#but that means accepting the paradigm of whiteness and assimilating into it and that I simply will not do

[althaeaofficinalis]

the way I simply refuse to participate in race discourse on this or any other website. please I am not arguing with white people about race or people of color who think all mixed people are just white. you cannot make me.

[obsidianarchives]

Exploring Slytherin House from a Black Historical Lens

As a weird, goth-punk, nerdy, queer Black girl growing up in the projects, I always held a certain type of anger. I adored Black history and developed a keen sense of the socio-political challenges our communities faced. I also embraced dark subcultural elements, like darkwave and punk, an avenue where ‘darkness’ played out in the Eurocentric sense, and thus became a part of rebellion with white kids. Anything dark would resemble rebellion — Blackness included. This caused me to become isolated and a bit resentful towards the outer world.  

My tastes for ‘darkness’ extended to the Harry Potter universe. My personal obsession with Slytherin House is odd since they have been considered to be the ‘neo-Nazis of the Wizarding World.’ I attribute this good vs. evil paradigm to Rowling’s cultural methodology of character building. But the characteristics of Slytherin shouldn’t be considered bad. The idea of having your community’s best interests at heart and living without fear from potentially antagonistic forces should be a wonderful message to marginalized individuals. However, in the Harry Potter series, it plays out with questionable character attributes that tend to be polarizing.

Zora Neale Hurston — folklorist, anthropologist, author, and all-around bad-ass — grew up in a small Black town in Florida. This autonomous Black community cemented her belief that Black people did not need integration in order to gain equality. She believed that the means of our freedom was in our own communities and that to allow whiteness within it would undermine our efforts. The spirit of the Black community could only be maintained if we were given the space to govern ourselves, unapologetically. For me, Zora and her views are very Slytherin.

"Or perhaps in Slytherin, You'll make your real friends, These cunning folks use any means To achieve their ends."  -- The Sorting Hat, Sorcerer’s Stone

When Salazar Slytherin helped create Hogwarts, he was mistrustful of Muggle-born students because of tensions between the Muggle world (which at the time was considered dangerous and a threat to magical people) and the Wizarding World (which he felt needed to be protected from that very threat). He wanted the magical community to live separate from the Muggles and Muggle-borns. 

Slytherin House is modeled by the philosophy of ‘being the best.’ It’s members are often viewed as isolationist. Cunning, hardworking, logical, and a traditionalist, Salazar wanted his students to solve obstacles in their lives with apt strategy. Despite this knack for self-sufficiency and collective transgenerational preservation, they are criminalized. Sound familiar?

Similarly, Malcolm X advocated for Black people to defend themselves from the racism and prejudice they faced. "I don't call it violence when it's self-defense. I call it intelligence." Malcolm was a controversial figure in his day, often seeming to butt heads with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Civil Rights leaders for his more separationist and headstrong views that eschewed Black integration into white society.

"We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."  -- Malcolm X, Organization of Afro-American Unity founding rally on June 28, 1964

Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to some elements of this Slytherin philosophy. Several years after the “I have a dream” speech, King is reported as saying, “I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.” He suggested that perhaps it was not as simple to imagine equality only by the acceptance of race. He ultimately came to the conclusion that the answer to his “dream” was a bit more complex, that integration wasn’t the end of the fight. 

Likewise to these real life schools of thought, Salazar thought that integrating Muggle-borns into the magical community wasn’t as simple as Gryffindor wanted it to be. Salazar took his “means” too far in the direction of prompting genocide, but the parallels are there.

As with Black people through history, Slytherins have internalized adaptability, intuition, and a resistance towards those who misunderstand them. Slytherins can come off as being cold or callous, but their ability to possess duality makes them quite unpredictable. This could read as the very real struggle of the Black individual groomed into the idea of assimilation, only to be tokenized and regarded as a ‘token of Eurocentrism’ to the masses or be forced to hide their true nature, while facing systematic disadvantages. 

The fatal flaw of the analogy of racism in Harry Potter is that the Wizarding World is colorblind. Anti-Blackness is a rhetoric not explored in Rowling’s world. So comparing Black history to Rowling’s incomplete metaphor was more about me finding myself in Slytherin House when the rest of the Wizarding World didn’t look like me.  

Every day, those like myself who live on the fringe are told to ‘change’ and to accept a society that has been intent on killing us. Slytherin House taught me that we should live our lives unapologetically, without fear — by any means necessary.

Monika Estrella Negra is a queer, Black punk/goth hybrid of mystery. Her first short titled "Flesh" is about a Black femme serial killer navigating the Chicago DIY punk scene (of which was included in the ‘Horror Noire’ syllabus). She has directed three additional shorts, ‘They Will Know You By Your Fruit’, ‘Succubus’, and the in production ‘Bitten, A Tragedy’. A writer, a nomadic priestess, spiritual gangster and all around rabblerouser - Monika has written essays for Black Girl Nerds, Grimm Magazine, is the author of a zine series (Tales From My Crypt), the creator of Audre's Revenge Film and Black and Brown Punk Show Chicago, a 2018 Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grantee, and is aspiring to become a Meme Lord. Hailing from the Midwest, she now resides in Philadelphia, focusing on completing her Vengeance Anthology.

[theiineducation]

We are being Silenced, We are being Blinded

By Frances Bailey

 "Phantsi ngokudundiswa nge Sibhulu phasti, phantsi ngokudundiswa nge Sibhulu phasti!" Down with being taught in Afrikaans, down with being taught in Afrikaans! 

  The day is June 16, 1976, the day of the Soweto uprising, 10 000 students march on Orlando Stadium in protest, their song no longer silenced. They have banded together to speak out. To speak out about injustice, racial oppression and their desire to be educated properly.  "We will not be silenced" said Silindile Khanyile, current Bachelor of Arts student at Rhodes University in 2018, in echo of past sentiment.

  From the time white people set foot in Africa, roughly four hundred years ago, the black population was brutalised, enslaved, oppressed, stolen from and forced off their land and into cheap labour, all by white hands. Power was taken by the white minority while people of colour were subjected to harsh and authoritarian doctrines. White supremacy dominated society and existing political, social and economic systems were taken over and replaced. Western culture and ideology, white privilege and success prevailed at the expense of all things natively African. Black people were forced to assimilate the dominant white culture they were beaten down, degraded, and suppressed as were their cultures, ideologies and identities.

  This was the landscape from which The Black Consciousness Movement (BMC) was built. This movement was the inspiration for the June 16 protests and was first sparked in 1969 with the creation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), headed by Steve Biko. BCM was designed to provide a platform for Black people to discuss issues particular to them and as a motion against white supremacy. Education was seen as the way forward, as playing a fundamental role in mental and physical liberation and in fostering awareness around Black existence and identity.

 The word 'consciousness' means the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings and refers to a person's awareness and perceptions. BMC encompasses this idea, "Black Consciousness is to understand the injustices that have happened to black people," said Khanyile when asked about what the movement meant to her, "it's to be aware of how black people have been treated over the years, over the centuries.”

  While the values and principles of BMC sought to emphasize awareness of the self, the other and societal injustices and ongoings, the ideology also transcends this as awareness was emphasised to supplement the recognition and acceptance of black identity. According to Khulile Mjo, a second year B.A student at Rhodes, Black Consciousness is a mentality and lifestyle.

  From this we begin to see that Black Consciousness plays an important role in identity. Identity is an important part of being human; it is a necessary. Every individual seeks to discover and create an identity, one which is uniquely theirs. Identity is multifaceted, while it is based in personality many aspects work to define it.

 Identity is expressed in language, music, values, art and literature; it is adopted through family, religion, ritual, public life and material culture. The acceptance and acknowledgement of all these paradigms are important in fostering one's identity and in discovering one's place in the world, but with the forced assimilation of white culture, black identities were squashed.

 "We grow up thinking white people are superior...we need to boost our confidence," said Apiwe Maqungo, a second-year BCom student. BCM sought to encourage pride in one's self as a black individual and in everything which that entails. This boost in confidence lies in the acceptance of one's self, which is difficult to achieve when you are constantly disregarded and put down. The state of education before 1994 further worked to alienate black people from themselves, black students were forced to learn in a white language and the curriculum did not encourage their aspirations, skills and interests. Education did not attempt to mould confident and successful black individuals. Black people were put at a disadvantage and sadly this is a reality which has persisted till today.

Pictured: Aphiwe Maqungo.

 We may fly the rainbow nation banner and celebrate our new democracy. Many of us may think we are free, equal and united, that issues of racism have been snuffed out and that we are a multicultural society which embraces all identities and which gives everyone equal opportunities for education and empowerment. While it may be true that some progress has been made, the issues of subjugation and inequality are not in the past. “They are still prevalent. I know so many people who haven’t had opportunities, who sit in a classroom with 50 to 60 other people”, said  Khanyile,“the majority of Black people still live in townships”.

