#HAITI IS NOT ALONE!

[serious2020]

MAY 18, 2023: HAITIAN FLAG DAY: #StandWithHaiti

Actions in Haiti’s Fight4 Dignity Sovereignty Freedom & “Sali Piblik” will happen GLOBALLY in Atlanta, GA.; Belize, England, Guyana, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, & more. Support the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund #StandWithHaiti On Haitian Flag Day May 18th, Haiti Action Committee is calling for local actions everywhere to demand an end to US and Core Group support for the…

[reasoningdaily]

Last week, during a swing through Miami, Donald Trump stopped by a community center in Little Haiti. Trump has never held much interest in Haiti or Haitian Americans, and it showed. Instead of the usual bluster, the reality TV star tentatively read some vague, prepared remarks off a sheet of paper, then sat back on a stool “to listen and to learn” for a few minutes from the small crowd of mostly middle-aged, upper- and middle-class Haitian Americans in dark suits and print dresses, scattered among a few rows of folding chairs.

Not long ago, Trump’s team glommed onto the possibility that Haitian Americans—generally black, generally Democratic-leaning voters who make up roughly 2 percent of the population of Florida, where Trump and Hillary Clinton are separated by less than a point—might be persuaded to vote against the former secretary of state. The irony of a nativist pandering to thousands of immigrants and refugees aside, there was a logic to this. Many people rightly identify Clinton with failures of humanitarianism and development in Haiti. The Trump team has folded that perception into a half-true narrative in which Haiti—like Whitewater and Benghazi before it—becomes a synecdoche for all the ills, real and imagined, of the Clintons themselves.

There are good reasons the world’s first black republic has been an island-sized headache for Clinton as she seeks the presidency. Haiti is a place where some of the darkest suppositions that lurk on the left and right about her and her husband take form. Here is an island country of 10 million people where America’s ultimate power couple invested considerable time and reputation. Here is a fragile state where each took turns implementing destructive policies whose highlights include overthrowing a presidential election. Bill Clinton in particular mixed personal relationships, business, and unaccountable power in ways that, if never exactly criminal, arouse the kind of suspicion that erodes public trust. No two individuals, including Haiti’s own leaders, enjoyed more power and influence than the Clintons in the morass of the failed reconstruction following the deadly Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, when a troubled country managed to go from catastrophe to worse.

The Clintons compounded the resulting political problem the way they usually do, by saying as little as possible while letting their enemies fill in the blanks. A year before he became Trump’s campaign “CEO,” Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon began pushing facile theories of corruption and malfeasance in the book Clinton Cash, written by Peter Schweizer under the aegis of Bannon’s Orwellianly named Government Accountability Institute. It was later turned into a film. Both versions of Clinton Cash tell a kaleidoscopic version of Haiti’s post-quake story, remixed and more than occasionally fudged to push the Clintons into the center. Those flawed but relatively measured accounts in turn inspired whack-job theories that have become articles of faith in the anti-Clinton fever swamps, such as the fantasy that Hillary and Bill just straight up stole billions of dollars in post-quake relief money—an impossible claim so unmoored from reality that even Peter Schweitzer didn’t bother making it.

The reality is a lot more complicated (and interesting) than that. The United States and Haiti were the first two independent republics in the Americas, and our often blood-soaked relationship goes back a lot further than the meeting of a silky Arkansan and an ambitious Illinoisan at Yale Law School.

Trump, probably unwittingly, submerged himself in some relatively recent chapters of that history at the Little Haiti Cultural Center. His host was Georges Saati, a wealthy Lebanese-Haitian industrialist whose family backed the brutal 20th-century dictatorships of François and Jean-Claude Duvalier and whose far-right faction helped foment the violent overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Trump was also treated to a speech by Bernard Sansaricq, a radical right-wing ex-Haitian legislator whom the Los Angeles Times once called the “self-proclaimed president of Haiti’s Senate” and who collaborated with the military junta that ruled during Aristide’s first exile in the 1990s, following a coup carried out during the George H.W. Bush administration by former Duvalierists on the CIA payroll. Trump was so moved that this week, his staff published another statement by Sansaricq on its website.

Both wealthy Haitians openly loathe Bill Clinton, who ordered the U.S. invasion that put down the junta and restored Aristide to power, for a time. Sansaricq, who long ago left Haiti and ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress as a Republican in 2010 and 2012, repeated nonsensical, Breitbart-esque claims about “the whole world” having given “billions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation for the Haitians” (false: The Clinton Foundation has raised about $30 million in connection with Haiti and was at no point a general clearinghouse for post-quake relief money) and promising Trump the Haitian American community’s support if he will “ask Hillary Clinton to disclose the audit of all the money they have stolen from Haiti.”

Trump nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t understand,” he said, “now I understand it.”

He didn’t. I know, because I’ve spent years looking into what’s really gone on in Haiti. I was the Associated Press correspondent in Port-au-Prince from 2007 to 2011 and survived the earthquake in 2010. I’ve spent years digging into the details of the response and recovery, much of which I put in a book. I’ve also done extensive, critical reporting on the Clintons’ roles in particular, which is why my name appears halfway through the Clinton Cash documentary, misleadingly implying that I was some sort of corroborating source.

In all that time, neither I nor anyone else has found the coveted evidence of either Clinton making off with vast sums of money from Haiti or the relief effort. And while America’s foremost power couple may be as culpable as anyone for the disastrous results of the earthquake response, it is fundamentally misleading to say that they are singularly responsible for it, much less for America’s long and abusive history with its oldest and poorest neighbor. I wish things were that simple.

* * *

There’s a real case to be made against Hillary Clinton in Haiti. From her first days as secretary of state, Clinton saw the island republic as a place to “road-test” a central piece of her foreign policy vision of “elevating development alongside diplomacy and defense as core pillars of American power.” Haiti would be a major example of “economic statecraft,” as she called it, where business and government partner to address natural disasters, poverty, and disease, neutralizing threats while generating money and power for the United States—what her husband would call a “win-win-win.”

Clinton has gotten grief in this election for that kind of thinking, exemplified elsewhere by a 2011 speech in which she pitched reconstruction in Iraq, eight years after the U.S. invasion, as a “business opportunity.” In reality, what she is pushing has been standard U.S. foreign policy for more than a century. (In Iraq, she was very late to the party.) It’s no less true when it comes to “humanitarianism.” The U.S. government devotes less than 1 percent of its budget to “foreign aid,” most of which goes to vendors based in the United States. For instance, nearly half a billion dollars of U.S. government relief aid “for Haiti” following the 2010 earthquake went to the Defense Department. The vast majority of U.S. government contracts went to American firms; almost no cash ever went, or was intended to go, to Haitians or the Haitian government. The same is true for nearly all nongovernmental organizations and charities, including the American Red Cross.

Despite promises to change this way of doing aid, both Clintons rode herd on business as usual—Hillary as head of the State Department (which effectively includes the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID), and Bill in his panoply of roles, including co-chairing the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), a nominally Haitian government agency charged with overseeing the allocation of reconstruction money donated by foreign governments to a World Bank–managed fund for 18 months after the earthquake.* USAID, ignoring recommendations to hire Haitian contractors, brought in several U.S. firms (and one Mexican firm) to build a housing development. The added cost of flights, hotels, cars, food allowances, living expenses, and “danger pay” ballooned the cost per house from $8,000 to $33,000, investigative reporter Jake Johnston found. Ultimately two of the American contractors were suspended from receiving future government contracts. “Out of ignorance, there was much arrogance,” a Haitian official told Johnston.

But when the right isn’t beating the Clintons over the head about it, this pattern—keeping the money close to home—is how most conservatives, and a lot of other Americans, want foreign aid to work. Clinton’s insistence that relief and development efforts yield benefits for American businesses and consumers is aimed mostly at critics who don’t understand that this is how U.S. aid and intervention always operate. (That includes Trump himself, who told a Fox News town hall in April: “We have many, many countries that we give a lot of money to, and we get absolutely nothing in return, and that’s going to stop fast.”)

Before and after the earthquake, the State Department openly and enthusiastically pushed a vision of prosperity for Haiti through foreign investment in tourism, construction, and low-wage garment factories. In its view, this would save Haitians from poverty and prevent future refugee crises while making money for American and multinational corporations. That idea is badly flawed—among other things, the low wages and sweeping tax exemptions investors demand mean little money flows into the local economy—but it’s the program every single U.S. presidential administration has backed in Haiti since at least the 1960s. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Haiti produced huge quantities of cheap clothes, toys—and at one point all the baseballs used in the U.S. major leagues—earning it the nickname the “Taiwan of the Caribbean.” It’s a bipartisan effort: Clinton’s vision of “economic statecraft” isn’t all that different from the policies Ronald Reagan was pushing when his administration created the Caribbean Basin Initiative.

But efforts to resurrect the assembly sector, which collapsed in the turmoil following the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship 1986, got ugly. A few months before the quake, U.S. embassy officials pressured the then-Haitian president, René Préval, to nix a legislative proposal to raise the minimum wage for garment factory workers from roughly 22 cents an hour to 62 cents an hour, arguing that higher wages would discourage investment. Préval and legislators compromised at 38 cents an hour. (It has since gone up.) Bill used his newly minted position as U.N. special envoy to promote the economic agenda. “In the end all of our efforts will have to be judged by how many jobs we create, how much we swell the middle class, and whether we perform for the investors and make them a profit for doing the right thing,” he said at the time.

Once the disaster struck, the U.S. government focused its reconstruction efforts on pushing this vision. That resulted in the construction of Caracol Industrial Park, a $300 million, 600-acre industrial development built to house garment factories in northern Haiti. The project was financed through U.S. tax money via USAID, as well as the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank. The Clinton Foundation helped promote the project to investors. Bill and George W. Bush teamed up to lobby Congress together to expand trade preferences for Haiti-sewn apparel. Bill also used his position with the IHRC to direct further funds to the project. With the help of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean trade minister, the organizers recruited Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd., a South Korea–based global garment giant that supplies many of the clothes you buy at Target, Walmart, Gap, Old Navy, and other stores, to be the anchor tenant.

All that was at stake when, 11 months after the earthquake, Haiti held a presidential election. Millions were still displaced and polling places in rubble, but the United States and its allies were paying for the election and insisted it go on. The process fell into chaos in the first round, with riots in the streets and candidates accusing each other of manipulation and fraud.

The electoral mess increased the Americans’ frustrations with Préval; they blamed his recalcitrance and skepticism about foreign intervention for the slow pace of reconstruction. The U.S. embassy openly fanned the flames by saying the official electoral results conflicted with a European Union–sponsored poll. U.S. officials then pushed Préval to throw his party’s candidate out of the second-round runoff and replace him with Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, a raunchy pop singer who enthusiastically backed foreign investment projects including Caracol. (Martelly had also proved receptive to guidance from foreign political hands.)

