#like we generally agree that leaving the racism behind is A+++ but are there elements which some people think is required but others don't?

[ineffablefool]

I just always start wondering with stuff like this -- which themes are interesting and clever to ignore or subvert, and which must remain in place? Who decided that? When? Was there a vote? Is it never okay for me to headcanon something as being totally divorced from some specific core detail of canon, ever ever? (If yes, then what does that say about the legitimacy of transformative work? If no, then who gets to tell everyone else where the acceptable cutoff is?)

I heard about the vampire zine that was so restrictive that it would exclude its own canon material, and that does seem strange to me personally, but I mean, if people wanna do that then hey whatever it's their dime. Writing an engaging story about a vampire without including any blood/violence/etc actually sounds like a fascinating challenge.

Why does anyone engage with any story? Something about it appealed to them. Other parts don't appeal. Transformative works get kind of Theseus's-ship regardless of what pieces you're replacing; there isn't one special component that would unmake the whole rest of the thing. Just, don't get on that particular boat if you hate that they changed out the sails. And if everyone is changing out the sails and nobody can be bothered to keep the original sails anymore, then, uh. Maybe how people interact with media can change over time and that is actually okay?

(edit because I reread what I posted and realized I should make sure I'm fully understanding something: if we are saying people "cannot" headcanon their way past certain things, what does that actually mean in practice? Obviously nobody's house is getting stormed by mind-reading Canon Police if they think the wrong things, but what *does* happen? Like, you (generic You) say "look if you're not taking this part of canon then why are you bothering with the canon at all". I (hypothetical member of whatever fandom this might specifically be about) shrug and say "I just think it's neat!" Is that the end of the conversation because that answer is good enough? Or does Generic You have something else to respond with? (I know from the notes that for some people, the next response is "well you're not a real fan". I'm not attributing that approach to OP, but I am giving all the self-appointed gatekeepers the most incredibly disappointed look. From what source do you claim authority to determine who is a "real fan"? "I am objectively right and thus everyone who disagrees is objectively wrong because I'm so media-literate" is not a real answer. I guarantee you there are others out there, just as clever, who would disagree with you on some point or other -- but they say they're objectively right so now what??) Anyway. I don't want to get stuck on differing definitions of what the available courses of action are.)

you cannot headcanon your way out of overt thematic structures on which the entire narrative is built

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

I can't wait to see the development of Spinner after this timeskip. Spinner is the character who has not found his own way. All the other members of LoV know very well what they want and face their own problems at the moment. Spinner is surely overwhelmed by the situation and does not know what to do: Take care of Shigaraki? Save MrCompress? Find Toga? (I don't include Dabi because Spinner must have seen that he could be independent)

I wouldn't even be surprised if we had a panel where Dabi rejects Spinner as Early-roki with Inasa

Anon, I kinda agree. If anything, I have always thought that Spinner is quiet a wonderful character in terms of knowing his values and knowing himself.

And for his way, I think it is well defined, even if he doesn't know it yet. He is the champion of the "mutants" and the solid representation of the fight against racism and discrimination. At the same time, he has always been quiet heroic, protecting his friends and providing emotional support to them, one of the things they need the most.

Dabi wants revenge, Toga wants to live well and easy, Tomura wants to destroy. All these purposes are generated by a type of anger that leaves nothing but pain behind. Tomura won't find the love he searches for if he destroys the world, Toga won't live in an easier world if she helps Tomura, Dabi won't break the cycle of abuse he is in if he kills Endeavor.

Spinner is not going to end racism either by helping Tomura, but he has inspired others. More than any other member of the League, Spinner has a positive reason to fight. The way he has done it is not okay, but you don't see anyone else in the bnha / mha universe fighting against racism as much as him. Hawks and Mirko, two of the "mutant" pro-heroes among the best pro-heroes in Japan, hasn't even name that problem.

And we can't forget Spinner first followed Stain, who wanted to give recognition to the real heroes and not the fake ones. In that sense, Spinner doesn't want to destroy society or kill the pro-heroes. He followed Tomura because he saw how sad was his story and how passionate he was about making a new world. But you are able to see in the new chapters that he doesn't want destruction or abuse of power in the form of AFO.

I think his priorities are going to be helping Tomura, finding a way to the other members of the League so they can help him saving Tomura, even making a deal with the heroes in order to protect his friends and finally making a good change in society, to protect the people with animalistic quirks or mutations that are being constantly discriminated.

Like you say, I think Dabi is gonna reject Spinner in some way. And Spinner maybe is will head on his own to find Toga, the only other member of the League who can help him. I think Spinner and Toga are going to be the two sides of a bridge between the heroes and the villains, and they are going to open the way for the heroes so they can reach Dabi and Tomura and AFO.

I'm curious about who's gonna connect with Spinner from the side of the heroes. I think 8 read something about Horikoshi saying Shoji is gonna be important in the last arc, but I don't know. Spinner has saved Deku before (Spinner stopped Magne for hurting Deku in the summer camp attack), and they both want to save Tomura, so it would be an interesting duo.

I know Kurogiri is also going to be a vital element in the final fight. He's gonna play against AFO to save Tomura or Shirakumo is going to play with the heroes, but also to save Tomura. Either way, it'd be funny if Toga was heading to find Kurogiri and the heroes trap her in there.

A part of me would like to All Might and Spinner to meet. All Might wanted to save Tomura and he knows his past, Spinner knows what AFO did to him and I bet he would argue about how good is Tomura and in how much danger he is. OR WAIT, STAIN IS SOMEWHERE OUT THERE? Oh, it'd be wonderful for Spinner to meet his role model and that being the way he gets to know what he wants to do. You know in the old "I count on you" style.

I have many ideas for Spinner and all of them are wonderful. He is really an underrated character with a lot of narrative and storytelling in the manga, and it's a total shame that he doesn't get to shine in the same way in the anime.

[autolenaphilia]

Granada Holmes (series review)

The 1984-1994 Granada series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes are regarded by fans as a milestone among the many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes that were made. Brett is said to be “the definitive Holmes”. And I would largely agree with that, despite it not being my favourite version, and it having some flaws and weak episodes, especially as the series went on.

The first thing that set this show apart is that it went back to the original stories and adapted those. Now, it isn’t the first version to do so, as some people (including Brett, apparently) claim. The 1920s silent film series with Eille Norwood was fairly canon accurate, and the 1960s BBC tv series with Douglas Wilmer and Peter Cushing also followed the canon. There is also the 1979-1986 Soviet Russian series with Vasily Livanov. And on radio you have more canonical dramatizations, such as the British John Gielgud 1950s series and the BBC Carleton Hobbs series from the 50s and 60s. People have an unfortunate tendency to ignore radio in favour of screen adaptations.

Still, it must be granted that Granada at its best is probably the supreme screen adaptation of the canon. The production values and acting are far superior to what the 60s BBC tv series had.

Jeremy Brett was a revolution in Holmes performances. The previous era defining Holmes, Basil Rathbone, as great as he was, made Holmes into too much of a straightforward hero. Brett brought back the eccentricities (including the drug use), the nervous energy and the character’s general moodiness and emotionality that was there in the text.

Holmes in the Granada series was ultimately on the side of good and a benevolent figure (if occasionally rude), but fictional justice perhaps had never an odder champion. He did everything from sitting weirdly, jumping over couches to taking drugs. Holmes felt neurodiverse, and indeed Brett used his own experiences with bipolar disorder in the performance.  And it was true to canon, in a way we seldom had seen on screen before.

Jeremy Brett’s performance as Holmes is extremely influential and often imitated by later screen adaptations, but has never been surpassed. The portrayal of Holmes in BBC Sherlock and the movies with Robert Downey Jr. is clearly inspired by Brett’s nervy eccentric genius Holmes, but ends up a bad parody. Holmes in the Granada series can like his canon counterpart occasionally be rude or careless towards other, but it was lapses, not a general trend. They seemed to be caused by an eccentric brain on another wavelength from the people around him, rather than any malevolence. Holmes in BBC Sherlock is a male nerd wish-fulfilment fantasy, where the character’s eccentric genius are allowed to excuse any crimes.

At its height, Brett’s Holmes is an awe-inspiring performance, with the actor pouring everything of his skill and energy into it. You could criticize it as melodramatic over-acting, but it makes for great viewing and fits the man who said “I never can resist a touch of the dramatic”.

The Granada series gets much credit for rehabilitating the role of Watson. Both of the actors playing him depicted as very much intelligent and capable. It is somewhat overstated of course, the turning away from the comedic figure Nigel Bruce portrayed started already with Andre Morell’s Watson in the 1959 Hammer Hound of the Baskervilles. Still, the Watson depicted by the Granada series is still one of the show’s chief draws.

The series had a switch in the actors playing Watson, with David Burke portraying him in the first two seasons of 13 episodes  and The Empty House featuring Holmes return to a Watson portrayed by Edward Hardwicke. And honestly it is hard to choose between them, because they are both great and there is a consistency in the writing that makes them feel like the same basic character. 

Burke’s Watson comes across as younger and more energetic of the two actors and has perhaps the better comedic dynamic with Holmes. He is perhaps my pick, as despite his actual age while playing the part, he feels closer to the young Watson of the canon.

But that is no serious slight against Hardwicke’s performance, which is still first-rate. Hardwicke’s Watson feels older, despite the difference in age between the actors being but a few years. The performance is also defined by an effortless charm and warmth, giving Watson an avuncular aura. But Watson is not at all infirm and is still an intelligent medical man and an experienced soldier, ever ready with his revolver.

An interesting change from the Canonical stories is that Watson never gets married and moves out of Baker Street. The Sign of the Four features Mary Morstan, but at the end she walks out of the story without any romance between her and Doctor Watson. The reason this was done, is that it simplifies the set-up of the stories. With Watson in 221B, he is always on hand to join Holmes. No need for a scene at the beginning of Holmes taking Watson away from wife and practice. Also it saves them keeping track of when Watson was married or not, something that Conan Doyle himself got into a serious continuity tangle about.

As producer Michael Cox (quoted in David Stuart Davies’s book Starring Sherlock Holmes)  noted, Conan Doyle himself probably regretted marrying off Watson, considering The Empty House has Watson suffering from a “sad bereavement” and then moving back in with Holmes. So it is a very much acceptable deviation from canon.

It also frees the writers to focus on the most important relationship in the canon: the friendship between Holmes and Watson. The canon has been called “a textbook of friendship” by Christopher Morley, and the chemistry and relationship between Holmes and Watson is vitally important to any adaptation. And that aspect of the stories is wonderfully conveyed here, with both actors playing Watson working together with Brett as Holmes well to convey the odd but close friendship between the two men.

Rosalie Williams plays Mrs. Hudson, and she is excellent in the role. The Granada series has a lot of little scenes of Mrs. Hudson added into the canonical cases, and they work excellently, giving her more of a presence. Many of them are comedic, making jokes about how a difficult and eccentric lodger Holmes is, but there is a clear undercurrent of affection throughout their interactions.

The recurring cast members include Charles Gray as Mycroft Holmes and Colin Jeavons as Inspector Lestrade.

 Gray as Mycroft is close to ideal, fitting the character of the overweight, lazy and intelligent canon character perfectly. He was such a good fit for the role that he had actually earlier played the part in the film adaptation of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.

