Sooo...BLM? Well...what about #BlackTransLivesMatter ?

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: yuppa

Technically no that's not true, since humanity gained some Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA while spreading out. You need to go to sub-Saharan Africa to find a "Pure" human these days.

What we're doing is a whole new melting pot, what comes out is not the same as what we started with at all.

POint was though currently there is ONE RACE OF HUMANS on this planet according to research. Different ETHNICITIES due to variance in environment/sunlight and other things they had to adapt to over time but not a new race. This was settled in the late 60s early 70s and periodically checked these days. HUmans werent meant to be pure by no stretch of the imagination. If you can have babies with it its the same race within humans. Still HUman DNA.

Still Outwardly humans will look like their great ancestors skin wise at th e least.

originally posted by: yuppa
Jade great post!! I have to think though that So many murders stem from people actually being attracted and when they find out they were attaracted to someone " born diffrent" they themselves feel embarrassed and take it out on us ' born different' people so they feel liek a man or woman again.

This whole issue could be solved in 100 yrs if we outlaw classifications like boy or girl and just say human or person. Or gasp just their NAME!!

Actually not quite. The 'i found out they were trans and freaked out' is a common excuse but a false one. Many many trials result in evidence that shows they were well aware in advance that the person was Trans. An example being the murderer who killed Angie Zapata.

No what actually happens is a person who is attracted to Trans people BECAUSE they are Trans either:

a, tries to cure themselves of it by murdering a person they are attracted to
b, has sex with them then has a self-hate/shame/regret freak-out and then kills the person afterwards
c, has a relationship with them that lasts a while but kills them out of fear that their friends and family will learn about it

And then they concoct a fake Trans-panic story to try and get away with the murder.

Like the teen who said he freaked out when he was in the car with a prostitute he thought was a cis-woman and when she pulled out her male genitals and put his hand on them he freaked out and shot her, but she actually had them taped down and inaccessible and he shot her in the back from a distance, and she worked in an area known for only having Trans sex workers.

Or where the guy claimed to have seen a sex worker, found out she was trans, freaked out, strangled her... except she was left for dead but survived, she was not a sex worker and they'd been dating for months but when she wanted to start telling people about the relationship that's what he freaked out about and tried to murder her for.

What it really is, is that MANY women and men have an innate attraction to Transgender people. Makes sense when Transgender have always been around in every culture around the world so it must be an evolved trait, and so attraction to it would be an evolved trait (unless you want to go with the idea that it's an Alien trait from the androgynous aliens that created humanity for those who follow that interpretation of the Dogon and Babylonian stuff, there's a whole creation-story about Transgender and Intersex people having been created by Enki from Stardust to rescue a goddess from the underworld).

And because of the prejudice against Transgender people there's a prejudice against the people specifically attracted to them. And people who hate themselves for being attracted specifically to them, or fear being discriminated against if their sexual orientation were known, they publicly express hatred towards, bully, vilify and murder Transgender people.

It's not an uncommon phenomena: multiple studies found the majority of people with strong homophobic views also have physically measurable same-sex attraction.

originally posted by: Kojiro
Well, as my friend Bayne states quite often on her Facebook and so forth, when you have two children, one fat and well fed and the other starving, you do not give more food to the well fed kid; you give the food to the starving child. Thus the importance of women's rights, LGBT rights, and so on. These groups have been victims of imbalanced treatment throughout history and still are today. Their issues matter because they're underprivileged.

I understand that you think the hashtag slogans like this should more accurately represent everyone, and it's noble for that reason. However, you're missing the importance of focused hashtags like this; they highlight the issues and problems people of this particular demographic are facing and need solved. Not every demographic has the same problems, which is why they need specific attention, otherwise we'll never know how to solve them.

Aww thanks for quoting my point Kojiro!

And it's not just fairness it's also Triage. The way a well run Emergency room at a hospital saves more lives. You focus on the ones you can save right now who will die if let wait, and the ones who need help but can wait wait. The person bleeding to death gets stitched up before the one with the small cut gets a band-aid. We know it works, it was developed in battlefield hospital tents in wartime. It's the way that saves the most total of lives.

