#too many white people really do think racism ended with slavery

[orion-kenobi]

Hey this juneteenth i’m wondering why people only ever talk about reparations for slavery and not also for the fact that the government didn’t think people like me deserved equal rights until 58 years ago

#too many white people really do think racism ended with slavery #when the civil rights act was literally only passed 10 years before my dad was born #my grandparents who are very much alive and well went to segregated schools and lived in the jim crow south #what i’m saying is the u.s government owes a lot of non white people a lot of money and needs to do better #juneteenth #antiracism #blm

[blackgirlcinephiles]

I feel like we have a very distorted understanding of how much of Black entertainment media is centered around struggle.

It always annoys me to hear other Black folk say,

“I’m tired of all these slave films, I’m tired of all these movies about ‘The Struggle’.”

Because in reality, if you take some time and do a quick survey, there really aren’t very many movies about slavery and “the struggle”. There’s even fewer that are historically accurate and handle these topics well.

Like within the grand scope of Black entertainment media (media made by Black people about Black people), non-slave and non-struggle films far outnumber movies about slavery and racial discrimination.

I think with the onset of the Black Lives Matter movement, we saw a number of films emerge that told stories of police brutality, slavery, and other incidents of racial terror on the Black community. But I feel like people forget to put that era into context and don’t realize that that period was the first time we were seeing serious efforts to tell those stories on screen in a dramatized format. Those films brought attention and publicity to events and issues that white media would have us forget. And is desperately trying to have us forget, as evidenced by the current histeria around Critical Race Theory.

Films like Fruitvale Station, Detroit, The Hate U Give, shows like Underground, Roots were firsts in a lot of ways. They brought attention to individuals and parts of history seldom talked about. And despite being well intentioned, there are serious critiques to be made about a few of these projects (THUG I’m side-eyeing YOU!)

And I can understand as Black people we don’t want to be re-traumatized with dramatic retellings of a reality we are already intimately and painfully familiar with (these films are for non-Black people more than anyone else). But I want us to place our anger in the right direction. There are too many times where the “I’m tired of slave stories” ends up blowing back harder on Black creatives than anyone else.

In my opinion, there isn’t any over abundance of struggle narratives in Black entertainment media. It’s that struggle narratives end up being more highly profiled by broader white media (read: all dominant media outlets and institutions).

Dominant white media institutions only uplift Black stories that either teach them something about racism or reinforce negative racial stereotypes. Slave films sweep awards seasons. Denzel got nominated for Malcolm X, but he won for playing a corrupt cop in Training Day. Monique gave us years of laughs as she portrayed a playful, and fun loving relationship with her daughter on The Parkers (a role she could’ve easily won an Emmy for), but her Oscar came for playing a toxic and abusive mother in Precious.

If there’s something to be upset about it, it’s that. Its that Black film and television isn’t valued by dominant media when it portrays our simple everyday humanity. They need to see us suffering the terrors of racial capitalism in order to feel and sympathize with our cause and even self flaggelate.

#black media #black film #black television #representation #blackgirlcinephiles #black girls on tumblr

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

Hey gio I accidentally got into an argument about how Rowling, and how she’s not transphobic and how’s she’s misunderstood, do you have a list of reliable sources and evidence to point out she’s not a good person?

okay i want to say that. unfortunately i DID have some discussions similar to this in the past, and they always ended with the other person going "let's agree to disagree :)" and so i know it's a lowkey Lost Cause. however. wanna give out obvious proof? like nothing that can be misread or misunderstood?? like of course i can just throw her twitter link here and call it a day, but again. i've met people who were adamant and kept saying that she was just pro women, well.

sure let's go. putting it under read more because i know that it's very upsetting. we're discussing transphobia, but i also want to lampshade her racism and much more so. yeah.

also point 0.5: i know you want proof of transphobia but i want to remind everyone that she's a bad person through and through. just by reading the book you can see a lot of fatphobia - especially with the dursleys - excusing slavery with the house elves to the point that the only one who's happy with being free is considered "weird" and the one person who wants to fight for their rights being constantly used a a joke, antisemitism with the goblins description, the racism when it comes to non-white characters (the chinese character is literally called cho chang and whatever the fuck she did with the native americans) and much, much more. I won't lie, I still have fond memories of the books from when I read them as a child, but you can't ignore that she really pissed outside the bucket more than once

1. again, just read the books. in harry potter i think it's just something very vaguely hinted with Rita Skeeter being described as masculine and being a character who constantly badmouths and stalks the underage protagonists, and we all know how her main villain in "troubled blood" is what a trans woman is in the eyes of a terf: just a man who crossdresses to enter in women's bathrooms to kill them. there's also her new book where she makes the victim we need to avenge a cartoonist who's killed for being accused of being transphobic, but honestly i didn't read too much into it nor i want to because just the premise makes my blood boil

2. small, but while her rampage on twitter can "be misunderstood" as "her protecting women" ( no it can't, but again. that's what people i discussed with were preaching :^) ), i think the ultimate smoking gun was her blocking stephen king, someone she openly reverred jus a few hours before he stated that trans women are women

3. similarly, Katherine Waterson, the actress who played the main love interest in "Fantastic Beasts", was casually pushed aside after she was very openly went against J.K.'s transphobia. In the latest movie her character was "unavailable" until th very end, as far as I know, where they rushed to close her love arc.

3.5. the actors of Harry, Ron and Hermione and many others were also openly supporting trans people btw, and since she doesn't really have power over them anymore Rowling being absent to the Harry Potter reunion really says a lot to me

4. This is my personal smoking gun: her promoting a terf site

i think the name of the site itself is proof enough, but just to make sure that they didn't have a sudden change of heart or it could "be misunderstood" i took one for the team and checked their site and

this was their landing page besties. can't be more obvious than this

5. JK yes you can. Wanna know with who she hangs with lately?

these people :) I heavily encourage watching this video, as upsetting as it might be -- and check out this channel's Harry Potter essay too, they really go deep into how badly she fucked up, but the TL;DR version of the video above is "they're all terfs" like you can say you're not transphobic as much as you want, but if most of your besties are transphobes I think it's kind of obvious you are too

6. "Merry Terfmas"

#gio replies #transphobia tw #racism tw #fatphobia tw #yea we're going there #im not really good at these kind of serious posts but shitting on this devil of a woman is always fun #< as fun as the acid reflux i'm getting rereading her tweets might be anyway

[ghouljams]

I'm sure most of us are too foolish to try and run from the Fae. Sorry to disappoint! I think we would try to seduce the Fae thinking we live in a romance genre despite showcasing first to die in the horror movie traits.

Also, you wrote a grimoire as a senior capstone? If it's not too much in terms of details about your life, would you be willing to share more about how/why that came to be? Or even what sorts of cool things were included in it? That has to be one of the coolest capstone projects ever!

No, no, it's my own fault for making the fae sexy. I've doomed you all. I'm sorry.

Here is where I give a big BIG disclaimer that I am an outsider to the practice I wrote about, and will never be able to fully practice it outside of the research and compiling that I did for my capstone.

The tl;dr is that I wrote a Hoodoo/Rootwork grimoire for my women/gender/sexualities capstone. Which is such a mouthful, sorry about that. Details under the cut.

So the how and why are pretty easy, which is that my capstone class for this minor was focused on the black diaspora in the US and the intersections with feminism. Which again disclaimer: I'm so white. I loved the class, we read a lot of really fantastic books and I learned a lot! One of the books we read was on southern hoodoo folk magic and I was really interested in how magic intersects with medicine and religion. So Hoodoo became a fascination and I ended up writing a part essay part grimoire.

I read so many primary sources and found some old school practitioners, and just compiled all the information I could on Hoodoo. Which is not Voodoo, just wanna point that out at the start here. I did a lot of herbalism research, pulling traditional names and uses. I cross referenced the different plants with areas they would've grown in and their actual medical uses. Very useful for the historical essay part of the grimoire.

I could go on and on about the different spells and rituals that I learned, but I do not want to present myself as an expert on this because I'm not! Again I am an outsider to this practice, take my words with a grain of salt.

The really fun historical context that I wrote extensively about is how African women in slavery in the USA were using rootwork and herbalism as a medical practice. I also was looking at how the intersection of that medicine with US racism and Christianity made them widely feared as white people thought they were able to conjure demons and work magic. Unsurprisingly this made slave owners push Christianity and specifically Baptist Christianity on their slaves which mixed with the African Religion Collective(ARC) and created an interesting blend of the two within Hoodoo(this happened more severely with Voodoo but that's a different topic).

The Hoodoo religion portion of this is a closed practice. The rituals within Hoodoo do show up within a lot of different practices though. It was cool seeing the intersections of other practices and what everyone seems to agree on. Things like ritual baths and color associations are pretty common, but poppets and mojo bags aren't! Same with USA specific animal magic. It was a lot of planning and organizing to get all my chapters in order since I was hand writing and illustrating everything.

Anyway I usually use my grimoire for rootwork/herbalism which is not a closed practice. My professor wanted to keep my grimoire which was really flattering, but I got it back after grading.

#ghoul speaks #do not think of me as an expert #hmmm i dont wanna say i wont answer questions on specifics within hoodoo #but i also love talking about it #i will answer herbalism questions

[earthmoonlotus]

What Black Studies scholars such as Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, and many others have been articulating for decades is increasingly being pulled into white people’s view by contemporary neuroscience: the human body is biological and cultural at the same time. Most of what we imagine as “natural” or “intuitive” is very much bound up with the social world we inhabit. The culture in which we grow up, the words we learn to describe our existence, physically structure the way we feel emotions and know ourselves and our position in the world.

Racism, then, is not only an institutional, social, and political fact, but also has tremendous impact on our psychological, biochemical, neural existence. Thinking, feeling, and moving as a white person in the Western world means having been shaped by hundreds of years of slavery and colonialism that have imbued us with a deep-set sense of racial superiority.

What makes whiteness – and the assumptions that come with it—so tenacious is its capacity to make itself invisible to its bearers; as white people we are predisposed to see ourselves as un-raced. Whiteness lets us imagine that we can see the world neutrally, that we can judge, assess, comment on matters of race without affective involvement or emotional repercussions. We assume that matters of race do not concern us while simultaneously claiming that we are in the position to assess whether a statement was racist or not. But if you are white and believe that you have no emotional stakes in talking about race, you have a problem. You cause problems. You are a problem.

White people are created by, through, and for whiteness. Inevitably, we are formed and informed by it, we perpetuate it, we think and feel in it – whether we like it or not. Whiteness cannot be overcome or pushed aside at will. If we could do that, we would be more than human. If we really set out to attack whiteness, we must be prepared for this to become an existential issue that challenges the basis of our existence. If whiteness goes, what will be left of us? Doing anti-racist work, we need to find a way of dealing with this contradiction, with the paradoxical aim of eroding the ground on which we stand, in a way that does not exhaust itself in excessive and aimless breast-beating.

