Tag: ableism

How can we help people with disabilities? For example, autistic people who see the world differently.*

iamshadow21:

* This question was posted on another social media site. What follows is my answer.

1) Treat us as people, not as less. An adult or an older child being talked to in a baby voice is not on, regardless of how their disability presents. Talk to us at age appropriate level. If we’re interested in something, get excited about it with us, rather than telling us we’re boring. Sharing our interest is our way of trying to communicate. We love a thing. We’re opening up ourselves to you. It might not be how you’re used to doing a conversation, but it is meaningful communication, and it means we want to share that excitement with you. That’s a big deal. Recognise it.

2) Our diagnosis is none of your business, unless we feel comfortable talking to you about it. It’s really none of your business if we were diagnosed as a kid, an adult, self-diagnosed, or questioning. It’s none of your business if our autism has changed its presentation as we’ve aged. It’s really none of your business if you think you know what autism looks like, and we don’t match up with your preconceptions. And please, if we’re verbal, dressed appropriately, out in public and unattended, it’s not a compliment to tell us how well we’re doing. We’re just as autistic when we’re ‘passing’ as when we really aren’t. Passing for normal is not an achievement, it’s a monumental effort that most of us feel long term health effects from if we have to do it daily. Allowing natural autistic behaviours is something a lot of us have to relearn in adulthood to manage our anxiety. An adult flapping, pacing, tapping, or playing with a stim toy isn’t being babyish or playing at autism, they’re trying to take care of themselves. Don’t stare or tut or tell us we’re embarrassing you. (Telling us our Tangle is awesome and you want one is totally okay, though.)

3) Our sex life is none of your business, unless we’re in a sexual relationship with you. Just because we’re autistic doesn’t mean we can’t consent. That said, if there’s someone being weird and intimate with us when we’re a minor and they’re in a position of authority, make sure we’re okay. Compliance based therapies heavily used with autistic children (like ABA) make autistic children very vulnerable to sexual abuse, because they teach children to do things that are uncomfortable, painful or unnatural to them to please adults for rewards.

4) Make a conscious choice to be okay with difference, be it physical, intellectual, neurological, whatever. This might be harder than it sounds. Disability can come with mobility needs, sensory needs, dietary needs and routine based needs. It might require communication devices or sign language, or a picture-based communication system, even if to you, the person ‘seems’ verbal. It’s rare for an autistic person to have no difficulties with verbal communication, and if you’ve only ever seen them happy or relaxed, you might not know they need to use their phone to communicate when they’re upset or overwhelmed. Also, non verbal autistics might have a couple of words, scripted speech, or echolalic phrases they can use when conditions are right, even though they primarily use AAC or sign. Verbal ability isn’t a fixed thing. It fluctuates. Be patient if we’re struggling. It’s more frustrating for us than for you.

5) Everyone’s disability is unique. No two autistic people are the same. Likes, dislikes, sensitivities, strengths, difficulties. An autistic person might be sensory seeking, non verbal, highly intelligent, low anxiety, highly organised. They might be highly verbal, high anxiety, low executive function, mild intellectual disability, dyslexic, supertaster. They could have any combination of interests and personality traits, and come combined with a whole array of other disabilities. Don’t think because you know one autistic person, you know every autistic person. We’re individuals.

6) Listen to us, not to Autism Speaks or ‘autism moms’. Our experience is unique to us. It cannot be fully understood by a neurotypical bystander, regardless of how close that relationship is. Read books by autistic people (there are a lot). Donate to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network or Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. Don’t light it up blue, put puzzle pieces on your car, or spread anti-vax rhetoric (which is fake science and basically hinges on the fact that a lot of people would rather have dead kids than autistic ones). Watch documentaries produced by autistic people about their experiences. Check out neurowonderful’s Youtube series Ask An Autistic.

7) Don’t assume we’re straight. Don’t assume we’re cisgender. Don’t assume we don’t understand the complexities of our multifaceted identities. Gender and sexuality variance is present in autistic people, just as it is in neurotypical people. In fact, there’s actually evidence there is a higher proportion of transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer people in the autistic community than in the genpop. Our experience of sexuality and gender is also viewed through our lens of autistic experience, and there are terms created specifically by autistic people to encapsulate this (like gendervague).

