#causal racism
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You're going to regret being mean to me when I get super powerful and cool, Minthara D< Just watch me romance Astarion again and know that it could have been you if you hadn't called me an abomination.
… and yes, obviously I'm romancing her in another playthrough with an evil drow. As if I wouldn't be batting my eyelashes at a mean drow woman.
We've got a support system for drow lovers over at Patreon, society6, and redbubble. It's... mostly talking about how much we love drow though.
#champions and heroes#baldur's gate 3#Baldur's Gate#Minthara Baenre#Durge#Dark Urge#drow#the joys of playing a half-drow#all the causal racism and none of the fear#unfortunately it dies out after act 1#I would like to request more please and thank you#I picked this option for a reason#well two reasons I suppose#it was mostly because of the face#seeing how faces are for some ungodly reason limited to races#but after that it was definitely to have everyone side-eye my poor character wherever he went#it's ok he's not on a path of redemption#he deserves much worse
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the animal face challenge bringing out the causal racism in simmers 😭😭😭😭
#i feel bad for the creator cause like…why y’all not normal 😭#i ain’t never seen this many sims with vitiligo in my life before in a short amount of time#i literally saw someone but a black sim in a dog chain#put*#and now someone said y’all making east asians as snakes??!#what’s wrong with y’all like fr!!!!!#‘im not racist’ but then engage in stereotypical racism in a way that’s so causal it’s scary almost#use your brains or take a trip to google before y’all post anymore weird racist animals sims PLEASE#🪐 speaking
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Ok I’m so glad I’m not crazy
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youtube
Episode 3: Kendi v. Data.
Ibram X. Kendi: I think it’s critically important for us to stand on the anti-racist position that if there’s a racial disparity that’s shown via racial data, then there must be something wrong with policy as opposed to people. So then our job, when the data shows that disparity, is to figure out what policies are causing this disparity.
That statement by Kendi is absurd on its face. The moment you start to think about it, it just starts to fall apart. The vast majority of the people that police arrest, put in jail, and put to prison for violence are male. Does it automatically mean they're sexist against men? The average Asian-American income is higher than the average white American income. Does that mean we're racist against whites and this system is designed in such a way to help Asian Americans? The top educated demographic in the United States are Nigerian immigrants. Does that mean that the United States is geared towards helping Nigerian immigrants? So the whole thing is absurd on its face.
What you have to do when you see a discrepancy in the data is you have to control for the different reasons why that discrepancy might be there. That is, if what you're interested in is actually the truth, which should be what you're interested in if you're actually thinking about solving it. I don't think Kendi or people like that have any interest in solving anything, which is why the truth isn't that important. But if the truth is important to you, then when somebody says, "this particular correlation equals causation," well then we have to start controlling for all the other things that could be if we want to find out what's true and what's not true.
It reminds me very much of the creationist argument for how the world was created. Any time there was no definitive evolutionary answer for why something existed, or even if there was a good answer but it wasn't well known, people say, "Well, therefore, must be God." The God of the Gaps argument. And that's exactly what he's doing here. He's saying, any discrepancy in the data therefore must equal racism. If you're interested in the truth, then you can't accept that answer. It might be racism, absolutely. But the only way to find out if it's racism is to control for the other things that it could be. That's just basic logic and common sense.
Every citizen who's listening to this that has any kind of education at all should know that. And that alone should be enough to tell you that these people aren't sincere.
==
"When I see racial disparities, I see racism." -- Ibram X. Kendi
It's notable that when pressed about this single cause, he retorted:
"Either there is something wrong with our policies, or there is something wrong with black boys (or black people). Either the United States is riddled with racist policies or inferior black boys."
Either you agree with him that the US is irredeemably racist, or you think black people, and black boys in particular, are "inferior." This level of manipulation is the full breadth of his limited thought process. He's not a thinker, and he's not sincere about solving problems.
This "racism of the gaps" is what they refer to as "systemic racism." Take the preferred outcome and divide it by the current outcome. The distance in between, without controlling for anything, is presupposed to be bigotry. (The same method is used to calculate the mythical "pay gap".)
Unexpected results deserve investigation. When people observed light split while passing through a prism, they went "woah," and wanted to find out why. There are people who actually want to do that sort of thing. Not only does Kendi not want to do that, he doesn't want anyone else doing it either. He doesn't want to understand the problem, because he doesn't want it fixed.
We have no more reason to accept "systemic racism" from intellectual frauds like Kendi than we do to accept "systemic divinity" as an explanation for the existence of the universe.
If you accept one but not the other, then you're being inconsistent with how you decide what is true. An argument from ignorance is no more legitimate when it comes from a Kendi than it is coming from a Ken Ham or a Zakir Naik.