  With only 40,6% of Africans employed this isn’t surprising. The Matric rate for black students is 10% and while the national average of household expenditure on education is R2 531 per year, black households spend less than that at R1 656 while whites spend three-times the average at R8 069. “Some don’t know about the struggle. It is different in each household, but finance is a common issue," said Zandile Gcumisa, a first-year BCom student at Rhodes.

Pictured: Zandile Gcumisa.

 This is the current reality for many black individuals. If more than half of our population is oppressed, than we are less than half free.

  When asked about where they first learnt about black consciousness only Andile Fani, a B.A student at Rhodes, said she had learnt about it in school. This was in 10th grade history class and she felt it was negatively focused and not taught in enough depth. “The only time we learnt more about other cultures was during heritage week,” said Gcumisa. Every participant remembered learning about Hitler, but not a single one had read any works by Steve Biko, the most popular figure of Black Consciousness, and were less exposed to Es’Kia Mphahele, Njabulo Ndebele or Miriam Tlai. In fact, many of these names aren’t known by black and white individuals alike, but ask about Shakespeare, Einstein or the French revolution and you are sure to get a nod of recognition. While access to internet does aid ignorance, those who do not have this access find themselves in a difficult position.

Pictured: Andile Fani.

 The fact of the matter is that our schools perpetuate inequalities. They are westernised, and they continue to alienate black students. “I’ve been to white schools but then at the same time as being in white environments but growing up in a township, it made me confused,” said Khanyile. “I was trying to fit into a society to which I didn’t belong...I wasn't white enough and I wasn't black enough.” It would seem that the voices of the Black Consciousness Movement have become whispers. Our society is ignoring the wisdom and struggles of our past leaders or purposefully avoiding them.

  South African schools are not doing enough to encourage students to engage with texts from other cultures and perspectives and because of that we are ignorant to them. All of the interviewees felt that Black Consciousness, histories and texts from people of colour should be introduced into the curriculum, starting in primary school. They further felt that everyone should have this knowledge and be involved in the discourse of Black Consciousness. “Everyone should be involved, we need to be inclusive of each other, it’s all about love," said Maqungo.

 While this sentiment may be encouraging to some, not everyone will agree. The introduction of more inclusive texts may foster awareness and recognition of people of colour's cultures, existence and identity in black and white people alike, but white people’s involvement remains a controversy and understandably so. Some felt that white bodies should be allies, while people of colour take the lead; that black people should be dictating the necessary dialogues and discussions while white people listen. Some may even feel that white people should not get involved.

  Whatever the case, I think it should be noted that while this is a “black issue”, it was created by black people, and it cannot be remedied by black people alone. The ideal nature of society dictates that we all depend on one another and the potential of our country cannot be reached when more than half our population is at a systematic disadvantage.

 Furthermore, given that identity is also influenced by external factors and other people, this continued disregard for blackness will perpetuate in day-to-day life and interactions. This could be counteracted if more people, despite their race, are better informed in terms of these multicultural realms of thought. However, the issue at hand is not simple or straightforward and is subject to much discourse. I merely wish to establish questions and provoke thought. The answer to whether black consciousness is an important, teachable ideology depends on all South Africans. It is imperative that we make an educated decision.

[bunny-wan-kenobi]

Thor Thoughts Pt 2: Golden Boy Comes Down to Earth

Part II of my series of Thor reflections since I love the muscled teddy-bear badass way too much…

Part I: Why I Love Thor 

Golden Boy Comes Down to Earth 

Upon watching Thor Ragnarok, many viewers have labeled the Thor movies as a “coming of age story.” I agree but would add another layer: it’s also a story examining privilege.

Maybe the movies did not necessarily intend to tackle this theme, but I’m firmly of the belief that there is more depth to these movies than people give them credit for. Yup they’re fun, but there’s a lot to mull over beneath the surface. So let’s talk Thor, epitome of Privilege (on soooo many levels).

We first meet Thor when he is most young and brash and reckless. Thor is used to being the Golden Boy–he’s tall, handsome, popular, and proud. Not only that, but within the social context of our world, he’s basically a rich able-bodied white guy positioned on the highest tier of his society. Now put a hammer in his hand that only responds to his call (talk about exclusivity at the top) and you’ve got one powerful man–and a potentially dangerous one. 

Thor’s sheer concentration of privilege is dangerous because he was raised not to question it. His society is founded on the subjugation of other realms, and despite Odin’s call to honor and responsibility (oh Odin), he has this attitude that he and other Asgardians are inherently superior to everyone from the savage monsters outside their borders (the Jotun) and the petty subjects under their rule (humans). And Thor’s not the only one who thinks this way—it’s a symptom of his greater society.  

This is the view of conquerors, the ones who have the power to re-work the collective narrative in their favor so history remembers them as benevolent rulers bringing order to a world at war rather than colonizers forcibly bringing other peoples under their control (Ragnarok did a good job touching on this). So we end up with Thor the spoiled Norse jock with a bludgeoning tool–and Daddy’s a despot (less bloody post-Hela edition). 

King Laufey: Your father is a murderer and a thief! And why have YOU come, to talk of peace? You long for battle, you crave it! You’re nothing more than a boy trying to prove himself a man!

Thor: Be warned, this boy grows tired of your mockery!

Thor (2011)

Let’s be real here: Asgard as portrayed by these movies is an imperialist realm. How do we know this? Look at Loki. Why try to destroy Jotunheim (his birthland)? Why try to take over Midgard? Okay, there are a WHOLE lot of reasons underlying Loki’s motivations, but one thing he tells Odin in TDW is:

I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent God, just like you 

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

He says something a long these lines to Thor in Avengers–this is what their people do, they conquer people, keep them in line, and rule them, so what’s the big fuss? That is the way things are in Asgard, that’s what people believe keeps the order and peace. That’s what they want to believe at least…

And the thing is, Thor might’ve agreed with Loki once–before coming to Earth. Remember the Thor who basically reignited war with the Frost Giants because his pride was hurt? The guy went off to Jotun and killed a bunch of them and told his dad that they should destroy them together! (Asgardians have weird ideas of father-son bonding). I wonder where he got the idea that stomping into another realm to teach them a lesson and make them submit under brutal force was a perfectly acceptable way to approach inter-species relations… *coughOdingetyolifetogethercough*

Odin: What action would you take?

Thor: March into Jotunheim as you once did! Teach them a lesson! Break their spirits, so they would never dare try to cross our borders again!

Thor (2011)

Just to hammer in the point (see what I did there?), we see that Odin essentially has a whole MUSEUM vaultful of relics stolen from other realms, tokens of his conquests. Hmmmm that sounds familiar…

So we have a prince raised in the dominant culture, raised with an internalized sense of supremacy and raised not to challenge the status quo because it benefits him. And why would he? He’s used to being on top and throwing his weight around to get what he wants because this is how Asgard itself has stayed on top of all the Nine Realms for centuries. Thor’s point of view is myopic, too narrow to consider the wide-reaching consequences of his actions. It also prevents him from engaging struggles outside of his own, especially those of people without his advantages–a flaw that contributes to the splinters in his relationship with his brother (He calls Loki’s problems “imagined slights.” Yeaaah…not getting any Brother-of-the-Year Awards here Thor). 

Thor has tremendous influence in his position–he’s a prince, a future ruler, but we see him in movie 1 so fixated on his own glory, his own sense of rightness that he ends up trampling people right and left. Thor is like the thunder he commands, loud, powerful, and abrupt. He doesn’t linger for the aftermath but leaves a large echo.   

So what happens then when Thor is stripped of his hammer, his armor, his land, and his godhood status? Thor is literally stripped of his previous (mostly unearned) privileges and banished to Earth. And like anyone facing this kind of loss for the first time, Thor is angry. He’s defensive, desperate to get back to his hammer and restore a sense of normalcy to his life. He’s now stuck in a foreign world that no longer bends to his rules.

But this is why Thor’s time on Earth matters so much. For the first time, Thor’s worldview is exposed for its gaping holes, and he has to respond to the breaking down of tales he’s heard all his life about his people’s superiority. There’s a loss of innocence with that, but it’s replaced with a growing maturity. It’s also important to acknowledge that Thor comes to these realizations by developing relationships with beings different from himself. 

Thor: You know, I had it all backwards. I had it all wrong.

Erik Selvig: It’s not a bad thing finding out that you don’t have all the answers. You start asking the right questions.

Thor: For the first time in my life, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.

