My professor in my Reading Development class was talking about how oral stories are important and should be used more often in the school curriculum as this helps kids with writing about themselves (which is rather difficult to get them to do.)
So she decided to share a family story that had been passed down.
She had this great aunt that had wanted to be a nun ever since she was a little girl. She joined a convent where she could only contact her family once a year. She was very close to her brother (my prof’s grandfather if I recall correctly.)
They would talk long hours and while the great-aunt’s brother respected her decision, he told her that if she ever changed her mind, to just call him and say she “needed a red dress.”
Somehow, the great-aunt got in contact with her old high school sweetheart. They started exchanging letters. Gradually, the letters went from friendly to romantic and one year the great-aunt called her brother to tell him to bring her “ a red dress and [sweetheart’s name.]” The brother immediately understand what was going on so he took the great-aunt’s loverboy with him to help her run away from the convent. They married and had three kids.
Beautiful story, right?
Well, there was a guy in class that of course had to let his opinion be known. Somehow, he took it that the story was all about the great-aunt’s brother making the decision to keep his sister from becoming “bitter” and “missing out on being wife and mother and fulfilling her nurturing role” and how the convent and the religion in of itself was “imprisoning” her and he “freed her.”
Now my class is predominantly female. And we were all looking at him in disbelief because that’s how he perceived the story. And we all gave a derisive laugh when he got into the “women all want to be mothers” spiel, which he realized, oh, yeah, what a silly thing to say.
Like the women perceived the story like this: a woman that struggled between choosing her love and what she wanted to do in her life, whatever choice she made, she was going to make a sacrifice. When she made a decision, she was the one that directed her brother and sweetheart on what to do.
I don’t know, it was just really caught me off-guard that he saw it so simply and seemingly changed who was the main character in that family story. Especially awkward, considering these were real people and he was making assumptions…
Like, here’s an important thing: he’s not an MRA, he’s actually nice, he wants to be an elementary teacher, he likes chatting with everyone, and he seems kind. And that’s important to remember because even decent guys mess up like this.
headcanon: Brandon Sanderson occasionally visits Martin, pokes around, casts significant glances, drops broad hints... Martin gets scared and boards up to finish another novel.
George R.R. Martin is setting aside all other writing work until he finishes The Winds of Winter, the infinitely anticipated next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire. The author announced this on his blog in the comments of this post. There’s still no ETA on when the book might be done, but he’s definitely buckling down.
why is it that in all pre-serum steve/bucky fics, they’re terrified of being associated with the “sissies,” and the “fairies.” i have read the sentence “i ain’t no fairy” in like four fics minimum.
u know what would be cuter? bucky and steve being connected to the community. going to gay bathhouses and bars. i want them to be friends with lesbians like sandy kern. i want them going to drag balls in greenwich village and harlem. i want them running from police raids. bucky tearing steve away from a fight because the last thing he needs is for his boyfriend to get arrested for sodomy.
when they’re overseas i want the howling commandos to know and not give a fuck. i want peggy to know. i want steve contemplating the idea of bisexuality before he even knows the word. i want him to rub shoulders with queer heroes like helen harder.
why is it that in every fic ever steve wakes up in 2012 and he’s like “whoa look at these lgbt communities i’ve never heard of such a thing” when he could be like “hell yeaH hell fucking YEAH let me tell you a story of this one time a cop tried to beat the shit out of me in 1939 and a drag queen saved my ass before bucky even could”
doesn’t he move right from a historically gay neighborhood in NY to a historically gay neighborhood in DC
Learning, at 23 years old, that Jewish people don’t celebrate Easter was emotionally devastating.
That’s such a coincidence, because learning, at 32 years old, that somebody spent 23 years believing Jews celebrated the resurrection of Jesus was emotionally devastating for ME.
Learning, at 21 years old, many Christians still think that their way is the only way, and that our lives must suck because we don’t celebrate the same holidays as them isn’t surprising at all.
I’m always learning just how hateful people can be
Damn maybe they were just disappointed y'all didn’t get to go egg hunting and get candy???? Why the salt??????
