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omegafrisk · 3 years ago

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so i have some criticisms of berdly

ok so i wanna get my thoughts on berdly out in public because the way people have started talking about him after chapter 2 is making me very uncomfortable. apologies for the length of this!

a lot of people have warmed to berdly after chapter 2, but personally i have nothing but criticism for his writing. from his introduction he's been coded like a baby misogynist dudebro. every part of how he talks echoes that subculture. i can't even call it parody because that's literally how these people are.

i've seen people say it's wrong to call him a misogynist or transphobe because he doesn't overtly speak that way in the text, but i seriously object to that. he's a fictional character; toby fox doesn't write microaggressions. he's artificially sanitised because he's not real while otherwise word-for-word echoing the sentiments of real bigots. a man who, let's be honest with ourselves, was likely intended by the author to be cis calling himself superior to everyone is kind of inherently going to fall into misogyny and transphobia. yes, berdly is a child, but so are the people around him and around real people like that who are hurt by his beliefs and actions.

being a child, berdly is of course capable of growth, but he isn't even given the opportunity to do that. he's the butt of every joke and humiliated a bunch, but noelle never gets a chance to properly stand up to him. yeah, she chokes him out for saying he has a crush on susie, but she doesn't get to confront him for how cruel he's been to her or to others in the same way she gets to confront the queen as a standin for her mother.

berdly is right back to his old self once the chapter ends with minimal growth because he spent the chapter learning almost nothing. not even queen tells him off, we just get the running gag (which is hilarious, don't get me wrong) of her avoiding him. of course there's still the opportunity for growth in future chapters, but i think that's extremely poor pacing on toby's part when he's introduced an actual bigot into his story.

berdly is far from the only example of toby poorly representing real-world harm in this chapter. just look at him bending over backwards to defend hometown's police and defang king spades with a "haha, he wasn't THAT bad see everyone? he's funny and he was totally bluffing! queen likes him she's cool!" and, of course, acting like being imprisoned has made king spades way better. these are all completely unnecessary narrative decisions.

because that's the thing about berdly - he didn't HAVE to be like this. his narrative role of being a bit of a jerk who's tied up in noelle's backstory could easily be filled without touching on that. you can be a stuck up prick without echoing real bigoted sentiments.

a character can be a bad person while still being a good character, but i absolutely object to the idea that berdly can be counted as that. he's just unpleasant. quite frankly, i find the fact that so many people like him suddenly because he's kind of sort of trying a bit and might possibly try more in the future disturbingly similar to how people treat real bigoted men when they show the slightest sign of any kind of improvement, too. remember that post that went around about that incel who started healing from depression after learning to take care of shrimp, who called his uncle a homophobic slur in the post and never mentioned no longer viewing women as inferior...?

i guess my point is that sometimes you have to look outside a text to understand a character. or, really, all the time. characters exist in the context of how they reflect the real world. writers you like a lot can do things poorly. #ReplaceBerdlyWithAnOC20k21

#draws an anti-discourse circle on the floor around myself #please be normal about criticism utdr fandom please please pl #edited this post cause i called him a baby incel but it wasn't quite correct

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theredraccoon · 3 years ago

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A Desperate Proposal - Ch 3

Jace could hear the thwack of escrima sticks on one of the heavy bags in the training room through the door, along with one of Izzy’s signature grunts, and he could feel his whole body relaxing. He had done virtually nothing but hide in his room for the two days since his explosive conversation with Alec and he was about to vibrate out of his skin. A spar with Izzy was just what he needed.

Rolling his shoulders, Jace pushed open the heavy door and strolled over to the weapons rack, picking up two sticks of his own. Izzy was over to the side of the large room, dressed in her usual workout gear of a black crop top and skin tight black pants. In a rare concession, she was actually barefoot instead of wearing her usual heavy heeled boots. Jace felt some tension seep back in; Izzy prided herself on being able to kick anyone’s ass while wearing five inch heels. If she was barefoot it meant that she was off-kilter enough that she wanted more stability as she trained, like she didn’t trust herself to be as careful. Her insistence on heels was absolutely a pushback against some of the misogyny of the Clave but Izzy wasn’t an idiot and anything that might lead to her getting injured was something she avoided at all costs. So Jace and Alec had learned that barefoot usually meant that something was weighing on Izzy’s mind.

Jace sighed and tapped one of his sticks on the ground. Izzy glanced over at him and raised a sculpted brow. Jace raised one back. He knew that she had clocked him the moment he came in, even if she hadn’t stopped smacking the bag for a minute. She gave a sharp nod and moved towards the center of the room, settling into a familiar stance, still silent.

It’s gonna be like that, huh? All right then.

Jace raised his own sticks and attacked immediately. Izzy countered and then they were off, dancing around the room, pounding at each other as hard as they could. The best part of training with Izzy was that she abhorred training with anyone that didn’t fight with their absolute all and insisted that Jace come at her with his full strength. Jace still remembered trying to pull his punches when he was a teenager and getting his entire ass handed to him while Izzy laughed.

Izzy was laughing now, finally, losing whatever mood she’d been in before Jace had arrived. He felt himself grinning back and threw himself into a complicated maneuver that he and Alec had perfected years ago but that Izzy had never quite mastered. Sure enough, Izzy hit the mat with a thump and Jace skipped backwards, out of her reach.

Jace caught his breath, glancing quickly at the large clock on the back wall. Somehow they’d already been sparring for fifteen minutes. His muscles were warm now and his mind was clearer and emptier than it had been for days. He put his sticks up over his shoulders and watched as Izzy flipped herself back up and finally addressed the demon in the room. The multiple demons.

“So. Meliorn?” At least his voice was steady.

“Yep. Vampire?” So was Izzy’s.

“Yeah.” Jace threw himself forward again and Izzy met him in the middle and they whacked at each other for another few minutes before breaking apart.

“I saw Alec’s nose. Nice job, brother.” Izzy smirked at him.

Jace grunted and they exchanged another flurry of blows. “Yeah, I was pretty pissed about the whole ‘let’s marry you off to a random vampire and by the way, all the Shadowhunters are dying and we don’t know why’ thing.”

Izzy ducked behind a column, her voice floating out around it. “Fair. I didn’t react that well either when he told me, although I didn’t go so far as to punch him in the face.”

Jace rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, well, you get to marry the guy you’re already banging, I get a stranger.” He swallowed and forced himself to continue. “A male stranger.”

A stick whipped toward his head and Jace had to twist to the side to avoid it, letting himself roll down and away, before coming back up with a furious spate of hits at his sister. She met him head on, shouting at him the whole time. “Just because I’m currently sleeping with Meliorn doesn’t mean I want to marry him! I like him but I’m not in love with him! I hate this as much as you do! And by the Angel, Jace, the only one who cares about you being bisexual is you. Alec and Magnus can be together but you can’t be with a guy? Come on.”

Izzy abruptly ditched her sticks and just launched herself at him. Jace quickly dropped his as well and then it was hand-to-hand, the air filling with the sound of fists hitting leather and occasional yelps at particularly hard impacts. Finally, Jace pulled out another move that he often used with Alec, but Izzy knew this one and suddenly they were both sprawled out on the floor, panting.

Jace slapped the mat. After a minute, Izzy slapped it back. Jace stared at the ceiling. “What are we going to do, Izzy? Are we really dying that fast? How didn’t we notice?”

