CWL

so this week’s most used reason of why my white followers are unfollowing is “you’re promoting us vs. them” - “you’re being the racist” - “not all of us are like that” - “you’re promoting negativity”.

“you’re promoting us vs. them”

it’s funny because this notion completely ignores the fact that there is already a systematic, culturally engraved society of us vs. them where if you are a colored skin you are sucked into this whether you like it or not. the us vs. them has been there for centuries now. us being the racially oppressed.

“you’re being racist against whites”

how? what I say or joke about white people will never go any further than that because you are seen as the perfect example of humanity. so when the playing field is tipped on to your comfort and feelings in many ways both systematic and socially it’s contradicting itself to call a person of color a racist against whites.

“not all of us are like that”

cool, if that’s so true then why do you feel so inclined to protect the image of white people as if we’re asking for your blood and not our humanity and the end of our dehuminazation? why do you feel so inclined to protect even as people of color start speaking out against all the racist shit they undergo on a daily basis. do you know how annoying you come off when you say this? here’s what most poc hear when you say that: “I’m probably like that because I actually need to protect my skin tone rather than help you out or be of support to your cause — no, instead I want to make it be known that I am compassionate and that I’m still special, this is what’s important not what you’re actually talking about.”

“you’re promoting negativity”

Lmao. Yes, because I just love to experience this. I have to promote my oppression in a positive and neatly packed story with a happy ending?

cool! so pretty much the same shit as last week. it’s like you all have a tired defense preset that doesn’t even acknowledge what’s being said without your feelings being babied first. if that’s the case, what’s the point of explaining myself to you or trying to ‘win my case’ and not come off as the magical reverse racist (that only exists in white people’s imaginations), there’s no point to explaining shit to you because in your eyes I already lost. and that’s cool, I don’t want to be seen a winner by ya’ll.

from my personal experiences with depression, suicide and anxiety, it’s usually a build up. you may or may not be aware of the build up if you’re not used to thinking metaconsciously of yourself, that is, to think of your thoughts. to have one thought and go “why is that thought even here”. anyway, when it comes to me it tends to build up (I understand others experience it more abruptly). it starts with anxiety, then you get so used to thinking anxiously and always in fear of what’s to come or what already happened that it becomes the norm. the panic attacks start coming in along with the effects of constantly being nervous about something.

this wears down the mind and body considering how long it takes to get something done because we’re so busy downing ourselves and the point of what we’re doing that we get stuck on procrastination. this procrastination would usually hinder our activities and add to the overall gloomy feels. constantly questioning the point of things as if there is a given point to anything. as if we don’t make our own points. I would get stuck in this cycle until depression finally manifests itself. on top of this I would have to act calm around extreme ignorance for my own sake. you only see a portion on tumblr of what people like me go through.

you think all the dehumanization, fetishization, violence, neglect towards colored skins keeps me a happy man? far from it. to know that people hate my existence even though I’ve never met them nor have they met me does take a toll on you and your mind. but we gotto be strong. there have been plenty of times where I thought of how it would be if I would just go prematurely. but luckily for me my situation only leads me this far and no further. I’m not saying this was okay in any way but I can definitely see how, say for example, people like Aaron Swartz went that route, I understand the why and how. but we all need to understand that these aren’t our only options. we make ourselves believe such is the case when it isn’t. we allow our minds to wander into a trap and stay in it, and sometimes we never have a say in where our minds go. Sometimes we need the help of others cause we can’t do it alone, and that’s alright. go enjoy the day.

tw: depression/ suicide: The mistake a lot of people (myself included) tend to do when trying to give advice on depression and suicidal tendencies is we liken it to a mere psychological problem that can easily be dealt with by simply “trying to talk ourselves out of it”. But as I, and many others who have dealt with these things know, it’s not that easy nor is it that simple. So, the advice I’d give would almost always be specific to one kind of group undergoing these psychological malfunctions rather than making the advice more universal. That was unintentional, my apologies for those half-assed explanations that excluded so many others.

