Kirstin • 23 • Austin, TX
Hello! I have no idea what I'm doing on tumblr, but I like culture, nature, fashion and making jewelry and can't help but reblog political stuff, so there's that.
Diabetic high school girl beaten by police officer & arrested…for falling asleep in class
May 9, 2013A student who was arrested and beaten for falling asleep at school is now suing an Alabama city, its police department and some school employees for civil rights violation, battery and negligent supervision and hiring. After the diabetic student fell asleep while in a room reserved for “in school suspensions,” a school police officer slammed her face into a cabinet and then arrested her. The incident occurred at a high school in Hoover, Alabama.
Ashlynn Avery, who has diabetes, asthma and sleep apnea, was suspended for cutting class, and had to sit in the in-school suspension room. While she was reading “Huckleberry Finn,” she dozed off. First, the in-school suspension supervisor walked over to her cubicle and struck it, which caused the cubicle to hit Avery’s head, according to the lawsuit. She woke up, but soon fell back asleep. The supervisor, Joshua Whited, then took the book from her and slammed it into the student’s chest.
Avery was then told to leave the room, according to the complaint, and police officer Christopher Bryant followed her. Bryant slapped her backpack, and then “proceeded to shove Ashlynn face first into a file cabinet and handcuff her,” the complaint states. While in the car, Avery vomited. She was taken to a hospital and had to wear a cast as a result of her injuries.
“Ashlynn required follow-up care to her shoulder, arm, and wrist, Ashlynn also required extended mental counseling for trauma caused by the defendants,” the lawsuit states. The Averys are seeking “compensatory and punitive damages for civil rights violations, battery and negligent supervision and hiring,”.
The case is another example of abuses committed by school police officers. Activists have long decried the “school to prison pipeline” which disproportionately affects communities of color. A PBS factsheet, as the Courthouse News Service notes, states that “70 percent of students involved in ‘in-school’ arrests or referred to law enforcement are black or Latino.”
“When police (or ‘school resource officers’ as these sheriff’s deputies are often known) spend time in a school, they often deal with disorder like proper cops — by slapping cuffs on the little perps and dragging them to the precinct,” wrote Chase Madar in the wake of the Newtown massacre. The school shooting in Connecticut has sparked more calls—from both Democrats and the National Rifle Association—for more police officers in schools.
(via patrickandmarcus)
As a celebration of the badgeleopard store’s grand opening, I have decided to host a giveaway for all you Pokemon fans out there! This is a perfect opportunity for a few lucky winners to pick up some great Pokemon buttons for free !
Here’s what you can win!
1st prize:
- All of the sets of buttons you see above!
- $20 to spend on anything from my button shop on Storenvy! (Which there will be a lot more of by the time this giveaway is over!)
2nd prize:
- Two of the sets of buttons you see above!
- $10 to spend on anything from my button shop on Storenvy!
3rd prize:
- One of the sets of buttons you see above!
- $5 to spend on anything from my button shop on Storenvy!
THE RULES:
- Likes and Reblogs both count but everyone only gets ONE OF EACH
- You do not need to be following this blog in order to enter, but a follower who wins will get something else nice as an extra bonus!
- If you win, I will need to contact you through your ask box so please please have it open at the end of the giveaway!
- The winner will be picked using a random number generator as is the standard
- If any of the winners dont respond to my message within 48 hours a new winner will be chosen
- I live in the UK, and I am happy to ship anywhere internationally!
Also, if you are interested in buying things from the shop but you still want to enter to win the giveaway, no problem! If you end up as one of the winners I will refund the value of your purchase as an extra bonus along with any of the other prizes you won!
You can also follow the store’s tumblr here if you want to keep updated with new button designs!
GIVEAWAY ENDS JUNE TWELFTH (6/12)
(via pokemon-personalities)
i see a lot saying they’re going to throw out their a&f clothes BUT another way to boycott abercrombie & fitch is to donate your a&f clothes to homeless shelters. because it would be going against what a&f are trying so hard to prevent when they burn their surplus clothes
YES, NEVER THROW AWAY CLOTHES
ALWAYS DONATE THEM (goodwill, local thrift stores, homeless shelters, women’s shelters)
even if you think they’re worthless or worn out they WILL be useful to someone, if just for patches or fabric scraps
(via toxcatl)
Until Monday morning, Kiera Wilmot was a well-behaved student at Bartow High School in central Florida with good grades and an interest in science. But that morning, she mixed some chemicals together in a small water bottle that caused a tiny explosion. There was a bang and some smoke, but nobody was even close to being hurt.
