#murder cleaner desmond

[teecupangel]

I've been replaying Nobodies and in the middle of the second game I thought "Hey this guy talks like Desmond!" then I thought it would be pretty funny if Desmond became a murder cleaner lol

Nobodies: Murder Cleaner is available for Android, PC (via Steam) and Apple if you want to try it. It’s a point and click game where you play as a member of a secret government organization and your job is to clean up after other members have killed the target.

So we have two option for this idea.

Option 1: Canon ‘Verse where Desmond becomes a Cleaner instead of a Bartender

In this one, the only thing we have to tweak is what Desmond’s history becomes when he left the Farm. Maybe he saw one of the Cleaners doing their job in Rapid City and the Cleaner didn’t want to kill a kid to cover his tracks so he makes Desmond his accomplice, helping him clean it up, all the while teaching him the ‘craft’. After that, Desmond tags along because the Cleaner says that’s the only way he’ll survive and maybe Desmond’s upbringing mess him up enough that he thinks this is okay. That this kind of life is actually better than the life he had back on the Farm. The Cleaner keeps a close eye on him and notices how ‘unique’ Desmond’s upbringing is. He even thinks Desmond has what it takes to actually be one of the ‘messy ones’ but Desmond preferred to clean. It feels… more distant to his life before.

We get our timeskip and Desmond is one of the best cleaners out there. His identity is ironclad because his Cleaner mentor gave him a new one and their organization made it official since they do have a bit of leeway with the government. In exchange, Desmond will be in their service which he doesn’t mind because the organization pays for everything he needs (other than the equipment and items he might actually need when it was time to clean up because having such equipment with him when he gets to the scene would be security guard bait).

At this point, the organization has an idea that Abstergo is very sus and there’s a shadowy organization that does questionable things against Abstergo most of the time. They don’t know the full story though but Desmond believes that his parents’ cult is actually an ecoterrorist group. He keeps it to himself though since he doesn’t want to be anywhere close to them.

With the backing of the organization and his more honed skills and espionage, Desmond is actually more or less a ghost even to Abstergo. They know Desmond Miles exist but they also know that he disappeared nine years ago. Desmond’s government records are all fake data but authenticated by the government itself. Hell, he even has an SSN and tax records. (Your call if he keeps his Desmond Miles name or he changes to like Desmond Miller or full on fake name like Derek Milton or something XD)

If you still want Desmond to be part of the Animus Project or to kickstart the main plot, Desmond gets caught because the organization has traitors and one of them took him while he was cleaning a scene that turned out to be a trap. However, Desmond knows how to play the game and his childhood training only help him become better at his job.

If Vidic kept the same ‘security’ in AC1 (cameras only, no visible guards), Desmond would find a way to kill Vidic and (maybe) Lucy before the guards even get there. Once he gets access to the computer (thanks, Lucy), tampering with the security feed would be easy because he’s done it before as a Cleaner. He’s also used to using items and devices he sees on the ‘scene’ so yeah…

Before the even finishes Altaïr’s memories, he’d most probably already made his escape after cleaning the scene.

And that’s when…

The Bleeding Effect starts…

Option 2: Full Spy AU where every Assassin is messy and Desmond has to clean after them

Okay, this one plays loose with the lore.

In this one, the Brotherhood is a secret organization that has the capital and the influence that a usual Hollywood super spy organization has.

And Desmond is the poor son of a high ranking member of the organization. He was being trained to be an operative but he didn’t want to be an operative like his father.

So… he became a cleaner instead.

In this one, I think it would be fun if Desmond is just some poor cleaner who has to clean up for the messiest of the operatives because he’s one of the best cleaners.

So the setup could be Desmond appearing on the scene and deducing which of his messy ‘regulars’ did this one and he all have nicknames for each of them.

One of them is super good at his job that Desmond just have to take care of the body most of the time. That one he calls “the light of my life” because it means a quick easy job then Desmond can just chill somewhere and see the sights until he’s called again.

Another one is someone who always has to chase their target and dear god, Desmond wants to strangle this operative so badly because Desmond has to clean up multiple places and that includes CCTVs used by the local government for the roads and such. That one he calls ‘the bane of my existence’.

The funny thing?

Both operative are the same person: Altaïr who seesaw between absolutely the best or having a bad day that can only be summed up as “the universe is conspiring against him to get some cardio today”.

Of course, there’s a lot more operatives that Desmond cleans after.

