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{ If someone you know is in a relationship with a person you KNOW to be an abusive douchenozzle }

tadface:

DO NOT, I repeat, DO FUCKING NOT CALL THAT FIRST PERSON A “pussy that can’t stand up for themself”. (Or anything along those lines.)

YOU ARE REINFORCING THEIR ABUSE.

YOU ARE REINFORCING THE CULTURE THAT SAYS ABUSING THEM IS OKAY.

I DON’T CARE IF THEY’RE BEING AN ASS TO YOU, OR NOT HANGING OUT WITH YOU WHEN YOU WANT THEM TO (which is actually a symptom of the abuse they’re enduring; the abusive person in question has a history of restricting his partner’s friendships). YOU DO NOT DO THAT. IT IS FUCKING WRONG AND DISRESPECTFUL TO THE MAX.

YOU ARE BLAMING THEM FOR A SYMPTOM OF THEIR ABUSE. WHICH IS BLAMING THEM FOR THEIR ABUSE, BASICALLY. AND THAT IS NOT OKAY, EVER.

Quoted for truth.

There was actually a part of From A Buick 8 that suggested that calling an abuse victim/survivor cowardly and yelling at them and bossing them around was the best thing to do.  As much as I love that book for other reasons (namely that it’s scary as shit), I get so fucking ANGRY when I think about that part of it.

(Source: nines19, via genderbitch)

{ For everyone upset about that case in the Netherlands I posted earlier… }

meloukhia:

Are you aware that restraint and seclusion in US schools are poorly regulated, and disability rights activists have been trying for several YEARS now to get a law banning restraint and seclusion in schools passed? A report from the AP last year (content note for abuse of PWDs, suicide, and see how I cited my source?) notes one of the more dire consequences of lack of regulation:

“It took the death of my son for everybody to start listening about this problem,” said King, a construction worker who lives in Gainesville, north of Atlanta. “I wish we had known they were locking him up like that or we would have taken him out of that school. They treated my kid like a prisoner.”
It is perfectly legal for schools across the United States to place children in isolation as well as tying/tethering and otherwise restricting their movement.

Jesus.

(Source: se-smith, via lucypaw)

{ LINK: Genderbitch Lite: Now With More Rambling!: You know what? I'm not even angry. I'm tired. }

genderbitch:

Just so fucking tired. I’m exhausted as shit.

Every fucking day, people strip my gender from me.

They spit on my humanity.

They mock my appearance.

They excuse my rapist and the people who’ve sexually abused me

They excuse the rape and abuse of others

They tell me how I’m allowed to dress

…

(via blackamazon)

{ LINK: Oi With The Poodles Already: Cataloging Gray Areas }

jaded16india:

—- Trigger Warning —-

As a person who is born and identifies as a (dusty) lady, noticing how my ‘body’ or the space it occupies is as natural as breathing; though this space is hued coloured over and eventually pushed to the fringe. As I’m considerably tall, it would be hard to not see me, one…

(via oncejadedtwicesnarked-deactivat)

{ Grabbers }

(seen via this post)

nicocoer:

[Possible trigger for how an abled and neruotypical society is violent towards movement differences, particularly those often found in Autistics]

theskinofourteeth:

It’s a grabbers vs. flappers warzone.

On the one side are the flappers. We wave and twist our hands in front of our faces or slap them against our chests. Our heads punctuate our moods and the music against the wall. Our knees don’t bend as we walk on our toes, our fingers pick at cuticles or scratch patterns against our forearms and cheeks, and we’d rather watch spinning pinwheels than drown in another person’s eyes.

(Our joy is own own, and we communicate it differently, perhaps holding privately onto it, or pouring it out into another person. But soon we learn from the grabbers that our joy should be our shame, our movements not our own, and so we withdraw.)

What else is there to do when you are surrounded by grabbing hands but shrink in on yourself?

The grabbers don’t believe that we can be happy or find meaning unless we are exactly like them—and that’s really the goal, being just like everyone else, and so there is not even a second of hesitation in their eyes when they slap our hands down onto the table with a shriek of “quiet hands”.

The hands are everywhere.

They’re at our chins. “Look at me”, with a face pressed in so close to yours that you count the pores until they force your gazes to meet. They grab our hands, “don’t do that, people will think you’re retarded”. They smack away picking fingers, because our foreheads must be pristine and easy-to-look-at for them. You turn away, pull away, try to put some distance in so you can breath, and they grab your hands, your hips, your shoulders and twist you back. You bounce your leg—surely you are allowed this?—and they press a hand to your knee, stilling you. Everyone taps their pencil, but when you start their hand closes over yours and won’t let go.

“Please let me go!”

But protesting just means you need to be grabbed more often, with harder and more insistent hands, until you realize that the way you move is fundamentally wrong, as wrong and deficient and disturbing and dangerous as you are, and if you want to be counted as a “you” at all you must let them grab you until you can stop your self. The most basic human thing is just existing in space, and you quickly realize that you do even this wrong. Is it that you take up too much space, or just that you do it too differently, moving in an entirely alien way and triggering some sort of dormant xenophobia?

