So. 10th grade English class. We all come in one morning to find a balloon and a perfectly sharpened pencil on each of our desks. No instructions, no explanation, which is strange, because our teacher is meticulous about that sort of thing. A couple of people try to ask her and she says we’ll get to it. She takes role and then announces that she needs to go to the copy room and she’ll be back in a couple of minutes
Kinda unorthodox, but no one is complaining because this is advanced English and the teacher usually goes kinda hard. So, y’know. Brief respite. We all sit and chat; one of the boys teasingly steals a girl’s balloon, but gives it back to her easily enough; it’s quiet and kind of a nice break. Then the teacher comes back, stops in the doorway, and just stares at us
After a long moment, she says, confused, “You didn’t pop the balloons.”
To which one of the guys about two rows over exclaims, “We’re allowed to pop them?” and immediately turns around and stabs his friend’s balloon with the pencil
There is a vicious revenge balloon-stabbing, and a few more people pop seatmates’ balloons or their own, and the whole time the teacher is just shaking her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t pop your balloons.”
Apparently we were starting Lord of the Flies that day and she wanted to demonstrate the basic concept of kids turning on each other when there are no authority figures present and it was basically my favorite failed social experiment ever
Back in my 10th grade we did a similar things around Lord of the Flies, where we had a test scheduled for that day, and when we walked in, the teacher took role by looking through the window of the door and never entered the classroom. On the board were three tasks written and the teacher had brought in donuts. At first we all sat around and waited for the teacher to come in, but eventually we just started tackling the list of tasks. Task 1- the test. Everybody took it silently, no one cheated, everyone turned it in and we went on to Task Two: tidy up the room. So we did, we split into a couple groups and each one cleaned an area of the room. Task Three: Hand out the donuts. There were 12 donuts, and 30 of us. So we split the donuts into thirds, each took a third, and left the extras for the teacher. After this, the teacher came in absolutely FUMING. She was so upset we had followed all the rules and completed the tasks. Apparently she had been texting kids telling them to start some chaos but they all ignored it because they were too nice. She tried to dock our grades for not going absolutely wild because it meant her class didn’t get the point across
That’s because lord of the flies isn’t representative of humanity it’s representative of rich white male shitheads
Our Women’s History Month features continue! Meet photographer Miranda Barnes (@mirandabarnes ), a Caribbean-Anglo American photographer hailing from Brooklyn. Her unique style has been seen in major publications like The New York Times, NY Magazine, Vogue Magazine, Teen Vogue, and so many more. Now you get a chance to learn just what makes her tick.
Thank you! It’s important because for so long our stories have largely been told from a white and male perspective and have been the only way our narratives have been told. For me, it’s important to break stereotypes that have been placed on us by photographing us living and working, even if it’s mundane.
What has been one of your biggest accomplishments as a photographer?
One of the biggest accomplishments thus far has been photographing historical and sensitive assignments. The biggest one, however, was my coverage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 50th anniversary of his assassination for The New York Times. It made A1!
How can people continue to support more women of color photographers?
I think it is important to first acknowledge that womxn photographers have been, historically at a disadvantage. This is even more so for Black womxn photographers. However, it’s important to understand the idea behind reclaiming narratives and it’s very exciting to see this slow, but more awareness towards the inequality that has plagued industries for so long. Reclaiming narratives are crucial and I try to view my experiences as a Black woman as an advantage. Support can be as simple as sharing a website, but also buying prints or investing in a photographer.
Give yourself a little gift today and follow @mirandabarnes . Your dashboard will be better off for it.
The comments on this poet are filled with white nerds being misogynistic lmao, surprise
I know. So many angry white nerds in my inbox after posting this, its hilarious. So here’s some more excellent commentary since the Hardwick story broke:
Kylo Ren looks terrible doing this. Obi-Wan looks like a fucking boss. Like it was made to fall off his shoulders. Like that cape wasn’t good enough for him and felt self conscious.
I mean, yes, this is funny, but mostly I’m just struck by how AMAZING language and its capacity for evolution and elasticity is. This would be incomprehensible to an English-speaker living in any other time.
“Girls want a Superman, but they walk past a Clark Kent every day”
You fuckin CLOWNS think you’re a CLARK KENT? Not on my fuckin watch. You dumb, headass motherfuckers are barely a Guy Gardner and you think you’re a CLARK KENT? The amount of disrespect is unreal.
Listen here, wannabes: My boi Clark is 240 lbs of PURE KANSAS BEEF trained from a young age by Ma Kent to Love and Respect women as the Intelligent, Independent beings they are. He is shy rambling about tractors and casually moving the copy machine when my pen falls behind it and he would NEVER demand I be sexually or romantically interested just because he’s nice.
What she means:Reylo is a disgusting example of how people romanticize every single interaction between a boy and a girl, even when it's abusive, violent, and possibly incestuous. Why would Kylo torturing Rey to get information ever be considered romantic? The fact that fans would rather ship her with Kylo than have her be with Finn or another girl says a lot about how they view PoC and the lgbt community. All in all, Reylo is just trash.
