Straw-cleaner - Smiling Through It All

“People are always telling you that “we have always done thus,” and then you find that their “always” means a generation or two, or a century or two, at most a millennium or two. Cultural ways and habits are blips, compared to the ways and habits of the body, of the race. There really is very little that human beings on our plane have “always” done, except find food and drink, sleep, sing, talk, procreate, nurture the children, and probably band together to some extent. Indeed it can be seen as our human essence, how few behavioral imperatives we follow. How flexible we are in finding new things to do, new ways to go. How ingeniously, inventively, desperately we seek the right way, the true way, the Way we believe we lost long ago among the thickets of novelty and opportunity and choice…”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Seasons of the Ansarac (via probablyasocialecologist)

Okay, since the Spielberg post blew up, I need to clear up something because I can see in the notes that pple think that Spielberg owns the rights to MLK speeches and I don't want to spread any misinformation. This is what the Vice article says:

vice.com

The Bizarre Reason You Rarely Hear Martin Luther King Quotes in Movies

Steven Spielberg has received criticism for buying the film rights to MLK's speeches, and further controversy stems from King's estate.

In 2009, Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks company paid the estate for film rights to King's words, along with his life rights, which allow a person or company to make content based on an individual's story. DreamWorks has yet to produce or direct Spielberg's planned King biopic, but the rights have caused complications for numerous filmmakers. (Neither Spielberg's literary agent nor King's estate returned Broadly's request for comment.)

This means that while the MLK estate still owns the original copyright for the speeches, Spielberg actually bought and now owns the film rights to MLK's speeches. However, this doesn't erase how problematic it it is since this means that Spielberg is the only filmmaker legally allowed to use MLK's speeches word for word in his films. A White filmmaker is essentially holding onto the film rights, at the expense of Black filmmakers. The article talks about how Ava Duvernay had to write original speeches from scratch for Selma.

King has received only one major biopic, 2014's Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay [...] Instead of using King's speeches, DuVernay wrote original monologues that sounded like soliloquies the civil rights leader could have given. [...] When asked about the changes in 2014, DuVernay told the Washington Post, "We knew those rights are already gone. They're with Spielberg."

The article also mentioned that Spielberg bought life rights and according to this Forbes article, this means that Spielberg also bought the rights to MLK's life.

By paying the Estate for the film rights to Dr. King's speeches along with life rights, Spielberg obtained unprecedented filmmaking access to Dr. King’s life — supported by Dr. King’s extraordinary intellectual property (the right to use Dr. King’s actual words.)

Hope this clarifies everything!

- mod sodapop

More than 60% of the global population that are classified as the Phase 5 famine/catastrophe level of food insecurity and starvation are in the Gaza Strip right now, and that percentage is projected to increase to 95% by Februrary

my life advice is if anyone ever says 'let me know if there's anything i can do' think of something for them to do even if you feel like they didn't mean it. if they didn't mean it they shouldn't have said it and if they did mean it u will both feel closer to each other for it.

i hate this fucking "i'm just a girl" brand of feminism bc it is so easy for young women in their 20s who are afraid of big changes and personal growth to revert to depending on their gender and the associated fragility of it so that they can make it through life when really they're just trapping themselves in a position where they cannot and will not grow out of that fear.

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

if any non-palestinians, especially in ‘the west,’ especially in positions of bodily safety, especially especially whites, are still feeling hopeless and lost about the genocide, may i offer, as gently as possible... get over it. your body is safe. you have been told over and over and over exactly what you can do to help, in exhaustive detail according to your specific social and political position. find out what you should do and do it if you can. if you can’t, that’s on you. find something you can do. stop asking palestinians to tell you what to do; take what is already given. you can find the instructions that have already been so explicitly left for you. you are an adult. your job is to keep moving. you are not allowed to be hopeless — that is a betrayal of everything the palestinian community and its supporters stand for. keep moving. don’t let anyone tell you that anti-zionist means anti-semite. don’t let anti-zionists around you become anti-semites. don’t let islamophobia stand. know that propaganda works and it’s working on you right now. keep moving. you are an adult. your life is yours to care for — that means finding the support you need, which also means knowing the boundaries and needs of those supporting you. you aren’t special. you aren’t alone. keep moving. you are not a hero. you are safe. you have agency. there is nothing you can do that can’t be done by someone else while you recharge. you are part of a collective; no one is looking directly at you. do what you can, and if you can do nothing, make your peace with that. palestine has no time for your shame or your guilt. feel these feelings when they come to you and then move through them.

French people raised half a million. Half a fucking million for the family of the cop who murdered Nahel Merzouk, an Algerian boy.

Well we don’t know the value of an Algerian life in France but we sure now know the reward for killing one.

To all the French people who say France is not racist fuck you. To all the Europeans who pretend to be so much better than the US a huge fuck you. To all the people getting a hard on over France fuck you. To all the people who even think about mentioning how destroying public property is bad fuck you. Fuck everyone who is not revolted by what happened.

The Watermelon Woman (1996) dir. Cheryl Dunye