#doesn’t matter if a person comes from a privileged culture or not. you’re still doing the shitty thing

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

when will people cough north americans stop generalizing the entirety of continents as one entity? europe is culturally diverse, so is south america, and asia, and africa, and all the little places inbetween like countries in the caucasus?

i’m sure it’s real easy to generalize a whole lot of culturally rich places to make your point, buddy

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

Is it bad for me that I am still excited to make the friendship bracelets and go see Taylor when she comes to my city?

Because I do feel like I am betraying everyone by going but it’s also something I have been looking for for a year and it’s so unimportant that it shouldn’t matter

But at the same time, I genuinely have nothing else to look forward to and her music has been with me my whole life and every era is a part of me.

I feel so lost and I have no one to talk to about this.

I am an awful person I know, and shallow and probably the worst human being and small.

I am just tired of living int is world where I feel like I live two parallel lives and don’t know how to navigate that

You are NOT an awful person. The very fact that you are saying these things is a testament to your good conscience.

This is a challenging thing to navigate. I was literally introduced to English music via Taylor Swift when I was 6 years old. Speak Now was the first ever cd that I owned. 1989 was the first cd I ever bought with my own money by saving up. The 1989 tour was the first concert I ever went to by saving up. Folklore and Evermore got me through an earth shattering period of grief in my life. I cannot overstate how much meaning her music holds for me. I know exactly how you feel. I’ve been there. It’s not easy to boycott music that holds so much significance for you personally.

If you ever need someone to talk to about these conflicting emotions, please come to me. Do not denigrate yourself. You are a good person who is is struggling with an internal conflict like so many of us.

Personally, I only successfully detached from celebrity worship culture 2 years ago. I refused to buy celebrity related merch (small artists don’t count). And I unfollowed every celebrity on social media. I also stopped talking about celebrities like they were gods. However, in Jan this year, I did attend the Eras Tour. I guess I had it easier because her silence on genocide didn’t seem as loud back then. But even then, as a minority fan, I still felt conflicted.

I just want you to know that as long as you’re showing solidarity with the victims of genocide, it’s ok. You can show solidarity by spreading awareness, donating, volunteering or protesting. If you’re doing these things, then you’re using your voice and your privilege for good.

Additionally, it seems like you’re thinking critically about celebrity culture too. Detaching doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a process.

I hope you feel ok soon. I’m here if you need me <3

[fischotterkunst]

I’m very aware I’m not the intended audience of this post (rather, I’m in the group expected to agree and further the point by othering the subject of this claim) but this is so fucking pretentious and a huge part of the reason many people actually hate modern art. Having a BFA myself, i studied and thoroughly understand modern art, and that understanding also gives me the insight to continue hating it specifically because of how elitist gallery culture, like that being displayed in this post, is. Attending an art gallery is expensive, acquiring the understanding of art is expensive, and the spaces surrounding galleries are deliberately othering and elitist because of the simple fact that “highbrow” art is funded by the wealthy (who in honesty don’t understand it either but use it as a display of wealth). we’re talking about the original NFTs, if you will. It’s inaccessible and that’s deliberate. These are assholes like the one above who disguise their own lack of understanding by using the age-old argument of “well, you’re just too stupid to understand”. Ok well, then, explain to me, “modern artists”, the majority of which are statistically cishet upperclass white men, just how unfair society is. Clearly my lack of appreciation for their situations is evidence that I’m stupid. Again, i have a BFA with emphasis on printmaking (“highbrow”) and illustration (“lowbrow”) art so this is coming from an objective, factual standpoint.

(Asterisk: obviously this is not including the works of artists like Ai Weiwei, Kiki Smith, and Louise Bourgeois, to name a few modern artists whose art i actually do enjoy because they actually carry messages of value rather than, say, Anish Kapoor or Banksy who actively participate in the exact form of privilege their imitations of “lowbrow” art steal from. Forgive me for not appreciating your PETA-sponsored van of shredded plush toys claiming to be pro-animal rights while one of your other exhibitions involved coating an elephant in toxic paint and subjecting it to severe distress for a shallow pun. I guess I’m too stupid to see the nuance there.)

Also, one can understand something and still dislike the aesthetic. A lot of modern art uses inorganic colors and shapes that, because they are not found in nature, tend to appeal less to the human eye for purely psychological reasons. That doesnt even mean one necessarily thinks its “bad” art, and it certainly doesn’t indicate a lack of education. It’s a matter of personal taste.

I did check out the OP’s blog to gain some context before posting this and to my surprise (sarcasm) it’s full of closed-minded arguments against people disagreeing that do nothing but further cement the points i’m making here. The original context is in defense of gallery culture and elitism and accepting zero rebuttal in favor of repeating the “no youre stupid and im better than you” so. One of those great examples of someone trying to punch down and acting childish when offered an intelligent response.

[xiaq]

Hi, I have a question re:sex and Christianity. Small background: I still go to church, and I still live with my parents even though I'm not much younger than you, because housing is very very expensive where I live (pretty common here, I would say about 2/3 of my friends live with their parents and we are decently privileged kids)

Anyway. How does one get over purity culture? To be clear, I've never been told in church not to have sex, I've never gotten the gendered lessons that you got. But I am terrified of having sex. My first real, multi-year relationship just ended and while there was hand stuff etc, there was never any p in v sex (lol I feel 12). But I still had insane anxiety about being pregnant despite being on bc. And I think its because I know my parents would be so disappointed if I had sex. And if I was pregnant I could imagine all the gossip. And honestly I think im from a pretty open church, b/c one of our previous ministers kids recently got married at 8 months pregnant and lots of church people were at the wedding and supportive and her parents were there and everything.

I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???

(Asking because it seems like you've been pretty open about purity culture/removing yourself from it)

CW for sex talk (again)

How does one get over purity culture?

Oh man. That really is the million-dollar question, huh? Obviously, I can only answer re my personal experiences, and this is something you should talk to a therapist about, but I can tell you how I’ve tackled it with my therapist at least.

Purity culture is, at its core, an ideology that is perpetuated by shame. If you’re indoctrinated into purity culture when you’re a kid, the concepts become baked into the way you construct your identity, your perception of self, and your perception of your sexuality. It’s practically intrinsic, by the time you’re an adult, to feel shame any time you’re reminded you have a body, much less a sexuality.

According to the chapels I sat through every week as a kid, a girl's body could be 3 things: an intentional stumbling block for men, an accidental stumbling block for men, or unnoticeable. Women were to strive for the third option so as to keep their (and their male friends/authority figures) purity intact. After all, if a boy, or even your male teacher, had impure thoughts about you, it was your fault for tempting them (which, holy shit. I still can’t believe that was a thing I bought into for so long. If my 45 yr old grown-ass teacher had impure thoughts because he could see my 12 yr old collarbone, that sure as hell wasn’t my fault. But I digress.) The Only time a woman’s body can be something else, is when she gives it to her husband, at which point she must suddenly flip the switch in her brain that she is now allowed to be a Sexual Being and she must perform Sexual Duties despite living in outright fear of her own body and sexuality for years (decades?) up until this point. Jesus take the wheel.

Purity culture isn’t a thing you can just decide to walk away from if you’ve grown up in it. Because its ideology is insidious and internalized. So first you need to submit to the fact that you’re going to be fucked up about sex. It sounds like you’re there. Second, you need to interrogate what you believe. If you’re leaving religion behind entirely, you’ll approach removing yourself from purity culture differently than if you still identify as a Christian. It sounds like you might be the latter, which meant, for me, separating what’s actually biblical and what’s shitty, contrived, doctrine that I was told is biblical but is actually more political than spiritual. This helps you address the shame issue.

You need to throw away I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Lady in Waiting and all those ridiculous books you read and reread in the hopes of somehow obtaining impossible marriage perfection and look into actual scripture interpreted within its historical context. I could write a book on this, but the TL;DR is that the text of the Bible was written, translated, curated, and changed multiple times over thousands of years by human beings with human biases and, often, personal and/or political agendas. It contradicts itself! Reading it as it is—a flawed historical document—rather than some sort of God-breathed perfect document—is incredibly freeing. When you do, you’ll probably realize that purity culture is bullshit on a spiritual level. Which is a good start, if that matters to you. Because any time you start to feel shame or guilt you can ask yourself: does God actually care if I wear a bikini or touch a dick I’m not married to? Probably not. Wear the bikini. Touch the dick.

The most important therapy session for me was when my therapist asked what I would do if I got to heaven and God was actually the God I’d been raised to fear. What would I do if he condemned me for being bisexual and having premarital sex and becoming educated, for arguing with men, and failing to isolate while menstruating, and wearing mixed fabrics? If Montero had come out at the point, I probably would have said I’d pole dance down to hell. Instead, I said I would spit on heaven’s gates. If a god that cruel and that pointlessly demeaning really exists—a god who would create in me condemned desire—I won't worship him. The good news is, I’m 99% sure he doesn’t exist. At the very least, he isn’t supported by scripture.

Okay. The final thing you need to do is figure out what you actually want, sexually speaking. This bit is probably the hardest. I’m still in the early stages of this myself. You say: “I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???” Bro, I wish I had an easy answer for you. For me, whenever I’m feeling anxious about Sex Things, I tell myself: 1. My God does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 2. My partner does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 3. I do not equate my worth to my sexual habits. It seems silly, but reminding myself of those three things is massively helpful. If, after I’ve sorted through those, I’m still anxious or uncomfortable, I stop doing the thing. I evaluate. Am I overwhelmed and I need to try again some other time? Do I just not like the thing? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you just don’t know. That’s why having a partner who you trust and who’s willing to patiently explore your interests (and respect your disinterests) is so important. Half the battle, for me, was having a partner who told me they’d be ok with no sex at all. Because that took the pressure off me. If the bare minimum they need is nothing, then anything more than that is a bonus! Hooray! This is maybe TMI, but let me tell you. I thought I was asexual* right up until I was able to have moderately non-anxious sex. Never in my life did I think I would initiate a sexual situation but… I do now. It’s a fun thing to do with a person I love and, holy shit. I am furious that I nearly missed out on it.

Finally, re birth control: I don’t know how you can approach that fear in a way that works for you. If you don’t want to ever have penetrative sex, that’s fine! If that’s a point of anxiety you can’t get rid of, then don't push yourself to do it. If you find out you like other sex things, do the other sex things! If you don't like doing any sex things, don't do any sex things! Also, have you considered sleeping with people who can’t get you pregnant? Always an option if it’s an option you want to consider. ;)

Okay. I hope this was even a little bit helpful. Sorry if it’s a little convoluted, I typed it up in bursts during my work breaks.

*This is not at all to say that asexuality can be “fixed." Rather, it’s to say that things like purity culture can drastically confuse your sexuality in general. If you’re asexual, then this process is still important to discover what you like/dislike. Then you can be explicit about those necesities and find a partner who’s a good fit (if you want a partner at all, that is).

