#there is also definitely a lot to be said about how the count is racialised in his physical descriptions and how that contributes to

[puttingwingsonwords]

I do think the ‘comedy’ of Dracula in this part of the story only adds to the horror. Like we can all go ‘haha lizard fashion’ because it is ridiculous, he’s crawling barefoot on that wall like 🦎

But also fucking imagine a whole ass man skittering down a wall like that, the fact that his cloak is billowing like wings means he must be going fast too bc otherwise it would just fall over his head. (Or idk maybe he is using magic powers to make his cloak look cooler who knows.)

And it’s in his pretending to have servants too, I know, my most popular post rn is calling him a loser for it which he is!! He’s probably really embarrassed about it too bc it’s demeaning for a boyar to do those chores!

But Jonathan doesn’t have the luxury of laughing at this stuff.

One thing that really caught my attention this time is the uncanny valley of it all. From the moment Jonathan meets the Count, he can tell something is off. No matter how thickly he puts on the charm, Dracula can’t hide the fact that he’s not human; he’s something else, a ‘creature in the semblance of a man’, there’s something innately off-putting about his presence. His eyes, his teeth, his hands, his smell: he has the aura of a predator and Jonathan, his prey, can feel it.

From Jonathan’s point of view, every hilarious weird thing the Count does is another sign of him being Not Human, as well as the fact that he’s in total control—as his ruse of normality is slowly falling apart, but there’s still nothing Jonathan can do. The mask is slipping, the Count is revealing his true nature—whether accidentally or on purpose—and Jonathan can only watch and keep pretending in the hope that it will prolong his life.

[formulatrash]

Could I get your opinion on Hamilton? Bc I feel like people either love him and are like he is the nicest person in the universe or hate him and think he’s the worst & tbh while he does seem genuinely good he’s also clearly willing to do quite a lot to win (2007) & I really doubt the Nico thing was one sided either way so... opinions.

Hello, anon - I got two of these so gonna answer this one rather than both .Lewis, man. Where the hell do you start with Lewis? Unquestionably one of the most talented drivers we have seen or will ever see on track. Not just for raw speed or ingenuity but with the way he has been able to adapt and learn across a changing era of cars - something a lot of the other drivers aspiring to GOAT status (Alonso, in particular) just haven’t been able to do. 

People think of Lewis as having unquestionably the best car. But that’s a recent development (and not always true even then) - the last few years he and Jenson were at McLaren, they were wildly outperforming the cars with a really strong driver pairing. (and the order was a little less rigid then, in all fairness)

I’m nearly the same age as Lewis so I remember him when he was a novelty - when what people said was that there was this guy in the junior categories who was fast - and this was always prefixed - he was black. 

People said he was stroppy, had cheating engines (there is no evidence of this, especially when you consider the budget he was working with) and that he had a bad attitude, he was never going to get to Formula One so why put him in your team, a kid like that couldn’t be a champion… in other words the extremely racialised term “uppity.” Like, have absolutely zero illusions on this front, people were not supportive.

Some were, obviously and for every hand up like the McLaren backing, the detractors got louder. So when Lewis took the GP2 title and moved up to F1, he had to come in hot and obnoxious. Especially with Fernando as his teammate. Especially with spygate about to wipe out any shine left on the mangled heap they’d made of the championship trophy that year.

And oh, the disqualification (for anyone not up to speed: the whole McLaren entry was excluded that season for allegedly spying on Ferrari) just validated the detractors: you see, he isn’t that good. He was cheating. 

Lewis has a temper. I don’t mean that in the sense he’s an angry guy, at all, just that there is a certain length you can push him and he will eventually snap, like all of us - he’s not a robot. And if you have to prove yourself again and again and again, in tests way beyond what anyone else is being scrutinised on, knowing that it is unfair and having no way to get past them but to once again, obnoxiously, excel then you will occasionally also make the odd sniping comment. 

I’ve never heard him say anything stroppier than he once threw a bit of a shit fit because he thought Jenson unfollowed him on Twitter, though - whereas the howling conniptions when he succeeds in whatever the latest arbitrary challenge someone has decided he must pass to be considered successful? Those continue to the day.

