his scraps of watered down late nineties feminism fed us and nurtured us and provided a good foundation for
more complex
conversations about nuanced subjects like race and class and gender and privilege.
while we kept moving and learning and growing, he did not. his “feminism” is still the same barely there nod it always was but we’re bigger now, and hungrier - we don’t want scraps, we don’t want to settle. we want everything.
Africans didn’t sell “their own people” because Africa has never been a homogenous land. People who were handed over to European slave traders for profit were POW and indentured servants. Those folks were loaned labor that African believed would be returned after Europeans received the labor they were looking for.
Nobody could predict what would happen to Africans once they made it to the New World. Nobody could predict the vile conditions that they would be placed in as well as the generational oppression they and their offspring would face. Additionally African nations began to cut ties with European traders once those European nations started to become greedy and hostile. When the populations of african nations started to deplete and African royalty were being kidnapped and dragged into chattel slavery there was a problem.
African people literally fought against European colonialism once they found out what exactly European were up to. Unfortunately African leaders were executed for resisting European forces and their lands taken over by colonizers. This revisionary tale about chattel slavery propagated by white people and their apologist, telling the lie that Africans share equal blame for chattel slavery is a gross attempt to warp the narrative.
It’s the same as “the first slave owner in America was black”, a small grain of truth at the center of a fistful of white nonsense. Even with all that said no one made European create race based chattel slavery. No one put a gun to their head making them strip people of their humanity, create whole economies off of that dehumanization, and implement shady systems that would uphold white supremacy for generations to come.
Chattel Slavery =/= indentured slavery or religious slavery so people need to stop conflating. White slaves weren’t slaves because they were WHITE, Africa NEVER had race based slavery EVER. This is the reason why white people are not living with a legacy that still marginalizes based on their race till this day.
“In fairy tales, monsters exist to be a manifestation of something that we need to understand, not only a problem we need to overcome, but also they need to represent, much like angels represent the beautiful, pure, eternal side of the human spirit, monsters need to represent a more tangible, more mortal side of being human: aging, decay, darkness and so forth. And I believe that monsters originally, when we were cavemen and you know, sitting around a fire, we needed to explain the birth of the sun and the death of the moon and the phases of the moon and rain and thunder. And we invented creatures that made sense of the world: a serpent that ate the sun, a creature that ate the moon, a man in the moon living there, things like that. And as we became more and more sophisticated and created sort of a social structure, the real enigmas started not to be outside. The rain and the thunder were logical now. But the real enigmas became social. All those impulses that we were repressing: cannibalism, murder, these things needed an explanation. The sex drive, the need to hunt, the need to kill, these things then became personified in monsters. Werewolves, vampires, ogres, this and that. I feel that monsters are here in our world to help us understand it. They are an essential part of a fable.”
his scraps of watered down late nineties feminism fed us and nurtured us and provided a good foundation for
more complex
conversations about nuanced subjects like race and class and gender and privilege.
while we kept moving and learning and growing, he did not. his “feminism” is still the same barely there nod it always was but we’re bigger now, and hungrier - we don’t want scraps, we don’t want to settle. we want everything.
Maryland state attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced Friday morning that Freddie Gray’s death at the hands of Baltimore police was a homicide, and that criminal charges will be filed.
“Mr. Gray’s death was a homicide,” Mosby said at a press conference adding, there is “probable cause to file criminal charges.”
What’s it like to go through cancer treatment? It’s something like this: one day, you’re minding your own business, you open the fridge to get some breakfast, and OH MY GOD THERE’S A MOUNTAIN LION IN YOUR FRIDGE.
Wait, what? How? Why is there a mountain lion in your fridge? NO TIME TO EXPLAIN. RUN! THE MOUNTAIN LION WILL KILL YOU! UNLESS YOU FIND SOMETHING EVEN MORE FEROCIOUS TO KILL IT FIRST!
So you take off running, and the mountain lion is right behind you. You know the only thing that can kill a mountain lion is a bear, and the only bear is on top of the mountain, so you better find that bear. You start running up the mountain in hopes of finding the bear. Your friends desperately want to help, but they are powerless against mountain lions, as mountain lions are godless killing machines. But they really want to help, so they’re cheering you on and bringing you paper cups of water and orange slices as you run up the mountain and yelling at the mountain lion - “GET LOST, MOUNTAIN LION, NO ONE LIKES YOU” - and you really appreciate the support, but the mountain lion is still coming.
Also, for some reason, there’s someone in the crowd who’s yelling “that’s not really a mountain lion, it’s a puma” and another person yelling “I read that mountain lions are allergic to kale, have you tried rubbing kale on it?”
