the right amount of leverage

eeames:

derek hale don’t lie to us, this isn’t a loft, it is a dance studio and you supervise detention, teaching dance to troubled youths

trashprincesss:

heroceanofviolence:

you-do-not-do:

hoelita:

people seriously think that you can just leave an abusive relationship, like walk out and it’s over

let’s talk about how one-third of women murdered every year are by an intimate partner. let’s talk about how a woman leaving her batterer is seventy-five percent more likely to be killed. 

Lets talk about abuse more than being physical abuse. He can control her finances. Threaten the children. Take away the self esteem required to leave.

She leaves the house behind. All of her belongings. She might have to leave her job. Leave behind her modes of transportation.

She might be afraid for her life and the children could be in danger.

So yeah when people victim blame and say “why doesn’t she leave then?” IT’S BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T WANT TO DIE.

YES THANK U THIS!!!

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

ilovemy4c-hair:

ianthe:

This post was asking about a potential link between the afro-style wigs and big, painted lips of the modern clown and racist caricatures, so I decided to do what any good theatre history student would do - I did some research.

SPOILER ALERT: YUP, IT’S RACIST AS FUCK

From Janet M. Davis, The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top:

Some circus programs contained portraits of clowns in literal blackface, with huge red mouths and bulging eyes, strumming energetically on a banjo, but often the auguste clown’s blackface was metaphorical. He created his racial identity through the act of ‘‘whitening up’’ with thick pancake.

His greasy whiteness and exaggerated bodily zones—huge red mouth, lolling, paint-encircled eyes, big fake nose, ears, and feet—made his look strikingly similar to blackface. Showmen played upon this visual connection by arguing that African American men literally were clowns because of their supposed affinity for clowning and the circus. The Ringling Bros.’ route book from 1895 and 1896 contained a section, ‘‘The Plantation Darkey at the Circus,’’ which imagined—in almost orgasmic language—black men as minstrel characters.

[…]

Proprietors further conflated the African American man and the clown by arguing that both were completely controlled by their emotions, not reason.

Superlative examples of white manhood—the big cat tamer, the wire walker, and so forth—demonstrated little emotion during life-threatening acts. The clown, by contrast, howled in mock fear when he saw a mouse, or shrieked in pain at a mosquito bite. Showmen characterized male African American spectators in a similar vein as giddy and superstitious. 

[…]

Actual big-top acts made this rhetorical relationship between the clown and the African American complete. In 1888 Eph Thompson trained the elephant John L. Sullivan at the Adam Forepaugh circus. Wearing a boxing glove at the end of his trunk, the elephant sparred with Thompson in the ring and frequently ‘‘punched’’ him so hard that Thompson went flying over the ring bank.

Unlike the white trainer who dominated powerful animals, Thompson played a clownish coward—constantly vanquished by the boxing pachyderm—and consequently remained unthreatening to Euroamerican audiences. Yet Thompson still had a difficult time finding employment with American shows. As a result, he moved to Europe where his career flourished.

In line with the tenets of nineteenth-century romantic racialism, show-men’s portrayals of black men and clowns reflected contemporary representations of white women: late-nineteenth-century scientists argued that ‘‘excessive’’ emotionalism defined women, racial ‘‘savages,’’ and children of all races. The German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel and the Americans Edward Drinker Cope and G. Stanley Hall were all proponents of recapitulation theory, positing that every organism repeats the life history of its ‘‘race’’ within its own lifetime, evolving through the less developed forms of its ancestors on its path to maturity. They contended that Euroamerican women and ‘‘primitives’’ remained mentally and emotionally fixed in lower ancestral stages of evolution. Accordingly, only white boys were physiologically and mentally capable of reaching the highest stages of racial and gender development as fully evolved men. This line of thought used pseudoempirical phrenological evidence to claim that African American men were perpetually emotional and juvenile, just like the clown.

The painted clown acted out childish behaviors and infantile pleasures. He reveled in dirt, cried freely, openly adored the serious ‘‘adult’’ acts, and played physical pranks on everybody, from ringmaster to the audience. If playing a hobo (popularized most fully by Emmett Kelly’s ‘‘Willie’’ tramp character during the Depression, when at times nearly one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed), the auguste clown’s persona was defined by dirt. Laughing loudly at the clown’s antics perhaps transported audiences back to the unrestrained pleasures of their own collective infancy and childhood.

More than a ‘‘low Other’’ who simply represented a tantalizing version of what they were not, the unfettered clown symbolized what clock-bound, alienated adult Euroamerican men perhaps felt they had lost.

Even the red noses have their origins in racist stereotypes.

From Mikita Brottman, Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor:

While the Native American plains tribes had their own various manifestations of the Trickster figure, the main clown type of non-Native Americans was not the August, as it was in Europe, but the character clown… After the [Civil War] ended, however, one particular style of character clown came into prominence: the Hobo.

