“If you really want to get a handle on the problem of racism in America, mentally replace the word “Canadian” for the word “Mexican” during any Fox News broadcast. You’re laughing, but it’s really eye-opening.”
—My sociology prof. I knew this was going to be a depressing semester. (via foulmouthedliberty)
January 2012
When I was 6 years old
now:
Only food can ease my depression.
Play
0:47
Day 09 - Character you’ve made more than once
…. Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane has now seen multiple sites. So has many of my OC’s like my SI one that shall not be named. ;) That’s a while back though.
“You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.”
—Audrey Hepburn (via a-blog-called-everything)
Yeasayer- Ambling Alp
Now the world can be an unfair place at times
But your lows will have their compliment of highs
And if anyone should cheat you,
Take advantage of, or beat you, raise your head
And wear your wounds with prideI never thought I’d be one of those people who posts song lyrics on my blog, but every time I hear this song I have a sense that everything will be okay. I can’t go back and stop him from doing what he did, but I can wear my wounds with pride. I can’t control rape culture, legal system, or victim blamers, but I won’t be ashamed for what he did or for how I deal with it.
US Redefines Rape; Adds Men, Others As Victims →
npr.org
Trigger warning: rape, violence
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Friday expanded the FBI’s more than eight-decade-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers.
The new definition will increase the number of people counted as rape victims in FBI statistics, but it will not change federal or state laws or alter charges or prosecutions. It’s an important shift because lawmakers and policymakers use crime statistics to allocate money and other resources for prevention and victim assistance.
The White House said the change was not motivated by the recent Penn State child sex-abuse scandal. Indeed, the expanded definition has been long awaited as many states and research groups made similar changes in their definitions of rape over recent decades.
Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett called the change a “very, very important step.” The issue got top-level White House attention starting last July, when Vice President Joe Biden raised it at a Cabinet meeting.
Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act when he was in the Senate, said the new definition is a victory for women and men “whose suffering has gone unaccounted for over 80 years.” Calling rape a “devastating crime,” the vice president said, “We can’t solve it unless we know the full extent of it.”
Since 1929, the FBI has defined rape as the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will. The revised definition covers any gender of victim or attacker and includes instances in which the victim is incapable of giving consent because of the influence of drugs or alcohol or because of age. Physical resistance is not required. The Justice Department said the new definition mirrors the majority of state rape statutes now on the books.
The change likely will result in big increases in the number of reported rapes, but it was not immediately clear how big. To take just one example of how the FBI totals will change, Chicago didn’t report any rapes to the FBI for 2010 because its broad definition of the crime didn’t match the FBI’s narrow definition.
The change has been sought by women’s groups for more than a decade.
Nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in the U.S. have been raped at some time in their lives, according to a 2010 survey by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which used a broader definition.
Trust between police and the public is a vital ingredient in lower crime rates, and undercounting a crime like rape can undermine that trust, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit group that represents police departments across the country.
The revised FBI definition says that rape is “the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object,” without the consent of the victim. Also constituting rape under the new definition is “oral penetration by a sex organ of another person” without consent.
Gee, why do I vote Democrat? That’s a real head-scratcher.
Joe Biden: sir, just please come here and let me fucking love you.