#Matt Thornton#god of the gaps#causal reductionism#racism of the gaps#systemic racism#wokeness as religion#woke#cult of woke#wokeness#wokeism#intellectual fraud#Ibram X Kendi#Henry Rogers#Kendi is a racist#antiracism#antiracism as religion#neoracism#religion is a mental illness
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so uhh idk a lot about the flash but @taters-for-tots was curious about this image of the flash yesterday and since I have DC universe infinite, I thought I'd check it out and oh my god
goddamn incredible summary. I almost stopped here but I am so glad I didn't because
the way it's posed like a sitcom ajdkducidjsnf I can't
they really said "this is a comic book published in 1970 and by god will our depiction of other countries reflect that." fuckin. wild. after this I really couldn't take any of the plot seriously so I closed the book and saw this under "in this series"
these were the two issues before. i am 90% sure that this author just enjoyed making the flash a pathetic wet cat of a man and I think that's goddamn hilarious
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alonso continuing to find a way to disrespect lewis in every single interview at his life alert age is why i have never and will never be one of the “they still have respect for each other” person bc the truth is lewis will continue to advocate for himself while continuing to respect everyone else while drivers and ppl like alonso are still bitter about the career and success he’s had continue to target and belittle him in the name of “friendly competition” when it’s very clearly rooted in racism and jealousy yet some of you eat it up
#some of you are forgetting the way he drew a monkey to represent lewis#the causal racism continues to be excused by some of you#lewis hamilton my beloved#this sport doesn’t deserve you
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I know I shouldn’t read internet comments period, let alone internet comments on a Fox News article, and at the very uppermost echelons of bad internet comment reading choices is reading internet comments on a Fox News article about the death of Tyre Nichols, and yet I did that too, and now I’m furious.
Nothing is fucking enough for these fucking motherfuckers. The comments are fucking FULL of, “Well, the cops took it too far, but he should have complied.” HE WAS ON THE GROUND WITH HIS HANDS BEHIND HIS BACK WHILE OFFICERS SCREAMED AT HIM TO GIVE HIM HIS HANDS WHICH THEY ALREADY HAD CONTROL OF AND THREATENED TO BREAK HIM IF HE DIDN’T GIVE THEM HIS HANDS. THE SAME HANDS THEY ALREADY HAD HOLD OF. He only struggles and breaks away and starts running AFTER he’s lying on the ground with multiple cops on him, clearly not posing a threat, and they’re STILL threatening violence against him. I don’t fucking blame him. He read the room on that one and tried to get the fuck out.
And then they chased him down and took turns kicking him in the head while he was on the ground screaming for his mother. If you can justify that with your bullshit, ‘Well ACHSUALLY if he had just complied, he would have gone home to his 4-year-old daughter’ then you are doing nothing less than sanctioning state-funded cold-blooded murder of private citizens. For traffic violations.
#what the ungodly FUCK#i didn't watch all of the footage#because i didn't want to see a men beaten to death on camera#but i watched enough#this isn't open to interpretation#the body cam footage clearly shows him on the ground#after being pulled out of his car at gunpoint#which is already an insane escalation#then thrown on the ground with his arms yanked behind him#at which point they start screaming 'give me your hands or i'll fucking breaking you'#WHILE HE'S LYING THERE#and at that point he's still speaking in a fairly calm voice and seems to be trying to deescalate#he starts to struggle after they're still threatening violence against him and then breaks away and runs#which why the fuck wouldn't you??#several men drag me out of my car at gunpoint and throw me on the ground and scream at me that they're going to break my arms#when they've already got hold of my arms#i'm getting the fuck out too#they were out to hurt him#also the causal racism in these comments#'he didn't comply with officers because he's part of the well known low IQ race'#my god why did i read this#i'm seething#anyway kids learn from me#your blood pressure will thank you#do not read fox news article comments#we're going over to my parents' in a couple of hours for lunch#if anyone brings this up and has a dumb take on it i will physically fight them#it's a birthday lunch for me so i have that right
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watching Smallville s2e10: this was allowed on air???
#THE TITLE???? THE CAUSAL RACISM??? DID SHE DIE OF ///GLASS///????#ENDING IT WITH LEARNING ABT WITNEY OF ALL PEOPLE ????#WHAT THE FUCK#smallville#.... thats not how you spell whitney
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hubs: when you think about it tokyo drift is really just emily in paris for car enthusiasts and dudes
me:
#*through gritted teeth* DON'T RUIN THIS FOR ME#fucking men why would you ever choose to live with them i stg#its not wrong though#american expecting everyone to bend to their cultural sensibilities#constantly failing upwards#somehow everyone likes them when they're the most unlikable character in the movie#causal racism but its ok because its not being said by the white person (most of the time)#but HAN and CARS so all is forgiven#reiverwatches#fast and furious: tokyo drift
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Buddy, please use some kind of page break for scene changes, I'm begging you. I'm getting whiplash
#fanfiction#My own fault for unearthing old fic#Weird formatting and causal racism#Old fandom problems
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The fandom glorifies Arthur Morgan
Now I am not talking about about low honor, I play high honor and got it as the top at the end of every damn playthrough but my Arthur, as it is the cannon Arthur, is not a good guy. I am not going to talk about all of the murder, robbing and stuff he does, because we are majorly aware of it, I am talking his sexism, casual ignorance and disrespecfulness.
