#esp considering the racial situation

[illnessfaker]

idk how to rly mentally handle the fact that dan mcclellan is mormon i mean i get that mormonism is a situation that can be hard if not impossible to leave once you're apart of it due to high-control group dynamics (especially in utah) but i dunno about the intellectual honesty(?) of assuming his circumstances are in line with that idea & he staunchly refuses to talk about his own personal faith situation aside from the fact that he is mormon & used to work for the church as a translator or something

[umalvie]

to me, zuko’s relationship with toph is so antagonistic on his behalf because she’s the one member of the gaang (outside of suki who he simply doesn’t consider to be in the gaang tbh) who he least empathizes with, at large and in relation to her trauma. the reason for this is that unlike aang’s, katara’s, and sokka’s traumas which he sympathizes with + connects his trauma to in various ways of arguable aptness, zuko is uncomfortable with the striking closeness of toph’s trauma to his because of how class and privilege factor into their both of their trauma. aang, katara, and sokka are not privileged in any real way, esp not one that reminds him at all of his situation re status and privilege.

zuko finds aang, katara, and sokka's trauma relatable on a level that makes him feel equally victim of the fire nation; that's why he draws lines between kya being murdered in an ongoing genocide to protect katara and ursa, who was certainly not anti imperialism from anything we've seen of her, disappearing to protect him from his abusive father and grandfather. both situations are unpleasant and involve maternal sacrifice, but one is a domestic ordeal while the other is an act of racial violence and genocide. the connection exists, but the context is radically different. still, zuko likes that he can draw those parallels between his trauma and katara's. it allows him more room to feel like a better victim and arguably a bigger one in the context of the war, despite the fact that his status means he did in many ways benefit from his family and country being the perpetrators of it and his own personal role in it throughout books 1, 2, and 3.

i will give the obligatory disclaimer that zuko is a child soldier and he does side with the oppressed in the end, but he himself is not oppressed by the fire nation's genocidal war as a fire nation prince, let alone when he is the fire nation crown prince. he is someone who directly benefited from this war. yes, his father was abusive, yes, he was exiled for 2 and a half years, but he was still afforded many privileges because of the war. that does not negate his domestic suffering or his political exile, but those privileges still came about because of the suffering of others, including the gaang.

this is a nuanced situation. it is extremely complex and hard to accept the simultaneous truths at play here, even for adults, let alone for an extremely traumatized, black and white thinking 16 year old boy. zuko needs to be a victim in the context of the war as well as his family to alleviate his guilt about his participation in it prior to joining the gaang. he needs to relate his trauma to theirs. i will say that he doesn't ever seem to attempt this with suki nor does she offer her trauma to him, but that's more about both the writers and zuko not caring much if at all for her as a person.

but toph receives clear rejection from zuko when she tries to relate to him. her attempts to endear herself to him and to open up to him are shot down. why? surely toph suffered because of the war too. she's from the earth kingdom. but she never suffered a personal loss that zuko respected or related to. toph is not given any dead relatives. she was abused but not in a way zuko would understand, and her abuse did not negate that she lived a relatively comfortable life for being in the earth kingdom during the war. she was rich, she was cared for, she was shielded by privilege in many ways. while zuko is of course far richer than toph, he doesn't want to confront that reality. he doesn't want her privilege to make his obvious. he needs to focus on his suffering, his abusive father, his struggling to fit in as heir, and his time in exile and poverty. he can't accept the idea of those struggles coexisting with his privilege, so he can't accept the idea of toph's either. she has to just be whining about nothing. she has to be a nuisance not to be taken seriously. otherwise, he has to turn and face things about himself he doesn't want to be true.

could he grow to care about her and face his own privilege in the future? sure. but he doesn't in canon.

[neechees]

what do you think of blood quantums for tribal enrollment? I’ve heard many different opinions about it and wanted to ask your opinion. On one hand it undoubtedly filters out the pretendians, on the other it seems to keep many indigenous ppl from connecting with their communities when they are legitimately indigenous. It was also put in place by the govt so that doesn’t help it’s merit either

BQ for tribal enrollment does not filter out the pretendians, it's not ironclad. And even if it did, it's also disenfranchising people who are also ACTUALLY Native.

