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VIDEOSOctober 22, 2018

PHARRELL WILLIAMS ON SYNAESTHESIA

PHARRELL WILLIAMS FOR LIBERATUM IN HONG KONG

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Liberatum LIFESAVING CONVERSATIONS to provide emergency food and cash relief worldwide during this crisis and support the racial justice movement

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LIBERATUM LIFESAVING CONVERSATIONS launching in a few days with global media partners, preeminent philanthropic partners, solidarity council members and most importantly, powerful stories. South Africa Brazil India United Kingdom Mexico Spain United States. More countries to be added later.

𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓

𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.
- Rumi 📸 @michaeloliverlove for @coitusmagazine featuring @aniltoncabralofficial @uriah_harris @cardosofelipe @realkingsleyjames

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄

I was once asked to leave my church in Nsukka because my blouse had short sleeves (I refused); apparently my bare arms would tempt the otherwise pious men. To accept that dressing is a moral issue is to accept this: a woman must not tempt a man. We focus on Adam eating the apple because Eve gave it to him. We don't focus on Adam's responsibility, on why he did not say no. This Judaeo-Christian-Islamic notion of controlling the female temptress so as to save the helpless male dehumanises women and insults the dignity of men since it assumes that men are incapable of restraint at the sight of a woman's flesh. Or incapable of simply looking away. "Culture" is the other justification. We must preserve our culture, and miniskirts aren't our culture. Rape and incest and sexual abuse of children are not our culture, even though they happen all the time. There are accounts of rape all over Nigeria, especially in urban areas, yet a collective silence reigns. This bill is particularly dangerous because it increases the likelihood of women being blamed for rape: if she hadn't worn that blouse, she would not have been raped.

Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in "real" African culture, before it was tainted by the west, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed. There are men and women who, while holding their imported cellphones and driving their imported cars, say that women should conform to certain gender roles so as to preserve our "real" culture. The historical truth is that most of these reductive gender ideas came from Victorian England.

But assuming that we agree that there is such a thing as a "pure" culture and that we would like to return to it, then we would go back to pre-colonial west Africa when gender roles were fluid, when there was little gender differentiation in Yorubaland, and when Igbo women could marry women. The culture-preserving senator would be surprised if she were transported back to her home in 1800. Never mind low-cut blouses. The women trading in the markets would be bare-breasted. - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 📸 Beckwith and Fisher

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro... two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.
- W. E. B. Du Bois 📸 @filipefoto

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.

Everyone is familiar with the slogan "The personal is political" -- not only that what we experience on a personal level has profound political implications, but that our interior lives, our emotional lives are very much informed by ideology. We oftentimes do the work of the state in and through our interior lives. What we often assume belongs most intimately to ourselves and to our emotional life has been produced elsewhere and has been recruited to do the work of racism and repression.

The roots of sexism and homophobia are found in the same economic and political institutions that serve as the foundation of racism in this country and, more often than not, the same extremist circles that inflict violence on people of color are responsible for the eruptions of violence inspired by sexist and homophobic biases. Our political activism must clearly manifest our understanding of these connections. .

Whenever you conceptualize social justice struggles, you will always defeat your own purposes if you cannot imagine the people around whom you are struggling as equal partners. - Angela Davis 📸 @abdullaelmaz for @lofficielvietnam 👩🏾 @mercy.sang

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐕 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐌

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐕 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐂 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐌𝐄𝐍

There is an epidemic of HIV/Aids in the United States, and the reason you may not have heard about it is because of who it harms: black men who have sex with other men. When I give lectures on Aids, I will often tell incredulous audiences early in my presentation that one in every two gay and bisexual men in the US are projected to become HIV positive in their lifetime.

Later, I tell them that, more specifically, the Centers for Disease Control predicts one in every two black gay and bisexual men is projected to become HIV positive in his lifetime if current trends continue. I do this not to deceive, but to point out how Americans imagine men who have sex with men to be white – and to highlight how invisible black gay and bisexual men are in the American zeitgeist even while facing existential suffering. If one of every two straight white men were projected to become HIV positive, nothing else would be covered in the news. Ever. MSNBC, covering the pandemic 24/7, would rebrand itself MSHIV. .

But, as only one in every 2,500 heterosexual white men are projected to become HIV positive – and as many white Americans imagine themselves immune to the kind of virus black gay and bisexual men would bring upon themselves – the black plague of HIV is not considered newsworthy. In conducting doctoral research on the criminalisation of HIV over the past four years, it has pained me to learn that lack of interest in the ongoing plight of HIV/Aids in black queer America is not confined to heterosexuals, but affects powerful white gay men and the organisations they run too.

