Thoughts from Not-Rock

main @enbean-rock • here is where I reblog posts + the good stuff from my main • image descriptions & transcripts added when I have the energy • will describe anything on request • will tag anything on request

[creatingblackcharacters]

“It’s Giving” AAVE, and the Denied Yet Undeniable Impact of Black Culture

I grew up knowing it as Ebonics; I didn’t hear 'AAVE' until I was an adult. Apparently it’s used derogatorily- I did not know. But when Robert Williams coined the term in the 70s, its meaning was:

“…the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represents the communicative compentence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States idioms, patois, argots, ideolects, and social forces of black people…Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, study of sound) and refers to the study of the language of black people in all its cultural uniqueness.”

Familiar Examples include but are not limited to:

The History

It was unbelievably difficult to find a solely Black perspective on the subject. I’m gonna need everyone to let Black linguists talk, it’s literally their job. Anyway, I need y’all to actually WATCH this video. Don’t skip it thinking I’ll summarize. Watch it. Actually listen. That’s part of the problem to begin with, is not listening. Even if you have to read this lesson later, so be it.

One of the points emphasized in this video was that AAVE was formed of the need to communicate, and specifically to communicate in a way that hid what we were saying and thinking from antagonistic white society.

“…“the disguise language used by enslaved Africans to conceal their conversations from their white slave masters to the lyrics of today’s rap music, [the magical power of] the word has been shaped by a time when, as observed by Harlem newspaper writer Earl Conrad, ‘it was necessary for the Negro to speak and sing and even think in a kind of code.’””

Because it was in a form that white people could not understand, as well as already existing racist biases against the humanity and intelligence of Black people, naturally it was assumed that our way of communicating was ignorant and ‘false’. Even acknowledging it as a valid language was seen as abhorrent, by nonblack and certain Black people.

“For decades, linguists and other educators, pointing to the logic and science of language, have tried to convince people that Black English exists, that isn’t just a politically correct label for a poor version of English but is a valid system of language, with its own consistent grammar. In 1996, with the unanimous support of linguists, the Oakland School Board voted to recognize AAVE, or the more politicized term “Ebonics” (a portmanteau of “Ebony” and “phonics”), as a community language for African American students, a decision which might have opened up much needed additional funding for education. Instead it resulted in intense public backlash and derision due to the still widespread, incorrect belief that Black English was an inferior, uneducated form of English associated with illiteracy, poverty, and crime. It’s hard for a language to get ahead when it keeps getting put down. Some linguists, such as John Russell Rickford, have noted how even sympathetic linguistic research, which has derived a lot of benefit and understanding from Black English grammar, can unknowingly focus on data that represents African American communities negatively, giving “the impression that black speech was the lingo of criminals, dope pushers, teenage hoodlums, and various and sundry hustlers, who spoke only in ‘muthafuckas’ and ‘pussy-copping raps.’” The term “Ebonics” even now is used mockingly by some as a byword for broken English.”"

(Some of) The Rules

AAVE is a full dialect with grammar and social rules. But the ones most people are familiar with include:

Th becoming D (“dats”)

Double Negative (“I ain’t see nobody”)

Habitual Be (“It’s cuz he be on that phone”)

Possessive s absence (“I’m going to my grandaddy house”)

Question word order (“who that is with the ice cream and cake?”)

Zero copula (“who that?”)

"Why do you talk like that" Would you rather I code switch?

“Code switching, or adjusting one’s normal behavior to fit into an environment, has long been a strategy for BlPOC individuals to navigate interracial interactions successfully. Code switching often occurs in spaces where negative stereotypes of Black individuals run counter to what are considered appropriate or professional behaviors and norms in a specific environment, and regularly happen in work settings.”

In this context, you might recognize it better as “using your white people voice”.

Some Black Americans, for varying reasons including internalized antiblackness and a desire for assimilation, hate AAVE! Some people will hate that you don’t use AAVE! Never assume we’re all on the same page about its use! My own mother used to be big on speaking ‘proper English’.

Regional Differences

The same way regional differences affect standard pronunciation, it’ll affect the AAVE used. Culture in the area as well will affect the words that come from it. So someone Black using a phrase in Philadelphia might not automatically know what someone Black from Compton is saying.

Someone did their dissertation on this topic, and while I’m going to link the summary for yall to give it a shot, Imma be honest- I do not understand this. I tried. It’s interesting how something that comes so innately, once written out like this is like WHAT. But the research has been done!

Easier examples include:

"Aaron earned an iron urn"- Baltimore

GloRilla and "Mursic"- Memphis

A lot of AAVE from New York City is popularized; so you might hear words from anywhere that originated from Harlem or Queens, or New York Ballroom culture

Tonal Languages

One major source of misunderstanding AAVE is people not understanding tonality. AAVE is often tonal, similar to many African languages, languages in general- meaning that unless you hear it or are innately familiar with how it’s spoken, you might not know HOW I’m saying something and therefore will not understand what I’m trying to convey. Given the history, this was on purpose!

Black language- Black culture in general, really- is often conveyed orally. Everything we say and do is not going to be written down for someone else to study. Doesn’t mean we weren’t saying or doing it. If you want to understand, you have to listen!

“Linguist Margaret G. Lee notes how black speech and verbal expressions have often been found crossing over into mainstream prestige speech, such as in the news, when journalists talk about politicians “dissing” each other, or the New York Times puts out punchy headlines like “Grifters Gonna Grift”. These many borrowings have occurred across major historical eras of African American linguistic creativity. Now-common terms like “you’re the man,” “brother,” “cool,” and “high five” extend from the period of slavery to civil rights, from the Jazz Age to hip-hop: the poetry of the people. This phenomenon reflects how central language and the oral tradition are to the black experience.”

Some examples:

1) "You Good" can mean, depending on how it is said and the context in which it is spoken:

Are you okay?

Do we have a problem?

You’re okay.

You don’t want these problems so chill.

Do you have enough money/resource?

It’s fine! Don’t worry about it.

2) This was an interesting experience, watching the misunderstanding of AAVE occur live. It’s the realization that people read this as “This is something Bugs Bunny would wear” versus “Bugs Bunny would wear the fuck outta that outfit”. But if you didn’t know that, if you aren’t familiar with the tonality of AAVE, of course you’d think the first one is what it meant! And it's not wrong-wrong - he would wear it, but that's not necessarily all it meant.

3) “Chill-ay” versus “Chile”. Yeah, we didn’t forget that. This is often why AAVE is used to sound “aggressive” on the internet- if you perceive (however subconsciously) how Black people speak is aggressive, then when you decide to emulate my speech in your moment of aggression, it is because you think my Blackness will make you seem more intimidating! You find Blackness… intimidating. Same reason you think it makes you funnier than if you were to deliver the same joke using your own dialect. It means the jokes not funny; my language is what’s funny.

Black American Sign Language

We even communicate differently in sign language; there’s an entire history and culture behind the Black deaf experience.

“In April 2020, Nakia Smith, aka Charmay, created a TikTok account introducing five generations of her Black Deaf family and how they communicate in Black ASL. As a social media influencer of Black ASL content, Charmay made a series of educational and informative videos on the history and practice of Black ASL. Charmay’s video went viral, landing in a New York Times article, Black, Deaf and Extremely Online, and Blavity: TikToker Has Gone Viral For Putting The Culture On To Black American Sign Language. Additionally, Netflix requested Charmay to explain the difference between Black ASL and ASL.”

Everyone doesn’t speak AAVE!

If your Black character is not Black American, and has never once been connected with Black American culture or people, they are probably NOT going to speak AAVE! They’re going to speak whatever dialect THEY have! And that doesn’t make it any less “Black” of them!

