#being a brazilian equals suffering

[sudensk-the-stallionist]

"No people who have gone through this as part of their daily lives, over the centuries, would emerge from it without being indelibly marked. All of us, Brazilians, are flesh of the flesh of those tortured blacks and natives. All of us Brazilians are, equally, the possessed hand that tortured them. The most tender sweetness and the most atrocious cruelty have combined here to make us the sensitive and suffering people that we are and the insensitive and brutal people that we also are. Descendants of slaves and slave masters, we will always be servants of the evil distilled and installed in us, both through the feeling of pain intentionally produced to hurt more, and through the exercise of brutality over men, women, and children who have been turned into fodder for our fury. The most terrible of our legacies is that of always carrying with us the scar of a torturer imprinted on our souls and ready to explode in racist and classist brutality. It is she who still shines today in so many Brazilian authorities predisposed to torture, abuse and hurt the poor who fall into their hands. However, by provoking growing indignation, she will give us the strength tomorrow to contain the possessed and finally form here a solidary society." - Darcy Ribeiro, The Brazilian People

[radical-revolution]

LOVE, COMPASSION AND NON-DUALITY

The question is why do we have to cultivate love and compassion. The answer is that this method is the safest way to train our minds, by exercising the closest emotions we have to bodhichitta.

What is compassion? At the root of compassion is an experience of having a glimpse of what someone else is experiencing. Our sense of empathy is moved when we vicariously experience someone else’s suffering; and, because of that, the compassionate wish of sympathy arises.

So, understanding the basic inter-relatedness or the inter-connectedness of the world as we know it, and training our mind towards love and compassion are two methods which will initiate us on our path of bodhichitta. The way kindling initiates a wood fire or the way a pilot light initiates a gas flame is the way thoughts of loving-kindness initiate a bodhichitta flame. These are the elementary or entry-level Mahayana steps that we can practise.

Love is basically wishing others happiness and the cause of happiness, while compassion is wishing others freedom from suffering and the cause of suffering. This twofold spark can easily ignite the mind of bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta is, of course, far greater than ordinary love and compassion. Ordinary love and compassion is only wishing others some vague generic happiness, whereas bodhichitta wishes to liberate all sentient beings from samsara.

And because we are in the desire realm, emotions such as love and compassion already are familiar and available to us. Therefore, we can exercise and strengthen these muscles, which will sharpen our sense of empathy, which will bring us to a sense of the equality of self and other, which will lead us to an understanding of non-duality.

Bodhichitta and non-duality are like two sides of the same coin. Where there is bodhichitta, there is non-duality; where there is non-duality, there is bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta without non-duality is not possible; non-duality without bodhichitta is not possible either. Bodhichitta is automatically present from that moment when we discover the depth and the breadth of non-duality, or in other words, dependent arising.

One final segue: what do we mean by “all”, as in “all sentient beings”? Most of the time, in our mind, “all” means all the Chinese, all the Indians, all the Brazilians, all the Indonesians. But the Tibetan word for “all” is translated as measureless, beyond measure, immeasurable. Often the word immeasurable makes us think of an object that is so vast that it cannot be measured.

But the immeasurable “all” of Buddhism has no reference to infinite size or number. “All” refers to the whole world of apparent phenomena, with the knowledge that even though that world is apparent, that world is also empty. Understanding emptiness gives the definition of “all” a new and greater meaning.

So you see, training our mind to recognise interdependence or dependent arising, and training our mind to embrace an attitude of love and compassion is not a shallow idealistic daydream. The bodhichitta impulse to liberate all sentient beings is not a lofty theory; bodhichitta actually operates in practise; bodhichitta can be achieved.

Training for one minute results in a minute of progress; training for one month results in a month of progress.

In the chapter on samadhi or meditation, which is the chapter on mindfulness, Shantideva explains this very thoroughly. And remembering that our mind-training can bear the fruit of bodhichitta is a very important support for our practise.

Parting from the Four Attachments

Sachen Kunga Nyingpo’s Lojong Shenpa Shidrel

The Mind-training of Parting from the Four Attachments

With commentary by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

Given at the International Buddhist Academy

Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal

June 2-11, 2009

[superm4ks]

Hello! I’m a new Max fan and also new to f1, and from going through your tumblr you seem like a good well of information. Are you able to explain the incident people are referring to with Max “not letting” Perez pass? I have seen posts where people say that is what made them lose respect for Max and I’m very confused. Why would teammates have to let each other pass? Is this why Checo fans boo Max?

hiii baby welcome glad to have u. Well I think its easier in this case to talk a lil bit about the politics of 'team orders' before we tackle Brazil since u said ur new to f1 and everything .

So f1 IS very much a team sport above all else. Everybody who wears the uniform is working towards one singular objective which is maximizing team results. Ig u cud say f1 is a collective effort based on individual performance. Drivers setup their own cars, choose their own engineers and mechanics, manage their own tires, run their own races and fight for their own points, but everything always represents the factory and shud always benefit the team. This is why you'll often hear about 'team orders' , which are basically like instructions from the pit wall that require drivers to do something that deviates from their independent strategies. Letting a teammate by without defending is a team order. Usually it happens because the other driver has better pace, they can finish higher in the standings, or just because they need the points. Now, the incident ur referring to, Brazil 2022. Idk if u watched the 2022 season or not but by the Brazilian gp Max had already won his 2nd title and rbr had constructors secured too. Which left checo wid his .. shaky .. p2 and sharl only a few points behind still very much fighting for it. Listen that whole gp was like a fucking concussion my head still hurts. Kmag piped Max for pole (((????))), Max and lewis did their thing literally lap 1 and I cried, george russell won bro just awful. But anyway last lap of the race max and checo were p6 and p7 respectively and rbr decided they wud prioritize checo in his fight wid sharl so they asked Max to switch positions. And Max said no. Not only bro said 'no', he told the team they'd already discussed it, and not to ask him again. Its cunt fr but its also like completely brutal and it kinda implies something else was going on. Either way, it meant Checo and sharl were on equal points heading into Abu Dhabi. Ultimately Checo lost that race too and finished p3 in the standings. A lot of checo fans c Max as the reason that happened, and Checo himself said a lot of nonsense that helped fuel that fire ((he later said he regretted it but yk its never the point)) There was a lot of vitriol in the media from both sides, a lot of speculation about 'why' it happened. The people who say they 'lost respect' for Max after Brazil are either cappign or like literally had never watched Max race before. Bro was refusing to comply wid team orders in 2015 fresh out of womb literally two race starts to his name. But he did so because he didnt think it was fair like its not just him being messy or whatvr. So why did he refuse to switch positions in Brazil?? Running theory goes back to Monaco that same season. During quali Checo crashed out on his own and that red flag prevented Max from completing his lap, which in Monaco means it ruined his sunday. So basically Brazil was in response to that. Idk if thats true or not, I wont ever feel comfortable assuming a driver crashes on purpose, and tbh we'll never know for sure. Max has never denied it but its been heavily implied lmfao. If Max felt wronged in any way hes gonna act accordingly thats just who he is thats what u can expect. But yuh that started a lot of the animosity. Idk if you've figured it out already but Max suffers from success lmfao. He's been breaking 50 year old records and setting new ones wid a car Checo can barely qualify wid. If 2022 was embarrassing then 2023 has been genuinely shocking to watch and to some people its easier to boo Max than accept he's that good. But yk sucks for them because he is

[missgossiper]

The Next Round Approaches: An Intriguing Prospect

Dearest Readers,

As we draw nearer to the next round of the Survival Games Bracket, one cannot help but feel a certain thrill in the air—a heady mix of anticipation, dread, and unbridled curiosity. The first round has left us all with much to ponder, and dare I say, even the sharpest among you may have been caught off guard by a twist or two.

