let gays feel connected, and long before ACT UP, the pie showed small pockets of gays that we could fight back.
did you know that in 1953 eisenhower issued an executive order which banned gay people from being employed in government
and it was specifically to root out lesbians who enjoyed the job security of government work
“To protect their careers, lesbian government workers moderated their behavior to avoid suspicion. They refused to socialize with other lesbians in public, attended social functions with gay men as their ‘dates,’ and carefully chose their wardrobes and makeup to project a feminine persona. Male employees who resented reporting to a female boss could trigger an investigation into her sexuality.” – Robert J Corber “Cold War Femme”
this era was called the lavender scare and was both a direct result of mccarthyism and the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness during ww2. over 10,000 lesbians and gay men lost their jobs and as a result the daughters of bilitis (the first ever lesbian activist group in the u.s.) formed in order to protect themselves and gay men
I cannot believe we’re still tearing Cinderella down! 2018 only has a few months left and we’re still doing this, we’re still painting her as the weakest Disney princess and we’re still painting her weakness as a bad thing?
Why?
Why are people so caught up on bashing this princess?
“The movie is so simplistic—”
In what way is it possibly simplistic?!
“She didn’t work hard—”
YES, SHE DID!
“Well, okay, but the fairy godmother still had to come in—”
Yep, I remember the movie too, and the countless stories on which it’s based.
“So the fairy godmother was the one who caused the happily ever after.”
She sure was, now, what’s your point?
No, really, what’s your point? Is the point that Cinderella is somehow weak because she wasn’t 100% in control of her own life? Seems like a pretty disgusting opinion to have when the whole movie is about an abuse victim finding a way out of her horrible situation. So Cinderella wasn’t the one who got herself out. So what? Instead of looking the movie at its bare surface, maybe try analyzing it with a bit more thought and tact. You might see something a little different. A magical transformation, if you will.
Because Cinderella did work hard.
And guess what we learned from that?
You can work
and work
and work
And there will still be people out there who will try to tear you apart:
Literally.
And that sucks. It’s a horrible lesson to learn but it is something we will all face in our lifetimes. There will always be people who will try to tear us down, there will always be people who will try to rip us apart, until we’re in a low place:
Until it seems like there’s no hope…
Until it seems like you’re too weak to get out on your own…
And maybe you are.
Maybe you are too weak to get out on your own. Maybe you’re not the strongest woman in the world. Maybe you’re not capable of screaming at the top of your lungs or brandishing a weapon or throwing a punch. Maybe you’re not able to get out of something on your own. Maybe you hit a low point and maybe you have no way out of it. Not alone. But that’s just it.
You’re not alone.
Even at your lowest point, someone will come help you.
You don’t have to do it all alone.
It’s okay to have a little help when you have nowhere else to turn.
Cinderella is the story about an abuse victim who is unable to get out of her toxic situation by herself and just when she begins to lose all hope, is able to get help from an unlikely source. It’s the story about a girl who needs help getting to her happily ever after and that’s okay.
Give us advocates:
They deserve their happily ever afters!
Give us warriors:
They deserve their happily ever afters!
Give us fighters:
They deserve their happily ever afters!
Give us girls who are not advocates, girls who are not warriors, girls who are not fighters, girls who still deserves their happily ever afters:
wupacing 
