thatdiabolicalfeminist:

People often excuse themselves for habitually doing things they know are wrong, by claiming that the bad things they do are in conflict with the person that they are “deep down”. Some people also minimize the good things they habitually do and see themselves as tainted and inherently bad, even when they choose again and again to do right and make amends when they fail.

But each time you make a choice, you are deciding what kind of person to be.

If you choose to control another person and deny them autonomy, for instance, you are choosing to be an abuser, even if “deep down” you have excuses, justifications, and a belief that this choice is an exception to your “real” personality. Alternatively, if you consistently choose to treat others with respect and care, you are choosing to be a respectful and caring person, even if “deep down” you feel like nothing you do is good enough.

Each choice you make adds to the pattern of who you are; you can change the pattern, but it requires sustained effort or it will only be a blip in your life. 

You will never be perfect or irredeemable. The best, kindest people you know have done or said cruel, thoughtless, or bigoted things. The worst, most vicious people you can think of have had moments of kindness and goodness and selflessness. All of us have habits, ideas, ways of speaking that uplift people, and others that harm people. With active work, we can identify these patterns and alter them to make ourselves the kind of people we want to be.

There will always be times when what’s right isn’t clear, or when we fail to live up to our ideals. That’s part of being human. But you can’t insist that people measure who you are as a person by your internal feelings and your excuses – your actual actions, your choices about how you interact with others and with the world around you, are the part of yourself that is most visible and most relevant to others.

The people who love you because you are consistently kind and supportive and respectful are trusting your consistent actions. Even if you sometimes feel like lashing out, each time you choose instead to behave kindly you are actively being the kind of person who is worthy of that trust..

If you do or say things that are abusive, or racist, or misogynistic or transphobic or homophobic or what have you, you are making choices that hurt people; you are the kind of person who hurts people. If you do the work to learn how to start making different choices, you will start to become a different person. However, you cannot demand to be treated as someone who doesn’t hurt people without first doing the work to actually stop.

That starts by recognizing that others are far more affected by your actions than your intentions, and that while intent may explain how you made the choices you did, it can never excuse, negate, or erase them. The only thing you can do is put in the work to start making better choices and building a new pattern of behaviour.

It’s all about actions. What you think or feel or wish will never carry as much weight as the things you actually choose to do.

(via thatdiabolicalfeminist)

the-transfeminine-mystique:

One of the biggest mistakes that mainstream liberal organizing has made (particularly in liberal/progressive religious contexts) has been to lose sight of nonviolence as a tactic and instead conceive of it as a moral imperative. Tactics develop, evolve, and change over time as they become known and circumvented by counter-tactics. Nonviolence in the civil rights movement was a tactic that juxtaposed the state’s (and rank-and-file white people’s) brutality against motionless and non-aggressive black bodies, specifically in the context where camera crews were documenting things the police weren’t used to having be documented. In that context, the tactic found success.

Modern interpretation of nonviolence as a moral imperative, on the other hand, does not allow room for development. The belief is that we must practice nonviolent resistance because it is right, not because it works. And that interpretation is the thing keeping people from realizing that the context has changed and nonviolent resistance doesn’t work in the same way. The state has learned how to manipulate and circumvent it as a tactic, but liberals are too married to it as a moral point to notice.

(via labrujaprincess)

glumshoe:

glumshoe:

glumshoe:

glumshoe:

stop picking at your lip

and you, over there? leave your cuticles alone. 

and don’t touch that weird bump at the back of your scalp, for fuck’s sake

so much as think about biting the inside of your cheeks and I will come to your house and Get you

(via seanp0donnell)

sexetc:

onceuponacaskett:

ROSA ACTUALLY SAID THE WORD “BI” ON PRIMETIME TELEVISION AND SHE’S DATING A WOMAN AND THAT WOMAN CALLS HER “BABE” AND I’M CRYING

We love bisexual representation!

“When you think about sexuality, do you usually think boy plus girl? Nowadays there are more people who also think boy plus boy or girl plus girl when it comes to sexuality. Today there is increased visibility of gay and lesbian people, and more people are comfortable with people of various sexual orientations.”

Read: Debunking Myths about Bisexuality

I literally just watched this scene 😭