#Racism in Professions

[neechees]

You already know who I'm complaining about but the white dude from tiktok has been blocking any Natives trying to educate him, and I notice he NEVER interacts with any ndns correcting him on misinformation he says about us, no liked comment, no reply, nothing

[sentientsky]

fuck chris chibnall bc how did the doctor go from communist peepaw to “cops are okay actually” in one regeneration????

[larnax]

oh yea i never did post that therion/temenos analysis bc it refused to get under 2k words but the crux of it was that therion is a very passive character to the point that not killing people is about the only choice he personally makes(even in their final argument, darius is the one who starts it and therion is just defending himself for the majority of it), otherwise he's always following someone else's orders, whether it be heathcote or barham and he fucking hates his job. temenos on the other hand is an intj empath with a savior complex who is extremely active, refuses to listen to anyone he doesn't respect which is all but one person who dies before the first chapter is over, and his job is his life's calling.

[naamahdarling]

A person's informed consent doesn't matter if the very concept of consent doesn't apply to that person to begin with.

I found out one of the excuses they use for only doing clinical trials on cis men is that experimental drugs ‘may do harm to a woman’s reproductive tract’. As if there aren’t teratogens that affect sperm. As if that’s a valid reason to never test the efficacy of a substance on AFAB individuals. They really do see us as just a womb and nothing else and see that womb as inherently unknowable and unpredictable.

[missmickiescorner]

Not Free, Not For All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow

Not Free, Not For All, was a book I elected to read as an aspiring information professional who just happens to be a Black woman. I knew that I needed a reality check and I wanted to challenge myself.

Speaking personally now, I’ve gone the entirety of my life knowing to some extent about the history of segregation, slavery, and racism; I also knew that I, as a Black person, was at one point now allowed in certain places. As you might be able to imagine, once it clicked in my head that the library was also a place that would have denied my entry because I was Black was a devastating blow. In fact it was almost enough to make me give up the dream of working in the library profession all together, because it almost felt like I had been lied to about this place I loved so much.

Going back to the book, I recommend it as essential reading for all aspiring information professionals because it helps to redefine what an individual’s understanding of “access” is within the context of racism. Beginning with the dissection of the given history of the library, the author quickly goes into the history that is more hidden from view, laying the foundation for the argument that “free access” was never about open shelf policies, but rather the historical policy and practice of allowing open access to some patrons and actively and explicitly restricting the access of others.

In reviewing this text, I realize that there is far too much material for me to analyze here, but I would be remiss if I didn’t run down a short list of topics she covered, which includes:

Policies that forced Black communities to create their own libraries with very little funding.

Policies that kept Black readers out of libraries and Black professionals out of positions of power within libraries.

Policies that turned intellectual freedom into a white privilege.

Contradicting uses for the library, which meant intellectual spaces cultivated by white women and social welfare and educational spaces created by Black women.

How white women feminized the library space and profession (this is more linked to low literacy rates in Black men as opposed to librarianship)

Censorship of culturally relevant materials to Black patrons by white library professionals.

In summary, this book truly attempts to tackle the issue of how white supremacy and racist policies played a role in the development of libraries and is essential to understanding how the library has the power to either transform or hinder the communities that they are placed in, because it’s not enough for a library collection to be representative—there is the additional issue of the community who is being represented having access to that representation. (From this book I learned that W.E.B. Du Bois was not allowed to step into a library that had books he had written himself in its collection.)

Quotes to chew on:

“As ‘universities of the people,’ public libraries helped create an African American identity, asserting individual's’ capacity for intellectual labor in an era when the value of a liberal education for blacks remained a topic for debate. Libraries provided access points for black literacy and intellectualism, confirmation that African Americans were reading, reflecting , striving human beings.”

“‘Experience seems to show that [an] adult Negro waits for tangible proofs of the library’s willingness to extend full privileges to him before he takes advantage of it’s service, then he responds to the library service and needs more of it than the library can give….Time is ripe for development of library services for Negroes, but it must not be patronizing or partially informed.’”

“Public libraries designated for the exclusive use of African Americans clearly participated in the construction of blackness. Less obviously, public libraries in general helped define whiteness. On one hand was the public library, with it unannounced restriction on access; on the other was the Negro library, with it’s label of difference sometimes carved into its facade.”

