tbh shoutout to the over 40s on tumblr, sorry the internet acts like yall belong in the retirement home when ur literally just regular adults with hobbies
If you feel like telling someone that a common word is ableist:
Learn about wheelchair accessibility standards (text alternative), find a local business that flagrantly ignores them (which is very easy) and contact the manager to say, āMy disabled friend would love to visit your shop/bar/restaurant, but it isnāt wheelchair accessible!ā (If the staff have to move or unlock something, that isnāt accessible āespecially if you have to go inside to request it)
Boom. Youāve done more for disabled people than 50 callouts for the word ālameā. I hate that word used as a pejorative too! But of the two methods of activism, this one gets way more shit done.
The other thing that gets me about ableism dialogue on the broader Internet being 90% centered on word choice is thatā¦ I think it serves to make conversations and socially aware spaces less accessible to some people. Me, for example: I find that the additive cognitive load of monitoring my vocabulary for potentially ableist words and turns of phrase to be an extremely reliable overload trigger. Iām constantly semi-consciously monitoring my everything anyway when Iām communicatingāhi, Iām autisticāand when I overload my ability to manage that cognitive load, I get very anxious, generally erode my mental health, and stop being able to participate in conversation at all. I have effectively lost access to the community or discussion where these modes of politeness take root.Ā
(What I generally do instead is keep note of certain words that certain people I know cannot handle because they are poisoned forever for them, and I avoid those words around those people. Thatās a cognitive expenditure that is worth it to me: Iām willing to budget the cognitive energy if itās a use that is actually directly helping someone else. One thing I find that a lot of currently non-disabled people donāt think about is that not all accommodations and access needs for disabled people are compatible with one another at all times, and this is a common example of that sort of thing.)Ā
Moreover, a lot of people have begun using aĀ āfence around the sinā approach to ableist language: I have beenĀ ācorrectedā for metaphorical references to disability that arenāt necessarily pejorative, likeĀ āwillfully blind.ā Not only does this re-emphasize the cognitive load concerns that I Iām concerned that this trend of treating all references to disability as off-limits in language increases the euphemism treadmill that tends to affect several types of disability, effectively acting as if there is something shameful about referencing disabled people at all. Whichā¦ doesnāt solve the problem of the ableism in the language. Itās just that the slur is in the opinion that the slur-thrower has of the people the word applies to, and thatās often what people are really doing when they use ableist slurs. You fix the slurs not by placing them off limits entirely but by changing the opinion that the general public has about the people they refer to: think about reclaimingĀ āqueerā and pushing back againstĀ āthatās so gayā; these successful movements work because they reaffirm the humanity of queer and gay people in the minds of people who would otherwise use those identities and comparisons to them to denote bad things. If that doesnāt happenāand the disability euphemism treadmill is notorious for thisāyou just cycle through acceptable and unacceptable words for the same concepts, because the concept of a given disability is the origin of the insult. As long as that concept is poisoned, any word that describes it will become poisoned, too.
And the thing is, I just pointed out that my own experience of disability is such that I have been known to actively request that people not police my language as an accommodation, because I canāt handle the cognitive load of balancing that with the semi-conscious load of balancing the cognitive demands of monitoring the nonverbal shit? Yeah, uh, I have known people to respond to that request for accommodation with total rage, and by telling me that I am being hateful, and dropping me completely. If your disability activism involves reacting like that to a good-faith accommodation request over word choice, your disability activism is not good.Ā
The problem with hard and fast rules (like āyou must be able to take your own notes to succeed in college,ā or āthis word is never acceptableā) is that by its very nature, hard and fast rules without any thought taken to consider accommodation and accessibility for people with a wide variety of unexpected needs create barriers for disabled people. I donāt see a lot of awareness of this in people whose disability activism focuses largely around call-outs for word choice, and I really do not see people really interacting with the super useful concepts for disability, like the curb cut effect or accessible design or varying models of disability or conflicting accommodation or or. It justā¦ winds up being about word choice and social signaling that one is The Right Sort Of Person.Ā
(Iām pretty sure you know all of this already, star-anise, but I figured: maybe someone reading me doesnāt. So.)Ā
Ableist word callouts are good for: Major corporations, polished and proofread press releases, published works, people you already know and have cordial relations for, really serious slurs meant as slurs.
