#and i want to read every book and know history and be an activist and active and make games and websites and.... sighh

[enlichened]

Biting and snarling bc I want to do Everything with my life.

[thethief1996]

Gaza has been completely cut off from the world and from each other. Gazans with Turkish SIM cards have been able to make contact with the outer world and said rescue teams don't know where to go because they don't know where bombings have happened. There's no way to call ambulances. At night, due to the electricity cut, Gazans are left in complete dark only lit up by the airstrikes. They have no way to know what's happening on the next street over. Meanwhile, Israel is publishing AI rendered videos of tunnels under Al-Shifa hospital to manufacture consent for its bombing. Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, is housing hundreds of refugees.

This was meant to cut off Palestinians from the world, because we are sympathizing with their first person accounts and it makes Genocide Joe look like a genocide denier when he casts doubt on the death toll (a note on this, Israel has called the Gaza Municipality to threaten them with bombings. They want to erase every record that Palestinians exist in Gaza).

It's not up to us to feel defeated. Israel denies the very existence of Palestinians, and when we turn around and give up hope, we are washing our hands of any work towards liberation and becoming complicit in the zionist narrative. The people of Gaza are alive, the people in the West Bank are alive and the 5.6 million refugees denied the right of return are alive. Mosques are using their minarets to send out help signals. We're being asked to be their voices, so let's be their voices.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe).

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices, looking to inform yourself from the sources. Palestinians have asked of us only that we share, tweet and post, over and over. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera

Anadolu Agency

Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Al-Shabaka (twitter / instagram)

Mariam Barghouti (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza. He's been offline since yesterday. Keep him in your prayers.

Take action. You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour

HP

Puma

Sabra

Sodastream

Ahava cosmetics

Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate. Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN GERMANY: Here's a toolkit to contact your representatives by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN POLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN DENMARK: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SWEDEN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN FRANCE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN GREECE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN NORWAY: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN ITALY: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN PORTUGAL: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SPAIN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN FINLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRIA: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN BELGIUM: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN ROMANIA: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN UKRAINE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Here's a list on tumblr

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

There will a National March on Nov 4th in Washington, with the participation of 200+ organizations. If you can, get a group of friends and attend.

Feel free to add more resources. Check the links, there are too many protests and tumblr has a word limit for text posts.

[apricotbuncakes]

I've made it my mission to read the entirety of Project 2025 (a right wing manifesto on how to take over the USA government written by The Heritage Foundation amongst other people) and HOLY SHIT ITS SO BAD.

I have only completed reading the Foreword, and Jesus fuck it's so bad. There's so much. They pat themselves on the back for aiding Ronald Regan, they say that the 1970s is a historic low point in America's history (note that the 1970s was when OSHA was signed into law, 18 year olds earned the ability to vote, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed, and Roe v. Wade was overturning state bans on abortion).

They want to take out several words/phrases from EVERY law, bill, or legal document (including sexual orientation, gender identity, abortion, and other important phrases that provide clarification and protection).

THEY WANT TRANS PEOPLE TO BE ILLEGAL.

The text in this image reads "...("DEI"), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered."

They see protections for other people as impeding their right to free speech.

They want to classify trans people as pornography, and in the same breath say that anyone who makes porn should be imprisoned. They literally want to imprison every trans person for fucking existing.

Keep in mind, that this is all information in the FUCKING FOREWORD. I'M NOT EVEN ON THE FIRST OFFICIAL SECTION YET. This is terrifying. They want to remove more protections from everyone. They want to label the people they don't like as sexually explicit and make them criminals for just living their best life.

I cannot explain how terrifying this is. And Project 2025 is already in motion. Book bans, and anti-queer (but especially anti-trans laws) have been introduced at an all time high recently. And this is just my area of focus as a trans activist. I'm sure that other horrific things have been introduced as well.

I cannot explain how terrifying all of this is. I'm seething with rage and I want to break down crying even though I know my tears won't fix anything. I'm distraught and in despair.

[shotofstress]

Dracula is about not only the fears of the author about queerness, but also about the fear of the British Empire to "reverse colonization" and all the sentiments and words reflect that. This fears still exists and the fascists narratives are still used as back then. With the huge rise of far right and hate against The Other (migrants, brown, black ppl, non europeans, the queers, "the uncivilised ", etc) is more than terrible that Re:Dracula make changes to the text bc people don't want to hear slurs and things like science supporting racism, xenophobia, classism, mysoginia, sexism, colonialism, etc. If we apply that logic and censorship to the book in a more care manere to change or erase everything that is discriminatory you would be reading a new book bc they then should censor the awful psychiatric parts bc all the damage and pain that psychiatry did and still do to tons of people like the activists of mad pride and psychiatric survivors, or change the character of Mina totally bc her portrait is rooted in sexist values like the view of the perfect woman that is the emotional support of every men like a virgen Mary figure-like and must be at the level of her husband thus be educated to help him and keep him going to do his duties so this can make feel uncomfortable to the people dealing with religious trauma or the effects of white colonial feminism, and what to say about the class aspects.

If ppl don't want to hear, learn or deal with the feelings that fascist ideas cause, then they should go to live under a rock bc everything you appreciate, learn, enjoy and participate has a history, specially books. You can't escape forever via books or anything, nor back then nor in the present time. The British Empire likes to think that they are "better" now, no longer imperialists, but this is false and if u gonna read/listen to a book that speaks about that fear, then educate yourself. Jonathan and Co. are the good white correct and civilised western people and Dracula is the evil, uncivilised, not really european, not really human, blood thirst warmonger immigrant that don't follow the status quo, the class rules, the hierarchy, the christian ways, that wants to corrupt good british women (the classic "they want to steal and rape our women or even worst also rape our men bc that's how savage they are), want to contaminate good british blood with the evil dirty blood of the emigrant. Dracula has black hair, dark eyes, aquilian nose and big eyebrows that joint in the middle like was and still is the beauty standards in the countries/cultures that the british feared and still fear. I have dark hair and eyes with an aquilian nose. His body is not beautiful bc the portrait works under the idea that criminals are recognisable by how they look, that u can tell, like when europeans and westerns think they can tell who is from their countries and who isn't. Criminal anthropometry is not dead, thats why when ppl like me try to migrate they make biometric records, don't think is for other reasons. Dracula is the eternal fantasy fear that the colonised will take revenge against them and colonise them in return. And censor any part of the book don't help that every present narrative.

You all can have all the head canon you want about Dracula been about a polycule of brown queers fighting against patriarchy or such, i am not against your creations, but you must know about what the book is really talking. For we the mosters, the political and climate migrants, the queers, the colonised ones, the survivors are still been exiled, feared, hunted. I had tried to migrate to UK bc thanks to past and present european colonialism (including british colonialism) my country is in misery, but is more than hard to go there bc I'm the Other that Jhonno and his friends fear and the whole West fears. The far right is rising and censorship is not helping fighting them, the real monsters.

