Britain seems totally excited that Margaret Thatcher has expired. People all over my Facebook are organising parties, reading significance into the fact that Maggie was apparently best pals with Jimmy Saville, and making jokes (my favourite: that Atos has declared her fit to work, my least favourite: that her and Jimmy had fucking miners in common). Nobody seems to be mentioning her good points (that she had an excellent wardrobe and her services to lactose intolerant people for taking milk off the curriculum). 

I’m no Thatcher fan, but I‘m not celebrating. Why would I? Margaret Thatcher may be dead but the NHS is still being privatised, Atos are still trying to kill disabled people and I’m still supposed to be on a salt free diet. 

It does seem a little like people are excited by the opportunity to openly hate women and disabled people, but I’m not sure, so I’m just going to write a list of dead white cis men who I think are hated underratedly. In no particular order, I bring you:

1. Winston Churchill: For actively helping to colonise at least five countries, and being a particular prick about it (boasting about how many brown people he had shot)
2. Charles Darwin: For writing some really racist and eugenicist books about the human race 
3. Kellogs: For being a racist, supporting eugenics, and for popularising breakfast cereal
4. Lewis Carroll: For taking indecent images of children (actual paeodphilia, guys, not just being friends with a paedophile, which doesn’t mean the same thing)
5. JM Barrie: For general paedophilic behaviour and misogyny
6. Kant: Condoning marital rape, being a racist
7. Roald Dahl: Oh sure his books are whimsical and do all that imagination stuff, but what is the deal with the Oompa Loompas? A white man rescues them from a savage environment and now they work, with no discernible breaks, holiday pay or sick leave, in his factory in exchange for food? Um, what? Also why are hairless women so taunted in The Witches?
8.  D.H.Lawrence: For being a big misogynist and writing terrible, terrible sex scenes
   
9.  William SHakespeare: For not paying child support
10. Richard: we all hate you and wish you were dead already.
    

tranqualizer:

tranqualizer:

HELP ME SAVE MY LIFE

[Jessica is to the left of the photo, to the right is her mother, Silvia] 

Jessica’s Story

My name is Jessica Sánchez-Rodriguez and I am an undocumented, disabled 18 year old currently living in Charlotte, NC with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. 17 years ago I crossed the border with my mother, Silvia, in order to receive life saving medical treatment. For years I was traveling to Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina, a two and half hour trip from my home, in order to receive medical care. Because I am undocumented and no longer a minor I no longer have access to the medical help I received before.

I have been living in the United States since I was 11 months old and have been educated here for 13 years. My parents, while undocumented, pay taxes yet I am still unable to receive government help. Access to Medicaid right now would mean that I would not have to continue to wait for an emergency surgery that would save my life.

Right now I need an emergency surgery to connect a catheter to my bladder and without financial assistance a surgery like that will cost my family $45,000 dollars.

I am starting this fundraiser because I want to do whatever it takes to get this surgery. $45,000 is not something we can afford on our own. Please donate whatever you can and help me save my life.

~Jessica

Advocates from all across the U.S are saying that 2013 is the year for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, as communities are organizing to ensure that all 11 million undocumented immigrants have a just pathway to citizenship, Jessica is one of millions of immigrants who is blocked from health services only because she lacks a social security number. Not having access to social services also means that she can’t get financial assistance to pay for a much needed, life saving surgery. Jessica cannot continue to wait. 

WHAT’S IN THE $55,000 GOAL?

$45,000 for the surgery

$10,000 to cover specialist/doctor costs for follow ups and the fees charged by WePay/GoFundMe

Need to know more about spina bifida and hydrocephalus?

UPDATE FROM JESSICA AND HER FAMILY:

In August, Jessica is scheduled to go back to her hospital in Greenville, SC for a head CT scan along with an ultrasound for her kidneys. Her doctors believe that her kidneys are failing her more than they had expected. These doctors are currently doing pro-bono consultation with Jessica because they worked with her before she turned 18 but because Jessica is technically no longer their patient, we are getting extremely slow responses about the situation regarding her surgery.

