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prosciuttulipa · 9 months ago

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content: spoilers for JJK0! Satosugu if you squint, but it's left ambiguous enough for it to be either romantic or platonic. This is just me imagining what it'd be like if Suguru got a chance to do-over for his plan on how to save humanity from its bullshit

Reformed!Suguru who, instead of dying in the alley from his fight with Yuta Okkotsu, is saved by Satoru and teleported to Shoko for healing.

Reformed!Suguru who slips away as soon as he can, knowing that Satoru will turn a blind eye, now knowing the truth of his best friend's feelings. Satoru doesn't hate him, never did, and there are mixed emotions when he turns his back on his one and only for the second time.

Reformed!Suguru who returns to his cult, back at square one. He has no curses, so he has to absorb more. His allies have taken a hit, so he needs to find more. His funds are depleted from the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, so he needs to make more. This should have been the plan that would've ended all suffering, eliminated the monkeys and given birth to a chosen people. It did not work.

Reformed!Suguru who spirals, again. He stays up even later at night, finds himself unable to play the kindly priest as convincingly to the monkeys who flock to him. The curses become hard to stomach again, no longer tempered by the ideals he had followed for the last decade. They were ideas that had proven themselves faulty with the last battle, and he has no use for them anymore.

Reformed!Suguru who thinks about Yuta's bond with Rika, and how they'd beaten him so entirely. He thinks about how he was defeated by love, and understanding, and trust. It's a disgustingly saccharine idea—but is there something worth pursuing in that thought?

Reformed!Suguru who begins to form a plan. He looks into his cult followers, finds those with connections to companies and schools and corporations. He does what he does best, plants thoughts into their heads, inspires undying loyalty to his cause, a new cause. They parrot his message back to their bosses and employees, none the wiser.

Reformed!Suguru who knows how to play the long game, and so he waits. He pulls strings now and then, as he watches the foundations of his idea start to take shape. There is an increase of counselors in schools, with mental health being taught as part of mandatory health education. Companies are being sued for unreasonable working hours, giving rise to a new wave of rules and regulations which set more realistic expectations. Corporations are investing heavily in endeavours and projects which contribute to the general public's satisfaction: parks and public spaces, consumption vouchers for elderly and those in need, elaborate festivals for the holidays.

Reformed!Suguru who starts to receive less and less requests for his help. The curses that he does swallow from the people (he doesn't know when he stopped calling them monkeys) who come to him are minor at best. It gets more difficult to find strong curses to add to his repertoire. The curse users who would've balked at this development have been dismissed long ago; those who have stayed know that all this means that everything is heading in the right direction.

Reformed!Suguru who sees a 5% drop in Japan's overall cursed energy. This comes from a 15% drop of cursed energy in Tokyo, the place he'd chosen as the guinea pig for his plan.

Reformed!Suguru who decides it's time to find his best friend and ask for help. He shows up at Satoru's apartment, not wearing monk robes but casual clothing, a loose sweater and jeans. He's tied his hair back into a bun for old time's sake, hoping it'll score him some brownie points, make Satoru more amicable to the data in the stack of paperwork he's holding.

Reformed!Suguru who stands behind Satoru as the man fights for Suguru's death penalty to be taken off him. Suguru is afraid that he's just walked himself into his own death. But miraculously, the higher ups deem the results of Suguru's implementations to be valuable, letting him live in exchange for his services. Satoru still pushes for Suguru's absolute freedom, threatens to Hollow Purple them and spark a mutiny. No one can defend themselves against Gojo Satoru, not really, and Suguru is a free man.

Reformed!Suguru who hears Satoru say to him, "we're the strongest," for the first time in a decade, and believes it.

Reformed!Suguru who takes up the position of counselor at Jujutsu High. The students are slow to warm up to him, both because he'd been a former enemy, and the thought of talking about their feelings makes them squirm. But Suguru is a patient man, and nothing if not persistent. He knows how isolating being a jujutsu sorcerer can be, went through it firsthand. He's determined to change the rhetoric around emotions within their line of work; he doesn't want this future generation to lose themselves or anyone else.

