US politics

What Are the Chances?

Ania Onion Bula, , , Leave a comment

CN: Discussion of Statistics in relations to disability, other social issues, sexual assault, and abuse.

There are times when I am talking to someone about my life- about the fact that I’m scared of new proposed laws making it harder for me to survive in Ontario, or about how I’m one particularly unlucky day away from being homeless – when I get the feeling like the person I’m talking to thinks I’m exaggerating. They get this look on their faces that makes it clear they’re just humoring me by not pointing out how ridiculous I’m being. Meanwhile, I’m already minimizing how severe my situation is out of fear of being accused of exaggerating. Worse still, my circumstances are relatively minor compared to that of many of my friends and readers. 

When they don’t automatically dismiss what I’m saying as being hyperbole, the people I speak with assume that my case is rare – an exception. A circumstance not worthy of planning against because it’s unlikely to happen again. And yet? Every day I meet someone new in the same type of situation I find myself in. It’s become so textbook, some people look at me as though I’m performing magic when I manage to guess the ridiculous circumstances they find themselves in or repeat almost verbatim what they’ve heard from doctors, therapists, or other people.

It’s a matter of framing, of perspective.

To someone in the mainstream, what is happening to me must be the result of either something I did wrong, or something extremely rare, or impossible. It seems like the probability of all the things going wrong that go wrong happening seem impossible.

What are the chances that every relationship you’ve been in is abusive?

What are the chances that so many of your doctors end up incompetent? That so many doctors end up holding biased opinions?

What are the chances that everyone around you is so terrible? Doesn’t it seem more likely that you are the problem? Statistically speaking that is?

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What Are the Chances?
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Echar Pa’lante: 6 Months Later

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Echar pa’lante is a saying which means ” keep moving forward”.

Just six months have passed since Maria devastated the Caribbean. I wrote about my hometown in Puerto Rico and about my grandma. I wrote in the hopes of educating people who may not be as familiar with Puerto Rico other than knowing about the capital, San Juan. I wrote it in the hopes of getting help for my grandma.

Six months later and the island is still recovering; still struggling.

Continue reading “Echar Pa’lante: 6 Months Later” →

Echar Pa’lante: 6 Months Later

Descolonicemos lo que nos Enseñaron

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The following quotes are from a post I’ve seen floating around el facebook, shared among several pages dedicated to my hometown and Puerto Rico in general.

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Cuando Puerto Rico estaba bien, los comunistas, los socialistas, los independentistas y los soberanistas gritaban “Yankee go home, we do not need you”. Ahora no se escuchan ni se ven.

Puerto Rico nunca ha estado bien, por eso es que gritamos “Yankee go home”. Porque ellos tienen mucha de la culpa por la cual Puerto Rico esta en problemas económicos.

¿Dónde está el patriota Óscar López y los macheteros con machete en mano cortando árboles y trabajando por la patria? ¿Dónde están los encapuchados de la UPR que no se ven limpiando los escombros en la universidad y las carreteras de la patria? ¿Dónde están los ambientalistos que no se ven limpiando las playas, cortando árboles y limpiando carreteras? ¿Dónde está ese grito de guerra “Yankee go home” que los identifican?

Apuesto que están ahí, limpiando y colaborando para levantar a Puerto Rico. Y todavia le gritamos al colonizador. Ese hecho no contradice el otro.

And what’s this:
El presidente interino de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR), Darrel F. Hillman Barrera, exhortó hoy, jueves, a la comunidad universitaria a unirse en trabajo voluntario para rehabilitar el Jardín Botánico, en Río Piedras.

Mira pa’lla. The President of the University of Puerto Rico is asking for student (and other) volunteers to help clean up their botanical garden in Rio Piedras. Metiste la pata bien meti’a, mijo.

But now everyone in Puerto Rico speaks English. Carmen Yulin en representación de la izquierda boricua por cámara y con lágrima en los ojos expresó: “We are American Citizens, we need help.”

Well, I mean we are citizens. Yulín is rightfully calling out the government. So what’s your point? Don’t think I don’t catch the casual sexism of pointing out that Yulín Cruz cried.

Yeah, we know, that’s why we’re here. And we will always be.

We’re American (second class) citizens because one colonizer ceded us to another. I certainly hope we aren’t always a colony. ¿Estas diciendo que porque criticamos a los gringos no podemos esperar que ellos manden la ayuda que es necesaria?

I’ve encountered this type of thinking before. The type that says that if you accept help from the government you can’t complain. So, the poor can’t demand justice because we’re on food stamps? That’s victim blaming bullshit. We didn’t ask to be colonized, but if we are going to be then the United States HAS the ethical and moral responsibility to send help.

“Yankee go home”, fuck yes. But if Yankee is going to keep us as a colony then they need to fucking do their jobs. The United States need to be held accountable. And they will be by the communists, socialists, independents, the sovereignists. Because while we’re busy trying to get our island up and moving; while we’re trying to become free; you’re too busy besandole el culo al gringo. They don’t need to fight us because they can just get us to fight amongst ourselves.

Decolonize your mind. ¡Despierta Boricua!

Descolonicemos lo que nos Enseñaron

Rise of the Fool

Ania Onion Bula, , , , , , , 2 Comments

They called him a joke.

They said the people who supported him were fringe elements, just a bunch of extremists without popular support. Rabble-rousers making up the audience of beer halls; a bunch of drunk fools getting into trouble. Just a bunch of children.

