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Government assistance in America is invisible until black people receive it. Then it becomes racialized, demonized and stigmatized.

Melissa Harris-Perry and Karen Finney (paraphrased), commenting on a recent New York Times editorial wherein black farmers were all but vilified as ‘lazy takers’ who gamed the system —for winning an historic discrimination lawsuit against the USDA: Pigford v. Glickman (via odinsblog)

So true. In fact, the entire capitalist system — all banking, all corporate operations, all military industry — is built on and based upon government assistance; or rather, much more than “assistance”, more like extreme government largesse by granting public funds from taxes and public resources to private interests.

Private banking relies entirely on credit, loans, underwriting, insurance, and political-military protection from the government. All corporate merchandise in the USA is moved and distributed on highways and roads built and maintained using public money. The telecom companies sell you mobile phone service using radio spectrum which belongs to the public and is granted to them by the government. Agribusiness is well-known to be subsidized. Big pharma relies on publicly funded research to isolate its private profit makers. There are no major areas of corporate America which are not entirely reliant on government assistance. And that’s not even getting into corporate tax breaks.

Yet god forbid Black people get any benefit from the government whatsoever, amounting in total to the tiniest trickle in relation to the government largesse extended to corporate America. Suddenly that is seen, within the prevailing racist US political discourse, as a burden upon society and sign of an imaginary racial pathology of laziness and dependency. Good one, white America.

(via zuky)

Source: nbcnews.com
Notes: 1562 5/22/13 — 10:01am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylaWuqb Filed under: #racism  #white mythology  #white supremacy  #romneymania  #snake oil  #old testament republicans  #the new robber barons 
Pennsylvania Judge Sentenced For 28 Years For Selling Kids to the Prison System

girljanitor:

so-treu:

girljanitor:

deaths-praises:

Mark Ciavarella Jr, a 61-year old former judge in Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for literally selling young juveniles for cash.

Pretty sure this is near staple-food-speculation level capitalistic evil.

let’s go ahead and hold this up with Ms. Prisoners-Don’t-Have-Human-Rights-So-Enslaving-Them-Is-OK’s statements for a second, shall we?

What do I care?  I see is as a part of a punishment for a crime. If you think punishment means they should just sit in cells and think about what they did, that’s up to you, but I don’t see anything wrong with people doing labor as a way to repay society.

If you have committed a crime and you’re in prison for it, then I think that you FORFEITED some of your rights while you are being punished. That’s why you’re not able to walk around at home or carry guns. Otherwise, why punish at all? Okay, so if you think that people in prison deserve to have food/shelter/training/AND get paid the same as people outside prison for their work, then what of the rights of those out? To me it sounds like you want BETTER rights for prisoners, not “the same.”  Where is our free food and shelter? Where is our free training? We pay taxes too!


I guess some people feel entitled to food

and some people feel entitled to benefit from slave labor.

okay then.

jesus that person

and you know what, maybe we SHOULD all get free food and housing and training, actually. considering that those things are human rights maybe THAT’S the fucked up part, that we have to pay for them. maybe you’re fucking problematizing the wrong thing.

Like…how do you explain HUMAN RIGHTS to someone who just…doesn’t…get it?

LIKE HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN TO SOMEONE THAT SELLING CHILDREN INTO SLAVERY IS BAD IF THEY DON’T KNOW IT ALREADY?

romney all ‘do you think you’re better than working at mcdonalds’, me all ‘//everyone// is better than that’.

Source: deaths-praises
Notes: 159 5/22/13 — 9:57am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylaW2oF Filed under: #prison industrial complex  #slavery  #wage slavery  #romneymania  #snake oil  #old testament republicans  #the new robber barons 
raiseourstory: “Life in New York is the only life I’ve ever known. I was just five years old when I came to the United States from the Philippines in 2000. I lived my early years thinking I was like my peers: an American. This country’s culture was my culture. I spoke English without a trace of a Filipino accent. It wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year of high school that I found out I was undocumented, and my life began to fall apart. School felt pointless and my grades plummeted. Perhaps I could graduate, but I doubted I would be able to go to college, have a career, or any real future. I began to think about suicide. I‘ve made strides in overcoming my depression through working as an activist and with the support of my friends, but I still worry that my dreams remain in jeopardy. I hope by sharing my story, I can inspire us not to make the struggle last so long for others as it has for me.” Keep reading my story at Huffington Post » Image credit: Jill Damatac Futter for Raise Our Story

raiseourstory:

“Life in New York is the only life I’ve ever known. I was just five years old when I came to the United States from the Philippines in 2000. I lived my early years thinking I was like my peers: an American. This country’s culture was my culture. I spoke English without a trace of a Filipino accent. It wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year of high school that I found out I was undocumented, and my life began to fall apart. School felt pointless and my grades plummeted. Perhaps I could graduate, but I doubted I would be able to go to college, have a career, or any real future. I began to think about suicide.

I‘ve made strides in overcoming my depression through working as an activist and with the support of my friends, but I still worry that my dreams remain in jeopardy. I hope by sharing my story, I can inspire us not to make the struggle last so long for others as it has for me.”

