#need y’all to learn that discourse ≠ racism for this one
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0-therw-0-rldly · 10 months ago
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I’ll preface this by saying I’m not really a shipper. I just enjoy canon couples on TV Series/films.
Terms I’d like B*ddies to remove from their vocabulary because they don’t know how to use them correctly:
Media literacy: For a group that uses this term a lot you sure do misinterpret everything in this show.
Queerbaiting: Going to expand on this one. A show that’s already been pre established for having queer characters simply cannot queerbait.
Ship baiting: While sometimes you can argue that they could be doing that, that’s only if you look at the show in a very biased manner. You might think this is the case but the general audience doesn’t think the way you do.
Ship war: This isn’t a one tree hill situation where there was Team Brooke Vs. Team Peyton where the middle guy (Lucas Scott) had canonically been with both women. This is people not understanding fanon vs. canon and not being able to just watch the show. It’s like playing quarterback on Madden and thinking you could be better than Patrick Mahomes.
Plot device: everything’s a plot device. Move tf on.
Predator: You sound like crazy MAGA supporters calling everything regarding the LGBTQIA+ community as predatory. Sit down.
Co-parenting: I know this is a big one and discourse was brought up during the hiatus. Oliver and Ryan have loosely mentioned this years ago but it was never to be taken this seriously. Do y’all even know what co-parenting is or are you that big of a donut? Buck is someone who loves his best friend deeply and by extension, his kid too. Him taking care of him frequently does not make him a co-parent. Maybe he is a parental or uncle figure, but he isn’t a co-parent. Also, I swear y’all need to learn how a will works. He is a GODPARENT, not a GUARDIAN. Stfu.
Hag: This especially applies to women, but to say that someone 25-30+ is a hag for still being in fandoms or enjoying tv shows/films is inherently misogynistic. Men are never held to this much criticism for enjoying fictional media, but women aren’t allowed to?
Queer Coding: people of the same sex “looking at each other”, hugging, or having intimate moments all together doesn’t make them queer coded. It could mean that they just love each other that deeply platonically. While representation is amazing and just because you interpret a character as queer coded (just like my ship baiting comment) doesn’t mean others interpret it that way as well. In addition, network TV has stipulations, and also actors are allowed to decline storylines. Ryan has mentioned his character is heterosexual an abundance of times which means (at least for now) that he isn’t willing to go for this storyline.
Dead naming: Y’all construing the fact that Buck wants people like coworkers and some of his former love interests, to saying Evan is his dead name is inherently transphobic because do you even understand what a dead name is? Evan Buckley is shown as being fine with being called Evan by both Tommy and his sister. I’m pretty sure some of his love interests have called him Evan as well.
Fetishizing: You guys saw two hot guys who “looked at each other” and for 6 seasons have wanted nothing but to see those two make out with each other. Those of us who enjoy Tevan saw Buck giddy at the thought of Tommy and have wanted domestic fluff for them since.
Anything to do with racism, homophobia, and misogyny: I’ve seen the way you guys have conveniently weaponized Henren and by extension Aisha/Tracie when you didn’t get the Ryan/Oliver interview, don’t try to act like you’re morally superior. Not to mention wanting a canonically gay man to die in a show and not even holding those who use your ship name to write CSA fics accountable because you’re petty and want to throw hissy fits. Anyone looking at your comments as an outsider would think you’re homophobes and yes queer people can be homophobic.
I do hope you can expand your vocabulary. 🤍
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sepublic · 3 months ago
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            And I find the discourse about “Amity was reduced to Luz’s GF” to be annoying for a lot of reasons. It’s completely ignoring that she already had development with Willow and Alador. It’s ignoring that in this limited runtime, of course the writers will want to emphasize an actually queer couple because even IF the show wasn’t canned for being queer, the fact that it happened to an actually queer show is still an inherent injustice. So having that other development at all shows care.
            They earned that WLW, so they’re going to use it! It’s like how people had the gall to criticize Rebecca Sugar for knowingly getting her show Steven Universe cancelled for an onscreen kiss, because sometimes explicit stuff on a kids channel says more than elaborate subtext ever will. Sometimes that exemplifies a message more than a fleshed out story does.
            Not only does it feel like fans claiming the writing for a female character is bad when it’s not, and then hiding behind that defense to not examine their own misogyny. But also?
            Y’all had NO issue with the reverse back in S1; Because in S1’s peak, all of the fanon around Lumity was about reducing Luz to just being Oblivious, to just being Amity’s supportive therapist GF who’s always happy, who’s always there to get her out of a slump, who has no real needs or insecurities or vulnerabilities of her own. Amity was reduced to a borderline Damsel in Distress who couldn’t think for herself, who always needed Luz.
            And it’s hilarious because in S1’s canon, and later S2’s, Amity is shown to be stronger than that! She’s shown to be more aware than people give credit for. She doesn’t always need Luz to lift herself up.
            Likewise, it’s great that S2 reversed this bad fanon by emphasizing that Luz is the one who’s also a huge mess, who also needs Amity to support her. She’s not this perfect Manic Pixie Dream Girl, she’s genuinely afraid of the relationship as much as Amity is, and she has F ups that Amity has to help her around with this time.
            It’s weird. With Luz, it’s perfectly acceptable when she goes out of her way to be compassionate towards Amity, even when it’s not really warranted on Amity’s end. But when Amity pays back the favor, suddenly it’s demeaning, how dare they treat her like this?! People complain she didn’t get much in S3 and it’s like Fellas. They’ve already spent so much time on Amity, and need to address other things. Just be glad she has her storyline overall, instead of focusing on a specific part of the show; Do y’all complain your fave was done dirty because they weren’t present for an episode?!!?!
            And in the end I think it’s just racism. It’s acceptable for this brown girl to exist for this white girl’s angst and vulnerability, for Amity to be a self-insert for fans’ own angst and vulnerability. But y’all can’t empathize with Luz when she’s the one who takes that role, instead you just think she’s overreacting or reduce it to just teenage angst. And then y’all are up in arms about Amity getting that treatment, so like You agree? You think this portrayal is demeaning? And then are fine with it being assigned to Luz?
            It really goes to show that if PoC are set pieces for a white character, it’s fine; But if it’s the other way around, it’s abominable. To top it all off, yeah; Amity DID have other things going on. Sometimes her stories about being Luz’s GF were really about HER development, like her parental abuse priming Amity to accept another abusive dynamic.
            It’s a very sad fact IRL, that victims of abuse will often move into abusive relationships, only recognizing the ills of their past abuser and not the pattern itself, nor knowing what a good relationship should even be besides slightly better! Only for Amity to realize those parameters, alongside the relief that Luz fulfills them. Or Amity learning to be mindful of Luz’s privacy instead of being her mother, while also setting up her reconnecting with Willow. Huh!!!!!!
            And yeah, Luz still has other things to her character the whole time; Specifically more than Amity does. But maybe… MAYBE… It might have something to do with the fact that. Luz is the core main protagonist of the entire show, and Amity is a side character of second-tier billing, right below fellow core protagonists Eda and King.
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wenellyb · 1 year ago
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Eddie Diaz is a white Latino. Did people learn nothing from the Pedro Pascal discourse? And does the fandom *not* remember that episode where the funeral protestor refuses to be tended by Hen and Chim, so he asks Eddie to give him care— fully seeing he’s white— until Eddie says his last name is Diaz and his father’s Mexican, but he can channel his mother’s Swedish heritage for the man’s comfort? White people are not members of the global majority, but they do live and exist outside Western Europe and the U.S. (like Mexico).
It’s so weird how parts of the fandom are making any positive reaction to a m/m relationship in this show (that isn’t their yaoi ‘buddie’ fanfiction) into something about loving to see white men kiss. Y’all would still be getting that with canon buddie! Y’all couldn’t even support Michael and Glenn (calling them “homewreckers”). Y’all constantly ignore Hen and Karen with your complaints of “queerbaiting.” Y’all also called TK & Carlos’ (911 Lone Star) relationship “toxic” because it began with sex and because y’all fanon Carlos as some aggressive control freak. Like… c’mon!
I don’t think anyone who is supportive of Buck’s new relationship is arguing that Tommy is perfect. He’s was a fucking dick to both Hen and Chim when they joined the 118. His “delivery man” comment to Chim was wildly unacceptable. No one has forgotten this. Yet both Hen and Chim are *NOW* good friends with him…? Why? He changed. And the show shows the audience this. They show that he developed a great camaraderie with Hen and Chim. They show how he— unlike Sal and Gerrard— shifted his behavior and worldview to accept, embrace, and enjoy change.
Tommy could have been Sal. He could have been Gerrard. He had a good working relationship with both men and both men encouraged bad behavior in the 118. Yet he didn’t. He stayed on and befriended Hen and Chim (when most of the other guys still refused). Because he chose to learn and change and open himself to people’s differences (which likely also helped him come to terms with his own “differences”).
Tommy’s arc is meant to show how someone can make amends, repair relationships, and become a better person (y’know… learn, grow, and reform himself). The general audience for this show is straight and white. They *need* to see white people changing and learning to be better. They *need* to see queer people coming into themselves. These are important story lines.
Fans like Buck and Tommy together because they like Buck and Tommy together, because they like what this means for them and what might happen going forward. That’s literally it. We’re all just overjoyed by having more queer representation, including Bi representation. That’s it.
But there are a lot of ���buddie” shippers in people’s inboxes hating on Buck and Tommy together for no reason other than it stands in the way of their ideal porn fantasies (“buddie”). And they’re being weirdly queerphobic about it, too.
Hi Anon!!!! So much to unpack here. I'll post this and let anyone comment their thoughts because this is an interesting conversation.
I'll start by saying that it never occurred to me that Ryan Guzman was not White, until Bucktommy became more popular and some Buddie shippers said that Bucktommy shippers were preferring the White MM pairing and I was like "Hmm.... both Buddie and Bucktommy are White MM pairings"???? Like it never even occured to me.
I'm not here to debate Ryan Guzman's ethnicity, he knows that better than us, but as you mentionned people seem to forget that there are White latinos.
I should add that Americans will maybe have a different perspective but in Europe, there is racism, and there is also xenophobia both are bad, but not the same.
If I'm talking about someone who is White and Latino being a victim of prejudice, I would never say that they're victim of racism, I would say that he's victim of xenophobia.
Believe it or not there are a lot of Europeans are xenophobic but not racist and vice versa.
With that being said, I agree with the rest of your ask..
I love 911 Lone Star and watched 911 casually but I never got the Buddie shippers, especially the ones who said they shipped Buddie as a form of activism, or because there was a lack of Queer representation (which is true) but Henren are there, TK and Carlos are right there and it's the same franchise.
They never cared about Henren, they even erased them whenever they accused the show of Queerbaiting even thought it has several Queer characters.
I remember when they started complaining that Bucktommy had more fics that Henren after one kiss.... but never said anything about Buddie having over 20 000 fics after 6 years of nothing even thought Henren was canon.
A lot of their takes are rooted in hypocrisy, it's like they're taking all the arguments that have been thrown at them and throwing them back at Bucktommy shippers without even thinking about it.
It's very important to have discussion about fandom racism, because it's a huge issue especially in the biggest fandoms but I do feel like some of them are bringing the issue in bad faith. This discussion is so important but it needs to be had with the Bucktommy fandom AND the Buddie fandom. So far the Buddie shippers only want the Bucktommy shippers to have it.
Why don't they take a look at the mirror first and ask themselves why they never cared about a Black Lesbian couple when one of them was a Main Character. Why don't they ask themselves why a ship with 2 best friends has over 20000 fics and a canon ship that is TK and Carlos only have 7000.
