#Like I get safety in numbers and rape culture is very real but you are being ridiculous

[the-plantman-is-queer]

Working at lush as a man is incredible, because the lush I work at is literally in the most suburban ass mall you can imagine, but my coworkers are all terrified I'm going to be sex trafficked at 10pm on a Saturday unless I park right next to them...

[daughterofninemoons]

Little vent

1. i got into a silly little debate with someone about how because I dont have a depressing traumatic backstory and grew up relatively accepting household i “shouldn’t complain about gender dysphoria”i could probably write a college thesis length paper on how dumb this is but it mostly boils down to: just because your suffering or the suffering of someone else is worse than yours does NOT mean that you dont get the right to complain and open up. To get it through your thick skulls its like breaking a bone and losing a limb, sure one is worse than the other and has longer lasting impact, but a broken bone is still serious and both are deserving of care, someone else having a worse injury does not invalidate the broken bone persons need for medical attention

2. stop hating on gen alpha. By hating on gen alpha you are just continuing the cycle of hatred, even if you think it’s stupid is it more dumb than the shit you did when you were eight or nine? (the answer is no, its not stupid you just refuse to accept that culture is a growing entity) By remaining rooted in place on topics of modern culture you become the very people that you swore you wouldn’t be, the people that hate because they dont understand the nuances of a topic, you become like boomers who hate technology and long for “the good old days”

3. Not everyone falls under your narrative. Not every transfem wants to be called brave for just being themselves, not every psychotic person is a threat to yours or others safety, not every depressed person is always mopey and sad, not every woman in a primarily masculine field is a slay queen girlboss, identity is messy and trying to quantify anything about it into numbers or boxes is impossible

4. Sometimes there doesn’t need to be a “devils advocate” I recently had a situation where someone was arguing in favor of neo-nazi ideals under the banner of devils advocate. If you always play the role of devils advocate maybe take a step back and assess if youre devils advocate or just racist

5. If you want people to “be themselves” then quit fucking shaming them for being themselves. Someone opening up and not turning out to fit your expectations of being this cool sexy shy nerdy (but not in the bad way!!!!) softie is no excuse to shame them for being a nonstandard human being. Accepting everyone means everyone not just the ones that fit your story

6. Just because you intended something as a joke doesn’t mean it didn’t affect someone. Back in the good old days of middle school so many people made SA/Rape jokes and when one of my friends who had been a victim of sexual abuse had a breakdown because of all the reminders of her trauma and started telling people to please stop they all just said “its a joke” and continued. You dont know what someone else has been through and as a rule of thumb only joke about something if the person youre poking fun at has joked about it themselves

7. You dont owe anyone anything just because you had any kind of relationship with them. I hear way to often “but you were friends for so long” and “but hes your dad” If someone treated you poorly you have full rights to cut contact whenever, you have the right to hate them and not want anything to do with them, the only way you should love someone is because you love them, not because they did something for you or because anything besides YOUR decision

8. Please please please stop swooning over serial killers, narcissists, sex criminals, and abusers. Those people have RUINED LIVES, they deserve to be HATED with your whole soul. THEY ARE CALLED TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS BECAUSE THEY WILL FUCKING POISON YOU. STOP ROMANTICIZING ABUSE AND STOP FUCKING FEEDING THESE PIECES OF HUMAN FILTH WITH ANY FUCKING SHRED OF KINDNESS

9. Personal one but holy fuck stop shipping real people and children. Those are not writers constructs who dont exist those are people with hopes, dreams, memories, sadness, emotion, and story that you are treating as a fucking object to be paired with another object because “it would be so cute”. If you ship children i will find you and i will tear out your intestines to fucking string up like holiday garland

10. Specific one but stop treating trans people’s deadnames like just another name, at least to me everytime i hear it i get this bigass wave of dysphoria, if i poke fun at my brother and call him a name for, you know, existing as my sibling or doing something he will respond with “ok [deadname]” and it just hurts on a visceral level

vent over

[littlesystems]

For the people who are out there “fighting the good fight” and “trying to make fandom a better place,” I have two important questions for you:

1. Is the author dead? x

2. Is your baby in the bathwater? x

What do I mean by those things? Let’s start with #1. The Death of the Author is a type of literary criticism, the extreme cliff notes version of which is that art exists outside of the creator’s life, personal background, and even intentions. I’m using it slightly differently than Barthes intended, but that’s okay, because the author is dead and I’m interpreting his work through my own lens.

In fandom, the author is dead. In fact, the author was never alive in the first place, not really. The author has only ever been the idea of a person, because unlike published fiction, the only thing we know about a fanfic author is that which they choose to tell us about themselves.

Why is that important?

Because it might not be true. Hell, that happens in real life with published authors, who have SSN’s on file with their publishers, who pay taxes on the works they create and have researchable pasts. If the author of A Million Little Pieces could fake everything, why can’t I? Why can’t you? Why can’t the writer of your favorite fic in the whole wide world?

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “you can only write about [sensitive subject] if [sensitive subject] has happened to you personally, otherwise you’re a disgusting monster that deserves to die!!” Or maybe “you can only write [x racial or ethnic group] characters if you’re [x racial or ethnic group] otherwise you’re racist/fetishizing/colonizing!”

You can play this game with any sensitive subject you can come up with. I’ve seen them all before, on a sliding scale of slightly chastising to literal death threats.

Now, I could tell you that I’m a white-passing Latina whose grandmother was an anchor baby. I could tell you that I speak only English because my family never taught me to speak Spanish, something which I’ve been told is common in the Cuban community, though I only know my own lived experience. I could tell you that I’m mostly neurotypical. I could tell you that I’m covered in surgical scars. I could tell you lots of things.

Are any of these true? Maybe! I could tell you that my brother has severe mental development problems, so uncommon that they’ve never been properly diagnosed, and that he will live the rest of his life in a group home with 24-hour care. Is that true? Am I allowed to write about families struggling with America’s piss-poor services for the handicapped now?

Am I allowed to write about being Cuban? After all, I did just say that I’m Cuban. But is it true? Can I instead write a character that’s Panamanian? Maybe I really am Panamanian, not Cuban. Maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m neither. Maybe I’m really French Canadian. Should we require people to post regular selfies? I can’t count the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me speaking Arabic, and I’ve been told that I look Syrian. What’s stopping me from making a blog that claims that I am Syrian? Can you even really tell someone’s race and ethnicity from a photo?

Am I allowed to write about being a teenager? Am I allowed to write about being a college student? Am I allowed to write about being an “adulty” adult? Can I write a character who’s 40? 50? 60? How old am I?

All of this is to say: you can’t base what someone is or is not “allowed” to write about on a background that may or may not be real. No matter how good your intentions. And I get it - this usually comes from a place of well-meaning. You’re trying to protect marginalized groups by stopping privileged people from trampling all over experiences that they haven’t suffered. I get that. It’s a very noble thought. But you can’t require a background check for every fic that you don’t like.

If you say “you can only write about rape if you’re a rape victim,” then one of three things will happen:

Real survivors will have to supply intimate details of their own violations to prevent harassment

Real survivors will refuse to engage and will then have to deal with death threats and people telling them to kill themselves for daring to write about their own experiences

People who aren’t survivors will say “yeah sure this happened to me” just to get people to shut up

Has that helped anyone? I mean really - anyone??

So now let’s get to point #2: is your baby in the bathwater?

If your intention is to protect marginalized people from being trampled upon, stop and assess if your boot is the one that’s now stamping on their face. Find your baby! Is your baby in the bathwater? Which is to say: find the goal that you’re advocating for. Now assess. Are you making the problem worse for the people you’re trying to protect? Does that rape victim really feel better, now that you’ve harassed and stalked them in the name of making rape victims feel safe?

Let’s say you read a fic that contains explicit sex between a 16 year old and a 17 year old. Is this okay? Would it be okay if the writer was 15? 16? 17? Should teenagers be barred from writing about their own lives, and should teenagers be banned from exploring sexuality in a fictional bubble, instead of hookup culture? Is it okay for a 20 year old to write about their experiences as a teenager? Is it okay for a 20 year old to write about being raped at a party as a teenager? Is it okay for a 30 year old? How about a 40 year old? Is it okay so long as it isn’t titillating? Is it okay if taking control of the narrative allows the writer to re-conceptualize their trauma as something they have control over? Is it okay if their therapist told them that writing is a safe creative outlet?

Is your author dead?

Is your baby in the bathwater?

Now let’s take a hardline approach: no fanfiction with characters who are under 18 years old. None. Is the 16 year old who really loves Harry Potter and wants to read/write about characters their own age better off? Should they be banned from writing? Should they be forced to exclusively read and write (adult) experiences that they haven’t lived? Will they write about teens anyway? Should they have to share it in secret? Should 16 year olds be ashamed of themselves? Should we just throw in with the evangelicals and say that the only answer is abstinence, both real and fictional?

Let’s say that no rape is allowed in fiction, at all. None. What happens to all the hurt/comfort fics where a character is raped and then receives the support and love that they deserve, slowly heal, and by the end have found themselves again? Are you helping rape victims by banning these stories? Are you helping rape victims by stripping their agency away, by telling them that their wants and their consent doesn’t matter?

Is your baby in the bathwater?

Fandom is currently being split in two: on one side, the people who want to make fandom a “safer” place by any means necessary, even if that means throwing out all of the marginalized groups they say they want to protect - and on the other, people who are saying “if you throw out that bathwater, you’re throwing the baby out too.”

The whole point of fandom is to be able to explore all kinds of ideas from the safety and comfort of a computer screen. You can read/write things that fascinate you, disgust you, titillate you, or make your heart feel warm. This is true of all fiction. People who want to read about rape and incest and extreme violence and torture can go pick up a copy of Game of Thrones from the bookstore whenever they want. Sanitizing fandom just means holding a community of people who are primarily not male, not straight, not cis, or some combination of those three, to higher and stricter standards than straight white cis male authors and creators all over the world.

There is nothing you can find on AO3 that you can’t find in a bookstore. Any teenager can go check out Lolita, or ASOIAF, or Flowers in the Attic, or Stephen King's It, or Speak, or hundreds of other books that have adult themes or gratuitous violence or graphic sex. The difference is that AO3 has warnings and tags and allows people to interact only with the types of work that they want to, and allows people to curate their experiences.

Are these themes eligible to be explored, but only in the setting of something produced/published? Books, movies, television, studio art, music - all of these fields have huge barriers to entry, and they’re largely controlled by wealthy cishet white men. Is it better to say that only those who have the right connections to “make it” in these industries should be allowed to explore violence or sexuality or any other so-called “adult” theme?

Does banning women from writing MLM erotica make fan culture a better place?

Does banning queer people from writing about queer experiences make fan culture a better place?

Is M/M fic okay, but only if the author is male? What if he’s a trans man? What if they’re NB? Who should get to draw those lines? Should TERFs get a vote? What if the author is a woman who feels more comfortable writing from a male character’s perspective because she’s grown up with male stories her whole life, or because she identifies more with male characters? What about all the trans men who discovered themselves, in part, by writing fanfiction, and realized that their desires to write male characters stemmed from something they hadn’t yet realized about themselves?

How can we ever be sure that the author is who they say they are?

Who is allowed to write these stories? How do we enforce it?

Is it better for none of these stories to ever exist at all?

Have you killed your author?

Have you thrown out your baby with the bathwater?

[rametarin]

We deal with this, “fiction is reality” shit EVERY. GENERATION.

And I mean it comes back among authoritarians playing to sheep EVERY fucking generation on different pretenses.

It always boils down to a bunch of people that are insecure about the effects of culture and media on other people, and as a flimsy pretense/pretext to restrict access to things to other people “in society” for their own safety and sense of security.

And when it comes to, “obscene literature” or illustrations, the source is always jealousy, insecurity and an attempt to reduce other people down to a demographic statistic. Whether it’s reducing black people to a caricature and acting like hip-hop just turns the kids into violent, drug abusing, psychotic felons, or imagining pornography is what turns people into horny fucking do-nothings, it’s always about control.

And we’ve put it off for so long. We’ve put off the conversation about just what demographic these people play to in order to get traction and followers and staying power and warm bodies for their movements. They’re the demographic that makes antis- work, the demographic that screams for censorship because illustrations “hurt them personally,” or “cause men to hurt them.”

I’m talking about women. Particularly, cis women, as trans women are not in numbers enough to affect anything, and it is EXPLICITLY IMPORTANT that the source of the offense and complaint come from the population that are the gateway through which the next generation is born and brought up.

Individual men may be so clueless as to assume the way degeneration works is a person is left improperly or negligently nurtured, and so just make bad decisions because, “they were never taught better.” They embrace the idea that people only do bad shit because, “the society,” isn’t paying attention, or that individual people are just blank slates beholden to the righteousness and morality of the cultural hivemind of said society. That Society is an objective effect, and if bad people exist, it’s proof to them that there’s something wrong with said society.

But individual men know that the bad actions of other men are not caused solely by “male culture,” or the absence of it, or shitty “role models.” They see the shitty natural inborn attitudes of other men, and despite being raised in shitty conditions, naturally develop a good head on their shoulders, and despise actions like that. As men you can’t HELP but grow up watching boys around you make shitty decisions based on shitty impulse control and, no matter how often they’re punished, how much they’re loved, how much they’re compassionately talked to, STILL act the fool and wind up as terrible, stealing, violent adults. As men you can’t do anything BUT reconcile that some people are just fucking shitheads, and the idea as a man YOU should be punished or treated like the “association” of men itself is at fault, smacks of sexism. The same sort of sexism women’s lib supposedly is against- at least, when it happens to women.

Women, however, are not men, are not privy to the thoughts and feelings of men. Men are abstracts to these women, many of whom are so solipsistic or gynocentrist that they just see men as a class of monsters in a videogame. Just a pattern of individuals that surely must all get their code and culture from “society.” Clearly, when there’s bad men about, it’s proof this “society” isn’t doing everything it can to mollify and gentrify those horrible beastly men to make them safe and not dangerous and productive.

These women that see men like living aggregates for society, imagine that in order to “keep men working properly,” they need to not have “bad moral influences,” treating pornography and access to drugs and literature like a cleaning lady treats dirt on linen. They imagine that the only reason rape or murder or theft by men occurs is because “there’s a problem with men, thinking that is okay.” Like the only reason your average man isn’t running around violently raping people or killing them is because they sang enough hymns at church- by force. Or because they were prevented from, “getting deranged by wrongthink.”

So with this in mind, how do they imagine porn affects men, male minds, and this big abstract-turned-monolithic-concept called, “society?”

Well, they imagine fiction is reality. That if “people of lesser intellect” read a thing, then they’ll inherently believe it, because, “it presents itself as factual and reality.” When.. no. That’s not how it works. They believe, absolutely, that without some mechanism there to go, “BUT WE’RE JUST PRETENDING THO, IT’S NOT REAL!” that will inherently make people, whom all have tenuous and toddler-like grasps of reality and object permanence, think a thing in fiction is real and applies to reality.

And naturally, they see men as people of lesser intellect. So they reason, those dangerous statistical anomalies are just men that haven’t been browbeaten, and whom are subject to any given negative influence or writing or opinion or culture that preaches values and ideas incongruent with their preferences, as women. Therefore, they conclude, fiction that does not preach their “good values” is in fact advocating bad ones, bad habits, bad moral character, bad mental health- call it whatever you want based on your generation. It’s ALL THE SAME SHIT. All the same knee-jerk moralism based on justifying societal and institutional use of force to restrict and arbitrate and judiciously enforce and justify dictating censorship and good-think. It’s just a question of where that basis comes from.

And theres’ ultimately no reasoning with that culture of women when they grasp hold of a thing that appeals to them, flatters and justifies their prejudices and biases. You can sit there colorfully or dryly explaining the ways in which this shitty point of view is wrong, much as you can try to walk back a persons beliefs in their homophobia that they base on religious purism or use the purism to validate their homophobia, but you cannot just get them individually to give up those nice, comfortable beliefs.

