I think I’ve worked out why I hate the word ‘inspirational’ so much. It’s like we’re put in this box labelled with the word and the lid is nailed shut so the actual facts of our disabilities don’t see the light of day and the rest of the world doesn’t have to deal with our very real rights and needs because they’re too ignorant or afraid or overwhelmed or it’s all too hard or something.
And ‘inspirational’ seldom is meant to be used as a metric for other disabled persons/persons with disabilities (I use both because in different regions, the preferred language is different). “Inspirational” is code for “oh wow, me, an abled bodied person is meant to look at this person and realise how lucky I am that my life is better than theirs and I don’t have to rise above like they do”.
Get to Know the Blogger
by-all-accounts-unforgettable:
Sorry it’s so long… I went through the “get to know the blogger” tag and compiled a bunch of the best questions. I want you guys to be able to get to know me :)
Name: Line (shortened form of my real name)
Height: 5’10”
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Dark brown
Lefty or Righty? Righty
Birthday: 20 October
Favourite color: green
Favorite Book: His Dark Materials (counting as one book)
Favorite Holiday: Christmas or 17. mai
If you could pick anywhere to live the rest of your life, where would it be? San Francisco or Copenhagen
What kind of music do you like? I don’t listen to music.
Are you religious? No… nominally Lutheran but basically atheist
When you were young, what would you dream you would be when you grew up? A surgeon
Early bird or night owl? Night owl.
Where do you live? A largish city in Scandinavia
Celebrity crush: Tom Hiddleston, Mikkel Bang even though he’s younger than me and not really a “celebrity”
Are you single? No - engaged! :)
Are your parents still married? Yes. Hopefully my marriage will be as strong and happy as theirs!
Last thing you ate? A hot dog with crazy-good toppings
Last thing you drank? a Coke
Do you get along with your family? Almost always.
How many siblings do you have? Two
Any tattoos currently? Would you ever get one? No, but perhaps one day.
Any piercings? Three in one ear, four in the other.
Biggest pet peeve? Willful ignorance and bigotry
What did you do today? Woke up a little bit hungover, lunch with my fiance’s parents, and then a feeble attempt at some studying
Favorite movies? Shakespeare in Love, Oslo, 31. august, Spirited Away (apparently I look like Chihiro), Ratatouille
Favorite TV shows? Parks and Rec, Downton Abbey
What age do you want to get married? I’ll be 26
How many countries have you been to? How many states? 8 or 9 countries, 4 states
What would you name your daughter? Elisabeth, Åshild, Åse
What would you name your son? Haven’t really thought about it - boys’ names are boring. Maybe Øyvind or Einar
Play any sports? Volleyball, swimming, soccer
What language do you want to learn? ASL! also want to learn how to read French.
What would your parents have named you if you had been the opposite sex? Dunno, they were running out of steam with boys’ names
What was your first job? Working in my grandmother’s coffee shop
Do you play an instrument? Nope.
Where do you want to go on vacation? Big Sur, Istanbul
as someone who is biracial, i relate to this so much. this is incredibly true, and beautiful.
Same.
TRAILER: the Audacity to Exist (by FacundoElement)
You can donate to the filmmakers here to make this documentary a reality. I wish the official website had a little more information on the background/goals of the movie, and the progress of its production.
I got a little nostalgic watching him sign at the 1:01 mark, remembering myself at that age and my language skills, how they were already so deeply a part of me and how I interacted with the world even though I was just a little kid.
i’ve been thinking a lot lately about race.
… how i identify in terms of race …
i think it has to do with the incongruence between how i self-identify and how i am “pegged” by others. the phenomena of “self-identification” as the most important aspect of identity that is championed in some queer-oriented circles seems to go completely out the window in situations like this. i can identify however i want, for years, and feel established in that identification. and this can be stripped from me in a matter of seconds with an off-hand comment from a complete stranger. i felt totally powerless and erased in a way that i was not prepared for.
i am very aware that i must acknowledge the white privilege i have. (i “pass” for white often, especially depending on the company im with at the time.) i have it. the part that is jarring is the large part of the white privilege that i have being a result of how others percieve me which is at odds with how i perceive myself.
what i’m realizing is that for all of my actions, i must consider them first in terms of my own identity, but secondly and lastly i must look at how they are understood based on how i am identified by others. since i am unable to know how others understand my race, i feel completely unable to understand how what i am saying or doing appears. this is paralyzing and i’m often in a state of suspension, inaction.
A lot of feels right now. I could identify with much of this post, except my experience of being “pegged” by others has mostly been the inverse of the OP’s.
In the same way that people often think of Obama as America’s first “black president” even though he’s half Caucasian, my being half non-white subsumes my being half-white. Physically, I feel more at home with my mother’s side of the family - I’m tall like her family, and my facial features strongly resemble my mom’s - and glaringly out of place among my dad’s relatives. Yet all people here see is that I’m “different,” ambiguous, and they almost instinctively wonder, “what are you? where are you from?” you can see the reaction pass over their face even if they don’t say it aloud. That extra beat or shadow of surprise as they glance quickly between my mom and me.