As you’re running up the mountain, you see other people fleeing their own mountain lions. Some of the mountain lions seem comparatively wimpy - they’re half grown and only have three legs or whatever, and you think to yourself - why couldn’t I have gotten one of those mountain lions? But then you look over at the people who are fleeing mountain lions the size of a monster truck with huge prehistoric saber fangs, and you feel like an asshole for even thinking that - and besides, who in their right mind would want to fight a mountain lion, even a three-legged one?
Finally, the person closest to you, whose job it is to take care of you - maybe a parent or sibling or best friend or, in my case, my husband - comes barging out of the woods and jumps on the mountain lion, whaling on it and screaming “GODDAMMIT MOUNTAIN LION, STOP TRYING TO EAT MY WIFE,” and the mountain lion punches your husband right in the face. Now your husband (or whatever) is rolling around on the ground clutching his nose, and he’s bought you some time, but you still need to get to the top of the mountain.
Eventually you reach the top, finally, and the bear is there. Waiting. For both of you. You rush right up to the bear, and the bear rushes the mountain lion, but the bear has to go through you to get to the mountain lion, and in doing so, the bear TOTALLY KICKS YOUR ASS, but not before it also punches your husband in the face. And your husband is now staggering around with a black eye and bloody nose, and saying “can I get some help, I’ve been punched in the face by two apex predators and I think my nose is broken,” and all you can say is “I’M KIND OF BUSY IN CASE YOU HADN’T NOTICED I’M FIGHTING A MOUNTAIN LION.”
Then, IF YOU ARE LUCKY, the bear leaps on the mountain lion and they are locked in epic battle until finally the two of them roll off a cliff edge together, and the mountain lion is dead.
Maybe. You’re not sure - it fell off the cliff, but mountain lions are crafty. It could come back at any moment.
And all your friends come running up to you and say “that was amazing! You’re so brave, we’re so proud of you! You didn’t die! That must be a huge relief!”
Meanwhile, you blew out both your knees, you’re having an asthma attack, you twisted your ankle, and also you have been mauled by a bear. And everyone says “boy, you must be excited to walk down the mountain!” And all you can think as you stagger to your feet is “fuck this mountain, I never wanted to climb it in the first place.”
”
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Caitlin Feeley - the one, the only, the magnificent. (The only edits I’ve made are a few carriage returns for readability. - DPK)
So my friends have a little boy, he’s like 2.5 and they’re already teaching him about consent. He has this friend at daycare, a little girl, and the other day he wanted to hug her goodbye but she didn’t want him to, and his dad said “No, buddy, not everybody wants hugs and she doesn’t so you have to just wave goodbye.” He was sad and confused for a sec but then he was just like “K bye” and waved. Later that night, he tried to pet the cat but she ran away and he was just like “[cat’s name] just wave bye, not hug!” Like he got it. Immediately. Teach kids about consent as early as possible. They’ll get it.
sometimes i’m like “why am i still here” but then i realize that i’m often the only person who is around to take bad-to-eat stuff out of my dog’s mouth and i think there’s this sort of western idea of “if youre not CEO youre nothing special” but my dog is still alive bc of me and i’m still alive bc of other people so maybe i’m just here to pet cats and wear sweaters and help people take the glass out of their mouth. you know? maybe i won’t be CEO but maybe i’ll be able to help somebody afford their trip home. and i think that’s pretty okay, you know?
so, in recent french news: a muslim middle-school student wore a floor-length skirt to school and was sent home because it was decided her covering herself was equivalent to wearing a religious symbol (the same as her headscarf, which she had already been prohibited from wearing to school), which is forbidden by law
i have said this before and will keep saying it until i go hoarse. the focus on the hijab as a religious symbol is operationalizing the entitlement that people feel to be able to consume women’s bodies at their leisure in the service of Islamophobia, xenophobia and racism.
like, it should have been obvious from the get-go how this has nothing to do with “maintaining a secular society” or whatever other nonsense is used to justify these laws.
You may think that the bored-looking bureaucrats sitting behind the windows at offices and agencies have to do nothing more complicated than stamping your paperwork, but the short film Office Kingdom reveals the truth: they’re fantasy warriors who must quest for that all-important approval stamp.
When you are hurting, there will always be people who find a way to make it about themselves. If you break your wrist, they’ll complain about a sprained ankle. If you are sad, they’re sadder. If you’re asking for help, they’ll demand more attention.
Here is a fact: I was in a hospital and sobbing into my palms when a woman approached me and asked why I was making so much noise and I managed to stutter that my best friend shot himself in the head and now he was 100% certified dead and she made this little grunt and had the nerve to tell me, “Well now you made me sad.”
When you get angry, there are going to be people who ask you to shut up and sit down, and they’re not going to do it nicely. Theirs are the faces that turn bright red before you have a chance to finish your sentence. They won’t ask you to explain yourself. They’ll be mad that you’re mad and that will be their whole reason alone.
