#I blame staffing not the individual

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Did you see the picture from the daily mail of the hotel workers carrying Liam's lifeless body to his hotel room? Do you still think the staff shouldn't be held responsible in some way for his death? I'm not blaming them because I understand this was an accidental fall but this wasn't a case of them having to restrain someone high on drugs. He was literally passed out and they chose to physically carry him to his hotel room and leave him alone. That's negligent

My basic politics and beliefs haven't been changed by those pictures anon. I don't think hotel service workers are responsible for the health and wellbeing of very wealthy clients. I think if there is any responsiblity it would lie with the hotel and the leadership of the hotel, not the individuals who were working. I think there's a lot we don't know about what sort of help was and wasn't available and the risks of asking for that help for Liam

I don't want to get fully into the negligence question - because that's a legal framework and I'm not really interested in it. So I'll just say that I think its a long bow to suggest that this particular bad outcome was forseeable.

So I'll say this - it's not easy to know how to respond to someone who is an altered mental state. I know New Zealand isn't well set up for it - either in terms of capacity or breadth of skill. Often here responsibility falls on individuals who know the person, or are just around the person at that time. We don't have a good social safety net, collective response, or ways of supporting the individuals who are responding. I doubt Argentina is any different.

I understand how awful it is to know that Liam could have survived the day if things had just been a little different. But I think it's important not to give into a fantasy of it being easy and there being a right answer. In the sort of society I'd want to live in - then there would always be more than enough resourced teams of emergency addiction and mental health specialists on call who knew how to help someone in crisis without blowing up their lives. There would always be someone to call and they would always get there quickly. There would also be adequate staffing at all service jobs so that it was possible for staff members to attend to someone in crisis early.

We don't live in that world. And blaming individuals who are trying to get paid and keep their jobs under difficult circumstances - for the fact that we don't live in that world - goes against everything I believe in.

[oleander-in-drag]

One aspect of TERF ideology that I want to point out is the mentality of blaming an individual for a systemic issue. This is a prominent idea throughout white feminism overall, of which TERF ideology is simply another sub sector, and I’m sure a lot of people are already aware of it, but I still wanted to mention a few particular examples.

One thing that triggered this post was an argument I saw about how trans women shouldn’t have access to mammograms because they’re taking them away from cis women who “actually” need it (which is a more polite version of what TERFs really say, which is that trans women “want” breast cancer in order to feel like a woman (and I don’t think I have to explain why this is vile towards both trans women and cis women)). Not only is this just unhinged levels stupidity, as everyone— including cis men— have the potential to develop breast cancer, it also perfectly encapsulates the problem with TERF “activism”.

I’m going to specifically talk within the context of the UK, because most TERFs hail from here (there’s a historical reason for this that I could talk about in another post if anyone’s interested), and this particular argument is really dependent on the NHS. For those who don’t know the current state of the NHS, there is a huge issue right now with funding and staffing our healthcare system, to the point where waiting times have genuinely become death sentences. Many people are unable to access proper healthcare in time for that healthcare to actually work, and a huge number of people are at risk of dying or becoming seriously ill before appointments can even be fitted in. This is certainly a problem amongst cancer patients, so yes… there is a conversation to be had about people’s fears over not having access to life-saving treatments or preventative measures such as mammograms.

The problem is, though, is that this is a systemic issue. This is not the fault of trans people, who already make up such a small number of the population in the first place, especially when those trans people also need access to this healthcare. When trans women take oestrogen, there is an increased risk of them developing breast cancer, so they need to have access to mammograms in the same way that cis women do. Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean it’s not factually correct. Just because you don’t like the idea that trans women also have an increased risk of breast cancer, doesn’t mean you can just pretend it doesn’t exist and deny them access to cancer treatment.

The real problem is that we shouldn’t have to prioritise people when it comes to healthcare. We shouldn’t have to worry about mammogram appointments running out and therefore decide who’s “more” worthy to get them, because all that’s doing is maintaining an already dystopian reality. The real fight should be ensuring that the NHS has enough funding to allow proper access to whatever healthcare anyone needs, regardless of gender.

And the more you start implementing the “blaming an individual rather than a system” lens to TERF talking points, you start seeing it everywhere.

When they talk about women’s sports, it’s only about keeping trans women out of it. It’s never about fighting for equal funding and coverage of women’s teams compared to men’s teams, or making sure that female athletes are treated with dignity and respect. If anything, what TERFs are campaigning for is militant gender and sex policing that has historically harmed women athletes (especially women of colour and intersex women) for decades, and leads to the oppression of women’s achievements, careers and livelihoods. This is a whole topic for another post, though, especially since it focuses far more on the very real, physical effects that TERF ideology is having— and has had— on intersex people, and I don’t want to just throw intersex issues in as a flippant discussion point for a different subject, but just know that what TERFs are proposing is already causing a lot of damage to a lot of women and intersex people. Just look up Annet Negesa and what she was forced to go through due to having an intersex condition. Her career was ruined. Her body was ruined. Her privacy, dignity and trust was utterly violated, and yet she is an example of what TERFs (the so-called protectors of women’s bodies) are trying to uphold when it comes to women’s sports.

(For more information, I suggest watching this video as a good starting point. It really explains the entire problem with how TERFs view women’s sports, the harm that they’re causing, and how intersex people especially are being harmed by TERF ideology:

~~ This also leads to their obsession with trans women in women’s prisons, for example, and accusing the occasional trans inmate as the sole cause for any and all sexual assaults. Because of course, we all know that ordinarily, women’s prisons are a haven and sanctuary for female sexuality, rather than a very dangerous place that contains systemic issues of power imbalances and corruption /sar. We always talk about a single trans woman, and never about sexual assaults committed by guards or other cis inmates, because TERFs never want to admit that cis women are also capable of sexual violence against other women. Instead of fighting for changes within the prison system to ensure that all inmates (in both male and female prisons) are protected from sexual assault and harassment, they distract the real issue onto trans people in order to maintain the status quo (which is— again— a common theme among white feminism in order to ultimately uphold whiteness as superior; see the section on women’s sports and also, for those of you who enjoy reading, the book “White Feminism” by Koa Beck). This would include implementing proper guard systems that aren’t corrupt enough to turn a blind eye to sexual assaults within prison cells, or ensuring that inmates have their rights intact despite incarceration. Yet, no TERF ever really talks about this.

In fact, in the UK alone, a main issue facing the majority of (working class, but also some middle class) women is poverty and the cost of living crisis. A lot of women (and other marginalised genders) are more vulnerable to this, due to lower wages or less job opportunities or a lack of stable childcare. Most women aren’t going to care about whether a trans woman is in a public bathroom when so many are choosing whether to heat their houses or feed their kids, and yet TERFs are supporting MPs like Kemi Badenoch (who has LITERALLY called the current maternity pay as “excessive”) simply because she agrees with them on banning trans women from female-only spaces.

At this point, we all know that TERFs aren’t really pretending to be feminist anymore, but I know that there are still women out there who believe that this movement is— in some capacity— pro-woman. It’s not. It’s a hate movement that tends to prey on women and girls who have been through traumatic experiences, and offer them an outlet to shift their blame somewhere other than the white men in power. It’s easier to fight a marginalised group of 1% of the population than the 50% in power.

But remember that nothing TERFs are doing is radical. They’re just another sub sector of white feminism and an off shoot of lesbian separatism, both of which work to maintain whiteness and heterosexuality at the top of the pecking order. They can pretend they’re fighting for the rights of lesbians all they want, but they don’t care about the fact that queer women are most at risk of poverty, or that butch lesbians (especially those of colour) are at risk of being targeted in female spaces for not fitting into the feminine “ideal” that TERFs have put on society, and queer women (bisexual, pansexual etc.) are erased entirely. They also diminish any abuse that lesbians and queer women face at the hands of cis women partners, as this doesn’t fit into their worldview of exclusively male perpetrators of violence, and refuse to acknowledge that a lot of domestic abuse cases come from within family units. Half of the current, straight TERFs that you see nowadays would have been part of the lesbian separatist movement during the 70s. The parallels are undeniable; they’ve just chosen a new target.