If we treat every patient first come first served then heaps will die bleeding to death while you are busy with someone with the hiccups or a cramp in their foot. So we have an Emergency department and we have Triage in that.

Well the same thing with this. You focus on the group with the EXTREME murder and assault and sexual assault rate first, then the next worst, and so on till you get to the least. Anything else is saying that the ones in less need are more important than the ones in more need. It really is quite simple, we already know it works, is fair and practical.

a reply to: nullafides
#lightpinkskinnedmaleswhohadbaconforbreakfastandtoomuxhcoffeeandarenowpassonggasasthwylayinbedreadingatslivesmatter

a reply to: Kojiro

You're missing the forest for the trees. The current political climate is one where our politicians are controlled by lobbyists not the people. We're dealing with a political climate in which those who control the lobbyists are taking full and total advantage of a divide and conquer strategy to get their way and keep us powerless.

They want us divided into separate groups, they don't want us to unite. They use our differences to keep us weak. Sure they occasionally throw one of our special interest groups a bone now and then, but when they do, they're generally only doing so to take advantage of the controversy so they can get the things that benefit themselves and harm us through, while we're all distracted.

The people in power aren't anti-gay, they aren't racist, they aren't sexist, they're all very intelligent and powerful people. The reason we have these divisions are not because the people in power are bigots, it's because the people in power want power over us, and they want to keep it.

So every time we in small little groups scream about our needs they just go ignored until they can be a useful distraction, or they can use these groups to split the votes how they want to get who they want elected. The "elected" officials don't honestly care about our needs, only how they can manipulate us to get what they want.

The reason they don't care about our needs, is we the people are so easily divided, we don't really have the power to make demands of our government. Every year, more and more small groups rise up, more and more subdivisions are created, and we divide further and further and our power diminishes more and more.

All the problems, police corruption, systematic racism, laws that unfairly fail to protect transsexuals, all stem from the same problems, we have a government that's corrupt and corporate owned. We have a government where the people who are supposed to be working for us, get their positions only if they have the money to run, and the only way they get that money is corporate lobbyists and backing. Those who don't have these things can never win. These politicians are owned by their corporate backers, they feed us a bunch of BS, knowing they're the only options that can win the elections, cause they're the only ones the mainstream media lets us know about.

All our problems all stem from the same problem, and the only way we can really and truly fix them, is to fix this, and take back our voice from the corporations, to do this, we need a strong united front, we need the people to come together as one voice. Not forever, but long enough to take back our home.

We need this more than anything else, until we can get back our voice nothing else matters, until we can kick the corporations out of Washington, we are as a people are just plain screwed. This is why we need to unite, to work together, so that those things we all need can be fixed.

Yes, each of us need different things to fix our problems, this is very true, but if we work together, it becomes easier to fix these problems. If we can first come together as a people, actually unite rather than be a disorganized rabble, we can use that unity to make all these different changes by scratching each others back and standing united together.

The only reason these corporations have the power they do is our disorganization and division, the only reason these problems take so long to get the attention they deserve and to be resolved is our disorganization and division.

These hashtags don't do anything useful, they don't truly help anyone, they just put more tools into the arsenal of those who want us divided so they can use that division to use us and abuse us.

When we the people come together and say, "Enough is enough!!!" is the day things will truly change.

a reply to: Bayne

Starred. well thought out post. YOu make excellent points on my over simplification i made earlier.

a reply to: Bayne

Only one problem, the doctors are out instead replaced by psychopaths with scalpels, who have no desire to help anyone, but every intention on harming us all. If we don't get rid of the psychopaths, eventually we'll all be equal, but not in the way that's positive.

originally posted by: Puppylove
When we the people come together and say, "Enough is enough!!!" is the day things will truly change.

You've made some valid observations and good points on multiple splintered groups and who hasn't heard "United we Stand, Divided we Fall"? It all sounds great in theory - let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya and stick it to the man but how the hell or what would it take for something like this to happen at this point?