Recognizing the limitations of whiteness does not have to be stifling. It enables us to enter conversations on racism more genuinely – not by empowering but by *disempowering* ourselves. It is difficult to wrap one’s head around that, and the work of anti-racism does not end with recognizing its necessity. And surely it doesn’t end (or begin) with the sort of exculpation that the apologies discussed here aim at. In my experience, anti-racist work does not feel great, and it involves shame. Yet this shame does not lie in the fact of being white. It lies in the active, conscious ignorance of what it means to be white, and of the fact that this whiteness is limiting the breadth of our views on and experience of the world.

It is our responsibility to get our defense mechanisms out of the way. For those who suffer from racism directly, the conversation is strenuous, exhausting, and painful enough as it is. Too often, white people make it worse by hypermoralizing and thus actively sustaining our affective, emotional, and intellectual ignorance of the obvious plights caused by racism. It is a contradictory gesture: we need to turn to ourselves to make the conversation not about us.

#racism #white supremacy #whiteness #poc allyship #op

[aropride]

NO SERIOUSLY hp fans will hear "jk rowling is bad and theres a lot of racism in the series" and then go and defend that its not racist because of the blood purity aspect and how it "deconstructs that" when it literally never does and do you HEAR YOURSELF YOURE TALKING ABOUT BLOOD PURITY. POINT A AND POINT B ARE RIGHT THERE AND YOURE NOT CONNECTING THEM.

sorry as a former fan of the series and a trans person with reading comprehension ive had to have way too many conversations about hp recently and its driving me up a wall. merry christmas ^_^

hi im late answering this sorry i went 2 eat dinner and then forgot to respond BUT LITERALLY!!! i watched shaun's harry potter video last night and there is SO much racism in that series- way more than i remembered and i remembered a LOT. like. the fucking house elves just in general and how hermione is treated as an annoyance for saying "hey maybe we should not keep a certain race as slaves and treat them as inferior and say they like being slaves" and how the slavery and bigotry and general shittiness of the system of the wizarding world isnt resolved at all but it "ends happily ever after" like NO IT DOESNT? not for anyone but the white main characters who become cops and shit because those systems of oppression are still in place after the series ends and that's. framed as a good thing? because jkr is like, incapable of realizing that sometimes The Whole System needs to change rather than just the people in charge. and you'd think it'd be pretty easy to figure that out when the system is literally built on slavery and racism, but. well she's racist and just an idiot, so.

it's like she knows "racism is wrong" and "bigotry is wrong" as statements and tries to show that in her work by having, like, a muggle-born wizard do well in classes, or a strong woman who's still feminine or whatever, or having the wizard racists be the bad guys, but she doesn't understand WHY racism and bigotry are wrong and awful so she ends up supporting those things in every other aspect of the narrative that isn't a direct intentional allegory for those things and half the time also when it is!

like idk i read the books the first time when i was 10 or so and even then i was like. "hey why is slave labor glamorized in this kid's book i'm reading? that's kinda fucked up!" or like "it's kinda weird that sometimes the Good Guys do fucked up stuff but it's fine because they're Good, isn't doing a bad thing still bad if you're on the good side?" or "why are characters being fat treated as something that makes them a Bad Person / a signifier that they are Bad People" or again: Why is there slavery in the wizard books! why is it rationalized with "they like being slaves" and "they're sad if they can't be slaves!" or "tricking them into not being slaves would be more cruel than enslaving them in the first place" (<- real thing that was on the pottermore website !)

side note, but why was jkr trynig to talk about things like slavery and racism and blood purity and nazi ideology in a fantasy series meant for children anyway. that feels.. incredibly unnecessary and weird. <- leaving this in for transparency but someone sent me an ask that made me rethink this & i do think it's important for those subjects to be addressed in fiction, even fiction meant for children, as they're already experiencing those things & sheltering them does them a disservice. jkr approached it very badly and the story would have been better off without her attempt at exploring it but in general it's not a bad things to address those things in fiction

and not to mention the way most of the characters who weren't white and british were stereotypical caricatures and even their fucking names-- kingsely shacklebolt, anthony goldstein, and cho chang come to mind-- that speaks for itself, really

and the antisemitism that's present through all of the books. the blood purity and the fucking goblins.. jkr why are your goblins identical to antisemitic caricatures and why do they run the underground banks, answer quick and then kill yourself please! like maybe it wasn't intentional but it's still incredibly fucked up and to my knowledge she hasn't spoken about it or apologized at all.

and that's not even to mention the transphobia. which is only slightly present in the books (Bad People who are women are depicted with masculine traits fairly frequently) but as we all know jkr is a raging transphobe with far too much influence over trans legislation in britain and believes everyone who supports her work supports her transphobia. also she allies with far-right activists and people who ally with the far-right far too frequently like literally any of that should cause people to want to drop her and harry potter in general

though even if that weren't a factor at all. personally i wouldn't want to support or engage with hp at all because of All The Racism. and fatphobia and abuse apologism and ableism and misogyny and antisemitism and homophobia and queer baiting and Oh Yeah, the racism again! like i'm embarassed to have ever been a fan of it and supported it like genuinely idk why i was comfortable engaging with it despite All Of That. granted i didnt pick up on everything when i was 10-12 but even the stuff i did understand as a kid was gross and i wish i'd stopped reading it and engaging with it the second i realized that

sorry for writing an entire essay there is a lot to hate abt that damn series !and merry christmas LOL may you never have to hear about hp ever again 🙏

(ID: two dark red banners with black text meant to look like it's dripping. the first reads "harry potter fans fuck off" and the second reads "ter-fs fuck off too". end ID)

#do u like my banners im not bothering to censor this so they are my first line of defense against wizard book likers #second line is Well i shan't say but it would get me suspended on twitter for threats or something probably #ask #sinsear-aisteach #anti harry potter #racism tw #slavery tw #nazi tw #transphobia tw #hp tw #fuck jkr

[hewhofragments]

The Captive Prince: An Unfavorable Review of C.S. Pacat’s Gay Fantasy

TW: Violence, Sexual Violence, Racism, Slavery, Sex

Two years ago (2019), I read through roughly 35 books--35 isn’t the most impressive number, but it was a lot of reading for someone that had stopped reading as a leisure activity for five years. But last year, with the start of the pandemic, I found myself unable to pick up a book. 

Maybe it was all the terrible news hitting us each and every day, or maybe it was just being trapped at home all the time, but in any case, that reading slump lasted until summer 2021. This summer, I decided I would try to reignite my love for reading by picking up some gay sci-fi/fantasy.

Unfortunately, it’s harder than you think to find queer fantasy/scifi! And even when you do find it, it’s even more difficult to find well written scifi/fantasy books with M-M romances! I searched through a TON of articles online, and eventually I found a few books considered “Classic Gay Fantasy” including The Captive Prince.

Several online reviewers described the book as gay dark fantasy; the book features terrible conditions for humans typical to dark fantasy, and I typically enjoy books with difficult subject matter so it seemed fine thus far. Then I read the description.

The back of the book reads, “Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akeilos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.”

I was a bit worried when I read the words “pleasure slave,” but I figured I like dark fantasy, and I’m gay, so I should at least give this Classic Gay Fantasy a try! So I took the leap, got the book (along with a few others), and gave it a read.

Let’s begin with the positives. First, the book isn’t very long, so if you’re reading it to experiment, then at least it isn’t too much of a time sink. And second, the book does an excellent job of exploring a world where sexuality is treated VERY different from Western society today. Homophobia isn’t really a thing in C.S. Pacat’s world (which is refreshing to say the least), and some heterosexual relationships (those that would produce bastard children in this world) are treated as taboo.

While I enjoyed the author’s general take on sexuality, the way the author handles homosexuality, sexual violence, and sexual slavery is VERY problematic. For example, the trilogy is marketed as a Romance (you won’t see any romance in book 1, so don’t hold your breath) between the main character Damen, and his captor Laurent. 

Here’s just a few of the horrible things Laurent does to Damen in book 1: Laurent tries to have Damen raped (Laurent drugs Damen and puts him in a risky situation), Laurent has Damen flogged (and encourages the flogger to try to kill Damen with the whip), Laurent has Damen raped (I will spare you the details), and Laurent treats Damen like an animal.

I have not read book 2, nor will I, but it should be IMPOSSIBLE for Damen to form a healthy relationship with Laurent after all that he has been through. I know plenty of people end up in unhealthy relationships with their torturers, and were that the author’s take on their relationship, I might accept it as a mechanic for storytelling, but please don’t tell me there’s any way to turn this background into a positive relationship (there isn’t)!

That’s not even to mention the repeated racism included in the book with the author’s descriptions of Laurent’s white, blonde, blue-eyed beauty. Over and over again, you’re forced to read about how fair-skinned he is and how everybody loves him and that he would just be so amazing if he wasn’t just a shitty person. I don’t know how many times other white people need to hear this, blonde hair and blue eyes do not make a person beautiful!

And finally, just about every portrayal of sexual slaves in the book is filled with problematic ideas. All of it is really bad, but just to start somewhere, one slave is still a child, and although the author repeatedly has the main character point out that his abuse is unacceptable and immoral, she also repeatedly refers to his beauty and goes as far as describing specific features that are attractive, which is just so YUCK!

Other passages describe certain slaves as obedient to the extreme, and while those passages call out the physical harming/abuse of those slaves as problematic, the author never just straight out calls slavery bad. In one section, the main character thinks about not how another slave deserves freedom, but rather how he deserves a master that treats him better (implying that he needs a strong, manly man to handle his perfect obedience). Again, this is only one instance of many, many problematic passages, and I’m sparing you most of the details.

The only way I can spin all the problems with The Captive Prince as a positive is if I consider the book a mirror-reflection of problematic straight fantasy. Maybe, just maybe, C.S. Pacat is so clever that she is turning straight fantasy, where women are treated just as poorly as the men in her book, on it’s head. I think she does turn straight fantasy on its head to an extent, especially with regards to her take on sexuality discussed earlier. But mostly, it just seems like she’s enjoying exploring sexual fantasies in the book regardless of the morality/consequences of her writing. 

Unfortunately, all this talk of subject matter leaves little room to discuss the actual writing quality. Briefly, I would say the writing is decent (neither great nor terrible). But it doesn’t make up for the book’s shortcomings.

If you consider reading C.S. Pacat’s The Captive Prince, be warned that you will be exposed to many, many problematic ideas without any payoff in terms of character growth, narration, or even romance.

Let me know what you think of the book and of the trilogy as a whole! I’m curious if other readers loved the book or hated it like me!

#the captive prince #mmfantasy #gayfiction #mm romance #gay romance #bookreview #book review #mm fiction #mm fantasy #writing #gaywriting #gay #gay writing #review #gay review

[fiftysevenacademics]

Warrior

By chance, I learned about a show called “Warrior,” originally on Cinemax and now streaming on HBOMax. The basic premise is that a martial arts prodigy immigrates to San Francisco Chinatown in 1878 and is quickly sold to a tong that is on the verge of going to war with a rival tong. The dearth of movies or TV shows set in pre-earthquake (1906) San Francisco always baffles me, given how incredibly socially diverse, violent, raunchy, crime-ridden, wealthy, and often lawless the city was. Portions of the waterfront were even built in abandoned ships. Imagine the amazing sets you could design! I’ll watch anything set in pre-quake San Francisco, especially if it’s going to tell the story of characters, such as Chinese immigrants, that we almost never see in Westerns or other films set in this era.

