Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Funny Story (Not Really)

So funny story.  I hear people tell me that I’m excessively paranoid a lot of the time–mostly guys, but the reason I’m making this post is because of a conversation I recently had with a woman who’s been friends with my dad a long time.  I love my dad a lot and he’s mostly pretty on top of his shit (he’s also going to therapy to get more on top of his shit, so PROPS for that, Dad), and this woman (we’ll call her Janie) is nice enough.  She has a daughter who’s just starting high school and a son who’ll be in college next year.  I was talking with her about my college experience and she asked if I went to parties and stuff.  I don’t.  At all.  I told her as much and she asked me why, and I said because I’m busy, because I’m an introvert, because of any of a number of reasons, and I finished the list by admitting that I don’t trust a lot of the guys on my campus.

She asked why.

I hemmed and hawwed and said ‘uh’ a lot, and then I told her that my campus of four hundred people had five sexual assault cases last semester alone.  My freshman year there were at least two people outright expelled for it.

Janie, mother of a teenaged boy about to go into college and a teenaged girl just going into high school and already growing up into a stunner, wrote it off by saying “well, most of them must have been misconceptions; you know, it’s easy to miscommunicate when romance is involved; I’m sure there were a lot of overreactions and morning-after regrets.”  I stared at her for a moment and went “Actually, one of the reports last semester was mine, and I know two of the other people who filed them.  It’s usually pretty obvious when someone’s trying to force the point.”  I gave her a summary of what happened to me (look, it’s a long story, some dude came over to watch a movie with my roommate and me and the day ended with him pinning me to the floor while I jammed my thumb into his throat and my roommate helped pull him off) and she kept at it, talking about how I had probably just given him mixed signals, how people probably didn’t listen when I told them not to touch me because I go from zero to sixty real quick (if I say ‘stop touching me’ and you don’t, my next statement will be ‘stop touching me or I’ll break your finger,’ and I expect people to thereafter stop touching me).

And all I could think was “My god, you’re raising a daughter, I’m so scared for her right now.”

I’ve become aware of late that I’m a statistical outlier, whether it’s from poor luck or because I attract a certain kind of trouble or because I act a certain way.  Most girls don’t have five (six depending on how you reckon it) assaults committed against them by their eighteenth birthday.  I hope to God that Janie’s daughter is as lucky as Janie evidently has been, that she’ll never know how terrifying it is to know that the person holding your down is twice your size, or that if you scream for help no one will believe you (fun fact, no one except my parents believed me four times out of five).  I hope that she never asks herself “do I grab my roommate’s switchblade and go outside and check on that freshman sitting outside in the dark, or do I go get an RD because that’s a very tall young man.”  I hope she lives a safe enough life that she never finds herself sitting there in the aftermath of violence, whether it’s just an unwelcome hand groping her thigh or something much worse, and wonders to herself who the hell will believe me.

But most of all, I hope that, in the event she’s ever in the position I’ve been in, or worse, her mother doesn’t fucking tell her she’s overreacting and making shit up.

JESUS SHIT, WOMAN.

TUMBLR UPDATE WHAT THE FUCK

SOMEONE MAKE THIS STOP.  THIS IS UPSETTING.

*PERFORMED BLOOD RITUAL TO SUMMON THE STAFF TO EXPLAIN THEMSELVES*

fempunkandkittens:

officialaphnetherlands:

ancientnorthmartian:

“Doctors who spent years studying the human body”

Do you mean doctors who spent years learning about abled white cis men’s bodies

do you know anything about the world besides what you read on tumblr

Okay but this is true?? Shut up with your bullshit, the medical industry for a very very long time has used the able bodied white cis male as their standard and that has very real healthcare consequences for a lot of people.

