#calling actual people of color racist for not agreeing that a group of aliens are asians is not okay

[asocial-skye]

Hot Take: The people who say that Anakin is "female-coded" and the people who say that Obi-Wan is "Asian-coded" are both wrong. They are both white men; end of story.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy both characters for their flaws and strengths, and I get invested in their stories, but they are not women or Asian. They are both white male characters created by a white man for a predominantly white audience.

Coding is such a stupid concept, and I want to stab myself in the eye with a fork every time I see anyone claim this. It's harmful, and takes attention and importance away from actual characters of color and their stories. It's basically riffing on stereotypes of races and then transposing those ideals on white people or aliens. And it's meant to be respectful or cool somehow?

It's simply incredibly insulting.

Are Jedi ripped off from Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as well as Christianity? Yes.

Is Anakin Skywalker a masculine character with less traditional personality traits? Yes.

Are either of them "Asian" or "female"? NO.

[weaselbeaselpants]

In response to the reblog before my last post- I'm fricken tired of people thinking hating on white people/"reverse racism" is comparable to racism-racism. And don't you dare call me a white-pickme for that; I MEAN IT.

In as far as BIPOC people bullying white ppl for existing, asserting the problem is always "whiteness" every time, and discriminating 'white-passing' individuals for not being asian, black, ndn 'enough --- I can't really speak personally for or about any of that. Yes, I can bring up the Art Spiegelman "suffering makes you hurt" speech, but that's a multifacited, complicated issue and I'm alone typing all this from a laptop. Especially the 'reverse colorism' part; I can NOT SPEAK for this. At most, when it's the first example, it can be a case of badly-handled social justice where a person doesn't really know how to clap back besides just pointing to the oppressor and unironically saying "they did it" every time.

Even so- the one thing I DEFINITELY can tell you is: that's still not comparable to systemic oppression, k? The reason it's "okay" to racelift a white character in an adaptation but not okay to white-wash a bipoc character is because WHITE WASHING WAS AND IS SERIOUSLY STILL AN ONGOING PROBLEM IN HOLLYWOOD. The reason people are trying to explore and delve into different non-eurpoean based cultures more and more is HOLLYWOOD IS NOTORIOUS FOR ONLY TELLING THE STORIES OF WHITE PEOPLE. And no, you can't go "but what about [x movie/tv show/book existing]?" one or a few examples of an experience does not cover the multitudes of perspectives and nuances in the real world and so-to in fiction of non-white experiences. People of color getting more stories about them or being main characters in fantasy stories should not be a threat to you unless you literally think and lack of white-people stories is alienating to you, a white person. inb4 "But it's revenge based! They're laughing about 'now you have to feel the pain of being misrepresented or invisible-'" yeah, STILL not comparable also who the hell means that completely in earnest? Maybe YOU should get used to people of color being main characters more often and stories from none white ppl in history being portrayed more too. Cope.

Small addendum but if you think every one in one group just adores ANY race/gender/sexuality-lifting uncritically, you all haven't actually been listing. People have been talking about bare minimum non-representation for years w stuff like Disney always having the 'first out-gay Disney character that's in the background and doesn't talk' and how Black!Hermonie makes the house elf plot in Harry Potter WORSE. Again- COPE.

I see white ppl I otherwise respect try and use this "isn't that racist towards us white people?" argument and all I see is ignorance sns. It feels like white people can't stand being called out and asserting that it's the person doing the criticism BEING a 'reverse racist' for pointing out/making fun of white supremacy...even though that's a thing you should make fun of. White supremacy HAS hurt basically everyone. It, like capitalism, is impossible to escape all at once, but it's bad that we live in such an unequal society. You(white person reading this) know and probably really DON'T want that inequality, so if you want to start fighting it you better get used to the fact that those criticisms will involve the demographic you're in AT LEAST SOMETIMES. It really isn't/shouldn't be about you as an individual that bipoc dare point out "man, white people don't get how this feels and I hate when they lecture me that they actually do and that I'M THE ONE 'bringing race into this'"- unless, of course, you are one of the white people doing the 'whataboutism in said argument! Oppressors and majorities are acceptable targets; that's the agreed upon idea when it involves appropriation and coding and shit. It doesn't stop because oppression itself doesn't stop because America had a black president one time, and you should listen to people when they tell you as the people BEING oppressed what's being done and said to them. You are a listener. You are an ally.

Some white-allies really only know how to punch down and/or take from the idea that their whiteness is an inherent mark of evil that they need to redeem themselves in the eyes of others...which is really fucked up and not what bipoc ppl are trying to tell you at all. I've seen fake-white allies bully bipoc people about what they should and shouldn't like. People assume the person on the other end HAS TO BE white as well and so here they are being a 'good white' by bashing them. It's the same logic as when someone assumes complaints about representation are only ever being DONE BY WHITE PPL, as if people of color have never complained abt fiction depicting them since Birth of a Nation-- it's revealing how you think the only other ppl ever holding any discourse with and/or discussions with you are other white people. The fact of the matter is you can't point to white supremacy and white people being racism being the ONLY problem in your life, but you ought to at least point it out because it is A problem we all deal with, and some people deal with it in worse ways than others. You owe it to them AND TO YOURSELF not to trivialize this whole thing into some kind of "never be CLEAN"/"I'm the exception" mentality --you owe it to everyone to RIGHTLY fight whitewashing, white racism, white supremacy. DecolonizetheLeft had a great discussion on their blog about this and how white people hating other white people isn't healthy nor activism.

You should never stop advocating for others or being an ally just because someone else is doing activism BADLY. Activism is a huge give and take and comes with trial and error. Hush up the bad faith and encourage the good you know you can do and help with in the world- because you CAN DO it.

[bradwottakes]

So what do people think of the Chibnall era on here?

Heard a lot of negative stuff, and now that I'm finally on to it, ummm I think I agree.

Like 13 just said "things get smaller, faster, cheaper. That's progress"

And I recall 12 saying "Human progress isn't measured by industry" what the hell. Where did this complete 180 come from? Not against changes in the doctor, loved the growth from 9 to 10, but this is just... HUH?!

And why did they kill off the one character who's both interesting AND useful - Grace - in ep. 1 and replace her with 3 Exposition Querying Machines?

Seriously, prior stories usually had a Big Important Plot that takes up the doctor's attention. But characters would hold it up, and there was great tension between the plot-driving threat and the fact that these are... Well... People who do and want things that aren't always aligned or don't understand what's happening. It's a push and pull, and the Doctor synthesizes them: reminds the characters obsessed with The Threat that there's a human/personal element to the story, and keep the characters obsessing over their issues in line with what needs to be done RIGHT NOW so that they live long enough to figure out their problems later.

But now, the characters stop doing anything involving themselves as people any time The Threat is brought up, or even something new happens and the Audience needs it "explained".

Four main characters SHOULD be a great opportunity to have sub-dynamics and conflicts beyond just Companion-Doctor tension, or tension between the doctor-companion group and the episode's disposable characters.

Instead, so far, it's... "I want More, my family is annoying" "I'm sad my wife is dead, and my step-grandson is emotionally distant" "I'm sad my grandma died and my dad isn't around"

Will there be tension between Yaz and Ryan, cause he resents his father, but she's pushing her family away?

Tsuranga Conundrum did something cool, put the doctor in an unusual position: being a bit selfish, and not in charge because there's someone else who understands the situation and priorities better. It's literally Doctor vs doctor. But 5 mins later, Astros is dead and we're back to the Doctor being in charge. Mabli has serious self-esteem issues, so the doctor uses her as exposition and she gets to... Maybe be in charge later, once she works through her issues off-screen?

Previous writers were never great with race (Bill calls our victorian racism only to find out the past wasn't as racist as she thought, and the doctor white knights for her against the only racist they meet. A few episodes later, it turns out SHE'S the prejudiced one for not knowing how to talk to an alien) but Chibnall is... Just bland. In the Rosa Parks episode they all agree on exactly what to do the whole time: save Rosa Parks from the time traveling neo-nazi. Don't get me wrong, I don't want them on his side - but it's such a boring premise and execution. It's just "we have to keep history the same" and it only works because they all like the outcome this time. Usually there's a question of "what do we change?", And though the resolution is usually "we can't interfere", the story isn't actually about changing/not changing history, it's about WHY changing history is generally a problem. They're rarely my favorite stories, but at least there's SUBSTANCE. There's a (still cliche) but more tense story available even in that premise: MLK. He's gonna get assassinated, why not have the story center on the question of "do we prevent this?".

Then there's some serious tension: you have two people of color who can call out the doctor's privilege of not interfering. This doesn't affect her AT ALL meanwhile Yaz and Ryan can point out that sure, things are better by 2018, but it's pretty fucked up that keeping history on it's current course is based on the assumption that things "went correctly" the first time around. That chattel slavery, segregation and mass incarceration are necessary from the doctor's POV. That she's projecting her understanding of history as some universal, objective law: things happened this way, we have to let them play out like that.

The show's logic often condones this, because the universe breaks when history changes. But also, the doctor changes stuff all the time.

Hell, there's all these episodes about characters getting pulled out of time before they die, learning they'll die, and then accepting it. You're telling me you can't write just a nice, dignified story where MLK gets that same opportunity? It wouldn't be amazing, but it would be better than "stop the time Nazi cause he's prejudiced".

Or just a story where Yaz and Ryan are the ones who actually have agency in deciding how to change or not change something big about BIPOC struggles on earth. Not where the doctor tells them everything and they just follow orders and remember facts from primary school.

Also, it's such an insultingly basic portrayal of racism. This is something that affects every writer: racism is always bad things a couple people do or say, and it's never explained or broken down. 12 can punch the racist before it actually becomes important to ask: if this is such a fucked up thing, why does it endure?

FFS 12 is explicitly critical of capitalism, and racism is often sustained by it. Why is there no episode of him being taught that "hey, this system of exploitation you don't like? It gets racialized sometimes. You don't know what race is/don't care about it? That's nice, but I'M HUMAN AND LOTS OF HUMANS DO CARE. This affects me almost constantly, and it would be nice if you showed some basic decency and empathy by at least listening instead of saying 'so it is' or 'what would they do that for?' "

[simonalkenmayer]

Somehow every time I think Izzy and co are done after a long stretch of no clownery, I get proven wrong🙄

You’d think if they funneled their obsession into anything else they could get a ton of things done but clearly not. No one’s a perfect person but from what I’ve seen, you’re a kind person who tries to be helpful and definitely not some sort of mastermind villain trying to manipulate ppl. Anyway I think you’re cool and I don’t get the hate, so keep on keeping on

I’ve been wondering for a long time what the hook was.

On the internet there are dozens of people who claim to be this that or the other. I thought the worst Id see was someone calling me insane (it’s happened many times) or want to get to the bottom of the mystery. I did not imagine it would come down me quite rightly objecting to someone using my name when I am a target for harassment, and also have this name linked to my experiment. I did not imagine that I’d get people so upset over not fully comprehending the idea of the experiment that they’d behave with such dogged opposition to rational thought. Especially when presented with the patterns of their own behavior.

What I eventually realized is that the “why” ceased to matter. They couldn’t find a reason to find fault with me, and much like Iago, while many reasons came and went, it really all boiled down to what they got from targeting me. They feed off the interaction no matter how silly it becomes.

Icing recipes, Tupperware lid colors, my general description of myself, laughing at a person, enjoying bees, talking about my disagreement with organized religion and so on. Anything I said was subject for critique that was destructive and not constructive.

It’s fine and fair to say “monsters have been used as analogues for certain peoples” like Jewish people for example, but just because a myth has been used a certain way, doesn’t mean it originated as antisemitic, has stayed antisemitic, that it even occurred in a culture that knew about Jewish people, or indeed that I intended my description to be anything more than an “I seem completely normal, until I demonstrate that I am most definitely not normal”. A lot of assumptions and axiomatic decisions have to be made to pose that argument.

