No Love, Me – The Clueless Verison

Damn, haven’t had one of these in a while, but it’s Friday and I’ve been serious enough this week.

*ahem*

Dearest Stacy Dash,

SHUT. UP. You sound damn ignorant.

No love,

Me

Triggering Snuff

Boy oh boy, that’s gonna pop up on someone’s search, and they’re gonna haaaaate reading this.

Oh well.

Alright, I realized I though I’d said something, when I actually didn’t so here goes:
For my allies and friends, yes, showing clips or pictures of black people dead by police hands might get someone you know to wake up and smell the racism, but for me, given how often it’s happened, it’s like sharing bits of snuff porn, like Faces of Black Death, except they’re all real.
“Here’s this large black woman slumped over on the ground, dead or dying due to police neglect”
“Here’s the body of that kid with the Skittles and Iced Tea”
“Watch this cop shoot this black man to death!”
What I’m asking for here is for people to keep in mind that for some of us, this is tiresome and (yup, gonna say it. Hold on to you hats) TRIGGERING. Gasp, I know, I used the terrible word that shows that I’m fragile snowflake that cannot handled Real Life.

You know, like I haven’t been bombarded with this photos for fucking YEARS already.  I’ve had enough Real Life.  I’ve had enough of our dead being used to “prove” that we’re being slain unfairly. Can you, just for a moment, try to empathize that maybe I…or we…have had enough Real Life, plxthanks.  Too many people, too many thoughts of brothers and mothers and fathers and grandparents and sisters pop in my own mind.  Too much Real Life will traumatize a motherfucker.  Like college students who have had Real Life thrown into their faces before they step one foot onto campus, lives of poverty, assault, rape, physical abuse, raising siblings, holding down jobs of their own.

Have some fucking empathy.

At the very least, put the article or picture in a comment. Find an article that has a picture of the victim alive, so we can see them as a person, and not a hunk of dead dark flesh to gawk at. 
Please?
Please? Please?

(And yes, I do make use of my “Hide Post” button. That’s not the fucking point.)

I’m Tired.

…but I’m gonna try to make it through this post without passing out or having too many typos, because I needed something up here that was actually based on a true story and totally wasn’t me not checking my facts before coughing out a rant post.

Nope.  Not me.

Anyway, today in “White People”, Maine’s governor is a racist shitbag. He’s the sort of racist shitbag who tries to hide their racism under the blanket of “concern”.  As usual, like a puppy or a toddler trying to hide under said blanket, their ass is usually showing.

And they’re not nearly as cute as a toddler or a puppy.

So, this is the money quote:

“The traffickers — these aren’t people who take drugs. These are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” he said. “These type of guys that come from Connecticut and New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home.”

He continued: “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave. Which is the real sad thing, because then we have another issue that we have to deal with down the road.”

Wow, there’s so much to unpack, but since we all know (hopefully) how shitty this is, and I’ve got a headache, bad sleep, and a load of laundry to fold, let’s just make fun of the fucking thing, kay?

First, there’s this bit:

“The traffickers — these aren’t people who take drugs. These are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,”

Whoa there, partner, I’m gonna have  to throw a flag on this play. “Foul, white person attempt to pull ‘urban’ terms out of ass”.  Penalty, five yards or a free throw or a free kick or something.  Look, I don’t do sports, okay?

D-Money.  Okay, makes vague sense.  Like he might have seen one of those 90s urban gangsta movies…back in the 90s.

“Smoothie”?  Say what? Is he mistaking a trafficker for what he had for breakfast?

“Shifty” Oh yeah, you know ol’ Shifty from down the block, right? Everyone gets their stuff from ol’ Shifty.

Now, seriously, dude. This is sounding like YOU took heroin, watched Snow White, and coughed up the worst version you could think of.  What is this, D-Money and the Seven Drug Traffickers? You got Smoothie, there’s Shifty, who’s next? Drugee, Layzie, Krayzie, Bizzy, Easy-E, and their homeboy/source, Dopey?

