Snippets: Pre-Thanksgiving Edition

Signed off from work at noon (ish) and don't have to think about work again until Monday. Mmmmmm.

This post was supposed to be up on Sunday but we got to fight our plumbing again. Thankfully, after spending an hour in the cold rain this week augering our sewage pipe in the front yard, it appears to have fixed the issue. Of course, now it looks like the problem was root intrusion. What is the benefit of home ownership again?

Be still my heart Because honestly, why else do we use the internet if not to look up adorable pictures like this? I love furry four legged critters so much, I will be that cat lady at 60.

THE FLUFF I would use this kitty as a pillow.

Stunning Mother Nature is awesome. The end.

About Zimmerman (TW for violence)

The issue here isn’t that this white woman called the police because she feared for her life - that is legitimate and the police acted appropriately. The issue is that the police did not act appropriately the last time this violent aggressor harmed someone. The issue isn’t that the police picked him up in less than 44 minutes, it’s that for Trayvon they didn’t bother to arrest this asshole for 44 days.

Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words Brave brave lady.

I want to marry these photos. Cause damn. The one with the leaves falling in the sunlight? SWOON

Truth Why is it I find more knowledge on Tumblr than my supposed "liberal arts" college?

Distrusting Women (TW for rape)

It’s no exaggeration to say that distrust of women is the driving force of the “social issues” agenda of the Republican Party. From food stamps and “legitimate rape,” to violence against women and immigration policy. “We need to target the mother. Call it sexist, but that’s the way nature made it,” explained the man who penned Arizona’s immigration law. “Men don’t drop anchor babies, illegal alien mothers do.” I could do this ad infinitum.

Immigration is a feminist issue

These women know that their position of power is threatened by woc and this is why white mainstream feminism is always been exclusionary to woc.

My life

LOL. Love this

I love concise explanations. And this one comes with pictures!

LOVE this woman. Really and truly. More on Michelle Obama from Racialicious.

The president has been ridiculed as an elitist for suggesting that more people go to college. So if you think there’s no political risk, maybe you haven’t been paying attention. Also, you misunderstand the place Michelle Obama occupies as the first African-American first lady. You seem to think she is steering clear of the “Angry Black Woman” stereotype.

But when she calls herself mom-in-chief, she is rejecting a different stereotype–the role of Mammy. She is saying that her daughters–her vulnerable, brilliant, beautiful black daughters–are the most important thing to her. The first lady is saying, “You, Miss Ann, will have to clean your own house, because I will be caring for my own.” Instead of agreeing that the public sphere is more imporant than Sasha and Malia, she buried Mammy and embraced being a mom on her own terms.

A guide to anxiety disorders YES. My anxiety disorder still pops up on occasion but I'm so thankful that I was in a position to get the help needed for it.

Damn. (TW for rape) I won't even try to summarize. Just go read this poem.

When the fuck are people going to learn? I mean, honestly. Blackface is not okay and never will be. Neither is this shit, Katy Perry.

THIS. I would also highly recommend Angela Davis' book, Are Prisons Obsolete?

The U.S. imprisons more people than any other society in the history of the world, with more than 2 million people currently behind bars, and private companies are gunning for more (PDF). The Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), just one of several private prison companies, netted $1.7 billion dollars in 2010. CCA’s president and CEO, Damon Hininger, made $3.2 million in 2010. The Geo Group, another top prison company, raked in $1.2 billion and paid its CEO, George Zoley, $3.4 million the same year. The federal government and state governments across the nation funnel money into these private prisons, making them a multibillion dollar industry.

And this is even putting aside how fucking racist the prison system is. Absolutely shameful and disgusting.

Right in the feels

Some days, it makes me want to hug my fiancé so terribly tightly and run away to somewhere where no one knows us, maybe live as gypsies on the road. Maybe I can outrun this legacy.

But I don’t do that. Instead, I clear away the pile of yesterday’s mail, invite my family over for Thanksgiving dinner around my small clean table, offer surface conversation, and am grateful I’m an adult and can define my own space. That I can build my own baby family, and that, together, he and I can fight the inertia and build something beautiful instead.