but i stay silly! *←said in the most world-weary voice you ever did hear*
"In recent years, there has been a rush on the internet to supply image descriptions and to call out those who don’t. This may be an example of community accountability at work, but it’s striking to observe that those doing the most fierce calling out or correcting are sighted people. Such efforts are largely self-defeating. I cannot count the times I’ve stopped reading a video transcript because it started with a dense word picture. Even if a description is short and well done, I often wish there were no description at all. Get to the point, already! How ironic that striving after access can actually create a barrier. When I pointed this out during one of my seminars, a participant made us all laugh by doing a parody: “Mary is wearing a green, blue, and red striped shirt; every fourth stripe also has a purple dot the size of a pea in it, and there are forty-seven stripes—”
“You’re killing me,” I said. “I can’t take any more of that!”
Now serious, she said it was clear to her that none of that stuff about Mary’s clothes mattered, at least if her clothes weren’t the point. What mattered most about the image was that Mary was holding her diploma and smiling. “But,” she wondered, “do I say, Mary has a huge smile on her face as she shows her diploma or Mary has an exuberant smile or showing her teeth in a smile and her eyes are crinkled at the edges?”
It’s simple. Mary has a huge smile on her face is the best one. It’s the don’t-second-guess-yourself option."
--Against Access, by John Lee Clark, a DeafBlind educator
I think it's important to remember, as a rule of thumb, if you take advantage of a social service, it actually makes it easier for other people who need that service to access it. Most of the time, when these services get cut, it's because politicians will look at usage and say "see, no one is really using this thing, we can afford to trim the budget for food stamps by at least half". Whereas if you decide to step up and use these programs, even if you feel like you "don't really need it", at bare minimum it's another data point advocates can use to say "hey, look, people are using this thing, this is an important service we are providing, do not cut our funding".
Also, like, I'm sorry but if you've set up a free shelter, and people refuse to go because sleeping on the sidewalk under a freeway bridge is more pleasant, that's fucking on you, that's not on them.
You really can't compete with sleeping under the overpass so you are going to force people into shelter?
Unspeakably cruel and stupid.
just saw that the supreme court voted nine-zip to uphold the court order to "facilitate the return of" kilmar garcia back to the states. do you have any idea how bad you gotta fuck up to get these nine people in particular to all agree you fucked up???