sometimes i get flashbacks on here to conversations i tried to have with conservatives re: white privilege - but it becomes apparent that irrespective of political alignment, a lot of people have the same kneejerk reaction to "you have privilege"
like you try to bring it up with a conservative white man and he'll say, "my life wasn't easy. I grew up in a trailer park, raised by a single mom who was also a drug addict, and I have never had things handed to me. I struggled." and it's just. yes! you were subject to classism! your mother also faced misogyny, and institutional medical obstacles regarding addiction/drug treatment. you were disadvantaged compared to people who didn't have to endure any those things, and what happened to you was devastating and real.
all that "white privilege" means is that you were also not dealing with racism on top of that. that's it. that's what it means.
but if you push on this point, the reaction then pivots to: "but i'm not racist. i haven't used that privilege to hurt black people. i don't 'wield' my privilege against them."
great! interpersonal conflict is very much not how privilege largely manifests, it's exercised by systems and institutions that are beyond the reach of you and your friends. you may not have done anything to your black friend, but if you both applied for a loan at the same bank, all other things being equal, there is a historical precedence for you, a white man, being given better terms and resources. that is white privilege. neither of you are the banker, the banker is exercising power over both of you in making this decision.
and so ostensibly progressive people on here, who experience marginalization along one axis, will still reject any assertion that they have certain privileges - "I can't experience white privilege fully because I'm autistic" - there's a word for what you experience alongside white privilege, and it's called ableism. these two things very much coexist, because you are not also experiencing racism's intersection WITH the ableism you face. "I haven't used my male privilege against anyone, I don't oppress the women around me" - I never said you did, now if you and a woman both worked the same job, who is your employer (who wields the power in this situation) likely to pay more?
like, people are still caught up in the very real struggles they're facing to no fault of their own, but they continue to interpret "you have X privilege" with "your life is easy / you don't suffer from other issues / you're the one making life harder for people without that privilege." and it would be great if we could just get back to the basics of intersectionality here and stop operating on false assumptions!!
The International Phonetic Alphabet consonants found in English, with keywords and relevant parts of the mouth highlighted and colour-coded. (Source.)
Pronouncing each of these in sequence is a very strange and amusing physical sensation, and I highly recommend it.
haha look it’s where those noises live in your dang FACE, TRY IT
Very helpful actually
You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes
F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I'm glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don't ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don't ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you
Never stop learning+ Never stop sharing what you learned
On one hand I understand not teaching cursive in school anymore, because it actually is slower than regular handwriting and almost everything is typed on a keyboard now anyways.
On the other hand, so much of our (even recent!) history was written in cursive, and having a whole generation of kids who can't read letters written by their grandparents, momentos saved by their great-grandparents, or even photo albums from theur immediate family seems like a dangerously quick way to detach us from previous generations.
And on the third, related but slightly malformed hand, I feel bad that yet another form of small, everyday art that brings joy in the middle of mundane tasks, which celebrates personality and individual style and self-expression, is about to fade into obscurity because it wasn't efficient enough for today's world to put up with.
Like... if we continue to whittle away the small arts out of every day life, what's going to be left except stark, ruthless pragmatism?
Maybe writing a grocery list is less mundane when you get to feel elegant for a moment. Maybe you're a little more proud of what you write when you see it flow together like a painting
Sometimes I make posts that are like “Hey guys, maybe everything being optimized for efficiency and cheapness leaves some major defects in the average person’s ability to thrive psychologically” and some of you pop off like I’ve said I want to kill everyone who uses insulin with my bare hands, when mostly what I’m talking about is this sort of thing.
the leftism leaving people's bodies when they continue to hound someone over behavior that was accounted for, apologized for, and corrected years ago - people got on board for prison abolition then said "and let's replace that with perpetual ostracization and shame to the point where they can no longer function in society :) this is better because We, The Community, are pushing them toward suicide"
me: you literally have a disorder. this is symptoms
me: no perhaps my soul is rotten
Elephants eat 300+ pounds of foliage a day so they’re almost always moving and grazing in their waking hours but they will stop if another elephant cannot walk. They’re known to try to pick up the fallen elephant and stand and wait for them to remain enough strength to rise and walk if the elephant is injured or ill. Some Asian elephants reportedly guide injured wild elephants back to humans for help. I can’t help but think about adage attributed to Margaret Mead, first sign of civilization is a healed human femur. We know Neanderthals cared for the individuals in their community because there are archeological finds of Neanderthals with disabilities and healed major injuries that would have required the group assisting the individual to eat and drink during their recovery, instead of seeing the injured or disabled Neanderthal as a waste of resources, they valued them as an individual and were willing to put work into their recovery and survival. Elephants seem to view members of their species in the same way but due to their anatomy and cognition, they have a harder time rendering medical aid themselves, though they want to help.
THIS SHOW DOESN'T EXPECT VIEWERS TO BE DUMB. its the way it just. assumes that we are watching the show. so it will do things like have ilya look at a man at the bar and while at first you think ilya is looking at someone as a potential hookup (which he is) they then let it play across his face that he recognizes that man as a famous actor who is currently filming with rose landry which can only mean. ah. fuckkkkkkkk. there's shane.
and then they do it again! shane's absolute deer in the headlights look at seeing one of ilya's teammates on the dance floor, a man we have heard speak maybe three times. but we know what seeing him means to shane and why shane then immediately starts looking for ilya right back.
like. when was the last time a show let this happen in silence without adding in dialogue to explain who these background characters are and their significance to the current scene. FUCKING THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING THAT WE'RE WATCHING THIS SHOW.
Funniest justification for gay sex thank you Marlon Brando
Peer reviewed tags wonderfully said
Life absolutely does not peak in high school. Teenagers haven’t even fully learned how to use their adult brains yet. They just got the unicycle and keep falling off of it.
Teenagers, you are very smart people. You have the same unicycle that the adults do. You are not however able to ride it easily yet. Someday when you’re doing sick stunts and juggling while you ride you will understand
You will still fall off probably but that’s fine. We all do.
You know how toddlers can’t contain any of their emotions because they’re still brand new to them?
Teenagers are like that but with horniness and big adult thoughts. You’ve got the big adult thoughts. You’ve got the horniness. But you’re still new to them. Things get smoother as you learn how to weird them.
I have now switched from a unicycle metaphor to a sword metaphor.