And when grouped together for mutual support and validation, it becomes this negative-thought, field of fucking SHEEP braying “Nuuuh-uuuh!” and arguing for restriction of content and sanitation and disbarrment from certain subject matter to be in consumable porn or literature or even just art. The only thing keeping them in check being the consequences for vandalism, and the ability for a community or institution to police out the bias usurpers that would seek to enter their foundations and run them on behalf of the values of these easily upset, insecure sheep.

every FUCKING generation, it manifests in some manner. Be they from church ladies, to radical feminists, to intersectional feminists. If you capture the imaginations, insecurities, jealousies, foster and sanction them, interpret them, get young women believing them, participating in the romance that tells them the way to change the bad things or take the edge off the bad men is to foster and enable authoritarianism (be it regional social, regional institutional, or federal institutional) then you have this neverending avalanche of unending support for it. Be it from dictators, or just from pure ideology from a doctrine. They’ll do it. And stubbornly and obstinately believe in whatever compliments their biases, to the contradiction of everything.

And while you can remove a man and his influences on the next gen from the home, from the social radius of the next generation to be a significant source of culture and how they relate to young people, removing women from the equation, from whom the next generation comes from, is virtually impossible. So a male zealot, already susceptible to scrutiny and punishment for being so wild and zealous with their beliefs, can be retaliated against, muted, beaten and removed from relevance until they censor themselves or change their tune.

But you cannot do that to a female human, or women/mothers as a sex, without both women AND men taking it as an attack on humanity at their most prime and kernel. It has to be done with disproportionate authoritarian state power that does not fear mass dissent and violent retaliation, or it isn’t done at all.

So these zealous Karens that embrace wholly these ideas enabling authoritarianism under a banner they approve of, are allowed to propagate unchallenged, and even if challenged, cannot be subdued or subverted. Their own little cliques and echo chambers and lack of desire to even consider their positions are wrong. Any attempt to point the fingers at this very real, disproportionate and characteristic, objective power female humans have just on the basis of their sex and how that relates among them socially, can and will be trash binned arbitrarily as, “sexism.” Despite the fact, it’s absolutely true.

So long as women that believe “society” is an objective, monolithic thing from which, “that other sex” and other women get their marching orders on how to BE what they are, and don’t see them as billions of individuals with their own ambitions, instincts, inborn personality and character flaws, independent of “society’s failures,” believing those people can be saved or corrected IF ONLY WE CENSOR EVERYTHING or make all media “good thing,” we’re just going to have people with illiberal beliefs asserting their dominance and insisting it’s for the soul of the species, society and the planet.

I mean yeah there are male antis and shit, but honestly. Tell me honestly. How many fucking deranged fandom people that are doing shit like mailing cookies with sewing needles backed into them are male gendered or male sexed, either? As uncomfortable as it may be to acknowledge or consider this might have a sexual grounding, I’m sorry. Not acknowledging it is simply rejecting reality.

[21stcenturyteapot]

Rape Culture Roulette – Every Woman’s Daily Game

Presented by Charles Webster on the 12th of September, 2019 at:

Jeppe high School for Boys, Kensington, Johannesburg

St Davids Marist Inanda, Johannesburg

DISCLAIMER: this speech is an accurate reflection of most of what I said. Because I speak partly from notes and partly from the heart – the speech changed slightly and readers who were there may notice some differences.

WHO AM I?

I am you. I wore the blazer for five years (or one like it), and I know what is said in boys’ schools. I am not here to tell you you’re all rapists. But I am here to tell you that we can all contribute to rape culture.

I’m also husband to a wife, and a father to two daughters, and I care enough about their safety and their happiness to have stayed up until 2am to figure out what to say to you guys, to wake up at 4am to drive to the airport for an hour, to take a flight from Durban to Johannesburg to be here today.

This is not a game - but I’d like to start off by talking about a game. RUSSIAN ROULETTE Have you ever heard of Russian Roulette? (Show of hands)

Okay - so, most of you. As you know it’s a simple game. You take a revolver with six chambers, put a cartridge into one of them. You spin the cylinder and snap it shut. Then you hold the gun to your head and pull the trigger. If you’re lucky, you get one of the five empty chambers. If you’re not so lucky…BOOM.

What if I said to you that every morning, in order to go out into the world and live your normal life, you have to play Russian Roulette? 

I have owned a gun, and anyone who’s ever done any serious shooting knows that the first rule of handling a firearm is that you treat every gun as if it’s loaded – even if it isn’t.

So, if you’re wise and your self-preservation instinct is intact, you’d rightly tell me that #gunsaredangerous. You’d tell me I’m crazy, that my expectation is totally unfair, and that there’s no way you’re going to play Russian Roulette just in order to have the privilege of going out into the world and living your life.

But what if I responded to your hashtag and said, but #notallguns are dangerous… would that make you feel better about the demand? Would it change the fact that even though you’re probably not going to get the chamber with the live round in it, there’s still a scarily high chance that you will? Does it change the fact that you have to treat every gun as if its loaded, even though you know in your head that #notallguns are?

RAPE CULTURE ROULETTE

Now, let’s imagine a new game. I call it: “Rape Culture Roulette”, and here’s the thing - women have to play it.

Every. Single. Day.

If they want to exist in the world, if they want to walk out of their front doors in the morning and go out to school, to work or to relax, they have no choice.

How does it work? So if you’re a woman, you wake up in the morning and in the gun that you are forced to hold up to your head, there are not six chambers, but (let’s say) a hundred. These hundred chambers are the hundred men that a woman might encounter during the course of a typical day.

Her husband or boyfriend, father, brothers, the newspaper seller on the corner, the guy selling coffee at the convenience store, two or three guys in the cars around her at every intersection on the way to work, twenty or thirty male colleagues, another fifteen or twenty at the restaurant where she’s having lunch… you get the picture. Some of the chambers have cartridges in them, and some of them are empty. The empty chambers represent the guys who behave appropriately towards her. Let’s be generous and say it’s the majority – sixty or seventy of them, who fall into this category.

The chambers with cartridges in them represent all the guys who, sadly, do not. Let’s start off big. There’s one chamber with a rapist in it. Then four or five chambers of guys who might catcall her as she walks past. Then there’s a chamber with a woman beater, and then half a dozen who rub up against women as they pass them in the elevator or the passage. Ooh, here’s a bad one – this next chamber has a murderer, but the next twenty aren‘t as bad – they contain a couple of guys who tell tasteless rape jokes, and another eighteen who just laugh at them, or say nothing. Then maybe half a dozen who refer to their mates as “pussies” when they do something that isn’t supposed to be done by a “real man”, and a few guys who mansplain to women, don’t listen to them, and talk over them in meetings. Again – you get the picture. As an article by Eusebius McKaiser in the Mail and Guardian said just a few days ago: “A woman is not safe at home. She is not safe at the tavern. She is not safe at the post office. She is not safe at work. She is not safe at the club. She is not safe walking from the tavern to her home. She is not safe walking to the post office. She is not safe from the guns of her boyfriend that were supposedly bought to keep them both safe from strangers. She is not safe when she encounters a stranger. She may be even less safe when she is with someone she knows intimately. She is not safe when she is with an official working for the state. She is not safe when she is drinking with men she has known all her life. She is a continued target of predatory men who have no regard for her intrinsic dignity and rights to bodily and psychological integrity. Which is why each South African woman has asked this week: “Am I next?”[1] Every day, women wake up, and as they go about their days, they pull the trigger – not once, but every time they meet a man. I need to stress again, here, that this isn’t a choice. Women, to live their lives, have to go out into a world where they take a risk with every man they meet – and I’m not talking about strangers. IT ISN’T STRANGERS Yep, I’m even talking about husbands, father, sons.

But let’s start with a few statistics: “According to the Rape Crisis Centre (in Cape Town)… it is estimated that 40% of South African women will be raped in their lifetime and only 8.6% of rape perpetrators are convicted.”[2]

That’s nearly half of South African women. Are you surprised that women wake up in the morning and wonder whether they will be next? I ask you to put yourselves in that position and think about how your life might feel and be different if that were your reality.

But back to my point – it’s not strangers they mostly have to be worried about. In fact, the opposite is true.  To quote the Rape Crisis Centre again, “Unfortunately, most people believe rape only occurs in dark alleyways. But Rape Crisis Centre’s new campaign indicates the truth is closer to home. The campaign aims at highlighting that approximately 68% of rape survivors know their rapist. They have had their trust broken in the workplace, home and [in their] communities.”[3]

So there definitely won’t be a rapist in every woman’s day, every day, but over the course of their lives, South African women have to wake up to the daily knowledge that they have a chance of being one of those four out of every ten women who will be raped. My daughters have asked me more than once if I think they have a chance of making it through life without becoming victims.

WOMEN CAN DO VERY LITTLE ABOUT IT

If you’re thinking women can solve the problem by being wise about where they and learning to defend themselves:

My first response is  - are we really no better than this, guys? Men aren’t mindless animals, and shouldn’t be expecting women to take responsibility for the fact that men refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. We are better than this, guys. Are we really unable to control ourselves at the merest sight of a bit of leg, or an exposed tummy?

I don't care if a woman is walking down the streak stark naked, she's still not asking for rape or unwanted contact. There's a difference between women choosing to dress the way they want to, and men not taking responsibility for their sexual impulses.

My second response is that it really doesn’t seem to matter what women do. As this powerful exhibition demonstrates, they don’t have to dress sexily to get raped.

IMAGE: JENNIFER SPRAGUE They don’t have to go specific places, or drink alcohol or do specific things to get raped. Because statistically it’s mostly men they know and probably trust who rape them. In any case, almost half the time, victims are children. A Timeslive headline in 2018 proclaimed: “Children victims in 42% of all rape cases recorded.”[4] Old women get raped. Nuns get raped - even babies get raped. Are we going to blame their clothes and their drinking habits, too?

In the meantime, every single day, women are quite likely to encounter some guy licking his lips at them in the traffic, or some guy following them in his car as they walk home from the shop (which has happened to my wife more than once). Some middle aged guy propositioning them for sex outside the toilets in the shopping mall (which happened to my one daughter – to get rid of the guy she had to resort to asking him loudly and publicly if he wanted to see her dick, and pretend to start unbuttoning her trousers – because men like that rely on women being worried about “causing a scene”). Then there’s the guy at a live music venue who got a little a little bit too touchy-feely with my other daughter at a show. He only left her alone after I spoke to him – twice. In fact, the number of times I go out with my wife or my daughters where some creep doesn’t look at them inappropriately, touch them without consent or make suggestive remarks is frighteningly small.

A PRISONER’S PERSPECTIVE Maybe you think having someone making remarks isn’t so bad – maybe you’re thinking, as a guy, that you’d quite enjoy it if women did that to you, and that it’s actually quite a compliment.

So let’s introduce some perspective into the conversation. I want you to imagine that you are in prison. You’re a brand new inmate… you’re not a murderer but maybe you committed some kind of white collar crime like cheating on your taxes or defrauding a business partner.

I want you to understand that you are now in a world where you are being looked at as someone’s potential bitch. Someone’s pieces of ass. And that someone is twice your size and ten times as tough. They want power over you, and to relieve their sexual urges – and you are powerless to stop them.

I asked women on my Facebook timeline to send me comments they’d like to share with 100 young men if they had the chance – and here’s one of them. She talks about: “The system that he would have no say in… the people who had power over him who were often corrupt and not 'fair' in their dealings, being at the mercy of the very real threat of both physical and sexual violence all day, every day, the fact that nowhere and no-one is actually 'safe', and the feeling of being powerless to do anything about it....and the people in your life who are present (family and friends who can visit you there) but have no real understanding of what it's like and can leave whenever they want to, or not think about it whenever they want to, because it doesn't directly affect and impact them.” Here’s another: “The sexist jokes, the locker room talk - these are not harmless talk. Imagine a scenario where you're in prison, from pretty much any movie or TV show you can think of. Imagine you're now the target of those kinds of jokes and locker room talk from someone physically stronger than you, and/or in a position of more power than you.” The bottom line is – how would you feel if the gorilla in cellblock D was looking at you and licking his lips while commenting about the shape of your butt, or grabbing his crotch at you? Here’s the key message:

You shouldn’t be saying or doing anything to women that you’d be uncomfortable with someone big and scary, in prison, saying or doing to you.

CONSENT IS A THING

We really need to talk about consent. I hope you understand, in the light of my prison scenario, why consent is important. (Watch this Youtube Clip for more) If you want to talk about rape culture you have to start with consent. I find it noteworthy that consent is very important when other people do things to us, but is somehow less important when we are the people doing things to others. Because let’s face it, guys, the kind of pussy you’re referring to when you go “kss, kss!” as a girl walks past is not a cat, and I don’t think you’d enjoy the guy from cellblock D crowing like a rooster when you walk by because he is keen on your cock.

I want you to think about the guy in cellblock D, and ask yourself whether “not saying no” is the same as saying yes. If you’re alone with him in your jail cell and he’s about to do things to you that you don’t like – would you be quiet because you’re actually keen – or would it be because you’re hoping he won’t murder you as well as rape you? Unless somebody is active and enthusiastic about their consent – it’s not consent.

A comment I got from a female friend on this topic was: “A guy I knew once groped a friend of mine in a bar, and couldn't (at all) understand why she wouldn't welcome him touching her boobs, obviously this is a pleasurable thing. He’s a guy, she’s a girl – what’s the issue? I asked how he would like it if a big guy walked up and grabbed his crotch, just out of nowhere? He got the point.”

ABOUT RAPE CULTURE So you ask what real harm a rape joke can do? Or a catcall? As my prison story shows, when it comes from someone who has the power to act on it, it suddenly becomes very real, and very frightening.

Rape culture is not about saying every man who catcalls is a rapist. “Rape culture is a sociological concept for a setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality.”[5] Think about casual sayings about “throwing like a girl” or “fighting like a girl.” On some sports fields now you’ll hear players talking about a “Rapist’s Touch” – which is used for a player “with a first touch of the ball that is so horrid that it goes immediately to the opposite team or out of play.”[6]   Maybe some of you are sneering at me under your breath. “What a pussy!”, you might be thinking - another great example of using women’s bodies as the standard by which to insult people. This is rape culture. Sexist attitudes to gender that make women property, or make them inferior, or degrade their bodies as tools with which we insult each other.

So sure – catcalling isn’t the same as rape. An unwanted remark about her appearance isn’t the same as rape. Talking over her at the party, or disregarding her opinion about where to go out to isn’t the same as rape.

But we’re contributing to a culture where…

In a million ways…

In a million places…

At a million times…

…women are told they are unworthy and inferior – in ways we’d never accept as men.

We are talking about disrespect.

Here’s the key to today’s message for you. The message that doesn’t only prove that you don’t have to be a rapist to contribute to rape culture, but should also spur you to act when you hear you mates talking about women, or acting towards them, in certain ways:

Not all disrespect of women ends in rape, but all rapes start with disrespect.

Women live in precisely the kind of world that prison would be to you. The kind of world where half the population is superior to you in terms of physical strength, and where that half of the population has grown up in a society that largely still thinks of women as possessions. A world where that half of the population is sexually attracted to you, and you could be the means of satisfying their urges.

You think I’m talking rubbish with regard to women being possessions? Tell me, then, why women are still “given away” by their fathers on their wedding days? Look it up, guys – the tradition comes from a time when women were used like sacrificed like pawns on a chessboard. They were traded for power to cement allegiances between kingdoms. I’ve told my daughters already – nobody must ever ask me if I’m giving them away on their wedding days. I don’t own them.

But let’s find a more everyday example. Why is it that millions of men around the world who approach women will only leave a woman, if she gets a friend to pretend to be her partner, or point out her wedding ring or her partner? What is it that makes so many of us think that women don’t have the right to say no because they’re simply not interested?!

