#Jim crow has not ended

[this-is-me19]

“You Act White”

When Black people display their intelligence they are NOT imitating Whiteness because intelligence is not an inherently White trait. Black excellence is real and has nothing to do with White proximity.

For the people in the back: intelligence is NOT a racial indicator, NOT cultural appropriation, and does NOT have racial significance.

[wolvebonez]

<- brainworms (constantly thinking about politics) (this post kind of expanded into me waxing poetic in the tags whoops)

[probablyasocialecologist]

If anything, the 2024 election season in the United States has demonstrated that the multicultural ruling elite—including but especially those of a liberal stripe—have no intention of solving the many crises of its own making. On the contrary, their role is to manage “through brutality,” the contradictions of a global necrocapitalist order. To suggest there are identifiable patterns cyclically reproduced by a colonial capitalist world order is not to encourage a sense of hopelessness but a sense of clarity, a grounding toward what can and cannot be accomplished within the given regimes of liberal redress. The Zionist mass extermination campaign in occupied Palestine, with the open and active participation on the part of the liberal democracies of the West, exemplifies the reality that liberalism need not fascism to carry out its regimes of racialized horror intrinsic to Western civilization. Liberalism, in its own right, efficiently exports perpetual violence and war—through occupations, aerial warfare, and economic terrorism—that is largely proclaimed to be exclusive to twentieth-century, or more recently, Trumpian fascism. And yet, every region on the receiving end of Western liberal democracies’ deadly exports of democracy and freedom is left with mass corpses and new avenues of extraction and accumulation that enrich Euro-American cities.  Despite this, liberalism—due to its strategic attempts to position itself as the benign alternative to far right-wing tyranny—is widely believed to be a benevolent institution, political ideology, and therefore a willing ally to the concerns of and political struggles from below. However, a thorough internationalist investigation of the machinations and material outcomes, specifically as it pertains to the working poor, of liberal democracies paints a vastly different reality while also demonstrating the inefficacy of the ballot towards remedying these outcomes. 

[...]

The baseline, permanent state of U.S. politics, specifically but not exclusively at the national level, is that of right-wing dominance. The broadest understanding of American history only proves this—including the last 40 years of neoliberal hegemony, an explicitly brutal right-wing enterprise. A fruitful question we should all ask, is at what point has the U.S. political and economic system ever worked in accordance with the masses of its people? Think about it. During its Indigenous slaughter campaigns that made way for the creation of the modern nation-state? Or, during the worldmaking and world-breaking regime of racial-chattel slavery—in which stolen African labor was directly pinned against that of the labor of the white working poor? Or maybe the Jim/Jane Crow period which oversaw even more destitution and suffering for Black-African people than that of its predecessor? Or, any period since the early 1900s—sans the short-lived era of the New Deal (which was not only brief but exclusive i.e., neglected much of the racialized and poor in its material output)?  Many well-meaning people have tried to do good work holding political office. But how much does one’s morality matter in a capitalist political system that is beholden to the interests of the finance-corporate sectors of civil society? 

3 November 2024

[viktoriaashleyyx]

Tw: violence against women and children mentioned.

I have been an Anti-Facist Norse pagan for almost 15 years (a pretty lonely life ngl) and the best thing to come of this is my skill to sniff out alt right, facist propaganda before anyone else. Everyone tells me "it's not that deep" until they realize, yep it is that deep.

The ACOTAR books have now been added to my list of Alt Right pipelines and I am convinced that SJM herself is either currently a facist or will be spiraling towards it soon.

If any criticism of the main characters, inner circle, Night court values draws you into a frenzy where you need to use a 1300 word straw man argument to lower your heart rate and pat yourself on the back, you need to do some self reflecting.

Like who you like, I don't honestly care, I'm not here for friends, but if you justify literal Jim Crowe laws because "those people will ruin our beautiful perfect city" I am going to side eye you. That is not something a healthy, non racist, Pro humanity person fantasizes about. There is not a single, natural born illyran woman who can use her own wings under the 500 year rule of "the most powerful high lord." Fantasizing about a lazy sex crazed leader who still allows the breaking of children's bones for misbehaving, is not normal. I am not going to trust you if you justify and praise violence toward children, even fictional children.

The fact that you will go to war to defend the abhorrent policies and actions of the NC when people try to have critical discussions about the texts is shocking to say the least.

Every single character in these books are subject to criticism. SJM herself is subject to criticism for the way in which she portrays these communities and glosses over the unjust policies. The way the Jim Crow laws in Velaris were introduced is a common manipulative tactic to desensitize the reader to the policy itself, paving a way for it to, once again, exist in our world. "It just a fantasy book calm down" no. Media has always been a large method to distribute propaganda.

I don't give half a fuck who Elain ends up with but please, please, please criticize the Night court and recognize it's atrocities or it will affect how you vote and how you see the world around you.

[bougiebutchbitch]

I saw so many of your OFMD rbs today that it reignited my OFMD/izzy/steddyhands hyper fixation lol. Not that I’m upset abt it!! What r ur fav headcanons abt them?

jgfhfjf I was on a roll this morning! I like the idea that Izzy survived, but it was covered up by the crew (and Izzy!) to get Izzy away from Ed and Stede. Frenchie, Jim, Fang and Archie were still very wary of Ed, for obvious reasons. Plus, everyone was worried about their unicorn and thought he deserved better than to be the eternal third wheel!

So Stede and Ed legitimately grieve him, and bury a 'body' (actually a mop with two coconuts attached to it, though they're unaware of this skjldsdg - IF YOU KNOW THE FANART, YOU KNOW) all while Izzy is healing and happy with his family on the Revenge, under Frenchie's captainhood! Stede and Ed are repairing their relationship, coming to terms with everything that happened to them and everything they did, good and bad alike. Ditto for Izzy and his crew! It's a perfect happy ending for everyone!

But.

But.

Stede and Ed never quite feel 'whole', by themselves on a little desert island, trying to start a business, every day bogged down with routine and basic hard work that neither of them are used to.

And Izzy loves his crew so much, but he doesn't quite feel 'whole' either. He wants so desperately to see how Stede and Ed are doing. He misses them a lot, and though he holds everything together for Frenchie and the others' sake, Frenchie has caught him a dozen times sat in the crows' nest at night, looking out in the direction of Ed and Stede's island and sighing...

They pass by the island one time, and Izzy is obviously SO fucking forlorn, though he's doing his utmost to pretend otherwise. Frenchie, Jim, Archie and Fang can't bear it. They thought they were doing the right thing by giving Izzy a life away from his captains. And they were! It was what Izzy needed! He's grown in himself, and seems far more grounded and happy!

But he wants to go back to them anyway.

And Frenchie knows it would be wrong to stop him. Plus, who's to say Ed and Stede haven't done some GrowthTM of their own?

So, he wakes Izzy from his cabin and gives him a big hug, before leading him out onto the deck. The whole crew have gathered. Cue hugs all around, and they each give him a little present - a clumsy wooden sculpture from Lucius, a far better one from Pete (he's teaching his husband how to whittle!), a garlic knot necklace from Oluwande and Archie and Jim for luck, etc. etc. etc.

Izzy is gruffly trying not to cry (because he loves them so much and he'll miss them so much, but he has felt like a fucking burden lately (even though he absolutely isn't; after Zheng set off to rebuild her armada, he was in charge of teaching the crew how to Pirate Right, and he did a damn good job!) And he's in a lot of pain trying to keep up with life on the ship with all his old injuries. He knows he's not the best swordsman in the Caribbean anymore, and deep down, he feels, it's time ot pack it in.) He gives each of them a tight hug and a rough-voiced compliment (small and genuine and kinda backhanded in typical Izzy fashion; telling Lucius he's not fucking useless; telling Oluwande he's far too nice to be a quartermaster but he makes it fucking work and that's good, Izzy figures; telling Frenchie he's far from the worst captain Izzy's sailed under). Then he quietly strips his glove off, and hands it to Jim. They don't hug. They just nod at each other, one guard dog to another.

