May 7, 2013
"

immigrants, poor people, queer people of color, disabled folks, women (esp trans women of color) and gender-nonconforming folks if you are in academia and you don’t feel smart enough, remember that you are in the playground and training grounds of the elite. academia was not designed to include you. you are surviving something that has been systemically designed to exclude you in order to keep power in the hands of white, middle class, able bodied cis-men.


knowing this, don’t let academia train you to believe that elitism is the right way to make it through school. you can learn shit, hold the knowledge of your people in your heart, discard shame for your humble beginnings and/or marginalized identities. move through this experience knowing that the changes it offers you don’t have to include accepting academic elitism, inaccessible language or superiority. you can can simultaneously own the privilege that comes with being college educated and connections to your roots. academia does not have to kill your spirit.

"

—

fabian romero- indigenous immigrant queer boi writer, facilitator and community organizer (via fabianromero)

i needed to hear exactly this as i have one of those moments of doubt with my ability to write well after my hs cw teacher said my writing in fact isn’t in his taste

(via heavenly-femme)

(via wifwolf)

3:48am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRykQyFNa
(Notes: 2,736)
  
Filed under: academia education school college university racism privilege ableism sexism transphobia queerphobia homophobia xenophobia fabian romero 
March 14, 2012

Trigger warning: Ableism

Will people in the hardcore/punk scene STOP using the word “mongoloid” already? If you didn’t know already, it’s an outdated term for people with Down’s syndrome and is now considered very derogatory.

It doesn’t matter how Devo used it. Its alternative definition (a certain skull shape) doesn’t matter either. There are plenty of other words you can use if you want to say that someone is silly or lacking in common sense.

It’s really fucking offensive. Stop saying it.

12:40am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRyHzAyn-
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: hardcore hardcore punk ableism punk punk rock chicago hardcore chicago punk 
September 10, 2011
"Ableism must be included in our analysis of oppression and in our conversations about violence, responses to violence and ending violence. Ableism cuts across all of our movements because ableism dictates how bodies should function against a mythical norm—an able-bodied standard of white supremacy, heterosexism, sexism, economic exploitation, moral/religious beliefs, age and ability. Ableism set the stage for queer and trans people to be institutionalized as mentally disabled; for communities of color to be understood as less capable, smart and intelligent, therefore “naturally” fit for slave labor; for women’s bodies to be used to produce children, when, where and how men needed them; for people with disabilities to be seen as “disposable” in a capitalist and exploitative culture because we are not seen as “productive;” for immigrants to be thought of as a “disease” that we must “cure” because it is “weakening” our country; for violence, cycles of poverty, lack of resources and war to be used as systematic tools to construct disability in communities and entire countries."

— Mia Mingus, Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability (via avry)

(Source: quelola, via bradicalmang)

12:31pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRy9MYzag
(Notes: 2,379)
  
Filed under: ableism capitalism heterosexism intersectionality racism violence privilege 
July 12, 2011
a life of fragments: Again. To The Icarus Project, the radical left, the anti-psychiatry movement: SHUT. UP.

youarenotyou:

Seriously though, the absolute biggest reason I don’t get involved in local activism is because of shit like the Icarus project. It really fucking sucks that I can’t find people to organize with because they don’t take my disabilities seriously. Because, apparently, if you want to be radical at…

This perspective has really changed my mind about The Icarus Project. Personally, I had embraced The Icarus Project because it helped me get over being ashamed of having gone to therapy, frequently feeling depressed, and desirous of being alone. However, I cannot support an organization that makes the broad claims that they do.

I think that the autonomy of people with mental illnesses needs to be emphasized. For some people, professional therapy and prescription medication is necessary and is the best course of action for them. For others, it simply is not. It should be up to the individual to decide what is best for them. No one should ever be discouraged from going to therapy/counseling or taking proper prescription medication. Likewise, no one should ever be forced or shamed into doing so.

For some people, what their mental illness does to them is awful. No one should be told that they should embrace their mental illness when they don’t feel it is something that can be embraced. However, some people do have experiences with their mental illness that are positive, such as being able to create works of art, music, literature, etc.

What I am ultimately trying to express is that no person should feel ashamed of having a mental illness. Seeking professional help and/or using proper prescription medication should be a choice that no one is pressured, shamed, or forced into or not into.

(via melisscellaneous)

2:56pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRy71dL_V
(Notes: 246)
  
Filed under: icarus project mental health health radical mental illness ableism 
June 17, 2011
Logs from the high cyber seas.: I'm reaaallllyyyy tired of people hating on Kindles and iPads and e-readers and such just because they're "not the...

brillianceofbone:

Are books awesome? FUCK YEAH THEY ARE! I love books! That feeling you get when you crack open a new book (or an old new book) inhaling the scent of the pages, tracing your fingers over the weathered pages, the sound of snapping it shut, or the lines that form in the spine after you’ve read the book hundreds of times.

Books should never, ever disappear. They belong in our world. They are magical heirlooms, romantic reminders of childhoods and idyllic times.

