Yopp!

A note before today's guest post: Today's article was submitted and written before the Covid 19 crisis reached the US. At this moment, all medical health professionals are maxed out on what they are giving to the public to keep us safe, and we are deeply grateful to them for the risks they are taking and sacrifices they are making daily. This advice, as most things on this blog are, focuses on looking at longterm overarching problems that take time to solve. I fully support everything Amy is advocating for in this article, and I recognize that with the current state of the world, it's not yet...

CN: extensive discussion of Covid 19 and the structural ways it is impacting society

Unusual times call for unusual measures: Twice in as many weeks, I’ve written a “reactionary” blog post, this time, in response to the Covid19 pandemic that’s severely impacting the entire world right now. Institutional activism is not my strength, but for reasons listed below, these issues require a uniquely high proportion of institutional and legislative support. 
 

I have written a letter to send to my local government representatives that outlines what I believe should be top priority concerns for our gov...

On Thursday, I received the news that Elizabeth Warren was ending her campaign for president. I had intended to write an article about why Warren had my vote, but I never got to write it and I never got to vote for her. I had a lot of grief and anger around the circumstances of her campaign ending. 

I expected that the news would be a blow to my spirits but what I didn't expect was how much grief and anger I would also have over losing yet another opportunity for a female president. My feelings on the subject were big and I got the sense that many other women felt the same way. 

It's rare...

Yopp is where you go when someone shouts, “Educate yourself!” 

Yopp is where you go when you’ve suffered deeply at the hands of society and need to feel heard. 

Yopp is where you go when your uncle makes a post on facebook completely misrepresenting what privilege is but this is the third time this week you’ve tried to explain privilege to someone and you are simply burnt out. 

Today I wanted to tell you the story of why I created the social justice blog Yopp, what Yopp’s goals are, and how you can get involved in making those goals a reality.

Educate

In the world of social justice, one of...

I met Jamie Dedes, the founding editor of The BeZine, back in August of 2019, when she interviewed me for her website, The Poet by Day, and shortly after I published a guest post of hers about the organization 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC).Through the month of February, I am collaborating with The BeZine blog and Jamie on a full month of posts related to the theme of disability and illness. As part of that collaboration, my article today is being cross-published both here and on The BeZine blog. 

I'm publishing several other articles and even a few poems on The BeZine as part o...

CN: extensive discussion of the experience of being in an abusive relationship, discussion of physical abuse and the painful process of recovery after abuse, mention of sexual abuse. 

Being able to recognize that you are being abused, while the abuse is still happening, is mind-bogglingly difficult. I say mind-boggling because even though dozens of people trying to tell me that my relationship was abusive was completely ineffective for me, it’s still my first instinct when someone’s partner exhibits abusive behaviors to try to tell them that. I know that this extremely straight-forward tactic...

If you don’t need the introduction, skip to the heading “Choosing How to Help” for the list of ways you can get involved in fighting the Australia bushfires. Scroll to the bottom for a list of resources if you or your family are in need of help.

CN: in depth discussion of the consequences of the Australia bushfires, and climate change. Discussion of government corruption, and animal death and endangerment, mention of concentration camps, mental health issues, and anti-LGBT sentiments.  

Back in June, when I read the newest developments about the US concentration camps for immigrants, I realized...

CN: extensive discussion of the dynamics, healing process, and emotional experience of abuse. General discussion of PTSD and trauma responses. This post may encourage trauma processing. Read it at your own pace!

I have a large number of friends who have been through at least one kind of abuse and I’ve noticed that if someone has gone through the process of recognizing that something that happened to them was abusive at least once, it becomes much more important to them to evaluate future behaviors as potentially abusive. 

It can be really difficult to tell, especially if you have PTSD and some o...

CN: in depth discussion of racism and white supremacy including specific examples of racist behavior; mention of 45, domestic violence, George Zimmerman, the Parkland students, and pedophilia.  

I want to keep this intro simple and just remind my white readers of a few good practices of allyship: 1. Listen more than you talk. 2. Expect and embrace discomfort as part of your learning process. 3. Remember that the biases that we all have don't feel like biases and so we have to rely on the people who's experiences are different from ours to reflect back to us when something we've categorized as...

CN: In-depth discussion of the usage and purpose of slurs and the common defenses for using slurs; discussion of racism, sexism, anti-gay bias, and classism. 
 

Warning: There will be a couple of slurs written out in full in this article. They are written this way to maintain clarity in a purely educational piece. I made a point to limit how many slurs I used and to avoid using any slurs that would be particularly egregious for a person with my set of privileges to use.  

“You shouldn’t say that word.” 
 

At some point in our lives, we have all had the experience of someone telling us that a word...