I still think Moana deserved an Oscar for this part
To me, the moral of Moana is that only women can help other women heal from male violence.
The movie starts with the idea that the male god who wronged Te Fiti must be the one to heal her. This seems to make a certain sort of intuitive sense in that I think we all believe that if you do something wrong you should try to make it right. But how does he try to right it? Through more violence. Of course that failed.
It was only when another woman, Moana, saw past the “demon of earth and fire” that the traumatized Te Fiti had become (what a good metaphor for trauma, right?) and met her with love instead of violence that she was able to heal. Note that they do the forehead press before Moana restores the heart, while Te Fiti is still Te Kā. Moana doesn’t wait for her beautiful island goddess to appear in all her green splendor before greeting and treating her as someone deserving of love.
Moana is only able to restore the heart because Te Kā reveals her vulnerability and allows Moana to touch her there. Maui and his male violence could only ever have resulted in more ruin.
This is a touching anaylisis but it’s extremely racist as
not only have you completely ignored the whole point of Maui’s character, but
have managed to incriminate a man of color on a tumblr wide scale.
First of all, Maui’s character does not represent male
violence—it represent human greed. Maui did not take the heart because he is a
man, and Te-Fiti is a woman. He took it because the humans asked him to. The humans asked Maui to do everything for them,
not caring how greedy or selfish their requests were and in the end it was Maui
who suffered for it. Maui is supposed to show the flaw of humanity.
This has nothing to do with sexism, it has everything to do
with the fact that Maui gave and gave to the humans who could never stop being
greedy. Moana giving the heart back wasn’t supposed to be her “making up” for
the male violence that Maui represents. It was her making up for the greed she
and her people represent. It was touching however because yes it was an
important moment between two women, but you missed the point and you’ve come off
racist and very disrespectful to a culture at that.
Yes, Moana is an empowering movie for women, especially
women of color. But the last thing this is about is Maui being an abuser/rapist
or whatever. That is not the point of Maui’s character.
And to assume so is racist. You are a white woman completely
dehumanizing a man of color and ruining his image because of how you see him. And other white girls here
on tumblr have happily picked up that image and interpretation and rolled with
it. Maui’s character is now seen as an abuser or as someone who is violently
because of white girls here on tumblr—which it doesn’t surprise me. (an in a
historical context this is even MORE racist because white women would always
make Maui’s people out to be savages and abusers etc., simply because of the
color of their skin and their culture so yea, this is bad).
You can see the morality of the movie however you want, but
do not be disrespectful toward a character and in this case a culture.
@i-want-cheese Please don’t write this off as another “butthurt comment” or
“male guilt”, because this is really messed up. I see how you’re brushing off
some other people’s comments and I honestly hope that you don’t see mine the
same way because this is an issue I think you need to face/realize. You are
being racist and brushing it off isn’t going to change that.
the
@visibilityofcolor THANK YOU FOR THIS. As a Polynesian woman, reading that post and other replies painting Maui and even Tui as aggressive and violent men had me feeling some type of way, especially since White people have always regarded Polynesian men in such a manner.
I’ve thought about replying because I’m tired of seeing these kind of “Moana is a feminist movie” posts collect hundreds of notes despite the fact that these posts always conveniently fail to mention Pasifika people, but it always stressed me out, so thank you.
As an aside, Maui taking Te Fiti’s heart and Moana restoring it was symbolic of environmental preservation. Because the people who inspired Moana–Pasifika people, not just Polynesian–are always affected first when the environment is threatened. Our way of life is greatly influenced by the ocean and we believe that if you take care of the ocean, she will take care of you.
You’re very welcome.
This is insight for me as well (as I wasn’t aware that the movie also came fro the culture of the Pasifika people), and does give a very important perspective. I do agree with you, this movie is about environmental restoration, not some white fem bullshit.
I tried over and over again to explain to I-want-cheese about how she was being racist, but she responded by blocking me and other poc who called her out (even other polynesian people). People to this day are still trying to explain that she is being racist and culturally insensitive but she ignores us.
I’ve made a few posts about this, hoping that people realize how problematic it is to agree with i-want-cheese. Explaining to her racist white ass that this was problematic was like explaining to a bird. She wouldn’t listen and neither would have of her racist friends.
Sorry you’ve had to see this on your dash every so often, but I’m glad my portion of the post is starting to get around. (reblogged to the wrong blog at first lols)
dang reblogging this as a correction for the very first reblog. this why feminist analysis always needs to be intersectional
My heart just cried
the portrayal of Maui is super important here, the disney crew put a LOT of effort into getting him right because he IS a crucial figure to an entire culture- basically a cross between a central religious figure and superman so handling him poorly would be catastrophically disrespectful
there are basically only two parts of Mauis legend that they flub- they only tell half of the story of when he was abandoned as a baby, and they skip over that stealing the heart of
Te-Fiti
so he could give it to humanity was the legend in which he dies
yes, canonically Maui dies in his quest to give gifts to humanity, its an important element of why Maui is such a profound character, not just ‘man who hurt someone’ strawman
it gets worse when you discover the OTHER legend they fudged, the story of his birth, reinforces this.
Mauis mother had several (Hawaiians only say three, new zealand says five) sons, all named Maui, so when she had ANOTHER son she named him Maui as well, but then cast him into the sea for there was no way she could support another son. the gods did not save Maui, as Moana says, instead they return him to his mother and say she must give him a chance. to which his mother states that for her to take care of him this infant must remove the roof from her house by throwing spears at it.
