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{ It’s Autism Awareness Day. }

fyeahautismspectrum:

jemimaaslana:

chukalie:

Let’s be aware that there are millions of adults and children on the autism spectrum, living their everyday experiences, all around us.  

Some of them are what you’d call “high-functioning”; others, “low-functioning.”  Every one of them deserves respect and accommodation, and too few actually get it.

If you want to support autistic people, support actual autistic people—not organizations like Cure Autism Now or Autism Speaks.

Yeah, I know I’m a day late. I don’t care.

This autie spent Autism Awareness Day living her life. Playing AD&D with a bunch of friends, and crashing at a friend’s place at 3.30 AM.

Let people be aware that auties have lives. Novel notion, I know.

Emphasis mine. - Mairead

(Source: budgerigorous)

“Someone once asked me, “Why do you insist on taking the hard road?” I replied, “Why do you assume I see two roads?”

—

Unknown (via shion-noelle)

Oh wow, this.

(via writingpoemsoutloudinpublic)

(via nines19)

{ Neurologically disabled plural system in need of sober place to live. }

kavitiya:

kavitiya:

waiflike:

20 year old, female-presenting (occasionally transmasc) plural system looking for housing preferably in the United States (so I can continue getting disability checks). We’re interested in social justice and we dedicate a lot of time to it. We’re nerds; we spend a lot of time on the computer although when we’re talking to someone outside of the computer we give them our full attention. We’re still finding ourselves, and more or less anything about our identities could change at any moment, but we do hold ourselves to strict nonviolence and refuse to do or be around drugs or alcohol. Non-smokers. At least one of us is absolutely petrified of cismen, so any living arrangement with one of those would probably not work. 

Here’s our tumblr.

Preferably looking for something under or around $500/month.

Signal boost the fuck out of this, please. We are having such a hard time.

please please please signal boost this if you can, this is really really really important and really. please. it’s. yeah. please.

re-reblogging in case a lot of people missed it due to the blackout yesterday.

(via kavitiya-deactivated20111229)

{ Call Judge Penny Freesemann at 912 652 7252 to save Troy Davis. She has the power to pull the death warrant. The DA can ask her to rescind the warrant or she could rescind it directly. You can leave a message tonight. }

please do this if you can.  if you cannot, please pass this around if you can.  thank you.

(Source: le-kif-kif, via squeetothegee-deactivated201111)

{ Call Judge Penny Freesemann at 912 652 7252 to save Troy Davis. She has the power to pull the death warrant. The DA can ask her to rescind the warrant or she could rescind it directly. You can leave a message tonight. }

numol:

please do this if you can.  if you cannot, please pass this around if you can.  thank you.

AND here’s her email address, courtesy of kashmirror:

I just emailed Judge Penny Freesemann! pfreesemann@chathamcounty.org!#FreeTroyDavis

(Source: le-kif-kif)

hermanaresist: the time is now. alternative media. (via http://www.hermanaresist.com/2011/09/21/preventing-metamorphosis/) submit to Zine anthology titled: dismantle: preventing metamorphosis on the lives of our Latino/Chicano, Black & Indigenous  brothers in the prison industrial complex as well as from the perspective of being the mother/sister of hermanos in the prison complex and navigating mamihood with the reality that  high incarceration rates target our babies and boys and brothers and sons and nenes “disadvantaged” youth and raza for being poor and brown-and that our young boys & chicanos have a 1 in 6 chance of going to prison in their  lifetime.

hermanaresist:

the time is now. alternative media.

(via http://www.hermanaresist.com/2011/09/21/preventing-metamorphosis/)

submit to Zine anthology titled: dismantle: preventing metamorphosis on the lives of our Latino/Chicano, Black & Indigenous  brothers in the prison industrial complex

as well as from the perspective of being the mother/sister of hermanos in the prison complex

and navigating mamihood

with the reality that  high incarceration rates target our

babies and boys and brothers and sons and nenes

“disadvantaged” youth and raza

for being poor and brown-and that our young boys & chicanos have a 1 in 6 chance of going to prison in their  lifetime.

(via blackamazon)

{ I don’t want to leave my Tumblr on that last note… . . }

dez-ray:

Tonight was another reminder of how far we have to go, and to be honest it was a reminder that we really haven’t gotten all that far.

Black peoples in this country are still considered & treated as if they are the property of the state to be handled & dealt with however the state decides.The pains & tragedies of black peoples in this country are now considered the property of whoever decides to take those tragedies and use them to their own ends.

Who cares who is crying out against injustice as long as it is being cried out against, right?