8) Don’t assume we can’t have relationships, friendships, and families outside of our parents and siblings. Don’t assume we can’t be awesome parents. Don’t assume we can’t make informed choices about our bodies and procreation. Autistic people have been here as long as people have been here. I’m from a multigenerational family myself, with both male and female autistic people, stretching back at least five generations, anecdotally (further than that, highly probably, but we don’t have the information).

9) Don’t think we’d be better off dead. This is why adults and children are murdered by parents and caregivers every year without legal repercussions. Our lives have value. The next time you see a news article where a parent cries about killing their child, don’t rationalise that ‘it must be so hard’ to be taking care of us. That’s essentially saying we’re responsible for our own murder, and that it was justifiable homicide. MURDER IS MURDER. If you want to campaign for better respite and support in your area, GREAT, but don’t give parents who murder their children a free pass. Parenting is hard, but people have a choice, and we must stop allowing people who make the choice to kill to get away with murder. Whenever it happens, someone else, somewhere, thinks murder is an appropriate solution to the problem of a disabled person needing care in their life, and another irreplaceable, unique person dies.

10) We have the right to exist in public spaces. Yes, that autistic person having a meltdown might be disrupting your shopping and hurting your ears. I can guarantee their life is harder than yours right then. Have some compassion (not pity) and give them some space. We have the right to be in restaurants, in theatres, in libraries and in schools. If you think a person with a disability being in those spaces is going to have a negative effect on your children, maybe you should think about your parenting, rather than about segregation.

Hey it took less than twenty-four hours for me to get this as a reply. (This is only an excerpt. I didn’t include the link to the inspiration porn/curebie video he linked to, or him talking about his cousin’s four year old with Rett Syndrome.)

I totally agree with everything written to this thread (‘Iamshadow’, you are brilliant) but we must never forget the families, carers and supporters who, in many cases, put their lives on hold purely due to love.

What follows is my response.

I wasn’t suggesting forgetting the families and caregivers, I was saying that the voices of disabled people need to be amplified. If you go to a bookshop or a library, there are dozens of books by parents about their experiences with disabled children and family members. There are far fewer by disabled people themselves. This isn’t because the books aren’t being written, it’s because parental accounts get picked up by major publishing houses far more often than personal accounts do, and therefore, get much more exposure and larger print runs, and that’s wrong.

It should be possible for a disabled person to say ‘listen to me’ without nondisabled people around them chiming in to say ‘yes, but listen to us, too!’

Parents choose to put their lives on hold to parent every day. You don’t know, going in, if your child is going to be disabled (unless you choose to adopt an older, disabled child, as in the excellent parental account Reasonable People). Choosing to parent out of love shouldn’t be seen as this monumental thing if the child turns out to be disabled. You chose to parent. Why is love seen as a greater sacrifice when the kid has special needs? It’s ableism. As though loving us is naturally harder, because we’re different, because we take up more space in people’s lives.

How can you help us? Consciously question that. Question why there are books on the shelf about friendship aimed at autistic and other neurodiverse kids called things like It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend. What kind of weight are you putting on the disabled person when so much of what parents and caregivers focus on is the effort, the ‘extra’ love they require? Believe me, disabled people know. Nondisabled people never let us forget.

How can we help people with disabilities? For example, autistic people who see the world differently.*

* This question was posted on another social media site. What follows is my answer.

1) Treat us as people, not as less. An adult or an older child being talked to in a baby voice is not on, regardless of how their disability presents. Talk to us at age appropriate level. If we’re interested in something, get excited about it with us, rather than telling us we’re boring. Sharing our interest is our way of trying to communicate. We love a thing. We’re opening up ourselves to you. It might not be how you’re used to doing a conversation, but it is meaningful communication, and it means we want to share that excitement with you. That’s a big deal. Recognise it.