I think the conversation that I found most fascinating was the one in which I put forward a hypothetical to try and impress upon them the actual situation: “if someone came to you with a clipboard and said ‘I’m going to tell you about the conspiracy of reptilian aliens taking over the world and then ask you what you think about said conspiracy theory’”. This somehow also made me antisemitic because the conspiracy theory is. Yes, I know it is. That’s entirely the point. That’s why it needs to be dissected and it’s cultural significance tracked.That is probably why the person in the hypothetical is studying it, how you react, whether or not you say it is antisemitic or indeed are even aware of it. I was talking about the science of researching mythology and seeing it intersect with culture, and tracing it back to basic human ideas, but somehow because I framed an argument around someone wanting to study how an antisemitic conspiracy grows (again, in a complete hypothetical situation) that made me antisemitic. I’m sure all the Jewish folklorists out there who do precisely that, are happy to find out they are antisemitic, because they’re trying to make sense of antisemitic tropes.

What I’m saying is, there’s no sense. In a group, the people who take up blocking roles (I.e. the ambitious narcissists I was entertaining) form a kind of hierarchy and the newer members of said group or fandom or whatever, will defer to the rank and place they believe the others to have, and subvert even their own sense of rational thought. Throw in buzzwords everyone wants to avoid, like “cult”, “antisemitic”, “racist”, “homophobic” and people who like to avoid confrontation will immediately not only agree, but systematically ostracize the person accused without evidence or discussion. I watched this happen. I watched the moderators talk about me behind my back. I watched them court and target other members of the group. I watched them behave rudely, despite my rules. I stepped in often to stop these kinds of interactions and argue them out of those behaviors. Sometimes I won, but they’d just turn back around and repeat.

I had no less than ten people with whom I’d been conversing, sending packages, whose lives I knew well, whose children knew me, and so on, instantly determine I must have been in a sex cult, if an anonymous person they knew for five minutes said I was in some kind of BDSM relationship with them, when I had said quite plainly time and again, I am not interested. People message me strange things all the time, and evidently me humoring them and being polite is somehow proof I would participate in something so unthinkable. It’s actually laughable to think back on how readily and easily people abandoned what they declared a friendship with someone they identified as patient, kind, generous, and protective, in order to stay friends with the charismatic narcissists being studied. That’s how badly abuse trains people to always be victims. To stay victims and seek out the familiar abuser.

My point is, I came into this fully willing to let people make of me, whatever they wanted. I argued against certain images of me, because the point was to see if they’d keep going even with my argument, and i was not surprised to find that yes of course, they did. Throw in the additional nuance of people flat out manufacturing evidence, lying for clout, creating fictitious encounters, and generally declaring they know something when they do not, and youve got a recipe for blocking roles to rise and be occupied. Doesn’t matter what eventually comes out as fact or not. They feel entitled to make of others whatever suits them best. Apology is not a well-adopted trait among narcissists. Abusive situations feel more come for table than do real relationships that require reciprocity and personal accountability.

I am not attached to what people think of me. Meaning their accusations or reworking of history doesn’t bother me emotionally. I’ve been an outsider for a very very long time. I am accustomed to people calling me all sorts of vile things. This time, I decided to study it.

But I suppose in some way, that’s what frustrates them. They believe for some reason, that just because I sat there and let them behave however they liked, I was lying when I said I cared about them, or about humanity in general. But that’s one of the facets of narcissism and indeed many other trauma based psychological conditions: they cannot draw the contours of their close friends. They cannot see boundaries or the need for them. They cannot accurately assess anyone, because they lack empathy, or can only function in transactional relationships, or behave as a victim. Respecting other people or indeed seeing them as real, is already difficult.

There is absolutely nothing a covert narcissist likes more, than to be able to claim victimhood. Again, it’s the only pattern they’ve ever known that keeps them afloat, emotionally. In any case, despite my years of attempting to counsel, bolster, educate, structure behavior in groups to be as patient and compassionate as possible, the minute the old pattern could be located, they dove right back in, head first.

I’ve noticed corollaries with age, background, and various other factors. It’s been extremely fascinating and also dismaying, because I’ve also seen that undoing the patterns as laid down by Group Dynamics is downright impossible. Those archetypal categories (blocking roles) cannot be undone. They can only be moderated, and only if the moderator is willing to assume a patriarchal role.

It would be impossible for me (with the stated behaviors and boundaries I have) to make friends with narcissists outside of a cult-patterned group. They wanted a cult. They wanted that pattern and the structured hierarchy and negative behaviors it contained. When I wouldn’t give them one, with hierarchies and power dynamics, they built it themselves beneath me, in secret, and when I dissolved the group to prevent toxic behavior, I became the target rather than their de facto leader.

It’s fascinating, and informative, but I see no purpose in continuing a line of inquiry if I have had it proven that it is impossible to change.

Social media is humanity’s next phase of development, and it does so much good, but it will not continue to, unless people set down rules, whether in law or etiquette, to behave certain ways. In real life anyone can say whatever they want. They’re impeded by peer pressure and laws with consequences. It has to be the same on the internet or society will disintegrate.

And since me attaching a TLDR became yet another way they could target me by calling me ableist, I’m going to attach one here.

TL;DR Abusers and the abused obey narcissistic patterns, especially in groups. There is no changing it. None. They will not let you. The only way to change the patterns of their behavior outside is to change how they feel inside. They wanted a cult. They wanted a bad guy. I refused to be it. They made me one anyway. So even when I back out, they must keep me in that role to function in proximity to me. They see no reason to apologize, because I did it to myself. They’re right. They don’t owe me an apology, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say plainly, they will never be able to make friends or have healthy relationships if they don’t learn to apologize to others.

[mithliya]

Okay, so I want to be clear when I say again that white women in the suffragette movement said/did racist things, just as white women in feminists movements today say/do racist things,. Even white anti-racist activists will, at least on occasion, say and do racist things simply by growing up in a white supremacist society. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m disputing that reality. I only mean to illustrate some of the nuance (and why that matters today).

I sent those quotes in an effort to illustrate how the women’s suffrage movement was intertwined with universal suffrage, both white women and black men campaigned for each other’s right to vote. The women’s suffrage organizations grew directly from the basis of abolitionist movements. The initial suffrage (and wider women’s rights) movement was indistinguishable from the civil rights movement. When the 14th/15th amendment was proposed splits in the civil rights movement deepened — both white women and black women (and presumably some black men) campaigned against any amendment that didn’t include women. Similarly, black man and both white and black women favored the 15th amendment even without including women (of any race), who argued that women could wait. Ultimately the latter group saw their wish, and the division resulted in two separate organizations that continued to campaign for women’s suffrage.

The quotes you screen-shotted are undeniably terrible and exemplify the racism within the movements. To be nuanced however, they also span a wide range of individuals — from actual slave owners to women who said something racist but also directly participated in anti-racist activism.

To illustrate (from the quotes you provided):

Rebecca Latimer Felton - terrible human, slave owner, all out white supremacist

Carrie Chapman Catt - she later said “our task will not be fulfilled until the women of the whole world have been rescued from those discriminations and injustices which in every land are visited upon them in law and custom”, lobbied against the word “white” being added to the 19th amendment, and lobbied congress/used her presidency of the League of Women Voters to advocate for people of color and Jews

Elizabeth Cady Stanton - she also founded the Women's Loyal National League that led the largest abolitionist petition drive at the time, organized the American Equal Rights Association a suffrage organization that explicitly supported universal suffrage. The organization split when (mostly) the black men in the organization supported the 15th amendment without advocating for it to be extended to women. (She definitely said racist things around this time, similarly Frederick Douglass, who was both her friend and one of her main critiques at the time, said many sexist things.) The split was later merged back into one organization that she headed.

Anna Howard Shaw - I know very little about her. She definitely said many racist things, but she did champion universal suffrage and campaigned to end racial violence (arguing that universal suffrage would end lynchings). Still, she also failed to condemn racist actions by her peers.

Same as (1)

Belle Kearney - terrible human, slave owner, all out white supremacist

Frances Willard - confusing mix of actively recruiting and working with black women and also promoting racists myth that white women were in danger of black men that facilitated lynchings (due to her “temperance reform”). Also appeared to be more laissez-faire when president of the WCTU since she let conservative states hold on to conservative and/or moderate positions regarding reform for both women’s rights and racial justice.

Same as (1)

As for why it matters today:

No, women definitely won’t have the right to vote revoked for discussing racism in past movements. But there’s a difference between discussing racism, and perpetuating misinformation. One of the main ways the American government disrupted activist movements throughout history was to sow dissension in their ranks. (And the American government/military taught many of these techniques to foreign countries.) An excellent example of this is the COINTELPRO operation, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Their goal was to divide and conquer - a movement can’t make progress if it’s busy fighting itself - and poison the public’s opinions of the movements, so as to dissuade new members from joining. (At this point, I want to reassure you that while this may sound like a conspiracy theory, it is very much proven and it/other programs did much harm to domestic and foreign reform movements.)

The myth that the suffragette movement was specifically racist, rather than operating in concert with and emerging from, anti-racist activism contributes to this divide and conquer method of disrupting activism. If you (general you) can convince women of color that the “original feminist movement” (ignoring the ahistorical nature of such the label itself) actively campaigned against them, then it’s much easier to dissuade them from considering feminist activism or to divide activist movements. (And, if it were true, it would be entirely justified!)

Of course, that’s not to say that feminists shouldn’t criticize (or disavow, to the extent possible) white supremacists like Felton or Kearney, or that we shouldn’t discuss and reform the racist sentiments in past and current movements. (In fact, I believe, and expect you do as well, that doing so is not only permissible but necessary, because to deny the racism that did exist in past/current movements would alienate women of color just as much as the idea that the feminism-of-old was solely for white women, and would in fact be an expression of racism in and of itself.)

I hope this clarifies what I’ve been trying to convey.

im surprised about the claim that white women and black men campaigned for each other's right to vote. i was under the impression that the civil rights movement was largely focused on black men and often outright excluded black women having a say, so i don't really know why they would support other women (such as white women) having a say when i heard they didn't support that for black women, who were always black men's biggest supporters.

i do get your point, to a degree-- and i think we agree overall but simply word things differently. i don't think that the women's suffrage movement was Bad and i don't think the white suffragettes back then were like, all evil and more racist than the avg white person in their society. i would say overall, those women were quite forward thinking and progressive for their time. i don't doubt that a significant portion of women were far worse than that, and even opposed women's rights (bc of the society they grew up in where this was a controversial thing). my only argument is that pretending they weren't also racist and had traits worthy of criticism (such as their racism) is innaccurate. a lot of prominent suffragettes were quite racist, and that's not to say that their feminist beliefs lead to that or that women's rights is interwined with racism, but just to point out that even those women who fought for the right to vote for women were not particularly good allies to poc but most specifically black people, and more importantly, black women. i also wanted to point out that being anti-slavery and campaigning against it, did not mean they were generally anti-racism or fighting against racism overall. they were fighting against the worst and most extreme forms of racism in their time, but they were all still racist in their own right. i'd like to reemphasise what i initially shared that you disagree with (+ my tags, and my previous comment on it so as to be fully transparent), which is not that different from what you're saying imo:

now i'm not trying to argue the origin of the movement, what it rose out of, how it relates to racism or anything else; my qualms are with the claim that the suffragettes were not racist. maybe back then, they were closer to allies to black people than most, however they were still quite racist. similarly, since you brought up white allies, white allies today may be the best we have and the best in our time, but they are also still often quite racist themselves.

my main and only point is that these women were still racist, and this is not to discount the women's suffrage movement, i just think that when we deny that aspect of the past then what we're doing is alienating woc. i've noticed a general trend of white women on here saying that white women were targetted by the KKK for example, fixation on stuff that is targeted at white women like 'karen' and placed on equal grounds with calling black women 'laquisha' to berate them, arguments that white women dont have racial privilege, etc and while i don't think the people making such arguments are necessarily coming from a bad place, many woc seeing this will end up feeling like the movement is geared towards white women and does not properly consider & include woc. that's why i take issue with the claim that xyz white female historical figure wasnt racist bc she was pro-slavery abolition, like, sure that must've been really progressive for its time but at the same time it doesn't change that the same woman did work w white supremacists and white supremacy was used as an argument to support white women's suffrage. it probably worked as a strategy and helped pave the way for other women, but its good to acknowledge these issues and criticise them esp since they remain relevant today when people are still indirectly debating how much woc should be considered in feminism.

