#race

[listless-spirit]

Palestinians aren't classified as white anymore by the US government. In 2024 they added a Middle East North Africa category for the 2030 census that specifically includes Israelis. Here's an article with more details: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1237218459/census-race-categories-ethnicity-middle-east-north-africa

[typhlonectes]

[casscainmainly]

Fellow Cass fan here. I'm just trying to explain to a friend, who never read Cass's solo series, why she isn't a "dragon lady" or a "problematic Asian stereotype" as they're only familiar with the heavily flanderized, theme-park ride version of the character and her turn to evil. Hypothetically, what would you say?

Hello fellow Cass fan <333. I have an in-depth post about Cass and Asian Stereotypes that you can show your friend, it dives into the most common complaints: Silent Asian, Model Minority, and Hypersexual Asian. However, I'm also gonna do a quick-fire round here in case that's too long.

(This is my opinion as one Asian! Asians are not a monolith, if another Asian who reads Cass contests these points they are valid as well).

Dragon Lady

Dragon ladies are "strong, sexual, deceitful, and domineering". This is not applicable to Cass - in the early issues she's rarely, if ever, portrayed as sexual, and I'd say 99% of her portrayals are not sexual in nature. She's also not deceitful or domineering; she's way more likely to be super blunt, and she rarely takes up leadership positions. Overall not a great description of Cass.

Silent Asian

The biggest criticism of Cass and also a fundamental misunderstanding of her character. Firstly, she's not silent - after issue 4 of her solo series, she steadily learns to speak longer sentences, and is now fairly talkative. Silent Asians are also specifically about side characters. It's about a character who is silent because they're not written in-depth; because Cass is the protagonist of her series, this stereotype cannot apply to her.

Madame Butterfly

The reverse of Dragon Lady, Madame Butterfly is a "subservient stereotype, the woman who would do anything to please the dominant [White] force". Cass subverts this by being fairly disobedient - to name one example, both times Bruce takes Batgirl from her she goes out on her own. Her story is inherently about resisting a White male oppressor, symbolised by her rejecting her father.

Inscrutable Asian

The instrutable Asian is an Asian portrayed as stoic, reserved, and mysterious (related to 'Silent Asian'). @theflashjaygarrick has a wonderful post deconstructing this, but essentially while Cass may be mysterious to her peers, she is not mysterious to the audience. We are privy to her motives, feelings, and thoughts, which subverts this trope entirely.

Model Minority & Mental Health

This falls under Model Minority (which I discuss more in my lengthy post), but a consequence of Model Minority is that Asians often dismiss or hide their mental health issues. Mental health plays a large role in Cass' early stories, and it's rare to have so much focus on an Asian character's internal struggles.

Summary/Conclusion

Asian tropes are harmful because they reduce Asian characters to one-dimensional cutouts, often in service of a White lead. Even though Cass does fall into certain Asian tropes - martial arts Asian, for instance - her story is ultimately about her, and she's a well-rounded character with dreams, flaws, and complex relationships. To be clear, her evil turn and some parts of N52 are actually racist, but this is not representative of her character as a whole. To dismiss Cass entirely because of these racist touch-points is to discard one of the most prominent Asian characters in comics.

To copy/paste my ending from my Cass & Asian Stereotypes post: the reason she means so much to me is because at its core, her story is a story of Asian agency. And that in itself is unstereotypical.

Further reading: How Cass Defies an Asian Stereotype, Sarah Kuhn Interview, Alyssa Wong Interview, Mariko Tamaki Interview

[aikaikaik]

THE TUMBLR HORSE DERBY

WELCOME TO THE FIRST TUMBLR HORSE DERBY (that i know of, anyway)

HOW TO HORSE: 🐎🐎🐎 - Vote for your FAVOURITE horse to make them go faster! (yknow, like those carnival horse derby games!) MAY THE BEST HORSE WIN

(also sample size reblog yadda yadda yadda HORSE)

[purple-grackle]

There's also a HUGE classist implication when making fun of regional accents. Like, in the UK, people with "posh" (i.e. certain S English accents, they're not all the same) accents say stuff like "it's funny innit" specifically to make fun of people who they often view as "uneducated", poor, of a "lower" social standing somehow. See also: the derogatory term chav.

