#and you shouldn’t be diminishing the very real oppression of others to try and make yours seem more valid

[area51-escapee]

I feel like it should be relatively easy to understand that transwomen/transfems are statistically and provably more likely to be targeted by transphobia and that yes, the demonization and and violence they face are demonstrably worse than what transmen/transmascs face, but that doesn’t mean transmen/transmascs don’t face face violence and oppression and transphobia or shouldn’t be taken seriously when we discuss how these things effect us. And yet.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

The Best Films of 2020

The 15 Best Films of 2020

Normally, when I assess a full year of cinematic offerings, I consider both sides of that coin  —  the outstanding entities, and the least successful —  but the year of our lord two thousand and twenty provided more than enough misery for all of us, I do believe. Ergo, in my own small way to bring better vibes into the universe, for this year’s round-up, I’m staying solely on the positive tip, highlighting those films whose unfortunate release date during the Year of the Hex shouldn’t preclude them for being fully appreciated. Let’s take a year off from negativity and schadenfreude, shall we, and just stroll amongst the poppies and bright sunshine of some of the best releases of the year.  

15. The Invisible Man

“Leigh Whannell’s film is thoroughly modern in approach and sophistication, but the film it most reminded me of was made back in 1944. George Cukor’s Gaslight starred Charles Boyer as a loathsome husband who attempts to convince his already anxious wife (Ingrid Bergman) that she’s going insane by secretly rearranging things in their house and taking things from her so she thinks she’s always misplacing them. He preys on her emotional vulnerability in order to mask his own pathology and emotional detachment. The effect is absolutely enraging: Onscreen, he’s one of the more hateful villains ever committed to celluloid.”

Full Review

14. The Killing of Two Lovers

“From the opening sequence, with a distraught, estranged husband standing over the bed of his wife and her new boyfriend with malice in his heart, and a gun in hand, the film spirals out into incredibly well structured compositions, taking us inside and outside of David’s recurring psychosis, utilizing a bevy of techniques: The framing shrinks down around him, the sound gets muffled, as if underwater, save for the incredibly unnerving metallic sound of cables being stretched taut, and the sickening kathunk of a heavy car door slamming shut.”

Capsule Review

13. Another Round

“Typically, Vinterberg avoids simple conclusions  —  and God help us all if this film gets picked up by a U.S. studio and remade with, say, Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, and Chris Rock  —  providing more or less equal examples of the delirious fun drinking with your friends can be (the film opens with a group of high schoolers gleefully doing “lake races” whereby teams compete to drink a case of beer while running around the nearby body of water; and closes with the same teen crew, and some of their teachers, whooping it up in celebrating their graduation); and the horrorshow it can become (one teacher ends up peeing the bed, and on his wife in the process, another wakes up bloodied and out of it in front of his neighbor’s house), leading to very real and horrible consequences.”

Capsule Review

12. Soul

“Co-director Pete Docter is the creative force behind many of Pixar's best titles, having a hand in the Toy Story franchise, WALL-E, Up, and also directing Inside Out, a brilliantly moving treatise on the subject of emotional upheaval. This film, which he co-wrote and made along with fellow co-director Kemp Powers, is his first film back at the helm since that high-water mark, and he has again dug into the fertile earth of our mortality and come back with a particularly vibrant crop.”

Full Review

11. The Burnt Orange Heresy

“Based on the novel by Charles Willeford, the film briskly moves through its paces, clouding the waters with the schemes of duplicitous men, who have sold out any love of art for their greater obsession of cash and prestige. A literary thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley, it’s become a genre all too rare in the era of blockbuster bravado. This film will remind you what a mistake that is.”

Full Review

10. Lovers Rock

“In the course of the party, the fuses blow while the house DJ is spinning Janet Kay's "Silly Games," a fan favorite at the time. Undaunted, the guests continue dancing away, singing the lyrics a capella in delirious unison, as McQueen's camera swirls around the living room as if nothing happened. Such a heartfelt moment of unbridled togetherness, putting into distinct bas relief the sense of community we've been denied as a species in 2020, feels like a benediction, an epitaph for the year, and a salve for what we've all been so desperately missing.”

Capsule Review

9. Time

“Ostensibly, it’s about the strain of incarceration on even the most grounded of families (an experience naturally disproportionate for POCs); but, on a deeper level, it’s also about the manner of our use of the limited number of revolutions we get to enjoy situated on this earth. It is a profound knock-out.”

Full Review

8. New Order

“Meet the new boss, only in Michel Franco’s damning portrait of a society locked forever in cycles of oppression, revolution, and new oppression, it makes no difference who you are, what your belief system is, or whether or not you subscribe to a moral set of ethics.”

Capsule Review

7. Dick Johnson is Dead

“Utilizing stunt people and special effects, Johnson kills her father off a number of different gruesome ways, as a means of softening the blow of actually losing him as his mind slowly slips away. This eventually culminates in a final gambit, both acutely painful and deeply moving, in which our sense of things gets seriously upended. As Johnson put it during the post-screening Q&A, the film serves as a “doomed experiment trying to keep my father alive forever.” This film won’t make him immortal, alas, but it does make him indelible.”

Capsule Review

6. Martin Eden

“Marcello packs the film with offbeat bits and pieces of other films, including strips of what appear to be vintage home movies, sometimes in juxtaposition to what Martin is feeling  —  a group of kids swinging wildly from the bar of a fence, to a full galley ship taking in water and suddenly sinking like an iron ingot – which adds a more winsome, timeless element to the narrative. It’s clearly set in the past, but avoids being too dependent on that particular sense of place and time. Martin is a young man, at first, just coming into himself, and the actions he takes, what he goes through, the film seems to suggest, would be similar in any age.”

Full Review

5. Minari

“The film is certainly charming, but that’s not to diminish its straightforward approach to its characters’ plight. It doesn’t shy away from their difficulties, and as a result, it doesn’t cheat towards smarmy emotional closure.”

Capsule Review

4. Collective

“The breath of hope in the film, when the inept Minister of Health resigns, leading to the placing of a new, emboldened director who works quickly to clean the quagmire left by his predecessors, is just as quickly expelled after the next round of elections, in which the Social Democrat party  —  the very ones in charge of this catastrophe in the first place  —  gets re-elected with an even greater majority than what they had before. A perfect reflection of what happens when a government is allowed to exist without any meaningful oversight, other than from a bedraggled press and a disenchanted electorate.”

Full Review

3. First Cow

“Reichardt, a naturalist at heart, is not known much as a humorist, but there is a lightness to her screenplay -- co-written by Jonathan Raymond, her frequent collaborator, who wrote the original novel upon which its based -- that keeps it as sweetly airy as one of Cookie's fried confections. The two friends are so out of step with their surroundings -- the party of men Cookie initially travels with are little more than brutish thugs, and the fort upon which they end up is no better -- they almost had to find each other. They are reunited in the local bar of the fort only because literally every other patron runs out to egg on a brawl between two loutish combatants.”

Full Review

2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

“Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity  —  her characters can rarely articulate anything they’re experiencing  —  is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads.”

Capsule Review

1. Nomadland

“Perhaps no American director since Terrance Malick has made more of the collapsing light of dusk and twilight than Chloe Zhao. Much of her new film, which stars Frances McDormand as a transigent woman (“not homeless, houseless”), who traverses back and forth across the west in her beat up live-in van, doing seasonal work, takes place in that particular kind of vibrant half-darkness that shrouds the desert and its mountains with a magic kind of mystery.”

Capsule Review

Other Worthy Mentions: 7500; Assassins; Bacurau; Beanpole; Beginning; Black Bear; Bloody Nose Empty Pockets; Boys State; Come Play; Emma; Gunda; His House; Horse Girl; I Am Greta; Jacinta; La Llorona; Let Him Go; Limbo; Mangrove; Mayor; MLK/FBI; One Night in Miami…; Palm Springs; Possessor Uncut; Red, White & Blue; Relic; She Dies Tomorrow; Shirley; Shithouse; Shiva Baby; Some Kind of Heaven; Spring Blossom; Swallow; Tenet; The Dissident; The Invisible Man; The Nest; Sound of Metal; The Vast of Night; The Viewing Booth; The Way I See It; Vitalina Varella; Welcome to Chechnya

Inexplicably Underrated: 7500; Shithouse

Biggest Welcome Surprise(s): The Vast of Night; His House; She Dies Tomorrow

The Best Two Films I Saw This Year, Period: Satantango (1994); Harlan County, USA (1976)

[princeescaluswords]

Not only is the ~territory~ thing overblown but it's some colonialist bs in regards to the Hales: rich white family, werewolf royalty almost who ~own~ the land. They're settlers, plain and simple. The show actually did good with Derek living in the burnt wreckage of the house trying unsuccessfully to rebuild the dynasty but ultimately finding happiness and healing and moving on but stans are fixated on rebuilding the house, the seat of power and owning the land

It’s the entitlement.  

As a white person, I’ve noticed that one of the fundamental problems when people like me try to grapple with the consequences of colonialism is a sort of binary thinking as defense mechanism.   If something was good, then it can’t be bad.  There were many positive reasons for expansion and colonization: fleeing religious persecution, exploring economic opportunities away from established oppressive economic structures, countering overpopulation of cities, the ennobling effects of freedom and exploration – all these are great, inspiring things.  What’s uncomfortable is trying to reconcile them with the unintended but very much omnipresent consequences of that colonization:  slavery, disease, generational poverty, and cultural obliteration inflicted on the natives from which colonists stole the land.  You can’t have one without the other.

So their reaction is to deny that it happened.   To say it doesn’t matter.  To say that it happened so far in the past that they shouldn’t have to think about  it.  To focus completely on one side.  (In one excellent development, claiming it was for the natives’ own good has completely fallen out of fashion.) It’s easier that way.  This is also entitlement.

This attitude expresses itself constantly in fandom – an exclusive focus on the Hale family’s needs and history and the wrongs done to them, which serves to minimize and erase that the Hales’ attempts to satisfy those needs were executed on the backs of children and adults who were not Hales.  Yes, the Hales were protectors of Beacon Hills. Yes, they helped found they city.  Yes, they were powerful and influential.  Yes, they were the victims of terrible persecution and a terrible crime.

And not one bit of that justifies the consequences of what Peter and Derek did to the children and adults around them.  It wasn’t until Derek (and to a lesser extent, Peter) let go, as you said, of the idea of Hale supremacy and made it up to the people whom they hurt that they actually got to grow.  

The idea that Derek and Peter didn’t deserve a return to the glory days of the Hales cannot be processed by fandom, so they create elaborate justifications of the worst abuses the show depicted in pursuit of that supremacy.   They’re real werewolves!  They’re mystically tied to the land!   They’ve got the backing of some half-baked werewolf/occult government that recognizes their sovereignty – again and again and again.  It doesn’t matter that it contradicts canon or doesn’t make any sense – if Scott is such a danger because he doesn’t werewolf right that the werewolf government has to step in, are they going in turn give control to Peter, a man who killed people from behind until he got his ass kicked by a bunch of teenagers, or Derek, who never met a Bad Decision he didn’t make? 

No, this concept of the right of others to rule over people who have no idea who they are and never asked for their rule is used to diminish others.  Scott got to play first line!  Scott got popular and the girl!  So he should be grateful for the Bite, for the mental violation, for the lies and manipulation, for all the responsibilities and violence he didn’t want but had to endure. (Look at all the good things we brought to the savages!)  Stiles should be flattered that Peter, after brutalizing the girl he loved in front of him, after kidnapping him, after forcing him to work at his command, graciously offered him the Bite rather than forcing it on him.  It doesn’t matter that Peter used Lydia as an object for his own ends, the trauma forced her evolution into a powerful young woman.   Or the dozens and dozens of people who eventually paid the price for Peter’s temper tantrum.

And those three Gurkhas I mean Betas were willing recruits to fight someone else’s war.  And Derek loved them so much he treated them like family soldiers (training them through combat and breaking their bones, forcing them to sleep on the floor, shouting at them when they dared to want something else.)  Two of them died honorably, fighting Derek’s wars.

