My Shadow is Pink by Scott Stuart – Official Read Along

Earlier I posted the version that had no words.  I wished I had known this version was out there.  It is about the same except this one has the words in the book, which are also on the screen for you to read along.  Plus the CC is really good.  Again this is based on real life.  His young boy knew in his heart who he was and was not.  In real life as in the book, the dad helped his son by accepting who he is, not trying to make him what he is not.  I don’t know if the boy is trans, but I have seen him dressed in princess outfits with more boyish style hair and no real makeup.  So he maybe gender fluid or nonbinary.  It doesn’t matter, accepting young people even children for who they are and giving them the chance to grow and be, to learn for themselves who they are is what is important.  Oh, I should mention this inoffensive book about a dad’s love helping him accept his son is one of the most banned books and a constant target of the fundamentalist Christians and maga right wing crowd.  Mom’s for liberty and Mom’s of TikTok hate this book and claim it is porn and teaches sexualization of little kids.   Hugs.  Scottie

My Shadow Is Pink, by Scott Stuart, is a beautifully written rhyming story that touches on the subjects of gender identity, self acceptance, equality and diversity.

Watch more at amebatv.com!

Kian Lilien as: Boy Ryan Andes as: Dad Music: Celebration by Stephen Keech (license: YHDSPSYOVPCDAOSJ)

Euphoric | An Animated Short Film

Liam is older and has a phone call with his mum.

My Shadow is Pink | Animated Short Film by Scott Stuart

There are no spoken words, just a lot of emotions expressed.   A grand short animated movie.  Be the change you want to see, be the person standing up for equality and the right to be who you are.  Hugs.  Scottie

My Shadow is Pink is about a young boy, born with a pink shadow that loves princess, dresses & “things not for boys”. This is a story of daring to be different, and having the courage to be true to yourself.

Created by Scott Stuart.

The picture book “My Shadow is Pink” was released by Larrikin House in 2020 and has gone on to become a best-seller globally. “My Shadow is Purple” comes out May 2022.

This is the LGBTQ+ Holiday message everyone needs to see! 🏳️‍⚧️

‘Israeli Prisons Became a Graveyard for Us’: Freed Palestinian Child Prisoner Speaks Out

I have no more words left, only anger.  Hugs.  Scottie

30 Palestinian child detainees were released on Tuesday morning, as part of the prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli government.

Mohammed Nazzal, from the city of Qabatiya, was one of them. Soon after his release, he was moved to the emergency room of the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Jenin.

Mohammed was severely injured in both his hands due to the beating by Israeli soldiers in the Negev prison, one week ago. The hand fractures were deliberately neglected by the Israeli Prison Service, which led to complications in the child’s right hand.

“One week ago, we were savagely beaten with metal bars. I put my hands on my head to protect it from injury, but the soldiers did not stop until they broke my hands,” Mohammed added.

They waited for the journalists to leave, then the police call and told the family they would be arrested again if their interview aired.  The family called the report in panic.  Tells me two things, they are watching the families and they do not want the truth out in the world.  Like all abusers, they want it to be their dirty little secret between them and the abused.   Hugs.  Scottie

Freed Palestinians spoke about the grave conditions they faced while in prison. More Palestinians are expected to be released as part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas. But there are concerns among who have already been freed about the never ending intimidation and threats of being arrested again.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid sat-down with three recently freed Palestinian prisoners in the Occupied West Bank.

‘They violently beat us’: Harrowing testimony of released Palestinian child

A Palestinian child describes how he and his family were trapped in their home for five days at the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza.  He said that if anyone went outside, the soldiers shot them, killing them.  When they took the house they made sure to damage it as much as possible to make it unlivable, then they forced everyone including the women to come out naked, then allowed them to redress, took them to separate places where they beat him and those with him.  The US and western governments are supporting Israel on this.  Why?  Over 18,000 Palestinians dead, many more wounded.  All because Israel lost less than 1,200 in the Hamas attack.  Israel got their pound of flesh and a hell of a lot more.   Hugs

“They kidnapped us in a house and violently beat us.”

