junø @juno@pixie.town

When I opened the book, the ink of all the letters leapt off the pages, formed a cat, and ran off.

Long did I chase it, long and far, tracing faint smudges and soft murmurs of unread words.

"Why do you run?"

"People read me and weep."

"Ah. So you give relief."

"I do?"

"You do."

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

Once you realize you've heard about 'carbon capture' only being a few years away since you were a fucking child you really start to see how that idea is always deployed.

"A genius will invent a technology that will surely solve our mistakes faster than we can keep making them" is literally just "a wizard will save us" for STEM-bros. It's utter nonsense.

And it's always said in the same breath as "...so we don't need to fix our emissions now", too 😐

We all know the concern trolls who are "raising some concerns" when talking about protections for marginalized folks, and who already know that they're not problems, they're just trying to sow discord.

But another, more insidious form of this are the people - usually centrists or liberals - who legitimately believe that they are raising legitimate concerns, and are doing so in a harmful manner.

There's an obvious form of privilege here; those raising the concerns are typically not part of the affected group, and so unlike the affected group, they can afford to treat it like some hypothetical thought experiment, whereas the affected marginalized folks are living the consequences right here and now.

But that's not what I want to talk about. Because it goes much deeper than that.

For example, these "concerns" are usually the absolute most obvious things that you could think of - and somehow, the concern-raisers believe that they are specially qualified to have such a novel insight.

They don't stop to consider that maybe this concern was already raised hundreds of times before, and relitigated over and over again, and found to not be (sufficiently) relevant. They don't really take the time to research it - instead just assuming that they're the first.

That's privilege.

This usually combines with another problematic factor; when the concerns are raised, a response like "yeah we've thought of that" isn't considered enough. Instead, the concern-raiser will not stop pushing until *they, personally* are satisfied that it's addressed.

They are not merely raising a concern to help; they are considering themselves to be the arbiter of truth, as if their approval is required to go ahead with the plan. They are assuming authority.

That's privilege.

Those in the best position to understand the circumstances and needs of marginalized folks, are those marginalized folks themselves. Approval by the privileged is not required.

Listen to marginalized people. Yes, even if you have "concerns".

Regulatory Bodies: “ADHD medication is highly addictive”

#ADHD Folks: “Wait… did I take my pills?"

So.
Unless you do The Work, you are under the thrall of racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and ableist ideas that have been bombarding your subconscious before you knew what your own name is.
You can't fake having done The Work.
A polite, genteel affect will not save you.
The Work is the Truth.

I'm developing a REAL PROBLEM with people who share voice notes or images instead of text.

Example 1) Dr's receptionist sends me a looooooooong voice note of office noise, and somebody reading her a number, which she then repeats to me, quickly followed by a text that says "that's the authorisation number".

Umm. OK. Why not just text me the number? Since you sent me a text anyway?

Example 2) Neighbourhood trustees share all their communications in the Whatsapp group as images of text on a pretty background, so we can't copy numbers or addresses, or easily search for a particular message.

When I query this, the head of the trustees tells me "just do an image search"

And when I query that he sends me a screenshot of how to access media posted in the group.

#WTAF #WhatTheHell #AmICrazy? #TimeForACupOfTea