Reformed!Suguru who is the first person that Itadori Yuji meets after Satoru recruits him. It's him who asks Yuji why he fights, picks apart the boy's mind with thoughtfulness and compassion. When Yuji tells Masamichi Yaga his reasons for being a sorcerer, the principal deems it as satisfactory.

Reformed!Suguru who is convinced—yes, he thinks to himself, this is how we'll make things right.

#fixes your racism with second chances and healing #I have a lot of feelings for Geto Suguru and believe in his happiness and redemption #geto suguru #jjk geto #satosugu #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #my content #—prosciuttulipa content.

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ao3feed-keithshiro · 4 years ago

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Legacy

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2BnFbuR

by tinyginger1519

��I cannot thank you enough for all that you have given me.” “Allura… when you accepted me… it helped me to accept myself. Thank you.” “There is greatness in your heart. And in your actions.” Then she was gone. --- As far as Keith is concerned, it's over now. Without the Lions, and without Allura, Voltron is dead. Desperate to escape the fallout, he leaves the same night as the Lions, and decides to put his heartbreak and his former team behind him. It isn't until fate decides to put something else in his path that Keith is forced to turn back around.

Shiro has been doing what he can to preserve the Coalition, continuing the work he and Allura had begun before she made the ultimate sacrifice. However, as he nears retirement, Shiro questions his roll in this second chance he got and whether or not he can truly leave it behind - especially when there might be something waiting for him ahead.

Reflecting on the wounds of the past and without the wisdom of Princess Allura to help them heal this time, the Paladins try and stand on their own.

Words: 4955, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Allura (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk (Voltron), Coran (Voltron), Matt Holt, Ezor (Voltron), Zethrid (Voltron), Acxa (Voltron), Original Child Character(s), Original Characters, Kolivan (Voltron), Krolia (Voltron), Alfor (Voltron), Zarkon (Voltron), Haggar (Voltron), Lotor (Voltron), Romelle (Voltron)

Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Miscommunication, Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Single Parents, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Pining, Mutual Pining

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2BnFbuR

#Voltron #Sheith #Shiro/Keith #IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic

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echoes-of-realities · 5 years ago

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hello! this is completely random but i saw in your bio that you have a BA in anthropology. I'm currently trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and anthropology sounds really nice. Are the jobs opportunities good when you graduate? I'm also from Canada! Thank you!

Hey! I’m going to put all this under a cut cause it’s, uh, a Lot of information lmao.

So I don��t know how much you know about anthropology, but the cool thing about it if you’re going into research, is that you can do basically anything with it tbh! At its most simple, anthro is the study of humanity, so that includes literally anything to do with humans. What to study residential school experiences of Indigenous people in Canada? There’s a plethora of research opportunities about First Nations people, usually under the sub-discipline of Indigenous anthropology. What to study the effects of the lack of media representation for LGBTQ+ people? Queer Theory is a huge aspect of modern anthropology. What to study human evolution in the Horn of Africa? Paleoanthropology is a huge field. What to know Far Too Much about projectile points across the prairies? Archaeology is for you. Want to study RV-ing retirees? There’s literally a book on it.

Anthropology is broken down into four sub-disciplines:

Linguistic Anthropology: Studies relationship between culture and language; everything from language revitalization to how language usage can further oppression. This field is closely tied to linguistics, but is actually very different to it. Linguistics generally studies the structure of language, while linguistic anthropology studies how language can produce/maintain culture, and vice versa.

