#social diversity

[vizthedatum]

Desirability politics and autism and trauma and colorism and institutions of power and people of the global minority in positions of power and fucking ableism and “gender” and the lack of understanding of bio- and social diversity and …

I want to stop being prone to trauma and I am a capital P people pleaser, sigh 😔

I want to help

I want to be better

I want to heal

I will never stop being intersectionally disadvantaged while still benefiting from certain privileges

It’s all maddening to think about

What do we do? Scream in the street? Where the ableist society can judge us more and tell us we shouldn’t have children?

[earaercircular]

At Plaine Santy in Lyon, a solidarity grocery store “to eat as well as at the CSP+”

Mariela is shopping with her daughter, Anita, at the Committed and Solidarity House for Food, avenue Santy in Lyon, on May 12, 2023.

At the House committed and supportive of food, the inhabitants of this popular district of the 8th arrondissement of Lyon have adopted organic food without their budget exploding. With as a free bonus in this third place full of conviviality, the development of new links.

“The credit card, we leave it here,” laughs Naïma Aifa. In the 8th arrondissement of Lyon, at 183 avenue Santy, you shop in joy and good feeling. A resident of the neighbourhood, the fifty-year-old lady goes there every Thursday, sometimes even before the grocery store opens at 4 p.m., “time for a coffee”. Since its inauguration in October 2022, the inhabitants of the Plaine Santy district [1]  in Lyon have become accustomed to coming to spend time at the Committed and Solidarity House[2] for Food (Mesa). "But we don't just do our shopping here," explains Nicolas Boudod, a regular here.

“In working-class neighbourhoods, we want to eat as well as in CSP +[3], says Boris Tavernier, general secretary of the Vrac network. “But for the inhabitants of the popular districts, it is a double penalty. There is no organic food offer and it is expensive.” Making sustainable food accessible to as many people as possible: this is the mission that the Vrac network[4] and the association Récup et Gamelles[5] promote with the Mesa. Both a restaurant and a solidarity grocery store, the third place[6] at the foot of the housing estates of this working-class district is mainly aimed at the most vulnerable public. “We have to stop listening to the music in our head telling us that local is more expensive than Lidl”, continues Boris Tavernier. To reduce costs, Vrac reduces intermediaries thanks to short circuits and public subsidies.

One product, three prices

Detergent, chocolates, cheeses... While Mariela is shopping between the shelves, her little daughter Anita, all swaddled around her mother's chest, stares at the adults with a curious air. "When you come here, it's better to come with containers and bags," explains Julia Lévêque, the manager of the grocery store, which is open three times a week. The mother of the family has planned everything. This is the first time she's been to the Mesa since moving to the neighbourhood. She plans to come back later but as a volunteer. A gesture that she considers important “to help others and promote local producers”, she believes.

"The quality is impeccable," nods with satisfaction Nelly Duquesnes, 37. "My husband does not want to eat whatever stuff from at Carrefour", confirms Naïma. Coffee, dry goods, vegetables and olive oil are checked off his shopping list. “The whole neighbourhood comes here,” says Nelly. "It's near my house, cheaper than at the supermarket and I'm sure to come across people," she sums up.

Each product indicates three different prices depending on the place of residence and income of each. The “boost” rate – all products at 60% for students and the most vulnerable people -, the “district” rate at -30%, for residents, and the solidarity rate for other visitors. “Even people with no particular income problem benefit from reduced rates at -10% here,” explains Julia Lévêque. While emphasizing that the objective of the Mesa is not to compete unfairly with businesses in the area. This explains the limited opening hours of the grocery store.

A living space for the neighbourhood

"Me, it was my hairdresser who advised me to come here, that's how I became a volunteer," confirms Djemila, restocking the shelves with apple juice. The retiree prefers to feel useful at the Mesa “rather than sitting in front of the television eating cakes”. For the place to please, it wants to be participatory.

But difficult to do all your shopping at the grocery store. "A lot of things are missing: fruit and desserts for example", regrets Naïma Aifa. “And there could be more vegetables”, approves Nicolas Boudod, father of two children. “But the basic products are there,” replies Nelly Duquesnes, a regular at the place.

It's 8 p.m., the grocery store closes. The next day at noon, the Mesa is preparing to receive guests. Brando and his four teammates are busy in the kitchen. Today, roasted beets followed by a soup. All the ingredients come from unsold produce from surrounding organic shops transformed into delicious little dishes. Thirty-five tables served three times a week. As in a classic restaurant, you have to book because "it's sometimes full", explains Nelly.

But the prices displayed are much lower: four, eight or twelve euros for a full menu with starter, main course and dessert depending on where you live and your income. Sipping tea around his two children, Nicolas Boudod takes stock: "It allows me to take my children to the restaurant for 24 euros for three and not 45. They like it, they meet friends here", he says. , his face split into a broad smile.