Different dialects and languages across the diaspora include but are certainly not limited to:

Black British English

Haitian Creole

Gullah

Jamaican and Caribbean Patois

Everyone Owes Rihanna an Apology

Y’all remember the song Work. I know you do. It was mainstream’s love and joy when this song dropped to be overtly racist about it, Black Americans included. Everyone claimed it was ‘gibberish’, that she was just mimicking language on a song and ‘it would be popular’.

Meanwhile, it was her singing in her native island patois! The people who spoke her language understood it! Anybody who actually tried to understand it, understood it! Another popular song, Sean Paul’s Temperature, is also in patois! And I thought we loved that song!

So next time Black people speak and you find yourself thinking- ‘wow, this makes no sense’, I want you to think to yourself: ‘does it make no sense, or do I just lack the context/knowledge/language to understand it?’

NOW THAT WE’VE HAD SOME EXPLANATION BEHIND THE LANGUAGE!

Writing AAVE

Me personally, I admit I don’t like it being used in stories where it is clear the author doesn’t understand the dialect, or where it’s clear the only person who speaks it is the “Black character who OMG DID I TELL YOU THEY WERE BLACK”. I’d rather it be the regular Queen’s English. We speak that too. I’m not going to decry your fanfiction or your regular modern-day original story as “bad” if you choose to use whatever language your region commonly uses. We know how to speak it. We will be okay. Using AAVE is not going to sell me that this character is “Black” if the rest of the character writing is still bad.

If it means that much to you, because it is important to the character, then you as the writer need to commit to learning proper AAVE! This isn’t going to be a “look up every turn of phrase on google” or “ask Ice what every single thing means”. You’re going to have to do what everyone who learns a language does- immerse yourself in it! If you can’t be bothered to learn my language, I’m going to know that when I read your work.

Obviously if there’s a context where the Black people involved do not know how to speak a language, it is perfectly fine to show that, as long as you are showing that it’s not due to some innate stupidity or other stereotype that this person cannot communicate the same way others communicate around them.

“The N Word”

I know someone’s thinking it, so let’s address it. There’s a translation for this word in damn near every language that’s ever come across Black people. So don’t go “oh we don’t have that word in my language-” I bet money you do.

Yes, it could be used in historical context- the ‘hard -er’. Yes, it could be used in social context- the ‘-a’. It follows the tonality rules I discussed earlier; that is, the way it’s used and who is using it makes ALL the difference in how it will be received.

Everyone is not on the same page about the use of this word within our community. Some Black people think it should never be used, period, even by us! Some Black people think that it should be reclaimed and use it as such! The only thing we’re on the same page about is that YOU should not be using it.

I say this to say to nonblack writers: put the pen down.

My stance is, if you can’t understand AAVE, you CERTAINLY aren’t going to be able to incorporate the social use of this word. Period. If you scared of the potential smoke incurred if you fuck it up- and if we see it, you will catch it- don’t bother. Trying to “write realistically” does not cut it. You should be doing everything in your power to understand and write a great Black character in all ways before ever thinking this is something you should do. In fact, if you're that thirsty to use this word, you have some other things you need to consider.

In the historical context, just watch yourself. If you’re gonna drop that word, you need to be damn well-researched on every other aspect of Black life and oppression in whatever era you’re writing. Just dropping this word to say “life is racist” shows a lazy lack of understanding of antiblackness. You don’t even have to drop the whole word. A “ni-” at the end of the sentence is enough for me to know exactly where we’re going! But if you not gone do the rest of the work… you know what they say about stupid games.

The Fundamental Disrespect

If you watched the prior videos (and you should have) and paid attention up to this point, you have already heard the struggles that both AAVE as a dialect and those that speak it go through.

There’s a societal connotation of stupidity, aggression, and silliness behind the way I speak. None of those things are true, and it’s hard to be told that even the way you communicate with others is bad.

But the other reason it’s so hard is because we spend our lives hearing that those are the connotations… when WE speak it. It is not the language- it’s ME that makes it so! And that gets into the other part of this lesson, something that AAVE is oft victim to.

This part is a little scarier for me to write, because people don’t like it when you talk about Black Americans as a separate entity from the US of A as it is known. I’m gonna put on my political hat for a second, but I promise this ties into my overall point so stick with me!

Stolen Cultural Hegemony

The reality is that the United States of America has forced a cultural hegemony upon the planet (amongst other forms). Yes. That is due to the capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and damn near just about every other -ism at the US government and military’s disposal. I am not saying that part somehow changes, of course not. That’s just facts. There are people far smarter than I (Edward Said, take the wheel) who could explain this far better. But I’m only here to explain this one point.

What DOESN’T get acknowledged is how much of what is deemed American pop culture across the world is both 1) stolen 2) Black culture! We do not have equivalent political power despite what our hypervisibility would suggest, but our social currency is raw diamond- so naturally, it has to be plundered! The white American dollar might mean far more than my life, but it’ll pay for my creations- even more so when I’m not involved!

The issue is that if your society says that I am less than, how can you justify how you covet everything I create? If I’m supposed to be so much less than you, why do you seek my language, my fashion, my music, my body? Why do you feel entitled to my creation, but you think you should have it… Without me?

Sit on that one for a second!

Appropriation of AAVE

Let's refer back to that chart at the beginning. How many of these have you seen or even used before? How long did it take for you to know it was AAVE? Don’t get me started on the influence of AAVE in queer spaces!

Of course I’m going to get started. Ballroom culture, created by Black and Latino people in New York City in the 80s (Paris is Burning, anyone?), has spawned so much popular “gay” lingo, and it’s not even just “gay”- it’s of color! Black English in particular is the source of many of the words that queer people use now in casual conversation, brought into the ballrooms, normalized, and then proliferated with other communities.

I can always tell when a new phrase from AAVE has hit nonblack audiences because it’ll suddenly be in every sentence I see, often butchered. Remember that historical context- of having to speak in code. Have you ever considered why AAVE is always evolving? Why we have to find new ways to communicate with each other? Have you considered that when people are constantly taking and misplacing your words, they may lose meaning or value, and so you have to come up with something else?

Appropriation of Black Music

Jazz, swing, the blues, disco, rock and roll, pop, even rap and hiphop have all been subject to appropriation- intentional or not. Far more intentional than you might want to believe. And it all comes back to money!

White audiences in the 1900s loved Black music- as long as they didn’t know Black people were singing it! Often, songs would be completely lifted and given to white bands to re-record. When Frankie Lymon first came on stage to perform, some of the audience was stunned! Even you know Itty Bitty Pretty One!

A more modern-day example: not to pick on the K-Poppies, but unfortunately it’s a low hanging branch example.

What K-Pop groups are doing now is heavily influenced what Black pop, rap, and R&B artists were doing from the late 90s to this very day. Part of the reason I enjoy K-Pop is because it reminds me of the stuff I used to listen to growing up. How many times have you heard someone think a Korean rapper in a K-Pop group is “fine”, but “don’t like” rap otherwise? Or will listen to K-Pop groups, but have very few to no one Black of the same sound on their playlists?

Examples:

Rover by Kai (2023) vs Swalla by Jason Derulo (2017)- Idk how popular Kai is outside of EXO, but I do know that some influence was had. And I like the song, btw! I prefer the music video! It’s just not the first time it’s been done!

Sweet Juice by Purple Kiss (2023) vs Say It Right by Nelly Furtado on a Timbaland beat (2006)

Taemin and Michael Jackson, period. Taemin having a song called The Rizzness. How did ‘rizz’ get to him? How did he know? More relevantly, how did the people who wrote his music know? How did something that started with Black people in Baltimore get all the way to Taemin in South Korea without influence?