Clinton’s State Department played hardball behind the scenes, revoking the visas of Préval’s inner circle and banding with France, Brazil, Canada, and the United Nations leadership to pressure the president into stepping down.

Then, on Jan. 30, 2011, the secretary personally flew to Port-au-Prince. The night before, she had traded emails with her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, as well as the Clinton Foundation’s chief operating officer, Laura Graham, who also served as Bill’s chief of staff on the IHRC. In one email, Graham said resistance was building against the U.S. plan and that the secretary had been “specifically criticized today for imposing this solution.” Mills suggested that Clinton emphasize a message in response: “The voices of the people of Haiti must be heard. The votes of the people of Haiti must be counted fairly. And the outcome of this process must reflect the true will of the Haitian people. That is the only interest of the United States.”

Hillary delivered that message almost word for word to the Haitian and foreign press the next day. Behind closed doors, she sweet-talked Préval, convincing him that accepting the U.S.-backed candidate would secure his legacy.

Martelly became president in May. In his inaugural speech he declared, in English: “This is a new Haiti open for business, now!” Bill was in the audience.

Initially, Martelly accepted Garry Conille—Bill Clinton’s chief of staff at the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy—as his first prime minister. But sensing a babysitter, Martelly quickly booted him out and replaced him with his own business partner. “The situation cannot afford Washington to sit on sidelines. They elected him and they need [sic] pressure him,” Graham grumbled to Mills in an unusually candid email.

The earthquake recovery foundered, inflation spiraled, and violence spiked. Martelly left office earlier this year amid an unfinished, fraud-wracked election; for a week, the country had no president. Haiti is now struggling with a weak, transitional government. Demonstrations loom, as do strikes and threats of takeover by armed militants.

Caracol opened in 2012 with both Clintons joining Martelly (and an acquiescent Préval) at the opening ceremony. The project has been a disappointment by any measure. Sae-A brought in a fraction of the jobs it promised. Its employees grumble about the long hours, tough conditions, and low pay. The project has had little positive impact on Haiti’s economy so far.

* * *

Trump has criticized Caracol on the stump, referring in a recent speech to the time that “Hillary Clinton set aside environmental and labor rules to help a South Korean company with a record of violating workers’ rights set up what amounts to a sweatshop in Haiti.” It’s a hypocritical complaint for a mogul who employs his own sweatshop labor in China and Central America. Small wonder that he dropped that line of criticism at the Little Haiti event, where his hosts were wealthy industrialists whose opposition to Aristide (and Bill Clinton) was rooted in large part in the former Haitian leader’s resistance to garment-factory owners and foreign investment schemes. Still, it’s only a bit overstated—while Hillary built nothing alone, her State Department pushed hard to get the park up quickly, over the objections of other administration departments.

But what the shallower critics of the Clintons miss is whom this fundamentally unjust system is designed to benefit. Despite cherry-picked, half-understood stories about permits for nonexistent gold mines and isolated instances of naked (and duly punished) fraud that account for rounding errors in the actual billions raised and spent after the earthquake, there is simply no evidence that the intent was to line the Clintons’ pockets.

The system isn’t designed for them; it’s for us. The low wages that the U.S. embassy helped suppress are the reason we can enjoy a steady stream of $9 Mossimo camisoles and $12.99 six-packs of Hanes T-shirts. Even U.S. military uniform parts get made in Haitian sweatshops. As America moves further away from its producer past and deeper into its consumer present, we will want cheaper and cheaper smartphones and cheaper and cheaper clothes that we can afford on our stagnant service wages, and we will demand our leaders find us alternatives to sourcing from rivals like China. Places like Caracol are the result. Some Americans say they want production jobs to come back home, but few are ready to pay twice as much for their clothes or $100 extra for their iPhones, most of which would still have to be sourced from overseas.

To get the things we want, the United States has been in the business of overturning elections and toppling governments for more than a century. Clinton’s trip to Haiti in 2011 represents the softer end of a long tradition of U.S. invasions, coups, and usurpations: Panama in 1903 to Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1954, to Congo, 1961; Vietnam, 1963, to Chile, 1973, to Iraq 2003, and on and on.

The U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, helping foster the overcentralization—whereby American-run businesses and breaks on custom duties were concentrated in the capital—that made the 2010 earthquake so deadly.  And we have been meddling ever since—ferrying leaders out and in and out again. As Trump was reminded in Little Haiti, Bill Clinton ordered the 1994 U.S. invasion. George W. Bush ordered his in 2004. The U.N. peacekeeping mission that dumped cholera into Haiti’s waterways a few months after the quake had nothing to do with Clinton’s U.N. Office of the Special Envoy; it was created years earlier, during the Bush administration, to take over from his U.S.-led force and has been kept there and aggressively defended by administrations through Barack Obama’s in large part because it is cheaper than sending U.S. troops back again.

That military might is used, explicitly, to keep things from deteriorating to the point that thousands of Haitians flee toward Florida, as they did in the 1980s and 1990s. Why? Because as it turns out, a lot of Americans aren’t fond of refugees.

None of this gets the Clintons off the hook for the actions they are personally responsible for in Haiti. I’ve asked Hillary’s spokesman many times to comment on how things have turned out there and what if anything she would do differently as president. He said once that she’d comment “when the time comes to do so.” That was back in April 2015. I’m still waiting.

Bill continues to mix his post-presidential fame and Haiti business matchmaking in ways that set off alarm bells—often in conjunction with his trademark quarter-million-dollar speaking fees. In the reconstruction effort, he often partnered with Irish cell phone company Digicel and its head, Denis O’Brien. The company helped arrange at least one lucrative speaking engagement for the former president, while the Clinton Foundation “facilitated introductions” to help O’Brien build a luxurious new Marriott hotel next to Digicel’s Port-au-Prince headquarters. USAID has directed about $1.3 million to Digicel since 2008, along with private grant money. Digicel has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. It’s hard to say how, or even if, any of those parts fit together: Digicel was dominating Haiti’s cell phone market and doing development work there long before the Clintons re-engaged with the country in 2009. USAID money started going to Digicel while George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice were running U.S. foreign policy, and most has been paid out since Clinton left the State Department. An indirect speaking fee is hardly proof of a kickback scheme. Still, the relationship is clearly an example of the many ways money and celebrity combine and strengthen each other at the highest levels of power.

But it ignores all history and logic to pin the whole sordid tale of Haiti’s relief and reconstruction disasters on one couple, no matter how powerful they have been. Turning legitimate criticisms about U.S. intervention into a question about one candidate’s personality is a way of avoiding harder questions. The Clintons didn’t create the world we live in; they just know how to navigate it better than most of us do. If we want it to change, we have to change it.  And it seems clear that electing a strongman leader who turns to putschists for advice on the developing world and who has never shied away from making money by working with corrupt regimes isn’t the answer. Changing a system that operates with millions of people and trillions of dollars will take more than shunting all the evils of empire onto one or two personalities—not when we benefit from them so eagerly and almost never change ourselves when it counts. Pretending otherwise is just a way to let ourselves off the hook, too

[wizardmilfs]

personal thing

every time i’m reminded of foreign intervention in haiti i end up mad for like an hour and i have to just sit and be mad til i calm down cause i don’t have anyone to talk to about it

[alwaysbewoke]

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network 2024 Convention, activists and organizers from Black Alliance for Peace and PSL disrupted the event. They denounced Jeffries and Sharpton as Black Misleaders, boldly proclaiming that the duo doesn’t represent the majority of Black/African people and instead provides a Blackface cover to U.S. imperialism. Jeffries received over $700,000 in Israel lobby funding in the last election cycle alone. Last year, Jeffries led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to the CARICOM Heads of Government Conference where NO HAITIANS were in the room as the the invasion and occupation of the country was planned. The collective liberation of Africa and Africans is not guaranteed without the liberation of Palestine, Haiti, or even the Borough of Brooklyn that Jeffries was elected to represent instead of approving more money to IOF-trained NYPD!

[1lovehanni]

Vacation in Vietnam (Hanni of Newjeans)

Hanni x Male Reader Word count: 4440 words Summary: You intended to travel to well-known locations and enjoy delicious cuisine while on a relaxing and enjoyable vacation in Vietnam. However, something better than what you had anticipated occurred.

After a year of a successful debut and comeback, Newjeans finally got their deserved break. Each member planned their Vacation. Minji, Haerin, and Hyein with their family in South Korea, Danielle going back to Australia, and Hanni visiting her birth place in Vietnam. 

"Can't wait to explore and meet tokkis in Vietnam" Hanni talking to herself while waiting in line.

You always want to visit Southeast Asia, some of your friends recommend going to the Philippines or Indonesia, but while researching for countries with great places, food, and people. You've decided to go to Vietnam. At first, you're worried since you will go alone and don't know anybody in Vietnam, but in the end you thought, there will be people to help you in Vietnam. 

Arriving in Hanoi, Vietnam. It's really different from your home country. While waiting for a cab, a woman bumped you accidentally. 

"Oh! Sorry" Hanni apologies 

"No worries, look above when your walking" you said to her

"Thanks haha, I was waiting for my uber, but it seems he won't be able to pick me up" Hanni explained

"Oh, are you from here?, It looks like your Vietnamese" 

"Ah yes, I was born here, hmm are you a traveller?"

"Yeah, this is actually my first time travelling alone"

"Hmm, that's good to hear. Enjoy travelling to Vietnam!"

"Thanks, you too"

A cab pulled, you asked the cab driver for the Haiti hotel. You then sit inside the car. The driver then asked if anyone in the line of waiting passengers if someone would be dropping near the Haiti hotel, one passenger answered. The driver then let the passenger come in.

"Is this a thing here in Vietnam, Sir?"

"Oh, sorry. There's a shortage of Cab at the moment"

"Oh"

"Thanks, for letting me, I am dropping in Haiti hotel too" Hanni exclaimed

You look at her, hearing the same voices that you just talked to in the line just a few moments ago.

"Oh, your Hotel is in Haiti too" 

"Ahhh, you. Yes yes, haha"

"I am Y/N btw, sorry for not mentioning"

"I am Hanni" Hanni said while winking, thinking you would know her.

"Nice name, by chance do you know any tour guide person that knows Vietnam well?"

Hanni's facial expression from wanting to meet a tokki changed when you didn't recognize her.