Biological Anthropology: Sometimes called physical anthropology, it’s the study of humans and non-human primates in terms of biology, evolution, and demography; paleoanthropology and primatology both fit here, as does forensic anthropology. I.e., the TV show Bones, except actually accurate lmao. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bones and it’s actually what got me interested in anthropology in the first place, but literally every time I watch an ep now I’m like “You can’t estimate sex from that. That’s wrong you can’t estimate race. Age estimates range from 24-82 not within two years. You can’t do that!” ff

Archaeology: There’s a Whole Bunch of specializations in arch like bioarchaeology or lithic analysis or pottery analysis; archaeology is kind of….. lagging behind the other subdisciplines in terms of feminist theory and queer theory and treating PoC respectfully. (Especially Indigenous people, NAGPRA exists because archaeologists continually dug up Indigenous graves and then refused to give the Native Americans and First Nations the remains back so……) But! There are a lot of younger archaeologists reforming the discipline and making feminist and queer theory more common in the field. Black Feminist Archaeology by Whitney Battle-Baptiste is the first archaeologists that comes to mind off the top of my head in terms of including more PoC voices in archaeology, but there’s Many others doing good work!

This is totally a self-plug lmao but if you want to know more about homophobia and sexual harassment in archaeology, which is unfortunately rather commonplace, here’s a link to my final project for my Gender in Archaeology class about the topic, it’s a narrative video game and I’ve Very Proud of it.

Cultural Anthropology: Just like it sounds, this is the study of cultures. “Culture” is a Really Contentious term in anthropology and there’s no way I’m getting into the decades of debates here lmao. But essentially, cultural anthropologists study all aspects of different cultures, from the Big Men of the Indigenous peoples in Papua New Guinea to gender relations in small fishing villages in Portugal to homeless drug addicts in urban centres. Often issues of cultural appropriation, racism, homophobia, gender vs. sex (spoiler: they’re Very Different and completely depend on the culture), and oppression fall into this subdiscipline, but they can be explored in every field of anthro.

If you Really want a taste of Cultural Anthropology, watch Ongka’s Big Moka, which I’ve watched no less than seven times because basically Every Intro level anthro class plus second year classes without prereq’s show it. My best friend who’s also in anthro and I joke that we know more about Ongka than we do certain family members, which is 100% true.

So, as you can see based on the subdisciplines, there’s a Whole Realm of possibilities when it comes to jobs. The most common is basically going into research (which includes ethnographies), becoming a professor at a post-secondary institution, or going into applied anthropology.

Research: Research can be done on basically any topic, but anthropological research is rather unique (some sociology research uses the same practices, but not as commonly as anthro). Of course, there’s the research that archaeology and paleanthropology do that falls closer to a “hard science”, but cultural anthropological research is different. Ethnographic research is holistic and includes living in the community for an extended period of time (usually over a year), learning the language, and participant observation (you must participate in the community you’re studying; this is where researchers in “hard sciences” usually scoff and accuse anthropology as being subjective and not objective, which is true, but what most scientists don’t like to acknowledge is that all science is subjective because it is done by imperfect humans).

Professor:��In order to become a prof, you need to have a master’s degree (people with masters can teach undergrad, people with a doctorate can teach graduate courses), so you do need an area of research to do your thesis on. Most anthropologists eventually become college/university profs once their research days end, or they teach during the school year and do their research during the summer. One of my fave profs does bioarchaeology in Tanzania every couple summers with some grad students so!

Applied Anthropology: Applied anthropology is probably the biggest area of careers tbh. Technically applied anthropology is just anthro applied to practical problems, so it can technically be anything. Most often, it includes medical anthropology (which is one of my areas of research studies how cultural ideologies of health and wellbeing go into healing, Lots of interesting commentaries on Western medicine and traditional medicine and how one culture’s idea of “healthy” is often Very Different to another’s), work with NGOs or activism organizations, archaeologists, museum or archive work, ecological or environmental anthropology, political anthropology, economic anthropology, forensic anthropology, and so many more tbh.

