Tag: Opinion post

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Don’t focus on Resolutions.

Posted on by shalysewb 
A brief note:
In honor of the new year, here is the first official repost from Design and Scheme. 

Design and Scheme and a resource has existed since 2012. It was a labor of love and a community care project of a baby researcher and student of I/O psychology. In 2014, the Design and Scheme blog, websites, and social appeared to formalize and create an area in which people could more readily access information. The purpose of this site is to create a space to discuss the topics of event planning, organizing, and healthy living. This has always been done in an interdisciplinary and intersectional way, hence why I finally decided to join these. 

The primary offerings of this website are personal organizing services and productivity consulting that helps individuals learn compassionate self-care and accountability methods. Socially and politically speaking these terms mean different things. They are viewed as not accessible to all, but that is why I started this. Solutions and managing life's hardships should be a topic addressed for all. I have always spoken to the social expectation that unfairly targets those with disabilities and in poverty in various forums. Bringing these discussions to Revolution Kitty will help emphasize that because in this space we are not watering things down. 

If you have followed Design and Scheme you will notice that some articles did not make the transfer. I am archiving and portfolio-ing those articles. If they have helped you and you would like a copy, email kitty07@gmail.com to request a copy for your personal use. Yes, some offerings from Design and Scheme will still be available. Look for details about that in the coming year.

Don’t focus on Resolutions.

Some of you may remember from the #Vivesmart 2015 post that I’m not about New Year’s Resolutions. I’m about setting goals and making plans.

I just wanted to do a quick revisit on why.

When I make changes to my life, whether personal or professional, it’s to improve my current circumstances. I don’t want to waste my time starting something I will never do because I’m caught up in the excitement and the stereotypical ideas about what we are supposed to do.

I’m not knocking people who set New Year’s resolutions, just noting that they don’t work for me.

When you make a resolution, often you don’t sit down and work out the logistics and plan how you can make it happen. Often, if you fail at it once, you give up and use the excuse that it shouldn’t count against you because it was a resolution. And that’s great, as long as it wasn’t a substantial change.

I choose to use the S.M.A.R.T goals method to start any change that I want to make.

Recap.

Specific- What EXACTLY do you want?

Measurable- How will you know you reached your goal?

Attainable- Can it be achieved in the time you set?

Relevant- Does this goal fit in with your overall vision?

Timely- Setting a time frame to reach checkpoints or complete the goal.

This helps me to be sure that I am thinking about the relevance of the change and if it is essential and doable in my life.

So let you take away be this:

Change what will benefit you. Learn yourself and the areas where you truly need improvement. Love yourself enough to not set yourself up for failure.

xox

A recent interpretation of this post.
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One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that POC don’t have an issue with feminism bc many of our cultures have their own version of that from where we historically are from.

POC seem to have an issue with colonization and Western feminist views being used to yet again impose imperialist views on our social constructs.

This is where intersectional feminism came in to attempt to address the erasure of women of color, including the woman who laid the foundation of what became womanism and black feminism.

Look into the POC perspective behind women’s rights over the centuries.  The views are so similar, but there are huge differences especially in Western countries on how the dangerous aspects of patriarchy are addressed.

In Western countries not using a label associated with feminism is often viewed negatively. but I think we forget it’s also a political stance and some people can’t marry that with other aspects of their identities.

Do we ask ourselves why? Do we address that in other places women fight for their rights in very similar ways, but the way we do it for instance in the US is oppressive to them?

Do we address that US culture is a mixture of various perspectives and that’s one of the reasons why feminism is so hard to not add extra context to?

I think this is something we should really mull over during BHM.

If you get angry at women, especially WOC, for not identifying with a word, when a conversation shows y’all have similar views, does that mean you care more about the label or the context?

Posted in Kitty Whispers

Pansexuality is not biphobia; bisexuality is not transphobia.

Posted on by shalysewb

The idea that pansexuality is intrinsically biphobic is ridiculous.

One of the things that pansexuality has done is emphasize that gender is not binary.

It has never said that a bisexual person is relegated to Binary interest.

Any it has simply bolstered the acceptance of trans and non-binary individuals.

