Month: May 2015
do men have resting bitch faces as well or do they not have negative characteristics ascribed to them for putting on a neutral rather than a deliriously happy facial expression
Yes, Black men in majority white spaces do. If I don’t smile every single second of the day my coworkers become in intimidated and start asking me what’s wrong, telling me to smile, make jokes about how I’m trying to be a thug/act hard, why am I angry, etc. And it’s not just white men at my job God FORBID I my large Black ass makes a white girl feel threaten because I’m sitting down with a neutral expression.
I’m not trying to take this post away from women and make it about Black men but I want to point out that wether it’s patriarchy or white supremacy; those who feel as if they have power over you HATE to see you not smile. They are so used to people like you smiling to gain their approval that when you don’t there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes them extremely uncomfortable.
That’s why “angry Black women” is a thing. They have to put on a smile for everyone (yes even feminist white women) or we all get uncomfortable.
This is some excellent commentary.
reblogging again because the second response is so perf.
They are so used to people like you smiling to gain their approval that when you don’t there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes them extremely uncomfortable.
Welcome to Night Vale and Phantom of the Opera both contain hypnotic inductions written into their scripts nearly literally word-for-word how I or people I know would use them and tbh I’d say this is a trend that should be adopted more in media, but I can’t see many other films/books/plays/podcasts accomplishing it with as much subtlety and finesse and quality as Phantom and Night Vale
I still remember sitting on the subway listening to Night Vale and having this fleeting moment of “this would be a really nice set-up for an induction, I wonder if they… Oh hey, YEP.”
I feel like good trance = good storytelling on some level.
Let me elaborate on that last reblog, just to make it clear for people who haven’t worked at or near minimum wage.
My last retail job paid $10 an hour, one of the highest starting wages for a entry-level retail position in NYC at that time (and still higher than the current NYC minimum wage of $8.75). I had the occasional forty-hour week, but mostly, I worked thirty-two hours. If we assume that as the standard week, it’s $320 a week.
Between state, federal, and city taxes, at this level, you end up paying around 26% of your wages in taxes. If your paycheck for two weeks is $640, you actually take home $473.60. Your yearly pay after taxes is $12,313.60, or $1,026.13 a month.
You find an apartment to split with four roommates. Your individual rent is $700. That leaves you with $326.13 for the month. You collectively decide not to get cable and only get internet, so your bill is $75 split four ways–$18.75 for you. Your power bill is around $100 and your cooking gas bill is around $30–$32.50 between the two. That’s $51.25 for bills. That leaves $274.88. You get a cheapo phone plan and pay $50 a month. That leaves $224.88. You get an unlimited MetroCard because individual rides make no sense with you working nearly full time, especially if you go literally anywhere else in your week besides work and home. $116.50 per month. That leaves you $108.38 for the month.
You have $3.60 a day to feed yourself, clothe yourself, do anything for fun, deal with medical emergencies, and so on. And that’s at a full $1.25 above city minimum wage, or $2.75 above national minimum wage.
god, tony stark and his COMPLICATED BEHAVIORAL REWARDS SYSTEM, OH MAN
okay, i promise that one day i will learn to control the tony feelings, but the thing is, i have been trying to put my finger on this one for such a looooong time. because, see, tony stark is weird about stuff, isn’t he? and i don’t mean like, the existential version of stuff, i don’t mean “stuff” in the most general sense (although, let’s be honest, TONY STARK: WEIRD ABOUT STUFF is true in pretty much every context)—i am talking PHYSICAL stuff, INANIMATE stuff, i am talking stuff that a person can possess. i am talking things. i am talking tony in IM springing a lavish personal plane party on rhodey, clearly both because he felt like it and to prove that he could; i am talking tony in IM2 giving pepper the company out of the blue, clearly both because he knew she was the best choice for CEO (UGH PEPPER I LOVE YOU) and because he genuinely wanted her to have it. i am talking tony at the middle of the avengers offering to fly coulson to portland, i am talking tony at the end of the avengers with plans pulled up to build everyone on the team their own FLOOR—you see what i am saying here. tony stark expresses a considerable amount of emotion through gestures like this, and that in and of itself shouldn’t be enough to give me pause. i mean, canonically extraordinarily wealthy emotionally repressed genius expresses affection with cash? it’s not a stretch. fine. done.
