It’s been nearly two months now since the “adult content” ban went into effect on Tumblr, but a handful of key things have not changed.

On December 17, 2018, Tumblr officially outlawed all content considered to be pornography in order to comply with the SESTA/FOSTA laws—laws that are allegedly supposed to combat human trafficking, but instead just make life exponentially more difficult and dangerous for sex workers.

According to a former employee, Tumblr’s new policy was influenced by the fact it had such a massive child pornography problem that Apple removed the Tumblr app from its stores, but the machinations were were already in motion months earlier due to the fact that Verizon—the parent company that owns Tumblr—couldn’t sell ads next to all that porn.

The first thing that any Tumblr user will tell you about the result of this ban is either that there are just as many porn bots on the social media platform as ever or that there are just as many Nazis. All the porn bot creators had to do was change the language their bots used and/or tag posts with “sfw” (safe for work) to avoid the wrath of the wildly ineffective, thrown-together auto-flagging program. Meanwhile, the average Tumblr user has had to put up with posts getting flagged when they have absolutely zero sexual content, but apparently have something in them that looks like a “female-presenting nipple” to a poorly-constructed algorithm.

Many users vowed to leave Tumblr when the ban was announced, and many did. Sex workers and body positivity blogs in particular have been affected. I myself have been on Tumblr since 2012 and credit the communities there for my education in everything from white privilege to non-binary genders to fat positivity. That last issue is of special interest to me as a woman who has gone from being thin or at least “not fat” in 2012 to being solidly fat today in 2019.

Like many people, I gained weight in my 20s due to a natural change in metabolism that happens to the vast majority of humans. Today, at 210 pounds and (almost) 5’5”, I’m a size 16, which is actually the average U.S. pant size for cis women. However, I am “obese” according to my BMI and my hanging belly and double chin would have me labeled as such by any of the mainstream news networks who love to panic about the so-called “obesity epidemic” in America.

I don’t have to tell you that it’s hard to be a fat woman in this country, and increasingly in many other countries around the world. Over the years I’ve experienced a stark difference in the way I’m treated by loved ones and strangers alike, not to mention by myself. Confronting the hateful voice in my head—placed there by a profoundly fat-phobic society—has been one of the greatest challenges of my 20s.

My biggest support in this battle against self-hatred has been other fat women. If it wasn’t for Tumblr, I don’t know where I would have found such a strong community around loving and accepting the body you have, at any size. Part of learning that acceptance has been viewing fat, naked bodies.

Even before the “adult content” ban, I didn’t see much nudity on my Tumblr dashboard, pornographic or not. But most of what I saw was people sharing their naked bodies in a celebratory manner. Whether they were dim, blurry selfies or professional photo shoots, Tumblr users exposed me to naked trans bodies, naked bodies of color, naked non-binary bodies, and naked fat bodies. Sometimes all at once. All were wonderful, and all worked to support those marginalized people who were left out of magazines, ads, and even mainstream pornography.

“Look, these bodies exist too, and they’re beautiful,” said every naked nipple, no matter the gender of the person they were attached to. For me, the fat bodies were a wonderful comfort, and I hoped to some day gain the courage to display my own fat naked body, unashamed, to help other women like myself learn to love and accept themselves.

Now I can’t. And since December 17, 2018, I don’t see naked fat bodies anymore. Ever. Tumblr was the only place I saw them before that date. Where else can I find them? I certainly tried Googling “fat naked bodies” for this article, and you can imagine what I found. Pornography featuring fat women is nearly always fetishized, which is not what I’m looking for. And I don’t want to have to wade through any kind of porn site in order to see a body like mine. I miss being able to see those bodies casually, unexpectedly, on Tumblr, as though it were as normal as a video of a cat batting things off of a counter.

And it’s not just full nudity. Due to the terrible quality of Tumblr’s nipple-detecting program, any photo containing something that looks round and fleshy tends to get flagged. I don’t even see fat bodies in bras and panties anymore. It doesn’t help that many of the body-positive blogs that posted these photos left Tumblr out of protest or because they knew their blogs wouldn’t be able to function anymore.

I reached out to three fellow fat women who had fat-positive Tumblr pages or used a Tumblr blog to promote their sex work to find out how they’re doing and/or where they are now.

Satine La Belle

Satine La Belle, a sex worker who uses multiple social media platforms to sell nude photos of herself for income, has been the most affected. She abandoned her Tumblr account once the “adult content” ban went into effect because she felt like it would be a waste of time to continue, especially with how overzealous the nudity-detecting program is.

“I felt like there was no point in having another platform where I would have to risk my hard work if there was anything sexual, whether that was a nipple or just sex positive sentiments,” she said.

Nearly all of Satine La Belle’s content on Tumblr was flagged before the ban even officially went into effect, including some of the content she used for her livelihood.

“I released a nude that is normally only for purchase on Tumblr before the change for my fans. It was flagged right away and I notified Tumblr about being able to have titties out until the 17th. It was then no longer flagged for a little bit.”

Predictably, the ban has had an impact on La Belle’s ability to make money as a sex worker, and she’s had difficulty making that up on other platforms.

“It has gone alright for me, but I have found it much more difficult to find clients on Twitter then I had on Tumblr. I think it is because Tumblr was a great safe space for nudity, nude art, porn, etc. Since it was more normalized there it was easy to find clients who knew what they wanted and were ready to pay.”

Satine La Belle is on Twitter, Instagram, and DeviantArt. You can also send her some money on her Ko-fi account.

Bec Mae Scully

Bec Mae Scully is the owner of the body-positive Tumblr blog Chubby Bunnies, which was hit so hard by the ban that the entire blog is now hidden behind a content warning. Attempting to go directly to the blog lands you on a page that says “This Tumblr may contain sensitive media,” then directs you to your dashboard where you can view it on the right-hand sidebar. If you don’t have a Tumblr account, you can’t view it at all.