There’s one that liked to actually steal shit and Desmond just usually make that a burglary gone wrong most of the time.

There’s another operative who may or may not have a dog that he uses to rip apart his target and Desmond always prays the scene is somewhere outside so he can just make it look like a wild animal attack and always hate it whenever it happens in an office building or anywhere indoors to be completely honest.

There’s another one that tries to be sneaky but that only makes Desmond’s life harder because he has to make sure to look everywhere just to be sure that the sneaky operative didn’t miss or fuck up somewhere.

In other words, Desmond has a lot of complaints for his regular operatives XD

[quirkycombatants]

"Oh, is that what you're worried about? Don't worry, I can bleed a lot more before I pass out. Trust me, I've done plenty of training after bleeding myself; the teachers got really mad at me last year for that and demanded I stop." Honestly, the dude needed constant supervision when he arrived. "Also, what's bleach? Do cleaners have characters? Do you need to cover up a crime scene...?" He said all of this like someone who was either the world's greatest jokester, or someone who had zero idea that what he was saying was insane. Probably the latter.

He'd take the water though, even if his face was still absolutely baffled. "But... this is how I talk normally...?" Noburu was clearly very confused. When Daichi said that Noburu lacked socialization he may not have been exaggerating. Noburu seemed like a child who just so happened to think nothing of breaking limbs.

However, if Desmond thought the confusion was going to end there, he was going to be sorely mistaken. "So... you're on a revenge mission?" Ah, he'd heard of that. "Not sure you strike me as the type that's capable of cold blooded murder... I've seen plenty of those. And I have no idea how that's going to make the world better for this person."

A pause. "I'm going to hazard a guess and say that your parents don't plan on making you two fight to the death after raising you in separate places, right?" Clearly, he was serious about that. "That sounds like something my parents would have done. Or might still do, if my mother is alive? Not sure if she had other kids... But I'm guessing that isn't the reason you can't return home."

Yep, just dealing with a kid who thought family members killing each other was more normal than trying to make the world a nicer place. Clearly, Desmond was not dealing with someone who was entirely all there.

"Just do me a solid and put them on, you look like a bleach character with all this around here. With all due respect." He wasn't being snide, he could tell with his voice. "I know you're just saying that but come on, I don't want you to pass out from blood loss." Des couldn't force him but if he wanted to put them on, he'd help if he wanted, but he wouldn't press it.

"With all due respect I remember what you said, I still didn't like it and I made it very clear that I didn't care for it, I'm aware of what a villain can do to me. " Desmond ran a hand down the scar on his face. "Sometimes I like to turn the training off in a casual location. If that makes sense." Des listened to him as he fetched a couple waters for them both. "I get it life's been hard on you, but I work differently you feel me? Just talk to me like normal and you'll understand."

"I can't just quit U.A, the alternative is going home, and going to U.A there, and don't get me wrong it's filled with as many weirdos as here but I can't go home yet....for reasons I need to get stronger and then go back. Then take care of things." His cheeks darkened when he was thinking about a special someone back home. "And back home mutants are kinda looked down on, moreso than here...so I wanna use my hero status to make things better for them, including my new sister...I want her to grow up in a world that doesn't look down on her because of her tail." Desmond rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry to pour all that on him.

Truth was Des was under witness protection and he couldn't go back home, not yet.

[nightibowl]

A Dry White Season (1979)

// Miracle of Rising 

// After Soweto 

Outwitting the censors

1979 printing: 3000 copies, a private publishing press in Johannesburg 

Defected two weeks later - too late to confiscate the first printing, but the book was banned 

Simultaneous publication in the UK - a great success 

The SA authorities embarrassed into lifting the ban

The Black June 

Multi-day youth riots in Soweta started 26th June 1976, after obligatory Afrikaans classes imposed on Black population 

Brutally suppressed - armed personnel carriers, machine guns, and helicopters against stones 

SA internationally condemned for the massacre of the youth and the use of violence at a mass scale 

A moral obligation 

A dry White Season illustrates the thesis made by Brink in his article „After Soweto” (1975)

Following the massacre, the white citizens of SA shoulder a tremendous moral responsibility, which each should fulfill no matter the personal consequences 

Be du Toit is an example of a person who took his moral obligation to the end 

Torture 

Torturing political prisoners was frequent in SA in the 70s

The 1973 report of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid described over 100 cases of mistreatment of prisoners 