He heard Izzy sigh. “I don’t know, Jace. I felt like such an idiot when Alec told me. I was angry and didn’t believe him at first. Now I’m scared. I agreed to marry Meliorn because I think Alec’s right, that an alliance with the Downworld and access to their knowledge is the only way we have a chance, but I don’t have to like it. Meliorn’s always held things back from me and you know how secretive Seelies are. I don't really know what I'm getting into, just like you. I wasn’t planning on getting married anytime soon either.” She rolled over and Jace turned his head to meet her eyes. They were tired and fearful but the same warm brown as always. “We’re in the same battle, Jace, but you know I’ve got your back, same way I know you have mine. Alec does too, even though he was definitely a dick about telling you about everything. We’ll figure it out. We’re Lightwoods: three go in, three come out.”

Jace opened his mouth to retort but a noise from the door made him sit up onto his elbows. There was a Shadowhunter hovering there, a young one, probably fresh out of Alicante. Why didn’t I notice that everyone kept getting younger? What else have I missed? Jace coughed, swallowing a lump in his throat, before saying, “Yeah? What is it?”

“You’re both needed in the main hall. Mr. Lightwood sent me to get you. The Clave representative is arriving in an hour.” The Shadowhunter’s voice was high, with a bit of reverence around ‘Mr. Lightwood.’

Jace huffed a small laugh and got up, reaching an arm down to haul Izzy up as well. “All right, Ms. Lightwood. Let’s go meet the Clave rep and argue about our fates. Do you think there are dowries involved in Seelie weddings?”

Izzy’s eyes flashed at him. “I dunno, Mr. Lightwood. Maybe there are in vampire weddings. I think you’re worth at least a cow or two. Let’s go find out.” She looped her arm in his and they turned as one towards the door.

---------

The main hall of the Institute was bustling, like usual, full of light and sound and activity. And yet Jace felt like he was seeing it for the first time, suddenly noticing how many stations around the room were empty. The Shadowhunters whizzing by him and Izzy as they entered were just as young as their escort, painfully fresh faced and eager.

Now that Alec had ripped off the veil, Jace couldn’t help but see the signs everywhere. Something was deeply wrong and it looked like it was up to them to figure out the problem and to fix it. His jaw clenched and he tightened his grip on Izzy’s arm. She squeezed back before letting go and walking briskly over to the raised dais in the middle of the room, where Alec was standing with his back to them.

Jace followed more slowly, focusing on the main map of the city displayed on the table. It was a real time look at current demonic activity and the Shadowhunter response, color coded and dynamic. The red blinking lights were everywhere, the white ones fewer and more spread out, showing the patrols that were on the streets. Jace recognized his main patrol route and felt a small flash of pride as it was still entirely dark, showing no demons in the area, followed immediately by the realization that this too might have contributed to his blindness— his skills as a Shadowhunter, the ones that kept him Second in Command of the Institute, meant that he was far less likely to be targeted by whatever was picking them off. He wasn’t an easy mark. He’d gotten complacent.

Staring harder at the map, Jace started thinking about how to rearrange patrols, pairing older Shadowhunters with the new ones, and how to increase pairs training so that no one would be out on their own while still maintaining coverage of the whole area. Plans unfolded in his mind rapidly, long buried strategy sessions with his father rising up to the surface.

“Jace.” Alec’s voice was the usual mixture of bored and irritated. Jace twitched and looked up at his parabatai. The bruising from Alec’s broken nose had deepened, spreading across his face like stripes, and the resemblance to a raccoon was hilariously striking. “Thanks for joining us. What do you see?”

He spared a moment to be grateful for his brother’s uncanny knack of recognizing when Jace was working through something and how quickly he would defer to Jace’s expertise. Jace leaned over the table, pulling up different displays with a few deft movements, gathering bits of information that kept slotting into the puzzle forming in his head. He got lost in it for a while, the awareness of his brother and sister fading away. Was this part of the magic Alec had mentioned? Why hadn’t he been called in to study the clear demonic patterns? Why was this the first time he’d been consulted? It was so obvious when you looked closer.

Jace finally shook his head to clear it, drew a deep breath, and started to talk. He pulled up the original map of the city and then typed in a command that lit up the pathways the Nephilim used night and day. “Our patrols are set up in a way that means our Shadowhunters rarely cross paths— the borders align to cover the whole city but they never really overlap. It means that for long hours we are essentially on our own when we respond to demon sightings. Before, um, now, that obviously wasn’t a problem as the areas were smaller and it was easy to call for backup and have someone respond quickly. But with fewer Shadowhunters, the patrol areas are bigger and the time it takes reinforcements to arrive… Well, we haven’t been making it in time. The demon attacks seem calculated to occur at the heart of each patrol area, when it would take the longest for help to come.” He switched displays to show where the last three Shadowhunter deaths had taken place, the flashing gold Remembrance runes stark reminders of what they had lost. Each one was set deep within the boundaries of the patrol territory.

Jace continued, “Someone - or something - knows our patterns and is picking us off. The problem just keeps getting worse with each loss and each expansion of patrol boundaries. We either need to think about the way we patrol and redistribute our people or we simply need more people.”

The three of them stood in silence, the gravity of the situation once again sinking in. Jace glanced up and met Alec’s eyes, which were full of dark shadows; he suddenly looked old. His brother always took his responsibilities so seriously. “Downworlders could help. If they’re willing.”

“I guess that’s where I come in.”

The voice was strong and feminine and not one that Jace recognized. He turned quickly, adrenaline spiking. A petite blond woman stood about five feet back from the dais, immaculately dressed in a trim suit with her hair pulled back in an elaborate braid. Her blue eyes were clear and razor sharp and she radiated authority, to the point that it took Jace a minute to realize that she was flanked by two other Shadowhunters, tall men wearing the insignia of the Clave.

“My name is Lydia Branwell and I am here as the Clave representative overseeing the Clave- Downworld Alliance. The marriage contracts that we present to the Downworld need to be ironclad and protective of Clave interests, which will include better protection for the New York Institute. I assume you are the Lightwoods?” Jace watched with wide eyes as the woman held her hand out without looking away from them and a thick folder was instantly placed there from one of the lackeys behind hl

“I am Alexander Lightwood, Head of the New York Institute.” Alec’s natural saltiness with strangers was evident in his tone. “This is Jace Lightwood, my Second and Battle Master, and this is Isabelle Lightwood, Third, in charge of Forensics. I was told that you wouldn’t be arriving for another half hour.”

“I like being early. You always see and hear such interesting things.” Jace watched her eyes flicker over the extensive bruising on Alec’s face before sweeping up and down Jace and Izzy’s workout clothes. He shifted slightly, before straightening and arching an eyebrow in her direction. He was slightly surprised when she quirked one back with the barest hint of a smile and then her gaze was redirected to Alec. “Is there a conference room available? I would never presume to ask for your office on such short notice but we have a lot to discuss and we might as well be comfortable.”

“My office will be fine. Jace, Izzy, why don’t you pick up some sandwiches and drinks and we’ll see you there soon. I’m sure Lydia and I can start without you.” With that, Alec hopped off the dais and strode away at a fast clip, long legs eating up the distance, forcing Lydia and her followers to scramble and catch up. Jace let out a short laugh and exchanged a glance with Izzy, who giggled back at him. Their brother had never taken kindly to being put on the spot and could be wonderfully petty at times.

Stepping down himself, Jace turned towards the long hallway that led to the living quarters, knowing that Alec’s directions had also given both him and Izzy time and space to put themselves back together. If they were going to have to sit and argue about what was going into the contracts that would bind them for the rest of their lives, they should at least be showered and presentable.

