servicepoodleintraining-blog

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(via luchiksvetaya1)

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September 2018 Illustrations  ヽ(• ‿•)ノ

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This is what a very good boy looks like!

I just made him a new vest out of t shirts I had lying around. He loves it because it’s soft and comfy. This is what I looked down and saw while I was studying at a coffee shop.

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Update on getting my giant dog to tuck under tables

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gone snooding. out for a snood.

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Whenever I ride on trails that aren’t specifically for horses, we use horse diapers.

Maybe we could make that more common? 

It’s like when I complained about horse poop on hiking trails and how it’s super annoying that there’s a bajillion ‘clean up after your dog’ signs everywhere and zero regarding cleaning up after your horse. So when it rains on the trail and the piles of horse shit turn into a lagoon of hay and sludge and it’s completely impossible to walk on the trail without you/dog stepping in literal ankle deep shit puddles, it’s kind of hard to hear ‘you have to pick up dog shit because it’s a biohazard but horse shit biodegrades much cleaner so that’s why you don’t have to clean it up’.

You can tell me for hours why horse poop is better for the environment than sog poop and in honesty I’m on board with it. I took animal biotech. I know how herbivore digestion works. I grew up in a farming town. Still doesn’t placate me when I have to choose between turning around and going home early, going off the trail (illegal in some places!!!), and walking through shit-mud slurries with a dog that I later need to get back into my car probably covered with the stuff as it splashes.

Don’t be That Asshole just because it doesn’t immediately affect you or those around you. And don’t tell me how it’s secretly really great that you did this because it’s good for xyz things when I’m the one that has to deal with everything that comes after.

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(via meanboysclub)

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No matter what she says, that was no joke. Particularly not when Betsy DeVos has made it clear that she fully intends to accelerate the school-to-prison pipeline to incarcerate black children en masse. And Ms. Swearingen is very obviously, FULLY aware of what would likely happen to a black child if she made that false report to the police. Shanna Swearingen’s “joke” was barely more than a veiled death threat to special needs black children.

This was not just another racist educator, but a school principal. I feel sorry for the black children under her “supervision”. She obviously doesn’t think much of them, nor does she care about their safety.

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He’s got my back. 

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Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum! 

Jasper and I had fun at the fair! We got 2nd place with my mom on horseback. Her horse says “blessed be” and Jasper says “we’ve been sent good weather/We Remember them” 

The yellow/black vest is a different day and we went to walk around and eat fair food. I was super disappointed in the fall in quality :c 

My county fair is a family tradition, each year someone in our family is in the parade, and since most of our family has moved or on bad terms, or passed away, my mom and I do it every year since I aged out of 4-H. This year we’re Handmaids in mourning from the Handmaid’s tale as a small way to protest our county’s policies. 

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August 2018 Illustrations  ヽ(•‿•)ノ

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So a couple days ago, Angela Peters, a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy, tried to get her nails done at a local nail salon. (“Da Vi nails”.) She was turned away because of her disability. Witnessing this, an employee at the Walmart nearby did her nails for her.

Here are some real headlines about this:

“Walmart Employee Gives Woman With Cerebral Palsy A Manicure” “Walmart employee uses break to paint nails for woman with disability” “Why This Walmart Employee’s Act of Kindness Is Going Viral”

“Walmart cashier steps in…” “Walmart worker gives…” “This Walmart employee painted…” “Cashier’s act of kindness…”

You can probably already see where I’m going with this, but I’m not finished. I read a few of the articles. Many of them did not provide the name of the nail salon who had broken the law to discriminate against Peters, and the articles that bothered to quote Peters at all were sure to quote her as saying she “forgives” them and doesn’t want to get anyone in trouble. She’s described as a “sweet” and “humble” regular customer.

As for the Walmart employee (who I won’t bother naming because she isn’t the important part of this story), each article is basically a hagiography. They talk about how kind she is, how selfless she is, how she “stepped in” to right a wrong (even though the nail salon will continue to discriminate and no one is stopping them so the wrong really hasn’t been righted). She’s interviewed at length and no one fucking talks about the ADA or how it’s not just thoughtless to turn away a person with a disability, it’s cruel, discriminatory, and illegal.

“We’re not trying to bash the nail salon. We’re not trying to make them lose customers, make them look bad.”