The production systematically demolished the arguments of the Hales as to their rights to a glorious destiny.   Derek grew up and moved on.  Peter didn’t and was appropriately punished.   One of the interesting things about every single enemy in Teen Wolf is that they all sprung from the Hales and the Argent’s conflict, and yet the warriors, the people who suffered from them, tended not to have either of those last names.  Every villain was a consequences of the villain before that, and that all went back to a struggle of which most of the victims had never even heard.  

[queenerdloser]

so i’m going to type this out so i can hopefully purge it out of my memory & because there’s no better audience than.a bunch of strangers on the internet. tw for some gross conservative opinions i guess.

so quick context; my step-dad is a hardline conservative and my mom has basically swallowed his bullshit hook line and sinker. they are, both of them, extremely inflexible when it comes to their opinions and very unwilling to listen to anyone who disagrees with them. i’m living temporarily in their apartment since i just moved back into the country.

so they came home tonight for the first time since i arrived back from japan and we were having dinner. i brought up that my sister wanted to take a trip since kids are doing online schooling here, which my step-dad immediately jumped on how it was not good and my mom started in on how it was so terrible for kids and how “they” want to bring down education and how the entire situation right now somehow reminded her of fahrenheit 451. when i asked who the hell the “they” was, it became an increasingly convoluted rant about the oppressive government that is somehow restricting american freedom bc they might require everyone to have a corona vaccine... which my step-dad, with all seriousness, thinks could contain a microchip to monitor the population. 

so i point out how insane this entire reasoning is (when asked why he thinks this, he basically just said “well BILL GATES backed a vaccine and he’s the ceo of microsoft!! so!!” and i was like ??? is that a logical argument or?? i mean i’m no bill gates fan but that’s a hell of a fucking leap to make) they turned around and started waxing on about how america was founded on FREEDOM (and i use all caps bc that’s literally how they talked about it). when i, again, pointed out that at america’s founding it was actually just freedom for white men, my step-dad was like “well that doesn’t matter!! are you telling me bc some people didnt have freedom it’s okay to take away my freedom now?” and my mom was in the background literally screaming at me about how i need to have loyalty to my country and how it’s written in the constitution that you have to be loyal or you can’t be a citizen (which is uh... very not true unless i’m misremembering the constitution) and i should just leave the country if i hated it so much. when i explained that being critical of my country is very different from being an actual traitor, she just kept repeating that i needed to be loyal and then couldn’t fucking explain at all what being “disloyal” meant. 

(also they brought up how the protestors were trying to change the country and they shouldn’t be allowed to do that and when i was like “uh actually we have changed the country many times over. the founding fathers changed their country!!” my step-dad and mom were both yelling about how, actually, the founding fathers created a country as if they didn’t do it in direct opposition to the british and a big old fuck you to their mother country. my parents are both die-hard founding fathers supporters so i didn’t bring up the whole “i mean they were wealthy white slave owners so can we stop idolizing them” argument either - wouldn’t have been worth it.)

meanwhile my literally insane step-father is going on and on about how people die everyday so the government shouldn’t require a corona vaccine - it’s people’s own lives they’re putting at risk (ignoring, of course, that by contracting the disease without a vaccine they risk further spread through vulnerable populations that can’t be vaccinated for health reasons a la the return of the measles). i told him it was beyond disrespectful to people suffering from corona and the thousands who’ve died from it to diminish it to some bullshit “well people die everyday” argument and he scoffed and told me it didn’t matter bc more people died from car accidents than corona. (which, when i checked later, is also very much not true lmao)

okay, i pointed out, but there are regulations in place to make cars safer and lesson accidents, right? he then somehow made the very insane leap that the government has no right to require people to wear their seatbelts because the choice to not wear a seatbelt and endanger your own life should be entirely up to you and that it’s somehow a restriction of freedom to make it illegal to not wear your seatbelt. i didn’t say this at the time but now i’m thinking that i probably should have brought up that people regularly choose to flout this law anyway, it’s not a jail-able offense, and most of the time cops do not run people down for not wearing a seatbelt - so it’s a fucking moot point, bc it’s a law we regard as cavalierly as jaywalking. and not wearing a seatbelt and getting into an accident can cause other people to die or make things worse for other people in your car. and.... like yeah, i really DON’T care if the govt decides to create regulations that are designed to decrease loss of life even should someone decide they want to lose their life. saying “oh well someone should have the right to choose to risk their lives without that damn government interference” is a very wild argument. like sorry the govt wants you to stay safe and alive in your car, i guess??? how dare they try to lessen the loss of life and set regulations for drivers and car companies to follow?????????

anyway, this then completely unravels into me bringing up again that i explicitly don’t trust trump’s government with how they handle the virus & our real concern should be big pharma jacking up vaccine costs just bc they can and my step-dad went on a long diatribe about how vaccine research costs money and it’s totally cool if they decide to make the vaccine itself 3x the production costs. when i brought up (stupidly) that i thought the vaccine should actually be free if the govt is really going to require everyone to take it, he basically exploded and went on a long gibbering rant about how could i expect anyone to do anything for free, we might as well let everyone do their job for free! who’s going to pay for it? was repeated over and over again. he brought up free education and was not happy when i explained that i was very fine with my taxes going to paying for free education instead of military expenses.

finally, the icing on this very shitty hour of my life was my mom trying to tell me with all seriousness that trump is not an idiot, that i should respect him for being a “financial wizard” (literally her words!!!) and that i can’t criticize or disrespect him bc he’s a president. when i pointed out that a) i didn’t vote for him so i don’t actually acknowledge him as “my” president and b) that’s fucking insane, she started in how she didn’t “raise me this way” and that, once again, I was being disloyal to my country, that i was clearly uneducated and didn’t know anything about american history, and that i was being brainwashed and overtaken by propaganda. (when i told her flatout that the only one being brainwashed and overtaken by propaganda was her, she was also not happy.)

i brought up how trump wants to try to delay the election - my step-dad scoffed and asked where i got my information. the news, i said, bc i read the article from the bbc. THE NEWS? he said with complete disbelief. YOU CAN’T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU HEAR IN THE NEWS. okay, i said with increasing disbelief that this was my life. well then how do you get your information? my mom chimes in with a hysterical: FROM MY GUT. 

(i told my step-dad i read a variety of news articles and he told me he does too, but then he went on about how i apparently read the “wrong” news bc i happen to disagree with all of his insane arguments.)

i pointed out that i might like trump more if he was at all competent, compassionate, interested in doing his job, and not sexist, racist, and homophobic. my step-dad, completely unwilling to entertain the idea that he might be wrong, scoffed and said that trump wasn’t racist. okay, i said with the increasing desire to murder something. how is that something you can possibly say. my step-dad goes on to smugly assure me that someone who hires black people can’t be racist, actually. unsure of how to even begin dismantling this mind-numbingly bad logic, i countered with the assertion that trump has been openly racist on many platforms. my step-dad and my mom turned towards talking about how “noticing someone’s race isn’t racist!” and “isn’t your bias against white people actually racist?” and that’s when i fucking lost it, grabbed my keys and my phone and ran out of the apartment to go have a fucking panic attack in the fucking backyard. 

this was like an hour. my mom was screaming at me for like half of it and my step-dad was yelling and they constantly kept fucking talking over me and going round and fucking round in circles or making nonsensical general statements (”money doesn’t grow on trees!” “what about FREEDOM?” “loyalty is everything!” and so on). there was a literal comparison of being required to take a vaccine to nazi fucking germany. (my step-dad, clearly displaying how little he thinks of my intelligence, had the gall to try to “explain” to me that they killed jewish people during nazi germany. yeah dude. i learned that in fucking elementary school. i’m aware.) i was told that i was “too young” to understand what i was talking about, that i had no critical thinking skills, that my criticism of my country was treasonous and that i should just leave if i didn’t want to be here. 

i left for two hours. i’m still shaking bc i had a panic attack & then several smaller attacks while i was walking around my neighborhood trying to figure out if i should disappear until they went to sleep and how the hell i’m going to stay in their household until september, where i thankfully have alternate housing lined up. my mom just came into my room all remorseful, trying to get me to tell her where i was and apologizing in a way that didn’t actually apologize at all (”i’m sorry for what happened” she said, not all enunciating that she’s sorry for yelling at me, calling me names, undermining my critical thought, and basically being an all-out fanatical asshole for no imaginable reason. “and on our first night together, too!” she added, as if this happened somehow out of her control.)

i knew that living with them would be uncomfortable but i seriously had no idea that i would be standing there, making jokes and trying to calmly explain myself in the face of their loud vitriol. like. i wasn’t yelling! i think the only time i even snapped at them was when they tried to cut me off when i was talking. i tried to crack wise, to get them to see the utter ridiculousness they were spouting and yet!! they were both so violently, fanatically angry at me for just like... not thinking america is the greatest country in the world. not thinking trump is actually a good president. not agreeing that a corona vaccine is actually a secret ploy to microchip people for the oppressive government. 

i left panic behind an hour ago & have crossed steadily over into anger but the fact is that if i have to have another “conversation” like that with them i will lose it entirely and i don’t know how i can live in this house and somehow do the mental gymnastics to avoid all “taboo” subjects. my mom clearly wants to pretend it didn’t happen, which is honestly her m.o. whenever we fight, but how the fuck am i supposed to forget her calling me a traitor and ranting at me about how uneducated and dimwitted i am? 

god. i’ll probably delete this, but i needed to lay it all out. in case anyone was wondering YES people who think this utter bullshit do exist and apparently i’m so blessed i get to have one of them as my own fucking mother. 

[bluewavenewwave]

Feminism Masterpost

Feminism - Feminism is about supporting all women

I’m going to preface this by saying that I am a pro-choice liberal feminist. When I say “bad feminists” I mean people who claim to be feminists but have the wrong idea about feminism, hate men and dismiss real issues facing men, and tear other women down and pit women against each other. Yes I am generalizing, but you will get my point. 

Feminism is important. Feminism is about gender equality. Feminism is good but, yes, there are some bad feminists. There are bad chefs, bad singers, bad dancers, bad athletes, and there are definitely bad feminists. (And I’m not even going to talk about TERFs, because TERFs are not feminists, they are just hateful people.)

Feminism is not about fighting men or calling men bigots or misogynists. Some very well are, but men collectively are not. Feminism is not about hating men and bringing men down and threatening men. It is not about dismissing men’s issues or saying that there are no challenges and problems facing men, or saying men’s issues don’t matter.

Feminism is not about taking away from men or ridiculing men or trying to control men. It is not about saying men cannot do what they want (within reason) or stopping men from living their lives peacefully. Feminism is not about women taking over the world or becoming more powerful or superior to men. It is not about oppressing men.

Feminism is not about hating men just because they are men. Think about if that were reversed - hating women just because they are women. That is misogyny and it is wrong and it is what we are trying to abolish. Hating men because they are men is misandry, and it’s just as wrong as misogyny. It’s just mindless bigotry and hate and the world doesn’t need more of that. 

There are feminists who believe feminism is about all those things - all about misandry and oppressing me. Those are the bad feminists. There are also feminists who believe all women should go to college and work and be in STEM majors and be masculine and be athletes and wear pantsuits and have short hair and be outspoken about feminism and be assertive and be a boss. And some women are these things and that’s great. But there are a lot of women who aren’t these things and that’s also great. 

Feminism is not about supporting only one image of a woman, or only one set of beliefs about women; feminism is about supporting all women, in all walks of life, with all different backgrounds and views and beliefs. Feminism is about women supporting other women and fighting for gender equality and dignity and respect. 

Working women and housewives and stay at home moms are equal. No matter what a woman’s job is, whether that’s an IT worker, company CEO, waitress, dancer, hairdresser, veterinarian, stripper, teacher, doctor, nurse, firefighter, cheerleader, or nanny - all are valid and all should be respected. A woman’s choice of career should always be validated and respected, even if it’s not the same career choice you made. 

No matter how a woman chooses to dress and stylize - long hair, short hair, painted nails, makeup, natural, dresses, skirts, pantsuits, jeans, high heels, boots, sneakers, slides, jewelry, no jewelry, dyed hair, natural hair - it’s all valid and should be respected. A woman’s choice of attire and style should be validated and respected, even if it’s not the same attire/style choice you made. 

A woman’s choice is a woman’s choice and it should always be validated and respected even if it’s not the same choice you would have made.

