How the fuck you gonna come into OUR neighborhood and be scared of us?!? Fuck outta here.

Accurate as hell. Or when white ppl say ‘is your babydaddy around?’

nobsaur:

“When a young person makes the honor roll, I know he took a school bus to get to the school, but I don’t give the bus driver credit for the honor roll.”

— Mitt Romney, Romney and Ryan’s disdain for the working class - The Washington Post

My grandfather was a bus driver and I…

Omg, I honestly do not even want to think about the classism at Georgetown. My boyfriend got a little white-washed from it prior to us meeting, but now he is much more informed.

Yeah, during my pregnancy it got me really depressed being in Georgetown for my appts. The way people treated me as a young, poor, unmarried, Black woman really was telling. I think it was a blessing in disguise that they stopped accepting my insurance and I didn’t end up giving birth there because it wasn’t a positive environment for me at all.

mickyalexandria:

Ghetto

strugglingtobeheard:

daniellemertina:

I used to work really hard to avoid be called ‘ghetto’ until I realized that it is just the new PC word for nigger. And being a nigger has already been socially determined for me by America.

Does the word nigger…

One of the things I have noticed most about tumblr is that people rightfully shun others for speaking for groups they are not a part of (trans*, queer, Black, Latino, WoC, etc.) I agree that people can be allies, but they have no right to speak on behalf of a group they don’t identify with.

However, most likely due to the lack of representation of low-income individuals on tumblr, people feel that they can take up the cause for the poor. It is okay to want to be an ally (especially if you grew up poor or are some paychecks away from being poor), but please don’t try to speak on behalf of those of us who live and struggle daily with poverty. Like any group of people we are also not homogeneous; there are things that affect different people based on geography, race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. When you make wide claims that things are impossible (like getting a good education, eating healthy foods, raising a family, etc.) based on someone’s class it is degrading. Both sides of the spectrum from the very conservative who decry the “government handouts” to the very liberal who infantilize the poor are harmful. It is insulting and most often you are incorrect in the assumptions you make.

The further removed you are from poverty the less valid your opinion is regardless of if you once were poor or have poor family members. Low-income families are judged every time our children wear something that is considered nice, when we buy food with our WIC checks, when we apply for SNAP (food stamp), Medicaid or childcare vouchers, when we dare to treat ourselves to anything and when we tell people where we live. So stop talking & start listening because we’ve been judged enough and by speaking on behalf of someone else’s struggle you are showing your privilege. 

str8nochaser:

newsweek:

Personhood USA’s Keith and Jennifer Mason, a married couple who happen to be leaders of the “personhood” movement to define human embryos as legal people, which would effectively outlaw abortion. Critics charge that personhood could also outlaw some forms of birth control, in-vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research. In a profile we’ve got in the mag this week, Keith Mason disputes these charges, telling his side of the story. Read it, and let’s hear your take w/ a reblog.

yeah… I bristled through the whole article.

Personhood is in my opinion, stupid… because then, if a mother does something that harms her fetus but she doesn’t even know she’s pregnant, then what? And that something could be as simple as continuing to smoke cigarettes or hitting the bars with friends….

Moreover… the miscarriage question is serious. There are 38 states in which a mother can be brought to trial for “fetal homicide”. Would miscarriage become “involuntary fetal-slaughter”? If a woman in incapable of maintaing a pregnancy and has mutiple miscarriages, is she at risk for being brought up on multiple “involuntary fetal slaughter”?

The whole issue here is that the rights of the fetus as a person are being defined at the the expense of the rights of the woman as a person…. but without the woman, you don’t have a fetus. Also, I take issue with Mason’s “crack baby” statements toward the end of the article.

Finally, its funny to me that conservatives who are all about protecting the unborn have no problem leaving them to twist in the wind once they are born e.g. cutting back on TANF, WIC and HeadStart just to name a few.

This is completely ass backwards.

Today, as I sat with my sun at the Children’s Hospital I couldn’t help but become increasingly frustrated with this white man doctor. I came for a specific reason, but the doctor chose instead to take a tangent off the note in my sun’s file that said he was being raised vegetarian.

Looking at me and raising his eyebrows he said. “What country are you from? Is this something your people practice? I know there are areas in India and China where vegetarianism is part of their cultural beliefs.” Clearly so eager to flaunt his ignorance.

“I’m from here.” I responded, not caring to elaborate or enter a discussion on my choice of lifestyle with him.