Edit for grammar and clarity

[taylortruther]

i’m curious if you’re comfortable answering what places have you branched out to besides the atlantic as you’ve moved further left???

so this is hard to answer, because you can't just go to one source. i didn't just replace the atlantic with a single other publication, i just outgrew it.

anyway, i read A LOT. i've always been interested in issues of gender, inequality, prejudice, even before i knew what they were called. so beyond resources, i encourage you to read a lot, read from many different sources, and read critically. it is up to you to distill the truth from fiction, opinion from fact. also, you must think critically. you have to take the information and apply it, let it challenge you, let it stack up in your brain until you have convictions that you can actually justify.

🚨 also, disclaimer: i do not endorse EVERYTHING these publications or sites have printed. i don't co-sign every opinion these activists hold. i am sorry if i am ignorant to some crime against humanity within! i'm certain all the resources here are considered "problematic" or biased in some way, or to someone. some publications serve corporate interests, some have problematic business practices, some writers have problematic histories, and some of the info will challenge your worldview in a way that might seem harmful and cause you to deem them problematic. 🚨

mainstream news is still essential to stay aware of what's going on in the world (al jazeera, npr, cnn, to name a few) -- but these are some of the corporate interests i was talking about. they're biased, heavily, but sadly can't think of a news site that covers world news that isn't somehow beholden to their corporate overlords.

magazines, such as: mother jones, the nation, tempest, jacobin, dissent, inverse (for science) -- some of these are socialist publications. some, like mother jones, do excellent investigative reporting. you must know the difference between that and editorial - they are all valuable, but they aren't interchangeable. you will find a lot of editorials/opinions here, and you should assume any of them are owned by a bigger company and might be subject to their interests.

a selection of books i've loved at various times in my life: "aint i a woman? Black women and feminism" and "feminist theory" by bell hooks; "revolution and evolution" by grace lee boggs; "so you want to talk about race?" by ijeoma oluo; "bad feminist" by roxane gay; "unpacking the invisible knapsack" by peggy mcintosh; the publications of jackson katz, who researches what we now call toxic masculinity.

i also follow a lot of activists/thinkers, such as:

ericka hart - sexuality and Black history educator

tarana burke - founder of the metoo movement, Black feminist activist

laura danger - discusses domestic labor and gender inequality in relationships, and how global inequality creates it

megan jayne crabbe - writer and body positivity activist

ijeoma oluo - activist and author of "so you want to talk about race?"

abolition notes - not an activist, but a resource for educational material

following magazines and activists is probably the "easiest" solution, because you can expose yourself over time. read articles as they interest you, don't look away when activists say something that initially seems too extreme. idk! hope this helps!!

[mitsmebinch]

The more literary critique I come across as an adult the more I think literary critique is taught badly, even so far as to say taught wrong. I've always hated the subject of literary critique, it always felt like a club I wasn't invited to and didn't know how to be in, but really I've come to realize I simply wasn't given the material or instruction to learn what it means to analyze the literature I was given to do so.

I know we all like to make fun of the "the curtains were red" thing but truly that was my experience of being taught how to critique literature, that everything was a metaphor that I simply had to have preter-knowledge to understand, and I just didn't! I didn't understand it, and that frustrated me, every time I got called to the teacher's desk about an assignment, I never improved. I came to hate that side of education and specifically avoided it.

But in reality, it's not that there was some hidden metaphor - there was instead a glaring metaphor that the author so clearly stated, so clearly wanted write about, and very clearly could have been part of the teaching that just... wasn't.

Like... why would you not teach me that Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was written during the McCarthy era? Why would you not emphasize when Brave New World was written, during the Great Depression, with another Great War very evidently just around the corner? Might it be pertinent to note, even if the books aren't taught together, that The Giver and Number the Stars are written by the same person?

Yes, Poe was depressed. How do we know? Why did he use the motifs he did? I certainly remember him marrying his very young cousin, but ya know... might it be important to mention not only did his mother die young of TB, but so did his wife Virginia? I certainly could read more into his writings, to look for grief, or for a motherly figure, but I wouldn't know to do that, now would I? Why wasn't I ever shown "To My Mother"?

Did you know Charles Dickens resented the child labor forced upon him in order to attain education? Did you know was a labor rights activist?

Reading the greats is such a good way to learn to do that! To flex that muscle! Because we do have their context, and we do have their history. We can read into their motivations - whether because they said it themselves or by the context of their actions.

Maybe this is just me being obtuse, maybe I was somehow supposed to know to look for these things without the context of the author's circumstances, but I didn't, and I couldn't. And I really don't think that I was the only one.

[professor-walten]

just a seventeen year old forced to save the world, again, you know how it is.

he/him only, don't let the tits fool you ✨

Lee's my real dad lol. If I ever say "dad" I mean Lee.

Owner of Motostoke's one and only Hop Walten Labs. Ireland's Pokémon researcher, rescuer, rehabilitator, and releaser. Giving every Pokémon a chance is my job and passion. I am a Pokémon rights activist and I believe in league abolition. You would know if you read my book. Nobody in Galar really has. Legally classified as a "shiny hunter," but it's just conservation efforts

Callaghan Psychics know all of the known universe. Not other universes, I guess. That's kind of why I'm here? The multiverse kinda needs us atm

DID system. There are ten of us here if that matters to you. If you want to ask questions about it take this guide. Not being specific on ages because like none of us are normal humans lol

🌨️ - Tori, she/her, adult | 🌌 - Janus, thon/thonself (they/them if that's difficult), adult | 🐐 - Tobey, he/they, teen | ⚾ - Marcello, he/him, teen(adult) | 🪙 - Auryn, he/him, adult | 🍀 - Ryan, he/him, adult | 🔥 - Rin, he/she/they, adult | 🐉 - Zabi(maru), she/he, teen(adult) | 👻 - Aoife, she/her, child

And me of course -(🐏)

The fate rests in the balance of a bunch of mentally unstable children. It always has, huh? My work is important to me, and so is understanding the multiverse, so you can always give asks about either. Cool 👍

[ooc under the cut :3]

pfp is a gift from bunnyhasaknife on instagram

disclaimer banner art is commissioned from littlebumblebe9

account banner is just dubwool from the anime

EDIT FOR CLARITY: The start of PULT takes place 3 and 1/2 years after the events of Pokémon Sword and Shield. Everything about the games is history. Leon isn't the champion, Hop is a professor, etc etc. Keep it in mind

EDIT 2: this will generally be lighthearted but the lore for hop in PULT is quite serious to certain topics like drugs miiiight end up being brought up. I'll tag each post with (tw __" so you can block it if you need to

HI, I'M HOP! Yes, my actual name is Hop too. He/him for admin as well. I've been wanting to make one of these for ages but only just now got the balls lolz. A little rotomblr/rotumblr based on my characterization of Hop for my Pokémon AU I've been working really hard to write, Pokémon Unown Legends Tale!! Read about it on my main @irlkisukeurahara I have a tag for it. I don't want to post it officially until the Unova book is done so I can provide weekly updates, so for now I wanted to make a little RP thing for it to kinda get people interested I guess

This blog 100% will spoil some aspects of it but I mean whaddya gonna do. I won't spoil major plot beats.

