#hardly matters but i don't like spreading any misinformation

[growinguparo]

Thinking once again about the intersection of being aro / perpetually single and the Housing Issue. It is without a doubt the biggest issue I face as an aro person, particularly in fucking Canada.

In my province we have rent control on almost all rental units by default. Annual rent increases are capped at 2.5%, and though I have had landlords in the past try to break that law, they back down when you say "that's literally not legal lmao try again".

In my province we also have a type of lease called a group lease, where multiple people sign on as a group. This is the standard type of lease used in properties with more than one bedroom.

If one person wishes to remove themself from a group lease, that terminates the lease for all of the other tenants in the group. Therefore, in order to continue living in the unit they are already in and may have been in for years, the landlord can choose to force the remaining tenants to reapply, and upon signing a "new lease" they can increase the rent by however much they want. Forget 2.5%, they could double rent with no consequences and still get tenants because that's how desperate people are in Canada.

Seeing as that's fucking insane, I talked to multiple lawyers about it the last time this happened to me, and they all said yeah no, if someone wants to be removed from the lease then the landlord can choose to deny a takeover and force a new lease. You can prevent the issues that come with a new lease if everyone remains on the old lease even if they no longer live there, but that is rather precarious for everyone involved and also makes your landlord hate your guts.

Anytime a new lease is signed, landlords can increase by whatever they want, so renovictions are very common (I've been renovicted as well). With all these easy-to-access loopholes, "rent control" is a joke.

It is New Year's Day and I have received yet another email informing me that since one of my roommates decided to leave at the end of the lease period, our lease will be terminating and showings will begin next week. If any one of us wants to stay, we have to reapply at market rates with a replacement person already in the group ready to sign a new lease, or we have to all remain on the old lease.

I left my parents' home in 2016, and since then I have moved 15-17 times, depending what you count as a move, and lived in 12-13 different places. That's due to a bunch of forced circumstances, including co-op placements and illegal evictions, but many of those moves were because the roommates I was living with decided to move on with their lives, and I had no choice but to move as well.

When I tell people I've moved 15 times in 7 years, they are always shocked. I'm like, how have you NOT though? Having had this conversation many times, I start to ponder what makes me vulnerable to this type of exploitation, and what makes my friends able to avoid some of it.

#1. As a low-income disabled person, I am unable to afford "market rates". This means I'm always tryna get units that are below market rate, and those landlords are invariably very interested in removing their tenants to bring their busted-ass units up to market rate.

#2. I am SINGLE bro. No one is planning their life around living with me. Every time a roommate leaves, I get forced out too. I did have a long-term roommate for a couple years who bounced around 4 places with me, but eventually she moved city - as is her right - and I was forced out again.

Couples also have more options when it comes to affordable housing, particularly if they are willing to share a room. Sharing a room cuts your rent in half. It’s pretty rare to see just one person living in a 1bed because it’s just ludicrously expensive, but for couples it’s a decent option. During the searching stage as well, if you already have someone to live with it’s a lot easier to find places than if you also have to find new roommates (this part is especially brutal for me as a trans person). It is certainly still difficult for couples in the market, I know couples who have ended up homeless as well, but being alone makes you more vulnerable.

The housing crisis is a broad issue affecting literally everyone, but single people are one of the groups that is systematically disadvantaged, making it a significant issue for aros imo. It is the combination of being single and low-income that has made me so vulnerable to housing instability.

Edited with minor corrections

[sophieinwonderland]

how do you feel about the divide between the tulpamancy and the wider endo community? i keep seeing posts that wish for "more systems that piss people off" and list off obscure origins like firpergenic and pseudogenic, but not a mention of tulpas, even though we bear half of all the hate coming from sysmeds.

I see "pro-endo" posts that censor us as t*lpagenic, i see posts insisting that we have to leave our communities and start calling ourselves willogenic or other terms they came up with, otherwise we deserve to be the endos' scapegoats. i see posts from transplurals rejecting any mention of tulpamancy techniques that could help them and separating themselves from tulpamancy, even though i and i'm sure many others have had similar experiences of hating being a singlet and changing that with tulpamancy

Is this it? Is this all the discourse is ever going to be? I wish the kids would realise that they'll never win if they don't stick with their most controversial, and i wish we didn't have to defend both our own existence and theirs at the same time

I think the divide is overstated. There's a small handful of pro endos who are against the term tulpa. And they do tend to be rather vocal about it.

