How coming out should work
Me: Hey
Hey everyone
I’m a woman
Everyone: Okay
i just went for a run in my neighborhood
as i have done most nights for the past week or two
and tonight i ran past a woman walking her dog and i thought the dog was pooping
AND FOR SOME INSANELY STUPID REASON I DECIDED TO TELL HER “IT’S OK” THAT HER DOG WAS POOPING AS I RAN BY
only I had just done hills and was really out of breath
so I’M PRETTY SURE it came out as
“IT’S OK IF YOU POOP”
LIKE THIS
I TOLD A WOMAN IT WAS OK FOR HER TO POOP AND THEN RAN AWAY FROM HER
HOW DO I REMAIN IN THIS UNIVERSE
FUCK YOU TUMBLR. I will reblog this every god damn twelve hours. You will NOT erase this woman’s story just because HONY is a bigot who is full of shit. Tumblr staff is full of shit. They are ALL full of shit. And fuck every single one of you shitty people for thinking that you’re going to win. You will NOT.[Image: A picture of a tall, very thin Black woman with her shoulder over a shorter, older white man wearing traditional Orthodox Jewish clothing on a New York sideway.]
“This one is very serious, guys:
I came upon these two on the sidewalk. They were having a conversation. “Excuse me,” I said, addressing the girl: “I’m sorry to interrupt, but is there anyway I can take your photo?”
“Why would you want my photo?” she asked.
“Because you look beautiful,” I said. And she did. She was Sudanese. There is a very distinct beauty among people from the Sudan, and she was filled up with it. Suddenly the man cut in:
“I was just telling her she was beautiful,” he said.
Naively, I assumed I had just walked up on one stranger giving a compliment to another. I wanted to capture the moment. “Let me take your photograph together,” I said. The man seemed reluctant, he started smiling nervously and inching away. But the girl called him back.
“Come take a picture with me,” she said. Encouraged by her attention, he returned. She put her arm around him, and I took the photo.
As I examined the photos on my camera, the man started whispering to the girl. She answered him in a loud voice: “I told you! I’m not that kind of girl.” She seemed agitated now. Finally sensing that I had misread the situation, I stepped between them. The man began hurrying down the sidewalk.
When the man left, the girl’s demeanor changed completely. She seemed shaken. Her eyes were tearing up. “He just offered me five hundred dollars to go out with him,” she said. “And then when I said ‘no,’ he offered me one thousand. Why does this always happen to me?”
“It happens a lot?” I asked.
“All the time,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m getting emotional. I just can’t go out of my house without this kind of thing happening. I have a son. I’m a mother. I would never degrade myself like that. I just don’t understand why this keeps happening.”
“Do you mind if I tell this story?” I asked.
“Please,” she said. “Tell it.”
Let’s hope this man, and all men, realize the emotional damage they are inflicting on the women they try to buy. In the meantime, feel free to SHARE.*
Dear Tumblr, fuck you for trying to erase this.
I’m saving this post because as many times as Tumblr tries to erase this woman’s story and act like anything about this was okay, that’s as many times as I’m reposting it. They can either cut me off or stop being assnuggets about this. whichEVER.
i will always reblog this. because if this woman were white, the mass-erasure of this image and story would not be happening. and that just speaks volumes to me. the bigotry that contributes to this woman’s constant harassment is the same bigotry that led to the erasure of this story in order to ‘protect’ this man. they are COMPLETELY connected. this is a vicious cycle that perpetuates anti-blackness and the degradation and silencing of black women and women of color as a whole.
oh look trubr0wn just deployed more truth bombs.
i am the truth bomb terrorist.
Hey this disappeared off my tumblr how strange
anyway, here it is again, supporting this lovely lady who has to put up with this crap just because she exists and goes outside, and to call shame on a society that would actually force her to put her arm around the creep who just upped his price after she told him that she wouldn’t whore for him
Here it is, calling attention to the FACT that the aggressor, the perpetrator of this outrage was the one protected, and the victim is just supposed to disappear
To that I say no
no
Open season on Black women is OVER.
I’m going to back up my Tumblr.
But I just want to see if Tumblr will ignore the e-mail I just wrote to them getting unwanted messages by users I’ve told to leave me alone and will send me another e-mail about “violating copyright,” if not try to delete my blog for reblogging this picture and story that needs to be seen and heard.
I’m not claiming ownership of anything, BTW. Picture, story behind the picture, and the erasure of the picture copyrighted2012 by humansofnewyork.tumblr.com . And reblogging this picture has an educational reason behind it — to show how black women are dehumanized, and then silenced if they ever speak out.
Tumblr deleted this post from everyone’s blog. Here it is again. And people have saved copies to their computers, including me. Story’s not going away. The internet is forever.