"Oh, um, You know what, I can be your Your guide, I also wanna your my birthplace again"

"Really?, Don't you have any plan"

"Not really, lol too busy to plan before going here, so I was gonna wing it, but a companion would be great"

"Oh, thank you so much, don't worry I'll pay you too"

"No, no, I'll do it for free, haha"

"No, I insist, I'll pay you"

"Fine, fine"

The cab stopped, arriving at the Haiti hotel, both of you walked to the counter. 

"So, how can I contact you Hanni, do you want to start tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah, tomorrow sounds great. Umm, this is my IG"

"See you tomorrow" you said to her while waving

In your mind, you've not only hired a touring guide, but maybe a friend too. It's really going great, plus you thought she's cute and really friendly towards you.

"Yah, yah see you too!" Hanni waving 

No tokkis but a friend, great start for my Vacation, Hanni thought.

Waking up the next morning was a struggle, it's more hot and humid in Vietnam than your country, but you're excited to tour Vietnam and meet Hanni again.

You walked to the breakfast area of the hotel, wanting to relieve your aching stomach from hunger of yesterday's flight. Getting all kinds of food, half asleep you bumped into a person.

"Ouch" 

Hearing the voice, a sudden adrenaline rush to your body, it was Hanni

"Hanni?"

"Oh Y/N, waking early too for free breakfast huh? haha"

"Oh, yeah"

"You got some good selection of food"

"Well I wanna taste every food from Vietnam"

"Ah, later I'll bring you to my favourite restaurant with great foods"

"Oh really, I can't wait" Smiling and looking in her eyes

Hanni too is smiling while looking in your eyes

This looking in each other eyes turned from seconds to minutes, break by the waiter from the restaurant 

"Greeting in Vietnamese" "You two are a lovely couple, we would like you two to come in our free couple massage later this evening"

"Oh, no no. break by the finger of Hanni, shushing you

"Yeah, we are a couple. We would like that, thanks" said by Hanni

"Alright, here's the coupon. See you two later, Ma'am and Sir. Have a great day."

"Thank you too" - Hanni

"Wait, wait. Huh" looking confused to Hanni

"It's free, you should always take what the hotel offers you for free" 

"Oh, but we are not a couple though"

"Yes, we're not, but it's just a massage"

"Fine, that's what you said so"

"Let's wrap up and explore Vietnam" excitedly said by Hanni

"Yes, let's do it" 

You both go to your rooms, which aren't far from each other, just 3 doors apart. Your heart is beeping, your face smiling, and a tingling in your body as you change your clothes from pyjamas to a casual outfit.

"No way, this girl is making me feel this way. She's so cute, friendly, and ughhh I don't know. I just wanted to explore Vietnam but now, Ugh I don't know" you said to yourself while looking in the mirror

"He's cute" Hanni said in the mirror looking at herself

"He doesn't know me, which is fine but should I tell him?"

"No, no, maybe not yet. Ugh, this Vacation is going really really well"

You exit your door same as Hanni, she waves her hand to alert you that she's good to go.

"Nice outfit, you look cute" she said

"Thank you, you too. I like the bow" 

"Really?"

"Yes"

She holds onto your arms in the elevator, as if you two are a couple. But you didn't even mind that. You're blinded by her cuteness and aroma. You felt like you found the one, even though no label is labelled. You barely know her, yet you want to spend your whole life with her.

"Um Hanni, do"

"We should get a tuk tuk, it's more fun to ride" she said

"Really, yeah its looks fun" 

"What, wait what did you said"

"Nothing, haha"

"Hmm, you're asking if I have a boyfriend right?"

"No, no, no, no. I was asking if you have a family here?"

"My grandparents from my mother is here, and I don't have a boyfriend so your good"

"Oh, okay"

As the day goes by, you forget everything you planned in Vietnam. You only focus on how happy Hanni is, how much fun this cute Vietnamese girl you just met yesterday.

"Yo, that's the restaurant I said earlier"

"Oh, let's go eat"

"Me?" jokingly said by Hanni

Your confused face made her laugh.

"Haha, just joking. Let's go"

"Ah, whatever you said. Haha"

You paid the bill and told her that both of you can now go to your respective rooms, but she reminded you.

"Nah ugh, we got a couple massage later"

"Oh, I forgot, sorry"

"No worries, let's go now. It said until 9 pm"

"Okays"

You two walked to the massage room of the hotel, you asked the worker there where is the free couple massage, she pointed in the right direction, thus you two walked in there. The massage area is only 1 room, both will be side to side, and include each other's massage which confuses you.

"Each other massage, hmm what is this" looking confused to Hanni

"I don't know too" 

"Hi welcome to the free couple massage, in which 3 types of massage will happen, firstly the standard massage in which a Massager will massage your full body, the second one is spiritual massage, in which you two will be inside the hut together to the hot steam, and lastly the each other massage, would happen between you two only, massaging each other will make you two closer" 

"Oh, okay" looking at Hanni

"Yeahh, hmm this is my fault" 

"You know what, let's just get the first type then dipped?" 

"Yeah"

"Can we get the first type only?"

"Sir, you two are a couple, why wouldn't you two try the other types"

"Um, we are" interrupted by Hanni

"We'll take it all, thanks"

"Okay, maam"

"Okay, okay let's just not look at each other"

"Yeah" replied to Hanni

The first type of the massage went well, both of you got massaged by professionals and really a Vietnam massage that's different from your country.

"Oh that's good"

"Yes, my body feels better" said Hanni

The massager then pointed at the hut, they asked first what temperature the steam would you two like, you two choose the medium one. 

Getting in the hut was easy, but hot. The hut is smaller than it seems on the outside, it really is for only two or three people max, the massager said removing the towel would be better so your whole body gets the steam evenly. Minutes go by inside, both of you now looking at each other.

"This is nice, it's hot and steamy"

"Yeah, Even though we're in towels, it's still hot"

"There's only two of us, and with this heat, camera couldn't be place here" Hanni said

"What are you gonna do"

"Hmm, I, I, just don't look at me, okay. I'll try it without a towel" Hanni said

"But"

She tossed her towel to the side, exposing her full body to the hot steam. You didn't look, even though you wanted to. But you hold your stand. After a couple minutes, she covered her body with a towel.

"You should try it"

"Huh, removing my towel?"

"Yeah, it's better"

"Okay, but don't look ah" 

"Ye ye, I won't look"

You remove your towel from your body, exposing your naked body to the hot temperature, you look at Hanni, she fully closed her eyes. It was cute, the sight of her, fully closing her eyes to not see you naked. But in your mind, you want her to see you in this form, fully unclothed. Wanting her to see your erect penis. 

"Your right Hanni, this is better"

"I'll cover now" 

You said but it was before you got your towel below, as you said the last words from your mouth, she fully opened her eyes, looking at you while grabbing your towel below. 

"Oh my god, I thought you were covered already. Oh my god, I am so sorry"

"Oh, I, I, I'll cover now. Sorry"

Your mind was in bliss, thinking she could have seen your junior. While in her mind it was different, complete emptiness is in her kind, she doesn't know what to react on what she saw, but then a blood from the heart flow to her brain, it told her "That was big, I wanna touch it" 

"No, no, no Hanni, what you saw isn't real, Oh my god, is that how a cock is?, god damn, I thought those are not real, I thought they are just edited or enlarge cocks, but here it is, in front of me, A real big one, the one that is big, No, no Hanni, if he would know who am I, I am doomed, but he doesn't know, Iah fuck it, this is the only chance I get to touching a real thing, experiencing the big one." Hanni talking to herself in her mind

"Um, Y/N, do you have a girlfriend?"

"That's a weird question, I do not have one"

"Did you have, before?"

"No, no I don't"

"So, I could be your girlfriend now?"

"Huh?"

"You know, I don't know how to approach men but, this is the only chance I can get"

"What do you mean?"

"Can I be your girlfriend?"

"Wait, what's happening to you Hanni"

"This is Hanni still, and I am asking you to be my boyfriend so I can"

"So you can do what?"

"So, so, so I can suck your cock"

"What?" 

"Yes, I've seen it, and you're hard for me? right, I am the only one here, don't tell your gay"

"No, I am not gay, I don't know, this is so fast, we've only met ea6other for a day"

"Yes, it is but I want your cock now, I can't erased it in my head, it feels like it's tattooed there, cannot be remove"

You haven't said yes, but to her, you're her boyfriend now. She then crawls towards you, like a cat hungry for days, but in this case a girl hungry for cock. She removed her towel, exposing her cute breast to you.

"You like that?, would it make your cock bigger"

"Um, Hanni, what's happening to you, why are you like this"

You haven't done anything, not that you intentionally did what happened earlier, it was a miscommunication but your still happy that this girl your with is not shy to see her true self to you. It feels like her mind breaks already, just seeing your big penis. 

"Hanni, we're about to be done here in the hut, we should do it later in the room"

She snapped back to reality when you said it would be over inside the hut.

"Ah, is it?, is that a promise, I can touch it later?, It's mine right?"

"Yes, Hanni it's yours only but can you be your other self for now, please I don't want anybody to see you like this"

"Okay, Y/N you haven't answered my question yet"

"What question?"

"Ugh, you're so clueless, it's so cute. I'll ask you later"

Confused look at Hanni, as if you don't know what she meant, but slowly things are coming to your head, it makes sense now, how clingy she was before, how friendly she is to you. She likes you from the start when you two see each other, it's like a gift to her that she found you at the airport.

The last type of massage was shortly cancelled due to a leak in the steam in the room, so they gave you two additional 2 free massages just the normal ones for compensation.

You look at her, thinking she would be mad cause it was postponed but she's happy, for her it was a miracle. No timer for touching each other, and no hot steam that makes you two sweat. She wanted raw, raw hotness from your body touching each other, not a machine making the hot steam, but your lust and love for each other.

You two changed back to your casual outfit, she held your arms much tighter, making sure yours are her. 

"Y/N, I can't wait to see it again"

"Shh, we're still here, people might hear"

"Oh my god, why can't a couple talked about couple things, shh shh, your really is clueless and I really like it"

"Alright, alright, to answer your question, yes you can be my girlfriend but"

"No but, but"

She hugs you, you hug her back tightly. This day is full of wonderful things happening, not only did you travel Vietnam, eat good and lots of food, but you end up with a girlfriend from the country you're visiting.

Walking in the corridor, going to your rooms, she asked, what room you two would want. You replied, hers. She replied, aight bet. 

"Welcome to my room, which looks like yours too, haha. Sorry it's kinda messy, I haven't cleaned. I've slept yesterday"

"Haha, funny were the same, that's why I picked yours cause mine is worst"

"Haha, let's do it now"

"Now?, you don't want to shower first?"

"In the shower?"

