#and i also have to be mexican enough to conform to the expectations of my own ethnicity that sees me as Not Mexican Enough because of xyz

[goldensparrows]

every so often i gotta remember that 330 in the fucking morning is Not the time to get angry and defensive about what online strangers are saying

[tarot-by-tabitha]

Ohh this one was so cool, I didn’t know I was that old!! Here’s my feedback :)

Okay astrologically this is very accurate. I have a 12th house Aquarius and a Libra south node, the north node is conjunct Mercury and squaring a 5th house Saturn which are all indicative of what you said in the reading. Being vocally held back by my relationships and a restriction of authenticity for a need to please others because of societal norms.

In this life I still want to be different and I am very expressive of my emotions and beliefs, I also have a lack of interest in marriage. Interestingly enough I am also a Mexican woman in this life, however I have since moved away from home where even in my community I am scrutinized for being different from all the other Hispanic men and women my age. 

Overall this was extremely accurate and very in depth. It was enlightening and I’d definitely recommend a reading from you ☺️!

Hiii thanks for the feedback 💓

It’s incredible to see how it connects to ur astrological placements. your 12H Aquarius reflect that feeling of being held back especially when it comes to expressing ur individuality or beliefs just like your past life. Libra south node shows in ur past life maybe in this one too that you may struggled with pleasing others or conforming to societal expectations.

you also said that north node conjunct mercury and 5th Saturn square. the 5H Saturn could be challenges around expressing yourself freely esp when it comes to joy and creativity. it’s fascinating how your past life imprisonment connects with this as they highlight difficulty you had in finding your voice and being authentically you.

and it’s so cool that you’re a Mexican woman again in this life 😮 fact that your soul returned to this cultural context shows there’s likely deeper connection here. Also you said how you’re scrutinizes for not conforming to expectations ties so well with Rebel card in the past life reading, maybe you were quietly rebellious in the past but in this life you are more openly embracing who you are.

Thanks so much for sharing all these and the thoughtful feedback 💖

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I received an ask about if Eddies trip to Texas might be because of a family tragedy situation similar to Bucks rather than a queer awakening story and my response got long so I thought it would be better as an actual post rather than an answer to an ask!

My opinion is that its very unlikely that thats the route they'll take - simply for the reason that I can't see the writers repeating a storyline such as Bucks secret family tragedy - especially so close to Bucks (and Maddie's) own family tragedy which is still very much playing out - we've seen some of how the family secret has weighed on Maddie in 5b - how it impacted on her and her own mental health struggles and we really haven't explored how this new knowledge is affecting Buck. Buck is a master of disguise in many ways in that we actually know very little of what is going on with him - he said it himself in season 4 'I hide my true feelings from others' and Buck is very much doing that in season 5 - Hen is probably the person he's revealed the most to and even that is some what superficial. The fact that Buck has spent the season trying to 'fix' everyone else's problems - Maddie, Chimney, Eddie and Chris (and even Taylor) has allowed him to deflect and avoid dealing with his own mental health - I'm fully expecting season 6 to explore this. Once everyone else finds themselves in better places and therefore Buck can't keep 'fixing' everyone else to avoid fixing himself he's going to have to turn his fixing skills inward and I am of the opinion that talking about the shooting with Eddie is actually the first step on that path.

So that is why I think we have to look elsewhere for Eddies story. Then there is also the fact that the synopsis specified his father - not his family in general, or his parents, but his father. If it was a family tragedy then we would expect them to state it in the synopsis. Instead of ‘Meanwhile, Eddie visits Texas, where he attempts to reconcile with his father’ we would have something like ‘Meanwhile, Eddie visits Texas to deal with a family emergency’ or words to that effect. 

Mexican American families tend to have a fairly defined family dynamic with a set of expectations that everyone is expected to conform to - the patriarch sets the rules and the matriarch enforces - it can be very traditionalist and tends to play to old school gender norms - and Eddie as an only son would definitely be expected to follow his fathers example and not step outside of the narrow lines. He would be expected to ‘be a man’ - not show his emotions and provide for his family. We’ve seen him speak about it - ‘if I hadn’t joined the army I’d still be working with my pop’ and we also know that Ramon was proud of Eddie for serving - in Eddie begins we see him reading the silver star certificate - its implied that this is not for the first time and you can hear the pride in his voice - Eddie is described as a hero - he claims its what anyone would’ve done but Ramon contradicts him saying that ‘if that were true everyone would be walking around with a silver star.’ 

All of this gives us hints at the complexity of that dynamic - Eddie has conformed to family expectation and its made his father proud but it was actually an incredibly  traumatic experience for him - one that continues to be as we’re seeing play out. It goes to suggest that this is something Eddie has been doing repeatedly - conforming but it continuously compounding the trauma and that it is all connected to his father. 

We've also been given enough textual hints this season to be able to figure some things out - the 911 writers are very careful about what words they choose to have their characters say - the scrip has to do a lot of work and so every word is important. Therefore the fact that the word 'repression' was used during Eddies health scare is important, the choice for Eddie to say 'the first woman i've wanted to spend time with' and many other examples are all loaded and designed to give viewers clues if they’re paying attention as to where the story is heading - there is a reason we’ve all been speculating about Eddie queer awaking in fandom for a while - we’ve been reading the clues. 

The whole of Eddies therapy appointment in 5x13 is very loaded - the way the conversation is directed (its exactly how real life therapy works) to push Eddie (and the viewer) in certain directions so that he can begin to connect dots for himself. Now in real world therapy this might happen over several sessions, but 911 doesn’t have the time to do this so they have to ‘speed up the timeline a little’ - so we have Frank choosing to bring up Eddie blowing up at Bobby - Eddies defacto father figure - pushing the idea that in the present we lash out at people who represent an aspect of out past which holds trauma or complexity - the thing which has played a major contributing factor in our present struggles - hence Eddie lashing out at bobby - when he really wanted to lash out at his father.

Franks loaded line ties all of this together - his telling Eddie ’maybe you should talk about your pain with someone who shares it. Think about that first trauma and then talk to someone who can understand what you’ve been through.’ Of course, it plays perfectly into Eddies time in the army - the viewer will naturally go straight there in their mind - because that is where Eddie has gone in his - because he’s still repressing. The thing is the army clearly wasn’t his first trauma - in part Eddies breakdown is as a result of his repression (i’m going to probably explain this very badly, but hopefully it will make sense!). 

Think about it this way - something happened to you in childhood or your teen years - whatever it was lead to big problems - major arguments with you family and possibly the reprobation of the society in which you live, who then started to constantly behave and speak in ways that were unkind, derogatory and made you want to make it stop - so you start repressing that part of you and put huge amounts of energy into trying to fit in. The comments etc never fully go away, but you are able to live more comfortably - as long as you maintain this facade you’ve put up. Then when the first opportunity presents itself you escape (into the army). The thing is your escape route is both freeing and traumatic and so your trauma compounds itself -  the army is a loud kind of trauma - unlike the first trauma it tricks you into thinking that this is actually the first trauma - because that’s what trauma should be right - loud - a big event that has defined perimeters. 

So when you reach the point Eddie is at - where you’ve had several loud traumas, you will trick yourself into thinking the army is the first trauma. So you reach out - as Frank has told you to - only you find you can’t - because they’re all dead - so you can’t do you homework and deal’ with that trauma - so you spiral because that loud trauma is no longer in play - its now a new trauma and therefore more recent. That trauma from further back - the quiet one - that now comes into play - almost as if its taunting you - so you lash out because you know that all your trauma stems from this one trauma that you’ve been attempting to outrun since it happened - it was the reason you joined the army, it was the reason that you ran from you family and the society you knew - to LA (its no coincidence you chose somewhere more accepting and diverse) where you start a job which is similar enough to being in the army - the freedom you enjoyed such as the camaraderie - but without the traumatic bits - the getting shot at etc. 

But then - your new job turns out to not be as trauma free as you thought and eventually you get to where Eddie was in 5x10 - where you get a wake up call. Only Eddie, because he is so repressed and conditioned, didn’t seek help - he changed jobs. Now though, he has lots of time to think and cycle through all that trauma - he thinks going back to what he was doing will solve the problem and when that can’t happen lashes out at the person who represents the cause of his first trauma. So you do get help - thinking that will allow you to keep on repressing that first trauma because if you deal with all the other stuff - you’ll be able to get a better grip on the one thing you’ve been working on repressing for the longest - the first thing. After you lash out you feel guilty (both for the misplaced anger, but also at yourself because you know deep down that you lashed out at the wrong person and you know why) so you do what they suggested - you go to therapy - and your therapist tells you ‘go back to the first trauma and talk to someone about your pain’ - and you are still in denial so you go for the loud trauma - the army - only you can’t talk to someone about your pain and that actual first trauma is their waiting for you to lower you guard and the moment it happens - you lash out and break down because now, now you are going to actually have to face up to the real first trauma.

Note what Frank tells Eddie - ‘talk about your pain with someone who shares it’ followed by ‘and then talk to someone who can understand what you’ve been through.’ That is two separate conversations and it doesn’t follow that they have to be had with the same person - in fact its heavily suggesting that they aren’t/shouldn’t the same person - so Eddie going back to Texas is the first conversation - the one to be had with the person who shares the pain - Eddies father. The person who Eddie has ‘disappointed’ because we shouldn’t forget that Ramon will have pain in this as well - the pain of disappointment in having a son who doesn’t conform to his and the family ingrained expectations. You have to look at this from the outside and understand that from his perspective - because he is seeing things very differently - he is right in his thoughts and opinions (his ideology is outdated and wrong, but it is an ideology that unfortunately still exists in the world and the show is telling that story so don’t @me anyone for saying this). 

However that conversation goes, Eddie will then be in a position to have the second conversation - with someone who understands - now we don’t know who that will be but I’m guessing that weight see Hen (and or  Karen) come into play here - because they are the most likely of our cast to understand. Of course it might be Buck, it might be Maddie (although she has her own thing going on so its very unlikely) because they understand about disappointing your parents etc. But we’ve seen the show expanding the Eddie/ Hen dynamic this season and I feel like it’s been done to lead into them having that second conversation and this also slots in nicely with the HenRen vow renewal theory because Hen preparing to celebrate and reaffirm her love for Karen is the perfect premise for Eddie and Hen to have a conversation about being gay and finding love but also acceptance and potentially about learning to live with a family member who doesn’t approve. We don’t know her fathers opinion on Hens sexuality remember - he might’ve been estranged in part because of it and his pride wouldn’t let him accept he was wrong so he followed her life secretly and from afar and there is no reason that Ramon couldn’t be in the same boat - to ingrained in his way of thinking to admit cubically but secretly proud of his son and the life he lives.

[everyhowlmarksthedead]

SAFE

Marcus Álvarez x Reader

Anon asked: Hi! I'm sooo in love with ur writing!! Anyway I'm wondering if I can have an Alvarez one were the reader gets jumped and beaten by some guys and shes found by him but he thinks shes dead the whole time on the way to the hospital and super super fluffy and the reader gets out and he goes on a man hunt to kill them? I'm sorry if it makes no sense it's a rough idea I had of my own XD

Thanks to my lovely beta reader @chibsytelford​  ✨

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: NSFW, smut

Author comments: I hope you all enjoy. Gif isn't mine, credits to the author.

Tag list: @starrynite7114 ​ @chibsytelford ​ @dazzledamazon ​ @mara-mpou ​ @sammskellington ​ @gemini0410 ​ @1-800-imagines ​ @briana-mishell24 ​@sassymox @whyisgmora @aquamento @sadeyesgf @viviansafizada @samcrobae @jade770 @witchy-wish @rebel-without-cause-x ✨ (if you wanna be tagged, send me a message!)

The only thing you can feel besides the pain running up your spine, focusing in your head through your neck, is two hands holding your left tightly. A soft kiss on the back of it and some tickles because of the facial hair. You’re trying to open your eyes, turning the gesture into an agony. His voice sounds so far that you’re not sure what he’s trying to tell you, but at least, knowing that he’s there calms all the nerves that were consuming you seconds before. And you don’t know how much time passes when your throat begins to work again. Babbling word with no sense, stirring slightly above the mattress you notice that the edge sinks a little more.

“Whe— Where I am…?”

Taking your time, you’re finally able to talk only opening your right eye. The left seems like it’s covered by a cotton patch and hurt like hell. You don't need to be a genius, looking around you, to figure out that you're at the hospital. Some flashes about last night squeeze your mind. You just closed the bar, outside of Santo Padre, guiding your walk towards your car after a long Saturday dawn. And everything you wanted was coming home faster than other days and lie down on bed. You weren't even in the mood for take off your clothes. But you remember a hand tangling your hair in his fingers, before you could open the automobile, pushing you to the ground. Your head hit it, feeling how the asphalt and your neck got wetted by the blood. Disoriented, you didn't know where the kicks came from straight to your stomach, your back, your arms and your face.

“You know… who I am, chamaca?”

Your gaze quickly reach Marcus, with a worried look on his face and two dark shadows under his eyes. Your orbs tour the largest fingers caressing yours, laying your head above the pillow needing to be more comfortable. You're supposing, because of the pain and the punts, doctors could think that maybe you could need some time to also remember your name. But they're wrong. You can feel the fright wrapping the mexican when there's no answer from your lips, narrowing your hand a little more hoping that the gesture can help you.

“Ma— Marc… us Álvarez”. Muttering for a second, you provoke a soft laugh full of happiness pouring out a tear whilst leaning to you, so he can leave a kiss on your temple.

