You guys are dangerously close to realizing specifically what kinds of people they keep from voting and why.
I want to drill this into everybody’s head:
The United States of America has the highest prison population in the world
Black Americans and Latin people make up the majority of this population (many of whom are non-violent offenders)
Federal Prisons in America require that their state keeps their prisons at a maximum occupancy at all times.
The 13th amendment did not entirely abolish slavery…just one form of it. It remains legal through industrial prison system
Oh and we have privatized prisons which allow companies to actually make money off of keeping people incarcerated
Here’s what’s really perverse: prisoners, who cannot vote, still get counted in the U.S. Census. The more prisoners a county has, the more representation it gets, even though the prisoners cannot vote. See how that works? The more black and brown people they lock up, the more government resources and political representation they get. Even though those prisoners have no say and cannot vote.
If county-A has a population of 50 voters but no prisons, and county-B has a population of 50 voters and 50 prisoners, the county with the prisoners gets more government funding and more political represention. This is sometimes called “prison gerrymandering” and it is used in redistrictring.
Not so fun Fact: Southern states that reliably vote for Republicans also have the highest prison population in the United States. (source). So mass incarceration is a double whammy. It’s both a form of voter suppression and a tool to strengthen white people’s political power.
[id: the first image is a tweet by Ryan Grim / @.ryangrim that reads: Ya know, if a country has so many people in prison that allowing them to vote could swing an election, maybe there are too many people in prison.
the second image is a tweet by Anthony Oliveira / @.meakoopa that reads: hi everyone - a government that denies its prisoners the right to vote is a government that now has an extremely vested interest in jailing its political opposition
thank you to coming to this, the literal first class of Civics 101 /end]
Boost the hell out of this. Liking is good. Reblogging is better.
I think a lot of people understand why this is bad, but in case some don’t let me explain.
The nation was horrified by the recording of George Floyd being murdered. But what if it had never been recorded? Would Derek Chauvin still be out? Would they have tossed the case due to insufficient evidence?
Look, the 2020 protests resulted in laws being passed to hold police accountable. Were they fully successful? No. Does more need to be done? Yes. But there was more being done than I’ve ever seen.
Now, in the space of a few months we have
The SCOTUS ruling prisoners don’t have the right to an appeal.
The SCOTUS ruling that cops can’t be sued for failing to Mirandize people.
The SCOTUS rule the government can charge nonIndigenous people for commiting crimes on tribal land, stripping Native Americans of tribal sovereignty.
And in Arizona, people can’t record cops within 8 feet of an arrest.
This is not an accident or a coincidence. Conservatives are sending a message that no matter what cops do, they will back cops up. They are saying that they don’t like cops being held accountable. These rulings should be taken as retaliation for any policy passed that protects BIPOC and hold police accountable.
For anybody who looks at this and goes “8 feet? That sounds reasonable, you might be getting in their way at that distance” Please follow this through to it’s logical consequence.
Imagine You are filming a cop do something the cop doesn’t want filmed, one of his cop buddies now starts aggressively walking at you or telling you to come to him, now you are either:
A) Fleeing from a cop or refusing to obey a command from a cop, a thing they can, *have*, and *will* kill over.
B) Filming a cop from closer than 8 feet, which they can now arrest you over.
Unpopular opinion, but I genuinely don’t understand the “Men are inherently privileged in this society”. Like, who’s the first to die in wars? Who’s always expected to sacrifice themselves and not expect any help? Who’s seen as inherently dangerous and violent and thus experience police bias? Who’s sexual violence victims are always overlooked and hardly every get any justice? Who’s expected to be feminist for equal rights BUT pay for the woman they’re not even dating yet? Ik last one isn’t a huge deal, I’m saying that it’s about always placing the financial burden on a man as if a woman is his child or something.
You may go on about how these issues are invented by men, but if you’re a man or society forces you to be one, it doesn’t help you anyhow or chanhe the situation. You have to sacrifice yourself, you have to go to the army, you will be ignored as a sa or violence victim. You can be a dead ass ‘smash the patriarchy’ dude but this won’t save you from all of these issues. So where is the inherent privilege? I agree that male privileges do exist, but there are also disadvantages and pretty serious ones. How the fuck are we supposed to ignore all this?
Wow. This level of stupidity is almost impressive, truly.
“Who’s the first to die in wars?” 65-70% of total casualties in wars are civilians. Very few men are ever drafted, the vast majority of soldiers who die in combat are there by choice in order to reap the benefits of male privilege through violence. Only 7% of the US population has ever been in the military, and only a minority of those people will ever see combat, and only a fraction of those who see combat will actually die in it. There were 5,281 total American deaths (men and women total) in combat for the “war on terror” (Afghanistan and Iraq wars) since 2001. Meanwhile, men murdered nearly 1,800 women in 2019 alone. Just one year. These women didn’t sign up to participate in an industry of killing and being killed, the way soldiers do. When men are killed, it’s almost always because they chose to engage in violence in pursuit of power. When women are killed, it’s typically because a male person hated them for the way they were born.
It remains hilarious to me that men create warfare and militaries and then try to pretend to be oppressed by them. Military service brings more benefits than risks for the vast majority of male members. The institution itself is incredibly male supremacist and hostile to female people at every level, with male members harassing and assaulting female members, covering up these crimes and punishing the victims if they speak up, and shutting women off from the benefits that men reap from being in the military.