No. Not if in the midst of your crying out you silence & demean the voices of the very peoples who suffer these injustices directly.

None of this was about whether or not what some people of color were saying was “correct” or “right” or even “appropriate”. This was about everyone shutting up long enough so that they could feel however the fuck they were feeling. This was about everyone shutting up long enough so that they could experience the rage and sorrow and frustration that has been manifesting for CENTURIES without the progeny of their oppressors chiming in with their opinions & perspectives, no matter how sympathetic or radical or liberal they may have been.

We all know your opinions & perspectives already. We know some of you are swell and some of you are extremely questionable and some of you are out right pieces of shit. We are all taught your opinions and perspectives K-12. Hell, it’s hammered into our fucking heads that it is YOUR opinions & perspectives that matter most in American society.

So pardon the fuck out of some of us people of color that just really wish that for the first times in your lives you would just BE QUIET AND LET SOMEONE ELSE HAVE THEIR VOICE BE HEARD.

We want to have some space to hear what people of color have to say and how they are feeling and their assessments of any given situation, especially if that situation is happening directly in their communities.

You have to start asking yourself exactly why is it that people of color are not allowed to express their raw anger & rage without you feeling obligated to critique it without time or thought? Why must people of color continue to walk on egg shells? Why are people of color responsible for making room for you when all you end up doing is talking over & taking over?

Once again, most of us are pretty well educated on your experience, the least some of you could do is allow the rest of us the space & time to assess & figure out our own experiences before you come along and treat them like they are some new unexplored lands to plant your fucking flag in.

(via karnythia)

theskinofourteeth:

diaboundkernel:

This is something I don’t really go into on tumblr (or anywhere else, for that matter) but I’ve made a lot of progress in accepting that I am the survivor of a severe neurological trauma and that this is not going away.

I mean, the idea that not only could my physical symptoms be permanent, but that my previous cognitive function may never return? This is fucking scary. Not going to even pretend I feel otherwise. It’s also okay. It’s not the life I’d pick - I’d pick one with less need for to-do lists - but it’s pretty good.

But, yeah, I have spent all morning having no idea what I’m doing and with no concentration whatsoever. Writing this post has taken me longer than I’d care to think about. It’s over an hour, let’s put it that way. I keep losing track of what I’m saying. I cannot, for the life of me, remember anything I was planning on doing today, and last night I was really distracted so I didn’t write a list.

And these days, when my mind is entirely fogged up and some place else and remembering what words were meant to go next in the sentence takes a very long time, these days are the ones I have trouble accepting.

It’s just - Okay, I know a certain kind of intelligence is prized in this society, and that as someone who had that kind of intelligence I was in a very privileged position, but it’s hard to have a lot of your self-worth built in to being academically intelligent only to find that your mind is not guaranteed to work that way. But I still have all these issues with admitting to not knowing something. That’s how I was taught to be. And a lot of friends are still treating me like this incredible, super-intelligent being and it’s like, “I know you’re really caught on pretending this never happened and I’m still exactly the same, and that’s all well and good, but this morning I had cold tea because I couldn’t remember if I’d boiled the kettle or not. Ignoring reality just creates an environment in which I unhealthily pretend to be someone who never suffered a brain injury because that’s the only way to have worth.”

“It’s just - Okay, I know a certain kind of intelligence is prized in this society, and that as someone who had that kind of intelligence I was in a very privileged position, but it’s hard to have a lot of your self-worth built in to being academically intelligent only to find that your mind is not guaranteed to work that way. But I still have all these issues with admitting to not knowing something. That’s how I was taught to be. And a lot of friends are still treating me like this incredible, super-intelligent being and it’s like, “I know you’re really caught on pretending this never happened and I’m still exactly the same, and that’s all well and good, but this morning I had cold tea because I couldn’t remember if I’d boiled the kettle or not. Ignoring reality just creates an environment in which I unhealthily pretend to be someone who never suffered a brain injury because that’s the only way to have worth.””

Thank you.

