you are never finished unlearning prejudice. you’ll be doing it every day for the rest of your life. it doesn’t make you bad; you’re the product of a prejudiced society. don’t beat yourself up over it, but don’t fall into contentment either.

dailynietzsche:

“All psychology so far has got stuck in moral prejudices and fears. It has not dared to descend into the depths.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §23 (excerpt).

By Brooke Chambers on April 3, 2018

Originally Posted at TSP Discoveries

Social media serves as a space where users can react to events (like the Parkland school shooting) in real time. While these conversations can be constructive, social media can also be a haven for anger and discrimination. In a recent study published in American Journal of Sociology,René Flores examined what drives online bigotry, specifically in response to new laws. Flores focuses on Arizona’s SB 1070 law, which allowed authorities to demand immigration papers from individuals they thought may be undocumented. While a strong anti-immigrant response after the law may seem to demonstrate a change in attitudes toward immigrants, Flores argues that the law spurred changes in behavior — in this case, mobilizing those with anti-immigrant attitudes to post more negative content more often.

Photo Credit: Alex Ingram, Flickr CC

Flores analyzed over 250,000 tweets posted between three months before and three months after the passage of SB 1070. Rather than sorting the tweets as positive or negative, Flores created a metric to rate the strength of sentiment in the tweets. He compared Arizona tweets to those in Nevada to measure changes specifically related to SB 1070, rather than other national or regional dynamics. After SB 1070, not only were there more anti-immigrant tweets in Arizona, but the tweets themselves were more negative. And further, Twitter users also directed negative sentiments toward non-immigrant Latinos, showing that the effect of SB 1070 was not limited to those targeted by the law.

Flores did not find evidence that neutral or pro-immigrant users changed their attitudes. Instead, users who already expressed anti-immigrant or anti-Latino biases drove the uptick in negativity. In other words, users who previously held an anti-immigrant stance posted tweets with greater negative content more frequently, at least in the immediate aftermath of the bill’s passing. This finding questions the possibility for laws to change attitudes in the short term, but demonstrates that laws can mobilize groups who already believe in the law’s sentiments.

Brooke Chambers is a PhD student in the University of Minnesota’s Sociology Department. She is interested in genocide (with a particular focus on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda), human rights, and policy formation in response to genocide and mass atrocity.

Barnes & Noble Being Sued in Virginia Beach Over GENDER QUEER, COURT OF MIST AND FURY

First they came for the schools….

On Discrimination, on Prejudice, on Apathy

So, recently, those who pay attention may have noted that Apathy has been making its way into my three A’s that lead into discrimination.  

To understand why that is, you have to look at a few things that factor into it. To do that, you have to look at what it is that operates here.

When persons in a state or condition of power express the sentiment that they are being discriminated against…

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• Be willing to sacrifice morality for the sake of prejudiced and bigoted ancient commandments

PURE FACTS

Credit: Jordan J. Lloyd

I’ve been trying to dive deeper into politics, discover the genuine roots of our society, the origins of our beliefs, and the consequences of our economic system. It’s a big, long, wide journey and through multiple sources such as articles, images, videos and multiple social media platforms, I’ve been trying to educate myself more on important subjects.

Communism, capitalism, libertarian, conservative, the left, the right, the history, the impact. It is scary to commit to everything because once you start, you simply cannot stop, once you start waking up your conscience about the horrible reality, the lies, the truths, you cannot put it back to sleep. You can’t just ignore prejudice, especially when you’re extremely conscious of it’s omnipresence. I have continually tried to build my own opinions all while actively creating bullet point arguments in my mind because I just know that at some point I will have to defend my thinking, and I want to do it right.

Now, I am so far from being enlightened, I am a beginner and an amateur in all of those themes, but I am trying, which is the only way to start and grow.

