Here Are the 36 Questions That Will Allegedly Make You Fall in Love [feedly]

I think I may try this with Ross. Not because we need to fall in love (got there!) but because we used to love asking each other questions from the book "If" when our relationship was long distance. 

I think the "staring into each other's eyes" part might be a little odd, though. We'll see!

----
Here Are the 36 Questions That Will Allegedly Make You Fall in Love
http://jezebel.com/here-are-the-36-questions-that-will-allegedly-make-you-1679062869
----
Shared via my feedly reader

Sent from my iPhone

Verbal Vomit

There's a fine line between not being ashamed of things that happened in my past and telling everybody about it. I have a really hard time not divulging everything about myself when I'm meeting someone who seems cool. It's like, logically I know the grocery store is not the place to talk about my recovery from my eating disorder. Or pregnancy details. Or my weird enjoyment of terrible politics. But…sometimes only my brain knows that. My mouth just goes. And how do you stop talking in the middle of that? Once verbal vomit gets going, you just have to get to a stopping point. My brain is going WrapItUpWrapItUpWrapItUp and my mouth is going BlahBlahBlahBlah and my body is going *cringe.*

And then I just stand there awkwardly, like, dammit. Hope that person is cool enough to not think I'm a total freak now.

So here's hoping I don't replay that in my head for the next week, thinking of all the smart cool things I could have said, rather than what I did say.

#fingerscrossedemoji

Conversations with E the First

E1: Mama, where do firefighters come from?
Me: Sometimes little boys and girls who want to help people grow up and decide to become firefighters.
E1: Oh I know, jus' like the firefighters at the firestation
Me: Yeah! What do you want to be when you grow up, Em?
E1: A good monster.

Just....Ugh...

I am so sick of hearing people use the death of this poor man to attempt to invalidate claims of racism.

His death is tragic in its own right...how would you feel if your child, unjustly killed by police, were talked about in the news only as a perverted "proof" that race wasn't a factor in the death of Michael Brown? Or in the lack of an indictment for Darren Wilson? It's the more "murdery" version of "I can't be racist, I have a black friend." The headline...

Unarmed White Man Shot By Police: No Riots, Al Sharpton Silent, Obama Keeps Golfing

And then...

The St. Louis County prosecutor just charged a black cop with felony assault for using his baton too aggressively. How can you still think race isn't a factor after that?! It's not just about Michael Brown. It's systemic.

White people who kill black people rarely get the death penalty, yet black people who kill white people very often do.

Want to come back with "but what about black-on-black crime?" It's irrelevant. Also, if you're not also yelling about "white-on-white crime" then you're a hypocrite.

When allowed to do "random" searches like in the Stop and Frisk program, cops choose to search people of color 85% of the time, even though white people are more likely to have contraband on them.

via

via

Black people are significantly less likely to face an actual jury of their peers.

1/3 of all black men will be put in jail at some point in their lives, statistically. We jail more of our minorities than any other country. Hell, we imprison more of our people than any other country, proportionately, but we target minorities while doing so.

Want to say "well it's all about the kind of family you come from, your values, if only their fathers stuck around, etc?" When we, as a country, take 1/3 of the men in a group away, how can you blame them for their children growing up without a father? No one should have to adjust to your idealized way of living, comply with your fashion sense or idea of family or anything else beyond "don't try to hurt others", just to stay alive.

And you sit here using your time to try to disprove their complaint because what...it makes you uncomfortable to think that racism isn't over? Because you are inconvenienced hearing about it? Because traffic? Because businesses you don't patronize are suffering loss? People are being killed, being oppressed, being kept in poverty, robbed of the "ideal family" we all cherish so much. And it's because of race. Not the in your face KKK cross burning kind of racism, but subtle, systemic, insidious racism.



The kind of racism that allows a white cop to kill an unarmed black man, get a 3/4 white grand jury to do extraordinary things just for his potential indictment, then a white prosecutor tells a room of almost all white reporters why the cop won't be charged, sounding like a defense lawyer instead of a prosecutor. After which the white cop gets a TV special where he reveals his desire to teach others about use of force, says he regrets nothing, and complains about having to wear a beard.


And then through all that, what you find most outrageous is that the people who loved Michael Brown aren't protesting the death of some other person they didn't know. Or the people who loved Eric Garner, or Oscar Grant, or Tamir Rice...my god, Tamir Rice, that poor poor kid. Why aren't you up in arms about that? Just...why? Or the people who loved Dillon Taylor, even...why AREN'T they protesting?

I can't understand the lack of outrage. I just can't.

My Privilege

This morning I can hardly think of anything but Michael Brown's mother. How she had to raise her boy with a different set of rules than I have to raise mine with. How that didn't work, and how her son was killed for an offense so minor that people get away with it all the time. How her boy has been villainized since his death, and how anguishing it must have been to listen to the prosecutor, THE PROSECUTOR!, demonize him in that press conference last night, sounding more like a defense lawyer than anything else. How helpless she must feel...helpless to protect her son, helpless to get justice, helpless to prevent others from misdirecting their rage and undermining the story of her child's killing.

I compare myself with her. What would I do, if I were her? Her composure is more than I can imagine having. And that is my privilege - I can be, could be, hysterical, angry, pleading, enraged, without being seen as the spokesperson of my race. Without being blamed for the protests that followed, as she is being blamed. Her anguish, so powerful, so representative, so gut wrenching...I wanted to throw things after that press conference last night, and that was not my son that Bob McCulloch was talking about. And yet she still didn't tell people to rise up. She could have, and they did anyways, but even though she refrained from doing so, she is being blamed. "Michael Brown's Mother's Tears Turn Crowd From Agony to Action."

