Well, This Blog Might Not Get Very Far.

Well, this blog might not get very far. 

According to recent news, Net Neutrality, the set of rules that protect our Internet rights and freedoms, is on the line. The principle that enables online freedom to publish, access, and receive any content you wish might be impacted on December 14th, 2017. If Congress votes to change the bill, millions of Americans’ safety, First Amendment rights, and access to information would be affected. 

Almost since President Trump took office, his FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been pushing for Net Neutrality to be reconsidered on Capital Hill. Millions of Americans have spoken up, on social media and directly to our government officials, requesting that the bill stay the same. Pay has ignored these messages and insists that Net Neutrality limits innovation and economic growth. But what he’d really be doing, if he manages to get the bill off the board, would be clearing away regulations that prevent telecom giants, like Verizon or Comcast, from controlling what content users obtain. Right now, companies can’t pick what websites and services get to us faster, for censorship or economic reasons. They aren’t allowed to slow down or speed up their own content or sites to stifle a competitor. The general fear, and the reason for Net Neutrality, is that if they could, they would. Booming businesses could profit off of the violation of our constitutional rights, if Ajit Pai’s mission succeeds.   

You can say and view and do whatever you want online. All the information and opportunity on the planet is at your fingertips, because of Net Neutrality. Heck, while writing this I had to research the details of what’s actually been going down lately. How? Net Neutrality. Social media, websites, applications, databases - so much would be effected, and not for the better. A lot of people who use the Internet to make a change, marginalized communities standing up for their rights, all these people could be silenced. For money. 

We owe it to Net Neutrality, the result of millions of activists in 2015, that America is as safe, informed, and free as it is now. Hey, it’s the reason I’m able to run this blog - using my voice to talk about what I believe in, which not everyone out there can do.   

There’s still time. In just days, on December 14, the bill will be voted on. Send this to friends, contact government officials and politicians, take action now. While it isn’t too late.

In the darkened corner of a spicy club, two people. Green skirts and navy tees. He ought to be focusing on his band members, the drums and claves and maracas and musicians with the music in their soul, pumping out a rhythm that sparks those high-up lights meant for Navidad. The noise will wake the neighbors’ kids, whose mother works long hours in a bustling sweatshop, the noise and voices holding no joy like the sunshine of the meringue band. She works hard for the children she has raised, and to keep them away from the fascination of her home in La Vibora.

The lights are bright and warm: not blinding, calm like a happy day. He can just avoid the spotlights shining on him and his friends, who practice long and play longer, drink and have fun and remember what their mothers taught them. The women on the block, the one’s too young to be raising a child or a husband, scoff and assume they will flirt. Uncertainty.

It is loud and hot and sexy, but no one feels threatened. It’s just fun, and those who know each other know. Xenophobia, like in the rest of the neighborhood, where all are foreigners in La Ciudad de Nueva York.

In the darkened corner of a spicy club, two people. He leans in, singing along to her. His cowbell sharp and sassy like the slips and flicks of her fingertips. She pays him no mind, her curls and lips and hips smiling for no one but herself. Dark chocolate shards and caramel brooks. Bubbly and laughing, taunting him. Caution, but intelligent humor.

Quick feet, flashing eyes. Wink, smirk, arched brow, blissful eyelids.

She is dancing fast beside him, her movements all her own. He will not contain her, and she will not indulge. The hard-working Mexican, her eyes bright as the muddy mangoes her father brings home to her, telling her the stories and memories of his childhood with the family’s orchards, lush before fire took them, and his family starting new and happy until fire took her, and left him with a daughter who is slipping away to a better future, that girl who is slender in a green dress, her long curls churning, her feet outpacing his self-esteem. Friendly, platonically, and he doesn’t take the blow.

Her voice clear, singing along to the rhythms, she won’t give him any satisfaction of hearing her voice compliment his cultures’ words, the sunshine of a music that others mistake for merengue, when Puerto Ricans have a culture all their own, and stereotypes are easy, especially for a young man who wanted more as a descendant of slavery, who felt trapped in a place like that, whose differences keep her wondering. Wondering like the histories of his skin that differs from the music that is like sunshine. Subtle in the darkened corner of a spicy club.

Sleeveless green like los flores, navy tee shining behind eyes like estrellas. Loving wisdom hidden by twinkling humor, shining down on simple happiness.

Xenophobia, racism, hostility, friendzone? Feminism, she dances.

Thank you!

Thank you so much for 100 followers!!! I didn’t expect this much support within 6 months, thank you so so much! Sorry there’s been a lapse in posting lately - theres a lot going on in my life right now, but expect some good stuff soon. Have a lovely day everyone! :D

In the past few weeks, turning on the news every day is another sensation of “Yep. Been there, done that. What else is new?” 

I’m talking about sexual assault. All the recent publicity and endless accusations from women - what do you think we’ve been putting up with since the beginning of time? I’m grateful for the actual acknowledgement - it’s about time women were heard, and our society started working toward a safer future. But I can’t help feeling bitter that it’s taken this long. No matter where she was, what she did, or what she looked like, every woman from every time period has had to fear the kind of behavior. Maybe there was less risk than in other places, but across centuries and miles and nations, it has been a collective fear. It isn’t our fault, our actions, our clothes, it’s because we live in a society where women have less of a worth. In a society that has made us have less of a worth.  

I often wonder what actually goes through the mind of the man assaulting or raping a woman. We say we don’t want it, we tell you no, but still you keep coming. It’s frightening. It’s disturbing. The behavior being broadcasted recently makes us feel unsafe and confused. Why would you do something to someone, when your actions are clearly having a negative impact on the person? Why is it so difficult to grasp the basic human indecency it takes to not heed other’s reactions, and therefore the severity of this problem? You wouldn’t hit a little kid when he clearly didn’t welcome the action. But you would do something much more intimate with a woman? 

And that’s just the thing: “with a woman.” Sexual assault and rape everywhere should be a no-no. It shouldn’t just be about women and our rights - but it is, and that makes the battle that much harder, hence my statement from earlier. Women and girls everywhere are told to change their behavior - their own, not that of their attacker! - to avoid being violated in such a way. We are taught that it is our fault - not that of a world where the wrong lessons are taught to children. Such societal messages are exactly why there are ignorant, arrogant men in power, and why they make the mistakes women are blamed for. A cycle that must be broken.   

We can blame men all we want - and some definitely deserve it. But what the most recent accusations show, the “newest” revelation is that our society is to blame. Women have less of a say, but men are also held to such low expectations. We must work together - men and women, assaulted and accused - to raise the next generation so that they’ll make the world safer and more equal for all. Let’s teach them to do better than we have.

Happy International Women’s Day! Every March 8, the world celebrates the social, economic, and political achievements of women everywhere. For centuries, women around the world have become heroines of all shapes and sizes, reshaping their communities and achieving their goals. For over a hundred years, international communities have recognized this day as a time to honor their accomplishments and fight for gender equality. Today is the day to fight for women’s rights, to global equity, education, and dignity. So what history will you make, on March 8, 2018?

There’s something about a girl, some unspoken phenomenon. The unfathomable depth beneath words that makes you love her. Because all the gorgeous melancholy and unimaginable happiness makes her more than human. It makes you marvel at the wonders of creation. It is her resilience.