When you’re trying to cast the male soldiers as victims in wars, keep in mind that in pretty much every armed conflict, the male soldiers use mass rape of female civilians as a form of torture and for their own pleasure. Wherever an army goes, a sex trafficking industry springs up due to the demand created by the male soldiers.
“Who’s always expected to sacrifice themselves and not expect any help?” Women. The answer is women. The vast majority of single parents are women. The vast majority of unpaid labor is done by women. Women are told that our bodies exist to be sacrificed for males and fetuses and that you’re a crazy bitch if you complain.
“Who’s seen as inherently dangerous and violent and thus experience police bias?” Over 40% of cops commit domestic violence. Males are not seen as inherently dangerous and violent, it’s just that over 90% of every type of violent crime is perpetrated by males. Larger stronger bodies have a greater capacity for physical violence - recognizing that is not discrimination, it’s a fact. Ever notice how a 6 foot tall adult male will be treated with more caution than a 3 foot tall boy? Is that “misandry” too?
Despite all this, police do in fact display a bias against female people, since police are overwhelmingly male and a huge portion of them participate in violence against women in their own lives. Yes, in recent decades the cops have stopped hunting down abused women and physically dragging them back to the men who abuse them, but the culture hasn’t changed all that much. Male abusers find more support from cops and judges than their female victims.
“Whose sexual violence victims are overlooked and hardly ever get justice?” Female victims. Lmaoo what kind of fantasy world are you living in? The vast majority of rapists are male and the vast majority of victims are female, same with every other type of sexual assault. Males do not have to live in a world where half the population is made up of larger, stronger and more violent people with a centuries-long culture of stalking, violence, human trafficking, reproductive and domestic slavery and sexual torture directed against them because of the way they were born. Instead, males benefit from that culture, even if they don’t always consciously choose to participate in it.
Males are not forced to pay for meals. They just tend to choose to do that because they want the women they pursue to have sex with them. (Not to mention males are paid more simply for being male, so whining about buying dinner for their dates is incredibly petty and narcissistic. They have more disposable income than their female counterparts, and males are more likely to be the ones asking someone on a date, so it’s only polite to offer to get the check). Males do things like paying for food in order to gain leverage over women, and in order to incentivize women to engage in a dynamic that overwhelmingly benefits men and harms women. Men are given respect and status when they marry or sleep with women, whereas women are likely to face harassment and discrimination, especially if they have casual sex or their male partner doesn’t commit to them. Dating men is dangerous for women’s physical and social and mental heath due to a culture of misogyny and male sexual irresponsibility - males are much more likely to infect female people with STDs than vice versa, males typically never use effective sperm control and simply demand that their female partners take hormones, use painful and invasive devices, risk pregnancy, and get abortions in order to allow males to ejaculate sperm into their bodies. And men are much more likely to physically, sexually or verbally abuse their female partners and much less likely to bring them sexual pleasure. Men are more likely to abandon their female partners rather than caring for them if they get sick. Men frequently beat, kill and cheat on their female partners after impregnating them. Men typically expect their female partners to do unpaid domestic labor for them and sacrifice their careers to raise their children. Men are more likely to pursue women who are significantly younger and more attractive than they are. Taking all that into account, is it really so shocking that men will often try to incentivize women to give them a chance via buying them food?
“You have to go to the army, you have to sacrifice yourself” no you don’t, and only a tiny fraction of men ever will. “You have to be ignored as an SA victim” no, they are not more likely to be ignored, they’re just less likely to be victimized to begin with. If they are, it’ll probably be another male, and they’ll easily get support because our society is hostile toward men who direct their sexual violence at other men. If it’s a female attacker, they may face some of the hardships that female victims face, but they won’t be told that they’re slutty and ruined and dirty and asking for it etc. They won’t be ostracized from their family and friends. Their male friends are more likely to congratulate them rather than feeling bad for them, but receiving congratulations rather than scorn and ridicule and backlash and sexual harassment doesn’t actually prove that you have it worse.
Your entire argument is based on ignoring and denying the suffering of women and vastly exaggerating the suffering of men. If you can look around at a society that gives men such immense unearned privilege and does so much harm to women and think “but shouldn’t men have it even better?” that view comes from misogyny, not logic.
will never not be funny how at the start of the full scale invasion some westerners jumped on the bandwagon to pity “poor Ukrainians” and send thoughts and prayers, you know, as they usually do for a couple of months when there’s a new tragedy in the world, but then turned out that Ukrainians don’t want prayers, they want weapons, and will not just dissapear after awhile, and those people were like “oh you’re annoying. die.”
“I am against war so I will donate to humanitarian aid but not military” my brother in christ without weapons there will be no one left alive to give that aid to
dear caretakers of children: stop telling kids “I don’t care who started it!”. you’re teaching children to ignore unequal power balances. that leads to legitimate belief in things like reverse racism, misandry, heterophobia, etc. you’re teaching children that it’s wrong to retaliate when they are wronged. “who started it” is very, very relevant.
It can also teach them that defending themselves is wrong and set them up for abuse later in life.
It always matters who started it. One person is defending themselves, and one person instigated it. When you tell them you “don’t care who started it” you’ve taught one of them that if they defend themselves they will be punished for doing so. You’ve taught the other one that they can do whatever they wish to others, no one will punish only them for it, their victim will be seen as equally accountable for what happened.
Is that really a lesson you want your kids to absorb?
Yes! Same goes for “don’t talk back”, “because I said so”, “my house, my rules”.
Inspirational and real.