Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren’t amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I’d love it if we could talk about that for a minute.
If you can’t do anything else, please just read and reblog.
Even a small amount of 5 or 7 or 10 of foreign currency will help a lot. Our government has essentially abandoned us. People have turned to social media for help. WhatsApp groups and DMs on twitter/insta is where we find help. Our helpline is a Google doc. Situation is so dire that hospitals are discharging patients due to lack of oxygen. Every night the same story, oxygen running out in hospitals, citizens running around to somehow arrange for oxygen with minutes to spare. Last night, we had manged to get oxygen to a hospital with 14min to spare.
^ that post has links to petitions and donations PLEASE boost the versions of this post with links!!
Reblogging with more links. Listen to @groundzero-and-deku ☝️ they know what they’re talking about.
Some of you in the US have asked what else you can do. I’m not the best person to answer this since I’m not from there, but I do know that Biden is being urged to ship supplies to India. Maybe a more informed person can chime in with how best you can help but calling your representative and registering your concern sounds like a good starting point.
From one democracy to another, thank you. Please keep this going, you’re all amazing.
Reblogging one more time
EDIT: Reblogging with donation and resource links all in one place:
Not every listed charity has the infrastructure to accept international donations, so please be sure to check this list which has specific information about charities that can and are accepting international donations.
Also re-adding the link to the give2asia charitable foundation for those who don’t want to go through the whole post.
Y'all, this is a good time to mention that I am not affiliated with any charity or donation centerandam not receiving donations on behalf of anyone.
This is a list of resources compiled partly by me and more importantly, by other people who have a better grasp on the situation than myself.
They are to the best of our knowledge great resources but I still encourage you to do your research and put your money where you believe it will be used best.
If you find more ways to help or donate, add them in a reblog - let’s get as much information out there as possible.
Much love and please stay safe
PLEASE BOOST THIS VERSION OF THE POST WITH THE EXTENDED LIST OF LINKS TO DONATIONS AND RESOURCES
UPDATE:
The number of new cases has almost hit the 350,000 mark. The total number of covid cases in the country is just shy of 17 million. This is the situation as of 25 April 2021.
Things are dire. People are largely on their own now and help, if any, is yet to come.
President Biden is being urged to ease restrictions or remove to embargo on raw materials that could be critical in India’s fight against the virus.
Just a while ago, the US government committed to helping with “a small supply of inputs and components from US companies for production of COVID-19 vaccines in India”.
As little 7 dollars can get someone a bed or an oxygen tank.
Here’s a list of independent NGOs and charities that are largely accepting international donations. REMEMBER: OXYGEN is the need of the hour.
I’ve heard from multiple sources that the government-run PM CARES fund is not directing funds to where they’re needed and while I don’t have exact information, I would advise you to avoid this platform out of caution.
Some of you are rightly concerned about where your money is going.
Again,I do not represent any charity or NGO, am not affiliated with anyone andam not involved in any stage in the collection or distribution of your donations. I’m just a person doing whatever she can so please do a little bit of research to help you identify the best place to put your donation.
At the very least, please don’t let this post die. Don’t let more people die. Keep reblogging and yelling about it on social media.
As someone else pointed out in the notes, there is no central helpline. All we have is each other and the little we can do in the face of this chaos.
We’re resorting to social media to get help and spread awareness. We have literally the same tools you do. Please don’t let this die yet. Please get the word out if you can’t do anything else.
Thank you so much and please, keep us in your thoughts.
For ppl asking why she’s an anti black, anti Semite. She has used the n word and compared her depression to the holocaust
Even not counting her poetry her private journals are full of disgusting, overblown antisemitism. She didn’t just use Jewish people for her metaphors, she outright hated them irl and yet decided to use their suffering for her own gain
okay, I’m Jewish and I appreciate this sentiment. and if someone wants to cut out Sylvia Plath, go for it, I get it.
But. by this logic we’d also need to stop reblogging TS Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Shakespeare quotes. Virginia Woolf wrote anti-semetic things in her private journals, too. If you only want to read classic poets who liked Jews and black people, that’s fine, but like. good luck? Sylvia Plath isn’t an exception.
idk. Tumblr’s attitude of “consume nothing problematic” just doesn’t work if you’re part of a group that most culture-creators over the last few centuries have hated by default. For people actually in those groups, it’s not like the only two choices are 1) worship authors who hate you or 2) completely cut the majority of literature out of your life. You learn to read critically and acknowledge flaws where you find them.
anyway, as a Jewish woman, I would much rather see a version of this post that said “please read Sylvia Plath poetry critically because she’s anti black and antisemetic” than just “stop reblogging Sylvia Plath poetry.”