So yeah, that’s a rundown of anthropology and the ways your career can go. Honestly—and this isn’t me being all “my field is the Best Field” or anything lol—I think everyone would benefit from taking a couple anthro courses. I took The Anthropology of Sex, Gender, and Age in culture my first semester of my first year, and it’s still one of my favourite courses ever, and honestly I think that everyone going to college should take that course. Not only do you learn about how sex, gender, and age all culturally determined (no, sex is not biological because “biological” is culturally determined; most Papua New Guinean tribes have no concept of chromosomes, so “sex” isn’t based on chromosomes for them), but you’re also taught empathy in that class. Same with the Anthropology of Race and Racism class I took. Being uncomfortable is the most important part of unlearning toxic ideologies, and those two classes really embrace the uncomfortable. The biggest thing you need to be an anthropologist is empathy imo. The main goal of anthropology is to gain an emic perspective (i.e., an “insider’s” perspective) when doing research. I was always Really interested in social studies as a kid because I loved learning about different cultures so anthro is basically the “adult” version of that lmao and anthropology is essentially an extension of that.

I will say, that it’s pretty hard to do anything in anthro without at least a masters degree, so you have to be prepared to do A Lot of schooling. As for job prospects after grad, it depends entirely on where you live and what field you wanna go into. There’s far more job opportunities for anthropology in Toronto than in a small town with 7,000 people. And the fields really matter too. For example, if you want to practice forensic anthropology in Canada, you essentially have to wait for the current forensic anthropologist to die or retire, whichever comes first, before you even have a chance at a job. But as for medical anthropology or anthropology that involves working with or researching for Indigenous peoples, especially in Canada, there’s basically always job opportunities because they are in high demand of research or of people who can act as consultants.

Anyways, this is Long but I hope it helps, and btw, this basically only scratches the Surface of anthropology. I didn’t go into anthro’s long, uh, let’s say shitty history, for simplicity’s sake, of racism and colonialism here, not because I’m ignore it but just because it’s Long and I don’t have the time right now lol. But most modern good anthropologists don’t shy away from criticizing anthro and being vocal about it’s past and current issues, as well as advocating for how to fix them. Anyways. If you have any other questions feel free to send me another ask, or just PM me too! I’m happy to give information about anthropology!!

#anon #ask #I'm actually presenting to a high school about careers in anthro next week so this was helpful lol!#basically I'm going to use most of this for that presentation so that's partially while this is so long #the other part is that I Ramble lmao

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war-is-the-stupidest-invention · 4 years ago

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Wake Up: A Poem About a Day in the Life in May 2020

Wake up

Groggy, tired, afraid, kind of angry

Go to the bathroom, take a shower

Relax

Breathe in…. let the water warm you…

Breathe out

Finish, dry off,

Get dressed, stall…

I don’t want to face the day.

… No .. no more stalling it is ON

I can do this, it is ok, no you did not wake up too late, breathe.

Ok I’m ready, let’s do it

Go downstairs

Feel the sorrow, fear, love, numbness, wait no it is in your head they are ok

Say hi, talk, love, feels like something is off… no no no its in your head its ok breathe.

Get food, get water, start the day

Homework, News, World, School

Get work done, be productive, be productive, be productive….

It is so hard to learn about history and the world when the world is still the same just with more pain, more trauma, more sadness.

But wait ..there is also more understanding, more connection, more love. Breathe out.

Look up it is already 2pm NO stop procrastinating, do better you shit. Whoa.

Where did that come from why the anger why the shame why … Stop. Breathe out

Breathe in get water.

Turn on the computer see the world: fear, hatred, fires, racism, nationalism, religious war, more fear àfeel everything. Learn, absorb, share.

Go to a class: learn, listen, share, learn more

It is over, why am I filled with love, I want to give more love, the answer is love and knowledge, I can do better to share it.

Reconnect to the world again computer/ phone see hear feel friends and family

Black lives matter

Protests: a sign of a flawed society

Riots: a sign of a flawed society that REFUSES to fix itself

Generations, decades, lifetimes of oppression, fear, slavery, hatred, racism, economic suppression, poverty, death, fear, death, fear, death, fight back, death, fight back, death, FIGHT BACK

Support, listen, learn, advocate, yell, yell, YELL, change the systems, change things, change them, do better, CHANGE THINGS!