I quite often see people say that Arthur Morgan is a woman lover, and he definitely is, he is better than a lot of men from that time (which isn't hard), but he would not hold up in modern times, because he is not from modern times.
Generally speaking, Arthur Morgan is a man who believes in gender roles, he believes in the idea of "a man being a man" and "a woman being a woman." He has opinions about what a woman should do and what a man should do.
I think the biggest hint at this is his relationship with Sadie, because while he accepts her running with the boys he doesn't seem entirely happy about it. "You got a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" "You want to ruuuunnnn with the men?" and also "can Ms Grimshaw spare you?" when the girls asks if they can come to Valentine with him.
Talking of that quest, when he runs off to get Jimmy Brooks he puts Uncle, a lazy old bastard, in charge of getting the girls home even though they are more than capable of doing it themselves as they are healthy young women who knows how to handle horses.
In several antagonize lines against women performers (which are just as cannon as his greet lines) he shouts things like "That isn't very ladylike!" or "Go back to the kitchen" and "go make someone supper."
People keep saying Arthur would "treat them right" and he would, to an extent, he would care for you, he would be nice to you, but he would force those gender roles. He does have a belief women are somehow "softer" and that he as a person with a provider gene should do more of the harsh work.
So now we covered that, lets talk about the racism, or as I probably should rather call it, ignorance, because it is very commonly know Arthur does not judge by the color of skin.
The first one is that Arthur uses the whites-only saloon in Rhodes. Tilly mentions it to Arthur that they don't allow people of color into it, and yet he still supports it, it isn't a big thing but it is something of notice.
Secondly, when he talks to Eagle Flies where he "sets him in his place" Arthur, honey, you are so wrong here. Eagle Flies is being chased by the government for the mere fact that he exists with a different culture, you are being chased because you murdered so many folks, you can run across the sea and live a good life, they are fucked regardless.
When we first arrive in Lemoyne, Lenny and Arthur talks about the Lemoyne Raiders about racism and Arthur says "These boys got a manner about them but I haven't particularly noticed," Arthur of course you wouldn't, you are a tall, muscular, white man with sun kissed hair and blue eyes, you are the poster boy for eugenics.
Lastly, which will also bring me to the third point, the casual disrespect:
Arthur causally calling Javier a slur on the boat for no reason, did you really need that one-liner so badly? That goes for a lot of times in the game such as: "are you secretly normal" "what a lunatic" "we should find a better story for that scar" "But you continue to irritate me, I will kill you and make my appologies to the lady" "stick around and you might die for her as well" "oh I didn't know I was talking to a lady." All those were a slight bit disrespectful, enough to be able to annoy the majority of us if he said it to us, and they were also unnecessary.
He is also canonically chronically late, most notably we can hear Sean saying "that man will be late to his own funeral," and when you go around antagonizing characters in camp they are not surprised at all, rather they go "back at it again huh?"
All of this is just to sum up, Arthur is a pretty bad man (also counting in all the illegal stuff) and we tend to glorify him and forget some of these things, partly is also because Rockstar are amazing at hiding them, at making them seem natural, and they are because this is a historically accurate game! It is set in 1899 and this is a man from 1899 he is going to be casually sexist and disrespectful, and again, considering that he is from 1899 he is a decent guy because the majority of folk would be like Micah, not Arthur.
I definitely love Arthur, and I love Arthur exactly because the point of his character is him not being a saint but a human. His redemption is choosing to do good where he can, but even so, this is a man in 1899 and he is going to have a 1899 mindset. If you want to play a game that is set in the past but don't have that type of accuracy it is not Red Dead you want to play.
Also here is an Arthur pic as a thank you for reading all of that. I love him.
#rdr2#rdr2 community#red dead redemption 2#arthur morgan#rdr2 arthur#john marston#rdr john#red dead redemption community#dutch van der linde#rdr2 john#character analysis#red dead redemption two#red dead fandom#nthspecialll
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An Account of the Current OTW/AO3 Allegations
You may have seen talk flying around about drama going down with OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works) and AO3. There isn't a clear write-up of the situation on Tumblr, and since the allegations in this case are serious and OTW Board elections are coming up, I thought there should be a resource for people to get some basic understanding about the events.
