I love the smell of fresh ableism in the evening 🙄
Do you think the plastic packaging is that much easier to open than a fruit peel though? I’m mildly disabled in a way that affects my hands especially, and plastic packaging - not fruit peels - is the bain of my cooking attempts.
Besides which, it’s still everyone’s responsibility to pressure companies into using less plastic, even if they have to replace it with a more sustainable alternative, e.g. seaweed “plastic”. We have to bring about the shift to these new technologies, not merely accept the convenience of current practices.
I think it definitely depends on which type of plastic, and what types of symptoms the person has.
For me, cling-wrap type plastic is always fairly easy to just poke and swipe off no matter how bad my hands are that day. Thicker plastics can definitely be difficult for me, though.
But I do agree, we need more sustainable options - I just don’t think eliminating the only option we currently have in the meantime is the answer. We need something for the people who do need this to turn to instead of being forced to go without.
My thought was, stores offering this as a service not unlike how they slice meat and cheese. Most of them will put those things directly into reusable containers for customers. If they offered this as a service with fruit and veg as well, to drop off your fruit/veg to be peeled/cut be put in a reusable container, then you not only make it more sustainable but also give people less fuel to shame people for utilizing the service even if they don’t Really Neeeed It™
Also can we talk about the fact the “natural” fruit in the pic are a results of hundreds of years of human work? Bananas did not look like that before we made them look like that. They weren’t as “easy to open” as the current ones.
And the current biodegradable products trigger allergies and you don’t even need to warn people about them containing, say, corn.
Go shout at commercial fishing using plastic nets. That’s a much bigger problem than having the world and a supermarket be a little less ableist.
This exactly! Fun fact: the reason why oranges are so “easy” to peel is because one tree was found to be “mutated” by nature and a farmer used “artificial selection” to mass produce it. Same for tons of food. Broccoli and Brussel Sprouts are the same plant, artificially bred to be like that. Consider, when accessibility makes life easier for everyone and not just the few, it becomes known as convenience. Being a convenience means that it becomes accessible for everyone easily…including those who need it the most.
Fishing waste like nets kill more baby animals than straws. The tons of waste floating in our oceans are mostly put there by corporations. Pressure them. “Think globally, act locally” isn’t good enough anymore. “Think locally, act globally” is the new trend we need. Pressure your local biggest corporation, send them 1000 faxes or emails if you wanna save paper. Annoy them until they can’t not listen. Don’t do this to some random person on the internet who is just trying to live their life, more so someone who is disabled and doesn’t have choices in what things they use.
This is such an important conversation.
Able-bodied people need to stop yelling at disabled folks who need pre-cut fruits and vegetables, which incidentally are commonly stored and sold in plastic, and channel that outrage at the corporations, as mentioned above.
I really like the idea above, also, suggesting that supermarkets offer a service whereby reusable containers can be filled with fruits and vegetables, and, those fruits and vegetables can come pre-cut for those that need it. I think that’s a brilliant idea, and the most feasible way to start battling this, without making things harder for disabled folks. Most major supermarkets offer delivery nowadays. Why don’t they bring in something like that, where you pay $2 or whatnot for a re-usable container, and they just put the fruits and veggies you ordered straight in there, and then collect it?
I see it the same as how they used to (and still commonly do in some parts of the world) re-use glass milk bottles. We use the contents, and put out the containers to be cleaned, and re-used over and over again.
The issue is, big corporations simply care about profit and convenience. It’s so rare for them to care about anything other than the bottom line, and frankly they do whatever is cheapest, and easiest. That’s why so few big chain supermarkets use biodegradable plastics, or employ other methods — it’s cheaper for them not to.
I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment that, we need to be putting pressure on those who caused this mess in the first place. Biodegradable materials have been around for a while, as have other ideas for storing produce — so there’s really no excuse for the fact that the people at the top have done very little about it. They are burying their head in the sand.
