The fight for equality started with black guys with guns.

Wrote another thing for FEE, Think Gays Don’t Need Gun Rights? Check Your Privilege. Here’s a taste:

A predictable response to the horrific massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, in which a gunman murdered 49 people and injured 53 others, mostly Latino, is to restrict gun ownership to police only.

But this response ignores the real relationship gay and ethnic minority populations have had with police. It’s a history of violence, targeted specifically at queer and brown bodies.

When we discuss privilege in America, we rightly point out that straight, white, cisgendered, male Americans have the tremendous advantage of not being directly negatively impacted by institutional, systemic racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia.

But what we don’t discuss often enough is how American law enforcement privileges the lives of straight, white, cisgendered, male Americans over the lives of others.

Those who dream of a utopia in which only the police have guns must reckon with the reality that to disarm everyone but the police puts marginalized communities at the utter mercy of American police departments who have proven themselves to be more than happy to violate black and queer bodies, and court systems which have proven themselves unwilling to hold them accountable.

Despite what you’ve been taught, the fight for equality under the law for black Americans did not start with boycotts and marches. It started with black guys with guns.

I love it when one funny feminist drags another for her white feminism.

“lena dunham is a willfully ignorant white feminist and i wish she’d take several seats” We all do, @theblowout. We all do.

Friendly reminder: Trying to get more people involved in politics. Not even once.

Another friendly reminder: Law enforcement is necessarily and inherently violent. That should inform what we decide to criminalize.

Loved this, shared by my love Sam: “If you hate racism, then you really really really should hate any economic and social system that creates and rewards massive inequality. Because when you get that. You get racism.”