In relation to the #StopAsianHate tag, it seems fitting to add this contribution since China has been doing a lot of horribly questionable things(to put it mildly), and this has led to a rise in anti-asian rhetoric, with extras on the anti-chinese rhetoric.
It has affected overseas Chinese-descendants and the Chinese diaspora around the world badly, since they had no hand in what China did, nor do they share the same sentiments of China, yet they still get harassed and targeted. Even to the point of cop agents admit to accusing a Canadian professor of Chinese descent of being a spy, Hongkongnese coworkers mistreating overseas Chinese not from China, and a British-born Asian man getting deported without question.
So in lieu of letting this storm rage over even more, the better option appears to be to address everyone's concerns and assumptions about people of Chinese descent who are citizens since birth in other countries and have never set foot in china before.
The main point is: NOT ALL CHINESE AROUND THE WORLD ARE WUMAO COMMUNISTS, NOT ALL CHINESE DESCENDANTS SHARE THE SAME SENTIMENTS AS CHINA OR DOING THINGS FOR CHINA. Got it?
Now, to move on to the other part of attacks on Chinese culture and shaming people just for being Chinese.
1.It is okay to be Chinese-born; there is nothing wrong that you happen to be a Chinese person. You deserve dignity, pursuit of happiness, liberty and respect, just like any other race of person, black, white, Jew, etc out there. You are a person too and don't let anyone treat you otherwise.
2.Chinese people are not "spawn of the bad" or "corrupted subhuman" or "tainted genome"; they are not inherently rotten just by being of Chinese descrnt. There is no proof of that, when you pick apart gene sequences from a Chinese descendant in the clinic, it's still very similar to any other person's dna. Just like every nationality, there's kind people and there's assholes. And just like most other countries, who also had monarchy inbreeding, illness, and radiation(did you know of the Radium Girls in the 1920s, or the very unsafe nuclear testing in the 50s to 90s? They even used to put Radium in wristwatches for citizens to glow in the dark so casually.), the Chinese are no different. Just like to bring up the good parts of others' history rather than focus on the bad so much like china.
3.Chinese history, philosophy and culture does not have all bad parts. Please read and analyze everything, good and bad parts, if you want to make a proper judgement. It is very shocking to hear everyone at this point, so comfortable with joking: "let's nuke the Chinese" or "hope we bomb china badly if there's a war" or "the British and Japanese were good to wipe out the Chinese first" so casually! It is not a fair sentiment nor anti-racist one. If it's wrong to say: "the native Americans should have gotten rid of the arriving pilgrims because they were gonna genocide them anyways so might as well" or "black people should be allowed to hurt white people now for all they've done" then statements of that nature against Chinese is also wrong.
And just like other nations who came before and around the same time, these other nations also had bad parts of their culture. No one seems to highlight how colonizers used to practice Safari Game Hunting in Africa for centuries which killed a lot of animals leaving endangered species, no one talks about the quack and irrational remedies doctors in medieval Ages used to do, how they used to mix arsenic in paint on toys in Victorian era, European wars against indigenous peoples, as much as they keep on bringing up Chinese history's weak points and irrationally using it as a weapon to hold against Chinese people irrelevant to the cause of their past generations for years. It is unfair to whitewash your history while scorning the Chinese people's past.
Some Chinese clothing is nice. Some Chinese food is delicious. Some Chinese architecture can be very beautiful. Some Chinese inventions are useful. Those are the good points of Chinese culture. Not everything is tainted.
4.Not all Chinese are ugly. Or yellow skinned. Or receded jawed. Some have hooded eyes, some have high cheekbones, bigger mouths, wonky noses naturally too. Please look at every Chinese person without plastic surgery and analyze the whole populations faces, before you pass a half-assed judgement of how "ugly" they are in general! Seriously, if not how can you make a proper judgement?
5.As for other Asians who are non-Chinese, please stop trying to compare your cultures against theirs, treat it like a contest and say which one is the 'better Asian' to the people of the Occident(white). It is not cool nor necessary. Just do your thing go brighten your own little corner and you'll be great. Not every wumao is stealing your culture all the time sometimes cultures and trads just overlap or happen to be similar or shared through separation and migration reasons. Yes, you are a different non-chinese Asian and unique, there's no need to make noise or insult Chinese people just to prove your point too.
6.Overseas Chinese had ancestors who suffered too hence their migration and diaspora. Read about the Nanking Massacre, their Opium Addiction, 731 labs, Mao's rule, and other conditions. A lot didn't migrate for fun and games.