“You're thirsty, mi niña? Do you want water?”

You nod as you can, moving your chin for one second, trying to get up by your palms. The man helps you after pressing a button on a side of the bed, so it can lift up the headrest. Serving some water in a plastic cup and guiding it close to your lips, he places his free hand on your nape making it easier for you to drink from it. Your throat feels somewhat better, even if the liquid forces you to cough two times.

“I'm so sorry, (Y/N). This is my fault”. Álvarez says leaving away the cup, sitting down on the edge of the bed caressing gentle your bruised cheek with his fingertips. He looks disappointed, upset, sad. His gaze over your hand between his again, but you can't understand why he's blaming himself. “Those perros... are Mayans enemies. They should heard me talking about you”.

“Did you…”

“Bishop”. He doesn't need to listen the whole question. “I brought you there. I thought you were dead, and I didn't care anything else. You're safe now”.

That's enough for you, closing your eye nodding as wrapping his arm to pull him closer until your nose touches his chest. He was just another client of the bar you were working in, but with time he became a friend. You started to assist to Mayans parties, helping them when you were free. And El Padrino was always jumping around you, even when you couldn't notice him. His eyes are always on you, controlling everything surrounding you just to work on making you feel comfortable. Last night was like a blind point.

The days pass between some visits by cops trying to get something out of you about that night, Mayans watching the place and the amazing care of Marcus, until they get you on medical discharge. And even if you would like to go home, as a club decision you're going to stay at the clubhouse till the mexicans find the men who assaulted you.

You're falling asleep under the soft blankets with your gaze on the big window covered by the wooden blind, when the door gets opened. Marcus walks inside without turning on the light, sitting on the edge of the bed. There are no words. Just a heavy sigh escaping from his lips, rubbing his face with both hands and giving you his back. Every night since you're staying there, he comes after being outside all day long to know how you feel, how you are and what you need. But now it's different. You can notice that his whole body is too tense. His breathing is somewhat shaky as his heart beating. Crawling with your knees above the bed, you reach him in silence. You don't need a single word to know that they already found those guys who almost killed you. Marcus is tense because you're going to leave the clubhouse by morning, coming back to your house, so he will not able to see you as much as he would like.

With your fingertips touring his shoulder blades slow, going up to both sides of his neck, you leave your arms falls down on his chest feeling how your skin get wet slightly for what you know it's blood. But you don't care. Not even a little.

“What if I don' feel safe?”

You mutter on his ear, touching it with your nose in a smooth caress. You have never felt insecure, because your father taught you pretty well. That night they just caught you off guard. And Marcus knows that right now you're just pretending because you also want to stay with him. But neither of you are too good expressing yourselves.

“You would have to stay here, till you do”. He just replies, lying his back on your chest as you sit on your heels.

“And you would come every night?”

“I would do anything you want”.

His eyes are closed when your lips reach his left cheek, trailing down every mild kiss towards his jaw, till them find his neck. The simple fact of having his scent so close flooding your lungs, provokes a soft chill going up over your thighs. Your fingers sliding under the kutte the enough to take it off and leave it on a corner. You know how tired Marcus is, so you're good if he doesn't move yet, enjoying every touch of yours. And what you have inside your mind it's not to thank him for taking care of you, but because you truly feel things for him, as he does for you. While your mouth and your tongue are focused on his neck, biting, sucking and tasting it taking your time to memorize every inch of him, your fingers unbutton one by one every button his shirt, playing and trying to desperate him just a little.

“Come here”. He demands with a soft growl on air, grabbing your waist as good as he can, to push you on top of him.

His legs between yours, sitting on his lap and facing each other. When his lips almost touch yours, you feel like you could die right then and there. You both have waited for this too long, so when he kisses you taking away your breath, you don't care about anything else. Getting comfy above him with both hands placed on his head, your lips conform to his and every move they made. You're feeling as if you were on top of the world. Marcus nails his fingers on your thighs, dragging them up under the fabric of your shirt. You know that he wants to be careful, being a little convalescent yet, but if you can't even keep your calm, how are you going to ask him to?

Taking off and throwing his black shirt away, his hands travel over your skin up by your sides so soon as your shirt can fly off from your body running the same fate. Your hips begin to dance over him, noticing the lump under his jeans, listening in the background how his boots falls down too. The friction of the rough fabric rubbing your panties with some delicious pressure provokes you a moan sinked on his mouth. You need him more than you could need anyone, letting your hands travel as if they had a life of their own to unbuckle his belt with trembling fingers, unzipping the jeans faster than he can even think. Helping you to slide them right to the floor beside his boxers, you lick your lips having a quick look of his hard cock touching your abdomen. Latent lust burning in your eyes, getting up of Marcus the enough seconds to pull down your panties by the waistband being grabbed by your hands. You're not going to lose more time, you want to feel him inside you, filling you completely.

Tangling his fingers with yours, pushing you slow to him and touring your whole body with his dark eyes wanting to lease it from memory, you crawl above him attacking his lips again. One of your hands go among your skins holding his hardness, stroking him with necessity while the kiss becomes impure and naughty, with your tongues colliding and tangling with each other. Marcus' breathing starts to be more frenetic and wild, stopping just for a second when you tuck his dick between your legs sinking it in your wetness without expecting. It's fucking delirious. His hugeness breaking through inside you, no waiting for your body to amold wrapping his heat, your hips bounce on top of the mexican whilst your lips being unable to separate from the others.

“Fuck, chamaca…” He growls satisfied with every touch, every move and every sensation you give him.

Forcing you to spread your legs a little more and his dick digging inside you deeper, your uncontrollable moans becomes somewhat louder. You don't care if someone can hear you, because everybody knows that this would happen sooner or later. And even if you have to wait too much, no one could stop you now. Marcus is all you want, not needing to go into details, and you are all he needs to keep his feet on the ground. Like the two pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly.

Turning you above the bed, pushing you to the middle of it without pulling himself out of your inland, the man roams his mouth over the skin of your throat biting it so gentle that ends up bristling it. Every delicious thrust with his abdomen hitting yours, makes you beg for more and he absolutely loves it, pounding you somewhat faster nailing his cock and playing with your body. One of his hands pinches your nipple, touring them with his tongue and tasting every inch of your breasts, whilst the free arm is surrounding your waist completely. Marcus needs to have you close, letting him do whatever he wants with your anatomy ready to please him, even if the only thing he wishes at this moment is show you every damn thing he can feel for you without using more words than necessary.

Your legs get tangled in his when the man lies down on top of you, looking for your mouth with somekind of filthy desperation devouring them as soon as he reaches them. You can't describe every sensation that it's running through your body ending up concentrating on your lower abdomen, giving you delectable tickles on it.

“Cum insid' me, please, Marcus…” You beg throaty against his face, while he bites your inner lip hitting your body more anxious.

You don't need a nod, nor an agreement, to know that he's going to do it. And even if you aren't using a condom, having left that idea more than discarded for your first time, you don't care about the risk. There are no hazards when you're together and both are conscious about that fact. You can't help but arching your back as soon as he filled you up with his heat and his teeth biting your lips to silence the way that he has to fall apart under your warmth. The ecstasy finds you after some hard thrusts that almost hit your soul, with his hungry tongue tasting yours. Your hands placed on Marcus' head, being easier to drown his full name wrapping by the undeniable pleasure he provokes you, even when his moves become slowly and leisurely, going rough at least till your bodies can't handle it.

You can feel his seed spilling down by your thighs, when the mexican falls exhausted by your side with a fleeting smirk on his face and a hand lying on his chest. Turning his head to yours, he doesn't waste any more time, wrapping you into his arms whilst you two are trying to recover yourselves.

“Maybe… I could feel more safe sleeping with you”. You mutter sinking your nose on his sweated skin, like yours is.

“Then, I will have to stay”.

[everydayanth]

Some Observations On Talking About Race With White People:

Context: I am a white person. I studied anthropology and then went and traveled all around the US and talked to a lot of people about race. With so many people urging white people to use their voice and privilege to begin discussions with other white people in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, here are some things that I’ve learned:

1. It is exhausting. 

You have to start from the most simple kernels of truth and work backwards from there with a lot of people. Many of whom have never in their lives thought about their skin color and what it means or says, who have never questioned their position as a majority or been in a society that asks them to. You start with the basic pieces and talk in circles for them or else they dismiss you. You feel like shit but laugh at some of their jokes so that you can talk about the issues or else they’ll just leave and dismiss the idea as liberal or you as a millennial, you understand the push and pull and the tug-of-war game you’re playing, but it’s still exhausting. Maybe you have a breakthrough and it’s worth it. But it doesn’t end. You might make progress one day and the person reverts back to old habits the next. But you keep going. You keep trying. 

Keep trying. People change.

2. Keep trying, but stay safe. 

There’s a lot of psychology involved, and knowing how to get through to someone is a skill but can be dangerous. Facing that obligation to talk to people in the face of racism and violence can give your courage, but sometimes it can make you stupid. Sometimes walking away is important. Sometimes simply not laughing at the joke is enough because there is no place to start. Sometimes you wish you could peel off your own skin because you don’t want to look like them, you are horrified at the idea that someone might think you are like them, there is a dread and that’s okay. It’s good, it means you are not like them because of your fear. When challenging people, especially in their psychology and philosophy and the way they think about life and the world around them, it is enough to keep trying. Sometimes to keep trying, you have to walk away.

3. Context matters.

In order to romanticize eras and think nostalgically of times when they were not alive or don’t have full context of, some white people will ignore the extra efforts minorities had to go through to fit in, and the silenced violence and struggle. For many older white people, individualism is a threat and they value homogenous cultural identities, romanticizing pop-culture eras like the 20s or 50s without stopping to reflect on the media/historical interpretation vs reality. There is a pervasive view that there was less racism in the 80s, or another era around then, because there was a predominant popular culture, without ever taking the time to stop and consider the extra lengths minorities had to go through to fit that culture, or how they were limited in representation and ability by a larger oppressive system. I really like the quote going around by Will Smith that “racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” But for many white Americans, what they see in the evening news and on their personalized social media feeds does not challenge them, but reinforces their bubbles to say “no, it wasn’t like this in the 50s/60s/70s/80s.” 

There are plenty of ways to trick our minds into believing our own world views to avoid challenge or growth, and for some white people, reminding them of the biases of their context with details like: in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr., Anne Frank, and Barbara Walters were all born; with something as simple as that, contemporary familiarity has been added and placed over two names so heavily associated with the Civil Rights Movement and WWII for American-educated white people. Or talking about Ruby Bridges walking into a white school in 1960 and how many of our parents and grandparents were alive at the time, helps recognize that this isn’t new and it’s not that old. Explaining why the southwest US is so “Mexican” because when the US bought the land there were people living there, and asking about why they thought the land was empty (”history books/class”) and what they thought happened to the people (”I never thought about it”) has been the beginning of a redemption arc for several people. 

Talking to ignorant white people about what’s currently happening in the world when they ignore it forces them to think about it. Keeping police brutality and racism in conversation forces people to look into it for fear of not contributing to social conversations or not being in the know, and having those conversations face-to-face means they are more than random tweets or social media opinions. Talking matters, conversations matter, context matters, and challenging people (and yourself) and their ideas and world views matters.

4. Sometimes you lose.

There is a comfort in a homogenous society, an easy way to spot the outsider. Many of the most racist people I’ve met and chatted with retain an us-vs-them mentality that happily accepts POC who they know personally, while generalizing and labelling all others as a threat and outsiders. There is a fear perpetuated by false information and lack of context that takes so long to dismantle it hardly feels worth it.

This mentality is often recognizable by its discomfort with language it doesn’t know, obsession with brands and their perceived identity, and patronizing explanations of just about everything. It takes so much patience to get through the arrogance and sometimes the other person is “just having fun” or “playing devil’s advocate to see what you really think” or “you should read x, y, and z, then you’ll get it.” There’s an arrogance sometimes and wading through that muck to get to the bigger problems can take a while. Spotting the hypocrisy can be infuriating. 

It’s okay to stop and take a step back out of fear that you might hurt someone else by changing the person’s limited-accepting view. For example: by challenging a racist person ranting about “China is bad” and asking then why they accept their kid’s Chinese friend, you may fear risking that child’s friendship as the racist person talks themselves into believing they shouldn’t be friends. Sometimes letting a person rant about the exceptions to their view is a place to start a conversation about diversity and tolerance and acceptance and culture, but sometimes walking away defeated is more important and okay.

5. You are combatting fear and it isn’t rational.

The fear of losing authority extends a strong arm into political language, rhetoric, discourse and control. The fear of being controlled by masses and not having individualism, even while forcing others to conform, is an irony many willingly admit and agree with through that paternal view: I can be contradictory and demand free speech without consequence while telling you to stop with threats of government/legal action, but you can’t. There is a paternalism that stems from privilege and religion. It is exhausting to combat. It says drug users need to be locked up because it’s what’s best for them; it says abortion is wrong because I believe in a soul, because I am Christian, because my church says there is a soul present, and so my religion says it is wrong, therefore I want it illegal because of that and I know what is best for women. It says girls who are assaulted asked for it because paternalism requires a solid foundation of black-and-white truths in order to determine right or wrong and good or bad. That mentality struggles to see grey, to understand their own biases and why the political language matters in the first place. 

