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Myshele Haywood @myshele.bsky.social · 7d

Another weekend, another counter-protest... Westhill welcomes refugees, not racism! Stand up to racist bullies with music, colourful banners and messages of hope. All welcome. Sunday 5 October, 2pm, Hampton Hotel, Straik Road, Westhill AB32 6TL.

White background with purple abstract human shapes in welcoming poses, with the headline Westhill welcomes refugees, not racism! Further text: Stand up to racist bullies with music, colourful banners and messages of hope. All welcome. Sunday 5 October, 2pm, Hampton Hotel, Straik Road, Westhill AB32 6TL. Logos for CND, SPSC, Aberdeen Anti-Fascist Alliance, Aberdeen Trade Union Council, Stand Up To Racism and Aberdeen Social Centre.

Reposted by Myshele Haywood

Nana Visitor @nanavisitor.bsky.social · 7d

Looking forward to being a part of this

Amy Imhoff @amyimhoff1701.bsky.social · 7d

Listen to this timely discussion and network with these amazing ladies - I am honored to be in their presence!

We need to build an inclusive Roddenberry future for everyone & that starts RIGHT NOW.

docs.google.com/forms/d/13-d...

Women in Space: Claiming Power and Creating Equity Registration Form

Join us on October 7 at 12 pm ET for Women in Space: Claiming Power and Creating Equity — a World Space Week Spotlight on the groundbreaking UNOOSA Gender Study . Moderated by Sabrina Cartan (Roddenbe...

docs.google.com

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Myshele Haywood @myshele.bsky.social · 14d

Aberdeen welcomes refugees, not racism! Another anti-immigrant 'protest' this weekend, so come along to the counter-protest: stand up to racist bullies with music, colourful banners + messages of hope. All welcome. Sunday 28 Sept, 6pm, Sure Hotel, Summerhill Court (off Lang Stracht), AB15 6TW.

White background with purple image of abstract people, different ages and genders,with text above: Aberdeen welcomes refugees, not racism! And beside and below the people: Stand up to racist bullies with music, colourful banners and messages of hope. All welcome. Sunday 28 September, 6pm, Sure Hotel, Summerhill Court (off Lang Stracht), AB15 6TW. At the bottom, logos of CND, SPSC, Aberdeen Anti-Fascist Alliance, Aberdeen Trade Union Council, Stand Up To Racism, and Aberdeen Social Centre.

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Myshele Haywood @myshele.bsky.social · 19d

I'm so sorry, Fiona. Sending so much love. 💔

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Dr Vicki Yorke-Edwards @vickiye.bsky.social · 20d

We want the media and politicians to recognise there's a large number of women who are supportive of the trans+ community. We call on them to report truthfully about the sources of violence against women and to address the systems that perpetuate harm. notinourname.org.uk/petition/not...

Not In Our Name: Women in support of the trans+ community - Not in our name

notinourname.org.uk

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thIIIrd person @thiiirdperson.com · 23d

i'm noticing that no one has anything negative to say about Robert Redford, who lived his life without saying a bunch of awful things about people for views and clicks. maybe the way to avoid negativity after you die is to not act like an asshole for views and clicks while you're alive

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Jason K Pargin, author @jasonkpargin.bsky.social · 23d

I am begging you to understand how madness spreads in a society. It's not just blind panic among the ignorant that there's a monster coming. It's smart-sounding people insisting you are a bad person unless you, also, believe in the monster and join the panic.

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 26d

reposting with alt text because this feels incredibly significant. the right-wing disinfo machine means a lot of the people grieving Charlie Kirk never heard any of the things he said that would have tarnished his brand as Guy Who Just Wants to Have Dialogue Across the Aisle

One thing that has become really clear since yesterday is that we live in at least two different realities. Talking to a friend who only knew Charlie as a Christian motivational speaker because that's all that ever came across her feed. Showed me videos I've never seen before of him saying perfectly reasonable and empowering things.

I showed her videos she'd never seen before of his racism, misogyny, homophobia, advocating for violence against specific groups of people. She was horrified by his remarks about Pelosi's husband's attacker being bailed out and celebrated for his violent act. She was horrified by a number of things that he said, but she had never seen or heard them before, the same as I had never seen or heard the generalized clips of him sounding like a perfectly nice loving man and father.

Neither of us had a whole picture of this man. I mentioned he was a known white supremacist and she thought I was joking.

She talked about him giving a speech about finding your purpose and doing good in the world and I thought she was joking.

