#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

There seems to be a constrast between restorative justice and mob justice/retributive justice or punitive justice in fandom too. Like people interested in social justice and fandom, and about redemption arc discourse, if there is a limit to if people can be redeemed. I like restorative justice too! This ask is a comment on your reblog and comment on restorative justice. Steven Universe seems to argue for restorative justice.

It’s very true. I have noticed that there are people in fandom who demand retributive justice from a piece of media or else it isn’t radical enough - Steven Universe is one of them. People were disappointed when the show ultimately pushed for that instead of killing the gems in power, but that was never the thematic core of the show. To be sure, my views on this subject have changed. I think I used to believe there was more of a limit to restorative justice and I understand the desire for accountability when there’s so much injustice in the world, but restorative justice IS still justice; it’s not people just “getting away” with things. And it’s actually very hard. True redemption is actually very, very difficult. 

People act like it’s a black and white choice between retribution and injustice (letting people in power get away with harming others), but in reality TRUE restoration would involve redistribution of resources and repairing inequity and harm. Just killing some rich people wouldn’t actually repair a lot of the things that are wrong in the world. You have to rebuild and restore A LOT and the people in power who have been hurting others have a lot of work they need to do to actually repair things and make things equitable-- and that all should be determined by the people who have been harmed and oppressed. Retribution is very cathartic and comforting - lashing out at the powers that be - but it’s very narrow-sighted, it doesn’t really consider the future or the bigger picture.

#restorative justice #social justice #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[fandomsandfeminism]

What Star Trek shows have you finished and are your favourite shows? I see you reblogged that Hilda cartoon. I watched the first season it reminded me of Gravity Falls. I have not watched the second season. Have you?

Hi! I have seen chunks of ToS, nearly all of TNG, all of DS9, and now I’m caught up on Discovery.  Of those, DS9 remains my favorite, though all of them have their own charm. 

Yes, I’m also all caught up on Hilda. It’s delightful, and...weirdly dark at moments in season 2. 

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[star-anise]

I think I am having vicarious stress about how immagrint families are being treated at the American border too. Also other horrors happening in America though I live in Canada. How do you cope with that? If this question is annoying or personal you dont have to answer. Is it weird to feel post election stress after the 2016 election although I am not American? I heard American college kids had almost ptsd levels of trauamtic stress after the election in America.

It’s funny, today I was on the phone with a grad school friend who does front-line crisis mental health work in the USA, and grew up being heavily involved in the Democratic Party. She said, “I have such an issue with this rhetoric now, like, ‘don’t look away.’ Bitch, I haven’t looked away for two years. I’m fucking exhausted.” Because things like that are intended for the people who do look away, who are conservative and apathetic, but often they only reach an audience that is already engaged with the issue, and they land like hammers on people already trying their hardest.

And yes, freaking out about the shit that goes down in the USA is a fine old Canadian tradition. To quote Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 comments to the US president at the time: “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

(And Canadian politics are definitely negatively affected by the USA. My province just lost its NDP government because its Conservatives “aren’t as bad as those crazies down south!” and I have a sinking feeling the Cons will cakewalk to federal victory too in October)

You might also notice that on my blog, I post about political issues in only a small number of cases: 1) I have a unique observation I think needs to be added to the world, 2) It’s an issue I genuinely haven’t seen covered yet, and I know people who would want to know; 3) It’s a feel-good story meant to comfort people who are fighting the good fight; 4) It’s advertising an immediate, low-barrier thing people can do right away to directly affect the situation; 5) It’s a resource to help those fighters be better activists. And I do my best to always tag political posts with a standard set of tags to let people ignore them, so if somebody wants, they can follow me and just get my cats’n’fandom content.

The audience I usually have in mind when I blog are people like my friends: Smart, compassionate people committed to social activism, but without limitless amounts of money, health, time, or attention. Some of the people who follow my blog are DC lobbyists directly fighting the Trump administration’s policies. Some of them are crisis workers and EMTs and librarians and deal with the ragged edges of human existence in today’s society. I know I don’t have the nerves or capacity to be their news source; they can follow anyone else on Tumblr for that. So what I try to be is the friendly cat cafe they can go to at the end of a long shift to relax.

