#every post and meme i see recently just further and further cements to me that i am not aroacem

[cloudd-nyne]

.

[true-intha-blu]

In regards to Kwami Buster

Soo...

I have opinions. Shocker. And this episode of Miraculous actually made me want to take about them on tumblr (risky) Disclaimer. I completely understand that Miraculous is made for far younger audience’s and that this is primarily a show for young girls. As such the writer will probably never be what I hope it is as a quarter of a century person. I also understand that Thomas Austruc and the writers constantly get crap from people about various of small nitpicks. I also don’t know the episode order so I do not know what should is being addressed later on or it is mainly spotted around randomly I really like this show and while it not what I expected for what it is. I enjoy. There are limits for what can be told within a 23-minute episode. I also know that regardless of what the Show’s Creator wants to make, things can get into the way in order to make it... ‘marketable’. Mainly. Producers. So I can understand why the concept art days are different  So any complaints I have aren’t really in anger... but in contemplation. There is a bit of frustration. (Also if I see or hear of anyone using this to harass/blame/spread hate to any fan or the show’s creative team, I will tear you a new one. This is never supposed to be used against the writers or ANYONE WHO HAS A DIFFERENT OPINION THAN YOU. DO NOT BE A JERK ABOUT IT!) Season 3 has been pretty darn great. Has a lot potential and lore and all that good stuff. But while watching it, I get been noticing something lacking most episodes.

Something that I originally that made me interested in this show ALL the way back to the Concept Art days. The partnership. The Yin and Yang. 

Remember when Chat sacrificed himself in Timerbreaker? Or in Stormy Weather how both heroes worked to protect each other? each having a shining moment? Remember in Gamer 2.0 Chat’s speech to ladybug about their trust and partnership? Well... doesn’t feel like much when we look at the episodes. I love Marinette/Ladybug. She is a wonderful figure for young girls and others to look up to and a good written female character. But recently that admiration is fading when... every episode she seems to overcome everything usually by herself or with her own ideas. And... I get it. The media is saturated with far too many male characters and I understand the desire to make a prominent female character... Yet... I keep getting that Ladybug solves so many of her problems... far too easily. Even her mistakes seem to pale. Only Lila has given her a problem and it is extremely one-sided and not... well... it just results in salt and that is not a good way to challenge our heroine. With the episode Kwami Buster, she did everything her self and got off with it no sweat. Same with Christmaster and more than a fair share of episodes of Ladybug hardly needing Chat’s actual help or protection or even a second opinion (as chat is always portrayed as wrong/dense) and I feel like he has been reduced to merely an object for the Ladybug Lucky Charm plans.  It Dismissing Chat Noir or Adrien as a viable character with his own development isn't the way to highlight Marinette/Ladybug as a strong role model. The show is Tale of ladybug AND chat Noir. I am fine with Adrien getting less development time in comparison to Marinette but he hasn't had any really except MAYBE puppeteer 2.0. Gabriel and Nathalie of all people have had loads of development time in their short limited screen time. And I get superhero show needs good villains for a good compliment to a hero. But the supposed secondary protagonist? The only real thing I remember Chat doing that didn’t involve him being a pun or  But I am noticing that Hawkmoth and Mayura have a lot better chemistry and teamwork than ladybug and chat noir.  I don’t know if that is an intentional thing on the creators' part or it is merely the comedy role chat has been reduced to. Again to say, I do love Marinette... but I fear at the rate she is going, her solving everything will make her a... Goku. And by Goku I mean, that the characters/plot/slight obstacle that the show presents cannot even be overcome by anyone else and that Marinette/Ladybug is the only one to save the day. The only episodes she really doesn’t is the episodes featuring the other heroes... or at least their introductions. But even then Marinette is the one who asks them in the first place.  

The fact that Fu and the miraculous box and all of that core lore of the story with Fu is only focused on Marinette shows an imbalance of character direction. You could argue that Chat has Hawkmoth as a father is part of that lore... but when was the last time that was actually a thing except for all the way back in season 2 with The Collector that has even been slightly addressed or experimented with? Marinette has done what Chat is supposed to do several times already. Using the power of destruction... and it saddened me or what cemented the imbalance for me was that one backscreen of the two Mouse Marinette's with both the ladybug and black cat miraculous and the two yin and yangs behind her. She has become her own balance, the fact she only needs to rely on herself to defeat a villain... just... kinda subsided Chat in one of his roles. I’m fine Ladybug getting shinning moments. But the fact that Chat has never really had one, never really was the cause for a brilliant idea or directly responsible for defeating the akuma (maybe there was one but for the life of me I cannot recall it despite recently re-watching the episodes). I don’t mind him taking a back row and being the support to ladybug but maybe a few episodes of where Chat is equal to Ladybug, like back in Stormy weather where each other were bailing their partner out in different situations would be nice. I wanted the Kwami Swap episode to be this, but instead, I had Adrien being Trademark Dense Boy and Marinette doing the work and her solving the problem while doing nearly everything Chat did perfectly. In essence... I am fine with Marinette succeeding. But I would like Chat to do so as well. I do not want a Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable dynamic. Not when Chat Noir is literally half of the show’s title. I want to seem them as partners, Ladybug Asking Chat what to do on certain situations and Chat being the support for Ladybug. Not just puns for Chat and Ladybug always knowing exactly what to do. Maybe this will be addressed later on, maybe the show writers will address this. Maybe I am being delusional and missing the whole point of the show. I honestly hope I am wrong with this. But from what I have seen, it is a regression of Adrien. A sheltered lad who has been emotionally abused by his father and people around him and is forced to wear a perfect mask every day while Chat Noir is his only way of freedom. In Stairtrain, I was happy to see a small development of him breaking the rules... but it is not much further than that. Note: I do not expect this show to be very angsty or dark or turbulent in the emotions and development. Something would be nice though. I would like Chat to be more rebellious against authority, including Ladybug when he thinks she is wrong (which sometimes she should be, it is good for characters to be wrong) And to extent Fu. Maybe I want Chat to start distrusting people and Adrien to grow more snappy and rueful at his situation. Maybe I want him to have a very deep talk to Ladybug as Chat about his lack of input on things, or a moment of her plans using him as one of the parts of her Luck Charm just doesn’t work out because it just doesn’t. I like both characters, but I do not like where only one character shines and the other gets regulated to mere standby unless needed. Already the fandom just regulates chat into dumb tropes and memes because that is all we see of him in the show. I like his playful side, but I know and have seen in the first season he is more than that. I hope Chat Blanc may address this. But I doubt it. Oh well, I’ll keep watching the show. I still like it. What do you guys think? I’m just seeing to much into the situation? Am I not being feminist enough to only want the girl to succeed and that the male deuteragonist should just be regulated for comedy and merely a character for several girls' affections? And once again, I do not hate any character in the show and this is not an Anti Miraculous team post either. I am merely throwing a few thoughts out (and a few frustrations) and this is in no way a ‘Meta’ post. If anyone has specific moments for or against this. Go ahead. I am interested to learn. Just keep it polite people And if you don’t like Miraculous and think I should drop the show... No.

[secretbranch]

LRR OF THE SPARK

Okay, so in a recent live TCC, LRR was asked what planeswalkers they associate with “everyone in LoadingReadyRun”, and they gave some great answers, so I wanted to compile them as well as add my own opinions, so without further ado....