WATCH: The testimony of a Palestinian child, who was released after days of being detained with others by Israeli forces in the Zaytun neighbourhood in Gaza city, after his home was stormed and Israeli soldiers “bombed it all and shot at the walls”.

“The women were taken to another unknown place. We didn’t know anything about them.”

Mohammad Mahmoud Saleem described being strip-searched, before Israeli forces took the men and women to separate unknown houses, saying that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of his mother and younger siblings.

Mass Palestinian Opposition To Hamas Before Israel’s Revamped Ethnic Cleansing Campaign

Bomb Threat Shuts Down Maryland Drag Brunch

So the haters again got what they wanted.  This is terrorism.  They got something they hate / dislike shut down even though it was not harming anyone.  Plus tell me how it is “protecting the children” to threaten to blow them up?  I think we need to stop giving in to the threats.  The bomb threats always turn out false, no bomb, and yet the events get cancelled.  I am an atheist, a few weekends ago a church sent squads of believers in to our park without permission and they went door to door bothering people.  Does that give me the right to threaten their church or them? This attempt to control what other people can do, see, hear, places they can attend, and how they dress is Taliban shit.  It is horrible.   Why?  So a group of regressive people can be happy by forcing the world to be just like them?   Hugs.  Scottie

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Washington DC’s NBC affiliate reports:

A popular restaurant and bar in Takoma Park, Maryland, received bomb threats on Saturday morning over a drag brunch and story time event. The restaurant, Motorkat, bills itself as “a safe space for people of all orientations and backgrounds.

Motorkat was forced to cancel the drag brunch to keep its patrons safe, the restaurant said in the release. Those with tickets will get a full refund.

Police were emailed a bomb threat toward attendees at the restaurant’s drag event, and the police department and a bomb squad “swiftly responded to the threat, ensuring the safety of both patrons and staff,” Motorkat said.

Read the full article.

 

 

Because drag brunch and story hours harms children but threatening to kill children, their parents and drag queens does not. How the warped conservative mind works.

It is strange the universities are getting push back on genocidal speech when calls for our elimination will be permitted because “religion.”

But religion vs. religion is unacceptable?

The threat was emailed to the police, not the restaurant, that is odd…and probably from a local source. Email should be easy to trace. Even if sent from a public library computer, time stamps and security cameras everywhere will help identify the terrorist. But if a maga police officer receives (or even sent) it will the electronic trail be lost like a rape victim’s DNA kit?

Exactly my thoughts! How dumb do you have to be to email a threat? It could easily be traced back to the sender. But on the other hand, right-wingers are not known for their intellect.

Technically, it can be traced back to the IP address from which it was sent, not the person. That said, it’s not 100% true that an email can always be tracked back to the actual IP address, either. (And yes, I used to be a tech guy who worked with people occasionally tasked with tracking the source of an email – which usually led to some student spoofing the identity of a person of authority.)

They prolly thought no paper to leave fingerprints on. /s

Takoma Park and the rest of Montgomery County are fairly liberal areas right up against D.C. I’m worried that there aren’t “safe places” anymore. Maybe the concept was always an illusion.

This is my neighborhood, ate there last week. Every waiter I’ve had is gay which may be why it was targeted. Didn’t know they had a drag brunch.

On the on hand, nothing is 100% safe, ever. On the other hand, our “reasonably safe spaces” require protecting…enhancing.

Perhaps a few high profile prosecutions and harsh prison sentences will convince people that making terrorist threats doesn’t qualify as “free speech”?

Takoma Park is as blue as it gets. It’s probably Indigo. If a drag brunch is threatened by a bomb, shows that this is a very serious threat to the LBTQIA community.

On the other hand, it’s super easy to call in a bomb threat, just to fuck with us and keep us in fear for our lives.

