#literary racism

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics: Collections & a "can do" HPL!!

It's thought that all of Lovecraft's heroes are learned wimps who go mad at the drop of some debased ichor!

This is not true.

Howard had a select few heroes who got things done.

Violently - & smartly...

I mean, ramming your ship up into Cthulhu's belly - & making it explode (!!) - has got to be up there with our modern heroes's body counts...

If events had run differently, HPL could have ended up an action writer!! Somewhere along the lines of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan...

With his Anglo-centric fixture, could Lovecraft have rewritten Robin Hood or set down the hellish adventures of Olde Camelot!!

(Like Kirby's Demon origin story?)

Hey, we can dream - right?

1914: Commentary on "Teuton's Battle-Song."

Intro: "Battle-Song" is Howard's poem on the glories of war - as seen by the descendants of Anglo-Saxon blood.

Christianity is but an alien influence "worn lightly" by English-Americans.

Whose ancient prowess was so badly needed for the sake of the U.K. - as it was affected by WW1.

Comments: This piece of HPL's war propaganda is an expression of his persistent racist views.

Lovecraft hated that Aryan nations were fighting each other, rather than the real danger - the racially inferior enemies of civilization itself.

Howard harks back to pre-Christian paganism, evoking a philosophy of violence & bloodshed.

But, it's merely a work of fascist rhetoric. One making use of Nordic culture & white supremacist 'dreams.'

This survives today, as some modern Neo-Pagans hold explicit racist beliefs - to the dismay of the more peaceful worshippers.

These Nazi ideals also filter thruout the works of Black Metal, NeoFolk & Martial Industrial music.

For example: Boyd Rice's (of NON) anthem "Total War" has the same central point as HPL's "Battle-Song."

Both see Christ as being for wimps & that soldiers need to be merciless during war...

These same ideas were also present in Germany - since the 1800s onwards. And, reached their peaks before both World Wars.

Lovecraft, sadly, believed in the whole notion of Aryan/Nordic/Teutonic superiority.

But, with his "Battle-Song," Howard seemed to be coming up with an Anglo version of Germany's national- ism.

Though HPL claimed to strongly dis- like romanticism, he did use it for propaganda purposes.

Lovecraft himself states that he wrote "Teuton's Battle-Song" as a rebuke for U.S. pacifism.

Indeed, Howard's sabre-rattling would continue thruout WW1.

And it started long before the sinking of the Lusitania stirred up American resentment against Germany.

"Arthur" (fake-geek-boy) judges that HPL's work is - at this time - notably better than his poems.

Yet, Lovecraft wouldn't abandon his old-fashioned & heavyhanded style - until he finally switched back to writing fiction again.

Strangely enough, Howard was aware of his poetic limits.

But, thought his ability to evoke poetic imagery & emotion was so bad, that he had to maintain a strict metrical form.

HPL actually considered it more important to be formally correct - than creatively interesting - ouch!!

But, he would finally find his inner poetic muse - much later in his life.

Never give up, never surrender...

End.

[positively--speculative]

It's really unfortunate that a number of people (mostly white people) in the IWTV fandom here on Tumblr seem to have this watered down view of the gothic genre as "cool, sexy monster stuff." I mean, yeah. That's *part* of it, but that's like, a very high school Hot Topic view of it. I mean, nothing wrong with liking the stuff you did in high school or Hot Topic, but it shows a lack of a deeper understanding.

I know I've ragged on Anne Rice a lot here, but I honestly think that this is partly her responsibility. Did she craft interesting characters? Yes. Did she give them flaws? Yes. But does she do a good job of challenging them? Not really. In fact, the way she frames then makes it seem like they're not flaws at all. I can accept the fact that slavery was normalized in Louis time, but I cannot accept the idea if no one in the story challenging it. It is not unreasonable for Daniel to be attracted to Louis during the interview, but at the very least, he should be uncomfortable with his attraction to him. Sometimes bad people are still attractive. That's an uncomfortable truth. But AR doesn't handle it this way. She never addresses it.

So, it's really not hard to understand why her fandom carries such limited views on uncomfortable matter, because her writing didn't challenge them to feel uncomfortable with their attraction to Louis. To Lestat. To even fucking Marius (who I won't get into here. Other people have already written about him here and have done so better than I can). AR made the sexy vampire books, and her fans just go along with all the awful things they do because, hey, they're monsters and it's cool because they live outside human expectations of morality (even though Louis was awful before becoming a monster). AR presents shock value, but doesn't address what's shocking. Her fandom, in fact, seems to take pride in illustrating no shock over what is shocking. This, in my opinion, is an illustration of *failure* to create an effective gothic story.

The show does a much better job, in my opinion, at presenting something gothic. I, a Black biracial woman of the audience, should not be attracted to Lestat. But I *am.* I shouldn't be attracted to Louis, but I *am.* I shouldn't be looking at their family dynamic with Claudia in her earlier days as a vampire through heart-shaped lenses, but I *do.* And it's uncomfortable. It's supposed to be. And I think Daniel's character does a good job of bringing the audience back into the horrible reality of the situation and causes us to check ourselves.

