Generation Y Media (Gen Y Media for short) is a non profit news organization aimed towards informing audiences worldwide on current events and breaking headlines through the eyes of the younger generation.

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glowcloud:

Trans Lifeline - (877) 565-8860 - Transgender Crisis Hotline

jramonap:

This is a suicide prevention hotline for trans folks, by trans folks. I’m REALLY concerned about “suicide contagion” after the tragic death of Leelah Alcorn, so please reblog this as vigorously as you can. 

moriartys:

I wanted to make a post about Leelah Alcorn but I lack the requisite words to describe how I feel. But this is exactly what it should be like. Leelah’s death is a heartbreaking tragedy and it should leave everyone speechless. That being said, however, we cannot simply sit back and mourn her by reblogging text posts and saying how messed up this is. In her note, she said that she wanted her death to mean something. So please, help her rest in peace by helping all you can and adding resources you find below. We can make a change. You matter.

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antivanprince:

it is absolutely fucking unacceptable to tell queer and trans kids that they have to wait for it to get better. it is fucking unacceptable that we tell them that they have to accept being bullied and treated like less than fucking people and that they just have to hope and pray that one day will be that promised day that “it gets better”.

“The Black Lives Matter movement resembles Occupy Wall Street in 2011, which is cause for both celebration and concern: Both establish a polarizing antagonist — police, bankers — who serves as an entry point for structural critique (systemic racism and politico-economic inequality, respectively). Both have given birth to and mobilized highly decentralized, politically diverse and fairly spontaneous protest movements. Both operate amid contentious politics and feed off friction — or the threat of it — with the state. And just as Occupy mostly dissolved during its first winter, so too could Black Lives Matter.”

3 ways #BlackLivesMatter can evolve beyond protests into real change  (via micdotcom)

“

I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are “proving” that they are “with us.” But the hard truth is this isn’t helping to solve America’s racist problem. The Negroes aren’t the racists. Where the really sincere white people have got to do their “proving” of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America’s racism really is – and that’s in their own home communities; America’s racism is among their own fellow whites.

…I’ll go so far as to say that I never really trust the kind of white people who are always anxious to hang around Negroes, or who hang around in Negro communities. I don’t know – this may be a throwback to the years when I was hustling in Harlem and all of those red-faced, drunk whites in the afterhours clubs were always grabbing hold of some Negroes and talking about “I just want you to know you’re just as good as I am – ” And then they got back in their taxicabs and black limousines and went back downtown to the places where they lived and worked, where no blacks except servants had better be caught.”

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Malcolm X (via smidgetz)

allerasphinx:

The person behind Emma Watson’s feminism campaign is a black woman. Her name is Elizabeth Nyamayaro. 

nbcnightlynews:

BREAKING NEWS: AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore lost contact with air traffic control, AirAsia confirms

Anonymous SAID:
Hey can you please explain why you are against James Franco/the interview? I'm not a big fan of him but I feel a bit uninformed about the whole fiasco and why it's having such a big impact.

christmasnoose:

no problem my dude!

the thing that bothers me the most about sony actually releasing the interview is that seth rogen and james franco had a HUGE opportunity at their disposal. that movie had a big name cast, and they could have done so many things with the concept of north korea. they could have made a drama or a comedy based in north korea or SOMETHING to use that platform to raise awareness about the horrors that go on in that country.

do you know that kim jong-un has brainwashed north koreans to make them think that he can read their minds (about 11 minutes into this video)? think about how terrifying that is: living under a dictator who you think can read every thought of yours, so thus any negative thoughts you may have about his regime need to be avoided immediately.

then there’s the fact that there is a massive food crisis in north korea. it’s so bad that people eat pieces of corn found in the shit of animals because they’re so hungry. one of the most visceral things i heard was that in severe cases of malnutrition, the anus actually doesn’t close and anything you eat or drink comes directly out of you. these accounts come from prison guards who witnessed it.