ONLY THE THING IS, it’s…really so much more complicated than that, because there is also the shit in the above gifs, and there’s the thing he has about being handed things (seen in IM2 and in the avengers), and it really came together for me during that scene with bruce and the blueberries. because the thing is that quirks, no matter how random they are, COME from somewhere—even if you don’t remember the impetus of an unusual behavior, you did, at some point, learn to do it/find comfort in it/become dependent on it/get so used to it that you hardly notice it. that’s just how quirks work. and if you’re tony stark, and you put a valuation on everything because that’s been literally your entire life experience, there’s a certain amount of implied cost/benefit analysis that has to go into the way you look at emotional interactions, right?
so look at what this shit says about the way tony looks at himself. people who tony doesn’t completely, 100% trust emotionally (this is why pepper is the exception) can’t even hand him things, because on some level tony associates the exchange of physical goods with the exchange of emotional response, and he won’t be capable of giving it; people who have showed tony affection or friendship deserve these lavish, over-the-top gifts, because putting up with tony is such a struggle. and tony himself? well, for surviving a kidnapping and the insertion of car battery, and then an arc reactor, in his chest, he has earned an american cheeseburger. for fighting off an invading army and making the sacrifice move neither he nor steve believed he would, he has earned himself some shawarma. because that is totally what he’s doing, when you really think about it—tony stark doles out physical rewards for behavior, without even noticing it, and the best he ever honestly thinks he deserves is something delicious when the carnage is over.
and this is what makes that blueberry scene with bruce (shut up i know calling it the blueberry scene is ridiculous, I KNOW IT IS IN FACT A SCENE ABOUT THE AVENGERS NOT TRUSTING NICK FURY, i can’t help that i look at the world through stark-tinted glasses) so interesting, in that it’s that behavior-reward system on a much smaller scale. first bruce is offered the blueberries, clearly as a reward for making a point that supported tony’s argument; then steve, clearly as a TEST, is offered those same blueberries along with tony’s admitting to hacking the SHIELD system. and it’s when steve doesn’t even acknowledge the offer that tony goes from “hey look I’m trying to explain this to you and get you onboard” to “who’s in a spangly outfit and not of use?” because he’s got all these emotional cues tangled up with all these physical ones and always has, and because on some level this is just how he does relating to human beings, because stuff is so much easier and everything always has a price and just, augh, tony.
Muscle is created by repeatedly lifting things that have been designed to weigh us down. So when your shoulders feel heavy, stand up straight and lift your chin – call it exercise. When the world crumbles around you, you have to look at the wreckage and then build a new one out of all the pieces that are still here. Remember, you are still here. The human heart beats approximately four thousand times per hour. Each pulse, each throb, each palpitation is a trophy engraved with the words ‘You are still alive.’ You are still alive. Act like it.
Rudy Francisco, “Complainers” (via creatingaquietmind)
Distracted
StandardAs I go through my day I can’t help but get distracted.
Distracted by the way my body aches when you say “suffer for me”. Feeling it come alive and need, anxious to endure for you. To ache for you. To need.
Distracted at thoughts of your control. Recognizing the desire to submit to your will. The thrill that rushes through me as I remind my body that it no longer dictates when its needs will be met. That even the hand that threatens to stray between my legs is forbidden without your permission. Feeling the web of control tighten around me like a safety net, keeping me anchored and secure.
Distracted with fantasies of being used. Recognizing the joy of place and purpose. The rush that comes from embracing this role. Being your toy. Your entertaining slut. A toy whose pleasure is incidental. A toy whose usefulness stems from your whim.
The distraction a pleasure of its own
Mmmmmmmfff. Thank you, toy!
Wow if only
racism didn’t existI was Khloe Kardashian, then I would have been praised throughout high school for wearing hijab instead of being called terrorist for days and weeks and months living in the South.If only my good friend who had rocks thrown at her for wearing hijab
could just have the privilege of being Khloe.
If only thewomen in France facing anti-veil discrimination could just be Khloe Kardashian.
Habibi Love, man, Habibi Love. Apparently it’s that simple.
Cultural appropriation: the adoption of certain elements (bindi, niqab, etc) of an oppressed people’s culture/practice by a privileged dominant culture, for the purposes of enjoyment (or to appear exotic and “hipster”), and without the adoption of the experiences of racism, oppression, and discrimination that are manifested in those elements for the minority groups.
Cultural appropriation is Khloe being praised for wearing something that Muslim women get abused and discriminated against for wearing on the daily. It is when Khloe wears it for an Instagram post, while Muslim women devotedly choose to wear it to follow their faith, despite the racism and discrimination they (we) face.