an art product. a machine. just observing this cruel and dark world.
not she, not he, not a boy, not a girl & most of the time not friendly at all. [they/them/their]
When I get into an airplane, I don’t turn into a bird.
All assistive technology is like that.
Airplanes are not wings, and wheelchairs are not legs. Rolling is different from walking, and it’s ok that it’s different. Typing is not speaking, it’s typed communication. Reading braille isn’t seeing with fingers, it’s tactile reading. And so on. Assistive technology is important, and worth respecting.
Airplanes are amazing. I respect them without pretending that they are wings. Likewise, other people respect me as a competent human being without pretending that an airplane has turned me into a bird.
Assistive technology enables people with disabilities to do more things. It does not turn us into nondisabled people — and it doesn’t need to. We do many things differently, and that’s ok. Respecting us means respecting us as we really are, including acknowledging that our assistive technology exists and matters.
It’s a brand new picture book about neurodiversity written and illustrated by AIWS (aka Milda Bandzaitė). By supporting this book you will be sending the message that it’s ok to just be the way you are! To find out more about the project please visit the Kickstarter page.
Hope you will consider supporting the Kickstarter campaign and help us make this book a reality. We would also appreciate your sharing the campaign with friends, family and colleagues.
Riders from the Standing Rock, Rosebud, and Lower Brule Lakota reservations came together on horseback to push back a police line that had formed between a group of protesters and the entrance to the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site.
Last week, the federal government gave final approval to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which will run for 1,172 miles to transport crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oilfields to Patoka, Illinois.
Hundreds of protesters, primarily Lakota and Dakota from Native American reservations within a several-hundred-mile radius, convened over the weekend at the edge of the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota to voice their anger.
The pipeline would travel through lands sacred to the Lakota people, and cross under the Missouri, Mississippi, and Big Sioux rivers.
A possible spill, which can occur with pipelines, would mean contaminating farmland and drinking water for millions.
After a series of tense interactions with North Dakota state police on Monday, the protesters succeeded in temporarily halting the beginning stages of construction.
Protesters stand at the front barricades of the protest zone, holding signs that read “Water is sacred” and “Mni Wiconi” (“Water is life” in Lakota).
Horses and riders from the Rosebud reservation arrive to support the Standing Rock community. The horses are in traditional Lakota regalia.
Protesters congregate next to a construction site for the Dakota Access Pipeline on Monday morning, as a crew arrives with machinery and materials to begin cutting a work road into the hillside. The flag in the foreground belongs to the American Indian Movement.
North Dakota state police form a line between the protesters and the entrance to the construction site as a tank truck turns into the property.
A protester is arrested for standing on the outer layer of barricades that separate the protest site from the police line and construction zone on Monday morning.
A protester is arrested for standing on the outer layer of barricades that separate the protest site from the police line and construction zone on Monday morning.
Two young Lakota boys watch as construction machinery drives onto the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site, just over a mile from the banks of the Missouri River
After the protesters disrupted the construction site and shut down work for the day, a group marched up to the main gates.
Children play in the Missouri River, a mile from the proposed construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