 

You know he’s hiding some kilos in those baggy ass clothes.

Pro-tip: Just leave the examples to the professionals, okay? You’d sound like ridiculous that way.

Next part!

“These type of guys that come from Connecticut and New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home.”

Now I’ll admit I’m talking out of my ass here, because last time I checked, heroin is fucking everywhere. At least he had the brain to mention one state where it could well likely ‘come from’, good ol’ dogwhistle New York.  But come on, dude.  I’ve been to Maine.  Met some lovely people. Ate a bunch of lobster.  Rode on a boat. Sure, the only thing darker than me was the beer I was drinking, but lovely people.

And even I know the two things Maine is known for are A) Delicious lobster and B) WEED.  If you’re gonna try to sniff out drugs in your state, sir, the bong smoke is coming from inside the house.  How about you work on that first, hmm?

But oh and lo! the piece of resistance, or whatever. It’s supposed to be French, and I said I was tired, folks.  Chronic nightmares.  Chronic. Nightmares. Splitting headache. Feeling like death.

He continued: “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave. Which is the real sad thing, because then we have another issue that we have to deal with down the road.”

Now, if he wasn’t talking about race, as I’m sure someone’s right wing relative or that one ‘friend’ you just can’t let go will insist up to this point, why bother mentioning race here.

Also, seriously?  I know I’ve said that already, but damnit, it’s the name of the blog.  Not only are these oddly named drug traffickers bring heroin to the fine state of Maine, but they’re leaving behind knocked up young white women! Gasp! Le horror!

So pretty much, it’s Trump’s “Them damn Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists” rant narrowed down and aimed at another minority.  Great job, man. Will you be running for president next cycle? Because you’re already leaps and bounds ready for the Republican xenophobia ticket.

Okay, meds and bed and shit.  The laundry can wait another hour or two, right?

Have a good weekend.  Don’t get sick. Also, lobster.  Delicious, delicious lobster.

Y’all, it was fresh off the boat.  Like Low Country Boils of my childhood memories, except with lobster.

Mmmmm…

150 Armed Assholes

Hey, y’all.  I had a fever this weekend that got up to 102F. Fun! Now for the point of this post:

I don’t have words to describe how I’m feeling about this current fuckery up on Oregon. Not for the hypocrisy of the media treating these assholes not as the terrorists they are, not for the assholes on social media twisting the very definition of “terrorist” to not include this so-called militia of piss pants regressives who just don’t want to pay taxes, but want to use federal land that’s marked so they don’t use it all up raising their damned cattle. Not for the hypocrisy of these piss pants whiners defending two poaching arsonists who COULD HAVE FUCKING KILLED SOMEONE with their attempt to hide their poaching attempt. And certainly not for the hypocrisy of these assholes to show pictures of the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore, like white people have never overturned a car or raided a store ever.  I guess pumpkins and sports teams matter more than black lives.

When they’re not using pictures from Venezuela and calling it Baltimore. 

This gent, Julian Long, took all the words, made them beautiful, and then gratefully shared them with the world.

We keep being shown that violent, outrageous protests lead to decidedly delicate treatment from the authorities. We keep being shown that armed might is and must be respected – that secret wars and personal vendettas and organized forces with weapons and agendas get the benefit of being treated like humans while people with placards and megaphones are taken down like dogs. And we keep being told that this is how the system works. We keep being told to trust the system. Follow the system. Be aligned to the system.
So what comes next? What happens when this cloud finally bursts?
Explain that to me.
Please.

And I’m glad, because that means I don’t have to repeat anything.

I Got Nothing, Y’all

No Charges for Cleveland Police Officers in Shooting Death of 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice.

 

I got nothing but tears and rage right now.  This boy was executed and lied about.  His murders not only walk free, but with badges and jobs intact. Tamir’s mother and sister will have that wound, that loss, for the rest of their lives.