Ableist word callouts are terrible for: People casually going about their day online, common metaphors not used in an especially negative sense, DISABLED PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THEIR LIVES, TOTAL STRANGERS.
Again, Iām disabled, Iāve doneĀ disabled activism, Iāve seen and taken part in ableist word awareness campaigns, and let me tell you,Ā unless youāre smart about where, when, and who you do it with, youāre going to inspire a lot more irritation, ill will, and disengagement than good results.
Ableist word policing done wrong makes people not want to talk about disabled people at all.Ā And that means our issues donāt get the publicity and support we need.
Want to help out disabled people? Like and leave a comment on a video of wheelchair dancing on Youtube. Write up descriptions of images, videos, and comics that arenāt accessible to people who use screenreaders. Write out a transcript of a video or podcast for people who canāt listen to the audio version. Ask event organizers if a space is wheelchair accessible, if speakers can use microphones, if there will be a Sign translator, if they can include a field for special dietary needs on the signup form.Ā
For the love of tiny purple dragons, please do ANY THING ELSE other than bad, misaimed, counterproductive ableist word policing.
I want to gently disagree on āpublished worksā there, unless youāre also willing to commit to marking down what year awareness became wide-spread, and check the copyright dates accordingly.
I grew up in California in the 1980s.Ā āUgh, thatās lameā was literally the motto of my childhood.Ā No one ever told me it was ableist.Ā You might feel like thatās something I should have just known, but it wasnāt.Ā Iād never heard it applied to my grandfather, who walked with a cane, or to my friend Tiffany, who used a wheelchair.Ā It was just a word.
I was diagnosed with OCD at the age of nine.Ā People called me crazy because I was weird as hell, but my actual diagnosis was āOCD.āĀ āCrazyā never felt diagnostic, and hence never felt ableist, because it wasnāt my diagnosis.Ā It was just a word.
My first book came out in 2009.Ā I legitimately did not know that either of these words was considered ableist and hence negative until 2014.Ā So if you read my very first published work, from 2009, I know youāll hit ācrazy.āĀ I canāt say for sure on ālame.āĀ Itās 2019 now.Ā Calling me out for that book does no good.Ā I canāt change it.Ā Iāve been called out a few dozen times already.Ā Iāve apologized.Ā Iāve made an effort going forward.
TL;DR: Call out the authors of published works based on recent publications, or you wonāt be making things better, youāll be bullying people based on potentially very real ignorance.
Yep. I like @wheeloffortune-designās formula for how much someone deserves a callout:
(Take how bad the thing they did or said was, how many times they did it, and how powerful they are; then divide that by how much time since the thing, truthfulness of the apology, and how much better they are now.)
And a lot of times I feel like this form of activism assumes all disabled people will feel the same ways about certain words.
I have osteoarthritis and use both a walker and a wheelchair depending on my pain level. I am physically disabled and I cannot work. I also have bi-polar disorder, ADHD, severe depression and anxiety, and several learning disabilities.
And aside from words like āretardā and ācrippleā I really do not care if abled people use words like dumb, lame, crazy, insane, stupid, or any other common slang that is usually not applied to disabled people anymore. I know not everyone is going to feel that way, and other disabled peopleās opinions on these words are vaild, but so are mine. And I donāt like being shamed for using them and told I am somehow hurting myself by calling saying that I had a crazy day.
So yeah, unless those words are actively being hurled at disabled people as a form of violence, I really do not give a crap if people call a rude customer dumb or say that the rollercoasters as six flags are crazy or the prices at the fanciest restaurant in town are insane. It isnt being used to discredit disabled people and therefore I dont care.
If another disabled person doesnt like those words being used around them I will stop, but too often I have been spoken over by abled people telling me that itās wrong for me to use words as if my opinions as a disabled person donāt count because they are āwrongā.
This discourse is exhausting and doesnt really accomplish anything and at the end of the day there are way better ways to help disabled people instead of yelling at someone on tumblr who used the word lame.