“That’s….so strange. You don’t see too much of that in….Hmm. Well it’s funny your son’s B12 and Iron levels are right on target, I wouldn’t have expected that,” he said looking down at his chart.

I sighed, “Yes, I am very careful about his diet and try to ensure that he gets a good amount of green vegetables for iron as well as drinking enriched [rice] milk and taking vitamin supplements.” No need to further disclose that I in fact feed my son a vegan diet.

This has increasingly become a topic of fascination for people that I’ve never seen before as a reaction to white vegetarians or vegans (parents or not). While for the most part their values and beliefs are not questioned in their decision making process mine constantly are. Have I made an informed decision? Am I ruining my sun’s life? In white vegan/vegetarian circles I am lauded for “being brave,” or “breaking the cycle.” However, as bad as the “uniqueness” or “oddness” that I feel both within white circles and even mainstream vegetarian/vegan circles, the exclusion I feel from my brethren is far more hurtful.

I knew becoming vegan & vegan parenting would be a difficult transition socially, but I didn’t realize how disrespectful & unwilling to accept my decision (as if I need their acceptance) people would be. My sun’s adult cousin thought it would be funny to feed him some ribs (although I’ve never even had pig in my life). I’ve gotten “lectures” from older Black people with high blood pressure and adult onset diabetes about my “dangerous” nutrition choices. Family members have told me that it isn’t right for me to make choices like this for my child (I guess their choices of feeding their children a “standard American diet” or feeding them religion are better).

It has been very trying to have to constantly have people act like “I don’t eat anything,” or am too boughie to eat some chicken [read: not culturally Black anymore]. I am often treated as if I don’t exist or am an impersonator of a “white thing.” I don’t expect anyone to go out of their way to make me something different (I always bring my own food anyway) or to even subscribe to my same beliefs. Honestly, I don’t care—but if you want to eat a cheeseburger in my face, please don’t try to give me a bite and PLEASE don’t tell me that my food would probably taste good if it had some meat in it.

Don’t get me wrong there DEFINITELY have been positives. Other family members have shown a lot of interest and willingness to try foods and constantly ask me for health/nutrition advice. I’m not trying to convert any of them and I doubt any of them would really commit, but I love being able to cook for them and have them completely fall in love with a healthy plant-based meal. I made my sun’s grandma & great-aunt dinner the other week and they tore it up :)

Black vegetarians/vegans have their own unique set of issues that differentiate them from “mainstream” vegetarians/vegans (as PoC do within any group). I do not have the resources to buy many items aimed at the vegan community, but I want better for myself & my sun than what is typically targeted at poor Black families. I straddle a difficult line which I am not fully embraced by either community and often either mocked or forgotten.

There is an ever growing Black vegan/vegetarian community & support system, but I think more important than that is for Black omnivores to stop forcing the false connection between Black [American] culture & fatty foods. Our culture is what we make of it—if “soul food” was cultivated in the 1960s as a tool for Black unity then why can’t our children’s soul food be fresh fruits & vegetables? To paraphrase Bryant Terry, ‘the original soul food was fresh fruits and vegetables cultivated in the gardens of sharecroppers.’ I think what Black vegans/vegetarians represent is a revolutionary shift from the notion of “taking the worst part of the pig and making it a delicacy.” Why do people feel that our Blackness is tied to foods that were (fairly recently) decided to be Black? Let’s have a conversation about food and be honest about it.

Aghh [I need to edit this for my other blog, but this was just kinda an off the dome free write.]

toradori:

think-progress:

Please SIGN and SHARE. It’s an under-reported story, but it has massive implications. Find out more details about the voter purge here.

THIS NEEDS MORE NOTES

Florida, oh Florida, how many people will you disenfranchise before there is massive outrageous?

think-progress:

Easy enough — he’s created an error-filled list of “ineligible voters”, which targets thousands of Democratic and Hispanic voters.

Here’s how it would work.

