Queen of the Track

her ancestors? you mean her dad? 

y’all realize she was crowned in 1953 right? Nearly 70 years of imperialism with her face stamped on it. She’s the longest-lived, and longest reigning British monarch. 

Y’all look at her and see a kindly withered old gramma with memeability, but completely ignore the amount of damage that she and her family have done to so many countries. 

“oh well, what did you want her to do, just walk away from it?”

yes. 

Yes, I do expect people to look at the harm that systems they uphold do to the world at large and then actively refuse to continue their participation in them. I do not believe that is too much to ask of anyone, let alone one of the most powerful women in the entire fucking world. 

Sorry that I’m not particularly impressed with her #girlboss legacy when the Indigenous Peoples of Canada and Australia are still feeling the monarchy’s effects on their homes and families. 

70 years and she never once thought, “Hm, maybe imperialism is a bad idea?” 

Sudan (finished fighting for independence in 1956)

Ghana (finished fighting for independence in 1957)

Malaysia (finished fighting for independence in 1957)

Singapore (finished fighting for independence in 1959)

Cyprus (finished fighting for independence in 1960)

Nigeria (finished fighting for independence in 1960)

Somaliland (finished fighting for independence in 1960)

Tanzania (finished fighting for independence in 1961)

Cameroon (finished fighting for independence in 1961)

Kuwait (finished fighting for independence in 1961)

Sierra Leone (finished fighting for independence in 1961)

Jamaica (finished fighting for independence in 1962)

Trinidad and Tobago (finished fighting for independence in 1962)

Uganda (finished fighting for independence in 1962)

Kenya (finished fighting for independence in 1963)

Malawi (finished fighting for independence in 1964)

Malta (finished fighting for independence in 1964)

Zambia (finished fighting for independence in 1964)

Gambia (finished fighting for independence in 1965)

Maldives (finished fighting for independence in 1965)

Barbados (finished fighting for independence in 1966)

Botswana (finished fighting for independence in 1966)

Guyana (finished fighting for independence in 1966)

Lesotho (finished fighting for independence in 1966)

Yemen (finished fighting for independence in 1967)

Eswatini (finished fighting for independence in 1968)

Mauritius (finished fighting for independence in 1968)

Nauru (finished fighting for independence in 1968)

Fiji (finished fighting for independence in 1970)

Tonga (finished fighting for independence in 1970)

Bahrain (finished fighting for independence in 1971)

Qatar (finished fighting for independence in 1971)

United Arab Emirates (finished fighting for independence in 1971)

the Bahamas (finished fighting for independence in 1973)

Grenada (finished fighting for independence in 1974)

Seichelle (finished fighting for independence in 1976)

Brunica (finished fighting for independence in 1978)

Solomon Islands (finished fighting for independence in 1978)

Tuvalu (finished fighting for independence in 1978)

Kiribati (finished fighting for independence in 1979)

Saint Vincent and the Bernardines (finished fighting for independence in 1979)

Saint Lucia (finished fighting for independence in 1979)

Vanuatu (finished fighting for independence in 1980)

Zimbabwe (finished fighting for independence in 1980)

Antigua and Barbuda (finished fighting for independence in 1981)

British Barbudas (finished fighting for independence in 1981)

Saint Kitts and Nevis (finished fighting for independence in 1983)

Brunei (finished fighting for independence in 1984)

Hong Kong (“given” to China in 1997)

Anguilla (still a colony)

Bermuda (still a colony)

British Antarctic Territory (still a colony)

British Indian Ocean Territory (still a colony)

British Virgin Islands (still a colony)

Cayman Islands (still a colony)

Falkland Islands (still a colony)

Gibraltar (still a colony)

Montserrat (still a colony)

Pitcain, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno islands (still a colony)

Saint Helena (still a colony)

Ascension Island (still a colony)

Tristan da Cunha (still a colony)

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (still a colony)

Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (still a colony)

Turks and Caicos Islands (still a colony)

as well, of course, as Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which are still a part of the British kingdom, although i am unsure whether the people in them consider their countries to be colonies

so, yeah. “ancestors” my ass

and that’s not mentioning that none of these countries ever got reparations and all of them (as well as pretty much any other third world country) are still victims of british imperialism

i am in fact also begging everyone to read the leaflets you get with your medication. if you have difficulty reading or understanding those leaflets that’s fine just like… ask the pharmacist. never met one who wasn’t happy to explain drugs.

but like…

“SSRIs make you less tolerant of heat” should not be a shock - it’s in the leaflet. they make you sweat, give you hot flashes, and make your skin more sensitive to the sun. that’s all in there.