The last cohesive efforts that did a damn thing were the protests against the Vietnam war but the country has become so completely polarized with each faction shouting their own voice - and most of those from behind a keyboard - that there's little hope of the unity and coming together you idolize unless uniformed men start start shooting down people in the streets and on campuses.

Oh wait.

Textoriginally posted by: Kojiro
Well, as my friend Bayne states quite often on her Facebook and so forth, when you have two children, one fat and well fed and the other starving, you do not give more food to the well fed kid; you give the food to the starving child.

Some lives don't have a voice , they will never matter, they wont have a name or a face, or be remembered, never be able to make a difference in this world, never have a choice, see the sunrise, I hope there is a place for them somewhere in the universe.

NO, not all lives matter.

Over a billion voices silenced. Billions didn't matter.

OH well, sighs

a reply to: EKron

Thing is, it's our only hope. Unless this happens, unless we as a people wake up, we're doomed. For every crumb they give us, they've taken whole meals for themselves. If we wait til we have literally no choice but to wake up, if we wait til things are undeniable, it may already be too late.

It's also not impossible, we just need someone to truly get the ball rolling, someone with the charisma to bridge the gaps between us all. We have alternate media now, which while disjointed and crappy on many levels, has some advantages too. The advantage being, MSN doesn't control it, the advantage being, more and more people are going to alternate media for news. It may be happening slowly, but if Bernie Sanders success has been a sign of anything, it's that people are starting to wake up.

I get the start with those that need the help most idea, I get it. But before we can even do that, we need a system that actually functions in a way that even allows us to do that.

What we have instead is a bunch of people shouting at a bunch of people to help them, and not only does the bunch of people they're screaming at for help not care, each person screaming is trying to over shout the others that their needs are most important, and half the time are pushing away people who are trying to lend their support as well or are in the same shoes. Sound convoluted? It's cause it is.

Also the impression people have that we can only help people one at a time is a spoon full of crap that they want you to believe because it benefits them. There is honestly nothing stopping multiple legislations being worked on at once, it's happening all the time. We don't NEED to only help the worst off and work our way up one at a time.

What we do need to do is solve the biggest problem first which affects all of us. Once that's resolved, then the logistics of the rest can be figured out.

I used to have no hope. I used to think we were screwed. But I've a spark of hope, I've started to see signs that people are waking up. Thing is, I also see signs the noose is tightening, that those with power are working diligently to make their final moves.

It's a race right now to determine if they'll be able to knock the chair out from under us before we wake up in time to take the noose off and step down off the chair ourselves.

I have hope, only a sliver, but I have some. We have a chance, if the waking up trend can pick up steam, if enough people catch on, if we can get a face that has the charisma to pull us together, we have a chance.

I love Bernie, he's trying to be that face, and he has my support, but he's too old, and too white, and too straight and too male. He's everything the ignorant side of us despises at the superficial level, because we are often in many ways no better than those we rail against.

a reply to: Puppylove

While your words and cause are admirable, I don't think it sounds particularly workable. As you're striving to unite everyone to kick out the fat, corrupt cats in government, how do you maintain assurances that everyone's problems will be solved afterwards? Many people have been chasing this proverbial carrot on a stick for long enough and they're sick of it. They want change now, their situations may very will need change now. So, how do you propose to address all of that and keep everyone bound together?

It may look good in theory but it doesn't particularly seem practical in practice.

a reply to: Kojiro

I can't answer all of that, I'm just one girl. What I can say is it's our only hope. You may need those changes now, I know I do, others may need those changes now, but as things are, they aren't going to get them.

I can't promise their situation can be fixed overnight with this, I believe it can, but I cannot promise it. What I can promise is, as things are their words are falling of deaf or corrupt ears. They may get what they need in small piecemeal as things are, but the price for everyone them included will not be worth it. Chances are though, someone else will get that crumb that they're competing with and they'll have to wait another 10 to 15 years for that crumb they need now.

It may not be the easiest thing, it may not seem very feasible, but it's the needed thing. It's not what we could do, it's what we have to do. It's what's necessary, without it, we all fail. I'd say we don't have a choice, but we do, and we're been taking the wrong choices.