"Yes, shower first"

"Okay, let's go"

She striped naked in front of you, as if you two are in a long relationship. She removed each of her cloth naughty and while looking in your eyes. An adrenaline goes to your penis, while looking at her, it makes it hard, creating a bulge in your pants, you adjust to make her see it. 

"Wow, you want to huh"

"No, you want it more"

"Haha, I'll suck you dry"

"Oh really, I'll do it to you too"

Fully naked, she walked towards you, she grabbed her hands and guided it to her cute breast, she chuckled from your touch and it made her seize like your touch electrified her. 

"Please be gentle, this is my first"

"It's my first too Hanni"

"So we're beginner's haha"

"Really beginner's, I don't have a condom on me, so we're lock on toucher each other "

"Huh? locked? wdym locked, fuck me raw, creampie me full, I don't even care anymore, I just want you, your cock in me, please"

"Alright, alright, chill I just don't want things to escalate too quickly"

"Don't bother, I am on pills anyway, I am actually an, no I just have a work that needs us to be on pills"

"Oh, that's neat. I'll make your wish come true then"

After your last word, she grabbed your pants, removing it to expose your big erect penis to her. She was excited, happy, and the smile on her face was apparent.

"Oh my god, yes please I want this cock on me now"

"Wait, open the shower first, I don't want you to smell my smelly penis"

"I don't care, I'll sniff it more"

"Your disgusting, and it's so hot"

"Haha, you're right. That's kinda far now, feel like we're roleplaying or something, let's just fuck you know"

"Yeah, haha, can I see your pussy?"

"Yeah, sorry I haven't shaved yet, didn't expect this to happen in my vacation, and I wasn't expecting to go beaching too"

"It's perfectly fine, it's better anyway hygiene"

You touch her first, making her angry.

"Hey, you touch my pussy first? really"

"Huh, I, sorry, alright, alright you're the pilot"

"Nah its fine but I want to suck your dick first"

"Okay, I'll clean it now"

After you washed your cock, she grabbed it without mentioning it.

"Aw, it hurts, just be gentle"

"Sorry, I'll suck it gently, I promise"

She handjobs you first while having a staring contest at hers, she wanted to see if it would hurt when she went fast, but it did5, it just makes you feel a thing.

"Slow down a bit, I'll gonna cum so fast from that"

"Alright, I'll suck it now"

"Okay"

She kissed your penis first, then slowly put it to her cute mouth. At first it was difficult, her mouth was too small for your penis to enter but slowly she adjusted to your size, you also helped her in making sure everything was going great, and gently.

"Ugh, argh, ugh, gulp"

She was sucking but because neither of you have this experience, it was going slow.

"Um, Hanni, I think your sucking isn't great"

She removed her mouth form you dick to speak 

"Is it?"

"You should gag more, put it more inside of your mouth, like this(showing a picture from the net).

She slapped your phone.

"Are you saying I am not good?"

"Well, no, but maybe, sorry I just want you to experience this fully"

"Okay, I get you, I'll do what in the picture is"

She adjusted more, allowing your length to enter her mouth, your big cock now is full of saliva, and she is gagging from every downshift she does. The scene is magical, a cute girl you just met yesterday is now gagging from your cock. 

"Yes, just like that Hanni, your doing it better now"

"Gag, really" happy Hanni while her mouth is full

You are now reaching your point, you tapped her shoulders to alert her, she winked and shook her head approving your hot cum to shoot in her mouth, not a second after that you shot your cum to her mouth walls, painting it white, marking her as yours.

"Yes, ugh, ugh just like that Hanni, your amazing" 

She swallowed all your cum, and made a smile looking at your tired body.

"Hey, we haven't started the fucking yet, but your tired already, let's shower then go to my bed"

"Okay"

You two showered like a married couple, soaping each other, rubbing each other, making sure every part is clean cause tonight would be the best meal you will be eating. She pissed accidentally while you were soaping her pussy part.

"Oh, sorry I pissed"

"Damn, that's hot, like your pee is not, well actually it is hot to get pissed, the smell though"

"Hmm so you like getting pissed by"

After one last water, you take a towel to give it to her but she grabs you making your bodies touch each other and then rubs the towel to dry you off. After that, she held your hand, and followed her steps to her room. She closed her binds, turned the lights to comfy, and made the bed more presentable.

"It's your turn now" she said

"Okay"

She jumps to the bed, exposing her body to you, you crawl slowly making her excited, she's like the queen bee getting her worker to give what she wants. You first got close to her face.

"You know, we haven't kissed yet"

"Oh god, your right, let's do it"

You get close to her, attempting a normal kiss, but she doesn't do that, she wants to taste you. Exchanging saliva while kissing and sucking her mouth, she also does it. After a solid 5 minutes of sucking each other though. She breaks it.

"Your such a good kisser"

"You too"

Laughing at each other, but while laughing your hands in like a snake, wanting to bite its prey, but in this case the prey is her pussy. She reacted from your touch, making a cute sound of ouch. She nodded to show that she's ready, ready to get plates on, to get divine on, to be feast on. So you slowly head to her pussy, the aroma and smell that you thought would be different, but a love smell is what you experienced. Her grown hair is so cute, it looks better with it. You've already touched it and feel the slimy gooey leaking from it, this is it she's wet not from the shower, but from your touch, you wanted it, you want her soup, you want to lick the tip, the hole, the glory of womanhood. So you work on it, shoving your mouth to her pussy, first in her clitoris, from your research the best way is a star way, from left to the top then to the left, next to the bottom then go back to the left.

"Ugh, hmmm, yes Y/N, eat me like that, savour from me, do you like that baby, yes ughhh"

The noise from her only fuels your lust, so you change your area now to her vagina, it's tight, and you can feel a blockway for her hole, it is said as her hymen, and the one who breaks it is the one who is first. You now changed the tactic from star shape to, licking like it's a nutella jar. Each lick, each suck made her high, as if she could fly in the sky.

"Oh my godddd, why are you good at this, it is ahhhh, true that, ughhh you didn't have, ahhhhh yess right there babe, yes lick that and suck that ughhh, girlfriend before?, oh my god I am cumming, keep is up"

She releases her cum to you, making you suck her more, tasting her love juices which are sweet.

Both of you are satisfied with each other, but it's not done yet. You tossed your body next to her, she hugged you.

"Thank you for this wonderful experience Y/N, this isn't in my vacation plan but thank god it happened" 

"You too, Hanni, I didn't know this would happened, this vacation is really something else, I just wanna spend my day and night with you"

"Please, we should do this everyday now until we both go back"

"I promise Hanni, we will do it every night"

"Thank you Y/N, I fucking love you, sorry for my language, can we fuck now"

"No worries, I don't mind it. We can if you want"

After your last words, she gets up, recharges like a fast charge phone. She towers you in the bed, putting her body to yours in a riding position.

"Is this a good position, search it up"

"Yes, I want to see you, and I want to kiss you while we're fucking"

"That's sounds hot, I'll put it in now, please be gentle with me"

"I promise Hanni, I'll be gentle"

This wasn't the case, from the very first move, Hanni was rough, immediately breaking her hymen and screaming like she got stabbed in a good way.

"Oh my godd, yesss fuck me like that"

"Wait, Hanni your too rough"

"I can't help it, break me Y/N, make me your cumdumped, fuck me both holes"

She's mind breaking already, just from one insert of your cock to her, she would obey what you do, and everything she says is what you're doing. 

"Ugh, ugh, their hit me their, yes"

"God damn Hanni, I wanna fuck you to the brim so hard"

"Please Y/N, please make it happen"

The fucking if fucking, same position but both of you now is working towards the same goal, breaking each other to the top. Making a mess, like a tornado has come by. Every trust you gave, she gave back, every move you make, she moves back, the gentleness from both of you isn't showing, then a couple more moves both of you are now reaching your point.

"Y/N, I am gonna cum"

"Hanni, me too"

"Let's do it together"

"Alright"

"Ughhhh yes Y/N, fill me fill me fill me"

"Hanni your squeezing me so hard, ughhh Yes"

Cumming to each other was a great pleasure, but after it you both slammed to the bed, she was on top of you.

"This is amazing Hanni, I can't wait to do it again and again and again"

"Again and again, yess I love you so much"

"I love you too"

The night ends with both of you exchanging love notes, kissing each other's forehead but you're not done yet.

"Hanni, I have a question"

"Yes babe, what it is"

"Are you the Hanni from Newjeans?"

The end.

A/N: Wrote this while Wifi was gone so bare the wrong grammars lol, btw check my other story staring Hanni too in AFF link in my bio, would also post this story there, thanks! A/N: If my Wifi stops again, I might write another, who knows maybe I'll continue this story.

[counterintuitivecomics]

Thought I'd share the Palestinian colors version of my MASK UP! poster 🍉😷🇵🇸 Thank you so much to everyone who shared and downloaded the FREE MASK UP! poster pack!

Hypothetically, you can print this on a risograph by download the design in separate color files and using red, black, and green, and it'll look basically like this mock-up. Let me know if you actually print it in any way, I'd love to hear more C:

We CAN take care of each other, and a better world is possible. If you're feeling alone and helpless, masking up with N95s/KN95s when around others, indoors AND outdoors, is a great place to start. Masking helps protect us from deadly pathogens (like viruses and smoke) PLUS it stymies police surveillance and makes events more accessible to disabled people. All our struggles against fascism and genocide are united, and Palestine will be free!

[ID: "MASK UP!" above 3 figures in different respirator masks, drawn from the waist-up and moving forward shoulder-to-shoulder, all in the colors of Palestine’s flag (red, black, white, and green). Top figure: An Arabic person in a fluttering white kufiyah over a black hijab and dress, plus a white Aura 9210+ N95 disposable mask. L: A fat teenager with monolid eyes, in a black hoodie with a genderqueer symbol, and a black disposable Laianzhi HYX1002 KN100 mask. They’re holding a box labeled FREE that’s full of COVID-19 Rapid Tests and plastic-wrapped N95s. R: middle-aged Black person in a power chair, wearing a Flo Mask eslastomeric respirator with a customized rainbow cover, a winter hat with a Disability symbol pin over mid-length dreads, and shirt featuring 6 flags. (R to L) Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Tigray, Ethiopia. Underneath reads: "RESPIRATOR MASKS PROTECT: your health, your identity, and your community. Find resources near you at COVIDActionMap.org." End ID.]