Lastly, the idea of splitting society into “man” or “woman” is not possible. They say it’s basic biology, but biology is still a science. It does not differ from chemistry or physics in the sense that it is incredibly complex and forever evolving. “XX” and “XY” are the simplest explanations for a far wider picture, that you only really learn when you actually do get past grade 1 biology. The problem is, when we stick to these fixed categories, we inevitably cause irreparable harm to the people who can’t and don’t fit into them. Even amongst TERFs, there will be many women who don’t even realise that they don’t fit into this “XX” and “XY” ideal, because that’s just not how human beings work. We’re far too complex for that. And yet the goal posts are constantly changing, to the point where even JK Rowling sometimes get accused of being a man by crazy transvestigators because… I dunno, her bone structure doesn’t look feminine enough?

The TERF movement will eat itself alive. It is not possible to categorise women in the way that TERFs do, and I can guarantee that the ideology will one day collapse in on itself.

Until then, combat it by researching and fighting for the real issues that face marginalised genders and disengaging from any TERF who tries to trap you in a bullshit debate about semantics. Any valid issue that they may bring up (reproductive rights, sexual violence etc.) can be campaigned about without the need to hurt trans people, because there is not a single group of people out there who are inherently harmful to another. It is always the systems, laws, teachings and governments in place that cause the harm, and these are what need to be dismantled. TERFs will never do that. They don’t want to dismantle them.

Trans people are never the cause for any of these issues. In fact, we’re usually the ones who are most affected by them, and therefore we are just as much a part of this fight for a more equal future than anyone else.

Ignore TERFs. Don’t get drawn in by them. I’ve come across a few people on this site who genuinely fell into the movement with good intentions, and these are the people I’m directing this at. There’s no light at the end of the TERF tunnel. JK Rowling is not your saviour.

[valtsv]

In January 2021 there were less than 200 tumblr employees (source is the tumblr staff member on the guy fieri arg discord server who was confirmed to be tumblr staff. Also I think another staff member posted it on their blog around that time). Unless they’ve mass hired people (it sounded like the size of the team was getting smaller at the time so unlikely) the content moderation team is extremely small. It’s definitely a significant issue that there’s not enough people to run this website properly, but it’s a staffing issue, not a not caring about or agreeing with bigotry issue. That’s also why they rely on terrible ai software to review images and blanket bans of certain tags. There’s straight up not enough people to actually review reports, however if something high profile happens they can act quickly. (Sorry this is a long ask, I just feel this is important information in any discussion about how tumblr is run)

yeah that's fair, it's good to have all the information available. it doesn't change the fact that tumblr has pretty much always had problems with moderation though, like it's never been good at handling harassment and hate speech as far as i remember (and i've used this site since 2011/2012), and that's why i can't in good conscience view tumblr as the like. friendly quirky little family community it markets itself as. i respect that it's not easy to run a website, but it has genuine problems with dealing with those issues (as most social media do) and there's not really anything that can excuse that, and i respect why people are upset about it. having been on the receiving end of both targeted mass harassment and hate speech myself, and having received absolutely no help or support from tumblr when i tried to report it, i can't help but feel pretty fed up with how they manage things in that department. i work in retail, so i get that some issues are due to staffing shortages and the limitations of the company and how it's run, so i don't blame individual tumblr staff members for that any more than i'd blame any individual employee of a company for that company's failures unless they were clearly personally responsible, but at the same time i strongly believe in doing the best you can by your fellow human beings and working to prevent harm wherever possible, and how tumblr handles harassment and hate speech falls way short of that.

[fictionyoubelieve]

This isn’t really true. Quite a lot of the cost is going towards staffing, even when those businesses aren’t providing a living wage!

Daycares aren’t that profitable, and the costs are primarily driven by staffing. (source)

Most colleges are either public or private nonprofits. You can see exactly where they’re spending their money; it’s generally not lining the pockets of private investors. (Since degrees are a positional good, you could make an argument about private loans instead, but the tweet doesn’t, so I’m not getting into it.)

Compared to those, it appears to be much more common for nursing homes to be skimming off the top, often hiding profits as costs to third parties in which the owner also has an interest. However, it also seems like most of that profit margin is coming out of Medicare, so blaming capitalism is probably not that accurate or helpful in addressing the problem. And even then, the largest profit margin number I found was 25%, and that was at the height of COVID; typical profit margins seem to be more like 10%, but it varies widely with care type. (source)

Caretaking and education require high ratios of trained staff per “customer”, and the ratio can’t be significantly improved with scale. So when wages rise at the low end, it increases the cost of those services more than for other things where that’s not true. It’s mostly not due to greedy rent-seeking (although, tangentially, lower rents would somewhat reduce costs for all three of these services).

Paying caretakers better wages means caretaking services cost a lot more, and almost everyone needs caretaking services at some point. The actual solution is socialism, so that caretaking costs are spread more evenly across the whole population and paid over time, instead of falling entirely on individuals or struggling families during the few years they’re needed. But we also need enough oversight of socialist programs to minimize corruption, as we can see from the Medicare example.

[lastcatghost]

While I'm appreciative of help when I can get it, and being able to help when I can, the fact that mutual aid is often more reliable, accessible, and less judgemental than non profits and government programs.

It's why doing your own outreach, free feeds and other events done outside of the resources approved by the government are targeted by the 🐖.

If people or even just one person goes out in their community to fulfill a need in that community, without a bunch of restrictions and without shame, if people knew they didn't need to depend on the government, it makes it harder to control that community.

The same people who create and profit off poverty are often seen as who's gonna save us from the same problems. Why would they allievate economic oppression and threats like homelessness when that's what keeps working class folks desperate and exhausted? How can non profits staffed with people who typically never been in the situation of the people they're supposed to serve ever make policies or decisions that are truly in that community's best interest?

Not only does poverty make these people richer, but having these resources present but ineffective, shifts the blame of the system onto that of the individual suffering. Working class people who are in slightly better financial situations are made to believe that other workers using government programs are taking advantage of their tax dollars, likewise people are made to believe if someone is visibly on the streets or under the influence of a substance, that means they just don't want help, or don't want to follow rules of a given program.

If you exchange your time or skill for a wage, then you're under the constant threat of poverty, and this makes us all traumatized to some degree. The system isn't broken, and every institution in our society meant to serve the people have only ever existed and been used against us.

[lunarsilkscreen]

"We don't promote our best"

It's a rumor going around that the best don't get promoted, because they make the company money. I'd give it about 9% accuracy. They'll definitely be blamed for the company exploding when they leave.

And they're not promoted because they're so busy jobbing, they don't have the time to rub elbows with management. Or meet frivolous goals that management expects. The kind that don't matter in the long run but scream "team player".

Organizing company parties for example. Nothing wrong with that. Morale is valuable. But it doesn't exactly get the work done.

Promoting the person doing the job, allows them time to do more important things like writing style guides, technical manuals, and processes. All things that help the others around them do their job better. Things, typically expected from the people promoted into management, who then ask the jobbers to write those things because they were too busy with the company party to consider it.

I sound bitter. Maybe I am.

It could literally save you hiring outside consulting to promote that one individual. Which companies often hire outside consulting to cover process improvement, and they cost money to do so.

It's also why people like me studied process improvement, to be more valuable to the company. Because that's what's expected of us. It's also part of the reason recruiters see my resumè and throw it out. They think "nobody can know as many things as s/he says she does."