Bottom line, feminism is about supporting all women, and working towards gender equality. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feminism - Feminine Validity - Women shouldn’t have to change who they are to feel like they belong

You’ll often hear a woman or a girl say she just feels like “one of the guys”, whether it’s a girl on a little league team or a woman working a STEM or robotics job. And that’s all very well and good in principle, but the issue I have is this: a woman/girl shouldn’t have to feel like a man or a boy to feel like she belongs. It diminishes her validity as a female in whatever situation she is in; it diminishes the validity of a female playing a “male” sport; it diminishes the validity of a female working in a male dominated field. A girl shouldn’t have to feel like a boy to feel like she can play baseball; a woman shouldn’t have to feel like a man to feel like she can work in a male dominated field. A woman should be able to do whatever she wants and feel confident doing so, while also staying true to herself. 

A woman shouldn’t have to feel like she has to be masculine and “manly” and tough to be respected, because that just furthers the idea that only men should be respected, that women aren’t good enough, and if women want to make it in the world, they should act more like men.

Women should be able to be soft and feminine and girly and non-combative and true to themselves and still have their dreams and goals and aspirations and plans and achievements and talents and skills be recognized, validated, and respected. 

And I am in no way saying that all women are, or should be, soft or submissive or girly or feminine. I’m just saying that for those that are, they shouldn’t have to change anything about themselves to feel confident and respected. No woman should have to change who she is, for any reason. As I said, a woman should be able to do whatever she wants and feel confident doing so, while also staying true to herself. A woman should never need to change who she is to fit anyone else’s views of how she should be. 

[hardtoswallowtruthpills]

Jenna Marbles Didn't "Do Blackface"; Here is How Cancel-Culture Broke the Internet’s Adult in the Room

On May 31, 2020 Jenna Marbles, a well known Youtuber with about 20.3 million subscribers tweeted out in regards to African American’s rights to life and the Black Lives Matter movement. Marbles stated that “This is not a political issue, this is a human rights issue.This is systematic racism and oppression at the hands of law enforcement in our country. We want justice and we want change.  It shouldn't have happened once and it should never happen again.This is not a discussion”. Almost a month later, though, Jenna Marbles released a video on her Youtube channel vaguely titled “A Message”. Her subscribers would come to find when watching this video that Marbles was officially quitting YouTube over messages she had received asking her to address videos that were made in 2011 and 2012 for their “racist” content, as well as asking her to apologize. Marbles obliged, officially ‘canceling herself’ as some have said. Most of her fans are concerned about the break that Jenna Marbles is taking from the internet. Most even begging her not to leave Youtube permanently, but, there are bigger issues within this whole debacle that are being overlooked.

 Mainly, how did we get to the point where the current generation (which yours truly is a part of by the way) is so sensitive, that we harassed, intimidated, and bullied potentially one of the biggest voices on Youtube for the Black Lives Matter movement off the internet for an indefinite amount of time?

Don’t worry dear reader, you probably are wondering what could have possibly caused such a thing. Well, as most media outlets will tell you, Jenna Marbles quit youtube, and in turn the internet, because of accusations of her “doing blackface”. Surface level this sounds bad, doesn't it? It almost seems like her getting driven off the internet by a vocal minority almost seems expected, but remember, this is only surface deep. There's a whole bunch of stuff under the surface that needs to be unpacked, stuff that exposes why those who went after Marbles are, to put it lightly, hypocritical, or if you want it put bluntly, full of it. All of them though, have gone too far. Dear reader, this is a prime example of how the cancel-culture we have created is toxic slacktivism that gets us nowhere, and diminishes real world issues, and inevitably has broken one of the internet adults in the room.

The video that Marbles addressed in her apology that brought on the blackface accusations was one in which she did an “impression” of Niki Minaj. Here's the thing though...she was overly tanned at the time, filming in low lighting, and was wearing a cheap, acrylic, neon pink wig. With all factors combined, it becomes clear that none of this was “blackface” as the slacktivist warriors claim, it was just really bad filming technique. At the end of the video, Marbles even claims that it was “just a joke and that she loves and respects minaj”. We see in this clip one the wig is off, that Marbles was a spray-tan junkie at the time, which was common for girls in their 20’s about a decade ago.

Marbles also went on to apologize for a rap video she did, once again about a decade ago, for an original song called “Bounce on that Dick”. The rap was about toxic masculinity and the misogyny that toxic masculinity encourages. The lyrics express how men constantly brag about penis size or their attempts to sexualize women is ingrained in society's toxic notions of sexuality and masculinity. In this video Marbles, done up as a stereotypical asian man raps "Hey Ching Chong Wing Wong, shake your King Kong ding dong,". In her apology she admits it was racist and wrong and that she has privated the video because of the hurtful stereotype it portrays. Still though, it is being used against her even after apologizing.

Marbles also goes on to mention some of the other private videos on her channel. Claiming that she herself found most of them to be expressions of the internalized misogyny she held within herself back then. All of the videos she mentions in her apology have been privatized instead of deleted, showing in a way that Marbles is not going to pretend like these things didn’t happen, but she is also actively making sure that the videos cannot offend anyone anymore. 

For context, all of the videos that she discussed were around 8 to 10 years old as of this year. Meaning that in the oldest videos, Jenna Marbles would have been 22. Most 22 year olds at the time made mistakes, Jenna Marbles is not an exception to the rule, especially since the internet was becoming a vast place where anyone and everyone could express their thoughts and opinions. Sadly though, it seems this vocal minority that took it upon themselves to harass Marbles for an apology in the name of social justice think that just because she is a public figure, that at 22 she should’ve seen that in 10 years, this would come back to haunt her. The social justice slacktivists that seem to think they have done good in this world also forgot that in 2010, that was the humor of the time. Jenna was participating in humor that, back before cancel culture was really a thing, was considered harmless. She was doing impressions right along Shane Dawson’s Shanaynay, a Ghetto caricature that frequently appeared in videos on his first channel ShaneDawsonTV, or NigaHiga’s fake infomercials that would sometimes contain Ghetto or Gangster impressons and over the top asian impressions. Jenna was right there in terms of misogynistic or sexist stereotyping becoming a joke with Smosh, which compared a “Just Dance” game character to “A Skinny Ron Jeremy”, or comparing soft McDonald's fries to what the penises of men with erectile dysfunction would look like. Needless to say all of these creators couldn't see a decade into the future. It was acceptable to joke about these things back in the day in terms of Youtube culture. Since everyone in 2020 is now overly sensitive to decades old content, though, it is enough to get a creator “canceled”, even if they have shown significant improvement over those 10 years.

This vocal minority deliberately targeted Marbles, and pulled up videos from her past back up in an attempt to find something, anything problematic with her. Mind you, this is someone who’s most exciting, recent content was hydro-dipping a pair of crocs, acid washing old sweatshirts, and throwing a birthday party for her greyhound, complete with treats for the dog, and a  framed picture of Jerry Sinfeld as a birthday gift. Those who contacted her about her past and demanded an apology are directly responsible for what happened. They can claim it was Jenna’s choice to leave as much as they want, but would Jenna have made this choice if she weren’t harassed and bullied to the point where she felt her very existence on Youtube was hurtful? Would she have walked away if she weren’t scared that anything she could possibly say would inevitably offend someone? Most likely, the answer here is no. Instead of educating, or politely correcting past errors in private direct messages, these people decided it was their god-given right to demand an apology for videos that were made 10 years ago. They know that these videos and mistakes don't reflect the Jenna Marbles we all knew for the past 3 years, the one that actually changed and grew from it all.

These people seem clueless that their crusade for clicks and apologies they can turn around and deny under the guise of “the creator not meaning it” are diminishing every aspect of real-life issues and movements. If this continues the way that it is, if Smosh, or NigaHiga, or Shane Dawson are next in line for the cancel-culture call out machine. If they’re next to be accused of deliberately offending people, and when they apologize being told what their intentions were by internet strangers, who’s going to be there when they need big creators to back up their cause the most? The answer is nobody, nobody with a platform will be there to support them.

These people seeking to call out and cancel big name celebrities and public figures for their “racism” are ultimately going to hurt the Black Lives Matter movement. If anyone, celebrity or everyday citizen were on the fence with their support and they saw the Jenna Marbles fiasco, do you think they would be willing to support these movements? Especially in the case of Jenna MArbles, who openly defended the group before the accusations and cancelling began? They probably would be running for the hills. When we let people get away with being toxic, we are complicit in cancel-culture, If we are calling someone out for something that happened a decade ago, if we feel the need to air out their dirty laundry, without first addressing that the ones doing the aring out may have their own dirty laundry, then we let hypocrites get away with their hypocrisy. If you honestly support the Black Lives Matter movement, you would understand that change comes through education of the self and others, through protest, through showing those in power that we will no longer stand for their oppression of the minority. What does not bring about change is liking comments that harass people for mistakes made a decade ago, by canceling anyone over these mistakes, by driving a woman away from a platform where millions could’ve heard the message that she was trying to spread because of the entitled and toxic personality that these people seem to possess. All of this is driving people away from a social justice movement that is trying to bring about change, and is silencing those who are trying to be heard. Those who participate in this kind of toxic cancel-culture, are making movements like the Black Lives Matter movement an utter joke to those who are trying to understand, or worse, those who like life the way it is, who like their privilege, and want movements like this to be undermined.

In the end, it should be believed that those who called Jenna Marbles out OWE her an apology. Your toxicity drove away a proponent to a movement that could have made a difference. You made a woman who has continually educated herself over the last decade up and leave because you refused to believe that change was possible. These participants also OWE an apology to their closest Black Lives Matter chapter, for they need to understand how much their participation has diminished the message and work of those trying to actually make a difference. Maybe after this experience, they will realize that making a change doesn't happen through cyber-bullying. Perhaps, these people who participated in the cancel-culture that drove away Jenna Marbles will realize that they haven’t done anything to better themselves until they pick up a book from a Black author, or actually take to the streets and march for what should be a basic human right. Besides, maybe marching will also give these people a long-needed lesson on how it feels to have your speech repressed, and how discouraging it is when others won’t listen to what you have to say, just like how they did not listen to all of those apologies they demanded get thrown their way.

For now though, sadly, we get to live with the ramifications of the actions of a few. As long as Jenna is off the internet, there is one less platform bringing the much needed attention to a much needed movement. So, thank you cancel-culture, you silenced someone who has grown and was using their privilege to speak up for the good of those who cannot speak for themselves by claiming they were the very thing they were speaking out against. We all hope you're proud of what you did, that you feel superior for bullying someone. Since you like to cause ramifications like this to come to be, we hope that you ride off this high for a long time, specifically so you leave the rest of those using their platforms and privilege for good alone.

