#Slavery mention

[twowordsnumber]

this is a bit unrelated to the original point, but I went down a history-of-women-in-firefighting kick a while back and wanted to share a few stories (usa centric im afraid):

The first is Molly Williams, who was both the first female firefighter and the first Black firefighter in the US. She was enslaved by a wealthy man named William Aymar living in New York City. Aymar became an early member of NYC's volunteer fire department to protect his property (much of which was stored in warehouses) and he forced Williams to attend on him while he was on duty, including cleaning the firehouse, pumping water through their hoses by hand (an extremely strenuous job), and entertaining him when there were no fires. In 1818, there was a simultaneous blizzard and fire, and a cholera outbreak had left the volunteers shortstaffed, so Williams was forced to volunteer herself. Due to her heroism on that day, she was made an honorary member of the department, and took much pride in the fact. Later in life, her husband (who owned a tobacco shop) purchased the couple's freedom.

The second is Brenda Berkman (born 1951 and still alive). In 1977, New York City began allowing women to take the qualifying exam to become firefighters, but though Berkman and 80-something other women passed the written portion, the physical portion was, basically, impossible, for men or women. Berkman had to file a class action lawsuit to get the test changed to be reflective of the job's actual physical demands. When it was, she and ~40 other women passed. Even then, she was fired less than a year later due to supposed lack of physical skill, despite performing well, and her male coworkers (who had variously ignored or sexually harassed their female colleagues) applauded when she left the building. She and another female firefighter, Zaida Gonzalez, sued to be reinstated, and won in 1983. Berkman would later be at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9-11; she also founded and organization for female firefighters, and was the first known gay person to become a White House Fellow.

I don't have much of a point with this, outside of "men have no problem forcing women, especially BIPOC women, to work dangerous jobs, but refuse to recognize women as equals when they choose that work"

There was a time when women did these jobs.

Some of them really liked the work and were keen to continue doing it. But society basically told them to collectively "get back in the kitchen" when the men returned home from war.

The tradition of conditioning women, from birth, to have a distaste for these jobs continued. Young girls are discouraged from even taking an interest in the toys representing these occupations. God forbid they put Barbie in the firetruck.

The truth is, most men do not want women doing these jobs. They complain about how dangerous this work is and use that as a metaphorical bludgeon in debates about equality. But when women actually try to be firefighters and combat infantry, they are told they *can't* do these jobs. They are inferior. Those who are hired have to work twice as hard to get half the respect. They are inundated with sexism and misogyny. And many end up quitting, not because they aren't qualified or they don't like the work, but because their male coworkers make the jobs intolerable.

And instead of fighting to make these occupations safer and valued properly, these men just complain that feminists don't know how hard it is and how they don't understand what it's like to risk their lives for no money or benefits. And then rich assholes like Elon stoke these flames because he doesn't want these men to realize this is a class struggle rather than a culture war. And that feminists and "woke activists" would actually be wonderful allies in helping them get better conditions.

Lastly, there are feminists talking about this. There are plenty of non-men interested in these jobs. But I doubt Elon keeps up with very much feminist discourse other than what he invents in his imagination.

Beyond that, feminists can't seem to prioritize stuff like this in the mainstream because they are too busy trying to regain control of their uteruses.

Did I miss anything?

Oh yeah, fuck Elon and fuck "End Wokeness".

[e-vasong]

something something devils minion works in general but especially in the show because daniel is the only person who is uninterested in Armand, The Performance. Armand, who grew up a slave, who has spent his entire afterlife since shaping himself in whatever image will protect him best, who dons the demeanor that will ensure that he is Kept. Daniel, who couldn't care less about the act, who is disgusted by the deception for the simple fact that it is deception, one of the only beacons of truth in a show that is about distortion. who looks at Armand, The Person, in all his awfulness and cruelty and monstrous vulnerability, and says i knew it, there you fucking are. and he does this after having been on the wrong side of armands real self more than once. there can be no more pretense between them. its just that daniel loves him anyway. this is because daniel, too, is a nasty little freak--

[marzipanandminutiae]

hey, museum folks. on April 16, the ceiling in the library at Boscobel House collapsed unexpectedly

Before the collapse.

