[My main Tumblr can be found over at myasphyxiatedmind]
If you want your ask replied to privately, just put '****' before you start typing.
My name is: Michelle, but most people call me Dark online.
My gender-pronouns are: They/them/their.
I am: 26 years old, a feminist, liberal, an atheist, an omnivore, and an ISFJ.
The Feminist: Intersectional, body positive, pro-choice, and sex positive.
My privileged identities include: Female assigned at birth (trans* privilege), white, able-bodied, allistic (?), dyadic, monogamous.
My non-privileged/oppressed identities include: Gender-fluid, fat, gray-a, neuroatypical, and gay.
I have: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder.
I like: Pets & animals, animal welfare, pet care & pet care education, ~*SCIENCE!*~, anatomy & physiology, roleplaying, anime/manga, computer & video games, rock & metal music.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:
You didn’t think too deeply about this did you? Of course not. If you were prone to thinking deeply about things… you probably wouldn’t be a Feminist, now would you?
If a troll, HAHAAHAHAH
If not, HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *breathes* AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHH YOU JUST PROVED THIS ENTIRE IMAGE RIGHT
I want to say that mr-cappadocia is absolutely a troll, in that he trawls for attention/reaction, but I don’t want to suggest he doesn’t believe in the causes he trolls for.
(Source: wonderful-manna)
Scholars against Scientific Racism
Please enter your information below if you would like to sign this statement against scientific racism.
Open letter from scholars opposed to scientific racismWe are a group of 72 scholars (and counting) opposed to scientific racism - the use of science or social science to argue that a racialized group is inferior. Jason Richwine’s dissertation is an example of scientific racism and this work has no place in twenty-first century academia.
In 2009, Jason Richwine successfully defended a dissertation at Harvard University where he wrote that Hispanic immigrants have a substantially lower I.Q. than the white native-born population and that, because of the hereditary nature of I.Q., this fact should be taken into consideration when designing immigration policy. In May 2013, Richwine’s views came under public scrutiny after he co-authored an immigration policy report for the Heritage Foundation.
Richwine’s dissertation is problematic for three reasons: 1) it is part of a tradition of scientific racism; 2) it is based on discredited ideas of intelligence testing; and 3) it relies on an unscientific relationship between racialized categories and genetic makeup. Ideas of racial inferiority have been used justify slavery, forced sterilizations, the Holocaust, and all forms of contemporary racism and sexism. These ideas have no place in 21st century social science because of their historical use to justify genocide and mass sterilization and their lack of scientific rigor.
Richwine makes a connection between the genetic makeup of Hispanics and their I.Q. However, there is no genetic basis for racialized differences. And, Hispanic is an ethnic category made up of people of every racialized category. A Hispanic is a person with roots in Latin America who lives in the United States. Their ancestry could include people from any continent. The claim that Hispanics share a genetic makeup that could differentiate them from white Americans is not debatable; it is untenable.
Intelligence testing is also deeply flawed. Stephen Jay Gould points out that the primary error in intelligence testing is that of reification – making intelligence into something by measuring it. Intelligence tests attempt to measure a wide range of abilities. The score on these tests is named an “intelligence quotient” or I.Q. Gould contends that these tests are flawed and do not meet their stated goal of measuring innate intellectual ability.
To the extent that it is true that Hispanic immigrants score lower on these tests than white Americans, this is a result of unequal educational opportunities, not genetics. Diego von Vacano, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School, points out that
“the rudimentary statistical analysis of the kind that Richwine carried out ignores the important interface between social realities and genetics. … [I.Q. scores] reflect the intertwining of some aspects of mental capacity with education, life experiences, socioeconomic status, and other contingent contexts.”
Despite the fact that this perspective is widely accepted among scholars, Richwine chose to rely on the scientific racism tradition of his discredited predecessors, such as Charles Murray and J. Philippe Rushton, and attributed the differences to genetics. His argument that I.Q. scores should inform immigration policy hearkens back to the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century – during which time about 60,000 people were forcibly sterilized in the United States, on the basis of their purported intellectual unfitness.
As academics, we find it appalling that, in 2009, three professors at Harvard University were willing to guide and approve a dissertation in this academic tradition. There are three central problems with Richwine’s work that should not pass muster in any dissertation committee: 1) the argument that I.Q. scores are an indication of innate intelligence; and 2) the assertion that I.Q. is a genetic trait; and 3) the presumption that Hispanics, as a group, share a genetic makeup. All these ideas have been discredited and all are linked to an unfortunate history of scientific racism.