And why do they find the weirdest excuses to hate on Carlos (as you said), who's clearly not White and never give him the same courtesy they give their fave White chatacters.
When Buddie shippers talk about fandom racism, all I can think is: the call is coming from inside the house.
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thelonesomequeen · 3 years ago
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A lot of you have various opinions and comments on the cultural appropriation pictures and I’m going to post them below so others can see your point of view. I want to be clear that the comments below are not ours (mods) but are anons sent to our inbox.
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✏️✏️✏️Anon 1
I saw this picture that some are complaining about. I don’t think it makes her racist. It makes her ignorant. People are just mad that she’s with Chris. Henry C GF was worse. Sometimes people don’t know better. And I saw this as a black woman. People need to chill. The word racist is so easily thrown out these days. Calm down people.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 2
I saw this picture that some are complaining about. I don’t think it makes her racist. It makes her ignorant. People are just mad that she’s with Chris. Henry C GF was worse. Sometimes people don’t know better. And I saw this as a black woman. People need to chill. The word racist is so easily thrown out these days. Calm down people.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 3
(I sent the same message to several Tumblrs) why are you all silent about the new pictures of miss racist girlfriend of CE?? because to talk about a « fake » yoga certificate or photo of paps on the beach there are people but for the photo and video of racism of miss nun and her band it is radio silence.why? Because that would be to admit that Crispy is racist too? hmm?
Asks like this make me think some people don’t actually care about cultural appropriation or racism and just want to a valid reason to cancel Alba for something other than dating Chris. Y’all clearly talked about it, but not in the correct way that just immediately calls her evil. God forbid a serious topic like this it’s approached with nuance and you don’t immediately just shun her from society for being problematic.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 4
I was checking about the photo discourse on Twitter and a lot of it is just people wanting to have a gotcha moment instead having an actual conversation. The same accounts posting about this were tweeting really nasty things like wanting Alba to d1e (I have screenshots). They were also really mad about your blog debunking the yoga thing.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 5
“ If Chris is dating someone that’s racist as everyone says wouldn’t that make him one too?” if that were true of people than Meghan Markle would be also considered racist for marrying Prince Harry (just a mere example at how just because 1 person is something doesn’t mean their partner is too). I don’t know if Alba is racist, could be just ignorant or not caring too much- she grew up in Portugal a fairly homogeneous country population wise, as opposed to the US.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 6
Obviously culture appropriation is not okay but my whole thing with finding old photos and tweets is that it says people can’t grow. A lot of people make stupid mistakes when they are younger and regret them. I know I’ve said some really dumb stuff that I absolutely do not agree with now because people change. If we’re gonna hold onto questionable things then even Chris has said done some awful stuff (Sandra/Selma quote, Botham Jean tweet, tone deaf middle eastern ASP doc) and never apologized publicly for it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t regret it and wish it didn’t happen. The intentions with bringing up old pictures isn’t purely about educating though in this scenario and it’s obvious.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 7
I’m not sure what pics are being talked about in regard to “culture appropriation”, but as a minority myself I find the general discussion a lot of times over the top: not every time someone dresses as a different culture, do their hair or adopts Buddhist teaching into their lives and son, is not always culture appropriation many times it is more accurate to say it is culture appreciation. People need to take a deep breath and learn the difference cause they alot of times end up looking ignorant
✏️✏️✏️Anon 8
But, we know about them now so hopefully this isn’t something she does regularly. 🧜🏻‍♀️ // Oh totally!! Even if those are just from the last few years that's a major red flag 🚩 🚩 especially with how big of a conversation it's been in recently. My mind immediately goes to Florence Pugh and how big that story was in 2020. We should care, and I do, but doubt many people outside of the CE fandom and maybe WN's will. I could see an article or two popping up about it, but not much more than that.
✏️✏️✏️Anon 8
You know we can criticize Jenny and Alba for being transphobic and racist respectively, but at the end of the day, Chris chose to be associated with them. And he isn't exactly perfectly either. He has said and done a lot of questionable things over the years. I just feel as though we're always too hard on the women while giving him a pass and babying him. I'm not referring specifically to you mods here, but the fandom in general. He made his choice, let him deal with it now. Nobody is villain or a victim in this equation.
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tropicaldruid · 4 years ago
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The Survivor’s Guide to Leaving Your Birth Religion Part 4: Tear It Down
It’s 1998 and I’m on a road trip to North Carolina with my youth group. Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water plays, and my youth pastor lowers the volume, “Have y’all ever heard the story behind this song?” he asks. None of us have.
“The man who wrote this was a drawbridge operator. He had brought his grandkids to work with him one day and despite several warnings, his granddaughter was climbing on the bridge. The man had told his grandkids how dangerous it was but the girl wasn’t heeding him and was playing in the works of the drawbridge. There was a boat full of people coming and the man had to make a choice between his granddaughter, and the lives of all those people on the boat. Rather than risk the lives of all those people he made the ultimate sacrifice…” his voice trailed off for a moment “Years later he wrote this song.”
That story stuck with me. It’s a bizarre and sad story that doesn’t really seem to have a moral that actually holds up to any kind of scrutiny. Of course, it doesn’t help that the story was also bullshit. Paul Simon wrote the lyrics to that song after committing zero bridge-related murders. 
Yet somewhere along the way somebody made that story up. I think it’s inspired by the tragic story behind It Is Well With My Soul. Like Virgil borrowed heavily from Homer, someone decided that Like a Bridge needed a more palatable foundational myth and made one up for it. And apparently thousands of people know this sad backstory that never happened as if it were truth, and bellieve that it serves as a cautionary tale about listening to your elders. 
Stories are so fascinating in the way they can convey some values and undermine others merely by being convincing, whether true or not. For years I believed Charles Darwin renounced “evolutionism” and accepted Christ just before he died. What a damaging idea, a simple one, but one that set my actual academic progress back by years.
It’s time to put the previous months of research to work. 
It’s time to tear down some of the untrue things we’ve been led to believe over the years. 
It’s time to face that we might be idiots a little bit. 
Leaving my religious bubble, I was shocked at how little I knew about the real world and how it worked. How unacceptable my internalized and externalized bigotry actually was, just how bigoted I actually was. 
For someone indoctrinated to believe I was a shining example of God’s love to the ungodly world, this came as quite a surprise to me. 
I needed to identify and challenge a lot of problematic ideas I had, I needed to look at the stories I had learned these ideas and values from and test those stories against other narratives. 
If I had ever stopped to challenge the narrative that Charles Darwin rejected “evolutionism” in favor of creationism I would have learned how absurd the dichotomy was in the first place. 
So the homework for this section is to start identifying these problematic ideas. Make a list of things that maybe you’ve been challenged on in the past. Have you been called a bigot before? A racist? Write that down. Think honestly about that moment and write down what action or words on your part caused it. Google words, read articles with an open mind. Join some discourse and emotional labor groups on social media and ask polite questions. Enter these spaces with humility, you’re in someone else’s sanctuary; and although we are survivors of trauma, we aren’t the only ones traumatized by these institutions and depending on our involvement, we may be culpable in the trauma of others. Be ready to listen and learn rather than defend or explain. 
Maybe that’s not something you can relate to, but you’ve always had a problem with some teaching. Often questioning the highly questionable is met with accusations of non-belief and scorn. “Those bone shaped rocks were put there by The Debbil and if you fall for his tricks then you’re a heathen too!” These ideas would be a great place to start. If you’ve got some questions like this, again google is a great place to plug in a few key words and get a ton of information. Look for academic papers, peer reviewed articles, books by reputable publishers.
Check out this article https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/fake-news.htm and learn about vetting the information you consume online and in the real world. 
Sit down and compile a list, maybe make three columns. In the first write what someone else told you was problematic, or what idea you’ve had a problem accepting. In the second, write what specific issue was addressed in your words or actions (homophobia, racism, misogyny, anti-semetism, etc) or what specific detail of teaching you take issue with (Eve’s curse makes no sense because all mammals experience pain during childbirth?) Now in the third column write the specific steps you will take to find better information on the topic. 
Be Honest. 
Be Tireless.
This is probably the hardest part of this guide to address because it requires us to be very critical of ourselves, of truths upon which we have founded our identities . We are presented here the opportunity to grow beyond obsolete ideas, or cling to familiar ignorance. 
Admitting we’ve been wrong is hard, and it’s counterintuitive when one has been surrounded by the pretense of absolute, infallible certainty for their whole lives. But facing this stage of our growth with resolve and honesty is so important. Many of these stories we have told ourselves have led to so much harm done to so many innocent people. So we begin this active stage of our growth by minimizing the harm we do to others moving forward. 
When I was in basic training the drill sergeants loved the phrase “Pain is weakness leaving the body” and as much as it grates my nerves to this day, it’s a mantra that has helped in this sort of endeavor. This is a rough time to get through, but we are becoming stronger people for it. By letting go of the familiar, by challenging the things that don’t add up, we are becoming more grounded in what we believe, our beliefs are starting to line up with our true values instead of blindly and unsteadily following the path someone else laid out for us. Be patient with yourself, but be honest in your motives and intentions as you work through addressing these ideas. As you do you may need to make a second list, of people you have harmed because you have believed things that are not. While writing this list, acknowledge the harm to each person in detail. Go as far back as necessary, be as thorough as you can. Decide in each case how to address it, is an apology warranted or would the situation be better healed by a change in behavior moving forward? Commit to it.  If you’ve been following along at home, you’ve got your work cut out for you. As you list the ideas and stories you need to challenge, repost this and share some of them if you feel like it. Let’s shine some light on this misinformation. I have a few I wanted to include in this post but it’s already long enough so I’ll share them later. 
Blessins Y’all
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bolbiistroganovsky · 4 years ago
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I kinda hate the attitude I see growing of “well if you need to compare *thing assumed to be trivial* to understand *big world issue* then maybe you’re just *something mean and presumptuous, usually “lazy and racist”*” cause like that’s just how a lot of ppl think.
I’m constantly drawing comparisons between things I’m learning and things I already know to better understand relationships between things. That’s just how my brain works. Like if I say the school to prison pipeline is sorta like selective breeding, I’m not trivializing the school to prison pipeline or saying they’re exactly the same in function operation and gravity. I’m simply saying that in my head I see an aspect of both that is somewhat similar and that the similarity helps me personally better understand that aspect.
And like some people use popular media to draw comparisons. That’s actually the point of media. Cope. I’ll use an example I’ve seen about a thousand times on here. People saying that zootopia helped them understand systemic racism better doesn’t mean they thought racism didn’t exist until they saw zootopia, or that they think POC and the zootopia animals are in anyway comparable on a moral level, or that they haven’t been listening to POC. what it more likely means, and what, in good faith, it should be taken to mean unless they’ve proven otherwise, is that zootopia helped give them some physical context for a concept that is only theoretical to them since they haven’t lived it. They probably listened to POC, believed them, understood as best they can, and seeing what they heard played out in pretty colors in two hours just helped them go the extra mile in absorbing what is a very complex societal issue.
It’s like how in high school you watched a 15 minute crash course video at the end of a month long unit on the same topic just to wrap things up. See look. I just drew another comparison, one of several in this mostly train-of-thought post, of varying magnitude that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same on all levels. Stop assuming that. And stop just assuming things based on ppl having thought processes that vary from your own. We all have unique ways of thinking through things.