[liskantope]

Hopefully this will be my last-ever post complaining about what someone said on social media, because current events are simmering down and once they’ve reached a moderate enough hum I’m going to redouble my previous efforts to stay away from it. But the particular interaction I’m going to describe seems to have furthered my progress slightly in understanding why so many people shout their views in the way that they do and how I should learn to better accept it.

One of my “closest” Facebook friends for over a decade, whose life’s passion nowadays revolves around anti-racist work (mainly in childhood education; she is white) posted a few hours after Biden’s victory was officially called last Saturday to preach that white Biden-voters shouldn’t claim any of the credit for his victory because it was BIPOC and particularly black women who carried this election (her justification for why they “carried us” was that as a demographic group most of them voted for Biden while as a demographic group a majority of white people voted for Trump), and that nothing will be better now except for who is in the White House because “whiteness and white supremacy have not disappeared” and that “your” responsibility is not diminished and “you” are not absolved as a good white person. She ended with an exhortation to bow down and “bend your knees” to BIPOC for “saving our asses”.

(Just realized looking back at her post to write this one that the phrasing was not “bend the knee” as I repeatedly misread at the time, assuming that it was a direct reference to Game of Thrones of which I know she’s a fan, and having recently listened to this insightful 8-minute Sam Harris podcast episode which used the phrase. This is slightly unfortunate since it was the obnoxiousness of that particular phrasing which tipped me over to acting against my better judgment in not just ignoring this like I have with so many dozens of other statements. I still find it obnoxious, though, and sanctimonious, and terrible messaging, and using poor arguments about causation, and reflecting an insistence on viewing as much as possible in terms of race at all times, and the epitome of identity politics.)

So yeah, after waiting a couple of days, I broke my usual silence and wrote a very polite but argumentative response that turned out to be enough paragraphs to make me feel a little embarrassed that I would take that much of my time on it. I knew there was virtually no chance of convincing her of anything substantial, but I figured just maybe some insight into how foreign and alienating this “you are responsible for what everyone of your color does and are never good enough and have to kneel in deference to those of a color which is” messaging is bound to be to anyone who’s less in an academic bubble than we are (which is, like, most people). I made the point that individual BIPOC didn’t contribute any more than individual white people did to Biden’s victory and that if we’re going to judge blocs of voters according to race we should be blaming Cuban-Americans for Biden’s loss in Florida, and that in fact Trump gained votes from among BIPOC and lost white male votes since four years ago. I wrote that implying that the only salient feature of us individuals is race is exactly what people complain about when they use the term “identity politics” and that the results of this election suggest that maybe we’re doing something wrong with our messaging.

It wasn’t a disaster. I got a very cordial response which completely avoided ad hominem and at least engaged the points I had made while clarifying her views. I didn’t find the supposed rebuttals of my points at all convincing, of course. For instance, my complaint about treating individual voters as merely people of a certain color was met with “It’s important in anti-racist scholarship to be able to analyze demographic trends in terms of race” (I would... never disagree with this?) and that focusing on individuals allows people to only look at their own actions and those of their friends and feel too good about themselves. She also expressed skepticism about my statistics about where Trump gained/lost support, which I was able to back up with a quick Google search which pulled up a Vox article among others (I thought it was only the insufficiently committed white liberals like me who sucked at Googling?). But her own views, while still resting on axioms I fundamentally differ on, just sounded a lot more reasonable when restated? E.g. “Moments like this shouldn’t be centered on whiteness” and “the ‘good white liberals’ should be aware that they aren’t as a big of a demographic in our race as they should be” (I don’t know any white liberal who would disagree or who doesn’t realize that white people vote majority Republican or is okay with that?) and that the bowing and bending the knee was not “a literal statement” but simply meant to convey that we should greatly respect how BIPOC voters contribute. She ended with providing a long list of anti-racist activists (the only one of whom I’m familiar with is Ally Henny, who I mainly remember for statements about how I’m encased in so many layers of racism that I would never be able to peel them off if I spent my whole lifetime doing nothing but trying) as a “starting point” of study.

I replied thanking her for pointing me to sources and agreeing with her implication that I should read more with a mind towards understanding what they’re saying before spouting off any more opinions. (Guess I have to make good on that promise now.) I made clear that I see a difference between her restatements and the way she worded things in her original post and suggested that some of this might even be on me for interpreting these kinds of posts more as logical arguments when they should be understood in a slightly more poetic manner. I gently gestured towards my suspicion that the current scholarship in this area might reflect a university culture (which I am very much a part of) more than the concrete priorities and concerns of the majority of people of color, although I’m in no position to positively claim anything about this. I got no response.

Anyway, in writing my last response, a little more clicked into place for me about a different lens through which I should process all the behavior that drives me nuts in a written context online (I mainly mean social media but am being even broader than that). This is going to sound condescending but ironically it might help me to have a less condescending attitude?

The fact is -- and I just have to accept this -- that making efforts to be nuanced and to “meet people who disagree where they are at” and to aim for the truth but no farther than the truth are simply not highly-valued principles for most people (social media -users and otherwise). They may kinda-sorta agree in the abstract with these principles, but in practice they hold a much lower status than the principles of conveying anger and strong words as a sign of commitment towards Fighting Evil. Some people I know do have an “argumentation value system” closer to mine, and I know who those people are -- it really shows in what they write online. But those people are a fairly small minority.

And this alien “argumentation value system” isn’t something that really shows in casual real-life interactions very plainly at all (which of course is what almost all human interactions were up until 10-15 years ago), while in contrast social media is an environment that augments its effect.

The sooner I accept this, the more moderation I’ll be able to manage in my negative reactions. I can remind myself that there’s less fundamental disagreement on most actual issues between me and the people I know: we instead disagree on a sort of meta-level issue of how one’s views should be presented. And that issue, taken by itself, seems somehow like something more minor. I wrote a few months ago about how knowing what so many people in my life write publicly oftentimes interferes with my capacity to view them as potential intimate friends/partners. Maybe I can be a little more accepting when I recognize that the things they write which turn me off perhaps don’t come from a place of such irrationality as I thought, that the differences in our ways of thinking might not be quite so fundamental (although this differing system of values for argumentation still strikes me as something that could badly affect a marriage, say). And in the practical short term, I can ignore things that bother me more easily in the future -- instead of feeling like I’m on a tilted playing field where everyone else gets to vent without inhibition while I have to carefully monitor and qualify everything I say, I can try to just round a lot of this off in terms of different preferred writing styles and somehow that bothers me less?

A similar underlying principle holds for the things that annoy me on dating profiles, what with the collective obsession with dogs and boasts of being “fluent in sarcasm” and so on. This probably doesn’t reflect much about the way the creators of these profiles actually are as humans in real life. Not that many single women really view their dogs as the most interesting thing that ever was or will be about their lives. They just choose to have a certain style of exposition about themselves because of peculiarities of the environment of online dating sites/apps, where showing enthusiasm and individuality in some way seems to pay and the topic of dogs would seem like a pretty safe place to direct this performed enthusiasm. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t demonstrate some aspect of incompatibility with me or that I’m not going to be more instantly attracted to those with profiles that have more refreshing things to say than stuff about how amazing dogs are or of those who *gasp* actually prefer cats or *deeper gasp* prefer not to have pets at all. But it means that I can read the dogs-and-sarcasm-enthusiast profiles a little more charitably maybe?

This slightly altered mindset is a far from perfect solution, but I think it helps. A lasting three-quarters-of-the-way disconnect from social media entirely still needs to be a goal at this point.

[script-a-world]

When I'm writing a story fully set on alien worlds, is there a such thing as race as understand by humans? If a character appears 'white' or 'black' or 'asian' etc, it probably means nothing to aliens. But building these characters it seems inevitable someone will attach it to human races? Especially when professionals get these things filmed, the characters are looked at as representing their actor's race. How do I build so that the aliens represent aliens, not aliens that represent humans.

Tex: A very, very long history of film short - they have to be non-humanoid. Twi’leks from Star Wars have been pretty good at the “non-human” alien body types (Star Wars), for all their flaws in sexualizing the women. Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise are varying shades of horrifying by their non-human physiology, as are the Yautja from the Predator franchise.

The Alien Species Wiki has two starting points that might help you for building up different species: Sentience, and Sapience.

After playing around with those two concepts, it’s just a matter how how human-shaped you want them to be - there’s nothing restricting you from the number of limbs, what kind of limbs, and quantity and arrangement of organs. Generally, the more “alien” type of aliens are a type of horror, so it depends on how you want to present your species to your audience. Klingons were meant to be intimidating and foreign to humans, but their depiction in Star Trek challenged their audience’s initial perceptions.

Feral: So, I’m not entirely sure what you want to do with your alien species building. Are you specifically building species based on real world cultures? Are you building species that just so happen to share certain physical characteristics with humans, including things like different skin colors? Are you trying to have racism in your story but between aliens instead of human peoples? Let’s take it one by one.

Specifically building species based on real world cultures: This is the most basic first step in worldbuilding. Everyone does it. Why? Because the real world is the only world we have ever actually lived in. (Probably.) However, it’s also a route through a minefield. If you’re using cultures that are not your own, it’s very easy to get things very wrong and offend, or worse contribute to ongoing bigotry against, real people. What’s generally recommended is that you don’t wholesale base a fictional culture on a broad, generalized, stereotyped version of a real world culture. There are a couple ways to avoid this. A) Take several aspects of a few disparate (preferably geographically distanced) cultures, throw them in an inspiration blender, and pour into your brainstorming session. B) Take that one really specific thing you find cool about a real world culture or history and build out a different culture from it. Basically, what I’m saying is if you have an “Asian” alien race… reconsider.

Physical Characteristics that just so happen to match up: Tex went into a lot of detail about how best to avoid this, so I won’t add too much. But basically, nothing “just so happens” to be a certain way in a story because everything is decided upon by you the author. Why do your aliens have a certain skin color or hair color or nose or eye shape or any stereotypically “ethnic” feature? Even if an alien - a humanoid alien - is described as having black skin, I’m probably not jumping to “that alien must look exactly like a human of African descent” because in most cases there are going to be other physical characteristics that make me think “this is an alien and not at all a human.” You mention being concerned that an alien character will be perceived as being akin to a certain human race because of the actor playing them. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think of Gamora as being Afrolatina because Zoe Saldana plays her; I think of Gamora as being a Zen-Whoberis because that’s what kind of alien she is. However, if you are doing what I recommended against in point 1 and basing your alien race on stereotypes of a particular real world people, and then an individual of that group plays the alien character, what you fear will happen and it’s not great for you when it does. Google “Orcs Are Racist.”

Fantastic Racism: It’s a thing. And it’s not usually a well crafted thing. There are people who will tell you that it is impossible to actually do well or get right. And while people have a right to this opinion and I agree with them most of the time, I would guess that the Never-Evers are people who have never read Discworld. The thing about Fantastic Racism is that again it typically requires the thing I recommended against in point 1 (you’ll see it on TV Tropes as Space Jews). It also has the troubling tendency to draw parallels between real world oppressed minority groups and non-humans, which can have the effect of further dehumanizing them. There are also a lot of cases in which the Strawman Has a Point wherein the strawman is representing real world racist bigots.

Finally I want to add a post-script to one of Tex’s points: “Generally, the more “alien” type of aliens are a type of horror, so it depends on how you want to present your species to your audience.” How your non-humanoid aliens are perceived by your audience is also going to have a lot to do with how you write your story. How do you introduce them? What’s the tone of the story? What are the representative characters like? How are they perceived by the more humanoid (and thus easier to identify with for your human audience) characters?

The Heptapods of “Story of Your Life”/Arrival are pure horror movie design except they’re not. They’re called Abbott and Costello by the main characters; all their actions are in an attempt to peacefully communicate with humans. They’re mysterious but not threatening. (And actually kinda cute if you’re like me and think cephalopods are cute.)