(also note that race/gender don’t factor here) Graham (Garruk)

Graham has cosplayed as Garruk for videos before, and you can totally see it. They also threw around the idea of Angrath, which I will admit I like better, but I also know that, for better or for worse, due to recent developments, Graham has cemented himself into the mono green man of the wild. (Plus, I wanted to use the stained glass art versions of all the walkers, and then I realized Graham was Garruk rip #whereareyougarruk) Paul (Karn)

You could argue that Paul is some sort of blue mage because of his endless experimentation in Friday Nights, but while Karn may not approve of some of Paul’s designs, he would appreciate the effort. Also, I mean, Paul’s card in Friday Nights is colorless for a reason, right? James (Angrath)

Alright, so a bunch of names were thrown around for James (Nicol Bolas, Gideon, Ajani [because he’s so supportive {sarcasm}]), and I personally didn’t think any of them fit. I then remembered a conversation I heard on stream (can’t remember exactly when, otherwise I’d link it), but someone referred to James as “Kind of a dick, but still has a heart of gold”, and that made me think of Angrath’s story from Ixalan, and I realized he was the perfect fit. Also, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone in chat say that James would make a great dad, I wouldn’t be yet another broke millennial, hahah. Ha.

Kathleen (Sorin)

This is one where you may have a different opinion than the LRR friends. Whether or not you consider it low-hanging fruit, you may have thought of Liliana first. While I do admit there is some merit to Kathleen being our goth queen, wielding her horde of Brave New Faves listeners against the forces of evil, a helpful, totally extra edgelord is not far off either.

Alex (Saheeli)

Alex was the first of a couple people whom I almost gave Tibalt. Early Friday Nights had him pinned as some sort of Rakdos Madman obsessed with explosives, sort of like if a goblin was a person. But, frankly, I don’t think the Demon Prince fits Alex very well. Alex is super creative, which you know if you’ve seen his art or his comics. He’s also been referred to as a “meme nexus”, and has a lot of information stored in his brain (which paved the way for the discussion of “Alex-isms”). His ability to create and appreciation of the world around him s very reminiscent to me at least of Saheeli. Plus, Alex doesn’t give a shit about your gender norms anyway. Fuck ‘em.

Cameron (Tamiyo)

Books? Notes? Yep, that’s Cam. Also, without a doubt, some of the deepest cuts and references you will ever hear on LoadingReadyRun have been from Cameron. He is the longest running co-host of a show where they analyze video games as art. Come on, the similarities keep coming. Also, Cam would totally be down to say “fuck your gender norms”. He is beauty, he is grace, and yet he will trip and fall and somehow find a way to land directly on his funny bone.

Ian (Daretti)

As discussed in the video, Ian is absolutely the tinkering goblin madman that turns into an evil genius in the sequel. Like, the show is LITERALLY called TINKER Tailor Solder Fry. Not to mention Daretti’s other quality: D E C A D E N C E. Some goblins will settle for any trash. Daretti only settles for the highest quality of trash. I feel like this statement highly resonates with Ian. Plus, there’s probably some “waifu is trash” joke that I’m missing since I don’t watch anime, but regardless: perfect fit.

Cori (Huatli)

They almost said Vivien, but then Cam pointed out (and I totally agree) that Cori would have red or blue in her color identity. So, here is Cori! She’s super helpful and friendly and wholesome, and she also reins Ian in when he goes a little too off the rails. That being said, Cori has been known to go off the rails a little herself, and is super creative, so Huatli seems like a nice match.

Beej (Sarkhan)

So this was what the LRR folks picked at the panel, and it catches a lot of people offguard. The universal first response I think is Tibalt, E̻̻͙̭̼̅́ͯ̒ͅX̸̠̫̟̙̣̮͔ͬͯ̈́ͤͤP͌ͨͫ̄́͏̠͉Eͦͨͨ͊͂̓҉̱R̷̠͔̮̲̥̘͚̄̈́̅ͧ̇̃I̲̙̗͇͌ͮ̃́̚E̢͇̝͆ͪ̑̌ͧͮ̎NC̓̒̐͆͐͂ͭ҉̥̺̞E̠͖̐͊ͬ̔̐͊̎̕ ̮̪͒ͣ́͗͆̆̏͠B̥͍̳̲̠̳̀̓̏ͥͮ̈́ͣE͇̳̫͙͕ͅͅE͈̱̜͈̱̱̲J̼̉̔ͅ and all that. But, after thinking about it, Sarkhan is a rambling madman who turned out to know more about the universe than almost anyone, and isn’t that in the spirit of E̻̻͙̭̼̅́ͯ̒ͅX̸̠̫̟̙̣̮͔ͬͯ̈́ͤͤP͌ͨͫ̄́͏̠͉Eͦͨͨ͊͂̓҉̱R̷̠͔̮̲̥̘͚̄̈́̅ͧ̇̃I̲̙̗͇͌ͮ̃́̚E̢͇̝͆ͪ̑̌ͧͮ̎NC̓̒̐͆͐͂ͭ҉̥̺̞E̠͖̐͊ͬ̔̐͊̎̕ ̮̪͒ͣ́͗͆̆̏͠B̥͍̳̲̠̳̀̓̏ͥͮ̈́ͣE͇̳̫͙͕ͅͅE͈̱̜͈̱̱̲J̼̉̔ͅ?

Heather (Jaya)

This was another personal pick of mine, and I really like it. Cute but fierce is something I can totally see describing Heather. Like, Heather definitely has this very loving, innocent mindset, but anyone who has seen enough Rhythm Cafe knows that that statement isn’t entirely true. She also seems like someone who will fiercely protect her friends, and that’s something Jaya can definitely get behind.

Serge (Yanggu)

You knew it was coming. How could you not see it coming; the adorable doggo-wielding cinnamon roll who can surely kill you with his boyish smile while simultaneously actually killing you? Everyone in chat always protects Serge when bullies like Adam or James show up, even when Serge was sassing them seconds before. Also, Yanggu is a green mage, and we all know how Serge feels about lands.

Ben (Chandra)

In the words of Kathleen: “THIS ONE IS MY FINEST HOUR!!!!” Think about it. Ben has always said he’s most closely aligned with Red and Green, and here’s this planeswalker that can be both a wild child and super wholesome. Also, canonically a member of the LGBT+ community. ALSO, you KNOW Chandra is super supportive of people when she’s not immolating them. I didn’t even think of the Zippotricks McEdgelord thing until I was halfway through this. His individuality, his creativity, he is Chandra in disguise.

Adam (Koth of the Hammer)

Beefcake of the Mountains? Adam Savidan??? Absolutely. I will admit, this is what LRR said, and I would have gone for someone a little more studious since I know that’s a lot of the Adam we don’t see on camera, but as for what we DO see, hell yeah. I also find it hilarious that the guy acting as the conductor for the WE’RE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE train wasn’t even in War of the Spark. Rip in pieces, Koth. Matt G (Ral)

I’ll be honest, at time of posting, Matt is still fairly new to streams, and I haven’t seen a lot of stuff he’s done, but I’ve seen his personality through his editing (which is always amazing btw), and his creativity and very open personality is expressed greatly in Ral. Plus, I mean, when there’s low-hanging fruit, sometimes you’ve just gotta give the gay boi the gay boi.

(Bonus Friday Nights A-LRR-mni)

(Note that this is mainly their Friday Nights Personalities) 

Jer P. (Teferi)

Super organized, methodical, intelligent. Who the heck is WILLING to sort their cards, let alone OTHER PEOPLE’S? Jer has had to since move on from LRR, which is sort of like Teferi retiring from planeswalking.  And I mean, come on.

Matt W. (Ob Nixilis)

Hear me out. I’m not saying Matt is a demon. I am saying he is absolutely Ob BEFORE he broke the contract. Throughout his episodes in Friday Nights, he is ob-sessed (don’t you love my puns?) with winning. Furthermore, like Ian, decadence is a word that comes to mind when you consider the way he talks. A very sinister villain is Wiggins who returns every time we go back to Zendikar (or have a Desert Bus, but you get it) And that’s it!!! This was a fun homage as well as a much needed trip down memory lane. Hope everyone enjoys, while I know folks will disagree with my picks. Don’t forget to check out all of the links I hid in here. Big thanks to LRR for existing and being so wholesome and good. You guys rock.

