#native american month 2024

[spoke9]

The Powwow at the End of the World

By Sherman Alexie

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam   

and topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgive   

and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam   

downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you   

that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find   

their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific   

and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive   

and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon   

waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia   

and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors   

of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River   

as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives   

in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.   

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after   

that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws   

a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire   

which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told   

by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon   

who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us   

how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours;   

the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many   

of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing   

with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.

[anonymousenbi]

seen lots of post about Thanksgiving and I wanna make a little online “table” of sorts. I would like to invite black women/men who fought for good, the LGBTQIA+ community, the people with disabilities, the neurodivergent community, Native Americans, Muslims, and everyone not yet mentioned who isn’t a terf, homophobe, racist, MAGA supporter, and/or cult member.

So, if you would like to, add yourself to the table!

this is me

:D

_____________________________________

| |

[dancesingay]

C'est moi

[paleonativeart]

Pride month is coming to the end, but it doesn’t mean it’s too late to celebrate it without being featured the Native American Pride. More specifically, a Two-Spirit.

Which is why, I make an not a first, nor second, but third Navajo man as a gay pride with an simple traditional Díne language “Nádleehi” meaning “effeminate male,” but that’s something that we shouldn’t tell everybody else, and even they’re own reason.

let just say, it’s been a fun time to celebrating the pride month and hope we can all get along.

Enjoy the happy pride month. 🏳️‍🌈

[longlistshort]

Jeffrey Gibson’s stained glass work above, WHOSE WORLD IS THIS? IT’S YOURS IT’S MINE, 2019, was part of his 2020 exhibition, When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks at Brooklyn Museum.

From the artist about the work-

The stained-glass piece “WHOSE WORLD IS THIS?” uses a modified lyric from Nas’s 1994 song “The World is Yours“. This traditional stained-glass work proposes that this world is both yours and mine. It’s ours. I want to address the question of who owns one’s identity. I believe that identity is made up of elements of our selves that we want to share and make public and also the public’s reaction and responses to our presented identity. We need to remain in communication and show respect and even celebrate both the differences in our backgrounds as much as we do the similarities. We are stronger together than we are working against one another. Although this can be challenging, the end result is a more peaceful and accepting world where we can all thrive, support one another, and be supported. I chose to work in stained glass because the words and colors can emanate from the materials when light is shown through the piece and reflect onto the floor and surrounding walls-becoming larger than itself.

Recently the US State Department chose Gibson to represent the country at the 2024 Venice Biennale. He is the first Indigenous artist to be selected for a solo US show at the international art exhibition. For more on this exhibition, the BBC has an informative article that also includes quotes from the artist discussing the challenges of being selected for this honor.

[q-finder]

Detroit Lions 2024 Native American Heritage Month In November Hoodie T-shirt

Lions fans, join us in celebrating Native American Heritage Month with the Detroit Lions 2024 hoodie and T-shirt. These exclusive pieces pay homage to Native American history with symbols that capture the spirit of unity, strength, and pride. Show your Lions pride in a way that also supports and respects Native American culture.

[limecello]

A Working List of Native American Romance Authors

Hi friends, my apologies for being late on this! Happy Native American Heritage Month! You may know I’ve been pretty “away from things” for the past year+ so this list hasn’t changed. As always I’m looking for more people to add – so if you know anyone please hit the comments, thank you! Xio Axelrod Maggie Blackbird Marcella Bell Christina Berry Isobel Carr/Kalen Hughes Pamela Clare Louisa…

[kcyars520]

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #19

May 17-24 2024

President Biden wiped out the student loan debt of 160,000 more Americans. This debt cancellation of 7.7 billion dollars brings the total student loan debt relieved by the Biden Administration to $167 billion. The Administration has canceled student loan debt for 4.75 million Americans so far. The 160,000 borrowers forgiven this week owned an average of $35,000 each and are now debt free. The Administration announced plans last month to bring debt forgiveness to 30 million Americans with student loans coming this fall.

The Department of Justice announced it is suing Ticketmaster for being a monopoly. DoJ is suing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for monopolistic practices. Ticketmaster controls 70% of the live show ticket market leading to skyrocketing prices, hidden fees and last minute cancellation. The Justice Department is seeking to break up Live Nation and help bring competition back into the market. This is one of a number of monopoly law suits brought by the Biden administration against Apple in March and Amazon in September 2023.

The EPA announced $225 million in new funding to improve drinking and wastewater for tribal communities. The money will go to tribes in the mainland US as well as Alaska Native Villages. It'll help with testing for forever chemicals, and replacing of lead pipes as well as sustainability projects.

The EPA announced $300 million in grants to clean up former industrial sites. Known as "Brownfield" sites these former industrial sites are to be cleaned and redeveloped into community assets. The money will fund 200 projects across 178 communities. One such project will transform a former oil station in Philadelphia’s Kingsessing neighborhood, currently polluted with lead and other toxins into a waterfront bike trail.

The Department of Agriculture announced a historic expansion of its program to feed low income kids over the summer holidays. Since the 1960s the SUN Meals have served in person meals at schools and community centers during the summer holidays to low income children. This Year the Biden administration is rolling out SUN Bucks, a $120 per child grocery benefit. This benefit has been rejected by many Republican governors but in the states that will take part 21 million kids will benefit. Last year the Biden administration introduced SUN Meals To-Go, offering pick-up and delivery options expanding SUN's reach into rural communities. These expansions are part of the Biden administration's plan to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease by 2030.

Vice-President Harris builds on her work in Africa to announce a plan to give 80% of Africa internet access by 2030, up from just 40% today. This push builds off efforts Harris has spearheaded since her trip to Africa in 2023, including $7 billion in climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation, and $1 billion to empower women. The public-private partnership between the African Development Bank Group and Mastercard plans to bring internet access to 3 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria, before expanding to Uganda, Ethiopia, and Ghana, and then the rest of the continent, bring internet to 100 million people and businesses over the next 10 years. This is together with the work of Partnership for Digital Access in Africa which is hoping to bring internet access to 80% of Africans by 2030, up from 40% now, and just 30% of women on the continent. The Vice-President also announced $1 billion for the Women in the Digital Economy Fund to assure women in Africa have meaningful access to the internet and its economic opportunities.

The Senate approved Seth Aframe to be a Judge on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, it also approved Krissa Lanham, and Angela Martinez to district Judgeships in Arizona, as well as Dena Coggins to a district court seat in California. Bring the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 201. Biden's Judges have been historically diverse. 64% of them are women and 62% of them are people of color. President Biden has appointed more black women to federal judgeships, more Hispanic judges and more Asian American judges and more LGBT judges than any other President, including Obama's full 8 years in office. President Biden has also focused on backgrounds appointing a record breaking number of former public defenders to judgeships, as well as labor and civil rights lawyers.

[directactionforhope]

"Starting this month [June 2024], thousands of young people will begin doing climate-related work around the West as part of a new service-based federal jobs program, the American Climate Corps, or ACC. The jobs they do will vary, from wildland firefighters and “lawn busters” to urban farm fellows and traditional ecological knowledge stewards. Some will work on food security or energy conservation in cities, while others will tackle invasive species and stream restoration on public land. 

The Climate Corps was modeled on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, with the goal of eventually creating tens of thousands of jobs while simultaneously addressing the impacts of climate change. 

Applications were released on Earth Day, and Maggie Thomas, President Joe Biden’s special assistant on climate, told High Country News that the program’s website has already had hundreds of thousands of views. Since its launch, nearly 250 jobs across the West have been posted, accounting for more than half of all the listed ACC positions. 

“Obviously, the West is facing tremendous impacts of climate change,” Thomas said. “It’s changing faster than many other parts of the country. If you look at wildfire, if you look at extreme heat, there are so many impacts. I think that there’s a huge role for the American Climate Corps to be tackling those crises.”  

Most of the current positions are staffed through state or nonprofit entities, such as the Montana Conservation Corps or Great Basin Institute, many of which work in partnership with federal agencies that manage public lands across the West. In New Mexico, for example, members of Conservation Legacy’s Ecological Monitoring Crew will help the Bureau of Land Management collect soil and vegetation data. In Oregon, young people will join the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working in firefighting, fuel reduction and timber management in national forests. 

