La Kemster

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.

—Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (via weepycreep)

(Source: durianquotes, via blaqueviolet)

muckrakingiswomenswork:

Muckraking is women’s work: i have a banging headache and im not in the mood for your bullshit opinions on same sex marriage

reblogging in response to every asshole flaming my inbox right now

in summary i dont care and fuck you

muckrakingiswomenswork:

im not in the mood to give a fuck what straight people think about same sex marriage (is it me or is this term just problematically fucking transphobic?)

i dont really care if you’re for it or against it cuz it’s not your issue in the slightest and you’re waaaay the fuck out your lane talking about the relative merits or lack thereof when it’s a right you enjoy and have the privilege to take it or leave it as you so choose

and

im not in the mood to give a fuck what other homo’s think - for or against - when all that comes out of y’alls face is rich white gay men blah blah blah

because all ive heard and am tired of hearing is a flattened conversation with no nuance, a fuckton of projecting and appropriation and a dearth of critical analysis or awareness of the issues as they pertain to marginalized and vulnerable populations- so spare me the nonsense and spare yourselves the cleansing fire

if your arguments for or against same sex marriage privileges the dominant white perspective by centering it - im not in the mood to be anything other than cutting and cruel - and the last few weeks have certainly proved that to me cause there are some gashed up mutherfuckers - some for others against - walking around the dmv going wha’happened after they stepped to me on this 

if you think same sex marriage only services white upperclass homos - whether you think that’s groovy or you think that sucks ass i dont fucking care -

i refuse to center my attention or energy on the concerns of whiteness or wealth

im interested in resistance and subversion and whether or not state sanctioned marriage can be used as a weapon against the state itself

if you want to argue about how same sex marriage can or can’t be used to those ends then i’ll be interested…maybe

if you wanna discuss how federal recognition of same sex marriage is or isn’t beneficial to immigrant populations - for example - green card marriages are a form of resistance against racist/classist immigration laws yet there are vulnerabilities experienced by women who enter into those marriages with exploitative men who then use the promise of ‘papers’ to coercively rape and extort those women. how that reality can or can’t be affected by the availability of recognized same sex marriages is a conversation i can get down with.

or you wanna discuss the fine points of how the issue of homeless lgbt youth can or cant be aided by same sex marriage - for example when cohabitating homos are willing to foster/adopt those kids but are denied by the state because they aren’t married – or how often even when a state does allow homos to foster they require you live as a seemingly celibate single person because ewwww homo sex is ewwww - but many of us dont make enough $ on our and need that check from the state to be able to provide for extra mouths and would marry just to make our homes a home for our bbs on the street? what about the other legal issues that arise when you take a kid in and dont want to deal with the state?

for example - how you gonna get the right to get the kid enrolled in school or even see them in the emergency room without state recognition of your guardianship? same sex marriage and state administered foster care/adoption may not solve the structural inequality but does it provide a useful shortcut to meet immediate needs? i dont know outside my own opinion cause im not hearing these discussions happening

 Or you wanna discuss how same sex partners can and do walk away from their kids with no legal repercussions and how marriage can or cant affect that? will it increase resources for children or not?

Or you wanna debate whether health care or government assistance or access to housing is or isn’t affected by access to same sex marriage? will it help us rise out of poverty? will it help us slow or even stop our descent into the underclass?

are people who say marriage as institution is bullshit for xyz reason but aren’t doing a fucking thing to shift us away from recognition of hetero marriage just privileging the dominant paradigm at the expense of the marginalized?

marriage is often the only way to create recognized kinship – which is often necessary to access your people in lockup, hospitals, schools or other state regulated custodies – if you disdain marriage as a means to an end what other alternatives are you proposing and fighting for? i’ll wait cause i really want to know.

are there benefits to not having your relationship recognized by the state? i can think of a few but i want other perspectives because ive no interest in living/thinking in a vacuum

oh and spare me the bullshit about hospital stays only being a thing for rich people - plenty of us have been in hospital as indigents – also shut up before you even start about you can get legal papers between you like powers of attorney etc – that shit costs money – and are still routinely ignored by those in power - so what alternative mechanisms are you proposing and supporting with your time, money and voice cause i really want to hear them

I give a fuck about creating wealth – but I’ll be damned if I think the government should get to keep benefits that rightfully belong to someone’s chosen family – kids lose out on SSI benefits when their parents are same sex and the non-biological parent passes away, partners/kids get shafted by the military when their partner is killed in action, partners are precluded from tort claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress and a host of other civil actions because they lack standing, intimate partner violence isn’t viewed as a crime when the couple is ‘same sex’ and on and on

Do I think polyamorous/non-monogamous/non-traditional relationships deserve recognition and protections – yep

Do I think non-sexual associations/relationships deserve recognition and protections – yep

Do I think individuals deserve any and all protections and recognition afforded to couples - yep

Do i want to discuss how we can achieve these protections outside of state sanctioning? OH HELL YES

Do you wanna discuss trans folks and marriage? do you want to discuss how it would or would not benefit the non-binary, or those who cant afford the legal rigamarole to have their gender markers changed or those who don’t want or cant afford to depend on the medical industrial complex to legally legitimize their gender – then im up for it – otherwise nope

Do I personally think the money spent on same sex marriage could be better spent elsewhere – absolutely but I don’t believe for one second selfish entitled white homos et al. will give a flying fuck about other issues just because you eliminate their pet cause cuz frankly they suck

And the old lady in me just cant care what a bunch of 20 something queers or late to the party hets think about it when they enjoy all the benefits paid for in qtpoc blood and have paid few of the costs to get us to the point where this is even an entertained public debate –y’alls notions of what families and life can be outside the box only exists because a gang of homos and trans women of color– put themselves - their lives, their time, money, and safety on the front line and demanded to be recognized as human and like it or not marriage has been constructed as part of the human condition

so– even if the whiteness has taken over as the face and voice of this issue I remember how many long dead poc queers this meant the world to and im not in the mood to spit on their graves by centering my pros or cons on this issue or any other around whiteness or wealth

This has been a rant from an old, battered, and exhausted queer

make of it what you will 

(via depoetayloco)

queeraztlan:

I get kinda irked by people from outside Arizona who love to be all like “Fuck Arizona” and whatnot.

Because like, what about those of us here who live here and are actually under attack?

And most of those politicians and voters pushing this violent white supremacist homophobic/transphobic shit…

For me, queer theory is the emblematic example of how we say the value of what queer politics brings is a challenge to what is the normal. And it’s of course what that whole angst is about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and marriage equality. On the one hand, those are basic citizenship rights, right? You always know that there’s some second-class citizenship going on in military policy and marriage policy, right? If you’re looking for second-class citizenship, look in those things and you’ll often find it. So it’s a very reasonable set of political strategies, but the problem is also a very normative set of political strategies, right? It’s not about, “We have a right to be queer and create different kinds of communities and different definitions of family.” It’s about, “Look how much just like you we can be; look how respectable we can be, see; we can have our families look just like your families, and we can serve in the military just like you; and so look how straight we can be!” Rather than, “Look how queer we can be and look at how valuable it is to take queerness and open up the very definition of what constitutes respectable and normal.

—

Melissa Harris-Perry (via teacakes)

“Look how queer we can be and look at how valuable it is to take queerness and open up the very definition of what constitutes respectable and normal.”

there it is

(via ancestryinprogress)

(via strugglingtobeheard)