We (& i mean the royal "we" here) talked about this on my blog that there's a type of "pretendian" that technically does have some kind of (usually distant) Native heritage down the line, but that they use this to their advantage. If you've lived your whole life as a different ethnicity and only very recently learned of some Native lineage (esp if one is white), that Native heritage somewhere does not suddenly make you Native.

Like if I found out I had a greatx8 Chinese grandmother I would not suddenly start calling myself "Asian". Obviously that situation would be a little different since Chinese Canadians & FNMI have different histories of racialization within Canada & experiences among the diaspora, but it would still be weird for me to do something like sign up for a scholarship specifically meant for Chinese Canadians or started selling "Chinese inspired" art while marketing myself as Asian-Canadian. I would have Asian heritage yes, but I did not live my life as an Asian Canadian, and suddenly wanting something (what one could perceive as "benefits") from that experience without even trying to do ANY work in actual exploration, community building, self education & reflection, or reconnecting of that heritage would be weird & wrong.

The type of pretendians that I mentioned do the above: they might have some Native heritage, but there's a lot of people (and I mostly see White people do this), that aren't actually interested in reconnecting or building community & allyship with Native people, but want the perceived "benefits" of being Native, be it imagined (like how some people think that ndns don't pay taxes, which is a myth), financial (like applying for Native scholarships or selling "Native" products like sage), or social (like wanting to be perceived a certain way, or trying to market themselves as a Native "activist", or building a social media platform) or Fetishistic (being obsessed with the idea of Native lineage, hippies, appropriation) or literally anything else. So no, BQ laws for Native enrollment doesn't necessarily filter out pretendians effectively, because this type of "pretendian" also exists, and will and have used that heritage to get tribal enrollment for the above reasons.

And as I mentioned, it also disenfranchises other ACTUAL Natives, both those who technically have very little or no Native BQ but were adopted in & have always identified as Native their whole lives, or those who are mixed race and have what would be considered a "high" Blood Quantum as well, and even those who are "full blooded" but do not have tribal enrollment & are denied it for any number of reasons. Black Natives for example, are regularly denied tribal enrollment regardless of BQ for no reason other than that they are Black, so BQ for enrollment doesn't even necessarily work for people who are ACTUALLY NATIVE either.

BQ for tribal enrollment has a racist history in the past AND ongoing issues in the present. In other words, the system of BQ is bullshit, and was made up by White colonizers who literally did not know or care about Native ideas on Native identity, and their goal in creating BQ was also working along with genocide. BQ in enrollment was not made to protect us.

[ikosburneraccount]

I’m not fully active on tumblr and I don’t know that much about users on here or celebrity rabbit holes for that matter, but do you mind explaining what that user did that was racist. Just so I can have a reason to possibly distance from them. Thanks x

IS didn't do any what you would consider "direct" racial harm to me, but just ignored the situation entirely (like most blogs) which contributes to the alienation and marginalization of people who WERE harmed by TS. It undermines the harmed people's emotions and dismisses the severity of the harm caused.

I subtweeted IS here in my pinned post (bold and italicized):

"And if you run to that blogger asking her opinion on this, I don't care. At the end of the day, other women of color who continued to ignore TS actions implicitly side with her racism and her racist fans and continue to harm and marginalize black women."

I said "that blogger" because IS is essentially the biggest and most active TLC blog on Tumblr for the past few years. People send her a lot of asks on various topics and I'm sure what I posted would have come up eventually on her blog via ask.

AFAIK IS is Asian(Chinese?)-Australian from when I used to follow them. Most non-black communities of color contribute to and actively play a role in reinforcing anti-blackness and this situation is a good example of how other swifties of color contributed to this anti-Blackness. This is not me accusing all PoC in this fandom as antiblack, BTW; this is making stating that antiBlackness is clearly present within PoC communities and other PoC who continue to stan TS are an example of this.

(Also, MH called Ice Spice a "chubby Chinese lady" which, shouldn't Asian (esp. Chinese) swifties take serious offense to this? That is racist AS HELL).

I hope this explains everything. It's ultimately your choice to continue interacting with IS knowing this information, and I can't control that; all I can control is explaining why I don't interact with her. I hope this helped.

[the-writing-mobster]

So, you said that “You’re What I Want” will be following the political conflicts between Monsters and Humans (which I cannot WAIT to see), but I was wondering how you would show this? Of course, racism (speciesism???) is a heavy topic to cover, especially in writing, and is shown in different ways. Expecting that the humans won’t take the freedom of monsters so lightly, what type of Monster racism can the readers expect to see in YWIW?