New jobs are being added regularly. Deadlines for summer positions have largely passed, but new postings for hundreds more positions are due later this year or on a rolling basis, such as the Working Lands Program, which is focused on “climate-smart agriculture.”  ...

On the ACC website, applicants can sort jobs by state, work environment and focus area, such as “Indigenous knowledge reclamation” or “food waste reduction.” Job descriptions include an hourly pay equivalent — some corps jobs pay weekly or term-based stipends instead of an hourly wage — and benefits. The site is fairly user-friendly, in part owing to suggestions made by the young people who participated in the ACC listening sessions earlier this year...

The sessions helped determine other priorities as well, Thomas said, including creating good-paying jobs that could lead to long-term careers, as well as alignment with the president’s Justice40 initiative, which mandates that at least 40% of federal climate funds must go to marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change and pollution. 

High Country News found that 30% of jobs listed across the West have explicit justice and equity language, from affordable housing in low-income communities to Indigenous knowledge and cultural reclamation for Native youth...

While the administration aims for all positions to pay at least $15 an hour, the lowest-paid position in the West is currently listed at $11 an hour. Benefits also vary widely, though most include an education benefit, and, in some cases, health care, child care and housing. 

All corps members will have access to pre-apprenticeship curriculum through the North America’s Building Trades Union. Matthew Mayers, director of the Green Workers Alliance, called this an important step for young people who want to pursue union jobs in renewable energy. Some members will also be eligible for the federal pathways program, which was recently expanded to increase opportunities for permanent positions in the federal government...

 “To think that there will be young people in every community across the country working on climate solutions and really being equipped with the tools they need to succeed in the workforce of the future,” Thomas said, “to me, that is going to be an incredible thing to see.”"

-via High Country News, June 6, 2024

--

Note: You can browse Climate Corps job postings here, on the Climate Corps website. There are currently 314 jobs posted at time of writing!

Also, it says the goal is to pay at least $15 an hour for all jobs (not 100% meeting that goal rn), but lots of postings pay higher than that, including some over $20/hour!!

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Native American Heritage Month 2024!

Happy Native American Heritage Month 2024! To celebrate, we’re featuring books starring queer Native American and First Nations characters, by Native American and/or First Nations authors, as well as poetry and nonfiction. For even more recommendations, check out last year’s post! (And again, while the usual affiliate links are included, you’re strongly encouraged to order from the Native-owned…

[spoke9]

My Brother at 3 A.M.

By Natalie Diaz

He sat cross-legged, weeping on the steps

when Mom unlocked and opened the front door.

        O God, he said. O God.

                He wants to kill me, Mom.

When Mom unlocked and opened the front door

at 3 a.m., she was in her nightgown, Dad was asleep.

        He wants to kill me, he told her,

                looking over his shoulder.

3 a.m. and in her nightgown, Dad asleep,

What's going on? she asked. Who wants to kill you?

        He looked over his shoulder.

                The devil does. Look at him, over there.

She asked, What are you on? Who wants to kill you?

The sky wasn’t black or blue but the green of a dying night.

        The devil, look at him, over there.

                He pointed to the corner house.

The sky wasn’t black or blue but the dying green of night.

Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives.

        My brother pointed to the corner house.

                His lips flickered with sores.

Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives.

O God, I can see the tail, he said. O God, look.

        Mom winced at the sores on his lips.

                It’s sticking out from behind the house.

O God, see the tail, he said. Look at the goddamned tail.

He sat cross-legged, weeping on the front steps.

        Mom finally saw it, a hellish vision, my brother.

                O God, O God, she said.

[breelandwalker]

Buck Moon - July 20-21, 2024

Put on your flower crowns and your walking shoes - it’s time for the Buck Moon!

Buck Moon 🦌

The Buck Moon is the name given to the full moon in the month of July and is called this because at this time of year, the rack of antlers previously shed by male deer are beginning to regrow and harden in preparation for the fall rutting season. 

Other North American Indigenous names for this moon include Salmon Moon (Tlingit), Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Month of the Ripe Corn Moon (Cherokee), and Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe). The West Abenaki also call this the Thunder Moon in reference to the often-stormy summer weather. (This one is my personal favorite and the name appears in lunar calendars just as often as the Buck Moon.)

European names for the July moon include Hay Moon and Wort Moon, and it should be noted that the name Stag Moon does appear in some European sources as well.

This year's Buck Moon will be at peak illumination at 6:17am EST on July 21st, so the moon will appear to be full on both the 20th and 21st. Also, it's a weekend, so plan your festivities accordingly!

What Does It Mean For Witches? 🦌

The July full moon continues June’s template of planning for the future, this time with a focus on your passions and ambitions. Reflect on what you’ve accomplished so far this year and plan your next step.

Dream big and plan big, but don’t give in to reckless urgency. Summer (and capitalist grind culture) gives us the urge to Go Go Go. Despite all this, it’s important to take time to rest and recharge, lest we find ourselves burning out and losing our motivation.

What Witchy Things Can We Do? 🦌

Celebrate your victories and revel in the abundance of the summer season. If you’re inclined to do so, take a page from the deer and do a bit of prancing around a bonfire or your favorite flower arbor with some festive flowery headgear.

Go exploring! Find a local park or garden and take a stroll among the greenery, or use TV and the internet to explore and learn about faraway places. This is another opportune time to go and check out pick-your-own farms and farmers markets as well. Sharpen your foraging and plant identification skills while you’re out and about!

If you’re tending a garden, harvest some herbs and investigate what you can make with them. Whether it’s seasoning for meals, homemade botanical products, or just helpful spell ingredients, many herbs and flowers have a plethora of uses. As an exercise, select three plants growing in your yard or garden, research their magical correspondences and botanical properties, and try to think of as many ways as possible to use each one for witchcraft and for practical purposes. For extra credit, pick something native to your area that doesn't appear in the western magical canon and use its' physical, folkloric, and historical associations to create something new!

(Safety Note: Always clean and prepare home-harvested herbs properly before using them for kitchen, bath, or medical preparations. Always be sure to properly identify any wildcrafted or foraged plants. Always consult a doctor before trying an herbal treatment and take all allergies, medications, and pre-existing conditions into account. Please also note that while herbal treatments can be helpful, it can have negative interactions and side effects just like any other medication, and it is not meant to be a replacement for modern medical care.)

Apart from the usual full-moon festivities, I’ve always found this is an excellent time for weather-witching. Summer weather is notoriously fickle, but it is also highly malleable - one recalls that old American Southern epithet of, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

If you’re hoping to bring some rain to water your garden or break the back of a heat wave, this may be the time to do it. My personal favorite folk magic ritual for rain-calling involves going outside with a broom and a bucket of water, using the broom to scatter drops of water over your yard, and shouting up to the clouds, “SEE? IT’S NOT HARD!”

Make sure you take local weather patterns into account and try to draw on existing fronts and nearby precipitation to get the desired result. And keep in mind that with weather magic, less is more and one casting is enough. Asking for too much or asking too often can produce undesirable results. And if you manage to make it rain, be sure to collect some for moon water!

If you’re interested in weather-witching, I highly recommend checking out this masterpost by @stormbornwitch for a number of excellent articles and suggestions.

Happy Buck Moon, witches! 🌕🦌

Sources and Further Reading:

Bree’s Lunar Calendar Series

Bree’s Secular Celebrations Series

Witchcraft Exercise - Creating Correspondences

Buck Moon: Full Moon in July 2024, The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Buck Moon Bonanza: Embrace July’s Massive Energy!, The Peculiar Brunette.

Everyday Moon Magic: Spells & Rituals for Abundant Living, Dorothy Morrison.