But I want to introduce you to a person who needs an iPad to read: my uncle. He suffers from ALS, which is basically a disease that shuts down his entire body slowly and painfully.

He needs an iPad to read because his eyes can’t focus on print anymore.

“Oh, just get a large print book! They work!”

Thank you, Privileged Person. You can go sit down over there and politely shut up.

He can’t focus on the large print, either. Why? It’s not bright enough. He needs the backlight of the screen to properly read. This is a man who is a teacher and an avid reader, unable to enjoy books because he can’t see them. He is not the only person in this situation. There are thousands more like him across the world, afflicted with various disabilities or diseases that have prohibited them from reading.

Many people like the various e-readers because they are light, small, easy to transport, and you can take an entire libraries worth of material with you wherever you go. They really are an amazing, revolutionary invention.

So keep buying print books! Enjoy the smell, the feel, the sensation of reading a physical book. Go to bookstores! Order off Amazon! Support Borders and Barnes & Nobles! Peruse the aisles, go to libraries, discover new books in old shops! But don’t hate on the electronic ones just because “it’s not the same.” Some people like them, some people need them, and saying that they “suck” is just making you sound like an arrogant, pretentious hipster.

6:53am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRy6AWZX2
(Notes: 79)
  
Filed under: ableism ereader kindle ipad book 
May 15, 2011
vesuvii: these are my hearing aids. i’ve had them since i was 4 due to scarlet fever damaging my ear drums. all of my life i have had people whisper behind my back because they don’t know ~what’s wrong with me~. people bully me because of my hearing problems. tell me to shut up because i have hearing aids and i don’t matter. having my best friends call me “jellybean”, their nickname for my hearing aid, because i am nothing more than my disability. my same best friends making jokes about me because i have a disability. crying to myself because i am fucking sure that i was rejected by the person i like because of my disability. crying because i felt broken. unloved. disgusting. useless. having my hearing disability insecurities fuel my chronic depression. not going to events i wish i could go to because i know i won’t understand a damn thing. having to pay expenses for my hearing aids and their care for the rest of my life. almost losing my scholarship to school because of my hearing disability getting in the way of an important assignment. having my own parents tell me i’m not trying hard enough to hear. punishing me for having the door closed because i am not allowed privacy so that my parents can yell at me from the first floor. having people first find out that i have a hearing disability, and say “can you hear me?” getting quieter and quieter until they mouth the words, trying to trick me into thinking that they are speaking, because duping the deafie is hilarious. having people tell me having scarlet fever is “romantic”. being yelled at, “what, are you deaf?”. people telling me that i should have my hearing aids in at all times even though they get uncomfortable, and PWD are definitely not allowed comfort. being told i’m strong and heroic because of my disability. not being able to hang out with my friends or at large parties because i can’t hang out in a huge room of conflicting noise that i cannot understand.  not having people take the oppression of my body seriously because PWD are supposed to be like children who need support from the ablebodied at all time. we don’t have fully developed minds or bodies, so we’re not fully human. thus we’re either made invisible or made into circus freaks to stare at and make the ablebodied feel better about themselves. so when we speak out, it’s like the baby saying “shit”. it’s funny, we don’t understand what we’re saying! well fuck you. i do understand. you’re the ones who fucking don’t. we’re not going to be the invisible babies/self-esteem boosters you want us to be when you treat us like this. i’m going to keep on speaking out until you start treating our struggles as the same as the other oppressions you fight, and you stop acting like you know better about my struggles because you are able-bodied. 

vesuvii:

these are my hearing aids. i’ve had them since i was 4 due to scarlet fever damaging my ear drums. all of my life i have had people whisper behind my back because they don’t know ~what’s wrong with me~. people bully me because of my hearing problems. tell me to shut up because i have hearing aids and i don’t matter. having my best friends call me “jellybean”, their nickname for my hearing aid, because i am nothing more than my disability. my same best friends making jokes about me because i have a disability. crying to myself because i am fucking sure that i was rejected by the person i like because of my disability. crying because i felt broken. unloved. disgusting. useless. having my hearing disability insecurities fuel my chronic depression. not going to events i wish i could go to because i know i won’t understand a damn thing. having to pay expenses for my hearing aids and their care for the rest of my life. almost losing my scholarship to school because of my hearing disability getting in the way of an important assignment. having my own parents tell me i’m not trying hard enough to hear. punishing me for having the door closed because i am not allowed privacy so that my parents can yell at me from the first floor. having people first find out that i have a hearing disability, and say “can you hear me?” getting quieter and quieter until they mouth the words, trying to trick me into thinking that they are speaking, because duping the deafie is hilarious. having people tell me having scarlet fever is “romantic”. being yelled at, “what, are you deaf?”. people telling me that i should have my hearing aids in at all times even though they get uncomfortable, and PWD are definitely not allowed comfort. being told i’m strong and heroic because of my disability. not being able to hang out with my friends or at large parties because i can’t hang out in a huge room of conflicting noise that i cannot understand. 

not having people take the oppression of my body seriously because PWD are supposed to be like children who need support from the ablebodied at all time. we don’t have fully developed minds or bodies, so we’re not fully human. thus we’re either made invisible or made into circus freaks to stare at and make the ablebodied feel better about themselves. so when we speak out, it’s like the baby saying “shit”. it’s funny, we don’t understand what we’re saying!

well fuck you. i do understand. you’re the ones who fucking don’t. we’re not going to be the invisible babies/self-esteem boosters you want us to be when you treat us like this. i’m going to keep on speaking out until you start treating our struggles as the same as the other oppressions you fight, and you stop acting like you know better about my struggles because you are able-bodied. 