Chubby Bunnies boasts a couple hundred thousand followers and has been a very active account for 10 years. Since the ban went into effect, Tumblring just hasn’t been the same for Scully.

“The ban has affected my interaction with followers a great deal,” she told me. “With close to a couple of hundred thousand followers who would usually be interactive daily with submissions, likes and reblogs have now disappeared.”

The lack of interaction has saddened Scully, but it also interferes with her ability to help the people that Chubby Bunnies is reaching out to.

“As silly as it might sound to some, Tumblr in a lot of ways saved my life,” said Scully. “At least 6 beautiful souls have said that because of the blog it helped them not end their life.”

Interaction with followers isn’t the only part of Scully’s blog that was disrupted by the ban.

“I didn’t make any money off the blog, but had recently been trying to put things in place so I could make a business out of it. When the ban came through it’s put it all on hold.”

Not only that, but the ban almost utterly wiped her blog out.

“At first 99.99% [of Chubby Bunnies’ content] had been removed. Then some of the content came back, and most of it is flagged, including my profile picture which was a caricature of me with mermaid hair covering my ‘female-presenting nipples’ that they seem to have such a problem with.”

The “adult content” ban is supposed to have exceptions for artistic expression and content used to make a political statement. Unfortunately, their flagging software has been wildly unsuccessful in make these distinctions. Users have to appeal every individual post flagged in order to get actual human eyes on the post. When your flagged posts number in the thousands, it creates a problem.

Chubby Bunnies is a Tumblr-exclusive blog, but Bec Mae Scully has many beautiful photos on her Instagram account if you’re lucky enough to be friends with her.

Amisha Treat

Even a Tumblr blog that focuses on fat positivity without showing a lot of skin, like Fat Girls Doing Things, has been affected by the “adult content” ban.

“The ban has mostly been just annoying for me, there isn’t a lot of ‘adult content’ on the blog so in that regard I haven’t had a ton to deal with,” says Amisha Treat, owner of FGDT. (Fat Girls Doing Things.)  “It has however reduced the amount of interaction and submissions happening, which is very disappointing, but I get why that is happening.”

Treat also talked about her constant efforts to block porn bots and blogs, which often target body positive blogs to steal images.

“It has done nothing to reduce the number of porn blogs that follow,” Treat told me. “In fact, it has made it harder to identify which ones are [porn bots] because their icon and posts are blocked so I can’t always confirm if I should block or not.”

Although the FGDT community is still largely intact, Treat is concerned that things will get worse. Unfortunately, there are no social media platforms out there that are quite like Tumblr.

“I have had to spend time trying to find another platform in case the ban continues as is, which is proving to be very difficult in terms of finding a site that allows easy interaction and submission availability.”

Fat Girls doing things also has a Facebook page, an Instagram, and a Twitter account.

In spite of widespread dissatisfaction with the “adult content” ban, Tumblr has given no indication that they plan to change the policy, and the flagging program has not improved. I myself have had two posts recently flagged — one classical nude painting and one that contained no nudity at all. I appealed both successfully.

Unfortunately, nothing is likely to change until the reason for the ban, the SESTA/FOSTA laws, are changed or repealed. Sex workers are leading the efforts to make this happen, but due to massive and widespread whorephobia in the U.S. and abroad, few are listening despite the fact that the laws have already been credited for the assault and murder of multiple full-service sex workers.

I’m lucky the ban’s effect on me has been comparatively mild. But I think about all the young women out there who are or are becoming fat who won’t have the same community support and access to unfiltered, unfetishized images of naked fat bodies. Eating disorders and the self-hatred and depression caused by our society’s intense fat-phobia have killed many and will kill many more. The hindering of a formerly indispensable tool in the fight against the stigma and hatred of fatness is nothing short of a tragedy.

At 2 a.m. on Sunday July 7, 2018, I awoke out of a dead sleep to the sound of a woman screaming for help at the top of her lungs. I don’t know how many times she screamed the word “help” or exactly how long it took me to come out of sleep, figure out that it wasn’t a dream, and realize that a woman really was screaming and I was hearing it.

It took another second of paralysis for that to sink in before my partner in bed next to me said, “did you hear that?”

“Someone’s screaming for help.”

It took several agonizing seconds for us to get our pajamas on. I ran outside while my partner fumbled with his shoes, but the screaming had stopped. I stood still, trying to listen, and realized with horror that I might be too late. A commotion finally came from an apartment three down from mine. That should give you an idea of how loud the woman was screaming. A man came out of the apartment and into the parking lot, followed by a very angry, but very alive, woman.

That was when my partner decided to call the police—a decision he now regrets, though he wasn’t the only one to call.

The two of us stood huddled in our jammies, watching the couple fight to make sure no one was hurt. It’s hard to say how long it took for the police to arrive—probably five to ten minutes. I didn’t hear any sirens, only the sound of cars approaching and doors slamming shut out of sight. Three officers then walked around the side of the apartment building and slowly approached the couple.

At the sight of the police, the woman turned around and started storming toward her apartment. The officers shouted at her to stop, placing their hands on their holstered firearms. They didn’t draw their weapons, but my mind flashed back to all of the video footage I’ve unfortunately watched of police shooting and killing unarmed suspects. My only comfort came from the fact that the couple was white, so they stood a much better chance of surviving.

The officers separated the couple and spent about five minutes interviewing them. After that, an officer walked over to the woman and handcuffed her. They informed her that she was under arrest. Stunned, I listened to the woman start to sob, and then a bit of hell began breaking loose.

People were angry. One neighbor, who had been watching through the window, started yelling at the police. “What are you doing?” he shouted repeatedly, “She screams for help, and then you come and arrest her?”