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

[greenwitchcrafts]

September 2023 witch guide

SEPTEMBER 2024:

September 2023 witch guide

Full moon: September 29th

New moon: September 14th

Sabbats: Mabon September 23rd

September Harvest Moon

Also known as: Autumn moon, falling leaves moon, song moon, leaves turning moon, moon of brown leaves, yellow leaf moon, wine moon & Full corn moon

Element: Earth

Zodiac: Virgon& Libra

Animal spirits: Trooping Faeries

Deities: Brigid, Ceres, Ch'ang-o, Demeter, Freya, Isis & Vesta

Animals: Jackal & snake

Birds: Ibis & sparrow

Trees: Bay, hawthorn, hazel & larch

Herbs/plants: Copal, fennel, rye, skullcap, valerian, wheat & witch hazel

Flowers: Lily & Narcissus

Scents: Bergamot, gardenia, mastic & storax

Stones: Bloodstone, chrysolite, citrine, olivine, peridot & sapphire

Colors: Browns, dark blue, greens & yellows ( Earth tones)

Energy: Balance of light & dark, dietary matters, employment, health, intellectual pursuits, prosperity, psychism, rest, spirituality, success & work environments. Also cleaning & straightening mentally, physically & spiritually.

Technically, the Harvest Moon is the Full Moon closest to the September equinox around September 21st. The Harvest Moon is the only Full Moon name determined by the equinox rather than a month. Most years, it’s in September, but around every three years, it falls in October.

In September, the Full Moon is the Corn Moon from the Native American tribes harvesting their corn. It can also be the Harvest Moon, which corresponds with the Anglo-Saxon name, while Celtic and Old English names are Wine Moon, Song Moon, and Barley Moon.

Mabon

Also known as: Autumn Equinox, Cornucopia, Witch's Thanksgiving & Alban Elved

Season: Fall

Symbols: Acorns, apples, autumn leaves, berries, corn, cornucopia (horn of plenty), dried seeds, gourds, grains, grapes, ivy, pine cones, pomegranates, vines, wheat, white roses & wine

Colors: Blue brown, drk red, deep gold, gold, indigo, lead green, maroon, orange, red, russet, violet & yellow

Oils/incense: Apple, apple blossom, benzoin, black pepper, hay/straw, myrrh, passion flower, patchouli, pine, red poppy & sage

Animals: Dog, goose, hawk, swan, swallow & wolf

Stones: Agate, amethyst, carnelian, lapis lazuli, sapphire, yellow Agate  & yellow topaz

Foods: Apples, blackberries, blackberry wine, bread, carrots, cider, corn, cornbread, grapes, heather wine, nuts, onions, pomegranates, potatoes, squash, vegetables, wheat & winw

Herbs/plants: Acorn, benzoin, cedar, corn, cypress, ferns, grains, hazel, hops, ivy, myrrh, oak, pine, sage, sassafras, Salomon's seal, thistle, tobacco & wheat

Flowers: Aster, heather, honeysuckle, marigold, milkweed, mum,passion flower& rose

Goddesses: Danu, Epona, Modron, Morrigan, Muses, Pomona, Persephone, Sophia & Sura

Gods: Esus, Green Man, Hermes, Mabon, Mannanan, Toth & Thor

Issues, Intentions & Powers: Accomplishment, agriculture, balance, goals, gratitude & grounding

Spellworks: Balance, harmony, protection, prosperity, security & self confidence

Related festivals:

• Sukkot- is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days, beginning on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals (Hebrew: שלוש רגלים, shalosh regalim) on which those Israelites who could were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. In addition to its harvest roots, the holiday also holds spiritual importance with regard to its abandonment of materialism to focus on nationhood, spirituality, and hospitality, this principle underlying the construction of a temporary, almost nomadic, structure of a sukkah.

• Mid-Autumn festival- also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, is a traditional festival celebrated in Chinese culture. Similar holidays are celebrated by other cultures in East & Southeast Asia. It is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture; its popularity is on par with that of Chinese New Year. The history of the Mid-Autumn Festival dates back over 3,000 years. The festival is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunisolar lunisolar calendar with a full moon at night, corresponding to mid-September to early October of the Gregorian calendar. On this day, the Chinese believe that the Moon is at its brightest and fullest size, coinciding with harvest time in the middle of Autumn.

• Thanksgiving- This is a secular holiday which is similar to the cell of Mabon; A day to give thanks for the food & blessings of the previous year. The American Thanksgiving is the last Thursday of November while the Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated in October

• Festival of Dionysus- There were several festivals that honored Dionysus, the God of wine. It was a time of fun, games, feasting & drinking wine.

Activities:

•Scatter offerings in a harvested fields, Offer libations to trees

• Decorate your home and/or altar space for fall

• Bake bread

• Perform a ritual to restore balance and harmony to your life

• Cleanse your home of negative energies

• Pick apples

• Have a dinner or feast with your family and/or friends

• Set intentions for the upcoming year

• Purge what is no longer serving you

•Take a walk in the woods

• Enjoy a pumpkin spice latte

• Donate to your local food bank

• Gather dried herbs, plants, seeds & pods

• Learn something new

• Make wine

• Brew an apple cinnamon simmer pot

• Create an outdoor Mabon altar

•Adorn burial sites with leaves, acorns, & pinecones to honor those who have passed over & visit their graves

Many cultures see the second harvest (after the first harvest Lammas) and equinox as a time for giving thanks. This time of year is when farmers know how well their summer crops did, and how well fed their animals have become. This determines whether you and your family would have enough food for the winter. That is why people used to give thanks around this time, thanks for their crops, and animals, and food. 

The name Mabon comes from the Welsh God, who was the son of the Earth Mother Goddess. However, there is evidence that the name was adopted in the 1970s, and the holiday was not originally a Celtic celebration.

Some believe Night and day are of equal legth and the God's energy & strength are nearly gone . The Goddess begins to mourn the loss she knows is coming, but knows he will return when he reborn at Yule.

Sources:

Farmersalmanac .com

Wikipedia

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Correspondences by Sandra Kines

A Witch's Book of Correspondences by Viktorija Briggs

Mabon: Rituals, Recipes & Lore for the Autumn Equinox Llewellyn's Sabbat Essentials

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In 1972, in the Democratic primary, we had our first Black woman presidential candidate, “unbought and unbossed” Shirley Chisolm, who knew that she was only running a symbolic campaign, a protest campaign, that America was not going to elect a non-white person or a non-male person, let alone someone with the temerity to be both at the same time—of course she didn’t get the nomination. When she ran, Barack Obama was going on eleven. Kamala Harris turned eight later that year. I doubt anyone was telling them they could grow up to be president.

I was so moved by how Kamala Devi Harris was received when she became our presidential candidate in July of 2024, 52 years after Shirley Chisolm, how much more enthusiasm and respect and how much less racism and sexism than I anticipated from Democrats and progressives. It made me feel like I lived in a better country, a country that had somehow invisibly, incrementally, moved forward, in those ways too slow and subtle to measure until a milestone like this is reached. Somehow something as subtle as values, consciousness, norms had changed through the work so many people were doing in so many ways, the feminists and antiracists, the slow process of decentralizing power just a bit from the long grim era when only white men ran and won and governed.

Things are changing. Last week, President Biden went to the Gila Reservation in Arizona to apologize for the Indian boarding schools and other genocidal acts toward Native Americans. He said in a tweet:

Today, I’m in Arizona to issue a long overdue presidential apology for this era—and speak to how my Administration has worked to invest in Indian Country and our relationships with Tribal Nations, advance Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, respect Native cultures, and protect Indigenous sacred sites. We must remember our full history, even when it’s painful. That’s what great nations do. And we are a great nation.

A few decades ago, Native people were largely ignored by the non-native mainstream, and what the US government had done was justified when it was not just ignored. We live in the impossible world, the world that no one quite imagined, in which things happen—marriage equality, the possibilities brought by solar energy, a Black woman presidential candidate—that were inconceivable not long ago.

I think of all the land-back happening around the West, of the four dams coming down on the Klamath River under the stewardship of the several Native nations there, of the salmon already swimming more than a hundred miles up that river to Oregon after more than a century of being shut out, of this presidential apology that acknowledges 532 years of colonialism. Biden’s tweet strategically rebukes Trump and MAGA and all the fragile white nationalists by insisting that this country is already great, and that greatness means remembering and taking responsibility for the wrongs of the past, including this genocidal racism.