This account is a burner, because the topics here are deeply charged, and I don't want to become a character in what's happening. I am not a member of or volunteer for OTW; I am not affiliated with End OTW Racism; I am not affiliated with Dreamwidth; I do not personally know any of the people involved in these events, or have personal knowledge of the events themselves. I am only compiling the publicly available events, allegations, and discussion into a convenient format for Tumblr. I will be heavily referencing the the similar compilation put together by Dreamwidth user Synonymous, but I am not Synonymous, nor do I know who they are. I am not, however, completely without bias; for one thing, I am writing this with the clear understanding that I believe OTW's treatment of its volunteers and policies on content moderation are both deeply troubling. If I did not believe that, I wouldn't have bothered writing this post.
This write-up includes events relating both to allegations about volunteer abuse and improper handling of CSEM moderation by the OTW, and to arguments made about the OTW's handling of racist conduct and about End OTW Racism's ties to the writer known as Stitch. I am including both of these threads because they are deeply related both causally and in the arguments of many of the people involved, and because volunteer abuse, CSEM, and racist harassment are all deeply serious problems.
This situation has not resolved, and therefore you can likely expect more to occur, probably relating to all of those topics. I have not yet decided whether I will continue updating this timeline, but it should at least give you a grounding in what's happening.
Heavy Content Warning for discussions of child sexual abuse material; abuse, harassment, and stalking; and interpersonal and systemic racism. All language in this write-up is non-graphic and high-level, but some links include more detailed descriptions.
The Events
June 24, 2020: In the wake of George Floyd's murder and in response to pressure from people including Black writer Stitch (of the blog Stitch Media Mix and Teen Vogue) and fan studies academic Dr. Rukmini Pande, the OTW makes a statement promising to review their policies and procedures and take steps to protect users from racist harassment. The specific promises they make are:
Giving creators more control over the comments on their works.
Improving collection searching and filtering.
Improving admin tools for responding to Policy & Abuse reports.
Reviewing the Terms of Service to potentially allow Policy & Abuse to respond to more kinds of reports.
Reassess the required Archive Warnings and consider adding more.
Continue working on user muting and blocking.
They also say that they are considering "reaching out to an external contractor or partnering with an advocacy group," i.e., a diversity consultant, to help with reforms.
August 8, 2021: As part of their July newsletter, the OTW announces that it is creating a new officer role in the organization to research options for diversity consultants.
May 7, 2022: The OTW makes a public statement on their website that an unknown attacker has sent CSAM (child sexual abuse material) to some of their volunteers' email addresses, that they are working with authorities to find the attacker, and that response times may be slower than usual, as they have "shut down a number of internal tools" in order to protect their volunteers and the investigation.
May 8, 2022: Dreamwidth cofounder and former head of LiveJournal Trust & Safety Denise (rahaeli on Twitter, synecdochic on Dreamwidth) posts a Twitter thread urging any current or former OTW/AO3 volunteer who has provided the organization with their real-life name ("wallet name") to contact their local police department and let them know that they are at an elevated risk of swatting. She also provides advice on disabling image auto-loading in emails and dealing with trauma and anxiety from being exposed to CSAM, and mentions that she has contacted AO3 to offer help.
June 16, 2022: As part of their April newsletter (delayed several months due to the CSAM attack), the OTW announces that a Diversity Consultant Research Officer has been appointed.
May 10, 2023: The Tumblr account end-otw-racism publishes its first post, End OTW Racism: A Call to Action. In it, the anonymous authors call on the OTW to implement the changes that they promised in 2020, especially:
Hiring a diversity consultant within the next 3-6 months.
Updating their harassment policies and protocols to address on-site and off-site coordinated harassment.
Creating a content policy for content that is abusive in a racist manner.
As part of their background establishing the problem of racist abuse and harassment in fandom, they link to several articles written by Stitch on their commentary blog, as well as a couple of posts from other fans. In their FAQs and other posts, the organizers of EOR clarify that they are not calling for the removal of any racist fic, but fic that is written specifically with the intention of perpetrating racist harassment or abuse. They also urge supporters not to berate or harass anyone for disagreeing with or failing to support their campaign.
May 17, 2023: An anonymous user asks about the End OTW Racism protest on the anon-meme Dreamwidth community Fail Fandom_Anon (FFA). As part of a tangent in that discussion, an anonymous former volunteer member of the OTW's Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) mentions that they handled CSEM (child sexual exploitation material) tickets as part of their work, and that the OTW did not provide sufficient resources or expertise in dealing with them either emotionally or logistically. They describe themselves as being traumatized, burned out, and overworked during their time in PAC. They also mention that there was an earlier CSAM attack, targeted only at PAC volunteers, prior to the one that the OTW announced; that they were the volunteer who handled reporting to law enforcement; that the PAC chairs urged Legal and the Board to prepare for more attacks, but that nothing was done; and that the OTW did not provide any mental health resources for volunteers after the CSAM attack. (Here is a link to the user's top-level comment; read down the thread for more.)