Another man approached from a different apartment building, having heard the commotion and also demanding an explanation. My partner yelled at the woman to stay quiet and get a lawyer. Meanwhile, my mind was racing. The woman was being led off by the one female officer, away from her apartment, in only her nightie. Stories about women being sexually assaulted by police and prison guards shot through my head. I started following her, terrified, but feeling that I couldn’t just do nothing.

My partner, being afraid of cops (as so many of us are), started yelling at me to come back. He regrets doing so. I regret listening to him. We both regret the entire night.

My partner yelled at the woman to stay quiet and get a lawyer. Meanwhile, my mind was racing.
Click To Tweet

The detained woman had been led out of sight, back to the police vehicles. The two remaining officers were looking on edge, trying to respond to the few members of the community who had come out to voice their displeasure. I remember the female officer coming back to me and my partner, who was upset to the point of going into “say every word that comes into his head” mode. All I could do was ask the officer in a shaking voice, now crying, if the arrested woman was given anything to wear. It took two tries to get an answer to my question.

“She’ll be given something.”

Translation: No.

The officers started telling everyone to go inside. We refused at first, still afraid that the cops might do something violent to our neighbors. Eventually, it became clear that there would only be talking, and I went back into my apartment.

I had work the next day, but I couldn’t sleep. I felt both helpless and useless, my mind going over all the things I could have said or done to intervene. Instead of sleeping, I found a place online where I could submit a complaint about the local police. I wrote that the officers on the scene acted aggressively by putting their hands on their guns and telling bystanders to go inside, that they made an arrest in very little time without the aid of a domestic violence advocate, and that they hauled off a woman in a nightie without allowing her to put on some reasonable clothes.

Later that morning, in the light of day, I surprisingly got a call from an officer, who attempted to explain away some of my complaints. When I expressed that this was not good enough, he asked me if I wanted to come down to the station to file a complaint, which I thought I had already done.

My partner and I decided to go together, mostly because I was too scared to go alone. We’re both white, so we didn’t expect to be brutalized, but we were still afraid—of authority figures, of guns, and of the amount of police misconduct that goes on in this country.

Sergeant Collins was friendly and took the time to read through the police reports and the complaint I had made. I was a little confused as to why we were even there. I had expected to pick up an official complaint form to fill out either there or at home. Then he started talking.

He spent about the next half hour “explaining” why the police acted as they did. It felt as though he was attempting to talk me out of making a complaint. Then he admitted that it was “very unusual” for bystanders to an arrest to file a complaint against police. This surprised me. Were people not doing this? Were the bystanders who have personally witnessed all the nearly daily incidents of deadly police brutality not filing complaints against the offending officers?

Information on how many complaints are filed against police in any given area, whether by arrestees or by bystanders, is hard to come by. And where it does exist, it often seems fishy.

In Seattle, criticisms about how the police handle complaints go back decades. A news release by the Washington State ACLU from 2009 called for an Independent Office for Police Accountability due to the fact that people who file complaints against the SPD have been “ignored, dissatisfied, and even threatened with libel suits.” In the nearby suburb of Bothell, where I live, complaints are handled internally. The vast majority of complaints against the police that are handled by said police are thrown out, so that doesn’t inspire much confidence.

He admitted that it was very unusual for bystanders to an arrest to file a complaint against police. This surprised me. Were people not doing this?
Click To Tweet

When it was found that the LAPD went through 1,356 allegations of biased policing without upholding a single one, the Police Commission president finally decided that they needed to look at how they handled investigations into these complaints.It seems utterly impossible that there were no incidents of “biased policing,” aka racial profiling, seeing as black Californians account for 17 percent of all arrests in the state while making up only six percent of the population. But according to the president and cofounder of the Center for Policing Equity at UCLA, racial profiling by police is “excruciatingly difficult” to prove.

The LAPD’s Biased Policing and Mediation reports include a description of the department’s adjudication process. It starts with the accused cop’s commanding officer, then goes through undefined “multiple levels of review” as the matter is investigated. There are multiple steps where higher authorities can “disagree” with the decision of the lower, ending at the Chief of Police. If that happens, it goes to whatever “officer director” applies in the specific situation.

What I can gather from all this as an average citizen without a criminal justice or law degree is that there are many ways to throw a complaint out and only one narrow path to sustaining the complaint—which brings the accused to a Board of Rights tribunal whose decision can be overturned by a court of law.

There is no standardization on how a police department should handle its complaint procedures. In New Jersey, for example, they just don’t bother to investigate 99 percent of brutality complaints. In Tacoma, Washington, not far from where I live, only 10 percent of complaints against police were sustained during a 12-month period investigated by Reuters. In Chicago, a recent and exhaustive report found 125,000 complaints against 25,000 officers from 1967 to 2014. Only 660 led to firings. Seven officers racked up over 100 complaints each over their careers, and were able to get away with this clear pattern of misconduct because this was the first report in the history of the department that made it possible to “to identify officers with a long history of complaints.”

How can you eliminate problem officers from a police department if you can’t even identify them?

Following the Chicago Tribune’s report, the U.S. Justice Department found “a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution” within the Chicago Police Department. It also found evidence of racial bias in the use of force, and that these problems are “largely attributable to deficiencies in its accountability systems and in how it investigates uses of force.”

How can you eliminate problem officers from a police department if you can’t even identify them?
Click To Tweet

In a recent video by Truth Be Told, DeRay Mckesson pointed to police unions as the source of these problems. These unions have worked tirelessly for the past 40 years to codify protections for officers into department policy, union contracts, and even local and state law. Police officers often get a “cooling off” period in which they cannot be questioned by investigators after a complaint is made. Most get their disciplinary records erased after a set period of time. Others get special information about the case, including the identities of the individuals who made the complaint.

