Satire

It’s the news every LGBTQ individual has been waiting for. The penguin community has finally openly embraced non-binary and genderqueer identities by allowing keepers at The Sea Life Centre in London to bring up a penguin baby as gender-neutral (presumably until they are old enough to decide themselves whether to go ahead with hormone treatment). I am tremendously excited at this news and will be monitoring the progress of the infant over the coming years. According to experts, pre-pubescent penguins are naturally gender-neutral. You could prove this by dressing a penguin who was assigned female at birth in a pink frilly dress, they will show their discomfort by violently flipping around in the water until the dress falls off.

I have been literally shaking for the past 24 hours since hearing that Boris Johnson has decided to suspend Parliament until a few days before Britain leaves the EU. By doing this, he is effectively preventing the opposition from blocking a no deal Brexit. Myself and my fellow Remainers who have been fearlessly campaigning for the past three years to get the result of the 2016 EU referendum reversed, signing petitions requesting a second referendum in which we could vote correctly this time, going around social media telling Leave voters how stupid and racist they are, and generally attempting to derail Brexit by any means possible…are utterly STUNNED at how blatantly Boris Johnson so obviously despises democracy.

Yesterday on Twitter, media critic Joanna Schroeder (@iproposethis) posted an eloquent and inspirational thread, examining the radicalization process of white teenage boys, which understandably went viral. https://twitter.com/iproposethis/status/1161130456286289920?s=20 'I've been watching my boys' online behavior & noticed that social media and vloggers are actively laying groundwork in white teens to turn them into alt-right/white supremacists,' wrote Joanna. She then went on at some length to explain how jokes and memes can corrupt teenage boys’ minds. 'Here's an early red flag: if your kid says "triggered" as a joke referring to people being sensitive, he's already being exposed & on his way' she continued, describing the warning signs to look out for.

There's no room for weakness when you're fighting for your life. And that's exactly what I remember when I wake up at 10am, unable to soothe my grogginess with a Venti Mocha Latte. How could I participate or contribute to a company that hates black people and loves police brutality? The same is true for all of us in the #Resistance. That latte would be nice, but not as nice as ending white supremacy. I try to remind myself that no sacrifice is too great when fighting against a man who is literally Hitler. Yet it turns out I have to sacrifice even more than Starbucks. More than Uber, Kanye's Sunday Service and Coachella which I've also had to painfully let go of in the struggle against the forces of evil. The week began with me losing my Bible, The New York Times.

'If the city was not going to help us clean up trash, well -- by golly -- we went out there with 170 volunteers. We cleaned up 12 tons of trash in 12 hours,' tweeted @ScottPresler this Wednesday. MAGA-worshipper Scott was referring to a cleanup he organized on Monday in West Baltimore, a place Trump had previously referred to as ‘rodent infested’. Scott and 170 volunteers cleared away trash, trimmed down plants in overgrown alleyways and swept the streets while updating their progress on his Twitter feed. When they had finished, the neighborhoods were clear of garbage for the first time in 11 years. What on Earth was he thinking? Is there anything more patronizing than a Trump supporter assuming poor people, (particularly poor people of color) need help in some way?

So, Greta Thunberg has declared her intention to sail to New York for the UN climate summit on a hi-tech eco-friendly racing yacht. The boat is owned by German property developer, Gerhard Senft, is based in Brittany and sponsored by the Yacht Club de Monaco. It has been fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate zero-carbon electricity on-board. Greta’s transport will produce zero-emissions and is the ultimate carbon-neutral solution to long-distance journeys...or so she hopes. Greta has long been a foe of mine ever since she messed with my plans to wreak havoc by insisting that my school take part in a strike for climate change awareness. From that day forth I swore vengeance.

Refusing to wax a woman’s balls is transphobia at its most blatant… and yet here we are, in 2019, still disrespecting trans women’s rights by denying them a smooth nutsack. I’m referring of course to the recent publicity surrounding Jessica Yaniv, a stunning and brave trans woman who has filed complaints against more than a dozen female waxers with the Human Rights Council in British Columbia. And what is the justification these women have attempted to make in order to disguise their obvious bigotry?