This is not dedicated to defending China's misdeeds or the Wumao, this is dedicated to the OVERSEAS people of Chinese descent, the Southeast Asian Chinese, the Chinese diaspora in the west, and anyone who didn't ask to be born with Chinese genes or ancestry but got it anyway: it's not your fault. Don't let yourself be shamed for being born this way, even when it's 'cool' to make fun of Chinese, and find a little pride in yourself. Take care and look out for yourself. There may be 1.4 billion mainland Chinese(even with the birth control policies), but there are many more overseas Chinese who need to be understood as "overseas people of Chinese descent" and respected as such.
For those who are non-chinese reading this, please think carefully anytime you want to post something, is it attacking only the current leaders in china or also targeting Chinese people or overseas Chinese-descent peoples too, before you become the very bigot you hate against a group of people or do a hate crime you might regret. Take a moment, and calm down.
Whoever needs to see this, glad you seen it, even if you need it translated. If you can tag it that would be helpful as well.
this right here 👏👏👏
i hope everyone remembers that it’s not all chinese people who are supporting the unjust things the government is doing. China in general is a very patriotic country and so when given the choice to believe something bad is happening or believing what they have been taught their entire lives (china is great and the best country in the world) they are going side with the statement that has been drilled into their heads since they were children. Chinese people aren’t ignorant they really just don’t know, every news outlet and media platform they use backs up the point that China is the best and they know if they step one toe out of line China is very powerful.
This is the government and the people of power’s doing and it doesn’t matter what the people think. The people either don’t know or don’t understand and it’s fry oho we many people repeatedly blame China as a whole for just a small part of it’s country’s doing.
What’s going on there is absolutely a violation of basic human rights and terrible but please take a moment to remember half the people don’t even know what is happening outside or inside their country because of how controlling everything is there.
Next, because everything there is decided by the government chinese immigrants have NO control over what happens there heck the people in china barely do. So the hate crimes in the west make no. fucking. sense. You’re not going to reach china by attacking u.a or canadian citizens you’re just adding to unnecessary violence. Elderly people, adults and children of north american citizenship are assaulted, harassed and bullied for somethings they cannot control and it’s terrifying how normalized the hate has become.
To all the chinese people seeing this stay strong, there’s no reason to be ashamed of where you or your family is from or how you look.
This anon put it best 🤍🤍
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RP Meme from The Lost Boys
I told you to stay off the boardwalk.
Hey, I liked that song.
I don't see any boogeymen or nasty guys.
Wait. That's from my era!
That's the ocean air.
Smells like someone died.
Looks like he's dead. No, he's just a deep sleeper.
If he's dead, can we go back to [PLACE]?
What's wrong with this picture? There's no TV. Have you seen a TV? I haven't seen a TV.
You're the only woman I ever knew who didn't improve her situation by getting divorced.
A big legal war wasn't going to improve anybody's situation.
Ouch. My hair.
Talk about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
We've got some rules around here. Second shelf is
mine. That's where I keep my root beers and my double-thick Oreo cookies. Nobody touches the second shelf but me.
There's another rule around here, and I want you to pay
close attention. Don't touch anything. Everything is exactly where I want it.
There are some bad elements around here.
You're telling me we've moved to the murder capital of the world?
If all the corpses buried around here were to stand up all at once we'd have one hell of a population problem.
I just like to read the TV Guide. Read the TV Guide, you don't need a TV.
I was so worried. Don't run off like that.
We were that age, too, once. Only they dress better.
You have a generous nature. I like that in a person.
So how may I help you this evening? We have it all.
I look that needy, huh?
You're chasing that girl, aren't you?
I'm at the mercy of your sex glands.
Don't you have something better to do than follow me around all night?
Just scoping your civilian wardrobe.
Listen buddy, if you're looking for the diet frozen-yogurt bar, it went out of business last summer.
That's a very serious book, man.
Only five in existence.
Where the hell are you from? Krypton?
Nobody drives this baby but me.
We have to let it warm up a little. Hear that sound? Just like a baby pussycat.
That's as close to town as I like to get.
It's a pretty cool place. If you're a Martian. Or a vampire.
Are you guys sniffing old newsprint or something?
You think you really know what's happening here, don't you? Well, I'll tell you something. You don't know shit buddy.
This is just our cover. We are dedicated to a higher
purpose. We're fighters for Truth Justice, and the American
way.
