For Surely Someday...

A new bill would make conversion therapy illegal nationwide

Trying to change someone’s sexual orientation could soon become a thing of the past — not to mention illegal.

This week, Democratic lawmakers introduced the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act of 2017, which would allow the Federal Trade Commission to classify practitioners of conversion therapy, a therapy meant to change a person’s sexual orientation, as fraudulent.

About 70 democratic lawmakers, including senator Cory Booker, support the bill, the Washington Post reported. Read more (4/27/17)

crystalgemme

Apparently Nickelodeon wants to build an attraction in Palawan, Philippines .

This might seem fun for some people, but for us it’s not.

You see, Palawan is known for its non-commercialized islands and untouched beaches. There are only a few resorts in there, and the government limits tourism population there. Here are some pictures of our beautiful islands:

Nickelodeon, however, wants to capitalize the island of Coron, Palawan. They’re going to build a resort and theme park there. They claim that they want to “spread environmental awareness” but they’re really not. Building this resort will disrupt the marine ecosystem; thus destroying the environment there. Also, Palawan is our last ecological frontier in the Philippines. If they’re going to continue to do this, more and more big companies will cash-in to commercialize Palawan- and I really do not want that to happen.

I know petitions won’t do much, but at least we can prove a point that Palawan should not be disrupted. Please sign this petition, so that it will not only show that us Filipinxs don’t want this, but people from different countries as well. Please spread it around as well, so that people from different countries can be aware of what Nickelodeon is doing.

Ang aming kalikasan ay hindi dapat sirain. Maraming salamat po.

cappucinotarts

Gotta spread this myself. I’m Filipina and the conservation of home is incredibly important to me. Pollution is already a huge issue throughout the country’s cities. Many islands including Palawan are home to not just beautiful nature but some of the last of our untouched, uncolonized heritage.

buddhabrot

wtf

sarahcada

NO. PLEASE NO. I LEGIT CRIED WHEN I READ THE NEWS ARTICLE. The article is in a legit news network. It’s not fake. MY CHEST HURTS AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY. The developers say it won’t hurt the environment but artificial structures are artificial structures. PLEASE. PLEASE. NO.

I CAN ONLY HOPE THE PETITION IS GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I SIGNED IT SO FAST.

EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT FILIPINO, PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST. PLEASE.

check-your-privilege-feminists

Tumblr social justice: spreading the world apart instead of bringing us together, one group at a time.

anti-ignorance-pro-equality

The one with the Japanese comments on cultural appropriation really speak to me.

theheartbrokenlibertarian

I love the bit where they’re like “eauh mai gahhh why would they give this awful WHITE person their preshious cultural itaaammms??!!?” Um, because only white kids give a shit about “cultural appropriation”? Which is funny because somehow they can’t see that bitching about it is actually appropriating other people’s VOICES and thoughts and opinions and replacing them with their own white voices. They have become the thing they claim to hate.

WHITE SJW KIDS, STOP TRYING TO SPEAK FOR PEOPLE OF OTHER CULTURES. LET THEM SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES FFS. I promise they can, and will if they need to.

Culture - by its nature, by human nature - SPREADS. It just DOES. People contact other cultures, and they share things. That’s just a fact of life. And it’s A GOOD THING! The VAST majority of people ENJOY that and are HAPPY to share culture! Culture is NOT a finite resource that can be stolen, that can be devalued with use, that can be depleted - quite the opposite, actually. In fact, people from other cultures have explicitly expressed, to me personally as well as to plenty of others everywhere, that they feel pride and excitement when somebody from another culture is interested in or wants to emulate their culture. People who are not uptight white American teenagers/college kids are far more often than not quite HAPPY TO SHARE CULTURE.

And even if it somehow WEREN’T human nature to share and spread culture, imitation is not inherently ridicule or inherently bad. What could possibly make emulating somebody or something bad? Even the most “egregious” “cultural appropriation” “offense” - dressing up for Halloween - isn’t necessarily bad or wrong. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. [Which, I think, is a large part of why people are happy to share culture.] When you see somebody in a football uniform on Halloween, do you immediately assume that they’re making fun of football players, devaluing what they do? Or do you think, aw that kid wants to be a football player when he grows up, or I guess that guy likes football/that player?

So why is it different for cultural outfits, or for adults? It isn’t, not inherently. Dressing up in a kimono isn’t making fun of kimonos or Japanese culture. It’s appreciation. Now, if somebody is going around dressed in a caricature of a culture and openly and maliciously mocking people, then they’re… mocking people and that’s fucking rude. But they’re not stealing culture since culture can’t be stolen, and they’re not devaluing cultural items because culture is far stronger and more meaningful than somebody’s clothes.

I mean, are YOU not happy and excited to share YOUR culture with people? Do YOU get offended if somebody dresses up as something from your culture or learns your language or eats your food or wears your culture’s clothes? If you do, you’re an asshole. That’s not normal.

Like the example in the OP I, too, have been given cultural items as gifts, by people (or race traitors???) from the same culture. I have friends who bring back gifts, including grammar/vocab textbooks, from their home country when they go back to visit, and they get genuinely excited and happy to see me (and anybody they gave gifts to) use/wear their gifts. Once a sweet Cameroonian lady my gramma worked with gave her a cultural dress and actually helped her dress up in it for Halloween. That was super cute. Also, I was once asked to sing at a big, important party celebrating a big, important CULTURAL holiday that we don’t even celebrate in America, BY people from that country, because I could speak (and sing, though not sing well) in their language. I got a massively positive response from every single person there, some of the older ladies actually had tears in their eyes, absolutely everybody there wanted to hang out and speak to me in their language, a couple even invited me to come sing at their wedding later, and the host’s wife even HAND MADE a beautiful cultural dress for me afterward (ooh, so I guess she’s an evil race traitor, right???). Because sharing culture is a WONDERFUL thing that should be CELEBRATED and not fucking OUTLAWED you nazi freaks.

And here’s another example, which actually comes from an excellent YouTube channel where a Japanese guy excitedly shares his culture (or betrays his people????) with the world (TRIGGER WARNING: don’t click that link if you can’t handle watching a man intentionally teach people how to “appropriate” his culture!!):

In this video, he went around asking random people (I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same person twice in his “man on the street” videos) what they think of otakus, and specifically about people from other countries being obsessed with anime and such (that question starts at about 3:15). This is three separate groups of unrelated people who all independently stated that sharing culture is a good thing. There were plenty more answers, ranging from take it or leave it to it’s awesome, but nobody was protective of their culture in any way. (Side note, I think I might be in love with the girl in the 2nd-to-last pic. She is sooo sweet and her smile is sooo pretty and she is just sooo cute!)

So in conclusion, shut the fuck up about cultural appropriation, especially if you’re not from the culture you think you’re defending. Speaking on people’s behalf, as if you know what they want or what’s good for them, is the REAL APPROPRIATION here. Stop doing that, ya dicks.