First Poll: 1. 2.

Perhaps living the Life of a Fancy Nomadic Hobo - or Family Van Vlog, in other words - serves for some extra Experience points than a chef who can barely keep track of a Van. As Aranis seems to have taken the lead with 8 votes while Frost was left with 5.

The same vote count applying to the right side of the bracket, with Soldano being estimated to have probably punched his way through survival, beating Edevane by 3 extra votes.

Second Poll: 1. 2.

Now, we move onto the battle between two scientists; one of biology and the other of psychology. What Valerian lacks in immunity and iron, he makes up for in military training to beat someone as sharp as Ziegler by a whopping 9 votes over her 5.

Definitely the most pitiful poll result yet, we have Shinmen beating Liáng's 1 single little vote by his 12. Ouch...

Third Poll: 1. 2.

Allow me to provide a physical display of what this hypothetically would look like;

That is Swanson failing to 7 votes with only 4 in her possession.

The battle between the brains and the brawn, unsurprisingly insured Rossi's esteemed victory of 7 votes over Eischen's 4. Will this one be recorded in the history books or will Eischen go unnoticed once more?

Fourth Poll: 1. 2.

Although Sherwood was burned at stake and Andrew seems to either be suffering from amensia or a time paradox, this witch's brew seems to have beaten Perkins' acting skills by an admirable 11 votes over his 3.

This knight may have burned down her village,but he cannot burn down the fragment of braincells she acquires more than him to have earned herself 9 votes over his 5.

Fifth Poll: 1. 2.

And let us not forget our traumatized veteran, Vrban, who, much to the delight of those with a taste for the unexpected, has emerged from the shadows and into the light to fight against the toxicologist, Kadin with a single extra vote to take the victory of 8 over 7.

The next challenge, however, is one that was most entertaining for myself. Even with Fontenay having the psychical capabilities of a soaked kitten, one who fought in the musically beloved June rebellion is fiercer than a royal who was served everything upon a silver platter. That would be a 9 over 6 votes, if only it had been reversed to make the most comical joke.

Sixth Poll: 1. 2.

Never doubt the nature of a whore because they can be out for more than one sort of bodily fluid when cornered! With that being said, Rascuis topples Becu with 11 votes over 4.

One who hails from a historical time period quite literally has double the life experience, and with that Isayev has pushed past Onasis with 10 votes over 4.

Seventh Poll: 1. 2.

The dashing Captain, who so effortlessly charmed her way through the initial skirmishes, now finds herself facing an opponent of equal cunning and charm the ever-elusive Cowboy Vargas. Nonetheless, she remains victorious with a close tie of 8 over 7 votes.

The debate of whether a mechanic would be enough against an athlete was decided upon a vote of 11 over 4.

Eighth Poll: 1. 2.

Last but not least, the challenge between the towns favorite platonic couple! With Costs taking the reigns with 6 votes over 4, likely due to his experience as a poor little Brazilian boy.

To top it all off, we best not hope Miss Roosevelt plans to join presidency one day with only an embarrassing 2 votes for her first ever ballot against Ella's 7.

It is not just a test of strength or cunning, but of our own discernment, dear readers. Each vote cast is a reflection of your understanding of the delicate balance of power, the art of survival, and perhaps, a little of your own heart’s desires.

Who shall emerge victorious in this round, and who will find themselves consigned to the annals of history as a mere footnote? The game, my friends, is afoot, and it is you who shall decide their fate.

Until next time, when the results are revealed, and the scandals continue to unfold...

Yours most sincerely,

Miss Gossiper

[fatfables]

New Gainer Story!!

Take a trip to early 90's London to visit the seedier side of gaining...

Big Ben: Part 1 of 3

Ben Bennington was forty three years old when he suffered a fatal heart attack. Born in Belfast he’d moved to London in ‘73 ostensibly to find work as a labourer, but what he really wanted was to be with his own kind. If he had known that he would wind up dying only twenty one years later he never would’ve bothered.

As far as deaths go his wasn’t a bad one. He was in bed with his Brazilian boyfriend. Who was twenty three years younger than him. The last thing that Ben Bennington saw as the pain shot through his left arm was Diego’s deep green eyes, hazel brown skin, and smile to die for. Watching your beautiful young boyfriend ejaculate would be a dream death for some guys. But Ben hadn’t wanted to die. Not like this. Not with these feelings of guilt. He had been a bad man. He didn’t want to go to hell.

It had taken him a long time to finally place the ad in the back of ‘Young Skin’. He had tried previously in the lonely hearts column of The Evening Standard but hadn’t received any responses. He was uncertain if that was because he was looking for something too specific or if it was because he was a lonely sad old pathetic fat unemployed loser behind on the rent on his scabby little Neasden bedsit. It must be one of the two. He took a slug on his can of warm extra strength Skol and stubbed his fag out on the dresser. It was his fortieth birthday. He couldn’t bear to be alone any longer. He reread his advert once more before ringing the 0898 number and sending off a cheque for £8.99 that he knew would bounce. The advert read;

M seeks M. Fat Daddy, 40YO WLTM boy who likes food and fun. OFAC. GSOH. ND. NS.

It only contained four lies. He received one reply. From a guy pretending to be a seventeen year old Brazilian who said that he wanted Ben to feed and fuck him. At first he ignored it. It had to be a wind-up right? Some local schoolboys must have found a copy of the mag hanging from a tree in the spinney. He erm, some people, sometimes, left them there in the bushes behind the fire ditch to the right of the main path just after the old oak tree where the cover was thick enough to keep you out of sight but close enough to the path that there was still a risk of being caught. The schoolboys would find the mag equally disgusting and hilarious. What would be funnier than phoning the sad fat old freak in the lonely hearts column and pretending to add just a glimmer of sunshine to his unforgivingly dull life by pretending to be a beautiful teenage Brazilian boy? That would teach the sinful old pervert.

So Ben continued with his normal routine of waking at 10.30 to be in the Ginger’s Arms by 11:00. There he would prop up the bar for a few hours and talk at anyone unfortunate enough to look at him. His favourite subjects were how hard it is to get a job, the Arsenal team of ‘78, and the rip-off price of a packet of fags. Mid-afternoon he would go to the bookies before going home via the offy to buy a four pack of Skol and sit and watch a 12 inch black and white telly with a shitty indoor aerial in his filthy bedsit. The only changes to this routine were on Wednesdays when he would pick up his dole cheque and on Tuesdays and Thursdays when he would go to the spinney during school hours. Saturday nights were spent walking around Soho staring at the chickens on show desperately wishing that he dared to enter one of those joints.

He returned home at 1.30am after a couple of hours of staggering and leering around the West End. He slumped onto his always pulled out bed-sofa, convulsed violently, pissed himself, and burst into tears. The next morning he rang the 0898 number and entered the four digit code. So what if it was kids fucking him about? It could hardly make his life any worse.

