On April 22, 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot was arrested at her Polk County high school for conducting a science experiment. The teen, who has no criminal history and maintained good grades, suddenly found herself trapped in Florida’s insidious school to prison pipeline; which has continually funneled mostly youth of color out of Florida’s schools and into the criminal justice system.
According to a report by Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice, over 57% of the state’s 96,515 youth incarcerated in 2012 were Black and Brown. In Kiera’s home of Polk County, Sheriff Grady Judd has presided over a system in which youth have continually been cycled through county jails in which severe abuses have been alleged including the use of pepper spray and the holding of juveniles in cages.
During the 2013 Florida Legislative Session, Dream Defenders worked with allies in the Florida Campaign for Juvenile Justice to reform Florida’s broken juvenile justice system. Despite repeated community visits to the state capital, briefings and press conferences by advocates and sponsoring legislators, the 2013 Legislative session closed with no action on critical bills such as SB 1374/HB 1039 which would have reformed Florida’s Zero Tolerance law at play in this case.
While Kiera navigates the legal ramifications of her unjust case Polk County Superintendent John Stewart has made the decision to place Kiera in an “alternative school” as he considers expulsion proceedings. Dream Defenders find these actions by Superintendent Stewart reprehensible. Dream Defenders demands that Stewart drop all expulsion proceedings against Kiera Wilmot and allow her to return to her enrollment at Bartow High School.
Dream Defenders calls upon all local, state and national allies to TAKE ACTION to ensure Kiera does not become another casualty of the school to prison pipeline.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Sign the petition to get Kiera back in school
- Spread these images by tweeting them, reblogging them and posting them on instagram.
- Contact Polk County Superintendent John Stewart by calling: (863) 534-0521
Sample Script:
Superintendent Stewart,
My name is _____________ and I am calling to express my concern about the expulsion proceedings against Kiera Wilmot. Florida has been among the national leaders in furthering a school to prison pipeline; with zero tolerance policies being used to lock up, expel and divert youth from their right to an education. Ms. Wilmot’s case is another example of the state and your office criminalizing and derailing the future of a girl of color. Your handling of her case has been irresponsible and reprehensible. Ms. Wilmot’s actions and intent simply do not warrant expulsion or placement in alternative schooling. I am calling on you to immediately drop all expulsion proceedings against Kiera Wilmot and allow her to return to her regular enrollment at Bartow High School.
In order to make an impact in this case we will need the support of thousands.
Please share this message with family and friends. Let’s ensure there is
#JusticeForKiera
Black Girl In Suburbia (documentary trailer)
Black Girl In Suburbia is a feature documentary that looks into the experiences of Black girls growing up in predominately white communities. This is a different look into suburbia from the perspective of women of color. This film explores through professional and personal interviews the conflict and issues Black girls have relating to both white and Black communities.
Black Girl In Suburbia intends to spark an open dialogue about race, identity, and perspective among all people, in hopes that these discussions will allow us to reconsider perceptions of ourselves, others and the communities in which we live and share.
Release date 2014
http://www.blackgirlinsuburbia.com
Your support is appreciated!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-…I need this so bad… SUPPORT!
Last week someone asked me if I thought Black kids that grew up in White homes would have identity issues and I answered maybe and gave a cynical answer as to how they might feel about their Blackness. Anyhow, this is another side of the coin that I think is important to share and help support. So watch and support? Kthanksbye.
Wish I could reblog a million times,
how is gwyneth paltrow
the world’s most beautiful woman
when sade is still alive
There’s something really weird about art when the character is already reallllly sexualized in outfit and pose, and then the artist (or writer or art director or lead etc) takes it one step further and breaks someone’s back. Like they could have done the pose i did a quick paint over for, and it would have still been cammy boobs runneth over and hot camel toe action or whatever, but that was JUST NOT ENOUGH, NEVER ENOUGH DESU!! seriously, ell-oh-ell guys.
once again asking for realism from a character who can destroy a car with her bear hands. demanding realism from a world filled with people who are walking tanks or electrified monsters is a bit prudish. She is more then flexible with in the context of her world to be able to do that. get off your fucking high horse and let the artist who is being paid to draw her this way do their job. you have no right to dictate how this person draws or what is considered to be correct posture for their characters.
plus its a fucking fictional video game character. it doesn’t effect you unless you let it. which in that case you got bigger issues to deal with then some random piece of artwork form Capcom.