at any point for any reason, police in north korea can charge you with any crime they want, and take you AND your family - regardless of whether your family was even with you at the time - to political prison camps. these camps are obviously fucking terrible places to be, as demonstrated by the images drawn here by former prisoners.

there’s also the fact that people can’t leave north korea. their borders are tightly monitored with frequently rotating guards who are told to shoot anyone who tries to cross. china, who shares a border with north korea, sends back people who have fled to china from north korea. women who return to north korea pregnant are forced to carry heavy loads up and down hills until they miscarry.

so i was relieved that sony wasn’t going to release the interview because i knew it would be full of racist, frat-boy level humor (spoiler alert: it got terrible reviews and yes, it full of racist, frat-boy level humor) that makes fun of 25 million peoples’ suffering. they had an amazing opportunity to raise awareness about the devastation that exists in that country, and instead they used that platform to be racist, mimic accents and literally make butt jokes.

when north koreans are finally freed of their chains, they’re going to learn that the rest of the world thought it was hilarious how much they were tortured.

that’s why i am against the interview, james franco, seth rogen and sony.

krxs10:

Just a reminder that its only been two days and already two cops are once again not being indicted for illegally murdering unarmed and innocent black men for doing literally nothing. 

one hashtag after another. 

“

The funny thing is that the early reviews of the movie were pretty lukewarm, not just from critics but from regular test audiences. Now after this controversy, people are hailing it as the greatest comedy of our generation.

It’s also caused a resurgence of those stupid NORTH KOREA BEST KOREA memes. That’s just annoying, though.

What makes me angry is that by mocking North Korea, the mockers are reinforcing the DPRK’s state propaganda. If you think the North Korean government is stupid or you see them as toothless cartoon villains, then you’ve already been indoctrinated by it. Hook, line, and sinker. Without getting too much into my personal life, I have close ties with people deeply involved in North Korea. I’ve befriended DPRK defectors and people who have dedicated their lives to dismantling the Kim regime.

North Korea is the only Orwellian police state in the world and it has been that way for almost 70 years. Other nations have tried to maintain a government like the DPRK’s in the modern world and failed. The USSR broke apart. Fascist Italy fell. Nazi Germany fell. Gaddafi was ousted and killed.

Yet the DPRK endures. People don’t rebel, other countries don’t invade them, and they still receive concessions from the international community even as they continue developing their nuclear program. Stupid governments can’t keep 24.9 million people drinking the Kool Aid and force exponentially more powerful countries into bargaining positions.

A large part of why North Korea endures is because they’ve carefully engineered how they want to appear to the West. Horrific things are happening there right now. Some of my friends have been sent to juvenile concentration camps where kids were beaten and raped by the guards. Camps where kids had their feet cut off for attempting to escape. Friends who saw a fresh corpse on the street every day they walked home from school, left to starve to death on the sidewalk because of the Great Famine. Friends who were forced to eat bark to survive, friends who witnessed cannibalism.

There is so much information out there about how horrible and dangerous North Korea is but the international community doesn’t receive pressure from their constituents to do anything about it because everyone views North Korea as a joke. That is a very intentional, calculated move by the DPRK government. They are fully aware of how ridiculous and empty their threats sound. Those statements are nothing but propaganda fed to the West.

B.R. Myers is one of the world’s foremost scholars of North Korea and he pointed out that North Korea is not very socialist or communist. In fact, if you read the North Korean constitution, you won’t find a single mention of socialism or communism. But they are very Confucian, and a lot of what they talk about in their constitution is aligned with Confucian principles. That also goes for their foreign policy. It’s straight out of the Art of War. To quote Sun Tzu:

“If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”

And that’s exactly what North Korea does. They know they can’t possibly withstand a military invasion from a first world power, but at the same time, they can’t risk a policy of close contact because it would compromise the internal propaganda they minister to their citizens.