It’s an extremely diverse problem that needs to be approached by listening to what the person is undergoing first, both physical and mental ills so you can get an assessment of the situation. Once you have that understanding of how severe the situation is and you have an understanding of what can originally cause depression (environmental, physical, mental disruptions that many times intertwine and worsen the situation) if the person who is in need of help is showing signs of depression, even if you have to do it subtly, speak to them about it when the time is right.

If they don’t know, explain how changing things up in their immediate environment (not just taking a little trip somewhere), physical health routine, and depending on how bad it is, the drugs they take and ways they talk to themselves (your inner voice) all play a huge role balancing yourself out to be the most efficient and happy you there can be.

It all depends on how bad you have it. And only you know how bad you truly have it. You can try but no words you will utter can explain the amount of sadness and lack of care these imbalances bring over to you so if you’re completely honest with the people who are trying to help like say a best friend or a concerned doctor, be sure to be honest about the imbalances you feel no matter how twisted or sickening you think they are. No one will understand the amount of pain going on inside you if you don’t shout and fight.

You absolutely need meds? Take your meds. You need to eat a certain way and certain foods? Please do that. You need someone to talk to? You feel like your social gauge needs to be balanced? Don’t wait up on someone to come do that for you. Do what needs to be done to get yourself out of that situation even if it means you need to baby step your way there. Even if it means you need to tinker your mental imbalances to get yourself moving, do it, as long you do something to move your mind further from depression or suicide you are winning the battle against yourself. It may have taken you 10 to a thousand baby steps for you to be happy but hey, you’re fuckin happy and that’s not an easy thing to be in a society built to create depressed and suicidal humans like us.

after getting better informed on present day racism, looking back at when #occupywallstreet began makes so much sense now. why it didn’t take off like everyone thought it would. ya’ll were missing a major component, your inclusion of capitalism, government corruption and sell outs was on point. but you fucked up by not including the very factor that helped Obama win his most recent elections, minorities. you want something like that to really work? include the minorities and genuinely listen to the problems they face so attentively that they will then listen to you. fight with us against the problems we’re really concerned with and we will fight with you when the time comes. if you truly believe things are interconnected, and as statistics show, minorities are basically at the bottom of the pyramid holding it up for the rich. without our labor and exploitation there wouldn’t even be a pyramid to control the rest of us. but the thing is, when you exclude us from the conversations you indirectly empower the status of this pyramid and prolong the suffering of everyone being affected and dehumanized by the top level figures, most of which are likely drunk and high off that privileged position.

the older America becomes and the more I witness, the more I feel like I’m living out the part in the movie ‘They Live’ where people’s masks were coming off and their true rotten selves show through the newly acquired frame of vision. so easy to spot the bullshit in a bullshitten world that it’s hard not to be a victim of anxiety and panic attacks.

when you think about it, it makes the human race all the more awesome when it accepts itself as a massively diverse, culturally rich establishment and realizes how being from different places with different cultural configurations and differing minds actually makes us a pretty special group. we could have been a species under conditions that limited us to one piece of land with environmental conditions that repeated itself across and likely evolve into a society where identicalness was our most obvious trait. but we didn’t, we’re biologically one, but behave so differently to the extent of mass creativity and self awareness. and people really want to turn the other way and say “I’d rather the world be color blind”? that’s a shame. we could be like the justice league on a planetary level. everyone bringing the best of themselves, their experiences as diverse humans and their history to the table, fighting as one against the things that matter in the grand scheme of the human existence. can you imagine how powerful we’d be and what a one-up we’d have in terms of survival and rejuvenation of our planet?

