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Joy

Read the powerful, viral note this dad wrote to his makeup artist son's bully.

Internet, don't you dare mess with Manny Sr.





This is YouTuber and makeup guru Manny Gutierrez.

Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for People.

He's taking the beauty world by storm, one tweet at a time.

Maybelline just recruited Gutierrez to be the face of its new mascara campaign — the very first time the role has ever been given to a man.

From a promotional standpoint, the move was a smart one. Gutierrez has amassed millions of social media fans who follow him for his expert makeup advice and hilarious online presence.

Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Maybelline New York.

But with all the extra fanfare lately, Gutierrez, who is openly gay, has attracted some unwanted attention too.

On Jan. 6, 2017, conservative blogger Matt Walsh tweeted out a photo of Gutierrez, writing, "Dads, this is why you need to be there to raise your sons."

Dads, this is why you need to be there to raise your sons.pic.twitter.com/8ybirgppKi

Needless to say, Walsh's tweet — which racked up nearly 5,000 favorites and over 1,600 retweets — encapsulates a whole lot of bigotry and ignorance in less than 140 characters.

Walsh's rhetoric wasn't just harmful, though, it was factually incorrect too.

Gutierrez's dad, "Manny Sr.," has been there for the social media star.

In fact, he's been one of Gutierrez's biggest supporters.

After Walsh's example of fragile masculinity went viral, Manny Sr. — who works for his son and is "so proud" of him — decided to throw in his two cents. He wrote a message addressed to Walsh and asked Gutierrez to share it on his social media accounts:

My dad is a fucken SAVAGE, I can't with him pic.twitter.com/iWceEmZ6L4

"Not only am I proud of what [my son] has accomplished, but I'm more proud of the person he has become," Manny Sr. wrote.

"I know the words you speak are from lack of knowing anybody from the LGBT community," he wrote. "If you did, you would soon realize they are some of the most real and kind hearted individuals that walk this planet of ours."

Fortunately, Manny's tweet with his dad's message has spread much further than Walsh's original hateful comment, garnering more than 12,000 retweets and nearly 60,000 favorites.

Gutierrez's dad's love for his son reflects a broader shift in parents who are accepting and supportive of their LGBTQ children.

While the popularity of same-sex marriage doesn't necessarily indicate progress on all queer issues, it does serve as a general barometer to gauge Americans' evolving attitudes on LGBTQ rights. And in that sense, we've come a long way.

Not only has national approval of marriage equality trended upward in recent years — surpassing 60% in 2016 — but, more specifically, parents of a certain generation are coming around to the idea too: A 2016 WedInsights study found that 60% of married same-sex couples reported having emotional support from their parents — up from 46% in 2013.

There are many more Manny Sr.'s out there.

In response to the letter, fans applauded Gutierrez's dad.

Whether it was through an abundance of exclamation points...

...attempts to recruit Gutierrez's dad for public office...

Can we have your dad for president?!

...or sending him a simple message of love via hug.

Fans loved Manny Sr.'s message of inclusion. And that message, of course, wasn't lost on Gutierrez either.

"He's the best," Gutierrez wrote in response to one fan. "[I'm] so lucky to have him."


This article was originally published on 1.18.17


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People have been prank-calling Trump's anti-immigrant hotline in glorious ways.

Apparently, the first day of Donald Trump’s new immigrant crime hotline went amazingly — just not in the way the Trump administration had probably hoped.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

The Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement Office (VOICE), established to assist victims of crimes committed by "removable criminal aliens," was reportedly prank-called all day by protesters claiming to have been abused by E.T., Jabba the Hutt, and other notorious creatures from outer space.

The trend was first noticed by Robbie Gramer, a writer for Foreign Policy.  

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told BuzzFeed that the hotline was "tied up" throughout the day by the protesters.

Alexander McCoy, a Marine Corps veteran and progressive activist, claims to have kicked off the tongue-in-cheek protest with a tweet Wednesday afternoon.

