#another racist response

[cree-n-jewish-thoughts]

Dude... I'm native... So the slur/emoji doesn't apply here. But it's interesting to see up close how racism can rot your mind.

Another racist, white person that can't even bother to google, and at least use the correct slur for my race. Pretty sure he's thinking about another struggle.

Dude, so cringe...

Again the knowledge of history on this site is deplorable.

[andromedasummer]

can one of you f1 girlies become a journalist and interview the drivers who refused to take a knee because they wanted to fight racism in a different way/disagreed with how blm went about seeking justice and ask them, now that nearly 3 years have passed since the may protests, what steps they've taken to educate themselves on racism? what actions they've taken to improve things for people of colour within formula one/motorsports as a whole? or how they've gone about promoting racial equity in their own country?

[chaiaurchaandni]

let him cook

[strawberrycamel]

i am so. fucking angry.

[yiddishfisting]

dunmeshi fandom out here doing its damndest to make me hate laios

[reaperkaneki]

What if 'Gundam SEED' was told from Flay's point of view? How would they approach it? Would it have been better?

woulda been a lot shorter, that’s for sure!

flay is interesting in that she’s a much more flawed character than any of our protags, but that does not a good main character make. at least, not in and of itself. she’s a good foil to lacus, but that’s it—a foil. meer was probably made to fill a similar role as her as a more human counterpart to our almost overly-perfect heroine (as rie tanaka described lacus).

i think people would hate seed even more than they already do if she was the face of the series, bc she’s a manipulative female character who doesn’t do much in the way of action.

hold on i’m gonna consult the biggest seed fan i know—

he says,

it would shorter than WFM but more memorable than RiG

[sassygwaine]

the insistence that “palatable autistics” are better/more believed/more respected/more cared for

feels a lot like the good gay fallacy

there is no variety autistic you can be that is acceptable to society at large, just like there is no amount of queer you can be that keeps you 100% safe from harm

there are ways you can behave that disguise you on the radar but people always know you’re different even if they can’t place the reason

and a lot of us do not have the ability to disguise ourselves and a lot of us do not want it anyway, and the false dichotomy of

people think you’re cute and quirky

people think you’re weird and offputting

isn’t a dichotomy so much as it is different thoughts people have about you at different times in different situations

as an autistic there is no amount of kind and empathetic and quiet you can be that stops people from going what the fuck is wrong with you when you have a reaction to something you literally can’t control

if you are too kind and empathetic and quiet people question whether you’re actually autistic

and if you are an autistic who is not kind or empathetic or quiet, then you are treated cruelly from the start and thus have to begin every interaction in defense of yourself or unaware the tables are turned against you

and if you are not white, your actions and motives are suspect at best, and can and will get you murdered

truly, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t in the eyes of everyone else

why do we have to pit ourselves against each other, too?

[grimoiremanifest]

"average person is still racist towards the Irish" factoid actually just a statistical error. zionisms georg, who lives in Israel and supports genocide and occupation of 10,000 ethnic groups each day, is an outlier adn should not be counted

Israelis being extremely normal people because they are mad the Irish peace corps won't leave Southern Lebanon

[theglizzardwizard]

Day 2 of still not being banned from corporate clash in spite of a whole site wide rule change on my behalf

[fursasaida]

This article is from 2022, but it came up in the context of Palestine:

Here are some striking passages, relevant to all colonial aftermaths but certainly also to the forms we see Zionist reaction taking at the moment:

Over the decade I lived in South Africa, I became fascinated by this white minority [i.e. the whole white population post-apartheid as a minority in the country], particularly its members who considered themselves progressive. They reminded me of my liberal peers in America, who had an apparently self-assured enthusiasm about the coming of a so-called majority-minority nation. As with white South Africans who had celebrated the end of apartheid, their enthusiasm often belied, just beneath the surface, a striking degree of fear, bewilderment, disillusionment, and dread.

[...]

