I just watched Seanโs video and Iโm definitely going to be there at tomorrowโs charity stream (June 9th 2pm Seanโs time). I checked out the link in his description and saw the list of organizations that the charity money will be going to.ย
Iโve taken the time to visit the website for each one and I will provide links to them in my reblogs as Tumblr tends to not allow ppl to see posts with links in them.ย
If you have the means to help out via donating money but canโt donate too much without going totally broke, hopefully this post will lessen any overwhelm you feel from the various choices and help you decide which charity or charities you want to donate to.
To all my fellow black community members, I want to let you know that my blog is a safe space for you, now and always, and that Black Lives Always Matter!
ย ย ย The following information is a summary of what I could find out about each organization by looking at their websites:
Color of Changeย focuses onย
Criminal Justice (holding prosecutors accountable and accelerating prosecutor reform, ending money bail, ending profit incentives fueling mass incarceration, decriminalizing poverty and stopping unnecessary prosecutions, implementing fair sentencing laws and sentence reductions, stopping prison expansion and prison labor exploitation,and stopping anti-black violence and vigilantes)ย
Culture Change and Media Justice (ensuring accurate and diverse representations of black people in media, ending inaccurate and racially-biased local news reporting, achieving meaningful diversity and inclusion behind the scenes in Hollywood, and ending inaccurate representations of the criminal justice system on TV)ย
Voting Freedom and Democracy (expanding voter access and ensuring the votes of all black people count, ending voter intimidation and voter suppression policies including voter ID laws, boosting civic engagement before and after elections, and ensuring full and fair representation in the 2020 Census)ย
Tech Justice (protecting Net Neutrality, stopping government surveillance of black activists, achieving meaningful diversity and inclusion behind the scenes in Silicon Valley, and ending unjust practices, racially-biased policies and inaccurate content on social media platforms),ย
Right Wing Politics and White Nationalism (challenging racist and anti-progressive Tr*mp administration and state policies, dismantling right wing and white nationalist infrastructure/support and targeting corporate enablers of anti-black policies and culture)ย
and Economic Justice (ensuring equitable treatment for black employees in the marketplace. stopping predatory lending and other predatory corporate practices, and building momentum for progressive tax. labor, and education policies).
The Bail Project โis an unprecedented effort to combat mass incarceration at the front end of the systemโ. To put it simply, theyโre an independentย organization (not a part of any law enforcement agency) that focuses on paying bail for people who canโt pay it themselves--free of charge!
ย โBecause bail is returned at the end of a case, donations to The Bail Projectโข National Revolving Bail Fund can be recycled and reused to pay bail two to three times per year, maximizing the impact of every dollar. 100% of online donations are used to bring people homeโ.
Also, The Bail Project is currently helping protesters that are behind the Black Lives Matter movement and that are being unjustly arrested.
NAACP Empowerment Programs is a charity thatโs a part of the NAACP, which stands for theย โNational Association for the Advancement of Colored Peopleโ. On their website, itโs stated that:
โThe NAACP and NAACP Empowerment Programs, Inc. will work together at the national and local levels in pursuit of our longstanding mission: to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination. The result will be a stronger, unified voice on behalf of communities of colorโ.ย
The link for their website that will be in my reblogs has more detailed info including theirย โfullย โStrategic Realignment for a Stronger, Unified NAACPโ letterโ.
The Advancement Project is an organization that focuses on racial justice issues.ย
โLocally, we provide direct, hands-on support for organized communities in their struggles for racial and social justice, providing legal, communications and campaign organizing resources for on-the-ground efforts, while assisting in building their own capacity and power in their communities.
Nationally, we help weave movement and create context for breakthroughs on race. We serve as a convener to build momentum beyond place, creating a space to learn from one another and work together across space. We connect partners doing similar work across geographies and provide legal, policy, strategic campaign and communications support including shaping the narrative, exposing the problem and highlighting solutions. We also actively broaden and extend the practice of community-centered racial justice lawyering through training, networking, and the creation of tools and resources. We use strategic communications to influence public opinion on issues of race, democracy and justice, creating an opening for local change to occur.
We choose project activities, whether national or local, with the potential to build power at the grassroots level and to reframe and accelerate the quest for racial justice. We do not shy away from difficult issues and typically are first responders to civil rights crises, as well as on the cutting edge of racial justice issues.โ
I love that so many people make Grace disabled by the gravity on erid when he gets there. Not even just when he's still sick from the journey, even after he recovers, the gravity still effects him, he needs a cane or crutches or a wheelchair and I love that so much. But it's got me thinking.
The gravity makes him disabled in a way he himself would recognise as disabled, he struggles to walk, gets tired out extremely easily and has increased joint pain. Falling has worse consequences due to the extra weight his mass now carries, I can see him having an increased risk of dislocations and broken bones if he falls than he would have on earth.