WOMEN OWE US NOTHING

In four-in-ten world where women have to play Rape Culture Roulette on a daily basis, I’m telling you now, guys… women owe you precisely nothing.

They don’t owe you a conversation because you’ve done them the “honour” of being nice to them. They don’t owe you a smile. They don’t owe you a phone number. They don’t owe you sex because you’ve bought them a meal. And they shouldn’t have to tell you more than once that they’re not interested – nor should they have to explain why. And if you are lucky enough to have someone show an interest in you, they are not obliged to follow through with sex – they have a right to say “no”, or “stop” at any time. I don’t care if you’re lying on the bed next to her, and you’re both naked. For you to insist, and continue with sex beyond that point, is rape.

FEMINISM

Every man should be a feminist. I can imagine the eye rolling that’s going on. I can hear the comment about how feminists are man haters, how “Feminazis” are unreasonable and actually want to walk over men. And I’m sure there are such people – but let me tell you that the tiny minority of feminists who think that way are a convenient excuse for those who want to write off feminism as a whole.

For those of you who haven’t studied feminism, and I talk to a lot of feminists – the massive, overwhelming majority of feminists are simply people who want equality for women. Feminism simply means being a decent human being.

Now – I have a question for you. This is the Facebook post that led to me being here today:

MEN: ARE YOU PART OF THE PROBLEM?

If your pride is more important to you than women fearing for their lives because of how common rape and murder are, you’re part of the problem.

If being offended by generalisations and responding with #notallmen is more important to you than addressing the reasons those generalisations are necessary in the first place, you’re part of the problem.

If you’re fragile you expect women to be ‘nice’ about how they deal with the bullying, rape and murder men inflict on their sisters, then you're part of the problem.

If you’re not spending time thinking about how you are privileged because you don’t have to half of the world’s population as a threat to your life until they prove otherwise, you’re part of the problem.

If you say or do things to women you wouldn’t want a large man to say or do to you in prison, you’re part of the problem.

If you’re not calling out other men when they treat women as objects for their personal gratification, you’re part of the problem.

If you’re not making the effort to understand consent, and that women are equal to men in moral value and legal rights, you’re part of the problem.

If you call women “sluts” for the same things that get men labelled as “studs”, you’re part of the problem.

If your response to a woman being groped, cat-called or receiving other unwanted sexual attention is that “boys will be boys”, you’re part of the problem.

If you ask what a woman was wearing or why she was drinking or was in a particular place when she was harassed or raped, you’re part of the problem.

If your expectation is for *women* to educate you, or for *women* to do the speaking out (when they’ve been trying to do so and getting beaten and killed for their efforts since time immemorial), you’re part of the problem.

DOING NOTHING IS DOING SOMETHING There’s a quote that was used by John F. Kennedy once – though nobody actually knows who said it originally. It goes like this: “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing.” In a world where our society is so damaged that four in ten South African women will be raped in their lifetimes, the default setting is horrific. Doing nothing in the face of that is the same as doing something – because silence is assent. What can you do? 

You don’t have to be an activist and stand up here like me. You can make sure that you’re not the one catcalling or laughing at rape jokes. You can make sure you call out your mates who do. If you’re worried about getting beaten up, walk away from the conversation to make your disapproval plain – end friendships if you have to.

It’s a funny thing – in a country where forty percent of women get raped, every women knows someone who’s been raped, and every man who cares enough to ask or be involved, knows a woman who’s been raped. I know several. Yet, somehow, we men know very few rapists.

We seem to have raised generations of men who are emotional children.

It’s time for men to:

Grow up. 

Stand up. 

Speak up.

Rape culture is everywhere: understand what it means before you whine about “#notallmen” or “not being a rapist”. Sexism is ingrained into (even western) society. Fight for equality – be a feminist. Not because “every woman is someone’s wife, daughter or sister” - women are not defined by the way they relate to men.

Do something because women are also humans - and deserve the right to the same basic freedoms and safety you have (in most cases) never had to give a second thought. And if you did - it was most probably because another *man* was threatening it. Do something because in world of Rape Culture Roulette, where four out of every ten South African women will be raped in their lifetimes, and where forty percent of those who are raped are under-age children, and only a tiny minority of rapists get convicted, doing nothing is doing something.

Because a world in which women can live free of fear is a better world for you as well, if you care enough to recognise the fact.

[1] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-09-06-00-the-chain-between-words-and-violence?fbclid=IwAR0PUCeQ1B1nHBHnz6FdRS9fZAMgBQ2uUq6oM0YwL0XnJMUqgBcwb0jC9mg#.XXO7WvA3vwQ.facebook

[2] https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/rape-is-often-perpetrated-by-a-familiar-face-19917092

[3] Ibid.

[4] https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-05-16-children-victims-in-42-of-all-rape-cases-recorded/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture

[6] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rapist%20Touch

[tenitchyfingers]

readme.txt

Read the whole post before interacting with it. If you show you haven’t read parts of it, I’ll ignore you and block you (which makes my job of ignoring you a lot easier actually) because you clearly aren’t worth my time.

This is gonna be more personal than I’ve ever felt like sharing (especially with people who openly and shamelessly hate me)... you know why I don’t talk about my asexual identity outside of very tight-knit circles made of people I completely, 100% trust, whereas I feel a lot more comfortable with sharing that I’m also bisexual (which I’m not going to explain here because it’s not really relevant right now)?

For my own physical safety.

Let me tell this to you again: when the topic of dating or sex pops up (because OF COURSE nobody goes around just talking about their sexuality except for straight people), I feel safer saying I’m bi (which I am) rather than a-spec (and even then I’ll obviously avoid telling 99% of the people I interact with that I’m bi because that’s risky too, of course), because by saying I’m a-spec I risk being sexually assaulted a lot more. A lot more. And this is not just a gut feeling or a fear I developed out of nowhere. I’ve had multiple encounters where I expressed an explicit disinterest in engaging sexually with anyone, and that got me nearly assaulted multiple times. Which is why I go back in the closet every time I walk out of my own home. Which is why I’ll often tell people lies about myself, because anything would be safer than saying I’m ace-spec and not sexually available. When I came out to my parents as bi, they had literally not one issue with it, accepted it immediately and did not question it at all. When later I also came out as aro and asexual, they had a fuckton of issues, questioned me, doubted me, made fun of me. I’m not saying bisexuality is taken seriously either, but in my case my parents were ready to accept it was an actual thing, that it’s who I am. Not so much in the case of asexuality and aromanticism. And I wish it was just “you’ll change your mind, you’ll find someone, it’s not a real thing”. I wish.

And when people repeatedly refuse to listen when you say you’re never interested in sex with them, that you cannot be and won’t ever be, when those people harass and stalk you and terrorize you... that’s rape culture motivated by the idea that asexuality is not real and not humanly possible, and as such it’s oppression. If you’re going to tell me that all the things that happened to me didn’t actually happen, then congats on being a rape apologist. And if you’re seriously going to tell me asexuals face no oppression, I invite you to live as an asexual in my society (north-east Italy is one of the most bigoted places in the entire country) for a week, be asked about boyfriends or getting married, and be 100% sincere about your hypothetical asexuality. And then see what happens. Spoilers: nothing nice would happen. I guarantee you that, because I live here and I deal with Straight™ people on a daily basis.

Add to it the fact that information about asexuality is next to non-existent here, that people have no idea of what it is, that there is literally no representation whatsoever in our media, that the word has only started being uttered last year (and with a lot of misconceptions attached to it, of course). So people don’t know what it is, and when they perceive you as foreign OF COURSE THEY’RE GOING TO CONSIDER YOU QUEER. I AM QUEER BECAUSE I’M ACE-SPEC. I AM QUEER BECAUSE I DON’T IDENTIFY WITH THE THINGS STRAIGHT™ (not all straight people, I mean the Straights who are also ignorant about queer people and queer issues, aka a very relevant number of them) PEOPLE CONSIDER NORMAL. I AM QUEER BECAUSE I DON’T LIVE THE WAY STRAIGHT™ PEOPLE DO. I AM QUEER BECAUSE STRAIGHT™ PEOPLE CONSIDER ME A CANCER TO BE REMOVED, AN ODDITY TO FIX, A MONSTER TO ISOLATE, BERATE AND SHAME INTO SUBMISSION. If you joke about this and say you’re right, you’re no different from homophobes. And there is nothing you can say to contradict my experiences, which I lived and you didn’t. You cannot contradict my situation, because I live it in real life and I’ve received psychological damage that lasted more than 15 years do to this whole situation. This is my truth, this is my life, this is what I live with. Again, I don’t mean all straight people. Far from me to say that, because I have a lot of straight friends who support me and think prejudice against queer people is bullshit, just like me. All of my straight friends are good people and I would never associate them with the people I’m calling Straights™ here.

Anyway, if your objection is “LGBT people experience that too, you’re not special”, there it is, THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT. I’m LGBT because I experience things other queer people experience as well. We belong together because we’re all considered “not normal” by Straight™ people.

But if you need more proof of ace oppression, here are other stories and sources:

Asexuality is heavily pathologized in psychology and psychiatry contexts. Yes, recently an exception was added to the DSM-V (because before that asexual was straight up listed as a mental disorder without any exceptions, and the exception was added VERY recently), but it explicitly says patients only won’t be forced into taking damaging meds if they self-identify as asexual. And the thing is, not many people even know about asexuality, much less have the possibilities to learn what it is, and that they might be asexual. Let me tell you that again: a lot of people have been put through medical correction therapy because they did not know that asexuality was a thing. This is a consequence of an oppressive system that considers anything “out of the norm” as something to “fix” and not worth talking about. And to way too many people and even professionals in psychology and psychiatry, we are without the shadow of a doubt abnormal and to be fixed. Examples of corrective therapy on asexuals:  x, x, x, x, x

Intergroup bias toward “Group X”: Evidence of prejudice, dehumanization, avoidance, and discrimination against asexuals (Link to complete study)

Religious intolerance of asexuality: x, x, x, x, x, x

AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct shows that “Asexual/Questioning/Not Listed” report a higher rate of sexual assault/harassment/violence than heterosexuals, regardless of gender

Now you’ll probably be like “ok but you don’t have it as bad as us”. Yeah, maybe I can give you that, but as I abundantly proved to you, we are not excluded from certain forms of oppression and prejudice, and this prejudice stems from a system that demands everyone to conform to a standard of what’s “normal” and what isn’t. If you haven’t been living under a rock for your whole lives, you know this is true, you know there is a pervasive system trying to will punish anyone who doesn’t conform to and performs straightness and coerce them to conform. If you’re going to deny this, you’re clearly too bigoted and immature to be having this conversation, so just please shut up and don’t even bother interacting with me. Because I’m tired of your sociopathic and willful ignorance of the suffering of people just because it’s not your specific suffering. And if you are going to let people get raped for their sexual identities, you’re a rape apologist, no buts and no ifs. And if you’re a rape apologist, you have no right to be talking about LGBTQIA+ issues. At all. So sit down and shut up, your hot takes aren’t needed.

[easyhairstylesbest]

Exclusive: 'Outlander' Season 6 Is Officially in Production

This is not how Matthew B. Roberts envisioned shooting season 6 of Outlander. “We wanted to keep our momentum from season 5,” the executive producer explains, noting the latest season of Starz’s century-hopping romantic drama was one of its most-watched ever. “The cast and the crew, and I think even the fans, were very excited to get right into season 6. And then we decided to hit the brakes.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down TV and film production across the globe last spring, Outlander joined the list of series postponed as the industry determined how to make entertainment safely. “It was really heartbreaking in a lot of ways,” Roberts says. “Understandably, the health of the world was way more important than a television show. We knew that too.”

Now, Outlander is officially back in production, filming in Scotland with safety guidelines in place, and Roberts is adamant the delay won’t affect the content of the new season. “I didn’t want me or the staff changing what the story is for COVID,” he explains. “We have a lot of intimate scenes—that’s where we live and breathe.” The solution was relatively obvious: “testing, testing, testing, testing,” Roberts says. “We had to figure out how to make sure we tested everybody a million times before they walked onto set and keep that bubble as safe as possible. That was our main focus—making sure everybody feels safe walking onto a set in the studios and locations.”

Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe shooting season 6 of Outlander in Scotland.

Robert Wilson

Below, Roberts breaks down the process of crafting season 6 and what’s next for Claire (Caitriona Balfe), Jamie (Sam Heughan), Brianna (Sophie Skelton), and Roger (Richard Rankin).

Did the filming challenges affect the way you approached script-writing?

I don’t know how to write “COVID-friendly scenes,” certainly not an Outlander scene, because we are going to have people next to each other, being emotional—you talk close to people, and that’s where it transfers COVID. We had to figure out, how do we keep Outlander, Outlander? So we wrote the scripts [as originally intended] and dove in with production: Our producer in the U.K., Guy Tannahill, and our new production designer, Mike Gunn, and our staff over there who have worked on Outlander for a long time. We said, “Okay, this scene can’t happen like this. If we did this, this, and this, then we can make it happen.”

We put a lot of people in scenes, and keeping everybody safe is paramount. We’ve tried to limit the amount of SAs (supporting artists), and we’re trying to utilize visual effects. In the deep, deep background, we can use digital people instead of what we would normally use, real extras. Every year, Outlander has a big event and we’re still planning that event. We’ll film [the background extras] at a separate time, [then] put it all together in post, and it’s seamless. We have a really amazing visual effects team, and I have full faith in their abilities to do that. We’re actually pretty experienced with it because many of the Alamance battle scenes had digital people in them. We added to the crowd and to the battle numbers with digital soldiers and conflicts in the background in post, and I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it. When no one notices a visual effect, that’s a good thing.

What do envision when you think of season 6?

I think what’s going on in the world at the time, 1775, is really similar to what’s going on with Jamie and Claire. There’s going to be a revolution with them as well, and I think that’s what’s going on throughout the season: You have a foundation and when that foundation is shaken and there is a revolution, you have to deal with it. That’s kind of the theme of the season.

Season 5 had some really bold experimental scenes—the silent movie treatment for Roger’s hanging and the “Never My Love” dream sequence. Can we expect more of that in season 6?

Yes. Diana’s books get deep into the characters’ feelings and emotions in their heads, and what we’ve discovered over the course of five seasons [is] that’s really hard to do visually onscreen. You could spend hours with Claire reading those passages in her head, and those are hard to dramatize visually. From day one, we wanted to push that, push the boundaries of getting into Roger’s head with the hanging and getting into Claire’s head with the rape and abuse. We’re going to try to do that again in season 6 but not deviate from the story. That’s the key to doing the series and doing it well: In every scene, we want to keep the essence of the book if we can’t do the book. There’s so much more material in the books than we could ever hope to produce, so it’s always a struggle and a challenge.

Did you feel like you had more time to work on the scripts due to the production delay?

Yes and no, because you can write a script, but it doesn’t live and breathe until you get it to production. You can write something and you’re going, this is magical. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written. And then you get it to production and they go, “Yeah, but we can’t film all this stuff.” So the scripts really don’t start existing to me until we get into the hands of production. That’s when they start to get a pulse and take on a life. And we rework them—that’s why you see the different colored scripts, pinks and yellows and greens. They’re living and breathing through production and changing. “We can’t do this location so we moved to another location,” or “Hey, can this take place in the parlor instead of the dining room because of this?” Then, even when we get to post, the story isn’t finished for me until the audience sees it.

Lauren Lyle, César Domboy, Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe, Richard Rankin, and Sophie Skelton in Outlander season 5.

Jason BellStarz

The season premiere is titled “Echoes.” Is that a nod to An Echo in the Bone?

It is not, which is funny, and I know people are going to leap all over that.

When you see the first episode, the title will speak for itself. Each character will be dealing with something from their past and it will help us tell stories going forward. There was a different title on my very first drop. Sometimes that happens. You read it again and you go, wait a minute, hold on a second, there’s something better here.

