Use Your Words | Shauna Niequist
I think sometimes we shy away from words like this, because it’s awkward, or because we don’t want to make things all serious. We don’t say anything because we assume people don’t really care that much what we think, or because we don’t want to seem parental—doesn’t proud sound a little bit like you’re talking to a twelve year old?
Happy Birthday! Have Some Racism From Elmwood Cafe! | W. KAMAU BELL
I told her (which meant I had to awkwardly tell these other women I just met) what just happened. I wanted to run away. I was actually strangely embarrassed, as if I had done something wrong. (Through my reading I have learned that’s one way oppression also works, from the inside.) I felt numb, like I was going to pass out. And then an employee — maybe the same one — walked out of the cafe to once again deliver the “Get out of here!” message. I guess since I was still standing there you figured that I hadn’t heard it the first time. But then your employee hesitated and looked around. And I guess she realized that no one at the table was bothered by my presence. We were in fact only bothered by her presence. We were bothered by the fact that we we currently standing in Berkeley, California, a city so allegedly liberal that even the most progress-y progressives make fun of it, and yet thanks to you, it is where I as a black man was being told to “GIT!” like it was 1963, Selma, Alabama, and I was crashing a meeting of The New Moms of the Confederacy. In that moment, your employee delivered the line that has become an instant classic in our family:
Church Comes Out For Marriage Equality | TIME
“I implore you, whether you ever worship here again, or whether you come back next week happier than you’ve ever been, when all else fails, and love never fails, you are mine and I am yours, and inclusion means that we can live together in agreement and disagreement,” he said. “But if this stretches you to the point of having to compromise your soul, and you do need to separate, I would be a hypocrite to say I do not understand that, because conversely, my soul has been stretched to the point that if I do not say what I say today, I cannot be here any longer.”
Determine The Outcome Of The Super Bowl (I Hate That I Even Have To Write These Words)
For example, if you give God thanks for getting the parking spot closest to the doors at Wal-Mart, you have a very high understanding of the Providence of God. Essentially, you are saying in spite of all the bad crap that happens in the world (wars, starvation, painful diseases, death, torture) God is more interested in making sure you don’t have to walk too far to get a cut-rate deal on pants with an elastic waist made by people around the world working for slave wages.
“I implore you, whether you ever worship here again, or whether you come back next week happier than you’ve ever been, when all else fails, and love never fails, you are mine and I am yours, and inclusion means that we can live together in agreement and disagreement,” he said. “But if this stretches you to the point of having to compromise your soul, and you do need to separate, I would be a hypocrite to say I do not understand that, because conversely, my soul has been stretched to the point that if I do not say what I say today, I cannot be here any longer.”
“If you’re going to adopt kids, it’s the white parents’ obligation to shepherd them in same-race maturation,” he said. “When you have a transracial family, mixed-race family, you’re going outside the normal. Somebody has to be uncomfortable and it shouldn’t be the child. … Your child should not be your first black friend. That’s the bottom line. If you don’t know no black people, why are you trying to bring one to your home?”
Florida Police Used Mugshots Of Black Men For Target Practice. Clergy Responded: #UseMeInstead. – The Washington Post
The idea originated on a closed Facebook group for Lutheran clergy, where pastors were discussing how North Miami Beach’s police department had been caught using mugshots of actual people for target practice. Let’s send in our own photos for target practice, the pastors decided.
Lone Minority Tired Of Posing For Campus Brochures – The Eggplant
A group of multicultural students were all disingenuous smiles yesterday as they posed on Landis Green for a photograph that will be featured on Florida State University’s newest campus brochures. The brochures, set to come out just in time for the next round of acceptance letters, will feature more token minorities than all of your least favorite sitcoms combined. Although popular with high school students going through early onset midlife crises, some find the brochures problematic.
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Monologue: This Conversation Is A Series Of Gratuitous References To Validate My Intelligence To You.
Oh hello there, peer, let us begin our verbal exchange. Here’s how this will unfold: I will make a series of unnecessarily high-brow references, and I want you to just stand there and nosily chortle at the appropriate times after each one like we both know what I’m talking about. No one else can even hear us right now, so this petty charade exists solely for you to milk my waning intellectual ego enough to last another five months until we see each other again. And, as I’m sure you’ll agree, it certainly will all sound like a tête-à-tête more appropriately suited for a David Foster Wallace footnote than the director’s commentary on a Fellini film.
“Then there are those who cannot medically be vaccinated or have weakened immune systems, such as anyone undergoing chemotherapy treatment. As I reported last week, Disneyland is a popular destination for children involved with organizations such as the Make a Wish Foundation. The types of life-threatening medical conditions these children must have to participate are exactly the kinds that prevent them from being medically able to be vaccinated or that weaken their immune systems even if they are vaccinated. When herd immunity is low, the “happiest place on earth” can become one of the most dangerous places on earth for these immuno-compromised children.”
Girl’s Gone Child: Je Suis…?
Censorship is not for governments or world leaders. It is not something we should be “bullied into doing.” It is, however, something we must be mindful of when it comes to our OWN words and phrases and pictures. Knowing how and why and when to self-censor is crucial. It isn’t “cowardice” to censor what we know will sting another. It’s empathy.