So to tell you about my beliefs, I am a militant human rights activist, I believe in equal opportunities regardless of gender identity, sex, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race and disability. This is a fact, not a belief, but the system was obviously not built to protect all people, its wasn’t created to serve everyone equally but to grant a privilege to some and harm others. The current state of the world is not a slip, an accident or a misfunction of our brilliant system but a testament of it operating remarkably well. I believe that equity leads to equality, and I believe that we cannot “fix” methodologies that were immorally created with absolutely no honor whatsoever. I believe in reproductive rights, in legal, safe abortions for anybody who needs one. I believe in the decriminalization of marijuana. I believe that the death penalty is a despicable punition that should be banned as soon as possible. I believe in defunding the police and the military. I believe that it is a shame that I even have to talk about police brutality, I don’t want to have to say that it is one of the most horrible things our world has originated, I feel extremely dense when I do because it seems like the most obvious certitude and I refuse to believe that this is a controversial statement. I believe that everything I have just stated, along with many more, isn’t anything grand but the bare minimum, the bar is low, and yet, we still have the fight for basic human decency.

Humanity has become an option. We have normalized supporting people that represent everything wrong in this world under the name of tolerance. The left has never claimed to be tolerant towards hateful beings, We have never accepted homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism and sexism. We cannot, for exemple, accept nazis, as too much tolerance inevitably leads to intolerance. This picture explains it perfectly:

I consider myself a communist/ socialist. The two terms still confuse me a little, some say they are the same, some say they differ quite a bit. What I know is that socialism is the transitional period between capitalism and communism. At the end of the day, the final result and goal is a stateless, moneyless and clasless society that will provide to each his need.

Our capitalistic society has brainwashed us way more than you may think. It is the root of so many of our issues, the underground demon of our problems. Every idea, thought, belief, and misconception of ours were all affected by our current economic system. It has sold us the billionnaire dream which is one of the most toxic things capitalism has offered. We have looked up to billionaires for way too long, why are they so idolized? Most of them come from high upper class families that can easily afford to invest in their inventions and creations. After starting up their companies and occasionnaly stealing other’s people ideas to ultimately get undeserved merit, they then can start to properly exploit their hardworking employees’s labour. And for unlimited hours and a minimum wage which probably won’t even suffice you to survive, you will have to either pick up more shifts or a second or even third job, especially if you have a family to support. All while the CEO barely does any of the work and gets all the praise and money. So no, they don’t all come from really poor families and have built everything for nothing.

The worst thing is that we’ve been so gaslit and brainwashed that we’re proud of our own exploitation, we are wired to think that to be successful we have to suffer, work 10 jobs we all hate, constantly pick up extra hours, have 2 hours of sleep, have no free time to do anything we love, waste our entire youth, be depressed our entire adulthood, to finally have a few pennies to spend when we’re eighty. We so strongly believe that this is the only right way to be successful that I don’t think many of us have dared to question it’s authority, and even if we do, we quickly accept that this a truth, a fact we cannot change and this is just the way things are.

We have capitalized water, food, land, forests, oceans, space, and everything in betweeen. Money is social construct and we have deliberately let it take over our lives. To think about the wasted opportunities and the misery that we have to endure so others can enjoy life truly angers me.

Also, communism is not an ideology that has every actually taken place. Despite what they say, there was never actually a communist country. However, every nation that has attempted a socialist system, for exemple Burkina Faso, has thrived. But of course, once capitalist countries noticed that, they decided to murder it’s leader. So in conclusion, the only reason socialism failed is because of capitalism and it’s interventions.

“As President (1983-1987), Sankara initiated economic reforms that shifted his country away from dependence on foreign aid and reduced the privileges of government officials; he cut salaries, including his own, decreed that there would be no more flying in first class or driving Mercedes as standard issue vehicles for Ministers and other government workers. He led a modest lifestyle and did not personally amass material wealth. President Sankara encouraged self-sufficiency, including the use of local resources to build clinics, schools and other needed infrastructure. […] President Sankara promoted land reform, childhood vaccination, tree planting, communal school building, and nation-wide literacy campaigns. He was committed to gender equity and women’s rights and was the first African leader to publicly recognize the AIDS pandemic as a threat to African countries. Although Sankara became somewhat more authoritarian during his Presidency, his ideas, and the possibility that they could spread, were viewed by many as posing the greatest threat. President Sankara was assassinated during a coup led by a French-backed politician, Blaise Compaoré, in October 1987. Compaoré served as the President of Burkina Faso from October 1987 through October 2014, when he himself was overthrown.”