Do you know why most women don’t know when they’re having heart attacks? Why heart attacks kill more women than men? Because symptoms of a heart attack are different for women and the ones that doctors usually recognize and publicize are the symptoms experienced by men. Do you know why it’s so difficult for Black and Brown people to get diagnosed if they have skin cancer? Because doctors have been taught to recognize it on white people. People of size are constantly told that their problems are entirely because of their weight and doctors don’t even bother to look beyond that to be sure that’s the case. So those people have medical conditions go undiagnosed properly for years, and die in the process.  Fuck, even just the fact that people think it’s okay to charge women more for healthcare because “they have extra parts” (?????) is indicative of the way the male body has been considered the standard for fucking ever. And the healthcare needs of disabled people or trans people? Forget about it.

OP is 1000% right. The medical industry has used the able cis white male body as their standard of care for CENTURIES and that has real consequences for the rest of us today. It’s getting better but it’s not where it should be. So fuck off with your snarky commentary, you’re wrong. The healthcare industry is not equipped to handle the needs of people with disabilities, women, PoC, trans people, people of size, etc. and that’s in large part due to the fact that the established body of medical knowledge was created by studying able, cis, white male bodies almost exclusively.

Hey there folks, speaking as a trained EMT and a pre-med student, I can confirm that the above person is approximately 7000% accurate.  In my EMT training, I would repeatedly ask ‘’but what if my patent is a woman” or “what is my patient is a person of color” and at first all I got was shock.  Then I got confused bumbling.  I got some answers–basic symptoms of a heart attack in women, how to recognize cyanosis in someone of color, the basics of how to work with an autistic patient or someone who for whatever reason can’t communicate well with you.  In fact, EMTs and other EMS workers are getting a lot better at learning the differences between the health care for a person of color or someone disabled.  We were even told that we would need to ask our patients for their biological sex (I know, I’m really sorry, I know that there are people who find this intensely uncomfortable or even harmful, but there are real medical reasons for this and most decent EMTs will use whatever pronouns you ask them to).  But most if not all of the answers we were given about women were directly related to gynecological issues.  The guys teaching me?  They were good guys.  Nice.  Funny.  Smart.  Devoted to caring for patients.  Impassioned about protecting people, especially women and teenaged girls, from assault.  Largely not sexist toward me or their coworkers.  Hell, they were even smart enough to say “listen, boys, the women in this class have a higher pain tolerance than you, they just do, and as a rule if a women says their pain is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, assume it’s somewhere around an 8” when a kid laughed during the gyno unit.  But they just didn’t know what to say when I asked “so if you’re supposed to palpate the patient’s chest, what do you do if your patient’s a triple-D” or when I asked “so if your patient gets menstrual migraines, how do you know if this headache is a stroke or not.”  They had never been taught.  This is a real problem, one that many medical professionals work hard to remedy once they start practicing.  But this is not bullshit.  At all.  The standard patient is a cis white guy with no disabilities or chronic illnesses.  It’s a huge fucking problem and I’m going to need you to step down with your bullshit, there, friend.

(Source: archive48, via bonehandledknife)

academicfeminist:

neoliberalismkills:

thewiggywalker:

cultofeve:

neoliberalismkills:

neoliberalismkills:

so here’s a thought: who cares if food stamp recipients test positive for drugs. we still deserve food.

this has been the single most controversial post I’ve ever made and it’s literally just saying drug users deserve food lmao

And medical care. Drug users should not have to earn the right to medical care. Everyone deserves access to medication and treatment for pain and illness. This should not even be a question.

True, but they should also be put into rehab until they are a fit and functioning member of society again…addiction is a curable disease after all.

excuse you? you’re not in any way granted the right to take drug users to rehab if they haven’t chosen to go. fuck you. we’re not children that need to be lead by someone. we’re human beings who deserve our autonomy and you’re part of the problem.

“Functioning member of society”

What does that even mean????

On the one hand: yes, addiction is a disease and it would be great if really quality rehab programs were (gasp) free so that they were more accessible to the middle and lower classes, rather than being so expensive that it turns into the privilege of the wealthy.  It would save a lot of lives and spare a lot of pain if everyone had access to rehab with no stigma attached.  It’s not your right to force them to go, but it should be an option available to them.

