I saw this at Lowe’s today. I’m guessing it’s the pots? They put $5 plants in an ugly cube-shaped pot and charge you $10? I really don’t know (much like the way I don’t know why they’re speaking of azaleas and cyclamens when none of those things are pictured, also who in their right mind would try to grow azaleas in an OFFICE ffs)
but that’s really all secondary to how they’re using an identity that belongs to women of color as some kind of meaningless product name completely detached from all contexts, because it’s not like Latinas are PEOPLE or anything, especially not people whose involvement with the home and garden industry in the U.S. is highly racialized and significant
it’s utterly mystifying
A couple of years MAC did a collaboration with Rodarte, which was pretty fucking tasteless, to say the least, allegedly inspired by the ~ethereal landscape~ of the West Texas border region and included products with names like “Juarez” and “Factory”. Juarez is, of course, most famous internationally for the large number of women who have been murdered there, many of whom were employed in maquiladoras. MAC eventually withdrew the collection entirely and donated $100,000 to an organization to aid the women of Juarez; I’m not sure what Rodarte did, besides offer a lukewarm apology.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because when the MAC collaboration with Rihanna, someone actually said that RiRi Hearts MAC was as tasteless a move on MAC’s part as the Juarez collection. This was buried in a lot of other concern trolling about abuse victims that was and is occurring everywhere (this person was on specktra, but I don’t doubt other people have said the same thing).
What are we, tasteless, badly behaved, oversexed survivors too tacky for compassion, to make of this comparison?
1. Rihanna actually died that night and is now risen again to exploit her own death (Lipstick Lazarus effect).
2. Hundreds of dead Mexican women can be reduced to a single, poorly thought-out emotional appeal used to justify the dehumanization of another woman of color who is not behaving the way we think she should.
3. Both Rihanna and the women of Juarez are just metaphors; metaphors have no needs, emotions, or thoughts of their own, but cosmetic companies should not be so tasteless as to employ them.
4. Rihanna is a tragedy; the fact that she is still alive, still vibrant, still fighting, still being successful, is not something other victims of domestic violence can appreciate, because after all she is acting far too much like a victim of domestic violence, and that is repugnant.
5. There is no difference between dead women and live women, women who were murdered and women who are making their own choices; if you disapprove of how they live/die, they are taboo. Call it respect, but of course you mean respect for your own feelings, not respect for the women involved. (It’s about bad taste, literally no one relates to these women as if they are human beings.)
6. If you are not a Good Victim, you must be part of the problem.
7. If you are not a Good Victim, you must not be a person.
8. If you are not a person, you must eternally seek redemption and the forgiveness of anyone who demands it.
9. If you were victimized but are not a person and not seeking redemption, you must be that which victimizes you, and perhaps other people too.
10. Rihanna actually died that night, and what has risen is a monster undeserving of compassion or sympathy. Keep your wallets shut, say things that ward people like her away, make them feel less human so they will realize they are, in fact, less human, claim it is for their own good, they have no business feeling normal, they have no business living as though they have the right to emotions, mistakes, complexity, you know what’s best, and it’s not letting monsters like that into the light.
All very logical, based in love.
zuky:
Asian Women are ____________________
In response to the vandalism and hate crime at UCLA, VSU started a photo collage that mimics the signs that were posted on the VSU office and in Ackerman Union. We asked people to write what they thought Asian women embody. These were some of the responses
I noticed my last post (“Asian Women Are… none of your fucking business”) got some attention, so I wanted to put my reaction into some context.
I don’t want to derail a good thing. A response to the message on the VSU banner saying that Asian women are “white-boy worshipping Whores” [sic] was necessary. It was a hateful act of vandalism, and it definitely wasn’t funny.
As someone who identifies as an “Asian woman,” my body is constantly being defined by others. I’ve been told I’m not Asian enough, not feminine enough, or that I’m too Asian, or too feminine to be taken seriously. Or my eyes are this way so I can’t be this or that “kind of Asian” or that only half-Asians can be beautiful. Chinky, FOB, bitch— yeah, I’ve been called all those things.
I work in a Viet-women run open mic space, and more than once I’ve encountered men who feel they need to say something “as a man.” (This blog post, which I still haven’t received a response to, feels the need for a “male voice” in a description of a past event). I’ve heard men recite poetry using a woman’s body as a metaphor for whatever stand it is they want to take, including comparing a war-ravaged country to a woman’s raped body. I’ve heard men take on women’s voices, giving “voice to the voiceless.”
I come from a place of love and compassion and as someone who is and always will be developing her own craft when I say that I’m sick of this shit.
My body is not a meta-playground where you can talk about oppression with more oppression. Comparing my body to an object is objectifying my body.
My identity is not limited to who I choose to date, nor is it defined by blanket statements of positive vocabulary. I like the last picture, of the one who says that “Asian women are my family.” Asian women are my mother, who busts her ass every day to make sure my dad stays alive; my sister, who helps to pay my parents’ mortgage; my grandmother in Vietnam who I may never see again. You know, individuals.