This is mostly just shitposting and talking about my character lore because I'm really attached to it. Having roleplays with stakes is fine but for the most part this is just silly behavior

Since the multiverse is canon in PULT I love the idea of other Hops/professor Hops/literally anyone interacting here and whatnot!! Who gives a shit about doubles I'm here to be silly

No explicit NSFW, sexual or self sexualizing jokes r fine but propositions or shit like that are obviously not

Hop has a bunch of ships in this universe (polyamory not a gay harem anime) - two OCs + two canons + one of his alters. Feel free to ask about em lol

The ships: Bede, Arven, Miles, Nico, Marcello

Feel free to ask DID questions here in or out of character, I just make Hop like this because I have DID too lol

I might say "fag" once or twice but otherwise no slurs plzplzplz but swearing is obviously fine because I will do it A LOTTT

If this gets any traction I'll make Leon and Arven accounts too

Pokémon teams: (some characters share Pokémon)

✨ = shiny

Hop

Doesn't have a full team because he isn't a trainer but his 3 main Pokémon are

Dubwool ♂️, elderly Pokémon he got from Leon as a birthday gift at 3, can use Electro Ball like a god

Azumarill ♀️, a chipper girl who saved his life

[✨] Saakash/Spoons (Alakazam) ♂️, reincarnated dead 7 year old boy with a major attitude problem, Hop's half brother (yeah.)

Tori

[✨] Kurama (Alolan Ninetales) ♂️

[✨] Toshiro (Glaceon) ♀️

[✨] Ryu (Kommo-o) ♂️

[✨] Ravenmore (Umbreon) ♀️

[✨] Saakash (Spoons) ♂️

[✨] Yukina (Froslass) ♀️

Janus

Cruinne (Cosmalenia) [Fakemon] ♀️

Supernova (Metagross) ♂️

[✨] Saakash (Alakazam) ♂️

[✨] Ravenmore (Umbreon) ♀️

[✨] Cosmo (Espeon) ♀️

Rukia (Clefable) ♀️

Marcello

Bucky (Crobat) ♂️

Doomshell (Cloyster) ♂️

Thunderstrike (Electrode) ♂️

Furyblade (Scizor) ♂️

Kickzilla (Hitmonlee) ♂️

Velvet Vogue (Lopunny) ♂️

Auryn

[✨] Goldbricker (Steelix) ♂️

Crypto (Gholdengo)

Ponzi (Corviknight) ♂️

[nickname incoming] (Alolan Raticate) ♂️

[nickname incoming] (Scrafty) ♂️

[nickname incoming] (Honchcrow) ♂️

Ryan

[✨] Kagome (Clefable) ♀️

Hawkeye (Decidueye) ♂️

Luffy (Infernape) ♂️

Aizen (Malamar) ♂️

[nickname incoming] (Weavile) ♂️

[✨] Kisuke (Mimikyu) ♂️

Rin

Sesshomaru (Houndoom) ♂️

[✨] Shippo (Ninetales) ♂️

Hashira (Blaziken) ♂️

[✨] Val (Delphox) ♀️

[half shiny] Usagi (Cinderace) ♀️

Helios (Volcarona) ♂️

Zabimaru

Hihiou (Vaporeon) ♀️

Nozarashi (Haxorus) ♀️

[✨] Hiei (Hydriegon) ♂️

Kommo-o ♂️

Harley (Garchomp) ♀️

[✨]Shenron (Dragonite) ♂️

Aoife

[✨] Kisuke (Mimikyu) ♂️

[✨] Seanchaí (Spiritomb) ♂️

Fomorian (Golurk)

Shadow (Hisuian Typhlosion) ♂️

Morrigan (Gengar) ♀️

Caelum (Cursola) ♀️

[f0point5]

On the wag debate: I just think it’s crazy the way we talk about women vs men. When and f1 driver does something it’s forgiven a lot faster, yes there will be a media shitstorm for a time and there may be a small group of people who still care, but life goes on pretty quickly. When one of the wags does, or in many cases did something (a long time in the past), it is talked about for years as a reason to hate them. Like, obviously I don’t know these people who a lot about these specific situations but:

1. Carmen supports a homophobic author— did she know he was homophobic? I don’t know about you, sometimes I just read a book and tell other people about it without ever looking into what the author thinks and believes. We all read and talk about Harry Potter despite JK Rowling being an actual shit.

2. Alex liking racist, classist tweets. I don’t know what she liked or enough about that, to be honest. But you have to appreciate that Alex is only 21 now, and those tweets were from the past? So she would’ve been in her late teens. It is in no way right but she was also a literal child in that sense.

Basically what I’m saying is that while yes, many wags have done and said things that aren’t ok and accountability is important, we as a society need to accept that they are learning and growing and making mistakes in the public eye, and they will fuck up majorly sometimes. It seems like, the general public only want to support “the perfect woman” when in reality that doesn’t not, and will not exist, because all humans live in a state of imperfection.

I think we as a society need to stop expecting that just because people have 100k followers that they’re any more intelligent, informed, or politically correct than the people we meet on the street. I don’t know the history or voting record of every person I follow, or whose work or content I consume, and no one expects that of me. I also consume the work and content of people of whom I’m not a personal fan. I don’t boycott Chanel because Coco Chanel was a n*zi. My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and he loved Hugo Boss clothing. Our every day lives are full of contradictions, and wags are people, so theirs are, too. Why do we expect so much from them? Who are they, really, except pretty girls who date boys?

As for Alexandra…people need to stay out of her damn Twitter likes. Who scrolled down through 5 years of likes to find that tweet that she probably doesn’t remember. P A T H E T I C. And unless the people complaining about that tweet (which they really shouldn’t be because you don’t know her, or what her opinions are now) are having a fight every time their conservative great uncle/family friend/grandma says something a little politically charged at the dinner table, STFU. Because I guarantee you the majority of people bitching about Alex’s likes on Twitter aren’t willing to say half that shit to people in their own lives. So they don’t really care, they just want to hate on her specifically.

People need to leave people alone. These are not social activists or politicians, their lives and opinions do not affect you. Just let them live 😂

[richincolor]

New Releases - Week of November 28, 2022

We're looking forward to several new releases this week. Two feature family stories and one is nonfiction.

