#There is a lot to be said about the racial politics of my hometown

[epersonae]

Via an LA artist whose email list I'm on

Altadena hails one of the largest Black homeownership rates per capita in the state and is home to a proud and vibrant African American community, comprising nearly 20% of the city's total population. The Black community in Pasadena/Altadena is very diverse, with age ranges from the elderly to infants, from families who have lived in this community dating back six generations to new families who have recently become residents after discovering Pasadena/Altadena to be a welcoming and prosperous place to raise their children.

[overleftdown]

deranged post-canon farleigh speculation

so. archie madekwe said something that makes me question a lot of the other post-canon speculation (often quickstart dynamic post-canon fics, speculation, etc.). Basically, he was talking about how tired Farleigh was getting, in the point in time that the movie is set. This is depicted through his confrontation with Felix, which Archie confirmed was the first conversation Farleigh has had with the cattons about the issue of bias.

a review by hilton als briefly touched on farleigh's possible future, as well. it was a very negative and... honestly understandable idea of what farleigh would grow up to become. aka, someone who exploited and tokenized their race for "brownie points," pun not intended. i see a lot of people crafting stories of farleigh finding different ways to rejoin the ultra-rich class. and i kinda wanna say that i... don't like that. here's an anecdote: my cousin and i had a conversation about his experience moving from a white-dominated, suburban environment. he argues that although racism is still prevalent where he now lives, the racism he experienced in his hometown was so painfully, covertly delivered. it's this sort of "could you just call me a slur or something" mentality.

although farleigh is terrified of change, although farleigh is terrified of losing what he believes is an accommodation for his marginalization (it isn't; you can't buy your way out of racism), although farleigh learned to be materialistic through the ways in which he was raised, although farleigh is constantly running away from something--i think he was reaching a point of genuine hatred for the ways in which racism is delivered to him in this environment. i would also go insane. so freakishly insane. i think his conversation with felix made him understand that maybe the cattons will never even try to change. that the cattons couldn't even acknowledge the problem in the first place. that you can't really win, with people like the cattons. it's always a game of when, and never if. when will they finally, politely discard me?

this leaves a couple options. the first, farleigh learns to be financially independent and very much successful. he would never rely on other people again, especially not white people. this leaves room for hilton als' interpretation, but the fact that farleigh was cognizant of and willing to mention racial bias to felix is evidence for me to assume that farleigh is beyond belittling himself like that. farleigh already experienced so much shame from catering towards the cattons and their whiteness... i don't think he'd keep going with that. not with the way it ended. not after he had the horrible wake-up call that was both his cousins dying. so, maybe farleigh does find his way back to wealth. maybe through fashion, through modeling like his mother, through another form of art, through business, whatever.

the other option is that farleigh just... doesn't acquire that level or even close to that level of wealth again. i kinda like this idea. i kinda like imagining farleigh in a city flat or smaller suburban house, finding a significant other and probably never ever having kids. that, of course, still leaves room for farleigh to go and brutalize oliver out of saltburn. but i'd like to think he wouldn't take saltburn back. as i've said before, farleigh was never greedy. he never wanted to replace or succeed the cattons, nor did he want any form of dominance over them. to be their equal, yes. to be seen and heard and given attention, yes. but never did he play his games to knock felix or venetia down. i feel like farleigh would be the "eat the rich" that saltburn didn't have. not in the corny way, because farleigh is no robin hood, nor is he an innocent and selfless person.

my ideal "sequel" type situation would be farleigh returning to saltburn after living comfortably and humbly for the last 20 years. he's not here out of moral obligation. he's not here to steal back the catton wealth. he's here selfishly, and out of burning hatred. he's here because oliver stole any sense of closure farleigh could've ever had. he's here because oliver never gave farleigh the opportunity to forgive his family, nor to mourn them, nor to visit those memories, nor to make new ones. farleigh is here to wreck oliver's shit. it's not healthy, it's not pretty, it's not clean. i'd imagine 40-year-old farleigh, having matured, returning to saltburn and regressing to the same games he always used to play. lying, people pleasing, pretending, sex, drugs, sass, etc. ahhh. my ideal sequel. a man who found peace without closure and finds closure through a significant lack of peace. and, also, oliver dead as hell.

[mrsrcbinscn]

Franny’s 30 Day Cover Challenge

Playlist

Franny’s 30 Day Cover Song Challenge: (categories are mostly from here, and here, with some from here, and a couple I made) in September 2020 one of her musician friends challenged her to do the thing and she was like “It seems like a fun way to show everyone what kind of music has influenced me as a musician, singer, songwriter, and just like, person. So I’m going to do it.”

In reality, she recorded most of them in 1-2 days to distract her from how sad she is because Wilbur hates her and he’s sad lmao

It helped a little.

(If you want me to drop the playlist she mentions in #24 let me know, I have it started I can finish it)

TW: mentions of Franny’s political beliefs so tw: politics, an allusion to suicide though the word isn’t directly used, mention of 9/11 and the subsequent invasions...nothing graphic with any of these triggers but worth a forewarning

Day 01 - A song that makes you happy

Honey Spiders by The Parlotones

“The Parlotones are this fantastic indie rock band out of South Africa. And I actually thought about doing their song, uh, Stars Fall Down for day sixteen, but I’m going with Honey Spiders for day 1. There were lots of Parlotones songs, I mean. Push Me to The Floor, We Call This Dancing, Should We Fight Back...but ah, Honey Spiders always puts me in a good mood.”

Day 02 - A song that helps you clear your head

Light of a Clear Blue Morning by Dolly Parton

“I grew up on Dolly, and it’s funny because for the longest time this song wasn’t really on my radar as much as it is now. But when I was twenty-two I was going through something really difficult, and my then-fiance now husband was abroad for work, so I was alone in our apartment and just. Really, profoundly sad and lonely. So I put on a Dolly Parton record and just laid on the bed and Light Of A Clear Blue Morning played and I had a good long cry and felt so much better after that. When I need to think about how to solve a difficult problem, or I feel overwhelmed, I just listen to that song.”

Day 03 - Song you love from a band/artist you hate

Should’ve Been A Cowboy by Toby Keith

“Honestly, he’s called me a nasty lady to my face and I’ve called him a facist enabling pig to his, so I have no qualms openly saying I hate Toby Keith. That being said, Should’ve Been A Cowboy is one of the best country songs of the 90s, undeniably. I loved that song when it came out when I was thirteen, and I still love it.”

Day 04 - A song about drugs or alcohol

Whiskey Lullaby by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss

“This is probably cheating, because my lovely best friend Daniel and I cover this a lot at Dara & Danny shows. But today look who I have! My friend Max from Seoul Hanoi’d! Max the Korean Scot who can’t hide his accent to save his life, so let’s see how it sounds in a Scottish accent.”

Day 05 - A protest song

Talking Vietnam Blues by Phil Ochs /// and Here’s to The State of Mississippi by Phil Ochs

“This one was hard because I. Fucking. Love. Protest music. I could have done a whole 30 days of protest music - wow, let me know if I should do that and give my husband a heart attack with all the twitter threats I’ll invite. Huh. Right, so I was going to do Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven by John Prine. But I decided to do two Phil Ochs songs because I don’t think Phil Ochs is talked about enough. It’s a shame we lost him so young. Ochs’ sardonic humor and honesty in his writing has influenced me as a songwriter deeply. When I write political songs, I don’t hold back, and it’s because of Phil Ochs’ writing that I have that courage. I’ve been singing Love Me, I’m A Liberal since I was in college with constantly updating lyrics. It was so hard to even choose which songs of his to do because for his fairly short career his songbook is lengthy and full of gems. I’m Going to Say It Now, Draft Dodger Rag, Spanish Civil War Song, I Ain’t Marching Anymore...I couldn’t pick one so I’m cheating and recording two.”

Day 06 - A song you wish you wrote

When I Think About Cheatin’ by Gretchen Wilson

“I will forever be pissed off that I didn’t write this song. I’m absolute trash for my husband, so it’s never -- I’ve never had to be in a situation to ever consider -- but this song gets me every time. It feels like I could have written it. Because we do spend a lot of time apart travelling for our work. And the sentiment expressed in the song is a little too real.”

Day 07 - A song in a language you don’t speak

Khattar by Khine Htoo

“This will either be a charming attempt to sing in Burmese or I’m about to offend a lot of people. Which, being a politically outspoken woman on the internet, I’m used to anyway. So. 1, 2, 3, okay here goes.”

Day 08 - A song by an artist no longer living

Phop Samnang by Sinn Sisamouth (inspiration)

“Haha, you thought I’d see the name of this category and not do a Sinn Sisamouth song? You were wrong.”

Day 09 - A song you want to dance to at your wedding

Devoted To You by The Everly Brothers

“I’m already married, so this was actually our first dance song at our wedding. Day three of our wedding, like the more Westernized wedding ceremony day. We had a three day long traditional Cambodian wedding and I felt like a princess. An-y-way!”

Day 10 - A song that makes you cry

Borrowed Rooms and Old Wood Floor by Emily Scott Robinson

“Unfortunately, Emily Scott Robinson and I aren’t related. Sad, I know, because she’s so talented. Almost her entire album Traveling Mercies is...sad as hell. The record reminded me of early Dolly Parton, and my second solo album. You know, all those sad-ass songs. The Dress is honestly the song that makes me the saddest but I can’t even listen to it without crying so.”

Day 11 - A song that you love hearing live

Prove My Love  by Violent Femmes

“There is nobody I have seen in concert more than Dolly Parton, but Violent Femmes and George Strait come incredibly close. The Cranberries, the amount of times I saw them in the 90s and early 2000s...close fourth. Probably. The very first concert I dragged my husband to was a Violent Femmes concert, he was not prepared for how hard college me went.”

Day 12 - A song from before 1960 

There Ain’t No Sweet Man That’s Worth The Salt of My Tears by Libby Holman

“This song is from 1928. I came across it when I was in grad school and it’s, as the kids say, a bop.”

Day 13 - A song you think everybody should listen to

White Man’s World by Jason Isbell

“I think perspectives of people of color should of course take precedence in these conversations. But I find this song to be a good faith attempt of a white man coming to terms with the institutional racism and sexism in the world around him. And I think this song can be a useful tool to explain certain concepts of racial justice to ignorant but well-meaning folks. As a woman of color I think Jason Isbell did a great job not centering himself even though it was from his perspective. This song is great musically and necessary socially.”