(Also, love your writing and characters! Can’t wait to see more of your beautiful content!💖)

Thank you for the ask! And great question!

⟨⟨I want to make it clear that if this is the only interaction someone has with topics such as; Racism, Anti-Blackness, Xenophobia and anti-Semitism then I would encourage them to get more involved.

I'm happy to offer some form of insight, but I would also urge and encourage one to watch media made for and by POC and not just starting and stopping at fanfiction. I'll leave some good recs in the tags⟩⟩

When it comes to the monsters, the heaviest amount of discrimination they would face would be on the basis they are considered "demons." Their biggest prosecutors would be Evangelical Christian Fundamentalists. (Lol who ISN'T victimized by evangelicals?)

I pull a lot of inspiration off of right wing conspiracy theories about The New World Order and how Christian evangelicals would react specifically to "Demons" (not good)

Here's an example of the type of discrimination monsters would face;

Fetishization (shit like "I heard monsters have "ruts"/Big dicks/are really rough in bed/freaky/I want to fuck a monster girl..." shit like that. They would be treated like a Sexuality and not, ya know, sentient beings capable of thought and feeling... It would be awful 😥)

A LOT of "The end times are here" and "this is the democratic baby eater pedophile elites last step in their plan for world domination! Letting hell loose on us! Just lettin Satan walk amongst us, brothur!"

Literal dehumanization for not being... Humans... There would be a lot of legal problems trying to get paperwork done. Legitimizing monster identities, their money, integration.

Interspecies/racial relationships would be demonized (no pun intended) and fetishized.

NIMBYism

White Flight 2: Electric Boogaloo

Think Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene.... Yeah. YEAH, now you know what I'm talking about.

Keep in mind, New World Order conspiracy theories are inherently anti-Semitic and I'm not about to erase that. In fact, knowing the behavior of right wing political pundits, they would undoubtedly rope in other minorities such as Jewish people as a way to blame them for the demons on the surface.

Also, hmmm, do any of these sound familiar? If so, it's because White Supremacists have the same fears and reactions to everything.

⟨⟨Again, I want to reiterate that these kinds of discrimination already happen irl to MULTIPLE GROUPS but esp Black Americans and I would hope that a fanfiction isn't the thing opening peoples' eyes to this; but if that's the way some people learn, then I'd want to do it as well as possible, and I'll do my best to provide resources as well. This is not a light topic to be used for entertainment value, ya know?⟩⟩

Who would be the first to accept them in a real world situation?

The queer community would def be one of the first to accept them ESP the Black Queer Community, simply because it was that community [black queer individuals] which opened the doors for pretty much all civil rights PERIOD.

Don't get me wrong, there would be some backlash from human marginalized communities, as a way to distance themselves, but ultimately, the reintroduction of magic into society could be used as a great tool to protect vulnerable people and the communities would learn to hopefully accept, empathize and fight with the demons. It's the true anarchists understanding that MY LIBERATION is dependant on YOUR LIBERATION, and is the drive to work together.

This fic would explore magical solutions that are based in real world solutions (as in, all the solutions are stuff we, humans could do in real life, it's just being portrayed in a magical way with mythical creatures) For example, mutual aid, building community, housing the homeless, and so much more.

There is an emphasis on Intersectionality. After all, you can't spell community without unity.

That being said, that won't really be tackled until the second part, as the first part is dealing with Crime Syndicates.

These are all extremely heavy topics to tackle, but I do want to explore the real world consequences of the world Toby Fox created and in my humble opinion, left unfinished.

If I have any Black, Jewish, Latin and/or Asian American readers, I would love for you to reach out through PM and possibly beta for this fic, because when handling these topics it is imperative to have sensitivity readers.

ALSO if you're a POC content creator, feel free to hop on and promote your own fanfics, art and writing, I'd be more than happy to give you all a space and promote your art. As far as I'm concerned, this blog is safe space for this fandom.