I can still tell my boys to go to the police for help. I could still buy them toy guns without fearing the police would kill them for having one. I can write about this from the comfort of my home, safe, educated, far from protests or riots. I can argue about it with those who believe race wasn't a factor, but I won't ever have to experience what it's like to have my race work against me with law enforcement. If my child is killed, he won't be demonized. In fact, it's likely that even if my child were to kill others, he would be treated with more kindness by the media than Lesley McSpadden's boy has been.

And there are those, so many, who don't see this privilege. Who don't want to see it. Who can't see a bigger picture than this one botched investigation. Who ignore systems, who negate privilege because of individual disadvantage, who say "not me," who demand respect while not giving it, who just won't listen. Or won't care. And that's almost more infuriating than those who know they're racist and embrace it. Because it's easier to write them off, the "real" racists. They're a joke, mostly powerless. Who listens to the KKK? Only idiots....but I know so many smart people who discount race. Who advocate colorblindness, and show their privilege blindness by doing so. Who say that Michael Brown should have just cooperated with the cops, and don't see that people of color "just cooperate" all the time and who can't imagine having to live like that, under constant scrutiny, constant surveillance, constant suspicion. Because they don't have to.

I wish that today every white person would just listen to what the black community of Ferguson is saying. To the people of Oakland, of New York, of Chicago. Hear them. Really listen. Don't ignore because their anger is coming out in inappropriate ways. They have been polite for so long, and nothing has changed.

If You're More Focused on the Looting Than the Lack of Indictment...

"Let's say you're at a shindig of some sort - an office holiday party, a department function, the post-lecture refreshments, a gallery opening, a con, any place where there are a lot of other people, most of whom you don't know personally or well, and a lot of milling around.

In the course of this milling around, someone steps on your foot. Someone very much larger than you, wearing big, heavy shoes. And doesn't move off. You can't pull your foot out from under theirs. They're talking to other people and don't even notice through their thick soles and distraction, what they not only have done but are continuing to do.

You go "Ahem," and "Excuse me," and "Sorry, but you're standing on my foot," in a polite if urgent tone, but they can't hear you, partly because they're too tall, partly because of the party hubbub, and partly because they're not listening to you but instead the sound of their own voice and the appreciative remarks of their friends.

Your hands are full, so you cough louder, but it doesn't get any results. At this point, you can't even feel your toes any more. In desperation, you awkwardly shuffle your drink onto your plate and tap gently on their shoulder, but they don't notice it either. (Perhaps a couple of their friends have, though, and are discreetly trying to break into the monologue, but having no luck.)

Finally, in desperation, you raise your voice and shout "EXCUSE ME!" The foot-trapper turns their head to look over their shoulder, without moving their feet, and goes "What?!?" (Perhaps they brush their elbow against your arm, making your drink splash and scattering a cheese cube or three.)

"You're standing on my foot," you point out. "Can you get off it?"

"You're rude!" says the foot-squisher. "You shouldn't interrupt people in the middle of a conversation. Now I've lost my train of thought!" or maybe "It's rude to shout at people!" (Perhaps even, "Look what you did to my coat!")

And then they turn right back to the conversation they were having, without bothering to move.

When you point this out, again, they say smugly, "If you'd asked politely, I would have.""

From http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/336952.html

When people complain about the looters and the riots more than they do about the miscarriage of justice that happens over and over again in our country, this is what I hear. I hear a demand that the oppressed just take it politely and put up with it for as long as it takes for this who are uninterested in changing to change. I hear a demand to assimilate. To join the dominant culture. To be better than human, because what human can suffer indignity over and over again without lashing out one day? Who can stand to go unheard for so long without finally yelling?

This is not to say I approve of riots or looting. I don't. And the people who turned peaceful protests violent should be prosecuted. The police who handled things with restraint should be commended for doing their job well. But when we deny a community justice, then also deny them the right to anger, misused as it may be, we are saying we have no respect for their humanity.

Tragic

Police should be held to higher standards than civilians, not lower ones. They have a greater duty to protect life, not a lesser one; an expectation of more bravery, not more reactions based in fear. I can't imagine the devastated and powerless rage and loss Michael Brown's mother must be feeling.

This statement, too, is infuriating. The internet and the media are not at fault for the frustration of people over the killing of an unarmed man...the killing of an unarmed man and the incompetent handling of the investigation following it is why people are so frustrated, so enraged, up in arms.

Michael Brown, even if he stole things, did not deserve to die. He should not have been left out, uncovered, in the street for 4.5 hours. The investigation should have been done properly. The secrecy surrounding this will forever leave doubts in people's minds. Who are these corroborating witnesses who've never spoken to the media?

And so many questions unanswered. Why does the government and police force of Ferguson have so little understanding of the racial undertones of our society? How can anyone think that racism is over in the United States? Why are white people so unwilling to hear and believe the experiences of people of color in the United States? Why did Michael Brown turn back? How can Bob McCulloch be so tone deaf as to think that the fact that his job has been hard lately is something we care about? Of course your job is hard, dude. That's the job you have, and right now, you are not the focus. How can his perspective still be that the social media caused this outrage? How can he really believe, in light of the many things that have happened lately, that young men of color are not being killed with impunity? How can cases like this be reviewed without prosecutors and grand juries believing that there was a likelihood that a crime was committed? How can he say that what needs to happen now is that people of color need to speak up on behalf of their communities? Does he not hear them? I'm baffled. 

I'm in tears.