Hello, friends!
***Trigger Warning: This post will be discussing ableism, mental health issues-- particularly depression and anxiety, suicidal thoughts, health insurance loss, psychiatrists, withdrawal to medications, white supremacy, childhood sexual assault, transantagonism, murder,Islam-antagonism, and mainstream media bullshit. Please exercise self-care when reading!***
How are you all? Are you well? I miss you!! <3 I just wanted to check in and say hello to you all with a very brief update on the happenings!
I.
First, I'd like to apologize again for my absence. I can't tell you all how much I would like to be back on permanently right now!! I very much miss being "on," and I cannot wait to be back bringing you all kinds of good stuff. :] The reason for my absence is a bit of a complicated one, but for now let me give you the brief bits since I'll explain more upon my return:
I suffer from multiple mental health issues, and some of those include depression and anxiety. In the fall, I began experiencing some severe psychological distress, and I met with a psychiatrist for the first time in years to attempt medication while I searched for a therapist I could feel safe with.
Unfortunately, I had allergic reactions and an increase in suicidal thoughts and anxiety in response to not just one, but two different medications, and I went through withdrawal for the first time, and hoo boy was that a fun ride! lol Just kidding, it's fucking awful, I don't recommend it. :P
Anywho, I was able to finally identify the medications as the problems in my increase in suicidal thoughts, and I stopped taking the medication and very luckily made it to the new year, for which I am very grateful! :D However, during this time, I lost my health insurance, and I am now dealing with the repercussions of that among many other things, such as losing one of my jobs and losing all ability to access any source of income.
SO! Stress has been in abundance here to say the least. lol
Luckily, I have many wonderful friends who have helped me get through this along with my amazing partner Ray who has been helping emotionally, financially, mentally, and physically throughout this very difficult time. I am so very lucky in all of these beautiful, kind people. <3
When I come back, I will be discussing some of the issues I've been facing, primarily ableism, and how they fit into feminism.
II.
In the meantime, I feel it's my responsibility to inform you as well that this blog will no longer be supporting Guerrilla Feminism nor any of its branches as safe spaces for you readers. Unfortunately, and to my deep regret, there has come to light some incredibly problematic, oppressive behavior coming from many (though not all, to my knowledge) of the people running the pages as mods, including the creator Lachrista Greco.
I will also be covering more of this information later to provide more insight and editing the blog's about pages and such, but for now I wanted to give you all a heads up that it's not the safe space I recommended any longer. If you do continue to participate or read their posts, I highly encourage that you examine what they're saying, who they're saying it to, and how they're phrasing things. They (and by they, I'm referring specifically to the white feminists of the group) recently have been engaging in silencing, blocking, and lying about members who bring up legitimate concerns on their own and their branch administrators' behavior toward vulnerable and marginalized groups on their pages. This behavior has gone on both privately and in public, and it has gone on both on the official Guerrilla Feminism pages and the personal pages of the people who are responsible for them.
Obviously, this is completely unacceptable, and Crafty Crookshanks and I will no longer be regarding them as safe spaces for people of color, trans folks (including binary and non-binary), childhood sexual assault survivors, and others. I encourage you all to exercise caution when entering their spaces and maintaining a healthy level of self-care, as well, if you do so engage.
III.
Another item of note is that this page is run solely, at the moment, by a white person. As such, it is important for me to not appropriate the term intersectional feminism from black feminists, so this page will not be identifying itself as intersectional. As someone once put it recently, intersectional feminism was designed as a term for how BLACK women interact with feminism and not designed as a term for all feminists to co-opt to address multiple issues under the feminism umbrella. So from now on, this will not be an intersectional-identifying blog, but a blog that engages in multi-issue feminism. Here, we will continue to prioritize and signal boost issues such as racism, ableism, feminism, trans identities, classism, and so on, but it will identify as a multi-issue feminism, or perhaps umbrella feminism. (Still tossing around ideas on the term. Suggestions are welcome. :])
IV.
Next, I would like to address the loss of the three Muslim people in Chapel Hill, North Carolina yesterday. Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, her sister Razan Abu-Salha, and Yusor's husband Deah Barakat were all three murdered by a New Atheist white man by the name of Craig Stephen Hicks just outside the University of North Carolina.
[Image Description: A photo of the three Chapel Hill, Muslim murder victims together at Razan Abu-Salha's graduation. From left to right is Deah Barakat, a Syrian American man wearing a light blue shirt and sporting short brown hair. He is smiling at the camera and has his arm around his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, a Palestinian American woman wearing a vivid red hijab over a white shirt and red cardigan. She is also smiling at the camera. On the very right hand side is Razan, wearing a blue graduation gown and cap with what appears to be an honors indicator over the robes, along with a black hijab under her cap. She is smiling at the camera, too.] [Image credit to newsobserver.com given that the actual owner of the photo is unnamed in the article.]