If white men were being infected at the horrifying rate that African-Americans are, it would be front-page news. - Steven W Thrasher, The Guardian (2018) 📸 Sam Stoich

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐍’𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐄

But for black Americans like me, the killings of black men and women at the hands of the state with no justice to be had, is among the oldest and most familiar American stories.

How do you explain the visceral and personal pain caused by the killing of a black person you did not even know to people who did not grow up with, as their legacy, the hushed stories of black bodies hung from trees by a lynching mob populated with sheriff’s deputies? Or of law enforcement, who often doubled as the Ku Klux Klan, killing black Southerners on lonely roads under the gaze of a silent moon?

To many of us, the almost guaranteed failure in modern times to hold the police responsible for these deaths feels eerily familiar; black Americans add these recent cases to the list of countless black people who died a few generations ago “at the hands of persons unknown.” But, of course, this is not just about history and our disparate recollections of it. It is about now, and the way the vast gulf between the collective lived experiences of white Americans and that of black Americans can make true empathy seem impossible.

How do you explain — how can you make those who are not black feel — the consuming sense of dread and despair, when one sees the smiling faces, captured in photos, of Mr. Castile and Mr. Sterling, and knows that but for the grace of God, it could have been your uncle, your brother, your child, you? That if a police officer, his mind having soaked up centuries of racial fears, were to stop your loved one, or you, he may not be able to see a family man or doting mother? Someone who pushed a daughter on the swing, hugged a fiancée after an argument, told bad jokes.

How do you explain that awful understanding that each of these deaths confirms for black citizens, that if stopped by the police, we may be stripped down to our most basic of elements, that one part of us that is a complete fiction: our race. - Nikole Hannah-Jones @nytimes 📸 @mouslamrabat

𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀’𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

Twenty five years have passed since Nelson Mandela became president and apartheid was officially abolished. Ilvy Njiokiktjien’s decade-long project documents the opportunities and challenges faced by the children of the “rainbow nation”

Up until the early 1990s, the rights of people in South Africa were determined by the colour of their skin. Cities were segregated grids, where “Blacks” and “Coloureds” were required to carry legal documentation in “White” areas. Schools, workplaces and public toilets were also divided by race.
Twenty five years have passed since Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa on 10 May 1994, and since apartheid was officially abolished. The first children born during this revolutionary period, known as the born-frees, are now coming-of-age. These young adults have been raised freely to live wherever and love whoever they wanted; they were the shining beacons of Mandela’s dreams of a “rainbow nation”. But today, as the country votes for their sixth president since Mandela, it has become apparent that crime, poverty and corruption are still keeping many of the born-frees captive. “Young people are disillusioned,” says photojournalist Ilvy Njiokiktjien, who has been covering South Africa for over a decade. “The atmosphere in the country is changing. When I lived there in 2004, 10 years since Mandela became president, everyone was cheerful. When I went back a few years later, I noticed the difference.” Born Free – Mandela’s Generation of Hope is Njiokiktjien’s “project of a lifetime”. Now an exhibition, photobook, an hour long documentary broadcasted on Dutch television, and a series of short films, the project combines a decade’s worth of stories about the born-free generation. - Marigold Warner @bjp1854 📸 @ilvynjio

𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍, 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘’𝐋𝐋 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐓

We live in a society where it is encouraged to listen to exciting or exotic things. But not to sing the lyrics in civilised places. To go to exotic places that are full of adventures. But not go to risky areas and mix with locals freely. To use exotic people in magazines and runways. But not to listen to their perspectives. It’s a trend. Armchair activism fuelled by the flames of capitalism. Fashion companies, media brands, tech companies and entertainment corporations are all complicit in either patronising or objectifying people of color, especially black people.
Essentially, it is an act of unconsciously or subconsciously, or even worse, intentionally treating black people in a condescending way due to centuries old psychologically ingrained and systemic racist attitudes. It is no wonder supremely successful black people while on holiday in Europe such as Oprah Winfrey are met with derisive reactions.
White people living in countries where they are the majority or often have the power to control the perceptions of the majority still find it deeply uncomfortable to admit their white privilege status. They find themselves disturbed when asked to confront the issue. It is an inconvenience for them. They will debate everything under the sun to say that black people too can be racist yet they will never open their eyes to observe the benefits of their white privilege.
From award shows such as Oscars to television channels owned by powerful companies, black people are considered a ‘special’ group. When they win an award or do a job not just well done but rather excellently, it is seen as an anomaly. A rare occasion. A surprise. Why so? The clouds of racism have been hovering over us for centuries. Racist jokes, racist comments and racist thinking are widespread. It’s on the dinner menu in many countries. The subject of ridicule in many sports clubs. It’s rife in society. Black people are so brutally traumatised that they even feel the need to use products to lighten their appearance. - LIBERATUM
📸 @oronaldphotos 👦🏾 @lindinaldofilho

