#and don’t even try to deny the racism part! because everyone can see it !! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dmclemblems · 2 years

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Shahid, entirely new character, could've done anything with him: *is a stupid, violent brute*

Nader, a character who had liked battle but was overall just pretty chill: *is a pillaging, violent brute*

Claude, whose entire character relied on diplomacy over violence, looking for the truth whenever possible, and only using violence as a last resort: *is an ignorant, violent brute*

Cyril, the one named Almyran who avoids the above three's characterization: *isn't playable, gets killed with no one on the player side giving a shit*

House Goneril's enslavement of Almyrans: *never once mentioned*

Nader's pillaging: *had to be denounced by a Fodlan character, not an Almyran one*

okay so like um when can we admit that maybe Hopes' writers are Just Racist and that's why Claude got so fucked over since he didn't fit into their obvious opinions about how he (as an Almyran, who are heavily inspired by Middle Eastern/East Asia influences and who are typically written with these exact stereotypes) "should" be. of course not saying that everyone who like Hopes Claude is a racist, but i'm sorry i just can't give that benefit of the doubt to Hopes' writers when their treatment of Almyra is THIS consistently bad throughout the game

Tbh I always try not to get into the racism issue because I know it’s a sensitive topic for a lot of people, but as someone who is part Middle Eastern it’s definitely been jarring to see. I try not to get super irritable about it because it’s a video game made in Japan (and they’re definitely not as open minded as the west is with this stuff and are often ignorant of actual facts, even if they mean no harm by stereotypes because it’s what they know. I know a series that I’ve loved since childhood and still do love as much as FE, but it’s a 90s series with stereotypes all over the place. I don’t believe the creator actually did it as an insult, but that he didn’t know any better (especially since the recent remake did try to improve on some of it). For this game in particular I’m not sure what their mindset was when making it, if they’re just ignorant and/or just didn’t care.

Lots of people were also angry when the leaks came out, and it frustrated me how people kept saying “stay calm, we don’t know if the leaks are true!” because I checked the script that had gone public (literally the entire game script was leaked, so people saying that were either just in denial or didn’t want to accept the fact that it was happening this way). The fact that people looked away when a lot of us were angry at the obviously true script still pisses me off to this day tbh, because so many people were just shoving down anyone’s concerns about what was leaked.

Personally, I did go through a good bit of the script (which I still have somewhere) and I actually stumbled on Claude declaring war on Fodlan from the bad SB route. It made me so angry how people kept trying to deny what was obviously there, and there’s no way anyone was so dedicated to writing that massive of a script to fake a leak. The amount of files was absolutely batshit, and it was also extremely messy and unclear as to who the speakers were, just the way you’d expect a bunch of files like that to look.

What angered me about it wasn’t just that Claude’s character got fucked by a cactus a few double digit times until he was unrecognizable in the second half, but that the only main brown character was the one who is arguably the worst of the three lords. In this game in particular the devs tried to keep Edelgard’s hands clean as much as possible, presumably because of her popularity, and so made Claude the one where players could lay blame on the misfortunes of the game. There’s only so much that Rhea can blamed for in a game where she’s hardly even present, even in the one route where you’re allied with her.

If it was only Claude I might have eventually just figured maybe it was an extremely unfortunate accident, and since we already knew Claude had a lot of problems growing up and that he was basically The Estranged Child, I could’ve passed off Shahid’s behavior. When it got around to Nader’s characterization being butchered and the Almyran NPC saying normally they could pillage and all that but he “guesses the Alliance’s rules are different”, that’s when it was just totally in the territory of not giving a shit about the Almyrans’ writing for me.

When things come from Japan, there’s an amount of tolerance I’ve built up for any unfortunate stereotypes and whatnot, but when it’s very clearly every character from that location, it goes into the territory of believing some places’ people all behave the same way.

It’s sad for me because I love Three Houses’ characters and I want to love Hopes’ new characters, but considering what a dumpster fire everything but AG was, it’s kinda a bitter aftertaste.

#all these new dads come walking into the game like WHAT'S UP I'M IMPORTANT TOO #and Rodrigue and Gilbert sitting here like nah sit down we were here first and we actually mattered it's time for MORE DEVELOPMENT #I like most of the new dads but knowing they came from Hopes is a little meh #actually speaking of Hopes characterization Joe Z actually mentioned in one of his streams #that Judith was pretty mean in this version so... yeah. they certainly had a field day messing around with characters #Rodrigue and Gilbert were lucky they got better writers bc they escaped annihilation and only walked out with profit #DCE Ask

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markedbyindecision · 2 years

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There is something to be said about those posts that are like [insert current awful thing happening somewhere in the world] and then people in the reblogs (or sometimes the OP) will be saying things like “if you care about x group of people you’ll reblog this”.

There’s a long one that talks about tactics that rapists use to find their possible victims that has a ton of notes. i know i’ve reblogged it several times, and i’ve seen a ton of other people reblog it too. That one’s especially insistent on trying to get you to reblog it, and i remember the reblogs say things like “it doesn’t matter if this messes up the aesthetic of your blog, reblog this to literally save someone’s life.” and so of course i reblogged it. who wouldn’t? who wouldn’t want to save a life?

Anyway, cut to a few weeks ago, i saw this post that was like “Asian people are not the virus” and then people were commenting and reblogging with “if you don’t reblog this then you’re racist”.

here’s a quick PSA from me, someone who’s Chinese-American: You are absolutely NOT racist for not reblogging a tumblr post that says “Asians aren’t the virus”.

You know what does make you racist? Racism.

This was the first post that really made me question things, because i didn’t reblog it. and the way that it’s phrased makes me feel like i need to reblog it to prove that i don’t hate a group i’m literally a part of, which is ridiculous.

(Sort of a tangent, but other people reblogging those posts means nothing to me. (it also makes me feel like i’m meant to believe anti-asian racism is the baseline??? like, it makes me feel like i’m supposed to assume all of my mutuals hold those beliefs until i see them reblog a post saying that they don’t???). Maybe other Asian people do take some comfort or feel supported by that sort of thing, and that’s fine. But i’m sure we can all agree that it’s 100% more important to treat Asian people with kindness in real life than to reblog a post telling people that you don’t think asian people are a virus.)

(Just to preface what I’m about to say, I’m not implying that our actions online aren’t real or don’t have an impact. don’t derail this. People banding together online to bring awareness to problems can be important, even crucial, in getting them solved. I know that. I’m not denying that.)

I’ve thought about this a lot recently, and I feel like I’m finally able to put words to why things like this make me, and probably a lot of other people, uncomfortable and induce anxiety. There’s this new phenomenon (and i haven’t been here for that long so correct me if i’m wrong), particularly in circles where activism and discussion about social justice is prevalent, where people will guilt-trip others into doing certain things in the name of helping people?? I don’t know if there’s a word for it, but I would call it guilt-mongering.

Here’s a kind of weird example. Let’s say some guy doesn’t know that grapes are poisonous to dogs and so he feeds a grape to a dog, and the dog dies (sorry). Would we demand of him to go around telling everyone that grapes are poisonous to dogs? To research every way a dog can die and type it out in a list and hand it out to everyone he knows? No. He might do these things to cope, but we would never require it, or imply that he’s a bad person for not doing these things. But that’s what it feels like people are doing right now.

I was talking with a friend of mine, and certain like, frames of mind (anxiety), definitely increase the chance of this, but we both felt like it’s getting harder and harder to be a Good Person™ . Sometimes the internet it feels like every action we do, we need to consider an impossible, un-ending list of domino effects that could even in the most minuscule way harm someone in order to be a good person. And sometimes that actually makes us harm someone anyway, because we’re too focused on the little things that we aren’t able to see the whole picture.

By the way, i don’t think anyone should attack people making these kinds of posts, or the people reblogging them. I would guess that most people who make/reblog them are well-intentioned and/or teenagers too. And I don’t think that reblogging a few of them is a problem. Information is cool and useful! It’s why we share it! But nobody should be demanding us to share it as if we’re directly harming someone by not reblogging a post about something bad happening in the world. Bad things happen every day. And it’s true that maybe knowing one thing might save someone’s life. But it gets overwhelming when it feels like it’s our job to spread the word all the time. We’re not responsible for other people, nor should we be. That’s not our job. Why are we all on tumblr? Are you here to save lives? No. Most of us are here to share art, look at memes, find our communities, talk about our blorbos, etc.

To anyone who feels even a little anxious about this or feels like they aren’t helping enough or can never do enough: It’s absolutely okay not to engage, or not engage much, in social activism/spreading the word about whatever on tumblr. Especially if that’s something that harms your mental health. (Even if you don’t feel like you have the right to have a problem with it. Even if you have a brain like mine that says things like “oh but i’m sitting here with so much privilege while right now other people are being abused or starving or being murdered etc etc, so i don’t have the right to feel anxious or overwhelmed by this. i should be thankful my home isn’t being bombed right now.” (these are real things i have thought, btw)) It’s important to care about people and it’s important to be aware of what’s going on in the world, but there are so many other ways and other places and times you can do that, and not obligated to dedicate a whole ton of your time and energy to helping other people. There is balance. I promise you can find balance. I promise you that you are doing good. I promise you are good, and you can continue to be good without burning yourself up so that someone can warm their hands by a fire. Sometimes we forget we are human too, and we also need and deserve the love and care we extend to others.

#saf speaks #long post #well there goes 2 hours of my day #this turned from a rant to a love letter to my past self lol #anyway how are y’all doing. are y’all doing ok i hope you’re doing ok

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olderthannetfic · 3 years

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Ah, I do see your points, anon. I'm not going to post all your asks publicly because if you really feel that unsafe, it's probably best not to have a bigass chunk of your text for people to analyze and try to guess your identity from. I think one of the best points you made is about how close to home it hits when the non-fave is not only your fave but is similar to you in some way like demographic. You're not wrong for having those emotions. I do wonder if they make it hard to see how some other people feel similarly embattled on other axes.

TBH, I think one of the big problems here is that the large aggregate patterns you're talking about are racist, but most individual fics and fans are not really the problem. It's hard to know how to talk about this or who to tell to "fix" it when we're looking at free, hobbyist art.

A lot of people's tastes are certainly formed by shitty society, but once they're formed, they don't change fast if at all. Asking someone to rewrite their libido is a big ask, yet tumblr does it all the time as though it's as simple as snapping your fingers.

This leaves me with the sense that a lot of tumblr is... like... the political lesbians of porn fic or something: desire is not real, only choosing based on logic and politics. Or maybe people are so asexual that they just don't understand the lizard brain's "YES!" at some porn things and complete indifference to others?

I don't think it's great if great swaths of people feel like bottom!Nicky is super hot and top!Nicky fundamentally isn't, but I also don't think they can necessarily just turn it off like flipping a switch.

(If someone reading this doesn't like their current tastes and wants to attempt to alter them, I do think it's possible. What you should do is line up a large slate of media that prominently features characters of the ethnicity or whatever that you don't find hot/interesting. These should be leads whose emotional development drives the plot and is supposed to be central to the audience's enjoyment of the media. Watch/read/etc. this media all the time. All. The. Time. Try out many pieces because you won't like every character or every show, and we're looking for genuine enjoyment, not the fandom equivalent of a pity fuck. Spend enough time on this, and your unconscious sense of who's hot and interesting will eventually shift somewhat. This is a project you should expect to take a few years.)

But I digress.

The one tweet thing is a very toxic pattern. If TOG fandom is doing that, guys, please try to be more conscious of holding the actors of color to a higher standard (or the women or whomever). I know this often comes from a place of paying more attention to our own and wanting to set a good standard, but the effect is that minorities can't fuck up ever while white dudes get infinite passes.

Okay, on to the fic thing... Gotta say, my instant reaction to that description is "Ooh!"--as it would be for the same scenario with the characters reversed. (Ships who start out trying to kill each other are my favorite! x1000 if they're resurrecting style immortals and they literally do.) I can see how it would feel like slamming into a brick wall if you aren't kinky in just the right way and you didn't know it was coming though.

Part of why I react so strongly to a lot of discourse that runs along these lines is that I am a naturally extremely kinky person. It's not so much about what I do (which as a deeply lazy person in a long distance relationship is essentially nothing), but it's absolutely how I'm wired.

And I can tell you that my quotidian experience in fandom is sharing something I don't even realize is a big deal only to have someone I like, respect, and trust react in horror and tell me that it's triggering and awful and should not be allowed in fandom spaces because it makes "people" unsafe. It's such an instant, kneejerk reaction they don't even realize I was sharing it because it spoke to the very core of me. Lesson learned, friend. Lesson learned.

