My Mother’s Book

Not many people get the privilege of reading about a childhood they scarcely remember. It is, I would imagine, a most remarkable event. And I also imagine that the day I discovered my adoptive mother Janet had written a book about my childhood, would have been remarkable if only it hadn’t been the second most remarkable event that year. These … Read More

Nurturance Culture In Action

Nurturance Culture By Nora Samaran

Through this work, an advance reader copy of Turn This World Inside Out, The Emergence of Nurturance Culture by Nora Samaran found its way into my hands. And although at 140 pages it’s only little, its impact on me has been disproportionately large. It has helped me find compassion; it has helped me connect fragments of ideas which existed in my brain already, but floated untethered in abstract (where they were of no use at all).

#Metoo Motivations (my own harm and privilege)

I didn’t want to believe her.  What I wanted to believe was that the harm Franklin caused was not intentional or conscious. That it was a one-off. That Franklin was a nice guy who had made a few wrong steps. I hoped against hope that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String

With time restrictions therefore, my options are few; but I’m determined to make it work. After all between an apocalyptic future exploding in glorious glitter, and any other future where presents look like World War Two rations, I’ll go for the latter.

My Daughter’s Consent And The Boy Next Door

consent between children

This boy is kind. But being kind doesn’t disguise the fact that he has no knowledge of boundaries. He knocks at all hours of the day. If the back door is on the latch, he’ll come in uninvited and sit on Maya’s bed to await her return until I show him the door. He once tried to force his way in her room to wake her up and play.

Boy, You’ll Be A Woman… Soon

No one does make up for men like Tim Curry

For a woman like me–a die-hard fan of The Rocky Horror Show who lustfully watched Sweet Transvestite on loop –the news that Chanel launched it’s first make-up for men on September 1 2018 in South Korea, was wildly exciting.

The Face of a Dying Breed, The European Brit

These are the people we need to focus on nurturing as geographical and technological mobility create a growing crisis of clashing moral standards and integration of cultural opposites. He is the type of ambassador I want out in the field demonstrating the best of what it means to be European Brit.

Why Communists turn into Nationalists

As causes grow in popularity, the original victims are often left behind whilst those already in power claim more space and more status by piggybacking on these issues without having suffered first-hand experience in order to promote their own agenda.

Life without Facebook? Is there any chance for escape?

Depressingly, a portion of those ‘success stories’ who did not return to Facebook had simply replaced Facebook with other social media. Far from extracting themselves from an algorithmic life, they had only jumped out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

What Aziz Ansari Did Does Not Make Him A Criminal, Unfortunately

Power is the capacity to influence others which–notwithstanding systemic privilege–fluctuates, sometimes on a daily basis according to self esteem, personality, age, maturity and in every unique relationship dynamic. How can power be measured or compared, when there is no absolute, and perception of power is also a form of power?

Thor Ragnarök: A Baby Step in Equality

Thor Ragnarok. A baby step for equality.

World building, as Marvel has proven it can pull off over the last decade, is a skill I admire, it’s an escapist’s ultimate playground–yet my aversion to imperialism and the influence of a feminist education on how I perceive fictional heroes and supervillains ate holes in the fabric of my appreciation.

Overheard Conversations Are The Most Interesting

A few choose to queue, indicating their impatience by folded arms and tapping feet. Others return chastened to their tables littered with remnants from the first round, but their bodies stay tense, mouths quivering with injustice.

One Alternative Sex Shop Leads the Way in Consent

Sex Shop

Sex shops themselves serve as a kind of a sex-toy curation service and could theoretically buy healthier selections for their clientele. That’s a responsibility few sex shops choose to shoulder in a capitalist system where sex sells.

TBINAA | #MeToo: Will My Son Grow up to be a Rapist?

And if predatory behaviour is as ubiquitous among men as it appears and as I have experienced it to be, statistically it is likely that my son will violate someone, at some point, in his lifetime. That could be anything from ignorant boundary violation to, god forbid, rape.

Bringing Attention to Atrocities in an Apathetic Western World

Refugee Voices Tour

But there is no victorious ‘democratic’ ending to this story. In Syria the civil uprising has gradually been transformed into a full scale civil war. Sayid and his colleagues have all lost loved ones to this war and their political is personal. Sayid’s own crime–and why he is here–was to film government violence and put it up on YouTube, after which he was put on the list of wanted terrorists.

TBINAA | What Can We Laugh at Now?: Political Correctness and Humor

What we find funny is indicative of our beliefs, attitudes, judgements and opinions. It is a useful barometer. When we mock those who by birth or circumstance are less fortunate, we become persecutors and make others our victims. We have no less duty of care for verbal abuse even through humour, than we do for physical abuse.