This means it is often in favor of other black-or-white extremes such as strict gender roles, anti LGBTQ+, or anything else like race that involves a spectrum of identity values rather than a scale of one side or another. This also means there is more room for conspiracy and ungrounded theory to fill in, because a black-or-white mentality demands explanations for things it can no longer explain through the denial of spectrums – if you look at the color purple and have to decide if it’s red or blue and those are your only options, you have to have a reason to put it one place or the other, but regardless of the reason, both may be true since color doesn’t exist on a one-or-the-ther scale but a spectrum. This means there are reasons for their way of thinking, but they are often not logical or expressible in language that makes sense or discourse that can be dissected; it is devoid of introspection and often projects and lashes out at language and the way something is presented rather than the thing itself. Learning to get around that with simple examples of context and explanations that don’t rely on academic language is crucial to communicating with some people.

6. Being an ally is not easy, you have to listen and be willing to fail and grow.

I was ignorant at first, when talking to POC friends (and probably still am in some ways). I didn’t understand that I was unfamiliar, as a white person talking about racism and social issues, until a POC friend confided that they’ve never heard a white person capable of talking about race or understanding the complexities of the scale before. Suddenly I understood the generalization that white people are stupid and privileged. We built a bridge between us, simply by being open to a conversation about race, and then by later realizing and respecting that my openness will be challenged at first, because the majority of experiences for my own POC friends at the time were white people being ignorant or dismissive of race. I am not infallible, I make mistakes, but looking at how and why is the part that matters, and realizing that I also represent an experience and a race, and that I also have expectations, was an important moment for me. Understanding the balance of influence and being able to face it without the intent to take, but with the intent to understand, is important. Starting from the understanding that we all have biases, we are all racist based on our context in the sense that we judge people to protect ourselves, and that skin is a visible marker we often use for culture and heritage, we begin understand race’s role in modern society, and then we can talk about it. 

I will also admit this was a point of pride for me. I am white, but I tan well and have dark wavy hair and my grandparents are immigrants so I know my heritage cultures. I have been mistaken for many ethnicities based on my location and other identity markers like clothing and body language, which initially made it easier for me to personally talk about race with others without waiting for permission, because I can relate. White women have walked up and grabbed my hair before, I have been in embarrassing situations where I didn’t match the expected environment or was judged for not properly coding-switching my language. I have been the only white person in many rooms, growing up in a black neighborhood; I have experience with poverty and was on the same free hot-lunch programs as my neighbors, and we avoided the same corners and colors together; I have been accused of trying too hard and not enough, talked to in random languages on the street with expected understanding, and I have a conservative family to remind me over and over again how hard I had to work at building this mentality and how oddly lucky I am that the world around me and my own curiosity made me constantly question those views. 

It’s important to choose your battles and learn from your mistakes, to recognize your growth, to question and doubt yourself, but one of the most important things I’ve come to learn about being white and talking about race with POC is the ability to empathize without needing to relate. You don’t need permission to talk about race. You are one. Everything I said about my experiences just now? At the end of the day, I learned, none of it matters. It doesn’t matter where I grew up or what my experiences are, because I can’t relate to everything and knowing the limits is important. But the other side of that is knowing how to relate to the end emotion with empathy, even in your limitations. You can’t relate with everything and that’s true for everyone, but you can try to understand people and their emotion, you can empathize without first-hand experience by being vulnerable.

Many conversations that I’ve had with white people involve the insistence that they are more than white, like what I just did above, to prove that I can have a seat at the table: look at all these exceptions I have, validate my experience. That’s not important, and I’ve found time and time again that white people (myself included at one point) value that, first out of fear of being insensitive and racist, but also out of a fear of being rejected and invalidated. The best conversations I’ve had with POC about race had to start with me validating myself and my own experiences with an open mind, ready to understand theirs. 

If you are white and you look to join or start a conversation about race with validation from others, that’s not starting from vulnerability or the potential that you’re wrong, it’s starting with the expectation that they give you something, and that never invites understanding or sincerity from either side. You have to be willing to learn and be wrong and know where you stand on your own, with your own validation, before you can begin to talk with others about their experiences or understand and empathize and grow.

You have to be willing to shine a light instead of be the voice. The best example I have of this is the 1968 Black Power salute. Sympathetic to the cause of fellow athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Peter Norman, the bronze medalist and a white Australian, asked what he could do and he listened. They asked him not to raise his fist. In solidarity, he wore a pin, opening himself up to the harsh criticism of conservatives at the time. He was willing to suffer the backlash without demanding a role in the symbol, and I think that by doing that, he shows how to be an ally, how to talk about racism and listen and understand the meanings behind things. When Peter Norman died, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral, and I think that says a lot about friendship and alliance. Sometimes, you can’t relate to POC experiences, but you can listen, and you can understand.

7. Fear is the root. 

Fear of sharing, of not having enough, of being tricked or taken advantage of. It is manufactured and created through our own context bubbles and media, and some of it is naturally culminated because of those propagating pieces, so people think it’s okay, that their racism is important, that it protects them. 

We fear unfamiliar things, but pointing out to people that they are the ones who are ignorant and naive is tricky. The psychology that makes people deny and exist on a black-vs-white spectrum is nearly 100% a protection from feeling out of control, based on fears and a lack of personal context. Meaning that the most racist and judgmental people often rarely see people who are different from them in skin color (or when they are different in skin color, they blend in economic class or religion, etc.). They don’t have context to things outside of themselves, their familiarity is limited. 

This is where the issues of white people thinking all [insert any minority here] “look alike.” Because of their lack of context, the key traits they notice are those in contrast to other white people rather than other people in general; rather than noticing a pointed chin or square face, a heavy brow or long nose, a white person without diverse contexts of faces or people might simply notice skin complexion or epicanthic folds and nothing else, they might not even consider body shape, because they are around other people of diverse shapes and heights. This is not an excuse, it’s sad, but it helped me understand where to start several conversations with racist people ranting about race, by considering their own lack of personal context. Starting with race being a cultural construct often, in my experience, does not work here, though I often found myself starting there and working backwards until I learned more about fear and politics and how people use them together to retain control in their lives. 

Explaining how minority cultures are “good” can help, but often there is that rebounding psychology that says familiar is good, unfamiliar = bad. The fear of losing the majority, the upper-hand, the paternalist authority of determining right/wrong based on their views and forcing assimilation on others is deep-seated and rampantly unconscious, and that’s the dangerous part. In some conversations a simple “oh, you’re scared of losing your power” has changed an already-introspective person for the better in such an epiphany moment that reaffirms starting at the very basics with many white people - do you recognize that you have power here? And in many cases they recognize the existence of privilege but not the details of it, discussing those details can also add important context. But fear often makes people reluctant to understand, so looking at their own fears can be a place to start.

There is also a fear of losing parts of the self. For some white people, their travels or appropriative behaviors are the most interesting things about them (according to them), and so the idea of talking about race becomes a conversation challenging their own identities, which encompasses a fear of losing those identities. This is a tricky road for me, because I understand the exciting allure of learning new things and exploring new cultures. I think I can be susceptible to exoticism and tokenism, but that’s also what makes it important to talk about, because I challenge myself at the same time. That becomes a conversation about intent and meaning and culture, and I think it’s important to remember, as a white person talking to other white people, that you do not wear a badge of honor giving you permission to accuse and assume. 

It can be easy to generalize and build assumptions about people, but there are other white people willing to talk about race, there are people who look white and are not at all, and by assuming people’s fears or intentions or consequences, you can easily become the asshole. For example: shamefully, I will admit that I talked to a “white girl” who was really into yoga once, and I made an internal judgement about her, but in conversation, it came up that she grew up in India, speaks Hindi and a bunch of other languages, and works as a translator. That was embarrassing for me, though I never said anything out loud, and I think that’s important too – that we analyze our internal judgements and think about them. I spent some time thinking about my initial judgement, what changed, and what I considered “acceptable” appropriation or identifiable appropriation and “acceptable” displays of culture and value, and I found that it’s complicated. It’s important to be aware of ourselves and not fall into a self-righteousness that ends up demanding to be the voice of others, but to listen and have conversations with those around us. 

8. Context matters part II.

Talking proud white people through the history of European cultures before Rome, and explaining their own heritage, if available, has continually seen those white Americans stop and question what they know of their history and timeline. Talking about tribes and clans and nomadic groups, basically anything during the Roman Empire that wasn’t Rome, has forced many people to pause and question what they know of empire and colonization and conquest and all that they know of “right” and “good” and resource stockpiling, because suddenly there is a before, where they had only ever learned of the after. 

Positioning their own heritage in a perspective that adamantly opposes the idea that guns and colonization were a natural progression of society, and instead asks why and answers: because they were built to invade and take, has made many people pause, and others simply nod and say yes, and that’s why it’s mine now. Which is chilling and frustrating, but does shed light on where to go next. Many white Americans were taught history in the context of victories and kings and presidents and drama, not slavery, servitude, or lives of normal people. Positioning their heritage as one of a conquered people enslaved by Rome suddenly has them questioning that same story they learned about the Trail of Tears and Native American history. And those moments of questioning, of being offered new information that challenges their familiar order of thoughts and cultural context, that can make all the difference.

9. People look different for #reasons.

The single most efficient tool that I have found to really make a difference in the way people see other people is educating them on what the differences mean. Because, in the same way that understanding why someone hurt you makes forgiving them easier, understanding why someone looks different from you makes seeing them as a whole easier.

Explaining to people things like: how skin color works, what it does to protect us, how history and culture and things like slavery and migration impact it, how hair works, what coils, kinks, and curls do for heat dispersion, what big lips or rounded jaws or epicanthic folds or big noses or curvy booties mean, how a human population’s general shape is impacted by their environment, and that it’s ALL IN THE NAME OF THERMOREGULATION, has made so many people go “oh wow, I never knew that, that’s so cool!” And suddenly skin color, hair texture, body shape, etc. are not longer a single reflection of a person’s culture or heritage, but an organ their body is using to maintain their health and keep them alive. 

Telling someone that, based on genetic diversity of populations and a bunch of other stuff like migration and cultural mating habits, they are more likely to find a doppelgänger that looks most like them in another race, has also helped. Out of all your human traits and phenotypic markers, you are more likely to find another human with your similar body/face shapes and structure, but with a different skin color. Showing people these pictures and talking about two friends I had in college who looked exactly alike but one was from Afghanistan and the other from Mexico generally gets people interested in looking at people more intently.

[Note: sometimes it can be harder to find obvious pictures of women/LGBTQ+ individuals with different-race doppelgängers because of the use of makeup, cultural expectations of beauty, and general oppression and erasure of minority cultures, POC, and women, so these are mostly white men who look like other men.]

There you go, some observations about talking about race with white people as a white person. This is all I can do right now, in the midst of the suffering and grief, the fear and continual horror. A few observations stitched together, a little encouragement, some hot tips that have worked for me, and a whole lot of defeated sighing that I know isn’t fair. At the end of the day, I know it’s not all I can do, that it is what I can do. It is a position I take up because I know how easily I can walk through the door of the “white club,” and I have accepted the responsibility of stirring it up and getting people talking about social issues like racism. 

It’s a strange thing, to automatically belong and hate it, to not fit an ideology but be expected to from the outside; I suspect we’ve all felt that one way or another, since it’s the subject of pretty much every popular franchise and story, it has to resonate in a big way somehow. So I know I’m not alone there, I know we’re all exhausted and feeling that there is no progress, that there’s nothing to do, that talking isn’t enough, that we’re stuck inside while people outside are suffering and there’s not a goddamned thing we can do, but it’s a lie. 

We can talk to people. It takes a long time, and you can be tired, and you can be down about it, and you can be frustrated, but it matters, so you can’t give up. The urging of white people to talk to other white people is important. It makes a difference. You might not see it right away, but it matters. 

If you keep at it, you’ll see some of the changes you can make: one day, that racist person starts to tell a joke and you see them stop and think for a minute and then say “you know, actually maybe that’s inappropriate.” Or you see that racist person start to get uncomfortable around their racist friends, or they start asking more complex questions about society, their opinions take longer to form, they ask for sources on information, they slowly grow more comfortable talking about social topics. There are some people I’ve been talking to regularly about this stuff for over a decade and they have not changed in anyway, but in the process of talking to them, in person or on social media, people around them noticed and began to think and question, messaging me to talk more or to say thank you. Changes happen, and people change.... slowly.

It can be scary to talk to white people about race, but if you are white, it is what you can do. Because no matter how you feel about it, at the end of the day, you walk in the door of the white club unbarred. That is a privilege, and that’s what people mean when they say “use your privilege.” 

I hope this helps someone a little bit, because even though I keep at it, even though I know it’s what I can do, it still feels like all I can do, and it never feels like enough.

[ineverhaveanynormalfans]

Undisclosed

Fandom: Criminal Minds Warnings: Canon rewrite Pairing/s: Emily Prentiss x Original Character Authors Note:

A slight rewrite and coda to Season 11 Episode 19 Tribute. Emily enlists the help of the BAU in tracking a serial killer who is mimicking famous murders across the globe. However, the recent addition of two new rings on Emily's left hand has her old team questioning when she got married and to whom?

This is part one of a new series, a story that has been brewing in my mind for years with an original character. My Kinktober 2020 series was written with this character in mind as the reader insert but they don't have to be read that way by others.

Word Count: 1406

AO3

“I've always heard every ending is also a new beginning, we just don't know it at the time, I'd like to believe that's true.” Emily Prentiss.

