The Color of the "Race Problem" Is White

...And Give You Peace.

My first memory of Michael Jackson was a friend of mine making me watch a VHS of a Michael Jackson concert with him. We were about 6. I was a little white country girl, I didn't know nothing about no Michael Jackson. I was memerized by the glove.

That fucking glove...

I just thought that was so cool.

His contributions to music are just, unfathomable. Honestly, music and our world would totally not be where it is today without him. He is our generation's Elvis.

He had a really fucked up life though. He in turn (more than likely) fucked up some lives along the way too. I hope that now he is truly at peace....

....and that wherever he is he's doing the dance routine from "Thriller."

Remember the music and how it changed our lives.



R.I.P. Michael

Websites Honkies Should See: Derailing for Dummies

There's a great satire website that just launched pretty recently called Derailingfordummies.com.

I love this website because it goes through all that ways that we white folks unintentionally (or sometimes intentionally) dismiss the life experience of people of color. The website uses the "...for Dummies" book series format, and the results are hilarious and true!

HOW TO DERAIL A CONVERSATION ABOUT RACISM:

1. If You Won't Educate Me How Can I Learn
2. If You Cared About These Matters You'd Be Willing To Educate Me
3. You're Being Hostile
4. But That Happens To Me Too!
5. You're Being Overemotional
6. You're Taking Things Too Personally
7. You’re Not Being Intellectual Enough/You’re Being Overly Intellectual
8. You're Arguing With Opinions Not Fact
9. Your Experience Is Not Representative Of Everyone
10. Unless You Can Prove Your Experience Is Widespread I Won't Believe It
11. I Don't Think You're As Marginalised As You Claim
12. Well I Know Another Person From Your Group Who Disagrees!
13. A In B Situation Is Not Equivalent To X In Y Situation
14. Who Wins Gold in the Oppression Olympics?
15. You Have A False Consciousness
16. You're Not Being A Team Player
17. You've Lost Your Temper So I Don't Have To Listen To You Anymore
18. You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry
19. Surprise! I Was Playing “Devil’s Advocate” All Along!


Some funny and true quotes from the website:

You know how it is. You’re enjoying yourself, kicking back and relaxing at the pub or maybe at the library; or maybe you’re in class or just casually surfing the internet, indulging in a little conversation. The topic of the conversation is about a pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They’re also probably fairly heavily discriminated against - or so they claim.
The thing is, you’re having a good time, sharing your knowledge about these people and their issues. This knowledge is incontrovertible - it’s been backed up in media representation, books, research and lots and lots of historical events, also your own unassailable sense of being right.
Yet all of a sudden something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It’s someone who belongs to the group of people you’re discussing and they’re Not Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you’ve got it all wrong and they’re offended about that. They might be a person of colour, or a queer person. Maybe they’re a woman, or a person with disability. They could even be a trans person or a sex worker. The point is they’re trying to tell you they know better than you about their issues and you know that’s just plain wrong. How could you be wrong?

Don’t worry though! There IS something you can do to nip this potentially awkward and embarrassing situation in the bud. By simply derailing the conversation, dismissing their opinion as false and ridiculing their experience you can be sure that they continue to be marginalised and unheard and you can continue to look like the expert you know you really are, deep down inside!

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE PRIVILEGE!

Just follow this step-by-step guide to Conversing with Marginalised People™ and in no time at all you will have a fool-proof method of derailing every challenging conversation you may get into, thus reaping the full benefits of every privilege that you have.

The best part is, you don't even have to be a white, heterosexual, cisgendered, cissexual, upper-class male to enjoy the full benefits of derailing conversation! Nope, you can utilise the lesser-recognised tactic of Horizontal Hostility to make sure that, despite being a member of a Marginalised Group™ yourself, you can exercise a privilege another Marginalised Group™ doesn't have in order not to heed their experience!

Read on, and learn, and remember… you don’t have to use these in any particular order! In fact, mixing them up can really keep those Marginalised People™ on their toes! After all, they are pretty much used to hearing this stuff, so you don’t want to get too predictable or they’ll get lazy!

Further to this, Marginalised People™ are forced into a certain sort of social behaviour by Privileged People® - “appropriate” behaviour. After all, there are different rules for them than there are for the Privileged®. This training in “appropriate” behaviour usually begins when they are very young, so it is well-ingrained.

By accusing them of hostility, you will successfully enliven their sense of caution and anxiety around this matter. You may also provoke a feeling of guilt that they are not “behaving” the way they have been trained to.

