#biracial erasure

[crowfeathers]

am I fucking. Adopted or something

[girlpocalypse]

AOK, white woman

The ancestors' genes really went hard on me.

Though I believe I fully present as a tall Filipina, I do have a white Dad. The most notable genes I got from Larry were depression, height, and some leg hair. The rest is from Florence.

I was too brown to fit in with my Dad's Iowan extended family; too white for my Mom's family. On my Dad's side, I always felt like my mom, brother, and I were these out of place, exotic signs of a brave new “post-racial” world that everyone patted themselves on the back for over lunches of mayonnaise-based "salads" and sour cream casseroles.

In nomenclature I was always deemed white by people who knew my parents, thanks to that good ol' one drop rule. To be fair, I was much lighter skinned as a child, but only because I was ordered to hide in the shade when outside. Even now, when I spend a day in the sun I hear the full cacophony of aunties and uncles in my head: "We didn't leave Cagayan for you to look like you spent the whole day working in the rice fields!" I was generously gifted colorism, but gate kept from owning Filipino culture. Lucky me. 

Once, at the beginning of a bright, shiny new Trump presidency and the resulting cultural emboldening of public bigotry, I once met one of those aunties for brunch when she visited Chicago. I recounted the tale of being shouted at by a man in his car to go back where I came from on my way to the restaurant. Without a beat she assured me, "Well that's okay though, you're white!"

By school age I had fully internalized this message that I must claim whiteness. I felt isolated and weird as the lone non-white girl in my Kindergarten class, and so badly wanted to be just like everyone else. When it came time for my very first school birthday party, my Mom asked me what kind of treats I wanted to bring in for my celebration. I reportedly said:

"Mommy, I want a white Barbie cake because I'm a white girl."

People told me I should be white, so I tried to be. I lived in white spaces for so long, all I wanted for most of my childhood was to be seen as one of them.

I went to the Philippines for the first time when I was sixteen. The motherland had these ideal island weather conditions, which meant that suddenly my hair (which I had been dutifully wearing straight like the card-carrying emo girl I was), suddenly had beautiful, beachy, vibrant curls. After that trip I threw out my Chi flat-iron and never straightened my hair again. That was the first way that I ever gave myself intentional permission to reconnect with my ancestral roots. (Get it?)

My Mom had waited to bring us to her home country until my brother and I were old enough to have our wits about us, since traveling with my six-foot tall white father as a mixed American family was dangerous. The difference between the way I was treated when I had proximity to my Dad's whiteness by strangers in America versus the Philippines was staggering. People in Manila and the countryside alike didn't like that my mom had "betrayed" her people by being with my Dad, so it was safer to leave him at home when we went to the market or ran errands. For the first time in my life, my brownness kept me safer.

At the same time, whiteness made me a commodity. On that trip, family, friends, and strangers would fully walk up to me, stroke my cheek, and say things like, "Oh my god, wow, you're a SINGER? Maganda, you're so tall and so light! The next Charice or Charlotte Church! You should be on television!" I was gifted bottles of face lightening cleansers and serums to take back to the states with me so I could keep my "white" skin beautiful.

This Summer at our family reunion photo shoot, the photographer was arranging the adult cousin generation for a group photo and asked us to sort ourselves by height. This of course erupted in overlapping cries of, "Send Anna to the back because she's SO tall!" The chaos peaked as my petite dietician of a cousin who was sitting in the row in front of me enthusiastically turned to everyone announcing, "Yeah, she's soooooo tall because Anna's WHITE!"

Without thinking, I shoved my arm next to hers: "OH YEAH? PLEASE, POINT AT THE PART THAT IS WHITE. SEE YOUR PUREBLOOD FILIPINO ARM NEXT TO MINE? HMMM, IT LOOKS TO ME LIKE MY 'WHITE' ARM IS SIGNIFICANTLY DARKER THAN YOURS, HOW STRANGE!"

In that moment, I felt the collective rage from all the years I was told I was "such a big girl," by my Filipino family. Giant. Fat. Huge. Tall. White.

It's not even like my cousins have more of a claim to Filipino-ness than I do. In fact, I, only a half Filipina, planned said reunion. I, a mere half-breed, am the only one of the cousins organizing in my city and creating Fil-Am spaces for Filipino music and community. Practically none of our cousin's generation even speaks Tagalog, as we were raised in the peak age of first-generation assimilation. Our families thought they were doing right by us by keeping us from the mother tongue. They didn't want us made fun of for our accents; didn't want us academically behind since the prominent thinking at the time was that introducing young children to multiple languages was detrimental to their development. They wanted us to be American, full stop. Though I now see that our parents were just doing what they thought was best, I used to be really angry that I was kept from Tagalog. Everyone always responded that my lack of language made sense, since I was "only half."

Somehow, my flat, wide nose is the smallest one of all sixteen grandchildren. My delicate disposition made me the only one of the cousins who has a recessive blood disorder called Thalassemia (similar to sickle cell anemia and common in southeastern and south Asian populations). I am half Filipina, but I have whole insecurities about the flatness of my face. I am only half, but have this Filipina medical problem that will leave me systemically tired and immunocompromised for my whole life.