[pushpinsheep]

Hopefully this puts things in greater perspective because some tourists just don’t get it and need to hear this. For those who are curious and looking to travel in the future I hope you find this is informative! :) We could all use more perspective on linguistics and traveling imho. I have made some of these mistakes in the past too. We can all learn to be better guests/tourists. This mindset people have that not only is it okay for tourists to exploit and mistreat local populations, but it’s something that should be encouraged is wrong. You’re not entitled to anything special as a tourist just because you have enough money to play around somewhere “exotic” for a few weeks. Regardless of where people travel to. As a guest in someone else’s home you should put more effort into not being a total asshat. You will have a better time and you might learn something cool along the way. I will mostly be using France as an example since I live here and have more insight, but everything I say applies outside of France as well. Note: This information only applies to tourists. Immigrants and refugees are a unique situation and thus face different challenges and have different needs. A tourist chooses where to go and has time (and money) to plan for their trip, which is often only a few weeks or days. Immigrants and refugees often don’t have that same luxury and remain in the country for far longer. (in many cases permanently) Moving to a country places a greater linguistic and cultural demand on an individual. Remember to check your privilege. tourism =/= immigration/asylum. A) English is not the only language in existence. It might be a widely spoken language, but it’s not the most widely spoken language (that honor goes to Chinese) nor is it the only lingua franca. Chinese, Hindu, Spanish, French, and Arabic are all widely spoken across multiple borders and where you are on the planet will obviously dictate which one of these people go with. If you expect that to be English because your sphere of the internet happens to put you in that bubble of “my language or bust” ignorance then like... that’s on you pal. Get with the times and stop assuming everyone should just speak English. English speakers are not the only tourists and English, though widely used, is not the only other language a person might need. I have a friend from Laos who speaks absolutely no English. He doesn’t need it and never has. (even now) He speaks Lao (the regional dialects can be as different as Thai is from Laotian btw), Chinese, a bit of Thai, and French because they still use a lot of French for business dealings there. (something I didn’t know ngl) Assuming he should just speak English because “everyone else does” is ignorant. It’s rude. It puts no thought into his situation. It’s entitled. He’s traveled to visit friends in England and he has an English phrase book. He doesn’t need a lot of English so like... the phrase book is absolutely perfect. Most of what he does in England is sight see and speak Chinese with his friends. Be more like my friend from Laos. B) Official languages may not be the only language a country speaks within its borders. Regional and native languages exist and expecting the locals to speak a 3rd language on top of all that is unbelievably entitled. France has a number of them. There are people who are born and raised in France who don’t speak French in their day to day life. (or at all) Basque, Breton, Occitan, Alsatian, Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic and a number of others are all spoken within French borders. Many are at risk of being permanently lost (that’s why our new regional language law is important btw) and as a result a greater emphasis is placed on preserving them as opposed to learning something new. Most people have to learn the official language as it’s the only language a lot of countries will accept for paperwork, but anything else is up to the individual and you can suck an egg if you don’t like that. (this also applies to immigrants and refugees btw) Heck there are places in the US where people don’t even speak English day to day! Some places actually speak French or Spanish. I heard more Spanish in my day to day life than I did English where I grew up in NC! (moved to Florida and Spanish exploded. loved it!) C) Borders are a thing. People working and living across borders exist and English is often not the language they chose to go with as a result. France borders Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, England, and Switzerland. People who share these borders often choose to go with these languages. English is in there, but please note it’s not the only one. D) Culturally speaking a country may not like [insert common language here] and as a result may refuse to speak it. That’s entirely their choice. If you don’t like that then don’t visit the country. It’s really that easy.  Colonialism is often a major factor at play in these situations. Respect that choice. You do not get a say in how people reclaim their identity. As for France? This might come as a shock to some people, but France doesn’t like England. I’m 100% certain these two places exist solely to punch each other in the nuts. (ball tap. an international past time) As a result getting English people to speak French or French people to speak English is about as easy as pulling your own teeth. I’ve been spit on for speaking English because people here just assume I’m from England or they hate “annoying Americans” and after seeing how y’all responded to the last post I made... yeah I totally get it now. Granted, that’s no excuse for someone being hostile, but it is something to keep in mind when you visit and applies to more than just France too. E) Retail workers and small shop owners don’t owe you shit. You have absolutely no right waltzing into a shop and demanding the staff speak your language (I don’t care how common it is) for the two weeks you’ve decided to play around in their home. Always ask them first. If they can’t or choose not to then tough luck. This is why a phrase book is important!

Retail workers and small shop owners get treated like shit enough. Some of y’all have never worked retail a day in your life and WOW does it show. Please respect retail workers and small shop owners. You don’t know what their day or life has been like. If they’re tired and don’t want to speak to you in a foreign language then that’s their right. I have had no issues using my phone or a phrase book to help communicate concepts when there is a language barrier. (and I fucking live in France. I’m not even visiting) Emergencies also happen and a phrase book or medical card in the native and/or official language is absolutely essential! Even if you just have an allergy to something! This is a great way to stay safe! When you visit another country being aware of and researching cultural differences includes linguistic differences. Tourists are guests. You don’t live here, you don’t get a say. Remember, learning a second language (esp if you don’t use it often) is really hard. If you’re visiting a country do not expect them to just use whatever language you speak. Mind you a phrase book is also important because people within a country may not have a strong grasp on English even if they do speak it. You can very easily get lost or injured without a phrase book to help you. These things allow you to better experience a country and communicate without actually having to learn the entire language... or any of it. And, once again, they exist for free online! You do not need to learn an entire language to visit somewhere, but you need to be prepared for there to be a barrier. People assuming I mean you need to learn a whole language are uh... really something else. Like do you guys think half the people bending over backwards to communicate with you know the full language? Go ahead. Fuck around and find out. ;) Obviously I’m not saying you should be treated poorly when visiting if you don’t know the language. Unfortunately no matter how much effort you put in there will always be someone who’s a jerk and I’m sorry for that. All I’m saying is as a tourist you owe it to yourself and others to be better prepared. Trust me. You’ll have a better time in the end. (and if you did the research you’d find that Paris is not the best first place to visit... even if you’re french lol) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS64ZT4eWUA Please watch this guy’s video. It is hilarious and touches on a lot of the same points I just made. Thank you for your time. :) ---------------- Cultural tidbit for those who are curious about where I live in France: I live in Alsace currently! (moved from Lyon, but my spouse is from here) In Alsace you might meet people who speak English, but it’s also entirely likely you won’t! Alsace is also a very tourist heavy area because it looks like a German fairy tale and has a lot of tiny villages with cool stuff to do! I highly recommend visiting here over Paris! We have so many storks! (clackclackclack)

Our logo is a pretzel!

That being said, Alsace has its own regional language!

It’s not uncommon to see bilingual signage or to pass someone on the street and hear them speaking Alsatian. You’ll usually hear it from older people, children, or those from rural areas. It’s really fun to listen to and absolutely wild to see written on museum signs!  Kids here will start school learning French, regardless of what they speak at home, which has resulted in a downswing of Alsatian speakers in recent years. That’s why the new regional language law I mentioned waaaaaay above is so important. It’ll allow schools to teach most of the day in Alsatian instead of French with the goal being fully bilingual adults! :) As of right now, most kids here choose German or English (depending on the school) as their second language. Some kids pick Alsatian and honestly? Good for them! I’m glad!

[pumpkinpaix]

this is gonna sound so harsh but im legit tired of chinese diaspora people who think that bc they are of chinese descent and they have pleco they can act like voices of authority in the fandom. if modao is the 1st chinese book you have read pieces of with a dictionary, if you have never interacted with the actual chinese fandom, you are not part of the intended audience and your biased opinion is not the One And Only Valid Truth 🍵

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree | this is really hard for me to express in terms of an agree/disagree axis lol

genuinely cannot tell if you’re trying to shade me here anon lmao 😂

this got long and rambly (of course) asldkjfslj. i would love to make the excuse that it’s bc i’ve got a migraine and had No Sleep but. let’s be real i’m always like this.

ok i’ll start with where i agree: i don’t think anyone has the right to act like an ultimate voice of authority in fandom. i think different people with different backgrounds have varying realms of expertise and they should be respected when they share that knowledge, but that the instant someone starts to use that kind of power as a weapon against people they personally don’t like, i think they forfeit that privilege. no one has the one and only valid truth about a piece of media because that’s fundamentally impossible. i have definitely interacted with diaspo who behave like their heritage gives them some kind of incontrovertible authority over everyone else, and they’re fucking insufferable and often rather cruel, even/especially towards other diaspo. meet me in the denny’s parking lot and fight me for real. i’ll kick ur ass. >:c

however, I also think it’s true that there’s a lot of dismissal of heritage fans in this fandom, if that makes sense, from both sides of the equation: non-Chinese fans ignore our cultural hangups because they’re inconvenient, and non-diaspora disdain us for being not Chinese enough. that puts a lot of us in a position of feeling disrespected just for being who we are, or having our very real knowledge and unique experience as individuals devalued because of it.

regardless of my identity, I have formally studied a lot of things: literary translation, media analysis, the politics of oppression, film critique, religious studies, philosophy, four foreign languages etc. and that is all knowledge that I had to work for, and work hard for. I do have a certain measure of authority on all of these subjects over a layperson (to varying degrees), and there are going to be times when i will be more correct than someone who disagrees with me -- but I’ve also absolutely experienced people talking over that specialized knowledge because of who I am, which is, to be clear. extremely infuriating and hurtful. like, i have cried so much about it in the last 18 months. people see my racial and cultural identity before they see anything else, which is understandable to a degree, but upsetting when it becomes the basis for how my work is judged, whether positive or negative. i don’t want you to trust me blindly because i’m abc. I want to you to trust me because you have examined my work critically and judged it to be trustworthy!

so i guess this is getting into the strongly disagree part of the answer: i’ve been speaking a lot with other diaspora fans lately, and it’s been simultaneously hugely relieving and also really saddening. relieving because oh thank god someone else Gets It, and saddening because pretty much all of us, no matter what kind of diaspo we are (north american, european, SEA, taiwanese etc), we’ve all experienced a lot of pressure in this fandom, from non-Chinese, Chinese, and other diaspora fans alike. we’re all acutely aware that we are not modao’s intended audience because being diaspora vs being “from the mainland” or whatever, are actually quite different things, but modao still feels close to home. even if it was not written FOR us it is still familiar to us.

and, because so many of us are multilingual and multicultural, we end up being the bridge between the “actual” chinese fandom and the english-speaking fandom, which is largely made up of non-chinese. (sidenote: I hate it when people say things about being “actually” any identity because it’s almost always for the exact reason you brought up: to use heritage as street cred. it’s like damn, being “actually” chinese doesn’t make ur opinions any less rank. sure you might be “actually” chinese, but do you have basic reading comprehension and literary criticism skills? no? ok then sit your ass back down) many of us are most comfortable in english! so we produce our content in english! but we also DO often have a somewhat privileged access to the culture that underlies mdzs and can explain it in a language that other non-Chinese fans can understand. so it’s not surprising that people flock to us for answers to their cultural questions. and like. if we think we know the answer, it’s natural for us to try and help. this is fandom! we’re here to have fun and find community! and it is definitely a little bit nice to have my culture treated as something desirable for once instead of just like. a weird exotic curiosity that no one really cares too deeply about. and, since a lot of us are able to do things that non-Chinese fans can’t (research in chinese, for example. ask family members for help and more information etc.) we end up just having more information to share.

