All posts filed under: Social Norms

Your Words Matter…So Choose Them Wisely | Rants & Rambles

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Originally posted on The Daydreaming Bookworm:
Hey Bloggers! Welcome back to: Rants & Rambles?is a weekly feature where I hope to share my own personal thoughts and opinions about both?bookish and?blogging related topics. As stated, these are MY OWN?opinions and while you can choose to disagree with it, I hope that you at least respect it. I should say that this type of post was never something that crossed my mind, but after seeing all the drama that has gone down within the last two weeks in the blogosphere, I felt compelled to share my own thoughts about some of the things that have ruffled our pages over the last two weeks.? OPINIONS.?Everyone’s got one and while we may not necessarily always agree with one another, I think that we should at least RESPECT each other’s beliefs, no matter how ridiculous and narrow-minded they may be.?Let’s go back to two weeks ago, when the trending post by Nick & Nereyda rubbed many bloggers the wrong way and they had some not so nice words to…

I Hate Texting

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Originally posted on Rosie Culture:
It’s no secret that everyone is glued to their phones. Some people love to bash the way we use technology. They get aggravated over cell phone use at dinner and kids always taking selfies. But really, it’s no different than when we used to plop ourselves down in front of the tv or spend 45 minutes setting up a camera to film something. I love technology, I love social media, I love taking pictures and videos, I find phone calls uncomfortable, but I hate texting. I got my cell phone a little bit later in life than most people. Most of my friends had them by 7th or 8th grade, where as I didn’t get mine until halfway through my freshman year of high school. I was attached to the thing 24/7 (unless I was grounded and it was taken away which happened often). During my first real relationship, we were in contact all day, every day. From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed,…

Here’s What I Mean When I Say “Pro Black Doesn’t Mean Anti-White”

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Originally posted on Black Millennials:
To be pro-Black does not mean to be anti-white. To be pro-Black means to be anti-white supremacy. I wrote these words in a piece about interracial dating some months ago. The piece argues that being pro-Black means to affirm Black bodies, spirit, and culture while denouncing the evils of white supremacy as unnatural, deadly, and unsustainable. Pro-Blackness is a value system that demands the centering of Black people in a structural world designed by the white ruling corporatist class. Some elements of pro-Blackness posit the belief that white supremacy must be thoroughly destroyed for everlasting Black survival. Upon writing that piece, I’ve seen and heard many — mostly Black folk — similarly express that the pro-Black value system does not ultimately condemn “all” white people, just the omnipotent network of institutions, structures, systems, and constructs derived from white supremacist ideology, and the individual agents that empower them. From social media feeds to think pieces, I’ve seen these expressions manifested in digital space. In the physical realm, I’ve seen nonprofit professionals try to embed the sentiment in grant proposals.…

Rejection: The Ghoster And The Ghosted

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Originally posted on Rosie Culture:
Ghosting (verb): The act of suddenly ceasing all communication with someone the subject is dating, but no longer wishes to date. This is done in hopes that the ghostee will just “get the hint” and leave the subject alone, as opposed to the subject simply telling them he/she is no longer interested. Let me start out by saying, I have been ghosted before and I have also ghosted slightly. One way of ghosting someone you went out on a date with or hooked up with is just never contacting them again. Never answering their texts, deleting their friend requests, and basically ignoring their existence. If there seemed to be a serious connection, you had been on more than one date, or if you had sex – do not ghost someone. That just sucks. You can’t just ignore someone you got to know personally. It’s rude and childish. I’ve been ghosted like that and all I can really do is shrug my shoulders and move on. It’s not really fair to not…