That this country is polarized is often deplored, but the backlash against the progress on human rights, equality, inclusion, environmental protection, and acknowledging the US’s often-brutal history, is no reason to give up or cave in on that progress, though it’s a reason to reach out to try to convey that we all benefit from it.

What’s also been moving to me since this election really picked up momentum a few months ago is to see how much people care about something beyond narrow and immediate self-interest, to see that we care about public life, about the fate of the nation, about the rule of law, about the survival of the most vulnerable. To see that we are idealists, we are dreamers, we are citizens in that sense not of nationality but of membership in the greater community. Something striking this time around is to see men speak up for reproductive rights to a degree and in a way they mostly have not before.

We love so much more than the narrow version of who we are acknowledges: we love justice, love truth, love freedom, love equality, love the confidence that comes with secure human rights.

So many powerful forces conspire to try to convince us that we are basically selfish animals, that all we want is the the goods of private life, some safety, some sex and personal love and family, some nifty possessions. That’s the story of human nature we get told the most. But in fact most human beings are altruists and idealists, which is to say we want a lot more, we care about a lot more, we need a lot more to feel right with the world. We want justice and peace, want to live in a society that supports these things, want a relationship with nature, and we want that nature to be protected and thriving.

We want a world that reflects our values, we feel injured by things that may not affect us directly, whether it’s a wildfire or a loss of rights. Of course they’re not all the same values, and yeah some people believe they need to persecute immigrants or trans youth to have their happy world, some people still think nature is so vast and immutable we can keep trashing it without consequences. But mainly what I’m trying to say is that most people care about a lot beyond the usual definition of self-interest. We’re bigger than that.

You can see that by how much people care about the outcome of this election, whether they’re sitting home refreshing polls as if the polls tell us what will happen or doing the work that decides what will happen. Someone said to me a week or so ago that people over 70 shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they had no self-interest in the future. I rebuked him, because across the political spectrum most of us vote our broad values, not our narrow self-interest, unless our values are that we’re just our self-interest (and that’s a core belief of the right).

Most of us are idealists. There’s been a lot of exclamation in recent years about right-wing working-class voters who vote against their self-interest, often portrayed as baffling, as a sign of ignorance or confusion. What’s really going on that they’re more committed to their values than their practical self-interest. So are we (though you could also argue that the recognition that we are inextricably connected to each other and to nature means that self-interest and the well-being of the whole are not separate).

I used the word care, but let me clarify: what we care about is what we love. And we love so much more than the narrow version of who we are acknowledges: we love justice, love truth, love freedom, love equality, love the confidence that comes with secure human rights; we love places, love rivers and valleys and forests, love seasons and the pattern and order they imply, love wildlife from hummingbirds to great blue herons, butterflies to bears. This always was a love story.

Part of what gives our lives meaning is the confidence or at least hope that these good things will persevere beyond us.

What I learned from studying how most human beings respond to disasters (for my book A Paradise Built in Hell) is that they’re brave, generous, creative, acting in solidarity with those around them, and that those experiences of immediacy, of community, of care, of connection and meaningful work, are often so profound that people speak up with joy even amidst the devastation and loss. Because we want meaning and meaningful work so much, we want connection so much, we want hope, we want to believe in ourselves and the people around us and humanity in general.

I’m hearing so many stories like that from the survivors of the climate-intensified hurricanes that trashed western North Carolina, coastal Florida, and other parts of the Southeastern USA. From the victims of a climate-intensified catastrophe that has wrecked whole towns and torn out roads, flattened forests, washed away homes and put parts of Asheville underwater. I don’t want any more disasters like that, and I’m a climate activist to try to keep nature from getting more violent and destructive, which it will if we keep being violent and destructive toward the climate. But I do want us to know who we are, and how hungry we are for meaning, purpose, and connection, and sometimes disaster lets us see that.

When it comes to the climate we want faith in the future, we want the symphony of life to continue with the harmonies, the beauties, the integration of the parts into one harmonious whole to continue. Part of what gives our lives meaning is the confidence or at least hope that these good things will persevere beyond us, that there will be bison grazing the prairies in the year 2124, that there will be whales migrating in the oceans, that wildflowers will bloom in spring and pollinators will come for the nectar and leave with the pollen, that the people we love who are one or six or seventeen or their grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy some of the things we have, that there will be joy and beauty and possibility in the year 2074 and after.

Polls offer the false promise of knowing what is going to happen, but what is going to happen in this election is what campaigners, activists, and the electorate make happen. It is not yet decided. We are deciding it with what we do, as voters, as organizers, as voices for truth, justice, inclusion, the reality of the climate crisis and the importance of acting on it. In June, I got to meet one of my heroes, Congressman Jamie Raskin when he gave a keynote for the Third Act chapters in DC, Virginia and Maryland. (Third Act is a climate group founded by Bill McKibben for US people over 60; I’m on its board.) He gave me his memoir of prosecuting the impeachment of Trump after January 6, right after his beloved son Tommy had died by suicide, and there’s a dazzling passage in it that reminds us of the power of participation.

He writes that, during his first campaign, there was an article in a local newspaper quoting a pundit who described my chances of victory as “impossible”; and nine months later, when we got 67 percent of the vote, there was another article, in the Washington Post, quoting a pundit who said my victory was “inevitable.” So we went from impossible to inevitable in nine months because the pundits are never wrong, but as I told Tommy, we showed that nothing in politics is impossible, and nothing in politics is inevitable. It is all just possible, through the democratic arts of education, organizing, and mobilizing for change.

We’re here to make the victory of democracy and the defeat of authoritarianism not just possible but actual. We’re here to make history. We’re here to get out the vote. For the climate, for the children, for the continuance of this experiment in democracy, imperfect as it has been.

_____________________________

This is a version of a talk given to Third Act Nevada as part of a rally for people getting out the vote in that swing state. 

Rebecca Solnit

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of twenty-five books on feminism, environmental and urban history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and catastrophe. She co-edited the 2023 anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility. Her other books include Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she writes regularly for the Guardian, serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International, and in 2022 launched the climate project Not Too Late (nottoolateclimate.com).

[nyxelestia]

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Fandom Community Spaces

One of my fandom servers recently imploded. I didn’t just want to post my immediate reactions and spend the next 3-5 business years litigating my feelings, so I took a few months to deconstruct what happened. Now I’m reconstructing everything into a case study on white supremacy culture in progressive spaces.

Below the poll, I’ve spelled out 17 traits of white supremacy culture, as they appear in progressive spaces, organized into four categories. I relied predominantly on the works of Tema Okun and Robin DiAngelo, whose works and websites expand upon everything I talk about.

I don’t want anyone to beat each other (or themselves) up if they’ve noticed these traits. Just fix it.

My goals with this guide:

Fans can put names to their observations.

Mods/Leaders of fandom spaces ask themselves, “how many of these have I done?”

Everyone gets an idea for what can be done about these traits.

Each listed trait has:

Definition of the trait

Common or fandom-specific examples

Suggestions to begin fixing it

Additional Commentary specific to this particular server incident

That makes this post very long, but it should be easy to skip over sections.

(If you are thinking of sending someone this post because they expressed a lot of these traits, first take a moment and identify how many of these traits you have practiced.

If someone sent you this post as an accusation, show them the above paragraph and ask what traits they recognize in their own behavior. If they say "none," ignore that person. I have will not facilitate the use of anti-racism as a smokescreen for bullying.)

I wasn't able to put this poll at the bottom of the post. I encourage you to wait until you get to the end and then answer the poll.

Because Tumblr polls expire in a week, I also encourage you to answer the same poll here on StrawPoll.

White Supremacy Culture Traits

Context (Basic Outline of What Happened)

In late Oct. 2023, someone on this server made an insensitive joke regarding Native American spirituality. They were quickly corrected by another member, and a third, indigenous member defended the gravity of their culture.

In DMs, a server mod (without the knowledge of the rest of the mod team) rebuked that indigenous server member for mini-modding, but claimed they would also moderate the person who made the joke in the first place; that person who made the joke was this mod’s friend.

