An electric toothbrush and an escalator are two things that can stop working and still accomplish their original goal.

Ah, wonderful! This post can help me illustrate something I’ve been trying to articulate for awhile: the concept of benign or unintentional abelism.

Escalators and electric toothbrushes are perfect examples of things that many able-bodied people assume exist for their own convenience, and this post is a perfect example of that unconscious assumption.

An escalator that has broken down is still perfectly functional, right? 

Well, sure–if you could have used the stairs to begin with. 

But for people like me, for whom the escalator was not a convenience but a mobility device, a broken down escalator is not functional. 

An electric toothbrush might seem like something that could be just as easily used turned off as turned on, but for someone with Parkinson’s, or any other number of nerve, coordination, or grip issues, the function of the electric toothbrush is a necessary feature, and without it, the task at hand becomes far more arduous (or even impossible). 

I’m not angry or trying to point out why this post is “bad” or “wrong”–I’m simply trying to point out that people who assume every time or energy-saving invention was created as a means to help able-bodied people be lazier should consider re-examining those assumptions. It might help you become more compassionate toward your disabled friends and family, or at least more aware of the struggles we face daily. 

I’ve had plenty of folks ask for examples of abelism and I am terrible at coming up with them on the spot, so here you go. This is a great one: assuming every modern convenience is only a convenience for everyone, when for some, it is, in fact, a necessity. 

^ When I heard that this is why all those infomercials show “impossibly clumsy able-bodied people” - that these random convenience devices are really made more for people with troubles like randomslasher describes, and it’s just able-bodied actors trying to act those mobility issues out - I kinda had to stop making fun of those clips.

And the reason they use able-bodied actors instead of showing real people with disabilities use the product is because if they did that, able-bodied people would see it and be like “oh what a neat product for people with x disability” and not buy it because they assume it’s not for them. And even though that’s true, the companies need able bodied people to buy it so they can make enough revenue to stay in business and continue to produce the product for people with disabilities.

^^ also the more able bodied people that buy or have a product intentionally designed for someone with disability is that it helps destigmatize it. Which is super important. 

Remember Snuggies? The blanket with sleeves? It was designed for wheelchair users/people with mobility issues so they could be warm and still use their arms without being trapped under a blanket. They were SO popular for a while, and everyone had one… which meant that if someone who was able bodied came over to your house and saw you had one too, it was less of a chance of being made fun of for it, and more like an opportunity for a conversation on about how they want one too. 

The slap chopper is also another great example. I know so many people who are able bodied that had/currently have one and sure it makes things quicker and easier for them, but someone with motor control issues or bad arthritis can use it. It won’t be an awkward “why do you have this thing” conversation. It is a “woah, I have one too!” or “I love mine, so glad you love yours too” sort of thing 

By selling/marketing them to able-bodied people, this makes it better for those of us who are disabled. It can destigmatize, which in turn normalizes it, which helps us become less Other and more Accepted. 

This goes as well for things like fidget toys. As kinda cringey as the fidget spinner was marketed, things like the fidget cube became more popular for people with adhd.

Same goes as well with weighted blankets.

And then there’s the fact that a lot of people who end up benefiting from these things are somewhere in the grey area of experiencing some level of disability but not thinking of themselves as disabled. So their hand hurts when they chop vegetables and this neat little device makes them enjoy cooking again, or they find out they can focus better in class with a fidget toy. If those products were presented as ‘only for people with this a disability’ they probably never would have tried them.

a thread of black-owned cottagecore businesses and creators you should be supporting 🍄🌞

10 LGBT+ rock stars that aren't Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, or Elton John

Pete Townshend

Pete is best known as the tall, short tempered energetic guitarist and writer of almost all of the songs by The Who. He was the member who came up with their trademark move of smashing the instruments at the end of each show, and became a voice for youth at the time with one of their many hits 'Talkin 'Bout My Generation.' He came out in his memoir as well as an interview in 1989, saying he was bisexual, and also said he identified as both a woman and a man, saying: "I know how if feels to be a woman because I am a woman, and I won't be classified as just a man."

Debbie Harry

Lead singer and writer for the band Blondie, she's a bisexual woman well known for her colourful taste in fashion and unmistakable voice. Her musical career started out in the punk genre but she is best known for writing and singing some of the most popular new wave songs including Heart of Glass, Call Me, and One Way or Another.