Via:https://africandevelopmentsuccesses.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/success-story-from-burkina-faso-thomas-sankaras-legacy/

Success Story from Burkina Faso: Thomas Sankara’s Legacy

I have been reading and watching some amazing human rights activists, notably Angela Davis, Malcolm X and James Baldwin. The people that were villainized, labeled as violent and radical, when every single word that came out of their mouhs were pure facts. They are probably some of the most eloquent people I have had the pleasure of hearing. Every sentence, every argument, every single detail made so much sense and opened my mind to so many new realizations. This is the perfect exemple of how the media tarnishes the reputation of wise black women and men. I would strongly advise you to research more about them.

“Socialism & communism are demonized in the west to the point of erasing influential individuals’ socialist advocacy. Heres a short list of people you may not have known were socialists/ communists:

• MLK
• Albert Einstein
• Nelson Mandela
• Frida Kahlo
• Tupac Shakur
• Mark Twain
• Malcom X
• Oscar Wilde
• Bertrand Russell
• Hellen Keller
• Pablo Picasso
• George Orwell
• Shia LaBeouf
• John Lennon
• Woody Guthrie

Socialism & communism are not dirty words. Some of the most brilliant minds of our history were socialists and communists. Embrace it.” Via @sleepisocialist on twitter

So what else can I say, capitalism has ruined our society and the way we act and think. I know a lot of people refuse to support communism because they think it’s too much of a perfect ideal utopian world for it to ever actually exist. And to that I say, first of all, so you agree, it is a wonderful theory, and second of all, a world without racism, sexism, homophobia or any kind or discrimination could also be perceived as “too ideal to actually exist”, but does that mean I’m giving up on talking, educating myself and others, protesting and trying to build a better future? Absolutely not. This is the objective, it would be so dumb to think that we just couldn’t achieve that so let’s not even try.

I want to talk more in detail about communism, theory, human rights, etc… but I don’t want to make this post any longer. I will however be posting more about it soon enough.

I know this is a little different than what I usually post, but I want to speak, tell you all my own opinions, I don’t want to just repost activism related stuff. I’ll continue to do that, but not exclusively. I know it won’t get as many interactions as my other posts, but this is what I needed at some point in my life, and if I could make understanding some basic informations easier to some people, it’ll already be a great accomplishment.

Thank you for reading.

These people make me ashamed to be human. Be better, if this is our version of a advanced society, I can only apprehend what could come next. Please educate yourself and your loved ones, this is inadmissible.

Include jewish people in your activism.

Via @jewishpridealways on ig

iamnotlanuk:

iamnotlanuk:

what really fucking bothers me in conversations about racism and saying that some work has racist elements people always counter with “I don’t think the author had deliberate racist ideology in mind” cause it’s like that doesn’t fucking matter. it doesn’t have to be deliberate to be racist. most people don’t go hee hee hoo hoo I’m gonna put racist things in this. everyone was raised in a racist society and covert racism exists and yes needs to be examined in ourselves and everywhere and yes even in works you like author “deliberate” intent or no

this applies to other forms of bigotry too. listen to the voices of those who have to live under systemic oppression

megpie71:

alarajrogers:

rozario-sanguinem:

owlet:

the word “queer” being used by someone who uses that word to describe their own experience of love and their cherished community should not ever sound the same to you as it does coming out of the mouth of a homophobe. acting like these two types of people are the same is unbelievably cruel

^^^

Adding on once again: there is no word for our experiences that has not been used as a slur and isn’t *still* used as a slur.

My mother never said fag but she sure could say “gay” in a way that made it clear that was what she meant

“Homosexual” in the mouth of a Southern Republican US Senator is more vile than “faggot” in the mouth of a 50-year-old gay man from Seattle, where they made an attempt at one point to reclaim the word. (Unlike queer, it didn’t really work.)

Hell. “Those people” in the mouth of a homophobic mom to a closeted gay teen is probably fouler than either of those.

Just chiming in here from over on the disability side of things, where we can testify that it doesn’t matter what you call yourself, your terminology will get used as a slur by people who don’t want you to exist because you fuck up their ideas of how the world should be. So, call yourself whatever you want, and don’t yield to the people who don’t care what you’re called, because your greatest crime is existing in the first place.  They’re never going to have a polite word for you anyway.