that is the story of Maui the skillful, abandoned as an infant and then immediately told that he must PROVE his worth, after which all he ever does is prove his worth
his brothers mocked him for being a poor fisherman, he crafts a fishook
from a jawbone and proceeds to raise new islands from the sea
the sky is so low the trees bend, maui raises it for everyone, then fills the new sky with wind
the sun flies so quickly there is not enough time in the day to do the
labors for everyone, maui has to lay traps for each of the suns many
feet, chase after it as it was slowed, and then threaten to chop its
legs off if it would not slow down
he then due to the complaints
of the now longer dark night creates the moon and is upset his creation
will not please humanity for it does not make sufficient light, then
shows it to the sun so that it may learn how to be bright
maui
was credited with having invented as gifts for humanity the outrigger
canoe, stone tools, and seaworthy boats that had no mast or sails. he was credited
with inventing tattoos as a gift to dogs, however
humanity is still not content so maui descends to the land of the dead to ask the secret of creating fire from the grandmother, who kept it hidden in her fingernails. he dropped the fingernail in the water as he tried to return to the land of the living, came back for another, dropped it as well, and went through all ten fingers and toenails untill he had to then interrogate birds the grandmother had shared the secret with to tell him how
a monstrous eel tried to put the moves on his wife, and again maui had to prove his worth to reclaim her by breaking the monster eel’s spine, shoving him into the ground to create the first coconut tree, the single most useful thing for polynesian life, as a gift to humanity yet again
Maui, as a mythological figure, did nothing but give from the day he was born. he gave humans tools, land, fire, boats, light, the wind, everything except life itself and he even tried to give them that- and it killed him, he was bitten in two
a crucial part of Maui as a legend is that he failed, its literally part of the point, also that he was driven to prove himself endlessly to the (during his life) ungrateful.
do not try and drag Maui, its disrespectful on a level i cant express
thank the man, you asshole
Moana succeeded where he failed, for she saw that she did not have to prove herself. the whole movie up untill then she was trying to put on a brave face (there was literally a cut song ‘warrior face’ where maui teaches her Haka), shout her courage, announce to the world at large that she WILL do the thing and fix the world and be the hero, just like Maui
its easy to miss, she stopped trying to prove who she was to anyone, there was nobody she needed to prove herself TO
she just WAS herself, and that brought her peace
Oh man…this is why it’s so important to hear the perspectives of the peoples actually represented. When I was reading through this, the first part seemed to make a lot of sense on the surface, but I could *never* have imagined how racist that perspective was. It makes so much more sense now. Thank you to the folks in this thread who were willing to take the time to share their perspective so that oblivious folks like me could do a little more to chip away at our own internalized racism.
Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.
Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
wow okay i’m crying now
“And even as he watched the rescue unfolding that morning, he would have understood that for the living, everything which could have been done had been done: not a single survivor was lost or injured being brought aboard the Carpathia. For those who had gone down with the Titanic, save for reverencing their memory at the service later that day, there was nothing more that he or anyone could do. Rostron’s duty now was as he always saw it: to the living.”
I looked up a bit about this because the post is so movingly written that when I read it aloud to my husband and mother they both wept like babies, and something else really struck me about this story.
So Carpathia was not a top-end luxury liner. Her reputation was for being Jolly Comfortable – she was very broad in her proportions, and not super-duper fast, and the result was that she didn’t rock so much on the waves and you couldn’t particularly hear/feel the engines. She was solid and dependable, and lots of people liked using her, but she therefore occupied a lesser niche than Titanic or Olympian or whatever – and crucially, as a result of that, she only had one radio operator on board. This means she only had radio ops for a certain window in the day, unlike Titanic, which had 24 hour radio ops.
So on that night, when Titanic went down, Carpathia’s wireless operator – one Harold Cottam – clocked off his shift at midnight, and went to bed. While he was getting ready for bed, though, he left the transmitter on for the hell of it, and therefore picked up a transmission from Cape Race in Newfoundland, the closest transmitting tower sending messages to the ships. They told him that they had a backlog of private traffic for Titanic that wasn’t getting through. So, even though his shift was over, and it was now 11 minutes past bloody midnight, and he just wanted to go to bed, Harold Cottam decided that nonetheless, he’d be helpful, and let the Titanic know they had messages waiting.
And that’s how he received the Titanic’s distress signal. In spite of no longer being on shift to receive it, and therefore in order to send Carpathia galloping to Titanic’s rescue, and thus saving 705 people.
All because Harold Cottam decided one night to be kind.
I dunno. That’s just really stuck with me.
Cottam also ended up staying awake for something like 48 hours straight trying to send survivors messages and a list of survivors home, but due to Carpathia’s limited radio frequency range and with no other ships to act as a relay, this was rather patchy. However, he tried his damn best to make sure the survivor’s messages got home, and was also bombarded with incoming messages of bribes to spill the details of the disaster to the press.
Rostrum had ordered that no messages to the press be sent out of respect to the survivors, for they would have their privacy destroyed as soon as they reached New York. Cottam respected this order, even under extreme duress of fatigue, stress, and the knowledge that in some cases the bribes were almost three times his annual salary.
He eventually went to bed but not before working with one of the rescued Titanic’s radio operators, Harold Bride, to transmit as many messages as possible. Bride was injured (his feet had been crushed in a lifeboat) and had just passed the body of the second of Titanic’s radio operators aboard (Jack Phillips), so neither of them were really in the best shape to keep working, but they did.
In the face of extreme adversity, both men refused to do anything but their duty (and exceeding their duty) not just because Rostrum had ordered it, but because it was the right thing to do. They could have profited considerably from the disaster and they refused for the dignity of the survivors.
This is hopepunk. This is what we can be, what we are, when instinct takes over. This is what we are when we choose to care about each other. We’re not profit machines or units of production or lone fierce wolves in a bitter wilderness. We are people, and we care about people.
To put the Trump administration into historical context, consider that Donald Trump embodies the worse of all the former Presidents typically regarded as among the worse in our history.
Donald Trumps is …
• as racist as Andrew Jackson,
• as corrupt as Warren Harding,
• as singularly pro-corporation as Calvin Coolidge,
• as abusive of power as Richard Nixon, and
• as incompetent as George W. Bush.
Trump may yet prove to be as inept as the pre-civil War Presidents: Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan.
Also, Donald Trump brings his own set of dysfunctional attributes beyond the scope of other Presidents. He is unique from other Presidents in that he is so utterly ignorant of public and world affairs that he has no idea when people are manipulating him for their own nefarious purposes and hidden agendas. Furthermore, Trump is so impulsive that he is easily baited and reacts recklessly to every provocation. And Trump is uniquely uncurious and intellectually lazy, and never seeks out information because he delusionally thinks he is of high intelligence and already knows everything he needs to know. Moreover, no President in American history has ever been implicated with a foreign power against the United States.
That issue has yet to play out, but it could make Trump’s presidency standout in comparison against every other past administration. So it is very likely that taking his presidency in its totality, Donald Trump may very well be the worse President ever in American history. That’s quite an accomplishment for Trump in less than two years into his first term of office.
