I hear the words “bichon frise” and my brain spends an uncountably long moment frantically overturning every memory I have, desperately trying to remember what foreign luxury car brand I have to pretend to care about in order for this conversation to go favorably. After my every mote of knowledge about cars has been thoroughly ransacked and I am on the verge of failing this social interaction, a smudged sticky note flutters into view that simply says “small white dog.”
Instead of “live laugh love” or “home is where the heart is” my (wonderful, progressive, very accepting) dad put up the racism sign in the foyer
whats the racism sign?
The racism sign, as I like to call it, is from an art piece I made halfway through my first semester of art school:
It reads “any attempted theft will be reported to the police” in the 15 most commonly spoken languages by immigrants here other than English or other western european languages (in descending order).
This sign was only half of the art piece, the other half was the most stereotypically Icelandic painting I could think of:
When the piece was shown the painting and the sign were hung on opposite sides of the room, making the sign more of an afterthought for those who don’t speak any of the languages written on the sign. Standing out just enough for them to notice it and maybe wonder what it said, but ultimately not giving it a second thought for the most part.
I wanted to highlight one of the most common ways racism and xenophobia present themselves here as well as the comfort of ignorance. The sign doesn’t cater to you, you ignore it it, and you don’t care what it might say. You don’t have to think about it because it doesn’t affect you.
For those who can read the sign though, or bother to translate it, this is just yet another reminder of people’s ignorance and double standards. My inspiration for this piece came from my old workplace, where they had this sign hanging on one of the doors:
The main things that stood out about this to me were that
It was the only sign on the premises written in anything other than Icelandic and/or English
All of the additional languages (Vietnamese, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian) specifically targeted minority groups that already face discrimination here
The location of the sign. We only had 1 of these, and they chose to put it up somewhere where only staff would see it rather than the customers. In fact, it was right next to the break room so you had to walk past it every time you went on break. And it was a sign reminding people not to steal. Big win for inclusivity here
People love saying that we’re not racist/xenophobic here even though we very much are. The problem is just that so many people don’t take the time to look when it doesn’t directly affect them. I was very happy with my piece because people actually came up to me and asked what the sign said because they wanted to know, it started a conversation and made those previously unaware of this issue more aware. I wonder if these sorts of signs would be anywhere near as commonplace as they are if more people looked at them critically and asked “why is this the thing we bother translating?”
Anyway, all that aside I love my dad and I like the way this art piece turned out but also I am slightly worried about giving people the wrong idea when this is the first thing they see when they enter our home 💀
Well if you want my permission to show it then you have it :))
with great regret i must inform you that there is a typo in the Latvian translation, so it actually says “any attempted theft will be reported to poland”
I found out while working on this that it is extremely difficult to get 15 fully accurate translations into languages you don’t speak in the span of a week but this is killing me 💀
i hope i never ever ever see this image while im high or it will also straight up kill me. it would make me so scared my skeleton would run away And id be a boneless scared heap on the ground
Folks have got to understand that they probably aren’t messed up by some Secret Big Trauma that they just can’t remember; but rather by a million tiny microtraumas that they do mostly remember but don’t even register as traumatic because nobody actually understood that these things would cause trauma, much less stack on each other over the years.
Whether you’re carrying one big rock or a big ol’ bucket of sand, it’s going to weigh on you just as much.
This is why psychologists have started taking more of an interest in CPTSD in the last 10-15 years. What most people know as PTSD is a response to a single, intensely traumatic event (or even a series of events). However, CPTSD (chronic post-traumatic stress disorder) is caused by living for years in a situation where your nervous system cannot catch a break. Even if nothing huge ever happened to you, you always had to be on guard for a thousand little things that could and did happen.
After years and years of this, your nervous system gets “stuck” in an activated threat response. It never really lets you rest, and if this started when you were a kid, you may not develop a lot of neural pathways that you should have, because your brain was too focused on keeping you safe to bother with little things like “genuine human connection” and “interpersonal attachment.”
No lie, Complex PTSD/CPTSD is HUGE.
If you are disabled, if you are queer, if you are chronically ill, if you are the survivor of a toxic but not abusive relationship, if you grew up or lived under the threat of harm but no “actual” harm (or “very little” harm) was done, you may have CPTSD that isn’t getting caught because CPTSD looks different from PTSD.
one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method
YOU – mm i want a fat man on me gaystyle but with clothes on
FURRY INCLINATION [Medium: Success] – Any *animalline traits* to him, two-legs?
SENSATION – That would do nicely, texturally speaking…
YOU – not for now, but i’ll keep that in mind.