"I swore an oath to defend my community and uphold the Constitution," McCoy says. "I see speaking out as a way of continuing to fulfill my oath and standing behind the immigrant community that is under attack."

McCoy, who explains that he finds the term "aliens" intentionally dehumanizing, called the hotline and — after waiting on hold for 20 minutes — was asked if he was calling to report a crime by an "illegal alien."

He told the operator that he'd been abducted and taken to a UFO.

"I heard them give a long sigh," he says. "And they closed out the conversation saying that they'd make a note of it."

Critics of VOICE allege that it unfairly demonizes immigrants — singling them out for suspicion based on their status.

The office was announced during Trump's Feb. 2017 address to Congress during a tribute to four guests whose family members were killed by undocumented immigrants.

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

Two recent studies conducted by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform organization, and the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, found that immigrants — whether documented or undocumented — commit crimes at lower rates than native-born residents.

An ICE official told Upworthy that the VOICE office is intended to provide information to crime victims and does not receive crime reports, and also that he considers the protest a "shameful" stunt at victims' expense.

After McCoy's tweet went mini-viral, other prank-tivists began calling in, adding their own spin.  

Michigan resident Lisa Polmanteer used her time on the phone with a VOICE representative to troll Melania Trump — claiming to have been "victimized" by an immigrant living off her tax dollars in New York City.

According to Polmanteer, the operator asked if she was talking about the first lady. When she said yes, he hung up.

Others on Twitter suggested an entirely different, punny approach.

While the prank was undoubtedly silly, its message was incredibly serious.

"I feel like the administration is going to use these stories to further demonize immigrants [and] refugees," Polmanteer says. "My grandparents were immigrants. I take it personally, I guess."

McCoy hopes the protest will move participants to support the efforts of immigrant rights groups, like United We Dream, Presente, Mijente, and the DRM Action Coalition, who have been, as he says, "fighting this fight much longer than I have."

He also hopes people will continue to take action against attempts to stigmatize those who come to the U.S. seeking a better life.

For now, that means fighting efforts like VOICE — even if it means being a little annoying.

Or especially if it means being a little annoying.

"I feel like the only thing I can do about it is be disruptive." Polmanteer says. [I'm] feeling pretty overwhelmed and powerless, you know? So I'm a jerk wherever I can be."

Photo by Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images.

This post was updated with comments from ICE.

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'Be careful, she'll blow up,' he said. I'm Iranian. This was my response.

Back in July, I had a racist encounter. I say "encounter" because when you have skin as light as mine, experiences with racism can feel pretty alien.

All napkin illustrations by Anisa Rawhani. Used with permission.

I should start from the beginning.

My boyfriend and I hop on the subway. The man standing next to us strikes up a conversation. We laugh and chat, enjoying the company of a stranger.

Then the man begins to speculate about my white boyfriend’s background, to which he responds that he’s British.

Then it’s my turn.

“And you, you must be Portuguese or Italian,” the man says.

“I’m actually Persian-Iranian.”

The man turns to my boyfriend.

“Be careful. She’s going to blow up.”





Unwanted attention. Everyone has experienced it, albeit to varying degrees.

Most women experience it when they’re belittled because of their gender. Catcalls, harassment, day-to-day indignities — all to make us feel like we don’t have a right to the space we’re occupying.

None of that is new to me, and each time one of these gender-based indignities happens, I grow a little less shocked and a little more outraged. Each incident piles on and crawls further under my skin, echoing every other time it’s happened to me or a friend.

But when I heard a man say I’d blow up, I entered uncharted territory. Suddenly, my race was the target.

At first, neither of us understood what he meant. My boyfriend thought "blow up" implied I’d get emotional. I thought it meant I’d get fat. Seeing our confused expressions the man clarified: He was talking about bombs.

Maybe if he’d said that to someone browner — someone more "ethnic" — the penny would have dropped faster. When it finally did, I remember feeling shocked and disappointed. That was about it.