Day 14 - A song from the 1970s

You’re No Good by Linda Ronstadt

“Linda Ronstadt is grossly underrated, that’s all I have to say here.”

 Day 15 - A song people wouldn’t expect you to like

Racists by Anti-flag

“I mean, I’ve talked about how much I like punk in the past, and I remember a video of Seoul Hanoi’d doing Spanish Bombs at a San Antonio show made the rounds, but I don’t think I’ve talked about how much I like Anti-flag. People don’t expect me to like punk for some reason. But I agree with...everything punk music is all about.”

Day 16 - A song that holds a lot of meaning to you

Blue by LeAnn Rimes

“It’s silly, but I won a county fair singing competition with this song in high school and it really fueled my passion for music, that win. It’s also the first song Cornelius heard me go full Georgia on, with the yodels and all, at the little bar in my hometown on his first trip meeting my parents. The song doesn’t cut to my very soul ot anythin’, but it’s special to me.”

Day 17 - A song attached to a memory

Supernova by Liz Phair

“I remember buying Liz Phair’s Whip-smart album when I was eleven. And in college, when I was getting ready for dates with Cornelius in my dorm room, I would dance around to a CD I burned and wrote on it with a sharpie, ‘Pre-date Movie Scene Music.’ God, what was even on there? I’m about to expose myself as the most basic 1999-2001 bitch. I remember Head Over Feet, I mean, Alanis Morisette? I was a young woman in 2000, obviously I loved her. Mm, Dreams by The Cranberries...oh, Kiss Me, Sixpence None The Richer...yeah, anyway, Supernova was on there.”

Day 18 - A song from the year you were born

Call Me by Blondie

“...I can’t believe Call Me is as old as I am.”

Day 19 - A song that reminds you of someone you miss

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (yes, of course she does a cover with banjo)

“This was my late best friend Molly’s favorite hymn. And I sang it at her funeral at her husband’s request. Molly and I grew up together in the small town of Payne Lake, Georgia and Molly was the most devout Christian...but she was also the first person I came out to as bisexual when I was a teenager, and she said that Jesus taught her that love was the greatest commandment and that meant I was automatically twice as good at it as her. Her faith guided her every action but she never talked down on her two best friends - Dan(iel Maitland) and I for not sharing it. Molly was doing the whole emulate Jesus thing beautifully. I miss her every day and it’s been seven years. If you ever think that people won’t miss you...you’re wrong. All right, let’s see if I can get through this without crying.”

Day 20 - A song by an artist you discovered this year

Hello, Anxiety by Phum Viphurit

“I just discovered this quirky Thai-Kiwi singer and not to be dramatic, but he’s my favorite thing in the world right now.”

Day 21 - A song with a city or country in the title

Oh! Phnom Penh (track 20)

“This song was written after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and after people began to make their way to what was left of their homes, alone, or with what was left of their families. If you want to learn more about what that was like to actually live it, my cousin Reena Boran has a video interviewing her parents and paternal grandfather and uncle about it. Reena is a journalism student currently studying in London but she lives in Cambodia. Her mother is my aunt Malisruot, my mother’s youngest sister. The video is English subtitled on her channel, I’ll link it in the description box below.”

Day 22 - A song from the 1960s

To Sir, With Love by Lulu

“I didn’t actually discover this song until I heard it covered at a 10,000 Maniacs concert in the 90s. My friend Allison was standing next to me and I just started crying and she’s like ‘are you okay?’ and all I just blubbered out ‘My dad!’ For the uninitiated, my dad married my mom, who’d raised me alone until then, when I was six and he adopted me when I was eight. My dad didn’t have to adopt me, he didn’t have to call me his daughter, he could have just been like half of my friends’ stepdads and give me a place to live and nothing else. But my dad was my biggest supporter from day one. He convinced my mom to let me join the dance team and show choir instead of science club, he was the one that talked my mom down from probably killing me when they found out I was only studying music and not music and political science at NYU. I am who I am today because he is my dad. And this song just says everything I’ve always thought about him.”

Day 23 - A song from your childhood

Una Lacrima Sul Viso by Bobby Solo

“But Franny, aren’t you a Cambodian raised in the US? Yes, but you were fooled. My very white father is also an immigrant. He is from Switzerland and while he didn’t teach me to speak Italian and German growing up, he played German, Italian, and French records all the time. My parents often spoke to each other in French and I picked up some French but properly studied it starting in high school, and I didn’t study Italian until college -- and my German is still …. [points to a spot on the screen where she later inserted a card linking to a video on her cousin Köbi Framagucci’s YouTube channel titled ‘Can My American Cousin Speak German?’ where he tests her Standard and Swiss German speaking and comprehension]. But hell if I couldn’t sing every one of the songs from my father’s French, German, and Italian record before I knew what the words even meant.”

Day 24 - A song that gives you chill vibes

Glorify by Ivan & Alyosha

“Dan(iel Maitland) and I actually have an entire playlist on my Spotify accounts of songs to listen to to get us out of writers’ block. And one that I often will put on repeat and just absorb through my headphones with my eyes closed is a song called Glorify by Ivan & Alyosha. I think it touches on a lot of the themes I include in my songwriting. Christian mythology, the darker side of humanity, it often reminds me of what I love about songwriting. If you say please I might drop a link to that playlist.”

Day 25 - A song that’s your signature song

Long Gone Lonesome Blues by Hank Williams“Right, so I chose this instead of a Kitty Wells song or I Get A Kick Out of You (her being

featured on a 2005

recording propelled her career majorly) because if you’re familiar with me you might have seen a video that went around in like….2017? 2016? of Dan(iel Maitland) and I doin’ the song at our hometown bar in 2014. I posted it in response to some tweets because hoes mad when a WOC calls out racism and sexism in the Nashville music industry. ‘Bet she don’t even know Hank’, really? You think I wouldn’t know the history of one of the two music industries I work in? Please. Anyway, she knows Hank and nails the incredibly technical yodel -- the

most difficult

one in Hank’s songbook - in Long Gone Lonesome Blues. Mm...Lovesick Blues though, that also strikes fear into my heart. Anyway stay mad I guess?”

Day 26 - A song by your favorite band

Gun Shy by 10,000 Maniacs

“10,000 Maniacs was one of my favorite bands when I was in like 5th grade through 10th. I listened to them for a little while after Natalie Merchant left for a solo career, but the Natalie Merchant era was really what resonated with me the most. Gun Shy was a bit too advanced for my little 5th, 7th grade ears to really appreciate when I first discovered the album In My Tribe. Merchant’s voice -- because like, I don’t have a very conventional voice either, so her and Dolores O’Riordan really changed my entire perspective on what a woman’s voice can sound like in rock music. Um, yeah, so her voice more than the lyrics just wowed me. And as I got closer to graduating high school and especially in college I actually understood what What’s The Matter Here, Hey Jack Kerouac, and Gun Shy were talking about. Gun Shy...really became a significant song to me because...being born in 1980 I grew up in a relatively peaceful time. The Cold War was all but thawed by my tenth birthday. But I was getting ready to leave my then-boyfriend-now-husband’s apartment for class at NYU on the morning of 9/11. We stood in line for hours to donate blood. And then my government invaded two completely unrelated countries and jingoism and terrifying, fervent nationalism, and xenophobia just smacked me in the face. And friends of mine from high school were convicted to drop out of college and join the Army, and died, for an unjust, imperialist war, and suddenly Phil Ochs, John Prine, and Bob Dylan lyrics hit a lot different, and I understood what Gun Shy was really about.”

Day 27 - A song you hate by an artist you love

Mrs.Robinson by Simon & Garfunkel 

“Paul Simon is one of my favorite songwriters ever, um, and I actually used to like Mrs. Robinson….until I got married and everyone sang it at me. It’s kind of my fault, I did choose to take my husband’s last name. And I leaned into it by making my social media handles all Mrs. Robinson...but still. Only play the song around me if you want to die.”

Day 28 - A song that a younger you would have loved

Mean by Taylor Swift

“I’m so genuinely glad that I am older than Taylor Swift. Middle school Franny did not need Taylor Swift to enable me and fuel my ego. Some of her singles, while not really 35 and 40 year old Franny’s cup of tea, young me would have played until my mother hid the record or cassette from me. Although - fuck if Tim McGraw didn’t immediately give my happily married ass flashbacks to my first love and make me bawl like a baby? Right, so when Speak Now came out and I listened to it, Mean, while not a song that adult me has listened to maybe more like ten times, I immediately thought ‘wow, I needed this song when I was in middle and high school.’ I could literally picture 7th grade me with my little guitar and my little cowboy boots my dad bought for me singing this at the talent show making eye contact with the kids who bullied me as if it was some kind of own when it’s not. I could still, almost thirty years later, name them if I really wanted. So, for 7th grade me, Mean by Taylor Swift.”

Day  29- A song that reminds you of your partner/spouse

ផាត់ជាយបណ្តូលចិត្ / Phat Cheay Bon'dol Chet by Sinn Sisamuth (translation) (female singer covering it) (modern, studio recording of a male and female singer dueting it) (a cool violin cover) (another female singer) (cool guitar cover)

Feat. some members of Seoul Hanoi’d. Andy Chaiyaporn (violin), Max Cho (piano), Jodie Batbayar (cello), Aisulu Niyazova-Li (percussion) and Franny has her guitar

“The song, lyrically, only reminds me of my husband a little bit. But Phat Cheay Bondol Chet has several memories with my husband attached to it. The first time he heard me sing in Khmer was at my mother’s house in Atlanta when I had him visit the first time to meet my parents. My mom had a little dinner party at our house to show him off, like Asian moms do when they think their daughter snags a good one, and I was hand washing the dishes while my mom and the other Cambodian parents were listening to Sinn Sisamuth records. I’ve always loved the song I’ll be showing y’all today, like I’ve always just stopped what I was doing and -- so it came on and I just started singing along without really being aware of it. And then at a different diaspora get together that summer, that song came on and I just kinda. Pulled him aside to the side yard of that person’s house to look at the stars with him and translated the song. It’s one of the Khmer songs he instantly recognizes now, so it’s special.”