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐎

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang, shot dead
Everybody's gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, no
I'm tired of being the victim of hate
You're raping me of my pride
Oh, for God's sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy...
Set me free

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Trepidation, speculation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Black man, blackmail
Throw the brother in jail

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, no
I'm tired of being the victim of shame
They're throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can't believe this is the land from which I came
You know I really do hate to say it
The government don't wanna see
But if Roosevelt was living
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, speculation
Everybody litigation
Beat me, bash me
You can never trash me
Hit me, kick me
You can never get me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Some things in life they just don't wanna see
But if Martin Luther was living
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody's gone bad
Situation, segregation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Kick me, kike me
Don't you wrong or right me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
- @michaeljackson 📸 @olhardepaulina_

𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐓: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐃

You're going to hear this quote quite a bit in the next few days: "A riot is the language of the unheard." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this during a speech he called "The Other America." What you probably won't hear, is the question he asked that followed: "What is it that America has failed to hear?" This was rhetorical. He had the answers ready. He said that it failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. That large segments of society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. This was 1967.

For the past few days, we have seen the fires of riots in Minneapolis. We saw riots in Ferguson. We saw riots in Baltimore. All following needless death. All carried out by the unheard, or "thugs" in the words of our president, which only seems to describe one kind of person.

You're going to hear the condemnations of looters, and we should condemn them. There are always going to be those that take advantage of situations like this, but this minority should not be allowed to tarnish the very real anger and pain this community, and others across America, feel. And the absence of reaction, of understanding, of listening, of change that tells this community that you don't care.
In fact, whole campaigns have been constructed just to muzzle the mere voicing that a problem exists #AllLivesMatter.

I'm going to paraphrase Dr. King again: Riots don’t appear out of thin air. The seeds were planted long ago. Nurtured in this community by an authority that doesn’t seem to be concerned with its humanity, and by a society that seemingly pays lip service to justice and equality. We speak out, but when we do, we're told that we're too loud. If we want results, we should speak in a more peaceful manner. When we march peacefully, we are told to not be an inconvenience. And when we take a knee, we are told that’s too much. Too disrespectful. All the while the communities remain unheard, forced to live with their fears. Until they become too much to bear. - Reese Waters (WUSA 9), Randolph Terrance Sturdivant 📸 @dguttenfelder

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐄𝐆

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐄𝐍 .

By far the worst thing we do to males — by making them feel they have to be hard — is that we leave them with very fragile egos. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

For decades, we used terms like “macho,” “red-blooded” or “machismo” to describe the kind of hulking masculinity that men were, on some level, expected to aspire to.

Now we have “toxic masculinity” — an expression once relegated to women’s studies classrooms that suddenly seems to be everywhere.

So what does “toxic masculinity,” or “traditional masculinity ideology,” mean? Researchers have defined it, in part, as a set of behaviors and beliefs that include the following:

Suppressing emotions or masking distress

Maintaining an appearance of hardness

Violence as an indicator of power (think: “tough-guy” behavior)

In other words: Toxic masculinity is what can come of teaching boys that they can’t express emotion openly; that they have to be “tough all the time”; that anything other than that makes them “feminine” or weak. (No, it doesn’t mean that all men are inherently toxic.) - Maya Salam @nytimes 📸 René Peña

𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐑

𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓 𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐃𝐋𝐘

If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.

Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.

Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.

The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love.
But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. .

And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience. - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 📸 @leafy.yeh 👩🏾 @thatdarkskiin

𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀

𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄

Dear United States, Dear Brazil

How many more black men, black women and black children will you kill? - LIBERATUM

All you are ever told in this country about being black is that it is a terrible, terrible thing to be. Now, in order to survive this, you have to really dig down into yourself and recreate yourself, really, according to no image which yet exists in America. You have to impose, in face — this may sound very strange — you have to decide who you are, and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

One is born in a white country… when you open your eyes to the world, everything you see: none of it applies to you. You go to white movies and, like everybody else, you fall in love with Joan Crawford, and you root for the Good Guys who are killing off the Indians. It comes as a great psychological collision when you realize all of these things are metaphors for your oppression, and will lead into a kind of psychological warfare in which you may perish.