Emily Prentiss awoke with a jolt and sat bolt upright in bed trying to catch her breath. The nightmare had become hauntingly familiar, a replaying of the night a young inspector had lost her life in an undercover role Emily had pushed her to take. ‘Baby? Same one again?’ Your warm hand rubbed small circles on her back as Emily nodded and buried her face in her hands, struggling to ground herself in the here and now and not in that night. A soft kiss to her exposed shoulder made her look around and into the concerned eyes of her partner. ‘I’m ok’ she lied ‘go back to sleep love.’ Getting up before this turned into another discussion of her coping methods Emily padded into the en-suite bathroom, closing the door firmly behind her. Sighing you vowed to keep a closer eye on her and rolled over, falling back to sleep before she emerged and crept back into your bed, another sleepless night ahead of her.

The case in New York came so suddenly that Emily barely had time to leave you a quick voicemail explaining that she’d be out of the country for a few days. Two hours into her flight and mid way through reviewing the case files for the millionth time her laptop pinged with your ringtone. Accepting the video call she sat back and grinned at your face filling her screen. ‘Hotch and the team are gonna meet me in New York, we’re just waiting for DOJ conformation that we can work together on this case.’ It was good to hear her focused, after Boston turned out to be a single victim and the unsubs trail went cold she’d seemed defeated, like she would never get as close as she had in London again. That had bumped the nightmares up a notch in frequency.

‘So what you’re saying is I should expect a virtual frisking from Penelope Garcia imminently.’ Emily laughed and nodded ‘If she hasn’t got a file on you already I’ll be surprised.’ ‘I’d be surprised if she finds enough to warrant a file, work has kept me pretty off the grid. Are you still determined to introduce me in person?’ ‘Yep.’ She confirmed, the pop in the p letting you know she wasn’t gonna abandon her planned big reveal of you just because she was heading to the States a few weeks ahead of schedule. You understood her reasons and you loved the idea too, but keeping anything a secret from one profiler was hard enough, an entire team and the information queen that was Penelope Garcia was something akin to a miracle if you managed it. ‘Keep me updated yeah? And be safe love. No more close calls, please?’ She assured you the BAU had her back and that she would text you. Getting up from your office chair you sighed and went to make your third cup of tea of the day, hoping the team was as good in reality as they were in Emily’s stories.

The crime scene could have been reproduced from forensic photography of the Son of Sams murders and Emily was already scanning the alley for signs of a second victim as she exited the SUV. She was therefore totally blindsided by Rossi when he pulled her up on not talking much on the ride over and her mind jumped straight to the teams recent loss. Morgan had been on her mind, he had only left a few weeks ago and she knew all about that and the feelings it evoked in the team. Chastising herself for not asking them sooner she explained her reasons for not bringing it up, the freshness of the loss seemed so obvious and raw. JJ’s response about taking it one day at a time brought back the guilt she had felt both times she had left the team that was more family than any blood relative. ‘Actually I was trying to give you a hard time about this.’ Rossi lifted Emily’s own left hand up, nodding to the rings that had only resided there a few weeks. Before Emily could do more than stutter and blush the NYPD detectives were approaching them and all focus went back to profiling the scene.

Between the nightmare she had on the plane and the obvious personal nature of the case none of the BAU questioned Emily on the ring again until they arrived back at Quantico. Having successfully surprised Garcia and broken out the bottle of tequila she’d lost in a bet with Morgan it was quickly decided that a family dinner was in order and Penelope demanded to be filled in on this mystery spouse of Emily’s. You had been spot on Emily thought, she hadn’t been able to find much on you, only a name, Dr O. Ryan. ‘That’s not even a full name, do you know how frustrating that is for someone like me to not even be able to find the name of the guy you’ve married without telling us?’ Penelope lovingly chastised her as they took their seats around the round table in the colourful Mexican restaurant. ‘Oooh, a doctor!’ JJ teased, grinning at Emily over the menu. JJ was the only one who knew anything more about you, Emily having spilled all when she rushed to save JJ from a torturer. You’d not even been engaged at that point, the rings had made her do a double take too. ‘How come you didn’t tell us you were getting married?’ Hotch asked, the smile he had from congratulating her still on his face. She was all set to answer them, to give up on her plan of surprising them all with a visit when her phone buzzed in her pocket and took her attention from the table of curious eyes.

‘Find Your Friends has you at this Mexican restaurant and I really hope it’s accurate cos I’m outside :) x’ Emily read and reread the text and laughed disbelievingly. ‘You’re all gonna get your answers don’t worry’ she placated the table as she stood to walk out and get you. Her smile made the cost of the last minute flight worth every penny and you hugged her close, relieved to feel the tension she’d been carrying since Louise’s death had lessened considerably. ‘Ready to meet my family?’ She asked softly against your ear and you squeezed her affectionately before pulling back. ‘Absolutely, lead the way love.’ Emily leaned in and kissed you, her excitement palpable and together you both walked inside.

The plan was exquisite in its simplicity really. You walked in holding hands and watched as the faces of the profilers changed when they twigged. Spencer was first, his face lighting up as he waved a greeting across the table to you. JJ was beaming, you’d spoken to her plenty of times via video calls so it was no surprise that she was first up to hug you and give her congratulations. Tara and Hotch weren’t far behind her, and Rossi was hugging Emily when Penelope arrived in front of you, arms outstretched, and drew you into a huge hug. ‘Oh my gosh hi, hello, wow look at you you’re gorgeous, Emily your wife is gorgeous!’ Emily laughed along with you and Penelope dove straight into questions, pulling up a chair beside her own for you. ‘Tell me everything, how did you meet, who proposed, what was the wedding like, ‘ Rossi had to speak loudly to be heard over the happy chatter and rush of questions. ‘How about a name first, so we can toast the happy couple?’ ‘Olivia.’ Emily said proudly and you beamed up at your lovely wife. ‘Well then, could you all raise your margaritas to the wonderful Emily Prentiss and her beautiful wife Dr Olivia?’ He paused and looked at you both questioningly. ‘Prentiss.’ You answered, and took Emily’s hand in your own as a margarita arrived at the table for you. ‘Molte bueno, to Emily and Olivia Prentiss, may your marriage bring you many years of solace and joy.’ Glasses raised and clinked all around the table as the BAU toasted to the addition of a new family member and you took the brief moment while they all clinked to steal a quick kiss with your new wife. From what Em had told you you’d be far too busy fielding questions from Penelope to get another chance for a long long while.

[trvgcdiv]

high rambling, mostly about klytaimestra

Thinking deeply about Mexican food and the “Perseidas” (Perseides, but Spanish... because... I’m being self-indulgent here aldsjf;lkjfsd)

and then I just... had another terrible realization (along w the realization i had earlier today where uhhhh Klytaimestra is possibly a textbook narcissistic mother) 

Anyway, second terrible realization about Klytaimestra today is that she’s one of those uhhhh your typical (telenovela) ranchera where she’s a hardass and v rough and tumble etc etc and yet inexplicably feminine as all hell. Like who tf is out there with a whole face of makeup and perfectly coiffed locks when they’re doing hard ranch work??? like tf????

I am making no sense, but anyway!!! I’m definitely gonna lean into the mexican side of me like if people wanna make the gods WASPy I should feel comfortable full-on leaning into my culture out here

and I think it makes a lot of sense for Klytaimestra to feel this pull both ways---confidence enough in her strength where she doesn’t feel need to diminish it or downplay it, and at the same time this pressure to perform femininity for its efficacy. Not feminine in a "gender affirmation” or “sexual wiles” sense which... horney brain rip, but in a “expectations of my gender that I need to conform to in order to avoid more pushback than necessary”. 

But also... as expectations ease up, so does the pressure and the # of fucks she has to give lmao   

I think by now I have a big part of her + gender: she conforms to the bare minimum expected of her gender (which, at least in her og mythtimes, just meant being married to a man and having his children + other shit in support of that) and uses that as a shield against criticism for the rest of her [opposite traits/behavior which is coded as being specifically for the “other” gender, or which you are not] behavior/traits. 

... fuck... I’m still stuck on my thoughts and aesthetics re: ranchera Klytaimestra

[genesisorea]

Mana

I have been wanting to go see Mana in concert for years. They were an essential part of childhood since my parents loved them, so did I. Mana is a Mexican rock band from the 90′s that, in my opinion helped shape the way Mexican rock music is portrayed and how its shaped the way rock music is Mexico is now more socially acceptable.

Rock music isn’t per se the most popular genre of music in Mexican culture and in Latinx culture in general. For there is this association that rock music carries of being devilish or against god and religion. In most Latinx cultures rock music isn’t necessarily the “right” music to listen to or that would be acceptable to the church. So, in my opinion Mana was actually quite brave to step into the light and play their music in a majority catholic country.

Mana came to the Barclay’s center here in downtown Brooklyn which excited me cause they were literally coming to my hometown. My family has been talking about going to this concert for months and we in typical habitual Mexican way bought the tickets last minute. We bought the tickets the night before and therefore we got nosebleed seats. I didn’t mind of course, because I just wanted to experience their music live. I also wanted to see them before I die or they die, which as morbid as that sounds was a genuine worry of mine.

That night getting ready I felt a pride within me to be fortunate enough to go see Mana. I’m proud of being Mexican and I like to wear it on my sleeve, but this particular night where I was going to a Mexican concert with my Mexican family in Brooklyn, New York seemed like a dream come true. To have a group of beautifully talented Mexican people have the opportunity and privilege to play in New York City, in a country that has not been the most welcoming to Mexicans seemed like a big “fuck you” to conformity. The conformity in which I have felt pressured to hide a part of myself that my parents risked their entire livelihoods for.  Maná coming to Brooklyn meant much more than just a foreign band playing in an urban city. It meant progress, progress in a nation that has made it clear for centuries where people of Latin America stand, and it isn’t at the top of the pyramid in the heirachy in which we are all placed. This concert was more than just a celebration of their talent and our appreciation of it, but rather a stance. A stance against governmental and social expectations of the ideal assimilated American who is expected to always remain grateful and subordinate. Eternally in debt to the land of the free. Nope, here we were loud and proud screaming in unison with 4 Mexican men who refused to stay quiet.  Because Mana came to play their hearts out but they didn’t come to play games. Here I was, the daughter of two Mexican immigrants, with her Mexican flag, and a colorful Mexican fajero made from the indigenous people of Mexico around her waist, with her Mexican family, surrounded by hundreds of other Mexicans in unity. Isn't New York City great?

The stadium was jam packed. every seat from what my eyes could see was full. Thousands of people. Thousands of Mexicans. Thousands of people from Latin America. Thousands of people from New York. Here we were, representing our city and our cultures. I was kind of surprised of the turn out, I didn’t really expect for it to be a full house, I underestimated the power of good music and dedicated fans.

When Fher Olvera, the lead singer of Mana was thanking everybody for coming and showing up, he made sure to thank more than just the Mexican people of New York City. He thanked all of Latin America. He thanked the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Argentina etc. He also thanked Zimbabwe and Canada and thanked people for bringing their culture to New York City. He explained that there in no place as culturally diverse as New York City, people from all corners of the world come here and share a part of themselves in a city that accepts and shares because there are people who exist here who accept. The loud crowd roared with screams and hoots of appreciation, in appreciation towards whom recognized the beauty that is beyond the lights of New York City. There were so many people. So many people from all over the world. I felt proud, proud of New York, of Brooklyn, of my family, of my heritage, of my culture and of my people. Stretching beyond borders, stretching beyond stereotypes. Here we were loud and proud. “A qui no hay lugar para el racismo” Here is no place for racism, Fher exclaimed with  passion and my parents stood from seats in solidarity and I clapped. “Y a los polticos que no serven manda los pa la chingada” - “to the politicians that are of no use, they can go to hell. Which was direct shade towards the current administration in office. This all happened in the last ten minutes of the show, Olvera shouted out phrases of resistance whilst holding a large white flag next to a flag with the peace sign on it. This concert was sign of the times. In my eyes, this concert was political. Not because of what was said and who it was directed to but what it meant. What this mass gathering of people meant under one roof in Liberty’s city: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” Here we were in a huddled mass, tired of oppression and institutionalization of personal vendettas, in a city where more than 30% of people are living in poverty, breathing the same air where we will continuously fight for true freedom.  

[her-culture]

"What Are You?" BY GEO SIQUE

“Oh, I get it now.”

That’s what I was told by my boyfriend’s coworker when we walked by the front desk where he works. Confused, I didn’t know what to say, but I soon realized she wasn’t looking for a reply. She went on.

“I heard you were Mexican, but you looked Indian from far away. I couldn’t tell what you were, but I see it now.”

She then walked away, without waiting for a reply. I called out the only thing that came to mind, something like, “Yeah, I get that a lot,” and didn’t even receive a look back in reply.

I do get that a lot. It doesn’t happen every day, but it’s happened enough that it’s not surprising when it happens. However, it never gets less insulting.

In this case, I knew this coworker to have no filter. I had heard she was nice, hilarious, and often inappropriate. This didn’t make the bad taste in my mouth any more pleasant.

I have had plenty of people inspect me with the question, “what are you?” It’s a simple question; I know what they are asking. “What race are you?” is what they really mean, but this simple question has no simple answer.

A Loaded Question

Our society is obsessed with race, and it is no surprise with our oppressive, racist history. While I was taught in elementary school that discoverers and scientists found the new world, I learned in college that these historic figures were not heroes but colonizers. Their effects on modern society are largely prevalent, even if not everyone can recognize it.