I have videos proving my knowledge and experience you can review. But that's beside the case. An example of my bitter heart.

The fact is, the most knowledgeable and experienced among us are often overlooked because we're "hard to get along with". You know why? Because when we see somebody at the same level as us acting like they're fresh out of training and they don't understand what they should already know.

Things like acronyms, key words, common design or work patterns. How to use the tools that come in the default toolkit. Then we start treating you like you don't know what you're talking about. We put the "kid gloves" on. And understandably, since we're "the same level", you feel patronized that I have the gall to explain to you that "clearing your cache" will help your browser get the new build off the website.

Or "righty tightly, lefty loosey" or any number of simple concepts.

And every time you say something dumb we say "aw, isn't that cute."

If you aren't knowledgeable in the job you're doing, it your job to learn. And that's why we don't insult you to your face when we know you don't know.

Cuz everybody has to start somewhere. But you also shouldn't be upset that we noticed.

In Short; management needs to take note of who is actually taking the initiative to train people in making their jobs smoother. Whether or not they're teaching above or below their rank. And, not be such a baby about it when they're called out.

And if somebody like that does get set off, maybe take note of how much stress they're under. Yeah, counsel them if they need it. But also know, their stress levels don't lower until you take work off their plate. (And no, that's not what demotions are for if they're overloaded from being short staffed. Or being the support column.)

[gatheringbones]

[“Syringe exchange programs were established in cities across North America in the late 1980s by activists combating the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. Heroin users in the late 1980s and early 1990s were dying of AIDS at staggering rates. Clean syringes saved lives far more effectively than any other intervention. Many of the early syringe exchange programs in the US were illegal. Volunteers faced the risk of incarceration or losing their medical licenses. Heroin users politicized by the AIDS movement staffed the exchanges themselves, alongside nurses and doctors, anarchists, and other activists concerned with the racial and class divisions within the AIDS movement.For anarchists, the exchanges were a form of radical mutual aid free of the moralism and condescension of most social services. AIDS organizing groups fought for syringe exchanges, alongside campaigns against homelessness, police violence, and AIDS criminalization, and to defend the rights of sex workers. The AIDS movement was largely unable to build ties with the now-weakened labor movement or civil rights organizations. Decades of economic crisis, criminalization, and the collapse of the left had effectively severed the solidarity between wage workers and the lumpenproletariat within Black and brown communities.

Harm reduction activists recognized that many people aren’t ready or able to discontinue drug use altogether. Demanding abstinence as a precondition to accessing services further isolates drug users, contributing to more destructive use patterns. These programs instead sought to reduce the harms both directly associated with drug use and those stemming from the social stigma around it. Harm reduction seeks to aid users in pursuing their own self-identified goals and needs that may not include abstinence at this time, or ever. This approach calls on an ethical and practical orientation that is as rare in social services as it is in radical politics: engaging the painful, traumatized, and self-destructive parts of people with care, taking seriously the possibility of transformation and healing, without a narrow, preset judgment about where people have to be now, or where they are headed.

I first became interested in harm reduction while living in Philadelphia. I had been transitioning my gender, and got my first white-collar job providing HIV services to other trans people. I was involved in the anarchist scene, but was rethinking my commitments in light of the sexism and transphobia I experienced coming out as a woman. While organizing with homeless trans women around shelter access, I was also becoming increasingly frustrated with the politics of social work. Around that time, a friend in Philadelphia killed herself, and I came to see our scene’s intense moralistic judgements of each other as partially to blame. We could either love or critique, but rarely do both together. I was dealing with my own mental health challenges, and found little understanding in my radical circles as I sorted through the contradictions of how to get care. I vacillated between feeling ashamed that I couldn’t figure out my shit right away, and posturing that I didn’t have any problems to begin with. Harm reduction seemed to offer a path towards a different sort of practice: an alternative ethical framework that allowed us to stop constantly judging others — and ourselves — according to the rigid criteria of political righteousness. Instead we could learn to care for each other with dignity, to challenge our capacity for harm by lovingly welcoming the most painful parts of ourselves.

From my coworkers at the syringe exchange who had spent much of their lives as dealers and users, I saw how harm reduction had helped politicize their experiences, transforming individual misery into a collective practice of solidarity and a basis for social critique. From my coworkers and harm reduction trainings, I learned how to relate to someone having a very rough time in a way that was relaxed, warm, and built a connection; a crucial skill in most political activity. I learned a lot about the street drugs popular in the Bronx, and the many ways drug use is woven through daily life. My coworkers taught me a bit more about how to love well in this difficult and painful world.”]

[kanguin]

I think this post lacks significant context that:

A) just being able to Google information at any time is a pretty recent thing, and even then many people have pretty sheltered home lives. If you grew up pre-internet, pre-smartphones, or in a high control environment (which is unfortunately common in the US), your access to this information wasn't easy and required proactive action and curiosity to do the footwork to learn new things. That also runs into the hurdle that you don't know what you don't know, so outside of examples like "world's tallest building" that are very specific trivia, people in general don't tend to look up basic information that they don't know exists.

B) I've seen mention of lack of information here, but not of MISINFORMATION. You will not believe some of the things I have heard peers and former students say they were taught in school and by family that are so dishonest about the outside world. There is a large section of the US that does legitimately believe that nonwhite nations are lesser, and thus less developed, and will do anything in their power to ensure other people are taught their world view. It used to be worse, sometimes certain subjects just were not mandatory.

As a personal example, my own mother is highly educated and works in medicine, but is largely still learning when it comes to world history, because when and where she was in school it was literally neither required nor prioritized for students to learn anything but American history. I'm very fortunate she's curious and eager to learn new things (just very narrow focused on science), but the things she doesn't know and thus has never thought to look up astound me sometimes.

Like one poster above me said, the United States of America is a huge place, and our education is not standardized. School funding is determined not by federal law, but by local tax revenue, which is frankly bass-ackwards. This means low income areas receive poor funding and thus poor education, and the accuracy of school curriculum is mandated by local school boards largely staffed by conservative and opinionated retirees in much of the country. Hell, mind the tangent, but a lot of news organizations and magazines barely report on international matters outside the immediate allies of tte USA. We are literally overrun by systems and powers that want nothing more to control the information people receive about the outside world and would be delighted that some 21 year old believed Mexico was nothing more than small desert towns, because ignorance is easy to control and radicalize.

So yeah, blame the individuals, the 21yo kid who was so misled about the outside world is funny, not remotely terrifying or sad. Whatever.

Just remember:

You are not immune to propaganda.

im american and i knew that like in kindergarten so i think some of you are just stupid sorry

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

A lot more info and cctv footage has come to light today. In one video, Liam is shown being carried through the hotel lobby back to his room after convulsing. The writer of the piece thinks the hotel owners are guilty of neglect and trying to push the blame onto Roger Nores. Surely there would have been a policy that a guest in Liam's condition shouldn't be left alone?

https://www.tumblr.com/statementlou/767894152191082496/hi-is-the-liam-article-that-you-read-the-new-one?source=share

I appreciate that you're talking about the hotel and owners and not the workers (although I don't think the Daily Mail gets that credit - but hating workers is one of their core beliefs).

I guess I have a few different things to say. I have no idea about hotel policies - but I'd be surprised if most hotels had the staffing levels that would allow them to have workers spending extended time with one customer in that way. I imagine that any policy would be about calling for medical help (although you can't sue for personal injury where I am - so I may be way off base how things work elsewhere).

I think there are important caveats when it comes to hotel policy. Whatever policy the hotel says - that doesn't necessarily reflect what happens or what is asked for from staff. Practice can be very different from policy - due to decisions from management (mostly understaffing, but there were a lot of competing pressures).

One of those pressures is 'don't piss off rich people'. Some media have reported that he didn't have the room booked and should have been out by 10am - he wasn't treated like other people. And one of the fears at all levels when responding to him - would be that he doesn't want anyone called.

