WE WERE SO BEAUTIFUL!

Ranting about sexism, classism, racism, and homophobia surrounding the virality that was the Antoine Dodson auto-tuned song at work

Did someone need a feminist buzzkill? Because I’m always around.

cordjefferson:

Not every adult U.S. citizen should have the right to vote. Instead, only those who pay taxes to a government should be eligible to vote in that government’s elections. So, for example, under this system, an adult paying sales tax in Rhode Island but no federal taxes would qualify to vote in Rhode Island state elections but not in federal elections. Restricting the right to vote to taxpayers is moral and practical.

After all, what is a vote? A vote is a piece of control over how the government spends taxpayer money. Every government program, every enforced law and every action taken by the government is funded from tax “revenue.” This includes government debt, since it must eventually be repaid, and inflation, since it is a tax on the purchasing power of the dollar. Thus, to function, government takes money from group A and distributes money — in the form of benefits and programs — to group B. Membership in group A and group B may or may not overlap.

Wherein a 20-year-old Ivy Leaguer explains why only people who pay taxes should be allowed to vote. College! 

[via Max]

White dudes, SMH.

This is the problem when our society conditions white boys to believe all their opinions are valid, you get assholes like this feeling entitled to espouse voter suppression.

(via shepherdsnotsheep)

I got angry at conversations that arose on a friend’s facebook status concerning the topic of reproductive rights from last night’s debate and wrote a paragraph about it at 2 in the morning. To be honest, I’m offended none of the men who posted on the thread before me have responded to my comments. I’m in the mood for a heated debate!

think-progress:

Ooooooooooh boy. 

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) compares his all-male anti-contraception panel to Martin Luther King Jr. 

Hmm. A group of men who wish to control women vs. one of the most influential leaders of all time who gave his life in a struggle for civil rights—seems pretty interchangeable.

(via wellesleyunderground)

thenoobyorker:vicemag:

Yeah, Ron Paul Is Racist After All, Sorry.

“And while “we told you so!” is tempting to say, it’s just sad. It’s sad to see people energized by politics being disappointed by the first thing they may have really believed in. It’s sad to see tens of thousands of Americans donate millions of dollars to someone who hid such grossly prejudicial and politically fatal connections from them.”

No. Fuck these people! If they had actually done ANY RESEARCH AT ALL concerning the political views of Ron Paul they would have seen he and all of his supporters present him under this guise of libertarianism (which you know my feelings on) while actually being one of the most conservative candidates running for President.

Although the entire Republican field is awful this year (as they pretty much are every year.)

I don’t understand self-labeled liberals or progressives who for a moment supported Ron Paul. Sure, he’s strongly anti-war. That might be the only thing I respect him for. But it doesn’t rectify all of his other AWFUL POSITIONS. (And I don’t think sweeping non-interveiontionalist foreign policy is either in the interest of the United States nor the interest of, well, humanity. But that’s another post entirely.)

Here’s a short list of who/what Ron Paul is bad for:

• women
• Blacks
• Asians
• Latinos
• Middle Easterners
• Native Americans
• anyone who isn’t White
• immigrants
• gender and sexuality minorities 
• poor people
• sick people
• victims of genocide
• veterans
• public schools
• college students on financial aid
• the environment

So that leaves White, able-bodied, heterosexual, cismen born in the United States who are wealthy enough to afford private education their entire lives and can escape the consequences of climate change by the sheer fact of being rich [insert other privileged descriptors here] as the ONLY people who would benefit from a Ron Paul presidency. Oh good. They always need more help!

(via abbeyisnotclever)

Can we all just calm the fuck down about Cynthia Nixon?

The internet is fucking blowing up over Cynthia Nixon’s New York Times interview in which she says, for her, being gay is a choice.

