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I realise that what’s been going on in Ireland is trending at the moment with the police murder of George Nkencho, and though I normally use tumblr as a ‘destress’ I think it’s really important to explain the situation in Ireland to everyone. Cn: racial violence and murder, paedophilia mention For context, I’m white Irish, but I hope this post can be useful to us/uk centric tumblr.

The African Advocacy Network Ireland called George Nkencho’s killing by police an execution (x) and as an Irish person, it’s difficult to see otherwise. Irish police (gardaí) are almost all unarmed. We call them the garda síochána - literally, the guardians of the peace. I can’t remember the last time I heard of the gardaí killing anyone. When I go abroad to the UK or the rest of Western Europe, I am always incredibly freaked out by the armed police everywhere - and that’s not even as bad as America. So in Ireland, having the armed section of the police go after a mentally ill black man is really not normal. It is already suggesting an act of violence that our police normally are not allowed to commit.

It’s worth noting that whilst our police are not armed, they are still as complicit in state violence as in any other country - ACAB still applies in Ireland on a huge level. Police are complicit in deporting immigrants, in the mistreatment of those arrested, in the mistreatment of sex workers etc., and that should not be ignored. Our police also have a horrendous track record on corruption - our previous government nearly fell because a whistleblower on corruption in the police force was reported by the police as a paedophile and had his life destroyed. (x) The gardaí have a horrendous track record of closing ranks when an accusation is levelled and of doing anything they can to protect their own, and unfortunately Ireland is so small that institutions historically are capable of carrying out huge, cosy corruption. The gardaí are absolutely at the centre of this and this needs to be drawn attention to.

Ireland is more than 92% white, and only 1.3% black. (x) I don’t know a single non-white person in this country who does not feel constantly aware of their difference and constantly excluded. Again, being a small country does not help with this - the smallness of the country exacerbates how difficult it is to exist as a person of colour in Irish society, because everywhere you go there is a very homogenous, white, Catholic, Irish culture. I don’t want to say more on this because I don’t personally have experience of being black in Ireland, but I hope this contributes to your understanding of how clearly racially motivated Nkencho’s shooting was. The coincidence of the armed police (of which there are very few) going after a black man (who are statistically a huge minority) is really too much for me to buy given how endemic racism is in our country.

I also want fellow Irish people, if you’re reading this, to put pressure on the press. The Irish Times, one of the country’s main news sources, is very clearly coming out in favour of the gardaí here, and it’s not unfeasible to see the country’s elites (the same who fucked us over earlier this year in golfgate x) work with the government to smooth this over. Our government and their allies are a boy’s club, as golfgate proved. If you’re Irish and you’re able to, please go and protest - I can’t because I’m immunocompromised, but I will be writing to the government and to the Irish Times etc. - those of you who are not Irish, protesting embassies (safely) and writing to the press and to Irish government officials would be hugely helpful - please pretend to be Irish when you do this, otherwise they will ignore you. Please do not use template emails when writing to the government as our government filters them out!

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-justice-for-the-unlawful-killing-of-george-nkencho-justiceforgeorge?recruited_by_id=95429be0-4b41-11eb-a239-2bc7a8cae2dd [please don’t donate to change.org!]

These are Irish organisations that really need your donations! I haven’t explained the other horrific racist apparatuses of the state because this isn’t the post for it, but Ireland has been condemned by the UN for the way it breaches human rights of asylum seekers, so these are all vital (x).

Irish Refugee Council, who support people seeking protection in Ireland

Doras, an independent NGO working to protect the rights of migrants in Ireland

Immigrant Council of Ireland, an independent law centre working to provide assistance to people from a migrant background and protect their rights

Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice (MERJ Ireland), an organisation of migrant women of colour actively campaigning for reproductive justice and for all and contributing to feminist discourse in Ireland

Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, a platform for asylum seekers to seek justice, freedom and dignity for all asylum seeker

Email the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, here: helen.mcentee@oireachtas.ie

Thank you for reading - I realise this is a long post. Please do dm me if you want any more info/resources - always happy to help.

Flashlight Fishes

The name flashlight fishes usually refer to either the eyelight fish, Photoblepharon palpebratum, or the splitfin flashlight fish, Anomalops katoptron. Both are in the Beryciformes order of carnivorous, ray-finned fishes.

Photoblepharon palpebratum (left), Anomalops katoptron (right)

The most prominent feature of flashlight fishes are the large light organs present under each eye. Each sack contains colonies of bioluminescent bacteria which creates light simultaneously. The flashlight fishes are able to control the amount of light produced by either covering up the sack with a muscular flap, much like an eyelid or using rotational shutter-like mechanisms to rotate the sack inwards, essentially covering the light.

Photoblepharon palpebratum with its light organ open (left) and closed (right). Photo credit: Reef Builders

Commonly found in coral reefs and rocky regions of the eastern Indian and wider Pacific Oceans, it is one of the few shallow water species that can produce light. Predominantly nocturnal, they hide in caves and holes in the reef during the day. At night, they travel in schools far away from the reef surface, foraging for small planktonic prey for food.

It has been theorized that the light produced may help them locate and attract potential prey while allowing to communicate with other members of its species. They can also withdraw the light in the presence of predators to make a quick getaway

here’s a twitter thread of charities related to colon cancer that you can donate to in honor of chadwick boseman (x)

here’s a suicide hotline for if any of you are in need of immediate support (x)

please take care of yourselves and your friends tonight everyone

if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in the midwest, this is it. 

Bruuhhh 😩

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

First thing I saw when I opened Twitter (x)

Exciting news.

I firmly believe that not only should we raise the minimum wage, but we should also create a maximum wage. There is no reason in which an orthopedic surgeon, which is the highest paying doctor will make an average of $464,500 a year, while the top 10 CEOs earn well over $33 BILLION a year. If we even so much as cap their earning potential at $1 billion, which is more money than anyone should really need to live a happy fulfilling lifestyle, then it would force them to put that money toward the company or be punished. This means giving their employees better health insurance, giving them more vacations, better wages, paying for their college or their children’s education, creating more jobs, and improving the functionality of their companies. Perhaps even force them to invest in the communities they are serving. 

For those of you who are still skeptical… let me put it this way… the highest earning CEO “earned” $156,077,912 in 2014. Let’s boil this down. There’s about 52 weeks in a year. Let’s say that he works 40 hours a week. So a total of 2,080 hours a year. That’s $75,037 an hour. The median HOUSEHOLD income in the US is $50,502 per year. He’s earning 1.5 times the amount per hour than the average household makes in a year. That disparity is absurd. To put that even further into perspective, the average NEUROLOGIST earns $219,000 a year according to a 2014 statistic. Every single one of the CEOs on the 100 highest paid CEOs earn at least 93 TIMES the amount that a NEUROLOGIST makes. 

Something needs to change. People shouldn’t be starving for the sake of someone else’s greed.