hey everyone. i know i don’t post a lot of things like this, but it really means a lot to me. emma bardwell was raped on a college campus and her rapist was sentenced to a year of separation from the university, but he was able to negotiate a shorter deal.
you can help by signing the petition here. we’re almost halfway through with raising enough signatures, so we really just need a boost. please please please sign and reblog this.
read more here
When Natives have been erased and objectified to the point that narratives to work in favor of the colonizer become “aesthetics”.
I received alot of backlash for a previous post I made about Pocahontas that was a screen cap of a tweet about Pocahontas being raped and thinking of that everytime i see romanticized depictions or sexualized Pocahontas costumes.
Ultimately I never claim to be a historian or to take agency away from Matoaka by reducing her to a victim narrative. And despite claims there is some “political motive” I think its more harmful for Indigenous women not to call out hypersexualized depictions, or ignore that sexual violence took/takes place. (Especially given the high rates of violence Indigenous face) To ignore the dynamic of erasure taking place when we reduce Pocahontas to an “aesthetic/vibe” or Disney character and completely omit that history, contributes to the overall struggles that Native and Indigenous women face. To ignore that is also to downplay the history of genocide and violence that this country was founded upon, and just as statistics prove, history forgotten will continue, or repeat itself.
Regardless, I feel that Non Natives are reducing her by appropriating her identity and erasing the complexities of her life. By erasing her true life story that takes away any sense of resistance that she may have demonstrated, because people will never see her for who she was if they only want to see her as a Disney character.
Notice how the one post also includes the word “savage” which has historically been a slur against Native peoples and specifically paired to justify sexual violence towards Indigenous women. Not only does the use of this slur contribute to violence but it also speaks to the OP’s perception of Native people that they think this would be appropriate.
Now when it comes to intent of these post I also keep seeing the frequent response that “its just Disney!” As if that exempts any dynamic of imperialism/colonialism.
I have written about Disney in the past about their racist depictions of POC and Indigenous peoples. Knowing that, as well as the ways cartoons have historically been used for racism and war propaganda, the excuse that its a children’s movie does not exempt all criticisms.
If you want to learn how to honor Pocahontas read about the history from her own Tribe http://www.powhatan.org/pocc.html and talk to them about accurately representing her. In the meantime do not reduce her to an aesthetic or character and silence Natives who tell you its wrong. Do not weaponize a film that has been criticized as problematic and take away any potential it may have for those Natives who choose to reclaim it. (Thats for Native women to decide on how they feel, not for Non Natives to tone police and dictate)
*For those that claim Native they will be accountable from Tribal communities if they are using their claim to justify hypersexualization or appropriation of culture through Pocahontas. So the excuse “but im part Native!” isnt a exemption pass either*
And finally those who want to ignore the implications of Kourtney’s tweet with rhetoric that “its just ___” they are pretending that sexual violence, Genocide and the history of Kardashian family appropriating from other cultures, happens in a vacuum. Its been proven time and time again that they have an obsession with exploiting Native culture and Black culture. Its time to stop treating everything like a media stunt and examining the larger picture that these behaviors represent. They are complicit but also a mirror of US society, corporate interest, and popular media. While I despise feeding into any attention the Kardashians receive by addressing these acts of cultural imperialism I also recognize that other Non Natives will imitate them anyway and thats not a norm that I want encouraged without criticism.can non natives reblog this to spread the word?
^yes!
Re blogging. Always.
I hardly see any heroic posts about Muslims on here, so here you go.
I love that it takes the time to specify that his attack of choice was a flying kick
The hero the world needs
I remember this. But I feel we’re missing some key points. When it happened, he was out jogging with his puppy:
He heard screams and sprinted towards them. He jumped a fence, saw a man pinning a woman down and immediately fly-kicked him in the face, knocking him out. He then gave the woman his jacket because her dress was ripped and got her a taxi home. She only managed to get in contact with him and tell the papers cause she later found his driver’s license in the pocket of the jacket.
“If I see a person in danger then I will intervene. I would not want to ignore it and then read the next day that a woman had been raped or murdered.”
And his message to the attacker:
“He is a coward and a man with no morals. I won’t forget his face.”
That beautiful little girl committed SUICIDE a couple days ago because someone very close to her was sexually abusing her since she was 8 years old.