Lewis, of course, is now pretty zen. He’s spent a long time working on himself and has been repairing his relationship with his father (who used to be his manager until they somewhat explosively parted ways) and with old rivals. He’s been growing as a person and a driver, he’s been caring less about what people think. The Lewis now is very different to the Lewis even a few years ago - clearly a lot of self-reflection and space has happened, after what was years of charging around and also some - bluntly - horrible psychological shit which the Merc team definitely have to take some responsibility for because it was their success formula to set him and Nico against each other to push each other forwards.

And for all the bitterness between him and Nico, they were never, like, really loathing each other. Just couldn’t work together. I find it really ghoulish how eager the press is to see Carlos and Lando go the same way, asking when will you fall out? all the time like it wasn’t obvious both Lewis and Nico were in pretty horrible states during it. (I saw some of the aftermath via one of them and like, that’s some trauma right there :/)

Has Lewis had his controversies? For sure. Some of them I have been upset by - like when he posted an instagram story telling his nephew he couldn’t wear a dress. Thing about Lewis is that, especially as he’s got older, he doesn’t double-down on things like that, he goes away and reflects - and designed a range of skirts and modelled them for an interview where he was called on it, then went to Disneyland and walked round with his nephew wearing that princess dress he’d mocked him for. [warning: Daily Mail link sorry, only site that had the pics] 

Yes, ideally he would not have been a prang in the first place but it is also very good to publicly show growth. Especially in F1. 

I loved old, obnoxious fuckboy Lewis. He was the middle finger F1 needed showing - and his resilience to the number of times the press and the talking heads and the social circles of F1 tried to push him back down, only to spring back up with a blindingly-polished trophy… ah, you love to see it. 

Lewis means more to me than almost any other driver - and like, I vibe heavily with several - because he is that outlier example who shouldn’t have been counted but who keeps forcing them to score him into the ledgers of history, even now.

Is it good having a vocal advocate for women and for LGBT rights, who isn’t scared to call out motorsports prejudices and racism, so prominently in the sport? Yes. It’s a hard truth that he had to get this level of success in order to gain a platform because no when Lewis speaks people have to listen and report it. Because if his Instagram story can turn into a scandal, it can also be a communications platform. It’s why he holds a lot of sway with Liberty Media. 

Now Lewis’ rights to be in the sport are unassailable. So he can start on other fights he couldn’t take at the time - there’s a reason the F1 press still gives Wehrlein (who is one of the sweetest drivers I have ever worked with) the “uppity” treatment and it’s fucking sad. It’s so embarrassing to work in this industry that’s a thousand miles behind even other embarrassing industries on this global fucking shame. 

Look, I don’t give a fuck about the whole GOAT thing because sport is a continuous cycle (err, most years) and so ‘all time’ is a dumb thing to put in an accolade. But Lewis is, in my opinion, the best Formula One driver we have ever witnessed the career of. He is devastatingly good, has honed himself to a level where mistakes are such a rarity they’re a headline in and of themselves.

To maintain that, year after year after year? It’s not human. It’s a man who’s pushed himself beyond the pinnacle of the sport because he has proven everything and still someone will be typing out some snide little piece, at the same time I am writing this, that Hamilton will never be the greatest because [arbitrary mathematics about how you can’t count three of his titles so we don’t have to respect him yet. Not yet. It’s not that we don’t respect him because of who he is. It’s just one last test….]

Does Lewis being so good at Formula One driving it’s not really comprehensible below the level of fellow world champion make other drivers bad? No. He’s not walking to the titles. And maybe one day someone will be better than Lewis. Maybe he won’t be on form this year, somehow, for the first time in years of racing - if it ever starts again. Maybe he’ll retire to make tracksuits and rescue dolphins. 

I am glad he seems happy now. He looks incredible. Man gets hotter and nicer with every year and you absolutely love to see it. His growth in himself and the sport has been equally impressive and his transformative power, both in terms of pushing forward the sporting side and in terms of using his platforms for good, is awesome. 

(Lewis doesn’t have to speak out about stuff; I know people think it’s naff or crass or obnoxious or preachy but he could just not - and he knows people’d bash him for something else) 

That said, I wish he’d put some money into sponsoring some grass roots motorsport but that is literally my only beef with him. But yeah, we stan a complicated, evolutionary boy.