All because our children, our black children, are never treated like children.  A 12-year-old with a toy gun becomes a dangerous armed suspect in the eyes of our racist police system.  And that system becomes judge, jury and executioner in a matter of seconds.  SECONDS.

Look at this child.  LOOK AT HIM.

 

I don’t care if he was tall, I don’t care if the gun didn’t have some sort of “I’m not real” indicator.  I don’t care.  THIS IS A CHILD. And now he is dead, and will have no real justice for his murder.

We have failed him.  As a country, we have failed Tamir.

I’m sorry, kid.  I’m so sorry.

 

 

Feminace Helps!

So apparently it’s a thing to arrest or make life shit for people who film cops doing (or failing to do, or outright fucking up) their jobs.

I thought we were all on board with the whole “Filming cops on duty is legal” thing?  I thought this has been a thing for, like, forever? Did anyone inform the cops? Did anyone inform the NYPD?

Here, let me help.

We should get signs, and put them on every locker, on every door in every bathroom stall, above every urinal in cop station, and pasted on the dashboard of every cop car.  And that sign should say:

I’m just trying to help spread the word.

Peaceful Savages

As I’ve said a lot among friends, if black people were as violent as white people think we were, this entire shit would have been burned to the ground long before I was even born.

But we’re not, no matter how many dogs get sicced on us or hoses are sprayed at us, or tear gas canisters are thrown at us, rubber bullets shot, fully armed to the teeth cops being intimidating, we don’t bite back.

(sure, there have been riots, but never in direct response to being threatened, and aren’t the focus of this post)

We have been insulted to our faces, told our hair isn’t acceptable, our skin too dark. White supremacists burn crosses, ride confederate flag festooned trucks past our children’s birthday parties, walk in our neighborhoods openly carrying their guns, mock our dead, and very rarely do these people get popped in the fucking mouth.

And it’s not just black folks. Due to the recent attacks in Beirut and Paris, people are tripping over themselves to see who can be the biggest Islamaphobic douchenozzle.

Then act surprised when white people start fucking with anyone in a hijab or on a prayer mat. Mosques and Muslim owned businesses have been vandalized and anyone wearing a scarf on their head is a potential target for verbal or physical abuse by complete strangers.

And through it all, there is no retaliation.

I could go on with examples; pro-choicers NOT going after pro-lifers in the wake of violence, queer people NOT going after straights after a bashing, and so on and so forth. You wanna know why?

Think about what that would look like. Especially in the media, who looks for just about any excuse to demonize the opressed. Already keyed up bigots, who who only need little reason, no matter if true or not, wanna act out so badly.

I’m gonna quickly point out here the desperation of white racists to start a Race War by taunting black people in so many ways, waiting for us to respond in kind, so they can go “see, these niggers ARE violent and dangerous”, and justify killing us. It’s quite literally the “I’m not touching you” game that ends up in someone getting hit.

And deep down, we all know that. So we refrain. We act with peace. We may make a fuss, but we don’t go eye for an eye.

We can’t go eye for an eye.

And you need to understand what a further burden that is. To be taunted and abused and knowing damn well you can’t respond in kind. You have to be the bigger person while bigots get to act all kind of ways.

That is some hard shit. We need our allies to know that. So the next time you want to say something like “Well, if that was me, I would…”, stop and think.

And then shut the fuck up.

Helpless

So, while I was at Skepticon, shit was going down in my own town.  Black Lives Matter has been protesting in front of the 4th Precinct in reaction to the death of Jamar Clark by the police.  Some of my local friends have been out there, helping out and being awesome or being awesome allies.

And then last night, shit got worse. Five people shot by cowardly agitators.  They want to provoke their little race war so badly, provoke us to a response just so they can have their war as “self-defense”.  They’re cowards and fuck an entire bowl of them.

I could get on a bus right now and be there.  I could have been part of the response march.  I could be there, supporting those victimized by the police after the shootings with mace and nonsense.

But, thanks to fibro and anxiety, I can’t.  And that shit makes me feel helpless.  No, I can’t walk in a march.  No, I can’t be around huge groups of people, especially with the fear of violence with each breath.