House of Yesterday by Deeba Zargarpur Farrar, Straus Children’s

Taking inspiration from the author’s own Afghan-Uzbek heritage, this contemporary YA debut is a breathtaking journey into the grief that lingers through generations of immigrant families, and what it means to confront the ghosts of your past.

Struggling to deal with the pain of her parents’ impending divorce, fifteen-year-old Sara is facing a world of unknowns and uncertainties. Unfortunately, the one person she could always lean on when things got hard, her beloved Bibi Jan, has become a mere echo of the grandmother she once was. And so Sara retreats into the family business, hoping a summer working on her mom’s latest home renovation project will provide a distraction from her fracturing world.

But the house holds more than plaster and stone. It holds secrets that have her clinging desperately to the memories of her old life. Secrets that only her Bibi Jan could have untangled. Secrets Sara is powerless to ignore as the dark truths of her family’s history rise in ghostly apparitions—and with it, the realization that as much as she wants to hold onto her old life, nothing will ever be the same.

Told in lush, sweeping prose, this story of secrets, summer, and family sacrifice will chill you to the bone as the house that wraps Sara in warmth of her past becomes the one thing she cannot escape…

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds Roaring Brook Press

What’s more important? Knowing the truth or keeping the peace?

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she’s uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty’s health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she’s built in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.

We’re in This Together: A Young Readers Edition of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders by Linda Sarsour Salaam Reads / Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers

You can count on me, your Palestinian Muslim sister, to keep her voice loud, keep her feet on the streets, and keep my head held high because I am not afraid.

On January 17, 2017, Linda Sarsour stood in the National Mall to deliver a speech that would go down in history. A crowd of over 470,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, to advocate for legislation, policy, and the protection of women’s rights—with Linda, a Muslim American activist from Brooklyn, leading the charge, unapologetic and unafraid.

In this young readers edition of We Are Not Here to be Bystanders, Linda shares the memories that shaped her into the activist she is today, and how these pivotal moments in her life led her to being an organizer in one of the largest single-day protests in US history. From the Brooklyn bodega her father owned to the streets of Washington, DC, Linda’s story as a daughter of Palestinian immigrants is a moving portrayal of what it means to find your voice in your youth and use it for the good of others as an adult.

[hunter25tho]

Museums:  Do We Have to Pay or Not?

You know, as students, we sometimes feel that we can’t just read books to learn things, some of us already have the luxury of going to museums. Whether those museums are art, history, culture, science, or anything every museum offers a glimpse of the past. We just don't know that our parents started to buy tickets just to see objects that are insignificant to us. But now as teens, we started to understand the value of money, I’ll say this once, Do we want museums to be free for all or just let them charge us with money?

Educational inspiration

Education is one of the important institutions that most of us agree that it must be funded greatly, with museums being no exception to the funding part. Museums are one of these crucial sources of educational inspiration. For one, it has been used for those who seek artistic pursuits and is generally great for those who want to learn about their countries history and the social and political factors influencing the government and it’s Ideals. I was one of these people who loved to see the glamorous art, being the lucky one to enter the Van Gogh Museum to see paintings.

Reduced overcrowdedness 

However, entering to a free museum can take a toll on the staff and the museum itselfs. There is a reason why there are tickets in the Van Gogh Museum during my visit, and it is to prevent the very nightmare of every single staff of a mall, and that is Overcrowding. Picture this in your head, if you’re in a crowded place in the museum, what do you even see?

A bunch of people and you have to like push other people just to see that very painting. It will not be a pleasant experience for both the crowd who entered the place and for the staff of manage the whole thing.

More accessibility to people

But is this want an ideal person was when they debate that museums should be free? More people have a chance to enter the museum for multitudes of reasons, ranging from the amount of great historical paintings to items that are made for the collections.

Maintenance

The difficulty of maintaining the museums can be a bit more tedious for the staff. Tedious due to the cost of maintaining the very art and items. Most of these paintings have to be put on a glass frame to prevent “Climate Change” Activists from damaging them like the time I saw 2 activists trying to damage Van Gogh’s Sunflower paintings. Oh Boy, how much stress the staff have to suffer.

Historical Preservations and Cultural Awareness 

Museums have been used for educational purposes, but they have been used for preserving historical and cultural relics of the past. There are many reasons why these artefacts are preserve in museums, it is to conduct research yields new secrets and new stories to tell on the world and helps understand the culture of the place and the country.

Limited government funding

There are limits on how the Government funds their projects and institutions, One such institution is museums. Some public museums have been in the country for a long time, yet some museums have funded by individuals or companies who wanted to created for the same purpose. Yet since most government funds are set on critical infrastructure for many purposes and as such museums are sometimes neglected and have the need of private funds from rich individuals.

Conclusions

So far, the results here are not what im expected, but here it change my views on the whole situation. Once I was in the favor of making museums free to everyone, giving people a change to see the looks and the historical areas around it. Now I believe that Museums should be not be free, as this would prevent the damages caused by tourists.

[enterenews]

Bae Jeong-nam, the story of becoming a patriot after filming 'Hero'

“There is no other patriot like him.”

Actor Bae Jeong-nam, who plays the role of vitality with his delightful charm in each work. It seems that it is time for him to attach a new modifier. That's 'Patriot'. Bae Jeong-nam, who played the role of Jo Do-seon, the best marksman of the independence army with 100 shooting skills in the movie 'Hero', is practicing patriotism personally as if continuing the life of an independence activist even after filming. Bae Jeong-nam, who used to collect hip fashion items, is collecting old Taegeukgi one by one before he realizes it. He searches through history books to find out the achievements of independence activists who hurrayed for Korean independence, and preaches their achievements to his acquaintances.

In a recent meeting at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Bae Jeong-nam said, "The saying, 'A people who forget their history has no future' touched my heart while filming the movie 'Hero'." He said that after playing the role of the Independence Army on the screen for a while, he felt firsthand how intense their lives were, and he came to live with gratitude every day.

Bae Jeong-nam said that he had fun collecting Taegeukgi recently. While filming the movie, he became interested in Taegeukgi, and that interest led to actual collection and became a ‘Taegeukgi collector’.

“Until now, I was only interested in vintage items. Since filming the movie ‘Hero’, I have kept my eyes on the Taegeukgi and have been collecting it. Currently, I have about 20 Taegeukgi from the 1950s. During the Japanese colonial period, Taegeukgi was hard to find on the market and was precious, so most of them are in museums. So I started collecting Taegeukgi in earnest in the 1950s and 1960s. I have a lot of flags at home. haha."

Bae Jeong-nam confessed that he fell in love with studying history. Whenever I have time, I look for content related to the independence movement on YouTube, and when I have time, I find and read history books and study them. Even during the interview, Bae Jeong-nam confidently asked the reporters, "Does anyone know about Ahn Kyu-hong's righteous army?" As much as he was sincere in history.