Although slavery has been abolished for more than a couple centuries now and discrimination is technically illegal, racism runs rampant in our everyday lives. All the vestiges of the savage past result from those who conquered occupied territory and tried to conform the lives of already-built civilizations. They are vestiges of those who oppressed thousands for the power and control, they are phenomenons such as whitewashing, xenophobia, and people generally being afraid of the unfamiliar.

I know this particular conversation in the lobby was spoken with no malintent. I expect some people will read this story and think I am being dramatic, that I shouldn’t take things personally, that it was just a comment. However, I don’t believe that any phrase, whether asked as a question, muttered as a comment, or pointed out as a declaration is “harmless.”

Words are powerful beyond what we realize. The words we use can either accurately portray what we are thinking or, if they do not align with the values of the person speaking, reflect some idea of society. In this case, asking a stranger what race they are with no meaningful interaction signifies that race is what defines them as a person. Something many people of color experience constantly.

Talking About Culture

My family is from Mexico. I love talking about my culture. From the food we eat, to our traditions, to the most beautiful places I have visited in Mexico. I can talk with you for hours about tacos al pastor, my favorite tacos that I had for the first time in Guadalajara. I can tell you all the reasons why Puerto Vallarta is my favorite beach I’ve ever been to – and I’ve been to a more than a few. I can tell you about the day trips my family has taken across the border since it is less than a 20-minute drive from my grandma’s house.

I love talking about my culture, but it should never be the first thing I am asked. My culture is a big part of who I am, but it is not the most important part. I get tired of being looked at like someone from a certain race and not as a person. When people ask me what race I am, they do not want to get to know my culture, they want to put me into a box.

Talking about culture is fun and interesting, but it is also vital for a functioning society. While you shouldn’t define people by their race, you shouldn’t ignore their culture either. This can lead to many problems. For example, in the medical world, embracing culture has been proven to lead to better care of patients. According to a report by Duquesne University, cultural competence can reduce medical errors, number of treatments necessary, and legal fees, while at the same time creating community inclusion, and increasing trust between patients and doctors, among other benefits.

Likewise, it is important to recognize cultural incompetence, such as racial discrimination in the workplace. Being aware and accepting of others’ cultures can make a huge difference in reducing discrimination and oppression and can help us have pleasant conversations about culture. Additionally, the report by Duquesne University also states that the United States is more ethnically and racially diverse than ever before, and that by the year 2055, there will be no racial or ethnic majority. Hopefully, this will lead to a more tolerant atmosphere in the country.

Finding an Answer

I know when I get asked this question, the answer the person is looking for is that I am Mexican, but that is not the phrase that immediately comes to my head. Instead, this question brings a 100 more questions to my mind.

Instead of replying with the answer they are looking for, I want to ask them what they mean by “what are you?” I am not a “what,” I am a “who.” I want to throw the question back at them and ask what they are. Perhaps if they experienced the absurdity of the question, they would no longer ask it. I want to answer aggressively and ask them exactly what they mean by the question, I want to ask them why they want to know. I want to calmly inform them that the question they have asked is rude, that it shouldn’t matter.

All these answers seem to work for me, but actually saying them is not so easy. If my answer is too aggressive, the other person can get defensive and not listen to what I say. My goal with my answer is to get the other person to think, this is not something that is easily done with a short reply.

I read a story about a woman who was constantly asked this question, but her experience was unique in that she didn’t know her answer. Her mother was adopted and she didn’t know her father, so she couldn’t even answer the question for herself. Even after a genealogical investigation, a large percentage of her own DNA showed up as unknown. In the end, she decided to answer the question with her name. Her answer became, “I am Simone.”

I like the simplicity of this answer. I am me, a whole made up of different parts. Sure, part of this whole is comprised by my culture, and while I treasure that part dearly, it is not my one defining characteristic. I hope that next time I am faced with this question, I can have a better answer. More than that, I hope next time I can have a meaningful conversation in which someone gets to know me and I get to know them.

[sinrau]

It seems so clear now.

In June 2016—roughly seven weeks before Donald Trump formally received the Republican nomination for president—I wrote an extended essay in the Huffington Post assessing his behaviors. The title was self-explanatory: “ Too Sick to Lead: The Lethal Personality Disorder of Donald Trump.”

By then, Trump had supplied us with overwhelming evidence of an ineradicable pathology which utterly disqualified him for the presidency. But few political observers wanted to touch such a volatile subject.

His party feared him. The media put him in their customary analytical boxes, parsing his every move as if he were something grander, yet more normal, than a mentally disordered demagogue bereft of principles and starved for adulation. And those mental health professionals who dared address the obvious were chided by their peers for psychoanalyzing a man they had never met.

But we had met him—ceaselessly, for decades, and never more than in the year before June 2016, when cable news frequently broadcast his appearances in their entirety. His character disorder was klieg-lit; central to Trump’s pathology was his uncontrollable need to flaunt it.

Most remarkable about his psychological illness is the utter consistency of his behaviors. My descriptions of his pathology, and how it would operate in office, are as applicable today as they were four years ago. Save for factual references specific to 2016, I need not change a word. This owes nothing to my special insight, and everything to Trump’s inability to be anything other than what he was and always will be: a man far too disturbed to occupy the White House.

That he does underscores the core issue in 2020: Will a critical swath of voters, despite all we’ve learned about his unfitness for the presidency, return this man to power?

No longer can we rationalize away his disabling instability—not for tax cuts, or judges, or ideology writ large. By deliberately averting their eyes from the incessant manifestations of his feral inner landscape, the GOP and much of the news media became complicit in his Electoral College victory—and the damage he has inflicted on our democracy and society.

To capture Trump’s singular abnormality, I opened my June 2016 article by describing a telling example from his past: his disturbingly bizarre and infantile practice of pretending to be someone else while calling a reporter to brag about his own romantic life. After describing an audiotape of Trump’s pseudonymous 1991 phone call to People magazine boasting about his supposed romantic involvement with several ultra-famous women—made despite the fact that he was living with his future wife Marla Maples—I pointed out that this behavior was not merely “self-aggrandizing” but also “gratuitously cruel, heedless of all but self, reckless in his lust for attention” and, therefore, that it reflected on Trump’s “psychological fitness to be president.”

With this indubitably aberrant practice as preface, I argued that there is “only one organizing principle” that can make sense of Trump’s “wildly oscillating utterances and behavior—the clinical definition of narcissistic personality disorder.”

The Mayo Clinic describes it as “a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others.” This is bad enough in selecting a spouse or a friend. But when applied to a prospective president, the symptoms are disqualifying.

With Trump ever in mind, try these. An exaggerated sense of self-importance. An unwarranted belief in your own superiority. A preoccupation with fantasies of your own success, power and brilliance. A craving for constant admiration. A consuming sense of entitlement. An expectation of special favors and unquestioning compliance.

A penchant for exploiting or disparaging others. A total inability to recognize the needs of anyone else. An incapacity to see those you meet as separate human beings. An unreasoning fury at people you perceive as thwarting your wishes or desires. A tendency to act on impulse. A superficial charm deployed to disguise a gift for manipulation.

A need to always be right. A refusal to acknowledge error. An inability to tolerate criticism or critics. A compulsion to conform your ever—shifting sense of “reality” to satisfy your inner requirements. A tendency to lie so frequently and routinely that objective truth loses all meaning.

A belief that you are above the rules. An array of inconsistent statements and behaviors driven by your needs in the moment. An inability to assess the consequences of your actions in new or complex situations. In sum, a total incapacity to separate the world from your own psychodrama.

Recognize anyone? . . .

The annals of business are filled with such people, some of whom wind up in jail, others of whom die rich. But however puissant they become in their chosen realm, their sickness of mind and spirit cannot ruin a country. That power is reserved for presidents.

Indeed, Trump’s rise simply swells his unwarranted belief that he can stride the world like a colossus—naked of judgment, knowledge, temperament or preparation. This reflects a fatal deficit in those who suffer this disorder—they cannot see themselves as they are.

To the contrary, their grandiosity is a defense against feelings of inadequacy too deep and painful to acknowledge. By the consensus of mental health experts, this emotional impairment has a last fatal ingredient—there is no cure. For a man like Donald Trump, life offers no lessons, no path forward save to continue as you have until, like Icarus, you fly too close to the sun.

This disability involves far more than a set of discrete character flaws, however grave, including those which suggest a lack of trustworthiness. We survived the dishonesty and paranoia of Richard Nixon, after all, albeit at considerable cost and only after forcing him from office.

But in many ways Nixon was well-equipped for the presidency, capable of navigating the larger world and understanding complex situations and people—as in China and its leaders. He did not reflexively substitute a grossly inflated sense of self for knowledge, strategy or preparation. His tragedy, and ours, was that his crippling inner wounds outstripped his proven strengths.

Donald Trump is altogether different—and infinitely more dangerous. He is afflicted with a comprehensive and profound character disorder which leaves no corner of his psyche whole. And this dictates—and explains—every aspect of his behavior.

Take his recourse to bullying and slander. “I’m a counterpuncher,” he rationalizes. “[I]’ve been responding to what they did to me.” Now we understand, Donald—your enemies made you do it.

Really? So Heidi Cruz made him ridicule her looks on Twitter? That handicapped reporter made him imitate his disabilities at a rally? . . . And on and on—the list of enemies he must demean is infinite.

A recent example typifies his psychological imbalance. Speaking at a rally in San Diego, he tried to shame an otherwise obscure federal judge in the city, who is presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University. Trump called the Indiana-born judge a “Mexican,” a “hater of Donald Trump” and a “very hostile person” who had “railroaded” him. Heedless of his position or his audience, Trump wallowed in his personal grievances so long that his listeners grew restive. And so, yet again, the campaign for president descended into the poisonous murk of Trump’s inner world.

This astoundingly graceless and unpresidential behavior is far too pointless and indiscriminate to qualify as strategy or tactics. The common thread in all this lashing out—often at those who can’t fight back—is that it has nothing to do with issues, or anything else one would expect from a normal candidate. It is another symptom of Trump’s pathology—the visceral reflex to humiliate and degrade anyone who displeases him, no matter the context or situation.

Take the media. Where, one might ask, would Trump be without its constant and credulous attentions? But, like everyone else, the media can never do enough to feed his needs. He threatens the owners of newspapers with reprisals by the federal government, talks of changing libel laws to facilitate lawsuits for statements which affront him, proposes revoking FCC licenses for media which ruffle him. CNN is “very unprofessional”; like so many others, Fox has treated him “very unfairly.”

He refers to the media which cover him as “scum.” He singles out by name reporters who dare to challenge him. . . . After all, Trump says, he’s “fighting for survival”—ever victimized by hostile forces who fail to recognize his innate superiority.

Opposition of any kind enrages him. He incites reprisals against protesters. He threatened violence in Cleveland as payback for the GOP’s “unfairness.” He fuels anger against Hispanics, Muslims, and other minorities whom he perceives as inimical. And never—not once—does he take any responsibility for stirring these toxic pots. For one of the symptoms of his disability is an absence of conscience or accountability.

So what did women do to him, one wonders? The offense was obviously grave, for his misogyny is endless and, it seems, uncontrollable. One can but identify the same symptoms which drive his comprehensive impulse to demean—the need to dominate, displeasure at feeling thwarted and, of course, a profound lack of empathy for anyone but himself.

But for “Trump,” ever beset, his empathy is boundless. His view of others vacillates wildly based solely on their deference—or lack of it. . . .

Which brings us to a central problem of Trump’s warped psychology—he believes that filling the presidency requires nothing but the wonder of himself. This gives the lie to GOP’s most craven rationalization of its own capitulation: that a suddenly docile Trump will, as president, defer to a cadre of wise and experienced advisers drawn from the party establishment.

This is pernicious nonsense. Consistent with his character disorder, Trump proudly insists that his chief adviser is himself. Even were he so inclined, in order to learn from others he must know enough to discern good advice from bad. But such is his pathology that he feels no need to learn much of anything from anyone. And so, from the beginning, he has plunged us down the bottomless rabbit hole of his intellectual emptiness.

His ignorance and grandiosity form a lethal compound. He disowns NATO, unaware that he is playing into Putin’s hands . . . and imagines negotiating one-on-one with North Korea’s psychotic leader. . . . Oblivious to the appalled reaction around the globe, he promises to compel the respect of world leaders through “the aura of personality.”

His equally spurious domestic “proposals,” such as they may be, reflect nothing but the unreality of his own self-concept. . .

But to talk of Trump in terms of issues is to flatter him. Most of what he says is provisional, ever subject to change, and based on nothing but his needs at the moment. . . .

One can forecast the inevitable day-to-day damage to our country—the lashings out, the abuses of power, the mercurial and confidence-destroying lies and changes of mind, the havoc his distorted lens would wreak upon our institutions and our spirit. But most dangerous of all is the collision between a volatile world, a leader unable to perceive external reality, and the often-unbearable pressures of the presidency. That Trump’s judgment would crack time and again is certain—the only question is how dangerous the moment.

So how have we fallen prey to a man who, by the damning evidence of his own behavior, is psychologically unfit to be president? When did boasting top coherence; mindless posturing become strength; a talent for ridicule supplant experience or judgement; a gift for scapegoating surpass wisdom or generosity? Why must we even contemplate someone with this stunted inner landscape as the world’s most powerful man?

