So I’ve watched Spiderverse and I loved it to bits and what I want to see in sequel is Peter B relatablelooser Parker to have a happy ending. Mostly because it would be hilarious to watch him and MJ deal with Jack-Jack level of bullshit. Also they deserve to have biggest problem in live being how to explain why there are kids drawings on the ceiling ;)
“I didn’t have a way to communicate. And they basically just flipped me the bird.”
When I was in state prison in Georgia in 2013, I heard about a class called “Motivation for Change.” I think it had to do with changing your mindset. I’m not actually sure, though, because I was never able to take it. On the first day, the classroom was full, and the teacher was asking everybody’s name. When my turn came, I had to write my name on a piece of paper and give it to a guy to speak it for me. The teacher wrote me a message on a piece of paper: “Are you deaf?”
“Yes, I’m deaf,” I said.
Then she told me to leave the room. I waited outside for a few minutes, and the teacher came out and said, “Sorry, the class is not open to deaf individuals. Go back to the dorm.”
I was infuriated. I asked several other deaf guys in the prison about it, and they said the same thing happened to them. From that point forward, I started filing grievances. They kept denying them, of course. Every other class—the basic computer class, vocational training, a reentry program—I would get there, they would realize I was deaf, and they would kick me out. It felt like every time I asked for a service, they were like, fuck you, no you can’t have that. I was just asking for basic needs; I didn’t have a way to communicate. And they basically just flipped me the bird.
While I was in prison they had no American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters. None of the staff knew sign language, not the doctors or the nurses, the mental health department, the administration, the chaplain, the mail room. Nobody. In the barbershop, in the chow hall, I couldn’t communicate with the other inmates. When I was assaulted, I couldn’t use the phone to call the Prison Rape Elimination Act (a federal law meant to prevent sexual assault in prison) hotline to report what happened. And when they finally sent an interviewer, there was no interpreter. Pretty much everywhere I went, there was no access to ASL. Really, it was deprivation.
I met several other deaf people while I was incarcerated. But we were all in separate dorms. I would have liked to meet with them and sign and catch up. But I was isolated. They housed us sometimes with blind folks, which for me made communication impossible. They couldn’t see my signs or gestures, and I couldn’t hear them. They finally celled me with another deaf inmate for about a year. It was pretty great, to be able to communicate with someone. But then he got released, and they put me with another blind person.
When I met with the prison doctor, I explained that I needed a sign language interpreter during the appointment. They told me no, we’d have to write back and forth. The doctor asked me to read his lips. But when I encounter a new person, I can’t really read their lips. And I don’t have a high literacy level, so it’s pretty difficult for me to write in English. I mean, my language is ASL. That’s how I communicate on a daily basis. Because I had no way to explain what was going on, I stopped going to the doctor.
My health got worse. I came to find out later that I had cancer. When I went to the hospital to have it removed, the doctor did bring an interpreter and they explained everything in sign language. I didn’t understand, why couldn’t the prison have done that in the first place? When I got back to prison, I had a lot of questions about the medicines I was supposed to take. But I couldn’t ask anyone.
I did request mental health services. A counselor named Julie was very nice and tried her best to tell the warden I needed a sign language interpreter. The warden said no. They wanted to use one of the hearing inmates in the facility who used to be an interpreter because he grew up in a home with deaf parents. But Julie felt that was inappropriate, because of privacy concerns. Sometimes, we would try to use Video Remote Interpreting, but the screen often froze. So I was usually stuck having to write my feelings down on paper. I didn’t have time to process my emotions. I just couldn’t get it across. Writing all that down takes an exorbitant amount of time: I’d be in there for 30 minutes, and I didn’t have the time to write everything I wanted to. Julie wound up learning some sign language. But it just wasn’t enough.
My communication problems in prison caused a lot of issues with guards, too. One time, I was sleeping, and I didn’t see it was time to go to chow. I went to the guard and said, “Hey man, you never told me it was chow time.” I was writing back and forth to the guard, and he said he can’t write because it’s considered personal communication, and it was against prison policy for guards to have a personal relationship with inmates. That happened several times. I would have to be careful writing notes to officers, too, because it looked to the hearing inmates like I was snitching.