Jeavons fit the part of Lestrade and his acting is superb, capable of showing the full extent of Lestrade’s character, having both smug over-confidence at times, yet also having genuine respect and affection for Holmes.

The acting skills of the actors playing characters who only appear in one episode is also generally very high. And that is part of the general high quality of execution the show had for most of its run. The period sets and the directing was of a similar high standard. The music by Patrick Gowers is excellent, and I suggest any fan take a listen to this Youtube playlist of his soundtrack.

The scripts are quite excellent, for the most part sticking close to the Conan Doyle stories. Of course there are always infidelities here and there, and sometimes the episode would go on non-canonical tangents.

Usually it was to make the story work better on screen. For example, the villains in The Greek Interpreter escape from Holmes and Watson, ending up being killed “off-screen” as it were. So the Granada version of the same tale has a non-canonical ending of Holmes, Watson and Mycroft confronting the villains on a train, something that works rather well. Another example is The Musgrave Ritual which entirely ditches the original story’s framing device of Holmes telling Watson the story of an early case of his. In the Granada version Watson is with Holmes on this case, and it works better that way.

And with all of these elements working together, for most of its run, the Granada series is perhaps the definitive screen adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. The first four seasons of 50 minute episodes, which were broadcast under the titles of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes from 1984-1988 plus the feature length adaptation of The Sign of Four are pretty much all great. It went from strength to strength, consistently making very well-made adaptations of the canon.

The Sign of Four is probably a good pick for Granada’s peak, due to its epic nature. And it is definitely the best of the five feature-length films they did. Outside of leaving out any romance between John and Mary, the film is faithful to the book, although it goes too far in that direction in keeping in the racism of the story. But it also has all of the book’s virtues as a story too, and fine acting from Brett, Hardwicke, and John Thaw as Jonathan Small make for an enjoyable viewing experience.

There was however a decline in the series later years. The lynchpin of the series was Jeremy Brett, and his health began to seriously fail him by 1987, leading to his death in 199 (my source of information on Brett’s health decline and general behind the scenes things is mostly Davies’s book Starring Sherlock Holmes) Once lean and looking remarkably like the Sidney Paget illustrations of Holmes, his conflicting medications for his heart problems and bipolar disorder caused him to retain water and bloat, causing him to no longer look like the lean figure he once was. His looks wasn’t really the problem, what was however was that his health problems drained him of the energy that he once was able to put it into his performance, creating through no fault of his own a more lethargic and weaker Holmes.

There was also a growing lack of care shown towards the series by Granada itself. The budgets began to shrink by 1988, and while the series looked good for the most part, it did impact the show.

Probably the first disappointing episode is the double-length adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles from 1988. You would expect the Granada series, with their excellent leads and excellent track record up to this point, to create the definitive version of this often-filmed story, but it just isn’t. It isn’t bad, but it is ultimately mediocre in a way that is hard to pinpoint. My guess is that the direction and cinematography doesn’t manage to create the suspense the story needs, resulting in a slow-paced and slightly boring experience.

It also ends up show-casing the problems the show would now begin to have, with the production crew not having the money to do location shooting on Dartmoor and Brett obviously showing the signs of his failing health.

The Hound film was followed by a season of six 50-minute length episodes, called The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes. And these were mostly fine, considering the circumstances. The budget had been reduced compared to earlier seasons and you could tell the writers sometimes lacked a first-rate canonical story to adapt.

There were one or two weaker episodes, but those were due to the original story being weak. For example, the season ended with a faithful adaptation of The Creeping Man and it is as good and well-made a tv adaptation you could ever hope to make with such a bizarre plot. The result is of course pure camp, but so is the original story. When the show had a good Conan Doyle story to adapt, like The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Problem of Thor Bridge or The Illustrious Client, the results are indeed up to the standards of its past.

The real nadir of the series came later, however, when in 1992-93 the series decided to do three double-length episodes. Granada wanted the Holmes series to copy the success of Inspector Morse and its 100 minute tv film format. The problem was the show would still adapt Conan Doyle’s short stories into a format that was far too long for them. So the scriptwriters had to pad the stories out with their own inventions.

This sort of worked for the first film of these three films, The Master Blackmailer. It was based on Charles Augustus Milverton, which is one of the shortest stories in the canon, but one of the most rich in dramatic potential. Writer Jeremy Paul’s script decided to show in detail what is merely mentioned in the story, such as Milverton blackmailing people and Holmes courting Milverton’s maid in order to gain access to his home. The end result works, it is somewhat slow-paced but is ultimately coherent and at its best feels like you are watching the backstory to the canonical events.

The same can’t be said for the second and third of these films, The Last Vampyre and The Eligible Bachelor. The Last Vampyre is an almost completely incoherent non-adaptation of The Sussex Vampire, where elements from the canonical story probably make up less than 5% of the resulting film. There is an attempt to create intrigue and suspense around the original character Stockton, but the film is so vague about what he is and what threat he poses that the resulting film makes no sense.

The Eligible Bachelor is a similar adaptation of The Noble Bachelor, where the canonical story elements that remain is entirely subsided by a new bizarre plot where Lord St. Simon is now a ruthless Bluebeard-like villain. It is slightly better than The Last Vampyre, simply because the villain here poses an identifiable and somewhat coherent threat. Still, the film has to pad things out with bizarre subplots, like Holmes having prophetic dreams, which ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere.

Wisely, the series returned to the 50 minute format for the last season of six episodes, which aired in 1994, under the name of “he Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It was with this season Jeremy Brett’s health problems and the lower budgets really began to seriously affect the show. Brett was in a bad state at this point, and the description of the production in Davies’s book makes for sad reading.

During the filming of one episode in this season, The Three Gables, he had to use a wheelchair between takes and supplementary oxygen to ease his breathing. His performance is naturally lacking in the energy he once had, but the fact it is a performance at all is testament to his commitment. The Three Gables is actually one of the better episodes of this season, as it actually manages to improve on one of the weakest stories in the canon.

Edward Hardwicke was unavailable to film The Golden Pince-nez, and they couldn’t re-schedule the shooting dates (which I suspect was a budget issue). So the writer wrote out Watson and replaced him in the role of Sherlock’s assistant with Mycroft, since Charles Gray was available. The result is well-made otherwise, with guest stars Frank Finlay and Anna Carteret giving great performances, but the lack of Watson is sorely felt. It is fun to see Charles Gray’s Mycroft again, but it feels contrary to his character to accompany his brother like this.

And before he could film The Mazarin Stone,  Brett’s health gave out on him and he was hospitalized. Again Charles Gray was called in by the producer to play Mycroft as a substitute. It is nice to see Mycroft for a fourth time, but Mycroft doing this doesn’t feel true to his character. And this episode is one of the weakest in the series, due to the script. Not that I blame the scriptwriter too much, The Mazarin Stone is one of the worst stories in the canon. The efforts to improve on the story by combining it with another weak story  The Three Garridebs don’t at all manage to rescue it.

However, there are still some rather good episodes in this season . The Red Circle is good and The last ever episode of the series, The Cardboard box manages to close out the series on a good if dark note.

Jeremy Brett died in 1995 due to heart failure, ending all hope of any future series.

I might have delved too much on the series failures in this essay. Because all of that is outweighed by the consistent high quality the series managed to achieve in the first four seasons, and with a few failures, still managed to sometimes achieve again in the later ones. Those adaptations are perhaps the peak of Holmes on screen.

It is not my favourite adaptation, that is the BBC radio drama versions made starring Clive Merrison as Holmes from 1989 to 2010. Those were just as consistently good, with Merrison and Williams/Sachs as Holmes and Watson being on the same general level as Brett and Burke/Hardwicke as performances. In fact, the BBC version is more consistent, never going off the rails as the Granada version sometimes, and it actually managed to achieve the goal Brett had hoped for: adapting every canonical story.

Still that doesn’t take away from Granada’s great achievement in adapting the Holmes stories with such quality. It is an achievement that later movie and tv adaptations haven’t been able to surpass.

[ilikemcdanno]

My personal thought on it was that it was a behind the scenes action mostly. Them wanting to continue the show itself and preparing the "next generation" if you will (Tani, Junior, Quinn, Linc, and somehow Lou becoming the remaining 'original' member as things went on). Alex has for a while commented here and there about stepping back after suffering an injury to his back, but then getting a procedure done to help with the pain but he knew that his days as Steve were numbered. The writers and PL loving Steve and not really liking the idea of Alex not coming back had an odd mix of...making Alex/Steve the obvious favorites but also putting in the elements needed for when the ax finally falls and the show might still go on even if they had to say goodbye to Alex/Steve.

This not even getting to the behind the scene rumors of punishing Scott for not wanting to play PL's game and being more vocal about being okay to cater to some of the things the fans wanted (the realism of Steve and Danny getting together romantically not being bothered by him. He's an actor and if the story made sense, he'd act as needed and give it his all. The chemistry with Alex was always there so he saw why fans wanted it.) So even if Alex/Steve's character suffered, he was by comparison still more favored than others.

This is me trying to understand the results knowing there are a lot of things that went into it. The writers and producers, the studio and network, and as much as we would have wanted, the actors had limited if any say in what really happened to their characters....

I hope this made sense. Sorry for the rant >.>

In case anyone is confused, pretty sure this ask is pertaining to this post I made.

And I do agree! Although the show couldn’t have survived without Alex (and then because Alex was planning on leaving) Scott wanted out as well. Either way, you can tell they were planning for our main (and oldest) leading men to leave. Whether or not the show ended or not. Which it did as we know, lol.

And as for the punishing part, I haven’t heard of that honestly. Not that I would be surprised, considering PL is not a good person to put it simply. But kudos to Scott for (possibly) pushing how he felt and not being afraid to say what he wants? I honestly think that Scott himself wanted more time with his family, and that caused him to be in the show less and less. Which I can’t be angry at him for. His family is more important.

And lastly, as for how much say the actors get with the characters, unfortunately you’re right. I do believe Alex cared a lot about Steve, and probably stayed true to his characterization more than PL did. And I think Scott would of done the same if he ever directed or wrote an ep. It’s honestly sad that I felt PL neglected a lot of aspects of the show. Not to mention the pay and the treatment of Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim. The sexism, the racism that I’m sure was there. Along with not caring for simple human decency.

Either way. Thank you, anon. I appreciated your thoughts. 🥰

[kendrixtermina]

The “Genocidal Edelgard” Shallowtake

I was not going to make a post about this because it’s most likely futile and not going to convince anyone nor do I believe in dinifying the purity police with attention, but maybe it will let some ppl know that they dont have to let themselves be shamed for liking the wrong video game character

Whatever might have been the case in the distant past when Nemesis was around, by the “present day” the Nabateans are not at all some commonly oppressed stereotyped minority - the setting is chock full of characters that fit that bill a lot better like Dedue or Cyril. Characters that are ordinary humans not magic dragons. 

And even that is more founded on general purpose xenophobia than from the specific, relatively new early modernity construct of racism. (the dedue situation probably comes the closest)

Sure, Seteth and Flays have to hide from their old enemy the Agarthans, I see how some might find that relatable etc. but most of the population isn’t aware that they exist at all. They hold high status positions, are worshipped by the local religion and Rhea all but rules the entire continent (and says so herself to Byleth in that speech about how she was just “ruling this wayward country in your stead”, “you” being Sothis) - though that is mostly Rhea’s doing of which Seteth and Flayn are relatively innocent. 