Ben Bennington met Diego DiMaria at 1pm on Tuesday 18th February, 1991, at Dorris May’s Cafe on the Neasden Lane North. It was love at first sight. It would have been very hard for an outsider to understand what Diego ever saw in him. Ben had turned up for that first date wearing the same wife-beater vest and blue jogging bottoms that he always wore. It never occurred to him that he should need to make an effort. They bonded over tea and biscuits and a shared history of running away to London to escape the clutches of an uncaring, non-understanding strict Catholic family. Ben never questioned how a poor skinny kid from the favela had managed to make his way all the way to England by himself. They agreed to meet again the following afternoon at The Ginger’s Arms. There Ben got Diego steaming drunk, took him back to his bedsit and viciously fucked him over one of the arms of the sofa-bed.

They met again several times over the following weeks and followed the same pattern. Get drunk - fuck. The sex felt better than Ben had ever imagined and he couldn’t believe that he had managed to bag such a beautiful young boyfriend. Diego was beautiful. He was 17 and thin with chiselled pecks and a six-pack developed from lack of sustenance and playing football seven days a week on the Coca-Cobana. He had unkempt brown fluffy hair and dark brown eyes. His skin was dark, smooth, soft and hairless, as was his tight little ass. He spoke grammatically correct English with a latinic twang and said funny things like when he claimed that John Major looked like Thatcher’s cunt ghost. He was intelligent, cheeky, and seemingly flawless. Ben couldn’t believe that this kid was letting him abuse him.

They always met at the same place at the same time. The Ginger’s Arms every Tuesday and Thursday at 2pm. There they would get drunk all afternoon before returning to the bedsit for anal. Diego loved being bred by his fat scruffy Daddy, he would moan and scream loudly with every thrust, “Fuck me paizão!” He loved having his prostate pounded by this sad sloppy Englishman, but was disappointed by the lack of food fun. He needed to fix this.

The next week Diego ensured that Ben got totally fucking wasted in the pub. He bought him several double vodkas on top of the standard seven or eight pints that the middle-aged alcoholic would normally consume. He suggested that they stop at the chippy on the way back to the bedsit and bought two large fish and chips with sides of curry sauce and three jumbo battered sausages. He paid on his Dad’s credit card without Ben noticing. Diego carried the fishy feast back to the bedsit as Ben swayed and staggered along the pavement, chain smoking.

The room was spinning as Diego fed Ben his fish and chips. He pushed the greasy battered cod into his mouth as Ben sat on the sofa bed wearing only his vest. His fat hairy belly stuck out into his lap. Diego ate his own portion and allowed Ben to seductively wipe each chip around his young fresh lips before he swallowed each one. Ben was overjoyed that Diego was finally letting him feed him. He wanted to make the thin Brazilian boy nice and chubby. Diego made sure that Ben ate all of the battered sausages and even blew him for the first time while he gobbled on the third and final one. Curry sauce now stained his wife-beater and his belly felt stuffed and bloated. Diego straddled him and sat himself down on his Daddies hard cock. He held onto Ben’s big beer belly as he bounced joyfully away to the land of pure pleasure. Ben came first allowing Diego the chance to push his cock deep into Ben’s mouth, spurting sweet young boy cream down his throat. The perfect end to a very satisfying meal. He was going to make this pathetic man so fucking fat.

Ben couldn’t believe that Diego had actually let him feed him. He loved the boy's body but the idea of causing him to pudge out and grow a sweet little pot-belly drove him wild with delirium. He was going to change him from a little hunk to a little chunk.

Ben’s new found happiness hadn’t had any affect on his alcohol consumption though. If anything he was now drinking even more. After a few months of the relationship Diego had also introduced him to cocaine and weed. Well, he had smoked hash when he was younger but not for quite a few years. The age mismatched lovers would now drink multiple pints of beer, smoke a bong, munch down masses of snacks, snort coke, and fuck wildly. Ben’s hairy belly started to grow. His blue joggers were stretching around the waist and his vest was now failing to cover the extent of his beer gut. He had no money for new clothes though. Fags were so fucking expensive these days.

[thedevilsrain]

thats an issue of class, not race. that's what you're failing to understand

(I DONT KNOW IF THIS PERSON IS AMERICAN OR NOT EVEN IF THEY ARENT IT DOESNT CHANGE WHST I SAY HERE, BECAUSE THIS WEBSITE IS MOSTLY AMERICAN ANYWAY 👍)

the average white latino - like myself - is not "descended from colonizers", because most Latinos are poor. of course, when my white italian ancestors came to brazil in the early 1900s, it was under the guise of "whitening" the population (look up "embranquecimento do brasil". it was an eugenics plan to "whiten" the mostly black population)

but, unlike what you may think, the average white latino is not the one to benefit from imperialism. i was poor my entire life, i studied in public schools that were falling apart, spent months without having teachers due to strikes. i live next to a neighborhood that the average western would probably consider a slum.

the white latinos that DO benefit from imperialism are petit bourgeois and actual bourgeois — people whose family names for back until brazilian territory was split into "hereditary capitals" for a couple of rich settler families.

and this is where we get to the meat of the question, and that is the way westerners - mostly americans for reasons i'll get into - equal "race" with "class".

of course, structural racism is a tool of imperialism, but being white in latam does NOT mean you're benefitting from imperialism in the way an american does. this is mostly due to the fact that, unlike america, we did not have segregation laws. white and black people used the same water coolers, went to the same schools, frequented the same neighborhoods - and of course, married and had children with each other, and these children frequented the same schools their parents had, so on and so forth. and here we can see that this is not an issue of race, but an issue of class.

the insistence on race also ends up being driven into some obvious setbacks — most importantly, the fact a majority of the latin american population is mixed. even if you pointed to me, a pink white woman, and said "you benefit from imperialism", i would laugh in your face. because while it is true that i benefit from racism, it doesn't change the fact my mom is brown, that my grandpa was black, that my grandma was indigenous (whose maiden name was erased from records), that my sisters suffered racism in school. and this is not even getting into how the concept of "white" is simply not the same all throught the world. this insistence is pointless, ridiculously subjective, not materially significant, and harmful.

the latin american reality is not the same as the american reality. you cannot hold up a mirror to us and expect us to be the same.

[daddynews247]

Brazil Says Farewell to Late Football Legend Mario Zagallo

Brazilians paid their condolences on Sunday to football hero Mario Zagallo, a four-time World Cup winner and coach who died at the age of 92.

On Sunday, Brazilians paid their tribute to football star Mario Zagallo, a four-time World Cup-winning player and coach who died at the age of 92 and was the last member of one of the country’s finest generations in the cherished sport.

A steady stream of mourners, dressed in black, the yellow of the Brazilian national team, or the colors of the numerous clubs where Zagallo played and coached, filed past his coffin at the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) headquarters, whose facade featured a giant banner in his honor.

Brazil’s record five World Cup trophies were on display near the lace-draped coffin. Zagallo, a small left-wing famed for his tactical acumen, was involved in four of them, more than any other player in football history.

The “Professor,” as he was called, was a member of Brazil’s World Cup-winning teams in 1958 and 1962.

He later coached Pele’s 1970 world champion squad, widely regarded as the best team in history, and served as an assistant coach when the “Selecao” repeated the feat in 1994.

“We’ve lost a sporting legend,” Bebeto, a member of the 1994 squad, stated.

“He was my second father,” he told journalists, echoing fellow World Cup champion Cafu (1994 and 2002).

