Month: August 2015

“My Future Had Just Vanished” – Escape Chapter 7: Marriage

Dana Hunter3 Comments

This chapter of Escape is going to infuriate you. I would advise you to have some time set aside for self-care afterward. Find something you can hurl, and something to hurl it at that won’t break. Maybe get a stick to bite down on, or a pillow you can scream into, if you’re reading this while others are trying to sleep.

Content Note for forced marriage, child marriage, sexual abuse, and misogynistic assholes.

Carolyn is still intent on becoming a pediatrician. She’s just graduated high school and worked the following year as a teacher’s assistant while attending community college. She knows she’ll need to attend a good four-year college in order to pursue her dream. For most of us, the biggest problem would be money. As long as we’d worked our academic asses off like Carolyn did, we’d have no trouble getting in to at least one excellent school. And our parents would be 100% behind having a doctor in the family. They’d move heaven and earth to help us fulfill our dream.

Carolyn can’t even tell her dad she wants to be a doctor. The most she risks telling him is that she wants to go to college. Just stop here a moment and picture that. Imagine having a parent with the power to keep you home, one who may destroy your dream in a heartbeat, just because he may decide your only possible use as a human being will be as an incubator. Continue reading ““My Future Had Just Vanished” – Escape Chapter 7: Marriage” →

“My Future Had Just Vanished” – Escape Chapter 7: Marriage
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Some People of Color Bernie Sanders Fans Would Do Well to Listen To

Dana Hunter12 Comments

Dear Bernie Sanders Fan Who is Outraged! Offended! by the Black Women Who Interrupted Him:

You’ve been all over my Facebook timeline with a wide variety of claims. As a fellow white person, I must beg you: please stop defending Bernie for a few minutes and listen to what people of color are saying. Look, I’ve even gone to the trouble of collecting a bunch of convenient links for you. And it’s important you listen up, because you know who’s going to make Bernie lose the Democratic nomination?

You.

Yes, you.

Okay, Bernie might fail to shut up and listen himself, and torpedo his own chances, but if all of you band together to make him understand he’d best be listening or else, we won’t have to worry about that. He’ll incorporate racial justice and excellent ideas on how to achieve it into his already awesome platform, he’ll make it a centerpoint of his campaign, and we’ll all be absolutely golden. (Look! He’s already started!)

But you’re the ones who will ensure he loses, if you keep trying to shush people whose lives depend on making this old white man understand what they need from him. You’re the ones who will sow division and disharmony in the ranks. I’ll tell you a secret about people of color I’ve learned by listening to them: They don’t need us, children. We have failed them time and time and time again. We need them to win. So I’ll appeal to that need to see another Democrat in office (a need I very much share), if I can’t appeal to your innate sense of justice and your progressive wish for the downtrodden to no longer be down and trodden: if you fail to listen to these voices that are telling you and your favorite candidate exactly what they need, you are the reason Bernie Sanders will lose.

It’s within your power to ensure we all become one big, happy progressive family.

So let’s lend an ear, shall we?* Even when – especially when – people are speaking in anger, let’s listen. Let’s listen like Seattle for Bernie Sanders’s admin did, right here. Continue reading “Some People of Color Bernie Sanders Fans Would Do Well to Listen To” →

Some People of Color Bernie Sanders Fans Would Do Well to Listen To

Taking Some Time Away

Dana Hunter25 Comments

On top of everything else going down, B and I ended our two year relationship yesterday, so expect me to be scarce for a little while. I’m sorry, I just can’t even right now. I’ll be back eventually, and hopefully there will be future adventures with B – just this time, we’ll be out as friends rather than mates.

It’s going to take some time before I’m all right with this. He is the person I would’ve liked to have spent an appreciable portion of the rest of my life with, but we couldn’t work through some of the more serious issues. It happens. Sucks, but happens. Continue reading “Taking Some Time Away” →

Taking Some Time Away

New at Rosetta Stones: Wherein I Inform You Whether Everybody on the West Coast is Gonna Die

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Some of you have been requesting an article from me on the Cascadia subduction zone. That thing scares me like no other geologic hazard, so I’ve generally said

Image is a gif of a running octopus. Caption is flashing NOPE.

and run right away.

Happily, other people have written neato articles, one of which just crossed my radar, and it explains what’s really gonna happen when the subduction zone rips. I’ve linked it for ye, and added a few exciting extras! You will hopefully enjoy it muchly. Continue reading “New at Rosetta Stones: Wherein I Inform You Whether Everybody on the West Coast is Gonna Die” →

New at Rosetta Stones: Wherein I Inform You Whether Everybody on the West Coast is Gonna Die

Learning to Shut Up and Listen

Dana Hunter10 Comments

How hard is it for relatively* privileged people to just shut up and listen when people talk about the way society shits on them? I’ll be honest: Really fucking hard. And yet there’s nothing actually easier.

B and I were talking about that yesterday while we were waiting for our gyros. I’d just read a great article about why white people shouldn’t wear dredlocks, and he was all offended by the notion that white folk can’t have any hairstyle they want. Why shouldn’t they?

That knee-jerk response comes so easily to those of us near the top of the privilege heap. Continue reading “Learning to Shut Up and Listen” →

Learning to Shut Up and Listen

Well, That Volcano’s Nekkid

Dana Hunter3 Comments

Saturday’s excursion to Mount St. Helens with Suzanne was a complete success. Well, it feels like it was even though we didn’t make it to both of the visitor’s centers I wanted to scope out. That ended up not mattering a bit because we had so much fun. Wish you were there!

Image is a selfie of Suzanne, who is flashing a peace sign, and me smiling in front of Mount St. Helens.
Suzanne, moi, et Mount St. Helens.

Suzanne was kind enough to drive, so I got to lookie-Lou the whole way up. We realized when we got close that Mount St. Helens wasn’t just a dirty girl – she was almost completely nude! She only had a few tiny patches of snow clinging to her. We pulled off at the Elk Rock Viewpoint and had a long look. You can see how nekkid she is. Even Mount Adams, lurking over the ridge to the left there, has been stripped of much of its snow cover. This heat wave is srs bidness! Continue reading “Well, That Volcano’s Nekkid” →

Well, That Volcano’s Nekkid

Mount St. Helens is a Dirty Girl!

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Friday certainly was challenging. I woke up late, for starters. That didn’t bother me too much – I wouldn’t get as much as I’d like to do done, but surely I could still do lots! I was on the road by just after two. Then I had to turn around because I’d remembered every bag aside from the camera bag. Still, I’d caught that within a few blocks, so no worries! Traffic into downtown Seattle sucked, but it always does. Still no worries.

But traffic remained not just bad, but atrocious, all the way past Olympia. It took me over three hours to do a drive that normally would take me an hour and change. I didn’t get down to Castle Rock until seven. Gah. I’d meant to explore some bits I’d never seen before, but all I had time for was a walk around Silver Lake. Happily, Mount St. Helens was completely visible, so I could get you a volcano! Continue reading “Mount St. Helens is a Dirty Girl!” →

Mount St. Helens is a Dirty Girl!