randomWalks

fergusonresponse:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE STICKER IMAGE

Protesters have been sticking this image on items in Walmarts - to protest the killing of John Crawford.

kateohhtay:

It’s become too easy to distance yourself from what’s going on right in front of you.

There’s no way he could have carried out any kind of terrorist plot — no way,” John said, adding later that “I think Chris was coerced into a lot of this.

FBI Arrests Ohio Man Over …? The FBI’s job is basically to create islamist terrorists and then arrest them at this point huh? Oh and induce autistic adults to commit victimless crimes by pretending to be their friend.

A penitent called “Morion” checks his mobile phone in Mogpog town on Marinduque island in central Philippines on April 14, 2014. Erik De Castro/Reuters

breenewsome:

See… We have to constantly question & challenge the entire narrative/dialogue put forth by corporate-owned media. How do we define “world” when we say “the world is in danger”? For blacks, #NAACPBombing represents a “dangerous world.” Clearly the dominant media disagreed. Likewise, terrorist group Boko Haram slaughtered hundreds in Nigeria this week. That received little coverage & is not part of this “world is in danger” dialogue that’s happening on the news. Who is part of “the world”? How do we define that? Is the world limited to the racist western imperialist establishment? That seems to be the mindset, which explains the difference in how acts of terror are reported. For example, the terror certain communities experience at the hands of police forces can not in the eyes of the state qualify as terroristic acts. In this mindset, “the world is in danger” ONLY if the threat is towards the establishment. If, instead, “the world” includes ALL people, then violence itself is the threat to the world & both the oppressive establishment & the terrorist groups are perpetrators of it.

We may not be able to attend to each outrage in every corner of the world, but we should at least pause to consider how it is that mainstream opinion so quickly decides that certain violent deaths are more meaningful, and more worthy of commemoration, than others.

Teju Cole in The New Y**orker (3 art. paywall). Unmournable Bodies

I wanted to post the final paragraph, but this short essay hangs together such that it’s best to read the whole thing.

Listen up, women are telling their story now | Rebecca Solnit

Bioregionalism takes us beyond the Enlightenment beliefs about inherent rights which are guaranteed by sovereign governments. When the people of a bioregion are making decisions about the production and management of their resources, they are creating a conscious relationship with their regional water and food supplies. In essence, they are expressing the fundamental right of resource sovereignty, a freedom that is denied in liberal democracies.

James Bernard Quilligan at Kosmos Journal. Human Watershed: The Emerging Politics of Bioregional Democracy (via protoslacker)

azspot:

Jen Sorensen (via mattbors)

medievalpoc:

UVA Professor Lisa Woolfork teaches summer session “Game of Thrones” Class

From the article:

Woolfork and her students counter the notion that the class was easy, despite some recent media attention. “It was a lot of work. It was a lot of debate, a lot of conversation, a lot of disagreement,” said the professor. “This is the point of what we can do when we apply the skills of literary analysis to both a literary and televisual adaptation.”

“I can understand how people could see that, but it’s actually frustrating because a lot of my friends are saying, ‘Oh wow, easy class,’” said Snead. “I had to put in a lot of work and the same analytical work that I would if I were reading the text, and in some ways it was harder because we don’t normally watch TV shows like that. We just watch them for entertainment or something to do.”

[…]

At the end of the first book, Daenerys Targaryen emerges from the fire with her dragons, but without clothing or hair. In the show, she still has all of her hair. “Is that about female desirability?” asked Woolfork. “Does it make her less attractive to the traditional male viewer? Why make these choices?”

I always find myself fascinated by classes like these, although they tend to reflect the professors teaching them even more than most college courses do. Comparing and contrasting the original text source (ASOIAF by George R.R. Martin) versus the visuals and interaction presented to us on the TV show is an unparalleled opportunity to read as both a fan and as a exercise in active engagement.

I find myself extremely curious as to whether questions of race, casting,  and some of Martin’s very questionable assumptions about both history and its relationship to what he has written made it into the academic arena above at any point. For example:

Well, Westeros is the fantasy analogue of the British Isles in its world, so it is a long long way from the Asia analogue. There weren’t a lot of Asians in Yorkish England either.

I don’t actually know which “Yorkish” England he means (I assume the one between 1460-80, but you never know), but I do know that (ironically :D)archaeological evidence shows that York, England at the very last gasp of the Roman Empire was about 20% citizens of African descent. In addition, physical evidence shows that hundreds, and perhaps thousands of North and Northwestern Africans, Near Easterners, and Central Asians were at Hadrian’s Wall during one of the last pushes of the empire to conquer Northern Europe. The Vikings traded with North Africa and the Middle and Near East for silks, beads, and other grave goods that can be analyzed and attributed not to “conquest” or “raids”, but trade.

Although the early Middle Ages in northern Europe tend to have a dearth of evidence that allows us to analyze this specific aspect of culture, historical periodization does not function as a “racial reset button”. Sadly, this knowledge has yet to be applied to popular culture, which is less than surprising considering that half the time, archaeological evidence has not even been seen or taken into account in art or history writing for the same period. Interdisciplinary projects in academia from this perspective are sorely needed, in my humble opinion, in order that educational materials can begin to reflect a more complete and nuanced view of the past, rather than one that serves current political agendas. 