In Young Wizards, a YA series by Star Trek EU author Diane Duane that is a brilliant blend sci fi and fantasy, there are aliens called the Rirhait, which are human-sized omnivorous (and I mean omnivorous) metal centipedes with multiple stalked eyes. Nightmare fuel? Nope. A major character on Team Good for the series is Sker’ret, and he is super darling.

[thedreideldiaries]

Hey, friends! I thought I’d take this opportunity to expound in my political choices a bit - specifically to give some context for my choice of Sanders over Warren. Note for a few of my followers who know me elsewhere: this is copied over from other social media, so if it sounds familiar that is why.

First, I want to reiterate that I like Warren. So, if anyone reading this is torn between her and any of the other clowns who have thrown their sorry hats into the ring, then please: do me and the rest of the world a favor, stop reading this right now, and go ahead and give Warren your vote. I won’t be mad. Promise. If you’re on the fence between Warren and Sanders, though, then I implore you to read on.

Okay, is it just us in here? Cool.

For my friends torn between Warren and Sanders (like I was at the beginning of the primary), I’ve tried to distill my reasoning. As you know, a lot of the discourse surrounding Warren’s campaign constructs her as a younger, female version of Sanders. If I believed that, I’d be solidly in her corner, but a few differences between them make this simply not the case. Here are the ones I find most salient:

1. Let’s look at Bernie’s base. As much as we love to talk about representation in politics, a candidate’s demographic background tells us nothing about who they’re going to fight for. Their voting base, on the other hand, tells you who has placed their confidence in that candidate’s promises.

A good proportion of Warren’s supporters are white college graduates (young and old).

By contrast Bernie’s base is overwhelmingly working class, non-white, urban, and, perhaps most tellingly, young. You could attribute that to naivete, but I think something else is going on here: the demographic group with the most to win or lose from this election are people under 30. We’re the ones who will have to live with the most devastating effects of climate change, and we’re tired of the so-called adults in our lives not taking that rather pressing concern seriously. We don’t care if our candidate is old or young - we care if they listen. Which brings me to:

2. The Youth. Young people in America are disillusioned with democracy - not because we’ve decided it’s not a good idea, but because we’ve literally never seen it in action. We live in a corporate plutocracy where the financial barriers to running for office have rendered most politicians ridiculously out of touch. And Sanders, more than any other candidate in the primary, knows how to talk to young people.

And look - I’m planning to vote for whoever wins the primary. But if 2016 is anything to go by, if the youth demographic doesn’t get a candidate they can get behind, they won’t vote strategically for the lesser of two evils. They’ll stay home, and given what the Democratic party has done for them over the past 20 or so years, I can’t say I blame them.

3. The same goes for his endorsements. I’d be out of my lane if I spent too much time talking about what Sanders wants to do for people of color, but I think it’s telling that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar - three politicians showing real determination to shake things up in Washington - all chose Bernie over Warren. I think it’s telling that AOC cited his campaign, not Warren’s, as her inspiration for running for office (if anyone’s a female Sanders, it’s not Warren - it’s AOC).

4. Sanders is, quite simply, the genuine article. He’s fought for important causes (climate justice, healthcare, workers’ rights) since long before they were cool. He’s *not* perfect, but criticisms of him rarely touch his political history.

Warren’s record of activism is, by contrast, unimpressive. She used to be a Republican corporate lawyer, and while I absolutely respect that someone can change their mind about politics, and I applaud her for doing so, it worries me that what changed her mind wasn’t the Iran-Contra scandal, or the AIDS crisis, or the brutal crushing of the labor movement. It was the realization that Republicans were doing capitalism wrong. I can’t exactly argue with that (show me a Republican politician who truly supports a free market and I’ll eat my beret*), but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

*This is a joke. I do not have a beret.

5. Warren’s a capitalist; Sanders is a democratic socialist, and I think the difference is important. Warren supports a wealth tax, and she wants everyone to have healthcare, and I appreciate that she has the guts to talk about those things on national television, but at the end of the day, she’s a proud capitalist who believes the system needs to be corrected, not overhauled.

Sanders is a self-professed democratic socialist, and has built a popular movement around that label. And honestly, I’m not too worried about redbaiting. Yes, it’s a common Republican tactic, but the sentiment of “yes I would vote for Democrats but not for Socialist democrats” is a rare one, if it exists at all. And if it works against any of the primary candidates, it’ll work against all of them. They used anti-Commmunist rhetoric against Obama, for goodness’ sake. Look how much of an advocate for the working class he turned out to be.

Courting the centrist vote is a waste of time. Tiptoeing around conservatives alienates left-wingers and doesn’t actually sway Republicans. It’s a bad move strategically, in that it makes us look like cowards, and morally, because it means not getting very important things done.

Sanders doesn’t want to play the game better. He wants to start a whole new game. Warren’s economics platform seems to boil down to “50s but less racist,” and while that sounds nice, it’s just not possible. We can’t go back there - we have automation now, not to mention a global economy the likes of which we barely dreamed of in the 1950s, and it’s not realistic to try to make that happen again. We need something new.

6. People over party. In a lot of ways, Warren reminds me of the best parts of The West Wing. I like that show, but it was a comforting fantasy - a vision of what the Democratic Party could have been like with a little more gumption and a lot more luck. It never happened because the Democratic party and politics aren’t like that in real life. I have confidence in Sanders because his loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party. It’s to the American people. He’s proved that over and over again over the course of his political career.

7. Bernie is an organizer. The “not me - us” slogan is very telling. Democracy is participatory. We don’t just need a candidate with a plan to fix everything. We need a candidate with a plan who acknowledges that the people hold the real power. We need a candidate who respects the will of the people and inspires them to get involved. We can’t win this election and stop thinking about politics. We never get to stop thinking about politics. We need someone who can inspire people to keep fighting.

The heart attack was a big deal, but the truth is, it’s never been about Bernie as an individual. His immediate reaction after getting out of the hospital was “I’m lucky to have healthcare; everyone should have healthcare; let’s get back to work.” That, more than anything, has given me the confidence that Bernie wants his policies to last long after he’s gone.

Also, people regularly have heart attacks and live another several decades. This is *literally* why we have vice presidents. If Sanders can get elected and pick a good VP and a cabinet (plus, you know, fill any Supreme Court vacancies that happen to arise over his tenure), his health won’t matter as much, because we don’t need a messiah right now. We need a resurgence of participatory democracy. We need more AOCs to take the stage. We need young people at the polls, not just in 2020, but beyond that.

8. I don’t like to talk about electability for a couple of reasons. One: centrists love to bring it up, usually in the service of talking about how policies they have zero stake in will never work. Two: Trump was supposed to be unelectable, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said: Warren’s currently polling third, which is not a great place to be. And while I don’t share some people’s cynicism about Warren, I have to agree that her response to Trump’s attacks has not impressed me. I’m confident that if Trump attacks Sanders, Bernie won’t take the bait, because he’s so on-message you can’t get him off-message. Like I said: he had a heart attack and immediately spun it back into the healthcare conversation.

And the polls are clear: head to head, Sanders beats Trump. Warren’s chances are far dicier.

9. And the most important issue, without which nothing else really matters: the climate crisis. I’d love it if we could wait for the country’s ideas to catch up to Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we are running out of time. I’m voting for Sanders because I have two nieces under 5 years old and a nephew who was just born, and I want them to grow up on a habitable planet, and they won’t get a chance to vote on that. I’m doing it because I want to have kids of my own someday, and while I absolutely respect the choice of anyone deciding to reproduce right now, I don’t have the emotional energy to raise a family during an apocalypse. And while I like Warren, and she’s expressed support for a Green New Deal, Sanders is the only candidate I trust to both beat Trump in the general and put his foot down to the DNC and their ilk.

10. Foreign policy!

First of all: guess who else hates American Imperialism? That’s right; it’s Bernie Sanders. Significantly, he has the guts to bring up America’s habit of meddling in Latin America’s democratically elected governments, which is something you pretty much never hear about from pretty much any other candidate.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/25/18744458/bernie-sanders-endless-wars-foreign-affairs-op-ed

Foreign policy came up a lot during 2016 primary, with Clinton’s supporters trotting out the bizarre argument that a long history of hawkish policies is better than no policies at all. What with all that, I was surprised to learn that Sanders is actually quite well-traveled and has a long history of trying to mend fences between the U.S. and other world powers: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

When it comes to climate change and foreign policy, Sanders acknowledges not only that it requires innovation (let’s not forget his early and vehement support for the Green New Deal), but also international cooperation. From the link below:

“To both Sanders and his supporters around the world, it is impossible to fight climate change without international cooperation. To that end, a group called the Progressive International was announced at a convention last year held by the Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by the presidential contender’s wife and son.

“The network of left-wing politicians and activists hopes to fight against "the global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency,” according to its website.”

He’s also popular with left-wing leaders around the world, and it’s those kinds of politicians who we need to get us out of the climate crisis.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/04/bernie-sanders-global-popularity-1254929

And finally, to stray briefly into comparison: again, I like Warren, but even so, I like her better domestically than internationally. The progressivism she touts at home comes up short abroad. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, but I think it’s worth remembering that Warren voted for Trump’s military budget in 2017; Sanders didn’t. She talks a lot about peace, but her history on foreign issues looks pretty similar to that of other centrist democrats. This is a problem not only in terms of American Imperialism, but also because the U.S. military is one of the world’s leading causes of climate change. Her voting history and her cozy relationship with defense contractors have me pretty worried. This article goes into more detail about her history with various foreign powers as well as her general attitudes on American imperialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy

We all pretty much knew what we were getting with Clinton. Warren worries me not only because she seems to align with the rest of the party on our endless foreign wars, but because she keeps her support for the military-industrial complex behind a facade of progressive rhetoric that reminds me of the early Obama years. We can’t be let down like that again. Even if we ignore the devastating human cost, the planet doesn’t have time.

Further Reading - obviously I don’t agree with everything in every one of these pieces, but they offer a leftist critique that often goes missing from other, more superficial problems people bring up about Warren.

The polling bases of the primary candidates: https://www.people-press.org/2019/08/16/most-democrats-are-excited-by-several-2020-candidates-not-just-their-top-choice/pp_2019-08-16_2020-democratic-candidates_0-06/?fbclid=IwAR2G8np2q9N4P6DArdI-gPhA5Wp_SYDZPKQDpDhxVZ4YbwnAEmFd65swMOA

An interesting take on Warren’s policies vs Bernie’s movement: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-policy-bernie-sanders-presidential-primary?fbclid=IwAR14wWjYDNuNMrXN7YjVFFFHXmoMWKpDVqBcbPBlQUUrA354iIyRAbKXG30

An opinion piece on the contrast between them:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-elite-2020-presidential-race?fbclid=IwAR3vA54QveM2cCTxQ2BbVXh_IICgTxweKVBLMRjhSFyyAdspnibJ50seDjY

Another one:

https://forward.com/opinion/432561/the-case-for-bernie-sanders-the-only-real-progressive-in-the-race-sorry/?fbclid=IwAR1vwONZ7azJQcoeo_KYNYiJ8ekzHhJsZ4Ms0UzDHI59j7Q6oio-5uJOGcI

Warren’s political history:

More about that from a different source:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren?fbclid=IwAR0NTP0cRbSnr-a6HCuxE-4SCJZEqU2EAL1Gnx70FME-9UMBg-xYE5t7g7Y

A prequel to the former (beware - this one’s scathing as heck):

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/the-prospect-of-an-elizabeth-warren-nomination-should-be-very-worrying?fbclid=IwAR03d5I5j72s4kQC9wgRSrXnbmWsp_9HUvRWBZwzcfsT9RsZP-lSAX4aPz0

[aelinbitch-archive]

so annoying when antis blame aelin for nehemia’s fridging. like it was a racialized death for sure ... but aelin didn’t kill her or cause her death. completely the fault of SJM. and aelin antis are no better, using Nehemia as a tool to put down aelin rather than appreciating her and her character. in all their nehemia lives AUs, she’s just there to conveniently take down aelin and it’s all about aelin and how awful she is, instead of being ab nehemia and her canonical characterization. ugh

Agreed, for the most part. Honestly I tend to do my best to not judge anyone for their reaction to Nehemia’s death because it…. sucked……. SO bad. And I think it’s a valid reason to not want to read about Aelin anymore. Like if you’re a young woc reading tog and you get to that part of com and you need to react like “Fuck celaena fuck sjm fuck these books nehemia is alive in my head I Don’t Know Anyone Named Aelin” to cope with the oppressive bullshit you just read… valid. Completely valid. Because the reality is that Nehemia was fridged to further Aelin’s storyline specifically. 

