Discrimination is never okay

I black cosplayer, Squidkid1111, Ashley… died of cyberbullying. They were a brilliant, creative human making amazing art and they were discriminated against for their skin color. Another amazing black cosplayer, Jahara Jayde created a stunning Frieren cosplay and I just dug back to their original post only to see tons of “frigger” and “niggen” comments under their beautiful work. We live in a terrifyingly discriminatory world. I feel powerless.

I did think of possibly starting up an auto-response movement. Any time someone says something discriminatory or racist, choosing a simple phrase, everyone can remember like, “discrimination serves no purpose but to make insecure people feel strong.”

Anything people can all remember and comment… or even creating an algorithm bot… to automate that response en masse.

Ash was a super talented person. I look back at their work and see passion, joy, expressiveness and a fun and lovely human. I know my own desires to find community and feel love and how they overlap with my cosplay interest and I just… I’ve attempted suicide too many times.

I feel disheartened, frustrated and numb… I want to celebrate all the black cosplayers who wear what they want and all the men who dress as women and vise versa. I kinda want to scold a friend of mine when he complains about race changes in shows and live actions or whatever. I don’t know what I feel or truly want to do… I just.

…maybe this is another personal photography goal. I want to empower people to express themselves in whatever way they love. Non-traditional, anti-establishment, taboo… whatever, long as it’s not actually “against” anything and just focuses on activism and empowerment of quiet voices.

I don’t know what I will do. I know what I’d like to do. I also want to shoot portraits for trans people just being human beings in their personal hobbies. I’ve been thinking that for… a year and a half or more, now.

My heart is already heavy at the moment. I just want some rest.

Today is a very heavy day

I’ve been back at recording my cycling trips and decided to start uploading some of the clips to Facebook. Today, my route to therapy was… heartbreaking. The amount of unhoused people, their cardboard sheets, them eating fast food on benches… and a man with a brand new electric wheelchair/scooter panhandling at a turnaround with his chair just sitting across the street. It clearly couldn’t handle the curbs. I guess the US healthcare system never consider that feature.

I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know what can be done. I’m a photographer, so I considered shooting a photo with my phone. The wide DoF would get the chair, him and the atmosphere… a “decent” photo could find traction on socials.

It’s just heartbreaking. My hesitation is part of that conditioning in me… to keep the suffering silent. Don’t let anyone know the sorry state of our country. …possibly the world.

I want this silence to be LOUD. I want it to be known. I want it to be remembered.

Amber Czech was Murder and there are steps we can all take to prevent these things

I’m feeling particularly disheartened once again. After reading a short post about a woman named Amber Czech, I looked into her story and discovered that a 40 year old, male coworker seems to have inexplicably murdered her with a sledgehammer on camera and when asked why, he reported he “didn’t like her and had been planning to murder her for some time.”

How is this 2025? What is happening?

I found an article detailing the event and mentioning some of the potential attributing factors regarding restrictions and legislation on workplace violence and harassment against women. Also mentioned are efforts by other women in the trades industries following Amber’s death.

Apparently there are deeply discriminatory commenters and misogynistic men claiming the woman’s hair and appearance made it either her fault or something she deserved.

When I was working at Bad Brad’s and even Carrabba’s I witnessed various kitchen staff acting unhinged and making explicit comments to the women working. At Stoney Roadhouse I also heard a number of woman supporting one another through something they were experiencing.

These are potentially avoidable experiences and we have the ability to support one another. A little while after an incident with a shortly working dish tech; literally the man who was told to “show me the ropes and teach me all the shortcuts” …he frequently acted frustrated with me for adhering to the restaurant’s guidelines which we all read in our onboarding, as a result of that particular comment… I was “disobeying him” and he took on “the responsibility of teaching me”. …he didn’t stay very long.

I digress, after a confrontation between him and a female coworker, I bought a book called, “I’ve Got Your Back” by Jorge Arteago and Emily May

I want to suggest I’ve Got Your Back to anyone who has ever seen something and wanted to say something but it felt wrong or you just couldn’t find the words.