my mom & i are going to have the cutest date tonight—dinner & the 24 hour spa i’m so excited to sit in a hot tub w naked old ladies it feels so safe and relaxing

my boss and i went to lunch together today and saw dev patel just hanging out on the sidewalk on our way back

casually lit myself on fire

lol hollywood amirite?

What You Cannot See

roxanegay:

There are few things more humiliating than shopping for clothes as an overweight woman. We hear the statistics about how obesity is a major problem in the United States and still, there are a handful of stores where we can buy clothes. At most of those stores, the clothes are hideous and if you are under fifty, the hideousness increases by a factor of ten. 

I hate clothes shopping and have for years because I know I’m not going to find anything I actually want to wear. I don’t like patterns. I don’t like appliqué. I don’t like bright colors. Fat girl clothes designers never got this memo. 

I have many dreams about the clothes I would like to wear—maxi dresses, tailored slacks, sexy camisoles, whatever. I lack the courage to wear such things. Jeans and dark shirts it is. 

Today I went to a clothing store. I wanted to find a few nice things to wear for someone I want to look nice for when I see them soon. I am caring about my appearance. I am caring about myself, maybe. This is new and I think I like it. It’s embarrassing. Nothing makes sense anymore.  I am blushing. 

I was at this store, looking for things when a young woman came out of the dressing room crying. I won’t get into the details of it because it’s her story but she was so upset and her mother was treating her in quite a humiliating manner and I wanted to sob right there in the store because I am not having the best day and it was just too much to see such a familiar and painful scene. 

I’ve been that girl, too big for the clothes in the store, just trying to find something, anything that fits, while also dealing with the commentary of someone else who means well but can’t help but make pointed, insensitive comments. I cannot even get into the details. It’s too much.

I hate shopping.  

People try all manner of tactics to make us lose weight—tips and “help”, diet and exercise advice, nagging, harassment, shaming. There is this idea that if you shame a fat person enough, you will somehow move them to discipline their body. That is not how it works. What you see is the fat. What you cannot see is so far beyond what you can understand. 

I am not a hugger but I wanted to wrap my arms around this girl. I wanted to protect her from this world that is so unbelievably cruel to overweight people. There was nothing I could really do because I know this world. I live in it too. There’s no shelter or safety or escape from the cruel stares and comments, the too-small seats, the too small everything for your too big body.

But I followed her to the dressing room and I told her she was beautiful. And she was indeed beautiful.  She nodded and tears were streaming down her face. We both went on with our shopping. I wanted to tear her mother’s face off. I wanted to call my person and hear a kind voice. I wanted something to pull me out of the spiral of self-loathing I felt myself tumbling into. I wanted to burn the store down. I wanted to scream. 

When the young woman left the store, she was still crying. I cannot stop picturing her face, that look in her eyes that I know too well, how she was trying to fold in on herself in a body that was so visible. She was trying to disappear and she couldn’t. It is unbearable to want something so little and so much. 

af(fluent)

when i moved to the united states i had to take aptitude tests in order to be placed in the “correct” classes. i did well until the part when they asked me to make a certain amount based on the coins placed in front of me. i was 7 years old and had never seen american currency. i was placed in remedial classes even though i could do long division. despite my mom’s attempt to talk about it with the principal, i was not re-tested until i moved in middle school. america is a racist xenophobic country and our education system does not prioritize the wellbeing or intellectual growth of its students.

in high school, my guidance counselor told me that i probably wouldn’t be able to get into my dream schools despite being one of the top five scholars in my year. i got into brown and never looked back. i received a personal acceptance letter from my admissions officer, and brown paid for my train ticket to meet her. my admissions officer was a black woman named angela romans, and she told me that despite scoring on the lower end of standardized tests, she could tell that i had the brains and passion to thrive at brown.

it took me seven years to graduate because i battled with depression, performance anxiety, and impostor syndrome. i sent e-mails to my professors and even to some of the student life deans, but no one looked out for me the way angela did. angela made sure that i was able to see the only woman of color therapist employed by brown university health services. she let me call her at any time of day. when i crumbled in the face of fear, i called her crying, and she would ask, “sara, is everything truly as terrible as you say it is, or are you just feeling helpless and hopeless in the face of white patriarchy?”

if you are a kid of color in the inner city with little means, people will do everything to keep you there, with little access to resources to strengthen your emotional, intellectual, and physical wellbeing—tidy, out of sight, out of mind. there is a reason you have to be fluent to be affluent, but there is power in mentoring, and there is fight in creating our own language. 

me: who’s the cutest?

dog:

me: ??

dog:

me: ANSWER ME.

wordsandturds:

yikes white girls out here defending “basic bitch” you’re really just confirming that you have no idea what you’re talking about :/

and on huffington post today, another white woman who has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about

"as my fellow warrior emma watson tells us"

…

durianemoji:

How are you going to pronounce ‘Targaryen’ correctly but still can’t say ‘Nguyen’

YOU GUYS I’M DYING—I WORK WITH THE BEST PEOPLE EVER

so this week is GLSEN’S Ally Week and we launched a campaign helping LGBT youth know what qualities to look for in an ally. anyway, after a lot of brainstorming, conversation, and work, our first graphic was released today:

your ally is someone who LISTENS! (accompanied by a dancing ear and some things we think allies should do)

and then we got this comment on our fb page:

which i (unprofessionally) liked and giggled about nonstop

minutes later, my boss took a starburst from my desk (i used to have a bowl of jolly ranchers but i upgraded to get more people to come visit me) and returned with THIS:

i cried from laughing too hard which i haven’t done in quite some time

and now i have a new desk buddy that i want to preserve forever & ever