Franny did NOT say in the video that college her 100% had him sit in the grass with her outside that person’s house, where nobody could see, so she could makeout with him 

 Day 30- A song by one of your favorite songwriters

Reincarnation by Roger Miller

Feat. Seoul Hanoi’d, done more in the style of the Cake cover 

Also instead of singing the lyric “you’re a girl, I’m a boy” she goes “you’re a girl, so am I” because she doesn’t ever change pronouns, she just makes it gay because she is a bi-con

“Roger Miller, to me, is as important as Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, in the American songbook. He’s not as talked about which is a shame because his discography is iconic. Getting to be a part of King of The Road was one of the highlights of my career.”

[decolonize-corona]

Is it a Protest, or a PROTEST PROTEST?

by YKF, Guest Contributor  🎉

———-

On this day, it’s Black Out Tuesday. I initially was going to write a piece on how reproductive capacities of black women are once again under attack through mass incarceration. However the current political times have me thinking a lot about advocacy and activism. What it should look like and whose responsibility is it.

Well, my answer is probably going to be controversial but when has anything I said not been controversial.

I’m tired. I’m tired of black people saying the same thing. And going out in the streets and pushing for our rights and receiving the same results. 

It’s time that white and non black minorities make a conscious effort to eliminate anti-blackness. 

Because to be completely honest, it’s not going to happen if y’all don’t get on board. 

I went to a protest in my hometown for #BLM. When I decided to go, I couldn’t help but think of what would happen if it turned violent. Would I be able to come back home? Would I need to use my body as a shield to protect my brother?

Imagine my surprise when 90% of the people at the protest were white and non-Black minorities. At first I was annoyed and angry. Was this just another ploy for social clout? But as I cheered and stood in silence with them, I realized the power of the image being depicted to passerby. WHITE PEOPLE WAKE UP. ITS OUR PROBLEM TOO! 

Seeing white counterparts protesting made other whites feel comfortable vocalizing their support. Including a college aged white girl who drove around our protest several times fist in the air playing NWA’s Fuck the Police and an older white gentleman starting a chant for George Floyd. 

However as we are rallying along racial lines, I can’t help but see the lack of intersectionality on gender. People seem to have already forgotten about Breonna Taylor. And our queer black women and men. 

Even though most protesting are women, pictures mostly depict men at the frontlines. Emphasizing that as we progress towards justice we must not forget that we need to consciously act against ALL the evils in this patriarchal, Heteronormative, cisgender society. 

That we all have a part to play and the show must go on!

[thoughtstojots]

What I Will Care About In 2020

In the last episode of Patriot Act for 2019, Hasan Minhaj’s brought up a very real concern that many of us have today. That is the overwhelming amount of news we receive daily. News has become so more accessible and is almost thrown in our faces everyday. With the internet and mobility to have the internet almost everywhere we are, we easily hear about issues from our hometowns to the city across the world from us. And it’s a lot. As he said, it’s like we consistently have all these tabs open in out minds and more just keep opening as we learn more. But like a computer, with so many tabs open in our brain, we slow down. It’s impossible to be concerned about everything and this overwhelming feeling keeps up from putting the energy we wanted to use to volunteer, advocate, donate, etc. in anything at all. Hasan, then, proposed a challenge - close some tabs and focus on the ones you keep open. Put your energy into those concerns to really help make a difference. Let others worry about the ones you don’t want to worry about. 

That’s not to say I will never worry about what they are worried about nor would I perceive those problems to not be my problems too. I do not intend to neglect them but that is not where I will primarily put my energy towards. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I know it’s already February but I have decided what I am going to let others worry about and what I want to put more of my energy into. 

So, I will let others worry about 

- rebuking someone who uses a plastic straw and/or does not recycle 

- educating others on racial discrimination and injustice towards people of color and minority groups 

- gun control 

- the legalization of marijuana for medical and social purposes 

But I want to 

- be more involved in the political scene by helping my political party with voter registration, calling legislators to show that I care, campaigning door-to-door, and any other miscellaneous tasks I can help with 

- learn more about clothing waste and educate others on the consequences of the fast fashion industry. My personal goal is to buy no more than 12 clothing items in 2020

- speak up and confront signs of what could lead to sexual assault, have no tolerance for those actions, and be a shoulder for others to lean on when they need one 

- support Hong Kong in whatever ways I can in protecting their freedoms and keeping their autonomy 

- fight food insecurity in the communities around me 

[firemama]

Do you commonly get hate for your AU SlaveTale, due to its name and theme? What do you have to deal with, and what do you usually say to defend yourself to the people who find it problematic?

forgive me in advance if this is full of spelling errors but I am Very Sick (maybe covid?) and it is also 2am so i cannot be asses to spell check

Do I currently get any hate or criticism, specifically, for the topic slavery being a focal point of the AU? No, I don't, not for that. Not currently, at least. I wouldn't say i've ever gotten 'hate' on the topic- present time, certainly not. In the present time, I am not the only person that has looked at the concept of Undertale and Slavery or Sub-Personhood status; Taking humans and political atmospheres and the history of out species into account, mistreatment of a new species (alients, monsters, mutants, etc) is not only a reasonable consideration but also a popular one in sci-fi, and that said: is not somewhat common and has been visited before by others.

So, if anything: No, I dont get any 'hate' and, these days, not much of any criticism either. It's a topic lots of people have explored.

NOW, six years ago? The closest to 'hate' I had on the topic back when I started ST ( to my knowledge, the concept hadn't been done before? but i'd hesitate to say "of yeah i'm the first person to write this idea") existed more in the form of 'well I DONT THINK this could ever happen' and 'humans are so far past slavery, we're beyond that' and... you know, slavery is still an active issue in the world. Most of the world's fishing industry in the east functions on slavery, major american corporations, for example the chocolate or coffee industry, still use slavery- and there is definitely a lucrative black market in the Body industry for kidnapped peoples and children. I myself live in florida, the number one state for human trafficing, where Tampa is- the number one city for trafficing. There are numerous factories world-wide that function almost exclusively on Slave work internationally.

It is not an issue Humans have defeated, and when someone says that, they're usually implying that Racially-based slavery (in the united states) is over and done with. That in and of itself isn't even all that true- again, I live in florida. My hometown had high hispanic-persons kidnapping rates. There's a strong argument for prison based labor requirements just being reformatted slavery- and we all know the statistics in the US on minorities being sentenced and kept in prisons, even for the most moderate of charges or even outright framing.

If corporations could get away with it, they would immedeatly inslave their employee populous- Amazon even Tried, by replacing actual monetary payment with shit like Amazon-based currency (basically fun points) and placing career demands so strenous they can kill, while refusing basic rights like restrooms- which is a quick way to create a modernized capitalistic installment of feudalistic workers. Which: Slavery by force of "you either do what I say or you starve to death."

THIS topic is getting away from me and is already long winded. So lets say: I find that kind of 'hate' that I used to get entirely unfounded. And while I dont get that kind of 'hate' anymore, gesturing to the incorrectness of those statments is usually my response, and then stop answering if people continued to argue it.

BUT, I feel like what you're asking me is more specific than you phrased it, so I'll go back to a previously mentioned topic: racially motivated slavery, and if I've been contacted about it in relation to ST. The answer is yes. I wouldn't call it 'hate', I would call what I've been asked or prompted as 'critique'. There used to me someone who followed along with my story when it was roughly only 20 chapters or so; They didnt like that my MC was white coded while dealing with the concept of slaves. My MC isn't intentionally white-coded, more so privledge-coded; but obviously theres going to be some coding of white-ness in 'race-unspecified-privleged-person' and more so because I, too, am white. Which leads into other factors that I haven't been able to approach well in my story.

There was a time roughly 40 chapters into the story (after the critique that the MC is white-coded had marinated with me for a while) where I wanted the MC character to interact with with a character I'd put together for the purpose; During the phase where the MC is explaining their resume to the brothers or hunting for a new job while relapsing to old unhealthy work, I wanted to include a scene where the reader goes to an interview for a prospective job, taking Sans and Papyrus. They'd meet their boss and it would be a man names Nasha- and it's been a while, and I never used him, so I don't remember all the details I put together, but the background information on this character included that his family would be of Nigerian decent, he would have a characteristic Purple sweatervest, he would dislike lemon flavored tea but would have it in his office for visitors, and he would be loosely connected to the MC's future employers, the Rainbow, and would be the one to forward her name to them. This character never made it to the story, because I didn't know how to write his scene- I rewrote it three times. First, very left-leaning on the topic, like the Reader, but unsympathetic, also like the reader. The MC doesnt get the job primarily because he's disgusted by personhood ownership (and secondarily because the MC shows up late and is poorly prepared for the interview) and would be absolutely indifferent to and hinting that it's and effort to Protect them (just as the reader is shown to be indifferent to Apollo explaining his monster for the same reason).

And then I reread it, and thought... too aggressive, right? too idealistic, too, for a man in charge of a branch of a company? surely he's not so moral. that he'd be too professional to really respond to the fact that reader brought two slaves into the interview and would be vaguely acclimated to the Slave environment that exists in the world of the story. So i re-wrote him more neutrally; that he'd be subtleley displeased, but not hinging his hiring opinions on it, and wouldnt really acknowledge the Brothers as slaves, so much as he has just adapted to the slavery society-wide.

And I... rewrote it again, because I still didnt like it or feel confident with it. The MC isn't supposed to get the job no matter what, but the interview is supposed to be a contributor to good things down the line. In the previous two versions of the writing, Nasha is a friend and benefactor to the Rainbow group, and forwards the MC's application and Resume to them, in hopes of getting her two monsters taken/rescued from her possession. In re-writing three, Nasha is a sympathetic man that would take some small mercy on the MC's clearly ruffled and exhausted appearance and her Monsters that are aparently to be well-cared for and, more or less, doesnt care about the implications that they're technically slaves and takes her word for everything. He tries to hire her, and things don work out, but he forwards her information along. And I never even finished writing this one because it just felt........ not right, writing this black man to be so forgiving and chill with situational slavery, because yeah while Slavery doesn't have to be and isn't always a ratially motivated thing, there is definitely racial context in the situation.

I decided I didnt know how to write the opinion of a black man on this situation. I asked a writing friend, Bein- who is Korean and not black- if he had any thoughts, because I always asked his opinion back then. And we both sort of concluded that we just dont have the context to write that opinion, and I took out Nasha's scene and moved the Rainbow grroup's introduction down the line and made it a more abrupt change rather than a gradual one.

