serendipity

Us (2019) dir. Jordan Peele

Motivation, patience, and energy are limited resources, especially for people with executive dysfunction, mental disabilities, and physical disabilities.

Next time you want to assume you or someone else is being “lazy”, consider the actual reasons behind why there is not enough in them to do the thing.

Left to their own devices, free people are naturally driven to improve their lives and the lives of others,

Right wing arguments’ foundations depends on the assumption that humans are naturally selfish, evil, and “lazy”, and must be controlled by higher powers and punished when they don’t contribute enough (with the insistence that certain groups of people are more deserving of being controlled and punished than others)

Next time you notice you or someone else is struggling to accomplish something, don’t assume “laziness”, instead ask yourself: am I tired? Depleted of patience? In a bad mood? If I keep pushing myself through this, will it really be worth the distress?

I have chronic fatigue, anemia, and insomnia. I don’t need people bitching at me because I’m tired all the time. I don’t need people assuming my fatigue is related my ability to do the work.

Not even to mention how many people called me lazy because I can’t get out of bed because of my migraines.

And think about how this compounds on BIPOC disabled people. Many minorities are called “lazy” as is. When you add the stigmas associated with disabilities.

Speaking of chronic fatigue. I’m too tired to do words. Here’s an article.

Imagine being a black, gay drag queen in the 1800s after being born into enslavement AND having the style and cachè to throw soirées that the girls had to come to! That’s why I don’t want to hear this “we’re not our ancestors stuff.” You’re right!

From The Very Black Project Page- William Dorsey Swann was a gay liberation activist. Born into slavery in 1858, he was the first person in the United States to lead a queer resistance group and the first known person to self-identify as a “queen of drag”. Imagine the queenery of this icon.

He was a slave in Hancock, Maryland and was freed by Union soldiers after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. During the 1880s and 1890s, he organized a series of balls in Washington, D.C. He called himself the “queen of drag”. Most of the attendees his gatherings were men who were former slaves, and were gathering to dance in their satin and silk dresses. William was arrested in police raids numerous times,including in the first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888. In 1896, he was falsely convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail for “keeping a disorderly house” (running a brothel). After his sentencing, he requested a pardon from President Grover Cleveland. This request was denied, but but he was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community’s right to gather.

He was known to have been close with Pierce Lafayette and Felix Hall, two men who had also both been slaves and who formed the first known male same-sex relationship between enslaved Americans.

When William stopped organizing and participating in drag events, his brother continued to make costumes for the drag community. Two of his brothers had also been active participants in his drag balls.

Imagine how intelligent and ambitious this man had to be to come up with drag balls in the 1800s! Imagine how many terrible concepts he had to unlearn by himself to be a confident gay black man who does drag in the 1800s! Imagine how courageous he had to be to fight for lgbt people as a former slave in America in the 1800s!

The World. Art by Lindsay D. Williams, from Desert Illuminations Tarot.

Today we feature the last Major Arcana card of the #desertilluminationstarot. “The World” This particular image is based on the classic Rider Waite Smith card but translated directly into various kachina dolls that dance around a wreath of nopales suspended in the cosmos.