Tag: pretty much

jumpingjacktrash:

FUCKING THIS

now, lemme say a thing:

unlike a lot of angry folks, i have no real problem with people who have cultivated their assets over a few generations and have a million or two in property and investments. that’s something you can actually do with hard work, time, and enough luck that medical surprises or other misfortune doesn’t take it from you. i know actually quite a few families that could pool that much across three generations or a handful of siblings and cousins. that’s the kind of wealth that gave rise to the story of wealth being the result of hard work and intelligence – because if there are a couple doctors or lawyers in the family, or someone bought IBM stock in the 70′s, some attention and elbow grease can give you seven figure results.

which is NOT to say ‘everyone can do it, if you’re poor you’re just not trying’. there are a lot of factors that go into that, and a lucky start is the biggest one. in america, abled whites get that lucky start a lot more than everyone else, and yadda yadda you know the rest.

but the point is, people with like 1.5 million, or 4 million, can end up there by taking advantage of their luck and applying work to it over decades. if that’s what their priority is, of course. so i don’t look at someone with a lake house and an investment portfolio and instantly think EVIL BAD. i think: i don’t really agree with their priorities and we probably wouldn’t get along socially, but the instinct to grow your family’s prosperity is universal, and i’m not going to condemn them without evidence of wrongdoing.

ok, that said?

the ultra-rich?

the billionaires? the hundreds-of-billions-aires?

monstrous.

you cannot cultivate money like that. you cannot grow it as a family project. it starts with an absurd windfall, and then you grow it through crimes compounding upon crimes. crimes against humanity, if not crimes by the law. you acquire billions by making money your god, and flushing your soul down the toilet.

black-geek-supremacy:

onlyblackgirl:

black-geek-supremacy:

the-afro-elf:

profeminist:

thatpettyblackgirl:

Truth hurts.

The greatest domestic terror threat is white males it has been that way since they crashed their ships into the east coast.

image

“A white man made terroristic threats against Don Lemon b/c he was angry about white men being called the biggest terror threats.”

– 
@footballfillibu

☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾

And they’re the same demographic of the police force killing black ppl.

I mean this is literally a publish FBI statistic but ok…we just had an active shooter training. And they, a bunch of white men in the military and police force, told us to our faces that white men make up over 93% of the active shooter cases in this country, ever. Not even just recently. Like literally forever.

Just goes to show you that America never really had a “gun” problem but a problem with White America itself.

imgetting2old4diss:

commandershepardvasfuckit:

linnythealien:

Unlike many other languages, both second/third person singular/plural pronouns are the same in English!

We have both a singular and plural “you” and “they”

If you’re not also going to complain about plural you, ya don’t get to complain about singular they.

Plus, I bet you use the singular they all the time

“Has the mailman come yet?” “No, they haven’t”

You’re not worried about grammar, ya’ll just want to hate on nb people for no reason

Its just automatic to say they/them in England.

air139:

tomcats-and-tophats:

“Have you ever tried not being gay?” has been consistently recognized within lgbt circles for its absurdity and wilfull ignorance of our reality, so you’d have to be pretty fucking stupid to turn around and then refuse to see the problem with “if bi women don’t want men to abuse them just stop being bi :)”

I mean they aren’t stupid, they are making an environment where youngsters are blind to abuse within the community cause outside is worse

superstardestroyer:

avatar-dacia:

swan2swan:

swan2swan:

Sidenote:

Don’t let anyone forget the fact that the President of the United States skipped out on visiting military graves for Armistice Day’s 100th anniversary. 

Because of rain.

He has golfed in the rain. He was inaugurated in the rain. Other leaders–and his own subordinates–made it out there in the rain. 

President Trump, though? The man who loves our troops and our country? Yeah, it’s weird that he didn’t go to the ceremony and chose to stay in his hotel room. He left our country on Veteran’s Day weekend to visit Paris for the reunion, but could not be bothered to face a little rain in order to pay his respects to the troops.

He forgets the names of the fallen. He cuts funding for veteran welfare programs. He sends our soldiers to the border for needless exercises in intimidation. Then he claims that others are weak on the military and don’t respect our troops?

What a joke.

Oh, and when I say “don’t let them forget”, I mean “every time some alt-right nutjob comes at you, hit them with that question”.

Also, if you need to cite facts: 

An hour. This isn’t a “scheduling thing”, this is something that should have been planned. At the least, the President doesn’t have staff who know how to plan a trip.

The thing is, this drags military respect into the conflict. 

If you want bonus points, remind them of the time Hillary got pneumonia from attending a 9/11 memorial.

Never trust someone who fetishizes the military in one breath and spits on veterans in the next; just saying.