That sounds a bit off topic, I know, but bear with me: The point of that anecdote is that it's pretty common for me to get people trying to raise my awareness of things I have already thought deeply about while denying my essential humanity and not even realizing. As a kinky person who likes to make my fave the top (and generally a conflicted sadist), this constant request to explain and justify is exhausting.

I doubt most of the top!Joe fans have this precise problem simply because people who make their fave the top are much less common in fandom than people who make their fave the bottom, but I see a similar pattern with fans who are just fundamentally wired for rape fantasies (one of the most common fantasies that exists) vs. fans who just don't get rape fantasies at all. Or substitute your BDSM/kinky/messed up fantasy trope of choice. Covertly radical feminist attitudes towards kink and power are on the rise in fandom, and as a naturally kinky person, boy do I notice it!

I know that it feels like crucial activism to share these insights about why the ratio of top!Joe is hurtful, and the pain you feel is real. But it's also the case that it's a big ask to want people to listen. (Not me. Obviously, I routinely choose to engage with discourse. I mean overall.) The reason for that is that you're only seeing a fraction of what they do or who they are, and you don't know how many previous people they've listened to how many previous times. It's a very different situation from someone whose job is making some major TV series or movie or something. That person does, in my opinion, owe you some amount of listening.

Now, I'm not saying no top Joe fan was ever a jerk. I'll bet they were. There's a tendency to be rude and to publicly air your schadenfreude when you feel like everyone has been yelling at you. What I am saying is that a lot of the problem here boils down to conflicting needs, and that means there isn't a good solution. It's a situation where people are genuinely hurt, but I don't necessarily agree that other people have harmed them.

I like that you did an actual count of the explicit fics, btw. It's good to look at the real numbers. I see too little of that in these situations. My off the cuff reaction is that 2/3 to 1/3 is not a bad ratio at all compared to many fandoms, but yeah, it definitely shows a strong trend, and that can be painful. (I have a fandom where I think there's maybe like 1 bottom so-and-so fic in the entire zine era fandom. One. It's pretty extreme.)

I guess my thinking here overall is: What is the practical solution? What are we hoping to gain? What is reasonable to ask of people?

And it can't be "Well, if they would just listen..." That's just a sneaky way of saying "If you haven't done it my way, it's because you haven't listened to me yet."

So the question I would ask of people is this:

What does a non-racist fic where Joe tops look like?

What does a non-racist sex pollen, dubcon, or even noncon fic where Joe tops look like?

And if you say the latter is impossible... well... sadists exist everywhere in the world. So do doms. So do people who prefer to top in a purely physical sense. People with rape fantasies where they're the rapist exist (people who are not actually rapists, I mean). None of this is restricted to any one group. We can't categorically say fic like that about Joe is coming from a place of racism without denying the fundamental humanity of kinky MENA people who'd want to make Joe like themselves or like their ideal partner. (Yes, I agree this won't be the majority of fic writers writing top!Joe, but this is a place to start for figuring out what the better version would look like.)

IDK, maybe you're that kinkster yourself, but your asks gave me the vibe that you don't really get the drive towards those darker kinds of fics and what might be motivating it besides stereotypes and shittiness.

If we can answer these kinds of questions, we can better critique the way people write what they write without telling them all of their taste is bad and they should just stop writing. Even if we think the latter is true, it isn't going to get us anywhere. Figuring out how to make Joe more multidimensional in the fic they already want to write or finding very specific wording that should be avoided might actually work.

Beyond that, the actions I think are productive would be running prompt fests, exchanges, or other events for bottom!Joe or for top!Joe where he's the main character and the fics are required to be from his POV. Themed collections and recs lists are great. (I've seen a bit of this going around in TOG fandom in the past, and that's an excellent approach! Keep it up!) Positive actions tend to work better here. Make more of what you want. Promote what you want to see.

I don't mean this in some fluffy magical thinking way: you aren't going to change that ratio radically just by the power of positivity. But I've seen this kind of thing play out in many, many fandoms, and going after the people who write what you don't like, even in a well-intentioned effort to educate and even in a polite, kind way doesn't do much. A few people feel guilty. A few feel defensive. A lot ignore you. The overall fic doesn't change. It's not a good use of your limited time and energy.

I'm off to look up that fic to see what I think of it in practice, but I'm going to post this before tumblr manages to eat it.

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star-anise · 4 years

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An ask I got, from someone who wants to remain anonymous:

“Hello! I have a friend who's currently getting really worked up about liking "problematic" content bc their online friend groups are telling them about things like people who like villains in media are bad people and all that other purity fandom stuff, how can I tell them that what you like doesn't equal what you are?”

I can do that!

My first concern for your friend, honestly, is that they’re at a high risk of being in abusive friendships. Fandom purity police are not known for their tendency to go, “Well, I see the issue this way, and have chosen to take these steps, but I understand that other people can have different perspectives and still be acting from a valid and moral place.” Instead, they’re very likely to trample mental and emotional boundaries to insist everyone agree with them, and to use verbally abusive tactics to make that happen.

So I think it helps to back up and look at the issue from a broader perspective: From “my friend has some opinions I don’t think will help them” to “I’m afraid my friend may be in a potentially abusive friend group who are subjecting them to a lot of pressure to act and think a certain way (which I don’t think will help them).”

In my experience, people who get sucked into purity policing social groups have a hard time getting back out of them because those groups exert isolation and control.

Isolation: People are heavily pressured to cut contact with anyone who doesn’t agree with the group. This means losing contact with outside friends who think differently--and it also means that they know that if they step out of line, they’ll lose all their purity-policing friends (who are also now their only friends). It is way, way easier to leave an abusive situation if you know you have somewhere safe to land--so denying people that lifeline is part of how these groups retain membership.

Control: People are pressured to think, behave, and see the world in really specific ways. Especially, they are pressured to think that how the group sees social justice issues like abuse, racism, or homophobia are the only possible correct ways to see it. They create an “us vs them” mentality where anyone who is not “us” is a “them”. For example, anyone who doesn’t agree with purity policers about hating villains must condone abuse. The world is now scarily filled with tons of people who think abuse is super fun and totally fine. The only way to fight this is to be part of the group and do what they say! There’s absolutely no freedom to think that you could oppose abuse, and yet find some antagonists sympathetic or likeable.

So in some ways, my advice for you is to follow standard advice for someone whose friend is in a potentially abusive relationship:

State your concerns, in private, gently but clearly. (eg. ”I’m worried that your friends have a really narrow worldview that in reality isn’t the only way to see things, that they engage in really unhealthy behaviour, and that if you ever find yourself disagreeing with them, they’ll turn on you and it’ll be really bad for you”)

Make the issue about your friend and their decisions instead of attempting to control them. (”I think it’s important that you really think these things through and come to your own conclusions. It’s up to you whether you agree with them or not.”)

Try to help them understand their alternatives and to keep their options open—encourage them to maintain healthy relationships apart from this group, to find different sources of information about social justice and media consimption, and to remember that you can be a moral person without doing or believing everything this group says.

Take care of yourself and set your own boundaries. Watching someone fall down this rabbit hole can be worrying, frightening, and exhausting--and that’s not even counting if your friend absorbs the group’s abusive tactics and starts using them on you! Remember that it’s not your job to save them, and you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. You can be a friend who’s a counterweight to their new friends, but it’s not your job to pull them out all by yourself.

So, that said, on to the actual debate about how moral people can consume problematic fiction or enjoy problematic things, and still be moral. Honestly, so much has been written on this, I couldn’t possibly cover it all. I’ll throw up some links to introductory primers:

Your Favourite Media is Problematic - Here’s How to Deal (And What Not to Do)

How to Be a Fan of Problematic Things

It’s Okay to Like Problematic Things

You might notice, the common thread through all of these is developing individual critical awareness. That is, not assuming that you will be mindlessly controlled by the media you consume, but actively taking control of what you think about it and owning your responsibility not to let it affect you in super negative ways. This is another aspect of encouraging your friend not to cede all their decision-making to the group and let them decide which opinions are good and which are bad.

Sometimes knowing about social justice and caring about a better world does mean having a negative opinion of a work of media, or not being able to enjoy it. That’s not actually bad. Fandom purity police wouldn’t get so far if they didn’t have a grain of truth in there. Where they go awry is deciding only one interpretation and set of actions are moral or valid. The best antidote is, therefore, encouraging people to break out of the lockstep and begin to think for themselves.

#staranise original #fandom purity culture #bullying tw #abuse tw

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susansontag · 2 years

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I didn't mention white men because no one trusts them or likes them apart from other men. My point was that white women want solidarity with woc but on their own terms. Same with non white men. I distrust both groups immensely and always will. Woc can't call out racist white women unless you also mention white men being racist. When everyone knows that the latter group is the most racist but this doesn't absolve white women of their bigotry. Any time a white woman is called out for racism, white feminists will say its misogynistic to call out her racism. As if non white women don't exist. And the shaving post was about that because white women often mock woc for their body hair. I was bullied non stop by white girls in school for having dark body hair. But of course its misogyny to say they were being racist because they also had body hair.

I of course believe women of colour should be allowed to call out racism wherever they see it, so I’m going to leave the first part of your ask to stand on its own. I agree with a lot of the points you’re making in the abstract, but I’ve simply never claimed to not share them.

that said, that’s simply not what the shaving post I screenshotted was saying. not even remotely. it didn’t mention once white women mocking women of colour for their body hair, dark or not. nor did I say the post was misogynistic because white women were being called out for racism; because white women weren’t being called out for any kind of racism on that post. it implied women of colour’s body hair can be subject to more intense scrutiny because it can be darker than some white women’s body hair, but I don’t really object to that point and that wasn’t my issue overall with the post. I even said it could have been a sophisticated take about the varying ramifications for nonconformity to beauty standards along racial lines, or some such.

it specifically was mocking white women for saying they were defying patriarchal beauty standards by not shaving because apparently white women don’t have visible body hair anyway so the idea they might be happy they could do so was, I suppose, laughable. I take issue with this, as it is fundamentally antifeminist in its conception. all women are pressured to conform to patriarchal beauty standards and misogyny alone is a real axis of oppression. no matter what race you are, simply having body hair in places you ‘shouldn’t’ as a woman is an act of resistance, and mocking a group of women (and again; many women of colour will have lighter or less visible hair too, it applies across the board) for that resistance because it can be harder for some women along racial lines is a misplace of blame and distracts from the true issue of patriarchal control over women’s bodies.

it’s important to say misogyny alone is an axis of oppression not because white women are then recognised as being victims of misogyny but because it is then recognised that women, as a coherent group, are victimised worldwide under male supremacy on account of our being female. the manifestations will vary as one axis of material oppression meets another - race, economic class - but the reason female people are subject to these standards when male people are not is an act of misogyny, and to claim this pressure doesn’t exist or its resistance is worthy of being mocked in cases that don’t intersect with race (class went unmentioned but it’s also an important factor) is to deny misogyny alone is worth caring about. this has implications for every woman, as we are all victimised under male supremacy. trying to claim some women don’t have it so bad under patriarchy is to deny patriarchy poses a problem, specifically, for women.

I don’t defend that misogyny is a coherent category of oppression for self-serving reasons nor as a means of painting white women as unique in our struggle against it; recognising it as real brings me closer to other women and to our shared struggle against male supremacy worldwide.

#I’m sorry but that original post was not discussing the specific instance of white women bullying women of colour for body hair #which of course does happen as women do bully each other into conformity. of course #it was specifically discussing when some white women don’t conform to them and instead resist them #asks #anon

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anarmorofwords · 3 years

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Hi! You're probably not going to like this ask, but before getting into it I'd just like to say that this isn't meant as Kamala hate or anything, and I don't really want to offend.

Having said that, wouldn't it make sense that we get to see how Kamala treated Anna after she came out? It's in all likelihood one of the things that's weighing on Anna the most.

Obviously Kamala had her valid reasons: her parents aren't as liberal as the Lightwoods, she believes (knows?) their love is conditional as she's adopted, she's not white and not being heterosexual could further any treatment she's suffered from being different... Her reasons have already been listed multiple times by multiple people. Kamala has the right to stay in the closet and fear coming out. And while that shouldn't be villianised, we can't forget that closeted people can harm those around them.

If Kamala had kept treating Anna like a good friend, rumour would've sparked, and even if it was denied, she'd have been harmed by merely associating with Anna. Especially with the life Anna began leading; she could have been labelled as one of Anna's 'conquests' by the Clave. That, as we've established, is detrimental for her safety.

But at the same time, it would create a breach between Anna and Kamala. And Anna had the right to be hurt by it and weary of it when Kamala said she wanted a relationship.

