April 2012
“You try not to play favorites, I suppose. But I put all the characters through horrible things. I get letters from fans saying, ‘Why do you hate the Starks so much? Why do you put them through so many horrible things?’ Well you know, the Lannisters have been through some pretty horrible things too lately. The Baratheons have gone through an awful lot of horrible stuff. The Targaryens are practically all wiped out except for Dany.”
— George R.R. Martin (via cakedcrusader)
March 2012
“This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Am I right? A group of slave owners who wanted to be free. So they killed a lot of white English people in order to continue owning their black African people so they could wipe out the rest of the red Indian people and move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people.”
—George Carlin (What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, 1988)
“No other country in the world disenfranchises
people who are released from prison in a manner even
remotely resembling the United States. In fact, the
United Nations Human Rights Committee has charged
that U.S. disenfranchisement policies are
discriminatory and violate international law. In those
few European countries that permit limited postprison
disqualification, the sanction is very narrowly tailored
and the number of people disenfranchised is probably
in the dozens or hundreds. In the United States, by
contrast, voting disqualification upon release from
prison is automatic, with no legitimate purpose, and
affects millions.” —The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (via of-praxis)
people who are released from prison in a manner even
remotely resembling the United States. In fact, the
United Nations Human Rights Committee has charged
that U.S. disenfranchisement policies are
discriminatory and violate international law. In those
few European countries that permit limited postprison
disqualification, the sanction is very narrowly tailored
and the number of people disenfranchised is probably
in the dozens or hundreds. In the United States, by
contrast, voting disqualification upon release from
prison is automatic, with no legitimate purpose, and
affects millions.” —The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (via of-praxis)
“People of color, women, and gays — who now have greater access to the centers of influence than ever before — are under pressure to be well-behaved when talking about their struggles. There is an expectation that we can talk about sins but no one must be identified as a sinner: newspapers love to describe words or deeds as “racially charged” even in those cases when it would be more honest to say “racist”; we agree that there is rampant misogyny, but misogynists are nowhere to be found; homophobia is a problem but no one is homophobic. One cumulative effect of this policed language is that when someone dares to point out something as obvious as white privilege, it is seen as unduly provocative. Marginalized voices in America have fewer and fewer avenues to speak plainly about what they suffer; the effect of this enforced civility is that those voices are falsified or blocked entirely from the discourse.”
—Excerpt from Teju Cole’s essay “The White Savior Industrial Complex”.
(via jalwhite)
(via jalwhite)
“Other people have spoken about this a bit, but I’m frustrated and angry when I see other white people pulling the “I am Trayvon Martin” thing, because it’s so dismissive of the real issue, which is that we’re not Trayvon Martin. None of us ever will be. We’re George Zimmerman. Even if we don’t go out and shoot kids for fun, when we allow the images in the media to perpetuate the idea that young black men are violent, when our own speech (I don’t want to talk about the conversation I had to have at lunch today) perpetuates an idea of black Americans as criminals, especially young black American men, we are accessories to murder. We are creating people like George Zimmerman. That’s on us. And it doesn’t matter if we have black friends, or black relatives, or black ancestors– that doesn’t absolve us. In fact, it’s worse when we do, and say nothing, because it’s our loved ones who are suffering and we’re not doing anything to ease that.”
—I was arrested once (via azspot)
Are you asexual?
Only for you, Anon. Only for you.
