“listen… harry’s in trouble, and we could tell mum and dad, but I reckon we should just steal the flying car and go kidnap him in his muggle neighborhood, even though I’m 12 and you’re both 14 and this is a crime and the three of us cant drive”
“excellent”
This is bullshit.
Nobody in Harry’s life – no ADULT – ever did anything about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. Nobody did anything when they were told he was being starved, that there were bars on the windows, that they. Albus Fucking Dumbledore didn’t do anything about it.
Nobody in canon, or JKR herself in interviews or on Pottermore, even uses the word “abuse”. It’s all about how “the Durlseys treated him badly”. Nobody says abuse.
What Ron, Fred, and George did was nothing short of heroic. That they needed to do it is an indictment of every adult in Harry’s life, magical and non-magical alike.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower Need some back-up here because I’m hitting that point of “I want to set something on fire.”
I thought you did a pretty good job, actually. Even when adults are told about the conditions Harry was found in (literally IMPRISONED: remember, folks, the Dursleys were not going to let him go back to Hogwarts in book 2) nobody does anything. Nobody acts on the fact that a family literally imprisoned a child.
Someone I used to follow on LJ/DW was literally imprisoned by their parent. Nobody ever did anything. No one would believe them when they told other adults. No one wanted to believe it.
This shit happens and adults do nothing because it might interfere with their worldview that everything is just fuckin’ peachy…or someone in *power* that they respect/fear has told them not to interfere for the good of some cause/reason or another. That is one of the most terrifyingly realistic aspects of JKR’s books, but it’s glossed over by everyone who doesn’t believe that could ever possibly happen in real life.
And hey: there is more than one way to imprison someone.
(Aside from the fact that my mother locked the door and literally stood in front of it in an attempt to keep me from leaving the house once. Afterwards she pretended it had never happened.)
JK is actually on record (a radio interview, I think, but don’t quote me) as saying she doesn’t think the way Harry was treated by the Dursley’s was abuse.
That was the moment I lost all respect for her.
I do not care that she donated millions to charity, I care that she clearly thinks starvation and swinging a frying pan at a child’s head is an okay thing to do. That it’s okay to put bars on a child’s window to keep them in, and bolts the door shut.
@jabberwockypie Now I feel like setting something on fire too. *passes the chocolate and marshmallows*
Just … *SCREAMING* So. Much. Screaming and FIRE.
See, when I learn things like this, I also become somewhat Concerned about the person’s children. (Jude Watson has a daughter and considering the Jedi Apprentice stuff, I’m ALSO worried there.)
Do I think JKR would lock her kids in their rooms with bars on the window? Probably not, but if you’re not willing to admit that withholding food and is abuse, if you’re not willing to address emotional abuse and gaslighting AT ALL, trying to make a child hate themselves (like with what the Dursleys do with magic). I’m extremely concerned about what you think appropriate parenting looks like.
Frankly I also think it’s extremely irresponsible when your intended audience consists of children and teenagers. At some point somebody needs to say “This thing that happened to this character was wrong”. Because children who are being abused? we don’t KNOW. Or we don’t necessarily process it that way. It’s “not that bad” or it’s “It’s not like they’re beating me.” and every time it gets worse (the time my mother gave me a black eye), you move the goalposts of Not That Bad “It’s not like it’s ALL THE TIME”.
Tag: child abuse
What most people think causes homelessness:
- Poor money management
What actually causes homelessness:
- transphobia
- a racist criminal justice system
- the ‘war on drugs’
- health care and insurance costs
- the current federal minimum wage
- bankers being dicks
- no federal law protecting paid parental leave
- etc…
• mental illness stigma + lack of resources
– Real Estate becoming more and more inclined towards rich people quickly buying-and-selling (aka shadow flipping) houses in order to make exorbitant amounts of money and creating situations where empty houses are rampant in cities where homelessness is at record highs
– Landlords being bullies
Someone has to say it – DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
Both spousal abuse and child abuse lead to homelessness. A large percentage of women and juveniles sleeping rough came from violent homes. And by violent, I mean all forms of violence – physical, sexual and emotional brutality.
before you ever even consider having a child you should be ready to handle a disabled child, you should be ready to handle twins, you should be ready to handle a gay child or a trans child
because if you’re not ready for your child to be anything other than one straight, cis, able bodied and able minded child, you’re going to end up neglecting and abusing somebody for years to come
and even if your child is all that, you might have a feminine boy or a masculine girl on your hands. so be fucking ready for your child to be a human being and not YOUR PRODUCT or PROPERTY or CREATION
fucking sort your shit out, i am so tired of shitty parental sob stories about how “hard” it is to “raise” (read: beat the divergency out of) an autistic child or whatever. do you know what’s harder? being the divergent child of parents who you’ve already let down by virtue of existing in a way they didn’t ask for. putting up with years of neglect and abuse because you’re just not good enough for them, you weren’t what they were planning for or expecting.
Parents: Don’t Hide Your Children’s Autism Diagnoses From Them
“You may think that an autistic child won’t notice they are different than their non-autistic peers… I have not met one autistic person (myself included) who hasn’t noticed their difference early in life. For me, noticing came through being bullied at school and at home. And since I didn’t know I was autistic, I just assumed there was something wrong with me and that I deserved what I got. I learned that intrinsically, I was less than a person…
When you learn that you are less than a person, being abused becomes normalized and expected. When I was six years old, I had a meltdown in a music class due to sensory overload. The teacher’s response was to lock me in a closet for the duration of the class. It was dark. I was terrified. It was normal. I deserved it. I can only hope those aren’t the type of thoughts you want your child to have.”