I feel a little bit guilty, because apparently my response to this was reblogged quite a bit, and OP got slammed as a result. I realize their post was due to ignorance rather than malice, but Jews (and other non-Christians in the West) have to contend with this mentality all the time, and therefore it’s very easy for us to become short-tempered when it rears its head.
However, comments like the one above from @lets-go-dude and other things people on this point have said are exactly why we lose our patience in the first place, and I would like dissect it to highlight why this mentality is harmful:
The Deprivation Myth - The wording in this comment is very telling: “Maybe they were just disappointed y'all didn’t get togo egg hunting and get candy.” Didn’t get to. The implication here is that by not participating in culturally Christian activities, we are somehow being deprived of happiness and joy. This mentality erases the very important facts that A) Our non-participation in Easter isn’t a punishment, it’s a choice and B) We have our holidays that provide us with the same level of fulfillment that you derive from yours. We get candy and treats on lots of different holidays. We have many fun traditions. We are not deprived just because we don’t take part in yours. Imagine there are two girls named Noelle and Tova. Noelle has a birthday in December. Every year on her birthday, she goes sledding, ice skates in the park, and drinks peppermint hot chocolate with her cake. Tova’s birthday is in July. Every year on her birthday, she goes swimming at the beach, plays games on the boardwalk, and drinks strawberry lemonade with her cake. If Noelle says to Tova “You’re so deprived! You don’t get to sled or ice skate or have peppermint hot chocolate on your birthday!” Tova might feel kind of annoyed. After all, Noelle doesn’t do any of the things she does during her July birthday. Why should Noelle assume that what Tova does on her birthday isn’t as fun or meaningful, just because she does different things at a different time of the year? Jews aren’t deprived because they don’t have Easter. Our traditions are different from yours, not lesser. We don’t want or need your pity. We like who are.
The Privilege of Christian Secularity - A few months ago, I wrote a post called “The Right to Non-Christian Secularity” about the double standard that exists for secular Christians versus secular people of other backgrounds. Secular Christians do not have to be religious in order for their holiday observances to be respected, or even catered to. Meanwhile, secular people of other faiths are often made to feel like taking time off from work or school to participate in non-Christian cultural festivities is “cheating” due to their lack of religious conviction. Distilling Christian holidays down to their cultural elements (”go egg hunting and get candy”) without acknowledging a system that punishes secular non-Christians when they try to do the same is an exercise in Christian privilege. I understand that many people don’t realize they are flaunting their privilege in our faces, but the fact is you are, and it’s incredibly irritating.
The Ignorance Excuse - It is okay to not know things. We’re all ignorant of many things in this world. But as stated in the previous point, there is a certain level of privilege at play. Jews in the west can’t help but to learn about Christian culture, yet so many people know nothing about ours, and when we get frustrated with that situation, we are chastised for not coddling the offenders. I understand that people getting angry at somebody who is ignorant but not malicious can sometimes be counterproductive in terms of getting the offender to learn about their mistakes, but the expectation that always have to respond to ignorance with kindness and education is both entitled and emotionally draining. Not everybody has the spoons to always be their own cultural representative and that shouldn’t preclude their right to be upset when people say things that are offensive. It’s wonderful when individuals have the tools, time, and energy necessary to act as a cultural educator, but putting that burden on all Jews (or all people from any other marginalized group), and differentiating between those who educate and those who don’t as “good” or “bad” is entirely unfair.
Now that we’ve all gotten that out of our system, I would like to ask that people stop attacking the OP. I think we’ve gotten our point across, and they seem to be open to listening and learning, so I think we should all try to move on. Lastly, I want to clarify one thing: Many Jews do get to eat Easter candy. We just wait until Easter is over and then buy it all up for half-off. Cadbury Eggs? FUCK YES.
This is so incredibly important. I could cry. Whenever I went to Washington, D.C. to Capitol Hill to discuss this, I always made sure to bring up this point when lobbying for better, comprehensive sex education and allocating funds from already existing budgets set aside for abstinence only sex ed. I would love to see this happen.
I think we should start putting less pressure on gay people to ‘come out’ and more pressure on straight people to stop assuming everyone’s sexuality is fucking straight
this is my fav bc an actual major cause for the fall of rome was the resistance of the wealthy to paying taxes which led to a crumbling of infrastructure but who cares about thaaaaat
“Feminism killed Rome” is my new favorite sentence of all time.