The interviews pretty much confirmed that the Nabateans constituted the local aristocracy and that many humans genuinely saw the Elites as liberators - though there was definitely also an element of ppl going around killing random Nabateans to gain superpowers, not to speak of Nemesis’ very obvious very unambiguous mass murder. Not wanting to be ruled over by foreign powers is understandable, though obviously killing them all down to the last civilian was just flat out evil - its certainly not a simple situation, we can all agtree Nemesis & the Agarthans were evil but there is no clear defined good guy. 

There are historical conflicts you could compare this to, perhaps some conflicts in Africa or the middle eastwhere different groups took turns being the ruling class after the latest war,  but it’s not at all like the modern USA or early modernity colonialism, and forcing every real or, in this case, imagined scenario inherently dependent of fantasy elements, into this one framework from the present or near past isn’t conductive to understanding at all. 

And in the present day, by the time Edelgard is alive, we are talking about three specific people that she has good reason to dislike individually. Not any sort of group at all. 

She calls Rhea a cruel beast because that’s all she’s ever seen Rhea to be. She’s the shadow tyrant who rules her world, who created the crappy world Edelgard grew up in. It’s no different Cubans thiking badly of the castros after suffering through famines - or, no need for such extreme examples really, ppl call their least favorite politicians monsters all the time. 

She’s wrong to assume that Seteth & Flayn are wholly on board with this, but on the other hand, it’s not at all a far-fetched assumption to make: They hold high positions in the church though they ostensimbly just appreared out of nowhere one day. Do you have to be an evil bigot to assume that the brother and right hand man to the tyrannical god-queen is condoning & supporting her actions?

The truth is of course that underneath her pseudo-parental facade Rhea is sort of a scared girl, very lonely, very afraid, and ashamed, in a shallow, childish way, for “breaking the rules” just because they are rules. She says she can’t trust anyone, that she feels lonely & isolated... and while no one can blame her for distrusting humans after the slaughter of her people, but the reason she can’t trust Seteth is that she’s keeping her bad deeds secret from him. He wasn’t there the whole time, he just showed up a few decades earlier. 

She sees herself only as filling out for Sothis and doesn’t quite grasp that she’s in charge, very much a follower personality bent on stasis & regularity. 

Is Edelgard obliged to try & unravel the complex psychology of the tyrant who rules her home to correctly deduce why she would deceive even her own family? By all intents and purposes, Edelgard is the one getting rid of an oppressive government that doesn’t let ordinary humans let a say at all. A government where ppl of others faiths and nationalities are typically oppressed unless they work directly for the church.

It’s like having a disdain for, say, Ivanka Trump. She holds a high position in her father’s administration despite having no obvious qualifications, she appears to be profiting & making bank from her father’s atrocities, she certainly hasn’t done anything to stop him or disavow him the way that, say, her cousin Mary did - if you suffered under Trump’s regime you’d be very justified in assuming that Invanka is probably a bad person.

Flayn only looks young (She might not if we saw her in other clothes). I mean, Kronya could badly impersonate a schoolgirl. At the very least they’ve supported the regime by refusing to question their own side and they show some however benevolent belief that it is their duty to “guide” the people. Leaving her to the Agarthans is certainly questionable, but no more so than doing it with Rhea herself, under the assumption that she’s guilty and that it’s a sacrifice that will prevent larger chaos. The agarthans had their plan long before they created Edelgard as we know her, and she couldn’t stop their plots all on her own. 

You could say that it’s callous, distasteful or a deal breaker - as the death knight is her direct subordinate & she makes a personal appearance in mask, I would argue that she definitely knew & sanctioned the kidnapping - but she’s no more callous towards Flayn than towards anybody else. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or that they deserve to die.... and Edelgard would agree with me.  She doing all this to prevent death – flipping the lever on the trolley problem so it crushes one person instead of five so to speak. She always gives her enemies the chance to surrender, unwilling allies the chance to leave, and jails enemies whenever leaving them alive wouldn‘t lead to further death… even the ones she has the most personal reason to hate, like the PM.

As servants of the church who have chosed to back her enemies, she’ll certainly kill them if she has to, but not any more than any other enemy. At no point anywhere in the story does she say anything like that they need to die on principle. Nowhere at all. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary.

The church paints her as being completely against the religion or even wanting to set herself up as a satanic godess cause it‘s good politics & they don‘t get what she‘s doing – to an extent her own credibility & messaging is compromised by her secretive and at times unscrupulous actions, no one said she was perfect. In truth all she wants is to have the church out of politics, you know, what we have in nearly every modern country outside the vatican and saudi arabia.

You can absolutely let Flayn & Seteth go on CF and there is no word, no fuss about it anywhere. No „make sure to kill em all“ which would certainly be there if the narrative wanted to portray Edelgard that way. It requires the mediation of Byleth as someone they would talk to & not immediately assume the worst of, but, they see the church as the embodymet of all that is good & fighting its enemies as their sacred duty so of course it wouldn‘t be possible for just anyone to talk them down. It‘s framed as Flayn letting Byleth go cause they saved her life once, even if we know from behind the screen that she wasn‘t going to survive a fight to the death against the player-controlled faction.

Heck, even when it comes to Rhea, the one most guilty that Edelgard has the most reason to loathe, she‘s ultimately surprisingly gracious. She gives her the option to surrender – and this is not a lie, she discusses this with Byleth in a lecture question, and seriously ponders the possibility. Here Byleth gets a range of options like „stab her in the back“ and „keep the church under imperial control“ but you know which one nets you the support points? „Strip her of her authority so she can‘t interfere in politics“. She wasn‘t gonna mess with the religious folks & their religion at all, just make it so it‘s separate from government. Rhea could even keep being pope, if she could be satisfied without having complete supreme authority (and ripping her precious artifact out of Byleth‘s chest) – even when she puts her down she‘s not 100% without pity, telling her that „Your duty is done“ (the translators mucked this up)

Couldn‘t be any further from „lets kill them all on principle“.

What really annoys me is how ppl go and twist everything Edelgard says out of context to ascribe a motive to her that just isn’t there.

Common examples:

„If you have Flayn or Seteth fight her she‘ll say they need to die because they‘re nabateans“

Actually what she says is this: „You are a child of the godess. You must not have power over the people!“ Not getting to be privileges rulers anymore =/= being opressed. Stay out of politics =/= Diediedie. Also, this is from the VW/SS boss fight, where they have literally come to get her in her own capital.

„Linhard & Leonie don‘t tell her & hubert about Indech, probably cause he expects that she‘ll go & kill him„

What he actually says is: „Lake Teutates is a place that concerns the saints of the Church of Seiros. It may become bothersome should the two of them find out...“

„It may be bothersome“ as in, „we might get in trouble“, for doing the possibly very inadvisable thing of waltzing into what could possibly be an enemy location to satisfy personal curiosity. If it‘s something related to her agenda she might take over and Linny wouldn‘t get to investigate as he pleases – at very most you might construe it as Linny fearing that they‘ll be accused of consorting with the enemy, but „bothersome“ suggest possible annoyance not imminent murder.

The whole scene ends with Linhard telling Byleth to fill her in later. Doesn‘t sound at all like he expects her to go back with a harpoon.

„She said Claude isn‘t fit to be a ruler cause he‘s a foreigner“

What she actually says: „I understand your ideals are not so far removed from my own. But without knowledge of Fodlan‘s history, I cannot entrust its rule to you“

Now without the additional contexts that Claude won‘t get until after the fight, it might easily feel a bit like the former with the raw spots he‘d have from his backstory, but what she means is that he‘s ignorant of the Agarthan threat – which he is. Edelgard is all for making peace with Almyra and sees fostering isolationism & prejudice as one of the many faults of the church.

Once Claude basically kills Edelgard for information, he winds up having to take care of the storm she had been holding back. But to his credit, he DID „finish the job“ and get the info. But he didn‘t have it at that point.

And I don‘t mean any of this in the least bit as a diss of Claude - He is the smartest character, so there would be no plot if he got easy access to the info.  At this point, they both think they can probably do better, and more importantly, both their backstories have made them so that they won‘t let down their guard far enough to cooperate in this scenario.

That‘s also why the outcome in CF is contingent on Byleth‘s choice. - You‘d sort of have to trust that he will also act so as to minimize casualties.

Very disingenious since many players wouldn‘t necessarily trigger these dialogues.

I guess because Adrestia got a vaguely central-european aesthetic (partially; all the countries are hodgepodge mashups and there’s more than enough spanish or ancient roman vibes there) and central europe existed only for those 12 years of tyranny I guess, even though many other places have had similar BS happening, including the US that delights in making craptons of movies about their faraway victory because their governments haven’t added much of value to the planet as of late. -.- 

Faerghus (vaguely french/ russian - not at all places where nothing bad happened ever) has actually annexed some territory from their northern neighbors in the recent past, not to speak of the whole Duscur atrocity - but no one seems to go around laying that at Dimitri’s feet, because it would be nonsensical - he was a child at the time and as an individual he is super against it and champions a policy of reconcilliation if he gets to rule. after all, there wouldn’t be much of a plot if the characters inherited three perfect faultless problem free countries. 

Edelgard, too, is completely against the previous administration under Duke Aegir (which was in charge during the Bridgid war). She deposed him and is plotting to do the same with Arundel once she can politically afford to do so. For all that one can understand why she would chose the other path  (depending on how much she knows about what Edelgard’s doing and why) it makes all the sense in the world for Petra to support her on CF or if not recruited, because again, she got rid of that previous administration. 

[guaizine]

About #Menswear Selected By Guaizine: 

Digital Fashion Week - A One Time Only Event? 

Milan S/S 21 Menswear @showstudio Round-Up Discussion

Just a few @guaizine reflections about some of the opinions from the experts panel:

..."we are not going to get into a pandemic again"... well, I would not be so sure about it, and I think that is the main reason why we should get digital fashion weeks seriously and realize about the potential they have as a format if we manage to take advantage of it in the proper technical way. Those designers still presenting traditional runway shows have different audiences, broader ones, in comparison with smaller brands where the designer as a person is not as important as the product itself. For these smaller brands digital fashion weeks become crucial, as they represent the only -effective- way to reach a client; direct one or an eventual retailer. 

..."give the youth more control of the creation"... this is a very good point of view, and I am pretty sure that many of the people involved in fashion for years, -for generations actually - like happens in many of the houses that take part on the MFW for example, had or still does have that great idea of bringing new blood to their business in mind too, but I am pretty sure also that such a thing won't ever happen if that “old” generation do not effectively see that the new one has the proper tools to make it work. 

..."Brands are forced to bring their narratives to people and audiences"... Yes! that is right and that suppose to be the right way to approach the digital fashion week from a brand point of view, that is why I was surprised about not hearing about brands like MSGM or Zegna XXX, that having a quite sharp knowledge of their audiences manage to arrive directly to the core of it with a couple of beautiful presentations undoubtedly effective, taking a few steps away for the storytelling and focusing way more on the product itself, a product that seems to be made for their very specific buyers, and not focused at all on trying to generate trends during the next season. Playing safe is always a valid way of being part of the game.