PS no one thinks Steven Universe is equivalent to The Communist Manifesto in illustrating Marxist theory or whatever discourse floated by me like a shark fin. If you see someone making a comparison that seems trivializing to you, ask them to explain it to you instead of going on the attack. Their comparison might even make sense after they’ve explained it to you. Just give people the benefit of the doubt in online discussions I’m begging y’all. People are generally not as horrible as you think and intent is damn hard to convey over text. And if that seems like a lot of work, there’s a wonderful feature of this website called scrolling. Just move on and be open minded to how ppls minds work.
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cabbagezonk · 6 years ago
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can y’all stfu
deadass nothing is woke enough for tumblr freaks is it. like being aware of a piece of media’s flaws is fine/prob a good skill to have, but something ppl seem to forget is that not every piece of media will touch on every problematic issue
someone talks abt racism but doesn’t discuss how lgbt poc have it worse? #cancelled
someone talks abt sexism without devoting the entire convo to racism? #cancelled
contrapoints, a trans woman, makes a video about terfs, goes out of her way to acknowledge the privilege she had being amab, well-off, and white? sorry, didn’t discuss it long enough and should have been meaner to terfs (even tho sometimes the goal isn’t to alienate EVERYONE who disagrees w u y’all)
examining things intersectionally is absolutely a crucial part of understanding these issues. white feminism ignoring the struggles of woc is absolutely a problem that shouldn’t be ignored. lgbt communities ignoring trans ppl is a problem too. people with privilege trying to meet racists/sexists/homophobes in the middle isn’t something to ignore. BUT we shouldn’t shoot down anyone who doesn’t convey their message perfectly either. instead of looking for reasons to tear someone down at the first sign they’re Problematique™ maybe listen to their point FIRST and see if it’s their point you don’t like or just the way they said it. again, this isn’t a free pass for fucking covergirl or gillette or fucking nike to be #woke, im just saying that maybe you should consider that people aren’t perfect, and maybe they can discuss one issue (and MENTION connecting issues as is often the case) without full depth analysis of the other issues as well
im not saying you can’t have a discussion with whatever media creator/regular fuckin person you have criticism of, it may be beneficial! maybe they hadn’t considered your perspective before and can learn for the future! BUT if your discussion isn’t going to be productive, then you need to learn to leave ppl tf alone. don’t even get me started on she-ra or b99 or fuckin steven universe, but looking at fucking discourse abt contrapoints bc even she isn’t apparently #woke enough is honestly sad. is she perfect? no. does she speak for the entire trans community? no. but that doesn’t mean that with such a large following, she can’t still influence ppl for the better and give them a better perspective on trans people than the one they get from broader society
anyways some of y’all need to get off ur high horse once in a while lmao
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janiedean · 6 years ago
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Ok I need to know your thoughts about this Green Book mess
... pray for me anon XD
anyway, never mind that my general thought is that I’m really sad the mule didn’t compete this round because then it’d have deserved all the awards hands down........
tldr: the fact that people are outraged is the proof that tumblr at large can’t recognize classism when it hits you in the face.
in longer words: 95% of the hot takes I’m reading are Patently False And It Shoes People Haven’t Seen That Movie.
in much longer words: counting that I haven’t seen all the nominees but I did see both blakkk/lansman (which from now will be BKKK) and blackpanther and green book (and borap but that one wasn’t gonna win best movie anyway so) and I guess that is where the crux is, so, in order.
bkkk was obviously the best movie of the lot quality speaking. in an ideal world, it would have one. except that bkkk is a movie that’s heavily political and if y’all think that the oscars would give a prize to the heavily political movie that directly criticizes the administration in power then y’all missed the part where that’s not what happens at the oscars. last time it happened it was 1978 and the deer hunter won and I still don’t know wtf was the jury’s state of grace at that point, but in 1980 they had apocalypse now in the list and kramer vs kramer won. like. guys. if you have APOCALYPSE NOW on the list and anything else wins in the major categories then you’re a joke. and tbh it surprises me that spike l/ee is still hoping he might snag a major win that’s not for screenplay with these parameters - they’re not gonna go there. hasn’t happened since ‘78. come on;
bp was not a best movie flick. like, guys: it’s not even the best mcu film around as far as I’m concerned and while it most likely deserved the technical awards..... seriously? like. if neither GB nor bkkk won then any other movie on the list had better shots than bp. I can’t even think people seriously assume it was best movie material or ON PAR WITH BKKK as in, ‘if bkkk doesn’t win then THAT ONE should have won’. like, no;
now: green book was a *safe* pick in the sense that it wasn’t as heavy-handed as bkkk when it came to be political so it was the perfect choice if they wanted to go like ‘oh hey see we gave the award to the movie about racism without giving it to the one raising the middle finger to donald trump’, but differently from moon/light (which according to me was the most political political win of the last ten years like guys sorry that movie was nowhere near as good as people said back then and I found it incredibly overrated, and before you tell me that it’s because I didn’t understand it: exactly the point. the wire is one of my fave shows ever and it tacked all the things moon/light tried to except that it did it vastly better and I actually got it for how well it was written, moon/light completely failed in that sense and I’m glad if it was a good movie for the people it was directed to but it didn’t engage beyond that target imvho but never mind that) it actually tackled very well a series of issues I never see discussed in US cinema when it comes to *racism-themed* movies and I thought it was a really well-made movie that nailed a lot of things especially when it came to how classism and racism interject themselves in the discourse and how you don’t get out of discarding one of them so easily.
specifically, with SPOILERS FROM THE MOVIE under the cut SO GO AHEAD AT WILL OR NOT:
now: all the posts ‘this is the usual movie about the white guy who gets the black friend’ already are obviously from people who haven’t seen it because they missed the basic point, as in: that the white guy is poor and uneducated and isn’t *racist* because he’s a terrible person, he is out of ignorance and not knowing any better BUT at the same time he’s not so narrow-minded that he doesn’t have fairly forward opinions on other -isms (see THAT REVEAL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE after which he goes like ‘I’ve been a bouncer in most of new york’s night clubs do you think I mind that thing’ which is a thing the audience wouldn’t have thought since italian-american men from the 50s/60s notoriously came from a fairly -PHOBIC culture in that specific sense), and that the guy being italian-american ie a *white* category that back then did not have *white privilege* put him in a lower class position than the black guy;
on the other side, it was spelled that the black guy’s issue was the contrary in the sense that he’s rich, he’s cultured, he speaks five languages, he’s not a stereotype and since people want stereotypes or expect them, he can’t seem to please either side and feels alienated from both, which I think is a discourse that should be way more relevant in a website where people talk all the time about people of color not being stereotypes and so on;
like the entire fucking point of that movie is that white guy overcomes his racism unlearning his ignorance and black guy has a few realizations about how classism works and reconnects with his heritage throughout the entire thing;
and the fact that it was the black guy explaining the white guy how to write the poetic love letters without grammar mistakes and got him to appreciate finer things in life while the white guy helped him get down to earth (which he plot-wise definitely needed - he was unhappy af before XD) *and* at the same time the movie never fucking forgot that skin color > money when it comes to systematical racism in the south (ie the scene where they get stopped by the southern policeman and white guy punches him bc he basically told him that being italian-american was being half-the-n-word and black guy tells him ‘yeah well I handled that my entire life you could deal with it once’ was FAIRLY DAMNED OBVIOUS even if it also showed that it’s Not How Things Should Go) was imvo a very good narrative choice/balancing;
also, I was really appreciating that scene where don asks tony (a guy who has no idea who orpheus is and thinks orpheus and eurydice is about orphans) to shorten his name because vallelunga is too difficult to pronounce and tony’s like ‘if the people you play for are so cultured they can learn to pronounce my name properly’ because like guys that’s a thing that happens with all non-anglophone names and seeing it come from someone who hasn’t had an education but doesn’t want to be *made better* because that doesn’t make them unworthy and then only accepts help when he wants it and doesn’t come from a position of ‘you need to look more presentable’ but from ‘I want to make your life better’ was really fucking nice excuse me, because it *did* make a point about how not being formally educated means that people are considered lesser when they shouldn’t have to fight for it, and I thought that the class-switch in there was a really great idea;
anyway nvm my specific opinions about specific scenes, the point is: green book is not heavy-handed and admittedly is a lot more sugary than BKKK and has the feel-good ending that makes it palatable for easy wins, but the content is fucking everything but sugary or devoid of discussing Serious Issues that I almost never see tackled in this kind of US movie and if people actually wanted to watch a movie that sees the subject counting that class relations exist, that some -isms are culturally learned and can be overcome, that money counts when we’re discussing how people are treated in the US, the *earned whiteness* concept (because tony is *white* but hasn’t *earned whiteness* and it’s plenty damned obvious) and that class relations are not automatically clear-cut *especially in the US* then green book is an absolutely valid choice. and like...... it wasn’t white saviorism in the sense that WHITE GUY GETS REDEEMED AND BECOMES UN-RACIST, it’s about two people growing and learning from each other and the fact that tony’s racism is tied to a) upbringing while being poor b) not literally knowing any better but that it doesn’t really take that much for him to see that his opinions are wrong when usually it’s poor black person vs rich white person, and actually that’s why I thought calling it reverse driving miss daisy was reaaaally not getting the point, so if people actually saw the damned movie before deciding it’s terrible that’d be nice;
I also think sp/ike lee was beyond rude in his, er, reactions to GB’s win, but then again... listen guys I love the man’s movies but since that time he went like ‘clint eastwood can’t make movies about charlie parker’ (??) and dismissed the italian partisans’s associations complains about what he did in miracle in st. anna (a movie I did actually really like but they were right about him villainizing the resistence when he could have not) with basically I DON’T CARE THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE ISSUES WITH HOW I, AN AMERICAN, DEPICTED A FAIRLY IMPORTANT PIECE OF ITALIAN HISTORY... like he needs to chill and to realize that there’s a thing called losing with grace and he’s not doing it.
tldr: bkkk imvo deserved to win way more and tbqh if I was spike I’d complain about bp having gotten more awards than his movie when bp really is the safest choice ever if we wanna talk about politics win, and I can agree that GB was a political choice, but it was not a bad political choice nor a racist one and actually it raised a lot of issues that I’d like to see explored more in movies because they usually aren’t. on top of that I thought mahershala ali’s performance in gb was fucking stellar and definitely was miles better than his part in moonlight (but like... bc he was in moonlight for TWENTY MINUTES, he was co-lead here) and I’m honestly baffled that when he won for moonlight there were gifsets everywhere and here there aren’t when this role was WAY better and more nuanced and with more to chew, never mind that again, he deserved it just for the speech under the rain I was discussing before. but like..... of course we’re all ignoring it??
also: I’m really laughing that tumblr as a whole is crying about GB winning when until two days ago bkkk was the worst thing ever because adam dr/iver starred in it and OMG OF COURSE HE WAS CHOSEN TO PLAY THE KKK MEMBER BECAUSE HE REALLY IS RACIST [lmao as if spike l/ee would work with a really racist person] and no one on this website gave a single fuck about it when it came out except for adam dr/iver fan blogs but now everyone is like OMG WHY DIDN’T BKKK WIN???!!!!! like guys you didn’t care about BKKK until a day ago and now I’m supposed to think you were rooting for it all along? when you all hated it because omg how dare they cast ky/lo ren in something where he’s not a bad guy? like we serious? come the fuck on, no one on here cared. and the fact that if blackpanther had won no one would say BKKK not winning = UTTERMOST CRIME just says all about how a film’s quality is judged around here. bye, I said my piece.
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ofhowls · 7 years ago
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PSA – on myself !