And I think white fandom really does a disservice to Jacob Anderson *AND* Sam Reid by trying to argue with Black fandom over the subject of race. Racism is a central theme in this version of the story. But they don't want us to talk about it, because they're uncomfortable with it. They'd rather pretend it doesn't exist and doesn't need to be discussed. But it's *supposed* to make them uncomfortable. They're just not used to seeing the benefits of being challenged, because AR never did. And unfortunately, they're missing out in a very fulfilling part of enjoying the story because they want to keep themselves in a little bubble where they can pat each other on their backs for not being shocked by shocking things and never growing as people.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Not sure if you’re the person to ask this but, what are your thoughts on nosferatu? His look has become pretty iconic in vampire media (and SpongeBob) and I’ve been excited for the upcoming remake

But I can’t help but think about what definitely seem like antisemitic undertones, the large hooked nose and rattle design, the plot point of him apparently spreading a plague, and the fact it was made in Germany in 1922, yeah it’s kinda unfortunate how genuinely unique and creepy the original still looks, at least the remake will hopefully be further away from its origins.

Dear anon,

if you follow @spottheantisemitism you see my thoughts that Mother Gothel isn't a deliberate stereotype but going off ancient antisemitic coding that is so prevalent.

Dracula was written by self hating gay and eugenicist Abraham "Bram" Stoker whose Catholic christofascism, homophobia and xenophobia oozes off every page. The count is other, lizard like, he seduces good British christian women to debauchery and drives men to madness with his hypnosis (and his wealth). Dracula is the same fear of the hypnotic foreigner as the Beetle and Svengali but he's not codedly Arab or Jewish, respectively, he's just racially other. Is he Turkic? Is he Romanian? Not even Bram Stoker seems to know.

Stoker's main racism is the Lambrosian Eugenics that he's into and his idea that Romani would serve a vampire. Especially when Romanians actually tokenize local Romani seeing them as espeically attuned to Strigoi hunting (the Romanian folk spirits that inspired the Western ideas of Vampires). Dracula is described as the the quintessential criminal according to Lombroso but not neccesarily racialized in the way we currently understand Eugenics. The point isn;t that Dracula is codedly Jewish or Romani or whatever (he's not), the point is he's not Anglo-Saxon enough and that's bad.

But it was the Germans that took Dracula and gave him pointy ears and a hooked nose, because even in the philosemitic Weimar era, antisemitic caricatures were rampant. The eponymous character of "the golem" is made not throught kabbalalistic knowledge but by the rabbi making a deal with the devil and the both the golem and the rabbi's assistant lusting after a gentile girl is shown as monstrous.

I do wonder how the "it's all antisemitic coding" nuance averse tumbrines will deal with the "sunlight burns vampires" thing the movie added and try to tie to the "ashkenazi burn more than europeans" lie. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar guys.

I do hope the remake is good but it'll have the same othered man trying to seduce attractive white women thing and unless Del Toro is directing (he isn't) that's not going away no matter how you spin it. For better or for worse.

The guy who plays horror monsters as the count and all famous actors for the cast including Dafoe as the Van Helsing?

They filmed in Romania and the Czech Republic to get the Gothic real?

I'm cautiously optimistic

yours,

Cecil

[goldenspirits]

Something to be said about the similarities between Mr. Melancholy and Owen's Dad. The way Owen's Dad is always this oppressive presence throughout the movie even when we don't see him much. When we see Owen catch him watching TV and his facial features are obscured by shadows, in a way that makes him look even more like Mr. Melancholy. Owen's father is also white, seeing as I am nonblack this is not my place to speak, but I have heard from friends and other people from Mixed families that there is a specific mistreatment (namely, Racism.) of Black family members per part of white family members.

I was surprised when I found out Jane Schoenbrun isn't black, because that sounds like such a specific experience and yet it seems to be portrayed well and respectfully.

[annabelle--cane]

over the course of this semester I have developed the world's most annoyingly niche pet peeve in that most accounts of the history of vampires in english language literature now bother me because they start right at the first english vampire novel, the vampyre from 1819, skipping over all the earlier vampires in english language poetry ("the giaour" from 1813, thalaba the destroyer from 1801, arguably "christabel" from 1800).

[adarkrainbow]

One very interesting to note when comparing the "literary" fairytales and the "folkloric" fairytales - the fairytales actually rewritten or entirely written by authors for a literate public versus the oral folktales and "countryside" or "simple folks" fairytales collected by folklorists.

The latter tend to be very conservative, the former much more progressive than you think. Or rather... when you've got crazy nationalist and xenophobes and discriminators of all kinds, they'll turn towards the "folkloric" fairytales - but when you want to research queer, society-questioning, gender-norms-breaking, eerily modern fairytales, you'll go with the literary fairytales rather.

Don't get me wrong, do NOT get me wrong - both kind of fairytales are usually very racist in one way or another because they are from ancient times. The Pentamerone, madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales and the brothers Grimm fairytales all are very not-Black-people-friendly and always depict having dark skin as being ugly, being wicked or being a laughingstock. Because they were written by Renaissance-era Italians and French people, and by 19th century German men, so casual racism is just there.