[guardsbian]

Totally agree on the post!! I NEVER see little people or eczema in characters! And every time there is a fat or black character, they’re “curvy” and they have blue eyes with straight hair!! There’s so much you could do with a character!!- 🌈

Oh absolutely! I've not seen any gijinka/anthro designs that are little people, and whenever I see them with lore dragons they're usually permababies? not really my call to make but that's feeeelt iffy to me. And scars/skin conditions/etc. are usually only present if they look "cool" (which... also guilty).

Though I will say... I don't even know if I see that many "curvy" characters? There's one fairly popular anthro artist that I think would be most guilty of this (though I've mentioned their art/design style before and my distaste for hourglass figure after hourglass figure), but, overall, it's mostly stock muscular, "average," or skinny characters. And there is an issue of fat characters commonly being presented in suggestive manners. In line with other designs, maybe, but still :/

And yep! I know that whitewashing features like hair types and eye colors is pretty pervasive in fantasy, and, while FR's eye significance makes me more understanding of the eye color situation, when it comes to hair you don't commonly see tight curls, afro-textured hair, dreads, braids, etc. Which, hey, in a fantasy setting, you might not have 1-1 races, and alot of characters might come off looking racially ambiguous, or possessing some combinations of features that aren't usually inherited together (just because of dominant/recessive traits and all that). But when you have these ambiguous characters with light eyes and just straight or wavy hair (esp. w/ "exotic" or sparse clothing) next to characters which are so clearly white, and designed to be white... That's not building a world or building its populations, that's just whitewashing, even fetishization when you consider the dominant tropes in gijinka designs. Or when every East Asian character is skinny and lightskinned and defined by cultural stereotypes/"aesthetics." When every Egyptian character is an ancient Egyptian pharoah or god. When Aztec-inspired characters are white. When the demons are all scantily clad men of color. When you barely see characters that wear hijabs/similar head or face coverings. When motifs associated with South Asian, Middle Eastern, and Romani people/cultures are only used to make a (usually white or, again, ambiguous) character seem "spiritual."

And people usually don't do this on purpose, it's just... Ingrained. But if it takes consciously making an effort to unlearn these things, then it's something that we as (especially white) content creators need to do.

[thosemintcookies]

kinda sad that the recent dd run isn’t handling disability/bodies in relation to society as a theme...like matt being blind doesn’t really show up at all? spoilers ahead

i remember a really great sequence from like old school v early dd where there were a bunch of people harassing him and assuming they could just beat him up bc he’s blind but then he fought them mostly by dodging and using his cane? like there his blindness is something people do see and make assumptions about him for. like there are ways that the assumptions of able-bodiedness will show up in his workplace, and there are ways that it will colour his experiences.

bodies and institutions, legal precariousness, disenfranchisement stemming from bodies in particular, these are themes that daredevil has always tackled in some way or another. matt’s blindness as a lawyer (legal institution, also heavily deals with the religious institution), milla’s blindness and her work with secure housing (social policy, and later, the mental health institution), becky blake’s wheelchair use and legal work (female victimization, legal institution), mary walker’s dissociative identity disorder (mental health institution), sam chung’s undocumented status and asian identity (immigration and border services, education), kingpin’s insecurity (mental health, intergenerational trauma), foggy nelson’s cancer arc (illness and health services), these things all start with the inquiry about social situations and bodies in relation to them, how bodies are subjugated and confined by the situations they’re in stemming from how society perceives and categorizes these bodies, and then also how the subjective realities of these characters are shaped by the institutions and perceptions against which they struggle.

the tension in these characters is about how much we can empathize with, how much we can forgive their actions, if we can. it’s about how they perceive their place, as participants in institutions against which they struggle.

ithere are things that really shows the current run’s unwillingness to really handle these things, like mindy cheating on her husband (which might be forgivable narratively if we explore her character more- her upbringing, her marriage, her relationship to the men in her life etc etc), the fact that matt is constantly drawn like a sighted person (not that blind people have to adopt the whole cane/glasses/guide dogs, what have you, but the art constantly seems to just forget that he’s blind, and there are things he would naturally just do differently because sight is not something he has to worry about), the fact that the inner city setting and the racial backgrounds of the support characters seem more incidental than fleshed out (like we have the chance to really explore black and latinx realities here. street-level organized crime can be complex, it can be gritty, not everything is about drug empires- with the whole legalization of weed thing there are real opportunities to discuss how race and criminality are assumed statuses for bodies of colour, but not as much for those racialized as white. we have opportunities to explore racialized poverty, and how it’s not as simple as “just walk the straight and narrow” talks by a probation officer. it’s the soft coercion of capitalism minus the security of legitimacy. it’s nuanced).