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hi, okay, i’ve had a good night’s sleep and in my dreams and the rest of the morning, i have reflected. and, i’m gonna be honest with all of you, my habit of giving my two cents when it isn’t needed is… stupid, to say the least. i would’ve liked to think i did more good than harm ( especially when it came to my whole slave rp crusade, which i’m realising might be the only thing of value i did for this community ) but that appears to definitely not be the case. i posted an apology for some things said about a year ago though i can’t find it now with my blogs gone. i’m also assuming it was a subpar post regardless. 
so, whether you like me or not, i still feel the need to apologise – so if you feel that some of the things i’ve said has had a negative affect on you or the community, then click below. 
i won’t bring up everything i’ve ever said because honestly, i can’t remember it all. but i will mention some things that have been mentioned last night.
i. tw pedophilia // i’m not good at words. i’m very bad at them, actually. i have a whole lot of trouble articulating my thoughts and usually, most of the time, it comes out completely wrong. i won’t defend my pov ( like i did last night ) because it is a topic i haven’t thought of in ages and an opinion i shouldn’t have stuck with without proper reconsideration. i’m always quick to defend myself, you know? but in this political climate and the way “ minor attracted people ” ( saying that with the most sarcastic of quotations ) are attempting to be apart of the lgbt community… my previous opinion on the matter is absolutely whack. sure, i think help should be offered by therapists and psychologists and all of the professionals in the world. but my previous point was maybe not crucify people with paraphilias in general areas such as tumblr and twitter and whatever. because it will keep them from getting the help needed, but most importantly, prevent any children getting hurt if they don’t. 
but that was wrong. like, completely. clearly, shaming and ridiculing and reporting is the only way to deal with those who see no wrong in their doings. my attention was always shifted towards that do and that was because of a documentary i watched sometime ago. it’s obvious the former, those who think their attraction is valid and healthy, make up the majority of these people. my point of view was skewed based on a singular source and that’s messed up. i realise now that those who know their attraction is wrong will seek help without me coddling them, and my posts would only encourage those who don’t, to be more open & proud about it. i apologise for it seeming that i was accepting pedophiles and their attraction into the community, because that was most definitely not my intention. i have no excuses for this and i will educate myself more, with recent and relevant information, before i ever try and speak on the matter again. especially on a public forum. 
ii. ableism tw // i was diagnosed with autism when i was about eighteen years old. that was very late. and up until that point, i was dealing with a tons of misinformation regarding the people on the spectrum and my own shock & confusion over the diagnosis given. and though that’s not an excuse, it’s also not the reason i said what i said. if you know me, at all, you’ll know that i’m very much obsessed with being an individual and getting a rise outta people. way more back then than now. but that’s who i am. i hopped onto a trend i deemed stupid and attacked it from every angle, not quite thinking of the implication behind the words that i said. 
i realise, later, that why i choose the autistic example might be because of my own issues with it. at the time. over the past two years, i’ve grown so much regarding my identity and i finally feel comfortable, and proud, in my own skin and with my autism. there used to be a time where i hid it and made comments on how ~ i was different ~ , somehow, and i can gladly say that’s not me anymore. i’m very sorry for what i said because i realise how hurtful that must’ve been to the rest of the community. me being autistic myself is no excuse and i know what kind of effect a commentary like that would have on others. especially those who were struggling with it like myself.
iii. every tw under the sun // i’m gonna be honest with y’all, once again my edginess came into play. my need to open my big fat mouth for no other reason other than i could. that post, especially given just how ignorant a lot of the community is on issues mentioned, myself included on some, is bad. it’s a bad take that is bad. and it’s quite possibly the stupidest thing i’ve ever written/read. i know so many writers who have refused to do research and me going up there and saying “ that’s okay, you can do what you want! ” … no. i still believe there’s freedom to write whatever you want, though – but to an extent. there’s a limit that shouldn’t be crossed and that’s the limit i attempted to bend in the post i made. at the time, i think, i felt entitled to have this opinion due to the minorities i’m myself included in. but that’s also a real bad take. i did see people’s point of views then but i think i failed to apologise once more. i’m bad at that, and it’s something i’m working on. 
anyways, to the topic at hand. we need to make people take more responsibility in this community and although i’m getting a whole bunch thrown at me at once, at the moment, i’m a bit grateful for it. i’ve realised thanks to these things being brought back up, that i didn’t apologise and i didn’t take responsibility – and i should’ve. i said things on a public platform that actively reassured people, who should not have been reassured, of their place in this community. racism, homophobia, TRANSPHOBIA, and pedophilia, are among the things that have no place here. i fought so much against the slave roleplays and their opinion on how ~ it’s writing, freedom of speech, and yadada ~ was WRONG. yet, i turned around and wrote a post like that? it was a bad, and hypocritical, take indeed. and one i thoroughly apologise for. 
vi. racism tw // once upon a time, i defended a friend’s roleplay without much knowledge other than ‘ it’s my friends, i have to ! ’ i have the lowest of iq’s, if you can’t tell. anyways. i think it was called siouxfalls, or something like that, and we found out that it was the name of a native tribe. i thought, personally as a white little bitch, that it was no big deal. who cared! ( lots of people, but i really only paid attention to the anons i got… which was… stupid ) and thus, i went out of my way to defend a friend of mine. i didn’t read the plot, i barely looked at the roleplay. i involved myself in a situation i had no clue about, and took it from there. i used a large following and a huge amount of traffic on my blog, to shit on people with genuine concern. there’s no excuse for that! i kept this up for hours, and anons swarmed to my inbox to poke fun at it, too. and i thought, hey, if anons are cool with it – that must mean i’m in the right. i wasn’t. 
there came a time where the other admin of the roleplay, the one i hardly knew, leapt to their roleplay’s defence. in their, very, long post about the matter – they mentioned that, hey, we aren’t forgetting about natives! in fact! there’s gonna be a plot drop about all of those slaughtered there! and that… was yikes. i backed out of the conversation when that happened. and that also a bad decision! i should’ve stuck around, spoken to this person i actually had access to – and 1. realised my own wrongdoings for the night, and 2. used the audience i had to correct myself and draw attention to an even bigger issue. i didn’t. i let it go, hoping no one would remember. i was in a shitty position of allowing racist subtext into the community and diminishing the concern of people of color, and i sincerely apologise. i was a 15 minute of fame whore and i didn’t bother with the feelings of others. i was, in all honesty, a garbage person. and i take full responsibility for that. 
v. no tw because this is more of a general statement // i am sure there are more specific things that i’ve done and that i’ve said, but with the sheer amount of garbage that came out of my mouth, i have trouble recalling anything significant. i would gladly accept receipts and reminders from everyone and anyone. i’m not asking you to coddle me, but i really do wish you’d help me take some responsibility. memory like a goldfish and like 5k posts of bullshit just don’t add up. anyways. since my latest ‘ jayden said something fucking stupid ’ discourse was about a year ago, i feel like i have grown. tumblr, for me, was a very bad place to be in many ways. i’m not saying the community is toxic but it was to me. i like attention and i like getting asks and i like putting my two cents out there. it created a whole bunch of issues and it gave me a bigger platform than i should’ve had. with my absence, which i’m also a bit grateful for, i spent more time on other social medias and i learned more about issues i never even began reading about on here. 
i’m not saying i’m the brightest now, either, but i’m definitely smarter. i didn’t come back to the rpc, with the exception of one or two posts, because i don’t feel like i should have an audience to barely formed opinions. and i’m not apologising now because it was all brought up but because it being brought up reminded me of damage i’d caused. i’d be an idiot to think it should be swept under the rug, because it shouldn’t! if it weren’t from the backslash of the rpc, i never would’ve second-guessed my opinions and reevaluated them, and that’s extremely important. it’s important to hold people accountable and it’s important to make sure apologies are made. i’m not asking for anyone to forgive me, because let’s be real, this was long overdue. though, i hope this has made it clear that my opinions aren’t the same as they once were and i genuinely am apologetic for damage done.
i don’t know if any of this was remotely coherent, but i hope it was? the anon feature is back on, and hopefully instead of racist commentary, it can be used for things more constructive. once again, no need to hold my hand, but if you feel like i’ve missed out on anything that should be addressed – please let me know! like i’m not the same dimwit i was a year ago. that’d be too freaking sad. anyways, once again, i apologise for what i’ve said and many lessons have been learned. believe me. 
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logancausingproblems · 4 years ago
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FAQ/Reference post
List of my opinions on subjects, may or may not be updated yearly depending on whether or not I remember this blog exists
Trans stuff:  - Don’t need dysphoria to be trans - Not gender-critical. Stop giving critisism a gender (/j) - Tucutes don’t exist, most “tucutes” are young folks trying to figure out their identities, often through makeup, dying hair, and dressing alternatively while they figure themselves out. Leave them alone. - Cis people can have gender dysphoria - ‘being trans is defined by. . .’ Gender euphoria. - Neopronouns are valid and cool - “Transwoman” is defined by people who identify as a woman. Woman is defined by how society perceives women, and how she herself perceives women. This can be in a “traditional” 50s housewife manner (because some women genuinely want to be housewives and good for them), the “Girlboss”, insert stereotype or no stereotype at all. Women are women. - Gender is a social construct and also a personal construct. If you’re cis, congrats you identify with how you percieve the gender you were assigned at birth. If you’re trans? congrats you percieve yourself as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. - Birth certificates don’t mean shit. Mine says I still have a dad on there. Things change. Race = Disclaimer, this is coming from a white person = - “White people can’t have an opinion on the struggles of POC” Correct. We can, however, listen to POC and work to dismantle racist views in ourselves - White fragility is dangerous - “Color Blindness” is dangerous - White women, disabled folk, and LGBT+ folk are primarily white above everything else, and a person of color who is disabled, a woman, or LGBT+ will face different struggles and risks due to their skin color. - Medical racism is alive and well, doctors need to learn how to identify symptoms in POC and on POC skin tones. - This isn’t really relevant but for some reason it gets brought up?? I don’t just consume content from white creators (includes music, youtube videos, movies, books, so on and so forth) - You can’t be “not racist”, everyone will be racist to some degree due to how inherent racism is in our society, even in POC. - If you aren’t actively anti-racist and unlearning the toxic things you were taught growing up, you are pro-racism. - Turning a blind eye to racism is deadly. - Sundown towns and lynchings are still active today - This is a cold ass take but slavery and indentured servitude are not the same thing - AAVE is another language - AAVE and southern slang often cross because the vast majority of black people in the united states are poor and live in the south. I was born and raised in the south and have been going to diverse schools since I was a child. If someone sees me using AAVE, please do not be afraid to call me out on it as I will not react negatively. I understand it is not my place to use it and am learning where the line is drawn. - Cracker is a slur made by rich white people aimed at poor white people. It isn’t offensive if you use it towards white people and you yourself are not white, but it is offensive coming from a rich white person at a poor white person. - Progress is not being made while white people are comfortable with race The Lesbian Discourse - I am not a lesbian. I do not have an opinion on the stuff going on with lesbians. Shoutout to y’all tho y’all are cool TERFs/Transmedicalists - Not TERF or transmed safe - This /is/ a discourse blog so I don’t have a DNI, however I do have boundaries. Start throwing around slurs and I’m not afraid to block. - Transmedicalism is inherently classist, ableist, and racist - TERF ideology is inherently classist, ableist, and racist - TERF ideology closely lines up with white supremacy and harms actual feminism - TERFs hurt more cis women than trans people - Transmedicalism is transphobic - “LGB” is transphobic and homophobic. Learn your history. The LGBT+ community owes everything to trans women of color. Religion - I am not christian, never was, but I was raised baptist. I have never aligned with their beliefs. - Christians almost always actively encourage abuse and discourage consent - Evangelicals are dangerous - Paganism is alive and well - Religion has no place in law LGBT+ General Discourse - Pansexuals are valid, and are not the same as polysexuals, omnisexuals, or bisexuals. - Agender, asexual, and aromantics are all valid and I love y’all <3 - Being aphobic almost always leads to TERF ideology - mlm can use fag (I’m mlm) and the various versions of it, just as wlw can use the d slur. Depending on the history of someone who is nb and what they currently identify as, they can use either one as well. (For example: nb lesbian using the d-slur because they have been called such before and want to reclaim it) - nonbinary people are valid and fall under the trans umbrella - binary trans folks are valid and fall under the trans umbrella - neurodiv folks will have different perceptions of gender depending on the person. I don’t know about neurotypicals but I think that goes for everyone tbh Sexism - Toxic masculinity is real and very dangerous - Sex work isn’t exclusive to women but they play a very big part in it - Sex work is real work and sex workers deserve more love and appreciation. Shoutout to y’all, ily <3 - Men can be part of the MeToo movement - Men can be SA’d and r//ped - Women can be r//pists - It is an awful problem that r//pists get away with their crimes easily - There is no “role reversal” with r//pe. There is no accountability for the r//pist either way. - Women can do anything men can do and vice versa - Women can be abusers - Men can be abusers - Toxic masculinity harms everyone, not just men - Nonbinary people can be abusers, SA, and r//pists Capitalism and whatnot - I support giving the US back to native americans - There is no ethical consumption under capitalism - The nuclear family is a biproduct of capitalism, is inherently toxic, and supports the idea women are objects - ADHD is not a “capitalism problem” and thinking so is ableist - Classism is real - Racism is linked with classism, ableism, homophobia, and is linked directly to capitalism. Without racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and xenophobia, capitalism would not work. - Communism and socialism have worked before, however misinformation about the two have been widespread and capitalist countries (AHEM the united states) have stepped in and messed things up while spreading lies about it and blaming communism or socialism.