IMO, reblog Sylvia Plath all you want, just not unthinkingly.
I’m reblogging this now because I’m seeing anti-Virginia Woolf discourse lately due to the antisemitism in her journals and like… as a Jewish person who loves Virginia Woolf’s writing and an English teacher who knows that pretty much every writer of the classics is Problematic just…chill pls
The point isn’t to never consume media that isn’t ideologically pure. That’s never the point. Were that the goal, we would NEVER be able to consume any media. Nothing is ever ideologically pure, especially as time goes on and our social consciousness expands.
We should be telling people instead, “Be critical as you read this person’s work. They held bigoted views. Understand how that is reflected in their work, and be mindful of it. Be critical, be thoughtful”
Compelling others to not engage with something at ALL on ideological grounds is in the same vein as burning books. We should be compelling others to be critical and mindful, not narrow and willfully ignorant.
I don’t think employers should be legally allowed to ask anyone to dress up for interviews. I should be able to walk in off the street in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt and interview for jobs because employers are supposed to be interviewing me and my skills, training, education, and experience, not the nicest clothes in my closet.
It’s discriminatory towards poor people to ask otherwise.
It’s also just fucking audacious to demand that the people you need to provide the labor to keep your workplace going put on a suit and dance around like a trained monkey before you’ve even hired them.
I also think starting work clothes need to be added to the list of necessary things that employers should be paying their employees for, along with their commutes.
If you need me to work your job and you need me to wear scrubs and nonslip shoes to work your job then you should be buying me scrubs and nonslip shoes so I have something to wear to work your job.
In summary clothing should not be a barrier to employment and jobs should not have the right to make demands of your wardrobe and wallet.
Propaganda doesn’t mean “incorrect information”. Propaganda means information disseminated w the intent to shape ones worldview.
More often than not - especially with capitalist propaganda - that is more easily done by telling some truths & leaving out half of the story to make its targets seem irrational or uniquely evil, than it is by making up straight-up lies.
Piping fuckin hot take incoming but it doesn’t matter if fat people are healthy. Not everyone has to be a paragon of fuckin health to be treated like a person.
Fun fact: in the 80′s the Dutch Unemployed Union held ‘fridge raids’ to protest against poverty.
They’d find out when a politician of big boss who upheld poverty and starvation wages was speaking at some public even, then they’d carefully break into his house with a LOT of people and they would eat EVERY piece of food in his house and leave the empty dished behind without taking anything else.
Direct action at its finest.
I theoretically disapprove, but at least it’s ballsy as fuck.
I think it’s interesting to see the reactions to today’s Dracula Daily that are like, “He did a racism! He used the g-slur!” and don’t go deeper than that. I was born in the early 80s and didn’t know the g-slur was a slur until like between 5 and 10 years ago. I mean, there was a whole Disney movie that used the word like it was no big deal when I was in middle school. I’m not saying Disney wouldn’t do a racism, I’m saying Disney wouldn’t have put language in a 90s kids’ movie that wasn’t considered “politically correct” in mainstream America at the time. Anyway, my point is that until sometime in the mid 2010s, I honestly thought G****** was just what that group of people were called, or was a term for nomadic people in general. I guarantee there are well-meaning Americans in the year 2022 who aren’t tuned into online antiracist discourse who still think that. Stoker could’ve easily used the word thinking it was no different than calling someone an Englishman or a cowboy.
The blatant racism here is how the Romani are portrayed. They are “without religion, save superstition,” i.e. Godless heathens, i.e. their religion isn’t a version of Christianity so it isn’t a legitimate religion. They’re ignorant for only speaking their own language, even though Jonathan doesn’t speak or understand it and doesn’t understand most of the foreign language he’s encountered on this trip. They act overtly deferential and subservient to Jonathan. They take his money and then sell him out to the Count.