[schraubd]

(How) Do White Jews Uphold White Supremacy? (Part II)

In my post this morning, I explained how -- given the understanding of "White supremacy" and "upholding" that Tamika Mallory was using -- it is perfectly coherent to state, as Mallory did, that White Jews may "uphold White supremacy" even while we are (as Mallory also acknowledged) targeted by White supremacy. I argued that -- putting aside Mallory's own checkered history on the subject -- much of the present controversy was terminological in nature and that while such a semantic debate isn't unimportant, it is a far cry from the sort of overheated rhetoric whereby Mallory was accusing Jews of being tantamount to Klansmen. In America, pale-skinned Jews of proximate European descent receive many (not all) of the day-to-day advantages of Whiteness. Insofar as White supremacy is understood more as a social condition than a social movement -- the state of affairs whereby White persons are systematically advantaged, not the cluster of individuals and organizations consciously and overtly ideologically committed to promoting the explicit ideal that Whites are superior -- it is fair to say (and almost unquestionably true) that White Jews who look like me are net beneficiaries of that system, and may well act in ways that (implicitly or explicitly) reenact or perpetuate that advantageous state of affairs. This doesn't mean we don't also face antisemitism (any more than White women don't also face misogyny), and it is also wholly compatible with hating and being hated by groups like the Klan. And if you think the above paragraphs are reasonable, but blanch at labeling them "White supremacy", then the debate you're having is -- again -- primarily one of semantics, not substance. That said, if the purpose of the first post was to work through how it is fair to think of White Jews "as Whites" (and thereby implicated in White supremacy), at the end of that post I suggested that there was a more layered and complicated discussion to be had about the relationship between Jews and Whiteness, one that can help explain why so many Jews react so fiercely against the label "White" and which puts important limits on the utility of "White Jews" as a concept. This is a conversation that is short-circuited when people act as if White Jews are not White in any capacity -- a position which, as applied to American Jews with my skin tone, seems wholly at odds with reality. But it is also a conversation that can only occur if it is acknowledged that Whiteness is "of a different color" as applied to Jews -- that the characteristics of Whiteness, including what Jews can "do" with Whiteness, are different than how we might understand Whiteness simpliciter. Start with the question of why many Jews who by all appearances look White seem to so fiercely reject the association. One explanation for this behavior is that it is a rather uninteresting permutation on the practice of many White people to deny the privileges they receive through Whiteness. The retreat to ethnic identity ("I'm not White, I'm Irish") or deracinated individualism ("I'm just a person") are ways to occlude the reality of how Whiteness continues to operate in America. And so, it might be thought, when Jews say "we're not White, we're Jewish", they're simply pulling their own version of that maneuver. Those who are familiar with Whiteness, are familiar with this move, and have long since learned not to take it very seriously. Now sometimes, something like this account might suffice as the explanation for Jews who resist being labeled White -- particularly in cases where there is the most uncompromising insistence that White Jews are completely unassociated with Whiteness in America, that we gain nothing from America's racial bargain. But often, there's more to it than that. As someone who once rode the "I'm not White, I'm Jewish" train (and who tries to remember the I before I changed my mind), I know there's more at work here. One problem with Jews-as-White, which has been raised quite a bit in response to Mallory or anyone else who tries to associate Jews with Whiteness in America, is that Jews have often been oppressed precisely because we haven't been viewed as White. White supremacist violence is an obvious case, the Nazi Holocaust is its apex. Given this history, there is something hurtful and insulting to cavalierly declare that Jews are simply "White". Anyone should understand why statements to the effect of "the Holocaust was White-on-White crime" or "we only care about the Holocaust because the victims were White" provoke an apoplectic reaction in the Jewish community. It is a disgusting erasure, and one that is teed up when Jewish Whiteness is assumed as an uncomplicated truth. It shouldn't surprise, then, that many Jews rebel against being labeled "White" as a means of carving out and preserving space for full recognition of the realities of this persecution. As much as I say a American Jew like me today is functionally White in my day-to-day interactions, that hasn't always been true, it isn't always guaranteed to be true, and it isn't even wholly true right now. To the extent that insisting on Jewish Whiteness denies or diminishes the reality of very real and very live instances of antisemitism, it needs complication. Another problem with Jews-as-White, less discussed but I think potentially more important, is that Jews are sometimes perceived as excessively White. Particularly in the Nation of Islam brand of antisemitism that Mallory has been associated with, Jews are often cast as embodying or exemplifying Whiteness -- the "iciest of the ice people", in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s summation. Bootstrapping onto antisemitic tropes of Jewish hyperpower and control, Jews become a convenient and accessible stand-in for Whiteness at its worst -- its most domineering, its most overprivileged, and its most bloodthirsty (this is a problem I explore in detail in my "White Jews: An Intersectional Approach" article). Hence, calls to focus on Jewish Whiteness are sometimes heard as (and sometimes function as) calls to cast a very specific spotlight on Jews as the worst offenders of Whiteness (and look how they try to slither out of responsibility for it!), or as the focal point for an assault on Whiteness and White privilege. What is cast as a general critique of "White supremacy" ends up being a specific, concentrated attack on Jews as its supposedly paradigmatic constituency. Hence, if one reason Jews try to downplay their Whiteness is that the concept of White Jews denies circumstances and scenarios where even pale-skinned Jews are not viewed as White, another reason is that concept of White Jews accentuates tropes and understandings whereby Jews are viewed as the most extreme, blinding iteration of White -- generally via exaggerated notions of Jewish hyperpower and privilege. These can and do very easily slip into their own forms of antisemitism, and so it shouldn't surprise that many Jews view the entire discourse quite warily. These are some reasons why Jews have, I think, an earned skepticism towards Whiteness discourse directed at them, even as I continue to maintain that the concept of Whiteness is fairly and coherently applied to the life trajectory of Jews like me. But I suggested at the outset that I was making a more ambitious claim: not just that we need to be careful when speaking of Jewish Whiteness (lest we stumble into antisemitic tropes of Jewish hyperpower, or erase historical or contemporaneous cases where Jews really aren't being viewed as White), but that Whiteness is different in kind even for those Jews who are (in the American context) raced-as-White. To drill down on this point, let's return to Mallory's original statement. One way of parsing her words -- and how I think many people think of the relationship between Jews and Whiteness -- is something like the following:

White Jews in America are White in all respects save the important fact that White supremacists want to murder them.

I don't mean for that to sound flip -- being the target of violent hatred by a domestic terrorist movement is no small thing! Rather, what characterizes this view is that the Whiteness of White Jews is identical to the Whiteness of any other White person in America save for a discrete and well-demarcated carve-out. Hence, whatever discourse is validly spoken of "Whites", generally, also applies to "White Jews", specifically (save, again, for the highly specific case of "being targeted for murder by White supremacists"). With very limited exceptions, there's nothing about how we talk about Whiteness that isn't applicable or needs alteration in the specifically White Jewish case. But I think this view is wrong. Jews, even as White, are differently situated than other Whites, such that it doesn't always make sense to simply cross-apply a Whiteness frame even onto White Jews. For example, one way it is often said that White people (particularly White women) "uphold White supremacy" is that the majority (or at least a plurality) voted for Donald Trump. To all the White women marching in their pink hats and calling themselves the "resistance", this fact has created a rather compelling demand that they "tend to [their] own garden." As a class, White women are not particularly progressive and not particularly reliable even in the really easy, straightforward case of "don't vote for a naked bigot and unqualified buffoon like Donald Trump." Yet it should be very obvious why it's troublesome to extend this logic to Jews. Jews voted overwhelmingly against Trump in 2016 (and again against Republicans in 2018) -- 70% voting for Clinton overall (and, given typical gender breakdowns in voting behavior, Jewish women almost certainly went against Trump by even wider margins). With the exception of African-American voters, Jews are and have remained one of the most consistently progressive voting blocs in American politics -- voting Democratic at rates equal to or better than women, Latinos, and Asian-Americans. I'm not saying that a Hillary Clinton voter can't be racist, of course. But if voting against Trump is one obligation (perhaps the bare minimum obligation) that any decent person must meet in order to not "uphold White supremacy", then it is fair to say Jews have by and large done our job discharging at least that one duty. That part of our garden looks pretty healthy, all told. So it is fair for White Jews to bristle a little bit when they're lumped in with a broader White demographic which has backed Trump. At least as far as voting behavior, "White Jewish" identity has not, by and large, obstructed White Jews from standing against the avatars of White supremacy. And speaking of tilling your own garden, one common feature of Whiteness discourse is the assertion that White people have a particular obligation to challenge and dismantle racist practices by other Whites. This obligation inheres in part because Whites, as beneficiaries of these practices, have special duties to disgorge any ill-gotten gains, but also because in White supremacist system Whites often are accorded greater power, influence, and credibility enabling them to more effectively disrupt White supremacist practices. Claims or arguments that are made and ignored when raised by people of color are often able to gain consideration when raised by Whites (for example, if you read the arguments in my last post and thought "finally, someone making sense" -- without recognizing that my analysis wasn't really that different from how many Jews of Color had responded to Mallory (see, e.g.) -- (a) thanks for the compliment, and (b) welcome to the problem! So it could be said that White Jews, as Whites, have heightened obligations to publicly challenge and confront White racism, because (for better or worse) we're viewed as "insiders" with greater credibility and pull than non-Whites when making those challenges. But is that actually true of White Jews? I'm skeptical. And, perhaps oddly, my skepticism has been most clearly crystallized through observing the Twitter experience of Sophie Ellman-Golan. Among the many social justice campaigns and priorities of the indefatigable Ellman-Golan, one in particular she often promotes is that need to #ConfrontWhiteWomanhood. It is, as one might expect, a campaign centered around the need for White women to take stock of the ways in which their practices reify White supremacy and other oppressive institutions. And pretty much every time Ellman-Golan tweets under the hashtag #ConfrontWhiteWomahood, she's immediately hit with a torrent of antisemitic abuse of the form "who you calling White, Jew?" It seems (and not just from Ellman-Golan's case) that White Jews who try to confront other White people about racism "from the inside" ... pretty quickly cease to be viewed as insiders. We are in fact presented as the epitome of outside agitators, rabble-rousers, and elitist corrupters. The White Jew who confronts White racism becomes a lot less White, and a lot more Jewish, very quickly. To be sure, I'm not saying its impossible to brush aside an "insider" anti-racism critique made by a White Christian American. But it sure is easier to do it if you can unleash a whole flotilla of "Soros-funded coastal elitist cosmopolitan cultural Marxist corrupting the youth committing White genocide and what about Israel!" antisemitic tropes at the drop of a hat. As it a result, Jews seem particularly poorly situated to engage in these sort of confrontations. Not just because we're at heightened risk of explicitly violent retaliation (though there is that), but because our White-insider status doesn't extend that far: Jews who challenge Whites, aren't recognized as White. Consequently, if White Jews are not or are not successfully "confronting Whiteness", it might not be because we're indifferent to the project or half-assing it. It might be because even White Jews don't have full access to certain features of Whiteness; we are not White in the same way that other Whites are. And while I don't have direct evidence to support this, my strong suspicion is that if and when White identity becomes a more explicitly marked and salient feature of American discourse (whether via progressive efforts to remove it from an unmarked default and "confront" it, or by reactionary programs to reinvigorate avowed White identity politics), the perception of Jewish Whiteness will become considerably more tenuous. In sum: clearly it is the case that White Jews in America are White in important respects -- including benefiting from many elements of White privilege and at least sometimes acting to maintain and buttress that advantaged status. At the same time, the frame of Whiteness is not one that can be plopped down on the heads of even White Jews uncritically or without alteration. For one, Whiteness discourse often genuinely does erase important facets of Jewish experience where we aren't deemed White. For two, Whiteness discourse, as applied to Jews, can act as an accelerant for antisemitic tropes insofar as Jews are cast not just as White but as hyper-White -- the epitome or apex of Whiteness via privilege, power, and domination. Finally, White Jews simply do not experience Whiteness in the same way as do other Whites. If race is, in Sara Ahmed's words, "a question of what is within reach, what is available to perceive and to do ‘things’ with", then Jews simply are able to "do" less with Whiteness. We don't have the same capacities to "challenge from the inside", our position as White is too precarious -- and the allure of antisemitic dismissal too powerful -- to allow it. What's necessary, then, is an analysis of White Jews as a specific case, one that isn't fully known even to those who are well-versed in the contours of "Whiteness" generally. A proper situating of Jews into Whiteness will not deny obvious realities about the racial positioning of Jews who look like me in America. But neither will it easily slide into the default modes of understanding of Whiteness, or assume that Jews like me are "simply" White save for a few piercing but ultimately idiosyncratic exceptions emanating from White supremacists. The fact is, a lot of people like to talk about Jews without really knowing about Jews. And they're often buttressed by interpretive frames -- Whiteness very much included -- which purport to fill in those epistemic gaps for "free", without needing any specific knowledge about Jews. But knowing Whiteness doesn't mean you know Jews -- even White Jews. And consequently, if the hostile response by many Jews to being labeled "White" rings familiar to many experts on Whiteness, that familiarity is likely a deception. It seduces us into thinking that we already know what needs to be known about White Jews -- that we can draw on the same explanations, that we can identify the same behaviors, and that we can demand the same duties, without putting in any additional specific work. The virtue of Mallory's statement is that it recognizes both that Jews can back and benefit from White supremacy and also be targeted and hurt by it -- an assertion that, in broad strokes at least, is clearly correct. Zoom in and there is a lot more work that needs to be done: first and foremost, the work of recognizing that there is a lot of work left to be done -- groundwork, foundational work where it accepted that most of us do not yet know what we need to know about the contours of antisemitism and Jewish experience. If you enjoyed these two posts, you might find interesting my essay "White Jews: An Intersectional Approach", forthcoming in the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) Review. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2TbfocI

[maxg-longform]

Outer Wilds

A new frontier for the interactive experience

Moments in gaming which are truly ground-breaking are rare, and they are only getting rarer. A dual axiom of diminishing technological returns achieved by the jumps between console generations and the rampant predatory monetisation of the games as a service modal have had many despairing and looking to games that denounce photorealism and market trends for inspiration , in much the same way those in the art world despaired at the first cameras. As they could no longer make art more detailed technically, meaning and artistry moved from technique to statement. Why is it not photorealistic? The question posed today is the same. You could make a game that is an accurate reflection of life – or a biased reflection of a certain kind of life (Military-industrial complex funded shooters I’m looking at you) – so why have you chosen to instead create something with a particular art style? What is the combination of your narrative and design choices trying to say? 