“In the past, I just looked at magazines and books, but after filming ‘Hero,’ my interests changed dramatically. Recently, I am interested in Ahn Gyu-hong, the first volunteer soldier in Korea. There is a book called ‘Andamsari’ and there is also a webtoon. What's interesting about this person is that the year he was born and the year he passed away are the same as Dr. Ahn Jung-geun. Since he was from a farmhand, the nobles at first said, ‘What kind of independence movement are you? He came to think that his life was wonderful.”

Bae Jeong-nam said with confidence that he was able to claim the title of actor with the opportunity of 'Hero'. He started acting more than 10 years ago, but he laughs broadly, saying that now he feels like a real actor.

“When I first opened the script for ‘Hero,’ my heart was hot, perhaps because it was my first time to see such a work and character. In fact, since only similar characters come in, it is burdensome to cross the line from the existing characters. You know my subject. However, through this work, it seems that I have sufficiently shown that 'Bae Jung-nam can play this role too?' Now he can confidently say that he is an actor wherever he goes.”

Lastly, Bae Jeong-nam said there was something he really wanted to say to the audience who hadn't seen 'Hero' yet.

“I think our nation is a really great nation. ‘Hero’ is a work that gives a glimpse of how fiercely our ancestors fought for independence in the past. To those who haven't seen the movie yet, 'Avatar: Road to the Water' is good, but I would like to say that it would be nice if you could watch 'Hero' as well. I would like to say with confidence that Koreans must watch ‘Hero’.”

[wolfstarlibrarian]

🎊 Happy New Year! 🎊

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, year of the tiger, the Librarian has made a list of fics to go along with each of the Chinese zodiac. Some interpretations are literal, some less so, but hopefully all of them bring a smile or help you pass the day in cheer.

🧧 Wolfstar Chinese Zodiac Fics 🐯

🐅Forever Is a State of Mind -orphaned account 

Deaf Dance Choreographer, Remus Lupin, has a simple life. Working, taking care of his son, and running his YouTube sign channel. When he unwittingly becomes involved with Deaf Pride Activist, Fleamont Potter, he doesn’t realise how much his life will change. Especially after he meets YouTube star and makeup artist, Sirius Black.

🐇Sailor Moony AU Part 1 & Part 2 by @mlim8 & @whipbogard

So Moondom’s official mascot is a bunny 🐰! The kingdom is almost overrun with them (with how fast they breed lmaooo) and Remus is too shy to practice asking out the prince of his dreams with a real person so - The rabbit is a good substitute that won’t judge!!! 

🐉A Brief History of Dragons by @eyra

It's lovely up here; all meadows dotted with wildflowers, wind-beaten tracks criss-crossing this way and that through the fields, weaving inland to the pinewoods. The sun's hot on his back as he passes ramshackle stone walls, long since crumbled to piles of ancient rubble and scree, and then the path winds downwards, still following the line of the coast until Sirius finds himself outside an old white cottage, tucked away behind the hill with a rose garden that faces out to the sea. Sirius moves to Cornwall for the summer and meets a rude, beautiful boy who is writing a book that may or may not be about dragons.

🐍Beekeeping in the Daylight by @halictus-writer

Sirius is helping James and Lily conquer as many of their irrational fears as possible before they have their baby, in order to not pass on their fears. One day, Sirius takes a panic-stricken James to a friendly (and handsome) beekeeper. Slow burn, strangers to friends to lovers.

🐎AMOR VINCIT OMNIA (love conquers all) by @prettyremus

Remus, a servant boy to the cruel Emperor Voldemort, meets Sirius, a charming nobleman. Together they fight for freedom and love in Ancient Rome.

🐑Beneath a Big Blue Sky by @eyra

The four-by-four heaves its way down long, twisting lanes, little more than dirt tracks scuffed into the surrounding fields and hemmed in by serpentine walls of flat, grey stone. They truly are in the middle of nowhere: the countryside rushes past, all rolling green hills and vast, endless skies, and it's odious. Sirius wants to murder James with his bare hands. Sirius and James accidentally find themselves on a Yorkshire farm during lambing season. The farmer’s son thinks that’s a bit annoying, actually.

🐒How Remus Got His Groove Back by @theprongsletthatlived

After two years of noncommittal sex: Remus tells Sirius that he loves him. Sirius firmly rejects him. Remus tries to move on. Sirius is not happy. OR Remus Lupin becomes king of the cockroaches, Fabian Prewett writes a book, Gilderoy Lockhart is a catfish, and Sirius Black realizes he's a fucking idiot.

🐓Where Your Fingerprints Linger by @remuslives23

Sirius Black is a party planner and Remus Lupin is the stripper who has the audacity to turn up to one of Sirius' parties. Despite an immediate attraction, a misunderstanding means that they part on bad terms, but a meeting at a wedding leads to an agreement to share one night of passion. Just one night. Nothing more.

🐕Dog Filled Days Aren't Over by jlpierre

When post-breakup Sirius sends a photo of a dog from his new phone, he doesn't expect to send it to someone he doesn't know. Never mind someone named Moony.

🐖I love you like a pig loves not being bacon by @apieformydean Moony never reads the pick-up lines when Sirius can see him. He only ever read the first one he wrote him (‘Are you a hipster? Coz you make my hips stir.’) and he flushed to the tip of his ears. It was two months ago and Sirius writes him a crappy-sappy pick-up line every time he visits The Marauders. And Moony comes almost every day. aka ‘I write a bad pick-up line on your cup every time I’m your barista’ AU from somewhere around tumblr.

🐀 Animagi by @evandarandahalf He likes everything to do with his antlers at the minute. Sirius is pretty sure that if he could show that much enthusiasm for the rest of his form, he’d have the transformation down no problem. - The creation of Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.

🐂 Valentine, Texas by @shipsnsails In August of 1969, Sirius takes a job in west Texas.

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

started and finished Elizabeth Catte's What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia in an hour, hooting and hollering in vindication

I fucking hate being the face of "white poverty" and the patronizing, fake-ass pity of the right and the left. I hate that we are treated as a white monolith, when more people in Appalachia identify as African-American than Scots-Irish. A largely white population does not mean 100% white, and the history of black activists from here should not be erased. I'm sick of being treated like I must not be used to being around non-whites by people from western NY who didn't have a black student in their entire graduating class.

I fucking hate having to constantly correct people on coal industry history, because it IS important, especially in the context of U.S. labor history, but now most of us work at Dollar General, Pizza Hut, or Walmart and it distracts from the shit we need to deal with NOW.

I'm sick of having to explain about the history of anti-slavery and anti-segregation here, because you NEED to understand it in order to understand why Appalachia has been deprived of government aid since the Civil War, and no the War on Poverty does NOT count, shut the entire fuck up. But everytime I explain this to people they want to stop learning there because they want it to absolve them of any guilt, and smugly "not all whites" about it.