Here is a fact: I was in an alleyway a few weeks ago, stroking my friend’s back as she vomited fourteen tequila shots. “I hate men,” she wheezed as her sides heaved, “I hate all of them.”
I braided her hair so it wouldn’t get caught in the mess. I didn’t correct her and reply that she does in fact love her father and her little brother too, that there are strangers she has yet to meet that will be better for her than any of her shitty ex-boyfriends, that half of our group of friends identifies as male - I could hear each of her bruises in those words and I didn’t ask her to soften the blow when she was trying to buff them out of her skin. She doesn’t hate all men. She never did.
She had the misfortune to be overheard by a drunk guy in an ill-fitting suit, a boy trying to look like a man and leering down my dress as he stormed towards us. “Fuck you, lady,” he said, “Fuck you. Not all men are evil, you know.”
“Thanks,” I told him dryly, pulling on her hand, trying to get her inside again, “See you.”
He followed us. Wouldn’t stop shouting. How dare she get mad. How dare she was hurting. “It’s hard for me too!” he yowled after us. “With fuckers like you, how’s a guy supposed to live?”
Here’s a fact: my father is Cuban and my genes repeat his. Once one of my teachers looked at my heritage and said, “Your skin doesn’t look dirty enough to be a Mexican.”
When my cheeks grew pink and my tongue dried up, someone else in the classroom stood up. “You can’t say that,” he said, “That’s fucking racist. We could report you for that.”
Our teacher turned vicious. “You wanna fail this class? Go ahead. Report me. I was joking. It’s my word against yours. I hate kids like you. You think you’ve got all the power - you don’t. I do.”
Later that kid and I became close friends and we skipped class to do anything else and the two of us were lying on our backs staring up at the sky and as we talked about that moment, he sighed, “I hate white people.” His girlfriend is white and so is his mom. I reached out until my fingers were resting in the warmth of his palm.
He spoke up each time our teacher said something shitty. He failed the class. I stayed silent. I got the A but I wish that I didn’t.
Here is a fact: I think gender is a social construct and people that want to tell others what defines it just haven’t done their homework. I personally happen to have the luck of the draw and am the same gender as my sex, which basically just means society leaves me alone about this one particular thing.
Until I met Alex, who said he hated cis people. My throat closed up. I’m not good at confrontation. I avoided him because I didn’t want to bother him.
One day I was going on a walk and I found him behind our school, bleeding out of the side of his mouth. The only thing I really know is how to patch people up. He winced when the antibacterial cream went across his new wounds. “I hate cis people,” he said weakly.
I looked at him and pushed his hair back from his head. “I understand why you do.”
Here is a fact: anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is how people stop themselves from hurting. Anger is how people stop themselves by empathizing.
It is easy for the drunken man to be mad at my friend. If he says “Hey, fuck you, lady,” he doesn’t have to worry about what’s so wrong about men.
It’s easy for my teacher to fail the kids who speak up. If we’re just smart-ass students, it’s not his fault we fuck up.
It’s easy for me to hate Alex for labeling me as dangerous when I’ve never hurt someone a day in my life. But I’m safe in my skin and his life is at risk just by going to the bathroom. I understand why he says things like that. I finally do.
There’s a difference between the spread of hatred and the frustration of people who are hurting. The thing is, when you are broken, there will always be someone who says “I’m worse, stop talking.” There will always be people who are mad you’re trying to steal the attention. There will always be people who get mad at the same time as you do - they hate being challenged. It changes the rules.
I say I hate all Mondays but my sister was born on one and she’s the greatest joy I have ever known. I say I hate brown but it’s really just the word and how it turns your mouth down - the colour is my hair and my eyes and my favorite sweater. I say I hate pineapple but I still try it again every Easter, just to see if it stings less this year. It’s okay to be sad when you hear someone generalize a group you’re in. But instead of assuming they’re evil and filled with hatred, maybe ask them why they think that way - who knows, you might just end up with a new and kind friend.
”
-
By telling the oppressed that their anger is unjustified, you allow the oppression to continue. I know it’s hard to stay calm. I know it’s scary. But you’re coming from the safe place and they aren’t. Just please … Try to be more understanding. /// r.i.d (via inkskinned)
He’s the only politician in America who comes close to my personal spot on the political spectrum. I know he doesn’t have a chance against Hillary (nobody who would run against her in a primary does, which is a real problem with the political process in America, in my opinion), but I’m glad that he’ll be introducing actual, real, important populist issues into the national discussion.
I hope you think today’s comic is a real riot! Ha ha. Ha.
It’s almost that time of the month again — Patreon time! Please consider chipping in a buck to help keep the comics coming. You fine people are the reason I get to do this, and I thank you deeply for the opportunity.
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