(Source: themoonascendant, via nicocoer)

{ the cover letter i wish i could write: }

dopegirlfresh:

dear hiring officer:

my name is racially ambiguous, yes. i hope that this means that you’ll at least read my whole cover letter and resume — i worked very hard on both of them. i am only mildly interested in the position that you need to fill, as your advert on craigslist or idealist is poorly done. let me guess: the person who’s leaving this vacancy did not write the job description. i can tell, because the advert is vague but stresses professionalism. this must mean to you that professionalism equals not defending oneself when you (or other staff members) do some fuck shit that everybody knows is wrong. it’s unfortunate that you list the requirements for this job without including any information about the organization you run — it would help you find people who are better fits for the job. but, you claim to want someone who’s well-versed in MS office, so i guess that means you typed this bullshit yourself.

i have had a string of office jobs — including a five year stint in government human resources — that overqualify me for this position, so i hope you understand that when you see i have not listed the completion of any bachelor’s degree. i didn’t need it to answer phones or file, and i’m fucking insulted that you or any of these other fucks would suggest that i need one to do that shit now. simply put, i am self-taught. i learned how to work by working. do you understand that? the fact that you seem to think that i need a degree (IN ANYTHING! NOT EVEN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION OR ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT!) to direct phone calls and schedule conference rooms pisses me the fuck off. it also disenfranchises people like me — people who can and are willing to do the work not just because of student loan debt or because we swore to ourselves we’d move to NYC and be fabulous — because it tells us that we need to go to school to do the same work that we have already fucking been doing. it means that if i take your advice and go back to school, i’ll be putting myself 60 to 80 thousand dollars in debt to come out of school and then be told to get a master’s (or two) or a ph.d. when ALL I FUCKING WANTED WAS AN ADMIN GIG WITH GODDAMN BENEFITS.

you’re wasting your time with that. don’t you know that a good chunk of the people with bachelor’s degrees who work bullshit admin jobs like this are only doing it until something better comes along or they go to grad school?

oh. that’s what you’re doing?

i shoulda known.

anyway, i hope you find what you’re looking for.

i’ll be temping in the meantime, and trying to get myself an appointment at columbia dental school. cuz i don’t have benefits.

sincerely,

flask motherfucking gordon

{ LINK: Etiquette, etc.: decolonizing love: take #180 }

etiquette-etc:

i have a question but first a story:

when i think about be a little kids there’s always this image that surfaces above all the other ones: me waiting for my parents to get home from work. every night they would come home some time near midnight, kiss me good night and go to sleep only to repeat that routine at 9 am in the morning the next day. as a kid, i was fine with it and more or less understood affection as something that would happen incrementally if i just waited.

as new immigrants, they worked three jobs at a time to make ends or even be just the cusp of not getting to it. sometimes i never knew because when i think about growing up in a pretty affluent part of vancouver as a child of two working class immigrants of colour i sometimes think that one of the things that we know how to do best is pretend we’re rich. in tagalog, to say i love you is “mahal kita.” to say this is expensive is “mahal ito.” i always thought it was funny that mahal meant both love and expensive. more of less, i understood acceptance as something valued in cost. 

when i think about some of the reasons why people emigrate to canada i think about that canadian dream that we’re force fed to know as something we should work towards. i think about the ideal white picket fence life that goes along swimmingly in unison with your neighbours, whatever backgrounds they might be coming from. and then i think about how all of that is really just a massive euphemism for a narrative that only makes way for certain characters. this is also where i think about the diaspora of philippines. how circular migration is common place for so many people and families and how this too is a massive euphemism for permanent impermanence and displacement in land, heart, and community. there are so many families that have been separated in order to financially support their families. how does this affect the people who are a part of this direct process? this becomes the cost of making ends meet.

what could “hope” actually mean in this instance if it’s marginalized folk hoping to get a better break in a nation-state that won’t include them in their own history. there is a massive violence in the unification of national narratives in which the struggles of the working class, and in my experience, the struggles of invisiblized, racialized, immigrant working class folk are turning the wheels for gears that put imperialism into motion. hope becomes a waiting room that one could be in for a life time - again, to make ends meet. though, making ends meet in this way only really loops the ends, turning this process into a cycle. 

i’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of loving while struggling lately. just the other day, i wrote about learning to love past struggle and realized that maybe that isn’t necessarily the route i want to take in loving myself. it is not always mutually exclusive to everyone’s definitions, but in some ways, fear can be a contributer to how someone defines love. as great as it would be distill and extract fear, it is also an uncontrollable reality for many whose fears are imbedded by and cast on by larger systems of power. it is a privileged thought to think that struggles can and must be pushed aside to skillfully grow with another. i think the key is to recognize the struggle, yet still find ways to forge on and resist. what i’m beginning to lean towards might be more about fearless love; love that is understanding of the walls and apprehension that someone might have due to their realities, histories, and struggles. i’m beginning to think that transnational imperialism is creating a legacy of collective, yet normalized trauma in some communities.

how does understanding love through this reality affect the ways in which we, as transnational working immigrants, construct/enact/define love? how do the ideas of hope andwaiting reproduce and come into play in personal, familial and intimate relationships?

(via rematiration)