Twenty minutes later, Jace was scrubbed down and re-dressed in his patrol leathers. He was a fighter, first and foremost, and this was definitely a battle he wanted to win. Or at least not lose. On the way to Alec’s office, he swung by the mess and picked up a variety of sandwiches and some of his sister’s favorite salads. Izzy met him right outside of the office’s ornate door, carrying a basket full of drinks, mostly water and juices. When he made a face at her, she tilted it slightly and he spotted a small bottle of vodka hidden at the bottom. He grinned and she winked.

Jace didn’t bother knocking and just pushed at the heavy mahogany, holding it open for Izzy to go before him. They entered into a room full of shouting. Alec and Lydia were standing on opposite sides of the mammoth desk, with the two Clave lackeys sitting meekly off to one side. Jace didn’t hesitate and rounded the table to Alec’s right side, watching Izzy do the same on the left.

Jace dropped the heavy tray of sandwiches onto the desk with a clatter, followed by the heavy thump of Izzy’s basket, and the shouting abruptly cut off. Jace was halfway convinced that neither one had even heard them approach. “So,” he said loudly, “how are the marriage contracts coming? Have you sold Izzy off to Meliorn for two goats and some flowers yet?”

Alec shot him an amused glance over Izzy’s sputter of outrage. “No, not yet, but I’ll see if we can work it in.” Alec’s focus moved back to Lydia as he continued, “We’re currently… talking about where to even hold the weddings in the first place. Lydia wants to insist that we have them all in the Institute but restrict the attendees to just the Downworlders getting married. I keep telling her that this is supposed to be an alliance and that if we have to have the marriages here then at least we need to accommodate any other Downworlders that want to attend. I can’t imagine that the Seelie Queen will let her Knight get married in the Institute without being there. Honestly I think if we don’t make several concessions to the Seelie Court, we don’t have a prayer of this actually succeeding.” By the end Alec was almost shouting again.

“And I was informing Alec that the Clave will not tolerate having the Seelie Queen anywhere near one of the Institutes. The weddings should still be held here for security reasons, with only the participants inside the building. We still know nothing about what is hunting us and it’s way too risky to go anywhere else right now, especially in any sort of large numbers. The Downworlders need this Alliance too or they wouldn’t have agreed. We can hold some sort of symbolic ceremony or whatever they want afterwards but the marriages should be performed here.”

“Do you know anything about vampire weddings? Or warlock weddings? Werewolves? Not even the Angel really knows what goes on in Seelie weddings. We have no idea if they are going to accept any of that. Their own rituals and ceremonies must be honored or they will not be duty-bound to honor the Alliance. If we do it here, and I’m not saying that we should, then they need to be here as well. You seem to think that we have more power here. We don’t.”

Lydia was now sorting through the folders on the desk, pulling sheaves of paper out, muttering to herself. Alec’s arms were in parade rest, his legs planted firmly, his brow set and mouth a thin line. Jace sighed. They weren’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future. He looked around and found his favorite chair, the one with the best armrests, and brought it up to the desk, watching Izzy do the same. He grabbed a sandwich and settled in for the long haul.

#chapter 3 #shminibang #jimon #a desperate proposal #wow still suck at tumblr

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quinnfebrey · 4 years ago

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okay okay dont yell at me but im listening to lover(the album) for the first time. like i listen to cornelia street and some other but never all 18. AND THIS SHIT SLAPS SO FUCKING HARD!!! like wtf i have recently become a proper taylor stan and this is such a great life. like evermore and folklore are the reason i have been turned and i have never been more thankful for an album. but yeah i get what you mean about london boy and all of the other songs as well TBH.

omg!!! i’m sorry if you meant for this to just be like a fun short ask bc i’m about to go off

please listen to all her albums bro there isn’t a single one that isn’t amazing!!

if you go backwards like you’re doing now, the next one would be reputation which is SO iconic like. it’s just god tier and all the songs are absolute bops. i feel like i also have to tell you to watch miss americana the documentary first and then listen to it and then watch the reputation stadium tour to get the full experience. she went silent for like three years and then overnight took off all her old posts and changed the entire layout and it was just a snake and then look what you made me do dropped and 😳

favorites from rep: dancing with our hands tied, king of my heart, end game, call it what you want, getaway car

then there’s 1989 which is so slept on but it is genuinely my go to vibe album. like any time i’m driving or at the beach or cooking just chilling and i want to listen to stuff in the background i always put on 1989. also this was her first album doing secret sessions which is special!! for some reason i have a lot of happy feelings towards 1989 era but looking back it was also very sterile which is interesting and i think the documentary explains that a little bit but. anyway the music is fire

favorites from 1989: all you had to do was stay, i know places, clean, style, out of the woods

red is openly my least favorite t album and i don’t know why, but interestingly the songs i do like are some of my favorites of hers of all times. it is kind of a vibe bc you have to remember we opened red era with we are never ever getting back together and i knew you were trouble which was SO big of a deal at the time. everyone was like “the old taylor is deadddddd” (and she was like just wait for reputation lol). if i had to summarize red era for you, i’d tell you to look up “ikywt screaming goat” and pretend you’re 12 years old

favorites from red: HOLY GROUND AAAHHHHH, treacherous, state of grace, i almost do

speak now!!! it’s my favorite taylor album 🥺 so far nothing has dethroned it as number 1. every single song is either an absolute bop or lyrically genius or both and UGH it’s so good. this album is so special bc 1) she wrote it ALL herself, it’s the only album with zero co writers and she did it out of spite, 2) all the songs are crazy long, and 3) during this era she was doing vlogs on youtube which i highly recommend watching. speak now is honestly a very funny album but nobody ever talks about that

favorites from speak now: mine, sparks fly, last kiss, enchanted, better than revenge (we let taylor have a little misogyny as a treat), superman, and long live is in my top 5 taylor songs of all time

fearless is slept on also and i HATE that bc it perfectly sums up how to feels to be a teenage girl and it’s insane to me that taylor managed to do that without actually being a “normal” teenage girl. a lot of music reviewers rate it low and i’m like well that’s bc you’re a 50 year old man, brad!! also there’s a song on fearless called untouchable and it’s actually a cover of a song by luna halo, and i highly suggest you look it up bc the fact that taylor heard luna halo’s version and came up with what she put out is hilarious and genius at the same time. also if you listen to change knowing it’s about her record label, and knowing what you know now about scott borchetta, it’s a little 😐

favorites from fearless: the way i loved you, forever & always, hey stephen, you belong with me, you’re not sorry

according to 99% of the fandom, debut doesn’t exist. but we love her and she’s amazing and taylors baby voice is cute and you have to remember that she was like 12-16 when she wrote most of those songs. our song was written in her freshman year, the outside was written when she was like 12 and being bullied at school. to this day, tim mcgraw is still one of the best first singles from an arist i’ve ever heard

favorites from debut: stay beautiful, the outside, our song, tim mcgraw, i’m only me when i’m with you, picture to burn

ok!! there’s your homework. pls tell me what you think 😁

#sry for the ted talk #asks

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actual-corpse · 4 years ago

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I actually feel sick thinking about the upcoming election?

This is entirely new?

I'll admit, I fucked up big time by just, sitting by complacently and not voting in 2016... Honestly I didn't and still don't like Hilary Clinton (and I think it's mostly misogyny! -I hate that I feel this way! It's something I'm working on but it's kinda hard because it stems from trauma... I'm not making excuses and I'm not proud). I see now where complacency got me... And I honestly don't believe America can withstand another 4 years of Trump before my generation fucking collapses the system and is left trying to make something new and better (without accidentally communisming). Also... 4 years ago, I didn't know for sure who I was and thought I had nothing to worry about (man... that white, cishet, able-bodied, not openly agnostic privilege can fuck you up)... I -there's a point to all this somewhere... an admission of guilt? A call to action?

