#this issue caused DISCOURSE back in the day... it's time to settle the score

[fallout-lou-begas]

In @ikroah #20, Julie Farkas had asked Agnes Sands and Cass to stop a dealer named Dixon from selling drugs to the Old Mormon Fort's rehab patients. When Agnes and Cass couldn't just convince Dixon to stop, a fight ensued in which Agnes and Cass killed Dixon. When they relay this information to Julie, Julie snaps at the two of them and expels them from the Old Mormon Fort.

(you can read the rest of the issue here)

Agnes and Cass argue that there was no way to stop Dixon besides killing him (debatable). Arcade Gannon, also present, chimes in and claims that an alternative option, such as paying Dixon off, would have stretched the Followers of the Apocalypse's thin budget and only encouraged even more bad actors to take advantage of the Followers' altruism. Still, by her own admission, Agnes was the one who escalated the initial confrontation.

Julie's reason for being angry, however, is that she quite simply did not hire Agnes and Cass as assassins. In her view, killing Dixon "for" the Followers of the Apocalypse not only was not what she asked them to do, but it mars the Followers' altruistic reputation. It is important to her that anybody can turn to them in their time of need. If you were her, would you want people coming to the Followers and asking you to kill somebody? Would you want people being afraid of coming to the Followers in case they do kill somebody? The last thing that she wants to do is contribute to even more instability and paranoia among the destitute people of Freeside. And yes, this differs from her characterization in the original game, so please only interpret this by the context that the comic provides.

It's a nuanced and complicated issue comprised of practical concerns, personal feelings, and regrettable mistakes that resulted in permanent consequences.

Which is why, since tumblr has introduced polls since this issue was published, we're having the most black and white binary poll possible:

[highbuttonsports]

THIS WEEK IN JETS HOCKEY…

Every Thursday at The High Button, we explore the events and stories of the Winnipeg Jets on and off the ice! This week we look at the trio of games, injury updates, trade options and more:

GAMES SINCE LAST THURSDAY IN THIRTY SECONDS:

Thursday March 11th: the Jets fall 4-3 to the Leafs in overtime. Those damn Jets just don’t go away. Believe me, the Leafs tried. This game was not the finest outing for the Jets, but somehow the pesky group from Winnipeg were able to force overtime in a game they had no business being in for most of it. The Leafs outshot the Jets 38-24 overall, 32-24 at 5v5, and had 68% xGF share of the game. The numbers tell you most of what you missed, aside from one detail I cannot stress enough: Connor Hellebuyck was brilliant. You can nitpick a couple of the goals, but you’d be reaching. This was one of his finest performances of the season on a night where the Jets seemed to let the Leafs move the puck through the middle of the ice. A particularly irritating night if you’re a Jets fan with an appreciation for the tactical side of the game. Nevertheless, the forwards were able to generate some chances when they had the puck, Ehlers was great, and this was a tough game against a skilled Leafs team. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Connor Hellebuyck stopped 34 of 38, but needed to be at his best for almost all of them.

Saturday March 13th: the Jets control the pace in a 5-2 win over the Leafs. This was much better. Saturday night was a perfect storm for Winnipeg, in arguably their best game and the Leafs worst game of the season. While the Leafs were able to gain the middle of the ice on Tuesday and Thursday, there was little to none for the taking on Saturday by the Jets. The Jets outshot the Leafs 32-22 overall, 24-16 at 5v5, and had 61% xGF in the game. While Laurent Brossoit was good, this was a case where the Jets gave up nothing in the neutral zone, and were able to possess the puck a lot more than the Leafs, one of the league’s best possession teams. The Jets third line was particularly good in this one, with Adam Lowry scoring the eventual winner in the third period to break a twenty-game goalless drought. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Mark Scheifele. Despite the minus-1 rating, the Jets did not allow a high-danger shot attempt while his line was on the ice at 5v5, and that minus was the result of a shorthanded goal by Jake Muzzin. Scheifele had a goal and an assist, and was often the best player on the ice during the game.

Monday March 15th: the Jets lose a close one 4-2 to the Habs. Monday was another hard-fought and fairly back and forth game between the Habs and Jets. While the Jets top-six were able to create their own chances and stall the Habs for the most part, the bottom-six groups were at the mercy of the Canadiens in this one. Ultimately, a couple careless defensive assignments by the Jets in this one were the difference. The Jets outshot the Habs 36-31 overall, 29-23 at 5v5, and had a 58% xGF in this one. This was a game that if not for a couple mistakes and some more offence from the bottom-six, the Jets could have easily won. A game for the video sessions, for sure. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Kyle Connor had his 13th and 14th of the season.