From the words of her friends:
Samiha told me about the abuse she endured late in our friendship. She told me how you would violate her. She told me how you put your hands in intimate places she had never explored herself; parts of her body you taught her to be ashamed of. You were sexually abusing her since she was eight years old. When she finally had the courage to speak out, you threatened to murder her. You threatened her with words such as, “You won’t find a good husband” or “who will want to marry a stained girl?” You made her feel pain. You caused her pain. You were the source of her pain. You made her hate herself. When she first confided all of this to me, I held her fragile body in my arms for hours as she wept softly. There wasn’t enough love in my heart or prayer in my soul that could make her feel whole after what you did to her. She tried to kill herself that night.
It’s her father.
chumpedkid said: can you think of any circumstances where andrew would let nicky hug him and not strangle him for it??
I do have one circumstance that i’ve thought about a lot though it’s not a direct hug
basically i think about aaron’s trial a lot and how that would go. i think about how andrew would have to stand up in front of a courtroom - in front of cass -and tell everyone what drake did to him, how neil, aaron and kevin would have to say what they saw, how nicky would probably have to talk about his parents’ history of homophobia and how that day would be all around Awful
i think the car ride home would be silent and when they get to the parking lot andrew would shove his keys into a sniffling nicky’s hands and climb into the backseat with aaron and neil. i think andrew would be really confused about what he wants because he’s used to pushing people away and not wanting to be touched but he’s gotten kind of used to neil comforting him by this point so now he can’t really tell if he wants to pull his family close and hold onto them for dear life or shut them all out until the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach stops. in the end he just puts his head on neil’s shoulder and closes his eyes and waits for them to get home
i think when they get back to the dorms andrew and aaron would have a Moment. because look, aaron might hate andrew 70% of the time but he’s his brother and he can’t imagine the kind of hell andrew had to go through with drake and he’s just really at the end of his tether emotionally because the trial was gruelling and even though everything worked in his favour there had still been a chance he’d go to jail - he’d do it again in a heartbeat regardless. and maybe they get to the dorm before the others and aaron just cracks. “Andrew,” he says and it’s the most defeated, broken sound to ever come out of his mouth. andrew just stares at him hollow-eyed and the truth is, andrew is tired. so fucking tired. so he lets aaron crush him into a hug because today was terrible and he almost lost his brother and cass will never love him again and he doesn’t even know what the hell is going on his own head right now but he knows he can barely breathe and for a second when aaron hugs him he remembers how
i don’t think they’d talk about it but i think a mini fox pile like after neil came back from baltimore would ensue. like andrew curled into neil’s side with aaron leaning on andrew and nicky tucked up next to him and kevin on neil’s other side and they just sort of recuperate together. and nicky, because he’s nicky and because he’s been desperate for any opportunity to let the twins know they’re loved, just reaches out his arm until he’s able to touch both andrew and aaron and says, “This is our family. not anyone else in that courtroom. just us.” and it’s a lot for five people who’ve never really had a family before and never really known if they wanted one but it’s good. it’s right.
October 14th, 2015 one of my closest friends was hurt on campus by someone who claimed to care for her. Since then, the school board claimed to take care of the situation, for her to not go public with it; but in due time, nothing was done and her rapist is still walking free, all because he was “a minor,” yet the evidence proved he did it, he admitted it, but nothing was done.
Since she came forward, several other students, old and new, came forth to tell they had similar accounts, saying the school was keeping them in the dark and not doing anything about it.
It’s not just happening in Cedar Creek High School in Texas, but in other states across the nation, to innocent students who just want justice and for their rapists to pay for their actions.
She’s gone public, she’s speaking up, and it’s disgusting to see many people defend HIM and claim she’s doing it for sympathy, when that isn’t the case, when she isn’t the type of person who fishes for attention.
She’s one of my closest friends, and she deserves justice. Please spread the word about the unfairness that is CCHS in Texas, to bring awareness to the crime that happened and to fight for justice. Rapists shouldn’t be defended or let free, they don’t deserve freedom.This has occurred multiple times at this school, and at some point, something’s got to give. Multiple times a female student has been harassed or assaulted, and the school refuses to take action, speak up, or promote a safer place for ~all~ their students. This situation needs to be brought to attention. So many girls have gone without justice and it needs to stop. Please spread this. Cedar Creek High School is a fucking joke that doesn’t care for their students’ safety.
smallwheatdeity said: yeah no sorry hillary clinton is a murderer and rapist-defender she's not like "literally any other politician" and it's disgusting you would say that lol
That “fact” about Clinton defending a child rapist and laughing about it, came about in May of 2016 this year. It’s a new lie which is part of a carefully orchestrated smear campaign that’s been running against her for the last 20 years because the thought of a woman in power scares certain powerful men shitless.