I’ll use another example, so it doesn’t feel like I’m picking on K-Pop. I’m currently listening to CĂN NHÀ TRANH MÁI LÁ (Vietnamese, if you couldn’t tell) and as much of a banger as it is, with its own amazing cultural spin on the delivery… it is CLEARLY influenced by Black American rap. He nicknamed himself Vietgunna. Yall.

A non-American musical example: Afrobeats has taken the music industry by storm… How many of those people who enjoy an afrobeat from a nonblack artist will enjoy it from Wizkid or TEMS?

Those polls, where they ask how many Black artists you listen to… try paying attention to see just how much of your music takes inspiration from Black creators, but there’s a non-equivalent amount of Black artists that you support!

Political Bastardization of Powerful Black Colloquialisms

The appropriation of Black English isn’t always for entertainment. Sometimes, it’s a purposeful, malicious tactic to demean the words, and therefore the intent behind them.

“Woke”

“Michael Harriot, columnist at TheGrio and author of the upcoming book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, explains that this kind of insidious takeover and flipping of Black vernacular to anti-Black pejorative has numerous parallels in America’s past and runs all the way up to present day. “When you look at the long arc of history and America’s reaction to the request for Black liberation – every time Black people try to use a phrase or coin a phrase that symbolizes our desire for liberation, it will eventually become a cuss word to white people,” Harriot says in an interview with [Legal Defense Fund]. It’s perhaps this very context — Black people’s awareness of their history and their power to resist injustice — that made woke so ripe for the pernicious mutation it has now undergone. Indeed, the forced transformation of the colloquialism echoes how countless other Black ideas and intellectual contributions have been maligned. “When people during the civil rights movement began saying ‘Black power,’ all of a sudden it became a term that people equated with communism and anti-white sentiment — and then it eventually gave birth to ‘white power,’” Harriot tells LDF. “The ‘1619 Project’ [which centers the ramifications of slavery and the contributions of Black people in American history] has become an insult. ‘Black Lives Matter’ became an ‘anti-white sentiment’ that was banned in school and spawned ‘all lives matter’ and ‘blue lives matter.’”

#SayHerName

This discourse is happening again, it happens like every six months on here, and it’s one of the things on here that fills me with a hatred that I struggle with every single time. It is hard, I literally feel that hatred in the pit of my chest right now as I type this.

Kimberle Crenshaw (Black woman and the originator of the legal term ‘intersectionality’), the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, and African American Policy Forum coined the hashtag in 2014. TWENTY FOURTEEN.

It was meant to highlight the violent deaths of Black women and girls at the hands of police, which happens at a high rate like Black men and boys, but often goes far less acknowledged. By appropriating the hashtag, you are actively choosing to speak over the very names and deaths of Black women and girls we don’t know, because we are NOT SAYING THEM, and therefore are allowing those deaths to continue as though they do not matter.

I’m going to stop before I get more upset. But know what violence you’re contributing to in your negligence.

How to Avoid Cultural Appropriation while Showing Appreciation

Everything is obviously not appropriation. It is possible for people to appreciate, replicate, and take influence without being disrespectful! It happens! And because it is possible, is why it’s so infuriating that it does not.

It’s frustrating that when something is on me, it’s ghetto, ugly, ignorant. But when it’s on the right stick thin pale girl, it’s chic, it’s fashionable, it’s new. So if it’s not the language, and it’s not the fashion or music you don’t like… It must be… Me. I am somehow not worthy of respect for the very culture I create.

Can you imagine being told that? That you are not worthy of being… you?

If you are worried about cultural appropriation, both in your writing and in your life, the easiest way to avoid that is to:

1) acknowledge and support the culture that created what you’re saying or doing and

2) actually treat them like human beings instead of zoo animals or a species to study. Show respect! It’s not hard!

This is my body, my language, my creation. It’s not just to entertain you! It’s my life! I talk like this because this is how I speak, not because I want to get Tiktok cool points. If I’m around people who treat the way I talk like childish babble, it makes me feel stupid and disrespected. We can see that, and we can read it in your writing.

And yes, you may be saying “well none of that is unique to AAVE, that’s how other languages work!” Okay then go speak those languages then lmao. But if you’re absolutely determined to understand and utilize mine, then you need to treat it with respect and not like the Gen Z slang babble (or worse- the threat) y’all treat it as. It’s a form of antiblackness that is so normalized that we don’t even think about it… but now that you’ve read this lesson, you can start! You can start taking the time to actively dedicate a thought to what you’re saying and doing and where it came from. You can take the time to notice when something isn’t right- and maybe even choose to speak up, because it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.

[creatingblackcharacters]

“It’s Giving” AAVE, and the Denied Yet Undeniable Impact of Black Culture

I grew up knowing it as Ebonics; I didn’t hear 'AAVE' until I was an adult. Apparently it’s used derogatorily- I did not know. But when Robert Williams coined the term in the 70s, its meaning was:

“…the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represents the communicative compentence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States idioms, patois, argots, ideolects, and social forces of black people…Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, study of sound) and refers to the study of the language of black people in all its cultural uniqueness.”

Familiar Examples include but are not limited to:

The History

It was unbelievably difficult to find a solely Black perspective on the subject. I’m gonna need everyone to let Black linguists talk, it’s literally their job. Anyway, I need y’all to actually WATCH this video. Don’t skip it thinking I’ll summarize. Watch it. Actually listen. That’s part of the problem to begin with, is not listening. Even if you have to read this lesson later, so be it.

One of the points emphasized in this video was that AAVE was formed of the need to communicate, and specifically to communicate in a way that hid what we were saying and thinking from antagonistic white society.

“…“the disguise language used by enslaved Africans to conceal their conversations from their white slave masters to the lyrics of today’s rap music, [the magical power of] the word has been shaped by a time when, as observed by Harlem newspaper writer Earl Conrad, ‘it was necessary for the Negro to speak and sing and even think in a kind of code.’””

Because it was in a form that white people could not understand, as well as already existing racist biases against the humanity and intelligence of Black people, naturally it was assumed that our way of communicating was ignorant and ‘false’. Even acknowledging it as a valid language was seen as abhorrent, by nonblack and certain Black people.

“For decades, linguists and other educators, pointing to the logic and science of language, have tried to convince people that Black English exists, that isn’t just a politically correct label for a poor version of English but is a valid system of language, with its own consistent grammar. In 1996, with the unanimous support of linguists, the Oakland School Board voted to recognize AAVE, or the more politicized term “Ebonics” (a portmanteau of “Ebony” and “phonics”), as a community language for African American students, a decision which might have opened up much needed additional funding for education. Instead it resulted in intense public backlash and derision due to the still widespread, incorrect belief that Black English was an inferior, uneducated form of English associated with illiteracy, poverty, and crime. It’s hard for a language to get ahead when it keeps getting put down. Some linguists, such as John Russell Rickford, have noted how even sympathetic linguistic research, which has derived a lot of benefit and understanding from Black English grammar, can unknowingly focus on data that represents African American communities negatively, giving “the impression that black speech was the lingo of criminals, dope pushers, teenage hoodlums, and various and sundry hustlers, who spoke only in ‘muthafuckas’ and ‘pussy-copping raps.’” The term “Ebonics” even now is used mockingly by some as a byword for broken English.”"

(Some of) The Rules

AAVE is a full dialect with grammar and social rules. But the ones most people are familiar with include:

Th becoming D (“dats”)

Double Negative (“I ain’t see nobody”)

Habitual Be (“It’s cuz he be on that phone”)

Possessive s absence (“I’m going to my grandaddy house”)

Question word order (“who that is with the ice cream and cake?”)

Zero copula (“who that?”)

"Why do you talk like that" Would you rather I code switch?

