Interracial marriage was outlawed for the longest time, and disabled people lose government benefits when they get married so they cannot have reassurance that they will continue to LIVE if they get married.
Story time: my mom is white, dad is black. They’ve been together twenty four years, married for twenty three. When my parents were dating they did it on the low TO KEEP MY DAD SAFE.
My mom’s parents said “We don’t care who you love.” At that point she’d only ever brought home white guys. She brought my dad home-her mother called her a nigger lover and damned the relationship as much as possible. Her father grew around his prejudices after I was born but never apologized, just wasn’t a blatant fuck.
The day she introduced my father to her family was the last time she spoke to her mother for over twenty years. When I was getting sick and she called and asked her mother and grandmother if anyone in the family had anything strange happen similar what I was going through they told her “it’s because you married a black man. You made your bed, you lie in it.”
Cops pulled them over all the time and asked my mom IF SHE WAS OKAY AND IF SHE NEEDED HELP BECAUSE MY FATHER-A BLACK MAN-WAS DRIVING A 100 POUND WHITE WOMAN AROUND. HE WAS HARRASSED AND THREATED WITH ARREST.
My father ended up getting into a fight in self defence because some entitled hick decided he didn’t like seeing a black man and white woman in the bar together. Thankfully other patrons helped my father but he still couldn’t go to the er for his injuries. My mom patched him up and they were terrified the cops would take him away.
THEIR BEST FRIEND GOT LICENSED TO MARRY THEM SO THEY COULD ACTUALLY TIE THE KNOT BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WOULD AND CITED JIM CROW ERA LAW AS TO WHY.
When shopping with just me my father wouldn’t hold my hand if there was a group around. Why? I’m far lighter than him and people had stopped and asked him “whose child is that?” Or “little girl where’s your parents?” and were stunned when I grinned and pointed at my dad and proudly proclaimed “my daddy’s right here.” You know where else mixed kids couldn’t hold their parents hands? Apartheid South Africa. We live in fucking FLORIDA.
So yeah. Some history for you.
Also just so people know interracial couples still go through a lot of prejudice TODAY it’s not just older people who have experienced it and it’s definitely not over
The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.
This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.
What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.
They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.
And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.
This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:
If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.
On new years eve here in New Zealand some people built a sandcastle island complete with a picnic table when the tide was out so that when the tide came back in they would have their own private island and therefor not be subject to the local liquor ban.
my friend angella was doing a comedy gig, and as soon as she came out a guy shouted ‘can i give you my number?’ and all the crowd groaned cause it was so inappropriate but angella was like ‘yeah sure’. the guy started shouting out his number and she started entering it into her phone. the whole crowd was like woaaah. she got the whole number and then dialled it and it rang. everyone lost their shit. finally the guy answered and angella just said “hello? shut the fuck up” and it was the most incredible thing i’ve ever seen
So some of these details are probably wrong, it happened a long time ago so I don’t remember the specifics leading up, but it was incredible.
A friend of mine who does stand up was doing his bit at open mic one night, and a guy was heckling him. Just being a total asshole, and then his phone rang and he started talking loudly on his phone about how he’s at open mic and this guy isn’t funny, etc. Now the weird thing about hecklers is that they just want to be a part of something most of the time, so my friend said, “hey man, what’s your name? Can I see your phone for a second?”
The guy actually handed over his phone, and my friend hung up, and scrolled through his contact list until he found the person he was looking for. He hit dial, and starts.
“Hello? Is this [Name’s] mom? Great! It’s very nice to talk to you. I’m a comedian in the middle of my standup routine, and your son is being very rude, [lists off some of the things her son said]…. hold on, can I get you to repeat that?”
He takes the phone away, puts it in speakerphone and holds it up to the mic.
“I said, I’m sorry my son is being such an asshole.”
Everyone lost it. Fuckin’ destroyed by his own mother. My friend said it was one of his proudest moments ever.
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