Again, an incisive critique by Jennifer Rubin getting to the heart of the matter. We can see Trump if we are generous, as a despot without a mandate, a fish out of the water, any number of “interesting” things but sadly in the light of day it all boils down to is a singular lack of intelligence. No, it doesn’t help he’s groomed for failure by his closest advisors, incestuous hand picked yes “men” similarly endowed. Dysfunctional, they merrily pat each other on the back while the rest of us are still recoiling in disbelief and shock. No clue. The exact reflection of the voter that put him and his family where they are, an orgy of stupidity. America fell in the trap spectacularly, like the workings of the charlatan Madoff, Trump convinced he was capable by thrusting the Mar a largo and celebrity status, wealth instead of intelligence into their imaginations and it was swallowed hook line and sinker. He’s still doing it to every foreign dignitary who visits. It’s his modus operandi. It’s him, and no one with a single brain cell thought he would change. There is no life after Trump just Trump, there is no president only Trump, and he is, in fact, missing a brain. Absolutely yes. We’re schooled to put a spin on this by looking for some scapegoat. Learning disability, personality disorder, mental decline but to be politically honest, it’s a brain that’s missing, nothing else.
President Donald Trump does not read – except in small doses and when his own name appears prominently. Before the presidency, his only activities were work and golf. He does not mingle with intellectuals, cultural trend-setters or artists.
It should come as no surprise – and it was not – that he sorely lacks in sophistication, knowledge of the world, understanding of government and a rudimentary grasp of economics.
Sitting atop arguably the great resource on the planet – the body of knowledge retained by American government experts on everything from economics to medicine to military history – he remains blissfully ignorant on a range of subjects.
He surrounds himself with dim yes men who know little more than he and, in any event, tremble at the prospect of correcting their “Dear Leader.” But sometimes you wonder whether Trump is just, well, dumb.
The Associated Press reports:
President Donald Trump has been handing out his cell phone number to world leaders and urging them to call him directly, an unusual invitation that breaks diplomatic protocol and is raising concerns about the security and secrecy of the US commander in chief’s communications. Trump has urged leaders of Canada and Mexico to reach him on his cell phone, according to former and current US officials with direct knowledge of the practice. Of the two, only Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken advantage of the offer so far, the officials said… “If you are speaking on an open line, then it’s an open line, meaning those who can monitor those conversations are doing so,” said Derek Chollet, a former Pentagon adviser and National Security Council official now at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
For someone who mocked Hillary Clinton for setting up a home email server that was vulnerable to hacking, Trump and his negligence defy explanation. Either he does not understand that his calls might be intercepted or does not care.
As a matter of self-preservation, however, one would think he would very much care if American enemies including terrorists could determine his whereabouts. (How is it, by the way, that American intelligence services condoned his using an unsecured line?) One would think he would be tired of being embarrassed when the content of calls is made public. It is times such as this when one wishes national security adviser H.R. McMaster had not frittered away his credibility spinning for the president and instead had the wherewithal to put his foot down and tell the president that he cannot behave in such a fashion.
When one considers this behaviour and that of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who allegedly discussed a dark communication line using Russian facilities, several explanations come to mind. First, this behaviour reflects the degree to which these neophytes on the world stage are hopelessly unschooled and naive. Alternatively, their behaviour denotes a shocking propensity for recklessness, even with their own financial and personal security (risking blackmail, among other things). That recklessness seems without purpose. (What goal would be served by talking on unsecured cell phone lines or on Russian lines that could not be accomplished on approved lines of communication?) Alternatively, maybe these people are paranoid conspiratorialists (who make Sean Hannity sound sane by comparison), convinced that the only thing they have to fear is the American “deep state” (or some such nonsense).
Whatever the explanation, Trump does not evidence any greater knowledge or sophistication than he possessed when he entered the office. You’d think he would have learned something in four months. Then again, maybe the rudimentary practices of government are utterly beyond him. One need not be a psychiatrist or an educator to see that he is incapable of performing the functions of his job – executing the laws, keeping the nation’s secrets, following routine security procedures. In short, maybe he is not compromised nor mentally ill, but merely dumb.
Copyright The Washington Post
Re: “
Alternatively, their behaviour denotes a shocking propensity for recklessness, even with their own financial and personal security (risking blackmail, among other things). That recklessness seems without purpose.
“ –
That recklessness reflects a profound narcissism and sense of entitlement – “I do what I want, when I want, regardless of what anyone says about the consequences, because I am responsible to no one and I do what I want.” It’s a deep psychological and moral flaw, and not a world-view that responds to efforts to rein it in.
My wife and I were were talking the other day and, I don’t remember what we were even talking about, but the idea came up that we would need an oreo for. I joked about getting one from my secret stash. This is where she made her mistake. She said “oh right, like you could have an Oreo stash without me knowing about it.”
I’m sorry?
That’s a challenge.
Oreos aquired.
I’m going to hide them in a super simple place at first
But be sure to follow this post while I chronicle all the ways and places I hide them and also how I plan on taunting her with cookies while she can’t find the package
She is out of the house for a moment so it’s time to enjoy a few cookies
And find a new hiding spot
Hehehe
They up there
Normally I’m a Oreos with milk kinda guy, but I’ll take coffee if coffee is available
Now to hide them right under her nose
She never looks under the TV for anything. Tonight when we are watching Halloween Wars I’ll have a big dopey grin on my face
Time to up the stakes. It was fun having em here and hiding them around her while she didn’t know what was happening. Bit now it’s time for her to be in on the game she is playing
Four cookies packed in her lunch. Game on
I’ve been cleaning house today and feeling like I’ve done a pretty good job. Time to reward myself with some delicious Oreos
Aaaaand put them where she would never find them in a million years
🙂
Got up early this morning and helped pack everyone’s lunch. Pulling a damn Oprah over here
You get some cookies! You get some cookies! Everyone gets cookies!
Then a devious idea struck me…
I put the remaining Oreos in a baggie to hide by themselves. Now to “hide” the package where it will probably be found…
And pin the actual stash to the inside of the closet wall
If you two weren’t already married I’d beg you to marry her because you two are obviously perfect for each other and I love this post with all my heart
This guy’s dopey grin at his success at hiding oreos is exactly what I’m here for
You like that eh? Well you are going to love today’s installment
Look at that. So sad. So few Oreos left
Guess I’ll just pin em right to the middle of the wall in the middle of the living room. She’ll never find em there
Oh, guess I should put this back up
Bwa ha ha ha! You guys! You guys don’t understand! I was planning on doing this and when I got home and looked at it I was like “aww, it’s too thin. They won’t fit.” I even TOLD my wife this and how I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to hide them back there.