The last thing I would want a rogue cop to know is that I filed a complaint against them. If citizens aren’t filing complaints against police, maybe it’s because they think that it’s pointless at best and dangerous at worst.

It dawned on me that Sergeant Collins did not understand why I was there. He was probably hoping I would either withdraw my complaint or accept his explanation and go away.

Realizing this, I just wanted to get out of there, but I had no idea how to end the interaction. Then, as Sergeant Collins and my boyfriend were discussing why cops had to go for their deadly weapons any time anybody did something they didn’t like, the officer demonstrated the action by grabbing at his holstered firearm himself.

My partner couldn’t handle it. His fear of guns is worse than mine. We both left in tears. I held back long enough for Sergeant Collins to get me an official complaint form, and before I could leave, he again tried to “explain” what the cops had done. I finally managed to tell him that it wasn’t just about these individual cops and whether they had followed protocol.

My problem was with the protocol. It was about an entire system of policing that is failing to protect and serve those it claims to.

I complained because I have legitimate concerns. I don’t understand why cops have to grab at their guns all the time, and why they don’t understand (or don’t care) that doing so is literally a death threat. I don’t understand why they had to threaten to kill a tiny woman in a nightie. Being told that the cops were afraid of weapons in the apartment doesn’t alleviate my concerns that she could have been sexually assaulted or make me feel any better about the complete lack of dignity with which they treated her.

I know that women can be domestic abusers, and I don’t know thing one about that couple. But I don’t understand how you decide who to charge within five minutes of talking without the aid of a domestic violence advocate. What I do know is how often women are arrested and imprisoned for lashing out in self defense. What I do know, and can’t ever forget, is the sound of that woman screaming for help as loud as her lungs would allow her.

I finally managed to tell him that it wasn’t just about these individual cops and whether they had followed protocol. My problem was with the protocol.
Click To Tweet

These are some of the things I said in an impassioned email I sent to my mayor, the Bothell Chief of Police, and the Bothell City Council after my meeting with Sergeant Collins. Again, to my surprise, I got a reply, this time from Mayor Andy Rheaume himself. To my disappointment, it was more of the same—an attempt to explain away the things I had complained about, ignoring the systemic roots of the issue. I wrote back, begging him not to brush me off.

I haven’t heard from him since.

I don’t know what came of the charges against the woman. I haven’t seen her or her partner since that night. I do know that she was booked at the King County Jail in Seattle on Sunday and set free on conditional release Monday afternoon. I hope she’s okay, and I hope her and the guy she was seeing stay away from each other.

What I did make sure to find out was whether my complaint had been filed into official record—and it has. I received an email from Captain Ken Seuberlich of the Bothell police, and he spoke on the phone with my partner. That conversation seemed to go well, and the Captain wanted to speak with me on the phone as well. But when we spoke, it was more of the same excuses.

This was a mild experience compared to so many of the violent and disturbing incidents of police misconduct that go on in the U.S. I feel traumatized from what I witnessed, and I didn’t see anyone hurt, beaten, sexually assaulted, or killed. But I know that happens daily, and that’s why I complained—because I could see the roots of the problem at work even here. Cops treating civilians in their pajamas like threats. Cops trying to talk bystanders out of making complaints. Cops refusing to look past the surface of the problem. Cops seemingly ignorant of the fact that many civilians are terrified of them.

Maybe some of my complaints were unwarranted, but I’m still glad I made them. And I’m glad I had the fortitude and the protection of my privilege to follow through and refuse to withdraw my complaint or let it go. Nothing will change if we’re not willing to constantly demand change at the core of the policing system that kills so many and is designed to allow killer cops to get away with murder. We’re facing a group of people who have given themselves special privileges, and are defended by the legal system every step of the way.

The police are supposed to protect their communities, not terrorize them. I’m not letting this go until I see real change.

To put it in blunt but unsurprising terms, the world is in shambles right now. Fascism is on the rise again. Hate crimes are up in the U.S. Water crises loom on the horizon. Wealth inequality has never been higher. Climate change and natural disasters abound. Mass shootings galore. Police brutality and racism. A rising threat of nuclear war.

Amidst this nightmarish backdrop, many people — particularly younger Americans — are in search of answers, trying to identify a root cause for all of these problems. And one that’s emerging front and center is our entire economic system.

A 2011 Pew Research Center poll found that a slight majority of liberal Democrats held “negative views” of capitalism. In 2016, a Harvard University study revealed that 51% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 “don’t support” capitalism—and only 42% support it.

So if not capitalism, then what?

The study found young people favor socialism, but that’s not the only alternative. There has been an uptick of interest in a 170-year old political system — that dirtiest of C-words.

Communism.

Amidst a nightmarish backdrop, many people — particularly younger Americans — are in search of answers. Communism.
Click To Tweet

It’s no secret that the United States doesn’t have the best relationship with communism; “dirty commie” is an insult as American as apple pie. Much of this is rooted in the The Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, which fueled the Cold War and the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and which had a lasting effect on how people in the U.S. view the political system. Since then, the U.S. government has interfered in multiple countries — supporting coups and assassinating leaders — in order to weed out communism anywhere it popped up. Or was even perceived to pop up.

For some, communism brings up images of the oppressive reigns of Soviet-era Stalin and China’s Mao, and the widespread murders attributed to their regimes. Communism is sometimes thought of as Big Government coming and taking everything you own.

Critics of communism say it goes against human nature, that it can’t work because people are naturally lazy and/or selfish, that it won’t work if the state gives citizens food and shelter for nothing. Frank Zappa famously said, “communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.” Others say it conflicts with people’s desire for freedom by forcing them to submit to the will of big government.

But is that what communism really is?