Are we looking at a significant time jump from “Never My Love”?

No, not significantly, because there’s a lot of story we need to connect. There were a lot of things left in the finale of season 5 that we still have to tell. It wouldn’t make sense to a new viewer, especially with a lot of the new viewers coming on to Outlander. We know we had one of our most successful, most-viewed seasons ever in season 5, so we know we’re getting new viewers and a lot of them have not read the book. Those viewers have to be told the same story and get something from it as well as the book readers who know everything that happened—or think they know everything that’s going to happen. Certainly, we keep them on their toes and move things around a little bit so they don’t know exactly when it’s coming.

I’m not looking to change the story. We just run into challenges. We can’t get an actor or we can’t get a place. It’s very difficult to make it all work together sometimes. Diana can say, Oh, I need Lord John in this scene? Here he is. And we don’t necessarily have that access. We ran into it a couple of years ago, where Laura Donnelly was not available when our story went back to Lallybroch. We had been hoping to get her and just didn’t have her, so at the last minute, we had to make adjustments. That’s what happens sometimes.

Talk about working with Caitriona and Sam as producers.

They really, really took on the challenge of wanting to learn what it is to be a producer and what goes into it. It’s something, to them, they’re taking on to broaden who they are in the industry, so when the day comes that there is no Outlander, they can go out and produce their own things. It’s a testimony to wanting to learn and to make yourself not only a better actor but producer, too. The sky’s the limit for both of them. They’re crazy talented.

Did you have any advice for them going into their new roles?

When they’re in production meetings, they’re listening and learning and seeing how it all gets put together, and they take on the challenge when they’re going to set as an actor. They’re going, Okay, these choices were made for these reasons. Being a producer is all about making decisions, and you’re hoping to make the right decision. There’s a difference between a production producer and a creative producer. I’ll use “Never My Love” as an example. For me, to take on the decision of, This is what we’re going to do and we’re going to do it like this—those are the choices, and you have to live with those choices.

That’s also part of being a producer, living with the choices you make. I never come from the standpoint of “the audience will feel, or the audience won’t understand, or the audience will understand.” I have no clue what the audience will like or dislike. I can only go with, “This is the product we’re going to give them and I hope they enjoy it. I hope they like it.” I think that goes with every producer, writer, director, actor, anything—they hope someone is getting something from it, and that’s always my intention in producing every one of these episodes.

Julie Kosin Senior Culture Editor Julie Kosin is the senior culture editor of ELLE.com, where she oversees all things movies, TV, books, music, and art, from trawling Netflix for a worthy binge to endorsing your next book club pick.

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Exclusive: 'Outlander' Season 6 Is Officially in Production

[tangymisst]

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐦 𝐈? 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐈 𝐝𝐨?

So what’s that noise about Women everywhere around us. They are talking about safety and security and rights and laws. What’s that debate about giving more opportunities and making the world a better place? It’s us. Women are talking about it. We are scared and angry. We are asking for help and not asking for it. We are asking to look at as like humans.

My name is Tarushi Choudhary, I’m 27 years old and I'm the Head of my Department. I stay in Mumbai. I drink, I party, I wear short clothes when I feel like and I don’t take shit from anyone. I’m who I’m. I’m a firm believer in gender equality. I’m a feminist and I know the correct meaning of that word. I’m bold and fierce and I’m very angry. Every few months we wake up from a long sleep and realize that oh no the world is a shit hole and no one is doing anything about it and what do we do? We say let’s go back to work it will all pass. And this is exactly where we are failing. We are failing as a society and a culture. With all that is going on around us, we forget that we or someone close to us is one instance away from being the victim. So what do we do? Can we change the law? No. That’s not in our power, hell the ones who have the power and not interested in changing the law. Can we reach out to each and every household of this country and explain to them the difference between the good and the bad? No, I don’t think that’s possible either. We are talking about the places where electricity and safe supply of water hasn’t reached how the hell are we going to make it to those corners. So what do we do? We educate the system and teach our future generation that this is not the correct way to live. Why we should do this? Because right now I don’t see anything else that we can do. The saying is right, It all starts at home. We need an environment where kids are told that it’s not OK to call names. It’s not OK to think that one gender is superior to another. Our kids need to know that it’s OK to love anyone they want and be loved back. It’s OK to cry no matter if you are a girl or a boy. It’s not OK to hit someone because you have more strength than them and it’s OK to stand up against bullies. We need to teach our kids that women are not meant to serve you and fulfill the needs of others.

We need to tell stories to our kinds about women who are not just good or bad, we need to tell them stories about women who are bold, and dangerous and fierce and triumphant. We need to tell them stories about real women, women we meet every single day of our lives. We need to admit that we are currently going through a cultural crisis. Actually, it’s not just now. It’s been like this for quite some time now. Sometimes it just feels forever. We don’t even have an equal number of representatives in our assemblies then how do we expect to have equal preservation of right in our legislature. There is no one and absolutely no one to stand up and fight on our behalf and the ones who are there don’t have enough support. So we need to tell our kids that we need equal representation in society.

People often tell me why do you feel offended or hurt when the women being talked about is not you. And my argument with them is if I will not stand for another woman right now then how can I expect someone else to stand up for me when I need them to. Take it from me It’s not easy to be a woman in this world of man. But there is no man who can make me feel less about myself. No, I didn’t grow up with these traits, I learned them along the way. People say when you are right you should be quiet and listen and only the fools talk or react. 𝐈 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐓. If you are right, then say it. If you know there is something wrong happening do something about it. If you think that a line is being crossed push the goddam person back, on the ground and on the face no matter what it takes. I cannot stop a rape from happening nor can I help that girl in any manner right now. I can’t do shit about it. I don’t have the power. But that doesn’t matter. Because the ones who have power are in no mood to use it towards issues like women's safety. So what can I do? I will keep standing up for what I believe is right. I will make sure that the people around me get the respect they deserve. I will fight back if they say anything against gender, race or color of anyone I know or I don't know. This is what I will do. This is how I was and this is how I will be and more than anything this is how my kids will be.

-𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢

[kootenaygoon]

So,

I was fascinated by the totems.

As I hiked my way around the Salmo River Ranch taking pictures for the Nelson Star in 2016, I was repeatedly drawn to the elaborate totems people hoisted into the air. One featured Garey Busey’s bug-eyed face. I started asking people what the deal was, and learned that they were used in the rave pits to keep certain crowds of people together. They were supposed to be a sublime expression of your soul, but half the time it just meant you were a particular type of drug dealer. After asking a pair of women whether I could take their picture, I asked one about the totem she was carrying. On one side it said “WANT” and on the other side it said “NEED”.

“Well, sometimes I have a hard time differentiating between my wants and my needs,” she said. “This reminds me that they’re two sides of the same coin.”

I chewed on that, nodding, as they continued on their way. After waking up in the back of my RAV that morning, I’d now spent three or four shirtless hours wandering the circumference of the ranch in my nearly dead flip flops. I was parked right beside Niles’ campsite, and he’d brought along $60-worth of a drug he called Champagne Moonrocks. He told me it would be more than enough to get me through the festival energy-wise while still delivering a wicked high. It was powder folded into a little square of tin foil. That morning I’d placed some on the back of my tongue, then settled into a camping chair with an issue of Harper’s. That’s when the nearby parking attendant started shouting at me.

“What are you doing, man? Are you reading?”

I shrugged, glancing down at my magazine. I was partway through an article about the “New Narcissism” of my generation.

“Dude, you’re at a rave!”

I decided his argument was compelling enough that I walked out to where he stood in his safety vest and offered to share my joint with him. Niles appeared from his truck and joined us, pulling on his glittery yellow tights and adjusting his Elvis sunglasses. The three of us spent the next four hours back-slapping and story-swapping, and before long we’d attracted a crowd, including a dude from Edmonton named Trippz and a tattooed party-goer with “Reality is an excuse for limitations” tattooed inside his bicep.

“I’m realizing that the hyperbolic, fictional version of Shambhala that I invented in my head doesn’t even touch how crazy it actually is here,” I told my friends. “I mean, look!”

Two rainbow-coloured men were nude-sprinting past, paint dripping from their danglers.

“What were you guys doing?” I asked, flagging one down. 

“We covered ourselves in paint and rolled on the canvas to make art,” he told me, whooping. “Happy Shambs!”

I made a mental note that I wanted to remember this conversation for my Nelson Star column, so I rushed over to my notebook and jotted it down. When I came back the parking attendant asked me what I was writing down. I explained that I was a journalist, and I was trying to understand Shambhala on a deeper level than it had been engaged with in the past. I wanted a firsthand, raw experience I could translate into something more meaningful than all the negative coverage it had received over the years. The thing was a cultural juggernaut, and it was key to understanding the mental health realities of the Kootenays.

“Dude, that’s fucking dope,” he said.

“This year I’m going to all these different music festivals and writing a column about each one. I did ‘Three Days at Tiny Lights’, `Three Days at Kaslo Jazz’ and now I’m doing this one.”

“Word. You have a cool job, bro. Going to music festivals for free? I mean, look at this shit, man. I’m a fucking DJ but I still gotta do like a 12-hour parking shift.”

My eyes widened. “You’re doing a 12-hour shift?”

“Yeah, man. Two of them. That’s how I earn my ticket, like trade.”

This guy was fascinating me, and suddenly I wanted to know everything there was to know about being a Vancouver DJ. I asked him what it felt like to stand in front of a surging crowd at some nightclub, how exactly he created his music, and what sort of musical tradition he came from.

He laughed at that. “Musical tradition? Man, we’re not talking about Classical Music here.”

“But genre-wise, what would you call it?”

He then spoke for a minute or two, shrugging and cringing, trying to get his description just-right. He named producers and MCs and DJs that I’d never heard of, and probably never would hear of again. Electronic music was a purple swamp my brain just couldn’t immerse in. One thing was becoming increasingly clear to me, though: drugs were the key to understanding it’s appeal. The power was in their pairing, the marriage of drugs and music. He’d been a believer in this music for over a decade now, and he wasn’t sick of it. I respected his dedication to a craft.

But I had bigger questions. At this point Niles was no longer with us, so I asked the scrawny DJ how he felt about the fundamental culture of it all. So much of it seemed silly, needlessly dangerous, and often toxic. He nodded.

“I’ve got a story for you, man,” he said. “You wanna hear about some of the shit that happens in this world? Dudes drugging girls and raping them? This shit is out of control.”

He then settled into his story. It begun when a girl approached him, and told him about a particular DJ he was friends with. She described how she went home with him, but shortly after arriving there became paralyzed from some sort of drug. She was still conscious, though, when he forced himself on her.

“That motherless fuck. I would rip his throat out,” I said. “What did you do?”

He shook his head apologetically, and sighed. The other DJ was a very good friend of his, and they were entangled professionally in a number of ways. He wasn’t sure enough of the girl’s story to risk crossing him, so he did nothing. He continued to perform with the guy. That’s when a second girl came to him.

“She had the exact same story. She went back to his place, she was having a drink and then all of a sudden she’s paralyzed and he’s naked. It was like word for word the same story.”

I was starting to shake. These sorts of stories overwhelmed me. I didn’t say anything this time, just let him finish.

“Then finally, one of my very best girl friends came to me. She was crying and I knew before she said it, I knew what she was going to tell me. I’ll tell you what, Will, I’m ashamed that I didn’t act the first two times but now I was straight up murderous. Like I was going to fucking put the boots to this guy.”

I shook my head, thinking about the episode of The Sopranos where Dr. Melfi gets raped. I remember how desperately I wanted vengeance. This was the real life version of that.

“So I called up like six of my guys and we rolled up on motorcycles. He was waiting for us, right? He knew we were coming for him.”

“This was in Vancouver, like downtown Vancouver?”

“Yeah, he was waiting outside his apartment building with a bunch of his buddies. But we had them outnumbered by two.”

I couldn’t believe it. “So what happened?”

“Well, it kind of got broken up early. But we put him in the hospital. And that fucker hasn’t gotten a DJ gig in Vancouver ever since.” The Kootenay Goon

[pretendpapi]

No Apologies for Queer White Tears

By Faith Cheltenham

Delivered as a keynote address to the 2016 BlaQOUT Conference at UC Riverside on April 9th, 2016.