This horrific loss is important to discuss for many reasons-- some of them being New Atheism and the false facade of progress it embraces, white supremacy in the media (mainstream news, especially on television) is refusing to cover this information, police response to the murders of people of color, and, perhaps most importantly, this most recent re-rise of anti-Islam rhetoric in response to Charlie Hebdo.
It is important to note that both police and mainstream media are doing their best to cover this tragedy and horrific act of terrorist violence by a white man on the Muslim community as a trivial matter of a parking dispute gone awry. However, I'd like to include this excellent post by End Colonial Mentality on facebook earlier today:
"But imagine if a middle aged Muslim man murdered 3 white college students? Are you telling me there wouldn’t be round the clock coverage, moments of silence and endless panel debates on all the news networks? Its obvious why the media is sleeping on this."
Please also read the following links in addition to finding coverage through trustworthy sources regarding this topic, and please help spread awareness at this issue. Please note that there is a blanket trigger warning for all in that some include ableist language, and all discuss the murder of Muslims, anti-Islam rhetoric, white supremacy, and other forms of bigotry.
Chapel Hill Shooting and Western Media Bigotry by Al Jazeera
3 Muslims Gunned Down in Chapel Hill, a video on facebook created by AJ+ (Al Jazeera Plus)
Chapel Hill Police Arrest Man in Triple Homicide by News Observer
Three Muslims Killed in Shooting Near UNC; Police, Family Argue Over Motive by Washington Post (Washington Post is known for its apologisms, along with other papers such as the NY Times, NY Post, Chicago Tribune, etc, so please be careful reading them)
Please also check out the Al Jazeera pages on facebook and online, along with a wonderful page I recommend for multiple issues of social justice Lavender Kitchen Sink Collective. They also have a website you can visit here.
Keep up the fight against this awful bigotry, and please also keep in mind not to appropriate the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in this! Muslim lives do VERY much matter, but as Noor Ali put it in her post here,
"Friends, please stop using the hashtag #alllivesmatter or #muslimlivesmatter. Are we so unoriginal and insensitive to others pain that we have to co-opt the method of dispersing information from others, or worse, water it down with things like "all lives matter"? All lives DO matter and ALL Muslims lives matter as well but the point of #blacklivesmatter was not to say that some matter more than others but that "WE" matter too! In that case, black lives. Black and African American communities suffered and continue to suffer and reality we will never understand. We as Muslims also are mourning. Let us spread our message without the need to step over or co-opt someone else's message. #chapelhillshooting #letdeahshine #letyusorshine #letrazanshine #iamyusor #iamrazan #iamdeah"
V.
And finally, I'd like to close with some good news!
On November 30, 2014, my partner and I brought into our home and family a sweet, sweet little Roborovski dwarf hamster whom we have named Q-Tip. :D
She is seriously the cutest little critter you ever did see, and I love her to BITS!! :D She's been incredibly helpful these last few months in my healing process, and she's such a wonderful little hammy. We spoil her lots by giving her lots of mealworms, we give her loads of attention, and we make tons of hand crafted hidey holes, mineshafts, jungle gyms, and more! xD
In fact, she has completely taken over my instagram account, so I renamed it @qtip_and_her_humans if anyone's interested in taking a peek at our cutie pie. ;] I'll be sure to re-open a Crafty Crookshanks account for instagram as soon as I'm able. :] And you can be sure that she'll be making a few appearances on here, as well. :]
Here're a couple of photos of her to finish off this text-heavy post! :D
[Image Description: A close-up photo of a small white Roborovski dwarf hamster, Q-Tip, sitting cutely underneath her water bottle on some white and pink bedding. There is a blue and white wheel behind her in the background, and bordering the photo is a white, scalloped frame. There is a sticker pattern of pink sakura blossoms to the right of the water bottle and a small pink heart sticker above Q-Tip.]
[Image Description: A close-up photo of a small white Roborovski dwarf hamster, Q-Tip, sitting cutely behind her craft-stick-constructed jungle gym that has a shredded toilet paper roll in it. She has squished herself between the wall of her glass aquarium and her jungle gym on top of white, pink, yellow, green, and blue bedding and is wearing a content expression with her eyes half closed and her ears relaxed back. Bordering the photo is a white, scalloped frame, and above Q-Tip is a pink "Happy" sticker surrounded by purple asterisks to represent stars.]
Sending you all much, much love, good health, and good vibes!! :D Can't wait to be back with you all. <3
Until next time, fair Readers!
Mischief Managed~
Jessi
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