but what might be even more important is “I didn’t say it was bad, I said I hated it”
I just wanna say if you hate something good because it sends terrible messages that’s fine but you can also just hate it because you hate it. free yourself of the struggle to find a “good enough” reason. sometimes it doesn’t hit right.
The absolute basics of treating disabled people like people:
Don’t put your disabled child on TikTok if they don’t (or can’t!) consent to it; making a blog about your disabled child when that child cannot consent to it is not okay. If your child cannot understand and communicate to you that a) they understand what social media is, b) they understand that you are making videos about them and their disability to post for anyone in the world to see, and c) they are 100% okay with that, DON’T POST ABOUT THEM
Don’t tell strangers a disabled person’s diagnoses unless it’s immediately necessary – e.g. if your sister is having a seizure, it’s relevant to tell the person asking if she needs help that she has epilepsy; if someone’s asking a girl to prom is it NOT relevant to put in the caption that she has Down Syndrome
The only exception to these two is if you’re in a caregiver support group of any kind. If you’re not? Too bad! You don’t get to tell strangers about your kid/sibling/friend/nephew’s diagnosis!
Don’t treat disabled adults like children, even if you think they have “the mind of a child.” This means infantilizing, talking down to them, purposely oversimplifying your words when you don’t actually know if that’s necessary, just generally treating them like a young child
Don’t treat disabled adults like animals – don’t call a disabled man a “good boy” for doing something, don’t ask a disabled person to do something meaningless like blow you a kiss or give you a high five for you to get them something they need, don’t try to train or punish them
Don’t throw lavish praise on disabled people for doing something “normal” like holding a job. Additionally, don’t praise abled people for doing something basic like hiring a disabled person or literally just caring for their disabled child
Don’t ignore disabled people when they tell you something is ableist. “Differently abled,” “handicapable,” and similar terms are widely disliked among the disabled community. There’s so much casual ableism that disabled people point out, only to get ignored because abled people assume they know better
Don’t talk about people with disabilities like they’re not there. Don’t assume disabled people are incompetent. If abled person A is accompanying disabled person B, don’t direct questions to A unless A or B have specifically stated that A is taking care of things. Don’t assume that A is B’s carer either – disabled people can and do actually have friends completely unrelated to their disability. Unless B is literally a very small child and A is an adult, don’t assume that B is incapable of handling themself or doesn’t know what’s going on
Don’t assume disabled people are completely incapable of communication. THIS INCLUDES NONVERBAL DISABLED PEOPLE. There are other ways to communicate besides verbal speech
Don’t assume disabled people are innocent young flowers. Stop acting like a disabled person being annoyed is adorable. They’re not a sassy toddler. They’re a disabled person who’s annoyed at you. It’s not hilarious or disgusting that a disabled teen or adult thinks about sex – again, they are not a young child
Don’t assume that you know better than them about their disability or needs. ESPECIALLY if you just met them. Don’t correct them on their experiences or tell them how they should feel or act
Don’t ignore consent because the person is disabled. Don’t touch them without permission, don’t ignore them when they’re distressed about something, don’t touch assistive devices of any kind (communication methods, wheelchair, braces, service dogs, etc.) without permission. Unless they are actively about to be in serious harm’s way and the only way for anyone to help it is for you personally to do this – e.g. you and someone in a manual are the only ones around, their brakes fail, they are immediately about to roll into traffic and cannot help themself – don’t do it
Don’t speak for disabled people about what they want and how they feel if you are not disabled. Even if you are a parent of a disabled child. This includes you. I don’t care if you’re an Autism Mom or a Special Needs Parent. You can’t speak for disabled people
Disabled people please add on
Don’t take photos or videos of us in public (this especially applies to service animals). In fact, unless you know us well, don’t even ask, since many of us feel pressured to say yes even when we don’t want to. Disabled people don’t exist for your entertainment.
To expand on the “don’t touch assistive devices” thing: assistive devices are an extension of our selves and bodies. Our personal bubble includes those devices, no matter how big or “separate” they may seem (again, this includes service animals, as strange as it may seem).