“The U.S. public library was one of many institutions upholding the systemic racism that enabled white supremacy...it is fantasy to believe that the public library was one of the few institutions not implicated in a system of racism or that separated public libraries for African Americans were just an unfortunate exception to the public library’s true democratic nature.”

“More significantly, literary societies gave African Americans an opportunity to position themselves as participants in rather than victims of a democratic experiment whose founding documents revered liberty but whose national economy increasingly depended on slavery.”

“Unlike the white General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Nation Association of Colored Women did not declare the creation of public libraries a priority. Instead, clubs wove a commitment to books and reading into their social welfare programs and services. Most black clubwomen pursued self-improvement through reading and writing as well as community improvement in a variety of charitable events.”

“The racially restrictive admission policies of southern public libraries ensured that the new public spaces would not challenge white women’s sense of superiority and entitlement nor the white man's sense that white women needed protecting from a threat manufactured by white men themselves.”

“...he did not give away manhood so much as redefine it. Black manhood meant accepting a hard lot in life and making the best of it. In compensation, whites were to recognize what such men had given up and accept the conciliation it represented. Black men’s power lay in their capacity for work, not in their ability to organize and agitate.”

“For the most part, the new southern public libraries were free to all whites. Inequitable access did not disappear with the transformation of libraries from private to public; it merely shifted from an economics basis to a racial one. Inability to pay membership and use fees no longer precluded access to library collections and service. Race did instead.”

“Elizabeth McHenry’s interpretation of the benefits that accrued to members of black literary societies applies equally well to the users of black libraries. ‘The growing number of educated black men and women considered reading and other literary work as essentially to the project of refashioning the personal identity and reconstructing the public image of African Americans...although black women’s clubs were not exclusively literary in nature…a primary impact of the black women’s club movement was the increased production, circulation, and readership of printed texts.’”

“The library was organized around the needs and desires of individual readers. Once the librarian issued them borrowing cards...readers followed their own literary tastes, reading paces, and borrowing patterns. In contrast, literary societies were organized around regular meetings, often opened to non-members as well as members, which featured the public presentation of a paper written before the meeting and discussed during the session and even afterwards. Reading, writing, thinking, and talking were social activities with the potential for political outcomes.”

“A person ventured into the literary society meeting in search of spoken words but traveled to the library in search of printed words. The result at both venues could be a meeting of the minds, but at the library, that meeting was silent and invisible, occurring solely between reader and author.”

“Henry Gaill of New Orleans indicated that his library could not afford to send staff to a library school and their low salaries meant that they would not be able to afford such training themselves. Some respondents said that black librarians and assistant librarians had received training in the main library, apparently alongside whites, who were receiving apprenticeship-style practical instruction instead of attending library school.”

“Several of the librarians asserted that a library school for African Americans was need...If one of the functions of professional education was to socialize students into the customs and practices of the profession, then a southern library school for blacks would need to manage the expectations of students who, as public librarians, could expect to work part time at low pay with little support for collection building or outreach.”

“For the most part, African American library buildings were small, with inadequate collections and funding. Nevertheless, they were significant, both as physical places in the urban landscape and as symbolic spaces in the lives of local black communities.”

“The New South included racial segregation and gender-specific roles designed to create appropriate places for black men, black women, white women, and to keep those places separate from and subordinate to the place of white men.”

“The injection of Carnegie funds and the requisite annual city appropriation for maintenance might have fed into the black economy, providing design and construction projects for African American architects, engineers, contractors, and trades workers. Instead, local black professionals and skilled workers received little or no benefit from these important building projects in their neighborhoods.” 

“Librarians generally seemed to think that they had a responsibility to help children develop the habit of reading, as long as it did not become an obsession, and the duty to lead children from the more sensational and unrealistic to the more refined...they also seemed to understand the need to nurture not only children’s intellectual development but also their emotional life and imagination.”

“African American readers were better served by library staff members who looked like them and who exuded helpfulness rather than hostility. Black librarians would create ‘an atmosphere where welcome and freedom are the predominant elements,’ Harris suggested, implying that white librarians were creating quite a different atmosphere when African Americans entered the building.” 