Others who paid their tributes included former Brazil coach Tite and CBF president Ednaldo Rodrigues, who delivered an emotional embrace to Zagallo’s son Mario Cesar.

‘Only one Zagallo’

Claudio Auvarenga, a 64-year-old driver, arrived early to be among the first to walk by the casket.

“You can travel the world and only find one Zagallo.” “No one else in history has won four World Cups,” he told AFP.

Eliana Gaia, 66, Zagallo’s longtime aide, described him as a “human being without equal.”

“He was a magnificent person, a hero,” she went on to say.

Following a public wake and a private service, Zagallo’s casket was lifted atop a bright red fire truck for a funeral cortege through Rio de Janeiro’s streets, as a small gathering of supporters applauded and shouted.

He was later laid to rest in the Sao Joao Batista cemetery, which is home to some of Brazil’s most famous individuals.

Zagallo died on Friday from multiple organ failure, following a string of health issues in recent months.

From Saturday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has designated three days of national mourning.

Tributes from the football world have also flooded in.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino referred to Zagallo as a “tactical genius,” World Cup winners Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Romario praised him, and current Brazil and Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior simply referred to him as a “LEGEND.”

Only Franz Beckenbauer of Germany (1974 and 1990) and Didier Deschamps of France (1998 and 2018) have won the World Cup as both player and coach.

Nostalgia for the good old days

Zagallo is remembered for his warm humor, strong superstition (he swore by the number 13), and fierce passion for the game.

After the famous Pele died in December 2022 at the age of 82, he was the only surviving starter from Brazil’s first World Cup-winning team in 1958.

The defeat comes at a terrible time in Brazilian football.

Brazil fired national team coach Fernando Diniz on Friday after the “Selecao,” who were missing injured sensation Neymar, suffered a humiliating string of losses in World Cup qualifiers.

Brazil is presently sixth in South American qualifying.

Dorival Junior, the coach of Sao Paulo, has been nominated to take over as coach of Brazil, according to the club, though the CBF has yet to confirm this.

CBF chief Rodrigues, who was reinstalled in the role on Thursday amid a lengthy legal struggle over the confederation’s leadership, told journalists at the wake that he “just want(ed) to talk about Zagallo today.”

“This is a time to talk about this legend of Brazilian and world football,” he went on to say.

[thewul]

Life in the favelas

He made his own oil paints using pigments that he bought because it was still less expensive than buying them ready made, he first started by grinding the pigments because he wasn't satisfied with their coarse grind, they were more expensive finer grind brands

But you had to give it to the people of the favelas of making things happen without much, it was during those times meticulously grinding his pigment in a small stone mill, placing them in the order that they came in the pigment box, elucidating for me the mystery of how the could tell colors apart, that he had his long conversations, and the basement of his two stories home was always full with visitors and friends

He sold most of his art at a fashionable Copacabana café, to tourists often and to locals sometimes, who were equally impressed with the quality of his art, everyone and then he dropped at the cafe so that his clients could meet him in person, had his share of press articles and was somewhat of a celebrity, he could have moved out of the favela but no the favela was his life, a sentiment that he shared with many who lived there, each month he donated sacs of white beans to a local street kids association, lost his sight when he was twelve

I asked him about what looked like more personal paintings representing a smiling old preto woman, the same woman that was in several paintings around the home, that is my mother he replied, that way she is still with us everyday, she came from the countryside with nothing but her courage, a gas burner and a deep frying pan, selling pastels in the streets, and she built this house that you see Brazilian pastels are filled with different options such as cheese, dried meat, or shredded chicken before being fried in hot, sizzling oil and handed to you wrapped up in a simple sheet of paper, best accompanied with a good gulp of fresh, cold, caldo de cana, sugarcane juice

And we can say that the lives of people in those favelas is made of not much, but the reality of it is that because it is difficult everything in it that is good is meaningful, so what do you pursue in life

If you pursue meaning you start seeing it all around you, yet you can only see it if you know the cost of suffering, doesn't mean that you have to pay it but you have to know it, of hardships, where everything in life is an achievement even a warm meal for your loved ones, made greater by the stubborn will to overcome

Whether you came from poverty, and sought abundantly to elevate yourself above your condition, for life is abundant and wants us to be, to pursue excellence even with little, prosperity big or small was sure to follow, or if you came from wealth, yet sought greater meanings in life, and they are many beyond wealth in itself, you were sure to find them, that made life what it is not a matter of riches or poverty, but of meaning in all things great or small, above all in people

What is a meaningful life made of, meaningful thoughts, meaningful actions, meaningful goals, meaningful causes, meaningful people

[f0xd13-blog]

Then we have latrashtinos calling a piramide the mason symbol that evangelical jews appropriated in ancient italy. This is why they have fascism in their continent btw but they always enjoyed to be fucked in the ass so who cares.

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Oh and ps do you thi k i'm worried bout massonical black people doing this? They will pay their karma coz their babies might be white or someone else in the future... then what? They gonna be misarable... luvs it

So this is why i don give credit to brazilians like in the sense i don even answer to their stuff coz the marxist shit makes them come here and trahs on us while still being treated redpectufully. Of course i still see them as equal you know.. kill then with kindness.. but i ain't giving them the benefit of the doubt anymore in that aspect coz ya i need to protect mahself!

And posted this and all of sudden i had a post of neymar with his half italian baby.. babes let me you somthing... you aree LITERALLLY CREATING HITLERS WITH THAT! coz instead of helping us you are being egocentrical enough to put us againts a wall in the sense that i havee my algorithm all fucked by nazis then they try to make me accept my past abusers in the other side of the coin. I ain't gonna instruct you about this anymore.. do wtv but then don complain! Coz nobody ever fought for ou ROMANY RIGHTS and still ain't doing it because you arre racist!

You are LITERALLLY turning non racist people into racists because you can't do the evils you did and then show me your half italian baby. I don't care... right?

So it be like... just behavee normally ok? Becauses if i see any more babies that are going to grow up to oppress me and treat me like shit i might STOP having common sense

Literally i care bojt yoir babies specially the ones that be fucking up my rights to this day.. but i still have common sense... what you are doing is making people hate you because you are literally giving the message "this life is more important than yours and your babies" because you ask me to care bout them but you don carte about mine.. get it now? So you better stop with that shit and this is the last time i warn you all. I have zero responability for ghe unhuman way y'all behave.. i don have to be superior... i don have to accept your fat babies ok?

Just get them out of my sight and let me choose what i can see ok??? Coz it's abusive what you do! Andd that is why gpd told me y'all going to hell...coz you can'take people accept you! You have to WORK FOR IT. Which was what we did andd never got returned actually you only kills us andd treat us bellow humanity since.

So yah get them out of my sight... i don wanna see them.. it's that simple.. they can live their ridiculous lives away from me ok?

Just creating media to have likes... not helping us at all becausee i stillget called crazy for saying the most basic stuff like "i'm asian"

So you are just LUTALLY putting people crazy with this social media bullshit andd nasty algorithm. Stop that! I don have to accept your disgusting ass!

Another thang is multiple portuguese already noticed this abuse of spam of nativee american ahit... and they be really intrigued.. like pissed off intrigued

Also keep in mind most of our people came straight from africa... the black people we havee suffered horrors just like the gypsies so this sudden invasion of native americans on our feed that we can't get rid off is really pissing us off

Obviously i'm gonna hate you nonetheless becausee you have no fucking chill! Disgusting excuses of beings. I ain't your friend. Every jew is disgusting and start taking responsability for your disgusting kind coz it ain't my reponsability to bee the superior person. It's your responsability to fix them since you are so proud of being black and from whatever country like you do

Now let me tell you why the portuguese are at madeira and açortes. We helped black people for centuries againts the danish, the germans and got displaced to those arquipelagos and live there to this day.