As Izzy rows to shore, to where Ed and Stede's little inn stands, a candle in the window burning like a lighthouse in the night... He hears the music blossom out from the ship, La Vie En Rose, playing him towards his retirement. And he finds himself smiling, so hard it hurts.

...Then he walks into the inn like 'sup twats. Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.' and Ed and Stede start screaming lskdfhkjsdgf

[darcydarlingdabbles]

Hotel Field Trip Drabble

Thoughts based on this post [Link] about Charlie and Alastor taking a field trip to a human hotel for "business experience" lol

// Adorable. I just wanted to write some scene ideas. And it went Charlastor shippy immediately...though I didn't add pets. Human Alastor based on this post [Link] //

Charlie looks almost like herself with slightly less pale like death vibe, but she looks like herself.

No one is prepared for how Alastor looks as a human. Like, stunned silence silence in the hotel lobby when he joins Charlie. He is a gorgeous biracial man with oval glasses, perfectly swooshed dark hair, and a smile that is charming when it doesn't stretch demonically across his face. Tall and lean and impeccably dressed.

Alastor is not prepared for how people see him as a human.

He was a half-creole man in the Jim Crow era south. The same people who loved his radio show were probably vile to him in person. (h/c that this is why he hates being photographed and says this face is made for radio) But a hundred years later culture has shifted and he's suddenly not only acceptable but desirable.

When they get to the human hotel in New Orleans--guess what, there's only one bed. (Surprised Pikachu)

There's a roaring 20s convention in town, maybe also some true crime TikTokers too. Ultimate Alastor chagrin. People parading around like they're from his day--but the dresses, the fashion, everything is just all wrong. Don't get him started on Jazz covers of pop songs.

He asks Charlie to kill him again because he'd rather be in hell.

Guess what, only room they have is the honeymoon suite.

Elevator is so crowded Alastor does the wall lean over Charlie to keep them both from being crushed. No, sir, you cannot murder a whole elevator for being in your personal space but you can be in hers.

Debating if there's a "ghost tour" where some of Alastor's victims are said to be haunting the place. Ends with him destroying a tiktoker's phone.

Yes serial killer Alastor had his own "moral code" but he makes it emphatically clear to Charlie that he was still a monster that enjoyed killing. And hell is the perfect place for him, because everyone there failed to be moral—other than the hellborn, like Charlie.

One night Alastor tries avoiding Charlie by going to the bar, maybe while she's enjoying dancing nearby. He's had a few drinks when an older woman starts aggressively hitting on him.

literally cannot compute. Cannot shake her because he's a mamma's boy with manners and the lady won't take no for an answer. Charlie said not to kill anyone.

Alastor using Charlie as a human shield—against flirtations.

Alastor and Charlie getting to dance to music from his time. He has a moment to think...Charlie is exactly the girl his mother would have liked him to bring home. And the girl he would never deserve.

Annnnd some how I turn that angst into a happy ending because

I write romances not tragedies, dammit!!

Update: I started the fic!! link

[cbrownjc]

The sad thing is? I predicted this.

Yeah, so I've been gone from Tumblr for a while, I know. I had my major surgery back in the second week of October and have been home recuperating for two weeks now.

But I wanted to come on here tonight to vent a little about the presidential election.

Because even though there was a part of me that dared to hope even just a little, I KNEW this was going to happen. And I called it the minute Joe Biden was forced to drop out of the race, back in July.

This is the text message exchange I had with my sister the day he announced he was dropping out:

And let me make this clear: I'm a born and raised California native. I voted for Kamala Harris for both DA and Senate. I voted for her and very much wanted her to win.

But I know this damn country. I saw how Obama was treated and the freakout and build-up of white supremacy after he won twice. That's why 45 got in in the first place.

And as I said in the text to my sister? Never in the 4 other times that Democrats have replaced a candidate this late in the process has that candidate won. Ever. Only those who've never studied political history thought doing such a thing would actually work.

Anyone who called for Biden to drop out? Congrats, you fell for the most obvious Chaos OP EVER.

I don't usually talk politics on Tumblr. I save that for Twitter. But now that Apartied Clyde has taken it over and this mess has happened, I plan to delete my Twitter account by the end of the week. The only reason I'm not doing it sooner is so that those who only follow me there can catch me before I delete it.

Anyway, I can't even cry or be sad about this. I already went through that stuff when Biden dropped out. I'm just kinda numb. And tired. And disgusted. But, at least thanks to my dad, I feel like I very much saw this coming thanks to his lessons on this country and race/racism. He and my mother both lived through Jim Crow and so yeah, they knew.

"This is not who we are" some are saying.

Yes, it damn well IS who we are. And it's who we've always been. I can give you a history lesson, and I'm not just talking about slavery, civil rights, and the 19th Amendment. I'm talking about Lee Atwater, Nixon, and the Southern Strategy. All that has happened between 2016 and now is a full culmination of that.

A majority of white Americans would rather destroy the American Republic than share equal power with black people. (With misogyny and misogyny thrown in there as well.) I wish I could be surprised by that, but I sadly am not.

And this tweet pretty much sums up my feelings regarding what's next:

I'm still healing from my surgery. Once that's done and I am 100%, it's about me and my loved ones now, protecting the few remaining ones I have left. (I am SO thankful that none of my close family or still-close friends voted for that man . . . but then, the majority of them are black women too, so . . .)

Because this country has pretty much shown black people that we are hated -- and always will be on our own.

Everything my parents and grandparents fought for regarding Civil Rights will be gone now. The only thing I can be thankful for is that none of them are alive anymore to see this.

I NEVER thought I'd live to see the end of the republic but here we are. And done by people willfully voting to give it up because, as I said back in July, a majority of white people in this country would rather destroy the country than share power with black people.

[for-hunger]

The differences between Hannibal and Lestat have been bothering me ever since I binged Interview with the Vampire, and I got frustrated enough to scribble 3 pages in my notebook. My conclusions are:

Institutional power. First and foremost, Lestat is connected to institutional power. In the context of IWTV, Lestat and Louis do not begin as equals, and are not able to meet each other as equals until the end of S2. (Edit: I am literally talking about him being white in the Jim Crow South) Lestat is always associated with ultimate institutional/group authority, both in New Orleans and in Paris- whether Lestat came to Paris with the intention to see Claudia (and/or Louis) die or not, he is the literal co-founder of the coven, and Claudia and Louis are being persecuted for fighting back against him. He even invokes the "Great Laws" when defending Claudia's murder.

In contrast, in Hannibal, Will is the one associated with this institutional power, even being the mentee of our ultimate lawful authority, Jack. The only time he is without this power is the brief first period of S2. Hannibal and Will begin the show as equals, and for the most part, are playing their back and forth cat-and-mouse game as equals (at least post-S1).

Betrayal. Although Louis shuts down in the face of Lestat's abuse, he never really stops being hurt by Lestat's continued betrayals. Will is hurt by Hannibal's betrayal (especially end of S1), but he knows who Hannibal is. He expects and is, in many ways, satisfied by and interested in Hannibal's continued insanity.

Daughters. Louis is the driving force behind the adoption of Claudia, and Lestat resists emotional involvement with her, is cruel to her, and, arguably, wants her dead regardless of Louis. Hannibal gives Abigail to Will himself, and has his own relationship with her. His murder of Abigail is in revenge for Will's shattering of their relationship, not about anything he hates in Abigail.