For our cousin's Christmas Secret Santa exchange a couple years ago, I was given a 23-and-me DNA test. The results were predictable:

25% Germanic 25% British Isles 49% Filipino, indigenous to the Ilocos Norte & Cagayan regions 1% Spanish

The thing that shook me to my core was the way my 23-and-me reports outlining my risks for certain diseases and genetic conditions compared me to other "average caucasian women" of my age. Over and over again across the page, the data read:

Anna: WHITE WOMAN Anna: WHITE WOMAN Anna: WHITE WOMAN

Me. My brown ass. A woman who gets clocked for Mexican or Latina or Filipina by strangers everywhere she goes; a woman who gets so dark in the Summer she wears five separate shades of foundation depending on how sun-kissed she is; a woman who is yelled at from cars to go back where she came from -- which, if you were wondering, is Liberty, Missouri.

I'm not sure when exactly I decided to give myself permission to stop introducing myself with an asterisk: half white, half Filipina. Those words always felt demeaning to me - after all, I couldn’t divide myself into a brown half and a white half.

What I do know, is that I am utterly exhausted from this lifetime of being told who I am.

I look in the mirror and see a whole person. She rides the line between identities in a world that subscribes to binaries and therefore belongs to nothing. Not gay, not straight, but a secret third thing. Not so disabled that you see it at first glance, but not well enough to keep up with able bodied people. Not brown enough for the brown people, not white enough for the white people.

I look in the mirror at her lidded eyes and cascading jet black hair.

She is not "half" anything.

And she is abso-fucking-lutely not a white woman.

-AOK, August 2023

[punkeropercyjackson]

Seriously the erasure of Duke as a Robin,Batboy and Batkid will never not piss me off because if you bothered reading his comics,you'd know he actually IS included in all three categories on multiple enough to be relevant occasions and that he explicitly views Bruce as a father figure and Bruce sees him as another son and ALL the other official Batkids have sibling relathionships with him.You'd also know he's the only reason Jason came back to the Batfam so there's such thing as 'the main/core Batboys' that includes Jason but not Duke.Jason just wouldn't be there and it's antiblack to pretend otherwise,to pretend Duke's erasure as a Robin,Batboy AND Batkid is anything OTHER THAN antiblackness,be it in the fandom or by DC itself.That shit don't exist in a vacuum and it's why i don't engage with DC critical posts very often despite being highly critical of DC,i know the ops do the same thing so as a black comics fan their words don't mean anything to me if they leave out Duke too,which they always do.Especially other Jason stans,because you can't be a Jason stan if you're not also a Duke stan due to how important they are to eachother relathionship wise and from a writing perspective-Becoming brothers with Duke was the first time Jason was actually written as himself,with respect to his history,ever since the letdown that og Rhato gave him and it's very telling black/black biracial Stephanie never really pops up by these 'criticals' either despite how much sense it makes and improves her as rep for women even more combined with their hostility as nonblacks to afrolatino Jason headcanons under the guise of 'anti racism' as they again purposefully forget to care about Duke.You left him out on purpose,you can start to care about him on purpose too if you're so much better than DC.Walk the walk bih

[readingbibooks]

“To fight discrimination, many activists want a clear-cut definition of what delineates an ally from an enemy. Biracial and bisexual individuals too often are placed on the enemy side, charged with passing in the dominant society and rejecting their true identity because they won’t choose a side. The cost of passing is an erasure of history, a loss of pride and breakdown of the sense of wholeness of identity.”

- Beverley Yuen Thompson, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World

[boonoonoonus]

People only care about House Velaryon as much as it pertains to creating this upotian idea of racial neutrality. However, when you press to say the optics of whiteness perpetuating a form of ethnic cleansing in the House, everyone is blind. They can't see that, and the reason is because whiteness can never see itself as anything but ulturistic. People cannot comprehend, nor can they write anything that treats non-white characters as people with their own motivations, beliefs, and sense of morality because then they'd have to stop using them as tools. Laenor Velaryon is used in this way in fandom to prop up the Targaryens narrative concerning white supremacy, colonisation, and classism. It's ludicrous that's there is no fanfiction or meta or anything interrogating the possibility that House Velaryon could be justified in their dislike of the succession crisis Rhaenyra causes or that Laenor may be upset with her. He is never more than her gay best friend because that is the only role a gay biracial man can play for a white woman.

This is problematic in as much that making a biracial man support someone who is representative of systems of oppression in any which way without critical engagement is dangerous and an oversight. Making House Velaryon black could have been interesting. Instead, it's invited white people on mass to prop up black people as support for their racist fantasies. By that, I mean any writing/headcanon/thought experiment that sees House Velaryon just be Rhaenyra's strongest supporters without explaining why, is just erasure and tokenism. (Sidenote, no one ever gives a why and I think in part it's because media literacy is dead and whiteness has become so ingrained as the standard people cannot fathom why you would never just support the main white character no matter how asinine they are. There is no good argument, and no one wants to do the work to try to create one. Fair enough, no one can demand your labour, but it leave black characters in a sidelined and tokenistic position that supports white people taking them out for brownie points when needed.)