Janis Joplin

Often cited as the face of American blues, folk, soul and rock, Janis Joplin is WLW and had numerous relationships with men and women in her life. She was famed for her distinctive husky voice and powerful and captivating stage presence that left audiences stunned.

Dave Davies

The guitarist in 60s British invasion group The Kinks revealed he was bisexual in his autobiography in 1997. The more outgoing of the Davies brothers in the band, of which he had a difficult and fiery relationship with, Dave also experimented with makeup and women's clothing in the 60s and 70s. Many people claim his riffs were the very earliest beginnings of heavy metal.

Sir Ray Davies

Ray Davies wrote and sung most of The Kink's songs, including their most successful song Lola, which is about a transgender woman. Although quieter and more laid back than his brother, he does not have a quiet tongue either. His endless brotherly quarrels with Dave continue to this day, although they live next door to one another. He labels himself as bisexual.

Kim Deal

As well as playing Bass for the late 80s indie rock band The Pixies and fronting the 90s band The Breeders, Kim Deal has studied and worked in cellular biology. She has said that she is asexual and also identifies as a feminist. Kim Deal has a unique philosophy in recording music, as she uses no modern means of production such as digital recording, computers, and auto tuning.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Recognised as the inventor of rock and roll, Tharpe was a pioneer for combining blues and gospel to create a unique sound partnered with her electric guitar as early as the late 30s. She is WLW. Her relationship with Marie Knight became a controversial topic when it was discovered by the public, especially from her religious background.

Rob Halford

Singer and songwriter of the popular heavy metal band Judas Priest, Rob was initially uneasy about coming out as gay due to heavy metal's often homophobic following, but was surprised when he was overwhelmingly supported. He now calls himself the 'stately homo of heavy metal' and speaks openly about the ongoing struggles that LGBT+ people face.

Marc Boland

In 1971, a tiny 5"4 Marc Boland performed in his band T-Rex on Top Of The Pops wearing glitter under his eyes. This is widely recognised as the starting point of the glam rock movement. He had relationships with men and women in his life, and close friends have described him as being bisexual. He was proudly Jewish and he became a style icon of the 70s for his corkscrew hair, colourful fashion and whimsical happy-go-lucky attitude.

Lou Reed

Lou Reed's infamously dry humour and deadpan voice set him apart from other rock stars of his time. As a child his parents put him in a mental hospital and he was given electric shock therapy to try and 'cure' his interest in men. He grew in popularity in the 60s as The Velvet Underground's lead singer and guitarist and went on to have a successful solo career, where he frequently wrote and sung about LGBT people. Reed is MLM and also Jewish!

black and asian vikings 100% definitely existed (also, saami vikings)

you know how far you can get into eurasia and africa by sailing up rivers from the baltic and mediterranean seas? pretty fucking far, and that’s what vikings liked to do to trade

then, you know, people are people, so love happens, business happens, and so ppl get married and take spouses back home to the frozen hellscape that is scandinavia (upon which i’m guessing the horrorstruck new spouses went “WHAT THE FUCK??? FUCKING GIVE ME YOUR JACKET???????”)

and sometimes vikings bought thralls and brought them home as well, and i mean, when your indentured service is up after however many years and you’re a free person again, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe it’s a bit hard to get all the way home across the continent, so you make the best out of the situation and you probably get married and raise a gaggle kids

so yeah

viking kingdoms/communities were not uniformly pure white aryan fantasy paradises, so pls stop using my cultural history and ethnic background to excuse your racist discomfort with black ppl playing heimdall and valkyrie

Also we KNOW they got to Asia and Africa. 

Why?

Because Asians, Africans, and Vikings TOLD US SO. 

Also, we know there was significant mercantile trade between Scandinavia and parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir, North and Eastern Africa because there is evidence in burial sites.

Check that out: the goods Vikings and Scandinavians were getting from their trade with the rest of the world was so important they buried themselves with it, as part of their treasure hordes.

We KNOW this.

There’s a reason you can still see many of the trade routes from the ancient world etched into the very earth.

Plus, we know that some Scandinavian cultures that participated in Viking raids had established minority communities of ethnically Mongolian folks living among them during the periods when such raids were common, and it’s difficult to credit that none of them would have signed on.