Maybe now y'all understand why i gave it this name. It means bye bye, patria and family.

Harry potter strikes again

I can't reveal other european countries stones not only because they ain't from my romany ethnogroup , it literally means that isn't part of my missionaries stones

Maybe i didn't just came from egypt right? Maybe i stopped at palestine first and then arrived at southern france maybe i ain't even part of those G's that arrived at the byzantine empire since yah greeks was at egypt too....hmmmm

Romany language has persian, greek and it is mainly sanskrit

And somehow i'm a portuguese ahahha how crazy that the world was always connected

My Gee's don understand my sense of humour

Madonna is trying to be mina shirakawa now patético

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Actually that women needs some sort of criminal investigation and i don't even need to stress it anymore coz those videos with fried hair are enough to put her to shame just like the rocky and biden and kavala harrison tbh

🖤🤍

[idkimnotreal]

the south is conversely the most hated region in brazil for being the whitest (and most racist, but this is debatable*) but also it surprises me how easily central brazilians forget that there are white people here (that are not segregated in affluent neighbourboods like the leblon in rio but are actually poor working class)?

because there is such a thing as "padrão" (default, normal) in popular culture in brazil, which is how people call someone who is conventionally attractive - the term originated, as always, in the gay community to refer to white, late 20s to early 30s, muscly, bearded, masculine presenting gay men - but has been appropriated by gen z for many many years to simply refer to someone who is attractive according to conventional ideas about beauty (that is, white/caucasian/european looking, especially so in brazil).

the thing is... people from central brazil use "padrão" for people i wouldn't consider white, as a southern brazilian who is white. many also claim that there are no white people in brazil and fetishise white americans for being white. the only difference i can spot between these white americans and white southern brazilians are the ugly bowl shaped haircuts white american men have. it's an odd feeling to have one's whiteness denied by both foreigners and nationals alike (but only foreigners try to class us all as "latino").

i have such a distaste for brazilian culture... especially pop culture. i think that central brazil - rio de janeiro - has oppressed every frontier region in brazil equally, even quashed rebellions in the past with bloody wars, whatever it took, but nowadays central and northern brazilians pretend that the south has never been oppressed out of what i'd simply call envy (because we were a late "self governing colony" and had a chance to develop and they didn't). yes, we are sometimes xenophobic, and even racist, but that's common among different regions in brazil, mostly the xenophobia. okay, hate crimes are only real from the privileged to the oppressed. but there is the white southern peasant who grew up in extreme poverty as late as the 80s and then the white portuguese elites** in rio de janeiro who today live in the leblon and have historically forced their culture down the other states' throats by measures such as banning secondary languages in ww2 (for german, italian and japanese speaking brazilians) and forcefully respelling foreign surnames in official records to sound more portuguese, thus quite literally erasing their cultures***.

and to see the way they disdain and laugh at us today... it fills me with anger. they're angry at us for being white yet they don't even acknowledge us as white (or brazilian, and then it is both ways). can't hatred ever be coherent? i guess that's a stupid question.

*(i just think white people here are not used to seeing people of other races and might be weirded out but otherwise have the best of intentions. i have witnessed public lgbtq events in small ethnic german towns that voted 70% for bolsonaro where no violence took place; my father's girlfriend is from said town and black and the locals smile at her and greet them)

**italians, germans and japanese would none of us be considered white if the portuguese in brazil had protestant ethos where different human races and rigid categorisation of the natural world are a thing. the same way that the irish, italians and the hispanics are not considered white in america by english, german and nordic protestants (wasps).

***i'm aware descendants of former enslaved africans don't have the privilege of looking for their ancestors today, as there were no individual records. i'm also aware that white cultures in brazil have never been as erased as native cultures and i don't claim that. i do however claim that our suffering shouldn't be ignored just because it was not greater than the suffering of other oppressed peoples in brazil (as i noted, we have been oppressed too, despite being white), which is exactly what other brazilians do today.

[cosmos-philia]

Ramblings on my country’s current state

I can’t believe this is already time for the Holidays, and the end of the year’s time off and celebrations. I’m glad, and thankful, that most people I love are still here with me, despite the many collective, personal, and professional losses that occurred in my life. In most people’s lives, I suppose.

Before rambling a bit on things, first I’d like to share some good piece of news. I have done all my medical check-ups, and recently received a non-malignant minor mass diagnosis in my left breast. Because of the fact that in my family, the majority of women either had some type of women’s health related cancer, treated it and got better; or died from these sorts of conditions, I was quite worried. Aside from the increasing levels of vaccination rates in Brazil (in spite of the government’s omissions and clear genocide attempt), that is the best ending-of-the-year news I personally could ask for.

That being said, I just couldn’t try to say goodbye to 2021 without expressing more of my thoughts about it, particularly from the viewpoint of someone who is actively doing her best to survive and protect the people she loves under Bolsonaro’s rule. 

I have been even worse mentally before this nasty timeline, for I have lived within an abusive home during most of my life. Even so while I write this (in order to tend to a sick relative, I had to let go of my job as a teacher at a regular school, and started tutoring private classes remotely from mid-2020’s until the present moment, which was a dark time because until then, I’ve almost achieved my goal of getting away from the abusive people I still “have” live with). However, nothing has prepared me to survive this pandemic chaos whilst Bolsonaro had assumed the presidency. Nothing! And I live in the Global South, you guys...Lack of safety, unwritten night curfews, etc. is not far from our reach, even amongst a middle-class family where I come from.

Before the militia, the military forces, the mass media, and the nazi-inspired entrepreneurs of the extreme “free-market” ideology combined impeached Dilma Rousseff, our first democratically elect woman president, Brazil still had its share of many cumulative issues on all social spectrum; nonetheless, we were improving real living conditions for most people, especially for workers and the poor. The country I knew once then, it simply doesn’t exist anymore.

After the lawfare of the impeachment farce, and the legal and criminal prosecution of Lula (who was going to run for presidency after Dilma, both of them representatives of the Workers’ Party here), things began to escalate even further. Bolsonaro had already an advantage; Temer, Dilma’s Vice-President and the one who betrayed her for the sake of implementing a crusade against workers’ rights and people’s access to education, done most of the damage to urban existence way before our militia guy took over. From then onwards, everything else went downhill; first they started with attempting at genocide before the pandemic, with the native peoples around here.

Even with many territorial disputes, Brazil was up until then recognized as one of the few nations whose native peoples still existed in plenty, and weren’t mostly wiped out. Jair Bolsonaro was able to finish what the colonization and imperialistic conflicts could not entirely. Afterwards, they came for the rain forests. Then, for the flora and the fauna of other important Brazilian biomes, such as Pantanal. I remember it as if it was happening in front of my eyes today; during my presential classes, I witnessed days going black due to the forest fires. Guys, I cannot stress this enough: I live in São Paulo. The Amazon Forest, which is located in its Brazilian part in Amazônia state province, is miles and miles from here...Almost the distance between The UK and The Russian border of Europe. This all happened before the pandemic would begin, imagine that.