God. Hannibal is more directly godlike in comparison to the others in his narrative. Other people are vampires, but no one else can kill like Hannibal does in his world (in his absurd Bugs Bunny way). He even breaks the fourth wall (in S3) to directly invite us into his narrative. The motivation for most of what he does is curiosity rather than any central seduction (sometimes to his dismay), and his attitude is always tongue in cheek. This is also why it's important that he's not associated with institutional power- he rivals the power of God, he doesn't hide from God, he's the Devil, he is smoke, he is not bound by gender, law, time, space, the limits of the body, etc.

Ultimately, there are tons of similarities in these narratives: toxic ass murder husbands, dead daughters who are created and then sacrificed for the love of the husbands, consummation in blood, breakup in blood, European sojourn, temporary other marriages, murder as ascension, et al et al

and I'm certainly not saying that Hannibal is a good husband!!!

[drconstellation]

Dr Constellation's Good Omens Master Post of Metas

(Updated 4 June 2024)

See my Google Doc for a full list of Tumblr posts of interest.

Future Echos of the Past

The story of the Great War in Heaven as it appears in the present

#1: The Great War of Tadfield Manor #2: The Newton/Crowley Mirror/Parallel in S1 #3: "Not Even At Gunpoint"

Archangel Gabriel

Supreme Archangel Gabriel often stands on the demonic left-hand side in scene blocking, rather than the angelic right. He’s also fond of taking center stage! Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S1 Study S2 Study Part 1: Ep.1 The Arrival and Ep. 2 The Clue S2 Study Part 2: Ep.3 I Know Where I'm Going and Ep. 5 The Ball S2 Study Part 3: Ep.6 Every Day First-Order Archangels Part 1: Maybe You'll See An Archangel

Gabriel and Crowley act as both parallels and foils to each other in S2. In Part 1 we look at some of the ways they are alike.

First-Order Archangels Part 2: Foils of War

Part 2 takes a look at where Gabriel and Crowley oppose one another, as well as highlighting some parallels between their respective partners, Beelzebub and Aziraphale.

First-Order Archangels Part 3: Seeing Eye To Eye

Gabriel and Crowley both have an interesting connection to time.

The Assistant Book Seller

Jim’s knitted vest holds a wealth of symbolic information - and a surprise nod that you didn’t expect.

Giles the Herald

An interesting parallel to Gabriel at the end of S1.

Aziraphale's Edinburgh Journey

Part 1: Detective Aziraphale

One of the reasons Aziraphale goes to Edinburgh is because it is a narrative parallel to Crowley’s trip to Heaven. There are also a couple of other things we need to consider, too.

Part 2: Aziraphale-Beelzebub Parallels

While Gabriel is Crowley’s mirror in S2, Beelzebub is Aziraphale’s. And there is a third character that makes an interesting mirror-triangle analysis that combines and reflects both major characters together as well.

Part 3: Stocktaking in the Basement

Aziraphale does a lot of reflection about the past while he’s on his trip to Edinburgh. How can this help him in the future?

Part 4: Judgement Day

Aziraphale's trip to Edinburgh - and most of S2 - is filled with hints and references to the Second Coming. Gabriel's statue is one of them, but it has another role as well (and it's not for hiding anything under, sorry.)

Part 5: I Know Where I'm Going

Named after a Powell and Pressburger film, and an old Scottish folk song, this title sets the theme for Ep. 3 in S2. It's a discussion about Fate versus Free Will, the dangers of trying to escape fate, and looking at things from a different angle.

Archangel Rings

All the Archangels have golden rings, as well as Aziraphale. Find out what they reveal about each character.

The Golden Lions of Heaven (includes Aziraphale's Lion ring) Michael the Watchful Uriel's Star Ring The Brutal Truth about Sandalphon's Ring

A Companion to Owls minisode

Goats, Crows and The Flood

Crawley turns Job's goats into crows to save them. Why crows? And how does this link to the Flood?

Angelic Sheep and Demonic (Scape)Goats

Understanding the link between goats and demons gives you a deeper insight into Crowley's story - and also some of Aziraphale's.

Come Back When You Can Make A Whale

Take a deep dive into the Book of Job - and find out what it might be foreshadowing for S3

Aye, a Newt

Why Job’s children are turned into geckos, and a S1 connection.

Crossing the Threshold

Inside the Dirty Donkey

We’re going to the pub! What secrets does the Dirty Donkey hide behind its name?

Lifting the Veil on the Bentley

Peering behind the meaning of the Bentley’s number plate.

Memento mori

This is one of the major themes of the series - Remember that you die.

Obligatory Reminders and Crossing the Lines

Have you been wondering why Shax tries to do a mail delivery to Crowley as he escorts the shop keepers to safety from Aziraphale's Eldritch Ball? It seems a pretty random thing to do at that moment.

Stand-Alone Metas

The Ineffable Ducks

What are all those ducks doing? Ever got the feeling that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you…?

The Altar of Eccles Cakes

The Eccles cakes don’t look like they are doing much, but they are there for a reason - so is some of the other food you see.

The Cupperty Ceremony

Every bit of food and drink in both seasons has a metaphorical significance. Tea is no exception. It’s one of the few times an eastern philosophy creeps into Good Omens, but still meets with a western ideal.

When Crowley Met Jesus, and The Other Demon at Golgotha

Aziraphale suggests not one but two demon names to Crowley when they meet at Golgotha. Together they make a clever joke about the Third Temptation that most people miss.

Being Kind to One Another

Some clever and subtle word play on kind, linked between two scenes in the S1E3 Hard Times cold opening.

Once and Future Royalty

There’s a King Arthur and Camelot sub-theme running through parts of S1 And S2. Grab your coconuts and saddle up for a crazy ride through time and space!

Portable People

Crowley's yeeting them around while stress-cleaning the bookshop, Jimbriel is trying to sell them to the investigating archangels, and Muriel just wants to read them all. Should we give a second thought to any of these books?.

Bebop and the Book

Why can Anathema always put her hand on the right card at the right time?

Chiastic Structure of S1

Chiastic structure is a literary device where the story line is mirrored in reverse around a central point. S1 has an amazingly detailed chiastic structure, which actually reveals and confirms some meta speculations!

Chiastic Structure of S2

S1 was a fantastic example of a mirrored story line. S2 …isn’t. But there are still a substantial number of chiastic pairs to be found.

Liberty versus the Tree of Life

A philosophical look at the choices between coffee, freewill and death compared to access to the Trees of Knowledge and Life in the Garden of Eden.

Taking Things At Face Value

How our internalized values influence the way we judge people, often based on their outward appearance alone.

The Rules of Engagement

The Technicalities of Licenses, Permits and the Limits of Authority in Good Omens

A Tale of Two Peacocks

A look at the relationship between Gabriel and Michael: what they think of each other, and how they act as foils to each other.

If you are looking for more metas there is a group effort on this google doc here: Good Omens Crackpotting Theory Tracker This brings a lot of ops together in the one place.

[suzannahnatters]

My RINGS OF POWER Season 2 Review

The Rings of Power season 2 has ended and I’m sure many of you have been waiting with bated breath to hear my Opinions. Where to begin?

Going in to season 2, my biggest question was whether the show would preserve the things I loved so much about season 1, without degenerating in artistic quality. Bagging on TROP seemed to have become a cottage industry on the internet, with little understanding of the thoughtful ways that the show adheres to Tolkien’s ethos and aesthetic under the guidance of the Tolkien Estate. With so much bad-faith criticism about, I was sincerely worried that the showrunners would compromise their vision to appease the haters.