TBINAA | How Racism Fueled the Manchester Attacks

The Manchester Memorial sign following the terrorist attack at the O2, featuring Ariana Grande

Britain has never taken responsibility for the bloodshed and exploitation which built the empire. This is evidenced by Theresa May’s hardline on Brexit. We want to take without giving anything in return. We make no apologies for our xenophobic attitudes; our comedy ridicules ‘those bloody foreigners’, our narrow-minded and disrespectful behaviour often shames us in the countries we visit.

“Love, Retold” by Tikva Wolf

‘Love, Retold’ personifies non-violent and exploratory angles on our perceived powerlessness created by an ultimate truth; we cannot control others or their willingness to be in a relationship with us, if we truly seek to love.

Harry Potter Normalizes Abuse

Maybe it’s my depression that twists a rainbow world into shades of grey. Or maybe the Order of the Phoenix really is a minefield riddled with C-PTSD.

White Fragility and the path to White Depression

Gone are the days when I positively affirmed every day in the shower, and shared uplifting memes. Now I see these past behaviours as tragic extent of mine and others’ unawareness. I thought if I changed my mindset and concentrated on dismissing the negative and amplifying positive activism, that the world I wanted would resettle itself with my aligned actions.

White woman in the mirror

Privileged white woman pain is more gradual and less dramatic than that experienced by intersectional minorities. It is insidious. Kind of like bonsai trees, white women have the innate capacity to grow to a normal size but our roots and branches are cut so that we grow far smaller. Stunted or trained along a trellis in such a way that few see, sometimes not even us.

Mithridatism and the Validity of White Guilt

Like Mithridates, the ancient Greek King who–legend has it–ingested small amounts of poison to create immunity, it is the art of swallowing what we hate little by little, of being formed by it, developing an immunity to it and even learning to appreciate the rush it gives us so we can make it in this sick world. If it is no longer poisonous to us, it is easier to dish it out as we deny that it’s poison. It’s still poison though.

No Such Thing As Legitimate Democracy in the U.K. & U.S.

Thus a racist, classist and hierarchical society which favours the few over the masses cannot be truly democratic because power is unequally distributed among and through many channels. And where there is a power differential, this compromises the ability of the marginalized groups to consent.

“But I Can Still Cook!”

This world built me without boundaries, brought me up to accept authority, to obey and to work in the system. I was preprogrammed to play my docile part.

The Rapist in the Mirror

But what of the men who were genetic fathers to these lost children? Male privilege absolved them of personal responsibility.

TBINAA | The Cowardice of the White Woman

Image representing the cowardice of white women in the face of marginalized oppression

Maybe it was then I first asked the question: would I risk my own life to protect the Anne Franks of this world? The answer was always yes. But hindsight is a flattering bedfellow.

On “Downgrading” Your Relationship

Boundaries are ultra important, both in their definition and mutual respect of them. They must be carefully drawn so that they don’t amount to a tacit veto.

Why Violence is used to Counter Fascism (in three parts)

But the course of your chosen response in the fight against dehumanization is not necessarily dictated by your political stance. Whether you use reasonable discourse or violent protest is more likely be influenced by another factor: privilege, and how your privilege promotes your own survival.

The Disenfranchised European Progressive

There could be many potential reasons not least that to become a overseas voter is a bureaucratic nightmare, especially for those like me who left before voting age. When I eventually found the energy to jump through all the hoops, I was turned away. The electoral commission had only been formed in 2001 and when I discovered the website several years later, my rights had already expired.

What my White Privilege Says About Punching Nazis

For people of colour, white ethics do not promote their survival–it only promotes white people’s survival and usually at the expense of theirs. People of colour have not been allowed voice, still today have less voice and any choice of an ethical framework–even by me, a white person–is ill-informed if it does not take this into account because our reality is weighted privilege.

Use Psychology to end Trump Presidency

Donald Trump uses ‘alternative facts’ to achieve harmony in his inner world. He’s put a photo on his wall describing the crowd as a ‘sea of love’ indicative of the fact he craves adulation.

It always was a Post-Truth Era, the difference now is that we know it

We have always been in a post-truth era because our interpretation of truth can only ever be subjective. Today the difference is that Trump doesn’t pretend to be objective. As a narcissist, it is impossible for him to be anyone other than who he is. I’d wager he believes his own stories, no matter what facts might say.

Reflections on Losing My Mind

Memory loss is one of the symptoms of living with high anxiety, which in itself is one of the symptoms of complex trauma..