Please continue to signal boost and make donations online. The number on the website does not include the calls that the family has received with donations. 

Thank you.

boricuasbond:

I need to know how many of us are on tumblr <3

I’m not salt free, I’m not especially single. I’m not from the US but marriage equality is all over my social media networks. People are posting the mysterious red box with the two pink boxes inside of them and there are endless internet lists of best posters for marriage equality, funniest pro marriage equality videos, most forward thinking multinational corporations using marriage equality as an advertising theme.

I am not interested in marriage equality. This definitely doesn’t mean I’m interested in straight people getting something the rest of us don’t have access to, or that I don’t want queers to be able to get visas. Here’s my beef: the institution of relationships is bad for everyone, including but not confined to the people in them. I live in the UK with my partner; I’m disabled, so are they (I say my partner because that is what I have said on various forms that I have filled in – to my detriment), and the system is pretty much trying to kill us. Something nobody tells you when you acquire a disability is that if you live with a partner, you are eligible for less personal care assistance hours because the government knows you’re having sex with someone. That’s right. If you had a housemate, you’d get more PA hours. But if you sleep with your housemate? You have to rely on them to cook your meals.

“You’d be cooking for yourself anyway,” the social worker told me, “so you can’t get any hours for food preparation.” It wasn’t even up to her. She was taking the case to be decided by a committee of people who had never met us. I couldn’t exactly ask her to tell them that sometimes people don’t cook for themselves. I have two separate impairments that causes me severe nausea a lot of the time. All the anti emetics prescribed to me contain lactose, and dairy products give me migraines (which also make me nauseous, but a different kind of nausea. Sometimes I toss a coin to decide which kind of nausea I want today). Cooking lunch when you are trying to hold down breakfast is no picnic, and nobody should have to eat the food that you produce. Anti nausea cooking is throwing something in a pan, sticking a citrus fruit in front of your nose to take away the smell and pushing your head out of the window hoping that nothing burns. I didn’t think she’d listen if I tried to explain that not everybody eats the same pattern of meals everyday. Especially if one person is trying to work with hypoglycaemia and the other person is mainly trying to not vomit. I’m supposed to be on a low salt diet. I’m not about to impose that on anybody who doesn’t need to be on one, especially someone who has a limited appetite. Especially someone who has nausea themselves but has to force themselves to eat because they have to regulate their blood sugar. Do they want a tasteless piece of fish and some bland vegetables marinated in endless combinations of spices and acidic liquids and herbs in a futile attempt to get them to taste of something other than water? Probably not.

Nobody warns you, if you start getting romantically entangled with someone that lives on sandwiches, that  somewhere down the line you might acquire a disability that means that you can no longer cook and you will be made to eat their salad and proteins forced between two slices of bread that might have butter on them if you’re lucky for your foreseeable future. 

And nobody talks about what it means if you’re in a relationship with someone the government forces you to rely on for basic human needs. If you have an argument, you can’t storm out. Where are you going to go, anyway, if you’re too sick to leave the house? And you can’t tell them to get the hell out of your space. Who is going to cook your dinner? What happens if you break up in the middle of the night during a prolonged argument? Social services aren’t going to send round someone to make your breakfast in the morning. They’re going to need to stay, or you’re going to starve.

How does that affect you in a relationship? How does that affect how you can and can’t break up? One of my favourite break up stories is from my friend’s mum who reported waking up one day, seeing her husband across from her in the bed, and thinking, oh god, not you again. By that lunchtime, he had moved out. If she’d had to rely on him for personal care assistance, they might well be still together.

How do you negotiate things like monogamy, space, privacy, taking a break, when you rely on someone for three meals a day and more?

I applied for Employment Support Allowance recently when a mixture of a difficult family situation, mental health issues and physical health issues came to a mini crisis point. I wasn’t eligible for any, because my partner was working. And due to one thing or another, her last PA didn’t work out, and her direct payments had been coming into my account – all sixteen hours a week of them. I was suddenly without a job, with no benefits, now relying on her sixteen hours a week so I could pay rent and bills, meaning that she couldn’t immediately find another PA, so she was forced to rely on me for everything. And I was sick and unreliable and couldn’t provide everything. I felt stupid. Why did I write ‘living with partner’ on the forms, why didn’t I write single?