[giveuselife-blog]

Recreation as War - The Racial Politics of Football

New Post has been published on https://giveuselife.org/recreation-as-war-the-racial-politics-of-football/

Recreation as War - The Racial Politics of Football

Advent

The 2006 Soccer World Cup offers a well timed possibility to consider the broader social and political implications of Game in popular and Soccer specifically, with specific reference to the racial measurement to sporting competition. Now of direction, Dr Frances Cress-Welsing in her lots acclaimed book, ‘The Isis Papers’ (1991), provided an in-depth mental evaluation of the racial/sexual symbolism of a spread of sports activities. Similarly, Abdullah Nazir Uhuru in his great ebook ‘Killing “Me” $oftly’ (2005), presents an insightful analysis of Football, drawing upon Cress-Welsing’s work. The purpose of this essay is to construct upon those works and also to assist Afrikans to remember the fact that, existence is politics and the entirety in existence is political, consequently Sport has a politicised and racialised dimension to it, much like all different forms of human beings interest.

We are at Warfare

If viewed from the slender perspective promulgated by ‘the West’, Conflict involves army warfare between nations. But a greater holistic definition of Conflict could be:

“any sustained competitive movement by using one identifiable organization, be it country wide, racial, ethnic, spiritual, socio-monetary etc. against any other Further identifiable group in which the goal is to cause considerable damage – be it physical, psychological, emotional or non secular – to the opposite organization over a sustained time period.” (Furnish 2006)

In line with this definition; Caucasians had been waging a racial Struggle in opposition to Afrikans for over 3 thousand years (and we need to now not overlook their cousins the Arabs). This War manifests itself in distinct ways, for example the bodily Conflict isn’t always simply limited to overt physical violence however additionally consists of acts designed to immediately assault the bodily fitness of Afrikans e.G. using drug treatments banned from use in ‘the West’ in Afrika, the entire HIV/AIDS situation and the planned and concerted tries to reduce Afrikan fertility worldwide, of which it forms a part, being examples of European aggression.

One of the maximum important methods in Warfare is what is described as ‘Psych Ops’ or mental Operations. It has been properly set up that propaganda is important in struggle, even in the course of overt military struggle, and the introduction and dissemination of propaganda is a critical thing of psychological operations. The purpose of psychological operations is to weaken or destroy the enemy’s will to combat and face up to, or crucially – especially with respect to Afrikans – convince the enemy that in truth there may be no Conflict taking location and that his/her dreams and aspirations coincide with and are in concord with that of the propagandist.

Recreation as Struggle

Recreation is used as an expression of countrywide satisfaction and prowess on an ongoing basis, but mainly at times of collective national anxiety. In this context group sports emerge as greater crucial than character sports activities from a nationalistic perspective, especially while the team is representing the state in preference to a membership. From a racial perspective; character wearing encounters will have fantastic mental significance, mainly once they take location in surprisingly combative sports e.G. Boxing.

during the so-referred to as ‘Bloodless Conflict’ the Olympic medal table was a source of fierce opposition among the usa and the Soviet Union (White Russian Empire) and the GDR (German Democratic Republic). This desperate choice to pinnacle the medal table became the catalyst for the proliferation of the use of overall performance improving drugs via each the usa (the usage of a ‘loose marketplace�� capitalist technique) and the Eastern bloc international locations (the usage of a state controlled method).

nations have even long past to Battle over the outcome of wearing contests. I accept as true with it changed into the result of a Global Cup qualifier within the 1970’s that caused a military struggle between Honduras and Ecuador.

When you upload inside the detail of ‘race’ the mental concoction turns into powerful. We want to keep in mind that inside the war between global Europe and global Afrika Caucasians are defending and promoting a mental position which says:

‘We’re the maximum developed and human of all peoples/races. It’s far our destiny to rule the Earth and the whole thing above and underneath it. We are able to do anything this is required to hold our dominant hegemonic position, consisting of acts of genocide. Afrikans are in the position they occupy (economically, educationally, militarily, healthwise etc.) due to their inferiority (genetic and cultural) and the blessings of Eu intervention in Afrika (notwithstanding any past wrongdoings) have outweighed any detriment triggered.’

Now, the Afrikan role is generally confused and at the same time as it need to be built around the position that:

‘Europeans have tested themselves entirely ruthless, untrustworthy, imperialistic, racist and intent upon International domination. Considering the fact that they will now not and can’t take delivery of the equitable sharing of the Earth’s resources in step with the populace sizes and needs of different companies of humans on earth they have to be confronted and defeated by using us. Records has taught us that we can’t depend upon every other organization of human beings to return to our aid.’