I mean, you do a search for "#pro endo #anti tulpa" in the tags and you'll see most are just people intentionally crosstagging to reach the other side. Tags are obviously not the only things that matter since not everyone tags their stuff as anti tulpa. But still, I just don't see this mentality that much outside of a very few pro endo blogs.

And at that, many of these anti-tulpa pro-endo blogs are people who have been in sysmed circles and picking up their talking points from them. Either "originally pro endo but fell into anti endo circles later" or "reformed anti endo who absorbed anti endo talking point before making the change but still doesn't accept tulpas."

You look into a lot of these so-called pro-endo anti-tulpas who make anti-tulpa posts, and it's not long until you find them arguing that endogenic and pro endo systems aren't oppressed and should shut up about it.

Or calling the pro-endo community nasty because we're not polite enough to people fakeclaiming our existences and harassing us for being plural for non-trauma reasons.

I would hardly call the "endogenic systems exist but I hate their community and think they should shut up about being oppressed" camp pro endo.

To the extent that actual anti-tulpa pro-endos do exist, I do find it's pretty stupid. I think it shoots yourself in the foot on multiple fronts. As you mention, it separates them from valuable resources that can help their systems.

It also plays into sysmed misinformation meant to divide the community. It's the same exact thing that happened when transphobes spread the talking point that "Faegender" was appropriative to sew division in the trans community, and demonize people for using neo pronouns.

The other thing is... tulpamancy is being researched right now more than other sorts of plurality, in a scientific way. When the Stanford Tulpa Study is published, it's going to be super important to spread that as much as possible.

And I expect we'll also see future studies on tulpas that will be into the actual creation process, which will be amazing. Imagine if we had a longitudinal study demonstrating that singlets can create headmates from scratch! This would completely and utterly destroy all remaining sysmed talking points.

Any pro-endo systems not sharing studies like this because they don't like a word would, frankly, be harming all endogenic systems with their silence.

But like I said, these tend to be a very vocal minority. I don't worry about them or concern myself with them.

I also think as tulpa studies come out and are the main evidence showing that plurality can be induced at any age into singlets, many of the stragglers will end up falling in line. 🤷‍♀️

[heartfulselkie]

i have barely any followers so it's less stressful for me ig but sometimes i reblog things i 100% disagree with just because i think that the way they're talking about it is funny. a lot of people act like if you reblog something that means that you're all for that cause but sometimes it's just...funny. and their argument about like, letting bad opinions 'grow' is kind of also weird to me cos it's like - even if a blog had a million followers, it's a random post on tumblr? if they don't like it they can just unfollow 🤷‍♂️ idk not saying you should reblog those posts or anything - it's just on my mind whenever i reblog something i don't agree with and your post made me think about it again

It's certianly one way of looking at it!

I'm just someone who avoids conflict as much as possible though, even the potential of it 😅

I usually just steer clear of topics that are charged with a lot of opinions - because no matter what side you're on, there's a chance someone will see it and because they don't agree, they decide you're a target. It's just how the internet functions sometimes.

But I've had hate in my inbox before just over my fics or minor posts - and then gotten hate for how I handled it! Some days I'm just not up to inviting people to be angry at me because I found another post funny/interesting.

And one thing I always try to be wary of is the spread of misinformation. Even if a post is just someone's "bad opinion", there's a chance someone else can read the questionable facts of that post as accurate. This is the website of minimal reading comprehension after all 🤣

Sometimes though, it is just best to keep thoughts and opinions to yourself. The specific subject I made that other post about is something I have no personal stake in, its just something I've been sitting on the fringe of as an observer. So I'm hardly an expert, but I've seen enough going around to know my personal stance on it.