This New York mansion from 1806 was saved AFTER demolition in the 1950s, when the architectural elements were recovered and reassembled in another location near its original site. It's of great artistic and historical significance, not the least because the staff has been working on a project to document the lives of the family's Black servants- the ones who were free when hired, and the ones who had been enslaved by said family and freed before the house was finished -since 2020

if anyone can donate even a little bit to help with the recovery efforts, here is the link

[letsplaythermalnuclearwar]

"I come back to find my palace desecrated, sacked like Troy"

OKAY SO I HAVE THOUGHTS REGARDING THAT LINE. SACKED LIKE TROY. HIS PALACE IS SACKED LIKE TROY. HIS HANDIWORK FROM TWENTY YEARS AGO. THE KINGDOM HE DEFEATED. THE PRINCE HE KILLED. THE WOMEN SOLD TO SLAVERY.

ITS COME BACK TO HIS HOME

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

I used to be a hardcore Hilda stan before playing the Golden Deer route, but then I did her and Cyril's supports and paralogue and she immediately became my least favorite. Sorry, Hilda. Owning slaves isn't sexy.

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[evilwriter37]

After looking at the Httyd Map, Dragon Hunter and Calder Island (Mala) seem to be very close. Both are up north of Berk. Correct me if I am wrong.

I searched this up because I saw an ask about it months ago in your ask hashtag and I rewatched some episodes such as the one where Throk wants to marry Ruffnut and Midnight Scrum. (I think we can agree that Midnight Scrum really traumatized us in some way)

Do you think, since Calder Island and Dragon Hunter island are so close together, their customs are similar about the whole Bride napping/ kidnapping?

They know the concept of Bride napping and bounty, I don’t doubt that. Calder Islander is filled with people that know how to be stealthy. Kidnapping their brides is their love language / custom.

Being kidnapped as a Bride in Calder Island is just said and done, no need of any dowry. Throk learns to give to Ruffnut instead of just “I will lift her from her feet, put her over my shoulder, and return with her to my island, where she will live out her days as my trustworthy wife.”

I’d imagine it’s the same for the Dragon Hunters, since they themselves kidnap beings (such as dragons) for a living. Again, no doubt they know what they are doing when it comes to kidnapping. So I guess it’s a headcanon to say I’d imagine Viggo doing it as well but since Hiccup is far, it’s a straight up bounty.

Throk does it traditionally to go himself to retrieve the bride. Viggo is unconventional, quite aware that the customs are different since he is a traveling business. Viggo is Viggo, he’ll ask someone to do it.

Also Mala and Throk knew immediately about the bounty since the proximity of their island. Their clothing is also similar, black leather, likely in a warmer climate because their island seems heated by the dragons that are living and forced to live there. Plus volcanoes.

Kidnapping seems like a whole other translation up in the north of the archipelago.

I’m likely just thinking out of my ass for fun. I’m just wrapping my head around that Bride napping is canon in this universe, holy crap. I know there are worse things, but this one is wild, I’ll believe that cannibalism is a thing in Wingmaiden even if Mala said no. Those eyes can tell. But what do you think?

Hm, you know, I never thought about the Dragon Hunters possibly having bride napping as a custom. I feel like it would make a lot of sense if they did. I'm under the impression that Viggo also deals in the slave trade, given some lines in Last Auction Heroes. So, for his customs, bride napping would not be out of the question.

As for the cannibalism thing, I really, really think the Wing Maidens were pretending just to scare Snotlout into respecting them, or just because they felt he deserved it. I highly doubt that the Wing Maidens actually do that.