It’s miles in reality more often based totally across the notion that:

‘We are every body and via our suffering we are hoping to reveal all people the meaning of proper humanity. We must forgive Europeans for their beyond errors and ought to no longer affront them with the aid of searching for redress/reparations for past wrongs. we are hoping that through the years Europeans will be given us as their equals and whenever and wherever we live as a minority among them our precedence need to be to combine and advantage attractiveness from Whites.’

This latter Afrikan function is a recipe for degradation, defeat and removal and is primarily based upon Afrikan xenophilia (at one and the equal time our best strength and weakness) and the inferiority complicated that maximum Afrikans now possess.

these very one of a kind psychological positions decide the collective or dominant, comparative; Ecu and Afrikan responses to all aspects of human beings pastime, which includes Recreation. Whereas Europeans have evolved an entire lexicon of words and terms which carry together the psychology of Warfare/killing/violence and Game e.G. ‘killer intuition’, ‘finish them off’, ‘hammer blow’, ‘sucker punch’, ‘kill off the competition/sport’ to explain activities, even in non-violent sports, Afrikans do nothing extra than mimic this aggressive method to Sport having no indigenous cultural reservoir of such intense wearing hostility to tap into. One of the maximum famous quotes in British Recreation came from Invoice Shankley, a former manager of Liverpool Football membership. while asked about the importance of Football, Shankley said, “It isn’t always a count number of life and death. It’s miles extra vital than that.”

For Europeans, It is and usually has been more than only a recreation. It is War on a pitch, song, court, or on anything playing place the sport is contested.

The importance of Football

Association Soccer is the most famous Sport in the Global. It’s far performed in every united states of america within the Global and almost every u . S . A . inside the International has a country wide crew. Given this situation; Football generates a big quantity of home and international media coverage and fulfillment turns into the supply of a great deal of country wide delight. It changed into even pronounced that a ceasefire was referred to as to the civil Battle in the Ivory Coast in the course of that u . S .’s participation within the 2006 Global Cup. group sports are seen to symbolize a state’s subculture and person a ways more than man or woman Sport and therefore as the most famous Sport inside the International the way a countrywide group performs Soccer is offered as telling the viewer plenty about who and what that country is like, their strengths and virtues, weaknesses and vices.

therefore, while watching Football; even the alert beginner will note that Afrikan groups – as well as man or woman Afrikans playing for majority Caucasian countries and golf equipment – are characterized Consistent with enduring poor Caucasian racial stereotypes i.E. bodily strong, speedy, athletic, naïve, exuberant, brutal, whilst lacking in tactical focus, finesse and thinking competencies. It’s far offered as brains vs brawn when Eu confronts Afrikan.

The media dialogue around Tiger Woods epitomises this profound poor racial stereotyping of Afrikans. Tiger Woods’ potential to pressure a golf ball lengthy distances has continuously been ascribed to his explosive attributes stemming from his Afrikan genetic ancestry inherited from his father. On the other hand his mental power, potential to cognizance and carry out under stress is simply as continuously attributed to his Oriental genetic ancestry inherited from his Thai mother. That is regardless of the fact that his father has performed the important position in developing his golfing expertise and is on file as stating that he used the psychological techniques he discovered as a soldier in the US military to assist increase his son’s mental electricity.

whilst Portugal performed Angola inside the 2006 International Cup, superb play changed into made from the reality that Portugal ruled Angola till 1975, But this was not presented in a negative mild from either angle and the commentators were quick to notice how that they had determined businesses of supporters from every usa who mingled together and said that their nations had been ‘brothers’. Of course you can continually discover slave minded Afrikans if you try to it just shows you how the mind can come to rationalise an abusive dating. This inferiority complicated, that’s One of the real factors retarding the development of Afrikan Soccer is manifested within the number of excessive profile continental Afrikan footballers – specifically megastar gamers – wearing ghastly chemically straightened and/or dyed hair.

The Ivory Coast crew at the 2006 Global Cup became a good example with their superstar striker Didier Drogba parading his greasy, chemically straightened hairdo in conjunction with some other teammate, apparently the usage of a exceptional components, whose hair became absolutely stiff and dry and a 3rd teammate whose hair, worn in china bumps, turned into dyed a weird color of gray and purple. The unhappy desire to attain Eu hair texture and the preference for and attainment of European ladies as achievement symbols by Afrikan footballers are definitely manifestations of the deep-seated self-loathing that prevents Afrikan teams from searching the top Caucasian countries squarely in the eye and actually believing that they could win constantly. How will you triumph over those whom you believe to be your superiors and whose approval you desperately crave? Certainly in spite of his Europeanised hairdo and mind; Drogba has been the goal of fierce criticism in England for his severe – even though no longer precise – diving and feigning of injury.

