#and bc of this rampant racism it's actually working

[silverislander]

genuinely worried that my final american lit project is going to spark a new historical hyperfixation. the problem is that i'm researching alcoholism in 19th century new york. and you can't really cheerfully infodump about that

[tododeku-or-bust]

a 🔥 on shipping?

I actually do believe it's possible to enjoy shipping without it overwhelming your life. It's just remembering that it's a hobby. There's not a single ship nor fandom that I value over human rights lmao and I'm certainly not going to let you think racism is an acceptable hobby. (like every fandom space I've been in for shipping purposes, I enjoy the ship dynamics itself. That doesn't change! But between the rampant antiblackness and east asian fetishization/infantilization... Atp, I'll pass.)

I feel like that fiction v reality argument does work- when you have people who actually have the common sense and priorities to do it. A lot of people who toss that argument are only doing it to get out of accountability that they didn't recognize a racist caricature or something; they're not actually applying the skills necessary to strike that balance. They simply aren't doing it lmao. Bc I've read some wild shit in my day, but I also have the sense to recognize when there's a certain type of message being tossed at me (whether the author meant to or not). It's a skill that comes from practicing intentional reading comprehension, and from an awareness of the society I live in (these things aren't a vacuum).

[neotrances]

gen z has swarms of racist and transphobes getting brain damage on 4chan and screaming the n word in every other meme, “the young generation will fix it all” is a incredibly misguided thought process, it’s like those anti bullying rallies they hold in school that refuse to address why people get bullied (usually bc someone is neroudivergent in some way, lgbt, fat, or a person of color) when u have a new generation raised by the old one, and racism is still rampant, misogny is still celebrated, transphobia is the norm, and ignoring and hating the disabled is expected, there is no mass progress, when u say that the entirety of gen z is progressive u r ignoring the reality world we live in “once the boomers die everything will be ok” and what exactly do u think happens to the children and children of those children raised by said boomers? almost every bigot i’ve been harassed by irl has been my age and younger, the terror minorities face won’t just evaporate once the old die because it isn’t an age issue but a cultural one, most of the population refuses to do the work to actually care for others, stop plugging ur ears and screaming “the kids will save us! the kids are all woke now!” the kids r just as bigoted as their parents and grandparents that raised them, only difference now is minorities have access to the internet and slightly more rights to vocalize injustice, the elders that fought for us to have the ability to talk about our problems have been killed or silenced or jailed, u are not “the future” just by being young, it takes more leg work than that

[aithusarosekiller]

this might get me cancelled so i'm doing it on anon. i genuinely think people in this fandom have a hard time grasping nuance - a lot of the time everything is very black and white.

my unpopular opinion would be that i don't hc james as desi. i actually AM desi and it really annoys me when i go on tiktok and see people hating on edits with aaron taylor johnson/calling it racist. that's not how racism works??? this entire fandom was made out of thin air. the main fancast for james was atj in the past so obviously people are going to stick with it.

also i do find it cringe when people try to write him as desi or whatever and it's the most stereotypical, borderline racist thing ever. kinda understandable seeing as a lot of these people aren't actually desi and most of the microaggressions come from ignorance rather than actual malice but come on. do some research.

i'm pretty sure i've seen people mix up nepal and india a lot. that reminds me reiky de valk IS NOT DESI. he's mixed Dutch, Vietnamese, and Somalian. so stop using him as your desi!james fancast. it is literally racist. also reminds me of how people who hc that the black family are asian often use people from different parts of asia for the black brothers. i think thats worse than a microaggression because you're just saying all asian people look the same.

at the same time i usually see this on tiktok so maybe it's just the type of people found there? idk. sorry if this is rude i'm just in a hater mood.