And yesssss, Midnight Scrum. One of my favorite episodes. It just made me so happy. Love seeing Hiccup getting whumped. I know Ryker said Viggo wanted to kill Hiccup himself, but did he? Did he really? 😉

[newsfromstolenland]

A city councillor in Pickering is calling herself a “modern-day slave” after council voted to dock her pay for 30 days following an investigation by the city’s integrity commissioner.

Coun. Lisa Robinson made the comment in a post on Facebook on Tuesday.

Robinson’s remarks followed a ruling by the integrity commissioner which found that her decision to identify three citizens by name in a Facebook post in which she announced that her annual Halloween event for charity would be cancelled amounted to a “bully tactic” which showed “blatant disregard for the wellbeing of others.”

Council voted to have me work for free for the next 30 days for a ‘sarcastic remark’ on my personal FB post. I am now a modern day slave,” Robinson said in the Tuesday post.

Full article

Someone needs to explain to this white girl that having a month's pay docked for encouraging harassment of citizens she represents as a city councillor is not the same as fucking slavery.

Also there already is modern-day slavery in Canada, Lisa, and it's the prison system. Slavery is not you losing 30 days' pay for being an asshole.

[247reader]

Day 15: Aphra Behn!

The childhood of Aphra Behn is shrouded in mystery - much of it mystery of her own making. She was likely born to working-class parents in England; she likely spent some years living in colonial Suriname; she seems to have briefly been married to a merchant surnamed Behn. What is almost certain is that young Aphra was self-educated, lacking a classical education but becoming a ferocious and talented writer.

Aphra, born during the chaos of the English Civil War, was devoted to the restored monarchy. She willingly took up a dangerous occupation - foreign espionage. During the Second Anglo-Dutch war, she spied for England in the Netherlands, attempting to bring over double agents. But her target betrayed her, cash-strapped King Charles never paid the promised wages, and Aphra returned to England heavily in debt.

It was time to turn her writing into a career. Aphra wrote plays, rollicking Restoration comedies and tragicomedies. Many critics scorned the idea of a female playwright - particularly a somewhat raunchy female playwright- but a string of successes brought Aphra to the forefront.

If plays were her bread and butter, poetry was where she poured out her heart. Aphra wrote reflections on the female condition, love poems to both men and women, and even erotica - a topic common among the lettered libertines at court, but downright scandalous for a woman. Her greatest prose work, Oroonoko, a tragedy about the heroic leader of a doomed slave rebellion, is considered one of the first anti-slavery works in English. Aphra died in 1689; she was buried in Westminster Abbey.

[clove-pinks]

A serendipitous find: the Autumn 2020 issue of Sea History, publication of the National Maritime Historical Society of New York, with the article "Freedom and Whaling on Nantucket" by Skip Finley. It's all about Black and mixed race mariners, whalers, and shipowners on the island.

Sampson Dyer, early 19th century. A free man of Black and Wampanoag descent, he engaged in the China Trade and commissioned this portrait from the Chinese artist Spoilum, "who specialized in European-style paintings in oil of sea captains and both Chinese and Western merchants."

Captain Absalom F. Boston, by unknown artist c. 1835. A successful whaling captain and businessman, he also supported anti-slavery abolitionists and helped build a church and a school.

Arthur Cooper, portrait by Sally Gardner c. 1830. Cooper had been enslaved in Virginia and escaped to Nantucket between 1815 and 1818. When the Fugitive Slave Act threatened to send Cooper and his wife back to Virginia in 1822, the locals successfully drove away the slave catcher sent to retrieve him. In Skip Finley's words:

Francis Macy, a cousin of the prominent Rotch family, intervened along with “a large assemblage of persons,” including large numbers of both the black and white communities on the island, who had surrounded the house. Sylvanus Macy stepped up to suggest the power of attorney was a forgery and said, “We are not in Virginia now but in Yankee Town, and we want those colored people to man our whale ships and will not suffer them to be carried back to bondage.”

[sirfrogsworth]

I feel like these two libertarians compete with each other to post some of the dumbest memes in existence. And I'm pretty sure the only reason they keep getting shoved in my feed is because Elon follows them.