This Inciting Incident Mod never did moderate their friend. When this came to light for the rest of the mod team in early Dec. 2023, the Inciting Incident Mod left before they could be ‘fired.’ Meanwhile, the Server Owner tried to cover up the preceding mess when announcing this mod’s departure.

The Indigenous Server Member used @everyone to explain to the server what had happened, dropped screenshots, and left the server.

When the community at large, including other mods, demanded more accountability and action from the mod team and the admins, the Server Owner doubled down on their defensiveness and denials for the next month.

Behind the scenes/in mod chats, the rest of the mods tried to advocate for the same things that the community was demanding. Most of their suggestions were shot down and input disregarded (primarily by the Server Owner).

Ultimately, all the mods were “let go” (fired), leaving only two admins. The second Admin largely followed the lead of the Server Owner, who was the one posting most of the announcements and engaging in the discourse.

The Admins unilaterally froze the server mid-conversations in late Jan. 2024.

They deleted the server on March 4th, 2024.

I. White Fragility

White fragility is the various phenomena by which white fans’ distress at discussions of racism take precedence over the actual occurrences of racism. This is not a conscious tactic, but the result of the layers of insulation from irl racism that white people are conditioned with, combined with white culture and experience being so pervasive as to become invisible.

1: Right To Comfort

Believing that white fans’ requirement for comfort in fandom spaces is more important than the on-going discomfort fans of color experience in the same spaces.

Examples:

Prioritizing the emotional and psychological comfort of some fans over the on-going experiences of other fans.

Scapegoating those who named the racism in the community and accusing them of ‘rocking the boat.’

These might sound familiar:

"This is just supposed to be a fun hobby."

"Can we get back to the good vibes?"

"Why can't we all just get along?"

“Hobbies/Fun shouldn’t be this much work.”

Treating any and all discussion of racism as acts of antagonism.

Fixes:

Learn to sit with discomfort before responding or (re)acting, especially if faced with an accusation. It’s an opportunity for growth, not an opening for attack.

Avoid taking criticisms personally, and avoid treating feedback as accusations. Yes, some accusations and call-outs are personal, but most are not. Even the ones that are personal need not be treated as final value judgments nor the end of the world.

Additional Commentary:

The white fan who’d made the insensitive joke in the first place did not lash out at being corrected. The discomfort was predominantly from some white mods who interpreted all mentions of racism as a conflict.

This trait is frequently found the trait called ‘Urgency.’

2: Defensiveness

Reacting to criticisms as if they were personal attacks, prioritizing comfort over growth, and using hurt feelings to derail discussions.

As author @xiranjayzhao put it in their video discussing a similar incident in the publishing industry, “If you are more concerned at being called racist than racism itself, that is an active hindrance to dismantling racism.”

Examples:

Treating criticism as threatening, inappropriate, or rude.

Focusing on making sure one’s own feelings or the feelings of community leaders are not getting hurt. This process often takes up more time and energy than addressing the actual problems do.

Spend energy defending against charges of racism instead of examining how racism might actually be happening.

White fans targeted by other oppressions (I.e. sexism, homophobia, etc.) express resentment because they feel that the naming of racism is erasing their experiences of marginalization from their other identities. This is especially prevalent in fandom as our communities are dominated by women and queer people.

Fixes:

Identify and understand the link between defensiveness and fear. When you recognize your own defensiveness, ask yourself what you are defending, and what you feel that you are defending against.

Develop culture of naming defensiveness when it arises.

Be honest with yourself and with the community about the power dynamics in the situation and respond thoughtfully. The person with greater power has the greater responsibility to name and move through their own defensiveness.

This is most important for small, online community leaders (I.e. Discord server mods). However little power we feel like we have, we still have more power than all the other members.

Additional Commentary:

Defensiveness was ultimately the biggest problem in this particular server’s implosion, and continues to be the most prevalent problem I observe in many other communities. The majority of the problems in these communities came not from actual acts of racism or patterns of insensitivity, but a few white fans’ defensiveness when these were named.

3: Fear of Open Conflict

When discomfort with talking about racism begets outright avoidance. This becomes “toxic positivity,” creating a pattern of suppressing any and all disagreements with a fixation on “keeping the peace.”

Examples:

Ignoring or deflecting conflict, no matter how minor.

Emphasis on tone, performing friendliness, and on everyone ��calming down’ once even a hint of conflict arises.

Scapegoating people who bring up racism or equating criticisms with ‘rudeness.’

Fixes:

Role play, discuss, or plan for ways to handle conflict before it happens.

Don't require hard issues to be raised in `acceptable' ways.

Once a conflict is resolved, revisit it and see how it might have been handled differently.

Additional Commentary:

This particular server’s admin team was understandably hypersensitive to conflict; the server had been previously wracked by fandom dramas unrelated to racism. However, this sympathetic feeling metastasized into an unsympathetic habit of total conflict suppression. Had that Inciting Incident Mod not reacted to that faint hint of friction, or had the admins later been willing to name and acknowledge mistakes from the moderation team as an unintended instance of racism, almost none of this final drama would have happened.

4: Denial

Insistence that racism is an individual problem that requires intent; refusal to see or acknowledge systemic problems brought to one’s attention.

Examples:

A pattern of downplaying or denying what POC are saying about their experiences.

Insisting intent is more important than impact.

Insisting that if someone did not mean to be racist, then the harms they perpetuated cannot have been serious.

Insisting that a person or group can free from racialized conditioning, leading to statements like "I don't see color," “I don’t care what anyone��s race is,” “we can’t even tell race on the Internet,” and "we're all the same."

Fixes:

Learn to acknowledge any fear that naming racism brings up; the feeling is not wrong or right.­ Move through the feeling and address what has been raised.

Assume that any naming of racism is on target. Instead of asking, “is it racism,” ask, “how is it racism?”

Learn not to take accusations of racism or white supremacy culture as personal attacks or criticisms.

Get into the habit of saying, “tell me more,” instead of jumping to denial and counter arguments.

II. Exceptionalism

AKA “the Illusion of Control.” The belief, conscious or subconscious, that one knows the right way to do things and is uniquely qualified implement it. This might literally mean one’s self, or just people similar to one’s self.

5: Paternalism

The belief that one can dictate what is ‘best’ for everyone or make decisions on others’ behalf without their input.

Examples:

Deeming it unnecessary to understand the viewpoints and experiences of people for whom one is making decisions.

Labeling people for whom one is making decisions as unqualified.

Majority of community members get marginalized from decision-making processes. Either there is no mechanism for community input, or community input is disregarded by those in power.

Frequently, these decisions also have the most outsized impact on those with the least power, e.x. members who don’t have personal friendships with mods.

Fixes:

Realize that everyone has a worldview, including you. No one’s experiences or education (or lack thereof) disqualifies them from having agency in your community.

Always include those most affected by community decisions in the brainstorming and decision-making processes.

Build in an understanding that every approach yields unintended consequences; even the most strategically made decisions will have unanticipated consequences.

Additional Commentary:

The Server Owner consistently made unilateral decisions on other people’s behalf. They also required members to be 21+ in this server, despite the show it was for only being 18+

In the interest of living up to my own standards, I must acknowledge that I was also being paternalistic.

When I first joined the server, I questioned that age requirement. The Server Owner claimed that they felt uncomfortable talking about mature topics around 18-20 year olds…and “joked” that they viewed 18-20 year olds like children. Their defensiveness reminded me of elementary school children insisting kids in the grade immediately below them are babies. On the spot, I thought the Server Owner must be in their early 20s at the oldest. With zero evidence but a lot of confirmation bias, this feeling cemented into an assumption due to some of their moderation choices (e.x. pinning messages by their whims, thus confusing newcomers). I even wondered if they grew up in a cult environment due to unusual gaps in their knowledge (e.x. being surprised that it didn’t snow in most of Thailand). I thought I could and should, over time, convince them of 'better' ways to moderate, and attributed my disagreements with some of their moderation choices to their youth.

Then the Server Owner mentioned having been to uni nearly 20 years ago, making them almost double the age I’d assumed they were.

