Ablism - Tumblr Posts
Please warn about this zine DO NOT SUPPORT
The From Ashes Axel zine (https://fromashes-zine.tumblr.com/) is run by and mostly contributed to by antis. The head mod Ana is really gross, compares pro-shippers literally to Nazis and the KKK like they’re even anywhere near the same level of potentially dangerous to anyone.
Bringing people together through hate? Yeah, that’s the kind of person I want running a zine, whether or not minors are involved.
There are several contributors who are vocal antis as well, especially “succubused” who now goes by queerphobe, which I think says enough by itself. She is “ironically” homophobic on purpose and thinks it’s cute.
She’s made overt death threats and then claims they’re “ironic”.
I don’t even know who projared is, but it isn’t her job to decide who gets to live and die. Her blog is full of this kind of stuff, and she’s also a raging aphobe and frequently makes threats of violence.
The whole zine is full of antis and all around toxic people. Here is a few receipts for some of them, using our favorite slur. I don’t have time to go through every single account, these are just the ones I know are toxic abusive people.
Most of them are also friends with queerphobe, who was privy to people in a server she ran invading other discord servers of RPers and fans of things they didn’t like and posting gross imagery, as well as lying about their identities to get information from people in fandoms who liked ships and themes they didn’t.
This mod team is toxic and many of the participants are bad people. No one should support this zine, because that is supporting bullying, aphobia, and the watering down of actual problematic occurrences, such as, you know, Nazis and the KKK.
Please pass this information along. No one should support this zine or any of the participants.
(Edit: Thank you for submitting! Passed along!)
i have been in community with profoundly developmentally disabled peers and peers with brain damage my whole life, bc i had a childhood diagnosis. i have also been leftist my whole life; my mother was a marxist and raised me that way, and while their politics were absolute dogshit, they were lefty dogshit.
my entire life, i have seen leftist educators throw mentally disabled people away as "lost causes" because they couldn't engage with the material the way it was being presented. leftist outreach and education does, genuinely, have a massive lack of accessible material. to be blunt, people are not interested in retrofitting their leftist outreach to be accessible to people who learn best through episodes of sesame street.
as in, i have repeatedly faced outright laughter and cruelty over the idea that this could be a priority. or even something that we consider doing at all.
"people who are that mentally disabled don't need to know about these things," the kindest interpretation goes. ("people who are that mentally disabled don't interact with the world, anyway, they're all in institutions or monitored 24/7 by their parents," the uncharitable underlying assumptions go. "they wouldn't be a worker who needs a union. or a library attendee. or a member of the community garden. or a volunteer at the food bank. or or or")
the people i have seen this hurt the worst, over and over again, are profoundly mentally disabled people of color whose lack of access to accessible antiracist education is causing real danger in their lives. institutionalized disabled people of color who have learned racist ideology and behaviors from white authority, whether they were adopted by white families or incarcerated in care institutions run by white staff. who are treated lower than garbage by leftist educators, who view them as "lost causes," as unworthy of time and effort and attention, as deserving of their abuses because they... what... internalized the abuses that make up every aspect of their lives since birth?
i see people saying things in this conversation like "disability isn't an excuse for racism or transphobia or whatever, people have the obligation to improve themselves." oh, believe me, i have seen again and again how many privileged disabled people utilize their disabilities to punch down on others, try to escape accountability for their punching down by citing disability. but individual weaponization of identity is just that: weaponization of identity.
the power structures at play are what they are. it is a noble and admirable goal to want leftist outreach and education to be more accessible to all. if that is truly your goal, you must eventually reckon with the existence of people who do, actually, really need it presented in a picture book. or an episode of bluey. or a conversation where you only use examples of people they know in real life, using things that happened to them personally. the existence of people who cannot grasp forms of abstract reasoning, who need information presented as rules, or as guidelines, or as categories. the idea that yes, fully grown adults who need daniel tiger to explain racism to them are human beings who not only deserve access to that very thing, but who also deserve to be a part of leftist spaces and benefit from leftist organizing. are people for whom it might be INTEGRAL they get to be a part of leftism. are victims of racism themselves and suffering without access to antiracist spaces and community and support.
and you will need to reckon with the abject cruelty of your peers who laugh and mock the very idea of this. you need to reckon with the fact that a lot of people you respect, a lot of leftists doing genuinely good work, will respond to this by making fun of the people you're serving, even outright telling you their violent fantasies about these people. that is the experience of organizing in leftist spaces for profoundly disabled people. that is why so many of us burn out so fast. there IS a structural problem with mentally disabled people being seen as disposable and not a part of community. and it is EXTREMELY present in leftist organizing and outreach efforts.
The thing about the r slur is that people who are using it again are indeed using it as a slur. This isn't a word that is being reclaimed. This is a word that is once again being used 100% as a slur. You're being a bigot if you're using it against others. Straight up. There isn't another argument to be made. Knock it tf off.
(I bring a sort of “Everyone has inherent worth regardless of their productivity” Vibe to every conversation that ableists don’t really seem to like)
VENT POST:
Sick and tired of the "I can't remember a loved one's face, and therefore I should die" trope, where it makes you automatically suicidal or evil to not know what someone dear to you's meat mask looks like.
