ThePrettiestOne

caleatkinson:

The return of Batman and Bear-Robin!
This time the dynamic duo faces off against the diabolical Penguin! :)

View their last adventure here: 
http://caleatkinson.tumblr.com/post/81902536580/the-adventures-of-batman-and-bear-robin-in-gif

The Marvel movies rightly get praise for their action and their witty writing, but Gen Kim has made a video that focuses on the universe's more subtle moments. Without dialogue, and set to José González's "Stay Alive," the emotion the actors convey with their faces and body language are thrown into stark relief.

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micdotcom:

5 disturbing facts about police militarization in America

Those cops in riot armor beating and tear-gassing protesters in Ferguson didn’t drop out of thin air. As American police continue to receive billions in military-grade equipment free or subsidized by the Pentagon and Homeland Security, they’ve predictably started to act more like a military force in hostile territory than the public’s protectors.

Facts from ACLU report show just how big the problem has become | Follow micdotcom

thecarefree-art:

procrastination = hijabi babe power

Also available on my Society6 !

huffingtonpost:

Jon Stewart’s Priceless Response To Fox News On Ferguson

Jon Stewart is back from vacation, and he’s not wasting any time going after one of his favorite targets: Fox News.

Watch his the full brilliant 10  minute monologue on racism and Ferguson  here. 

majiinboo:

• Do not forget Michael Brown
• Do not forget how the media dehumanized him and tried to justify his murder
• Do not forget how peaceful protests were painted as savage riots
• Do not forget police armed with military grade weapons terrorized and arrested black civilians
• Do not forget Darren Wilson being awarded over $200,000 in fundraiser donations for murdering an unarmed black child
• Do not forget that this system was not built to defend us, but to control us
• Do not forget Ferguson 

fishingboatproceeds:

I don’t really understand how that is a question up for discussion on television news. I mean, even putting aside the gajillion ways that white people are privileged by, for instance, being able to think that whiteness is “normal,” studying world history from Eurocentric perspectives,  and etc etc:

- White people are less likely to be arrested for the same crime than black people, and black people serve longer (much longer!) sentences than white people.

- Marijuana use is similar among black and white populations in the U.S., but young African Americans are more than THREE TIMES more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession or use than white Americans. 

- Racial bias in hiring in the U.S. is well-documented and persistent.

- African American students are far more likely to be punished in schools, even though they are not much more likely to break school rules than their white peers.

- Even after accounting for reasons like education disparity, geographical distribution, and occupation, there is a persistent wage gap: White people make are paid more than African Americans due to racial discrimination. 

- White people in the U.S. on average have lower mortgage rates than African Americans.

White privilege is a fact of every facet of American life. I realize I’m mostly preaching to the choir here, but this is not a political issue or a subject for debate. It is well-documented and irrefutable.

Inspired by the popularity of the “Ice Bucket Challenge“, an Indian writer named Manju Latha Kalanidhi decided to create “The Rice Bucket Challenge“, which directly helps address the issue of hunger within India. The rules are simple, just pick up a bowl of rice, bring it to a person in need, post a picture of doing this to Facebook with the hashtag #ricebucketchallenge and tag your friends to do the same.

Desi Challenge for Desi Needs, Cook or buy one bucket of Rice / Biryani and feed the needy…Indian version for Indian Needs, Lets challenge our friends to take up the #RiceBucketChallenge. Take a Picture or Video of your challenge and tag all your friends.

photos via Rice Bucket Challenge

via The Independent

The post Indian Woman Creates the ‘Rice Bucket Challenge’ to Help Address the Hunger Issue in India appeared first on Laughing Squid.

I defy you to watch Guardians of the Galaxy's Dave Batista (Drax the Destroyer) and Michael Rooker (Yondu) perform the movie's beloved post-credits scene — with Michael Rooker in a metal tub as Baby Groot — at Wizard World Chicago last weekend and not smile. It's simply not possible.