It wasn’t like those times men harassed me because of my gender. This man’s words didn’t inspire deep emotions because there were no memories to be recalled. There was no wound for him to reopen and exploit.

Indifference in the face of racism is an unbelievable luxury.

That someone was unable to cause me pain or reduce me to a feeling of nothingness with mere words is not a mark of my own strength, but a mark of my experiences — or lack thereof.

That I’m not insecure about my race isn’t because I’m a confident woman; it’s because I so rarely have to think about it. I’m not constantly being reminded.

After the man on the subway clarified what blowing up meant, I remember:

Feeling my face fall, seeing my boyfriend’s jaw flex, the man sensing the change and backtracking because we were taking what he said too seriously. He wasn’t racist. His girlfriend was Indian and Muslim, which he explained smugly.

When I see racism from the outside I leap to my feet; I’m ready to take on anything. But when it was about me, I couldn't do it.

I just wanted to be as far from that man as possible.

In the time that immediately followed, I thought about all my non-white friends who’d confided in me about moments like this. I thought back on all the times my friends told me about racist encounters with classmates, professors, and strangers. How often I’d thought: Why didn’t you do anything?

I know now what an unfair standard that was.

When you become the target of racism, you’re stripped of valid choices. That doesn’t mean you’re powerless, but you’re working within a set of circumstances that are fundamentally unjust. You’re expected to rise to the occasion when someone’s attempted to strike you down. It’s easy for people with their feet planted firmly beneath them to say stand up for yourself.

We’ve all heard about racist incidents — many far more disturbing than what I described. Many of us (myself included) would like to think if we were in that situation we’d have a witty response on hand — or at the very least that we’d give them a piece of our mind.

It’s rarely so simple.

Option A: You can try to back up and disengage.

Option B: You can blow up. You have every right to be upset, so you confront the person’s prejudice. You make it clear just how out of line they are.

Option C: You can speak up. When you’re the victim of a racist incident, you’re immediately racialized. When you speak, you aren’t speaking as yourself, you’re speaking as an ambassador of "your people." That’s a lot of pressure.

It’s great in theory, but difficult and emotionally taxing in practice, especially when you’re not exactly prepared for it.

Whether someone speaks harmful words out of ignorance or because they have deep-rooted hatred, they tend to grow defensive very quickly when confronted with their indiscretion.

Not every ear is willing to listen, not every person is worth pursuing, and it’s not the responsibility of victims to educate their assailants.

For those of us who aren’t victims (or rarely are), remember that raising expectations and what-ifs, or questioning why a victim responded the way they did, isn’t helpful.

After the man rambled on about why what he said wasn’t offensive, the train started to slow and my boyfriend said this was our stop. We left the car and waited on the platform for the next train to come.

Some things about this incident remain unclear, but one thing I know for certain: As I waited on that subway platform for the next train to come, I was sure glad I wasn’t alone.

This post first appeared on Raw Honey and is reprinted here with permission.

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She turned her dad's 50-year-old FBI file into a stunning work of art.

Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once said the most threatening thing about the Black Panthers was their free breakfast program for kids. Seriously.

That didn’t stop the FBI from keeping close tabs on people like Rodney Barnette, a founding member of the Compton chapter. A Vietnam veteran, he became disillusioned by the racism he experienced after returning home from the war. During his time organizing through the Panthers, he helped push the group's "radical" agenda that involved feeding hungry kids, protecting elderly in their neighborhoods, and providing black people easier access to health care and hospitals.

Eight different FBI agents followed Barnette for several years. They traded information with one another as they intimidated and gaslighted him, even going so far as to get him fired from his job at the post office. It was all in an attempt to demoralize and crush a movement they couldn’t control.

Rodney Barnette, circa 1968. All images by Sadie Barnette, used with permission.