“Code switching, or adjusting one’s normal behavior to fit into an environment, has long been a strategy for BlPOC individuals to navigate interracial interactions successfully. Code switching often occurs in spaces where negative stereotypes of Black individuals run counter to what are considered appropriate or professional behaviors and norms in a specific environment, and regularly happen in work settings.”

In this context, you might recognize it better as “using your white people voice”.

Some Black Americans, for varying reasons including internalized antiblackness and a desire for assimilation, hate AAVE! Some people will hate that you don’t use AAVE! Never assume we’re all on the same page about its use! My own mother used to be big on speaking ‘proper English’.

Regional Differences

The same way regional differences affect standard pronunciation, it’ll affect the AAVE used. Culture in the area as well will affect the words that come from it. So someone Black using a phrase in Philadelphia might not automatically know what someone Black from Compton is saying.

Someone did their dissertation on this topic, and while I’m going to link the summary for yall to give it a shot, Imma be honest- I do not understand this. I tried. It’s interesting how something that comes so innately, once written out like this is like WHAT. But the research has been done!

Easier examples include:

"Aaron earned an iron urn"- Baltimore

GloRilla and "Mursic"- Memphis

A lot of AAVE from New York City is popularized; so you might hear words from anywhere that originated from Harlem or Queens, or New York Ballroom culture

Tonal Languages

One major source of misunderstanding AAVE is people not understanding tonality. AAVE is often tonal, similar to many African languages, languages in general- meaning that unless you hear it or are innately familiar with how it’s spoken, you might not know HOW I’m saying something and therefore will not understand what I’m trying to convey. Given the history, this was on purpose!

Black language- Black culture in general, really- is often conveyed orally. Everything we say and do is not going to be written down for someone else to study. Doesn’t mean we weren’t saying or doing it. If you want to understand, you have to listen!

“Linguist Margaret G. Lee notes how black speech and verbal expressions have often been found crossing over into mainstream prestige speech, such as in the news, when journalists talk about politicians “dissing” each other, or the New York Times puts out punchy headlines like “Grifters Gonna Grift”. These many borrowings have occurred across major historical eras of African American linguistic creativity. Now-common terms like “you’re the man,” “brother,” “cool,” and “high five” extend from the period of slavery to civil rights, from the Jazz Age to hip-hop: the poetry of the people. This phenomenon reflects how central language and the oral tradition are to the black experience.”

Some examples:

1) "You Good" can mean, depending on how it is said and the context in which it is spoken:

Are you okay?

Do we have a problem?

You’re okay.

You don’t want these problems so chill.

Do you have enough money/resource?

It’s fine! Don’t worry about it.

2) This was an interesting experience, watching the misunderstanding of AAVE occur live. It’s the realization that people read this as “This is something Bugs Bunny would wear” versus “Bugs Bunny would wear the fuck outta that outfit”. But if you didn’t know that, if you aren’t familiar with the tonality of AAVE, of course you’d think the first one is what it meant! And it's not wrong-wrong - he would wear it, but that's not necessarily all it meant.

3) “Chill-ay” versus “Chile”. Yeah, we didn’t forget that. This is often why AAVE is used to sound “aggressive” on the internet- if you perceive (however subconsciously) how Black people speak is aggressive, then when you decide to emulate my speech in your moment of aggression, it is because you think my Blackness will make you seem more intimidating! You find Blackness… intimidating. Same reason you think it makes you funnier than if you were to deliver the same joke using your own dialect. It means the jokes not funny; my language is what’s funny.

Black American Sign Language

We even communicate differently in sign language; there’s an entire history and culture behind the Black deaf experience.

“In April 2020, Nakia Smith, aka Charmay, created a TikTok account introducing five generations of her Black Deaf family and how they communicate in Black ASL. As a social media influencer of Black ASL content, Charmay made a series of educational and informative videos on the history and practice of Black ASL. Charmay’s video went viral, landing in a New York Times article, Black, Deaf and Extremely Online, and Blavity: TikToker Has Gone Viral For Putting The Culture On To Black American Sign Language. Additionally, Netflix requested Charmay to explain the difference between Black ASL and ASL.”

Everyone doesn’t speak AAVE!

If your Black character is not Black American, and has never once been connected with Black American culture or people, they are probably NOT going to speak AAVE! They’re going to speak whatever dialect THEY have! And that doesn’t make it any less “Black” of them!

Different dialects and languages across the diaspora include but are certainly not limited to:

Black British English

Haitian Creole

Gullah

Jamaican and Caribbean Patois

Everyone Owes Rihanna an Apology

Y’all remember the song Work. I know you do. It was mainstream’s love and joy when this song dropped to be overtly racist about it, Black Americans included. Everyone claimed it was ‘gibberish’, that she was just mimicking language on a song and ‘it would be popular’.

Meanwhile, it was her singing in her native island patois! The people who spoke her language understood it! Anybody who actually tried to understand it, understood it! Another popular song, Sean Paul’s Temperature, is also in patois! And I thought we loved that song!

So next time Black people speak and you find yourself thinking- ‘wow, this makes no sense’, I want you to think to yourself: ‘does it make no sense, or do I just lack the context/knowledge/language to understand it?’

NOW THAT WE’VE HAD SOME EXPLANATION BEHIND THE LANGUAGE!

Writing AAVE

Me personally, I admit I don’t like it being used in stories where it is clear the author doesn’t understand the dialect, or where it’s clear the only person who speaks it is the “Black character who OMG DID I TELL YOU THEY WERE BLACK”. I’d rather it be the regular Queen’s English. We speak that too. I’m not going to decry your fanfiction or your regular modern-day original story as “bad” if you choose to use whatever language your region commonly uses. We know how to speak it. We will be okay. Using AAVE is not going to sell me that this character is “Black” if the rest of the character writing is still bad.

If it means that much to you, because it is important to the character, then you as the writer need to commit to learning proper AAVE! This isn’t going to be a “look up every turn of phrase on google” or “ask Ice what every single thing means”. You’re going to have to do what everyone who learns a language does- immerse yourself in it! If you can’t be bothered to learn my language, I’m going to know that when I read your work.

Obviously if there’s a context where the Black people involved do not know how to speak a language, it is perfectly fine to show that, as long as you are showing that it’s not due to some innate stupidity or other stereotype that this person cannot communicate the same way others communicate around them.

“The N Word”

I know someone’s thinking it, so let’s address it. There’s a translation for this word in damn near every language that’s ever come across Black people. So don’t go “oh we don’t have that word in my language-” I bet money you do.

Yes, it could be used in historical context- the ‘hard -er’. Yes, it could be used in social context- the ‘-a’. It follows the tonality rules I discussed earlier; that is, the way it’s used and who is using it makes ALL the difference in how it will be received.

Everyone is not on the same page about the use of this word within our community. Some Black people think it should never be used, period, even by us! Some Black people think that it should be reclaimed and use it as such! The only thing we’re on the same page about is that YOU should not be using it.

I say this to say to nonblack writers: put the pen down.

My stance is, if you can’t understand AAVE, you CERTAINLY aren’t going to be able to incorporate the social use of this word. Period. If you scared of the potential smoke incurred if you fuck it up- and if we see it, you will catch it- don’t bother. Trying to “write realistically” does not cut it. You should be doing everything in your power to understand and write a great Black character in all ways before ever thinking this is something you should do. In fact, if you're that thirsty to use this word, you have some other things you need to consider.

In the historical context, just watch yourself. If you’re gonna drop that word, you need to be damn well-researched on every other aspect of Black life and oppression in whatever era you’re writing. Just dropping this word to say “life is racist” shows a lazy lack of understanding of antiblackness. You don’t even have to drop the whole word. A “ni-” at the end of the sentence is enough for me to know exactly where we’re going! But if you not gone do the rest of the work… you know what they say about stupid games.

