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#classism

1 post1 participant0 posts today

Just to be very clear: I got no problem with being different from what society expects, wants, demands or hints at.

SOCIETY has a problem with me. And that's strictly their problem, I shouldn't have to worry about it at all, and I wouldn't, except they have the power to MAKE it my problem. And they do.

They're trying their hardest to make me, that is my true self, unheard, unseen, unwritten and if that fails, unbreathing. Even then they wouldn't stop, they'd try to erase my memory and legacy as well, like dust in the wind.

And at the same time, they're trying to move heaven and earth to make me be legible, seen, understood, filed away, tracked, maybe dissected and studied. Fixed forever, my data stored in their filing cabinets, lists and servers, never to be forgotten or erased.

But whatever such inquisition would glean about me and whatever they record, would not, is not, has never been and could never be the real me. And it is not something that can live.

That's how I end up agonising over what society thinks of me or wants from me: Because all avenues they leave me end in death. This is NOT a metaphor!

This is how my existence is a constant revolutionary struggle for survival, for air to breathe. This revolution is not a metaphor either.

The temptation to give in, give up, die internally and then externally, fast or slowly, it's always there. It's not a temptation really, just constant pressure (torture if you look too closely) and the empty, lying promise of relief.

If only I stopped struggling, they say, it would stop hurting. If I didn't try to dance, I wouldn't feel any chains, they swear.

I am biting the hand that feeds me these lies, that beats me, confines me and excludes me. My teeth are the sharpest of all weapons: Wild, unfettered truth!

I am who I am and I am good the way I am.

Replied in thread

@Jaden3
People with a tiny bit of privilege + no true friendly coworkers or true friends of different races, ethnicities, cultures, + sexualities don't tend to want to spend free time with those they see as "others".
There's a dwindling sense of public spaces, or even privately owned community spaces like pools, being either neutrally or kindly shared, as opposed to a handful of individuals roughly bouncing around in the same space, competing for dominance.
#racism
#sexism
#classism
#InGroup

An older article but still quite pertinent.

"if you’re part of an urbanist organization, you probably ought to make an active effort to reach out and recruit people from various neighborhoods and communities. And you ought to do it not by convincing them of things they don’t already believe, but by appealing to things they consider in their own self-interest."

danielkayhertz.com/2014/02/24/

Daniel Kay Hertz · Why is urbanism so white?The answer has to start, of course, with an acknowledgment that there are multiple things one might call “urbanism,” and that not all of them are notably white. Within recent memory her…

"Honestly the most amazing I've ever seen happening in my whole life was a situation where we knew years in advance that the government was going to giveout a trillion pounds and not a single person in government, in the media, in academia, in opposition, said who is going to get a trillion pounds richer?"

youtube.com/watch?v=0quhLtBXij
(at 6:25)

Continued thread

"[... T]he easy availability of highly processed foods promoted obesity while branded packages obscured what was happening on the farms far removed from shoppers’ daily consciousness.

[...]

Hyper-competition in the supermarket industry also pushed firms to lower retail worker wages, avoid locating stores in low-income neighborhoods and ignore American agriculture’s reliance on underpaid migrant farm labor."

washingtonpost.com/news/made-b

🧵 2/2

The Washington Post · The great American supermarket lieBy Shane Hamilton

"During the Cold War, American propagandists imagined supermarkets as ideological armaments: Abundant, affordable food stacked high on supermarket shelves was meant to illustrate the advantages [...], proclaiming that only dem. #capitalism could provide for the basic needs of ordinary citizens. The notion made for effective anti-communist #propaganda 60 years ago, as the American food system outperformed socialist food provisioning [...]."

washingtonpost.com/news/made-b

🧵 1/2

The Washington Post · The great American supermarket lieBy Shane Hamilton
Continued thread

An overhaul of the #housing agency comes on the heels of a congressional deal to fund the government through Sept that increased some housing spending yet did not keep pace with rising rents & the growing demand for federal #aid. The #funding gap could result in about 32,000 #voucher recipients soon losing access to federal #housing aid… on top of additional cuts once funding runs out in a pandemic-era program that expanded voucher availability.

Continued thread

Federal #voucher programs currently provide assistance to ~2.3M #LowIncome #families, acc/to the govt’s estimates, who enroll through their local public-#housing authorities. The #aid is part of a broader universe of #RentalAssistance programs that are set to exceed $54B this fiscal year. But the annual demand for these subsidies is far greater than available funds, creating a sizable wait list as rents are rising nationally.