My response is really guided by a blog I followed a lot when 9/11 happened; I was following it to learn about getting published as a fantasy author, but its authors were New Yorkers and socialists and military veterans, and they had a lot to say about the false witch hunt for a justification for starting a war in Iraq in 2003 and the slow erosion of rights and freedoms of Americans and “enemy” POWs and the incredible damage the American war machine does when it gets going.

They’re not blogging as much now, but when Trump was elected, they released two posts that I found to be deeply useful:

Defense in Depth - Tl;dr: It is important that those of us in resistance to the world’s outrages don’t attack each other for having different priorities, because we need a diversity of targets and approaches.

Taking It Back - Tl;dr: Our enemies WANT us to be overwhelmed and horrified and frozen in shock and catatonic. That is a deliberate tactic they use. Whenever we seem to catch our breath, they create a new outrage for us to get upset over. We need to learn how to set our own pace, resist the lie that you have to be upset and horrified all the time, and focus on taking care of yourself.

I’m also really affected by Rebecca Solnit’s book “Hope in the Dark” where she points out that activist movements have two effects. The first is to influence whatever issue they’re actually agitating about. The second is to give people the tools and experience they need to become citizens who change their societies in deep and enduring ways.

One part of the problem is finding ways that you can make the world better that feel really concrete and achievable. That’s a whole other discussion, that depends a lot on what you’re good at, what your resources are, what you’re capable of. People feel a lot less terrified if there’s something they know they can do. 

But even once you’ve figured out how you’re fighting to make the world better in some small way, you probably can’t do it 24/7; you’ve got to keep mentally resilient the rest of the time.

So what do I do to cope?

I focus on easy-to-do, ordinary hobbies that bring me joy, especially ones that get me off my computer and out of my head. I garden; I just bought a bike; I’m getting my sewing room back in order so I can go back to making costumes and working on the @betterbinderproject.

I make sure I keep social connections where we can relax and enjoy each other. That means being codependent with my cat, babysitting my nieces and nephews, exploring my local bi/pan meetups, going to historical re-enactment events, texting with my friends about Tumblr drama, talking to my colleagues during slack moments at work, and enjoying the fandoms and fanworks that bring me joy.

I do my best to look after my physical wellbeing. Which for me means stretching, yoga, taking my psych meds and vitamins, taking painkillers, looking after my cuticles, using moisturizer, braiding my hair, getting massages, and always making sure there’s a cake in the kitchen. My emphasis isn’t whether I’ll get some disease 30 years from now; it’s making sure that inhabiting my body today is the least unpleasant that it has to be.

I try to look after myself; I go to therapy, look for jobs, keep up on my business paperwork, budget my money, work on upgrading my skills, and develop my 5-year plan. I work really hard on doing this without being stressed, because my habit of procrastinating and only getting around to this stuff when I’m in abject terror isn’t good.

I also, and this feels weird to say or suggest, try to educate myself on issues that are not the crisis du jour. I watch TV shows about the Russian revolution, listen to books about Indigenous language reclamation, read the diary of a World War II servicewoman. This isn’t an attempt to expand my list of crises to worry about, but because I find my ability to cope with the present immeasurably helped by knowing that people have faced other, different crises, and how they dealt with them. It’s… background research in resilience. With the added bonus that it helps me stay intersectional and aware of when we might be only seeing the most privileged part of a crisis situation.

#staranise original #long post #my problems with sj let me show you them #us politics tw #concentration camps tw #cdnpoli #abpoli #dragonsarecoolassparklesare #food mention

[allthecanadianpolitics]

I read on the trudeau meter website that Trudeau promised to end the gay man blood ban and he hasn’t. Why? I looked it up on google and apparently there is a gay man blood donation ban for up to a year in Canada and an organ donation ban to five years for men in Canada. If Trudeau is so gay friendly going to pride parades and what not, why has he ended the blood donation ban for gay/bisexual men?