Over time people have become more accepting and identify as bisexual or pansexual, but the idea that a sexual orientation developed to revolutionize the acceptance of non-binary and trans people must meet biphobic it’s just ignorant.

It took me a long time myself to be willing to identify as pansexual because I already valued the idea trans and non-binary people whoever they were. I’m an asexual who behaves pansexually. I identified as bisexual until my partner introduced asexuality to me and I realized I was ace. I only claim sexuality as a specific political statement. A lot of people that are bi still stick to the idea that gender is binary because they focus on genitalia. For me identifying with pansexual what’s the political and activist move challenging transphobia.

There is a super harmful article by bisexuality.org that is reinforcing myths about sexuality furthering the misunderstood of it political nature. A quick Google search shows more articles of the same.

That’s one of the reasons why it is important that the is invisible sexualities have visibility and education surrounding them. Because we keep propagating harmful misinformation about the creation of these ideas and labels pitting ourselves against each other in fear of being erased or misunderstood by cishet folks or GRSM people who don’t take time to learn something outside of their own identity.

xox, kitty

Posted in Kitty Whispers

“Now y’all kids need to get involved in politics.”

Posted on by shalysewb

Oh that beauteous howl of our parental units and those well-meaning older generation folks who are often so wrought with their own assumptions about us.

” You need to learn about the political system.”

Oh buddy, we have.

We have become acutely aware of just how f*#ked the political system and our government have gotten.
I mean it wasn’t super fabulous, to begin with.  How can it be when we built a nation based on hypocrisy and I don’t know, the backs of other people.

Equal rights?

No. Only if you fit into a preconceived notion of what is right. Otherwise you have to fight for your rights, and struggle  get by in a world  that views you as less than or deficient in some way; and for what? Because of the color of your skin and the ingrained  stereotypes and even some very stupidly conceive prejudices. Yo, don’t event get me started.

Or because your sexual or romantic attractions are deemed unnatural, because of a very narrow view humans hold and call it being evolved. I mean have you seen our culture being ravished by the  ideology of toxic masculinity and possessiveness.

What about ignoring the gender and sex spectrum, and calling transgender and non-binary confused when you are the one is confused because this is new to you. Or better yet calling intersex people monsters or needing to be fixed.

OMG, gender equality, because we have ridiculous predispositions towards all genders.

Y’all! VETERANS. How long has it taken us to move forward with helping to take care the people who risked their lives to defend all of our so called rights. Bruh.

I’ll stop right here. That “All  men are created equal”, not so much. And you can have the “pursuit of happiness” and the “American dream”but if you don’t reach it it’s your fault for not climbing out of poverty because you are lazy and uneducated. Even though you probably work full-time and maybe even went to school and couldn’t find a job that allows you to meet your basic needs and get out of debt.

I read somewhere that America needs a moral rebirth. I agree. On more levels than just economic, we need to care about more than just getting where we are going.

We ( the younger generations)  are out here educating ourselves and noting all the shit that is happening. We see a system that in theory was suppose to work, but we let greed and power take over and we want to fix that.

“You need to vote.”

Welp, I don’t disagree with that either.

We do. We have to use the current system to some degree to change it.

But we don’t know a lot about certain political processes and how to get involved.

I grew in an apolitical household because that’s what our religion told us. Government  class didn’t teach you all the real things you need to know and I was AP. Our teacher tried to get in as much extra stuff into the curriculum, but even in 2009 they were still testing us for test.

Onward college, I started seeing things a lot differently.and trying to figure out what to do.

Now this is definitely not the we didn’t know excuse.

I mean some of us don’t know at 18, but we have resources, but we only have them after we realize that there is so much more than the major elections.

See, what happens is that you are busy telling us what you think we don’t know, that you aren’t telling us what we really need to know. But this isn’t the blame game. This is just a synopsis of how screwed up education and politics are.

My life partner was into politics. She wanted to be a politician before she died. One of the major things that she helped me to see is that no, the current system doesn’t serve a lot of the younger generations interest and needs, but we can change that.

She believed in activism and using the current system to get what we want.

