literally tho, uh.
-started getting into social justice, especially racial justice and peace activism, in the 1970s. got arrested multiple times. told the newspaper when they did a spotlight on him a couple of years ago that it was a worthy cause and that was why he was always willing to get arrested -- "this is how you stand up for what you believe in, by engaging in civil disobedience and demonstrating the inherent unfairness of the system"
one of the local people I knew as Walking the Walk in addition to, you know, talking a big game about social justice apparently died over the weekend. He was quite old so this is not a surprise.
what was surprising to me is just how long and varied his bio was in terms of "good acts done", starting with how much blood he donated over his lifetime (80+ gallons! W H A T), and ending with the recent work he's done with Black Lives Matter.
@bgcarlisle If it's okay to add on with Black artists and creators?
@CaribenxMarciaX , an Afro-Caribbean Indigenous artist and scholar. Their subscription information is here: https://www.artistmarciax.com/subscriptions
@Leelums , an incredibly talented artist and illustrator and they have a currently open GoFundMe for medical needs. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-leelumz-get-their-wisdom-teeth-removed?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1
Are0h, the admin of PlayVicious which ultimately got harassed off the fedi, is building his own social media platform. https://www.patreon.com/Are0h/posts
on "abolish gender!" and similar stuff
You're still allowed to fit into a box by /choice!/
The issue with coercive gender norms is /the coercion part/.
I'm male and /you are not taking my gender away from me/.
... I know y'all aren't /meaning/ that
but when you say "abolish gender!" you're /saying/ that even if you're not trying to. Not "you don't have to fit in a box" but "/there should be no boxes at all/".
The boxes' /existence/ is perfectly fine and doesn't hurt anyone.
Racism
Look at who're interacting with the people black people are telling you are racists. For example goblin.camp is a shitpost instance that actively interacts with myasstodon/elekk.xyz.
Blocking the ones called out is honestly not enough because if you harbor friendship with people who are ok with violence you are showing that you are ok with complacency
Show black people you care by doing things that matter
Black people please feel free to add on.
i'm building a keyboard from scratch
in one of the more ridiculous things i've done, i designed an ortholinear keyboard that can use the wider modifiers from a 40%/60% kit. it's been done before (see the Spacey, which is in group buy now) but i designed it for my specific typing needs
so i'm going hand-wire and program this thing. i got the cut acrylic plate in today and plugged in all of my spare switches.
i'm calling it a Quirk, because it's... got some quirks.
re: Fedi Meta | Defederation Meta | Community Self-Defense | Addendum
(cont'd)
g) The nature of the scarlet snarks of those folks who tried to provoke me carried with them a distinct sense of diaspora to it, and this is no accident, and I'll tell you why...
So, back when I was a part of AltFurry, we had a special room dedicated to collecting some of the spicier and louder takes from the left that could easily be framed as bad takes.
This special room served a double purpose, it was meant to be an indoctrination tool to endlessly hammer into us how evil and manipulative "the left" really are, but it also did something else, it painted a target...
Seemingly out of nowhere, said mark would suddenly be dogpiled on with abusive rhetoric, and in some cases, mass false-flagging. From the public's perspective, there doesn't seem to be any targeting happening. To them, it looked like the mark had said something to piss off a lot of people out of nowhere, and therefore what the mark had said must be bad. More importantly, it gave a sense of undeserved legitimacy to the dogpile.
Back to the present, what's happening here isn't a dogpile, (I mean, with robust blocking tools carrying more agency on the Fedi, that's kind of impossible.) but the same manufacturing of public opinion is taking place where a bunch of similarly-worded snark from seemingly unconnected users is giving said opinion more legitimacy than it deserves.
More importantly, it does suggest that there may be a central private room from which these bad actors may be operating on, and deciding on what sorts of consensus to take.
Given that one of them made use of the instance's town hall streams to try to harass Snouts users, I really wouldn't put it past them if it turned out that this is the case.
In any case, that's pretty much my thoughts on this whole affair. To be clear, I am fine, I am not worried. My rep is the least of my concern right now, and so should it be the least of your concerns. Focus on staying safe, and also focus on working to keep your communities safe from the aforementioned bad actors.
re: Fedi Meta | Defederation Meta | Community Self-Defense | Addendum
A couple more thoughts on this...
f) What makes anti-blackness so invisible to everyone outside of those who have personally witnessed and experienced it is the fact that a large part of this abuse is not about what is said, but what pointedly isn't being said.
As an abuse survivor, I am very sensitive to empty spaces that aren't occupied, but hinted at by the words spoken.
So how I figured this out was when I did a chud check earlier today and stumbled into a radioactive user's profile who had decided, thanks to my involvement in the discourse, to make me a target for mockery and trying to weaponize my past against me.
Honestly, I don't care about that. They're free to their opinion. But what I noticed is that there is absolutely no mention of Snouts and PlayVicious anywhere in that discourse, and I find that interesting. Why? PV and Snouts users have basically brought the works to them, and that's why they're turning the snark dial to 11, but they aren't directly mocking or mentioning them.
Then it hit me. They're trying to provoke me into defending myself, and therefore making the meta discourse about me, therefore pushing away any mention of anti-blackness subjects, or any other groups they have abused from their immediate vicinity. This is a clear play at erasure meant to pit the interests of the victims and the people speaking up in defense of them against each other. Quite an insidious move.
The scary part is that I probably wasn't the first one they have tried to do this with.
(tbc)
uspol, txpol, austin, police abolition
"Austin City Council approves the purchase of a hotel to permanently house people experiencing chronic homelessness USING DOLLARS CUT FROM THE POLICE BUDGET"
https://twitter.com/matthewferner/status/1354582128353189890
When we say defund and reallocate, this is what that looks like.
USpol, 1/6 coup
Jesus. AOC has been on Instagram live discussing her experience of the coup attempt and it's horrific.
This is a pretty thorough thread of what she's said so far https://twitter.com/carloseats/status/1356426580290121729?s=19
Artist and Composer. Trans plural voidpunk anarchist and antifa nonbinary gremlin. My voice is for the oppressed, and I shall fight for freedom with no quarter, so that those around me won't have to.
Plural members:
> Velvet Silmeria (Fae/They/She/Ey/He)
Räsvelg AY-N4 Tiyaga (Kit/Bit/She/They)
Lenneth Crimson (She/Xey/They/It)
Ashlynn Valefor (Xey/They/It/She)
Ricardo Sophia du Sol (Ey/He/They)
Saturnine Stargazer (She/They/It)
Innominat (They/Them)
Yuri Sunbreaker (It/She)