In the case of Far Cry 5, when particular attention is paid to the fact that the cultists are under the influence of drugs for the game’s entirety in addition to Obsidian’s claims that their new game concerning corporate exploitation of space colonies is written apolitically with empathetic and ‘good’ characters on both sides, the aim is all too often to actively stop you from drawing any meaningful conclusion at all, or at the very least to give the impression that there is nothing to draw.

What is the aim of this spiel then? In reality, you don’t need context to enjoy Outer Wilds, but only within the nexus of the modern games industry can you see why I’ve grown to love it so much. It also lets me talk about the game in more abstract terms without spoiling it – as it is very hard not to spoil it in talking about it, as knowledge is the only progression system within the game. The game itself, mechanically, is very stripped back. You have a spaceship to explore the solar system with, a spacesuit with thrusters for exploring each of the planets you can land on, and a translation device, which allows you to understand the language of an ancient alien race which inhabited the solar system many years prior. The story orients you as the first of your race to explore the stars with this new translation device. Explorers has previously visited each planet in the solar system, but contact with them has been lost, and they cannot translate the language there. Your objective, insofar as you are given one, is to find them and learn about the ancient aliens. In an age where open-world games have quest markers and some, such as Skyrim, have a spell which paints a trail on the ground in the direction of the next objective, the handhold-free nature of Outer Wilds is charming and arresting.

Whenever you discover anything important, it is stored in your ship’s log at the back of your small spaceship. In a way, it reminded me of Morrowind, one of Skyrim’s forebears, with the journal giving hints as to where you ought to look, but no real help beyond collating what you already know so that you can easily reference it in future. You are free to explore any of the planets at any point, and follow any lines of inquiry you see fit. In a lesser game, this would lead to a disjointed narrative experienced so out of order that it would give Tarantino a headache. However, this leads me into talking about the level design. I could not laud any higher the way in which the planets are designed. Every planet has a dynamic twist to it you need to learn in order to be able to understand how to access information on it and each planet has areas that require you to piece together learnings from around the solar system in order to access. In every sense, the game rewards exploration and understanding as a means of progress, rather than giving you new tools and telling you how to use them. This is evident in each of the planet designs – which I will briefly explain in the order I visited them (there is no ‘proper’ order).

 Giant’s Deep 

 A swirling, green water planet with four islands, which are continually tossed around by an endless stream of cyclones which make the planet hard to navigate. The pole is protected by a ferociously large cyclone and a strong current prevents underwater exploration of a porous, but fiercely electromagnetic core. The sheer size and oppressive atmosphere is compounded by the strong gravity making it almost impossible to jump, incentivising careful exploration.

 Brittle Hollow

A hollow planet built around a black hole and beset by fiery meteors from its volcanic moon. With an inhospitable surface, much of the challenge comes from discovering how others adapted to these conditions previously, and how to use the gravity of the black hole to navigate a planet that slowly falls apart and disintegrates as the game goes on due to the constant meteor bombardment.

 The Wanderer

A frozen comet with an elliptical orbit that takes it within a lethal range of the sun, and covered in mysterious ‘ghost matter.’

 The Hourglass Twins

Two planets orbiting each other as they orbit the sun. One starts as a bare rock with many caves to explore; the other as a perfectly round desert planet, with absolutely zero to explore. Then, a large column of sand starts flowing through space from the desert planet ‘Ash Twin’ to the bare one, ‘Ember Twin.’ This means areas of each planet are only accessible at certain times, and you need to beware of the sand level when exploring caves.

 Dark Bramble

A planet consisting purely of thorny branches wrapped around a core that pulses with white light. Enter the hole, and caverns that bend the laws of space and time fill massive areas within. A Tardis of horrors, this planet scared me like no jump scares could. A truly eerie vibe – a memorable and haunting level unlike anything I’d ever played before.

 While every one of these planets is in its own way unique and memorable, as are the moments when you discover how to access parts of them you couldn’t before – the best example of the game’s genius comes in the form of a location known as the Quantum moon. Before you go to this location, there are three pieces of key knowledge you need. Without them, you shouldn’t even be able to land on it. Nevertheless, I accidentally managed to land on it early in the game. However, because I hadn’t yet solved how to get into the tower of Quantum knowledge on Brittle Hollow, I didn’t understand how to access where I wanted to go. The moon has a secretive ‘Sixth Location’ you wish to explore, but every time I tried to leave the control room, the way was blocked by rocks until the moon moved back to one of the five locations in our solar system. It wasn’t until a few hours later, when I was following a different lead on another planet that I figured out how to avoid the rocks, and also where I needed to go once I had made it out.

The game is filled with eureka moments, and the lack of handholding makes you feel like you have genuinely accomplished something when you solve a puzzle. For example, I discovered a much quicker shortcut to a key area called the Black Hole Forge. The game doesn’t penalise you for this; much of the beauty of the game comes in the journey. Translating the alien scriptures in each area contains hints as to the overarching story – which I won’t in any way spoil, except that it is moving, inspiring and heart-breaking in equal measure – but also contains deeply personal stories about the people who made these structures, these homes, these technologies. The tension among the clan as they tried debated their plans to achieve what they came to our solar system for. The romance and feeling amongst those who worked on their projects. The jubilation of breakthroughs and the let-downs of defeat. The struggle for life and the joys of overcoming the hostile worlds of the system. The heart-wrenching story of the Quantum moon. All pieced together in bitesize chunks, out of sequence, displaced. Abstractions anthropomorphised because we don’t know enough about them to truly contextualise them. You never even find out what these aliens looked like. But you discover their hopes, their aims, their dreams and their death – as you, the traveller from an antique land, stare at the vast and trunkless legs of stone.

Rather purposefully, I have been abstract in my descriptions and generalised the experience. In a game where knowledge is the means of progression, and real detail would be a spoiler, and its best to come into this game blind. So, I’ve chosen to focus on the feeling the game instils in you. It has a charming art direction, understated yet distinctive music that complements every area perfectly and a real warmth and passion that oozes from every pixel. In a world where every new innovation is immediately copied and run into the ground by every game in the same genre – the camp clearing from Far Cry 3 is now a chore in every vaguely open world game- or climbing the conveniently placed towers to gain map vision a la Assassin’s Creed – or that very same game series doing its very best Witcher 3 impression in Origins and Odyssey – there is an incorruptible heart to Outer Wilds. There will be games inspired by it, no doubt, but there won’t be other games that weaponise knowledge in quite the same way, or use it to explore the same themes. It’s a game about futility, about facing death but choosing to explore and challenge yourself and improve and, most importantly, to enjoy the little things and cherish the detail, to find pieces of light in that endless, futile dark.  

Games like this have always been few and far between, and are becoming even rarer now. That’s why it’s essential we cherish games like Outer Wilds. There is no formula for creating a masterpiece but when a game really connects with you, you know it, you feel it. My list of favourite games I’d consider a masterpiece is quite incongruent – SSX 3, Tony Hawk’s Underground, Assassins Creed 2, Halo 4 to pick out a few of the rather different ones –  but Outer Wilds has topped all of them, and I only spent around 12 hours with it. It strips gaming back to its essentials, while bringing new ideas to the table and presenting them in charming and arresting ways. You will never have another 12 hours like it. Its heart, soul and message are inimitable, and I sincerely urge you to open up to it and give it a try.

10/10

Played on Xbox - the game is available through Xbox Game Pass

@CoreLineage on twitter

[writingesgaypism]

Leave the Light On, Pt. 1

Part 1: this is it!

Part 2: here

It was decided that Jackie and Finley were both far too functional. So naturally I took it upon myself to try and break them both. Alas, they are Very Powerful and I am Not. So now I have 4.5k words and growing and I still haven’t managed anything more than shaking them a bit. Unbelievable.

It isn’t often either of them have the opportunity to go out. Finley, with their work, and Jackie, with their reluctance to do anything that might distract them from their goal.

They watch Jackie out of the corner of their eye as they drive their beat-up old car to a bar you might say they frequented if ‘frequent’ were a word either of them could use to describe their free time. A person of Finley’s height couldn’t fit comfortably in Jackie’s car, and even the tiny frown that tugs at their mouth at the thought of Jackie’s ex isn’t enough to distract them fully from the way their knees jut up around their chest.

Jackie always looks a little terse when they drive. They’ve never seen them drive another car, but they strongly suspect that it has more to do with either the vehicle or the streets than driving itself that pulls tight the lines around their mouth.

Other than that, they don’t look so bad. Tired, as always, but not quite as bad as it used to be. Their hair is fluffy and dark, and getting a little long - long enough that they’ll probably get it cut soon. Long enough that sometimes it falls in their face, but not long enough that pushing it back does much. Jackie will bat at it in annoyance every so often when they’re trying to concentrate only to have it fall right back in place a moment later. They know it won’t make any difference, but Finley wants to reach over and push it back themself sometimes. It’s more the desire to touch their hair, which always looks so soft, and the objectively more dangerous desire to be close enough to do so that drives this impulse rather than the belief that their efforts would be more successful.

It’s selfish. And foolish. Jackie isn’t over their ex.

Their villainous ex.

Jackie pulls into a lucky curbside parking spot nearby their destination with a little triumphant noise and casts a sly glance Finley’s way. “Do I look appropriately relaxed, Finn?”

At some point, their little sideways glance had turned into more obvious observation. Of course Jackie picked up on it. They offer a bland smile.

“As relaxed as you ever are, Jackie.”

They laugh, though it’s more of a forceful exhale accompanied by a smile. “You’re one to talk.”

Jackie leans back against the headrest with a sigh for just a moment before pulling the keys out of the ignition. Finley takes this as a sign to undo their seatbelt and step out of the car. Unfolding to their full height is always a bit of a process after a ride in Jackie’s car, but they’re ready to go by the time Jackie circles around and joins them on the sidewalk.

“Getting old?” they ask innocently.

“You know,” they say, “one of these days I’m going to dock your pay for this.”

Jackie laughs, closer to a real one this time, and bumps lightly into their side as they walk towards the bar. “I’m caught between protesting you would never, since I’m clearly your favorite reporter, and pointing out that my pay is low enough that I’m not certain you can legally deduct any more.”

Finley holds open the door. “Keep pushing your luck and we’ll test both those theories, JJ.”

The interior of the bar is dimly lit, but not oppressive. As far as cheap bars go, this one is relatively reliable. The owners don’t tolerate too much roughhousing, the whiskey is okay most days, and it never gets so crowded that Jackie wants to leave early.

“I’m calling your bluff,” Jackie insists. “At the very least, you’d miss me.”

“I thought we were talking about pay, not job loss.”

They hum as they take a seat in a sheltered booth. “If I die because I can only afford either my apartment or my groceries, then you won’t need to fire me to get rid of me.”

Finley slides in across from them, eyeing them. They’re joking, of course, but it’s times like these when they want to offer… something. Money, or the couch at their place. They don’t. They know Jackie wouldn’t accept it.

Jackie props their chin on one fist and smiles at them lazily.

They find themself smiling back reflexively, and, huffing a little laugh, they offer to get the first round.

Another note on Jackie: in all the time Finley’s known them, they’ve never truly gotten drunk. Not even when it’s Finley’s turn to be the designated driver. They don’t think it’s because they don’t trust Finley enough to be drunk around them, and it can’t be that they’re worried about being drunk in front of their boss. Certainly they’ve done other things that an employee should feel nervous doing around their boss with no sign of remorse.

