Steveisskinny

portland's naked bicycle ride

2010-06-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

this past saturday was portland's (in)famous naked bike ride. over 10,000 people showed up and was an overall good time.

when bringing this up to a soon-to-be roommate, he talked about how inappropriate it is for the children/teenagers that happen to come across the naked bike ride.

being there on the ride and seeing some younger folks (some with and some without their parents), it didn't really bother me. to be honest, the nudity was only awkward for the first 5 to 10 minutes being there.

i imagine that my soon-to-be roommate was concerned being the sexual aspect of being nude, but i didn't feel like my nakedness nor anyone's nakedness felt sexual at all. i quickly felt that maybe the world was better off without clothes because while i was being naked, i could only feel that dicks, boobs, cunts, and asses were about as sexual as wrists and ankles.

okay at this point i haven't fully connected the dots, but i felt that with the normalization of human genitalia that somehow it could reduce sexualized violence.

i'm certainly not saying that acceptable public nudity would end sexual violence but i do think that teaching and talking to your kids and teenagers about the human body and not being ashamed of it nor exotifying other people's body parts is beneficial for the foundations of teaching them about sexual violence.

red and black. discrimination.

2010-06-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

J: Whats the story on the cop? Was he harassing?
about an hour ago ·

Steve: he was asked to leave because the owners and the customers of the cafe didn't feel safe with an armed officer in that space.
about an hour ago ·

J: so am I to assume he was just hanging out? Sounds like discrimination if thats the case.
about an hour ago ·

Steve: yep, he was just hanging out and they served him coffee. it's more complicated than just discrimination.

portland cops have shot and killed people without thinking. they've also physically and verbally harassed the homeless, people of color, queer/trans folks, and political activist on numerous occasions.

majority of red and black's customers fall into those groups that i formally mentioned. there are even folks who have been targeted by the federal government because they are so-called "eco-terrorist" because they promote veganism. i also have a friend who was put into jail by a portland police officer because he was cop-watching a police officer harassing a homeless man. he spent 11 days in jail with no bail.

the community didn't feel safe with him there and i think they handled it the best way that they could. they weren't being confrontational or overtly aggressive. they served him his coffee and asked him to leave and explained that the patrons didn't feel comfortable having an armed officer in the cafe.

the cop wasn't even too bothered by it until it reached national news. then all of a sudden he started comparing his experiences to the historical racial segregations on cnn.
55 minutes ago ·

J: I understand all that but it's still discrimination. It isn't like this one person embodies all the hate spewed from people of authority all over the world. Fear is a tricky thing anyway, and to reject that fear out of, in this case, a cafe is really of no value. Wouldn't the best be to bridge that divide? Bring those communities together even in that extremely small instance? But what happened was the opposite, and in effect created a new avenue of misunderstanding.
46 minutes ago ·

Steve: well, i just let you know that my comment got deleted because i accidently clicked something. haha so here's the gist of it!

i wish that we could bridge the divide in every instance but every instance (like this one) is dynamic in the sense that there is more going on than just asking a police officer to leave the cafe.

the cafe believes in horizontal accountability and they believe that the community can hold an officer accountable for working and supporting a racist, sexist, homophobic, and violent institution that capitalizes on unjustly arresting and keeping people in prisons.

the term discriminate is tricky for me. i do believe that certain instances of discriminating is a viable option. ie. discriminating a known pedophile from grade schools. or not allowing racist, homophobes, sexists, anti-semitics into an establishment or asking them to leave.

what i'm more so concerned about is acts of oppression. when you marginalize a certain group of people who have historically been denied rights BY a group of people who have historically held privilege and power in society.

in current times, people of color can discriminate against white people. people of color cannot oppress white people. queer/trans folks can discriminate hetero/cis folks, they cannot oppress them. women can discriminate against men. they cannnot oppress them. the people can discriminate against the police. they cannot oppress them.

a look back. measure 66-67 dawgz

2010-04-27T13:21:00.001-07:00

(so i wrote this earlier this year and was completely amused by it)

OKAY HERE'S THE DEAL PORTLANDER'Z: Voting for Measure 66-67 is coming up in January. If you've been living under a rock, it's the measure to raise corporate tax from a flat rate of $10 a year to a sliding scale between $150 (for small businesses) to $100,000 (for bigger corporations). I know, YAY tax the corporations.

Now i'll tell you why it's even more important now during the recession:

this money is more than likely to go to programs like medicare and medicaid and also go into our education system. YEAH I SAID IT, PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES.

Since the passing of the stimulus package, the federal government has agreed to pay something like 60 cents out of every dollar we spend on medicare and medicaid! FAWK, FREE MONEY DOODZ!That means we're getting more for less!

Also, oregon is part of a stimulus package program that allows us to receive extra stimulus money for our education system AS LONG as we spend a certain amount of money on education programs.

But if these measures don't pass, we're more than likely going to have to cut funding to these programs and also from medicare and medicaid which means we won't get that extra money.That means our public school system is going to be shittier than it already is. Yeah I know, I didn't think that was possible either!

Long story short, GO VOTE in january because there's already been some opposing protestors and we may or may not have this in the bag and it all really depends on us to not be mindless idiots thinking that we have no say in how our government should spend OUR MONEY.

Just think of that Christmas where you got that shitty toy and you were all pissed but you didn't hint at your parents what you wanted. Well SHIT, you would've gotten what you wanted if you would've just let them have known. Same story here, different present!

sorry, but the world is bigger than you and me.

2010-04-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

it's true and to use the argument, you embarrassed me and you hurt me and that i'm hypocritical because i'm hurting you when i'm telling you not to hurt other people is skewed.

you calling someone by an identity that they are born with and can't control and me confronting your bigot joke is two totally different things.

people make this so personal. "you embarrassed me" "you hurt me". look, i would've done it to anyone. you caught me at the time of day where i just didn't want to take anymore and your thoughts seemed illogical to me. for you to create a post about how men think that you have a sign over your head saying "sex me" then to say "happy birthday fggt" to someone else just doesn't make sense to me. do you not see a correlation?

then to call me chauvinist because i'm embarrassing you? me calling you out is not chauvinistic. just because i identify as a feminist, doesn't mean i'm not allowed to call women out on their ignorance.

lastly, to use guilt to make me feel bad about you isn't going to work. to say "i can't believe someone i used to like could hurt me so much". this is a coercive and manipulative way to get what you want and i think it's complete and utter bullshit.

i'm not trying maliciously hurt you, i would've done it to anyone of my friends. i'm sorry that you feel bad but this is bigger than you and me. when i addressed your comment, i wasn't targeting you, i was targeting heterosexism, homophobia, sexism, masculinity, and the system that oppresses people because of their identity.

Dreamworld: Desire, Sex, and Power

2009-09-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

A user's comment:
"You'll notice, not surprisingly, it's the (C)rap/shit hop scumbags & yardapes, & race traitors like Scuminem & Fred Durst who are the WORST of the WORST. All the assholes assaulting the girls in that parade are black or obviously rap/hip hop minded, gang-type ghetto scum. What a surprise. And yet, NY is one of the shittiest places for honoring Second Amendment/handgun rights. ALL those monkeys should've been bullwhipped and/or executed on site."

My response:
"I don't know if you were completely watching the video or have been following music videos in the last 20-30 years but rap music aren't the only videos that are portraying women as sexual objects. Look at any butt rock/hair metal videos and you can see a lot of the similarities. Calling Eminem and Fred Durst race traitors is not only racist but ignorant. In fact, statistics say that 80% of rap cd's purchased are through white people."

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2009-09-06T15:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my buddy Gary. More of his work can be found on http://omgwut.com.