White people get mad when you wear a band t shirt of a band you don’t listen to, but they’re fine with wearing headdresses from cultures they know and care nothing about.
"The first time I read ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ I was sitting in 10th grade English class. But there is one image that stays with me. The description of crops going unharvested even as workers are eager and willing to pick the food. He writes:
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the time, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
He wrote those words more than 70 years ago, yet the conditions he describes still ring true for 50 million Americans living in food insecure households today… . Hungry families do not have enough food… [but] not because of scarcity. Every year 40% of food produced goes uneaten. That’s 20 pounds of food per person per day. And that is the twisted irony of hunger in America today. What Steinbeck called that crime that goes beyond denunciation, landfills brimming with rotting food while 15% of households don’t have enough to eat."
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the time, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
He wrote those words more than 70 years ago, yet the conditions he describes still ring true for 50 million Americans living in food insecure households today… . Hungry families do not have enough food… [but] not because of scarcity. Every year 40% of food produced goes uneaten. That’s 20 pounds of food per person per day. And that is the twisted irony of hunger in America today. What Steinbeck called that crime that goes beyond denunciation, landfills brimming with rotting food while 15% of households don’t have enough to eat."
I love the inclusion of modern technology into the scene. It’s wonderful.
Yes, this is exactly what I’m trying to do with secret project number one.
Yes, perfect. Good.
sudden flashbacks to Everworld
This is a thing that I’ve been dwelling on: the alternative development of aesthetics.
The short and sweet version is that we tend to associate certain patterns of clothing, decoration, and ritual with different kinds of behavior. It’s a worldwide thing, and mostly unconscious. Men around the world wear European suits when they’re doing business, unless they have a particular reason not to. Facial tattoos are for ‘primitive’ tribes and members of Western countercultures. Essentially the same furniture and building styles are seen throughout the wealthy parts of the world, and showing the different methods used by other cultures is meant to show how primitive they are.
This is all, of course, horseshit. Art, fashion, motifs—they’re all just the window-dressing of a culture, and say little about how advanced or worthwhile it is. The prevalence of European styles in architecture and clothing isn’t because they’re just better than the rest of the world’s styles, it’s because European culturally brutalized the rest of the world and other cultures had to change to blend in.
What if things had turned out differently? What if some culture had stood as another example of what could be? What if more and more advanced technology had been molded into those alternate aesthetics? What might the world have seen?
(Slightly tangentally: This is why I’m okay with Zecora in MLP. Her aesthetic is indicative that there are cultures in that world that haven’t been homogenized by imperialism. That seems like an excellent thing.)
A good point in the commentary!
But I sort of dislike how some of it is worded. Art, fashion and motifs are not just ‘window-dressing’ - and actually speak volumes about cultures and how advanced they were and are! They are results of hundreds of years of religious beliefs, philosophies, ideas and traditions. It’s because colonialism stomped down and eradicated those ideas and prompted the behavior and mindset that Western European civilization was the best, that said beliefs, technological advancements and art were appropriated, demeaned and exoticized. (When, in reality, many countries had made many great advancements and achievements in far less time than it took some of Europe, etc.)
It’s also important to portray even modernized (non colonized! As depicted here) cultures with care and accuracy.
Have some other small issues with this, but I guess… this is what I’m attempting to say. This is a good commentary! But probably could have been a little better worded, sorry. ^^;
"
Say you’re walking down the sidewalk on a beautiful day. Someone who has internalized an outsider’s perspective of herself will often spend more time adjusting her clothing or hair, wondering what other people are thinking of her, judging the shape of her shadow or reflection in a window, etc. She will picture herself walking – she literally turns herself into an object of vision – instead of enjoying the sunny weather….
… Women are constantly being looked at. Even when we’re not, we’re so hyperaware of the possibility of being looked at that it can rule even our most private lives. Including in front of our mirrors, alone.
"Excerpt via Beauty Redefined ”To BE or to be LOOKED at?” (via fitvillains)
Good Gawd, THIS.
I’m working to re-define my thinking about myself and walk in the glorious space of not being an object for other people’s visual consumption and the freedom it brings.
And reminding people of that fact when they feel compelled to comment.
(via str8nochaser)
Fuck.
(via versatilequeen)
I’ve created these flyers for a school activist project where I bring more attention to the women in history that have been forgotten or ignored. This blog will be an extension of those flyers where I post longer biographies of these women and other bad-ass women like them. Too often women’s achievements have been pushed aside, either by others in their lives, or else by the historians who choose to ignore them. This tumblr is dedicated to celebrating them and bringing their achievements to light!
"The millennials are the people who’ve inherited the hangover from the baby boomers’ party: a warming planet, a dysfunctional global financial system that rewards the rich and screws the poor, a polarized political class that’s moved so far to the right that a centrist like Barack Obama can be described with a straight face as “a socialist.” Millennials may be “narcissistic, materialistic and addicted to technology,” as Stein alleges early in his article; they’re also drowning in college debt, slaves to an internship “system” that demands ever-increasing work for no pay, and entrants into a job market that’s replaced employment rights with the “flexibility” of never being able to afford health insurance."
Bulldozer destroys Mayan pyramid in Belize
AP:
A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.
The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2,300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.
*high pitched keening*
“Development”
US: Philadelphia Mayor to sign landmark LGBT protection bill into law
“The Mayor of the US city of Philadelphia is to sign a city-wide ordinance offering protections, and benefits for LGBT citizens into law, in a ceremony on Thursday.”Go read the whole article
It’s not just focusing on gay and lesbian partnership rights anymore
I mean look at this
“It will make city forms gender neutral, and makes it easier for transgender residents to request gender markers on some records, and name changes. Gender-neutral bathrooms are also required in city-controlled buildings, as well as access to buildings based on gender identity.
“Healthcare discrimination against non-union transgender city employees will also be banned, and the legislation ensures that employees in Philadelphia will be able to dress in accordance with their gender identity.”
No one’s ever cared before and now it is just like “here is a windfall of unexpectedly amazing things now go live your life in happiness”
Way to go Philly!
WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS.
GET ‘EM, MIKE!