To be a Negro in this country is really… never to be looked at. What white people see when they look at you is not visible. What they do see when they do look at you is what they have invested you with. What they have invested you with is all the agony, and pain, and the danger, and the passion, and the torment — you know, sin, death, and hell — of which everyone in this country is terrified.

As a Negro, you represent a level of experience which Americans deny.

I’m not worried about the Negroes in the country even, so much as I am about the country. The country doesn’t know what it has done to Negroes. And the country has no notion whatever — and this is disastrous — of what it has done to itself. North and South have yet to asses the price they pay for keeping the Negro in his place; and, to my point of view, it shows in every single level of our lives, from the most public to the most private. - James Baldwin 📸 @kamyiis

𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑

𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘? .

It seems to me that white journalists in particular — and white citizens, in general — have done a tremendous injury to truth and honesty by providing the dangerous illusion that racism was hard to define and racists were hard to designate.

The New York Times is not exempt from that critique.

And specifically, by leaving people of color out on a limb as the primary voices of truth on these racial issues, you have created the impression that the use of these terms is born of personal grievance rather than professional assessment.

By refusing to add your white voices you gave the defining of racism a black face. You allowed people to believe that the telling of truth and bearing of witness by some, we black and brown few, has the appearance of being corrupted and compromised by ignoble motive.

Make no mistake: Denying racism or refusing to call it out is also racist. You cannot claim to be egalitarian and anti-racism and choose to be closeted among family and friends or even in your community for fear of rejection and ostracism, or as is often used as an excuse, to keep the peace.

There is no peace for the targets of racism, so your choosing of personal comfort and the comfort of racists supports the commission of racial injury.

If you are just coming to call Trump’s behavior racist — or, worse yet, if you still can’t bring yourself to do so — you are part of the problem. You are supporting that architecture of white racism. - Charles M Blow in The New York Times 📸 @jordi.koalitic

𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐔𝐒 𝐎𝐁𝐒𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎𝐗𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘

Phallic masculinity underpins the social formation of patriarchy. Yet its early manifestations were not equated with the lust for power that defines it today. The earliest phallic objects, found in southern Germany, are some 28,000 years old.

Initially, the phallus was more associated with natural fertility. The Egyptian God Min, for example shows an ample erection in the left hand and an agricultural flail in the right. In some cultures it was seen as a bridge or means of relational connection rather than domination. For the ancient Greeks, the penis had creative associations, seen as a sort of Merlin’s wand. The ever-ready Priapus was also the god of vegetable gardens, beehives, flocks and vineyards. Being “a dick”, then, was not necessarily pejorative in those times. But unless you were a god and it went with your responsibilities, a large phallus was regarded as excessive and crude.

For the Romans, the phallus became more of a power-centred battering ram. A large Roman phallus was a sign of status, the ability to protect and vanquish evil. This can be seen in statues and amulets of the period, a view that embedded itself in Western cultures. Male gods displaced Earth-mother deities, and the dominance of the phallus was enacted less through physical displays of power and more from symbolic displays of control.

Despite the obsession with control, a phallic understanding of masculinity is not always entirely negative. Benign patriarchy, for example, could be seen as well-intentioned benevolent discipline (“tough love”). At their best, such patriarchs tempered control with a touch of care and charity, even generosity. The control element might be subtle and imperceptible. But today, being “a dick” is hardly associated with tender emotions. Phallic metaphors have now become largely negative – associated with tight hierarchical control, intense competition and obsessive zero tolerance of error. - Stephen Linstead, University of York, Garance Maréchal, University of Liverpool. .

Art 🎨 Kalervo Palsa

𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆

I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things—the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos—are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul.

Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.

Live one day at a time. Keep your attention in present time. Have no expectations. Make no judgements. And give up the need to know why things happen as they do. Give it up!

We often hesitate to follow our intuition out of fear. Most usually, we are afraid of the changes in our own life that our actions will bring. Intuitive guidance, however, is all about change. It is energetic data ripe with the potential to influence the rest of the world. To fear change but to crave intuitive clarity is like fearing the cold, dark night while pouring water on the fire that lights your cave. An insight the size of a mustard seed is powerful enough to bring down a mountain-sized illusion that may be holding our lives together. Truth strikes without mercy. We fear our intuitions because we fear the transformational power within our revelations.
- Caroline Myss 📸 @lindsayperryman

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋, 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐌𝐄𝐍

Research has found that tall men are more attractive to women, are perceived as natural leaders, and tend to earn more money than their height-challenged counterparts. But it seems this positive effect applies only to whites. "Height means something different for black men," write psychologists Neil Hester and Kurt Gray of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. "Height amplifies already problematic perceptions of threat, which can lead to harassment and even injury. .