Yet these progressives’ response to the end of apartheid was ambivalent. Contemplating South Africa after apartheid, an Economist correspondent observed that “the lives of many whites exude sadness.” The phenomenon perplexed him. In so many ways, white life remained more or less untouched, or had even improved. Despite apartheid’s horrors—and the regime’s violence against those who worked to dismantle it—the ANC encouraged an attitude of forgiveness. It left statues of Afrikaner heroes standing and helped institute the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which granted amnesty to some perpetrators of apartheid-era political crimes.

But as time wore on, even wealthy white South Africans began to radiate a degree of fear and frustration that did not match any simple economic analysis of their situation. A startling number of formerly anti-apartheid white people began to voice bitter criticisms of post-apartheid society. An Afrikaner poet who did prison time under apartheid for aiding the Black-liberation cause wrote an essay denouncing the new Black-led country as “a sewer of betrayed expectations and thievery, fear and unbridled greed.”

What accounted for this disillusionment? Many white South Africans told me that Black forgiveness felt like a slap on the face. By not acting toward you as you acted toward us, we’re showing you up, white South Africans seemed to hear. You’ll owe us a debt of gratitude forever.

The article goes on to discuss:

"Mau Mau anxiety," or the fear among whites of violent repercussions, and how this shows up in reported vs confirmed crime stats - possibly to the point of false memories of home invasion

A sense of irrelevance and alienation among this white population, leading to another anxiety: "do we still belong here?"

The sublimation of this anxiety into self-identification as a marginalized minority group, featuring such incredible statements as "I wanted to fight for Afrikaners, but I came to think of myself as a ‘liberal internationalist,’ not a white racist...I found such inspiration from the struggles of the Catalonians and the Basques. Even Tibet" and "[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] also fought for a people without much political representation … That’s why I consider him one of my most important forebears and heroes,” from a self-declared liberal environmentalist who also thinks Afrikaaners should take back government control because they are "naturally good" at governance

Some discussion of the dynamics underlying these reactions, particularly the fact that "admitting past sins seem[ed] to become harder even as they receded into history," and US parallels

And finally, in closing:

The Afrikaner journalist Rian Malan, who opposed apartheid, has written that, by most measures, its aftermath went better than almost any white person could have imagined. But, as with most white progressives, his experience of post-1994 South Africa has been complicated. [...]

He just couldn’t forgive Black people for forgiving him. Paradoxically, being left undisturbed served as an ever-present reminder of his guilt, of how wrongly he had treated his maid and other Black people under apartheid. “The Bible was right about a thing or two,” he wrote. “It is infinitely worse to receive than to give, especially if … the gift is mercy.”

[sreegs]

I reblogged it earlier but I'm glad the Something Awful Forums 9/11 thread was archived because it's an incredibly important slice of internet history. For the record I think 9/11 was thousands of personal tragedies for the direct victims of the attacks but one big national farce that led to America's ongoing slide into fascism, and the nationalism and remembrance around it is a joke especially in the wake of the same amount of deaths every fucking day in the US during the height of coronavirus.

Nevertheless I think it's important that if you do not remember because you were too young or just didn't exist on Sept 11, 2001 to read the Something Awful 9/11 forums to get an idea of what the internet was like at the moment when America changed to 24 hour news cycles and renewed hyper-nationalism not seen since WWII.

This all happened before Twitter, Facebook, before Discord. Before smart phones. Before most people had cell phones. When a lot of people still had dial-up internet, even. Some people in the thread were relying on radio because internet and TV weren't keeping up.

It was a live event of internet denizens reacting to the biggest national event (and among the biggest international events) of the past 25 years. It was also a slice of what the internet was like at the turn of the millennium. Not only that, but people accurately calling out who was responsible, and what would result before the attacks even finished.

Keep in mind that the links that follow contain images of the event, lots of Islamophobia, people calling for the Middle East to be nuked, people blaming Palestine, casual racist and homophobic language (this was Something Awful after all), etc etc. They preserved the first 17 pages which spanned about 24 hours during the events. It's the origin of the "WATCH BUSH START A FUCKING WAR" screenshot.

