Share the shit out of this. Share the ever-loving shit out of this. The UK is facing a vote with a party that has been very vocal about fucking over the homeless. Remind them why this policy is trash. Raise a huge swell of sympathy. Make it political suicide to go ahead with their plans.
For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.
No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:
“You know! Boys will be boys!”
“He’s just going through a phase!”
“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”
“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”
“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”
I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”
Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.
His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.
I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”
Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?
There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.
There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.
Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”
This is so brilliant. We learn things from socialization process. What our parents, friends and peers do, media and all. I think perhaps rape is because parents think boys will be boys, they bully, fight and destroy things, it’s their characteristics so they don’t bother to stop them. But it manifests in them, knowing or unknowingly, they will just think, because I’m a boy and boys tend to do these, so it doesn’t matter even if the girl hates it, says no, because I’m a boy.
Just reblog this, this message is really powerful. For parents and future parents.
What’s also interesting, is if you frame this as about spoiling your children, and about spoiled children, people tend to agree and get it. They’ll agree that children whose parents lay down no boundaries for them when they hurt others, who let them have whatever they want at the expense of others, and justify away the harm they do, will probably grow up thinking they can do this to others (usually weaker than them, or they perceive as weaker) as adults. But if you mention the word “privilege”, “entitlement” or anything relating to gender, everybody freaks the f- out and will deny up, down, back, forth, and sideways that how you raise a child, what you allow them to get away with, or training them that their hurtful behaviour will always be justified, can affect them at all.
Guys, I’m not going to ask for your prayers - I myself am not religious, but I am going to ask you to signal boost this. Marawi City in the Philippines has been invaded by ISIS, they are bombing the city and a school zone, and setting detainees free from prisons.
They say that this is a jihad, but anyone who even has a small understanding of Islam knows that Islam is not violent.
This is terrorism.
The world needs to know.
Update 1: They’re exchanging fire from both sides. Electricity is down. Friends are reporting that ISIS members are spotted in the schools and are giving them a few minutes to evacuate before they take over. Filipino media is silent.
Update 2: Christian teachers are being held hostage.
Update 3: Hospital staff being detained, ISIS flag has been raised in the city hospital. The fighting occurred not in the outskirts of Marawi, but on its streets, around the city hall and public market.
I’m sorry, I’m stringing together what information my friends are still giving me. I don’t know how long they can keep this up - a lot of them are saying that their phones are dying.
Update 4: Armed Forces of the Philippines telling people to go underground, airstrikes coming. Mortars are being prepared too.
UPDATE 5: The Philippine President and his family are in Russia. The Palace remains silent. The military is trying to invalidate ground reports to cover up their fuckups.
UPDATE 6: Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines are not responding or have deployed extremely delayed support, according to the Marawi City Mayor in a phone interview.
UPDATE 7: CNN Philippines has a livestream covering the entire thing, eyewitness reports are in, Military is still saying “we’re in full control” when that’s obviously not the case.
UPDATE 8: reports in that terrorists are targeting cell towers now.
UPDATE 9: GENERALS POINTING FINGERS AT EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY TRYING TO HELP PEOPLE.
UPDATE 10: ARMED FORCES STILL LYING ABOUT THE SCALE OF THIS ATTACK. THEY SAY 15 MEN, WHEN ALL CORRESPONDENTS ARE SAYING THERE ARE AT LEAST 200.
UPDATE 11: generals trivializing the situation, saying “they don’t feel like it’ll last the night,” when people are literally saying that the fighting still continues. CNN just cut their livestream, will be back in 30 minutes, most are being left in the dark about what’s going on.
at this point, i’m at a loss for words. most friends have stopped updating 30 minutes ago. sporadic updates remain.
i am terrified. our country’s history with martial law is dark, and i never thought i’d live to see this day.
MARAWI CITY IS A MUSLIM DOMINANT CITY. THESE TERRORISTS PEOPLE ARE ATTACKING MUSLIMS RIGHT BEFORE RAMADAN. SHUT THE FUCK UP. THIS IS NOT ABOUT ISLAM BEING EVIL. ISLAM IS NOT EVIL. PEOPLE ARE EVIL.
IDEOLOGIES, GOOD OR BAD, ARE ONLY IDEOLOGIES UNTIL SOMEONE DECIDES TO ACT ON THEM. YOUR ISLAMOPHOBIA IS DISGUSTING.
“so i return to my body.. from the other plane of existence.. in which i scream”
DEAD
“Story time.
I have this one white friend.
And - [mocking] I have this one white friend, I’m not racist. And like - where was I even going with this? [laughs] She’s not even my friend, she’s just someone I know. Okay, whatever, ‘kay, so this one white person that I know - [under breath] (I know a lot, my entire town is white.) Anyway, um, one day, she comes up to me, and she’s like,
“Jenny, what are you?” and, you know, that’s like white person talk for like, [sarcastic mocking] “what FUCKING country do you come from? Like obviously you’re not from here.” And I’m like, “um, I’m Chinese.”
And she’s like “What? You’re Chinese?”
And I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know why that’s so much of a surprise.”
And she’s like “Well, I thought you said you were Asian.”
And - [deep breath] [pause] there was a moment, a good minute and a half, where I left my body and ascended onto another plane, and I screamed into the abyss of that plane [pause] because she did not know that Asian and Chinese are… I, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t even… you know, whatever.
So, return to my body, from the [pause] other plane of existence in which I scream. A lot. And I tell her: “You know, China, China, you see, the country that I’m from, is a part of Asia.”
And she’s like, “Where’s Asia?”
[whispers] She asked me. Where Asia is.
And I say, “Well, Asia consists of, you know..” and I list the different Asian countries and she’s like “Whaat?”
And I’m like [sarcastically] it’s, it’s this thing, you know, that you learn about in like third grade geography. It’s a continent! And she’s like “A continent?”
And I’m like “Yes.”
And she goes, “so it’s not a country?”
I’m like, “No.”
And she’s like “What’s the difference?”
And I’m like [deep breath] “America, you see, has like North, Central, South, so like, take somewhere from Canada; they are North American but they’re also Canadian…”
And she’s like “I don’t understand.”
And I’m like “It’s okay, just know that I am both Asian AND Chinese” and you know what, she is still confused to this day, and I [pause] am still on the other plane of existence, screaming, as I tell this story to you. So you can come join me, on the separate plane of existence.”
I WILL ALWAYS REBLOG THIS SHIT BECAUSE IT IS TOO REAL, TOO TRUE.
