1:30pm September 13, 2014

Nothing I say is a command.

You may have noticed by now that I have a thing.  Where I like to describe groups of people who aren’t very well-represented on tumblr as a whole.  Or ways of doing things that aren’t very well-represented on tumblr as a whole.  If they were very well-represented on tumblr, I wouldn’t feel so obligated to describe, in detail, what I see.

Maybe it’s a Hufflepuff thing.  It probably is a Hufflepuff thing.  I don’t like to see people left out just because they do things differently than People Hereabouts do them, regardless of where Hereabouts is.   This is especially true when I happen to be one of the people being left out, or happen to know well a lot of the people being left out.

I don’t think the leaving out is always intentional.  Sometimes it is, but often it’s just a matter where people who are like-minded have gotten together somewhere and promptly forgotten about everyone who isn’t like-minded.  So I feel obligated to periodically remind people that not everyone does things the same way, not everyone feels the same way, and above all, that even when I disagree with some aspect of what they’re doing, it’s still important that they’re doing it, and important that it’s different from what many people expect.

So I will talk about how ordinary people discuss oppression in ways that are every bit as important as the more academic-style jargon-laden discussions of oppression that take place on tumblr.  And I will try to explain how the communication of all the deep stuff is happening between the lines, where you can’t just get at it by, say, reading a transcript of what people are saying.

And I will talk about why some autistic people would prefer not to be autistic, and why this doesn’t mean they’ve been brainwashed.

And I will talk about sensing, as a way of understanding the world, that is distinct from more idea-based ways of understanding the world.

And sometimes I will talk about how these things have advantages over the standard way of doing things.  This doesn’t mean I want everyone to switch to doing things this way.  It just means that I’m trying to call attention to things that have been overlooked.

And sometimes I really will have a preference.   I really will think that one way is better than another.  This still doesn’t mean that I’m telling everyone to switch to that way, or that I think everyone can or should switch to that way of doing things.

But what always happens.  Always.  Is that people — always disabled people, pretty much — read what I write, think I’m telling them to do something they’re not capable of doing, and either panic or get angry with me for supposedly trying to make them do something they can’t do.  

Which is not what I’m ever, ever saying.

Even at times when I urge people to do something a different way, that always only means people who are capable of doing something a different way.  It never means that people who can’t do it that way, should be wearing themselves out trying to do things they can’t do.  

Frankly I’m a little alarmed at how seriously some people take me.  By which I mean, people often think that when I say to do something, they should do it.  I have never asked for or wanted that level of power over people’s minds.  I don’t want people to read what I have to say and think they have to do things exactly the way I want them to do things.  That scares me.

So just in general — if I seem to be asking you to do something you can’t do, I’m not.  And also in general — if I seem to be ordering you around, I’m not.

What I am doing, and what I will always continue to do, is try to bring out information about people who are not being well-represented wherever I am at the moment.  For instance, the developmental disability self-advocacy movement is not represented well on tumblr, so I’m going to probably always be trying to make people aware that this movement exists, what it does, etc.  The way ordinary people deal with oppression is so under-represented on tumblr that it practically doesn’t exist, and I will always be bringing it up because I not only see it as under-represented but I also see it as, in general, more effective.  These are things I will always talk about.

But I’m not trying to force anyone to do anything about it.  It’s like I’ve said so many times before — I leave packages sitting in the street.  People can pick up the packages, read them, and then set them down again or pass them on.  Nowhere in this process am I shoving anything down anyone’s throat saying “You have to do everything my way.”  (That’s much more of the way things generally work on tumblr, though — there’s all kinds of social tactics being used to keep people on the straight and narrow and it pisses me off.  But I don’t do that shit.)

So anyway… yeah.  Don’t take anything I say as a mandatory thing you have to do, and that goes triple if you’re a disabled person who could never do whatever it is in the first place.  That’s not why I say these things.  That’s not why I bring these things up.  That’s not what I’m doing.

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