The Fundamental Disrespect

If you watched the prior videos (and you should have) and paid attention up to this point, you have already heard the struggles that both AAVE as a dialect and those that speak it go through.

There’s a societal connotation of stupidity, aggression, and silliness behind the way I speak. None of those things are true, and it’s hard to be told that even the way you communicate with others is bad.

But the other reason it’s so hard is because we spend our lives hearing that those are the connotations… when WE speak it. It is not the language- it’s ME that makes it so! And that gets into the other part of this lesson, something that AAVE is oft victim to.

This part is a little scarier for me to write, because people don’t like it when you talk about Black Americans as a separate entity from the US of A as it is known. I’m gonna put on my political hat for a second, but I promise this ties into my overall point so stick with me!

Stolen Cultural Hegemony

The reality is that the United States of America has forced a cultural hegemony upon the planet (amongst other forms). Yes. That is due to the capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and damn near just about every other -ism at the US government and military’s disposal. I am not saying that part somehow changes, of course not. That’s just facts. There are people far smarter than I (Edward Said, take the wheel) who could explain this far better. But I’m only here to explain this one point.

What DOESN’T get acknowledged is how much of what is deemed American pop culture across the world is both 1) stolen 2) Black culture! We do not have equivalent political power despite what our hypervisibility would suggest, but our social currency is raw diamond- so naturally, it has to be plundered! The white American dollar might mean far more than my life, but it’ll pay for my creations- even more so when I’m not involved!

The issue is that if your society says that I am less than, how can you justify how you covet everything I create? If I’m supposed to be so much less than you, why do you seek my language, my fashion, my music, my body? Why do you feel entitled to my creation, but you think you should have it… Without me?

Sit on that one for a second!

Appropriation of AAVE

Let's refer back to that chart at the beginning. How many of these have you seen or even used before? How long did it take for you to know it was AAVE? Don’t get me started on the influence of AAVE in queer spaces!

Of course I’m going to get started. Ballroom culture, created by Black and Latino people in New York City in the 80s (Paris is Burning, anyone?), has spawned so much popular “gay” lingo, and it’s not even just “gay”- it’s of color! Black English in particular is the source of many of the words that queer people use now in casual conversation, brought into the ballrooms, normalized, and then proliferated with other communities.

I can always tell when a new phrase from AAVE has hit nonblack audiences because it’ll suddenly be in every sentence I see, often butchered. Remember that historical context- of having to speak in code. Have you ever considered why AAVE is always evolving? Why we have to find new ways to communicate with each other? Have you considered that when people are constantly taking and misplacing your words, they may lose meaning or value, and so you have to come up with something else?

Appropriation of Black Music

Jazz, swing, the blues, disco, rock and roll, pop, even rap and hiphop have all been subject to appropriation- intentional or not. Far more intentional than you might want to believe. And it all comes back to money!

White audiences in the 1900s loved Black music- as long as they didn’t know Black people were singing it! Often, songs would be completely lifted and given to white bands to re-record. When Frankie Lymon first came on stage to perform, some of the audience was stunned! Even you know Itty Bitty Pretty One!

A more modern-day example: not to pick on the K-Poppies, but unfortunately it’s a low hanging branch example.

What K-Pop groups are doing now is heavily influenced what Black pop, rap, and R&B artists were doing from the late 90s to this very day. Part of the reason I enjoy K-Pop is because it reminds me of the stuff I used to listen to growing up. How many times have you heard someone think a Korean rapper in a K-Pop group is “fine”, but “don’t like” rap otherwise? Or will listen to K-Pop groups, but have very few to no one Black of the same sound on their playlists?

Examples:

Rover by Kai (2023) vs Swalla by Jason Derulo (2017)- Idk how popular Kai is outside of EXO, but I do know that some influence was had. And I like the song, btw! I prefer the music video! It’s just not the first time it’s been done!

Sweet Juice by Purple Kiss (2023) vs Say It Right by Nelly Furtado on a Timbaland beat (2006)

Taemin and Michael Jackson, period. Taemin having a song called The Rizzness. How did ‘rizz’ get to him? How did he know? More relevantly, how did the people who wrote his music know? How did something that started with Black people in Baltimore get all the way to Taemin in South Korea without influence?

I’ll use another example, so it doesn’t feel like I’m picking on K-Pop. I’m currently listening to CĂN NHÀ TRANH MÁI LÁ (Vietnamese, if you couldn’t tell) and as much of a banger as it is, with its own amazing cultural spin on the delivery… it is CLEARLY influenced by Black American rap. He nicknamed himself Vietgunna. Yall.

A non-American musical example: Afrobeats has taken the music industry by storm… How many of those people who enjoy an afrobeat from a nonblack artist will enjoy it from Wizkid or TEMS?

Those polls, where they ask how many Black artists you listen to… try paying attention to see just how much of your music takes inspiration from Black creators, but there’s a non-equivalent amount of Black artists that you support!

Political Bastardization of Powerful Black Colloquialisms

The appropriation of Black English isn’t always for entertainment. Sometimes, it’s a purposeful, malicious tactic to demean the words, and therefore the intent behind them.

“Woke”

“Michael Harriot, columnist at TheGrio and author of the upcoming book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, explains that this kind of insidious takeover and flipping of Black vernacular to anti-Black pejorative has numerous parallels in America’s past and runs all the way up to present day. “When you look at the long arc of history and America’s reaction to the request for Black liberation – every time Black people try to use a phrase or coin a phrase that symbolizes our desire for liberation, it will eventually become a cuss word to white people,” Harriot says in an interview with [Legal Defense Fund]. It’s perhaps this very context — Black people’s awareness of their history and their power to resist injustice — that made woke so ripe for the pernicious mutation it has now undergone. Indeed, the forced transformation of the colloquialism echoes how countless other Black ideas and intellectual contributions have been maligned. “When people during the civil rights movement began saying ‘Black power,’ all of a sudden it became a term that people equated with communism and anti-white sentiment — and then it eventually gave birth to ‘white power,’” Harriot tells LDF. “The ‘1619 Project’ [which centers the ramifications of slavery and the contributions of Black people in American history] has become an insult. ‘Black Lives Matter’ became an ‘anti-white sentiment’ that was banned in school and spawned ‘all lives matter’ and ‘blue lives matter.’”

#SayHerName

This discourse is happening again, it happens like every six months on here, and it’s one of the things on here that fills me with a hatred that I struggle with every single time. It is hard, I literally feel that hatred in the pit of my chest right now as I type this.

Kimberle Crenshaw (Black woman and the originator of the legal term ‘intersectionality’), the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, and African American Policy Forum coined the hashtag in 2014. TWENTY FOURTEEN.

It was meant to highlight the violent deaths of Black women and girls at the hands of police, which happens at a high rate like Black men and boys, but often goes far less acknowledged. By appropriating the hashtag, you are actively choosing to speak over the very names and deaths of Black women and girls we don’t know, because we are NOT SAYING THEM, and therefore are allowing those deaths to continue as though they do not matter.

I’m going to stop before I get more upset. But know what violence you’re contributing to in your negligence.

How to Avoid Cultural Appropriation while Showing Appreciation

Everything is obviously not appropriation. It is possible for people to appreciate, replicate, and take influence without being disrespectful! It happens! And because it is possible, is why it’s so infuriating that it does not.

It’s frustrating that when something is on me, it’s ghetto, ugly, ignorant. But when it’s on the right stick thin pale girl, it’s chic, it’s fashionable, it’s new. So if it’s not the language, and it’s not the fashion or music you don’t like… It must be… Me. I am somehow not worthy of respect for the very culture I create.

Can you imagine being told that? That you are not worthy of being… you?

