Marguerite Bennett's Blog, page 59
July 13, 2017
drdrpleaselisten:
drdrpleaselisten:
drdrpleaselisten:
drdrpleaselisten:
On a related note: we...
On a related note: we need to talk about the inaccessibility of homeless shelters.
This is relevant to a lot of groups. Shelters are often run by Christian groups and unwelcoming of LGBT people, for starters, or in a less obvious route they will often accept LGBT people into their shelters but do little to nothing to combat homophobic and transphobic harassment or violence that takes place within them. Sometimes that violence doesn’t happen inside- but in queues or simply within groups of people who frequent them. But the shelters know, and they know that they build up a reputation for not being safe for LGBT people, and they do nothing about it deliberately.
The buildings themselves are often inaccessible, especially with DV shelters. They’re built to be inconspicuous and often have stair cases just to enter the building- never mind that disabled people experience higher rates of abuse.
Most shelters will boot you out for drinking or consuming drugs, whether it be on premises or simply be that you are effected by it while on premises.
Plus, shelters often ignore violence and harassment towards those who are noticeably mentally ill. Many have strict rules such as enforced curfews, anti-swearing policies, etc. that often make mentally ill people feel unsafe and unwelcome. Imagine experiencing paranoia at the same moment that someone tells you you’re not allowed to get out of bed- in spite of being an adult who has paid for the privilege of being there.
And then, of course, is the big one. Shelters in my city vary costs between $12 and $30 a night. The money is used in part to fund the shelter, and in part as a form of triage to decide /who to turn away/, because there aren’t enough beds. Imagine not being able to afford to spend even a dollar on getting yourself something to eat but somehow having to scrounge up $30 to be able to sleep indoors that night. Seriously.
The shelter system is not ‘charitable’. Religious groups receive huge tax cuts for running them and still charge a fucking entry fee. This is a privatized business. They might claim they aren’t making a profit, but that’s /before you take the tax breaks into account/. Nothing about this system is designed to protect or serve vulnerable people, but to create the image of ‘helping’ while saving some cash.
@dreagentry oh fuck I forgot the underage bit! Yes! Okay, in my state you legally can not be forced to return to your family (or foster care) once you are over the age of 13. But in spite of that, you also can’t legally sign a lease, consent to just about any kind of guardianship situation without the signature of your legal guardians, and access the vast majority of shelters. Because legally you’re considered too high risk. And yeah, the few that will take in someone underage are usually the hyper religious ones.
Please reblog this complete version with this addition:
I failed to mention racism in discussing ways in which shelters are inaccessible, which really isn’t good enough. I don’t have the personal experience to comment on the ways in which this manifests, but shelters are 100% built for white people and that inaccessibility is a major issue which needs to be acknowledged.
north-bi-northwest:
pocketrunner:
srsfunny:
An Idea To Prevent...
An Idea To Prevent A Nuclear War
“My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, “George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.” He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.”
- Richard Fisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1981)
Never forget that part of the reason this system was never implemented was that when he presented it to his colleagues, their response was IIRC “George, that’s terrible! If he has to take an innocent life, he may never press the button.”
July 12, 2017
madmaudlingoes:
letsplaysocialjustice:
kiriamaya:
solarpunkarchivist:
Unbiased journalism is not...
Unbiased journalism is not pretending both sides are equally valid. Unbiased journalism is reporting the facts even if those facts include that one side is irredeemably awful. False neutrality is propaganda.
Repeated for emphasis: False neutrality is propaganda.
if 99 experts say one thing, and 1 expert says another, presenting both sides as equal is misinformation
Years ago I went to a lecture by a science journalist, who talked about why so much science reporting is terrible, and this was the crux of his argument. Science reporters aren’t scientists, so they try to be “unbiased” and end up validating bad science in the interest of “giving both sides of the story.”
But this is no longer just a problem for science journalists. When the media doesn’t take a stand on what is factual, or at least supported by evidence, it contributes to its own implosion and the destruction of critical thought and democracy. I am not even joking here. False “let’s heard from both sides” neutrality contributes to the idea that there are no facts, only different kinds of spin.
codenamemaximus:
codenamemaximus:
If this gets 50 notes I’ll tell you guys how I ran an underground...
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If this gets 50 notes I’ll tell you guys how I ran an underground sex ed class and helped put a pedophile in jail during second grade
Okay, so my mom has always been super open about health stuff and when I was just starting elementary school she got me a bunch of those American Girl books about your body and your feelings and they were really informative and truthful and I really liked them. One day I was talking to a friend about one of them and we started reading it and she was asking a ton if questions and seemed really excited and interested by it and I answered questions and explained stuff. We talked about the books during recess and eventually more girls joined in until we were a group of about 10-15 seven year-olds talking about puberty and sex and a lot of things that most adults don’t The thing about those books is that they look really innocent with cute drawings and there are chapters about brushing your teeth and stuff; but what most people don’t expect is that there’s a lot of health stuff about puberty and mental illness and drugs and a lot of really important stuff that everyone should know. The teachers didn’t care because the books looked super innocent and they thought were talking about proper brushing habits or something. We’d go sit down and read a chapter and I’d add some other stuff that my mom had told me and then we’d just talk and ask questions. It was kind of like group therapy but with sex ed. This was all okay until one of the boys saw a page with a ton of boobs on it (the page was demonstrating a breast exam) and he told the teacher. So they found and I got suspended and I wasn’t allowed to bring any more of those books into school.
Closer to the end of the year, one of the second grade teachers was revealed to be a pedophile when one of his students said that he tried to touch her inappropriately and then three other girls came forward with the same story. After he was arrested, the girl told me that she said what he did because we had talked about what to do in that exact situation. Because of our group she knew that she probably wasn’t the only one and she knew that it was wrong for him to do that and that she wouldn’t get in trouble if she told someone and that she probably wouldn’t have said anything if she hadn’t read those books.
I started doing it again the next year. No one stopped me.
statues-and-monuments:
statues-and-monuments
Astronomical Clock...
July 11, 2017
karynchaotic:
if you see someone active on social media or something, and you message them, and...
if you see someone active on social media or something, and you message them, and they don’t reply, they don’t have to. just because they are awake and alive does not mean they have to engage with you whenever you want them to. you are not entitled to someone else’s time.
in the past, an abuser would see me post online and then hound me on aim until i answered. i felt like i had to hide. they also lived in my building and would pound on my door if they saw me online and i wasn’t responding to them. i had to completely ditch a screenname, lie about having skype, and turn off my phone to hide. if i saw they were online i couldn’t post on facebook or interact with anyone without them demanding to interact with me. the only legitimate excuse not to talk to them was being asleep. in their eyes, if i were really their friend, i would always want to engage no matter what, even if i had a migraine or work to do or wasn’t feeling very social. it didn’t matter.
please do not do this. if someone doesn’t write you back, don’t guilt them about where they are or what they’re doing. if you see someone posting on tumblr or facebook and they aren’t signed into aim or google or skype or whatever, that’s their business. if they are signed on but don’t write you back, it’s okay. sometimes people can’t talk to everyone all the time every time. some people can only talk to one person at a time without getting overloaded. some people are signed on in case someone needs to contact them with something important and not to be social. they’re not always hiding from you, and you shouldn’t make them feel like they HAVE to hide from you.
this is probably jumbled and i’m probably missing a lot here, but pressuring people to always be available to you every hour of the day and always answer the phone or text or chat or pm or whatever…if you require that of someone, you might need to take a step back.
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