But even better - by accusing them of hostility, you pass the blame back to them, rather than consider what you might have said that was so offensive and hurtful it caused the “hostility”!

This will definitely work in your favour, because it will further insult and enrage them. You are making progress…

In attempting to communicate with you, the Marginalised Person™ may bring up examples of the sorts of daily manifestations of discrimination they face. Many of these examples seem trivial to Privileged People® but clearly reflect the way the Marginalised Person™ has been “othered” by society. “Othering” is a system of social markers that defines “Us” and “them”, neatly and conveniently categorising people into their appropriate places within society. It’s a way of defining a secured and positive position in the world by stigmatising “others”. In other words, it’s the process of dehumanising anyone different to the Chosen Privileged.
The Marginalised Person™ you’re dealing with has been subjected to this “othering”.

This means that their body is viewed as public property and the personal, intricate details of their lives and being are perceived as free information.

You must nod patiently as the Marginalised Person™ tries to gain your understanding of the many complicated and subtle ways this othering impacts their lives until they come across a point that seems particularly grating for them. Then you must say “oh, but I experience that too!”

For example, people of African descent often express outrage and irritation at the fact many white people believe they can freely touch their hair. This invasion of their personal space is dressed up as flattery - “oh, what beautiful hair you have!” and permission is not sought or granted before the action is taken. “That happens to everyone!” you must exclaim. “My child has beautiful white-blonde hair and people are always touching it!”

You see, when you say “you’re taking things too personally” you demonstrate your ignorance that these issues ARE personal for them!

You will find that something very important to Marginalised People™ is stressing the fact that they are not all the same. This is because Privileged People® have routinely lumped them all together as one great big monolithic group who all look the same, act the same, think the same, speak the same, dress the same, eat the same, feel the same - you get the idea. And, of course, all of those monolithic behaviours are “other” than those of the Privileged®. Othering is a process that permits Privileged People® to consider the Marginalised™ as less than human, thereby justifying discriminative and stigmatising behaviours against them. So naturally, it is imperative to a Marginalised Person™ to make it understood their group of people are as diverse in expression and experience as Privileged People®.

You can play on this concern by alarming and insulting them with the implication you think they are homogenising their own group.

The really important thing is to establish some sort of false Marginalisation Heirarchy™ where the person you’re speaking to couldn’t possibly experience anywhere near the sort of stigma and discrimination everyone else from their group does. This way you can force them to provide “evidence” of what they’ve dealt with which you can just disregard and further dismiss as more “proof” they are actually really Privileged® examples and therefore have no right at all to be speaking.

Do be sure you strike a careful balance though - whilst you must make it clear you consider this Marginalised Person™ to be Privileged® you must be sure you nonetheless indicate they still are Less Than You, so be as disdainful and contemptuous as possible.

If, for example, the Marginalised Person™ is making sense and you’re beginning to get the unpleasant feeling that you were wrong about something, just whip up your friend - your black friend, or your trans friend, your friend with a mental illness, or your friend who is a sex worker, and vehemently express how they completely and stridently support your opinions on these issues.
Of course, you must make out as though you are entirely oblivious to internalised stigma and how your friends may have been adversely affected by discrimination wielded by the Privileged®. And, as established by the steps above, it is imperative that you discount the diversity of experience whilst seeming to support it. After all, your friend is proof that there are different opinions amongst this Marginalised Group™ but the fact they agree with you means you don’t have to in the least give credence to ideas alternative to your own, and certainly not from the Marginalised Person™ in question.

You can take advantage of this weakness to emerge the victor! After all, everyone knows the Marginalised™ have an obligation to conduct themselves with quiet dignity in the face of infuriating tribulation and if your quarry begins to get angry and “aggressive” then you have won! Why? Well, it’s very simple - just hold them as representative of their entire group! You could try saying something like “you realise you’re making all X look bad?”, or “well, congratulations for backing up the stereotype of X as being angry, irrational and oversensitive!” Maybe you can even say “well, I was about to say I was willing to listen to you, but then you got insulting so now I don’t have to!”

Go to the Derailing for Dummies website to read these quotes in full context, and learn a little bit more about yourself and those you know along the way. I saw a lot of myself in this and I know you will to.




Here's to no longer silencing the voice of the oppressed!

Embracing the Americas

I just wanted to take the time to remind my readers that even though this swine flu outbreak may have originated in Mexico--please do not make the mistake of blaming mexicans or immigrants for this outbreak. Some folks are already doing it.


Y'all know we're better than that.