The argument that there's a limited amount of culpability to be shared between Roger and the hotel is ridiculous. Although there seems to be a lot of 'not me' lines being run through the media - and it wouldn't surprise me if someone connected with Roger had placed this story.

It doesn't make any sense - what Roger is accused of is much earlier than the responsibility the article is suggesting the hotel would have. There's no reason that the actions of another party in the 15 minutes before Liam's death would make any difference to what Roger is accused of.

I think in general, the article is pretty much what you would expect from the Daily Mail. It is continuing the trend of blaming foreign service workers. The way that it directly addresses the chief receptionist is really gross - and seems to ignore a very reasonable explanation (that after Liam was taken up he woke up and started smashing things, and had locked the door as the waiter had described him doing another time).

I don't want to minimise how awful any of this. Particularly the feeling it could have been prevented. Of course it would have been better if the hotel had called emergency services earlier (and not police).

But I'm just not comfortable with judging the individuals involved. They had a lot of knowledge we don't have about what their bosses wanted, what they'd get fired for, the state of emergency services, what guests in Liam's position want and say they want.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Are there any documentaries or history articles that you would recommend for learning about the residential schools in Canada? Its very sad but enlightening at how religious leaders and organizations blame everybody else in the world for all of its evils and cruelties, when its often religious people/institutions themselves that are most guilty of horrific atrocities and violence.

The schools and the impact on the cultures, the individuals, and recognition of them as a national disgrace has been covered in a number of different ways, so if you're looking for general coverage, there's a bit to choose from.

But specifically as far as the atrocity of the deaths is concerned, the most authoritative documentary appears to be Kevin Annett's "Unrepentant," from 2006:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4451330/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMjSL2brtuA

The more recent discoveries appear to be too new, and still unfolding, to have significant completed media and publications attached. The most useful resource for those would appear to be the official reports themselves, although they might be a lot to consume.

https://nctr.ca/records/reports/

Otherwise, as far as recent developments, the best I can suggest is Googling up the "canada residential school 2021." These seem to be fairly comprehensive.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/canadas-residential-schools-were-a-horror/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/newly-discovered-b-c-graves-a-grim-reminder-of-the-heartbreaking-death-toll-of-residential-schools

One thing to keep in mind though, is that it appears that the churches - both the Catholic Church and other Xian churches - was acting as agents for the government, who had administration and oversight of the schools. Leaving aside whether they should have been conducting those schools at all - the USA and Australia have their own "lost generations" as well - the schools were underfunded, poorly staffed, overcrowded, had poor sanitation, poor medical facilities, poor health and safety standards.

This is not to excuse the churches, since if they were as loving and charitable as they pretend, they would have blown the whistle themselves. After all, they wielded major power and influence at the time, as evidenced by the fact they were tasked with operating the schools in the first place. But they didn't. And the government knew what was going on - it wasn't that the church was hiding it all - did nothing to stop it, and worse.

So, basically the churches and the government collaborated and conspired to torment and kill thousands of indigenous kids in the kids' "best interests."

Yet another reminder that religion does not foster morality. Being that they purportedly represent the knowledge and will of an eternal, divine omniscience from which all morality (supposedly) derives, we should expect that no church should ever have to apologize for anything. A church that has to apologize for its own sins is a false church. A church that continually has to apologize for atrocity after atrocity after atrocity is a church that needs to be banned, shut down and dissolved.

[fioletowa-krowa]

So I’ve had to deal with the absolute worst customer in my entire working career ever this past week. (It’s Rose at the Notre Dame university bookstore in case anyone was wondering) apologies in advance, it’s going to be long

So for this school we have two “titles” that are basically just boxes of lab equipment. There’s a lock, goggles, a lab coat, a notebook, and an access card for the online book. These are shipped as individual boxes since there’s a good amount of materials. This is different from what we usually send to stores, which would be boxes of multiple notebooks. I mention this bc the store manager, Rose made such a damned big deal about it.

So the whole ordeal started at the beginning of the month when my boss CC-ed me on an email conversation with Rose letting her know that she was going to be out of town so to contact me with any questions or requests for her order of the two bundles we had for the school. She ended the email with “hopefully things go smoothly this year” so already I have a bad feeling that this is going to be difficult.

Rose emails me to let me know that this is a time when they receive a lot of deliveries at their store (she specifically mentioned receiving football equipment in addition to books and school supplies) so she wanted to make sure that their order of nearly 1000 bundles could be split into smaller orders with only one order arriving per day to make sure that they weren’t overwhelmed at the store. A bit of an annoying request, but not impossible for us to attempt to accommodate. The only thing being that once an order leaves our warehouse we have zero control over how long it takes to deliver or when it gets delivered so I told Rose that I was putting notes on her orders so that they would hopefully ship on different days and then be delivered on different days. And she again reminded me that they needed the orders to arrive just as she specified. Okay, fine, I’m doing what I can.

Now, unfortunately, we’ve been having delays it’s getting materials and books in stock on time this season bc our printers are all short staffed and they can only print and ship so much at a time. So the bundles are already going to be a little later than expected. We had a team of people putting the boxes together at our satellite warehouse last last week so we could get them shipped out last week.

So we finally get things together and get the first order shipped out Tuesday. This first order was for 85 boxes of one title (11181) and 150 copies of the other (11171) and the manager at the satellite warehouse gets it shipped out Tuesday last week. On Wednesday I send Rose an email with the tracking information (I had to wait for our regular warehouse manager to get me the info bc the satellite manager was out all of last week after Tuesday) and at 4:56 Wednesday evening I get the following email from Rose:

“Beth, do you realize we already got three skids today? You sent a skid of 11181 when we only wanted 85 and two skids of 11171. Please do not send any more of 11181 and I will write up everything tomorrow and you can arrange a call tag to pick up the others. This is a hot mess and the paperwork the driver had was wrong and we have damaged cases as well. Way to go..........................”

So I was about to lose my mind at this. Not only was it at the end of the day, but she was incredibly rude over something that was genuinely a mistake and moreso, not my fault! The editor in charge of the projects wanted to respond to her that evening, but I told her that, quite frankly, I was off for the day and Rose didn’t deserve any of my unpaid time. Plus i wanted to hear back from the warehouse to see their end in case something happened so they sent out more than they were supposed to or if Rose was just stupid and we did what we said we would and it just wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. So the editor sent Rose a message saying that I’d get back to her in the morning with more information and I went to dinner w my parents and papa so that I wouldn’t punch a hold thru a wall in anger

So Thursday morning I get in to an email from our main warehouse manager (since the satellite manager was out the rest of the week) letting me know that we had sent three skids for the order. Because each skid holds 96 boxes. So, since the order was for 235 boxes, it physically had to ship as three skids. I was fucking giddy as I typed my response to Rose, spelling out why she received three skids and letting her know that I would be holding her remaining four orders for 150 of 11171 each until I got the go-ahead from her that she was okay with the fact that the orders would be one and a half skids each.

Well, Rose emails back that we actually sent three full skids instead of one full and two partials. She included the phrase “believe it or not, I can count” and then after reiterating how she wanted her orders sent said, “My next suggestion would be to fulfill my orders as requested going forward.” And asked if they’d be getting another order that day. So I typed up a very off-color response to her informing her how obnoxious and cunty I thought she was being and how her attitude was helping exactly zero people and quite honestly making me feel less inclined to be helpful at all. And then I typed up a nicer response and asked my boss for read it over to make sure that it was professional and appropriate. In my email i let her know that we only had the paperwork to go off of as the warehouse manager who put the shipment out was out of the office, so we legitimately did not know that she received more than what was on her order and that, no I had held her other orders to make sure that she was okay with how they were going to be shipped, but I could put them in and hopefully get the next one shipped out that day or Friday.

