The only reason white people think being called a ‘white person’ is racist, or harmful or wrong is because they are used to the privilege of just being seen as a ‘person’ without their race or color being an issue for them. You see, when you call them ‘white,’ suddenly, they are not just a person, but now they have a color. Suddenly, they are no better than a Person of Colour. And that scares the shit out of them.
Omar Sankofa (via sonofbaldwin)
I’ve seen a ton on the facebooks about “thanking veterans for their service.” As a veteran let me just be very straightforward and honest with you. We didn’t “serve our country”; we don’t actually serve our brothers/sisters or our neighbors. We serve the interests of Capital. We never risked our lives or spent months on deployment away from our family and friends so they can have this abstract concept called “freedom”. We served big oil; big coal; Coca-Cola; Kellogg, Brown, and Root and all the other big Capital interests who don’t know a fucking thing about sacrifice. These people will never have to deal with the loss of a loved one or the physical and/or psychological scars that those who “serve”, and their families, have to deal with for the rest of their lives. The most patriotic thing someone can do is to tell truth to power and dedicate yourself to building power to overthrow these sociopathic assholes. I served with some of the most real and genuine people I’ve ever met. You’ll never see solidarity like the kind of solidarity you experience when your life depends on the person next to you. But most of us didn’t join for that; we joined because we were fucking poor and didn’t have many other options.
An anti-capitalist veteran (via elitc)
The student strikes in Quebec, which began in February and have lasted for three months, involving roughly 175,000 students in the mostly French-speaking Canadian province, have been subjected to a massive provincial and national media propaganda campaign to demonize and dismiss the students and their struggle. The following is a list of ten points that everyone should know about the student movement in Quebec to help place their struggle in its proper global context.
The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education. Marriage is under attack by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.
Rev. Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ (via touchoftea)
This is an Emergency
I believe that the destruction of the prostituted class is the most important human rights of our times, and to be frank, it is the most important issue of stripping of human rights of most periods in history.
It is made invisible because it mainly done to women and girls – and in most cultures, most periods of history and most countries, women and girls are not classed as fully human, and therefore have no access to human rights.
It is made invisible because all the violence, degradation and hate done to the prostituted is re-branded as entertainment, as work, as being high-class sex, as therapy. If it not named as prostitution or hard-core porn, there can no violence, degradation and hate.
It is made invisible as the prostituted are murdered, sadistically raped and mentally abused by replacing the goods if a woman or dies or cannot cope any more.
If you let yourself look at the sex trade with a clear eye – you would see that it is genocide, only made invisible by recruiting the all the more vulnerable girls and women.
But most refuse to see that simple truth, and make as many excuses as possible for the sex trade.
As you find and make excuses, the bodies of the prostituted class are piling up.
How many prostitutes or “actors” in porn have to be viciously raped – before you decide it is an emergency?
How much more hard-core porn need to mainstream the torturing of women and girls – before you decide it is an emergency?
How many more punters and pimps need to casually murdered the prostituted – before you decide it is an emergency?
How many more young neglected girls need to be groomed into the sex trade – before you decide it is an emergency?
How many more sex tourists will get off scot-free – before you decide it is an emergency?
How many more women and girls will brainwashed into the sex trade – before you decide it is an emergency?
And that is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg.
Exited women see and know this is a human rights emergency – we are doing everything in our power to educate and build a road to real freedom for all the prostituted class.
But we cannot do it alone – we are very strong, we have tons of courage, we do see with a clear eye – but we also have extreme trauma in our bodies and minds.
There are some brilliant allies who support and spread the word of abolition in practical ways and by educating. This post is not about those wonderful sisters and brothers.
No, this post is aimed at those who say they care, but turn away with many excuses.
I am tired of hearing, reading and being told the many excuses to put dealing with the sex trade on the back burner – I cannot whilst my prostituted sisters are being destroyed in almost every country in the world.
There is the constant excuse for inaction to spend more time deciding what a “real” prostitute is.
This could mean saying the only legitimate reason any female would be prostituted is poverty – pushing away that the sex trade loves degrading “posh” women and girls, that indoors prostitution recruits from women and girls with money – ignoring that any woman or girl from any class, including the upper-class, can be neglected and/or raped as a child, many them a prime target for sex trade profiteers.
This can mean deciding only certain nations, cultures or ethnicity will be prostituted – ignoring that the sex trade thrives on providing women and girls of all nations, cultures and ethnicity to the punters or users of porn.
This means deciding being in the sex trade is only harmful when the prostitute is under-aged – ignoring that most women inside the sex trade are open to rape, bashing up, mental abuse and murder no matter their age; ignoring that most women in porn or prostitution started under-aged and were ignored or made invisible.
This means deciding to re-brand being inside the sex trade as chosen work, it must be a form of female empowerment – ignoring that the sex trade has the power dynamics of slavery, in that the sex trade profiteer and the user has full power and control over the prostituted – who has no freedom of speech to say no or even to express dislike, who has no freedom to safety as she is made sub-human as sex goods, who no freedom to freedom of thought as the sex trade and users of the prostituted feed her brain with lies and the language of her oppressor.
As an exited woman, I so sick and tired of all these terrible excuses for over-riding the destruction of the prostituted class.
Could it be, that like punters and the sex trade – you really think and view the prostituted class as sub-human? If not, why do you constantly make excuses to make this human rights emergency invisible.
If you truly care about the prostituted class – the less you can do is to speak loud and clear that it is about human rights; it is about mental, physical and sexual torture; it does affects women and girls from all classes, all ethnicities, all cultures and in all countries.
If you truly care about prostituted class, say what is not.
It is not about sex – it is about having full power and control over a woman or girl who has no access to the language of no or rape.
It is not adult entertainment – there no entertainment in torture, there is no entertainment in giving punters permission to rape, there is no entertainment in knowing that the prostituted are murdered on a regular basic.
It is not work – it is slavery no matter how high-class it is made; it cannot be work as there no justice for rape, battering or the prostituted disappearing.
Stop pretending your language and excuses can make being inside the sex trade nice.
If your body and mind can do the norms of much of the sex trade – than maybe you can say it is ok.
Could your body and mind be in a room with a punter/punters, knowing he has full permission to do any physical and/or sexual violence to you. Know that it will isolated, with no imagined help from bodyguards if he decide to be violent. Know that you even thinking no, could put you in more danger.
Could your body and mind be on a mainstream porn shoot – where repeated pain and degradation is done over and over and over till the lighting is right, where there is no interest if you are ripped up, no interest in safe sex, no interest in what you said you would not do – as long there is a profit made from your pain and humiliation, that’s all that counts.
There is so much more I could say, and that I have said in the past – I want a future where I don’t to explain why it is a human rights issue, for that is just taken as a simple truth.
Do not leave it all to exited women – we need space to grieve, to re-build our lives, to get a safe community around us, to speak to each other words the world is not ready to hear.
Exited women will always fight for true justice for all the prostituted – please stop finding excuses, and join us.
I so sick of the torturing and deaths of my prostituted sisters everywhere.
http://rmott62.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/this-is-an-emergency/
