Trends that should stop: having “evil” versions of female characters wear more revealing clothes and act more sexually aggressive than the “good” version, because that demonizes women’s sexuality and ties it to having lower morals and it’s just generally a shitty gross trope
And having those sexually aggressive “evil” versions being flirtatious toward women when the “good” version is straight. Like wow way to not-so-subtly condemn bi/pansexual and lesbian women
Stop all that “you attract what you are ready for” shit. Sometimes life is just terrible. It’s not always my fault.
“Life never gives you more than you can handle.” Yes, it does.
“People are placed in your life to teach you a valuable lesson that helps your soul on its way to enlightenment.” No, there are a just a lot of people who feel empowered when they act like assholes. We live in that kind of society.
“You keep finding yourself in the same situation because you haven’t discovered the message the universe is trying to send to you yet.” Sometimes unpleasant things are stuck on repeat, because you have a mental or physical condition, and it is a symptom. Symptoms are like that.
“The truth always hurts.” No, it doesn’t, and what hurts often isn’t the truth, but is instead someone’s biased opinion.
I really appreciate this comment. Thank you thank you thank you.
This is what I need to hear. I blamed myself for so long for the abuse I endured and for attracting the people that hurt me.
This exuberant celebration of African American women and their achievements features interviews with Angela Davis, June Jordan, and Alice Walker [as well as Trinh T. Minh-ha]. Within the context of the civil rights, Black power and feminist movements, the trio reassess how women such as Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer revolutionized American society.
Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine.
Photo: Bill Roorbach
Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.
This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.
Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.
That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England.
Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.
Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first.
As we celebrate this year’s Pride month, do not forget to remember the tragic Pulse Night Club shooting. Remember that it was POC who were targeted. Remember this as we continue to fight. I’ll be either attending or hosting a local memorial this year, and I strongly recommend others do the same, if it’s possible.