There are in fact 3 key determining criteria for achievement in the Soccer Global Cup. these are:

1. Wealth of the country,

2. long footballing culture,

three. population length.

To be successful, nations almost perpetually need to fulfill as a minimum of those standards. In fact those are key elements for maximum worldwide group sports activities and for countries mountain climbing the Olympic medal desk.

Ethnic cleaning in action – The britain and Netherlands Soccer groups In my first two books ‘Niggers, Negroes, Black people and Afrikans’ (2003) and ‘Blue Skies for Afrikans’ (2005) I provided an in-depth evaluation of the technique of cultural and organic assimilation taking vicinity inside the United kingdom, Brazil, Australia and different locations around the arena. I set out six steps to Whiteness, which may be briefly summarised as:

Degree 1 – Initial contact

Stage 2 – First a trickle then a flood

Stage 3 – The Dam breaks – The espresso colored dream

Degree 4 – The Silent removal Starts – Rise of the Near Whites

Degree 5 – Decline of Mixed Race humans, dying of Afrikans

Stage 6 – death of Mixed Race human beings and Absorption of Near Whites

As counseled above, this process on the one hand entails organic assimilation thru miscegenation and However cultural assimilation through social psychological procedures and techniques leading to dramatic modifications inside the social values of the target group.

Game displays each the biological and cultural transformation of the goal group (in this situation us) as well as reinforcing the winning racial hierarchy. maximum of you’ll be acquainted with the properly worn adage:

if you’re White that is proper,

if you’re Yellow you are mellow,

in case you’re Brown stick round,

if you’re Black step lower back.

And all the structures, structures and strategies of the social, political, financial, academic, non secular etc. institutions of Caucasians are designed to boost and keep this racial hierarchy. Football is not any exception and offers very clear, tangible examples for Afrikans who have awoken from our collective cultural coma.

The 2006 International Cup has supplied some very stark examples. Allow us to first off examine The britain Football team. In view that Viv Anderson became the first Black guy to be selected for the overall England crew in 1978 there has been a fashion of increasing numbers of Afrikans decided on to represent England at Soccer. Viv Anderson like other Afrikans attaining wearing ‘firsts’ became decided on as plenty for his docile, Uncle Tom persona as for his undoubted footballing skills. There had been other Black footballers who had been worthy of attention at the moment and Similarly; in baseball, Jackie Robinson was selected as the first Afrikan to play primary league baseball because of his combination of talent and docility. He knew his vicinity in White society and turned into inclined to simply accept the numerous racial insults and slights from his White crew friends and others if you want to be ‘standard’. In reality Jackie Robinson must no longer were the primary. There has been an Afrikan from Cuba who become decided on to join a chief league baseball team, But he was discarded after he punched down a group mate who insulted him.

there has been a trend in English Soccer wherein it has proved a ways less difficult for Black footballers to be selected for The england squad rather than genuinely making the starting line-up. As Abdullah Uhuru (2005) has eloquently defined; the important thing valuable positions: centre half, central midfield and the noticeably coveted striker positions have validated most difficult for Afrikans to comfy, Considering that they incorporate the ‘backbone’ of the crew (with only the least glamorous centre 1/2 positions regularly entering Afrikan possession), While the more peripheral huge positions have always been made extra to be had to Afrikan players in any respect tiers.

The 2006 International Cup has marked a sea change within the fortunes of Afrikans footballers with reference to The britain Soccer team. The composition of the 23 player squad reflects each the individual racism of The england supervisor, Sven Goran-Erickson, the collective racism of English Football and the big growth in miscegenation involving Afrikan-Caribbeans during the last thirty years. Erickson decided on one Afrikan player (Sol Campbell) for his squad and five Dual Heritage players (Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Aaron Lennan, Jermaine Jenas and Theo Walcott). two of the Dual Background players (Ferdinand and Cole) form part of Erickson’s desired first eleven. Erickson’s choice displays the racial hierarchy of White, Brown, Black with the omission of Afrikan players (Darren Bent and Jermaine Defoe) from the world Cup squad and the inclusion of 1 Twin Historical past participant (Theo Walcott) being absolutely inexplicable.