“[T]he interests of the oppressors lie in “changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them,” for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated.” — Paulo Freire
The history we were taught in school has trained us to center the accomplishments and humanity of white people, especially wealthy white men. When the accomplishments of the Other is touched on only briefly in passing, we internalize the idea that such people are less important; that their stories are mildly interesting sidebars at best, and not part of the main arc of History.
I don’t believe that most teachers do this on purpose, but I do think there are a lot of teachers who fail to examine critically and question the history they themselves were taught, or the curriculum their school uses, which can lead them to unwittingly perpetuate harmful narratives and extremely lopsided history.
Every time you are presented with a historical narrative, or remember a historical “fact” you learned in school, stop and ask yourself, “is that really what happened? How do we know?” Then look up and confirm the information with a reliable source (preferably multiple original eye-witness accounts), if you can.
If you’re not sure where to start, try googling “factual account of [historical event]” and seeing what websites and book recommendations come up. For books, read the negative reviews, and see what people’s complaints are. If reviewers complain about factual inaccuracy, steer clear. Young adult books are often a good source of basic information, broken down in ways that are easy to understand.
For Americans, I recommend starting by looking up factually accurate accounts of the Plymouth colony and the first Thanksgiving, since that is one of the most heavily mythologized pieces of American history. The story you think you know is probably the sanitized and simplified children’s picture-book version invented in the 19th century to promote American unity during and after the Civil War.
What do you actually know about what the Pilgrims believed, why they were persecuted in England, and what they hoped to accomplish in the “New World”?
What do you know about the life and background of Squanto (Tisquantum) or William Bradford or Miles Standish?
What did the Pilgrims think about the Indigenous Americans, and vice versa?
What were relations like between the colonists and the natives after the First Thanksgiving?
How and why did the national holiday of Thanksgiving come about?
The true history of the world is sometimes sad, sometimes horrifying, but always fascinating and worth the effort of finding it out.
The way we were educated also tells us to center individuals rather than groups, which is a way of reinforcing capitalist ideals, even though no individual in history existed separate from groups and support structures. This is what allows people to claim they rose to power/prominence from their ‘own hard work’ and causes people who have not risen to power/prominence to be blamed for the fact that they have not. (Regardless of whether they’re capable of it, but especially regardless of whether they want to.)
It also centers Important Events, when it’s important to not that all events had many factors leading up to them and had many impacts beyond whatever people find important to list out. Most historical changes can be traced to a whole slew of events that may be considered ‘more important’ or ‘less important’ for a variety of reasons, and can be used in different ways to create different narratives of how history went. Changes happen over time, not instantly, and won’t just keep going without further input.
Another thing a lot of emphasis is put on is war and revolution. A lot of things have happened in history that don’t involve fighting though, and there’s a lot to learn from histories of farming, social movements, weather and natural disasters, myths and stories, art, or anything else you can think of. War definitely has an impact on society, but so does everything else, and plenty of revolutions happened without any bloodshed at all, or even people noticing any drastic changes, which is probably where house cats come from.
Technology is also an interesting and educational thing to look into, but also something depicted as a) instantly inciting change, b) monotonically increasing, c) universally good with no negative impacts, d) the only/most important marker of an ‘advanced civilization’, and e) whatever will make post-Enlightenment Western culture look like the best and smartest culture in a way that’s unique to them and makes it difficult to prove other cultures had/have cool technology.
So even when ideas about history can be backed up by facts, it’s important to be careful to read between the lines and figure out what story they’re telling, and especially who that story benefits.
Pigeons are just naturally this dusty! It keeps their feathers healthy and water resistent. Here’s a post from @theramseyloft describing it a little bit
Oh, hey, thanks for this really great illistration, Squidge!
This is exactly what I mean when I warn people that Pigeons are DUST MONSTERS!!
I care as much about the well being of their potential families as I do for the pigeons themselves, so one of the first questions I ask potential adopters is “Do you, or does any one in your household have any respiratory issues or allergies to dust or dander?”
This is a fantastic illistration of why I need to ask that question and exactly what the offer of baths most benefits.
More online begging I guess. Very tired of this. Long post incoming, the short version is: homeless trans woman and her partners are still homeless, help us eat and take care of our animals/ourselves, and pay for our storage unit and stuff.
Ok, so a few months ago my ex/our landlord fucked us over and we’ve been living in our 94 Astro van since.There’s three of us, one trans woman (me) and 2 nb folks, as well as two pups and a cat. For the first couple months we were heavily focused on finding a living work-trade situation on a farm, and we thought we’d found a perfect fit but we got fucked over AGAIN and kicked out WHILE OUR 11 YEAR OLD WAS WITH US.