Wednesday March 17th: Three forwards do it again for the Jets as they beat the Habs 4-3 in OT. This is one that the Jets won’t be please with the finer details. A game where they seemed to control the pace of play, the Jets looked to be on their heels toward the end of the third period, and that allowed the Canadiens to crawl back from a two goal deficit. The Canadiens outshot the Jets 36-30 overall, and 30-25 at 5v5 in this one with the Jets posting just a 41% xGF. There are a lot of positives to take out of this one. Connor Hellebuyck made a few huge saves, and the Jets generally skated well despite taking their foot off the gas in the late going. And while the Habs are pesky, the Jets were careless with the lead toward the end. JETS PLAYER OF THE GAME: Pierre-Luc Dubois had three assists in this one, including a helper on Nikolaj Ehlers’ absolute rip of a game-winner in OT. Honourable mention goes to Derek Forbort in this one.

ARE THE JETS FOR REAL?

One of the major storylines of the past week is not even a news story, but rather a major discourse surrounding the idea that the Jets could be the best team in the North. Conversely, they have also been the topic of discussion of not being a real playoff team.

So what exactly are this year’s Jets team?

Despite winning two out of three against the Leafs, the Jets spent the majority of the first two games hanging onto a rock to avoid getting caught in a downcurrent. However, they made the Leafs look lifeless in the third game.

Evaluating this year’s Jets squad has proved to be a challenge. On one hand, they’re an analytic mess in some senses. They rank 27th of 31 teams in xGF share at 46.1% which puts them behind messy teams like Buffalo and Columbus. They are last in the NHL in HDCF (high-danger corsi-for, essentially meaning shot attempts from the slot) at just 43.3%.

If you watch their games, it’s very clear the Jets are content holding onto the puck to create the best possible chance. They really don’t shoot a ton when they have the puck. The problem is that they have a hard time getting it back when they don’t have it, and when they get running around in their own zone, they struggle to get back into position. That’s true of most teams, but it seems to plague the Jets regularly in the first period, and it takes them some time to settle in.

Obvious defensive issues aside, the Jets still have an average PDO (bang on at 1.004). Their power play has been consistently good again, operating at 26.5%, good enough for seventh in the NHL. Connor Hellebuyck has been relatively good, and Laurent Brossoit has been solid in almost all of this spot-starts. These are all things we’ve come to expect from the Jets. So is there anything that really makes them special?

They have a can-do attitude. This is the part where you roll your eyes, but it’s true. Let me put it another way, in the form of a question. And if you’re somebody who watches the Jets regularly, this should be an easy one: how many games this year have you seen the Jets get hemmed in their zone consistently in the first half, only to come out on top?

The Jets lead the league in wins when trailing after one period, with seven. They have the third best winning percentage when trailing through two periods. And still? They have lost just one game in regulation when leading after one period, and have not lost in regulation when leading after two. Of course, a lot of that could be meaningless to some degree. Do I have a point? Yes I do.

The Jets play with a lot of confidence, and there really doesn’t seem to be anybody in the North division capable of derailing that confidence. Confidence doesn’t always amount to wins. After all, if you come to the rink believing that you’re going to win the game and then go on the ice and do nothing about it, you’re going to find that the game gets away from you in a hurry.

The good news? This makes them a tough out. Whether that be in a three-game regular season series, or in a seven-game playoff series, the Jets just don’t want to go away. In and of itself, that’s scary. The bad news? Well, they are flawed. They don’t seem to let those flaws become a cause for concern internally, and that’s a good thing, but there are several teams in the league that could make things ugly for the Jets in a hurry if they expose these flaws.

Here is my thought: in the immediate, the Jets are an average team that have the fight of most teams that know they can’t just rely on talent. While their system has holes, they can turn a game the other way in a hurry. There is a level of relentlessness to this team that doesn’t always have that offensive talent to match. Do I think the Jets are a realistic Cup favourite? No. Do I think they can get hot in the playoffs? Most teams could, but the Jets do have some unique features that make them dangerous, so yes I do.

