Just a few things

The Cow Cross

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:40:24 -0400

badkidsjokes:

why did the cow cross the road?

Because hes an idiot

d0gbl0g: ahhhh

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:38:18 -0400

d0gbl0g:

ahhhh

decidedly forgetful: Letters from My Father

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:19:44 -0400

decidedly forgetful: Letters from My Father:

madelinezappala:

This is an edit/expansion of something I’ve published on here before. I wrote this back in February and I guess it feels appropriate to publish today, being Father’s Day and all.

_______________________

One day, my senior year in high school, I was sitting in homeroom, when I…

Read this because Madeline wrote it and it is beautiful and articulate and wonderful and gives you feels

timeshaiku: A haiku from the article: The Night Comes Back to...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 11:14:28 -0400

timeshaiku:

A haiku from the article: The Night Comes Back to Life: The Return of the ’90s Dance Club

nehrujackets: Vin Diesel performing Rhianna’s “Stay” (via Kate...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:52:07 -0400

nehrujackets:

Vin Diesel performing Rhianna’s “Stay” (via Kate Bryant). I want to hear him sing more? When he hit that falsetto, too.

"You’re born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher,..."

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:12:09 -0400

“You’re born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like.”

- Michael Gambon, Layer Cake (via politicalprof)

Hey this is also me

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:58:57 -0400

Hey this is also me

"Liberals today are arguing that 300 years of immoral policy can be undone by changing the subject...."

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:12:18 -0400

“Liberals today are arguing that 300 years of immoral policy can be undone by changing the subject. If only we can fool white racists by helping black people under the guise of “class,” maybe we can get out from under this. But the math says that black people are a class unto themselves. There is no “black and white” elite, no “black and white” middle class, no colorless poor. And when you consider that white supremacy is a dominant strain in our history, how could there be?”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates (via theatlantic)

Hey this is me

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:54:29 -0400

Hey this is me

actuallygrimes: CL - 나쁜 기집애 (THE BADDEST FEMALE) M/V (by...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:03:25 -0400

actuallygrimes:

CL - 나쁜 기집애 (THE BADDEST FEMALE) M/V (by 2NE1)

i like this new CL song its kinda scary in a good way

Photo

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:25:26 -0400

Photo

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 01:28:49 -0400

“Dude he is so fucking racist. After his frightening...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:37:18 -0400

“Dude he is so fucking racist. After his frightening performance on SNL I am literally convinced kanye west is going to be one of the next terrorists in America the guy is insane and needs medication.”

So basically, you have no understanding of race or racism, performance, the concept of terrorism, or insanity. You are an idiot.

This is why I can’t go back to rural NJ.

stfusexists: deliciouskaek: martinerat: tealrallythong: fatpi...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:32:19 -0400

stfusexists:

deliciouskaek:

martinerat:

tealrallythong:

fatpinkcast:

Critics’ Reactions to the Final Season 3 Scene in Game of Thrones

Surfed Google News looking for what reviewers thought about the White Lady Jesus scene.

“It’s kind of weird that the show decides to rely on the slightly racist, definitely cliche stereotype of hordes of adoring brown slaves worshipping their white liberator.” - Kate Walsh, Indiewire

“…the messianic tint to Danaerys’ brief appearance takes on a weirdly racist and pro-colonial overtone (look at those poor, dark savages and how much they love their blond savior!)” - Todd Brown, Twitchfilm

“…her being surrounded by a worshipful mass of people she’s saved who are decidedly, er, browner than her is really frakking weird. I’m not saying there’s malicious, racist intent or anything, and some of the slaves are probably just tanned white people. But as an image, I found it really offputting.” - Rebecca Pahle, The Mary Sue

“I think we’re supposed to feel tense and apprehensive awaiting their response to her setting them free, but I’m just kind of bored. No surprise – they accept her, calling her “mother.” She crowd surfs while her dragons fly above the crowd. Also, she’s very white and all the slaves definitely aren’t and so maybe this is racist? I’d call for discussion but this is the internet so better not.” - Dr. Improbable, The OutHousers

“During Game of Thrones‘ first season, the show faced criticism that it was racially… not super sensitive when it came to portraying the Dothraki, who were largely treated as Klingons noble savages…Now, Dany has become a straight-up conqueror—an outsider who swoops in with her dragons and eunuchs to show other societies how they’re doing things wrong. Which is where things start to feel a little dodgy: The final shots of this season were supposed to be rousing, but they felt weird.

There was Dany, seriously the Whitest Woman Ever, crowd-surfing on a bunch of heretofore unseen and uncharacterized brown people, all of whom had been enslaved and helpless before she showed up? And they’re lovingly calling her “Mother”?” - Erik Henriksen, Wired.com

“Yes, this is problematic. The optics on this scene are really bad, which I can see you have noticed, because you have eyes. Problem one is that there aren’t very many people of color people on this show to begin with, and problem two is that when there are, they tend to be acting out “tribal” stereotypes and/or cast in the role of slaves. And this final scene featured largest crowd of brown faces we’ve ever seen, lifting the world’s blondest woman up as their messiah and praising her for saving them from bondage. It’s like George W. Bush’s secret fantasy of how he thought the invasion of Iraq would go for him (including the blond wig).