If we look at it from that perspective, Anna's actions (though inexcusable in how they treated Kamala --who was also at fault for not accepting a negative for four months) make sense. Kamala wasn't only a fling of a week*, but also the girl she lost her virginity with, who asked her to be her secret (until she married Charles, after which Anna's affections would be discarded), who hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna suffered from homophobic commentary, and who now wants a relationship hidden from most of the people that know her.

Kamala shouldn't be forced to come out; but the harm that can do to the women she may engage with is reflective of what happens nowadays. I can mostly think of examples with gay men, so my apologies in advance. But how many women have seen their marriages ruined by their husband having affairs with men?

Creating characters that reflect a toxic part of the 'hidden' LGBT community shouldn't be seen as hating or villinifying. Thomas isn't out and he isn't labelled a villain by the narrative --because his actions don't harm anyone. The hate Alastair gets in-universe is because of his past as a bully, not because he's gay. Matthew's not fully out and he isn't villianised --like Thomas, because the decisions he makes to keep his sexuality hidden don't impact anyone negatively.

I'll even go as far as saying that not even the narrative villianises characters like Kamala and Charles. If it were, they'd be seen more like Grace in Chain of Gold. We'd see how Kamala's actions are affecting Anna's in more ways than anger (that in itself put the fandom against Anna), and the characters would note so. We wouldn't see scenes were Cordelia empathised with Charles, nor Matthew said he loved him.

Be it as it may, Kamala and Charles represent ugly parts of being closeted that can naturally occur when someone is in their position. LGBT people are human. Humans, when put into very difficult situations (and Charles risks his career; Kamala her safety), can make decisions that harm those around them. Consequently, the people they're harming have a right to feel, well, harmed in whatever range of ways --this goes mostly for Alastair, and very partly for Anna, whose treatment of Kamala was horrible.

Readers need to understand what is pushing these 'villianised' characters to harm (again, mostly for Alastair) the more prominent characters and go beyond how they are instantly depicted. Because these are complex characters based on complex real people influenced by very ugly realities we will move on from someday, but sadly not yet.

By the way, Charles and Kamala's situations aren't that similar beyond the closeted thing, but I crammed them together because of a post I saw you reblog.

Please understand I'm not justifying Charles's actions; that I understand the pain he's put Alastair through, and know that he shouldn't ever be near Alastair. Nor am I trying to justify Anna's actions nor hate on Kamala.

I'll just finish my pointless rant by adding that I do think cc has sensitivity readers. I think she asked a gay man to go through tec (I don't know if he still revised her other books, though), and know she asked POC's input when writing someone for their culture. I don't know much beyond that, but I doubt who revises her stuff is up to her. Wouldn't that be something the publisher is responsible for (honest question)?

*I've also noticed people using the argument that they didn't know each other long enough for Anna to harbour such ugly emotions towards Kamala, but Kamala also remembered Anna pretty deeply and is 'in love' with her. I just wanted to say that considering cc writes (fantastical) romance where someone can ask a woman they met two months ago marriage, stressing over time spaces doesn't make much sense. Just my take.

hi!!

alright, where do I start? probably would be best with stating that while I can analyse Kamala's situation with what I know/see/read about racism and discrimination and reasonably apply things I've read/heard from PoC to the discussion, as well as try to be as sensitive about it as possible, I'm still a white woman, so not a person that's best qualified to talk about this.

that being said - if someone wants to add something to this conversation, you're obviously more than welcome to, and if there's something in my answer that you don't agree with or find in some way insensitive or offensive - please don't hesitate to call me out on that.

back to your points though: (this turned into a whole ass essay, so under the cut)

I don't think Anna shouldn't be able to reminiscent on Kamala's behaviour/reaction to her coming out, or be hurt by it. what bothers me is the way CC talks about it - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the post where she mentioned this suggested something along the lines of "you'll see how Kamala sided with the Clave and didn't defend Anna after her coming out", therefore putting the blame on Kamala and completely disregarding the fact that Kamala wasn't in position to do much at all. It suggest that their situation was "poor Anna being mistreated by Kamala". therefore I'm afraid Kamanna's main problem/conflict will remain to be portrayed as "Anna having to allow themselves to love again and forgive Kamala", while Anna's shortcomings - and Kamala's vulnerable position - are never discussed. I think it would be possible to acknowledge both Kamala's difficult situation and the possible hurt her behaviour caused Anna without being insensitive towards Kamala's character, but it would take a really skilled - and caring - author to do both of the perspectives justice. CC would have to find a balance between being aware of the racism/prejudice Kamala faced/ writing her with lots of awareness and empathy, and still allowing her to make mistakes and acknowledging them. As it is however, I'm under impression that she's just treating it as a plot device, a relationship drama.

I'd say no one expects characters of color to be written as flawless or never making mistakes, it's mostly the way these mistakes are written and what things these characters are judged/shamed/

And that's - at least in my understanding and opinion - where the problem is. it's that the narrative never even addresses Anna's faults, and portrays Kamala as the one that caused all - or most of - the pain, without ever even acknowledging her problems and background.

White characters in TLH make mistakes and fuck up - because they're human and they're absolutely allowed to - but the thing is, non-white characters aren't afforded that privilege. Anna's behaviour is never questioned - none of it, shaming Kamala for not being able to come out, dismissing her desire to be a mother, or any of the questionable things she did in ChoI. Same with Matthew, James, Thomas. Alastair and Kamala however? they're constantly viewed through their past mistakes, and forced to apologize for them over and over, forced to almost beg for forgiveness. Moreover, those past mistakes are used as a justification of all and any shitty behaviour the other characters exhibit towards them now, which is simply unfair and cruel. They're held to a much higher standard.

So I'd like to say that yes, Kamala was in the wrong to keep nagging Anna after numerous rejections, and she was in the wrong to not inform Anna about Charles prior to them having sex - but that doesn't give Anna a free pass to constantly mistreat Kamala. And let's be real, Anna isn't stupid - while at 17 she could be naive and uninformed, I can't imagine how after years of hanging out with the Downworlders and numerous affairs and being out and judged by the Clave she's still so ignorant about Kamala's situation. I definitely think she's allowed to be hurt, but to still not understand why Kamala did what she did? Anna isn't blaming her for not telling her about Charles earlier - which would be fair - but instead for refusing to engage in an outright romance with her. She's being ignorant - and consciously so, I think.

Overall, I think you're definitely right about how coming out - or staying closeted - can be messy and hurt people in the process, especially in unaccepting environments/time periods, and I've seen enough discourse online to know there will never be a verdict/stance on this that will satisfy everyone. I, for one, would really like to refrain from putting all the blame on a single person - but, at least the way I see it, CC is pointing fingers. maybe not directly, but she is. Kamala, Alastair and Charles have no friends or support systems, and the only people in the narrative that defend them are themselves (ok, Cordelia does defend Alastair from Charles, but not from shitty takes about him and his "sins"). Also, sorry, but I don't like how you say "hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna experienced homophobic comments" - it sounds very much judgemental. Kamala had every right to do that? The fact that she slept with Anna doesn't means she owed her something, and certainly not coming out and most probably destroying her life, or even defending her at the - again - expense of her own reputation, or more possibly safety.

As for Charles - it's a different issue here, at least imo - I fear that it'll be implied that his refusing to come out will is his main "sin", and therefore not something he can be judged for, which ironically, will be villainizing, but mostly will mean his actual sins are dismissed. This is where the scene with Cordelia feeling a pang of sympathy for him comes into play, and it worries me. I've never hated Charles for not wanting to come out, but rather for, let's see - grooming Alastair, disregarding Alastair's needs and feelings, disrespecting his mother, being a sexist prick, being low-key far-right coded "make Shadowhunters great again" etc.

As for sensitivity readers - I'm no expert, so I don't think my input is worth much. From what I've gathered from multiple threads/discussions on twitter, tho it is probably consulted/approved by the publisher, many authors push for that - and authors less famous and "powerful" than her. I'm not a hater, but seeing fandoms' opinions on much of her rep, I think she could do better. Because if she does have sensitivity readers, then they don't seem to be doing a great job - maybe they're friends who don't wanna hurt her feelings? Or maybe she thinks a gay guy's feedback will be enough for any queer content - which, judging by the opinions I've seen from the fans, doesn't seem to be true.

Again, these are mostly my thoughts and I'm more than open to reading other opinions, because *sigh* I really don't know how to handle this.

Bottom line - I really really don't want to be hating on the characters in general, playing God in regards to judging the struggles of minorities, or even criticising the characters too harshly for being human, flawed etc. What my main issue is is how CC handles those complex and heavy topics.

I hope I make sense and this answer satisfies you somehow - I also hope someone better equipped to answer might wanna join this conversation.

* I desperately need a reread of TLH before I engage in any more conversations like this, but I didn't wanna leave you hanging. So yeah, I might be remembering things wrong. Again, let me know, I'm very much open to being corrected as well as to further discussion.

* I use she/her pronouns for Anna because that's what she uses in canon

#the last hours #tlh #alastair carstairs #shadowhunters #the shadowhunter chronicles #anti charles fairchild #is this anti anna?#kamala joshi #ariadne bridgestock #chain of iron #chain of gold #spilling the tea

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didanawisgi · 3 years

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Martin Luther King Jr., Guns, and a Book Everyone Should Read

BY JEREMY S. | JAN 15, 2018

“Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 years old today, were he not assassinated in 1968. On the third Monday in January we observe MLK Jr. Day and celebrate his achievements in advancing civil rights for African Americans and others. While Dr. King was a big advocate of peaceful assembly and protest, he wasn’t, at least for most of his life, against the use of firearms for self-defense. In fact, he employed them . . .

If it wasn’t for African Americans in the South, primarily, taking up arms almost without exception during the post-Civil War reconstruction and well into the civil rights movement, this country wouldn’t be what it is today.

By force and threat of arms African Americans protected themselves, their families, their homes, and their rights and won the attention and respect of the powers that be. In a lawless, post-Civil War South they stayed alive while faced with, at best, an indifferent government and, at worst, state-sponsored violence against them.

We know the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 refused to recognize black people as citizens. Heck, they were deemed just three-fifths a person. Not often mentioned in school: some of that was due to gun rights. Namely, not wanting to give gun rights to blacks. Because if they were to recognize blacks as citizens, it…

“…would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . and it would give them the full liberty of speech . . . ; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Ahha! So the Second Amendment was considered an individual right, protecting a citizen’s natural, inalienable right to keep and carry arms wherever they go. Then as now, gun control is rooted in racism.

During reconstruction, African Americans were legally citizens but were not always treated as such. Practically every African American home had a shotgun — or shotguns — and they needed it, too. Forget police protection, as those same officials were often in white robes during their time off.

Fast forward to the American civil rights movement and we learn, but again not at school, that Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit. He (an upstanding minister, mind you) was denied.

Then as in many cases even now, especially in blue states uniquely and ironically so concerned about “fairness,” permitting was subjective (“may issue” rather than “shall issue”). The wealthy and politically connected receive their rights, but the poor, the uneducated, the undesired masses, not so much.

Up until late in his life, MLK Jr. chose to be protected by the Deacons for Defense. Though his home was also apparently a bit of an arsenal.

African Americans won their rights and protected their lives with pervasive firearms ownership. But we don’t learn about this. We don’t know about this. It has been unfortunately whitewashed from our history classes and our discourse.

Hidden, apparently, as part of an agreement (or at least an understanding) reached upon the conclusion of the civil rights movement.

Sure, the government is going to protect you now and help you and give you all of the rights you want, but you have to give up your guns. Turn them in. Create a culture of deference to the government. Be peaceable and non-threatening and harmless. And arm-less, as it were (and vote Democrat). African Americans did turn them in, physically and culturally.

That, at least, is an argument made late in Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms. It’s a fantastic book, teaching primarily through anecdotes of particular African American figures throughout history just how important firearms were to them. I learned so-freaking-much from this novel, and couldn’t recommend it more. If you have any interest in gun rights, civil rights, and/or African American history, it’s an absolute must-read.

Some text I highlighted on my Kindle Paperwhite when I read it in 2014:

But Southern blacks had to navigate the first generation of American arms-control laws, explicitly racist statutes starting as early as Virginia’s 1680 law, barring clubs, guns, or swords to both slaves and free blacks.

“…he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.”

In 1846, white abolitionist congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, advocating distribution of arms to fugitive slaves.

Civil-rights activist James Forman would comment in the 1960s that blacks in the movement were widely armed and that there was hardly a black home in the South without its shotgun or rifle.