White tears is a term that has a startling effect on white folks. Developed over time to describe the phenomenon of white people being upset at the very act of discussing race, it’s evolved into a funny yet, extremely effective way to describe white people’s discomfort in discussing the very racism they perpetuate. One of the earliest articles available online about white tears written by a person of color is the 2007 College Student Affairs Journal article “When White Women Cry: How White Women’s Tears Oppress Women of Color” by Mamta Motwani Accapadi. In the article, Accapadi describes a case study of a white woman bursting into tears when being pressed by a woman of color about diversity resources at the college that employs them both. Instead of working on the issues affecting students, the case study states that the rest of the meeting was spent consoling the white woman about her white tears. So it’s white tears I immediately thought of last July, as I sat talking to Kathryn Snyder about white folks interrupting Black people to tell us about their own racism, when what do you know? A young Tearful White Woman (let’s call her TWW for short) interrupts us to ask, “Can we talk? Just talk as people? About race?” Her friends tried to pull her back and whisper in her ear but TWW was inebriated and loudly whispered back “No! I get to ask! I get to ask!” I told her, “You can ask, but I am not required to answer you.”See, I’d never met this particular TWW before, and neither had Kathryn Snyder, an amazing Black bi+ queer organizer everyone should know (that’s her on the right with the triangle earrings). We were all of us, tearful white people included, at the 2015 Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix, back in July where a whole bunch of Black folks experienced a whole bunch of racism. You know, like they do most months.The kind of racism where white liberals you’ve never met before are suddenly touching your face without asking in their best petting paternalism, or the kind where you repeatedly turn a corner to find a Black girl sobbing but surrounded in love by other Black people. #YouOKSis? It was the kind of space where Black people were openly targeted, in this case mostly by Bernie Sanders supporters who were reeling from recent reports that Sanders wasn’t scoring well with Black voters. Shit was going down, so it made sense that many white people would immediately turn to any Black person they could find to assuage their white guilt, express their privilege and stump for their candidate too. Like “Black voters” were a product to obtain, instead of listen to, and to harp on, instead of hear from.An older, respected white LGBT advocate invited a number of LGBT people of color to his suite party and made it clear that people of color were welcome. So me and Kathryn showed up, and with a bunch of other people proceeded to have a great time. At one point we went on an excursion looking for supplies, and the elevator was really slow. As we waited, the full elevators would open and we would pose in different forms, much like we used to do when I was a young’un at UCLA. Once when the door opened, I saw a few Black women I had seen before but not yet talked to. I called out, “Hey now, we’re up in Rm 512 if you want to hang with some queer people of color and some Black folks!” The women locked eyes on me, and that moment happened, the one where they were no longer surrounded by oppressive whiteness, discomfort, tone policing, and silencing. The moment when you’re not thinking at all about white tears?  You know, the moment when you’re free?#BlackLivesMatter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, Ferguson BLM activist Ashley Yates, and #NN15 QPOC Caucus co-organizers Faith Cheltenham, Eyad Alkurabi, Sommer Foster and Daniel Villarreal at Netroots Nation 2015. Photo Credit: Faith CheltenhamThe Black women in the elevator called back to us, “We’ll come back up” and we decided to skip going back downstairs.  We went back to the suite and chilled, and Kathryn and I started talking about our Netroots Nation experience so far, in particular the ability of white folks to interrupt her at every moment to “talk about race” or tell her what Bernie Sanders had done for Black folks (#BernieSoBlack has more details). I was just telling her some of the things that had unfolded for me when I got a tap on the shoulder from the aforementioned Tearful White Woman. Even after I expressed that it wasn’t my responsibility to educate this tearful white woman, she persisted. Kathryn raised an eyebrow at me and I decided that TWW did need to know something from me after all. As I finished a custom hand roll, I looked up from licking the paper and said, “Listen to me OK? This is really important.” TWW nodded bravely, visibly squaring herself for a barrage of statements she really needed to hear, but I only had one. “I want you to imagine that every time you walk up to Black folks and interrupt their conversation, you are interrupting a conversation about Black folks being interrupted by white people.” As she opened her mouth to reply, I held up my hand and went all “you shall not pass”. Stoic, I handed her my most recent hand roll. “Listen”, I said gently, “that’s all I got for right now, but you take this with my best wishes. Goodbye.” Her friends dragged her out my space and one stayed behind. Kathryn raised another eyebrow, and I sighed. TWW’s friend quickly said, “Listen, I am SO SORRY her white privilege got all over you when you were just hanging out. We were on the elevator just now and she became convinced you were talking to her and telling her to come to room 512. We told her you were talking to the other women of color and told her about the need for safe space in oppressive white spaces, but she’s really new to social justice.”I had tears of laughter in my eyes, at the ridiculousness of those white folks who ALWAYS insist that EVERYTHING in Black lives is REALLY all about them. And I had hope, simply because of the friend who had stuck behind to quickly explain, apologize, and make right. So I thanked TWW’s friend and wished them all a good night. As they walked away, Kathryn and I burst out into big ass belly laughs because sometimes racism IS good for a laugh. Faith Cheltenham in the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, age 9. Photo Credit: Faith CheltenhamWhite tears wasn’t a term I knew when I was in middle school and organized my first protest against my school’s “Jungle Fever” ball. See, I grew up in white town, white county, very white USA. My hometown of San Luis Obispo, California prided itself on its “slo-ness” in all things, from the ban on drive thru’s to its slow to evolve racial sensibilities. From a very early age, I withstood taunts of “Aunt Jemima”, pulls on my braids intended to show my “real hair”, and insults from students and teachers alike, with the favorite being “Buckwheat” due to my hair’s tendency to stand up so straight you’d think my follicles themselves were stressed. My daily school experience was of avoiding the kids who threw rocks at me only to come back from recess to fight with my teachers about their racist views. By the time I was in high school I was writing about my experiences of race, inspired by Nikki Giovanni, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. I won an honorable mention from a USA Today writing racial justice content as a high school freshman and kept writing, hoping to create an invisible ring of protection that would keep my hope (and self) alive. I battled race at school, but when I went home, I didn’t go home to a Black home that welcomed me, but to a biracial one ruled by a mentally unstable, racist, biphobic and homophobic white Pentecostal pastor. At home I faced abuse of a different kind, most of which I kept secret for many years until taking a hammer to my own wall of silence. And at home too, I protested. I protested and called the police. I protested and called CPS. I protested and called for help, and when I couldn’t get it, I called RAINN, a hotline that helped me find a teen homeless shelter to stay in until I could feel safe at home again. These are the experiences of so many Black people: the loss of safety at home and abroad in their everyday lives, all-the-while experiencing the colonization of our bodies, appropriations of our culture, and the fragility of white people who refuse to dismantle their own supremacy in a world where it’s far too difficult to tell the difference between the GOP and the KKK. My background led me to raise my voice consistently for those unheard, and those kept at the margins. I’ve done that with blogging, writing, slam poetry, reality show appearances, stand-up comedy, and Black and bisexual community organizing. Everywhere I go I’ve been standing up for oppressed people, because before I knew the words and the mechanism for my own oppression, I knew the feeling. I knew the feeling of crying alone, desperate to end my own life because I couldn’t take another adult yelling the N word at me at 9 years old. I knew the feeling of being patted down and frequently profiled by police because that’s what walking down the street in San Luis Obispo, CA any damn day entailed. I knew what it was like to be raped because a boy thought he knew what a big breasted Black ten year old girl like me wanted. I have always known what it is like to be treated as a second class citizen in comparison to my peers. Still, racism can always find new ways to surprise you.Photo of #TheBlackPanel at #LGBTMEDIA16 handouts with a love note from ForHarriet.com’s Ashleigh Shackelford. Photo Credit: Faith CheltenhamRecently, I re-experienced the phenomenon of gaslighting racism which Black LGBT YA author Craig Gidney defines as a situation "where (mostly) (some) white people will twist themselves into logic pretzels to deny racism, even when it is obvious."We were about to begin #TheBlackPanel at #LGBTMedia16, an annual gathering of LGBTQ journalists, bloggers and media professionals. Our panel featured a rising star in discussions of race, New York Times columnist Charles Blow, alongside NBCNews.com contributor Danielle Moodie-Mills, and Vox.com’s Race and Identities editor Michelle Garcia. The panel was developed by myself, Sharif Durhams of the WashingtonPost.com and Matt Foreman of the Haas Foundation with the support of Bil Browning, founder of bilerico.com. We were the 2nd panel to go and as we gathered to get everyone settled, I turned around to find a wonderfully styled white woman invading my personal space to whisper to me how beautiful Charles Blow was and how much she loved him and could she have her picture right now, before everyone else because she was such a fan. Since we literally were about to start the panel, I asked her to wait and sit down so we could get started, which she did. As we began the panel and started having a really good and profound conversation, from the podium I noticed a rise in concerning behavior from the wonderfully styled white woman (we can call her WSWW for short). After the panel had begun, she got up and walked over to the panel table and put her phone down to tape. After a few minutes, she began to look concerned for her phone and she began to quietly crawl forward. The whole time I’m watching her, like WTF, are you literally crawling slowly forward towards our panel? And she kept crawling closer and closer. I admit it, at that point all I saw was WHITE PEOPLE. I was furious with the general lack of respect and disregard for the panelists and for myself as a moderator. When, from the moderator’s podium, I asked her to take her seat because I found it distracting, instead of nodding and moving back to her seat she began to argue with me about why it wasn’t a big deal for her to be there, and why I should just let it go and why it’s OK to tape things because “look, we have a celebrity”. In those statements, I felt a disregard for my own work and a general slight to my own experience as a journalist and a person who’s worked with high profile institutions like the White House or Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, a woman I’m proud to call a mentor. While it seemed like such a small thing, coupled with her previous invasion of personal space and her comments on her love for beautiful Black men, it just read racist and real racist at that. However, it won’t surprise you that the only support I felt in that room for my desire to stay on topic was from my fellow Black girl queers. As I struggled to “keep my eyebrows on”, I thought about  Black writer and The Nightly Show contributor’s Franchesca Ramsey’s run in with white queer women at The Sundance Film Festival and I took strength from looking Ashleigh Shackelford right in the face as she raised her eyebrows at Charles Blow for his apologies to the white woman of behalf of me, the Black woman who invited him to speak on the panel. In those moments of racial microaggressions, and in the moment when white tears threaten the ability for Black people to even discuss race, we all lose. All the LGBT people of color in attendance at #LGBTMedia16. Photo Credit: Cathy Renna/TargetCueI believe I pulled it together, and we were able to continue a meaningful conversation that multiple people later remarked being deeply impressed by during the public feedback session. As we ended the convening, I tapped WSWW on the shoulder and asked if we could speak. We went off to the side and had a difficult conversation, certainly for both of us. She, like myself, is bisexual and had been deeply influenced by Charles Blow’s discussions of sexual fluidity. She told me others had apologized to her for my “crazy” response to her being a fan girl, and she said she was worried for me since I had humiliated myself by bullying her.  Image of crying Peter Parker with caption, “White Boy Tears / I’m Offended Your Offended At that, a smile broke across my face, and I will never forget telling her “That’s OK, because you’re going to your grave having told a Black woman that she humiliated herself when she responded to your racism.” WSWW blanched at that, and swallowed hard when I followed up with a tearfully stated, “I call you racist to your face, and name your actions as racist”. As she teared up, she asked me how it could be racist just to bring her phone up to the panel. And I took her through the sequence of events from my perspective, and I asked her if she realized she had touched me, or if she realized she was in my space, attempting to lean across my body to reach Charles Blow, when we’d never even met before. Her eyes went WIDE, and she said, “Oh, my gosh. I totally invaded your space and I didn’t even think about it.” We talked about her “Black friends” in Oklahoma, and I told her that having Black friends doesn’t mean you’re actually invested in the movement for Black lives. We talked about her “love of Black people” and how that can be misconstrued into fetishization if one isn’t careful, especially when you begin crawling towards them with puppy dog eyes during a panel about race in America. We began to laugh with each other and I realized I really liked her even though I didn’t think she’d ever had the opportunity to learn how to respect a Black person like me, and culturally exchange with them instead of culturally appropriate from them. Image from Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for LGBT People of Color report by the Movement Advancement Project.That’s a responsibility, I feel should be left squarely at the feet of a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community that’s doggedly refused to dialogue about race in favor of reinventing racism in new flavors. I had to wonder if WSWW had been influenced at all by the #LGBTMEDIA16 keynote address the night before that found gay legend and filmmaker John Waters telling jokes about Freddie Gray’s broken back alongside Bill Cosby rape stories. In a rare move, the convening had asked the attendees to refrain from taking photos or video of John Water’s “address”, which was probably for the best, as I feel like someone could have lost their job just for listening to the atrocities that dropped from Waters’ mouth like little white nuggets of gay racism. Experiencing that, even briefly since I walked out early, was a form of racial trauma visited upon the people of color in the space, and for what? Since you’re gay and white, you’ve been hurt and can hurt people too? Since you’re a white gay man, you know what it’s like to fear police so Freddie Gray’s broken vertebrae is a good punchline when you’re feeling salty? Since you’re a white LGBTQ person, you have no problem stepping into photos where people of color are already posed together, with nary a thought as to whether they want you in the photo too? Since you’re a white lesbian, you’re a “sister” to Black women? Since you’re queer, you can culturally appropriate Black culture with a “SLAY!” or “YASSSSS QUEEN!” or “GIRL, GET IT!”? The six openly LGBT U.S. ambassadors, all white, all gay and all cis. Photo Credit: WashingtonPost.com/ (Blake Bergen/GLIFAA) Oh no, I think not!!! I call that racist too, and long past time for an end. It’s time for all people of color to see some basic levels of respect in the LGBTQIA community for who they are. So that means no more “Namaste!”, and it means dropping the “No Blacks, No Asians” from your dating profile. It means fighting just as hard for clean water for Native people as it does for the residents of Flint, MI, and shouting #Not1More to amplify the fight of Latinx immigrants. It means fighting #pinkwashing in all it's forms and it ABSOLUTELY means acknowledging the existence of dozens of cultural experiences and peoples still fighting to be heard. It also means that LGBT orgs should quit touting the numbers of people of color on staff, until the management reflects those colors too. When all the coordinators, service providers, and facility people are of color and all the management is white, it still looks like a plantation in my book! #GayMediaSoWhite that LGBT publishers shouldn't bother counting the magazine covers with people of color on them, if they aren't also counting the number of people of color on staff writing and editing in them. Until the day comes that the rainbow really reflects all of us, I will stand up against racism in LGBTQIA communities with whatever tools I have at my disposal. I will keep telling myself, and telling you too, that it is OK to cry, and BE MAD. We should be mad that our community does not support us! It is OK to protest white LGBT people, in fact one might argue it is our duty as their fellow queer, bi+ and trans* community members. We must do what needs to be done to find some respect for our voices and our bodies, and make clear that the LGBTQIA community is one that supports freedom for everyone, and not just for some.

[ideahat-universe]

A Tale of Two Bad Guys.

I have not one but two video reviews for you. 

One is Armoured Skeptic and his girlfriend Shoeonhead and the other is The Cinema Snob and they’re reviewing 50 Shades of Grey and Old Fashioned Respectively. 

Despite these movies seeming different, they have everything in common. 

For one thing the female leading is painfully frumpy and submissive in both films. A man wrote Old Fashioned but a woman wrote 50 Shades of Grey. Just something for the record. Both genders can do an equally poor job writing for women. 

The other link is how the male is portrayed. Make no mistake. In both these stories the male is actually a very toxic individual and the way he’s written he’s a predator. 

In Old Fashioned you get this very Anachronistic notion that the male sexuality is deviant and requires an incredible amount of self control so that they don’t harm or exploit women. The lead is basically a beast in his own mind and in order to control himself he must exert a series of safety measures to preserve himself around women, and the only way for him to be in the company of a woman would be for him to court her and get married for the purposes of having a kid. Not even to make love per-se, to have a kid. All the romance is in the self control which bizarrely lacks any and all romance but that’s romantic in a strange way. 

Surprisingly this is not just psychopath logic. This was a standard for quite a long time. I imagine when this ideology of courtship was invented, people were in fact barbarians that needed this system. Just look at Islam. It has the same root as Christianity except it never got modernized and in their faith the “Men are potential abusers and predators of women and women have to secure themselves from men and hide themselves from men” is the supreme standard. It extends beyond the religious faith. There’s nothing in the Quran regarding the Hi-jab, it’s just that the religion so thoroughly oppresses women and it knows that it’s men that do it that the only course of action is to just go ahead and make women invisible to the men who have absolute control over them while also being the number one person to rape and abuse them. 

Now you know why this mindset doesn't exist in the west and why an atheist like Brad Jones considers the lead of Old Fashioned to be a potential serial killer. Because it’s either that or he’s just too Old Fashioned. 

And um. 50 Shades of Grey. Well. It’s awfulness is well documented. But for the record it’s an easy reflection of Old Fashioned. 

Old Fashioned: Men are animals that prey on submissive women and need Jesus help them with their self control. 

50 Shades of Grey: Our male lead is indeed an animal and preys on a submissive woman but because he’s so messed up and damaged maybe the woman can change him? 

Are you starting to see what I mean about them basically being the same? Both these things are kind of a blight on our culture and they should be removed, (preferably by a giant purple pink haired cat in a police uniform). 

What’s that? Old Fashioned is worse than 50 Shades of Grey? I don’t entirely follow that logic but I suppose we can’t get rid of both at the same time. After all, humans are bad at multitasking. We can’t get rid of both of these at the same time. We have to do one and then the other. So you reckon Old Fashioned is the one to get rid of first? “It’s barbaric, it’s anachronistic, and it’s very regressive.” And 50 Shades of Grey isn't? 

I guess we can be pedantic about this but that is not going to get things done faster. So. Yes. We will get rid of Old Fashioned first. Wait a second. How did Old Fashioned appear in the first place? 

Ah that’s right. 50 Shades of Grey became a blockbuster success as well as a bestseller and that created a reaction to it that spawned Old Fashioned. The creator of Old Fashioned doesn't even have a real film making history. He made one film before that one and it was all the way back in 2006. 

So this person was effectively empowered (negatively empowered) to come out of obscurity to make a counterpoint to 50 Shades of Grey. 50 Shades of Grey created a worse version of itself. Whose to say that this is only the first of many? 50 Shades was a huge success, it’s garnered sequels and people brush it under the rug as just some simple fap material that is no big deal. But it’s certain to create more products like Old Fashioned because it’s an awful reflection of our culture and of something we kind of accept. 

I can’t force into you thinking who is better for the target of removal in the effort to make society better. I’m only telling you that if you target the symptom and not the sickness you don’t create a lasting cure. And if the sickness gets worse the Symptoms become a separate illness all it’s own and when you have two equally powerful illnesses blighting you, cruel and painful death is only around the corner. 

[sebprotectionn]

the ants and the safe place

Have you ever stepped on ant’s nest  when you’re walking ? When you stepped on it, the nest crumble and destroyed, and all the animals inside are running away from their nest, trying to save themselves. No matter how organized or how structured their life was, when something destroy their home, they run. Now those syirian refugees are just like that. Their home was destroyed, and everything that was familiar to them was gone.

Home is a place where you can feel safe, a place where you can feel loved. It’s a place to go and rest your world.

Those  Syrian refugees, they do not leave their home voluntarily, they leave because they’ve lost everything. We need to understand that no one leaves their home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the borders when you see the whole city running as well.