Laenor isn't a person, he's a mesh of plot relevant reactions and external support to make Rhaenyra and the writer by extension look and feel better. Both Laenor and Laena are shown in fanfiction and the TV show to be useful by the very act of their disposal, and no one pauses to wonder if that is a violent act. (It is. It's antiblack and plays into hegemonic violence against black bodies).

Also, the breeding kink of the white supremacist line of thinking shows itself in the way in which people argue the importance of Rhaenyras line continuing by blood, but conveniently saying that the choice to adopt on behalf of House Velaryon is progressive and their blood doesn't matter, choice does. The parallels between this argument and the likes of the Tuskegee experiment or sterilisation of non white persons with vaginas in hospitals and prisons whilst encouraging white people who are capable of giving birth to do so are immense. The willingness of people to fall into white supremacist lines of thinking when arguing for a fictional character is astounding, however its ultimately a pet peeve on my behalf. There are very few critical spaces in which blackness is welcomed in life, and existential alienation extends into the digital and fictional worlds. People are comfortable with prejudice and white supremacy ,it's is the basis on which the West builds legitimacy and precedent, it is not remiss then to say that the inheritors of these social precedents replicate the behaviour and line of thinking.

This is not to say people are unaware, but often the "fun" of whiteness is to be able to not have to worry about the likes of Black, Indigenous, Asian or Pacific islander people because preservation of white happiness is more important. White people get to live in a utopian ideal all the time when it pertains to race and have the freedom to say that discussions on such topics harsh their vibe so they do not have to engage.

But whatever, who cares what I think, I'm just a Black person on the Internet.

[madinscurianmermaid]

My bio:

*read before you follow, like or interact!*

My name's Orion (my online name to protect my privacy). Here's some background about me:

I'm 30 years old

I'm an interfaith believer in Christ, with many additional Christian influences of Native American Christianity, Quakerism, Catholicism, Ringātu (Māori indigenous Christianity), Calvinism, Celtic Christianity, Hellenic Christianity, Appalachian Indigenous Christianity, Hellenic Judaism and Messianic Judaism as part of my faith and beliefs (yes, like it or not, interfaith Jewish believers in Christ exist. You don't have to worry about me forcing it on you as I'm aware it's a messy and complex topic to get into but don't get nasty, rude or disrespectful in my comments via invalidating my Jewishness or insistently trying to force me to not talk about my faith. Respect me and I'll respect you and vice versa).

This page and account is an adults only page for grown 21-30+ adults and older adults only.

I'm autistic, neurodivergent and mentally ill, with comorbid clinical depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD, chronic and severe debilitating OCD, borderline personality disorder, complex PTSD, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, etc.; I believe in both professional diagnosis and in self diagnosis and every mentally ill and neurodivergent individuals' illness and neurodivergency presents differently in each individual, so don't start any pointless discourse as it always tips into abelism, disrespect, rudeness and neurotypical social desirability standards and I'm not in the mood for any of that.

I'm extremely mixed race, with extensive Black Native, Afro-Indigenous, Afro-Native, Afro-European, Afro-Aboriginal, Blasian, Romani, Melungeon, Asian-Indigenous and Jewish ancestry. Don't start any pointlessly rude and disrespectful discourse thinking you have any right to dictate how a mixed race and biracial individual should identify or express themselves or what they should look like; it's racist, featurist, colorist and plain rude, point blank.

I support the Jewish community especially as I'm Jewish and a Jew of color, so antisemitism will not be tolerated.

I'm also pro Palestinian and anti zionist and yes, like it or not, being Jewish doesn't automatically equate to being zionist and being Jewish doesn't require anybody to be zionist; plus, zionism's fascism and white supremacy, and with me also being a mixed race Afro-Palestinian / Palestinian Jew, I refuse to have anything to do with zionism. If you're zionist and have a problem with any of this, block me immediately.

I'm intersex. I was born intersex and have a large amount of intersex variants (i.e. polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), PCOS-related hypoandrogenism, XXX syndrome, Non-classical Cogenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (NCAH), hypogonadism, partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS), etc.); the only type of questions I'll answer are questions that are respectful not just to me but intersex folks at large, especially intersex women/femmes and black and brown intersex women/femmes of color and also intersex men/mascs and intersex men/mascs of color. Any questions that get invasively oversexual, rude and intrusive will be stopped immediately. And any form of intersexism, interphobia, intermisogyny, intermisogynoir as well as intermisandry and intermisandrinoir, whether it be intersexist erasure and invalidating intersex folks' existence, regurgitating of harmful and offensive right wing conservative or radical "feminist" eugenicism that reduces and stigmatizes, and wrongly and falsely paints intersex folks as medical deformities or pitiable defects in need of "fixing" (aka promoting unethical and unwanted surgeries that leave us intersex folks physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically damaged and traumatized) or just any type of manipulative, abusive and disrespectful intersexist gaslighting and endosplaining will be reported and online trolls that do these things will be blocked. Oh, and if you're a radfem = instant block. Ya'll are the worst perpetrators of everything I mentioned and I know ya'll are bigoted, extremist IERFs (Intersex Exclusionary Radical Feminists) by proxy, and we have nothing to talk about and I have no interest in listening to any of the baloney ya'll have to say. Ya'll are not feminists and are not radical, ya'll are frauds and chronically online fake feminist Karens.