But what about the ways he's disabled that he might not necessarily see as a disability, especially not with how his biodome is set up? The ways that simply being human makes him disabled by eridian standards?
By eridian standards, Grace is blind-deaf or at least severely sight-hearing impaired. In his biodome everything is set up to accommodate him, but if he ever has to leave? He needs disability aids to help him get around. Not just the things he'd see as disability aids, like his cane/crutches/wheelchair, but also his torch.
His inability to see 360ยฐ at all times is also a disability in eridian terms. They have to be careful about being on the right side of him, about not stepping behind him or changing anything behind him as he's about to move because otherwise he might trip over it and hurt himself. The same might even go for things in front of him when he's outside the biodome, because they can't see the light of his torch and they don't know for sure where he's pointing it.
They'd have to change a lot about how they do things to accommodate him and I really like that.
Grace would need far longer to be told things and to remember them, would need to write things down, especially if they're complicated. Yes, he's a VERY smart man, but he learns through repetition, the same way most humans do. Eridians can hear something once and then that's it. It's in their heads forever, they can recall it whenever they need.
I really like that by eridian standards, the way humans just exist would make them disabled with pretty high support needs if they were an eridian. The way they hear-see, the way they think and remember, how easily damaged they are, how little they can carry, how easily you can knock them over.
IDK I just love the idea of Grace coming to terms with the disabilities that other humans would also immediately see as disabilities. And then him having to come to terms with the fact that simply the way he is as a human, is also considered a disability in the eyes of the eridians around him.
[ID: tiktok by @/juzt_sammie with the caption "POV: You're visually impaired." A man walks up to a wall outside with a paper notice taped onto it. He says, "What is this? Let me put on my glasses." He puts them on and takes the paper, reading, "Beware, quicksaโ" then cuts himself off with an annoyed look at the camera. As he says this he starts rapidly sinking downwards into the quicksand out of frame. End ID.]
this is going to be a silly reblog but i have kind of a fixation on animal qualia and the idea of an animal's umwelt, so i ended up wondering whether pudding was actually "enjoying" this.
which meant i went and read about snail brains.
here's the bad news, at least by human standards:
snails do not have anything like a centralized brain. their nervous system is made up of small clusters of neurons (ganglia) that mostly handle very local tasks. they don't have a cortex, they don't build big integrated models of the world, and they almost certainly don't experience things like appreciation, anticipation, or savoring.
pudding is not looking at the sky and thinking it's beautiful.
snail eyes are basically light sensors - they can tell bright from dark, but not form images. snail "taste" is done through chemoreceptors on their tentacles and around their mouth. those receptors don't produce flavor the way ours do; they just detect chemical compounds and sort them into "approach," "ignore," or "avoid."
so there's no evidence that snails enjoy food, or wind, or views, the way mammals do.
and that does sound kind of sad. but then i thought that maybe we are asking the wrong question.
snails do have valence. they detect aversive things (like salt or dryness) and withdraw from them. they detect non-aversive or beneficial conditions (like moisture) and stay extended. when pudding is stretched out like this, it means his nervous system is basically saying "this is safe; nothing is wrong."
if we define pleasure not as our human experience of dopamine and reward chemicals but instead as "the absence of aversion" - a state where the organism is open to its environment instead of defending itself - then this does count as something positive, even if it's extremely nothing like human enjoyment.
pudding isn't appreciating the wind. but his body is registering humidity, safety, and the ability to keep functioning, and that matters to him in the only way his nervous system can make things matter. he does not think "this is great, this is awesome, i love the weather", because he doesn't think in the way we do at all, but the neurological action in his ganglion tell his body that he is safe, that the moisture is an acceptable level, that it's not too dry or windy, and that there's nothing imminently threatening.
i think a lot of the sadness comes from assuming that a good life has to look like ours: full of enjoyment, meaning, and aesthetic experience. but a snail isn't missing those things. its world just isn't built to include them.
snails don't have a sense of flavor. they don't even have tastebuds. this seems like a gimme, right? but again that might be asking the wrong question about what "taste" is. biologically speaking, it's chemoreception. we taste sweet because it indicates high value, high calorie sugar molecules. we taste salty for salt, umami for proteins. so in what way does pudding's chemoreceptors differ from ours instrumentally? we can say "by our human perspective, pudding can't experience "preference" or "savoring" or "anticipation of delicious food"", but from pudding's perspective we have radically overengineered ourselves for the task at hand. pudding can tell what's salty, what's high value, what has the chemicals he needs. the functional outcome is that he can discriminate food souces based on their composition. is that not taste?
so maybe the point isn't "this is sad because he can't enjoy it," but "this is a reminder that minds come in radically different shapes, and value doesn't have to be rich to be real."
"Tattoos are becoming unpopular", "piercings are unpopular again", "keep your hair natural never dye it again, it's the trend now" literally fuck off I know what y'all are doing