Erik Selvig: Anyone who’s ever going to find his way in this world, has to start by admitting he doesn’t know…

Thor (2011)

In forming friendships with humans like Jane and Selvig, in living in a human town-even for a little while-Thor’s eyes are opened to the experiences of beings outside of Asgard, and instead of dismissing them for perceived deficiencies, he learns to value them in their complexity. He comes to appreciate humans for their intelligence, their capacity for kindness, their desire to understand the unknown. He observes their ignorance of so many things (he has traveled the cosmos after all and has a magic hammer), and yet…there’s things they can teach him too, maybe precisely because as a race they’re always learning and their lives are short. He may have been born to rule them, but now he is actually seeing them for the first time, and it changes him. 

When Thor sacrifices himself for the town in the first movie, it’s a climatic moment that signifies just how far he’s come in his journey of understanding his own privilege. He not only apologizes to Loki for how he has wronged him, but he also demonstrates his willingness to lay down his life for people that just a few days earlier, he might’ve waved off as inferior. And with that understanding comes not only a restoration of his previous power, but also a new commitment to defend these people with that power.  

This is an interesting development because then Thor returns to Asgard and later admits to Odin that he still has “much to learn.” Humility has begun to reshape Thor’s motivations so he acknowledges his flaws and seeks to learn from his mistakes rather than placating his own pride. He begins to understand that the power he wields and the position he holds can be used to serve others rather than simply dominate them. 

Fast forward and we see Thor protecting humanity in Avengers, and we get this fascinating and underrated exchange with Loki when he confronts him:

Thor: So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights? No, the Earth is under MY protection, Loki! Loki: [laughs] And you’re doing a marvelous job with that! The humans slaughter each other in droves, while you ideally threat. I mean to rule them. And why should I not? Thor: You think yourself above them? Loki: Well, yes. Thor: Then you miss the truth of ruling, brother. A throne would suit you ill.

Avengers (2012)

I really don’t think people give enough credit to Thor’s insight here. He’s basically telling Loki that ruling can’t be reduced to an exercise of privilege where one sees themselves as inherently better than the people they seek to lead. When that happens, a ruler becomes a tyrant and no longer contributes to the welfare of their people–which in Thor’s estimation is what a true leader should do. The boot-and-ant analogy Loki champions falls short of Thor’s re-envisioning of what the throne really means. 

Loki takes the side of the imperialist: they’re better, more advanced than humans, so the humans should serve them and be grateful for it. But Thor introduces a new paradigm counter-cultural to what he has been taught: ruling as a means of stewardship. Not domination, not assimilation, but the recognition of responsibility towards the people directly impacted by your actions. A bloody history may have resulted in Asgard’s rule over Earth, but Thor realizes this does not give his people license to exploit humans’ resources and devalue them. Instead, they should be helping them, contributing to their flourishing and, ultimately, respecting their agency. 

The fruit of Thor’s time on Earth can be seen in TDW where the situation with the Dark Elves forces him to confront the reality of Odin’s past war crimes (and this is BEFORE Ragnarok). He questions Odin’s stance of isolationism and the wisdom of just staying put to destroy your enemy while getting destroyed yourself. There is a cyclical nature to these political conflicts, a generational ill that is poisoning everyone involved, and Thor no longer wants any part of it. 

Odin: Malekith is sure to return, we have what we wants. And when he does, we will defeat him.

Thor: We can not fight an enemy we can not locate! Malekith could be right over us now, and we’d never know! How many Asgardian lives must we sacrifice?

Odin: AS MANY AS IS NEEDED! Till the last Asgardian falls, till the last drop of blood is shed!

Thor: What makes you so different from Malekith, then?

Odin: [mirthless laugh] The difference, my son, is that I will WIN.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Remember this: Thor gives up the throne. Not just to be with Jane, and not because he wants to go off and vacation on Midgard like an overgrown fratboy, but because he fears he doesn’t have the ruthlessness to rule in a way that will maintain Asgard’s power like his father has done for centuries. He’s afraid of how that kind of pressure will change him, make him the manifestation of the worst parts of Odin. He’s afraid of how that privilege could consume him and harm countless others. By the end of TDW, Thor lays down the power of kingship given him by birthright because he believes he can do more good as a free agent ensuring the welfare of Midgard and the other realms. 

Odin: You once said there would never be a wiser King than me. You were wrong. The alignment has brought all the realms together. Every one of them saw you offer your life to save them. What can Asgard offer its new King in return? Thor: My life. Father, I cannot be King of Asgard. I will protect Asgard and all the realms with my last and every breath, but I cannot do so from that chair. Loki for all his grave imbalance understood rule as I know I never will. The brutality, the sacrifice, it changes you. I’d rather be a good man than a great King. 

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

By this point, Thor has matured past Odin, past Loki, past the reigning paradigms of his culture. They’ve all remained stagnant, caught in the same patterns of war and conquest and revenge. Once you’ve known privilege, it’s hard to conceive of life without that power–or the labor to preserve it. The cost of losing your advantage seems too painful because it’s woven into the normalization of your day-to-day existence. 

Others in Asgard may not want to consider what the alternatives may be, but Thor has come to realize the damage this attitude has wreaked upon not only the peoples of the Nine Realms, but also the very people who benefit most from the hierarchy as is. He sees the blind spots among his people, in “Humans-are-fleeting-their-lives-are-nothing” Odin, but he cannot force them to see differently if they are not willing to. If he cannot do good from the throne, then he cannot in good conscience sit in it. 

With that choice to loosen his grip on his privilege and recognize the responsibility tied to his positioning in the world, Thor finally emerges as someone worthy to be king. Loki had a point, he would have been a terrible ruler before the changes he’s undergone–he was arrogant and guilty of the same narrow-minded thinking passed down from the generation before. That Thor needed a crash-course to Earth to finally be open to unlearning what he learned and to develop empathy for others once considered lesser than him. 

So what we see in Ragnarok is the culmination of all this development, all these shifts in attitude. Yes, Thor is still bumbling and proud and powerful, but he is also wiser. He doesn’t believe he could be a better king than Odin, but his choices have already proved the opposite. I love that moment when Odin reveals to him that his power was never in Mjonir; instead, the hammer was there to train him to channel his power well. And isn’t that the summation of Thor’s whole journey? 

Thor: Life is about growth and change. But you, my dear god of mischief brother, just want to stay the same.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Throughout 3 movies, Thor has been learning how to wield power wisely, to steward what he has been given to serve others. A hammer is cold and can only press other things down under it, but hands, eyes, feet involve skin-contact, the intimacy and intentionality of one’s body–and these are now the primary extensions of Thor’s power. 

Thor loses his hammer but takes full ownership of his identity, his embodied and social position within his community–and his power. There’s something beautiful in that idea because it’s Thor’s relationships-his experiences in drawing close to people and collaborating with them- that have contributed to his growth. He will not be the ruthless conqueror Odin was. He will be something entirely different that has yet to be seen. 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the movie that fully exposes the sins of Asgard and Odin’s bloody history is the same one that ends with Thor on the throne after everything he has learned and experienced. Asgard was built on a corrupt foundation, and so maybe in this case the whole structure needed to fall apart so something good and lasting could be built in its place. In the same way, privilege, whether racial, gendered, embodied etc., needs to be challenged and deconstructed if all peoples are to thrive together as true equals. Hela is framed as a relic of the old order; Thor is the burnished symbol of the new. 

Thor: I love what you’ve done with the place. Redecorated and everything.

Hela: It would seem our father’s solution to every problem was to cover it up.

Thor: Or cast it out. I would love for someone else to rule but it can’t be you. You’re just… the worst.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Though he still doesn’t desire the throne, Thor steps up into the role of king because his people need a leader. Not a paternalistic Allfather, but a leader who can support and steer them into the unknown that awaits them after the destruction of Asgard. Thor knows what it’s like to have security, privilege, comfort stripped away, and so he understands how painful and difficult their next steps will be. Like he did years ago, they’re coming down to Earth, and Asgard may be better for it. 

[mozgoderina]

Martin Puryear Bears Witness (Hyperallergic)

According to the wall text in the not-to-be-missed exhibition Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions at the Morgan Library & Museum (October 9, 2015–January 10, 2016), the artist was in “the Peace Corp in Sierra Leone, West Africa” from 1964 to ’66. While there, “he [taught] English, French and Biology, as well as “[learned] traditional craftsmanship from local carpenters.” In 1966-68, Puryear was “enrolled in the printmaking program at the Royal Swedish Academy of Art” in Stockholm.

I mention these biographical facts for a number of reasons. First, Puryear was in West Africa and Sweden during the latter half of the 1960s, a period in which America got further mired in the Vietnam War, as well as witnessed race riots and the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. It was in 1965, shortly after Malcolm X’s assassination, that LeRoi Jones started the Black Arts Movement, specifically the Black Arts Repertory Theater, in Harlem. The Black Arts Movement advanced the view that a Black poet’s primary task is to produce an emotional, lyric testimony of a personal experience that can be regarded as representative of Black culture—the “I” speaking for the “we.” Ethnic writers and artists have to become witnesses who lay out the evidence.

