#but I’m teacher for many years now

[bigtits-potatoships]

He most certainly is.

I’m Brazilian, I’m latina, I’m not hispanic.

This google definition is correct: “Latin America is a cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken” which is why people born in Spain are not latinos. Because they aren’t. From the latino region. Which basically starts from Mexico all the way until Argentina including most countries in the way.

And for Brazilians most of what takes us to define who is white and who isn’t is the color of the skin, not their original country or region.

In my country I’m a white person, but for people from other countries I’m just a light skin latina/brazilian, whilst Ariana Grande (before she entered her Korean fase) would be considered brown (actually the correct term would be morena) because that’s the color her skin was.

It’s not a racist thing, it’s just different.

In Brazil for someone to be considered a black person is not enough that they have light brown skin. If they do, there’s a name for that “moreno” or “morena”, regardless of where they come from.

If you are from spain and you have white skin you are a white spanish and if you have black skin you’re a black spanish and in the middle you are moreno.

The rules for asian people are different tho, you are always your nationality. If you are from india you are indian, china chinese etc.

This is just a commentary of how things can end up being different according to different cultures.

Americans are strangely confident that their utterly bizarre ideas concerning ethnicity are universal, and then they get confused when that's not how things work.

Like apparently as far as they're concerned, the spanish are latino but italians are white, despite of ranging in the same colours and speaking languages so similar that I can vaguely make sense of italian by understanding the basics of french and spanish, and they're baffled when J.K. Rowling manages to be racist against white people.

[danielnelsen]

there’s so much i wanna do this week/month/etc but i’m just too sick, i have no energy, i can’t sleep, i’m constantly nauseous and headachey and on the verge of a migraine, i’m stressed and irritable and impatient and panicky…….how tf did i survive nearly 5 years of high school untreated if i can’t even manage this when i don’t have any major obligations rn

[freddieandersen]

just did a “huh. wonder what she’s up to” fb search of one of my dance friends from high school and yup another win for lesbians. [redacted] school of irish dance absolutely churning out future gays. of the six of us who danced into hs at least four are gay and/or nb now which is. statistically anomalous

[m0onjellies]

I have a week and a half of finals left and I am not making it through y’all 🙏

[nerdsandbabyteeth]

Constantly trapped between I can’t wait to live away from my family and spend more time alone because I feel like my thoughts will have time to settle and I will lose my mind if I live alone because I am starting to lose a sense of self this week simply because two of my friends are away and I don’t speak to anyone much in school.

[queerstudiesnatural]

another student came out to me as autistic today <3 i love collecting autistics especially as a teacher it’s like, i am going to make sure you have such a great time here. this is going to be a place free of annoyances. free of pretending. free of judgment or arbitrary rules. we are going to move forward together at your own pace, with however many tools we can dig up. you will never have to be scared or stressed out here <3

[e8776]

Thinking of maybe working as a tutor for SAT w highschool kids. 😵‍💫🤕 would that be a bad idea. I’d have to go and study SAT again lol

[freckleslikestars]

The kids I teach think I’m magic because I have a puzzle ring that falls apart when I take it off but stays together when I wear it. It’s just very sweet.

[realestgirlalive]

senior superlative winner of most likely to come back and be a teacher at our high school….

[bonnetsharks]

My nerdy dad stumbles across Um! Actually on yt and becomes a fan

He starts watching some other dropout stuff (breaking news, game changer), “wow, that redheaded guy is really funny”

I tell him that those are the same people who make the dnd show I’ve loved for YEARS, but he brushes off my recommendation of D20 because of how long the episodes are and because he’s never been into Dnd

Like 7 months later he finally plays BG3. I receive daily ramblings about his character (he made a Druid and put all his xp into animal handling so he could befriend as many dogs as possible).

Falls in love with the roleplay aspect of the game (“it’s like I’m writing a book! They keep putting my guy into situations and I get to figure out what he’d do!”)

Yesterday, ten months after I first offered it to him, he finally asks for my Dropout login so he can try Dimension 20 on a long car ride

In less than 24 hours, he has listened to 8 hours worth and planned an entire dnd party with the other teachers in his department

I have never been so proud

This man spent my entire childhood indoctrinating me into his obscure interests and now I get to do it back

[steviescrystals]

i graduated high school 3 years ago and i’m still not over the fact that NO ONE TOLD ME the district would delete all of our school accounts like a month later and now every paper, presentation, project, etc. i made on that account from 5th-12th grade is just gone forever 🫠

[mantis-a-shrimp]

“You use the word “hence” a lot and I don’t know what that means” - a child once again unknowingly causing me a realization and subsequent crisis

[bestfluteninja]

i am so loved. i am so so loved.

[redgoldsparks]

My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center.

So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: "I know exactly who I want to give this to!" Maia: "Thank you for helping readers find my book!" While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year.

Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch.

It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" "It was returned to the shelf!" "It was removed from the shelf..." "It was moved to the adult section."

Over and over I said: "Thank you. Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn't work." We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic. 60% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. If you are able too, show up for your library and school board meetings when book challenges are debated. Send supportive comments and emails about the Pride book display and Drag Queen story hours. If you see a display you like– for Banned Book Week, AAPI Month, Black History Month, Disability Awareness Month, Jewish holidays, Trans Day of Remembrance– compliment a librarian! Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate <3

Maia Kobabe, 2023

The Nib

[exopelagic]

I SENT THE EMAIL

[bluebelly-sun-serpentine]

Tim Walz and his wife don’t own a single stock. Their only investment is in their state pensions. He supports safer gun legislation. He supports meaningful housing reform (namely policies that make building housing - the only thing that will solve this crisis - easier). He supported queer youth in an era where support was even more difficult to come by than it is now, and he still does. He has a pittbull lab mix named Scout. He regularly asks his daughter what’s important to her and what her peers are saying on Tik Tok. He supports abortion access. He was a geographer and a teacher and only entered politics because he got so mad that one of his class field trips to a political rally was cut short by a republican staffer who denied them entry because of a student’s John Kerry pin.

He was also developed in a lab specifically for the purpose of appealing to as many white Americans as possible. He grew up on a farm in Nebraska in a community of ~400 people. He joined the Army National Guard at 17. He coached football, taking a losing team to the state championships. He hunts. He goes to the state fair every year. He uses diet mountain dew as a sobriety aid.

This was a smart pick from Harris. It’s clear from their interactions at the rally that he’s there to support her rather than hog the spotlight, as I worried Shapiro would have done. They’re able to put forward this “happy warrior” campaign together because they have good chemistry and are young enough not to be falling asleep on the job. They’re both corny as hell. They might pull this off.

No ticket is ever going to be perfect. I have always been left of the ticket and I suspect I may always be, but this is a real step in the right direction, and there’s so much more energy in this campaign. I’m feeling so much more hopeful than I was a couple months ago.

Make sure you’re registered to vote (voting rolls have been purged in places all over the country. I myself had to re-register recently, and will be checking regularly). Make sure you know what’s happening downballot in your district, because those races and initiatives are vitally important, too. Support local politicians doing excellent work.

For instance, these may be the people responsible for making new bike lanes, transit options, and housing developments possible. Where I live one of these (young, awesome) politicians was recently run out of office by insane nimby whiners sending death threats to his family. I wonder if he’d been able to stick it out if more people were paying attention and vocally supporting him. National-stage MAGA politicians are not the only people fighting to make our lives harder, so it’s worth figuring out who’s fighting against the wine-and-property class hoarding all the quality of life in your town. Find out who’s fighting to shut down your library and who’s telling that person “over my dead body.” Then go to the polls armed with that knowledge.