BUT... Folkloric countrysides tend to play the cards of the casual European racism, and the common antisemitism, and the ingrained misogynistic views, much more plainly, openly and directly, because they were literaly collected among the folks that thought that, among the common population with the "common" views of the time. For example in a lot of French folkloric fairytales (not reprinted for children today) the role of the ogre or the devil or the murder in the woods will often be "the Moor" or "the Mooress", because it was okay to depict Moors are humanoid, devilish monsters used to eat the flesh of Christian children. The casual racism and antisemitism in good handfuls of the Grimm fairytales also prove the point (NOT HANSEL AND GRETEL THOUGH! I think I made my point clear). And the same way, in the Grimm you have the absolute "heterosexual-happiness" structure that was reinforced by Disney movie and is the reason why people think fairytales are inherently homophobic.

However, when it comes to literary fairytales, you have an entirely different song. Because they were LITERARY works, and as with a lot of literature pieces, you often get more progressive things than you think. Everybody knows of Andersen's fairytales queerness today that make them beautiful allegories for things such as coming out of the closet or transitioning or living in an homophobic setting, but if we take less "modern" and "invented", more traditional fairytales, we can be in for quite a surprise...

Take the Italian fairytales classics - the Pentamerone and the Facetious Nights. These works were originally satirical and humoristic adult works. Crude satire, dark humor - they were basically the South Park of their time. Slapstick gore out of an Itchy and Scratchy show, very flowery insults the kind of which you except to come of a Brandon Rogers video, poop and piss everywhere (yet another common trait with Brandon Rogers video, in fact I realized the classic Italian literary fairytales have actually a LOT in common with Brandon's videos...), and lot of sexual innuendos and jokes involving the limits of what was accepted as tolerable (extra-marital affairs, homosexuality, incest, gerontophilia, zoophilia). This was one big crude joke where everybody got something for their money and everyone, no matter the skin color, the religion, the gender or the social status, got a nasty little caricature. It does come off as a result as massively racist, antisemitic, ageist and misogynistic tales today... But it also clearly calls out the bad treatment of women, and takes all kings for fools, and completely deconstructs the "prince charming" trope before it even existed because they're all horny brutes, and it encourages good people to actually go and KILL wicked people who abuse others and commit horrid deeds... These tales inherited the "medieval comedy style" of the Middle-Ages, where it was all about showing how everybody in the world is an asshole, all "goodness" and "purity" is just foolishness and hypocrisy, how the world is just sex and feces, and how everybody ended up beaten up in the end.. (See the Reynard the Fox stories for example - which themselves spawned an entire category of "animal fairytales" listed alongside traditional "magical fairytales" in the Aarne-Thompson Catalogue.

But what about the French classical literary fairytales? Charles Perrault, and madame d'Aulnoy, and all the other "précieuses" and salon fairytale authors - mademoiselle Lhéritier, madame de Murat, the knight of Mailly, Catherine Bernard, etc etc...

The common opinion that was held by everyone, France included, for a very long tale, was that their fairytales were the "sweet and saccharine-crap and ridiculous-romance" type of fairytales. They were the basis of several Disney movies afterall, and created many of the stereotyped fairytale cliches (such as the knight in shiny armor saving a damsel in distress). People accused these authors - delicate and elegant fashionable women, upper-class people close to the royal court and part of the luxurious and vain world of Versailles, "proper" intellectuals more concerned with finding poetic metaphors and correct phrasing - they were accused of removing the truth, the power, the darkness, the heart of the "original" folkloric fairytales to dilute them into a syrupy and childish bedtime story.

But the truth is - a truth that fairytale authorities and students are rediscovering since a dozen of years now, and that is quite obvious when you actually take time to LEARN about the context of these fairytales and actually read them as literary products - that they are much more complex and progressive than you could think of. Or rather... subversive. This is a word that reoccurs very often with French fairytales studies recently: these tales are subversive. Indeed on the outside these fairytales look like everything I described above... But that's because people look at them with modern expectations, and forget that A) fairytales were generally discredited and disregarded as a "useless, pointless child-game" by the intellectuals of the time, despite it being a true craze among bookish circles and B) the authors had to deal with censorship, royal and state censorship. As a result, they had to be sly and discreet, and hide clues between the lines, and enigmas to be solved with a specific context, and references obscure to one not in the known - these tales are PACKED with internal jokes only other fairytale authors of the time could get.

These fairytales were mostly written by women. This in itself was something GRANDIOSE because remember that in the 17th century France, women writing books or novels or even short stories was seen as something indecent - women weren't even supposed to be educated or to read "serious stuff" else their brain might fry or something. Fairytales were a true outlet for women to epxress their literary sensibilities and social messages - since they were allowed to take part in this "game" and nobody bothered looking too deep into "naive stories about whimsical things like fairies and other stupid romances".

But then here's the twist... When you look at the lie of the various fairytale authors (or authoresses) oh boy! Do you get a surprise. They were bad girls, naughty girls (and naughty boys too). They were "upper-class, delicate, refined people of the salons" true. But they were not part of the high-aristocracy, they usually were just middle or low nobility or not even true nobility but grand bourgeois or administrative nobility - and they had VERY interesting lives. Some of them went to prison. Others were exiled - or went into exile to not be arrested. You had people who were persecuted for sharing vies opposing the current politico-status of France ; you had women who had to live through very hard and traumatic events (most commonly very bad child marriages, or tragic death of their kids). And a lot of them had some crazy stories to tell...