POSTER’S GAMBIT [Easy: Success] – Yes. YES. It’s the perfect emotion. Everyone wants – even if not that. So generalize, blogsman. Ambiguate. With this, you can finally build your *viral empire.*
BROAD APPEAL [Hard: Success] – With your crowd: three faves, and a flirtatious re-blog from some fur-fag. Eight if the bitcoinette or the not-lycanthrope touches it…
POSTER’S GAMBIT – Try again. We’re *this* close to another “you have to let ‘denny’s parking lot at 3am’ go.”
YOU – mm i want big men on me gaystyle #gay #mlm #lgbt #asexual
SENSATION [Medium: Success] – But it’s not about “big” – “big” alone is nothing. Non descript. You crave *plasticity* – you want to feel him pushing through, between your fingers…
SENSATION – *Really* sonft. If we must say it that way. And so *heavy* on our supine body, too. I almost wonder if we could…
New task: Administer the *auto-hand-job.*
SENSATION – Yeah.
POSTER’S GAMBIT – NEVER MIND THEM. Never mind any of that. You’re almost there. Keep going, blogsman. *Earn* the U.R.L.
BROAD APPEAL [Hard: Success] – Thirteen faves, four reblogs. None flirtatious – none you think.
YOU – what’s missing?
BROAD APPEAL – What do you think?
YOU [Impossible: Success] – the *sapphic* factor.
BROAD APPEAL – Exactly right. I *told* you I’m named this way for a reason…
HIGH SCHOOL G.S.A. – Do it for Erin. And Michaela. I wonder if they’re still…
BROAD INTUITION [Medium: Success] – They’re not.
YOU – mm i want big men or women on me #lgbt #ambiguously queer
HIGH SCHOOL G.S.A. – Ah-ah-ah.
BROAD APPEAL – And about that word “big” … you know what has to happen.
YOU – but that’s the core of it to me, kind of.
POSTER’S GAMBIT [Easy: Success] – And to the fur-fag sector.
BROAD APPEAL – A sector is nothing. We want the *website* in our hands. Even the proponents of Astarion, and the proprietors of “best girls”…
YOU – Yuck.
BROAD APPEAL – I know. But they’re the only way.
VANITY [Easy: Failure] – God, we’ll be on *Ellen.*
BROAD APPEAL – Enough of that. She’s out.
YOU [Impossible: Success] – mm i want anything at all #lgbt #ambiguously queer #asexual
POSTER’S GAMBIT – STOP THERE. YOU’VE FOUND IT, BLOGSMAN. QUICKLY – BEFORE WE BOTH FORGET – TYPE IT UP AND POST.
BROAD APPEAL – The known numbers don’t go high enough. You’ve found a ticket out of here – out of *Massachusetts.*
SHIVERS – IN 2027, A METEOR THE SIZE OF A KLEAN KANTEEN WILL LAND IN THE CENTER OF ROXBURY AND LEVEL BOSTON WITH ITS ZETTA-JOULES OF IMPACT ENERGY. TOO SMALL AND TOO QUICK FOR EVEN M.I.T.’S OBSERVATORY-BOYS TO DETECT.
POSTER’S GAMBIT – More important things than that are happening – and sooner, too. Type it up, blogsman. This is the easy part…
YOU – You type: “mm i want anything at all #lgbt #ambiguously queer #asexual.”
SENSATION [Hard: Success] – Stop. Go back. It’s dishonest.
BROAD APPEAL – This was never about you – you were only ever the basis on which *this* could be constructed. If that…
POSTER’S GAMBIT – Post it, blogsman. Make the world relate to you.
YOU – You hit: “post.”
YOU – The progress bar reaches – reaches – completes. A green light indicates success.
POSTER’S GAMBIT – YES. YES… Oh, I suppose we should have waited for *optimum posting hours.* It doesn’t matter now. It’s done – and the onslaught faves will begin rolling in catastrophically in three… two…
POSTER’S GAMBIT – In three… two…
Thought gained: Any day now…
POSTER’S GAMBIT – Don’t worry, blogsman. Just keep checking your phone – the *wi-fi* here is *bunk,* anyway.
hey, so… after years of misdiagnoses and crises and hospitalizations, my sister has finally been diagnosed (with 99% certainty) with Crohn’s disease. If anyone could help even a bit with money for food, meds and more doctor visits, we would be really grateful.
My sister has been moaning and crying in pain all day since yesterday. Her meds cost 200 reais (40 dollars) and they barely last 2 weeks. We REALLY need any amount of help we can get right now.
I got home and just found out my sister got hospitalized in a hurry while i was out so this is kind of urgent now please :)))
Hannah Arendt was also an extremely racist bastard who believed “totalitarianism” originated in “Oriental despotism” “encroaching” open pure, progressive European individualism.