I saw why this friend was mourning the loss of a person she thought was a good person.
My friend, bless her, saw why I feel the way I do about him. We understood each other better. In spite of a multi-billion dollar internet machine specifically focused on keeping us apart. Because we talked to each other with the desire to listen and to learn rather than the desire to change someone else's mind or to be "right".

None of those motivational things he said change my opinion about him because they don't erase the negativity, the subtle calls for violence, the belittling and denigrating of other races religions genders etc. His negative and blaming comments about homeless people, the poor, and victims of domestic violence. His comments about rounding up people who didn't think like him and putting them in camps where their behavior could be corrected. That time he said empathy was a made-up word he didnt believe in. That other time he said the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. The time he said most people are afraid when they get on a plane and see that there's a black pilot. His anti-vaccination rhetoric and his active campaigning against people being allowed to wear masks for their own health. His open support of fascism and white supremacy. To me, all of those are fully unchristian sentiments. Those are undeniable and just one of them would be a deal-breaker for me. All of them together are a picture of a man who was polarizing,

enraged a lot of people and rightly so, but even with all of that I would never wish upon him or especially his children the end that he got.
Oh, and my friend had never heard, and God help me I don't know how she escaped the news, but she had never heard of the Minnesota legislators who were shot in June. The husband and wife and dog who were killed, one after throwing themselves over their child to protect the child. The other couple who somehow survived.

Politically motivated attacks specifically because they were democrats. She learned about those shootings that happened months ago because I showed her Charlie Kirk's comments about them. The kidnapping plot against a female Midwestern Democratic governor. The assassination attempt against Pennsylvania's democratic governor. All things Charlie had plenty to say about while supporting the Second Amendment and bashing the Democratic party. She didn't know about any of it because we're all living in two different worlds and none of us have the whole story.

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Myshele Haywood @myshele.bsky.social · Sep 7

Not here either. Same happened the last time I think. Something about not having location tracking switched on?

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It's ME(Jaime) @exceedhergrasp1.bsky.social · Sep 4

Here is your morning's dose of Hope for Humanity

Colin Elves @colinelves.bsky.social · Sep 3

With alt:

Smajo Beso • Follow
3d • ©
I started school in Newcastle in Year 5 without knowing a word of English. I was nine years old and had arrived as a refugee from Bosnia just a couple of months earlier.
I was one of those strangers our politicians often speak about.
I missed my grandparents and friends. I was having awful nightmares, and I would wake up screaming every single night. I hated going to school. I would sit in my chair, look out of the window, and spend my day daydreaming about ways to run back to Bosnia. I didn't want to be here.
After a couple of weeks at school, my teacher, Miss Webster, and my classmates did something special to help me settle, something that made me feel less of a stranger. That was the first day I went home with a smile on my face.
I have shared this story before, but as tomorrow is start of the new school year, I thought I would share it again.
**

Miss Webster was amazing, but I couldn't understand a word she was saying. She had this ritual where, at the end of each day, we would all sit on the floor around her, she would play the guitar, and we would all sing a song together.
I couldn't understand what they were singing, but I could see she would sing one part of the song, then she would say someone's name or point to them. The next part of the song would be sung with that person's name in it, and they would get to go home first.
My classmates loved this, but I hated it. It annoyed me because I couldn't understand what they were singing, but if I am honest, l hated it mainly because of how happy they all were. I definitely wasn't happy. I cried myself to sleep nearly every night.
I eventually started having separate English lessons, which I enjoyed more because it took me out of the classroom. It was always daunting coming to school because I felt everyone was looking at me or speaking about me. For months, my dad would stand with me outside the school gates in the morning until it was time to go in.

One day I came back into the classroom from my English lesson. We sat down, and everyone was extra-excited, looking at me more than usual for some reason. Of course, I thought it was because I was a refugee, because I couldn't speak English, or because they couldn't pronounce my name. I was bracing myself for another afternoon of my classmates encouraging me to sing. This was probably the closest I came to running out.
So we were all sitting on the floor around Miss Webster. She was holding her guitar, ready to sing. I remember the sun shining through the tall, narrow windows as I slowly drifted into a daydream of being back in Bosnia. She began playing the guitar, my classmates joined in, but this time, everything was different. I froze. I understood what they were signing. Not because I had miraculously learned English in one afternoon, but because they were singing in Bosnian for me. I looked around in shock, and they were all smiling at me, and for a moment I thought I was daydreaming.