Of course 2020 would hit in here as well. If one were observant, and responsible, it was all a matter of looking what was already happening in China, in Italy, and then in the USA right after, and taking action. But we weren’t under the influence of a normal politician, even a horrific, right-wing one. Donald Trump might be just awful, and clearly draws inspiration and support from extreme right’s movements. Jair Bolsonaro, on the other hand, is the embodiment of what the media has called “Alt Right”, a fancy term for someone who is blatantly obvious a fascist in all facets.

We, Brazilians, were already deprived of our labor rights, our access to education (particularly high education), even our retirement laws were stripped from us. Seeing the native peoples’ and the forests’ burn broke my mind, my heart. Later on, the beginning of the pandemic times would tear me soul apart, too. Anyone with little to almost no common sense would get that it would be an impossibility to expect some kind of responsible act from them. What we could not anticipate were acts of direct commands to fully disseminate the disease and to contaminate all; the more, the better. If we hadn’t had a good public health system (which was under the government’s attacks, of course), our total death numbers and chronically ill patients of Covid-19 would definitely surpass America’s.

I try to manage my health, my sanity, by focusing on what I can do to improve my personal situation, the circumstances of the ones around me, and, surely, what I can actively do to contribute to the community. Nevertheless, the overral state of severe famine, unemployment, lack of stable career prospects, along with all I wrote about earlier, profoundly devastates me. Constantly. Good thing that Brazilian folks are more prone to getting the vaccine shots, though. Because that’s pretty much one of the few good news on our collective endeavors to share – even if it is an extremely relevant one in this ongoing Covid context.

Just imagine what we could have done with a good public health system, and the equal distribution of vaccines around the world. If only we’d had that.

That being said, there are days more difficult than others, and despite my efforts to remain realistically pragmatic (neither denying the negative impact of things, nor wanting to dwell on them in an entropy state), observing the regular citizen’s reactions to the pandemic’s ongoing altering conditions depresses the fuck out of me. We have already conquered so much, on simply being able to go outside when needed, or to tend to close friends & family with masks on, maintaining a safe distance between us. I understand that different from me, many folks relax by hanging out in large crowds. It’s terrible we can’t do it yet in their perspective, and I truly, truly get it. Still, normalizing agglomerations now continues to be outright unethical. Not addhering to using masks, too. This is not too much to ask for. Nor too hard to accomplish, considering everything we already went through, everyone we already lost.

Expressing sadness in here feels more of a crime than many horrific things I mentioned before. There’s a difference between wanting to rebuild a life responsibly, and living as if nothing has happened at all. More than the usual, I sense an on-growing hedonism in Brazilians, which is indicative of poor coping mechanisms, unethical behaviour, false perceptions of reality, and lack of social organization in order to provide collective solutions to our problems.

[ausetkmt]

Avatar Films Have Always Been A Gross Reimagining Of Colonialism

After 13 years, the sequel to Avatar(2009) has finally arrived. The original science fiction epic, written and directed by James Cameron, broke multiple box office records in its theatrical run and became the highest-grossing film of all time for a decade. Many will remember accompanying their families to sold-out theatres mere days before Christmas for a film that employed the use of groundbreaking technology which would change the art of filmmaking forever. However, Avatar (and its sequel Avatar: The Way Of The Water), is in fact a problematic analogy of indigenous oppression. 

To recap, Avatar follows disabled ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as he learns the ways of the Omaticaya clan of the Na’vi people in an avatar body that looks and functions just like theirs. Along with their culture, he falls in love with one of the Na’vi, a fierce warrior named Neytiri (From Scratch’s Zoe Saldana), and switches sides against the humans, subsequently leading the Omaticaya people in their war against Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and the Resources Development Association (RDA).

Many will remember the blue alien species facing adversity, but not many will remember (or have even noticed) that the central conflict in Avatar is an allegory for colonialism. An ignorant, aggressive, money-hungry corporation supported by military enforcement wishes to destroy the sacred homeland of indigenous communities in order to obtain valuable resources — sounds a little familiar to me. In fact, James Cameron has admitted that Avatar is based on the colonisation of Native Americans. In court documents from a 2015 plagiarism case where visual effects artist Gerald Morawski claims Cameron stole the idea from him, Cameron produced a sworn declaration detailing how he came up with the idea for the film. “Avatar is a science fiction retelling of the history of North and South America in the early colonial period,” read the statement. “Avatar very pointedly made reference to the colonial period in the Americas, with all its conflict and bloodshed between the military aggressors from Europe and the indigenous peoples. Europe equals Earth. The native Americans are the Na’vi. It’s not meant to be subtle.”

Indeed, Quaritch and the RDA are very obvious symbols of colonial whiteness; they even use a slew of derogatory, colonial verbiage, referring to the Na’vi as “savages” on multiple occasions. Sadly, this focal conflict follows into the sequel, with previously deceased Colonel Quaritch returning as the story’s villain via an avatar body that had all his memories stored in the event of his death. This time, he has one mission: getting revenge on Jake Sully. Colonel Quaritch is now even more bloodthirsty and dangerous, eager to destroy Jake and his new family, and he is willing to go as far as becoming the very beings he hates the most in order to exact vengeance. With the RDA and their weapons backing him, Quaritch lays waste to several Na’vi communities, burning down their homes and killing them in cold blood.

“The truth is, reimagining colonial violence and the suffering of indigenous people through the eyes of an alien species isn’t the epic story Cameron thinks it is.”

Indigenous people have taken issue with the themes in Avatar for years, but it’s only now with the increasing visibility of social media that there is a wider platform for them to share their opinions and continue a discourse about the problematic nature of this story. Now that indigenous people are being heard, some are calling for a boycott of the film’s highly anticipated sequel.

Much of the recent criticisms got louder following the resurfacing of a 2010 article by the Guardian that details the involvement of Cameron and Avatar’s Sigourney Weaver and Joel Moore in the Brazilian Xingu peoples’ campaign against the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam project. Acknowledging that the Avatar had created “a bit of a spotlight on [them] right now to raise awareness in certain key areas”, Cameron expressed his desire to make a 3D “experiential” documentary on the Xingu’s battle.

After watching indigenous ceremonies and meetings Cameron made extremely disparaging comments about the Lakota. “I felt like I was 130 years back in time watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed and they were being killed and they were being asked to displace and they were being given some form of compensation,” said Cameron. “This was a driving force for me in the writing of Avatar – I couldn't help but think that if [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future… and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation… because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society – which is what is happening now – they would have fought a lot harder.”

Cameron has since addressed the subsequent accusations of racism in a UNILAD article, noting that he wanted to “listen and to be sensitive to issues that people have.” However, Cameron has not apologised directly to the Lakota people for his degrading comments. 

Simply acknowledging people's feelings as “valid” is not enough. The truth is, reimagining colonial violence and the suffering of indigenous people through the eyes of an alien species isn’t the epic story Cameron thinks it is. It’s an appropriative and tasteless virtue-signalling of a traumatic issue that still affects millions of native people today.

Despite Cameron claiming that he wishes to move away from the white saviour trope, the backstory of Avatar’s central white character says otherwise. By positioning Jake as the Na’vi’s saviour, the film’s “fuck white people” metanarrative conveniently disavows whiteness as inherently bad. Even in Avatar: The Way of Water, despite bringing even more death and destruction to the beautiful land of the indigenous Metkayina tribe who provide a safe haven for his family, Jake pretty much remains the hero of the story.