When you’re blind to a problem a great number of people face, it becomes a challenge to spot or even genuinely care where the wrong-doing occurs when it does. You will continue to see it your way because you don’t know it any other way. As if it doesn’t matter what other more experienced people tell you about how they lived it and how they see it, all that matters is your “facts”, which in reality in cases like these are your culturally implemented notions of what it is to be human and fair as it excludes the evils done and being done to us. What people of color experience, how painful it is to them, and why it furthers suffering or if it does at all is hardly ever in your frame of perception or understanding. You aren’t providing any kind of sensible action when you tell us how to react to ignorant bullshit or when you implore us to be docile towards that suffering. The battle against racism is far from over until these issues are brought up and addressed not tucked away, controlled and ignored.

I don’t get it, do some of you really expect courtesy, kindness, love and compassion when it comes to dealing with racists and racism? I don’t think you understand these ideologies and people who follow them do not see people of color as equal humans, we are sub, and the more you stray from the social norms (just ask black trans women) the likelier you are treated as a sub human or no human at all. Why do you think it’s so easy for law enforcement to kill young people of color who’s biggest “mistake” was being born in a racist society? It may sound like an abstract, maybe an alien concept to some of you but this is still the case today, in 2013. We’re not endowed with the luxury of being nice under these conditions, and when we are, just remember that we’re doing it under this kind of context where racism still thrives. With the dehumanizing, slurs and all, we still come out smiling, resisting.

I’ve always thought, it must be great for these science blogs to limit their discussions to exclude things like racism and reap the benefit of not dealing with actual racists who follow them all for the sake of keeping that following cause you can rest assured that you can talk both science and racism without it being a real problem except for backlash from racist/ blind racists. Keeping their topics neatly aligned with what keeps the peace rather that what opens up necessary discussions. Way to go against the scientific mindset of reason and logic. Logically in order for us to move forward we’d need to acknowledge the race problem and learn to love our differences wherever we possibly can. I see it though, it just seems so comforting I can see why they do it. Why they’d hardly ever risk talking about it to their massive following and risk being labeled a racist against whites or nuisance for speaking up. But I never had it the comfortable way before so why start now? Sorry I’m not sorry that I’m not a one dimensional science blog here to only service your science interests.

Listening to Obama talk about the victims I can’t help but put those words side by side with his actions abroad and it’s incredible how someone can do that and still come up to speak and console thousands as eloquently as he while simultaneously allowing even more pain to others outside of this country. Excuse my seemingly dickish behavior by not plastering all of the trickling info on the current events or using this post to question rather than console but I’m sure you can find all the Boston info and heartfelt stuff you need from the next news blog. I can’t help to think of these things because they are confusing as fuck to me, I honestly don’t understand how any of it is right. it’s as if we’re not supposed acknowledge it when the contradictions arise. People bringing up these questions are the least of the problems that spring up when events like this take place. To the injured and affected in all recent acts of terror including the Boston bombing, my genuine condolences to you all out there.

I know this is probably unreasonable of me since everyone is free to post as they please, but I have very little respect for famous blogs that have such a great chance at using their large following and voice to at the very least act as a way to amplify very important issues like those of sexism, homophobia, racism, transphobia, etc. yet choose to put up the same old shit, just different in appearance to give others a good reason to reblog their stuff and to persist with this notion that their interests exclusively belong to some subject like art or science keeping their content very one dimensional. To me, and I suspect to many others it shows how unimportant these issues are to them considering how many people use blogging as a means to express what they feel is important, awesome or worth their follower’s eyes. Inaction speaks louder than words.

Do you ever get bored of blogs that just put out content? No personality behind it just the content? Either that or a faked personality with faked interests. You could argue that this is an advantage because you get the information as is with a bit of quirky tweaked to perfection but then again if you really wanted the information as is you could just as easily go to the official sites themselves and skip the personal banter. I couldn’t do that to myself, I love expressing myself whether or not I have a following. This blog will never become just about posting content for a certain subject or audience as if I don’t have a life I’m glad to write about whether or not things are going good for me. That sucks the life out of blogging for fun as I’ve seen many blogs undergo. However, I do understand that some blog because they take it serious and feel they’re advancing some kind of cause using such a method, and who knows, maybe they are. But I don’t want to front like I’m not a generally happy dude that enjoys things from the respectable to the ratchet due to my upbringing. I wont act like I know a lot since I don’t, and it’s relieving to know that people won’t expect most of the answers from you. I’m writing this mostly for new followers, I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m some official spokesperson for science (like it has happened in the past), I don’t wan’t that kind of title here or anywhere. It feels so one dimensional and bland. Consider me a part of the audience, I’m here to grow with you. I could definitely say I’m a spokesperson for mother nature though, but then again aren’t we all? :3