They say they’ll ban it but it will take time and more research:

But despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s declaration that he wants to live in a Canada where gay men can donate blood freely, Devine says removal of the ban, without an abstinence period, can’t realistically be expected for at least four years — Canadian Blood Services will need about three years to collect data, she says, and another year to allow for changes to legislation. Before then, Canadian Blood Services must improve screening processes and better educate donors about risk. “We need to identify to Health Canada that we can allow it safely and reliably,” she says — and the organization simply isn’t there yet, even with the weight of Liberal party pressure.

I don’t really see the need to spend 3 years collecting data. It is well known that the gay blood ban is unscientific.

Here’s an article from 2010:

Banning all gay men from donating blood is unscientific and wrong, say AIDS researchers

Here’s more science:

Ban the ban: A scientific and cultural analysis of the FDA’s ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[ladyloveandjustice]

Hey you might like Frau Faust by Kore the lady who wrote the ancient Magnus bride. A genius lady instead of a guy makes a deal with the demon. Like that Faust story except she is a lady instead of a guy.

That does sound potentially interesting. I’ll look into it. Thanks!

#ask nev #recs #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[fandomsandfeminism]

What do you think of the Phillipa spinoff of Star Trek Discovery? It is upcoming isn’t?

I actually JUST got caught up on Discovery. I am excited that we will be getting more Phillipa in her own show!

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[fandomsandfeminism]

Have you seen Bridgerton? Though I do not know if you are into period dramas

They aren’t generally what I gravitate to, but I have heard good things. I haven’t seen it yet though.

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

Do you like She-ra and the Princesses of Power, Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra?

YES! I just started watching She-ra, but I’m a fast binge-watcher so I’m already at season 4!  My nightly ritual now is to watch She-ra before going to bed. So many of the characters have really grown on me. The writing is really good and the characters are just really fun. I’ve already been spoiled about the endgame ship, but I’m still really enjoying it--that’s prolly what motivated me to start watching anyway. The same thing happened with Steven Universe: I heard about the gay representation and decided to start watching. It’s cool how both SU and She-ra have a lot of LGBT rep baked into the show.

Love ATLA. I watched it a few years ago and was amazed at how good it was. Just top tier storytelling. As everyone says Zuko’s arc is perfect. I should probably rewatch it sometime now that it’s on Netflix. I also watched Korra, but I don’t think it’s nearly as good as ATLA unfortunately. The writing is really flawed and it really goes down hill the last season imo. 

#she-ra #atla #lok #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

How do people unlearn anti intellectualism?

I think it’s more a matter of identifying anti-intellectualism when you see it and being critical of it even when it’s dressed up in social justice language or ideas. It’s also important to have a nuanced, discerning view of criticisms leftists make. Many progressive anti-intellectual ideas have a kernel of truth to them in that they have a reasonable criticism of a field like academia or tech or medicine, but they mistake the hegemony / oppression in the social structures of those fields with the findings or methodologies of the fields themselves, which are usually rooted in empirical evidence or critical thought.

For example, it’s true that academia has a history of racism, sexism and classism and that, to this day, white affluent men have an easier time securing positions of authority in academia, and that the average person may have difficulty understanding academic texts. But that doesn’t mean that all academic language is inherently oppressive and should be done away with in favor of simplistic language. In fact, many academic fields can be progressive–for instance, gender studies and critical race theory. Sometimes people will use the accusation of elitism or lack of accessibility to delegitimize these fields. Additionally, progressives will argue that education is elitist or oppressive because lower income people often can’t access it. But the problem isn’t that education is “bad” or that challenging texts exist–it’s that certain people are DENIED a quality education. The solution, then, is promoting quality education for all through reforms such as free college tuition, student debt relief, improving K-12 funding, reforming teacher education programs, etc. 

To be fair, the history of racism, homophobia and sexism in fields like the sciences and healthcare is very real, but that doesn’t mean that the scientific method itself is flawed or biased or that modern day scientific findings should be ignored. So again: kernel of truth, but misplaced, overly reductive criticism. There are also progressives who disparage theory or evidence-based practice in favor of simple slogans or immediate action, without considering that poorly thought-out action or beliefs can lead to more harm.