Just take madame d'Aulnoy. Often discredited as the symbol of the "unreadable, badly-aged, naive, bloated with romance, uninteresting fairytale", and erased in favor of Perrault's shorter, darker, more "folkloric" tales - and that despite madame d'Aulnoy being the mother of the French fairytale genre, the one that got the name "fairytale" to exist in the first place, and being even more popular than Perrault up until the 19th century. Imagine this so called "precious, delicate, too-refined and too-romantic middled aged woman in her salon"... And know that she was forced into a marriage with an alcoholic, abusive old man when she as just a teenager, that things got so bad she had to conspire with family members of her (and some male friends, maybe lovers, can't recall right now) to accuse her husband of a murder so he would get death sentence - but the conspiracy backfired, madame d'Aulnoy's friends got sentenced to death, and she had to exile herself it her mother in England to not get caught too. And she only returned to France and became known as a fairytale writer there after many decades of exile in other European countries the time the case got settled down. Oh, and when escaping France's justice she even had to hide under the frontsteps of a church. Yep.

Now I am reciting it all out of memory, I might get some details wrong, but the key thing is: madame d'Aulnoy was a woman with a crazy criminal life, and in fact she got such a reputaton of a "woman of debauchery" the British people reinvented her and her fairytales around the folk/fairytale figure of Mother Bunch (Madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales became "Mother Bunch" fairytales in England to match Perrault's "Mother Goose" fairytales, and Mother Bunch was previously in England a stereotype associated with the old wise woman, kind of witchy, that girls of the village went to to get love potions and aphrodisiacs or some advice on what to do once in bed with a guy - think fo Nanny Ogg from Discworld).

And many other fairytale authors of this "classical era of fairytales" had just as interesting, wild or marginal lives. The result? When you look at their tales you find... numerous situations where a character has to dress up and pass off as the opposite gender, resulting in many gender-confusing emotion and situations just as queer as Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Several suspiciously close and intimate friendships between two girls or two men. Various dark jokes at all the vices and corruption underlying in the "good society". Discreet sexual references hinting that there's more than is told about those idyllic romances. And lots of disguised criticism of the monarchic government and the gender politics of the society of their time - kings being depicted as villains or fools, princes either being villains or behaving very wrongly towards women, many of the typical fairytale love stories ending in tragedies (yes there's a lot of those fairytales where, because a prince loved a princess, they both died), numerous courtly depictions of rape and forced and abusive marriages, and of course - supreme subversion of all subversions - people of lower class ending up at the same level as kings (Puss in Boots' moral is that all you need to be a prince is just to look the part), and other mixed-class marriages (which was the great terror of the old nobility of France, for whom it was impossible to marry below their rank - if a king married a common peasant girl, the Apocalypse would arrive and it was the End of times).

So yeah, all of that to say... All the literary fairytales I came across with had subversive or progressive elements to it ; and this is why they are generally so easier to adapt or re-adapt in more queer or democratic or feminist takes, because there's always seeds here and there, even though people do not see it obviously. Meanwhile folkloric fairytales tend to be much more conservative and reflective of past (or present) prejudices, but people tend to forget it because these stories simple format and shortness allows them to "break" into pieces more easily like Legos you rearrange.

All I'm going to say is that there's a reason wy the Nazis very easily re-used the Grimm brothers fairytales as part of their antisemitic and fascist propaganda ; and why Russian dictators like Putin also love using traditional Russian fairytales in their own propaganda, while you rarely see Italian or French political evils reuse Perrault, d'Aulnoy, Basile or Straparole fairytales.

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

Do you believe racist authors deserve redemption? I love your blog and I’m interested in your opinion on this matter since you speak about racism in books.

hi anon!!! this is a great question, thanks for asking it!!!

i don't believe people deserve redemption. or that they have to 'qualify' to get better. if people want to change - its their right to change, to grow and become a better person. this is the kind of attitude i hold for authors as well.

but i think the harder part of the process comes after that. that there are consequences. some people will never forgive your racism, some people will never forgive that hurt even if you do get better, and that's....okay. its like - true change is always receptive towards criticism. it will always acknowledge the past to inform the future - and often authors (or white people in general) who want to change - just do. and they are usually understanding and introspective of the way they move in the world. bc once you see it, its very hard not to see where racism usually finds its footing. racism is learned - people are not inherently evil. but its also very baked into our foundation, so we are taught white supremacist ideologies from the moment we come out into the world.

i think the focus is oftentimes primarily put on avoiding or lessening the consequences. that an ‘I’m sorry’ will fix the wound.

racism is cruel. it has far reaching consequences - it isn't a buzzword. its fruitful to think about how racism affects its victims. how little children read literature and media and come away with the unconscious ideology that they are lesser. think abt the first racist moment in a book you read - something beloved. think about the trauma you carried when you realized the person you loved and adored and supported didn't even see you as a human being. every person of color, every black person has had that moment where they realized that a book they loved was not written for them; that they were meant to be the support, the helper, the friend, the maid, the 'perfect' girlfriend who just isn't good enough, the motivation, the body that served the vehicle for character development but never the main character. never a human being. never a fantasy.