So I was already in before I saw that the show is based on an 8-page treatment by Bruce Lee and related notes his daughter, Shannon Lee, found. She is also an executive producer, along with Justin Lin. I’m not a huge fan of martial arts movies in general, but this one had a lot of potential so I checked it out and got immediately sucked in.

I’m not going to spoil the plot but it gets convoluted quickly. Probably about 2/3 of the scenes end up with fighting and there is plenty of sex, too. Is it a little trashy with all that sex and violence? Yes, but GOOD trashy, with characters that are multi-dimensional, well-written, directed, and acted, though the costuming leaves a lot to be desired and, somewhat stereotypically for the Western genre, most scenes occur in brothels or barrooms and there are a few historically improbable relationships. But OK, this is borderline pulp fiction and the story is exciting so whatever.

What I love most about the show, however, is how well it portrays a totally neglected aspect of California and American history: How virulent anti-Chinese racism shaped white working class politics in the West. It is the only show I’ve ever seen that directly addresses the cultural climate and politics leading up to the Chinese Exclusion Act from a Chinese point of view. One of the central conflicts in the show depicts how white laborers brutally intimidated and assaulted Chinese workers and their white employers, and how politicians used the “they’re taking our jobs” rhetoric for political gain. One of the main antagonists is a ruthless Irish labor boss called Dylan Leary, who is obviously a fictionalized version of Denis Kearney. 

The show mostly accurately depicts how Chinese were sequestered in Chinatown by a combination of laws that prevented them from owning property or becoming citizens and a campaign of terror led by white vigilantes, making it easy for white business owners to extract grueling labor for hardly any pay. The combination of exploitation and exclusion the Chinese immigrants face in American society intensifies a “get rich quick and get out” mentality among some Chinese immigrants, who are more than willing to do anything they must to their own people in order to send money home, make enough money to go home, or to become the most powerful people in Chinatown. Limited opportunities for economic and social advancement outside of Chinatown drive some to organized crime gangs called tongs that have turned this ethnic enclave into a haven for opium, gambling, and prostitution. While the show is set in this sensationalistic criminal underworld, it’s clearly contextualized-- If these guys had the same opportunities as white people, they’d become industrialist tycoons, too. You just don’t see stuff like this on TV!

The ghost of the Civil War is never far from the action, either. The irony of people who held strong views and fought against slavery going West and then oppressing Chinese workers, many of whom were also enslaved by debt bondage, is not lost on this show. 

It’s tempting to think that the show is retroactively putting contemporary anti-immigrant policies into the past to make a point. But the point is actually that things really were like this in the 1870s and remain to this day at the heart of American politics. As a show that fits into TVs “Western” genre, it is unique in its point of view and how much detail it goes into about actual racial politics of the era as well as the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of people who have to build their own community in a society that hates everything about them except their strong arms and backs.

Speaking of which, part of the show’s appeal is how generous it is to viewers of its many very hot actors and actresses! It manages to have sweaty, shirtless martial arts sequences and exotic, langorous, opium-enhanced brothel sequences that don’t feel exploitative or one-dimensional because they are just parts of a much bigger, well-rounded world the characters inhabit.

And I totally lost my shit when there was a scene set inside a business inside an abandoned ship in San Francisco’s infamous, utterly lawless Barbary Coast. I don’t honestly know how many businesses continued to be operated out of abandoned ships in the 1870s but surely there were some and I don’t even really care because I was just so excited to see something like that come to life.

One review wrote, The vibe is very much “What if Peaky Blinders was racially diverse and half the characters could roundhouse kick you in the face?”

Another review wrote: There’s a lot about the show that will be recognizable to fans of today’s dark antihero dramas: The gangster storyline feels like a plot from Boardwalk Empire or Peaky Blinders, the frontier fable of capitalism resembles Deadwood, and warring factions vying for power recall similar conflicts on Game of Thrones. But what sets Warrior apart is its focus on a fascinating chapter in the American story that’s often treated like an afterthought in history books. And it wraps that history lesson in an enticing action-thriller package with nods to spaghetti Westerns, the kung fu cinema of Hong Kong, gangster flicks, and exploitation films, as well as other grindhouse genres.

I discovered Warrior thanks to this essay by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Here’s a quote: The real issue here isn’t just adding more Asian American characters, it’s about the kind of characters portrayed. Two important areas that are deliberately overlooked by Hollywood are Asian Americans as romantic leads and as heroic leads. Few series dare to have an Asian American man as the object of romantic desire, especially by a white woman (are you listening, Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise?). Fewer have Asian American women as leads prized for their intelligence and outspoken strength rather than their svelte figure and flirty smile. There are exceptions: the wonderful Cinemax series Warrior, based on a Bruce Lee treatment, focuses mostly on tough and sexy Chinese men and women fighting for survival in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1870s. 

“Warrior” currently has two seasons. It was canceled when Cinemax ceased producing original content. But Shannon Lee and Justin Lin are hoping that with enough fan support, HBOMax will agree to make more seasons. Check it out!

#warrior #warrior cinemax #i also recognized two of the actors from Vikings #Dianne Doan is great in this and she also played a slave girl that bewitched Ragnar in Vikings #i might switch teams for Chao #and Jason Tobin steals the show as Young Jun #Ah Toy is a great character based on a real-life woman #so many good characters

[black-is-beautiful18]

Isn't it crazy that white supremacy truly has us thinking that someone like Jennifer Aniston or any white person = beauty? It's crazy to think that sometimes how society makes us truly hate ourselves or question our appearance b/c we are not white?? It's mind-blowing and there needs to be serious decolonization of the black & brown mind.

Thoughts?

It really is. Now I believe that everyone is beautiful but I also believe beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. However, white people have a warped view. I’ve said before they have a massive god complex. As the global majority (Black people and POC) we are the most diverse group of people. This can also be said simply for Black people alone. We have so many looks. Some of us have kinky, curly, or straight hair. Some of us have blue, grey, hazel, or green eyes. Not to mention we’re basically our own rainbow. We have a variety of shades and come with various hair colors. The people that kicked off slavery knew this. Some of them had been to Africa before. It all boils down to jealousy though. Jealousy and them trying to break us down. Look at the Tignon Laws that happened in New Orleans that ordered Black women to cover their hair. All because white women were jealous and insecure and their husbands didn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty. Black women fought back though by wrapping their hair in scarves and decorating them with everything from jewels to feathers. White women even documented their jealousy in journals. After slavery ended they were pissed because Black people were allowed to take things from the main house. Some Black women took dresses and jewelry and they were mad because they looked good lol. As for white men…I can’t say much cuz they the weirdest of them all. It’s hard to read them and often they’re super narcissistic. I’d have to do more reading, but that’s all it boils down to Jealousy.

I’d also like to add that they get jealous of body shape too. They either get jealous or are just plain hateful and mean. We can’t be too curvy, muscular, or anything they deem to be unacceptable. It’s rooted in racism though so it’s not really surprising.

#beauty standards #black women #black people #white people #unique answers

[thattimdrakeguy]

I’m sorry for being so bitter today too, but can Americans please stop acting like a piece of paper written years ago means anything in today’s social climate. 

“WE WERE BUILT ON THIS.” a lot of them say.

Uh, trigger warning for a lot of things. So block the trigger warning tags for slavery, genocide, rape, murder, school shootings, racism, and general bigotry.

While that may be, a lot of this country was also built on slavery, and I think most people will say, including those that write many history books that ignore that when starting people off with learning about their country. After all we want people to be loyal to it, they probably say, as they erase the part where white people massacred the population of Native Americans and treat them like dirt. Gotta save that for later when a bit of loyalty is established by saying the Pledge of Allegiance everyday like we’re being inducted into a cult.

This is a country where we celebrate a rapist that thinks he discovered a country when people were already on it. We have Holiday’s dedicated to human monsters.

America needs to stop discussing itself as some high bar of morality. This great country this, make it great again some sleaze balls say.

When the truth of the fucking matter is, this country isn’t that great, it’s arrogant, sleazy, full of tragedies that no one takes the time to acknowledge enough as far as I’m concerned. We act like segregation was centuries ago, when it hasn’t even been a full century yet.

We have ignorant Americans still acting like Germany is full of Nazis because even though they weren’t alive when World War 2 is still going on, they get more information out of movies than real life history.

No body gets anything out of pretending America has always been some great country. We went from blatant genocide, to slavery, to segregation, and we still struggle with treating people equally. The Nazi’s got some of their bad ideas from Americans for fucks sake. They killed Jews, and we can all obviously tell that’s one of the most horrible things ever. But Americans killed thousands of Native Americans, because they wanted the land they were occupying before the white people even knew it existed.

So shouting about how a piece of paper, written by slave owners and rapists, that may have been escaping from the lesser evil or not, who the fuck cares anymore. If your sense of morality comes strictly from an old piece of paper, and pretending this country with a disgusting history is something to be proud of, then I don’t feel like much progress is going to be made.

Because despite of how disgusting this country is when you look at it’s actions. It’s still filled with plenty of lovely people, who wish the best, and hope for the best of everyone, because they have their own morality that makes him who they are, and as strong as they are.

It’s people like that, that I choose to be proud of. A country is a piece of land with a border. I don’t care about protecting the rights of the literal ground. I care about protecting people, former rights be damned about it.

Time is moving forward tick tock, tick tock.

What is freedom really if it goes against protecting people? If we had true freedom to do what ever you wanted, this place would be an unholy wasteland of degeneracy of the worst acts imaginable.

Freedom is a vague term in the end. True freedom should not, and is not granted. And I’m not saying that in tyrannical way, but I mean, we already don’t have true blue freedom, because doing so would do lots of things.

“Taking away our freedoms”, I don’t care about how dark it sounds anymore, because I think it’s tiring everyone's bouncing around stuff to make people feel comfy cozy, because fucking hell people, children are being shot for fucks sake. Why in the fuck should I care about your supposed freedom in the form it is now, when children are dying. I don’t give a fuck about making you feel comfortable. If children being shot doesn’t make you uncomfortable enough to think about it for a while then I don’t like you anyways. You can go fuck yourself. If you care about your gun more than children, you’re not an outstanding citizen. You are not, you are not. I do not fucking care.

And do I know what to do that’d help things on a larger scale? No I do fucking not. I am not running for a position where I can potentially do something on a larger scale because I do not know. But you can not tell me to shut up, when you are also exercising your right to say what ever you want to say, you oblivious ass-monkey.