WHY THE FUCK NOT? Imagine if your local businesses refused to serve women or POC — hell, we’re having a national dialogue about the fucking homophobic bakers. This is discrimination.

The thing is, it’s not just this story. This happens all the time. A disabled person is discriminated against, and instead of the focus being on a business, law, or entire system that has failed them, a news story will focus on an employee who helped them. Or a teacher. Or a cop. (Note: A recent report found that half of all people killed by cops have a disability! Google it.)

This reframes the story, and more importantly, refocuses it. This is now a story about an act of kindness. No one has to pay attention to the discrimination at play. No one has to pay attention to the laws being broken, or the laws being changed. No one has to look at a system of discrimination against PWD — because that might implicate them. If the causes of discrimination are examined, then people will have to change the way they behave. Funds will have to be reallocated. Laws will have to change, and existing laws will have to actually be enforced.

Most of all, no one actually has to pay attention to the disabled folks being discriminated against. We can, once again, just be another inspirational prop in a feel-good story that improves the lives of able-bodied readers but not those of the disabled people who actually need help. It’s dehumanizing and it prevents us from claiming our rights.

Here’s the real story here: A woman was turned away from a local business because of her disability and they will face no consequences. No one even wants them to. This Walmart employee who did her nails for fun? Doesn’t matter at all.

I get wanting to see examples of human kindness. But kindness and justice are not the same thing, and one cannot replace the other. It’s kind when my family interprets for my deaf relatives. It’s kind when people help me with non-accessible doors. It’s kind when a stranger gives a woman a manicure.

But kindness didn’t help us when the cops came to our house multiple times and each time refused to bring an interpreter, which resulted in abuse victims being forced to interpret for the person who just beat the shit out of them. Kindness doesn’t help me when I go to a building and there’s no visible way to get inside. Kindness won’t help the next person who goes to that nail salon and gets turned away.

We cannot rely on kindness, just like we cannot rely on luck. That’s literally why we have discrimination laws. So people won’t have to hope their boss is “kind” enough to hire disabled people — or women, or POC, or religious minorities, or LGBT people. So people won’t have to hope transportation companies are “kind” enough to take your accessibility equipment. (I’m fucking looking at you, Uber.) So people won’t have to hope their doctor will be “kind” enough to get an interpreter. (Yes, my family members have literally been turned away from doctors before.)

I don’t want to have to hope that I can live a normal life. I want to know I can because there are laws in place to protect me and my rights. Which is why these articles are so goddamn damaging. It takes the focus off of the issues we face and puts it right back on the able-bodied people who the media has always felt more comfortable spotlighting.

This approach prevents tangible change.

The fact that this news story went viral but HR 620 passing the House didn’t? That says everything. It says that able-bodied people (and the media organizations that shape our culture) do not actually care about the well-being of people with disabilities. They care about feeling good about themselves without doing a goddamn thing to truly help us. They don’t mind that we still depend upon them for every scrap of good we get — and don’t want to fight so that we have the ability to get good things all on our own.

It’s far easier to go “wow, that woman’s so nice” than to change laws or make sure existing laws are actually enforced. That requires funds. It requires work. It requires legislative changes. And those are all things we’ve been conditioned to never ask for for fear of being labeled a drain or a burden. No one wants to be that bitter cripple that no one likes. The one who asks for far too much, like basic human rights.

Fuck off with that “a wonderful woman helped a pwd who was turned away” bullshit. How dare you call this a feel-good story! Every headline should be “LOCAL BUSINESS DISCRIMINATES AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES” and until it is, I’ll just keep on being goddamn furious.

‘Coz frankly, I don’t much care if they like me anymore. Having legal rights is better than being liked — because then you don’t have to depend on being liked to survive. Amazing!

(Yo, call your senator about HR 620, a bill that will strip all efficacy from the ADA and prevent PWD from enforcing their rights. Donate to a local disability rights organization. Or heck, if this post resonated with you, drop a couple dollars in my ko-fi to help pay for my bus fare. I just learned that the nearest library to my new home is inaccessible, so I’ll have to take the bus across town! Lovely.)

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AND NOW I WILL TOO

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someone: repeating things that reinforce a negative self view and world outlook such as the oh so popular tumblr niche of nihilistic ‘i want to die and everything is awful’ “jokes” me, in recovery, trying not to get dragged into that with them: