#inquisitivespirit

I was saying more about context as I'm not black so can't speak from that perspective, I just do know it is a thing from what I've heard some black people say and felt like I should bring it to your attention

Well thank you for your input! I’m glad to be educated :)

one day I will help out with money (in a few years when I actually have a job) but until then I'll just reblog this (though I think most of my followers are also poor...)

“Daily Affirmation 1055.”

an important thing to note is that NB means non-black and that meaning was in use before the nonbinary community started using it to mean something else

(Apologies if you got a notification about this and then couldn’t find the post; I had posted too early by accident!)

Hi! Thanks for writing to us about this. I’ve done some cursory research on this and what I’ve found is a 1 blog post (from a white person), 1 twitter thread (from a Black person), 2 informational articles that explain why we should use “enby” instead but give no further history, and 1 tumblr post which gives a more nuanced opinion.

Tumblr searches for “nb” bring up only nonbinary-related subjects. Searches for “nbpoc” (which could mean nonbinary people of color OR non-Black people of color) bring up almost exclusively pictures of and posts about nonbinary people of color, with one post about non-Black people of color. Searches for “nonblack” bring up lots of Black people criticizing non-Black people for their anti-Blackness, but little to no use of “nb”. Searches for “nonbinary” bring up lots and lots of uses of “nb”.

The use of “nb” to mean “nonbinary” is so widespread in the nonbinary community that I am inclined to think this either isn’t a big deal or is something that very few people are aware of.

Since ”nb” is an acronym that can and does mean many things (for example, in choir I use it to signify “no breath”; it’s also a shortening of the Latin phrase “nota bene” which has an academic meaning) I (Mod A) am - personally - a bit hesitant to rule out its use entirely for anything other than Non-Black. Though I recognize that my opinion as a white person doesn’t mean much, this is something that affects me as a nonbinary person and as the person who runs this blog.

To me...it looks like yeah, you’re right, “nb” does have more than one meaning. But its origins aside, its use as “nonbinary” is much more common than “non-Black”. Some folks may hate that, and that’s completely valid, but I think that the linguistic trend here is heading in the direction of “nb” being best understood as “nonbinary”. Like it or hate it, that’s the reality. When the overwhelming majority of people using “nb” to mean “nonbinary”, it becomes obfuscating to not acknowledge that meaning - especially when alternatives are to type out the whole word (we shortened it to “nb” for ease, in the first place) or to use divisive terms like “enby”.

I don’t see why we can’t both use it? The context of that one post I found in the #nbpoc tag about non-Black people of color made it very clear that was what the acronym meant. And when you’re blogging about trans and nonbinary things, the context is clear there, too.

Looking back at your reply after writing all this, I am not sure if you want us to stop using “nb” to mean nonbinary or if you’re giving us cultural/linguistic context. I definitely think context is important! Acknowledging the dual meaning of a word/acronym is important, especially when social justice is concerned. If that is what you meant, thank you for bringing this to our attention, and if you meant that we should stop using “nb” to mean “nonbinary”, we are certainly open to further discussion.

TL;DR: I’m going to ahead and agree with @nonbinaryresource ‘s POST on this topic for now - that is, that “nb” means both and context will suffice for distinguishing - but if we have any Black followers who would like to weigh in on this, please do not hesitate! I think this is simply a case of two groups in social justice spaces coming to use the same intuitive acronym which means different things in different contexts, not one of cultural appropriation, but we welcome any further input on the subject!

:( i feel you, i’m catholic and queer and have a catholic community and some of the people i’ve met really suck (which i’ve found out from their likes on facebook) so it’s kinda like ‘gonna avoid you…’ and yeah, i of course haven’t told anyone i’m queer because too risky

PHYSICS :D :D :D :D but yeah, physics is hard, i get that

@inquisitivespirit

I mean most of the time i really like physics, but when I’m writing notes from the textbook trying to memorize the process of something because I don’t 100% understand it, its exhausting. 

That and the fact that the HSC physics syllabus, especially this topic, is not very inspiring. Well the bit I’m up to is about how planck and Einstein first came up with the idea of quantum physics is interesting but its explained in a boring way and we went over this in class months ago and I’m only just writing the note so a) i find it boring cos i know most of it and am just looking for bits i don’t know which are the specific formulas and terminology and that stuff and b) i feel guiltily because I should have done this ages ago but i didn’t so now I have to do it while I’m meant to be studying 

My first language is technically Polish, though I was born and grew up in Australia so my English is way better. I'd actually be quite happy to see Polish in a story as long as it's not something contributing to a harmful stereotype.

Ooooh cool!!!