Donald Trump attempted to woo supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders during his Republican National Committee acceptance speech Thursday night — pointing to Sanders’ past criticisms of Hillary Clinton and reminding voters that the primary was “rigged” against the Vermont Senator. Sanders was having none of it.
That reminds me, I should go check mine….
(I have both. I don’t post much, but they are there. Same username.)
@rivendellrose Birb purrs ♥
WWII Gay G.I.s recounts tale of losing their Lovers
Excerpt from the book Coming out under fire The history of gay Men and Women in World War Two: Combat soldiers often responded to each other’s personal losses with the deepest respect and understanding, allowing gay GIs to express openly their grief over the death of boyfriends or lovers.
Jim Warren’s boyfriend was hit while trying to knock out a machine-gun nest on Saipan. “They brought him back,” Warren recalled, “and he was at the point of death. He was bleeding. He had been hit about three or four times. I stood there and he looked up at me and I looked down at him and he said, ‘Well, Jim, we didn’t make it, did we.’ And tears were just rolling down my cheeks. I don’t know when I’ve ever felt such a lump and such a waste. And he kind of gave me a boyish crooked grin and just said, ‘Well, maybe next time.’ And I said, ‘I’m going to miss you. And I’ll see your mother.’ There were people standing around, maybe seven or eight people standing there, and I was there touching his hand and we were talking. Somebody said later, ‘You were pretty good friends,’ because I had been openly crying and most people don’t do this. I said, ‘Yes, we were quite good friends.’ And nobody ever said anything. I guess as long as I supposedly upheld my end of the bargain, everything was all right.”
Ben Small was even less able to control himself when his boyfriend was killed in the Philippines. But he, too, was surprised by the other men’s compassion towards him. “We had a funny freak attack of a Japanese kamikaze plane,” he recalled, “and I guess he was getting rid of his last load of these baby cutter bomb, these little bombs that explode at about three feet high so if they went off through a tent they exploded at bed level. I had just been in the tent of a guy I had been going with at the time. He crawled into bed, and I said goodnight and walked out the tent. And this plane came overhead and all we heard was explosions and we fell to the ground. When I got up too see if he was all right, the trust of the bomb had gone through his tent and he was not there. I went into a three-day period of hysterics. I was treated with such kindness by the guys that I worked with, who were all totally aware of why I had gone hysterical. It wasn’t because we were bombed. It was because my boyfriend had been killed. And one guy in the tent came up to me and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were gay? You could have talked to me.’ I said, ‘Well, I was afraid to.’ This big straight, macho guy. There was a sort of compassion then.”
After a raid in the Philippines, Ben Small remembered, a lieutenant who had been injured was being shipped back to the States, so the men “all went to the plane to see him off that night. It was an amazingly touching moment, when he and his lover said goodbye, because they embraced and kissed in front of all these straight guys and everyone dealt with it so well. I think it was just this basic thing about separation of someone you cared for, regardless of sex.” Small described this tender parting as “a little distilled moment out of time” when men’s “prejudices were suspended” and gay soldiers “could be a part of what this meant.”
The Plains warbonnet is not a Cherokee thing. It is not a Navajo thing. It is not an Indian thing. It is a Plains thing.
Stop calling every silly thing you draw that even vaguely resembles a native “Cherokee” or “Navajo” or “Aztec.”
Stop drawing the warbonnet everywhere as the apparently definitive native thing. It isn’t part of all of our 600+ cultures.
Same goes for the tipi, not part of every one of the 600+ indigenous cultures.
Stop thinking that if a native person doesn’t have dark, “mahogany” skin, that their heritage is invalid. Even without admixture, we actually do have varying skin tones.
Stop wearing crappy fake warbonnets.
Stop wearing redface.
Stop using us as your silly mascots. We are people.
Stop saying “spirit animal.” It’s derived from a New Age bastardization of a something that actually exists in some of our cultures.
Don’t smudge. Cleanse all you like, that’s fine, but don’t smudge.
Don’t call us “Indians.” “Native American” isn’t great either, it is not our name, but it’s slightly better than “Indian.” “Indigenous” is also fine.
Don’t use NDN/ndn. That is ours.
Step off about our hair. If you meet a long-haired native, admire it if you like, maybe even ask them about it (RESPECTFULLY), but do not touch. The same applies for someone with short hair, but additionally for those with short hair, don’t say things like “oh you’d look more native/Indian/etc if your hair was long.” We didn’t all traditionally have long, flowing hair. Believe it or not, there are actually different haircuts existing in our various cultures, and aside from that ultimately it’s a personal choice, one does not need to have long hair if they don’t want to. Doesn’t make them any less native to have short hair.
Don’t pray to our spirits/gods/energies. Native spiritualities are closed, they are not for outsiders.
Don’t say “The Native Americans believed…” Firstly, the past tense is silly, we still exist and do things. Secondly, we are NOT A MONOLITH. As I mentioned before, there are upwards of 600 different Native American cultures.
Don’t ask about someone’s “Indian name.” That’s not only insensitive, the name you are referring to in that instance is something sacred, and might not be something that person wants to share with you.
Don’t call yourself silly crap like “howling wolf” or “flying eagle.” That’s also racist and insensitive.
Regardless of whatever you might think you’re doing, or what your intentions may be, if a native person tells you that what you’re doing is disrespectful, STOP DOING IT.
You aren’t honoring us. You’re just mocking us further, demonstrating your continued ability to treat us like shit and get away with it even now, centuries after our colonization began. Your feelings are not more important than our history and survival.
To those doing your best as allies, thank you, keep doing what you do. HOWEVER, don’t let opportunities to educate others escape you. By letting them continue to be ignorant, you are failing. Spread the message.
There will be no “please.” It’s been more than 500 years, and we still are made to be invisible in our homelands. Still we are treated like less. Some even think we all died long ago.
We are still here
We will still be here
Treat us with respect.
Bringing this back again.
In regards to smudgings/cleansing is that just about the name of the practice or is there a specific way of cleansing that is considered smudging and not okay?
From what I understand, smoke cleansing is ok. Calling it smudging when you do so is not.
Feel free to correct me if there’s more.
Smudging is the name of specific rituals that vary from nation to nation. If you have not been instructed on how how to do it, you are not smudging so do not call it that. Call it smoke cleansing, recaning, fumigation, or something else.
FLINT HASNT HAD CLEAN Water since APRIL 2014
2014
It’s fucking 2016
Majority of people in flint are black !
This is a genocide they may not die today but they will die soon.
The water has lead. There is no cure for lead poisoning.
Flint needs cleans water!!!
Some ways to donate and help
http://www.helpforflint.com/action
https://www.convoyofhope.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/
http://www.unitedwaygenesee.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=5
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?
The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,
Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.
And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.
And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,
With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.
Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
”Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal" (via oofpoetry)
This is also called, Gate 4-A
It is one of my favorite poems
(via stanzas-and-stories)
