#but thats why i believe in early Friends supremacy

[friendsiguess]

I think I've posted about this before but literally why is Joey so difficult to write. I CANT NAIL HIM DOWN WHAT IS THIS MAN THINKING

[toxicsamruby]

what are your thoughts on sam as a man of color?

OKAY so i do sort of go into this in my fic but im not gonna make u sift thru it for my opinions cuz i like to hear myself talk :) also disclaimer im gonna be exclusively talking abt the early seasons cuz i dont know or understand whats going on post s4. also also disclaimer all the posts im making abt this r about john as a white man and maryam as an arab woman . OK lets get into it

so one of the big differences btwn sam and dean is a question of assimilation. and dont get me wrong both of them do it in different ways but the first information we get about sam is that he’s trying VERY hard to assimilate not into the hunter cowboy culture that dean is but into the PROTECTED lifestyle of middle/upper class normalcy and ivy leagues and a pretty blonde wife and a respectable job in tax law or whatever. like a lot of sam’s characterization in the early seasons is about striving not necessarily towards “Normalcy” (although thats an essential part of it) but, more broadly, towards the moral ideal that’s been set forth by the white supremacist christian hegemony of american culture. and this manifests in the way that he runs away to stanford and tries so so hard to fit in, and also in his self destructive devotion to the christian god. it’s almost entirely based in a feeling of being unclean or unholy, and he believes in god not as a comfort but as a desperation for salvation, or a purification of what he believes is dirty blood.

so sam is TRYING to assimilate into this mainstream moral ideal, we see that, and there are times where he actually almost succeeds! he got into stanford with a full ride on his own merit! he did really well all four years, and he ended up with friends and a white woman he wanted to marry and entrance into a career that would have marked him as a respectable and fairly well off man for the rest of his life. he is a faithful christian, he prays every day and he reads the bible and he genuinely believes. surface level, he might have been comfortable forgetting about his roots and assimilating successfully for the rest of his life. but, crucially, he DOESNT succeed. why?

there is something marking him as “different” the entire time, something inherent, something he can’t shake off no matter how hard he tries to repress it. at stanford, of course, its his childhood, the monster hunting, the fucked up family, the extreme poverty. with christianity, its the demon blood. he can pretend all his life to be a good christian middle class lawyer with a nice white wife and a nice picket fence, but at the end of the day that life was not built for somebody like sam, and to succeed in it he will have to repress parts of himself that will never go away.

put this into the context of race. i said that i think dean’s relationship with gender white supremacy americana etc becomes more interesting when he’s a brown skinned man of color. dean is unable to assimilate into the kind of life that sam aims for. he has a markedly more antagonistic relationship with cops, he couldn’t get through school even though he’s demonstrably very intelligent, and he just doesn’t make the kind of first impression that sam does; people see sam as sweeter, kinder, more trustworthy, somebody who can be reasoned with. dean, by contrast, is usually treated with more wariness, more distrust. it’s dean who’s the primary target of the manhunt (before they fucking dropped that plotline lmao). all of this evidence taken together, sam, i think, is noticeably lighter than dean, maybe even conditionally white passing.

and this is an important part of how he’s trying to assimilate. he can feel that he’s ALMOST there, that he can ALMOST be the american moral christian ideal he’s been taught is more important than anything, if he can just contort himself into something that closely resembles a middle class christian white man. but that’s all he can ever do, is RESEMBLE that, no matter how hard he works. so he might be a token diversity point at his workplace or his school: of course he earned his place there, but he’s still aware that his position doesn’t come with the same ease of the middle class christian white man sitting next to him. so sam tries to make himself smaller, keeps himself clean shaved, his hair neat, doesn’t let himself tan too much, speaks softly and eloquently, represses his anger, doesn’t talk about his family, dates white girls, has unthreatening career aspirations, tries so so so so so hard to be a good christian because maybe, he thinks, someday he’ll wake up and he won’t feel like he’s wrapped in cellophane, separated by something clear but strong from the culture he’s trying to earn a place in. maybe he’ll feel one day that he’s earned his place, that he’s just the same as everybody around him, that he won’t have this unspoken but obvious difference to him that follows him everywhere. he thinks maybe he’ll be able to separate himself entirely from monstrousness, that one day he’ll pray and it won’t feel like begging to be somebody else.

but when dean comes for him. slowly but surely, he starts to realize that there never has been and never will be a place for him in this american white supremacist christian culture, and the cracks start to appear. he realizes that he’s never really felt at home anywhere, that the roots he’d tried so hard to put down were all wrapped in cellophane too, and after jess’s death, its the easiest thing in the world to pull those roots up because he never belonged there anyway. he starts getting angrier, stops caring who hears him yell. he stops repressing the powers that he’s been hiding from himself for as long as he can remember. very slowly, he looks this fact straight in the face: he is a monstrous Other, and he will never be anything else. he’s always been more self aware than dean, but it doesn’t help him now. he becomes angrier and more desperate all at once, pushing dean away and pulling him closer at the same time, praying more vehemently and still using his powers more often, letting himself become scarier looking and still sweet talking cops. he’s in this permanent state of conflict, because it’s virtually impossible for him to realize that the value system he’s had such faith in his entire life is false and cruel, so when he finds that he’s permanently locked outside of it, it doesn’t help him, it only convinces him that he’s a monster.