I just watched an upsetting movie on Netflix last night about Americans turning on each other. So, one of my first thoughts was “did the email come from outside the police station or inside?”

Remember just a few years ago when this wasn`t a thing. Then the Repugs told the non-thinking rubes it was a thing, a very important thing along with CRT and “saying Gay”, etc. Though the rubes may have always disliked some of it most of it was stuff they never even thought about as being important until they were told it was. In fact now it is so important that a certain percentage of the rubes are willing to kill you over it to save our society. While they wait to be told what the next important thing is of course. It`s the time honored way the Repugs have always operated. Be afraid, be very afraid, only we can save you. You don`t need to think about it or ask why (as if you would anyway) drag shows are bad so get to work. Keeps the rubes occupied and keeps their votes and always works.

I think it has more to do with hatred and fear of transgender people than it does with drag. The ignorant dimwits involved in the protests and threats don’t understand that they are not the same thing. They think that drag queens=trans and that they are “promoting transgenderism” when they appear in public.

Grown adults, simply dressing up in whimsical, flamboyant costumes on a Saturday morning and trying to have some fun and help others do the same while they enjoy a meal. Sure, why not call in a bomb threat? That sounds just awful and depraved. Save the children! Christ on a cracker.

Yes, I personally feel like Putin has had more direct responsibility with these recent flare-ups of homophobia and transphobia than Trump himself, not that Trump was totally innocent. Also, the willingness of big sports stars and sports associations/leagues to sell out to Qatar, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other sponsors/venues which are effing horrible for women’s rights and LGBT rights. This has been a big social back-sliding moment.

 

School Days Florida Style – A Ron Desantis Parody | Freedom Toast & Cinebot Video

A possibly disturbing, but very accurate Parody about Ron Desantis’ version of public education. Lyrics and production work by The Freedom Toast – Video design and editing by Cinebot Video. Created for Parody Project Executive Producers for Parody Project Don Caron and Jerry Pender

Hurt, scared but free now. Palestinian boy recalls abuse in Israeli prison

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/29/beaten-humiliated-palestinian-boy-recalls-israeli-detention-abuse

Israel is preventing any celebration of the freed children and adults from Israeli prisons, at the same time the Israeli media along with the world has splashed the joyous reunions of Israeli families with the captives that Hamas released.  See again how degrading and subhuman Israel treats Palestinians.  No Palestinian / Arab family can rejoice that their child is home will whole towns hold parades for the Jewish / Israeli children coming home.  It is sickening to me, and again creates more hate and ill will.   Hugs.   Scottie

In another fuck you to the Palestinians, Israel arrested all most as many as they released.  Over the same days that it released some 150 Palestinian detainees, Israel arrested 133 people, nearly as many, from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. Since October 7, Israel carried out 3,290 arrests in the same areas, which it has occupied since 1967.


Mohammad Salhab Tamimi, 18, was returned to his family on Tuesday as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal.

Mohamed Salhab al-Tamimi
Mohammad was relieved and happy, yet subdued and traumatised by what he had been through [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]

Hebron, occupied West Bank – After eight months in Israeli prisons without being charged or processed, 18-year-old Mohammad Salhab Tamimi was finally able to return to his family as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal.

His boyish face was serious as he embraced his parents and stood, slightly bewildered, as if he was unsure whether to speak to the press or not.

He had been through a lot in the past eight months of uncertainty, torment that only increased since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7.

The last thing he was told by the forbidding Israeli prison guards was that he would be rearrested and put back into the limbo of administrative detention if his family and friends showed any signs of celebrating his return.

“’Tell your friends [they said]’… If we have a big celebration, I will return to prison,” he recalled.

Wary of the Israeli military checkpoint and illegal settlement next to their home, his family kept their happiness on mute, with only the immediate family and some uncles present.

Shackled, kicked around, humiliated

Luckily for the family, smiles don’t make any noise, and nobody could stop the smiles on his mother Fatima and father Murshid’s faces as they held tightly to their “little boy”.