In hindsight, I don't like how I handled that uncertainty; I still don't think removing the black character completely was a just answer, But i still dont think it was my right to write the opinion of a poc on a social-level opinion of a modern slavery situation. I think it would have been nice to have someone to ask who was black to muse with me on the subject, but other than Bein (who actually went offline not long after that and we havent really talked since) and my current Partner, I dont really TALK about characters or story stuff to anyone, so I dont really have anyone to ask.

This isn't something i've ever gotten 'hate' about, and I've never actually gotten a critique before regarding an absence of black opinion on the MC having slaves- and the fact that i've never gotten so much as a critique about it is... surprising. A little disconcerting, even? It makes me wonder if the audience of of ST is all-white-leaning and thus doesnt notice- and if it is, and my thing i wrote caters only to one group, that would concern me because it means i've probably turned away other groups and im really doing this shit wrong if I am, so...

(I wanted to write it so badly back when I was writing Nasha that I even considered asking my aunts or cousins but could not conceivably come up with a way to ask my very baptist-christian-bliblical-evangelical family who have never once heard of the word 'fanfiction' about the specifics without letting them read my undertale fanfic and that is probably the most mortifying thin a then-17-year-old could possibly fucking conceive.)

Bottom Line: no, I dont really get critique or 'hate' based on the slavery subject matter anymore. Maybe I should be getting some. I'm trying to write it properly, and i can certainly recognize there should be a little more representation of poc and black opinion than there currently is, but I feel rather under-qualified for writing it.

[intoxicatingimmediacy]

Daveed Diggs Shines in 'Blindspotting,' an Amazing Movie that Laughs Its Way Through Questions About Racial Identity, Police Brutality and Gentrification

A lot changes in a decade. Nine years ago, Daveed Diggs and his friend Rafael Casal began writing a movie set in their hometown of Oakland, a movie that “doesn’t ignore the world it lives in.” The world it lived in, and what they hoped to spotlight (among other things), was a world where police were killing black men with no societal recourse. The idea was that the movie would, between laughs, shout out that, “Hey, this is a thing that happens.” Today, of course, this is something we know. Yet it’s still. Fucking. Happening. So the world the movie lives in now isn’t one that says “this happens,” but one that asks “why the fuck is this still happening?” Because a lot doesn’t change in a decade.

[...] Collin just witnessed a senseless murder. Yet, he’s a felon on probation who is late for curfew. Faced with an impossible situation, he drives off and sets the rest of the movie in motion. But it’s not some sort of legal or action thriller. It’s about what witnessing this type of murder does to a man. It’s about the scourge of essentially sanctioned police brutality/murder, and how black Americans need to teach their kids to instinctively say “don’t shoot” when confronted by the police. It’s about gentrification and gun control, racial politics and racial identity, how we perceive ourselves in comparison to how others perceive us, how words and labels matter, and how neither our mistakes nor our surroundings need to define us. So, you know. It’s about small stuff.

With this much going on, a film like this could easily get “messagey,” heavy-handedly preaching at the audience. Or it could become a narrative mess, trying so hard to hit on this issue and that message that it fails at actually being a cohesive narrative. But Blindspotting avoids these trappings in a few ways. First, while these topics are heavy and hard, the movie doesn’t tread lightly or pull any punches. It dives in and really tries to unpack these themes as much as you can in two hours, but in a way that isn’t preachy and isn’t clunky. Almost everything that happens makes narrative sense, and the one or two times you can see the wizard behind the curtain and feel the writers’ hands moving certain pieces into place for a certain reason, it’s easy to forgive because of how strong everything else is.

And that’s the second thing that works in the film’s favor. The dialogue, which Casal and Diggs clearly spent a long time honing, feels natural. The characters are believable. And the performances, especially from Casal and Diggs, are fantastic. Many people are already in love with Diggs, whether it’s because of hip-hop group clipping, or TV or commercial appearances, or that “Hamilton” musical which is kind of a thing. And here he shows why everyone loves him. He’s dynamic, he’s funny, he’s heart-wrenching and, yes, he displays his vocal and lyrical prowess. Casal, meanwhile, is a relative newcomer but dives into his role with unflinching abandon. He starts off feeling like little more than comic relief before the film starts to show us that, although he doesn’t carry the same weight as Diggs’ Collin, he is nevertheless fighting to stay afloat in his own way.

Which brings us to the third thing working for this film, which is the direction and editing. The film weaves back and forth in a way that confidently knows when to imbue scenes with frenetic energy and when to let shots linger and be still. All of which feels like a song or dance, as the sense of dread increases that Collin isn’t going to make it through his probation, or that someone else may not make it through the day, period. In fact, there are moments in the film that are so tense, that I felt myself resisting the urge to scream, as my body just wanted some way to release and relieve the tension - particularly after, when you think the tensest, toughest scene is behind you, the film has one more ratcheted-up moment waiting in the wings.

Yet, despite how heavy and hard all of this is, what really holds the film together is that it’s also hilarious. And not in a black humor, sardonic way. It’s a legit comedy, just one that happens to be surrounded by heavy shit. In fact, I cheated when I told you what Casal said about what he and Diggs wanted to write because I left out that they wanted to write “a buddy comedy that doesn’t ignore the world it lives in.” And sure enough, that’s what they did.

I have been telling, and will continue to tell, literally every single person I know that when this movie comes out in July they need to see it. To hear it. To talk about it and to understand it. There aren’t enough superlatives I can throw at this film. It’s funny and tense, honest and insightful, and painfully prescient. At the end of the day, this movie awed me. It’s been two months since I’ve seen it and I’ve put off writing this review because the film deserves better than what I’m capable of saying here. Truthfully, there is so much here that if you really pay attention and listen to what it’s trying to tell you, you’ll feel like you just took a preview class for a 200-level interdisciplinary cultural studies course.

Blindspotting is not only a deeply funny and poignant film but, and I mean this with no sense of hyperbole whatsoever, Blindspotting is also almost certainly the most important movie that will come out this year, maybe even this decade. Because in the decade it took Diggs and Casal to write it, it’s funny and sad how far we’ve come, yet what little progress we have to show for it.

[pnwdoodlesreads]

[...]

About a week after the A Road incident, Shannon Lowe—the woman in capris on Big Bertha—gave an interview to the Peninsula Daily News. The issue of race came up. Lowe is white, but Chevall, her partner and the driver of the bus, is Black and Native American. Lowe told the newspaper that she didn't believe Forks people had targeted her family because of Chevall's race. Nearly every person I talked to in Forks repeated that quote. The point carried not just reputational but also legal heft: Racial targeting could tip any allegation of harassment into a hate crime, a felony that carries prison time. (Targeting a political group does not fall into the definition of a hate crime.)

In late June I connected with Lowe by phone. She and Chevall had driven to the farthest northeastern reaches of Washington, where they'd found work managing a campground. She could only make calls when she visited the nearest town. Lowe told me that she grew up in a speck of a place in Iowa. “I understand having that love for your hometown and not wanting anything bad to happen to your neck of the woods,” she said. She worked as a news director in rural Iowa and later in casinos, where she met Chevall, 15 years her junior.

Three years ago, they bought a white Blue Bird school bus from a farmer, named it Big Bertha, and trekked west to Spokane, where Chevall had family. The couple sometimes stayed with his relatives and sometimes on the bus, which they outfitted with a bed, kitchen, and bathroom. They got jobs in casinos outside Spokane, but when Covid-19 shut down business in the spring, they embraced their unemployment. “We felt like we'd been set free,” Lowe said. They hit the road in Bertha, their own social-distancing mobile. Shannon's 21-year-old daughter, who is white, joined them, along with Tyrone's mom, Sondra Rickard, who is Native, and their two dogs and three cats.

Sondra had been rereading the Twilight books and wanted to see Forks. On the 400-mile trek, Bertha's battery started flagging and its alternator busted. The family decided to push into town, order the parts, and camp until they arrived. Lowe noticed people taking photos of the bus while they drove across the Olympic Peninsula on June 3, but she's used to people waving and honking at Big Bertha.

As they drove into town for supplies, the driver of an ATV flipped Chevall off, and Chevall returned the gesture. Almost immediately after the bus parked in the outer reaches of the Thriftway parking lot, a surveillance camera recorded pickup trucks and an ATV arriving and parking around the bus. An older man wearing a bulletproof vest tried to push open the bus door. More men strolled up and asked Chevall if they were there to protest. The family's German shepherd mix barked madly. Lowe nervously walked past the men to go shop for dinner ingredients while the rest of the family stayed on the bus. In the store, Lowe overheard clerks talking to each other in the produce section, voices tinged with fear. “Have you heard they're sending antifa?” Lowe worried about getting caught in the middle of some incoming riot.

While shopping, Lowe realized she didn't have enough cash and headed back to the bus for Chevall's credit card. Some 10 trucks were now circling Bertha. People stood in small groups staring at the bus. Sondra remarked that it looked like a militia was out in force. Chevall said he'd been waging diplomacy: He'd apologized to the guy with whom he'd exchanged middle fingers and told the men they just wanted to camp. Someone mentioned Rambo was filmed in the surrounding woods. “Everything was very veiled in the parking lot,” Lowe says. Some of the people held cell phones high, trying to take pictures inside the bus

Lowe wanted to leave Forks, but Chevall thought that now that he'd said they were camping, it would look suspicious if they didn't. He navigated Bertha around the trucks in the lot and turned north on Highway 101. The line of vehicles followed them out. As Chevall drove through town, people in trucks poised at street corners flipped the bus off, and, Lowe says, one driver held a rifle out his window. She quipped that she felt bad for anyone trying to mess with this town. Chevall remained silent, guiding Bertha tensely. Neither wanted to worry his mom in the back.

Once the bus turned onto the A Road, the caravan disappeared. Chevall turned onto a smaller logging road, crossed a bridge, and slowed into a pullout littered with tent poles and old workout equipment. The family tumbled out to clean up the site and pitch their tent.