Take some time to examine your own preconceived ideas about disabled people. We are often seen as inherently dangerous, unsafe around children, predatory, or immoral. Remember that disability is never a punishment and health has no bearing on morality. Do not offer “pray for us” or make remarks about how difficult our condition would be for you to live with.
Always include ableism in conversations around discrimination. Do not omit it as an axis of oppression.
Listen to disabled people when they tell you a term is offensive, no matter how absurd it may sound.
look ik the uk sucks but if this law goes through so many queer kids and kids living in abusive households are going to be put in danger. ‘the govt won’t pass this law haha’ they have shown time and time again that they don’t give a fuck. they literally do not give a fuck, ESPECIALLY where lgbtq+ kids are involved. they would rather have the personal information of minors spread around the internet than keep queer kids safe and nobody gives a fuck
the stated purpose of the proposed law is to “Make it a legal requirement when opening a new social media account, to provide a verified form of ID. Where the account belongs to a person under the age of 18 verify the account with the ID of a parent/guardian, to prevent anonymised harmful activity, providing traceability (…) To make the law work needs the removal of anonymity to ensure that users cannot cause harm by using online platforms to abuse others. Where an offence has taken place they ought to be easily identified and reported to the police and punished.” people this law would harm:
immigrants who do not have a valid, formal ID, prohibiting them from communicating, raising awareness about their situation, fundraising, networking for jobs, etc
lgbt+, neurodivergent, mentally ill, and politically active minors under their parents’ roofs
ANYBODY lgbt+, especially, given the uk government’s current stance of open hostility towards them, trans women. the idea of the government being able to trace any trans woman’s profile to their real identity…
acitivists– considering priti “literal, actual, cackling disney villain” patel is currently being very successful with her bill that prohibits protest and gives a maximum 10-year prison sentence for defacing a statue, it’s safe to say that the government is at the very least hostile to racial, climate, and gender justice movements to name a few. the government would be able to attach any social media account which posts about these topics to a real person’s identity and address.
even if you’re not from the uk, please reblog this to raise awareness! if you ARE, go here to email your MP and ask them to oppose the law.
katie price is framing this as a crusade against online bigotry on behalf of her disabled son in order to garner sympathy, and my heart goes out to her, but this is incredibly dangerous. she has a LOT of clout, and the petition to pass the law has ~150,000 signatures right now, more than enough to be considered for debate in parliament.
Also this is just a general piece of advice, police and feds can and will talk to you on the false pretext that they believe you’re just a witness or even the victim of a crime, when they’re actually interrogating you as a suspect, and willuse your answers against you in court. They do not have to inform you of your right to remain silent or right to an attorney, nor inform you that your answers will be used against you. That’s only when they arrest you.
So don’t ever talk to cops, and if you absolutely must (like say if your car gets stolen and you gotta report it for insurance purposes), always be careful with your answers. Don’t get chummy and admit to anything even remotely criminal or admit knowledge of anything even remotely criminal. Answer as minimally as possible. And “I don’t remember” is your best friend when you don’t want to say what you know.
bit frustrate the amount ppl say “nonverbal” for tempry episodes
know cannot make stop, willnot try. but just bit frustrate. want find similar experience of own but nonverbal tags seem all either inactive or mostly relate to tempry episode
still unsure if would be “out of lane” to call self nonverbal – can make the sounds even if it tiring, the bigger harder issue is make words – but point still stand. this word get use for thing which wear off, episode which end.
there ppl who it never ever ever end for. & it get hard find eachother (let alone resource) in some place when word like “nonverbal” become this way.
there is more thought on mind. but struggle word it.
Been seeing people misuse the term “internalized” wrt prejudices lately which is. Gonna drive me up the wall if it continues I must say
White people can’t have internalized racism, that’s just being racist. Straight people can’t have internalized homophobia, that’s just being homophobic. Etc etc etc. The entire point of these terms is to describe when oppressed people hate themselves I swear to god words mean things sometimes
I think the term these people are looking for (and failing to find apparently) might be unconscious bias.
Yes: “Anyone can write about anything, but your content does not exist in vacuum. If a POC tells you your portrayal of a character is racist, or a queer person tells you you’re playing into harmful stereotypes, listen to them. Fandom is an escape only for privileged people. Being inclusive means listening to marginalized voices instead of dismissing us as fun police.”