“If you’ve never heard of the White Savior phenomenon in media, wherein a fictional white outsider appears to heroically save fictional people of color from problems they can’t solve on their own, there’s more information here. Or you can just take a screenshot at any point in the last minute of the show, since it’s pretty much textbook. And that’s another problem, while we’re counting problems: I feel like I’ve seen this trope so many times before that it feels emotionally flat and boring, especially in comparison to her astonishingly badass siege of Astapor.” - Laura Hudson, Wired.com

“Also, I can’t even express how uncomfortable her last scene (the last scene of the season) made me feel. This show has always had issues with race and unfortunately, by having hundreds of faceless brown people lifting up a young, white blonde woman and calling her “mother,” showrunners are far from correcting them. It was Greyworm (and friends) who liberated the city. Can’t he get some love?”- Madeleine Davies, Jezebel.com

The Khaleesi of previous seasons, and even previous season three episodes, seemed to care little for titles that others were so eager to attach to her. But it’s that blissful smile, that obvious Christ pose while being hoisted above the crowd, her blonde hair and pearly whiteness shining upon a sea of trodden-upon brown people that lead one to wonder if all this savior stuff is finally going to her head. - Gabriel Ruzin, Screen Invasion

“The final image is still that of a white woman being embraced by the poor slaves she set free, and on a show that has been validly criticized for its lack of diversity in its main cast, ending a season with that scene was a questionable choice. We understand why the writers thought it was a good direction to go — viewers needed some real hope after the Red Wedding — but there were probably ways to direct it that would have taken the sting out of the visual.” - Rebecca Martin, Wetpaint

“So, um, did anyone else think it was a little weird to have a bunch of dusky brown people reaching out to the blonde white lady and proclaiming her their savior? Dany’s crusade to free slaves and whatnot is admirable, sure, but that scene seemed to say “Hooray! The nice white lady saved us!” Kinda got a weird vibe. Was anyone else made ever so slightly uncomfortable?” - Joe Streckert, Portland Mercury

It’s an image that many commentators found troubling, given Game of Thrones‘ overwhelming whiteness, and the presentation of many non-white people as barbarians, deceptive slavers, or mindless slaves. - Alyssa Rosenberg, Think Progress

“And not to end on a sour note — because I did think “Mhysa” was a tight, elegant episode — but did anyone else watch the final scene outside Yunkai and think, ‘Hmmm, am I really looking at a pretty white lady being worshiped by thousands upon thousands of adoring brown people?’” - Nina Shen Rastogi, New York Magazine

“The show’s previously been careful to maintain a heterogeneous look for most of the cultures Daenerys encounters in her travels through the eastern continent of Essos, so the uniformly brown skin tone of the freed slaves worshipping the blondest possible savior figure was surprising and disconcerting – doubly so since, in the books, much is made of just how many different kinds of people had been forced into slavery by Yunkai and then freed by Dany when she took the city. This uncomfortable contrast kneecapped what could otherwise have been the most purely uplifting and cathartic moment in the series so far. Plus it gave the episode its title and was, you know, the final shot of the season – a rough one to go out on. “ Sean T. Collins, Rolling Stone

& then from all the graphics fandom blogs i reblog from

they’re just upholding the white colonial savior worshipping just blindly

& i’m just like

wait

you fuckers don’t see anything wrong-

oh wait you’re white as hell, too

welp

If D&D weren’t already racist, misogynist dickbags before, they for sure sealed the deal with this fucked up ending.

The books were problematic enough with the white savior trope, but the show really took the time to cram it in our faces, especially with the whole crowd-surfing thing.

Have I mentioned I really hated the finale?

OH BUT WAIT I GOT CALLED 50 DIFFERENT NIGGERS FOR CALLING THIS SHIT OUT YESTERDAY BUT WHITE MEDIA CALLS IT OUT AND IT’S ACCEPTABLE CRITIQUE

OK

And by OK i mean FUCK THAT

All of this. The critique of that heavy handed, gross scene, and then the critique of those critiques. (Because seriously, I have seen so many bloggers of color get verbally assaulted for pointing out this SAME SHIT in these books looooong before there was a visualization to demonstrate just how gross this storyline is.)

theatlantic: Why Should We Even Care If the Government Is...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:26:32 -0400

theatlantic:

Why Should We Even Care If the Government Is Collecting Our Data?

Privacy is hard to define and even harder to defend. The legal scholar Arthur Miller called it “exasperatingly vague and evanescent.” Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis famously described it as the “right to be let alone” (something that the NSA’s programs can only very indirectly be characterized as violating, since they operate without interfering with us pretty much at all). In Solove’s formulation, we should ease off the privacy hand-wringing and turn our attention to something much more fundamental: how we relate as citizens to our government and how much power we have in that relationship.

