One Single Moment

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

And like... you do get that that is kinda insane, right?

Because this is something that so often leads to suffering. And I am saying this as someone disabled, who had so many issues due to this in his childhood.

Just three examples: when I was 7, I was supposed to get checked for autism. My mother did not want an autistic child. Since she just could have a "neurotypical" child by refusing diagnosis, she did just that.

When I was 12, my mother had decided I needed a certain plastic surgery (one that had a minor health benefit, but still was largely a beauty thing). I did not want it. I really, really did not want it. We still went through almost the entire process until thankfully there was a doctor who went: "Wait, this is elective. I am refusing to do this on a child that does not want it."

And when I was 14 my mother refused to get me to the hospital when I had severe food poisoning. She refused me hospital treatment for almost two weeks. By the time I got actually taken to the hospital I was almost dead.

And here is the thing: all of this should just not happen. The doctor when I was 12 was cool, but... he refused to do the surgery because he had the right to make a conscience call. Legally my mother was in the right to force me into that elective surgery. And that just should not be the case.

A lot of children die and suffer due to their legal inability to consent - or refuse consent - to medical treatments. And I wish y'all would understand that.

People talk about how you can’t see stars in the city and yeah, that’s true, but their concept of “seeing stars” is being able to make out orion’s belt.

So, so few people have see the sky in all its glory and it’s not sad. It’s a fucking crime. Seeing a perfectly dark night, no clouds, not a hint of light pollution? That’s a fucking religious experience.

The sky the vast vast majority of us grew up with is not the sky that inspired us to look up. It is not the sky that inspired constellations. You can’t even see most constellations.

Your ancestors looked at the night sky and said “surely, that is where the gods must live.” And you might be lucky if you can see hardly more than a handful of stars.

When we were on a field trip to the middle of the red sea, I remember us all crowding at the end of the boat that didn’t have lights and just lying on our backs and staring

When you see a properly dark starscape

You understand why people wrote poems and made up legends and built rockets and said heaven’s in the sky

You think of the night sky like fairy lights on black velvet, but it’s not it’s not it’s like, like, dust in sunlight, like - I can’t find the words.

The stars are everywhere, like sugar, like glitter, like dust. You can’t find the constellations at first, not because you can’t recognise them, but because there’s so many stars you can’t pick out the familiar line of Orion’s belt. The North star has gone from bright familiarity to almost vanishing among a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million other lights. The milky way is a line of light arcing across the sky like a moon-trail on water only infinitely, infinitely bigger.

And for the first time in your life you’ll understand why people call it a dome, because it is, it’s three dimensional in exactly the way a city skyscape isn’t.

You’ll understand why Luthien Tinúviel danced under starlight, not moonlight, why people in a time before we knew the earth was round still looked up and wondered and built telescopes and dreamed about the stars.

The stars are endless and ancient and infinite and you will stand with your head craned back and your rucksack forgotten at your feet and you’ll feel like you’re falling upwards into that great bright sky like it’s calling you home and you’ll wonder how you ever thought the stars were beautiful before tonight when all you’d ever seen were the naked empty skyscapes of your home. And you’ll cry and you’ll spend the rest of your time there gazing up and wondering and imagining what it would be like to stand among those bright silver flecks

I’d often set an alarm to wake me in the middle of the night, so it was as dark as possible and my eyes as dark-adapted as they could get, and starlight alone was enough to guide me

Kaixo anon!

Let's not forget, it's true. But it wasn't just Franco, it started way earlier, with the arrival of the Bourbon dinasty to Spain.

The amazigh languages of the Canary islands are thought to have been lost around the late 18th century, early 19th.

1768 SPAIN: New law passed that forces to teach solely in Spanish in Aragón and Catalunya; it was extended to the whole territory in 1780.

1772 SPAIN: Another law banned all merchants to have their bookkeeping in any language but Spanish.

1776 SPAIN: Printing books in Català and Euskara was prohibited.

1789 FRANCE: disappearance of every old regional law and language. Books not written in French were burnt and the use and teaching of any other language was punished.