This child cannot tell the difference between suspension of disbelief in regard to world building and destruction of a that very world building through excessive and nonsensical objectification (or anything else i mean i might as well say everyone can fly and shoot fire out of their eye balls because ONE thing is unrealistic everything else can be too right) but insists on lecturing people as if they were the same thing
Poor babby :(
p.s. you must not play much street fighter because cammy doesn’t have a move that twists her torso that much, not even spiral arrow so uh fuck off poser lolclearly your the only one here that is a child. because in pretty much all of the games she can move like that. unless all you have played is SF4 and that’s probably because your not old enough to have played the old ones long enough to even know what she looks like in those games while fighting. also because most of the anime’s are cannon, she is shown to be able to move like that as well. AND I’m not the one here with the issues with suspension of disbelief. telling an artist what to do with THEIR characters in THEIR worlds and how THEIR characters aren’t designed how that person wants is whats wrong here.
Plus if we really want to be nit picky about this people in real life can bend their bodies to this degree as well. its rare but its possible.
point is pointing out this small ass detail just to shame the artist is nothing less then disrespectful and immature. but I guess you can understand that being that you are the child here.
Even if i were to pretend “she did it once so it’s ok” is a valid arguement for shitty art, you’re still wrong lol. u so madddd.
Even in the Alpha games that kind of extreme distortion is visible in max one frame, and purely for the purposes of emphasising movement. So it has absolutely no excuse to be drawn like this in a static image. None. If the strongest argument in favour of it you can come up with is “it’s their character” you might want to reconsider your angle.
This is a quality redraw. Cammy is frankly put through enough pain as it is (high kicks in a leotard and nothing else? Jebus…) without the crap the source image pulled on her.
“To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang” by Rachel Rostad
Regardless of your opinion on the Harry Potter books (I’ve been madly in love with them since way back in elementary), you should watch this video. Be sure to actually listen to the poet and not immediately jump to the defense of the books that you love. It’s okay to love something and acknowledge that it has flaws.
Watch it, it’s absolutely brilliant.
(via fuckyeahethnicwomen)
This is so cool. I wish I’d known about this tradition earlier! When I was a kid I was self-conscious about my gums being dark… the only things I heard about dark gums in the States were that they were the result of tooth decay or gum disease. Never that they were normal in dark-skinned people, let alone beautiful.
Mostly I just love how much of this video is round-the-way girls talking and goofing around and being everyday beautiful.
Okay first of all you can see how starved for positive images of brown people that we are in this society that we’re getting excited over plastic surgery to actually look like, you know, what we look like instead of what white people look like.
Seriously, I’m mostly not down with the plastic surgery, but I loved this. A dentist once straight up freaked out and told me I had chronic gum disease when he saw my gums. Seriously. It’s nice to see that some people actually think it’s beautiful and not, you know, some horrible illness.
[x]
Swooooooon.
All of the fangirl tears and love - HAVE THEM.
(via ifidontjust)
Jessica White
#TeamBootyStretchmarks
Amen
yes yes yes booty stretch marks forever
Exploding with Laughter, or: Foucault Being Too Polite to Tell You How Horrible Your Question Was
| James O'Higgins [Interviewer]: | There is a growing tendency in American intellectual circles, particularly among radical feminists, to distinguish between male and female homoesexuality...lesbians seem in the main to want from other women what one finds in stable heterosexual relationships: support, affection, long-term commitment, and so on.... |
| Michel Foucault: | [Laughs] All I can do is explode with laughter. |
| J.O'H: | Is the question funny in a way I don't see, or stupid, or both? |
| M.F.: | Well, it is certainly not stupid, but I find it very amusing, perhaps for reasons I couldn't give even if I wanted to. What I will say is that the distinction offered doesn't seem to be convincing, in terms of what I observe in the behavior of lesbian women. |