(Source: lionza)

2:42pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRy58-8ew
(Notes: 712)
  
Filed under: ableism 
February 22, 2011
"Check my what?" On privilege and what we can do about it

This is probably the best article (guide? post?) about privilege that I’ve seen. If you don’t know what privilege is - read this.

6:47pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRy3DufOD
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: white privilege privilege male privilege sexism racism homophobia equality transphobia classism ableism 
December 4, 2010
STFU, Sexists.: Why My Blog is Abrasive

stfusexists:

This is a post that I wrote in response to this email. I am reposting it here for easy reference and reblogging, if any of you so desire.

I’m going to respond to this with something on RHP’s site, because she puts it so much better than I can:

I’ve engaged in debate in nice, polite, classy ways. I’ve engaged in debate in rude, tacky, and immature ways. As best as I can tell, it doesn’t make a fucking difference how I put my opinions out there, because if I’m nice about it, someone will pat me on the head and say, “Oh, sugar, that’s sweet, but here’s how things REALLY are, and I, in my infinite male wisdom, am capable of correcting you on your misconceptions about life.” And if I’m rude about it, someone will say, “You know, your tone really doesn’t help your cause. You just reinforce negative stereotypes about feminist bitches. I don’t want to listen to someone who is angry.” Blah, blah, blah. Doesn’t matter how I say it. People who don’t want to hear aren’t going to listen.

Furthermore, if I want to blow off some fucking steam in a public forum, because these are arguments I seriously hear 20-30 times a week from dudes who think they know better than I do what it’s like to be a woman, and it is fucking exhausting having men tell you ALL THE GODDAMN TIME, “You can’t possibly have experienced what you have experienced, because I say so,” you are welcome not to listen, but you are not welcome to tell me to shut up.

There are presently 284 messages and submissions sitting in my Tumblr inbox. I have read it all. That’s 284 submissions that are so infuriating and so unfathomably offensive and personally hurtful to me as a woman that I, a pretty prolific blogger with an acid tongue, haven’t had the stomach to formulate responses. I have thousands upon thousands of emails. I have readers telling me about their experiences being raped, and beaten, and slut-shamed.

So I when I come across some ignorant fool, I don’t think that it ismy duty to choke down all the rage and sadness that comes with people trusting me to evaluate and repudiate every horrible sexist ill imaginable. I don’t think that it is my responsibility to consider the feelings of a person who would so willingly take a shit on my beliefs and who I am, as a woman, without bothering to take two seconds of self-reflection.

I do not attack persons; I attack hateful ideas that persons promote. I do my best to do it without ableism, to do it without racism, to do it without heteronormativity, to do it without transphobia, and body policing, without sexism and cissexism and stereotyping. I know that people do not choose these traits by which the world categorizes them.

But people choose to be uninformed. People choose to call me a cunt because I dare make a statement, not even to them but in an original post in my own blog, that asks people to examine their language and their biases. People tell me that if I were their girlfriend, they would rape and murder me to shut me up; they’ve asked me for my boyfriend’s contact info so they can suggest it to him personally. People send me doctored pictures of “aborted fetuses”, people run their mouths and reinforce harmful norms that actually kill people, and I’m expected to smile, curtsy, and explain to them in a calm and even tone why that’s upsetting or wrong?

When people come to me with genuine questions and concerns in a respectful manner, that’s how I respond. When people troll me and try to jab at me, that’s how I respond (see my expansive gif library). When people attack me personally with ableist, sexist slurs that reinforce everything that I have dedicated the past seven months of this blog to fighting…

…that is not how I respond.

So I wish those of you who are offended the best as well, but I truly hope that you see that what I believe that what I am doing is different than the hatred and discrimination that people subjected you to in your life. I do not hate these people because they are men, or because they are teenagers, or because they are a certain race or religion. The people that I have grown to hate throughout the course of this blog (because I would be lying if I claimed that didn’t happen), I hate for their willful ignorance, and their gleeful attachment to the pillars of our society that are constructed to alienate all people who are different.

They get enough positive reinforcement. These people have their hate catered to politely on a daily basis; otherwise they would give it up.

This blog is not going to be another safe haven for those people. 

Miss O

11:56pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZZ-HRy1zQywM
(Notes: 93)
  
Filed under: feminism ableism sexism racism bigotry hate privilege 
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