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wocinsolidarity:

thepoliticalfreakshow:

African-American Girls & Women Killed By Police: Speak Their Names. See Their Faces. Know Their Stories.

There is this false myth going around that Black women are not victims of police violence. I believe the myth exists because quite frankly the media, social justice organizations and we the public tend not to focus on it. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope this post will make all of us change our minds. Here are the stories of some of the Black women and girls killed by law enforcement:

Adaisha Miller, Detroit Woman, Hugged Cop From Behind

LAPD cop charged with assault in death of Alesia Thomas

7-year- old Aiyana Stanley-Jones – Detroit Free Press

17 Year Old Darnesha Harris Dead after Run-In with Breaux

Mackala Ross and Delores Epps

Eleanor Bumpurs

Erica Collins family files lawsuit against Cincy Police

Pleasant Grove crash claims life of second person | AL.com (Heather Parker)

Family grieves after loved one killed in crash with APD (Jacqueline Culp)

Family of victim question police use of deadly force – KWCH (Karen Day)

Kendra James remembered at Portland rally | KOIN.com

Pedestrian Killed on I-95 in Florida (Laporsha Watson)

After Cleveland shooting, cities restrict police chases(Malissa Williams)

Miriam Carey, Capitol Suspect, Suffered Post-Partum Depression

Elderly Woman Shot & Killed By Hearne Police Officer (Pearlie Golden)

Rekia Boyd Settlement: Family Of Unarmed Chicago Woman

Former Pa. trooper pleads guilty in fatal accident (Robin T. Williams)

Shantel Davis Killed By NYPD Cop In Car Chase | News One

Friends: Woman killed by police was nonviolent | Las Vegas (Sharmel Edwards)

Suspected Walmart Shoplifter Shot To Death In Front Of Kids (Shelly Frey)

The NYPD’s Poor Judgment With the Mentally Ill | Village Voice (Shereese Francis)

Harrisburg woman identified as victim in police SUV crash (Shulena S. Weldon)

$2.5M settlement in shooting of Lima woman by police officer (Tarika Wilson)

No Charges in Killing of Tyisha Miller – Los Angeles Times

Texas Police Admit Officer Shot & Killed Unarmed Woman (Yvette Smith)

!!!

vvank3rshim:

holyhotpantsbatman:

My therapist asked me to create something “motivating” so I made these.

lol.

I really love these, and I reblog them every single time. Some of you don’t realize how easy it’s to forget to do some of those stuff or how hard they can be some days.

“A coroner’s report obtained exclusively by NBC News directly contradicts the police version of how a 22-year-old black man died in the back seat of a Louisiana police cruiser earlier this year — but still says the man, whose hands were cuffed behind his back, shot himself.
 
In a press release issued March 3, the day he died, the Louisiana State Police said Victor White III apparently shot himself in an Iberia Parish police car. According to the police statement, White had his hands cuffed behind his back when he shot himself in the back.
 
But according to the full final report of the Iberia Parish coroner, which was released nearly six months later and obtained exclusively by NBC News, White was shot in the front, not the back. The bullet entered his right chest and exited under his left armpit. White was left-handed, according to family members. According to the report, the forensic pathologist found gunshot residue in the wound, but not the sort of stippling that a close-range shot can sometimes produce. He also found abrasions on White’s face.
 
And yet, despite the contradictions – and even though White’s hands were never tested for gunpowder residue – the Iberia Parish coroner still supported the central contention of the initial police statement issued back in March. Dr. Carl Ditch ruled that White shot himself, and declared his death a suicide.”

- Handcuffed Black Youth Killed Himself, Says Coroner - NBC News.com

William Bratton: Investigate Ryo Oyamada's Death:

il-tenore-regina:

dynastylnoire:

jspark3000:

Ryo Oyamada, a 24 year old student from Japan, was struck and killed by an NYPD vehicle in a hit & run.  Witnesses say the police car had no lights or sirens on and was going over 70 mph.  The released footage by NYPD was proven to be heavily altered in a cover-up, showing “lights” on the vehicle, when compared to footage from the NY Housing Authority on the same street with the same timestamp. 

