My mother- who was a single parent raising me alone in my early youth- has never believed in baby talk. So when I was born, she started from day one talking to me and treating me like I was an adult.
As a result of this, I had rather high expectations of other adults from a very young age, and despised being talked down to. The worst was being asked sweetly and stupidly y over and over, “can you say “hello”?” in a way that felt like I was an animal being coaxed into performing a trick.
In my earliest years, I learned that using certain words and phrases could convince new adults to treat me the way I preferred. So to combat the annoyances of being treated like a subhuman idiot, I began purposefully expressing myself with a broad vocabulary.
My mother started teaching me how to read when I was three. By the time I was five, my favourite thing to read was Calvin and Hobbes anthologies, partly because I loved tigers, but mostly because in every other book I’d read, kids my age were written as stupid babies with no thought process or agency who nobody seemed to think of as capable of thinking or contributing. Calvin, though, was only a year older than me, and had a rich inner world, and was capable of speaking meaningfully and eloquently while still being a kid. Calvin was a kid the way that kids WERE, not the way adults saw us.
As a consequence of this, I think, I developed a prematurely warped sense of humour wherein- again, starting around age five- the funniest thing in the world to me was to approach adults and instigate conversations wildly beyond my age range. Like “oh, you’re slowing yourself down for me? Bold of you to assume I’m not already four steps ahead”.
I imagine this was probably very annoying, as I mostly didn’t actually have the experience or context to fully understand a lot of the subjects I was talking about and was mostly just imitating the persona of a mildly disinterested and somewhat philosophical old woman, but I genuinely understood enough vocab to bluff around the gaps in my knowledge long enough for the funny part to happen.
My preferences to spend more of my time fucking with adults instead of my peers slowly widened the already-existing gap between me and the majority of my schoolmates, which honestly didn’t bug me much because the two friends I DID have were way more fun than the rest of them anyways. But I was probably a bit emotionally stunted by this point anyways
Cut to me, age nine or so. Annoying know-it-all, deeply ironic, and the kind of kid who would rather lick a carrot peeler than suffer through the torture of meaningful emotional vulnerability with any adult ever
First real health class
We get the Puberty talk
Skin-peelingly awkward
Mr. Q, our fifty-ish something teacher, brings out a question box and a bunch of scraps of paper. Says he wants everyone to write down at least one question and he would pull a handful of them out anonymously to answer.
I cannot resist
We all submit our questions
Question one. “What is a vulva”
Diagram. Clinical and age-appropriate response.
Question two. “Is love nothing more than a chemical reaction designed to ensure the survival of the species?”
Long awkward pause
Teacher clears his throat
[This is hilarious]
Teacher speaks
“Uh…….”
“Well, um. I suppose… I love my wife. And I love my children. Or I would describe what I feel for them as love.”
Oh No
[Dawning realization that I have trapped myself and everyone in this room in a Feelings Talk]
[Panic and stare directly through the floor until he stops talking about his personal emotions regarding family and society and shit]
[Pain And Suffering And Hell because this is, in fact, what I signed us all up for, because boarding a plane to Alaska means that you are definitely going to Alaska, no matter if it was a joke or not, because the plane doesn’t give a fuck, because it is a plane and you are a moron]
The lessons in humour I learned that day have stuck with me ever since
Don’t gamble what you can’t lose
You Can Press The Big Red Button Whenever You But You Cannot Un-Send The Nuke
What is your opinion on the Sixth Doctor’s coat? (Independent about whether you think it fits the Doctor’s character to wear this coat—this is asking what you feel about the coat itself.)
[Image description: mobile screenshot taken from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Facebook that is a statement released by the Chief of Standing Rock. The statement reads as follows:
Chairman sitting Bear’s statement regarding SRST Public Safety, January 9th, 2026.
I have been receiving reports and evidence of First Nations people being racially targeted, assaulted, and detained by the federal agency Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). We want to remind our members to be safe and proactive by carrying with you at a minimum your tribal identification cards or a copy of your degree of Indian Blood. Our tribal identification affirms our citizenship and political status.
Our Nation is a sovereign government and our members are not immigrants. We are not subject to immigrant enforcement on our own lands. Any federal activity within our boundaries must recognize and respect our tribal sovereignty, treaty obligations, and established jurisdictional boundaries. Any ICE presence or activity within our lands is not authorized, not welcome, and will be addressed. Unauthorized personnel will be escorted off our lands.
If you are profiled, harassed, or detained, please notify us immediately (701) 854-8529. My staff is working on a “Know Your Rights” information phone line that will be released in the incoming days. Please watch our social media page for further communication.
Again, I strongly advise all First Nations people to carry your tribal information as a practical measure. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is committed to the protection, dignity, and well-being of our own people and to the continued exercise of our rights and jurisdiction. End image description.]