Often used by Special Branch (resembles Gestapo)

In 1977 at least 20 arrested people died in shady circumstances (according to Western press)

Mohammed Salim Essop 

Prisoner that could never be traced - Jonathan

Ahmed Timol 

an anti-apartheid activist, political leader and activist in the underground South African Communist Party (SACP), based in Roodepoort, near Johannesburg. He died five days after being arrested at a roadblock in Johannesburg, following torture and beatings. Police claimed he leaped out of window on an upper floor of the John Vorster Square police building, and were exonerated in a 1972 inquest. The claim was widely disbelieved at the time, and a 2017 judicial review of the case declared that he had, instead, been murdered.

Story of Gordon 

Steve Biko/Stephen Batu Biko

Donald Woods 

Dan Levinson

James Thomas Kruger 

Revision in Ben’s house was based on the writer’s own experience 

Desmond Tutu

Harold 

Inspiration for Stolz

The book: 

It was good to have a white friend — protector (they can vouch that sb is a „good black Person” 

There is so much evil that we have to either go its or become desensitized 

Transkei - where Mandela was born (37)

Black man’s options in life - even if someone was academically promising , he had to take up a millennial job in order to support their family 

Jonathan - goal —> you will go to school for as long as possible; Ben checks if Jonathan is „worth” helping, stating that he is, he decides to help them financially; Jonathan works in Ben’s garden over the weekends (saving his dignity, mutual agreement ad benefits)

Jonathan — start of the drama, something that hurts him and humiliates him and fills him with anger —> arrested for a crime he did not commit, 6 cuts on his butt

Robert (|second son) leaves for Mozambique to a military camp, says he will not come back without a gun in his hand 

Sickness - systemic racism 

Soweto youth uprising — protest against forced Afrikaans for black people

s. 41 — alliteration, short sentences, enumeration, anaphora 

Striking ending sentence (single)

Stanley — blackjack, middle-man; translates and transfers between the world of the blacks and the world of the whites; deals both with the police and criminals 

The only character that considers himself equal to Ben 

John Vorster Square — main police station; a bit like Szucha (Pawiak); such strong connotations 

Stanley and Gordon introduce Ben to the idea that the state suctions differently for people of different skin colors 

Redivivus — obrodzony 

Poise - slightly above things 

s.45 first hint of torture — use = first trace (hospital)

Seconn trace — cleaner —> another sign of torture (he was asked to wash blood off of the floor) - Jonathan was held I the basement 

S.47 — they find out about his death; Ben starts to want to know the real truth

Gordon wanting to find his son’s body - Greek tragedy connotation 

Inciting action 

Peripety — where the protagonist loses his good luck/falls upon ill luck 

Anagnorisis/ recognition — the moment when you realize something tragic happened in your life 

Catastrophe 

Denouement 

Dramatic irony -when you try to do something good but it turns out to be bad 

Analytical drama - when the plot is presented not chronologically, but begins at the point of a climax and we learn about the events later on; we know what happened but then we discover the truth 

Synthetic drama — the opposite; it is chronological and we get information as we go 

Structure of the play: when does the play begin 

ab ovo (from the beginning)

In medius res (from the middle

In ultimate res |(from the end)

Torture — described in points

Why? —> methodical, detached, so frequent 

[dearhummingbird]

rec us these nonfiction books you speak of

I’ve been on a bit of a kick with these three categories lately but I think there’s something for everyone on this list. I have more if you want specific recommendations but I think this’ll do for now, so here you go, go forth—

Memoir / Autobiography / Character study:

People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo—and the Evil That Swallowed Her (Richard Lloyd Parry)

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (Zora Neale Hurston)

Heavy: An American Memoir (Kiese Laymon)

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Caroline Fraser)

The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (Anne-Marie O'Connor)

The Descent of Man (Grayson Perry)

All The Truth is Out (Matt Bai)

The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (Sarah Krasnostein)

The Cost of Living (Deborah Levy)

The Secret History of Wonder Woman (Jill Lepore)

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster (Stephen L. Carter)

Assata: An Autobiography (Assata Shakur)

Eve: A Biography (Pamela Norris)

A Cup of Water Under My Bed (Daisy Hernández)

Social justice:

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond)

Violence All Around (John Sifton)

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (Michael J. Sandel) 

Columbine (Dave Cullen)

Negroland (Margo Jefferson)

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (Jill Leovy)

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (Rebecca Traister) 

The Killer Angels (Michael Shaara)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Michelle Alexander)

The Lines Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border (Francisco Cantú)

A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America (T. Christian Miller, Ken Armstrong)

Laramie Project (Moisés Kaufman & Tectonic Theater Project)

The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump (Michiko Kakutani)

History:

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President (Candice Millard)

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (Peter Pomerantsev)

Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992 (by Brandon Stosuy, Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles)

The Library Book (Susan Orlean) 

A History of Bombing (Sven Lindqvist tr. by Linda Haverty Rugg)

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (John Carreyrou)

Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Hunter S. Thompson)

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South (Radley Balko)

The Library Book (Susan Orlean) 

Misc:

The Fall of Language in the Age of English (Minae Mizumura)

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (David Shields)

Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World (Anne Jamison)

[aion-rsa]

Endeavour: the Series 8 Finale’s Easter Eggs and Homages

https://ift.tt/3ueDoj9

Warning: contains spoilers for Endeavour Series 8 Episode 3 ‘Terminus’.

Fittingly for a drama about a detective with a taste for The Times cryptic crossword, the murder mystery is far from the only game in an episode of Endeavour. As we explore here, the prequel’s films feature nods to pop culture contemporary with the episode’s time-frame, references to Morse’s past and future cases, and of course, the traditional hat tips to the character’s creator Colin Dexter.

Series 8 takes place in 1971 and so winks at Get Carter, Mr Benn, the first Confessions of a Window Cleaner book, all released that in year, among others. Join us in parsing the references and Easter Eggs of Series 8 finale ‘Terminus’, written by Russell Lewis and directed with real horror flair by Kate Saxon.

This isn’t the first time Endeavour fans have seen the book being read by student Richard Blake on the top deck of the Number 33 bus. Its title is ‘Plighted Cunning: The Murders at Shrive Hill House’ and its author is Stephen Fitzowen, the very same character who appeared in Series 2 episode ‘Nocturne’, played by Desmond Barrit. Later in ‘Terminus’, Blake tells the others that Fitzowen also wrote a book on the Tafferton Park Masquerade Ball bloodbath. In this interview, Endeavour creator Russell Lewis explains the character’s origin as a nod to a Dashiell Hammett character Owen Fitzstephen in 1929 novel The Dain Curse.

Endeavour series eight takes place in 1971, which saw the release of the On the Buses film, a feature-length continuation of the popular TV series. References abound in this episode, from the graffitied ‘It’s a Grand Life On the Buses’ poster at the terminus (the film’s theme song was called ‘It’s a Great Life On the Buses’), to shared stops along the Number 33’s route Town’s End, Wellfield Street and Mulberry Circus, to the name of cheeky conductor Les Grant, a namesake of actor Bob Grant, who famously played bus conductor Jack Harper on the television comedy.

The first murder victim is Professor Stanton of Wolsey College, the fictional Oxford college invented by Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter as a stand-in for Christchurch College, so named because it was founded by Cardinal Wolsey.

Is it a coincidence that the Chipping Compton church outside which Stanton is murdered is named St. Agatha’s, perhaps in honour of the patron saint of crime fiction…? (Not an Easter Egg but perhaps interesting that the murder took place on the 10th of November, dating Morse’s pub newspaper to Armistice Day on the 11th. If remembrance poppies were worn in 1971, you’d think ex servicemen Thursday, Morse, Strange and Bright would all have marked the occasion.)

Continuing a long tradition of Colin Dexter cameos in the Inspector Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour  television series, when Morse is investigating Stanton’s college rooms, the framed photograph of the boy on his desk is of a young Colin Dexter himself, as written about in this article.

When Thursday confronts Endeavour about his drinking, he suggests that the detective sergeant visit “a place down in Sussex run by a fella called Wain. Kind of health farm, very discreet.” That wouldn’t be Joshua Wain whose Sussex health farm ‘Shrublands’ featured in Ian Fleming’s 1961 James Bond novel Thunderball, as well as in two of the series’ films?

Inspector Morse had 33 episodes in total, and ‘Terminus’ is the 33rd Endeavour film, a milestone marked in the shot above not only by the number of the ill-fated bus route, but the large illuminated number 3 in this shot, and the fact that Thursday and Strange’s visit to the bus terminus happens at 3.30pm.