I am trying to live my life in a more loving way. I am trying to hold things in less. I hypothesize that if I love myself, my life, my friends and family more—then there is only so much hate that can affect me. No longer can allow negativity into my life—whether you are family, friend or foe I can’t accept anything that takes me out of a loving state of mind. I deserve better. I want to be able to positively engage in discussions without fuming for days about the ignorance, the racism, classism etc. I can fight the war without letting my body & soul be at war. I am at peace & all I want to do is love. Love will help me to win the war for people who look like me, think like me and value what I value. If I show my son the value of living life with love at the root of all he does then maybe he will be a better person than me.

theatlantic:

In Focus: 50 Years Ago, The World in 1962

A half-century ago, the space race was heating up and the Cold War was freezing over. Soviet missile bases discovered in Cuba triggered a crisis that brought the U.S. to the brink of war with the U.S.S.R. Civil rights activists won hard-earned victories against segregationists in the American South, and John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Algeria gained independence from France and the U.S. slowly escalated its involvement in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Seattle held a World’s Fair called the the Century 21 Exposition, celebrating the themes of space, science, and the future. Let’s take a look 50 years into the past, for a look at the world as it was in 1962.

See more. [Images: AP, Getty]

50 years later & the world is still crazy and Amerikkka is still denying rights to anyone outside the “norm” [white, male, heterosexual, Christian, you know the rest, etc., etc.]

separability:

A must-read in general. One fantastic response:

I think that it’s important to consider the implications that all of this unpaid (and likely stemming from the upper-class) labor has on society as well, especially within the industries that largely require entire chunks of time and resources from those aspiring to join them. Particularly within the public sector, one glaring example of this is the field of legislative aide job opportunities that are often only handed out to those who have toiled away for months (and indeed sometimes years) on end as campaign volunteers. 

This creates a setup where an entire profession (any job offering Congressional support) effectively shuts out the very large proportion of the college-aged population who do not have parents (or some other richer benefactor) that can afford to subsidize living costs for however long they need to gain the extensive and unpaid experience necessary to enter the good graces of a Congressman or Senator. The implications of this are far-reaching and structural; and reinforce the culture of privilege already rampant in Washington D.C. where not only do federal lawmakers themselves often lack valuable perspective on the issues plaguing lower- and middle class Americans that constitute the majority of the nation’s citizenry, but also with the advisors and assistants working for them, who by virtue of being able to land their jobs in the first place already were fortunate enough to have been born into the nation’s wealthy economic minority. This creates a cycle of dissonance between the real world economic reality that Americans face and what the legislative class in Washington understands the proper solutions are to those very problems.

Yes!!

massurban:

“In D.C., low-cost apartments disappearing at rapid rate

By Annys Shin, Published: May 6(2012)

For a year, Julio Benitez, 61, has complained to his landlord about the unpatched walls, leaky bathtub and broken electrical outlets in his apartment. Down the hall, where Paul Fisette, 28, moved in a month ago, everything is new, from the paint to the appliances. When the garbage disposal broke recently, the landlord replaced it by 11 a.m. the next day.

Welcome to the New Hampshire, where the underprivileged and upscale exist under the same roof, part of a shift in the District’s housing stock that experts say is likely to change the face of the city for decades to come. Fueled by a strong job market for young professionals and a credit crunch that has made condominium conversion difficult, low-income apartment buildings are undergoing rapid makeovers to meet the demand for upscale housing.

As a result, low-cost rental housing is now disappearing at a faster rate than it was during the height of the housing boom, according to a new analysis of census data by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. Median rents soared by as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2010, with much of that increase taking place during the downturn, the analysis found.

The residents of the New Hampshire, a 1920s vintage building by the Georgia Avenue-
Petworth Metro station, are intimately familiar with the forces reshaping the city. Their building and the adjacent Quincy were purchased in 2010 by Urban Investment Partners, which launched extensive renovations under an agreement worked out with the tenants.

To comply with the District’s housing laws, UIP promised to bring the buildings up to code and even upgrade them and let the residents who chose to stay keep their apartments rent controlled. Those who wished to leave could walk away with a buyout of $10,000. In exchange, the owner would be allowed to charge new tenants market-rate rents.

Such voluntary agreements are increasingly common, housing advocates say, because they allow building owners to raise rents without a prolonged fight while giving tenants a way to get their buildings fixed up, or, if they prefer, money to move out. Over the past several years, UIP has pioneered the use of voluntary agreements and is now one of the city’s most prolific users of them. The alternatives, such as petitioning the residents to raise the rent, very often trigger court battles, which cost money and goodwill.”

Via: The Washington Post

Photo: Michael S. Williamson / THE WASHINGTON POST

Unfortunately the city sees gentrification as positive and instead of rebuilding communities for their current residents they only do so at the behest of newer, wealthier residents :-/ Tell them to stay in the ‘burbs it’s too dangerous in the city. Rawr. Go away—-but do continue buying things within city limits please & thank you.