But anti-intellectualism can also crop up outside of progressive spaces in the form of disparaging fields that our society doesn’t really value very much. People are prone to attack the humanities in particular as “useless.” For instance, there are popular posts mocking the idea of trying to interpret symbolism and subtext in books or media as something English teachers “made up” to torture their students. I’ve also seen posts mocking the arts before. These fields are already under-funded and under-valued in our society. And contributing to that only plays into that trend of underpaying artists and those who work in the humanities, and under-funding arts and humanities programs.

I think the underlying principle should be that education, critical thinking, and research/study are never bad things–it’s just the institutions that conduct these create barriers of access to certain people and those in power in these institutions sometimes utilize their power to further oppression. Basically, these institutions should be reformed or overhauled, but the work they do is not invalid or worthless–in fact, it’s highly important, which is why reform is necessary.

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[star-anise]

I was wondering, why do you think portal fantasy stories are so popular? Does identifying with a character who goes to another world or maybe a secret world along side our own like Harry Potter, have psychological benefits? Are we going on a hero’e journal with the protagonist? Sorry if Harry Potter is not really a portal fantasy, I just wonder some of the reasons why some humans fantacize ahout going to other worlds. I do sometimes

It makes perfect sense to me that people want to be able to escape, whole and entire, into a different and magical world.

I think it’s funny, though, because I feel like we’re having a wee bit of a renaissance of portal fantasies at the minute, and I think it’s fair to blame it on a 2012 discussion YA fantasy author Rachel Manija Brown had on Livejournal, recounting a panel discussion at a convention, which got amplified by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a senior editor at Tor Books. (Goodness, that got complicated.)

The point of the 2012 discussion was, “Portal fantasy books are dead and nobody’s buying them.” (As Lindsay Ellis has just explained, books don’t get bought for publication based on pure merit, but on whether they fit current marketing trends) The conclusion a lot of people in that discussion came to is that it’s not that portal fantasies are inherently bad, it’s just that people seem to have overloaded on them in the 80s and 90s and the market shifted to something else for a while, and a bunch of people would really like if portal fantasies came back into fashion.

(There had already been a small incursion in 2009 when Cat Valente published The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making online rather than waiting for a traditional publisher to buy it, and it won the Nebula and Andre Norton award; a Macmillan imprint published it out in 2011 and it made the NYT bestseller list, but it was really that one-in-a-thousand outcome that kind of proved how hard these books were to get published traditionally)

Anyway, that started an avalanche rumbling down the slope, as did, I suspect, Lev Grossman’s 2009 novel The Magicians (which wasn’t really marketed as fantasy and doesn’t really “count” in this discussion) getting picked up for TV, so in 2015 Tor Books put out VE Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic and Tor UK put out Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library, and then in 2016 we saw Foz Meadows’ An Accident of Stars and Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway, and after that they came thick and fast.

It feels, to me at least, like Every Heart a Doorway, which completely flipped the formula inside out and was about a school for children who had returned from their portal fantasies and had trouble fitting into “ordinary” life, really rejuvenated the genre, so it’s definitely having A Moment.

That’s a rather less psychological answer than you were probably hoping for, sorry. Portal fantasy is the kind of thing I’ve always dreamed about and also been frustrated by (how do you just... GO HOME?) but whether or not it gets received well by the outside world varies a lot.

#staranise original #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

I an vox news article of Warren supporters being sad that she dropped out and one Warren supporter who was a man is now supporting Biden instead and some other female Warren supporters. Why wouldn’t they want to support someone who is more similar in politics like Sanders? Though I guess Sanders is more progressive is he? And Biden is sexist! Why would a Warren supporter want to support Biden? Biden is creepy and he supported that creepy dude who creeped on Anita Hill.