Read more

TV

Endeavour Series 8 Episode 3 Review: a Turning Point for Morse

By Gem Wheeler

TV

Agatha Christie: Easter Eggs and Symbolism in the BBC Adaptations

By Louisa Mellor

Win Thursday tells Fred that she received the worrying news about their son Sam from “a Captain Stanhope from his unit.” It’s a reference to R.C. Sherriff’s 1928 play Journey’s End, which is set among a group of officers during the First World War. Like Morse, Stanhope’s character struggled with alcohol.

Could Linda Travers – the fake name given by Warren Loomis’ sister to the bus passengers – be in reference to British film actress Linden Travers, who played ‘Mrs’ Todhunter in Hitchcock’s A Lady Vanishes? It seems more likely when you take the names of fellow travellers Percy Walsh and Hilda Bruce-Potter, both also classic British film actors, into account…

Warren Loomis, the name of the young maths genius framed by the Football Pools cabal so they could steal his rightful winnings, is a tribute to Dr Loomis, Michael Myers’ psychiatrist in John Carpenter’s Halloween film franchise, which is largely set in the Illinois town of Haddonfield, another bus route destination in this episode (see timetable above).

Endeavour creator Russell Lewis confirmed on Twitter that the fancy dress element of ‘Terminus’ was inspired by the seventh of Colin Dexter’s Morse novels, The Secret of Annexe 3, which revolved around a masked ball at a hotel. It’s the only of the Morse novels not adapted for television (perhaps because the fancy dress theme ‘The Mystery of the East’ led to some culturally insensitive costumes.)

Agatha Christie may not only have provided the name of the local church in ‘Terminus’, but there were echoes of her novel And Then There Were None in the ‘band of strangers being picked off one by one’ plot. The snooker table scene between Walsh and Yeager in particular, featured in both the 1945 and the 1974 film adaptation, when it was Richard Attenborough and Herbert Lom making a pact over the baize. Student Richard Blake tinkling on the piano in the Tafferton Park drawing room also recalls the same happening in both film adaptations.

‘Terminus’ composer Matthew Slater deliberately designed the episode score to echo that of 1982 horror film The Thing, he confirmed to a fan on Twitter, continuing the homage to director John Carpenter.

On the seating plan for the doomed 1963 Masquerade Ball, just above the Cawdor House reunion table was a very special guest by the name of one C. Dexter. Tell us what else we missed below!

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Read about the special poignancy of the Endeavour Series 8 finale’s last lines here.

The post Endeavour: the Series 8 Finale’s Easter Eggs and Homages appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3kR0Gbz

[tartarusfm]

ACCEPTED !

✱  ╱  welcome to tartarus, MIA GREENE ! you have 24 hours to set up your account and send an ask to the main. make sure you go through your checklist and follow everyone on the blogroll. we can’t wait to write with you, vix ! megan fox, minthe, and desmond titan’s fwb are now taken.

✱ ╱ megan fox + cis fem + she/her ━  if you happen to find yourself stuck in tartarus, make sure you don’t run into MIA GREENE there. the THIRTY TWO year old has made quite the reputation for themselves under their alias as MINTHE, a(n) CLEANER for THE SOULS. while their enemies often describe them as guarded and blunt, their syndicate would say that they’re strategic and quick-thinking. they DO think that zane was murdered, but they’ll be keeping that to themselves for now. ( slender hands all too familiar with the feel of a knife, a long ago perfected ‘take no prisoners’ smile, expensive perfume to mask the smell of dive bars and crime scenes, washing someone else’s blood out from underneath your fingernails) vix + 23 + she/her + aest. **desmond’s friends with benefits wc

[info-copa]

Racism, Rioting and Justice in the Time of Covid

The powerful and terrible image of George Floyd’s long 9 minutes of suffering is emblazoned in our collective vision forever. We can never unsee it, and nor should we. We need to see it as it is - the natural progression of a more than 400 year old story in North America where the shackles of the enslaved over time became the handcuffs on not only George Floyd, but on millions of incarcerated Americans and Canadians. The police who murdered George Floyd are only enforcing a system of racism that all of us have colluded to maintain, and if you felt any surprise when watching this tragedy then you are only awakening now from a dream.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that “…. a riot is the language of the unheard.”  The volatility then, of these protests and the accompanying rioting and looting, only reflect our deafness to the consequences of centuries of marginalization and exclusion of Black people. Anger and frustration at an entrenched system of racism have impelled those who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society to risk their lives in order to be heard. They deserve our honouring of their anger and fear, and our understanding when they lash out in violence. There is a Nigerian proverb that says, "the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth".