The idea that I.Q. scores could be a reflection of a heritable trait is one of the pernicious ideas that led to the Holocaust as well as eugenics programs and restrictive immigration policies in the United States and elsewhere. Apart from its ugly history, scientists do not have a clear understanding of the extent to which intelligence may be a heritable trait. Even if some aspects of intelligence are based on heritable traits, there is no doubt that environmental factors shape one’s ability to score highly on an intelligence test. Nevertheless, in his dissertation, Richwine eschews this evidence and argues that “the low average IQ of Hispanics is effectively permanent.”
It is clear that Richwine’s dissertation is thin – with weak statistical analyses and a literature review that relies too heavily on racist and substandard publications by Charles Murray, Richard Herrnstein, and Philippe Rushton. But, this dissertation should never have been written in the first place. Before Jason Richwine began the work that was to be his dissertation, he would have had to consult with scholars in his department to ask them if they would be on his doctoral committee. At that point, they should have explained to him that this work carries on the tradition of scientific racism, and has no place in twenty-first century scholarship. Instead, three scholars - George Borjas, Richard Zeckhauser, and Christopher Jencks - agreed to supervise this scientifically racist dissertation and approved granting him a PhD degree from Harvard University.
Dean Ellwood at Harvard Kennedy School takes the position that this dissertation is part of an academic debate. We are not against academic freedom. However, there is no academic debate on whether or not Hispanics as a group are less intelligent than native-born whites. There are debates on whether or not Hispanic is a pan-ethnic, ethnic, or racialized category. There are debates on how and whether or why we should measure intelligence. There are debates on the extent to which intelligence is a heritable trait. But, there are no debates on whether or not Latino immigrants have the intellectual caliber to be part of the United States. Those kinds of debates happen in nativist and white supremacist circles, which have no place in academia, which prizes arguments and debates based on valid constructs and scientific evidence.
so I answered this question on my personal blog, but it absolutely belongs here.
(tw: discussion of ED, rape, rape culture, depression/mental illness, and hate speech)
well anon, I give a shit! and if you care about other -isms, you probably should too. fat people (or really, people of any body type outside the “norm” as determined by the media — intersectionality, yo) are stigmatized to the point where:
hate speech and flat-out nastiness toward fat people is normalized, which is dehumanizing. people feel entitled to tell fat people they shouldn’t eat something, or should eat less, or should exercise more, or that what they’re wearing isn’t flattering, and all manner of things that are actually pretty inexcusable! moreover, people feel entitled to say (and do say, all the time) that fat people are disgusting, lazy, gluttonous, stupid, and/or unhygienic, which is simply untrue. and these things are legitimized and standardized by our culture. this is all in the name of Being Concerned About Their Health but that’s actually a load of crap — someone else’s health isn’t your business, you can’t tell if someone is healthy if you’re looking at them, and unhealthy people deserve just as much respect and dignity as healthy people regardless.
fat people, especially fat people who are not cis men, who are sexual assault survivors are significantly less likely to report their assault, because they’re told they’re wildly undesirable pretty much every day. in a culture where rape is misrepresented as a crime of passion or misunderstanding, fat people are scoffed at for reporting. who’d want to fuck a fat girl, after all?
fat people are encouraged in eating disorders and eating disordered behavior. generally, most people see any effort fat people make to lose weight as a good thing, even if those behaviors would cause serious alarm if performed by a thin person. I can speak firsthand about this - my EDNOS went undiagnosed for years because most of my doctors thought that any effort for me to lose weight was a good effort, even if it meant I was hurting myself. the other night I was watching TV and a diet advertisement came on for a product that had the tagline “Eating less never looked so beautiful.” seriously, what the hell?
speaking of, fat people are routinely misdiagnosed and mistreated by the medical community. I once went in to my university’s gyno to get a yeast infection addressed, and was told that I’d developed it because my thighs touched.* Melissa McEwan of Shakesville says it better than I ever could:
No, there is not a documented epidemic of brutal murders of fat people for being fat, but there is a documented epidemic of failure to provide life-saving healthcare: Google will easily help you find stories of fat people who died while emergency crews laughed at their weight and appearance, of fat people who were told they should lose weight to fix problems actually caused by blood clots, cancer, internal injuries, infections, and myriad other problems that later killed them, because their doctors couldn’t see past their fat to properly treat them. Google will also easily help you find stories of medical equipment that cannot accommodate fat bodies, of anesthetists who accidentally kill fat people in surgery, of doctors who prescribe wrong doses for fat bodies, of drug trials that make no attempt to include fat patients. Google will also easily help you find stories of fat people who did not seek life-saving healthcare because they had been so viciously fat-shamed by doctors their whole lives that they had given up hope of finding sensitive and caring providers who would treat them.