Looking back, this was an act of paternalism on my part that spanned over a year and a half. I’m not proud of this, and I would like to think I would still come to be ashamed of this even if the Server Owner actually had been as young as I thought they were. Regardless of their actual age, this was an incredibly paternalistic viewpoint for me to have about any adult.

6: Power Hoarding

People scrabbling to hold onto whatever little power they have; resisting anything which makes them feel threatened in their position of leadership or influence.

Examples:

Feeling threatened when someone suggests changes in how things should be done in the community.

Suggestions for change often get taken as an indicator of poor leadership.

People with power insisting they do not feel threatened or defensive in the face of suggestions for change.

Assuming that anyone wanting a change are ill-informed or malicious.

“Blaming the messenger,” such as focusing on the person advocating for change rather than the substance of what change they are trying to make.

Fixes:

Leaders should expect challenges and change and learn to see this a sign that someone cares about the community enough to want to stay and reform it. Because our spaces are predominantly for hobbies, people have less need to stay, even if they have a strong desire to. If someone truly thought we were hopeless leaders, they would not be advocating for change; they would just leave.

Adopt a “tell me more” approach when someone suggests a change or challenges an existing structure * even if the thing they are trying to change is something you care deeply about preserving.

Make friends with your ego. Everyone has one. You’ll do better in the long run when you know what will automatically kick up your defensiveness; don’t try to pretend nothing will.

Additional Commentary:

The admins caused many of their own problems by consistently disregarding others’ input; they not only ignored the criticisms of the community, they ‘fired’ the entire rest of the mod team for giving suggestions that the admins did not want to hear.

7: Individualism

Believing that one can be immune from social conditioning and systemic biases, or that individual actions are sufficient to change a community.

Examples:

Believing that one can be “isolated” from the conditioning of the culture they were raised in.

Not seeing the ways dominant identities * in gender, class, sexuality, religion, able-bodiedness, age, etc. * are informed by belonging to a group that shapes cultural norms and behavior.

This one is also hard for people in fandom to recognize. Many of us are marginalized in one aspect of our identity, and marginalization in one area can make it incredibly difficult to recognize or acknowledge privilege in another.

Accusing people advocating for change of “not being team players,” because one does not recognize the large groups on whose behalf they are advocating for.

Focusing on whether or not an individual “is racist,” while ignoring systemic racism in the community’s culture or leadership.

Fixes:

Get into the habit of acknowledging both your marginalizations and your privileges. For example, I am a queer woman of color, which are three traits of marginalization. I was also raised middle-class, I have a college degree, and I am cis; three traits of privilege. All these traits inform my experiences and world view and make me subjective in different ways.

Learn how our dominant identities and how our membership in dominant identity groups informs us both overtly and covertly (while realizing too that these identities do not have to define us).

Realize we all have internalized conditioning, including racist conditioning. Commitment to anti-racism is not about being ‘good’ or ‘bad;’ it’s a commit to challenge one’s own conditioning and subconscious biases on an on-going basis.

Focus on collective accountability as much as individual accountability.

Because many people, especially on social media, use ‘accountability’ as a euphemism for ‘punishment,’ I want to be clear that this does not mean collective punishment. It means recognizing that people react to their peers (dis)approval on even the smallest scale, that people want to fit in, and that people often fear standing out. We are often not making individual decisions so much as “going with their gut” or “going with the flow.” When that’s the case, that means we need to re-condition what our gut tells us and change where that flow is going * both of which are community actions, not individual ones.

Additional Commentary:

In the Individualism page on her website, Tema Okun shared a personal story about how her upbringing had blinded her to the very real risks her POC colleagues faced even while working with well-intentioned white leaders. This story resonated with me and my experience in this fandom server.

The white admins either did not understand (or did not care) what it would cost a POC like me to try to help them. I was attempting to mediate rather than prosecute, and speaking gently as I did - which I was only doing to try to balance the need for change against the admins’ need for white comfort. Multiple people blocked me during this time period, and most did not see what came after. I try not to assume I’m more important or relevant than I am, but I and many others noticed the drastic change in the admins’ behavior once my rhetoric shifted from ‘benefit of the doubt’ to ‘naming mistakes and suggesting changes.’ I was trying to help the admins, but it came out to nothing and I still ended up paying a price and losing friends.

8: I'm The Only One

The assumption that one knows best; therefore, they have the unique right and responsibility to take unilateral action.

Examples:

Believing that the only way to get something done right is to do it one’s self. (Related to ‘One Right Way.’)

Believing that only one person is entitled or qualified to determine the right way and take action, typically in isolation from the people who will be impacted by our decisions.

Often goes hand-in-hand with micro-management (or in the case of online communities, micro-moderation).

Attempting to downplay or cover-up flaws or mistakes in leadership, fearing that the community cannot survive people discovering leadership isn’t perfect.

Fixes:

Hold ourselves and each other accountable for mistakes without assuming that we need to be perfect to lead.

Focus on collaborative and collective strategies for responding to mistakes, including accountability but also growth and inner development.

Leaders should make an effort to take in input from as many sources as possible, including the people saying things they do not like, do not want to hear or are challenging their leadership.

Especially the individuals who hold the most power, such as server admins and owners (who have more power than other mods). The higher up in this hierarchy that we are, the more likely that anyone who truly thinks we’re hopeless would simply opt to leave…which means the higher up in the hierarchy we are, the more likely that anyone who is challenging us still expects both themselves and us to stay where we are. Their challenges are not a threat, but an opportunity for growth.

Additional Commentary:

Those last two bullet points under Examples and Instances are what kicked off the entire server-ending drama in the first place. Even though the Inciting Incident Mod made a truly disappointing mistake, I don’t actually see them as having made the biggest misstep in this mess. This mod micro-managed someone and abused their power to shield a friend, but had the admins been willing to acknowledge those mistakes directly, most of the ensuing drama would not have happened.

When I asked the Server Owner to let someone else take over the server instead of closing it off completely, they claimed all the people I suggested were not equipped to handle the server. The only person they were willing to let take over the server was someone who had uncritically supported them during all the discourse. (Though I later found out that this entire discussion was never in good faith to begin with; explanation in the Final Feelings section below.)

9: Entitlement.

Assuming a right to something without any consideration for the possibility that one may not have the right. This assumption frequently is unidirectional and/or implicitly only functions as long as most other people do not have a similar right.

This trait was not core to either Tema Okun’s work on white supremacy culture nor Robin DiAngelo’s work on white fragility. However, it is an underlying component of racism (who is entitled to what), white supremacy culture (entitlement to other people’s works), and white fragility (entitlement to comfort).

Examples:

Assuming that one does not need to ask (or wait for an answer) to use someone else’s work for one’s own purposes. (Related to the trait ‘Urgency.’)

Believing that people’s boundaries regarding their work or creations do not matter. I hope I don’t need to spell out why this problem gets so in fanfic-based fandom spaces. That can of worms would need its own post and I’m already exhausted from this post.

Related to Right to Comfort: believing one is entitled to a peaceful community, even when it comes at the expense of everyone else’s sense of safety and belonging.

Fixes:

Assume one does not have permission until and unless told you do.

Graciousness if someone does not want you to use their works.

Their reasons may have nothing to do with you, so also learn not take someone else’s refusal personally.

When you do assume a right, take a moment to imagine it’s reversal (I.e. everyone else having the same rights to your work or output). How comfortable are you with this prospect of everyone ‘borrowing’ from you that which you are currently trying to borrow from someone else?

Additional Commentary:

I detailed my direct experience with the admins' entitlement down below under the trait titled ‘Urgency.’

This trend continued with their behaviors towards what server content they did and didn’t delete prior to deleting the whole server. When fans who left or were banned insisted all their own messages in the server be deleted, they were refused on the basis of ‘preserving’ the server. Yet the admins had no problems deleting every channel that had even a shred of discourse in it. They later deleted a few other channels on the grounds of people’s personal information potentially being in those channels and putting members at risk…except that if there was any such information, it had always been present in this channels; why did it suddenly matter now? I concede that they eventually deleted the individual members’ messages per their requests, and that the fear-mongering about private information came from another member altogether. However, between nebulous accusations that an admin had been party to a past doxxing of this member in the first place and the on-going problem of the admins behaving with false urgency (another trait below), I’m having a very hard time being sympathetic about this or giving them any more benefit of the doubt. Their selection of which channels to delete look less like protecting server members and more like a failed attempted to protect their own reputations.