I remember doing experiments like that in high school. But Kiera was immediately called to the principal’s office, expelled from her school, and arrested by the police (accused of an adult felony charge). If she gets convicted, she could even lose voting rights and have lots of trouble finding employment and housing in the future.
I’m inspired by the people (especially scientists) speaking out on Twitter with solidarity for Kiera. One look at the hashtag #KieraWilmot shows the outpouring of sympathy for what’s happened to her. Curiosity is not a crime, and we shouldn’t be treating it like one!
To help her out, I want to collect some funds for Kiera’s family for the large legal bills that will surely come up as she fights her case in court. She deserves a top lawyer! If we manage to raise any money beyond her legal needs, it should go towards a scholarship fund for her. We need more young American women studying science, and they shouldn’t be afraid of taking chances.UPDATE: This campaign has been verified by Crowdtilt, let’s start raising some funds for Kiera!
SIGNAL BOOST
(via wretchedoftheearth)
Kirsty Mitchell’s late mother Maureen was an English teacher who spent her life inspiring generations of children with imaginative stories and plays. Following Maureen’s death from a brain tumour in 2008, Kirsty channelled her grief into her passion for photography.
She retreated behind the lens of her camera and created Wonderland, an ethereal fantasy world. The photographic series began as a small summer project but grew into an inspirational creative journey.
‘Real life became a difficult place to deal with, and I found myself retreating further into an alternative existence through the portal of my camera,’ said the artist. (read the rest here).
here for everything but the kimono
(via as-fine-as-dandelions)
1. Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. EC offers a last chance to prevent pregnancy after unprotected intercourse or birth control failure.
2. The administration wants to make EC available only to individuals age 15 and older. How many people do you know who are younger than 16 and have state-issued IDs with their actual birth date? Under the Obama-supported plan, these young people would have to hold passports to purchase EC, a ridiculous requirement given that less than 5 percent of all Americans—of any age—have passports.
3. Several studies have determined that no deaths or serious complications have been causally linked to EC.
4. There are no situations in which the risks of using combined or progestin-only EC outweigh the benefits.
5. Scientists have concluded that “repeated use of EC is safer than pregnancy, in particular when the pregnancy is unintended and women do not have access to safe early abortion services.”
6. One challenge to making EC more widely available is the belief that women may be less diligent with their ongoing contraception. But regular use of EC is far less effective than other contraceptive methods. I think women understand that “E” stands for “emergency” and will behave accordingly.
7. One study demonstrated that educating teens about EC does not increase their sexual activity levels or use of EC, but it does increase their knowledge about proper administration of the drug.
8. Emergency contraception is sold over the counter in six countries and can be obtained directly from a pharmacist, without a prescription, in 54 countries.
9. Many medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine support making Plan B available over-the-counter without restrictions.
10.When the Obama administration made its December 2011 decision to limit access to EC, it went against the recommendations of medical professionals who’d spent years researching this issue. As Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburgput it:
The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted diseases. Additionally, the data supported a finding that adolescent females could use Plan B One-Step properly without the intervention of a healthcare provider.
(via stfuprolifers)
Hey someone in San Diego should come let me and my rabbit live with them for free for a while. I need a break from living with the family, but I am still not able to get a job yet due to disabilities. Instead, I do “odd jobs” and make money here and there doing face-paint party gigs, caricature artist gigs, web design, graphic design, and social media consulting. I earn enough money for food and bills, but not rent. I don’t want to get into the reason why I need a break from my parents for a month or two to get my self esteem back on track. There is a history that I don’t want to go into, and I maybe just sound like every bratty kid who thinks their parents are mean, but they just tend to trigger me a lot and I can really only take them in small doses.
Like I said, I can’t afford any rent, but…
I’ll make you lots of yummy food (I am vegetarian, but I can cook any type of food including meaty stuffs, vegan, gluten-free, etc.) and make lots of pretty arts for you to hang on your walls, and I’ll let you use my netflix instant account to watch stuff and I know good stuff to reccommend, and I’ll make you a thumbdrive playlist like every week, and I have a car so I’ll give you rides places, and I’ll help you do your hair or nails or whatever, and you can be friends with my bunny too, too, and if you have any pets I’ll be best friends with them and maybe we can go to shows together sometimes, and we can blaze (if ur down with that), and we can go on random walks and night time nature hikes and turn even grocery shopping day into an adventure, and I can help you stay organized and I can help you decorate and re-arrange all fancylike, and we can dance around in our jammies and sing along to fun music while we fold laundry, and I can just generally bring a happy bubbly atmosphere to your place, okay? :D
I wouldn’t even be home 7 days a week… I usually stay with friends over the weekends for 2 or 3 nights in a row, so I won’t even take up that much space around your place almost half the time!