“The library’s annual report for 1953 noted that, with one exception, all of the African American borrowers returned their books on time. Perhaps the librarian included this information because some white staff members had assumed that black readers would be irresponsible.”

“Bullock was exactly what late nineteenth-century opponents of education for African Americans had feared: a black person who was willing to speak out when treated unfairly, willing to demand the rights due to him as a citizen, a taxpayer, and a human being. He also represented what supporters of education and libraries claimed would happened when blacks were given the same opportunities as whites. They would form a class of hardworking, responsible citizens who paid their taxes and a market of consumers who would contribute to overall economic growth.”

References

Knott, C. (2015). Not free, not for all: Public libraries in the age of Jim Crow. University of Massachusetts Press.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Agatha All Along, the highly anticipated follow-up to WandaVision, begins airing this week on Disney+. Now is the perfect to revisit some important information about both shows and the context in which some of Agatha's new characters are being introduced.

WandaVision primarily followed the character Wanda Maximoff and expanded on her family history by introducing her late parents as well her twin sons, who are born from magic and age rapidly over the course of the series.

In the Marvel comics source material, Wanda is part of a large, multigenerational family of Jewish and Romani characters whose stories frequently reflect the systemic violence and oppression that both communities face-- including Romani Holocaust victims, who are critically underrepresented in both education and media. In the MCU, these identities and histories are completely erased, and the characters are all played by white actors. Alternate versions of these characters also appear in the Fox X-Men films, and are similarly whitewashed.

The Romani people are a racialized minority that originated as a South Asian diaspora, and who face severe systemic oppression in Europe and North America. The modern Romani population is quite diverse, but they are not of white ethnic origin, and despite the fact that Wanda and her family have historically been drawn with white features, they are minority characters and ought to be considered as such.

Depictions of witches and witchcraft are often entwined with antisemitism and anti-Romani racism. In pop culture, witches and fortunetellers are typically portrayed as visual stereotypes of Romani women. In the real world, fortunetelling is a profession born from survival work, one which Romani families are often heavily policed and racially profiled for practicing. While Wanda usually subverts these tropes, they are often played straight elsewhere in the superhero genre, and any story about witches, especially one featuring Romani characters, needs to be critiqued in this context.

Agatha All Along introduces viewers to a new cast of characters, including Lilia Calderu, played by Patti LuPone, and the enigmatic "Teen", played by Joe Locke, who is heavily speculated to be an incarnation of Wanda's son, Billy.

In the comics, Lilia is a member of a prominent Romani family in Wanda's community. Often lauded as the "witch queen of the gypsies," Lilia embodies many racial stereotypes about Romani women. In Agatha All Along, Lilia is depicted as an older Sicilian woman, however, being portrayed as a batty fortuneteller with a tawdry psychic shop, she still embodies an offensive trope. Although Lilia is far from "good" representation, this is not an improvement-- if anything, it's even more exploitative.

Billy was raised in a Jewish American household and places a very strong emphasis on his Jewish identity, in addition to having Romani heritage. His identity as a young gay man is always presented in conjunction with this heritage, not in spite of it. Though there is a significance to Locke being a gay actor playing a gay character, his casting-- if he is indeed playing Billy-- is not authentic. White gay representation should not supersede racial inclusivity, and it is not an excuse for whitewashing or Jewish erasure.

Marvel Studios recently announced that the character Doctor Doom will be played by Robert Downey Jr., who is returning to the franchise after many years in the role of Iron Man. In the source material, Doom is also a Romani character with a very similar background to Wanda's. This identity is central to Doom's character-- although he is written to be both morally and politically challenging, the liberation of his people has always been a primary motive.

Clearly, this type of whitewashing is an ongoing pattern in the MCU franchise. Although "Teen's" identity is still unconfirmed and Lilia may, ultimately, be of little consequence, they are part of a larger problem, and Agatha All Along needs to critiqued in that context.

[frillsand]

hey what racism or speciesm do puppets face. And does wally still get harrased for being a puppet

Second question first

Very rarely do they have bad experiences, Wally coordinates their activities to avoid unwanted interactions. There are still people who disregard puppets no matter the circumstances, so harassment is expected sometimes.

He forgets he has no power out of the studio. Wow some people are something. Luck for Wally, his friends seem to think it’s not anything against them being puppets.

