![amaditalks:
sanctimonioussilentagony:
This memorial day, before you jump on the facebook bandwagon and start liking photos like these, or commenting with indignant rage about the people who obviously don’t care about the troops, ask yourself how on earth it came to be that all the prettiest wives of soldiers put on their cutest, most feminine outfits then arranged themselves so artfully on their late husbands’ graves so as to look the absolute weepiest for the professional photographer they didn’t notice behind them. Ask yourself why the injured war veterans got dressed up in their fatigues, rolled their wheelchairs out to the graves of their injured buddies to place flowers and weep on a day no one else was there except one lonely professional photographer they didn’t notice. Then ask yourself whether you’re yet sick and fucking tired of being given drippy propaganda, glorifying the meaningless deaths of mostly lower-class enlisted people who joined up because they were promised college money and, should they fail to live, pictures like this at their graves forever, and accomplished mainly the killing of hundreds of thousands of brown people and the acquisition of lifelong post traumatic stress disorder when they were lucky enough to come home.
Happy Memorial Day.
[Image description: A photo of a thin, apparently white woman in a strapless dress, lying on her stomach on a soldier’s grave in a military cemetery. Her head is hanging and her face can’t be seen. The caption reads: “Memorial Day: In case you thought it was national BBQ Day.”]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4p2koIzDr1qkguino1_400.jpg)
This memorial day, before you jump on the facebook bandwagon and start liking photos like these, or commenting with indignant rage about the people who obviously don’t care about the troops, ask yourself how on earth it came to be that all the prettiest wives of soldiers put on their cutest, most feminine outfits then arranged themselves so artfully on their late husbands’ graves so as to look the absolute weepiest for the professional photographer they didn’t notice behind them. Ask yourself why the injured war veterans got dressed up in their fatigues, rolled their wheelchairs out to the graves of their injured buddies to place flowers and weep on a day no one else was there except one lonely professional photographer they didn’t notice. Then ask yourself whether you’re yet sick and fucking tired of being given drippy propaganda, glorifying the meaningless deaths of mostly lower-class enlisted people who joined up because they were promised college money and, should they fail to live, pictures like this at their graves forever, and accomplished mainly the killing of hundreds of thousands of brown people and the acquisition of lifelong post traumatic stress disorder when they were lucky enough to come home.
Happy Memorial Day.
[Image description: A photo of a thin, apparently white woman in a strapless dress, lying on her stomach on a soldier’s grave in a military cemetery. Her head is hanging and her face can’t be seen. The caption reads: “Memorial Day: In case you thought it was national BBQ Day.”]
(via gloria-swanson)
Sick and Tired by Shihan.
agreed.
Does that put it into perspective for you?
Seriously. I always have to try to put this into perspective for people. People act like slavery was so distant. My mom is older in relation to my age (she had me at 43), and her father was older when she was born (in his early 50’s) and was born in the late 1800’s. One of his PARENTS was born into slavery. For people like my mom, this isn’t the least bit distant. My mom grew up in the Jim Crow south. History is so depersonalized that people can act like slavery, Jim Crow, and blatantly racist institutions existed in 1800 BC
I have an aunt who died in 02 who was born in 1898.
I’d LOVE for someone to have told her that slavery was “long ago”.
(via morethanjustexistence)