Oh my god, yes, this this this, especiallyĀ āall disabled people will feel the same way about X.āĀ
Even aside from individual variation in opinion, I find the specific disabilities you have also shape the way you approach ableism and defining what disability is to you. I find a lot more folks with autism or who are Deaf who resonate strongly with social models of disability and react poorly to the threat of cures, for example, and a lot fewer people who deal with chronic pain or certain kinds of mood disorders who take that position. (Which is not to say that all people with those particular conditions feel that way; itās that the context of the specific person shapes the opinions they form about where problems in their way lie and what is actually worth fixing.)Ā
Itās complicated! And in my experience TAB people/people who have never really had a reason to pay attention to disability dialogue have absolutely no idea thatĀ ādisabilityā is kind of likeĀ āperson of colorā in that it encompasses a whole huge group of smaller communities that have their own historic tensions and needs and overlap in some but not all people.
Three historically black churches have burned in less than two weeks in one south Louisiana parish, where officials said they had found āsuspicious elementsā in each case. The officials have not ruled out the possibility of arson, or the possibility that the fires are related.
āThere is clearly something happening in this community,ā State Fire Marshal H. Browning said in a statement on Thursday. āThat is why it is imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.ā
The three fires occurred on March 26, Tuesday and Thursday in St. Landry Parish, north of Lafayette. A fourth fire, a small blaze that officials said was āintentionally set,ā was reported on Sunday at a predominantly black church in Caddo Parish, about a three-hour drive north.
āBut just as we havenāt connected the three in St. Landry, we havenāt connected the one in Caddo,ā said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, on Friday.
Local officials said that they were still investigating the fires, and did not say if they knew of any suspects, a motive, or whether racism was an element.
āThere certainly is a commonality, and whether that leads to a person or persons or groups, we just donāt know,ā Mr. Browning said at a news conference on Thursday.
The F.B.I. and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are involved in the investigation, said Jeff Nowakowski, a spokesman for the A.T.F.ās New Orleans field division.
The Rev. Gerald Toussaint, pastor at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas, La., was driving to work on Thursday morning at around 4:45 a.m. when his wife called him to say she had seen on social media that their church was ablaze.
Mr. Toussaint was aware of the two other fires that had been set at nearby houses of worship, St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, and Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas. He rushed to the scene.
The church, which was founded in the 19th century, had undergone extensive remodeling two years ago. Now it is nearly gone, he said, except for a brick wall and corridor in the front.
āIām trying to find out who did it, why they did it, did it have anything to do with me,ā said Mr. Toussaint, who drives trucks for a living. āI donāt know none of this.ā
He also said he did not want to speculate, for fear of angering potential arsonists, or prompting copycat crimes.
St. Landry Parish is a rural area studded with crawfish ponds and bayous in the heart of Cajun and Creole country. It is 56 percent white and 41 percent black. Mr. Toussaint said that relations were generally good between black and white residents.
a handful of french billionaires have pledged 600+ million euros for Notre Dame in less than 12 hours. let that put into perspective how easily billionaires could end world hunger, poverty, lack of access to healthcare/clean water/education but choose not to. 600+ million in twelve hours from just 3 people
āAnd especially donāt think about that time you drank so much that the dwarves you were supposed to be watching escaped in the empty barrels of wine.ā
While all of the above is great, Iād like to offer that dwaven āaleā probably isnāt made from barley. Ā they live underground. Ā what grows underground? Mushrooms. Ā Iām saying Dwarven Ale is halucinogenic. Ā Iām saying Legolas wasĀ tripping balls.
name one native american intellectual off the top of your head, name one native american actor or actress off the top of your head, name one native american senator, one native american news anchor, or an author or a tv personality or a singer or a poet or a comedian, name a single native american teacher youāve had, can you? probably notĀ
ok so now think of one native american cartoon character you know of or a sports team relating to native americans whether itās their actual name or their team logo, or a town you live in or near with a ānativeā name bet a lot of these things came to you right away i bet you didnāt even have to thinkĀ
needing native representation in media, education and government are not decoy issues, the commercialization and appropriation of native cultures are not decoy issues, the lack of native representation is institutional oppression at workĀ
White people specifically need to reblog this, I donāt CARE if it makes you uncomfortableāthatās the point. Listen to Native voices about Native issues PLEASE
Parents will make food a punishment, a reward, an incentive, and a threat but then be like, How come my kid has an unhealthy relationship with food and their body?
stormborns
janainaart
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
dailybridgerton
2087