2) Our diagnosis is none of your business, unless we feel comfortable talking to you about it. It’s really none of your business if we were diagnosed as a kid, an adult, self-diagnosed, or questioning. It’s none of your business if our autism has changed its presentation as we’ve aged. It’s really none of your business if you think you know what autism looks like, and we don’t match up with your preconceptions. And please, if we’re verbal, dressed appropriately, out in public and unattended, it’s not a compliment to tell us how well we’re doing. We’re just as autistic when we’re ‘passing’ as when we really aren’t. Passing for normal is not an achievement, it’s a monumental effort that most of us feel long term health effects from if we have to do it daily. Allowing natural autistic behaviours is something a lot of us have to relearn in adulthood to manage our anxiety. An adult flapping, pacing, tapping, or playing with a stim toy isn’t being babyish or playing at autism, they’re trying to take care of themselves. Don’t stare or tut or tell us we’re embarrassing you. (Telling us our Tangle is awesome and you want one is totally okay, though.)

3) Our sex life is none of your business, unless we’re in a sexual relationship with you. Just because we’re autistic doesn’t mean we can’t consent. That said, if there’s someone being weird and intimate with us when we’re a minor and they’re in a position of authority, make sure we’re okay. Compliance based therapies heavily used with autistic children (like ABA) make autistic children very vulnerable to sexual abuse, because they teach children to do things that are uncomfortable, painful or unnatural to them to please adults for rewards.

4) Make a conscious choice to be okay with difference, be it physical, intellectual, neurological, whatever. This might be harder than it sounds. Disability can come with mobility needs, sensory needs, dietary needs and routine based needs. It might require communication devices or sign language, or a picture-based communication system, even if to you, the person ‘seems’ verbal. It’s rare for an autistic person to have no difficulties with verbal communication, and if you’ve only ever seen them happy or relaxed, you might not know they need to use their phone to communicate when they’re upset or overwhelmed. Also, non verbal autistics might have a couple of words, scripted speech, or echolalic phrases they can use when conditions are right, even though they primarily use AAC or sign. Verbal ability isn’t a fixed thing. It fluctuates. Be patient if we’re struggling. It’s more frustrating for us than for you.

5) Everyone’s disability is unique. No two autistic people are the same. Likes, dislikes, sensitivities, strengths, difficulties. An autistic person might be sensory seeking, non verbal, highly intelligent, low anxiety, highly organised. They might be highly verbal, high anxiety, low executive function, mild intellectual disability, dyslexic, supertaster. They could have any combination of interests and personality traits, and come combined with a whole array of other disabilities. Don’t think because you know one autistic person, you know every autistic person. We’re individuals.

6) Listen to us, not to Autism Speaks or ‘autism moms’. Our experience is unique to us. It cannot be fully understood by a neurotypical bystander, regardless of how close that relationship is. Read books by autistic people (there are a lot). Donate to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network or Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. Don’t light it up blue, put puzzle pieces on your car, or spread anti-vax rhetoric (which is fake science and basically hinges on the fact that a lot of people would rather have dead kids than autistic ones). Watch documentaries produced by autistic people about their experiences. Check out neurowonderful’s Youtube series Ask An Autistic.

7) Don’t assume we’re straight. Don’t assume we’re cisgender. Don’t assume we don’t understand the complexities of our multifaceted identities. Gender and sexuality variance is present in autistic people, just as it is in neurotypical people. In fact, there’s actually evidence there is a higher proportion of transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer people in the autistic community than in the genpop. Our experience of sexuality and gender is also viewed through our lens of autistic experience, and there are terms created specifically by autistic people to encapsulate this (like gendervague).

8) Don’t assume we can’t have relationships, friendships, and families outside of our parents and siblings. Don’t assume we can’t be awesome parents. Don’t assume we can’t make informed choices about our bodies and procreation. Autistic people have been here as long as people have been here. I’m from a multigenerational family myself, with both male and female autistic people, stretching back at least five generations, anecdotally (further than that, highly probably, but we don’t have the information).

9) Don’t think we’d be better off dead. This is why adults and children are murdered by parents and caregivers every year without legal repercussions. Our lives have value. The next time you see a news article where a parent cries about killing their child, don’t rationalise that ‘it must be so hard’ to be taking care of us. That’s essentially saying we’re responsible for our own murder, and that it was justifiable homicide. MURDER IS MURDER. If you want to campaign for better respite and support in your area, GREAT, but don’t give parents who murder their children a free pass. Parenting is hard, but people have a choice, and we must stop allowing people who make the choice to kill to get away with murder. Whenever it happens, someone else, somewhere, thinks murder is an appropriate solution to the problem of a disabled person needing care in their life, and another irreplaceable, unique person dies.