I believe, that European country should accept all syirian refugees and asylum seekers that come to seek aid or protection.

The vast majority of the terrified, friendless, and profoundly vulnerable refugees scattered around Europe today, came from syiria. And as that conflict enters its sixth barbaric year, desperate syirian families are being forced to make an impossible decision. To stay and face starvation, rape, persecution, and death, or make hazardous journey to find sanctuary elsewhere.

I mean who can blame desperate parents for wanting to escape the horror that their families are experiencing? Children are being killed on their way to school. Children as young as 7 years old are being forcefully recruited to the frontline, and one in three children have grown up knowing nothing but fear and war. Those children have been exposed to things no child should ever witness. And i know, i would risk everything to get my family out of that place.

This has become a humanitarian crisis on a scale we have not seen since the second world war. Yet everyone seems paralysed to respond. Stuck talking only about “migrants” when we should mean fathers, son, sisters,brothers, daughters, and mothers. Stuck treating migrant and asylum as the same thing, when they are completely different, and we should keep them so.

The word migrant describes a person who leaves home to seek a new life in another regions or country. It includes those who take a job in another country or region to seek finance stability. But the word refugees describes someone fleeing war, persecution, or natural disaster. Under international law, no one can be sent to a place where they face a real risk of being persecuted. Those claiming this status can ask for asylum.

The European union has spent years building the common European asylum system, which is intended to ensure that the rights of refugees under international law are protected in its member states. The system sets out minimum standards and procedures for processing and assessing asylum applications, and for the treatment of both asylum seekers and those who are granted refugee status.

However, many EU states have yet to properly implement these standards. What exists instead is a patchwork of 28 asylum systems, producing uneven results

Today, I have several reasons, why I believe european country should accept with open arms those syirian refugees and asylum seekers that come to seek aid or protection.

First of all, European people needs to understand that these people doesn’t come to Europe for money, or jobs. They come to Europe because there’s  a war.

Over the past months, politicians, journalists, and ordinary people across Europe have passionately debated what is called the refugee crisis in Europe. Some have used expressions such as “flood”, “invasion”, or “ swarms of people” to describe the hundreds of thousands who are determined to reach Europe in search of security and safety.

According to the UN, a third of a million people have tried to cross Mediterranean in the last eight months. With that number, many European worry about the integration of these new population. They raise concerns that these asylum seekers would require extensive state support in a time of continued economic insecurity in Europe. Some Europeans also fear that they would threaten the cultural make up due to the alleged incompability of the Islamic faith of the majority of the new arrivals.

I want to be clear that I understand that European people have fears about the refugee situation. They are worried about the impact on their communities, livelihoods, and security if they accept refugees into their countries. It is not wrong to feel unsettled face by crisis of such complexity and such magnitude. But we must not let fears get the best of us. We must not let fear stand in the way of an effective response that is in our long term interests.

Second of all, those Syrian refugees may not be European, and may not have the same beliefs as most European, but these people are also educated, they have dreams, they have history, they have lives, and they deserve a chance to live in peace like everyone else. If we allow our identification with each other to be obsecured by our identities, then we are lost.

The United Nation High Commisioner for Refugees or UNHR have stated in the UNHCR Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas, chapter 2 points 16 and 17, that Protection must be provided to refugees in a complementary and mutually supportive manner, irrespective of where they are located. Thus in addition to addressing the needs of those refugees who live in cities and towns, UNHCR considers it essential for host states and the international community to continue with their efforts to ensure that other refugees, including those in camps, are able to exercise all the rights to which they are entitled and are able to live in acceptable conditions. These rights include, but are not limited to, the right to life; the right not to be subjected to cruel or degrading treatment or punishment; the right not to be tortured or arbitrarily detained; the right to family unity; the right to adequate food, shelter, health and education, as well as livelihoods opportunities.

To me, refugees are heroes, I say heroes, not victims, because they have taken their fate into their hands in full view of great risks. What is remarkable about these people is how intact they are, how unwilling to surrender they are. And I ask myself, what have we come to when such survivors are made to feel like beggars?

In my beliefs it comes down to understanding the law, and choosing not to be afraid. For the sake of the people of syiria, and for all the refugees around the world.

Because remember  , no  one puts their children in a boat, unless the water is safer than the land.

ps : this is my own essay for my english project at school. this topic is very close to my heart and I feel more people should know about this issue, so I just decided to share it. :) 

[akokosblog-blog]

Check this new published post on https://is.gd/5U3qXE

Falz Moral Instruction Album Review

Falz Moral Instruction album amidst much controversy is released. Falz highly anticipated album was released on the 15th of January 2019 with the hashtag #moralinstruction rolling on social media.

One of the notable figures that greatly influenced Nigerian music is Fela Anikulapo Kuti, professionally known as Fela Kuti, or Fela.

Fela was a talented musician, composer, pioneer of afrobeat and he played multiple instruments.

He was known to be a staunch activist as he stood up for the people and resisted oppression back in his time.

There were multiple cases of him being persecuted for his beliefs and what he stood for.

In a particular instance, he was jailed for 20months but still, he pushed on and stood his ground.

Over time, the music industry in Nigeria has evolved and experienced tremendous progress and changes.

Different artists have contributed to the gallery of music and the number keeps increasing by the hundreds every day.

Many artists have been called Fela because they have tried to emulate Fela as regards his style of music and activism.

Artists like Wizkid, Burnaboy and a host of others have been labeled the new Fela.

So, Folarin Falana, popularly known as “Falz theBahdGuy”, a rapper, released a 9-track album titled Moral Instruction.

Falz extensively and outrightly expressed his dissatisfaction at the state of things in Nigeria.

Falz has always been vocal about the state of things in the country maybe because of the activist blood running in his veins.

Prior to the release of the Moral Instruction album, he released songs like Child of the world, which is a story of a moral upright girl that got corrupted when she got raped by an uncle and eventually, she became a sex worker and ultimately, she changed and became a new person.

Social media went agog when the song was released with different individuals voicing out their opinion.

Falz has always expressed his dislike for girls that place a value on sex and internet fraudsters popularly known as Yahoo-Yahoo boys.

Last year, Falz also released a controversial video, This is Nigeria.

The video depicted the current state of the nation including, the Fulani killings, the snake swallowing 36-million-naira scandal, the sorry state of Nigerian politics, the harassment of citizens by FSARS and a host of other issues in the country.

All these conveniently paved ways for the new album Moral Instruction.

Falz Moral Instruction Album Review

Moral Instruction Album Review – Falz

Falz channeled the spirit of Fela’s activism and this was outrightly visible from the album art as designed by the talented designer, Lemi Ghariokwu who designed many of the cover images for the recordings of Fela.

He teamed up with producers like Sess, Chillz, Willis, and TMXO to create this beautiful body of work. It is important to also note that he sampled some of Fela’s songs in the album.

Each country in the world has an artist or group of artists considered to be the G.O.A.T (not the pepper soup type, G.O.A.T stands for Greatest Of All Time) for that country.

In America, most believe this is Tupac Shakur, while some think Michael Jackson or Elton John should have that title-depending on who you ask; Jamaica has Bob Marley, Ghana is fortunate enough to have a living G.O.A.T in the person of Sarkodie and so on.

In Nigeria however, the greatest artist of all time is without any doubt FELA KUTI.

In a country with divisions in tribe and religion and even subdivisions within the aforementioned groups, it is very surprising that FELA’S title of G.O.A.T goes unchallenged.

To many Nigerians, Fela is a physical embodiment of fearlessness.

He spoke the truth everybody knew but were too scared to speak, he fought for the weak, he challenged the oppressors of Nigeria at the risk of his own personal safety and the safety of his family.

This is why to say an artist is “like Fela” or “is the Fela of our generation” is the highest compliment that can be paid to a Nigerian musician.

Falz theBahdGuy is the latest artist in a long list of artists currently contending for that spot and many feels he has earned it with this new album #moralinstruction.

His album talks about every single thing wrong with Nigeria.

He literally “dragged” the whole country-pastors, church members, politicians, citizens, sex workers, child abusers, everybody in Nigeria was dragged and this is the major reason why the album is on everybody’s lips.

Since everybody was mentioned on that album it means every single Nigerian relates to at least one song on the album with majority of Nigerians relating to all the songs.

Track by Track breakdown of the Fela Moral Instruction Album

Johnny

The first track on the album contains samples of Fela’s song “Johnny just drop”.

TMXO infused a hip hop beat into the afrobeat song. I think Falz used this track to start a chain reaction and set the pace for the remaining tracks.

This song transports the listener back to 1980 with the Fela type of instrumental.

Falz tackles the issue of police brutality by telling a short story about a Nigerian youth – Johnny, who just completed his youth service and was shot when he went out to celebrate with friends.

On the track, Falz talked about the alarming rate of insecurity in Nigeria.

He stated the different levels of insecurity in the country ranging from the cultural and religious killings in different parts of the country.

He questions the lack of punishment for the officers involved in the act and is baffled that the government thinks an apology is enough to sate the bereaved parents of the deceased.

It depicts the savagery and recklessness of the Nigerian police force as different reports of “trigger-happy cops” fill the headlines every day.

He ended the song with the Yoruba words, “if Johnny continues to drop, eyanmelo lo maku, eyanmelo lo maku” which means, how many people will die and how many people will be left.

Follow Follow

This track is based on Fela’s Zombie, and Sess smoothly blended it into a hip-hop groove. This immediately reminds the listener of the popular Fela song ��zombie” and the message is very clear.

Fela sang the original song which talks about how soldiers are bound to follow orders.

Falz built on this with how he likened the enslavement of people by social media to people being zombies.

The song addresses people that are ready to do anything for validation, people who don’t have any goals of their own and people who jump on wagons simply because other people are doing it.

Different individuals try to be what they are not and imitate what they see on social media.

He talks about how people have lost their self-identity and caved into peer pressure.

The song emphasizes the craziness and the extent people go, to please other people and also get likes and followers on social media.

Hypocrite

This particular track is one of my favorite tracks on the album. The song started with piano chords which transitioned into a groovy beat.

Falz teamed up with Demmie Vee who delivered a sonorous hook to the verses of the song.

The first verse started out with Falz singing a little bit before he went hardcore and the second verse, the same way.

The song addresses the hypocrisy in the society ranging from the government to the common man.

Falz theBahdGuy in his usual bar spitting nature dissected matters affecting Nigeria (fake pastors, overzealous Muslims, child marriage, pedophiles in the church and politicians that starve their fellow citizens to their purses).

He talked about how people have two faces; the face they put on the outside and the real one.

Talk

This track was released a few days before the album was released and it is also about all the ills in society.

The song slowly progressed in a call and response manner until Falz went on a spree of another marvelous spits of bars.

“Anything I talk make you talk am again”

Addressed the situation of MURIC suing him, stating that they didn’t show up at court.

Falz TheBahdGuy didn’t hold back in this particular track as he rapped about a wide range of things including transactional sex, late payment of salaries by the government and the bad situation of things in Nigeria.

The song ended by him taking responsibility of the words spoken and he said, “na me talk am o”.

Amen

This particular one was built on the track “Coffin for Head of state” by Fela.

Falz has made it clear over and over again that hypocrisy in religion upsets him.

Amen attacks religious leaders that have successfully commercialized religion, he laughs at the irony of religious leaders using the money of their followers to build a university that the followers cannot afford to go to.

This song is a plea to the listener to open his eyes, mind and to think for his/her self.

Brother’s keeper

The family is very precious to Nigerians; Fathers kill for their daughters, sons go to war for their Mothers.

If we thought of all our neighbors as brothers would there still be hate in the country?

Would we still be divided because of ethnic and religious differences? These are the question’s this song is trying to ask.

Falz talks about individuals at different levels not looking out for each other and emphasized what he has been saying on the previous tracks.

He believes love is the answer; if you love your neighbor like your brother you cannot cheat him, you cannot seek to do him harm.

Sess did justice to the track as both the producer and the singer of the hook.

I also love the fact that the backup vocals sound like a choir singing giving the track a very unique vibe.

The song has one message for its listener-be your brother’s keeper.

Paper

What’s money worth? The breaker of tables once again comes with his hammer to do an honest day’s work. 

He condemns parents giving out underage children because of money, he expresses disappointment at ritualists, drug smugglers and politicians who are ready to do anything to get money.

This particular track is an extension of the previous tracks.

In his own words, they commit all these crimes all because of “just paper”.

E no finish

Here he questions the purpose of speaking out about the injustice in the society when the issues that Fela talked about are still not resolved till today.

Fela talked, people applauded him and continued wallowing in their filth.

He tries to let the listener know just how bad the situation is in the country if we are still trying and failing to work out the same problems since independence.

It ended with Lemi Ghariokwu saying few words about the state of things in Nigeria.

After all said and done

In this short poem, Falz theBahdGuy admits that he knows he has no right to throw blame around, admitting his own faults and weaknesses, since he is also a human with flaws of his own.

The track is in form of a poetry rendition.

He believes everybody is guilty – through action or inaction and only by accepting our guilt and striving to be better can we move forward as a country, together.

He finally encouraged people to be conscious and not keep quiet about the happenings in our society.

In conclusion

Falz may have dropped what promises to be the most controversial album of the year but regardless of your opinion about the Falz Moral Instruction album you have to admit that all he said is nothing but the gospel truth.

It’s great to see an artiste devote a whole album to talk about the state of affairs in Nigeria and taking the path of activism and walk in Fela’s footsteps.

Fela has become more than a person. Fela has become more of an ideology and a way of life.

I think anyone that decides to stand for what is right and stare into the face of adversity can be called “A Fela”.

It is safe to say Falz theBahdGuy is “A Fela”.

The greatest criticism of the album is that the lyrics became monotonous at some point but a good message cannot be overheard and we don’t even care about the critics and criticism.

Falz took a stand with this album and I hope he does not deviate from this path.

Written By Leon Chuks and Moyo Oluwatuyi

[bullshitfromanidlemind-blog]

A Question

I am writing this article as an outrage to the frequent rapes happening in our country. People are getting used to such headlines nowadays. But every time I read about a rape, be it in the capital or somewhere else, my blood boils. A country is a failed state if half of the population [not half exactly thanks to female infanticide and obsession towards a boy child] doesn’t feel safe after dusk. People are rather interested saving cows instead which could be a personal preference but we need to set our priorities right. We panic when our mothers, sisters, wives, girl friends are late returning from work or don’t pick up our calls especially when it’s at night. We try to drop them and pick them up from places because deep down we have this fear “what if something happens”. As a result we don’t try to solve the problem, rather we try to bypass it by putting restriction on women because we are “concerned” and it’s for “their safety”. But whom are we fooling? Is it really the solution? Why should they live in fear and restrictions just because some people could not educate their children right? What’s their fault? And what kind of education teaches that “the best way to teach a girl a lesson is either raping her or throwing acid on her as in to ruin her life forever to summarize. People are not born rapists. But then why girls feel safe in bikinis in the western countries that lack "culture” and don’t feel safe in our “ancient cultured” country even if they roam around in a burqa?

It’s a no-brainer that there must be something wrong with us. And yes, the reason is the way our society is today. It’s not a single reason but a product of multiple reasons which makes the country a mass producer of rapists and molesters. And I am not talking about any specific area of the country or any specific section of the society. From north to south, from rich to poor, from a teenager to a person in his sixties, problem lies everywhere. Let’s talk about few of them.