[angelsknifeprty]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ a night to remember

summary: while infiltrating the mayor’s party, arthur’s surrounded by the boring buzz of all the high society bigwigs who came to show off their wealth. while snooping around for information on a potential score, the two of you seem to grab each other’s attention.

word count: 2684

a/n: eat the rich.

ways to help palestine | operation olive branch | keep eyes on sudan | haiti’s history | learn about congo

‧₊˚౨ৎ

arthur wasn’t exactly in his element, surrounded by all the high society lowlifes that had attended this flashy party of the mayor’s. sure, he liked robbing them, but actually mingling with them? not a way he’d prefer to spend his evening. but dutch had insisted, going on about wanting to make “real contacts”. so here he was cooped up in a carriage with dutch, hosea and bill. he had loosened up a little on the ride there, the complimentary bottle of champagne definitely helped with that. after they arrive and converse with that… eccentric signor bronte, dutch sends him off to go and mingle with the party-goers and to talk to the mayor if he can. he was certain they’d find some information here, the steady flow of alcohol with plenty to go around hopefully loosening the lips of these rich socialites.

meanwhile, you are sitting at your now abandoned table, fan in hand, your family who you had come with now lost in the crowd to engage in undoubtedly dull conversation. truly, you didn’t enjoy gatherings like this or the people your family chose to associate with. they were all scum, to put it lightly, in constant competition among themselves to see who could flaunt the most wealth. they bored you, so you chose to keep mostly to yourself during these events. you sighed, the stuffiness of your corset now painfully noticeable as there wasn’t much to keep you occupied as you scanned the crowd of people all chatting away.

that was until you spotted him, floating around between different groups of people. it was often the same people you saw at parties like this, only the rich being invited of course and none of these people were ones to share their wealth. but he was an unfamiliar face, dressed up to the nines though there was a ruggedness about him that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. thankful to finally have something interesting, and rather pleasant you had to admit, to look at, you let your gaze linger on him as he rubbed shoulders with some of the people littered around the garden.

he seemed different to everyone else, a charm to him as you watched him pour champagne into the glasses of some fancy-looking women. he even stopped a guy from choking on a nut, which was truly a sight to behold. thankfully for him, not many people noticed, but you did have to cover the lower half of your face with your fan as you stifled your giggles to not draw attention to yourself.

as arthur continued to socialise, he spotted the mayor in a small huddle of people by the fountain. finally, he could start getting this night to come closer to an end. as he approached he decided to scan the area just to be safe when his eyes landed on you. all dolled up just as everyone else had been that he’d seen, though none caught his eye quite like you did. you were pretty, so much so that it made him falter for a moment in what was his confident stride towards the mayor and his companions. what really got him was that you were already looking at him, though not for much longer as you looked away almost immediately, wide-eyed and a little flustered that you’d been caught staring.

he had to snap himself back into reality, he had a job to do. so after letting his eyes linger on you for just a second more, he reluctantly turned his attention towards the mayor, smoothly inserting himself into the small cluster. you silently cursed to yourself, cheeks hot after he had locked eyes with you. you must’ve looked like such an outcast, sat alone and practically sulking, and now you looked like a bit of a creep, staring him down so rudely. though you couldn’t help but look back up again once you heard the angry protests of that lowlife ferdinand as he forcefully escorted him out.

you eventually decided to busy yourself and actually talk to some people, settling on a group of women you had chatted with at some other party your family had dragged you along to. it ended up not doing much to alleviate your boredom, their choice of conversation topics not ones that intrigued you greatly. but it would do for now, time passing just a tad bit faster now you aren’t sitting by yourself.

the conversation was loudly interrupted by a sudden explosion in the sky, fireworks starting to set off as they crackled into sparkly bursts, giving the dark night sky the splash of colour it was so void of. this being the most interesting thing you’d seen all night, you excused yourself from the group before weaving your way through the crowd to get a better look. as you did, arthur had caught onto part of a very interesting conversation one of the servants had struck up, something about that damned leviticus cornwall. so he decided to tail a good distance behind him, only the path he took led straight into you.

a surprised huff left your lips as his tall frame accidentally bumped into you, your footing becoming a little unstable from the impact. but in a heartbeat a pair of large hands settled on your arms, steadying you. “woah, sorry ‘bout that, sweetheart,” he apologises, hands remaining on your arms until he knew you were stable (and maybe just a tad bit longer). your words fail you at first from the surprise of the collision, as well as the fact that the man you’d been shamelessly staring at was now holding you upright. “oh! it’s alright,” you finally manage to say, virtually gawking at him like a fool. he removed his hands from you once he was sure you were steady on your feet, the loss of contact upsettingly noticeable to you. but now he was in front of you, perhaps this was an opportunity to actually talk to him as opposed to silently eyeing him down from your table. but just as you were about to ask for his name his attention seemed to be elsewhere and he quickly excused himself. “sorry, i uh- got somewhere to be. but i’ll see ya around, yeah?” he said in that gravelly voice of his. he began moving away from you, taking a few steps back with his eyes still fixated on you before turning and continuing in the direction he was going. in your experience, “see you around” was just a polite parting message and nothing more. nobody ever meant to follow up with it, but the way he said it sounded hopeful, and it made your heart beat just a little bit faster. but his urgency to leave also caught your interest, and you’d proven yourself to be quite nosy tonight so after a few moments of contemplation, you decided to follow after him.

you were worried you had lost him as you weaved through the crowd, losing sight of him completely amongst all the people. but after your eyes darted around the place you spotted him turning the corner and heading towards the steps. though he seemed a lot less urgent in his movements, almost like he was waiting for something. how strange… but all it did was pique your interest more. you waited until he had continued walking to follow behind him, trying to look inconspicuous to the other party-goers as you did. you watched as he snuck into the house, that much now obvious to you as you eyed his cautious movements. it was like a game of cat and mouse as he slinked through the large house, moving to fill his previous hiding spots as you tried not to get caught yourself. you were always one step behind him, heart thrumming in your chest as you followed after him.

this was completely out of character for you, always on your best behaviour, more so to please your parents than yourself. but here you were sneaking through the mayor’s house no less, all for some man you had barely spoken to. you were struggling to pin your actions down to pure boredom, perhaps a yearning for something actually exciting in your life. you eventually found him in what looked to be a study, rooting through the drawer under the mahogany desk inside. you tilted your head in curiosity as you spied from behind the wall, watching as he slipped a piece of paper into his jacket. his illicit behaviour truly didn’t bother you, people like the mayor had enough wealth and resources that you could steal from them and they probably wouldn’t even notice. though it did become a problem, at least for him, when you locked eyes once again through the gap in the door. only this time you had caught him stealing.

you probably should have moved and acted like you saw nothing but you felt frozen in place, how exactly were you supposed to explain yourself? you felt glued to the floor as he hastily approached you, an unreadable expression on his face. “come with me,” is all he mutters as he walks past you, expecting you to follow. unsure of what else to do, you comply and follow him down the stairs, your stomach swarming with anxiety. what if you had completely misread this man? you did just catch him stealing after all. when you reach the bottom of the steps he pulls you behind one of the pillars in the room that lead out to the balcony, surprisingly gentle with you. “ya seem like a smart girl so i’m not gonna bullshit my way outta this, but how about we just keep what you saw between us, alright? trust me, it’s not worth-”

“i wasn’t gonna tell anybody,” you quickly chime in, though you hated the way your voice wavered a little as you spoke. he was rather intimidating, his tall build towering over you as he caged you in against the cool material of the pillar. “truly, steal as much as you want from these lowlifes. they have far too much to even know what to do with it,” you admitted truthfully, genuine disgust lacing your tone. he seemed a little taken aback by your words, not expecting it to come from someone that looked like you at an event like this. he seemed to relax at your words which was a relief, the sinking feeling in your stomach dissipating. “your secret’s safe with me,” you add, your voice hushed. you offer him a genuine smile, finally being able to take him in now that he isn’t rushing after someone. he was handsome, a stubble beard on his chin with a scar dotted in the centre of it. a strand of his light brown hair fell across his forehead, escaping the rest that had been neatly tucked away behind his ear. it was hard to make out in this low lighting but you could’ve sworn you saw a ring of green within those blue eyes of his.

“well look at’chu, a deviant in disguise i suppose,” he says, his words far more lighthearted than you were expecting. though it was ironic as he was in fact a deviant in disguise. “i’m just not brainwashed like the rest of these folks,” you state matter of factly. he laughs softly, nodding in agreement. “that i can see.” as you shared hushed whispers he tried desperately not to let himself admire you. he was always hesitant when it came to feelings like this, his luck in the past not being all that great. but he’d be a fool to try and deny the obvious fact that you were breathtaking, not to mention a fellow hater of the rich despite your background. he hesitates for a second before speaking, “y’know, i never caught your name-” 

“there you are!” a voice interrupts the hushed nature of your conversation, an unfamiliar man stepping into view. arthur immediately backs away from you, looking almost embarrassed as the man approaches the two of you. the unnamed man turns to you, charmingly tipping his top hat at you as he greets you with a courteous, “ma’am.” you politely bow your head towards him, a sheepish smile on your face. “my apologies but i’m gonna have to steal him away,” he says before gesturing for arthur to follow him out to the balcony. and that is what he does, sending you an apologetic smile as he follows closely behind.

once he was gone you let out a much-needed exhale, your heart still pounding in your chest. you were unsure of what just happened, not understanding your desperate need to pursue this man as he slinked around the party. you moved from behind the pillar, looking through the glass doors to the balcony and settled your eyes on the mystery man once more as he spoke with whoever his companion was. you noticed as his eyes drifted back over to you, that same unreadable expression on his face. they didn’t linger for too long as his attention was snatched away again by his friend, clearly not pleased by his lack of interest. you decided not to venture back outside, taking a moment to wander into the foyer to take a breather. the air somehow felt far less stuffy in here than out there with all of your wealthy cohorts.

“find anything?” dutch asks as he leans on the balustrade of the balcony, “aside from a pretty woman to steal your attention of course.” arthur is lost for words for a moment, settling on a simple scoff and dismissive wave of his hand. “i think so, went rootin’ around and found something.” he decided to leave out the part where you had caught him in the act of stealing it. hosea and bill regroup with them both, defeated as they had come back empty-handed. but upon learning that arthur had found something, their spirits lifted a little. “gentlemen, i think we’re done here.”

you were slightly slumped against the wall, still in the foyer as you desperately waited for this party to be over. your head snaps up as you hear approaching footsteps, a group of men passing by seemingly without noticing you. you recognised two of them, the one in the top hat and him. they seemed to be leaving, heading back towards the entrance they came through. you didn’t know what overcame you but you decided to rush after them once they made it through the door. he had ended up trailing just a little bit behind the rest, his mind going back to you as they headed away from the house.

