#but like. french and italian share the same latin root and fuck if i understand french

[ryuuseini]

I keep like, jokingly pitch Eternia to people who like Symphonia because they touch upon VERY similar themes, just in different ways, so I feel like Symphonia fans would enjoy Eternia, and then I remember the Orz Earrings in Eternia and suddenly get mad at Symphonia

What do you MEAN these two worlds have been split for THOUSANDS OF YEARS and have vastly different cultures and yet their language is the EXACT FUCKING SAME? What do you MEAN Lloyd doesn't look at Zelos like "homie, what the fuck are you saying to us?" And Sheena sighs and translates (bc I do believe Sheena would be proficient in both) and goes "he's saying he's gay" and Lloyd goes "oh wow I'm glad he came out to us" and Zelos just begs Sheena to translate what Lloyd said and she responds "he said you're gay" like what do you MEAN none of this happened? How the fuck does a world Run By the Church have the same slang ad a world Run By the Church Disguised as a Monarchy? WHAT DO YOU MEAN GENIS DOESNT FUCK WITH ZELOS BY CALLING HIM INSULTS IN SYLVARANTIAN AND TRANSLATING THEM TO COMPLIMENTS IN TETHE'ALLAN WHILE EVERYONE IS LIKE "zelos my dude he just called you a whore???" Where's this. What happened??? Wasted opportunity imo

[snigepippi]

Fuck this shit. It shows a very wrong picture of the argument.

Christmas is not pagan. You can literally hear it in the name: Christ Mass

However plenty cultures have a midwinter feast. Because if you live in a part of the world where you only get 4 hours light around midwinter, you fucking celebrate the turn. I don’t think most understand how dark it gets if you live above latitude 45 °N. Most people never try it.

In my part of the world this midwinter ritual was called Yule/Giuli/Jól. We have references to the name and the celebration that goes back to around 300 AD. So while Christmas is a young tradition Yule is much older.

A funny thing is, that in the Nordics the midwinter celebration is still called Jul. There is a lot of Christian stories connected to Jul, but also a lot of other traditions that includes alcohol, horses, goats, pigs, grains, green leaves and household deities.  And it is still called Jul! The word is unchanged since before Christianity was even introduced to the area (around 850 AD). I have read scanned letters in Danish that you can get in the National Danish Library from young priests to bishops that complain they cannot get their new congregation to call it Kristmesse. It seems like they stopped trying to change the name around the 16th century.

So yes I agree. Christmas is a new tradition. Mainly made by British Protestant Christians, because they couldn't stop the other locals from celebrating Jul so they just tried to appropriate it while demeaning it.

And please. There are so many cultures in Europe and catholic and protestant do not make the largest difference. A protestant Finn and protestant Englishman do not share the same traditions and rituals. Same with Polish and Portuguese Catholics. We have local rituals that tend to be based on older customs. If you want people to distinguish between tribes when talking about different cultures among natives in the US or in Africa, please remember that in Europe where White USian culture steal their “roots” from, we also have many tribes and indigenous cultures with a fuckton of old traditions. We are not divided in British, French and Italian/Portuguese/Spanish(why the fuck do you call all these Latin?).

“christmas is pagan!!!!!!! easter is pagan!!!!!!!!” shut up please u am begging u shut the entire up PLEASE GOD PLEASE JUST SHUT UP

[intersectionalculture]