“mixing alcohol and benzos is a Bad Time” is not a shock. it’s in the leaflet to avoid alcohol.

“my ADHD meds made me not want to eat” is not a shock. it’s in the leaflet that they cause appetite suppression and weight loss.

you do not have to “find out the hard way” you really don’t. and bc doctors are fuckin useless at bothering to actually read and/or understand and/or explain interactions like… ever, apparently? there are plenty of places you can check for yourself or, again, just ask the pharmacist if there’s anything to watch out for.

oh hey my grandma was a nurse too!

I don’t know where you live but around here, ‘the leaflet’ is roughly two pages of very tiny and very long chemical-sounding words mixed with  extremely scary sounding but exceptionally rare side effects. I went to university and I still struggle understanding the damn thing.

Low literacy is extremely common and people who are less literate often try very hard to hide that because that is something that our society acts very very shitty about. Add to that the fact that the drugs you take reveal what medical conditions you have, and a looooooot of people who can not read the leaflet will be afraid to ask anyone to explain the leaflet. 

There are a lot of other barriers that might stop people from reading the leaflet, from poor vision to trouble focusing on dense texts to panic attacks related to those extremely scary sounding but exceptionally rare side effects, etc. And in all cases, asking for help means admitting to a vulnerability AND sharing your medical data with someone.

“But it’s online in bigger letters here”, well, it doesn’t say so on the package. And ‘internet literacy’ isn’t universal either. And also, how good are any of us at reading and processing complex information when we’re SICK? I sure lose some of my wits and energy when my body is busy fighting off some serious illness.

Like I get for kids it’s the nt/healthy parent that reads it or as an adult you can ask the pharmacist but like, point is; in a lot of cases the leaflet is just bloody inaccessible.

What I care about is that Joe Biden is a piece of shit who promised $2,000 checks “out the door immediately” and still hasn’t delivered. What I care about is that there are still people in cages.

What I care about, is that so many of you are acting like the Bidens are a cute little celebrity family that we can be proud of, when Biden is a sexual predator who drops bombs on brown people overseas.

Huh.

“Don’t despair. You’re doing it just fine. You’re gonna do it. You’re gonna be late in your schedule, and you’re gonna think it’s impossible, and you’re gonna stay up all night working, several times, and then you’re gonna turn in your project at the last possible minute. And then you’re gonna do all that again, every time you have a project. It’s all right. It’s how we do it.”

And I just stared at him in shock. And that’s when I knew Design was not for me.

Then I went to Computer Science school, where I had to design software, and I found myself working nights to finish my projects, but I was ok with it, because I enjoyed working ten hours straight after a full day of math classes.

And I realized that was probably how my fellow Design students did it (the ones who didn’t drop out). They enjoyed the work enough that they were able to work absurd hours, to give up their lifeblood for the projects.

This culture runs so deep that there are professors in universities teaching it to their students. You’re trained to overwork yourself from a young age. Actually, if we’re honest, even underage students in schools are being trained to overwork themselves, staying up nights, studying 12 hours a day, often doing horrible homework that they hate.

And then we get these young people who are trained to find labour abuse absolutely normal, and who, maybe for the first time in their life, are being payed (!!) to work on a field they have chosen (!!) and maybe even enjoy (!!), and then their boss is like “you’re gonna have to deliver this in a week” and they’re like “sure, I’ll just work day and night every day, just like we did in class (and besides, if I refuse, I’ll be out of a job)”