Shadowdancer

When I moved, I’m certain they understood I was leaving because I had all my stuff and gave them lots of food and compliments.

But, they chased down my friend who lived in the next burrough over. They had recognised that friend with me several times and followed them to their house when they couldn’t find me.

They adopted my friend and it was now my friend’s job to bring them snacks and receive the presents.

This was maybe 6-7 years ago.

I visited London last year. Went to see my friend. The crows all not only recognised me, they tracked me down. We got into my friend’s flat and not twenty minutes later there was chaos on the balcony.

We open the curtains, the entire fucking murder is there shouting because they wanted to see me.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Supporters of India's youth-led Cockroach movement said Tuesday they will continue their protest in New Delhi, refusing to leave their sit-in site a day after police used tear gas and batons to disperse thousands of them as they tried to march toward Parliament. Hundreds of protesters camped at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, under heavy police presence, saying they would stay until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns over alleged failures in India's examination system. "We are going to continue our protest," said Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, which emerged just two months ago. The movement, drawing students, professionals and families, marks a rare public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's government in its third term, reviving criticism over its handling of dissent and its use of force to respond to protests. [...] Sona Bisht, a 20-year-old student who was part of the protest, said the confrontation strengthened her resolve. "If the government thinks that doing this with Gen Z, they can stop us, then that won't happen. We are here talking about education, talking about securing our future. And till the time our demands are not met, we will not move from here," she said.

"Definitions developed thus far about youth, like the Gen Z narrative, have largely been linked to roles attributed by the dominant system. The rulers have invented a whole range of terms — rebellious, irresponsible, apolitical, extremist, consumerist — not to understand youth, but to neutralize it. They know as well as we do that whoever wins over the youth wins over society. [...] Thus the question is not whether youth is powerful, but in whose interest this power is directed. Today’s uprisings — such as those in Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, and beyond — demonstrate that youth continues to emerge as a decisive actor. Young women like Deniz Ciya have proven this with their lives. These uprisings are not expressions of generational temperament. These „Gen Z uprisings“ are expressions of a social force confronting structural crisis inherent in the current system. [...] Recent youth uprisings — whether in the form of environmental justice protests, labor movements, or uprisings against authoritarian governments — are proof that youth worldwide are not only responding to a set of circumstances; they are consciously and collectively rejecting the narratives that seek to define them. Thus, it is crucial to analyze what transpired, and draw lessons from these uprisings, particularly in the context of building a global youth democratic confederalism. For the power of youth movements is interconnected, despite being geographically distant." — "Beyond "Gen Z": Defending Revolutionary Youth Spirit" by Lêgerîn

i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience

I travel to 17 different elementary schools with an after-school program. I have consistently seen horrible mistreatment of autistic children, Black children, visibly queer children, ANY kind of children.

Black boys especially are labeled at troublemakers from the get go, and are treated vastly differently. I will never forget going to one particular school for the first time, and gaining rapport with a young Black boy. He was a joy! Playful and ornery, but well-behaved. I later learned that his teachers "had" to walk him down the hallway to "keep him in line". He is in third grade, showed me NONE of these "behaviors" outside of just being playful. Black boys are punished and treated like shit for things white kids get away with all the time. Hell, I WAS the white kid who got away with everything. I watched Black classmates get suspended for being half the nightmare I was.

I've seen first-hand a "low-functioning" 6 year old boy (autism, ADHD, and cerebral palsy) be treated like shit for stimming. Yelled at, written up, everything. This was the base I started at before my promotion--Our director told him to sit in the corner on his iPad for the whole 4 hours we had him. I had this same "troublemaker" over the summer program. Away from his usual director, I encouraged him to stim and sing and run around, no iPad allowed. I got him headphones and took him out in the hallway to give him the extra care he needed, and he was infinitely better "behaved". He shined so bright that summer, made friends, and was the happiest I'd ever seen him. I ache to think that he's back at my original base. The following school year, I was promoted to a traveling position, so I seldom get to see him. But he, too, is a prime example of children thriving regardless of the labels placed on them.

At this original base, we had one young Black boy who was ALSO labeled a trouble maker, had some ODD tendencies and did show some of the bad behavior. He was so, SO smart. Too smart for his own good to be in fifth grade, which is why I acted up, too. When he got in trouble, he refused to go to time out when anyone but me would try. My coworkers would yell and command him, pushing him further into the "trouble maker" label. Instead of yelling at him, I would sit down with him, explain why what he did was wrong and that he needed to sit down for a minute. I talked to him like a person and not a problem, and he was infinitely better behaved. This boy would make me bracelets, joke with me, be my little buddy. He hated all the other teachers because they treated him like a problem that couldn't be solved. I treated him like a little brother. I became friends with his older sister (who volunteered with us) and saw him and his sister get baptized. I'm happy to say I still see them from time to time, and that this boy is doing well in middle school.

All this to say--adults should know better. Parents and teachers alike need to really examine how to treat and label kids. If a kid has behaviors, there's a reason for it, and not always a reason they can fix. Adults want to bring the hammer down on trouble makers, and only pushes them further away from growing and reaching their full potential. All children are people; All people need to be treated with respect AND according to their needs.

If you were a young Black person who was treated like shit at school over your race, you didn't deserve that.

If you were a young neurodiverse person who was treated like shit over being neurodiverse, you didn't deserve that.

If you were ANY kind of child who was treated like shit for ANY reason--you didn't deserve that.

Dolphins doing cartwheels with an aquarium guest.

This incredible image of the Earth rise was taken during lunar orbit by the Apollo 11 mission crew in July of 1969.