[patriotsnet]

Did The Republicans Free The Slaves

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-the-republicans-free-the-slaves/

Did The Republicans Free The Slaves

A Teachable Moment: Dinesh Dsouza Refuses To Take Back False Claim About Republicans Owning Slaves In 1860

– See below the post for an update.

For Dinesh D’Souza watchers, this headline is as shocking as proclaiming that water is wet. I post this incident because it is a clear and convincing demonstration that D’Souza shows zero interest in academic integrity.  Let me lay out the basics. First, D’Souza claimed in a speech that no Republican owned slaves in 1860. Here is the speech:

Do you know how many Republicans owned slaves in 1860, the year before the Civil War started?

The answer may surprise you if you listen to progressive historians.

— Dinesh D’Souza June 10, 2019

He said one Republican who owned a slave in 1860 would require him to take back his claim.

Historians on Twitter, led by Princeton’s Kevin Kruse, quickly rose to the occasion and found ten. Follow the thread below for the receipts.

We’ve provided clear evidence that at least ten Republicans owned slaves in 1860, and yet D’Souza keeps retweeting this video insisting there weren’t any and promising he’d “take it back” if anyone proved otherwise.https://t.co/rbLnQDdMCM

— Kevin M. Kruse June 10, 2019

To go directly to the thread with the breakdown of the ten found thus far, .

In essence, the method of finding Republican slave owners involves an examination of those who attended the Republican convention as delegates and then comparing that list with registries of slave owners.

For his part, D’Souza said the instances offered by the historians are “invalid” and he repeated his claim this morning.

Horace Greeley Proceedings Of The First Three Republican National Conventions Of 1856 1860 And 1864 78

“Republican Party Platform of 1856,” American Presidency Project, at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29619, accessed April 25, 2014.

Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at Carlinville, Illinois, August 31, 1858,” in Abraham Lincoln Association, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy Basler, at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:7.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext, accessed April 25, 2014.

Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863, at United States National Archives, “America’s Historical Documents,” at http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/document.html?doc=8&title.raw=Emancipation%20Proclamation, accessed April 25, 2014.

University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab, “Voting America: Presidential Election, 1864,” at http://dsl.richmond.edu/voting/indelections.php?year=1864, accessed January 9, 2014.

Kim Kardashian Talks Kanye West’s Twitter Return Says He Played Connect Four During Chicago’s Birth

Again, that’s a very simplified version of the story, but that’s the gist of it. You should also check out John Legend’s version of the story — equally helpful, and apparently already shaping Ye’s political awakening. 

Now if Kanye slides into G-Chat with Michael Bay, maybe he’ll be convinced the Transformers also helped end slavery.

The Claim: Historians Do Not Teach That The First Black Members Of Congress Were Republicans

A viral meme, posted on Instagram, features a well-known lithograph of the first Black members of Congress, with a bold statement.

“History not taught,” it says. “The first 23 Black congressmen were Republican.”

“You won’t be taught this,” wrote Ryan Fournier, the co-chair of Students for Trump, whose watermark appears on the meme, on his Instagram account. “The Republicans were the anti-slavery party.”

It is mostly accurate that the Republican Party formed to oppose the extension of slavery, although up until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans pledged not to interfere with slavery in states where it existed. And the first 23 African Americans in Congress did belong to the Republican Party, due to the GOP’s support of voting rights and the Democratic Party’s embrace of white supremacy.

But the idea that Reconstruction-era historians hid those facts – key to understanding the period – is false.

“This is just front and center in what we teach all the time,” said Kate Masur, a professor of history at Northwestern University who has written extensively about Reconstruction. “It’s not a big secret.”

A message seeking comment was sent to Fournier on Wednesday.

Fact check:Photo shows Biden with Byrd, who once had ties to KKK, but wasn’t a grand wizard

Republicans Revise The History Of Slavery To Make Themselves The Party Of Equal Rights

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Historical revisionism is a Republican and religious right practice regarding the illegitimate distortion of the historical record so certain events appear in a more favorable light to substantiate their backward positions. One of the most recent phenomena in revisionist history is the insane notion that the Founding Fathers were directed by god to form America as a Christian nation, and that when he wrote the U.S. Constitution he told them there was no need for a federal government because states were the supreme law of the land. Recently, a staunch religious right conservative attempted to revise history again and asserted that people of faith are the true advocates for equal rights to bolster his claim there is no need for a federal government to ensure every American is treated the same.

  Sat, Apr 26th, 2014 at 9:58 am

The stealth reason for the Jeffersonian Declaration of Independence was to position the slave holder dominated Continental Congress as central to the rebellion, and the major form of independence they were seeking was independence from the British legal system, foremost because of the Somersett Decision in 1772 by British Law Lord Mansfield in which he declared that any person/human being setting foot upon English soil would have the full rights and privileges of a native born Englishman. Look it up.

Republican Elites Try To Back Immigration Reform But Get Backlash From Their Voters

After the 2012 election, Republican leaders began to view the demographic changes in the country as a political crisis for their party. When Mitt Romney lost his bid for the presidency, he got blown out among Hispanic voters — exit polls showed that 71 percent of them backed Barack Obama.

With Hispanic voters becoming a larger share of the electorate every year, GOP elites feared their chances of winning back the presidency would plummet. Their party looked like a party for white voters in an increasingly nonwhite country.

So they came up with a plan. The party would change its tone on immigration, adopting more tolerant rhetoric, and it would also embrace immigration reform. In the Senate in 2013, old hands like John McCain and rising stars like Marco Rubio collaborated with Democrats on a bill that would give unauthorized immigrants a path to legal status.

The final Senate roll call vote was 68-32 — with all 32 no votes, plus 14 yes votes, coming from Republicans. But a huge backlash from the Republican Party’s predominantly white base, which views the bill as “amnesty” for people who broke the rules, ensued. As a result, the bill died in the House of Representatives, never even being brought for a vote.

What Matters: Yes Republicans Freed The Slaves They Were Not These Republicans

CNN

Republicans tried to claim their political ancestors at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, casting back to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, to argue they deserve more credit from Black voters.

The problem is that the Republicans and the politics of 1860 bear almost zero resemblance to the Republicans of today.

Back then, Republicans were, generally, a party of Northerners and Democrats were, generally, the party of the South.

Today, it’s pretty much the opposite.

Back then, a Republican President, Lincoln, tried to hold the union together after Southern states, led by Democrats, seceded.

How Republicans Made Common Cause With Southern Democrats On Economic Matters

Map: Vox. Data: Barry Hirsch, David Macpherson, Wayne Vroman, “Estimates of Union Density by State.”

Roosevelt’s reforms also brought tensions in the Democratic coalition to the surface, as the solidly Democratic South wasn’t too thrilled with the expansion of unions or federal power generally. As the years went on, Southern Democrats increasingly made common cause with the Republican Party to try to block any further significant expansions of government or worker power.

“In 1947, confirming a new alliance that would recast American politics for the next two generations, Taft men began to work with wealthy southern Democrats who hated the New Deal’s civil rights legislation and taxes,” Cox Richardson writes. This new alliance was cemented with the Taft-Hartley bill, which permitted states to pass right-to-work laws preventing mandatory union membership among employees — and many did.

Taft-Hartley “stopped labor dead in its tracks at a point where unions were large, growing, and confident in their economic and political power,” Rich Yeselson has written. You can see the eventual effects above — pro-Democratic unions were effectively blocked from gaining a foothold in the South and interior West, and the absence of their power made those regions more promising for Republicans’ electoral prospects.