and when you think about that - it becomes easier to see why people aren't willing to forgive how that racist author made them feel. bc we always have to carry that. we have to be the ones to unlearn hatred of ourselves. we have to carry the weight of the stereotypes, the ripples across media, the boxes we get put into.

personally - its a hard offense for me to forgive. its very hard for me to do so, because honestly my mind is always thinking about how there is there's often little motivation for some white authors to introspect bc the world is catered to them. its very hard to reflect when there's a foundation beneath you telling you there's nothing to reflect upon. so its extra work to actually make conscious change bc the world will always be content with the symbolic. people will always applaud the bare minimum. so its hard to gouge real change from just public shame. or kudos points.

in short - authors who want to change will change. authors who are empathetic and seek true change will always be vocal about it. and in those cases - i forgive. taking accountability, changing for the better and apologizing is all we can really ask. if an author doesn't do that than i have little interest in forgiving it. if an author cant say - 'oh i didn't mean that, and i recognize why that was harmful, i will do better.' then i cant take them seriously. its the bare minimum. staying silent and riding out the criticism without acknowledging what was harmful and how it was harmful means you seek none of the true change and it means im not interesting in supporting or forgiving, but alas that's just me!

[findher-ogg]

A very interesting takeaway from the Farseer Trilogy so far (just started Assassin's Quest so no spoilers) that I have so far is that not only is Wit an unintentional allegory for queerness but it's also an even more unintentional allegory for autism! As an autistic person reading quite a few of the characters come across as autistic to me anyway, but focusing on Fitz specifically he has

- a very poor grasp of social cues

- a very specialised interest in both animal care and assassin things

- immediately after being revived after his month with Nighteyes he's on a similar level of functionality as an autistic person with high support needs, and in relearning to be a man he is relearning how to mask/cope

- continuing this, his constant dilemma of if he is more man or more wolf reminds me of my own personal struggle with how much of my personality is me masking vs my autism

Additionally

- Burrich's own internalised ableism (such as when he scolds Fitz for talking to Nighteyes or when he "kills" Nosy)

- whatever the fuck is going on with Kettricken

Honourable mentions go to the Fool, Patience and Verity who are also very very autistic but get differently stigmatised for it

[belle-keys]

one of the absolute worst unironic takes i've seen on the instawebs is "only people from x background can write main characters from x background" like holy shit how can you possibly politicize literature to this extent?

it's genuinely shocking to me that some people's personal motto when it comes to art and media creation is "only write what you are". with this mindset, writing inherently becomes about social and political identity when it should be about "let's do justice to this character and their background the best we can".

[oathofkaslana]

like at some point your well-intentioned "genshin theories" are just you displaying bigoted beliefs lol..

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics:

1. Lovecraft's identification with the city of Providence was the result of his nightly explorations & his relief at going home - after his 'horrifying' life in NYC.

2. This is Howard's view of 'heaven' on Earth! He grew up here & knew this city intimately.

Even after all of the pains that HPL suffered here, Providence was his choice of sanctuary.

3. The early racist poem that we'll be examining today...

4. THE 1st guide to the Lovecraftian side of Howard's favorite city - on Earth.

1912: HPL Output.

Intro: Since HPL's 1st racist letter was published in a local newspaper, I'd guess that Lovecraft decided to try his hand at writing more of the same.

This year saw a real explosion of written pieces from Howard. Some of it racist, most of it 'experimental.'

Output: "Providence in 2000 AD" was published in the local Providence Evening Journal.

It's supposed to be a satire directed towards Italian-Americans & 'other' races that HPL feared.

This work imagines the displacement of white folk by immigrants.

It's amazing the suspension of common sense that 1 has to go thru, to not see the blind stupidity of such statements.

I mean, everyone born in America are the children of immigrants - including white people.

What matters most is how we treat each other...

But, the integration of races was a major horror for Lovecraft.

Anything, he wrote, would be better than "the mongrelization & eventual deterioration of (the White) nation."

And, nothing - but "pain & disaster - will come from mingling... Blacks (with) Whites."

Plot: The usual, nameless narrator visits Providence, R.I. - where immigrants displaced his ancestors.

The city has changed so much, it's impossible to understand the new language!

And, "the city (echoes) with foreign cries."

Streets & landmarks have also had their names 'overthrown.'

Mechanical devices are "shaky" & rails have become "rusty."

The Post Office & schools are "ruins waiting to be sold."

People are "loud" & "factories (have) increased the din."

The racism comes in "where(ever) clustered swarthy men of every hue & shape."

Jews are targeted by the age-old racial taunt "the wealth that Israel (illegally) amassed."

And, French "Gauls from Canada poured in..."

"In terror" (though never threatened in any way!) our brave hero retreats back to the wharf.

Like in "Shadow Over Innsmouth", the narrator meets a white survivor, "a half crouched, shriveled form" identifying himself as "the last American!"

Future Tech: In this narrative poem, giant ships cross the Atlantic Ocean - in a day!!