I am an Asian woman. I think too much and work too hard and sometimes I’m too tired to deal with people. I’m deeply flawed and working on it. My family is sacred. My body is off limits. I have a voice, and I’m not afraid to use it, but it doesn’t mean I have to all the time.
I’m an Asian woman and I’m none of your fucking business.
Well said. Asian women are the reason I exist, my ancestors, creators, shapers, teachers, elders, aunts, sisters, nieces, peers, colleagues, friends. Asian women are irreducible to any catchphrase.
(via nuestrahermana)
and the OTHER thing I had feelings about today is that today MAC announced that it is doing a makeup collection with Rihanna, and every fucking place I went to read about it was full of comments from sanctimonious wastes of carbon who announced (without a hint of irony!) that they just cared too much about victims of domestic violence to support Rihanna, who is obviously a bad role model, a bad decision maker, an ally to a bad man, a user of bad drugs, and speaker of bad words, a wearer of bad clothes, a bad, bad victim who failed to meet their strict guidelines for sympathy and who is therefore a pariah forever more
they just care about the issue of domestic violence so much, their love is too pure to be tainted by the likes of her
i just wish them all bodily harm, I do
For anybody who needs a safe space to call out the porn blogs who have been harassing Latinas/vent, we now have the Latinas Are Not A Fetish blog!
Back in like 98-01 there was practicly zero Latina porn on the web. I would search everywhere!!! This was pre thumbzilla and…
Yeah can you not talk on my post ever
I know people in the porn business. i can get you a job if you want, but you have to start off at the bottom (mop girl at the video booth)
Highlighting this again, since we now know this motherfucker is fetishising, harrasing douche bag
BLOCK THIS MOTHERFUCKER
die in a fire
ATLANTA (AP) - A 60-year-old Idaho man has been charged with simple assault for allegedly slapping an infant aboard an Atlanta-bound flight.
In an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, FBI special agent Daron Cheney says Joe Rickey Hundley, of Hayden Idaho, slapped the 2-year-old during a Delta Air flight from Minneapolis on Feb. 8.
The child’s mother, 33-year-old Jessica Bennett, of Minneapolis, told authorities the boy was crying as the plane prepared for landing. Bennett says Hundley was sitting next to her and slapped the boy in his face, causing a scratch under his right eye. She says Hundley used a racial epithet while demanding her to quiet the boy.
Hundley “told her to shut that (‘N word’) baby up,” Cheney said in the affidavit. “Ms. Bennett received assistance from several people on the plane, including male passenger Todd Wooten.” Cheney said.
Wooten was seated rows in front of Bennett and said he came to help after he heard derogatory language being used behind him, according to court documents. Bennett said the infant began crying louder after he was slapped.
District attorneys officials say Hundley was not taken into custody and it is unclear when the case will go to court.
“We think that it is important to let the case develop, and we’ll see how it all comes out,” Hundley’s attorney Marcia Shein said Friday.
A phone number for Bennett could not be located.
I don’t even know what to say right now. Black children have absolutely no value in the eyes of White America from the day they are born until the day they die. How much do you want to bet he never would’ve put his hands on a white woman’s child?
jesus fucking christ
i don’t even have words
Remember that post that was going around and it said something like, “White people are old enough to face the consequences of being racist at the same age PoC start experiencing racism. Which is birth.” And ALLLLL the white people started crying about it?
Do yall see now? Do yall get it now?? Probably not.Not even shocked.
Oklahoma Cop Uses Taser On Handcuffed Woman’s Breast
An Oklahoma woman is suing her local police station after an officer attacked her with his taser while she was handcuffed in jail - and it was all caught on tape.
The shocking video shows City of McAlester police officer Sterling Taylor-Santino stunning Nakina Williams in the chest at point-blank range while she is restrained inside Pittsburgh County Jail.
He continues to use the weapon on the woman, who had been arrested for drunken behaviour, for what seems like minutes as she runs around the booking area, attempting to get away from the taser.
Mr Taylor-Santino has been charged with assault using a dangerous weapon in the June 24 incident but Ms Williams, 27, is now seeking more than $2 million in damages, according to NewsOK.com.
According to the lawsuit, the officer used excessive force as he dealt with the handcuffed woman, who is less than 5 feet tall.
Ms Williams allegedly spat at the officer before he walked up to her and pressed the taser against her left breast.
The video shows a bolt of bluish-white light as the officer fires the weapon.
Ms Williams doesn’t fall to the ground during the attack but her lawyer claims the real damage was done when officers removed the taser’s barbs, out of the view of CCTV.
‘They sat her down on a bench and yanked them out… they were embedded in her upper-left breast, if you can imagine,’ Jeremy Beaver said.
‘They were supposed to take her to the hospital to remove those.’
The lawsuit also claims that Mr Taylor-Santino lied on a report he filed in connection with the taser episode, not realising the whole incident had been caught on CCTV.