What is true about it, is that in 1975 Hillary Clinton (then Hillary Rodham) was appointed to represent a man charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. This was her job. And just in case you can’t wrap your head around how being a defense lawyer works then I’m sorry to tell you that lots of lawyers have had to defend people they have found to be monstrous. When people say in movies “you have the right to an attorney” they’re serious, everyone has that right, even child rapists. Hillary took the case reluctantly, which ended in a plea bargain for the defendant. He did not “get away with it”. He actually plead guilty. That’s what plea bargain means.
Hillary Clinton did not volunteer to be the defendant’s lawyer, she did not laugh about the case’s outcome, she did not assert that the complainant “made up the rape story,” she did not claim she knew the defendant to be guilty, and she did not “free” the defendant. Do some basic research before you support such claims. (x)
And just in case you’re too lazy to click the link, here’s a direct quote from Hillary and Gibson, the prosecution lawyer:
[Prosecuting attorney Mahlon Gibson] called me to tell me an indigent prisoner accused of raping a twelve-year-old girl wanted a woman lawyer. [Prosecutor Mahlon] Gibson had recommended that the criminal court judge, Maupin Cummings, appoint me. I told Mahlon I really didn’t feel comfortable taking on such a client, but Mahlon gently reminded me that I couldn’t very well refuse the judge’s request.
*
“Hillary told me she didn’t want to take that case, she made that very clear,” recalls prosecutor Gibson, who phoned her with the judge’s order.
And murder? If we’re talking about the decisions all politicians make, then by that logic you could turn around and say that Obama has murdered 116 innocent civilians because of drone strikes (x), George W Bush murdered over 110,937 civilians in the Iraq war alone. (x) People might well believe Bernie Sanders is the savior we’ve been denied, but you’re dreaming if you think he could have taken the office of the presidency and avoided bloodshed entirely. But since we’re presumably cherry picking about bloodshed on politicians hands, lets talk about The Authorization of Military Force Against Terrorists Act, passed on September 14th 2001. This act is responsible for the United State’s continued engagement in the Middle East over the last 15 years—And Bernie Sanders voted for it. And I love Bernie, I would have voted for him in a heartbeat. But when we’re talking about “murder” on the hands of politicians hands, we cannot cherry pick the facts we want to believe in and ignore the rest.
Hillary Clinton is not a monster. Hillary Clinton does messy jobs no one else is willing to do, and she does them well. But Hillary Clinton is also the person who showed up at Ground Zero following in the wake of 9/11 to witness the carnage for herself. Clinton who did not do it for photo-ops as so many did, and took the time to talk to first responders and to make sure they were getting the resources and help they needed to carry on their work. Clinton who advocated for those same people to receive health care when it was revealed the Bush administration lied about the air around Ground Zero not being toxic to breathe, putting rescuers at further risk. Clinton who stood by people for years and made sure they were doing okay in the aftermath:
Gorman recalls being pleasantly surprised by Clinton’s commitment, both in terms of her mastery of policy detail and on a personal level. “She would call me on my cellphone to ask how I was doing, how my members were doing,” he said. “One time I was pumping gas at a Texaco station, it was Christmas Eve, and she wanted to know how things were going. When a senator calls someone on my level, that’s impressive.” (x)
But we don’t hear so much about that do we? We don’t hear about Hillary who has been campaigning for universal health care since 1993 (x). Hillary who has stood with Planned Parenthood for a long time and who remains their most stalwart advocate (x)
And the reason we don’t hear about them is because Hillary has endured a 20 year smear campaign against her, and this is important, because she is a woman who dares to show ambition (x). So when you believe the things you read without fact checking them, you are giving weight and precedence to even bigger lies which has its roots in female oppression. Which is disgusting.
Do I agree with everything she has ever said and done? No of course not. But on that same level I don’t agree with everything Bernie Sanders has ever said and done either. Do I believe she is the most qualified candidate to be the next President of the United States? Unequivocally.
I’m a foreigner in this country and cannot vote, but morally and with the utmost support for the hope of the betterment of this country #I’m with her.
meanwhile, donald trump is being sued for allegedly raping a thirteen year old repeatedly.