III. Binary Thinking

This is not just a futile attempt to simplify reality, but an entitlement to a simplified reality and a habit of attempting to force others into one’s own dualistic constructions.

10: Either/Or

Polarization of issues and assumptions, categorical thinking, and viewing everything through this binary lens.

Examples:

Positioning or presenting options or issues as either/or -- good/bad, right/wrong, with us/against us, pro/anti, good/evil, safe/dangerous, etc.

Related to Perfectionism: a suggested solution must be either perfect or it’s useless.

Tendency to escalate instead of de-escalating, especially in a context where de-escalating is viewed as dismissing a problem.

Generalizing individual experiences or statements to the collective, or attempting to dismiss a claim because it is coming from an individual; either “everyone” is saying something or “no one” is saying it.

Fixes:

Cultivate a habit or community culture of looking for multiple ‘takes,’ viewpoints, and conclusions.

Break the habit of trying to sort people and ideas into two or a few categories.

Practice taking situations with seemingly only two possibilities and identifying points between them or alternative options altogether.

Be willing to set a future date or deadline for continuing a disagreement in order to de-escalate emotions in the moment. We have more options than either fixing everything in the moment or ignoring problems forever.

Additional Commentary:

When asked for transparency, this server’s Admins acted as if mistakes had to be either ignored or turned into a big production. This left no room to acknowledge a mistake, learn, and move on, since that was neither ignoring the mistake nor treating it with sufficient drama.

11: Perfectionism

Belief that there is a single right way to accomplish something. Belief that individuals must implement only correct, successful actions (and that missteps and mistakes represent fundamental character flaws).

Examples:

Mistakes are seen as personal, i.e. they reflect badly on the person making them.

Making a mistake is confused with being a mistake; doing wrong is confused with being wrong.

Believing a problem can be permanently resolved with the correct or ‘perfect’ course of action.

Fixes:

Develop a community where the expectation is that everyone will make mistakes, but those mistakes are opportunities for learning, not value judgments.

Accept that, when faced with a systemic or deeply entrenched issues, community leaders will need time to address the problems.

They will probably need to try multiple ideas, some of which might not work. That’s okay; it does not have to be a failure if you learn from it and try again.

Additional Commentary:

In the case of this server’s implosion, perfectionism appeared with the Admins’ fixation on looking for a solution that would ‘put the matter to rest.’ They ignored or actively derided suggestions that did not ‘solve’ the problem in its entirety.

12: One Right Way

The belief that there is a particular correct or ideal way of doing this (and that fault lies with others for not following this particular correct way).

Examples:

Assuming that once people are introduced to the right way, they will ‘see the light’ and adopt it.

Believing that when one’s way is not working, the fault lies with everyone else for not ‘converting,’ not the method itself.

Related to perfectionism: believing there is a singular or permanent solution to on-going, systemic problems.

Believing only certain people are qualified to address or resolve problems. This is especially prevalent among people whose post-secondary education was mostly institutional (i.e. college).

Fixes:

Create a culture of support that recognizes how mistakes sometimes lead to positive results.

Challenge notions of what constitutes the "right way" and what defines a "mistake."

Catch our internalized assumptions about being ‘qualified’ to fix a problem on our own or take on a large responsibility.

Additional Commentary:

Once again, in the interests of living up to my own standards, that means admitting when I’m doing or did the very habits I’m castigating. While my intent was not to behave as if I thought there was One Right Way, I recognize that my actions had the same impact as if I did believe in One Right Way. I presented a solution (collection of rules, guides, and channels) from a server I owned in another fandom entirely, and implied that there was only one right way to ‘fix’ the server.

That said, their conduct in utilizing this also reflected Entitlement and Urgency (which is where I elaborated).

13: (Belief in) Objectivity

The belief that there is some neutral, unbiased experience or viewpoint a person can have.

Because patriarchy so often uses claims of emotionality to dismiss women, many women become oversensitive to claims of subjectivity or identity-based bias. This can make recognizing the invalidity of objectivity difficult in communities whose leadership is dominated by women, especially white women (as white men tend to be most likely to rely on accusations of excess emotion in the first place).

Examples:

Fixation on prioritizing facts over feelings, or thinking feelings can be disregarded and ignored.

Requiring people to think in a linear fashion or otherwise expecting others to perform only the type of logic validated by those in power.

Those in power get to be scared, hurt, or angry and still viewed as rational/logical, while marginalized people who are visibly scared, hurt, or angry are deemed irrational/illogical.

Refusal to acknowledge when a certain line of logic is covering an emotional bias, perspective, or agenda.

Fixes:

Own up to one’s subjectivity; instead of assuming that one can have some arch-neutral worldview, be clear about your background, experiences, and potential biases (whether you believe you actually have these biases or not).

Recognize your own worldview will be as subjective as everybody else’s. If your view of society is also part of the dominant view of society (e.x. if you are white and/or cis and/or male and/or…), this means you were probably conditioned to believe certain assumptions are objective when they are actually subjective.

There is no way to be human without being biased by one’s identity and experience; some identities are just so privileged or normalized by institutions that they are the “invisible” default or norm.

Get into the habit of trying to determine what a situation you are in looks like from the outside, what information others do and do not have, or getting diverse perspectives on various situations.

By “get into the habit,” I mean we should practice doing this even in situations without confrontation, crisis, or argument. Analyze successful incidents and events this way to get the practice for handling unsuccessful incidents and crises.

Utilize ‘I’ statements and make sure not to assume that your personal experience is the same as everyone else’s experiences.

Community leaders have to take extra special care with what we say about our communities and how we present our assumptions and experiences. When we claim a community is trustworthy or safe, we just make it even less trustworthy or safe for anyone feels otherwise, because this disconnect between our experiences (that we generalize) and theirs (that we individualize) creates a barrier against further feedback.

Additional Commentary:

This was also related to at least one admin struggling to disconnect their own experiences with everyone else’s experiences. To the admin, because so much of their own time was consumed by this discourse, they spoke and behaved as if this were consuming the entire server. They did not realize that most of the members of the server had nothing to do with this discourse, and many did not even know it was happening…until the admin started repeatedly utilizing @everyone. This implies the admin viewed their own experience as “objective” and thus projected their own experience onto everybody else.

VI. Validation Seeking

I called this collection of traits ‘validation seeking’ because they all trace back to appeals to external authorities or claims of external pressures.

14: Progress = More

Assuming solutions always require “more” of something; never considering that existing resources could be sufficient or that “less” might be a solution.

Examples:

Assuming the goal is always to grow membership, rather than maintaining an enjoyable community

Assuming that “more” will fix a problem (e.x. more moderators will fix a moderation problem)

Disregarding the costs of growth (such as how increased number of channels can make a community overwhelming to newcomers)

Valuing people who have achieved a certain milestone or objective metric of progress more than those who have not (e.x. valuing older members over younger ones, valuing college-educated members over those without college education, etc.)

Fixes:

Try to make sustainable decisions, with an aim not for endless growth but maintaining the actual goal of the community.

When pursuing “more” of something to solve a problem, first evaluate what you actually need and determine why the existing number of resources is no longer sufficient when it previously had been.

For example, are you actually pursuing more moderators because there is an increase in activity and the existing moderation team feels burnt out and falling behind? Or are you just assuming that you need more moderators regardless of activity levels?

15: Quantity Over Quality

Believing that only things that can be numerically measured have value (and that things which cannot be measured have little to no value).