So this election has made me realize that political ideology is not really the primary motivation behind the behavior of many voters. Why a voter has a preference for a particular candidate over another (at least, within the same party) may have little to do with political views in and of themselves. For voters who actually pay attention to policy and are invested in a particular ideology, switching from Warren to Biden after she drops out is completely unthinkable and absurd, but what you have to understand is there were plenty of moderate democrats who liked Warren for reasons completely unrelated to her policy agenda or political views. There were white, college-educated, middle class/upper class people who Warren appealed to because she was like them, and she seemed pragmatic and intelligent and qualified. There were also white, college-educated middle class white women who saw themselves in Warren. 

Take any of those people who don’t have any particular loyalty to progressive politics and you have a potential Biden supporter. Again, this seems irrational to any progressive voter who supported her (as I did) for her progressive agenda, but it makes more sense when you consider that lots of voters are not really well-versed in the distinction between progressivism and moderate liberalism. And that they may have relatively shallow or at the very least apolitical reasons for liking a politician (i.e. their demeanor, reputation, geographical origins, class or educational background, etc). In terms of those qualities, Warren and Bernie actually differ quite a lot. You also have to consider their campaign’s success in appealing to different demographics due to branding and outreach, too. Consider Bernie’s relationship to unions, for example.

This is why, for many complex reasons, Warren appeals to college-educated, suburban whites–particularly women–and Bernie appeals to non-college educated working class whites, latinos and young voters. A demographic they share is progressive voters who actually care more about their similarities in policy. Unfortunately, some of the other demographics that like Warren may be a closer match to Biden’s demographics. We’ll see how this plays out in the following primaries.

#warren #bernie #biden #election #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

Why is Biden always so testy, finds it hard to articulate himself and sometimes say weird things? Are Republicans going to get more antisemitic if Sanders becomes president? Republicans seemed to get more racist when Obama was elected.

I honestly don’t know. Some people argue that he is “senile,” but I am hesitant to go to that extreme, especially since he has a record of gaffs, even when he was younger, and I have seen him give decent speeches. I think he’s just not a very articulate person, particularly with extemporaneous speech, and he doesn’t really think through what he says sometimes. It’s not nearly on the level of Trump of course, but if you compare him to Obama, who is one of the most well-spoken modern presidents we have had, he falls incredibly short. I would say Bernie, although brusque, blunt or plain spoken at times, is still a much better speaker and also doesn’t say weird or offensive things the way Biden does.

I think it’s just Biden’s personality. Some of it also might come with being a privileged white man with moderate values who doesn’t have to worry about coming off a certain way. Bernie may be white, but he also comes from a working class background and champions proposals that are unpopular, so he has to express himself in an articulate way to make it in politics.

I would argue that Obama being president did not make Republicans more racist. They just showed their racism more openly when a Black democrat won the office and they felt threatened by it. Trump being president has now emboldened the same people who reacted negatively to Obama’s presidency to feel safe in expressing their racism even more overtly, as we have seen with the rise of white supremacist groups and hate crimes. But maybe that’s what you meant and you just worded it in a different way than I would have.

I would point out that conservatives have already become more antisemitic under Trump. The antisemitic shootings and attacks that have occurred and hate crimes against Jews speak to this. We also saw an antisemite unfurl a Nazi flag at a Sanders rally. So it’s likely that we would see an antisemitic backlash in response to Sanders, or even short of that, antisemitism will likely color the commentary and criticism people have of him in the media. Not just among Republicans, but likely also among moderate democrats who disagree with his views. We’ve already seen some this--I pointed out how a moderator during a debate brought up the fact Bernie would be the first Jewish president only as a segue to criticize his stance on Israel and suggest he might lose “the Jewish vote” because of his stance. To me, this was a grossly antisemitic question. His Jewishness was completely irrelevant to his position on Israel, and it was a weird way of implying he was a “bad Jew” or had alienated other Jews based on his policies on Israel. We would probably see more of that, but so far his Jewishness has been erased and ignored a lot, which is another problem.