And I feel, again, helpless.

See, back during Secular Women Work, myself and the ever awesome Trinity did a workshop about activism while disabled.  There are things you can do, if you can’t do what is seen as standard “activism”.  And I find myself trying to keep that in mind tonight.

I can retweet information.

I can put stories on blast.

I can write this post.

There are things I can do.  There are things that you, if you sitting here looking at a cane or a wheelchair or your stack of meds or your whatever is keeping you keeping on, can do to help those on the ground.  Got extra blankets?  Or can get to a thrift shop to get cheap blankets/hats/gloves? Can you get them to an occupation?  You don’t have to stay. Can’t get out of the house?  Do you have a friend who can do this for you?

Have access to social media? Share these stories. Share announcements. Given how bullshit the media can be (looks at her local paper and sets it on fire. Passive voice my black ass), social media is where you can get what’s going on and spread the word.

And, most importantly, if it’s too much, you can break away.  You can rest.  This goes double if you CAN show up.  Self-care is a very radical act.  No one is any good when burnt out.

So, Skepticon 8

(First Disclaimer: Because I know trolls don’t respect boundaries, I’ll just make this clear – try to add trash to my comments section, no one will ever see your shit and you’ll be shown the door.)

(Second Disclaimer: It’s 4AM after my return from con, I’m sore in all of the places – thanks fibro – I’m exhausted -thanks fibro – and my patience for bullshit is damn near zero – thanks anxiety. I am not hosting a debate. That is your only warning)

 

Skepticon 8 Round Up!

Okay, so I went to Skepticon 8, and boy oh boy did I have a blast!  My workshop, Abortion Mythbustin’, was well attended, got some great audience participation and lots of good feedback afterwards.  The workshops and talk I managed to attend – again, thanks fibro, anxiety and good ol’ impostor syndrome – were mostly awesome.  I want to attend next year sooo freakin’ badly.

I rode down with some great traveling buddies who took care of me when the ride was getting too much, and the accommodations offered at the con were kinda surprising for me.  Closed captioning for the talks, a place where those who couldn’t afford to eat could grab actual food, a quiet room, ASL interpretation, gender neutral bathrooms and they really took care of their speakers.

Heh, speakers, I’ll get to that in a minute.

Could they have done better with that? Well yeah.  Maybe the dance didn’t needs the flashing lights they warned about, for example. But every convention has their ups and downs. All in all, I’m giving it up to the staff and volunteers.  Good job.

 

Me, A Speaker? Holy Shit!

So yeah, Sunday morning came around and something was wrong.  The scheduled speaker, Teka-Lark Fleming, hadn’t even checked into her hotel room (hope she’s alright and they found out what happened to her). They needed someone to fill in the 10 am spot.

“Hey, I have that Clinic Escort talk Brianne and I do on my laptop,” my mouth said before my brain realized what the fuck it just done.

They were delighted and before I knew it, I was on stage, running my mouth without my Partner in Crime.

Thank you, Jashin Lin, for taking such an awesome shot!

People liked it.  They really did.  I got so many questions afterwards and I didn’t throw up.  Well, I got shaky as all fuck, which is normal after I do shit after that – thanks anxiety!  Big ups to Stephanie Zvan for helping me cope.

The staff were so supportive and nice and grateful and really I should be the grateful one that they gave me this moment…given what had happened the day before.

 

The Day Before

Ugh.

We had some great talks this weekend.  Let me make that clear.  We had some GREAT fucking talks. I was excited as all hell to hear from Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, who minced not one single damn word (ending with a slam against ‘Dawkins dude-bros’ which got hella applause).  I bounced in my seat when Fallon Fox got on stage.

I felt 10 times more awesome in this pose.

…and then it was question time.

Straight up, cis people, y’all gotta learn how to speak to/about trans people and their issues without sounding like a damn fool.  So many people, mostly white cis dudes, were just fucking up. “Transgenders”, “When you were a man”, shit that made my eyes roll so far.