A letter from a teacher at a freedmen’s school in Maryland demonstrates one set of concerns. The letter contains the standard complaints about racist attacks on the school and then describes one strand of the local response. “Both the Mayor and the sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do) [and] the superintendent of schools came down and brought me a revolver.”

Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.

Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations.

“The Winchester rifle deserves a place of honor in every Black home.” So said Ida B. Wells.

Fortune responded with an essay titled “The Stand and Be Shot or Shoot and Stand Policy”: “We have no disposition to fan the coals of race discord,” Thomas explained, “but when colored men are assailed they have a perfect right to stand their ground. If they run away like cowards they will be regarded as inferior and worthy to be shot; but if they stand their ground manfully, and do their own a share of the shooting they will be respected and by doing so they will lessen the propensity of white roughs to incite to riot.”

He used state funds to provide guns and ammunition to people who were under threat of attack.

“Medgar was nonviolent, but he had six guns in the kitchen and living room.”

“The weapons that you have are not to kill people with — killing is wrong. Your guns are to protect your families — to stop them from being killed. Let the Klan ride, but if they try to do wrong against you, stop them. If we’re ever going to win this fight we got to have a clean record. Stay here, my friends, you are needed most here, stay and protect your homes.”

In 2008 and 2010, the NAACP filed amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, supporting blanket gun bans in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Losing those arguments, one of the association’s lawyers wrote in a prominent journal that recrafting the constitutional right to arms to allow targeted gun prohibition in black enclaves should be a core plank of the modern civil-rights agenda.

Wilkins viewed the failure to pursue black criminals as overt state malevolence and evidence of an attitude that “there’s one more Negro killed — the more of ’em dead, the less to bother us. Don’t spend too much money running down the killer — he may kill another.”

But it puts things in perspective to note that swimming pool accidents account for more deaths of minors than all forms of death by firearm (accident, homicide, and suicide).

The correlation of very high murder rates with low gun ownership in African American communities simply does not bear out the notion that disarming the populace as a whole will disarm and prevent murder by potential murderers.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated 1,900,000 annual episodes where someone in the home retrieved a firearm in response to a suspected illegal entry. There were roughly half a million instances where the armed householder confronted and chased off the intruder.

A study of active burglars found that one of the greatest risks faced by residential burglars is being injured or killed by occupants of a targeted dwelling. Many reported that this was their greatest fear and a far greater worry than being caught by police.48 The data bear out the instinct. Home invaders in the United States are more at risk of being shot in the act than of going to prison.49 Because burglars do not know which homes have a gun, people who do not own guns enjoy free-rider benefits because of the deterrent effect of others owning guns. In a survey of convicted felons conducted for the National Institute of Justice, 34 percent of them reported being “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” Nearly 40 percent had refrained from attempting a crime because they worried the target was armed. Fifty-six percent said that they would not attack someone they knew was armed and 74 percent agreed that “one reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot.”

In the period before Florida adopted its “shall issue” concealed-carry laws, the Orlando Police Department conducted a widely advertised program of firearms training for women. The program was started in response to reports that women in the city were buying guns at an increased rate after an uptick in sexual assaults. The program aimed to help women gun owners become safe and proficient. Over the next year, rape declined by 88 percent. Burglary fell by 25 percent. Nationally these rates were increasing and no other city with a population over 100,000 experienced similar decreases during the period.55 Rape increased by 7 percent nationally and by 5 percent elsewhere in Florida.

As you can see, Negroes and the Gun progresses more or less chronologically, spending the last portion of the book discussing modern-day gun control. It’s an invaluable source of ammunition (if you’ll pardon the expression) against the fallacies of the pro-gun-control platform. It sheds light on a little-known (if not purposefully obfuscated), critical factor in the history of African Americans: firearms.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I highly recommend you — yes, you — read Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms.

And I’ll wrap this up with a quote in a Huffington Post article given by Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter:

https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/huffpo-maj-toure.jpg”

#books #black history #history #american history #Guns #civil rights #constitution #supreme court #gun control #martin luther king jr.#dread scott #concealed carry #concealedcarry #everydaycarry #gun confiscation

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lais-a-ramos · 4 years

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ok, this one is kind of a hard topic, and i appologize in advance for any mistakes i make or not being articulate enough

all the concearns over ppl in fandom hyping the only prominent white character, christina, in lovecraft country instead of the black characters are valid and the critique is definitely important, once it's common for ppl in fandom to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces.

but i also think we can't dismiss the entirety of the ship only bc the same LGBTQ+ fans are back at it again with their problematic behaviour, especially bc of its significance for black women and feminine-aligned nb folks who feel attraction to woman/feminine-aligned nbs -- lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, biromantic, panromantic etc.

for what i've seen so far, this ship is very important for black women and female-aligned nbs bc finally we have a dark-skinned black woman, who is also fat, to be treated with absolute respect and consideration and be passionately desired in a way that is not some kind of secret fetish or played for laughs, treated as being as worthy of being courted and romanced as her light-skinned and skinny half-sister.

christina respects ruby's choice and agency for most of the time -- i think the exception may be that first time ruby transformed into hillary;

she immediately explains to ruby her plans and intentions whenever ruby questions her behaviour and demands answers, including ruby in her plans when even ruby's loved ones keep secrets from her; she gives her all these baths and caresses her so softly, literally bathing her with affection and desire; she woos her with vows of devotion; and even tried to understand what ruby said when she asked her to try to understand her pain -- albeit in a fucked up way that only a privileged and sheltered girl raised in an enviroment in which magic is real and present in ppl's daily lives possibly could.

christina overall acknowledges that ruby is a woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires, and that's something y'all should keep in mind because i'll return to that later.

overall, these things i described are actually the basic that a person should do for the one they call their lover, and in no way erase the fact that christina is willing to kill innocent ppl to accomplish her goals of self-protection, nor turn these things acceptable from a moral standpoint.

but it's not the kind of treatment black women and feminine-aligned nbs receive, neither in fiction or in real life, by the way.

there are specific forms of misogyny that black women and female-aligned nbs face in which we are read as aggressive or animalistic, oversezualized or stripped from our sexuality and have our femininity denied if we don't check the boxes of what society deems acceptable.

there's this interview wumni mosaku gave for elle magazine U.S. in which she discusses her personal experiences with this problem, and how these eurocentric standards of femininity forced her to act in an overtly nice manner as a way to make sure ppl will treat her kindly instead of with suspicion and assuming she is aggressive.

that is because of the ways race and gender intersect creating a very complex scenario when it comes to definitions, experiences and stereotypes of femininity.

white women are overall treated with an authomatic presumption of innocence, as delicate and frail flowers who must be protected at all costs, especially if they are from upper classes -- that is something that is actually held against low-income white women, who are expected to adhere to certain standards to have their femininity acknowledged.

but, as we can see by that moment in episode 1x05, "strange case", when ruby as hillary is escorted by the policemen to her supposed husband who is actually christina shapeshifted , and, actually, by christina's entire motivations and characterization, that very same presumption of innocence is one of the sources of their oppression, because they are infantilized and stripped of their agency in favor of the men in their lives -- husbands, brothers, fathers etc --, being stopped and/or forbidden to do things cis het men usually get to and are expected to do.

in spite of this paradox, white women still have a privilege when compared to black women, because they're are still seen as ppl that belong to the world of affections and are worthy of receiving love, care and concearn for their wellbeing.

but that is not the case with black women.

usually, we are reserved two roles: one that revolves around being hypersexualized for men's consumption, both white and black alike; and the other, in which we are seen as "beasts of burden", carrying the weight in terms of work, emotions and so on, being expected to be desensitized to experiences and problems that no human would be expected to. sometimes, these two roles actually cross paths.

here in brazil, black activism and academics have been calling it "solidão da mulher negra", "the loneliness of black woman", and i think it's a very pertinent and powerful way to describe it.

and, that is the thing, when you're a black woman or feminine-aligned nb that doesn't fit into this role of being sexualized, you can feel this loneliness go a step further, because all that is left for you is that beast of burden part.

you end up not only being cast aside and abandoned by cis het white men and black men alike if you're attracted to men, but, overall, everyone in your social circle, including family, relatives and friends, expect you to be this source of strength and carry weights and resist to things ALL. THE. TIME.

and, guess what type of women and feminine-aligned nbs usually don't fit into this role of being sexualized????

the ones that are dark-skinned, fat, bulky, or any combination of these.

it's a combination of colorism, fatphobia, misogynoir and other factors that come to play, really.

one can check a few boxes, or check them all.

i myself don't check the "dark-skinned" box because, as a biracial women, i have light-skin privilege -- even though my skin is not as light as jurnee smollett's, who plays ruby's half-sister letitia "leti" lewis. but i sure have dealt with the consequences of not having the right body type for my whole life. i've been one of the "fat kids" for all my teen years, and, even now that i lost weight because of health issues, i'm still bulky and with large shoulders, feet and hands bigger than what is expected for women, and for most of my life i've felt in a similar way than what wumni mosaku describes on that elle magazine interview i mentioned earlier.

now, ruby literally checks ALL. THE. FUCKING. BOXES.

while we haven't seen much of her past, for the tidbits we got we can imagine that she had to be the responsible one in her family, being the older child, and basically raise her two siblings while their mom neglected them.

and we can see that, while the producers and writers changed a lot of her characterization from the source material -- in the part of the book i am right now, she has yet to show up, but the way she's described she seems more domestic and the shrinking violet type like show!hippolyta at the begining -- she is still seen as someone respected in her community and a source of strength -- e.g. being trusted to take care of dee.

and that clearly takes a toll on her, because everyone in-universe seems to expect her to be this mammy type or a role model, "a credit to the race" -- which is kind of ironic, given that it seems the audience seem to expect this of her as well.

and she puts all this pressure on herself because of it, and, while she is a woman with a very active sexual life, she seems overall very unsatisfied and repressed.

interrupted, as ruby herself perfectly put.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

and that is where christina comes in.

now, it's true that the character that's pointed by many as a representation of white feminism surely is problematic in many ways, including her "colorblind" approach to racial issues, which is a particular form of racism that comes from an indifference towards social issues that steem from the privilege of not having to worry about said racial issues because one's not affected by them.

but, inspite of this colorblindness, or precisely because of it, christina sees ruby not for the roles she plays in other ppl's lives, but as the woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires that she is (see??? i told y'all to keep that in mind because it would be useful later).

some of these things might not be politically correct, like wondering what would it be like to be white and not have to deal with all the bullshit she has to.

some of these things might be dowright immoral and unethical, like the revenge fantasy she made come true against that abusive, sexual harasser and possibily rapist that was the guy from the department store that appeared in episode 1x05.

but, they are what makes ruby, well, ruby.

they are what makes her human, what humanizes her.

and christina accepts all of it, all that makes ruby who she is.

like the av club review for episode 9 pointed out, the two women are actually not that different when it comes to motivations: the stakes might be different for them because christina is protected by her whiteness and wealth, but both of them want the same thing in the end -- to not feel interrupted by the social restraints that bind them.

and that is what draws them to each other and feel attracted to each other, even though they might not understand quite well what to be queer means to them, or even avoided/repressed the question altogether as they grew up.

they are two points that seem opposite, and might as well be in some ways, but belong to the same axis that is gender and sexuality.

their relationship is incredibly complex and layered because of all these intersecctions.

ruby and christina's relationship is all about revealing different parts of yourself to the other and peeling each other's layers (sorry for the pun, but, it was just there lol), and, because of this, it's no wonder that it's seen as more romantic than, say, tic and leti's relationship, that seems to be playing out like plenty of cis heterosexual relationships, moving too fast because of the passion involved and what society expects, without the two of them being able to truly proccess and decide what they want, something that will defintely get more complicated now there's a baby on the way.

everything is so raw between ruby and christina, quite literally (it's one ot the things i love the most about all the gory scenes between them, it's a very clever way of using a fantastical setting to highlight these metaphors and symbolism).

with all of this, it shouldn't be a surprise that many sapphic black women and feminine-aligned nbs relate so much to ruby and got so attached to this relationship.

it's not because they endorse the problematic stuff christina or ruby have done -- although, well, to be fair, in a show that draws inspiration from pulp fiction magazines, particularly horror and detective/mystery stories, all characters are expected to be problematic and do fucked up things.

it's because queer black women and feminine-aligned nbs, regardless of whether they check only a few of the boxes i mentioned before or check all of them, can relate to this feeling of loneliness that the producers and writers portrayed so well with ruby -- but also with hippolyta, and dee too.

and for relating to these feelings, they relate to this relationship between ruby and christina.

and it's kind of hard to know what's gonna happen next in the show and the future of this ship

hell, even know whether the show is gonna be renewed or not.

but this should be a lesson for the future, on this fandom and others, to try and consider the perspectives of LGBTQ+ black ppl in these spaces, because, when you don't do that, you're basically reproducing, in a space we should be safe to have fun, the same oppression and silencing we deal on a daily basis

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #lgbtq #lgbtqiap+#black women #black representation #character analysis #character meta #meta

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lochsides · 3 years

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Yellow Metal - cathartic Review

Here’s something I did not expect to be reviewing this week but when Zayn drops a 24 minute rap track, you fall in line. I had to listen to it a couple times through before I could even begin to make sense of my thoughts because my brain sort of malfunctioned. I have never been prouder to be a Zayn fan. He’s such a nuanced songwriter and there is so much to unpack here.