MLK's Message to Poor Whites

You see? We are the ones, my poor white people. We are part of an oppressed people. The poor, women gays and lesbians, people of color, the disabled, veterans, non-Christians. We are the oppressed people. WE NEED TO BE MARCHING TO END OUR OPPRESSION!

Martin knew it.
Tim Wise knows it.
I know it.
You know it.

We deserve to be treated as citizens by our government--and not to be used as pawns or lied too!! We deserve respect because we have built this country and made it EVERYTHING that it is.




We were oppressed and lied to so our oppressors could lied to and oppress even more people!!

The oppressed need to get together
The oppressed need to talk
The oppressed need to organize
The oppressed need to demand
The oppressed need to create conflict
The oppressed need to be nonviolent
The oppressed need to March
The opppressed need to overcome


WE WERE LIED TOO.
WE DON'T HAVE TO BE LIED TO ANYMORE.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
IT'S UP TO US.

Texas Gov. Perry's Budget Slashed 96% Because of "Secession" Comment

Texas House votes to slash Gov. Rick Perry's budget

08:56 AM CDT on Saturday, April 18, 2009
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
rtgarrett@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – House members virtually wiped out Gov. Rick Perry's office budget Friday in order to help veterans and the mentally ill.

With little debate, the House on a voice vote approved erasing 96 percent of the nearly $24 million that budget writers had recommended for Perry's office operation over the next two years.

Some Democrats cast the House's move as a rebuke of the governor's recent comments about Texas seceding from the Union.

"That's the headline: 'Two days after governor says we ought to secede, House zeroes out the governor's budget,' " said Appropriations Committee vice chairman Richard Raymond, D-Laredo.

However, most Republicans said they went along simply to speed debate of the state budget – a debate that could last into Saturday.

"At the end of the day, the governor will be fully funded," said House GOP caucus chairman Larry Taylor of Friendswood.

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said, "I think they're just playing silly games."

The raid on the governor's money came as the House debated a two-year, $178.4 billion budget that includes $11 billion of federal stimulus money but protects a state "rainy-day fund" expected to swell in two years to $9.1 billion.

On teacher merit pay, the House voted overwhelmingly to break a requirement that teachers be judged by their students' performance on standardized tests.

Instead, all decisions on incentive pay would be made by local school districts. Through their state formula funding, districts would get all $343 million that budget writers had recommended for merit pay. Texas has the nation's largest experiment with teacher merit pay, though teacher groups oppose it.

"It's probably how we should've done it in the first place," said Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, author of the plan. It passed, 146-0.

Cuts to Perry's budget were proposed by House Democratic caucus chairwoman Jessica Farrar of Houston, who siphoned $4 million away for veterans' programs, and Rep. John Davis, R-Houston. He took $18.7 million more, for community mental health "crisis services" that try to keep the mentally ill out of jail and emergency rooms.

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, noted that Farrar had seven floor amendments that would sweep funds from Perry's office or the state-federal office in Washington that he controls.

When asked why Republicans didn't object to zeroing out the GOP governor's budget, King said, "We were just trying to avert any unnecessary gamesmanship."

Taylor said Democrats were "trying to make the other side make bad votes that they can use in the campaign or PR."

Farrar denied trying to put GOP members on record rejecting money for deserving Texans such as veterans and the needy.

"I was looking to do something for people in hard economic times," she said.

Davis said he wasn't mad at Perry but simply wanted to continue a two-year state push that House budget writers underfunded.

Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, the House's chief budget writer, played down the reductions of Perry's office budget. Pitts said the move "doesn't have anything to do with the mood on the governor." He described it as driven by members' desire to avoid spending "about two hours" talking about Perry's office.

Meanwhile, the Senate squabbled along partisan lines about whether budget writers violated the federal economic recovery law's intent.

All 12 Democrats except Sen. Royce West of Dallas, a key budget writer, wrote Education Secretary Arne Duncan complaining that a couple of billion dollars of stimulus money aimed at education is being held back by Texas budget writers "for use as future property tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy."

In a response sent to congressional Democrats from Texas, Perry and the Legislature's top Republicans, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, denied any misuse of stimulus funds. The rainy day fund that is being protected, to pay for state needs next session, gets money automatically, they wrote.


Source:http://digg.com/d1p11g

LMFAO!!! FOR THE MOTHERFUCKIN' WIN!!!!

Unwarranted Police Brutality: Baptist pastor beaten by border patrol

From Fair Immigration Reform Now!





We need to start doing something. The police are not here to protect us.

EDIT: Let's just take a second to LOL at the fact that my original title was "unwanted police brutality" instead of "unwarranted." Unwanted police brutality? Nooooo, never that.