From where they lean against the bar, waiting for the glasses of whiskey and water they’d ordered to start, they can’t see Jackie. They’re sitting on the side of the booth facing away from the bar, but Finley could make a fairly accurate guess as to their posture.

It’s not that Jackie’s predictable, exactly, but they like control. You won’t catch them letting a stranger at a bar read anything in their body language that they don’t want noticed. That same preference for control is likely why they don’t like getting drunk, and it’s also probably why their determination to investigate their ex-husband’s villainy hasn’t diminished in four years.

“Water for the responsible driver,” they announce when they return, setting down a coaster and a glass in front of them.

Jackie traces a thumb through the condensation already gathering on the glass. “Thanks.”

They narrow their eyes at the person sitting across from them. “That’s quite the drop in liveliness.”

With a sardonic little smile, Jackie flips open their dinosaur of a phone on the table. “Four years on the dot, Finn. I remember the date I signed the papers.”

“I see.” They sip from their own glass to cover their need to gather their thoughts.

Raf, from what Jackie’s said about him, seems like he might’ve been a good man if not for what he’d done. They don’t talk about him all that often and Finley avoids bringing it up. It’s not their place, and even if it were they don’t trust themself to have an unbiased opinion. Because Jackie is clever and sharp and steadfast, and sometimes it’s hard to tell how much of their dislike of Raf is just because of the damage he’s done to Jackie and how much is due to their own continually growing affection for them.

Jackie speaks before they have a chance to think of what to say. “I miss him. He always knew how to cheer me up.”

And now he’s doing the opposite, but Finley doesn’t say that.

“You mean hanging around a bar with your boss isn’t enough to lift your spirits?”

They laugh. “You’re doing a pretty good job, Finn. I don’t mean to imply you’re not. Sometimes I just…”

“It’s all right, Jackie.”

Jackie glances out of the booth, then stares hard at their water. “If I wanted to talk about it would you be okay listening?”

No, not really. Because there are things they want to say about Raf and about themself that they shouldn’t, can’t, or won’t. Because they know Jackie doesn’t want advice or warnings. Because it hurts to listen to a person they care about talk about their inability to move past someone that hurt them. Because even though they know it will hurt they’ll say yes anyway, because it’s always going to be more important that they help out a friend than it is to coddle their own unruly emotions.

“Of course,” they say gently.

Jackie crunches an ice cube between their teeth and continues to chew on it for a few seconds before they seem ready to go on.

“I know you don’t really approve,” they say. “Can’t say that I blame you, exactly.”

“It isn’t for me to say,” Finley responds carefully. “I want you to do what’s best for you. If this is it…”

“God, Finn, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too far in to want to stop now. Maybe I’m just too stubborn to see that I’m wrong about him. But I’ve got this gut feeling that there’s something I’m missing and I feel like I can’t stop until I know what it is.”

Except that it’s more than just finding out what’s missing that drives them to do this. But this is the part they always talk around even though they both know what Jackie’s not saying.

“I’d like to think I’m not a fool,” Jackie says, one hand propping up their head and the other tapping idly on the table. “Bullheaded, maybe, but not a fool.”

“You’re dedicated,” they say. “And maybe a little bullheaded.”

Another laugh. “You always know just what to say, Mx. Burke.”

“It’s our job to know what to say.” They hesitate. “What else do you miss?”

Jackie looks up, brown eyes so dark it’s hard to differentiate the irises from the pupils made even darker in the bar’s lighting. They’re pretty eyes; eyes you can get lost in without meaning to. They make eye contact and tilt their head curiously, but after another moment their gaze darts away again and Finley lets out a breath they didn’t quite realize they were holding. Sharp. Jackie has always been so sharp.

“Trying to get me all sentimental?”

“Trying to be an active listener. Unless you’ve changed your mind?” They don’t know who they’re looking for an out for.

“No, just… Old habits die hard. I don’t talk to a lot of people these days.” They’re toying with a ring, though it’s unclear when they brought it out. “I’ve never really talked to a lot of people, but even for me… I can’t talk about it with my parents.”

“Why not?”

Jackie makes eye contact again, painfully serious with their eyebrows drawn low even as one shoulder lifts in a facsimile of nonchalance. “You’re the only one I’ve told about Harbinger.”

Finley sits back in their seat and downs the last of their whiskey. They know how Jackie feels about their parents, their mom especially. It’s… hard to believe that they’d tell their boss over their own mother, no matter how good of friends they are with said boss. It either means that Jackie trusts them more than their mom, or that Finley is a lesser risk than their mom. And even if it’s the latter, it still says something about their trust in them.

“And I can’t even give my mom an edited version,” they continue, “because she’ll know something’s wrong. So I’ve been avoiding my family for four years, and that hurts. And it hurts them, too. But this… I don’t want to talk about this. You asked what I miss about Raf?”

“If you want to talk about it.”

“Stop me if I ramble,” Jackie says with a smirk, and then proceeds to do the exact opposite. They keep spinning that ring, watching it intently, head bowed so Finley can’t get a good look at their expression. Eventually they trap the ring between their palm and the tabletop with a clatter and look up. “I miss the way he always reflexively smiled at me whenever he looked at me. Like every time he saw me it was a pleasant surprise. I miss eating with his family and watching him run interference whenever it looked like his mom was about to lay into his sister for whatever quote-unquote deviant thing she was interested in at the time. I miss… God, Finn, I just miss him. This is the first time I’ve ever really been alone.”

“You aren’t alone.” They reach out to cover the hand on the table with their own, squeezing briefly before pulling back. They don’t linger. If anything, they move too quickly, if the minute tilt to Jackie’s head speaks to anything. “I promise you that, Jackie. You’re not alone.”

Jackie only shakes their head. “I mean - I lived with my parents, then I had my roommate in college, and then I married Raf after graduation. I’ve never had to wake up to an empty home before. I appreciate the sentiment, Finn, but I just - I’ve never really felt like I didn’t have a partner to back me up. And you’re my friend, and my boss, but I could never ask you to focus on me the way others used to.” They snort. “And I certainly won’t ask you to move into my shithole apartment.”

You could, Finley thinks. I would let you. I’d offer, myself.

“I see,” they say instead. “You know, I like you, JJ, but I wouldn’t particularly want to move into your shithole apartment either.”

This, at least, it true.

Jackie tips their head back against the booth, smiling in a vague sort of way. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing, or that I don’t appreciate it.” Head tilted back as it is, they have to look at Finley down their nose. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate you, in general.”

They smile back, equally vague, and stand. “I’ll get the next round.”

Jackie raises an eyebrow. “You got the last one.”

“I’m already standing,” Finley says with a shrug. “You can get the next one.”

They wave them off with a flick of their wrist and an eye-roll, and Finley makes their way back to the bartender.

There are times when the urge to say something they shouldn’t gets so strong they have to take a step back. Take a few big, physical steps back, get more drinks, and remind themself that Jackie doesn’t need their boss to tell them how to deal with their divorce. Nor do they need their boss’s futile crush.

When they return to the booth, the ring is gone again and Jackie looks up at their approach.

“Hey, Finley,” they say, accepting their second glass of water with a quick if lackluster smile, “after this round, could I invite myself over to your place? I need to just - I need -”

“My only objection to that is having to get back in your clown car, but that would’ve happened regardless. Are you…?”

“I will be. Thanks. And I’ll pay you back for this round, since we’re not staying for another.”

They’d argue, but Jackie’s going to want to feel like they didn’t make Finley do everything tonight, so they just nod. Nod and watch. Jackie is distant as they drink the water, never really looking at anything, eyes focused on something faraway. This is enough to tell them what Jackie was trying to say they needed. What they need is a private place to pull themself back together because something about today being the anniversary of their divorce is enough to shake someone who’s normally unshakeable. Or maybe there’s more to it than that, but if there is it isn’t Finley’s business unless Jackie sees fit to share.

They’re done and tapping their finger against their glass when Finley finishes their whiskey, though they wait for Finley to tilt their chin towards the door before standing.

“Thank you,” they say again, quietly, when they slip behind the wheel.

Finley almost doesn’t hear them, so occupied are they in contorting their long limbs into the car’s tiny interior. By the time they manage to get in, Jackie’s wrists are draped over the steering wheel as they look on with an odd, soft smile.

They blink and take a quiet breath. “Of course.”

[icyxmischief]

What movie do you like/dislike more: Thor Ragnarok or Avengers Infinity War?

//My short answer is I hate them BOTH, lol, but for different reasons.

My long answer: 

Agh so.  This is difficult to answer because the problems inherent to the two movies are very different, making it hard to compare and contrast them objectively; and because the entire Thor franchise is probably the weakest of the MCU, so basically all the Thor movies are Not Super Great (though I was actually quite fond of Thor 1 and Thor: The Dark World, because they kept Loki’s characterization intact, and that is how I measure/rate these movies for my own personal gratification). 

I think, despite all of Ragnarok’s critical acclaim, and all of Infinity War’s panning, I still was upset more by Ragnarok.  This is because, while as an academician and leftist I believe that satire and farce are powerful tools of social discourse, and Ragnarok was very much a critical self-farce, I think Taika Waititi  overdosed the audience on it.  It wasn’t WHAT he did so much as HOW MUCH he did it.  He did something that–even though they killed him off with an inexplicably weak plan of attack in the first ten minutes of the movie–the Russos did NOT do.  And that was to make Loki a weaker character in order to exalt Thor.  

Nothing. NOTHING. Makes me angrier as a writer than that cheap tactic. If a protagonist is already strong and well-rounded, then there is no need to diminish another character beside him.     

Moreover, I felt as if Waititi was making fun of the audience for Loki’s popularity as a character, beginning with the play he put on and how it, and other scenes, reduced the subject of –a nervous breakdown –a suicide attempt –internalized racism and Otherness ( “my blue baby,” that was…gross)–legitimate PTSD from being in the custody of Thanos (I have PTSD so this really felt shitty to me on a personal level) –and legitimate incidents of parental gaslighting and emotional abuseto a JOKE.  

“We really shouldn’t be concerned about Thor and Loki’s problems,” Waititi himself said in an interview.  Really.  REALLY? You REALLY just see them as entitled rich white boys who are being whiny?  When Loki in particular is queer and racially Other. REALLY.   I walked out of the movie theater feeling ASHAMED of my love for Loki, of this blog, of all my meta deconstructing him as a symbol of real socio-ethnic and cultural oppression.  And I don’t think that’s cool.  Media makers in a given fandom should inspire the audience to engage with the content MORE, not LESS. 

The Russos gave Loki his moment of choice, his moral threshold, his ultimate test, and while it was brief, nothing has defined Loki more than what sort of person he chooses to be vis-a-vis Thor. So somehow, that read to me as more respectful of Loki as a character. In other words, even though they broke my heart, and even though the rest of Infinity War is a convoluted, boring dumpster fire, Loki was allowed TO BE LOKI AT LOKI’S BEST.  Loki thrown away in a hasty death for the sake of Thor’s manpain, which I ALSO HATE, particularly given it’s also done to manipulate the audience’s emotions……but it still afforded the Odinson brothers what Ragnarok did not:

Dignity. 

So basically in short, Ragnarok was a better OVERALL movie, but Loki’s screentime in Infinity War was truer to the character, as well as to Thor’s (even though his death seemed beneath his own powers and capacity for cunning).  

As bizarre as it sounds, since he DIED in Infinity War, I feel like the Russos showed Loki more respect than Waititi did. And it’s all because Waititi (and Chris Hemsworth too) was myopic about making Thor and only Thor look valorous (making Thor, btw, ironically, just as ooc as Loki).  Even though Thor granted Loki the chance to trigger Surtur, in a display of “trust,” it was after Thor framed anything Loki did, like a narcissist and a bully would, on his own terms and conditions, and boy did that sour my stomach (you know something is wrong with the structure of the narrative when Thor tells Loki “I thought the world of you” and you’re as surprised as Loki is). 

In fact, that’s another reason why I prefer Infinity War to Ragnarok: how THOR is written. 