At that point, she got the other manager at their store involved who emailed Friday morning to ask me to confirm they’d be getting the rest of their order that day as they had students arriving on campus who would need them. I informed her that no, we hadn’t shipped anything else yet and said that it was bc our satellite warehouse was short staffed (which is essentially true. There’s one person who works in that warehouse— the manager— and he’d been out all week) so Rose jumped back in to say “Just to make certain I understand correctly, there hasn't been another order shipped since the first delivery? We need to get on the ball with this order short staffed or not folks!!”

At that point i was beyond pissed. They were asking for something above and beyond what we do normally, and we were doing everything we could to keep them placated, including shipping the rest of their orders for free, but there’s literally only so much we can do with the staff that we have. So, after venting into an empty word doc, I responded with “That is correct. We wanted to make sure that we wouldn't overwhelm you with multiple orders in a day, like you asked, and since the first shipment went out incorrectly, we wanted to be sure that it didn't happen again. Unfortunately that means that we aren't able to schedule a pickup from the shipper until Monday as it took some time to confirm that the rest of the shipments were okay to go forward per your instructions. The remaining shipments will be going out all of next week, but if you need us to send more than one order at a time, please let me know and I can coordinate with our warehouse team to make sure that happens.” (Also I’m now realizing that rose never actually confirmed that we could/should ship the rest of the orders so that’s a fun thing) as this was going on, I was trying to coordinate with our warehouse manager to see if we could get the next order out and (as my dad who works in that warehouse told me) they were basically running around asking every shipper who came by that day if they could take the order bc the store’s preferred shipper wasn’t available to pick it up. But we finally managed to get it picked up and shipped around 1 Friday afternoon

So, Rose, in all of her Karen-ness responds “In what world would it be, as the buyer, my fault for making and having confirmation of shipping directions the reason why your company has failed??” Funnily enough, that email sent me passed pissed off to just calm and I’d started typing a response when a message from my boss (who had been CC-ed on the entire conversation) popped up saying “take a minute, step away from your computer, then respond” so I laughed to myself and explained to Rose that I wasn’t trying to blame her (yes I was) but that I was only trying to explain why I was being so cautious and why there would be a gap in their shipments. Of course, then I get an email from the other store manager saying that she wished we had communicated the delay in shipments ahead of time and that if that had happened they would have been able to tell us that it mattered more that they received the boxes on time, not that they were received separately as originally requested, ending with “I would have thought this would be a logical conclusion on your part, so the mistake was mine in thinking that.”

And that’s when I realized that this manager (Becky) hadn’t been informed of everything that actually had happened and most likely just got the bitching from Rose that we’d messed up and it was all our fault that they wouldn’t be getting the boxes on time. So I got to inform her that I had told Rose immediately that we were going to be holding the remainder of her orders until we got the ok from her to ship since she’d been so upset with how the first shipment had arrived.

So once I’d gotten that all explained and smoothed out, I got an email from the freaking Macmillan rep for the area who’s been “filled in” on the situation and wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to get the store what they needed and when 🙄 and she followed up this morning to make sure that we’d done what we said. So we got the order delivered today, another one that’s either been delivered since or is being delivered tomorrow, a third that’s either tomorrow or Wednesday, and the last order that’s shipping tomorrow being delivered Wednesday or Thursday depending on shipping times.

Behind the scenes, I wasn’t aware, but my boss’s boss and his (new) boss had also been filled in about the situation and my boss had explained our half of the story, so I got a message from my boss’s boss thanking me for handling the situation and that he thought it had handled the situation well and professionally and that it was “100% the fault of an extremely difficult customer”

I’m just so Done with this and I hope to God I don’t ever have to deal with this store in the future

[scripttorture]

I'm curious about the the mental processes that makes torturers do their work. Is that akin to the process that allowed the "Teacher" to press the supposedly shock-inducing button in the Milgram Experiment? Do they blame their victims for "making them torture them"? Does dehumanisation play a role? What do symptoms look like on a torturer? Thank you in advance.

These are all good questions but a lack of research means it’s difficult to answer them definitely.

 I’ll start by saying that the Milgram experiments are a steaming pile of… insults to the scientific community shall we say. Honestly as a scientist the Milgram experiments make me angry because they are just so darned sloppy. They are terrible. They cherry picked data. They applied significant coercion to the ‘teachers’ while claiming they didn’t. They failed to record the ways ‘teachers’ tried to trick the system (especially those who pretended to press the button but did not actually do so).

 And they also didn’t bother to check whether the ‘teachers’ believed they were actually administering electric shocks. When a follow up study asked these people about it later they found that the majority of people who pressed the button didn’t believe the button caused electric shocks.

 Essentially- Milgram can’t tell us shit about why this happens. Those experiments were too sloppy and poorly conducted for us to draw any conclusions.

 So what do we actually have that can tell us about torturers?

 There are a lot of interviews conducted by non-specialists; mostly journalists. There are works torturers published. I consider both of these sources useful but biased. Torturers have repeatedly shown that they don’t provide accurate accounts of events or their own actions. So – I take these accounts with a pinch of salt and try to be critical.

 When it comes to actual specialists providing notes on torturers- I’ve only really found two sources: Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth contains notes on torturers he treated after the Franco-Algerian war, and Sironi’s body of work studying torturers. Which is only available in French and is print on demand.

 Yes I am still bitter, moving on!

 Where does all this leave us?

 Well it means that we don’t have enough good quality studies to be absolutely sure. It means most of what we ‘know’ is educated guess work, based on the little bit of research and anecdotal accounts.

 It’s frustrating. We need more data. And the result is that most of what I can say here is ‘may bes’.

 Dehumanisation probably does play a role, but it may not be as great a role as we tend to assume. Studies of the effects of hate speech in Rwanda in the lead-up to the genocide (along with what we know about ICURE techniques) do suggest that dehumanisation makes atrocities more likely. But they don’t necessarily make torture specifically more likely and many torturers will acknowledge the humanity of their victims.

 Some torturers do use language that blames their victims but- not in quite the way you’ve put it here. They don’t tend to say victim’s ‘made them’ torture. Instead they tend to suggest that the victims put themselves in a position where they knew they were going to be tortured.

 ‘A kid that colour walking around in that part of town at night? What did he expect!’

 That kind of phrasing is something I see more regularly.

 Another common one is torturers suggesting the victims ‘deserved it’ because of a particular characteristic: ie race, sexuality, gender, homelessness, disability. Arguing that a victim was ‘probably guilty’ or is actually guilty of a crime and therefore ‘should’ be tortured is also pretty common among torturers.

 But- I also get the impression that most torturers just don’t think about their victims much. Not as human individuals anyway. They don’t seem to consider the lasting impact they have on other people in any meaningful way.

 I think this is easiest to illustrate by looking at the way torturers express regret. Because they do often express regret for what they did.

 But it’s not expressed as them primarily being sorry they hurt so many people. Instead it’s- they regret what they did because they have nightmares about it. Because they’re ill and the symptoms are terrible. Because they lost their job. Because they’re socially isolated.

 It’s regret focused on the consequences of torture for the torturer rather then an acknowledgement of the scale of harm they caused their victims.

 I often get asks that suggest this as an inherent characteristic that ‘makes’ people torturers but there’s no evidence to support that. I personally believe this lack of empathy is an effect of torture rather then something that leads to torture.

 I guess what I’m driving at here is that there is a rather selfish focus in torturers. But beyond that symptoms in torturers look pretty much the same as symptoms in everyone else.

 My impression, based on the interviews I’ve read, is that unless the subject of torture comes up torturers come across as trauma survivors. Asshole trauma survivors but still trauma survivors.