"This third place was co-constructed with the inhabitants of the district, and in particular those who live in a precarious situation, so that they can really meet their needs", explains the coordinator of the place, Julia Lévêque. Since its opening last October, it has seen a notable change in the clientele. “The number of our “boost” members who come to do their shopping regularly jumped 15% between December and last February.” What the manager explains thanks to the word of mouth as well as to the ease of access to the place for precarious people. To become a member and come and shop, all you have to do is to register and declare your income. Based on trust, the grocery store is less restrictive than other more supervised aid structures.

For Damien Jousselme, adviser at Crédit Coopératif, that finances this type of initiative, the success of the Mesa can also be explained by an awareness among consumers in recent years. “Wanting to consume better is no longer the prerogative of environmental activists. It has become a concern of Joe Sixpack, ”he concludes.

Source

Eva Kandoul et William Nguyen, A la Plaine Santy, une épicerie solidaire «pour manger aussi bien que chez les CSP+», in : Libération, 31-5-2023, https://www.liberation.fr/forums/a-la-plaine-santy-une-epicerie-solidaire-pour-manger-aussi-bien-que-chez-les-csp-20230531_XN3SF4BDDRFGJLPSKAXM56GR4M/

[1] The name of the Plaine Santy is to be associated with the geography of the territory where wheat, barley and rye were grown. In the sector, crops evolved into market gardening areas and nurseries of roses and carnations. Small dwelling houses began to replace farms. After 1950, the district centered on the Place des Écoles (Place Général-André), a village within the city, with community life, a village hall/cinema and three weekly markets. The name of Santy is associated with the avenue Paul Santy which crosses the district, named after the great surgeon and professor of medicine.

[2] Maison engagée et solidaire de l’alimentation (Mesa)

[3] CSP+ is an acronym, mainly used in marketing and economic analyses, to designate the most privileged socio-professional categories in France. CSP+ are of interest to communicators of high-end products or services.

[4] Réseau Vrac is the only professional organization dedicated to the democratization of bulk in France in the world. Réseau Vrac is structuring and accelerating the development of this new market to provide access to sustainable and responsible consumption. Réseau Vrac brings together and supports more than 1,200 professionals in the sector, distributors, producers, suppliers and project leaders in France and around the world.

[5] RECUP & GAMELLES is an association committed and active in the fight against food waste. It implements concrete and participatory actions in order to act and allow citizens and actors in the food chain to engage and exchange practices around the theme Zero Gaspi - Zero Waste.

[6] English term that refers to social environments that come after home and work.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

For the record, vitiligo is estimated at 0.5 to 1%, worldwide. I grew up in a black-majority country, and I think I know one person who had it.

[alwaysbewoke]

[liberaljane]

Representation Matters

Digital illustration of a brown woman crouching in a dark blue bomber jacket and skirt with a fine porcelain plate pattern & she’s wearing thigh high boots. Behind her is a plate with text that reads “if you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu”

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Honestly I think if one thing could help solarpunk the most to become a cohesive movement where we all truly collaborate and look after one another, I think it would be if we stopped generalising.

Not all solarpunk art has to be art nouveau! Not all architecture has to be white stone and green glass in a western-style city! Not everyone is abled enough to just make by hand all the things they want or need that they currently purchase under the capitalist economy. Not everyone you meet on the internet is American (seriously guys, what’s with this assumption, I get it all the time even though I tell you I’m British in my bio). Not everyone wants to work the land or build turbines for a living.

A truly Solarpunk future is one where we speak different languages, employ a variety of techniques to work the land, provide for our material and spiritual needs and restore the environment. It’s open borders and community solidarity and sex worker justice and indigenous sovereignty. For some people it looks like a quiet rural life and for others it’s all about the bustle of a city full of reliable transit and accessible third spaces. It’s also about realism. Some things will be rarer because we will have had to massively slow down trade and shipping to decarbonise it - we’ll need to eat locally as much as possible. In utopia some disabled people will still need cars, so we need EVs despite their current imperfections.

There will likely be mosques, community centres, food forests, art galleries and hospitals. People will be trying their best. We’ll mess up. We can’t predict what will happen and we certainly can’t universalise one experience. And if Solarpunk is all about living out a prefigurative politics where you imagine you exist in a world already free, then it’s essential we try to practice that open-mindedness and lack of assumptions in our day to day interactions, in real life and on the internet

[xdextarx]

literally pagans 🌳are more open to identities, social aspect, diversity and genders than modern society 🔬

Vikings:

you are woman who want to live as man? sure! why not! women can be strong as men! it's not so often here but we have no problem with it!