On the other hand: literally what the fuck.  If your qualifier for ‘functioning member of society’ is ‘someone who works toward the greater good of the people around them,’ then not only do children not count, neither do, say, Wall Street bankers, or many CEO’s.  Or a fair number of cops at this point.  In fact, if we’re making decisions based on how useful people are, jobs that currently pay minimum wage, like making food, doing maintenance work, or keeping hospitals clean, should be some of the highest paying jobs in the nation, along with doctors and teachers.  And furthermore, someone’s annual income and/or medical conditions (like for example addiction) don’t dictate their level of humanity.  We’re not talking about handing out millions of dollars, okay, we’re talking about someone’s right as a goddamn human being to be fed and cared for by the people around them, regardless of their decisions.  Being able to eat is a right afforded to murderers and child molesters.  You tell me why being a drug addict should deny you that right.

(Source: neoliberalismkills)

theduchess666 asked: How does a Christian hate the race their messiah came from lol

treesoutofchimneys:

comradebutterfly:

jizzfrosti:

badger-actual:

guns-n-beauty:

badger-actual:

artwench:

proudblackconservative:

butterflyinblack:

Jesus was Syrian, not a Jew.

And I said fire…to the site…Watch it burn because… Nothing is right….

In what universe was Jesus a Syrian? Good grief…

….Jesus was a Rabbi, how was he NOT Jewish?

He was “the king of the Jews”….wtf

People are idiots.

dude was born IN BETHLEHEM 

I was born on a ship in the sea, doesn’t make me a fish!

Well fish aren’t usually born on ships….

HOLY HELL I AM THE CRY.  HELLO KIND PEOPLE WHO HAVE PROTESTED THE IDIOCY ABOVE, PLEASE ALLOW ME TO DO A LITTLE RANT.

Okay.  Hi.  I am a Christian (please hold your tomatoes until the end of the post).  My father is a minister (of the Congregationalist denomination if that means anything to you).  My mother was raised Catholic (and she was pretty shitty at it to be honest, possibly because she is fabulously bisexual).  I chose my religion myself at the age of seven, making an informed decision to convert from Judaism to Chrisitanity, and my family has always held tolerance and understanding of other religions as a capital priority (like, you wanna talk Hinduism or Taoism or Islam, hit me up, I know some stuff and I always like learning more stuff).  But more pertinently, all three of us are extremely well educated in the Christian religion.

SO.  ABOUT JESUS.

Point one: Syrian?  The fuck?  First of all, that has nothing to do with whether or not he was Jewish, technically Syrians were permitted to marry into Hebrew families even though it wasn’t frequent, just by sheer virtue of it being a big fucking planet even now that we have cars and trains and planes.  Gotta bring in new blood, after all, or the inbreeding would have been scary shit.  Scarier than it usually was in small, poorly traveled villages.  ANYWAY.  Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, who was a descendant of the tree of Jesse (that’s King David’s father for anyone not up on their Biblical begats) as per Isaiah 11:1.  That’s a very Hebrew bloodline on both sides, as Mary’s cousin was Elizabeth, a woman married to a powerful rabbi, Zachariah—they didn’t make Jews with less-than-stellar Hebraic bloodlines rabbis.  And your spouse’s bloodline was considered as a part of yours.  BUT THAT PART ASIDE.  Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth.  Where is Nazareth, you ask?  Well, currently, it’s the largest city in Northen Israel, but two thousand years ago it was sort of a backwater (‘Nathaniel said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”’ John 1:46); think of it, basically, as the Jersey of 30-ish BC Israel—now imagine getting told that the Messiah was born on the Jersey Shore.  Here is the Wikipedia page for Nazareth.  (Also it’s primarily Muslim, which I did not know but probably would have figured out if it wasn’t fuck-all-thirty in the morning, and is known as the Arab capital of Israel, which is pretty interesting).  But Jesus wasn’t really born there, so….  True, he was born in Bethlehem, as anyone with any religious familiarity (or working ears around Christmas time) should be aware.  Where is Bethlehem, the City of David (that’s still King David)?  Well, actually, it’s in Palistine at the moment.  But the thing about two thousand years is that it’s a long time for borders to move around and also, hey, when you’re under the thumb of the Roman Empire (what up, Herod, killed any sons lately?), little things like country borders get blurry.  The thing is that it was considered an Israelite city at the time of Jesus’ birth (remember, folks, the Israelites were a wandering people long before they put their name on a country).  Here is the Wikipedia page for Bethlehem.  Okay?  Can we at least agree that neither of these things were in Syria?