“wait!” you call out, catching his and the other men’s attention. arthur turns around to face you as you hurriedly walk over to him, your skirt delicately bunched up in your hands so you wouldn’t dirty the hem. “make this quick,” dutch says before ushering the other men towards the carriage that awaited them. arthur was surprised to say the least, not expecting to see you again after earlier. you were a little out of breath from trying to catch up with them, your words soft yet pressing as you hurriedly spoke. “um... you said earlier that you’d see me around. did you… did you mean it?” he looked dumbfounded, you were actually hoping to see him again? “i mean… i’d like to,” he replies, finally letting himself admit defeat against his better judgement. “i never got your name,” you remember. how spontaneous of you to be chasing after a man you didn’t even know the name of. 

“arthur, arthur morgan.” you repeat his name back to yourself, committing it to memory. you were hopeful that this wouldn’t be the last time the two of you met, something about him captivating you from the start. “well arthur, i hope to see you again soon.” his name sounded almost unbearably sweet falling from your lips, and though he thought himself an idiot for it, he knew he’d do anything to hear it again.

a/n: aaaa arthur + southern belle is my fave thing ever ૮꒰ྀི >⸝⸝⸝<꒱ྀིა i hope you enjoyed !! mwah xoxo

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Claire Wang at The Guardian:

Those who failed to produce papers were arrested. More than 400 people were detained and forced on a train back to Mexico, a place many had never been.

It’s a scene many fear will come to pass in president-elect Donald Trump’s second term, especially after he doubled down on a campaign promise to “launch the largest deportation operation” in US history, and confirmed he would use the military to execute hardline immigration policies. But this particular episode happened in 1931, as part of an earlier era of mass deportations that scholars say is reminiscent of what is unfolding today. The La Placita sweep became the first public immigration raid in Los Angeles, and one of the largest in a wave of “repatriation drives” that rolled across the country during the Great Depression. Mexican farm workers, indiscriminately deemed “illegal aliens”, became scapegoats for job shortages and shrinking public benefits. President Herbert Hoover’s provocative slogan, “American jobs for real Americans”, kicked off a spate of local legislation banning employment of anyone of Mexican descent. Police descended on workplaces, parks, hospitals and social clubs, arresting and dumping people across the border in trains and buses.

Nearly 2 million Mexican Americans, more than half US citizens, were deported without due process. Families were torn apart, and many children never again saw their deported parents. Hoover’s Mexican repatriation program is, among mass deportation efforts in the past, most similar to Trump’s stated plans, said Kevin R Johnson, a professor of public interest law and Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. [...] Since his first presidential run, Trump has invoked President Dwight D Eisenhower’s mass deportation program as a blueprint for his own agenda. During the second world war, the US and Mexican government enacted the Bracero program that allowed Mexican farm hands to temporarily work in the US. But many growers continued to hire undocumented immigrants because it was cheaper. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration cracked down on undocumented labor by launching “Operation Wetback”, a yearlong series of raids named after a racial epithet for people who illegally crossed the Rio Grande. [...] The politics of deportation have always contained an important “racial dimension”, said Mae Ngai, a historian whose book Impossible Subjects explores how illegal migration became the central issue in US immigration policy.

Trump has deployed racist tropes against various ethnic groups, including Mexicans as drug-dealing “rapists” and Haitians as pet eaters, while lamenting a lack of transplants from “nice”, white-majority countries like Denmark and Switzerland. Last month, sources close to the president told NBC News that he could prioritize deporting undocumented Chinese nationals. “He’s been very clear about going after people of color, people from ‘shithole countries,’” she said, referring to a 2018 remark from Trump about crisis-stricken nations like El Salvador and Haiti. Trump could plausibly deport a million people using military-style raids of the Eisenhower-era, Ngai said, but it is unlikely that he can expel 11 million undocumented immigrants. (According to an estimate by the American Immigration Council, deporting 1 million people a year would cost more than $960bn over a decade.) Still, Ngai said, his rhetoric alone could foment fear and panic in immigrant communities. But Eisenhower’s immigration approach also differed from Trump’s in notable ways, Ngai said. Though the administration did launch flashy raids, it also allowed farm owners to rehire some deportees through the Bracero program, essentially creating a pathway for authorized entry into the US. So far, Ngai said, Trump has hammered down on deportations without providing an option for legal immigration or naturalization. “He doesn’t know the whole story of ‘Operation Wetback’,” she said. Deportations also appear to have harmed the local economy.

Donald Trump’s mass deportation proposal hasn’t been the first time the US conducted mass deportations of Mexican-Americans, as it happened during the Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidencies. The deportations were ruinous to economies and were a human rights disaster, and Trump’s plan repeats that but turbocharges it.

[mariacallous]

At first, she didn’t think much about the Nicaraguan asylum-seekers who began moving into town a few years ago. Rosa was an immigrant too, one of the many undocumented Mexican immigrants who’d settled nearly 30 years ago in Whitewater, a small university town in southeast Wisconsin.

Some of the Nicaraguans had found housing in Rosa’s neighborhood, a trailer park at the edge of town. They sent their children to the same public schools. And they got jobs in the same factories and food-processing facilities that employed many of Rosa’s friends and relatives.

Then Rosa realized that many of the newcomers with ongoing asylum cases could apply for work permits and driver’s licenses — state and federal privileges that are unavailable to undocumented immigrants. Rosa’s feelings of indifference turned to frustration and resentment.

“It’s not fair,” said Rosa, who works as a janitor. “Those of us who have been here for years get nothing.”

Her anger is largely directed at President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party for failing to produce meaningful reforms to the immigration system that could benefit people like her. In our reporting on the new effects of immigration, ProPublica interviewed dozens of long-established Latino immigrants and their U.S.-born relatives in cities like Denver and Chicago and in small towns along the Texas border. Over and over, they spoke of feeling resentment as they watched the government ease the transition of large numbers of asylum-seekers into the U.S. by giving them access to work permits and IDs, and in some cities spending millions of dollars to provide them with food and shelter.

...

Among those residents is one of Rosa’s friends and neighbors who asked to be identified by one of her surnames, Valadez, because she is undocumented and fears deportation. A single mother who cleans houses and buildings for a living, Valadez makes extra money on the side by driving immigrants who don’t have cars to and from work and to run errands. It’s a risky side hustle, though, because she’s frequently been pulled over and ticketed by police for driving without a license, costing her thousands of dollars in fines.

One day two summers ago, one of her sons found a small purse at a carnival in town. Inside they found a Wisconsin driver’s license, a work permit issued to a Nicaraguan woman and $300 in cash. Seeing the contents filled Valadez with bitterness. She asked her son to turn in the purse to the police but kept the $300. “I have been here for 21 years,” she said. “I have five children who are U.S. citizens. And I can’t get a work permit or a driver’s license.”

When she told that story to Rosa one afternoon this spring, her friend nodded emphatically in approval. Rosa, like Valadez, couldn’t vote. But two of Rosa’s U.S.-born children could, and they cast ballots for Trump. One of Rosa’s sons even drives a car with a bumper sticker that says “Let’s Go Brandon” — a popular anti-Biden slogan.

Rosa said she is glad her children voted for Trump. She’s not too worried about deportation, although she asked to be identified solely by her first name to reduce the risk. She believes Trump wants to deport criminals, not people like her who crossed the border undetected in the 1990s but haven’t gotten in trouble with the law. “They know who has been behaving well and who hasn’t been,” she said.

...

Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist, said it’s wishful thinking to believe Trump will give any special treatment to undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in the U.S. for a long time. But he’s heard that sentiment among Latino voters in focus groups.

“They believe that they are playing by the rules and that they will be rewarded for it,” Madrid said. “Republicans have never been serious about legal migration, let alone illegal migration. They’re allowing themselves to believe that for no good reason.”

...

Some of the Haitian migrants were eventually deported; others were allowed into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims and given notices to appear in court in a backlogged immigration system that can take years to resolve a case. “That to me is offensive for those who have been living here for more than 10 years and haven’t been able to adjust their status,” Garza Castillo said.

He hopes Trump seizes on the opportunity to expand support from Latino voters by creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who’ve been here for years. “If he does that,” he said, “I think the Republican Party will be strong here for a long time.”

Immigrants’ Resentment Over New Arrivals Helped Boost Trump’s Popularity With Latino Voters

[she-is-ovarit]

Female liberation, now.

On 21 August 2024, the de facto authorities announced the ratification of a detailed “Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” which imposes extensive restrictions on the Afghan population. This law significantly deepens the already severe curtailment of the rights of Afghan women and girls, including requirements for women to cover their entire bodies and faces, and it forbids women’s voices in public. Women are also prohibited from interacting with non-Muslims, using public transport alone, and looking at men to whom they are not related by blood or marriage.

"With what I've been through, I'd rather have died," said one mother of seven who was living in a Port-au-Prince shelter and was sexually assaulted while sleeping in a public square, according to the agency.

Crimes including stalking, harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence affect one in 12 women in England and Wales, with the number of recorded offences growing by 37% in the past five years and the perpetrators getting younger.

[quintessencewrites]

Vanish

ShuRiri x Wakandan!fem!reader

“Nisale kakuhle zinkosi zenu (Goodbye, your majesties.)” You bow and exit, leaving the Queens in their despair. 

Warnings: ANGST, explicit language, toxic!Riri, slightly toxic!Shuri...you might cry

Word Count: 2.5k+

Tags: @yvxmpire @zestgodtj @k3nn3dyxo @mlmilani @letitias-fav @doms-fav @sweetalittleselfish-honey @g4yforu @remwritess @widowmakker @becauseimswagman1 @zayswriting @inmyheadimobsessed @laurensmabel1 @malltake12

A/N: Another idea by @k3nn3dyxo, loosely based on the song Vanish by GIVEON. There's so much damn angst in this one, it kind of broke my heart to write. As always though, enjoy <3 Translations are in the text, there are full on sentences in xhosa in this one. Also, just because I never said it before, every character I write for is a black woman. I love us <3 , okay that's all lol

It had been weeks. That wasn’t an over-exaggeration. The x’s tallied across your calendar were proof. 

Weeks. Three weeks since you and your loves last had a meal together. 

Shuri and Riri lay in bed as you dressed, the smaller girl of the two still soundly sleeping, tucked under the other’s arm. Her highness smiled a beautiful smile at you, one filled with pride and all the adoration in the world. “Have a wonderful day, sthandwa (my love). Go do amazing things.” 

A beautiful grin of your own spread through your cheeks as you bent down to kiss the woman you loved. “Thank you. I will see you two for dinner?”

“Kunjalo, sana (Of course, baby). I can not wait to hear all about your day.”

And off you went, thrill racing through your veins as you left the palace in trek of the school you helped Nakia establish in your home country, one which mirrored her own brilliant institution in Haiti. 

Returning home many hours later, exhaustion adorning your features, you were welcomed by loneliness. The room shared between you and the adjacent queens was empty, as were the kitchen and living quarters. 