So You’re Afro-Latinx. Now What? Congratulations, mi negra! It finally happened. Today you looked into the mirror and said, “I’m black. Soy negra. Vaya.” You embraced your black or brown skin, your curls and kink. No small feat for a Dominican. You’re ready to forgo the centuries of Dominican anti-Africanism and embrace your brothers, sisters and cousins of the African Diaspora. The reality is, there is no “black coming-out party.” Soon it will begin to sink in that everything black, everything African Diaspora, is appropriated, commercialized, monetized and exploited. Arguably, the term “Afro-Latinx” is suffering from “gimmification.” Within our community, there are Afro-Latinx who pretend black when it is convenient and then try to blend right back into anti-blackness when it is not. The colonial trauma and legacy of self-hate continues to morph into stranger things. Thankfully, many Afro-Latinx are sharing their stories. Read this excerpt from Yesenia Montilla’s poem “The Day I Realized We Were Black,” from her collection The Pink Box: because my godparents were Irish-American because I had suppressed my blackness because my brother shook me when I told him he was stupid we were Latino because he had missed his Jersey to Port Authority bus because he was walking to the nearest train station and lost his way because he was stopped by the police because he was hit with a stick because he was never given the right directions even though he begged because trash was thrown at him from the police cruiser’s window as he walked because he was never the same because we’re black because we’re black and I never knew I was twenty-two Or my 2015 Gawker essay, “Hiding Black Behind the Ears: On Dominicans, Blackness, and Haiti”: America thrusts black or white upon you quickly, and you have to decide, you have to know who and what you are. Life in the Dominican Republic had been too culturally ignorant and insular. Meanwhile in America, some Eurocentric or Castilian Latinos pass for white, but Afro-Latinos are either self-hating or catching hell or both, or just plain confused about who they are. Most of the Dominicans I know have a recognizable African lineage, but too many are quick to claim Latin American status as opposed to Afro-Caribbean identity. But let’s be honest: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Haiti aren’t in South or Central America—they’re in the Caribbean. We need to re-examine our historical cultural selves. I agree that race is a construct, but identity is a necessity. These stories are necessary, and we still need to shift the focus on strengthening the intersections of our common African heritage and struggles. Remember: We’re not creating a brand. Your identity is not a marketable widget. We do want to move ever closer to a reunification of displaced African people: a political, social, economic, technological and global reunification. Europeans hoard resources and exact power in the name of whiteness. We need to come together and go a step further by accepting our African heritage and by working to eliminate the “color” construct. That being said, all the new terms flying around are confusing: Latinegr@, Blacktino (my fave), Afro Latinx, Latinx, Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean Latino. You’re probably wondering which one of these applies to you. In his article “Afro-Latinx: Representation Matters,” Jose Figueroa defines “Afro-Latinx” this way: An Afro-Latinx is a black person from Latin America. Despite sharing the identity of Latinx, colonial structures of privilege and power thrive within the community ... black and indigenous Latinxs are consistently forced to the sidelines and denied, despite their strong influences to Latinx culture. Recognizing and accepting your African heritage doesn’t mean you pretend that you’re African American. Don’t parrot, imitate, appropriate or otherwise “act” African American. That shit is offensive to the African-American community, and stupid. We are a large black family, and we’re all unique based on our experience in the Diaspora. Embrace the beauty of our differences. You have a Caribbean identity, and because people of the African Diaspora share so many traits, you don’t need to play roles. Fact: White supremacists don’t care that you speak English, Spanish, French, Creole, Portuguese, etc. Observe what a Ku Klux Klan leader told Univision news anchor Ilia Calderón, live on camera, during an interview: “To me you’re a nigger. That’s it.” Language is just another of the master’s many tools. The African Diaspora speaks more European languages than we do languages native to the continent of Africa. We embrace the master’s languages as if speaking them makes us special. Coño. Colonial empire builders believed in the exceptionalism of their culture and language. They branded the native languages of the lands they conquered as unfit for instructional purposes; stripping us of our native languages facilitates stripping us of our identities. Show up for black people and support Afrocentric movements—globally, black folks in America (see Black Lives Matter), in Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, France, Germany, South and Central America, and the continent of Africa. The Inter-American Foundation observes: There are significant Afro-American populations throughout the region [South and Central America], although some have been reluctant to acknowledge them. Throughout the 20th century, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile have insisted that they were white nations with few or no citizens of African descent. ... In the Dominican Republic, people visibly of African descent