But its something that other people are involved in - and positively so. And these are people I've talked to in passing and haven't had any reason to be anything but polite and friendly to and this one thing won't change it. If they enjoy taking part in that topic and aren't harming/being harmed by it, then they can do as they like as far as I'm concerned. I'm not going to police their experience.

But I'm also not going to reblog an actually kind of funny but also a little inflammatory post. Cause yeah, I do find it funny. But I also do my best to keep a certain tone on my blog whenever I can.

[bravagente]

hello dear mod, thank you for everything you do. i have a question i apologise if it's heavier than the tone on this blog. recently a popular italian blogger said that race in italy is racist&was a product of il ventennio. i am french&i understand that we in europe don't like to say the word 'race', but i just want to understand how the construct of racism in italy, especially with all the far right/macerata from an italian persepective. I did read amara lakhous. thanks for everything you do!

Hi! Sorry for the late answer, it’s just such a complex matter to talk about and I’m not entirely sure I have the right perspective to handle it properly both as a white woman and as someone who lives in a city where that’s still relatively not diverse. Plus I study languages so I’m not really in the area - I basically really wanted to do right by this and I hope I will.

Disclaimer: it is true that in Italy the very concept of race, at least the way we know and use it in English is racist and a product of the ventennio. Whichever its etimology and original denotation, the word race (razza) has been very clearly connotated since Fascism: if you say men have razze, you’re implying some men have a pure, superior razza and some don’t. Nowadays in Italian dogs and horses have razze, not people. So, usually, if someone uses ‘race’ in italian as opposed to, say, ethnicity (etnia, colore), you’ll be quite sure they’re racist. It’s not that just because people don’t use the word they can’t be racist, but it does say something about how hard it is for us to cope with the American concept of race and the discourse that follows. The paradox is Americans are rightly very sensitive and careful about what they call race, when from our pov they’re just seeing it all from an inherently racist perspective: there are whites and then there are “people of colour”, all of them. Basically, a white race and then all those other races. Again, all of them. We can’t quite wrap our head around it, especially since we don’t really have a concept of, say, “brown” people. Come over in August, we’ll all be brown. We like a tan. It’s just beyond us.

Moving on to racism. It is possibly the most divisive thing in Italy right now and any conversation about it will escalate quickly because a) no one ever admits to being racist b) not everyone necessarily knows they are, if they are. Like everywhere else, it’s not always glaring. It’s not always a “racist slurs” kind of thing. There are subtle forms of it even here and not just in the alt right: I believe many liberals are actually as racist as one gets, they just don’t show because they never deal with people of colour in the first place. I once interviewed an otherwise pretty decent man who told me immigrants today don’t actually come here willing to work and therefore should be sent back home, another one praised a city he visited because he saw no blacks selling stuff there. I think it speaks volumes on how complex this thing is getting: you can deal with assholes who are 100% assholes. You can ignore them and decide they’re not worth your time and energy. But when they’re half-decent it’s just disheartening and makes you wonder where we’re going. Another reason conversations about racism often won’t end well is they slip into politics and fascism is far from over. Even though more-or-less openly fascist parties didn’t do well at the latest elections, the winners (League and the Five Stars) are firmly anti-immigration, making it about law and order as any Trump of the world would.

Having said this, race as we discussed it might be rooted in Fascism, but is the same true for racism? It is and it isn’t. There’s evidence that sub-saharian Africans were of always discriminated against. We had our own slave markets we don’t learn much of in schools, and while it’d buy and sell people of any race black Africans were definitely amongst them. There’s recently been a lot of discourse about how (in)accurate Still Star-Crossed was, with someone arguing that Alessandro de’ Medici was just an example of a class of black nobles. I’m afraid that’s not true. If I’m referencing to this particular period of time it’s because Renaissance is a personal interest of mine: The Ugly Renaissance will offer information about racism against dark-skinned Africans in 15th-16th century Italy. While light skinned Africans were considered as white as any European, sub-Saharans were thought to be strong and valuable workers, but also “uncivilized simpletons who could never hope to occupy a position of parity with the white majority”. That was a long time ago, sure, but it was bound to remain embedded in people’s mindset. And it did in ways we’d think were behind us by now.

