It’s Day 6 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen. UPDATED.

Today we’re going to listen to Franchesca Ramsey ‘splain to a white dudebro why Black history is so important and deserves our attention and respect. This vid (for MTV) is short (3:21), and targeted perfectly for that a$$hole on your social media who whines about why there’s no white history month. Perhaps you can post it to their timeline before you block them?

via MTV Impact (youtube channel):

If you believe that @$$hole in your timeline is serious about learning and becoming a more-informed person, there are obviously much more in-depth resources that they should be seeking out themselves. And not, under any circumstances, asking a random Black person they do not know to do that work for them. You as a white person, however, can and should direct them to Black voices and Black media content to answer their (genuine?) questions and broaden their understanding of structural racism, white privilege and white supremacy.

IT IS THE LEAST WE CAN DO TO LESSEN THE BURDEN ON BLACK PEOPLE BY DOING MORE OF THIS WORK FOR OTHER WHITES.

This is a big part of why I am posting this series.

Here’s one good resource: the host of this very video, Franchesca Ramsey, has an excellent Twitter feed to follow for those who want to STFU and listen: @chescaleigh. And almost any online resource will direct you or link you to many, many more.

UPDATE:

Franchesca Ramsey’s Decoded series for MTV seems intentionally produced as 101-level, “non-threatening” infotainment targeted to MTV’s audience. Not that she doesn’t tackle very serious subjects in it: I’m speaking in terms of tone rather than content. Naturally, she received death threats and had to ratchet up her personal security at live events for engaging in anti-Black racist discourse even in the context of this light-handed and light-hearted approach. And she also received angry pushback from other activists whose criticism was that Decoded was too light-handed and light-hearted, as if there were no point in engaging MTV’s young audience with this work at a basic level.

Well, Franchesca is no basic bitch, people. She has social media platforms through which she discusses and engages with anti-Black racism at other levels that are anything but basic. That is why I recommended following her on Twitter @chescaleigh.

I have since stumbled across one such video post on Facebook she made in 2020. I urge those looking to take a deeper dive into their own anti-Black racism work to watch it. I apologize: I’m having trouble embedding the video here, so the best I can do is link to her FB post so you can view it there. Please do! Even if you find the information and concepts she discusses familiar to you already, think of it as a booster shot.

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Day 1 of Black History Month 2022 (Lori Teresa Yearwood) is here.
Day 2 of Black History Month 2022 (Mallence Bart-Williams) is here.
Day 3 of Black History Month 2022 (Emmett Till) is here.
Day 4 of Black History Month 2022 (A Tale of Two Citizens) is here.
Day 5 of Black History Month 2022 (Trayvon Martin) is here.

Hey, can we get some of that up in here?

[CONTENT NOTE: sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape and rape culture.)

You know, I have not been able to write about Afghanistan, and this is mainly because I have not been able to think coherently about Afghanistan.* See, I get flooded with All the Feelz, and flashbacks to the war crimes of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice regime, CIA black sites, serious debates at the highest levels of government and across mainstream media platforms about the pros, cons, legality and morality of torture FFS, and every single evil spawned from U.S. conservative war lovers** since the events of 9/11, which were traumatic enough for me thankyouverymuch, and right up to and including the suicide bombing at a Kabul airport gate today.

Nevertheless, I was struck by a sentence in this morning’s New York Times email briefing:

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I write letters to my Senators.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of the activist group Roots Action: one of their particular charms in my opinion is that their email campaign messaging is very good, and they allow users to tweak it and add to it, or even overwrite it entirely, before forwarding it on to one’s congresscritters. As you might imagine, sometimes that opportunity is too tempting for me to pass up.

Today via email, the good people at Roots Action offered up just such a tasty treat: an entirely editable missive to both my senators demanding they vote against President Biden’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Japan, that ratfucker Rahm Emanuel. It also urges them to announce their intent to do so publicly.

Here is the email with some background; unfortunately it does not come close to cataloging all the things I despise about this nominee. But then, ain’t nobody got that kind of time on their hands.

Roots Action logo

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Sunday funnies.

 

Top: photo of GOP activist Deanna Lorraine, with quote beneath "God Does Not Want Us Wearing Masks... If you have a mask on, it means you actually don't trust God. You don't have faith." Beneath, a cleseup photo of the face of Patrick Stewart/"Captain Picard" squinting with confusion, with overlaid large block letter text, "BUT YOU'RE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO NEED A RIFLE TO PICK UP GROCERIES"

Ya gotta laugh. Or, you know, cry. Either way, there is something very, very wrong and/or hilarious about the conservative mind.

 

Reddit post by u/henke: "Last week one of my art teachers suggested I 'dial down the feminism.' Today I showed him my newest piece: (image of a stainless steel panel labeled Dial Down the Feminism' with a single round tuning knob. To the left it reads 'COMPLICIT IN MY OWN DEHUMANIZATION' and to the right it reads "RAGING FEMINISM."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Iris Vander Pluym, Art Critic.

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Tweet by @amy_istrying: "I'm disgusted every time someone does a gender reveal and it's a gender I already know about, what kind of reveal is that"

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

EXACTLY, Amy. I’m pretty sure that people who do gender reveals are conservative, at least with respect to sex role stereotypes. And those kinds of ideas never seem to travel alone. In other words: eew!

I think if I’d ever had a kid, I might have done a gender reveal just to fuck with the conservatives in my family. I’d make a multi-layer red velvet cake, with each layer consisting of a few different colors of batter roughly swirled together, just like I did for my sister’s birthday that one time. (If I can find a pic I’ll post it later.)

When I’d cut into it, every slice would have a rainbow of colors in it, at which point I’d announce “It’s a gender! Or maybe agender! Who the fuck cares and what the fuck is wrong with you people?”

[CUE: music, disco lighting and ecologically-friendly rainbow confetti.

Jeezus sentenced for his part in 1/6 insurrection today. Also, WTF Steve Buscemi?!

photo taken during 1/6 insurrection: foreground = man who looks like traditional depictions of the Christian deity carrying his infamous cross - except it's a Trump flag. looming behind him is a guy who resembles actor Steve Buscemi.photo taken during 1/6 insurrection of Jeezus carrying his infamous cross Trump flag in the U.S. Senate, while actor Steve Buscemi looms menacingly behind him. (via AP)

According to the Associated Press, the Christian deity will be the first to face sentencing for a felony today in connection with the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It also turns out that Jeezus hails from Florida BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES.

Further, in a development that has been suspiciously underreported, actor Steve Buscemi appears to be right there, insurrectin’ right along with Jeezus, as you can plainly see for yourself in the above image.

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