For black men, being tall may be less of a boon, and more of a burden." The researchers restricted their data to non-Hispanic black and white males, and controlled for several factors that could account for higher odds of being stopped by police, including age, weight, and local crime rates (real and perceived). They found that "tall black men are especially likely to receive unjustified attention from police. At 5'4", police stopped 4.5 black men for every white man," they report. "At 5'10", police stopped 5.3 black men for every white man. At 6'4", police stopped 6.2 black men for every white man." The second study featured 318 participants who looked at photographs of 16 young men—eight white and eight black—from two perspectives: Above the target (which makes one look short) and below (which makes one look tall). They rated each photograph using adjectives related to both threat and competence. .

The appearance of being taller made white men "seem more competent, and thus less threatening," the researchers report. But for black men, "being taller made targets more threatening, and thus less competent." When threat is removed from the equation, tall black men, like tall white men, project an aura of competence. So a black male business executive may be positively perceived at a board meeting—and then negatively stereotyped when he takes off his suit and goes for a run. - Tom Jacobs, Pacific Standard 📸 Jannini Castro 👦🏾👩🏻 @ricardomartinns82 @_maga_magra

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒𝐍’𝐓 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒

After the Taliban government refused to hand over terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in the wake of al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban leadership quickly lost control of the country and relocated to southern Afghanistan and across the border to Pakistan. .

From there, they have waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government in Kabul, international coalition troops, and Afghan national security forces.

In the eighteenth year of the war, and in their fifth year of being responsible for securing the country, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) continue to face significant challenges in holding territory and defending population centers, while the Taliban continues to contest districts and carry out suicide attacks in major cities. .

For more than four years the war has been at a stalemate, with, according to official U.S. government estimates as of 2019, only 53.8 percent of Afghan districts under government control or influence, 33.9 percent contested, and the remaining 12.3 percent under the control or influence of the Taliban. .

The ANDSF continue to suffer heavy casualties and, while actual figures have now been classified by the U.S. military, senior Afghan officials estimate that for several months in 2018 as many as thirty to forty ANDSF personnel were killed every day. 2018 also saw a record-high number of 10,993 civilian casualties, with the UN documenting 3,804 deaths and 7,189 injuries. .

While 2019 saw a slight decline, with 3,403 civilians killed and 6,989 injured, civilian casualties exceeded 10,000 for the sixth year in a row and brought the total UN-documented civilian casualties since 2010 to more than 100,000. - The Council on Foreign Relations 📸 @bebop_studio

𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐗?
Many of our answers probably include a reference to reproduction. Sex is the primary way that babies are made.

But what will we think about sex if it has almost nothing to do with procreation?

Since the birth of the world’s first “test tube baby” in 1978, around eight million people have been born by IVF. And the number may vastly increase in the future as our tools to identify genetic risks in embryos become more sophisticated. “My strongest prediction is in the future people will still have sex – but not as often for the purpose of making babies,” Henry T Greely, author of The End of Sex And The Future of Human Reproduction, tells me over the phone. “In 20 to 40 years, most people all over the world with good health coverage will choose to conceive in a lab.” Greely’s book explores some of the legal and ethical challenges facing the science of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). “Like most things, there will be a fair amount of visceral negative reaction initially, but as time goes on and kids [born via PGD] prove not to have two heads and a tail,” the public will come not only to tolerate but to prefer reproducing non-sexually.

And in that world – a world where babies are made in labs; where pregnancy-via-sexual intercourse is elected only by a minority of women; where sexual ethics have nothing to do with procreative possibilities – what will sex mean? “What is sex for?” That’s a question David Halperin asks in a provocative essay of the same name. Sex, we reason, must always have a why. Such reasoning isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, to be human means to be curious, intellectually and emotionally. Experiencing sex and theorising about what it could mean seems very natural for animals that spend much of our time engaging in higher-level criticism.

Biologically, there is one an obvious why to human sex. We have sex because it fulfills biological drives, including the necessary drives to procreate and bond. In fact, these are the two whys that have passed down to us in the Western tradition, both of which are organised around a telos, or end goal. - Brandon Ambrosino, BBC 📸 @fxhetz

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