theinebriatedfangirl:

missgingerlee:

TRIGGER WARNING-Domestic Violence Situations

My name is not Jane. I need to keep my real name secret because the man who abused me can’t know where I am — I fear for my safety. But when I was leaving him and needed to get him off the cell phone contract we shared, Sprint put my safety at risk.

The man who abused me is the father of my son. When our baby was just four months old, he watched as his father strangled me and threatened to stomp on my head with steel-toed boots. I left and got a restraining order the next day. 

But at a time when I had no job, no steady place to live, and feared for my life and the life of my little one, Sprint refused to let me get my abuser off my cell phone contract unless I paid them $200 — even though the contract was in my name. I had no money, and the man who threatened to kill me could track exactly who I was calling and when.

I was inspired when I saw that another woman started a petition on Change.org asking Verizon to end contract cancellation fees for victims of domestic violence — and she won. So I started my own petition asking Sprint to do the same. Click here to add your name.

When I signed the petition asking Verizon to drop cancellation fees for victims of domestic violence, I was shocked how many other people who signed shared awful stories about Sprint. One woman wrote about how Sprint made her meet her abusive ex-boyfriend in person at the Sprint store before they’d let her cancel her contract.

As for me, I’m still so afraid of my abuser that I can’t even use my real name. But this issue is so important for women like me fighting for their lives, I knew I had to do something.

Cindy’s petition to Verizon made me realize that I am not alone. If she can get Verizon to change its policies to prioritize the safety of victims of domestic violence, there’s no reason Sprint can’t do the same. I know that if enough people sign my petition, Sprint will do the right thing, too.

Click here to sign my petition demanding that Sprint follow in Verizon’s footsteps and end cancellation fees for victims of domestic violence.

Thank you,

Jane Doe
USA

I’d like to throw a bit more info on here, because Sprint does some really shitty things to people dealing with domestic violence & stalking.

When I needed information from my own account 2 years ago for a court case, I went to 14 different ‘official’ Sprint stores trying to get said account information, because I couldn’t get it online, & their 1-800 number told me I had to go to an actual Sprint store, not just an authorized retailer. Sometimes those ‘real’ Sprint stores are few and far between…

I did what I was told & went to the store, & literally begged them to please let me have my account information, & showed them a protective order that stated in plain language that there was a ‘situation’ & my phone/text records were a very important part of that case. I stood there in tears in the last store I went to, & said flat out that if they didn’t allow me to have access to my own flippin’ account information, & my cause got thrown out, they’d just helped somebody eventually murder me.

Did I then cause a scene? Yes I did. Did I tell every woman in that store very, very loudly what they were refusing to do for me? Yep. Did I get every employee name & number on duty that day & file a complaint against every single one? Fuck yes I did.

They don’t care. They don’t care if you are in danger & will not help you, even when you have legal grounds that give you access to your own information. 

The lesson? They don’t give a shit about people dealing with domestic violence or stalking, & it doesn’t matter to them whether you are in danger or not. You’re left out there on your own, & the only one that will ever help you is yourself. This is a daily thing for victims/survivors all over this country. 

So please, please don’t ever tell me I get ‘hysterical’ or ‘paranoid’ when it comes to stalking or domestic issues. I had to change everything in my life to try to stay safe, & I had to claw & fight through even ‘simple’ things in an attempt to get safe. I’m not hysterical, I’m somebody that’s had to learn how ‘on your own’ you can end up in your attempt to stay alive.

/gingerrant

holy shit. signal boost, y’all!

Signal Boost I suppose !

HUGE TRIGGER WARNING, MENTION OF RACISM, ABUSE, VIOLENCE, JAIL, MISOGINY AND A VERY UNFAIR SHITTY JUSTICE SYSTEM)

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Justice for Marissa March & Rally

Ms. Alexander, a mother of 3, who currently holds a Master’s Degree and had no prior criminal record; was attacked by her husband who has a known and documented history of domestic abuse on August 1, 2010. Alexander was arrested after she fired a warning shot into the wall after her husband threatened to kill her.

Join us on May 29th, 2012 at Hemming Plaza in Jacksonville, FL. Starting at 8am as we march toward the new courthouse. Speakers, Musical tributes & much more.

Shit, I’m too late here too.

stfuconfederates:

TW: discussion of racism, rape, genocide, violence

I just read back 76 pages into the archives of my friend’s blog. You may wish to know the context of this post, but overall the point is a general one, because what happened a couple nights ago happens far too often. This is a list of things that are, simply, wrong.