I said that I wouldn't be responding to asks until later but this one is important so I'm gonna do it now because it's just right

And whenever people do write desi James, if his characterisation is really stereotypical, you can already tell that Effie's is gonna be AT LEAST 10 times worse

I'm honestly on board with any James fc as long as they have the right overall energy but I've also seen loads of people refer to Reiky as their desi fc when he literally can't be 😭

Not-So-Fun fact: I am yet to see a video for Asian Black family fcs where more than 3 of them are from the same country, if you go onto tiktok and search it for yourself you'll see

I'm not gonna say too much on this bc I don't want to post to get so long that people just skip right past it without reading but THIS IS IMPORTANT can we talk about it more please because for a fandom that pride themselves on being really accepting in comparison to the source material, racism, misogyny, fatphobia, and transphobia are RAMPANT

[sanguinewolves]

i do feel like svhool is kinda just. pushing too hard rn. we get 3 days for winter break this year, excluding the weekend (so 5 total). (kinda sucky too bc we get christmas off but the chanukah and kwanzaa kids are sol) and just like. idk. theres just rampant sexism ableism queerphobia racism etc. and there s just something so draining about going to school with ppl who literally think you should not exist and you have to just ignore them and act like everything is normal. and its so surreal and fucky. and. idk maybe its just me but it seems way worse this year? like maybe its specific ppl in my classes are worse than last year or im just noticing it mor e or sth but it genuinely feels like im watching all these kids fall down the alt-right rabbit hole in real time and it is so. fucking. disturbing. and if you say anything youre the bad guy. some teachers will be constantly sexist and misgender the trans students and you cant even say anything and youre just sitting there thinking if i do come out before college school is going to be even more of a fucking cesspit of pain than it already is. and who knows if i can go to prom w my friend this year because some years juniors can go some they cant and it seems completely fucking random which it is because god forbid the idiots in charge actually make one fucking decision more than a day in advance ever. and theres all this stress and the school is completely fucking disorganized they cant seem to get the bells within 5 minutes for when theyre supposed to ring and they use random noises (not an exaggeration. there are 3 different bell sounds and they swap around which ones they play which period seemingly at random) and they have about half of us locked out of schooltool, some even their school email, because of a “system error” thats been going on for almost TWO YEARS now and the current bell “”””schedule”””” we use is literally a different one from when we started the year bc they changed it randomly 3 days into the year literally did not even warn the teachers and everyones always on their phones in class watching tiktok fucking OUT LOUD and all the teachers are obsessed w group work because then they can pawn the idiots off on the “smart kids” instead of doing their actual job and i have daily homework to do and NOBODY FOLLOWS MY 504 like LITERALLY NOBODY and i dont understand how not a single person notices how weirdly horrible everything is?

[luminarytex]

ok i'll attempt to engage with this in good faith- it is really strange to watch twitter people come in and act like ranboo himself is responsible for the racism in his community. that's what's setting people off here. i think your reblog is the most blatant yet, calling it a mistake that he needs to learn from- what has he, personally, done? aside from listen to the community and do his best to address the issue, and accept criticism even when it's subjective. like we can agree racism is bad and there should be less of it, and we can also agree that ranboo speaking up about it is a good thing, but what gets people bothered is twitter users insisting on a specific correct way to do things, which is not something unreasonable to disagree on. it gets to a point where the nitpicking is no longer about improving racism, but about policing the message of anti-racism until it becomes performative nonsense from all parties involved.

so that is why there's pushback. we feel as though people from twitter are coming here to demand very specific things that will not result in any change, that they have made up and decided will solve the problem. but those things will not solve the problem, and will only cause their own problems, by further diluting the discussion away from racism and towards more pointless infighting.

i know it will be tempting to laugh this off, but i really do hope you will take some time to think about it- i dont want to start a fight, by sending this. i actually want this to be resolved. racism is not being defeated by this constant back and forth. we should all be on the same team.

i think ranboo did most things well during the stream, however the way it was handled was more like a spur of the moment thing- which it probably was. not only that, but the phrasing of him finding the way his community is perceived rather than the safety BIPOC have in his community more important was just.. bad.

there’s also the promoting before addressing the situation, and then always saying “i don’t know how to deal with this”. racism is very rampant on HIS community, he has to deal with it because it’s HIS.