Also ballooning military spending, a widening gap between rich and poor, religious intolerance following the Emperor’s embrace of Christianity, and lead poisoning of the water supply.
The rage that white men have been expressing, loudly, violently, over the very idea that they might find themselves identifying with characters who are not white men, the very idea that heroism might not be particular to one race or one gender, the basic idea that the human story is vast and various and we all get to contribute a page - that rage is petty. It is aware of its own pettiness. Like a screaming toddler denied a sweet, it becomes more righteous the more it reminds itself that after all, it’s only a story.
Only a story. Only the things we tell to keep out the darkness. Only the myths and fables that save us from despair, to establish power and destroy it, to teach each other how to be good, to describe the limits of desire, to keep us breathing and fighting and yearning and striving when it’d be so much easier to give in. Only the constitutive ingredients of every human society since the Stone age.
Only a story. Only the most important thing in the whole world.
The people who are upset that the faces of fiction are changing are right to worry. It’s a fundamental challenge to a worldview that’s been too comfortable for too long. The part of our cultural imagination that places white Western men at the centre of every story is the same part that legitimises racism and sexism. The part of our collective mythos that encourages every girl and brown boy to identify and empathise with white male heroes is the same part that reacts with rage when white boys are asked to imagine themselves in anyone else’s shoes.
“…because when you’ve been used to privilege, equality feels like prejudice.”
and also
“Capitalism is just a story. Religion is just a story. Patriarchy and white supremacy are just stories. They are the great organising myths that define our societies and determine our futures, and I believe - I hope - that a great rewriting is slowly, surely underway.”
By Crom! is Rachel Kahn’s joke-a-panel autobiographical comic featuring life advice and spiritual guidance from Conan the Barbarian. It ran from January 2012 until May 2014, and is collected in two books, The Collected By Crom! and Full Colour Cromulence. You can read the complete archives on WealdComics.com, and grab the books in PDF. There are original comics available in Rachel’s BigCartel store and both comic prints and By Crom! shirts are available in her Society6 store.
Stay tuned to wealdcomics.tumblr.com for news on convention appearances, merch sales and the possibility of a reprint of the two books.
NowThis caught up with Rapper and Sanders supporter Killer Mike in the spin room following the democratic debate.
This can not be broadcasted enough
Dear American readers: this is actually more important than voting for president. Imagine what Obama could have achieved if he HADN’T BEEN FIGHTING A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS EVERY. DAMN. STEP.
Voting is not a one time act and a wizard saves everything.
Autoreshare. We can all just not bother pretending that I'm not like this around puppies when I'm stone cold sober. Or kittens. Or, really any furbaby.
Update: Erica Garner spoke out about the making of the ad on her personal website, saying that Sanders’ team allowed her full creative control of the video and message.
“They had a totally different idea of what should be done,“ Garner said, "but true to form with Senator Sanders, he listened to me [and] didn’t tell me he knew better and I was not practical; and this is what we produced.”
She elaborated on her backing of his campaign by saying that his willingness to let her speak on her own terms reinforced her support.
post apoc media is always banging on about the necessity of macho survival skills but frankly it’s the gardeners/farmers who know 150 preservation techniques for winter beets and who understand the art of good pH balance in compost who will survive on our non energy dependent farms while you all butcher each other with katanas in burnt out shopping centres
I can’t believe we live in a society where men who beat women have thriving careers, men who yell at interviewers disrespectfully, storm out of rooms, yell, throw things, and verbally abuse women continue to find success. But when a woman, who has been trapped in an unbearable situation, reaches out for help and tries to tell her story.. She gets completely shut down. I’m so sorry, Kesha. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to be stifled creatively and you don’t deserve to be forced to work with someone who sexually assaulted you. This is so disgusting.
let’s give “kate bishop is asian” the same treatment we’re trying to give “steve rogers is bisexual.” let’s make it so prevalent it is practically indistinguishable from ~real~ marvel canon.
let’s make it so common that marvel has to address her identity as an asian-american woman.
let’s throw away the widely-held belief in marvel fandom that “non-specified” means white, the same belief that contributed to bumpercar candycrap’s casting as doctor strange.