“the good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe in it or not” — Neil Degrasse Tyson. except for those times when it actually wasn’t completely true and many times far from the truth and so a newer theory had to be adapted. love you NDT but that’s a little too sure for my taste. science takes us closer to the truth than other tools but it’s definitely not always going to be 100% factual especially considering how the technological tools used to carry out scientific testing still have their flaws and humans are naturally prone to misread or make mistakes and miscalculations. I’d prob be more comfortable saying “science is closer to the truth whether or not you believe in it”. but that’s just me.

Hitting the tumblr radar seems to really boost some of your egos to gross amounts. In the few years I’ve been on tumblr, I’ve always noticed the drastic changes in a person’s blog once they hit radar (myself included - I posted less weed but mostly cause it got old for me but continued the personal posts and rants). But some take the ego boost gained from acquiring large audiences to such a level where you can almost taste their newly found sense of superiority. It’s why I like supporting small blogs, it reminds me of when I first started and how hard it was to do what I wanted to do which was speak to an audience about the things I’m interested in and interest others in wanting to figure things out. It’s also been an overall great arena to express yourself. But I mostly see people feigning personalities (so fake you can see right under their mask if you know how to look) and stroking their ego within their own sub niche of tumblr as they further whatever belief/ subject their into. No wonder depression runs amok (speaking of those who fall into depression strictly due to constantly setting unrealistic standards for themselves and others - I understand depression is more complicated than that), everyone is trying to be someone they aren’t while putting down those who don’t give fuck and act as they are and not as a copy of someone else.

[Personal Thoughts You Can Skip Through] I think this blog would be infinitely better if I was like other informative blogs that don’t toss in the social or personal obstacles they have to go through. It’s kind of funny how around here, what’s indicative of the overall quality of your blog is how consistent you are in posting what people expect from you. So your good qualities become tired echoes and your bad ones become reasons for your content to be disliked.

Most of the science blogs I promoted and brought up through cwl and scinerds don’t show the same love in return, I see ya’ll, don’t think I don’t, and I’m completely fine with that. I just don’t care enough to be an ass about it so I continue to promote the smaller science blogs (blogs with little following - not blogs I feel bigger than). Just because you see me as top editor in the science section doesn’t really mean I hold much weight there. In fact, some of the contributors and editors would probably throw a party the day I leave that community. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe because I started as a space+weed blog, or because I promoted a lot unofficial blogs that posted mostly other website’s news articles (during a time when there weren’t many official brand name sites like wired on tumblr) or maybe my overall personality just aint in par with their standards of how one ought to act when promoting science, or could be the fact that I’m not very academically successful. My posts get love from most of you guys, the community, but the actual officials of tumblr? I sometimes get a sense that I’m not really liked among that group. I even have a group of folks that have become biased against any post I make and will highlight the smallest mistakes on it. Oh it’s from ikenbot? nah, def. not reblogging.

Why am I writing this? Because I wanted you to know that I see you. And I’m cool with it, if being yourself to the fullest, no holds barred, no restrictions on who you are, the struggles you or your ppl go through make you a less quality blogger undeserving of your equal interest then I’d much rather be that until tumblr runs its course. I’m not just in it for the titles and acceptance. Ya’ll can enjoy your momentary niche, and I’ll enjoy being myself while I do this for how ever long I’m allowed to be here. You don’t have to like me and that’s cool.