Usmb: Where Did The Conservative Republicans Who Freed The Slaves Come From

Thread starterrdean

Zone 2″: Political Forum / Israel and Palestine Forum / Race Relations/Racism Forum / Religion & Ethics Forum / Environment Forum: Baiting and polarizing OP’s , and thread titles risk the thread either being moved or trashed. Keep it relevant, choose wisely. Each post must contain content relevant to the thread subject, in addition to any flame. No trolling. No hit and run flames. No hijacking or derailing threads.

#8

Again and again I’ve heard USMB Republicans insist it was liberal Democrats who kept slaves in the south and it was conservative Republicans who marched into the south and freed the slaves.It was liberal Democrats who started the KKK.Lincoln was a conservative Republican.Now, even though Republicans say President Obama is a Marxist, communist, liberal, fascist, Kenyan, Mau Mau, man child, boi who is so weak and girly he has become a strong arm monarch like totalitarian dictator, some, a few, realize he can’t be all those things at once.Do they really believe conservative Republicans marched into the deep south and freed the slaves? You bet your 6,000 year history of the universe they do.But how is that possible? We refer to the North as the “liberal north”. So where did all those conservative Republicans come from?I’m fascinated by Right Wing history. Perhaps USMB Confederate Republicans who freed the slaves could explain their involvement in the Civil War and it’s “true” history. Educate me. I’m all “ears”.

After The War Radical Republicans Fight For Rights For Black Americans

When states ratified the 14th Amendment. Republicans required some Southern states to ratify it to be readmitted to the Union.

For a very brief period after the end of the Civil War, Republicans truly fought for the rights of black Americans. Frustrated by reports of abuses of and violence against former slaves in the postwar South, and by the inaction of Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, a faction known as the Radicals gained increasing sway in Congress.

The Radicals drove Republicans to pass the country’s first civil rights bill in 1866, and to fight for voting rights for black men at a time when such an idea was still controversial even in the North.

Furthermore, Republicans twice managed to amend the Constitution, so that it now stated that everyone born in the United States is a citizen, that all citizens should have equal protection of the law, and that the right to vote couldn’t be denied because of race. And they required Southern states to legally enact many of these ideas — at least in principle — to be readmitted to the Union.

These are basic bedrocks of our society today, but at the time they were truly radical. Just a few years earlier, the idea that a major party would fight for the rights of black citizens to vote in state elections would have been unthinkable.

Unfortunately, however, this newfound commitment wouldn’t last for much longer.

Black People Kept Civil Rights At Gop Forefront In Late 19th Century

African Americans remained active in the Republican Party and, for a time, kept voting and civil rights at the forefront of the party’s agenda. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act in 1883, several Northern state governments controlled by Republicans created their own civil rights laws. John W.E. Thomas, a former enslaved person who was the first African American elected to the Illinois General Assembly, introduced the 1885 Illinois Civil Rights Act.

But white Southern intransigence made it impossible to enact any meaningful protections at the federal level. That, combined with the rise of a new generation of white Republicans more interested in big business than racial equality, cooled GOP ardor for Black civil rights.

“Republicans started taking the Black vote for granted, and the Republicans were always divided,” Foner said. “There were those who said, ‘We’ve really got to defend the Black vote in the South.’ And others said ‘No, no, we’ve got to appeal to the business-minded voter in South as the party of business, the party of growth.’”

Fact check:Devastating 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre wasn’t worst U.S. riot, isn’t ignored in books

The Great Migration of African Americans from the South, which began just before the United States’ entry into World War I, brought many Black people into cities where they could vote freely and put them in touch with local Democratic organizations that slowly realized the potential of the Black vote.

Kanye West Doubles Down On Pres Trump Support: ‘he Is My Brother’

So when did things start to change?  When Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat from New York, instituted the New Deal to fight the Great Depression in the 1930s, the parties shifted in a big way. The Democratic Party were now supporting a movement marked by mass job creation, checks on big business, and overall workers’ rights. Those are all “big government” sorts of things, which shook the Democrats from their roots.

In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, wanted to pass sweeping civil rights legislation , including the end of segregation in the South. After his assassination, Lyndon Johnson got the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. This was essentially the final nail in the coffin; the majority of white Southerners — resistant to the changes enacted by the Civil Rights Act — abandoned the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party, establishing a link between big business favoritism and backwoods racism that endures to this day.

Yes Republicans Freed The Slaves They Were Not These Republicans

Republican Partyracismcivil rightspolitical historyDemocratic PartyDonald Trump

– Republicans tried to claim their political ancestors at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, casting back to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, to argue they deserve more credit from Black voters.

The problem is that the Republicans and the politics of 1860 bear almost zero resemblance to the Republicans of today.

Back then, Republicans were, generally, a party of Northerners and Democrats were, generally, the party of the South.

Today, it’s pretty much the opposite.

Back then, a Republican President, Lincoln, tried to hold the union together after Southern states, led by Democrats, seceded.

The Clinton Years And The Congressional Ascendancy: 19922000

Newt GingrichHouse SpeakerBill Clinton

After the election of Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1992, the Republican Party, led by House Minority WhipNewt Gingrich campaigning on a “Contract with America“, were elected to majorities to both Houses of Congress in the Republican Revolution of 1994. It was the first time since 1952 that the Republicans secured control of both houses of U.S. Congress, which with the exception of the Senate during 2001–2002 was retained through 2006. This capture and subsequent holding of Congress represented a major legislative turnaround, as Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the forty years preceding 1995, with the exception of the 1981–1987 Congress in which Republicans controlled the Senate.

In 1994, Republican Congressional candidates ran on a platform of major reforms of government with measures such as a balanced budget amendment and welfare reform. These measures and others formed the famous Contract with America, which represented the first effort to have a party platform in an off-year election. The Contract promised to bring all points up for a vote for the first time in history. The Republicans passed some of their proposals, but failed on others such as term limits.

Pietistic Republicans Versus Liturgical Democrats: 18901896

Voting behavior by religion, Northern U.S. late 19th century % Dem 90 10

From 1860 to 1912, the Republicans took advantage of the association of the Democrats with “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” Rum stood for the liquor interests and the tavernkeepers, in contrast to the GOP, which had a strong dry element. “Romanism” meant Roman Catholics, especially Irish Americans, who ran the Democratic Party in every big city and whom the Republicans denounced for political corruption. “Rebellion” stood for the Democrats of the Confederacy, who tried to break the Union in 1861; and the Democrats in the North, called “Copperheads,” who sympathized with them.

Demographic trends aided the Democrats, as the German and Irish Catholic immigrants were Democrats and outnumbered the English and Scandinavian Republicans. During the 1880s and 1890s, the Republicans struggled against the Democrats’ efforts, winning several close elections and losing two to Grover Cleveland .

Religious lines were sharply drawn. Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Scandinavian Lutherans and other pietists in the North were tightly linked to the GOP. In sharp contrast, liturgical groups, especially the Catholics, Episcopalians and German Lutherans, looked to the Democratic Party for protection from pietistic moralism, especially prohibition. Both parties cut across the class structure, with the Democrats more bottom-heavy.

On This Day The Republican Party Names Its First Candidates

  On July 6, 1854, disgruntled voters in a new political party named its first candidates to contest the Democrats over the issue of slavery. Within six and one-half years, the newly christened Republican Party would control the White House and Congress as the Civil War began.

For a brief time in the decade before the Civil War, the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson and his descendants enjoyed a period of one-party rule. The Democrats had battled the Whigs for power since 1836 and lost the presidency in 1848 to the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. After Taylor died in office in 1850, it took only a few short years for the Whig Party to collapse dramatically.

There are at least three dates recognized in the formation of the Republican Party in 1854, built from the ruins of the Whigs. The first is February 24, 1854, when a small group met in Ripon, Wisconsin, to discuss its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The group called themselves Republicans in reference to Thomas Jefferson’s Republican faction in the American republic’s early days. Another meeting was held on March 20, 1854, also in Ripon, where 53 people formally recognized the movement within Wisconsin.