Parents: Don’t Hide Your Children’s Autism Diagnoses From Them
You may think that an autistic child won’t notice they are different than their non-autistic peers… I have not met one autistic person (myself included) who hasn’t noticed their difference early in life. For me, noticing came through being bullied at school and at home. And since I didn’t know I was autistic, I just assumed there was something wrong with me and that I deserved what I got. I learned that intrinsically, I was less than a person…
When you learn that you are less than a person, being abused becomes normalized and expected. When I was six years old, I had a meltdown in a music class due to sensory overload. The teacher’s response was to lock me in a closet for the duration of the class. It was dark. I was terrified. It was normal. I deserved it. I can only hope those aren’t the type of thoughts you want your child to have.
Reid Knight, “Parents: Don’t Hide Your Children’s Autism Diagnoses From Them,” at TPGA (via myautisticpov)
Coming out again and again (and again) but always for the first time
Today I faced up to the email that’s been sitting in my inbox for over a week, from one of my oldest and dearest friends, my first ever internet friend, my found family brother. I’d mentioned in a previous email that I was in autistic burnout, and in reply, in the nicest possible way, he asked, ‘so, this autism thing, what’s that all about? whenever if ever you’re ready to talk about it, ilu whatever, you know that’.
And I come out to people all the time, about my autism, about my queerness, about the abuse when I was a kid, whatever. But this was hard, because I wanted to write it right, and sequencing my thoughts is really difficult for me when I’m trying to lay out something as complex as my neurotype and its effect on my life.
He’s asking because he wants to understand, and that’s wonderful, but at the same time, terrifying because unlike some random whose opinion doesn’t matter, his opinion does.
As with my queerness, it’s never a case of you come out once, and that’s it. Every day you come out again to someone you’ve just met, to a friend, to a health worker, to a family member. And every time, you’re coming out for the first time. It never gets easy. It gets familiar, but never easy, because each time you do, it’s a risk.
Will this person be receptive? Will they reject what I’m saying? Will they try to cure me with suggestions of diet, yoga or meditation? Will they tell me I’m not as disabled as a ‘real’ autistic person they know? Will they ask me if I’ve found god? Will they ask if I’ve tried sex with men? Will they ask about my functioning label, my meltdowns, my stimming or my verbal fluency, or what those things were like when I was a child? Will they think it’s all a bid for attention?
While some questions are specific to my neurotype or my sexuality or the abuse, there’s a striking similarity to many of them, particularly when they come from near strangers. It’s curiosity, yes, but there’s a need to categorise, to feel out my edges and lines and push me into a box they recognise. It’s a hard thing to be on the receiving end of, but it’s also very human. As a person being questioned, you’re torn between being polite and enstating hard boundaries. As a person questioning, you’re often just trying to understand. That doesn’t mean questioning is benign. It can be intrusive, toxic and hostile. It can involve damning snap judgements that can leave the victim reeling for days, ‘helpful’ suggestions that can crush fragile self esteem. People don’t always have the best intentions, and even those who do, often don’t understand that their ‘help’ is unwelcome or harmful.
The point I’m trying to make is that coming out is HARD. Whether you’re talking to people (as I do) about neurodiversity or sexuality or abuse, or talking about race, religion, political activism, gender… whatever you’re taking the big step to talk about with another human, either in brickspace or on the internet or the phone, it’s one of the hardest things you’ll do over and over for the rest of your life. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. That doesn’t mean you’ll get it right every time, or that it’ll be received well, or that you won’t regret opening your mouth sometimes. That’s how life is. But the fact that you take that step with someone… that’s huge. And you should be proud of yourself for that.
(Reblogs are fine. Go for it.)
Please Don’t Support Groupon
Trigger warning for mention of molestation/sexual assault
I’m going to say this upfront – this post is going to get really personal but reblogs are welcome, as are comments.
Anyway. My adopted dad was at one point a portrait photographer and ages ago he ran a Groupon. He’s not a photographer anymore because he molested both my sister and I. Three or so years ago I finally found the courage to tell my mom what happened and she kicked him out. There were criminal proceedings and he ended up being charged with a felony for child molestation and a misdemeanor (communication with a minor for amoral purposes). I’m not going to bog you down with all the other repercussions of his actions. All of the court proceedings and charges are public record so anyone could access them if they wanted to.
Less than a month ago, when a friend was looking for someone to do professional head shots, Groupon ran an ad (on their mobile app) asking if she was interested in my Dad’s photography business. The ad stated that if enough people responded, they would contact him for a new Groupon offer. The ad had our family’s home address attached (where he no longer lives).
While shocking, the ad in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem if Groupon had been willing to remove it. However, they have shown (via an exchange of multiple emails) that this issue is not very high priority. The emails have been mostly automated and when we finally got a hold of a person they basically told us to do research to find the contact information for another Groupon employee instead of giving us the information of the appropriate person. Please, please, please don’t support this company.
tl;dr Groupon ran an add for an for a person convicted with a felony for child molestation (who is a registered sex offender) that published the home address of his victims. They have been uncooperative about removing the ad. Please, don’t support them.
knitting in the dark 