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secretlyatargaryen · 8 years ago
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Sansa, Beauty and the Beast, Appearances, and Fairy Tales
In the midst of discourse about how Sansa “deserves” to end up with someone beautiful, I’d just like to remind y’all that beauty and the beast exists to combat specific tropes, specifically the idea that beauty=goodness, and the primary reason that this is important is because that old insidious trope stems from, inherently, ableism. And ableism is one of those isms that can be found inside almost any prejudice. Biological differences have long been used to justify sexism and racism. So now that we’ve got that out of the way...
A lot of people seem to consider Beauty and the Beast to be the fairy tale for people who don’t like fairy tales, which I get because as I said above, it’s a subversion of older tropes. But it’s still a pretty old story, and entrenched in the rules of fairy tales.
I get that some of the push back is related to the fact that BatB stories are often gendered in a specific way, and the unintentional implication is that women specifically need to learn to love ugly men, without the reverse being a requirement. And I don’t necessarily disagree, but here’s the thing. In the most common versions of the BatB story, it’s not Beauty who has to learn to look beneath the surface. She’s usually placed in that position already at the beginning of the story.
In the 1700s French version of the story, it is Beauty alone among all her father’s children who asks for the most humble gift, a single rose. Whereas his other daughters and sons ask for clothing and jewels, weapons and finery, Beauty alone is not dazzled by material possessions. Of course, we know, that because this is a fairy tale, the single rose that Beauty asks for is the most valuable of the lot, because fairy tales are about enchantment, and when something is enchanted it’s much more than it appears to be.
One of the true values in fairy tales is that they teach us to look deeper, that things aren’t always what they seem to be. The apple is poisoned, the beast is really a prince, what we thought was real and valuable was really nothing but ashes.
In the Disney version of BatB, Belle sings a whole damn song at the beginning of the movie about how she wants more out of life than what is presented to her. She rejects the physically handsome yet internally hideous Gaston. Her favorite story is about a prince who doesn’t appear to be a prince. She is very quick to pick up on the fact that the Beast’s castle is enchanted, and its inhabitants are not what they seem. Because she is a fairy tale heroine, she knows the rules of the story.
Sansa, too, knows these rules. Her favorite tale is Florian and Jonquil, which is, inherently, a story about looking beyond appearances. This is why she’s able to look kindly upon Sandor and Tyrion, despite being entrenched in society’s rules about knights and ladies.
Not to say that Sansa is entirely free from society’s judgements. She is frightened of Sandor’s disfigurement and has ableist thoughts about Tyrion, but she’s also able to extend empathy to them where others are not. I would argue that the story here is not about throwing out the fairy tales and learning a lesson about her own shallowness, I think the lesson she is learning is about how society is shallow and learning to parse what is real and what is merely an illusion, learning to use her own judgements, which is what fairy tale heroines do.
The silence went on and on, so long that she began to grow afraid once more, but she was afraid for him now, not for herself. She found his massive shoulder with her hand. "He was no true knight," she whispered to him.  
She’ll have to use this logic when she contends with Petyr Baelish as well. She already knows that Baelish is more than he appears to be, but he’s the opposite of a fairy tale prince in disguise. Petyr Baelish is harmless and charismatic, but Littlefinger is the monster hiding beneath the surface, and Sansa is already struggling with this dichotomy:
...and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle . . . but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she'd known at King's Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei's ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as his little finger for her.   
Except to get me out. He did that for me. I thought it was Ser Dontos, my poor old drunken Florian, but it was Petyr all the while. Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go.
There’s a lot going on in this passage and a lot of it makes explicit reference to BatB and fairytales and the hypocrisy of chivalry. Sansa contrasts LF with Tyrion and Sandor, who are very obvious “Beast” figures, and Dontos who she likens to Florian - the true knight who appears to be a fool, and Garlan Tyrell, who is another yet less obvious “Beast” figure.
Perhaps she ought to have remained beside her husband, but she wanted to dance so badly . . . and Ser Garlan was brother to Margaery, to Willas, to her Knight of Flowers. "I see why they name you Garlan the Gallant, ser," she said, as she took his hand.  
"My lady is gracious to say so. My brother Willas gave me that name, as it happens. To protect me."
"To protect you?" She gave him a puzzled look.   
Ser Garlan laughed. "I was a plump little boy, I fear, and we do have an uncle called Garth the Gross. So Willas struck first, though not before threatening me with Garlan the Greensick, Garlan the Galling, and Garlan the Gargoyle."  
Everywhere Sansa turns this imagery is in her story. I think it’s significant that this story about Garlan appears in the context that it does, after Sansa leaves her disabled husband at the table in favor of someone she associated with “her Knight of Flowers”, someone who for her represents all the beauty she is attracted to in King’s Landing, only to find out that her Gallant knight is another beast in disguise. (Note that I am not saying it is wrong for Sansa to “not remain beside her husband” as she thinks, because she is under no obligation to someone she has been forced to marry. And it’s Tyrion who rejects her offer to dance, not Sansa who rejects him, because Tyrion is embarrassed by the whole scenario and is afraid of being mocked for his disability. This marriage makes me so sad, y’all. I just think it’s significant that this conversation with Garlan is framed this way. Also note that Tyrion is called a “gargoyle” by Cersei in the same chapter.)
(This also brings me to another point about BatB, which is that it’s usually the beast who has to learn not to judge by appearances. This is specifically stated in the Disney version and in both Sansa’s interactions with Sandor and Tyrion, both of whom are highly insecure about their appearance.)
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loudlytransparenttrash · 8 years ago
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This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 17
UC-Berkeley students protested their own exam and demanded a "take-home essay with significant time to prepare" in its place. “Our well-beings are being put on the line because of the emotional, mental, and physical stress that this university is compounding with what is already going on in our everyday lives,” the student protestors cry. They go on to claim that their professor is unqualified to teach because he’s a white man, and after nearly four minutes of non-stop bitching, one student said he just wanted to take his exam, which got him named a “white boy with privilege” by the protestors. Just as the group was leaving, one stayed behind to tell off the rest of the class, “I don’t know why you’re still, like, sitting down. I really don’t understand. Y’all can take your fucking test, but people are dying out there. Y’all can take your test, but this university is protecting white supremacists, and y’all are protecting them too.” 
Stevens Institute of Technology students are demanding that the school completely rename a building named after Republican Greg Gianforte, who paid for the academic center to be built. The school agreed to change its name to highlight Gianforte’s wife and parents although the students want his surname removed from the building completely. The students are hoping to raise $20 million, the same amount donated by Gianforte, to buy out the building and rename it themselves, however, the students have only raised about $1,500.
The University of Wisconsin, Madison students are demanding for a disclaimer to be added on an Abraham Lincoln statue accusing him of genocide. Katrina Morrison, chair of the Associated Students of Madison, said that while she appreciates “Lincoln’s role in creating land-grant institutions,” she supports a plaque on his statue to recognize what she called “his brutality towards indigenous people.” “We want a plaque because we want the university to recognize his part in the massacre and killing of innocent people.” Mariah Skenandore, co-president of an indigenous student organization, likewise supported the measure, saying the university doesn’t “acknowledge the impact that it is having on their students” by not having the plaque in place. 
Seattle University's law school withdrew its sponsorship of a debate over illegal immigration in fear exposing students to “painful” conservative viewpoints. The goal of the debate was to examine and talk about DACA. More than 200 students signed a petition demanding that the school not host the event, calling it “hateful xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric“ and both “harmful and unsafe” for the school’s undocumented students. Following the petition, law school dean Annette Clark announced that the institution would no longer sponsor the debate as part of its “Social Justice” duties. 
University of Oregon students forcefully disrupted a speech by the school’s president as he attempted to outline how the school plans to put a massive $50 million donation to use. He was prevented from coming onto the stage by students shouting chants such as “Nothing about us without us!” and cries of fascism and Nazis. President Michael Schill was instead forced to stay in his office and make a video announcement to the students, where he promised the money would help fund a new Black Cultural Center, which includes tutoring and support staff for black students.   
A University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor told her class that Trump may have played a role in encouraging the mass shooting days earlier. Tess Winkelmann was captured on video telling her students that Trump has only encouraged violence since being president and violence is a consequence to his words. Winkelmann boasts about her early warnings that Trump was going to end up getting people killed, “When he got elected, I told my classes three semesters ago, some of us won’t be affected by this presidency, but others are going to die. Other people will die because of this.” She also accused Trump of white nationalism and “threatening nuclear violence against North Korea.” 
Two Mount Allison University professors wrote an article arguing that white students from Western countries need to take workshops to confront their "white fragility" and “white privilege” before going on study abroad trips. If students fail to critically reflect upon their fragility, the professors warn that they risk perpetuating “harmful outcomes” to these countries and could possibly “overlook and perpetuate racism.” To fight this, they recommend robust “pre-departure programming and preparation” for white students. Though the professors warn that this training may not be enough to fully address students’ white fragility. “The antidote to white fragility is on-going and life-long, and includes sustained engagement, humility, and education,” they conclude.
A Pennsylvania State University-Brandywine professor criticized her students for believing in “whiteness ideology” which includes acknowledging “if I work hard, I can be successful” and that “everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve success.” Angela Putman designed a comprehensive three-day seminar on “white privilege” for her students, and became concerned when she realized most students have been “socialized to believe that we get to where we are through our own individual efforts.” Instead, she claims, our fate is decided by “racism and whiteness functioning in various contexts, the powerful influence of systems and institutions, and the pervasiveness of whiteness ideologies within the United States.” Once students “learn more,” Putman hopes that they will “resist perpetuating and reifying whiteness through their own discourse and interactions,” and learn to fight “manifestations of racism and whiteness within U.S. institutions and systems.”
