It feels inappropriate to call this week’s link post “Afternoon Snack,” because so many important things to think about this week are heavy and unjust and overwhelming. So here’s a link post to take with you and munch on and think about as you move along to towards the weekend.
Two articles by Ta-Nehisi Coates on injustice and Baltimore:
The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray’s death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray’s death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.”)
The Clock Didn’t Start with the Riots
But I have a problem when you begin the clock with violence. Because the fact of the matter is that the lives of black people in this city, the lives of black people in this country have been violent for a long time. Violence is how enslavement actually happened. People will think of enslavement as like a summer camp, where you just have to work, where you just go and someone gives you food and lodging, but enslavement is violence, it is torture. Torture is how it was made possible. You can’t imagine enslavement without stripping away people’s kids and putting them up for sale. And the way you did that was, you threatened people with violence. Jim Crow was enforced through violence. That was the way things that got done. You didn’t politely ask somebody not to show up and vote. You stood in front of voting booths with guns, that’s what you did. And the state backed this, it was state-backed violence.
Pilot Viruet: Black Exhaustion
It drains the body to think about this all day, but there is no way to stop thinking about this, especially when there is another death and another death and another death. There is another protest, there is another officer hurling a rock at high schoolers, there is another misguided person bringing up black on black crime, there is another fundamental misunderstanding of a Martin Luther King Jr. quote, there is another tweet from someone valuing personal property over black lives, there is always another.
You know how, sometimes, an obnoxious person on your social media feed will post something deplorable and you will know it’s fake but also know you can’t argue with someone who is both ignorant and resigned to prove what a shitty person they are? Here is an article about reverse-google-image-searching pictures from inflammatory tweets about Baltimore.
Interactive chart / graphic about long social change takes in the US. Neat, sort of depressing, but also I am unsure about whether or not this is necessarily an accurate reflection on US policy and abortion rights.
One more drop in the bucket re: the decline of safe abortion in Texas: the fetal abnormality exception of HB2 was repealed. To borrow from another article about this same topic:
In 2013, lawmakers approved a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy but provided exceptions for circumstances where severe fetal abnormalities are detected or if an abortion will prevent a woman’s death or prevent a “serious impairment” to her physical or mental health.
But now that’s gone too. As most testing for the serious stuff happens during the second trimester, this change is pretty bad news for the basic human rights of anybody in the process of using their uterus in Texas.
In other super shitty news, the author of the amendment wasn’t satisfied by taking a crap all over Texas women. He also disrespected esteemed treasure of the Texas Lege, Rep. Jessica Farrar D-Houston.
Hey @JFarrarDist148, these are my feels for you. #txlege pic.twitter.com/1Xxm1iHc5e
— Genevieve Cato (@blasfemmetx) April 23, 2015
However, there is also an awesome video of Rep. Farrar taking these fools to task.
Beloved internet staple/ number one place to make an anime music / Gilmore Girls soundtrack Grooveshark is closed forever, mostly because they were dicks about licensing. It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. Grooveshark, you will always have a special place in my heart (though I wish you guys would have warned me in time to back up all my playlists on Spotify).
One positive note: your fav internet crones will be escaping to Canada for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Let us know who or what you want us to check out on your behalf!
So: to recap: world in decline, anime burgers, TCAF. That is all I have energy for this week so I will see you pomes next time.