Links under the fold. I've also annotated the pages with notes regarding the timeline and any posts of interest. Note the thread was preserved in Pacific Time even though the page says times are Eastern. That's incorrect. Post timestamps are 3 hours behind Eastern Time, which is the time zone where the attacks occurred:

Page 1 - Note the first post was edited to include images of the second attack. The thread started after the first plane hit. Second plane hitting the WTC happens here too.

Page 2 - Poster accurately calling out Bin Laden was responsible at 9:14 AM EST

Page 3 - "WATCH BUSH START A FUCKING WAR"

Page 4

Page 5 - First official acknowledgement it was a terrorist attack.

Page 6 - Pentagon hit

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9 - Commercial flights grounded by FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)

Page 10 - First mention of towers collapsing at end of page

Page 11 - More reactions to collapse of first tower. People thinking it was a bomb or yet another plane. Rumors about a fourth plane just missing the White House (these are false and predate the actual 4th plane crash by minutes)

Page 12

Page 13 - By this point there's just rampant speculation about more bombs at the WTC, the US Capitol building being hit, etc (all false). Remember this is all just people reacting to TV news and radio and the rumor mill via phone, AIM, IRC, and maybe text messages.

Page 14 - By this point internet news sites are overwhelmed

Page 15 - Second tower collapses. First acknowledgement of the fourth plane that crashed in PA.

Page 16 - There's an abrupt time jump in the threads, I think it was the result of admins pruning the activity or the SA forums going down. This page starts on 9/12 even though it is page 16. American flag signatures and ribbons start appearing.

Page 17

[starlit-mansion]

speaking of dads eagerly accepting invitations to deck building games...

because we cannot have a single interest without it becoming about ocs, have been thinking a lot about human au neil having been an old school hobby shop nerd (he is just the most classic high fantasy lotr nerd so yeah he ate up dnd in middle school and kept up the hobby until he had a kid and his priorities changed) and having been into mtg for a bit too

and now that he is in his late 40s and bedeviled by the youths (trio of annoying transgender 20 year olds led by his two of his friends' son), they are going to be so shocked and awed that he knows what magic is and is willing to play with them. and they are going to laugh at the dorky art in his ancient deck from the ancient bygone era of... 2001

[friskyfreddie2024]

America: You Fucked Up

You could have chosen Hope. You chose Hate.

You could have chosen Empathy. You chose Enmity.

You could have chosen a New Beginning. You chose the Nazi.

We could have finally been rid of this cancer on American democracy. He could have been banished to obscurity, remembered only as the worst president in American history, and finally held responsible for his numerous crimes.

The ignorant, racist, misogynistic, white supremacist, pathologicial liar is now going back to the White House. He is a convicted felon, an admitted sexual predator, a total fraud, and a demented old man. He belongs in prison.

What did you do?

You ignored that the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world, that inflation is at its lowest level in four years, that unemployment is at its lowest level in three years. You believed the lies about how terrible the economy is. I knew better.

You forgot about his 30,000+ lies while he was in office. I remember.

You forgot about his complete mismanagement and ignorance over COVID, resulting in the deaths of over one million Americans. I remember.

You forgot about the saber rattling over military exercises in the pacific, when Kim Jong Un threatened us with nuclear missiles, causing us to fear whether we'd see another day. I remember.

You forgot about waking up every morning dreading to hear the latest abomination he tweeted. I remember.

You forgot about "very fine people on both sides." I remember.

You forgot about "only the best people" like Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, Tom Price, Scott Pruitt, Steve Mnuchin, and many others who were given cabinet positions despite having zero qualifications for the job. I remember.

You forgot that 40 of his former cabinet members and dozens of former generals and officials refused to support him, saying he was "unfit to serve." I remember.

You forgot about January 6, "fight like hell". I remember.

You forgot that when he was told that his vice president was secured because the rioters wanted to kill him, he said, "So what?" I remember

You forgot about The Big Lie, "Release the Kraken" and 60+ failed attempts to overturn the election in the courts. I remember.

You forgot about "I just need you to find 11,780 votes." I remember.

You forgot about "They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!" I remember.

What now?

When a woman suffering an ectopic pregnancy dies because she doesn't have access to medical care, that's on you.

When they take away your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend, and deport them, that's on you.

