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#inspiration

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housefresh, one of the few independent review sites, has published some really alarming stuff: they and other independent sites are being de-prioritized by google for, predictably, the websites running the most profitable google ads. SEO analyst lily ray backed this up with a huge list of websites getting hammered by this.

now, more than ever, you need to learn the 2 steps it takes to use an RSS reader

#google #capitalism

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Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

#racism #antisemitism #first nations #indigenous peoples #native peoples

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Oh yeah, she deserved that Oscar bad

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Was there ever a news event in our lifetimes that the media fumbled more aggressively than Columbine. They genuinely got every single detail wrong

From reporting that they killed someone for saying she believed in God (they spared a different girl who said she did) to not reporting that they sought out students of color while yelling racial slurs - on Hitler's birthday & a day after the anniversary of OKC and Waco - while promoting the idea that you have to watch out for loner bullied nerds. Even though later research shows that the shooters were, in fact, bullies themselves, who had a wide social circle, and they were, you know, Nazis motivated by racism and not the video game Doom (1993).

It's a generational fuck-up, the GOAT of bad reporting bc it's still with us. The narrative of persecution after "she said yes" is a huge reason the evangelical right is like how it is today (they made a biopic that uncritically repeated it just a couple years ago!) & they still push the idea that it's primarily victims who do that sort of thing and not aggressors & people still shared that stupid video of Marilyn Manson saying he'd "listen" until a couple years ago (though the shooters being abusive Nazi creeps would uh, not diminish Marilyn Manson's desire to befriend them, I feel)

#columbine

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#voting #both sides are not the same

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Ah yes of course, like the all you can eat shrimp was simply too generous sounded like a fucking dumb explanation

#private equity #hedge funds #anti capitalism #red lobster #media literacy

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I can't be the first to make this connection

#venn diagrams #alignment

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Francisco Sojuel (Guatemalan, based Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala) - The Night the Moon dressed like Saturn, taken Dec 24, 2019, Photography

#photo #space

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Does anyone have the fucking tiktok video of the overly enthusiastic rich bearded guy showing off his new hiking shoes in his Mansion and the Woods, but then another dude duets with it to make it look like he's escaping from being held prisoner please please

edit THANKS @smellslikebot

#hahaha #video #art

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the fact that walls get dusty is ridiculous. you're vertical. act like it.

#tumblr being tumblr #life truths

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Glass of water (oil on canvas) Artist / Emma May Riley

#art

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PRACTICE URGE SURFING

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Accessibility takes too goddamn fucking long.

My brother was paralyzed in October 2023. We got him home from the hospital (in Texas, when we live in Iowa) in a clunky old hospital chair. He hated it. He was scared and angry and in pain and his life had just changed forever and he couldn’t do anything for himself in that wheelchair. His first goal (aside from learning how to transfer) was to get a wheelchair. My family was lucky enough to afford one so we thought it would be easy enough. Nope.

We couldn’t buy him a wheelchair. He needed a prescription. For a wheelchair. A doctor had to examine him and declare him in need of a wheelchair. It wasn’t good enough that he had scans and tests showing tumors cutting off his spinal cord. He needed his primary care doctor to examine him during a physical and write a prescription. He was making 2-4 transfers a day, tops. He had no energy to get to a doctor. Home health was in and out every day. He had no time to get to a doctor. He didn’t get a prescription for almost a month. Then it had to go through insurance.

We asked if we could skip insurance and just buy a wheelchair for him. Nope. They wouldn’t sell us one, not even at full sticker price. It needed to be approved by Medicare. We ordered a wheelchair, a nice one, a good shade of green, sporty, small. It would let him move around the house. He would be able to cook, to reach drawers and get stuff from the fridge and brush his teeth and put his contacts in at a sink. We were told it would take awhile, maybe two months. Silently we all hoped he would be around to see two more months.

He went on hospice care on a Saturday in March. On Monday, I was calling his friends to come see him before he died. I got a call on his phone. It was the wheelchair company. They were about to order his wheelchair, she said, but there was an issue with insurance— had he stopped being covered by Medicare? Well, yes. When he started hospice care, he got kicked off Medicare. The very nice woman I talked to told me to call her if he resumed Medicare coverage so she could order his wheelchair. He died less than 12 hours later.

We ordered that chair for him in early December. Medicare didn’t approve the order until March. He was dead before they got around to it. He wanted that fucking wheelchair so badly. The only reason he had any semblance of independence and any quality of life for the last five months of his life was because the wheelchair company lent him an old beater chair, a very used model of the chair he ordered. If I could go back and change one thing about his end-of-life, I would get him his dream wheelchair. He told me again and again he couldn’t wait to get it, so that he could feel like a person again. He made the best of what he had with that old beater chair, but it still makes me mad to this day. He was paralyzed. He needed a chair that afforded him dignity. We had the money for it. And yet, we were left waiting for five months, for a chair that wouldn’t even get ordered until the day he died.

#disability #death #medicare

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#the childrens #anti capitalism

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The absolute gall of fetterman to say this after he got raked over the coals for a "lack of professional dress"

White journalism has mostly been utterly rubbish at covering the recent controversy between Jasmine Crockett and Marjorie Taylor Greene, writing about the incident as two women who derailed a meeting when they hurled appearance-based insults at each other, not understanding that what Greene, a literal white supremacist, was doing by commenting on Crockett's fake eyelashes affecting her work, was actually implying that Crockett's appearance was unprofessional and therefore, incompetent. The appearances of Black and Brown women are often scrutinised and they are penalized for not adhering to standards rooted in white supremacy.

Here's a written account by a Black woman:

I looked up to find a critical mass of Black women excitedly converging upon my interview station. Forming a half circle around my table, they began exclaiming how enamored they were by my appearance and how it countered much of the counseling they had received on how to appear “professional” and “look like a lawyer.” They emphatically discussed the damage and financial expense they incurred to straighten and subdue their naturally coiled, gravity defying hair to appear “polished” and “professional” for their interviews. They shared how they spent several hours in several stores seeking a skirt suit that would complement their figure, but not emphasize or unveil their curves, and were ultimately forced to splurge on a tailor to appear feminine and physically appealing without being hypersexualized, since the average suit is not designed to fit their body type. They were told to wear these skirt suits with “flesh toned” stockings and “nude” makeup for a “polished” but “professional” look, and reflected upon their frustration running up and down retail aisles seeking “flesh tones” and “nude” colors that actually matched their complexion, since the “darkest” shade of most products still only reflect the darkest tone of white or light skin. They looked at me, a visibly Black woman with brown skin, wearing bold gold earrings, a large naturally curly afro, bright colored fitted pant suit, and bare-face except for a bright red lip, and questioned whether it might be possible to enter the legal profession without having to leave elements of their Black womanhood behind.

#john fetterman #racism

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you. fanfic author. write femslash

#fanfic #tma #tmp