Queen Lupita by  El'Cesart

Michaela Coel photographed by Rosaline Shahnavaz

Watch: Chika Okoro’s must-see TED Talk exposes the damaging effects of colorism.

Follow @this-is-life-actually

This is sad af.

I’m disgusted

I didn’t realize I wasn’t re blogging this every time I saw it, but I see it frequently and think about it often. Just yesterday I quoted it. I hope you all reblog this for others to see.

COLORED ROSE BEAUTY ATAUI DENG PHOTOGRAPHED BY JAMIE NELSON

Amazing!

An angel

It’s beautiful how people with autism are typically so much more spatially advanced…my little cousin has memorized all the freeway systems in California and he’s like 9

From memory…. Let that sink in…I barely remember myself

WHAT omfg that’s so amazing!

Omg I watched this documentary years ago and I was just completely floored! This guy is beyond amazing! What no one mentioned is that this drawing is unbelievably accurate and proportionally to scale. He has the exact number of windows, floors, doors, etc on each building. And someone measured it and everything was to scale and geographically correct. On all of his drawings he has the exact number right even from just looking at a building for two minutes.

What’s even more amazing is that he used to be almost completely nonverbal and through his art he’s been able to become completely independent and self-sufficient and is now a successful artist who owns his own gallery where he sells his drawings and people come from all over to buy his art. He is fully verbal and communicative and most people who meet him don’t even realize that he has autism.

This dude is literally the coolest most incredible guy ever!

Oh and I forgot to add that he did this drawing in under five days (it might have even been three days but I can’t remember)!

Here are a few of his drawings

Like I said, this dude is fucking amazing.

@paintedcowboy

I had seen the top part of this post, but not the rest of his work.

Thank you.

Whoa, amazing

Reblogging because he’s awesome!!!

never seen the rest of it omg the London ones are gorgeous!

Absolutely stunning 🙌🏾😍

So, uh. These pictures are stunning, and this artist is phenomenal, and deserves acclaim and recognition and praise and to have his work spread.

But there is something happening here that is profoundly uncomfortable for me as an autistic person, and it really needs to be mentioned if you want to actually support autistic people as some of you seem to.

These pictures? This level of skill? It’s an incredible accomplishment, full stop. It’s not in spite of his disability, it’s not because of his disability. He’s a brilliant artist, period.

Being autistic doesn’t change that in any meaningful way. In fact, there’s no reason it needed to come up at all. It has no bearing on the real story here, which is this man’s successful career and amazing art. (It’s nice to know that he is, because hey it’s awesome to see people who are like me being amazing and successful, but I’d rather have not known than seen it discussed like this.)

I… honestly don’t have the spoons to dissect all the details of what’s going wrong here at the moment ( @korrasera, perhaps you’d be so kind as to lend your fantastic insight?) but if you’re interested in approaching this subject in a way that won’t make autistic people’s skin crawl, I’d like to gently suggest you start by looking up “inspiration porn” and why it’s a bad, dehumanizing thing. And perhaps seek out some autistic voices to listen to about autism, because… it’s clear you haven’t been doing enough of that.

@finessesurmic @to-dance-beneath-the-diamond-sky

I don’t know enough about disability to really dive into the inspiration porn question, but the reason this kinda thing would irritate me is because it’s essentially the flipside of treating autistic people like they’re damaged an unable to function in society. Where those are negative stereotypes, about how autism prevents you from being social or limits you in some other way, this is a positive stereotype, playing into the idea that autistic people have talents that border on superpowers, like the card counting in Rain Man or this man, Stephen Wiltshire.

Yeah, that’s one thing I want to point out about this entire thread. No one mentioned his name, Stephen Wiltshire. He’s an amazing artist to be sure, and one of his big talents is his memory, because he draws these skylines not just from memory, often from just a single helicopter ride. You notice how that scene of New York is taken from an aerial view? That’s because he’s sketching one of the perspectives he saw while in a helicopter. That’s some amazing talent and hard work.

In my opinion, it’s not that people need to be upbraided for talking about this kind of thing, but we do usually need to be reminded that positive stereotypes aren’t quite as damaging as negative ones, but they’re still stereotypes and they still mean that you aren’t treating autistic people with the respect they deserve.

Neurodiversity brings several benefits to our species, despite the difficulties it presents for those of us who suffer from depression and mental illnesses, or those of us who have autistic spectrum traits and live in a society that treats autistic people terribly. These traits are ones that were likely advantageous to us in evolutionary terms, so they’re actually being selected for in our species. Autistic people have traits that directly interact with memory and sensation, sometimes allowing them to exhibit unique talents related to those traits. Stephen Wiltshire’s artistry is amazing and it’s the result of hard work and diligence, but he’s also able to create something that’s fairly unique because of his neurodiversity.

Here’s the twist.

What about the kid who hits 6’ 9" and develops extremely strong muscles such that he could be a star basketball player? Larry Bird still had to put in a ton of work to become the artist he is. What I’m saying is that we don’t have a hard time talking about sports stars like they’re real people and not stereotypes, despite the fact that they often have unique physical advantages that just don’t occur in most of the rest of the population.

Just some food for thought when it comes to the way that you regard autistic people. People who are autistic who do amazing things deserve to get praised just like everyone else. And while their autistic spectrum traits might be a part of what they do that’s amazing, that’s just a single part of their story. Say their name and talk about that story and celebrate the work they do in addition to the diversity they represent, and you’ll be a hell of a lot closer to respect than a lot of people get.

That artist up there? His name is Stephen Wiltshire and he draws some absolutely gorgeous skylines. He’s spent a long time learning how to do that and he has a unique memory that lets him do that without needing to refer to photographs and that’s pretty damn cool.

Black Woman Illustrations by Ben Biyayenda

17 year-old artist Ben Biyayenda’s young body of work is our new obsession! His vibrant illustrations explore sex-positive images of black bodies and unity between women. 

Instagram.com/WeTheUrban

Keep reading

Brianna McCarthy

Where The Sun Sets by JJwinters

Theresa Fractale

I legit gasped

hAve you ever seen someone so beautiful that you almost start crying

Tiffany Haddish for W Magazine

Bonus+

Rihanna at Ocean’s 8 European Premiere in London. (13th June 2018)

indigojonesart

White ppl's inability to read Black people's nonverbal cues shows their lack of interpersonal skills.

Cause Black people can damn well read theirs.

truly

Scientific fact, actually. Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarbrough found that White people’s neuron system fired less when viewing people of color performing actions, which indicates that they have an emotional disconnect when thinking about people of color; in essence they really don’t connect with us on a basic level of human empathy. (Source) The same people tested scored higher on a subtle racism test, as well.

Jesus

Reason why I don’t trust or fuck with white people proven by science.

There was actually a study done (if better science Tumblr wanna link the source that would be awesome) where they showed a Black person’s hand being tortured and a purple hand being tortured and measured the empathetic response and ppl actually had more empathy and a higher emotional response for a purple ass alien hand being tortured than a Black person’s hand smh

This is literally the basic underlying concept of what we mean when we say Black Lives Matter

Replacing “Why is this happening to me?” with “What is this trying to tell me?” has been a game changer for me.

The former creates a hamster wheel, where you’ll replay the story over and over again. Victimized. Stuck.

The latter holds space for a resolution to appear.

“Good food does lead to sex. As it should. And in a perfect world, good music does too.”

-Anthony Bourdain