If you are worried about cultural appropriation, both in your writing and in your life, the easiest way to avoid that is to:

1) acknowledge and support the culture that created what you’re saying or doing and

2) actually treat them like human beings instead of zoo animals or a species to study. Show respect! It’s not hard!

This is my body, my language, my creation. It’s not just to entertain you! It’s my life! I talk like this because this is how I speak, not because I want to get Tiktok cool points. If I’m around people who treat the way I talk like childish babble, it makes me feel stupid and disrespected. We can see that, and we can read it in your writing.

And yes, you may be saying “well none of that is unique to AAVE, that’s how other languages work!” Okay then go speak those languages then lmao. But if you’re absolutely determined to understand and utilize mine, then you need to treat it with respect and not like the Gen Z slang babble (or worse- the threat) y’all treat it as. It’s a form of antiblackness that is so normalized that we don’t even think about it… but now that you’ve read this lesson, you can start! You can start taking the time to actively dedicate a thought to what you’re saying and doing and where it came from. You can take the time to notice when something isn’t right- and maybe even choose to speak up, because it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.

[hell-on-sticks]

Today in australia they started senate hearings on the bill the government hopes will make enough disabled people die or disappear to make us all less irritatingly expensive for them. We had two weeks to submit feedback on over 400 pages of complicated legal terms. They don't care what we have to say and they don’t care that this will kill people and disenfranchise disabled people across the country.

There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.

The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.

The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare. Oh, and it includes chemical restraint, too. The government has directly refused to exclude chemical restraint from the required process, calling it "trialling medication".

If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.

I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.

Sorry we're too expensive to have rights, I guess.

[wizardarchetypes]

it's also so funny (in that it's not funny at all) the way everyone becomes Number One Allergy Advocates when a service dog enters the room. Ableist people see a service dog and suddenly they're concerned: What if someone here is allergic? Why should the needs of a service dog handler be prioritized over the needs of others?

But if you tried to do something like enforce bans on perfumes and peanuts in public spaces because of common allergies, those are the same people who would say the world can't be catered to your needs.

[asexual-amanita]

Receiving social assistance money needs to be way less fucking stigmatized. Relying on a disability pension, or another income program is not a moral failing.

“But they’re not contributing to society!”

Maybe not by the twisted capitalistic standards of the world we live in, but all human life has inherent value, no matter how they contribute to others.

[aplatonicism]

As an aplatonic person, one of the most frustrating aspects of amatonormativity for me is that there is a normalized, consent-based social script for navigating the commitment and intensity of a romantic relationship, and there is no equivalent for platonic relationships.

For romantic relationships we have:

Casual dating, where you're expected to be getting to know one another and it's understood that the relationship could end at any time.

Formal dating/"Going steady", where you've acknowledge that you have a bond that you are interested in pursuing and you want to spend significant time with one another.

Engagement, where you're actively working to enmesh your lives completely, and are expected to be interested in one another as people and supportive to one another through serious difficulties.

Marriage/partnering, where you have formally intertwined your lives and have an expectation that this will be a permanent, continuous relationship based on mutual interest and mutual caretaking.

And every time you want to "go up a level" in a romantic relationship, the expectation is that you actively ask the other person, and get their consent. There is (ideally) no confusion about what the other person expects from you in terms of commitment and intensity of your relationship.

Friendships don't have that.

Which means that instead of a consent-based checkpoint for going up "levels" of friendship, you just have to try to figure out where you stand based on vibes. And there's no way to tell if there's a mismatch of expectation until someone makes a mis-step.

And there's no socially appropriate/expected way to navigate friendship rejection either.

It's totally normal in a romantic relationship to say "I'm not interested in/ready for that kind of commitment" but when you have to handle a friendship the same way, the person being rejected is often scandalized because they had no clue you had a mismatch, and they have no socially appropriate way of expressing the grief of a friendship rejection.

I hate that romantic relationships are put on this pedastal and socially regarded as worth formalizing with consent, whereas everything about friendship has to be based on vibes and intuition.

[daisycowgirls]

wow subtitles in a film or videogame, awesome!

nevermind it

has no background, thus not being fully readable.

says [speaking foreign language] when not English.

is too small.

is one word at a time, thus hurting our eyes like flashing lights.

is in an awful font.

is in a colour that hurts or is hard to see.

is delayed.

[rock-reblogs]

if I may add my personal pet peeves:

is missing full lines of dialogue

doesn't say who's speaking (I can't tell anyone apart by voice, put that shit in your caption)

only subs words and doesn't caption sounds

(ive been watching some subbed anime, i need the subtitles anyway so id rather have the original audio track, and they're absolutely shit at all 3 of these things. tell me who's speaking and what's going on in the background! fuck you!)

some of these problems (like typeface and color) are so easily fixed if designers would actually use the customizable closed caption format too!

like. i love that open captions have become much more common on social media, but. there are so many styles of tiktok/insta caption formats that are just completely inaccessible. especially that one that highlights each word in a neon color, what the hell is that eye strain monstrosity.

when designers use closed captions that the device can understand as a caption track, with control over font, color, background, and size, that's actually accessible. bonus points if they have a subtitle track and full audio-descriptive captions.

[dogpuppy]

[puppydykemollie]

I promise I am trying very hard but I think I was hit over the head with a DSM-5 as a baby

[natalieironside]

Shout out to trans women who aren’t computer scientists or musicians or avant-garde artists or whatever.

Shout-out to tgirls who work at Taco Bell. Thank u queen, society would collapse without you

[snkrfnd]

Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the “gay Taco Bell”, but since I was coming from the “gay Howard Johnson’s” I wasn’t shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they’d worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the “gay Taco Bell” on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven’t changed much in 20 years. I’m still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city’s version of the “gay Taco Bell” is key to survival.

[natalieironside]

Thank u for sharing this with us

[fandomsandfeminism]

“What? Like, a disabled protagonist? How would that even work? How could someone with a disability be the hero in an action show?” local anime trash boy wonders while sitting next to his box sets of Full Metal Alchemist, showing no hint of irony or self awareness. 

[artifactoftoday-deactivated2018]

but is Ed really disabled? sure I get he lost his arm and leg

but he’s still able to move and do things perfectly

[fandomsandfeminism]

He has prosthetics. Having prosthetic limbs (that more than once break amd need repair) doesnt make him not disabled

[ladyloveandjustice]

It should also be noted that Ed:

-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail

-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of. 

-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)

-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working

-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned

-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail

- it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.

-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down

-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).

-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)

So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with!  And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm). 

Arakawa did her research and thought it through. Automail is by no means a magic cure that solves all problems associated with losing a limb.

[i-aint-even-bovvered]

This is barely an addition, but I’m pretty sure it was proven that it stunted his growth. It was mentioned in Dublith, and then Winry made him lighter automail in Briggs. Now, after a couple of days of being together, the two of them don’t meet up again for months.

When they finally meet up again:

You could argue something about angles here, but at the end of the series?

In conclusion, the original automail did stunt his growth.

[adrunkensailor]

As a writer, creating a disabled character can often be difficult. Ed only worked because the world he was created in has very advanced prosthetics which (despite some draw backs) move and acts exactly like real limbs. It’s a very particular case and required some additional write-arounds to make work. And plus the disability factored into the story which is good.

In many scenarios a disabled character simply wouldn’t work. And a writer isn’t obligated to make their character disabled.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Give an example of a story in which none of the characters truly and honestly could not be disabled in some form or fashion. Explain how it “simply wouldnt work.”