When a woman is forced to suffer the agony of carrying her rapist's baby to term, that's on you.

When a transgender kid harms themselves because they can't get the medical care they need, that's on you.

When your middle-class taxes GO UP, while billionaires get even more tax breaks, that's on you.

When schoolchildren are killed by an assault rifle in a mass shooting, that's on you.

When children grow up ignorant because you banned books and dictated how history is taught, that's on you.

When Grandma can no longer afford a comfortable life because the Social Security she paid into all her working life, and provided income on which she now depends, has been cut, that's on you.

When violence against Jews, Asians, Hispanics rises again, that's on you.

When prices on the goods you buy skyrocket due to tariffs, that's on you.

When Ukraine, deprived of our support, is overrun by Russia, that's on you.

When the U.S. is the laughing stock of the world (as we were 2016-2020), that's on you.

What should you have done?

You should have exercised critical thinking skills, recognized the thousands of lies you were being told, recalled that his administration had four years to live up to his promises and failed at all of them. You should have realized that he is a profoundly stupid individual who doesn't give a shit about you or your family or anything except himself.

You had the last nine years to see that, and you still fell for his bullshit.

[thebaldursmouthgazette]

I think a huge factor in people not being able to understand this game is that the game as a whole relies on understanding Solas’ character as written, and people are refusing to understand it

Solas is, and has been since his first appearance, an egotistical, hubristic, racist, manipulative, abusive and condescending asshole who regularly commits atrocities and pretends that being sad about them is enough penance. He is a terrible person who insists he’s actually the hero of the story. He is a liar and a manipulator, and he lies to himself as well. He uses other people like chess pieces and sacrifices them for his cause without much of a thought, and without them even knowing they are being used.

This is who he is. This is who he was always written to be. And veilguard is almost entirely about deconstructing that. Every member of the veilguard is a foil to solas. They are all who he pretends he is, and his false hero fantasy falls apart when you put them next to him.

Every single companion storyline is about that character successfully doing something that Solas is incapable of, but would be capable of if he wasn’t such a terrible person. And they all face a dark reflection of themselves and come out the other side mostly unscathed by that, aware that this dark reflection is not them because they are not actually like that.

Solas faces many of the same challenges the companions do, and fails each and every one of them, because, unlike them, he is not actually a hero. He is not a good person. He does not learn to accept that just because something is broken doesn’t mean there aren’t parts of it worth saving. He does not learn to accept the harsh truths and move forward. He does not accept that he is responsible for his own actions, even if someone else orders them. He fails every time.

Solas faces not one but two dark reflections of himself, Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, the prideful god who always thinks he’s right no matter the consequences, and the servant and lover of another god whose atrocities are not justified by having been pushed by their lover and mistress, but does not come out the other side unscathed because it turns out he IS actually like them. His reflections are accurate, they’re real parts of himself that he pretends don’t exist, not just twisted versions of their fears like they are for the companions. At the end of the game he even admits that yes, he is very similar to Elgar’nan.

Pretty much the entirety of veilguard is a very careful and deliberate deconstruction of Solas’ character and self image. We go through, in elaborate detail, all of his crimes, all of his mistakes, all of the reasons why he is wrong, why his actions are unjustifiable, why his regret doesn’t absolve him of responsibility, how he thinks it does anyway.

We completely tear down every single aspect of the image he has constructed for himself. We destroy every single excuse with clear examples showing that that was not how things had to go. Every justification. Every insistence it’s okay because he’s sorry. Every time he insists he knows best and we should leave him to it. Every single illusion that he is a good person is shattered. By the end of it there is absolutely nothing left, and his repeated attempts to keep up the facade come off as pathetic and ridiculous. In all his banters with companions he tries to use his usual tricks, pretty excuses, belittling comments, fake niceties and every time he’s completely shut down.