I'm sick of seeing the fucking endless stream of photographers that take exploitative photographs of us. That lecture us for being backwards, religious yokels, and then in the same breath condemn any woman who dares to be an unwed mother as morally base. who take photos of us covered in dirt and dealing with injuries we've wrapped up our selves, always implying it is distrust of "newfangled medecine" and not the lack of accessible healthcare.

talk all you want about us being violent, gun-toting hicks that hate outsiders. but if I was Hobart Isom and saw you in the mountains with a camera, I'd probably have shot you too.

Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, these are ALL problems here, that need to be addressed and eradicated. But that's everywhere in America! Every single fucking place in this horrible country!! This is not a uniquely southern problem, not a uniquely Appalachian problem. If you don't know about the KKK's second wave and its roots in New Jersey, shut the fuck up and come back later after you've read a few books.

Nowhere in America is safe for trans people. Nowhere. I understand why people point out the especially regressive and dangerous policies that are spreading through the south, but don't act like I won't have to deal with this shit literally anywhere I go. There are more trans teens in West Virginia than anywhere else in the country, are we just supposed to abandon them?

I'm also fucking sick to absolute bastard death of hearing about Deliverance, of the incest jokes, from people who don't know the name Carrie Buck, and how the myth of "degraded pioneer stock" was used as justification to sterilize women against their will in West Virginia.

Don't lecture me about healthcare here if you don't know who Eula Hall is.

If the names Robert Payne and Huey Perry are news to you, maybe go fuck off before you treat Appalachia as your precious white ethno state and erase black activists here. Never fucking talk to me about Hillbilly Elegy unless you're setting up a cage match between me and J. D. Vance. I hope he dies. I hope he dies painfully.

And I am exhausted by these tired, played out caricatures of us being sold back to us. I'm as guilty as anyone of surrendering to shame, of poking fun, of perpetuating the stereotypes either to make money off tourists or to set myself apart from the "bad southerners"

Why don't more of us who can, leave? Why do so many young people here leave for college, only to eventually return sometime after graduating? Because we know our self-appointed social betters will not do anything to change things here. We want better for Appalachia, we want more for the people here, and nothing changes here until we start doing it ourselves. Just look at the eastern Kentucky grassroots prison abolition movement, the Appalachian Queer Film Festival, Appalachian OUTreach. It's exhausting and it never seems to change, and we will keep doing this shit anyway even if it's until the heat death of the universe

[fatliberation]

Here Are Some Fat Positive Activists, Educators, Therapists, and Artists to Know!

First and foremost, the pioneer of organized fat activism:

• Bill Fabrey (he/him)

Bill Fabrey, a self-proclaimed fat admirer, founded NAAFA (the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) in 1969 after gaining an understanding of the day-to-day oppression and discrimination faced by his wife, Joyce. Fabrey founded the organization in hopes to raise awareness of weight stigma, criticize biased studies, and increase overall acceptance and accessibility to fat Americans. He is considered one of the pioneers of the fat liberation movement, and is heavily involved to this day.

• Judy Freespirit, Sara Fishman, Lynn McAfee, Ariana Manow, & Gudrun Fonfa (she/her for each)

(Members of The Fat Underground, 1979)

Fat, radical, feminist members of NAAFA! Their agenda was much more aggressive than NAAFA’s, and eventually they broke off and formed their own group called The Fat Underground, which acted as a catalyst in the creation and mobilization of the fat liberation movement. Based in LA in the 1970s, the Fat Underground did not fight to change discriminatory laws but rather discriminatory thoughts and practices in different aspects of society, which included those of doctors and other health professionals who perpetuated the unhealthy habits encouraged by diet culture. In 1973, Judy Freespirit and Alderbaran published the “Fat Liberation Manifesto” which establishes that fat people are entitled to what they were denied on a daily basis: “human respect and recognition.” The other objectives then outline the commercial exploitation of fat bodies by both corporations and scientific institutions. (x) I will go into more detail about the Fat Underground in my next post, “The History of Fat Activism!”

• Dr. Lindo Bacon (they/them), PhD

(no photo)

Creator of the concept of HAES (Health At Every Size).

Dr. Bacon is best known for their paradigm-shifting research and advocacy upending the weight discourse. They have mined their deep academic proficiency, wide-ranging clinical expertise and own personal experience to write two best-selling books, Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, and the co-authored Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, or Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight. Both are credited with transforming the weight discourse and inspiring a hopeful new course for the fat liberation movement. Dr. Bacon holds their PhD in physiology, as well as graduate degrees in psychology and exercise metabolism. Dr. Bacon formerly taught at City College of San Francisco, in the Health Education, Psychology, Women’s Studies, and Biology Departments. A professor and researcher, for almost two decades Dr. Bacon has taught courses in social justice, health, weight and nutrition; they have also conducted federally funded studies on health and weight and published in top scientific journals. Their research has been supported by grants from the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. A truly great pioneer in medical health research! 

https://lindobacon.com/ | HAES | IG

• Aubrey Gordon, a.k.a. Your Fat Friend (she/her)

(no photo)

Aubrey Gordon writes about the social realities of life as a very fat person, previously publishing anonymously as Your Fat Friend. She is the author of What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Lit Hub, Vox, Gay Mag, and has been covered in outlets around the world. She also hosts the podcast Maintenance Phase, in which she and cohost Michael Hobbes debunk and decode wellness and weight loss trends. Her articles are incredibly heartfelt and enlightening. You can read all of them at www.yourfatfriend.com !!

@ yrfatfriend on IG & Twitter

• Sabrina Strings (she/her), PhD

Sabrina Strings is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine and the author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, which exposes fatphobia’s roots in anti-blackness. Strings contributed an opinion story to The New York Times titled “It’s Not Obesity. It’s Slavery.” With Lindo Bacon (creator of HAES), she coauthored “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity,” published in Scientific American. Strings has a BA in psychology and an MA and PHd in sociology. This book is #1 on my to-read list!!

https://www.sabrinastrings.com

• Hannah Fuhlendorf (she/her), MA LPCC NCC

Hannah is a highly educated and experienced counselor whose work focuses on self acceptance, eliminating the effects of internalized oppression, and practicing through a HAES lens. She is a fat liberationist who puts out educational videos daily. Hannah is also married to a healthcare professional, and the two of them are working toward making the medical field more accessible to fat people in their local community, and offering education on how to be fat allies. I really admire Hannah and the work that she does!

@ hannahtalksbodies on IG and TikTok

• Tracy Cox (she/her)

Tracy is an award-winning performer and artist, who co-created the web series “Angry Fat People” with Matthew Anchel, which takes a pop culture approach on serious issues faced by fat performers. She has been interviewed by the New York Times on fat politics and accessibility, and currently has a huge following on IG where she unpacks fat performance, fashion, and politics. You may know her as the creator of the ‘fat vanity’ trend on TikTok!