Think of it more as a survival manual.
There's our number on the back and pray you never need to call us.
I'll pray I never need to call you.
If you want your ear pierced, I'll do it.
I came this close to being called Moon Beam or Moon Child Or something like that.
I can't beat your bike.
You don't have to beat me, [NAME]. You just have to try
and keep up.
Just you! Come on! Just you!
That's what I love about this place. You ask, and then you get.
I can never sleep with the closet door open, either. Not even a crack.
Don't sneak up on people like that!
What, you don't like rice? Tell me [NAME], how could a
billion Chinese people be wrong? Come on!
You're eating maggots. How do they taste?
Sorry about that. No hard feelings, huh?
Drink some of this, [NAME]. Be one of us.
Give me those sunglasses.
You need sunglasses to talk on the phone?
Are you freebasing? Inquiring minds want to know.
Anything in here that might pass for after-shave?
Have a big date tonight, [NAME]?
Lose the earring, [NAME]. It's not you. It's definitely
not you.
All you do is give attitude lately.
Go take your bath.
What did you do to my dog, asshole?
I didn't hurt him. He bit me. This is my blood.
Why did he bite you, huh? What did you do to him?
He was protecting you.
Look at your reflection in the mirror. You're a creature of
the night, [NAME]. Just like out of a comic book.
My own brother/sister/friend/etc, a goddam shit-sucking vampire.
You wait 'til[NAME] finds out!
Just let me talk. Wait a minute! [NAME]!
You did the right thing by calling us.
Does the sunlight freak him out?
He wears sunglasses in the house.
He always had bad breath, though.
He's a vampire all right. Here's what you do.
I can't do that! He's my brother/sister/mother/friend/etc!
You better get yourself a garlic T-shirt, buddy. Or it's
your funeral.
I think we have to have a real long talk about something.
[NAME] help! He's coming to get me!
[NAME], help me! Open up! Help me! [NAME], open the window!
So what are you, the flying nun?
We're gonna work this out. We*re gonna work this out. Trust
me, okay?
I thought I saw something on my window, but I guess I got carried away.
I would like to have a personal life too.
Can I sleep in here with you tonight?
You smell like garlic.
What's happening to me, [NAME]?
I don't know how to help you.
Aren't we friends anymore?
Then let's act like friends. Let's talk.
We could talk about anything you want to talk about.
I have more serious things on my mind than girls and school. Things I'm dealing with.
Looks like I wasn't the only one who got lucky last night.
The dog chased my mom like the Hounds of Hell from Vampires
Everywhere.
We've been aware of some very serious vampire activity in
town for a long time.
[PLACE] has become a haven for the undead.
As a matter of fact, we're almost certain that ghouls and
werewolves occupy high position at City Hall.
Kill your brother/sister/boyfriend/aunt/best friend/etc, you'll feel better!
Look, it says here that if you kill the head vampire all half-vampires will return to normal.
Does he know who the head vampire is?
You'll have to kill him. And if you don't, we will.
Vampire require a daytime protector, a guardian to watch
over them as they sleep. Fierce dogs, the Hounds of Hell,
are often employed for this purpose.
Truth, Justice, The American way triumphs.
Smells good. When do we eat?
Are we gonna have company again?
Well, you are the man of the house and I'm not coming in until you invite me.
He promises to behave if you come back.
I didn't know you were having guests.
Our batting average isn't terrific, is it? Zero for two.
You're so sweet to him.
I don't know what got in to him. He's not like that.
If you ever want to see [NAME] again, you better come with
us now.
Initiation's over, [NAME]. Time to join the club.
Don't kill me, [NAME]. I'm basically a good kid, so just
don't kill me.
Just work with me and I can help you. You'll be okay.
Is she one of them?
You shut the window and lock your door.
She's one of them! And don't tell me it doesn't make her a
bad person, [NAME]!
Yes, and it's my fault. You would've not met me, if I
hadn't liked you. I tried to warn you.
You drank someone's blood? Are you crazy?
We're not them.
Why didn't you kill me last night?
You're supposed to be my first.
What are you doing here? What do you want from me?
Don't kill anybody until we get back to you!
I got connections.
The night crawler. The bloodsucker. El Vampiro.
I don't want you going down there.
Look, this isn't a comic book, [NAME]. These guys are
brutal killers.
Who'd you rather go down in with you? Them or me?
