Here’s hoping that the boy i’m meeting at the mca doesn’t go for the polished look. Saturday morning dates don’t show off my best qualities.

Okay, time to stop clicking refresh and get on with my evening. How’d it get to be past ten?

atrapforfools asked: What do you do for fun? Besides go to operas.

I like to listen to music and I like to cook food. I go dancing sometimes, though less than I used to. I blame school. I try to go out to eat and go to cultural events on some kind of regular basis, to remind myself why I pay a 10.25 % sales tax to live in this city. I have memberships at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. I like to go there when they have new exhibitions.

A bit more serious, for a change.

interrobanging-26 responds:

Now, while I agree with a lot of the points that you are making, there are things which I have always found silly. For instance, I think taking the question ‘Where are you from?’ as anything approaching racism is a little bit overboard. I am a white Cuban of Spanish ancestry, and I live in the U.S. now. I also have grandparents that are of darker skin color as some in Cuba tend to be. I have never felt that telling someone where I am from was offensive. Especially since I AM from somewhere else. A lot of people in this country are. Everyone at some point was from somewhere else. There is no shame in being proud of where you’re from. I find that people that get offended at simple curious questions like that are often just self-conscious of their origins and are just stupidly not proud to be who they are. Now, if the question is given in a heated racist sort of argument with different undertones than that is a different story altogether. 

As for tensing up when you pass someone that is black and wearing baggy clothes; well yes, I am all for giving the benefit of the doubt, but there is a point when naivete and kindness converge to prove a bit more stupid than good. If I see anyone that can potentially be a threat whether white, black or otherwise — there doesn’t have to be anything racist about it; I will most definitely keep an eye out. Because in my experience, and I have had run ins with all kinds of people, it is usually the shady looking people on the street that will mean to cause you harm, and to be aware of that danger is not being racist, it is being smart and protective. To ignore it is to open yourself up wholly to the dangerous and malicious people that unfortunately populate this world. Having said that, the person you may be suspicious of can end up being the nicest person on the planet, but no one can know that. Now if you specifically tense up around only black people, whether in broad daylight on a busy street or at night by yourself, then perhaps that is definitely a racist reaction, I don’t deny that. If only everyone can just be nice and accepting, things would run a heck of a lot more smoothly in the world. 

The second part I’m more comfortable responding to, because it’s a reaction of mine that I’ve been consciously trying to work through since moving to Chicago. That reaction is coming from the cultural fear of dark skinned black men. I hadn’t had a lot of exposure to black people outside of media until I moved to Chicago. It’s not knowing what’s sketchy and what’s not, it’s an indiscriminate fear based on clothing and skin color, which are absolutely ridiculous things to base a judgment off of. It’s something that will only go away after thousands upon thousands of trials where nothing happens. I don’t think that you’re necessarily opening yourself up to the predators of the world simply by being open to people in general. It’s making a conscious effort to learn what is sketchy and what’s just people being people in a way you don’t recognize.

As for the first part, I’d say that the experience of being asked, “where are you from?” represents people thinking they have a right to ask things of you at all. It’s a pattern of behavior one sees in dominant groups so It’s just something I’m aware of. My last name is identifiably Italian so I often get asked, “Are you Italian?” when somebody reads/hears my last name. I’m happy to provide an answer. But it’s an expectation of the answering that I find to be part of racism in America.

I’m going to take a shower now. That was what I’d call “wet armpits blogging.”

"We have experiences in which race and ethnic misunderstanding play a huge part — however, most of us can identify that it was a negative experience and do not wish to duplicate this. The levels of awareness vary and some individuals pay more attention than others — but most of these oblivious people stumbling through racialized experiences are not racist. To call them so is to over-use the word and undervalue its significance and meaning."

I am Belligerent. — Fellow Crackers

Tumblr, thank you for that piecing together that awesome post title.

This argument really solidified why it’s important to argue against a distinction between “date-rape” and “rape-rape.” The distinctions in each and every instance of rape can come out in the details, but it’s all rape, and it all the same issue, the same event, and the same fucked up mindset.

Racism is racism. Whether it’s people asking you “where are you from” or the fact that different ethnicities in America find themselves having to present themselves somewhere in a triangle between Indigenous, Black, and White because that’s all a lot of white people are really capable of grasping. It’s a longstanding history of, what you call in a later post, “racial accidents.” It’s white people preferring the company of white people, and since they currently hold the “gateways to success” if I can make up term, whether they mean to or not, choose the white person over the person of color. You’re telling me that the fact that I tense up when I’m passing a dark skinned black man in baggy clothes on the street isn’t racism? That’s it’s a “racial accident?” This is all racism. And not calling it that, as robot-heart pointed out, is diminishing the term.

ETA: sorry for the poor initial formatting.

Erica Lord - (untitled) I Tan To Look More Native, 2006
Digital Inkjet
4”x5”

I posted this over a year ago but I love her so much and it is kind of relevant so I wanted to post it again. I strongly encourage you to look through her portfolio. Really really spectacular work.

More on privilege and ignorance

There is not a single white person who has ever been asked by a person of color, “do you tan?” Everybody knows that white folks tan. I would like to be able to say, “everybody knows that everybody tans,” but that is not the case. I can assure you that “do you tan?” is considered a fair question by all too many white idiots.

ETA: Obvs you don’t tan if you have a genetic disorder and don’t produce melanin.

PERFORMANCE ARTGASM

So after I discovered video of Ant Farm’s fantastic 1975 piece Media Burn I jokingly said to hyde that next thing I’ll find out that there’s video of Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece.

IT TURNS OUT THERE IS VIDEO OF YOKO ONO’S 1965 PERFORMANCE.

I AM FREAKING THE FUCK OUT OVER HERE.

CUT PIECE CHANGED MY LIFE EVERYBODY

After work I’m getting a manicure and my hair cut to look like this. Don’t forget to take care of yourselves, Tumblr!

For your Friday entertainment, Glenn Beck performs a dramatic reading of Born in the USA.

Beck and crew call Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” “anti-American” | Media Matters for America

Correlation

Just because correlation is not causation doesn’t mean that correlation isn’t, you know, RELATION. There’s a well documented correlation between smoking pot and being psychotic. However, nobody can tell if this is because psychotics are more likely to want to chill the fuck out or because smoking pot actually triggers psychosis. One of these possibilities is a lot worse than the other and I look forward to science conducting an experiment to determine in which direction this correlation flows.

"Yet women on the pill did have higher rates of violent deaths. The researchers said they had no explanation for this association."

Birth Control Pills May Reduce Cancer Death - ABC News

This is… kind of a big thing? Why is it tucked away in a random sentence on the second page?

I’ll note the headline is kind of weird and not indicative of the findings. That’s one of the findings, but there are a lot of others, of equal or greater interest. (via amandaw)

Somebody in need of a thesis/dissertation topic, please investigate. This is intersectionality at work, folks.

(via sexartandpolitics)

CORRELATION ISN’T CAUSATION, PEOPLE. Jesus fucking Christ.

(via pegobry)

But the correlation is certainly INTERESTING, isn’t it? Doesn’t it warrant further research? If nothing else than to sate my curiosity?

I have 50 seconds left before leechblock prevents me from accessing tumblr for another hour soooooooo…. I get that it’s not like you take the pill and you’re more likely to die a violent death but I think it’s very interesting that whatever life factors cause you to take the pill also make it more likely for you to die a violent death.

sparkleneelysparkle:

(via fuckyeahladygaga)

chicachica

Anybody else find this very twin peaksy?