Another interesting point of view is the budgets brands have to put digital shows online, and is obvious that a bigger budget gives you the potential to do something better in theory but this is not always the case and this is the perfect opportunity to bring the Magliano presentation to the discussion, a low budget presentation with an original collection presented is a creative way, nothing was left behind, and everything works as a perfectly executed puzzle. The video is simply a video art piece, that gives to a group or fashion insiders with an unique point of view the task of sending a message to an audience they know well so they manage to address them exactly what they are expecting from the brand, going even further away by pushing forward the brand appealing with content that to me is interesting to look at also to people who is not actually interested in fashion.

..."I really didn't watch a lot of the films and stuff...because they are so much content to sort of digest"... and? so? What do you think editors do then during fashion week? How can someone build some criteria to later go and write a piece to be posted or published if it is not by watching in this case, or attending in person to every single show in each city season after season? How can you give an opinion about a fashion week by only looking to a few instagram feeds of two or three brands? would that be the proper way to approach a panel discussion? 

About Philipp Plein, Pierre was quite clever about going further instead of giving it time to be discussed. I have the feeling that the main reason why we still listen about him and his "work" during every fashion week is because with plenty of resources you manage to survive even if people only talk about you to criticize what you do. Maybe a bit less attention will give him the chance to reflect on his strategy and realize that maybe he has a market -obviously he does have one- but fashion weeks are not the kind of platform his brand needs and that huge budget can be invested on design or marketing.

About Etro doing a physical fashion show instead of a digital one in a city that has been suffering so much during the last months, I think is a topic very difficult to talk about especially if you are out of the social, economical and even political context of it. So I will leave to the brand itself and their PR team to deal with it, but also will avoid giving my free opinion about it on social media because saying that the event was inappropriate because I saw people not wearing masks for example is not only superficial but shows a huge lack of understanding of the context of the industry of fashion in the country, of the circumstances of the city today and so many other topics that goes beyond fashion. So saving the social media hubs our opinions about it I guess is the right attitude towards an issue we all know so little so far. Let's focus on fashion guys, please.

..."The people who were invited to Etro...most of them were white"... how can we be surprised about this in 2020?, there is not much black people involved in fashion, it is been like that for decades, so for me the element of surprise has no place at all in this discussion, what should be the brand doing instead? Inviting a bunch of random people just to make the show look diverse? I think the problem we need to face here once again is the lack of diversity in people involved in the whole industry and not in a particular fashion show that happens to take place immediately after the world has been facing weeks of protests that fight racism. Ironically seem to me like is way more honest a show like that, than the attitude that the most of the brands adopted for digital fashion week trying, desperately to look "inclusive": Being "inclusive" in fashion in 2020 according to digital fashion weeks, from Russia to Paris is "to exclude", Yes, exclude automatically from any fashion presentation or show any blonde model, as simple as that, Go for it and you instantly become "inclusive". Sounds exactly like a few years ago when we saw in the industry suddenly loads of oriental models to reach runways, presentations, and magazines after the fashion insiders finally realized that the oriental market was exploding and greeting western fashion and lifestyle as never before.

About the @gucci presentation and "...who would wear that"... is funny that after years of Alessandro Michele, a panel with plenty of stylists think that way about the brand and seems not to have done the exercise of to look at the clothes produced by the brand and designed by the designer and his team, properly, closely and separately. They all seem to stop instead at the styled looks they get from a magazine, or sadly once again, from the brand's instagram feed...

Let's move on..."There are a lot of brands struggling to survive, struggling to sell"... I agree, that is not a secret to anyone these days, But ironically you only had time to "watch and digest" two, maybe three digital fashion shows and they were of the biggest brands, so? What is the point here? won't those small brands be struggling less if we all will be talking more about them? showcasing them more on our websites and YouTube videos? "watching and digesting" more of their design and ideas? Don't you all guys think that would be a more fair approach to it, and without a single doubt an easy and effective way to "help" them?

..."Milan is always a step behind Paris"... please, let's be careful about this kind of opinion because we risk to look like people that see and live fashion -once again- from and around Instagram and Tik tok. The only reason why Paris and Milan are different is because the brands they showcase are different between them, different because they have different audiences, different markets, different targets, those factors make the difference and are not the trends they generate or not after the runway shows the relevant matter on this issue.

About Versace, the approach I agree was quite good, very much attached to the times. But I still have the feeling, even a few days after, that they missed a huge opportunity to make something great! They have everything that they need to make a video successful, but the director seems to be behind on the timing of the scenes, and rhythm was the big absent on the film, the whole final product seems lacking energy and action, which seems to be difficult not to be able to reach with such  a vivrant tune, an stunning dancer, and good clothes - either you like the brand or not-  at the end the whole looked more like a music video and not as a fashion presentation. With probably a huge budget you would expect a pretty much perfect piece of content, especially if in the past, smaller brands like Grace Wales Bonner, did stunning pieces like Practice, directed by Harley Weir and Grace herself and Devonté Hynes as a collaborator, demonstrating that is not money to make the different in this cases but talent mixed and balanced in the right way is.

The collection was presented under the title of "flash" because it was a "see now, buy SOON" collection and not a "See now, buy now" since as you mentioned it was not very successful at the end a few years ago. Keeping on Versace, I agree Gianni Versace was one of the main designers of the 90's but saying today that the brand needs to be given "expertise, fabric development and technical design" sounds to me a bit irresponsable. If you want "something a little bit new" I suggest you once again to look and focus on NEW brands, If we like -or not- brands like Versace is because they manage to keep a concept during their history and they try their best to present it in a different way season after season; sometimes they reach better results than others, ( becoming a "miss more than a hit" ;-P ) but at least there is a constant attempt on going beyond fashion and transforming those ideas more into a lifestyle for the people that likes, follows, and more importantly buy the brand products.

Moving into the JW Anderson presentation I heard ..."A designer explaining the meaning behind it...we do not get that from the designer mouth anymore"... come on, that is what designers do to press right before every single fashion show is about to start, and they do it once again to press and buyers after the show ends, is part of the fashion protocole, it is been happening for years, decades, so you will get that from "designers in the future" still, there is nothing to worry about. 

A final word goes to Pierre A. who I talked to very quickly on Twitter to express my feelings about this round up discussion and he mention that "a live panel is not an easy exercise (specially on Zoom)" and of course underlining that it was his first time doing it, but from my very personal point of view you managed very well, in this cases one of the most important things to keep in mind is to give space to your guests and you definitely mastered that bit! Very well done! <3   

[oldtvandcomics]

Copying this in a separate post because I want it to actually show up in the tags.

@chupacabron asked:

@oldtvandcomics​ haven't seen many lone ranger fics. I barely started getting into the show. If you're still taking requests, I wouldn't mind reading a fic/character study type thing about it!

Hi, @chupacabron! Lovely request, thank you! Is it the tv series from the 50s? I hope you’ll enjoy it!!

I am a bit touchy as far as writing Lone Ranger is concerned, because while I love it very much and think that this is a story with lots and lots of potential for good, there IS a history of racism as far as the writing is concerned. So basically, I refuse to publish any fics without having somebody look it over first, and that is… A lot more difficult to arrange than I thought.

You are right, there really should be more Lone Ranger fics. Well researched and sensitivity read ones, if possible.

But that said, I can still totally tell you about the way I see the characters!

Basically, John Reid is an idiot. Everybody seems to agree there, even the dreaded 2013 movie got it right. It was about the only thing it did (if you are new, than I’m begging you, don’t watch that **@#*#!!). He’s just kind of stuck living in his own fantasy world where people are nice and want to get along. You know, a lot like Clark Kent, just maybe not quite that bad. Because this is a fairy tale, this doesn’t end in a complete disaster within a week, but the people around him actually play along. Part of this is because he is actually helpful, and also he doesn’t stay long enough and doesn’t talk about himself, so he manages to fool everyone in the short run into thinking that he is a serious person who knows what he’s doing. And he is quite clever, actually, he has got good, original ideas that work, but…

So yeah, John’s an idiot. I really love him, because I relate to him a lot.

Tonto is definitely the most interesting character in the story. For starters, he is the one who we can actually imagine staying alive on his own. He is clever, kind, a good fighter, and knows a lot about medicine and following tracks. And he’s great with children, you can tell from his interactions with Dan. He also ended up living alone in the desert with a borderline insane superhero and their two horses (all superheroes are insane, that’s just a Basic Rule), and we know from the first episode that he had been alone before. My headcanon is that he is literately unable to live in a civilised society. Maybe he has got attachment issues due to his entire tribe being killed in front of his eyes, maybe it’s just the way he is, but he couldn’t function properly in a bigger group.

I also found it incredibly interesting how my own view of Tonto changed over time. I started out as seeing him a bit dark, a bit grumpy (I partly blame the actor voicing him having a very deep voice, and also most of the time not speaking in complete sentences). The more I saw of him, the more I’m convinced that he is the nicest person ever, only really, really introverted. I don’t think that there really are any people apart from the Lone Ranger (and later Dan) he feels safe to open up to.

He obviously loves spending time with John and getting in all kinds of weird shenanigans together. My first impression was actually “that guy is only there for fun”, and I mostly maintain this opinion, only adding that with time, his relationship with John and the fact that they are helping people became very important motivations, too.

I have a lot of thoughts and feeling about Tonto.

Dan Reid, you probably haven’t met yet. I’m not talking about John’s brother, but his son, John’s nephew and Britt Reid’s father. He is a teenage sidekick. He reads therefore like pretty much every teenage sidekick Mary Sue character ever. Not that it’s a bad thing, I quite like Dan and the idea of John and Tonto raising a teenager together. Dan calls them Uncle John and Uncle Tonto, and you will not convince me otherwise. But Dan Reid only really gets interesting as an adult. He is one of the few sidekicks who actually managed to leave the superhero life behind and built himself a successful career. He is definitely the sanest person in the entire Reid family.

And the token straight one, I like to think. I adopted the headcanon that Britt is bi and in a relationship with Kato. John and Tonto, I like to headcanon both as aromantic, because I can, and also a- or bisexual, depending my mood. I also read their relationship as queerplatonic. But everybody thinks that they’re married, because this is a fairy tale and homophobia doesn’t exist.

Something I’d definitely would like to see more about is their relationship and how exactly it works, since it is an intercultural one, and that has got to be interesting. Also how it plays out on Dan’s education, and later, Britt’s. There have to be some Comanche elements that get passed down to him.

John and Tonto also move around in an interesting space between cultures, and since they are The Two Idiots Running Around Telling Everyone To Be Nice To One Another, they have to have a huge knowledge and understanding of them all. This is one of the parts where the source material gets a little problematic, so just assume that it’s a biased retelling of an outsider’s biased view of reality, and things got twisted and rewritten along the way. The Lone Ranger is, in his core, a White Saviour, so yeah, as I said, problematic per definition. I like to think that “in reality”, they are much more careful and respectful. Tonto is responsible for the communication with the First Nations, John for the one with the settlers. They both are fluent in multiple languages, at least Comanche, English, Apache, both Eastern and Western, Spanish, and some others. Among themselves, they use English and Comanche, and randomly switch around between the two.