BIPOC chiming in to give him advice on how to address the situation aren’t bad people, and telling those people that they’re wrong/bad for doing so is rude- you can’t police how these people feel especially if they’re the ones affected by ranboos community.(which is obvious on twitter, but is also happening on discord and other places)

ranboo has done this four times, saying “just don’t be racist” obviously isn’t working and is like a slap on the wrist in the grand scheme of things.

yes the change has to come from the community itself but they have to push that change. they have to show why it’s wrong, why it hurts, and why it needs to stop.

i agree some things are a bit nitpicky, bc i do think there’s only so much he can do, but it doesn’t hurt to at least try ig. idk!!

[wolficake]

Just a reminder that Joe Biden is currently upholding a genocide. As a disabled queer person, the democratic party has shown itself to be just as unsafe as the republican party.

Joe Biden did nothing to protect trans people when the right enacted their genocide against us.

Joe Biden has done nothing to help Islamophobia, Antisemitism, or racism on a systemic level despite showing he can go above congress's heads when it comes to funding a genocide in the middle east.

He literally ignores his democratic voters.

Why would you vote for someone who has openly shown he doesn't give a shit what his own voters want?

I am begging yall to actually hold politicians accountable. I am BEGGING yall to realize they're all working for the same company and neither side cares about what their voters actually want. Without consequences to their actions, like withholding votes, they run rampant and you only encourage politicians to do worse when you excuse their behavior bc "At least he's not the other guy" NEITHER OF THEM SHOULD BE A CHOICE AND THE FACT THAT THEY ARE IS A CLEAR SIGN THAT THIS IS A FASCIST NATION.

This is an excellent response

[mimikyuno]

you said something akin to 'Finland is not a utopia everybody imagines it to be', but isn't everything understood in comparison? where is it better? no prison for being queer, freer speech, water runs after the tap is turned on. Gini coefficient? low. Human Development Index? high. democracy?!. yes!!! even amphetamines are partly covered for!!!

aah i see that’s what your ask was about! i thought you were asking me for unmedicated adhd advice 😭

anyway dont get me wrong, as an immigrant, when i first moved to finland i fell into the trap of this complacent mentality. i thought, that because here was so much better than italy, i had no right to complain or that would mean i was ungrateful. but again, as an immigrant, i saw a lot of the awful awful awful sides of finland. waiting months and months for the way too busy immigration office, struggling with ridiculous paper work with no help. when i first moved here, i had to go through the impossible loop of not being able to apply for a flat till i had a job and a security number, but not being able to apply for a security number till i had a job and/or an address, and not being able to apply for a job without an address and a security number. luckily for me, my partner is finnish, and we applied for a flat in her name, so i got out of that loop, and im in university as an official finnish resident, and will apply for citizenship soon. as a white european immigrant who is married to a finnish person, i have it way easier than a lot of my immigrant friends i made at finnish language school. as a mentally ill student, i see the terrible issues in the healthcare system especially - it’s just. really bad. so bad, that i often get nostalgic of the italian system. and if you know, then you know how bad it gets 😭