Ragnarok regressed Thor to the entitled bully he had been before his exile to earth, and it diminished Loki to the state of Thor’s submissive sidekick, or comic relief, in the process.  Infinity War, despite going far too grimdark, and being dreadfully poorly executed, and trying to make us feel sorry for Thanos, who is the least sympathetic abusive asshole to ever exist, at least gave Thor and Loki their dignity.   There was a smidgeon of an acknowledgment that certain things are beyond being made into jokes.  

Because honestly? Jokes are powerful. Humor is powerful. It’s a weapon.  It should be wielded wisely. Just because something is “funny” doesn’t reduce its capacity to do real damage. Taika Waititi is a great filmmaker and I believe he’s a good person too. But he hasn’t learned this lesson, and he shows no interest in doing so. 

[ericdeggans]

Why I Think Bill Maher Should Lose His Job at HBO

Here’s why I think Bill Maher should lose his job at HBO: for making me have to endure yet another discussion/fight/consciousness-raising session on social media about why white celebrities should never use the n-word in public.

I didn’t even know what Maher had done until I got an email from a producer at Canadian Television asking me to go on camera and comment. When I realized it was an offhand joke on his HBO show Real Time where he referred to himself as a “house nigga,” I got even angrier. (he has since apologized in a statement.)

It should go without saying that nigger is a complex word. On the one hand, it’s a symbol of hundreds of years of dehumanization and oppression visited by a white-dominated country on those of us, as Curtis Mayfield once described, “who are darker than blue.”

On the other hand, there are a lot of black folks who have found a wide variety of uses for the term. In the same way we turned collard greens and pig intestines into cultural culinary staples, we have redefined the n-word for our own purposes. It can be a term of endearment, dismissal, accusation or acceptance, depending how it’s used.

(Below and throughout this piece are some of the tweets sent to me during my conversation on Twitter about this controversy.)

This isn’t about a TV host using a vulgarity. It’s about the ideas behind the word. And for those who claim its power can be diminished by saying it more often, I disagree. I don’t think you can overcome all of the word’s history, hidden meaning, stereotyping and psychology just by saying nigger more often. Though it’s easy to fool yourself on that score.

The simple fact is, black folks are still working out how we feel about our use of this word, and I doubt we’ll ever be settled on it. Richard Pryor rejected it onstage nearly 40 years ago; Dave Chappelle used it in his standup specials less than three months ago.

You can argue that using it internalizes degradation – which is kind of my view – but we also have a long history of rebellion through action that’s also damaging (see gangsta rap). Potato, potahto.

But, because it’s also used by very cool cultural figures like Chappelle and Chris Rock and a great many rappers, there is always the temptation by white people trying to be cool – which is the definition of a great many celebrities – to sling the word.

When I wrote about comic Lisa Lampanelli calling Girls creator Lena Dunham “my nigga” in a tweet four years ago, I noted the difference between members of a marginalized group using a slur about their group and people outside the group using it.

Jon Stewart can crack jokes about Jewish culture that non-Jewish people couldn’t risk without looking anti-Semitic. Female comics talk about women, gay comics talk about gay life and Latin comics talk about Hispanic culture in ways people outside that group will find problematic.

But this isn’t just about a slip of the tongue. Lampanelli has an act that she pretends is about breaking down political correctness, but too often seems like an excuse to sling a bunch of racist jokes the audience wouldn’t tolerate if she didn’t act as if it was about something more meaningful (a sample that I quoted in my column: “What do you call a black woman who has had seven abortions? A crime fighter.”)

And that’s where Bill Maher comes up short. He has used the word nigger before on TV, during an interview on Larry King Live to accuse conservative politician Newt Gingrich of using code words to refer to Barack Obama that were a stand-in for the slur.

But beyond that, Maher has talked about race, the Muslim faith, women and transgender issues in ways that make me and many other critics cringe. In particular, he’s alluded to a vision of authentic blackness which doesn’t include more assimilated or polished brothers like Barack Obama and Wayne Brady. 

For example, on CNN, he told Fareed Zakaria: “I thought, when we elected the first black president...as a comedian, I thought two years in, I’d be making jokes about what a gangsta he was, you know? Not (joking) that he’s President Wayne Brady. I thought we were getting Suge Knight.”

Maher might have been the only person in America who expected Obama to act more like a rap impresario known for his brutality and ties to street gangs. 

So this slip of the tongue, just like in Lampanelli’s case, is no mere mistake or ham handed attempt at cultural appropriation. It’s evidence of a pattern – one that HBO now needs to decide whether it wants to continue to be associated with, especially for a channel where 22 percent of its viewership comes from black people.

And, to answer all of the oddballs who came out of the woodwork to engage me in this debate on social media, this controversy – and others like it – is not about avoiding hurt feelings or insult. Images, archetypes and attitudes about people of color that are transmitted through media can affect how America’s white-dominated society handles a myriad of issues affecting people of color – from drug sentencing to policing issues to education funding and much more.

So it is very serious business when it comes to the question of who “gets” to use the most incendiary racial slur in America’s history on television or elsewhere in mass media. And it certainly shouldn’t be someone who isn’t black who views the issue so cavalierly, he would toss it in an offhand joke that also references slavery.

I gave a speech on racial issues to a group in Austin, Texas Saturday, and I told them that one of the greatest achievements of the civil rights movement is that it has made the open expression of naked racism socially unacceptable in mainstream American society. (Want proof? Consider how many people who clearly believe white racial culture is superior, still bristle at being called a racist.)

I still believe that is true. But I also believe it only stays that way by continued effort and self-examination.

And by calling out clueless celebrities when they forget the hundreds of years of oppression leveraged by the word nigger, every time they utter it in a public space.

[iamshadow21]

Questions and Answers: a conversation about privilege, fandom, representation, and boundaries

[talabib]

Leadership Journey: Morgan Jerkins

Most of us want to contribute to building a better society for all, but we’re often not sure where to start. In an increasingly multifaceted world, it can be difficult to navigate the varied perspectives on what needs to be done in order to support marginalized communities.

One such community is that of black women in the United States – but in order to help them, you first need to understand the context and historical background that gave rise to their marginalization in the first place.

This is where Morgan Jerkins steps in. Drawing upon her own experiences growing up and living in contemporary America as a black female, Jerkins identifies why black women face hardship, while highlighting the areas that must be addressed to improve their position in society.

Whether you’re a white female, a man or even a black woman yourself, everyone has a role to play in creating a society that is fair and just for all – including for black women.

When Jerkins was a young girl, she wanted to cast aside her blackness and assimilate into white culture.

This is a common desire among young black girls wanting to make it in a white-dominated world. They understand that their blackness is a threat and that in order to be nonthreatening and succeed in the world, it should be toned down.

Therefore, during her teenage years, Jerkins didn’t leave her hair in its natural state and wore jewelry and clothes that were status symbols of whiteness – such as items from Gap and Limited Too – and sought to avoid black classmates who shunned white culture.

During this time, Jerkins learned when it was advantageous to use her racial heritage and when to adapt to the rules of whiteness. She soon realized that, in most cases, white culture always won because many people don’t see black culture as a viable option. Why is this so?

Remarkably, the answer is that some white people see the labels “human” and “black woman” as mutually exclusive.

Once, a white man asked Jerkins why she didn’t just define herself as a human instead of as a black woman – a label that many white people stereotype negatively. Her reply was that she is both; however, the man said that she didn’t assume the role of a black woman. Why?

Because Jerkins was well-spoken, went to Princeton and worked in publishing – all qualities that didn’t fit with the man’s perception of a black woman, the man didn’t see her as a “typical” black woman. Moreover, Jerkins sometimes adjusts her mannerisms to fall more in line with white culture; she minimizes gestures, avoids sucking her teeth and doesn’t talk as loudly.

Blackness is denied when black women don’t conform to the stereotype of “sassy black woman.” This stereotype reinforces the perception that black people aren’t as educated or worthy as white people, and if a black woman doesn’t fit this description, then she isn’t black but rather white – and thus human. And so, by this logic, it is impossible to be both black and human.

Unfortunately, acknowledging a black person as though she or he were white is still considered a compliment.

“Color-blindness” is a myth that doesn’t help people of color.

Many white people think that not being able to distinguish between skin colors is a progressive stance. It’s not.

Being blind to black skin is the same as being blind to black history and everything that being black represents. The daily experiences of people of color aren’t the same as those of white people; a lot of liberal white people claim that they don’t see skin colors because they think identifying someone as black is somehow equivalent to being racist.

However, racism only exists when a negative judgment is made due to the color of a person’s skin.

The problem with ignoring a person’s blackness is that the societal challenges they face, including real systemic racism, are also ignored as a result. Furthermore, the rich cultural history of black people – including all the good things that contribute to their uniqueness – is also disregarded.

Those who claim to be color-blind hold a “universal” standard that is actually a white perspective. The “universal” standard is, in fact, the perspective of white North Americans and Europeans, which white people inaccurately present as inclusive of everyone.

It’s easy for a white person to claim they don’t see color when referring to a black person who has become successful in a white environment. That’s because the black person possibly took on white characteristics in order to assimilate into the dominant culture.

So, when black people aren’t regarded as black because of the claim that color doesn’t exist, it actually means that they have successfully camouflaged themselves as white.

The bottom line is that white people don’t have the right to determine whether someone identifies as black or not.

White people fetishize black women’s bodies.

Historically, black women’s bodies were put on display so that people could openly gawk at them. For example, in the early 1800s in South Africa, Hottentot Venus, a black woman with an extraordinarily big bottom, was turned into a freak show by Dutch colonists.

Though this kind of distasteful display doesn’t happen as obviously now, the mentalities underpinning such acts are still present.

Using black women for entertainment purposes is made possible by dehumanizing them, a process that has been happening for centuries. Black women were once slaves, which meant that their bodies were the property of their white owners. Back in those times, they were raped by their owners, and in more modern times, they’ve become overly sexualized by the media.

The notion of black women as sexual creatures rather than people has been embedded in society for hundreds of years. Black girls are taught that they shouldn’t embrace their sexuality because it will be used against them – but this teaching restricts their self-discovery.

Even if it’s intended as a compliment, fetishizing a black woman robs her of her agency. For instance, asking a black woman if you can feel her hair treats her as though she were an animal or object that exists only for your enjoyment.

Whether the white person wants to touch the hair because it’s beautiful is beside the point; it’s stepping beyond the boundary of personal space, an act white people hardly have to defend against. Similar acts of touching or petting are also used with animals as a way to express or exert power.

There’s a lot of culture in black hair, and trivializing it as something nice to touch disregards its cultural significance. Natural black hair or black hairstyles, such as twists and braids, are considered bold by white standards. Having your hair natural has become a political sign of nonconformity to mainstream, white culture. Thus, a white person attempting to turn that political statement into something trivial is an offensive and degrading act.

Mainstream feminism usually belittles, negates or doesn’t take into account the experiences of black women.

The 2014 film Girlhood, is about a young, black French girl and was directed by a white woman, who said that the movie doesn’t feature the experiences of a young black girl but instead the experiences of a young girl in general. This, however, is an inaccurate claim, and it serves as an example of color-blindness negating real experiences.

Having black women’s stories told by white women can often be oppressing and belittling.

With Girlhood, generalizing a young black girl’s experience to that of any young girl is inaccurate because it dismisses the very different experiences of black girls compared to white girls. Above all, it ignores the fact that black girls are often sexualized or stigmatized in a way white girls aren’t.

For instance, in coming-of-age TV dramas, the white girls usually experiment with drugs in a manner that is portrayed as challenging the constraints of society. Black girls experimenting with drugs, on the other hand, may well become addicts.

Generally, there are fewer representations of a black girl’s potential role in society, whether seen in the minority of black Barbie dolls or the lack of shows and movies in which the main character is a black female university student.

What women can do to change this lack of representation is to try to understand it, but at the same time come to terms with the fact that they will never be able to fully empathize. This doesn’t mean that white women can’t talk about black women; however, they must do so reflexively and realize that there’s much of the black female experience that they will never truly grasp.

Ultimately, feminism cannot be successful if it doesn’t accept the discrepancies between women of different ethnicities.

Black womanhood is complex and has been appropriated by white women.

Black womanhood is not homogenous. However, it is usually perceived that way by people threatened by its complexity and multitude of power.