This country isn’t great. No country is fucking great. A great country doesn’t exist. A country is something that only exists in the minds of people. A country isn’t nature. Nature didn’t make boundaries and laws. If you’re a religious person, God didn’t come down and pick what country is what. Man did. And I’m more concerned with people’s safety of life, then safety of how comfortable they are to acknowledge the real fucking world that they often seem so keen to pretend they’re living in.

In the real world kid’s are being murdered, people can’t be who they are by birth without being taunted and attacked, some people die because they’re stuck in a position that seems so difficult to get out of and can’t get the resources they need.

An old piece of paper isn’t the real world. Ideals, morals, and sense of urgency on specific topics change.

Thinking moral is set by pieces of paper is an easy way out of things, but it is the fool’s way out of things.

I’m not trying to demonize people that don’t think about this stuff all the time because that’s stupid. I don’t think about it all the time. People can simply not handle the real world. I can’t handle it most of the time. It freaks me out so bad, I don’t wanna live in it anymore most days.

Who I fucking hate are people that are in active defiance against reality when it matters the most to focus on it so people can fucking live safely.

I made a post not that long ago were comedians’ excuses for offending people is challenging people. And my complaint wasn’t about the actual act of challenging people, it’s how low ball it is, and in the end hurtful it is, and it isn’t even a real challenge.

If you want to fucking challenge people, challenge the people who live in ignorance of the real stature of life, then people who have to face the reality of it nearly every damn day.

#TW Genocide #TW Slavery #TW Murder #TW Racism #TW Segregation #TW Sexism #TW Transphobes #TW Homophobes #TW School Shootings #TW Bigotry #TW General Bigotry

[comradesummers]

Top 5 books or anything I should read

Hi, thanks for asking!

I’m an English major, so I can’t remember the last time I read a book that wasn’t for class. But I’ll try to recall what it was like to read books solely for pleasure. Also, I’m not going to be ranking the books because I don’t want to and I’m going to have 6 books instead of 5 because I feel like it. (Fair warning: I could write a lengthy content warning for every single one of these books, so if you’re worried about that sort of thing, I do recommend you look them up before you read them. You’re also welcome to ask me about it.)

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

So this book was extremely written by a white guy in the 60′s. It’s the kind of novel that galaxy brain dudebros are constantly recommending to their girlfriends. But given that I put a David Foster Wallace book on this list, I might just have to accept that I’m a galaxy brain dudebro at heart.

Anyway, this novel is a brilliant deconstruction of the absurdity and tragedy of war and capitalism. It’s hilarious, clever and heartbreaking. I think a lot of authors do the non-chronological timelilne thing just to seem more interesting than they actually are, but in Catch-22, the non-linear timeline is used perfectly. The narrative works on an emotional level (even if it’s a bit confusing on the linear level) so that a lot of plot points that are initially presented as funny and absurd become such emotional gut punches later. For a book that’s known for being so clever and above it all, it is also unabashedly emotional and Heller truly cares about his characters in a way that very few satirists do. It’s a book that will make you laugh and cry and care a whole lot more than you were expecting to.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

So this is kind of a weird one for me. It’s really short, more like a novella than a novel, which isn’t usually my thing. Also, the characters aren’t really characters, they’re archetypes (which is done on purpose, because that’s how a lot of short stories work, but I know that’s a turn-off for some people). I’m also not a huge horror fan and this is one of Gaiman’s more horror-y outings. So why do I love it so much? Well, it’s basically Childhood Trauma, the book, and it does that really really well. Like, through it’s archetypes and its horror tropes and its general use of shorthand, it captures this really specific atmosphere of nostalgia and fear. It’s like one short but perfectly constructed dose of pain and catharsis and it achieves that through restraint. It’s a brilliant little piece and I love it a whole lot.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

So, if it’s not clear by now, I love me some good emotional storytelling and there’s no genre more beholden to emotion than the gothic novel. And, with all due respect (and love) to the Bronte sisters, Beloved is the best gothic novel of all time. I’m honestly struggling to explain why it’s so good. Partially because everyone already knows its good. I mean, it’s a classic for a reason. But partially because talking about this book and its contents is really difficult. This is the saddest book I’ve ever read. There’s no other book that destroyed me quite as much as this one. I’ll probably never reread it because it was so hard to get through the first time. Morrison’s prose truly takes you to the depths of the pain of her characters. It presents the horrors of slavery mostly through the trauma of the aftermath and it does so with such care and brilliance. This book is truly a masterpiece and if anything on this list is required reading, especially for my fellow clueless white people, it’s this one.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

I was considering leaving this one off the list, just because I was embarassed to admit that I’m the kind of person who likes David Foster Wallace. I mean, I might as well start vaping and mansplaining while I’m at it. But I decided to be honest instead, so here we are.

Anyway, I was never able to get through DFW’s headier stuff. Like I really did try to read Infinite Jest, but I could not get through it. But Brief Interviews is a short story collection, which is great, because if DFW gets too far up his own ass in one of the stories, you can just skip to another one. And to be honest, I do think there are some shitty stories in this one (wtf is that Tri-Stan shit David?). But the ones that work? Holy shit do they work. I’m not even remotely kidding when I say that The Depressed Person is what finally convinced me to go to therapy. Like I read it and I realized that if I related to the character that much, I really did need help. It’s such a good story and if you don’t want to read the whole book, at least read that one. Personally, I think it’s the best thing DFW has ever written. And the interviews themselves are almost as brilliant. Like, I know that DFW is most well known for his post-modern experimental style and his weird obsession with tennis, but honestly, I think he’s at his best when he writes character studies. He’s really good at creating uniquely shitty human beings and then truly getting to the core of why they are that way. And Brief Interviews is the crowning achievement of that.

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

So James Baldwin is a genius, obviously, and there are plently of novels of his I could have chosen for this list. I went with this one because I love books that follow multiple generations of one family, and this book is easily the best version of that that I’ve ever read. It’s a novel about the cycle of abuse, religion, racism, segregation, poverty, police brutality, coming-of-age and sexuality. And even though the book is pretty short, it covers all of these themes brilliantly and thoughtfully and with such love and care. It’s also semi-autobiographical, which is probably why it feels so personal and gut-wrenching. Objectively, it’s probably the best book on this list. It truly is a masterpiece from beginning to end. Also, no offense to Umberto Eco, but it has the best religion based hallucination/vision from God (depending on how you choose to read the scene) scene in any book ever.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

So I know I said I wouldn’t rank anything, but this is probably my favorite book ever. The best way I can think to convey my love for it is to tell you that I’ve associated it with an unrelated song (The Only Living Boy in New York) and there are few things I care about more in the world than making sure that that song will be used in one particular scene in the inevitable TV adaptation, even though I know that’s never going to happen because it would be a completely anachronistic song choice.

It’s hard for me to describe why I love this book so much. Part of it comes down to a really specific personal connection. My grandpa, like Joe, escaped the Holocaust and went to New York and had a really close relationship with a distant cousin of his because the Nazis had killed most of his extended family. So yeah, as a Jew, this book hits pretty hard. But also, as is probably pretty apparent by now, I love pretentious prose that uses way too many big words. I also love emotional and thematic stortytelling and oh boy does this book have that in spades. And the character work is so gorgeous and I care about these people’s relationships so much and the comic book sequences recapture the feeling of golden age comic books so perfectly and god I love it so fucking much.

#christ that was hard #also shoutout to cloud atlas which i remembered halfway through writing this thing but i was too lazy to add a section for it #catch 22 #joseph heller #the ocean at the end of the lane #neil gaiman #beloved #toni morrison #brief interviews with hideous men #david foster wallace #go tell it on the mountain #james baldwin #the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay #michael chabon

[writingwithcolor]

Magical person in history, on not intervening on human rights issues

I am writing a dating sim/visual novel set in the present day. A major (non-romanceable) character is an ancient sorceress who moved from France to the Pacific Northwest in the 1850s. She is white. She is shown to have powerful magic. She also works closely with the main characters and develops personal relationships with them as she teaches them magic, giving each character comfort and advice during their respective stories.

Considering the events in America around her move-in date, there’s no way she could have missed the horrible human rights abuses going on, and there’s no way she was too powerless to help, even when most of the fighting and slavery was so far away. So I’m having trouble balancing “don’t make her a white savior by having her personally fireball Robert E. Lee” against “Hogwarts University is cancelled because Dumbledorette didn’t care about slavery.” I had the idea that the magical regulating body back home in France didn’t want her to intervene due to political reasons, so she helped out in small ways that could safely fly under the radar. She later realized that she prioritized her social standing over the suffering of countless others, so she began making a point of reducing human suffering as much as she could.

I can’t imagine this will show up in more than one small scene, but doing it wrong could really sour the whole thing. Is this backstory still icky? Should I just not mention it and let readers headcanon what they please?

I’m wondering what you think was happening in the PNW at the time for the fighting and slavery to be “far away.” Washington State had the Cayuse War at exactly this time period, Oregon didn’t ratify treaties and was calling for the extermination of “the I*dian race” in roughly this time period, and California’s Gold Rush created the California Genocide starting heavily in the 1840s, picking up steam in the 1850s, which included slavery of California Natives thanks to a law enacted in 1850 that lasted for 13 years. 

This is all from the top five results of googling “pacific northwest genocide 1850”, for the record. It’s not exactly hidden history.

So suddenly your character’s lack of movement in healing the poisoned populations as disease ravaged the area, in attempting to stop or at least buy and free the enslaved Natives being auctioned on their doorstep, or in attempting to get treaties ratified and honoured looks a lot more damning.

This is not counting any of the future events that happened at the turn of the century, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Hawai’i monarchy being overthrown, and Federal Order 9066, which is the WWII concentration camps (that included Japanese, German, and Italian individuals). This is just to name a handful of coastal issues in the next 100 years, completely ignoring Jim Crow, residential schools, the San Francisco Earthquake (which nearly had Chinese people relocated to the worst land imaginable for gentrification purposes, had the Empress of China not stepped in), and many others.

In short: she would have had hundreds of opportunities to end suffering, and focusing on a single event as a small scene feels disproportionate to how much she could have done.

And honestly? The French were no angels. 

The Second French Colonial Empire was one of the largest empires in history, and it began in 1830, covering roughly a third of Africa. The First French Colonial Empire began in the 1600s, and had both India and North America, primarily Canada.

She was white. French. You don’t specify her birth year other than “ancient”, but considering the sheer amount of territory-grabbing France has been doing since Normandy invaded England in the eleventh century AD, I’m going to assume her birth year is somewhere more recent than that. Therefore, I’m going to assume she has been around the Catholic Missionary Attitude that France had; one could call that attitude the bedrock of its existence for at least a millennia (and is still visible in modern day).

So tell me: when did she break out of it? What made her even care about human atrocities, when she has likely grown up watching France commit them her entire life? 

Because let me just say, she has had plenty of opportunities to realize she did nothing in the face of her neighbours’ hatred of people not like them, and she has never taken them before. 