Who do y'all think is more likely to end up in the CJ system? Yeah it's poor people, because of socioeconomic oppression (not because poor people do more crime than rich ones or some shit, rich ones just have more resources and wouldn't, for example, have to steal baby food.)

There are also many intersectional implications, for example how there are London accents that are posh and white and upperclass and others that are associated with poor POC who are seen as criminals just by existing and experience so much institutionalised racism and police violence. See also: Electric Avenue // Brixton Riots. (No this has not much changed since 1981, everyone knows the met is rotten to the core.)

So this isn't news to me, but I thought I'd put it here as a sort of example as to why lots of British people get up in arms when you make fun of our accents. Cause we can face very real discrimination based purely on how we talk. So hearing Americans go "but it's just funny innit?" makes me want to eviscerate you.

[liberalsarecool]

The unserious and uncurious will use bad faith to never learn, never grow, and never mature. They can't admit they might be wrong.

[humancosplay]

Ah yes, the Olympics going again to show us how transphobia, intersexism and racism walk hand in hand. What a lovely throuple

[degeneratedworker]

Paragraph Left: "Every four years, presidential elections are held in the USA. The two main political parties in the country—the Republican and Democratic parties—compete for power, each aiming to put "their own person" in the White House. However, both the Republican and Democratic parties are organizations of big capital in the USA, and all their activities are focused on ensuring and protecting its interests." Text Right: "The master will decide who defeats whom, as both are in his service!" Unknown Soviet Union 1968

[goingrampant]

Jews (light-skinned Ashkenazim) are conditionally white... which basically means non-white for the purposes of the poll, but it's generally a badly written question accepting the modern construct of genetic race as the only thing relevant to the concept of ethnicity. Jews can be perceived as white and effectively are white in such circumstances because whiteness itself has no objective reality, only agreed-upon reality. In the context of Germany, white gentiles are generally recognized as more white than light-skinned Jews who would be in immediate danger from Nazi aggression, but in the context of America, light-skinned gentile Germans may be considered non-white and subject to discrimination. No one is objectively white.

For the purposes of this poll, consider yourself jewish if you are undertaking the conversion process.

Also for the purposes of this poll: if you would like to apply nuance to your answer, feel free to do so in reblogs, tags, replies, or even in my inbox, and vote according to the answer that most closely aligns with your nuanced take.

PLEASE REBLOG FOR MORE VOTES

[hijx]

Gyro Zeppeli

the way this piece was decided 3 months ago... and only now I had the time to finish it

[viejospellejos]

Elige una bola antes de que empiece la 'carrera' y a ver si gana:

[f1archives]

Lewis Hamilton performing donuts as he crosses the line in his final race for Mercedes, finishing in P4 - Abu Dhabi, 2024

[thatshowthingstarted]

A Roman Red Jasper Ringstone with a Chariot Race,

Circa 1ST Century A.D.

7/8 in. (2 cm.) wide; ring size 9.

Courtesy: Christie's

[typhlonectes]

[whatevergreen]

That time police peed on food for hungry children...

Bobby Seale Checks Food Bags, 1972 - Howard Erker

Free Breakfast for Children Program and The People's Free Food Program, 1969-1980.

In the early years up to 36 programs were running nationwide, feeding tens of thousands of children and poor families. The great success of this program was viewed as a threat by FBI director J Edgar Hoover:

"Hoover recognized that through the program the Panthers captured the loyalty of many black children by giving them free breakfasts. He was also angry that the breakfast program won liberal whites’ and moderate blacks’ support for the Panthers. Hoover perversely justified FBI attempts to destroy the program because it “is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to destroy what it [the Black Panther Party] stands for.” The FBI’s attempts to destroy the program included sending forged letters to stores to discourage them from donating food, spreading rumors that the food was poisoned, and even raiding sites while children ate."

And then there's such as this:

Despite such as this, the programs continued helping people in need for many years.

The Seattle chapter of the Black Panther party was the last to hold out, members managing to continue the breakfast program until around 1980, even after the chapters own demise in 1977.

The Black Panther's food programs directly led to the development of the national school breakfast program, and has inspired community based revivals ever since.

Also:

Other less well known services also existed included a Free Shoe Program, and the People's Free Clothing Program which provided quality clothing to Black communities. This program helped children get winter clothing to attend school and helped adults find suitable attire when seeking employment.

Credit for some elements of this post goes to the People's City Council - Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) / X