I’m thrilled to announce that this didn’t happen. Everything I loved is still very much present in the show – the lovable characters, the deep understanding of Tolkien’s themes and faith, and the thoughtful writing of characters like Galadriel, Sauron, and Adar.

There are two main changes from season 1 in terms of tone. One is the increased amount of violence, with the climactic battle taking up much of the final three episodes. There’s also more darkness this season, as Tolkien’s grand second age tragedy begins to unfold, especially in the Eregion plotline. One of my biggest questions going into the season was how the show would manage to show all this tragedy – tragedy which Tolkien never depicted in this level of detail – without adopting a cynical, grimdark tone which would have been utterly inappropriate for a Tolkien adaptation. I’m absolutely thrilled, and also personally inspired as an author, by how well they managed this: throughout the season, the writers maintain a wonderful balance between darkness and light. Early in the season, we are treated to the bloody, brutal scene in which Sauron’s previous incarnation fell to the knives of his own followers. When, hundreds of years later, he’s managed to rebuild his mortal, Charlie-Vickers form, there’s a beautifully understated sequence in which he is offered – but ultimately fails - a chance at true repentance, and a hope of something better. This pattern, of darkness anchored by light, holds strong throughout the rest of the season. There are some big character deaths in this show, deaths that are sometimes expected and sometimes shocking, but not one of them goes by without rendering a sense of the victim’s dignity.

The second big change is the pacing. I was among those who enjoyed Season 1’s slower pacing, with the exception of some swampiness around episode 5. Season 2 runs into different trouble: it feels rushed throughout, with multiple plots coming to an, at best, perfunctory resolution in the final episode. However, despite some characters getting shortchanged, the show knows to prioritise the people and places that are most important. The Eregion subplot takes pride of place, getting some of the best writing I’ve seen in ages.

Another of my big questions this season was whether the things I didn’t like about season 1 would be perpetuated. It’s no secret that I really hated the idea presented in the previous season of mithril as a sort of panacea, which should be stripped from Moria to stop the Elves from fading.  Would season 2 introduce more ideas foreign to Tolkien and his vision? I’m delighted to say that there was nothing this season that offended me on the same level as the mithril nonsense from last season.

There’s one deviation from Tolkien’s vision that caused a good deal of internet outrage but which I am absolutely thrilled with, and it has to do with the Orcs. This was one of my favourite things from season 1, and I was worried about whether the show would back down from the good work they were doing here. I’m so pleased that it didn’t.

Tolkien made few misjudgements during his career, but the way he wrote the Orcs is one of them. One Medievalists.com article seeks to demonstrate that Tolkien described his Orcs with language that was often used during the Jim Crow era in the US to denigrate Black people. While this is probably something to be aware of, I’m seriously sceptical that Tolkien, an Englishman without internet at the beginning of the 20th century, would have imagined, or even had a way to find out, that his language might be racially insensitive in the American context. In my opinion the racial problem hard-baked into Tolkien’s legendarium is this: that when it came to the Orcs, he had a tendency to equate genetics with ethics, so that to be born an Orc is to be bad by definition. That is something for which we can hold him accountable, and it’s also something which he did have the ability to notice. Towards the end of his life he began attempting to address the problem, but he died before he could get very far. And who knows whether he could have addressed it successfully?

I love that The Rings of Power also recognizes this problem and tries to address it. The Rings of Power does something that even Tolkien didn’t, and treats its Orcs like people. In my favourite season 1 scene, the Orc leader, Adar, challenges Galadriel to consider that the Orcs were created by Iluvatar and share in the Secret Fire – the life principle in Tolkien’s legendarium, analogous to the Holy Spirit of Christianity. I was eager for the show to continue exploring this theme, and I’m beyond delighted with what they did in Season 2. Somehow, The Rings of Power both manages to treat the Orcs like people – people with consciences who love their families and grieve their dead, who are capable of wanting to better themselves, who are vulnerable to fall from grace and become deceived by the Enemy – and to hew close to the events Tolkien outlined and the aesthetic he presented. And this is emblematic of what I love about the show as a whole. It doesn’t just thoroughly respect Tolkien; it also exercises considerable wisdom, judgement, and creativity in taking his legacy and forging ahead with it.

This season the standout actor is local Geelong boy, Charlie Vickers, turning in the performance of a lifetime as Sauron. For years Tolkien fans have imagined what Sauron might have been like in his Annatar era, masquerading as an angel of light to deceive the Elven smith Celebrimbor into forging the Rings of Power to enslave the peoples of Middle Earth. This season’s Eregion subplot is probably the show’s strongest. It’s gloriously written and brilliantly acted. Vickers and Charles Edwards, who plays the kindly Celebrimbor, both deserve all the awards; their story is terrifying, disastrous, infuriating, and impossible to look away from. Sauron is that rarest of fictional villains, someone with noble aims, yet whose cruelty and monumental levels of self-deception put him utterly beyond salvation. Still, although he destroys Celebrimbor both mentally and physically – in a scheme taken straight from a domestic abuser’s playbook – the show still never deprives Celebrimbor entirely of his own agency. It’s beautiful to see, and goes a long way towards maintaining the noblebright tone that a Tolkien adaptation requires.

The Numenor subplot is also one of my favourites this season. Those who’ve read the Silmarillion know that things are about to go from bad to worse in the island kingdom, but the show still remembers to keep its heart, conscience, and hope intact. The emotional core of this subplot this season is the character of Queen Miriel, and I’m a bit feral about her. While Cynthia Addai-Robinson’s Miriel and Lloyd Owen’s Elendil are two of the most charismatic people on the show, whose characters share an unspoken courtly-love-coded yearning, their appeal goes far deeper than this. I love that the two of them are drawn together by the fact that their faith in the Valar is the most important thing to them, something they’re willing to die for. Beyond this, I love that in enlarging Miriel’s character for screen and rendering her more agency in the plot, the writers remain true to their theme of light, rather than power, overcoming darkness. Miriel’s strength isn’t in the loudness of her voice or her abilities in a fight: it’s explicitly her love, her empathy, and her steadfast, persevering faith – qualities that seem all too rare either in male or female characters these days.

Other subplots are also present. Some of our characters wind up in the old Numenorean colony of Pelargir: Isildur, Arondir, and Theo. This was a very brief subplot mostly existing to set up relationships and conflicts for future seasons; it contains some lovely character development for Theo and Isildur, and a beautifully numinous encounter with the Ents. Meanwhile, in the dwarf realm of Khazad-dum, we see King Durin become the first person to fall beneath the sway of the Sauron-tainted Dwarven Rings. While this subplot has its strengths – namely, the depiction of a strong and loving marriage between Prince Durin and Disa – the relationship between the elder and younger Durins bothered me in season 1 and although it’s better here, the resolution is still rushed and weak. The show is trying to depict a father/son relationship that is strained but ultimately loving, but to me the relationship just reads as toxic.

Then there is the Rhun subplot which sees the Stranger and Nori striking out into the unknown to unlock the Stranger’s mysterious powers. Again, I found this one a mixture of good and bad. As it becomes increasingly obvious who the Stranger is meant to be, I became impatient with the show’s depiction of someone very patient and kindly; I wanted the razor-tongued old grump I loved from the books. The Stranger also runs across Tom Bombadil, who becomes his mentor, and again I felt that the characterization was off. Tolkien’s Tom is ditzy and fundamentally apathetic about the fate of the wider world. Rings of Power Tom is a likeable enough character, and he has a terrific monologue on the nature of power and magic that is thoroughly accurate to Tolkien’s themes, but in his concern for the fate of the world, he’s just not Tom. I found this subplot the least interesting one this season, with a resolution that posed a very transparent and unconvincing moral dilemma that seemed too cheap for Tolkien. But hey! at least it gave us the adorable Merimac.