However. If that was the extent of it there wouldn’t be any flaws in this discourse, and there… are.  

For one: yes, what you said. People’s inability (and lack of any desire) to separate Aelin from SJM is one of the most grind-your-teeth, rip-out-your-hair obnoxious things about all of tog discourse. A character does not fridge another character - the author does that. You can’t sensibly call Aelin racist - meaning that her character, in-book, displays prejudice towards poc. There is… no evidence for this. SJM is the one who should get shit for Nehemia’s death (and she really should), not Aelin’s character specifically (although like I said above, it’s still understandable if you don’t want to read about her because of it). 

(And on the flip side of that same coin, if people were genuinely committed to discussing the various characters’ in-book responsibility for Nehemia’s death, one Mr. Chaol “literally textually responsible for it” Westfall should be at the center of the discussion, and obviously as an an/ti darling, he isn’t.)

Second, the whole tog fridging discussion on this website is so clearly biased against Aelin’s character specifically that it often negates any positive, clarifying, or rectifying impact it otherwise might have had. It’s been my experience that that roughly 95% of “An/ti Tog” people love Dorian Havilliard. Which is… interesting. Because using Nehemia’s death as a talking point doesn’t make sense to me if you condemn Aelin’s character for SJM’s choice to kill off Nehemia but not Dorian’s character for SJM’s choice to kill off Sorscha. Because it’s the same shitty situation: a woman of color was fridged for a white character. And it’s not that I’ve never seen anyone bring up Sorscha’s fridging, or even acknowledge that Dorian was the one whose narrative benefitted from her death, it’s that I’ve never seen anyone use it as an an/ti Dorian talking point the way Nehemia’s death is used as an an/ti Aelin one. Nehemia’s death fuels an/ti aelin sentiment specifically, while Sorscha’s death just fuels an/ti tog sentiment in general. You have to admit there’s a discrepancy there. 

Third, I’ve written before about how people ~use~ Nehemia’s death in their meta in… inappropriate ways. For, like, the third time this week (omg), I hate to quote my own writing like a complete narcissist, but the gist of it is: 

“I really can’t stand diehard “an/ti tog” people (who made it all the way through com and hof without having a problem!) who bring up [Nehemia’s] death as a way to lazily justify the extreme level of pettiness (and frankly nastiness) they exhibit towards other, completely unrelated aspects of the series. Because that’s a pretty fucking serious issue you’re encroaching upon to make a subjective opinion like “rowaelin is annoying” into a ~political~ statement.

Especially if you only ever bring up her death as a completely inappropriate way to give your other opinions credibility, and ESPECIALLY if you then turn around pretend like you’re somehow morally superior for said opinions when they’re basically “aelin-is-a-bitch-and-it’s-somehow-her-fault-malide-isn’t-canon-chaol-deserved-better-I-hate-rowan.”

(Like… if you gave CoM five stars and only began to have a problem two whole books later when Aelin broke up with Chaol and you needed it to further your agenda then that’s. Hmm). 

Fourth (and lastly, because I did not intend for this response to get so long), I want to scream the last part of your ask from the rooftops!! Don’t claim that all of your an/ti sentiment stems from love of Nehemia when you never actually talk about Nehemia herself! It’s so clearly all about Aelin and (relating back to point three) people so clearly only value Nehemia for her use as woke-sauce to drizzle all over their an/ti Aelin opinions. Which just ends up reinforcing the idea of Nehemia as a prop rather than a person instead of fighting against it, which is the supposed goal. 

The other day I saw this one-star goodreads review of koa that was like “celery/alien should have stayed locked in the iron coffin forever and nehemia should be alive frolicking with chaol and dorian through the forest.” And while I have to marvel in awe at the creativity of an/ti aelin nicknames (stunningly good, hello) that review was sooo bs to me on sooo many levels. Like first of all, yes! Great job being woqué! Saying you want a fictional teenage girl to die a violent death because you don’t like her? Very very socially aware, well done. Second of all, don’t you dare insult Nehemia Ytger by headcanoning her as best friends with Chaol and fucking Dorian!!! She canonically does not fuck with them. Like how insulting to group the princess of a colonized country with the respective prince and captain of the empire that destroyed said country?? Chaol’s actions serving Adarlan as captain of the guard quite literally lead to her death and the only regret he ever felt over it was that it ruined his relationship with Celaena why the fuck would Nehemia be frolicking with that man in a fucking forest. And no, the fact that Chaol hates and mistrusts your least favorite character, who actually happens to be another princess from a colonized country trying to save her people from Chaol’s people, is not a good enough answer to that question. 

[omegastation]

Another thing I find interesting is which characters we are willing to give a free pass based on bad writing and which we're not. Kaidan's attitude toward Liara's gender and Ashley's attitude toward aliens in ME1 particularly come to mind. As a fan of both characters, I ltry to ook at these writing decisions critically and work to fix things that rub me the wrong way in my fics. But so much of the fandom seems to view these two as completely irredeemable

- and that anyone who likes them supports those viewpoints. Meanwhile a lot of other characters say "racist" things, treat humans like crap, commit horrible acts, but we see that as interesting and character development. Why do we allow this for some characters and not others? It's super confusing to me.

I think there are four "issues" linked to this:1. Sometimes something is clearly linked to the writers messing up and is not deeply in character. When James calls MShep "Loco" but FShep "Lola", is it because he really wants to call her Lola or because the writers are idiots? I don’t know the answer but isn’t it worth asking it?In ME1 the gameplay isn't always great and the romance mechanics are just atrocious for all characters. People still act like starting Kaidan's romance on accident is a true offense made by Kaidan, which makes no sense to me. No, it's not Kaidan. It's the game that has issues! 2. Female characters are judged more harshly. Same for characters of color. Let's just be honest about this.3. The fandom believes aliens characters>human characters, which means they're deliberately ignoring things said by alien characters. Garrus has said a lot of questionable things in ME1 and I didn't even notice until someone, during a discussion about Ash years ago, said "hey guys... maybe we should talk about Garrus too?" and I was like... Garrus also said things like that? Wait, what? Mind=blown. So that's the thing, we can make a list of all the bad things Ash has said but I don't think we can do that with Garrus, despite the fact that we know he said awful stuff to people in the elevators in ME1. The game references it too. It's just not as commonly shared than Ash's comments in ME1.4. ME2 can divide as well. There are some of us who see everything that happened with Shepard and Cerberus and go "hmmmmmmm no wonder Ash/Kaidan is hesitant to come back" and others going "this is the ultimate proof that only Garrus is absolutely loyal!!!!!!! it's canon that it means they're the best LI"It's one interpretation that we don't agree with, but if enough people believe it, you eventually get people saying “Garrus=best LI/squadmate and the entire fandom agrees with me!” and no one going “actually-”

So you get all this, and I think you can also add idolization with Garrus, which means people are less likely to admit his flaws and discuss them. I think his personality and romance mean he's like people's boyfriend. And it's not just one person who feels like this, it's a very large group. You get nothing like this and in such a huge number with Ash or Kaidan fans.

[heyitscj4-blog]

Racism, Nationalism, and Their Detrimental Effects On A People

In it’s current state, The Global Stage is heavily marred by the effects of the Old Ideals pushed by Racism and Nationalistic Passions, The Western Nations influence, whom of which pushed those Old Ideals in order to screw over the various Peoples across this vast world, and the lasting effect of a Nationalist idea of being better than every other Nation or People simply by the virtue of being born on a certain piece of land. The Human Race is held back simply by these Old Ideals, which have developed a sense that a feeling of Empathy for other People is a weakness, and that they are somehow not connected to us whatsoever, as if they are an Alien Race rather than Humans that have different, beautiful cultures and histories, just like Us. This lack of Empathy and subsequent growth of Ignorance is one of the strongest, most encumbering shackle-and-chain The Human Race has. As you may or may not know, Racism is so strong that The United States, The Leader of The Free World, had only legally determined that Black People could never be citizens just 160 years ago in 1857, and had only given Native Americans, the first Americans, the one group of people that had not been brought or immigrated here, the right to vote as recently as 1965, and that right is still being fought over by State Governments. 52 years ago, Native Americans couldn’t even vote in their homelands. That is the terrible strength and horrendous influence the Old Ideals have on our People.

    In all existing accounts of these Ideals and Ideas, the use of Fear, Ignorance, and Lack of Connectivity have all been Major Gears in twisting the minds of The People to fall for the poisonous lies and schemes the various Western Governments pushed to justify their Imperialist Acts and Atrocious treatment of Indigenous People across the World. Great Britain, after sitting with their hands in their pockets while Nazi Germany rapidly grew in power, getting surprised when its Appeasement and Neutrality towards Irrational Extremism blew up in their face, and finally having to stand alone after France fell to The Nazis, caused the indescribable Bengal Famine, which killed 3 million Indians, not to mention the various terrible policies The British put on India, which killed 35 million people. Winston Churchill blamed the events on The Indians for “breeding like rabbits.” And a large quantity of British People agreed with him, not because it was true, as most of the food produced in India was going to Britain itself to feed “The Home-front.” No, they agreed because they were indoctrinated into a society that pushed the view that White Englishmen, true Britons in the society’s eyes, were better than any people in the world, no matter how mediocre they were, and therefore they deserved that food more than those Indians, who should just be happy that they were in the greatest empire in the world. They felt, since they were taught that other people were lesser and therefore unimportant, that the Indians were just causing a ruckus just to be annoying, like children. They weren’t educated on what was going, or didn’t care, until it was too late. This attitude of not caring about what happens to others until it happens to you or somehow affects you had been pushed centuries before now, and yet is somehow still influencing the minds and governments of today. Racism is still a fond ideology in hearts around the world, and the racist systems put in place by various governments are still affecting marginalized people today. Racism was never fully thrown away, given up for a better, worldly view, instead it has evolved with the times. People can happily claim color-blindness, an idea that you can just not see races, and claim neutrality over the numerous issues at hand. People can claim that whenever you bring up race, you’re “pulling the race card.” White People have fought so hard to keep racist ideas alive that they outright claim that when PoC fight against those systems and rightly hold White People accountable for those systems, they’re being racist to White People, reverse-racism as it’s being called. The oppressing body, rather than trying to get rid of the disease and poison it has within it’s own parts, instead accuses those that are trying to help get rid of it’s ailments. White People as a whole, are accountable for every racist system that still exists today, and therefore they should be fighting just as hard as the marginalized to get rid of it. Every White person that doesn’t take a stand for the Oppressed, supports the Oppressor, because The Oppressor isn’t being held accountable for its actions and therefore still has its power.

    In the case of White People and their lack of Empathy for those marginalized, they’ve instead picked up a feeling that they must defend themselves rather than actually learn and fight against the problem at hand. They feel that the fight against Racism, its influences, and systems is somehow more of a threat to their Race and traditions. Racism is so ingrained in their history and daily life that they feel every move to try and work against racist practices and racist effects is a threat to their livelihoods, therefore they get defensive and blame the Oppressed for their situations. They see any protest or any type of movement for Racial Equality and Change as “just some Radicals” trying to “disturb the peace”. They either will fight these movements outright or claim neutrality, and say that “both sides have good points, everyone needs to heard” in order to “keep the peace.” If the Peace includes the continued oppression of groups of people, the disenfranchisement of marginalized people, and Legal Injustice, then it is not Peace. It is bondage under repression under the guise of Peace. Those that find that protests should be limited to quiet marches and MLK reenactments obviously have never been in a situation where they have been oppressed or have ever protested before. Oppression, in all forms, is a violent force against Oppressed People, and therefore Violent Protests are just as valid as sit-ins and marches. All forms of protest against The Oppressor are valid.