Inspiration: All of this anxiety was due to the Providence Evening Journal's announcement of Italians wanting to change Atwell Avenue to Columbus Avenue...

Criticism: This work shows much fear about cultural changes - which never truly manifested in reality.

For those who care for such things, Providence is still white as bread today - in January, 2024!

The city's not crumbling into ruins.

Nor have Jews taken over its trade. They have more important problems in their own country...

So... Big oops!! You were (or still are) worried over nothing.

Though we are going thru a period of foreign influence & out of control immigration - it's due to Putin's spies & our own gas guzzlers...

Climate change & drug cartels are now forcing people to uproot their lives.

These folk now find themselves trying to seek safety (& work) in the most successful nation on Earth.

But, the move to robotic systems here, is starting to choke off many avenues to employment - menial or otherwise...

These are events which are only growing our homeless population.

But, if we're only looking for someone to blame - look in the mirror.

It's all of our choices that have led to today's many problems. As it has in the past as well.

We can, in the future, try to choose a bit more wisely...

But, don't expect any to make any major changes. We've shaped the world to fit our own wishes - no matter who disapproves.

And, people don't really change - only our tech does...

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

(Mark Twain, left, with John T. Lewis, a lifelong friend and inspiration for the character Jim in 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn')

* * * * *

February 18, 1885: "Mark Twain publishes his famous–and famously controversial–novel 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his tremendously successful novel 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' (1876). Though Twain saw Huck’s story as a kind of sequel to his earlier book, the new novel was far more serious, focusing on the institution of slavery and other aspects of life in the antebellum South. At the book’s heart is the journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on a raft. Jim runs away because he is about to be sold and separated from his wife and children, and Huck goes with him to help him get to Ohio and freedom. Huck narrates the story in his distinctive voice, offering colorful descriptions of the people and places they encounter along the way. The most striking part of the book is its satirical look at racism, religion and other social attitudes of the time. While Jim is strong, brave, generous and wise, many of the white characters are portrayed as violent, stupid or simply selfish, and the naive Huck ends up questioning the hypocritical, unjust nature of society in general. Even in 1885, two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' landed with a splash. A month after its publication, a Concord, Massachusetts, library banned the book, calling its subject matter “tawdry” and its narrative voice “coarse” and “ignorant.” Other libraries followed suit, beginning a controversy that continued long after Twain’s death in 1910. In the 1950s, the book came under fire from African-American groups for being racist in its portrayal of black characters, despite the fact that it was seen by many as a strong criticism of racism and slavery. As recently as 1998, an Arizona parent sued her school district, claiming that making Twain’s novel required high school reading made already existing racial tensions even worse. Aside from its controversial nature and its continuing popularity with young readers, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' has been hailed by many serious literary critics as a masterpiece. No less a judge than Ernest Hemingway famously declared that the book marked the beginning of American literature: “There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”" 

- history.com 'A heroic deed, a rewarding friendship' - via The Washington Times: https://bit.ly/2V4sHN3 [Random History of the Day]

[enbycrip]

Too much academic reading makes it strangely difficult to go back to just reading shit for enjoyment. Even when it’s really fucking good.

I’m reading an excellent book called Perilous Times. It’s about Arthurian Knights, racism, nationalism and the climate crisis. I’m literally doing a bunch of underlining and saving the good bits because it’s letting me concentrate on reading both this book and the next Rivers of London book, which I preordered last year and appeared in my Kindle library, as things do.

I will probably end up sharing some of the excellent lines here because it is very very good.

I have a lot of ideas about why fantasy, and other literary techniques like modernist writing and magical realism, makes reading and writing about awful real world shit easier than reading straight realist fiction about them.

I think it’s to do with how they invite you to process it. Straight realism is the language of the news. It excludes the reader. It tells you the awful shit has already happened; it’s set in stone, and you could never have done anything about it anyway. The other techniques are inviting - actively inclusive. They invite you in to collaborate on the story with the writing itself. To bring your own ideas and your own experience of the awful things to the experience of reading.

This might be a very idiosyncratic, personal experience, btw - it might be about how my mind works. But I don’t think so?

I feel writing fantasy about the climate crisis, racism, transphobia, queerphobia, disableism and social change is activist in a way writing straight realist fiction about it isn’t. It’s inviting the reader into a world where we have power and things can change, without excluding or minimising the painful cost of the change.

It’s why I feel Pratchett keeps being so endlessly applicable - almost *terrifyingly* so - to things that have happened after his death.

[ultramarine-spirit]

What you said in your previous post about manhwas reflecting the thinking of Korean autoreas is so true!! it's frustrating because people analyze it with their western mentality and throw so much hate without bothering to try to understand the story. There are many things that I have noticed in the manhwa that are very different from things in the west (for example, the FL is always compared to an angel or a fairy lol) but something that caught my attention is that in the west it is It is very common that when we talk about an 'empowered woman' it is a woman who is good at physical fights, with super powers or good at using weapons with sarcastic personalitys and other things, while in manhwas (there are women like that too, of course) but something they have that the americans movies don't usually show is that the women here are very good at studying. That surprised me (and I liked it) because it is not very common to see women who work hard in the studios and enjoy it in USA movies, but they do in manhwas. One of the few movies that reflects this is legally blonde (and it's one of the best movies out there) plus I have a great love for academically validated female characters, they are literally my favorites in any story so reading that Athy really enjoyed studying made me fall more in love with her. Also when FLs have to act cute in order to survive, fans often throw so much hate at them saying they are irritating or ridiculous but they don't take the time to think that there are many ways to be a great female character without always using weapons, I have a great hatred for the term "soft fl" it seems too misogynistic to me that they are thrown down for that reason but waiting for the manhwa community to realize that is going to take a long time.