I'm an Appalachian and an Urban Appalachian and want to know more about that part of my culture especially given my Melungeon heritage and my roots in midwestern and southern states such as Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, Indiana and Florida, and the Ozark Mountains.

DNI (do not interact) if you're: zionist (liberal or conservative), right wing conservative, Donald Trump/MAGA supporter, Andrew Tate defender/sympathizer, Amber Heard defender/sympathizer, Justin and Hailey Bieber fan or defender/sympathizer, Ron Desantis defender/sympathizer, Lovatic/Demi Lovato fan/defender, Trey Songz defender/sympathizer, radfem, redpill fratdude, racist, white supremacist, divester, an apologist for any type of abuse towards others, if you have any hateful antisemitic views, if you have anti Palestinian racist and xenophobic views, etc.

[destinyc1020]

The Teyonah Parris erasure

I LOVE Teyonah! ❤️ She's a great actress, and she's gorgeous! 😁

But she's also 36 years old.

We're talking about darker skinned black actresses in their 20s who seem to not really get as many roles and opportunities in mainstream films and projects like their white and biracial counterparts. 😔

It's almost as though Hollywood decided that darker black actresses in their 20s don't even exist.... unless it's for slave films or hood rat roles of course. 🙄😒

[froguemorgue]

you know, i need someone to tell this to, and unfortunately for you, you have been randomly selected as that person.

Alexander Hamilton's biracial cousin once removed aka Peter Lytton's son was called Don Alvarez de Velasco (you prolly know that) now as non-spanish speaker what i didn't realize was that his ma had essentially named him Lord de Velasco. and by GOD do i need the story behind it. is it like when black men would be named Mister so that their white peers couldn't sidestep the honorific? was there something else at play? Did they live a good life after Peter Lytton's death? mulattos could at the very least reach the upper rungs of society in the Carribean and being a Lytton has to count for /something/ so did Alvarez ever "rise" in Crucian society in so much as he could? Did his mother call him Don or Alvarez?

ofc, im not asking you this directly. but its just. he's been reduced to alexander hamilton's cousin's bastard biracial son and drops off mention in any text i could find. granted I'm also driving my chariot through that road because i don't know another road. the only other mention i came across was a historical society in st croix hosting a lecture titled with his name and was about the lives of mulattos i think, i believe. i was desperate for some info on this figure that i even wrote a mail to the society that was prolly promptly deleted as spam because of how stupidly it was written

who was he, yknw? i wonder if we'll ever know

did you ever have a figure like this? atp I'm just yappin lmao sorry for the long ask!

HOW DID I MISS THIS? i still love you, sorry, was not ignoring you!!

When you ask about whether I have historical figures like this I wonder about, YES! and they're almost always women or non-white people. We know their names (if that) and their general relation to the White Dudes history focuses on. It isn't often we know much else, even with some deep dives into any primary documents and context that would clue us into the rest. Wish they'd all just keep diaries, hahhaha. Of course that wasn't always possible and so many people, if they were even literate or had the means to keep diaries, wouldn't even write about themselves in complete honesty. History loves writers because their poetry, fiction, diaries, pamphlets, and letters give us more to learn about. Again, it was such a privilege to be a writer at all, and people marginalized by history and modernity are disproportionately affected by systemic erasure of their existence. History is told by the victors, or whatever they say.

I'd say I wonder about most historical figures, but somebody like Hamilton's cousin is up there for sure. His mother has always piqued my curiosity because obviously her ex husband Lavien was a major POS but history remembers HER exactly how he wanted her to be remembered: a whore. It pisses me off when biographers (r-r-r-ron) reduce her to that, and as a result, LMM's impression of her in the musical was much of the same and it's TRAGIC UGHHHH. It's actually so disgustinf that I start to foam at the mouth because what a fucking injustice.

After your message to my inbox and during my subsequent response, I actually started to go on a rabbit hole reading AGAIN about Alexander's childhood because the number of times he moved, the adults involved in his life, and how he was treated because of his illegitimacy makes it hard to remember exactly what went down. Now added to the list: Hamilton's cousin once removed who happened to be mixed. And though I will not reduce Alvarez to a prop on his own, how interesting to better understand Lytton, right? Of course every person's existence contextualizes other people, but with that said, understanding Don Alvarez as his own person is much more interesting. I'm happy knowing as the years go on, more and more colleges and historical societies are funding and publishing research for biracial, Black and Indigenous people in history, as it seems the Liberal Arts College of the Virgin Islands has done. And yet... the lack of readable information about Don Alvarez online is so, so disheartening.