Point two: Jesus.  Was.  Jewish.  Let’s have a brief tour through the New Testament to prove this point, and it will only be the most cursory wander because, as I mentioned above, it’s fuck-all-thirty in the morning and I have class in a few hours.  There’s Luke 2:41-52 (x), more commonly known as the Finding in the Temple.  Quick recap: Mary and Joseph (two Jews) brought li’l twelve-year-old Jesus to Jerusalem (a primarily Jewish city at the time) for the Passover (a major Jewish holiday) and the kid went missing, took them three days to find him because it’s a big fucking city and also because poetic license, turns out he’s been in the Temple (a Jewish temple) lecturing the teachers (Jewish rabbis) about Jewish law.  Jesus is identified many, many times as ‘Teacher’ by both his disciples and by others—in fact, out of 90 times he’s addressed directly, 60 of them are with the title ‘teacher’—and the thing that doesn’t come across in the English is that, in the original Biblical Hebrew (what up, Dad, thanks for those lectures while you were in seminary), that translates to rabbi.  As in.  You know.  A rabbi.  They’re literally meant to be teachers, the word means teacher.  I am not citing sources for all these occasions because there are too fucking many.  The Last Supper (x), which you might be familiar with as the reason Maundy or Holy Thursday if you’re Christian, it’s the one with the whole breaking of the bread and pouring of the wine (the first Communion/Eucharist, this is my body, yadda yadda yadda, you know the shpiel), was a Passover Seder.  It says so here, here, here, and here, if you feel the need for Scriptural support.  AND.  As someone so kindly mentioned above, I would like to point my final supporting argument at Matthew 27:37 (HERE in every translation ever).  ”And above his head they placed his accusation: Here is Jesus, King of the Jews.”  You may be familiar with this as ‘INRI’ in statues and paintings of the Crucifixion.  Summary: Jesus was fucking Jewish.  Jesus fucking Christ, people, no pun intended.

Point three: why do some Christians hate Jews?  I don’t know.  Having been on both sides of that exchange—I was Jewish until my decision to convert and I still carry many of the traditions close to my heart—I can tell you that it sucks from every angle.  I’ve never understood it.  When I was younger, it was largely because I saw the logical progression of ‘Jesus was Jewish, therefore Christians should honor and celebrate their culturally Jewish heritage even if they aren’t Jews themselves.’  I try to celebrate all of the High Holidays in at least some small manner, to remind myself and to keep the memory of the yenta who taught me (sadly now deceased; shalom, Eloise) alive—it’s Purim and I’m going to be subjecting my roommate Adler to some stories and songs and cookies.  But also because of Luke 10:27 (x).  You might be familiar with the last half of it.  The gist is that Jesus tells a man, a teacher in the Temple, to abandon all the meticulous rules of the Torah for the simple rule of “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  To me, it has always seemed that someone who calls themselves a Christian should follow the only rule Jesus ever.  Fucking.  Laid.  Down.  (Looking at you, Westboro Baptist, looking right the fuck at you.)  Jesus never says ‘slay the unbeliever’ or ‘do not lie with someone of the same gender’ or ‘do not have an abortion’ or any of that shit.  

It’s literally “Don’t be a dickhead.”  

That’s all.

(The tomato throwing can now commence.)