#bernie sanders #biden #election #election 2020 #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

Sorry to bother you but could you explain more how to develop the skill of explaining things like technology and science to other people? I think metacognotion skills is thinking about thinking right? I sometimes have difficulty explaining random things I learn on the internet to my mother. She is better at some tech stuff than average. You dont have too if its too much emotional labour or something. Sometimes I get too excited when explaining something and use too much jargon

No worries, this is something I am currently studying and working on as a beginning teacher. I think I would say teaching is probably more accurately a series of skills you build on rather than one single skill.

Empathy is one component - and I don’t mean empathy as in “I care how others feel” but cognitive empathy as in “I can conceptualize this other person’s perspective and thought process.” So the very basic level of cognitive empathy is one thing that is unique to humans: a cat can’t understand that if you stepped on its tail you did it on accident because it doesn’t know how to consider your intention. All it knows is you stepped on its tail and that hurt. This is also why a cat will hide behind a coat hanging on the wall with its tail sticking out: it can’t see you so it assumes you can’t see it. It literally doesn’t know how to view the situation from another vantage point. 

When you teach someone something you have to start imagining the situation from the point of view of someone who doesn’t know things that you know. But that’s a lot more advanced than me understanding that someone can see me if my hand is sticking out of my hiding place. It’s a similar type of cognition, though. What does a sheet of text look like to someone who doesn’t know a high percentage of the words? What does a scientific phenomenon seem like to someone who doesn’t know concepts like “chemical reaction” very well?

Once you establish cognitive empathy, you also need effective communication to bridge the gap in understanding. The cat doesn’t know my thought process, but I can understand that the cat’s cognition is different from mine. I know that I can’t just tell a cat to do something with sophisticated language, but I have to use a certain tone of voice or gesture or sound or possibly a key word (i.e. “time for TREATS” in a high pitched voice and shaking a box of treats and making sounds to call it over versus saying, “let us partake in supper this fine evening, my feline friend” when I’ve never said anything like this before.)

Anyone you teach who lacks knowledge you have is going to need you to translate your knowledge and thoughts into a form of communication they understand. For my students, if I use an advanced word like “invalidate” I have to define this word for them. If I’m explaining a concept to them, I can only use concepts they already know. If I give examples to explain what I mean, they need to be examples that they are familiar with or would understand (i.e. maybe I’ll reference Pokemon or refer to something we already covered in the past).

Of course, you can’t read people’s minds and you can’t always know exactly what another person knows and doesn’t know. So it’s a good idea to assess the person’s pre-existing knowledge on a topic. You can also build on their “funds of knowledge” which is knowledge of other subjects and their cultural background which you can make connections to when you teach them about a less familiar subject. For example, when I taught my students about mindfulness, I first checked to see if they even knew what mindfulness was. Most of them didn’t. Then I asked them what words inside “mindfulness” they recognized (they said “mind” and “mindful”) and I asked them what they thought mindful meant and they said “being aware,” “having empathy,” “noticing your environment,” etc. This helped me introduce to them the concept--and they actually did most of the work. Most people have prior knowledge that can help them understand a new subject, and you can help them make those connections.

They also may learn differently depending on their learning style: Some people may learn better with a “how to” video on youtube, other people learn better with written instructions or an article, and some people might need you to physically guide them through a task, etc. So one thing you can do is see if your mom understands better if you also refer her to an article or a video or by demonstrating for her on the computer etc.

All of this is metacognition to an extent because, like you said, it’s thinking about thinking: you have to think about your own thought process and the other person’s thought process and figure out how to bridge the gap between the two through communication.

#teaching #education #dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[star-anise]

Hey you mentioned in a reply to one of your asks, though it was more about word policing of bi women, anyway you mentioned that policing ableist words is a bad hill to die on and how people were turned off or allies. I used to disagree. My brother and I have physical and mental disabilities and I used to object to his usage of the word retard in jokes. Anyway do you think word policing between disabled people of ableist slurs is also a bad hill to die on? You say interesting stuff

The question for me is what’s worth it. As in, will what you get out of the argument be enough to make the resources you sink into it “worth it”?