I have prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and while I get that this trope is associated with grief, it's often executed and handled extremely poorly
An example of this trope handled poorly is in Centaurworld, which, while I love the show, it has an entire musical number where the main character sings about not remembering her best friend's face, and that's her reason for JUMPING OFF A CLIFF-
Of course, she survives, and the rash decision she makes is frowned upon, but it's merely framed as "dying bad" and not "Hey, that doesn't make you a horrible person." It's not even addressed.
My response to that scene is always "Oh well fuck you, guess I'll just go die then"
I am not a bad person for not knowing what my girlfriend, my best friend, or my mother looks like. It doesn't affect how I feel about them, whatever way that may be. I still love my girlfriend and she is still beautiful to me, even if I can't remember why.
I know my disability is rare, but that doesn't make the message of this trope towards people like me any less hurtful. It shouldn't be seen as the obvious thought process to be suicidally depressed or a cold-hearted monster because you don't know what a face looks like.
This goes for blind people, and people with aphantasia as well. We're not evil or shameful. Please find a different way to convey grief and guilt without demonizing a disability
(I bring a sort of “Everyone has inherent worth regardless of their productivity” Vibe to every conversation that ableists don’t really seem to like)
My partner is having to do “diversity, inclusion, and equity training” for work. Which, theoretically, is a good thing. Except one of the groups they are including is “differently abled” people. Fuck That Noise
Since I can’t find whoever wrote these modules and demonstrate the difference between the lack of ability (the consistent strength and balance required for walking) and a learned skill (how I can use my cane to knock sense into their ableist ass) I wrote up a little note to throw into the ether and vent my spleen. Okay. OFUCKINGKAY. "Differently abled means having an ability that others do not. If, on days when I struggle to walk, I could instead levitate, I would be "differently abled". If I could produce different brain chemicals that gave me happy feels and focus I would be "differently abled", but alas I just lack serotonin and dopamine. The the fact that I can use a cane and a shit ton of mental and emotional coping skills does not make me 'differently abled', these are skills that almost anyone can learn if they want and need to. I am disabled because because I lack an ability. I know unique skills because I have had to adapt to that lack in order to survive.
"Differently abled" insinuates that a learned skill is equivalent to an innate ability, which is an attitude that is profoundly ableist and serves to erase the very real challenges disabled people face. Even if the framing were about learned skill and not ability, framing conversations on those learned skills rather than the lack of ability both excludes those who have not or can not learn them and make it more difficult to talk about our reality and necessary adaptations and accessibility requirements.
"Differently abled" is not something the vast majority of people with disabilities want to be called. It is terminology created and used by those who are uncomfortable with disability, who feel that directly referring to the lack of an ability is pitiable, or uncouth. It is a sanitization of our experience, and an erasure of the challenges we face. The problem of ablism isn't using the word "disabled" it is discomfort and judgement about our lack of ability. Censoring or replacing the word "disabled" indicates both discomfort and judgement. It is ableist and clearly shows that you either don't know or don't care about the community you are claiming to speak for and support.
@staff @support this is the second time I'm going to ask please put up some kind of moderation filter report system I don't know and I do not care I do not want to see this anymore. I come off here to get away from stuff like this. There should at least be a feature to block ads like this. Do you know how harmful and detrimental this is? I'd love to see if you have staff who are autistic because I'm baffled why they even work with you. I'm actually curious now where your funds go to cuz I swear to God if I find out that they go to autism speaks I'm going to blow my brains out!! I am so sick and tired of hearing this from literally everyone and I come on here to relax and this is what I'm greeted with literally first thing on my homepage! And I on purpose do not interact with them I don't click on the ads I scroll past them hoping that that will give a signal to whoever is posting these ads that I am not interested but they keep popping up. Please for the love of God can someone do something about this!!!
@staff can I get some reporting system on ads. Or some kind of system to show that they add should probably be looked over more than once before being put on the platform. Because as someone who's nerodivergent if I see one more ad about how so-and-so causes some kind of mental impairment I'm going to kill someone. Me taking a vaccine as a kid did not make me autistic, Becky.
It's even weirder because this entire app/platform is known for being diverse and not discriminatory. I'm starting to think that that is not true. And I don't that this went through any kind of staff regulation cuz they wouldn't be putting on here if it was. Or at least do the same thing that Google does and use targeted ads so I don't have to see this. Whatever like two biggots on Tumblr can see it then.
Please please I am begging you. I get to hear enough of it from places like autism speaks and Peta of all people.
If you're seeing this please repost or share it with someone who can help. I have been trying to get the attention of @staff and @support for a bit now about ads and reporting ads. See if they can make a system where you can report ads or at least have people monitor the first before being published on the platform. As you can see from above, both of these pictures being taken on to separate days months between, there have been companies who are running very ableistic ads. Ads targeted against autistic people. As someone who is nerodivergent this both concerns me and pisses me off. I don't know how to get the attention of any moderator or staff that can help with this problem I'm trying to get it to as many people as I can so that I can somehow find a way to fix this. Cuz if I see one more of these ads I might just go crazy. Well crazier than people already think I am, you know not being neurotypically. It makes me really mad cuz this website is known for being diverse but then host ads like this. Maybe I was a crazy one for thinking that a big app like this would actually be better than something like Twitter but who knows. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go see if the team that belongs to Tumblr gives any money to autism speaks.