If something happens down there, I won't have the strength
to protect you.
This time I'll protect you.
Even though you're a vampire, you're still my brother/sister/friend/etc
If you try to stop us, or vamp out in any way, I'll stake
you without even thinking twice about it!
Where did you say you met these guys?
Don't you touch her. Stay away from her.
Flies and the undead go together like bullets and guns.
There must be coffins here someplace.
I thought they'd be in coffins.
That's what this cave is. It's one giant coffin.
Right now they're at their most vulnerable. Easy pickings.
Remember. You just have to kill the leader.
We don't know which one he is.
I guess we'll just have to kill them all.
What's that, a little vampire humor? It wasn't funny.
Good night, bloodsucker.
We blew it, man! We lost it!
We unraveled in the face of the enemy!
They pulled a mind-scramble on us!
We don't ride with vampires.
"Burn rubber" does not mean warp speed!
Your dog knows a flesh-eater when he smells one.
The sun goes down. They'll be looking for us.
[PLACE] is crawling with vampires
They're coming to the house as soon as it gets dark!
I'm gonna see [NAME] tonight, and you're trying to ruin it for me.
I don't know what you don't want me to see.
I'm not talking about [NAME]! To hell with [NAME]!
Good. That's just the way we like it.
We've got a date tonight?
They'll be coming for all of us.
It's just old memories coming back.
Why are you so jumpy tonight?
He seemed so sincere, but it's insane.
Tell me. I promise not to laugh. Honest.
I think I should warn you all when a vampire dies, it's never a pretty sight.
Some yell and scream. Some go quietly. Some explode. Some implode. But all will try to take you with them.
Don't go out there! Stop him!
I say we terminate them right now.
You're mine. You killed [NAME]
Try the holy water, dead breath!
I nailed one of them downstairs with a bow and arrow.
We trashed the one that looked like Twisted Sister.
We totally annihilated his night stalkin' ass!
Death to all vampires!
We are awesome monster bashers!
Holy shit! The attack of Eddie Monster!
Stop! Get away from him! Just stay away from him! He's just
a little boy.
You're afraid to face me, [NAME]?
I tried to make you immortal.
You tried to make me a killer!
Stop fighting me, [NAME]. I don't want to kill you. Join us.
It is too late, my blood is in your veins.
Don't let them see me like this.
What happened to your face?
I knew it. You are the head vampire.
You're the secret [NAME] was protecting.
Don't ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy/girl/etc.
It renders you powerless.
Has everyone gone crazy? What's the matter with all of you?
It was you I was after, all along, [NAME]
It was all going to be so perfect, [NAME]
Just like one big happy family.
Great. The bloodsucking Brady Bunch.
I still want you, [NAME]. I haven't changed my mind about that.
I didn't invite you this time, [NAME]
Don't you touch my mother/father/son/dog/etc
Don't fight, [NAME]. It's so much better if you don't fight.
How much do you think we should charge them for this?
One thing about living in [PLACE] I never could
stomach--all the damn vampires.
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To be clear, I don't hold DS9 as the best of Star Trek or think all its deconstructing woked, but from what I remember, the "easy to be saint in paradise" is more about criticizing the arrogance and borderline xenophobia of Gene's vision, or at least aspects of it and (which DS9 did as a whole) contrivences that kept it unchallenged. If nothing else, IMO it's a fair game to show that a society as dedicated to peace and avoidance of armed conflict would leave some people feeling unfought for.
“It’s easy to be a saint in paradise” is in fact in reference to the Maquis, and Starfleet’s treatment thereof. The official judgement of the Federation is that the Maquis are terrorists (a matter of perspective), a threat to the peace with the Cardassians (potentially, but certainly not more so than the Cardassians themselves), and deserters and thieves (absolutely fact; a majority of Maquis are active duty Starfleet who walked off the job with Starfleet weapons, ships and intel). Thus the Starfleet policy toward Maquis is pursuit, capture, or destruction without quarter.