To understand the goal of communists, it’s necessary to have a nuanced understanding of communism and its relationship to Marxism — that political movement that so many in the so-called “alt-right” are constantly railing against.

A quick overview: Marxism draws from the work of Karl Marx, a German philosopher, historian, and economist from the 1800s. He and Friedrich Engels co-authored The Communist Manifesto of 1848, and since their passing, communists and other Marx/Engels fans have been interpreting and developing upon their ideas. One expert called communism “the endpoint of Marx’s ideas.”

According to Marx, there is conflict between two classes of people. These are the capitalists — people who control the means of production, such as business owners — and the working class, who actually produce all the concrete goods of our society. In its purest form, communism espouses the belief that the means of production should be in the hands of the workers — not the government.

What many people think of as communism is actually closer to socialism, a related system that has many similarities to communism. It is socialism, not communism, that relies on “big government” to get things done. In socialism, the government owns the means of production rather than the people. In a true communist system, government as we know it today would likely not exist.

In its purest form, communism espouses the belief that the means of production should be in the hands of the workers.
Click To Tweet

However, it’s important to keep in mind that these are ideas. The theories of socialism and communism are continually being developed and not every communist agrees with the next about how government should look in a communist society. Many value the idea of a true democracy rather than a representative democracy — every person gets an equal vote on every issue in the community. No one person is given power over others. There are no presidents, no governors, no mayors. In this form, communism actually overlaps with anarchist ideas more so than it does with socialist ideas.

In any case, in recent months, communist ideology has seemed to catch on with more Americans. The Communist Party USA — a national communist organization with 7,000 registered members — has reported a significant spike in interest and membership. According to one article, CPUSA had 5,000 members in April 2017; at that time, the organization’s international secretary said, “There is growing interest in communist ideas.”

Local groups, too, have been invigorated. In my own backyard, the Seattle Communists, a chapter of the Pacific Northwest-based Communist Labor Party, has seen its numbers swell. The organization, which came to life as a spin-off of the Tacoma Communists, had only three dedicated members in the summer of 2016. Now it has 25 to 30 registered members, and a lot more people involved in its community programs (plus more than 800 Facebook followers). It also has high-profile partnerships, including with 2017 mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver.

When A Changemaker Runs For Mayor: An Interview With Nikkita Oliver
theestablishment.co

Why the change? Sophia, Seattle Communists’ secretary-treasurer (who doesn’t want her last name used), has no doubt that the increase in membership has to do with the results of the 2016 election. She calls it the “Trump bump” — and the Seattle Communists aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed.

“Public receptivity has gone from, ‘Is this a joke?’ in 2010 to, ‘Why do you hate freedom’ in 2012 to, ‘Yeah fuck Trump’ in 2016,” a representative of the Tacoma Communists told me. “Blessedly, we hear ‘Where do I sign up?’ just as frequently since last summer.”

This trend parallels the increase in membership for far-right groups — the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that the Klu Klux Klan has anywhere between 5,000 and 8,000 members today. And far-right activity has been featured in the news much more than anything the communists are doing, likely due to the well-documented violent tendencies of fascist and white nationalist organizations. It also helps that they currently have a strong figurehead in Donald Trump, who has been reluctant to condemn them and has employed their people in the White House.

Further, communists believe that fascism happens when capitalism is under threat. As the economic system becomes unstable, white working class people are directed to blame immigrants and people of color and are steered toward white nationalism. Meanwhile, those with class and state power use fascism to defend against the rise of the rest of the working class as their quality of life plummets. In this sense, simultaneous rises in both far right and far left ideas are inevitable under capitalism.

It Wasn’t Just Hate. Fascism Offered Robust Social Welfare.
theestablishment.co

Against the backdrop of rising hate and bias nationally, coupled with Seattle’s rampant income and racial inequality, it’s unsurprising to see communism take flight.

“We don’t want the government to own everything,” Sophia tells me. In fact, she emphasizes, communists are widely against the U.S. government — they view it as an oppressive entity and an enemy of the people.

“What is government but a tool that a class uses to control society?”

What communists really want is for state and economic power to be put back in the hands of the community. For it to be communal. Hence, Communism.

To that end, the Seattle Communists — whose slogan is “fight the power, serve the people” — leverage community programs centered on efforts to build social institutions so that people don’t have to rely on the government. Their long-term goal: make it so every part of society is controlled by participatory democracy rather than state power.

The group’s earliest community involvement was in response to the rising rates of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, one they felt the government wasn’t responding to effectively. So the organization revived the “Q-Patrol” program, where volunteers are trained in self-defense and de-escalation techniques. The group is also involved in a “serve the people” food delivery program, launched last October to bring free groceries to poor households.

The group’s idea is to actively work to improve the community in order to gain trust, so when participants hear about communism, they won’t immediately dismiss the idea. Sophia repeatedly tells me about “making the leap from protest to action.”

Although there are misconceptions about communism, Sophia believes that the word doesn’t carry the same stigma that it used to. At least in Seattle, she is frequently asked why she uses the word communism because “doesn’t it scare people away?” But only once has anyone told her that they actually object to the term. “Everybody thinks that everybody hates the word and is scared of the word, but in my experience, not a whole lot of people are.”

The real challenge is to prove that their ideas work.

Many of us grew up with the message (some would say propaganda) that communism is impossible, evil, or both. But a new day might be dawning. It’s possible that communists haven’t seen this kind of interest in their ideas since they were so thoroughly persecuted in the 1950s.

I myself have become very interested in alternatives to capitalism in recent months, and although I can’t say for sure if communism is the answer, I also definitely don’t believe it’s evil, as I was taught growing up. I also know there’s a lot more to it than I could possibly get into in one article.