If you can't contact the historian and speaker for that talk on Crucian Lifestyles, your only recourse is to go out there and dig through mountains of archives until you can find it out yourself. curiosity is so draining

[punkeropercyjackson]

A lot of white aroaces aren't any less racist towards interracial/poc4poc ships than a lot of white gays are and i feel that really needs to be said more.The whole Huntlow antis clown fest when snowroaches in the Toh fandom were 'proudly' to quote their own loser ass words hating on it because they were disgusted Hunter choose a fat disabled biracial girl as his soulmate and that Willow choose an abused disabled non-conventionally attractive boy as her soulmate just as much and straight up mock/insult Huntlow stans for being upset over the erasure and mean-spiritedness towards our ship that means so much to us because Hunter and Willow are like US because apperantly their rep that was never offered to or hinted at is 'more needed'.That time a white ass weirdo was so out of pocket they deadass reblogged my post saying as an aspec black person myself i don't like aroace Hobie(Spiderpunk)headcanons because they feel antiblack due to how important his love interest status to Gwen and Miles is with how black he is and told me with 'ummm i don't mean to be that guy but seems like you're wearing shipping googles.Gwen said Hobie's just a friend-'and i didn't get to read the rest because they deleted their rb they didn't even properly comment on and just spoke in the tags like the racist pussy they are.Aroace hcs for black girl love interests are a massive trend ONLY when they get in the way of popular ships or is the wifey of a fan fave male character,ironically enough the same thing as the lesbophobic tendency to only headcanon fem characters in general as lesbians for the same reason just to not explore they're lesbianism at all.If you're a white person who actively goes out of their way to hate on poc love rep,then you're racist.Fullstop,no ifs or buts.Being queer literally dosen't matter in this context and yeah,that includes the lack of attraction kind,especially because 2/3 of the specific examples i used are canon queer ships(bi4pan Huntlow and transmasc4transfem Ghostpunk).You're not immune to being racist just because 'it's not about race,i just don't like romance at ALL' dude

[zupawama]

i get that it's easier for monoracial people to refer to multiracial/biracial people by whatever race they appear as but it's also served as a sort of form of erasure for many of us. there are so many important people in society, in history, in politics, even, that i had no idea were also multiracial because people just kept referring to them by whatever race they most closely resembled. thanks guys

[neechees]

I always have problem with actor who's light skin whether they are biracial or racially unambigious taking the role of that meant dark & brown skin actor. We need to hold them accountable because they are too comfortable normalizing colorism and erasure of dark & brown skin representation

Yeah... some people might try to defend this with that it doesn't matter because they ARE still that ethnicity (so it's not whitewashing in the sense that they're a white actor, but its still whitewashing bc of colorism) or that work is hard to find for actors of color bc of racism, so its "not their fault". But it IS their fault. They still decided to audition for a role that could've gone to someone who actually looks like the character. The fault also lies with the casting directors too, however

[scorpionyx9621]

On Ron Staedtler as a Character: A Broken Rebel or Selfish Asshole? (Spoiler warning for Inside Job Season 2 plus TW mentions of Su!c!de)

Man what a title to start this essay on. I binged Inside Job because a friend of mine here introduced me to the show on New Years Eve and to say that I love the show is an understatement. It's what you get when you throw Rick & Mory, The Office, and Gravity Falls into a blender. A very fun, very emotional, and very interesting animated series.

In this essay we'll be discussing the keystone character of the second season and the romantic interest of protagonist Reagan Ripley, Ronald (Ron) Staedtler. The director of the Illuminati's (Cognito's rival company) Mind Erasure division. When the illuminati messes up and needs to prevent secrets from getting out, they send in Ron, who more or less comes across as their assassin. Him and Reagan initially start off as hostile towards each other but very quickly grow an enemies-to-lovers relationship.

I want to analyze Ron on a bit of a deeper level in this mind dump/thought essay and see what everyone else thinks. So enjoy!

I want to start this first portion by highlighting just how many similarities these two have. They were very intentional in making it known that these two have an almost immediate attraction to each other because of their similarities.

Both have very similar physical characteristics to the point that it looks like Ron is basically just a male version of Reagan. Darker hair, darker skin complexion, similar shaped eyes and nose. (I headcanon that Ron is also Biracial just like Reagan. Who is half-white, half-Japanese. Someone made a post saying Ron is Filipino and I'm running with that. Plus it explains him being raised Catholic.)

Both are upper-level managers at their respective companies, whom they both have a lot of personal issues with. (Reagan in Robotics, Ron in Mind Erasure)

Both are bitter cynics who tend to push people away out of fear of being rejected. A lot of this stemmed from family lives that were quite abusive. (Reagan being raised by two absolute narcissists, one of whom was such a tiger parent that he forcibly wiped Regan's memories of the one friend she ever had. And while we don't know anything really about Ron's family we know he's dealing with a lot of repressed religious trauma via his family's intense catholicism.)

The naming of these two also is a bit too ironic to be coincidental. Ronald (Ron) Staedtler and Reagan Ripley. Shion and Alex weren't even trying to be subtle with this one.

All this being said, it's clear that these two naturally gravitated towards each other and immediately had comparable chemistry with one another. All this being said the show also made it a point to emphasize that they were moving very quickly as a couple. Which almost assuredly is a red flag for things not being able to last.

Much to many people's surprise. The season ends after a rocky patch between Ron and Reagan with Ron deciding to finally take the steps to wipe his own memory. To finally rid himself of all the trauma he has received and to start over with a fresh, new, quiet life away from the Illuminati and all the conspiracies of the world being alive and well and trying to make water cooler office banter with him.

I'm going to emphasize that this section has a trigger warning in that the show portrays how Ron views Mind Erasure against himself similar to how we would commonly view su!c!de and self harm. If this is something that you are not comfortable reading please by all means click off and do not subject yourself to what I am about to discuss.

The whole reason why Ron is in the Anonymous meeting at the beginning of Season 2 is because he got caught attempting to erase his own memories. Ron holds a lot of trauma and self-anger because of his job. Being the chief mind-eraser he has to bear with the weight of wiping the minds of individuals who came too close to finding out his company's secrets. Ron has pointed out to Reagan that this is something that weighs very heavily on his conscience.

When you look at Ron physically he's taller than Brett, has a similar musculature and build as Brett and in general comes across as much darker and much more imposing and intimidating. If Ron were in his cloak pointing his mind-eraser gun at me I would run for my damn life. And it's Ron's job to make sure that anyone who discovers the Illuminati's secrets has their mind wiped. At whatever cost is necessary. Ron has probably seen hundreds, if not thousands of innocent people run away from him with genuine, unadulterated fear for their lives in their eyes. These people must have thought Ron was coming to kill them. How many times must have Ron stared down at someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and watch them cry, sob, beg, and plead with Ron for their lives? Thankfully once their minds are wiped these people don't remember the horrifically traumatic events they were just put through, but you know who does remember? Ron.

It's this overwhelming guilt and general hatred for what he does that defines Ron as a character. While Ron and Reagan may have a lot of similarities. The key and largest difference between the two is the fact that Reagan believes she can fix the world and fix everything from the inside given the chance. Ron has given up the thought that he can change anything and instead actively works against the Illuminati in any way that won't draw enough attention to himself. Ron just wants to get away from everything but he knows too much to be let free and is too valuable an asset to be wiped. So he's stuck in his own hell of a job and the one time he's able to escape is with Reagan.

I want to emphasize that I do not believe that Ron is in any way a bad person. If anything he, unlike many of the people in the show, actually has a genuine conscience and deeply regrets his actions of essentially being the Illuminati's grim reaper. However it must be said that Ron is ultimately selfish in wanting to take Reagan with her into his new life of his own creation. This is by no means saying that Ron is a coward for trying to leave and forget his life, with mind-erasure acting as a heavily handed metaphor for su!c!de. Reagan herself admits to this.

"You had a hard time, for a long time. But you did something brave. You took a chance on a new life because you realized you deserved one."

However Reagan was conflicted. She had the chance of a lifetime to finally gain the power in her work that she wanted. A chance to finally work with (and against) the Robes. But she had a chance to take all of her trauma, years of abuse from her family and her parents, to be with the man who she loved more than anything. So she had Alpha Beta run thousands of simulations for her, to see if she could find a happy ending with her as head of Cognito and with Ron. And thousands of times later, the answer was still no. The one time she found a solution was when Ron had no memories of the Illuminati, Cognito, The Robes, the Secret Societies, nothing. So Reagan made the biggest sacrifice she could. She let Ron wipe his own memory but chose not to join him. Giving him the chance to finally be free from his demons who kept him awake at night.

This brings me back to my prompt. Is Ron an asshole for forcing Reagan to choose between her dreams and him? Not necessarily. I don't believe Ron ever intended on coming between Reagan and her goals, at least not intentionally. Ron was putting himself first which in itself is an act of selfishness but he did not wish to harm Reagan.

The image above from the Halloween episode to me is the best visual representation of this. Ron is forced to change into Brett's costume as Chris Angel. Having him wear a cross while he realizes the only way to save himself and Reagan is to use his mind-wiping abilities to stop the Cognito office from attacking Ron because they all fell in love with him. In this scene, Ron is holding his gun, representing his hatred of his occupation and all the trauma it has forced upon him. Plus he's wearing a cross while being all but shirtless, symbolizing his religious trauma.

It's no wonder that this shows when Reagan tries her best to convince Ron to work for Cognito, when his two most prevalent traumas are thrust upon him in a life-or-death situation that he finally snaps. He finally decides he can't take it anymore and he puts into motion his plan to end everything as Ron Staedtler and begin a new life with a clean slate and new identity. Because for all intents and purposes, at the end of Appleton when Ron wipes his own mind. The Ron Staedtler that we grew to know and love is dead. There's only Martin Higgins now. And we don't know who Martin Higgins is other than he leads a perfectly normal life in Appleton, Wisconsin, who will eventually get the life and love and family he deserves, it's just that Reagan Ripley will not be a part of that life.

Ron Staedtler is a very complex character for all 6 or so episodes we have of him. Ron is a genuinely good person who got in over his head trying to find the answers to life and ended up becoming the last thing you see before you have your memory erased for looking too deep into something you shouldn't have. He's a deeply traumatized man who learned to live and love and helped Reagan Ripley learn to open up and love again. And while both Ron and Reagan wanted to change their situations. Ron had been so damaged and so broken by the time the opportunity came around to make a change that he chose to take his own way out. He created a new life for himself free from his traumas because he knew that he deserved it. However he prioritized himself over Reagan and chose to be free. Ron didn't know that Reagan had run thousands of simulations but came to the same conclusion every time. That no matter what they had done, so long as Reagan was still at Cognito, the two of them would have never been truly happy with one another.