I’m chill with sleeping on couches, sleeping on floors, on top of laundry piles, etc. but I probably would feel way too awkward to sleep in someone’s bed, even at the foot of the bed like a puppy. I gots to have a place to put my car and some of my stuff and to sleep, and my rabbit’s cage is like 3’x3’x3’(ish) so yeah that.
I would totally understand if no one wanted to let a random weirdo like me use their place as a temporary part-time crashpad, and I am thinking this post is a huuuuge longshot, but I just thought I’d at least ask. The internet can do magical things sometimes!
I don’t care if it’s for 4 weeks or 4 months… just someone let me know if I can get out of my parents’ house for a little while to catch my breath and get back on my feet and heal and stop getting all triggered by being surrounded by reminders of really painful memories.
aww you’d be a deadly roommate. You can come stay here in Ireland, if you want.
I should!! I’m actually a citizen of Ireland and I’ve lived there before and I have a bunch of family living there. My bro is staying there over the summer for a job, actually.
Unfortunately, I’d miss all my friends and I don’t think my bunny could come with and also airplanes r expensiiiiive lol
but thank you for the thought and also thanks to anyone else who replied but I can only reply to reblogs since tumblr is a butt.
(via modelsofcolor)
WHY CAN’T STUFF LIKE THIS GO VIRAL? Morehouse Whiz Kid is Causing a Stir: 13-Year-Old Dominates College. LOVE THIS STORY PLEASE READ MORE…
PLEASE SHARE! SHARE! SHARE!!!!!!
At thirteen years of age, Stephen Stafford is causing quite a stir at Morehouse College. Stafford has a triple major in pre-med, math and computer science. Though he loves playing video games and playing his drum set, he is no typical teenager. He is exactly the kind of student I had in mind when I wrote the book, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about College,” because he shows the power of the black male mind when we put our energy into things that matter most. Over the 17-years I’ve spent teaching at the college level, I have never seen anything more impressive, nor more reflective of what black men represent.
“I’ve never taught a student as young as Stephen, and it’s been amazing,” said computer science professor Sonya Dennis. “He’s motivating other students to do better and makes them want to step up their game.”
Stafford began his college career at the age of 11, after being home-schooled by his mother. Stafford’s mother said that when Stafford began to teach her instead of being taught by her, she knew he needed to be in a college environment. Since that time, he has excelled in his classes and continues to grow intellectually.
via ramomart.comcome on
you know why this stuff isn’t viral
regardless, this is an amazing story
Officially jealous of a 13-year-old boy. Kudos, kid.
(via magnacarterholygrail)
as most grad students of color know, Kaya Williams is not alone in feeling this way. this is a persistent problem on university campuses nationwide.
at Washington State University, for example, where a Native faculty member was recently brutally beaten within an inch of his life and three Asian undergraduate women were sexually harassed in racially targeted violence in the same weekend, the university has responded poorly at best; they never issued an emergency alert to students in the wake of the attacks, it took several days for administration to even acknowledge the events, and the only concrete thing they’ve promised is yet another inquiry & commission on the matter. these actions obviously don’t make a dent in patterns of violence on campus, considering the same response was given a few years ago when a Black student had his teeth kicked in, a trans student was severely beaten, & neo-Nazi propaganda was posted all over campus—no changes in campus climate have occurred. the university’s disappointing response to this violence isn’t all that surprising when you remember that they have terrible enrollment and retention rates for underrepresented students of color, an even worse rate of recruitment of faculty of color, no substantive requirements for curricula that addresses issues of race, and have recently consolidated their Women Studies, Queer Studies, & Ethnic Studies programs into one “minority studies” department (which is headed by a cis-hetero white male). moreover, there is a serious problem with sexual harassment and assault on campus, that’s occurring even at the faculty level.
is it any surprise so many students of color drop out, go on extended leave, and/or take way longer to earn their degrees? these universities are unsafe on every level, and things need to change.
(via nitanahkohe)
(via thisisrapeculture)