Did she (or her parents, if she was born around this time) decry Napoleon re-introducing slavery in France in 1802? Side with Haiti when it declared independence in 1804, and hate that the government forced Haiti to pay for the “theft” of slaves and land (that was only paid off in 1947)? Is she presently championing for France to pay Haiti the money it wrongfully took from the country? Did she hate the delays in stopping the French slave trade, which took 11 years to actually stop after it was banned on paper? 

Unconditional emancipation was only reached in 1848, after all. I don’t care if she was born in 1830, there was some sort of major racial event happening in France all throughout the late 1700s to mid-1800s. Where did she side then?

Abolitionism was not an unknown concept in France, so it is possible she had already been working towards it quietly, but that would mean she would have felt guilt at inaction much earlier, depending on when she began decrying slavery—if she was even delayed in decrying it, which I will admit is possible. 

And if she was an abolitionist, would she have even listened to the French government in not at least easing the genocide around her? Because she would have watched nearly 100 years of the French dragging their feet on stopping slavery in their empire, and known how BS it all was… if she saw it that way.

That’s just abolitionism, and is not even counting the French relationship with the Native population in Quebec and the Great Lakes region, which is a giant tangle of proxy wars, colonialism, missionary work, and very, very, very complex relationships that started off good and ended terribly.

So I ask again: why did she only start caring then?

Speaking of proxy wars, the Napoleon Empire wanted a Confederate victory, because the Confederacy was its source of cotton and the American Civil War created a “cotton famine” in France that basically forced the textile industry into a massive downsizing. The Confederacy also tolerated Napoleon’s plans for expanding the empire in Mexico, which actually had begun in December of 1861.

So when it comes to how a magical board would rule—even though France was officially neutral in the war, the court of public opinion (among politicians and capitalists) was more on the Confederate side than the Union side. Many politicians secretly worked with the Confederacy, until they abandoned them when the Union showed signs of winning. The only reason France officially remained neutral is because a war with the British was inevitable if they acknowledged the Confederacy, and Napoleon didn’t want that.

I shall work under the assumption that because it was rather literally on her doorstep when she moved to America, she lost insulation to it (if she hadn’t thought about it before), but I will say how iffy that makes her look in the long term if she had so many opportunities beforehand (at the very least, seeing slaves in France).

My other option is the word “ancient” is liberally applied and she was only in her 20s or 30s when 1850 hit, and therefore had not had many opportunities to see otherwise (but she still would have seen slaves in France, likely).

Onto the white guilt and white saviour aspects

Strictly from a writing perspective, you have to determine if she changed the course of history, or not. This would not necessarily be within the realm of white saviour, seeing as white people were the only ones listened to at the time. You can see people who changed the course of history in this period by looking up the pastor who insisted Lincoln hold fair trials for the Dakota, which brought the execution count from over 200 down to 38. You can also look at Alice Fletcher, who made quite a few laws designed to protect Native people, but whether or not they were successful is up for debate (and she regretted some of the laws she helped enact).

If not, then you have the current tangle you’re dealing with.

Option 1

She was unestablished in America and relied on the magical regulations board to protect her, and she figured working small and under the radar would mean she could do more good long-term by not being killed, so long as you establish that such a threat is viable.

This option only works if she’s an active advocate for the slew of other racist acts that pass once she’s settled in America, of which I gave many examples above.

Option 2

She actually did change the course of history in perhaps a mixed way, or perhaps a positive way. She could have relied completely on being a white, well-to-do voice in the community, which would have granted her some privilege without using a drop of magic. 

This can apply to any point in history, seeing as there were a lot of others to pick from. It would be particularly useful once suffrage was achieved, and if she was part of suffrage, did she call out Susan B. Anthony’s racism? Did she encourage allowing non-whites to vote?

Option 3 

She was slow to care, and did not actually understand what a big deal it was that such atrocities were happening until it was too late. This leads to her dedication to atonement the strongest, but you have to be careful about white guilt. This option can go along with option 1.

This allows her to be a passive player in future racist events, but makes her an even more privileged white character who PoC will have a hard time seeing as kindly, and you should go out of your way to show white players how unkind and privileged she was, and perhaps still is.

Option 4 

she doesn’t actually care much, because she has a president of not caring about atrocities happening in France, and her bigotry shows up in other ways in modern day and she’s just a kindly-but-bigoted character. She’s your wonderful grandma who you have beautiful memories with… she just doesn’t care about anyone not white.

This can go along with option 3, as she was so slow to realize that she is still bigoted and hasn’t done any work, but her racism is going to be more covert and you’ll have to do research on microaggressions and how to frame them.

Based off the way her lack of action is framed in-story and how little a plot role it plays, I would say that option 4 with a dash of option 3 appears to be the most likely interpretation of her character by PoC. She’s lip-service to progress, at present, but seems to have made no strides in losing her social standing to be an ally.

Now here’s why I don’t think you should let readers headcanon her however they want:

White players in particular are going to minimize her culpability in what happened, and think that she did all that she could, and she is a Totally Redeemed Character now. In fact, they’ll probably wonder why she’s even an Atoner, because she did something, right? She helped, right? And now she’s helping and that’s plenty. She’s good to the players, so she is a Good Person.

Meanwhile PoC players are going to see yet another white author ignore the fact that colonialism was happening en masse at the time, and that white people deeply benefited from it, and are going to see the “it happened in the past why do you keep bringing up racism?” defence continued.

Let her be flawed. Let her be on stolen land and acknowledge it every time she teaches them something, and let her sit and exist in the guilt that happens when she realizes she could have stopped the theft but didn’t. Let her not wallow in self hate, but acknowledge her mistake with every lesson the main characters receive, and let her work on righting that wrong by championing “land back” causes that centre Indigenous voices.

Let her dialogue options show every trace of how the past is not over because the past’s actions are still being felt and reparations have not been made. The settler state is still controlling the land she has made home and she knows exactly what they did to get it, and she passes that knowledge on.

Let players be uncomfortable with the knowledge that, if they sit by and “only do small things when they can, to not lose anything”, they are complicit. Let white people see they must well and truly denounce what has been given to them by their racist, colonial ancestors in order for PoC to “stop talking about racism.”

Make her use whatever income she makes be paid in part to Native causes, as rent for the land she occupies unfairly. Make her refuse to teach bigoted students who want “mystic secrets” that aren’t hers to give, that were appropriated centuries ago. Make part of her life’s work be hiding away Black and Indigenous spiritual leaders to minimize the loss.

Let her past be imperfect. And do not force redemption on her, but instead let her own the fact she made catastrophic mistakes that will not be redeemed until land has been returned to the Native population. Until all forms of slavery are abolished. Until colonial powers give back all the resources and finances they stole from their colonized regions. Until the privilege that white people spilled so much blood to secure is no more.

Because if you want her to truly be a good character who does not support racism? That is the level you have to step towards.

Everything else is simply whiteness trying to make itself feel better.

~Mod Lesya

#Writing question #submission #ask #genocide #colonialism #fantasy #witches #racism #white privilege #white women #white savior #white guilt #ally #asks #Long post

[0aurelion-sol0]

SNK 134: Why we need to move forward.

Well...

That's horrifying...

Oh but whatever they are probably bad people in there. Thieves, greedy people, hateful mothers, men who beat their wives , liars, bullies, killers, murderers, rapist, child rapist and racist babies.

Yeah...

This is a rhetoric that has been used for ages and is currently being used in this fandom especially on reddit and 4chan.

The justification of injustice.

When George Floyd was slammed on the ground and died because he couldn't breathe anymore, conservatives and republicans at large ignored the police brutaliy leading up to that.

He was just a cocaine or drug addict who one day pointed a gun at a pregnant lady. So he was a criminal and deserved that.

Of course ignoring the racial segregation that happened from the very legalized slavery hundreds of years ago and how poor and racially stigmatized black people are being in America right now.

When the Uyghurs are being genocided by China, the world blinds itself because China is one the worlds necessary assets in economy as it basically produces a good chunk of what is being used in the world. Most made by children, " but it makes us live "... Apparently that's the only logical reason...

When Palestinians and Israelis are literally killing each other over some complicated non sense that no one ever really understands and also Israël basically doing Apartheid at this point,

When the totality of the Middle East has turned into a warzone because of the United States's violent imperialism,

When most far right or extremist group decided that Islam and Islamic terrorism are the same thing,

When xenophobes and racist always attack immigration,

"If she wasn't wearing that skirt, she probably wouldn't have been raped",

When we have homophobes, transphobes, LGBTphobes, telling us what's natural and always bragging about "\___-_-___/ God, Holy Jesus",

When you have people who tells you that poor people chose their way of living when there are a small percent of billionaires and soon to be trillionaires having such a gigantic amount of wealth,

When 6 millions Jews were genocided which was 40% of Jewish people at the time and 2/3 of European Jews,

When the prime minister of Israël is saying that the Holocaust wasn't Hitler's Idea but Haj Amin al-Husseini, (who was extremely anti semitic, don't get me wrong)who suggested it to him maiking the prime minister a revisionist but at the same time making his actions against Palestinians justified,

When around the world Christianic places of worship are being vandalized,

When entire SYSTEMS of segregations have made societies work,

When the South American continent has been attacked by the United States because of different political beliefs,

When people use their rape as a way to attack other communities of a specific religion or color,

When Black Panthers uses racism against White people because of the story of USA and are being anti semitic but essentializing a whole group,

When Nationalistic Israelis tells you what is a good Jew and what isn't a good Jew,

When dozens of groups have been forced to extinction,

Natives who were being murdered, yeah? YOU DON'T SEE THAT A LOT IN YOUR COWBOY MOVIES ?

When literal "feminist" calls for the destruction of men while they can't educate the kids about what to do and what not to do, OH, can also be transphobic apparently,

When you have entire websites who encourages pedophilia,

And pedophiles killed, left alone and live a life of endless torment while no one does nothing to help them and fight those who encourages it even in the highest places of our society,

Oh and Hollywood, that's all I need to say.

And let's not even talk about animal brutality and the destruction of ecosystems.

And there is more and more and more and more and more and FUCKING MORE,

All that because of reasons, reasons, reasons, reasons,

All stuck in a cycle of hate, violence and discrimination that just never ends.

The selfishness,

The greed,

And at end, everything is meaningless. There is just blood.

This is what this chapter represent the meaningless of it all. How everything goes to shit...

How everyone, whether it's the oppresor or the oppresed, will justify the violence, the injustice.

Society does nothing cause society right now runs for the entitled and the entitled only and creates it's own monsters.

I want to ask those people who defend the rumbling.

After everything we saw in this manga, after what the real world has commited, after how much these real events have inspired this story, how can you say it was the only way ?

After everyone hided Hange valuable informations including Eren who had information about KRUGER who was a spy in MARLEY. Who has created a civil war in Eldia and activated the rumbling while killing Eldian civilians in the way.

After seeing the mental breakdown of Bertolt, who we don't hear about anymore, Annie and Reiner's mental breakdown over GENOCIDING AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE, by the way Reiner totally didn't develop another persona at that time to cope with what he was doing, HUH ?