Although violence and looting are at any time and place abhorrent, would the world be paying such close attention now if anger had not caught flame in the United States? “There is now, as there always is amidst protests, a loud call for the protesters to follow the principles of nonviolence. And that call, as (Ta-Nehisi) Coates says, comes from people who neither practice nor heed nonviolence in their own lives.

But what if we turned that conversation around: What would it mean to build the state around principles of nonviolence, rather than reserving that exacting standard for those harmed by the state?” (Ezra Klein). Perhaps, as Toronto activist Desmond Cole says, "The answer for the police is to stop policing and to start supporting and caring."

Unfortunately, “We have created a culture where police officers think of themselves as warriors, not guardians.” (Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and one of COPA’s heroes). And lest we as Canadians think this is an American issue - last fall, the Montreal police service released a report from three independent researchers which found that Indigenous people and Black people were four to five times more likely than white people to be stopped by police. In 2018, the Ontario Human Rights Commission revealed that “A Black person in Toronto is nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by police.” Even though “white people allegedly threatened or attacked police more often than Black people.” CBC reported that although Black people are only 8.3% of the population of Toronto, they represented 36.5% of fatalities involving Toronto police between 2000 and 2017. This is not news to Black communities, however, there IS a resistance to the allegations of systemic racism by many in the halls of power.

As Indigenous activist Myra Tait says in reference to racism against Indigenous people in Canada, “If you assume that Aboriginal people are less than…then anything is fair game to put us in our place. Policing is one of the tools used in the silencing.”

The cost of this entrenched system of racism, abuse of power, and dehumanization is high. Referring to a recent incident of racial profiling by police in Laval, Quebec, Will Prosper articulates: "You feel excluded, and you develop a frustration with a system that doesn't do anything for you. Nobody cares for you — that's the feeling we are having."  To reiterate: “…. a riot is the language of the unheard.”  

Beyond the frustration and sense of exclusion from society, is the very real fear that you will be the next target, and that no matter what you do or don’t do, the colour of your skin, your very identity as a Black or Indigenous person, puts you at risk of dying violently at the hands of an abusive and uncaring social system. It changes the way you live.

And then there is the exhaustion – from worry, fear, anger, and the constant effort of trying to explain it all to people who don’t understand or who don’t want to understand. This is a common theme for those living enmeshed in systemic racism: the sheer exhaustion of living in a system that considers them as less than human.

The Role of the Pandemic

The pandemic has only increased the pressure and prevalence of racism and “othering”, and at the same time has disproportionately affected already vulnerable and marginalized people. It has also exposed the ways in which entrenched biases and systemic racism actually manifest and hurt people.

Black Americans are dying from COVID-19 at a much faster rate than white Americans for many reasons related to the poverty and disadvantages that thrive along with systemic racism. And because of the enormous disparity in economic security, Black Americans have less access to health care and sick leave. “More than 1 in 5 Black families now report they often or sometimes do not have enough food — more than three times the rate for white families. Black families are also almost four times as likely as whites to report they missed a mortgage payment during the crisis — numbers that do not bode well for the already low Black homeownership rate.” (Washington Post)

Blacks in the USA and Canada are also more likely to work in industries that are the first to be adversely affected by quarantining. And in both countries they are more likely to be front line health care and service workers, and less likely to be able to work from home - thus more vulnerable to infection.

Canada did not even begin to collect data about race and death from COVID 19 until the end of April, which means that we are blind to the impact this is having on Black populations in Canada. Our blindness does not help us to understand and address the inequities inherent in systemic racism.

“What are we to make of the disappearance of Blackness from all of the reporting of COVID-19? Blackness seems to have been erased from the Canadian landscape in the repetitive “stay at home” narrative. Our faces are not seen in the daily news, we are not asked how our families are coping, even though it is well known that many Black people are on the front-lines as health care providers in numerous capacities, as cashiers and cleaners, in fact, more exposed to the virus. In addition to the realities of homelessness, Black people face evictions and lack of income support of any kind. Yet the increased deployment of police surveillance buttressed by a snitch line, harsh fines and other punitive legal enforcement methods issued across the country, will particularly target Black bodies. We are invisibilized in the discourses of protection and safety but hyper-visibilized in punitive discourses and practices invested in Black death.“ (Beverly Bain)

The blaming of others for the spread of Covid-19 has resulted in many racist attacks on Americans and Canadians of Asian descent (650 in one week alone in the USA). Among other factors that feed this blaming, is the rhetoric that comes from the highest levels of government in the USA.  The spread of disease has historically been entangled with racial discrimination toward those who are vulnerable, partly due to the fact that disease spreads more rapidly in impoverished communities where resources are scarce, and overcrowding is rampant.  