Islamic Ring in Viking Grave

Vikings in Persia

Black Vikings

Vikings in North Africa

Buddha statue in Viking hoard

Vikings brought Native American woman to Europe

Unflattering texts in Arabic about Vikings

Original text by Ahmad ibn-Fadlan

More about the Islamic World and Vikings (some Vikings converted to Islam! sort of sketchy site tho)

Viking technology came from Afghanistan

More on trade route determination via metallurgy

… is that enough? :)

Yet another on the pile of reasons why it monumentally honks me off when pusillanimous, pseudointellectual white supremacist scum try to use Scandinavian culture as a crutch for their arguments and act like Norse mythology agrees with their biases. No it fucking doesn’t, bitch. Odin would personally kick you in the dick for being a witless coward and then send your ass to the Realm of the Dishonored Dead.

I don’t usually reblog stuff, but this thread makes me so happy. See, I love the Viking aesthetic – I love the fusion of organic and geometric in its designs, I love the natural colors, the complexity of textures you get from juxtaposing metal/leather/cloth/fur–

–and I hate how the entire subculture has been so thoroughly co-opted by white supremacists. To the point where I, a person who likes viking stuff, am deeply and immediately suspect of anyone else who likes viking stuff, guilty until proven innocent, cuz that’s what the odds are these days.

Anyway.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone can be a viking, and thus I am so, so pleased to find that the historical record backs me up.

(And amused that Arab intellectual Ahmad ibn Fadlan was so thirsty for vikings.)

reclaim vikings from racists 2kForever

Thank, I thought I was gonna have to add some things, but I’m pretty satisfied. Atleast one Roman dude I know of has been dug out of a viking grave being buried with stuff that both labelled him clearly as of roman ancestry, aswell as integrated into viking life. Muslim coins were found in Sweden. Just. Lots. There’s so much proof of actual logical and interesting stuff. Imagine a society that shut out every other cultural infuence and remain uhhh… “pure”? How boring?? How unrealistic??

@rainbowrowell reminding us why she’s our queen 👑

(x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

I am posting this here because this is important for people to know. I encourage fan fiction.

I approve this message to the fullest possibility

Not to critique evolution, but I would think orange and black stripes wouldn’t be as good for camouflage in a forest as, say, green and black would.

It turns out a lot of animals can’t see the difference between orange and green!  Elephants, for instance, have dichromatic vision (two types of cones, rather than three like most humans.) 

Check out this diagram from ResearchGate.  It deals with the color vision of horses, who are also generally dichromatic.  (I think, though I’m not sure, that zebras would have the same color vision as horses.)  See how orange and green look to them?

Not to critique evolution but I think prey animals should be better at telling when their predator is dressed like a traffic cone.

It doesn’t matter what zebras see, because tigers are not native to Africa and do not naturally hunt zebra.  Tigers are Asian and mostly hunt animals like deer, elk, and buffalo.  These aren’t animals with great color vision.  They don’t need to have it because they don’t eat fruit and so don’t need to know when the berry is ripe vs when it’s not.  Good color vision is too expensive to have if you don’t need it.  Deer put their vision stats in a wide field of vision that is sensitive to motion, low light capabilities, and possibly seeing UV light.  They don’t have great color and lack a lot of acuity, but have a great sense of smell and good hearing.  That’s way more useful if you’re prey.  Deer see well in the blue end of the color spectrum and less well in the red.  This makes sense because deer are most active in the dawn and dusk periods, when there is more blue in the light.  Tigers are taking advantage of deer eyesight by being orange.

We see tigers are being obviously colored because tigers are fruit colored to our tree ape brains.

I don’t know what the best part of this is: implying that deer chose their attributes on a character sheet, or the fact that we get to see tiger colors because they look like a snack.

Ok but like, I think you underestimate just how well they blend in when actually in the environment. Like, just using tigers as an example.

or how about a leopard?

It’s called ‘disruptive colouration’ because the markings help to break up the animal’s outline against the grasses or rocks. And the rosettes on leopards and jaguars? Sun spots shining through the trees and leaves on the ground.

And this is how hard it is to spot them WITH colour vision. Now imagine the above images but with the limited coloured mentioned above?

I’m sorry but there is not an animal in that first leopard picture

Are you, sure about that?

“Tigers are fruit colored” is my new favorite phrase.