Another thing I remember is that in the novel Athy had many modern thoughts that surprised me, like when they talked a little about Korean society and I could feel a criticism of this or the things she said when some men harassed her and Jennette or when some men Men said that she would be happier married to a prince instead of being the next empress and she was very upset by her. Also when in his debut he said "one thing I learned is that boys have to look like boys and ladies look like ladies" (this stuck with me because it made me think of oversexualizing young children but maybe I'm overanalyzing it) There are many interesting things in the wmmap novel that people take out of context.

Another thing I've noticed is that in the East it's more typical to see this kind of "sunshine" girls who are sweet and cheerful, very kind, literally the kind of people that everyone loves and in manhwas they get so much hate, it's hateful. It's also not common to see this type of girls in the west and if they are, they are always hated. Ruby from How to get my husband on my side is truly one of the strongest female characters out there and is always looked down on just because she is softer compared to the other girlboss leads. Athanasia is a character who seems to be on the lookout for between these two terms but he still gets criticized for not having acted in a more "evil" way it's funny because the scene of Athy facing the nobles and then Anastascius screamed more power to me than many scenes I've seen in movies or series.

I just want to clarify that I love my villainous girls, medea and roxana are really amazing and I enjoyed women who do morally bad things, marianne, Cosette, soleia, I love them all. But I genuinely hate how they look down on 'soft fl'

The thing is, there are a lot of things in the novels/manhwas that I feel are critical or stereotypical of them that more western minded people take too much out of context and it's too frustrating, some people have a hard time understanding which does not have to be from their point of view.

sorry for all the rant lmao, i didn't mean to make it so long, it's just that this is one of my big problems with the manhwa community 😭

Have a good day!

Don't worry for the rant, anon! I think similarly to you as well.

I'm in the position that, while I live in a country that geographically and politically could be considered "the west" (what a long conversation that is lmfao), my culture doesn't perfectly align with "western" values and ideas. So when I see people sending hate towards manhwa, I notice how they often analyze them exclusively from their personal point of view and own biases, not realizing that asian media is very different from western media. I don't know if this is a problem of media literacy or it's that people think less of asian media as a whole. Hopefully it's the former.

But yes, most manhwas reflect korean values! Shocking, I know. Perhaps people get blinded by the western settings, but even if the characters "don't look" asian, they were made by an asian author, so obviously they reflect asian ideas and values. In that sense, they are asian characters. A similar discourse happens with anime and danmei/xianxia novels.

I think western readers have an easier time liking "girlboss" FLs and revenge fantasy stories because those are more common on this side of the world. But they struggle with more nuanced stories where the FL is not perfect, she does not solve everything with schemes or being a badass, is "weak", or (heaven forbid!) is able to forgive a family that hurt her in the past. This is the main criticism Athy gets, the fact that she was able to love Claude. I truly don't understand how people decide to even read WMMAP if they are so opposed to that idea, because that's the heart of WMMAP's story. Family holds a much bigger importance on the east compared to the west's individualistic idiosyncrasy, so of course most asian stories that touch the topic of family won't end in "if your family wronged you, fuck them". From where I'm from, family is also regarded as very important, so I can understand why a lot of manhwas are about rebuilding family relationships, not destroying them. And even then, you have plenty of revenge fantasies with cartoonishly evil families, so if that's what you prefer, you can read those.

Specifically korean media, it often touches topics like, generational trauma, misogyny, capitalism, etc. As you said, WMMAP addresses these things too in some way or another. I didn't think manhwa was particularly subtle as a medium (I know it's kinda ironic coming from me, but these are very simple stories, not Dostoevsky novels), but if people have trouble understanding the point of Parasite and Squid Game, then no wonder they can't pick up on these themes.

I'm not saying asian media or manhwas are above negative criticism. They have plenty of issues of their own. But if you are going to criticize something, you have to truly understand it, and reading anything disregarding cultural context or the own internal biases you may hold is at best foolish and at worst very ignorant. Western readers often have this mentality that all stories have to cater to them, when it's obvious that manhwas were made thinking of a korean public first and foremost.

(I dislike when people say Athy should have been more "evil". The whole point of her character is how her kindness and willingness to be empathetic with others and try to build honest relationships was what saved everyone. Villainesses AUs are fun, but when people truly say that Athy's character is weak because she chooses to feel love instead of hatred, because she is selfless instead of selfish- Why are you even reading WMMAP? And even then, she is far from "soft" and has plenty of "badass moments"...)