If this narrative had only used the word Romani or the name that this particular group of Romani used for themselves (I’m seeing meta that Szgany is a slur, too, but I haven’t looked into it), this depiction would still be racist. While it is important to update our language as we gain better information, I think terminology is ultimately less important than whether a marginalized character or group is being portrayed as an offensive racial stereotype. I see all kinds of writing by modern writers, professional and amateur, that uses all the correct 2020s terminology but still portrays characters as the invulnerable black woman, the submissive Asian woman, the predatory brown man, the Jewish moneylender, etc. Again, I’m not saying terminology doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be critiqued in older writing, I’m just saying we shouldn’t let terminology distract from content.
Okay kids! It’s time for your friendly neighborhood autistic to tell you why functioning labels are bullshit!
It’s time for a Tale of Two Autistics.
Autistic 1
can “pass” as neurotypical
not all of their friends believe they’re autistic
ran a psychology study
has won writing awards at the college level
got a 2380 on the SAT
is starting a small business
can care for pets without help
Autistic 2
can’t live independently
often forgets to shower
periodically goes nonverbal
can’t drive
can’t do bus transfers
incontinent
hates most clothing textures and rarely even wears matching clothes
can’t go shopping without help
So! You’d say that Autistic 1 is high-functioning and Austic 2 is low-functioning, right?
Trick question! Both of them are me.
All autistics have different strengths and weaknesses. The problem arises when people try to group us into broad categories instead of assessing each of us individually. Nobody is saying that different autistics don’t need different accommodations; we’re saying it’s ridiculous to assign us accommodations and groups without talking to us first! `The functioning labels as allistics perceive them just don’t exist! We all have different needs, and we all want to be heard.
Imagine being a kid in school. Your teacher comes up with an idea for class picture. Every student will draw pictures of their friends.
Everyone starts drawing enthusiasticly, and can’t wait to see what they look like in the drawings. When pictures are ready you notice that popular students have more pictures than rest, but nobody has done a drawing of you. The teacher notices that too, and asks if someone would do your picture. To your horror the class clown takes the job, and comes up with a caricature of you. Others are laughing, but you’re not. You feel awful. The teacher notices that. and asks again someone to do a drawing of you. One of the ‘good students’ starts drawing, but the result is forced. It’s just a drawing of a generic child wearing a shirt of same color as you a wearing. There’s no spirit, no soul in it. You start sensing that the class is geting frustrated with you. They want to be done with this. You ask quietly the teacher if you could do a drawing yourself.
After school your classmates confront you. Why did you have to make such a big deal out of it? The first picture was funny. The second picture was just fine! The drawing you did yourself wasn’t right, do you think you are that good-looking? There were other kids who got only one or two pictures of themselves. Who are you to demand special treatment? Maybe there would have been a picture of you if you weren’t such annoying baby, nobody likes you anyway, and nobody’s going to if you keep on being like that, you don’t deserve a drawing!
This could be story of bullying, but it’s also about how I see portraying LGBTQ+-people and PoC in mainstream entertainment.
i miss when you could make political art without placing personal identity (and the self) at the center of everything
this piece (“artist bio” by anna daliza) sort of perfectly sums it up. the emphasis on identity politics and tokenization in art/music/performance spaces feels reductive and exploitative- like it offers a sort of racial tourism for the wealthy white patrons. none of what im saying are original thoughts btw go see White by james ijames
every time I hear someone say “we should just get rid of physical shops and have everything online” I get a bit angry because
a) physical shops are important for those who don’t have access to a computer/ internet/ ect
b) those “weird” and “niche” shops I love so much don’t have the same vibe online, they turn into just another website
c) I hate paying for shipping
d) shopping online doesn’t allow you to experience the whole product til it arrives. People need to try on clothes. People need to pet the throw pillow. People need to knock on that watermelon to make sure it’s ripe enough. People need to smell that candle.
e) it’s not accessible for the blind, who can’t get a good idea of what they’re buying from just the description, and would do a lot better being able to touch the product, and feel how big it is.
f) it’s not accessible for those with sensory issue, who need to know the texture or smell or how shiny it is or what it sounds like when it’s rubbed
Having online shops is great for people with mobility issues or chronic illness or lack of transit who can’t leave the house to go shop all the time. But it’s also important to keep physical shops for people who need them. Variety is important for accessibility.