I think this is the most unfiltered version of Zayn that we have ever been exposed to (and possibly will ever be). I am grateful that he said his piece in this because it needed to be said. As a brown woman, I felt so seen by this and I cannot explain what that means to me. Thank you Z, for your unvarnished truth in addressing racism and various forms of discrimination.

I’m doing a short lyrical analysis below the cut, but the TLDR is that this is a fantastic piece of art that deserves to be heard.

I wish he had released this as an EP because that would be easier to review than a single 24 minute song, structurally speaking. So instead, I have picked out some key lyrics, going from top to bottom, that really spoke to me and decided to study the song that way. His lyricism is hard-hitting in this track. It is beyond anything he has ever released before.

“The planet bleeds, the damaged trees. It’s never leaving until we ascend so fuck the fence.” — I have not seen this lyric being talked about in the fandom, because the lyrics that follow this steal the show, rightly so, but I wanted to give this line a moment because it’s important too. To me, this lyric speaks to where Zayn is at with his relationship with the physical world. He’s out on the farm (about which he even goes to say “tell you what I like, farm life and the tractor”) and I believe he’s happy in his space and he feels connected to nature (also see River Road). So it is a poignant and slightly jaded, but valid perspective that he shares on climate change. It’s never leaving until we ascend. The damage human beings have done to the planet won’t be undone until there are no humans left to do damage. It’s a single sentence that says so much about the depth of the climate crisis. I’m doing my PhD on urban air quality so this is something I care really deeply about and I resonated with.

“And until they stop killing colour, it’s fuck the feds.” — Yeah, agreed Zayn. The systemic racism that he calls out here is echoed throughout the song, in equal parts anger and boldness. I love that he isn’t glossing over it with metaphors, which he could easily do and it would be beautiful in a totally different way, but this makes it harder for racists to overlook. There is so much power in calling it like it is.

“Never lose me to fentanyl, scared when I take a Benadryl, keeping it green in general.” — It frustrates me to no end to see Zayn painted as this drug-addicted lazy musician that doesn’t care about his work, because we know how untrue that is. This narrative is tired and simply boring too, and I won’t get into the racist connotations of it when you consider it against his white colleagues who smoke as much as him but that isn’t one of their defining traits in the media.

“I’m racking up excuses while I’m slacking off on work … it was hard work that got me heard” — I love the juxtaposition in this verse. The public/media perception on his career is that Zayn doesn’t put in effort or that he doesn’t want it. This obviously stems from his leaving the band. It goes back to what I was saying before about narrative, when in reality, as Zayn has said on various occasions, he fights to make his own choices. And that doesn’t have to look the way everyone else expects it to (“I beg you, don’t include me. I might write it on my shirt”), he has his own struggles that have helped forge his path, but it is his path that he paved, himself. He works hard to be heard. He has to. It reminds me of something my parents used to tell me when I was younger about being immigrants: you have to work 10 times harder for the same opportunities just because of the colour of your skin or your name on the cv. It’s a harsh truth to grow up with but it was my reality, as it is for most POC.

“This life doesn’t give you no armour, a lot of myself can harm you. I swear on what’s good, that I’m here ‘til they take me. I pray that I’m wrinkled, at least over 80…” — There is something about the simplicity of these lyrics are the messaging that I love. He isn’t trying too hard to sound poetic but he still manages it perfectly.

“All I've been achieving, clocking miles in this region, moving like a legion. Promise that I made to myself, an allegiance. Do you still believe I’m a fool for ever leaving? Staring at the ceiling, can never put a cap on achieving. I’m just here for the rap, then I’m leaving. // I’ve had about enough of being my own enemy. It’s time I grew up, a long way from 17. Always went against the grain, struggles in my life. Got some things to say when I stand up on the mike.” — This is the only 1D-related lyric I’ll make reference to because this song is about so much more than that. That said though, we cannot overlook Zayn’s experiences in the band because that is part of his story. The tongue-in-cheek of “I’m just here for the rap, then I’m leaving” is hilarious to me. The line about not wanting to be his own enemy anymore and growing up from 17 reminds me of that quote Taylor (Swift) mentioned in Miss Americana about celebrities getting stuck at the age they got famous. I think this verse is similar to that. None of them ever wanted to be in the band and I don’t care what anyone says, Zayn leaving and proving success outside the band gave the rest of them the courage to follow their own solo careers. Sure there was drama surrounding the split but he did it for himself, to tell his stories the way he is now. Whatever else you have to say about him, you cannot deny his authenticity.

“I ain’t dropping this for fame, I need this time, like therapy, it’s just to keep me sane.” — I think this line tells us 2 things, the first being that this song was not leaked. Z knew what he was doing and his twitter likes tell us as much. He didn’t release it for any sort of attention, otherwise it would be widely available on streaming platforms and for purchase. Which leads to my second point, he released this song to get everything he talks about on the track off his chest. Its referenced in other lyrics too, like “now you see where I come from, the world don’t.” This was for whoever cared to listen, not the world. It’s inaccessible for a reason. I love that he threw those lyrics in. It makes the song feel more like a private conversation or listening to a friend rant. It creates a different form of intimacy between himself and his fans.

“Lessons that I’ve learned, I’ve tried teaching to myself. What I’ve learnt from certain people is that they’re better than myself. So I surround myself with real ones, and you feel the plastic melt.” — This one is for anyone that buys into conspiracy theories surrounding Zayn’s personal life. He surrounds himself with real people, real friendships, real connections. I have never bought into the bullshit that he has zero autonomy over his personal life. I love the use of plastic melting as a metaphor for ridding his life of fakeness.

“Feeling trapped. This industry is a cage.” — Zayn is obviously not the first person to say it. Many artists talk about how suffocating the industry is ( which he further comments on in the sung portion: “I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be, a part of this, no, I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be, a part of this”). Fame is such a wild and unnatural concept and the exploitation and politics of the music industry only feed further into it. The industry being a cage makes me think of zoos and how celebrities are animals on display, when they should be free in the wild. I also really like the musical interlude following this part.

“Nobody’s speaking the truth, I’m offended by the State. Look at the state of the news, I’ve decided the argument, reciting my views.” — Zayn toes the line between keeping to himself and speaking out on important issues, sometimes not very well. I am his biggest cheerleader, but I’m not up his ass. There have been many occasions where he could’ve done better. But I cannot fault him for being offended by the State because same, Z, same. I love that he took this song as an opportunity to real speak out, no punches pulled.

“See I’ve been facing the racists from back when I were a kiddie. Born up in 93’. Living in Bradford City, they kicked me out of the school. Said they had a problem with me hitting the kids that would call me p***, still sit in the classroom, chilling. I’m angry now that I’m older cause I see they treat us different. Got me thinking I’m the problem ‘cause they never dealt with these issues.” — See what I meant about no punches pulled. He said that! He said it like that too. There is so much in this verse that I relate to, it hits a little too deep. I grew up as a brown in predominantly white communities where the colour of my skin was the reason I was outcasted. We know when that’s happening, clear as day. The lyric “got me thinking that I’m the problem cause they never dealt with these issues” says it all. I have many racial traumas that I’m dealing with as an adult because the adults around me when I was a child didn’t deal with racism in the classroom. They do treat us different!

“20 years later, I’m still in the same boat. Tryna treat me like my grandpa, say I came up off the boat. Came to tell you what I stand for. Man I think you’re shit, a joke. How can I be civil when they got me by the throat? // Pushing my feelings down, you ain’t got it like them. ‘Boy your skin is so light.’ Ok motherfucker, take my name up on a flight. Try to convince immigration that your bloodline’s half white.” — Zayn talking his shit is my new favourite art form. How can I be civil when they got me by the throat? Something that I will always be enraged by is that POC are expected to de-escalate situations of racism. We have to push our feelings down, as Zayn says in the verse, because the institution is against us. All of the institutions are against us. The fact that he takes it a step farther to say that his name makes him a target for racism, even though he is half-white just nails his point home. Also, can we please quit the whole ‘Zayn is white-passing’ bullshit. He alludes to it again later in the song (“asian in my face, but still my race you can’t define”). Its not a compliment to erase someone identity in favour of white-washing them.

“My name ain’t on the list unless they label it ethnic.” — Oh, the amount of times we have heard that age old (v. racist) saying ‘{celebrity of colour} is the new [insert white celebrity here]’ as if POC aren’t allowed to succeed in their own right. It is wild to me that Zayn has to deal with this given his level of success.

“Start to understand why they think that I’m threatening. I move in certain ways, couldn’t slow me with ketamine.” — There is a subtle nod to racism (and Islamaphobia) in this line, because of course the brown man is a threat, but I like the way Z turns it around. I also like the rhyme scheme.

“Raised on the benefit for whose benefit? They’ll never learn shit, man, if the shoe fits.” — Okay I might be reaching here, but this is just my interpretation. We all know the benefit system in the UK sucks. Being raised on benefit implies a lack of money growing up, but the benefits aren’t really all that beneficial to the families that rely upon them.

“Dealing with the hurt, they should know cause they don’t deserve it, it hit deep cause I hit the nerve.” — Well, okay then, just call me out. It’s fine. I seriously feel like he’s talking to me directly with this line. I imagine a lot of us do. Its one of those lyrics that are a bit too honest but that why we love them.

“Cathartic, I’m an artist. Trying to put my heart in” // “Freedom fighter, Yellow Metal is my name.” — So do we have an alternate persona for Zayn now? Alright, I’m down. I think these two lines are tied together, because both are mentioned in the song title. (I think of the song as cathartic, by Yellow Metal, aka Zayn, or Yellow Metal as the name of the EP if this was officially released). The lyrics that accompany both title lyrics, along with the subject matter of the song as a whole, suggest that his heart is in standing up against injustices. I said it earlier, this is the most unvarnished version of Z that we have ever been exposed to. Almost like the complete picture to the puzzle pieces we’ve been putting together over the years.

“They’re tryna kill us with disease.” — Why did this line scream out ‘COVID-19 outbreaks in developing countries’ to me? Again, I might be reaching, but there is a disparity between how COVID is treated amongst minorities, along with many other diseases, and not to mention rich, primarily white countries hoarding vaccine supplies while places like India (and my beautiful Bangladesh and I’m sure Pakistan too) suffer needlessly.

“Started something sick and on my mind is what’s next. Just became a dad so now I’m taking all the cheques. Better know I’m staying and paying like it’s debt. Imma get it done, if it’s taking all my breath, sweat, and down I ain’t messing around ’til I’m the best.” — I think this lyric shows off Zayn’s sentimental side more than it does his ambitious side, because we know he’s in this for the long haul. Others may doubt that but his fans never have. But hearing him talk openly about being a father on a song is something else. It’s like Khai added this whole other layer of meaning and purpose to his life and it’s beautiful to watch. I’ve been here since the X-Factor auditions guys!! It makes me so emotional to witness him like this.

“Aint many of me around, p***, I’m just different. Certain stages to this level aint here because fame is to the devil, fuck a label, imma do this from the ghetto.” — God, we’ve been waiting for a fuck the label moment in this house, haven’t we? I won’t get into my theories on his label or his team, but none of us deny the fact that they should be doing more for him than they are. He has the potential to be the biggest thing with the right team and promo because he has a built-in fan base that would go the mile for him. Obviously, there’s also his aversion to promo to contend with and that’s his decision. Even without it, he could shatter every ceiling. Another thing I want to mention about this verse is the nod to the complete lack of South Asian representation in contemporary Western media.

“Don’t know what’s worse: the way that you live your life or the way that you write a verse.” — I’m just putting this in here because it made giggle. Also going to take this space to say how much I love his energy in this song. He knows he’s the shit, as he should!