Sisko cheerfully enforces this policy - he literally committed a war crime in order to catch his former security officer, so he’s obviously on board with “stop the Maquis” as a concept - but he also takes a moment to be judgey about it when the issue first comes up. The people at Starfleet headquarters, he implies with the quote, are arrogant, ignorant, and cold. The Maquis had their homes traded away right underneath them by the Federation, traded to the very enemy who was attacking them in the first place. Even worse, the Feds didn’t even really make an effort in the war - consensus among the sort of fans who Figure Out Things Like That is that if they’d tried at all, Starfleet would have crushed the Cardassians and lost nothing. And now the Federation attacks its own betrayed citizens for fighting back? Sisko, and apparently the show, want us to consider that perhaps the Liberal Elite in their Ivory Towers pushing Peace and Reconciliation with the Bad Guys even to the point of punishing the former Good Guys to maintain it are showing a disgusting lack of 1) compassion for the people they’re supposed to be prioritizing, who suffer the consequences of their decisions and 2) understanding of how the Real World works, because they’ve never lived in it.
Unfortunately, this is patent fucking nonsense.
Consider:
Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki a war crime?
Really?
Even though the Japanese were the aggressor? Even though they committed absolute atrocities against American citizens in the Pacific territories? Even though Truman’s literal job description was “protect American lives and American interests,” meaning he owed his soldiers a strategy that risked their lives as little as possible and ended the war as quickly as possible, and owed the Japanese absolutely nothing? If you’re still out here saying “yes,” congratulations, you’re what Gene’s humanity is supposed to be all about. Someone who remembers that the enemy is still people too, and you have a moral obligation to use exactly necessary force and not a single Newton more. To value their lives, society and culture equal to your own.
If the Federation negotiated peace with the Cardassians even from a position of power, it was because they deemed the potential loss of combined Federation and Cardassian life to be of greater significance than the (easily substituted in a post-scarcity society) homestead rights of Federation citizens on those contested worlds. They chose life over land, even enemy life over their own land. This is the decision we want them to make. We want them to be the people who would not have dropped a nuke on Japan. We want future humanity to be in a place where we consider the Maquis to be in the wrong for choosing bloody war to avoid giving up property.
But the thing is…. how the fuck do we get there, because humans do not, humans cannot make that decision. Humans get emotionally invested in things. Humans get angry and scared and humans are wildly fucking tribal and we make self-serving and short-sighted decisions in order to protect the things that are ours whenever we feel threatened. Poverty creates crime because when people are scared for their survival they don’t care about the rules, strange cultures interacting generates bigotry because new things are frightening, and power breeds sociopathy because losing that power frames itself to the human brain as a loss of identity and safety. And Gene’s humans are not actually different from the real ones. They didn’t develop telepathy like Betazoids to make them physically incapable of forgetting that the enemy is a person. They haven’t altered their own brain chemistry through ritualized philosophy like the Vulcans. They are still giant bags of reactivity, violence and malice. So. What do?
Well the really funny thing is that the answer to this question is within DS-9 itself. One of fandom’s other favorite lines from the series is Quark musing on the nature of humanity:
Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.
WELL JUST FUCKING INVERSE THAT, GENIUS!
DS-9 is fascinated by the idea that humans are Not As Good As You Thought, Gene, but it seems to persistently overlook the fact that he understood that completely, and that’s why the Federation exists. That’s why they have the free holosuites and free food and Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. It is easy to be a saint in Paradise, and the Federation wants to be saints, so they put the people who make the decisions in Paradise. Hell, they try to put everyone in Paradise, because it lets us not be massive shits to each other even without telepathy or Logic™. The whole origin story of Trek humans is that they went through a decade or so of Mad Max hell and went “holy fuck never again, what do we do to make ourselves stop being assholes,” and utopian socialist paradise is what they came up with.
Sisko seems to think that not getting on board with the Maquis’ decision to fight for their homes is a sign of blindness and elitism on the part of his bosses, because those bosses aren’t facing the tribulation of losing their own homes. But in fact, that very tribulation means that the Maquis are the blind ones - they can’t be objective or adhere to the principles they normally value, because their lizard brain has knocked all the way down Maslow’s hierarchy to “YOU NO TAKE CANDLE,” while the guys back home on Earth, explicitly because they’re not involved, can act from the top of the pyramid with compassion for all involved parties.
Now, you can disagree with this moral perspective, certainly. You can say that leaders have a greater responsibility to their people than to the enemy and that protecting homes is worth lives and that the Federation should be secretly supporting the Maquis (like the Cardassians are supporting their own “renegades” attacking Federation colonies, something the series really should have spent more time on), and you wouldn’t be wrong. These are matters of perspective, not absolute truth. But that isn’t the argument Sisko is making. He’s arguing that the froofy safe Feds just don’t ~get~ it, which is a shockingly limited understanding of the history and principles of Trek Earth’s culture for a Starfleet captain.
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