His book was a bestseller.

His explicit hate and racism was said to be just for show. Not genuine, but just a way to gain the masses trust and attention. Interesting how no one considered what the fact that such hate would gain the trust of the masses actually meant.

No one thought he would make it very far in politics. He was a joke. There was no way he would actually win.

When he did, the whole world looked at the electors in shock, confusion, and a sense of horror. No one thought he would win.

Even after he won, no one thought he was really a threat. No one believed that he would actually manage to achieve his horrifying promises. It was all just rhetoric they said. He was too incompetent. He was too weak.

When armed resistances started up, protesting and threatening violence against any who spoke against him, it was excused as the childish antics of angry young men. Not a representation of what they really thought, but just a manifestation of the anger they felt at being disenfranchised by bad economic times.

The rise in vandalism and violence was excused as childish antics and not an indication of how they really felt.

The world mocked him. Comedians at the time drew attention creating caricatures of him as a bumbling angry clown with a funny appearance.

Who am I talking about? Continue reading “Rise of the Fool” →

Rise of the Fool

It’s not about the A

Ania Onion Bula, , , Leave a comment

One of the many jobs I’ve had is that of tutor. I’ve helped teach a variety of subjects including math, various sciences, and English. Additionally, I have designed and taught smaller classes, and have also helped siblings and friends study and understand the class material. I spent a lot of time thinking about teaching and about what and how we learn.

Growing up was interesting. My parents were relatively new immigrants to Canada, and it was their first experience with the Canadian school system. Much of their approach to education came from the European systems they were raised in. While grades mattered to them, education was about something more than regurgitating back information and facts.  I never realized how lucky I was in some ways for that, until I started hearing students repeating the same idea over and over again: it doesn’t matter what the right answer is, it matters what the teacher thinks it is. The only thing that matters is the grade they get.

Continue reading “It’s not about the A” →

It’s not about the A

Disability Misery

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I’m multiply disabled, by whichever model you use. I am on disability assistance and I live in Canada where I even have access to healthcare. Given all this, you might think that the fact that I still have disability related depression, that I am proof that disability really is misery. That the medical model is right.

I want to make this really easy to understand.

I’m not miserable because I’m in pain.

Continue reading “Disability Misery” →

Disability Misery

Spherical Cow in a Vacuum

Ania Onion Bula2 Comments

There is this meme that goes around from time to time. There are many variations, but a generalized summary is something along the lines of “I’m a better person than you because I don’t unfriend people whose politics I don’t agree with.” The meme is part of a trend of political apathy where people claim to not care about politics, or just write off the entire institution as being an exercise in futility where all parties are ultimately the same and nothing ever changes. The belief is that politics is nothing more than just theoretical ideas about governance, and not really anything tangible or applicable to the “real world.”

Continue reading “Spherical Cow in a Vacuum” →

Spherical Cow in a Vacuum

We Tried to Warn You: We’re Still Trying

Ania Onion Bula, , , 1 Comment

In the last few months, in the torrent of emotions being experience in regards to the events of the US election and it’s follow up, one of the most frequently encountered is disbelief. In the face of all the denial of the primaries and later the election proper, everyone is trying to process how this could possibly have happened.

Laments are taking place on twitter, on Facebook, and other social media. People are trying to parse how deal breakers have suddenly stopped being deal breakers. How certain words, behaviours, and symbols have suddenly become commonplace when we remember when they were once considered vile and worthy of disgust.

On the one hand, I understand the shock, the disbelief. It’s one thing to know that things are not as great as they seem, to know how much bigotry is insinuated into the society we live in, grow up in, gain our morals in, but it is another to face the glowing orange symbol of it. On the other hand, however, there is a part of me that wants to yell at all the people crowing their disbelief: “We tried to warn you! We fucking told you this would happen and you mocked us and called us children.” Continue reading “We Tried to Warn You: We’re Still Trying” →

We Tried to Warn You: We’re Still Trying

Make Canada Proud: Disable Genocide

Ania Onion Bula, , , 7 Comments

[My dear readers, I come to you with a request. The following letter has been emailed and sent by mail to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, the Minister of Sports and Persons with Disabilities, as well as my MP. 

IF YOU ARE CANADIAN: Please post your support of what I’m asking here. That disabled Americans be allowed to immigrate into Canada and receive access to Healthcare as well as become a part of this great nation. 

IF YOU ARE AMERICAN: Please post in the comments about how President Trumps and the Republican Congress and Senates actions have put you or your loved ones at risk in the last few days. I will be including a link to this post in my email. 

ALL READERS: Tweet this to the Prime Minister @CanadianPM] 

January 28, 2017

Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

CC: The Honourable Ahmed D Hussen, The Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Anita Vandenbeld

To the Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

I’m writing to you as a proud citizen of this country to beg and plead for the lives of my loved ones. Since Mr. Trump’s election many of those closest to me have been scared of what the future holds for them. They belong to various vulnerable communities: trans people, gay people, people of colour, people who belong to non-Christians faiths or no faith at all, and especially disabled people.

In the days since President Trumps inauguration, that fear has turned into outright panic. In just his first week, Mr. Trump has enacted and encouraged policies that will lead to the deaths of millions. His policies show a clear movement towards eliminating the social and physical protections granted to those most at risk for abuse. Continue reading “Make Canada Proud: Disable Genocide” →

Make Canada Proud: Disable Genocide