Mohamed Salhab al-Tamimi with his parents
Mohammad with Fatima and Murshid, beaming with joy, but quietly [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]

Their boy was among the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Ofer prison near Ramallah in the small hours of Tuesday overnight. Up to the last minute, he had not been sure what was happening to him.

At 7am (05:00 GMT) on Monday, November 27, a guard at Rimon Prison demanded that Mohammad get ready to be transferred to Ofer Prison. That was all; nothing about the reason why he was being moved. Just told to strip off completely, put on just a grey prison sweatsuit, and gather all his belongings.

“I put my clothes in one of those plastic envelopes and walked to the cell door where they cuffed my hands and forced my head down so I was looking at the ground.

“The officer then kicked me, hard. His boots have steel in them, so it felt like he crushed my feet, it really hurt.

“He dragged me to the prison yard but, as he was dragging me out of the prison, he stopped to take my clothes from me and threw them into a garbage pail. Then, cursing me with obscene language, he dragged me out,” Mohammad recalled haltingly.

Mohammad was loaded into a prisoner transfer vehicle known as a “bosta” – a van with blacked-out windows and tight cells with metal seats, to which prisoners are chained.

Bosta rides can take 12 hours or more. There are no rest stops, food, or toilet breaks. “I was kept in the vehicle cell without anything to eat or drink until after midnight,” said Mohammad.

Mohammad showing his grey prison sweatsuit
Mohammad was made to strip down and wear only a grey prison sweatsuit. All his other belongings were thrown away by a prison guard who was beating and cursing him at the same time [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]

His father and uncle were standing there outside Ofer, waiting for him, when he was finally released in the wee hours on Tuesday so they could drive him home to Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.

A decision to humiliate

Things were more unpleasant than usual in prison after October 7, which was when Hamas launched a surprise attack from Gaza on southern Israel killing some 1,200 people.

People held in several institutions have reported severe beatings, denial of medical attention, lawyer and family visits, yard time, electricity, water, and hygiene essentials from the prison shop.

At least six Palestinian prisoners died or were killed in Israeli custody since October 7, including some shortly after their arrest.

Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack lasted 48 days and killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children.

On the 49th day, Friday, a four-day “humanitarian pause” negotiated by Egypt and Qatar began. Both sides said they would release captives – Hamas would release batches of people it took captive on October 7 in return for three times as many Palestinians held – with and without cause – in Israeli detention facilities.

As the exchanges continued and optimism rose, the truce was extended by two days to keep the exchanges going.

Mohamed Salhab al-Tamimi kisses his mother Fatima
Mohammad was very happy to see his mother, Fatima, again [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]

Over the same days that it released some 150 Palestinian detainees, Israel arrested 133 people, nearly as many, from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. Since October 7, Israel carried out 3,290 arrests in the same areas, which it has occupied since 1967.

Mohammad is not the first released person to say that there is extreme overcrowding in Israeli prisons.

“There were 10 prisoners shoved into cells that only had six beds. We used to have to spread blankets or something on the floor to sleep,” he said.

The amount of food they were given was insufficient, as it was also for six prisoners, not 10. The cellmates had to ration what food they got carefully.

Several prisoners were injured one day as well, Mohammad said, when prison guards attacked two sections of Rimon Prison

Aside from injuries and the reported deaths, Mohammad said: “The [Israeli] occupation had pretty much decided that they would humiliate the prisoners, ever since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Storm.”

Cut off from any news of the outside world, the detainees found themselves stripped of almost everything, including all possessions that were in their cells like utensils and appliances, they used to make things a little more pleasant. They were deprived of buying hygiene supplies, including laundry detergent, and barred from using the washing machines to wash their clothes.

Prison authorities also kept the prisoners away from their only outlet to let off some steam – the “fora”, or prison yard, and prevented them from making any noise.

“I used to love making the call to prayer from inside my cell so the whole section could hear, but that too was forbidden.

“It felt like they didn’t want us to even breathe.”