Why, indeed? But that was then—2016. In 2020 America’s electorate has experienced three and a half years of the most aberrant presidency in our history. We have no excuses left.

Our president’s sickness is ever on display. According to the Washington Post, as of May 29 Trump had made more than 19,000 false or misleading claims in a little over 1,200 days in office. During this time, we have witnessed his manipulation of the Justice Department, attacks on the rule of law, refusal to honor congressional subpoenas, fascination with authoritarian leaders, assertions of unlimited power, and attempts to solicit or compel electoral assistance from foreign governments.

Hungry for attention, he subjects us to a constant stream of scurrilous tweets, false accusations, rank divisiveness, unhinged conspiracy theories, blatant racial innuendos, shameless denials of reality, reflexive self-pity, unbounded grandiosity, puerile insults to real or imagined enemies, and claims of superior expertise in a multitude of areas where his abysmal ignorance is manifest. His sole concern is for himself.

This confluence of anti-social behaviors would be shocking in a relative or coworker; in a president, they are frightening and disorienting. Since his inauguration, Trump has debased the coinage of the presidency, eroded the boundaries on presidential misconduct, and poisoned the well of civic decency. His crippling dysfunction is now ours.

These behaviors have caused an increasing number of mental health professional to issue warnings about Trump’s psychological condition. In 2017, forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee edited a book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, that included essays from dozens of psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health professionals. And last December, two weeks before Trump’s impeachment, Dr. Lee submitted to Congress a petition, with 650 other psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health professionals as co-signatories, which included this disturbing admonition:

What makes Donald Trump so dangerous is the brittleness of his sense of worth. Any slight or criticism is experienced as a humiliation and degradation. To cope with the resultant hollow and empty feeling, he reacts with what is referred to as narcissistic rage. He is unable to take responsibility for any error, mistake, or failing. His default in that situation is to blame others and to attack the perceived source of his humiliation. These attacks of narcissistic rage can be brutal and destructive.”

Further, Lee explained to the London Independent, Trump was “doubling and . . . tripling down on his delusions”; “ramping up his conspiracy theories”; and “showing a great deal of cruelty and vindictiveness” in his “accelerated, repetitive tweets.”

Recent examples include his vicious allegations that, twenty years ago, Joe Scarborough murdered a woman who worked in his Florida congressional office. In reality, she died of a heart attack when Scarborough was 500 miles away. But Trump’s cruelty caused her anguished widower to implore Twitter to delete his sadistic tweets.

A related sign of emotional instability is Trump’s obsession with projecting dominance and strength—the underside of which is a debilitating admixture of neediness and insecurity.

Recent examples abound. Some would be seriocomic were he not America’s president:

As reported by Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey in the Washington Post, Trump sidetracked a cabinet meeting with a lengthy re-enactment of his supposedly stellar performance—three years prior—on a cognitive screening test.

After taking refuge in an underground bunker when protesters ringed the White House, he furiously denied it—claiming to have been conducting a snap inspection tour.

When a videotape captured his halting descent down a ramp after speaking at West Point, Trump delivered a rambling fifteen-minute revisionist history at his rally in Tulsa—blaming, among other things, slippery shoes.

Other examples are alarming, indeed ominous. His constant calls to “dominate” the streets during protests following the death of George Floyd. His threats to deploy active duty troops on American soil. His misuse of military personnel to clear peaceful protesters near Lafayette Square—all so that he could hold a borrowed Bible aloft in front of a damaged church, a videotaped piece of authoritarian theater.

The gnawing hunger of Trump’s misshapen psyche dominates Carl Bernstein’s appalling new account for CNN of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders, detailing in the starkest terms the consequences of investing someone of his pathology with the power of the American presidency.

Writes Bernstein:

Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like . . . Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Erdoğan, and so abusive to leaders of America’s principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior U.S. officials—including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff—that the president himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States . . . [and] to conclude that the president was often “delusional,” as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders.

Central to these conversations was Trump’s disabling absorption with himself: “Trump incessantly boasted to his fellow heads of state, including . . . North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, about his own wealth, genius, ‘great’ accomplishments as president, and the ‘idiocy’ of his Oval Office predecessors. . . . In his phone exchanges with Putin . . . the president talked mostly about himself . . . [while] obsequiously courting Putin’s admiration and approval.” Adds Bernstein: “The common, overwhelming dynamic that characterizes Trump’s conversations with both authoritarian dictators and leaders of the world’s greatest democracies is his consistent assertion of himself as the defining subject and subtext of the calls.”

But for allies, Trump’s manner was the opposite of his pandering to the authoritarians: bullying, abusive, and riven with grievances. “Everything was always personalized,” a source told Bernstein, “with everybody doing terrible things to rip us off—which meant ripping ‘me’—Trump—off.” With females, Trump added a withering misogyny. “His most vicious attacks,” Bernstein relates, “were aimed at women heads of state. In conversations with both [Theresa] May and [Angela] Merkel, the president demeaned and denigrated them in diatribes described as ‘near-sadistic.’”

Other consistent features of these phone calls were Trump’s ignorance and dissociation from reality. “Two sources,” Bernstein reports, “compared many of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders to Trump’s recent press ‘briefings’ on the coronavirus pandemic: free form, fact-deficient stream-of-consciousness ramblings, full of fantasy and off-the-wall pronouncements based on his intuitions, guesswork, the opinions of Fox News TV hosts and social media misinformation.”

Bernstein concludes by quoting a senior official who summarizes the grip of Trump’s personality disorder on his conduct of foreign affairs: “There was no sense of ‘Team America’ or of . . . certain democratic principles and leadership of the free world. . . . The opposite. It was like the United States had disappeared. It was always ‘Just me.’”

But, for now, all else is overshadowed by Trump’s catastrophic mishandling of COVID-19—a case study in the literally lethal consequences of his hydra-headed disorder. This is precisely what I meant when, in 2016, I wrote about the dangerous collision between “volatile world, a leader unable to perceive external reality, and the often – unbearable pressures of the presidency.” Trump need not precipitate a nuclear exchange for his warped psychology to cause tens of thousands of needless American deaths.

It has. Last month disease modelers at Columbia estimated that we would have incurred roughly 36,000 fewer fatalities had Trump initiated social distancing one week earlier, and 54,000 deaths had it started two weeks earlier. Instead, fearful that acknowledging the seriousness of the coronavirus would have adverse political consequences, Trump chose misleading the public over protecting lives.

Inexorably, the deadly pandemic overwhelmed Trump’s self-created alternate reality—in which denying its lethality substituted for action. So he substituted yet another fantasy: that his proactive leadership in fighting the virus had saved countless lives and defeated the pandemic.

Even as the death toll mounted, he urged state governments to reopen the economy—dismissing life-saving public health measures recommended by his own government. COVID-19, he told Sean Hannity, is “fading away.” A week later, we suffered the greatest number of new cases since the pandemic began.

Events in the real world provide a roadmap of Trump’s delusions. The coronavirus spiked in the states that were the swiftest to reopen. The European Union has banned Americans as threats to public health. Contradicting Trump, Anthony Fauci warned Congress that “the virus is not going to disappear,” adding that “we are still in the middle of a serious outbreak.”

No matter to Trump. In his imaginary America, the real problem became that we were testing too much, thereby increasing the count of new cases.

By then, as his pathology dictates, Trump had put blame for the pandemic on China, the World Health Organization, the media, Barack Obama, the intelligence community, and the CDC. And he had discovered the real victim of COVID-19: himself. In Vanity Fair, Gabriel Sherman reported Trump telling a confidant: “This is so unfair to me! Everything was going great. We were cruising to reelection!”

Instead, the pandemic has underscored Trump’s complete indifference to other human beings. And not just the vulnerable, the sick, and the dead. He insisted that West Point graduates return to hear his commencement speech in the middle of a pandemic. He scheduled large indoor rallies in Tulsa and Phoenix, surefire super-spreaders, so that he could bask in adoring crowds.

When public health officials in Charlotte inquired about health measures for the GOP convention, Trump moved it to Jacksonville—simply to ensure himself a jam-packed arena filled with unmasked faces, risk be damned. Over a three-week period of public statements amid the pandemic back in April, the Washington Post reported, Trump spoke for some thirteen hours—of which he spent two hours attacking others, forty-five minutes praising himself and his administration, but just four-and-a-half minutes expressing rote sympathy for coronavirus victims and front-line workers.

Further, the Post related in late May, “The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a whole new genre of Trump’s falsehoods. The category in just a few months has reached 800 claims, with his advocacy for hydroxychloroquine as a possible cure, based on minimal and flimsy evidence, already reaching Bottomless Pinocchio status.” As Trump’s confidant told Sherman: “He lives in his own fucking world.”

In that world, Trump is free from the constraints of constitutional democracy.

To stave off defeat, he and his party are striving to prevent the universal voting by mail necessitated by the pandemic, while groundlessly asserting that the mail-in balloting currently available guarantees massive voter fraud by the Democratic Party. Already, Trump is claiming that the 2020 election “will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country, and we cannot let this happen.”

This is insane. But an increasingly serious body of opinion anticipates that Trump will try to maintain power by denying the legitimacy of the November election. This captures how completely Trump’s sickness has consumed us—expecting our president to subvert American democracy is becoming our new normal.

The problem of Trump transcends party or ideology, and so does our need to be rid of him. For there is no constitutional guarantee against a president too mentally ill to respect its terms—and a party too craven to stop him.

Until further notice, we have both.

How Has Donald Trump’s Mental State Affected His Presidency?

web #website #copied #to read #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpress #post

[saskhal]

On Division

After moving from Mexico to the United States, Elena began to lose her children to the American culture. Her worst fear is that she will not be there for her children when they need her most, because she cannot learn English. Vamos a pedirle dulces a mama. Vamos.They no longer need her. Elena slowly becomes dumb. If she doesn’t lock herself in the bathroom with her English book every day, she will become deaf.

           I wasn’t sure if it was because times are changing, or if the world was always so blocked off. People protest and rally for freedom in a place that claimed to already have it. After the nation had its first black president our idea of freedom was still not fulfilled. People are still divided in as many ways as water can be shaped. There will always be people who cannot adapt. There will always be people who cannot hear more than one thing.

           My parents have been separated for most of my life. I have only two short memories of my mother and father together. After my dad got full custody of my sister and I, my mother would ask me the same thing. What did I do wrong? She said it for years. All throughout junior high and high school. What can I do? sorry mom. We’ve told you many times what you did. She would cry either right before we left or right when she picked us up from our dad’s. I felt awkward. Tight and strained. I wasn’t a human anymore. Instead I was outside the car looking down through the windows and sort of through the roof of the car.  I was look at myself as I stared at the floor waiting until my mother would stop crying. Eventually it would just be me in that car. My sister no longer has a relationship with our mother. My sister and mother also divided. She grew stronger than me, but she never learned to forgive.

           Middle earth has always been harsh and unforgiving. Different species, races, even families clash. The One Ring is pure evil, and holds the ultimate power. Mankind easily gave in and became servants of evil. Trapped with and evil that cannot die. The Ulairi are covered in all black robes. The hoods are thick and shape the head of nothingness.

           I opened the door to my Nazgul’s lair. The young adult smell no longer exists; instead there is sweat and marijuana. The shadows felt more awake, because of all the trash and bottle caps. The bedsheets were navy and mint. The air was like winter, but smelt like summer. A small clutter of medicine was in the corner. It was purchased last night says the receipt. The cough he didn’t have must still be bothering him I bet. He is lost forever now. Divided from his family and his consciousness. Lost all his power of will.

           Tucson unified school district, in Arizona, had once realized that 50% of their Mexican-American students dropped out of school. They attempted to fix this by implementing ethnic studies classes. There was a huge improvement, and about 90% of the students enrolled in these classes graduated high school. Imagine being a student, and no longer feeling like your school system was trying to get you to drop out. In ethnic studies, students learn about their culture and others. Teaching values that allow unity between different cultures and idea.            The statistics were showing that marijuana was good for people and their health. It was legal and seemed like everyone was smoking it, even if they were under aged. I never had a problem with it. I never smoked. I had responsible friends who were going to college and always had better grades than me who drank and smoked, so why would it be such a big deal? 

         My Nazgul has had issues growing up, but he was the only one with substance abuse problems. His younger brother was doing good in school and even took harder classes. I spent the night at my grandparents one night. I couldn’t sleep. The alarm clock read 3:13 in black letters with a slimy green glow. The light was bright enough to hurt my eyes after I lowered the blanket from shielding my eyes. I heard the basement door shut. I could hear my grandma’s chanclas smack against her feet as she walked outside. I looked out the window and thought the same thing as I always do, why is the sky so bright even in the middle of the night? It was summer. And I was afraid of lights, because I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. I need darkness in my life, so I can rest.

           The sun was hot on my way to school. I dressed accordingly. The cool air came in and caused a storm which brought rain and wind. I was soaked walking home. If it is nature for opposites to fight and cause destruction, then it makes sense for humans to do the same.

           During the industrial era, feudal Japan wanted to become a more civilized nation and become a strong and united nation like many western countries. The Japanese Empire fought against smaller territories. When one battle was won, the rest of the losing side would accept their defeat and kill themselves, but Tom Cruise kept fighting. Accepting defeat was not part of his American culture. He learned more about his opposition while in captivity. He was one of the last samurai. The Last Samurai holds the bridge somewhere. What can bring one side and connect it to the other? Whatever it is, war is part of it. 