He tries to imply Davrin has a biased view of him from stories about the dread wolf, Davrin responds with evidence the truth is even worse. He tries to apologise to Harding, she comes back with a list of all the terrible things he’s done that an apology can’t cover. He tries to appeal to spite, spite points out he hurt Rook so why should he trust him. He comes up with excuses for killing Varric and Neve points out that there’s no pretty excuse for using blood magic on Rook in such a cruel way afterwards. The illusion is shattered. That’s what the entire game has been building up to. And it makes his last attempt at betrayal seem embarrassing, because we now see through the facade and know that he was too obsessed with himself to even consider we’d see it coming.

But the thing is a lot of people refuse to see this. This is where his characters been heading since the beginning. This is who he’s always been. But a lot of people ignore any and every negative thing about him, and then complain the game doesn’t make sense. Of course it doesn’t make sense. You’ve ignored every single theme, plot point, and piece of characterisation to make up a version of Solas in your head and that’s not the Solas the game is about. It makes complete sense when you see Solas as he truly is, as he was written to be. It’s such a good bit of writing when you actually let yourself experience it as it is and allow yourself to be open to the idea that the guy who is trying to commit his second genocide might be a bad person.

[cavegirlpoems]

A story from back when I played D&D. It might have been 3.5 or pathfinder or fantasycraft or one of that ilk. Might even have been 4e. It was like a decade ago.

So. Standard D&D. A party of bold adventurers of diverse origins and skillsets gets together to explore a perilous dungeon and stop a cartoonish baddy. The usual.

I end up building a fairly typical character for me. A goblin Rogue/Assassin. A stealth/melee build designed to get the drop on an enemy, do a bunch of rapid damage, and then fuck off.

She was lawful evil, and firmly in the team-fortress-two-sniper school of "You know who has a lot of feelings? Men what bludgeon their wives to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards." school of being a mercenary. I think I even did an aussie accent.

Anyway her schtick was that she'd noticed 'Adventurers' got to do as much violence as they wanted without social consequences, and she loved violence! So she was gonna do a stint as an adventurer, so once she was done she could go home with a big sack of gold to spend on booze and cake and hot girls. But right now she was on the job, so she was an extremely professional team player with a strict code of conduct. Always be honest with the team, follow the plan, don't mess things up for the team, split the loot evenly. Standards.

Verna was a horrible efficient little murder gremlin who was also proudly guild-certified. * * *

Now, another PC was a chaotic neutral gnome bard who was leaning hard on the 'gnomes are amusingly racist to goblins and kobolds and think this is funny and endearing' thing. He teased Verna a bunch about being green and ugly, which she studiously ignored because - remember - she had Professional Standards.

Anyway, there was a human NPC we met that she didn't like, saying he was a bit stupid and very annoying. Our gnome bard decided it would be very funny to use one of his enchantment spells to make Verna suddenly horny for him and watch what happened.

Verna sees the gnome who keeps fucking with her walk up, wave his hands and babble some arcane nonsense, and now she has weird funny feelings she can't explain. She does some thinking and concludes that she'll pay the human for a snog later, because right now this guy's just obviously cast a spell to mess with her mind, which was Not Okay. Of course, she had Professional Standards, so...

She walks up to our gnome friend and basically informs him: "Hi! I know you just did some magical brainwashing on me, and I am not going to tolerate this! However, because we're in a team together, and I don't want this to become a problem, I am going to very generously allow you to settle the matter with me. We will have a bout of single combat to first blood, and then whoever wins I will consider the matter settled and my honour satisfied, and you won't do that again, and we won't mention it. This is a very kind offer of mine, because I have Standards; where I come from the normal response would be to say nothing and strangle you in your sleep tonight."

And our gnome, who is a spellcaster not a combatant, looks at this and decides he doesn't want to get shown up by her, and basically tells her that if she doesn't like getting messed with she can go back to the goblin village, and laughs at her.

So. Shrug. Quickdraw as a free action. I get a surprise round. You're flat footed, so it's easy to hit and I get sneak attack damage. 3/4 of his health is gone. Initiative. He says he wants to say sorry. I respond that he can say that when it gets to his initiative count, but right now it's my action and he's still flat-footed and here's my big pile of d6s for sneak attack and oh dear I think that's him on -10 hp, so he's not going to get the chance.