It was because that first social worker had looked like she was onto something, about the flat with one bed, and she had seemed so refreshingly un homophobic that I felt I owed her the truth, or a version of some kind of truth, not a truth that involves fairly frequent break ups, bouts of pretending that we’re not dating each other to our friends to save us from some of the social pressure that comes with being in a public relationship that other people get invested in, periods of not being with each other, arguments, burnt food and intense clothes sharing. Ultimately that social worker was just filling in boxes on a form that didn’t include such categories as ‘dating each other on and off but for a prolonged period of time and also living together but more for economic and social reasons than for romantic reasons’; it’s not her fault, and there’s nowhere she can go with information more nuanced than ‘living with partner’.

I blame the government, for thinking that partners should take all their meals together, and for thinking that when you’re sick or unable to work, your partner is there to provide economic support. It’s clearly a way to save money. Let’s not give money for personal care assistants; it’s unlikely that their partners are just going to sit by and watch them starve – they’ll cook, they’ll clean, they’ll do personal care. But what if they don’t? Let’s not give money to people who are too sick to work – their partners won’t leave them destitute. They’ll top up their Oyster cards. They’ll pay their bills. They’ll keep a roof over their heads. But what if they don’t? My personal view is that they’re hoping we’ll die. Then they definitely won’t have to pay for anything more for us, apart from possibly a state funeral (which is surely cheaper than  a personal care assistant).

And the same government is promoting ‘family values’, whatever those are, it’s never quite explicit, and further marriage benefits. I personally think it’s hard enough to get out of relationships anyway. Even the supposedly ‘good’ relationships. I was with one guy for over four years of my life partly because it hadn’t really occurred to me that I could leave him. He seemed so nice, and everyone told me I was crazy for breaking up with him. They don’t know that he was controlling and that I hated having sex with him and that he once pinched me hard enough to leave a bruise that stayed for weeks because I was talking to some boys from my college on a coach journey to a Stop The War march in a way that he deemed flirtatious. I am grateful that I didn’t acquire a disability that left me unable to cook whilst I was living with him because I hated his cooking; he would sprinkle untoasted cumin into otherwise unflavoured stews and call them curries and he was experimental in the kitchen in a way that has put me off any kind of fusion food for life. Do we really need more reasons for staying with people?

It’s hard to be single. People judge you. And I hate to quote Carrie Bradshaw, but where is the wedding shower for single people, the huge reception for single people, the anniversary for single people? It’s more expensive to cook. It’s dangerous to wander around alone at night. Having a partner can provide you with a certain amount of protection from external sexual abuse, although you often have to juggle that against the way they are treating you sexually and calculate whether it is worth it. When I was single, more than one person offered to set up an Okaycupid account for me, even though I had not expressed any interest in dating anyone. I finally got an Okaycupid account and received totally disgusting sexual propositions everyday in my inbox until I worked out how to use my Googlemail spam filter. You don’t get cheap hotel deals. Delia is the only person who has made a mainstream cookbook for you, and even that is tinged with pity. There is already more than enough incentive to be in relationships. I want campaigns to focus on removing straight people’s marriage benefits rather than giving them to queer people. I’ve heard all the arguments about the things that queers have to go without because their marriages aren’t recognized, and I hate to be basic, but it seems to me that single people are also going without all these benefits. Where is the campaign for single people? Where is the campaign for people who want to sleep around or love around or want to do their dishes in a different house to the people they have sex with?

fabianromero:

I am a queer Chican@ Immigrant and a chronically ill person with able bodied privilege. 

Being sober means that I rarely ever go out to clubs or events unless I can drag along a sober friend. I have gone out before without that support and I end up feeling overwhelmed and panicky. I need at least a friend with me that will agree to not drink or use substances while we spend time together. In the past this has saved me by knowing that I have someone to be accountable to (I will stay sober) and that I have someone that understands when I feel tempted or miss drinking and using. 