Lowe heard guns firing in five-round bursts but dismissed it as someone shooting at a range. Then, a bunch of ATVs sped by and skidded sideways near Bertha, sending gravel shooting toward the bus and pelting Chevall's pant leg. They decided to leave. As they dismantled the tent, they heard a chain saw, close, echoing around them. Chevall drove back to the bridge they had crossed to see if they could get cell service and to scout new camping locations. On the far side, a thicket of cut tree trunks and branches blocked the road, and behind the barricade there was a gathering of cars and trucks. The innocent explanations they had held onto withered: This was about them, and maybe something more.

“That was the first time that Tyrone started to feel like maybe it was about race,” Lowe told me. “At that point, I still wasn't. I'm a white girl from the Midwest, and I feel like out here in Washington people are a lot more open-minded. I guess I wasn't ready to let go of my fairy tale.”

With no clear plan on how to get out, Chevall turned Bertha around on the skinny road and headed up the mountain, hoping to get cell service at a break in the trees. Shannon's daughter penned a journal entry that began, “If I'm dead and you just found this …” Sondra kept dialing 911, trying to get a signal. Finally, she got through. Chevall told the dispatcher that their bus was barricaded in the woods and lost, and the dispatcher told them to meet deputies at the downed trees.

Careening back to the bridge, Chevall parked at the span's edge and told his mom to lock the bus and not to come after them, no matter what. Hands trembling, Lowe grabbed her Canon camera. She and Chevall tentatively treaded across the bridge as Lowe snapped photos of the people and cars still hanging around, for evidence. She pleaded with Chevall to stay behind her. “I'm 43 and I've lived a pretty good life, and if this is what I go down over, I felt like that's fine,” she said, beginning to cry. “But I didn't want it to be the end for Tyrone.”

She heard someone call out, “They have a camera.” Engines roared, and cars peeled out. “I think at that point they had lost their nerve,” she says. Heading back to their bus to await law enforcement's arrival, they heard another round of gunfire. Chevall said, “Well, I can see how this feels like Rambo.”

Finally, an officer and sheriff's deputy arrived and asked four gawking teens who had driven up as the others were leaving to clear the alders with their chain saws. (It's standard in Forks to carry a chain saw in your truck.) After they made a report at the sheriff's station, the deputies guided them to a place to camp and told them that, for their own safety, they should leave at first light. The family left at dawn and bought a new battery at a Walmart 150 miles away, and Bertha rumbled off the peninsula.

[...]

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/voters-divided-over-which-national-issues-are-most-important/

Voters divided over which national issues are most important

NBC News Exit Poll Desk

3h ago / 10:30 PM UTC

As the 2020 presidential race unfolds amid a global pandemic, economic downturn, and protests about racial injustice in the United States, the economy has emerged as the top voting issue for the electorate.

According to early results from the NBC News Exit Poll of early and Election Day voters, about a third of voters said the economy was the most important issue to their vote. Racial injustice was the most important issue for 21 percent of voters, while another 18 percent said the coronavirus outbreak was their top issue.

But Trump and Biden voters are divided on the most pressing issues. Biden voters are significantly more likely than Trump’s voters to point to racial inequality and the coronavirus as important issues. Trump voters are more likely to point to the economy and crime and safety.

NBC News Exit Poll Desk

3h ago / 10:13 PM UTC

NBC News Exit Poll: Less than half of voters approve of Trump’s performance as president

Less than half of Americans casting ballots in the 2020 presidential election — 47 percent — approve of Donald Trump’s performance as president, according to early results from the NBC News Exit Poll of early and Election Day voters. Fifty-two percent disapprove of his performance.

Trump elicited strong sentiments in both directions. A third of voters expressed strong approval of Trump’s presidency; about 4 in 10 voters said they strongly disapproved.

Trump’s approval rating among voters is a few ticks higher than the final NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Conducted Oct. 29-31, the poll found 45 percent of registered voters approved of Trump’s performance as president. Trump’s approval rating among voters in the exit poll is also higher than polling averages of the public tracked by FiveThirtyEight (which puts his rating at 45 percent) and RealClearPolitics (46 percent). 

With the exception of the first few months of his presidency, Trump’s approval rating has been below 50 percent in most public polls of Americans, an unusually consistent level of unpopularity compared to other U.S. presidents.

Read more on the methodology of the NBC News Exit Poll.

Pete Williams

3h ago / 10:05 PM UTC

Judge to hear case Wednesday on pre-processing Pa. ballots

A federal judge has scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. Wednesday on the lawsuit over pre-processing of mail ballots in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

A lawyer involved in the case said the county was notifying voters if their ballot envelopes had some obvious problem, like a missing date or signature. And the county was also weighing envelopes to see if they contained the required inner security envelope. The county was not, however, opening the envelopes, so one question is whether these procedures violated the state law against pre-canvassing ballots before election day.

A Republican candidate for Congress, Kathy Barnette, claims that county officials illegally began the process of  pre-canvassing — or pre-processing — mailed ballots before the time specified in state law, which is 7 a.m. on election day.

She says more than 3,900 ballots were pre-canvassed and that when problems were discovered, individual voters were notified and given a chance to fix any defects that would have made their ballots void. State law doesn’t allow that, she argues, and it violates the guarantee of equal protection if voters in one county are afforded such opportunities when those in others are not. Her lawsuit asks a federal judge for an order disqualifying any ballots that were cured under the above procedure.

Kelly Cofrancisco, communications director for the county’s board of commissioners, said the state Supreme Court has ruled that while notifying voters of potential problems with their mail ballots is not required, it is also not prohibited. 

“Our process in no way takes the place of the procedures that are followed as part of the canvass of ballots, and at no point prior to canvass is a determination made on whether a ballot will or will not be accepted,” Cofrancisco said. “We believe in doing whatever we can to afford those who have legally requested and returned a ballot a fair opportunity to have their vote count.” 

Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny

3h ago / 9:59 PM UTC

Vote Watch: Twitter takes fast action on accounts violating platform’s policies

Twitter has banned several high-profile accounts that frequently posted about fringe politics on Election Day for breaking the company’s spam or hateful conduct policies.

The company appears to be taking substantial steps to curb spam, election disinformation and violent rhetoric in the final day of a contentious election cycle. Former Congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero was suspended from Twitter on Tuesday afternoon shortly after publishing a tweet that baselessly claimed immigrants would enter the U.S. and commit violence if Trump is not elected. Twitter told NBC News that Tesoriero’s account, which had over 393,000 followers, “was permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules.”

Tesoriero was also a proponent of the false QAnon conspiracy theory. She did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A ring of other accounts that purported to be independent journalists was also removed by Twitter on Tuesday. Accounts in the group, which had over 100,000 collective followers, were often the source of misleading or politically charged images and videos from protests in recent months. A Twitter spokesperson told NBC News the accounts were suspended for violating its rules on spam and platform manipulation. That policy specifically addresses “coordinated activity” and “attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts.”

    Carmen Sesin

3h ago / 10:06 PM UTC

Strong turnout in Florida’s most populous county after record-breaking early voting

Voters wait in line outside the Hialeah John F. Kennedy Library on Election Day in Miami.Sam Navarro / for NBC News

MIAMI ­— Election Day brought strong voter turnout in Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous, after a record-breaking amount of ballots cast by mail and during the early voting period.

As of 2 p.m., 88,000 people had voted on Election Day. But even before the day started, 1,135,078 or 65 percent of registered voters had already voted, according to Miami-Dade Elections Department. By comparison, in 2016, a total of 998,000 ballots were cast.

At the Coral Gables Branch Library, in Miami-Dade County, there was only a trickle of voters throughout most of the day, after having been one of the busiest in the county during the early voting period.

Outside the library, Nicole Gonzalez, 27, said she voted for Biden, “because we need to care about each other and that’s what it comes down to.” The Cuban-American artist cited racism and “anything that makes people feel unsafe” as reasons to vote for the Democratic nominee.

She said her family leans Republican and she doesn’t feel heard by them sometimes.

Miami-Dade is the most populous county in the state and it’s 70 percent Latino. Hillary Clinton won the county by 300,000 votes in 2016. But since then alliances have shifted. Trump’s deluge of messaging attacking Democrats as socialists has been effective with the large Cuban-American community, Venezuelan Americans, Colombian Americans, and other groups.

Outside the library, Marianne Brandon, 84, said she was directed to another precinct because voter ID had expired. Brandon, born in Hungary and raised in Colombia, said she would vote for Trump because she “doesn’t like the other communists.”

Brandon, retired from the insurance business, said “I have traveled a lot in my life. I know what communism is and it doesn’t work.”

Suzanne Gamboa

4h ago / 9:47 PM UTC

Texas twins in a truck: Julián and Joaquín Castro make final attempt to get out the vote

Democrats Julián and Rep. Joaquín Castro threw out a double whammy of encouragement to voters in their hometown of San Antonio, Texas, Tuesday. 

The two rode in the back of a white Chevy Silverado festooned with Texas and American flags through the streets of their old West Side neighborhood. They were followed by a few cars with Biden-Harris signs and blue balloons. The caravan was intentionally limited to avoid any security issues after a Biden-Harris campaign bus was forced off the road by a Trump caravan. 

The Castros waved and threw thumbs up at largely enthusiastic motorists they passed and people outside their homes. One pedestrian gestured with his thumb turned down as the cars drove by. 

Julián Castro said the caravan was a throwback to the sort of political campaigning — trucks with bullhorns shouting political messages — that used to be seen in his neighborhood and other Latino communities, and still seen in Mexico and parts of Latin America. 

“We’re going old school today,” Castro said. “We could go over 12 million votes in Texas, which would be a record and we want to make sure everybody gets out and expresses their voice through their vote.” 

Texas has been a reliably Republican state for years but has been trending Democrat with growth in Hispanic and Asian populations and higher engagement of young voters. The presidential race is tight, giving Democrats some hopes of turning Texas blue this year. 

“Just like everybody else I’m still really anxious,” said Joaquín Castro about the chances of a Texas turnover. With the state already having set an early voting record of 9 million votes and a potential total voting record, “that’s a good sign for Democrats.”

David Ingram

3h ago / 9:57 PM UTC

Biden outspent Trump on Facebook, Google ads down the stretch

Biden spent about twice as much money on Facebook ads as Trump did in the final week of the campaign, according to data from the tech company. 