Members of the Black Student Union at the University of Vermont forced their way in to the president's office this week to present a set of demands. In addition to "mandatory diversity training" for all faculty and frat/sorority members, the students also demand increased funding for non-whites and expulsion of students who commit "hate crimes" such as removing a BLM flag. The ultimatum concludes by demanding the administration renames an on-campus building named after George Perkins, an environmentalist who served in the Abraham Lincoln Administration. “If the University of Vermont is truly ashamed of its disgustingly racist history, then the name of this building needs to be changed.” The group was originally told that University President Tom Sullivan was unavailable, but they took it upon themselves to barge their way in.
A group of professors recently warned college administrators that “diversity educators” risk “burnout and fatigue” from “the emotional weight” of their jobs. Seven diversity educators from a “predominantly white research institutions” were interviewed, and they found that many of the subjects described suffering from “burnout” and “racial battle fatigue” from their microaggression prevention efforts. This burnout is caused by diversity educators’ “consistent exposure to various microaggressions,” noting that microaggressions can be described “as forms of assault and torture.”
UC Riverside student Edith Macias became hysterically outraged when she saw a male student wearing a MAGA hat. She abused him and stole his hat, saying it represents genocide and “freedom of speech is genocide, homeboy.” The butch Mexican goes on to say that stealing his property is no big deal because the student’s ancestors stole land, later calling him a white boy. Liberal students rallied around Macias and defended her actions to take the MAGA hat, which they say represents “a violent white supremacist regime.” They also demand UC administration to “pay for alternate housing accommodations for Macias while simultaneously covering her current housing costs” and “grant Macias amnesty and protection from any student or legal charges.” The students go on to demand for the school to release a statement against “white supremacist violence,” as well as one in support of sanctuary campuses. 
California State University, Long Beach is looking for a new professor to teach classes on “gender variant theories.” The new hire will be asked to develop courses on topics such as queering gender, queer studies, feminist transnationalism, trans feminism, transmigration, and gender variant theories. Notably, the Women’s Studies Department which invents these bizarre courses, also offers a variety of other feminist courses, including one on “the social construction of masculinity” another titled “lesbian histories” and a class on “queer spirit.” 
Swarthmore Indigenous Students Association burned the American flag and issued a set of demands, including the removal of the flag from campus. The demands called on Swarthmore College to “admit and recruit native students” and for the school to create a fund to pay for flights “to and from home” for all students who are unable to afford travel expenses. The demands were made public at one of their flag-burning events. “We burn the American flag not just for ourselves, but for our ancestors who died because of that flag. We burn it for our indigenous siblings across the globe and for all of the people across the globe exploited by the United States and other Western imperialist states. We burn this flag because we want you to know it’s not just you who is angry and fighting against this oppressive apparatus, we are too.” 
A University of Connecticut professor is calling for a “more expansive inclusion of feminism” by colleges to help female students recognize the oppression they face. Cristina Mogro-Wilson surveyed over 100 female students and found that the overwhelming majority of them do not believe that “discrimination and subordination” are issues in women’s lives. The findings were deeply problematic, she contends, because without a sense of their own oppression, female students may be disinclined to protest in order to “create change.” Worrying about the potential of a “post-feminist standpoint among younger women who no longer see discrimination against women as being a salient issue,” Mogro-Wilson calls for even more feminism and intersectionality into the school’s curriculum. It’s really sad to watch old feminists beating a dead horse, desperately trying to keep their paychecks coming in. 
Another feminist professor joined the dead horse flogging, saying more feminism needs to be taught to female students in response to their "waning attention to feminist concerns.” Katherine Cruger from Chatham University says she has noticed students “wary to acknowledge that they could be suffering at the hands of an imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.” We’ve heard of “race fatigue,” now Cruger cites “feminist fatigue” as a possible reason why female students aren’t bothered by their so-called oppression. Cruger says she was disturbed when one female student said she is “sick to death of feminism.” To combat this dissidence, she encourages students to learn how to better appreciate feminist activism through more extensive teachings of feminism in the classroom, noting that without this activism, “we will be stuck in a heteronormative, racist society that never grows.”
Two Seattle Pacific University professors argue that it is necessary to redefine science in order to combat "white male privilege," which they believe is the primary reason that more men are interested in and excel in STEM fields. According to the pair, professors must work to "disrupt privilege" in their classrooms by de-emphasizing "male-socialized traits such as independence, competition, and individual victories." The professors also assert that science has been used as a tool of racial oppression, complaining about “science disproportionately advantaging white people.” To combat this, they call upon fellow professors, especially those who are white males, to “disrupt privilege” in their classrooms by “recognizing their own privilege” and coming to see themselves as “agents of change who can contribute to the disruption of systems of unfair advantage."
The University of Missouri released a set of guidelines on how to host inclusive events, asking students to consider having “a counselor present” for “potentially triggering” events - their words, not mine. The guidelines lists dozens of questions students should ask themselves during the planning stages, including, “If my event is potentially triggering, do I have a counselor present?” and “do I need to create a ‘safe space’ for this event?” Another series of questions warns students making advertisements for their event to be “conscious of colors and how they can be exclusionary or stereotypical” while considering the language used on advertisements as it “can potentially be biased.” Another set of questions focuses on the “decorations” used at events, which students should assure “aren’t culturally appropriative or misrepresenting to other cultures” by “doing my research on a culture I am attempting to appreciate.”
The president of Albion College says that it is “appropriate” for people of privilege to feel “uncomfortable.” President Mauri Ditzler made the remark during a meeting with a conservative student who was harassed and abused by protestors after he made talking points derived from Ben Shapiro quotes. Ditzler came out in solidarity with the protesters, lecturing the conservative student about how he was “only made to feel uncomfortable for a day,” while “many of those demonstrating feel uncomfortable every day.” He goes on to say that while the violent protestors made him feel uncomfortable himself, this discomfort was actually “an example of his own privilege.” 
A group of protestors shut down a discussion on “civil discussion” (the irony) at the University of California, Los Angeles, forcing the event to be relocated. The video shows one female shouting, “We need to actually organize ourselves to create a political crisis to get this fascist regime from power,” claiming the “country was founded on genocide and slavery” and “was never fucking great.” “We can’t normalize fascism,” she proceeded to scream, leading audience members to stand and raise a fist with her in protest... “Stand up because this is what the good Germans were facing. This is what the people in Nazi Germany were facing,” she declared as another protester joined in, eventually leading the unoriginal chant of “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!” As the auditorium emptied, protesters repeatedly shouted “November 4, it begins. Trump and Pence must go!” referencing Antifa’s planned uprising on this date where they intend to create havoc “day and night” until Trump resigns...
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County Women’s Lacrosse team has been labelled “racist” and “ignorant” after the team’s twitter account liked a tweet by President Trump which he wrote about honoring the American flag which men and women have fought and died for. UMBC’s Black Student Union noticed the Women’s Lacrosse team’s twitter account's grave wrongdoing, telling them, “You’re welcome to come to a meeting and voice your ignorance and blatant disregard for students within your campus let alone your own team. If you are going to be racist please come correct.” The women’s team twitter account was later entirely deleted after other black students jumped on the bandwagon of calling them racists. 
Brown University students voted to end the purchase of feminine hygiene products from the company “Tampon Tribe,” due to cultural appropriation. They claim that the company “affected them really deeply” due to both “the name and some of the branding as well.” One student organizer said she “had concerns about Tampon Tribe’s name over the summer when they first considered using the company,” but pushed on after gaining assurance the company had “Afro-diasporic and indigenous identities” as leaders. Fatal mistake. They soon realized that it was still cultural appropriation to buy these tampons, so they stopped purchasing them immediately. 
A University of Southern California professor argues that condemning protesters who disrupt and shut down conservative speakers can reinforce “white supremacy.” Charles Davis believes because the protesters are disproportionately “students of color” or “students representing other marginalized groups,” any attempt to stop protestors from shutting down these events, it’s actually the protestors who are made to feel unsafe. Davis says these protesters are simply people who “use disruptive tactics to shut down hate speech and engaged in resistance against white supremacy.” Instead of criticizing the protesters, Davis encourages to “spend substantive time listening to their concerns” as they’re justified because “colleges have exacerbated racial issues by allowing the presence of white supremacy on-campus.”
A pair of student groups at Kent State University, including one named WOKE (World Of Kolored Empowerment... I’m not even kidding), staged a protest where they all stood in a circle, and then took a knee. According to the group’s flyer, the students took a knee for “the Dreamers, the brutalized by the authority, the ones who have been under and misrepresented” and “the oppressed who don’t believe that a change will come." One student who attended the demonstration said he felt it was his “duty as someone who has privilege to express my voice," while another had tears streaming down her face as she held a sign to protest against the hurricanes in Puerto Rico.
Another group of students at Cornell University took a knee against white supremacy and whatever else they were displeased with when they woke up. While the kneeling only lasted two minutes, the rally was filled with speeches covering topics of white supremacy, racism, and privilege. “Our society is steeped in white supremacy. Why should we expect Cornell, an enterprise built on stolen land, to be any different?” Professor Russell Rickford said during his speech to the crowd of students. He went on to show his communist ties, saying the school is a white supremacy because it supports “hierarchies of privilege, upon which global capitalism rests.” He later led chants of “free Palestine!” which the student drones eerily repeated collectively. 
Students at Reed College are protesting a required humanities class for freshmen that focuses on texts from the great thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome, saying that “students taking Western Civilization courses is harmful” because “the course in its current iteration draws from predominantly white authors.” Remember this is a course on ancient Greece... The protest group claims the class should be “reformed to represent people of color” in a list of 25 demands, which also includes “anti-oppression workshops, scholarships for black students, paid positions for black students and the hiring of more black faculty.” The protestors stormed the class and overtook the stage, while giving the class a lecture of their own and vowing to hold silent protests during every lecture. The student activists also brought in mental healthcare advocates for students who have reported having “panic attacks” due to the course material.
Two feminists at Columbia University are campaigning for the class presidency by promising free “Lego, bubble-wrap, and Play-Doh” to classmates. “Do you want Legos, Bubble Wrap, and Play-Doh?” asks their campaign flyer, which is posted around campus. “If so, vote for the STEMinists” - the name the feminist duo, Michael and Riya, have given themselves. If elected, the pair hopes to sponsor events focused on women’s empowerment, but they’re also set on showing students that school is fun! “We would do events to destress. For example, we'd create a Lego area and it'll be fun. One of the activities we also plan on doing is giving out free Bubble Wrap.” 
A bulletin board at Kent State University residence hall is urging students to “stop cultural appropriation this Halloween” by eschewing costumes based on other cultures. According to the display, cultural appropriation occurs whenever somebody “adopts aspects of a culture that’s not their own," particularly if the person is part of a "dominant culture," which yes, is just another way to say white people. Towson University announced that is has joined “Ohio University and universities across the country in reminding our community this Halloween that ‘we’re a culture, not a costume.’” DePauw University also publicized the campaign, telling students that “stereotypes hurt.” Similarly, Central Michigan University announced plans to host an October 25 event dedicated to ending stereotypical costumes in a recent Facebook post, encouraging students to “Get involved and take a stance against the appropriation of costumes.” 
A professor at the University of Illinois has become highly concerned that algebra and geometry perpetuate “unearned white privilege” because “terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi” give the impression that math “was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.” She also worries that teaching more advanced math can perpetuate discrimination against minorities, especially when they do worse than their white counterparts. “On many levels, mathematics itself operates as whiteness. There are so many minorities who have experienced microaggressions from participating in math classrooms, where people are judged by whether they can reason abstractly,” the professor states. She also wonders why math professors get more research grants than gender and women’s professors.