On a personal note: I know that this will probably not be shared or reblogged very much, because Asians are not very prominent in American culture.  I understand this, because Asians (like me) are partially at fault for being so passive.  But I am begging you to please consider signing this petition out of human decency.  Ryo was just a student walking home, then struck by a nearly silent police cruiser going at excess speed, and the NYPD covered it up. 

Here is the side-by-side comparison of the released video footage, including updates from the case.  *Edit*  This article contains a link to a graphic video moments after the crash, showing the body of Ryo Oyamada and NY citizens yelling at the police.  Please advise, it is highly disturbing. 

And the following is an excerpt from the petition, which as of now only has 286 signatures.

On February 21st, 2013, Ryo Oyamada was struck and killed by a police cruiser while crossing the street.  NYPD claimed that the cruiser’s lights and sirens were on before the collision, but multiple eyewitnesses stated otherwise, that the lights and sirens were only turned on afterwards, and that the cruiser was speeding in excess of 70 mph down a residential street.  None of these eyewitnesses were interviewed for the police report.  

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST

Omg 

textsfromtng:

Submitted by Brad R.

seekingwillow:

invisiblelad:

bonequeer:

radicalrebellion:

feministcaptainmorgan:

baronsledjoys:

firecannotkillafitblr:

This drives me mad. I used to work in a bookstore, and was talking to my coworker and he just yelled out “stop flirting with me!” at this ridiculous volume and it was humiliating because 
1. I wasn’t
2. I got in trouble for acting unprofessional 
3. He embarrassed me in front of a line of people
4. And he only stopped insisting that I was flirting when my boyfriend (who is now my husband) said, “dude, trust me, she’s not flirting with you” to him

That asshole respected my BOYFRIEND saying I wasn’t flirting more than he respected me saying it and I was the one who was talking! The whole scene got me in trouble at work. And the most ridiculous part is we were talking about a fucking book. In a bookstore.

One time, my ex boyfriend had a crush on some girl, and said that he thought he might have “a chance” with her.

When I asked him what made him think that, he said “Well, she talks to me.”

And this is why it is so difficult to be a girl and be friends with men who are attracted to women.

Can we also add that this is why a lot of women do the resting bitch face when out in public. Cause dudes swear a glance or a smile is flirting.

So yesterday something that perfectly illustrates this happened. I work at a fast food place and this guy comes in at 7am on a Sunday, still probably drunk from the night before, and when I smiled and said goodmorning he said “Did you just say that because you’re being paid to say that?” 

I repressed my urge to sarcastically answer, and said “Nope, I just enjoy saying hi to everyone!” To which he responded, “Oh, so you weren’t flirting with me then.”

Dude, I’m not flirting with your gross 7am-on-a-Sunday-ass, trust me.

My defense mechanism when I’m uncomfortable at work is to smile, so I did that and said “Is there anything I can get you this morning?” to which he responded,

"There, you just smiled! What does that mean?"

At this point I was fed up, so I said, 

"I smile at everyone sir, its just what I do. What can I get you, coffee, a bagel?"

And he said “I’m gonna be watching to see if you smile at everyone. I don’t like it when girls lie to me” and then ordered a coffee and a muffin like he hadn’t just said something at 11 on the “Is this guy a serial rapist” scale (where 0 is ‘no’ and 10 is ‘Yes, run away as fast as you can right now.”).

Then he sat there for another hour and a half, staring at me from his table. When he got up and left he came back to the counter, and said “You do smile at everyone. That’s fucked up.” and walked out.

I can’t even be innocuously polite and pleasant to people at my job (where customer service is the number one thing we are supposed to be focusing on) for fear of this shit happening. What happens if he had decided to wait until my shift was over? 

New Rule: If she’s at work, SHE’S NOT FLIRTING WITH YOU.

there are a lot of good takeaways from this thread, but mainly it reinforces my belief that hitting on servers (especially women) while at work is all sorts of screwed up because emotional labor is a very big part of their job and reading too much into that is presumptuous as hell. 

