WAKING UP, BREAKING OUT

Yet another Palestinian boy in the West Bank whose childhood was violently stolen from him. I wish people could understand that what's happening in the West Bank now has been happening DAILY for YEARS before October 2023. Its been happening DAILY in multiple towns and villages of the West Bank since 2020.

Tulkarem, Qalandia, Beit Lahm, Al-Khalil, Al-Quds, Silwan, Silwad, Massafer Yatta, Ramallah, Nablus, off the TOP of my head have all been plagued by these daily zionist terrorist attacks. Thousands have been killed since last year. They demolish homes they kill our babies, they kill our elders, they kidnap thousands of them no matter how young and old and they torture them and never release them. THIS IS NOT NEW. And it kills me that more of our babies like Muhammad here have to experience these horrifying conditions for the first time to this day. Its been over a century that we've lived this daily terrorism. His grandfather before him lived the same suffering he just experienced.

There is no crime where torture is an acceptable punishment.

There is no crime where sexual assault is an acceptable punishment.

There is no crime where slavery is an acceptable punishment.

"Well obviously people arrested for drugs and other non-violent crimes shouldn't be forced to work but—"

No! There is no but!! There is nothing in the world that makes slavery okay!!!

I could talk about people being charged for crimes they didn't commit. I could talk about coerced confessions. I could talk about people being charged with more extreme crimes than what they did to fill prisons. I could talk about how making slaves out of certain types of criminals creates an incentive to charge more people with certain crimes.

But I'm not going to actually talk about any of that because it doesn't matter. No one should be enslaved. No one should be defending or justifying slavery. This should not be controversial.

Prison used to be a place where they held people until they could receive their punishment. We stopped doing the punishments (largely because they were inhumane) but never found an alternative solution. So, prison (and prison labor) became the solution.

So, prisoners were put to work. They're paid less than a dollar an hour, but they're lucky to even get paid. Why do they need money? They're prisoners.

Never mind that people are regularly placed in prisons far from home, effectively depriving them of any familial or community support.

Never mind that phone calls to loved ones cost them per minute about as much as they make in an hour.

Never mind that they have to buy their own supplies, such as toothbrushes and soap and menstrual products.

Never mind that people in prisons are disproportionately more likely to have chronic health problems.

Never mind that prisoners are exposed to abuse from guards and fellow prisoners.

Never mind that the people most likely to go to prison are historically marginalized.

Never mind that there are few resources or opportunities available to them to help them reintegrate into society after they get out. And the ones that do exist are overburdened, underfunded, or shitty and predatory.

Never mind that few employers are willing to hire people who have been in prison.

Never mind that people who go to prison once are far more likely to be sent back.

Just like you stow away a belonging that you don't know what to do with in a drawer or back of a closet to forget about, so too does our society do with people in prison. Out of sight, out of mind. And it's hard to get people to care because "oh, they're criminals."

They are also humans. And all humans deserve to be treated as humans. Even the worst of us.

If we distinguish who gets to be treated like a human, somebody is going to draw a line one day that makes YOU no longer human. Don't believe it? Look to history. If there is one thing humans are good at, it's pointing at other humans and declaring them "Other."

Prisons are unethical and immoral. Prison labor is slavery. Everyone deserves to be treaty with dignity. Everyone.

“You are not done yet”

touden dynamic im obsessed with

there is no 'base accent' so like all of this is entirely subjective tbc, just based on what people around you say and how you think you sound

pick whichever language you want to answer in if you're multi-lingual

Unknown, Arabic Script in shape of lion: "In the name of the lion of God, the face of God, the victorious Ali." from Turkey 19th C

A bleeding reporter interviews a bleeding activist after one of the mass anti-war demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which were violently broken up by Chicago police and federal troops

Don’t forget his baby sister, Nawar.

Massacred by western imperialism.

In June 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi, the father of Anwar Al-Aulaqi, to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government’s decision to authorize the killing of his son, a U.S. citizen who had been placed on secret “kill lists” maintained by the CIA and the U.S. military’s covert Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) earlier that year. Shortly thereafter, the Secretary of the Treasury designated Anwar al-Aulaqi a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” which made it a crime for lawyers to provide pro bono legal services for his benefit without first seeking a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).  CCR and the ACLU sought a license, but after the government’s failure to grant one despite the urgency created by the outstanding authorization for Al-Aulaqi’s killing, CCR and the ACLU brought suit challenging the legality and constitutionality of the licensing scheme. The government thereupon provided the license.