In a similar vein.... Fucking Republicans... I just... they have so many ass backwards conspiracies about how Democrats are going to throw away mail-in ballots and how they're communist, and how they hate Trump and why.... Fucking... I was getting an estimate for my mirror and fucking... oh my god... The owner says, "if they start sending out Truml 2020 masks, these idiot democrats won't be so keen on making people wear them!" And I just stood there like, 'do you people know how fucking insane you sound?!'.... I mentioned Democratic Socialism and my mom saw that as an excuse to offload another batshit conspiracy! I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT ACTUAL FUCKING DEMOCRATS AND SHE JUST... GOES OFF ON HOW ALL THEY WANNA DO IS LINE THEIR POCKETS WITH THE MONEY WE'D TAKE FROM THE RICH! And I was like (in my head), 'the fucking Republicans are already doing that... except they're taking money from you and me you dumb bitch..."

I don't understand! THE FUCKING LENGTHS THEY'LL GO! The same goes for cishets lol... the lengths they'll go (re: "Sappho and her friend" stories)...

In the same vein... Do you know how elated I was when I heard that Andy Beshear became governor? Gov. Bevin was so blatantly queerphobic (and probably racist... Idk... I didn't hear about it)... Even though I'm closeted at home, it didn't mean that I wasn't worried about my LGBT+ siblings and how Bevin's bullshit might've affected them... (Bevin also really fucked up education here in Kentucky... Teachers were fucking protesting for so long... I think I mentioned how his jackassery affected MSU [because that's what I've seen firsthand] and how great that's been)

#long post #very sorry #politics #go vote if you can #remember the mail in stipulations #the republicans are rigging the election #vent #sorry #i just... have feelings #im sorry

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jageunyeoujari · 7 years ago

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hello yaejin. i wanted to apologize for last night. i'm sorry i brought your mental health into an argument, and i'm sorry i invalidated your feelings. that was out of line, and i honestly fucked up. i saw a pattern ive seen before and i jumped to conclusions and it was inappropriate and cruel, especially while we were having an argument. i was dealing with a mental health crisis of a friend and i let it influence me and i wasn't good enough to walk away and say i couldn't talk rationally.

(sorry, limit). my own situation doesn’t make it okay what i said, and i don’t want to imply it, i just wanted to let you know the context. i’m sorry again.

apologizing for what exactly. sorry for what exactly. you “brought up my mental health” as if it was just a little no-big-deal comment when you used my vulnerability in talking abt my recent mental health struggles as proof that i’m going insane & thus everything i say is illogical when i was talking abt racism in white ace/aro discourse. the ableism was literally a vehicle for you to derail a conversation about race so by copping to just the one, you’re not actually acknowledging the underlying issue framing it. this is such a vapid, spineless, fake apology that doesn’t acknowledge the underlying intent or impact of what that ableism did which was to derail my points abt RACISM & my experience as a lesbian woc who’s also ace. you’re just copping to the obvious thing that even some of the ppl in your clique might feel vaguely bad abt & ignoring everything else.

& you say you just “invalidated my feelings?” LET’S GO IN-DEPTH. first, you were openly hostile for even daring to question you. you brought up corrective rape as a gotcha bc you knew that was an explosive thing to drop & you could derail any objections i have to your ranting as invalidating survivors. & when i asked for proof for your claims of ace/aro oppression & them facing corrective rape, you said you didn’t want to look at triggering material when YOU were the one who dropped corrective rape in the first place w absolute no warning & w no thought if it would trigger ME (which it fucking did btw, thx.) it was curious to me that you used corrective rape as a gotcha for ace/aro oppression when it was created to describe the violence that black lesbians face in south africa. esp in light of how you seem to have this pattern of insinuating how lesbians are somehow so accepted by the lgbt community when we’re so uniquely bigoted & we never try to keep out terfs but don’t seem to take into account how ace/aros can can also be transphobic/terfs as well as homophobic & lesbophobic. that’s not a matter of a few “shitty” ppl. lgb ppl are also allowed to be wary of any non-same sex attracted person being homophobic as they necessarily benefit for not being same sex-attracted esp when have been oppressed for displaying any kind of sexual desire & deemed better if we are asexual. & it seems like you have a pattern of only calling out lesbians instead of like also gay/bi men which i find curious. maybe you do tho & i just haven’t seen. but lesbophobia in the lgbt community esp against lesbians of color is real so it’s just odd that for you to keep saying that we have a completely comfortable position in it. also you positing lesbianism & ace/aro identity as exclusive categories does play into the stereotype that lesbians are hypersexual which is esp damaging to lesbians of color.

anyway, when i researched on my own & found no convincing evidence to support your claims, you threw a tantrum bc NO MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES & FEELINGS OF BEING OPPRESSED = ULTIMATE TRUTH OF ACE/ARO OPPRESSION. your experiences are valid & all. you’re allowed to feel upset by them. but i fail to see being ace/aro constitutes institutional oppression. in my search, i mainly saw claims of individual microaggressions and acts of verbal violence as evidence of oppression when those things by themselves don’t prove that there’s an explictly anti-ace/aro system of oppression. i can experience microaggressions for being asian & also not being into sex but those are entirely on different levels for me. i know instinctively that racism is an institutional oppression. i’m literally ace & microaggressions for that mean nothing to me in comparison. you feel differently abt it & you’re allowed but again, personal experience of microaggressions doesn’t prove institutional oppression. i also saw vague citings of a study of ppl apparently being more likely to say they’d discriminate against asexuals than lgbt ppl. the study seemed too flawed to me & doesn’t seem to take into account how ppl might know it’s bad to admit they’d discriminate against lgbt ppl but that doesn’t prove they’re not actually homophobic/transphobic. like liberal white ppl likely won’t admit that they’re racist bc they know that looks bad. doesn’t mean they’re not racist. as for corrective rape, i don’t remember finding anything that wasn’t abt violence against black lesbians & certainly not any that cites specifically anti-ace/aro motivations. i’m not saying it can never happen. but in comparison, it can be proven that cr is part of an explicit system of homophobia & misogyny against black lesbians in south africa but i didn’t see any for ace/aros. & i mean, i researched this while reading abt cr which is deeply upsetting to me as a lesbian so it’s not like this was easy for me. but i don’t rly think you have a leg to stand on in this instance bc you never provided any proof & didn’t say what your exacting reasoning on this is. it didn’t even have to be abt cr & i’m not saying you should disclose traumatic experiences, but just… say something to help me understand where you’re coming from. otherwise you look like you’re just expecting a woc to blindly accept & follow you.