Biden’s campaign spent $14 million on Facebook and Instagram versus $6 million spent by Trump’s campaign, according to an analysis of Facebook data for Oct. 25 through Oct. 31 by Acronym, a liberal group that tracks ad spending and runs anti-Trump ads through an affiliate. NBC News confirmed the numbers through Facebook’s ad library. 

The ad spending was despite technical problems that both campaigns said they experienced on Facebook last week. 

Biden also spent more than Trump on Google and its properties including YouTube, according to the analysis of Google data: $9.7 million by Biden versus $7.9 million by Trump. 

A big budget isn’t always the most effective for internet ads, where an auction usually determines the price an advertiser pays. The Markup, a tech news website, reported last month that Biden was paying 11 percent more on average for Facebook ad impressions than Trump’s campaign was, a difference Facebook attributed to the campaigns’ strategies. 

In 2016, Trump and his campaign staff credited their Facebook advertising effort with fueling their come-from-behind victory.

Adam Edelman

4h ago / 9:38 PM UTC

The scene at Biden election headquarters

Greetings from the Biden campaign’s election night headquarters in the main parking lot of the Chase Center on the Riverfront, in Wilmington, Delaware!

This parking lot will serve as the venue for the campaign’s election night drive-in car rally, although at the moment it remains empty of supporters as workers put the finishing touches on the construction of the platform and podium where Biden will speak later.

It’s a currently a crisp 64 degrees here, with grey skies. While reporters are gradually streaming into the media area on the perimeter of the lot, the only sounds to be heard presently are the din of traffic on nearby I-95 and the continuing hum of construction vehicles.

That will all change in a few hours, when about 300 cars will be let into the lot for the rally. 

Nicole Acevedo

4h ago / 9:28 PM UTC

How is DACA influencing voters?

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is trending on Twitter as voters discuss how DACA influenced their decisions on Election Day. Others are dedicating their votes to DACA recipients who are not eligible to vote.

The DACA program has become a point contention under the Trump administration, which sought to end the program. DACA currently protects over 600,000 teens and young adults who were brought to the U.S. as undocumented children and lack legal status. The Obama-era program gives them a chance to study and work without fear of deportation.

The Trump administration began rejecting new applicants to the program this summer about a month after the Supreme Court blocked the White House from ending the program completely. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the administration was “arbitrary and capricious” in its attempt to end DACA. 

“We are going to take care of DACA, we’re going to take care of Dreamer, it’s working right now, we’re negotiating different aspects of immigration and immigration law,” President Trump said during an NBC News town hall on Oct. 15. “We’re working very hard on the DACA program.”

In his campaign platform, Biden has pledged to reinstate the DACA program and explore “all legal options to protect their families from inhumane separation.”

I dedicate my first vote to my Yucatecan parents and the rest of my latino community that is denied the right to vote because of their legal status. I also dedicate my vote to my hardworking DACA peers and the next generation of voters to come ❤️ #cccas10a20 pic.twitter.com/wTD2fcIWyg

— kelly 🧸💗 (@sahltyk) November 3, 2020

Hi I’m a DACA immigrant. I can’t vote. Trump has tried to dismantle DACA several times and my whole family who already has their citizenship voted for Trump. #irony

— Dastardly Dani (@dastardlydani) November 3, 2020

This is for my ppl, my DACA friends. My dad that unfairly got his visa rights stripped.This is for ME. I’m still fighting for my rights. After years of trying to prove that I’m a citizen I was finally able to at least vote for the first time. I’m literally crying rn, please VOTE. pic.twitter.com/gtENRucSnU

— Dre.♡ (@dredreey) November 3, 2020

[newstfionline]

Monday, October 12, 2020

Canada celebrates Thanksgiving amid coronavirus second wave, mixed messages (Washington Post) TORONTO—With cases of the coronavirus rising this spring, Carole Robert’s “close-knit” family scrapped Easter. A family reunion planned for the summer was also a wash. So when Robert got on the phone with a sister recently to talk Thanksgiving—a holiday she typically celebrates with some 35 family members—she knew what was coming. “It’s completely canceled,” said Robert, who lives in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, roughly 60 miles from Ottawa. “There’s always next year.” Canadian Thanksgiving comes earlier than the American version—families will gather to eat turkey and avoid discussing politics on Monday. But in this pandemic year, authorities across the country are urging Canadians to curtail their holiday plans. Some suggest celebrating only with others who are already living under the same roof. Others advise moving the party outdoors or online. In a rare nationally televised address last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it might be necessary to cancel Thanksgiving to “have a shot at Christmas.” Whether Canadians obey those pleas remains to be seen. Forty percent of Canadians surveyed by the Montreal polling firm Leger this month said they haven’t or won’t change their Thanksgiving plans because of the pandemic.

Humpback whales have made a comeback in New York City (CBS News) A whale sighting in New York would have been almost unimaginable a few years ago. Now, the city is welcoming back whales. The Hudson River, which flows along the western stretch of Manhattan, is a lot cleaner than it was in the past, “and so it’s bringing nutrients out rather than pollution,” said Paul Sieswerda, president of the group Gotham Whale, which advocates for whales and marine mammals in New York City. The Clean Water Act and the Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972, likely helped revive plankton levels in the area. Over the years, the food chain has been built up, and humpback whales are now enjoying some New York fine dining. “The whales come here to eat. New York is famous as being a good place to find good food. And the whales have found menhaden, which the local fishermen call ‘bunker,’” Sieswerda said. In 2011, just three whales were spotted in the area. Last year, there were more than 300. 

Supreme Court confirmation battle starts Monday (NYT) Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s seat, goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. Republicans applaud her as a dazzling legal scholar, while Democrats fear the creation of a conservative majority that would threaten the Affordable Care Act, gay marriage and abortion rights.

In hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, residents dig out, again (AP) LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP)—A blue tarp covered a hole in their roof, torn open when the last hurricane blew through. Friday night, the next hurricane tried to rip the tarp away. Earnestine and Milton Wesley had decided to ride out Hurricane Delta in their Lake Charles home, damaged just weeks earlier by Hurricane Laura. As the wind rustled the tarp above them, they grabbed it through the hole in the ceiling and held on tight. “We fought all night long trying to keep things intact,” Milton said. “And with God’s help we made it.” Delta made landfall Friday evening near the coastal town of Creole with top winds of 100 mph (155 kph). It moved over Lake Charles, a city where Hurricane Laura damaged nearly every home and building in late August. Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter estimated that hundreds of already battered homes took on water, as Delta dumped more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain on Lake Charles over two days. And people were already exhausted and stressed—for two weeks the Wesleys had been sleeping on their back porch to escape the heat because they had no power.

Brazil reaches 150,000 deaths from COVID-19 milestone (AP) Brazil’s count of COVID-19 deaths surpassed 150,000 on Saturday night, despite signs the pandemic is slowly retreating in Latin America’s largest nation. The Brazilian Health Ministry reported that the death toll now stands at 150,198. The figure is the world’s second highest behind the United States, according to the tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

UK at ‘tipping point:’ England braces for more restrictions (AP) Millions of people in northern England are anxiously waiting to hear how much further virus restrictions will be tightened as one of the British government’s leading medical advisers warned Sunday that the country is at a crucial juncture in the second wave of the coronavirus. England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said the U.K. is at a “tipping point similar to where we were in March” following a sharp increase in new coronavirus cases. All across Europe including the U.K., there have been huge increases in coronavirus cases over the past few weeks following the reopening of large sectors of the economy, as well as schools and universities. Although coronavirus infections are rising throughout England, northern cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle have seen a disproportionate increase. While some rural areas in eastern England have less than 20 cases per 100,000 people, major metropolitan areas such as Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham have recently recorded levels above 500 per 100,000, nearly as bad as Madrid or Brussels. As a result, national restrictions such as a 10 p.m. curfew on pubs and restaurants have been supplemented by local actions, including in some cases banning contacts between households.

Dozens stage attack on police station in Paris suburb (Reuters) About 40 unidentified people armed with metal bars and using fireworks as mortars tried to storm a French police station in the Paris suburbs on Saturday night, officials said on Sunday. “Violent attack last night on the police station of Champigny with mortar shots and various projectiles. No police officer was injured,” the Paris police headquarters said on Twitter. The motive for the attack, the third on this police station in two years, was not immediately clear. The police station is located in a housing estate area known for drug trafficking and deemed by authorities as a high-priority district for order to be restored. “It was an organised attack of about 40 people who wanted to do battle,” Champigny Mayor Laurent Jeanne told BFM. “For a few days it has been tense with people who have a certain willingness to do battle with the police. It’s anti-police sentiment. We weren’t far off from a disaster.”

Italian teenage computer whiz beatified by Catholic Church (AP) A 15-year-old Italian computer whiz who died of leukemia in 2006 moved a step closer to possible sainthood Saturday with his beatification in the town of Assisi, where he is buried. Carlo Acutis is the youngest contemporary person to be beatified, a path taken by two Portuguese shepherd children living in the early 1900s who were proclaimed Catholic saints in 2017. Already touted as the “patron saint of the internet,” Acutis created a website to catalog miracles and took care of websites for some local Catholic organizations. While still in elementary school, Acutis taught himself to code using a university computer science textbook, and then learned how to edit videos and create animation. “Carlo used the internet in service of the Gospel, to reach as many people as possible,” Cardinal Agostino Vallini said during his homily. Before he died, Acutis told his mother that he would give her many signs of his presence after death. “Before he left us, I told him: If in heaven you find our four-legged friends, look for Billy, my childhood dog that he never knew,” the mother said. One day she got a call from an aunt who was unaware of the mother-son pact, saying “I saw Carlo in a dream tonight. He was holding Billy in his arms.”

Much of America has stopped celebrating Columbus Day, but the explorer remains revered in Italy (Washington Post) While many Christopher Columbus statues were toppled this year in the United States—dragged into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, beheaded in Boston—the towering marble monument to the explorer in his hometown, Genoa, Italy, is disturbed only by pigeons. As Americans feud over whether Columbus Day should remain a federal holiday—or whether the man who first charted the transatlantic route in 1492 should be remembered as a colonial oppressor—in Italy, Columbus is still held in high esteem. Italians tend to think of him as the sum of their best qualities: ingenuity, courage and resilience. “More than 500 years after his death [Columbus] has to suffer new insults,” Francesco Giubilei and Marco Valle wrote in the conservative newspaper Il Giornale in July. “Thinking that by destroying his statues and eradicating his memory one may solve [U.S. society’s racial tensions] is hypocritical and wrong.”

