Winter Sunsets ღ  

racist teens having their college offers taken away and racist adults getting fired from their jobs? we love to see it. face the consequences of your words and actions

Mmmm. There’s a lot of posts telling ace people that it’s okay to want and have sex and telling aro people that it’s okay to want and be in a relationship, and those are great and important and true but also.

It’s okay to never want to have sex. It’s okay to never be okay with sex, to have a completely sex-free relationship, to never feel comfortable having sex because you’re partner enjoys it, to never find any sort of joy in sex.

And it’s okay to never want a serious relationship. It’s okay to not want to date and it’s okay to want to spend your life single. It’s okay to never be in a serious romantic relationship and it’s okay to never be in a serious platonic relationship and you never have to have a romantic or platonic partner no matter what anyone says.

It’s okay. You’re okay.

Another mushroom castle, October 2017

This is a jar full of major characters 

Actually it is a jar full of chocolate covered raisins on top of a dirty TV tray. But pretend the raisins are interesting and well rounded fictional characters with significant roles in their stories. 

We’re sharing these raisins at a party for Western Storytelling, so we get out two bowls. 

Then we start filling the bowls. And at first we only fill the one on the left. 

This doesn’t last forever though. Eventually we do start putting raisins in the bowl on the right. But for every raisin we put in the bowl on the right, we just keep adding to the bowl on the left. 

And the thing about these bowls is, they don’t ever reset. We don’t get to empty them and start over. While we might lose some raisins to lost records or the stories becoming unpopular, but we never get to just restart. So even when we start putting raisins in the bowl on the right, we’re still way behind from the bowl on the left. 

And time goes on and the bowl on the left gets raisins much faster than the bowl on the right. 

Until these are the bowls. 

Now you get to move and distribute more raisins. You can add raisins or take away raisins entirely, or you can move them from one bowl to the other. 

This is the bowl on the left. I might have changed the number of raisins from one picture to the next. Can you tell me, did I add or remove raisins? How many? Did I leave the number the same?

You can’t tell for certain, can you? Adding or removing a raisin over here doesn’t seem to make much of a change to this bowl. 

This is the bowl on the right. I might have changed the number of raisins from one picture to the next. Can you tell me, did I add or remove raisins? How many? Did I leave the number the same?

When there are so few raisins to start, any change made is really easy to spot, and makes a really significant difference. 

This is why it is bad, even despicable, to take a character who was originally a character of color and make them white. But why it can be positive to take a character who was originally white and make them a character of color.

The white characters bowl is already so full that any change in number is almost meaningless (and is bound to be undone in mere minutes anyway, with the amount of new story creation going on), while the characters of color bowl changes hugely with each addition or subtraction, and any subtraction is a major loss. 

This is also something to take in consideration when creating new characters. When you create a white character you have already, by the context of the larger culture, created a character with at least one feature that is not going to make a difference to the narratives at large. But every time you create a new character of color, you are changing something in our world. 

I mean, imagine your party guests arrive

Oh my god they are adorable!

And they see their bowls

But before you hand them out you look right into the little black girls’s eyes and take two of her seven raisins and put them in the little white girl’s bowl.

I think she’d be totally justified in crying or leaving and yelling at you. Because how could you do that to a little girl? You were already giving the white girl so much more, and her so little, why would you do that? How could you justify yourself?

But on the other hand if you took two raisins from the white girl’s bowl and moved them over to the black girl’s bowl and the white girl looked at her bowl still full to the brim and decided your moving those raisins was unfair and she stomped and cried and yelled, well then she is a spoiled and entitled brat. 

And if you are adding new raisins, it seems more important to add them to the bowl on the right. I mean, even if we added the both bowls at the same speed from now on (and we don’t) it would still take a long time before the numbers got big enough to make the difference we’ve already established insignificant. 

And that’s the difference between whitewashing POC characters and making previously white characters POC. And that’s why every time a character’s race is ambiguous and we make them white, we’ve lost an opportunity.