& i have to bring up white ace/aro discourse elides how misogyny & patriarchy & racism & other -isms impact pressures to be sexual or asexual. poc esp black ppl are stereotyped as either hypersexual or asexual. being seen as hypersexual is dehumanizing & can be traumatic & lead to real life serious consequences. i’m literally asexual but i empathize w non-asexual poc esp woc & the struggles they face & thus have no interest in white ace/aro rhetoric that posits being sexual as a universally normal, ideal, uncomplicated privilege & asexuals are oppressed by them. also being seen as asexual/actually being asexual can be so damaging & traumatic to poc which is why so many of us are alienated by white ace/aros who posit it as a universally positive thing to be proud of. white ace/aros also imply that they can somehow face oppression by like non-sexual poc which is concerning in light of the history of racist/colonialist ideas of backwards, hypersexual black & brown menaces & seductresses versus the purity & chastity of whiteness. controlling the sexuality of poc is a key part of white supremacy so there isn’t an obvious oppressor/oppressed dynamic here like men/women, white/poc. & considering how reproductive justice is constantly under fire & how there’s societal pressure for women to be effectively asexual until (hetero) marriage, it’s hard for me to think how non-asexual women not in hetero relationships actually… benefit from being non-asexual. there’s also different expectations abt being sexual for men, esp white men, than women & white ace/aro discourse tends to ignore that. sure, men are generally encouraged to be sexual & the shaming of asexual men likely sucks. but shaming doesn’t necessarily mean ace/aro oppression & seems more like to me a symptom of patriarchy/gender roles & heteronormativity. so in my estimation, misogyny & patriarchy & racism as well as other systems of oppression like ableism, homophobia, transphobia, & classism better explain these differing expectations for being sexual or asexual rather than ace/aro vs non-ace/aros being an entirely separate dynamic. i literally couldn’t find any evidence for your claims & you got so upset at me for that but never tried giving me one piece of proof. yes, i know that oppressors demanding the oppressed to prove their oppression to them is a legitimate thing & the oppressed don’t need to feel obligated to educate them. i’ve experienced this frustration many times myself. but your behavior in this instance strikes me as white entitlement & again, a sign of you being frustrated that a woc isn’t blindly accepting you’re automatically right.

& when i started getting rly into the racism in white ace/aro discourse, you rly lost your shit. you dropped your abuse history & claimed i was invalidating you being abused for being ace when i literally never did. you straight up lied abt that. & also i know you know that i have experienced abuse & if you like bothered to think, you would take into account that i could be triggered by you dropping that out of nowhere, but instead you dropped it in an attempt to derail & get me to shut up. now this is when you suddenly rave abt how it’s obvious i’m on a bad mental health spiral & i’m believing in conspiracy theories & i’m paranoid, all a transparent attempt to make everything i said abt racism apparently wrong. w/o giving me a chance to reply, you promptly blocked like a coward. oh, also truly hilarious how you’re such a hypocrite for bringing up your friend’s mental health crisis as an excuse for your racialized misogyny when you literally used my mental illnesses to derail & attack me & dropped 2 instances of potentially triggering shit as gotchas & never took into account how this all could impact MY mental health.

rose also sent me a long ass screed abt how i’m rigid & narrow-minded & crazy & paranoid & lied abt how i’m guilting her abt not being an activist which i explained multiple times i wasn’t. she blocked before i could respond. so not just you but your clique sure seem to love throwing tantrums abt how your feelings equal the ultimate truth & how dare some bitch try to think critically abt institutional oppression & process her thoughts on her private twitter & be, god forbid, socially conscious. who does that chink think she is, am i right? why isn’t she just a doormat & shut up? why is she making us UNCOMFORTABLE?!?!?!! like maybe ask yourselves why you take it so personally & you all don’t like it when i talk abt sj & activism. rly look inside yourself for why that is.

& as soon as you’re all done with your ravings, which are full of lies & deliberate misinterpretations of what i said & massive projection & anti-intellectualism & manipulation & guilt-tripping, you all block so you don’t have to face the consequences or have to hear me out. that’s so fucking spineless & cowardly. & that’s so loaded since you all prevented me from saying anymore on racism. that’s just classic white fragility & a fear of outspoken, critical woc making you uncomfortable abt race. oh, also shout out to runa who acted “impartial” but did effectively the same thing as you. she acted concerned abt my mental health so she could convince me i’m crazy & get me to shut up abt institutional oppression & racism & instead focus on “fun things” (i.e. non-political, safe topics so she could feel comfortable). i feel esp disappointed in her bc that kind of wishy washy behavior is extremely irritating & patronizing & two-faced to me. i hated her acting like she was worried abt me when she was effectively doing the same thing as you, silencing me & making me feel crazy which means everything i say is wrong.

really try to reflect why you all thought it was threatening when i tried to facilitate a productive dialogue, i did try to be level-headed & open-minded, emphasized that i just want to understand your pov, researched on my own for your claims, & processed my thoughts on institutional oppression & my experiences as a lesbian woc who’s also ace. i tried to open up a dialogue but you refused & threw a hissy fit bc i dared to not join your echo chamber & tried looking at actual data instead of just believing that you’re automatically right w no proof which is esp loaded in this situation bc you’re white. sjc also pulled this on me too so yes i am angry you also did the same. you all treated me in such bad fucking faith & pulled such fucking passive aggressive, manipulative, cowardly, idiotic bullshit.

god, you know what? your behavior in this indicated a huge sense of white entitlement & a problem w black & white thinking & accompanying self-righteousness. i try so hard to be nuanced & compassionate & flexible & see from your pov & i clearly stated i wanted a dialogue.. what did i get in return for it? not even the bare minimum. you treated me like fucking shit & never gave me even a tiny bit of effort or consideration. that’s racialized misogyny. how fucking dare you give me this fucking insipid half-assed fake apology. you didn’t even fucking try to think abt how you actually hurt me. all i’m getting here is you attempting to assuage a vague sense of guilt FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. not even attempting to think abt how i’m an actual real human being w my own emotions, thoughts, & will. how fucking selfish can you get. not the first fucking time white ppl wanted me just be a doormat, to be their submissive smiling oriental doll only there to validate their stupid, self-centered asses & not the first time their apology was abysmal. actually, you know what, i don’t even know why i even bothered writing all this fucking shit trying to explain myself & wasting my time on you again when you’ve never tried to do anything for me, not even make a fucking decent apology.

in conclusion, this was all v obviously steeped in racism & white entitlement/fragility all in an attempt to silence me bc how fucking dare some woc bring up social justice issues in a way that’s not catered to you. you’ve all shown your asses & clearly demonstrated ableism & racialized misogyny. i’m profoundly disappointed in all of you & you’ve all hurt me so much. i’m blocking you now bc you’ve proven yourself to be a lost cause.

#corrective rape tw #rape tw #ableism tw #the-final-resplendent-pam #the final resplendent pam #askbox #uig.y.eon #abuse mention

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sinrau · 4 years ago

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Photo by John Moore

I’m sorry. I’ve tried, but I can’t help it. I have a bad feeling about the upcoming election. A very bad feeling. I’ve tried to stifle it. Tried and tried. But it’s rising, like a failed harvest, by the day. Do you have that kind of feeling too? Or maybe you don’t at all. I can’t say.

Let me distill what this strange and terrible feeling — it feels like watching a sky turn black, or a horizon grow red — keeps whispering to me.

(I’m going to put the first two reasons in parentheses because you should skip them. They’re boring and we all know them. The first one is the most obvious: Trump’s trying to steal the election. And so far, he’s doing a pretty good job. The Postal Service has been captured, voting machines mysteriously, quietly shut down, and meanwhile, the Democrats have threatened to…hold hearings. He’s threatened to send armed troops into the streets on Election Day. Then there’s the fact that his side has an array of legal challenges lined up, which will cast doubt on whatever the results are, throwing politics into chaos. And the fact that he doesn’t plan to leave office peacefully at all. Need I go on? Suffice it to say that an aspiring authoritarian has a well-crafted plan to thwart a fair election — but the opposition, what little there is, doesn’t have a unified, careful, decisive plan to stop him.

Then there’s all the help that Trump is going to have stealing the election. You know what’s coming, and so do I. Everyone from the Kremlin to your local unfriendly billionaires are going to barrage Facebook with propaganda — and because there’s money to be made, Zuck is going to grin like a dork, and look the other way.)

But those are only the least urgent, most superficial things my bad feeling whispers at me, to tell you the truth. The economist in me and the survivor of authoritarianism in me — they’re whispering truer truths to me right about now, ones I can’t ignore, I can’t deny, things I don’t want to say or admit or even think much about — but have to anyways.