         It was in the late 2000′s when I played hockey against the Canadians. Tacoma versus Vancouver. We fought hard for 90 minutes. The temperature was freezing for obvious reasons. But our bodies were creating so much friction that we couldn’t keep cool. I had sweat that stung my eyeball like salty peppers. I sat on the bench for the first time in 15 minutes of nonstop moving. I saw the twinkling white lights as everything started to dim. One streak of lighting across my eyes after another until finally it stopped, and the world became bright again. This was just a game, but sticks were still broken. Skates sliced the slippery ice. Whistles blown and cracked like a whip. We even hunched over after our stomachs where smashed by a big hit. All this was for fun, but we fought only because we were on different teams. We shook hands and said good game afterwards, but we never shake hands before we battle.

           Even my younger cousin started feeling the quake of my Nazgul’s dysfunction. The Nazgul isn’t a bad person, it’s just that he trapped himself in this disassociated state, and now my younger cousin has to live amongst the hate and separation within his household. My cousin is having a harder time in school now. He is physically sick because of mental stress. Our battles hurt everyone not just ourselves.

           The Tucson districts abolished its ethnic studies classes because it divided children by their race. In class they read books based off communism that had ideals written by dictators and fascists. The children were taught that the American history was filled with bloodshed and hatred of other cultures. The politicians who helped ban these classes never even attended a class. And the one time they did, they did not listen to the positive and look for every opportunity to bring it down. The film Precious Knowledge was released in 2011 to inform people about the struggle in Arizona, and how media can totally manipulate what is true. Many other school districts followed the message and make their own ethnic studies classes to help educate kids, and even made it a required class. However, it wasn’t until August 2017 that the law was deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court and the Tucson unified school district was free to hold ethnic studies courses. 

         My grandma saw it one way and one way only. Weed is a drug and drugs are bad. They are a terrible way to “have fun” and will lead to worse drugs. Alcohol is bad. For the Nazgul at least. He cannot handle it, and everyone can see. But maybe she was right. As of now she is right. Evil cannot die. He is forever a servant of the dark lord.

           He believes that everything is someone else’s fault. He is in jail because we won’t bail him out. He believes that he doesn’t have to pay if he steals. He believes that downing cough syrup won’t have a bad consequence. Maybe he should fight the people who keep giving him more chances to make bigger mistakes, because it’s their fault for letting him out of that cell.

           People will always have a different stand on a subject. The good thing about conformity and socialization is that there is less conflict when everything is the same. The bad thing is that those who are different are viewed as sickly and handicap. An open mind helps people stay free. An open mind helps people work together. The reason we teach art majors calculus is because math helps with problem solving. People need to adapt and build bridges and roads. The only divider would ideally be something that connects those two things together.            The Ethnic/ Raza students at Tucson high were dangerous to some people. Those people did not want Latinos to be educated. They wanted to keep using second grade students of color data to know how many prisons they’ll need in the future. What makes a person want to shut down a program meant for all ethnicities and for all students? Why would a person think that students graduating school and enjoying education was a bad thing? The division of power was being threatened. New ideas where not accepted because order keeps us alive. We do not know what will happen if there is change.

           I learned that I cannot expect anything to change unless I was willing to lose something. I did not know what was going to happen to me when I started working at panda express. I could have worked at a company where I got money and never built any relationships with anyone and played the game safe. Instead I gave up my comfort and I was placed a workspace with people who cared about me. I gained confidence and could speak. I will volunteer to speak with younger people and hopefully they will be better than me. I can become a leader now. 

         I have been to a counselor before. The first few times it was required by law, because of my parents. The next time was because I wanted to. I wish I was diagnosed with something just so I had an excuse for being how I am, but I was never tested or went in for something like that. I looked up my problems on my own. I am not what people call antisocial, because that would mean I have no morals and I act against society and its laws. I am not avoidant because I do not like to be in my room by myself. I prefer to be with others, although I do act awkwardly at times and fear rejection. Maybe I just have rubatosis. I can always feel my heart. I ask around and everyone says they feel their heart too and it’s normal. But they don’t know what i’s like I’m sure.   

Jackson, P. (Director). (2001). The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

 Mora, P. (1985). Elena.

 Palos, A. (Director). (2011). Precious Knowledge.

 Thorne, Craig R., and Richard R. DeBlassie. "Adolescent substance abuse." Adolescence 20.78 (1985): 335.

             Swartz, Marvin S., et al. "Violence and severe mental illness: the effects of substance abuse and nonadherence to medication." American journal of psychiatry 155.2 (1998): 226-231.

             Zwick, E. (Director). (2003). The Last Samurai. Warner Bros.

[jillmckenzie1]

We All Suck at Dating

A common lead question in the world of online dating is: “What are you looking for?”

Aside from being a grammatical nightmare, this question poses its own set of anxiety-ridden answers. Because how hard in the paint do you really go in response to this question when you’re on the third line of a burgeoning digital transaction? The words that your thumbs manage to string together will inevitably become the foundation for any further communication (or lack thereof).

Sidebar. Dude, didn’t you read my bio? It clearly states, “Looking for a real life human with whom to do rad things. Sucker for good teeth, nice calves, and witty banter. Here for the shirtless gym selfies (you guys, it’s a joke).” Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

My typical response to the aforementioned question goes something like this: “Surely not looking to get laid off an app. And absolutely not interested in receiving dick pics. Would be great to find a real-life male with whom to do cool shit who also believes in hand-holding, ass-grabbing, Netflix binge-watching, and tag-team Whole Foods shopping.”

Once upon a time, I had a younger guy respond to this answer: “But does our age difference bother you?”

Cough. Cough. He clearly wasn’t aware of my subconscious bias towards younger men.

I replied, “Age is a number. Maturity is a barometer for compatibility. Why? Were you simply trying to send dick pics?”

*unmatch*

I’m sorry, WUT?! Respectable people say goodbye, or they’re not interested, or that they don’t find my humor to be as amusing as I do; they do not just act like [insert desired superlative here] and vanish into thin air (as if I wrote the book on this stuff or something).

Here’s the point. By all means, unmatch me. I don’t give any number of fucks about our premature termination of conversation. The guy I choose is going to choose me in return. He’s going to laugh at the fact that I attempt to turn him on by mentioning that I always return my shopping carts. He’s going to send me memes and screenshots of tiny houses. He’s going to share my affinity towards Mexican food and ask me for my LinkedIn profile instead of my SnapChat handle, and he’ll really mean it when he says that he’s not in search of a booty call.

At the end of the day, I have zero interest in entertaining a guilt-free ghoster. The issue here is the action. Because dammit, it’s hard enough out there. Can’t we all just play by some unstated rules that, at the very least, are governed by the premise of honesty?

I know. It’s asking a lot.

 But that brings me to my next point. About dating. We all suck at it. Yes, all of us. I’m actually quite amazed by how many of us seek to individually claim this title from every rooftop, blog post, and digital message warehouse. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I just don’t think there’s anything unique about it.

We. All. Suck.

A small bit of evidence exists in our mutual affection towards Netflix and chill. I’ve seen enough dating profiles in these last few years to make one overarching and absolutely assertive statement: when given the choice, we’ll all opt for a night spent on the couch in sweatpants eating ice cream with our dog over any nightclub and party scenario. Seriously, I have yet to encounter any male in the digital stratosphere who prefers the latter.

Because, in my humble opinion, no one wants to find his or her significant other in a bar. Absolutely not. For some, sure, the bar provides a perfect backdrop for the infamous one-night stand; I’m quasi-drunk and you’re quasi-cute (could be up for debate in the morning), so in the words of Marvin Gaye, “Let’s get it on.”

But a match–someone who challenges us and makes our lives a whole hell of a lot better (even on the worst days)–yeah, we’re not walking into any bars with the expectation of finding a soulmate.

And, despite our current aversion to commitment that is fueled by our unrelenting fear of missing out alongside our limitless access to infinite information and individuals, we do want a soulmate. Not because we believe in this antiquated ideology that only one person was made for us. No, millennials don’t walk into this world with the Shakespearian belief that compatibility is reserved for a single Romeo and his Juliet.

We more appropriately approach the definition of “soulmates” as two people who show up to participate in a revolutionized companionship. We are a generation that fully understands the power of choice, and we want to exercise this right romantically as much as we want to frequent farmer’s markets in lieu of spending our dollars at chain grocery stores. We believe in making ourselves whole, as individuals, in order to more powerfully stand beside someone who is doing the same. So, we choose ourselves as the catalyst to choose our other.

And yet, even inside of this space of a beautiful and raw and authentic desire to find a forever partner-in-crime, we’re still ghosting and we’re still sending dick pics. I’m sorry, rescind. We’re still sending dick videos. Yes, apparently, I graduated into some upper echelon of male debauchery.

Let me expand. A guy who I sparingly chatted with months ago decided to Snap me one lonely night in February (if you don’t know what “Snapping” is, keep it that way). I opened the video (which is the extent of my SnapChat proficiencies), and bam, hello, hi. My brain immediately hit overdrive as I considered throwing my phone 23 feet across the entirety of my Airstream.

I’m sorry, I haven’t spoken to you since November – neither did any previous conversation incite such ridiculous swapping of privates – and I’m now supposed to be the proud recipient of your amateur x-rated video?! Please, no. PLEASE NO.

Of course, I fired back something saucy (as if I’m going to save the world one indecent digital exposure at a time). And in the spirit of true chivalry (insert massive eyeroll here), he said that it was a mistake: “Wrong Stephanie.”

I actually can’t even (read: bull-fucking-shit).

But my potential diatribe inside an app that was literally designed to delete user history wouldn’t be saving anyone. My only hope at such a stage is the block feature because, at the end of the day, I simply don’t have time for this nonsense. Much like I don’t have time for the old flame (think college) who thought it was cute to slide into my DMs with questions about the kind of underwear I happened to be wearing. Or, the fact that exhibit B continues to patronize me with pet names (even after we established, months ago, that a romantic relationship between us would simply be settling).

Newsflash: y’all aren’t cute. YOU ALL ARE NOT CUTE.

And around we go, hiding behind our phone screens because we want the one (or at least one of the viable ones) to drop into our lives with the same level of excitement experienced by teenagers across America when Usher finally released his third studio album, 8701.

If you ask me, the going around is getting quite old. In fact, my motion sickness is at an all-time high. In the metaphor, I’m projectile vomiting out the back passenger-side window. Don’t ask me who’s driving. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m not puking alone.

Fact one. We’re drowning in our individual and collective nausea without any idea of how to stop the damn car. Or, at very least, slow it down. And we sure as hell don’t know where it’s going.

Fact two. Together, we are more powerful than the driver. But I’m not sure if we believe that (yet), and if we do believe it, I’m not sure that we know how to take control of the wheel (yet).

Because I would hate for us to resign ourselves to the fact that this whole dating thing is out of our control. I would hate for our desire of depth to become clouded by our habitual superficiality. I would hate for us to throw away our integrity in the name of conformity.

And I write this to us because I write this to myself. Plot twist, people. I, too, suck at dating. My judgment of those without an inkling of digital wit is embarrassingly high. It is standard issue for me to ghost anyone who resorts to asking me about my day within the first 24 hours of communication.

We just met. It’s fine. My day was fine. Am I supposed to tell you what I ate for lunch? Or about the conversation that I had with my mom? Or the hours I spent browsing Amazon for a new duvet cover?

Seriously, ask me anything else. And, please, I beg you, be funny. And charming (but not too charming). Our future depends on it.

Case in point. In a land far, far away, some guy asked me if I’d ever seen a movie titled La Strada. Clearly, not English. My answer was (and still is) no.

He wrote, “It’s foreign, so you have to be okay with subtitles.”

Well, no shit.

Me: “Great, I learned to read at a young age and quickly surpassed all of my peers, so this is promising.”

*crosses fingers and begs for a witty response*

His reply: “I like that answer. I need someone confident in what sets them apart.”

No dice.

*waves white flag*

I surrender. I absolutely surrender.

And by “surrender,” I mean that I simply fell off the face of the planet, never to associate with this poor guy (who probably had zero interest in sending a dick pic, let alone a dick video) ever again.

I just didn’t have it in me to push through in hopes of unearthing my very own Steve Carrell.

I’ll give you ten minutes. Make ‘em count. Effortlessly get me to laugh out loud, and I’ll strongly consider fraternizing as real-life people.

Hold up. Real. Life. People.

Yes, let’s be very clear, any digital union that transpires in human-to-human interaction is call for a good old-fashioned golf clap. Because it’s an anomaly by anyone’s standards.

So here we are. Together. Meandering through the airwaves and the land mines. Motion sick beyond measure. And I’d like to believe that we’re not helpless here, so my challenge is that we take control of the car. My challenge is that we align our actions and our words. Because there is nothing sexier than honesty. And honesty–honesty will save us. Also, humor. But mostly honesty.

We must be able to articulate for who or what we are looking. It is a common lead question because it is the question. It provides the foundation for action and expectation so, to revisit my initial commentary, we should go as hard in the paint as humanly possible (think Zion Williamson type shenanigans) in our responses. Because this answer allows us to proceed in a space where vulnerability is safe–whether we both swiped right in a sea of digital profiles or, quite literally, ran into each other in the singles line of our favorite chairlift.

You do not have to be in the search for serious. But you do owe the community your truth. The power is in your voice. And please, for the love of all things beautiful, let’s commit to considerate farewells that make “ghosting” so 2018 (as in, bye).