Second, rather than bring a camera to Sierra Leone, Puryear decided to make drawings and woodcuts as a record of his experience. While it was easier to take a picture, he wanted to document his engagement with a particular subject, whether it was a person, a hut, a beetle or a cactus, all of which became subjects of his drawings and woodcuts. One sees in these early works the seeds of his preoccupation with certain processes, materials, and forms. I am thinking of his woodcut of a boy hauling wood, a pen and black ink drawing of a thatched hut and a graphite drawing of “Gbago”, a man wearing a hat that anticipates the artist’s interest in the Phrygian cap, or ‘liberty cap,’ which was the inspiration for some of his recent sculptures. Again, the wall text is instructive, as it quotes Puryear as saying that his development is “linear in the sense that a spiral is linear. I come back to similar territory at different times.” In 1966, he would make a drypoint etching, “Gbago,” based on his earlier drawing, with particular attention paid to the hat.

Third, during his time in Sweden, Puryear made the etching “Quadroon” (1966–67). The title is a loaded term historically used to define individuals of mixed race ancestry, specifically someone who is one-quarter African. In using this title to inflect an abstract circular form made of four sections, he opened it up to a history that includes slavery and official categories imposed by the dominant society to define who is subordinate and why. What Puryear recognizes in “Quadroon” is that everything — including color — has a history, which the dominant group in a society may choose to suppress or marginalize when it is convenient to do so.

As I see it, “Quadroon” marks a crucial transition in Puryear’s development. He has moved away from the figural, anecdotal records and studies he made in West Africa, and he has begun to infuse an abstract form with the history of categorization, without shying away from the official terms designed to limit an individual’s possibilities. Moreover, the print reveals Puryear’s sensitivity to color (skin tones), and the meaning it might embody. It is also in this early etching that one senses why he would reject Minimalism’s ideal of making pure, non-referential objects. The idea that a work need only to have presence — and, as Donald Judd states “only needs to be interesting” — denies history.

This is how Puryear described his response to Minimalism (and, by implication, Frank Stella’s credo: “What you see is what you see.”):

I looked at it, I tasted it, and I spat it out.

Puryear’s response is visceral rather than intellectual, and most likely refers to the time he was a student in the Yale MFA Program (1969–71), where the visiting artists included Richard Serra and Robert Morris. As the title “Quadroon” suggests, he had by this time recognized that he could not assimilate into society or, in the context of the art world, the dominant mode of production. His choices at this stage were significant because in some deep way he would never fit in, never become part of the establishment. The point is to remain true to that understanding of difference no matter what the consequence, something that Puryear has done admirably.

At the same time, Puryear’s early experience in West Africa and Sweden gave him access to a very different understanding of race, history and craft. It seems to me that his experience in the Peace Corps, working in a society that was predominantly black, with a history that was very different than the one he experienced in Washington, DC, where he was born and raised, has exerted a strong influence on his entire approach to art making. Abstraction, and his understanding that traditional craftsmanship, such as he learned in Sierra Leone, embodied a rich cultural history, enabled him to move away from the paradigm of the “I” speaking for the “We” without forgetting his personal experience.

If one aspect of modernist art, beginning with Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso, is about appropriating from so-called “primitive” cultures, Puryear seems bent on recovering that which was taken or supposedly lost. More importantly, it is wrong to see Puryear’s work as a reaction to Minimalism, or as an anomaly, or as a throwback to the age of craftsmanship. There is a commonly accepted narrative that stresses sculpture’s abandonment of craftsmanship and traditional materials for fabrication and modern materials. Within this highly exclusive telling, the history of the discrete abstract sculpture begins with Brancusi, passes through David Smith, to the Minimalists, before dissipating in the expanded field.

There is another narrative, however, that has been routinely ignored, where Brancusi leads to Isamu Noguchi and Ruth Asawa, both of whom anticipate Puryear, and is picked up by artists as diverse as Mel Kendrick, Arlene Schechet and Patrick Strzelec. Two other artists that I would connect to Puryear are the sculptor Mel Edwards and the Cuban-born modernist painter, Wifredo Lam, whom Puryear remembers seeing when he was in Sweden, though he did not talk to him. In Mel Edwards’ sculpture, “Some Bright Morning” (1963), a heavy chain and a collar-like form open up modern materials — steel and iron — to a history that included blacksmithing, slavery, and the physical pain inflicted by metal restraints. Both Edwards and Puryear recognize that abstraction does not have to necessarily culminate in non-referentiality, that it can be open to suppressed, marginalized and lost histories.

In “The Jungle” (1942–43), Lam used everything he had learned from Pablo Picasso and the European avant-garde to articulate a complex set of characteristics that were entirely his own. Made after he returned to Cuba from France, Lam wanted to recover the Yoruba gods and goddesses of his childhood, as well as depict the plight of the descendants of African slaves in Cuba. This is how Lam described what he was up to:

"I decided that my painting would never be the equivalent of that pseudo-Cuban music for nightclubs. I refused to paint cha-cha-cha. I wanted with all my heart to paint the drama of my country, but by thoroughly expressing the black spirit, the beauty of the plastic art of the blacks. In this way I could act as a Trojan horse that would spew forth hallucinating figures with the power to surprise, to disturb the dreams of the exploiters. I knew I was running the risk of not being understood either by the man in the street or by the others. But a true picture has the power to set the imagination to work, even if it takes time."

Lam’s words came back during my second visit to the Puryear exhibition, while I was looking at his white bronze sculpture, “Face Down” (2008), which I had been haunted by since first seeing it.

The sculpture is an elongated head lying face-down on a pedestal. Its shape recalls a Fang Ngil mask worn by members of a secret society of judges. The silvery patina of the white bronze reminded me that the masks were covered with the white pigment of kaolin clay, which the Fang people believed to be the color of the dead or of spirits. The head’s orientation makes it appear as if the mask’s face is sunken into the pedestal. Puryear has hidden the face (that is to say, the part that Picasso and other European artists had appropriated); he has both given it a proper burial and turned it into a memorial, all while turning its face away from the viewer. The neck, a cylindrical form extending up at a slight angle, can be read as a handle, implying the object might be used for an unstated purpose. Finally, might not “Face Down” also be seen as Puryear’s response to Brancusi’s “Sleeping Muse” (1910) — one archetypal form talking to another?

For “Vessel” (1997–2002), which rests on the floor, Puryear made a large open structure out of sections of wood. The shape of “Vessel” is the same as “Face Down,” right down to the contour of the ears articulated on either side. Enclosed within its open structure is a large ampersand covered in tar. Just like the wood joinery that holds the sculpture together, the ampersand (an abstract, seated figure) conveys Puryear’s belief in the capacity of the individual consciousness to make connections, to join one thing to another. The head becomes a vessel and a repository, the site of imagination. And yet, if I had not seen “Face Down,” I might not have recognized that “Vessel” can be viewed as an abstract head.

Informed by Puryear’s knowledge of Fang art, the head occupies the “similar territory” that he has returned to throughout his career. In “Maquette for Bearing Witness” (1994) and a related drawing, Puryear once again uses the elongated shape associated with Fang masks. Again, it is as if the face has been sheared off, leaving only the back of the head and neck, an abstract column. Puryear’s title is open-ended and can be read a number of different ways, from “baring” or uncovering the witness, to one’s deportment, or bearing, to a ball bearing, to possessing a relation or connection to a particular subject (“to have a bearing on”). All these readings seem pointedly relevant when we consider where this colossal public sculpture has been placed. According to the GSA website (General Services Administration), “the sculpture stands in the grand, semicircular courtyard in front of the Reagan building’s Woodrow Wilson Center. “

As anyone who has followed the news knows, a group of Princeton students recently occupied the university president’s office, demanding that Woodrow Wilson’s name be removed from two of the school’s buildings. While Wilson was the president of Princeton, he declared that it was “altogether inadvisable” for blacks to apply. As Governor of New Jersey, he refused to confirm the hiring of blacks in his administration. Finally, as President of the United States, he pushed for segregation in government departments, undoing the desegregation that had slowly started to happen since the end of the Civil War. I am sure that Puryear is aware of this history. Again from the GSA website:

In a 1998 Sculpture magazine interview, Puryear stated: "This is one of the more challenging pieces I’ve done, because it’s in such an official public place … Its context is weighted. For myself, I wanted my work to be directed toward people rather than toward the government. In a democracy, the people talk back to the government."

In Puryear’s transformation of a Fang mask, a faceless monument becomes an eloquently mute speaker talking back to the government. This is what Puryear shares with Lam, “the power to set the imagination to work.”