Instead of unity we've decided to either turn on each other while our masters laugh, or roll over and expose our tummies for our masters like good dogs.

a reply to: Puppylove

Then as it is, without some plan to assure everyone that their needs will be supported and met, I don't think your solution will work. Because it sounds to me that it'll start to splinter all over again almost immediately and you'll be back right where you started. Which is why the triage system seems far more sensible. After all, we didn't wait and gather everyone together into one giant incoherent blob mashed together with other, lesser problems to get women the franchise to vote in this country; we focused on that issue and got it when we finally wore the fat cats down.

a reply to: Kojiro

And slowly they destroy us while giving us bread crumbs they twist against us. We women got our rights, but in doing so we allowed them to use our increased work force to pay us all less, and now both man and women are their slaves together. Two slaving away to get what once upon a time they paid one. Your triage system causes us to lose more than we gain at an exponential rate. Yeah one day we'll all be equal this way cause we'll all be slaves together.

Continuing this thought. We women are still fighting for equal pay. We'll get it, but not by them paying us more to catch up. Instead men will be brought down to our level, and we'll ignorantly call it a victory, when the truth is, the whole time we're fighting for equal pay, those in power are just paying all of us less and less. So when we finally get equal pay, we're just being starved equally.

originally posted by: nullafides
a reply to: JadeStar

Jadestar, I think you allowed your direct connection to the situation to cloud what I was saying.

How dare you? Seriously? This is the kind of dismissive attitude towards people that gets you labelled.

I am perhaps the only person on ATS who intimately knows the details of the origins of the hashtag in the original post of this thread yet you try to turn that around to make that into a negative?

May I please ask what credibility You think you have to talk about what is and is not racist or what is and is not transphobic?

When #BlackLivesMatter started, I felt that it was exclusive.

Remember Occupy? What was the most common (and incorrect) criticism of it?

That they had no message or that they had too many messages.

That is why people are specific with regards to what they are protesting now.

When a protest is about everything to the mainstream media and the average idiots who watch it the protest is about nothing.

I read that back in the 1960s there was a saying "Black is Beautiful".

No one seemed to think that was exclusionary or saying somehow other people were not beautiful. Most people understood it to mean black is beautiful too because the default beauty standard was that of the majority.

Have people become that stupid since the 1960s that they have no idea of context? Or are they faking stupidity in an effort to obfuscate the real issues or derail any conversation around the real issues: hint the issue is not a hashtag but the reasons behind why people felt it necessary.

a reply to: Puppylove

So, are you now stating that we were better off not being able to vote and be an active part of society? That we should have just stayed quiet and let men do the talking to get rid of the corrupt fat cats? How long would that have taken? Would that have ever happened or would things stayed the same?

Because here's the thing, as long as government power exists, there will always be corrupt fat cats; it's the nature of the game. You will never be able to be rid of them all and asking people to wait for their rights while we get rid of something that cannot be rid of is unfeasible. No change will ever be made that way.

a reply to: Kojiro

It's not corrupt fat cats alone that's the problem, it's lobbyists and corporate control. The government politicians no longer rely on us, they rely on the corporations. We lost the power of the vote. This is especially the case because we're so disorganized. There's more people today than there was back then, as well as more groups vying for a voice and competing with each other.

We need to fix the system so it works right again, and to do that we need enough of a cohesive voting force of the American population to override the big money and power of the corporations and their army of lobbyists.

You're not getting it, the system is broken, so broken it does not work at all for the people, not even slightly. At this point everything we "get" from them is an illusion to keep us complacent, while they offer scraps to whoever shouts the loudest and steps on each other the most. For everything we gain, they take ten things away, for every equality we get, the more we all get pushed further towards poverty.

We celebrate every victory we get towards equality, not realizing that we're doing it by all being brought down into the mud. I'm transgender, but it won't matter if the common man accepts me as the woman I am if I and them are starving in the street.