Equal rights for women, not: this topic creates thunders in everlasting debates. The question is simple, “do women get equal facilities as men do in our country?” Every time we see two parties with some cliché points. One party will say feminism is redundant nowadays why because women get ladies seats in trains/buses [they don’t forget to thank ac Volvo buses for not doing such discrimination], free entry [sometimes free drinks as well, can you imagine?] in pubs and public support in a public argument. So for them it’s sorted, what else do you need to live? Another party which is also known as “the Feminazis” will start taking examples since the beginning of time and discuss the oppression on women and after sometime totally deviate from the topic and it becomes point blank male bashing. Then the first party will say “yeah you say equality, but why men always have to pay the bill? Why men are judged if they cry? Why should we only lift the paani wala can?” and many more irrelevant questions. Then the first party will say “men are biologically stronger but that doesn’t mean they are superior” and it’ll go on and on. Then comes the third kind, the enlightened ones who will conclude the debate saying things either like “don’t respect a gender, respect a human being” or “women should not compete with men cause they are already superior” or “you are wrong, it’s not about who’s ahead, it’s about if they are moving together side by side”. But after the long discussion the main question remains unanswered. And the real answer is kind of tricky. Yes we are a civilization who worships women as goddesses [I am not going into religion cause that’s the different topic altogether], we had Rani Laxmi Bai then, we have Sushma Swaraj now but originally the condition of women rights in India is like money. A lot is there but not accessible to majority specially when in need, feminism is there but it empowers the empowered. So the answer is no, women don’t have equal rights, majority have less and a minority have more rights than men do. 

That is how things are: the phrase which is fed to us whenever our culture had to force something which is logically inexplicable, for example, the image of an ideal Indian woman. She should be polite, she should cover her body n sometimes face as well, she should respect elders no matter what, she should obey her father/husband [whichever male master she’s assigned to cause man leads and woman follows], she should not answer back, she’s the primary caretaker of the house and kids and career should always be a second priority. Of course there are exceptions and they are increasing with time but for majority there is infinite number of unwritten rules. And the sad part is majority follow these rules else the society will judge them or some aunty will come with her moral policing. It’s there is all levels of the society be it poor or rich, be it educated urban society or orthodox rural ones. And the reason is “that is how things are”. That’s why in villages girls get sasural training instead of education to get married off ASAP, people gossip about how the new girl got promoted and they did not cause she worked hard in boss’s cabin on her knees in some MNC, the newly married bride has to leave her job/studies and ambitions cause that’s how a happy family works. But this has to end someday. Just because women tolerate all silently, people get used to it. Then if some lady argues with a man with raised voice, people turn their heads and start judging her. Same suggestions are taken on different priority based on whether it’s coming from a man or a woman because the general assumption is “ladkiya toh dumb hoti hai yaar”/“abbe uski kya aukaad hai”. But what is the factor that creates this assumption. 

Happy family: It happens because in India a happy family means where women keep sacrificing. A boy sees his father always dominating his mother and beating at times. He sees her sister getting less privileges and priorities generally because he’s a boy. When he cries father says don’t cry like a girl, be a man. He thinks being like a girl is bad or equivalent to be weak. This thought gets embedded into his mind that girls are good but they are beneath me. When this boy grows up and goes out in the world. He sees girls coming from non-cliché families outperforming/ignoring him no matter how hard he tries. He takes this as humiliation, how can that petty girl dare to humiliate me? She needs to be taught a “lesson”! We all know what the possible lessons from this point are. 

Stop at the early stage, be pro-active: No one is born rapist, neither someone has the guts to rape someone at the first attempt. The reason rapists exist is the way we ignore the early signs of a potential rapist for which these sick people get away with a lot of small crimes and gather the courage to do bigger atrocities pushing their limits. We see or hear about events like, someone pulled a bra strap in some co-ed school, some neighbor boy harassed a girl cause he loved him[thanks to Bollywood], some child is molested by their elder brother or uncle, some middle aged uncle groped someone in a bus, some local hero molested a passerby and other numerous flavors eve-teasing and molestation where in most of the cases girls don’t speak up and even if they do, their parents suppress them fearing shame in the society and even if they speak up the male counterpart gets backed up by their family by saying things like “didn’t mean any harm”/“he’s just a kid”/“it’s a misunderstanding”/“your girl has issues”/“it was a mistake, please forgive and forget”. Events like these get the guts for someone to attempt a rape. 

We the volatile people: Another reason is people forget very easily. And media is to be blamed for that. In a hunt for new news headlines, they don’t draw closure to all the cases. We see new rape cases in the headlines on a daily basis but how many stories draw a conclusion? How many of the rapes reported are drawn to a closure? As a result, a person who is going for a candle march for Nirbhaya today forgets everything tomorrow and gets busy with Dream11 cause IPL is about to start. 

Sex? What is that: But why so many people especially in this part of the planet are driven towards touching a girl without her consent? Let’s face it, India is a sex starved country and the reason is our “cultured society”. Sex is treated like a taboo in our country and still we managed to be a country with second largest population [soon to be number 1 as you can’t force birth control norms like china over here because “democracy”]. Forget doing it, even talking about sex/condoms/even sanitary pads make people embarrassed. Since childhood we don’t get any awareness about sex just by the behavior of our elders around us we get the idea that sex is dirty and bad unless you are married. Once you get married, somehow you get a license to have sex. The biology teacher gets ashamed to take classes on reproduction, even prostitution is illegal here. People in their 30’s remain virgin and wait for their marriage to happen cause “culture”. But it’s not something you can hide or stop by not talking about it, it’s a biological need. This disrupted status quo between supply and demand makes people desperate to get some action. 

Iron cuts iron: Girls don’t go well with girls most of the time. I don’t understand the reason though. As we see around us women force restrictions on women all the time. Be it the neighbor aunty who gets judgmental when your clothes are not “sanskar compatible”, the same aunty who wants you to get married just after your college is over because “isko kaunsa prime minister banna hai”, the family members who are biased towards the boy child over the girl or the mother-in-law for whom “bahu” can’t work or study after marriage because that’s not how a “happy family” works but the “beti” can have ambitions. We can call them hypocrites in one word. But why does this happen? They went through the same system; they know the pain of being restricted all the time. Shouldn’t they let people live freely when the power is in their hand? Or is it some kind of anger which they couldn’t express when they were the victim in the story and later vent it out as revenge when they get the power? The way ragging thrives in hostels. I see girls demeaning themselves by telling boys “kya ladki jaisa ro rha hai?” or “mard bann” or “chudiyan pehen le” as if being a man is always better than being a woman. Mothers tell their daughters, “tu toh mera beta hai”, if she’s taking responsibilities. These people always keep this thought deep down in their mind that men are superior [because society embedded that into their minds and they can’t see beyond that] and try to compete with men whenever they get a chance. I see feminists with agendas like “ladko ko dikhana hai” or “ladko ko unki aukaad dikhani hai”. They always get obsessed with beating boys than improving themselves and by that they indirectly create a notion that girls are weaker in general, they somehow reached this state where they can challenge men. But you should pick your contender based on performance and not on gender. People ask for fast forward laws and courts for rape but that couldn’t happen because women are not united as a community. A lot of women take advantage of women rights which were introduced to help them. We see reports like girls trying to frame guys into fake “molestation/rape cases” to get lime light on social media or earn easy money by blackmailing, wives filing fake domestic violence cases to teach in-laws a lesson, even girls try to stop cars on highways asking for help and loot them when someone stops to help them out. Now think, if you tried to help someone and got looted by some gang, will you ever dare to stop your car next time seeing someone asking for help? Especially in north India people don’t dare to stop their cars thinking it could be a scam, people are not so inhuman to leave someone dying on the road but experiences have made them cautious. For the same reasons and numerous fake cases our penal code can’t make fast forward system for rape cases as it might be a fake one. 

It’s your fault: There are a large number of people who blame girls for getting raped. They say things like “she was drunk”/“she was wearing indecent clothes”/“she was roaming around alone in the night carelessly”/“she always hangs out with guys”. Let me get this clear, a rape/molestation is never the victim’s fault, be it a boy or a girl. We need to get out of this dumb notion. Rapes happen because some people believe it’s okay to have sex with a girl even if she is saying “no” because the usual reason we blame girls with for rape. Rapes happen because we couldn’t educate those sick bastards. Rapes happen because we couldn’t provide the safety to our women that they deserve. Then there are enlightened politicians who say things like “rapes happen because girls and boys meet freely”, what else do you expect? Separate countries for men and women? These thoughts are toxic, just because thoughts like these exist; we see different columns for boys and girls in co-ed schools. I mean c'mon, it’s a co-ed school, let them meet freely and understand each other. We are seeding difference at a grass-root level like this. 

Law and order: We have laws to deal with rape cases but sometimes they seem useless due to poor execution. At first half of the cases don’t result into an FIR because “what people will think?” The ones which get to the police stations don’t get enough priority all the time as police is busy taking bribes. At times people who go to the police station get humiliated with weird and out of context questions. If you look beyond metros and big cities, a lot of police stations and related nursing homes lack infrastructure to test and prove rapes before the substantial evidences fade away. On top of that our court proceedings make even snails look faster. A lot of people don’t have the time, money and patience to fight a case till closure and end up doing personal settlement by either taking some money or marrying off the victim with her rapist. Another issue is it’s bail-able [if you have money] until it’s proved in court which takes years. Sometimes rapists are below 18 and they get away with “warning and few months in the rehab” as juvenile but people don’t asses their sanity when they are released with anonymity. Yes, things are getting better slowly but we are light years behind of how it’s supposed to be. The law and order need reinforcements to address these issues.

So it is clear, that we have loads of issues and to overcome those is neither a short term job nor a one man job. We as a society need to evolve and spread awareness so that we don’t breed rapists and molesters unknowingly, don't treat women differently than men and treat a rapist the way he/she should be treated. But that’s a farfetched goal and we have real issues at present. What to do about them?

What to do: Well, this is 21st century where we can track ground activity from space. But with all these successful ISRO satellite launches, with all these eyes in the sky why aren’t we being able to save our women? Can’t we dedicate few satellites for our women? Just few “Geo Stationary” satellites to cover the entire country. We can make an app what can be easily installed in all phones [not only smart phones] which will have a “panic button”. When someone feels that their safety is being compromised can push that button. Immediately the location of the SIM card will go to a central server via that dedicated satellite so that people don’t have to rely on the availability of mobile networks. That server will pick that location in GPS and alert the nearby police station with specific GPS co ordinates. Even if the rapists throw the phone from some moving car, this whole process will happen in less than a minute giving police a real time data to come up with a legit search radius. The satellite can even be used to take photographs for evidences. A lot of tragedy can be avoided that way including other crimes as well. We should ask for such systems, we are the tax payers and should ask for money allocation during yearly budget for such system.

You can say writing an article and ranting about everything is very easy but to do something it takes courage. I will say if everyone did what they are capable of, our country would have been like heaven. But a change has to come from within ourselves and it always starts with an idea. I am not bragging but saying this so people don’t judge me as a “theoretical patriot”. I have taught English and Mathematics to slum kids for free, I have protested to save environment, I have fed hungry beggars, I have given gifts, food and clothes in charity, I even cleaned up dirty lakes, I don’t litter, pay taxes honestly as well. Maybe I am capable of doing more but I don’t have the money or resources to build such a system for sure else I would have done it already. I have a job and mouths to feed. I will request my friends to forward this to such an extent that it reaches people and government. I would love to work on such a project [who wouldn’t?]. If this changes the thought process of even a single person, my purpose to write this will be fulfilled. I believe in our country that it has the potential to bounce back. So the question is…will you support and forward this message? Hoping to see better days[“Acche Din”]….Jai Hind.

Kunal Dutta.

[dingleautomotives]

Regarding the purpose of the prison SL. The role ED is playing is showing us through Aaron's struggles that prison conditions are bad. The way they are showing this is through the story of Aaron going to prison. It is up to each viewer to decide if they went to far in showing the prison brutality but it is being shown to open the eyes of the viewers that this is happening. That is all ED can do. It's now up to us to decide if improving the prison system is important or not. see Part 2

This is no different than Aaron’s abuse SL, Holly’s drug addiction, Ashley’s dementia. All ED can do is present the issue using ED characters to tell a story as if it was happening to them. As an someone who has worked in the US prison system for years I believe there were some other visuals that could of presented the issues better but I have never worked in an UK prison so I don’t know what differences there are.

The chaplain scene was so brutually honest on how harsh you have to get most times to even have a shot at starting to break through those harden walls they have built up around them. Aaron has been on the way over the years to building similar walls & it takes unkind force to try to known them down. I’ve seen lots of Aaron’s over the years & they all had the capacity to turn into another Jason. Luckily we were able to reach some & help them. Others…

Others — unfortunately not & they are now either dead or permament life residents of the state. Aaron’s character is the perfect character to develop into another Jason. All of the signs are there. He won’t talk to anybody and ask for help & by doing that it will be impossible for the system to not beat him down and erase all humanity that he has in him. God, I’ve seen that way to many times in my career & it’s heartbreaking.To me that is way watching Aaron right now in prison is sort hard because I know…. I know & it hurts watching a character I love on the brink of making the wrong choice. And, it is his choice. Robert, Liv, Chas, Paddy, the Chaplain… no one can make this choice for Aaron. It is all up to him to find the strength to hang on to what he has or to just let go and fall into the depths of hell by either following the route Jason took or the route Gordon took.

Inmates were having to make that choice everyday and it’s not easy because he have so many other inmates trying to make you fail. All of the Jason’s in all of the prison hate to see other inmates actually succeed in rehabilitating themselves & get out and succeed. Those inmates want you to fail just like they did so they will target you like Aaron has been targeted with a mission to break you & turn you into one of them. 

The goal of these inmates now is to make sure the prison has as little success as possible in rehabilitating inmates and sending them back as productive citizens. Their job is becoming easier with all of the funding and staffing issues now being faced in the US systems and it appears in the UK system too. The prison system is not something most people want to think about either. Most just want to lock up the bad guys, throw away the key & forget about them. That reality in society makes it real hard to convince government to fund the system properly. In my last prison of 1200 inmates, our number of counsellors dropped from 12 to 7 in the past 3 years. Seven counsellors for 1200 men. The security staff use to be manned at the normal 90% level with less than a 10% turnover rate. Today that prison security staffed is manned at the 50% level with mandatory overtime & the state delaying OT pay by up to 60 days. 

This makes it harder to hire. Because of the shortages staff is spread thinner & that increases the safety risk for the staff because everyone wants to go home safe to their family each day from their job. Thus the turnover rate increases which puts less turned security into more at risk positions which just compounds the problem further. Ten years ago the avg age of the security staff was 42 with 10+ years of experience. In 2016 the avg age was 20 with 8.5 months of experience. 

That statistic should tell everyone how the prison system is right now & how much more at risk both prison inmates & prison employees are today…. BUT that is not something a soap like ED can tell properly. All the show can do is tell the story of how one person is struggling within the UK prison system. Now it is up to everyone watching to decide if this is an important enough cause to talk about more & demand action on. ED can’t do that. Each one of us has to. Done

Wow! Anon! This is quite an ask!

Thank you so much for your insight into some of the problems in the prison system. Even if your experiences are specific to the US, I’m sure that there is a lot of overlap in terms of the kinds of issues that go on inside the prison system, as well as some similarities in “prison culture.” I don’t want to diminish any of what you’ve shared about the realities of prison or your experiences working there. 

I think that it’s right to acknowledge that Emmerdale is ultimately attempting to do a #good here. There is value in talking about these issues. There can be merit in showing horrible things on television in order to raise awareness. There can be importance in watching a storyline that is potentially painful or triggering or horrific. 

However, I do think the controversy over this Aaron storyline (thus far) is fairly… complex. Because we’re talking about Aaron Dingle–a character with a very specific history, but also about soap more generally as a family friendly pre-watershed genre, but ALSO engaging with a broader conversation about media content in general, and what’s appropriate, what’s responsible, and what’s necessary. 

The question here isn’t necessarily does this really happen in prison ,,, or is it important to raise awareness about prisons ,,, it’s is it appropriate in a pre-watershed drama to take a long-suffering gay csa survivor and have his rape thrown in his face in a disgustingly cruel manner just to make a point about how evil the world is and how bad prisons are. there is an argument out there for showing horrible things in media (ie it’s necessary to be brutally accurate in order to get an appropriate emotional response from the audience), but conversely there’s a lot of thought out there that there are some things that it’s NEVER appropriate or necessary to show in media (ie there’s a debate going on out there in the world about whether it’s ever appropriate/necessary to show a rape onscreen). 