Now, subtle forms of racism aside, there are many racists of the in-your-face, insulting type, more and worse than I ever thought possible growing up. They’ve actually probably always been there, it’s just now they have the Internet so they feel somehow validated and it’s made them unashamed to be openly hateful and ignorant with the support of the right.

However I have to stress that there many, many many more, non-racists. When fascists parade in our streets, anti fascist marches will follow. There’s always a firm reaction, it’s just decency doesn’t make any noise and rarely makes it to the headlines. Anyway I’ll give a few pieces of news  encapsulating the two souls of Italy:  

Refugee drowns in Venice as people film on their phones and do nothing

Teenager saves black child from getting hit by a train in Milan

Mein Kumpf-owning man shoots black immigrants on sight

Italians protest against racism

Refugee killed in Fermo after defending his wife from slurs

1500 in march to commemorate him

Black man shot to death in Florence

Italians join black people in march to commemorate him

So there’s the bright side I guess, we are genuinely engaged and young people who actually read books know we’re a country with very diverse genes, owing much of our language and culture and even food to “others”. This matters deeply to me because I think othering is the root of most, if not all, issues in our societies. This is a cultural problem first and foremost and I actually believe that. We often speak of inclusiveness or tolerance, but these are all patronizing concepts to me. Who the hell do I think I am to include or “tolerate” someone? No, I have to know in my heart of hearts that “others” aren’t to fear.

Anyway, racism is definitely an issue that exists and that’s getting worse. I’ve personally come to conclude racist behaviours in Italy are caused  and fueled by three broader factors that often inform one another.

Ideology is the most glaring: most racists are unapologetic fascists and racism is mounting and growing together with a wave of nostalgia for Mussolini’s party. A lot of fascists obviously never lived under the Duce in the first place, but they have a misguided perception of the ventennio as a time of justice and order where trains would run in time and so on. Something you’ll hear from time to time is that the duce “ha fatto anche cose buone” (also did good things). To these people, the presence of black people or muslims goes hand-in-hand with crimes and chaos: they’ll rape women! They steal and murder! They’re drug dealers! The fact that these things are sometimes true because eventually a rapist or killer or drug dealer will statistically have to be black is irrelevant: if caught off guard they’ll admit to believing every racist stereotype out there.

Xenophobia is more nuanced. The reason I don’t necessarily associate xenophobia with racism is that, until just a few years ago, the most feared foreigners in Italy were the very white Romanians and even Albanians before them. The media are also to blame for the way headlines were worded and they still tend to, often unwillingly, magnify the one crime someone black commits as opposed to those commited by Italians. The Macerata episode was most probably “inspired” by the killing of a young girl cut into pieces by at least one Nigerian immigrant. What do you now, since the news spread every Nigerian person has become a public enemy. Another huge media-related problem is they’ve created an unjustified alarm on the refugee emergency, treating it as if more people than in the past were arriving in our country (they weren’t) and as if the situation was completely out of control (it isn’t, although it’s not easy either). Crime is just one thing, though: people are afraid because our times are scary and dangerous, there are no jobs and the welfare is dying. They are hoping the government will help them and fearing that we’re too many for it to be sustainable. There’s a common misconception for which every immigrant in Italy is being hosted in a hotel and given 30 euros per day while unemployed Italians don’t have any money to buy food: while you can argue that the immigrant will only get 3 of those 30 euros, Italians still live this as if those resources are being spent on foreigners as opposed to themselves because scapegoating is a human, if wrong, thing. Clearly this is turning into a war of the underprivilegeds that will only result in diffidence and hatred, and the staggering misinformation about black people being all but enslaved in some areas of out country isn’t helping.

Conservativism, finally, is a branch of ideology but it’s not necessarily related to actual racism (though it can be). There are some who are entirely cool with people of other ethnicities as long as they “don’t bother” them. They’re too culturally lazy to accept anything different than what they knew as children, they fear Christmas will be cancelled and they don’t want, say, mosques, because they hardly know what they even are. They’re usually the same people who are annoyed by vegans: probably harmless, but they certainly don’t help.

Again I hope this helps. I really tried to be clear and truthful and not offend anybody.