 They tend to be rather convinced of their own importance. I’m unsure where this personality trait comes from but it does seem common. It could be a product of the sub-culture torturers create.

 And that brings me more or less to- well the answer to the big question here: why do they do it? How can they do it?

 My opinion is that the answer has little to do with individuals and everything to do with organisations.

 I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Torturers do not work alone.

 Torture by it’s definition and nature is a function of groups, of broken systems.

 Torturers are not individuals who arbitrarily decide to abuse someone. They are police officers with little training and no funding instructed to ‘do something now’. They are soldiers who’ve been taught over a lifetime that the ‘enemy would do the same to us’. They are teachers told to ‘control the class or else’.

 They’re groups of people in an environment that has a huge pressure to produce ‘results’ while also being under trained, under staffed, under funded and unsupervised. Into this already unhealthy mix throw the persistent background cultural lie that torture is a short cut to the results they want.

 Hell the persistent cultural message that violence is any kind of answer.

 Is it really a surprise that our police turn to torture when we don’t teach them to interrogate and our news outlets, our politics, our fiction is full of apologia telling them that abuse will get them the results they want?

 The mindset that let’s torturers abuse other people does rely on assumptions that some people are ‘lesser’ or otherwise ‘deserve’ to be abused. But the bit most fiction doesn’t capture is the social aspect.

 The way torturers egg each other on and the way they compete. The way they gradually become more or less the entirety of each other’s social circles. The fear they have of each other, which can trap them in the abusive role they’ve taken on. The way they lose other skills, making it feel impossible to switch. The way they seem to feel that stopping represents both personal failure and letting down the only people they still count as ‘friends’.

 The closest I’ve seen a movie come to this was The Shape of Water, the villain brilliantly captured the bizarre mix of self importance, incompetence and intense environmental stress that characterises torturers.

 Torturers say that they start because ‘there’s no other choice’. I don’t know how much they believe that piece of apologia.

 I do know that in any organisation that tortures there is often incredibly intense pressure to participate in, or at least ignore, torture. Refusal often leads to a person leaving an organisation, sometimes feet first.

 But the reasons they continue are complicated. For some of them they probably do believe the apologia, that they’re ‘doing necessary work’. Some of them definitely see their victims as less then human.

 All of them are caught in a... societal trap not unlike a cult. They’re isolated from non-torturers. They’re constantly fed the message that torturing is right. They’re threatened if they try to leave.

 I think that, whether they acknowledge it or not, the main reason torturers continue is because they know they’re at risk if they stop and they know they’ll be completely socially isolated if they stop.

 Of course sooner or later they do stop. It’s completely unsustainable.

 When they do they generally report isolation, low self esteem and difficulty functioning in society. They struggle to find and keep work. They struggle to form or maintain relationships. It wrecks their lives; the organisation chews them up and spits them out mangled to a point where they can’t navigate society.

 And because they rarely come to terms with what they’ve done they rarely recover.

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[rideboldlyride]

A much delayed Chapter 4 - Celestial

Seal My Heart and Break My Pride <--- AO3 link

“The shipment of Jasmine is delayed again.”

Across from him, in the seeming anonymity of stainless silver and terra cotta, his uncle moved around the industrial kitchen with the grace of experience. At that moment, they could have been in any kitchen anywhere in the world. Since the morning crowd had long dispersed, and the lunch crowd still working, they were the only two staffing the shop, with just a spattering of customers in the dining area. The illusion remained fully in place, and Zuko could almost imagine walking into the dining area, only to see a Fire Nation cityscape in it’s windows.

At his proclamation about the jasmine, his Uncle Iroh had his stolid demeanor broken.

“How can we call ourselves the Jasmine Dragon, when we have no Jasmine ??” If Zuko didn’t know any better, he may have thought that his uncle sounded emotional.

A sigh escaped him. “I told you, Uncle. Our supplier is citing droughts in the region, stating that all of their customers are suffering shortages.”

As the older man turned, he produced a steaming pot, and two cups, clean and prepared, and set them down on the steel top between them. Before Zuko, papers were scattered in an organized chaos. He had a grasp on keeping books, but there were times that his focus was a beast incapable of being reigned in. His growing headache hadn’t helped. And then there was the cause of the headache- that borderline nausea, characteristic of a mild hangover. Absent-mindedly, he scratched at the spot on his inner forearm where ink had sat overnight. He had been mortified to find it smeared beyond recognition upon waking up. One of the many downsides, he found, of sleeping hot, included the fact that it was rare to wake up without a sheen of sweat. Between the normal motions of sleep, the sheen of sweat, and the gel qualities of the pen she had used, it was rendered illegible. He had been beyond frustrated. It didn’t, however, keep her off of his mind.

“I would offer some from my stores, but I’m completely out.”

Katara. She kept trying to swim before his open eyes. There was so much that intrigued him, and he was like a thirsty man in a desert, with just the hint of water in the air. If he just could taste, get a little bit on his tongue…

“I understand, Nephew. We will have to press on, even in this time of trial.”

Zuko nodded, barely noting his uncle’s words. This was not missed.

“Usually, my fiery tempered nephew would protest about my melodramatics at this point.” With a raised brow, the older man poured the tea, offering the steaming cup to the younger, who seemed engrossed in one particular line on a singular page among the throngs scattered in front of him. Unseeingly, Zuko retrieved the cup, and instantly brought it to his lips. Far too hot, it scolded, and he jumped, brow furrowing in frustration. Jarred from his reverie, he drew his lips into a thin line, the remaining parts of the sip jumping away at the motion, and splattering upon the paper. In irritation, he snagged the page, using his pant leg to dab at the liquid, in an attempt to salvage the ink.

“You seem very distracted, Nephew.”

A glower set over his brow. “I just spilled scalding tea on an important notice. Can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Uncle.”

His own tea resting in his fingers, Iroh studied Zuko intently, seeing more clearly than he cared for. Finally, he broke the silence.

“How did your evening go?”

Now flustered, the younger man shuffled the pages anxiously, attempting to herd them like polar cats. His uncle’s question stilled him instantly, and he brought his gaze round to bare,

“It was… good.”

“Eventful?”

“Surprisingly,... yes.”

A hum escaped Iroh’s lips, and he sat back, knowing that when Zuko was ready to speak, he would, if at all. Instead, he watched his nephew once more return to his attempt at organization, this time moving more steadily and slowly. In a moment of startling clarity, Zuko could hear her laugh. A hot sigh escaped his lips, frustration and irritation at the lost number returning to his mind. Then he heard it again.

“Oh!” Zuko was startled when his uncle jumped with sudden vigour. “It seems one of my favorite customers is here.”

As he passed, Iroh stuck a gentle elbow into his nephew’s ribs.

“This is the one I’ve been talking to you about.”

Rolling his eyes, he watched Iroh exit out of the kitchen through a traditional curtain. Instead of following, he peeped out of the pass through at the young woman Iroh spoke of. This mysterious woman, her back turned to the counter, was unheeding of his gaze. Half pulled back, a cascade of dark brown tresses fell to her waist line. Headphones crested over her head, and evidently currently active, since she seemed unaware of his uncle’s appearance behind the counter. Zuko’s breath caught in his throat when he heard the voice behind the curtain of hair.

How could he cross paths with her two days in a row?

“... Sokka. I haven’t heard from him.” Pause. “You, of all people, should know how this works. Isn’t there some kind of stupid rule about how long you’re supposed to wait?”

She was evidently on the phone. His uncle paused before interrupting her, letting her continue her conversation.

“Listen, I’m going to see you in just a few minutes… No! Of course I don’t want to talk about it with Dad around! I just…” She sighed. “Fine. I’ll see you. Did you want me to order you anything?... Alright, I’ll see you then.”