“Kemo Sabe” (still my headcanon) is totally a made-up term, by one of Tonto’s ancestors. It kind of stuck around as term of endearment. His family has been calling their partners “Kemo Sabe” for generations, and it just felt right for him and John to use it. They both call the other so.

[bloodline-rpg]

CORVUS JIN  // 43 // WITCH

❝ This river bends into the sea. Its course is fixed and so are we. ❞

_______________________________________________________________________

BIOGRAPHY

There is nothing more elemental than a proactive connection with nature, at least that’s what Corvus Jin has always believed. He was notorious for his almost instinctual magic, and his personal link to the world around him. It was always more than witchcraft, more than spells on a book and the acquisition of power over mortals, a generational belief passed on by his Original family, born in the era of the Korean Empire around the end of the 19th century. Not much is known about the Jin ancestry, as they moved to the United States after a broad witch hunt broke out before Korea was split into a Northern and Southern territory in 1945, leaving behind proof of their history. Their legacy has only been spoken through stories passed down over generations trying their best to hold on to them.

But upon coming to America, the Jins had more problems to focus on than honing their Witchcraft. Blending in with humans was hard enough. And being a family of immigrants in a prejudiced nation in a post-war era had them facing other hardships that pulled their focus from building power and territory, like racism and hiding their power from the mortal world. Because of this, the Jins never had a chance to build a strong coven, so Corvus was born into a small nuclear family who, despite their Original Witch status, acted alone and practiced alone. Despite this, his parents were insistent on teaching Corvus everything they knew about the art of Witchcraft and their earth based power, still a valued and respected art in his family. Witchcraft was fascinating to Crovus, and he worked hard and studied harder. But between magic, his family, and working to help his parents, he grew up lonely. It was through that loneliness, that he discovered the true strength of his ethereal connection with nature.

As Corvus grew older, his connection with his family slowly started to fade. They never seemed to understand him, or understand his need to belong to something bigger than himself. He began to break away form them. Corvus travelled, learned other languages, and about other cultures, meeting other witches along the way that respected his status but knew he wasn’t truly valuable without a coven. It was a pipe dream of his, to belong to something as significant and institutional as a coven, but for a while, life had other plans for Corvus.

While traveling, Crovus met Sebastian Guerrero. Who later became Sebastian Jin. His husband was a man of very particular interests, a Holistic Witch who liked to toy with the lines of dangerous magic. But it wasn’t only Sebastian’s dangerous dance with Necromancy and spirit casting that had Corvus’ parents seething with anger. It was his parent’s new found prejudice against a same sex union that finally drove Corvus away for good, and with his departure and disinheritance, he found a life with Sebastian in California, where they later had a son they named Aramus, ever the apple of both is father’s eyes. With his new family came the feeling of belonging and the unoccupied void drilled into his soul by the loneliness of his early years was filled. He didn’t need a coven if he had a family he loved, people he could devote his life to. However, all along Sebastian didn’t give up his life of playing with forbidden magic, arguing that not all forbidden magic had to be viewed as an abomination.

When the hunt for witches broke out again, and friends were killed and executed like they had been many years ago, Sebastian used this dark magic as a contingency plan, but everything that could go wrong went wrong, and cost Corvus’ husband his life.

Now, husbandless, with more and more witches (especially those without a coven) dropping dead all around him, Corvus knew he had to do anything he could to protect his son and stay alive, even if it meant marrying into a family of Original Witches that were more ruthless and strict than the parents he left behind. With Celestina Black’s protection, he ensured the safety of his son and a chance to survive.

______________________________________________PERSONALITY/TRAITS

Corvus had had no trouble blending in with the Black Family. While it’s not the life he’s grown used to with his son and his husband, he’s still a powerful and respected witch, and very used to the ideas of tradition and discipline. In his heart of hearts, Corvus doesn’t necessarily agree with a lot of the old traditions of Witch Craft. But he doesn’t speak out against his wife. Not because he’s afraid of Celestina, but because he understands the importance of not sullying her reputation or their new family’s. To the outside world, Corvus is a quiet, stern man who accompanies Celestina and upholds his family like a backbone. But behind closed doors he’s gentle, understanding, and grounded, if not a little worried about what this world might push him to become. Crovus doesn’t want to betray the legacy of freedom and safety he had with Sebastian. But he also doesn’t want to risk losing his son the way he lost the love of his life. 

DETAILS

STATUS: OPEN

Related bios: Aramus Jin, Celestina Black, Aemila Black, Alistar Black, Aurora Black 

Species/Family info: Original Witch, Black Family Coven

Faceclaim: Daniel Henney

We may consider alternate faceclaims for this character

[theculturedmarxist]

       17 July 2019  

Donald Trump extended his fascist attacks on four freshmen Democratic congresswomen yesterday, tweeting that Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley are “horrible anti-Israel, anti-USA, pro-terrorist.” Denouncing the “Radical Left” and calling the congresswomen “communists,” Trump added, “If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!”

On Sunday, Trump initiated the provocation by tweeting that the four congresswomen—all of whom are US citizens—should “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came.” Equating social opposition in general and socialism in particular with support for “terrorism,” he tweeted, “We will never be a Socialist or Communist Country.”

In an editorial board statement yesterday, the New York Times called Trump’s statements a “gambit to distract from his policy fiascoes, his court losses, his political failures.” At a press conference Monday afternoon, the four targeted congresswomen made similar remarks, referring to Trump’s rant as a “distraction.”

This was contradicted by the fact that photographers captured images of written “talking points” Trump used during a Monday press conference. “It’s actually DANGEROUS—because it seems like they hate America,” the prepared notes read. “They want America to be SOCIALIST.”

Extrapolating from these notes, Trump referred to the “love they have for Al Qaeda” and claimed that the congresswomen “hate Jews.” When asked by a reporter whether it concerned him that “white nationalists” are ecstatic over his tweets, Trump replied, “It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me.”

Trump is proceeding according to a deliberate political strategy worked out with the White House’s fascist brain trust, including Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s crackdown on immigrants. He is attacking the four congresswomen with a high level of consistency, repeating political themes common to fascist and far-right political movements.

He equates opposition to his administration and criticism of his personal rule with support for terrorism, paving the way for the criminalization of free speech and critical thought. Trump states that his opponents are “dangerous” and “hate” the nation, suggesting that “complaining” about the policies of the government is treasonous. He presents socialism and communism as foreign ideologies directed against the American people.

These are ideas developed by Nazi theorists such as the jurist Carl Schmitt, who authored the conception of a “state of exception” to justify Nazi totalitarian rule. Lurking behind Trump’s assertion that those who are “not happy” and “want America to be socialist” should “leave” the US is the suggestion that if they fail to do so voluntarily, the government will be justified in rounding them up by force.

The calculated, strategic character of Trump’s statements is underscored by the context in which they are being made. Yesterday, Trump denounced the “far left” for asserting that the administration is detaining immigrants—including children—in unsanitary concentration camps. “They’re not concentration camps, they’re really well run,” he said.

Millions of immigrants—significant portions of the working class in 10 targeted cities—are living in fear of impending raids announced by Trump earlier this month. Last week, he threatened to violate a Supreme Court decision barring him from including a question on citizenship status on the 2020 census. On Monday, the administration imposed a new federal regulation effectively barring Central Americans from seeking asylum in the US—a clear violation of international law.

These actions follow his deployment of thousands of active-duty troops to the US-Mexican border and his declaration of a state of emergency to override Congress and allocate Pentagon funds to build his border wall.

With each of these measures, Trump has used anti-immigrant xenophobia as the tip of the spear to violate basic constitutional norms and establish rule by decree.

Trump and his advisors are attempting to build an extra-constitutional movement linking fascist elements within the state—including tens of thousands of agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—with the minority of voters who support his reactionary policies.

The Democratic Party’s response combines its typical fecklessness with a race-based appeal that blows wind in the sails of Trump’s strategy. The Democratic leadership announced yesterday that it opposes calls from within the caucus to formally censure Trump for his remarks, opting instead to chide Trump with a mild, non-binding resolution upholding Ronald Reagan as an icon of American democracy.

The Democratic Party has mounted no serious opposition to Trump’s dictatorial moves, and voted last month to give him an additional $4.6 billion to fund his war on immigrants.

The Democratic Party-aligned press has responded to Trump’s diatribe by viciously denouncing “white people” in general and working class whites in particular. In an article titled “White identity politics drives Trump, and the Republican Party under him,” the Washington Post yesterday blamed “white grievance” for Trump’s recent statements.

The Post asserted that “a majority of white Americans express some racial resentment in election-year surveys,” citing a Duke University professor to argue that “the feeling of white identity is much stronger among non-college-educated whites than those who went to college.”

In a Monday New York Times column titled “Trump’s America is a ‘White Man’s Country,’” Jamelle Bouie demanded that the Democrats punish racist white voters by distancing themselves entirely from any appeals to white workers.

“What’s more striking than the president’s blood-and-soil racism,” he wrote, “is how Democratic Party elites—or at least one group of them—are playing with similar assumptions. No, they haven’t held out the white working property owner as the only citizen of value, but they’re obsessed with winning that voter to their side.”

Such comments, saturated with hatred for the working class, provide fertile soil for the fascists to argue that the racial politics of the Democratic Party require a racial response from the far right. As Stephen Bannon said in 2017, “[T]he longer [the Democrats] talk about identity politics, I got ’em.”

The Trump government is a government of perpetual crisis, hated and despised by a large majority of the population. It fears above all the growth of working class opposition within the US, initially expressed in the wave of teachers’ strikes and other struggles.

That does not make it less dangerous. Its main asset is its nominal opposition—the Democratic Party. The Democrats are no less petrified over the potential for mass social protest and have devoted all their efforts to containing and diffusing opposition to Trump and his pro-corporate, war-mongering policies.

The Socialist Equality Party fights for a class response to the threat of fascism. Billions of people across the world are horrified by recent developments in the United States. There is no mass support in the US for jailing children in cages and rule by executive fiat. The majority of Trump’s own voters did not seek to elect a fascist.

The chief task is to harness the social power of workers of all races and nationalities in a common, international fight for social equality. Establishing the unity of the working class requires a relentless struggle against the poison of racial and identity politics, the reactionary ideology of the upper-middle class.

The president’s fascist vitriol does not originate in the mind of Trump the individual. It is the outlook of a significant section of the capitalist class, which is looking to dictatorship to protect its wealth. The fight against fascism requires a fight against its root source—the capitalist system.

Eric London

[bunchofbooks]

It’s Time for Kyrsten’s Opinion: Love, Hate and Other Filters Edition (Spoiler Filled edition)

Hi everyone! Last night I finished Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed. 

I also tried doing something different this time while reading the book, I tabbed all of the different parts in the book that I wanted to bring up in my review, and quotes that I wanted to include, so hopefully this one is a little bit better than my other ones where I was just winging it the entire time. Because this is going to be a more in depth it is going to contain spoilers so under the cut will be some major spoilers and if you have already read the book and want to know my in depth opinions on the book about what I did and did not like feel free to look under the cut, but there will be spoilers. 