But then I looked again. They dooooo
Thank you all so much for the love. I knew y’all would like this, but I had no idea you would like it THIS MUCH. People calling us “goals” and stuff… Man…. It’s kinda hard to take in ya know? Anyways: if this post gets Over 9000™ before I get off work today I will pick up Halloween Oreos on my way home and this will not stop
There are many reasons to vote besides electing officials. You might also, say, still technically have slavery in your state constitution that needs to be abolished.
MMMMMHM. Wanna know what’s worse? This is the second time in the last few years Colorado has voted on this because last time IT DIDN’T FUCKING PASS.
If you want to get really technical on it, this is a “the language just never technically got removed” sort of issue. But it is obviously still a huge fucking issue.
Really damn ashamed of my state on this one, honestly.
It’s not just a technical language issue. This would affect prison labor- prison is where legal slave labor happens in the U.S. There’s a lot of corporate interests- private prisons, for one- who don’t want this amendment to pass, because it would cut into their ability to profit from the labor of prisoners. I’m no longer a Colorado voter since I moved to Montana, but if you live in Colorado, vote yes on amendment A!
Speaking of criminal justice reform, if you’re in Florida, the current ballot measures this year include Amendment 4, which would, with a Yes vote in the supermajority, give former felons the automatic right to vote back as soon as they’ve served their time (well, with the exception of people convicted previously of murder or sex crimes; those would still have to go through the governor’s office, but!!).
At current, you don’t get that. You just don’t.
You “serve your time” – and then for at LEAST 7 years you don’t even get to APPLY to ask for your right to vote back…and even then, you have to go through the governor’s office, and at the moment, there’s a ten YEAR backlog of those, and then THOSE again, still have to go before the Governor, who, in the case of Rick Scott, has been an asshole and denied pretty much all of them anyway. (Literally, with a cartoonishly villain-like “I deny the restoration of civil rights”. wtf even is this State).
Anyway, what this means?
Basically if you get convicted of a SINGLE FELONY – even if, it’s, say, a nonviolent drug charge from when you were like 18 – you basically in Florida lose your entire right to vote in any election pretty much permanently.
Yes, even if you served your time. Even if you’ve been rehabilitated and put your life back together and become a “productive citizen” and valued part of your community. Even with no further criminal behavior! You lose your right to vote pretty much permanently.
Oh, and black people and Latinos are much more likely to get treated harshly, and convicted, in our justice system, not just in the USA generally but specifically in Florida: the region is super biased all up and down regarding who gets charged with what and how likely they are to get convicted, so this existing standard disproportionately disenfranchises POC and poor folk. Passing Amendment 4 to our State Constitution would give over a MILLION people who’ve served their time (most of them people of color) back their right to vote.
Even if you think it won’t make a difference to vote for actual candidates, Amendment 4 in Florida and Amendment A in Colorado are just a sampling of potential reform on the ballots that you CAN help enact…
…or, as in the case of other measures on Florida’s ballot that bundled unrelated things or try to sneak in “supermajority” language and seize control over our State colleges etc? Things you can help BLOCK. PS a surprising number of Senate, House and Governorship races this year in various locations throughout the USA are in a DEAD HEAT, like, statistical ties, less than 1% apart in the polls, so close it’s not even margin of error level. A single vote really COULD make a difference in those races, especially if it goes to runoffs or recounts!
VOTE. It matters this year. Trust me.
(sidebar: if you need a neutral source of info to study the issues in your location, look ballotpedia for your region, it’s EXTREMELY helpful!)
gather round, folks, that i may pass down the tale of Fuck-It Jonn, because that dude is just the GREATEST FUCKING CONMAN in the WORLD, and he WASN’T EVEN TRYING. he absolutely fucking STUMBLED ON ACCIDENT into THE SCAM THAT WOULD DEFINE HIS ENTIRE LIFE. the lie that transformed his ENTIRE EXISTENCE out of SHEER RANDOM BULLSHIT.
and his sole motivation was to EAT FINGER FOOD.
consider:
in the Wayback Days™ before i was born, the people who would later become my parents had this friend named… yeah, let’s say jonn. i’d rather not say his real name. bitches not snitches, and all that.
so. france in the late 80s. jonn and my parents had just finished school and all found jobs in computer engineering. (not that they STUDIED computer engineering, mind you. no, they were all studying how to become fish farmers or some shit. but those were simpler times, when knowing how to turn the fucking screen on got you a comfortable salary at the ripe old age of 24 years old.)
except that jonn, who was a chill hippie kind of dude, was bored to death by his desk job. so bored that he decided to just up and quit. “fuck it”, was basically jonn’s motto. fuck it, he’d find something better! fuck it, and things would work out! EXCEPT (as you may have guessed) THEY DIDN’T. for months and months he didn’t find another job. and so he ended up depressed, struggling, and eating dinner at my future-parents’ tiny apartment, three times a week, so he wouldn’t literally starve.
time went by. jonn was still unemployed. so before his resources hit rock bottom, jonn did the only logical, reasonable thing. what’s that, you ask? begged for his old job back? went back to school? crawled home to his parents? ha ha! obviously you do not share jonn’s ADVENTUROUS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT. and also you lack his BIZARRE LOGIC AND PLAIN WEIRD APPROACH TO LIFE.
what jonn did was: say “fuck it” (again) and leave for thailand.
because you see, thailand was cheap by french standards. so cheap that even a penniless dude on unemployment could live there for weeks on end, spending much less than he would have in france, as long as he didn’t mind roughing it. and jonn didn’t mind! “fuck it”, he’d said. and by god, he would stand by his words!
so jonn gamely scrounged up the money for the plane ticket and then… yeah. basically bummed it out in thailand. for two months. seeing the sights. sleeping on the street. making new friends.
and one of these news friends turned out to be very adept at FORGING PAPERS.