and there’s detective cole north, who with the most recent issue (#14), is revealed to have shot an unarmed kid. i hope we can really explore what his blackness means to him, because it really should matter that he’s a black cop from a city that’s notoriously segregated. the tension between where he stands as a man wanting to uphold the law, a man for whom the law grants access to violence in special ways, and a man for whom the law has failed, or who has seen the law fail his loved ones and community, these things should really matter to him.

you would not believe the whiplash i got when matt, a white lawyer, told north that “the law bends” for him. it’s dual ended: he is privileged in his legitimized access to the violence, and at the same time, the law has consistently dehumanized people like him despite stating overtly its commitment to equality.

i want the run to really explore that kind of tension (esp if the run isn’t going to heavily feature well-loved and established characters) because at its best, dd is a sociological series, and about the empathies we can extend as readers. it begs us, through a visual medium, to empathize with a blind man, and through its characters it gives us a chance to consider bodies at face value, not as things to be fixed, but as things that experience the world differently. a daredevil run devoid of that sort of struggle just doesn’t really feel like daredevil to me.

[jageunyeoujari]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[raptorific]

genuine question: why do you not like people refering to lucio specifically as "boy"? tumblr tends to call every character boy/boi especialy since the mcelroys became popular so what is it about lucio in particular that isnt good to call him boy

The short answer: it’s because he’s black and the people doing it are largely white and there’s cultural baggage surrounding white people using the words “boy” and “son” to address black men. 

The long answer starts out with the idea of tonedeafness and a fandom phenomenon that crops up when predominately white fanbases are exposed to dimensional, compelling characters of color. The same thing happened with Star Wars and Pacific Rim and so many other diverse franchises lately. 

A lot of the time, white fans are genuinely not trying to be racist, but most of their faves up to this point have been white, and they haven’t considered that perhaps the way they write and talk about those faves would take on different implications when the characters’ race is considered. 

For instance, and I get in trouble a lot for bringing this up, but a few months ago there was a Disney AU fanart of Finn and Rey from Star Wars as Tarzan and Jane. Now, in the movie, Tarzan and Jane are both white, but in the art, the impact changes because Finn is a black man and the artist drew him as an animalistic ape-man who meets a delicate high-class British woman who “civilizes” him. Obviously the Tarzan/Jane dynamic has a very VERY different meaning if Tarzan is depicted as black and Jane is depicted as white, and it is in fact racist to depict Finn that way even if it wouldn’t even be the smallest problem to draw, say, Iron Man and Pepper Potts in the same exact situation. (Also if anyone is Tarzan in that pairing, it’s Rey, but I digress)

So you get these situations where people are trying to do the stuff they always do for all characters, only their faves have mostly been white up to this point so they’ve never really had to consider the racial implications of the stuff they say and write about those characters. That’s why they draw D.Va as an infant without realizing that the infantilization of East Asian women is actually a harmful racist practice, and then when informed of this fact, instead of saying “oh shit, I didn’t know I was contributing to that! Thanks for telling me, I’ll stop doing it,” they get defensive and claim that actually it doesn’t matter if the end product is 100% identical to racism, because they didn’t intend for it to be racist, that’s not what they were trying to do.

Also, generally speaking, they don’t do the same thing to white characters. While jokes at the expense of Soldier: 76 and Zarya are usually things like “he’s old and grumpy” or “she’s really strong,” jokes about Reaper are more like “he’s got a huge dick and he’s abusive and a rapist” and jokes about D.Va are usually “she’s a dirty and mischievous subhuman creature and the white guy is like her dad.” The fact that a lot of people make all these jokes and think they’re roughly equivalent speaks to how much unconscious racism they’ve got to purge from their system. 

Alright, so now that we understand that, let’s get into a little more of why “boy” and “son” in particular are not the sort of thing you should not call Lucio. 