Police in Belarus crack down on protesters, detain dozens (Reuters) Security forces in Belarus detained dozens of protesters on Sunday and used force, including water cannon and batons, to break up crowds demanding a new presidential election, TV footage showed. Footage published by local news outlets showed police officers wearing black balaclavas dragging protesters into unmarked black vans and beating protesters with their batons at a rally that drew thousands onto the streets of Minsk, the capital. Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, has been rocked by street protests and strikes since authorities announced that veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko had won an Aug. 9 vote by a landslide. People have since taken to the streets every week to demand that Lukashenko step down and allow for a new election to be held. Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager who has been in power since 1994, denies his win was the result of cheating.

A Convicted Kidnapper Is Chosen to Lead Government of Kyrgyzstan (NYT) A man who had been convicted of kidnapping was chosen to be the prime minister of Kyrgyzstan on Saturday after feuding politicians agreed on a new government in an effort to end nearly a week of violent turmoil in the Central Asian country. An agreement to put the government under the man, Sadyr Japarov, who was sprung from jail this past week by anti-government protesters, should help calm street violence. But it stirred alarm in some quarters that criminal elements had prevailed in a power struggle set off by disputed parliamentary election results last Sunday. Russia, struggling with a rash of unrest across the former Soviet Union, including protests in neighboring Belarus and fierce fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan, has a military base in Kyrgyzstan but has mostly stood aside from the political chaos in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. Moscow reached out to a senior security official offering help, but that official was then promptly fired. On Friday, Kyrgyzstan’s embattled president, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, declared a state of emergency in Bishkek, ordering troops onto the streets and confining residents to their homes. “The threat of losing our country is real,” he warned. Violence continued, however, fueled largely by Mr. Japarov’s supporters, who hurled rocks and other projectiles at the followers of a rival would-be prime minister, Omurbek Babanov, and attacked journalists. Several shots were fired. The unrest began with a wave of public anger over the victory of pro-government parties last Sunday in a parliamentary election tainted by credible allegations of widespread vote-buying. Protesters stormed jails and government buildings, sending the president into hiding. The election results were then quickly annulled, opening the way for a new vote, but the turmoil escalated as rival opposition politicians began fighting for government posts, unleashing mobs of young men to confront each other on the street. Arkady Dubnov, a Central Asia expert in Moscow, said the new prime minister, Mr. Japarov, who just days ago was serving an 11-and-a-half-year sentence for organizing the 2013 kidnapping of a regional governor, had prevailed “because his supporters turned out to be the strongest.”

Flooding in Cambodia leaves at least 11 dead (AP) Flooding in Cambodia has killed at least 11 people since the beginning of the month, a disaster official said Sunday. Seasonal rains were made worse by a tropical storm, which caused flash floods in several provinces last week, said Khun Sokha, a spokesman for the National Committee for Disaster Management.

[sexygarbage]

1:20am

Have I written about how I realized that I have a hometown murder???! I recently finished every episode of MFM that isn’t a live show and isn’t a minisode. So, now I’m going down the list of minisodes. Which, are just as entertaining, if not more so than the good ol fashioned shows. And every time I hear these hometown murders I am like so jelous that I don’t have a story to tell! I mean, people are writing about close encounters with famous serial killers or even unknown killers. Or like not even murder related but touching and thoughtful or about ghosts or the super natural. And I wanna be featured on it so bad. I was listening to them talk about a mother who had murdered her own baby or something and how it’s the lowest of the low in prison if you’re a mother who murdered your baby. And then it all came back to me. I had a middle school/high school friend named Barbara Ramirez Sufuentes who drowned her two twin babies in her bathtub like 4 years ago!!!!!!!!! I honestly thing I repressed this memory because at the time, she had started posting more on her facebook about them and also she had commented on a depressing instagram picture I posted of a bb gun to my head. She was like “are you okay? guns are kinda serious” And then she straight up murdered her two twin daughters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At the time, I just could not believe it. It was a numbing time, a depressing time. Me and Barbara had fallen out of touch. It was weird of her to even ask me anything about myself because we had not spoken for years. So, I’m sure at the time I just repressed it. I wasn’t into true crime shit just then. And when I was listening to MFM I re-remembered. I wrote to them but I doubt that it will get read because sometimes I feel as if I have to dumb myself down a little bit and I probably did that in the email, causing it to probably be boring and I don’t think it would make the cut :/ 

But! It was interesting to re-remember something from my past. Barbara was like one of those girls who were super intimidating and like really pushy. And you kinda just had to feed into their delusions in order to maintain peace you know. There was something about her that was always a little unhinged, or like off... I always thought that... which is why I wasn’t so committed to staying friends with her after middle school yanno. But upon my research, she was arrested on mothers day and she claimed it was a horrible accident. She started the twins bath and was listening to music very loudly and the next thing she knew they were dead... She was also seen smiling when she got arrested! She was found guilty and is serving a 6 year prison sentence. People in the fb comments were heavily debating. A lot veer into the side of it just being a crazy accident and then some people are too ragefilled about it. Also upon researching, I discovered a prison penpals website where she wrote an ad seeking friends while she was in prison. And it was very strangely written, she only said she was in prison for a crime that was due to recklessness on her part and that she hadn’t done anything wrong before that. She also used a lot of quotes and named the bands she listened to... It just seems so creepy to me. Because with all the red flags, it’s so obvious that she totally killed her babies and it was not an accident. But this was a girl I basically grew up with!! We might have even had a sleepover or she at least came to my house once or twice!! She was someone that I knew. Someone that I had study hall with, someone that influenced me as a kid and she totally fuckin murdered her own children!!!!!!! I mean, it’s crazy when I think about it now. Now that I am so invested in crazy shit like this and have heard so many fucked up stories. And the thing that baffles me is that when you’re in school, it feels already like a prison. And everyone around you can bond over the fact that you are all pretty much miserable. And Barbara was def not a student who stayed out of trouble. She was always in trouble. She was fuckin crazy! School is like baby prison. Prison is like real life adult serious prison!!!!!! Like, murderers, rapists, unfathomable, unforgivable crimes is where prison is! And I already empathize way more than I need to so when I realize the legitamcy of it all, it fuckin freaks me out. Ofc I didn’t write anything as poignant and personal like this when I wrote the email for MFM. But, I still shared the small barely interesting story. 

I keep thinking about it and I just wanna know that they read it. But I can’t count on that outcome. I’ve just listened to like 5 minisodes in a row and they have all made me laugh and cry and scream and get goosebumps. They make me feel so many emotions, and they trigger me and I begin to feel genuine feelings which is so hard to come by especially because the people close to me are a majority of sociopaths. And when I listen to the stories and the carmraderie and the sense of belinging, it just warms my heart. I mean I hate to be so cornball about it. But shit, I’m mostly having a bad day and I’m mostly secretly struggling and feeling out of place and uncared for and this just totally turns me around and I become intrigued, I am put in a trance where things are just not so shitty and the hottest of tea is being spilt in the most twisted of ways! It is everything I live for! 

So yeah, I’ve been emmersed in these crazy stories, I might be gong insane a little bit. I also wanna write about my thoughts on my therapist because I don’t write about it that often. Me hanging out with Coco so much and hating it is an indication that I, too, am quite insane. Because I have no where else to go. And so I keep going back to Coco when I know she makes me feel like shit. It’s not normal that every time I call Sas, we have to have a Coco complaints hour. I know it’s fun to talk about the dysfunction of others. But at a certain point, it is spilling onto me. And look, the situation is not easy for anyone. Idk if anyone would care, but I would be certainly sad if I just straight up ghosted everyone cus I couldn’t stand Coco. No, I love everyone else, that’s why I have to put up with Coco. And when I go to my therapist about it, I could be talking about so many other things... My committment issues, my daddy issues, so many other issues but all I wanna talk about is how many times Coco has rubbed me the wrong way within two weeks! And I tell my therapist how shitty I’m feeling, and it upsets him to know that I’m upset so then I feel even more shittier. And we know the only solution is to get rid of her but it’s not easy and it’s not realistic. And I’m kinda just looking for a scientific explination of my dynamic with Coco, of my reasoning for my own attachment. But we never get there. With my therapist, he never gives me a scientific explination as to why I am the way that I am with certain people. He praises me a lot, he tells me positive things about myself and shitty things about everybody else. And on one hand, I do need to hear good things about myself because not many people are praising me and I need validation. But on the other hand, I am uncomfortable about it and I don’t know how to make that clear. I just think my therapist is way too emotional. Way too empathetic. And way too on my side! I mean, I know I’ve been gaslighted to believe everyone should be mean to me, but I need someone who is unfeeling. Someone who will give me scientific explanations. I’ve been kinda wanting to break up with my therapist :/ Which sucks because I love him so much. And part of it is me. Because I just don’t know how to deal with someone who sees me for me. I only know how to deal with people who make me the butt of the joke or something like that. I’m not used to people being so nice to me and it freaks me out and it makes me uncomfortable. And I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. But idk what to do. Also, my therapist is good at taking this into accountability, but it is different to have a white therapist when I’m not white. And he’s like super aware of racial differences, super understanding. And sometimes I just feel like I need a person of color therapist you know. Maybe not straight up filipino because you know pinoys are judgemental and hella religious. But at least just another person of color and a woman, so we’re all on the same page. Like, my therapist is an openly gay trans man and you could not ask for a better sense of open mindedness and a radical stance on politics. But, I am already so emotional. My therapist cannot be more emotional than me. It makes me feel like I have to retaliate and so then I become unfeeling. 

And also, the thing about therapy is that your therapist is always gonna be on your side. I was talking to Sas about what Coco’s therapy is like and it’s true, you can just straight up lie the whole time. And that’s probably what Coco is doing. She is doing her mother teresa act, crying her crocodile tears and her therapist has to buy it, her therapist has to be on her side and tell her the things she thinks she wants to hear. But her therapist is missing a huge chunk of Coco herself because therapists will only ever get your side of your story. I have probably hurt a lot of people too, and it’s not supposed to matter to your therapist. But sometimes I just wish it would so I could know how much of a shitty person I am. The way Coco’s therapist would never tell her. I wanna know all the bad things about me. A stranger just can’t know that about you because ofc I’m seemingly nice, and so are the thoughts that come out of my mouth and into my therapists’ ear. Ofc, he’s not gonna tell me all the bad things about myself. Ofc it’s just me finding new ways to hate myself even when I try to get better about it... Sometimes tho I feel as if I don’t even need therapy when I know so much shit already. But that’s just me being cocky and stupid... Anyway, idk! Imma just ride it out. I still have writing. And I still have my podcast and other creative endeavors. 