There was one very awesome question by a sweet looking older woman who asked what martial art should she try.  Fallon suggested Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and was straight up sincere about it.  Applause!

Then some asshole, in a Tap Out shirt no less, came up and tried to claim that he had knowledge about genetics and hormones and stuff because he was a former bodybuilder…

…in a room where I could count the biologists I knew…

The question was incoherent, but trying to find out if Fallon’s hormones level were the same as a cis woman’s (my term, not his), and when he got to the phrase “kept your manhood”, Lauren Ann Lane, head of this con and moderator of the talk, shut that shit down and told him to leave.

Which, because cis white dude, he didn’t.  He kept arguing.  Pro-tip: If con staff tells you to do something, you fucking do it.

He was escorted out to applause, and a few fools – behind me – argued that he was in the right.  Ugh.

Fallon actually answered what she thought the question was anyway.

Seriously, cis people, use the Google box.  Do the work!

 

The Mizzou Issue

Oh, this one gets a different section.

After the Fallon Fox interview, it was announced that there would be a surprise Q&A with a Mizzou student and journalist Mark Schierbecker during the lunch break.  The understanding of the staff (which I talked to afterwards) was according to the press release:

“It’s important that college campuses are a safe and welcoming environment so students can learn,” Schierbecker clarified. “Racism needs to be the main issue here. Fighting racism versus advocating freedom of the press is a false dichotomy, and some people are hijacking what happened to me and other journalists to talk about freedom of the press instead of racism. I want to answer questions about what happened to me, and about speech codes, to make sure at the end of the day, we are working on addressing racism.”

Sounded okay.  I didn’t even read the press release until later, but it was the understanding of those around me that this would be some sort of update or information about Concerned Student 1950 and/or Mizzou.

Boy were we wrong.

It started off okay.  Danielle Muscato gave a short timeline of the issue, and they showed an edited video of journalists being ‘assaulted’ by the protesters who were enforcing an “Press-Free Zone”.

The assault? Having a camera blocked and slightly pushed. No really.  We saw a 6 minute edit, but apparently the footage was 22 minutes long and had more context.

It became clear that this was more about Mark complaining about his assault and hoping that the professor who touched his camera is fired than any actual concern about race or media.  Like “Let’s handle my problem so we can get back to dealing with racism on my campus”.

I walked.  I couldn’t deal with any more white cis nonsense. I was fresh out of fucks.

Thankfully, I had friends who stayed and we compared notes over drinks.  Angry, emotional drinks. The Q&A was more of a press event with this person trying to get sympathy for his issue.  Thankfully, Diane from Kansas City Freethinkers got up at the supposed end and started the questions from the audience.  Who then proceeded to put his feet to the fucking fire, explain the issues between white media and black experience, having him talk to black journalists.  Dude had interviews from Fox News and Brietbart.  The short video he put up has been shown on Stormfront. And it was like he didn’t give a shit.

Then he started getting all mixed up.  “Everyone is a little bit racist” but “Fuck racists” and “Racists suck”.  When called on it, he proceeded to lose the script.  And there had to be a script at the beginning of this ‘dialogue’.

Now, watch the video.  No one but his PR person Danielle (who promptly quit after this hot mess) mentioned Mark and ‘racist’.

Mark outright said that until this professor is fired, that was when the focus would return to Concerned Student 1950’s concerns.  Holy fucking shit.  His concern is more about this professor and his ‘rights’. Period.

Afterwards, shit just blew right up.  Mark filmed and put up a video, upset and crying about being cast as a racist, said he was autistic and had social anxiety and Danielle told him to say stuff.  He called it Journalists Lives Matter, subtitled “Fuck Skepticon”.

Then Twitter grabbed it and suddenly Skepticon was terrible and made an autistic boy cry and they hated autism and blah, blah, blah.