In August 2010, CCR and the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi, challenging the government’s decision authorizing the CIA and JSOC to target and kill his son in Yemen. Outside of the context of armed conflict, the Constitution and international human rights treaties the U.S. has ratified prohibit the state from depriving persons of life without due process, except as a last resort to protect against an imminent threat of deadly harm. Anwar Al-Aulaqi was being targeted far from the United States’ war in Afghanistan, and the standing order for his killing flew in the face of the plain meaning of the law’s imminence requirement. The district court in Washington, D.C., dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, without reaching the merits. This case is part of CCR’s work challenging unlawful drone killings by the United States and other fundamental rights violations being committed in the name of national security. 

Date Filed: 

August 3, 2010

Current Status 

The case was dismissed on December 7, 2010, on standing and because the court ruled that it raised "political questions" not subject to court review. The court did not rule on the merits of the case.

Yeah, note that last thing: the Obama administration’s legal team specifically petitioned the court to dismiss the case on the grounds that nobody has legal standing to sue the US government for a death by drone strike, and the court agreed with this. That is actually a scarier legal precedent than almost anything else in the last 24 years.

A lot of you on here feel waaay too comfortable admitting that you don't and refuse to listen to rap music, and I'm not loving the incredibly reductive takes on rap because the kendrick/drake beef has it on some of yall's radar for the first time in your life.

I'm not going to sugar coat it-- for americans especially, if you consider music a significant interest of yours but still feel the need to search for acceptable reasons to keep yourself ignorant of black music, or think of rap as a monolith of hate and violence and not equally as diverse as any other genre, or can only name nonblack rappers… you should be embarrassed of that. And your embarrassment should not keep you from being active about exposing yourself to unfamiliar art and broadening what you listen to.

'I don't understand what they're saying/they rap too quickly' I'm surprised by how much I keep seeing this-- speed is not a stylistic trademark of most rap music, & clearer diction as a performer is much more necessary in rap than other genres?? Statistically rap has a lower bpm (here's an example of one person's study) and word-per-minute (another person's study of about 20 thousand songs) average than other genres. (of course these aren't all-encompassing, but you can look into this yourself using sites like bpmdatabase.com.) Do you really feel overwhelmed by speed listening to Kendrick or Biggie or Nas or 2Pac, or have you never actually listened to their songs?

'I have to look up the lyrics'-- so what? is it a bad thing to take an extra few seconds to engage with an artist's work? If you listen to lyrical music, do you care when it's the artists you listen to? Why does the thoughtful art consumption everyone talks about not also apply to black art?

'there is too much violence and misogyny and commercialism' this is not unique to rap, or true of all rap music. Artists exist that talk about other things, the way they exist in all genres. There is an entire wikipedia page listing alternative hip hop musicians and rappers if you consider seeking it out too much labor. Click one!

'i find it unrelatable'-- who cares? Being unable to engage with art you don't find wholly relatable is a deeply childish and self centered way to exist. You get on here reblogging feel good navel-gazey posts about the shared human experience and caring for one another, but a rapper talking about living with violence or poverty is stretching the limits of what you can imagine or empathize with too much for you to care about it? You don't find that embarrassing to admit to?

You don't have to love rap, you don't have to incorporate it into what you listen to every day, but a lot of you need to be aware you're parroting reagan era anti-rap (& antiblack) pearl-clutching talking points, and it's a very ugly look. It isn't racist if your favorite genre isn't rap, but you need to do some serious self reflection if you consider it inherently less artistic, intelligent or positive than 'whiter' genres when you don't actually listen to it. I am looking at you, people into other counterculture genres-- it's crazy how much I see this from self-professed punks and metalheads especially lmfao. If expression, counterculture art, anti-censorship in music and the right for raw and unfiltered music to exist matters to you as much as you say you do, you should care about rap's relationship to censorship & fight for its legitimacy just as much as what you listen to.

The VLC in VLC media player stands for Vagina Labia Cervix

So no clit?

bitches always got something to say. make your own post.

So no clit?

He was tortured and beaten by the ogre

He was beaten and punished by the ogre

He was punished and pummelled by the ogre

He was pummelled and tormented by the ogre

He was tormented and injured by the ogre

He was injured and hurt by the ogre

He was hurt and broken by the ogre

He was broken and damaged by the ogre

He was damaged and harmed by the ogre

He was loved and cuddled by the ogre as part of their BDSM aftercare

Didn't happen. He was harmed and attacked by the ogre

Our (Your) Pitiful Ethics!:  A Response to Zadie Smith’s “Shibboleth”

had to make the inverse situation of this. lets give it up for time blindness yayyy

And a shout out to executive dysfunction