rogueoftimeywimeystuff:

The belief that someone might be faking it means they don’t deserve help is one of the greatest social ills put upon us as a society.

Let me explain:

With every charity there will be at least 5% of people (more or less depending) that look like they don’t deserve to benefit from the charity due to their clothes, phone, ability to walk, looking cis or het, looking white or any outwards sign of privilege that they might seem to show.

In actuality, about 0.01% of these people either do not qualify for the charity in question or actually have the privilege that they look like they have.

An example:

You are at a food bank. Mrs. White come up in a shiny Escalade with 4 kids all piled in the back. She comes in to get food for her, her husband, and her 4 kids. Immediately after they leave, you hear one of the other volunteers criticizing the fact that these “obviously well off individuals” are coming in for food.

In reality: Mrs. White’s husband was in a car accident that cost him his ability to walk for long periods of time, the car, and his ability to work. The insurance company paid for the escalade (a dream car of the husband’s) and disability allows them to keep the house, but Mrs. White is barely able to work part time to take care of her husband and the kids. They rely on the donations at the food bank to get by.

Another example:

You see a pair of people walking in the pride parade that look cis and het and are being affectionate at Pride. You hear someone snarl about invaders.

In reality: They are both trans or Bi and this is their first Pride being out.

Another example:

A person on the internet talks about their experience with Autism and how it means they have a hard time working. They’re self-diagnosed.They’ve gotten jeering comments about how they’re faking it and making it hard for real Auties.

In Reality: They’re autistic but can’t afford a professional diagnosis because they have a hard time working and they showed atypical traits as a kid.

I could go on and on.

I’ve heard it all. From just about anyone. But mostly? Mostly I hear it from people who think that if you don’t fit the stereotype you don’t deserve help. That you must be in the very lowest place you can be before you get help. But that’s simply not how it should be.

We should reach kids before they’re on the verge of death, someone before they’re on the street, a person before they’re grasping at the end of their rope. And if we were able to do this, maybe more people would feel comfortable asking before they had no other option than to beg for the scraps that society can leave them.

Society’s greatest illness isn’t those who fake need, but those who think that that tiny bit of people who don’t need the help asking for it is worth forsaking everyone else who does.

(via rogueoftimeywimeystuff-deactiva)

mostlysignssomeportents:

Universal Basic Income isn’t just one proposal: it’s a whole spectrum of ideas, with different glosses and nuances coming from the right and the left, from libertarians and those of a more paternalistic bent.

Charlie Young from the New Economics Foundation proposes a taxonomy of UBI ideas with three parts: “Recalibrating existing tax and benefit systems” (easing the political case by replacing the expensive-to-manage welfare system with universal support, focused on reducing overall inequality); “Replacing the Welfare State aka ‘Voucherisation’” (a “libertarian” UBI that removes bureaucracy with an eye to making it easier for individuals to escape “poverty traps”); and Communalising Common Assets (based on Piketty-style wealth tax or a Bill Gates-style tax on robots that “in effect grants citizens property rights over new technologies that yield financial returns”).

https://boingboing.net/2017/04/06/poverty-traps.html

faeriekingniko:

heneed-somemilk:

gayngelofthelordlovesdean:

tangdynastie:

neesie09:

averageblackteen:

Where are those woke white people at!?

The amount of notes this doesn’t have bothers me…

Tumblr has 30-50 million active users. Why does this not even have 1 million notes?

I have over three thousand followers and so far only two reblogged this I’m disappointed

✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿#BLM

I expect nothing from nonblack followers lol

(via cognitivedissonance)

robertreich:

When Trump and his followers refer to “America,” what do they mean?

Some see a country of white English-speaking Christians.

Others want a land inhabited by self-seeking individuals free to accumulate as much money and power as possible, who pay taxes only to protect their assets from criminals and foreign aggressors.

Others think mainly about flags, national anthems, pledges of allegiance, military parades, and secure borders. 

Trump encourages a combination of all three – tribalism, libertarianism, and loyalty. 

But the core of our national identity has not been any of this. It has been found in the ideals we share – political equality, equal opportunity, freedom of speech and of the press, a dedication to open inquiry and truth, and to democracy and the rule of law. 

We are not a race. We are not a creed. We are a conviction – that all people are created equal, that people should be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and that government should be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Political scientist Carl Friedrich, comparing Americans to Gallic people, noted that “to be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.” 

That idealism led Lincoln to proclaim that America might yet be the “last best hope” for humankind. It prompted Emma Lazarus, some two decades later, to welcome to American the world’s “tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” 

It inspired the poems of Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes, and the songs of Woody Guthrie. All turned their love for America into demands that we live up to our ideals. “This land is your land, this land is my land,” sang Guthrie. “Let America be America again,” pleaded Hughes: “The land that never has been yet – /And yet must be – the land where every man is free. / The land that’s mind – the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME –.” 

That idealism sought to preserve and protect our democracy – not inundate it with big money, or allow one party or candidate to suppress votes from rivals, or permit a foreign power to intrude on our elections.

It spawned a patriotism that once required all of us take on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going – paying taxes in full rather than seeking loopholes or squirreling money away in foreign tax shelters, serving in the armed forces or volunteering in our communities rather than relying on others to do the work.

These ideals compelled us to join together for the common good – not pander to bigotry or divisiveness, or fuel racist or religious or ethnic divisions. 

The idea of a common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for “We the people” seeking to “promote the general welfare” – not for “me the narcissist seeking as much wealth and power as possible.” 

Yet the common good seems to have disappeared. The phrase is rarely uttered today, not even by commencement speakers and politicians.

There’s growing evidence of its loss – in CEOs who gouge their customers and loot their corporations; Wall Street bankers who defraud their investors; athletes involved in doping scandals; doctors who do unnecessary procedures to collect fatter fees; and film producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing women. 

We see its loss in politicians who take donations from wealthy donors and corporations and then enact laws their patrons want, or shutter the government when they don’t get the partisan results they seek.

And in a president of the United States who has repeatedly lied about important issues, refuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust and personally profits from his office, and foments racial and ethnic conflict.

This unbridled selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win-at-any-cost mentality, is eroding America.

Without binding notions about right and wrong, only the most unscrupulous get ahead. When it’s all about winning, only the most unprincipled succeed. This is not a society. It’s not even a civilization, because there’s no civility at its core. 

If we’re losing our national identity it’s not because we now come in more colors, practice more religions, and speak more languages than we once did.

It is because we are forgetting the real meaning of America – the ideals on which our nation was built. We are losing our sense of the common good. 

(via robertreich)

squidpop:

thejazzykittykat:

verbivore8642:

brigwife:

kidouyuuto:

how did they learn to translate languages into other languages how did they know which words meant what HOW DID TH

English Person: *Points at an apple* Apple

French Person: Non c’est une fucking pomme 

*800 years of war*

Fun fact: There are a lot of rivers in the UK named “avon” because the Romans arrived and asked the Celts what the rivers were called. The Celts answered “avon.” 

“Avon” is just the Celtic word for river.

Fan Fact #2: When Spanish conquistadors landed in the Yucatán peninsula, they asked the natives what their land was called and they responded “Yucatán”. In 2015, it was discovered that in those mesoamerican languages, “Yucatán” meant “I don’t understand what you are saying”

W H E E Z E

(via im-not-right-in-the-head-deacti)