RE: https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/116423622126391865

AN INTERSECTIONAL PSA:

so yesterday i mused about the gender-bending 1980s whilst watching #TOTP and Ben posted this Grace Jones album cover.

Ms Jones genius lies in understanding how to exploit the white gaze. Ms Jones may be androgynous to YOU but NOT to a Black Carib like me.

growing up, Ms. Jones was unmistakably the hallmark of BLACK CARIB FEMININITY. as a Black Carib, there is no fucking way you could misgender Ms Jones.

THIS IS WHY #TRANSPHOBIA IS AT IT’S CORE RACIST.

🧵…

hormuzie pokey

You pull the tankers in
you pull the tankers out
you call "ceasefire!"
then you break it all about
you do the hokeypokey
and you turn those ships around

that's what it's all about!

You put some money in
you take more money out
you spook the futures markets
and you make the traders shout
you do the hokeypokey
and you flip that script around

that's what it's all about!

15 April 1945. British Royal Artillery troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Anne Frank had died there a few weeks earlier.

My grandfather was one of the British troops. When asked, he refused to speak about it. He still occasionally had nightmares 60 years later on.

After Bush v Gore, I got involved in a bunch of ugly tech policy fights over voting machines. The hanging chad debacle in Florida prompted Congress to appropriate funds for states to purchase new touchscreen voting machines based on a robust, open standard. Problem was, those machines didn't exist.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#just-peachy

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