Here’s the thing. It’s good to remind them, because their hypocrisy needs to be out in the open, but none of them care. Even most conservatives don’t care. Trump isn’t going to ever live up to his office and because he’s Their Guy they aren’t going to ever agree with that until after he loses an election and like after Dubya left office they’ll all pretend they weren’t ever in his corner. They’re not for him as much as they are against “the other team,” and he’s just the man they think is capable of scoring right now.

They care about Hillary fainting because it overlaps with their biases that she’s weak as a woman. They care what Obama wore because it overlapped with their biases about black stereotypes.

When they talk about disrespect, they aren’t talking about a thing that rich white conservative men can ever do, because it’s never been about someone’s actions disrespecting anything. It’s been about people in power not being who they want to see there, and these assholes thinking that those leaders’ very existence disrespected the country.

palindromordnilap:

sky-blue-phoenix:

taptaptapping-on-the-glass:

deluxetrashqueen:

Daily reminder that “Missing Person” posts are a common and often effective method that abusers use to find their victims that have run away from them. Also used to find people in the witness protection program.  

If you see a “missing person” post with a number that is not just 911 on it, be very wary. And if you do see someone who is supposedly missing, call the police, NOT the number provided on the post. I trust the police as little as anyone but they’ll at least be able to tell you if that person is actually missing and it has less of a chance of giving information to a possible abuser. 

A couple of red flags I’ve noticed:

  • Abusers claiming their victims are mentally ill or schizophrenic, to explain why they might not want to come back
  • Abusers giving any excuse to explain why their victims may not come back really
  • Abusers telling you not to approach their victims if you see them, or limit your communication with them
  • Abusers telling you not to mention them to their victims at all
  • Abusers claiming that their victims aren’t safe with their family or friends
  • Abusers claiming their victims are being threatened away from them

(Feel free to add on)

Add-ons to the list of red flags from my mother, a psychologist who has worked with victims of domestic abuse:

  • Abusers claiming their victim has a history of self-harm that leaves bruises is always a red flag (except in the case of autistic children, but even then, call 911, not the abuser)
  • Abusers claiming their (POC) victim doesn’t understand English and so you shouldn’t try to communicate with them/trust anything they say is not uncommon for human traffickers
  • Abusers claiming their victim has a history of making things up for attention or to get their way, tacitly implying you shouldn’t listen to them when they express fear or disclose their abusive situation to you
  • Posters lacking a last name are inherently not to be trusted. The lack of a surname is there to keep you from looking the person up in other databases and finding out they’ve been listed as missing by their family/the police.
  • Posters that put any character smears – mental illness, drug use, etc. – out about the victim are trying to make you predisposed to not communicating with or trusting the victim so you won’t believe anything they say. Treat this as a flashing neon red flag and call the police.

My mother would also like to note that taking a picture of the poster or tearing it down and turning it in to police can be very useful to them when they’re trying to build cases against abusers so if that’s at all possible for you, by all means do it.

Re: “except in the case of autistic children”, honestly, with the interactions with Autism Parents™ I’ve had, including some that tried to get legal guardianship over their adult child on false pretenses and others who explained literally curb-stomping a child with “oh, he’s autistic”, even that is still too much.

No, You Do Not Stim or Have Special Interests

alarajrogers:

candidlyautistic:

heturnedleft:

candidlyautistic:

(or, Unless You Do)

I have seen a lot of questions lately about whether or not
neurotypical people stim, have special interests, etc. I’ve written about it
before in reply to others’ questions, but it keeps coming out so I want to
address the issue more directly.

Do neurotypical people stim? No. Do neurotypical people have
special interests? No. Do allistics stim? Some do. Do allistics have special
interests? Some do.

Have I ruffled your feathers yet? Look, I know this stance
is going to irk some people, and I know there are going to be autistics even
that disagree with me. But I think it is an important distinction and one worth
making.

Simply put, autistics
are significantly marginalized for stimming and having special interests. Neurotypical people are not.

What about neurodiverse allistics? I say, “Some do,” here
because I do not know, not exactly. There are other neurodiversities that are
in a similar position as autistics, but I do not have those neurodiversities so
I have not researched them in depth; they exist and that is the extent of my
knowledge. I leave it to those voices to read my arguments and to speak up for
themselves; I will take them at face value if they do.

Of course, that raises the question of how autistics are
marginalized for stimming and having special interests. To understand that we
need a little digression: What are stimming and special interests, and where do
those words come from?

Stimming and special interest are both indirect reclamations
of clinical terms that are used to pathologize autistics. Stimming comes from
the phrase, “repetitive self-stimulatory behavior” which is the definition of
the clinical term, “stereotypic behavior” or “stereotypy” or “stereotyped
behavior.” Special interests have a different source, and come from the phrase,
“circumscribe or perseverative interests.”

