This is probably my last post on the whole “Liz is dead” situation but I want to talk about my great grandmother, who is currently 92 years old. When I was growing up, hell even now, she’d tell me a lot about her own stories, mostly about how terrifying life was under both the British Raj and Nizam rule (her side of my family is from Hyderabad - Google the Nizams and the Razakars if you’ve never heard about them, that’s a whole other thing of its own).
Something I remember very clearly is her telling me about this one song she was forced to sing in her school - she went to a Christian convent school - and the song was about the greatness of “George Prabhu and Mary Rani,” aka George V, Elizabeth II’s grandfather. Recently my mom was able to film her singing this song so that we could listen to the lyrics, which are originally in Telugu, and roughly translated it means “we’re singing in honor of George and Mary, who are the rulers of India and have brought great fortune to India, and we see them as our father and mother.”
This is just a really difficult reminder that when we’re talking about why Elizabeth II and the royal family don’t deserve our respect or condolences, many of us have very personal stories that run deep through our families. “But she was a mother, a grandmother, a person” and I don’t care because she and her family were in the business of dehumanizing and erasing the identities of millions of other mothers, other grandmothers, other PEOPLE. Why else would my great grandmother be forced to sing a song in their honor? “But she wasn’t responsible for India” fair enough, her darling grandfather had a great time doing that, but how about you go and talk to Kenya? Or anyone in Africa? Or the Caribbean? I’m sick and tired of being told to “not speak ill of the dead” when REALLY I and millions of others should be getting an apology from anyone who wants to “praise her legacy” and talk about how “revolutionary” she was.
edit: i got the george’s mixed up before. george v is elizabeth ii’s grandfather. george vi is her father.
If one side is dancing, lipsyncing, making fucking thirst traps while looking like they have had a shower, eaten, gotten their nails done and the other side is digging through RUBBLE with their BARE HANDS to save or even just get to the body of loved ones. I would hope that you realize whose the OPPRESSOR vs. whose the OPPRESSED.
Today March 8th is not a day to celebrate. Latin America lives through this day very differently than North America and most of Europe.
This is the day we take our fight to the streets. We protest and we scream the names of those who were taken away from us. We will continue tu burn everything until our governments understand how far we will go until they do their jobs.
WOMEN ARE MISSING, THEY ARE GETTING KILLED AND RAPED.
THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAN NOT ENOUGH WHITE WOMEN IN POSITIONS OF POWER IN CORPORATE AMERICA.
IF YOU HAVE BEEN PRIVILED ENOUGH TO GO THROUGH YOUR LIFE WITHOUT KNOWING THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS DAY I URGE YOUR TO INFORM YOURSELVES. DO THE REASEARCH, IT IS NOT OUR JOB TO HELP YOU WORK THROUGH YOUR WHITE GUILT.
THERE ARE MY WAYS TO HELP AND AWARNESS IS ONE OF THEM.
Read about this day. And don't forget about Palestinian women, especially not today.
if you are purposefully ignorant about the genocide happening to the people in palestine and congo, fuck you. seriously fuck you. we are living through a time where we have all of the information of the world at our fingertips and you still choose to purposely ignorant and support the oppressor, the colonizers.
i’m tired of trying to educate ignorant people and getting called chronically online because i care about the innocent people getting murdered. if you are purposely ignorant, you are just as bad as the people committing the atrocities happening in gaza and congo.
Very disappointed to realize that one of my favorite bloggers is a zionist apologist. And like, i get it.
I have no clue how hard it must be to be Jewish rn and have to deal with the general conflation of Judaism with the state of Israel, but in general here are my beliefs:
All states suck
Ethnostates shouldnt exist
No state has a right to exist
Israel as a state, was formed to protect Jewish people. Jewish people should be protected, Jewish people have a right to exist and live and celebrate their religion and ethnicity fully, loudly, joyfully.
I long for a day when Jewish people can exist in any country on this planet without fear. I want that for all people
But Israel was formed through violence against Palestinians and has continued to perpetuate this violence against Palestinians and the arab countries around them rn.
Criticisms of Israel are not always antisemitic. They can be, and anytime someone tries to use antisemitism to criticize Israel, they should be called out and shamed,
but Zionism, as it is practiced by the state of Israel, is wrong. It has caused 30,000+ Gazans to lose their lives in just over 100 days. Countless Gazans have been permanently injured and disabled.
Not to mention those being attacked and killed in the West Bank
Zionism as practiced by Israel has seen countless Palestinians martyred, or disappeared into prisons never to be seen again.
I don't really want to see anyone defending a fucking state in this day and age, especiallly not one committing countless atrocities and playing in our faces about it
"In 2023, Native American children are still forced to cut their hair. A school in Kansas forced an 8 year old Native child to cut his hair because it didn't fit the requirement for boys. Despite being protected by the First Amendment of Freedom of Expression and Religion."
I remember the story of a young Black teen who was told if he didn't cut off his locks before a wrestling match he could not participate. There was footage of him looking despaired while they cut off his hair. Or another time when another Black teen who was told if he didn't cut his dreadlocks he couldn't attend his own graduation ceremony -he was suspended just like so many have been for refusing to cut their hair. I'm also thinking of the countless times Black girls and women, who have disproportionately experienced hair bias, been told their hair isn't 'professional,' if it hasn't been straightened.
Telling Indigenous people to cut their hair has white supremacist roots (as it does for the cases I just mentioned above) -settler-colonizers did this when they kidnapped and forced Indigenous children into these genocidal concentration camps (yes, that's what they were) and it's beyond despicable. And is something that is a political issue because hair is political -for so many cultures and traditions, it is sacred -this is just horrifying.
I've spent a whole fucking month reblogging and sharing and liking news and posts about Palestine on more than one platform and it's only today, for the first time, at 6am (Dec. 9 2023), that I see that the tag Free Palestine is trending.
It doesn't seem like much, but considering I saw it underneath a post about Obama's former advisor being arrested is fucking brilliant.
Keep talking about Palestine, keep sharing information, keep pressuring our governments to push for a permanent ceasefire, for them to hold Israel accountable for genocide.
the kohinoor was originally 186 carats of diamond. then the british cut it down to 105.6 carats. if and when the british finally get their shit together and return the kohinoor, please remember they still owe 80.4 carats of diamond <333