If you’re interested, there’s plenty of reading out there — and you won’t be alone in your exploration.

Content warning: descriptions of disordered eating behaviors and publications using problematic language surrounding eating disorders

It’s the holiday season, and I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty into it this year. Maybe after the abject horror of over 1 year and 340 days of President Trump, I’m in need of some cheer. Warm hats and fuzzy socks. Pretty lights.

This year I didn’t even mind the constant barrage of the same Christmas music everywhere I went. (Although I still don’t know why they can’t play one song from one of the other December holidays.)

But there’s one thing that does rain on my parade: the inevitable articles from every website claiming to be about “health,” popping up to shame me about what I eat during this food-focused season. The holiday—“Holy Crap You’re Eating More Food Than Usual, Fret and Panic”—articles come out around the same time as the Peppermint Lattes.

Every year it’s “5 Ways to Have a Healthier Thanksgiving” and “Burn Off Those Holiday Splurges.” It bums me out, not just because I’m trying to have a healthy body image and you are not helping, but because I worry about all the people I know who have eating disorders.

In recent years “health” publications have become a little more sensitive about how they approach the topic of weight and dieting thanks to body positive movements and the efforts of those struggling with/recovering from eating disorders, but we’re far from where we need to be.

There is a more than slight chance that this has something to do with how lucrative the business of telling people to lose weight has been. Three of the five most-circulated health magazines — Prevention, Men’s Health, andWomen’s Health — are owned by Rodale, Inc.

This October, it was announced that the book and magazines owned by Rodale will be bought by the mass media conglomerate Hearst Communications for close to $225 million. This might seem like quite a hefty chunk of change to us normal human beings, but Hearst saw a revenue of $10.8 billion in 2016. According to U.S. News (which, ironically, has its own health section with annoying and potentially harmful headlines), the diet industry rakes in $60 billion every year.

That’s a lot of influence in the hands of publications that claim to be relevant at least, and imperative at best, to your entire life. Remedy’s Healthy Living, with over three million active subscriptions, is all about “Your Way of Life.” The second most popular is “Prevention Magazine: Love Your Whole Life.” “Shape Magazine: Shape Your Life.”

Is there something more to life than the physical shape of my body? I can’t seem to remember.

In truth, however, I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I learned about “pro-ana” communities and began studying them.

Pro-ana is short for “pro-anorexia.” As in: “We at Anorexic Diet tips blog publish the best pro ana diet plans and pro ana tips and tricks to lose weight fast and become anorexic,” explains AnorexicDietTips.com.

Groups like this have received little media attention—despite them being egregiously dangerous—but what’s just as horrifying is the fact that tips commonly found on the most popular pro-ana sites and forums are not so different from those found on Health.com, or any number of other “health” sites.

One Health.com article from earlier this year is titled “49 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Feeling Full.” It’s full of fun little tips like drinking water before a meal and chewing gum instead of eating. These are frighteningly similar to the tips found on popular threads from MyProAna.com, a pro-ana forum and one of the first websites that comes up when you google the term “pro-ana.”

“Drinking an entire glass of water before every meal fills your belly, so you’ll likely end up eating less than you otherwise would have. During your meal, taking sips in between bites will help slow your pace and eat less overall.” — Health.com

“I guess you all know water is your bestie. Drink AT LEAST 8 glasses of water, or a glass per hour … Have a sip of water between each bite, It will help you to fill up faster and won’t make you overeat.” —MyProAna.com

Even more alarming are the tips that rely directly on shaming yourself for eating.

“Watching yourself eat junk food triggers discomfort, since you’re suddenly very aware of the unhealthy choice. So if you’re seeking an easy way to boost your weight-loss goals, consider picking up a new decorative mirror for your dining room or kitchen.” —Health.com

“Eat while watching yourself in the mirror naked. How much are you able to eat now?” —MyProAna.com

A big part of the pro-ana “movement” is keeping strict track of everything you eat. Sound familiar? What “health” publication these days doesn’t advocate for keeping a food journal? Not that having a food journal is going to make you anorexic or is necessarily negative or predicated on self-harm, but the language these publications use is, again, alarming.

“The power of the food journal is that it keeps you accountable and makes you more aware. You are less likely to grab that piece of chocolate cake if you know you have to write down later and face the ultimate critic (AKA you),” says the website for the popular book “Eat This, Not That.”

How else can I shame myself for eating?

“There are many ways to track your progress, from basic approach to just weighing yourself every day to using various fitness tracking apps or using the wearable devices that can help you accurately count the number calories you are taking and burning,” echoes a pro-ana site.

People suffering from this devastating illness very often make a set of rules for themselves around eating, and make these rules stricter over time. This is a common feature of related eating disorders as well, which means that all together they affect at least 30 million people in the U.S. alone. This path leads to more death than any other type of mental illness.

At least one person dies every 62 minutes from an eating disorder. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “Hospitalizations for eating disorders in children under the age of 12 years old increased by 119% between the years of 1999 and 2006.” 50% of teen girls and 33% of teen boys “engage in unhealthy weight control behaviors” as of 2017.

Eating disorders lead to more death than any other type of mental illness.
Click To Tweet

Pro-ana sites lean in to these self-imposed rules hard—and it’s this kind of attitude that leads directly to the disease, as victims become addicted to a dangerous sense of control.

You know who else talks about “rules” a whole lot?

“The 10 Rules of Weight Loss That Lasts” — Shape Magazine

“6 Eating Rules For Faster Weight Loss” — Prevention

“The 10 Rules of Weight Loss” — Runner’s World

“5 rules of fast fat loss” — Men’s Fitness

“5 Rules You Need to Follow if You Decide to Lose Weight” — Women’s Health Magazine

Yikes.gov.