In other words, Martin seems to have fallen for regurgitating the same “Historical Accuracy” spiel that is based in assumptions, not fact. (Incidentally, or perhaps not so incidentally, I have in fact read every book in ASOIAF so far, as well as seen every episode of the Game of Thrones show. That doesn’t stop people who have done neither from telling me I’m being “too critical” of it!)

Once again, a concept like historical accuracy does not apply to fantasy writing, but is always invoked when a creator has been criticized for perpetuating the lack of diversity endemic to fantasy media, whether it’s of race, gender, sexuality, ability, or other aspect of human diversity, in what they have created.

And after all, if the creators themselves can’t seem to parse the difference between accountability to what they believe is history, and accountability to the present and the diversity of the audience, how can we help but be confused by it? I believe that the more we engage with the media we love, the better it can reflect those of us who love it.

muredraws:

*[“White people: your privilege lives in the fact that you can be outraged, horrified and upset about tonight. But you are not afraid.” - Jazmine Hughes

](https://twitter.com/jazzedloon/status/537093616741916672)*thought this was a super poignant, important quote. let’s keep reading and learning and not turn away as soon as the news cameras do. this stuff is insidious and disgustingly deep in the way the world works.

here is a master post of links to donate to Ferguson citizens & protestors. doooo it!

breenewsome:

Exactly #BlackLivesMatter #democracy #protest #nypd

breenewsome:

Did police stop to show respect for #AmadouDiallo? #BlackLivesMatter #NYPD

breenewsome:

Did police stop to show respect for #AbnerLouima? #BlackLivesMatter #NYPD

owning-my-truth:

@OwningMyTruth: NYC Mayor de Blasio is now calling for #BlackLivesMatter protests to be put on hold until NYPD officers are buried. Two things-

#1 We now know that the shooter of the officers was NOT an activist and was NOT connected to #BlackLivesMatter, so that point is moot.

#2 Did NYPD stop brutalizing black people after they killed Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Eric Garner or Akai Gurley? Naw.

In summary: this is some bullshit.

By now many people have heard that 74 people were arrested Friday night for an action calling for justice for Dontre Hamilton, killed by former Milwaukee Police Officer Christopher Manney. I was one of those arrested. I was lucky to be in the first group released after 17 hours in jail. Some of my comrades were not released for 28 hours. It was a beautiful and intergenerational group, with multiple couples and whole families inside. The jail support on the outside was incredible. I’m grateful for all of the solidarity that occurred.

There are a lot of conversations happening - about the usage of the freeway in protest, about organizing, etc. I am down to speak to all of those in one on one conversations for anyone who might be confused about the point of the action. But here, I want to talk about one aspect of our experience on Friday night that I think everybody who has not had negative interactions with the police, especially white people, need to hear.

Often when somebody is killed by a police officer or a victim of police brutality, there is a narrative that emerges of “Why would anybody not follow police officer orders?” and “That person wouldn’t have gotten hurt if they had just listened to the cop.” What people often don’t understand is that directions are frequently unclear, contradictory, and set up to make people disobey. On the ramp, officers told protesters to disperse. Many people didn’t want to get arrested, and complied. Started to walk away willfully. They were told which way to walk to avoid arrest. When they started to walk that way, cops pulled up and handcuffed them. They got arrested for doing exactly what they were told to do. We were trapped.

As I was getting arrested, I handed my bag to a friend who asked the police officer if she was also getting arrested. He told her no and told her where she needed to go to avoid arrest. Doing so then got her arrested. This happened with many protesters who were lied to and derailed by the police when trying to follow directions.

Luckily for us, the consequence of doing exactly what we were told to do by the police and having it still be wrong resulted in only arrest, although a few protesters were handled violently and thrown to the ground. But when you hear stories about people getting shot and killed by police officers for refusing to follow directions, please consider where that story is emerging from. Police can say they gave orders and they went ignored, causing them to feel threatened. But in reality, sometimes following police orders is not just confusing, but downright impossible. This was the case on Friday night.

Most of this work requires white america to reevaluate everything we have been taught about the role of and trust in the police. It is difficult to do this when we often do not experience or even witness the police state at work. Please, I am asking you to try and do this work anyway. Really listen to the stories you are hearing. It is critical work. Lives depend on it. Again, please feel free to talk to me with any questions.

In solidarity with the Hamilton Family, the families of all those brutalized and murdered, the 73 people who I got to know in jail, and the 150+ people on the outside who stayed and waited for our release, building community overnight in the cold to make sure everyone was taken care of. May the resistance never, ever let up.

Anonymous Milwaukee Protester (via psychodellomellojello)

Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.

Bruce Levine, Ph.D. | Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (via america-wakiewakie)

Everyone is so excited about the cloud, but the cloud is really a drunken Xerox machine making copies of pretty much everything that everyone has said anywhere and spewing it all over the place.