Oh wait what was their response again?

It is not that easy.

Change things

It is not possible

CHANGE THINGS

Ok we will do one little thing

NO.

CHANGE.

THINGS!

Sorry

We tried now YOU are wrong we cannot change things

WHAT

Yes you are demanding too many things

What

Yeah it is your fault

NO change things

No more oppression, they want equal opportunities, they want jobs, they want education, they want water, they want a good home, they want a free community, they want freedom, NO more discrimination.

Change Things

CHANGE things CHANGE THINGS We can do better, I know you understand!!!!

Yeah ….

We hear you

We will try.

*millions of voices*: Change things! black lives matter! do better! please care! stop killing! please CARE!!

We will try.

Violence. Death. Hatred. Fear.

But we do CARE.

“Then do better.”

We cannot control the systems.

YES, YOU CAN!!!

THAT is the whole Point.

“We are trying.” How can we just change everything?

You can we will help but you must start. Please start to change things. Please looks at the flaws in your systems and engage in changing them we will help we can do this together we Must.

I am angry

I am hurt

I am sad

I am Sorry

The first time I felt this “sorry” came 4thSORRY should have come FIRST!!

I am sorry,

I gained from your pain.

I am SORRY. i want better for you. i do not want any more deaths. i am sorry for my privilege.

I am sorry my mom asked me who is that girl

I said a friend

She said you cannot talk to her anymore

I asked why

She said you know why

I am sorry in 5thgrade I knew why I understood what she meant it felt so wrong and confusing and mean

I said nothing back

I am sorry the next day at school I ran home while you yelled after me to wait up

I am sorry I turned around and said I can’t hang out with you anymore

I am sorry I kept running

I am sorry I listened to the wrong voice

I am sorry your screams to want to talk to me, to walk with me, to be my friend were blocked but the voices that told me i shouldn’t be your friend reached my head I am sorry that I ignored you and cried but did not stand up and turn around and did not listen to you

most of all I am sorry to the voices that I did listen to that day

I am sorry I have prejudices against you unless I question them every single day. I am sorry you feel things from everyone around you that you should never have to feel and hear.

I am sorry that you had to endure all that you did. I am so sorry you had to lose a child, a loved one, a member of your community almost every day. I am sorry you have to feel afraid, hurt, confused, exhausted, and angry. I am sorry that everything good you feel from joy to love gets erased in a second when you tun on the news and hear someone lost a life because they were like you.

I am so so so sorry.

I know it is not enough

I hope we will do better for you.

I hope we will all uphold your injustices every single day and do better.

I hope we will vote and let You vote better.

I hope we will do enough to lessen your pain. I am sorry for your loss, for your generations of pain, for your sadness, for your anger, for your injustice. I AM SO SORRY.

I hope you heal

I hope you get the chances they got and we got.

I hope you get what we got. I am sorry. I hope you get the best in this world.

I will fight

We will all fight

WE MUST FIGHT Every single one of US who is befitting off the lives of black people, indigenous people, poor people, laborers, immigrants, and so many others. WE MUST FIGHT. If you are here hearing this in grad school, you are as privileged as me and probably even more so. Let US do better. Please.

We can do this, we can convince others to do this, we can fight for those oppressed in this country for so long who WE reaped the benefits off of. Please, let US do better.

Protests and Riots. Protests and riots. The history of humanity. Protests and riots.

Protests means standing upagainst someone who has hurt you.

Riots means getting away from the person who keeps hurting you.

Protests: racism, systemic oppression, poor education, flawed housing, voting oppression, districting, red lining, no water, bad food, lack of access to money, violence, police brutality, lack of rights.

Riots: Abuse, fear, hopelessness, violence, trauma, ignorance, fascism, years and decades of suppression, outward oppression, lack of change, more fear, more hatred, more deaths, more mourning, more anger, more protests, no change. No change. NO CHANGE.

Something happens.