This representation of Jake as one of the “good” whites implores people to view whiteness as an institution and a system, rather than individuals who can be complicit in a system of violence and oppression. In doing this, Cameron suggests that sometimes, whiteness can save us. It feels like some weird colonial wet dream that appoints certain well-meaning white people as the saviours of native people in the perpetual struggle against other white people. Both Avatar films’ metanarratives are framed as counter-hegemonic, but they ultimately end up reproducing hegemony by positioning white people as heroes — thus supporting and legitimising white supremacy. 

The franchise props up whiteness as something special and unique that enrichens and sets you apart from everyone else. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Jake and Neytiri’s kids are seen as outcasts, similar to Jake, because they were born with five fingers like humans instead of four like other indigenous Na’vi. Because of this, they are teased by other Na’vi. However, throughout the course of the film, the Sully kids are revealed to have special abilities; Kiri (Weaver) the daughter of the late Grace Augustine’s (also Weaver) avatar body, has a particularly special connection with Ewya, the Na’vi’s omniscient deity. It’s interesting that in both films, the characters that are connected to whiteness (apart from the RDA) are treated as different and special among the indigenous communities they make a home in.

Ultimately, colonialism is a real-life monster that has and continues to affect indigenous people globally for generations. Though the story of Avatar is fictional; its themes aren’t, and it’s imperative that we think critically about the on-screen representation of certain issues and groups because the media largely informs our understanding of the subjects depicted. It also informs our application of these issues — from individual to collective praxis. It’s even more important when you consider the global visibility of this film.

James Cameron most likely thought that this film would implore pro-colonialists and Western imperials to think about their empire’s history differently. But if he really wanted to fight for the rights of indigenous people, he could have directly provided aid, reparations, or any kind of tangible support to these communities instead of producing a multi-billion dollar franchise that emblematizes their trauma. His net worth is literally $700 million. But do the people whose struggle inspired filmmakers like Cameron and line his millionaire pockets see even a cent of those profits? No. Of course not. 

It’s true: Western colonialism begets a debt that cannot ever be repaid. But white Westerners, at the very least, can make a start — and putting a spin on indigenous trauma for profit isn’t it.

[mlm-writer]

I read the whole fight and felt so sad and frustrated... How can someone imply that trans people are not getting killed because they're trans? I unfortunately live in one of the countries that kills the most trans people in the world (Brazil). It's insane the amount of times I see in the news or read about it online that a trans person was brutally attacked and/or killed in the streets for no goddamn reason other than being trans. Like, RIGHT NOW there's a fucking gorgeous and amazing trans woman participating in the Brazilian version of Big Brother and the amount of outrageous comments online about her is out of this world. And guess what? All those people attacking her are EXCPLICITLY saying they hate her BECAUSE SHE'S TRANS!!! How can that other tumblr-person-whoever-was-that say that trans people don't get killed (or attacked or whatever) just because they're trans? Not to mention the whole pronouns thing with the LGB. They're clearly not in contact with reality.

I'm so so sorry to write all of this in your ask box, I just needed to vent somewhere and going all over that other person's blog to say all this wouldn't make a difference I'm sure. You don't have to respond if you don't want to. Sorry again for this gigantic ask akjdskjdjsdj I was just frustrated...

My blog is mainly about MLM (men loving men), but that does not mean it is not a safe space for everyone in the LGBT+ community (and allies too ofc). You have a right to be angry! We, as a community, should be angry! We should be angry at the corporations that wanna profit from our need to be represented, while they actively contribute to the violence against us (looking at you, Disney). We should be angry at the individuals that have this insane notion that "I think everyone should have equal rights" is a radical idea. And, in light of what instigated this ask, we should be angry at those that claim to be one of us, while actively gatekeeping our community (looking at you @lavenderfeminist)

The LGBT+ community has always been about acceptance. It has always been about standing together for our rights, our freedom and our self-expression. That means that we stand together. We acknowledge each other's struggles and do not claim that one part of the community is more important than the other or struggles more. We do not divide ourselves, because that is not what the community is about. If you are gonna claim that trans people do not suffer because their gender identity does not align with their assigned sex, you are not part of this community. You can be a lesbian all you want, but you are not part of the LGBT+ community if you do not recognise the existence, importance and struggles of those in the T+. And that's the T.

[strangeduckpaper]

JLI Continuing

Following up on the JL series post, further ideas:

- Guy Gardner / GL-The Canadian choice, actually, who has chip on his shoulder stemming from comparisons to other GLs, as well as the ways his life has changed since he got the ring. He’s definitely still angry, yet focus should be drawn to his heroic qualities, including both his sheer willpower and surprising ability to connect with people, and focus given to his past as a childcare specialist. Babysitter jokes Galore!

- Tora Olafsdottir / Ice-the Icelandic member, a relative newbie who is eager to please, while dealing with her own insecurities & reputation with a “B” team. She shouldn’t be all smiles and rainbows, maybe even some major anger issues stemming from injustices she’s suffered, and attention should be drawn to her Roma heritage and the magical origins of her powers. She is basically a minor nature goddess in human form.

- Beatriz De Costa / Fire-The Brazilian member, and a “friend” of Maxwell Lord. She’s actually a former Checkmate agent before gaining her powers during a suicide mission that Max sent her on. Hides her survivor’s guilt, guilt about what she did at Checkmate, and resentment of Max under a party-girl exterior. She’s still a fashionista though. Major snarker.

- Dora Leigh / Godiva-UK member from Norther Ireland, which acts as a source of drama, both from the fact that she’s definately pro-reunification, and the British government’s desire to actually have a loyal, british hero, which Godiva isn’t. Soft spoken and actually the JLI’s infilitration specialist, major pop culture nerd.

- Dominic Mndawe / Freedom Beast-South African member and activist who was put on JLI as an attempt to lessen his influence & voice against racism & forgetting South Africa’s shady past. Needless to say it didn’t work. Major equal rights activist, outspoken & wise. Surprisingly friendly with Guy Gardner, deals in deadpan humor.

- Michael Jon Carter / Booster Gold-US choice, in lieu of more “Patriotic” heroes like Captain Atom or Agent Liberty. Still from the 31st century, battles with his own insecurities knowing that he’s going to be forgotten. Likes classic sci-fi, and pointing out how accurate they are, has a love/hate relationship with Godiva because of this. Platonic(?) life partners with Blue Beetle.

- Ted Kord / Blue Beetle-Actually Eduardo Cortez, a Mexican inventor & business owner, criticized for his self anglicization. Still, the team’s inventor and gadget hero, even having a *limited* understanding of the Mother box the team comes into possession of. Major herophile, really *REALLY* wants to be able to stand even with Batman. Also has a crush on the heroic hacker known as Oracle, but has never met them.

- Other characters include Catherine Cobert, their beleaguered press manager,  Orion, the New God tracking down the rogue Mother Box, and reluctantly leaves it with them, Rocket Red, a member of the Russian powered armor squadron of the same name who was really disappointed when Russia decided to not put a hero on the JLI, and others.