On July 6, 1854, a much-bigger meeting in Jackson, Michigan was attended by about 10,000 people and is considered by many as the official start of the organized Republican Party. By the end of the gathering, the Republicans had compiled a full slate of candidates to run in Michigan’s elections.

The Republican Party Was Founded To Oppose The Slave Power

PBS: American Experience

For the first half-century after the United States’ founding, slavery was only one of many issues in the country’s politics, and usually a relatively minor issue at that. The American South based its economy on the enslavement of millions, and the two major parties — which by the 1850s were the Democrats and the Whigs — were willing to let the Southern states be.

But when the US started admitting more and more Western states to the Union, the country had to decide whether those new states should allow slavery or not. And this was an enormously consequential question, because the more slave states there were, the easier it would be for the slaveholding states to get their way in the Senate and the Electoral College.

Now, the issue here wasn’t that Northern politicians were desperate to abolish slavery in the South immediately, apart from a few radical crusaders. The real concern was that Northerners feared the “Slave Power” — the South — would become a cabal that would utterly dominate US politics, instituting slavery wherever they could and cutting off opportunity for free white laborers, as historian Heather Cox Richardson writes in her book .

The Republican Party Becomes The Party Of Rich Northerners

US History Scene

All this while, economic issues were growing more important to Republican politicians. Even before the Civil War, the North was more industrialized than the South, as you can see from this map of railway lines. After it, this industrialization only intensified.

And during the war, the federal government grew a lot bigger and spent a lot more money — and that meant people got rich, and owed their wealth to Republican politicians. The party’s economic policies, Cox Richardson writes, “were creating a class of extremely wealthy men.”

Gradually, those wealthy financiers and industrialists took more and more of a leading role in the Republican Party. They disagreed on many issues, but their interests — rather than the interests of black Southerners — increasingly started to become the party’s raison d’etre.

Juneteenth The Day Republicans Freed The Democrats Slaves

TMH

Our history and our heritage are being shoved by rioters, looters, and anarchists down the memory hole. This is year zero on their calendar. Everything that came before and every struggle for freedom and human dignity by patriots of all colors is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is now. The only thing that matters is what they tell you. How we got here and what makes us who and what we are may not be pretty or politically correct but it is important. We can’t know where we’re going if we don’t remember where we’ve been.

The canceling of American history by anarchists, encouraged by cowering Democratic governors and mayors is necessary if they intend on propagating the lie that America is and always has been irredeemably racist. The Republicans are labeled white supremacists and it’s being pushed that only liberal progressive Democrats can create social justice, which means the absence of resistance to groups like Black Lives Matter, which among other goodies on its website endorses the elimination of the nuclear family. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with the progressive police state they are hoping to establish on Nov. 3, 2020.

The day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked while making a speech critical of Sen. Jeff Sessions , Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Democrats, saying their party is the one rooted in racism.

He also happens to be a former card-carrying member of the KKK. In fact, he created his own chapter along with 150 of his friends and colleagues.

The Obama Years And The Rise Of The Tea Party: 20082016

John BoehnerHouse SpeakerBarack Obama

Following the 2008 elections, the Republican Party, reeling from the loss of the presidency, Congress and key state governorships, was fractured and leaderless.Michael Steele became the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, but was a poor fundraiser and was replaced after numerous gaffes and missteps. Republicans suffered an additional loss in the Senate in April 2009, when Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party, depriving the GOP of a critical 41st vote to block legislation in the Senate. The seating of Al Franken several months later effectively handed the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, but it was short-lived as the GOP took back its 41st vote when Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts in early 2010.

Republicans won back control of the House of Representatives in the November general election, with a net gain of 63 seats, the largest gain for either party since 1948. The GOP also picked up six seats in the Senate, falling short of retaking control in that chamber, and posted additional gains in state governor and legislative races. Boehner became Speaker of the House while McConnell remained as the Senate Minority Leader. In an interview with National Journal magazine about congressional Republican priorities, McConnell explained that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for Obama to be a one-term president”.

Mitt RomneyMormon

Juneteenth Recalling End Of Slavery Is Marked Across Us

Selena Quinn, from left, LaVon Fisher-Wilson and Traci Coleman perform during a free outdoor event organized by The Broadway League as Juneteenth’s celebrations take place at Times Square Saturday, June 19, 2021, in New York.

Parades, picnics and lessons in history were offered Saturday to commemorate Juneteenth in the U.S., a day that carried even more significance after Congress and President Joe Biden created a federal holiday to observe the end of slavery.

Political Parties And A Complicated History With Race

Black people who could vote tended to support the Republican Party from the 1860s to about the mid-1930s. There were push-and-pull aspects to this. Republicans pledged to protect voting rights. African Americans viewed the party as the only vessel for their goals: Frederick Douglass said, “The Republican Party is the ship; all else is the sea.”

And the sea was perilous. The Democratic Party for most of the 19th century was a white supremacist organization that gave no welcome to Black Americans. A conservative group of politicians known as the Bourbons controlled Southern Democratic parties. For instance, well into the 20th century, the official name of Alabama’s dominant organization was the Democratic and Conservative Party of Alabama.

Fact check:U.S. didn’t reject an earlier version of Statue of Liberty that honored slaves

The Bourbons called their Republican opponents “radicals,” whether they warranted the label or not, Masur said.

“The Democrats were often called conservative and embraced that label,” she said. “Many of them were conservative in the sense that they wanted things to be like they were in the past, especially as far as race was concerned.”

“In consequence of this intolerance, colored men are forced to vote for the candidate of the Republican Party, however objectionable to them some of these candidates may be, unless they are prevented from doing so by violence and intimidation,” he said.

Never Trumpers Will Want To Read This History Lesson

In the 1850s, disaffected Democrats made the wrenching choice to leave their party to save American democracy. Here’s what happened.

Joshua Zeitz, a Politico Magazine contributing editor, is the author of . Follow him @joshuamzeitz.

“I was educated a Democrat from my boyhood,� a Republican delegate confided to his colleagues at Iowa’s constitutional convention in 1857. “Faithfully, I did adhere to that party until I could no longer act with it. Many things did I condemn ere I left that party, for my love of party was strong. And when I did, at last, feel compelled to separate from my old Democratic friends, it was like tearing myself away from old home associations.�

As often seems the case today, American politics in the 1850s were nearly all-consuming and stubbornly tribal. So it was hard—and bitterly so—for hundreds of thousands of Northern Democrats to abandon the political organization that had long formed the backbone of their civic identity. Yet they came over the course of a decade to believe that the Jacksonian Democratic Party had degenerated into something thoroughly autocratic and corrupt. It had fallen so deeply in the thrall of the Slave Power that it posed an existential threat to American democracy.

Placing the sanctity of the nation above the narrow bonds of party, these Democrats joined in common cause with former Whig antagonists in the epic struggle to save the United States from its own darker instincts.

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Republican Voters Turn Against Their Partys Elites

Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights

The Tea Party movement, which sprang into existence in the early years of the Obama administration, was many things. It was partly about opposing Obama’s economic policies — foreclosure relief, tax increases, and health reform. It was partly about opposing immigration — when Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson interviewed Tea Party activists across the nation, they found that “immigration was always a central, and sometimes the central, concern” those activists expressed.

But the Tea Party also was a challenge to the Republican Party establishment. Several times, these groups helped power little-known far-right primary contenders to shocking primary wins over establishment Republican politicians deemed to be sellouts. Those candidates didn’t always win office, but their successful primary bids certainly struck fear into the hearts of many other GOP incumbents, and made many of them more deferential to the concerns of conservative voters.

Furthermore, many Republican voters also came to believe, sometimes fairly and sometimes unfairly, that their party’s national leaders tended to sell them out at every turn.

Talk radio and other conservative media outlets helped stoke this perception, and by May 2015 Republican voters were far more likely to say that their party’s politicians were doing a poor job representing their views than Democratic voters were.