Here’s the first one.

America’s up against not just Trump and his cronies — but against the tides of history itself. And history is a mighty, mighty force, like a great river. The few who’ve swum across its tides and lived to tell the tale? Well, they barely exist. Let me explain what I mean by that.

There’s one single force that foretells the rise of authoritarian-fascism in a nation: fresh, growing poverty, which breeds discontentment, anger, and eventually, hate. That hate is channeled by demagogues, targeted at long-hated minorities, who are blamed for all a society’s ills — which, in truth, they have nothing to do with.

It’s an old, old story, as old as time. Weimar Germany became Nazi Germany by way of Hitler, who blamed the Jews. A once vibrant and liberal Muslim world became a fanatical hotbed of extremism, by way of mullahs, who blame everyone from women to gays to “heretics.” Even Athens, the birthplace of democracy itself, fell prey to this vicious cycle, and fell to the Thirty Tyrants, as poverty and insecurity grew.

The latest example of poverty and despair igniting fascist-authoritarian collapse? America. Let me outline how grave the situation is. Just a quarter of working age Americans now have what would be considered decent jobs in any other nation. Another 25% work go-nowhere McJobs, what economists politely call “ low-income service jobs,” jobs with no benefits, protections, upward mobility, raises, security, on which you can’t support a family. And the remaining 50% are either unemployed, underemployed, or “discouraged,” meaning they’ve given up entirely.

Let me say it again. Just 25% of working age Americans have decent jobs. Everyone else is trying to eke out a living. And mostly, they’re failing. That’s why suicide and depression are skyrocketing. It’s why millennials can’t afford to start families, and are so traumatized they barely have sex. It’s why the birthrate is plummeting. How the middle class became a minority, and the dream died with it. Why 80% of American households live paycheck to paycheck, 75% struggle to pay basic bills, and 70% can’t raise a few hundred dollars for an emergency.

This is one great tide of history. One almost inescapable mechanism of cause and effect. The impoverishment of a society leads almost always to authoritarian collapse.

Now, most people — especially Americans — think that’s the other way around. They think authoritarianism breeds poverty. That’s exactly backwards. Authoritarianism doesn’t make people poor so much as people being poor breeds authoritarianism first. You only have to look at history to understand that. Why did peasants and serfs submit to being under the thumbs of kings and nobles, who were mostly violent, idiotic men with swords and guns? Because they were too poor to ever muster the resources to do anything about it. They were exhausted, drained, uneducated, illiterate, broken in the mind, spirit, heart. That’s why it took human civilization millennia to ever really develop beyond the age of empire.

The impoverishment of a society almost always leads to authoritarian collapse. Weimar Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Islam in the late 20th century — I could go on forever. The examples of societies who have resisted this tide of history are so few and far between that they’re almost nonexistent.

What tends to happen is the precise opposite: societies have to become achingly, grindingly poor, reach a point of total catastrophe and ruin — before they wake up, come to their senses, and finally change. That’s Europe’s story. Only after World War II — the absolute devastation of it — did it become the place that’s synonymous with modernity and civilization today. Mere upheaval, as in World War I — even that wasn’t enough. Almost nobody escapes this tide of history. Nobody, in fact, that I can think of at all.

That means that America would have to be something truly, well, exceptional, to brook the tide of impoverishment breeding authoritarianism. Is that really the case? I imagine we’ll find out. But like I said, I have a bad feeling. History tells me that this challenge is much, much greater than most Americans think it is.

That brings me to the second reason I have a bad feeling, which is, well…Americans.

For Trump to really lose this election — not even by a landslide, just to lose it by a slender margin — three groups need to vote against him like they mean it. Young people, minorities, and those now notorious suburban housewives, by which we mean “downwardly mobile white women.”

I hate to have to say it, but I see absolutely no evidence yet that such a thing is happening. We need some kind of tidal wave of feelings rising from these groups, and I don’t feel it at the magnitude that we need it.

Young people, it seems to me, are just as tuned out and apathetic as they’ve been for a decade or more now. I don’t blame them. Joe Biden isn’t exactly a millennial or gen Z heartthrob, and neither is Kamala Harris. What I mean by that is that young Americans lean left — because they understand viscerally that they lived in a failed capitalist society, that capitalism has failed them the way communism failed Soviets. To Americans pundits, their young are “far” left — but they’re not, they’re mostly just minor-league social democrats in global terms.

But that perspective isn’t represented at all in the Democratic Presidential and VP choices. You couldn’t have more sober and boring neoliberals than Biden and Harris at all, really. And even though Biden’s a good dude, like Kamala, he’s not exactly a revolutionary, or even a reformist. He’s just…the establishment, all over again. “Better than Trump!” you cry. Definitely. Without a doubt. But young people aren’t exactly whooping with excitement — and that’s the point.

The same is true for minorities. Sure, if all you read is the New York Times, you’d think Kamala Harris was the second coming of MLK. But if you actually talk to minorities, you’ll hear a more rounded, skeptical point of view. It goes something like this. Kamala had to act like a white dude to ascend to power — and what’s the point of that? It obviates being a minority in the first place. If you have to act like them to gain power…then you’ve become them…and nothing changes. Different actor, same game.

Now, if all you listen to is pundits, you’ll never quite hear that perspective. But I think it’s a little insulting to think minorities are, well, so dumb that they’ll vote for someone just because they’re one of their own, according to skin color. I’m brown — should I vote for Kamala just because she’s half brown? Come on now, that’s mildly offensive, not to mention hilariously illogical. The point of view about minorities being presented by American punditry — most of which is white, remember — is way, way too simplistic to accord with lived reality. But what else is new? The point is this: just as young people are apathetic, minorities are skeptical and wary, too.

That brings me to the third critical constituency: soccer moms. Listen, I love soccer moms. No, not that way. I mean something more like I basically am a soccer mom, if a brown dude can be one. Hey, I get to choose my own pronouns now, right? I take my puppy to the park and hang out with all the other moms.

Recent history has shown us something funny, dismal, and surreal. Who decided the vote for Trump? All those nice white ladies. Who said they’d never vote for Trump? You guessed it. Who ignored Trump’s horrific history of misogyny, as in ‘grab ’em by the pssy’? Who had some kind of weird, deep hatred for Hillary, and chose Donald Trump over her? All those nice, polite soccer moms.*

White dudes — much maligned — ended up, in the last election, being a little more honest. They’ll tell you the batshit crazy stuff Americans believe to your face. “Nobody should have healthcare!!” “Wait, Bob, not even…your kids?” “No! They have to learn to stand on their two feet!!” “But what if they get — ” “Hey, only the strong survive, brochacho!! There’s no room for the weak around here!!” So white dudes we have a reasonably good read on: most of them, as in the majority, are fairly terrible people (sorry, white dudes), who, despite living in the 21st century, believe that nobody in society deserves any form of basic human rights, except maybe guns and beer and possibly obligatory sex from women. That’s a fact, by the way, even though I’ve put it in a funny way: Trump leads among white dudes by close to ten points.

So what if white women feel the same way — but just won’t admit it? That’s exactly what happened in 2016. The secret hate vote emerged, as in, the polls were wrong, because lots of people who said “Oh my God! I’d never vote for that hateful bigot”…turned around and…did. And most of those people — the secret hate voters — were women. The much maligned downwardly mobile American white lady. Soccer moms. If white ladies feel the same way white dudes do — and just won’t admit it, like last time — then…bang!!…Trump wins all over again. Even if just half of them do, he wins. He doesn’t even have to contest the results. He just…wins.