-Jess
[TW: sexual assault and rape]
I adore my friend. I really do not think I could have gotten through this semester without him. I don’t think I’ll be able to get through the masters program without killing someone if I didn’t know him. He will be the only person who will prevent me from chucking a…
Me: Hey
Hey everyone
I’m a woman
Everyone: Okay
[On “How Do You Write Such Strong Female Characters?”] There’s a second part to the question. The unspoken part. It’s the part where I’m being asked and not, say, Laura Lippman. Because Laura is a woman, and it’s presumed therefore that she knows how to write about women, what with having been one her entire adult life. By the same token, Laura Lippman is not asked how it is she can write such convincing, strong male characters. Implicit in her job as a crafter of fiction is the demand that she must. No question need be asked.
-
Greg Rucka, in a piece for io9 (via itsinthetrees)
Being unable to write male characters well means you’re not a good writer; being unable to write female characters well is optional to being a good writer.
(via mswyrr)
If Websites Were People: Fox News
This rocks.
DIED.
Better access to contraception, higher quality sex education and shifting social norms have contributed to a 36.9 per cent decline in Canada’s teen birth and abortion rate between 1996 and 2006, according to a report released today by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.
“This is a good news story,” said Alexander McKay, lead author and research co-ordinator at the council.
“It’s important to look at teen pregnancy rates because they’re a basic fundamental indicator of young women’s sexual and reproductive health. While not all teen pregnancies are a bad thing, when we see [rates] dropping, it’s a fairly clear indicator that young women are doing increasingly well in terms of controlling and protecting their reproductive health.”
The report, which appears in the current issue of The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, compares Statistics Canada figures with numbers from three other countries. The United States experienced a 25 per cent drop while England and Wales showed a more modest decline of 4.75 per cent. Sweden’s numbers, meanwhile, jumped by 19.1 per cent.
“It’s not necessarily that sex education in Canada is at such a high standard,” said Mr. McKay, who co-authored the report with SIECCAN’s Michael Barrett.
“In comparison to the United States, we tend to have a more balanced, sensible approach to adolescent sexual health. Generally speaking what you find is that the more a society has an accepting attitude toward the reality of adolescent sexuality, the lower the teen pregnancy rate is. Canadians tend to have a more relaxed attitude towards adolescent sexuality than people in the United States.”
Mr. McKay said America’s emphasis on abstinence-only sex ed “tends to result in a higher percentage of teens becoming pregnant,” as does the country’s lack of universal health care. Poverty is another factor.
“The United States has large, well-entrenched pockets of inner city poverty and that clearly is linked to higher teen pregnancy rates,” he said.
“In those communities where young women feel optimistic about their educational and employment opportunities, the [rates] tends to be lower.”
Among the four countries compared for 2006, Canada boasted the lowest teen birth and abortion rate per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 (27.9), followed by Sweden (31.4), England/Wales (60.3), and the United States (61.2).
“Sweden is a low teen pregnancy rate country so even with an increase in its [rate], it still remains far below countries like England and the United States.”
Swedish researchers have attributed the increases to two factors, Mr. McKay said: “a notable drop in the extent of sex education in Swedish schools,” and more abortions.
“It’s not that young women are viewing abortion as a form of birth control. Rather they do view it as an acceptable – although regrettable – way of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy when it occurs.”
Although declines were evident across the country, they varied widely by the province. The drop was greatest in Ontario (51.5 per cent) and the Yukon (51.8 per cent), and lowest in Saskatchewan (25.5 per cent) and Quebec (10 per cent).
The lesser decline in Quebec “was somewhat of a surprise,” Mr. McKay said, because “Quebec has historically had comparatively low [rates] compared to the rest of the country.”
Also a surprise was the Yukon’s drop, the highest in the country.
“Generally speaking, it’s been the case that the Yukon and the Territories and northern communities have had higher teen pregnancy rates,” said Mr. McKay, noting that the Yukon has ramped up its sex ed programs and reached out to youth in recent years.
He stressed that the birth and abortion declines should not be confused with judgments about teen sexuality.
“Teenage women in Canada are not more or less likely to be sexually active than they were 10 or 15 years ago. The difference is that we have seen a steady increase in the percentage of sexually active young women who are using contraception. That comes mainly in increases in condom use but also increases in birth control.”
Whelp, I know where I’m moving if America keeps its downward spiral.
[Image Description: Cartoon drawing of two brown individuals sitting in chairs in front of a trailer. The one on the viewers left appears to be the younger of the two, with black shoulder length black hair and smoking a cigarette. The person on the viewers right is older, with grey hair in two braids. On a table next to the person on the left sits a radio with the sound buble caption that reads “Non-white babies now outnumber white babies in America for the first time.” Above the older individual reads the word bubble “Second.”]
(Source: bankuei)