Finally, there are the more free-moving subplots that follow Galadriel, Elrond, Adar, and the Orcs. I’ve already expressed my delight with how the show handles the Orcs. Meanwhile Galadriel continues to be one of my favourite characters in the show: this season faces her with some hard consequences of her deception by Sauron in the first season, particularly in terms of a strained relationship with her friend (and future son-in-law), Elrond, as well as her king, Gil-Galad. There are many things to appreciate in this subplot. I’m particularly loving Elrond’s character: as my chum Christina commented, in every interview Robert Aramayo looks like someone who would rob you in a chip shop, and then onscreen he magically transforms into Sir Galahad. And there are not a whole lot of Sir Galahad characters in media today: Elrond is a rare character who allies impeccable gentleness, kindness, and goodness with a will and a conscience of adamant. His friendship with Galadriel has always been warm and sweet, but it gains new depth now that they’re at odds and we see his inflexible moral core. It’s a wonderful character dynamic, and it’s unusual to see a male and female character having conflict that is loving yet not at all romantic. Similarly, it’s unusual and refreshing, in a narrative in which two men hold a woman accountable for being deceived by a cute villain, that the show never makes it feel like some kind of feminine weakness.

In retrospect, the single unifying theme of the season is this: that evil cannot be resisted by power, but only by “light” – which is embodied throughout the season as the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. The Rings of Power remains the most overtly Christian work of media I have seen in western media for a popular audience in many years – while remaining artistically subtle and theologically sound. As such, it continues to be an absolute delight to me.

I’m so thrilled to see The Rings of Power holding strong to its best features, improving on its weaknesses, and gradually beginning to win some respect. No doubt it will be another long wait until season 3 releases, but with the sophomore season cementing all the things I loved about the first season, I now finally feel sure that the story is in good hands. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

[luvhockey111]

accidentally in love

Based off of Accidentally in love by counting crows!!

warnings: drinking, swearing a little bit

my first piece!!! It’s not that great, just wanted something to put out and was bored this morning so decided to write this. Let me know what you guys think and if you have any requests!

Summary: Luke and y/n have known each other for as long as they can remember. What happens one summer night when y/n finds Luke awfully close to a girl? I mean they are only just friends… right?

Overview of Luke and y/n relationship

Luke and y/n have been friends since they were born; as Ellen and Julie (y/n mom) were roommates in college. By some weird coincidence Jim and Allan (y/n dad) had been childhood best friends. This has caused them to grow up across the street from each other. If you think about it, it’s destiny really. Anyways, Luke and y/n always say they are “platonic soulmates” but who are they trying to fool with the use of the word platonic? It’s definitely not any of their family members so themselves and eachother must be the ones they are trying to convince their feelings are strictly platonic..

It was a perfect boat day, the sun was warm and shining and the water was a perfect mix between cold and warm, but refreshing nonetheless. Y/n was sitting next to Luke with her legs stretched out in his lap, his hands atop them, Quinn driving, with jack, Trevor, cole and Alex fighting over who gets to wakeboard next and who gets aux. Jack happened to win both of those arguments somehow. Jack had been saying he was going to be throwing a little party tonight since it was the first week everyone was officially back at the lake. “Jack your parties always end with something bad happening” Y/n mentioned. Jack shot her a look of disbelief. “Ummm last time I checked nothing bad has ever happened to me at one of them, only the rest of you idiots”. In reality jack was right, at his first party Quinn’s girlfriend broke up with him over text. The next, Trevor broke the glass sliding door. The one last summer, the cops showed up and kicked everyone out because it was too loud but jack wasn’t around at that moment so Luke said he was in charge and ended up getting a fine. “I’m gonna bring the boat back we should start getting stuff for tonight and getting ready” Quinn told the group. A string of okays came from everyone. Y/n pov:

Right when the boat docks everyone runs off to go get ready for tonight. Luke and I go to our room- yup we share a room but I mean all best friends do… right? Our room has two full size beds but last summer we pushed them together to make a mega bed. Now it’s really no secret that I’ve been hopelessly in love with Luke for as long as I can remember. Everyone knows it. Sometimes if Luke talks about another girl or if he is talking to one and myself or anyone sees it they shoot me a look of pity. I mean it’s pathetic really, being in love with your best friend since you were legit born and not even being able to tell him. I mean we’ve done everything together our whole lives, I even went to umich for him. There’s times that I think that maybe just maybe we could be something more but every time, wannabe frat boy Luke screws it up and flirts with a girl in front of me or talks about a girl in front of me. I mean it’s not his fault- he has no idea. I was listening to some music before the door swung open and in came Luke “kit, you wanna take a shower first or should I? Or we could save water and shower together” Luke shot me a wink while wiggling his eyebrows. Kit is a nickname the three boys gave me when we were 5 because I loved cats and anytime I saw one whether it be a picture or in person I would shout kit as loud as I could. I may act like I hate it but I love it, I think of it as some form of love. “shut up Luke, you shower first get away from me.” I say while giggling and hoping my face doesn’t betray my words by getting red and hot from the blush I so desperately am trying to hide. “Whatever you say kit” he says as he comes closer to me to give me a hug. The second we hug our song starts to play. So she said, "What's the problem, baby?" What's the problem? I don't know Well, maybe I'm in love (love) Think about it every time I think about it Can't stop thinking 'bout it

The second the song starts to play Luke starts twirling me around, spinning me in his arms. Little does he know this song is literally describing my life. Ugh how I hate Luke hughes for making me feel this way. ~time skip to later that night when jacks party is in full swing~

so far jack has made me take 3 shots of some nasty tequila he’s only drinking to look cool in front of girls and other guys. I’ve had 2 seltzer’s also so far so I’m starting to feel tipsy, keep in mind I’m not much of a drinker I prefer to smoke if I’m being honest. I haven’t seen much of Luke for the past hour, which if I wasn’t tipsy I would probably be freaking out but right now I’m having a good time. Until I look over to the backyard and see some girl with her chest pressed against Luke and his arm around luke… my Luke. I could A.) go outside and cause a scene or B.) just go find some guy to flirt with. Both options aren’t great because the first one I would definitely embarrass myself and have Luke be mad at me and the second, well I’m not the best at talking to guys. Now I’m no Virgin Mary but definitely not experienced enough to be confident in talking to or hooking up with a guy. Except for one guy, Trevor. Trevor has flirted with me since the day I met him. I always flirted back to the best of my ability but in reality he knows how I feel about Luke and I know that he will never compare to Luke, but what’s the harm in trying to make Luke jealous? “heyy trev” I say while going into his side forcing his arm to go around me. “What’s up kit? You having fun? Sure sounds like it” he says with a low laugh. “I am but I need your help with something” “Anything for you kit” as those words leave his lips I feel heat rush to my face. Must be the alcohol. “Can you help me try and make Luke jealous, he’s talking to a girl outside right now and I can’t stand to watch it” I say as I can feel tears brimming my eyes. “Of course I can, you know I love to get on all of the hughes’ nerves.” He definitely has a point there. Trevor and I take two more shots for “good luck” as we go outside. I see the girl talking to Luke and she’s beautiful, beautiful like she just stepped out of vouge. My body starts to feel hot with jealousy, I turn to Trevor and he’s sitting down in an Adirondack chair by the fire so I take a seat on his lap, facing him. Trevor’s hands rest on my hips, again I can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or not but Trevor is looking really good right now. Until I hear the sound of accidentally in love playing from the speakers and hear Luke come up to Trevor “Hey have you seen y/n our songs on” I turn around and all of a sudden Luke’s body tenses, fists clenched and eyes flash an emotion I’ve only seen a few times, something like anger or jealousy even, there’s no way he’s jelaous I thought.