g) Sometimes you need a thing today. Maybe the thing you were going to use broke, and you have guests coming, or you need to finish making this gift/this costume/this whatever and you have a hard deadline and can’t. Stuff happens on short notice sometimes.
h) Shipping everything everybody buys via Prime or whatever isn’t awesome either from a labor perspective or from a sustainability/fuel one.
i) Monopolies are bad. Homogeneity is bad. If you’re looking for a thing and find the exact same options at the exact same price on every website, that’s bad. If that specific product doesn’t work for you, guess you’re shit out of luck.
j) Internet outages happen. Power outages happen. People still need stuff. When I was living in Florida, I was once unable to get groceries delivered for over a week because there’d been a hurricane nearby and it was unclear on if we’d get hit or not - which, good on them for trying to protect their workers (for once!), but I still needed to eat.
me, patiently: the Tumblr porn ban was not a voluntary choice by the company itself because they hate sex workers and gays, it was a gun-to-their-head response to FOSTA-SESTA and the alternative was shutting down operations or getting sued/fined into oblivion. twitter and reddit can afford the lawyers and moderation and other nonsense required to operate under FOSTA-SESTA with porn on the table. Tumblr doesn’t have that kind of operating budget. all the other sites that don’t have that kind of money had to make the same changes. Craigslist personals and most of the Gigs and Community sections are almost impossible to post on now because of the same changes and lack of budget. i don’t care about defending individual companies against accusations of wrongdoing, im saying you need to understand why these things happen and who the real enemy is if you’re ever going to get anything done
a 20 year old who has never been tear gassed: why do you, personally, eliza, hate gay people
FOSTA-SESTA was disastrous in its own way, but powerful private companies - Apple, payment providers, and advertisers - are responsible for as much or more of the puritanism that reigns on the modern web.
Yes, but Apple only started cracking down after the passage of FOSTA-SESTA. It’s hard to draw clean cause-and-effect lines on opaque corporate policy shifts, but I don’t think op is wrong to identify the passage of both laws as a turning point.
Apple has been historically anti-porn even before FOSTA-SESTA, but @3liza is correct in pointing a finger at those laws. It was Apple’s decision to drop the hammer on Tumblr that led to the rollout of the porn ban, but FOSTA-SESTA and pressure from payment providers to drop SWers are two huge factors in internet censorship.
Frankly, I would not be surprised if Twitter cracks down on porn. Even under Elon “free speech” Musk. As their ad money dwindles they’re gonna try to find ways to clean up the site to attract more advertisers. I doubt it will work though.
Even saying ”I’m so sorry, I completely forgot” sounds marginally better than ” I’m so sorry, I didn’t completely forget, I actually completely remembered. I thought about it the whole time and it stressed me out so much my brain built an insurmountable wall around it.”
Me: “It wasn’t the right TIME to do the thing.” Them: “What was the right time?” Me: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I cannot stress enough that I fundamentally distrust callout posts, and I will distrust you if you send them to me.
Don’t get me wrong: I investigate warnings, and I act on them if they’re true and relevant. But callout posts are, on a very fundamental level, not about what people say they’re about. There are exceptions, but generally speaking they’re made for one or more of the following reasons:
OP didn’t like the subject to begin with (often for bigoted reasons), and they wanted a reason, and a following, to justify and validate that.
OP wanted to gain popularity, so they made themselves look like either a victim, a hero, or both.
OP wanted to claim victim status in a private falling-out in order to preserve good standing with their own friends/their community.
OP didn’t like what the subject was saying, and wanted to silence them (often for bigoted reasons).
OP genuinely just wants “revenge” on the subject, or otherwise wants to ruin their reputation and have them sent harassment.
Again, there are exceptions: there are “callouts” that just unravel a subject’s lies, or point out problems in already public actions. If OP is claiming to have been personally victimized in a legitimately serious way, and especially one that indicates the subject might be a danger to others, I’m definitely more willing to believe it- one obvious example being sexual violence.
But oftentimes, callouts are incredibly personal, misleading, emotionally manipulative, blatantly untrue, or all of the above.
This person came to me on anon; I have absolutely no way of knowing what their motives are or how trustworthy they are. There is no credibility or accountability here.