i think it’s very dangerous to not criticise what is wrong in finland bc it’s worse in other places - that attitude is at the core of all the awful policies the current right-wing government is pushing. when people complain about cuts to welfare, healthcare, education and more, they often get dismissed as “it’s worse elsewhere”, meanwhile stuff goes to shit. as an education major (switching to archaeology after i get my master’s) i saw in real time the insane damages the cuts have caused to kindergartens and elementary schools. i wont get into detail bc i’d have to write an essay. most finnish men think that finland has reached gender equality and finnish women have no right to complain when “it’s worse elsewhere”, but that doesnt mean that finland has actually reached gender equality (it hasnt! bc no country in the world has! and yes it was nice to have sanna marin as pm, but you should have heard the misogynystic bullshit spouted everywhere about her here, there’s a reason why she abandoned politics). we have a rampant racism issue, it’s really, really, really bad. i think i remember a statistic that showed finland is like the one of the most racist countries in europe, and it shows. even i, a white european, was harassed in the street by a finnish man who heard me speak english, who yelled at me to get back to my country. until 2 years ago, finland was violating human rights by forcing trans people to get sterilised to change their gender marker. trans people protested for years. should they not have, as trans people elsewhere had it worse? bc thanks to their protesting for years and years, things changed. but with your logic, trans people here should still get sterilised without complaining as at least they can legally transition? and as someone who is currently going through gender therapy, i can tell u trans care is bad. my friend, a trans guy, has been unable to access gender care bc he has depression and he’s unemployed. he cant get neurodivergence diagnoses (adhd&autism, which he so clearly has) bc one (1) public doctor dismissed him years ago, and he’d need to spend hundreds of euros to get help privately (u only get a shot at one diagnosis in the public healthcare system now!). when he went for help for his depression, they told him the root cause is his dysphoria. which he cant ease bc he’s depressed, and as such banned from getting gender care. if he got a job, he’d lose his unemployment benefits and access to mental health services he’s using. and he’s disabled, and not getting any help. he’s literally stuck, and getting 0 help. finland is FULL of young people like this. who have no job, no money, mental health issues that get dismissed and go untreated, and many turn to substances. there’s a reason why finland is in the top 15 (or even 10 i don’t remember) for suicide rate. in finland, i often heard the joke that the reason we get voted as happiest country is bc everyone who is slightly unhappy here gets driven to suicide lol. so yeah, i think it’s worth complaining and fix the system because a lot of people are suffering here.

dont get me wrong, i do think it’s good to be thankful and keep in mind all the good things about finland, but in my opionion that also means being critical when these things are threatened and also strive to improve the situation! complacency is a very dangerous thing. oh and i once reblogged a good comic about this!

i just. i think “finland has a first world country with a better-than-average quality of life with a lot of welfare services and support systems” and “finland is not a utopia and has a lot of issues, like rampant racism, literal nazi ministers in the government (who proudly say so publicly!!), a government who’s cutting funds left and right, poor people who can’t afford food as prices soar, a healthcare system thats bursting at the seams, underfunded education, systemic transphobia, and more, and these things should be worth complaining about and fix even though they might be even worse somewhere else” are two statements that can and should coexist 🤷🏻

[niteshade925]

I watch a few Chinese cooking videos that are literally just cooking videos, and somehow youtube just starts recommending bullshit rumor-filled "politics" videos to me.

At first glance this may appear to be weird, but there's something else sinister here just below the surface. Basically youtube think that anything to do with China at all, food, art, culture, history, travel, is enough grounds to start stuffing political propaganda into your recommended vids list. As I've said before, it's a perfect union of racism and politics. The perfect recipe for disasters such as wars and atrocities.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

man by the nature of the circles i follow i generally don't see a lot of takes from izzy stans, but both the notes of the post you reblogged and the original twitter thread just make them look like their izzy brainworms have destroyed their reading comprehension and situational awareness. 'hehe there's two ways u could take that' clearly only one was intended. 'ur so right izzy is fucking blackbeard and he can build a pillowfort' YOU'RE SO EMBARRASSING. the show's creator is annoyed enough to actually voice some push back against the racist idea that history's greatest tactician needs this wet purse dog of a man to do basic tasks. these people really said 'i'm gonna ignore the actual issue being pointed out here and make this about my blorbo and my ship instead' and i don't know how anyone like this is gonna get through season two when they find out izzy isn't the main character they think he is.

ok tbh as amused as i am at the interpretation of that tweet as david jenkins getting so annoyed abt people thinking ed is an incompetent imbecile and is tweeting “ed knows how to build a blanket for on his own for fuck’s sake” i dont actually know how much of The Discourse david’s seen or if he’s aware of how many ppl genuinely believe shit like “izzy is the brains behind blackbeard.” it’s possible he just logged onto twitter and saw that tweet at the top of his mentions or whatever (idk how twitter works) and was just casually like “wtf obviously ed can build a fort by himself” and it’s not meant as an @ at any particular fans. and quite frankly i wouldnt want it to BE an @ at any fans. as toxic as parts of this fandom are, if david or any other showrunners started directly @ing people like “hey your headcanon is racist” it would only make shit worse. if i was a writer for ofmd i frankly wouldve stopped looking at ofmd twitter after a month bc it got so choked with rampant racism and it would make me go insane. like i hope jenkins et al have some distance from the fandom discourse for their own sake.