‘In his ‘use of force report,’ (Mr Taylor-Santino) sought to cover up and/or conceal his actions… by omitting that (Ms Williams) was handcuffed when she was shot with the taser,’ the suit alleges.
The officer was suspended for two weeks but remains on the police force. He has pleaded not guilty in Pittsburgh County District Court.
The weapon manufacturer explicitly instructs users to avoid the chest area because of “potential cardiac consequences.” But more than 1 in 4 incidents involving a Taser involved shocks directly to the victim’s chest area.
why is no one talking about the fact that this is a Native woman???? Nakina is quoted in the Tulsa World as saying “We were having a conflict because I was drunk, and he called me a ‘drunk Indian.’” as awful as it is on its own, this isn’t just excessive force—this is racially motivated police brutality.
(via crunkfeministcollective)
oh look, the Latina-fetishizing porn blogs have found me!
so go ahead and block latina-teen-sativa, sexy-bikini-latina, hot-horny-latina, hot-latina-pussy, and hot-brazilian-busty-babe, and report them for harassment/pitiful lack of imagination in selecting racist, misogynist urls
Since I got disgusted and fed up with the fact that people behind the porn blogs who keep following me & other latina’s are sending sexually harassing messages and doing stalker behavior by going through archives, liking any post with us or latinas in general in them and reblogging individuals pictures on to their porn blogs… I wrote THIS POST
I have had a surge of porn blogs and more specifically fetishizing racist porn blogs begin to follow me & one of my pictures (a simple picture of how I cut my own side bangs which shows just my face and bangs) got picked up by a blog called latinaslovers and it seems to be getting a lot of track backs to my blog.
Latinaslovers is one of the blogs I called out originally for their fucked up behavior. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a lot of the stalkers I am getting are coming from them specifically:
[Image: an image of a trackback link from latinaslovers tumblr of a picture of me on their porn blog]
Including the ever so creepy kazxxx (who I would sincerely appreciate if you all would report along with me):
[An image of kazxxx from Kansas with IP address: 50.26.92.34]
[An image of their location not zoomed in at its fullest ehem. Shows they near Wichita, El Dorado and Augusta in Kansas, U.S.]
who last night followed me after stalking through my entire archive and liking any posts of me including a video I made specifically for the chronic illness community about my new years goals and wants for my health & life
[Image of only a few of the posts he clicked through and liked through my blogs archive, specifically looking for ones with pictures of me and any person that looked latina]
This is the kind of harassing and specifically race fetishizing behavior porn blog owners are doing.
This is the type of issue reclaimingthelatinatag has been attempting to change.
Sadly, the people who run these porn blogs think that Latina women are simply sex objects regardless of what we are doing in our ho-hum lives or that our blogs are just that: our own and should not be linked to their porn blogs.
I think one of the problems is that some folks talk about these blogs as if they are stand alone and have no owners. There are people and many times cis men behind these blogs who are responsible for this predatory behavior.
It is harassment and if you’re fed up with it, take that step to throw these people’s shit out for everyone to see.
I refuse to be harassed in to not having a blog or staying quiet about this. I know I am one of many Latina’s whose had this issue.
What I would love for you all to do is:
1. block and report for harassment the following blogs: kazxxx, latinaslovers, thicklatinasbest, latinlover89 , and the ever so fucked up evergleam who reblogged my video talking about being chronically ill & my new years resolutions to his porn blog (Latina’s who have had similar experiences, feel free to add to this list)
2. Please consider signal boosting this since I’ve noticed we tend to do a better job amongst ourselves to take action because waiting for Tumblr staff can be more than a pain.
If you are a Latina who needs help in installing a good ISP tracker contact me.
If you have information on how to track stalkers & block IP’s for good and would like to add it to this please feel free to do so!
A cardiologist who used to travel to my hometown several times a week to see patients there has announced he will no longer do so, thanks to the dramatic increase in serious and fatal car accidents along the highway from there to where he lives. Said increase is the direct result of large volumes of traffic, improperly maintained vehicles, and exhausted drivers that are all direct results of the regional fracking boom.
To put it in perspective - this is South Texas. The next closest American town with a population over 2000 is 43 miles away. The closest major American city is 125 miles away (if you’re being generous about Laredo - otherwise, it’s 144 miles to San Antonio). My home county is, depending on how you calculate it, either in the top 10 or top 50 poorest counties in the U.S. Specialist medical care is subsequently in high demand, and it’s a luxury to not have to travel far to find it.The repercussions or losing a single cardiologist are far more severe than it would be in many other areas. People who cannot drive or travel far are going to be forced to utilize other providers in town, who already handle large numbers of patients.
It’s important to mention the less obvious result of activities like fracking. Whatever amount of revenue this brings in is offset by what it costs locals in terms of things like safer highways and access to medical care. A poor, predominantly Latin@ border town, miles away from the conveniences and attractions of large cities, does not easily attract medical professionals who do not already have ties to the area. The availability of safe travel between similar communities is vital to the entire region. What do we do when that is threatened?