Here it goes AGAIN: Abuse, fear, hopelessness, violence, trauma, ignorance, fascism, years and decades of suppression, outward oppression, lack of change, more fear, more hatred, more deaths, more mourning, more anger, more protests, no change.

No change.

NO CHANGE.

Fuck that.

WE MUST CHANGE.

WE WILL CHANGE.

The only option is CHANGE.

Fix the systems, change our mindset, change our prejudices, change our communities, change our laws, change ourselves, change the flow of money, change the government.

__________________________________

Everyone comes home.

Sorrowful eyes

Sad environment

Absorb the feelings, absorb the pain, absorb the love

“are you ok?”

“yes of course.”

lie.

Burrow it

No, address it and try to move on.

Apologize. I am sorry mom, sister, brother, for your pain. I am sorry.

…. The door swings

…SLAM….

Silence

More quiet. Do not go downstairs. Do not talk. It will be ok just be quiet.

SHHHH Everyone pretend to be OK only 25 more days till the separation.

The oldest, “wait, but…. you said that 10, 7, 5, and 4 years ago.”

“I mean it this time.”

Oldest: “Ok I understand. thank you for agreeing with me. let us do this. It will be ok. I will be your rock put your burdens on my back I am strong I am young I can. help.

Whatever decision you make I support you”

They vent, i listen, they transfer their feelings to me I take and destroy them. destroy me

but why are you seeing it as destruction why cant it just be a talk just words letting out the emotions held inside for so long don’t you see it is just words and actions from the past needing to escape you just opened the doors it does not mean you have to fight the monster inside

Yes… but how can i just ignore the monster when it is hurting them all the time I see it I feel it

Yes but who feels you?

They do.

Oh,

I am hurting them too.

Fuck.

Let it be.

It is ok you can learn from this you can apologize you can help when they ask you can change.

Breathe out

Time to Eat.

Drink water.

Look around the kitchen, see everyone in the living room, feel where they are, whew it is ok.

It is night everyone is exhausted go upstairs watch a movie.

Hear about sibling’s day listen learn love

Scroll through your phone news, news, news, news, news

Consume alcohol

Watch the movie

Drink more

Tired.

I am sorry.

I am sorry I could not do better for you, for the world, for this family, for myself.

I am sorry but I hope everyone has a moment of peace, and love, and joy, and satisfaction.

Hope things change

Hope.

Sleep

I am sorry.

I am sorry. I am sorry.

I am sorry.

Repeat.

(((go back to the beginning)))

#Repeat over and over and over #Life #Poetry #Poem #my poem #original poem #blacklivesmatter #personal

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monicalorandavis · 5 years ago

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The Water Dancer is a salve for a broken country

The Water Dancer is so good that I believe it can fix America. No matter where you stand, or live, this country is hanging on by a thread. We’ve needed solutions since 1619 when the first African slave was brought to our shore. Instead we’ve avoided the wound that slavery inflicted. It’s too late for state-sanctioned racial sensitivity seminars. Politicians are not to be trusted on such matters. The most radical option is the only option. We need art.

America is (and has been) a dangerous place for people of color. The police are antagonists and Congress is useless. We need a spiritual overhaul. (And I am using the following pseudo-Christian language loosely so forgive me. My intention is not to isolate anyone.) The healing has to start on a personal level, at a cellular level. We need God. And I don’t really mean God god. We need something good, and big, and something we can all believe in. God is convenient that way. He’s up in the sky, the sky we all share and look up to and out of ourselves. We need something unifying like art. We all listen to music. Everyone laughs and cries. Art is God by proxy. It is our nonverbal expression that cuts to the core of us. And while, to the rest of the world, Americans are not known for our intellectual arguments, I argue that “The Water Dancer” plays into that great American heart center that makes politics in this country so volatile. We are people full of feelings. So many feelings. Lucky for us, this is a book with the power to heal.