It's no longer a matter of a few corrupt fat cats, it's a matter of 99% of all politician being corrupt and owned by the 1% and their corporations. The only ones who matter are the lobbyists, not us or our rights. They only give enough token attention to us to keep us from uniting against them while they slowly bleed us all dry, regardless of whether we're a minority or the majority.

The 1% the people in power, they aren't racist, they aren't sexist, they aren't religious, they're power hungry, they play at all these things to maintain their hold, and their power. They use these divisions, they push these divisions, and they promote these divisions to keep us fighting each other while they rape us day after day after day.

The United States was founded with the intention of throwing off the shackles of corporate power and to achieve freedom and a nation for the people by the people. There were provisions to protect us. When the supreme court ruled that a corporation was a person, they spat in the face of the constitution and those who founded it, and in doing so they doomed us all.

This is no longer a nation by the people, for the people. In fact it's as far from it as you can get. The people you're asking to fix our problems, are the same people that profit most by our having them. Sure there will be progress now and then, but if you'll notice, every time we get something, they're sure to make sure it bites us in the ass. We need equality, and we need to fight for it, but we need a system that will make our successes actual successes, and not just another way for them to screw us over.

We need to fix our government, we need to restore what our founders built and remove the shackles big business has placed upon us and our political body. We need to burn big media's bias to the ground by promoting alternate media and averting our eyes from their lies bought and paid for by the corporate elite.

The only way we can do this is to do the opposite of everything they've been trying to make us do. And the only way to do that is to unite, because we still do have the power of numbers, and we can take back the vote, but we can only do that if we pull our heads out of our asses long enough to see the big picture before it's too late.

These are the big most important things, the things that need change and attention more than anything else. If we don't fix this before it's too late, than nothing else matters. The only way to fix these things, the only way to fight these things, is to unite most of us into an overwhelming force for change. To use the power of the vote by getting the numbers necessary to truly control it.

But maybe it's already too late, maybe they've already won. Eventually we'll all be living in the ghetto, eventually we'll all be in gangs, with group on group violence, we'll all be equal then won't we? It will be glorious...

As for the plan, it's pretty simple, kick the corporations out of Washington and make accepting corporate bribes illegal again. Make it so once again we're the boss of our "representatives" instead of them being on the corporate payroll.

Also, while we have the numbers, there's literally no reason we can't force certain issues, like equality, police corruption, ect, we don't have to stop at fixing Washington.

a reply to: Puppylove

No, I absolutely do understand that the system is broken, which is why I don't bother voting anymore as the people I generally vote for never get anywhere close to winning in the system that's rigged against them. Thing is, I'm not ready to give up entirely on equality and the ability to be recognized as the gender I identify as. I can also lend my support to multiple campaigns of a similar sort.

But as Jade stated, our movements need loud, clear, and concise messages. We just can't come at them all at once as one big giant blob which looks like it can't decide what it wants like she cited the criticisms of the Occupy movement were. Yes, we can work to fix Washington, but that needs to be its own campaign with its own, clear message, just as the civil rights campaigns need their own.

There's no reason they can't be allied, but they need to stand with their own clear voices or they just sweep us aside like they did with Occupy, declaring: "These people don't know what they want." Well, actually we do, but we need to make that unmistakable and obvious for the talking heads.

a reply to: Kojiro

I agree, but the problem is, most don't seem to realize that the best solution to the equal rights issues is fixing Washington, and that fixing Washington serves all of us, and is priority number one.

That's the issue, most people are one cause ponies when it comes to what they put their effort towards, we need all these causes to realize that the road to getting what they want means fixing Washington is priority number one, as doing so will make what they need able to be accomplished.

It's all connected, and right now, people are too divided to see that all our causes are being hindered by the exact same roadblock.

a reply to: Puppylove

Well then, organize your campaign or support one that already exists to fix Washington, and make sure your message is singular and clear at that. You can even list your reasons why, but I'd avoid language to imply that we're all divided. Because as far as the civil rights activists I know, we're really not. I've seen support for multiple fronts at a time. Implying that we're "divided" will only cause that very division you seek to prevent.