Dana The Paina: Don't laugh at my uh... uh.... aphasia -
Chronic pain sufferers often have anomic aphasia - times when they can’t remember certain words or use the wrong word while speaking.
I have this, and it’s damn frustrating.
I can express myself perfectly in writing, but ask me where my car is and I might say it’s in the kitchen (instead of the garage).
That’s funny, right? “Ha ha, you said you parked the car in the kitchen! Ha ha ha!”
Sure it sounds funny. But to me, it’s not humorous. I feel stupid and frustrated and angry that my fucked-up brain misplaces common, everyday words. So please don’t laugh or make fun of me when it happens. Just be patient with me.
(via static-nonsense)
“Government assistance in America is invisible until black people receive it. Then it becomes racialized, demonized and stigmatized.” —
Melissa Harris-Perry and Karen Finney (paraphrased), commenting on a recent New York Times editorial wherein black farmers were all but vilified as ‘lazy takers’ who gamed the system —for winning an historic discrimination lawsuit against the USDA: Pigford v. Glickman (via odinsblog)
So true. In fact, the entire capitalist system — all banking, all corporate operations, all military industry — is built on and based upon government assistance; or rather, much more than “assistance”, more like extreme government largesse by granting public funds from taxes and public resources to private interests.
Private banking relies entirely on credit, loans, underwriting, insurance, and political-military protection from the government. All corporate merchandise in the USA is moved and distributed on highways and roads built and maintained using public money. The telecom companies sell you mobile phone service using radio spectrum which belongs to the public and is granted to them by the government. Agribusiness is well-known to be subsidized. Big pharma relies on publicly funded research to isolate its private profit makers. There are no major areas of corporate America which are not entirely reliant on government assistance. And that’s not even getting into corporate tax breaks.
Yet god forbid Black people get any benefit from the government whatsoever, amounting in total to the tiniest trickle in relation to the government largesse extended to corporate America. Suddenly that is seen, within the prevailing racist US political discourse, as a burden upon society and sign of an imaginary racial pathology of laziness and dependency. Good one, white America.
(via zuky)
(Source: nbcnews.com, via notime4yourshit)
stop supporting the myth that poor people don’t deserve to have “nice” things. because that sort of narrative continues to ignore the complexities of capitalism and struggle and takes us away from examining why it’s easier for someone living below the poverty line to get a smart phone than to get sustainable support for housing, employment at a livable wage, healthcare services, etc.
I will always, always reblog posts like this.
(via hidden-agender)
Saying casual sex destroys your ability to form meaningful romantic relationships is like saying that talking to a stranger at the bus stop takes away the meaning of your friendships.
(via hugs-and-muffins)
STOP BEING SCARED TO SEND THAT “HEY” MESSAGE TO YOUR CRUSH. WHO KNOWS, YOU COULD BE KISSING THEM IN 2 WEEKS. YOU NEVER KNOW!! TAKE RISKS!!!
Or 8 months later when your boyfriend lives in stupid America. >.>
Or god-knows-when because all your partners live really far away from you and you’re all sadface and you do enjoy camming for them over Skype but it’s just not the same.
(HAILEY LET’S VISIT)
ruminations on growing up queer, clueless, and addicted to the internet
Fucking truth. I remember Googling “transsexual woman” when I was twelve and just finding tons of porn and freaking the hell out. I didn’t want that to be my life. And it didn’t help that I was still Catholic at the time and very sex negative.
Yyyyyep, I’ve been there. :(
POCs are called too sensitive yet if you even utter the phrase “racism” white folks come running like they heard a dog whistle and start shoving their One Black Friend and great-great-great-Cherokee grandmother all up in your face while screaming “there’s no race but the human race”
(Source: palaceofposey, via nueva-bordena)
Name one group of oppressed people who were able to end mass genocide and institutional and systemic oppression by being nice.
show your work
(via guerrillamamamedicine)
WAIT ONE OTHER MORE THING! NURTURE YOURSELF! IMAGINE IF YOU CAME ACROSS A YOUNG STAR AND IT WAS SO SCARED AND SO INTIMIDATED OF THE LIGHT THE OTHER STARS CAST AND SO WORRIED IT WOULDN’T EVER BE AS BRIGHT! YOU WOULD TELL IT THAT THE SKY IS BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE EVERY STAR DOESN’T SHINE THE SAME WAY OR FROM THE SAME DISTANCE AND THERE WOULD BE NO USE IN LYING ON YOUR BACK IN A FIELD LOOKING UP INTO THE GALAXY IF EVERYTHING WAS JUST IN MILITANT ROWS LIKE A STORE SIGN! YOU WOULD TELL IT THAT THE STARS IN CONSTELLATIONS AREN’T MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE STARS OUT OF THEM AND THE SKIES SHIFT ANYWAY SO WHO CARES WHAT LOOKS LIKE WHAT! YOU WOULD SAY THAT THE SUN IS CERTAINLY IMPRESSIVE BUT NIGHTTIME WOULD BE BULLSHIT IF IT WERE THE ONLY STAR AROUND! YOU WOULD IGNORE THE BURNING OF YOUR LIPS TO KISS ITS FOREHEAD AND YOU WOULD LEAVE IT FEELING BETTER AND CONFIDENT AND LOVED. YOU WOULD BE KIND AND HONEST. YOU ARE THAT TINY COSMIC BABY. TREAT YOURSELF LIKE IT. NURTURE YOURSELF. OK BYE GOODNIGHT
(via telegantmess)
So, here’s a thing that happens:
- Person with a disability: I need accommodation x.
- Person with power: Oh, you have condition y! No problem!
- Person with a disability actually has condition z, which needs some of the same accommodations as y, but also different ones.
- But they’re afraid to correct the person with power, lest they think that the actual reason isn’t a good one, and stop being willing to do the necessary accommodation.
- And they’re also afraid to ask for some of the other accommodations they need for the condition they actually have, because then they’d have to change the conversation.
For instance:
- Student with an audio processing disorder: I need to sit in the front in order to understand what’s going on in class.
- Teacher: Oh, because you can’t see the board otherwise! Sure, I’ll make a note of it on the seating chart and be sure not to assign you anywhere you can’t see the board.
- The student is afraid to correct the teacher, because they might not think audio processing problems are a real thing. Or the teacher might feel like the student lied to them, even though the student never said anything about vision.
- On a field trip, the teacher doesn’t realize that the student needs to be near the tour guide. The exhibits are large, and students gather around them and can see them equally well from any point, so the teacher doesn’t realize there is a problem.
- And the student is afraid to say that there is a problem, because the teacher hasn’t shown that it is safe to do so, and has given some indication that it isn’t.
So, do not be that guy. Don’t tell people what their disability is, or what their needs are. Doing so makes it harder for people to tell you what accommodations they actually need in order to be able to participate.
Instead, ask. Don’t ask invasive personal questions, just ask what people need.