“Can’t be louder … so free Gaza on my banner.” // “They’re hating on Palestine ways.” — I love that Zayn has always supported this movement, years ago, before being ‘woke’ was a thing. But now, he has a daughter that has Palestinian heritage and I’m sure that makes this hit that much deeper for him, personally. The apartheid in Palestine is heart-wrenching. It’s so strange to me to watch it happen, because I never thought I would witness something like this happening in 2021, yet here we are.

“Like vipers, I see the sly ones, the snake that’s called Biden, none of them abiding what they might put in writing. We should be used to it by now, say whatever for the vote and then just choose another route. Say they’d never kill another unless that brother’s skin is brown. I’m just telling you the facts, if you can’t take it, the truth naked, to bare bones and my thoughts lately, spitting politics.” — This verse is straight up savage and I am living for it! I find it hilarious that he called Biden a snake. This verse addresses the truth about politics, that even electing a left-wing leader doesn’t fix the system.

“I’m Tony Stark, still embarking on a dream” // “Gone green like Bruce Banner” // “He taught me like Ra’s Al Ghul. Felt like living in Gotham, the people were rotten.” — And to tie it all off, I wanted to take a goofy moment to mention all the superhero lyrics Z added in this song, really showing his personality because I’m such a nerd when it comes to this stuff and it makes me wish that we were friends so I could annoy him to death about it.

#reviews #zayn #yellow metal #cathartic #zayn malik

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harpersplay · 3 years

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Genuine non-troll white woman here - you wrote "So I already knew that Good Girls was a white feminism phantasmagoria...But, jesus fucking christ, y'all are just showing your true colours lately. The way you talk about a MOC in relation to a white woman is disgusting." Not asking you to call out specific people or posts or start any kind of flame war but what would be a general example of what you are talking about? I follow a good chunk of people and I'm not seeing this maybe b/c I'm not following the same people, maybe out of willful blindness, maybe I'm not recognizing it - again, b/c of ignorance, etc. Just trying to understand what you mean - and not do it obviously, if I am doing it.

I apologise for taking a longish time to answer this. Honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to get into it. Anyway, I'd first like to say that this is all my opinion. What bothers me might not bother someone else. BIPOC are not a monolith. Even subsections aren't. Not all Mexican trans men are a monolith. Neither are all Japanese lesbians. You get the idea. And that's not even including people like Ben Carson or Caitlyn Jenner—people who support and work for policies that actively harm the marginalised group of which they are a part. Secondly, I know this isn't your intention, but asking POC to tell you what is ok to do and what is not is a slippery slope to "my [blank] friend said this was ok." Finally, the fandom is quite small so it is pretty hard to give general examples. I don't know if it's more trouble to quote specific posts or not, because some will think it is about them anyway. Anything I'm going to mention I've seen on Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit and/or Twitter. But there are definitely popular Tumblr blogs that all push the same narrative. Oh, and one last thing, I haven't seen any of what I'm referring to from people I follow.

Ok, let's go. For a very long time, mainly WOC have pointed out the racial problems within the show and the extremely dismissive attitude about those problems from mainly white women. And while these same women have written thousands (even tens of thousands) or words about Beth (it's always Beth) and her struggles and the amazingness of such a complex female character (ymmv), they brush aside commentary about racism as either nitpicking, not understanding the show is about the 3 women (tell that to all the white men with fleshed-out storylines), or misogyny. The last is especially hostile because they are often talking over Black women and misogynoir is a very real fucking thing that couples the fun of being hated for being a woman with the delight of good old-fashioned racism. They espouse the idea that people having a problem with Beth are all covert & overt misogynists. But talk out the other side of their mouths that they can't possibly be racist even when they support racism in the show or ignore concerns brought up by fans of colour. And that is just the absolute height of hypocrisy. Because by the former they acknowledge that people in a marginalised group (women) can still be anti- that group (a phenomenon with which I agree). But in the latter, suddenly they don't understand that concept.

Specific to the post you are responding to, fans that purport to like Brio write about the relationship in ways that reveal how much of their enjoyment comes from Rio being inferior to Beth. It's all about what he can do for her, how he acts against his best interests for her, how he literally denies himself sexual pleasure for her. Those are all meant to show how in love he is with her. But the show never bothers to tell us why. And, no, this is not because the show is so deep. Other romantic relationships they have scenes that are explicit about the characters' feelings. But Rio, after being shot, after being betrayed, after being mocked, is just so in love with Beth....because. (MYSTERIOUS!) And the Beth stans are more than fine with this because they think everyone should be as obsessed with Beth as they are. But it's bad storytelling. And, in this particular case, it gets into very dicey racist tropes. A white women treating her Latino lover like an afterthought is not the same as a white women treating her white lover like an afterthought. It just isn't. And if some of these fans are as smart as they pretend to be, they know that. They just don't care. Much like the showrunners.

There was so much talk defending the drawn-out Boland marriage because why can't we understand how hard it is for Beth—who is, at various times, claimed to be emotionally abused by Dean or staying with him because it is safe and comfortable—and we don't appreciate how difficult it is for her (I may be one of the few divorced people talking about this show on Tumblr, so this has always made me laugh). Yet there was nothing but glee when Rio flipped on his brousin (who was written as both abusive and safe) for Beth. Where was the empathy for Rio and how hard it was for him? Especially because, unlike Beth, he didn't even have one parent? Hadn't the Beth stans used her very tragical history™️ to explain away her every shitty act? idk, not having any parents and going to jail (as a minor?) and being betrayed by your family seems pretty tragic. But I didn't see them all of a sudden excusing Rio's bad behaviour. Because, feminism or something?

What about Beth's feelings? Last season she spent trying to have him killed. This season she spent looking annoyed by him. Throughout both she talked down to him in a specific white woman way that every BIPOC has experienced, even if some of them are cool with it. There were multiple opportunites for Beth to talk about her feelings with Ruby and/or Annie, but the writers made the deliberate choice to always make it about sex (and god, the immature way they had these three grown women talk was fucking obnoxious). She spent the last 2 seasons also wanting him out of her life to the point that a majority of her actions in S4 were motivated by getting to Nevada with her husband and kids. Beth doesn't care about Rio but Rio needs to put Beth above everything because he's just so in love like he's never been before (which is blatant Marcus & Rhea erasure). And anyone who doesn't think Beth would have just as happily been sitting on that bench plotting how to "run the city" (hahahahaha!) with Nick if the situation worked out differently hasn't been paying attention.

So, what do we have? A white woman who is constantly excused (by the loudest portion of the fandom) for all her ill treatment to her Black BFF & her Black husband, her Asian coworker, her Latina "friend," and Rio (among others) because her life is hard and who is not required to even be nice to her supposed "endgame". And a MOC who is expected to accept being treated poorly by the white woman because he loves her.

And, a last thing, this attitude grossly crossed over into talk about real people when the fans—who self-righteously claimed to be above anon sources or talking about the actors—latched on to the narrative and enjoyed blaming the MOC actor for the cancellation of the show, even dragging his insignificant (in terms of influence) Black wife into it. All while conveniently ignoring that the creator/showrunner is a white woman. The star & producer is a white woman. The people making the decisions at NBCU & Netflix were white women. All white women with so much more power than the Latino actor.

Shit, did I answer your question? I know this is a lot. But I could honestly make mulitple posts on each issue I touched on here. Basically, white people ain't slick, be they content creators or fans. We see how & what y'all talk about. We see that Rio not having a last name is not a big deal to you and we know why that is. So we're fucking tired. And we're over a show that had so much potential crapping all over their POC characters to prop up a white woman. And we're repulsed by the white women in the fandom who use their tears to seem oppressed and who toss around the word misogynist because POC dare call a Karen a Karen.

#nbc good girls #good girls nbc #racism in the text #racism in fandom #fragile whiteness #white feminism #what fandom chooses to talk about #and what it chooses to ignore #anon asks

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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So, any thoughts on The Green Lama (who unexpectedly became one of my faves), the Pulp Hero who is also a Superhero?

Much like other pulp heroes of the time, The Green Lama had multiple secret identities and a massive supporting cast aiding him in his quest for justice. Unlike his contemporaries, The Green Lama eschewed guns in favor of radioactive salts, magic, and sleight of hand. He rarely, if ever, killed his enemies. His tales also had an advanced sense of continuity, with characters growing and changing over time, plot points introduced in one story paying off several tales later. The Green Lama is a character of contradictions, driven forward by a faith he is forced to betray. It makes him flawed and imperfect, and in that way, one of the most human of all pulp heroes - The Green Lama: Scions

While not the "only" example of a pulp hero who is a superhero, The Green Lama is arguably the one who leans the most into the superhero aspect out of all the classic 30s pulp heroes that usually get brought up. I would argue that The Green Lama is the most direct answer to the question "what happens when you combine The Shadow and Superman together", considering he was modeled extensively after both in his forays into pulp, radio and comic books, and has also grown into his own character.

He's got the unique skills bordering on superpowers (that eventually became outright superpowers). He's got pretty much The Spectre's costume, except of course he came first. He's an urban costumed crimefighter wh deals with gangsters and criminal masterminds, and yet has an extremely strong stance against killing and carrying guns under any circumstance, even saying they would make him no better than the criminals he fights, which makes him by default the pulp hero that Batman would get along best with. The comics took it way further even turning the “Om Ma-ne Pad-me Hum” chant into a Shazam! transformation cry (Shazam came first, although the two debuted in the same year).

He's got a suitably punchy and dramatic origin: guy spends 10 years in Tibet and returns to America intend on spreading Buddhism's pacifist doutrine, only to witness the murder of children at the hands of mobsters the literal second he steps off the boat, and after spending restless days in the police station to see if they would find the culprit, he sees the killer walk out of the commissioner's office free, which convinces him he needs to take up crimefighting because the police are useless, and he outright calls the police "incompetent" in a letter to the papers that he uses to introduce himself to the world, which is not something you find often in 30s/40s fiction even if's an implicit part of the pulp hero/superhero fantasy.

He had a stronger sense of continuity than most pulp heroes were usually afforded. He has a lot of the pulp hero stock and trade like the assistants and the pseudo-science and the odd radio gadgets and of course the Orientalism that we'll get into, but remixed in a pretty cool way that allows him to stand out from his inspiration. He's got incredibly weird aspects to him like the fact that he gets enhanced abilities from crystallized salt or even becoming radioactive (which could be interesting to explore considering "radiation" became the go-to origin for superpowers in the 60s). He's got an allright supporting cast and Magga, while ultimately a deus ex machina, is a very interesting addition to it and I wish her mystery was played up more often in subsequent stories past the original run. There's a lot about The Green Lama that really works, he was incredibly successful at the time and he's managed to thrive over the years lot more than most of his contemporaries

Despite all the powers he wielded he felt impotent, nothing more than a rich boy playing the games of gods. He had chosen the path of the Bodhisattva, sacrificing himself for the good of all sentient beings, but even so the weight of responsibility, the lives of so many in his hands, threatened to crush him. It was tempting to turn away, to deny his calling, but the life of a Bodhisattva demanded more; and it was only recently that he had begun to realize how much it truly required.

The main problem with The Green Lama, and by problem I mean "the character works fine for his time but this is seriously holding him back from becoming sustainable again", is the fact that he's a white rich man who fights crime by going as hard into Orientalism tropes as possible, which is inescapably baked into the premise.

Now, I will argue that The Green Lama was, for his time, a progressive character. The Buddhist aspects of his character weren't just backstory fodder or an excuse for his superpowers as they were to pretty much every other character at the time, Jethro was a practicing Buddhist, who fought crime informed by his beliefs, trying to respect them (and not exactly succeeding) and offering a wholly positive perspective of Buddhism. Nowadays, it creates a problem, but at the time, it made the character stand out from every other hero who had "traveled to Tibet" checked out, because Tibet and Buddhism were heavily incorporated into the character. The Lama may have been born merely out of a desire to cash in on The Shadow's newfound radio popularity, but Crossen took it much more seriously than his contemporaries and made it an effort to instill admiration in his readers towards what he was referencing, which he was pulling from books about the subject and the Pali language. Is research the bare minimum? Yes. But it’s a bare minimum that even today’s writers don’t do even having an infinitely bigger wealth of information at their disposal.

To further cement my point: There's a particular Green Lama comic story called The Four Freedoms, which is about the Lama receiving a letter from a fan in the army who's worried about a racist private who keeps insulting the black privates while crowing about racial superiority, and so the Lama kidnaps the private and takes him on a tour through Germany so he can witness firsthand how his talk aligns with Nazi ideology, even specifically referring to Jim Crow's laws, criticizing how easily Americans fall for racial war rhetoric, and pointing out the idea of racism as a tool of tyrants to divide and conquer. It's not my place to champion this as some great representation and that's not what I'm doing, but if this all seems passe or simplistic or even problematic to you, trust me, this was still the era of Slap-A-Jap Superman, stories like this were absolutely not the norm at the time, even in other stories where superheroes dealt with racial discrimination.