* * *

Anyway this kicked off a massive shitstorm ooc about how I just kicked off PvP and murdered a PC for no reason and the game fell apart because the gnome's player genuinely didn't seem to understand that 'mind control' is a hostile action. This was in the bad old days before safety tools and I was playing in a fairly neckbeardy group, so 'a man makes a woman horny against her will to humiliate her and laughs about it' was apparently not a deal-breaker while 'the woman stabs him for it' was.

I still think I wasn't the bad guy in this scenario.

There is no point to this story I just wanted to share it.

[notaplaceofhonour]

I know it’s an old adage that Jews are the canary in the coalmine and that antisemitism is a sign of a society turning towards bigotry, fascism, & authoritarianism, but I don’t often see people explaining how this works, so let me give you just a couple examples:

Peeling back the layers of this post about Shaq participating in the “Stand Up to All Hate” campaign, what do we have? We have a Jewish philanthropist donating to youth sports programs and organizations that provide assistance for minorities & underserved communities in Israel (including Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, women in very conservative Jewish communities that may not otherwise have the opportunity, etc.) to enter STEM fields, who runs a series of ad campaigns to encourage people to stand up to not just antisemitism but ALL bigotry. All of this gets cast as being “pro-genocide” somehow.

In the course of casting all of this as sinister & evil, who is affected?

a high-profile Black man is slandered

giving aid to Palestinians in STEM demonized

same with aid to Orthodox Jewish women in STEM

as is giving to children’s sports programs

even THE most milquetoast “don’t sit by idly when people around you are racist, homophobic, exist, etc.” message gets smeared as sinister

Taking a closer look at the rhetoric around “contextualizing” & “explaining” rape as “resistance” in the October 7th attacks, what do we have? A structure for rapists to excuse their violence is created. Jewish & Israeli victims are disbelieved The Palestinians affected by Hamas & similar orgs’ normalization of sexual violence are erased. Palestinians are presented as if they just can’t help raping.

Who is affected:

any violence no matter how depraved against Jews & Israelis is softened & excused

the experience of Jews targeted for sexual violence are sidelined & treated as a “natural” (and thus less awful) consequence of Jews oppressing Palestinians (DARVO)

Palestinian men are subjected to the racism of being treated as rapists by default

Palestinian victims of sexual violence are erased & equated with their abusers; their well-being is further endangered as their perpetrators crimes are softened & denied

rapists in leftist spaces now have a “oh but I couldn’t help it” card in their back pocket they can whip out at any time to dodge responsibility & make leftist spaces even more dangerous for the most vulnerable people there

On top of all of this, you then also have the red yarn “logic” of conspiracism that underlies all of this. Conspiracy theories do not exist in a vacuum; there is an underlying dislogic to them that makes believers in one more likely to believe in another (and another and another). THE best predictor of whether a person will believe a conspiracy theory is that they believe another conspiracy theory.

maybe it’s that this or that is a zionist plot now. but maybe you’ll be more inclined to believe there’s something dangerous about the polio vaccine. to support your fringe position, you need to grab hold of more reasons to bolster your opposition, unspool more red yarn. maybe it causes autism. maybe it makes you gay. nevermind that you just brought polio back too, now you’re trading in bigoted conspiracy narrative about the vaccine.

Maybe it’s not that; maybe it’s something else. But this vacuum of logic demands to be filled, and more often than not it does so by sucking in more and more fringe (and more and more bigoted) conspiracy narratives.

Antisemitism is a backwards logic, a conclusion in search of a reason, that builds itself to accommodate the desire to harm Jews. And as those pathways are built, they are used for a dual purpose to hurt other groups too. They spread out further and further and get used to pop up wherever the illogic of bigotry demands to.

You see this web of dislogic being constructed in the above examples—a sort of impromptu network of tunnels and jerry-rigged offramps that let them go offroading when the normal freeways of logic don’t take them where they want to go. You want to believe Shaq is shifty or the 🟦 is a (((Zionist))) plot? Time to build the path that will get you there. You want to believe October 7th was justified, but it fundamentally opposes every one of your stated values; time to build a new way in.

The main target is still Jews, but the rest of you get the splash damage.