BUT ANYWAY about the izzy fans. as much as i personally am an ed stan first and a human being second i DO understand why izzy fans would make the joke abt “oh so youre saying izzy is having sex with blackbeard AND he knows how to build a blanket fort?” and i also think the majority of izzy fans KNOW theyre making a silly joke. like they know what david is actually saying. as far as im aware Not All Izzy Fans are the type to believe the “izzy is the brains behind blackbeard” headcanon so im not gonna assume every fan making this joke are doing so to intentionally downplay/ignore ed’s intelligence. i think a lot of them are just making a joke abt their favorite blorbo and while yeah i think the main focus should be on MY blorbo and how smart he is, this joke is so low on the list of shitty things ive seen izzy fans do that im basically just like. eh. whatever. definitely SOME of the ppl making this joke are the type to think ed is stupid and who warp the whole show to focus on izzy but i have no idea who or many so im not gonna worry about it. the joke is kinda annoying to me but im ALSO kind of stretching the tweet jokingly to be like “David Jenkins HIMSELF said that izzy is a useless first mate” (which i DO believe, but im not gonna use this tweet as proof that dj himself confirmed it)

that being said i dont think it’s a funny joke bc izzy obviously has never gotten laid before in his life and also izzy’s never experienced any joy so he obviously DOESNT know how to build a fort. and also of course youre right that there are izzy fans who will not be able to cope with the next season of the show not treating izzy like a special little main character but again this tweet is a single line from david abt a silly headcanon im not gonna get mad at ppl for not using it as a talking point abt racist fandom discourse. idk if david meant that line to be lighthearted or not so im not gonna take it too seriously except to say that ed’s blanket fort had better structural engineering than half the boats he’s ever raided. if the Revenge came under attack or if a huge storm blew through, stede’s cabin would be a disaster but the blanket fort would be completely unharmed

[tirfpikachu]

huh????? dude if you only knew the amount of transmascs in my tirf server lmaooooo this take is legit one of the weirdest i've ever seen??

we radical feminists fight first and foremost for people who have faced misogyny irl, either currently or in the past. radfems in general believe that anyone who is afab/female deserves feminism that recognizes their sex/agab-based oppression, transmasc included. that's radfem 101, idk where on earth you'd think we'd somehow put someone who grew up without misogyny above someone who was born into it?? i feel like tra spaces are getting less educated each day.

the misogyny that transmasc ppl face doesn't end if they transition either, bc the way that female/afab bodies are treated and the way that an afab childhood often can harm you and leave so much internalized misogyny & lesbophobia within you, so much hurt... you can't ever transition out of that, and so of course you'd need a feminist space to discuss those issues. and transandrophobia can be a very useful term, though it needs to be seen imo as the intersection of anti-afab specific misogyny and transphobia. we believe that everyone who has ever experienced consistent misogyny or risk of misogyny irl deserve a strong voice in radical feminism, and feminism in general. non-transitioned transfems are welcome in my corner of radblr as well though, so long as they acknowledge how growing up being perceived as a feminine boy means they grew up without experiencing misogyny, and not experiencing misogyny is an undeniable axis of privilege. as a tirf/nuancefem, i think hearing from them what their side of the patriarchy was like as a gnc person can be incredibly insightful and very much help defeat the patriarchy. and as long as they do the work to unlearn the misogyny, lesbophobia & male-centered beliefs taught to them by living on the other side of the patriarchy, and they don't mind our female-specific talks at times and aren't against homosexuality (exclusive afab4afab/amab4amab attraction, exclusie same-sex/agab sexuality) we will welcome them warmly and in return unlearn the transmisogynistic & gncphobic rhetoric we were all taught growing up. allyship goes both ways.