A teaching assistant at the University of Pennsylvania admitted to intentionally ignoring white male students and will only call on them if she has to during class discussions. “I will always call on black women students first. Other POC get second tier priority. White women come next. And if I have to, white men.” Close your eyes and think of the most stereotypical man-hating, smug feminist with a man’s haircut and you’ve just pictured Stephanie McKellop. She was not happy when the school issued a statement condemning her blatant classroom bias, saying, “I had the cute idea that Penn could defend me against Nazis.” No love, Penn has an obligation to defend its students against sleazeballs like you. 
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blakelywintersfield · 6 years ago
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The last part is something tumblr -- and a good amount of the internet -- tends to get wrong. I see people ragging on people (both dead and alive) for the stupid shit they’ve done and completely ignored them having apologized, learned, and made efforts to right their wrongs and make a conscious effort to be better. And it grates on my ever-loving last goddamn nerve.
There’s a difference between someone who fucks up, apologizes, then does the same thing again months later (I can name a few people but I’ll abstain, I’m not here to get involved in obnoxious fandom discourse), and those that (1) acknowledge they were wrong, (2) make a public apology that they were wrong without making excuses for themselves, (3) putting in efforts to make amends to those impacted by their ignorant actions, and (4) continue to make efforts to help those wronged by the actions of others that are similar to the person’s own original mistake.
I.e. John makes a sexist comment about women. People tell John what he said was sexist. He (1) acknowledges what he said was sexist, (2) makes a public apology stating he was sexist and that it was wrong, (3) makes efforts to learn about sexist behaviors taught to cis men and unlearn those behaviors, and (4) talks to other cis men about sexist behavior and teaches them about it. This differs from Kyle who makes a sexist comment, gets called out on it, says “sorry”, then makes another shitty sexist remark a week later. People love to assume that anyone making a mistake is going to be a Kyle when a lot of people out there are a John.
When y’all justify your hate of someone over something they did, completely ignoring their efforts to fix their shit and abstaining from that shitty behavior from thenceforth, you don’t nurture personal growth and responsibility -- you instead enable the idea that “Well I was shitty and always will be shitty, so why put in the effort to not be shitty?” You have to fucking accept that no one is born fucking perfect and that people are going to make mistakes. And you have to keep in mind the society and time period they come from -- that doesn’t mean excuse their shitty behaviors and actions, but for fuck’s sake, have a sense of context when judging their past and their growth. Someone living in 1920s Midwest U.S. would’ve seen racism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia as absolutely normal. Now, were there people that knew it was wrong back in that day? Yes! Does that mean that someone alive today born in that time should know by now it’s wrong? Yes! But should we shame them for their past bigotry if they’ve made the conscious effort to change and grow and isn’t a fucking crusty bigot now? No! Fucking no!! Otherwise, every last one of us would have to live in the shame corner for doing something shitty!!!
I’m not asking people who’ve been impacted by a person’s action specifically to forgive the person who did them wrong -- as in my example above, I wouldn’t expect women to automatically forgive and trust John. But people not impacted by that action need to tone it the fuck down, especially if the persons affected have stated: “hey I forgive this person and have no qualms with them”. Y’all fucking gutting people who’ve already been forgiven because you think you’re being a good ally are damaging things further -- people. make. mistakes. And if we continue to vilify those that genuinely wish to better themselves, we completely halt the process of accountability and self-betterment.
At some point you need to fucking ask, “Am I hating this person because they genuinely don’t care, or am I trying to make myself look better?” And newsflash: if it’s the latter, then you need to work on some shit.
Saying “I was wrong, I’m sorry, I’m learning, please forgive me and show me” is not the end of the world. It hurts, but not more than the pain of staying ignorant in your ego. I also hope we can make space for people who admit they’re wrong and apologize and ask to be further schooled.
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hoaxzine · 8 years ago
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HOAX #13:  FEMINISMS & SPACES IS NOW FOR SALE
+ What is Hoax? Hoax is a US annual queer feminist compilation zine that aims to create a space where we can voice our own truths. Each issue has a theme in tandem with feminisms. Contributors do not have to identify with a particular gender and/or as feminists in order to submit work to the zine. You can learn more about Hoax via links about our Mission Statement, Core Values, and Shared Goals, General Hoax FAQs, Submission FAQs, and Stipends for Submissions.
Essays in this Issue:
An exploratory essay by a queer teacher about whether or not classrooms can be considered safe spaces
A call to action to counteract dominant activist discourse that permits activists with privilege to police marginalized activists on the basis of not participating in activism "correctly"
A short essay about minority feminist art spaces in the second and third wave, essentially arguing for people to not rely on tokenism
An essay about the author’s struggle to negotiate his identity as a femme queer trans man online, including his attempts to pass as cis online while being out as trans in real life
Using relationship anarchy and anarchist approaches to commitment to (re)frame messed-up family relationships in terms of in/accessibility
A creative nonfiction meditation on systemic racism, white supremacist normativity, and American society's conditioned, unconscious justification for the continuous injustices of heterosexual white men and how, historically, their heinous actions have always gone unquestioned
A personal essay describing a young woman's experience getting an IUD (intrauterine device) after the most recent presidential election for fear that affordable healthcare could be eliminated
A discussion of the ways in which the queer community can be unwelcoming to those whose identities don't fit the mainstream queer narratives
Experiences working in a domestic violence shelter and how its nonprofit infrastructure made the author’s work harder and exasperated their caregiver burnout
Identifying the need and subsequently carving space for oneself as a non-binary transgender feminist
An ode to the author’s city and an understanding of how white supremacy has historically and continues to shape the city’s politics, community, and culture
A short narrative on reclaiming physical space
The closet metaphor is both too singular a metaphor for how the author segment their queerness online, and also inaccurate given the author's use of trash bags for storing clothes
Tracing the origins of Canadian queer zine culture
Establishing distance from difficult memories, and the allegory of clocks as instruments of timekeeping  
A critique of academic spaces that addresses the importance of integrating anti-oppressive strategies into research methodology
Orthodox Jewish and Native American menstrual rituals in America and how ritual seclusion can be perceived as empowering and used as a way to affirm identity and difference
Distancing oneself from hostile environments, including a parent, the nonprofit industrial complex, and white feminism as manifested through the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, as a form of reclaiming agency and considering possibilities for a whole self
Told in second person, an experimental creative non-fiction piece on recovering from psychosis and depression
An examination of how the colloquialisms dispatched and the postures held by heteronormative society affect one's personal growth
This issue also includes poetry, a comic, feminists we love, current feminist heroes, and a vegan/gf recipe for Red Lentil and Collards Soup! The zine is ½ size, black & white, 80 pages, printed in English, and very text heavy.
+ Note about Triggering Content: We are circulating the above descriptive list in an effort to reveal the content and chronological order of this issue, thus creating the opportunity for readers to judge on a personal basis as to which essays could be potentially triggering or uncomfortable to them. We have chosen not to place trigger warnings on specific pieces in Hoax because we recognize that triggers are unique and highly personal. We believe that it is impossible to discern what content has the potential to be upsetting and/or triggering to every one of our readers, and we do not want to inadvertently create a hierarchy of what material is “intense” or “real” enough to warrant a warning. Please contact us if you have suggestions as to how to better incorporate trigger warnings into future issues of Hoax.
+ Note about Pricing and Stipends: This issue costs US$3.50. All of the money procured for Hoax goes right back into this not-for-profit project. As mentioned above, pre-sales are vital for ensuring that we are able to give adequate stipends to our contributors. What we are able to offer for compensation will depend on the amount of revenue from sales and pre-sales. Although we cannot afford to pay very much (probably just enough to purchase a few zines), we hope that offering a stipend, however small, will ensure that our contributors of the present and future know that their submissions are valued and appreciated.
You can order via our Etsy shop (for PayPal payments, where you can also find back issues on mythologies, vulnerabilities, embodiments, strategy, and healing as well as some Hoax pins and many of our personal zines) or, if you prefer well hidden US cash via snail mail, you can e-mail us at hoaxzine (at) gmail (dot) com to find out where to send it. If you are interested in potentially becoming a contributor to Hoax, please check out our call for submissions for Hoax #14: Feminisms & Boundaries, which is accepting submissions until May 31st, 2017 (deadline is flexible)!
+ Note about Mailing: We will be mailing out issues on a first-come, first-serve basis as soon as possible, optimally starting on Monday March 27th – but our ability to purchase necessary printing / mailing supplies and send copies out depends on when we will sell enough zines to afford to get everything in the mail. As always, feel free to send us an email if you have any questions about the status of your order.
+ Note about Not Listing Contributors’ Names: We have included a screenshot of the Table of Contents above to safeguard our contributors from “being Googleable” while providing credit and transparency as to who collaborated on this issue. Content that is consented to appear in print is not automatically consented to appear online and respect for our contributors’ comfort, safety, and privacy is also one of many reasons why circulated issues of Hoax are only found in hard copy form.
+ Other Ways to Support this Project: We’d love for you to submit content to future issues of the zine, come to an assembly party (upcoming in Baltimore!), write a review about Hoax, recommend it to your friends and favorite zine distros, and/or donate money to overall Hoax operations via PayPal (our account is hoaxzine at gmail dot com).
Please reblog to spread the word! Happy reading, y’all!
With care,
sari (Editor) & rachel (Editorial Assistant)
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sarah-cam · 6 years ago
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@killeesi-is-dead
first of all, calling dany a tyrant or fascist while stanning cersei is laughable. second of all, making dany out to be the ultimate villain when there are literal ICE MONSTER ZOMBIES is laughable. third of all, i can guarantee no one asked you to “preach it to those who do not comprehend”; no one wants or needs to hear your opinion, just let people live their damn lives. fourth, the show made her the villain in exactly 1.5 episodes and the books have literally not done it all so… sure, jan. and finally, nowhere have i or any dany stan claimed that sansa is/was a villain. book!sansa is literally nothing like show!sansa as of now and while i think show!sansa is not a good person, is a manipulative, backstabbing, selfish, entitled, mini-cersei, i’ve never called her a villain.
and just because y’all are clearly incompetent at basic comprehension skills, here’s a little summary of why daenerys is not a tyrant, fascist or villain:
“A tyrant is an absolute ruler unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped legitimate sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their position by oppressive means.”
“Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.” One of the best definitions of fascism is by Umberto Eco: “It is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. The fourteen properties are as follows: ‘The Cult of Tradition’, characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by Tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement; ‘The Rejection of modernism’, which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity; ‘The Cult of Action for Action's Sake’, which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science; ‘Disagreement Is Treason’, devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith; ‘Fear of Difference’, which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants; ‘Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class’, fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups; ‘Obsession with a Plot’ and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society; ‘Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy’ because ‘Life is Permanent Warfare’, there must always be an enemy to fight; ‘Contempt for the Weak’, which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group; ‘Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero’, which leads to the embrace of a cult of death; ‘Machismo’, which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere, both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality; ‘Selective Populism’, The People, conceived monolithically, have a Common Will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the Leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he dictates it); ‘Newspeak’, employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.”