*goes off to eat her chocolate covered raisins, which are no longer metaphors just snacks*

Biggest failing of the internet is that in order to be vibing with my friends I have to actually be talking to them. I socialize like a cat I just show affection by sitting next to you. Ily but sometimes I have Nothing to say. Not a damn thing going on in my head

my mutuals..... all very sweet and cute even if we haven’t spoken.... my followers....... so nice and lovely even tho I am a dumbass..... very good vibes

i dont fucking trust ppl who r neutral on ace ppls place in the lgbtq community. they fucking belong here. by saying youre "neutral" or "dont care/dont want to pick a side" youre literally making things worse. i wont fucking tolerate it. asexuals are lgbtq and you can fucking die mad about it.

Most of the “keep up the work after the protests have ended!”-type posts I’ve seen are mostly focused on like, reading Black authors and listening to Black voices and unlearning racism, and obviously all of that is absolutely vital - but no amount of individual self-reflection will be able to dismantle institutional systems of oppression. So I wanted to put together some resources for continuing to build a culture of noncompliance and resistance to the police and prison system even after things have calmed down

But first, be aware that the protests aren’t over. It’s June 29th and there are still events and actions being planned regularly across the nation, and they still need your participation and support. If you’re able, please keep your focus there; this list is for what can be done long-term outside of the protests

Know your rights. Giving the police any more information than you absolutely have to will never and can never benefit you or anyone else - positive evidence given to the police is regularly thrown out in court, whereas negative evidence will be used against you. Know what to say and what you have the right to refuse. You don’t have to answer any questions without a lawyer present, you don’t have to give the police access to your house or car unless they have a current warrant signed by a judge. They will try to intimidate you - learn your rights and don’t let up, don’t ever cooperate with the police

Don’t snitch. If you see someone breaking the law in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody, keep your mouth shut. If cops knock on your door asking you questions about your neighbors or anyone you know, don’t answer

Don’t call the cops. If you can solve the problem in a different way, do it. Cops have on multiple occasions murdered the people they were called to help (or bystanders) without provocation. Don’t be complicit in that. Learn how to handle situations as a community or with the help of qualified experts

When you see an interaction with the police happening, stop and observe. If necessary, film the interaction. Organize and work with groups such as Copwatch to observe the police and hold them accountable

Use proper opsec, especially if you’re involved with anything that might make you a target for the cops. Downloading Signal is a great simple place to start

Learn about jury nullification, and spread the word. When serving in a jury, you have the right to vote not guilty on a defendant that you believe did commit the crime but doesn’t deserve punishment for it. Don’t be complicit in unjust punishment

Refuse to do work for the police or prison system. Workers keep the world running and the state relies on our compliance to keep our neighbors under their thumb. We can shut it down

Continue to support bail funds, even for non-protesters. Cash bail is unjust, and people shouldn’t be in jail just because they can’t pay

Continue to support legal defense funds as well, such as that of the National Lawyers Guild

Write to prisoners, either by yourself or with groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross or Black And Pink, and organize/support books to prisons programs, commissary funds, reentry programs, and other forms of prisoner support

Organize and support community-run crisis response organizations like the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon or the Birmingham Peacemakers in my hometown

Here are some other organizations to join that are doing good work in this area:

Black Lives Matter is obviously a huge voice in racial justice right now. The list of “official” chapters on their website is very incomplete, though, so you may have better luck doing a web search for “[your area] black lives matter” (beware of fakes though)

Showing Up for Racial Justice is another very active and widespread racial justice network

Critical Resistance is a grassroots prison abolitionist organization founded by Angela Davis

The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement is another active prison abolitionist organization

The IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee works with prisoners to organize strikes, phone zaps, and other actions combating injustice in prisons

Again, the Anarchist Black Cross does great work supporting political prisoners through letter-writing and more. The link I’ve been including is to an unofficial federation of ABC groups, though - there may be a group in your area that’s not part of that federation, so a web search for “[your area] black cross” may be better

Black And Pink is a prison abolitionist organization focused on queer people and people living with HIV/AIDS

Antifascism is of course an important aspect of racial justice and community safety. See @antifainternational‘s guide to getting connected to your local antifascists - though, again, beware of fakes (the “antifa checker” accounts on fedbook and twitter can help)

The police state and prison industrial complex rely on the complicity and cooperation of all of us to function and be effective. By building a culture of noncompliance and active resistance, we can drastically reduce the state’s ability to oppress communities of color. Don’t let the struggle be forgotten with the changing of the news cycle - keep up the struggle until all are free!

Boosts and additional resources are very much appreciated!