I think this sometimes results in a tendency for fandom at large to put heritage/diaspo fans on pedestals and tout them as authorities (or use our conflicting viewpoints as ammunition in fandom drama) when the diaspo in question have repeatedly stated that they should not be taken as authorities on something -- and then, once you reach critical mass, your reputation starts to precede you, and I think there’s a lot of misconceptions of how a lot of diaspo act in this fandom simply because of that phenomenon. most of us know that we’re not ultimate arbiters of some kind of cultural gateway, and it can be very tiring both to be treated as such when we insist we are not, and then punished by other people who assume that we acted like we were.

i don’t think there’s a benefit in trying to keep en fandom and cn fandom totally separate, and I also think it’s unfair to consider the cn fandom the “real” fandom. i think that way lies deeper misunderstandings, gatekeeping, etc. i think we can definitely acknowledge the differences between them, but i think trying to make meaningful connections between fandom circles is really valuable! i don’t think i’ve ever made it a secret that modao is my first cmedia fandom? so it’s also the first time i’ve had reason to interact with chinese fandom, which has been super enlightening and interesting! i’ve made some super cool friends and learned a lot about how fandom works in china, how it’s similar and how it differs from the fandom i’m familiar with.

and then, kind of circling back around, there’s also a bit of a sense like, okay, so if diaspo don’t belong in the CN fandom, but we can’t talk about our own culture with some degree of confidence in EN fandom, then like..... where do we go...? if we see EN fandom doing something that contradicts our cultural knowledge, do we just. not say anything? do we not count unless we’ve already ingratiated ourselves to CN fandom? that’s probably where the core of my strong disagreement comes from, because criticism of diaspora fans as like, acting above their station so to speak, feels just like a tired continuation of the same shit we’ve had to deal with for our whole lives, being told we’re not good enough for anywhere and that we should just be quiet and keep our heads down and get over it. that our opinions, despite coming from a unique perspective with a unique relationship to the subject in question, are less valid or real than “actual” chinese people, you know? and sometimes i see that and im like lmfao just sneer at me for being jook-sing and leave then if you’re so eager to think of me as lesser.

so yeah, basically im of a few minds: true! diaspora fans don’t get to throw their weight around just because they’re diaspo. they don’t get carte blanche to act like bullies or try to shape the fandom to their own personal liking and crusade against people who disagree with them. they don’t get to pretend their heritage makes them superior to everyone else, and i think western diaspora especially need to be careful when asserting any kind of moral lens over the text to acknowledge that we have our own biases to interrogate. i am not immune.meme etc. on the other hand, this vein of criticism tends to put all diaspo in a bit of a double-bind, and also, however unintentionally, plays into the general, continuous trend of dismissing diaspora for being diaspora, and i’m really not about that. i don’t think that’s the motivation behind opinions like this, but i do think that when the basis for the argument hinges on the idea that diaspora are not “real” chinese, no matter how much I too have beef with certain diaspora fans, the argument needs to be revisited. 

(ko-fi)

🍵 ((un)popular) opinions meme

[loveatfirstwriteblog]

A Complete Analysis of Harry Potter

Like a lot of kids, we probably grew up on Harry potter. We were obsessed and rightly so. The universe created in the world of Harry Potter was, and is, a hugely successful one because of the fact it gave kids a world where magic exists! It seemed to be a great world to live in and it made even better with the fact that it included elements of empowerment, Whether it be showing girls can be just as successful if not more in various pursuits(Hermione), or the fact that even if you have a history of bad events, you can have a good heart(Hagrid), Harry Potter teaches us a lot.

JKR has written a mind-blowing plot in a world of magic, wizards, witches, wands, potions, friendship, love. Our inner-five-year olds--and actually most of our young adult selves too--jumps around excitedly at the beautifully penned words that creates an exit out of this world and into one where magic does exist. 

As you get older, though, you begin to think of Harry Potter in a more critical fashion. The thought of “oh my god, it’s magic” no longer completely overrides my mind, but more of “but what are the laws regarding this? Can people just do this whenever they want? Are there no ethics?” 

No matter how much we’re going to expose the flaws and plot holes in HP now, we’ll always love the books--we grew up on them! But some things just niggle you as you get older, and that’s what we’re going to be focusing on in this post.

Something I adore about the HP books is that everyone, including the “good guys”, has flaws. Harry has a “save the world alone, do first, think later” complex, a driving force that makes him go save Sirius, Ron is very, very insecure to a point where he ditches Harry twice, probably when Harry needed him the most, Hermione is a judgemental, narrow-minded nag (her thoughts on Luna, divination, Trelawney, basically anything that doesn’t fit her black and white world), Molly Weasley is misogynistic and blatantly favourites her children—probably being one of the main factors behind Ron’s insecurities, Arthur is condescending towards Muggles and makes several comments you cringe at while reading the books as a young adult/adult, Sirius, Snape, and Lupin still haven’t let go of their childhood grudges and hatred, etc etc etc. 

These flaws are what make these characters so three-dimensional, so layered, so human. But the problem was, most of these flaws are never intentionally acknowledged. And honestly, that could have been such a good character arc, because the main characters are mostly students. No student is the same through their teenage years—they change, they evolve, they get over their flaws, they try to better themselves. I would have loved to see Ron becoming his own person, Hermione opening her mind up a little, etc. 

Neville is not one of my favourites, but I love his growth and development, from someone who was scared of his potions professor to a man who faced down Lord Voldemort. Ginny Weasley could have had character development, from the trauma she went through in second year, but that was never written in.  She went through this terrifying ordeal when she was only twelve years old, and jump to a year or two later and she’s absolutely fine, with no transition from her trauma whatsoever.

Some of JKR’s characters are brilliantly written and fleshed out, but some of her others lack the structure and complexity that usually comes with being vital to the plot—Ginny Weasley for one. Her internalised misogyny also plays a huge part in the way her female characters are written. We see this again in the case of how she wrote the character of Ginny. 

Ginny Weasley is not a favourite of ours (if you don’t know that by now). She feels a lot like a convenient male daydream—when she waits for Harry to notice her by dating other guys, gets annoyed by Hermione “not knowing quidditch”, etc etc—and fits the “not like other girls” archetype too much, almost like she was made for it (hint hint). She’s portrayed to be strong-willed, spunky, and independent, and I love the idea, but I really don’t see it. To me, she’s a very shallow character, the least fleshed out one. 

Just like James Potter wasn’t necessarily redeemed just because JKR said he was, and Ginny isn’t interesting just because JKR writes that she is. 

Hermione also fits the archetype, but she’s JKR’s self-insert, so we really can’t say much about that. 

To make things worse, Ginny and Hermione are pitted against each other in a very subtle way. Ginny is the sporty, pretty, flirty girl who’s never single from book 4. Hermione is the not-conventionally-attractive, nerdy girl who’s had a few dates here and there but never a relationship. They’re very different characters (the only thing they have in common is the archetype) but they’re against each other in the defence of Harry. 

Another place where JKR’s misogyny shows up is the way other girls are written. Lavender Brown is shown as vapid and immature, just because she likes clothes and boys and didn’t know how to handle her first relationship. Cho Chang is perceived as shallow because she’s emotional. Pansy Parkinson is seen to be throwing herself at Draco Malfoy. The Weasleys hated Fleur because she was beautiful and sexy and French, and that was ever really resolved in the end (Molly accepted her, but we never got Ginny’s and Hermione’s opinions again). You see where we’re getting at? The typical “girly girls” are portrayed as insipid, shallow, emotional, and boring, while girls like Hermione and Ginny are seen to be fun and multilayered. 

The problems with Harry Potter don’t just stop with non-fleshed out characters. There are plot devices that go unacknowledged, issues like blood purity—which is the basis of Voldemort’s tyranny—are never really resolved, huge Chekhov’s guns that aren’t fired. 

A common misconception, which if cleared up could probably expose a load of problems in wizarding society by itself, is that the wizarding world is racist. It’s not racist. Muggles and Muggleborns are not a different race, they’re a different class, at least according to pureblood wizards. Mudblood is a classist insult (a direct reference to nobility blueblood and aristocracy).

Another factor that wasn’t talked about but made the HP world so complex and realistic is the inherent classism in every single pureblooded wizard, including the Weasleys.

 The “Light” wizards all operate on the notion “at least I don’t kill or torture Muggles”. The Weasleys refuse to talk about Molly’s squib cousin who’s an accountant, the Longbottoms were so desperate for Neville to not be a squib they nearly killed him trying to force magic out of him, Ron makes fun of Filch for being a squib, thinks house-elves are beneath him, and confounds his driving instructor in his mid-thirties, the ministry workers kept obliviating that muggle at the quidditch World Cup, etc. 

This could have been a metaphor for how small prejudices and microaggressions (kind of the wizarding equivalent of white privilege) enable discrimination and murder, if JKR had actually acknowledged it. 

The parallel to Nazi Germany is very twisted and definitely shouldn’t be taken too far, but the Nazi ideology grew on the basis of everyday antisemitism, “that’s not that bad” little things. Voldemort’s circle and army grew because the wizard superiority complex festered and blew up in some people, egged on by a deeply classist society. 

Ultimately, Harry Potter has very, very shoddy worldbuilding, the kind of worldbuilding that’s obsessed with answering the “what” of the wizarding world, rather than the “how” or the “why”, which is strange, considering that fantasy or dystopian-era novels’ driving plots and conflicts are usually answering the questions the worldbuilding raises--The Hunger Games and The Shadowhunter Chronicles are two of the best examples of brilliantly written YA fantasy and dystopian novels. 

In HP, however, the main plot just avoids the questions the worldbuilding brings up like the bubonic plague. 

Voldemort’s agenda is built on prejudice towards Muggles and Muggleborns, but the plot just validates the negative perception of them—at the end of the day, being a wizard is what’s special. The Statute of Secrecy is the foundation of the main concept—blood supremacists believe wizards shouldn’t be hidden away—but only vague, barely-there answers are given to why it exists (a Chekhov’s gun that was never fired). 

There are love potions that function like date rape drugs (even Harry was given one by a girl who wanted him to ask her out), potions that force people to tell the truth, potions that literally let you disguise yourself as another person, but the ethics are never talked about, and the laws are so lax that three twelve-year-olds broke them and were never caught. 

But at the same time, the worldbuilding is so authentic, because it transforms the wizarding world into straight-up fridge horror. The everyday horrors are just accepted and rolled with. A corrupt government, constant obliviation of Muggles, slavery that isn’t even talked about. These things aren’t obvious to us as readers, or to the wizards as characters, because they match up to the real world, which is filled with things that are horrifying if you dig deeper. The multiple, normalised forms of abuse, police brutality, the violence in prisons that nothing is done about, the glaringly obvious cultural problems we have with consent, etc. 

The abusive authoritative figures in HP, like Rufus Scrimgeour, Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore, Umbridge, etc, are so authentic because real-life politicians and people in high places of power behave that way, and their abuse is excused. 

