From Vincent Price’s radio show, “The Saint” circa 1950. This man is a true legend. I adore him.
Ladies and gentlemen, poison doesn’t always come in bottles. And it isn’t always marked with the skull and crossbones of danger. Poison can take the form of words and phrases and acts: the venom of racial and religious hatred. Here in the United States, perhaps more than ever before, we must learn to recognize the poison of prejudice and to discover the antidote to its dangerous effects. Evidences of racial and religious hatred in our country place a potent weapon in the hands of our enemies, providing them with the ammunition of criticism. Moreover, group hatred menaces the entire fabric of democratic life. As for the antidote: you can fight prejudice, first by recognizing it for what it is, and second by actively accepting or rejecting people on their individual worth, and by speaking up against prejudice and for understanding. Remember, freedom and prejudice can’t exist side by side. If you choose freedom, fight prejudice.
Audio for the above:
And here is another!
Ladies and gentlemen, as responsible parents you never think of allowing your children to play with poison, and as responsible Americans it’s your duty to protect them from the dangers of the poison we call prejudice. Here in America, racial and religious hatred does exist, sustained by the political adventurers and plain crackpots who are willing to scrap the democratic way of life to attain their own ends. Prejudice in America is centred in their addled philosophy, but unless we guard ourselves and our families, it can find its way into our own lives. Then the poison would do its work undermining America’s unity, sabotaging our prestige abroad, and wrecking our ideal of individual freedom. In your family life, you can effectively carry on a campaign against prejudice. Our youngsters grow up with a pride in their country. Teach them that part of that pride is our tradition of accepting or rejecting people on their individual worth, not on the basis of race or religion or color. Remember freedom and prejudice can’t exist side by side. If you choose freedom, fight prejudice.
And another!
Ladies and gentlemen, in a prejudice-filled America, no one would be secure in his job, his business, his church, or his home, yet racial and religious antagonisms are exploited daily by quacks and adventurers whose followers make up the irresponsible lunatic fringe of American life. Refuse to listen to or spread rumours against any race or religion. Help to stamp out prejudice in our country. Let’s judge our neighbours by the character of their lives alone, and not on the basis of their religion or origin.
Look at the dates on these. This was A Stance at the time. It was very political. This was still the Jim Crow era, race was an explosive and extremely divisive issue that few white people of note would touch. For reference, some landmark civil rights stuff you might recognize:
1949/1950 - these clips
1954 - Brown vs. Board of Education (public school segregation declared unconstitutional)
1955 - Rosa Parks (whose calculated act of civil disobedience led to widespread protest and change)
1964 - Civil Rights Act (ended segregation in public places, workplace and private school)
1965 - Voting Rights Act (mandated removing barriers to voting that disproportionately affected Black people)
Also a reminder: by all accounts, including his daughter’s, Vincent Price was some variety of gay/bi/queer. She hesitates to label him definitively or disclose much about it but she did have this to say:
“I am as close to certain as I can be that my dad had physically intimate relationships with men. I know for 100 percent fact that my dad was completely loving and supportive of LGBT people.”
So like, these PSAs were very much representative of who he was as a person.
He deserves to be remembered for being campy and ridiculous and amazing in every role he played, and for being an open, accepting, and outspoken ally to the marginalized and oppressed in a time that was not popular.
ETA:
I forgot about this picture of him. Not relevant I just wanted you to see it.
Always reblog queer Vincent Price, anti-bigot Vincent Price, and/or Vincent Price with cats.
[ID: A tweet that reads “For my trans friends on testosterone, go check your lot number, there’s been a recall due to bacterial contamination.” The tweet includes a link to the news source detailing the recall and a screenshot from that source. The link to the news article is:
a lot of young girls need to realize that keeping friendships alive gets so hard after high school/uni and that you have to actively nurture your friendships if you want them to last yes even the friendships of 2 decades….. your 20s are so disorienting and trauamtizing no one can afford to take friendships for granted… everybody worries about not finding a romantic partner lets start worrying about being friendless by the time you hit 30
This is a real issue I feel we’re not focusing on enough. Friendships are such a crucial relationship because they are separate from “family“ meaning you can choose who your friends are! That commitment to friendship will definitely save yo in the times you’ll need it the most
Sylvia Rivera calling out gays and lesbians for their trans exclusion in 1973 at the Christopher Street Liberation Day rally (x)
Still relevant
And if I’m not mistaken, Sylvia Rivera was *specifically* addressing WHITE gays and white feminists here. She called out these middle/upper class white folks who strove only for assimilation while neglecting Black and brown LGBT people who were poor and struggling and languishing in prison. White Gays and feminists didn’t like the way revolutionary figures like Sylvia were “rocking the boat”
Specification is important here because antiblackness and racism are still rampant in the LGBT community and Black + brown LGBT folks have had to make communities of our own because white LGBT people ostracize us.
nobody on this site is ever ever EVER going to top running a blog dedicated entirely to posting cute pics of sweet old dogs in a shelter for a year and gradually becoming one of the most recognized blogs on the website, then without warning dropping “i just want to get dicked down again =/” with 0 explanation and abandoning the blog. not deleting it, not explaining anything, just leaving the whole thing as a monument. fucking flawless posting. literally the best of all time.
[Video Description: A tiktok of a man replying to a comment by @/heatherblue50, that reads: I love parenting. I hope you consider it at some point in life. It really stretches you to grow as a person. I’m sure I’ll adopt again.
The man says:
I’m absolutely not going to consider parenting for the same reason that you’re talking about. I’m not going to use a child as a way to stretch my ability to grow as a person. What a gross thing to do. What a gross thing to do—what a gross amount of pressure to put on a child. Nope, I am not going to have children because I know that I wouldn’t be a good father, well aware of it. Well aware of it—I barely take care of myself. I’m not patient with myself, how am I gonna be patient with a child? And then when I make mistakes, have the luxury of saying, ‘Well, there’s no way to be a perfect parent, I did the best I could—’I mean you could have done a lot better, you could have not had me. That would of been—*laughs* anyway. I’m not going to consider it, I already considered it and I’ve come to a logical—and the Earth is on fire! But anyway, I’ve come to a logical conclusion to not have children because I’m incapable of doing so ‘cause I don’t have that type of patience. I know that I don’t. And I’m not going to torture a child so that I can learn how to get it.