May 20, 2023: Dreamwidth user chestnut_pod posts an entry called Be More Democratic, Be More Autocratic, OTW. The thesis of their post is that the OTW fails to adequately respond to racism on AO3 because of structural problems within the organization that amplify biases and make change difficult to achieve, and that in order to address racism and other problems more effectively, the organization should create a clear and straightforward command structure. They also advocate for creating some paid roles within the organization. The comments of the post become a kind of referendum on OTW's organizational policies, and some former volunteers show up to say that chestnut_pod's description of the problems with the org's structure tally with their experience.
May 23, 2023:
An anonymous user links to chestnut_pod's post on FFA. In response, the same former OTW volunteer describes various details of how the Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) made decisions during her time there. (The description covers a lot of comments, so with one exception I'm linking to Synonymous's overview rather than the individual comments, but you can find all of them either through Synonymous's links or by reading down the FFA thread.) The upshot is that PAC often found it difficult to address racism, abuse, and harassment due to roadblocks and micromanagement from OTW's Legal Committee. In particular, the user mentions that they wanted to remove photo manipulations of real-life minors engaging in sex, as well as ambiguously-sourced explicit gifs from underage fics, and were told that they could not by Legal. (I have described the user's objections at as a high a level as possible, but the language used at the link is much more detailed and explicit.) A subsequent, current OTW volunteer says that since the first user left, the policy has changed to allow PAC to remove similar gifs.
Denise leaves a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post saying that the PAC policies described there run counter to industry best practices for Trust & Safety. In response to a commenter asking whether she could advise OTW, Denise says that she has offered several times, and only heard back from the organization once: after she posted her Twitter thread in response to the CSAM attacks, "at which point it immediately became extremely clear the person in question was more interested in protecting the external reputation of the organization than in listening to any advice I had to give and the only reason they'd contacted me was to pressure me to remove my Twitter thread."
In response to Denise's story, Dreamwidth user azarias reveals herself to be the anonymous former PAC volunteer on FFA. In a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post and FFA (bulk of the information in this comment, but see Synonymous's compilation or read up and down the thread for more), she relays the following story: On May 6, 2022, shortly after the CSAM attack, azarias was kicked out of the OTW volunteer Slack with no notice and no communication. When she realized several days later that this was not an organization-wide shut down, she emailed the OTW Board, Legal, and the PAC chairs asking about the situation, and whether she was a suspect in the attack. The chair of Legal, Betsy Rosenblatt, responded, apologizing for the lack of communication and saying that the shut-out was at Legal's request because they thought azarias' account may have been compromised, but she was not a suspect. On July 22, 2022, having heard nothing further from the OTW, azarias emailed again asking about reinstatement, and Betsy responded that they had just that day started that process. (EDIT: Azarias clarifies that her original stated date of July 22 was an error; she checked on her status July 4, and Betsy responded July 6.) All of azarias's accounts had been deleted, so she returned to the OTW with new accounts, and was informed by her PAC chairs that they were not consulted or informed about her suspension until it happened, were not told why she had been suspended, and were ordered not to speak to or about her during the suspension. Due to awkwardness, trauma, and burn-out, azarias quit volunteering soon after.
May 30, 2023:
On FFA, an anonymous OTW volunteer (not azarias) comments that the OTW Board has posted an update to Slack addressing azarias's story (though she is never named in the update). The update confirms that Legal made the decision to suspend azarias, and says that the Board was not consulted on or informed about the decision to either suspend or reinstate her. A statement from Legal is also attached. The statement does not in any way dispute azarias's timeline of events, and outwardly apologizes to her for the distressed caused, but it also contains several strong insinuations that the letter-writer believes that azarias was responsible for the CSAM attack.
In response to this letter, Denise posts a statement on Dreamwidth and Twitter recommending that any person currently volunteering for the OTW should resign for their own personal safety.
June 3, 2023: Azarias (now posting under her real account, which FFA allows people who are players in the events being discussed to do) comments on FFA that she has consulted a lawyer regarding Legal's insinuation, and has been advised that she doesn't have anything to worry about, legally. She explains some more of the details behind the situation, and discusses some of her guesses about the current situation at the OTW. (For clarification, the Heidi she's referring to is Heidi Tandy, a longtime member of OTW Legal. During the heights of Harry Potter fandom, Fandom Wank coined the term "Heidipology" to describe what they believed to be Heidi's pattern of making insincere, backhanded apologies.) In the comments, anonymous users discuss the fact that OTW's Legal team is made up entirely of IP lawyers, and not lawyers who have expertise in criminal law, nonprofit governance, or Trust & Safety. (Link goes to Synonymous's compilation.)