Keep reading my story at Huffington Post »

Image credit: Jill Damatac Futter for Raise Our Story

Source: raiseourstory
High-res Notes: 85 5/22/13 — 9:51am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylaUksW
Dear Zack Snyder and all the good people at Warner Brothers

redcloud:

fancycwabs:

Why is Superman’s cape fluttering in the vacuum of space?

Superfarts.

mythbusters covered this when they tried to fake the moon landing. the theory was that the flag shouldn’t have flapped while it was being planted bc no wind. they put a flag in a vacuum chamber and it moved //more// in vacuum, bc there was no air pressure to hold it in place. so every movement of clark’s shoulders which in atmosphere would result in a fractional shift would.be exxagperated in space.

Source: fancycwabs
PRINT THIS POST WORDS: Notes: 365 5/22/13 — 9:50am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylaUbdN Filed under: #superman  #capes  #physics  #air pressure  #inertia  #vacuum  #man of steel 
Source: fakeblood
Notes: 947 5/22/13 — 9:44am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylaTLAR

searchingforknowledge:

i like her

Source: shutupteenwolffans
Notes: 67 5/22/13 — 1:54am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylZMdzH

lustnspace:

Tyra Banks & Beverly Peele

Source: lustnspace
Notes: 146 5/22/13 — 1:53am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylZMYVy
Source: twigbitchlaracroft
Notes: 1260 5/22/13 — 1:50am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylZMGBa
And why the hell would Abrams and crew stick to Khan’s origin timeline, even though it makes zero sense, but also suddenly change him to a white dude? That’s cherry-picking the stupidest parts of canon and non-canon!

I don’t know. I think it’s nice that in this day and age, a white male can still be cast as an Indian played by a Mexican. White men really have come a long way!
Star Trek Into Darkness: The Spoiler FAQ
Source: io9.com
Notes: 21 5/21/13 — 10:12pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYuPQn Filed under: #khan  #star trek into darkness  #jj the jetplane  #hipster racism  #white television 
Sound, Fury and the IRS Mess - ProPublica

Largely ignored in a public outcry last week—radio rants, Twitter storms, congressional, presidential and prosecutorial posturing— were the following:

Our pieces in December and January raised very serious questions about whether six different “dark money” political groups seeking tax exemption had made false statements on their applications. Those applications are signed under penalty of perjury . If any false statements were made knowingly, the groups— including Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS —may have committed a crime. There is no indication, however, that either the IRS or the Department of Justice has done anything since January to investigate whether such crimes were indeed committed. The groups in question happen all to be conservative. Not one congressional Republican has, to my knowledge, expressed any concern about this possible criminality.

Even more remarkably, leading public figures have asserted as fact that they know how we came to receive nine documents in the mail—statements that appear to have little basis (and in some cases, no basis at all).

Notes: 12 5/21/13 — 9:16pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYi7Jj Filed under: #romneymania  #snake oil  #the new robber barons  #old testament republicans 

nezua:

After she was freed from her restraints and the trunk of the car, she had a little talk with the men who had attacked her.

“Do you fellas like ballet? My favorite was always the Nutcracker Suite.”

Notes: 10 5/21/13 — 9:14pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYhaWl

gingerhaze:

pollums:

Oh my gosh pics from Lucy Knisley’s Drink and Draw Like A Lady are up i had no idea!

me with Aimee Fleck (brofisting), Noelle Stevenson (gingerhaze), Courtney Bernard (cberniez), Lucy Knisley

AW HEY YEAH!

Source: pollums
Notes: 208 5/21/13 — 9:10pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYgao1 Filed under: #lucy knisley  #noelle  #gingerhaze  #hello ladies  #party party 
Be of service. You are taking your degree into a society dominated by concentrated poverty and a vulnerable middle class, a society where it is harder to pay for education, harder to find a job, harder to buy a house and harder to hold onto those things even if you manage to get them. You are entering adulthood during a period of mass incarceration and near constant war. There is a lot for you to do. Service is the rent you pay for the space you take up on the earth, and as a relatively privileged American you take up a lot of space. We are the most consuming, polluting, wasteful nation on earth. So your rent is steep. Pay it with service.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry’s advice to Class of 2013

(via bitchwhoisyou)

Source: blackgirlsupremacy
Notes: 1979 5/21/13 — 9:05pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYfQsT Filed under: #dr melissa harris-perry  #service  #civics  #american empire 

#ADVENTURE TIME #THE SUITOR #PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM #BRACO #ADVENTURE TIME GIF #MINE

Source: thespoonmissioner
Notes: 65025 5/21/13 — 8:24pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYUe1m Filed under: #adventure time  #peebles  #braco  #the suitor  #infatuation  #nice guys  #gif party  #very important gifs 

Robert Downey Jr:The Making of Iron Man 2 

 #coulson in the back trying to steal the captain america shield

Source: kimlennox
Notes: 48949 5/21/13 — 8:18pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoyDaylYSzU3 Filed under: #rdj  #clark gregg  #tony stark  #agent coulson  #philip son of coul  #captain america  #iron man  #excelsior!  #make mine marvel  #gif party  #my name is agent