Just don’t come after those who are simply trying to survive. Don’t come after the people on a disability pension who are simply just buying what they can afford, and what they need, which is often things like frozen, or sliced, veg in plastic pouches etc. I can guarantee you that people are constantly thinking about wanting to cut down on their plastic, and doing the best that they can. It’s the corporations who really need to do more, here.
Plastic is also currently the safest medium in large-scale food safety AND medical equipment BECAUSE it is disposable and cheap and prevents cross-contamination in ways alternatives cannot match currently. Disposable diapers significantly lower both contamination of laundry loads and sinks/household items in close contact with humans with E. coli and water/fuel usage.
Glass bottles were good, but needed to be collected (manually), loaded, unloaded, autoclaved, kept sterile before putting milk in, and securely closed. They are also heavy and breakable. Other more modern alternatives often pose allergy risks. People allergic to peanuts, wheat/gluten, corn, or soy can be very allergic to „natural“ packaging made from corn husks or other fibers (burger boxes, bags, plates, cutlery), as well as straws from „natural“ sources.
While plastics made from petroleum pose risks to the climate, straws etc make up less than 1 % of dangerous waste, and plastic food packaging (deli meats, cheese, etc) prevents food-borne pathogens, which were a big concern before disposable packaging was possible. If they were reliably recycled, this would be a much smaller problem. However, even countries with widespread recycling schemes in place are apparently carting their trash to poorer countries in the global south instead of recycling themselves. THAT should be where the chagrin should be directed, imo.
A cotton grocery bag has to be used 100+ times to even offset the carbon footprint its production made.
I am strongly pro using reusable bags and containers, but they need clean water and heat to be safe to reuse, and those are also limited resources, especially clean water, both in terms of geography and wealth, globally.
So asking people to „just wash/clean and reuse“ things is also coming from a place of privilege. How many dishwasher and washer cycles are you running per day or week? How many microplastics are coming out of your reusable makeup removal cloths with every wash etc? Switching to reusable items increases your water consumption extremely as well as chemicals (detergents) or heat (boiling things to prevent bacterial growth) and is not necessarily suitable for as many people as you think.
Piping fuckin hot take incoming but it doesn’t matter if fat people are healthy. Not everyone has to be a paragon of fuckin health to be treated like a person.
telling ppl attracted to men that there are no good men out there or that men can’t love only normalizes poor treatment from men & doesn’t do anything helpful
#the idea that all men are naturally garbage is super unhelpful#because it absolves awful men of the responsibility to be better
#it also discourages men who do want to improve their behaviour but don’t know how
#by convincing them that they’ll be reviled no matter what they do
#learning how to change involves leaving confort zones
#and making yourself vulnerable by approaching other people’s spaces for advice
Also also it perpetuates internalized hatred and low self-esteem in men who are genuinely good and it leads to poor mental health and the sense that as a result of being the gender they are they are automatically to be reviled.
It can also make trans men feel bad or guilty about being men.
Remember when Trump said autism is an epidemic caused by vaccines that ruins beautiful children?
Remember when Trump mocked a disabled reporter on live-television by mimicking his hand movement and pretending to be mentally challenged?
Remember when Trump lit the White House up in blue lights to support Autism Speaks, the organization that demonizes autistic people and spends the majority of their money on prenatal autism screenings (AKA eugenics)?
Remember when Trump wanted to save money by shutting down Meals On Wheels, an organization that brings food to disabled and elderly people that can’t go outside?
Remember when Trump blamed all non-ISIS related shootings on the mentally ill?
Trump understandably gets a lot of crap for being racist, homophobic and sexist, but we need to acknowledge his blatant ableism too. This man is seriously harmful to us.
Terrorism is defined as “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” Western media likes to paint terrorists with a brown face, but one of the most horrific campaigns of terror happened in the past century on American soil – the estimated 3,436 lynchings of black American men and women between 1882 and 1950, intended to control and intimidate the recently freed black population. There is nothing more disturbing than being confronted with visual evidence of humanity’s dark heart, especially when it is evidence of a widespread, mainstream hatred for and violence towards one another. Hatred that stems from fear, and is driven by religion and a belief that murder is morality made distorted flesh; violence that aims to cow and suppress any aspirations a community might have for equality and a brighter future.