When Women Become Adults

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Originally posted on Just another millennial living with her parents:
I’ll start by saying that the inspiration for writing this came to me when I read this article by The Atlantic, “When are you really an adult?” It’s on my mind a lot. After all, I live with my parents. Unfortunately, I think our culture gets it straight up wrong when it comes to women becoming adults. A gown up woman is what I need to be, or so I’ve heard. If I’m not actively dating anyone, it means I’ve eschewed marriage all together. I’m asexual. I would not be discussing this topic if people were not so damn presumptuous with me on the topic of getting married or having children. Maybe some sense in me a sign of struggle when they look at my tired eyes. The truth is, I am struggling. The difference between their perceptions and my own is that any time I’m “struggling,” it’s because I’m single. It’s like Sesame Street. S for struggle. S for single. They must go together,…

Secondhand Smoke

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Originally posted on Serve With Me:
I use public transportation to travel to and from my service. While there are many positives to traveling via public transportation such as reduced air pollution, increased physical exercise, saving money and more, there are also negatives. As you can tell from the title of this post, the main negative I have recently become concerned with is secondhand smoke. Up until this point I have been satisfied with my efforts to avoid smokers. If someone is smoking at the bus stop, I keep my distance so that I don’t breathe in the smoke. In addition, I time my trips so that I am able to wait on the bus where smoking is prohibited rather than outside where it is allowed. Now I have realized that these two tactics are not enough. The tactics I mentioned above have resulted in me breathing in smoke when I am at the train station transferring from bus to train or vice versa. As I exit the bus, often times a person walking in…

Selective Outrage Won’t Get Us Free

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Originally posted on Black Millennials:
Jamar Clark was killed execution-style while handcuffed in Minneapolis. Black activists most notably affiliated with the local Black Lives Matter chapter and the local NAACP shut down highways and occupied the 4th police precinct. National media is starting to pick up on the local unrest, especially after white supremacist terrorists shot five Black Lives Matter protestors. In Chicago, video released shows LaQuan McDonald being shot some sixteen times by a white police officer. His murderer has been charged, and thousands are mobilizing. Traditional media is focusing on the clashes between protesters and police, while social media is aflame. The gruesome video (which I admittedly haven’t watched) lives on the pages of many. Heated debate about the discomfiting consumption of Black death and pain is — once again — underway. Not one to homogenize Black murder and resulting unrest, I can’t help but draw striking parallels to Ferguson and Baltimore. From the expansive number of mass mobilizations and frontline energies, to the tweets of solidarity, frenetic live-streaming, and the viciously heavy-handed responses…

FUCK SELFIES!

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Originally posted on Storytime with John:
I feel like such a grumpy old man for saying this…but I still hate the whole selfie thing. Not just like taking a photograph of you and your ice cream (or whatever) and then sending it to your friend all: “haha – you don’t have a fucking ice cream, and I do!” – because of course, that is fantastic and I would never want to deprive anyone of such a perverse pleasure… I’m not even talking about getting a quick snap of you and your friends together to mark some kind of occasion…actually you know what I have no problem with the selfie in itself at all… But what I do have an issue with is the non-stop: KA-CHURR! … KA-CHURR! … KA-CHURR!  (That was supposed to be the camera sound on phones by the way; was a difficult one to recreate phonetically!) You see I’m sitting here in Starbucks – probably (definitely) drank too much coffee, but this person is sitting next to me taking photos at every angle – and has been doing so for over half an…

A Time to Reflect

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Originally posted on Metal and the Geek:
I know in my previous post I wrote about my reading and writing slump. That currently hasn’t changed much. See I was starting to feel like I could break it, and then Friday night happened. The attacks in Paris, shocked me deeply. Now, I realize this kind of stuff happens in other parts of the world, I pay attention, I am not clueless, but does humanity really need to have a Misery contest along with everything else? One tragedy does not trump another. Stop being clueless and asinine. I cannot, and will not speak for others, I will write here what I have been feeling the past few days. You do not have to agree, or even understand, I just finally felt the need to write something, and it needed to be more than just a book review or a book post. The reason why the Paris attack hit a little closer to home for me, was not because I live in Europe and a train ride away…