One of my pet peeves lately has been the meme going around facebook, that “Western culture” (here meaning, presumably, European literature + modern democracy + the scientific method) in its current form has to be entirely thrown out, and that we need to look into strategies for organizing society that come from colonized countries. I’m seeing a lot of the idea that the whole world was peaceful and good until white people came along.
This is so irritating to me precisely because I used to believe something like this, and then I actually did start studying non-Western cultures and it turns out all human nations have been systemically murdering the shit out of each other since forever.
And I am pretty convinced that 0% of the people telling me that “we need to learn colonized people’s methods of resistance” have actually looked into this themselves.
Endorsed. I saw a tweet yesterday that’s pretty much the epitome of this:
Okay, you’ve got a better idea than “innocence until proven guilt” and “equality in the eyes of the law”? Am I the only one who has any idea what societies *without* those things are like?
Not to mention that pretending pre-colonial societies were peachy is a real slap in the face to the groups they themselves subjugated. It is wrong that indigenous mesoamericans were conquered and exploited, but I also prefer a society *without* human sacrifice.
Yeah I think people are not getting that EVEN ON WEBSITE LEVELS the main problem is laws are not ENFORCED against these people because that is literally the definition of “privilege”.
Like here is a quick and easy way to screen this shit ask yourself what would happen to black lives matter if you pass your restrictions. Because that is going to be who they target for enforcement right now.
The laws are already so we need to put in people who will actually enforce them.
One tip for way too many of these folks: Maybe consider fixing your own systems, before you start trying to grab onto your own romanticized versions of other people’s systems that you don’t really understand. It’s gross, and also rooted in some very colonial mindsets.
I have been suspicious for a little while that it is not at all an accident that so many SJ community norms intensely discourage critical thinking and sourcing information and are so actively hostile to the values of traditional liberalism.
The Tumblr left doesn’t have the community antibodies to fight something like this. A bunch of people who don’t know each other IRL, combined with hiding behind the identity shield and accelerated by the taboo against tone policing – it was bound to happen. Their only mistake was using too many male avatars and not going after specific Hillary supporters for crimes against intersectionality.
It’s like a weird inverse of “using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.”
I just… seeing lagonegirl in that article was wild, man
I mean I never liked lagonegirl much but I just thought “that person is overzealous” not “hi Russia”
The fact that this is what the IRA is doing nowadays is… fucking wild.
That’s not the Irish Republican Army IRA, it’s the Internet Research Agency IRA
I think it would be naive to think these are the only ones that are infultration accounts. One of my friends warned me awhile back some accounts I have been reblogging were suspiciously seeming to manufacture outrage over certain things and make people fight to fuck with them mentally and hate each other and I unfollowed every account reblogging those posts on my dash and suddenly my mental health got better.
Like I just suggest to people to when seeing outrage posts on your dash to pay attention to who is in that post and if you see trends blacklist their names. The sj trolls have gotten a lot smarter and a lot more horrible.
Brighton Park is a predominantly Latino community on the southwest side of Chicago. It’s a neighborhood threatened by poverty, gang violence, ICE raids, and isolation—in a city where income, race, and zip code can determine access to jobs, schools, healthy food, and essential services. It is against this backdrop that the Chicago teacher Xian Franzinger Barrett arrived at the neighborhood’s elementary school in 2014.
Recognizing the vast economic and racial inequalities his students faced, he chose what some might consider a radical approach for his writing and social-studies classes, weaving in concepts such as racism, classism, oppression, and prejudice. Barrett said it was vital to reject the oft-perpetuated narrative that society is fair and equal to address students’ questions and concerns about their current conditions. And Brighton Elementary’s seventh- and eighth-graders quickly put the lessons to work—confronting the school board over inequitable funding, fighting to install a playground, and creating a classroom library focused on black and Latino authors.
“Students who are told that things are fair implode pretty quickly in middle school as self-doubt hits them,” he said, “and they begin to blame themselves for problems they can’t control.”
Barrett’s personal observation is validated by a newly published study in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development that finds traditionally marginalized youth who grew up believing in the American ideal that hard work and perseverance naturally lead to success show a decline in self-esteem and an increase in risky behaviors during their middle-school years. The research is considered the first evidence linking preteens’ emotional and behavioral outcomes to their belief in meritocracy, the widely held assertion that individual merit is always rewarded.
“If you’re in an advantaged position in society, believing the system is fair and that everyone could just get ahead if they just tried hard enough doesn’t create any conflict for you … [you] can feel good about how [you] made it,” said Erin Godfrey, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of applied psychology at New York University’s Steinhardt School. But for those marginalized by the system—economically, racially, and ethnically—believing the system is fair puts them in conflict with themselves and can have negative consequences.
“If the system is fair, why am I seeing that everybody who has brown skin is in this kind of job? You’re having to think about that … like you’re not as good, or your social group isn’t as good,” Godfrey said. “That’s the piece … that I was trying to really get at [by studying] these kids.”
The findings build upon a body of literature on “system justification”—a social-psychology theory that believes humans tend to defend, bolster, or rationalize the status quo and see overarching social, economic, and political systems as good, fair, and legitimate. System justification is a distinctively American notion, Godfrey said, built on myths used to justify inequities, like “If you just work hard enough you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps … it’s just a matter of motivation and talent and grit.” Yet, as she and her colleagues discovered, these beliefs can be a liability for disadvantaged adolescents once their identity as a member of a marginalized group begins to gel—and once they become keenly aware of how institutional discrimination disadvantages them and their group.
“If you’re [inclined] to believe that … the system is fair, then you’re maybe going to accept stereotypes about you more easily.”
not to like make a huge fucking post about shit that’s been talked to death but it really genuinely scares me how many straight girls think it’s normal to just… not like your partner. like they think it’s normal and okay for their boyfriends to openly think they’re stupid and annoying and to be totally derisive about their interests and for them not to be friends or have things in common or enjoy each other’s personalities or encourage their interests? you are supposed to be friends with the person you’re in love with. you are supposed to want to talk to them about the things that make them happy. you do not have to settle for people who treat your entire personality as a burden outside of what you do to cater to them.
Are people really like this? I’ve only seen people like this in media, not IRL…
My fundraising effort has gotten to its halfway point! What this means is that I can afford to make at least a minimum payment on all my bills (medical, insurance, etc.) so I don’t end up in collections, while still being able to afford rent, food, and gas. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has donated and/or shared my donation links. I’m not out of the woods yet since I currently owe my hospital just shy of $1300 among other things.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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