___

No one’s mentioned it in thread here (perhaps in the comments if I check?) but this is so rape culture it’s terrifying. Women must SO be available to all men all the time that ANY interaction between a woman and a man MUST equal flirting if it’s remotely pleasant or polite.

Which gets compounded with the hetero guys and girls can’t ‘just’ be friends and ‘don’t trust your girl if she’s friends with a guy’. Which some try to say is; ‘Oh I trust her, I just don’t trust him’. But the WHY of not trusting the guy is the same. The knowledge and awareness that women are meant to be available to all men at all times, until such time as a singular man stamps a claim on her and ‘good’ men will respect the ‘no trespassing’ sign.

Ugh.

And of course, this aspect of rape culture, this BEDROCK of rape culture explains ‘gay panic’ with hetero dudes. The thought that another guy could be interpreting anything polite or remotely pleasant THEY do as flirting…

The current era panic so high men and boys are throwing out that awful ‘no homo’ in order to ‘set the record straight’ - Pun intended. So much misogyny just embedded in culture.

*sigh*

One last note:

Expectation of Service From Black People - Particularly Black Women  + Rape Culture Mentality That Lack of Hostility Means Flirting = Sexual Objectification + Harassment on a Monumental Scale.

“A racist woman is not a feminist; she doesn’t care about helping women, just the women who look like her and can buy the same things she can. A transphobic woman is not a feminist; she is overly concerned with policing the bodies and expressions of others. A woman against reproductive rights — to use bell hook’s own example, and an issue close to your heart — is not a feminist; she prioritizes her dogma or her disgust over the bodies of others. An ableist woman is not a feminist; she holds some Platonic ideal of what a physically or mentally “whole” person should be and tries to force the world to fit inside it.”

- An Open Letter to Caitlin Moran by Nyux (via redefiningbodyimage)

ecklecticsoul:

{Strolling Series by Cecile Emeke}

Sexism,Patriarchy,Racism and Colonialsm.Full Discourse

Dog Eat Doug by Brian Anderson for August 26, 2014

maarnayeri:

Let us be vividly clear about this.

What the New York Times did to Michael Brown today was not merely slander. It wasn’t a case of a lack of journalistic integrity.

Highlighting that a black teenager was “no angel” on the day he is being laid to rest after being hunted and killed by racist vigilante forces is not an unfortunate coincidence.

The New York Times deliberately played into an archaic American tradition in devaluing both the merit of black life and the tragedy of black death.

They chose the day of his funeral, as his family, friends and activists everywhere have to grapple with a human being lost to pontificate about how he was “no angel”. Michael Brown was many things to many people; a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew and another black causality of murderous police institutions and today, amidst all the racist violence he, his loved ones and community have had to endure, he was going to finally receive the respect and moment of honor he deserved and NYT decided today, of all days, to tune in their audience onto wholly irrelevant facts about his life - that in turn, transform the very injustice surrounding his death and the following police violence that plagued Ferguson into a national panel about whether or not his death is actually worth mourning and their language suggested that to them, it indeed is not.

This was hardly an accident or mistake. This is the perpetual hostility that is met against black life in America. The consensus is that black people deserve no respect and for black life to be legitimized and honored, we must meet a list of prerequisites. Subsequently, if black people aren’t valued, neither are our deaths understood as tragic or murders seen as criminal action.

This has been the atmosphere of America since its inception and much has not improved.

“If female fans are dismissed more easily, then so are their interests, their spaces, and their primary forms of engagement. Or, said differently, gender discrimination occurs on the level of the fan, the fan activity, and the fannish investment. There is a ready truism that enthusiasm for typically male fan objects, such as sports and even music, are generally accepted whereas female fan interests are much more readily mocked. Likewise, fangirls are mocked as is fan fiction, an activity more commonly ascribed to females. More than that, affect and forms of fannish investment get policed along gender lines, so that obsessively collecting comic books or speaking Klingon is more acceptable within and outside of fandom than creating fan vids or cosplaying. Even the same behavior gets read differently when women do it: sexualizing celebrities, for example, is accepted and expected among men but gets quickly read as inappropriate when done by women.”