“Griot,” your voice echoed the large walls, calling out to the AI that had made its way out of Shuri’s lab and into your living space. 

“Yes, My Queen?”

“Where are my wives?” the question lingered from your lips. 

“Queen Shuri and Queen Riri are currently in the lab. Would you like me to page them for you?”

The heart encapsulated in your chest swelled, knowing that both girls have had a hard time returning to their work since Queen Mother’s death. You couldn’t bring yourself to pull them away from that. 

“No, Griot. Thank you anyways.”

That night, you climbed into bed alone, body no longer able to fight the sleep that draped upon it. 

When you awoke the next morning, your queens were snoring next to you. They’d crawled in at some point in the night and the sandman whisked them to dreamland; neither girl stirred when you left the bed to prepare for another day at the school. 

The abnormality of abandonment that marked the previous day for you and your family soon became routine. One night turned into two and two into 21. Twenty one days since you’d gathered around the table to enjoy a meal with your loves. 

Two weeks since they’d stopped making excuses. 

“I’m so sorry, baby. Work has been fucking crazy, man. I got caught up. Can I make it up to you?” Riri hadn’t even had the decency to leave the lab for the moment it would’ve taken her to stand you up in person. Shuri was in America, sovereign duties unable to go ignored any longer. 

Even without her partner in crime, Riri still found ways to make her lab work more important than her time with you. 

“You can’t take a moment? Let’s have lunch, my love.” You were begging, a pathetic sight had Ri been able to pull her eyes from her project long enough to peer at you through the hologram provided via the beads. 

“Nah, ma. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Shuri was no better. 

“My Queen, where are you? The children are waiting, anticipating the Black Panther’s arrival.”

“Shit, usana (baby), that was today? Can we reschedule?”

“Can we re - No, Shuri! No, we can’t reschedule. These iingqondo ezincinci (little minds) have been waiting hours, missing lessons, to see their beloved protector. You promised.”

“I’m kind of caught up right now, y/n. Riri and I are about to do a test flight; the Iron Heart suit has to be able to reach speeds greater than Mach 5. We think we’ve got it.”

“Shuri plea-“

“Later, sthandwa (my love). I’ll make it up to you.”

And with that, her beads disconnected, erasing her face full of distracted features and leaving you with an auditorium packed with disappointed young ones. 

14 days ago, they stopped making excuses and empty promises, simply starting to just not showing up, not explaining. 

One week, exactly, since they forgot your birthday. 

It had been a hard year, you were well aware of that, but this day was one that never went by unnoticed by your queens. They spoiled you regularly, but on this day in particular, there was nothing that you couldn’t dream up that they wouldn’t move mountains to get you. 

You begrudgingly spent most of that special day alone this year. ‘They’re planning a surprise.’ you tried to convince yourself. Something so big, they had to spend the day away from you so they wouldn’t spoil it. 

Nakia and all the students at your school had wished you a happy birthday. Okoye granted you a year full of bliss as you aged up. Hell, even Griot spoke up when you arrived home from work, “Happy Birthday, Queen Y/n.” 

The damn AI had blessed your day before your wives had.

7 days later and they still hadn’t. 

You’d been patient; more than really. So when you awoke on the eighth day since your birthday to an empty bed, your thin restraint snapped, kindness fleeing with it.

You were angry, and you had every right to be.

The walk down to the lab was more of a march than a stroll. Rage preceded you, and when the lab doors opened before you, it permeated the space, quickly sucking out the focused atmosphere. 

“Queen Y/n has arrived,” Griot announded, oblivious to the fury preparing to reign down on the other Wakandan rulers. 

“Where are my queens, Griot?” You stood on the entrance platform, eyes scanning the room and coming up short of either girl. 

“Queen Riri is in the lab. Queen Shuri is thirty minutes out from the border, returning as we speak.”

Returning? Shuri had left the country and you weren’t even made aware.

“I’m down here, baby,” Riri’s voice was muffled among the buzz in the room, and you honestly couldn’t take it. 

“Wonke umntu ngaphandle (Everybody out),” your voice boomed. Riri was still struggling to learn the language and Shuri wasn’t here to translate, so you took command of the unfamiliar space. 

All around, the sea of white lab coats stilled, unsure. “Ngoku! (Now!)”

Their hesitations evaporated, and the scientists filed out of every exit in the room, leaving you and a confused Riri. You spotted your girl then, welder’s mask atop her head, slowly placing her tool down as you approached her. 

“Y/n, baby, I don’t have time for lunch today. These modifications have a deadline and-”

“Esihogweni ngomhla wakho wokugqibela (To hell with your deadline).”

Riri took a slight step back at your tone, “You know you’re gonna have to translate baby. I’m not there yet.”

At her retreat, you stepped forward, refusing to let her escape. “To hell with your deadline. My patience had a deadline too, Riri.”

Her guard drops, no longer taking your distraction in her lab as a serious matter. “Y/n, what are you going on about?”

When she raises her hand to drop the mask back onto her face, you scoff. She couldn’t even give you a moment to speak, nor an ounce of respect to hear your words. 

You step in front of her, risking being burned by the tool in her hands and not caring at all. Riri jumps back and switches the device off. “You gonna get yourself hurt, y/n! You know better than that; what the fuck is going on with you?”

“Queen Shuri has arrived,” Griot announces as she steps into the lab, panther suit still on, missing the mask. Her brows raise at the sight of her empty lab as she saunters over to you two.

“Y/n, what are you doing here?” Shuri questions with a kiss to the side of your head. “Where is everyone?” she asks as she repeats the action on Riri. 

If looks could kill, you and Riri would both be six feet under, neither of you removing your glare from the other. “Ask her,” Riri retorts. “She came in spewing some shit I couldn’t understand and risking her life with tools she don’t know how to handle and shit.” Throwing the tool to the ground, Ri steps closer to you. She’s so close she could kiss you, but the fury emitting from her tells you she won’t. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Shuri grabs Riri’s upper arm, stopping the girl from approaching you any further. With furrowed brows, she speaks. “Sthandwa (my love), what’s going on?”

A deep chuckle filled with rage leaves your body. It’s an ugly sound coming from you, brimming with emotions you don’t usually possess. “This is the most attention I’ve gotten from either of you in weeks.”

“Attention?” Riri cries. “This is about you not getting attention?” She turns to Shuri, “Baby, we don’t have time for this!” Swiveling back to face you and shaking her arm free of the Black Panther’s hold, Riri steps forward to you, an angry finger in your face joining her dangerous words. “You’re not a child, y/n! We don’t have to come running every time you beckon and call.”

“Ri, calm down. Y/n, my love, nceda uqonde (understand, please). This work is important to us. You know that.” Shuri is speaking to you gently while Riri paces back and forth, hands clasped and running over her tight braids. 

“Bast, Shuri, we don’t have time for this,” Riri repeats. 

Shuri raises her hand to silence Riri but then lowers it onto the small of her back, pulling her in close. “Y/n, sthandwa (my love), singakwenza oku kamva? (can we do this later?)”

That’s it. That small movement opened your foolish eyes.

They were a team. Shuri and Riri. The Black Panther and Iron Heart.

And right now, they were teamed up against you. 

The action almost caused you doubt, your brain wracking to think of a way you may be in the wrong. 

You came up with nothing.

“Ungacinga lomtshato uphakathi kwenu nobabini qha (You would think this marriage was only between the two of you.”

Shuri’s head dips and when she looks back at you, sadness is in her gaze. “Ungathethi loo nto, sthandwa (Don’t say that, my love). You don’t mean that.”

Riri’s head is spinning between you two. “What did she say?”

Shuri is hesitant to answer. “Sh-she said that it seems as though our marriage is only between the two of us.”

While Shuri is making the effort to be gracious with your feelings, Riri just isn’t. She laughs, “Are you serious, yo? You go a few days without any affection and you start tripping?”

“Three weeks.”

“What?” Riri asks.

“Three weeks,” you parrot. “It has been three weeks.”

“Quit being dramatic, y/n-” But Ri’s words are silenced when you throw the calendar upon her work station. Across it are little notes marking the important women in you life’s promises that went broken on those important dates. Big, bold x’s mark out those days. 

“Three weeks ago,” you point at the date. “Was the day I started my duties at the school. You missed the grand opening; couldn’t even be bothered to have dinner with me that evening to celebrate. I went to bed alone that night. Have been ever since.”

Shuri’s eyes are wide and full of hurt, having forgotten the vow she made that you on that day. “We haven’t eaten together in three weeks? Haven’t gone to bed together in that long?”

You ignored her questions. Your voice had finally found you and you refused to let it go. “Two weeks ago, Riri, we were supposed to have lunch together. You’ve been blowing me off ever since. You, ubungangamsha bakho (your majesty), promised to bless the school with your presence. You failed to do so, and I spent six hours consoling some very upset children.”

Next came the date with a bold red circle engulfing it. ‘My Birthday!’ the note read. “One week ago,” your voice cracks. “This one is pretty self-explanatory.”

Tears are falling from Shuri’s face. “How could we-”

Riri is belligerent. “Nah, nah. We wouldn’t miss your birthday. We had it all planned out, today’s only-” Her words fail as she pulls out her phone to check, as if she didn’t believe the calendar you placed in front of her. “Shit.”

“Ikaka ngokwenene(Shit indeed). So tell me again, Shuri, how I didn’t mean the words I said before.”

She doesn’t speak, face full of an apology she can’t vocalize. 

Riri isn’t backing down, anger riling her up again. “Hold up, so you been sitting on this shit for three weeks and you wanna come in and hold it over our heads now?”

“Hold it over your heads? Riri, my love, vuma ukuba awulunganga (admit you’re wrong)! It was you, nina nobabini (both of you), who forgot you had another wife to care for, not I!”

“If you’re so forgotten, y/n, why don’t you just leave?”

Her words knock the wind out of you. “Utheni? (What did you say?)” 

Shuri’s words find her again. “Riri, stop-”

“Nah, baby. She’s the forgotten wife, right?” She’s speaking to Shuri, but her eyes are on you. “We haven’t shown her how much we care over these past few years. How much she meant to us. It wasn’t enough for her.”

Readdressing you, Riri asks venumously “It wasn’t enough, was it, y/n? Huh, baby? We weren’t enough for you. So why don’t you go? Disappear? Vanish?”

A panic is rising in Shuri and she pulls Riri’s tiny body back, but the anger and frustration flowing through the small girl’s being strengthen her. “Cwaka, Riri (Silence, Riri.) Let’s cool off usana (baby), you’re going to say something you’ll regret.”

Riri takes no heed to Shuri's words, tears pouring down both girl’s faces, as well as your own. “Go, y/n. Bounce, baby. Find that woman who gives you more than either of us could, and when you do, wish the bitch luck!”