I remember when opposition research took effort. Now everything just comes directly to me and I think I prefer the effort.

Like, neither of them are smart enough to know how stupid their ideology actually is. But even by libertarian standards, these are some of the smoothest brains in the entire collective.

I don't understand how no one pulls them aside at the meetings and is all, "Maybe memes aren't your thing. You're kinda making us all look like idiots. Maybe just post some Ayn Rand quotes and call it a day."

Not that I have to explain it, but...

Workers share losses by not being workers anymore.

No one thinks insulin is free. We are suggesting that tax money be allocated so it is free at point of service. Perhaps by taxing the wealthy or not manufacturing tanks we don't use.

We use tax money for social good all the time. Insulin is such a weird place for folks to draw the line. Like...

Firetrucks. Yes. Roads. Yes. Public schools. Yes. Life-saving medication... well that is just too far.

And the free cotton thing does not make any sense. How is a capitalist slave owner... nope, not worth trying to figure out.

[marzipanandminutiae]

southern gothic crimson peak. that’s it.

The thing about Southern Gothic is that, if you do it with any kind of conscientiousness, you’re going to run into slavery. sooner or later. Having grown up in the south, I can attest that if there’s a big gorgeous house from anytime before the Civil War, the original owners almost certainly enslaved people there. And while that can be a fascinating thematic throughline for deep literary southern Gothic – it’s certainly a horrible family history – it’s not as good for Fun Gothic With BlorbosTM.

(slavery also happened in the northern US, to be clear. For fiction purposes, though, you can go further back in history without encountering it than you can in the south.)

Like. If there’s a big old crumbling house in the south, even if it’s a modern story, there’s a 99% chance that the looming specter of slavery is going to overshadow the characters’ interpersonal interactions. And this is one story where I prefer focusing on the interpersonal interactions

I guess you could have Allerdale built after the war if it’s a modern version? So then you don’t feel as bad focusing on smushing the characters together like dolls while whispering “now kiss?”

[venus-is-in-bloom]

In Dungeon Meshi, Laios and Senshi go out of their way to befriend orcs despite the taboo against this. At the end when Laios becomes king, he integrates orcs and kobolds into mainstream society, and the very last panel of the series shows this. Marcille also learns to accept orcs through cooking with them during the episode you mentioned.

The fact that the physical differences orcs have are meaningless and arbitrary is also discussed, and I believe the issue is taken seriously. Racism is also addressed seriously at other points in the series, such as the mistreatment of Izutsumi, an escaped slave. Ultimately, Dungeon Meshi is about food and not racism, but I think it's a series that makes an effort with social commentary.

ok, this is precisely the kind of thing i'm talking about when i say "racism is taken as either fact or a joke". it is not serious. marcille's genocidal prejudice towards orcs is treated as her "by-default" state. there's no reason for it given, nothing is explored there—it's because she's a half-elf. it is a fact of the universe and not the product of politics. and then the "solution" to this is interpersonal bonding? every milquetoast colonisers' message about anti-racism since the invention of the notion has had this sorry excuse baked in, the idea that racism comes about because people who are set apart by nature simply don't know each other enough, rather than because the dehumanisation of racial subjects builds national consent for atrocities. it disappears the true history and replaces it with conciliatory lies. is that "making an effort"?

i do not remember any commentary on the institution of slavery regarding izutsumi. she was a slave until she escaped; her former owner, toshiro, is not judged for having imprisoned or used her and in fact the circumstances in which he did so are not to my knowledge even questioned, only described. her resentment of her enslavers is only a character feature, much like her "rebellious" nature and bad manners. it is nothing more than normalisation.

[marvelstars]

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Adventures TPB :: Profile :: Dark Horse Comics

"You get used to it" - Anakin Skywalker

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

I will still never get over Naesala literally selling Reyson into slavery, it ruins him and his relationship with Leanne for me

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