He even caps off the story by stating that punching or ending Hitler is not the solution (although he lets Jones take a couple of swings) because Hitler is just one part of a much bigger problem that needs to be fought on all of it's forms. It's all very much afterschool special/anti-racism PSA, sure, but it's easier to mock those in our time. You find me a Golden Age superhero comic that shits on Jim Crow specifically while the hero tells the reader that Hitler is not the ultimate evil but merely "a cog in the wheel", part of a problem that's deeply entrenched in America's own shores (really, do, I'm genuinely curious if more of them did anything like this).

Does any part of what I said negates the fact that, at the end of the day, he's still a white man using Orientalism mysticism to fight crime? No, it doesn't. And if Iron Fist can't get away with it, if Dr Strange only just barely does, the Green Lama sure as hell can't. And you cannot downplay those aspects either lest you end up with a completely different character. It's a bit of a conundrum that makes the character tricky to approach from a revival perspective.

I completely agree with what you said here, Green Lama would benefit from a Legacy Hero approach very strongly. And Green Lama: Scions opens up an interesting possibility of Jethro Dumont not being quite what he seems, backed up by the fact that he wore disguise make-up in the original stories:

They had a lot of names for him in the papers—the Verdant Avenger, the Mysterious Man of Strength—but Reynolds had always been partial to “Buddhist Bastard.” No one had ever seen his face or, at the very least, the same face. Seemed like everyone had a different story. The Green Lama was white, he was black, he was asian, he was old, and he was young. You could fill a room of witnesses and no two would describe the same person.

Really I think if you just got rid of that one thing that holds the Lama back the most from catching on in modern times, I think he's the kind of character that lends itself a lot to long-term sustainability. He's already fairly popular as is, definitely an indispensable inclusion of any shared pulp hero or Golden Age superhero universe and definitely one of my favorites among the 30s American pulp heroes. And there’s ways to make the concept more interesting and workable.

Maybe The Green Lama is just a title that's been going on for generations, with Jethro being one of many to fill in. Maybe Magga used to be it, maybe the tulku that instructed Jethro did, maybe there's a new character with it. Maybe Jethro is just an identity used by an Asian-American adventurer to operate safely in the US, or maybe Jethro has a sort of Lamont Cranston arrangement going on. Maybe he's part of the reason why Tibet was the superpower capital of the world in the 30s or 40s, or part of the reason why radiation started granting so many heroes superpowers in the 60s.

The character's skillset has been fairly "anything goes" ever since his author made him a flying superman for the comics, and really he already started out being able to deliver electric shocks through his fingers by guzzling radioactive salts. He's a very weird character, and I will always argue that weird is what works best for the pulp heroes.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #comic books #comics #the green lama #jethro dumont #alex ross

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saintprivateer · 4 years

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I understand the ideas behind the zemenipearls post but can we not just have a nice fictional world? It’s not like the Kerch are made out to be a great nation of saintly people, it’s all fantasy for a reason. I won’t get started on their posts about my girl Nina and my dude Nikolai 😒

Okay... there’s a lot of ground to cover here so boot up cowhand I wrote a LOT

No matter how unlike-this-world a fantasy universe seems, it was still crafted by a real human who IS a part of this world. And humans put their own beliefs and experiences into their stories as the foundation for how ideal/ not-ideal they want the au to be. We use the environment around us as a stepping stone for our stories, and this DOUBLES if the author is saying “This World Is Not Like Ours At All”. The question authors answer of “What exactly is this au not like?” Rounds back to the place we are trying to distance ourselves from, because that is what this au is “not like.” And most often, authors craft these fantasy universes and bring the reader into a whole new world only to go back to a REAL theme of “This World Is Actually More Like Yours Than You Think.” Because that’s usually the entire point. We like fantasy because we want to see our nature mirrored in worlds unlike ours. We love that people can fly and cast spells, but we REALLY love when they’re as human as us in behavior/interests/ actions.

All that’s to say: you can’t actually write a racism-free world if you’ve never experienced a racism-free world. The ideals we want to portray will still be flawed and not 100% ideal, because the notion we have OF this ideal is fundamentally flawed. ESPECIALLY if we are still unlearning our own fallacies to these ideals. Grishaverse has anti-blackness threaded in the pages because there is anti-blackness on Earth and anti-black fallacies in the ideals Leigh Bardugo has internalized (like any other white person). If we can acknowledge the argument that meanings can be found in stories/art whether it was intended or not, then we have to acknowledge Leigh Bardugo wrote in her own prejudice or anti-black ideals into the grishaverse, whether intended or not. She wanted to write a story removed from the racism we know, and that in of itself isn’t a bad thing to imagine. But she still wrote tropes actively harmful to the minorities they represent.

“Why do you have to look for patterns that aren’t there and nitpick on characters? Why does everything have to be about race? Isn’t it enough that our heroes are TRYING to be good?”

When people say this, they usually mean “Why are you putting this in my face? We (the group not affected) were all doing fine until you decided to be grumpy about something, and I don’t want my ideals soiled by your criticisms.”

Imagine seeing the person who’s supposed to represent you and your identity be repeatedly trashed, ignored, dumbed down, dismissed, killed off, etc etc in canon and in the fandom, and when you finally get the courage to bring it up, the entirety of people not affected silence and threaten you for rocking their boat. You really can’t imagine how that actually feels unless you’ve felt it. When you write off the consistently abusive treatment of a community of people in a book as an inconvenient—and thus invalid— topic that “ruins” the characters or plots you want to root for, you’re acknowledging the privilege you have in being able to look the other way when these patterns have been brought to your attention.

There’s a lot you might not catch when you aren’t a part of the communities affected. If someone is gracious enough to extend their emotional and intellectual labor to point it out to you despite the all the gaslighting and harassment they face, the LEAST you can do is have an open mind and release the defenses and previous ideals you’ve cultivated for the characters you love. Black fans don’t owe it to you to spell it out, but they sometimes do! Despite how white fans treat them in return.

You said “it’s not like the Kerch are made out to be a nation of great saintly people.” Great! So we agree everyone should be praised and criticized accordingly? And when it’s pointed out that a character exhibits bigotry we can acknowledge that as a part of the environment they’ve lived in and thus a trait of themselves?

You can enjoy any universe or the characters that come with it in full capacity, and no one is asking you to discard stories entirely because of the mistakes. Nikolai meant and means a lot to me because of the ideals that I crafted in my head from 16 up. He’s a comfort character! He was my vision of a masc-presenting adventurer who got by with wit and charm and aesthetics. The people who love him see something of themselves in him, or someone they love. But he’s still a product of his environment. Just because I don’t want that to be true doesn’t make it untrue. Ravka is fantasy Russia but .*•*~more idealistic*.~*. This doesn’t take away the fact that the foundation is...still Russia. He’s still a privileged white king thats actively oppressing minorities in the story by upholding the kingship as it is, and if he continues the path he’s on, he’s not much better than his heritage. I love Nina to death but she’s still the jarhead kid in your algebra class ready to fight anyone who says her country merits basic criticism. The kingdom of Ravka would need to be entirely dismantled and recreated. Nikolai might seem more progressive than the kings before him, but he’s got a lot to be reprimanded for, and rebuilding can’t even start until he acknowledges and unlearns that. Which...he hasn’t, not fully, and there’s no written proof of him doing so as of now.

Before I made myself research more I got just as defensive of him and others. I’m sure I’ll get defensive over another story and have to relearn everything all over again. It’s a process and you have to check yourself all the time. But it’s a step towards the ideals we want to actually live in. If I want to imagine Nikolai a better man, I have to start from the scraps I’m given.

So yes!! You’re allowed to draw up your own themes and ideals from the stories and reimagine the characters to fit a narrative that makes your heart happy. But it won’t change the reality of the canon universe. Zemenipearls enjoyed the grishaverse so much she made a fan account for it, participates in fan-led events that celebrate the characters (and sometimes leads those events herself), commissions artists to make fanart, and has ongoing works that delve into the expansive universe that better represents her and what she wants for black characters in fantasy. And she STILL gets shit for imploring a conversation about what we all want to ignore away. Why would she put so much energy into this if she didn’t care or believe in this story too? If you also care about grishaverse that much, shouldn’t we be willing to uplift and reimagine by starting where the work needs it most?

Okay I’ve said a LOT SORRY HHHHH BUT TO WRAP UP: Ignoring a fictional character’s faults or repercussions is one thing, and I’m not about to waste energy on making people hold characters in a book accountable. We all see how people treat the Darkling.

But when you participate in or ignore the bullying and threatening that happens to REAL people, when people JUSTIFY that shit as if it merits denying a person their humanity, THATS the actual harm being done. (Not saying you’ve done that, but the mindset I’m seeing here is what feeds into that compliance.)

If we have the energy to protect and coddle our fictional white boys and let them burn the sandbox down, I KNOW we have energy to respect and protect black fans who have just as much say in how they see the story or how they reimagine it. If you have the energy to accept/tolerate the stuff alarkling fans promote, I KNOW you have the energy to put your pride away and acknowledge fallacies in your own ideals for characters. And regardless!!! of whether you “agree” with the criticisms or not, does that mean the person who spoke up about the issue deserves to be harassed?

I’m gonna ask the white ya majority reading this to be humble and open your hearts up to change the way you do for fictional edgy white dudes. Y’all have the SPIRIT but then it funnels into the WRONG IDEAS!!! PLEASE use your heads you’d be unstoppable if you used your privilege to amplify the ones who need amplifying. I promise Cardan BlackBerry and Alesksxxander Marigold aren’t gonna be disappointed in you 😔🙏

#that’s my piece on THAT sorry I’ve had time to sit with this #I wanted to go ahead and get it out on one thing too so I can refer back possibly #fandom racism #anti blackness #grishaverse #Nikolai Lantsov #kos king of scars #Nina Zenik #Ravka #analysis #ya fiction #zemenipearls #tgt the grisha trilogy #soc six of crows #ck crooked kingdom

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bird-armadda · 3 years

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Thoughts on Cultural Gatekeeping

Ok, so I’ve been seeing this post about qipao (can’t find the orig link, alas) and how white people shouldn’t wear it going around tumblr. And recently there was this controversy about Jordan Clark, the guy running The Aswang Project and the fact that he’s a white Canadian. Let me preface this by saying I’m Filipino-Chinese. I’ve been around tumblr for a while and I noticed there’s been this extremely disconcerting rise towards gatekeeping of minority cultures. Now, it’s not my place to tell Western diaspora POC how to handle their cultural dynamics. But what I can tell you - and what I have plenty of experience with - is the fact that gatekeeping is not a good thing.

By saying gatekeeping is wrong, I don’t mean it’s wrong to bar access to your culture’s sacred objects, traditions, or rites. I mean to say it’s disingenuous to deny the members of a majority culture access to learning, sharing knowledge about, and experiencing the parts of your culture that’s actually meant to be shared, so long as it’s done in a respectful manner. Or banning them from access to it outright, on the basis of their race. Take the Aswang Project issue: Jordan Clark has never been anything but respectful to Filipino culture, has devoted hours of painstaking research to Filipino mythology and folklore, has credited all his sources, and corrected misinformation. On the whole, he strives to ensure his blog be an up-to-date and and free resource for anyone who wishes to learn about our culture and history. But now he’s facing backlash because some Filipino-American twitter users feel betrayed that they had been enjoying a resource created by a white man. When said white man has never hidden his identity, or the fact that he’s Canadian. Once again, I do not claim to know or have experienced POC minorities have experienced at the hands of white supremacy. I think it’s admirable that you’ve held onto your identity despite all the challenges. But word of advice from a third-generation Tsinay, who’s witnessed three generations of abuse within her family, all caused by racism from within the minority culture: gatekeeping, and prioritizing insularity and exclusivity strictly among the members of your race will only serve to hurt your community in the long run. It certainly hurt my Chinese grandfather, when he was practically disowned by the community for marrying my Filipino grandmother. It hurt my grandmother, who who was treated like an outsider and called a maidservant all her life. It hurt my mother, when her half-Filipino status ensured the members of the Chinese community never accepted her. This carried onto her marriage with my full-Chinese father, and the discrimination she suffered at the hands of his relatives. And this is still happening today, among my friends (the Great Wall is a real, painful thing, and I know people who weren’t allowed to get together with their Filipino boyfriends because of it, or who are experiencing problems with their Chinese SOs today).