The wizarding world is just like the real world. Corrupt, prejudiced, messed up, but if you’re privileged, or at least have certain privileges, you’re probably not going to notice. The ultimate problem is that the plot doesn’t acknowledge a lot of fridge horror things are messed up either, which is why it miserably fails. 

[thealexchen]

i’ve actually read both of the articles that you mentioned earlier! I could see where both of them were coming from at varying points, though shannon liao’s struck me as a tad harsh, as someone who felt very seen by Alex, particularly with regard to her asian-american identity, and the cultural details and familial attitudes you see displayed throughout the game (especially in episode 5.) I could see why others would like them to be more overt, but they’re still present & relevant as is, imo.

I'm happy you read and enjoyed them! Well, since we’re on the subject, I might as well give my fuller thoughts about all this. This answer got horrendously long, so I'm putting it under a read more. I really wanted to talk about this more fully, so thank you for sending this ask!

I definitely see Robert's point in his article. Alex didn’t need to be Asian for the story of True Colors to be told, but it’s still meaningful that she is so that Asian fans and fans of color can look up to her and feel represented. The Chens buck a lot of stereotypes too: Mrs. Chen was not a “tiger mom” and her kids and husband remember her fondly. Mr. Chen doesn’t push Alex and Gabe to excel in school, and in fact neither Alex nor Gabe went to college, but they still had happy futures. Alex isn’t the best friend or the Asian schoolgirl or the dragon lady or the Asian nerd. But at the same time, when Robert says "Alex never really talks about her thoughts on Chinese culture,” that’s like— well, what’s wrong with talking about it? Why not talk about it more explicitly? The words “Asian” and “Chinese” and “Vietnamese” aren’t even used in the game when "gay" and "lesbian" were, and that's a little disappointing.

I figured people would figure out Alex was at least Chinese because of her last name, but I saw some streamers unsure of what Alex’s ethnicity even was (“Alex is… Chinese, right?”). That was disappointing because Asians tend to be treated as a monolith when we’re so internally diverse. Also, it’s completely possible to miss that Alex and Gabe are also half-Vietnamese. Their mother’s name is Giang “Wendy” Chen, a Vietnamese name, but that’s only in the credits. There’s far less Vietnamese (and Southeast Asian) rep than Chinese, so I wish that had been made more explicit.

In Life is Strange 2, Sean and Daniel’s struggles (personal and institutional) were centered around their identity as half-Mexican boys. True Colors almost seemed to be going in the opposite direction in that Alex’s Asian heritage never really becomes plot-relevant, but Alex and Gabe’s background comes into focus in the last chapter.

Part of Shannon’s critique was that because Alex’s parents aren’t in the picture, the game can’t explore Asian culture through a familial lens. There is some truth to that: for children of immigrants in particular, their parents are their strongest (and sometimes only) link to their race and culture. I thought a big missed opportunity was exploring Alex’s possible sense of isolation and struggle to reconnect with her Asian heritage after being separated from her family.

After growing up with two Asian parents, eating Asian food, celebrating Asian holidays, likely speaking Asian languages, etc. it would have likely been disorienting and lonely for Alex to suddenly be raised by non-Asian foster parents and lose all those traditions all at once. Possible comments like “I really miss Mom’s pho” or “Do you know how difficult it is to find hoisin sauce in the stores around here?” could have inferred more at that specific kind of loss and isolation in Haven Springs. The game touches upon this very briefly when you look at Gabe’s shrine, and Alex does comment “I don’t even know if I’m doing this right… but I felt like I had to do something.” In this way, I find it especially poignant that she still held onto cultural traditions after so long.

But I still thought Shannon’s critique was overly harsh. The little details really do add up, like in Alex’s childhood home, and meant a lot to me too. And most importantly, there was representation behind the scenes too: Alex was voiced by two(!) Asian American women and the lead writer, Felice Kuan, is Chinese. I think Alex naming her mouse Shu-shu was my favorite detail. Because it’s the one detail you can’t miss. Every streamer remembers Shu-Shu’s name and loves how cute she is and they can probably infer it’s a Chinese term. It just is so visible and empowering in that way and my heart felt warm every time I heard someone say “Aw! Shu-shu!"

But that doesn't mean Alex's Asian heritage didn't matter at all. I really appreciated that Alex's backstory still mattered because she came from a poor, working-class immigrant family. Her life circumstances were used for drama, but none of Alex's suffering was racially motivated and that felt tastefully done. I’m gonna paraphrase a comment I saw on alliebeemac’s playthrough of episode 5: "It's no coincidence that both Alex and Ryan lost their mothers at a young age, but because Ryan's father was a military veteran and had a high-paying job as a Typhon foreman, he got to keep his childhood whereas Alex's entire world was torn apart... And if you want to look at it even more metaphorically, the white patriarch Jed was able to preserve his own image as a hero and 'good old boy' of Haven by literally sacrificing an immigrant family to the mines with the expectation that nobody would come looking for them. Whether you're an immigrant or whether you're a foster child, the system is saying 'we don't care about you.'"

And at the end, Alex tells Jed, "You want to look away and pretend the men you hurt weren't people. But I won't let you.” It's a deliberate stand against Jed (a white man)’s dehumanization of poor laborers, including her Chinese immigrant father. Jed isn't explicitly portrayed as a racist, but his actions come from a privileged, and subsequently racist and classist place. For me, it worked better than LiS2's portrayal of racism because it was subtler and more personal. Alex stands up against Jed out of a personal sense of justice for her brother (and her father).

Do I wish we had more? Yeah, absolutely. I wish Alex got to actually speak Mandarin or Vietnamese in the game because that's so rare in games, even though I knew that would be unrealistic because Erika Mori is Japanese. I wish the character artists had at least made a version of Alex and Gabe’s models without shoes, because it just didn’t look right to see them wear shoes in the house (especially in bed??) and even LiS2 had Sean and Daniel in their socks in some scenes. I wish Alex and Gabe talked more about their family while Gabe was still alive and Alex could have had that comfort of someone who misses the food and customs they used to celebrate. But like I said, one piece of media isn’t gonna please everyone. And Asian representation in particular is so tricky because not only is there not enough of it, but Asian Americans are so diverse and come from so many different backgrounds. Children of immigrants are going to feel more connected to their Asian heritage than third or fourth gen kids or mixed race kids for example. Everyone is going to have a different definition of “Asian culture” and “accurate representation.”

But on a meta-level, it really means so much to simply have an Asian face on the box of a major Western game ❤️ Like even just seeing the way Alex's eyes crinkle when she smiles or how other characters find her attractive (like Steph’s note during the LARP preferring Alex’s natural black hair), it feels so affirming. It’s incredible to see an Asian girl be called the hero of her own story, to see her succeed and fail and cry and laugh and fall in love and kiss another woman and be comfortable in her bisexuality. It acknowledges that the queer community includes Asians, that Asian girls can also be curvy, that Asian girls can and do struggle with mental health. And like Erika Mori said, Alex is a fully-realized character and that’s what makes her so compelling, first and foremost. She also has a strong moral compass and dreams and fears and is such an incredible role model for people of all backgrounds, and that’s what makes her identity as a queer woman of color so much more meaningful.

[astaroth1357]

This is going to be my last post on this subject, I would appreciate if you hear me out...

First, I want to say unequivocally that I am sorry. I'm sorry to anyone that I've hurt, I'm sorry to anyone that I disappointed, I'm sorry to anyone who felt marginalized or hurt by my handling of the situation. It was wrong of me, I see that now, and I accept responsibility...

Secondly, I want to reiterate what I said in my original post. I care for the mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing of all people, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, what have you. And I do what I can to not cherry pick this principle (minority or majority, I always try to approach every individual as that, a person, with a unique perspective, thoughts, and feelings to share with me if they’re willing). My blog is a reflection of me and my stance on this. I do have people of several backgrounds as my friends, family, and colleagues and though I don't claim to perfect at always knowing how to address what troubles them, if it involves my behavior I always try to make an effort to correct myself and not let it happen again. They are who I think the most about when approaching the things I know that matter...

Thirdly, transphobia is a big deal. It is not something to be taken lightly. It effects the wellbeing of trans individuals everywhere and I never meant to downplay that. I know what hate feels like. I had to be careful of which friends I visited in my hometown because their neighbors would shout and threaten to shoot me for the color of my skin. I don't wish that feeling on anyone... I'm so sorry if I've made you feel unheard... It was never my intention.

Fourthly, a short background on me... I study Comparative Religion at the academic level (had it not been for COVID I would be going for my Masters right now). I was raised Unitarian Universalist and though I don't follow as much any more, its principles of unity and respect are still ingrained in my soul (if I were to have one). That is to say that I've been personally exposed to multiple practices, faiths, personalities, and viewpoints.

The first thing you learn when you've had that much exposure is everyone, and I mean everyone, believes differently. They may use the same book, but have different interpretations. Merely saying it is or is not in the scripture means almost nothing when the words themselves could be interpreted 5 different ways by 5 different people (including yours and my own). To anyone who says that by subscribing to a religion you must subscribe to all its views, I'm sorry but I believe that in practice that view wholly incorrect. Belief is individual and should be regarded as such.

I am personally friendly to religion, I have to be, it's my area of study. I think it's a beautiful expression of culture... But that doesn’t mean that I hold any of the views they apposed or agree with everything I hear. It took me years to learn for myself that tolerance is not acceptance, because if asked for my opinion I'm not afraid to speak it if it differs. I'm quiet with my opposition, but that’s because outright denounce things left and right only ends a conversation before it can start.

The difference in my approach to some people's is that I don't shut out different beliefs, nor do I assume that a person of faith can't be spoken to. As I've said, the same book can have a million interpretations. Sometimes it just takes respectful discourse to see things a different way. A way more true to who the person wants to be, while still maintaining their goal of salvation. It takes a while, a long while, but it never starts with me shutting them out completely.

You are not me. You're free to disagree with my approach, you're free to disagree my beliefs, you're free to hate me or how I have handled this, but I think it’s important that I at least share where it is that I'm coming from... I understand that my situation is different from others and I have the privilege to make this kind of decision. I'm so sorry to anyone I've hurt...

[wolfstar-in-color]

June Creator Spotlight: BigBlackDog

Hello, colorful cuties, and welcome to our first creator spotlight!!

Each month, we will highlight a different creator in our lovely fandom who features diverse characterizations. We will invite you to get to know them better through questions and answers, Fandom Discourse(tm), and a featured prompt created by our guest!!!

For our first spotlight, we are more than pleased to highlight the incredible work of bigblackdog!!! See a little snippet of this wonderful interview below, along with bigblackdog’s prompt! Look below the cut for our complete interview. Don’t forget to share and interact with this post, and if you have anyone you’d like to recommend for a spotlight, shoot us an ask! You can find our first guest’s Tumblr here.

“I've experienced ups and downs in the wolfstar fandom. It often feels like the wolfstar fandom is willing to engage in discussion about every political issue but race. And the few people who are trying to talk about race consistently encounter this silence.”

bigblackdog’s prompt: I want to see more latino characters who are not impoverished or criminalized. Give me a joyful latino/e remus!

Hello, I'm bigblackdog! I'm almost 30, and I've been active in fandom on various platforms for about seven years now. I'm latina/e and live in the u.s. with a small white dog.