Modern society:

b-but women have their own standards and men as well!! g-gender role!! it's our tradition that men do nothing and women do everything at home! cooking and cleaning is a woman's job because we said so to have less work!! women are weak child machines and men are strong hunters!!! women must be submissive to men!! it's a tradition!! 😩

Inuits:

you lived alone in the forest for a long time and now you became a shaman and can talk to spirits? that's so cool! let's go on an igloo and you will make an astral trip and then you will tell us what you saw and where all you were!!

Modern society:

what the hell? Impossible. you must be schizophrenic. it is not possible for you to have a sixth sense and be able to connect with things that we cannot see. surely it's just delusions in your head. there are no supernatural things and I don't care that science can't fully explore it yet and that we don't even know how we really got here!

pagans in general:

it's so cool you made your own mask! you are an animal, entity, devil, spirit or something else? let's celebrate us all!

you have wild spirit? that's so cool!

you were an animal in your last life? me too!

you can travel astrally? omg!

someone was born? let's celebrate!

someone died? let's celebrate they are in after life now and their soul is still with us in connection!

god's are our friends and not our masters! we all are just beings!

modern society:

therians, alterhumans no humans are sick! you cannot be anything else than human! you have human body so you're human!

you have woman body so you can't be man!

you have man body so you can't be woman!

there's no reincarnation or soul!

someone was born? oh no we have to pay bills for making one human in this capitalist society

someone died? damn it cost so much!

there's only one god and other religions are fake! you will burn in hell you atheist!

god is the creator and master!

landlord is owner and my master or I become homeless!

my boss is my master or I will starve!

we celebrate Christmas, valentine and Easter just because of having to feed markets and capitalist materialistic society!

[elistodragonwings]

So some conservatives are mad because they misunderstood part of the Olympic opening ceremony and thought it was a drag version of The Last Supper and thus an attack on Christians. And sure, most focus is on how no, it obviously wasn't meant to be The Last Supper and you're just homophobic, but I think there's a bigger thing call out here.

They don't own The Last Supper. They don't even own Christianity. But they act like they do and many of us let them. Art and religion can have meaning to all people, and that means a diversity of interpretations. A subversive take on The Last Supper could have deep personal meaning to a drag queen, and that would be 100% valid.

But fascist US Christians can't imagine people existing outside of their own world. They can't imagine that the world doesn't revolve around them, that other people's actions don't revolve around them. They can't imagine that other people have motivations and lives and exist in a whole world that has nothing to do with them.

They're so entitled and wrapped in their own supremacy that they see everyone else as simply inferior versions of themselves, with perspectives and views that are simply flawed versions of their own. And they truly believe that others on some level know this and hate them for it.

They attack diversity of thought, views, people, existence, because they have no idea what reality even looks like.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[kiragecko]

One of the first things that made the social model of disability really make sense was this:

My new doctor hadn't been doing reminder calls for the 2 years I'd had her. I FINALLY got my act together and talked to the receptionist to opt-in.

"We don't do that."

And I froze. What? How could they ... they just ... refused to remind people of appointments? I politely asked if they could make an exception, got turned down, and was in a fog for the next half an hour.

Because I couldn't get to appointments consistently without a reminder. It was hard to get there WITH a reminder, but I was simply unable to without.

Suddenly, I was disabled. Without assistance from my husband, I lacked the ability to get medical help.

-

I'm thinking about that a lot, today. My husband's back at a physical office for work. I have an appointment with NQ's school. And all day, I've been carefully checking my backups.

If I miss the appointment, I'm only 5 minutes away, so I can get there quickly if called. The resource teacher will be understanding if she needs to remind me - she's willing to ask if I'm capable of talking at the beginning of every phone call, and we've set up back up forms of communication if I can't!

Even with my husband unable to physically check if I'm leaving, I have ways to ensure I get to this meeting.

-

With automatic reminder calls, or husbands by my side, I can sometimes forget just how vulnerable I am on my own.

But there's a reason I can regularly see a counselor, but not a general practitioner. There's a reason my husband used to have to take the afternoon off work every time the school set up a meeting, but today I won't be seeing him until this evening.

(There's a reason that I partially started auditing because I showed up at the wrong time and place for almost every university exam, and the stress was destroying me.)

I think that's what the social model of disability is about. It's society in general bearing a slight cost so that vulnerable people don't have to bear an extremely heavy one. Paying slightly more to design buildings that mobility aids can navigate. Banning really dangerous allergens from some public spaces so that people can use them without dying. Normalizing flashing light warnings to avoid seizures.

There are only so many slight costs society can bear before they pile up into a heavy one. I'm not sure how much diversity a society can reasonably support.