If Reagan could create a situation where the two of them could be happy together Reagan would have given 110% of her to make it work. But she has to choose and she chose to go with Cognito and The Robes. I don't know if Ron would have chosen to continue with this plane if he knew Reagan had to make this choice. However it shows and attests much more to Reagan's character that she sacrifices her own happiness so Ron can be happy. Ron Staedtler was a deeply traumatized man who found the courage to be free. And that in itself is so powerful. I sincerely hope we see more of Ron, or Martin Higgins in the future.

[reaperkaneki]

Stop minority olympics, neurodivergent queer revolutionary women aren't lesser than straight moderate men of colors. And no we're not just straight men and white lesbian, but thanks for the erasure I guess.

literally did not say that the only ppl voting for edie are straight men and white lesbians. when did i say that. it was a tongue-in-cheek joke about this being the white lesbian website. and i specifically posted it in the tags out of courtesy for the main post lmao.

anyway its a stupid fucking character poll, i’m supposed to be propping up my dude to look good on purpose. it’s not “minority olympics” its literally just playing up what i like about a character bc that’s! the name of the game! khalid is biracial and that aspect of his heritage informs his character deeply; edelgard is queer and it informs absolutely nothing.

[thefeministvoice]

The Fallacy of Biracial Voice Erasure

I find it very strange how some bi-racial persons with black parentage try to make it seem that black people are spearheading a concept I’ll like to refer to as “Biracial Voice Erasure.”

We understand the issue you may face regarding the establishment of self-concept but you not having the opportunity to experience self-actualization does not equate to the daily black experience and therefore cannot be compared.

This is not to say that bi-racial voices should be silenced. However, these conversations regarding the bi-racial experience should be had separate and apart from conversation regarding the plights of being a darkskin black person existing in a society where racism isn’t sticking out in your face but is hiding between the lines.

*This is not to say that bi-racial persons cannot experience racism either.*

~The Feminist Voice

May 2, 2023

[colorisbyshe]

i really don’t want to read the seven husband of eleanor hugo but i want to know what happens. why is it so bad like i assumed it would be but i need to hear the exact specific shitty details!!! (if you don’t mind sharing)

*Evelyn Hugo, not Eleanor

(Scroll down to my TLDR section if this is too much)

But... to start off, I need to stay that it's written by a straight, white woman and it is about... a lot of women of color. And the "soulmate" relationship in the book is about a lesbian and a bisexual woman and the bisexual woman is best friends with a gay man.

So, the author is writing about a lot of things she doesn't... really have experience with. I've given my complicated opinion on "Own Voices" which is that it CAN be okay to write outside of your own identity but the onus is on you to get it very, very right. This book... doesn't.

But beyond it just handling race and sexuality HORRIBLY, including a weird line where a gay man admits to always ~a little bit~ wanting to sleep with the bisexual lead and the biracial interviewer admitting she preferred her white husband because he never made her feel like she wasn't black enough (which is VERY odd for a white author to throw in, it made me viscerally uncomfortable).

The book is just... not good. It is EVERY SINGLE "Old hollywood wasn't glamorous, you have to sleep your way to the top and sell your soul" cliche but like... updated to include gay people. The main character's first marriage has domestic violence and her "soulmate' relationship with teh lesbian has the EXACT same patterns of abuse except it's emotional abuse and not physical abuse nad it's just... excused as like? Oh, you know how she can get sometimes...

There's a weird plot where the lesbian is UPSET that her bisexual gf won't be out (WHILE THE LESBIAN GF IS ALSO CLOSETED) IN THE 60S. She's like "Okay, so we might be jailed or forcibly institutionalized and lose our careers, but if you REALLY LOVE ME, you won't be closeted" WHICH IS INSANE. ANd part of the patterns of abuse in the relationship.

The book is fucking boring. It's slog of cliches just mixed in with "But I love this woman so much" even though their love is never really established, just stated. And what we see is the abuse.

There's a VERY weird plot twist where the main character reveals the interviewer's (black) father didn't die from driving drunk. Instead, the black father wa sin a relationship with Evelyn's white gay best friend and the white gay best friend drove drunk, KILLED the dad, and Evelyn moved his dead body to make it seem liek her dad killed himself.

And she knew it was her dad because... he VERY conveniently wrote out a letter saying "I'm a dad, I love my kid, I am also gay for you, but my wife is my platonic soulmate. My name ___. I love you" and the white guy (WHO WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED HER DAD) had the ltter in his pocket?

A VERY weird contrivance.

More weirdness: the book stops, COMPLETELY, to go on SEVERAL like basic diatribes about how like bi erasure is bad, the word whore is used by men to control women, and other like... baby's first feminism lectures. And it feels SOOO proud of itself.