Speaking of bye and the singles line and chairlifts, I had to text my ex-boyfriend the other day to get back my second key fob for the entrance to my RV park

I refuse to pay the $20 for a replacement, okay. Judge me.

It had been nearly a month of not communicating, so you can surmise that it was a conversation that I’d been consciously avoiding. To be honest, I had stubbornly supported the idea that he should contact me first.

Obviously, unsuccessful.

So I spent hours typing and re-typing and then re-re-typing some ridiculous message that started with a Nugget update and ended with, “Oh yea, I need that key fob back.” I then spent hours deciphering and re-deciphering and then re-re-deciphering his response: “No problem. I’ll bring it to work and you can swing by one day and grab it when you’re done riding.” Please note, there is nothing cryptic here.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous to, once again, look our honesty in the eye. Our ease had existed in our shared interest of doing the work. We had used our voices. And we both believed in the power of a considerate farewell. Also, laughing, there was lots of laughing.

For all intents and purposes, we were great. Apparently, our timing was not.

I’m reminding myself that, at the very least, this relationship taught me that there is hope for our collective whole to be better. It was the catalyst for me to shed an intense layer of distasteful cynicism. And for that, I can willingly embrace the uncomfortable.

It’s just two minutes. It’s just a key fob.

 Dating. It’s still a game of numbers. And we simply need to, in all of our honesty, keep showing up.

Together, we can stop the suck.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/we-all-suck-at-dating/

[elizabethleslie7654]

Immigrants and the Test of Manalive

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by Gaius Marcius

G.K. Chesterton once proposed an experiment to reveal the shallowness of nihilism and the human instinct for self preservation. In the test of Manalive, an unsuspecting subject who claims that life is meaningless is left alone in a room and then suddenly surprised by a gun wielding assailant. Chesterton believed that even the most committed pessimist would run, or fight, or at least flinch, thereby revealing their visceral preference for life over death. The 21st century might shake even Chesterton’s faith in humanity. The great European powers of Chesterton’s era, England and Germany, seem determined to fail the test of Manalive on a national scale. Germans in particular are resorting to more and more ridiculous antics to prove that they do not care about the fate of their nation.

Europe is a graphic example of mass immigration gone wrong, but America is little better, though the sheer size of this country masks the effects of immigration. GOP pundits and candidates regularly contrast European decadence to American common sense. The United States has free speech and gun rights enshrined right in the Constitution, so obviously we would never follow the suicidal immigration policies of Europe, right? For years conservative voters thought that their representatives were sincere about defending America’s borders, even as the GOP helped make America a multicultural hellscape. Donald Trump, scourge of cuckservatives, has revealed the true Third World sympathies of the American ruling class with one pithy, incontrovertible phrase that echoed Ann Coulter’s sentiments from early 2015:

“In Nigeria, everyone is a criminal,” Coulter claims. “But we take more immigrants from Nigeria than we do from Britain. Don’t react casually to that! That’s madness. The British are just going to other countries. And a lot of these countries, like Spain, are just shitholes now. Young, smart people are emigrating to Germany and they won’t be collecting Social Security immediately. Perhaps we should consider them rather than a Nigerian terrorist.”

The Left and the media have become so detached from reality that there really is no reason to try to argue with them about the relative merits of Norway and Haiti or the social cost of Third World immigration which they so ardently deny.

Conservatives similarly place the libertarian economic fetish above other considerations, so immigrants in the conservative imagination only have to want to work hard and earn money to be valuable Americans. Personally, I suspect that one Norwegian could add more to the U.S. economy than ten hard-working Haitians, but hard luck stories about the old country tug at conservative heart strings, so Haitians get sympathy points. It must be a source of amazement to Third World immigrants that advanced nations keep falling for the same ploys that have been in circulation since the 18th century, when Daniel Defoe wrote about French refugees claiming religious persecution to gain access to English jobs:

“I have indeed heard my father say that he was pestered with a great many of those who for any religion they had might e’en have stayed where they were, but who flocked over hither in droves for what they call in English a livelihood; hearing with what open arms the refugees were received in England, and how they fell readily into business, being by the charitable assistance of the people in London encouraged to work in their manufactures… and that they had a much better price for their work than in France and the like.” Roxana Ch 1

When TruCons are done arguing that immigrants are good for the economy, they also make a virtue out of handing over the accumulated prosperity of the West to non-Whites who seem to share a few abstract political or religious principles with us. Many conservatives have so entirely absorbed the propaganda of American Exceptionalism and racial egalitarianism that they will accept any disastrous immigration policy, trusting to assimilation, free market principles, and American values to solve any minor problems along the way. Glenn Beck or Erick Erickson could give Richard Burton’s speech to Haitian “freedom lovers” from the end of The Comedians with total sincerity.

To face things as they are in 2018 means to recognize that a Third World population is incompatible with White, European civilization.  At one time the United States had a strong enough sense of national identity to assimilate tiny numbers of non-Europeans on the basis of, for instance, shared Christian faith. But conservative pundits today would be horrified by the bigotry of the expectation of conformity that previous generations placed on non-White immigrants. The Left’s reaction to Trump’s comments is predictable because making America a Third World country is the main goal of liberal immigration policy. The greater challenge for the Trump administration is that conservatives who want to let in Haitians, Somalians, and Mexicans have no idea what this will do to America, despite the glaring evidence known as Haiti, Somalia, and Mexico.

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[mlsoto-blog]

Notebook #2

Maria Soto

TA: Leon Lee, Friday 2:00

After much consideration I decided to keep my object which is a person, my mother.

Some national binds that enforce the theme of immigration and citizenship are the principals of whiteness and citizenship.

When my mother arrived in the U.S. it was clear that she was supposed to learn English. Although English is not the official language of the United States of America, it’s very fair to say that it is expected for all citizens to learn it. In order for one to be an “American” one must take on the values and act white. No one had to tell this to my mother because I believe whiteness and being “American” go hand in hand. Even if my mother did not want to conform to this thought of whiteness she would have felt the pressure from society. Society tends to alienate minorities who are not “American” enough. People with higher powers get to decide who is good enough to be a part of their society and determine who the outsiders are. The idea of whiteness can also meet with citizenship because whiteness can define what it takes and what it means to be a citizen. When my mother decided to leave El Durazno municipio de Durango, Durango and move to the U.S. she left her citizenship behind. She came to the U.S. to only still be waiting for her application to go through to become a citizen.

My mother told me, “As a Mexican woman, I know I can return whenever I want. The thing is that I have lived here for so many years that I do not want to leave anymore and I know that my children would not leave with me. I feel like we have our lives made here.”  Although my mom feels like she has assimilated and created a future in the U.S. she will never be fully accepted here and that is the sad truth. She will always struggle with her English, she will always look different, have different values, and not be accepted as an “American.” She holds values that are not similar to those of the United States. Although my mother had made it the the U.S., she did not belong.

This can further add to inter sectional analysis because it is very common to hear the story about immigrant men who have crossed the border in search of a better life. However, you do not hear many of the women's stories or what they go through crossing and once they have crossed. “The popular debate around contemporary U.S. immigration tends to conjure images of men waiting on the side of the road for construction jobs, working in kitchens or delis, driving taxis, and sending money to their wives and families in their home countries, while women are often left out of these pictures. Immigration and Women is a national portrait of immigrant women who live in the United States today, featuring the voices of these women as they describe their contributions to work, culture, and activism” (Pearce, Clifford, and Tandon 2011). This also ties back into whiteness and how it assumes that everyone is straight and in a heteronormative relationship.

Hyperlink:

https://nyupress.org/books/9780814767399/

[fjr002-blog]

Cultural Assimilation: The Fight of the Immigrant Queer Youth (notebook #2)

This week I have decided to make my research more focused using an intersectional lens. Because the identity of people, or immigrants is more complex to be simply determined by citizenship status or nationality, I have decided to expand this series to encompass both Latinx immigrants and queer Latinx folk to better address how the intersection between race and sexual orientation affects the experience of young immigrants who are constantly pressured to fit into various images. This will then be tied back to the main message behind the song “Sin MirarAtras” (Without Looking Back) that was briefly discussed last week.

With today’s political climate, there is a lot of tension happening, especially for foreigners. President Trump has openly spoken out against people of color entering the United States, specifically Muslims, as seen by one recent statement made to CNN.

In a time where one can openly hate people for being different, many of us have become fearful and uncertain of what is to come. The day this man was elected, my mother called me, crying, scared, asking ¿Que vamos a hacer, mijo? (What will we do now, son?). Immigrant youth already faced various obstacles in their life such as language proficiency and poverty, but to say that these along with the fear of being deported began with President Donald Trump would be ignorant of me.

These issues have been going on for years now. In March 2005, Ann Morse published a dissertation titled “A Look at Immigrant Youth” on the National Conference of State Legislatures website. (http://www.ncsl.org/research/immigration/a-look-at-immigrant-youth-prospects-and-promisin.aspx). In this paper, she also mentions the “unique challenges related to language proficiency, cultural and social adaptation and poverty” that immigrant youth face, and this was way before Trump made a significant appearance in the political arena or even became POTUS. However what I found interesting was not the findings she reported or the struggles she mentions.

Morse’s word choice is very suggestive and persistent on the idea that we as immigrant children need to adapt to proficiently perform academically and socially. She explicitly states that we need to implement more programs to help through the adaptation process, using various instances around the country as examples.

Nevertheless, every time she says “adaptation process” I can’t help but wonder if she means “assimilation process.”

I admire the government’s commitment to implementing more programs to help students become proficient English speakers and succeed academically, but I do not agree with them trying to change how immigrant youth are perceived socially.  To constantly try to fit into a norm, to aim to fulfill someone’s expectations knowing very well that every time you think you got it right and that now you are recognizable, acknowledgable, and respectable, part of something bigger than yourself, only to be blindsided by the reality that there will always be something wrong with you, is very harmful.

This is true for both Latinx immigrant children and Latinx queer youth. For example, I identify as a gay Mexican man. Throughout the years I struggled with embracing my ethnicity and my sexual orientation out of fear of not being accepted by people in the United States and the Mexican culture.

One thing that always seemed interesting to me was how people perceived my citizenship status. One of the most prevalent and controversial topics today is citizenship and what it means to be an American. If a White man said, “I am a true patriot because I am a citizen of this country” he would most likely not be questioned. However, if I were to say the same statement, people would question my citizenship status. They would be skeptical to believe if I actually am a citizen and would be quick to assume that if true, I must have been naturalized. However, the truth is, I was born in Anaheim, California, not in Mexico. Had my skin been lighter and my English been near perfect I would not be questioned.

This has happened to others. Take for example the article titled “Being An American Citizen Isn’t Quite Enough” on ImmigrantConnect (http://immigrantconnect.medill.northwestern.edu/blog/2011/11/27/being-an-american-citizen-isnt-quite-enough/). The article discusses an Indian family who traveled to Texas, and proceeded to cross the border to visit Mexico. The people in the car were all Indian except one, a family friend who was White. Everyone was taken to secondary inspection and heavily questioned, except the White male sitting in the front passenger seat. Even the children were interrogated by officers. This is a clear example of how appearance plays a big role in how you are perceived by others in this country and assumptions are often made.

Latinx immigrants are already belittled and questioned at every turn in this country. May it be your proficiency in English, your clothes, the skin color, or even the music you listen to, you will find someone who will judge you for being you, for being Latinx. It becomes worse as you begin adding other factors into your identity, such as sexual orientation. Latinx queer face some hate from their cultures too, with everything being kept under the radar and not spoken about. Some common instances are described in an article posted to AfterEllen titled “10 Realities of Being Queer and Mexican” (http://www.afterellen.com/lifestyle/dating-column/476303-10-realities-queer-mexican).  The writer describes various instances where family chooses to ignore their queerness, such as not telling Grandma out of fear of causing her a heart attack, or your mother constantly reminding you that a sibling is the only hope of her becoming a grandmother or your how if someone asks if you are seeing someone [of the opposite sex] your parents will reply for you using the excuse that you are too busy rather than telling them of your sexual orientation. Whatever the case, your sexual preference is never explicitly disclosed or shared with others. This is often done unconsciously, with your parents reassuring you they accept you even if they don’t talk about it, but it still hurts. If anything it hurts more than if strangers did it. Folks often become depressed, begin hating themselves, and begin feeling alienated from their communities.

This is why being a young, queer immigrant child has its own unique struggles. You are not accepted by the country you have come to -- you are belittled and scrutinized by the government, you are criminalized by the media -- all because of your ethnicity. And to make matters worse, you are treated like an abomination by your own people, your fellow Latinxs, your community, and even your family at times, just because you do not conform to live a heteronormative life. Is short, you are not welcome anywhere because of your ethnic and queer identity.

As hard as circumstances have been, there lies a tiny ray of hope within the song “Without Looking Back”. The chorus reads Sabes las cosas pasarán / y tú te quedarás, y tu te quedarás. / Sabes solo hay que caminar / sin mirar atrás, sin mirar atrás. This translates into “You know things will pass / and you will remain, and you will remain. / You know you just have to keep walking / without looking back, without looking back.” The message this song holds is one of reassurance. It is meant to reassure listeners that the sun comes out after every storm. It is meant to remind people that whatever they are going through is simply a test, and when the struggle is gone, they will remain standing strong and tall. To me, the music of Jenny and the Mexicats is both a symbol of a combination of Mexican and American culture as well as a reminder that everything is temporary, even oppression against young immigrant Latinx queer folk.