But I really appreciate it when an organization is willing to send me reminders. Because my memory and sense of time SUCKS.

[l-e-morgan-author]

I'm musing on my plans ahead for a specific story (I'll update y'all when the month is over and I'm back on social media! but I have made a plot breakthrough literally three years in the making), and I realised: this character would absolutely have religious OCD/scrupulosity. So I need to do research.

People with ROCD, what resources would you recommend/what is it like living with scrupulosity? I may live with it myself, but I have no formal diagnosis and no medical professional has ever considered exploring it (that'd be multiple friends who've asked if I have OCD) so I'm hesitant to give her purely what I feel/experience in case I'm misleading myself.

A google search wasn't particularly helpful on specifically how to write it, hence why I came here.

Please signal boost and give me ideas :)

Though I won't see any responses until the month is over, if you have questions about the story itself and how her issues impact and are impacted by it, I'm happy to answer anything. I don't know how to keep a spoiler to save my life, lol.

[ivygorgon]

[shinobicyrus]

Hey, yanno how Climate Change is a real thing that is tangibly, at this moment, affecting our world?

Well it turns out, the wealthy and their investment firms have been seeing the mounting evidence that oil companies have had for decades and are slowly starting to think more long-term about their portfolios in the face of rising sea levels, more extreme weather, and the myriad of ways climate crises are affecting...well. Everything. Maybe this means they invest more into sustainability, green energy, building more resilient infrastructure, or carbon offsets. Some of it, of course, is simple corporate greenwashing, but there are those that are taking this trend and packaging it into something called ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance).

Now some people would say this is predictable, even sensible. Just the good ol’ Free Market(tm) rationally responding to market forces and a changing world.

But those people would be fools! Insidious fools! For conservative sorcerers have come out with a new cursed phrase to explain this new market trend: Woke Investing.

What makes this investing “woke?” Well, much like how conservatives normally flounder when trying to define a word they stole from black people, “Woke Investing” essentially just means any kind of capital investment that they, the fossil fuel billionaire class and their sycophants, don’t personally profit from.

One of these aforementioned sycophants is Andy Puzder, conservative commentator, fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and former fast-food CEO. He calls this kind of so-called woke investing “socialism in sheep’s clothing,” further explaining in leaked audio of a closed-door meeting:

“My father's generation's challenge was the Nazis, who, by the way, were, of course, very proud socialists[citation fucking needed]. The challenge of my generation was the communists, who were, of course, very committed socialists. The challenge of your generation is ESG investing, and it's more insidious than communism or the Nazis.”(source)

You heard it here first, folks. Not investing as much in fossil fuels is more insidious than the Third Fucking Reich.

As usual, the Heritage Foundation is putting their petro-chemical donor’s money where their mouth is. Bills are being proposed to blacklist banks that don’t invest in key state industries, such as West Virginia coal or Texas oil. Fourteen states have already passed bills to restrict ESG-type investing, with Florida Governor Ron “Bullies Kids for Wearing Masks” Desantis leading the charge.

In other words, Climate Denial has reached such a point that so-called Free Market Conservatives who claim to hate big government are trying to make it illegal for banks, investment firms, and financial institutions to make any financial decisions that acknowledges Climate Change is real.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

The Witcher 3: Every Difference Between The Netflix Show & The Video Game - Screenrant/ | Archive .

[alwaysbewoke]

[clonehub]

clones' independence from the Republic and the Empire would have stood on its own as a series, but the writers for YEARS have been hesitant to have any singular clone go "too far" because they either don't understand or don't want to go into the implications of having a member of a slave army call a spade a spade. then they'd have to admit that the CIS is shit but also the Republic is worse than previously presented. that's why they keep acting like the clones have as much and as equal a choice in what they do as any other character in star wars. Any decision they make is stifled by their upbringing and the violent consequences of going against the grain. this isn't to undermine characters that do make difficult choices, good or bad, but come on.

ive seen random people in this fandom make the most poignant and beautiful analyses and arguments about the clones, how they're written, how they should be written. never shying away from the moral dilemmas of the Jedi helping to run a slave army but also being the only option that wouldn't dehumanize them entirely. the moral dilemmas in honor, duty, pride, loyalty, but also individuality and inner peace and autonomy. not wanting to be used. not just following orders.

but what happens time and again when a clone is given the opportunity? they choose to fight. every single time. they say "this is what i was made for!" as they die in battle or rebellion. and i understand that choosing to fight for the rebellion is leagues different from choosing to fight for the republic, i understand that fighting for the rebellion is a noble cause regardless, but at the same time...the only clone who doesn't want a life of warfare is cut? and then before that, slick? who killed his brothers?