    The same goes for protests against Governments, but that’s a similar yet different issue. Those that had already been against the protests against Race Inequality and the Ideals of Race in general tend to be the same that wrap themselves in a flag and curse those that protest the Government they serve. Many Nationalists feed into the Ideals that Racism pushes, such as the superiority of one Race over others, and that other Races can be blamed for the hard times a country was going through, like how the US blamed Black and Hispanic people for the fact that they had a hard time getting hired and surviving, or how Nazi Germany blamed Jews, Romani People, and others for their failure in WW1. However, instead just holding Racial boundaries against various Peoples, they hold an entire National Identity over any other one. In this fact, we must talk over Patriotism. Patriotism is, in all ways, the same as Nationalism. Nationalist Ideals and Ideas are Patriotic by nature. Patriotism is Nationalism under a friendlier name. It’s the same model, with a brighter shade of paint.

It spurs on hatred towards those that don’t completely follow the goals, guidelines, and code of the Government, and pushes a view of a “Model Citizen”: For Westerners, it’s a White, strong, well-off male with a sexy wife and kids, who live in a two story house. For Far Easterners, it’s a borderline pale, strong, stoic man with a beautiful yet modest wife, and a few kids, who live well. For Africans, it’s a well-off, plump yet masculine, Mid-Colored Male with a curvy wife and large family. All of these ideas of how the “Model Citizen” should be exclude a large quantity of their populations, and call Open Season on the most “Patriotic” citizens to attack these People simply for not being the “Model Citizen,” as if they are to blame for how their skin and features look. Nationalistic Ideas push People to become savages and rip apart their fellow man in the name of an abstract idea of a Nation.

These terrible Ideals of Racism and Nationalism, and their guises of Color-Blindness and Patriotism, have long poisoned the minds and hearts of The People. It’s past the time that The People should’ve cast off the chains that kept them separated in Race and Nationality. It’s time for Radical Change.

[feathersandblue]

hansbekhart

reblogged your post and added:

I’d rather discuss what you think of my argument.

Then I hope you don’t mind me putting this in an extra post, as the original thread is getting quite long. 

I’m copying/posting your last reply here:

I don’t think it’s a contradiction though. I think it’s a miscommunication, stemming mostly from privilege. The disconnect in this argument is over what, exactly, is problematic.

Fandom has always imagined itself as a place of progressive values - a place where (predominately) women can explore their own sexuality and recreate community in a way that isn’t hostile to them, as a lot of the real world is. But this world we’ve created still has all of the prejudices that each member was brought up with - there’s no way that it couldn’t, firstly because many of our prejudices are invisible to us, and secondly because a lot of fandom works were created specifically to remix that already-existing culture: fan fiction is a mirror that we bend to find stories that include ourselves.

I think that the expression “fandom has always imagined itself” is a bit of a generalisation that does not hold up to close scrutiny: fandom is extremely diverse, and I don’t necessarily think that everyone who participates in it - or even the majority of people who participate in it - frame their contribution in these terms, or see it in that light. 

So while such a narrative exists, especially when it comes to the defense and representation of fandom in media, I wouldn’t agree that this idea of “progressiveness” is at the center of fandom for a majority of fans - at least not for those who never engage on a meta level. People often politicize fandom, but I’d argue that fandom, as such, is personal rather than political.

I absolutely agree wtih you that fandom content reflects our perception of the world, and all of our biases. But for me, that’s pretty much a given, and I’d like to add that the same applies to every kind of art and literature: whether we try to avoid it or not, everthing that we create is a reflection of our environment (geographical, historical, political), our personality, our prejudices and biases, our personal issues. 

And since it’s squeezed through what could arguably be called a feminist lens (because it positions female sexuality and self-exploration at its center), we fool ourselves into thinking that all the bad stuff - the parts of the world we were so alienated by that we were compelled to fix them - all that ugliness, we think it all gets left on the other side of the glass.

I don’t think that is the case, actually. At least I can’t confirm that from my own perspective and experiences. Very few people that I’ve spoken to - very few people who I argue with - would claim that fanworks are necessarily “better” or “less problematic” than the sources they derive from. Such a statment, I think, would be difficult to uphold when one takes a closer look at the average fanwork, the 90% between “My Immortal” and your Personal Favorite. 

I think that there might be a bit of confusion - or disagreement - about the nature and purpose of fanworks. In my understanding, fanworks are a form of wish-fulfillment and self-empowerment for those who create it. Fanworks can be progressive, sure, and they can be political, but I see that as side effect rather than a primary purpose. First and foremost, fanworks are hedonistic. They are the self-expression of individuals, the purely self-indulgent outlet for personal creativity. 

Of course, I have no idea what goes on in the mind of any given fan creator or writer. But speaking from my own perspective, when I write fanfiction, I write things for my own, personal enjoyment, for my own, personal amusement, or, if I wanted to be flippant: Because I can. Nothing inherently progressive about that. 

I’m saying “we” not just as a fan, but as a demographically representative one. Fandom is majority straight, white, and female - I’m two of those things, and can pass for the third. The reason I called this the White Feminism of discourse is because that’s where I think it comes from: a centering of a certain sort of narrative and victimhood to the exclusion of all others. Not necessarily out of maliciousness, but because a large proportion of fans don’t see the persistently racist problems in fandom - because it doesn’t affect them. Because they’ve never experienced racism personally, and are blind to the way they (we) perpetuate the microaggressions or outright racism that literally every fan of color has experienced in fandom. It’s a language we can’t hear unless we really, really listen.

Fandom is mostly white and female, though not necessarily straight, but that’s another matter. 

I think we need to make a distinction here, and that’s between fandom as a space for individuals, and the idea of fandom as it is currently presented in media by pro-fandom voices, which indeed often paints fandom as a beacon of progressiveness and female empowerment. 

When it comes to the individual fan and their contribution to fandom ... I hate to say it, but there is no reason why any given fan should priotitize anything but their own, selfish enjoyment. I’m not in fandom to contribute to the joy and happiness of other people. I’m here for my own. 

Creating art of fiction is always a selfish act. No writer writes something they don’t want to write (unless they’re paid for it, or course), no artist paints something that they don’t want to paint. That’s how we create: it’s our personal, self-indulgent vision that we turn into something that other people might enjoy. Or not enjoy, whatever the case may be. 

The argument that I often hear is “if your personal enjoyment comes at the price of other people’s hurt feelings, it’s oppressive and immoral”, but that only applies when I actually force people to consume the product of my imagination. But as long as they have the freedom of choice, why should their feelings take precedence over mine? 

Especially, and I feel that this is an important point that doesn’t get stressed often enough, when I don’t even know who these people are? We’re on the internet. I have no idea whether the person I’m dealing with is actually who they claim to be. I have no idea what their life looks like. I have no idea whether they were actually “triggered” by something (I’m using quotation marks because the way the word is used here on tumblr, it can mean anything, from mild annoyance to great anxiety) or are just striving strive for power and control. 

I can totally get where the people who write this sort of positivity posts about fandom are coming from, and I can get why it seems like these are attacks out of left field. But when you (and not meaning you specifically, OP - all of us) claim essentially that all media/fandom is good, and all ways of consuming media/fan fiction are good, that ignores the way that media/fandom continues to be a really hostile and ugly place for a lot of people. You may mean, “There is no bad way to explore your sexuality,” but it can sound like you really mean “Even if it includes explicit, unqualified racism.”

But who says that media/fandom has to be “good”? Who made that rule when I wasn’t looking? When I “joined” fandom, I never agreed to limit my own, personal enjoyment to what minorities find acceptable. And while I get that some people think they’re entitled to that - that it should be my goal as a “decent person” to make them feel included, safe, welcome, and cared for - that’s not what I’m here for. 

You may find this a controversial statement, but actually, it shouldn’t be controversial at all. I get that some people would like me to sign a metaphorical contract, with the fine print written in their favor, but the truth is that such a contract does not exist within fandom.

No other person has the actual authority to tell me that my own enjoyment should not be my sole and ultimate goal. People might think they have the moral authority to tell me that, but there is no reason why I should have to accept that.

Why should I let other people dictate what my contribution to fandom should look like? Or, what’s more to the point, why should I let a bunch of strangers with funny urls do that, who willingly choose to engage with the content that I post on my blog or to my AO3 account? 

ESPECIALLY because, when confronted with that exact challenge, a lot of people double down on that and admit that yeah, the racism doesn’t really bother them. Which is what’s happening here.

It’s not a contradiction, but an unwillingness to confront an ugly truth about fandom because it doesn’t personally affect you. Fandom has a huge problem with racism, and pointing that out is not an act of The Morality Police.

Well, I’m one of these people. Though I think it’s fair to say that while racism does, in fact, bother me, my understanding of racism does not conform with the US American definition, and I’m not inclined to re-frame my worldview according to US American sociological theories just because fan culture happens to be dominated by US Americans. 

It’s not only racism, though, is it? It’s  “abuse” and “homophobia” and “transphobia” and “ableism” and “misogyny” and so on, and I can tell you that most of what I’ve written and published would raise the hackles of one minority or another, if they came looking. 

Or rather, raise the hackles of some individuals, which is another issue: very rarely, in my experience, has there been an agreement within a minority group on whether something was actually “harmful” or “offensive”. So, when I’m faced with a couple of people who come to my inbox, often in a very hostile manner, to tell me that something is offensive to people of color, or Jewish people, or trans people, or disabled people, and so on, they might be making a lot of noise, but I have no real means to say whether they are actually representative of the minority they claim to speak for.

In reality, it might look a little like this: My piece of dark fic, which was clearly labeled as such, got twohundred hits. Ten people left kudos, one left a positive but trivial comment, and now suddenly three people, one after the other, leave their comments in quick succession, neiher politely worded nor inviting a discussion, informing me that this piece of fiction is problematic and needs to disappear. Because they say so. 

That’s the point where I have to ask myself: if I give in to that kind of intimidation and pressure, am I doing it because these people are in the right, or because I’m afraid? Am I willing to follow their moral code, which apparently includes dogpiling, intimidation, and name-calling, or do I trust my own? 

Meanwhile, the people in my comment section are in all likelihood not willing to take my opinion into account. Any attempt on my side to justify myself just leads to statements like “check your privilege”, “you’re a nazi apologist”, “white (cis, straight, abled) people don’t get a say in this”. Disagreement is not an option. They’ve decided that my content problematic, that I am problematic, and that’s that.

I’ve seen this play out in a variety of instances, and quite honestly, I think it’s very important that people don’t give in to that kind of bullying. 

Finally, let me just add, for good measure: I think you’re right in one point, and that is that we might want to stop pretending that fandom is all about progressiveness, when progressiveness is mostly accidental, and yes, we can absolutely point out that fandom content reflects the preferences of those who contribute to it. If that’s mostly white women, the content will reflect that, as we’ve basically agreed above. 

On the other hand, if everyone keeps making the kind of content that they want to see, instead of bemoaning that others don’t make it for them, fandom will continue to change.

Just don’t expect fans to go to great length to make fandom a better place for others if that’s not what they signed up for. 

[nothingman]

White progressives have a tough time confronting racism—as Bernie Sanders, a hero in many ways, has made clear.

In the United States, white liberals and progressives have historically shown a serious inability to grapple with the realities of the color line and the enduring power of white supremacy. Many of them are either unable or unwilling to understand that fighting against class inequality does not necessarily remedy the specific harms done to African-Americans and other people of color by white racism.

For example, last Friday Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke in Boston at the Our Revolution Rally, where he said this:

Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don’t agree, because I’ve been there.

Given Sanders’ long history of fighting for human rights, his comments are profoundly disappointing. They also demonstrate the blind spot and willful myopia that too many white liberals and progressives have toward white racism in America.

Sanders’ defense of Donald Trump’s “white working class” voters can be evaluated on empirical grounds. This is not a case of “unknown unknowns.”  What do public opinion and other data actually tell us about the 2016 presidential election?