huh, jonn said to himself (probably high at the time) this sounds not at all shifty and more like a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY; what could POSSIBLY GO WRONG. my new thai best friend is even offering me a FAMILY DISCOUNT. for fake papers. fuck it! let’s have some!
as far as i can tell, jonn… didn’t even need fake papers?? like, he was literally just trying not to pass up on an opportunity here. so he smoked some more weed (i can only assume) and got A BRILLIANT IDEA. fake ID card? LAME. fake driver’s licence? HACKNEYED. fake medical degree? PEDESTRIAN. no! jonn got himself a fake press card.
but why??
well, OBVIOUSLY, just so he could get into cultural events for free – conferences, art premieres, etc – and eat all the finger food. that was his grand plan. stroll into press-only events, wave his poorly-made card around, and gorge himself on canapés. no more going hungry! ever! jonn would live off tiny slices of toasted foie gras and flutes of cheap champagne for the rest of his life!
so now jonn, Very Obviously Fake Journalist™, is back in france and he’s DOING THE THING. and guess what? this was before google. before facebook. before linkedin. impersonating a journalist was very easy. if people asked where you worked you just said you were freelance, then steered the conversation to current politics and stealthily devoured the entire buffet while everybody was busy debating.
and so. this is what jonn is doing. his monumentally stupid plan is actually working. this is how he eats. with thai-made fake papers and sheer fucking confidence. and of course people start noticing him eventually! jonn is always fucking there! at all and any events in paris! because, again, THIS IS HOW HE EATS! but it’s always the same people running around in these circles, anyway. so nobody’s surprised to see the same dudes popping up over and over again. jonn blends in! and jonn is very good at making friends. and changing the subject. and eating canapés.
and then ONE DAY
one of jonn’s newfangled journalist friends (a REAL journalist, mind you, who has NO IDEA that jonn isn’t What He Seems) basically goes: “dude i’m so swamped rn. everyone wants everything all at once. fuck. shit. are you swamped too?”
“oh, for sure,” jonn says through a mouthful of his twenty-ninth serving of canapés that night. “not a second to myself”
“god. fuck. tell me about it. shit. i’m just so damn swamped.” Real Journalist shakes his head. “if i could only find someone to cover for me on this one article.”
now, i know i said before that jonn was smoking weed. but i must confess now i said it for humorous effect. i have no idea if jonn’s ever been within five hundred yards of a blunt his whole life. but what you must understand is that jonn is Chill™ on like. a soul-deep level. his whole mind is one long exhale of smoke followed by the words “fuck it”. this is a man who left his job for no reason, lived in thailand on a tourist’s visa for two months, got fake papers there for the lol of it all, and is now living off press-only events in paris. jonn was BORN HIGH.
SO. when RJ asks him: “dude. jonn. you said you were working freelance. i know you’re busy but don’t you think you could maybe cover for me? just this once?”
jonn NATURALLY answers: “fuck it. sure”
then goes to an unemployment center and applies for one of their free one-week classes. on journalism. jonn spends ALL OF ONE WEEK learning How To Write An Article Like A Real Journalist With A Real Press Card. then writes the article. basically bullshitting his way through that thing. half-assing the life out of it. faking his heart out. because why not? FUCK IT.
i have NO IDEA if he actually did a good job or not. but it was in fact good enough for RJ who really must have been truly swamped, and was so truly grateful that he told all of their mutual journalists friends. who were ALL SWAMPED. i’m given to understand it’s the natural state of the journalist in the wild.
and so jonn is now REGULARLY COVERING FOR ALL SORTS OF JOURNALISTS.
not making much money i assume. but still, not bad for a dude who studied journalism for five whole days.
and well, it’s kinda fun! better than moping around at home waiting for the next free canapé press-only premiere. so jonn keeps at it. and eventually it occurs to him that hey! he spent two months in thailand. why not make an article out of that? so he writes himself a lil paper, retelling his Bumtastic Adventures in the Land of Thai People, Cheap Living and Forged Papers (That Last One Having Nothing to Do With Him Personally of Course). and he’s kinda proud of it. so much that he gives it to his journalist friends. can they maybe pass it around? see if anybody would be interested in publishing it? for a modest fee and some more canapés?
and yeah. someone was in fact interested in publishing it. and that someone was:
THE
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
(french edition.)
so jonn got a REAL press card. got a FULL-TIME JOB at the national geographic. and spent the REST OF HIS WORK LIFE traveling abroad for six months, then going back to paris the rest of the year to write about his wacky journeys. he’s retired now, having published several books full of his articles and photographs. he’s bought a b&b in the french countryside with all his money. and continues to say “fuck it” to any problem that comes his way like the absolute fucking legend he is.
as far as i know, none of his journalist buddies nor his boss ever found out about any of this.
So my dad took away my laptop because I wouldn’t give him the password. I wasn’t even allowed to type it in, he demanded to know the password to my personal computer because he thinks I’m “ doing things I’m not supposed to do. ” My sister is not, and never has been, held to the same standard when it came to passwords on her own phone etc. But my parents always suspect me of being “up to something” and will randomly ask to use my computer/ know the password, and when I say no, they get mad at me. In the past, they have taken away my devices and looked through them, which cased me a lot of anxiety and is part of the reason I don’t like it when people use my computer or go through the camera roll on my phone. Even as I type this, I’m being asked what I’m doing. If you think parents demanding to know the passwords to their child’s personal devices is a breach of privacy please reblog
my parents do the same thing it’s torture
As a parent, you don’t get privacy until you are on your own. My house, my rules, my money, my decision.
Don’t like it?
Too bad.
I am the parent here. I’m not your friend. I’m your father.
Literally kids are not your prisoner??? There’s a difference between being protective and being controlling.
“You don’t get privacy until you’re an adult” like what the fuck. You’re one of those piece of shit parents that thinks taking away bedroom doors and making their kids hold sandwich board signs on busy roads is appropriate punishment aren’t you? Children and teens are still fucking people and still deserve respect. If you can’t even respect your child how do you expect to teach them to respect others?
AS A PARENT YOU DON’T GET PRIVACY UNTIL YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. If I suspect you’re doing drugs or talking to someone way older than you or sneaking out at night, your privacy becomes my business. You’re living under MY roof, and I bought that computer, that phone, and pay for the service that runs it. Sorry, Charlie. It’s my job as a parent to make sure you’re safe and I will exercise the UNALIENABLE right to invade your privacy.