Love, Hate and Other Filters is about 17 year old Maya Aziz wants nothing more than to go to NYU and study to be a film maker. Her parents on the other hand, want Maya to stay close to their home in Illinois, go to law school or medical school and marry a nice Indian Muslim boy. Just when Maya’s parent agree for her to go to college in New York, there is a terrorist attack and the main suspect has the same last name as Maya. After this attack shakes the nation, people that had either never paid any attention to Maya or were her friend are now turning against her. The beginning of each chapter is told in a third person point of view leading up to the terrorist attack and afterwards, as reports on how people are grieving. 

“A terrorist attack. Another tragedy. Is there no end? Is this how life will always be? I want to know more, but there is one piece of information I absolutely hope I don’t hear. I whisper a prayer to the universe. “Please, please let everyone be okay. Please don’t let him be a Muslim.””

There is obviously a heavy trigger warning for racism. A not so obvious trigger warning is for abuse. It is not brought up often in the book, but it is definitely there. 

My Rating: ★★★.5 / ★★★★★

Message me if you have read this book and what you thought about Love, Hate and Other Filters! Is it on your TBR? And what is one book that was really hyped up that you may not have enjoyed as much as you had hoped? 

There were certain aspects of this book that I really loved. One specifically being the clash between Maya’s parents wanting her to conform to the traditional values they were raised with against the “Americanized” values that Maya is surrounded with at school and outside of her home. Maya struggles with wanting to be the daughter that her parents, specifically her mother wishes for her to become while wanting to also be her own person. A few weeks ago I read I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican daughter and brought up the same idea of the parents wanting to hold on to their traditional values and instill them in their child while their child (both daughters in these two books) wants to still respect their culture and traditions in that culture, but also want to have these more Americanized ideas and values. I also really appreciated the ignorance of people in the book who were not in the same predicament as Maya and her family. For example, Maya’s parents’ business is vandalized - a brick is thrown through the window. The police are called to investigate. Maya and her best friend Violet are told to go back to Maya’s house. Maya is traumatized that someone has committed a hate crime against her parents and her best friend, Violet turns to her and says, “I love that we’re getting a police escort”. While I thought Violet was extremely insensitive to what the family was going through, I could 100% believe that this was something that someone would say to Maya or anyone who has been in Maya’s position. Maya is scared for her safety and Violet is loving the attention of a police escort. I also loved how differently Maya’s view on the terrorist attack varied from the views of her parents. Maya’s parents accustomed to being the scapegoat - at one point even bringing up the rampant xenophobia seen in the country since 9/11, especially against people who look like Maya’s family - want their daughter to stay close to home and hide away from the world. Maya on the other hand, does not want to stop her life or hide who she is. She says, “My parents’ fears shrink my universe to the four walls of this house. The world outside paints us all as terrorists. I’m blamed for events that have nothing to do with me”. There is also another point where one character, Phil, who is a love interest for Maya and I’ll get more into him later, says that he overheard another student, Brian, talking in the locker room about how Brian does not respect people from other countries and wants them to go back where they came from. Maya asks Phil why he did not confront Brian in the locker room, he was a leader and should have told him that he couldn’t say things like that. Phil’s answer was, he thought it was just locker room talk. I’m not sure if that was parodying Donald Trump’s, “grab her by the pussy” comment which he said was just locker room talk and had no real merit behind it, but that is what it reminded me of. 

Generally, I thought this book was pretty good, I thought it was definitely important and something I think a lot of people should read. However, there were also parts of this book that I really did not like. I thought the beginning of the book was pretty boring. The terrorist attack happens during the midway point, and before that it’s just so boring. Maya at one point is in a love triangle - which if I can be frank about this, is a trope that needs to die pretty immediately, I hate it - and I’m sure it’s to fuel this idea of a culture clash between what Maya wants and her parents and I know, I was just talking about how I loved that aspect of the story, but dear God, that part could not have ended soon enough. Also, the guy that Maya picks Phil as previously mentioned is just a tool. He starts seeing Maya when he is still with his girlfriend and Maya is confronted by his girlfriend’s friends and Maya thought that Phil and his girlfriend had broken up. Also I feel like he is just a tool, like I don’t know if he tries too hard to be different or what his deal is, but I just hated him. Also I thought that the end was just. . . a little too convenient. When Maya is physically assaulted she just conveniently has her camera recording and has the guy Brian assaulting her? I just thought it was a little unbelievable. I know Maya is an aspiring film maker, and it’s told in her point of view, but there were parts where she was walking down the hall way and would detail how she would have filmed this particular scene in a movie. We get it Maya, you want to make movies. 

I did read some reviews Good Reads about Love, Hate and Other Filters. While most of them were positive, I did find a few that were not as happy, especially when it came to the representation. I’m going to leave the link to the different reviews here, here, and here. My rating of this book is 3.5 / 5 because while I think this book is extremely important and had awesome potential, the romance was overdone and I feel like the romance aspect may have at points overshadowed the other more important elements in the story. 

[weirdbynorthwest]

Notes on Northern Exposure, S01E01: “Pilot”

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of “Notes on Northern Exposure”, my episode-by-episode commentary covering the entirety of Northern Exposure (CBS, 1990-1995). Without further ado, let’s get started!

 The series opens with Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) on board a plane to Alaska, dumping a lot of expository info on his new pal “Businessman” (John Aylward). We learn that Fleischman’s medical school bills were paid for by the state of Alaska and that, in return, he’s agreed to become their “indentured slave” for the next four years. In other words, the show has a built-in expiration date. Had it been a flop then this might, in retrospect, have seemed unduly optimistic. But the show went on to enjoy both critical acclaim and high ratings, running for six seasons and 110 episodes – providing me with enough material to keep this feature going for the next two years.

We’ll be seeing actor John Aylward again on the show, and in this same season, though not in the same role.

Joel arrives in Anchorage – Alaska’s largest city – only to be told that he’s not needed there. They have too many doctors. But before he can get too excited it’s made clear that the debt has not been cancelled. Instead, he’s expected to head out to Cicely, on the Alaskan Riviera.

What comes next is a lovely montage sequence set to the show’s theme that lets us bask in the stunning scenery of Alaska. That is, if any of the footage shown was of Alaska, as the series was actually filmed in Washington state.

The first Cicelian that Joel meets is Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows). Towards the end of the episode we get our first indication of Ed’s love of cinema, after he gives Joel a pang of homesickness for his beloved New York City. Ed reveals that the source of his New York knowledge is Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979): “I think Woody’s a genius!” I think Woody’s forever tainted by those sex abuse allegations, but those were two years away at this point. It’ll be interesting to see if Ed’s Woody fandom disappears or takes a backseat around that time. But given that, in 2017, actors are still falling over themselves to work with Allen, I’m not counting on it.

Joel meets up with former astronaut and town patriarch Maurice J. Minnifield (Barry Corbin). There’s some discomfort for Joel as Maurice mentions how excited he was to discover that Cicely “had a crack at a Jew doctor from New York City,” saying that “you boys do outstanding work.” This is the first indication we have of what, at this stage, we might charitably call Maurice’s lack of concern regarding political correctness.

Maurice goes on to introduce an essential piece of the series’ lore: “Cicely and Rosyln founded the town 97 years ago. Rumour and innuendo not withstanding, they were just good friends.” In time we’ll learn that rumour and innuendo were correct, and that Cicely and Roslyn were indeed lovers.

Regarding the painted mural outside Roslyn’s Café, Maurice says that “a hippy passing through painted that picture on the wall” but was so high on “the weed” that he forgot to include the apostrophe. In real life it was actually called the Roslyn Café, as the series was primarily filmed in Roslyn, Washington. The apostrophe was removed after production on the series ended.

At the doctor’s office, Marilyn (Elaine Miles) introduces herself by stepping out of the shadows and saying that she’s here for the receptionist job. This sends Joel running, and by “running” I mean “fleeing in terror”. Why? Was her sudden appearance that startling? Or is there an element of racism behind it?

Anyway, Marilyn persists, effectively giving herself the receptionist job that Joel says doesn’t exist (because he intends to leave town at the earliest opportunity). And she soon proves to be, if anything, overqualified for this job; she can stitch up wounds and has, as we’ll see in a later episode, a miracle cure for flu. Her professionalism in this episode is in sharp contrast to Joel, and I wonder if this is what irks him, as he turns up to work in a sweaty jogging outfit to whine about his situation. Also, he knows that she finds him ridiculous (“Please stop smiling at me. You’re constantly smiling at me.”). Joel is, in fact, an excellent doctor – but it takes Marilyn’s presence and professionalism to make him start acting like one.

After fleeing from Marilyn, Joel runs into the local bar, the Brick, and tries to renege on his contract in an angry phone call. He rants about Cicely being “the worst place on Earth,” and being stuck in a “godforsaken hole-in-the-wall pigsty with a bunch of dirty, psychotic rednecks.” Okay, so Joel is doing his level best to make himself loathsome. There’s nothing about Cicely, the Brick or its patrons to make these remarks seem remotely justified.

The Brick’s proprietor, Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum), provides Joel with a free meal and a surprisingly sympathetic ear, given Joel’s less than stellar review of Holling’s establishment. Holling explains to a curious Joel that his falling out with Maurice – until recently, his closest friend – was due to an argument over former “Miss Pacific Northwest” Shelly Marie Tambo (Cynthia Geary), who fell in love with Holling after Maurice brought her to Cicely with the intention of marrying her.

One problem that I have with this episode is that it doesn’t really treat Shelly as a character with agency. Sure, we’re told that she left Maurice and offered herself to Holling, but she doesn’t get to tell us that herself. That will soon change, but it’s still a pity that she doesn’t get a single line of spoken dialogue in this episode.

Whilst waiting for a phone call at the Brick, Joel is approached by Maggie O’Connell (Janine Turner). As Maggie attempts to introduce herself, Joel tells her that “the petulant aggressive thing is a real turn-off,” that he’s engaged to be married to “a real knockout,” and that she should take her “business somewhere else.” Joel’s sexism here – the way he automatically assumes Maggie must be coming on to him - stinks. Also, how do you look at Janine Turner and say those things? And then she drops the mic with: “I’m not a hooker, I’m your landlord.” Oy!

So what we have here is a classic example of the “will they / won’t they” TV trope. Once upon a time, this trope was everywhere you cared to look on network television. I think it’s fair to say that it’s no longer as common as it once was. The “battle of the sexes” mentality that informs it feels pretty archaic, but that could just be me. Perhaps romance in general just isn’t as prevalent on TV now as it was in the 90s? Conventional wisdom has it that a show dies when/if that “will they / won’t they” tension gets resolved, and keeping that tension going must be difficult if your show stands to run for several seasons. In real life, steamy romantic tensions don’t generally last 6-7 years, the average length of a US TV show. Keep it going too long and it’s at risk of seeming contrived. Then again, it can seem contrived right from the get-go, and that’s the case with Northern Exposure, as much as I enjoy this show. While the Fleischman/O’Connell relationship will evolve over time, I find it weird watching them launch into these slanging matches in the show’s early days. It’s as if they’ve been bickering since long before the show began.

Later on in the episode we cut to Maggie and Joel having a late-night drinking session in the Brick, where they appear to be the last customers. This scene exists to reveal more information about Maggie, but rather than have Maggie tell us herself the show treats us to yet another expository info-dump from a drunken Joel. Something else that made me cringe during this scene was Joel’s sudden acknowledgment of the obvious and indisputable beauty of Janine Turner on this show, which immediately tells you that this is the “will they?” scene.