10) We have the right to exist in public spaces. Yes, that autistic person having a meltdown might be disrupting your shopping and hurting your ears. I can guarantee their life is harder than yours right then. Have some compassion (not pity) and give them some space. We have the right to be in restaurants, in theatres, in libraries and in schools. If you think a person with a disability being in those spaces is going to have a negative effect on your children, maybe you should think about your parenting, rather than about segregation.

fangirlinginleatherboots:

symmetras-microwave:

fangirlinginleatherboots:

some things that horror movie culture has taught you are scary…. are just ableist

….clarify?

okay sure. psychosis? scarier to have than to know someone who has it. DID? im more a threat to myself than people around me. wheelchairs and psych meds? are tools that help people live more functional and flexible lives and are not judgments of the persons character and for sure are not scary things. and for real, intellectually disabled people are not threats, but movies love to make them villains because they act different and understand the world differently. and people with notable physical differences? people who’s bodies look different? people with scars, growths, amputations, etc? are literally just people. and seeing themselves painted like monsters on the big screen is absolutely sickening and damaging to how society will see them.

its not only bad writing but its extremely harmful to people who actually live with conditions that are misrepresented in media. when i found out i had DID, my mom freaked out because her only point of reference was Sybil. when i was younger and first went on psych meds, i thought it meant i was set on a track to be a bad person, because in so many movies and video games you find out the bad guy has medication in his bed side table for some sort of psych disorder. the worst thing a hallucination has ever made me do was wake my mom up at 3 AM to check my bathroom to see if the bugs i saw everywhere were real and the worst thing an “episode” of any sort has made me do is hurt myself. my ptsd doesnt make me kill people, my alters dont kidnap people, my autism doesnt make me so morally unaware that ill murder for senselessly, my ocd doesnt make me hurt people etc etc etc

literally the only “horror” is the ableism. and the only way you can write good horror about disability and mental illness is if the focus is on how society and the medical field treat us rather than focusing on how we are apparently so scary, threatening, and bad.

Well, that went… badly

I got a free-to-review queer ebook, set in a summer camp for disabled kids. (The MC and LI were staff, not kids.)

I had to nope-out by halfway, after pervasive, persistent ableism.

(Oh, and one reference to the Gestapo, when the parents were seeing their disabled kids off. I guess the author doesn’t know – or doesn’t care – that the Nazis used disabled kids as their test subjects for the Final Solution. Thousands of them.)

Please, writers. Disabled and neurodivergent people don’t need you to labour every other page how much of an inconvenience we are, how ‘quirky’ our mannerisms are, how emotionally exhausting we are, how disgusting our bodily functions, how annoying our routines and dietary and sensory needs are. How we’re sucking the life from our families like vampires.

You never have to tell us. You never let us forget.

(No, I’m not going to name-drop the author or the book. I just need to vent.)

EDIT: I will add that this wasn’t just a ‘ugh, won’t read any more’ situation. This book gave me a severe anxiety spiral requiring a long hot bath with a Lush bath bomb, a valium, and I’ve been sitting here rocking most of the day, something I generally only do when my anxiety is most severe. I very, very rarely leave a book unfinished, but this was a ‘for my own safety’ situation. Ableism is toxic, y’all. Get a sensitivity reader. Not a professional, not a family member, but an actual disabled person who feels comfortable enough to call out your bullshit.

EDIT 2: The author contacted me and was really respectful and thankful for my review, so, guys, THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT when a marginalised person has genuine concrit of your thing, when you have asked for an-honest-review-for-free-book. Even if you don’t 100% agree with the reviewer, it costs you nothing to respect the feedback and the position of the reviewer as an expert in their own experience.

Unlearning How White People Ask Personal Questions

elodieunderglass:

jabberwockypie:

beautytruthandstrangeness:

casual-isms:

http://www.samefacts.com/2014/05/culture-and-civil-society/unlearning-how-white-people-ask-personal-questions/

Holy shit. I have ALWAYS thought the people around me were being unconscionably intrusive and power-playing in their starter conversations and they told me I was antisocial and oblivious to culture norms. Turns out, maybe I’m just from a different culture.

Huh.  This is really interesting.

I’m disabled, and it’s really uncomfortable to field that question about work in a social setting. (”Why no, random person at the yarn store, I don’t want to tell you about that, or about the nature of my disability”.)