Q: How did you start creating in the fandom? What did you wish to bring into the fandom? 

A: Like a lot of fans I started with self insert fic as a middle schooler. Sometimes the practice of self-insert gets ragged on in fandom, as if you're not doing real character work, but I think it's really cool. And if you're an under represented identity in the traditional western canon of literature, self insert is a radical practice. Making space for yourself in a story that refuses or ignores your identities is a radical act. And that's what i want to bring to fandom-- disruption and self care.

Q: What things about s/r as characters or in their relationship inspire you to create around them? 

A: Wolfstar was the first queer ship I was introduced to. I wasn't someone who arrived in fandom with my own robust queer reading skills, I needed other queers to hold my hand and introduce me to queer ships and how to find them and build them. My interest in r/s was simply a clinging to queerness I wasn't finding in other places. I really think it could have been any characters, as long as they were queer.

Q: What things would you like to highlight about the Wolfstar fandom and your experience in it? 

A: I've experienced ups and downs in the wolfstar fandom. It often feels like the wolfstar fandom is willing to engage in discussion about every political issue but race. And the few people who are trying to talk about race consistently encounter this silence. It's hard not to feel bitter. But i've also met some amazing people and overall feel that fans really are trying their best to be welcoming and inclusive.

Q: What type of content do you wish you saw more in the fandom? 

A: I want to see more discourse that aims at amplifying underrepresented voices like wolfstar-in-color. I want to see more fans of color joyfully and irreverently writing themselves into the magical world!

Q: What is your favourite wolfstar fancontent (fic/fanart/gifset/etc) and how does it inspire you? 

A: I love dontthinkonithermione's rp. Not only does she do an amazing nerdy know it all Hermione, she envisions Black characters in every corner of the hp world. Have you seen her Hogwarts p.e. professor rps? i love the space she creates for herself, and the joy she does it with.

Q: Which of your own identities inform your creative processes? How has that process been for you? 

A: I started out in fandom really trying to feel out the nooks and crannies of being queer. As i've spent more time in fandom and become more confident in my queerness I've started looking closer at some of my other identities-- Latina, mixed, adhd-- and how i can squeeze them into the hp world. For a long time it was hard, especially with being Latine and mixed, to envision how that identity could belong in a 90s British boarding school in the Scottish wilderness. I also really struggled with the feeling that i would get "diversity" wrong. I’ve also struggled with feeling like I have to write diversity because i'm an underrepresented voice. Brown people are often pressured to do the work of educating white people about racism and in fandom spaces that often means pressure to write the reality of racism instead of the fantasy that white writers get to play with. And sometimes i just want to write a pwp without worrying about the revolution, you know? But i really love fandom for its refusal to play by the rules of capitalism and canon, eventually i started to feel like putting more of myself into my writing was another rule i could break.

Q: What advice do you have for other content creators with diverse backgrounds in the fandom? What would you say to people that might feel they don’t have the “right” history/experience/characteristics to participate in the creation of content related to Wolfstar? 

First, there's a lot of content on tumblr that aims to silence your voice, learn how to recognize the difference between cancel culture and encouragement. Sometimes content that seems well meaning still presents writing diversity as a list of black and white rules (and virtue signaling) instead of encouragement for underrepresented voices to share their own messy experience. Set those rules gently aside. Second, fandom is built on the idea that the author isn't the only person who gets to play. we all get to play. It doesn't always feel like we were invited, but the great thing about fandom is there is no barrier to entry, no prior experience or publishing hoops to jump through. This is our playground too. If canon is dead then why can't our stories be brown and queer and neurodivergent? Third, find your people. i've found that having just one other person to talk about race with has made the whole space feel more welcoming.

Q: How could we build a more diverse fandom? 

A: We have to stop prioritizing white and cis male voices. We recognize that policing irl is a problem inextricable from whiteness and maleness, but we don't see that fandom policing online is also a problem deeply embedded in whiteness and maleness. White and cis male people frequently use their discomfort with difficult topics to change the subject from a critical discussion to one that prioritizes their white and/or male feelings. The same thing happens online when personal discomfort is used to cancel or undermine content that's challenging to a white or male voice. White and cis male voices are used to having their needs met above others. And we still cater to that in fandom spaces when we privilege 'fetishization' discourse over racial discourse. When we lift up bipoc and women/trans/nb voices and the issues they're concerned with we'll make fandom a more welcoming place for underrepresented voices.

Q: What’s your favourite thing to modify in Sirius’s or Remus’s characterizations to bring new perspectives to them? 

A: It really depends on the story i'm writing and what issue i'm trying to figure out. Sometimes i need Sirius to be Adhd to come to terms with my brain, sometimes i need two brown boys to fall in love and be happy against all odds.

Q: What does diversity mean to you? What does that encompass in fannish spaces? 

A: This is a hard question! I tend to think of diversity as those voices that are disenfranchised or pushed to the margins. And fannish spaces have all the same hierarchies and blind spots as other spaces. In fannish spaces there's the idea that you can curate your experience to some extent, but for marginalized voices, at least in my experience, no matter how much you curate the marginalization is still there.

Q: What are your ideas about the notions of culture and ethnicity? How do you relate to those notions? 

A: There was a time in my life where relating to my ethnicity was largely a process of recognizing larger systems of oppression and how they worked against my various identities. And for a while it was a really helpful way to frame my experiences. Now I feel a little less attached to ethnicity as like, a monolithic concept threaded through my whole life and more attached to the small things that I enjoy about my ethnicity and culture-- making a really good pot of beans, for example.

Q: Leave us with a quote or work of art that always inspires you. 

A: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." Audre Lorde

[meichenxi]

Dear ‘White guy speaks perfect X and shocks Y!’ language YouTubers: STOP

A rant about every single fucking video by Xiaomanyc and similar YouTubers all titled things like CLUELESS WHITE GUY/GIRL LEARNS [INSERT NON-WHITE LANGUAGE HERE] AND SHOCKS [INSERT PLACE].

Disclaimer: I am white British, and I am also very often a moron. I'm trying to inform myself more, and would like to learn. So let me know if there is anything I should change, anything I’ve got wrong or any terminology I can change. 

So this evening I opened YouTube to get some quality Hikaru no Go content, and saw yet another video recommended to me about Xiaomanyc called Clueless white guy orders in perfect Chinese, shocks patrons and staff!!!!

Really? Really. Ok, his Chinese certainly is good - but it isn't great. And it isn’t necessarily any better than people I've seen in the higher levels of a class at university who have spent some time in China. It's solidly intermediate. That's not an insult - that level of Chinese is hard to attain, and definitely worth celebrating!! Hell, I celebrate every new word I learn. But while it may be unusual, it doesn't forgive the clickbait type videos like 'White guy speaks perfect Chinese and wows [insert place]'. 

These kind of clickbait titles rest on a number of assumptions. Before I say any more, I just want to make a note about terminology. Note that ’majority’ and ‘minority’ are not necessarily helpful labels, because they imply both a) a higher number of speakers in a certain place, and b) socially prestigious in some way. Of course a language like standard Mandarin is not a minority in China, but it might be in Germany. Talking about ‘minority’ languages that have a large speaker base outside of the country, like Chinese, is also not the same as talking about languages that have been systematically surpressed by a colonising, dominant language in their original communities, like indigenous languages. In many communities, especially in colonial and post-colonial situations, the language spoken by the majority is not one of prestige at all. Or some languages may be prestigious and expected in oral contexts, but not written - and so on. I use these terms here as best I can, but don't expect them to work 100% of the time.

So let’s unpack these assumptions a little. 

1) That there is something inherently more ‘worthy’ in somebody who learns languages because they want to, rather than because they have to: and that, correspondingly, the people who want to are white (spoilers: much of Europe is multilingual, and white immigrants in majority white countries also exist, as well as discrimination against them e.g. Polish people in the UK), and that those who have to learn are not (spoilers: really? There are plenty of non-white monolinguals who are either happy being monolingual, don’t have access to learning, or don’t have to learn another language but are interested in it).

2) That everybody from a certain background automatically speaks all ‘those’ languages already, or that childhood multilingualism is a free pass - spoilers, it isn’t. Achieving high levels of fluency in multiple languages is hard, especially for languages with different writing systems, because no matter how perfect your upbringing, you’re still ultimately exposed to it maximum 50% of the time of monolingual speakers. Realistically, most people get far less exposure than 50% in any of their languages. Also, situations of multilingualism in many parts of the world are far more complex than home language / social language. You might speak one language with your father and his father, another with your mother and her family, another in the community, and another at school. Which one is your native language then? Monolinguals tell horror stories of ‘both cups half empty’ scenarios, but come on - how on earth do you expect a person to have the same size vocabulary in a language they hear only 25% of the time? Also, languages are spoken in different domains, to different people, in different social situations: just because someone hears Farsi at home doesn’t mean they can give a talk on the filing system at their local library. If something is outside of a multilingual person’s langauge domain, they might have to learn the vocabulary for it just like monolinguals. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect bilingual’. 

3) That learning another language imperfectly for leisure is laudable, but learning one imperfectly for work or survival is not. If you’re a speaker of a minority language, learning another language is necessary, ‘just what you have to do’, and if you don’t do it ‘properly’, that’s because of your lack of intelligence / laziness etc. It’s cool for the seconday school student to speak a bit of bad Japanese, but not so cool for the Indian guy who runs her favourite restaurant in Tokyo. 

4) That majority speakers learning a minority language is somehow an act of surprising benevolence that should not go unrewarded. Languages are intrinsically tied up with identity - and access to them may not be a right, but a gift. Don’t assume that because you get a good reception with some speakers of one language that speakers of another will be grateful you’re learning their language, or that everyone will react the same. One of the reasons these videos are possible at all is that many Chinese speakers, in my experience, are incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic to non-natives learning Chinese. Some languages and linguistic groups have been so heavily persecuted that imagining such thing as an ‘apolitical’ language learner is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which the language is spoken, and essentially an impossibility when the act of speaking claims ownership to a group. Many people will not want you to learn their language, because it has been suppressed for hundreds of years - it’s theirs, not yours. We respect that. Whilst it’s great to learn a minority language, don’t do it for the YouTube likes - do it because you’re genuinely interested in the language, people, culture and history. We don’t deserve anything special for having done so. 

5) That speaking a ‘foreign’ (i.e. culturally impressive / prestigious) language is much more impressive and socially acceptable than speaking a heritage language, home language or indigenous language. There are harmful language policies all around the world that simultaneously encourage the learning of ‘educational’ languages like Spanish, and at the same time forbid the use of the child’s mother tongue in class. And many non-majority languages are not foreign at all - they were spoken here, wherever you are, before English or Spanish or Russian or, yes, standard Mandarin Chinese. Policies that encourage standardised testing in English from a very young age like the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy in the US disproportionately affect indigenous communities that are trying to revitalise their language against overwhelming callousness and cruelty - they expect bilingual children to attain the same level of English as a monolingual in first grade, which in an immersion school, they obviously won’t (and shouldn’t - they’ll get enough exposure to English as they grow up to make it not matter later down the line). But if the schools want funding, their kids have to pass those tests. 