Tonight I went dancing. My body missed it so much. I did my awkward shuffle, my cumbia inspired body movements and let my arms relax into the music. It was 90’s dance night at a small club. On the dance floor were awkward people trying to dance while balancing drinks on their hands, bad lip synching, or standing in the middle of the dance floor and talking loudly over the music. It was refreshing to see so many people dancing. We left right as it got crowded, our strategy for limiting time around drunk people.

I went with my sober white friend, I joke that she is the only person in the world that wears crocs but she isn’t. She is however one of the few people I really spend time with in Seattle. Seattle is very white and although the people of color community here is tight, most of us are introverts spend a lot of time alone and only hang when at events centered around alcohol or drugs.

Read More

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

Whites sit on a bus stop bench with blacks two weeks after the city of Johannesburg in South Africa allowed blacks to travel on ‘whites-only’ buses in February, 1990. (via Regal Child)

Yo, this photograph is in black and white, but it’s from 1990! Not so long ago… 

And the way that they are sitting, with the White women looking away like that, with their backs to the Black people on the bench… Very interesting moment that’s been captured. 

Dear reasonable adjusters,

Your ableism gives me anxiety. Which in the long run will probably make my chronic impairment worse, so I’ll end up taking even more time off work.

Want to rethink your employment plan?

Love your employee

xxxx

I am not interested in your life. If I am too sick to work, I am definitely too sick to be interested in you telling me how difficult your day will be because I am not coming in (or, more accurately, how my disability is ruining your life).

Don’t tell your employees that you are ‘very understanding’ about their disability. This is something your employees should be saying about you, if it is, in fact, the case. If you find that nobody is congratulating you about what a fantastic boss you are when it comes to disability, this is a cue to get better about disability stuff, it is not a cue to start telling your employees how fantastic you are. They know what you are like. They know whether you are ‘understanding’ or whether you are in fact an inappropriate, passive aggressive bully.

Don’t tell your employees that you are ‘very understanding’ about them needing time off because they are ‘so great’ when they are well enough to attend work. I mean what the fuck do you mean by this? Do you use some kind of graph of work performance in order to determine whether or not you allow sick days? Don’t be ridiculous. If your employees are sick, don’t try to make them come to work, even if their performance is TERRIBLE. You can’t punish bad performance with withdrawal of sick days you twisted little fascist.

Don’t use my disability to make you feel like a good person. “Well I have this disabled employee, and I’m not one to blow my own trombone, but I am SUPER understanding about it. I mean, I take reasonable adjustment to a whole other level, it’s actually incredible how passionate and respectful and appropriate and understanding I am about disability stuff.” My disability never makes me feel good about myself. The least thing you can do is not use it to prop up some idea you have of yourself of being some kind of amazing Mother Theresa style person.

You are legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments. If you think you are making adjustments that are not reasonable, either stop making them, seek legal employment advice or keep making them and shut up. Don’t make them in order to whitemail me into receiving your bullying, ableist messages without question, or even worse, whitemail me into messaging you back sympathising with how difficult I am making your white, middle class, heterosexual, able bodied life.

By the way, you are not making any unreasonable adjustments. You are barely covering the reasonable adjustments. You are just about as reasonable as the government are. Does that make you feel good? The same people who are trying to privatise the NHS, who are cutting sickness benefits for people who die within the same year, and are shutting down public libraries – you are as reasonable as these people. Congratulations.

Saying ‘I look forward to seeing you tomorrow’ will not actually incite me to come into work tomorrow if I am still not well enough. Yeah, I saw right through that one. Your words are not as powerful as my balance disorder you idiot what made you think that would work? I’ll attend work if I’m well enough, and not before.

Love from your eternally grateful employee

xxxx

PS. I fucking hate you and I have not infrequent fantasies about dancing on your grave

‘article in the Hindu Point of View and CREA’s website Sexuality and Disability’

It’s on, Dr. Ali