After all the deaths, Carla, Grisha, Dina, Faye Marco, Levi's squad, Ymir, Erwin, Sasha, Hange, Hannes, Floch and many others, how can you go and be like "CHAD EREN, BEING DADDY, FUCKING HIS MEAT WAIFU, PHILOSOPHER FREEDOM SEEKER"

"104th crybabies... xDdDDDD Prfrpfr"

Come on...

This isn't serious at this point.

And for the H character, we're gonna come back for her but...

GODDAMNIT!

THANK YOU, DEATH.

This has sparked debates.

Some are thankful for this speech by the commander.

Others are finding it disingenous.

Others think it's too on the nose and not natural.

Others don't care.

On my part, I enjoy it but I take it with the context. Most of their airships have been destroyed and they are facing their doom upfront right now. It's more of a death plea at this point. Just like in the cave with Histor... GOD IT'S SO HARD SAYING HER NAME... with Historia who said truly horrible things at the point of an imminent death. At that moment, words like this can tell what you really are inside but even that is not enough to have a full picture.

It did have some interesting elements.

It is true, using, raising, breeding hate and shoving problems upon a group will always come bite you up the ass someday.

Marley in their extensive and violent coloniaslistic, imperialiatic behavior towards Eldia creates only weaknesses for them on an international field and create this monstruosity that is right now Eren.

Eren, a soldier who suffer from trauma and PTSD, who has terrible insecurities and everything to lose after losing so much and possibly in my book being influenced by another entity decides to kill them all.

But...

In no way does that justify Eren's actions, in fact it goes against it.

He is just as angry and hateful as they were back then but instead of destroying the system, he decides to genocide.

Essentializing the whole world as your ennemy and problem, and deciding to get rid of it is just continuing what has been started and continued for hundreds of years before.

No one ever thinks about the simple families, the innocent children, the homeless...

What about them Eren ?

What about the people who faced discrimination like Ramzi ?

What about the other groups that are almost extinct just like yours ?

What about the groups that tried to support the Eldians but were considered freaks ? HUH ?

What about the babies and innocent children ?

Isayama is even spelling it out for you this chapter.

Is he not worth it ? To stop all this ?

He was born into this world just like every other baby.

Look at that while everyone, is trying to jump off, their trying to save the baby. Even if it's probably impossible. That's humanity right there.

And... jesus christ...

I literally saw people who said that the mother was dumb to give it to the people because titans were behind them.

I can't even...

Imagine if Eren is the daddy of H's Baby and that he completes the genocide, killing his friends or even persuading them and at the end he is saying you are free to this baby.

So this baby is worth more than this baby ?

He is more legitimate to live than him.

I can't even imagine what the arguments would be like with the Eren stans:

"He's protecting his friends."

While literally challenging them to fight and right now trying to kill them.

"Well, you know the Rumbling is horrible but they got what was coming for them. They did nothing to help Paradise."

While forgetting the complexity of human nature, how banalization of these acts of violence have come to be BECAUSE...

These just like me and you are just simple people. With simple lives and not too much power who can't do anything about it.

Most of the people today sees all the suffering in the world, they just don't have the power, nor the will to go against such complex geo-political conflicts.

Would you be able to just resolve the Israelo-Palestinian conflict ? I don't think so, so shut your ass down with this argument.

These people can't change the world with power that they have and the one that has the power to change that, is killing them right now. BRAVO.

" Well, uh, the child is a child, parents might be racist and uh... child maybe is racist or will become racist..."

God...

Just because someone has done horrible shits or is an horrible shit doesn't mean he should die like this.

Here it is people, how we work as human :

Fuck redemption and possible solutions, let's kill everyone who did something bad.

Y'all would have been perfect during monarchies time.

And like... having an argument on a baby should face genocide is just fucking disgusting.

AND DON'T GIVE ME THE BULLCRAP OF FICTION DOESN'T EQUAL REALITY!

That you are interested into what could bring the Rumbling in terms of thematics and story is fine.

BUT ENDORSING IT ?

Do y'all even hear yourselves sometimes ?

You just sound like every racist, bigoted, fascist and violent person that has ever existed.

You're just excited to see someone die because he commited something wrong, sadistic pricks.

You're no different. Perhaps the guy who was talking to Grisha in chapter 97, who was a Marleyan and gave serums to Eldian is right. When he was talking to Grisha, Isayama use it to break the fourth wall and talk to the readers.

Why do we watch this, all this violence ?

" Because it's fun!"

" People take peace for granted!"

" Of course we're abnormal in society's eyes."

" We wish to exterminate all eldians!"

" Your sister did nothing wrong. Shame she was an Eldian!"

The fun fact is that this guy is a racist fuck but he dies pushed by Kruger and killed by his very own creation: a titan.

Why do people endorse genocide ?

" Because it's justice!"

" They got what was coming for them!"

" Isayama is just showing us that genocide is not really wrong if you just understand the concept of morals. Puritans."

" Humanity can die, they deserve it!"

" I'm sad for Ramzi, he didn't do nothing wrong but you know... maybe he didn't have good ideas about Eldians."

While also saying why children could deserve genocide. \____@-@____/

Of course I found most of these on Reddit and 4chan, the nazi propaganda website. Tumblr is a little free of it.

Babies....

Literally babies...

That remind me of somethin'...

OH YEAH!

QUEER NO MORE.

*put gloves on*

PUUUUUUUSSHH!!! COOOOOOOMMEEE OOONN!!!!

Breathe...

I SEEEEE THE HEAAADDD, IT'S HEREEEEEE!!!!

Natalie, bring the bucket, quick!

Of fuck she shitted on herself a little bit!

_________________________________________

So ?

Y'all like my fanfic ?

It's about how Erehisu is canon and how Historia is actually thinking about Eren right now because she is blushing.

But also about how Historia actually looks good and sexy while being pregnant and how she looks so happy!

She also is a lesbian that turned straight.

I'm so proud of my work.

_________________________________________

In all honesty...

This is... dissapointing and an insult to Historia fans. Why ? What is the purpose or the reason ? Being tragic ? To show how far Historia can go to protect her loved ones ? A female Eren so ?

I always leaned towards the fake pregnancy even if I don't know how something like that could be really pulled. I didn't understand this choice for his storytelling. The others I understand but this one...

O_o

What the fuck ?

So she really is pregnant ? But nothing leading up to it makes sense.

The character whose thematics still rings too much true for this arc is put in the background and as a breeding farm on top of that.

It even came to a point I started people to stop asking about her.

I had faith in her presence in the final arc. That she would have a role play.

But now ?

/\/\/\

For people who don't understand why this aspect of story is wrong, we have to break it down.

First off, Historia one of the first queer characters with Ymir in SNK. Others are suspected but these two are the few that holds a definitive representation as queer.

Most often in media or in real life, LGBT people have been forced into a situation that requires them to fall under heterosexuals lives. Here Historia is forced to be pregnant, yes in a way she agreed because of her people, but at the same time she didn't really want it.

For queer people, like me, this still rings true. Too much true. People literally forces you to go for your opposite sex everytime, to have a family.

No, stop forcing your view of your own life or desire of life on other people.

The fact that the fandom rationalizes that and says that she is happy and in love with Eren is just so fucking weird.

It either is blind ship following, heteronormativity or not understanding the story.

And I saw people saying she might be bisexual. This doesn't change anything. Also ignoring the fact that she hasn't shown any attraction to men other than women in the story.

If she is bisexual, it doesn't change anything, she is still queer. Not semi-straight AND EVEN IF SHE WAS A WOMAN WHO HAPPENED TO BE STRAIGHT, SHE IS STILL FORCED INTO SOMETHING SHE DID NOT WANT.

Bisexual is not semi-straight, semi-gay.

It's bisexual.

Bisexual, Straight and Homosexuality are not the same thing.

And if she was straight, that doesn't make it acceptable. It's just sick.

Just because you're a straight woman doesn't mean you are going to be more happy or have god like duty to have kids.

I just don't understand it...

A manga who was so progressive with his female characters reduces Historia to this.

Imagine...

Just imagine...

Eren is the father. I would shoot myself in the face. A forced straight relationship at the end for the pleasure of shonen readers and heteronormative readers.

" What if I have baby, Eren ?"

" Only if it is from me. I want him to live and have FREEDOM!"

" It's open bar, honey." *saying this after hearing the guy says he's going to genocide which goes against her own values and actions as queen*

Ew... Just ew...

And even worse she wasn't supposed to give birth right now, she was supposed to give birth in a few months.

She could DIE. SHE IS 19. This is dangerous.

Everyone is like this is normal.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL. *sigh*

This goes against what she is supposed to have as a character development.

The fact that she would be okay for genocide while as a queen she reached out to the most weak and in need is fucking incoherent.

No. This doesn't make sense. Even Eren said that Historia's action as a queen were to help others. How could she be okay sitting at her house ? Telling no one about what Eren was going to do ? And becoming a breeding farm ? What is the logic in that ?

Why make it suspicious than ?

The only thing that was able to make any logical sense to me was that the person we are seeing here isn't Historia.

I know if my theory is right, it's sick, even more sick.

The only times we saw Historia after the timeskip was during flashbacks, the reveal at 107 and possibly at the end of 123.

If this is her at the end of 123, I want to ask you why is she all prepared, why is she all dressed up and why is she wearing the same clothes in 134 that she is wearing 107. Something doesn't add up.

She is young, small-petite, blonde and her belly and face are hidden.

I was only able to go through the theory that this is a fake Historia. Than who it is than ?

Well, I searched for female characters who look like her or who could look like Historia right now. From all the characters that we haven't seen coming coming back and that has interacted with Historia, there is only one.

Rico Brzenska.

For those, who don't remember her : She was a Garrison Member who helped Mikasa and Eren during the Trost Arc and also helped Historia while she was exhausted during the Clash of the Titans Arc.

She hasn't appeared ever since the start of the Return to Shiganshina Arc unlike many of the older characters.

She is the only one I see who could pass as Historia I think.

I know this is still sick. But this is the only way I would be able to make Historia get out of this crappy storyline and play some relevance in the story. And if we look at Rico and Historia in 107, they kinda look the same. They have the heart shaped face, they are both small and they both have this sort of closed eyelids.

One line that just stuck with me of Rico was:

"Hiding/Lying about Eren's rampage in the report wouldn't have benefited humanity. "

This was during Eren's trial before joining the Survey Corps. What was discused was when Eren lost control of himself during the Trost Arc and attacked Mikasa.

The second line that struck was the one where she holds Historia who is exhausted in her arms:

"Wow! Who is this girl, is she okay ?"

I don't know why it just pushed that theory. And I kinda believe it now, because no one can make me believe that there is something satisfying coming out of this. Why would she sacrifice herself for Historia ? Well, I don't really know but Rico was always a little wary of Eren, even after the Trost Arc but yeah ultimately for Rico being able to give her own life for Historia. I don't know about that. But with this manga you never now. It is a very dark and twisted theory but this is the only logical thing I can see right now since no answers have been provided.