Which is, in many ways, a super subjective decision. To a lot of my friends and family, the kind of argument I’m doing over bisexuals and language would not be worth it to them; they think I’m pouring a ton of energy into arguing with idiots and I could probably exhaust and discourage myself over something else, like writing fiction, that would be a much better return on my energies.

So in a perfect world, yes, we wouldn’t use ableist words; our language would reflect our general social understanding of the worthiness of disabled people. 

But partly--and I think this is the thing--your tactic has to be geared to what the major concerns of disabled people are. In a school for preteens where their biggest social ill is bullying? That’s a great place for ableist word policing, to make life better for disabled students. Or right now on Tumblr, when language use is the thing that gets bisexuals targeted for biphobia--that’s a place to argue over language. But for a lot of disabled adults today, language isn’t the major thing oppressing us, so we get more return from things like fighting for accessible design of public spaces, or financial assistance that lets us prosper.

So my rubric is entirely based on times when I have found, in the contexts I was in, that I felt I got a “good enough” response to ableist word policing to feel like it was worth doing.

Times when ableist word policing has been worth doing for me:

When you’re a disabled person being called something derogatory

When the word is being used at you in a way you can’t escape, like your workplace or a public facility

When it’s a word at the perfect storm of “utterly irredeemable” and “refers to a super marginalized group”, like “retard” in North America or “spastic/spazz” in the UK

When you have a respectful relationship with the person you’re correcting, and there’s a very real chance they’ll listen to you and change

When the person you’re correcting is a public figure speaking in an official capacity and thus cares about coming off as an ableist ass

When you have input into something that’s being drafted, and can suggest a change that can easily be implemented before the thing goes public

When you’ve got the spoons to do it in a way that comes off as gentle and good-faith and informative and as though you’re not at all screaming inside

When you’re explaining your own personal decision not to use ableist language.

Times when ableist word policing tends to fail or backfire on me:

When you’re butting into a discussion between perfect strangers on the Internet to say nothing except “________ is an ableist slur!”

When the word is used accurately but not necessarily derogatorily (”Losing Internet access crippled the business’s capabilities” “I was blind to the suffering of others”) and you’re not part of the group that would be offended (eg. disabled, blind)

When the speaker is a disabled person in the group they’re talking about, and they’re probably slip-sliding around in the area of “bitterly repeating things said about them” and “reclaiming stigmatized language” and will fight you on it

When the person is already 2edgy4u and will seize with delight upon this new way to annoy you (yes, I have brothers too, we had some bad years)

When you’re defending a disabled person without knowing what they want, and leave them to face the consequences of your actions (”Hello Sally’s friends! Did you know, you’ve all been using a word around her that’s probably deeply hurtful to her? You’re all incredibly bad people. Anyway, see you!” leaving Sally to spend an hour either making her friends upset, or salvaging her friendships by saying no, she really doesn’t mind, it’s fine to use that word around her, they’re all good friends and she loves them very much)

This is the result of personal experimentation. You could probably come up with your own rubric of times when it’s worth it, and times when it isn’t.

#ableist language #staranise original #dragonsarecoolassparklesare #ableist slur

[star-anise]

What are some of your favourite thought provoking quotes?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

“An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human gift” -also Margaret Mead

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”  -Ursula Le Guin

“Hope has two daughters: Anger and Courage. They are both lovely.” -literally no one knows, but definitely not St Augustine

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.“ -Marianne Williamson

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare

[theroguefeminist]

I have definitely felt isolated from other feminine women for being disabled, queer and butch and a lot of feminine girls relentlessly bullied me so I kind of resented them and had that internalized misogyny. The internalized misogyny that some feminine girls feel towards gender non normative girls does not seem as touched on. I like your posts on this

Yeah for sure - it’s interesting to me that the kind of internalized misogyny feminine girls direct at those who don’t fit in isn’t usually touched upon. I think a lot of times people sort of…separate that form of bullying from misogyny itself? As if it’s just some other kind of issue, but it all stems from gender expectations, and it operates to punish girls for behaving or appearing in ways outside of restrictive norms

#dragonsarecoolassparklesare