“In 1984, when Ruth Coker Burks was 25 and a young mother living in Arkansas, she would often visit a hospital to care for a friend with cancer.
During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.
On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.
In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, “Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”
Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a "sinner” and already dead to her, and that she wouldn’t even claim his body when he died.
“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, “Oh, momma. I knew you’d come”, and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, “I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.
Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him
and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.
After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family’s large plot.
After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.
Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, "They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here’d come the money. That’s how we’d buy medicine, that’s how we’d pay rent. If it hadn’t been for the drag queens, I don’t know what we would have done”, Ruth said.
Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family’s plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.
For this, Ruth has been nicknamed the ‘Cemetery Angel’.”— by Ra-Ey Saley
She’s 60 now, she’s still doing activist and advocacy work, and working on a memoir.
I’m absolutely embarrassed that I never knew this before but…
The pen stand that most Wacom products come with?
It twists off and has a bunch of nibs in it.
I’ve been buying extra nibs when they were in this stupid thing the whole time.
Reblog to save a life.
ARe YOU KIDDING
I just checked and HOLY FUCK
For anyone who has a Wacom Intuos that looks like this
The spare nibs are on the back of the removable panel where you can change the pen loop colour.
Also there’s a little hole in that compartment that looks like this
You see the little eject symbol? This guy is how you remove your worn down nibs.
Press the pen nib in on an angle like this and lift up.
and ta-da! you just removed your pen nib!
HOOOLLLLYYY COOOOW
I feel like an idiot for not knowing this.
FUCK
ok i’ve never had an intuos but im reblogging this because it’s funny as fuck why the hell is wacom so god damn extra like literally what other consumer electronic product would have a hidden removable panel that contains customizable color attachments, replacements for worn out parts, and a mysterious “eject hole” with like ZERO EXPLANATION
WHAT OTHER COMPANY THIS VAGUE AND EXCESSIVE ?? THEIR STANDARD PARTS REPLACEMENTS ARE HIDDEN WITHIN THEIR PRODUCT SO SECRETIVELY THAT MOST PEOPLE ARE LEARNING ABOUT IT FROM A TUMBLR POST AFTER OWNING THE PRODUCT FOR Y E A R S
LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT, UNDERRATED DISNEY FILMS OF ALL TIME OKAY:
1. It teaches kids that we should never judge others by their appearance or what we’ve seen on the surface.
2. It teaches kids that despite if we’ve been taught to be afraid of or hate something or someone that looks/acts differently than us, we should learn and try to understand thembefore we judge them.
3. It teaches that two sides that may hate each other don’t always have to stay that way - they can learn and grown from each other’s mistakes.
4. It teaches that hatred is not always the answer; to listen, to step back, and see through someone else’s eyes. It teaches patience, understanding, and wisdom.
5. IT TEACHES CHILDREN THAT PEOPLE CAN BE FORGIVEN AND DO BETTER.
6. It teaches children that even if you make a mistake, you can learn and grow from it like Kenai.
Seriously I just love this movie to pieces it is so important to me and I wish more people knew/watched it because wtf it’s AMAZING.
NOT TO MENTION THE ENTIRE CAST IS POC AND CULTURE WISE IT IS RESPECTFUL AND IT IS JUST A GREAT MOVIE OKAY
And… it’s the second Disney movie with a Phil Collins soundtrack. Everyone loves Tarzan, no one appreciates Brother Bear.
Dude, read the books, she and her mom freed themselves in Book 1. We don’t disrespect American Girl in this house
Don’t you dare disrespect Addy, or any of my girls for that matter. American Girl used to be legit. Good stories, good dolls, good movies.
Felicity’s story was set in the beginnings of the American Revolution, and addressed the conflict that she faced when her loved ones were split between patriots and loyalists. It also covered the effects of animal abuse, and forgiving those who are unforgivable.
Samantha’s stories centered around the growth of industrial America, women’s suffrage, child abuse, and corruption in places of power. Also, it emphasises how dramatically adoption into a caring family can turn a life around.
Kit’s story is one of my favorites. Her family is hit hard by the Great Depression, and they begin taking in boarders and raise chickens to help make ends meet. Her books include themes of poverty, police brutality, homelessness, prejudice, and the importance of unity in difficult times.
Molly’s father, a doctor, is drafted during the Second World War. Throughout her story, friends of hers suffer the loss of their husbands, sons, and brothers overseas. Her mother leaves the traditional housewife position and works full-time to help with the war effort. They also take in an English refugee child, who learns to open up after a life of traumatic experience.
American Girl stories have always featured the very harsh realities of America through the years. But they’re always presented honestly, yet in ways that kids can understand. They just go to show that you don’t have to live in a perfect time to be a real American girl.
Dont you fucking dare disrespect the American Girls in my house. ESPECIALLY Addy!! That was my first REAL contact with the horrors of slavery, as I read about her father being whipped and sold and her mother escaping with her to freedom, but also how freedom was still a struggle.
A slave doll. Please. Read the books.
Don’t forget Kirsten, the Swedish immigrant who had to deal with balancing her own culture and learning the english language and customs of her classmates, or Kaya (full name
Kaya'aton'my, or She Who Arranges Rocks) , the brave but careless girl from the Nez Perce tribe, or Josefina, the Mexican girl learning to be a healer.
And then there are the later dolls, that kids younger than me would have grown up with (I was just outgrowing American Girl as these came out), like Rebecca, the Jewish girl who dreams of becoming an actress in the budding film industry, or
Julie, who fights against her school’s gender policy surrounding sports in the 70s, or
Nanea, the Hawaiian girl whose father worked at Pearl Harbor.
These books, these characters, are fantastic pictures into life for girls in America throughout the years, they pull no punches with the horrors that these girls had to face in their different time periods, and in many cases I learned more history from these series than social studies at school. And that’s without even mentioning the “girl of the year” series where characters are created in the modern world to help girls deal with issues like friend problems, moving, or bullying. We do NOT disrespect American Girl in this house.
Kirsten’s best friend Marta dies of cholera in book one of her series. Those books do not hold back.
You shitheads tryna disrespect American Girl books in my house I’m gonna disrespect you upside your GODDAMN HEADS!
They reached and got nothing but a good education on the profoundness of American Girl.
I didn’t hear the name American Girl till I saw it on Antique Roadshow, and up until now I had no idea they had stories.
Anyways those who blindly fight shit to fight and won’t become educated beforehand can lick chode.
Megan
The dolls were originally created because a mom wanted to teach history to her daughters! And honestly you can’t teach US history and skip over slavery and child labor. That would be a far worse crime
I had Samantha!
My sister and I had Felicity and Elizabeth, I used to get the catalogues all the time.
I had Samantha and Kaya, and a mini Josefina.
I remember Molly’s books the most, and what I remember the most of the most, is when Molly befriended a German-American girl and one day heads to her house to find the entire family uprooted and gone. Because (and no one talks about it bc they can’t make it about race) while Japanese Americans faced the brunt of the unfair treatment in World War II, and certainly the most famous violations of human rights, German Americans and Italian Americans were also subject to discrimination and forced relocation into internment camps.
I wanted an American Girl doll so fucking bad as a kid. I only got the books
Kaya was always my personal favorite. How dare someone try to dishonor the blessing that is American Girl.
was the Latina’s one’s name??? I swear me, my mom and my sis, all avid book readers loved these!!