The first and main reason is that he’s a grown man, aged 26, but more importantly, he is a black man. Historically, the words “boy” and “son” have been used on black men for two reasons: 

Because even grown black men were to be treated as childlike under white supremacy, esp. under slavery, and even after the abolition of slavery, the words “boy” and “son” are still used in order to talk down to black men. You will still frequently catch younger white people address black men older than them as “boy” or “son,” especially in a service capacity (i.e. a black waiter or employee at a store). Under slavery, the dominant white supremacist narrative was that even the smartest black people were only on the level of white children, which is obviously a complete falsehood fabricated to justify their continued subjugation by saying “they’d be lost without us.” So, by referring to black men as “boy” or “son,” that’s the message that was being communicated, that even though any given black person is grown, they’re still viewed as roughly mentally equivalent to children. 

A lot of slaveowners didn’t feel it was worth it to learn the individual names of their slaves, so they would simply address them as “boy” or “son” (or “girl” or a variety of other degrading names for women) and this practice continued even after the abolition of slavery. Again, calling back to the “black waiter” situation I referred to earlier, you still sometimes see white patrons referring to black employees as “boy” or “son” in this way. For older people, they would use the terms “Auntie” and “Uncle” as a way to deny them honorific titles such as “Mister” and “Miss,” which is where we get mascots like “Aunt Jemima” and “Uncle Ben,” both of whom were derived from this practice. A similar example is how a lot of white railroad passengers wouldn’t bother to learn the names of their car’s porter and would simply call them all “George,” which again sort of demonstrates my point: the name “George” isn’t inherently racist, lots of people have that name, but to call a black guy doing their job that carries different implications even if you “didn’t mean it that way.”

So generally, there’s nothing wrong with the words “boy” or “son” most of the time, but when you address a black man this way, it carries a whole different implication. I’m not trying to condemn anyone morally or say “you’re evil if you’ve ever used these words about Lucio” or anything, but back to the beginning of this:

I am assuming you all have positive intent, that you are all well-meaning and that you are definitely not trying to be racist. Because of this, I feel like it’s my responsibility to tell you when a thing you’re saying carries meanings that you maybe didn’t consider and definitely didn’t mean to imply. I know I would feel foolish and guilty if I found out something I’d been saying casually actually had a racist meaning that I wasn’t aware of, so I just want to say that if anyone reading this is (like me) a white person who’s really truly well-intentioned and doesn’t mean to be racist at all, your response here should be “oh wow, I didn’t know that Boy and Son are names you generally shouldn’t call black people, I’ll be more conscious of that in the future,” and if your response is to become defensive and try to prove that it isn’t bad because you didn’t mean it “that way,” it either means you aren’t well-intentioned and do mean to be racist OR it means you didn’t read the post. 

That being said, I’m happy to inform where I can, but I’m also not black, and a lot of black writers have explained this a lot more eloquently than me. I suggest you do some googling and research what they’ve said on the subject, because I’m sure they’ll give you a clearer picture than I possibly can. 

[glittergummicandypeach]

Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data | Religion Dispatches

Are the nonreligious a marginalized group in America? When I brought this question up to a friend who lives in New York the other day, he was skeptical. Practically everyone he knows is an atheist, he says, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. As someone who grew up in central Indiana and Colorado Springs, where I was sent to evangelical schools, his attitude both bemused and concerned me. The disconnect just serves to illustrate that how one answers this question may vary wildly depending on where one sits—in some cases quite literally.

According to a new report from American Atheists* called Reality Check: Being Non-Religious in America, those living in  “very religious” communities reported substantially more discrimination in employment, education, and other services than those living in “not at all religious” communities.

Visual from “Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America,” courtesy of American Atheists.

The Secular Survey, from which the report was drawn, includes data from 33,897 nonreligious Americans—those who self-identify as atheists, agnostics, humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, secular, and/or simply nonreligious. The survey’s designers consider a lack of data on nonreligious Americans an obstacle to effective advocacy for the needs of this group, which the report describes as “an invisible minority.” 

In a webinar for journalists and advocates, American Atheists’ vice president for legal and policy, Allison M. Gill, stressed that most data we currently have fail to distinguish between the various stripes of the religiously unaffiliated (i.e. “nones”). Nones may retain some religious beliefs or consider themselves religious without belonging to a formal institution, but this is not true of the nonreligious proper, as the report defines them. As Gill observes, this “can sometimes obfuscate the needs of our community.”