“A villain is an evil fictional character, a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime.”
let’s start with tyrant: daenerys is NOT a tyrant. she is NOT an absolute ruler unrestrained by law. dany is a queen, yes, in a world where there are only kings/queens as rulers aka she is the same kind of ruler as every other ruler in the context of this world. the difference between dany and every other ruler? she has advisors who she actually listens to (tyrion, varys, jorah, daario, olenna, ellaria). dany actually listens to the people she is ruling, letting them come to her with basic, petty complaints and genuinely listening/thinking of ways to help them. she even institutes a council of elected rulers, allowing the people to choose for themselves who makes the every day decisions. she also does not go around doing what she wants, unrestrained by law: she takes their laws and customs very seriously, while still adhering to her beliefs against slavery. how, pray tell, can she adhere to their laws when their laws defend and allow slavery? she can’t. these people are evil — i don’t understand how you can defend them. dany is in the right, there is no question about it. i don’t care if it’s their “customs”, oppression and slavery are also the customs of parts of the world today, and guess what? it’s fucking wrong and the people actively trying to change it are the heroes. slavery was the “custom” in america for how long — and guess what? lincoln is considered a hero for abolishing it, not a “tyrant”. and while daenerys HAS usurped a legitimate sovereignty by taking mereen, astapor, etc., she is in the right as she is liberating slaves. full stop. 
daenerys is NOT cruel and does NOT defend her position through oppressive means. cruelty is “pleasure in inflicting suffering or inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available”. daenerys doesn't feel pleasure when she needs to resort to violence, even though she could rightfully feel it when killing actual rapists and slavers that deserve to die. she is literally the opposite of cruel, as she takes direct action to remedy another’s suffering — i.e. freeing the slaves and refusing to just leave them to suffer when given the opportunity to go to westeros. she also does whatever she can to limit the further suffering of the women at the hands of the dothraki because she wants to do something to try and help them, even though they’ve already been victimized — which was not her fault and was completely out of her control because guess what? she was also a victim of the dothraki and had absolutely no power. and what little power she got, she immediately used to try and help people. oppression is “unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate group”. she is, again, literally the opposite of an oppressive ruler. she is actively liberating the oppressed and giving them a voice. am i supposed to feel sorry that now these rapists and slavers are being “oppressed”? wow, those poor babies. how will they ever go on!!!
next, let’s tackle fascism: if you want to claim dany is a fascist ruler simply because she is an inspiring and charismatic leader like hitler, you’re an idiot. wanna know who is also an inspiring and charismatic leader? robb stark. jon snow. are they like hitler? NO. and neither is dany. let’s start with tyrion’s oh-so-ridiculous speech about eViL mEn:
When she murdered the slavers of Astapor, I’m sure no one but the slavers complained. After all, they were evil men. When she crucified hundreds of Meereenese nobles, who could argue? They were evil men. The Dothraki khals she burned alive? They would have done worse to her.
this speech echoes Martin Niemoller’s “First they came…”
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
but there is one big problem here. SLAVERS AND RAPISTS ARE NOT SOCIALISTS. why in the ever-loving-fuck am i supposed to feel sorry for slavers and rapists? are you smoking fucking crack?
based on the definition i gave above by Umberto Eco, (summarized greatly by this article where i take some points from), fascism “lionizes tradition, rejects modernism, rejects analysis, and stokes fear of difference and outsiders. it’s elitist and populist at the same time, and cultivates a tradition of machismo, heroism, and xenophobia.” 
guess who matches this definition? the northerners.
(i don’t agree with everything said in this article but again, there are very good points)
“Dany, though, is explicitly non-fascist in that she overturns traditions (like slavery, or women not being able to lead Dothraki) and instead of cultivating a strong fear of outsiders, seeks to put together a diverse coalition of followers… When she encountered opposition she invited them to bend the knee and join her. Instead of creating a romanticized, reactionary cult of heroism around the identity of her followers, the Khaleesi courted universalism.”
“The Khaleesi’s forces are multinational and multiethnic. The Dothraki aren’t Asian (this is a fantasy world, there is no Asia) but they’re obviously based on the real-world Mongol Empire. The Unsullied aren’t African (there is no Africa in this world) but they’re played by Black actors and are former slaves. Their race, culture, and status vis a vis Westeros still matters in the context of the fictional world. In Westeros they are still foreign and still other.”
“By suggesting that Dany is some kind of Fantasy Hitler, and showing Grey Worm as a ruthless executioner, Game of Thrones implies that women, people of color, former slaves, former peasants, and other members of dispossessed classes are just as likely to commit genocide as people with power are. It made the destruction of Cersei’s regime (which everyone should have been happy about) into an opportunity to tell us that rich white people can be victims, too.”
“But, by comparing Dany to Hitler, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss not only betrayed Dany’s character, they did it while playing on cheap fears of women and people of color. They said, essentially, ‘What if the worst crimes of white people, but with Asians and Blacks, and led by a woman?’ This isn’t to say that women or people of color can’t be villains. Cersei Lannister and Erik Killmonger prove otherwise. But, making the Khaleesi, Dothraki, and Unsullied into villains whose symbolism merely mirrors the white men have been villains (and fascism has historically been a white guy project) reduces and flattens those characters by robbing them of their identity.”
excuse me while i bathe in the tears of white slave-apologists!!!
(also, yes, i am white — if any poc thinks i have this wrong, feel free to let me know)
lastly, let’s tackle the idea that daenerys is a villain: daenerys is NOT cruelly malicious. i believe i already went over how dany isn’t cruel, but she is also not malicious. malicious is “characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm”. again, dany is not intending to do harm in any of her actions — she is doing the opposite!! every action is towards her goal of ending slavery and stopping the harm of innocents. yes, some of her actions cause harm but they cause harm to RAPISTS AND SLAVERS. every character in the entire damn universe causes harm to someone, the difference is the intent. dany’s intent is never malicious in the fact that she never enjoys it and she always sees it as a necessary action to achieve her end goal: protecting innocents. she is NOT involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime. barring the last 1.5 episodes of the show, which most fans don’t even consider canon along with the rest of season 8 because of how ooc literally every character was written, dany never ever ever ever ever harms innocents. ever!!!!!!! end of story!!!!!!!!!!
i don't know why it's such a hard concept to come to terms with lol
sansa stans trying to present daenerys as the ultimate villain of asoiaf/got:
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junker-town · 8 years ago
Text
Stephen Curry deserved more from the NBA
The league and the Warriors should learn a lesson from how individual players defended Curry and the Warriors.
On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that Stephen Curry had been disinvited from the White House over criticisms the two-time NBA MVP had levied a day prior. This sparked a day of reaction from various corners of the basketball world.
Meanwhile, the President’s harsh criticisms of NFL players protesting police brutality and racial inequality — including calls for them to be suspended or fired — set up a large-scale Black Athletes vs. Trump narrative for the weekend.
What’s most notable about the vast NBA reaction to the President’s attack on Curry is whose statements were blunt, direct, and effective.
It’s not the statements coming on official letterhead from the commissioner, the Warriors, or even the players’ union. Those have been soft and a little tortured.
This has been especially pronounced because the statements from players themselves have been so forceful and unyielding.
Start with The King.
U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!
— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 23, 2017
A few hours later, LeBron expanded on this thoughts about the perils of the President using sports as a platform to divide Americans.
"It’s not about dividing. We as American people need to come together even stronger.” — @KingJames responds to @realDonaldTrump’s comments. http://pic.twitter.com/UHpzXpb42K
— UNINTERRUPTED (@uninterrupted) September 23, 2017
“I think it’s basically at a point where I’m kind of, just a little frustrated, man. This guy who we’ve put in charge has tried to divide us right again. Obviously, we all know what happened with Charlottesville and the divide that caused. Now, it’s even hitting home for me more because he’s now using sports as the platform to try to divide us.
We all know how much sports brings us together, how much passion it has, how much we love and care, the friendships and everything it creates. For him to use this platform to divide us even more is not something I can stand for and is not something I can be quiet about.
You look at him asking the NFL owners to get their players off the field because they’re exercising their rights. That’s not right.
And then, when I wake up, I see that a colleague of mine has been uninvited from something that he didn’t even want to go to in the first place, to the White House. That’s just something I can’t stand for, man.
We got Jemele Hill, Colin Kaepernick, all these people are speaking up, and it’s for the greater cause. It’s for us to all come together. It’s not about a division. It’s not about dividing. We, as the American people, need to come together even more stronger, man.
Because this is a very critical time, and me being in the position that I am, I had to voice this to y’all.
That opened the floodgates as Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, David West, and Robin Lopez — clever as ever — jumped into the fray.
Is this how it’s going to be? No one expects a franchise owner to call the sitting President a “bum.” No one expects Adam Silver to joke about impeachment. And certainly coaches Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, and Stan Van Gundy have been among the most forceful, cogent critics of the President in all of sports.
But this is an inflection point. This is a critical moment. And this is what we’re getting?
Statement from the Golden State Warriors: http://pic.twitter.com/6kk6ofdu9X
— Warriors PR (@WarriorsPR) September 23, 2017
“While we intended to meet as a team at the first opportunity we had this morning to collaboratively discuss a potential visit to the White House, we accept that President Trump has made it clear that we are not invited.
"We believe there is nothing more American than our citizens having the right to express themselves freely on matters important to them. We’re disappointed that we did not have an opportunity during this process to share our views or have open dialogue on issues impacting our communities that we felt would be important to raise.
“In lieu of a visit to the White House, we have decided that we’ll constructively use our trip to the nation’s capital in February to celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion – the values that we embrace as an organization.”
The sitting President attacked the face of your franchise for having the temerity to oppose racism, support protest, and decline an invitation for a ceremonial photo opp. And this is the response?
The defense of the right of expression is nice, as is the specific mention of the President’s name. (Most NFL teams who issued statements left even that out.)
Yet this statement does not accurately reflect what happened: the players were opposed to a visit for obvious reasons related to racism and white supremacy emanating from the White House, management wanted a chance to change the players’ minds in the spirit of “open dialogue” with the President, and the President put the kibosh on the whole thing because he didn’t want to have an open dialogue about having an open dialogue. Kerr, Joe Lacob, Bob Myers — they thought the Warriors could use this visit to have a discourse with the President. The players knew what a lie that was.
Nor did the Warriors take the opportunity to trumpet exactly what community and charity work their players do on a regular basis already. Such as Curry’s work with the U.N. Foundation’s bed-net program to fight malaria in refugee camps. Or Draymond Green’s involvement with RISE. Or Kevin Durant’s effort to build community basketball courts all over the country. Or even the franchise’s annual trips to San Quentin. Those examples would have shed necessary light on ways the players actually “celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion.”
Kerr did speak with candor and strength later on Saturday. It’s a shame none of that made it into the Warriors’ official statement.
Silver, who expertly handled the Donald Sterling debacle in his earliest days in charge of the NBA, might as well have sat out on Saturday. His three sentences do three things:
Reiterate his now-dashed hope that the Warriors would visit the White House
Express disappointment they won’t
Offer platitudes about players using their political voices
Nowhere does Silver defend one of the faces of the league from attack by the President of the United States. Nowhere does Silver point out that the President is responsible for the visit not happening at all. Nowhere does Silver explicitly commend the Warriors’ players for acting with grace the president is unable to conjure.
More importantly, nowhere does Silver even acknowledge the specific objections the NBA community has raised in response to Trump's policies and rhetoric. Nowhere does Silver acknowledge Trump’s long, racist campaign to delegitimize the nation’s first black president; or Trump’s revanchist, racist politics; or Trump expressing more empathy for neo-Nazis wielding torches and firearms than black athletes kneeling silently.
Stephen Curry was attacked by the sitting President of the United States, and neither his franchise or league fully defended him. So it is left to LeBron.
Thankfully, he’s up to the task. But he can’t do it alone.
It’s time for the league’s other power structure — Silver and the 30 franchise owners -- to step up and join the fight.
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