June 12, 2023: The OTW publishes a statement addressing the End OTW Racism protest. They thank the organizers for holding them accountable, list the steps they've already taken in addressing racism (mostly muting/blocking abilities and similar), and reiterate that they are working on hiring a diversity consultant and reviewing PAC policies. They also say they will improve transparency and communication.
In the comments, azarias (and several others) push the OTW for a retraction of Legal's letter. Azarias also pushes the OTW to make real progress on racist abuse, rather than paying it "lip service." Azarias reveals that she was the Board's original pick for the Diversity Consultant Research Officer, but dropped out. (Further comments later and earlier at FFA clarify that she dropped out due to the OTW's one name policy, which requires that all work that a volunteer does for the OTW be done under a single name; officers are required to serve under their wallet names, and azarias wanted to do her PAC work under her fandom name and not link that to her wallet name, and when OTW didn't let her, she resigned. Link to Synonymous's more thorough compilation of this story here.)
Also in the comments, several users respond to the OTW's statement by posting racist abuse and racial slurs. The OTW leaves the comments up for several days before finally screening them.
June 15, 2023: Denise posts a thread on Twitter, shortly after compiled on her Dreamwidth, laying out what she consider's the OTW's "absolute failure" at Trust & Safety. Among other things, she claims that:
Photomanips of minors in sexual situations, "however terrible or obvious the Photoshop job is, qualifies under the third definition of 'child pornography' as given in 18 USC §2256(8)(C)."
She believes that the OTW may not be in compliance with legal obligations to preserve information about reported CSEM, due to its policy of deleting author information about orphaned works.
In this post, Denise also elaborates on the story she told in the comments of chestnut_pod's post. She says that in May 2022, before the OTW made its statement about the CSAM attack, several volunteers reached out to her for advice, and she learned that the attack emails included threats to expose identifying volunteer information to, among other places, Kiwi Farms, a site whose users have previously swatted many people. In response to this, after the OTW's statement, she published her Twitter thread advising volunteers to alert their local law enforcement, and also reached out to the OTW to offer resources, contacts, and advice. In response, OTW Legal member Rebecca Tushnet called her and spent half an hour pressuring her to remove her Twitter thread.
At the end of the post, Denise briefly touches on the End OTW Racism action that began this conversation, saying that she appreciates their work, but believes that their proposed solutions will not be effective, both because the OTW's organizational dysfunction makes it impossible for them to moderate racist content, and because PAC must moderate "conduct, not content." She says that she "firmly disagree[s] with the foundational work their campaign was built on."
June 16, 2023:
In response to several people asking for clarification on her statements about End OTW Racism, Denise posts a follow-up Twitter thread (which has not at this time been crossposted to Dreamwidth). She says that a diversity consultant will not effectively address abuse because the current OTW culture is resistant to change, and that reviewing TOS policies will not be effective, because the current TOS already allows for moderation of abusive conduct, but PAC has not been empowered to enforce it. Instead, she claims that progress on moderation of racist abuse can only truly be made once the organization's systemic issues have been addressed. She also believes that End OTW Racism's messaging is counterproductive, "because of its repeated failure to differentiate between content and conduct." In particular, she argues that, "by citing so heavily to the foundational background work by people who *have* repeatedly called for bans on work that 'reflects racist and bigoted stereotypes', and by failing to differentiate the two except in passing, the campaign has positioned itself in such a way that it will be, and I'm certain has already been, dismissed by the OTW." She does not mention Stitch by name, but it is clear by context that it is the citations of Stitch's work that she is referring to.
After someone DMs her to request she take down her clarifying statements about End OTW Racism, and various people supportive of EOR on Twitter denounce the statements, Denise posts a follow-up statement to Dreamwidth and to Twitter. She says that she has been contacted several times over the past few weeks by Black fans who have been harassed and abused by Stitch in racist and racialized ways, and who showed her screenshots of these interactions, which Stitch has since deleted. She says that because these fans are afraid to speak up for fear of further harassment, she offered to relay their concerns about a campaign based heavily on Stitch's writing. She does not provide the screenshots, in order to prevent the fans from being identified. She reiterates that she agrees with Stitch and with EOR that the OTW is failing to respond to racist abuse and harassment, but that she disagrees with their approach and proposals. (For what it's worth, as I said up front, I am not personally acquainted with either Stitch or Denise, and have no personal knowledge of events, but Denise is not the first person to accuse Stitch of racist harassment. There has been a great deal of discussion on FFA, both well-sourced and not so much, detailing Stitch's past behavior. I am linking to this round-up so that people can find it, but with the exception of those that directly link to the evidence, and one or two that reference Stitch's public writing, I do not know the accuracy of any of the claims, and I do not know the source of some of them. The allegations listed also vary wildly in their degree of seriousness, ranging from "actually harassed someone" to "said something distasteful," to "is friends with a known serial stalker and harasser.")