In the wake of this we’ve been dealing with depression, aimlessness, car trouble, ex trouble, lack of money from our vaguely unsavory income sources, lack of gigs to cover the gaps, increasing amounts of body pain (two of us have fibro among other things), and a slew of other bullshit.
But there’s a silver lining.
We’ve been offered familial help with putting a down payment on a trailer, on the condition that it’s to help us get stable and we try to stay in a trailer park and work legit jobs until farms start looking for help again in the spring.
We’re more than happy to do this, as long term stability for Ramona is our HIGHEST priority in everything we do.
So right now we’re looking for trailers suitable for long-term living (and having a hell of a time- the kinds of bourgie fucks who buy large 5th wheels and travel trailers don’t give a fuck about their kids’ privacy and most we’ve looked at don’t have a second bedroom) in addition to day to day survival shit.
Our pets need meds (we thought we had a dose to give them next week turns out it was just empty boxes for record purposes), the van, although running for now is on her last legs, and we’re running out of time before the rain starts. We could super use help, because panhandling/odd jobs/sketchy stuff has been TERRIBLE lately.
Right now we’re posted up with some sweet pals in Portland checking out rv dealerships here, but if we can’t find anything we’re gonna have to hit the road again. If we do, we’re pretty sure we can’t keep the van running as long as we need to, and are going to need to switch to hitching, which means buying a bit of gear we don’t have atm, finding a friend for the cat to stay with, finding a place to store the van, and hitting the road.
We can see the way out, and we’re pushing hard to get back off the streets and into some sort of stability but we need help to do it, and strangers on the side of the road aren’t as generous as they used to be.
Thanks for reading please rb if you can’t donate. ♥♥♥♥
Do you wonder why autistics need subtitles? You think “hey, they aren’t Deaf. Why would they need them?” Because auditory processing disorder. That’s why. See. Our brains don’t function like yours. Words get lost. Jumbled as if the person mumbled unintelegible noises. Unclear to my brain what word or phrase they meant to use. This happens in movies, tv shows, and everyday conversation. That’s why we always ask you to repeat yourselves. Because it sounded like nonsense to us. It sounded like random noises that don’t even come close to a real word. This is why we need subtitles. So allow us subtitles. We aren’t like you. We need them.
Auditory processing disorder is the reason people (ie my family) have labelled me a liar. If you ask me a question I will pause before answering because I’m trying to figure out what you said, not because I’m trying to make up a plausible lie.
alright, my other post was getting a little long, so I’m gonna just go ahead and make a new one.
first things first, I’m disabled both physically and mentally, and can’t work. I’m trying to get on SSDI, but the process is slow and a lot of things happened during the last time I did and I missed my window of time to argue my case and it was closed. I’m working on reapplying, but it’s slow going again. I can barely manage to take care of my basic needs, and my head doesn’t always cooperate when I sit down to write things out. this post itself took most of the day to put together, for example, and today is a ‘good’ brain day..
this month’s food budget, and probably the next few’s, are gonna be thin as heck, as our SNAP benefits have kicked me off of it, claiming that I need to reapply with my abusive and estranged ex, as we’re still legally married due to being unable to pay for a divorce. we’ll be getting about $110 on the 7th to last all month. that’s not gonna cut it.
before my abusive ex got his job, we were both on the SNAP benefits and got nearly $400. after he got his job, his income dropped that to nil, so we removed him from it as he wasn’t going to pay for anybody’s food. he barely paid for his own once we got SNAP benefits back, instead turning around and bullying his mother into paying for food for him as well (out of literally half of what we’d gotten before) and only really contributing to the household because his name is on the electric bill and if it doesn’t get paid, that negative feedback goes on his credit report.
was fine for a while, but we got a call last month that they were removing me from the benefits as well, as he should be paying for my food. he’s not. he’s told me he’s not buying shit for me. he’s angry that we’re planning to move across the state within the next year, where he doesn’t want to go, and is hoping if enough goes wrong and he’s no help, we’ll change our minds or just not be able to go.
I’ve gone to get a food box, and we have enough for now, but it’s not going to last the entire month. if I can get some help with funds, I would appreciate that a lot. I have a paypal link for those who are comfortable sending money, and I also have an Amazon wishlist with stuff we can use and keep for a decent period of time. I can’t seem to make a venmo, as it doesn’t recognize my cell phone number as belonging to a cell phone, but I did try that. for those who are curious about my deadname/current legal name, it’s on my paypal link. my chosen name is Seth, which is how I’d prefer to be addressed, if at all possible.
I’d appreciate very much any help we can get. the links I’ve got are…
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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