Zuko slipped a little further back into the kitchen, trying to keep hidden but still being able to keep an eye on her. It was surprising how daylight made one a coward about what one

was comfortable at night. But as his uncle gently tapped her shoulder, he held his breath. She turned with a bright smile on her face, and he couldn’t stop the matching smile pulling at his lips.

With a single motion, she evidently ended the call, and removed the headphones from her ears.

“Good morning, Iroh!”

“Miss Katara! I must say that your definition of morning seems very fluid.”

Her laugh comes easy, and Zuko soaks in the sound.

“I am a complete night cat-owl. You know that!”

“Yes, my dear. But it brings me great humor to see you emerge at the break of dawn one morning, and then scuttle in here just shy of midday the next.”

“I had a long night. My friends all wanted to go out. I think we all forgot we’re near our thirties.”

“An eventful night?”

Her smile stayed planted, but her eyes seemed to be looking far away. She hummed an affirmative. His uncle only laughed.

“Nearing your thirties, but still starry eyed, my dear?”

That mischievous glint- that damn mischievous streak - in her eyes, struck again, and it took all of his willpower not to round the corner. Instead, he started to plot.

***

“What can I say, Iroh? I’m a closet romantic.”

“There are worse traits.” A warm smile peered up at her. “Is there something I can start for you?”

“Yes!” She was broken free of her reverie, and she perked up. “I meant to ask, do you still brew lapsang souchong?”

A brilliant smile lit up his face.

“Only for my special guests. And you, my dear Katara, are a special guest.” He turned to the passthrough window, but he spotted the younger man already in motion, his back to the customers, preparing the tea. She watched the older man as he took a small glance back and forth between them. “Are you expecting anyone, my dear?”

“Actually, yes. My brother and my Dad.” She knew where this was already going. It wasn't the first time he had brought it up.

“It’s a shame- My nephew is here and you are here. You know how often I have spoken about him to you…”

She raised a brow. “And told me nothing about him.”

Blue eyes met his amber ones, mirth reflecting between each other. “Touche.”

In between their banter, a steaming mug was placed on the pass-through unseen.

Iroh was the first one to break away, spotting the mug. As he turned back to her, tea in hand, a brow rose to her contemplative look. Absentmindedly, she fiddled with the charm at her throat. A devious smile pulled at her lips.

“I have a proposition for you, Iroh.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to be working on a study in the lower ring, since our work is in the Serpent’s Pass. From what I hear, you have two more shops, now.”

“Yes, one is--”

A hand rose to stop him. “No, don’t tell me. We’re going to let fate play the stars, alright? Tutega is known for her capricious ways.”

Known to be well-versed in the lore of many nationalities, she was not surprised that Iroh showed no confusion over the name of the spirit. Tutega, the mercurial spirit woman was known to move the stars and thereby the fates, according to her desires. While growing up religious, Katara held a certain respect for the deities, even though she was not as devoted to the rites as she might once have been. Either way, she was more than willing to blame the spirits if this idea of hers went south.

“So here’s the deal. Your nephew runs those shops, right?”

A nod, along with a growing suspicion in his eyes, but he kept silent.

“What if, in exchange for this perpetual discussion, we make a deal that if I find one of the shops, I’ll go in to talk with him?”

“I would propose a caveat: you go on a date together.”

Hesitation paused the young woman. “I don’t know....”

“Unless there is another?”

“Well, no, I mean… I guess not really.”

“Then this: if you are free at that point, then go.”

The hesitation in her eyes dissolved, and she smiled again. “Then I’m going to need more than just silence, Iroh.”

“Free tea?”

Her laugh sounded out again. “Deal!”

***

When Sokka arrived, it was a raucous event, (‘Home’ Katara?! That’s the text you send??; What was I supposed to say?; How about ‘the guy wasn’t another Jet, I’m safe and he’s gone’?; What if he wasn’t gone?; He wasn’t?!) but it quickly settled, before a third individual arrived- this one seemingly an aged up Sokka, with the same striking features as the siblings. Katara was quick to her feet, enveloping him into a firm hug.

“Welcome home, Katara. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Dad.”

When they pulled away, the three of them fell into a comfortable banter, rapidly falling into the normal ebb and flow, being chased by warm tea. Finally, after a bout of pleasant ribbing of her older brother, Hakoda turned his attention to his daughter.

“Did you get that notice I sent you?”

A sigh escaped her. “Dad, I already told you, I’m not going to apply for an ambassador role with NOAA.”

“Why?”

“It’s politics. It’s making friends with people I can’t stand, be friendly with the assholes who are screwing up all of our oceans.”

“How do you think that they get their funding?”

“So you’re saying that I should be willing to ‘work’ with these pricks- pricks like O Corp-" she spits out the name with venom, "just to get funding?”

“No, I’m saying you should be willing to work with them to protect the oceans from them.” He leaned in, his blue eyes bright and eager, dropping his voice to inject calmness into the conversation. “You could be the saving grace-- the conscience people need.”

“These people that don’t see how important the sea is to life- without it, the world would fall apart! What you do to the ocean will always be visited back on you. It's what feeds us, lets us breathe. And those fools who see profit over living beings sicken me. I take from the sea, yes. But I also give back.”

A smile lit up his face. “And that’s why you should be an ambassador. Your passion, Katara, it can be such a force for good!”

His vigor set her back for a moment, and she took in his words. Slowly, she leaned in and placed a hand upon her father’s.

“I’ll… consider it.”

“And that’s all I ask.”

She smiled as she leaned back as the moment passed. “I have to say, Dad, most fathers don’t ask about ambassadorial opportunities…”

“Oh? Then what do they talk about?”

“‘Anybody I need to know about, Katara?’” Her voice dropped to imitate the older man. “‘When are you going to give me grandkids?’ You know, stuff like that.”

The look in his eye made her instantly regret her words. “So, then, Katara, is there anybody?”

“Ugh, Dad!”

Sokka interrupted, a mischievous look in his eye. “Maybe after last night, there was…”

A pink tongue darted through her lips at her brother, her nose crinkling. Before she got out a word, her phone went off. It was Toph.

Hey sugar queen. The text was obviously transcribed, but solidly in Toph’s typical direct manner. Zuko says something happened to your number. He refuses to get it from me. Says he’ll surprise you. He just didn’t want you thinking he ghosted you.

She couldn’t hold back the smile on her lips.

***

Outside, Zuko paced beside the truck.

“Thanks Toph.”

“You got this, Sparky?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Ugh- don’t ever call me that again.”

“What? Ma’am?”

A disgusted sound echoed in his ears, and he smiled.

“You got it, Toph. I owe you one.”

“Yeah, you do.”

***

With all of his willpower, he maintained his work schedule over the next few days. He refused to alter his schedule, truly leaving it to the stars, as Katara had mentioned. But when he walked in on the Tuesday after the fateful weekend, he was hopeful. The morning passed rapidly, as the breakfast crowd of the Lower Ring lasted much later into the day than his uncle’s shop. However, as the lunch crowd slipped in, he stepped back, allowing the shop’s employees to take up the slack. Instead, he mingled, confirming his customer’s comfort. Falling into his rhythms, he seemed to force his preoccupying thoughts away. A new group entered, and he greeted them with his customary small smile. It wasn’t until one of the members of the group stopped directly in front of the door, staring up, that it caught his attention.

It was only the beginning of autumn, but she was draped in a sky blue hoodie, oversized, and the hood pulled up. Dark tresses fell out from the side of the hood, and her dark chin jutted out from behind the hood’s cowl as she stared up, frozen still. With a shake of her head, she dropped her head. In that moment, he recognized her before she recognized him. With as much dignity and nonchalance as he could manage he made his way towards the kitchen to wait.

***

Of all the tea shops, in all of Ba Sing Se, she thought… The sign above her colleague’s lunch choice was emblazoned with a white lotus, the name proudly alight: The Jasmine Dragon.