Compensated Emancipation: Buy Out The Slave Owners

The thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery, which Lincoln ultimately sent to the states provided no compensation but earlier in his presidency, Lincoln made numerous proposals for “compensated emancipation” in the loyal border states whereby the federal government would purchase all of the slaves and free them. No state government acted on the proposal.

President Lincoln advocated that slave owners be compensated for emancipated slaves. On March 6, 1862 President Lincoln, in a message to the U.S. Congress, stated that emancipating slaves would create economic “inconveniences” and justified compensation to the slave owners. The resolution was adopted by Congress; however, the Southern states refused to comply. On July 12, 1862 President Lincoln, in a conference with Congressmen from Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri, encouraged their respective states to adopt emancipation legislation that gave compensation to the slave owners. On July 14, 1862 President Lincoln sent a bill to Congress that allowed the Treasury to issue bonds at 6% interest to states for slave emancipation compensation to the slave owners. The bill was never voted on by Congress.

In his December 1, 1862 State of the Union Address, Lincoln proposed a constitutional amendment that would provide federal compensation to any state that voluntarily abolished slavery before the year 1900.

[shareeanne-deactivated]

This Weekend I Fell Apart, and That’s Okay

“Look for something positive each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.” ~Unknown

This weekend I hurt more than I have in a very long time.

It all started on Friday, when my boyfriend and I headed out to spend the weekend with friends—two couples, both with babies in tow.

I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to get pregnant since the start of the year, yet I didn’t anticipate that it would be emotionally taxing for me to be around two little families. I was just excited to see our friends, who live in the Bay Area, hours away from our home near LA.

A little backstory: I’m less than three weeks away from my thirty-ninth birthday, which means I’m now in the category of “high risk pregnancy,” if I’m even able to get pregnant at all.

My boyfriend and I first discussed having a baby five years ago, but we kept pushing it off because our families live on opposite coasts, and neither of us was able to agree to live on the other’s coast full-time for the long-term.

We finally decided, at the beginning of this year, that I would be the one to visit my family—as often as I feel I need to, with our kid(s), for the foreseeable future—and we’d commit to staying in LA, which makes sense, since we’re working toward a career in film.

But biology doesn’t just fall in line because you finally get over your fears and decide to make a compromise. We’re both open to the idea of adoption, but there are other personal issues—that my fiercely private boyfriend would not want disclosed—that have complicated matters.

So there I was, on Friday, with our friends and their adorable babies—one actually a toddler, since he recently turned two.

We toasted our get-together around 5:00 with our first glass of wine, and the wine continued flowing throughout dinner. After, we all moved to the deck to partake in an at-home wine tasting.

The ladies and I discussed my road to pregnancy, and though I was discouraged, for the most part I was fine—until I wasn’t.

Having lost track of the amount of wine I was drinking, I eventually hit that emotional place I remember from my twenties—when alcohol eventually led to histrionics and tears. It is literally a depressant, after all, and generally not great to imbibe when you’re already feeling fragile.

I don’t remember all the details of that night, but I know I cried about my fears about not being able to have a family (which, as I mentioned, is an issue complicated by many factors).

I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and picked a fight with my boyfriend about our relationship. Then I woke at 8:00 with two things: a hangover and a shame-over. I was absolutely mortified.

I’d gotten drunk, turned a fun night with friends into something heavy and emotional, and had caused my boyfriend a lot of pain and embarrassment. It gave me a little comfort to realize everyone had drunk too much. But I still felt deeply ashamed of having lost control.

Ironically, I received an email that morning that I’d been waiting on for almost a month. My film mentor had just read the second draft of my first feature screenplay, and she said she was blown away by the massive improvement from the first draft.

I had never in my life simultaneously felt immense pride and deep shame, but I did right then.

Fortunately, the friend I cried to was extremely kind and empathetic. And no one judged me or put me down, as good friends never do.

But that day was pretty rough for me, physically and emotionally. And the next day, it got worse.

That night I noticed that a few people had commented on a meme I’d shared on Friday, using clipart with a hyper-sexualized female silhouette. They mentioned that it was demeaning to women to use what essentially appeared to be Barbie to represent the female form. One person called it “offensive.”

Though there were only a few critical comments, juxtaposed against 12,000 shares, I immediately realized I agreed with them. As someone who once struggled with an eating disorder, I’d like to represent women as more than a busty, high-pony-tailed caricature.

This didn’t fully or accurately represent my values or the message I’d like to convey. And I didn’t like the idea of young girls seeing it and concluding, as I may have as an adolescent, that this was what a woman is supposed to look like, even if some women actually look like this. So I decided to take it down.

With a mind still foggy I decided to write something on Facebook, as I wanted the community to know I felt I’d made an error in judgment. I didn’t want to just delete it. I want to make it clear I don’t agree with a society that puts pressure on women to be femme bots and suggests that our sexuality is our most valuable contribution.

I mentioned in my post that some people had pointed out that the image was offensive, and I agreed that it was triggering—and the backlash was swift and harsh.

In retrospect, I don’t think I accurately communicated why I decided to remove this image, since I didn’t address the cultural issue of how women are portrayed in the media, and the fact that I’d like to be part of the solution, not the problem. But I’m not sure if would have mattered if I did, since I’d used the word “offensive.”

I forgot that people often get offended by other people getting offended.

Over the next day, hundreds of comments came in, many attacking me on a personal level.

People called me spineless for catering to “snowflakes.” People said they lost respect for me and questioned my aptitude for even doing the work I do, since I clearly have no sense of conviction or belief in my own decisions. Even more alarming, many people mocked the idea of being “triggered,” and essentially belittled anyone with emotional or mental health issues.

I felt misunderstood, judged, and condescended.

I hid or deleted many of the worst comments, and resisted the urge to defend myself, deciding instead to leave one clarifying comment a couple hours in. But I’m not going to lie; this affected me deeply.

While on the one hand, I reminded myself that my power was in my response, and publicly, I only responded in one calm, clear comment, I also obsessively monitored the feed.

By this time my boyfriend and I were at his parents’ house in Nevada, where we planned to stay for a few days, and I wasn’t even close to present. I didn’t want to delete this new post, since I believed I’d done the right thing, but it pained me to see so much vitriol in a space that I hold sacred.

Then came another blow: I’d noticed a while back that since the start of the year, someone had been sharing every single challenge from my book Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges, on Facebook. Though this person tagged my page, none of the posts included the book’s title or a link—and some people actually assumed she was writing these posts, or getting them from my Facebook page.

I’d emailed my publisher a few weeks back to ask their thoughts on this, and they told me they could send an email asking her to stop. At the time, this seemed warranted.

Her Facebook friends didn’t see it that way. After she posted the letter from my publisher’s legal department, tagging my page, once again, the comments turned nasty.

F— you, Tiny Buddha.

You suck, Tiny Buddha.

 More like “Greedy Buddha.”

Unbelievable! She should thank you for the free marketing!

For a while, I felt completely numb. And I knew I was doing the “wrong” things by obsessively monitoring my phone and letting these comments get to me.

I knew it wasn’t serving me to dwell in my self-righteousness and how wrong I believed it was for this woman, who enjoyed my work enough to share it, to like comments that attacked me on a personal level. But I did it anyways.

I was angry with the people who were angry. I was triggered by the people who were triggered.

And then something occurred to me: This whole weekend was an opportunity. It was a chance to practice some of the lessons that are much easier to practice when everything is going well.

This weekend was a chance to remember that:

I need compassion most when I think I deserve it the least.

Initially, I beat myself up over several things this weekend: drinking to excess, exploding emotionally, hurting my boyfriend, choosing clipart that I wished I hadn’t chosen, asking my publisher to speak for me instead of reaching out to the woman personally, and obsessing over the various challenges I was facing instead of being present.