And a shocking research study by Amy Krosch in Scientific American, revealed the reluctance of white people to share resources with Black people. She found that “white decision-makers facing economic shortages may fail to see Black faces as fully human, implicitly justifying giving them less.” Racism assumes that some of us are more fully human than others and deserving of more resources, power, and privilege.

The exacerbating of racial inequity by the pandemic has hugely deepened the anger and frustration of those who are marginalized by racism. “A magnifying glass on inequality”, as Andreas Kluth calls it. Then George Floyd was murdered, and the whole world witnessed it, and what was unbearable became something that Black people and many others among us became unwilling to bear any longer. Brian Resnick in Vox says: “These two stories are linked. They are both public health stories. The link is systemic racism.”

Maimuna Majumder, a Harvard epidemiologist working on the Covid-19 response, tells Vox: “The forces that put many minority communities at risk during a pandemic have also put them at risk of police violence. Years of diminished economic opportunity, of marginalization, of structural racism, have led to both.”

And Dr. Onyenyechukwu Nnorom, a public health physician and assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, states that “It’s crucial when examining Toronto neighbourhood data on coronavirus cases that it’s understood why these disparities exist in the first place — which is systemic racism.”

Hope and Change 

We NEED you to see colour. If you cannot or will not, how can you ever be an ally? How can you ever see that our skin marks us out as a threat? How can you ever lift the knee from our neck? How can you ever stop us dying? 

- Obioma Ugoala

Is there any hope? At George Floyd’s funeral the Reverend Al Sharpton, a long-time civil rights activist said he is more hopeful today than ever. He said there is a difference in what is happening in these times, and he talked about seeing more young whites than young Blacks at some of the protests. Sharpton is not alone – the word hope is used often these days in the media, even by weary activists, writers, and thinkers too, like President Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates. And in fact, in the USA, 74% of people polled agree that Floyd’s death was an injustice based on racism. That is a huge shift.

This movement has captured the attention of the whole world. Because of a smartphone and social media, the horror of George Floyd’s death had witnesses all over the world. And many of those witnesses understood for the first time what deep injustice has been perpetrated on Black people. And they became allies, and they are demanding justice – not only for George Floyd but for all Black people.  

The question is, what does it mean to become an ally, and what is the work of an ally?

Simply protesting is not enough. How will we teach our children, how will we act in the workplace? What else will we be willing to do in order to insist that justice is delivered? We who would be allies must realize that when we go back to our lives after the rioting ends, we will not be living the same reality as Black people in the USA and Canada who are exhausted from the life long struggle of everyday life in a society that sees them as less than human, as dangerous, as not equal in value to those who hold power and wealth.

As is often said, it begins with educating ourselves so that we understand how and why racial inequity is kept in place. Now that so many of us are awakening from that dream, let’s read and listen to the history of racism - that of both the United States and Canada. They are inextricably linked to each other, and to all of us.  

Bryan Stevenson says that “We need to reckon with our history of racial injustice. I think everything we are seeing is a symptom of a larger disease. We have never honestly addressed all the damage that was done during the two and a half centuries that we enslaved Black people. The great evil of American slavery wasn’t the involuntary servitude; it was the fiction that Black people aren’t as good as white people, and aren’t the equals of white people, and are less evolved, less human, less capable, less worthy, less deserving than white people. So, for me, you can’t understand these present-day issues without understanding the persistent refusal to view Black people as equals.”

Let’s talk to each other and surface the stories we need to hear, like that of Ernest, a middle-aged Black man who owns his own business, but cannot work past dark in Myrtle Beach, SC in 2020 because it’s not safe for him. Or Samuel, a young Black man from Montreal, who was pulled by his dreadlocks out of a car he was a passenger in - for no reason, and then brutalized and insulted. And who now suffers intensely from anxiety: "At night, when I'm alone, it's in my head. I can't sleep. I need some help."