I like his
“So how do you spend your time?”

question better.

A formative experience in my early twenties was when I was in a mixed group of people and we were instructed to pair off and get to know each other. My partner and I looked at each other glumly. I was a young white girl who had arrived from another country and was painfully lost and alone. He was a magisterial black British man in his forties with a greying beard and interesting clothing. He looked at me with the expression of a socially awkward introvert being asked to do a group exercise, so I tried to Hlep.

“So um what do you do,” I started, and then I saw this most complicated and weary and sad expression on his face and just yelped “WAIT no I’m sorry I’m SO sorry I didn’t actually want to ask that! I meant! AH! What do you love!!!”

“Ugh,” he said. “Well, I really love pottery.”

“I ALSO LOVE POTTERY,” I yelped like a Hleping chat-robot.

“I am assisting my disabled elderly father in his dying process, and I am not currently employed,” he said.

“I have just immigrated and I am not currently employed,” I said, gratefully. “What kind of pottery do you like.”

“The kind that is rough on one side and shiny on the other,” he said.

“ME TOO,” i said.

The leader came over, “how are you getting on?”

And we both barked, in the identical tones of introverts being asked how they are getting on, “WE LIKE POTTERY.

We took two pottery classes together, made some rough/shiny objects and never spoke again.because he did not believe in the internet, and at the time I did not believe in phones.

But I think about him, and that exchange, all the time. I didn’t even want to know what he “did.” I just felt like it was what adults say. And if I hadn’t recovered the question I wouldn’t have known Hermes and made a bunch of really fucked up pots with him

See, I know I ask the wrong questions at times, and I know some of that is due to WhitenessTM, but some of it is because I’m an Autistic person trying hard to Do Conversation by trying to remember what neurotypical people talk about and HOW they talk about it, which is heavily informed by media, because how else do you learn anything? Basically I’m nearly 37 and I know I fuck up about 60% of the time but I’m trying to be a person and not be racist and ableist. And I’ll never stop trying, because social interactions do not come with a script, so every new conversation with a friend or an acquaintance or a person at a store is like stepping into deep water and trying to remember how my limbs work so I don’t drown. I apologise in advance if my flailing injures you; it’s a constant battle, but I’m never going to NOT try to do better.

Cripple Punk Gothic

interlude-holiday:

  • “You are too young to be disabled,” they say. You age. “You are too young to be disabled,” they say. You age. “You are too young to be disabled,” they say. You have changed. They have not.
  • You see a flight of stairs. Your friend insists there are only a few. You don’t see an end. You are tired. There are too many stairs. You don’t see an end.
  • The door has an accessible entrance sticker. It is not accessible. You tell them so. They insist it is. You try to explain. They point to the sticker wordlessly.
  • You tell people there is no cute for your disability. They whisper. Soon everyone is whispering. You do not know what they are saying but you hear the word ‘yoga’.
  • You need an ice pack. You get one. You immediately need another. This has been happening all day. Or was it all year? You try to remember and you cannot think of a time you did not need an ice pack.
  • You stand up from your wheelchair. People gasp. Your disability has magically disappeared. You sit back down. Your disability returns.
  • You never notice people using canes. You get a cane. Suddenly you notice them. They’re everywhere. The number of canes grows. You chalk it up to your imagination, but you wonder if it really is growing. Soon, everyone will use canes.
  • You do not see yourself in magazines. You do not see yourself in movies. You do not see yourself on tv. You do not see yourself in books. You start to fear that you do not exist.
  • A person asks you what your disability is. “I don’t know,” you whisper, “no one knows.” They stare at you confused. You have never known.
  • You sleep. You are more tired. You don’t sleep. You are more tired. You go out. You are more tired. You stay in. You are more tired. The moon waxes. You are more tired. The moon wanes. You are more tired. You think about whether these things are related. You are more tired.