 

Let’s Get Some Things Straight

Firstly, this isn’t a boy.  This is a grown man.  A grown man claiming to be a journalist (though not a journalism student). Last time I checked, autism doesn’t turn someone into a boundary pushing asshole, and it’s shitty to claim otherwise. Mark isn’t a fucking victim.  If he cared about racism, why the fuck was he on Fox News?  Why was he talking to Breitbart? Didn’t he know how they were going to spin this?

And assault? Please. This guy received an direct apology from the professor who touched his camera, but it wasn’t good enough for him. He wants her fired.  Please.  There are black protesters who get tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets for expressing their right to be in public spaces.  Get out of here with this assault bullshit.

Now, there were new people on the #skepticon hashtag trying to defend the convention and/or teach a thing or two about white media privilege who didn’t realize something very important:

There are some usual suspects who follow certain members of the skeptical movement from convention to convention, hashtag to hashtag, throwing poop and making shitty claims though they themselves aren’t even at the conventions.

Any time PZ Myers, Greta Christina, Stephanie Zvan, pretty much anyone from the Freethought Blogs network attends a convention, time for them to act like jackasses.

“Oh, look at all the empty seats!”

“Oh, something slightly inconvenient happened, it’s the end of this convention!”

“Blah, blah, SJW blah blah”

“Vague gross sexual references!”

And it goes on and on.  There’s no point in trying to argue with them, folks.  They have nothing new or important to say and should probably just be blocked.

They don’t care about Mark.

They don’t care about autism.

They don’t care about racism or diversity.

They don’t care about anything else than slandering people they don’t like and conventions that give more than lip service to making the skeptical movement more diverse and more interesting.

 

Tears?

You want to know about tears? I’ll tell you about tears.

When I walked out of that talk, I fought my own tears.  Tears of frustration that this fucker just wasn’t getting it.  Tears of anger that this was allowed.

I wanted food and a drink to distract me and ended up at the bar.  One frozen grapefruit margarita and a calamari plate later, and I could feel human again and not like I was going to bawl in the middle of the hotel restaurant.

Then I was joined by my friends, Greta, Ingrid, Jason, Stephanie, Benny, Chelsea. And was filled in on the rest of what happened AND the staff reaction.

The staff was horrified.  What was sold to them was NOT what was delivered.  There was panic. There was concern.  Should they let the “Q&A” keep going?  Should they stop it?

And then, action.  They would release the entire video, audience questions included.  And then there was an apology posted (Full disclosure: I was asked to review this apology before it was released). They took responsibly for this shitshow even if they were deceived as to the content.

And that is when I gained respect for this convention, and I didn’t feel like crying anymore.

Good show, Skepticon. I hope to see y’all next year.

 

 

We’re Not Exotic Flavors!

Now, back to the ranting:

What is this shit?

“White guys taste that brown sugar for the first time”? And this isn’t a porno?

What?

What?

WHAT????

My brain hurts with how wrong this is.  How dehumanizing this shit is.  How do I count the fucking ways?

1. It’s not a shitty porno that wouldn’t be on Facebook anyway. Not that I don’t have a serious fucking problem with how PoC are treated in porn, but that’s a different rant altogether.
2. Referring to black women as food? Brown sugar, chocolate, mocha, shit you’d find if you were looking for matching foundation or stockings.  Dehumanizing as fuck. We’re not food. We’re people.
3. Why? What is the point? Exoticifying an entire race, treating us like we’re not human, is disgusting.
4. As someone in an interracial relationship, who’s kissed her share of white boys, let me be the first the inform anyone ‘curious’, we don’t taste all that different.  No.  Really.  We’re human.

Fuck everyone involved in this video.  It’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s completely bullshit.

Oh, and while I’m on the subject on interracial pairings, anyone still bleating “Let’s all fuck each other until we’re all brown, and that’ll finish racism forever!” can go fuck themselves.  My brown womb, and the wombs and sperm of other people of color are not fodder for your fucking racist utopia.

Most of the people saying this shit, most of the white people saying it anyway, tend to be the same ones who married someone of their own race and probably have white kids.  Volunteer your own shit first.

FUCK!