And you might think that we’ve moved past books. Do people read anymore? True, we’ve moved on in so many other areas of life and entertainment. We can watch movies on our phones. But, reading, like much of our consumption of entertainment in the last year, is private. It isn’t too far removed from how we spend our time already.

Reading provides a mirror and a window. It presents characters unlike us but united in a human fabric so much so that we are them. Our own experiences color the character’s decisions. To extricate yourself from the person about which you’re reading is antithetical to the fantasy of reading. Books teach us about ourselves by teaching us about other people.

Perhaps the move away from reading, and the larger consumption of media through our phones has dwindled our capacity to consume longer narratives. But I don’t feel that the damage is irreversible. It is perhaps the exact metaphor for the damage racism has caused. All is not lost. Yes, America has carried on its racist legacy too long. We are doomed if we do not act. We are on the verge of being a people we will not like. But Americans have many ideas about their benevolent destiny. We are soon to be lost from the idea we have of ourselves. Or perhaps not.

So how is it that one book, and one man, provide the salve for America? I’m not nearly smart enough to give you the entire argument. Nor should I. But I must implore you to read The Water Dancer. It is your civic duty. But I will lay out a couple of the finer points that have stuck with me since I finished the book three months ago. (It has taken me some time to get my thoughts in order.)

One, America has disrespected black Americans for centuries and as a result our country is broken. No more senate hearings or long-winded debates will fix it. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes of the pivotal story of America, slavery, the inciting incident - as a disease of forgetfulness. In The Water Dancer, Coates juggles multiple storylines, and timelines, deftly. He writes of a two-class system, the “quality” versus the “tasked”, and while these terms might rub rough in the mouth, they conjure up the same broken system of today. The psychic power in Coates’ storytelling lies, with all good things, in the in-between’s.

Between the stories of cruelty and separation, is a Marquez-inspired, metaphysical story of teleportation through memory. And before you can scream sci-fi, let us first establish, Americans are suffering from widespread memory loss, be it purposely or not. The memories of slavery are simply too painful to live in regularly. This is a story beyond genre. It’s an all-encompassing, sweeping story. It’s sci-fi but it’s also historical fiction. And now that I’ve totally bored you, let’s push on. The magical realism up Coates’ sleeve is one I’ve yet to see and hope to see more of. Coates writes of the metaphysical capacity of memory and he uses water as the conduit. Kaboom.

Yes, water, the scene of so much crime against the African American, as it has been the pathway, the passage, and then more recently, the segregated pool with its lack of access and subsequent stereotypes - that place is the only location charged with enough ancestral wattage to summon the power to travel groups of people safely out of slave lands. That sounds confusing and impossible. But, slavery seems sort of confusing and impossible now too. And yet...

We need metaphysical stories. We need fables. We need slave super heroes. That is why “Django” felt so important and “12 Years” felt so expected. (And yet, there seems to be only one slave narrative that we reward with awards and accolades.) I won’t spoil all the fun of the teleportation travels because they are fantastic and soulful. And, most of the fun comes from who we get to meet along the newly-imagined Underground Railroad. To spoil that would ruin the occasional surprise of hope along the journey.

Now, the second point, and, I guess, larger argument for “The Water Dancer” is that it is not a shaming tome. It is not an indictment of white people (though I don’t know if they deserve such generosity. Coates is a more enlightened being than I.) It holds white people and black people in its palm and pokes at either, revealing how we, belonging to our groups, subjugated each other to a system that benefited neither. White people, “the quality”, were privileged in their position, avoiding manual labor and brandishing discipline with whips and cruelty. The quality subjugated the tasked through years of degradation to the point that the tasked stopped fighting. That is the part slaves played. They could have revolted every day, but then again, they could’ve been lashed every day. While their responsibilities in the system are certainly not equal, they play a factor. And then there was a third option for the slave. Run away.