Eric Lott describes how the Hobo figure was originally based on the blackface minstrel clowns (hence the exaggerated white mouths) who portrayed the figures of African Americans made homeless by the ravages of the Civil War.

Lott explains that the Hobo character clown is a distinctly American invention, with his tattered hat, huge white mouth, three days’ growth of beard, torn clothes, and cartoon alcoholic’s big red nose. […] It seems ironic that such mawkishly appealing personalities had their roots in the miseries of poverty and oppression and the disfigurements of alcoholism and venereal disease. 

 

Well, this explains a lot. Thank you http://ianthe.tumblr.com/ for looking it up. Reblog this and spread the word. 

Smh. Of course…………..

withquestionablewit:

Being queer doesn’t excuse you from privilege. You can be a white queer racist, a queer male misogynist, a cis queer trans*phobe, a wealthy queer classist, or any number of other oppressive things and the sooner you educate yourself to this the better off our whole community will be, because contrary to media depiction, queer people aren’t all white middle-class gay men!

Linden Ashby is 

DAMN HOT

taliaitscoldoutside:

boyqueen:

I was going to wait until this weekend to take some pictures and make an official post, but I’ve gotten so much interest/so many questions already that I thought I’d post the information sans photos in the meantime. 

About the house:

It’s a beautiful 2-story home  in Oakland (Lake Merritt area, near Highland Hospital).  We live in the upstairs flat, a friendly quiet couple live in the downstairs flat.  Our flat has

• 2 large bedrooms +1 bathroom + 1 medium office (I leave a couple things in the office but it would be mostly yours to use as you please)
• A large living room nestled next to a HUGE kitchen, complete with a bar, a gas stove, and gorgeous green granite counter tops.
• Hardwood floors throughout the house and lots of interesting details/nooks/slanted ceilings/vintage tiles, etc. 
• A big porch with outdoor lights and furniture
• A seriously enormous backyard with multiple fruit trees (lemons, loquats, and cherries!), lots of room for gardening, and a multi-level deck. 
• Big basement with lots of storage space and our own washer/dryer (separate from the downstairs neighbors)
• Great commuter location.  Just a few blocks from the 580 freeway, 5 minutes to the 880 freeway. Near the 62, 11, & 14 buses.  15-20 min bus/bike ride to Lake Merritt BART. 

The rent is $625/mo + utilities.  We pay water, PG&E, & internet.  Water only comes once every couple months so depending on the weather/if we get the water bill/etc. the utilities range from $30-$90/month.

No smoking, no pets (though if we’re a great fit and you have a cat, we may be able to negotiate with the landlord.  Previous tenants have had cats but the landlord prefers no pets.)

About you:

You are:

• ideally another queer and/or trans person
• financially stable and prompt with rent/utilities
• happy to share in the household chores, committed to having a clean and tidy common space
• responsible, honest, and communicative
• relatively quiet
• experienced living with roommates (a reference from a previous roommate would be a big plus!)
• invested in social justice and respectful of people’s boundaries
• a non-smoker (cigarettes&weed).  I have severe asthma and can’t be around smoke/smokey clothes.  (no incense, sage-burning, etc.)
• ideally a non-drinker, but I’m flexible as long as you are not drunk/drinking in the house
• comfortable using fragrance-free products in the house as much as possible (no perfumes, colognes, febreze, fragrant detergent and other strongly scented products).  If you have question about this, just ask!

About me:

I’m a 22 year old white, queer, femme, transsexual man.  I work full time as a nanny in Alameda and Berkeley. I’m also a musician, a poet, and an avid crafter.  In my free time I like swimming in lakes with my friends, making zines, watching tons of netflix, petting every cat I can find, having sober queer game nights, and spending quality time with my partner of nearly 4 years. 

I’m always trying to be conscious of my privileges and to avoid engaging in behavior that is hurtful or oppressive towards the people around me.  I really value living with people who are similarly invested in social justice and open to discussing power dynamics as they manifest in the world and in our home. 

As a roommate I am clean & tidy.  I take pride in having a warm and inviting home.  I am responsible and timely with rent & utilities.  I am generally quiet, and always do my best to respect my roommates boundaries and needs.  I’m a friendly, kind, and generous person, but I’m also very introverted.  It’s important to me to live with someone who understands that I will not always be available to socialize and who will not take it personally when I hide out in my room. 

If you’re interested, you can contact me here (via boyqueen.tumblr.com/ask) or via email (merqueenactualities@gmail.com).

Thanks!

Myles is one of the most comforting and safe space making people I’ve ever met and reblogging because I have several queer friends moving/trying to move to Oakland who need not-shitty roommates and Myles is great!