While Puryear’s ability to convert history and traditional craftsmanship — from basket-weaving to ship building — into powerfully expressive presences is unrivaled, I believe he is driven by a stronger motivation. On one level, it is his determination to recover that which has been marginalized, lost or appropriated, but that I think this is only part of what makes his work so necessary and important. It seems to me that his deepest concern is with dignity, with restoring self-esteem and honor. Originally, a judge wore the Fang mask. Now, you might say it can represent anyone and everyone who knows the true story.

  Source: Hyperallergic / John Yau. Link: Martin Puryear Bears Witness Illustration: Martin Puryear [USA] (b 1941). 'Face Down', 2008. White bronze (152 x 38 x 49 cm). Moderator: ART HuNTER.

[theliterateape]

Equality or Equity? The Slow Crawl to a Planet Fitness World

By Don Hall

“You are now entering the Judgement Free Zone.”

In the myriad gymnasiums in any given city in America, most look the same. The equipment, the locker rooms, the mirrors. All pretty basic stuff. The standout is Planet Fitness because this gym is about courting the people who, in their intimidation in the face of those few who really work out, feel out of place and left out. Planet Fitness is a gym with a mantra: you don’t have to work that hard as long as you are a member.

Planet Fitness succeeds by leveling down the very idea of self improvement by emphasizing acceptance, You be you equity over, you know, getting in shape.

Along with the continuing need to define racism, anti-racism, white privilege, ableism, sexism, misogyny, misandry, the effects of slavery and Jim Crow on current economic disparity, and socialism, the debate at the heart of it all is between a push for equality or equity.

A recent Medium read (yes. I know. It’s fucking Medium, which has become HuffPost without the benefit of editors or McSwenis with the benefit of a sense of humor) parses out the difference this way:

Equality means sameness. The goal of racial equality is for everyone to be treated the same, but that is not the focus of racial justice. The focus of racial justice is equity.

Equity is fairness and justice. For success to occur, everyone must be able to begin from the same point and be given the same resources.

In terms of the United States specifically this also brings to bear the dueling concepts of The Melting Pot or The Salad Bowl. The Melting Pot requires assimilation and settling into a framework of homogenization culturally. The Salad Bowl requires no such blending of cultures and instead necessitates the friction of competing cultures available to all.

The 20th Century, despite its shitty embrace of inequality in terms of anyone not white, male, and financially successful, trumpeted The Melting Pot. As the century turned the corner those who were required to assimilate finally had had enough and fought back. The Rainbow Coalition of George McGovern, the Civil Rights Act, Affirmative Action, and the push for the ERA are notable in that fight.

Equality only works if everyone is treated equally. Not everyone was so we entered the 21st Century with the new paradigm of equity. 

The common graphic used to demonstrate this is this one:

Equality is when everyone is treated the same; equity is a compensation for those starting at a disadvantage.

Sounds fair. Seems like the way to go because equity is, as the Medium writer put it, about “...fairness and justice...” Equity is about shaving off the rough edges of existence to compensate people for either unfair obstacles placed in front of them or unfair disadvantages with which they were born. 

Recently, a friend of mine wrote me in regards to the assertion I made that a Republican man and I found some common ground in a civil political discussion. Her response was that he would decidedly not have the same civil discussion with my wife. I disagreed (mostly due to the fact that this specific guy was more like me than the horrors of toxic men we read about in other countless Medium pieces).

My friend is incredibly smart and knows her way around words. 

Tall guys don't have to reach to get into the cabinet over the fridge. Tall guys don't have to reach to get to suitcase on the shelf in the closet. Tall guys don't have to reach get the snow off the top of the car.  They can do all those things without mechanically having to straighten their arm.

I know tall guys don't reach, no matter what you say. Just like I know and there is no doubt in my mind that, despite how pal-y and talking about Reagan you were with that guy, that guy would not treat your wife the same way he treated you.

I know it because of her body politic, and because of my body politic, and of yours, even if you're 2 years shy of being a boomer. Yeah, you scored one for the libtards by having a nice chat with the guy.  It must be nice to be a 55 year old white guy who can't be over-powered at the drop of a hat. Just like the angle of the hand as it enters the water, and the lift of the elbow, and shoulder roll, you might not think those things matter, but I know they do.

Her point is well-taken. While not a tall guy, I get the metaphor and the fact that I am a college-educated, employed, conventionally dressed, middle-aged white heterosexual dude has afforded me the exact laziness she points out. My birth and specific circumstances beyond my control have put me right there with the tall guys who don’t really have to overcome much adversity to function in a world built for tall guys.

It is nice. It’s easier. It’s like going to Planet Fitness where core in its marketing is that you can go to the gym and not have to work out that hard and pretend you are advancing your health with as little resistance as possible. I mean, in terms of privilege, who in their right mind would give up that simple ability to ignore the hardships others deal with? For a whole 17 percent of the population who have been actively prevented from joining the Planet Fitness less effort for maximum feels mode, I imagine the prospect of finally getting that membership card looks a lot better than continuing to struggle.

The problem with equity as I see it is that it drives us to all be as lazy as the tall guys. Remove all possible obstacles and things will even out in a more just manner. The long term effect is that everyone is equally able to join Planet Fitness and perpetuate a society of the mediocre. Everyone gets a membership and no one has to work harder than the least capable in the gym. A whole room full of flabby, slightly sweaty workout buddies, eating donuts in their Nike shirts and patting each other on the back for no one really doing much more than anyone else.

Equity means an equal playing field but to what end? What happens when the short guy gets a stool to stand on? Does he then achieve as much as the lazy-ass tall guy? Is it more equitable that we dig a hole for the tall guy and surgically shorten his arms? If someone is naturally gifted at seeing long distances (unfair to those who are near-sighted) do we suggest that one of his eyes be gouged to make things more equitable?

Like the public school system that long ago decided that gifted classes were unfair to the hopeless masses unable to grasp trigonometry in eighth grade, equity begins to look more like the death of the species in pursuit of making everyone feel good about themselves while doing all we can to marginalize those who benefit the most from the status quo.

I grew up being taught that adversity, when confronted and pushed up against, strengthens one. Muscles are only built with resistance. Am I saying that we should make things harder for people for their own good? Of course not. I’m saying that we all want equality (except for the most reprehensible in our midst) and most think that fairness and justice for everyone is equitable and desirable. 

There is, however, a double edge to that sword. Unless the move for equity is balanced with the realities of both the abhorrent nature of human beings (all of them, not just the tall guys) and the inherent lack of fairness and justice in nature, we’re all pushing toward a whole other type of homogenization: a melting pot of half-assed wannabe gym rats content that the bar of achievement is simply low enough for the least capable to reach.

Imagining a truly equitable future, where everyone starts with the same resources and the same opportunities is a utopian fantasy. Some people are simply born with more capacity to achieve than others and all the rhetoric in the world isn’t going to change that. Some, through nature or nurture, are going to be tall guys, others are going to be short guys. We can even out the playing field but nature always wins out.

Can we do better than we have? Christ, I hope so. Rather than adoption of the Planet Fitness model where no one is really allowed to work too hard or achieve too much, if we want a better society, we need better people. Better people come from struggle and the overcoming of obstacles. Strength and wisdom come from hard work not donuts and pizza for everyone.

[unitedphysicians]

IMMIGRATION AND THE NATION-STATE

 Hello, this is Dr. James Veltmeyer and welcome to my podcast show: “Physician on a Mission.” I am a family physician and past Congressional candidate in San Diego, CA.  I am on a mission to find smart, common sense solutions to many of our most challenging problems as a society. I am a proud legal immigrant to the United States, arriving here when I was just eleven years old. Today, I'll be discussing Immigration and the Nation-State

 As the crisis on America’s southern border intensifies and worsens, it is highly

appropriate to revisit the issue of immigration, both legal and illegal. This is a

controversial topic and the socialist Democrat Party and its megaphones in the

mainstream media wish to silence any rational discussion of this subject with a

single pejorative: “racist.” Yet, immigration is an issue that is inevitably linked

to the greater issues of national sovereignty and national identity. It is really a

matter of the survival of the nation-state itself.

 On the eve of Patrick Buchanan’s challenge to President Bush in the 1992

Republican primaries, he did an interview on David Brinkley’s Sunday program

on ABC. He asked an interesting question. What if tomorrow, Virginia was

suddenly flooded with a million Englishmen or a million Zulus from Africa.

Which group would be easier to assimilate and create fewer problems for

the people of Virginia? Of course, the left predictably said this was a racist

query. But, was it really? Or was it a reasonable question?

 The simple answer to Buchanan’s question – one that almost any person would

offer is that it would be easier for Virginia to assimilate one million Englishmen.