1794 FRANCE: Education must be solely in French, any other language became prosecuted.

1801 SPAIN: all theater plays and songs in any other language but Spanish became banned. Also dancing to non-Spanish songs.

1803 SPAIN: it's documented the first report of physical punishment for speaking in Euskera at school.

1857 SPAIN: Spanish Grammar and Ortography became the only and mandatory text book at public schools.

1862 SPAIN: Using any language but Spanish in any public document was prohibited.

1867 SPAIN: another law banning theater plays in Català or Euskera.

1876 SPAIN: Basque old laws became banned. According to Madrid newspaper "El Imparcial": "Taking away their old laws isn't enough, we now have to take their language away."

1896 SPAIN: Speaking on the phone or sending telegraphs in Basque or Català became illegal.

1902 SPAIN: Any teacher that taught in Català or Euskera began to be punished.

1903 FRANCE: another law banning Euskera & Català in school.

1923 SPAIN: Euskera & Català became banned from official events.

1925 SPAIN: every textbook not written in Spanish were removed; teachers that didn't teach in Spanish were suspended from work without pay.

1930 SPAIN: Every local institution is forced to keep their visitor's book and registrations only in Spanish.

1937 SPAIN: Prohibition of speaking Basque and every sign of Basque culture, ie using Basque names, playing Basque instruments, wearing Basque colors. The punishments were from social humiliations to jail or execution. Same thing happened in Catalunya.

1938 SPAIN: Only Spanish names accepted. In church, masses just in Spanish, with a permission of only a 10 min. preach in Basque if nobody understood Spanish.

1939 SPAIN: Signs in Euskera & Català in hotels were removed.

1940 SPAIN: Signs in Euskera & Català in justice courts and shops were removed.

1940 SPAIN: Public workers forced to speak just in Spanish or face dismissal. Every movie - national or international - is forced to have its dialogues in Spanish.

1944 SPAIN: Euskera & Català again banned from public documents and even tombs.

1947 SPAIN: Euskera & Català banned from magazines.

1948 SPAIN: Again, Euskera & Català banned from schools.

1954 SPAIN: Euskera & Català banned from every radio station.

1964 SPAIN: It became illegal to feature Euskera & Català in records or advertising.

1978-2015 SPAIN & FRANCE: Still Euskera & Català are unregulated in France, and in Spain in places like Trebiñu.

[we didn't include galego because in the source we use it didn't and we're not completely sure it was included in all these laws, but we're 95% convinced it was too, so.. include it in your heads.]

Source

Spanish language prevailed and galician was displaced to the "language of the poor and uncultured" (a stereotype that was deep inlaid untill the XX century and still persists today), thanks to whom it didn't dissapear, since it was band from institutions, art and, obviously, politics. Galician cultural reality was persecuted, and the proper land became a marginal input inside the spanish monarchy.

Hasburgs had imperial concerns and 30-year-wars to deal with. Then the Bourbons came with their centralism and set up spanish naval bases to promote Madrid control and the union of the Spanish Empire against the colonial failures. At some point in the modern age, the rumor that galego was just a dialect of castilian (a lie, as with català and euskera) began to spread and no one who intended to climb socially (or wanted to do paperwork, really) could use it.

The late XIX and XX centuries saw an idiosyncratic intellectual resurgence (books and magazines were published, social movements gained power and even a Stute of Autonomy was approbed in 1935. I recall something similar happed in Catalunya and Euskadi?), but Franco crushed it all and Galicia was reduced to "regional dances" and "don't sepak galego, you bumpkin" until the 1981 Statute of Autonomy

I've noted before that my favorite punchline on Tumblr is "hang on, gotta look something up/okay that's funny."

Let me explain why:

It is a way to say "I don't get it" without blaming the joke or the teller.

It is a tacit admission of ignorance without shame or judgement.

It assumes responsibility for acquiring the knowledge the respondent doesn't already have.

It cues other people who Don't Get It to do the look-up themselves, allowing them to get that full impact of Getting It without derailing the post with explanations.

It gives subsequent readers, whether or not THEY got the joke, a little frisson of good feelings when they realize that someone else is now In On The Joke.

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