There’s more to cover - that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Some people’s response to these videos and why the titles are ‘wrong’ would be: does it matter that he's white? Shouldn't it just be 'second language learner speaks perfect Chinese'? This is the same sort of attitude as ‘I don’t see race’. I think it does matter that he is white - because communities of many languages around the world are so used to them having to learn a second language and colonial powers not bothering to learn theirs. You wouldn't get the same reactions in these videos if he were Asian American but grew up speaking / hearing no Chinese - because then it would be expected. You also wouldn't get the same reaction if he were an immigrant in a Chinese-speaking community from somewhere else in Asia.

It also implies that all white people = monolingual Americans with no interest in other cultures. While we all are complacent and complicit in failing to educate ourselves about the effects of historical and modern colonialism, titles like this perpetuate a very harmful stereotype - and I don't mean harmful as in 'poor Xiaomanyc', but harmful in that it suggests that this attitude is ok, it's part of 'being white', and therefore doesn't need to change. The reaction when someone doesn't engage with other cultures and isn't willing to learn about them shouldn't be 'lmao classic white guy'. That not only puts the subject in a group with other 'classic white guys', but puts a nice acceptable label on what really is privilege, a lack of curiosity, ignorance, and the opportunity (which most non-white people don't have) to have everything you learn in school and university be about you. If you're ignorant - ok. We are all about many things. But you don't have any excuse not to educate yourself. The 'foreigner experience' that white people get in places like China is not the same as immigrants in a predominantly monolingual, predominantly white English speaking area. As we can see in those kind of videos, white foreigners may be stared at, but ultimately enjoy huge privilege in many places around the world. It's not the same. 

It also ignores, well, essentially the whole of Europe outside the UK and Ireland and many other places around the globe, where multilingualism is incredibly common - and where the racial dichotomy commonly heard in America isn't quite appropriate, or an oversimplification of many complex ethnic/national/racial/religious/linguistic etc factors that all influence discrimination and privilege. Actually many 'white guys' in Europe and places all around the world speak four or five languages to get by - some in highly privileged upbringings and school systems, yes, but others because they have grown up in a border town, or because they are immigrants and want to give their children a better start than they did, or because they want to work abroad and send home money. Many, like people all around the world, don't get a chance to learn to read and write their first language or dialect, which is considered 'lesser' than the majority language (French, Russian, English etc); many people, like Gaelic speakers in Scotland or speakers of Basque in France, have faced historical persecution and have been denied opportunities for speaking their mother tongue. My mother was beaten and my grandparents denied jobs for being Gaelic speakers. They are white, and they have benefited from being white in lots of other ways - but their linguistic experience is light-years from Xiaomanyc's. 

It isn't 'white' to be surprised at a white person speaking another language - it's just ignorant. But the two ARE correlated, because who in modern America can afford to go through twenty one years and still be ignorant? People who have never had to learn a second language; people who have always had everybody adapt to THEIR linguistic needs, and not the other way around. People who have had all media, all books, centred around people who look like them and speak like them. And even in America, that's not just 'white' - that's specifically white (often middle class) English monolinguals.

I'm not saying everybody who doesn't speak a language should feel guilty for not learning one ( it's understandably not the priority for everyone - economic reasons, family, only so many hours in the day - there are plenty of reasons why language learning when you don’t have to is also not accessible to everyone).  But be aware of the double standards we have as a society towards other socially/racially/religiously disadvantaged groups versus white college grads. You can't demonise one whilst lauding the other. 

To all language YouTubers - do yourself a favour, and stop doing this. Your skills are impressive - that's enough. 

 tldr; clickbait titles like this rely on double standards and perpetuate harmful ideas - don't write them, and let your own language skills do the talking please.

[ivyglow]

psa + deactiv for a bit

I had some time to read what some people were saying out there and it really saddens me how many “I’m lgbtqia+ and I don’t see anything wrong with the tweets” or “at his age I used to say the same things”, this shows us two things 1) some of you were/are really privileged for not understanding that this is systemic violence, therefore, the person who said the slur doesn’t need to mean it in a bad way because it’s a slur no matter the context and 2) some of you think that just because something happened in the past you don’t need to apologize or recognize your mistakes, which is awful, I’m sorry. 

Being a black girl and having a white mother taught me a lot about acknowledgment, just a couple years ago I started calling my mom out in some of her actions and she made me a lot of questions, we discussed a series of topics and her view on racism has been amplified, just a couple months ago she came to me and she apologized for something she did when I was a five years old kid, she said she was sorry if she ever made me feel bad about my skin, or my nose or anything regarding my blackness, she apologize for things she realizes were wrong to my sister too (and my sister is white, so this isn’t only about the “woke” subject as some people try to make it seem). I’ve never asked my mom to apologize, she also never asked me to forgive her, but I’m sure if she was a public person and something came out about her hurting someone (intently or not) she would apologize, because this is how we grow and this is how we acknowledge our mistakes. We understand that we’re inserted into a bigger space and this space influences how we react to some things, but when we have the opportunity to do better: we do better. 

Systemic violence such as racism and homophobia don’t necessarily need the other part to mean harm, because again: it's systemic. Slurs were wrong back then and they still wrong nowadays. It doesn’t mean that because you used it back then you’re a homophobe now, but it means that you hurt someone at the time and how you react and respond to this situation now says something about who you are in the present. I’m so so sad with people saying they used to say it therefore it's not a problem or that he was a kid. Yes, it was something “common” to SOME of you at the time, but it doesn’t mean it was right and if any of you ever get the opportunity to apologize to someone that was around you at the time: please, do. Yes, nols was a teenager at the time, but as a white, rich boy he gets to have the “space to grow” and make mistakes that bipoc and some lgbtqia+ never had. My brother has the same age as Nolan, and he wasn’t excused for his mistakes -no matter how small they were- because he was a black kid.

When I say publicly talking and apologizing, addressing the issue, I mean it so people can see that no matter if for some it seemed ok back then, it wasn’t. Some of you didn’t felt personally attacked by the slurs, which is fine but to say that it wasn’t harmful reduces the feeling of a whole group to your own feelings, it makes exactly what those acts of violence do: it treats us as homogenous. 

I’m completely fine with people supporting him, I really am, it wasn’t my intention to make everyone angry with my first post, I was addressing an issue that was brought to me in my ask box, saying how hockey culture is not something that starts on the nhl or isn’t influenced by the majority there (white, rich, cis, etc). Whoever took the time to read the whole thing saw that I said everything people are repeating there: he was a teenager, probably space, where he grew up, didn’t really introduce him on social issues, people probably never called him out on that at the time and so on, but this doesn’t change the fact that slurs aren’t ok. It strikes me as some of you still live in a fairytale where we get to have bad guys and good guys, but we're human beings and we need to start understanding that someone can do something bad in the past without necessarily being a bad person (that goes from problem to problem, of course). You say you want to change hockey culture and that you want to do better but when a bipoc/lgbtqia+ points an issue and wants to debate it y’all are quick to choose the one who has the same view as you and use it (@someone is gay and didn’t felt affected by it, therefore, it isn’t a big deal!!!), and it's just curious, honestly.

You also feel as if you have the right to come to my inbox and say hateful stuff, question my views and point a finger at me. I’m not perfect nor I expect any player to be, I’m well aware they are mostly white rich men, and the environment they grew up in is completely different from what we would expect as the ideal, but it doesn’t mean that we’re gonna simply ignore issues. That being said I’m not answering about this topic anymore, its tiring and stressful especially when people already have everything out there, and what I keep doing is basically repeating myself in different ways just so yall get your message. I’m not here to educate, this is supposed to be a safe space for me, yet I do talk about these topics because I know we need it more around here. The fact that some of you choose to block me (when we never really talked!!!), point me as a problematic blog, or diminish the topic, shows a lot about hockey culture (that is very present between the fans, not only in the league).

When you start to realize that part of the discomfort we feel while dealing with these issues is the key to changing the situation we’re gonna start going somewhere, while you keep diminishing it and trying to make excuses we’ll be stuck.

I recommend you to read mia’s rant about it here. Also, take some time to read about the nwhl situation here.

I’m leaving for a while, maybe a day or two or maybe a week, I’m not sure, I just need some time to get my energy back, I deal with this shit every day irl, I shouldn’t have to feel bad in here. I’m really thankful for all the supportive people and I’m really sorry for the hateful anons or the people who felt like I was attacking them or their fave, that wasn’t my intention (especially because nols was my fav too, but I personally felt kinda off, maybe in a different time I wouldn’t feel off and that's ok too). Anyway, I hope I see y’all soon in a better vibe than that (those last lb’s were really good for me btw! you guys are amazing) and if you miss me that much (jk) you can ask for my discord acc to my tito ( @barbienoturbby ). love yall <3 mel 

I’m turning my anons back because of all the named anons I had and I know some of them don’t have a tumblr acc but please: don’t send in shitty things/hate, just go live your life the way you want and leave me in peace. 

sorry for the long rant, I just felt like clarifying things because besides the asks there are people blocking me and unf me like crazy which is ?????

[mindibindi]

Beyond disappointed in Ted Lasso. What were they thinking?!

The writing is a complete betrayal and insult to Rebecca’s character and Hannah’s skills as they’re being seriously underused. It’s also insulting Sam’s character.

Hoping someone pulls Rebecca’s head out of her ass tbh. Sam shouldn’t be getting caught in the crossfire of her looking for romance. I know he showed up at her doorstep but she still should’ve turned him away, and not even messaged him in the first place.

Hey, I'm with you, Anon, though we do seem to be in the minority. Sam is definitely not blameless here, he is also in the wrong. But if one of them is more in the wrong, it is Rebecca. I can't speak to whether her head has left her arse as yet because I have quit watching (at least for now). I hear she called it off with Sam in the most recent ep, though not because of any major crisis of conscience or because anyone in her inner circle expressed any reasonable reservations in response to her bad behaviour. And to be honest, I'm not sure we should need to hope and pray that Rebecca's precocious god-daughter, her slimy ex-husband, or the brutal British press will act as a moral compass on this ill-advised relationship. Both Rupert and the press have been set up to some extent as the villains of the piece. And a 14 year old should never have to school her elders on what is and isn't acceptable. Nora's needs have already been neglected by Rebecca for far too long.

If a moral position is to be taken on this, it needs to be taken by the show (because stance matters) and/or by its characters. But the show has for the most part depicted this relationship as ill-advised but ultimately hot, sweet, funny and romantic. As for the characters themselves, Sam has shown at least once that he has some moral backbone but seems to be adorably clueless when it comes to fucking his boss who keeps trying to set boundaries with him. Meanwhile, Rebecca's whole arc in s1 was about learning not to misuse her power for her own selfish ends. In season one, she misused her power within the club in order to exact revenge. In season 2, we have seen her misuse her sexual power, though I still cannot see to what end. I'm a bit at a loss as to what exactly she gets out of this 'relationship' but then I'm a grown woman so I have absolutely no interest in sleeping with a Harry Potter enthusiast barely out of his teens. I couldn't think of anything less sexy and more ick. I was certainly hoping for better character development for her this season.