Monkey is BACK

Zeke is back and like most of us predicted, Eren dragged him with him. And I'm not gonna lie, the way he was attached to the spine was pretty badass.

He is used as a puppet which reinforces the theory for me that all three of them: Eren, Ymir and Zeke are being used by the Attack Titan.

I cannot understand Eren's illogical behavior especially after seeing the train scene where he says he wants them to live long happy lives and than having him kill his friends.

Ymir the first being free and having eyes to returning to having no eyes just like before and Eren.

And Zeke would have never agreed to the Rumbling. And we can't see his eyes either.

And...

Thank you, 104th for existing.

Because...

After how much shit they have gone through and after how much the fandom, not just the Eren stans, have mocked them. Like the fandom has been the biggest asshole to the the Alliance while they were the ones who were able to survive through the sentence " Genocide is wrong!" that so many people seems to find to be so hard to say.

I will root for them until the bitter end, I don't care. They are the one who are fighting. You can call Cringevengers all you want but I am glad they are winning.

They all suffered like Eren but they didn't prioritize their own and only feelings above everything else and they stood by for the values they fought for since they joined the Survey Corps. Even if I have to admit they have, for most of them, conflicted feelings with what they were doing and have done things like trying to talk to Eren while it's obvious he wasn't going to talk and that in a situation like this I don't think someone would try to stop Eren by just talking.

Levi, and it would be foolish to not recognize it, is being consumed by his promise but he is restraining it and still is able to think about the bigger picture.

There's one thing I really like about this is Armin asking Eren:

"Eren... I'll ask you one last time... "What part of you is free" after we rip you out from there... "

Hehe... yes... what part of you is free ?

To be honest, there's many things I don't want for the ending.

A Lelouch Ending, it was all Eren's plan. Literally wouldn't make sense. No one would be questionning his free will and he wouldn't have these weird shits happening to him.

A Code Geass ending, why would Mikasa have to kill Eren, what does that add to her as a character ? More tragedy ? No she doesn't have the scarf, it's pretty telling what place she's at right now.

Eren being the daddy. NO, JUST NO.

Everyone dies, genocide is the right thing. You know all the worst shit that can happen.

But most of all I want important plot points to be explored and moved over because ever since the timeskip, there has been no important plot points out the way. Eren's behavior, Ackertalk, Bertolttalk, Historia's Condition, Paths stuffs, answers!

Whatever... Trust me Peace is not something I take for granted. Being proud of myself and having a life with the least conflict and problem is something you fight for. Having rights, being recognized as a human.

Never lose that, fight for it. But never with injustice, be smarter and stronger. Cause at the end what unites us is not only what we have in common but what the perspective of what we have not in common can make a bigger picture of what we are as humans. We all are different and have a different story with similarities but in the end, we are human and born into this world. And in that, we must move forward. In the present, because of the past and for the future.

We all wish for the problems to go away but if it's for the solutions to be rigged with injustice, it will not work. No one has acheived with genocide and never will.

It's kinda sad that this long of a post has to say this. Did y'all see that ? Pretty inspiring what I wrote. Oh well you know what ? If they can be bigoted why can't I myself.

Here's a song I wrote:

(Fuck everyone and you.

We hate women

There are only 2 genders, the breeder and the breeded.

Everything is degenerate.

We hate brown, Arab and Muslim people.

Genocide is cool

And Hitler was too.)

I know but you know what, at least if they want a spy for Nazi Germany someday. They'll know not to give it to me because I'd laugh at the stupidity of the people just like you and I are doing with the rest of world cause for all the shits it gives us, it's entertaining.

#shingeki no kyojin #snk #attack on titan #aot spoiler #snk eren #snk spoilers #snk rant #snk thoughts #snk 134 #aot 134 #snk chapter 134 #eren jeager #historia reiss #zeke jaeger #armin arlert #levi ackerman #mikasa ackerman #the attack titan #rico brzenska #tl;dr

[truffledmadness]

Millenial Trad Politics: A Modest Proposal

So, based on this post and after the go-ahead from @funereal-disease, I’ve got a pet theory about the tendency of both the Millenial Hard Right AND the Millenial Hard Left to contain a strong undercurrent (and, in the case of the right, overcurrent) of trad social mores.

I don’t think it’s actually about politics at all.

Internet Millenial Leftists and the Internet Millenial Right seem to share quite a few commonalities, if you read between the lines. Specifically, in the demographics and personality quirks of some of their members. They all appear to have been raised by (or at least, in very close proximity to) what might be described as Whole Foods Liberalism--well-off, majority-white, neoliberal suburban American culture. Both the left and the right will imply that this is the dominant American (or even global!) culture. It’s not, not even remotely, but that you would ever make the mistake of thinking so suggests that you were raised in that culture, and that you were very, very sheltered within it. But this not only explains a lot of the rhetoric, but also the weird tendency to imply that sexism and particularly racism are things that one learns about in college courses (and the deeper implication that everyone goes to college).

The sheltered perspective of this brings in the second commonality: shelteredness more generally. Again, a lot of this is reading between the lines, but the Internet Millenial Right is often quite famous for being a space where socially alienated young white men come because they feel starved of community, and I’ve noticed similar tendencies on some of the left, especially tankies. I think that this tendency is fundamentally inextricable with the trend towards affluent neoliberal upbringing. And inextricable with a third thing, that might be the most important: a certain amount of rebellion as an adolescent, as we switch from being parent-oriented to peer-oriented, can be a very important developmental milestone. And a HUGE number of millenials never really got to have that. This is not an original point, although while most will argue that this is because of parenting trends (”helicopter parents”) or blame social media in some nebulous way, I think there’s actually an overlooked economic aspect--in the 2000s, particularly post-GFC, a lot of the traditional “safe” ways for teenagers to slouch around and feel dangerous became too expensive for teenagers to actually do. Fast food, clothes, movies, etc., all got more expensive, while part-time job opportunities got scarcer, leaving a lot of the “traditional teenage experience” effectively out of the price range of actual teenagers.

So, what you’re left with is a bunch of people who feel that they were deprived of an adolescence, living in a culture that (VERY VERY WRONGLY, in my opinion) glorifies adolescence, and are looking for outlets for that. Now, there are healthy ways to explore that (gay male culture has long provided an outlet of this kind for people who were deprived of an adolescence because they were closeted at the time) or merely aesthetically unpleasant but basically harmless (see: the entirety of so-called “Instagram culture”). But there is a faction that’s interested not merely in adolescence, but in rebellion, specifically.

Enter politics. Now, a LOT of factors go into whether or not you end up on the left or right wing of this, but the Angry Trad thing seems to me to be fundamentally rooted in rebellion. When you’re raised by neoliberals, most “traditional” outlets for rebellion don’t actually feel like a departure from your native culture and its expectations. If your parents are aging hippies with a “Coexist” bumper sticker on their Prius, joining a weird band or doing some spiritual exploration through different faiths won’t shock them--they think that’s normal. Being trad, however, does feel legitimately shocking and rebellious. Especially if, on some level, it’s all completely theoretical.

Which brings me to my last point: none of these people have read a history book. And let me be clear, I am not actually faulting them for that, and I don’t think their ignorance is because they’re stupid--generally, they’re not. Since around the 1990s, with the advent of Common Core American education has undergone a major push to legitimize math and the hard sciences (and, to a lesser extent, “reading levels”) as the only legitimate subjects of study, while gutting the humanities, especially history and civics. While certain events are obvious and broad enough that collective understanding of them has survived, more or less, most hasn’t. This is why so many people think that feminism began and ended with the suffrage movement, and racism began with slavery and ended with the Civil Rights movement, and why they’re less likely to understand why these ideas are still important or relevant. The right then glosses this over by saying that women and minorities are inferior, and the left glosses it over by saying these are nebulous distractions from class struggle (never mind that issues of racism and sexism are often most immediate and pressing for people who are also struggling economically). But the root of this appears to be a genuine ignorance.

#long post #truffles does politics #truffles is silly

[lilhawkeye3]

This Ohio discourse has got me dying to create discourse about every other state now hehe so I officially present:

Hawk’s review of 36/50 US states!

In alphabetical order because that fuckin song “50 nifty United States” has been stuck in my head since fourth grade.

Arizona: Phoenix is hot. Can’t believe y’all choose to live in a place that gets haboobs. Saw Sen. John McCain in the airport. I feel that sums up the state well. 4/10

California: as a resident of the state of Oregon, I’m legally required to say fuck California😌 unless anyone else talking shit about Cali and then we got your back😤 SoCal vs San Fran vs Northern Cal are totally different worlds though. 7/10

Colorado: damn idk how y’all breathe there, them air is thin. But really pretty out there! 7/10

Connecticut: oh my god fuck New Haven. And Stamford, and Hartford, and— Yknow what? Let’s just toss the whole state into the Sound. For real, traffic is the WORST here and I’m so sorry that y’all gotta live like that. 3/10

Delaware: I cannot believe this is considered a state. There’s no difference between Delaware and Maryland/Pennsylvania. 1/10 should not be a state

Florida: “the only hills in Florida are the highway ramps and the Matterhorn!” —the shuttle driver at Disney World. He was right. Shit is flat as fuck here. And hot. And humid. The Gulf Coast is nice? But tbh it’s just all very touristy which is kind of a bummer. 5/10

Georgia: ...I can’t with the humidity or thinly veiled racism. But y’all got nice peaches! Also Black Panther filmed there so thank you for blessing us with that. 6/10 for fruits

Hawaii: okay pineapple farms are cool. Tbh I just feel really bad for how much mainlander/tourist bs all the islanders put up with. Ik price of living is v high and keeps going up. That said I did love Hawaii... although I was stung by a jellyfish. Hate those little bastards. 8/10 for wonderful people and nature

Idaho: as an Oregonian I’m required to also say fuck Idaho 😝 you da hoes. Okay for real tho southern Idaho has become v white white and kinda scary tbh. The northern part of the state is pretty chill tho. Also Oreida kettle chips are partly made in Idaho so I gotta give you half credit for that. 4/10

Illinois: at least you’re not Indiana. 4/10.

Indiana: I never want to step foot in Gary, Indiana again in my life. (Passed a Mack truck hauling a race car to Indy 500 though so that was cool.) 2/10

Iowa: I almost moved here. I’m so glad I didn’t. Why are the Quad Cities actually a group of five towns? I hate that. Also the roads were all cement, felt like driving on a sidewalk. Was also interesting because the second we got out of the city proper, it was just... corn fields everywhere. 2/10 y’all raising children of the corn.

