I'm begging other trans people to read an ounce of Black Feminist or Decolonialist Feminist writing. I'm on my hands and knees and begging you. I promise you, I promise you, there is so much more to Feminist theory than anything you have picked up from White/Radical/Pop/Liberal Feminism I promise you. Read There Is No Hierarchy Of Oppressions By Audre Lorde. I have a link to the PDF right here you can read it for free. Take my hand I can't do this alone (thanks glass beach). Peace And Love On Planet Earth.

I've recommended them a thousand times but Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall, White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad, and Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo are excellent reads for those wanting to understand some of the voices of the brown women behind intersectional feminism (and in Mediocre's case, in politics and society as a whole in comparison to white men), and how we aren't being heard in white feminist spaces. Some Kimberle Crenshaw as well for the origin of (the term) intersectional feminism, even!

never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱

finished reading thru The Hundred Years' War On Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi and I cannot recommend it enough. A lot of people and, very likely, the average, person not completely blinded by Islamophobia and/or USamerican/European/British exceptionalism are probably at least moderately sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but I don't know how many of us actually understand the degrees by which Israel is based in settler colonial ideology, how it has continually attempted to subjugate and ultimately eradicate the Palestinian people, and the degree by which the US and Britain (but mostly the US ever since the Six Day War in 1967) have been complicit in this continual genocide.

i also wanna say that this is probably the easiest academic read I've ever experienced. It is specifically designed to appeal to a more general audience beyond people in academia. it is of course cited and full of sources like any academic text should be but the prose has a good flow to it and it doesnt have that super dry analytical stuffiness that puts me off from a lot of academic writing. like i seriously cannot recommend this enough. if you are looking for an introduction to the history of this genocide, here is something tailor-made for you

Never forget that this would not be happening had Biden reined in Israel in October '23 instead of giving them a blank check to attack anyone they please. At the very least there should have been consequences for Israel bombing an embassy.

Instead Biden promised iron clad support for Israel. We're now facing the possibility of a huge regional war that will devastate the lives of tens of millions of civilians in West Asia

my sign for a protest a couple days ago. grateful to be there— and won't stop for nothin!

palestine will be free.

hey guys i just finished a draft for one of the stories in my comic but could really use some critique. basically ive been interviewing multicultural people and then writing short comics based on our conversations. i think ive been staring at it too long and need a fresh pair of eyes. please be harsh idc. are the drawings too stiff or monotonous? do i need to add more background? is it written ok should i rewrite anything?

still thinking about "decolonising" missionary work.

the way you decolonise missionary work is by not doing missionary work

the way you decolonise missionaries is like this:

"but it's part of my religion to evangelise"

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆 infinite jaguar attack

"but we need to go to Ethiopia (one of the oldest christian countries in the world) to make them the right kind of christian!"

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆

jaguars

"but..."

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆 jaguars

"but missionaries bring schools and hospitals to poor countries" that's called humanitarian aid and trying to use humanitarian aid to get religious converts is actually SUPER fucked! hope this helps 🐆🐆🐆

it's kind of crazy climate change has occurred at such a remarkable pace that I and everyone else around my age can remember a completely different climate in our childhoods. I truly watched winter gradually disappear in my life.

"You're too young to remember this, but there used to be so many insects outside that you would have to clean them off the windshield after a long car ride" is the kind of sentence that would have been in a cheesy scifi short story earlier in my life, perhaps submitted to a literary magazine and accepted to show support for its environmentalist message - now it's something I've said in earnest.

it's kind of crazy climate change has occurred at such a remarkable pace that I and everyone else around my age can remember a completely different climate in our childhoods. I truly watched winter gradually disappear in my life.

"You're too young to remember this, but there used to be so many insects outside that you would have to clean them off the windshield after a long car ride" is the kind of sentence that would have been in a cheesy scifi short story earlier in my life, perhaps submitted to a literary magazine and accepted to show support for its environmentalist message - now it's something I've said in earnest.