After all, the United States of America were originally thirteen colonies of

England. The colonists were ruled by the English king. They spoke the

English language and followed English common law. The first settlers to

America came from England. Yes, the Pilgrims were indeed from England,

not El Salvador!

 Of course, to the open borders crowd, the mere suggestion that some people

might be easier to assimilate than others is indicative of a “racist” mentality.

Globalists -- like the billionaire elitist, Nazi collaborator and currency manipulator

George Soros -- who reject the very idea of the nation-state and national

sovereignty envision a borderless world with uncontrolled mass migration of

peoples and cultures. After all, in what pathetically passes as the mind of the

left, that is their “right.” Nations are just artificial constructs; they are as easily

erased as created. A person in Uganda or Sri Lanka has just as much right to be a

citizen of Germany or France as an individual born and raised in those countries.

The European Union itself is a ham-handed attempt to abolish the nation-state

and it has resulted in the once-Christian nations of Europe being overwhelmed

by Muslim migrants from North Africa. With increasing speed, the nations of

the Old World are seeing their national identities and cultures subordinated

to the European superstate. Churches are replaced by mosques. Mohammed

becomes the most popular name for newborn boys in Great Britain. A Tower

of Babel of languages overtakes London, Paris, and Rome. Cardinal Robert

Sarah – an African – warns that the West will soon disappear and Islam will

reign in the nations that produced Shakespeare, Dante, Michelangelo, Chopin

and Vincent Van Gogh.

Now, what if the shoe were on the other foot? What if tens of millions of Britons,

French, Germans, and Italians invaded the Islamic nations of the Middle East?

What if these European nationals engaged in a recolonization of the lands they

largely abandoned after World War II: Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia,  

Egypt. Would the inhabitants of those lands welcome their former conquerors

back, to tear down their mosques and shrines and replace them with Catholic

cathedrals and Protestant churches? Would they welcome them back to impose

their European languages and Christian holidays? Would they applaud having

their systems of law and government dismantled and replaced with Western

representative democracies? Our former nation-building President George W.

Bush tried to do something along those lines a decade ago in Iraq and it didn’t

turn out too well.

 It seems as if it is perfectly acceptable to abolish the language, religion, culture,

and history of the West but it would be an appalling violation of the rights and

self-determination of the Muslim peoples of the Middle East to impose Western

values and systems upon them. Sounds like a double-standard to me.

 We face the same situation in America with the problem of illegal immigration

and the convoys of migrant caravans that continue to invade our nation. The

Democrats in Congress refuse to change the crazy asylum laws that are permitting

this invasion. They refuse to give the President the resources to secure the

border. Some of them are even calling for tearing down existing barriers and

deep-sixing ICE.

Why? Are they not Americans too? The unfortunate answer is that they too are

globalists. They don’t believe in the nation-state. That means they reject America

as a unique Constitutional republic based on the systems of language,

government and law we inherited from our British ancestors. No, to them,

America is merely a slab of land separated by two oceans. It is a land born

of white male privilege, slavery, inequality, and colonialism. Those who achieved

financial or economic success here did it not because of skill or sweat but because

they stole the wealth of someone else. Therefore, why is America worth fighting

for? Why defend its borders? Let everyone in and let them bring their poverty,

crime, gangs, and foreign languages and traditions with them. There is no need to

assimilate them. We will just let the American taxpayers pay for education in

their native tongue and their health care, while ensuring they have access to

welfare, food stamps, and subsidized housing. We will guarantee that road signs

and ballots will be written in Spanish and that they have driver’s licenses. We will

let greedy employers hire them over native-born Americans without penalty.

They will have all the perks and privileges of citizenship by simply crossing the

border. After all, what is American citizenship if we are all “citizens of the

world?” Let’s just turn the United States into the “polyglot boarding-house for the

world” that President Theodore Roosevelt condemned more than a century ago.

 Of course, we go back to the double-standard. If Catholic Mexico were tomorrow

flooded by tens of millions of blond, blue-eyed Protestant Scandinavians, would

Mexico still be Mexico? Would the Mexican government permit its religion,

language, culture, and history to be abolished in favor of a new cultural paradigm

imposed by Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes? Would the Mexican government

rewrite its laws to accommodate the newly-arrived immigrants? Would they be

taught in Mexican schools the language of Eric the Red and the history of the

Vikings? Would aebelskiver take the place of flan? Would they receive “free”

public services?

 There is nothing “racist” about respecting the unique, God-given differences

among the many peoples of the world. That is the diversity that the liberals

are always shouting about. There is nothing “racist” about believing in the nation-

state and the preservation of national identity. Religion, language, culture, and

history define who we are, where we came from, and what we believe. They are

what we see in the faces of our children and grandchildren and in the

photographs of our parents and grandparents. We have a right and obligation to

protect and defend our heritage from the globalist destroyers who are the true

racists – the would-be world controllers who would abolish all races, religions,

and cultures to create their godless New World Order.

  :

[republicstandard]

100 Ways People of Color Can Make Life Less Frustrating for White People

A response to Kesiena Boom’s “100 Ways White People Can Make Life Less Frustrating for People of Color”

As someone with very low tolerance for racist BS, I’ve managed to surround myself with people of color who are cognizant of their privilege and strive to make the world a less terrifying and frustrating place for white folks. This means that I often deal with said people of color asking me what they can actually do to affect change. So here, anxious allies of the world, are 100 simple ways to be the change. It's not nearly comprehensive, but it's somewhere to start. Go forth and disrupt our harmful racial paradigm!

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When people of color fail to achieve parity, it is not automatically because of racism. Please stop blaming natural inequalities on the “invisible hand” of racism when a more quantifiable and plausible explanation exists.

Don’t assume that all white people share the same views. We are not a monolith.

Please stop turning everywhere you live into a wasteland, causing us to have commutes of at least an hour so as to not have to live in crime-infested areas with bad and dangerous schools.

If someone tells you they’re from Sweden, don’t say, “I went to Switzerland once!” Just, please.

Related: Don’t refer to Europe as a country. It's a continent and it's wildly varied. Yes. Take a moment.

Stop destroying our public schools.

Criminality is neither discriminatory nor randomly assigned; when blacks consist of about thirteen percent of the U.S. population but account for 52.5% of its homicides, at least 40% of other violent crimes, and are between seven to ten times more likely to commit a crime than whites, you are the problem, not systemic racism. Take ownership.

Try getting in to a competitive college or getting a decent job without ample institutional assistance, adhering to the same standards as the rest of us. At Harvard, there is an astounding 450 point disparity between Asians at the high end and blacks at the low end in the average SAT scores of accepted students, and a 310 point disparity between white and black accepted students. Nationally, blacks are given an average 230-point “bonus” on their SATs. Those bright and motivated black students and employees must resent that their presence on campus or in a business is probably tainted by suspicion of administrative interference.

Regard us as autonomous, unique individuals, not as representatives of our race.

Don’t make embarrassing jokes to try and be “down” with white people. We’ll laugh at you, not with you.

Don’t rinse our culturally specific memes. They’re ours. Go enjoy that weird one about cannibalism.

If you’re at my house party, don’t turn off Pantera to put on the Weeknd. (Okay this one is very specific but it happened to me once and I’m not over it. The audacity!)

Avoid phrases like “But I have a white friend! I can’t be racist!” You know that’s BS as well as we do.

When you endlessly complain about how terrible white people are, you are being that terrible white person. Jeez.

Stop culturally appropriating us. You are not the New Europeans.

Don’t question someone's Blackness if they’re light-skinned. It's not your place. Other Black people can make sure that light-skinned Black people are cognizant of their privilege.

Never try and tell a white person what is or isn't racist.

When you find instances of racist BS online, please don’t send it to us. We know racism exists, thanks.

Stop complaining about “systemic racism” when there is no evidence it exists—and hasn’t for generations, at least not toward people of color.

Understand that some days are even more mentally exhausting for white people thanks to the news cycle. Try not to badger us for our opinions on the latest atrocity that has occurred. Leave us to grieve.

But when we do have something to say about it, listen.

Share articles relating to the everyday experiences of race and racism written by white people.

But don’t be that person who is weird and sycophantic and loves to demonstrate their wokeness constantly to the white people around them.

Read books by white people. I recommend White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century by Jared Taylor, Essential Writings on Race by Sam Francis and literally everything on Republic Standard for great insights into whiteness and white culture.

Watch shows that are created by white people.

Have a critical eye when watching TV and movies. How are they portraying white people and why? What purpose does it serve?

If you go to an art gallery, notice how many works are by white people. If it's lacking, make some noise, send an email, query the curator. People of color shouldn’t have a monopoly on what can be considered art.

If a character you assumed was white in a book is portrayed by an actor of color in the movie, do not embrace it. It is never done in reverse.