Perhaps worst of all is the way both the “health” industry and pro-ana movement demonize food. Some foods are okay to eat, but they’re increasingly hard to come by. It recently came to public attention that fat was thrown under the bus by the sugar industry for sweet, sweet profits.

As it turns out, you need fat to live — a fact you might forget if you spend too much time in a pro-ana forum. Or on WomensHealth.com. You know what else you need to live? Sugar. I know there’s a difference between “refined” sugars and “natural” sugars, but I know at least half a dozen people who have tried diets that cut out all sugars — even those found in fruits and vegetables.

Biochemist Leah Fitzsimmons doesn’t think this is a particularly good idea.

Glucose is a simple sugar found in the blood of all animals—without it we die. We need sugar to live. It’s the main source of energy for our mammal brains, and disruption of “normal glucose metabolism” is a root cause of a number of brain disorders. Sugar is literally brain food.

We need fat to live. According to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the healthy range for body fat content is between 8 and 33%.

Another recent study found that low-fat diets might be killing people. Oops!

We need carbs to live. Carbohydrates are our main source of energy. They come in many different forms, and guess what, we need all of them! Carbs have a number of essential functions in the body, including that glucose regulation we talked about earlier. Also, pooping.

We need salt to live. I have family members who went on a low-salt diet and ended up with intense headaches and constant thirst no matter how much water they drank. Turns out salt is essential for allowing our cells to absorb and retain water. Critically low levels of salt can put your body into shock and send you into a coma.

In short? Health is very, very, complicated. What’s good for one person might not work at all for another. Eating only bagels will likely make you feel like crap, but then again, so will eating nothing but kale. If “health” publications are actually concerned about leading people toward eating disorders, they need to read into some of these pro-ana and pro-mia (pro-bulimia) sites and forums and sit with their horror for a spell, then rethink their entire existence.

Because demonizing food and shaming eating is not healthy, it’s lethal.

Unexamined bias and privilege play massive roles in not only who gets to diagnose mental health disorders, but who defines their criteria.

I grew up in a household full of people who were emotionally volatile and abusive. At any time, for no particular reason, I could be screamed at, guilted, shamed, or bullied — sometimes all four at once. I survived this by adapting, as humans do, to my environment, becoming hyper-vigilant, avoidant, and very anxious. I walked on eggshells at all times, constantly analyzing every slight change in a person’s facial expression, body language, and tone of voice. My alert level was always at orange.

Now, in adulthood—and generally surrounded by people who are not terrible—these habits and impulses still interfere with my attempts to build a happy life. Unfortunately, they’re very hard to break, and my alert level can’t just be turned down. I am, officially, mentally ill.

If this all sounds familiar to you, I’m not surprised. I’ve met many people who have had very similar experiences and now suffer from anxiety and/or depressive disorders. It’s to the point that the people in my life who don’t struggle with mental illness are out of the norm.

Speaking of “out of the norm”… Donald Trump is president of the United States.

For the past few months, nothing has seemed normal. He breaks well-established political norms on a regular basis. He says terrible and blatantly cruel things. He lies all the time. He puts completely incompetent people into positions of power.

In short, he’s not behaving at all like he should.

Speaking of “out of the norm”… Donald Trump is president of the United States.
Click To Tweet

And as a result, since his rise to leading Republican presidential candidate, the thinkpieces and compulsive conjecturing on his mental health have been published with increasing frequency and alarm. Paul Krugman has called Trump “obviously mentally ill” on Twitter, #DiagnoseTrump campaigns and petitions have gone viral, and last month California congressman Ted Lieu made news when he pushed for legislation requiring a psychiatrist in the White House.

In attempts to make sense of Trump’s abnormal behavior, journalists and assorted other media figures have scrambled to ask any and every person with any kind of background in psychology what they thought about Trump’s mental state. Such inquiries and articles have only intensified since Trump took over the country’s helm.

To a point, I get it. The United States appears to be in chaos and human beings have a need to make sense of things. Further, mental illness has a long history of being used as a handy scapegoat to explain Bad Things. In particular, it’s been increasingly used to explain away the mass shootings committed overwhelmingly by white men. Before that, it was routinely used to describe anybody who committed a heinous enough violent act to get in the news.

The president is behaving in a way that lies far outside the boundaries of what we conceive of as “normal,” particularly for a person holding the highest office in the land. His actions are scary, and collectively as a society we are attempting to make sense of something that seems to make little recognizable sense.

Some Arguments Against Calling Trump ‘Crazy’ Do Added Harm

Around Inauguration Day, speculation that Trump has Narcissistic Personality Disorder seemed to reach a fever pitch. But Dr. Allen Frances, M.D.—who contributed to developing the criteria for the disorder in the the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — weighed in, tweeting that Trump does not fit the criteria for the illness as he is not impaired. Highlighting his expertise in this area, Frances claimed that Trump was “bad, not mad.”

Indeed, it is difficult to say that someone is impaired when they can reach one of the greatest achievements in the world.

This got me thinking. What is mental illness in a society where someone like Donald Trump could become the U.S. president? How can someone who behaves so badly—so consistently inappropriately and erratically—be considered mentally healthy, or at least mentally competent enough to become the leader of the world’s biggest superpower?

It is difficult to say that someone is impaired when they can reach one of the greatest achievements in the world.
Click To Tweet

I posed these questions to Dr. Allen Frances himself over email. His response smacked me right out of the bad path I was going down of framing Trump’s behavior in terms of mental health.

“It is a great, and frequently made, error to equate bad behavior with mental illness. The mentally ill only rarely behave badly and people who behave badly are rarely mentally ill. And as many people have pointed out, talking about bad behavior as though it’s an inevitable quality of the mentally ill does us a lot of harm.”