[gyrlversion]

Toni Morrison was Americas conscience, one thats needed more than ever

James Baldwin once said that the poet is produced by the people because the people need him. This is also true of the novelist, which is why I believe Toni Morrison was produced by the people because the people needed her. America needed her. I needed her.

I encountered the novels written by Morrison, who passed away Monday at 88, during one of the loneliest times of my life. It was also, paradoxically, a joyous time. Transitions are often complicated like that. It was the fall of 2013. I had just moved with my husband and youngest son to live on the campus of an elite New England boarding school. I had never visited New Hampshire until I moved there — the shock was immediate.

When I first met her in person for the making of the film, I told her how much I loved her. And she responded, “But do you love my work?”

I was a stranger in a village, the only one of my kind. Morrison’s books became my shelter; she was my teacher, a friend in my head who kept me company as I navigated this strange new landscape. As I witnessed white supremacy slowly being stoked by sinister politicians who sought to distract us, to divide us from each other and from the work we are tasked to do — she reminded me, in every book, that we are here to love one another, more thickly. And that we must look at the terror of history in order to be released from it.

I began to read Morrison’s fictional works in chronological order, from “The Bluest Eye,” which came out in 1970, to “God Help the Child,” published in 2015. When I finished, I delved into her nonfiction, “The Black Book�� and“Playing in the Dark: On Whiteness and the Literary Imagination,” among a dozen others. For well-read Black girls like me, the adventure was exhilarating.

Reading her transformed me from the inside out and today I divide my life — before and after Toni. I was so moved by her works that when I completed the reading, I wanted to see a film about the exquisite artist who captured my imagination over two years. When I realized that there was no film to watch, I helped make one.

When I first met her in person for the making of the film, I told her how much I loved her. And she responded, “But do you love my work?” Morrison was always focusing on the work. And there is so much work to love.

I was able to sit with her books and understand American history through the lives of Black women, who are always at the center of her great literature. In Morrison’s unique music and blues, I also heard my song. To see people like me and my family in great literature was transcendent.

Her novels created a way back home for me — to look back at my own history and understand the story of my ancestors — Black and indigenous people of Puerto Rico. Morrison gave me a new language to understand American history, which is Puerto Rican history, which is my history. I understood more intimately how the invisible hand of history shapes lives, attempts to destroy humans — and, really, the planet — and how this story can be hacked so that instead, you are free and empowered. I was no longer trapped in the master narrative.

Morrison was a freedom fighter who slayed with words. In the tradition of Baldwin, Harriet Tubman and Nelson Mandela, she helped free us. She wrote about Black lives and exalted our stories and placed us in epic, Biblical tales. She wrote about Black men, women and children, putting a mirror to our loveliness and also our tragedies. And she wrote in a language that was our own.

As I quickly learned when I encountered her books, you don’t read Morrison for fun; you read the Nobel laureate for liberation. In her works, I experienced resilience and grandeur. In her books, I felt transcendence by seeing what horrid things happened and what we’ve been through — but more, how we survived. I got to see what bravery looks like.

When the director of the film I helped produce said the word “rolling,” I remember looking up and seeing Morrison looking back at me, ready and open. I could ask her anything. Before me was one of the most brilliant intellects in the world, one of the freest and most unapologetically Black women on the planet ready for her close-up. The author, whose books gave me oxygen and who had been a friend in my head, was in the flesh.

I was fully aware that she had a very low tolerance for lazy journalists or stupid questions. My first thought when I looked into her beautiful face was — I better not mess this up with a foolish question. I still wonder if Morrison took pity in the momentary terror she must have seen on my face.

Meeting Morrison in her 80s was divine — she was ready to share her story. I was free to ask her anything. She was generous and open, and so witty. When I touched issues that she was not ready to answer — which were none of my business, such as her divorce from the father of her two sons — she would say, “stop recording.” But then, she proceeded to share her story in private, outside of the cameras. Her personal drama was no one’s business, and I really appreciated that in a world where reality shows are a dime a dozen, this was a woman who kept the focus on the work.

Very early on in the filming, she made it clear that she was born Chloe Wofford and Chloe does not do documentaries; Toni Morrison does. She protected her privacy. But there is one anecdote that I believe she would be OK with me sharing.

When we wrapped the film, she pointed to what I thought was a sculpture and asked me to get it for her. Holding the piece, iron, hard, cold and heavy, she explained it was an anklet that Black women house slaves were forced to wear. She handed it to me, letting me hold it, and said, “It’s light enough that you can do housework, but heavy enough that you can’t run away. I have two, one in the living room and one next to me on my night table.”

Toni Morrison wrote so that Black and Brown girls like me could fly. But as much as I want to think she wrote for me, Morrison wrote for all of us.

Morrison asked us to never forget them, the millions of Black women around the world who were enslaved. That it was our duty to honor them, to remember them and, in my case, to write and make films about them.

I am convinced that Toni Morrison wrote so that Black and Brown girls like me could fly. But as much as I want to think she wrote for me, Morrison wrote for all of us. She forces America to examine our internal conflicts and become comfortable with our complexity so that we can face the world head on. And also be released from its grip.

Today, when our timelines are weaponized with 140 word counts, when we witness the grotesque nature in which we are all being othered, where Black and Brown bodies are being slaughtered by police, where Brown and Black children seeking refuge from violence and poverty are separated from their families and then left to die, what America could use more of is Toni Morrison.

Toni Morrison is the closest thing America has to a national writer; she is America’s conscience. She was produced by the people because the people needed her. And today, America needs her more than ever.

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