I told myself I shouldn’t have made any of those mistakes. I should have been beyond this. I was a fraud.

Then I realized something: I was being as mean to myself as the people online. And not a single blow of self-flagellation was helping me move on. In fact, each self-judgmental thought cemented me further into the hole. Because telling myself I was sucking at life made it awfully hard to find the strength to do better.

Every time I criticized myself, I weakened myself, and a weakened person is far less equipped to reframe difficult circumstances and respond with equanimity.

The only way out was to cut myself from slack. I need to stop fighting with myself and let go, as if melting into a hug from someone who finally forgave me. I needed my own love and compassion.

So I drank too much and cried. I was hurting. It’s been a long journey toward starting a family, and it’s been hard. It’s okay to hurt.

So I made mistakes in my work—who doesn’t? I owned them and publically admitted them. What matters isn’t the fact that I messed up but that I acknowledged it and committed to doing better.

I don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes I will make mistakes, some public, and sometimes I’ll make many that compound. The only way to stop the cycle is to stop obsessing about having done things wrong. The only way to move into the future is to fully accept the past. Once I did this, I felt freer, and better able to be present.

The approval that matters most is my own.

It bothered me that people believed I removed the image because I needed approval from the “complainers,” as opposed to having made a decision based on my own beliefs and values.

But ironically, once the flood of negative comments came in, I did start feeling a need for approval. I wanted people to understand and honor my positive intentions.

It took me a day, but I was finally able to accept that some people were simply committed to judging me, and this wasn’t something to change; it was something to accept.

It didn’t matter if someone people derided me or questioned me if I felt in my heart I’d done the right thing.

I eventually deleted the second post because I wanted to put an end to the negativity. There’s far too much of that on Facebook already. But I’m proud I waited and resisted the urge to remove all criticism immediately. For a recovering people-pleaser, allowing a public character assassination requires immense strength. And I give myself a lot of credit for that.

It’s rarely personal.

Intellectually, I knew this when people were insulting me in both places on Facebook.

I knew that the people who were angry with me for catering to “snowflakes” were really projecting their feelings about what they perceive to be an oversensitive culture. It wasn’t just about this one image. It was about every time someone’s ever said they were offended, and their complex feelings about what that means to them.

I also knew that the people defending the woman who’d been sharing my book online were acting from a place of allegiance to their friend. They were more pro-her than anti-me. Many didn’t even have all the information—they didn’t realize she’d been sharing from a book. So really, I couldn’t take that personally either.

This wasn’t immediately comforting to me because the attacks were so public, but when I was able to fully absorb this, it did give me some peace.

Not everyone will see my side, and that’s okay.

I believe one of our deepest desires is to feel understood—to know that other people get where we’re coming from and that they may even have done the same thing if they were in our shoes.

I didn’t feel that way when people judged me personally based on the letter from my publisher’s legal department.

I left a few comments on that post, trying my best to respond from a place of calm, but I know there are some people who will forever think I am greedy and soulless because I didn't want my book’s content republished online.

I’ve decided that this is okay. Not everyone has to get me, understand me, support me, be considerate of me, or treat me kindly—so long as I do those things for myself.

Pain can be useful if you share it to help someone else.

I decided to share this post for two reasons:

First, I thought it would be cathartic for me. I felt ashamed for a lot of this weekend, and I wanted to be able to reframe this experience in a way that felt empowering. As I said when I first launched this site, when we recycle our pain into something useful for others, we’re able to turn shame into pride.

And that brings me to the second reason: I thought it might be helpful for someone else to realize that even someone who runs a site like Tiny Buddha can fall into so many self-destructive traps.

If you’ve ever drunk too much and fell apart emotionally, know that you’re not alone.

If you’ve ever obsessed over comments online and allowed something as trivial as a Facebook feud to get the better of you, know that you’re not alone.

If you’ve ever failed to apply what you know and regressed to the least evolved version of yourself, know that you’re not alone.

And know that all of these things are okay. They don’t mean anything about you as a person. They don’t define you. And they don’t have to dictate the future.

This is what I needed to hear this weekend when I was despondent and numb, so today it’s my gift to you. I hope someone benefits from something in my experience. But I suppose no matter what, someone has—me.

About Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha and Recreate Your Life Story, an online course that helps you let go of the past and live a life you love. Her latest book, Tiny Buddha's Worry Journal, which includes 15 coloring pages, is now available. For daily wisdom, follow Tiny Buddha on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram.

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[epibiotic]

I’ve had this damn blog since 2009 so I may as well use it once and a while to get some things off my tiddies. 

I feel like I’m coasting through life with no real direction these days. It’s strange, you know, thinking you have your life going the way you want it to then suddenly waking up one day and realising you really don’t. 

I’ve been having serious doubts about whether I want to actually become a teacher or not. While I honestly enjoy my placements, I don’t know if I’d be satisfied living it out as my career for the rest of my life. In the same breath, I have no idea what else I want to do as a career. I will finish my post graduate diploma, however who knows whether I’ll end up using it. I’m having a slight crisis about it but I guess we’ll just have to wait until I graduate to deal with that properly.

I haven’t been happy lately, either. My anxiety has been real bad recently and it’s been affecting me hard. I’ve also been having a lot of self-esteem issues which, for the most part, and probably surprisingly, haven’t hugely affected me before in the past. It’s probably a good thing, because its been motivating me in a way to try and lose some weight which, as a fat chick, is frankly pretty good. But it comes with it’s downfalls. My eternal struggle for recognising my own inner beauty (gross) has back-pedalled a bit, due to a few things which I’ll discuss later. I’ve been fat for as long as I can remember, I was never really huge though until after my dad got sick and consequently passed away. It had a massive affect on my mental health and lo and behold, I eat my feelings. In saying that though, my view about myself never changed. I still thought I was cute, and a cool person. Now I’m doubting that for the first time in my life and it’s hard to deal with. I’ll get my big girl pants on and deal with it eventually, but for now, it’s taking its toll.

On a more dumb note, even though it’s still making me unhappy, fuck boys lmao. Both metaphorically and literally. This is gonna be the long part of this post, so get ready.

Before I continue with this part, this is a message to the suspect in question who I know for a fact has a habit of stalking girl’s blog posts: I’m just venting bruh. I haven’t talked to anyone really about this, and I just wanna get my feelings off my chest somewhere that no one in particular is gonna read it. Don’t read into this too much, although you might. I can’t stop you, dude. Just know that I still value your friendship very highly. Just because I liked you a lot doesn’t stop us talking about dumb shit and sending each other stupid memes. Also, I swear to god if you break our snapchat streak, I’ll be pissed. So let’s continue, shall we? It’s gonna be long, so strap yourselves in.

For the first time in my adult life, I had a genuine crush on someone. He was someone who I’d known for about a year or so, he was just an acquaintance you could say, and I never really paid him much attention. In fact, when I first was introduced to him, I actually didn’t like him that much at all. Over time, we saw each other more often and interacted more, I warmed up to him and realised we actually had a lot in common. He became closer to my close group of friends as well, so I started seeing him more regularly. I have a ‘type’, believe it or not, and he falls straight into it, so it was dangerous from the start.

Now, before I go any further with this story, I want you to know that I have a habit of ‘falling’ for people that show any sort of interest in me. That being said, there’s a certain element of total awareness in this, and I brush it off easily. The number of times I’ve had ‘crushes’ on people I was casually hooking up with is too many to count. This didn’t happen here. I fell for this guy, hard, and I couldn’t brush it off for whatever reason. It felt different, it made me feel vulnerable, and I hated it.