The mindset parents have of “my house my rules / I bought you that phonecomputertabletetc so I can go through it” is a huge contributer to anxiety, depression, self harm, and suicide in kids and teens and if anyone is defending, condoning, or practicing that behavior I hope to god they get their kids taken away from them. Nobody deserves to grow up under an iron fist of emotional abuse.
dude it’s one thing to be looking out for your kid and another to be like “privacy doesn’t exist because you are vulnerable and i am in a position of power.
being overprotective of your kid is NOT going to help them. it’s fucking savage.
my mom let my sisters and i do whatever we wanted [obvs within reason] and punished us when we did bad shit and we came out just fine. we’re honest people and nothing fucked us up. my friend with overprotective and invasive parents? she sneaks out for a social life. she can’t let people touch her things without almost crying because her dad would confiscate her things as she was using them to make sure she wasn’t selling drugs or sexting. sometimes she compulsively lies about small things and admits to lying later because she knows it’s was stupid to do it in the first place and she developed OCD from her father reprimanding her for not being clean enough [even though she’s a spotless person] she will have anxiety attacks over being in a messy environment because of the panic her dad put into her while growing up. she’s almost twenty and you know what she did? she asked me to cover for her so she could go on a date. SHE IS TWENTY NEXT MONTH AND ASKED ME TO LIE TO HER PARENTS IF THEY ASKED ME WHERE SHE WAS. she was on a date!! dating! because she was afraid her dad would fucking ground her. the sad part is, he probably would have if he found out! they created an environment of distrust and she has to fight it to be able to hang out with people who weren’t even gonna get her in trouble.
yall wanna be like “privacy doesn’t exist for children and teens. no teens can be trusted.” but fact is, you’re gonna force your kid into being untrustworthy because you think it’s healthy to be controlling.
sorry. you’re a shitty parent. unless you have proof or grounds for violating privacy in order to keep your kid safe, you are abusive and controlling and a sack of shit for having 0 respect for your children.
My dad threatens to take my door away from me for having it closed. I’m a seventeen year old female, and he has threatened to take away my door.
when i was a teenager, i wasn’t allowed to have a cellphone, so my father would hand me a little bag of change and force me to call home from a payphone every single time i left somewhere and again when i arrived at the next place. that means if i went to the mall, i called when i got there. then if i wanted to go across the street to the Walmart i had to call and tell him so. then i had to call again when i got to the Walmart! if i had a bunch of stuff to do, i could go through the entire bag of change in one weekend – if i could even find enough payphones to call him from. his explanation for this lunacy was that he wanted to be able to find me anytime, anywhere. he also liked to randomly show up at my job to make sure i was there, and the first time i spent the night at my best friend’s after i got a car, he drove past the house no less than eight times, and called no less than four times. one of those calls was to ask where i was because my car wasn’t visible from the road – and when i explained the turnaround i was parked in was behind the house, he told me we’d “better not go anywhere or have friends over”. like, what the hell were we going to do? have a drunken orgy while my friend’s grandma was sitting in the next room? we ended up playing chess in the front parlor all night with all the lights on and the curtains open so he could see us if he drove by.
and what, exactly, did i do to deserve this? not a fucking thing. i didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t sneak out, didn’t do drugs, didn’t skip school, nothing. in 13 years of public school, i had one detention – for being late too many times. that’s it. i never did a single thing to make him think i was untrustworthy and i got stalked for it.
when i graduated high school, my father told me if i was going to go to art college on his dime, he was going to have a say in the classes i took and what i did with my free time – he even went so far as to tell me if he ever dropped by the campus, i’d better be in my dorm doing homework or in class, and if i got a grade he didn’t like, he was going to pull me out of school, bring me home, and basically keep me a prisoner with no phone, no tv, no visits with friends until i graduated from the local community college. faced with another four years of stalking and abuse, i moved out and worked in a factory until i could be considered an independent student, then went to the art college i’d always wanted to – on my terms.
my father died last May and i hadn’t talked to him for a year, hadn’t seen him for two, and before that i hadn’t had any communication with him at all forfour.
the moral of the story for you “my house, my rules, you don’t get any rights” parents is: stop treating your children like shit or you’re going to die alone, and you’ll deserve it.
My father didn’t do it to this extreme but he listened in on my calls, he constantly accused me of having sex or doing pot.
Guess what parents?
Most kids that got constantly accused of bullshit that I KNEW? INCLUDING MYSELF? Ended up doing those things because “Fuck it, might as well if they’re not going to believe me!”
For me, I had sex way before I planned to (19. I was planning on waiting til marriage). Why? Because fuck it, he acted like I was trying to be a whore all the damn time, I was going to do whatever I damn well pleased.
I moved out at age 19. I have never moved back in. I barely talk to him. I talk almost exclusively to my mom.
When I moved out he said I’d be pregnant by the end of the year.
I’m 30. I have no kids. I don’t plan on having kids. Ever. Because I watched every other person in my family have kids when they couldn’t afford them and I’m not doing that to a child.
When I lived with my parents I had nearly all A’s, I had an 8pm curfew at the age of 19, I was never allowed to leave town, leave state, anything like that for school trips or what have you. When I was in college I wasn’t allowed to go to any colleges more than 30 minutes away. My parents didn’t trust others and they instilled that in me and it took me YEARS to fix it.
My therapist pinned down exactly what that does to it a kid too. It’s isolating. You’re isolating your kid. You’re telling them you don’t trust them. You’re telling them you inherently think they’re bad.
And that has huge ramifications on your bond with them.
Hope you’re ready for it.
Dear Parents who approve of the lack of privacy until a certain age: You are engaging in child abuse. Emotional child abuse.
Preventing a child from having privacy is a punishable offense in the United States (many countries actually) and you can be penalized for it.
What is that?