So types of intolerance puppets receive would be almost passive aggressive than anything

They get paid noticeably less than human men and women. Puppets are encouraged to stay in small entertainment, and are pushed from other professions. Though there’s been a good number of puppets who managed to get good paying jobs, but not all. Any police reports made by them are not taken seriously and usually get thrown out. Some establishments take advantage of this to change their rules and prices.

Don’t get me wrong, the majority shows at least human decency and means no ill will.

Should note racism against poc still exists as it is now and laws for puppet equality have not been established yet. Progress is happening, just can’t see it often.

[iww-gnv]

As Fashion Week in New York kicks off on Feb. 9, a growing chorus of hybrid model-actors are drawing attention to the woeful working conditions that models face and are calling for meaningful change. Variety spoke with eight people who have straddled both professions and who argue that the modeling world suffers from a lack of guardrails. Their grievances range from sexual misconduct to racism to an inability for models to own the rights to their own image. All are backing New York’s Fashion Workers Act, which would close a legal loophole that allows modeling agencies to act with impunity. Taking a page from last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that shut down the industry before settling in September and November, respectively, these actors-models believe that it’s time for a reckoning within the fashion industry.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #6783:

I used to like an artist, but now she's on Twitter accusing archaeologists of racism because a recent dig found proof her ancestors practiced human sacrifice 1000+ years ago. She insists the dig was faked to make her ethnic group look bad. it's a lost cause to explain everyone's ancestors practiced human sacrifice at some point. I'm trying to separate the art from the artist, but it's damn hard when she's drawing comics shitting on archaeology as a profession and getting dangerously close to anti-intellectualism.

[yannaryartside]

God I just saw a video essay about the Bear and the guy who made it even recognized that the clairexcarmy scenes that seem to try to makes us care about the relationship and all the other Claire scenes where so perpetually shallow, that she is still a manic pixie “bunny girl” in his own words, but he suggested that she may need her own episode so the audience can get “to know her mind”…🤢

Like, I know is difficult to tell what exactly is so wrong about her, but is interesting that even the people that straight up don’t care about a ship that is two seasons in the making don’t get to imagine is because that’s the intention of the show. Is like those characters that you may not trust but may not completely dislike either.

But this guy also seemed to think that Syd didn’t have a right to move forward from the Bear so…

My biggest problem is I also understand the people that say Syd doesn’t do much, and I am pretty sure that’s her arc, to let her take the wheel of her own life next season once and for all.

There is a lot of racism and misogyny involved in this discussion, but even the people that are not stupid like that, seem to not suspect of Claire (in part because is the shows intention to misdirect them) but also because what they have seen from Syd is not enough for them to root for her. The same way some people didn’t root for Richie until “Forks”

God I am rambling. There is a discussion to have about what makes people care about characters because I rooted for Richie since the phone call in the trip to the store.

I refuse to believe that they haven’t make Claire unlikeable on purpose when Richie was the most obnoxious character and was reddened in my eyes whiting two hours of content while Claire was showcased for two seasons already and is still so shallow. If this was a relationship/character to root for they would have managed to make us care. Shippers or not. She is a doctor for Christ sake, one of the most noble professions in this world and she is still impossible to swallow.

And I rooted for Sydney upon seeing her, because I know what is like to be in an industry you don’t seek to be made for. She is genuine and flawed.

I love her to death. But she frustrates me. She is also stuck in an awful narrative that Carmy is the catalyst for. All her insecurities and fears keeping her in place and I know that’s the intention.

All this to say Storer, you better giver Syd her own episode and it has to be better than Forks and Napkins combined.

[kalina-c]

Quite honestly egg discourse is a TERF invention and more people need to recognize this fact

On top of the fact that it's barely removed transmedicalism and assumes violently the importance of preserving cis manhood over transfem existence, there's also the fact that it's regularly deployed by far right and fascist transphobes like Bridget Guilty Gear discourse.

Like quite honestly I've gotten more "egg culture is harmful" mentions from right wingers who are openly anti-feminist and citing TERF rhetoric about biological females and how transition at all is grooming, than I've gotten from hoodwinked gays in my mentions. And while I don't doubt that the latter exist at all, it's extremely telling that the talking point is compatible enough with the kind of right wingers who white knight JKR and get their talking points from Ray Blanchard that it's a regular part of their repertoire.