At COPA, we believe that working to create a more equitable and inclusive school, community and society starts by looking inward. This is a lifelong process that can bring about a fundamental change in our perspectives and attitudes. Everyone has a part to play in creating an equitable and inclusive culture, and everyone has the capacity to be an ally to those who have been marginalized and excluded.

It is important to accept that there is no magic bullet. Change that leads to equity and inclusion occurs as a result of a continuous process of learning, asking, exchanging, listening, explaining and trying. It requires patience, determination, and the knowledge that the work will never be finished, and we will make mistakes. Compassion for ourselves and others is absolutely essential as we move forward together.

 About COPA: COPA believes that all structures, institutions and relationships in our society are predicated upon inequity and social exclusion leading to the marginalization of children, women and other social groups. Inequity and exclusion are rooted in and perpetuated by a set of systemic, pervasive and discriminatory beliefs and practices.

Inequity and exclusion increase people’s vulnerability to assault, triggering and perpetuating a cycle of violence against children, women and all other marginalized social groups.

Therefore, all resources and activities created, developed, adapted and disseminated by COPA aim to break the cycle of violence against children, women and all marginalized social groups. The goal is to promote positive change through reflection, learning, skill and knowledge-building, by changing attitudes and beliefs, and by changing social structures that contribute to perpetuating the cycle of violence.

For more information about our work:

https://infocopa.com/

http://www.copahabitat.ca/

https://www.safeatschool.ca/

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WANTED! FC can be changed!

Name: Estelle Pierce Age: 45 Sexuality: Heterosexual Gender: Female Portrayed By: Constance Marie Availability: Open

“My kids are my main priority.”

→ Background

Estelle was born in Baberton and raised alongside her cousins Donovan and Harry. The two were pretty close and she did kind of feel like something of an outsider, the odd one out. There was a lot that set her apart. Her ethnicity, her gender. She’d always wanted a family that were very close and she could talk to. It wasn’t that they intentionally left out her but she often felt like the black sheep of the family, at least in her age group. Estelle was raised by her father. Her mother died when she was nine and strangely she only has one of two memories of the woman. Her father seems to think it’s due to the trauma of losing her and she’s blocked them out or something. Estelle wishes she could remember more but she made do with the photos and her old belongings.

Estelle met the love of her life in high school. She was always fairly popular and she fell for him pretty quickly. He was a football player and they had something of a tumultuous relationship. When she found out she was pregnant with Alvin, he almost up and left her however. He’d always been something of a flake. A little of a commitment-phobe. She just never thought he’d really leave her for good. However, shortly before her daughter Alana came along that’s what he did. He just disappeared. Left a stupid note and was gone and Estelle never saw or heard from him again. She raised her son and daughter on her own, with some help from her family, and she did the best she could given the circumstances, though often felt it was never enough.

→ Back to Baberton

The way the town has fallen apart the last few years, with the murder and everything else that goes on…. Estelle’s worry for her children grow every day. It would be awful if something were to happen to them. She’s seen her cousin’s own daughter die, her friends’ children.  She’s still close enough with her cousins, though her daughter Alana doesn’t seem very interested in knowing any of the extended family, her aunts and uncles or her cousins or anything like that. Estelle pushes but she doesn’t want to be too hard about it. She does her best by both of her children but she’s probably closest to Alvin, who she feels talks to her more than Alana bothers to. She thinks there’s something going on with her daughter but really isn’t sure what it could be.

She works two part time jobs, like she has for a long time. One on hospital reception and the other at the Baberton motel as a cleaner. She’s always been very hardworking and puts her everything into her work, determined to never let her children go hungry even now they’re technically old enough to fend for themselves. Estelle doesn’t have a lot of time for herself these days. She works or sleeps or spends time with her family and she often feels quite run down most of the time. She’s just resigned herself to the fact this is the way her life is now but she does sometimes wish something could be different.

→ What’s Her Secret?

Her daughter Alana is only Alvin’s half brother. Her real father is Javier Gomez, who Estelle had a brief affair with despite knowing he  was married. She’s only human after all. What she doesn’t know is that her daughter overheard a phone conversation between herself and her father where they talked about this.

Has been taking money from Donovan to help with her bills, keeping it secret from his wife Helen. She’s heard their business, the Hot Spot, might be in a little bit of trouble financially, but the money really helps her out and she’s a bit to selfish to tell him he can stop. Desmond’s always been pretty helpful and has a hard time saying no because he probably feels guilty she has to raise her kids alone.

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