In the end it just comes down to you are wrong, and for that you must be punished. It simplifies to your body is not your own, but it is mine. And you learn that a relationship, if you can call it that, always has two roles, a flapper and a grabber, and you will always be grabbed, and never be permitted to grab back.

{ LINK: Angela Davis and Toni Morrison talk about "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave - A New Critical Edition" -- from BookTV }

this is awesome — something very powerful about watching two awesome, accomplished, thoughtful women talking about deep subjects.  and they don’t just talk about the book, they talk about a lot of things, including how capitalism has permeated American emotions, immigration and anti-immigrant bigotry, abuse and self-destruction, the death penalty, and the deliberate purpose of racism.  definitely my favorite BookTV thing so far.

it’s over two hours, though.  lots of free time and snacks are recommended.

{ LINK: February is also Teen Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Month }

threeoh4:

Teen Dating Violence (DV) Prevention and Awareness Month is a national effort to raise awareness about abuse in youth relationships and promote programs that prevent it during the month of February.

The repercussions of teen dating violence are impossible to ignore – they hurt not just the young people victimized but also their families, friends, schools and communities. Throughout February, organizations and individuals nationwide are coming together to highlight the need to educate young people about healthy relationships, teach healthy relationship skills and prevent the devastating cycle of abuse.

(Source: peecharrific)

{ LINK: The abusive practices of 1-800-Flowers }

dr-grumbles:

damekatharsis:

Valentine’s Day, which accounts for 40% of fresh flower sales annually, is fast approaching. If you’re planning to order a bouquet from 1-800-Flowers — the world’s largest florist — you should know where most of those flowers really come from. At flower farms in Ecuador and Colombia — the countries that export the most to the U.S. — two-thirds of the workers are women. These women are routinely subjected to harassment and even rape from their male supervisors. They suffer eye infections and miscarriages from consistent contact with dangerous pesticides. In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, they’re routinely forced to work 80-hour weeks with no overtime pay. Attempts to form a union are met with opposition by police and armed forces.

Many retailers — such as Whole Foods and Stop & Shop — have taken the important first step of offering Fair Trade flowers to consumers who want no part of these abuses. Fair Trade certified farms must adhere to strict standards for workers’ rights, which prevents the abuses described above.

Click on the link to sign the petition.

 Another option is to just opt out of cut flowers and give a different gift. Since so many flowers aren’t fair trade (and fair trade is more expensive) why not take the money that would have been spent on flowers and either go out to a meal, donate it to charity in the name of your partner, buy a dvd and watch it together, or maybe even buy some seeds and plant them. Flowers are a temporary gift, where as other more lasting things (even seeds to grow a live flower) can create great memories together on valentines day.

(via tranzient-deactivated20110219-d)

{ LINK: The abusive practices of 1-800-Flowers }

NOTE: even if you’ve already signed, take a look at fiercelynative’s second link (scroll to bottom)

fiercelynative:

dr-grumbles:

damekatharsis:

Valentine’s Day, which accounts for 40% of fresh flower sales annually, is fast approaching. If you’re planning to order a bouquet from 1-800-Flowers — the world’s largest florist — you should know where most of those flowers really come from. At flower farms in Ecuador and Colombia — the countries that export the most to the U.S. — two-thirds of the workers are women. These women are routinely subjected to harassment and even rape from their male supervisors. They suffer eye infections and miscarriages from consistent contact with dangerous pesticides. In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, they’re routinely forced to work 80-hour weeks with no overtime pay. Attempts to form a union are met with opposition by police and armed forces.

Many retailers — such as Whole Foods and Stop & Shop — have taken the important first step of offering Fair Trade flowers to consumers who want no part of these abuses. Fair Trade certified farms must adhere to strict standards for workers’ rights, which prevents the abuses described above.

Click on the link to sign the petition.

 Another option is to just opt out of cut flowers and give a different gift. Since so many flowers aren’t fair trade (and fair trade is more expensive) why not take the money that would have been spent on flowers and either go out to a meal, donate it to charity in the name of your partner, buy a dvd and watch it together, or maybe even buy some seeds and plant them. Flowers are a temporary gift, where as other more lasting things (even seeds to grow a live flower) can create great memories together on valentines day.

Sign the petition. Seriously. And I totally second to vote to donate in your person’s name instead of buying flowers (even fair trade ones). To start, there’s a list of trans-friendly shelters and crisis centers available here at Questioning Transphobia.

(via lakalenyu-deactivated20111225)

{ LINK: tangerine trees and marmalade skies: I cannot even REMOTELY speak to the experience of working in a call center for U.S. customers while Indian. }

thecurvature:

[Trigger Warning]

But I can say that I read this:

Workers must be able to “pass” as American or British and maintain their composure in the face of sometimes racist abuse by irate customers; it is simply part of the job.

And thought: “Um. Yeah. Obviously.”

But it’s probably not obvious to…

(via so-treu)