mental illness, slur reclamation
It has been genuinely freeing to realize that I actually am kinda crazy and that's okay.
My craziness often helps me be artistically or ethically creative in ways I wouldn't stumble on without it.
When my craziness impairs my quality of life, I at least don't have self-hate for being crazy on top of everything else.
Being okay (not perfectly happy, just okay) with being crazy is itself crazy, and you know what, it's great and I recommend it to everyone.
If you’ve liked my recent posts on white fragility and have any income, please consider donating to @ArtistMarciaX@playvicious.social - my intellectualized articulation of antiblack racism on the fedi is their actual lived experience.
Subscribe to their art here: https://www.artistmarciax.com/subscriptions
Another way to make a monthly contribution: https://en.liberapay.com/ArtistMarciaX/
Make a one time payment here (minimum donation €5): https://www.gofundme.com/f/on-the-road-to-phd
If you’re nonblack and you can’t donate, then you can’t. You don’t have to beat yourself up about it - that doesn’t help you or anyone else. But also don’t attack black people on the fedi for having needs or expressing emotions. Don’t make your limitations black people’s problem.
60 people favorited or boosted my post. If all those people donated €5 to Marcia’s GoFundMe, that would be €300. That would certainly be a start.
my ethics
I can't promise that I will never make a mistake.
I also can't promise that I can improve my actions in response to call-ins or call-outs. Some of this is due to mental illness and disability reducing my ability to do *anything*, but whatever my reasons/excuses, that doesn't negate harm I do or make it invalid for people to be angry at or disappointed in me.
I try to look for cues that my input is unneeded/unwanted before I add to it. I can back off if I've been previously aggressive or derailing in a discussion, and I respect people putting up boundaries around interacting with me (whether that be an explicit request to not interact, or a nonverbal but clear signal like being blocked).
Will add more to this thread as needed.
Does anyone have any advice for running an online #mutualaid group? It's one thing to start one; it's another thing to make it sustainable and as helpful as possible to those who really need it. "Start a Facebook group!" advice overlooks security and logistics issues with the site. A public mutual aid group I joined was quickly overwhelmed by too many posts and was predated upon by a bad actor. Really REALLY want to avoid similar issues if I end up organizing.
Pitfalls of organizing: perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality, worship of the written word, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, progress is bigger/more, objectivity, and right to comfort.
From White Supremacy Culture
From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001.
Did you know that YOU can join the IWW in under half an hour?
Did you know that you can be a member of the IWW without unionizing your whole shop?
Did you know that you can be a member of the IWW and they will help you unionize your shop?
Step 1. Make a redcard account: redcard.iww.org
Step 2. Apply for member ship on redcard
Step 3 (optional). Contact the IU (industrial Union) you want to be in and join up!
Ask me for assistance if you are having trouble signing up!
The origins of Black anarchism in the US. Based on my article from the Journal of Black Studies:
https://daily.jstor.org/the-real-story-of-black-anarchists #anarchism
I’m going to be a little unnuanced and sweeping here, but:
Anymore, I get frustrated when leftists talk about “when the revolution comes”, as if revolution isn’t already here and ongoing.
Like. How are the George Floyd BLM protests, the Standing Rock and Wet’suwet’en protests, the various anti-cop autonomous zones, the communal squatters in Philadelphia, the 250 million-person strike in India, and waay more I’m missing, NOT revolutionary or NOT part of a revolution?
Revolution isn’t and can’t be a singular event. And passively waiting for a nonexistent One True Revolution is both self-defeating and disrespectful to people who are already doing the work.
Re “disability existing or not after capitalism”:
I am sympathetic to multiple “sides” (social vs medical model) of the argument here.
Suffering will never go away completely even in a progressive society. In that sense I am sympathetic to the “medical model” people.
But at the same time, I often feel like people who say “I’ll still be disabled after capitalism” seriously underestimate how different things would be after capitalism.
I struggle a lot with sensory overwhelm and executive dysfunction as a neurodivergent person now, and I’m sure I still would struggle with it in the post-capitalist future.
BUT... so much of my struggle is due specifically to 1. how capitalism monopolizes the time and energy of other people who might otherwise be helping take care of me, 2. how capitalism punishes people for failure to “self-regulate” after withholding the resources (love and care) that are necessary to do so, and 3. how the valuation of disabled people under capitalism as worthless fills me with trauma and despair preventing me from getting out of bed in the morning.
In this sense I am more sympathetic to the “social model” people.
Idk. I just seem to have a different pov than a lot of disabled people I’ve seen on this.
@poiseunderchaos a lot of the time when I read the big important theory books it's like, wait i already know this
And maybe those authors did pioneer the idea but the great thing is that it didn't stay stuck in those books! Those ideas have spread through our communities as we apply them to our lives and our experiences and share them with others
It's honestly really great to be able to read these books and it doesn't even feel that radical because I know people who are living this
Sure, reading theory can be important, but the thing is theory and radical imagination of a better world doesn't exist only in books
I'm in a reading group that's been reading texts on prison abolition but I've learned more from talking to others in the group about it than the readings themselves. Or at least equally as much
Most of the "theory" i know is from talking to people on here and not from reading books or taking classes
Passing on a gofundme from a friend of a friend - Tony is a queer man in San Francisco trying to make rent so he doesn’t end up homeless this winter. $2000 goal.
i regret to inform you that isabel briggs myers was outlandishly racist
https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/1200472712100999169
#introductions
Marcia, fine artist, film-maker, PhD candidate in Barça. Afro-Indigenous femme. I do artistic research, Afro-Caribbean phenomenology & a focus on phenomenology in an Hispano-Carib context. Creator of hashtags & tools on here like #Fediblock , #fedikitchen #finefemmefriday.
Been here for 3 yrs & was a mod on the only Blk instance that was harassed off here.
I don't take bs anymore. But I'm also lovely :)
I have my own subscription service & host reading groups. Come thru
Ppl, if you see uncaptioned images, just add the image description in a new toot. Make ppl. aware that #ImageDescription s are important, also make the federation a tiny bit better and more accessible.
Also @winter
Autistic. Light-skinned white/Filipine. Genderqueer sapphic/vaguely transmasc. Excited noob about the analytical, accounting aspects of mutual aid. Catperson.
Note on my politics: white supremacy must be collectively removed at the roots or we will die. The fediverse so far has leaned "white moderate" - theoretically antiracist but unwilling to help actual Black people on the fedi.
I also have an account @winter but I keep forgetting to use it.