The FBI had more than 500 pages of records on Barnette. Now, nearly five decades later, he and his family got to see those pages.

“We filed a request through the Freedom of Information Act, but it took about four years of back and forth writing letters before we actually got the file,” explains Sadie Barnette, Rodney’s daughter.

The loving father she’d known was a lifelong labor organizer with a passion for grassroots community building, a kindhearted man who built the first black-owned gay bar in San Francisco.  She’d heard stories growing up about his involvement with the Black Panthers, but even he still had questions about that period of his own life — until the day that massive PDF document finally arrived.

“We were really just blown away by how much attention they paid,” Sadie explains. “They interviewed all of my dad’s employers. They interviewed his high school teachers and even the little old lady next door to where he grew up ... just so many resources they put into not just my dad, but anyone who was organizing with the Black Panthers and other groups at the time.”

Rodney’s name was included on the FBI's Administrative Index, or ADEX, which was essentially a terrorist watchlist at the time — a fact that Sadie calls sobering and terrifying. The agency even kept a detailed tree of his extended family, all of whom had been interrogated too.

Sadie as a baby, with her dad.

Then Sadie took those pages of her father’s life and turned them into art.

Sadie is an acclaimed visual artist whose work has been seen across the world. While the FBI files were obviously an important artifact for their family, she also knew they would make great fodder for a new project.

With her father’s blessing, Sadie combed through the files to find the most striking pages, and she found different ways to repurpose them — and the discordant story they told. She tagged some pages with pink and black spray paint like graffiti, while others were combined with her original artwork.

“There’s also these rhinestones that adorn some of the pages," she explains. “That was an act of love and an act of trying to to heal this really intense and violent surveillance that people were going through and also to memorialize some of the people who lost their lives during that time.”

Sadie didn’t just assert her family’s ownership and recontextualize the FBI records. She also juxtaposed them with her father’s own photographs of himself and of her as a child. “It’s really a chance to reclaim the narrative and paint a more real picture of my father,” she says.

The artwork become a physical exhibition called “Do Not Destroy” that was displayed at galleries in Oakland and New York, with another exhibit scheduled at University of California, Davis.

According to Sadie, nearly 400 people turned out at the opening in Oakland, which was part of a larger celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Black Panthers.

“It was a really intergenerational crowd,” she says. “People were there with their families, really reading through all the pages and investigating everything. I think because the Panthers were founded in Oakland, it’s a really personal history to so many people there. The courthouse where many Panthers had their trials was just two blocks from the museum, so it really felt like what our town is about.”

Some visitors even confessed to her in private about their own families' secret or shunned connections to the area’s history of black liberation and social progress. They said the artwork was inspiring them to find out if there were records on their parents too.

Sadie, at the exhibition's opening.

Sadie's artwork has also helped people realize this 50-year-old history is still frighteningly relevant.

“If you read the Ten-Point Program of the Black Panthers, it could’ve been written today. Nothing else is checked off the list, so to speak,” she says. “They were talking about systemic change."

The fact that the group is still remembered more as armed extremists than as community activists shows just how successful the FBI was in their campaign against people like Rodney.

Sadie also explains how the law used to fire her father from the post office — President Truman’s Executive Order 10450 — was originally put in place to keep LGBTQ people out of government work, not against black civil rights activists. “We have laws now, and people say, ‘Oh, that doesn’t affect me.’ But the same law can be used against you whenever the government decides that you’re the enemy.”

“With Donald Trump coming into office, a lot of people who may not have thought about it in this way before are realizing — hey, the government might not always be trying to protect the interests of the majority of the people,” she adds.

Rodney was in attendance at the opening of his daughter’s exhibition in Oakland.

He mingled with the other guests there, and stood and watched as they absorbed two contradicting accounts of his life from 50 years ago — and of course, admired his daughter’s beautiful handiwork. “It gave me a sense of freedom,” he said that night.

“I felt like, ‘Wow, I’m free now.’”

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