And I did read the post. Lo and behold, it’s riddled with emotionally manipulative language, false accusations, and the biggest reaches I’ve ever seen:
“DON’T READ THIS CALLOUT, IT’S SO TRIGGERING TO EVERYONE, JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. But the proof is here if you REALLY don’t believe me”
“Proof” is a scarce handful of screenshots taken out of context that contain emotionally evocative language, but do not support the accusations at all.
Some accusations are genuinely just weird logic leaps with no support, others are matters of personal opinion obviously driven by bigoted motives.
OP themselves expresses very publicly that they believe people who are marginalized in the ways the subject are, who speak on that marginalization, should be silenced.
I try to assume good faith here, and I want to believe this anon was just guilt-tripped and manipulated by the post in question. I don’t hold any ill will here.
But anon, I want you to ask yourself:
Are the accusations you’re making something you have personally investigated and found to be true?
Does this person deserve the harassment and ostracization they will likely receive as a result of your accusations?
Will you hold yourself accountable for the damage you’ve caused if you’re wrong?
And if you’re absolutely certain you’re right, come off anon and talk to me as a human being; because I can’t believe you’re ready to be accountable for these accusations if you won’t even put your Tumblr blog behind them.
I’ve had actual, honest-to-god callout blogs reblogging this post like “yeah I research all the claims here!! they’re real and you can trust me (:” as if the entire purpose of their blog is not to encourage their followers not to check those claims themselves, not to think critically about why those claims are made in the first place, & to just rely on random strangers to tell them how to think and who to completely ostracize from potentially vital communities, support systems, and resources.
I cannot emphasize enough that if you spread “callout posts” as a fucking hobby, this post is explicitly about you.
So, there’s apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people’s bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored “be sure to recycle your bottles!” or “ban glitter!” campaigns and remind everyone:
It’s fishing nets. It’s fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets.Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets.
The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The “trash islands” are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment.
Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.
Industries are incredibly resistant to taking responsibility for their own waste, to the point where “consumers are responsible for industrial waste” is somehow considered a sensible, ethical, worthy sentence.
It is actually perfectly reasonable to say that “industries are responsible for industrial waste” and “the effects of industry can, should and must be fixed by industry” and “Industry can, should and must be held responsible for its impacts on the commons, such as air, water, oceans and land.”
For anyone interested in social justice issues, please learn about youth rights/youth liberation. The subjugation of children and young adults isn’t called out enough in mainstream circles! The justifications used to deny young people rights are similar to ones that targeted BIPOC, women, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, and people with mental illnesses.
Footage from this evenings planning committee of Lafarge voting to add another 20 years of gravel extraction but this time at the very doorsteps of the community! And worse the destruction of a grade 2 listed church where they disscussed and asked Questions about the church but refused to let the vicar speak
I was horrified to hear the chairman tell Is that because of his busy schedule and his wish not to be there all night as they had other things to discuss that they didn’t have time but the allowed an extra advocate of lefarge / Brett Tarmac to speak in favour breaking the speaker guild lines of who was allowed to speak but I guess it’s all the chairmans discretion especially when he voted in favour Also when confronted with the gallery of people asking to let the vicar speak on behalf of the church they were discussing he said and I quote if the gallery continues that he would be happy to have a cup of tea because he’s happy to make us wait
That one of the council memebers delcared it not to be a political matter and that he could not see one good reason for it not to go ahead as angry residents is not enough evidence to go on, even though doctors and researchers, surveys and studies where or enough To go on!
That the woman who was reading out guild lines and sat next to the chairman on the committee handed the lefarge/Brett Tarmac representing information and fed her answers when she was failing to awnser questions council memebers where posing to her on there proposal
This was a done deal before we walked in the door and is a horrific mistake that will cause the NHS millions in local cases of breathing problems and cancer rates, that local schools and nurserys will either have to close there doors for safety reasons or allow children to become only 20-75 meters from gravel works, that they are robbing this area of safe footpaths and public fields and replacing them with alleyways unlit and unsecure And that a church with no foundations won’t end up in a whole on unstable ground that they want to flood
Extremely angry and saddened As these people only thought of the 6 million they will be receiving for lefarge/Brett Tarmac to get what they want at the expense of people’s lives health and community They have been gravel extracting in this area for 50 years and we have just been signed up for 20 more on broken promises, lack of care, continued abuse of contractual language vagaries that have lead to land being left to ruin and timelines being pushed back and back