And then we get the “DID they?!” scene, as Joel wakes up in a different bed in a different cabin. He finds one of Maggie’s shoes and assumes that fornication must have occurred. Things are moving fast for a 40-minute episode! But then Joel meets Maggie’s current beau, Rick Pederson (Grant Goodeve), and after an awkward exchange we learn that no fornication has occurred. This is one of the few times that we actually get to see Rick. Though Maggie and Joel are both in relationships, their respective partners are rarely seen and the relationships are never treated as the obstacles you’d think they’d be.

Joel is forced to mediate between Walter (Art LaFleur) and his wife Edna (Lois Foraker), who has tried shooting him and stabbing him with a swiss army knife and just doesn’t know what else to do to get his attention. Marilyn votes for divorce, and one of the first things you learn about Marilyn is that she is never wrong about anything. Still, we get to see Joel as marriage counsellor, and it’s another example of just how good his people skills can be.

The episode concludes with a large local gathering, the ninth Annual Arrowhead County Summer Wonderland Festival. It brings the series’ cast together in a grand display of the community spirit that will come to define the series.

It’s at the festival that we get our first few shots of Chris Stevens (John Corbett), Cicely’s local radio disc-jockey. It seems bizarre, in retrospect, that a character defined by his voice should be voiceless here. If you haven’t seen the show before, then you might think it odd that the camera keeps cutting to this as yet unknown character.

Holling has a quiet word with Maurice, and it’s worth singling out Corbin’s performance here as it is genuinely affecting. Maurice asks Holling what it’s like to be in love, the implication being that Maurice has never experienced “true” romantic love. A former astronaut, Maurice has staked his claim on Alaska, “the last frontier”, and been to space, “the final frontier”. But love represents a new frontier for Maurice and some of his best episodes are the ones that explore that theme. It’s significant then that Shelly, in this episode, is not presented to us as a person but as both an object (a trophy winner at risk of becoming a trophy bride) and a place (“Miss Pacific Northwest”). Maurice’s infatuation with Shelly in these early episodes has little to nothing to do with her as a person, and everything to do with whatever it is that she represents to him. Unexplored virgin territory perhaps, similar to the “new-found-land” of John Donne. That’s not to say that Shelly is a virgin, but a man like Maurice, old enough to be her (grand)father, is unlikely to split hairs. In other words we’re talking about lust, not love. But that’s all I have to say on the subject for now, as the show will return to it before long and, when it does, we’ll not only have a better idea of what Maurice thinks of Shelly, but Shelly will finally be able to share with us her side of the story.

Whether or not Joel intends it, he’s become a part of this community by the end of the episode. The moose burger might be an acquired taste, but it looks as if Joel will be able to not just reconcile himself to his new surroundings but even come to enjoy life in Cicely.

[dreamernobody979]

No Going Back Now: Fighting White Supremacy as a Black Follower of Christ

The task and call on the table: Deconstructing Institutional Racism, Structural Racism and how it expresses itself in higher education. This includes how seemingly normal, neutral and unbiased rules, codes, guidelines and policies disproportionately disadvantage people of color on this campus. I guess I should specify that I’m talking about LBC. It would be easy for to go after society as a whole and examine how these principles play out in the general American higher education system. Seeing the different mechanisms of racially coded language, the erasure of blackness through curriculum that centers whiteness, non stop promotion of predominantly euro-centric heroes, teachers, musicians, poets, preachers, scientists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals in society that all work together to dehumanize black and brown humanity is hard enough. But seeing the evil of this system, trying to point it out to people with more power and influence than me and having them willfully deflect and kindly refuse not to see it is infuriating. I feel as if I see the smog of poisonous gas permeating the classrooms, soaking into the assigned reading in each class, staining the walls of chapel, distorting the features of the students, warping the text of the scriptures, slowly eating away at the skin of black and brown students and no one will listen or can even understand it. We are dying not just here but in society as a whole from the poison of white supremacy. 

It is frightening and if I wasn’t a Christian, if I didn’t believe Jesus that you were greater than any evil that is in this world, even the insidious and pervasive yet subtle evil of white supremacist ideology, I would give in to complete, utter and permanent fear and despair. It’s for that reason that James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Malcolm X surprise me. I feel bad for saying that, I mean all of their books are on my reading list so I still don’t fully know where they found their hope but I’m gonna assume (which is usually a bad thing to do but I will this once) that they were not Christians. I am sure that Malcolm X wasn’t and for that, I cannot blame him. I wish that he could’ve known the true and living Christ behind the smoggy, subtle and idolatrous white Jesus that he certainly met in his lifetime. But anyway....I just wonder where their hope came from....how they continued to fight against this evil. I mean I know that this is largely an issue of social structures of injustice. Man made and insidious. But I also know that there’s a spiritual element to this evil too....there is no way that I as a follower of Christ and Your Word could think that such a pervasive, systemic and enduring evil as racism has no roots in the demonic realm. If not the man made structures than certainly the ideology of whiteness and white supremacy on which racism rests is evil beyond human ability to fight. 

Oh Heavenly Father....I am one woman. You ask me to stay here....it seems like if I stay here I will be giving up. I don’t know how to explain it to you or anyone else but I cannot knowingly stay in a place where no one is willing to confront the ugly reality in front of them. I would be wasting my effort, time and energy on people that are not ready to confront their complicity, their racism, their acquiescence to injustice. Staying would be like telling them “I agree with you” If I have no agency as a black woman to set my boundaries, declare what I need and reasonably hold people accountable for their actions, and I stay....Lord what kind of example does that set? That goes against everything you taught me over the past few years. It’s unhealthy, it’s dysfunctional to think that if I just martyr myself at the altar of their ignorance that they (read: white people) will eventually understand. Look I’m not saying I don’t want to follow your will and stay....ok I don’t wanna stay here but you’ve known that since last summer that’s nothing new. But let’s get one thing straight and this is something that’s been frustrating me for awhile: there seems to be a misunderstanding and spiritual minimization of the suffering and pain that people of color endure from racism and how we are expected to respond. I don’t know if this narrative of redemptive black suffering has come from the suffering of Christ or the collective suffering of black people throughout history in their relentless fight for dignity, equity and respect but there’s something in there that is subtle and dangerous. 

I am not against suffering for Christ’s sake but suffering persecution from other Christians. And then there’s this expectation that people who are being abused should just take it and endure it for the sake of unity, progress, peace and forgiveness. In this case i will speak of black women. There’s this narrative that black women exist for the sole purpose of being the pack mules for everyone’s suffering, the female messiahs of society’s burden and are just simply made to endure constant disrespect and shame without complaint. The narrative of “the strong black woman” impervious to pain and weakness, never gives up, is superwoman and has no need for breaks or protection. She capes for everyone, fights for everyone, never rests, always fights, and society seems very comfortable with this concept of black women enduring pain for others. The black community does this as well. I can’t speak on the collective behavior of everyone in the African diaspora but as an African American I see a strong resistance to admitting weakness, vulnerability and fear in the black community. There is this ideas that “No matter how bad things get, especially in the face of racism, we can’t get mad, we can’t leave, we can’t feel we have to get through it and rise above.” And the clear understanding of what success looks like seems to always be “Stay in the racist environment and be the champion and go in and change things, no matter the cost. Don’t think about your own needs as an individual, you are always representing the group, you have no right to your own health, boundaries nor do you have the right to say no. You must always be there for everyone else and never ask for anything for yourself. Self care is selfishness. And besides even if you left, everywhere you go you’ll encounter racism so you just gotta learn to deal with it” 

I think the resolution of black people to endure horrific cruelty and dehumanization both overtly and covertly throughout history is amazing. However I think we need to realize that although we are amazing we are not super humans nor do we always have to pretend to be. In embracing the stereotype of “limitless strength and endurance: i.e- strong black man/woman/etc, we in essence don’t allow ourselves to say no, that’s enough, stop, I’m wounded, I need/want, I’m not okay. In a society and a world that never allows us to have a break, I think it’s important as oppressed people to create spaces and pockets of humanity for ourselves which includes supporting each other when we are weak and not shaming each other or judging someone’s blackness because they choose to not fight. I think asserting our right to not engage with trying to fix racists/racism (which by the way is the job of white people) we are fighting a different kind of battle. We are reclaiming out three dimensional humanity. We are saying “I have the right to take care of myself, I am not the prop for every cause, I am human and I cannot always be strong, sane, “coherent” or “on”. And that’s ok. ....we are humans. 

It is ok to be soft, to be weak, to be vulnerable and fight for your right to say no. No, I do not owe anyone my time and energy, No it is not my job or responsibility to fix the racist environment on your campus that you created and refuse to acknowledge. No it is not my job to suffer, cry, email, scream and tear my 4C hair out every day trying to fix your school for now pay, 20,000 in debt and failing all my classes. I have the right to not share my experiences, emotional baggage and racial trauma and I don’t have to stay in an environment with people who refuse to see me. I don’t have to write proposals, meet with white RA’s, professors, staff and board members and splay open my pain for their curious perusal. It is perfectly right and reasonable for me to hold people in power responsible for doing their own labor to deconstruct the injustice system they are complicit in maintaining in thousands of ways.

 I think I am doing the best I can to set an example for other people of color and the example is this: You do not have to endure your education and you have every right to be here. You are a student the same as everyone else. Don’t ever let anyone use you as a token for their agenda at the expense of your dignity, voice and agency. They are lucky to have you not the other way around. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re demanding or aggressive for holding them accountable for their words and promises. And don’t EVER EVER EVER let anyone shame you for your response to racism or judge the extent of your racial trauma. Do what you need to do to heal and if that looks like leaving the environment then so be it. If anyone has a problem with you or questions your character for leaving, you tell them you have every right to leave a dysfunctional environment where the company was not delivering the product they advertised. And if they still wanna criticize you more than the discrimination that brought about your response, tell them to come to me. I’ve had it with the policing by both white people and people of color, of each other’s reactions and coping mechanisms in the face of institutionalized injustice (racism, sexism, able-ism,etc) Stop with the respectability politics and stop with the criticizing of the traumatized. It is healthy to acknowledge and deal with your pain before attempting to help others. The problem with the world is you have sick people helping sick people. Wanna humanize people of color? Let them know it’s ok to feel pain when they’ve been hurt, that they are intelligent and capable of properly perceiving discrimination and remind them that the systemic minimization of their humanity is not normal, natural or acceptable. Help them find their voice on their termsl. 

[gibsongirlselections]

Remember the Red Guards Before You Cheer the Woke Mobs

I’m ambivalent about statues and J.K. Rowling being torn down, but terrified of the thought process behind the destruction. Decisions should never be made by mobs. 

Is America on the edge of a cultural revolution?

The historical namesake and obvious parallel is the Cultural Revolution in China, which lasted from 1966 to 1976. Its stated goal was to purge capitalist and traditional elements from society, and to substitute a new way of thinking based on Mao’s own beliefs. The epic struggle for control and power waged war against anybody on the wrong side of an idea.

