De rerum natura

tranqualizer:

[photo: screenshot of jane elliot from the blue eye-brown eye exercise. a person by the username of “superandrewmark” said, “this exercise is pathetic. the usa gives equal opportunity…we do have a black president. minorities love to play the race card as an excuse for their own personal failings. it’s 2011 not 1945. if people would stop holding onto the past and focus on the future we wouldn’t be having meaningless conversations like the one above.”]

feministpizza:

anarchobutthole:

you guys we have a black president. that means racism is over right?

uuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh

DUH Y’ALL. WE LIVE IN A POST-RACIAL SOCIETY~~~~

If 2011 means racism doesn’t exist anymore then why is our black President asked for his birth certificate, told to dance a jig, had the governor of Arizona (a white woman) wag her finger in his face and then her claiming it was because she felt “threaten” by him, and generally publicly shitted on more than any of our previous white presidents?

(Source: kellyrotica)

"

CeCe McDonald, a black trans woman, has been facing 2nd degree murder charges since being attacked last summer by a group of white adults.

CeCe and several friends, all black, were walking to the grocery store on June 5th, 2011 when white adults standing in the patio area of a South Minneapolis bar started screaming racist and transphobic slurs at the youth. CeCe, who is only 23 years old, approached the group and replied that she and her friends would not tolerate hate speech. In response, one of the white women said “I’ll take you bitches on” and smashed her glass into CeCe’s face. The broken glass sliced all the way through CeCe’s cheek. A fight ensued between the adults and the young people after this initial attack and one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was fatally stabbed.

As if it were not sufficiently tragic that a group of young people were subjected to such severe violence and that Dean Schmitz lost his life, police arriving at the scene arrested CeCe, denied her adequate medical treatment, interrogated her for hours, and placed her in solitary confinement. In the aftermath of being attacked, she was not treated with care, but launched into another nightmare. The only person arrested that night, she has since been charged with two counts of 2nd degree murder. Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman has the power to drop these charges, a choice he made in multiple other clear instances of self-defense this year, but he has not yet done so.

CeCe’s story is a portrait of the United States Criminal Justice System. Her story is what is meant when we are told that transgender people, especially transgender women of color, experience disproportionate rates of police harassment, profiling, and abuse. She is living one of the stories rolled into statistics like: trans people are ten to fifteen times more likely to be incarcerated than cisgender (not transgender) people, or nearly half of African American transgender people have spent time in jail or prison.

These statistics are the result of the all of the ways that transgender people, especially transgender people of color, are denied access to the resources and opportunities that we need to live healthy lives free of violence, discrimination, and oppression. Transgender people consistently experience high levels of harassment in school, extreme levels of unemployment due to discrimination and lack of education, denial of competent medical care, inability to change identification documents, and disproportionate violence and harassment. Nevertheless, for generations transgender people, especially transgender women of color, have been at the forefront of movements against police brutality, white supremacy, economic injustice, and for queer liberation and gender self-determination.

"

Jessica Annabelle, Why We Should Support CeCe McDonald, Racialicious 1/27/12 (via racialicious)

All four of the people shown on this video from this panel bring up spot on and important points. Anti-immigrant (which is anti-poc) sentiment is on the raise and yet you still have prominent people and the majority spouting off about how this country is so post racial. And during all this the right are framing this as some sort of ‘white people are the real victims of discrimination’ and ‘see how these brown people from other countries hate us and out freedoms’ bullcrap. While the prominent left won’t even touch racial issues.

So now we’re living in an era where it is worse to call someone racist (omg how can you say such a thing? my best friend is black! you don’t even know me to judge me! freedom of speech, man, why do you hate my freedoms?) than to actually be one.

But when bank loaning tactics are used to prey on poc’s living in urban areas it’s completely ignored until it’s white people in the suburbs and now all of a sudden now it’s a big deal and such a tragedy. It was wrong before. So wrong. And maybe the mortgage collapse could have been avoided if our government didn’t care so little about people who aren’t white.

So much for moving forward… if anything we’re taking steps back.

tranquality:

sourcedumal:

pixyled:

shonecakepastrypie:

thecuntmentality:

tummydearest:

combat—wombat:

[TW FOR ANTI-TRANS AND RACIST VIOLENCE AND HATE SPEECH]

SUPPORT CECE MCDONALD! 

CeCe McDonald is a young African American transgender woman charged with “second degree murder” after an incident that began when she was violently attacked because of her gender and race.

DROP the charges and FREE CeCe!

CeCe is a creative and energetic person who, before her life was so unjustly interrupted, was studying fashion at MCTC. She had a stable home where she lived with and helped support four other African American youth, her family. CeCe’s family describes her as a leader, a role model, and a loyal friend. She is known as a wise, out-spoken, and welcoming person, with a cheerful disposition and a history of handling prejudice with amazing grace.

Around 12:30 am on June 5, CeCe and four of her friends (all of them black) were on their way to Cub Foods to get some food. As they walked past Schooner’s Bar in South Minneapolis, a man and two women (all of them white) began to yell epithets at them. They called CeCe and her friends ‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ amongst other things.

As they were shouting, one of the women smashed her drink into the side of CeCe’s face, slicing her cheek open, lacerating her salivary gland, and stinging her eyes with liquor. A fight ensued, with more people joining in. What happened during the fight is unclear, but within a few minutes Dean Schmitz–one of the attackers–had been stabbed.

CeCe was later arrested, and is now falsely accused of murder

For a month, CeCe was kept in solitary confinement “for her own protection”; she had no say in this matter. Finally, she was transferred to a psychiatric unit in the Public Safety Facility. It was nearly two months before she was taken back to a doctor to check up on the wound on her face, which by then had turned into a painful, golf ball-sized lump.

Later on, CeCe’s friends were harassed on the street by people they recognized from the scene of the fight. Individuals circled the block that CeCe’s friends were walking on and called them ‘niggers’ and ‘faggots’ and told them to ‘go back to Africa.’ When they attempted to wave down a passing squad car for assistance, the officer driving the car said he would not help them.

Help us fight for CeCe, and for an end to racist, transphobic violence in our communities! Visit our What You Can Do page and find out how to get involved.

REBLOG THIS NOW.

Please help free her or signal boost if you can

So wait a minute. White trans* person gets beat up for being trans by black people, and her attackers get 30 years in prison. Black trans* woman gets beat up for being BOTH BLACK AND TRANS, and SHE ENDS UP IN JAIL? AND her friends get racially harassed with no recourse? Fuck the system. Burn it to the ground.

[TRIGGER WARNING FOR ANTI-TRANS AND RACIST VIOLENCE AND HATE SPEECH]

I bolded one of the responses above to stress the point about inequality in our justice system. Justice should be given to everyone… not just white victims.

I hope more people become aware of this situation.

(via tranqualizer)

There was an insane amount of black people at the mall today. Like the most I’ve ever seen in Arizona. And they kept harassing me and Jamie.

aubeyallover:

We were gonna throw guacamole at them and run into Forever 21 and hide in a dressing room. But then we figured they’d go all Kanye-Taylor Swift on our asses and decided not to.

Thankfully the entire population isn’t like this… but it really goes to show the problem that Arizona, for example, has with racism.

Don’t argue with racism. Humiliate it.

[edited]

The racism was just a joke. That makes it all better. /sarcasm

(Source: thefourthdimensi0n)