(News to me that Ruby gets hate, I thought she was the new manhwa darling. I stopped reading that series, but to me she was the best part of it by far. I think she is one of the only few good portrayals of a victim of physical abuse and ED in all manhwa. I have always disliked how those traits are just brushed aside as little things to endear the FL to the reader, but are never treated with the seriousness they deserve).

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Leigh Ann O’Neill and Brent Morden

Published: Oct 12, 2023

It’s Fall, and writers are submitting their best stories, essays, and poems to literary journals, which have reopened after the summer break. The readership for many of these journals may be small, but they are powerful gatekeepers for aspiring poets and literary authors. Many journals receive hundreds, or even thousands, of submissions every month, from which they typically select only a few pieces for publication. Of the works they publish, they nominate only a handful for prestigious prizes—such as the Pushcart, the O. Henry, and the Best American series—which can launch a young writer’s career.

In apparent violation of federal anti-discrimination law, a growing number of literary journals across the United States are openly discriminating based on race or ancestry in setting the fees they charge to writers submitting their work. By following the current trend toward race essentialism, literary journals are establishing an ominous precedent, while flouting the fundamental principle of equality under the law, regardless of skin color.

Submitting work to journals is easier now than it once was. Gone are the days of mass postal submissions and stamped self-addressed envelopes. Most journals have transitioned to electronic portals such as Submittable.com to manage submissions; and they often charge hopeful authors a submission fee to defray their operating costs. All you need to do is upload your piece, pay your money, and keep your fingers crossed. A single story or poem might be rejected dozens of times before it finds a home.

Even though these fees are typically quite low—five, ten, or twenty dollars—they can start to add up, especially when one considers that the payment for published work offered by these journals is often nominal. Historically, journals have been mindful of the hardship their fees can impose. Harvard Review, Yale Review, and many other prestigious publications offer need-based fee waivers or fee-free submission periods in the case of authors suffering financial hardship.

Recently, however, many journals have taken a different approach: They are assigning fee waivers on the basis of applicants’ skin color and ethnicity. At Ecotone (affiliated with the University of North Carolina), for example, “historically underrepresented writers” may submit earlier than others, and are exempt from fees entirely, regardless of financial need. A similar policy was implemented at Indiana Review (Indiana University Bloomington), where “Black, Indigenous, and Person of Color (BIPOC)” writers were automatically exempted from fees. (Non-BIPOC writers were required either to pay, or to request fee waivers on an individual basis.) At Black Warrior Review (University of Alabama), those who are a “Black, indigenous, or incarcerated writer … may skip the Submittable process and email your submission directly to the editor … for no fee.”

These race-based fee structures violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin by universities and colleges that accept federal funding. In the case of public universities, race-based fees also run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And yet, this sort of overtly race-based treatment has continued largely unnoticed and unchallenged.

At the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR)—where the two of us serve as managing director of legal advocacy, and managing director of FAIR in the Arts, respectively—we’re actively working to change that. And we’ve already had some success.

Perhaps these developments should not come as a surprise. Literary journals are simply exhibiting the fixation on racial and ethnic identity that has become a mainstay of academia and mainstream publishing. But trying to atone for past discrimination by imposing differential race-based treatment on citizens isn’t just illegal in many cases; it also serves to stereotype non-white people as poor, beleaguered, and victimized. And it serves to overlook those who do need assistance because of disadvantages they’ve suffered in life, but who don’t possess the immutable characteristics considered to be an indicator of struggle and strife.

Moreover, these practices foster societal division by elevating superficial differences over all the elements we have in common. This undermines the sense of empathy, imagination, and intellectual freedom required to create compelling literature; and deadens the unifying, inspiring, and humanizing effect that art can have on us.

In the grand sweep of things, the submission policies of small literary journals may not seem to be an important issue. But it represents yet another challenge to our liberal values—and a harbinger of what kind of racially Balkanized society awaits us if we allow unconstitutional race-based policies to become the new normal in American cultural life.

Leigh Ann O’Neill is managing director of legal advocacy at the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR). Brent Morden is managing director of FAIR in the Arts.

[adarkrainbow]

Oh yes another useful thing to understand physical descriptions in the fairytales of Charles Perrault, madame d'Aulnoy and more... It is always useful to remember that the beauty canon of 17th century France went as such: to be beautiful you needed to have a pale (white) skin, big eyes, a tiny nose, a small mouth, and hair either blond or very black.

This is why ugly people in these fairytales have the specific traits opposed to this. If the nose was big, long or large in any way, it was ugly ; if you had small eyes, you were ugly ; if your mouth was large, ugly ; if your hair was brown or red or grey, ugly.

As such while there is a racist undertone in a lot of "fairytale uglies" descriptions (because these beauty criteria were formed in a racist society - for them having black skin was by default "ugly"), there is also a very harsh judgement not related at all to racism. Having a skin of any color that is not pale white (for example the bright yellow-orange of the Yellow Dwarf) was ugly ; even just having the skin white but tanned was ugly. In fact, there is quite ridiculous description of a princess at one point, who was gifted with such beauty that when she has to live harshly under a hot and burning sun... she doesn't tan. Even better: the more she is under the sun, the paler she becomes. (I think it is from The Orange-Tree and the Bee).

So this really shows how one has to get into a whole different mindset when reading these tales.