“Riri!” Shuri hisses, but then her attention is on you. Her eyes follow you as your hand moves to pull off your kimoyo beads. She rushes to you, her hand atop yours. “No, no, sthandwa (my love). She didn’t mean it. Yeka, hlala nam (Stop, stay with me.)”

You take the bracelet off anyways and place it in Shuri’s hand. She looks down at it in horror and tries a different tactic, taking your cheek in her hand to wipe your tears. “Umfazi wam, ndiyaxolisa (My wife, I’m sorry). Ndiyacela, ndiyacela, sukuhamba. (Please, please, don’t go.),” whispers from her lips. 

When you reach to remove the wedding ring from your hand, Shuri drops to her knees, begging. Riri even stops her pacing to peer at you with wide eyes, the weight of her words finally hitting her. 

The ring clinks as it lands on the table, a loud sound in the quiet room. “Ndiyahamba (I’ll leave).”

You pull Shuri’s chin into your hands, bringing her teary eyes to meet yours. With a small, sad smile and a quick glance at Riri, whose taking wavering steps toward you, your mouth opens to speak to the two one last time before you retreat. “Nisale kakuhle zinkosi zenu (Goodbye, your majesties.)” You bow and exit, leaving the Queens in their despair. 

[darkmaga-returns]

By Olivia Murray

Logansport, Indiana has become the new Springfield Ohio—during the Harris-Biden years alone, more than ten thousand migrants poured in, largely from Haiti and other third world nations, and the population of this small midwestern town surged by more than 30%, per a conservative estimate from the county health department.

And, reported by an item published at the New York Post today, the demographic change is forcing local kids out of the public school system as the teachers find themselves diverting more time and attention to the non-English-speaking portions of the class:

Thousands of migrants from Haiti and dozens of other countries have arrived in this isolated Indiana city of 18,000 in just a few years. Furious residents say they no longer feel safe in the once sleepy downtown, and their kids are being muscled out of the schools by new students who don’t know English and need a lot more help.

To get an idea as to how that number translates into non-citizens in the K–12 range, the article reports that the number of foreign students has increased “15-fold” just over the past three years. According to one local parent whose daughter left the system and enrolled in an online school, all those little American afterthoughts (whose parents actually foot the bill for the public school to be even be open) are “falling behind” academically:

[pumpkinsy0]

fuck it, more Purly Haitian vacation thoughts:

On the first day, Ponyboy got sunburnt to all hell. Yeah he was made fun of for it, but whatever they gave him wasn't regular aloe, it was better.

Runs out of clean clothes (he didn't have much to pack anyway) so he makes due with the clothes given to him (and insisted he keep and bring to america)

Curly jokes he'd look cute in a karabela. Pony doesn't know what that is and just rolls his eyes.

Sandals! Everyone wears them. Ponyboy watches fondly as Curly's aunt weaves him a pair, asking him if he likes the color purple, which he responds "Wi Matènèl." Just like Curly taught him.

The mornings come early and while Curly would love nothing more than to lay in bed all day with Pony, he does want to wake up early and take him for scooter rides. Ponyboy holds on to him tightly as they weave around corners. Curly is in heaven.

Ponyboy is interested in the literature and art of Haiti and loves the bright colors of the homes. He loves their cheap art galleries and after dinner he's read to in Kreyole first and then English second because he wants to try and learn what stories are being told to him.

Darry has asked him to call if possible. There's only one phone avaliable and it's at "the big house." it costs a lot of money to call but The Shepards don't bat an eye giving him the coins he needs to tell his brother he's okay and what his day was like.

Curly avoids all questions asked to him about family back in America. He can't stomach the thought that his relatives think he's living it up and couldn't be further from the truth.

He hates America. Hates the racism. Hates their stupid laws. He hates how their mother left this beautiful place to chase a man that doesn't give a hang about them.

Curly needs a cigarette. On the porch, he pauses:

Ponyboy is given a pretty red and yellow choublack flower crown (cause it's still the 60s) and is out on the street with a bunch of Curly's younger cousins who ask him to draw on the sidewalks with them. Ponyboy never got the opportunity to be a big brother, so it's all fun and games with him. It's lightly raining, a sunshine shower. Ponyboy is smiling, laughing and singing along to some child's song, slightly butchering the words.

Curly is whipped at the sight.

i JUST woke up to this absolute GEM of an ask im going insane im like a dog with zoomies after a shower another BANGER anon ask about haiti omg

AND AND I WANNA ADD MORE THOUGHTS☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽

•the shepards has family in the countryside of haiti, and they have a fucking donkey and that thing would nibble on ponys shirt everytime he came near and it was ALWAYS him and him alone like dude???fuck of?????

•pony would LOVE ti kawòl (its this ice cream in a bag thing, comes in different flavors) but he likes it when its melted so he literally WAITS till its a liquid again, pokes a hole in the bag and drinks it and curly, tim, angela, and their family think hes so WEIRD for that

•curlys aunt is always making malta ak lèt (just means malta and milk) and its curly, pony, and the younger cousins fault that its always gone within a few days like my god

•theres a good chunk of reptiles in haiti and curly used to spend his time catching the fuckers when he still used to live in haiti, and ik he took pony to the best places he would find em, however outside of that sometimes pony would find them on accident and his body would take a ss

•kite flying is pretty important, i think pony and curly should be allowed to make their own cool looking kite at least once

•tim and curly were def stealing cool looking plates from their aunts and was forcing pony to be apart of it, he was a mess trying to keep it together

•OHOH sometimes they would have to ride tap taps (just look it up im WAY to lazy to explain it) and pony was a bit nervous bc theres rlly no specific individual seats and no seatbelts, so curly would hold onto him to make him feel safer so gay

•pony def accidentally got some mannerisms from his time there, this is more of a “if u get it u get it” thing, but if yknow that look ur haitian elder gives u when they catch u doin some stupid shit and they just stand there w their hands crossed???yea pony started doing that LMAOOO

•angela made pony this bracelet w seashells, she was makin em w her fav aunt :3

•the whole family went to the beach and curly hit pony w a wet sandbl and IMMEDIATELY fell and got a cut on his knee by a seashell and i promise u, when there was a collective sound of “gade” (means look in creole) in a ‘well thats your karma’ way, i mean it

•pony and curly both have to share a place on the couch to sleep on so they r just all up on each other by the time 4am rolls around

•curly has this scarf thats used in haitian folklore dances and he is NOT using it to dance, hes using it to pull pony in by the neck or hips, i can feel it trust me on this

•one of the shepards family members is a snack vendor, like the kinds w the snack cart right outside schools, and they would always get free snacks, in return they helped w the homemade snacks they sold, but that goes as well as it can w pony and curly making food, they r NOT allowed to make fresco again

•curly would climb treats for fruits pony wanted he def would

•pony brought the gang lil souvenirs :P

[alwaysbewoke]

Why The US Won't Leave Haiti Alone

[hadesoftheladies]

palestine is a wake up call to all the people in the global south and all countries and peoples that have experienced colonialism by western empires. especially following the western world's response to ukraine.

when you're flooded with footage of children starving, their bodies shredded by missiles, shrapnel and collapsed buildings, when you see once vibrant, beautiful lands reduced in seconds to rubble . . . you realize how easy it is to provoke a white man. all you have to do is a be a person of colour on your land with all its natural resources. that's it. all you have to do is exist on the same soil as your ancestors. and if a white man says you're in the way of his expansion, it doesn't matter what moral ethics you think white people have. it really doesn't matter what you expect of a human being. what conscience you think they have.

you will die. no one will rescue you. they will murder you. torture you. they will justify it. they will make jokes about it. and years later, when it's not too inconvenient for their people to feel guilt, they will feel sorry and still make what they did to you about them. about their "human complexity" and their "nuance." your people will be dead for thousands of years before they "apologize" (not to you but) to their descendants. and even then they'll lie. they'll blame the "internal conflicts of the region." conveniently leaving out who supplies the guns and military gangs. why. what they get in return.

what's happening in congo, tigray, palestine, haiti, iran, afghanistan, etc is not an isolated event. you cannot afford to think so. it's literally what they did from the 17th-20th centuries. the exact same tactics. the exact same propaganda. these are millions of people dying and set up to die within this year alone.

white man sees resource, white man cuts a bloody path toward it. he is superior, so it's his right. it's that simple.

if you are self-righteous about politics (especially toward western empires like france, britain, russia, canada and the u.s., etc.) please understand that the only thing between your "peaceful" or stable country and all-out war is how agreeable you are to the demands of these empires. please don't think these people have evolved or will consider you in any way. they will nuke you, too, if you resist. that isn't peace. we don't have peace with them. they aren't peaceful. complying under threat of war isn't peace. coercion is not consent.

if these insane people can hear from the mouths of their own scientists that their wars are killing their own people and accelerating the death of life on this planet, i don't know why you'd think they have a shred of humanity left in them. that there's anyone in this life they could possibly care for.

reject that lie. that you can appeal to their humanity. how many fucking "peace talks" have we had since hitler? for fucks sake. begin to build your community and focus your aid and efforts on each other. be aware, but also think smaller. focus on local businesses and markets rather than imports. let's change the way we consume (this is hugely important). wherever you are, whichever people concern you, take care of your own communities. give back. even if you're part of the diaspora. just find a way to give back and strengthen your communities. don't let "the drain" empty out in the west. i'm not claiming its simple work, or that i have all the answers. i'm just saying increase your awareness of how these empires and their propaganda function and don't give into them however you can afford to. you know what you can do. you know your own communities and countries better than i do. and we all know that one of the prime ways the empires keep us weak is by destroying or own intracommunity solidarity.

because there is no UN we can appeal to. there is no western "mediator" we can rely on.

they'd kill us all if it wouldn't tank their economy.

internalize that. don't ever let them coax any trust out of you. there is no "international unity" we can have with them because their prosperity will always require our suffering. resist, at least, by reclaiming your mind from them. see them outside of how they have conditioned you to see them. every time your president shakes one of their hands, see the blood smearing them.

don't trust a single word out of their dirty, lying mouths.

[hussyknee]

Randomly googled what happened to the indigenous people of Haiti and it broke my heart. There's none of them left! Across the Carribbean, the Spanish alone killed 12 to 15 million indigenous people.

I also stumbled across a website called History Reclaimed on the first page of google results about "The Myth of New World Genocide". I thought, hmm, maybe liberals aren't worse than the right wing after all, but then I remembered that white liberals also don't believe that the 57 million indigenous people eradicated across the Americas count as a genocide because there's still some of them left. So now I think natives had the right idea from the start about scalping white people.