Voting falls short. Some of the major reasons we don’t vote include:

  • We are away for college, interning, or traveling for experience so we don’t have stable addresses or can’t be there for most local elections,
  •  but that is also if we do know about the local elections. This is a problem that can be addressed to some extent by better outreach and education before we get out of high school as well.
  • If we work, we may have conflicting work schedules that make it hard or near impossible to make it during election times.
  • Being busy is a real thing if you are balancing an education, gaining experience, and even having a job just to get by. I think sometimes the older folk forget things like that.
  • Some people just don’t deal with politics because they don’t see how it helps.

The last one is really for everyone. Since when we are tiny children, we are told to avoid the topics of politics and religion because they cause issues. We aren’t taught to respect differing opinions, respects people right to be able to have the same rights as you, have a healthy debate, and explain ourselves, we are taught to avoid the subject (Which is why many activist get the to the “shut up” point when dealing with people). Like let’s talk about the weather and shit instead. BTW I can turn that political too. Please, stop with the small talk y’all.

Essentially this avoidance of political discussion has caused younger folks to not see the importance of  political discussion in our everyday lives. My personal experience has showed me that many of my peers don’t care until something affects them negatively.

We also have the problem that people view activism in a negative light. Sorry folks, but you don’t get to say what types of activism are ok to use. There are various audiences out there and not all methods work for all people, but it gets people talking. Don’t white-wash any revolution and pretend it was all peaceful. America’s freedom wasn’t even won with a “Pretty please with sugar on top.”

So yea, we may be apathetic and we may not know what to do sometimes, but as our parents. mentors, and predecessors its your job to foster environments of political involvement and education. Not the version where you force us to follow your beliefs, but to really think for ourselves. You want to guide us, do it. Hiding from politics helps no one.

We should be able to critic, explore, and discuss the reinvention of the political system without the words entitled, selfish, ignorant, lazy being thrown at us.

The economic and political environments have been experiencing a shifts for a long while now. We can’t necessarily keep doing things the same way. That’s just something you have to deal with.

xox,

Kitty

Posted in Kitty Whispers

Because they are sentient

Posted on by shalysewb

Sentience

feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought.

of being sentient:

able to feel, see, hear, smell, or taste

-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I’ll say it here.
Humans are omnivores. We are adapted to eat plant and animal matter. I do not bother to argue that fact with people.

Our adaptation is about survival from times where we had limited access to food.

What I do discuss is that animals are sentient beings and DESERVE compassion.

They don’t deserve to be an after-thought, and in a world that treats them as nothing more than property or food unless they are cute (then they are still more than likely viewed as property), living a life built around the principles of veganism is a must.

In America alone, we consume more meat than necessary in the “typical” American diet. There is a disconnect between knowing where your food is coming from. That hunk of meat on your plate used to be a living being, but the likelihood that the meat that you are eating came from an animal living a happy life free from terror is not likely. Most aren’t even aware of the practices that often get them dairy and eggs which has a lot of cruel behavior in itself.

We have the trait of humanity, but many times we fail to use it. We often forget to exercise humanity because we are busy making advances and enjoying being at the “top of the food chain” due to our luck with evolution.

Humans are specist in nature, yet we have the ability to think objectively to witness the pain of another living being n still turn a blind eye because “It tastes so good!”

WHY?

When I say ” living a life built around the principles of veganism is a must” I don’t mean drop meat now. I mean it would be great if everyone could do that. I mean learn to be conscious of your actions and the impact on the world around you. Take step steps to reduce and even cut the harm you cause.

Full plant-based veganism is not accessible to everyone for various reasons, the principles and finding ways to continue and promote advances that allow a vegan- based lifestyle to be available to all.

Remember the definition of veganism:

“A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals, and the environment. In dietary terms, it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” ~Veganism as defined by The Vegan Society 1979

“A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable…” That is the part that we too often forget. The foundation. The fact that we are to do as much as we CAN, to help prevent the exploitation and cruelty towards animals of all types. Some can do a lot more than others, but every little bit counts.

Every attitude change, every realization that torture and cruelty are not valid to our survival counts.

xox,

Kitty

I won’t post links and resources this time. I want you to research. I want you to learn and feel free to report back to the comments about your feelings and anything you have learned.