“Oh hey Lu” I say innocently while in the background all that can be heard is

“Well, baby, I surrender To the strawberry ice cream Never ever end of all this love Well, I didn't mean to do it But there's no escaping your love, oh”

Luke grabs my arm and leads me up the stairs to our room. “What the hell do you think your doing y/n” Luke says, face red with anger. “Luke what is your problem” now I’m getting angry. Why is it okay for him to be all over other girls but I’m with one guy WHO WE KNOW and it’s a problem? “Why were you all up on Trevor’s lap like some kind of —“ he stops himself. “Some kind of what Luke? Tell me” He shoots me a look as if I am the one who just implied he was a slut. I go to try and walk out of the door when Lukes arm reaches out and grabs me. “why were you sitting on his lap you only ever sit on mine” Luke says looking defeated. Why am I starting to feel bad? “I just was talking to him and that’s how we were sitting, I don’t know Lu” “we’re you going to hook up with him?” The question lingers in the air. Was I? I mean Trevor’s hot and all but I only really have eyes for Luke but like I said Luke is never gonna happen he doesn’t even have feelings for me. “I don’t know, I mean if something happened I wasn’t gonna stop it.” Luke just dead stares at me. “You can’t hook up with Trevor, you just can’t.” “I can hook up with whoever I want to Luke”

He takes a step closer to me so now we’re only an inch apart. My body feels like it’s on fire, looking up at him with the soft glow of the moon outside he looks like an angel. Ugh What am I saying I’m supposed to be pissed at him right now. “Luke I” Within a second Luke’s lips are on mine. For a moment everything seems right, our lips fit perfectly together like a missing puzzle piece to the old puzzle you’ve had for years and you’re only missing that one piece, when finally you find it in the most blatant of spots. We pull apart and when I open my eyes Luke is smiling at me. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long kit.” He says as this thumbs are rubbing across my cheeks. “Lu can I tell you something?” “Anything.” “I think I accidentally fell in love with you a long time ago.” I say and Luke’s smile gets even bigger if that was even possible. “I think I accidentally fell in love with you a long time ago too.”

“I'm in love, I'm in love I'm in love, I'm in love I'm in love, I'm in love Accidentally

Come on, come on Spin a little tighter Come on, come on And the world's a little brighter Come on, come on Just get yourself inside her love I'm in love”

[louisdulacblog]

One thing that fandom misses is that the antiblackness and racism Louis faces is also a reason why Louis hesitates to take to vampirism naturally. Because at its core vampirism is about the taking of life to sustain your own. Not taking into account the pain and grief you cause just so you can thrive and live a comfortable life. Taking life with no hesitancy because you feel you are owed a life to survive.

Just like white people during slavery and the Jim Crow era. Who took lives of human beings to live a better life. Beat them, killed them, raped them. Played with them. Vampirism is about dehumanising humans. Louis knows how it feels to be dehumanised by those who have more power over you so they justify their actions.

Of course he'd be hesitant to do what was done to him. Its not just about his catholic guilt, saying so would just be so one dimensional to Louis' character.

It's about the guilt of being not on the receiving end of what he suffered. To be the one dehumanising people whether it's a black person or a white person. He knows families whose son or daughter were taken away from them for fickle reasons.

I don't think non-poc colour can understand the guilt you feel to treat others like how someone prejudice treats you. Even if it's someone in the same position as you or not. The guilt alone eats at you.

So it makes sense he struggled with it. Because he had to deal with racism from the day he was born until present day in Dubai. No matter how rich he was. No matter how powerful. Unlike catholic guilt which could be set aside and reasoned that some of the rules are outdated in terms of queerness and the judgement of God. Racism was a constant reminder. It could not be set aside. It could never be left alone. It was a constant wound of Louis knowing even if he was stronger than the racist he killed, even in their death they saw him as nothing.

It also feeds the Catholic Self-hatred he because God deems black people not good enough to save. Those are thoughts that a black person has, not all but enough to take note.

And that's why I think Lestat and the fandom really do not understand Louis as ALL. Because they treat the racism Louis faces and its challenges it brings to his life as if it's an inconvenience and not as if it didn't and doesn't completely shape him as a person.

It's like they missed the monologue of Louis killing the important council man as Lestat says near his business. That black man had another organ that no other man had that made to survive the constant emotional, psychological strain of living in that era.

It's the same organ that keeps him from inflicting similar hurt to others and keeps him from enjoying to kill.

Then again you could argue that Claudia was not the same. She's also black so why didn't she actually like Louis?

Simple answer: not all black people are the same.

There are different ways black people face Racism and oppression. Different emotions take reign. Claudia was the kind of person who would take power in her hands and concentrate on keeping it so that she never ever have to face not having it again. No matter how many people get hurt. Because that is how the world treated her so why could not have the courtesy of giving back what she was given.

[fatehbaz]

"defending civilization against bugs"

lol the mosquito sculpture

see Pratik Chakrabarti's Medicine and Empire: 1600-1960 (2013) and Bacteriology in British India: Laboratory Medicine and the Tropics (2012)

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Sir Ronald Ross had just returned from an expedition to Sierra Leone. The British doctor had been leading efforts to tackle the malaria that so often killed English colonists in the country, and in December 1899 he gave a lecture to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce [...]. [H]e argued that "in the coming century, the success of imperialism will depend largely upon success with the microscope."

Text by: Rohan Deb Roy. "Decolonise science - time to end another imperial era." The Conversation. 5 April 2018.

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[A]s [...] Diane Nelson explains: The creation of transportation infrastructure such as canals and railroads, the deployment of armies, and the clearing of ground to plant tropical products all had to confront [...] microbial resistance. The French, British, and US raced to find a cure for malaria [...]. One French colonial official complained in 1908: “fever and dysentery are the ‘generals’ that defend hot countries against our incursions and prevent us from replacing the aborigines that we have to make use of.” [...] [T]ropical medicine was assigned the role of a “counterinsurgent field.” [...] [T]he discovery of mosquitoes as malaria and yellow fever carriers reawakened long-cherished plans such as the construction of the Panama Canal (1904-1914) [...]. In 1916, the director of the US Bureau of Entomology and longtime general secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science rejoiced at this success as “an object lesson for the sanitarians of the world” - it demonstrated “that it is possible for the white race to live healthfully in the tropics.” [...] The [...] measures to combat dangerous diseases always had the collateral benefit of social pacification. In 1918, [G.V.], president of the Rockefeller Foundation, candidly declared: “For purposes of placating primitive and suspicious peoples, medicine has some decided advantages over machine guns." The construction of the Panama Canal [...] advanced the military expansion of the United States in the Caribbean. The US occupation of the Canal Zone had already brought racist Jim Crow laws [to Panama] [...]. Besides the [...] expansion of vice squads and prophylaxis stations, during the night women were picked up all over the city [by US authorities] and forcibly tested for [...] diseases [...] [and] they were detained in something between a prison and hospital for up to six months [...] [as] women in Panama were becoming objects of surveillance [...].

Text by: Fahim Amir. "Cloudy Swords." e-flux Journal Issue #115. February 2021.

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Richard P. Strong [had been] recently appointed director of Harvard’s new Department of Tropical Medicine [...]. In 1914 [the same year of the Canal's completion], just one year after the creation of Harvard’s Department of Tropical Medicine, Strong took on an additional assignment that cemented the ties between his department and American business interests abroad. As newly appointed director of the Laboratories of the Hospitals and of Research Work of United Fruit Company, he set sail in July 1914 to United Fruit plantations in Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. […] As a shareholder in two British rubber plantations, [...] Strong approached Harvey Firestone, chief executive of the tire and rubber-processing conglomerate that bore his name, in December 1925 with a proposal [...]. Firestone had negotiated tentative agreements in 1925 with the Liberian government for [...] a 99-year concession to optionally lease up to a million acres of Liberian land for rubber plantations. [...]