The OTW posts a newspost addressing Denise's original (June 15) thread and allegations. The say that they are in legal compliance with CSEM reporting procedures, that they provided resources to volunteers following the CSAM attacks, and that "the Legal Committee has always worked closely and cooperatively with the Policy & Abuse Committee, and continues to do so." They do not reference azalias's accusations or Denise's claim to have been pressured by Rebecca Tushnet. In the comments, azarias, Denise, and many other users, both anonymous and signed, express outrage at the OTW, and push for answers, apologies, retractions, and in some cases the resignation of Legal and/or the Board.
End OTW Racism posts a statement acknowledging the OTW's acknowledgment, and calling for supporters to donate to the OTW so that they can vote in the upcoming Board elections.
June 16-18, 2023: A group of people on Twitter, Tumblr, and Dreamwidth post individually and in conversation about Denise's comments on Stitch and End OTW Racism, defending Stitch and arguing that Denise's claims about them and disagreement with their and EOR's work are racist, unfounded or overblown, and a derailment from EOR's mission. Some of these are the same people who are in the comments of the OTW's response to Denise, pushing for the OTW to respond to azarias's allegations. (These are not inherently contradictory positions; I just want to note that both the personal and ideological stances here do not necessarily line up neatly into, say, pro-OTW and anti-OTW.) See, for instance, naye's Dreamwidth post, fiercynn's Dreamwidth post, or pearwaldorf's Tumblr post.
June 18, 2023: Denise posts a Twitter thread going into much greater detail about the number of fans of color who reported to her that Stitch had harassed them ("a number greater than five and less than fifteen"), and the severity of their claims ("Several of them said the harassment they experienced was so severe and pervasive that it caused them to change screen names, leave fandom, or otherwise restrict their conduct online.") She also gives a detailed, step-by-step outline of how she went about verifying their claims to her own satisfaction. She continues not to give out identifying details to prevent further harassment.
[Updated June 19, 2023 to correct language around the attack on OTW, which was a CSAM attack, not a CSEM attack.]
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Okay I'm just a causal watcher but genuinely what is the harm of shipping sam and evan. Like not to be K but there's a reason why the trope "friends to lovers" is a popular base! I think it's neat :) and the pilot program isn't hurting for m/f friendships? Jammer and K had such a sweet conversation, Sam and Evan's existing friendship doesn't magically disappear if your introduce romance, and even though I'm a K/Evan fan too, I do like their arc of learning how to be okay with each other and prefer it if it goes the route of friendship FIRST since... I believe that's what they need.
Like all this yelling about romance ruining EvSam dynamic... feels a bit too familiar and a touch of racism 👀 I been enough Fandom and I know the signs of "how does a Fandom act when a Black woman has chemistry with a popular White (esp CisMale) character"
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#ask#dropout#dropout tv#dimension 20#d20#dimension twenty#brennan lee mulligan#bleem#aabria iyengar#danielle radford#misfits and magic#sam x evan#evan x sam#sam britain#sam black#evan kelmp#d20 misfits and magic#misfits and magic season 2#misfits and magic chapter 2#misfits & magic season 2#misfits & magic chapter 2#mismag#mismag s2#misfits and magic c2#d20 mismag#mismag 2#misfits and magic s2#misfits & magic 2#k d20#misfits & magic
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Finally started reading Guns, Germs and Steel which is a book that has been on my list forever. Ironically, the recent (though not the first) backlash against it is what prompted me to pick it up.
Some of the criticisms of it might be valid; possibly geography is over-emphasized as a causal factor in the unequal outcomes of various societies, possibly there are other factors that don't get enough attention. But there's a particular brand of moral criticism that goes something like this quote from this article (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/guns-germs-and-steel-reconsidered):
"This is a punchline about race and history that many white people want desperately to hear," she writes. "Those dying black kids at the end of the special -- we know, because We Are Not Racist, that they don’t deserve what they are getting. They are not inferior. In fact, there but for the grace of god…. And it poisonously whispers: mope about colonialism, slavery, capitalism, racism, and predatory neo-imperialism all you want, but these were/are nobody’s fault. This is a wicked cop-out."
One has only to read a few chapters of the book to know that it does not in any way attempt to gloss over the reality of violent conquest and its role in establishing Western dominance. There's no shortage of rat bastard white conquerors in these pages (though there are cameos of other, not-white conquerors behaving in similar ways). Nor does the book in any way attempt to deny the existence of colonialism or of ideologies designed to justify and reinforce material inequalities. What it does do is attempt to explain why Western societies were in a position to violently conquer other peoples, and the explanations have to do with the titular viruses and geography and a bunch of other factors that do in fact boil down to luck. That doesn't mean it was "nobody's fault." It was the fault of many people, in the sense that the people who did violent things still did those things. How you want to judge them for that is up to you, but most people, myself included, do regard violent conquest as a not-good thing that we should try to have less of in the future.
