Today @ines_opcoelho and I got yelled at by this enthusiastic animal

February was a complete write-off for me. It wasn't a good month but to my surprise I bookmarked a lot of things in the first two weeks of it. I also created an account in TikTok as if I don't waste enough time already looking at memes.

Bookmarks from February

• Why We Need to Talk About—and Recognize—Representation Burnout - by Martha Tesema.
• Don’t feel like an expert? Share anyway. - by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
• Exclusive Design - by Vasilis van Gemert
• Your digital identity has three layers, and you can only protect one of them - by Katarzyna Szymielewicz
• Accessibility Reviews - by Adrian Roselli and Tobie Langel
• ASCII renderer - by Tommy Li
• Tokimeki Unfollow - by Julius Tarng
• TRUST the Process: How to present your best, when you’re at your worst - by Tatiana Mac
• These Comics About Work Anxieties Are Painfully Real - compilation by Arianna Rebolini and comics by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy
• The end of the celebrity designer - by Tim Van Damme
• A web of anxiety: accessibility for people with anxiety and panic disorders [Part 1] - by David Swallow
• A web of anxiety: accessibility for people with anxiety and panic disorders [Part 2] - by David Swallow
• "My background pattern resources" - by Wes Bos
• Statistics - Children and Young people victims of crime and violence 2013-2017 (in Portuguese) - by APAV (Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima)
• Web Components Club - by Andy Bell
• The "C" is for accessibility - by Evangelina Ferreira
• Progressive Vue Toggle - by Andy Bell
• CSS Reference - by Jeremy Thomas
• Complete guide to accessible video and audio for the web - by Stefany Newman
• Let's bring Fan Sites and webrings back! - by Bryan Robinson
• Awesome Leadership and Management - by Lauri Apple
• Your words are wasted - by Scott Hanselman
• The Best Way to Ride Out Air Turbulence - by Cynthia Drescher
• Using persona profiles to test accessibility - by Anika Henke
• MIDI CITY 2000 - by Monica Dinculescu
• You guys - by Baron Schwartz
• CSS Doodle - by Yuan Chuan
• Front end wizard - by Kieran Venison
• Pure CSS Still Life - Water and Lemons - by Ben Evans
• "TIL" RSS Feed - by Sara Soueidan
• Quick Note on high contrast mode - by Scott O'Hara
• CSS Night Cat - by Steve Gardner
• Ryan Adams, misogyny and “sensitive” masculinity - by Anna Leszkiewicz
• Slapping Back Imposter Syndrome - by Alice Goldfuss
• Micrometa 2 demo page - by Joschi Kuphal
• Look Ma, No Media Queries! Responsive Layouts Using CSS Grid - by Juan Martín García
• The Colors of Motion
• CSS selectors cheatsheet - by Nana
• IndieKit - by Paul Robert Lloyd
• Using CSS Grid the right way - by Violet Peña

Things that made me smile one way or another

• So what do beavers have to do with wildfire?
• This person who won a Henry Hoover at bingo
• This analogy
• This thread about the human body
• A very brave mongoose
• Client-side validation
• "Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head?"
• Synchronised dog
• The photo of this PSA

Portuguese lunch with my Portuguese girl @ines_opcoelho 😻

I feel nothing but anxiety at the moment. I have little energy to describe what I am feeling and explaining why everything is bad regarding Brexit. But I have one note that has been bothering me. Whenever I tell people that I am worried about Brexit, the response is usually: “don’t worry, you will be fine”.

In the past two years, when there are discussions about Brexit and how its campaign was around immigration, and when I tell people that I am an immigrant and it affects me, I hear back “yes but you’re one of the good ones and this wasn’t about people like you”.

As well meant as it can be, I need people to understand how dehumanising this statement is. To me, it means that in “their eyes” I’m still “one of them” but accepted because I’m “good”.

This is what “good” means: I speak English, I always had a job, I don’t claim benefits or use the NHS. This is what people perceive “as a good immigrant”. All this plus my skin colour and country of origin privilege.

For the past two years I’ve been biting my tongue but all I want to ask you is: what happens when I stop being a “good one”?

What happens when and if I have an accident and may not be able to work ever again?

What happens when and if I have children and I need support?

What happens when I get older and need to use the NHS?

Is this my new status of constant probation? I am not fine. I am worried for everyone. I need people to stop telling me to stop worrying. Everyone who says this has absolute no experience in discrimination or exposure to the lengths people go to hurt other humans.

P.S.: I hope it is implied that I don’t believe in the concept of “good” or “bad” immigrants and I don’t believe “I am one of the good ones”. Please don’t bother arguing with me and denying that the campaign was mostly about immigration.

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