When I came across this collection of American postcards from James Allen and John Littlefield, published in a book entitled Without Sanctuary, I saw how important it is to look at these images, today more than ever. These postcards were made to commemorate events that made many American white people feel proud – of their race, of their superiority, of their civilization and their intelligence. They took photos of their disgusting, cowardly accomplishments and memorialized them for future generations, to be found and collected and remembered by their descendents. On the backs, they wrote to friends and family in sociopathic excitement about the mob the participated in. These postcards capture the mobs witnessing with glee the murder of young men and women, whose most serious crime was the color of their skin. The corpses hanging and charred in these postcards lived in a world that counted down the days until their murder from the second they drew air into their infant lungs. This history is potent, stomach-churning and of essential importance to the America of today, and to the world of today. And the most striking thing about these photographs is that they don’t erase the perpetrators like many histories and memorials do today, preferring to focus on who was victimized rather than on those who proudly – and with government backing – tortured, raped and murdered people. The murderers in these photos stand proud, grown men looking at the camera with the smiling conviction that the teenage boy they just killed, one against a hundred, was deserving of their hatred, fear and frustration. No grand jury needed; the law was in the hands of the murderers.
History is not linear; history is happening all around us, all the time. These photos are context, they are reality, they are pictures of American terrorism. Read James Allen’s commentary below and be aware that these photos are sickening, and all too real.
Africans in America mounted resistance to white people lynchings in numerous ways. Intellectuals and journalists encouraged public education, actively protesting and lobbying against lynch mob violence and government complicity in that violence. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as numerous other organizations, organized support from white and black Americans alike and conducted a national campaign to get a federal anti-lynching law passed. African American women’s clubs raised funds to support the work of public campaigns, including anti-lynching plays. Their petition drives, letter campaigns, meetings and demonstrations helped to highlight the issues and combat lynching.[4] In the Great Migration, extending in two waves from 1910 to 1970, 6.5 million African Americans left the South, primarily for destinations in northern and mid-western cities, both to gain better jobs and education and to escape the high rate of violence.
From 1882 to 1968, “…nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress, and three passed the House. Seven presidents between 1890 and 1952 petitioned Congress to pass a federal law.”[5] In 1920 theRepublican Party promised at its national convention to support passage of such a law. In 1921 Leonidas C. Dyer from Saint Louissponsored an anti-lynching bill; it was passed in January 1922 in the United States House of Representatives, but a Senate filibuster by the Southern white Democratic block defeated it in December 1922. With the NAACP, Representative Dyer spoke across the country in support of his bill in 1923 and tried to gain passage that year and the next, but was defeated by the Southern Democratic block.
DO NOT BE SCARED TO REBLOG THIS. WHETHER YOU OR YOUR FOLLOWERS WANT TO SEE THIS OR NOT, IT NEEDS TO BE SEEN.
Oh my fucking god. This was a fucking hundred years ago. These were your grandparents parents.
POSTCARDS?!?
White people were the first terrorist…
Never forget.
White people own your history
Reblogging twice because I wish somebody would tell me something.
Mind you, they have not changed and I will keep these photos to teach my younger brother about the tragedies commited, but remember that these terrorists still exist and are teaching their kids to be terrorists, they.have.not.changed.
times haven’t changed. please don’t fall into that train of thought people. Whether its conscious or subconscious white terrorism is still being taught today.
Ok there is a difference between white people and the ones who were responsible for this. I am white but I just immigrated to America, this is not my history. So don’t generalize white people please.
^ shut the fuck up!
@overlord-swift sweetheart, you really wanna gloss over the fact that no white European descendant is innocent in the atrocities inflicted upon black people worldwide? Ignorance DOES NOT equal innocence.
This bitch is more offended with the generalizing of white people than with the recent lynching of black people.. tf