As to what the writers were thinking, obviously I was not in the writer's room, but I would guess that they were thinking that any drama is good drama, people are stupid and fan devotion will trump any meaningful critique. In other words, they were thinking exactly how every other television writer thinks, despite the fact that this show posited itself as 'not like other TV shows'. This, to me, is where the blame really lies. Not with the characters or with the actors who are doing their best to sell this ludicrous turn of events. It must be noted, however, that both actors were completely blindsided by this relationship that had supposedly been so cleverly foreshadowed. Newsflash: if the people actually living these stories did not see this coming then you haven't foreshadowed shit. Sure, there were a handful of people that paired Rebecca with Sam but this does not constitute proof either. Fans have free-range to imagine and re-imagine characters. In some cases this may extend to imagining relationships between characters who have barely, if ever, interacted. There may be little to no evidence that these characters have even clocked each other's existence and some fans will still ship it. The existence of a handful of shippers does not legitimise such a problematic and divisive plotline making it onscreen.

But wait!, you might argue, this may not be a case of a popular show seeing just how far they can stretch fan devotion. This may not be a case of fan service to a handful of shippers. After all, the creators mapped out the entire three-season arc of Ted Lasso before they even pitched it to Apple. This was their brilliant plan all along! To which I would say: then maybe they should've rethought their second act based on people's strong reactions to their first. Ted Lasso was touted as the show we all needed in 2020. The writers and creators have all marveled at the chord it struck considering it was conceived prior to the pandemic and all the chaos it wrought. And while there is something to be said for having/sticking to a creative vision, there is also something to be said for being flexible and responsive to your audience and the cultural zeitgeist with which you're engaged. Season 1 of Ted Lasso told its story so gently, without creating distrust, division or unnecessary anxiety. It did not treat its audience like a gaggle of stupid lemmings to be led over a succession of narrative cliffs. THIS is what I mean when I say the show has broken with its brand. And look, this whole dark forest thing would be okay if the narrative arc was as well-crafted as s1. Season 1 gave us meaning, cohesion, comfort, sense in a senseless time. It was an almost perfectly crafted season of television. And I kept the faith for 6 episodes, despite the first half of s2 being pretty damn wobbly. But the follow-up to this stellar debut has been less than extraordinary so yeah, perhaps they should've thought a little harder about what made s1 so special before throwing it all out the window.

But wait!, I hear the faithful say, you don't know how things will pan out yet! Wait until the season is over and everything will make sense! But -- wearily and once again, I say -- we should not need to wait until the end of the season to understand what the hell is happening. By this point (over halfway through the season and show) we should have a v clear idea of the show's themes and the characters' arcs. And tbf, from what I can tell there are some fab things happening in other aspects of the show that I wish I could watch and enjoy. But my biggest fear at this point is that they are going to use Sam to solve Rebecca's childlessness. That, like Rupert (because the parallel cannot be avoided), she will become pregnant with a young fling and the show's attitude to this relationship will ultimately be: oh well, it was a bad idea and didn't work out for them but it was all for the best in the end cos who can be mad about a cute lil baaaayyybbbeeee??!! If they do go down this path then I will definitely be abstaining from the rest of the show. I will simply recall my repeated viewings of s1 with fondness tinged with regret at just how badly they fucked up a good thing.

Ultimately, Anon, I think this may be a case of there simply not being a diverse enough perspective in the writer's room. I am not saying that every single woman or every single person of colour will necessarily object to this relationship. I am simply saying that women and people of colour will be more sensitive to the issues of gender and race that are relevant here but that have not been fully or sensitively acknowledged in the writing of this plotline. Neither am I saying that Rebecca is the first woman to sleep with a man much (much, much, MUCH) younger than herself or indulge in an ill-advised relationship. But the comparison with Rupert both works here and doesn't because Rebecca is not being written like a white woman, she is being written like a white man. Realistically, only a white man can engage in this kind of hugely imbalanced relationship seemingly without any major moral qualms or societal ramifications. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this kind of relationship is reserved for all the Bills and Joes and Brendans and Jasons out there -- not for the Rebeccas and definitely not for the Sams. We are way beyond the point in feminism where we believe that liberation is simply the right for a white woman to behave as badly as a white man. The truth is that whatever wealth, power and privilege Rebecca has, the rules are different for men and women. She will not be treated the same as Rupert if and when this affair is uncovered. She will be treated far more savagely than Rupert ever was and Sam will be treated far more savagely than Bex was. This is not an argument for the equal treatment of these two relationships. It is an argument against how the relationship between Rebecca and Sam has been envisaged, i.e. through the wrong perspective. In writing from a 'neutral' white male pov, the show has invisiblised all the many issues activated by this storyline and revealed a blindspot that was always there.

As much as I loved and still love season 1 of this show, it has definite blindspots when it comes to representations of race and gender. There are at least two moments in s1 that stand out for me as being so obviously written by a man. Not necessarily because of what they do but because of what they don't do: what is missed, absent, unacknowledged. I was willing to overlook such minor failings in a debut season for many reasons. But s2 seems to have exacerbated these minor flaws rather than correcting them. And here I can't help thinking of Tina Fey speaking of the diversification of the writer's room at SNL during her tenure as co-headwriter. This notoriously male-dominated environment only began to shift and produce better work when a greater diversity of minds, voices and persepectives was allowed in the room. In this richer environment, she notes, different jokes played differently. Different sketches made it to air. Different perspectives were represented and different performers were celebrated. I can't help wondering if this plotline would have made it to air if there had been a female writer, a writer of colour or both further up the chain of command to challenge the ideas of the straight white dudes in charge.

One of the reasons I didn't think Ted Lasso was for me was that it centred a straight, white, cis-het, able-bodied man who rose to a position he didn't earn. That is just not a pov I would normally choose for myself, especially now that there is such a rich array of alternative perspectives through which to view the world. But I think the show won a lot of females fans with its first season largely due to its portrayal of Rebecca. She is the first person we meet. She is arguably the protagonist of s1. And while she would have been figured as a villain in previous pieces, the show never took that stance with her (because again, stance matters). Other elements like the depiction of female friendships, all centred around Rebecca, made this show female-friendly viewing. But imo, the major reason this show won over female fans (this one, at least) is because, in this post-MeToo, post-TimesUp era, it stood up and said: domestic violence is not okay, we stand with women and all victims of abuse, we will defend you, we know words can hurt, we know it can happen to anyone, we know all about toxic masculinity, we do not take this lightly and we will support you in your healing. Needless to say, this is how women hope men will act when they speak of their most difficult experiences but it is not how they always do.

The shift away from Rebecca this season has however meant that the white male experience is more centred than it was in s1. Rebecca's journey to recovery, health and happiness has been trivialised and sidelined, reduced to a highly questionable sexcapade. Meanwhile, we get overwrought manpain at every turn. We get Beard wandering around London (no, I haven't seen it and no, I don't need to. We've all been raised on white dudes thinking they're genuises when they have a figurative wank all over our screens). We get NO queer represention at all. And the only other female characters on screen are in care/service roles to men. The father/son, mentoring and toxic masculinity themes are all still there but they're no longer balanced out by ANY other competing perspective. One of the reasons I was okay with Ted failing upwards in s1 was that he used his power and privilege to lift up others. He was the one in service. He used his enormous privilege for good, as anyone with such privilege must. (Admittedly, it could be argued that this is just another version of a white savior narrative).

My point here is that I'm not sure that peeking behind the mask at the sad clown is as revolutionary as some might believe. We love it because it's familiar. But this is a narrative with a long and problematic history. Do I believe in tearing down toxic masculinity in all its forms? You bet. Do I believe that patriarchy traumatises men as well as women and every other minority in existence? I mean...nowhere near as much, but absolutely. Do I believe in men expressing their feelings and going to therapy? Wholeheartedly. But I am also aware that 100 or so years ago, we were in a very similar place with our narratives. Everyone is looking for a recapitulation of modernism and frankly, this might be an indicator of just that. Whenever women and people of colour have demanded rights and recognition, there has always been a resurgence of tales about just how frickin' hard it is to be a white man. Minority genders and non-white people have never in western history been as visible or vocal as they are now. So forgive me (or don't, I don't care) if I critique a show not only for centering fathers, sons, boys and men but for blindly and boldly writing one of its only female characters and one of its only black characters as if their gender and race just do not exist. There are many other power differentials at play in this relationship, including age, experience, wealth and position, but race and gender are the two that patriarchy is most invested in invisiblising. So I don't care how brilliant they think they are, I will not trust the writing of a bunch of white dudes trying to tell me that race and gender are irrelevant.

[theladygazingatemptiness]

ok one last thing about this actually and I’m going to try to be nice this time: Pro-Crime rhetoric is 1000000% Useless without addressing and acknowledging the roles that racism and white privilege play in the how the criminal justice system operates.

let’s say, in an instance where a black person steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, and then a white person in the same store steals a $2k worth of designer shit for their shoplifting blog, and they both get caught, the latter is, By Default, going to be given Much more legal leeway than the former and it doesn’t matter that the black person had a more Acceptable(TM) reason to steal. even if the white person Does get arrested and charged, it’s still less likely that they’ll be violently tackled to the ground and beaten - possibly even killed - beforehand. point is: the system was designed to target and fuck over people like the black person - poor people and people of color - it wasn’t made to target white people with communism tumblr blogs who reblog memes about killing the president or w/e.

and just fyi this isn’t about Which Race Steals More or w/e because it literally doesn’t matter. even if no black person Ever stole anything in history and every single person who’s ever shoplifted anything was white, we would Still be the primary ones to profiled and targeted by the criminal industry, because the legal system was built primarily on systematic racism and classism. it was against us from the start.

as a black leftist, I need white leftists on the internet who are loud about the “be gay do crimes” narrative to understand and realize that it’s Extremely Easy And Safe for them to be loud about it. as a white person, you’re Safely Able to liveblog about shoplifting luxury items without getting thousands of comments specifically about your race and how everyone who looks like you deserves oppression and death. as a white person, you are Able to loudly promote arson and vandalism and looting without being profiled and potentially tracked down by police. as a white person, you’re Easily able to claim that committing illegal acts is easy and fun to do and that people who won’t do them (aka, people of color who know that they’ll be murdered for it) are just weak.

as a white person, you’re Able to openly romanticize crime, as white crime in itself is heavily glamorized in mainstream media already. the online Serial Killer Fandom didn’t come out of nowhere; in mainstream media notorious real world white criminals are almost always painted as either sympathetic or Cool/Charming. on a similar note, media about a white crime mobs are treated as Epic Film Noirs With Villain Protags, while media about black people in gangs are more or less viewed as Freak Shows about how out of control and violent we are. so, in other words, being a white person bragging about committing crimes isn’t Nearly as radical or counterculture as so many of you seem to think it is.

in the past I’ve compared white “lifter” culture to white men posting selfies showing off their massive collection of guns, and there’s a reason for that; both are essentially at their core bragging about being white and having white privilege. both of them know that their whiteness is what protects them. and without acknowledging and discussing and prioritizing the role that racism plays in the criminal justice system, that’s literally all it is.