The Justice League of China would actually make for an interesting B-plot, as the new young government made heroes also struggle with following orders or being heroes, or you could actually focus on Kenan Kong reaching that conclusion, with the rest of the JLC, and other heroes like the Great Ten, being a point of contention for him

[andsmile]

I stumbled across a youtube vid where Camila had spoken about feeling secondary to her friends growing up and down in the comments people were stating that her comments didn't make sense since (to them) she is white. I know that Brazil is a bit of an anomaly cus its not a Spanish speaking country but I don't know how someone can look at Camila and think she's white. If anything she strikes me as being mixed.

ahm, this is kind of a hard topic imo, so i’ll put it all under the cut!

camila is a latina who grew up in the united states, where the racial/ethnic aspects sometimes get confusing... and i’m going to do my best talking about this because i am white, way whiter than cami even though my dad is black, and i am not from the US, but as a white latina it’s how i’ve learned how to look at it. PLEASE, educate me if i’m saying something wrong! always willing to learn here.

in brazil, cami would be considered “white” or “parda”, which is the word we have for those who aren’t black but also aren’t really white - but “parda” just refers to the skin color, not the ethnicity. 

here, you could only say she’s mixed if she was the daughter of a black woman and a white man, for example, and her skin tone reflected that; or if she was the daughter of an asian man and a white woman, etc, but she isn’t.

i am the daughter of a white woman and a black man, however, i am super white, so i can’t be considered mixed or parda. the “pardo” here is just a color. and the ethnicity doesn’t really play a game.

example of a white actress in brazil. she’s the grand-daughter of german immigrants:

example of a black actresses in brazil:

example of a mixed actress in brazil, daughter of a black man and a white woman. same as me, but you see she’s essentially the same color as the black actress, so she’s considered mixed and could self-identify as parda. i, on the other hand, cannot.

cami. her parents are not black, but her skin color isn’t as white as the white actress or me, so she would be considered “parda” here in brazil, or just a white “morena” (brunette), depending on how you want it to be:

however, in the US, it doesn’t work that way. 

this happens because the US, historically, had colorism policies and race segregation that we in Latam never did. so, when there was segregation back then, you would only be considered white if you were “purely white”, so if you had “one-drop” of black blood you’d already be considered black. this is why it gets so confusing, imo, because you consider the ethnicity, and not just the skin color.

ok, so, when feminism movements started to blow up in the seventies, US black activists came up with the term women of color. it was supposed to be about the afro-american/black women in the agenda, but other minorities who felt like the white feminist agenda didn’t suit their needs, wanted to be part of the “women of color” agenda, and it ended up englobing everyone who isn’t considered “purely white”. you should read about this in wikipedia and other sources, it’s pretty interesting!

the fact that cami’s ethnicity is latin-american already places her in a "in-between” position. it’s what we call “white passing” in english. she’s white passing, but she isn’t “purely white”. the culture she grew up with doesn’t fit. that means she is, as a latina, considered a minority in the US. her ethnicity places her in this position.

so, is cami as a latina a woman of color? yes, if you go by this term definition. just like asian-american women and black women. OF COURSE she would never struggle with the same issues as a black woman. but she also isn’t considered an “equal” to her white friends in many ways, because of her origin and culture. it’s hard to understand! but it’s valid that she feels like this in a society that consider latinos non-whites, no matter how white-passing they are.

gisele bündchen is a brazilian model who is obviously white, but she hasn’t suffered any kind of prejudice about being a minority because she’s white and german descendant. if she has suffered with anything, was probably with the misconception that all brazilian women are down to fuck, etc - same kind of prejudice i’ve been through, rooted on sexism and misinformation about latinx women. 

but there’s a huge difference between gisele, who has a white skin, german last name, blue eyes, blonde hair, supermodel body, etc, and cami, who has dark hair, latinx features, latinx body, dark eyes, etc.

so cami’s struggles are super valid in the society she lives in.

none of this applies to veronica, though. veronica comes from a mexican family in canon, both her parents are mexican, and she most definitely can be considered a woman of color in the show, regardless of how white-passing cami is. 

you see how much the character is hated, mistreated, and slandered by the fandom. you see how much she’s disregarded by reviewers who pay more attention to betty. of course, she’s still in a better position than the black women in the show, but if veronica lodge was purely white like in the comics, she’d be a bigger contender for archie’s heart in the eyes of the fandom, for sure.

anyway! i hope this helped? and if you guys have something to add please do, i hope i didn’t say anything wrong. 

[ichabodcranemills]

My Bel and Vinder theory

I’ve discussed here and here, how not only I don't believe Bel and Vinder are going to be the Doctor’s (or the Timeless Child’s) parents, but also that I would loathe if that was the case.

I think their baby is not going to be any already existing character. I was talking about it with friends, and some of them said it would be weird if they were “wasting” so much of the limited run time of the season on a not significant-to-the-bigger-picture family. But I think that this would be very aligned with the themes of Chibnall’s run, and with Doctor Who in general.

To explain my point, I’m going to use a Brazilian poem, Morte e Vida Severina (The Death and Life of a Severino). I have to give some context for this, so this will be long.

This poem is a play in verse that tells the story of Severino, a retirante from the northeast region of Brazil. The northeast was one of the places most fucked up by Portuguese colonialism in Brazil. The land ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few farmers with vast monocultures of sugar cane, since colonial times. It's a very arid region that suffers from annual draughts and the retirantes are people who flee these draughts, going to the city or more fertile lands "often in a repetitive cycle of flight and devastation." I highlight this part, from the Wikipedia article of the poem, because it makes me think of the Doctor in a way, of his repetitive cycle of running.

In the poem, Severino reaches the city, but life is equally rough there, so he starts contemplating suicide. He talks to a man about his musings and they then witness the birth of a child. The man then answers Severino, regarding his suicidal thoughts, "by acknowledging that he does not known if life is in fact worthy of being lived in spite of all the sufferings it engenders, but also claiming that life itself had given him an answer and a message of hope."

This feels very much like something straight out of Twelve's run, but I believe it would be a pertinent message for Thirteen's run as well. The full response of the man to Severino to the question on whether he should "jump off the bridge and away from life" is the last stanza of the poem, and the part that brings me back to Vinder and Bel's child and how important their apparent meaninglessness is: 

"And there's no better answer Than to see life Unravel its thread, Which is also called life, See the factory Life itself stubbornly makes. See it sprout and grow, like now, Explode into a new life, Even when the explosion, Like that which too place, Is so small. Even when it's so puny, Even when it's that of A severe, Severino life."

So you have this fleeing man - this man who comes from an endless cycle of fleeing - contemplating suicide because he seems to be confronted with nothing but death, finding hope again upon the birth of an "unimportant" child. In a play that touches on the harms of imperialism and how the wealthy absolutely will crush regular people for generations, for centuries on end - in Portugal's colonies, in England's colonies, in sci-fi empires. And this is what we have against it: the regular lives of regular people, in births and small joys and hope in our darkest hours.

Do I think Chris Chibnall took inspiration from a relatively obscure Brazilian play to create this part of his story? Not really, but the man does like to use poetry and this one fits REALLY WELL with the themes of Thirteen’s arc. And most importantly, a "tiny" life, bringing ideals of hope and reconstruction, would, in my opinion, carry so much more meaning than another larger-than-life character in a tragedy (because that's what the Timeless Child is - a tragedy). Doctor Who, as a show, contains all sorts of genres. It has tragedies, that's normal. But more often than not (or better saying, deep down) it's a story about hope. I don't think Thirteen's run will end with another tragic story, it deserves to end with hope. So a "hope baby" who is just that, a baby to signify hope, would be a much more powerful message.