As someone pointed out in the tags, Minnesota is ALSO has detained Native Americans, and specifically is holding at least 3 Oseti Sakowin people hostage at Fort Snelling, and ICE is saying they’ll only release those hostages if the reservations enters an “Agreement” (i.e to hand over whoever ICE wants) with ICE. ( Source )
I’m gonna reblog with some videos of people speaking various American Indian/indigenous American languages, because I think most people don’t even know what they sound like. Not to be judgement of that—just, you know, I think people who want to be informed should know what they sound like!
Former president of the Navajo Nation, Joe Shirley, giving an address in Navajo.
Nora Marks Dauenhauer telling a story, “Raven and Deer”, in Tlingit.
Albert White Hat, a well known Lakota teacher, translator, and activist, speaking Lakota.
This YouTube user, Grahm Wiley-Camacho, has uploaded a bunch of videos in Colville Okanagan Salish, but I’m not sure who all the speakers are.
Multiple people speaking Cherokee and talking about revitalization of the language.
This guy speaking Yucatec Maya (guest starring: adorable small child).
There’s a ton of material in Greenlandic on YouTube, but it’s hard for me to find, because the titles and other metadata are also in Greenlandic! Of course, this represents a huge win for the language, since this is a biproduct of being in vibrant use by a community of speakers. Greenlandic has been an official language of the territory of Greenland since 1979, and the sole official language since 2009.
Here are some proceedings of the Greenlandic parliament, the Inatsisartut, which are conducted in Greenlandic.
Here is a radio show in Greenlandic, from Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa.
And here is a video of Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, Greenlandic MP in the Danish parliament (Folketing), causing some upset by speaking in Greenlandic instead of Danish.
Conversation between Loran Thompson and Francis Boots in Mohawk.
Interview with Yup'ik elder Raphael Jimmy about qaneryaraq “words of wisdom/right living”.
btw abled people hanging out with severely and/or visibly physically disabled people is not charity or sacrifice or impressive or anything like that. its normal fucking friendship dude. its normal to be friends with people who are different than you !! like i would fucking hope your circle isnt all people exactly like you.
it’s not ‘awh soooo inspirational and kind’ to hang out with disabled people. in fact, some of you ableds are lucky if any crip decides to hang out with *you*
guy sitting in front of me in class was vandalizing wikipedia and i kept reverting his edits as soon as he made them and he couldn’t figure out why it was happening
absolutely
[ID: a tag by weirdlizard26, reading, “ive never seen death note but i think this is what death note is”. /end ID]
I made a similar post on another site but we are in a moment where the way Indigenous peoples of the Americas are invisibilized on the scale of the US national stage is extremely dangerous and actively contributing to genocide that, though always present, is currently ramping up its blatant violence.
Consider: the way Trump and other pro-invasion officials have not given ANY acknowledgment of the fact that Greenland is overwhelmingly inhabited by Indigenous Kalaallit people. The continuing–and in Minneapolis, intensifying–harassment and detention of American Indian tribal citizens and descendants, especially unhoused people. The fact that a not-insignificant number of the immigrants targeted by ICE are members of Indigenous communities in Abya Yala, with monolingual speakers of Indigenous languages at a particular disadvantage in navigating the system. And while we can acknowledge the complexity of mestizaje and the problematics of some people asserting ALL Latin Americans are Indigenous, it is undeniable that the phenotype most associated with “illegal immigrants” is that of Indigenous Americans and their descendants.
And yet, almost none of the mainstream discussion of these things mentions Indigeneity. The US has been SO consistent at erasing Native people not just within its borders but also beyond them that there is virtually no discussion of this aspect of the current crisis outside of Indigenous communities. I am still formulating my thoughts about this but I do think it is a potentially really important thing to pay attention to, particularly as we see things like Trump retaliating against the Miccosukee Tribe for trying to halt the Everglades concentration camp, and the intra-community backlash against tribes that are funding or investing in ICE facilities.
(Relatedly, I think the fact that Minneapolis has been at the center of much of this stuff lately is particularly notable due to the Twin Cities having a stronger-than-average coalition of Black, Native, and immigrant community members working together.)
Times like these I remember that Malcolm X quote about healing and how it requires acknowledging the knife is there. Things like “this isn’t who we are” and “this is un-American” and “what are we? [insert another country]??” reveal a deep seated denial of American history and state-sponsored domestic terror that I’m just not gonna entertain anymore from leftists over the age of twenty.
Some links to recent-ish accounts of Indigenous people from Abya Yala being impacted by ICE in the US, particularly Maya, Zapotec, and Mixtec people in California
Lucha Zapoteca - instagram page of community members working to return the garment workers to their families (as of January 2026, three have been deported, eleven have returned to their families, but they are facing court hearings yet)
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