[flying-elliska]

one of the most impactful things I have read lately are two of French author Edouard Louis' books, Pour en finir avec Eddy Bellegueule and Qui a tué mon père (translated into English as The End of Eddy and Who Killed my Father). It's been two months and I'm still thinking about it.

The first book is an 'autobiographical novel' about the author's childhood growing up as an obviously gay boy in one of the poorest areas of France, until he leaves and reinvents himself as a writer. It's fraught with bigotry, abuse, bullying, violence, deprivation and social despair, and it's one of the most harrowing things I have ever read. It reads as many things as once : a recognition of trauma, an angry exorcism, a cry for society at large to pay attention, and to be honest, as a horror story.

It was criticized by some in France as portraying the working class in a manner that was too negative, which tells me they missed the point entirely...ironic for a book by someone who actually grew up poor - one of my least favorite things ever is progressives telling a marginalized person they can't talk about their own experiences because they don't fit the desired mold. (The French love to romanticize the working class and I'm pretty sure it's often an avoidance mechanism.)

The point of the book is so obviously not about 'look at how terrible and bigoted those poor people are'. Little Eddy spends a big part of the narrative trying to escape - himself at first, then his family/circumstances and the persistent homophobia everywhere. In the end of the book, he finally manages to get accepted into a fancy high school in the city on a scholarship and tries really hard to fit in. The last scene of the book is a bunch of his - educated, upper/middle class - classmates throwing homophobic taunts at him, starting the cycle anew. I can't think of a clearer way to say 'this is not a story about a sad gay boy escaping the evil bigoted countryside for the city and then everything was wonderful!!!! this is a story about a systemic, pervasive problem.'

One of the key arguments of the book, to me, is how homophobia, sexism and bigotry in general are both a product and a reproduction mechanism of social and economic exclusion. For instance, he describes how the norms around what it means to be a man in his village (being tough, disobeying authority, quitting school early to go work at the factory, drinking alcohol, neglecting your own health, fighting over women, repressing your feelings, etc) perpetuates the cycle of poverty ; but again this isn't 'oh these people are so stupid' and more 'these people are trapped'. Because he makes it evident how degrading and dehumanizing poverty can be, this masculinity reads as a desperate attempt to cling to a certain amount of dignity - it's an extremely dysfunctional coping mechanism. At the same time, anyone falling outside of the mold is violently ostracized (like Eddy, who tries and fails to fit in). So the system keeps reproducing itself.

In Who Killed my Father, the author makes his political argument clearer. This is more of an essay, centering on his father, arguably the most complex figure in the first novel. The man is an angry, bigoted alcoholic who makes his family miserable ; at the same time he is the son of an abusive father who makes a point of honor to never hit his kids or wife even though it's very normalized in this context. In this essay the author keeps talking about the moments of almost tenderness with his father that haunt him, the picture he has of him doing drag in his youth, the fact that the father tried to leave the village when he was young to find a better life for himself with a close friend but failed and had to come back - the moments of what-ifs, of trying to struggle free from the cycle, when the system appears almost fragile and not so unbreakable after all, that the son kept holding close like a sort of talisman.

The narrative is structured around the fact that his father injured his back working in a factory and that he had to keep doing physical labor afterwards for money, instead of resting to recover, until it completely destroyed his body. Now he finds himself bed-bound at 53. Louis inquires into who is responsible for this premature 'death'. After considering individual choices, he turns towards political decisions - the successive governments, left and right, who have been destroying the French welfare system for decades and accelerating inequality. The point is to step out of the neoliberal obsession with personal responsibility and who is guilty and who is a bad or good person, and look at systems.

An element that isn't focused on but hovers over the story constantly is that this village is one where the majority of the population consistently votes for the extreme right National Front party in most elections. The book is too angry and nuanced to be some stupid "it's not their fault that they're racist because they're poor!" argument. It doesn't make any excuses for how awful this is but instead illustrates how dehumanization replicates itself, how people being denied basic dignity leads to them wanting to deny it to others. If you want to really understand the rise of the far right you have to look at where the inequality comes from in the first place, and how easy it is for people in power to wash their hands of it by blaming the bigoted masses. (Just like you can blame societal ills on minorities ! Two for one strategy.)

Towards the end of the essay, the author talks about how proud his father is of his son's literary success - for a book who clearly depicts him as a horrible person ! And this is a man who has spent his life openly despising anything cultural, because it never showed him a life like his own. But maybe now he feels seen, now he knows people want to read about these things. Maybe there is a reclamation of dignity through looking at the horror head on. Maybe his son somehow slipping through the cracks of the cycle gives him more room. The man stops making racist comments, and instead asks his son about his boyfriend. Most importantly, he asks his son about the leftist politics he's engaged in. They talk about the need for a revolution.

I think what strikes me the most is this attitude of "wounded compassion" that permeates the book. What do you do when your parents are abusive but even after you grow up, you can't help but still love them, and you know they've been shaped by the system that surrounds them ? Recognizing, speaking the harm is essential. You need to find your own freedom, sense of worth, and safety. You need to dissect the mechanisms at hand so they lose at least some of their power over you. You need to find people who love and believe you. But then what? Do you dismiss your persistent feelings of affection and care for those who hurt you as a sign you're just fucked up in the head ? You could just decide to never speak to them again, and it would be justified, but is that really what is going to heal you the most? It's important to realize you have the choice. But there are no easy conclusions.

This makes me think of a passage I have just read in Aversive Democracy by Aletta Norval. The essential ethos of radical democracy, she says, is about taking responsibility for your society, even the bad parts, instead of seeing them as a foreign element you have to cleanse yourself of. It's too fucking easy for queer progressives, especially the middle class urban kind, to talk about dumb evil hicks, to turn pride into a simple morality tale, and forget that any politics that don't center the basic dignity and needs of people are just shit. The injury is to you and by you and you have a duty of care just as much as a duty of criticism. (And this is obviously not only applicable to class matters.) You can't just walk away and save your sense of moral purity. (This is not an argument that the oppressed are responsible for educating the oppressors ; it's about how privilege is not an easy simple ranking and it is too damn easy to only focus on the ways in which you are oppressed and forget the ways in which you may have more leeway.)

There is no absolute equivalence between political and family dynamics but the parallel feel very relevant somehow. Several truths can coexist at once : you needed help and it was not given. You were let down. It's important to recognize that people are responsible of how they treat each other. You need to call out what isn't ok and stand up for yourself. At the same time, there is a reason why things are like this. Making people into villains is often bad strategy (within reason!), and in the end, easy dichotomies are often an instrument of power. The horrors you have been through might have given you a very specific wisdom and grace you do not have to be afraid of ; you are not tainted by your compassion (it is very much the opposite of forced forgiveness ; it has walked through the fire of truth.)

To me these books fit into what French literature does best, sociological storytelling a la Zola or Victor Hugo - the arguments aren't new and they can come across as heavy handed, even melodramatic. But I'll argue that the viscerality is the point, how the raw experience of misery punches through any clever arguments about how exploitation persists for the greater good of society. Really worth reading if you can do so with nuance.

[transrevolutions]

Les Amis Childhood Headcanons: Part Two (Jehan, Bahorel, Feuilly)

Jehan was also a fairly rich kid (playing off of Brick canon here) and from a young age, they were conscious of that, and of the privilege that came with it. They weren't guilty so much as they wanted to use what they had to help people and make the world a better place. Jehan's family was the kind that kids like Eponine or Enjolras or Marius would kill to have. Supportive parents both before and after they came out, who encouraged them and accepted them no matter what.

It wasn't all idyllic for them, though. They were very close to their grandmother, who died suddenly while they were in middle school, and they dealt with quite a lot of bullying for their various eccentricities. Jehan's a very sensitive person, which meant that they would feel sad over small things that other people never really understood. They were also often lonely- they wanted a sibling, but the pregnancy had been hard on their mom and there was no way the family could risk it again.

High school Jehan found a community where they were accepted among their peers. They got involved in a lot of community work, especially regarding protecting the environment, and in college, they continued that. They keep in touch with their family. They learn, slowly, to ignore the horrible things people will say to them, and that they have a place in the wider world. It takes a while, but it happens.

Bahorel as a kid was a wild child. I mean, he had lots and lots of siblings, he grew up in a rural area and spent a lot of time just running around and exploring. He was always kind of... carefree? He didn't take much seriously, especially not school, which he thought was boring but getting held back would be even more boring, so he'd do the bare minimum to pass and then that would be that. He'd get into occasional fights, though, he'd get in trouble on the playground for playing too rough, but it was never mean-spirited.

His family moves into town for money reasons and it's a culture shock for him. All of the sudden he can't just run outside and tramp around in the mud, he can't yell as loud as he wants, there aren't acres of land for him and his siblings to play on. All of the sudden, you have a hyper, athletic kid who'd been raised on the concept that it's okay to run wild who has to... stay in the yard? Be quiet for the neighbors? And so it explodes outwards instead. Middle school is not a happy time for Bahorel. He gets into trouble enough times that he's just this close to getting kicked out. High school Bahorel is where he gets involved in some... shady stuff. More fights. He slacks off in school. He goes to some iffy parties (and gets some iffy ideas about women and masculinity that he has to work out later). High school Enjolras and high school Bahorel would probably murder each other if they met. It's a good thing they don't actually meet until college, when Bahorel's settled down a bit.

Bahorel burns off most of the reckless energy by the time he gets to college (he takes a gap year, for exactly that reason), and while he'll still do irresponsible things from time to time, and he'll still be the first to throw a punch in a brawl, he's not getting blackout drunk or fighting people in the locker room. And he's not being a hypermasculine dick anymore either. He actually really regrets that part of his life, and now that he's involved in social justice and using his anger and physical strength for the right reasons against the right people, it's better.

Feuilly's childhood was absolute hell. His parents both died when he was around four, and he gets thrown straight into the foster system. He never sticks with one family for more than a year, not because he's a bad kid, but because he's weird. Nobody really knows what to do with him. Some of the families are horrible to him and some of them just pity him, and he doesn't like either of them. He doesn't make friends. He moves too much anyways. Eventually he gets a job and saves up enough money that by the time he's sixteen, he makes a run for it. (They don't bother really going after him at that point. What good would come of it?)

He buys a used car, and he sleeps in it. There's no way in hell he'll get enough to pay actual rent any time soon, and it's better than the cold. He won't accept any pity. He does not want people to look at him and go "oh poor baby". He wants to do something with his life, make something of himself, and forget about everything that happened while he was a kid. He buys into the bootstraps thing for a short while before he looks at the world and realizes that wouldn't it be better if nobody had to go through this in the first place?

He idolizes the EU the way Brick Feuilly idolizes Poland. Because like, yeah, the EU has issues and all, but compared to America? It's like an unattainable level of perfection. You're saying that if you get sick there, a doctor will help you and you don't have to be rich?? What?! He meets Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac (Jehan too) in high school, and he lets on extremely little about his personal life. Feuilly can compartmentalize. He'll tell them he lives with his parents in an apartment but he won't look them in the eyes. (By the the time he's in college, though, he lets himself tell his friends about his past. They'll be angry on his behalf, at the system, but he knows they won't pity him.)