Her name is Jane Elliott. She was a former schoolteacher, now she’s anti-racism activist, feminist and LGBT activist. She’s tiny, mean, and boss as fuck.
She’s known for her “blue eyes-brown eyes experiment” where she divides a group of volunteers from the blues and the browns. The minute the people walk in, the blue-eyes know they’re not welcomed. She makes them wait in a separate room, gives them shitty chairs, bad food, and shows them less respect. And (obviously) it causes all sorts of discomfort and rage, but that’s precisely her point. It doesn’t help that most blue-eyed volunteers happen to be white as well. Sometimes they get the message, sometimes they don’t and leave, sometimes crying or screaming. And Jane Elliott says that’s exactly what minorities want to do everyday of their lives, but they simply cannot do.
Depeche Mode felt they needed to come out and say that they want nothing to do with Richard Spencer, though they’re apparently his favorite band. Only coincidentally weird, as for the longest time I always misheard a lyric in “Personal Jesus” as, “Reach out, punch face.”
them: if people don't have to work for anything, they wouldn't do any work, and nothing would get done
me: so you're telling me you do everything because you want money
them: yes
me: so like you have no hobbies or anything? You don't do art on the side or work on cars for fun or anything like that?
them: well hobbies don't count!!! those are things I actually enjoy doing
me: so ur telling me you'd willingly do something productive even if you weren't paid?
them: ... im sorry I can no longer read.
Today’s editorial cartoon: The President used the entirety of last week’s press conference to complain about the Media being unfair to him. And for the last few days, President Trump’s surrogates have appeared all over the news media to repeat his contention that the media has been unfair and vicious toward Donald Trump.
reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it Tumblr Gets Deep: Next Page–>
I totally understand the appeal of pettiness, snark, and the pleasure of revenge. But seriously, where’s the satisfaction if someone hasn’t actually wronged you? Meanness is only fun if they’ve got it coming.
OK, she's a grown woman, and I can respect her right to make her own choices, but oh, god she's gonna regret THIS one.
Pamela Anderson has apparently been visiting the Ecuadorian embassy in London to see her good friend Julian Assange for months now, which may explain her new cause.
Honestly, I get the sentiment, but since Earth isn't the problem, HUMANITY is, I'm considering dedicating my life to making sure we don't infect the rest of the universe until grow the fuck up.
When the organs of government are used to support the private good of some, rather than the public good of all.
Powerful
i don’t want to hear shit else about affirmative action being detrimental to white folk. y’all had affirmative action before there was even a term for it.
There’s a book called “When Affirmative Action Was White” and it, along with extensive MLK teachings, should be required reading in high school.
Herd immunity is the idea that if enough people get immunized against a disease, they’ll create protection for even those who aren’t vaccinated. This is important to protect those who can’t get vaccinated, like immunocompromised children.
You can see in the image how low levels of vaccination lead to everyone getting infected. Medium levels slow down the progression of the illness, but they don’t offer robust protection to the unvaccinated. But once you read a high enough level of vaccination, the disease gets effectively road-blocked. It can’t spread fast enough because it encounters too many vaccinated individuals, and so the majority of the population (even the unvaccinated people) are protected.
When it took a week of concerted effort to get Donald Trump to even admit that antisemitism was bad, it took Muslims mere hours to run a successful campaign to repair a Jewish cemetery that had been vandalized by antisemites. Don’t let anyone forget that. Don’t let them pit us against each other.
Walking around towns and taking photos of their places of interest you may not see the whole picture: the view from the ground doesn’t permit you to fully appreciate the scale and geometry if architectural memorials.
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The Russian AirPano team of photographers rises to the sky to show you different places of our planet from above.
You can also see more about us in a previous post here on Bored Panda.
“The Trump administration intends to release new guidance on transgender students that affirms states’ rights, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said a Tuesday news briefing.
“That is an issue that the Department of Justice and the Department of Education are addressing,” Spicer said when asked about rumors Trump would rescind the Obama administration’s guidance. “I think that there will be further guidance coming from DOJ in particular with respect not just to the executive order but also the case that is in front of the Supreme Court.”
The case Spicer referenced is that of 17-year-old transgender student Gavin Grimm, who is suing his Gloucester County School Board for the right to use the same restroom as other boys.”
OK, not only is it called Mensez (Men Sez, get it?), the logo is a ballsack shaped heart.
So I was in the waiting room of my shrink’s office and someone sent me an email informing me that some guy invented a lipstick that you’re supposed to use to glue your vagina shut so that you don’t have a … Continue reading →
Esteemed President Donald J. Trump reportedly joined Attorney General Jeff Sessions in personally pressuring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos into a new policy that will prevent transgender high school students from using the bathrooms of their choice.
GUYS IT’S BACK. Lays is once again soliciting for flavor suggestions at https://www.dousaflavor.com/ . I’ve already turned in my ode to the hot dog potato chip. Go ye and suggest a flavor! (Then reblog this or comment and share your flavor so we can cheer you on.)
First thought... Someone somewhere, I might even have shared it (I've been living through a heck week over here) mentioned that the reason his pack has turned on him is because he advocated? suggested he was cool with? raping young boys. Consider the difference in reaction to this, and Trump's alleged (but highly likely) rape of a thirteen-year old GIRL. Right. Second, I think I'm developing a personal philosophy about damage's viral nature. I don't know that there's actually any metaphorical vaccine out there, but it seems like contracting damage and not dealing with it in a healthy way leads to spreading your damage as far as you can. Which, given the social nature of humanity, is pretty damned far. If you contract a dangerous virus, and you, as an adult who's aware of what's happened to you, and what you have the ability to do to others, doesn't protect other from you virus, aren't you responsible for what happens to them? I don't think that damage is any different.
Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend regarding the implosion of Milo Yiannopoulos, the remarkable two-day period in which the public bigot and Breitbart editor lost a high-profile speaking engagement, a lucrative book contract, and a job, because one of his positions (regarding sexual contact between adults and young teens) finally crossed a line for the horrible clutch of bigots who were keeping him around as their One Gay Friend. The implosion was inevitable — the horrible bigots never really liked him, they just found him useful, and suddenly he wasn’t useful anymore — and moreover the implosion was karmically appropriate, because Yiannopoulos is a terrible person who became famous for being terrible to others. The dude earned it, and in a very real way it’s delightful to see the comeuppance.
While my friend agreed with me that the comeuppance was indeed delicious, he also asked me, essentially: But do you feel even in the tiniest bit sorry for Yiannopoulos? Do you have empathy for him?
And the answer is: Well, sure. In my opinion Yiannopoulos is clearly emotionally damaged in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons, and it’s exhibited itself in a particularly itchy combination of personal self-loathing and a desperate need to feel special, and to have attention. He discovered that playing to a crowd of horrible bigots gave him attention, made him feel special and made him either hate himself less, or at least allowed him to ignore how much he hated himself, so he went with that as long as he could.
And things appeared to be going his way! Trump won, which gave him a more legitimate platform because the horrible bigots he played to were elevated and wanted him to speak at their gathering; he nabbed himself a pretty good book deal with a major publisher; and he got to go on national TV and had hit it off well with the host, even if the other guests told him to go fuck off, which of course played to his strengths as a media personality. It was all coming together!
Then, in roughly 36 hours, all of it was taken away. Not to mention his reputation and standing among much of the crowd that had previously stood behind him. And to top it all off, he lost his professional income. It was all in public, and it happened quick, and in humiliating fashion.
So here’s the thing: A damaged soul who thought he had found acceptance, reaching for the goals that he probably thought would finally satisfy him, only to have them (from his point of view) cruelly taken away, all at once, in public?
Again: Sure. I have some empathy there. That all sucks.
BUT
(And you knew there was a “but” coming)
Yiannopoulos’ damage explains but does not excuse his actions. Lots of people are damaged by life, one way or another. Lots of people crave acceptance and desire fame. Lots of people try to heal themselves through the attention of others. But Yiannopoulos decided to deal with all of that by spouting racist and sexist and transphobic hatred, by lying about his targets and by pointing his passel of online, bigoted followers at people in order to harass and threaten them, and then by laughing at and dismissing as unimportant other people’s pain and fear, pain and fear that he caused. It’s what he became famous for. It was all a lark to him, or so he’d have you believe. Saying so gave him attention and admiration, and if that attention and admiration was from hateful bigots, eh, that’d work for him. Until it didn’t.
I can feel empathy for a damaged human being, and understand why he does what he does. I get Yiannopoulos. He’s not exactly a puzzle. But my (or anyone’s) empathy and understanding for him has to be weighed against the damage he’s done to others and his reasons for doing so. And the fact is, the damage he’s caused others is immense, and the reasons he’s done so are self-serving, vain and ultimately wholly insufficient to excuse or mitigate his actions. Empathy and understanding are important, indeed I think critical, when considering the people who have chosen to oppose you. It reminds you they are merely human, and not actually monsters. But they are part, not the whole, of one’s consideration of such people; nor does empathy automatically convert to sympathy. Personally, considered as a whole and including his actions, I don’t judge Yiannopoulos deserving of much sympathy. He’s earned this moment of his, and in point of fact, he’s earned much worse than this. But this will do for a start.
And here’s another fact, which is that Yiannopoulos isn’t special. There are a lot of damaged people out there on the racist, sexist, bigoted side of things, who have been fucked up by the world in one way or another and who have decided the best way to dig themselves out of that hole is to try to take it out on other people. These are the very people fringe radical and reactionary organizations and would-be leaders seek out; they’re susceptible because they’re damaged and crave acceptance and attention. To get personal here, I look at the bigots who have decided to make me their special enemy and it’s not hard to understand why they do what they do, nor to feel empathy for what they have to be going through in their brain. But again, that’s weighed against the damage they do to others and try to do to me, and I proceed accordingly.
(Also, a supplementary thought I have, which is that that Yiannopoulos is well into his 30s. He’s not a child or a young man of whom it could be said that he did not know better. Yiannopoulos may be damaged in various ways, but it doesn’t appear that he is not in control of his actions, or doesn’t have enough presence of mind to understand right or wrong, even if he apparently doesn’t care about such things. Yiannopoulos understands what he’s doing and why. He owns his choices and actions, and he owns the results of those choices and actions, even when they result, as they did this week, in his downfall.)
So: Empathy and understanding for Yiannopoulos? Sure. Maybe even the smallest soupçon of pity. I think the ability to feel these things for him allows me to say, in full consideration, that he deserves his fall this week from the grace of the horrible and bigoted. And to continue in that vein, I wish for him the empathy and understanding to realize just how well he’s earned this moment, and to realize how much work he’ll have to undertake to atone for the damage he’s done to others. I don’t expect he’ll actually arrive at that empathy and understanding, mind you. I don’t think he wants that. I wish it for him nonetheless.