@ sparklejams on IG & TikTok

• Da’Shaun L. Harrison (they/them) 

Da’Shaun is a non-binary abolitionist, community organizer, and writer. They are currently a managing editor and columnist at Wear Your Voice Magazine. They travel throughout the United States and abroad to speak at conferences, colleges, and lead workshops focused on Blackness, queerness, gender, class, religion, (dis)abilities, fatness, and the intersection at which they all meet. Da’Shaun is the author of the book Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, which is expected to be published in July 2021. They have an incredibly enlightening social media presence as well!!

@ dashaunlh on IG and Twitter

• Lauren Buchness (she/her)

Lauren Buchness is one of my favorite artists. She’s a contemporary artist and fat activist based in Tucson, Arizona. By combining painting & performance, she aims to question Western standards of beauty and create conversations that alter preconceived notions about the fat body. Go check out her gorgeous work!!

@ ladybuchness on IG and TikTok

If you’re interested in learning about diet culture and intuitive eating, check out

Shana Minei Spence (she/her), MS RDN CDN

Shana is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who opposes food restriction and encourages intuitive eating! She spreads food positive daily messages on her platform. She used to work in fashion, but she left after being dissatisfied with the industry and went back to school to become involved in food policy and public health. She offers counseling on a HAES approach. I have much respect for Shana!

@ thenutritiontea on IG

And right here on tumblr (who was my personal introduction to fat lib) -

@ bigfatscience !!!

An anonymous fat liberationist. They share so many great resources, diving head-first into the scientific research of weight and health, they’ve found that the relation between the two is extremely complex. They tackle the biases of  research in a system that profits off of fatphobia, and they offer a fat positive perspective based on scientific studies. Their blog serves as an easily accessible resource for fat folx and fat activists who want to learn about fat positive science to support their own personal interests/activism. Thank you for your work, bigfatscience!! (if you have questions for them, you will have a greater chance of getting a response with anon off!) 

• Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they), LCSW MEd

Sonalee is an award-winning clinical social worker, sex therapist, and grassroots organizer. They’re a superfat queer bisexual non-binary therapist and co-owner of Radical Therapy Center. Sonalee is specialized in treating sexual trauma, internalized fatphobia, immigrant kid guilt, and South Asian family systems, while offering fat positive sexual healthcare. Go, Sonalee!!

@ thefatsextherapist on IG

• Fat Rose (org)

Fat Rose organizes fat people, building a more radical fat liberation movement in strong relationship with other social movements, such as anti-fascism, anti-ableism, and anti-racism. Check them out on Facebook!

fatrose.org

Honorable IG mentions: (Some anti diet culture specific blogs in here, as well)

@fatangryblackgirl  @msgigggles @thefatphobiaslayer @bodyimagewithbri @saucyewest @fatpositivetherapy @fatlippodcast @chairbreaker 

BOOKS

And here’s an amazing list of fat-positive book recommendations from HannahTalksBodies!

Science & Health:

Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon PhD

Body Respect by Lindo Bacon PhD and Lucy Aphramor PhD, RD

Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann PhD

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison MPH, RD

Fat Liberation:

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings PhD

Fat Activism by Dr. Charlotte Cooper

Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver

The Fat Studies Reader by Esther Rothblum (Editor) and Sondra Solovay (Editor)

Fat Shame by Amy Erdman Farrell

Self Acceptance:

The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Things No One will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker

Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnson PhD

Happy Fat by Sofie Hagan

You have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to share this list of resources!

Image descriptions below.

1. [ID: A black and white photo of Bill Fabrey, a straight-sized, balding white man with thick black glasses wearing a suit and tie, standing at a poduim in front of a sign that reads, “NAAFA”. Beside the image is another photo of Fabrey, from his left side.]

2. [ID: A black and white photo of seven fat, female and gender non-conforming members of The Fat Underground, performing a recital.]

3. [ID: The cover of Sabrina Strings’ book, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. On the cover is an illustration of four upper-class white people in fancy colonial period clothing showing shock and disgust at a Black woman’s exposed body. Beside the book cover is a photo of Sabrina Strings, a straight-sized Black woman with dark brown curly hair wearing a blouse.]

4. [ID: Hannah Fulhendorf, a fat, white woman with straight hair dyed blue, wearing a black tank top and holding her shoulder while smiling brightly and looking into the camera.]

5. [ID: An artistic picture of Tracy Cox, a fat, white woman with long, straight brown hair, laying topless on a bed of flowers. There are flower petals placed strategically in her hair on her skin, and along her lower eyelid. Beside that image, is an image of the album cover for Angry Fat People, picturing two angry faces made out of white paper against a grey background. In the top left corner, black, bolded text that reads “AFP” and “FAT LIBERATION”.]

6. [ID: Da’Shaun L. Harrison, a fat, non-binary Black person with a beard, glasses, and long dreadlocks, wearing a shirt that reads, “TO BE VISIBLY QUEER IS TO CHOOSE YOUR HAPPINESS OVER YOUR SAFETY. -DA’SHAUN HARRISON” against a natural backdrop of autumn leaves.]

7. [ID: A watercolor painting by Lauren Buchness of a white and tattooed fat body, hands caressing abstract rolls of fat with wild blueberries and grapefruit between folds. Beside it is another Buchness watercolor painting of Black hands with long sharp nails, caressing the midsection of a fat Black body, with purple crystals growing out of the skin.]

8. [ID: Shana Minei Spence, a straight-sized, Black woman smiling with bright pink lipstick and her long wavy hair pulled back, wearing a floral pattern shirt and jean shorts. She is holding small marquee that reads, “BE CAREFUL OF WELLNESS COMPANIES THAT SAY THEY’RE PROMOTING HEALTH YET ARE STILL ONLY TRYING TO GET YOUR BODY SMALLER” and a heart symbol.]

9. [ID: Sonalee Rashatwar, a superfat, South Asian non-binary person with short black hair, wearing a long floral dress, standing in front of large glowing text that reads, “BIG GIRL ENERGY” against a coarse-textured wall.]

10. [ID: A circular logo with a red fist in the center, with text surrounding it that reads, “FATTIES AGAINST FASCISM” with roses separating the word “RESIST”. Beside it is another image, of eleven fat and superfat activists, standing and sitting on mobility scooters, holding fists and middle fingers in the air, wearing T-shirts and holding banners that both read, “FATTIES AGAINST FASCISM”. In front of the group is a large cardboard sign that spells the acronym “F.A.B.” which stands for “Fat Antifascist Brigade”.]

[uwmspeccoll]

First Feminist Press!