of course not all of radblr thinks like that obviously, there's many toxic outright transphobic & misogynistic morons who me and my tirfy/nuancefem friends scoff at and write posts against; there has not been nearly enough of a pushback against the rampant transphobia, gncphobia, bigotry against ppl with DSDs/intersexism, racism, and the shaming of women who aren't Perfect Feminists tm.

while that is 100% true, many trans ppl, cis/bio women, detrans/post-trans women and all kinds of folks are gravitating towards radblr and radical feminist spaces. why? because mainstream qweer activist spaces are full of ppl downplaying female/afab specific oppression, denying the lack of misogynistic abuse in childhood being an axis of privilege, saying "choke on my girldick you terfy cunt" without nearly enough backlash, and people who see exclusive same-sex/agab attraction - including afab4afab, amab4amab & amab4afab trans people - as bigoted and smtg needing conversion therapy... these behaviors are all encouraged or at least tolerated and brushed under the rug. radfem spaces aren't perfect, ask any radfem and they'll have a huge laundry list of things they want to see improved on radblr. most of us want radfem reform in some way. and we're working on it. please actually learn about radical feminism before talking shit about us. it makes you way too easy to dunk on for all the actual transphobes foaming at the mouth to repost you on radtwt or whatever. knowledge is power at least.

If y’all can call TERFs “TWERFs” and completely ignore their transandrophobia, then I can call TIRFs “TWIRFs” bc they actually only include trans women in their shit radical feminism

[rahleeyah]

Hey😊 I was wondering if you had any thoughts about garland being written out and mcgarth in. I personally liked Garland and think their where potentially more stories to be told. I feel like svu is setting mcgarth up to fail. He seems to unequiped to oversee svu. Do you think it is a possibility that they brought him in just to set up for maybe Dodds to come back? Or even Liv to take over at the end of the show?

soooooo i fully think they brought mcgrath in bc they wanted not a villain, exactly - though given his rampant racism and misogyny he is a villain however much they may have attempted to humanize him in the mummy episode - but a source of tension. they wanted someone who is making olivia's life hard, and garland was a friend, an ally. garland was, also, way more compelling and interesting to watch than yet another piece of shit old white dude in power.

as to their long game with mcgrath i'm not sure if they have one. i could see it being liv taking over the chief role when she's done. i do not think we're gonna see dodds again bby i would love it but i don't have any reason to think that's coming. which is not to say never but i'm not sure that's the point.

i honestly think having the "chief" character play a big role in the show is a bad call; they have been running short on detectives for ages, and the shift to spending so much more screen time on internal politicking has necessitated less time spent on actual detective work and i think the show has suffered for it. i think they should have kept kat - and still brought in velasco so the squad is back to four detectives - and if they had to bounce garland than the new "chief" should have only shown up for like one scene every now and then like back in ye olde days, instead of being a major player. we've seen liv do battle with the good old boys. we've seen the good old boys be redeemed. this arc with mcgrath has been done to death and doesn't help the show.

[imanes]

Ill soon move to Copenhagen to study abroad!! But i am worried about navigating European society as a black American woman. I dont know how much your identity might overlap with mine but do you have any tips for navigating white European society?? I know it varies by country but any insight into how race is perceive would be appreciated!!

hello! first of all congratulations, studying abroad is such a great opportunity and i hope it'll all go amazingly for you <3 now while a lot of europe is the same in important ways, a lot of europe is also very different in key aspects lmao. i have once heard that denmark was the france of scandinavia, meaning that they were huge assholes. my experiences with danish people confirmed that theory, since one was a huge fascist and the other one was a cunt who never said hello back. with all of that being said, there is still hope for them i guess or at least i choose to believe it bc some day i'd like to visit and i'd hate to feel like they should take one for them team and launch themselves into the sun for the good of humanity

anyways all of that tangent to say: white Europeans are a LOT to deal with. my friend just launched an exhibition about all the shit that she, as a black woman, was told over the years navigating white, belgian spaces. you'll have to deal with a lot of microaggressions, and since europeans have their heads far up their own asses yet think their shit smells like roses, they can't even fathom that they don't live in a mythical post-racial society where they get to be racist in peace because "they aren't americans" -_- as if structural racism was an american phenomenon and not a european construct