Upon entering, she broke away from the group to move straight towards the counter. Better just to get this over with. A young woman met her there with a pleasant smile.

“Welcome to The Jasmine Dragon! Are there any teas you’re curious about?”

“Yes, but that’ll wait. Quick question:” Katara laid her hands flat upon the countertop, leaning on them. “Is your district manager in?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s usually here on Tuesdays.”

“Of course he is.” A bitter chuckle pulled at her lips, followed by a sigh. She dropped her voice a little. “Listen, I’m going to ask something weird, but I’ll explain once you answer, okay?”

The young woman’s eyes grew wary, but she nodded.

“Is he… Ya know,” she gave a vague gesture, “I don’t know… not fifty?”

The girl laughed. “No! No, he’s in his thirties.”

“Oh good.” The words escaped Katara like a sigh. “Iroh’s been after me to meet him, but you know how that can go sometimes…”

Her response was a knowing laugh. “Would you like me to go get him?”

“Yes, please.”

“Ok, hold on--” she stopped in her tracks as the dark haired man stepped out from behind the curtain blocking off the kitchen, a puckish grin on his face. The young employee gestured pleasantly. “There he is.”

“Zuko?”

***

@zutaraweek

[instagoodfru]

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[hareofhrair]

I think there’s a handful of reasons, most of which go back to op’s “changing times” point.

First of all, as an autistic person who watches sitcoms and who, maybe more relevantly, moved around constantly growing up, I’ve always longed to be a “usual” somewhere. It’s such an unambiguous expression of social inclusion. Someone saying “can I get you the usual?” Might as well be saying “hey, you’re a part of my community. I’ve made space in my memory for you. I recognize your personhood and find your presence in my life to be, at worst, neutral. To me, you belong here.” Now I’ve thought about it too much and I think if anyone ever smiled at me and offered me the usual I might burst into tears, which would probably be a bit awkward, lmao. I might be a very lonely person.

But not uniquely lonely, which brings me to my first real point. I’ve heard people talking about a “male loneliness epidemic” but frankly theres a loneliness epidemic period. I blame capitalism, as per usual, which is highly incentivized to encourage isolation.

From segregated marketing strategies that seek to divide market segments from each other as firmly as possible, to short sighted self destructive policies such as lean staffing intended to create the appearance of exponential growth.

Anti union sentiment both subtle (such as discouraging employees from socializing with each other during work hours) to the markedly less so (ie commission, gig, and contract type policies that encourage workers to see each other as the competition), resulting in a worker-hostile job market where hours are long and frequently unreliable, and vacation days are few to nonexistent. Down to the simple fact that close knit communities share things, while communities that are more atomized all have to buy their own products. Not to mention how much easier it is to sell people junk you promise will fill the hole in their lives and make everyone love them when they’re critically deprived of the integral, physical human need for connection.

Well socialized people aren’t good for capitalism. Strong communities capable of unified action are downright bad for capitalism. So it’s been doing its best to convince us that paranoid isolation is both the natural human condition and also a patriotic symbol of American Individualism since the 50’s.

(This is not to ignore the element of the propaganda which was pitting said American Individualism as righteous opposition to Eeevil Russian Capitalism, meaning the government was pushing it for their own reasons and the advertisers then gleefully harnessed that nationalism for their own purposes and so on and so forth)

Another point against capitalism— the ubiquity, ease, and undercut prices of franchise restaurants have been doing their best to drive friendly local places where everybody knows your name fucking extinct for a very long time. Your local deli can’t compete with a multinational corporation who can afford to take a loss on every burger they sell because their entire supply chain is a kaleidoscope of human atrocity. The ones that hang on generally do so by being twice as scummy and exploitative as McDonald’s. High employee turnover means no one working there has been around long enough to notice who’s a regular and who isn’t, and shit pay for garbage hours gives them precious little incentive to care. If you *do* manage to be recognized as a regular these days, something exceptional has to have occurred, and it’s decidedly unlikely to last.

Throw the pandemic on top of that, and the isolation ramps up from “Alaskan lighthouse keeper who comes into town for jerky and the latest issue of Playboy once a month” to “marooned castaway on an island approximately the size of a walk in closet who has spent the last six months assigning individual names, backstories, and complex political beliefs to all of his remaining teeth.”

But it’s not just capitalism’s fault. There are other factors (which yes lead back to capitalism the minute you look too hard but shh).

A degree of this assumption is coming from a heightened sense of social anxiety from autistic people themselves, who tend to have both a neurochemical inclination and a very rational conditioned assumption that they are doing something wrong and weird literally always, thus everyone that’s ever seen them finds them creepy and/or annoying, and therefore any acknowledgment of their existence must be either subtle mockery or white knuckled faux politeness concealing barely restrained contempt. RSD is a bitch even when it’s not being consistently reinforced by people’s actual objective reactions to your clinical Weird and Off Putting Disorder.

But I don’t think it’s entirely autistic people in that bucket. This is more conjecture than even the rest of this post, but I feel like technology and culture have come together in a particularly toxic combination in the last two decades. Take the leering big brother of omnipresent social media, add the effortless availability of instantaneous world wide streaming video, and toss in the pendulum on the “moral conservatism vs liberal permissiveness” clock swinging back towards Calvinist hysteria right on schedule, and you’ve got essentially the precise cocktail you’d cook up in a lab if you wanted to induce intense social anxiety in as many people as possible. People who are scared that being a regular at their favorite restaurant makes them a freak aren’t autistic, they just have the completely rational fear that at literally any moment a stranger with a few million followers could record their mildest social faux pas and upload it to tik tok with a funny caption and a viral pop song, and literally ruin their lives.

So, to sum up. After decades of capitalism systematically isolating people, the pandemic happens and now half the population has gained a new and intimate understanding of the term “depersonalization,” and a whole generation of young people have grown up with little to no actual framework for what is normal social behavior. Sitcom style friendly local restaurants are an endangered species, because high turnover franchise places are economically dominant and no one working minimum wage at a job they got last week and probably won’t have in three months is trying to keep track of regulars. And during the time when they are most desperate for social inclusion and a sense of belonging, everyone is cripplingly aware that they are constantly being watched and judged by people who would jump at the chance to trade a stranger’s dignity and privacy for the chance to go viral. So, autistic or not, they over analyze and criticize themselves for every potentially “cringey” action, and then make a sarcastic relatable post about it, knowing the other debilitatingly insecure autistic folks will get it, and not anticipating that a bunch of non autistics who are also gripped by paralyzing social anxiety— due to the very real threat of someone finding that one video they uploaded eight years ago of them singing ABBA into a hair brush with their grandparent’s wall of confederate memorabilia in the background— would see it and think “oh shit! I do that! Does that mean I’m autistic?? Oh god have the baristas been laughing at me for ordering the same coffee this whole time? Ahg I’m so boring and stupid! What if one of them posts about it?? I’m going to end up on fucking kiwifarms because I’m too stupid and autistic to change up my coffee order!!!”

Here's an example of some of that shifting frame I'm talking about, as we truly enter the 21st, and leave behind the 20th Century. This is actually a really normal interaction that you see in 20th century media. Most people my age and older understand it as completely normal and it is not seen as autistic.

I have had to reassure any number of people that asking for the same beverage two visits in a row, and or being a regular at a specific restaurant, is not weird.

Maybe it is weird now. I don't know.

But it would not have been considered weird at ANY point during the majority of my lifetime. You will see this kind of an interaction in a majority of 20th century sitcoms. Probably even later ones. But I suspect that the people the most worried about this, are not in the media consumption silo that would show this. Sitcoms will show this, but lots of the most socially anxious people do not watch sitcoms. (I've noticed this for ages.)

"The Usual" is actually NOT an inconvenience to shopkeepers.