Donald Trump’s voters — like Republicans and conservatives on average — are much more likely to hold negative attitudes toward African-Americans and other people of color. Social scientists have consistently demonstrated that a mix of “old-fashioned” white racism, white racial resentment (what is known as “modern racism”), xenophobia, ethnocentrism, sexism and nativism heavily influenced white conservatives and right-leaning independents to vote for Donald Trump.

Trump voters are also more authoritarian than Republicans as a whole. Trump voters possess a fantastical belief that white Americans are “oppressed” and thus somehow victims of racism.

Polling experts such as Cornell Belcher have placed Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton within the broader context of a racist backlash against Barack Obama’s presidency among white voters.

And one must also not overlook how Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and victory inspired a wave of hate crimes across the United States against Muslims, Latinos, African-Americans, First Nations people, gays and lesbians and those of other marginalized communities. Donald Trump used a megaphone of racism and bigotry to win the 2016 presidential election. His supporters heard those signals loud and clear.

Sanders is also committing another error in reasoning and inference, one that is common among white Americans in the post-civil rights era. Racism and white supremacy are not a function of what is in peoples’ hearts, what they tell you about their beliefs or the intentions behind their words or deeds. In reality, racism and white supremacy are a function of outcomes and structures. Moreover, the “nice people” that Sanders is talking about benefit from white privilege and the other unearned advantages that come from being white in America.

Sanders’ statement is also a reminder of the incorrect lessons that the Democratic Party is in danger of learning from its 2016 defeat.

Chasing the largely mythical “white working-class voters whose loyalties went from “Obama to Trump” will not win future elections. The white working-class voters they covet are solidly Republican.

Alienating people of color and women by embracing Trump’s base of human deplorables will not strengthen the Democratic Party. It will only drive away those voters who are the Democratic Party’s most reliable supporters.

Sanders has unintentionally exemplified the way that both white liberals and white conservatives are heavily influenced by the white racial frame. As such, both sides of the ideological divide are desperate to see the best in their fellow white Americans, despite the latter’s racist behavior.

This is why “white allies” are often viewed with great suspicion by people of color. Malcolm X discussed this point in 1963:

In this deceitful American game of power politics, the Negroes (i.e., the race problem, the integration and civil rights issues) are nothing but tools, used by one group of whites called Liberals against another group of whites called Conservatives, either to get into power or to remain in power. Among whites here in America, the political teams are no longer divided into Democrats and Republicans. The whites who are now struggling for control of the American political throne are divided into “liberal” and “conservative” camps. The white liberals from both parties cross party lines to work together toward the same goal, and white conservatives from both parties do likewise.

The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor; and by winning the friendship, allegiance, and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this political “football game” that is constantly raging between the white liberals and white conservatives.

Bernie Sanders’ comments on Friday serve as an unintentional reminder of Malcolm X’s wisdom.

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[bountyofbeads]

Democratic rivals attack Biden, with Harris leading the way on race issues

https://wapo.st/31YTUFm

I believe Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris was the biggest winner of last night's debate along with Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bennett. What are your thoughts? 👇👇🤔

Democratic rivals attack Biden, with Harris leading the way on race issues

By Michael Scherer, Toluse Olorunnipa and Chelsea Jane's | Published June 28 at 12:06 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted June 28, 2019 |

MIAMI — Rival Democratic presidential contenders pummeled former vice president Joe Biden with searing, emotional critiques Thursday at their first debate — denouncing his record on racial issues and calling on him to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.

In one of the most dramatic moments of the campaign season, Biden found that his long-held stature as a beloved party leader offered him no respite at the center of a crowded debate stage, given his early domination of national polling in the race.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California, who commanded the event at several points in the night, led the charge.

“I do not believe you are a racist. I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris said. “But I also believe, and it’s personal . . . it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on segregation of race in this country.”

She accused him of opposing policies that allowed black girls like her to attend integrated schools. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. “That little girl was me.”

Biden looked away as Harris spoke, appearing emotionally affected by the attack as he attempted to defend himself. “Mischaracterization of my position across the board,” Biden said. “I did not praise racists. That is not true.”

“I was a public defender. I didn’t become a prosecutor,” he added, referencing controversy over Harris’s own record on criminal justice in California before she became a senator.

Harris was not the only one to set her sights on Biden. Sen. Michael F. Bennet (Colo.) attacked him for striking a deal with Republican leaders to keep some of George W. Bush’s tax cuts. And Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), 38, opened a generational front, calling Biden, 76, to “pass the torch” to a new generation of leaders.

Biden’s game plan — to focus on Trump and his own policies and experience — was thrown off track by rivals who repeatedly interrupted each other and disregarded the instructions of moderators. Candidates had clearly learned from watching Wednesday’s debate between a different group of Democratic candidates that there was little cost for breaking the debate rules.

Biden was able at times to lead the rest of the stage in a set of direct attacks on Trump. Calling him a liar, a phony and a failure who did not have the interests of the American people, the candidates collectively took a different approach than the Wednesday debate participants.

Policy distinction between the liberal and moderate wings of the party, a focus of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, also faded into the background for much of the night.

Biden went so far as to blame President Trump for the current state of income inequality in the country, which has been growing by most measures for decades. “Look, Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation,” he said, slamming the tax cuts signed into law by Trump as a source of “enormous income inequality.”

Others piled on. “He’s torn apart the moral fabric of this country,” said Sen. Kristin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Author Marianne Williamson accused the Trump administration of kidnapping migrant children, a reference to the president’s family-separation policy.

Trump, who was attending the Group of 20 summit in Japan, was paying attention to the debate and weighed in after all 10 Democrats raised their hands to declare that they would support providing health care for undocumented immigrants.

“All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited health care,” Trump said on Twitter during the debate. “How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!”

Asked if they believed crossing the border into the United States without proper documentation should be downgraded from a criminal offense to a civil offense, almost every candidate again raised their hand.

The display, which Republicans seized on as evidence of Democratic support for “open borders,” came a day after the issue of decriminalizing undocumented migrants emerged as a flash point during the first round of the debate. Former housing and urban development secretary Julián Castro sharply criticized former congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas for opposing legislation to repeal part of U.S. immigration law that allows for criminal prosecution of migrants who come to the United States without proper documentation.

On Thursday, there was near unanimity in supporting that kind of policy — an example of the leftward shift of the party since Trump’s election.

“Let’s remember, that’s not just a theoretical exercise,” South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg said. “That criminalization, that is the basis for family separation.”

Biden appeared to raise his hand in favor or decriminalization as well, but sidestepped the question when asked directly whether he supported decriminalizing crossing the border without proper documentation.

“The first thing — the first thing I would do is unite families,” Biden said.

Health care dominated the early portion of the debate, with the candidates discussing ideas for moving toward universal coverage. Sanders and Harris were the only two candidates to raise their hands when asked if they would eliminate private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan, echoing similar pledges Wednesday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“We will substantially lower the cost of health care in this country because we’ll stop the greed of the insurance companies,” Sanders said, arguing that Americans would pay higher taxes — but lower overall costs — under his plan.

Several candidates sought to show their personal experience with a health-care system that many Americans tell pollsters is their top priority.

Buttigieg said his father was able to navigate the health-care system during a terminal illness due to his Medicare coverage. Bennet, who recently battled prostate cancer, said he opposed getting rid of private insurance. Swalwell, the father of a young child, said he was just in the emergency room and battles insurance companies weekly.

Buttigieg’s appearance was his first national appearance since a police officer in South Bend shot and killed an African American man. The shooting highlighted the racial tensions that have lingered there under his leadership, and Buttigieg drew public criticism of his inability to diversify the South Bend police force and his handling of the victim’s family. Buttigieg, a Harvard graduate and military veteran, has acknowledged his need to build trust with minority voters.

The race conversation began with Buttigieg, who was asked why his city, which is 26 percent black, is policed by a force that is just 6 percent black.

“Because I didn’t get it done,” Buttigieg said.

“This is an issue that is facing our community and so many communities around the country,” Buttigieg said. “And until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time.”

That response did not satisfy others on the stage. Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper contrasted Buttigieg’s response with his own handling of a police shooting when he was mayor of Denver.

“The community came together and we created an Office of the Independent Monitor, a Civilian Oversight Commission, and we diversified the police force in two years,” Hickenlooper said. “We actually did de-escalation training.”

Swalwell also added to the critique, saying Buttigieg should shake up the police department. “You’re the mayor,” Swalwell told Buttigieg. “You should fire the chief.”

[Transcript: Night 2 of the first Democratic debate]

Then Harris, one of only two people of color on the stage, asked to speak, positioning herself as the candidate best qualified to handle racial tension — and therefore, best able to stage what amounted to a personal attack on the former vice president.

It was one of many authoritative moments for Harris, who channeled the forceful prosecutor approach that earned her national attention in Senate hearings with Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Attorney General William P. Barr and others. Since drawing 22,000 people to her January campaign launch in Oakland, Calif., Harris has failed to seize a place in the top three in early polls, hovering just outside the tier consistently occupied by Biden, Sanders and, more recently, Warren.

Harris began making a case against Biden by offering delicate criticism of former president Barack Obama’s record of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants — saying that while she respected Obama, she disagreed with his deportation policy.

She went in for the more direct hit on Biden’s record on race, which ended with her asking if Biden stands by his position on busing today.

“I did not oppose busing in America,” Biden said. “What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education.”

At one point, as Swalwell argued that Biden should pass the torch, Buttigieg jumped in to say he, the youngest person on the stage, should be talking about generational change. Gillibrand tried to jump in over him. Harris raised her voice through the cacophony.

“Hey, guys. America does not want a food fight,” Harris said. “They want to hear how we’re going to put food on their table.”

[gamexplained-blog]

The Current State of Affairs of Identity Politics in Gaming: A Canablization of the Industry

Hey everybody! Before starting this post, I want to give a very fair warning that this post is going to be reminiscent of a post a couple weeks ago. Yes, I will be talking about politics again. However, I’m hoping and praying that it will be in a more positive light. After taking a couple more classes, thanks to my Professor Denise Ayo, I feel comfortable in calling myself liberal. Granted, it’s not to an extreme extent where I’m busting down people’s doors and ascribing “privilege” to any individual who is different than me in a neo-liberal or “leftist” fashion. I do, however, feel far more comfortable and open to understanding and recognizing where privilege occurs beyond just the obvious category of wealth. I even recognize some of my own privileges in certain regards and will continue to understand more and more of these kinds injustices. However, one thing does remain certain in my mind: regardless of any type of privilege, whether it be ascribed or evidential, people should treat each other with love and kindness regardless. Now with that sappy explanation out of the way, let’s jump into this week’s reading.

For this week, the class was tasked with reading  Scalzi, “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is” (2012) and I implore you to read it for the sake of context as I will be talking about it at length in this post and will be difficult to understand without that background knowledge. In this post, Scalzi sets up a metaphor of “The Real World” in which people who play have no agency over the difficulty they play at and it is ascribed to their identity. Granted, people on harder difficulty settings are able to be more successful than individuals on lower difficulty settings, but the settings themselves are defaulted and immutable. He sets up an interesting metaphor that is very easily digestible...in terms of physically reading. On personal matters, one’s mileage may vary. Personally, for me, this post was ludicrously taxing to read for multiple reasons which I hope can explain why it was so controversial and moreover had such a volatile response (and don’t worry, I’m going to relate this to gaming later down the road).