(And before I go any further, I am as guilty of these things as anybody, and I constantly have to remind myself to improve. This is not an effort for me to seem blameless in racism)

1: Some people cannot comprehend that racism is violence. While it’s ‘generally’ understood that racism exists, and that violence exists, and racial violence is a thing that is, the fact that an active act of racism itself is an act of violence seems to escape a lot of (white) people. To begin to understand how words can be acts of violence, you don’t need to look any farther than human enslavement being written into law, but some people still wouldn’t call that violence. Or ‘the concept of racial violence’ will be considered a thing of the past, that racism today has no significance. Simply put, there are people who not only believe that People of Color are no longer raped and murdered for being People of Color, but that ingrained thought leading to outward racist speech is not in any way connected to racism in the form of physical violence. Everything is attributed to ‘how people are’, dismissing the power and resolve of racism. I’ll expand on this.

2. The same people who cry reverse-racism and the race card and ‘the angry PoC’ are the people who expect PoC to, kindly, sit and take it. This is nothing new and nothing unexpected, but it’s an essential tenet to racism that what happens to you doesn’t matter. And while white people victimize white people when their racism is challenged, the actual victims have been blamed, white supremacy has been enforced, and this is an act of violence. There’s only one explanation for this. Only one.

3: People of Color are not considered people. This is dehumanization and this is what it does. By reinforcing the lie that People of Color are not people, you allow anything done to a PoC to be justified or insignificant, then allow anything done by a PoC to be animistic and uncalled for. I know there’s not a PoC that follows me that needs examples, but this is for my fellow white folks. Here’s why words matter:

• There are, right now, American men standing at the the border between Mexico and the US. They are waiting for brown people so that they can shoot them and leave their bodies in the desert. There are none at the Canadian border.
• When enslavement was ended, many plantation owners attempted to send the freed enslaved human beings ‘back’, as if returning a coat that didn’t fit right. In other words, if we can’t own them, we don’t want them here. Kinda busts the ‘slaves were part of the family’ lie, doesn’t it?
• The importance of sexuality in society is never forgotten, and while Asian men are made to be thought of as underachieving sexual partners, Black men are made to be thought of as sexual weapons, because there is a very simple reason why people said that inter-racial marriage would lead to inter-species marriage. The two are, still, often, thought of as the same thing. 
• The long history of the wars of the United States (we’ve been at war for a greater part of our history than any other country) and the amount of apathy that’s been shown toward the soldiers or civilians of other nations (or Native tribes) when they’ve been primarily People of Color.
• There is a consistent effort within many class/LGBTQ/gender discussions to exclude People of Color, despite the fact that you cannot discuss class without discussing how race effects class, you cannot discuss gender without discussing how race effects gender, you cannot discuss queerness without discussing how race effects queerness. For a white member of the LGBTQ community to ignore the issues of racism within the community is to say that they aren’t people like we’re people, for OWS to exclude the discussion of race within the discussion of class is to say they’re not people like we’re people, for white women to ignore racism in misogyny is to say they’re not people like we’re people.
• I’ve seen a lot of pictures of white people standing around sipping punch and smiling for the camera behind the burning body of a lynching victim. Smiling and sipping punch. Smiling and sipping punch. Like somebody didn’t just get raped and murdered. Smiling.

No, not everything is ‘about race’, but race is a factor in everything. 

These have been only a few examples when a more appropriate list would be, for all intents and purposes, unreadable in length. These things started with words and ideas and mindsets. This is dehumanization, an essential tenet to white supremacy, and a whole lot of white people on Tumblr refuse to believe that racism and dehumanization are violence.

But no, let’s all keep telling victims of racial violence exactly how they should respond. It’s not like they’re people, or anything.

I’m right here if you disagree.

toranseisstrong:

You know, if you’re going to think that it’s so incredibly absurd when people think that they deserve to be abused by a spouse.

You might want to think about how we live in a culture where the same treatment is perfectly allowable when a parent is doing it to a child.

Give me one damn reason why it’s wrong to hit someone, wrong to destroy their property, wrong to beat them down and berate them; if you’re perfectly willing to accept it when it’s coming from a parent doing it to their child.

If you’re told from all sides that it’s okay when you’re a kid, that you deserve it as a kid, it’s perfectly logical to believe that you deserve it as an adult.

OH Yes, THIS, This This!!!!