Once they brought me to disciplinary court, but they had me in shackles behind my back, so I had no way to communicate. Two of the corrections officers in the room were speaking to me. All I saw were lips moving. I saw laughter. One of the guards was actually a pretty nice guy, one of the ones who was willing to write things down for us deaf folks. He tried to get them to take the cuffs off me. He wrote, guilty or not guilty? But the others would not uncuff me. I wanted to write not guilty. I wanted to ask for an interpreter. But I couldn’t. They said, “OK, you have nothing to say? Guilty.” That infuriated me. I started to scream. That was really all that I could do. They sent me to the hole, and I cried endlessly. It’s hard to describe the fury and anger.
Prison is a dangerous place for everyone, but that’s especially true for deaf folks.
Jeremy Woody, 48, was released from Central State Prison in Georgia in August 2017, after serving four years for a probation violation. He now lives near Atlanta. He is currently suing Georgia corrections officials over his treatment in prison, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Disability Rights Program and the ACLU of Georgia. Woody spoke to The Marshall Project through an American Sign Language interpreter.
The Georgia Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment concerning allegations in this interview.
you’ve gotta stat romanticizing your life. you gotta start believing that your morning commute is cute and fun, that every cup of coffee is the best you’ve ever had, that even the smallest and most mundane things are exciting and new. you have to, because that’s when you start truly living. that’s when you look forward to every day.
And the utterly ironic thing is I’ve seen repeated tumblr posts of that iconic photo absolutely slagging the shit out of Peter Norman as “lol white guy so uncomfortable” “Why the fuck isn’t he supporting them”, etc etc.
I reblogged him the day i started treatment and 1. GOT TO MY APPOINTMENT ON TIME 2. FOUND A FREE PARKING TICKET SOMEONE LEFT IN THE METER FOR ME AND 3. GOT FREE STARBUCKS AFTER MY APPOINTMENT!!!!!
I’m convinced bc I reblogged this on Friday, got hired at a job I had a million interviews for, went on a first date that went well, and got kissed a billion times so like hell ya to the luck cat
when I was 14 I worked in a grocery store and one day I got to bag Stephen King’s groceries and of course, being the little horror fiction nerd I am I was completely starstruck
I think he thought I was gonna ask for an autograph because I was not even lowkey staring I was full on moon-faced and bouncing and he kept looking over at me hesitantly like aw jeez kid fuck off
anyways I finally managed to squeak out that I was a huge fan and asked for advice on writing, “how do I write as well as you do?” in my horrible thick German accent and broken ass English and he gave me the best writing advice I have ever received
“shit kid, stop worrying about how other people do it and just write your story”
14 years later my wife and I nearly hit him with our car because he was jaywalking
I reblog this every time I see it, because the part that makes this so horrific to me, is that the room is a direct callback to Goodnight Moon. It takes this memory of safety and security and turns it directly upside down and I love it.
all these men want casual no strings attached relationships then wonder why they keep slipping into pits of like sorrow and intermittent depression in the moments they’re too sober. Like when all you’ve done is compartmentalize affection to the point where it’s just a transaction to you, or a point of maintenance you have to fulfill every few nights, you *will* suffer consequences. your heart *will* eventually feel heavy when you start to remember all your missed connections, and all the opportunities to feel genuine love for another person. like this sort of selfishness comes with a price, there’s like a debt to be paid here
Samuel E. Wright On His Role As Sebastian In “The Little Mermaid”
My most favorite moment was when, after years of filming it, and being very strict to animation, because you have to be strict with animation, because it’s timing, and picture, and that kind of thing… And I was very strict with it. But I kept doing things, I’d be naughty, and I’d do something… And they’d say, “Sam, you can’t do that! This is not Robin Williams. You cannot do that, you can’t make up little jokes on the side.” But a year after we finished completing the film, they called me up, and they said, “Sam, we’re going to fly you out here. All of the things we said you couldn’t do… You’ve got three hours to do all of them.” So they brought me in the studio, and they just turned the mike on… and I went nuts! I just said anything I wanted to say like Sebastian. I talked like him for three hours, and some of it found it’s way into the movie. For example: “Teenagers. They think they know everything. You give them an inch, they swim all over you.” That was something that I just made up!
when i saw the headline ‘golf digest helps free man from prison’ i thought it was gonna be, like
“he’s clearly in the background of this golf photo! that proves he wasn’t at the crime scene!!”
as opposed to, like
“this guy in prison sent us his cool golf fanart but we didn’t want to promo a serial killer, so we looked into his case and thought it looked pretty flimsy and probably racially motivated”
(here’s the first article from 2012 and the followup)
Did I live too long, did I do too much? @thisshitis2muchtohandle - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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