constitute a majority, but because African ancestry is stigmatized it is commonly denied even when it is obvious. ... Afro-Latin activists are changing the national dialogue by insisting that the African and Afro-American contribution to the national culture be recognized. Many African descendants are now realizing that in their home nations they are black first and a citizen second. In his essay “Why It Is Necessary That All Afro-Descendants of Latin America, the Caribbean and North America Know Each Other More,” Afro-Cuban history scholar Tomás Fernández Robaina writes: It is very important that we recognize how this struggle began long ago, when we did not call ourselves “Negroes,” “African-Americans,” or “Afro-descendants,” as has been used more recently, but as “Cubans,” “Mexicans,” “Colombians,” “Brazilians,” identified, rather, as citizens of our respective countries, and as such, rightfully evidenced in our constitutions. Beautiful words, which, in practice, have been mostly lies ...[Emphasis added.] You will not all of a sudden become the epicenter of knowledge on black identity and the African Diaspora because you read a few articles. Don’t pontificate to Afro-Latinx who don’t get it and don’t want to get it. Keep discovering the facts for yourself and, if you’re fortunate, with a community. Find your truth and be open to listening to other people’s stories. Check out Alan Pelaez Lopez’ article in Everyday Feminism: But especially, I thought I couldn’t be Latinx, because everywhere I went, I was labeled “African American,” “mulatto,” “negro,” and so on. But, the reality is that there’s no need for me to apologize to my younger self and there’s no need for you, my fellow Afro-Latinx sibling to apologize because there is no manual on how to navigate being both Black and Latinx. If you are reading this, I hope you understand that being confused is not your fault, that having questions is okay, and that you’re not the first to learn to accept your full Black self and your full Latinx self. Let me get something clear: you are not an impostor! Visit African countries. I had the European trip fever. I wanted to go to Paris and Madrid, and I have visited London and the Canary Islands. Ultimately, the time away with my family was nice, but the trip didn’t bring me closer to my roots. This yearning to visit the master’s cities is the same as the urge to learn the colonizer’s languages (Ooh la la, I speak French, Italian, German). Yes, European cities are beautiful places, but built on the corpses of colonialism. The next international trip I want to take is to Ghana. Read up. Take courses and workshops. Watch documentaries like Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Black in Latin America (free on YouTube or PBS). Get your hands on books like the ones in the Ain’t I a Latina article “10 Afro-Latina Authors You Should Know.” The website teachthought has compiled a list called “25 of the Most Important Books About Racism and Being Black in America.” Blavity compiled a list of books by Afro-Latinas: “11 Must-Read Books That Center Powerful Afro-Latin@ Narratives.” Find the intersections created in our communities by the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the Brown Berets. Visit the Civil Rights Digital Library online. The HuffPost article “Who Benefited From the Civil Rights Movement” briefly demonstrates how the movement became a blueprint for every other marginalized community in America. But be wary as fuck, too. Your family and that clique of cousins who can pass for white might not be ready for this new woke version of you. Get ready for an intervention from the primas and the tías, the mamis and the abuelas, when you decide to stop relaxing your hair and go natural. “Tu ta loca muchacha el Diablo!” Or when you finally call bullshit on that anti-blackness you’ve been hearing your whole life. You are going to be challenged on this newfound blackness; hold fast. And please, whatever you do, don’t expect to be welcomed by all black people, either, simply because ta-da, you dique woke now. Many people of color feign blackness when it suits them, then relapse right back into their self-hating and black-denying ways. You’ll have to forgive us if we’re not ready to grant you a plaque on a building somewhere. Yes, you will get some side eye, and yes, you must learn to deal with it. Black people from Trinidad to Mississippi have seen the “gimmification,” and appropriation of blackness ad nauseam, and we’re not here for that. Be proud, be aware and be emotionally intelligent. A post on the website Lipstick Alley, “A Recent Trend in Many Latinos Identifying as Black/Afro Latinx for Convenience,” reveals what some folks in the African-American community find problematic. I’ll end with a cautionary tale about relapses. My man Sammy Sosa meant a lot to me during the ’90s, and especially during the 1998 home run chase. Here was a paisano representing pa la gente, a Dominican who looked like me shining in the unforgiving American spotlight. After the performance-enhancing-drug drama and the fall of Sosa and Mark McGuire, America did what it does best: It forgave its white heroes—McGuire and, ultimately, Ryan Braun. Then it burned Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds at the stake. I don’t know how much that had to do with Sosa bleaching his skin white, but damn, Sammy, just damn. It’s possible Sosa believed that going white would let him back into that spotlight, into the realm of white forgiveness. Or maybe there’s a deeper trauma at work. Listen, I still love Sammy Sosa, but don’t go out like Sammy Sosa. Don’t relapse. Bueno mi gente; stay woke, stay black.