The first, and quite honestly biggest, point of contention is how it's written is incredibly condescending. If you start off your post/rant/blog or whatever with “I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men” then you have immediately done an injustice of alienating the people you are trying to make your allies. This type of language makes my soul cry every single time I see it when it comes to identity politics because it feels like yet another proof as to people being so at the ready to not only make them the other but to such a degree that is tonally dehumanizing. To use the above example, the phrasing feels deliberately malicious (as proven later with the later comparison to vampires) because it sets up straight white men as a collective that deserves to be talked down to like their inferior toddlers of some sort who deserve a spanking. He does have a very fair argument in the regard that there is a tendency for many straight white men to just be unaware or uneducated of concepts of privilege that need help in order to understand and can and will be better off if they are. In fact, there are plenty who desperately need said education because they have done wrong things in their life because they have deliberately refused to be empathetic to marginalized groups of people or have refused to recognize certain privileges. However, to immediately go the attack and drill that anger throughout the whole point does nothing more than push those individuals further from you and further put them into an “other” category

Secondly, the huge issue fundamentally with the post is the allegory used itself: it almost feels like a cheat. Before I begin, I want to say that I agree with a whole lot of what Scalzi says, though I don’t condone the condescending language and methodology he uses in the post. I am a believer that many people, because of their identity, are unfortunately worse off than other individuals. However, the huge problem with the analogy of the MMO RPG “The Real World” is that in order to accept the argument and recognize the validity that has, the reader has to outright accept the premises at face value without question. Scalzi might do a good job as characterizing the difference performance in the game and the execution of being in certain identities, but he never explains as to why those things are. No straight white man is going to understand why he has privilege if you don’t point to specific examples or pieces of evidence, especially when the assertions of the premises are being done in such a volatile way. He might be right about the premises, but for his argument to make sense, he has to explain why he is right. Otherwise, that audience he may want to rope in for allyship isn’t going to want to join him and is likely to push themselves even further. Which leads me to allyship in gaming.

A huge problem with the communication of identity politics in gaming is that it comes heavy-handed. From my own perspective, as I had mentioned previously before, I had never thought that gaming had anything to do with politics or identity. I just thought they were fun things to play and enjoy with friends. A larger community to be a part of. So a few weeks ago, if someone is was going to come up to me and say that much of gaming culture or video games are explicitly sexist or racist, I’d be incredibly confused and honestly pretty mad especially if they then go and ascribe my defense of said games to my own identity. And I would even more so feel worse if I saw a game or franchise that I hold in my heart dearly to be changed for a political narrative or agenda that seems completely irrelevant to the game. This is the terrible push and pull for much of the male gamer side of the coin. In all honesty, much of the time it feels as though male gamers are being accused of horrible things they didn’t do because a massive collection of teenage boys ruined the gaming industry by saying and doing horribly offensive things in online multiplayer games. Being accused of something you aren’t is one of them most frustrating things to deal with. And this goes both ways! I imagine there are plenty minority individuals who are just as easily painted with a similar brush by male games as a form of counterculture by labeling them as “neoliberal fascists” that want to censor perfectly fine games regardless of them being offensive or not. In all honesty, I used to be one of those people in high school who would make those kinds of accusations because I wasn’t educated enough on the experience of the other side or rather that my mind was too closed as to have the empathy to open up to those people and understand their plight. This is a big problem with these conversations: people are too afraid of admitting they’re wrong. Even I was still struggling with this until a couple weeks ago!

But on a lighter note, this is why I love gaming so much, Borderlands 2 in particular. Granted, the game does serve some of my own values or interests of liking violent gameplay and dark and offensive humor. At the root of the game, it potentially provides an equal opportunity for everyone to play. While I can’t speak for online multiplayer games, as there are plenty of problematic issues in that vein, nothing is stopping an individual from actually playing a game other than how much that person may internalize the agendas other people throw at them. Sure, a female could absolutely internalize the harassment of pubescent teen boys when they shout “haha gamer girl” at her, leading her to stop gaming altogether. Or, the more likely scenario, she plays the single player game she loves to play anyways for the sake of her own self-interest and happiness. I believe on of the biggest misconceptions for many gamers is that if the games they love change, they won’t love them anymore. Not for the sake of excluding any oppressed group or for deliberate malice, but because their afraid that the good memories and experiences they have since childhood on their consoles are going to be rendered mute. But that’s the beauty of video games: they really can be a force of uniform good. No game is going to kick you out because you’re female, colored, or queer. I sure wouldn’t play Borderlands 2 if it did that. You can play it regardless of your identity and ascribe your own personal value and meaning to it how you want it and that’s okay! Please everybody just be kind to one another! And just remember two important notes. Just because someone takes part of a game you find problematic, doesn’t mean they’re a bigot. And just because a person thinks that the game you play is problematic, doesn’t mean they’re calling you a bigot. Peace and love friends! Game with an open mind and an open heart!

[citizentruth-blog]

Time to #WalkAway: The Exodus of Blacks and Free Thinkers from the Democrat Party - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/time-to-walkaway-the-exodus-of-blacks-and-free-thinkers-from-the-democrat-party/

Time to #WalkAway: The Exodus of Blacks and Free Thinkers from the Democrat Party

African Americans and free thinkers are finally leaving the left in droves.

Candace Owens, director of Turning Point USA, has been the victim of vicious liberal attacks because she is a black woman who supports President Trump.

On a recent Fox News interview, she said, “I think the black vote is going to become the most relevant by 2020” and “we’re already seeing a major shift,” referring to the exodus of African Americans from the Democrat Party. The conversation is changing. The black voters of America are no longer remaining stuck in that victim mentality courtesy of the Democrats and are opening up to the choice they have between a party that holds them back and a party that was initiated to put a stop to slavery.

Digital media has allowed for all of this to happen. Social media has given everyday people and insightful influencers alike a voice. We no longer have to stay trapped in the fake reality that CNN and others portray to us. Today, we are hearing different voices and convincing ideas from all kinds of people. And because of this, people like Owens and Kanye West are speaking out about how the Democrats have betrayed them and left them behind in their pursuit of illegal immigration, uninspiring anti-Trumpism, and open borders.

“There is going to be a major black exit from the Democrat Party, and they are going to have to actually compete for their votes in 2020,” Owens stated.  

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham had Brandon Straka on her show recently. Straka is the founder of the #WalkAway Campaign freeing disgusted Democrats to leave their party and join the winning side. He had a red pill experience in 2017 after the Donald was elected which was after he cried when Hillary Clinton lost two Novembers ago. And he decided to walk away from the Democrats because of their nasty rhetoric, incessant intolerance, name-calling and hypocritical judgment. Now, he’s not only worried about all that, but he also now fears outright violence from his former party.

“Their party has no future. It’s over,” Straka said. “People are leaving the left by tens of thousands.” He receives thousands of authentic testimonials from former Democrats regarding how the left has become intolerable to them. They don’t recognize their party anymore. What do they stand for? They hate Trump and love illegal immigrants. Anything else? Please email me or comment below and let me know!

“I want gay people, I want all people, but particularly minorities, in America to note that you have a choice. You don’t have to vote Democrat just because you’re a gay person. You don’t have to vote Democrat because you’re a black person. If you’re a minority, you have a choice, and that’s what this campaign’s about,” Straka finished.

Rob Smith is a black, gay former Democrat. He is also an author who has become one of the many strong voices online decrying what the left has become. He calls this the “I Don’t Have to be a Democrat Just Because I’m Black Movement,” which embraces traditional values as Democrats move farther left, defending illegal aliens while taking African Americans for granted and leaving them stranded in poverty and perpetual victimhood.

“There is a movement right now of black people standing up because we are always expected to be Democrats,” Smith said. “And there is a movement right now of younger black conservatives, which I am becoming a part of, that is saying, ‘No, you don’t define who we are, you don’t define how we think; you don’t get to control and own our voices.’” As I mentioned in an article in late April, free thinking is on the rise, and many African Americans are getting red pilled with Trump in the White House and Democrats becoming the party of MS-13 and illegal aliens.  

Democrats are not looking to better America in any way. As they proved by their lack of patriotism over July 4th, they despise our country and would welcome a second civil war as they did the first one. Instead of devising a winning strategy and an optimistic message to counter Trump’s rising America First voting bloc, they are attempting to legalize a swath of illegal immigrants to ensure another reliable group of Democrat voters for decades to come, just like they did with African Americans in the second half of the 20th century.  

The summer of 2018 has been inspirational in many ways. In the face of liberals melting down over every Trump win and Supreme Court nominee, we have also witnessed a rise of black influencers coming out of their closet of shame in support of Donald Trump. The Democrats’ stranglehold of blacks voting unanimously for their party of hate is finally coming to an end.

This has been a long time coming.

It all started in the spring with Kanye’s internet-breaking tweet stating that he loved the way Candace Owens thinks. In another tweet on April 25th, West said, “You don’t have to agree with Trump, but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.” The color of your skin does not mean you have to vote for one party or another. We need to be a country of individuals and free thinkers. If we all do what’s best for ourselves and our families, we will all be better off for it. Black people are not owned by the Democrats. They are no longer slaves to their lies.

The Democrats keep pushing 'Resist" so that America will no longer "Exist" Don't Wait until Later; Do It Now#WalkAway #RunLikeHell #DitchandSwitchNow Vote Them All Out!

— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) July 9, 2018

“I think there was a tripling in Trump’s approval rating when Kanye came out,” declared Ali Alexander, a 32-year-old political consultant born to an African-American mother and Arab father who saw the beginnings of this movement back in 2012 when the largest sub-demographic of blacks who voted for Romney were black men in their 20s and early 30s. According to a Pew Research exit poll, Romney achieved double-digits in the black vote against a black president. A cultural and demographic shift is underway that cannot be undone if the Democrats continue on their divisive path.  

“So I knew that something bad was coming for the Democrats, and Kanye, I think, is the ball that’s bursting,” Alexander said. “It’s like, wait, when this economic pie is growing, are black people gonna have a piece of that? These demographics have been happening for decades.” To Alexander, West’s tweet was a wonderful moment that caused blacks to wonder what the welfare state does for them if they don’t plan to be on welfare. “And I think that Kanye dived on a grenade for the rest of the black community, to have them start flirting with the idea of that.”

While black unemployment is at an all-time low and jobs are available to anyone who wants to work, we are being barraged with how Trump is the new Hitler and a racist dictator who is in league with Russia. But how can Trump be a racist when he kisses black babies, and black women hug him and black men praise him for his pro-job policies? How can more and more blacks be coming around in support of Trump if he is a racist trying to keep minorities down?

Yep, #trump is a racist…. #LiberalSickness#LiberalLogic#MAGA #WalkAway #TrumpTrain pic.twitter.com/pzvLxxlhaU

— Tim Tim (@timnexis) July 9, 2018

“It has all been a lie,” said conservative black YouTuber “Uncle Hotep,” a father of two from Pennsylvania. “It’s unfortunate because a lot of us believed it blindly.” He points to the simple fact that each paycheck he gets is $100 higher than it was before the tax cut. Trump is helping not just African Americans, but all Americans. “He’s put money in my pocket.”

“I voted for Barack Obama his second term,” began conservative “Uncle Hotep,” who went on to say, “The Democrats, in my honest opinion, based on my research, I believe the Democrats have historically hated black people. And I think they still hate black people today.” It is historically accurate that Democrats defended slavery as long as possible and lamented integration of white and black society in the 1960s. They voted against not only women’s suffrage but also black citizenship. The Democrats in Congress were also mostly against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 despite the Kennedy administration’s push for it. The Republican Party was started in the mid-19th century to demolish slavery and defend individual rights for all Americans. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, and he promised to free the slaves and even went to war against a slavery-loving south run by Democrats. Don’t let revisionist history fool you!

“Hotep Jesus” is a black conservative comedian and author who became an internet sensation when he went into a Starbucks and demanded a free cup of coffee, as “reparations” for slavery, since he “heard y’all was racist.” The clip is hilarious and so poignant for these politically correct times.

The African American Pastor Darrell Scott put it best during his 2016 Republican National Convention speech endorsing Trump when he said: “The truth is, the Democratic Party has failed us. America is a melting pot. We’re a country of diversity. And we stand poised to make history by standing together as Americans.” Diversity is our greatest strength not because we are all different but because we are all individuals who mostly love America and have the right to think and choose for ourselves.

As Owens recently told Fox, “I really do believe we are seeing the end of the Democratic Party as we know it.” I think there is ample evidence to prove this is surely the case.

Despite almost a month of continuous Trump is Hitler incarnate and our racist in chief coverage from the mainstream media following the separation of illegal immigrant children at the border, the president’s job approval rating has remained well above 43 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics average.

Prepare for another Trump landslide in 2020 my liberal friends.

  Follow me @BobShanahanMan

  FBI Jailed Black Activist 6 Months over Anti-Police Brutality Facebook Posts