Read more. [Image: Flickr]

thedailyshow: On BuzzFeed: 27 Worst Moments Of John Oliver’s...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:25:20 -0400

thedailyshow:

On BuzzFeed: 27 Worst Moments Of John Oliver’s First 6 Minutes Hosting The Daily Show http://bit.ly/13A6CXf

comedycentral:

John Oliver kicked off his guest-hosting stint on The Daily Show last night, and his fellow correspondents were there to offer plenty of encouraging words.

Click here to watch.

fuckyeahtattoos: Inspired by a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:24:50 -0400

fuckyeahtattoos:

Inspired by a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design (a heavily stylised representation of a willow tree). Done by Wilco from Gekko Tattoos in Terneuzen, while he was visiting Divine Canvas in London.

motherjones: Lego figures’ heads have been getting angrier over time. That’s according to a...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:22:38 -0400

motherjones:

Lego figures’ heads have been getting angrier over time. That’s according to a serious academic paper (PDF) that analyzes the plastic figures’ facial expressions. More study may be required, write the researchers, to fully understand “the influence the LEGO Minifigures’ facial appearance have on LEGO users over time.” (h/t Smithsonian)

yoisthisracist: anonymous asked: Someone who calls Macklemore “a welcome return to ‘fun’ rap amidst...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:19:47 -0400

yoisthisracist:

anonymous asked: Someone who calls Macklemore “a welcome return to ‘fun’ rap amidst a sea of cliched thug bullshit”…

Sounds like some depressingly cliched racist bullshit right there.

ghostdaddotcx: Self reblogging to add a thing I...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:40:25 -0400

ghostdaddotcx:

Self reblogging to add a thing I found:

http://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-208/feature-malcolm-harris/

The account @Anti_Racism_Dog didn’t last long. Twitter suspended it quickly, a fate reserved only for the most aggressive, abusive and hateful users. What could a dog – an anti-racist one, at that – do to deserve it? @Anti_Racism_Dog had one real function: to bark at racist speech on Twitter. The account responded to tweets it deemed racist with the simple response ‘bark bark bark!’ Sometimes it would send wags to supporters but that was pretty much it.

For the short time it lasted, it was amazing to watch how people reacted to @Anti_Racism_Dog. The account would respond mostly to what the sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva would call ‘colour-blind racism’, that is, racisms that are generally right-libertarian in orientation and justified through appeals to supposedly objective discourses like science and statistics. It’s a notoriously insidious white-supremacist ideology, a virulent strain evolved specifically to resist anti-racist language. Colour-blind racism defends itself by appeals to neutrality and meritocracy, accusing its adversaries of being ‘the real racists’. Although its moves are predictable, they’re hard to combat rhetorically since they’re able to ingest the conventional opposition scripts. Colour-blind racists feed on good-faith debate, and engaging with them, especially online, is almost always futile. But when they’re barked at by a dog, one whose only quality is anti-racism, they flip the fuck out. They demand to be engaged in debate (‘Tell me how what I said was racist!’) or appeal to objective definitions (‘The dictionary says racist means X, therefore nothing I said was racist’), but @Anti_Racism_Dog just barks.

@Anti_Racism_Dog inverted the usual balance of energy in online dialogs about race. Precisely because the dominant global discourse is white-supremacist, it is rhetorically easier to make a racist argument than an anti-racist one. Look at almost any comment thread or discussion board about race and you can see anti-racists working laboriously to be convincing and to play on their opponents’ ‘logical’ turf, and racists repeating the same simple lines they were taught (‘I didn’t own slaves’, ‘I’m just stating the facts’, ‘The Irish were persecuted too’, etc.) ‘Trolling’ as a certain kind of internet harassment is tied to time: the successful troll expends much less time and energy on the interaction than their targets do. It’s the most micro of micro-politics, an interpersonal tug of war for the only thing that matters. But have you ever played tug of war with a dog?

A true troll doesn’t have a position to protect because to establish one would leave it vulnerable to attack, and playing defence takes time. @Anti_Racism_Dog, by fully assuming the persona of an animal, was invulnerable to counter-attack. You can’t explain yourself to a dog and you look like an idiot trying. The only way to win is not to play but this is the colour-blind racist’s Achilles Heel: they’re compelled to defend themselves against accusations of racism. It’s the anti-racist argument that gives them content; theirs is an ideology that’s in large part a list of counter-arguments. After all, white-supremacists are already winning – their task now is to keep the same racist structures in place while making plausibly colour-blind arguments against dismantling them. @Anti_Racism_Dog was empty of anything other than accusation and so left its targets sputtering.

The account served a second purpose: as a sort of anti-racist hunting dog. @Anti_Racism_Dog quickly attracted a lot of like-minded followers who understood the dynamics at play. Whenever it would start barking at another user, this was a cue to the dog’s followers to troll the offender as well. There’s only so much one dog can do alone. Colour-blind racism is particularly dangerous because it isn’t immediately visible as such. It provokes good-faith discussion from liberals about what counts as racism, muddying the water. But @Anti_Racism_Dog’s strategy draws new lines about what constitutes acceptable discourse on race, placing colour-blind racists on the other side by speaking to them like an animal. What would be taken as totally insane in flesh space can be infuriatingly clever online.