Rejecting or ignoring: telling a child he or she is unwanted or unloved, showing little interest in child, not initiating or returning affection, not listening to the child, not validating the child’s feelings, breaking promises, cutting child off in conversation
Shaming or humiliating: calling a child names, criticizing, belittling, demeaning, berating, mocking, using language or taking action that takes aim at child’s feelings of self-worth
Terrorizing: accusing, blaming, insulting, punishing with or threatening abandonment, harm or death, setting a child up for failure, manipulating, taking advantage of a child’s weakness or reliance on adults, slandering; screaming; yelling
Isolating: keeping child from peers and positive activities, confining child to small area, forbidding play or other stimulating experiences
Corrupting: engaging child in criminal acts, telling lies to justify actions or ideas, encouraging misbehavior
If you are an abusive parent, you probably have one of these (if not all) of these red flags:
Routinely ignores, criticizes, yells at or blames child
Plays favorites with one sibling over another
Poor anger management or emotional self-regulation
Stormy relationships with other adults, disrespect for authority
History of violence or abuse
Untreated mental illness, alcoholism or substance abuse
Children who suffer from your abuse, experience these emotional and behavioral issues:
Habits like sucking, biting, rocking
Learning disabilities and developmental delays
Overly compliant or defensive
Extreme emotions, aggression, withdrawal
Anxieties, phobias, sleep disorders
Destructive or anti-social behaviors (violence, cruelty, vandalism, stealing, cheating, lying)
Behavior that is inappropriate for age (too adult, too infantile)
Suicidal thoughts and behaviors
In summary, there is no “my house, my rules”. If you actively promote this type of behavior as parents, you are committing a crime, and you can be fined and imprisoned for it, as well as having your kids taken away, which, if they are experiencing this behavior from you, shouldn’t be your kids to begin with.
Children are not your property, regardless of relation.
If you want to guarantee your children never consider you a part of their life or interact with you ever again, continuing these behaviors will absolutely do that.
As someone who has a support group of nearly 80 kids ranging from the ages of 14 to 27, I can tell you so many horror stories of parental abuse and the shit it fucks up the kids with as a result. My wife experienced and survived her own form of parental abuse, as have I.
We do not tolerate it, and neither should your kids.
okay okay, you ready for a fucking story? because reading through this brought back memories that showcase just how shitty invading your kid’s privacy is!
okay so back when I was 12 (? i think. 7th grade for sure) I started experiencing symptoms of depression. So of course, because I thought it would help, I told my mom. She told me I was just “a hormonal teenager” and that I just needed to get over it. At this point I was suicidal and had expressed that, even at that age I knew that it wasn’t normal. not at all.
So I started isolating myself from my family. I’d only text my friends. That’s when they started going through my ipod because they believed I was “doing bad things”. So I set up a passcode because they were just unlocking and going through it every time I left the room. It stayed in my pocket until I got home, then under the bed. I wasn’t allowed to unlock it myself, they had to know the passcode. I’d go through 20 different passcodes a month because I didn’t want them looking through it. I didn’t even have anything to hide! They made me feel guilty, like I was doing something wrong for texting my friends. The most prominent memory of this is sitting in the chair next to the couch, crying from the anxiety they were forcing me through as they looked through everything. I had no privacy. I wasn’t allowed to have privacy. I no longer texted my friends. The little social interaction I got was from tumblr messages every so often.
My parents created instagram, tumblr etc. accounts so they could watch what i posted and when I posted it. I blocked them. This was he only place I had left to express myself and they were trying to take that away too. They found some app (no idea why this even exists) that allows you to fucking track what your kids do online. I changed the email on all of my social media. I stopped using it if they were in the room. I did everything I possibly could because I just wanted to have 1 fucking place I could express myself without them.
They’ve (as far as I know) stopped forcing their way into my shit. They still go through my texts if I leave it unlocked. They hover over me whenever I use the computer. They still threaten to take away my door.
And I just don’t care anymore. About anything. I skip class, I send nudes, I smoke etc. They’re gonna assume I’m doing it anyway, why shouldn’t I?
I spend my time telling my brother not to do anything I’ve done. Telling him to tell me if he feels bad, not our parents. Telling him not to do the stuff I still do. I tell him all this because I’m in ruins and I don’t want him to end up the same way.
“my house my rules” is my #1 tipoff that a parent may be abusive to their kids and was a huge scapegoat for my parents doing shit like taking my mattress and bedroom door away for getting a C in school. this shit is abusive and only serves to emotionally scar children and push them away from their parents even more.
I’m a parent and this 100% emotional abuse. If you don’t trust your kids, then they won’t trust you. It can be scary to let go then, online and in ‘rl’ but you have to if you want to have people, who at the end of the process of growing up, who are brave and confident in who they are
hey so as a mental health worker I can 100% confirm that the “no privacy until you’re an adult” mindset is abusive and causes trauma to the child which will take years and years to recover from, if ever. Controlling your child’s life in every aspect and not allowing them to become independent of you is abusive.
Man, is this bringing up bad memorizes.
DEAR SWEET GOD THANK YOU FOR THIS
I didn’t go through this myself, and thankfully I don’t know anyone who did. That doesn’t mean I can’t sympathize with it. I’m grateful my parents aren’t like that, and if I ever get a chance, I’m fully willing to do my part to help children who go through shit (pardon my french) like that.
Honestly if you’re female and you’re called for jury duty and during the elimination process you’re asked if you’ve ever had any adverse experience with a man (harrassment or rape or any other male violence) just fuckin lie and say no. Then vote that fucker guilty
Women survivors are barred from serving on a jury but rapists are not even questioned. There can be no doubt that this is a major reason rapists walk free. Men have never played fair. It is time for women to start beating them at their own game. Our lives depend on it.
As someone who wants to be a prosecutor one day… I agree.
OK NO. NO NO NO NO NO. I am a defense attorney. I am a woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor. THAT BEING SAID I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS POST ALL WEEK AND IT’S SOOOOO FUCKING WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS.
It’s wrong not for any bullshit rape apologist shit, btw, it’s wrong BECAUSE THIS SHIT WILL LITERALLY FUCK YOU OVER AND FUCK OVER ANY RAPE VICTIMS TOO. Here’s why:
(bear in mind this advice is gonna be MD specific since that’s where I practice)
1) FIRST THINGS FIRST. Don’t fucking lie. Don’t you dare fucking lie when you’re being questioned at jury duty. Why? OK well first: you’re swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury. What that means is yes, you will face criminal charges. Criminal charges which, btw, will keep you off of any juries in the future.