Shameless Hussy Press

With the stress of Roe vs Wade potentially facing a repeal this summer, we want to let the women in our lives know they are not alone in their frustration. The fight women have been waging for their intellectual and bodily freedom has been a long one, so we wanted to revisit some history about the first women-owned feminist press in California, the Shameless Hussy Press! Poet and soon to be publisher Alta Gerrey founded the press in Oakland, California, in 1969, and would publish four women who later became prominent feminist writers: Pat Parker, Mitsuye Yamada, Ntozake Shange, and Susan Griffin. Alta published her own titles under her Shameless Hussy Press imprint, including three poetry collections preserved in our collection: Letters to Women, published around 1970; Song of the Wife; Song of the Mistress, published in 1971; No Visible Means of Support, published in 1971. 

Alta’s sarcastic and straightforward writing style is reflected in the Shameless Hussy Press aesthetic. In her first collection, Letters to Women, she includes the iconic feminist symbol of a fist within the symbol of Venus and her copyright statement reads:

for underground reproduction without profit, there is no copyright. for moneymakers, this is copyright, and you gotta pay.

Alta emphasizes the aid of her friends and family in producing her book, and poetry aimed at letting women know that they were not alone in whatever injustices and hardships they faced, whether gender inequality and sexism, marriage and divorce, rape, mental illness, or raising children. 

Alta’s second collection, Song of the Wife; Song of the Mistress, with drawings by Martha Kuech, reflects the intimacy the poet felt with her readers and how she used poetry as the outlet for emotions that could be a burden too heavy to carry at times. Letters to Women is dedicated “to every woman who is as isolated as i,” but Song of the Wife; Song of the Mistress "isn’t dedicated to anybody. eat yr hearts out.” Alta had a love for improper grammar, punctuation, and unconventional spelling. The first half of this second book reproduces a handwritten cursive script, presumably Alta’s handwriting, and the second half switches back to typewriter print. This title and Alta’s third collection, No Visible Means of Support, were both published after the Shameless Hussy Press had moved down the Bay to San Lorenzo, California, from its original location in Berkeley. Alta made the choice to move her independent press after the sabotage of a friend’s press in the same area, as well as to protect her daughter and herself from death threats she received for her work in the lesbian, feminist, and activist communities. 

Shameless Hussy Press was the first to publish Ntozake’s Shange’s poetic performance work, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which was later adapted into an Obie award-winning Broadway theater production. In 1976, Shameless Hussy published Camp Notes and Other Poems by Mitsuye Yamada, revolving around her experiences in the internment camps and the pain she felt at being perceived as an outsider.

The formation of the Shameless Hussy Press by Alta and the Women’s Press Collective by Judy Grahn, with aid from Pat Parker (who I posted about earlier), was quite inspirational for second wave of feminism. The four women who brought the feminist and lesbian publishing community to the foreground in California, Alta, Susie Griffin, Judy Grahn, and Pat Parker, had all met originally as neighbors over tea, but decided it was time to take action in their communities. Alta said in an interview that the group would often argue over how political their writing should be, wondering whether they should, “stick to the personal. [but] Susie kept saying, ‘the personal is political.’” 

Griffin’s works were said to have launched ecofeminism in the United States as she rose to become one of the most influential American feminist writers of the 20th century. Alta’s Shameless Hussy Press gave these influential women the opportunity to be published outside the patriarchy of mainstream publishing, allowing them to completely claim their work as their own. Shameless Hussy ran from 1969-1989, despite being a one-woman-publishing house, publishing over fifty titles in its 20-y3qr existence. 

–Isabelle, Special Collections Undergraduate Writing Intern

[literaticat]

I’ve seen this question around Twitter a lot: “Why are you the person to write this story?” followed by a lot of discourse about how certain people are only allowed to write certain things. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Say you’re writing a middle grade about a haunted house and you’ve never lived in a haunted house yourself nor are you a realtor for your day job. Does that make you unqualified to write a haunted house middle grade? Thanks for taking the time, Jenn!

I can't tell if this is a bad-faith question or not. Ha ha. Welp. Let's pretend it's not for a moment.

People might ask that question, "why are you the person to write this story" or "why are you uniquely qualified to write this story" about any kind of story -- and often the question IS being asked about what your expertise is in the subject. Maybe the book is about penguins, and you are a zoologist and head of the Detroit Penguin Society. Maybe the book is about a kid who learns to read and you are a long-time early-childhood-education specialist. Maybe the book has to do with climate change and you are a climate scientist, or a journalist who has done a lot of research about the topic and is a passionate advocate for policy change around it.

Or maybe the book is just a fun book about a haunted house, and maybe the answer is just "I thought of it." But that's not a very interesting answer, is it? A better way to approach this question might be to think of it as, "what lead you to write this story?"

So, if the story IS about a haunted house -- maybe the answer is, "I've had a life-long fascination with ghost stories and read every spooky book I could get my hands on as a kid. But the inspiration to write THIS story actually came to me, believe it or not, in a dream -- I dreamed that my cat asked "why are the walls bleeding?" -- and when I woke up I was like -- LET'S FIND OUT!"

But here's the thing. You might also be trying to figure out if I think white/straight/cis/whatever people should write the stories of marginalized people. And instead of "haunted house" you meant "BIPOC Queer People" or something. Which um -- you know that is not a great analogy, right?

And I do think it is important to interrogate WHY you are the best person to write this story (and if indeed you ARE) when you decide you want to write a book about somebody else's identity. Maybe you AREN'T.

Like, if you are an Upper-Middle-Class Cis White Gay 23 year old Man from Topeka, with zero connection to New York, LGBTQ revolutionaries of the mid-to-late 20th century, BIPOC folks with a complicated gender indentity, activism around unhoused people, sex workers, the AIDS crisis, and the only thing you know about drag culture is what you learned on Ru Paul's Drag Race -- are you the best person to write a book from the POV of Martha P Johnson? I understand that you just learned about her and you want to "teach the children" -- but don't you think that maybe, JUST MAYBE, there are people more qualified to write this story? Maybe people who ACTUALLY KNEW HER, or who have walked in those shoes as an activist, or who otherwise have a personal connection with one or more parts of her identity and story?

Maybe you have done so much research and immersed yourself so fully in the history etc that you really feel this in your bones, and maybe the people that knew her and are experts trust you to do a great job. Maybe. :-)

Or maybe you should think of a way in to the story you want to tell that doesn't co-opt another person's identity. Like if it is a story about Queer History you want to tell -- maybe it is told from the POV of a cis white gay kid, like you were, who is in NYC in 1969 and seeing this stuff for the first time, and what their reaction to Stonewall might be? That doesn't mean your book would not be chock full of loads of different kinds of people of all gender-sexual-racial-identity-intersections -- of course it WOULD be! But your main POV character -- the one whose eyes we are seeing through -- would be a little bit more like yourself. Obviously it ISN'T you -- you weren't alive in 1969, you never went to NYC as a kid -- but it is not somebody so different from you that it would basically require a whole-brain transplant to get it right.

Ugh I have no idea if I answered your question, but anyway, I'm going to stop typing now, I hope that made sense.