i am a non-black muslim woman of colour so there are some things that may overlap between you and i but i do not experience anti-blackness. as an american though, u will "enjoy" a certain amount of leeway because you come from a western country, and therefore aren't the "wrong" kind of migrant for the danish mind, aka a refugee or a migrant from africa or a hijabi. but it doesn't mean that it'll be a walk in the park either. denmark likes to think of itself as a "social democrat" country but social democracy only applies to white people there. however there are many ppl of colour in copenhagen itself and i hope you'll manage to build a support system that will help you navigate and put up with the insanity of denmark. it is a beautiful country from a purely aesthetic perspective but there is a lot of fuckery that is on par with france, but with taller and blonder people (or bald headed neo-nazis).

now i don't want to paint a catastrophising picture for you to only take away the fact that denmark is racist but i do want u to protect ur spirit and mind and kind of steel yourself against potential scenarios that may await u. i even hate to suggest that u actually have to harden urself but it is what it is. i'm not saying that other european countries are inherently better either, belgium is also a lot to take in and so is france or the netherlands or spain or italy and so on. anti-blackness, islamophobia and antisemitism are rampant here but it doesn't necessarily define every single experience of every day, and i do hope you'll end up having a completely different experience than what i'm saying might await you! it is after all a big city and big cities tend to offer a plethora of different (and perhaps more positive) experiences. but in any case know that you aren't alone. the black lives matter movement is gaining a lot of traction throughout europe and i know there's a danish chapter so obviously there's work being done on civil society level to foster a less racist environment. it might be the case that danish ppl are like americans and that u won't really be all that disconcerted with their behavior. but idk and i choose to hope for the best for you! wishing u the best of luck and if u want to rant when u are there my inbox is open!

[carletes]

Finally, and with all due respect, I'm not sure we can judge all instances of "using religion to sidestep difficult issues" equally. I'd argue that not taking the knee but wearing the t-shirt shows, even at surface level, some base level of commitment to End Racism. Refraining from kneeling in favor of other forms of action is hardly equatable to forms of racist or queerphobic violence rampant in extreme or fundamentalist religious circles

Definitely not equatable, but I do think it's also lukewarm in a way that's kind of a cop-out, which feels rough as a fan because ??? you're so close to being able to do the right thing! i hope it's not coming from a place of actual cowardice bc COME ONNN you have relative power!!!! use it PLEAAASE!!!!

that said, it's at least MORE of a starting point from which to influence than point blank refusing to engage in the discourse whatsoever. at least you can WORK with someone who thinks about what kneeling might entail in different contexts. you CAN'T work with someone who has made a considered choice not to give a shit.

but if we're going to talk about performativity in taking the knee...that is very real also. see below 💀:

[edwardseymour]

like, it’s so apparent that people popularly expect linearity with history, and cannot cope with nuance. it’s why you can have silly posts about how jane seymour is objectively boring, ‘historically speaking’. there’s a complete breakdown of interdisciplinary skills, as well as an increasing anti-intellectualism and privatisation of tudor history.

there is a noticeable shift in how insular current historians/authors are becoming — as they move to non-academic circles and charge money through patreon/youtube/podcasts and other profit oriented mediums — and therefore away from academic scrutiny and integrity. i do think there is a general slipping of standards and redirecting of priorities (profit instead of research) which results in significantly simplified content as production of regular content becomes the objective. it is impossible to do the level of research required for quality work at such a rapid rate of output, and the relationship with the work has changed into one of content creator and consumer. it’s not a coincidence that as tudor history drifts further and further from academic functions and becomes increasingly for profit, more and more content revolves around safely profitable subject matter, in increasingly simplified and misrepresentative means — because content doesn’t have the time to examine nuances. everything must be the broadest, most generalised version of itself.