Here’s the thing, people (the law enforcement authorities and the defense counsel) WILL be able to find this out especially if you have ever filed a formal police report and/or spoken publicly about it. Yes, even on facebook. This ALSO means that if the fact that you lied about this is found out mid-trial it’s grounds for a mistrial with prejudice, if not a straight dismissal. Which means that hey, look, EVERYTHING HAS TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH NEW JURORS.
2) The second thing is this: in many states, you don’t just get dismissed after answering affirmatively. The voir dire process in MD works like this:
A) prosecutors and the defense come up with a list of questions to ask potential jurors. These are typically a combination of blanket questions you would ask at any trial (ex: have you ever been convicted of a crime in this jurisdiction) and specific questions tailored to the hearing in particular (like the question above). Both attorneys get the chance to view each other’s questions and object to any particular questions that the other team may have.
B) So we’re at jury selection. Both attorneys argue preliminary whether or not questions get to be asked or not, submit the questions to the judge, and decide how to do the striking. (all at once submitted on paper, or alternating).
B1) “striking” means asking to get rid of a juror. A strike can be peremptory, i.e., you can strike for whatever reason you want and don’t have to justify it, automatically. Or you can have a strike FOR CAUSE. There are a limit to how many peremptory strikes/challenges you can have, depending on the jurisdiction, and the type of crime. And you may or may not have to justify those strikes and turn them into “for cause.”
B2) generally if, during a question, a juror answers in the affirmative, the judge will ask you to go up to the bench to privately discuss it with the judge, and both attorneys. In this case they will ask if you or somebody you know was a victim. They will also ask if the incident occurred in the same jurisdiction and possibly involved the same arresting officers. They will THEN ask you if you feel so strongly that it will affect your ability to be IMPARTIAL–that is, will you still be able to only consider the facts presented to you in the court, and be able to judge something as proven beyond a reasonable doubt or not, or will you be biased?
B3) If you say “I am so biased” then yeah, the judge will excuse you right away. But if you say “No I think I can do it. I can be impartial.” you’ll be asked to return to your seat.
C) The questions are now done. The attorneys then go through their strikes. Like I said, they have a limited number of the peremptory ones. And there are other limits too. You can’t strike jurors on the basis of a “protected class” (i.e.: race, gender, religion etc.) and anything that SHOWS that an attorney is doing so a can be objected to by the other attorney. There doesn’t have to be a “pattern” but that helps (i.e. striking three women in a row). Every time a juror gets called and somebody requests a strike, the other attorney can either object or not. So it’s up to each attorney to protect the jurors they want (and btw other than the questions, in MD, the info you get as an attorney is the juror’s name, age, job, and where they live, and their spouse’s job). If there’s a disagreement then the judge will hear arguments either way. If it’s a protected class argument, the attorney who has been striking has to come up with a different reason to justify and that’s got to be something UNRELATED to the protected class (ex: if you struck two Black guys in a row you can’t say “oh well I didn’t want THESE Black guys I wanted the other ones” because that’s still BASED ON RACE).
————
3) SO HERE’S WHY IT’S SO FUCKED UP TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS SHIT AS A WAY TO “SOLVE THE PROBLEM”
A) as I said above, you don’t want to fucking lie.
B) also BEING A CONVICTED FELON, BTW, AND OTHER TYPES OF CONVICTIONS, DISQUALIFIES YOU FROM BEING ON THE JURY. So…convicted rapists? yeah, they can’t actually serve. THIS IS LITERALLY A QUESTION ON THE JURY DUTY FORM AND IS A QUESTION ASKED AT EVERY STAGE OF SELECTION.
C) ALSO, in a couple of the posts I’ve seen they’ve mentioned this question was only asked for women. I’m not sure really if I, as an attorney, would have phrased a question in a gendered way like this SINCE IT’S BASICALLY BEGGING FOR A CHALLENGE AS A PROTECTED CLASS OBJECTION. So fine, if it’s asked gender neutral? That’s OK, but as I said, you won’t get dismissed instantaneously (at least not in MD) as it’s not one of those automatic questions the court asks (i.e.: are you a citizen etc.). And so (again, in Md, Idk about other states) If you say “yes I can be impartial” then fine. Sit your ass down and wait for an attorney to strike you.
D) so if you DO have an attorney striking you, I would ABSOLUTELY object to any attorney who systematically struck ALL THE WOMEN from a jury panel. Because fuck that that’s a protected class that fucking SO DEMONSTRATIVE of a violation of the law. IT’S GENDER BASED. Whoever the prosecutor was who allowed a defense attorney to get away with that shit just wasn’t doing their fucking job.
E) And in terms of this post? about nobody caring? Fuck that if I was a prosecutor I would absolutely ask if any person (”PERSON” DAMN IT NOT JUST MEN BECAUSE THE WIVES/SISTERS/MOTHERS etc. OF MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF RAPE ARE ALSO FUCKING BIASED) had ever been accused of rape or sexual assault or knew somebody who did etc. That’s just good lawyering. It’s sloppy not to do so.
F) And as a defense attorney, NGL, I would want to know the answer too, in order to make sure to challenge those strikes.
——-
I get it. I fucking get it. And some of these things will depend on how fucked up your judge is and how good the other side is. But this shit about “OH HEY JUST LIE” FUCK ME NO. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS.
I’m so fucking furious that people are spreading this like it’s a good damn idea and something that will work. Honestly this is so fucking stupid and dangerous to me that I’m suspicious–is this for real? Or is this somebody trying to false information troll people?
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO THIS. Answer your questions truthfully and let the lawyers do their damn job. Yes, it sucks, but at the end of the day, people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. And your job, as a juror, is to ASSESS ONLY THE FACTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED TO YOU, AND TO SEE IF THE STATE WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THIS PARTICULAR SUSPECT DID IT. AND THEY DID IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.
THe fact is, not all rape cases go to trial. And the ones that do, DISPROPORTIONATELY charge men of color (in particular, Black and Latino men). You cannot believe in equality, fight against racism, protect the constitution AND ALSo try to do this shit. It’s fucked up and completely inconsistent and yet another way to fuck with the justice system. doing this will probably allow more alleged rapists to go free than it will allow for equality in jury selection.
TL;DR: this shit is really fucking bad advice and not the way to actually go about doing things. stop giving people legal advice IF YOU AREN’T A LAWYER. ESPECIALLY IF THAT LEGAL ADVICE that will actually put them in jail, people.
CaptainBubblebath 