When you say “All Lives Matter” when I say “Black Lives Matter” it sounds like your saying “Black lives don’t matter as much.” And are things to condescend and minigate the importance of our message. And if “All Lives Matter” then “Black Lives” are included and you should be just as mad and heartbroken and standing with us.

When you say “White lives matter too.” when I say “Black Lives Matter” It sounds like you are saying “White lives matter more then black lives.” And it makes me feel like you see me as a traitor of my race for defending another. I akwoldge I have white privlage but at least I can use it to help anyway I can.

When you say “They are all just thugs who are looting and setting things on fire.” when I say “Black Lives Matter" you are only choosing to focus on the handful of the most radical and misguided of those involved and willfully ignoring the peacful protesrs who are using their voice instead of their hands. .

Those are crimes and that is wrong, But the only casualty were things, items, objects that could be replaced and profit, no one was harmed. Murdering unarmed indaviduals based on skin color and suspicion and brutallizing peaceful protesters is arguably much worse. They WERE harmed while not committing any crime other then speaking out and going about their day. Even if they did do something wrong, you should be arrested lawfully and investigated. Not murdered.

When you say “Blue Lives Matter” when I say “Black Lives Matter” it sounds like you are saying “Police matter more and should not be held accountable when they cross a line or take a life unjustly.”

Police know when they signed up that they put their lives on the line everyday to protect and serve others. They knew that there would be a chance they could get hurt or die to protect the community. Black people did not sign up to be black or be killed for doing everyday things or to be asssumed guilty and suspicious wherever they go or whatever they are doing. You can take off a uniform. You cant take off your skin.

When I say “ Black Lives Matter” I am merely stating a truthful fact. If you deny the truth or try to divert it, you are part of the problom, I’m trying be part of the solution.

mimzy-writing-online:

The Controversies Around Helen Keller

Welcome to part three of my mini-series on Helen Keller. I took a Disability in Literature class in Spring 2022 that focused heavily on her legacy. In this class I’ve learned that the idea we have of who Helen Keller was is not entirely accurate. A lot of people either see her only as the seven year old at the water pump, a scene made famous by the film The Miracle Worker. Or, they see her as this elderly woman who could do no wrong and only wanted to help others, that is the image the American Foundation for the Blind and other similar charities and organizations popularized.

In Part One I discussed the tools and accommodations she used to navigate the world as a Deaf-blind woman.

In Part Two I discussed her interests in writing, socialism, animals, nature, performing, etc.

In this post I’m going to be discussing some of the controversies surrounding Keller–because there are a lot. Some of these are well known and publicized, and others have been brushed under the rug.

Keep reading

It is important to discuss the controversies around Helen Keller, particularly how internalized ableism can impact a person and disabled communities. I wanted to share this video by Deaf and disabled creator, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, in which she discusses the topic of internalized audism and eugenics from a Deaf perspective. I tried searching for things that discussed her privilege more in depth and found this that includes the following:

“Helen Keller was a socialist who believed she was able to overcome many of the difficulties in her life because of her class privilege – a privilege not shared by most of her blind or deaf contemporaries. “I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment,” she said. ” I have learned that the power to rise is not within the reach of everyone.”

I wonder if the other part includes people like Anne Sullivan, part of the community who helped her, which was, in the end, afforded to her through class and white privilege because her family was able to afford to find and pay Sullivan in the first place.

Just some of the titles I’ve read recently by black authors that I found incredibly informative and moving. I have studied (and personally love) the work of Jesmyn Ward, and also recommend Citizen by Claudia Rankine (not pictured above). Citizen is a great text that looks at microaggression and the experiences of black people witthin the United States through poetry. I also recently ordered ‘The New Jim Crow’ by Michelle Alexander and am constantly working to educate and inform myself of both my own privelige and the racism that persists in today’s society - so if you have any other book recommendations, please leave them in the comments! Let’s work together to share resources, books and knowledge to educate ourselves to try and resolve this problem, because Black Lives Matter.

Fat booty

This ass belongs to #hardmasterfist1

Took my kid to a dog park yesterday.

T-N, why didn’t you take a DOG to the dog park?

My son wears a sign on his back that says “I’m just here to play with your dog”.

Anywayyyy

Passed a group of BLM on the way home. He asked what they were doing and I said “They’re protesting excessive violence by the police against minorities baby.” He rolled down his window and yelled “I love you! You’re all doing a great job and I love you!”

Hot damn.

Then he asked why we weren’t with them. I explained it’s dangerous for kids and if I get arrested there’s no one to take care of him and he’ll go into foster care. Simple enough.

I then spent the next half hour of the drive explaining to my blonde haired blue eyed Hitler’s Youth lookin ass of a kid his white privilege.

Y'all.

His response.

He didn’t say that his life was hard too, or he gets picked on too (the amount of times my boy’s been called a faggot because he does competitive figure skating), he didn’t make it about him.

He fuckin said “So it’s my job to make sure anyone who doesn’t have my privilege is protected right? I have to be good because not everyone who looks like me is good, even though their lives are better? Just because they got born white? I can do that, mama. I WILL do that. I promise.”

JUST AS EASY AS IT IS TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TO BE A RACIST, YOU CAN TEACH A CHILD THEIR WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THEY WILL FUCKING GET IT. FULL STOP.

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN BETTER THEY ARE THE NEXT ONES UP TO FIX THIS SHIT.

*long sigh*

*deep breath*

One more time for the people in the back, white privilege does not mean that because you’re white, you’ve never struggled. It means your struggles are not BECAUSE you’re white.

If you’re straight and you struggle, it’s not because you’re straight. Queer people have the same struggles you do, but they also struggle because they’re queer in a world that favors people who are straight.

If you’re a man and you struggle, it’s not because because you’re a man. Others have the same struggles you do, but they also struggle because they’re not men in a world that favors people who are men.

And if you’re white and you struggle, it’s not because because you’re white. People of color have the same struggles you do, but they also struggle because they’re people of color in a world that favors people who are white.

It really is that simple. Are there exceptions? Sure. But straight people, white people, and/or male people have power that those who are NOT straight, white, and/or male do NOT have.

Privilege is not worrying that your “ethnic” sounding name will get your job application tossed or that your “ethnic” hair will get you fired.

Privilege is not having to sweat every election because the next crop of lawmakers might get enough power to strip away your bodily autonomy, the validity of your marriage, or your right to not get fired because your boss doesn’t approve of your “lifestyle,”

Privilege is not fearing for your life every time you get pulled over and not needing to have serious discussions with your children about how to keep the police from killing them.

Privilege does not mean your life is easy and that you never struggle. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It doesn’t mean you should be ashamed, or that you have no right to complain about the injustices or disadvantages you DO experience.

It just means that you are exempt from experiencing certain systemic disadvantages that other people are not. Some of those disadvantages are frustrating (microaggressions). Some can literally mean the difference between life and death.

When someone tells you to check your privilege, they’re telling you to remember everything I just wrote here. It means there are things in this world that you don’t have to worry about.

It means there are very real problems in this world and in this country that are not about you.

Lori Gallagher Witt (As always, okay to share, but please don’t remove my name.)