It also stops to be like "You know every historical event between the 50s and present day? Yeah, Evelyn was on the right side of hsitory EVERY time despite being money hungry, dehumanizing to other people, fairly fucking awful to her (Latina) staff, and never once mentioned her politics until the author remembered she was alive during stonewall and the AIDS crisis and that she needed to maek sure you knew Evelyn cared."

The injection of real world events kinda curdled my stomach. Also, the author made sure to say that it was MEN at the frontlines of Stonewall and it's like ???????????????????? Okay, work. Also, die maybe?

The characters are all horrible people but not evne in interesting ways. There's no like complex politics to it. There's not even real nuance to it. It's just like "Evelyn likes to use people but she had to, so it's okay." Which I could get with if she wasn't so otherwise FLAT.

Also, I know this isn't a well organized complaint list, but can I say it is INSANE that the ENTIRE book is about how Evelyn has HUUUGE honkers and htat's why everyone gravitates towards her or forgives her or wants to use her. And then she gets breast cancer and the interviewer thinks "Isn't it funny that the things that got her so far are killing her" and I knooow it's meant to be some like ironic twist of fate thing but idk... it really feels like misogyny. It feels like comeuppance or some weird shit and it made me UNCOMFORTABLE.

TO PUT IT BRIEFLY:

The book is insanely boring and cliche. It is every "Hollywood is SCARY" cliche ever but thinks it's differentiating itself by involving LGB people and people of color but, because it is written by a straight, white woman, it cannot do that well. Every time it tries to smugly diatribe about sexuality, gender, race, class it gets it wrong and makes you feel like you're slowly going insane.

No one cahracter is interesting. The main romance is abusive but doesn't know it's abusive, despite spending entire chapters on how ANOTHER relationship is abusive.

The book is soulless. Isn't particularly well written. Thinks it's smarter and more charming than it is. No one is likeable. No one is funny or sweet.

It runs on shock value but nothing is shocking. IT's the same stupid mistakes over and over again withou tanyone EVER realizing what the REAL mistakes are.

It's bad.

[the1975attheirverybest]

Well, I've decided to come here, and rant since that anon kinda mentioned it. So feel free to ignore but since the line in IILWY has been going around recently regarding the whole "You show me your black girl thing." Both from Swifies/ Maylors and even some 75 fans completely discarding the meaning behind it, and I've had it up to here with that bullshit.

(please bear in mind I am half black and therefore biracial.)

I'm going to be real there is a level of racism in this fandom (I'm not saying a lot, but there is a percentage), and to say there isn't is just ignorant. (I have personally dealt with it on here over a character in my fic because "she was too dark for Matty") The majority of the fandom wholeheartedly ignores the existence of Twigs and Matty's relationship, and I find it so fucked up. That man was so fucking clearly (the most we have ever seen) in love with her.

"So, there’s the line that goes ‘You show me your Black girl thing/Pretending that I know what it is (I wasn’t listening),’ which came from this moment when she was talking about something that I had no cultural understanding of, and all I was thinking was, ‘I’m in love with you.’ And maybe I should have been focusing on what it was, but in that moment, I didn’t care about anything cultural or political. I just loved her."

It's like everyone just forgets this ever happened. It honestly breaks my heart and also makes me personally feel some type of way because it genuinely feels like everyone ignores her because of the color of her skin. But yet continues to suck Gabby's ass even though that shit was years and years ago (no hate to Gabby I love her)

Yes yes yes yes yes yes. I know it’s just one line, but it honestly means and does so so much. Which I think is the point of the song. Love makes you aware of difference and makes you more open to it. Including racial and cultural difference. The fact that he’s whites and she’s not is an essential factor in their relationship. Because society makes it so. And for stuff that’s seemingly mundane (which as hair and skin routines or whatever) that he hadn’t considered before or encountered, it makes a big difference. And it becomes a moment of awareness. Like juxtaposing the “she’s the person I’m in love with” with the “there are things about her life experience and her perception of the world and her lived experience that I will never know” is VERY important. To ignore that aspect of the song would be like ignoring Twigs’s blackness.

I’m so sorry that you’ve had to encounter that kind of attitude towards your fic character. That’s just indefensible. People who legitimately think this way need to examine why they have this impulse to reject the idea that Matty would be with a black girl.

And I’m gonna say it now before y’all come at me: NOPE. It’s not the same as “having a type,” and go educate yourself before you speak.

Sometimes songs ARE up to interpretation and that’s fine. Encouraged even. But if your interpretation rests on the erasure of someone’s racial identity….it’s an invalid interpretation.

Side note: this is not 75 related but I actually do research about this. There’s a black female character in one of Shakespeare’s plays that all the academics refuse to acknowledge. Even though the play LITERALLY says that she had “ebony colored skin” and that “her beauty is dark.” Editors of the play insist on saying “oh it just means she’s not blonde.” My argument is that they’re fuckin racist and they can’t believe the poster boy of white genius poets (Shakespeare) would have a black woman as a main character in a love plot.

I guess this doesn’t really help much. Expect to say that the problem within the fandom is definitely part of our social politics. Fandom spaces are not exempt from sociopolitical / cultural issues because they exist within them. And we need to be more aware and critical of our presumptions. Yes art is fun and escapism and entertainment. But it’s also culture and education and ethics.