Black women are limited by stereotypes forced upon them either by white people or their own community.

One stereotype is that they’re expected to be able to handle a lot of suffering and not succumb to the pain or pressure, just like their ancestors did. Signs of vulnerability are prohibited because they are already at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Black women perpetuate this stereotype further as a means of protecting themselves and their daughters in a world where they’re already vulnerable. This kind of teaching can prevent black girls from growing up into proud black women who are able to freely express their emotions. Furthermore, it can deny their ability to reject a burden they don’t deserve to carry.

While black womanhood has both negative and positive connotations attached to it, the positive ones only emerge once they have been appropriated by white culture.

The stereotype of black women as sexualized beings is limiting and diminishes these women’s existence as intelligent humans who have control over their own bodies.

Meanwhile, dance moves that originate from black culture, such as twerking, are appropriated by white women. The irony is that white women performing black moves are celebrated, while black women celebrating their culture tend to be frowned upon.

A case in point is the aforementioned twerk, which Miley Cyrus took and profited from. On the other hand, Nicki Minaj is deemed a bad example for doing the exact same dance move.

Another example is black hairstyles. While Kylie Jenner received praise for her cornrows, many black girls and women can’t have their hair this way at school or work because it’s seen as distracting – or, in other words, threatening.

Successful black women need to help other black women.

As we’ve established, the modern world isn’t so accommodating to black women and their efforts toward success.

But just because it’s difficult, doesn’t mean women shouldn’t try to help; rather than being a threat to a woman’s success, elevating fellow black women can be strengthening.

Many black people believe in the crabs-in-a-barrel theory, which likens members of the black community to crabs trying to escape their confines. Once they’re out, they’re advised not to look back and try to pull another crab up in case they get dragged back down.

It’s a mentality of self-preservation that black people – especially black women – learn as a result of the lack of opportunities available for them. The mentality goes like this: if one black woman helps another black woman out of the barrel, it could result in her spot being taken, leaving her to fall back down.

But by working with and helping one another, the constricting barrel can be eradicated altogether.The success of one black woman means success for all black women.

It’s not surprising to find that there’s a strong connection between members of the African-American community, even between those who have never met. Often, this bond originates from a shared sadness, but we must try and extend it to encapsulate joy as well.

When a black son is unlawfully killed by the police, the entire community weeps as if he was biologically their own. Underpinning this shared sadness is the possibility that next time it really could be a member of one’s own family.

Similarly, a black girl making it in a world run by the white patriarchy should be a success for all black women and girls. Parents should be inspired by this one girl’s success, as it lets them know that a bright future is also possible for their own daughters. Furthermore, a single success story can validate the hopes, dreams and struggles of the community at large.

Whether black or white, feminists need to continue fighting for the progress of black women.

Black women in America are dehumanized, fetishized and even ignored by feminists. To overcome these struggles, they need to empower one another, and white feminists must be more inclusive and sensitive to the polarizing effects of cultural appropriation.

[ugarciposts]

Inside the Mind and Soul of Lupe Fiasco

Dear Allison,

In writing project 2, we were assigned to analyze any form of writing and use our rhetorical skills to persuade the audience with the message that the writer wanted to prove. With this in mind, I chose to analyze Lupe Fiasco’s music video “Words I Never Said”. The topics I will delve deeper in wil be government control, Negative contexts about Muslims, and the downfall of American education. As these values are what matter the most to Lupe Fiasco and they are far more apparent in his music video. Therefore, I have taken the challenge to spread the message of song by explaining it to people who are new to his music

To explain the topics well, I have decided to have headers, bolded phrases, and screencaps from the music video in my work for medium.com. Certainly, having headers will make it more easier for the reader to understand as there are many complex topics. These types of topics need a space of their own or else the reader will be confused about what is read. Obviously, the lyrics will be bolded and emphasized on; but some key quotes will also be bolded to bring more light on certain topics. This way, readers will know what to focus on while reading.

Throughout the whole writing process, I was able to get to know more about Lupe Fiasco. I’ve been listening to his music ever since I was a child and I was never able to research what he was rapping about. I just thought Fiasco’s lyrics and beats were really catchy. Ever since I started WP2, I’ve been going through his other songs and realized that Fiasco is very anti-government. Anyways, I was left very surprised by my own writing as I never thought I could easily explain meaning behind the music that I listen to every day. As most of the time, I hold their messages close to my heart and mind. This was particularly difficult to put in words as most of these topics that Fiasco raps about are very complex and need a lot of support to fully unpack. With this in mind, I thought I was going to leave the audience overwhelmed with the information.  Based on how I like to structure my thoughts, I thought headers would be great for the aesthetic of the essay on medium.com. At one point, I too was overwhelmed by my own writing and that’s when I decided to make it easier to read with headers. Overall, I had fun with this project as I was able to use music to further improve my writing and I love that music had a part in doing so.

Sincerely,

Ursula Garcia

               Inside the Mind and Soul of Lupe Fiasco

In Lupe Fiasco’s “Words I Never Said”, he discusses the political controversies that the U.S. have been involved in.  Most of Lupe Fiasco’s work tries to make his listeners more aware of how their nation’s past decisions have made living in our society difficult for certain groups of people based on their economic class or race. These listeners would be active listeners of his music and also those who are trying to prove the U.S. government’s corruption. Fiasco’s only way to get to listeners is by rapping about important events that at some point was close to their heart. His way of rapping uses rhetorical devices like allusions, metaphors, and a motif to get the listener to do more research about dishonest the U.S is. Based on the fact the U.S. government uses moronic excuses to cover up their secrets. Fiasco also believes that most of the nation is brainwashed to believe one way and that could make it  difficult for some to fight against that type of ignorance. Those who want to fight back against today’s oppression are at times faced with unjust punishment. For the most part, Fiasco’s lyrics focus on the goal of getting his audience to understand his message and later fight back against all the silence.

Part of the song focuses on changing the negative perceptions people may have on those who are of Muslim faith. Lupe Fiasco has stated that he is a practicing Muslim and is sick of these negative connotations behind his faith (Batey). In fact, one of the lyrics are, “Jihad is not a holy war, wheres that in the worship?/Murdering is not Islam!/And you are not observant/And you are not a Muslim.” This quote proves that Islam doesn’t teach to kill and people shouldn’t diminish something if they are informed enough about it.  Fiasco gives his listeners the credibility of  being a Muslim who’s tired of the Media proposing how his life is based on his faith.  Also, Fiasco discusses that the real reason that these negative connotations exist were because of the 9/11 attacks. Since Al-Qaeda (the terrorist group) was labeled as a “Islamic terrorist group” and this lead many to think muslims were terrorists. Additionally, Lupe believes that the U.S. uses that label as a cover-up against their inside job. To clarify, Fiasco rapped, “Nine eleven building seven did they really pull it?/Uh, and a bunch of other cover ups.” With this in mind, Fiasco believes that since the there wasn’t much investigation around the full  collapse of the tower that the U.S. must had a part in the destruction (Ugwu). Thus, images of the Twin Towers being attacked are shown and this created the effect of an allusion to his lyrics. Overall, Fiasco is trying to get his listeners see that the U.S. government’s input in global issues tends to denounce their involvement in any scheme and put the blame on someone else.

Throughout the song, Lupe Fiasco also expressed his belief on the war on terrorism. As he raps, “I think really think the war on terrorism is a bunch of bullshit/Just a poor excuse to use on up all your bullets.” This example of logos backs up his reasoning that the sole purpose of the war on terrorism was oil and not protection for the people who live in the middle east. In this key moment, the audience is shown images of the Gaza strip bombings that occurred in 2008. By all means, Fiasco establishes that the U.S. only uses their bullets to get oil that’ll help the economy flourish. Another critical lyric is, “Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say shit.” Here, Lupe shares his anger toward President Obama for not addressing the public about Gaza Strip being bombed by ISIS in March of 2010. Clearly, one could point out that Fiasco is trying to portray the message that the president of the free world doesn’t care to share of the current events to american public. Ultimately leading Lupe to blame President Obama for not going through his promise and just letting it happen without us knowing.

In his lyrics, Lupe uses pathos to bring light onto the status of U.S. education. As one of his main concerns are the budget cuts made to supposedly improve your child’s education. To clarify, Fiasco states, “Your child's future was first to go with budget cuts/If you think that hurts, then here comes the uppercut/The school was garbage in the first place that’s on the up and up.” in need. Fiasco wants his listeners to know that the U.S. educational system was terrible in the first place and the budget cuts just made it worse for families. Most of these budget cuts caused schools to be underfunded and students weren’t learning. It is important to realize that Fiasco wants his listeners to be aware of the policies that the U.S. would try to enforce onto the branches of society. After all, this audience can actually stand up against the U.S. government and fight for more school improvement.

In the music video, the focus on silence and news filtration is very prominent as it’s featured in some way in every scene. As the music video opens up with a young woman in a white dress being violently dragged by two police officers with gas masks on. The woman is dragged to a prison and put under restraints. This young woman is being arrested for being an advocator and was abducted because she upset someone of high authority. Basically, the officers are the U.S. government and the woman are those who reject the cover ups. Since she is against all of the government’s effort to cover up their secrets, the U.S. tries to silence her by arresting her and putting her under restraints. Another important scene would be the images of passengers on the bus, they’re shown with filtration masks over their mouths. Obviously, these passengers have already been restricted from speaking any truth, which is totally scary. Anyways, this is the very first thing Fiasco sees when he gets on the bus. Once he sits down, Lupe grabs the bus microphone and starts to tell others what he’s thinking as he’s the only one without the mask. While he starts to rap about the war on terrorism being an excuse to invade and Obama’s presidency, one of the passengers rats him out and the police officers show up again to force him off the bus. When he’s being carried, one of the police officers forces the filtration mask onto Lupe’s mouth. Altogether, the audience is left with the feeling that the U.S. doesn’t Lupe to shine light on their dark secrets.  

Towards the end of the video, the audience is met with Lupe Fiasco being thrown in jail for attempting to go against the government. While Lupe Fiasco is in the cell, Skylar Grey sings “It's so loud inside my head/With words that I should have said/As I drown in my regrets/I can't take back the words I never said.” Whenever this chorus starts the lining beat gets louder and it almost resembles the pounding heart one would hear in their head when they’re so stressed. Thus, the main point of the song is Fiasco getting stressed about regretting not saying what was on his mind at the time. This type of stream of consciousness allows Fiasco to rap, “I'm locked inside a cell in me, I know that there's a jail in you/Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few/My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through.” Due to being able to find a way to express his feelings about silence being a factor of fear, Lupe finally feels free. No more barriers can hold Lupe from feeling locked up, this metaphor serves purpose to show how much damage his bottled thoughts have caused. Henceforth, Fiasco expresses that truth is what is needed to relieve the nation’s suspicion around the government’s secrets.

The last key symbol of the music video is the QR code that just keeps popping up and that signals a motif. It first appears when Fiasco slaps onto the side of the bus he gets on. Then the code shows up when Lupe is locked up in a cell. Ultimately, this QR code is found within the wall, but wrapped around a lock and keys. Both the lock and key gave Lupe a way out of the cell to rescue the woman. At the end of the video, another young woman is taking off the filtration mask and is shown scanning the QR code that Lupe pasted on the bus. The code reveals the   Lasers Manifesto. From the few seconds on the phone screen, the manifesto is a symbol against all the negativity in the world from media depiction of a race, the need of universal education, and the effort to end all wars. Therefore, Fiasco’s overall goal is to spread the message of having awareness of the errors committed by  U.S. government and to fight against any type of cover-ups committed.  

In essence, understanding Lupe Fiasco’s perception of the government’s corruption will be hard for some. But to truly understand, one must put aside their beliefs and just listen to lyrics and pay attention to the images being shown in the music video. Since little details can easily be missed. The symbols like the QR code and filtration masks are the most important as it boosts more support for Lupe’s message of being more aware of what the U.S. government is trying to hide from the public. Key themes like the muslim stigmas, the war on terrorism, and education are also important to focus on as the  U.S. has managed to slander them. Ultimately, Lupe Fiasco just wants his active listeners to be aware and not be afraid to speak out against any terrible policy made by the U.S.