Examples:

Fixation on things like number of members in a community (quantity) over the members’ relationships and experiences in said community (quality)

Treating quantified milestones as a goal in their own right, rather than means to an end or a guideline (e.x. acquiring a certain number of moderators or maintaining a certain number of channels in a server)

Discomfort with emotions and feelings (as they cannot be measured objectively)

Fixes:

Determine traits and practices important to your community which cannot be easily quantatively (safety, respect, mutualism, etc.) and think of ways to evaluate them (for example: open-ended questions in a survey instead of relying exclusively on numerical ratings or menu options)

Focus less on output goals and more on process goals, such as how many new ideas were considered or how many people felt fully heard in a meeting. Even if, in the short run, this feels like leading to a bunch of unproductive meetings, in the long run this creates a more robust decision-making process.

Treat ‘accountability’ not as a euphemism for punishment (which social media tends to do), but as an opening for receiving support.

Additional Commentary:

The admins fixated on obtaining more moderators, but the reality is that the problems facing the community did not need more moderators, but rather a shift in culture altogether - a thing which could have easily been engendered by the admins on their own, even without additional moderators.

16: Worshiping the Written Word

Fixation on knowledge provided by institutions over people’s lived experiences and on-going, dynamic realities.

This one is hard to recognize in virtual communities because most or all of our interactions are “written” in chats and social media.

Examples:

Attempting to use dictionary definitions of words as arguments in and of themselves or treating them as the end of an argument.

Refusing to acknowledge that the way people use a word in daily living may not match up to the institutional definition.

Using errors in spelling, grammar, or language to justify dismissing someone’s arguments.

Over-valuing people who can write well (or just write a lot), and undervaluing the contributions from people who rely on other media formats or informal documentation.

Fixes:

Treat encyclopedia articles and dictionary definitions as a conversation starter, not an argument ender, e.x. “This is my understanding of that word; what’s yours?” or “In what ways does this ‘official’ definition fall short?”

Focus less on using resources (articles, videos, guides, etc.) as an appeal to authority in an argument, and more as a starting point from which you develop your own community guidelines.

Additional Commentary:

I had an out-sized impact on discourse simply because I could write a lot in one go. Some of that was me anonymously relaying other people’s words on their behalf and some was original on my part; most of what I said simply reiterated what others had already conveyed. However, as I did so in a pseudo-academic manner, my word was given more weight.

Sharing of resources like educational articles or videos were treated as the end of a discussion, rather than the start of one.

17: Urgency

Applying extremely short deadlines to action, giving no time for rest or consideration. Utilizing the overarching urgency of racism as an excuse for short-sighted, short-term actions.

Examples:

Related to Quality Over Quantity: prioritizes measurable actions over impact.

Fixation on appearing to address racism moreso than actually doing it.

Uses expediency to justify poor-decision making processes or lack of consideration (related to Entitlement, Power Hoarding, and Conflict Aversion).

Often relies on perpetuating the idea that racism can be “solved” (which in turn implies that future accusations of racism cannot be made, nor community problems discussed).

Creating a culture of anxiety as people believe they must act immediately or they will never get to act at all.

Related to Right to Comfort: rushing decision-making in order to rush towards an idealized state of no further conflict.

Fixes:

When the feeling of urgency arises, slow down and encourage people pause, restate the goal, and dive deeper into alternatives.

Avoid making decisions under extreme pressure.

Work to distinguish what is actual pressure and what is pressure that you or others are creating.

Establish plans ahead of time for how decisions will be made during times of urgency, and how crises can be handled in the short-term while leaders evaluate ideas for long-term change.

This is related to Conflict Avoidance. When community leaders are uncomfortable with conflict, this also means not wanting to think about potential conflicts, and thus having no plans when conflict arises anyway. Becoming comfortable with conflict also allows planning for conflict management.

Additional Commentary:

When I showed the admins my fandom wank resolving set-up from another server (as mentioned in my additional commentary on One Right Way), they asked me if they could just use it as it was. However, they were too impatient to actually wait for an answer and used it, anyway, before I could respond. It was very clear that my answer never actually mattered to them. Had they waited, I would have explained how this exact set-up was not a good fit for this community and its current problems; I was sharing it assuming they would use it as a source of inspiration to brainstorm their own ideas for their own server. In addition, while I did not mind sharing, these were not my sole creation, but the product of a team of mods in my other server. Even if it had been a good fit, I would have checked with other mods whose labor had gone into this set-up to see if they were also alright with its wholesale reuse.

My experience is only one example. Ultimately, the admins kept fumbling, and increasingly claimed it was all due to the pressure and demands from the community that they ‘handle it’ - refusing to acknowledge that community members weren’t asking for an immediate solution to every problem. This urgency was self-inflicted. The server admins disregarded all their remaining mods’ suggestions that would have given them more time to address these problems carefully. Server-wide slow-downs, channel trimming, temporary server freeze, etc. - the admins had multiple ideas given to them, but shot them all down. The admins’ goal was not to address the problems, but to suppress discussions of racism as fast as possible because they were uncomfortable with admitting its existence in the first place (see Right to Comfort at the top).

Final Feelings

What Took Me So Long To Say Anything?

I didn’t want to risk the admins prematurely deleting the server out of spite. They were already unilaterally and suddenly taking away a community space from hundreds of fans entirely for their own benefit. I could not count on them being above robbing people the final opportunity to recover the last shreds of their materials and memories from the server.

I also, quite frankly, just had a lot going on in my offline life.

I continued to take my time even after they deleted the server because I was hurt and furious. I needed time to turn what was originally a soliloquy of my sorrows into an educational guide.

This was exacerbated by finding out that the admins faked the ‘death’ of the server:

As you can imagine, I was furious - and to be honest, I still am. That anger was precisely why I made myself slow down. I did not want to burn down the fandom for the sake of keeping only myself warm.

Complicated Feelings

I feel hurt and betrayed by the Admins and disappointed in the Inciting Incident Mod…but one thing I will say for them is that they expressed interest in learning the language and culture of the country that our fandom’s show came from.

They showed far more interest than that aforementioned Indigenous Server Member ever did.

I don’t begrudge this indigenous fan for defending their cultural tradition, nor their anger over how it was handled. I also acknowledge that in fandom and irl, Asian diaspora often end up partaking in white supremacy culture and entitlements. However, I do find this fan's umbrage at the initial ignorance to be tremendously hypocritical given this fan’s approach to Asian cultures, traditions, and histories. Their fanfics, server interactions, and other fanworks in this Asian media fandom demonstrated incredible disregard about Asian cultures - one which this fan never showed any interest in undoing or challenging.

I doubt it was a coincidence that this fan blocked me on Discord right around the time I started talking about the westernization of eastern characters and settings. Even if it was, that doesn’t lessen the pervasive apathy towards Asian culture in their fandom activities.

I routinely see fans call for the decolonization fandom when it comes to BIPOC people settings, only for these same fans to turn around and perpetuate the colonization of fandom when it comes to Asian people and settings.

This does not mean western fans shouldn’t participate in an eastern fandom! This participation is the best way to learn about a new culture. Mistakes and missteps are parts of the learning process, both at the individual level and at the collective level.

This is also not to pass a judgment on that specific fan or their creative works. That would be hypocritical of me in turn, given I’ve enjoyed some of those stories and fanworks, anyway.

I am bringing this up to demonstrate why solidarity is difficult for fans of color.

As an Asian diaspora fan in particular, I hate feeling like my choices are “BIPOC fans with ignorance and apathy that they don’t want to unpack” and “white fans with supremacy culture that they don’t want to unpack.” Either way, I’m going to have to put up with a ton of entitlement (never mind the rampant fetishization of Asians from all sides, which is its own can of worms I can’t even open right now).

And if I try to speak up about any of this, I will get blocked or I will be accused of being an anti-fandom killjoy.

Again.

Final Thoughts

People change for the better, and communities change for the better.

I know fandom can change because I’ve seen how it’s already changed. Fans take social justice issues and racial justice issues far more seriously than they did 20, 10, or even 5 years ago, and that’s just my own living memory of fandom.

We should always take a moment to recognize and celebrate how much better we are today than we were in the metaphorical yesterday.

But being better than yesterday does not mean being good enough for tomorrow.

And we still have a long way to go.

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Thank you for reading this monstrously long post all the way to the end. Please remember to answer the poll at the top. Please reblog, and I encourage you to add your own experiences when you do.