Untitled. Uninspired. Unoriginal.
"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."
-Henry David Thoreau
When I was 16, I had a fake I.D. and decided to go to a gay bar by myself because some friends bailed on me. While there, an older gentleman bought me a drink. He wasn’t a creeper, and he definitely wasn’t unattractive. I accepted the drink and began talking to him. No big deal. As the hour progressed, I felt myself feeling strange. I mentioned that I felt like I had a headache, and this guy helped guide me out of the bar. As we were walking down the street, the thought of, ‘Oh god, he’s drugged me, I’m going to die’ came to my head. I tried to get away, but I was so drugged up that I could barely walk, let alone speak. It also didn’t help that I had really large ‘goth’ platform shoes because I was going through a phase. Anyway, this guy brought me to his suv and began undressing me. As a final act of defiance, I hit him over the head with my platform shoe. He then punched me, and I remember thinking, ‘Why don’t they ever give workshops to gay guys about being victims of rape too?’ While I was as careful as possible, I never saw the guy slip something in the drink. I even watched the bar tender make the drink. Anyway, I lied there completely paralyzed while this pervert was lubing up. I locked eyes with his for a moment, and that’s when it happened. A very large and angry drag queen opened the door of the vehicle and beat the shit out of my attempted rapist. She and her other drag friends helped dress and care for me while the police arrived. I was saved by a group of guardian drag queens. They were basically the modern day ‘angels from heaven.’
I posted this about a year ago, but I love it so I re-blogged.
dear white folk,
I know you may think you look so edgy and different when you cut your hair into a mowhawk, stretch your earlobes, don keffiyehs, wear native american headdresses, call yourself a gypsy, or wear a bindi, but you should know that if you truly appreciated another culture you would not wear it as a symbol of defiance or counter culture to your own. Our cultures have been mocked all our lives, but the minute a piece of sanskrit gets tatooed on some famous individual our culture is stolen from underneath us. It suddenly becomes validated, because once something has appreciation from white people it now has marketing value. All the while we are being told to change to conform and once we have changed out of every article of our culture you appropriate it, sell it, and then call us lacking in taste and creativity.
This goes out to any POC who have ever noticed the hypocrisy of the majority for calling us barbaric for wearing the clothing of our people only to steal it from us to create appropriated trash.
“Royal Lends Voice to Returnees”
Cambodian princess Soma Norodom spoke out to raise awareness of the recent deportations of Khmericans. Many Khmericans who arrived in the U.S as refugees from the Khmer Rouge are being deported back to Cambodia for crimes many of them commited in their teen years long ago. It’s unfair because many of these crimes were crimes of survival or confusion of being a child in a new country. Now the “returnees” are going through the process all over again. Again being sent to a country they barely know.
Here’s the article from Phnom Penh Post:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012040455407/Lifestyle/royal-lends-voice-to-returnees.html
Kolkata, India: Supporters of the All India Mahila Sanskritik Sanghathan (AIMSS) protest violence and political attacks against women and girls. April 16, 2012
Photos by Ajanta Sinha Ghosh