- "Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan" Kristina Busse, Participations 10.1 (2013)

zacharys-pain:

the-misadventures-of-lele:

flaming-ducks:

thepleasureprinciple:

Welp.

I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING THIS FOR YEARS. FUCKING LISTEN!!

woop, there it is.

wake up

YouTube channel Reactions recently debunked the myths surrounding the consumption of MSG. Specifically, the episode deals with the fact that, despite what many people believe, consuming monosodium glutamate isn’t unhealthy for the majority of people.

Few ingredients come with as much baggage as MSG. Otherwise known as monosodium glutamate, the compound has had a bad reputation for nearly 50 years, so we at Reactions felt it was time to clear its name. In this video, we debunk MSG myths and explain why the scientific consensus is that this flavor enhancer, known for its savory umami flavor, is perfectly safe for the vast majority of people.

socialjusticekoolaid:

Micheal Brown is being laid to rest today. The family has asked for a day of peace without protest during the funeral proceedings. #staywoke #insolidarity

Watch Live

“

Beyond Ferguson, the pattern is clear. Blacks are always to blame, even as we are brutalized by police, ghettoized by neoliberal policies, and disenfranchised by a racist criminal (in)justice system.

But that’s the crux of white supremacist racial logic: the problem with black people is … well, black people – not mass incarceration and the deindustrialization of urban America, not educational inequality and generational poverty, not 400 years of slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow. To be black in America is to be victimized and then made responsible for our victimization. We built this country. But, apparently, it is we who are lazy and dependent. We are bullied politically, socially and economically. But it is we who are called ‘thugs.’

”

- Nyle Fort, "White Supremacy Is the Real Culprit in Ferguson; the Excuses Just Prove It" (via sonofbaldwin)

One of the most annoying fallacies about science fiction and fantasy books is that they're less connected to reality than "realistic" fiction. In fact, SF and fantasy authors draw on real experiences and facts all the time, as some of the top authors told Jeff VanderMeer.

Read more...

“Critics generally don’t associate Black people with ideas. They see marginal people; they see just another story about Black folks. They regard the whole thing as sociologically interesting perhaps, but very parochial. There’s a notion out in the land that there are human beings one writes about, and then there are Black people or Indians or some other marginal group. If you write about the world from that point of view, somehow it is considered lesser. We are people, not aliens. We live, we love, and we die.”

- Toni Morrison

"I took my cat on his first walk yesterday." -GarbageCanHands

bearhatalice:

aspiringpolymath:

phoenix-ace:

girl-non-grata:

Please note: “everyone who works retail, admin, or labor” is pretty much everyone. I can’t remember the last time I worked somewhere without “security” cameras that monitored employees.

I’m having a good laugh right now because our associates just got collectively reprimanded for leaning on the counters during 8 hour shifts on their feet, because it isn’t “professional” looking.  So apparently they can put up with a camera over their shoulder to make sure they do their jobs correctly, but a cop with a gun cant?  

Do cops want CCTV cams removed from businesses and streets? If they don’t want to monitored on their jobs, why should everyone be monitored at theirs (and in their LIVES)? Oh, it makes cops’ job easier to have a video record of crimes and infractions? Huh.

HUH.

I work in an office and not retail, but I also know that every website I visit, and instant message or email I send is monitored and stored by my employer.

Also, surveillance cameras in public areas are nearly everywhere in America, watching just about everything completely innocent people are doing.

Police should be held to a higher standard than the public they are sworn to protect, and the data shows that cops equipped with cameras are simply better cops.

“Ponder this: our government is systematically collecting vast amounts of data and information on US citizens and foreigners around the world and analyzing it for threats. But it is not systematically collecting or analyzing information of US citizens killed by government authorities and actively blocks citizens who try.”

-

How many of these police killings are there?