According to Reality Check, “Participants’ analysis of community religiosity aligned well with geographic expectations.” In other words, regions you’d expect to be highly religious were reported by participants to be so. In addition, “While nonreligious beliefs may be casually accepted in states like California and Vermont, nonreligious people living in states like Mississippi and Utah have markedly different experiences.”

“Stigma and Community Religiosity by State” chart is from “Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America,” courtesy of American Atheists.

Indeed, the 554 survey respondents from Utah rated their state more religious than respondents from any other state, although Mississippians reported a slightly higher degree of stigmatization of nonreligious people. The study measured stigma using a scale based on nine microaggressions targeting nonreligious people, and respondents were asked to note whether and how often they had experienced each one over the year prior to taking the survey. Per the report:

Nearly two thirds of all survey participants were sometimes, frequently, or almost always asked to join in thanking God for a fortunate event (65.6%). Nearly half (47.5%) of survey participants recalled sometimes, frequently, or almost always being asked to or feeling pressure to pretend that they are religious. Nearly half of participants were sometimes, frequently, or almost always asked to go along with religious traditions to avoid stirring up trouble (45.3%), and nearly two in five (37.9%) were treated like they don’t understand the difference between right and wrong.

Of participants, 26.3% reported that sometimes, frequently or almost always “others have rejected, isolated, ignored or avoided me” and 17.3% reported sometimes, frequently, or almost always being excluded from social gatherings and events because of their nonreligious identity. When RD recently spoke with American Atheists’ Gill over the phone, she also noted that her organization and others like it “hear from constituents every day who have complaints about their children facing discrimination and bullying in school, how they’re at risk at work for talking about their beliefs, how they’re not able to access government services.”

Stigmatized minority or bullies without a pulpit? 

The representation of nonreligious Americans as a stigmatized minority is bound to be contentious, particularly when the Secular Survey’s respondents—a convenience sample recruited through secular organizations rather than a representative sample—skew so disproportionately white (92.4% vs. a U.S. Census Bureau estimate of 76.5%, including white Hispanic/Latinx) and male (57.8% vs. 49.2%), a profile that inevitably recalls elevatorgate and the racism, misogyny, and alt-right views that have come to characterize far too much of visible movement atheism in recent years.

If one’s primary associations with being nonreligious are people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and their vocal and all too often abusive fans, it’s only natural to find it absurd and even offensive that such privileged and powerful men could be considered in any sense marginalized. But before we jump to too many conclusions, in addition to recalling the disparate geographic experiences noted above, we should also note that Secular Survey respondents skew disproportionately LGBTQ (23% vs. an estimated 4.5% of American adults as noted in Reality Check). In addition, Reality Check takes care to note disparate outcomes among African-American, Latinx, ex-Muslim, and LGBTQ respondents, the intersections of whose racial, ethnic, sexuality, and gender identities can affect their experiences as nonreligious Americans.

After reading Reality Check, I recently decided to test the waters on how the politically engaged, broadly progressive public might relate to the representation of nonreligious Americans as a stigmatized minority. I did so, as a queer nonreligious American myself, by posting a 24-hour Twitter poll in which I asked respondents, “Can the language of ‘coming out’ properly be used by anyone forced to conceal an aspect of identity, or does it belong only to the LGBTQ community?” 

I noted that the question was inspired by the new report on the Secular Survey, which found that many respondents—particularly those in very religious communities—are forced to conceal their nonreligious identity. The Twitter poll results are, of course, unscientific, but the replies were passionate and deeply divided in ways that matter for the kind of public discussion the Secular Survey is intended to spark:

Based on the frequent reactionary behavior coming out of atheist communities and how that fed people directly into the alt right

I am not happy with atheists using "coming out" unless they're also queer.

Atheists as a group have not been good allies to queer people

�� Mean Fat Girl- 🏳️‍🌈💄 (@Artists_Ali) May 6, 2020

It’s not oppression olympics they just aren’t the same thing and y’all can get your own word esp given how hostile the atheist community is to lgbt people

— El (@sooofanxy) May 6, 2020

All forced concealment.

I'd also include survivors of sexual assault, because regardless of the reason, if you have to hide a part of your lived experiences or face violence, rejection, public scorn or humiliation, then you are disclosing a truth that can – and will- hurt you.

— Jillian Onthehudson 🇺🇲🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@jillianonthehud) May 6, 2020

As an LGBT non-believer with mental health issues, I'm surprised the majority of folks are saying "coming out" should only be used by LGBT people. Depending on where you live and what group of people you know, the stigma against other characteristics can be as strong or stronger.