So they make ridiculous threats they can’t possibly carry out. They get angry about comedy movies. They play the role of the tiny man with a huge chip on his shoulder, and the international community responds accordingly. The unspeakable atrocities North Korea is committing against its citizens is overshadowed by the global public perceiving North Korea as a cartoon villain. And when North Korea does do something legitimately dangerous like missile tests in Japanese waters or firing upon submarines, it is without warning, provocation, grandstanding, or boasting. Nothing came of the RKS Cheonan attack because there was no hard evidence that linked it back to the DPRK. Do you think an inept government can pull that off?

This is how they control their public image. It’s how they make it clear they are not to be fucked with when they want to be taken seriously, but when they need to relieve international pressure off themselves, they start talking like Darth Vader, and the laughs and mocking that follow work to North Korea’s benefit.

Did you know they’re also heavily involved in organized crime? You probably haven’t and you’ll never hear North Korea boasting about it, even though their criminal enterprises are a legitimate threat that causes actual damage overseas. They want to divert people’s attention away from things like Room 39 so they make wild threats they cannot possibly carry out and the international media eats it up. Room 39 is a multibillion dollar criminal enterprise but we have little information about it. People struggle to accept that the DPRK can run operations like this because of the misguided belief that the DPRK is run by boneheads.

Look at what the response has been like for their threats about The Interview. The DPRK knows damn well they can’t bomb any American movie theaters. But they used their grand, puffed up threats as propaganda. And it isn’t the first time they’ve indoctrinated the West with idle threats.

What’s the response to North Korean news on any popular media website? North Korea Best Korea! ROR! You are now banned from r/pyongyang! Any discussions about the concentration camps or human rights abuses are completely drowned out by stupid memes, stupid memes which exist because North Korea presented itself as an evil empire out of a sci-fi book and the West ate it up. North Korea is already associated with vapid memes in the eyes of young westerners. Now it’ll be associated with a slightly above average comedy movie and hammy threats, playing right into the belief that North Korea like a real-life version of Mordor or the Galactic Empire.

When you hear about the Galactic Empire killing trillions of people in Star Wars, you don’t feel anything because it’s exaggerated fiction. On a subconscious level, it’s easy to feel ambivalent towards millions of people being tortured, raped, and starved on a daily basis when you view the oppressing power in the same level of ridiculousness as Darth Vader.

But Kim Jong Un is not Emperor Palpatine. The Workers’ Party are not Sith Lords. They are completely sane, flesh-and-blood men and women no different from me or you who torture and imprison regular people.

Real people. People who are fathers, daughters, uncles, friends. Imagine if your family lived in a country where one misstep you make could land you and your children in the gulag. If you have daughters, you can expect them to be gang raped by guards. You can expect them to have forced abortions for carrying mixed children. If you have a relative that has special needs, expect them to be executed for polluting the gene pool.

When you step back and start deprogramming yourself from the media conditioning that North Korea has been feeding you, it’s not so easy to be so flippant about North Korea, is it? Suddenly it becomes as disturbing as joking about the deaths of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, or creating memes out of the two NYPD officers who were murdered in cold blood simply for being in uniform. Picture that on a scale magnified by millions and perpetuated every single day.

So the fact that the world is congratulating itself for being so witty and edgy for mocking North Korea is what made me angry this week. I’ve seen more outrage against North Korea for bullying Sony into pulling this movie than I have when the UN released its report on North Korean concentration camps.

If the world was able to see North Korea soberly as the most brutal dictatorship in the world, it wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass convincing people to get involved. That’s harder to do now that everyone is lapping up the DPRK’s Kool Aid without realizing.

Why is this the issue Reddit wants to have protests over?

The real way to stick it to North Korea would be to start organizing mass donations to nonprofits dedicated to ending it, making their human rights abuses viral, and starting an online movement that pressure world leaders into breaking the Kim regime. That would actually scare the shit out of the DPRK.

TLDR
The Interview is out and millions are spending cash on watching it.

”

Sony & “The Interview” — what’s your take? (via sallydonovan)

THEME