(ID: a stock photo of a man smiling with lowercase impact font text reading, "me when it's monday again / but i have the indomitable human spirit on my side and the sun is out and i have a nice drink and my lights are on and my curtains are open and i want to be alive i want to be alive i want to be alive and the sun is out". end ID)

One thing I've unfortunately learned from gardening, hiking and wildlife ID groups on Facebook is that the average person has no idea that "invasive" specifically means when something non-native is ecologically harmful. A whole whole lot of people think it literally just means a "pest" in any context at all, so I catch people in the USA describing our own hornworms, poison oak, even raccoons as "invasive." They just hear news stories about "invasive wildlife" and that it's damaging something and all they think is "oh, this term means when an animal or plant inconveniences me and is hard to get rid of."

I can fully see how that mental connection works and it's really not all their fault. The word does not on its own really tell you how it's meant to be used. That, and a lot of people just don't understand the difference between what matters for the ecosystem and what digs up their store bought unnatural flower cultivars.

When I lead educational programs I always try to center increasing native biodiversity over removing invasive plants/animals for this reason, and it always raises a lot of good questions and introduces concepts in ecology that are different from how many people are used to interacting with nature.

Many people (where I work in Lenapohoking) don't have a framework of values and knowledge to understand why biodiversity is important but do have a robust framework for seeing the Other as Bad, particularly Others from Asia and Europe. Some recognize the idea of an invasive species as a social construct and go into "I don't see color" mode, without understanding the services of a functional riparian ecosystem in the preserve on their basements in town. Others openly link invasive species removal to their dream immigration policy. But mostly, people are used to interacting with plants and animals in militant ways. They don't see themselves as dependent on Nature, they see Nature as a beautiful tableau for outdoor recreation, or a looking glass you step into and out of. Even without feeling any connection to the fears or dogmas of earlier settlers, the "war with nature" (releasing pigs onto Lenape cornfields, extirpating wolves and mountain lions) is the only legacy through which they understand nature as uncontainable.

If I talk about invasive species, I always try to introduce some ideas about ways of viewing nature and interacting with nature. Rejecting "good" or" bad judgements, walk people through goal-driven decision making in stewardship. Indigenous history of this area and the role that culture plays in continued genocide and exclusion. The role that "nature" and individual plants, ecosystems, and landscapes have in our lives. How diversity in worldviews has the same importance to human communities that biological diversity has in ecological communities. Not what most people signed up for when they join my hikes but a lot of people seem to get something out of it.

Cotton slippers (1891)

These shoes are known as alpargatas or spargetts and are from the Basque region of Spain. They come from a very ancient form of shoe, originating in Ancient Egypt and then through the Romans who added an upper to the rush base. Spanish took the alpargatas to the Americas and they became widely adopted there.

It is frustrating how understanding of “rape culture” has totally evaporated. When we talk about sexual violence or pedophilia or incest or any of these things, it’s never within the framework of these as extensions of patriarchy, not “deviant,” but an integral element.

People are so desperate to project these onto The Other. Often it’s a vague “the predator” lurking in the bushes, when in reality most sexual violence (against children and adults) comes from those close to them with systemic power over them: The Boyfriend, The Father, The Manager. But more often it’s projected onto a more specific Other, commonly coupled with either Orientalism or Transmisogyny, but of course has been used more broadly.

It’s clear that there is no principled opposition to the sexual harm or deviancy here, otherwise the primary targets would be patriarchy and the nuclear family. Instead, these issues are raised to be projected onto Others to justify bigotry that in the past required none.

Uncaring

I think people would armchair diagnose bad people with cluster B disorders much less if psychiatric disorders hadn't all been given names by ableists who of course picked the traits most unberarable to "sane" people to name them rather than, you know, the ways it affects the people that have them. It's like, when doctors are all "this disorder gives you extremely low self esteem. and it's called the Selfish Fucking Asshole Disorder" or "this disorder makes you want to die so bad. and it's called the Hysteric Bitch Disorder" or "this disorder disconnects you from your peers. and it's called the Insane Evil Cunt Disorder" and so on and so forth, so of course you have people going "oh, this person is a selfish fucking asshole, they MUST have Selfish Fucking Asshole Disorder! this further proves that all people with this disorder are like that in the first place!" Do You See It

"Psychiatry is an inherently harmful institution" "ummm source?" ok imagine you had an illness that impairs your day to day life. now imagine it was called the Shitty Bitch Disease.