When we’re talking about these questions some of the general indicators we might look at are things like sensationalism, exploitation, shock value vs responsibility, honesty, sensitivity. And somewhere in the middle you have this intangible notion of “realism” that people are attempting to achieve and honor and embody.

So. Could this story have been handled more responsibly, more sensitively and been less sensational, less exploitative, and still maintained a level of realism? For me, if we’re talking specifically about the Jason/Aaron scene from Monday, the answer is a clear yes. If you add in the pre-watershed family-friendly soap angle, those scenes become even harder to defend, because even if you believe those scenes are necessary in some context, I don’t think that context is Emmerdale and I don’t think that character is Aaron Dingle. 

To be clear, I’m not necessarily outraged or furious about all of this or like ready to boycott Emmerdale. Soap is a genre that, in general, errs on the side of sensational and exploitative, and we as viewers can either make peace with that, or not. But that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t also be space for us to critique Emmerdale when we feel they’ve gone too far.

Emmerdale can simultaneously be nobly attempting to raise awareness about problems in the prison system and also slip into gross, exploitative sensationalism in order to be edgy and get attention or awards. Both of those things are possible, and in regard to Monday’s scenes, I think they’re absolutely both true. 

[fullspectrum-cbd-oil]

The 2020 Twenty — Bill Weld

This is IJR’s third segment of The 2020 Twenty. We’re asking every 2020 presidential candidate 20 questions on their plans, policies, outlook, and background as well as some lighter ones to help our readers get to know the people and their personalities as they compete to run the country.

There are several Republicans who have criticized President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, but former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld is the only candidate trying to stop the president from the same side of the aisle.

The 2020 election will not be the first time Weld’s name will appear on a ballot against Trump. In 2016, he ran on the Libertarian Party ticket as former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson’s vice presidential pick.

While Weld is attempting to be on the top of the ticket this time, he’ll carry many of his libertarian tendencies with him, striking a policy contrast with the president on several issues, including abortion, marijuana, and trade. As Weld told IJR, he hopes the Republican Party is ready to trade in Trump’s “simplistic policies” for a rebirth of fiscal conservatism. 

1. As president, what would be your day one, number one priority?

Bill Weld: I would file legislation to cut spending. I think the president and Congress have not shown any interest in being an economic conservative, and that would be a marker I would want to throw down on day one.

2. You were named the most fiscally conservative governor in the U.S. when you served the people of Massachusetts. For the first time in history, the national debt now tops $22 trillion. How would you address this?

Well, I would do a zero-based review of the entire budget. That’s what we did at the state level, and you have to, instead of assuming that the appropriation for next year’s is going to be last year’s plus 5 percent — which is what they assume in Washington — you analyze it to make sure every appropriation stands on its own footing and is justified by the results of that program or item last year.

For example, if it was a very successful preventive health measure that saved a lot of money and improved health outcomes, you might multiply it by five because it did great work, great outputs. But if it was just a useless piece of bureaucracy based on some long-forgotten relationship with a senator whose nephew was the initial executive director, you might just zero that out. And that’s how you get to cut spending.

3. You worked in the House during the Watergate investigations and served with the U.S. attorney general later in your career. Several 2020 Democrats believe Trump should be impeached following the findings of the Mueller report. Do you agree?

I think that the Mueller report made out 10 pretty clear examples of obstruction of justice. You may have noticed that over 1,000 former federal prosecutors, myself included, signed a letter stating that the president was clearly guilty of obstruction of justice based on Volume II of the Mueller report, and it wasn’t even a close case.

Given that, I think it’s time — maybe even past time — to launch an inquiry into whether impeachable conduct has occurred. That’s not the same as saying the House should take a vote tomorrow. The investigation by the House Judiciary Committee into President [Richard] Nixon took 10 months. You know, that would bring us to April of next year. And even then, you don’t get a vote immediately in the Senate. The House appoints managers to conduct a trial in the Senate, so those proceedings likely would not even be over before the 2020 election.

However, to do absolutely nothing in the face of the conduct chronicled in the Mueller report seems, to me, an abdication of Congress’ role.

Bill Weld/Facebook

4. If you could get a drink with any previous president, who would it be?

Oh, my goodness, I guess Teddy Roosevelt, my former great-grandfather-in-law. His strenuous life is worth sampling over a glass of something. [Weld married Susan Roosevelt Weld in 1975. The two divorced in 2002. The governor later got remarried to writer Leslie Marshall Weld.]

5. While serving as governor, you completed 16 official trade missions, including trips to Asia and Latin America. How would you work to secure fair and free trade with our current partners?

I’m a free trader. And I believe that the United States always benefits from free trade. Among other things, our workers have, by far, the highest productivity of any country in the world. Even China is not close. So that means, by definition, we’re going to get the lion’s share of the high-wage jobs that come out of free trade. Jobs do change hands when countries engage in trade with one another. Some low-wage jobs go to the low-wage jurisdiction and vice versa, but the United States is always going to be a winner.

I do not share Mr. Trump’s view, which is for tariffs to be the first reaction. That was tried in the 1930s — the Smoot-Hawley tariffs — and it greatly exacerbated the depression of the 1930s. So I fundamentally disagree with the president on his approach to trade and tariffs, so I would go back to having free trade with everybody, and I certainly would want to have friendly relations with our military allies as opposed to insulting them and isolating them and favoring the autocratic countries and dictatorships such as Russia, North Korea, and the Philippines, and now Hungary, as Mr. Trump does.

     Do you support any level of protectionism?

Well, I certainly think it’s the correct thing to do to take a hard line with China, as Mr. Trump is doing. I had high hopes for [Chinese President] Xi Jinping when he came into office that he might turn his country in the direction of a market economy, but after some good rhetoric at the outset, he’s newly reauthorized the state-owned enterprises to compete globally on the basis of huge subsidies from the government of China. That’s not fair trade, so I do think taking a tough line with China is the right thing to do.

6. You are a pro-choice Republican and have condemned the abortion restrictions in states like Georgia and Alabama.

The new anti-abortion laws recently passed in several states are deeply disturbing as they clearly undermine the rights and safety of women. The new laws actively promote a sinister culture of fear, persecution, stigmatization, secrecy and hiding. 2/4

— Gov. Bill Weld (@GovBillWeld) May 31, 2019

Do you believe there should be any government limits placed abortion in the U.S.?

Sure. I’m not for third-trimester abortions. No, I’m happy with Roe v. Wade. That essentially codifies the rule in common law. I just don’t think we should depart from that. To me, these new laws really involve the question of gender equality. If you say no abortions after six weeks and no exceptions for rape or incest — which several of those laws do — you know, at six weeks, many women will not know they’re pregnant, so that’s just saying “tough luck” if you get raped. You’ve got to carry the child to term for nine months. That’s just incorporating the view of women as carriers, what has sometimes been called the chattel theory of women. That cuts deeper.

7. What is a hidden talent that you have?

I can say the alphabet backward. It’s a good parlor trick, well hidden. It’s never been done.

8. Pro-gun groups like the NRA have criticized your support for gun control in the past. What measures would you take to cut gun violence in the U.S.?

I don’t think we want to focus on gun ownership. I do think that the 300 million rifles in private hands, lawfully acquired, constitutes a bulwark against a government overreaching. The real reason for the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, in my judgment, is not so people can go hunting. It’s really so people will have the guns in self-defense.

All guns are dangerous. It’s not just a rifle with a tripod under it. All guns are dangerous, and to address the school shootings and terrible mass murders, one obvious thing is to do everything possible to keep firearms — of any sort — out of the hands of people who are unstable and have any history of mental illness.

When I got my first shotgun, I had to prove that I had taken a hunter’s safety course. I don’t think that’s any longer the case, but I think it was a good thing. In my case, it made me very careful about guns my whole life. So I have no quarrel with that sort of thing. But that’s really aiming at gun safety, not gun ownership. So I would be focusing on gun safety rather than gun ownership.  

9. You have criticized Republicans for being silent on issues for which you believe Trump should be condemned.

"Republicans in Washington have become the silence of the lambs when it comes to Trump,” Weld said. “Hopefully we can show at least a few people that we’re not all a bunch of lambs.” #Weld2020 #Fitn #nhpolitics #iapolitics https://t.co/PVHQC12I6q

— Gov. Bill Weld (@GovBillWeld) April 24, 2019

How are you planning on convincing other Republicans to speak out against the president?

I’ll continue to speak out when I see something that I think is off. I think the conduct in the Mueller report was definitely off. I think the president’s evident preference for dictators and autocratic forms of government, as opposed to our constitutional democracy, is very troubling. So whether or not Republicans in Congress are persuaded, I’m going to continue to speak my mind.

10. What is your favorite show to binge watch?

“House of Cards.”

11. What role do you believe the government plays in addressing climate change?

I think we need to take steps to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030 and 2050. I think we should be cooperative with other countries. I think we should rejoin the Paris accord. I think we want to look at our energy mix. I agree with those who say that we want the most possible wind and solar power. In the Northeast United States, of course, we have Canadian hydro as well.

I personally think that we need more nuclear power than we have now. Perhaps 25 percent of the base in our electric grid. The sharpest drop in CO2 emissions ever recorded is when France moved to small nuclear plants in approximately the 1980s. And the small nukes now make up 75 percent of the power in France’s grid. They’ve never had an accident, and their CO2 record is pristine as a result. So I think we should do that as well. That goes directly at climate change because it goes directly at CO2 emissions. There are none from nuclear power.

Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters

12. Do you support recreational marijuana legalization?

Well, I think it’s a states’ rights issue. You know, if Alabama, for example, did not want to have legal recreational marijuana, that’s fine. I think it should be state-by-state. I just don’t think the federal government should mandate one-size-fits-all, either negative or positive.

And, by the way, that’s the position that candidate Trump took in 2016, that legal recreation should be a states’ rights issue. And I’d like to see him return to that position.

13. Republicans failed to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2017 and haven’t done much to address the issue since. What is your plan to address health care in the U.S.?

I think we need less government in the health care system. I think individuals should have their own tax-advantaged health savings accounts so that they can save up for the amount of protection that they wanted.

One problem with the Affordable Care Act is that it mandates that everybody have a Cadillac plan, and that makes it much more expensive. And many people don’t want a Cadillac plan. They’re comfortable with a Chevy. It’s just like buying insurance. Some people want a high deductible to cut the upfront cost of insurance. Other people can’t afford to do that because they can’t expose themselves to any risk, so they want no deductible, which makes it more expensive. But that’s the individual choice. And individuals don’t get that much choice under the ACA, it’s all mandated by the government.

And a lot of the government mandates make no sense. Why should it be illegal to buy health insurance across state lines? Why should it be illegal to buy pharmaceuticals from another country, such as Canada? Those are just incorporations of protectionism and the guild mentality of centuries past and don’t really make modern-day sense. So I’d do away with them. Again, more power to the individual.

14. What is your favorite vacation destination?

The Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. We have a fishing camp up there.

15. You’ve said you have a “very different view of immigrants” than President Trump.

"I have a very different view of immigrants than Mr. Trump does…he wants to stir up racial tensions…the stakes are very, very high here." @UNHLaw #FITN #2020 #NHPolitics

— Gov. Bill Weld (@GovBillWeld) May 23, 2019

What steps do you believe should be taken to improve the immigration process in the U.S.?

Well, I think we should have more work visas, not less. Enforce them but have them available. We should have a guest worker program similar to Canada’s where people come and work for four months of the agricultural season or the construction season. That’s what people do in the western part of the United States. And then they go home because they don’t want to live in the United States. They just want to make enough money to send remittances to their families, and then they go home.

And I think the whole notion that the 11 million people who have overstayed their visas — so-called undocumented immigrants — a lot of those people just overstayed their visa. And to say all of them automatically have to get citizenship, that’s just crazy. I think that’s a straw man that those who want to inveigh against immigrants in general throw up. It’s a false issue. I don’t think we need to even consider that.  

     Do you think a wall is necessary for a secure border?

No, not really. I mean, my best understanding is that the experts down there on the southern border say what you really need is more people, more agents, and more drones, which can do a lot of the sighting that a wall by itself doesn’t do. We already have plenty of wall down there, you know, so it’s just a question of the last mile or whatever it is that Mr. Trump is fixated on.

As a matter of fact, that big crisis about the national emergency powers, that was about a tiny amount of money, so that wall couldn’t have been very long. It’s just symbolic, and Mr. Trump likes to have these simplistic policies like “hoax“ for climate change and “wall” for immigrants. He made his first priority when he came into office, and even during the campaign, to try to make people nervous, even hateful, about any people from other countries. It’s sowing division and fear, which he thinks helps him politically. I find it a not very appealing approach to government.

16. The RNC and Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel haven’t exactly given you a warm welcome to the race.

Today at #CPAC, @GOPChairwoman was asked about a @GOP primary to @realDonaldTrump . In a stunning reversal of past party practice of honoring neutrality in primaries, she declared her endorsement of Donald Trump, asking why any Republican would run against the President. pic.twitter.com/LPYdR9ZhO5

— Gov. Bill Weld (@GovBillWeld) March 1, 2019

Do you think the Republican Party should be doing more to support ideological diversity?

You know, I don’t expect to be welcomed by the Trump organization. People say to me: How are you going to make inroads with the Republican state committees? Well, I’m not because they’re the Trump organization in each state. I’m really not going to try to charm them because that’s not going to happen. I’m going to try to persuade more people to vote in the Republican primaries and to enlarge the electorate so that more young voters vote, so that more suburban women vote, and that would be my path to victory. Not suddenly persuading the Republican state committees to change their mind.

17. What is your favorite movie?

I like the sort of soft sci-fi like “Men in Black,” there’s a movie called “[The Adventures of] Buckaroo Banzai [Across] the 8th Dimension.” Another one called “Repo Man.” I see a new “MIB” is coming out. I can’t wait to see that.

18. Right now, the U.S. is facing conflict in Iran, China is stealing our intellectual property (IP), Russia meddles in our elections, and North Korea continues to toy around with rockets. What do you see as the biggest foreign policy threat facing the United States today?

I belong to a group of former world leaders [the InterAction Council], and they conclude that the biggest threat to the world is the risk of nuclear proliferation. So I would be spending a lot of time on North Korea, which has a rather unsteady finger on the trigger. And I would enlist the help of China in addressing issues on the Korean Peninsula. So that would probably be number one. The Russians interfering in everybody’s elections, particularly ours, is outrageous. That would be number two.

China stealing our IP is something I’ve been making noise about for a long time, and I just think we have to tell them in the trade negotiations that this theft of our intellectual property has to stop. That’s a condition of trade concessions in other areas, if you will. You know, unless they do that, no one is going to want to invest in China anymore, foreign investors, and it’s going to be very self-defeating for China. And I think we ought to be able to persuade them of that.

Bill Weld/Facebook

19. The next president would likely fill two Supreme Court seats. Would your picks differ from the types of justices chosen by Trump?

Well, I think both of his are good. And I wouldn’t confine myself to litmus tests. I probably wouldn’t confine myself to justices proposed by a single group, as Mr. Trump has done. But I thought [Justice Neil] Gorsuch, in particular, is a very bright, appealing judge. I would have supported both of the choices.

20. What is your favorite kind of music to listen to on the campaign trail?

I like country-rock. You know, the old-school Jesse Winchester. I love K.D. Lang of modern singers. I have pretty Catholic tastes in music. Both my wife and my son have a playlist of over 2,000 items, so we listen a lot at home and in the car.

Editor’s note: The preceding interview has been edited for ease of reading.

from IJR http://bit.ly/2MVcbje via IFTTT