Why restrict the wearing of a qipao to members of the Chinese community, when it is basically just a dress that has no religious or sacred significance at all? What does this mean for the mixed-race members of your community? Especially those who don’t have identifiably Chinese physical features? Why heap abuse on a man who has never been anything but respectful to a culture that’s not his, and who ensured the people who belonged to it had access to everything he’d learned? (I’ll have you know that most of the books about Filipino mythology and culture are either prohibitively expensive, or out of print.) And if you’re already this belligerent against the members of the majority culture trying to learn about your culture and doing so with respect, how will you treat the ones who marry into your culture? How will you treat their children? There is a difference between people who fetishize culture and those who wish to learn more in good faith, and lashing out at the curious and the well-meaning only serves to ensure they remain ignorant at best. At worst, they’ll get actively hostile, which’ll create more problems for you, and your children, and your grandchildren in the long run. Like what happened to my family, and my friends’ families. TL;DR: Gatekeeping will only faciliate racism. And racism is still racism, even by the minorities against the members of the majority culture. It helps no one, and hurts everyone.

#racism #racism tw #Filipino #Filipino culture #Chinese culture #The Aswang Project

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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How do we handle art made during times were everyone was problematic? Should we ban old offensive art? I've seen birth of the nation. It's as racist as people say, but still a important film for cinema history. Snow White was 14 while the prince is 31. Tons of propaganda and racist depictions exited in early cartoons. Lovecraft made a new horror genre, but was very racist by today standards. Is it wrong to sell those or make them easily available? Do we just use disclaimers?

A peer of mine once summed up this issue in a helpfully succinct way: “My daughter really wants to read Little House on the Prairie so I’m taking time to talk to her about the racism in it.” Now, this woman has a doctorate in English so she’s well versed in the impact fiction can have and I personally agree that education is the best way to go about this. Her parenting technique (and the much longer conversation we had about it) acknowledges a couple of things:

Straight up denying access is never the way to go, both because that feeds into censorship (who gets to decide what’s bad “enough” to withhold?) and, frankly, the more you tell people they can’t engage with something the more they’ll want to. Saying “There’s no circumstance in which you’re ever allowed to read this” doesn’t help anyone

Ignoring such stories doesn’t help anyone either. As you say, a hundred years from now we’ll have currently beloved stories that are now unacceptable, so beyond acknowledging that everything has the potential to be problematic and we can’t simply forget about huge swaths of our culture, that culture itself is important - even the bad parts. History is important. Not to get all cliche, but those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. Racism, ableism, homophobia, etc. all exist in our fiction and moving forward doesn’t mean pretending that those stories never existed by hiding them away, but rather acknowledging that problem overtly as a way to say, “We can’t do that anymore.” That’s how people learn - especially kids - and that’s most safely done through something like a novel

That learning requires overt education. Teach people to think critically about the media they consume and listen to different perspectives on it. Note that my peer doesn’t just let her daughter read this series, she does so with plans to discuss the problems she already knows are in the text

All that being said, giving kids access to these books doesn’t necessarily mean we should continue to uphold those books in places like the classroom. There is a very complicated conversation going on regarding which books are worth giving our limited time to. Reading a racist book might teach a student something, but it’s better to simply give them access to books by black authors and have that conversation alongside the benefit of the non-racist literature itself. As said, deciding which texts are still worth our educational time is a huge conversation and everyone has a different opinion about whether what the literature might otherwise provide is worth its problems. That’s not something I alone can decide

(As a non-literature example, we’re seeing this now with BLM: there’s a massive difference between acknowledging Columbus in something like a history book and keeping a statue that acts as a means of upholding/praising him. Books work in a similar manner. Having them remain accessible in bookstores/a library is not the same thing as upholding/praising them in a classroom. Putting the books in that space and in that context presents them in a more positive light than many are comfortable with.)

However, if you do continue to teach such books you (again) want to have those conversations - which includes letting students be upset about this. Don’t tell the woman in your class that she shouldn’t be pissed off over how misogynistic a text is. Don’t tell a queer student their reading of a text isn’t possible. I believe that it’s often less about what we read than how we read it. If a student despises a text and thinks it was a waste of time... that’s the spark of a very important conversation. Teasing out the “why” of “I hated it” teaches just as much as teasing out the “why” of “I loved it.” Of course, there’s also mental health to consider. As said, there are texts we may not want to teach anymore. There are texts you’ll want to warn people about before they buy it in a bookstore. There are texts someone may need to step away from halfway through reading it... these are all things that need to be negotiated on an individual basis

Finally, not all texts are the same. A Disney film where the ages aren’t obvious (Snow White) isn’t the same thing as a text actively grappling with pedophilia (Lolita). In a world where “everything is problematic” it’s important to make those distinctions because though every story will have its flaws, those flaws are not made equal. Acknowledging that is necessary for having those conversations and having them mean something. Like the white person going, “Everyone has to deal with hard stuff in life!” while the black person is trying to talk about institutional racism, pretending that all texts’ problems are on an even level doesn’t do us any good

#fiction #teaching #Anonymous

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deerth · 3 years

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my first mistake in witchcraft

yes i’m going to be petty over religion for a second here.

i have been slowly inching out of the broom closet as i now consciously move on from the atheist mindset to the pagan one. i was looking for more resources to research my path, and i ended up on a witchy server... woe unto me as i try to fit in once more, for it seems that not even witches are unified.

forget about all that shit about garden, cosmos and whatever witches. the religion actually broadly branches into two practices - Wicca and regular witchcraft. so you are primarily the one or the other, no matter what flavour of ritual you practice.

the primary difference between Wiccans and general witchcraft is your belief of whether religion can be used for harm or not. in short, Wiccans state “an it harm none, do as ye will” (as long as you don’t hurt anyone [including yourself], go bonkers), therefore you will not find Wiccans casting curses or hexes. we know the responsibility of our faith and we know that if you radiate bad vibes, it will come right back around to bite you in the ass later. that said, most Wiccans don’t mind witches who do curse or hex. some cultures use practices like voodoo, and even old eastern European practices were not free of rituals that were made to directly interfere with someone’s will (love spells that were supposed to make someone love you). therefore, a disclaimer: I’m not anti-hex. I would not use a hex because I feel that hate will not solve hate, and as long as you’re an adult, I trust you know what you’re doing with your power. maybe you are of an oppressed culture and have good reason to exact revenge on someone who severely hurt you, especially if you have a long-standing tradition of hexes. even Nina Simone sang “I Put a Spell on You” (albeit this is also a love spell). I know curses and hexes and even spells affecting with another’s free will are an inherent part of witchcraft and I won’t deny it. I follow my doctrine, you follow yours, that is fine by me.

what is NOT fine with me, however, is propagating hex culture among minors. why? because minors are not ready to take on that responsibility!!!! just like they are not truly ready to make healthy decisions about sex, alcohol or other substances, they cannot take true responsibility over causing harm, be it spiritual or otherwise. “what’s a little hex do?” you might ask, if you’re a minor. not to sound like a boomer, but when I was 16, I was edgy as fuck. I hated everyone while claiming to love everyone. I was in NO correct mental state to make decisions about the aforementioned things. even without casting any hexes, I made many mistakes. big ones. I hurt a lot of people. yes, I regret it all deeply. I wish I had thought things over rather than stay stubborn. in fact, most people under 20 are not ready to enter discourse, drama or a vicious cycle of hatred purely because it will always turn into “all bite but no bark”. I purposefully say it that way because although youngsters are admirably spirited and ready to take on the world... they often bite off more than they can chew. I see girlies straight out of high school trying to solve huge problems like racism, and although, again, admiring these young people, they have researched their stuff. to an extent, they know what they’re talking about... but I do believe hate will not solve hate.

one of the moderators of said server retaliated with it not being a universal truth, and claimed my take to be “unverified personal gnosis” (what is a verified gnosis, anyway? how do you measure it? especially in a practice like witchcraft where every bloody individual practises it differently and there are no priests or churches?). if the moderator happens to read this and wishes to elaborate, i’d be welcome for a bit of constructive discussion over what is and isn’t personal gnosis. I acknowledge that “hate cannot be fought with hate” is not a universal truth... that is perhaps where I went to the extreme. but believe me, I did not say it to be holier-than-thou. I was actually shocked to be called out by not one, but two moderators on my behaviour, instantly. I did not read in the rules that one would be forbidden to state their opinion or softly disagree, but perhaps it is so and I did not pay enough attention.

there comes another food for thought: is it possible to socialise without being opinionated in any way? would shutting down opinions truly prevent conflict? because I’m feeling very bitter and left out now. I know everyone on that server is not Wiccan. but to get slapped in the face right after I attempted to be friendly (laconic and feeble as that was), among who I considered to be my own people... I feel conflicted. now mind, I’m not going to leave witchcraft behind. it is my religion, and thanks to this experience, I learned that Wicca is the right thing for me. I don’t want to advocate for violence and a vicious cycle of hatred. my grandfather was Romani, therefore I believe I know a thing or two about mislabeling and hate enacted upon minorities and outcast people. does that mean I want to kill and hex every white in sight? the answer is no. if anything, me being both Wiccan and Romani, it would just add fuel to the fire. especially because Romani are stereotyped as evil witches in the first place, so it would be a double suicide. by propagating violence, I would give these people more reason to hate pagans and Romani people. both cultures are already feared and hated upon as it is. I am not going to give people more opportunity to hate me.

coming back to the minor I disagreed with in the server. I was shocked that the first thing that came to a teenager’s mind was a revenge hex. it screams of naiveté and irresponsible behaviour towards your faith. and not JUST your faith. as I am a student of psychology, I am well aware how mind patterns work, and here’s the funny thing: psychology has proven that witchcraft’s law of returns is somewhat true, not on a magickal level, but on a mental one. if you ponder over violence and revenge excessively, you are reinforcing those neural pathways in your brain. there is a reason why they say “hate breeds hate”. it is the same reason why depression is so hard to deal with. anything you obsessively ruminate over reinforces it again and again until escape seems impossible. I’m not only speaking as a witch, I’m speaking as a human being. is it correct to propagate petty violence among minors when we as adults can do better and guide young people to better paths?

I’m not saying young people shouldn’t use hexes. but I am questioning their ability to take on the responsibility of potentially hurting someone, or even just thinking of hurting someone. you plant a seed of hate and it may just grow. you knock on the devil’s door enough times and he will answer (disclaimer: I’m not Christian either, I just like the saying). soon there shall be nothing left but hate. if the person in question had not been a minor, I would have left it at that. but religion is sacred. a witch’s magick is essentially making something important to you sacred. it’s not a plaything. it’s not to be used light-handedly. it’s not a trend. and hexes should be the last resort if all else fails OR the person you hate has a damn good reason for being hated.

is it wrong to vote for love and peace? yeah, I sound like a hippie, but I think they’re right. love was not born from continuing to fight each other - love was born from unity, from coexisting. how does one fight racism? psychology says see more poc, interact with them, understand their struggles. how to fight religious fear? spend time with people of different views. how to get over homophobia? spend time with the gays and try to understand their views, and like, actually understand them. spending time with someone just to berate them is still bigotry. the interaction I mean here is coexisting with minorities in a shared space and them slowly, but surely becoming more accepted and normalised because we finally see them. even a bigot can’t stay a bigot if they are brought out of isolation. if they’re forced to see people different than them.

unfortunately, not even your own faith can comfort you sometimes, mostly because the community is still divided. there are rules on what should and shouldn’t be done, and woe upon thee if you dare to even peep one of your thoughts. I merely said thank you and sorry and left, as I always do when I feel misunderstood. it was a valuable yet harsh lesson, and I regret hoping for acceptance or even offering me a moment to be understood without being shut down without a second thought. I regret hoping for a little discussion where it is seen as a violation of rules.

again, as long as you are ready to bear the responsibility of harming another, do whatever you want. as a Wicca, I prefer staying benevolent and kind, even to those who traumatised me. you might argue that this essay in itself is not benevolent... after all, Wiccans don’t slander people behind their backs, you might say. but it is not my intent to slander. it is just me expressing sheer confusion over what I expected to be a community to hear out all voices, because why have a community at all if you allow for no discussion? do we shut off discussions entirely in fear of fights? but alas, it is human nature to be opposed, but it’s also human nature to still hold hands despite the differences - one just needs to acknowledge it.

blessed be.

#own post #witchblr #witchy #wicca #laconic and gross oversimplifications to this post will not be accepted.#i am naive in my own way for believing people want to be kind #but i do believe that there can be love and peace on the planet earth. as a survivor of hate #i know it.

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