Now. How much do you trust the white suburban moms of America? Like I said, I’m a fan of soccer moms. But do I trust them? That’s a very different question. I only have history to guide me. And history, like I said, tells us that American soccer moms may very well repeat what they did in 2016. Everyone makes mistakes. People grow and learn. But it’s also true that people don’t change, that they stay the same in deep ways, that growth and maturity are hard-won are rare and precious.

I have a bad feeling about all that. I think the soccer moms of America might just turn out to do an about-face in the voting booth, like last time, and put Trump right back into office. Adding fuel to that fire in my mind is the question of whether they’ll really vote for Harris. Half black, half brown, the embodiment of everything that the downwardly white American lady, possibly secretly embittered and resentful…hated…just four short years ago. Is that much growth and maturity in so short a time really possible?

So now you know why. Why I have a bad feeling about this election. America, standing against the great tides of history, trying to swim upstream — a poor country now, trying to undo authoritarianism. How many have managed that? Very, very few. Young people, who seem as alienated as ever — with good reason. Minorities, whose views aren’t being examined or even thought about very carefully at all. And the vexing possibility of the betrayal by the white lady, or even just the American lady who wants to be more white. The one who secretly decided the election for a misogynist, a bigot, a crook, a man so brutish and violent he’s the very embodiment of patriarchy. Do people change that much in four short years?

History says no, my friends, to all these things. It say America can’t swim upstream now. Look how feeble it is, a wounded thing. It says young people won’t vote much for a candidate and his pick who don’t represent their preferences much at all. That minorities aren’t as simple as majorities make them out to be, and pandering to them rarely works well. And that people don’t change nearly so fast as circumstance needs them to, that wisdom comes slower than opportunity, which is the true source of all human grief.

Maybe the truest and darkest truth of them all about time, people, and dust, is the only one left worth believing in, I think to myself sometimes. It took Europe becoming ruins, mass grave, flames, bones — before it grew up, into gentleness, and rebuilt itself as the paragon of civilization and modernity. The growth of our capacity to love comes to us only through seeing what might have been turn to ashes. To mature, to expand in grace, beauty, truth, goodness, first we must fall down.