For the past few days, people across all social media platforms have been gleefully posting images depicting an older version of themselves, using an app called ‘FaceApp’. This application uses AI technology to predict the aging process of an individual based on whatever image is loaded into it. This latest social media craze is problematic for many reasons. For one, white people posting photos of their aging faces only serves as a depressing reminder of how long many of them will live. It’s almost as if they are taunting us with the prospect of a future that will always be dominated by white privilege.

Once again, Trump has shown his true colors in a series of tweets posted on Sunday in which he told four congresswomen of color to ‘go back’ to their own countries. Literally ordering WoC to leave America because of the color of their skin. For the sake of clarity, I haven’t read the entire Twitter thread because I refuse to give Donald Trump my attention (apart from Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights at our tri-weekly campus ‘Not Our President’ meetings in Pret a Manger – living in the UK, Trump is *literally* not our president, but we do not allow that to prevent us from standing in solidarity with our US counterparts). Since posting the tweets, he has quite rightly been bombarded with condemnation.

For the past three years my best friend Andromeda has been an inspiration to me. Xe moved into our student lodgings after xer’s student loan payment was delayed. We got on so well, I never asked xer to leave. Xe was always a tad distant and would often leave the flat for a few days without telling me where xe was going, but I never questioned xer because xe was a free spirit, and I suspected xe might be polyamorous and perhaps had several multigender relationships on the go.Andromeda was always very supportive of my transracial status and we’ve spent many an evening together feasting on rice and peas while smoking weed and listening to Vanilla Ice.

As a resident of the UK I knew very little of the Fourth of July until very recently when I read an article in Salon about it. For my fellow Brits, here’s a short summary of why the US celebrates Independence Day based on what I’ve learned from reading mainstream publications and watching a few historical movies...In the 1400s an Italian man named Columbo (no relation to Peter Falk) set out to discover America, but he ended up landing at The Bahamas instead and spent the next several years discovering its exotic beaches, aquariums, and bustling nightlife before dying of scurvy or something.

Right-wing possible Nazi collaborator (I have no real evidence of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was) Andy Ngo was ‘attacked’ at the Portland rally on Saturday. For those unaware, Andy Ngo is a so-called ‘journalist’ who is apparently well-known for aggravating situations by attending political events armed with his fascist GoPro camera and ‘reporting’ what happens. Now, if this isn’t an act of right-wing terrorism, I do not know what is. Mr Ngo supposedly sustained ‘injuries’ after a small group of around 25 or so noble Antifa comrades bravely surrounded him and peacefully protested by throwing objects at his head. The subsequent outcry from the alt-right has been depressingly predictable.

Like Kath Barbadoro, I am incandescent with rage that Louis C.K. is getting on with his life and continuing his career despite the fact he did things that were completely abhorrent, acknowledged them when called out, apologized for them, had a movie and several lucrative shows canceled and didn’t work for around eight months. None of this should let him off the hook. He should not be able to just return to a career he is good at. In her article, Kath writes: 'When he disappeared from the public eye, his defenders and fans wondered if his career was over. Then he began popping up on stages around New York City less than a year later.

On Thursday night in London, dozens of brave Greenpeace climate change activists infiltrated a posh dinner for toffs in order to draw attention to evil weather. Instead of listening to their howls of distress at the destruction of the planet, the political elite chose to carry on with their meal which I have no doubt included a plate of ‘Clubbed Baby Seal avec Strangled Fox Cub Tears’.

Guess how many women I sexually assaulted yesterday? Zero. You see, it's really not that difficult. I steadfastly refuse to rape a woman or kill a black person; despite the fact I am a straight white male. By being vocal about this I hope to encourage other straight white men to follow my example. Respecting women is a full-time job if you’re a privileged white man (n.b. all white men are privileged by default), but I am living proof that it is possible. Every white man on the planet is guilty of horrendous abuse, even if he believes otherwise (apart from myself of course). I aim to change this. Every day I strive to recognize my own masculine toxicity and male arrogance. I rise above the urge to mansplain.