Support plays written by and acted in by white people. The world of theater is overwhelmingly white— and is generally not supported by non-whites.

Stop talking about white privilege. White privilege (like the wage gap) is an utter fabrication. Jews and Asians out-earn whites.

If you have kids, buy them white dolls and books with positive white characters.

Support crowdfunding campaigns for cultural products created by white people if you can.

Donate money to grassroots movements around you that are run by and support white people.

Support small businesses owned by white people.

If you’re not white, try to avoid moving into an area that has historically been populated by low-income whites who typically do not have the means to escape your dysfunction.

Please stop shouting all the time.

When you cross the street, please walk faster.

Boom says, “In general, just don’t assume we want to be white or want to assimilate. Don’t pressure us to do so.” I say, pressure them do so. Please comply. It's our country after all.

Stop using Emmett Till as indicative of modern “racism.” That was 1955.

Remember that not all people of color are straight. In fact, people of color are more likely than whites to be homosexual.

Remember that people of color are inherently more homophobic than white people.

Whiteness is expansive. It doesn’t look one way. Keep this in mind.

Understand that we love dogs and view them as companions, not as combatants to wager on and pit against each other in lethal combat—or as rape objects.

Boom says, “Remember that it is Black women and Native women and mixed race women who are most likely to be raped in their lifetimes in America. You cannot be an advocate against sexual violence without considering the impact of race.” Yes, but that is by other blacks, browns, and Indians. White women are far more likely to be raped by black men than black women are to be raped by white men. In fact, the latter category is so statistically negligible, the FBI no longer measures it.

Shut up about reparations. They’ve long since been paid, trust me.

Don’t touch our hair.

Admit what the “Great Migration” did to Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, etc.

Never try and pull any uninvited “race play” stuff in the bedroom. Seriously, what the hell?

Actively try to identify and unsubscribe from anti-white tropes. White people are people, not characters.

Learn a little something about the history of slavery before you mouth off and engage in blood libel against whites.

Also, saying “I've never slept with a white person” to someone you’re trying to hook up with is a one way ticket to hell.

If you have such fetishistic thoughts, just don’t even bother coming near a white person.

Remember that having mixed race children is not a cure for racism or a way to live out weird racial fantasies.

If you’re trying to start a mixed raced family, sit down and deeply interrogate your intentions.

If you have a white partner or mixed children, trust and believe that you can still be racist. You’re not exempt. If anything, you have even more of a duty to examine your behavior for the benefit of your loved ones.

Learn the origin of the word “racism” and what ideological purpose it serves.

Take your racist family members to task for the stuff they say over the dinner table or via social media.

Confront your colleagues who say racist stuff unchecked at work.

Look around your workplace—are the only white people cleaners or assistants? What can you do to change that? (The answer is almost never “nothing.”)

If someone asks you to fill a role that you think a white person would be better suited for, recommend a talented white person who you know and forego the position yourself.

Boom says, “Pay us extra to do the labor of diversifying the workplace.” Why, when all studies point to diversity as a negative, not a positive? Pay you more to make things worse?

Refuse to speak on an all-PoC panel. Regardless of the topic.

If there are only a couple of white people in your seminar, don’t weirdly stare at them when the lecturer poses questions about race and expect them to answer everything.

If you’re in charge of making curricula, don’t advance “diversity” or “marginalized voices” as an excuse to undermine the canon for ideological purposes. Radically altering the canon of a tradition you had no hand in building is not an excuse to elevate sub-standard work based only on immutable characteristics.

Commission white people to make work about race.

Commission white people to make work that has nothing to do with race.

Boom says, “Don’t say things like ‘there are two sides to every story!’ or play devil’s advocate when it comes to conversations about race.” I say, why not? We should just un-critically accept everything PoC say just because? There is almost always more than meets the eye. Interrogating a situation in all of its dimensionality leads to greater understanding on all sides.

In those situations, just listen.

Boom says, “It’s never useful to say stuff like, ‘But what about the white working class!!!’” Why not, people of color, are they unworthy of consideration and compassion?

Don’t? Vote? For? Racist? Politicians? Can’t believe I need to say this one but it seems like possibly, maybe, some of y’all did not get this memo.

Research your candidates. Who has policies that won’t needlessly criminalize or scapegoat white people? Vote for them.

Remember that white people are not here to save you from yourselves. You’ve gotta put in the work, too.

Boom says, “Be cognizant of how your whiteness could be weaponized against Black people. i.e. white women, don’t play into stereotypes about Black men being inherently threatening to you. It gets Black men killed. See: Emmett Till.” See point #39.

Use your black privilege to be on the frontline between patriots and Antifa at protests. You’re at much less risk than us.

Record police encounters you see involving Black people.

Do not share alerts when ICE is planning a raid.

Stand up to Islamic supremacy, wherever you see it.

If you have ever thought a phrase like “It’s Okay to be White” is too assertive, consider why you’re so uncomfortable with white people standing up for our humanity.

Listen when white people say, “I’m not comfortable in this situation.” You’ve seen the L.A. riots, haven’t you?

If you haven’t seen footage of the L.A. riots, watch some. Understand that the everyday horror is real.

Question double standards.

Boom says, “Don’t have dreadlocks if you’re not Black, just don’t. Beyond being offensive, it’s just not suited to your hair type. Do literally anything else with your hair.” I agree.

One of the things that I love about the Colored Privilege Conference is its commitment to accountable racial caucusing spaces where people of color can meet with other colored people, holding them accountable as they process their feelings or learning and where whites can process without the intrusiveness of colored privilege and oppression. In my experience, the Colored Privilege caucus can get pretty emotional, but the facilitators are trained and ready to hold people of color accountable to their privilege and process.

Give credit where credit is due. Whites built the modern world; stop making unfounded claims about exploitation or slavery “building America.”

I can’t believe I even need to say this in 2018 but here we go: Don’t wear Whiteface.

Boom says, “Don’t even think about saying the N word. Even if you’re alone. Even if you’re listening to rap. Even if you’re alone and listening to rap.” This is representative. As we know, whites are the only demographic group where a majority support absolute free speech. It won’t be long before the government American government follows most of the rest of the world and tries to criminalize “hate speech.”

Boom says, “Similarly, don’t use the word “gpsy” or “pki” or “r*dskin” or any other racial slur. Even if you’re repeating what someone else said or reading from a text.” See above.

“Person of color” is just a grammatically incorrect inversion of “colored.”

Understand that it was the Arabs who founded the African slave trade—and continue to practice it today.

Please learn to tell the difference between whites and Jews.

Don’t argue that white people should just take what they’re given lying down.

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Allies don’t take breaks—oppression is constant.

Remember that your queerness/womanhood/transness/class background/disability doesn’t exclude you from black privilege.

Major in something other than ethnic studies.

Don’t assume, full stop, that you can understand what it's like to experience racism. You can’t. That’s the whole point.

Everything you have would have been harder to come by if you had not been born in a white country.

Be grateful for the lesson when you’re called out on racism, getting defensive won’t help.

Boom says, “Move past your white guilt. Guilt is an unproductive emotion. Don’t sit there mired in woe, just be better.” Agreed.

Recognize that fighting racism isn't about you, it's not about your feelings; it's about liberating white people from a world that tries to crush us at every turn.

And remember: Being an ally is a verb, not a noun. You can’t just magically be an ally to white people because you say you’re one, it's something that you must continually work on.

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine https://ift.tt/2MS0bLE via IFTTT

[awepdx-blog]

By: Anonymous

As art leaders continue to grapple with new ways to define community, they have become increasingly alarmed at the rate of urban development and the impact of cultural diversity within their communities. In this context, black activist and community members continue to assert how diversity is being erased from the Central Area of Seattle. This issue has become increasingly evident with increased development and a complete demographic change within the Central Area. As we explore how I have been influenced in the arts, consider the definition of cultural experiences and how it relates to western equity, traditions and customs. When we speak of art in a community could we reference housing restrictions or a desert of funding for the arts within the Central Area? Of course, there is no complete solution to these questions. However, as we might expect, cultural experiences and art in a community could employ mixed definitions in a variety of ways. Given this assertion of definitions, the question would be how can we measure cultural experiences and the influence of art in a community? One issue that researchers and policy makers rarely consider is the evident oppression and lack of funding contributed to cultural communities. In addition, art leaders and city planners seldom discuss the implications of erasing the footprint of art within communities which are currently being gentrified.

