Uh, I’m pretty sure the saying is “A few bad apples get placed on paid administrative leave while the racist justice system declines to prosecute, or racist DAs intentionally throw their case, or racist judges decide in their favor, or racist juries composed of other bad apple citizens this time let them back on the street to murder apples of color with impunity once again.”
I was working with a small business owner in his 40s who wanted a
website. He’d been sending me group pictures of his office managers, but they
were poor quality images, with bad lighting, taken at an angle, and used the
lowest image quality setting his cell phone offered. Essentially, they were the
worst possible images he could give me for what he had in mind.
Client: I don’t like the way those
look. I look orange. Fix them.
Me: Yeah, the skin tones are a
little off. I think it’s because of the lighting in the room you took the
photos in. I have already color corrected them to the best of my ability, and
there’s not much else I can do since these were taken with your phone in poor
lighting.
Client: Well my skin doesn’t look that way in real
life. And the image is blurry!
Me: Is there a way you can
have the photos redone? Maybe with a better quality camera? That
would solve a lot of these problems.
Me: Well, I would recommend
either increasing the photo resolution settings, or maybe just seeing if you
could borrow someone’s digital camera if you don’t know how to change the
settings on your phone.
Client: Digital… camera?
Me: Yeah, you know - it’s a
camera that stores photos on a memory card?
Client: You mean like an iPhone 4?
Me: No. A camera.
A digital camera. Like the old cameras that use film, but this one uses a
memory card? Do you know anyone who has one?
Client: Well, I know someone who
has an iPhone I could borrow….
Me: Okay, but if he doesn’t know
how to change his camera settings either, taking another photo at the lowest
resolution isn’t going to help much.
Client: I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU WANT
ME TO TAKE PICTURES WITHOUT A PHONE.
92-Year-Old Grandmother Makes Stunningly Intricate Temari Balls
A ninety-two-year-old-grandmother from Japan creates stunning embroidered balls known as “temari,” (meaning “hand ball” in Japanese) which showcase a skill she learned in her sixties. A traditional folk art, which was conceived in Japan in the 7th century, the craft is tedious and highly demanding craft. The unknown woman has constructed 500 unique designs, which are photographed by her granddaughter NanaAkua. Overall these beautiful trinkets are a symbol of happy life and good fortune, which originate from friendship and loyalty.
• any target
• churches in texas
• abandoned 7/11’s
• your bedroom at 5 am
• hospitals at midnight
• warehouses that smell like dust
• lighthouses with lights that don’t work anymore
• empty parking lots
• ponds and lakes in suburban neighborhoods
• rooftops in the early morning
• inside a dark cabinet
playgrounds at night
rest stops on highways
deep in the mountains
early in the morning wherever it’s just snowed
trails by the highway just out of earshot of traffic
schools during breaks
those little beaches right next to ferry docks
bowling alleys
unfamiliar mcdonalds on long roadtrips
your friends living room once everybody but you is asleep
laundromats at midnight
what the fuck
galeries in art museums that are empty except for you
the lighting section of home depot
stairwells
•hospital waiting rooms
•airports from midnight to 7am
• bathrooms in small concert venues
I just got the weirdest feeling I swear
OK LISTEN THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS!!!
A lot of these places are called liminalspaces - which means they are throughways from one space to the next. Places like rest stops, stairwells, trains, parking lots, waiting rooms, airports feel weird when you’re in them because their existence is not about themselves, but the things before and after them. They have no definitive place outside of their relationship to the spaces you are coming from and going to. Reality feels altered here because we’re not really supposed to be in them for a long time for think about them as their own entities, and when we do they seem odd and out of place.
The other spaces feel weird because our brains are hard-wired for context - we like things to belong to a certain place and time and when we experience those things outside of the context our brains have developed for them, our brains are like NOPE SHIT THIS ISN’T RIGHT GET OUT ABORT ABORT. Schools not in session, empty museums, being awake when other people are asleep - all these things and spaces feel weird because our brain is like “I already have a context for this space and this is not it so it must be dangerous.” Our rational understanding can sometimes override that immediate “danger” impulse but we’re still left with a feeling of wariness and unease.
Listen I am very passionate about liminal spaces they are fascinating stuff or perhaps I am merely a nerd.
This is an illustrated guide I made as part of my co-admining work at The Middle Eastern Feminist on Facebook! It will be published there shortly. The technique that is displayed here is a genuine one used in psychology - I forgot the name and couldn’t find it again so if you know about it, feel free to tell me! Some could say: “Yes but you can use that technique for instances of harassment other than Islamophobic attacks!”, and my reply is: Sure! Please do so, it also works for other “types” of harassment of a lone person in a public space!! However I’m focusing on protecting Muslims here, as they have been very specific targets lately, and as a French Middle Eastern woman, I wanted to try and do something to raise awareness on how to help when such things happen before our eyes - that way one cannot say they “didn’t know what to do”! I’d like to insist on two things: 1) Do not, in any way, interact with the attacker. You must absolutely ignore them and focus entirely on the person being attacked! 2) Please make sure to always respect the wishes of the person you’re helping: whether they want you to leave quickly afterwards, or not! If you’re in a hurry escort them to a place where someone else can take over - call one of their friends, or one of yours, of if they want to, the police. It all depends on how they feel!
For my fellow French-speakers: I will translate it in French and post it on my page as soon as I can :)
Please don’t hesitate to share this guide as it could push a lot of people to overcome bystander syndrome!!
Submissions for BAHFest West 2016 are open until September 9. This year is an experimental "open theme" show. Getting quality submissions is always the hardest part of the show. So, if you think you've got a neat idea but are worried about sending it in, please do!
(PS: We are also taking early submissions for the forthcoming shows in Boston and London in 2017)