The interesting thing about this most recent round of egg discourse is that the goalposts seem to have moved from “if you think someone is an egg, don’t ever tell them” to “if you think someone is an egg, you better not”

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I will never understand where the fanon idea that Ed has "anger issues" came from (yeah I know it's the racism just play with me in this space for a moment).

Because before I got into the fandom and started reading fanon takes, one of the things I loved so much about OFMD is how careful the show is to show Ed as someone who explicitly does not get angry very easily. It would've been so easy to paint this brown man in a hyper-violent profession as a hyper-violent person, but by virtue of his hangups around violence, Ed is one of the least violent characters in the show. We're shown early on that violence in this world is normalized and not treated the same as in the real world (we're expected to love Roach, a guy who is bummed about not getting to torture hostages), and we're told Ed enjoys a good maim, but all his violence that we actually see is so performative. He doesn't enjoy it the way other pirates do.

And every time Ed gets angry, we're beaten over the head with how hard you have to push him to make him mad. He will give people so many chances before he gets angry. Like the racist boat captain - he says "what's that supposed to mean" when the captain started being racist and gross, and only got mad once it was clear he was doubling down. In s1e10 he tries to de-escalate after Izzy starts being aggro, and that's after Izzy says he should've let the English kill Ed.

And literally every time Ed does behave violently, not only does it never exceed what is expected in pirate terms (and we're usually told this explicitly, like when Ed mentions cutting toes off as a part of pirate culture he doesn't like the episode before he does that), it is always very calculated and performative. When Ed reacts with violence, it's almost never a passionate thing, it's very cool and thought-through. He is very obviously a man who does not typically react with violence when he's angry.

It just baffles me. Every time I see takes or read fics that talk about Ed's "anger issues," or act like Ed's somehow destined to become abusive towards Stede, it's like...did we watch the same show?

[pjotvshownews]

For Leah, she should not have to deal with that. She should be allowed to practice her profession and her art, and to be recognized as a talented actor who got a part because she merited getting the part, without dealing with this speculation of it was only this or it was only that — “It was a quota, It was wokeness,” whatever, blah, blah, blah. That didn’t sit well with me. I am first and foremost always a teacher, and that was a teachable moment. That was a moment that I needed to say, “OK, hold on. Let’s examine this, and let’s examine what you’re saying and why you’re saying it.” Racism, I believe, is not something we have or don’t have. That’s the wrong conversation. I think we’re all prone to that. I mean, to believe anything else is to ignore the entirety of human civilization. Racism, colorism, it’s always been with us. So it’s not helpful for us to say, “Oh, I’m not racist.” Of course we are. What the question really is, is do we recognize it? And do we work on it? Or do we deny it? Those are the choices. That’s the conversation I was trying to frame —this is clearly not a valid thing to attack a young girl who worked very hard, and was cast out of hundreds of other young actresses that we looked at, because she was so good at embodying the soul, the personality of that character. She shouldn’t have to deal with that. And I want her to know that I stand behind her 100 percent. The entire team of the Percy Jackson series stands behind her unconditionally.

Rick Riordan for The Hollywood Reporter

[chaoswillcalmusdown]

also. the amount of usually reasonable teachers i see hopping onto the 'but women shouldn't have to worry about getting assaulted in changing rooms' rhetoric bc the right to change your legAL gender might get lowered from 18 to 16. is just. what the fuck. can anyone read?

the transphobia wave that sweeps swedish liberals every now and then is truly so. wild. mind boggling.

[missmickiescorner]

An Interlude

As a brief note here, there is another chapter in the book I just mentioned, titled, “‘An Association of Kindred Spirits’ : Black Readers and Their Reading Rooms," which I also highly recommend.

In this chapter, the contributions of Black librarians—whether they were recognized as such or not—are highlighted and painted as instrumental to ensuring that libraries are accessible, to preserving the histories—literary and otherwise—of minority groups, to becoming information anchors in their communities, and ensuring that the needs of their patrons were met.

It is so fascinating, however, I want to ensure I don’t just analyze one text, but there is my recommendation.