With the trade deadline approaching on April 12th, I expect the next 10-14 days to be a huge teller on the Jets. Whether Kevin Cheveldayoff makes a move to help the on-ice product will be a huge factor into this “are they for real” question.

- Tyler

[pxrxllel]

A Kiwi girl of colour after the Christchurch terror attacks

I was born in Taipei, Taiwan in the spring of 1997. Fuelled by the desire for a safer, less fast-paced, higher quality upbringing for me, my parents made the decision to sacrifice everything familiar to them to move to a country they had seen only in books and magazines. That’s why just over a year later, I boarded an 11-hour flight across the Pacific and settled into what would become my new home for the next 21 years and counting. 

My sister was born in Waikato Hospital in 1999. The following year, I uttered my first word (late bloomer, I know). I enrolled in a rural primary school shortly before my fifth birthday. My shyness prevented me from making friends until one day a girl who had black hair, tan skin, and hooded eyelids like me approached me on the classroom stairs where I was sitting by myself. She whispered something to me in Mandarin. That’s how I made my first friend. 

It took about another year to get comfortable with making white friends, who made up 99% of the student population. Relating to kids who didn’t eat the same food as me or speak the same language at home or who had pet cows and sheep that I didn’t have was difficult. 

Eventually I learned to round out the edges of my culture that scraped against the identity I wanted to embrace for myself. Eating my dried seaweed in two quick gulps at lunch so that no one would see me and ask questions. Being secretly glad to be in the second best maths group rather than the top (although my mother tried her hardest at home to bring up my test scores – extra tutoring is nothing new to Asian students). Dreading my father’s Mandopop on road trips and asking him to buy records sung in English. Although Mandarin was technically my mother tongue, by the age of seven my competency had fallen far behind. Dulling my own sense of otherness was a protective measure to ‘assimilate properly’ into the culture I was now supposed to call home. Perhaps it worked; I was never bullied or picked on for my race or lack of religion despite being in a rural and largely white Christian community.

My first-generation immigrant mother did everything she could to preserve remnants of home and to fight against the greater forces of peer pressure and her children’s difficulty navigating their own fit into society during their formative years. This involved Chinese school every Sunday morning while my white friends were at church service, chopsticks at every meal, and banning English-speaking at home. She even sent me to school once in Year 3 with a pack of notecards, one for each of my classmates with their names transliterated into Chinese characters. They thought it was ‘cool and exotic’, I thought it was embarrassing. My internalised oppression couldn’t shake the feeling that they were laughing at me behind my back, that my efforts to blend in and not be seen as an ‘other’ had been completely voided by one reminder of my ‘Asian-ness’. 

I moved onto high school in an urbanised area. Knowing no one in Year 9 meant I could start over brand new. The diversity was refreshing. Seeing girls around me who spoke different languages and had different experiences helped me to let out the breath I’d been holding in for 8 years at school. 

I quickly found my tribe. My friends were overwhelmingly people of colour  – we counted African, Indian, Filipino, Chinese in our company. I could never relate fully to the Chinese international students; even if we spoke the same language, I was out of the loop when they swooned over TV series and musicians on the charts. I could never relate fully to my fair-skinned Kiwi friends either, with their race days and baches and Christmas pudding. Suddenly I understood why my mother had formed such close friendships that were almost exclusively Chinese – they just got it. They could bond over where to get the freshest and cheapest bok choy, or which companies and services were most accommodating towards people who looked like us or whose accents speaking English were punctuated with uhs and filler laughter and not the quite the right word at times. My friends and I bonded over how our immigrant parents treated us, while appreciating and celebrating each other’s different foods, customs, and religions. We were the in-between kids, never fully fitting in to one culture or another, learning to carve out a category of our own we could belong to. 

I credit my high school friends with easing my internal identity crisis. For the first time I could just be, and we focused not on how we could fit into prescribed cultural identities but how we could strengthen our own sense of self beyond our phenotypes. We threw ourselves into a variety of extracurriculars. I watched K-Pop music videos in Club Asia, performed a traditional dance at assembly with Club Africa, raced to name all 50 states in Club America. We fundraised for Daffodil Day every year. I passed auditions for choir and glee club, discussed global issues in equality club, became certified in peer mediation, played sport, and buddied up with international students new to the country. I wanted my achievements, my hobbies, my values, and my actions to be the characteristics to define me, to get to the point where, like my Caucasian friends, it was not my race but my character that weighed on me or factored into how I perceived myself or how I thought other people perceived me. I wanted to experience the freedom that Eurocentrism afforded my peers, and for a while, being insulated in my diverse bubble  – that was my reality. I thought to myself, This must be what it’s like to be a true New Zealander.