As clinical terms, stereotypy and circumscribed interests mean
something very specific, and both are part of the diagnostic criteria that is
used to diagnose autistics and patholgoize us. Section B, of the Autism
Spectrum Disorder diagnostic criteria from the DSM-V states (1)(View Source):

B. Restricted,
repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at
least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative,
not exhaustive; see text):

  1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).
  2. […]
  3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects,
        excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).
  4. […]

Many of us have written about our experiences with being
shunned, bullied, or even outright abused because of our inability to cease
stimming or break from our special interests. In fact, there is an entire
cottage industry dedicated specifically to breaking us of these habits as early
as possible; Applied Behavioral Analysis. ABA writings by autistics are also
widely available; fair warning though, some of it is scary abusive.

I cannot speak directly to ABA because it is not something I
directly experienced. However, I do stim publicly and openly, and I do have
special interests. My special interests almost resulted in my failing high
school because I was so absorbed in them, and as a consequence to my failures I
was abused. I was in my mid-thirties before I was able to come to terms with
the abuse I went through, and there are still days that I struggle with it. My
PTSD is a direct result of the way I was treated for having special interests
that interfered with what others expected of me.

That is a very real marginalization with very real and
lasting consequences.

At the same time, some allistic people are not marginalized
for these things. A great example of this is how anxiety coping techniques often
include physical stims. Therapists have given anxious people stress balls since
I was child at least, and encourage them to make a habit of using them to help
ground and relieve anxiety. The very same behavior that might be used to
pathologize an autistic is used to treat anxiety.

Is someone who is anxious neurodiverse? Of course they are. Does
someone who is anxious benefit from the repetitive activity? Of course they do.
Is it stimming? No; they are not pathologized and/or marginalized for the
behavior. In fact, quite the opposite – they are rewarded for it.

I am not going to say that all allistic people do not stim
or have special interests. I know there are other neurodiversities that either
use these things as diagnostic criteria, or for which they are recognized
behaviors. I know there are neurodiversities for which they are not diagnostic
criteria or professionally recognized behavior, but are recognized within those
communities. I am not trying to say these are invalid – quite the opposite;
when a community comes together and says, “This is a thing for us,” I am going
to listen. They likely know themselves better than the professionals. And if
they say, “We are marginalized for this,” I am going to take them at their word
that they have lived experiences of marginalization.

What I am saying is that there is a difference between repetitive
behaviors that a person might enjoy or use to cope with something and stimming.
I am saying there is a difference between being really interested in something
and having a special interest.

What I am suggesting is that people give serious consideration
to the way we are pathologized and marginalized and recognize that there is a
lot more to stimming and special interests than what we see on the surface.

Autistics and other neurodiversities that stim and have special interests face direct ableism that harms us because of those activites. Others do not, and that plays a significant part in what separates us and in what makes our stimming and special interests what they are.

Sources:

  1. Facts About ASDs. (2016). CDC –
    Facts about Autism Spectrum Disorders – NCBDDD    . Retrieved 5 October 2016,
    from http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

Maybe you’re taking the right approach. But I would have preferred to emphasize how universal stimming is, in hopes that it won’t be pathologized. Once a term becomes synonymous with “human being,” it’s much harder to marginalize someone for being described by it.

I just really don’t like telling people that they can’t use a label that applies to me. It feels too much like exclusion. And autistics, of all people, should know how destructive exclusion can be. Of course there are some assholes who trivialize serious concepts for jokes, and they should shut up. But if someone’s using a term earnestly, in good faith, my inclination would be not to get in their way. 

I don’t know. I’m certainly biased here in favor of letting people say what they want. But emphasizing your marginalization feels more acceptable to me than trying to kick people out of a term.

Regardless, thank you for being civil and reasonable while discussing a controversial topic. I hope I’ve maintained a similar tone. Please let me know if I said something inadvertently offensive.

You have great points, and personally I think you are spot on. I will always lean towards more inclusivity for people who need it, but I think also it is important to educate people on the topic so they CAN make a descicions in good faith.

In this case, were talking about something we are pathologised for, and while I wish there were no stigma involved some of us DO need that pathological approach for our own safety (me for example).

I think reconciling to need to eliminate stigma and marginalization while recognizing the medical needs must come through education and acceptance (rather than awareness).

But you are absolutely rightb that should never be used to exclude a person who benefits from the label.