— Jami (@jamiblakeley108) May 6, 2020

While some respondents insisted that being nonreligious is a choice in a way that one’s experience of one’s gender and sexuality is not—and even some self-identified atheists replied to the effect that they don’t consider their atheism an identity—the fact remains that in many parts of the United States, being recognized as an unbeliever can come with severe social consequences. In addition, although one’s beliefs about the nature of reality should ideally be a matter of conscience,  children have no control over the beliefs they’re raised with or the communal norms that surround them.

If we recognize that forced religious conversion is an act of violence, then we should recognize that living in a community where it’s unsafe to disagree with the prevailing religious consensus and to refuse to participate in religious activities is also to experience violence. As a transgender woman and ex-evangelical, these issues are very relatable to me, as they are to many who have left high-control religious groups, and it’s my fervent conviction that they need to be part of our public discourse.

According to Reality Check:

Nearly one third (31.4%) of participants mostly or always concealed their nonreligious identity from members of their immediate family. Nearly half of participants mostly or always concealed their nonreligious identity among people at work (44.3%) and people at school (42.8%).

Family rejection can come into play as well, with the Secular Survey finding that 29.2% of respondents under 25 whose parents were aware of their nonreligious identity had somewhat or very unsupportive parents. By including questions about loneliness and isolation, the survey was able to suggest that such situations result in higher likelihood of depression, and it also showed that lack of family support for nonreligious Americans resulted in lower educational achievement. The report’s prediction of likely depression corresponds well to recent social scientific findings on the psychological harm that comes to people who consider leaving their high-control religious communities but choose to remain.

In addition, some atheists are at risk of physical violence over their lack of religion. Only .8% of survey respondents reported being physically assaulted over their unbelief, although for African-American respondents the number is 2.5%. Meanwhile, 12% of respondents experienced threats of violence, and 2.5% experienced vandalism (14.2% and 3.2%, respectively, for Latinx respondents).

None of these facts make the experience of “coming out” as nonreligious the same as coming out as LGBTQ, but they do nonetheless show that disclosing one’s nonreligious identity can be fraught and risky depending on one’s social environment. While the report itself did not use the language of coming out, its framing is recognizable as that associated with social justice advocacy. The report’s inclusion of intersectional analysis is also particularly noteworthy for an atheist organization, but is unsurprising given the diversity of American Atheists’ national staff and the organization’s willingness to partner with religious organizations to work toward the common good, as the pluralism inherent in democracy demands.

With respect to the terminology of “coming out,” one of the qualitative responses included in Reality Check, identified as coming from a female respondent in Kentucky, reads in part, “Joining an atheist/humanist meetup group helped me have the courage to ‘come out’ with my secular beliefs. Prior to having a social group, I felt alone without a way to overcome judgement from religious family members.” American Atheists’ Utah Director Dan Ellis also recently commented, “When I came out as an atheist, I experienced discrimination from family members,” adding that he “lost friends—even ones who weren’t particularly religious.”

Gill, herself a transgender lesbian, noted in our phone conversation that the Secular Survey’s questions about identity concealment were indeed meant to get at “a coming out experience,” though the survey deliberately did not use that language in order to avoid possible confusion. 

Asked whether she thinks the phrase “coming out” belongs only to the LGBTQ community, Gill remarked, “I would vehemently disagree with that; I think it belongs to everybody. And I see a lot of similarities between being nonreligious and being LGBT.” She stressed that this does not mean that the stigma and discrimination faced by nonreligious people and members of the LGBTQ community are the same, but observed that “the process of coming to awareness of one’s identity and beliefs and revealing it to other people and facing possible rejection is similar.”

The use of the terminology of “coming out” outside of LGBTQ experience will likely remain contentious. But the hardships that many nonreligious Americans face for being nonreligious, while distinct from those faced by LGBTQ Americans, are still very real. Christian privilege and supremacism are pervasive in the United States, and much work remains to be done to render them more visible so that, along with white supremacism and patriarchy, we can work more effectively to dismantle them. 

*Full disclosure: I am in regular contact with the leadership of American Atheists, and I was slated to speak at the organization’s 2020 convention before it had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This content was originally published here.