The Two Percent Mindset

This is so nice! And this is actually a place in Costa Rica. A couple decided to start a refuge for stray dogs and now own around 700-900 doggies. It’s not state supported. They live on donations. Most are never adopted but live a happy life until their last day. Each of them have a house, bed or a couch to sleep in and have acres and acres of land to explore everyday.

A vast majority of Japanese people actually enjoy other people making an effort to spread and enjoy japanese culture, and encourage it. Many make businesses in deliberately taking pictures of people in kimono. A common omiage (gift) for foreigners from japanese people is traditional japanese things such as kimonos, tea seats, shisa dog statues, ect.

And to top it off, basically 80 percent of japanese customs, traditions, and food, came from other countries. Japanese is an integration of different cultures, like america. Japan takes influences from places like korea, china, russia, and europe. If japan stuck to itself, there would be no tempura, japanese tea, tea ceremonies, kabuki, japanese bread, japanese curry, j- pop, anime, cars, or modern fishing techniques. The picture is not “yellow face” they are not making fun of asians. In fact, it looks like they put extra care and research into their work.

“So, one thing that I’ve noticed when I make videos that aren’t explicitly disability-related is that I get a lot of comments that are like “Why is she talking like that? Her voice is so annoying!” and also the weirdest one is people accusing me of faking my voice, which is really bizarre to me because if I were going to fake a voice it would definitely be someone like Halsey or Emma Stone or literally anyone with an ‘attractive voice’.

The reason that I talk like this is because I have cerebral palsy, and I was born with it, blah blah blah. Here we go, don’t send me anon.

The reason why is because I have spasticity and muscle tension as well as reduced lung capacity as a result of my cerebral palsy. So that’s why I speak as if I’m breathing heavily or sometimes I stutter and I have to have a lot of awkward chops in my videos because I need to pause to catch my breath. Like right now.

Growing up I was actually really self-conscious of my voice because I believed that people used it as justification to infantilize me or make fun of me or not take me seriously. 

But what it took me way too long to realize is, it’s just a voice. It’s not good or bad. And my voice doesn’t impact the content of my message in any way whatsoever. Also, I’m really smart and I’m fucking hilarious. And believe it or not, I shockingly have a variety of fully formed opinions on things that have nothing to do with disability, that I would actually like to talk about from time to time.

I used to use my voice as an excuse to silence myself. Now I realise that it’s all the more reason to speak.

And to any disabled or neurodivergent kids or teens out there: please, please, please, the worst thing you could do is to convince yourself that your opinion only matters if an able-bodied or able person thinks it’s worth listening to. God knows we’re all going to be turned into coal and deep in the ground before that happens.

I repost this every time it comes up on my dash. Because I need this reminder several times a day. (via amandaq62)

^ same