Because Im a writer, and that sounds like unimaginative laziness.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Yeah I have no idea how disabled people could possibly be heroes, that’s why Luke Skywalker had all his limbs and appendages through every Star Wars movie, cause if he had a prosthetic he wouldn’t work. And that’s why Tony Stark is never written as having a life threatening heart condition and being on 24/7 life support surgically implanted into his body, then it just wouldn’t make sense for him to be Iron Man. And it’s why Bucky Barnes has all his limbs too, and why Daredevil’s known for having eyes that definitely work. And who could forget that memorable scene at the end of the first How To Train Your Dragon movie where Hiccup slays the Red Death, and then immediately jumps up and talks about how great it is he didn’t lose a foot in the process, before going on to be the lead in six TV seasons and another two movies, while definitely having both feet. God knows people are helpless the second they aren’t completely abled.

Like… the thing about disabilities is that there is always going to be a work around. That’s kind of how it works. If someone is born disabled, or suddenly becomes disabled, they don’t just shrug and go “oh well guess i’m never doing things ever again”. This may shock you, but disabled people actively work to adapt to their situation and find ways to lead the life they want to lead. So people missing limbs are going to have prosthetics, and they’re going to know what they’re doing with them, because that’s kind of the point of having a prosthetic in the first place. People missing senses will find ways to fill in the blanks that leaves behind, cause they still have lives to lead and they figure it out as they go.

Believe it or not, disabled people don’t magically stop being disabled when they’re not completely helpless.

[kipplekipple]

Just nudging in to remind everyone that a lot of us are adapted to living in conditions abled people would struggle with a lot more. Like post-apocalyptic wasteland that isn’t suitable for human travel? I call that going to Tesco. World full of people who randomly hate you and wish you ill? That’s being visibly neurodivergent. We spend more time than you ever will, thinking about unconventional travel hacks and ways to avoid potentially dangerous conflict with others. You think in the event of some cataclysmic event, you’re just suddenly going to learn those skills? Go roll a manual wheelchair across 10 metres of pavement with a gentle camber and come back to me.

[rock-reblogs]

even with all this in mind, there are problems that many of these characters (and probably the most common disability rep in fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi) are amputees with prosthetics that just about replace their meat limbs. there's a reason a lot of people consider them to be functionally abled--their disabilities are quickly cured with some sort of cool tech or magical fix, and often barely mentioned again unless it's to make a plot point (im thinking of any time iron man has had his core stolen because it's Cool Tech).

[of these types of characters, ed is honestly an exception. still, he doesn't *happen* to live in a world where very advanced prosthetics exist, the author wrote it that way. she gave it drawbacks, sure, but ed also gets (partially) magically cured by the end of the series, which was part of his quest the whole time. besides, his disability was a divine punishment for doing magic wrong.]

I have seen a grand total of like 3 wheelchair users in fantasy or sci-fi who aren't just sad background characters. never any other mobility aids, unless it's a cane for Badass Older Character that usually also happens to be a weapon in disguise, because they can't just be disabled.

ive never seen a blind character who uses a cane or a guide dog, rather than echolocation or just being a perfect navigator or some shit.

ive read three fantasy/sci-fi novel with deaf characters, and only one had a side character who was born deaf--the rest, and all deaf main characters, were injured.

and there are so many disabilities I've never seen represented in fantasy/sci-fi worlds. where are the heroes with diabetes, autism, down syndrome, or cerebral palsy (to name a few common congenital/child onset disabilities)? statistically speaking, there should be a decent amount of them. where are the heroes with congenital disabilities at all? even the disabilities media likes representing--they're often injured, not born that way.

it's great to see what disabled characters there are in fiction. but there should be many more, and hopefully with realistic disabilities. aids, not magic cures. and please please please, represent MORE variety of disabilities!!!!

[withasmoothroundstone]

“It was like the devil came in the night and stole my child’s soul.”

—

Talking to the parents of children with regressive autism is scary but important (via dimyway02)

Try being the person with regressive autism.  Try standing there right in front of people while they say that your soul doesn’t exist, that you are not in your body, that you are a shell of your former self.  And wanting to punch them in the eye for having the nerve to act like you don’t exist anymore, but not being able to.  (Or doing so, and then being accused of having “unexplainable aggression” which goes more towards having “no soul”.)

NEVER talk about autistic people this way.

NEVER say we don’t have souls.

NEVER say we’re vegetables.

NEVER say we aren’t the person we used to be.

NEVER say you want the “old you” back.

NEVER say these things.

And never repeat these things as if they’re some kind of profound observation about what it’s like to be someone related to us.  Think what it’s like to be right there, with everyone and having everyone around you talking as if you’ve been stolen, as if you’re not the real you anymore, as if they need to go find the real you and bring you back, as if who you are is an empty shell, a vegetable, a vacant body with no soul.

This is not profound, it is disgusting and sickening.

Signed, a ‘regressive’ autistic who is still routinely treated as an empty shell with no soul or thoughts or emotions of my own

[anautistic]

The formatting is a little odd on some blogs because of the age of this post. (Back then, Tumblr let you edit the entire post, not just your own part.) In case of that, everything after the “via dimyway02” is an addition by Mel and not the original post from the OP.

[rock-reblogs]

the OP made an edit compiling the people who corrected her to apologize & appreciate new perspectives:

https://www.tumblr.com/dimyway02/88811056687/it-was-like-the-devil-came-in-the-night-and-stole

Reblog by @dimyway02

💬 0  🔁 2353  ❤️ 2006 · It was like the devil came in the night and stole my child’s soul. · Talking to the parents of children with regressi

[checkmateyourprivilege-deactiva]

2013 was five years ago let that sink in

[rock-reblogs]

this was posted in 2013

[stargazermeadow]

yall should take this face blindness test and rb with what you got bc im curious

70-75

65-70

60-65

55-60

50-55

45-50

40-45

<40

Voting ended onMar 23

Interactive measure of face memory, free, 3-6 minutes.

[plainsimpletailor]

Well that was an interesting exercise, but I do wonder how useful it is for testing prosopagnosia vs short-term memory. (I got 58, and it was mostly because of hair/piercings/clothing rather than actual facial features, so. Yeah. I may not be the best judge of this.)

[crapbirdphotography]

That's A [REDACTED] Babey!

—–

[Crap-O-Meter Rating Explanation]

Crap-O-Meter Rating

Grade AA Crap Bird Photo

Grade A Crap Bird Photo

Grade B Crap Bird Photo

Average Bird Photo

Maybe it's not crap, but I like it anyway!!

Voting ended onMar 19

[rock-reblogs]

the bullshit combinatorics of children's party games

or, a problem that has irritated me since childhood, and that I am still struggling to solve

or, a journey through numbers, and a realization of how quickly problems can grow too difficult to solve by hand

let us start by introducing the game.

Spot It! is a simple card game involving circular cards with a number of symbols on them.

one card is placed in the center, and the rest are divided evenly among the players.

players try to match a symbol on the top card in their hand with a symbol on the center card, which they do by being the first to name the symbol and slapping their card onto the central pile.

it's a simple game. great fun at parties. wonderful at instigating physical fights with your siblings, mostly in the form of hitting each other.

however, one aspect of it has always puzzled me, and intrigued me far more than the game itself.

what is completely fucking miraculous about it is this:

every card has one, and exactly one, symbol in common with every single other card in the deck.

now, this has puzzled me since childhood. how the hell did they guarantee this?

I didn't know enough math at the time I regularly played the game.

but! I rediscovered my spot it deck recently, and thought, hey I probably know enough math to solve this problem now!

unfortunately, while I may know enough math, getting started on this problem has slightly eluded me, because it goes from "too-trivial base case" to "very difficult to brute force" incredibly quickly.

here are The Rules, and The Variables:

given a number, n, such that each card has n symbols printed on it:

- there is a set of cards C such that |C| = c [number of cards in the full deck], and for any 2 cards x,y in C, x and y share exactly 1 symbol in common

- there is a set of symbols S such that all symbols in S are listed on p number of cards in C, and |S| = s [number of symbols present across all cards in C].

feeling sufficiently satisfied with my setup, i got to work.

n = 1 and n = 2 were trivial.

n = 3 i started by writing down possible cards, then moved to the math.

it became quickly apparent that s = c = 7.

then i realized: this is not the only unique set of 7 cards.

thus, The Rules and The Variables, addendum, was born:

- given a card set of size c with number of unique symbols s and number of symbols per card n, there is some number v of possible decks.

