Monkinetic Weblog

Criminalization [...] is "the process by which behaviors and individuals are transformed into crime and criminals". Wikipedia

Not a day has gone by lately that I don't see multiple examples online of the effects of the criminalization of people of color in America.

I did NOT grow up understanding this and I don't know how to help.

In formal academically published theory, the real ruling class of a society reaches a temporary view on whether certain acts or behavior are harmful [Ed: to the ruling class] or criminal. Wikipedia (Emphasis added)

I'm thankful for the Seeing White podcast for the work they did which really open my eyes into how the legal and legislative process has been used consistently in America to redefine people of color as a criminal class -- we cannot see Black and brown Americans as individuals anymore, we only see them through the lens of criminality.

This process produces an explanation and excuse in the minds of the ruling class for any and all injustices against minorities and lower classes: they deserve it, as members of the criminal class, and it enables the excusing of members of the ruling class ("Well, it's not like he's a criminal").

I grew up a literal WASP and I'm ashamed of so many things I thought over the years. Worse, I can still recognize these deeply ingrained patterns in my own mind, even as I struggle to flip the script in my head.

chopsaw fun

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My new Savage sticker from Tested.com

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Every morning I look for more... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJtitKU0CAej22ZWBqrimPkn0Bbo6ci-r

Fred Joseph asks:

One thing that’s been interesting about Trump’s presidency is how accessible it has made conversations about white supremacy.

I wonder how invested white people and the media will be in racism and anti-racism after he’s gone.

I've been wondering the same thing: assuming Biden wins, will white liberals (myself included) sigh in relief and go back to our pre-Trump, pre-Breonna Taylor, pre-George Floyd comfort?

I know that I've been working hard on following and learning from Black Americans and POC, and it's been good work, but white liberals have just scratched the surface of what we must learn from the lives and histories of POC.

Trump has been SO awful that it has been a catalyst for many of us to finally face the systemic injustice and racism that allowed him to rise to prominence, riding the post-Obama racist reaction. But a Biden win will not fix anything yet, it just puts a better public face on the administration. The hard work will be continuing to fight to reform the Senate, our law enforcement and justice systems, all the entrenched ways of thinking and working that our nation has been built on.

My "worst case" scenario right now is a Trump removal, Pence win. Pence is the "nice" face of a corrupt administration, and will happily go along with anything the abusive GOP can think up, bringing even the never-Trumper Evangelicals with him. And I know white democrats who are outraged at Trump-the-character, but not so much his racist, unjust policies.

Oh yes I have a blog (my twice yearly remembering)

Great, moody beep-boop music from Stratotron

This post got me thinking, so I decided to graph the "privilege dependencies" in a way that might better show the weight of opportunities my own are built on.

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A thread on Twitter started me thinking about what it takes to get good at DIY, so here's my helpful list of what you too can do to get good at DIY

1. I just decided to do a project!
2. for the house I own (ie can modify)
3. and I have the physical abilities (strength, stamina, co-ordination, mobility etc.) to attempt the project
4. and I have tools
5. in the garage I have and
6. have time to use the tools
7. i could afford
8. thanks to the job
9. i got with my high school
10. and college education
11. where I earn enough
12. in little enough time
13. to have leisure time
14. to use the knowledge I got
15. from watching my Dad
16. and some tools i inherited from my dad
17. who had a garage
18. on the house he owned
19. thanks to the job he got
20. with his college education
21. which he parents could afford
22. thanks to the job my grandfather had
23. thanks to his skills in the military in WW2
24. and the education he got
25. thanks to the GI Bill

HT to jmz for the reminder about physical capabilities, another privilege I forget every day.

usps-fairness-act tags: "" title: H.R.2382 - USPS Fairness Act

To our elected "representatives": The United States Post Office is one of the most powerful forces for democracy in our nation, giving rich and poor, native-born and immigrant, people from every social class and structure Equal Access under the law. There are those who, for years, have been seeking to limit the ability of the USPS to do it's job, because it benefits them to disempower and disenfranchise those who differ in face/class/privilege.

DO NOT stand with those who would destroy one of the most American of institutions.

Support and PASS H.R.2382 - USPS Fairness Act

Detroit, early 1980s, techno is invented by three friends who happen to be black:

High school friends Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May, known as the Belleville Three, are known as the creators of techno music. Kevin Saunderson is the person who made sure techno music got to the masses by 1983.

The History of Techno Music from Black Music Scholar

Techno came out of Detroit in the 1980’s as underground dance music and subculture. Techno music took technology and made it a black secret.

The three tracks linked on that page would play in any house club today. I'd've danced the crap outta these when I was clubbing. HT to https://playvicious.social/@paralithode for suggesting I google "black inventor techno #blackhistory #musichistory #erasure

(I may or may not be chairdancing to Tranzister right now)

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Folks, this is Sister Rosetta Sharpe, the queer black woman who invented rock and roll, before Elvis, Little Richard, or Chuck Berry were out of short pants

https://www.theroot.com/sister-rosetta-tharpe-the-queer-black-woman-who-invent-1823198999 #blackhistory #musichistory #erasure

(Source: https://playvicious.social/@paralithode)

1) in the pandemic world, vote-by-mail is the only truly safe and equitable option

2) Trump has been beating the "vote-by-mail = fraud" hard and loud

3) If the election in November doesn't go Trump's way, I'd give >50% odds he won't concede; America never has a "valid" election again

Listening: Scene on Radio's "The Land That Never Has Been Yet", on America's do-called Democracy http://www.sceneonradio.org/season-4-trailer-the-land-that-never-has-been-yet/

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My privileged, suburban zip code in Gilbert, AZ is 12 square miles. I remember when we had 18 cases of #covid19. We're at 530 now.

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"everyone has essentially admitted that the hundred-year history of compulsory school in America was mostly a subsidized childcare effort meant to drive business, employment, consumption, debt, &c."

https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/1281951417230655488

Starting another Scene on Radio series: Democracy. Expecting to be educated, and expecting lots of examples of elite whites being horrible. This is NOT "white people being portrayed as shitty" - that's what we do to non-whites.

Installing iOS 14 beta on my carry phone. sure hope I don't brick it.

From a thread I posted on Play Viscious, re-posted here for posterity:

• My wife and I watched part 1 of the PBS documentary "The Vote" last night and I am learning a LOT. Some notes (a thread):
• If I learned anything about women's suffrage in school was quickly forgotten, pretty much everything in there was new. I think I knew Susan B. Anthony's name and Ida B. Wells.
• I think this documentary started to help me see intersectionality in action some? the fight for the ability to vote included conflicts over who should be granted the franchise first: educated white women, or black men. And black women getting left out either way (it was black men).
• The fight for voting rights for women was absolutely necessary, but it hurt to see the racist attitudes and decisions coming from the white suffragettes from leadership on down.
• Frederick Douglass was a huge proponent of women's suffrage - and he and the black women's suffrage clubs were pushed out when it seemed like black involvement would set back the cause in the jim crow south.
• also: white men are bastards

My mood tracker finally started asking about coronavirus and I was kind of like “that’s what I’ve been saying!”

But props to MoodPath - the app has daily questions and prompts to help tease out what’s affecting mood, and it really helps me get past “today I’m MEH” 😐