Kentucky: I really don’t have anything to say about Kentucky. I thought the trees were pretty? 5/10 yeah idk

Maine: my relative has totaled two cars by hitting moose in Maine. Maine scares me. Or rather, the moose do. Also the lobster roll hype is real. And the coast truly is beautiful. 8/10 but an extra point for the moose bc I hate that relative so 9/10

Maryland: oh god Baltimore. Also I’m blaming you for the DC traffic because it’s on the land you gifted them. 3/10

Massachusetts: Patriots fans are the worst NFL fans (the racism is real, especially after fans burned the jerseys of Black players who knelt for the anthem). Liking Dunkin’ Donuts is not a personality trait. The North End in Boston is truly the best place to get pizza in the entire country. Western Mass is not the same state. And the Cape Cod bridges give me nightmares. 5/10 but cause I had to pay taxes two years and it really is Taxachusetts, knocking it down to 4/10

Michigan: it’s a lot bigger than I initially thought. 5/10

Minnesota: it’s Canada but in the US. Pretty driving through the southern part. Cops suck tho. 5/10

Montana: okay Montana is downright gorgeous. (Except Billings. Sorry, Billings.) I must include a photo. I wanna get a cabin here and just exist. 8/10

New Hampshire: can’t decide if it hates Massachusetts or wants to be Massachusetts. All it knows is that it’s better than Vermont. Which... y’know, valid. (If you wanna see NH culture watch North Woods Law tbh). 4/10

New Jersey: why are there so many goddamn highways in this state? Also there are more places to weekend trip than the Shore or the Poconos. Although you do have people pump gas for you just like Oregon, so... that’s valid. Things my friends have added: Newark airport is cursed (valid), the jughandles are nightmares (true), pork roll/Taylor Ham is good and so are bagels and New Jersey pizza (allergic so idk), and everyone is split on whether the shore is actually decent or not 😂 I give it a 3.5/10 out of spite

New York: NYC is fun, Upstate is MASSIVE but really beautiful. Long Island is... yeah I don’t have anything nice to say about Long Island. 8/10 For NYC, 6/10 for Upstate, -2/10 for Long Island, gives us an average of 6/10

North Carolina: very good peaches. Isn’t South Carolina. Keep it up👍🏽 6/10

Ohio: I already told y’all how I feel about this flat ass boring state. I feel no need to slander it any more lmao. 3/10

Oregon: she flies with her own wings, mi amor🥰 to list all the reasons I like Oregon (and the issues too bc it ain’t perfect), I would need a whole other post. I’ll just leave you with this picture I took of Mt. Hood, the queen of our Cascades. 11/10

Pennsylvania: so apparently PN is three states hiding in a trench coat like NY. There’s upstate, philly and Pittsburg. Personally I think they’re just trying too hard and wanna get the same recognition as NY. Meh. 5/10

Rhode Island: THIS FUCKIN SHAM OF A STATE Just merge it with Connecticut and be done with it!! It’s tiny. Providence sucks. There’s nothing unique about this state that you can’t find in Southern Mass (except MA has cheaper taxes so y’all come to work and shop in MA anyways smh). Also the fingers are really annoying to drive down to get to some beach areas haha. 2/10 you’re barely better than Delaware.

South Carolina: my Black father was invited to a party celebrating General Robert E Lee’s birthday. So... 0/10

South Dakota: very gorgeous, didn’t realize the Missouri River went this far west, but VERY LARGE. I mean it looks big on a map but then you get there and... yeah. No speed limit on highways is a great time though. And the Badlands have mountain goats! 6/10 bc while pretty, living there seems really hard. (Picture is me in the Badlands).

Texas: gave us Juneteenth and Beyoncé and JJ Watts. Thank you Texas. But is very big, got independence from Mexico to keep slavery (yikes), is like 97% private land (yikes) and is like the second or third largest state. Very big. That said, everyone I’ve ever met from Texas is lovely. 6/10.

Utah: Other than Idaho, this is the whitest state I’ve been to. Or it feels that way. Like a, the people crossed to the other side of the street and held their bags because I’m brown, state. And I don’t ski so I can’t even say that’s a good thing (I fell off the ski lift the one time I went, long story). Yeah 0/10.

Vermont: wants to be New Hampshire or Canada and can’t decide which. So it’s just kinda there. Pretty hills though. 3/10

Virginia: let’s be real we all forget that Virginia exists west of Richmond. Nova is a beauracratic and traffic nightmare and half our neighbors had to pass security clearance checks. Hampton Roads and beach area is a tourist and mosquito nightmare. But there were dolphins and I made snowmen on the beach. Good times. 6.7/10

Washington: again, legally required as an Oregon resident to say fuck Washington because it’s all your fault we now are getting a toll on the I-5 border. But you’re better than California. And the Sound is really cool for fishing, love Wicked Tuna. And the fish market. Best salmon I’ve had. Eastern Washington... y’all got Spokane but the rest is kinda sparse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 8/10

Wisconsin: cheese is actually good. Again, pretty state, much larger than I initially thought. 7/10

Wyoming: this was the ONLY STATE I lost cell service in when diriving cross country. Kinda surprised it wasn’t Montana, but no, it was Wyoming. Views are gorgeous though so I was distracted either way. 4/10

Thank you for joining me on this cross-country edition of Tea Time with Hawk. Please respond with any reactions, corrections, addendums about any and all of the states mentioned. And thank you for taking part in this wholesome Clone Wars fandom discourse with me 🥰💕

DISCLAIMER: THESE RATINGS ARE ALL A JOKE PLEASE DO NOT ACTUALLY GET MAD ABOUT IT

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[itsclydebitches]

Never seen the musical Hamilton (big fan of Daveed Diggs though), but I saw someone go off on how terrible he was. How the musical glories a slave owner and all that. How should we go about telling stories of our history The musical is mostly POC and seeks to retell this story for a modern audience. Is that right? Should we glorify our founding fathers who were kind of shitty people. Or do we support this reinterpretation by the very minorities who weren't even considered human back then?

People tend to use the term “glorify” and the similar “romanticize” without understanding what those words mean. They’re used as catch-all terms for “Thing I don’t like” because it’s understood that (like “problematic”) they’re hot-button words that immediately make people wary. That’s the point. If you say, “Hamilton romanticizes slave owners” that sounds so damning that most people will accept the argument at face value. Those three words do the work for you because if a story is romanticizing/glorifying a Bad Thing or the story is just all around problematic... I don’t want to be the one to defend that. Those terms are useful for shutting down conversations before they’ve even begun. 

Thing is though, Hamilton doesn’t romanticize the founding fathers. To romanticize/glorify something is to present it as unjustifiably good, to idealize it unrealistically and work to make it more appealing than it actually is. That doesn’t happen in Hamilton. Putting aside the work Lin did reclaiming that history and retelling it for a cast made up almost entirely of people of color, the story itself acknowledges all the flaws these men had, including the horrors of slavery. Though not the centerpiece of the show, it’s far from ignored. Laurens is working to end slavery. There’s a refrain about “Are we free?” as it applies to the war and the answer is continually “No” because others are still enslaved. Jefferson’s perception that he “can’t believe that we’re free” is looked down upon. He’s explicitly called out by Hamilton in the cabinet battles, reminding the audience that most of his holier than thou attitude stems from the boost slavery gave him: 

A civics lesson from a slaver, hey neighbor Your debts are paid 'cause you don't pay for labor “We plant seeds in the South. We create.” Yeah, keep ranting We know who's really doing the planting

That’s in no way romanticizing! Despite how staggeringly negative this is, some people seem to want a heavy-handed disclaimer. Like Lin should pause halfway through the show, speak directly to the audience, and go, “Hey, everyone. I just wanted to take a moment and remind you that slavery is, in fact, very bad. I know the show has been sending that message from the get-go and that we’re a cast of those most impacted by that legacy, but just in case it wasn’t clear: none of us support that the founding fathers did this.” 

The founding fathers were absolutely shitty people. You know what’s beautiful about Hamilton? It shows them being shitty people. I could give you a laundry list of times in the show where they’re depicted as both flawed and truly horrible. Again, not glorifying. The viewers may choose to glorify them in fic/art/conversations/etc. despite all the work Lin did, but that’s not the fault of the show. It’s likewise not his fault if people are unable to tell the difference between romanticizing and acknowledging accuracy. Meaning, real life isn’t like a cartoon. The bad guys we see around us - like the founding fathers - are not going to be mustache-twirling horrors with no redeeming qualities because we find that simplicity comforting. Evil people are charismatic. They’re intelligent. Witty, humorous, kind to so many others provide they’re the “right” kind of person... Writing Thomas Jefferson as the kind of guy you might want to be friends with isn’t romanticizing, it’s accurate. And it’s really important to acknowledge that. Racists aren’t villains hiding out in some super evil lair just waiting to commit hate crimes. They’re the friend you grew up with and love to death... who is also now going to Trump rallies. It’s your brother who is great to you but talks shit at the dinner table every night. It’s your upstanding boss, pillar of the community, beloved by all... who is using that power to get away with heinous things. It’s important to acknowledge - and teach - that this is what racism looks like and it’s something Hamilton does beautifully. Part of the point is to create that discomfort. The feeling of, “Wow! I love Jefferson in this. He’s so cool, charming, funny and - oh fuck yeah he’s got slaves, shit.” Because that’s what real life is like. The racists aren’t going to come out on stage spewing their rhetoric so you understand precisely how horrible they are from the get-go and never, ever have to acknowledge that there are parts of their personality you really like. They’re the Thomas Jeffersons of the world: charming you in the morning and raping his slave at night. 

To acknowledge that isn’t glorifying him. Hamilton the story is explicitly anti-slavery while likewise acknowledging that the founding fathers were complex human beings who, yes, achieved some great things even while they did other, truly horrific things. To deny that is to teach that racists aren’t anything like that person in your life who also did this great thing... even though they are. Hamilton didn’t shy away from that and it’s a story that expects a certain level of critical thinking from its audience. Frankly a pretty low bar of, “We’re a group of minorities forcibly taking this narrative for ourselves and using it to comment on these issues... that is in no way the same thing as glorifying those issues.” It’s basically fanfiction with Lin (the fan) taking an incredibly offensive canon (history) and going, “I’m going to reclaim this as best I can without, you know, totally erasing what I was given.” It’s also like fanfiction in that it is fiction. Hamilton takes a great many liberties with history because that’s what art does. It’s not a textbook. To claim that anyone who enjoys the Hamilton version of Thomas Jefferson is a bad person is like saying you’re a bad person for liking Darth Vader, or Hannibal, or any other bad guy given a sympathetic twist. The acknowledgement, “Just because I like this horrible person in a story doesn’t mean I agree with them...” applies to Hamilton too. We’re not discussing the historical figure here. We’re discussing a semi-fictional amalgamation Lin created for a broadway show. 

Is Hamilton perfect? Of course not. No story ever is and if we tear all two hours and forty minutes of it apart we’ll undoubtedly find something objectively “problematic” because that’s just how creating art works. But overall I think the show did an excellent job of getting its - complicated - messages across. Those who are #cancelhamilton aren’t paying attention to what Hamilton is: a reclaiming of white supremacy, a commentary on the malleability of narratives (that is, what narrative does America normally spout about how great this country is?), and an acknowledgement of the complicated face of racism - among other things. Again, if people are reducing that to “You made me like a slave owner character therefore you’re romanticizing him” that’s not the fault of the text. 

#Hamilton #mymetas #rape tw #Anonymous