While I was having separate English lessons, Miss Webster had taught our entire class to sing this song for me in Bosnian. They sang it terribly, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I skipped home that day with a huge smile on my face. For the first time, I looked forward to going back to school the next day.
I have often imagined Miss Webster and my classmates rehearsing, struggling with the strange Bosnian words and laughing at themselves. For me, that effort was the ultimate recognition, an act of peace that felt like the opposite of everything I had known during the war. It was special.
I do not know if they realised it then, but that moment helped to give me back my dignity, my belonging, and, for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like I was just a refugee or an outsider. I was home.

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Hex Anderson @dexanderson.com · Sep 4

YES YES YES.

The centrist removes their own agency from the equation. Because they define themselves by "meeting people where they're supposedly at," they do not realize that *they have the power to shape that opinion*. That their taking a moral stand can actually change things!!

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Sep 4

This absolute banger

Starmer was recently asked how he would feel if his daughter had to walk past an “asylum hotel”. “I totally get it,” he responded, going on to say that “local people by and large do not want these hotels in their towns, in their place, and nor do I. I’m completely at one with them on that.”

This desire to meet the hard right halfway, to find a middle point, is hopelessly exploitable. In an age of radicalisation, you simply get pulled further and further to the right, while tacitly validating those values at every step. Nowhere is this more evident than in the UK press’s fixation on trans people. The Labour government, following the reactionary centrist logic of trying to diffuse an issue by giving policy ground, has allowed itself to be pulled radically to the right on this matter. First, by abandoning its commitment to changing ID laws to make it easier to transition, then by effectively banning puberty blockers following pressure from those opposed to them. Now the UK is on the verge of implementing a bathroom ban mandating that trans people must be excluded from toilets that match their gender identity. This is being done without parliamentary debate. Most of the public is not aware of it, and yet, if this goes ahead, it would make the UK one of the world’s most illiberal advanced democracies on trans rights.

An actual pragmatist would evaluate and change course. Someone who understood public opinion might notice that anti-immigrant sentiment responds to media coverage, not objective reality. They might reason that this is not a problem that can be addressed by policy concessions because policy is not what is causing it. They might even consider offering a different narrative and seeing whether that makes a dent. A truly daring politician might consider telling the British public the truth: that they are being lied to by the right-wing press about the cause of the country's problems, and that Reform is capitalising on this for political gain.

To put it mildly, this has not worked. The theory was that feeding the wolf would starve it. But, somehow, the beast is stronger than ever. Reactionary centrists simply cannot account for this outcome. All they can think to do is keep throwing more meat.

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Myshele Haywood @myshele.bsky.social · Sep 3

Aberdeen welcomes refugees, not racism! Saturday 6 September, 2pm, Marischal College. Peaceful community event with food, music, colourful banners and messages of hope for refugees. All welcome.

Three colourful cartoon people smiling with their hands raised, in front of a cartoon image of the entrance to Marischal College, a stone archway. Text in pink: Aberdeen welcomes refugees, not racism! Saturday 6 September, 2pm, Marischal College. Peaceful community event with food, music, colourful banners and messages of hope for refugees. All welcome. Logos of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Aberdeen Anti-Fascist Alliance, Aberdeen Trades Union Council and Aberdeen Social Centre.

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Sarah has a suggestion @goatsarah.org · Aug 29

I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset.
In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia.
In 2005 I started medical transition. (1/13)

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Ashley C. Ford @smashfizzle.bsky.social · Aug 29

Someday we will deeply interrogate the weaponized expectation of gratitude for authority figures who believe you owe them for not killing you YET. It’s like the person holding a blade to your throat being annoyed that you’re complaining about bleeding instead of thanking them for not cutting deeper.

The Independent @the-independent.com · Aug 29

Vance goes after NYC mayoral hopeful Mamdani: ‘He should show more gratitude to the United States’

Vance goes after NYC mayor hopeful Mamdani for not showing ‘gratitude’ to the US

www.independent.co.uk

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David Graeber Institute @davidgraeberinst.bsky.social · Aug 29

It is good to remember this every time when logging into Twitter.

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Myshele Haywood @myshele.bsky.social · Aug 26

Aberdeen welcomes refugees, not racism! Community groups & local residents are gathering on Saturday 30 August, from 2pm, for a peaceful event outside Patio Hotel, 213 Links Rd, Aberdeen, AB24 5EF. There will be food, music, colourful banners and messages of hope for the refugees living there.