A while back I made a political post that began: “If the right wing had set out to neuter the left in the US, they hardly could have done it better than by spreading impossible-standard purity-test bullshit among young progressives.” and ended “I’m not saying that conservative infiltrators spread purity-test standards and encourage progressives to turn on each other. I’m just saying that the outcome is the same as if they did: eternal self-sabotage for the left, permanent minority rule for the right.” It’s had a few hundred reblogs, so here’s an update.
Since I wrote the original post on December 3rd of 2017, it’s increasingly come out that not just Trump, but the NRA and likely other right-wing forces have been receiving illegal money and propaganda support from Russia. This includes Russian trolls and bots posing as progressives on Tumblr in order to sow division and chaos on the left, using social media to erode support for Democrats. So I should have said conservative infiltrators spread those purity-test standards and encourage progressives to turn on each other: I would have been right.
And look how well it’s worked! Progressives online have picked up those corrupt billionaires’ propaganda talking points and continue to perpetuate them. They’re always talking shit about the Democrats, claiming that it’s their own fault they don’t win elections because they’re not left enough. But bizarrely, the answer to this problem is never “Support a primary challenge from a more progressive candidate,” which is the tactic that the GOP has been using successfully to push their party rightward. Instead, the online progressive’s answer is almost always: just complain, just keep spreading negativity, just stay home. That’s how you can tell it’s bullshit.
Progressives, pushing left means putting your shoulder to the wheel and pushing. You have to vote in every election and pick the most progressive candidate every time, even if “most progressive” doesn’t meet your perfect standards. You have to prove the votes are there to support the positions you want. You can’t say “Hey Democrats, I won’t support your baby step left with my vote, but if you jump leftward off this cliff, I’ll totally catch you!” If you support progress, you have to support even small progress. It’s fine to loudly remind people that you expect more! But ffs, take what you can get.
PSA to all you fantasy writers because I have just had a truly frustrating twenty minutes talking to someone about this: it’s okay to put mobility aids in your novel and have them just be ordinary.
Like. Super okay.
I don’t give a shit if it’s high fantasy, low fantasy or somewhere between the lovechild of Tolkein meets My Immortal. It’s okay to use mobility devices in your narrative. It’s okay to use the word “wheelchair”. You don’t have to remake the fucking wheel. It’s already been done for you.
And no, it doesn’t detract from the “realism” of your fictional universe in which you get to set the standard for realism. Please don’t try to use that as a reason for not using these things.
There is no reason to lock the disabled people in your narrative into towers because “that’s the way it was”, least of all in your novel about dragons and mermaids and other made up creatures. There is no historical realism here. You are in charge. You get to decide what that means.
Also:
“Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.”
“The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China and a child’s bed depicted in a frieze on a Greek vase, both dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE.[2][3][4][5]The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to three centuries later in China; the Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. A distinction between the two functions was not made for another several hundred years, around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art.[5]”
“In 1655,Stephan Farffler, a 22 year old paraplegic watchmaker, built the world’s first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels.[6][3] However, the device had an appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design included hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.[2]
The invalid carriage or Bath chair brought the technology into more common use from around 1760.[7]
In 1887, wheelchairs (“rolling chairs”) were introduced to Atlantic City so invalid tourists could rent them to enjoy the Boardwalk. Soon, many healthy tourists also rented the decorated “rolling chairs” and servants to push them as a show of decadence and treatment they could never experience at home.[8]
In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair.[9] Everest had previously broken his back in a mining accident. Everest and Jennings saw the business potential of the invention and went on to become the first mass-market manufacturers of wheelchairs. Their “X-brace” design is still in common use, albeit with updated materials and other improvements. The X-brace idea came to Harry from the men’s folding “camp chairs / stools”, rotated 90 degrees, that Harry and Herbert used in the outdoors and at the mines.[citation needed]
“But Joy, how do I describe this contraption in a fantasy setting that wont make it seem out of place?”
“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince FancyPants McElferson propelled forwards using his arms to direct the motion of the chair.”
“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince EvenFancierPants McElferson used to get about, pushed along by one of his companions or one of his many attending servants.”
“But it’s a high realm magical fantas—”
“It was a floating chair, the hum of magical energy keeping it off the ground casting a faint glow against the cobblestones as {CHARACTER} guided it round with expert ease, gliding back and forth.”
“But it’s a stempunk nov—”
“Unlike other wheelchairs he’d seen before, this one appeared to be self propelling, powered by the gasket of steam at the back, and directed by the use of a rudder like toggle in the front.”
Give. Disabled. Characters. In. Fantasy. Novels. Mobility. Aids.
If you can spend 60 pages telling me the history of your world in innate detail down to the formation of how magical rocks were formed, you can god damn write three lines in passing about a wheelchair.
Signed, your editor who doesn’t have time for this ableist fantasy realm shit.
I’ve seen this phrase used a number of times in response to outrage over the handling of migrants at the border, i.e. detention camps, putting people in cages and tents, separating children from their families, and so on.
I want to make one thing crystal clear: when you say that, you’re using the language of abusers. It is akin to:
She wouldn’t have been harassed if she didn’t dress like a whore,
If she didn’t want to get raped, she shouldn’t have drank so much,
The other kids wouldn’t pick on him if he weren’t such a pussy,
I wouldn’t have to beat her if she didn’t talk to that other guy,
He wouldn’t have been shot if he didn’t break the law,
If she were more trustworthy, I wouldn’t have to monitor her communication,
If she was keeping his money from him, he should have left the relationship. He needs to own his decisions.
This is called victim blaming. It is abuse.
The truth is that America can enforce its borders without violating human rights and treating other people as subhuman. The federal government, and by that I mean the executive branch and its agencies under President Trump, does not need to execute the law in the way it’s doing. It chooses to do so proactively.
Stop the abuse, stop the language of abuse.
Good day,
Tom
Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor. You don’t lock people up and take their children for parking tickets.
if you’re a kid reading my blog today really the most important life advice i want to share with you is to never let adults make you feel like your hobbies and interests and favorite books or movies or games or clothes aren’t “cool.” Never shape your opinions around adults’ opinions just because you think the adults are cooler than you somehow.
I know this may be hard to believe from where you are right now, but speaking from the other side, the greatest gift of childhood is that you get to indulge in and love things unapologetically. Or at least, you should get to do that.
If you say you like something, and a grown up pops in to criticize it, they’re NOT COOL! They’re embarrassing!! And lame!!! You think YOU’RE the one who needs to get cooler?? An adult who makes fun of a kid’s interests is the uncool one. Seriously. If any of my friends saw someone acting like that, we’d avoid them forever.
God, so many kids look up to me, and they ask my opinions on things, and they want me to tell them what I think of so much media, and I never answer, because I don’t want to influence any of you like that! What do I know, you guys? I’m just some grown up who has my own opinions. Don’t base yours on mine! Explore the world! Have fun!!!!
I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.
This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.
You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.
“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.
If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.
ive lost all motivation to do anything these days and people dont understand they just tell me to get motivated yeah sure let me go down to the store and grab a bottle of purpose in life
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