Umair

August 2020

I Have a Bad Feeling About This Election

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tinymixtapes · 7 years ago

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Live Blog: Riot Fest 2017

Riot Fest 2017 Douglas Park; Chicago, IL [September 15-17] by Joe Hemmerling on 09-27-2017 Looking back a year on from my Riot Fest 2016 coverage, I can marvel at my own naivety. Languishing in the jaws of the presidential election cycle, I (and many like me) thought this was as bad as it could get. Trump’s ascent to the top of his party — fueled by a complex cocktail of white nationalism, working-class rage, misogyny, and partisan inertia — had exposed some hard truths about this country that many of us didn’t want to face, but we were coming up on the finish line. November wasn’t too far around the corner, and when the dust settled, we were confident that we’d have a president who, while not universally beloved (even among her own constituents), would at least restore a semblance of sanity to federal politics. But we all know how that turned out. This year’s festival roster responded to the direness of our present political situation in a variety of ways. Ministry’s Al Jourgensen answered with fury and exhortations to violent resistance, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz and Pedro Erazo with calls for unity among people of good will — hell, even the happy-go-lucky Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz let slip the nihilistic observation that his privileges are paid for by the murders of people all over the world. The enormity of Trump’s presidency threatens to make punk rock’s defiant posturing look hollow and inconsequential. Yet it was a challenge many of the performers were willing to meet head on, even if some of the boldest, most transgressive, and genuinely punk performances of the Fest came from outside the white male-dominated sphere of punk rock. But before we get too far into that, let’s take care of some administrative items: * Despite last year being the biggest yet for the festival, Riot Fest scaled back for 2017, cutting out its Denver fest and paring back its lineup to 91 acts. This may, in part, be due to recent death of fest founder, Sean McKeough (May he riot in peace). * While I feel for Denver missing out, the smaller lineup was a boon. Bands got longer sets, and it made it easier and more worthwhile to cut out in the middle of a set if there were overlapping acts you wanted to watch. * This being our third year attending the festival (“our” being my wife and I), we tried to take in a little more of the nonmusical aspects, getting some yummy street tacos from Tica’s and witnessing the death-defying high wire acrobatics of Circus Una. * Security was friendly, but, like, maybe too friendly. The guards felt around my wife’s bust for that switchblade and set of brass knuckles she stores in her bra (lucky for us she stowed them back in the glove compartment). But, honestly, they could have strip-searched me and put three fingers up my asshole because (most importantly)… * FREE BEER WAS BACK IN THE PRESS TENT. The courteous festival staff kept the wheels of journalism thoroughly lubricated with all the Dos Equis and Heineken we could get down our gullets. --- The Essentials Saul Williams (Photo: Amanda Athon) Genre-bending rapper and father of slam poetry, Saul Williams began his set Friday with an improvised spoken word rendition of “Coded Language,” all those lengthy clauses beginning with and punctuated by the legalistic conjunction “whereas,” culminating in a litany of radicals, artists, and martyrs. But while the framework of his jeremiad was familiar, its contents were targeted specifically at us. “A riot is not a festival,” he chided. “A riot is a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd.” And to drive his point home further: “Your punk rock isn’t that punk rock if it doesn’t make fascists explode.” It took a moment for me to realize that the stage behind him was bare of equipment and that no band would be joining him. This drew hostility from some in the crowd, at least one member of which repeatedly shouted, “We came to hear music!” as he trudged off in the direction of the main stages. Williams was undaunted, taking aim at targets as large as the Catholic Church and Silicon Valley and as small as the Trump-supporting members of his audience. He attacked the gender binary, the digital revolution, and the sharing economy using the “Hack into…” lyrical framework of “Colton as Cotton,” before launching into an a capella rendition of “Black Stacey.” It was probably the gutsiest performance I’ve seen in my life, standing on that stage all alone and putting to lie the late capitalist notion that we can spend our way to a revolution, to call each member of the audience to account for their part in the oppressive structures that weigh us all down (albeit not equally). Unlike the Prophets Of Rage, who on Sunday asked their audience if they were ready to have a good time, Williams was there to educate, not to entertain. Next to him, even the most radical declarations of resistance seemed like kids’ stuff. Cute Riot Fest audience members (Photo: Amanda Athon) Friday’s other highlight was industrial metal pioneers Ministry. Uncle Al was eager to tell his audience how happy he was to be home, joking, “You all know I’m from here. Some of you have probably ripped me off on cab fare.” They played a relentless, career-spanning set, including a brand new song from their forthcoming album, “Antifa,” celebrating the anarchist resistance network. Watching masked dancers parade around the stage waving red and black flags filled me with a curious sense of unease. The uncritical acceptance of vigilante justice that I see coming from certain corners of the left is alarming for a variety of reasons that I don’t have the space for here, but suffice to say that I personally regard Antifa’s rise to prominence as, at best, a risky development for political discourse in America. Jourgenson’s embrace of the controversial group is hardly surprising, given his outspoken leftwing politics and heavy metal’s enshrinement of ideological, as well as sonic, extremity. In fact, a Ministry show seems like exactly the place where buttoned-up lefties can crow over fascists chowing down on a knuckle sandwich. I guess I just never thought we’d reach a point where the kinds of things that get shouted out at a heavy metal concert were being considered as a blueprint for political strategy. My political hand-wringing aside, Ministry was on fire. Jorgenson’s voice is as caustic as ever, and his band remains a finely honed engine of destruction. In lieu of footage from the stage, the band fed surreal psychedelic imagery into the screens: distorted pictures of nude women bleeding into news coverage, music video footage, and internet memes. They ripped through mid- and late-career highlights like “Senor Peligro” and “Bad Blood,” but aside from opening their set with “Psalm 69,” they saved most of their classics for a whirlwind four-song finale of “N.W.O.,” “Just One Fix,” “Thieves,” and “So What.” Peaches (Photo: Amanda Athon) If Saul and Al had to split ownership of Friday between them, Saturday belonged entirely to Peaches. The Canadian provocateur delivered a riotous and confrontational set of explicit sexuality and gender-fuckery. She opened with her ode to female ejaculation, “Rub,” wearing an absurdly bulky pink fur-suit and anatomically detailed vagina hat. During her second song “Vaginaplasty,” her backup dancers sauntered out in enormous vaginal headgear, while the artist herself stripped down to a flesh-colored leotard to which giant purple nipples and a fuzzy pink merkin had been affixed. By her third song, she was over the photo-pit rail and into the audience, and by the end of the fourth, her leotard was down around her waist. There were no fucks given. When Peaches needed to switch costumes, she turned her back and stepped out of whatever she was wearing right in front of the audience. Her dancers shed more and more clothing as the show went on, until by the end they were topless in a latticework of fetish-gear and undulating against the singer in simulated sex acts. Peaches performed a good chunk of the time in nothing but her skivvies and flesh-colored nipple-covers. It was, by turns, hilarious, titillating, and unnerving (like, should we be seeing this? Is this LEGAL?). Despite the lack of explicit political commentary, Peaches’ defiant ribaldry felt like an act of resistance, an expression of female power and self-determination. And it was some of the most fun I had the whole weekend. High-Wire acrobats (Photo: Amanda Athon) Still, despite the stiff competition, my absolute favorite set of the fest belongs to Chicago’s own Cap’n Jazz. This marks the seminal Midwestern emo group’s second reunion since their dissolution in 1995. Reunions as a whole tend to reek of cash-grabbery, and usually they don’t improve in quality upon repetition, but Sunday’s performance was as pure and unique a concert-going experience as I’ve ever been part of. Frontman Tim Kinsella may have crossed the threshold into his forties, but he remains a childlike presence, hurling his body across the stage, turning sloppy backwards somersaults, and generally jackassing around with the audience. His ebullience was infectious and his seeming disregard for his own safety and the integrity of the performance created an electric tension. Kinsella made a game between songs of requesting the return of a tambourine that he’d tossed out into the audience, and then throwing it immediately back into the crowd. During their cover of “Take on Me,” he hurled his mic over the photopit rail, but somehow managed to recover it just in time for the big final chorus, just like he miraculously recovered his sunglasses, lost early on in a crowd-surfing excursion. His bandmates played the grownups, with drummer Mike occasionally bristling over his brother’s showboating. They kept the grooves going when Tim’s shenanigans came between him and his singing duties, like during closer “Que Suerte!” when Tim stuffed the mic down his pants, threaded it through the bottom of his jeans, only to stick it back down once more and thread it down the other leg (he needed help from the security team to get it out his second pant leg). But if all of this sounds like the music took a backseat to the antics, you can put that right out of your head. The band was in peak form, hitting all the lurching starts and stops, tempo and signature shifts like clockwork, and all the while, they looked like they were having the time of their lives. Third Kinsella brother and American Football alum Nate stood in for Davey von Bohlen on guitar and brought a fan’s enthusiasm to the proceedings. Their set covered almost everything from their sole album Burritos, Inspiration Point… aside from “Bluegrassish,” “Flashpoint: Catheter,” and “Precious,” and they filled the rest of the set out with favorites like “Ooh I Do Love You” and “Forget Who Are.” --- Let-downs Bad Brains (Photo: Amanda Athon) This is uncomfortable for me to say, so I’m just going to blurt it out. X and Bad Brains were pretty boring live. I know. I KNOW. These guys are legends. They’ve been doing this for four decades now. They have nothing to prove. They’re up there in the years, and at least in H.R.’s case have health concerns. Not everyone can be Iggy Pop, who’s pushing a thousand and still writhing around on the floor like a teenager. They still sounded great, but there wasn’t a lot of energy in their sets. Saturday night’s penultimate act At the Drive-In had the opposite problem. Cedric Bixler-Zavala still tosses the mic around and launches himself off the drumkit with no apparent care about whether he’ll come down on his feet, but the volume they were playing at really muddied their sound and overwhelmed Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s precise guitarwork. It was still enjoyable to hear my favorite cuts off Relationship of Command, from which their set drew heavily, but years of being baited by ATDI’s reputation as a live band set my expectations at a level they couldn’t quite reach. Plus, no “Transatlantic Foe”? Come on, guys… --- Honorable Mentions Liars (Photo: Amanda Athon) I’ve drifted away from Liars’ recorded output over the years, but there’s no question these guys can still bring it live. Angus Andrew stalked onto the stage in a white wedding dress, his long lace veil billowing in the wind. Standing before a small podium, he fiddled with dials that hellishly distorted his vocals during the bouncier electronic numbers like “Mess on a Mission” and “House Clouds,” as well as on more harrowing fare like “Scarecrow on a Killer Slant.” The Buzzcocks made a good showing for old-head punk rock. Their hit-laden set (anyone with a copy of Singles Going Steady could do a reasonable job keeping score at home) was brisk and tuneful, and their chemistry forty-plus years in the making shined through at every turn, particularly on spacier numbers like “Why Can’t I Touch It?” Finally Nine Inch Nails brought Friday to a close with a riveting headlining performance. The fog-machines were going into overdrive throughout the set, such that the stage was constantly cloaked in billowing smoke like the steaming maw of hell. Reznor was intense, if a little aloof as he careened throughout his discography, lightly dusting his set with hits like “The Hand that Feeds,” “Closer,” and “Head Like a Hole.” Buzzcocks (Photo: Amanda Athon) Gogol Bordello (Photo: Amanda Athon) Gogol Bordello brought their brand of feel-good bedlam to the fest on Saturday and convinced me that I need to revisit Transcontinental Hustle. I was left pretty cold by the album when it came out back in 2010, but goddamn if every cut they played off it didn’t bring the house down, particularly “We Comin’ Rougher (Immigraniada),” which has taken on a pointed significance in the era of Trump. Following Dinosaur Jr.’s sublime album playthrough of You’re Living All Over Me, I crashed the angry party that Prophets Of Rage were throwing on Sunday night long enough to hear them drop a pair of RATM covers (“Testify” and “Take the Power Back”) amid some original songs from their hot-off-the-presses eponymous debut. But it was the siren song of M.I.A. that ultimately seduced me. The British emcee was in fine form, if surprisingly mute on politics. She knocked out hit after hit for her eager crowd, while a mesmerizing light show engulfed the stage. At the risk of losing all my punk cred, after that kind of spectacle, Jawbreaker just couldn’t hold my interest. Beyond one or two songs of Dear You, I’d never quite managed to find my way into them, but the die-hards in the front row seemed to be getting everything they wanted out of them, so that’s all that matters, right? --- And that, in a nutshell, was Riot Fest 2017. There’s a ton I missed out on, including Shabazz Palaces, Wu Tang Clan performing 36 Chambers, Built to Spill’s play-through of Keep It Like a Secret, and festival mainstays Gwar and Andrew W.K., but some of the sets I was able to take in this year numbered among the most powerful and exhilarating festival experiences I’ve ever witnessed. As the situation in the outside world grows more dire, we continue to look to art for solace, and there was plenty of that to be found. But the bravest artists offered something we needed more: a kick in the ass to get back out there and try to change something, however small and however futile that might appear. http://j.mp/2fSiPUP

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