Fat people die because of fat hatred ALL THE TIME.
fat people are subject to a myriad of microaggressions that, in aggregate, signal to them that they are not worthy of “normal” society. plus-sized clothing is harder to find and often costs more and is not as well-made. safety equipment doesn’t fit fat people. fat people are expected to constantly apologize for themselves and be actively looking to lose weight, and therefore are not allowed to be happy or to like themselves (and fat people who are happy, who like themselves, or who feel sexy are relentlessly ridiculed and cut down for it). articles about the “obesity epidemic” are accompanied by photos of fat people where their heads are cropped off, which is a standard way of objectifying and dehumanizing. “fat” has become shorthand for “lazy, gluttonous, stupid, unhygienic, disgusting.” I could go on, but the blog This Is Thin Privilege has many other examples.
overweight teenage girls are much more likely than their average-weight peers to be depressed, suicidal, or to commit self-harm. this is because they’re only offered images of happy thin people and one-dimensional, unhappy fat people. when all you see in the media are people who look like you that hate themselves, or people who used to look like you to whom the best thing in their lives was no longer looking like you, you don’t expect happiness.
and not for nothing, but people are making a LOT of money off of this “obesity epidemic” crap and keeping people from focusing on the actual problems behind said “epidemic.” the people who benefit from keeping everyone scared of being fat? the billion-dollar diet/weight-loss industry, plus the companies who get a LOT of money from government food subsidies for corn, in particular. they want people at large to avoid thinking critically about why people in America are steadily gaining weight, because the answers will lose them a lot of money. classism, wage gaps, and poverty play a huge role — if you’re a single parent working multiple jobs, you don’t have a lot of time or money to prepare fresh meals all the time, and there is a correlation between poverty and weight. ever heard of a food desert? google that sucker, anon. shit’s whack.
you should give a shit about fatphobia because fatphobia is mad intersectional (body politics apply to a lot, a lot, a lot of people, not just fat people) and because it’s mostly manufactured to keep you thinking about “actually important things.”
not for nothing, but if you’re worried about the quality of life of oppressed people, you should also worry about the fact that 1 out of 10 parents would abort a child if it was genetically likely to be fat** and 1 out of 3 people would rather walk away from their marriage than be fat ***
apparently, fat is the most terrifying thing you could possibly be in American culture. and how fucked up is that?
* yeast infections do not happen because your thighs touch.
** sauce
*** even more sauceDid the person asking this question forget that fat, queer POC exist?
Why doesn’t anyone discuss how society’s perceived ownership of the female body extends into parents who dictate everything their daughters do?
Not letting your daughters express themselves in how they dress, talk, wear their hair, or whether or not they wear makeup just gives them the idea, from an extremely young age, that their body is not their own and they must please others by making it look how they view best.
Learn that before you have children.
(Source: selectiveavantgarde)
shorm replied to your post: ssttephaniiee replied to your post: christianity…
…protestants are also christians. I think youre looking for branch of, not branch off.
cyaziris replied to your post: and you are getting confused christianity and catholicism are two different religions. The example of westernizing the native americans, that was catholic not christian.
Catholicism, Protestantism, Presbyterianism, Reformed, Orthodox, Roman-Catholicism, Copts, and all the hundreds of others including Westboro Baptists Church, are all substreams of Christianity. For a history major they sure know little.
ssttephaniiee replied to your post: christianity did not come from the colonies, they were quakers, protestants EVERYTHING BUT christians, they were fleeing from christian persecutors from england, the events that you are talking about come way later, i dont think that you understand that. and i never talked about head dresses or culture appropriation.
shorm: they are not christians it is a branch off Christianity. its like protestants they are not catholic but a branch off it.
shorm replied to your post: and you are getting confused christianity and catholicism are two different religions. The example of westernizing the native americans, that was catholic not christian.
catholicism is a denomination of christianity this anon is hilariously off-base
I thought so. I mean… I grew up Catholic. It’s been a while, but srsly.
shorm replied to your post: christianity did not come from the colonies, they were quakers, protestants EVERYTHING BUT christians, they were fleeing from christian persecutors from england, the events that you are talking about come way later, i dont think that you understand that. and i never talked about head dresses or culture appropriation.
&..quakers and protestants are christians. anon you might wanna crack open a history book or wikipedia or something
But they’re a history major!