A life on the run, hiding in free states, leaving loved ones behind and never being able to sit still long enough to get discovered, all that constant running and constant anxiety proved to be its own set of chains. But this was the only option for tasked people who wanted more. Mothers left children. Husbands left wives. Slaves faced terrible decisions for the chance of a better life. Just the chance. It was horrible and sad and we are not so long removed from the trauma. To expect black people to move on from a tragedy when entire family lines have been lost to never be repaired is not only disrespectful, it’s unrealistic. Slavery was abolished and white lawmakers asked former slaves to be superhuman. We’ve penalized being normal, feeling beings (I believe because slaves were never supposed to be seen as such).

What did we expect would happen? This is the natural outcome. Disorder. Unease. Tension and resentment. Black people do not owe their former masters’ forgiveness. Some are gracious enough to provide it. But expect it, you should never. It is not yours. Forgiveness is the highest gift from any person. It is, in effect, spiritual gymnastics and we are not all limber or athletic enough to go there. Yet, The Water Dancer is full of forgiveness.

To backtrack slightly: I did say black people participated in the system, too. But, in many respects, they had to to simply stay alive. (That or flee and that guaranteed nothing.) To be a “good” slave, meant that you, the slave, obeyed your master. In so doing, white people suffered. That little exchange, be good or be punished was the sacrifice to black (and white) people.

Let’s go deep. White people’s integrity was lost in this system. That is not some holy, esoteric ill. To put it plainly, their moral fiber was compromised. The slave owner suffered greatly from their barbarism though it be their own. MIddle-class white families participated in every day, commonplace violence. Men, women and children fancied themselves “good white people” all the while owning other human beings. Even if they didn’t beat, rape, starve or maim their slave, they diminished another human’s life continuously, every day, every second. Down to the smallest detail. A slave lived a life without a choice. What does that do to a person?

On the other side, to be a master of a man was to be emboldened as that man, or woman, or child’s God, in a sense. You fed, clothed, housed and ordered them around, all the while, maintaining a firm grip on discipline and decorum. You were feared. And after generations of such cruelty, your grip on morality suffered. You could not be fully Christian, as many defended themselves to be. You see, to be feared was a handicap to the white man. They have been made inhumane with their own actions. Their inherited legacy and DNA has been mutated and bent to explain gross acts of violence (just as African Americans’ DNA has inherited the pain of slavery). White Americans are no longer what they could’ve been. Their wounds have resulted in a manipulated sense of power. Their compassion, their grace, their eternal goodness and humanity has been violated. And they did it to themselves. They participated in their own moral corruption. That is their burden. The tasked fed into the system, however slightly, to protect themselves. They witnessed the firsthand degradation of their masters’ humanity.

And now that we’re all involved, let’s talk about the present issue at hand. How to right this wrong? We could start with reparations.

No, I don’t think that will ever truly happen. It would become an overwrought “proving” system of blackness. There would be measurements and rigamarole and the money would be delayed and the bureaucracies in place would be as shitty as the DMV. But what we can do is promote black art. Without conditions. Let it be taught during all months of the year. Let’s stop fearing the psychic damage it does to us. We are all mature enough to speak about this open secret. Black people were slaves. White people owned them. Was that so hard? I don’t believe so. Let us finally go to the hurt places and repair them so that we can be better. Let us use the gifts of those smarter and more creative than us to be better.

I think Ta-Nehisi Coates knows the way. No pressure, sir. But I think you’ve written the book that we needed in 1619. Now if you could only teleport a copy to the shores of Virginia...

"The Water Dancer” might be the most seminal book of our country’s history. We, black and white, are united in a shared legacy of torture and bondage. Cry as we might, we are not color blind. We were never color blind. There are things to atone for.

And if I haven’t convinced you yet, black people teleport. And they teleport through fucking water by summoning their memories - and if that’s not a big middle finger to every racist “black people can’t swim”-ass clown from the Mayflower to the present, then I don’t know what is. He served us magical realism on a platter with a gravy made from the ancestors. Let us listen to artists now. Aren’t we tired of fighting?

#ta nehisi coates #the water dancer #book review #best book of 2019 #best book list #fiction

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