I’m often torn. Sometimes I get a kick out of being ethnically ambiguous, having this one small way to stand out in a society that is largely homogenous and that propagates a certain physical ideal. The Nordic prototype, reinforced by the rest of the world’s stereotypes of Norwegian/Swedish/Danish women. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, a certain bone structure. (Nevermind that there are plenty of females here who don’t look like that.) Growing up among cousins who meet this ideal, take it for granted, and if anything play it up, I have to wonder how much it fucked with my perceptions of myself and my own appearance. It’s weird that like them I was born here, raised fully in Norwegian culture (exposed to almost nothing of my dad’s Japanese culture), yet unlike them cannot feel 100% part of it. It will always be questioned, a conspicuous difference. I will always feel somewhat of an outsider. And I think the fact that it’s my mom who’s white, and my dad who’s Asian, that inverts expectations somewhat too.
I feel like I don’t wholly belong to any given part of what I am. Do Americans who are, say, a mix of part-Irish, part-German and part-French, part-Dutch ever feel these ambivalence? I know some will joke and call themselves a “mutt” but they don’t seem to feel any identity limbo, it’s practically a non-experience. Because they are still fully white. While I am less of a mutt, just half Norwegian, half Japanese, but because that represents two races, that’s enough to feel an outsider of both, that makes all the difference.
Sorry if this post didn’t make any sense…
It’s only Tuesday but I wish this week was over already. Lately I have really been struggling with being deaf. Feeling frustrated, run into more ignorance than usual, having conflict with my parents. Stuck wondering if I was hearing, maybe I would not have to spend all this energy proving myself, going uphill against limits regarding my career and future.
Just want to crawl into a ball and sleep.
Story of my life.
I found out about Karen Meyer accidentally. She is a reporter for ABC7 in Chicago. Karen is deaf, but doesn’t let that slow her down. Through her reports, she spreads the awareness of the issues those with disabilities face, as well as other important topics.
Wow, that’s awesome. I didn’t see her in the beginning as an anchorperson… is she more like a producer or is she actually narrating that segment in the video? What is her speech like - is it clear?
I always get excited when I learn about deaf people in journalism!
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to EU
tha fuckk?
Yes, leave it to my country to turn this prize into a slow-motion train crash.
Can we just have a moment to soak in how cute Chirag Patel from Karpe Diem is.
They’re pretty much everywhere these days because their new album just dropped.
I don’t listen to their music (cuz you know, deaf) but their lyrics are fucking sick. They do some unexpected things with the Norwegian language, but instead of “wut. this is stupid” you think, “oh… hmm… yeahhh… ok hell yeah.” I put together a rhythm in my head for the lyrics based on the beat, the way the words flow as I am reading them, but I know that might not be how they actually rap it. (I can see the difference when I watch the musicvideos.)
Despite their massive popularity with teens, I can’t help but love them and respect what they have done for hiphop in Norway.
I met these guys last Saturday!!! I got my album signed, a picture and a little chat. Probably one of the biggest moments of my life!
LEARN TO SIGN GOD DAMNIT!
UGH!
There was this hard of hearing woman at my work, she had a hearing aid, and was talking to her children. I walked up and saw the aid and i started signing.
she looked at my mouth the whole time… Smiled and said that she didn’t sign.
WOMAN YOU’RE HARD OF HEARING LEARN YOUR LANGUAGE! LEARN YOUR CULTURE!I would trade her any day! Deaf/Hard of Hearing culture is the most magnificent and interesting thing I would ever imagine!
UGH I WANNA LOSE MY HEARING!
Time to start listening to my music louder.
There are so many things wrong with this.
- Just because she wears a hearing aid doesn’t mean she needs to sign. That’s an individual choice, especially for people who have the ability to hear enough to communicate orally.
- Deaf culture isn’t like American culture or city culture or whatever other culture. It isn’t something that just happens to most people. Being born deaf or hoh doesn’t mean you’ll be part of the Deaf community, especially when you’re the only deaf/hoh person you know.
- You do NOT wanna lose your hearing. And if you went deaf intentionally, almost every person you encountered in the Deaf community would despise you for it.
You may think you’re open-minded because you know about the Deaf community and you can sign, but this post is one of the MOST closed-minded things I’ve ever seen in regards to the Deaf world.
^^^ Word. ^^^
Seriously where the FUCK do hearing people get off thinking they can dictate what deaf people do or don’t.
And you want to lose your hearing? Yeah… have fun with that. Only a person with such incredible privilege would ever say such a thing.
The sight of my boyfriend in a hooded sweatshirt, his hair still damp from the shower… UNF.
#sometimes i’m afraid my idea of what’s sexy is frozen in time from high school #what is it about guys and hoodies seriously
