I’m not making a funny meme post, cops are evil and exist to oppress and terrorize minorities but specifically black people. the good cops who exist either quit or get fired. cops are inherently evil.
I can’t wait for liberals who are just centrists with blue paint and other bad faith actors to try to argue with me about my wording here and the decision to call them “evil”
the idea of a cop and their history is inherently evil and if you want to die on a hill of arguing with a black queer person whose family faced police brutality and racial profiling go ahead but I don’t give a shit about your opinion.
“Oh but what about the ones who are called to help mental health crisises-” Mental health professionals exist, need years more training than cops, and won’t shoot you for being depressed. “What about when your house gets broken into or I get mugged or assaulted-” At best they write a report that might get dealt with later, at worst they come in guns blazing and hurt the people who were actually affected. When my friends have been assaulted, the cops just wrote a report (and were awful to those friends the whole time!) and it was the detectives and courts who actually did anything about it. “What about-”OP is right. Sit down and listen.
Do some research and unlearn your biases and help the people who are affected. It takes time and effort but for the love of all things good, learn it. I know I’m not perfect but I still gotta fucking listen to the groups who are being affected (especially POC) and take the initiative to learn how to be helpful.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE PLEASEEEEE
DO NOT CALL THE COPS ON MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE POC OR QUEER MINORITIES
cops are not trained to deescalate situations but instead will further stress out or traumatize the victim in the situation. or in most cases murder them. cops are not here to protect you or your friends or any other marginalized group of people. they are here to make your lives MISERABLE and collect their paycheck. deprogram the copaganada from your brain.
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
the action this person took is bad because it’s directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital “also they’re cringe” not what I said “adults who like cartoons are always shitty” no they aren’t “their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals” I don’t believe that is the case “typical tenderqueer” I honestly just think you’re being homophobic “mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer” do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don’t like
“I could never be an entomologist. bugs creep me out” sucks to suck because I’m a real-life pokemon trainer. like look at these and tell me they’re not pokemon
like are you serious. have fun doing whatever you’re doing ill be at the arthropod zoo… also known as the motherfucking pokemon center
“I could never be an entomologist. bugs creep me out” sucks to suck because I’m a real-life pokemon trainer. like look at these and tell me they’re not pokemon
like are you serious. have fun doing whatever you’re doing ill be at the arthropod zoo… also known as the motherfucking pokemon center
hey everyone, I posted a great deal of new art on my patreon, here are some crops! I get paid tomorrow.
It would mean the world to me if you guys could come and check it out, and if you’d like to subscribe- I only charge literally one dollar a month for access to almost 400 pieces of exclusive artwork.
I am trans and disabled from the global south, and more opportunities to create art so I can make ends meet for my family is immense, and something I do not take for granted.
You can tell a lot about the health of a civilization by their warning signs. Places with a lot of dumb folks will have very broad, very dumb warnings in public. “No feeding the birds.” “Stop swimming in this drainage pond.” That kind of thing.
Advanced civilizations have very precise signs. They’ve covered the bases of their regular, run-of-the-mill idiots, and now they’re working hard to cover that other end of the bell curve: the talented idiot. When I was in Germany last time, there was a big warning sign that consisted of a 76-letter-long word that means “stop bothering this particular goose, Sven.” I don’t know who Sven was, but the goose looked pretty calm. It worked.
Now, I have a secret to tell you. You can just make your own signs. There’s no law against it, except perhaps “littering,” and the municipal sign factory doesn’t have very good security. If you show up there past close and put in the door code that you shoulder-surfed off one of the employees returning from lunch a week prior, you have all night to fuck around with their sign-printing machine, making the most official-looking placards you can think of.
Is this wrong? I don’t think so. It’s a public space, and being able to put up an aluminum sign that says wacky crank shit is your right. For instance, just last week, I banned pickup trucks from parking by the playground. The cops figured out something was going on, because they didn’t get any calls for toddlers getting backed over for a couple of days and sent a patrol truck to investigate. Took my sign right down.
What I discovered after that is that nobody keeps records of what signs are supposed to be there. Why would anyone put up a sign for no reason? They cost money, after all. The city is now suing the shit out of that officer for stealing the “no trucks” sign, thanks to an anonymous tipster who called in the theft. Guy wearing a reflective vest came by and put like four more of them up after the lawsuit made the news, just out of spite. I’m not entirely sure if he’s actually a city worker; we ran into each other at 3am at the sign factory and just grunted. He was working on some really crazy signs about not feeding a particular swan. Probably German.
So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?
I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we’re acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it’s actually meant to do.
OP I know that this is probably a different direction than you were going, but genuinely this advice would do so so much to help people not fall into secular political cults.
A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.
Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.
…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.
I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:
Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)
Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?
Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?
Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?
Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?
These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.
In the words of Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton, “Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group, a religious movement, a political organization. They change so gradually, by the time you realize you’re entrapped – and almost everybody does – you can’t figure a safe way back out.”
So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?
I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we’re acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it’s actually meant to do.
OP I know that this is probably a different direction than you were going, but genuinely this advice would do so so much to help people not fall into secular political cults.
A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.
Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.
…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.
I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:
Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)
Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?
Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?
Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?
Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?
These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.
In the words of Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton, “Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group, a religious movement, a political organization. They change so gradually, by the time you realize you’re entrapped – and almost everybody does – you can’t figure a safe way back out.”
So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?
I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we’re acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it’s actually meant to do.
OP I know that this is probably a different direction than you were going, but genuinely this advice would do so so much to help people not fall into secular political cults.
A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.
Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.
…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.
I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:
Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)
Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?
Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?
Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?
Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?
These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.
In the words of Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton, “Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group, a religious movement, a political organization. They change so gradually, by the time you realize you’re entrapped – and almost everybody does – you can’t figure a safe way back out.”
“We keep making our service worse, cancelling shows before their time, hiking up the prices, and generally ruining what once was a decent product–piracy keeps wining somehow. 🤷”
This is especially funny because early on, part of Netflix’s business model was to look at what series were being pirated and acquire them, and a lot of pirates would just use Netflix because it was easier and not too expensive.
But then Netflix made themselves infinitely more inconvenient and you’ll never guess what happened next
talking about Rosie The Riveter, fun fact: while the We Can Do It picture has become the most-well known depiction of her in modern times, it wasn’t really a famous image when it was made–in fact, it wasn’t even intended to be her
the most famous depiction of Rosie The Riveter during WWII was probably Norman Rockwell’s painting
note what she’s resting her foot on
i fully support anti-fascist/anti-nazi butch lesbian rosie the riveter
What do you mean?? I took one whole day off! Why am I not immediately recovered from years of barely scraping by at subsistence level???
I’m taking 6 weeks off when I graduate in June and my therapist has said, “That’s a good start, but you have to understand this is your first time resting against a debt of 20 years of burnout… Time off is great, but you’re not going to flip a switch and reverse the damage. It’s going to take time and intention.”
READ THAT AGAIN. 6 WEEKS OFF IS NOT ENOUGH… 👀
also, taking a break doesn’t mean filing that time with other stressful activities
what we need after burnout is to do something completely different during time off, and then (if possible) not return to the burnout-causing activity afterward
Come march I’ll be at a year
I’m… it’s only in the past few months that I’ve STARTED to feel a LITTLE better
I can’t kick it with gay boys anymore what do you mean you were “serving daddy’s cock” last night. You took a rideshare to an old man’s house and you put your mouth on his weewee