[I]nfluenced by the recommendations and financial backing of Harvard alumni such as Philippine governor Gen. William Cameron Forbes [the Philippines were under US military occupation] and patrons such as Edward Atkins, who were making their wealth in the banana and sugarcane industries, Harvard hired Strong, then head of the Philippine Bureau of Science’s Biological Laboratory [where he fatally infected unknowing test subject prisoners with bubonic plague], and personal physician to Forbes, to establish the second Department of Tropical Medicine in the United States [...]. Strong and Forbes both left Manila [Philippines] for Boston in 1913. [...] Forbes [US military governor of occupied Philippines] became an overseer to Harvard University and a director of United Fruit Company, the agricultural products marketing conglomerate best known for its extensive holdings of banana plantations throughout Central America. […] In 1912 United Fruit controlled over 300,000 acres of land in the tropics [...] and a ready supply of [...] samples taken from the company’s hospitals and surrounding plantations, Strong boasted that no “tropical school of medicine in the world … had such an asset. [...] It is something of a victory [...]. We could not for a million dollars procure such advantages.” Over the next two decades, he established a research funding model reliant on the medical and biological services the Harvard department could provide US-based multinational firms in enhancing their overseas production and trade in coffee, bananas, rubber, oil, and other tropical commodities [...] as they transformed landscapes across the globe.

Text by: Gregg Mitman. "Forgotten Paths of Empire: Ecology, Disease, and Commerce in the Making of Liberia's Plantation Economy." Environmental History, Volume 22, Number 1. January 2017. [Text within brackets added by me for clarity and context.]

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[On] February 20, 1915, [...] [t]o signal the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), [...] [t]he fair did not officially commence [...] until President Wilson [...] pressed a golden key linked to an aerial tower [...] whose radio waves sparked the top of the Tower of Jewels, tripped a galvanometer, [...] swinging open the doors of the Palace of Machinery, where a massive diesel engine started to rotate. [...] [W]ith lavish festivities [...] nineteen million people has passed through the PPIE's turnstiles. [...] As one of the many promotional pamphlets declared, "California marks the limit of the geographical progress of civilization. For unnumbered centuries the course of empire has been steadily to the west." [...] One subject that received an enormous amount of time and space was [...] the areas of race betterment and tropical medicine. Indeed, the fair's official poster, the "Thirteenth Labor of Hercules," [the construction of the Panama Canal] symbolized the intertwined significance of these two concerns [...]. [I]n the 1910s public health and eugenics crusaders alike moved with little or no friction between [...] [calls] for classification of human intelligence, for immigration restriction, for the promotion of the sterilization and segregation of the "unfit," [...]. It was during this [...] moment, [...] that California's burgeoning eugenicist movement coalesced [...]. At meetings convened during the PPIE, a heterogenous group of sanitary experts, [...] medical superintendents, psychologists, [...] and anthropologists established a social network that would influence eugenics on the national level in the years to come. [...]

In his address titled "The Physician as Pioneer," the president-elect of the American Academy of Medicine, Dr. Woods Hutchinson, credited the colonization of the Mississippi Valley to the discovery of quinine [...] and then told his audience that for progress to proceed apace in the current "age of the insect," the stringent sanitary regime imposed and perfected by Gorgas in the Canal Zone was the sine qua non. [...]

Blue also took part in the conference of the American Society for Tropical Medicine, which Gorgas had cofounded five years after the annexation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Invoking the narrative of medico-military conquest [...], [t]he scientific skill of the United States was also touted at the Pan-American Medical Congress, where its president, Dr. Charles L. Reed, delivered a lengthy address praising the hemispheric security ensured by the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and "the combined genius of American medical scientists [...]" in quelling tropical diseases, above all yellow fever, in the Canal Zone. [...] [A]s Reed's lecture ultimately disclosed, his understanding of Pan-American medical progress was based [...] on the enlightened effects of "Aryan blood" in American lands. [...] [T]he week after the PPIE ended, Pierce was ordered to Laredo, Texas, to investigate several incidents of typhus fever on the border [...]. Pierce was instrumental in fusing tropical medicine and race betterment [...] guided by more than a decade of experience in [...] sanitation in Panama [...]. [I]n August 1915, Stanford's chancellor, David Starr Jordan [...] and Pierce were the guests of honor at a luncheon hosted by the Race Betterment Foundation. [...] [At the PPIE] [t]he Race Betterment booth [...] exhibit [...] won a bronze medal for "illustrating evidences and causes of race degeneration and methods and agencies of race betterment," [and] made eugenics a daily feature of the PPIE. [...] [T]he American Genetics Association's Eugenics Section convened [...] [and] talks were delivered on the intersection of eugenics and sociology, [...] the need for broadened sterilization laws, and the medical inspection of immigrants [...]. Moreover, the PPIE fostered the cross-fertilization of tropical medicine and race betterment at a critical moment of transition in modern medicine in American society.

Text by: Alexandra Minna Stern. Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America. Second Edition. 2016.

[ca-suffit]

A lot of this fandom draws Louis like a Jim Crow Era caricature and it makes me wonder if this is how they see Louis when he’s on screen. His features are always too dark, he’s always too hard faced and ends up looking like Random Black Jazz Guy #47. It’s very concerning and disrespectful to Jacob and his beautiful face and these people don’t get called out enough. And then on the flip of a damn Armand is drawn too light. What are your thoughts on that?

idk where to start on this tbh bcuz it's such a huge topic. ur right that it's an issue and it continues to be an issue bcuz ppl don't want anyone to talk about race or racism in this fandom. ppl are always quick to defend usually white artists for "learning," even if some of them have been here for *years* and still haven't fixed much of shit. just like with anything, if we could open and honestly have these convos, the issues would be fixed p instantly. we intentionally don't, so they continue on and everyone says it's the ppl bringing up the issues who are "mean" and "bullies." racism 101 handbook type stuff.

artists need to have awareness of racial stereotypes and how to draw different skin tones, hair textures, whatever. get used to feedback on it too, even if it's "nasty." if u keep hearing the same comments then reflect on why, don't blame other ppl. every fandom always has a racism issue with graphics and art bcuz every fandom stifles these convos. the same issues are underneath all of them and it's not that hard to uncover what they are and learn how to fix ur shit.

it also helps if ur new to the fandom to understand who runs with white fandom and which artists they promote, bcuz it's never anyone worth supporting. even the ppl who might get coloring right but stay silent on fandom racism issues otherwise aren't worth supporting (that's rly every popular iwtv artist tbh). it would also help if this fandom ever supported any damn artists of color in the first place!!! when has that happened yet?!?!?!

[peoplevsbirds]

personally, as someone whose undergrad polysci thesis was on the definition of antisemitism and antizionism, i don’t really care at all about how Israeli and zionist jews define Zionism (especially if they support the two state solution or if they don’t support Palestine ever becoming a state in any capacity).

I don’t even care if they’re a zionist and they protest the current government.

because at the end of the day, whatever cushy, liberalized definition of the word they settle on (it’s usually the one that makes them feel the least guilty of their complicity in upholding apartheid. i.e. “Zionism is just jewish self determination!”), it does nothing to change the fact that Palestinians have been living under an israeli subjugated apartheid since well before october 7.

you are splitting hairs over how your colonial (under read more), ethnostate is actually jewish liberation, meanwhile Israel has murdered 45k+, (although it is likely closer to 100k deaths as of October 2024), injured 80,000+, and displaced 1.9 million palestinians ONLY IN THIS MOST RECENT CONFLICT.

the only way a two state solution could ever work would be if Israel retracted all of their control in Palestinians territories and stopped encroaching on Palestinian land in the future, but given Israel’s track record, I would not count on that lasting.