Unfortunately, this ideal state existed in a microcosm. No matter how hard I tried, I would never be immune to ‘othering’ from the wider Caucasian community. My reputation as an involved and active contributor in multiple arenas did not precede me beyond school gates, where I would always remain an Asian, perhaps someone who is good at maths and bad behind the wheel, in the eyes of others and those I had never met.

The terrorist attacks in Christchurch just days ago have thrust issues not previously discussed at length in New Zealand into the spotlight. White supremacy, from normalisation of stereotypes, racist jokes, and blanket Eurocentric approaches to racial profiling and refugee discrimination to outright overt racism, has suddenly broken through to the public conversation. Pākehā everywhere are shocked that such acts could occur in what they have always believed to be a peaceful society. 

But they have not been listening. 

That shock stems from their bubbles of Eurocentric privilege, where they have never experienced or seen the ways in which our people of colour communities have been shown that they are not accepted. Although the majority of New Zealand does not tolerate overt racism, subliminal or passing messages still proliferate on message boards and Facebook comments in the name of ‘jest’ or ‘patriotism’. It’s what enabled a classmate at school to openly present her Year 11 English speech on the ‘Asian invasion’. It has caused strife for the Māori people who had their land stolen from them, the vestiges of this horror echoing through the public discourse centuries later and becoming normalised. It’s swastika graffiti and it’s the glass bottles hurled from a car window at Indian girls walking outside the shops, it’s how a woman told me to my face that a ‘nice little Chinese girl’ like me should be outside tending to the gardens (no shade to gardeners, they are severely underappreciated) and how even after the attacks, there are still people telling grieving Muslims they should go back to where they came from or that the death toll should have been higher. It’s these microaggressions and the bigger displays of hate that make people of colour kill little parts of themselves inside piece by piece, become overly apologetic for the parts of themselves they do not choose, become embarrassed by the very differences we ought to be celebrating, uplifting, and rejoicing in. 

As a young woman of colour, I cry alongside my African, Asian, Pasifika, and Māori brothers and sisters, who understand the pain that oppression by white nationalism has brought. It has been our lived experience for years. In battling this, I encourage my peers who may look or sound or pray differently to wear their identity proudly and to be brave enough to pursue their passions and dismantle the prejudices lodged against them.

As a young woman growing up with a Western mentality, I implore my fellow host communities everywhere to be more actively supportive and appreciative of newcomers and immigrants, to take the time to learn and celebrate the new and fresh contributions they make. Equally importantly, our society must be proactive in the fight against white nationalism and supremacy, which begins with admitting fault and damage caused by harmful populist rhetoric, avoiding defensiveness, and listening to and acknowledging and amplifying the experiences of those whose lives have been shaped from oppression at their hands.

As a young woman citizen of New Zealand, I beg for less division, more unity, for equality, for us to let go of old traditions and norms that do not serve to better our society and to uphold the values that we wish to see. I wish for condemnation of hatred, intolerance, and violence, and for proliferation of understanding, respect, and love. As we move towards an increasingly diverse and globalised world, my dream is that one day my school experience of celebrating differences and living in the freedom that my Caucasian friends feel in a Eurocentric society will not just be within a microcosm, but a shared reality for all.

In the meantime, time will stretch on. The flowers in front of mosques will wilt. Public attention will shift to another major issue. The pain from the attack will fade to a permanent scar on our historical landscape. But what won’t die out are the people of colour continuing to attend Jummah, sell laksa, vend dumplings, speak their languages, sing, dance, observe Diwali, Eid, Matariki, Lunar New Year. My mother will continue to foster self-confidence in immigrant Chinese children by volunteering her time weekly to teach Mandarin. We will work hard to dispel myths about us and contribute to create a colourful New Zealand we all love. And we will never, ever let terror divide us. 

The terrorist may have drawn his gun expecting to provoke division, tear us apart, and breed fear.

Little did he know that pulling the trigger would instead cause New Zealand to bleed nothing but sympathy, solidarity, compassion, and aroha.

Kia kaha, Christchurch.