From The Origins of Totalitarianism Like, it can’t be stressed enough how much the entire idea of “totalitarianism” is rooted in deeply racist, colonialist, orientalist thought.
She also thought desegregation, i.e. black people having the same rights as white people, was a form of “totalitarianism.”
I hear the words “bichon frise” and my brain spends an uncountably long moment frantically overturning every memory I have, desperately trying to remember what foreign luxury car brand I have to pretend to care about in order for this conversation to go favorably. After my every mote of knowledge about cars has been thoroughly ransacked and I am on the verge of failing this social interaction, a smudged sticky note flutters into view that simply says “small white dog.”
Instead of “live laugh love” or “home is where the heart is” my (wonderful, progressive, very accepting) dad put up the racism sign in the foyer
whats the racism sign?
The racism sign, as I like to call it, is from an art piece I made halfway through my first semester of art school:
It reads “any attempted theft will be reported to the police” in the 15 most commonly spoken languages by immigrants here other than English or other western european languages (in descending order).
This sign was only half of the art piece, the other half was the most stereotypically Icelandic painting I could think of:
When the piece was shown the painting and the sign were hung on opposite sides of the room, making the sign more of an afterthought for those who don’t speak any of the languages written on the sign. Standing out just enough for them to notice it and maybe wonder what it said, but ultimately not giving it a second thought for the most part.
I wanted to highlight one of the most common ways racism and xenophobia present themselves here as well as the comfort of ignorance. The sign doesn’t cater to you, you ignore it it, and you don’t care what it might say. You don’t have to think about it because it doesn’t affect you.
For those who can read the sign though, or bother to translate it, this is just yet another reminder of people’s ignorance and double standards. My inspiration for this piece came from my old workplace, where they had this sign hanging on one of the doors:
The main things that stood out about this to me were that
It was the only sign on the premises written in anything other than Icelandic and/or English
All of the additional languages (Vietnamese, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian) specifically targeted minority groups that already face discrimination here
The location of the sign. We only had 1 of these, and they chose to put it up somewhere where only staff would see it rather than the customers. In fact, it was right next to the break room so you had to walk past it every time you went on break. And it was a sign reminding people not to steal. Big win for inclusivity here
People love saying that we’re not racist/xenophobic here even though we very much are. The problem is just that so many people don’t take the time to look when it doesn’t directly affect them. I was very happy with my piece because people actually came up to me and asked what the sign said because they wanted to know, it started a conversation and made those previously unaware of this issue more aware. I wonder if these sorts of signs would be anywhere near as commonplace as they are if more people looked at them critically and asked “why is this the thing we bother translating?”
Anyway, all that aside I love my dad and I like the way this art piece turned out but also I am slightly worried about giving people the wrong idea when this is the first thing they see when they enter our home 💀
Well if you want my permission to show it then you have it :))
with great regret i must inform you that there is a typo in the Latvian translation, so it actually says “any attempted theft will be reported to poland”
I found out while working on this that it is extremely difficult to get 15 fully accurate translations into languages you don’t speak in the span of a week but this is killing me 💀
Folks have got to understand that they probably aren’t messed up by some Secret Big Trauma that they just can’t remember; but rather by a million tiny microtraumas that they do mostly remember but don’t even register as traumatic because nobody actually understood that these things would cause trauma, much less stack on each other over the years.
Whether you’re carrying one big rock or a big ol’ bucket of sand, it’s going to weigh on you just as much.
This is why psychologists have started taking more of an interest in CPTSD in the last 10-15 years. What most people know as PTSD is a response to a single, intensely traumatic event (or even a series of events). However, CPTSD (chronic post-traumatic stress disorder) is caused by living for years in a situation where your nervous system cannot catch a break. Even if nothing huge ever happened to you, you always had to be on guard for a thousand little things that could and did happen.
After years and years of this, your nervous system gets “stuck” in an activated threat response. It never really lets you rest, and if this started when you were a kid, you may not develop a lot of neural pathways that you should have, because your brain was too focused on keeping you safe to bother with little things like “genuine human connection” and “interpersonal attachment.”
No lie, Complex PTSD/CPTSD is HUGE.
If you are disabled, if you are queer, if you are chronically ill, if you are the survivor of a toxic but not abusive relationship, if you grew up or lived under the threat of harm but no “actual” harm (or “very little” harm) was done, you may have CPTSD that isn’t getting caught because CPTSD looks different from PTSD.
one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method
I find their combination of these extreme roles and personalities very delicious.😊 Rather than the original story, it is the joy of being a fan to create and solve the story of Au creation.
I find their combination of these extreme roles and personalities very delicious.😊 Rather than the original story, it is the joy of being a fan to create and solve the story of Au creation.
ALT
