Obviously I Want You To Take Care Of Your Pets And Make Sure They Get Food And Fresh Water On A Regular

What I think "This Is America" means for us white people

To add onto the other "This Is America" interpretations, I think that part of the point of the dancing with all the surrounding chaos was to show the spread of parts of African-American culture (such as rap and different dances) into white appreciation and focus without the acknowledgement of the pain that the community that makes it is suffering. We white people can take in those elements that we like without having to worry about also experiencing the 'less appealing' parts of the culture like police brutality, gun violence, homelessness, poverty and other things that come as the product of systemic racism (which in America was made by our race). Maybe we would recognize it better if *some artist* paired depictions of the art we all love with depictions of black bodies being brutalized and desecrated at every turn. I think that's why he says at the end "America / I just checked my following list and / You motherfuckers owe me" -- because it's not fair that American culture can be taking in the richness and beauty of one of its subsets without owning up to the hardships it gave that subset to have birthed this art in the first place.

If we are going to appreciate African-American art, we have to support the African Americans who make it.

<3 <3 <3

Final Fantasy XV

Prompto + running to his friends’ sides  (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Bonus:

Hozier’s first album: forest god comes out of forest to observe humans and uses his music to comment on their society

Hozier’s new EP: forest god has been living among humans for four of their ‘years’ and uses his music to aid in their current movement to heal their society

are we just going to collectively sleep on this interaction?

Take 1 minute out of your day to examine this horror of a DVD I found. It starts with the cat with shaved feet, mouth and tail and gets weirder the longer you look at it.

look what you can buy

That's so opposite to what he usually said but a lot of what he said flips so 🌌

“I wrote a lot of sweet, happy melodies this time, but the songs aren’t really happy. But you can pretend they’re happy.”

Elliott Smith

Okay so since this is getting some notice again I want y'all wonderful autistic people to know that ASAN is taking applications for their ACI (Autistic Campus Inclusion) program until Feb. 23!! It's for people who are or want to be autistic self-advocates in secondary education (grad school is good too). I learned so many fantastic skills and got a ton of incredible opportunities (I met JUDY HEUMANN and LOBBIED ON FREAKING CAPITAL HILL) And the best part for me was being part of a fully-inclusive (yes I mean that*) autistic space. I'm almost always in some state of dissociation and I was fully present for the whole week. It was absolutely amazing and I want everyone to know about it. If you're even a little bit interested please, please go check it out!!!!

https://autisticadvocacy.org/projects/education/aci/

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Autism Campus Inclusion

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is now accepting applications for the 2020 Autism Campus Inclusion (ACI) Leadership Academy!   Download t

*I can promise financial, physical, emotional accessibility etc. They encourage people of color and AAC users to apply, just as an example. Most of the people I met were LGBTQ+. I have really weird triggers and when I was suddenly no longer able to handle my dorm situation they made sure I was okay and found me a a new place. I had never had my needs respected like that before and it was life-changing. Please please apply.

Message me or tag me somehow if anyone needs to talk or wants more info on the post or autistic rights and advocacy in general. We're here and we're amazing. Much love and happy stimming 🌱

Punishment for stimming is BAD.

I don’t care if my blog’s not popular, if this post reaches one person it’ll be one more person helped. I just had a college class in abnormal psychology where the professor taught us that punishment is a workable and useful therapy to “treat” autistic symptoms such as head-banging, biting etc. What he neglected to tell the class is that those behaviors are forms of self-stimulation (aka stimming) which is necessary for most people with autism to regulate their sensory systems. Specifically the above destructive behaviors are forms of overload stimming, in which the person will turn to types of self-stimulation that blocks out whatever is causing them distress in their environment. For example, head-banging and biting cause pain and so the body is forced to process that instead of what’s outside, temporarily interfering with their perception of the world to give them a reprieve. To clarify: this behavior isn’t good, it’s dangerous. The solution is to replace the overload stims with healthier ones, let them remove themself from the situation, and give them coping mechanisms and plans so that next time they don’t have to get to overload levels of upset.

The solution is NOT to punish them for overload stimming. They are not exhibiting bad behavior, they are trying desperately to do what their body needs them to do. If you punish them and they stop overload stimming in response, it’s not successful learning: it’s abuse. They are not stopping because they ‘see the error in their ways,’ they are stopping because they are afraid of what you will do to them. All punishment works like that, but it is called for when the person does something wrong, not when they are working to do what their body needs because there is nothing wrong with that.

By the way, this is true for non-destructive types of stimming as well. Preventing any kind of stimming is abuse because it prevents people with autism’s bodies from working as they should. Instead stimming needs to be accommodated and respected or, if it absolutely must be stopped, immediately replaced with an equally effective option.

To recap: punishment is designed to stop bad behavior. Stimming is not bad behavior because it is an action that people with autism need to do to regulate their sensory systems. It is abuse to punish someone without cause. Therefore it is abuse to punish someone for stimming. Instead find non-destructive stims and solutions that solve the problem without the damaging consequences.

*p.s. if someone is overload stimming they’re already really upset. don’t make it worse. it’s common sense and so easy to do if you care about that person.*