If you didn’t google or visit news sites or read facebook posts or make tweets about the inauguration today, that’s awesome, well done!
And now you can take everything you didn’t do today and do it double for the Women’s March on Washington tomorrow, for the ol’ one-two punch.
Make it a famous protest. Make it the most watched protest in the history of the world. And then for every new protest you see, read about it, watch it, google it, give hits to news stories about it.
Make the fascists in power in this country blow a collective vein because why are they watching them? They’re meant to be scared of us!
Teach the news outlets and networks that you don’t give a shit about the president, and if they want your hits, they need to give protest a voice.
Tag: media
Degrassi’s Groundbreaking Abortion Storyline
“Yesterday I was pregnant and now I’m not. And I’d like to talk about it. There’s so many things I wanna do in high school and being a mom is not one of them. It might not be everyone’s choice, but it was mine. And I’m not ashamed.” This is how sixteen-year old Lola Pacini describes her abortion to the world, boldly recording her thoughts on her experience and uploading the video online for all to see.
Seeing that Lola has no one else to accompany her to the clinic, Yael unexpectedly offers to go with her. The two take an Uber to a women’s clinic during their lunch period, where Lola meets with a nurse who quickly lays down the facts about abortion. True to reality, the nurse explains that the procedure takes about five minutes, that there’s very little risk involved and that Lola will still be able to have kids in the future should she choose to—refuting a myth commonly promoted by anti-abortion groups that abortion causes infertility.
This is where the episode really becomes ground-breaking. At this point, most shows would either show the character changing her mind last minute or cut to a later scene. Instead, Next Class does something revolutionary: They actually take the audience into the procedure room with Lola. We are there with her every step of the way as the doctor walks her through the process, from the IV sedation to explaining what an aspirator does. While abortions themselves are rare on television, it’s practically unheard of to show the actual procedure like this.
And that’s it. There’s no tears, no last-minute change of heart, no traumatic aftermath. Instead, Lola simply returns to school to finish her history project, go out for ice cream and joke with her friends about hair problems. To put it simply, she returns to her normal 16-year old life.
Not only does Lola go through with her abortion, but she’s not haunted by her choice either. Instead, she feels empowered to speak out about her decision. Not wanting to treat her abortion like a shameful secret, Lola allows Yael to film her speaking about her experience and upload the video online for her classmates—and the world—to see. “It wasn’t difficult for me,” Lola says of the abortion. “Scary, yeah—but not difficult. And afterwards, I didn’t feel sad.”
In the procedure room scene, Lola asks the doctor if she’s the first sixteen-year old he’s ever “done this to.” With a small, but caring smile, he replies, “you’re not the first today.” If this episode made even one young girl feel less alone, then Next Class did its job.”
Read the full piece here
I’m increasingly convinced that practically everyone who smugly dismisses optimistic media as a childish indulgence has literally never experienced anything worse than moderate inconvenience in their entire lives.
I’m always amused when I see “The real sign of progressiveness is interracial relationships involving white people” because that is so clearly the logic of a bigot with an allergy to history books. If you think POC being shown loving each other isn’t revolutionary then you need to go take a hard look at American history & media narratives. Hell take a look at Jim Crow etiquette, Black people weren’t supposed to be affectionate to each other in public because two Black people kissing offended white people.
Hell even with the Loving case, no one cared that a white man wanted to sleep with a Black woman, anti miscegenation laws were more concerned with Black people having the legal status that came with proximity to whiteness, because that could set a precedent for all Black people. All those pesky things like inheritances, property rights…you know the trappings of legal equality. You want me to take your progressive claims seriously? Get comfortable with the idea that POC have a right to love each other.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 