- (therefore, C is not unique; we should in fact construct a superset of all possible C's. we will ignore that fact for now and focus on 1 possible C)

so i set to work calculating v.

it also became, slightly less quickly, apparent that, given any 3 cards in my n = 3 set, the rest were automatically determined.

this made my calculations much simpler, as did the realization that p = n [which i later verified for the original deck by literally counting cards with specific symbols on them - i don't have a definite formula or proof yet, in part due to The Snag (coming soon!)].

finally satisfied with my combinatoric calculations of possibilities for all sets of 3 deterministic cards for n = 3, i began to theorize some possible formulas:

n = 1 (too trivial to even bother): s = 1, c = 1, p = 1, v = 1.

n = 2 (very trivial still but slightly better): s = 3, c = 3, p = 2, v = 1.

n = 3: s = 7, c = 7, p = 3, v = 15.

so i have some ideas. namely, that p = n, s = c = 2^n - 1, v is just straight up some combination of factorials once you know how many cards you need to uniquely determine your deck which im pretty sure is just p again (but i dont have a definite formula for v since i get confused about factorial vs choose for n = 3...)

getting fairly tired of doing a lot of this math by hand, and dreading figuring out how many cards i will need when i have 4 symbols on each card, i figure i can extrapolate from 2 and 3 without needing the non-trivial n = 4, by using n = 8, so i turn back to the original deck.

the instruction card inside the box gives me the following information:

every card has 8 symbols

there are 55 cards in the deck

there are over 50 symbols in total

i count out all 55 cards to confirm, then test my theory that p = n by counting out 8 cards with one symbol, then 7 more with another symbol (the 8th is in my original pile), and continuing, just to see how long i can make the chain.

i make a chain of 8 - 7 - 6 - ... - 1 cards.

i make note of the fact that in my remaining 19 cards, i could not find any symbol appearing more than 3 times. i did not exhaustively test all the symbols, so i cannot claim this is definitively true, nor can i explain why the pattern exists.

i look back at the paper for any additional details about how many symbols there are in total.

i begin the arduous task of counting out each symbol by hand, noting them on my paper Covered in various formulas and scribbles of card selection patterns, hoping i don't accidentally repeat or skip symbols too often, knowing at least i will have 8 chances to catch each one.

i theorize i will end with 55 symbols.

i double count a symbol, then scratch it out.

i think about the fact that i could give up on doing this by hand, I could just write a simple program that makes an array, it would automatically remove duplicates for me, it could do the combinatorics math, maybe make some nice diagrams...

i continue counting symbols on the cards by hand.

i double count another symbol.

i end up with...

57?

i double check my list for more duplicates (though not the cards for any potential missed symbols)

i still get 57.

meaning:

n = 8: c = 55, s = 57, p = 8, v = ?????

this doesn't match my expectations at all, and I have No Idea how to begin the calculation of v.

i stare in confusion at my mismatched results before coming to a new conclusion, one that should have been obvious from the beginning:

i don't need every single card of C to create a deck that obeys my rules! for example, i can take just 6 from the n = 3 set to use all 7 symbols at least twice, or 3 cards to use them all at least once, or 4 that only use 6 symbols.

meaning, it is time for a Huge revision. so i come to...

The Rules and The Variables, revised:

- C is a set such that every possible combination of 2 elements in S appear on one and exactly one card.

- there is at least one subset of C, F, such that |F| = f and F is the smallest subset representing all symbols in S, while still obeying the 1-to-1 matching rule (a symbol may appear only once)

- there is some number g (i was running out of representative letters) representing the number of subsets of C s.t. the size of each set is between |F| (exclusive) and |G| (exclusive) that obey the 1-to-1 rule (and symbols all appear more than once).

- there is some other rule (i gave up with formal logic symbols at this point) dictating subsets of C that do not contain all elements of S?

- who knows if 57 is actually the smallest S to create the "full set" with n = 8? and with a deck of 55 cards, our deck is certainly not equivalent to C

meaning...

I'm screwed.

i know nothing about n = 8 for real! i only know the details of this one subset of one of probably several hundred possible complete n = 8 decks that the manufacturers of this children's game decided on!

hell, I only have one deck. I don't know if every deck of spot it cards is unique, or if they are mass produced with this very specific subset. and why that subset was chosen! and how, if they aren't unique, quality control to ensure all the cards in the set have their individual matches.

i think i will have to solve the n = 4 case.

two non-trivial cases will be enough to generalize, right....?

Authors Note: I leave the solution to this problem as an Exercise for the Reader

[dorothyk]

the axiom of choice does seem to me more of a magic trick to deal with uncountable sets rather than a genuine axiom. there. i said it

it's very funny how people think math is all that strict and logically rigor when in reality math often is so cursed and broken

why. just why

[spectracled-eider]

I'd argue all axioms are magic tricks that allow us to deal with certain things. A lot of pure maths is about setting rules and seeing what happens. Sometimes the rules don't lead to anything helpful, or we need more rules to do things that we think we ought to be able to do. And sometimes the rules contradict themselves.

Of course there seems to be more at stake when it's axioms of set theory because they're the foundation on which we make all our other rules. But even then which rules we have chosen are ther because they allow us to do the things we feel we ought to do be able to do.

An example that's less to do with the foundations of mathematics but is quite illustrative I think is the definition of manifold. The key thing is that these are spaces which locally look like Euclidean space but we have two extra conditions: Hausdorffness and second countability. At first these seem like annoying technical conditions and there are two arguments for them being there. The first is the holistic argument that we want manifolds to be sufficiently nice to do calculus on so we ought to have more properties that make them similar to Euclidean space, i.e. limits are unique and we have a countable basis for the topology. However I don't find this super convincing because surely we can generalise a bit more (and really the definition of smoothness doesn't even use Hausdorffness or second countability). The second, stronger argument is that there are certain nice results about manifolds that rely on these two properties. The biggest being the existence of partitions of unity (guaranteed by second countability). In this way, the holistic argument is made stronger because the whole idea is to do calculus on manifolds by doing it on patches that look like Euclidean space and stitching it together (that's what partitions of unity allow us to do).

The point is, we could just be satisfied with choosing one set of rules and then prove everything we want with them. But sometimes it's more fruitful to alter the rules.

This is why I think the whole axiom of choice discourse is a bit silly. Like sure it can lead to counterintuitive results but to my knowledge it doesn't contradict the ZF axioms right? The counterintuitive results are just a quirk of the rules we chose but that doesn't make them any less right than results proven with a different set of rules.

[rock-reblogs]

I think there are a lot of axioms where you can take different versions of the axiom and create new, internally logically consistent maths.

axiom of choice is just one of them. first other example that comes to mind is euclidian vs spherical vs hyperbolic geometry. but there are definitely way more than just those 2.

the fun part is, not having those axioms leads to some interesting and weird contradictions, or statements that feel intuitive but are impossible to prove! but picking one version of the axiom, you can create your own little version of math. picking other versions of the axiom are equally valid, logically speaking--they just lead to different results.

at its heart, math is a logic puzzle of building a reality from a set of initial assumptions. some realities match our intuitive observations more than others, but any set of axioms that is internally consistent makes its own logically sound universe.

and i think that's pretty cool :)