I'm left wondering...for people who say that this is a work of apologia for inequality, how exactly could the book have handled its subject matter in a way that would have satisfied them? By including a "this is bad behavior and we should condemn these people" footnote on every page that describes one society conquering another?
The basic objection here seems to be to the very fact that this is a science book and not a moral instruction manual about how to be anti-racist. Which I guess is not surprising. The power of explanation inherently tends to kind of take the piss out of morality and deflate its mystical-feeling notions of good and evil and moral duty, which is why science and morality (whether it be religious or secular) have butted heads throughout most of history.
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“Why doesn’t Taylor just put lice on the Bitch Trio (but especially Sophia, no I won’t explain I single her out)!??”
- Someone who hasn't read worm
u had a typo there buddy fixed it for you
Worm fanfic fandom and being entitled pricks who lecture fanfic authors for not writing the fic they wanted to see while incorrectly quoting canon, name a more iconic duo
#worm#parahumans#wormfic#wormfic fandom#taylor hebert#sophia hess#oh yeah the causal racism i forgot to put that in the og post#god i hate how this fandom treats women and characters of color and authors who are trying to do something DIFFERENT
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i’d never even considered how the civil war would affect alfred during ww1, that’s a really interesting idea. would you mind expanding a bit more if you haven’t already?
fuck yes I can expand on that. TW for historic nastiness.
Okay to prelude— I don't typically do 1:1 state/gov to character but considering the cession of the south into a separate state and the US itself is the Union, my boy is in blue. In this blog's universe there is no schizophrenia or split personality or Doppelgänger or any other representation of the south. It gutted him and he lost feeling in a lot of his usual area and it severely weakened him but he represented the United States and that means union blue. And considering the north really doesn't have all that much moral leverage on the south especially in matters of racism, it's not much of a jump. If you aren't crazy about that, look away now.
So. Trench warfare. It's as old as humans bashing each other's heads in. Defensive ditches are an archaeological feature across the applicable world. But it's the American Civil War that might hold the gold medal for largest gap between how technology designed to kill had advanced spectacularly over any innovation that might save lives. I won't say deadliest because you do have the Taiping Rebellion around the same time but a lot of that was sièges and counter sieges and river based naval engagements. But anyway— rifled artillery and direct fire techniques had changed the game and soldiers were driven underground behind parapets and sandbags. Around Petersburg especially. And it's towards the end of the war when the Confederacy is increasingly desperate and hand to hand fighting is getting more common and more brutal. Entire regiments were lost in hand to hand mêlée. And if a soldier didn't die instantly, it was off to a field hospital. Guts ripped open by iron shells, lungs hanging from the tips of bayonets, wounds so infected they glowed, limbs hacked off by a surgeon who hadn't washed his hands in six days and sepsis rot so foul someone can taste it on the air even with the mouth closed. Malaria and typhoid so fucking bad the army cots would literally shake apart from how bad men shivered when the chills aspect of the fever cycle hit. I know it's fashionable right now especially on vintage fashion YouTube to say people in history weren't disgusting but like, I've been in archives for years. Yeah it fucken was. Never was medicine so far behind the ability to kill.
So Alfred's probably died a solid dozen times half of which from shitting himself because he's probably riddled with parasites. He's been shot, stabbed, slashed. Shaken, rattled and absolutely steam rolled. And the final part of his almighty trauma is this is happening just up the river from where he was born in Jamestown. Alfred is on his belly in the earth beneath the feet of the people that bore him and then rejected him, begging his Protestant God and any of his own people listening and the very earth itself to protect him, to keep him alive as shell after shell lands around him.
When every battle is over, the dead rot in piles across the fields and trenches. The famous photos of the Antietam and Gettysburg dead are days old, you can see some of the bodies had been looted. There were so many dead and so many dying that upon its tardy entrance into world war one, the US had a more coherent body management and disposal program than any other of the entente powers. Who had already been at war for nearly four years.
So yeah, in my opinion he got ten steps into a front line trench where the British and especially the French were just causally walking on bodies, he vomited so hard New York felt California rattling around in there and said fuck it. My boy was either off to cleaner pastures like Belleau Wood or the air corps. It was too much too soon and he just couldn't keep it together in those conditions. They knew what bacteria were by WW1 and he was a burgeoning world power. So he probably only went full himbo with dysentery twice in France so it wasn't as bad as his civil war flop era but oof. That smell, the screams, pressing himself into soil that is not his own yet again is too recent and too vulnerable. He can't do it again so soon.
#the ask box || probis pateo#hws America#meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations#I'm back#broke my tablet lol
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