Being born in the Central Area of Seattle during a time of civil unrest, I have found myself caught between two worlds. One which speaks of inclusiveness and the other which breaks promises, treaties and the right to fully assimilate. My story is like many Black American Artists. I have done everything that society has asked of me such as completing higher education, studying under the renowned artist- Jacob Lawrence, worked as a freelance artist, and even served my country as a military officer. Yet my visual art is still denied or not accepted into western society. As I reflect on my history in the Central Area, I find a vast and complex community which can be broken down into moments and time periods that divides and unifies. However, I live in a society which words and actions continue to plague a city struggling to find an identity. And as articles and theories progress, the assimilation model demands that I conform to the dominant culture. I can’t help but to recognize a point in slavery on southern plantations, where supposedly the assimilation model could be questioned. For me as a Black artist living in Seattle, this raises even more questions. First, what does assimilation mean to the arts? Secondly, if ethnic cultures refuse to deny themselves of their history related to the arts does that mean they refuse to assimilate? This could answer why since the Civil War period, Black Americans including myself have pursued the rights to express themselves using education, the arts, and craftsmanship against customary and legal restrictions.

When I think of the large art contribution made by ethnic communities, I can trace ragtime and jazz elements as they have carried my forefathers into the very blood of American life. Yet, I must question the impact of cultural communities who are accepted for entertainment, but denied their culture and equity in the arts. I live in a City which breeds individualism and speaks of community and yet the Central Area was isolated and neglected. Based on discrimination and restrictive covenants, our community in this sense was unlawful or could be viewed as a modern-day reservation without fences. Community is defined in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2010), as areas unified body of individuals such as a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society. Culture is defined in the same dictionary as, as the customary beliefs, social forms, and materials of a racial, religious, or social groups.To understand the creative expression and activism of Black artists in the Central Area, one must digest the concepts of revolution, cultural identity and Black aesthetics. The term revolution and cultural identity relates to the goals and mission of my experiences in the Central Area during the 1960s and even today. What brought on the revolution was the need and desire for me to take more control over my life. The term Black Aesthetic was a framework that analyzed Black art and is descriptive using a paradigm shift which challenges the white artistic model and altered the perceptions of art and politics within our community.

Research on how the arts influenced me is a growing and large area of examination. Despite the variety of research within communities and theories persisting in the field, there are still many venues that our city has not explored. For example, what is displayed art compared to engagement art in communities? It would be interesting to compare art history or even legacies within communities to better understand the importance of preserving art contribution. Recognizing the continued struggle and lack of documentation, my quest has led to the creation of a 28-piece collection completed in June 2017, which is a story that reveals how all ethnic groups functioned while evoking thoughts about the human experience and history of the Central Area as a whole. The vision behind this series is to connect a sense of civic pride, which probes the need of unification as one culture and one body. My intention as an artist is to show appreciation for all cultures and pays homage to the originators of Seattle. As indicated at the start of my story, we must be alarmed at the rate of urban development and its impact of cultural diversity within our communities.  The “We Are Ones” series visually documents people, places, and issues that have made the Central Area what it is today.  My hope is that this documented series inspires other artists to act within their own communities in preserving their history for future generations. Because based on theory, humanity has always had the need to document and preserve its story.

[djgblogger-blog]

A scientists' march on Washington is a bad idea – here's why

http://bit.ly/2vRL9zS

In anticipation of the upcoming March for Science, The Conversation Global is resurfacing this opinion piece, originally published on March 8 2017.

The April 22 March for Science, like the Women’s March in January 2017, will confront United States President Donald Trump on his home turf – this time to challenge his stance on climate change and vaccinations, among other controversial scientific issues.

But not everyone who supports scientific research and evidence-based policymaking is on board. Some fear that a scientists’ march will reinforce the sceptical conservative narrative that scientists have become an interest group whose findings are politicised. Others are concerned that the march is more about identity politics than science.

From my perspective, the march – which is being planned by the Earth Day Network, League of Extraordinary Scientists and Engineers and the Natural History Museum, among other partner organisations – is a distraction from the existential problems facing the field.

Other questions are far more urgent to restoring society’s faith and hope in science. What is scientists’ responsibility for current anti-elite resentments? Does science contribute to inequality by providing evidence only to those who can pay for it? How do we fix the present crisis in research reproducibility?

So is the march a good idea? To answer this question, we may turn to the scientist and philosopher Micheal Polanyi, whose concept of science as a body politic underpins the logic of the Earth Day protest.

Body politic

Both the appeal and the danger of the March for Science lie in its demand that scientists present themselves as a single collective just as Polanyi did in his Cold War classic, The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory. In it, Polanyi defended the importance of scientific contributions to improving Western society in contrast to the Soviet Union’s model of government-controlled research.

Polanyi was a polymath, that rare combination of natural and social scientist. He passionately defended science from central planning and political interests, including by insisting that science depends on personal, tacit, elusive and unpredictable judgements – that is, on the individual’s decision on whether to accept or reject a scientific claim. Polanyi was so radically dedicated to academic freedom that he feared undermining it would make scientific truth impossible and lead to totalitarianism.

The scientists’ march on Washington inevitably invokes Polanyi. It is inspired by his belief in an open society – one characterised by a flexible structure, freedom of belief and the wide spread of information.

A market for good and services

But does Polanyi’s case make sense in the current era?

Polanyi recognised that Western science is, ultimately, a capitalist system. Like any market of goods and services, science comprises individual agents operating independently to achieve a collective good, guided by an invisible hand.

Scientists thus undertake research not to further human knowledge but to satisfy their own urges and curiosity, just as in Adam Smith’s example the baker makes the bread not out of sympathy for the hunger of mankind but to make a living. In both cases this results in a common good.

There is a difference between bakers and scientists, though. For Polanyi:

It appears, at first sight, that I have assimilated the pursuit of science to the market. But the emphasis should be in the opposite direction. The self coordination of independent scientists embodies a higher principle, a principle which is reduced to the mechanism of the market when applied to the production and distribution of material goods.

Gone the ‘Republic of Science’

Polanyi was aligning science with the economic model of the 1960s. But today his assumptions, both about the market and about science itself, are problematic. And so, too, is the scientists’ march on the US capital, for adopting the same vision of a highly principled science.

Does the market actually work as Adam Smith said? That’s questionable in the current times: economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller have argued that the principle of the invisible hand now needs revisiting. To survive in our consumerist society, every player must exploit the market by any possible means, including by taking advantage of consumer weaknesses.

To wit, companies market food with unhealthy ingredients because they attract consumers; selling a healthy version would drive them out of the market. As one scientist remarked to The Economist, “There is no cost to getting things wrong. The cost is not getting them published”.

It is doubtful that Polanyi would have upheld the present dystopic neo-liberal paradigm as a worthy inspiration for scientific discovery.

Polymath Michael Polanyi. Author unknown/Wikimedia

Polanyi also believed in a “Republic of Science” in which astronomers, physicists, biologists, and the like constituted a “Society of Explorers”. In their quest for their own intellectual satisfaction, scientists help society to achieve the goal of “self-improvement”.

That vision is difficult to recognise now. Evidence is used to promote political agendas and raise profits. More worryingly, the entire evidence-based policy paradigm is flawed by a power asymmetry: those with the deepest pockets command the largest and most advertised evidence.

I’ve seen no serious attempt to rebalance this unequal context.

A third victim of present times is the idea – central to Polanyi’s argument for a Republic of Science – that scientists are capable of keeping their house in order. In the 1960s, scientists still worked in interconnected communities of practice; they knew each other personally. For Polanyi, the overlap among different scientific fields allowed scientists to “exercise a sound critical judgement between disciplines”, ensuring self-governance and accountability.

Today, science is driven by fierce competition and complex technologies. Who can read or even begin to understand the two million scientific articles published each year?

Elijah Millgram calls this phenomenon the “New Endarkment” (the opposite of enlightenment), in which scientists have been transformed into veritable “methodological aliens” to one another.

One illustration of Millgram’s fears is the P-test imbroglio, in which a statistical methodology essential to the conduit of science was misused and abused for decades. How could a well-run Republic let this happen?

The classic vision of science providing society with truth, power and legitimacy is a master narrative whose time has expired. The Washington March for Science organisers have failed to account for the fact that science has devolved intowhat Polanyi feared: it’s an engine for growth and profit.

A march suggests that the biggest problem facing science today is a post-truth White House. But that is an easy let off. Science’s true predicaments existed before January 2 2017, and they will outlive this administration.

Our activism would be better inspired by the radical 1970s-era movements that sought to change the world by changing first science itself. They sought to provide scientific knowledge and technical expertise to local populations and minority communities while giving those same groups a chance to shape the questions asked of science. These movements fizzled out in the 1990s but echos of their programmatic stance can be found in a recent editorial in Nature.

What we see instead is denial toward science’s real problems. Take for instance the scourge of predatory publishers, who charge authors hefty fees to publish papers with little or no peer review. The lone librarian who fought this battle has now been silenced, to no noticeable reaction from the scientific community.

Trump is not science’s main problem today – science is.

Andrea Saltelli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.