There was a turning point where my vague interest developed into an actual crush, though. There was an incident where I was dumb and injured myself, and he looked after me in that moment. I don’t know what it was about that, but I think I saw a different side of him and it was the nail in the coffin. Him squeezing my hand as I bled profusely, and laughing together as he drove me to the doctor to get stitches - that probably had something to do with it. Alas, he had a girlfriend, so I shelved those emotions pretty quickly, although I still glanced at them from time to time. Ten or so months passed and as much as I’d tried to ignore them, they still existed and there was nothing I could do about it. Then, one day, somewhat out of the blue, he says to me, “I broke up with my girlfriend.” In my head, all I was thinking was, “Oh, shit.”

The feelings I’d had put on the shelf fell down and hit me on the head like a sack of shit. All of a sudden I didn’t feel guilty to feel the way I did, yet I still couldn’t do anything about it because frankly, I’m gutless when it comes to relationships and shit. Absolutely no way in hell was I going to approach him, nuh uh. Besides, he’d just come out of a long term relationship, I wouldn’t want to bother him just yet, right? At the same time, he was about to move away and I’d see him less regularly. I was conflicted, but because I’m a pussy, I did nothing about it and just wallowed in my own thoughts. As usual.

A month or so passes, he moves away. I don’t see him, we don’t really talk. I still like him.

The next time I see him, we’re at a Christmas function with friends, it’s also my birthday weekend. A lot of us haven’t seen each other in a while, and it’s a good night out. I spend the entire night confused as to whether these feelings are presenting themselves the way they are because I’m lonely and he’s just a good friend, or whether I genuinely like him. I remember getting home, and going to bed (at 9am, mind you. We party hard.) and crying because of how dumb I was being about the whole thing. 

Another month or so passes. Again, I don’t see him. We talk a little bit, but not a lot. I still like him.

The next time I see him, it’s Boxing Day and we’re having a get together at a friends house with our group of close friends. By this point, I’d kind of just given up hope of my feelings ever becoming anything, so I’d pushed them aside to just have a fun evening with my buds. Then I took a cap and that threw that idea out the window. Hello, police officers, I know you’re reading this, but I’m a very touchy feely person when I’m on MDMA. Combined with the fact I’d just gotten over a case of gastro, and the probably lethal amount of alcohol I consumed that night, it was a bad mix. It also didn’t help he was the one who made me drink all that alcohol thanks to a definitely rigged game of “shot pong” but, y’know. I remember laying on the trampoline, side by side, looking at the stars. I was royally fucked, and there was another girl on the tramp with us, but in that moment I just remember leaning into him, feeling comforted. This sounds creepy as fuck, doesn’t it? I’m not a stalker I swear. I also vaguely remember not wearing pants for a lot of the night, wading in a child’s paddling pool, having a trampoline spring catch my inner thigh, and me furiously cuddling my friends dog because no one else was awake to keep me company. So that’s probably a good indication of my state that night. We spent the morning hanging with our friends on the ye olde trampoline, trying with all our might to break the fucker. Trampoline status: still intact. Either way, I got home the next day and my top smelled like him and it made me so fucking annoyed because that night properly cemented the fact that, yep, you’re a fucking loser with a giant crush on a boy.

From this point on, we started talking a bit more regularly, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the fact that we’d shared an emotionally stressful game of beer pong, or maybe it was the fact that I think we might have actually kissed on Boxing Day - I literally can’t remember because I was that drunk but if you’re reading this and do remember, please tell me? I’d love to know, for my archives or whatever. Anyway. 

I think it’s mid-January by this point, and I’m still lingering in the “are you my friend, or am I madly obsessed with you” state of mind. We’d been talking pretty regularly, and it’d even gotten to the point where there was what I would call textbook ‘flirting’ between us. Not that this means much, as he’s just a naturally flirtatious person and I’m pretty cheeky when it comes to returning stuff like that, so whatever. Either way these exchanges obviously fuelled my emotions to the point where I couldn’t really attempt to ignore them anymore, so instead I was trying to deal with them. We’re talking one night, he’s out drinking with his friends and then he snaps me, “come pick me up.” I hesitate, but I’ve just had a red bull because I was studying so I’m zazzed to the gods and think, “sure, why not.” I go pick him and his friend up, take them to McDonald’s, do the full ‘designated driver is ashamed to know these drunken idiots’ routine. But the entire time, I’m not blind, it was a flirt fest. I dropped them home, and as soon as I left I distinctly remember saying, “Ah, shit.” in the car on the drive home. I’m a damn fool. He’s got me, and I don’t know what he wants from me, either.

It’s at this part of the story that things get interesting. It’s worth noting that I know I’m not the only girl he’s flirting with at this point. That’s just him. He’s the kind of person that is probably ‘seeing’ several girls at once, and that’s cool. You do you, just don’t lead me on too far. And that’s where things get hazy. Because, when you have feelings for someone, if you are lead on even just the slightest bit, your heart gets dragged further than where it should be. And that’s what happened to me here. You’ll see.

To cut an already long story slightly shorter, we talked a lot more, I eluded to the fact I like him every now and then, we flirt some more, then he said to me “we should go for a drink sometime.” Now, if I’m not mistaken, that to me means let’s go on a date, no? Maybe I misinterpreted this, but this is where I fell. I let my dumb feelings get in the way of being level-headed about it, and I fell. He came over to my house one night, we drink 1.5 litres of Vodka in about 2 hours. About halfway through the bottle, I kiss him. He kisses back. We make out to Adore by Amy Shark. I, filled with my liquid courage, tell him I like him. (I mean duh at this point but whatever.) But his response wasn’t “I like you too” or “but we’re just friends.” It was, “why?” This confuses me at first, because I myself am not even sure. We’re just very similar people, and anyone that can make me happy is a winner, I guess. The night progresses, we do more things, he walks in on me peeing and hands me a watermelon (???), we kiss some more, we go to my bedroom, stuff happens, he vomits in my shower because he drank too much, I sit on the side of the bath teasing him because he’s not pissfit as he’s naked, puking in the shower. I clean him up. We sleep. The next morning, we wake up, cuddle for a bit, he leaves. I’m paraphrasing here because I was still pretty drunk but as he leaves, he says the damning words that lead me to where I am now; “Don’t read into last night. We’re just friends, yeah?”

And then the trail goes cold. We still talk, but not like that. Much. We still flirt, and we still send each other suggestive snapchats every now and then. But it’s not like that. At least, I don’t think it is. And it kills me, because I still really like him as much as I try not to. I’d started to fall, and it’s hard to get yourself back up when you’ve already hanging off the edge of the cliff. And whats even worse is that he knows I like him, and I feel like he might be trying to use that to his advantage. But who knows at this point. As much as I like him, I want to let it go now. It’s been over a year I’ve wasted on this dumb crush. It’s not like it’s stopped me from getting dicked, but I’d like to stop thinking about him every damn time I do. Thanks, brain. 

At the end of all this, I still value him as a friend, and this whole thing has definitely brought us closer. I talk to him about stuff I would never talk to others about. I don’t know whether that’s healthy or not, but it happens. Something a bit traumatising happened to me the other week and he was the only one I spoke to about it, so I guess it’s nice we have trust in each other. I dunno what the moral of the story is here. I just needed to blurt out everything I’ve been going over in my head for the past fucking year, I guess. It’s made me sad, it’s made me happy, and it’s made me seriously doubt my worth as a person. Was I stupid to believe that anyone could actually like me in that way? Who knows, all I know it that I’m back on my way to being contently single again, and that my vibrator is still better than any man in the bedroom.

Once again, if you’re reading this, it’s too late. But seriously, don’t think that any of this changes our friendship. This is just me and my over-analytical brain fucking me over. It’s not you. I still don’t blame you for anything. I promise I’m not crazy, sometimes a girls just gotta vent, y’know? 

I just looked at my clock and I spent 2 hours writing that bit about the boy. Wow okay. Time for me to fuck off this website until I’m feeling sad and reflective again. Bye.

xo