“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

[Bold mine]

A lot of bloggers and commenters are quite angry with what she said. John Aravosis writes in AmericaBlog Gay:

It’s not a “choice,” unless you consider my opting to date a guy with brown hair versus a guy with blonde hair a “choice.” It’s only a choice among flavors I already like. And if you like both flavors, men and women, you’re bisexual, you’re not gay, so please don’t tell people that you are gay, and that gay people can “choose” their sexual orientation, i.e., will it out of nowhere. Because they can’t. And when you tell the NYT they can, you do tremendous damage to our civil rights effort. Every religious right hatemonger is now going to quote this woman every single time they want to deny us our civil rights.

Here’s what I have to say:

CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

Guess what! Cynthia Nixon never said it’s a choice for you—it’s a choice for her. She is an autonomous human being who is allowed to define and describe her own sexual identity and experiences any way she sees fit as long as she is not silencing others who are trying to do the same.

But you know who is trying to silence other people, John Aravosis? You. You have written on a gay politics blog that someone who identifies as gay is not allowed to do so because you disagree.

Fuck you, John Aravosis. Every religious right hatemonger is going to remain a religious right hatemonger. That’s what hatemongers do. They hate. Do you really think what she said to The New York Times will matter to them? (Do you think The New York Times matters to them?) They don’t care if we were “born this way” or if it’s a choice. They will hate us regardless because they are hateful people. What these people use to marginalize the queer community and deny us of our civil rights has absolutely nothing to do with anything any queer person (celebrity or not) says and everything to do with them being hateful.

It’s bad enough homophobes and hate groups are trying to tear queer people down without us doing it to ourselves. People like John Aravosis and internet commenters (never a respectable group of people, I know) are hurting the GSM community with their arrogance and intolerance more than Cynthia Nixon’s interview ever could.

PLUS people are completely missing her point that it shouldn’t matter whether queer people chose to be queer or were “born this way”, no one has the right to treat a group of people like shit simply because they don’t like them.

[I have a lot of thoughts about the “born this way” and the “it’s not a choice” rhetoric anyway but I’ll get into that another time.]

So for everyone else still freaking out:

“you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

It’s that simple.

(Source: thenewhotness, via spacejam)

it just really sucks

actuallytheidiot:

when people co-opt minority identities and deprive individuals of their freedom and safety in the name of “speaking out for the oppressed gay minority”. I struggle every day with how I present myself, and what aspects of my personal life I am comfortable discussing and revealing to my co-workers, family friends, the girls I babysit, patrons at work. And most of the time, I get to make the choice, I get to choose whether I want my sexuality part of a conversation. And I really value that freedom to choose. Of course, it is also a burden, and sometimes I feel like I am hiding part of myself, or lying to people I care about, but it is my right, my cherished right, to choose how I present my identity to the world. 

And then this journalist, or whatever, takes it upon herself to out Ellen Page, completely depriving her of that choice, for the rest of her life. That is awful. And it makes me feel scared, and targeted, and incredibly angry. 

And you know what? I really don’t need Ellen Page to stand up for me. She doesn’t need to be an activist, she just needs to be able to be herself, and live her life, and do her job. If I want, I can be an activist, or this journalist could have been an activist. But this is not how you do activism. This is not the way to improving the lives of any marginalized or oppressed minority. Taking away someone’s voice only oppresses her further. I can speak for myself, if you want to support me, come to my rallies and hold a sign. Volunteer for some organizations, call your representatives. But don’t take away my voice. 

Preach, girl!

Although it makes me happy that Tumblr’s all over this issue and just about everyone feels the same way about this. Checking out the #Ellen Page tag brings out a lot of really angry/thoughtful/funny reactions to this “journalist”. It reminds me why I love this site so much.

24-hours after I very politely sent a message to the person who posted this asking him to, if not remove the sign/report it to his school, to at least remove this photo from Facebook, and it’s still up.

This makes the first Facebook Photo I’ve ever “Reported”. Is it unreasonable to think that people should be more sensitive about rape?

Good job, Drexel. You’ve got some class acts.

thedailywhat:

Bors.

(Source: thedailywhat)