Actually, you know what I think this is me just like dealing with the fact that therapy is really that hard. I mean, you tell everyone to go to therapy but it’s only if theyre willing to work at it. Because it is a constant constant battle. And it’s never gonna be easy. And it’s so hard for me to like not feel bummed out about it because life is so hard. And then sometimes I just feel like there is no hope at all. Even when I put myself in a position to see that there is.. 

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: A Critical Understanding of Edward Curtis’s Photos of Native American Culture

Plate from The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis at the Muskegon Museum of Art (all images by the author for Hyperallergic)

MUSKEGON, Mich. — Can one come to a revelation through a visit to an art museum, or is it something that can only be arrived at through a more intensive personal journey? This is the question that emerged for me as I visited the Muskegon Museum of Art for Edward S. Curtis: The North American Indian, a massive installation of the 30-year-plus ethnographic survey of surviving Native American culture by turn-of-the-20th-century, Seattle-based photographer Edward S. Curtis.

Edward Curtis, self-portrait

The North American Indian is a seminal and controversial blend of documentary and staged photography — one which contributes to much of the foundational imagery and, often-stereotypical, understanding possessed by white America about some 82-plus native tribes that the United States eradicated over a century of colonization. Much has been made about the complexities, contradictions, and conflicts of interest in Curtis’s masterwork, by Native and non-Native scholars. Some argue that in staging photographs and, at times, adding props or accessories, Curtis took liberties with the concept of ethnography, both imposing and reinforcing white notions of Native American appearances and culture. Others argue that without Curtis, there would be hardly any extant imagery of the cultural heritage of the tribes he worked with.

The Curtis exhibition at the Muskegon Museum of Art raised, for me, compelling questions around our individual and institutional tendencies to justify the art that we find interesting. It is undeniable that the 723 portfolio images lining the walls of the Musekegon’s galleries — as well as a 20-volume edition gathering 1,500 additional photos and ethnographic research carried out by Curtis in cooperation with tribes west of the Missouri River — represent a remarkable accomplishment. They are fascinating photos, and managed to chronicle what Curtis called, “the lifeways and morays of all the tribes who were still relatively intact from the colonialism and the invasion of Anglo culture.” Beyond ethnography, many of them are also formally beautiful works of art.

Plate from Edward Curtis’s The North American Indian

The Muskegon Museum has personal reason to take pride in this exhibition — the museum is in possession of the collection because of Lulu Miller, the first female director of the adjacent Hackley Library and second director of the Muskegon Art Museum (appointed in 1916, being the second woman in the US to run an art museum). In 1908, as her first acquisition for the library, Miller sourced $3,000 to purchase a subscription to Curtis’s series, which was issued in 20 volumes and would ultimately take 30 years to complete — an incredible gamble when you consider that sum is equivalent to $80,000 today, and certainly a tidy sum for a regional library. The Muskegon Museum of Art owns one of the estimated 225 sets of The North American Indian (many of which are likely incomplete), and this exhibition is one of very few that has put the collection on display in its entirety. The final volume arrived in late 1930, bracketing Miller’s career with the library and museum, and in the 1970s was transferred from the library to the purview of the art museum for conservation efforts.

Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, Michigan

“We think she was pretty gutsy,” said Muskegon Museum of Art’s executive director Judith Haynor, in reference to Miller. “We have a variety of letters from Curtis to Lulu, and from his staff — they had a lively correspondence. There have been 200 or more exhibitions of selections of Curtis’s work, but from what we can ascertain, never before has the entire body of work been put out on display.”

However, the hometown pride in the visionary Lulu Miller — not to mention the more generalized sense of wonder at the beauty and exoticism of Curtis’s imagery — has perhaps skewed the museum’s framing of the appropriateness and relevance of Curtis’s work. The prevailing view here is that the photographs’ issues are a product of their time, and that they are nonetheless of educational value, particularly in our current climate.

Edward S. Curtis: The North American Indian, installation view at the Muskegon Museum of Art

“I think that these images clearly show someone who began to understand more deeply the importance and uniqueness of the American Indian cultures,” said guest curator Ben Mitchell, who worked on the exhibition for some two years. “You can find this in his writing, that he came to understand that white America had something really poignant and important to learn from Native American culture, especially the depth of the spirituality. And I think about the times that we live in right now, in a time of name-calling, when our major political leadership is scapegoating people who are not white. Deportation is up 38% in just the last four months. The point is, I think, that Curtis, through The North American Indian, realized that white America had something to learn.”

Edward S. Curtis: The North American Indian, installation view, including a display featuring a camera of the type Curtis hauled, along with boxes of glass negatives

The museum has gone to great lengths to ensure deft handling of the subject matter, including engagement with the local Little River Band of Ottowa Indians, located in Manistee, Michigan (too far east to have been included in Curtis’s work). Tribal Chief Larry Romanelli served as an advisor to the exhibition, and appeared with other Native American participants in panel discussions and programming that accompanied the exhibition. His view of the exhibition is positive, and echoes a sentiment presented in some of the voluminous wall texts accompanying the imagery: that Curtis captured humanity and heritage that is significant to the descendants of Native American tribes, which would likely have otherwise been lost forever.

“Edward Curtis’s work is not embraced by 100% of people, or all Indian tribes, as well. And they wanted to know if I thought it would be a good idea or not,” said Romanelli in an interview with Hyperallergic. “I’ve been interested in his work for years, and I believe the good absolutely outweighs the negative part. I don’t believe that he ever did anything to intentionally hurt Native Americans. I think he was trying to help Native Americans, and that makes a big difference to me.”

Plate from Edward Curtis’s The North American Indian (detail view)

Romanelli also highlighted a strong sense of connection to the subjects of Curtis’s photographs. “The world would not have known those people [without Curtis’s work], and I believe, in one sense, I can see the souls of my ancestors. I would not have known what they looked like, who they were. So I cherish those photos, from my perspective.”

Perhaps it is powerful enough, all on its own, to enter a conventional museum space and find it entirely dedicated to images of people of color. Western art institutions continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by Eurocentric imagery and artists, and perhaps, by putting these photos on display, they help contribute to a collective understanding of racial injustice.

Plate from Edward Curtis’s The North American Indian

“The time we live in today, where we have the rise of white supremacy, compared with just one year ago — I think pushing forward a takeaway that the majority, dominant, white male culture in America still has a lot to learn from cultures that are not themselves is entirely appropriate,” said Mitchell, in an interview with Hyperallergic. “Some of us may feel that we have already had that takeaway, because of our background and our experience — but remember that in almost any community, the art museum, the anthropology museum will receive far more visitors with very little background in art and anthropology. Our job is to teach.”

Perhaps this is so, and all my personal frustration at the retrograde mentalities that make such remedial learning a necessity does not, at the end of the day, mean they do not exist or need to be addressed. But I have to wonder, if we are dealing with a population whose baseline takeaway from The North American Indian is that “Indians are people, too,” is putting 723 images on display enough to truly move the needle? After all, the United States is still breaking treaties. One cannot doubt Mitchell’s sincere engagement with Curtis’s work, nor the museum’s good faith efforts to present it in an inclusive way — nor even, in following Curtis’s 30-year journey of engagement with tribespeople, can one doubt that the experience profoundly affected his understanding of Native American cultures and humanity. But if presenting such imagery were enough to trigger revelation, could we not put 723 images of Syrian refugees on display somewhere, and watch the understanding come rolling in?

Edward S. Curtis: The North American Indian, installation view at the Muskegon Museum of Art

A more effective contemporary reading of Curtis’s work happens in what I consider to be the very best part of the exhibition: the room juxtaposing Curtis’s images with the work of contemporary Native American artists who’ve reflected upon his impact on their cultural identity. Some, like two paintings by Ojibwe painter Jim Denomie, characterize Curtis as a kind of voyeur or paparazzi figure. Others directly reference his photography in their personal, interpretive works. Inarguably, Curtis’s long relationship with the tribespeople of North America had a significant impact on their communities.

Some of the contemporary works, hung adjacent to Edward Curtis’s photographs which served as source material

According to the narrative presented by the museum, by the end of The North American Indian, Curtis was basically penniless and died in obscurity, as popular interest in his project waned while his own obsession mounted. In his later years, as he became more aware of the struggles of the people he was photographing, his work might be seen as an early attempt at activist or social practice art, before there was any notion of such a thing. These works, also on display, showcase Native Americans living in a more Anglicized context, wearing Depression-era clothing rather than traditional garb, and reflect the ways in which there was, by then, little remaining of the “lifeways and morays” that Curtis found so initially fascinating. The fact that he continued to pursue Native Americans as subjects outside of the exoticized trappings of their traditional culture demonstrates a real transition in Curtis’s work.

Painting by Ojibwe artist Jim Denomie characterizes Edward Curtis as a paparazzi figure

Today, the preponderance of technology has made it possible for people to self-document, and there is less a need to rely on an external, paternalistic, or authoritative record. In this, at least, Curtis’s access to photography tools and training can justifiably be recognized as a product of his time. The question is, then, how can we take this work and do it better in our time — for example, centralizing the creative output and self-representation of Native American peoples, or at least giving it equal ground in the museum setting (rather than only putting it on display in museums dedicated to anthropology or Native American art).

“I’ve come away from this two years of work realizing that history is a very powerful force, because history, when you’re immersed in it, isn’t just looking at the past,” said Mitchell. “History constantly informs the present you’re living in — or it better, if we’re paying attention. But even more than that — and this touches upon why this exhibition is so poignantly timely for the time we live in — history also points us to our future that we’re going to share. We learn from the history how to live in our present, and how to plan to live in our future.”

Edward S. Curtis: The North American Indian continues at the Muskegon Museum of Art (296 W Webster Ave, Muskegon, Mich.) through September 10.

The post A Critical Understanding of Edward Curtis’s Photos of Native American Culture appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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