Howard Lerman, the co-founder of Confide (and Yext), talking to Farhad Manjoo about the state of privacy in online communications. (via parislemon)

everythingistemporaryanyway:

superbestiario:

Xiao Wen Ju, Asia Chow, Jacob K, Liu Wen, March 2012, Millinery, Tim Walker, W Magazine .

Tim Walker <3

Frequent, high-profile hacks by the Free Syrian Army and their ilk are little more than momentary defacements, the modern equivalent of graffiti. The attacks on Target and Home Depot saw the theft of monumental amounts of customer and credit card information, but the inner workings of the companies remained as opaque as ever.

The Sony hack is something else entirely.

Even if not another byte is ever released, we’ve still been granted an unparalleled view inside the inner working of a vast corporation: Internship schemes, sexual harassment policies, the squabbling and fretting of executives—it’s all there, an immortal snapshot of how a billion-dollar company operates.

The closest comparison to the Sony hack isn’t the 2007 TJ Maxx attack, or the 2013 Adobe hack, it’s the WikiLeaks Cables—an explosive, unredacted look at a historically secretive industry, that will be still be read hundreds of years from now by historians and sociologists trying to understand the inner workings of power in our era.

How the Sony hack is making history (via kenyatta)

radicalreboot:

Assata vs Posada: A Case Study in U.S. Hypocrisy Now that the Obama administration has taken steps toward normalizing US relations with Cuba, liberals, conservatives, and the media are lining up to demand Cuba hand over fugitives taking refuge in the island nation, most prominently Black liberation activist Assata Shakur.

Unsurprisingly, I can’t find anyone in the media calling out the hypocrisy of making such a demand while the United States harbors Cuban exile and fugitive terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative convicted of murdering dozens of civilians in terrorist attacks, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in which 73 people lost their lives. The US refuses to hand Posada over to Cuba, where he would be tried anew, citing that he might be tortured there. Posada lives in Miami, free to roam around the country.

Compare this treatment to that of Assata Shakur. During the period that Posada was planting bombs around Latin America, Assata Shakur was present for the killing of a New Jersey state trooper. Though convicted of first-degree murder, Shakur never even held or fired a gun during the incident; evidence strongly suggests she was shot while trying to surrender, completely unarmed. Nevertheless, the FBI has seen fit to list her on its most wanted list, with a million-dollar bounty on her head. This of course is not due to the crime of which she was convicted but rather her revolutionary politics and persistent blackness.

Assata Shakur’s activism has focused on liberating her people (Black Americans) from systemic oppression. Luis Posada Carrile’s terrorism focused on expropriating the property of his people (Cuban and foreign capitalists) from Cuban collectivisation.

Yet if outlets like CNN, the LA Times, CBS News, and The Daily Beast have their way, you’ll learn all about Cuba’s harboring of a wanted American and nothing about the US’s protection of a terrorist sought by Cuba and other countries. Assata is labeled a “cop killer” and sometimes even a terrorist without qualification, despite not having killed any police, or anyone else for that matter. The actual terrorist mass murderer Posada? Well, he’s just not mentioned at all.

—Brian Dominick / radicalreboot

Wikipedia: Assata Shakur

Wikipedia: Luis Posada Carriles

astromonster:

Kent Bellows, cover illustration for Rolling Stone of Philip K. Dick, 1975

“You gave me a reflected self or identity and I suddenly believed I was real…From the moment I saw your picture, I was changed back to my old, real self…you cured me of my identity-less sickness. This is heavy stuff, but true.”

—PKD to artist Kent Bellows

Listen to the defenders of the police in these latest cases… do you really want to live in the world they are promoting? One where you must immediately acquiesce to any request/order give by anyone in a uniform, without question or complaint… under penalty of death if you don’t comply, or comply too slowly for them? Do you really mean to give people in uniform the power to kill, maim, imprison any person simply because they questioned why they were being confronted or resisted rough treatment? Is the uniformed officers word to be deemed absolute, without recourse… and his/her power to punish to be deemed limitless?

“To Protect You… From Me.”

radicalreboot:

Twitter all day every day since white liberals suddenly decided “all lives matter”

Me: White people saying #AllLivesMatter in reaction to #BlackLivesMatter need to check that shit.

White liberal tweep: You’re the real racist here. Why don’t you think all lives matter?

Me: I don’t think you know what racism means.

White liberal tweep: cites white-authored dictionary definition of racism

Me: Whatever. Then we need a word for racial bias in the context of structural inequality and institutionalized imbalances of power.

White liberal tweep: Racism works both ways.

Me: readies the block hand

White liberal tweep: Why don’t all lives matter to you?

Me: You never said #AllLivesMatter until it essentially meant “white lives matter” in knee-jerk response to assertions of Black validity. You’re clinging to your privilege.

White liberal tweep: So only black lives matter? Why are you so racist?

Me: block hand swings into action

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

breenewsome:

Beautiful shot of massive protest in #NYC today. #MillionsMarchNYC #BlackLivesMatter