I don’t agree about the special interests part, though. Yes, we are singled out for our interests because we tend to be obsessive about them, but ask a neurotypical teenage girl if she is ever marginalized for talking about her special interests. As long as there are categories of people who are put down for having things they are passionate about that the larger society has deemed not worthy of that passion, “special interests” should apply to any of them. My allistic 12-year-old catches as much shit from some people for her obsession with anime as I did when I was close to her age, except that in my case it was that I was obsessed with a thing hardly anyone had heard of, and in her case she’s obsessed with a thing that the tastemakers of society have deemed unworthy because it’s a popular interest of teenage girls.

fierceawakening:

bi-starlight:

omegaman255:

simulpony:

It’s a mistake to become entrenched in tribalism. It’s the very definition of regressive. “The other side” isn’t a monolith. It’s made up of individual people with individual and nuanced views.

I normally don’t post political things, but this is important. Our society has become far too black and white about these things. There is not “us vs them.” It’s just “us.” To view the world in extremes and absolutes will be the end of us all.

Nuance is great but when as the Atlantic put it, the problem isnt “tribalism” it’s racism.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/racism-not-tribalism/575173/?utm_medium=offsite&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=newsstand-ideas

When the other side staunchly refuses to vote for healthcare, unanimously is against action on climate change and has similar unified views on other issues… You can call it a monolith.

That’s the problem with the people who took over the GOP, yes.

Is it a problem with everyone who ever used the label? I don’t know about that.

I think they dragged a whole coalition of people who were decent but wrong out of the club and all that’s left is indecent.

Should the people they pushed out give themselves a new name? Sounds good to me, especially if they call themselves moderate Democrats.

Do they have to?

No.

an observation

korrasera:

venomanti:

kiwibat:

cupidsbower:

Within a generation of genuinely good reform that makes things better for particular groups, there will be a backlash from people who weren’t yet alive way back when and don’t remember what it was like in the bad old days, but are sure something about the reform is a scam.

This is true for major things, like vaccines, or women being able to have their own bank accounts, paying jobs, maternity leave, and the vote. And it’s just as true for smaller things like a fan-run Archive of Our Own (so named, after Virginia Wolfe’s famous feminist essay, for a reason)
that makes fanfiction available for free with a mandate to legally protect it as long as it conforms to the Terms of Service.

The current backlash against the OTW I’m seeing all over my dash is completely unsurprising, because we’re at that point in the organisation’s life. There are now fans who weren’t in fandom yet when we made the OTW and AO3, and who have no idea what fandom used to be like.

The fact the backlash is riddled with right wing vocab and lack-of-fact-checking laziness is just as predictable. I doubt most of it is even said with genuine worry – it’s just concern trolling. It’s another face of the usual efforts by the right to suppress the work of women, queers, and other minorities. And yes, I’m being serious. Both right wing trolls and Russian trolls infiltrated fandom conversations, where they overlapped with social justice movements, during the USA’s 2016 election, and they haven’t gone anywhere. Fandom is a nice juicy target for that kind of propaganda effort, because we tend to skew left and be full of minority-identifying people.

This anti-AO3 push is not just wank. It’s propaganda, and it’s attempting to sow discord, distract from important issues, and do harm.

Thanks to those of you who have taken the time to point out those posts are rubbish.

Note: The OTW is a charity, run by fans for fans. I was one of the original Board members, but I’m not currently doing any work with them.

You can read more about the OTW and the AO3 for yourself here: http://www.transformativeworks.org/.

You know how fucking dumb you sound

do you have any reasonable argument at all

They don’t, that’s part of the problem with an authoritarian mindset. They aren’t coming at this by forming an argument, they’re attacking because they’ve identified an enemy.

Change is terrifying. People who are trapped in authoritarian viewpoints are generally fearful, so they tend to push back on any kind of change with anger and potential violence, whether that’s social, political, or physical violence.

The one correction to what @cupidsbower said that I’d offer is that it’s not actually witnessing the ‘bad old days’ that prevent us from engaging in this kind of behavior. There are plenty of older people who are authoritarian who lived through the that period that are still going to behave like this today.

What it did was galvanize the people who didn’t want to embrace authoritarianism by helping them understand exactly what the world looks like when we don’t have things like OTW or AO3. That’s why you’ve got a core of fandom people that were involved in those groups who, upon seeing stuff like LJ strikethrough, who learned really quickly that authoritarians will destroy everything if you give them the chance.

But everything else is spot on. Authoritarians are surging right now. We’re at a peak of corruption and inequality that we haven’t seen in a long time, which both terrifies them and emboldens them, because their response to fear is to go on the attack and elect leaders that are just as violent and ignorant as they are.

This is absolutely authoritarians attacking any and all social progress they see. In their eyes, any move away from a social hierarchy that prizes obedience and oppression is terrifying, so they’re going to attack anyone they see as the enemy to feel better about it.