This was certainly true in my experience. As a kid and as a teen, I was so terrified of getting in trouble that I never so much as shoplifted a candy bar, I didn’t try weed or alcohol until I was in college, and I drove myself into the ground to get nearly all A’s throughout middle and high school.

Still, concerning Trump, my initial question hadn’t been answered. What does “mental illness” even mean in a society that elected Donald Trump to the presidency? What is it in a society that’s sick enough to have put an administration into power that ticked off most of the hallmarks of fascism off in less than a month?

New research into stress and trauma is leading a number of psychologists to believe that many incidents of mental illness are the result of behaviors and stress responses learned during traumatic incidents and/or abusive or highly stressful environments that are maladaptive in one’s larger society.

Again, this resonates with my own experience. I now work in a place where I have never been treated badly or screamed at or even scolded, yet I still feel like I have to walk on eggshells. Despite all evidence that it’s a safe place, I have trouble asking for help or admitting to making any kind of mistake, which impedes my ability to work.

The role of trauma and stress in mental illness formation was further explored by psychology professors Bruce J. Ellis and Marco Del Giudice in the 2013 paper “Beyond allostatic load: Rethinking the role of stress in human development.” In it, they argue that the standard idea that the intense stress responses learned in a volatile childhood environment result in toxic and maladaptive behavior patterns in adulthood is too simplified. They explore the idea that what are considered to be “maladaptations” could instead be viewed as differences in skill types—and at times even represent advantages:

“…maltreated children score lower than comparison groups on standard tests of intelligence and executive functions. Yet such children may show enhanced ability to detect, learn, and remember stimuli that are ecologically relevant to them. This includes enhanced perceptual sensitivity to angry facial clues, increased anticipatory monitoring of the environment in the context of interpersonal hostility, greater accuracy in identifying facial expressions of anger based on degraded visual information, greater speed in accurately labeling fearful faces, enhanced recall of distracting aggressive stimuli, and greater accuracy in identifying an adult in a photo line-up with whom they previously had a stressful interaction.”

Sounds like me.

But, of course, not all stress is caused by family. What if all of society is a highly stressful environment for someone? What about, to name just a few groups, black Americans, trans people, and Latinx immigrants? Could they ever be considered “truly” mentally ill while living in a society that openly treats them far worse than my family treated me? If members of various marginalized populations are highly anxious, stressed, suspicious, or even hostile all the time, is that not a normal, adaptive response to the threats they’re under just by existing?

Why I’m Done Being A ‘Good’ Mentally Ill Person

To glean more insight on the matter, I spoke with sociologist Dr. Nancy Heitzeg, author of The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Education, Discipline, and Racialized Double Standards, on how white privilege interacts with the diagnosis of mental illness. In her text, she demonstrates how white people tend to be “medicalized,” or diagnosed with some kind of illness that renders them not responsible for their actions — let us not forget the infamous case of “affluenza” in which a wealthy teen was sentenced to rehab after killing four people on a drunken joy ride — while people of color, particularly black individuals, are “criminalized.”

In the introduction of her book, she says:

“This trend toward criminalization for people of color and medicalization for whites provides the larger socio-political context for the school-to-prison pipeline as youth of color, particularly Black males, are increasingly ‘criminalized’ within the context of schools, while their white counterparts are ‘medicalized’ for the same disruptive behaviors.”

Dr. Heitzeg expanded on this in our conversation, explaining how even when black and other marginalized children are diagnosed with illnesses rather than being immediately funneled into the juvenile justice system, a diagnosis is more likely to function as a stigma than as a way to excuse behavior.

“When you look at black children, there’s a tendency to label them with learning disabilities and behavior disorders or disturbances,” she said. This kind of diagnosis only serves to label them as ‘problem children’ who should be given up on, rather than sick kids who just need some extra help. “The medical model is helpful for some but can be a double whammy for others.”

This further complicates things. If there’s so much bias in how people are diagnosed, how can we know who is ill and who is not? What about the fact that many of the people who do the diagnosing are privileged white people? How much privilege do the people writing the criteria for diagnosis have?

Dr. Heitzeg’s response to that question told me enough: “Don’t get me started.”

If there’s so much bias in how people are diagnosed, how can we know who is ill and who is not?
Click To Tweet

It’s not just about race, either. Women, for instance, are often misdiagnosed with personality disorders for being “overdramatic” (thanks to a generous dose of medical misogyny from the historically male-dominated field of psychiatry) and autistic kids are often initially misdiagnosed with mental illness. And it’s important to keep in mind that higher level mental illnesses such as personality disorders and schizophrenia are significantly more stigmatized than my mood disorders.

In the broader social justice community, talk of mental illness still seems to be fairly surface level, rarely taking these many nuances into account. Mental illness is considered to be an axis of oppression, and neurotypicals — people without mental illnesses, autism, or any kind of “intellectual” disability — are the oppressors. But I feel a bit weird talking about “those neurotypicals” because who actually is neurotypical when our system of diagnosing mental illness is so imprecise and so subject to prejudice?

Not only can you not tell if someone has a mental illness by looking at them or how they behave, they themselves may be mentally ill and not know it. And some of us who have been labeled with an illness may in fact not have one, either because we were misdiagnosed for being female and upset, because we’re actually autistic but present differently because we’re not white boys, or even because we’ve fully recovered but can’t shake the stigma.

So is Donald Trump mentally ill? That’s not the conversation we should be having.

We should be talking about his white-supremacist-backed bigot horror machine administration and how his policies threaten the lives and livelihood of millions of people globally. And while we’re at it, we also need to have a deeper conversation about what mental illness is, including how it’s defined, who gets to define it, and how that definition changes with privilege — or a lack thereof. It needs to be a lot more than just “don’t use words like cr*zy” and “don’t compare us to Donald Trump.”

Although seriously, please, stop doing that.