[disclaimer: you don’t have to identify with all of these in order to reblog (in fact I don’t expect most people will) but please do identify with the cripple punk movement as a whole! or if you’re reblogging for a friend tag that you are and you’re able bodied. Also please tag for unreality and depersonalization if you can! Feel free to add on]

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

did-you-kno:

If you’re trying to figure out whether
someone has a fake smile, look at their
eyes. When you have a genuine smile,
the corners of your mouth upturn, your
cheeks raise, and the skin around your
eyes crinkles. Known as the ‘Duchenne
smile’, it happens involuntarily when
you’re truly happy about something- so
a smile without eye crinkles is a good
indicator that someone was forcing it. Source Source 2 Source 3

ahahah oh boy science no.

i learned to fake that part of the smile when i was fuckin 14 and miserable, if i smile you ain’t knowin it’s fake unless i want you to.

Also, the info in the original post is super fucking ableist against people who have different expressions for whatever reasons. Autistic people, blind people, people with muscle or movement disorders or paralysis that affects the muscles of the face, etc., often have different patterns of expression. For example, autistic people often have smiles that look ‘fake’ to neurotypical people. It’s not that we’re not happy or genuine. Right now, my five year old nephew (moderate to severely deaf, probably autistic too) smiles with only one half of his face. The other eye and half of his mouth he screws up tightly like he’s wincing. That’s just how he smiles. Sure, there are times he expresses with his whole face like a quote normal person unquote, but nine times out of ten, it’s his quirky, atypical smile/grimace. And that’s fine. He’s a happy neurodiverse kid.

Also, tangentially, fuck all that noise about ‘eye contact means you’re not lying’. No, eye contact means nothing. There are a hundred different neurobiological, social and cultural reasons why people don’t do it. Body language and facial expressions can only tell you a small part of the story when you don’t know the person and their background. Just stop judging based on science invented by sadists who liked torturing homeless people in the name of ‘research’. (Google Duchenne, I’m not exaggerating.)

Who’s Disabled?

autisticwomen:

disabilitythinking:

People sometimes ask, “Is it okay for me to say I’m disabled?” What do they mean? A variety of things, I think:

• They have some condition that’s in the ballpark of disability, but they have struggled personally over whether they themselves want to identify as disabled.

• They view themselves as disabled in some way, but worry that other disabled people won’t accept that, or that they will be accused of “appropriating” disability identity and culture.

• They think that if they refer to themselves as “disabled”, their friends and families will be sad or disapprove, or worse … believe they are faking in order to gain some kind of advantage or benefit.

• They are focused on one of the more narrow, specific definitions of “disabled,” such as qualifying for Social Security Disability, being entitled to a “handicapped parking” permit, or being covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

• They take the word “disabled” very literally, to mean unable to do anything. From this point of view it can seem both inaccurate, (everybody can do SOMETHING), and discouraging … as if calling yourself disabled is not only descriptive, but predictive.

I’ve thought about it a lot, and here is the definition of disability that makes the most sense to me. It’s a personal definition, not a legal or bureaucratic one:

If you have a physical or mental condition that you have to think about and plan around every day, then you are disabled.

This definition encompasses any physical, mental, cognitive, and sensory impairments. I personally don’t include temporary impairments, impairments that are seamlessly adapted, (like glasses for nearsightedness), or ordinary variations in personality, talent, and physical makeup.

Any thoughts?

What do folks think?

thequeerwithoutfear:

raisel-the-riveter:

I’m watching a livestream of President [Obama]’s ADA address in which he remembers his father-in-law, who had MS, and wonders what more he would have been able to achieve and experience in his life if he had

-been able to use a powerchair sooner

-not been hesitant to go places and do things due to his fear of getting in people’s way by being slow, or burdening his family members in certain situations

this is one of those nuances that nondisabled people, even if they broadly say all the right things, almost never get? Like, President Obama was reminiscing about how his father-in-law always went to events early so he could take his seat before everyone else came in, to avoid getting in their way – but he wasn’t saying this to like, show that as an example of how everyone should think/act about their disability – he was saying, this is a thought pattern that ultimately needlessly limited the life of a wonderful man. Essentially he was saying that ableism, internal and external, makes people’s lives smaller, and being accommodated makes people’s lives bigger, owning their disabilities and having pride makes people’s lives bigger.

so many people just say “look at the heroic lengths this person went to in order to get around the barriers imposed on them as a person with a disability. that is so inspirational.” and I was worried that’s where this speech was going but no, the message was “look at the lengths this person went to in order to get around these barriers. he never should have had to do that. Let’s make a world that doesn’t do this to people.”