Israel is a genocidal ethnostate, whose founding reaped the deaths of at least 15,000 and the displacement of 750,000 palestinians in 1948. Much like the United States, which was founded on the bloody legacy of Slavery and Jim Crow, there cannot be justice for the Palestinian people until the Zionist entity of Israel is dissolved.

I don’t give a damn how a single Zionist wants to define the word when there are 75+ years of solid facts and history that tell us exactly what Zionism is

additional sources under read more

[mariacallous]

The advice I used to impart to young correspondents arriving at the BBC’s bureau in Washington was to remember that the United States had fought a civil war in the mid-19th century and was still arguing over the terms of a fractious peace.

Much like the modern-day phrase “sorry but not sorry,” which is used sarcastically to indicate a lack of remorse, the brief ceremony at Virginia’s Appomattox Court House in April 1865, which brought the armed fighting to an end, was a surrender but not a surrender. White supremacists in the states of the old Confederacy wanted still to reign supreme. Little over a decade later, following the collapse of Reconstruction—an attempt to make good for African Americans the promise of emancipation—enslavement was replaced by segregation. Across the American South, Jim Crow was in the chair.

Now, though, I would amend my advice. I would urge young reporters to reach back even further into history. The roots of modern-day polarization, and even the origins of former President Donald Trump, can be located in the country’s troubled birth. Division has always been the default setting. Victory over the British Redcoats at the Battle of Yorktown paved the way for independence but did not mean U.S. nationhood was a given.

Between the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 and the start of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787, it seemed as if the states might enter into two or three confederations rather than a singular nation as the former British colonies struggled to overcome their antagonisms. “No morn ever dawned more favourable than ours did,” a melancholic George Washington wrote to James Madison in November 1786, “and no day was ever more clouded than the present!”

The Constitution that Washington pushed for, and which was eventually hammered out in Philadelphia, was in many ways an agreement to keep on disagreeing. Compromises that prolonged and protected the institution of slavery—a Faustian bargain that became the price of national unity—created a fault line that was always likely to rupture and explode. It rumbles to this day. Even a Black presidency could not repair the breach.

So many contemporary problems can be traced back to those founding days. U.S. democracy has become so diseased because for most of the country’s history, it has not been that healthy. “We the People,” the rousing words that opened the preamble to the Constitution, was not conceived of as an inclusive statement or catchall for mass democracy. Rather, this ill-defined term referred to what in modern terminology might be called the body politic. Much of the deliberations in Philadelphia focused on how that body politic should be restrained in an intricately designed straitjacket, hence the creation of countermajoritarian mechanisms such as the Electoral College and Senate.

To describe the outcome as an experiment in “democracy” is misleading: The Founding Fathers did not care for the word, which is nowhere to be found either in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. When the country’s second president, John Adams, used the term “democratical,” it was intended as a slur. The fear of what some of the founders called an “excess of democracy” explains the thinking behind a quote from Adams that has resurfaced during the Trump years: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams’s fear was not of unchecked presidential power, the meaning projected onto the quote in relation to Trump. More worrying for him was unchecked people power.

The right to vote was never specifically enshrined in the Constitution, an omission that continues to astound many Americans. To this day, there is no positive affirmation of the right to vote. It is framed negatively—it should not be denied, rather than it should be granted. With good reason, voting is often called the missing right.

Not until the mid-1960s, with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, did the United States finally achieve what could truly be described as universal suffrage. In the South, Black people could finally cast ballots without being subjected to humiliating “literacy tests,” where they would be asked unanswerable questions such as how to interpret arcane clauses of state constitutions.

No sooner had this landmark legislation become law, however, than efforts to reverse it cranked into gear. So began what has turned out to be a decades-long campaign of de-democratization. It was spearheaded by the Republican Party, which needed to restrict minority voting rights because the demographic trend lines, and the transition toward a minority-majority nation, were thought to favor the Democrats.

These efforts were aided to a disconcerting degree by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, with rulings that drastically weakened the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. For example, in 2013, Shelby County v. Holder gutted the act’s all-important Section 5, which forced jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to “preclear” with the Justice Department any proposed voting changes. In a 5-4 judgment, the conservative justices decided that preclearance was now obsolete because voter registration had shown such dramatic improvements. Yet as the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out in an unusually strong dissenting opinion, ending preclearance was akin to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

The insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, then, should not be seen in isolation. It was the culmination of a prolonged assault on democracy that predated the rise of Trump. The attack continued, moreover, after the insurrectionists had been dispersed and the floors of Congress scrubbed clean of excrement. That night, 147 Republicans returned to the chambers to cast votes to challenge or overturn Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Political violence is a core part of the U.S. story, although much of this history has often been buried and concealed. At the end of the 1960s, a commission appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate why the United States was so prone to political assassination concluded that the country suffered from “a kind of historical amnesia or selective recollection that masks unpleasant traumas of the past.” It also noted that “the revolutionary doctrine that our Declaration of Independence proudly proclaims is mistakenly cited as a model for legitimate violence.”

Indeed, the Jan. 6 insurrection showed how political violence is still seen as legitimate and even rendered glorious. Many of the insurrectionists chanted “1776” as they stormed the Capitol. “We’re walking down the same exact path as the Founding Fathers,” claimed Stewart Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper with a Yale University law degree. (Rhodes helped establish the Oath Keepers, a militia group launched on April 19, 2009, the anniversary of when rebels and Redcoats first exchanged fire.) The day before the insurrection, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene described it as “our 1776 moment.”

Many far-right extremists are inspired by words from Thomas Jefferson that, unlike the poetry of his Declaration of Independence, never made it into high school textbooks or onto the teleprompters of modern-day presidents. “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” Jefferson wrote in 1787, a quote that has now become a far-right meme. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots” is another of Jefferson’s sayings that has been co-opted by modern-day militias.

Often I recall the day of Biden’s inauguration, which took place on a platform that only two weeks earlier had been used as a staging post for the insurrection. It was festooned with red, white, and blue bunting, but it still felt like a crime scene that should have been sequestered with yellow tape. As I made my way to my camera position on the press stand, I noticed that technicians were testing the giant teleprompter in front of the presidential podium. And I recognized the words on the screen: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

The teleprompter had been loaded with the 272 words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in November 1863. Maybe it was some kind of sick joke. A rogue technician, perhaps, with a dark sense of humor. But these passages from the country’s most celebrated sermon could hardly be described as out of place. The question at the heart of the speech, and which had also been posed at the country’s founding, was being asked anew: Can this nation long endure?

My sense—my ardent hope—is that the conditions do not yet exist for all-out armed conflict, a second civil war, partly because the United States has accumulated so much muscle memory in coping with its perpetual state of division. But nor do the conditions exist for reconciliation and rapprochement. Nowhere near. So the United States occupies a strange betwixt and between: close to abyss, but a step or two back from the edge. Going to hell, as the wit Andy Rooney once observed, without ever getting there.

The U.S. historian Richard Hofstadter, famed for identifying what he called the “paranoid style in American politics,” put it well: “The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.” The fact that Hofstadter published those words at the start of the 1970s speaks to how the United States remains stuck in a rut—revisiting the same arguments, going over the same ground. Americans remain tethered to their contested past. The news cycle is the historical cycle in microcosm. As Lincoln put it in his message to Congress in December 1862: “We cannot escape history.”

So even if the United States does not descend into civil war, it is hard to envision it ever reaching a state of civil peace. The forever war will continue: America’s unending conflict with itself.