[id: Tumblr tags that read: “if fan content is a legitimate form of media then it is not exempt from criticism”. end id.]
I feel like there is this mentality that people arent allowed to miss content they used to love when it turns out that the person making it was shitty and that…isn’t good imo.
Like when Bon Appetit and Harry Potter had their big(and justified) cancel this year a lot of people were saying stuff like “I always knew it was bad” or “lol I can’t believe people actually liked this crap anyway” or some other variation of “I was woke enough to realise this media was problematic before it was cool and now I’m gonna make fun of those who didn’t” and not only does that read as performative as HELL(social justice has very much become a clout game) it also ignores the fact that we live in a deeply shit ass society and it’s okay to be upset when something that made your life worth living gets ruined for you.
Maybe you weren’t on twitter or didn’t get the memo about Rowling or missed the dog whistles and now you have to grapple with something that brought you joy being vilified while the narrative around the discourse is full of people calling you terrible for liking it in the first place(I see you people who make jokes about adults caring about their Hogwarts houses and I am not impressed). Maybe BA was just something you switched on for a quick laugh and you were too tired to be on guard for the signs of problems. Maybe you didn’t know what copoganda was or never had all the different antisemitic dogwhistles explained to you or were too happy with representation to think too hard about it’s effects. That’s okay. No one is perfect. Every day there are 10,000 people just finding out about something everyone else knew, statistically you’re gonna end up in that group at some point. Do not shame yourself for not being versed in every type of issue from the start.
And when you do learn It’s perfectly okay to mourn the media that helped you get through another day in this hellscape of a society. Really, it’s natural to be upset.
Cuz I think we’ve all been there(and if havent your lying) and this purity culture idea that the only way to be truly woke is to have never liked the Bad thing in the first place and then openly tear it to shreds as soon as doing so will get you clout is so flawed and unrealistic.
I mean, for example, my freshman year of highschool was rough. I had just moved across the country away from my whole family and had no friends and was living in a studio apartment with my drug addicted neglectful dad and ngl, I probably wouldnt have survived if I didn’t have Hetalia. I know now that it’s problematic as hell and I do occasionally wish I had seen the issues sooner but I was also an emotionally abused lonely 15 year old and to this day I can’t get on the hate bandwagon because any time I do see the mocking I think of that terrified teenager just trying to get though another lonely day with only US/UK fanfiction to look forward to and I just can’t hate the thing that helped her survive.
And so if Harry Potter or BA or Voltron or whatever other problematic thing was your lifeline it’s okay to be upset that it was yanked away from you by bigoted creators and racist corporations and bad writing. It’s okay to mourn that thing, to miss the joy it brought you, to think back on the good memories you had of it, to not want to jump on the hate bandwagon, to be upset when people mock the people like you who cared about it.
Do not be ashamed of the life-raft that got you through the storm. Be critical, do not let it’s problems alter your perception of reality, and cast it aside if it comes to that, but do not be ashamed to have needed it, and do not feel bad for mourning it’s absence.
And if you’re on the other side, if you see someone who is sad that a thing was ruined for them, maybe consider that they don’t have malicious intent, that their ignorance was not on purpose, that maybe that thing was the only thing keeping them going. Consider how you’d feel if you had your lifeline snatched away from you, and maybe direct your hate elsewhere. Attacking random people who loved Harry Potter isn’t gonna change the world anyway, trust me there are better ways you could spend your time.
Bringing this back in the wake of the banjo player from Mumford and Sons revealing he’s a fascist cuz I already see people falling back on this mentality and it’s pissing me off.
You could be the most intelligent, mature, beautiful, interesting teen on the entire planet and grown, established adults still shouldn’t even be considering dating you.
You will drink more water if it tastes good. I’m dead serious. Throw some mint in there, throw some lemon or strawberry or a little flavor packet. Your brain likes things that taste good.
You know why people like lemonade? Flavored water
You know why people like tea? Flavored water
You know why people like koolaid? Flavored water
People like flavored water. Brains like flavored water. It’s like being forced to choose between a rock or a rock with glitter on it. You want the glitter rock
I am once again telling you to drink water
And to absolutely FUCK OFF if you’re going to be a dick on this post
ifesbob 