To set the mobs on somebody, one needed only to tie him to an official blacklist like the Four Olds (old customs, culture, habits, and ideas). China’s young people and urban workers formed Red Guard units to go after whomever was outed. Violence? Yes, please. When Mao launched the movement in May 1966, he told his mobs to “bombard the headquarters” and made clear that “to rebel is justified.” He said “revisionists should be removed through violent class struggle.” The old thinkers were everywhere and were systematically trying to preserve their power and subjugate the people.

Whetted, the mobs took the task to heart: Red Guards destroyed historical relics, statues, and artifacts, and ransacked cultural and religious sites. Libraries were burned. Religion was considered a tool of capitalists and so churches were destroyed—even the Temple of Confucius was wrecked. Eventually the Red Guards moved on to openly killing people who did not think as they did. Where were the police? The cops were told not to intervene in Red Guard activities, and if they did, the national police chief pardoned the Guards for any crimes.

Education was singled out, as it was the way the old values were preserved and transmitted. Teachers, particularly those at universities, were considered the “Stinking Old Ninth” and were widely persecuted. The lucky ones just suffered the public humiliation of shaved heads, while others were tortured. Many were slaughtered or harassed into suicide. Schools and universities eventually closed down and over 10 million former students were sent to the countryside to labor under the Down to the Countryside Movement. A lost generation was abandoned to fester, uneducated. Red Guard pogroms eventually came to include the cannibalization of revisionists. After all, as Mao said, a revolution is not a dinner party.

The Cultural Revolution destroyed China’s economy and traditional culture, leaving behind a possible death toll ranging from one to 20 million. Nobody really knows. It was a war on the way people think. And it failed. One immediate consequence of the Revolution’s failure was the rise in power of the military after regular people decided they’d had enough and wanted order restored. China then became even more of a capitalist society than it had ever imagined in pre-Revolution days. Oh well.

I spoke with an elderly Chinese academic who had been forced from her classroom and made to sleep outside with the animals during the Revolution. She recalled forced self-criticism sessions that required her to guess at her crimes, as she’d done nothing more than teach literature, a kind of systematic revisionism in that it espoused beliefs her tormentors thought contributed to the rotten society. She also had to write out long apologies for being who she was. She was personally held responsible for 4,000 years of oppression of the masses. Our meeting was last year, before white guilt became a whole category on Netflix, but I wonder if she’d see now how similar it all is.

That’s probably a longer version of events than a column like this would usually feature. A tragedy on the scale of the Holocaust in terms of human lives, an attempt to destroy culture on a level that would embarrass the Taliban—this topic is not widely taught in American colleges, never mind in China.

It should be taught, because history rhymes. Chinese students are again outing teachers, sometimes via cellphone videos, for “improper speech,” teaching hurtful things from the past using the wrong vocabulary. Other Chinese intellectuals are harassed online for holding outlier positions, or lose their jobs for teaching novels with the wrong values. Once abhorred as anti-free speech, most UC Berkeley students would likely now agree that such steps are proper. In Minnesota, To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn are banned because fictional characters use a racial slur.

There are no statues to the Cultural Revolution here or in China. Nobody builds monuments to chaos. But it’s never really about the statues anyway. In America, we moved quickly from demands to tear down the statues of Robert E. Lee to Thomas Jefferson to basically any Caucasian, including “White Jesus.“

Of course, it was never going to stop with Confederate generals because it was not really about racism any more than the Cultural Revolution was really about capitalism. This is about rewriting history for political ends, both short-term power grabs (Not Trump 2020!) and longer term societal changes that one critic calls the “successor ideology,” the melange of academic radicalism now seeking hegemony throughout American institutions. Douglas Murray is more succinct. The purpose “is to embed a new metaphysics into our societies: a new religion.” The ideas—centered on there being only one accepted way of thought—are a tool of control.

It remains to be seen where America goes next in its own nascent cultural revolution. Like slow dancing in eighth grade, maybe nothing will come of it. These early stages, where the victims are Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, someone losing her temper while walking a dog in Central Park, and canceled celebrities, are a far cry from the millions murdered for the same goals in China. Much of what appears revolutionary is just Internet pranking and common looting amplified by an agendaized media. One writer sees “cancel culture as a game, the point of which is to impose unemployment on people as a form of recreation.” B-list celebs and Karens in the parking lot are easy enough targets. Ask the Red Guards: it’s fun to break things.

Still, the intellectual roots of our revolution and China’s seem similar: the hate of the old, the need for unacceptable ideas to be disappeared in the name of social progress, intolerance toward dissent, violence to enforce conformity. 

In America these are spreading outward from our universities so that everywhere today—movies, TV, publishing, news, ads, sports—is an Oberlin where in the name of free speech “hate speech” is banned, and in the name of safety dangerous ideas and the people who hold them are not only not discussed but canceled, shot down via the projectile of the heckler’s veto, unfriended, demonetized, deleted, de-platformed, demeaned, chased after by mobs both real and online in a horrible blend of self-righteousness and cyber bullying. They don’t believe in a marketplace of ideas. Ideas to the mob are either right or wrong and the “wrong” ones must be banished. The choices to survive the mobs are conformity or silence. In China, you showed conformity by carrying around Mao’s Little Red Book. In America, you wear a soiled surgical mask to the supermarket.

The philosophical spadework for an American Cultural Revolution is done. Switch the terms capitalism and revisionism with racism and white supremacy in some of Mao’s speeches and you have a decent speech draft for a Black Lives Matter rally. Actually, you can keep Mao’s references to destroying capitalism, as they track pretty closely with progressive thought in 2020 America.

History is not there to make anyone feel safe or justify current theories about policing. History exists so we can learn from it, and for us to learn from it, it has to exist for us to study it, to be offended and uncomfortable with it, to bathe in it, to taste it bitter or sweet. When you wash your hands of an idea, you lose all the other ideas that grew to challenge it. Think of those as antibodies fighting a disease. What happens when they are no longer at the ready? What happens when a body forgets how to fight an illness? What happens when a society forgets how to challenge a bad idea with a better one?

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent.

The post Remember the Red Guards Before You Cheer the Woke Mobs appeared first on The American Conservative.

[ubereyezconfessions-blog]

The “Get Out” passengers

So.. quick little reference for the headline. ‘Get Out’ was a movie released by Jordan Peele a few years ago now, which was about a interracial couple. Black male and White female as they go to visit her parents for the first time. Along the way it deals with the hidden faces of racism, white guilt, black fascination and stereotypes. Psychological elements, weird statements and a bit of horror build up the film nicely. Leading to a climax of basically whites seeing that being black is “In” and they hold bids on incoming blacks to take their bodies and implant themselves in and forever leave them trapped in the subconscious and be passengers.

As for being black in America and from my singular view and no one elses perspective, this movie made it ever so awkward to be a black male that does date interracially and has been well spoken. Prior to the movie I was called white washed. Typical for someone from a side of a city that is vastly african american and lower to middle class. Being I was bussed out to the valley to attend schools that were a majority of middle eastern, asian, hispanic and whites students, spanning from middle to upper class. So both sides hold a influence on me, and create who I am today. So this already has me placed into what the film titled as “the sunken place”. Pretty much if you dont act quote on quote “Black Enough” youll pretty much be listed in this. As seen in the film, the sunken place was were a actor was placed in the film. In the opening scene a black character is shown with a what youd assume to say is a “black personality”. He’s then abducted after stating his car broke down in a white/rich neighborhood and he felt sketched out being there being its not a area blacks are known to be in. Later in the film he’s now a sex slave for a elder white woman and acts all proper and lost his “soul”. This sets the table for everyone who has seen the movie and now has a reference to call anything similar to be in the “Sunken Place”.

So this leads into a few of my awkward encounters with some passengers that are rather too eager to prove that they are cool with urban culture.

First in mind comes a trip I had out of Playa Vista where upon arriving I got this weird feeling in my gut that this was gonna be a awkward ride. After so many trips you I have a spider sense for when a weird ride is gonna happen. Pulling up, I arrive and wait to see if I can spot the passenger to pull closer being its a big apartment area with many entrance and exits. Next out the main door walks out 4 white males anywhere in the range of age between 26-35. Not anything bad, but i can only assume its gonna be painfully awkward just cause im aware that on a day to day basis its not average that our races cross paths beyond the means of social media and work. First thing that makes it awkward is this guy thats sitting directly behind me, feels the need to be extra jive. With his “wassups” and use of “lit” and whatever urban culture rip that made its way across the country. Ever make it very awkward that he wants me to know hes cool with black culture. The others are making small talk amongst themselves, I come to the assumption that one or two are visiting because they keep asking them about what are their plans being in the city now. While thats going the other persist on making me the center of the conversation. At a point comes the most awkward moment. He calls me a Spade. For anyone unaware, a Spade is a derogatory term used on african americans. Not so obvious as the n-word but if you know your stuff, you know what he meant. And proceeds to do this along with stating with my good looks, he’d ride my co-tail and basically pick up any of the chicks that would be attracted to me and I didnt pick up if we went out as a group. Making it more awkward was that he sought out a group agreement to which that all agreed. Nothing violent came of the trip, but a example of how awkward things with Americans can get.

Second comes a ride with 3 middle aged white women and a younger male with them. This was in Koreatown and taking them towards Downtown Los Angeles. This ride was simply awkward out of the tension in the ride of noticing that there was some attraction toward me and obviously the difference in race being a elephant in the room. From what I remember it was mainly about of superficial conversation about their day and what theyd been doing. A lot of attempts of tuning out on my end but ever being brought back just due to them being very loud. And literally im a foot away in the enclosed space of a car. So im just trying to avoid it all as they want my attention. Not giving in and just doing my job of being a driver. I reach the destination to them getting out and one calling me a Monkey out of anger and not getting my attention. Women can take rejections just as bad as men.

Third of the many but I’ll save for later. Comes as a white couple I picked up in Torrance and were taking them near LAX. Already sensing some impending awkward-ness I lowered my music and hoped for my Spotify playlist to tune out some mellow records and nothing vulgar to offend them. (Its bizarre how a hip hop record can offend). So after introductions, I just get along with driving and keeping to myself as I assume as a couple they will talk amongst themselves. But not the case. First is the usual small talk. “How long are you driving today?”, “Is this your full time or part time job?”, “Nice car, how do you like it?”. After running that gauntlet I then feel the need to entertain them being they are not going to let it go. So we get in a discussion of weather being its probably warmer here in Los Angeles than most of the country and them being from the East Coast, a definite. They then proceed to tell me how they are leaving for Africa in the following day. Along that they male felt this need to tell me about they were specifically visiting the areas in which slaves were originally shipped out from. AWKWARD. And that they were visiting the areas as part for their group they manage for a upcoming tour or something of that nature. Pretty much they were going in advance to see which areas were best and clean enough for the group to visit and perform. Along with that something about the areas being christian and they teach english. In my head i just picture colonized. But really made them come off really uppity. That they had to visit places to make sure they were clean enough for them but felt they needed to share music. These from my understanding are third world countries compared to the states. But anyways this is proceeded by a awkward silence upon which The Game’s Higher starts to play. Gangster rap, los angeles artist. The man then ask “is this the man thats playing at Coachella. His name starts with a G.” And with the state of Coachella and the acts that attend I quickly knew he was talking about G-Eazy. In general, just so awkward. I dropped them off and they wished me well as they walked into their 5 star hotel.