and this isn’t the fault of individual authors or academics — i know how increasingly difficult it is to work in the academic sector. roles in institutions are scarce and funding is simply not allocated to monographs as they used to be. that’s to say nothing of the epidemic of burnout and poor mental health, as well as toxic social culture, that goes unacknowledged outside of the sector. but there is something distinctly cynical specific to the tudor period, because the tudor period can be commercialised in mainstream ways in a way other historical periods cannot. publishing houses and producers know this, so there is minimal quality control, minimal academic or artistic merit to the work. it’s just content output.

and it's gross to me bc i think the defense for the drifting away from academia is that it’s making history ‘accessible’ outside of the academic bubble — which is a commendable goal, as academic institutions are inaccessible to many. but that's not actually what is happening. the work suffers — there is less and less genuine research output — but so does the general tudor enthusiast. it seems more expensive to be actively engaged with history now, and i feel like people are getting less for their money, for the reasons i stated above. one has to maintain subscriptions, seek more and more content to achieve the same satisfaction as they could otherwise gain from more substantive works. accessibility goes out the window when many of these works are one-time only or rental. people should have access to good history, research should be supported and available to those outside of a specific sector. there is a real ‘dumbing down’ of history that i don’t feel i can call out without being called out as being elitist, and the tarnishing of the ability to have this kind of dialogue is deeply concerning.

(and that’s not even going into how this impacts tudor history circles’ inability to consider history outside of an anglo-french model, or the belligerent dehumanisation of both historical figures and academics (including: rampant ableism, racism, transphobia and vaguely libfeminism-washed conservatism, or the unabashed pro monarchy angle that erases the realities of those existing outside the narrow window of proximity to the crown).)

support the arts and humanities. be responsible and curious and engaged.

would it be pretentious and snobby to say that the tudor period’s reliance on mass producing commercially viable biographies and narrative histories has significantly negatively impacted the relationship tudor “enthusiasts” have with historical research?

[mysteriouspercentage]

this is totally off the cuff ftr so sorry if i’m rambly or w/e, and i don’t expect it to blow up or anything bc. well. that actually rarely happens for me lol.. but it’s happened a couple times lately, so here goes nothing. 

i think it’s really time that the asian community had a conversation abt solidarity. 

ik to some degree this is an ongoing conversation - we talk a lot abt having solidarity w other communities of color, altho it’s usually a debate (@ that one anon lol), but it’s a conversation that we’re absolutely having, and i wanna keep having that, bc hoo boy do we need to work on some stuff. but rn, i want us to discuss more what solidarity looks like *w/in* our community. 

i’ve said this before, but as a filipino american, i’ve had a LOT of shit leveled at me by east asians, primarily chinese/japanese/korean americans. there’s been jokes abt me being dirty, my skin being ashy or ugly, eating dogs, and being one of the “stupid asians” (read: southeast asians, primarily). in school, they were the first ppl to make fun of me for my ethnicity and the ppl who invited white ppl to make fun of my ethnicity. and i’ve personally been v fortunate i feel, bc this is not as bad as i’ve heard it gets for other southeast asians. it’s v much a holdover of imperialist attitudes that run rampant in east asia, a replication of power dynamics, imo. i mean, they didn’t learn that filipinos were dirty heathenistic “savages” from nowhere. prejudice travels. 

still, when the time comes around and white ppl are pulling their “ching chong ling long kung flu w/e” type shit, southeast asian americans are always there, front and center, stepping up for the asian american community alongside east asian americans. we know that we all share similar struggles in terms of being seen as perpetual foreigners, and we consistently put aside intercommunity issues for the greater good of our community. but it’s really, deeply tiring to be constantly trying to hold community w a group of ppl i know don’t even like me and see me and my ppl as lesser, “savage,” and poor. i know i’m not the only one who feels this way. 

it’s well past time that east asian americans own up to the harm that they’ve done to our own community and make sincere efforts to bridge the material gap that comes from most southeast asian americans being, or descending directly from, refugees of imperialism and neocolonialism by east asia. it’s not enough to just call on the “asian american community,” we have to actually make it, and rn it feels like the effort is lopsided. 

no whites but everyone else can rb. this is an open discussion, but i’m not going to be tolerating any antiblackness or racism of any kind from anyone, u will be blocked kthxbai