#which surprise surprise is also stereotyped as being gross by racists

[akimarshmallow]

hey isn't it funny that vegan friendly food has a stereotype for being gross while a lot of vegan substitutes for things are asian cuisine. isn't that weird. surely there isn't a correlation there

[outivv]

Fuck it black person gives their thoughts on Rappa

Even if she's Japanese and is part of the Japanese hip hop scene I still feel uncomfortable. Bringing this character out when we're supposed to return to Penacony is a recipe for disaster.

Penacony is notorious for fucking up race related plots or making them uncomfortably realistic with their history. The Aventurine lore the Boothill lore the Halovian lore its all just....a lot.

And that doesn't touch on the fact that Penacony is Jazz Age which would've been my people's time to shine and instead it's a conglomerate of every other race ever and then we get this Japanese wannabe rapper as what our last character to round out the cast? Not to mention her design being godawful. It's not streetwear which I think was what they wanted but those fuckass shorts they give every woman ruins it legitimately. Pants would make her so much more street.

Anyways I just have zero faith in her writing tbh. I feel like she's gonna be full of racial stereotypes and I'm just tired. Hell I won't be surprised if she has a blaccent atp despite looking like someone from Punklorde like Silver Wolf......

Ohhhh yeah- when I talked about rappa I also talked about how notorious penacony is for just stealing cultures and stories, because you’re right!! They make them uncomfortably accurate to real!! Life!! Events!! Like events we read in our history books, and then they don’t give any representation, and it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting, it’s disrespectful, it’s fucking gross. Don’t use real people’s pain, and history, and stories just for a silly little sci-fi fantasy game omfg.

Rappa in penacony is great lore wise, but everything else-wise? Omfg I’m so like… I’m nervous too, because they’re gonna make it weird somehow istg.

Penacony is just honestly disappointing with its character lineup in my opinion, because imagine all the characters we could’ve gotten if hyv actually based the characters off of the jazz age. Like. Penacony is like Los Vegas, Hollywood, fucking Disney land, just all put together, there’s very little jazz age influence in a lot of it I feel,time you can see the influence but it’s so like… fleeting almost. It’s disappointing, because they could’ve done so much more, especially cause music seems like such an important thing in penacony- so then make more jazz-y music!! Girl represent black people who MADE the jazz age happen. But no, they decided to be boring. And racist.

I like rappa’s design… but I’d like it more if she had pants, like y’know what I mean? Like oh yes I love the colors, love the hat, but she needs pants. Like Acheron would look better with pants, feixiao would look better with pants, even if you already I feel can’t see her shorts too much, like most fem characters would look better with pants or just things covering their legs more, not a weird one leg covered the other fully bare like they do A LOT.

If she has a blaccent I will omfg. M. No, because that would actually make me explode. IT’D BE SO BAD GOOD GOD- LIKE ITS ALREADY BAD DONT MAKE IT WORSE

[daughter-of-sapph0]

1) Detroit become human was about how white robots have it just as bad as African American slaves. cyberpunk 2077 alongside its glitches had racist elements such as orientalism, demonizing black men in the main story, and a horrible implantation of black features in the character customization. the Stanley parable had an in game video of a white man lighting a black child on fire. all games in the grand theft auto series showcase racist stereotypes of black criminals. all south park games have multiple racist "jokes" that are just as offensive and stupid as the show. minecraft on consoles had skin packs, one of which featuring the main character Steve wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, and being one of only two skins where Steve is depicted as Black.

Black people have been telling you about games that are racist for years. but you simply refuse to listen or care.

2) BLM is not an organization that all Black people are a part of. BLM stand for Black Lives Matter, and is a movement, not an organization, that is against police brutality. of course you don't understand the difference between a movement and an organization because you think all people you disagree must all be friends and all agree with each other and are secretly plotting to ruin your life. there is that Black Lives Matter Global Organization Fund, which IS an organization. that is a collective of far-left anticapitalists activists who are part of the Black Lives Matter movement. but not everyone who is part of the movement is part of the BLMGOF. when you say "BLM has never done this", who are you referring to? all Black people ever?

3)

4) "sex class" holy fuck kill yourself

5) "wait till tras find out..." firstly, stop with the tra shit. say tranny with your whole chest. because that's what you mean. you want to call us a slur, but you don't want to face the consequences of calling people slurs. so you make up weird words and acronyms, which are just tranny spelt different ways. it's the same energy as calling someone a fag and then saying "what? all I did was call you a bundle of sticks! there's nothing offensive about sticks, is there?". it's middle school level bigotry. and it's pathetic and makes you look insane.

6) you're trying to make the argument that trans people don't know that markus pearson sucks. but minecraft is the most popular game in the world. every already knows that markus pearson is a terrible person. he's a stupid racist sexist antisemitic transphobic cunt and I hope he fucking kills himself. but a) he hasn't had anything to do with the game in years, and b) he isn't actively funding for the death of trans people.

I have my own criticisms of minecraft. mainly the antisemitism with the villagers. because, surprise, they were created by an antisemite. but despite trying to distance themselves from pearson, Microsoft has done absolutely nothing to change this gross part of the game. I have been vocal about this for years, yet people like you don't give a shit.

also, minecraft is incredibly popular with autistic people, and people who are autistic and people who are trans overlap a lot.

also also, Lena Raine, famous for her work on soundtracks for Celeste and Deltarune, also composed some of the best songs ever for minecraft. why is the important? let me direct you to the best and shortest "personal life" section on wikipedia I've ever seen

actual trans people work on minecraft. minecraft and mojang are filled with queer devs who actively support and are part of the queer community.

so when the current dev team of a game has trans people actively working on it, doesn't invite the creator to the 10th anniversary celebration, does literally everything they can to get rid of all mentions or ties to the creator, and have gone on record saying they want nothing to do with pearson and have cut ties with him completely, I think that means that the game is not transphobic like you want it to be. it's not that no one cares because "he's a man". it's that minecraft isnt a franchise that uses its profits to fund genocide.

also, as I was saying before, minecraft isn't perfect. it still has antisemitism, it still has a racist past, and it still has a shitty ex dev. and while they can't change the past, they can change the future by removing the antisemitic tropes that surround the villagers. yet they don't, and I am very vocally upset and have expressed my views on this subject many times.

7) but you know a game with far worse antisemitism? hogwarts legacy. far more antisemitism than any transphobia. this game is literally the blood libel myth of Jews stealing the blood of white children. the goblins, which have large noses and control the banks and have a shofar and kidnap white wizard children and are secretly working with the wizard nazis are quite literally based off the antisemitic lies and conspiracy theories of the new world order, blood libel, greedy Jew, and holocaust denial. even on their own, these tropes would be absolutely disgusting and repulsive to any person with half a brain. but even though this game has more antisemitic lies and myths than a 4chan /pol/ thread, people like you don't care at all. because "it's hairy potty! and I love hairy potty! the creator hates trans people and that's based ... uh... I mean... I have nostalgia for the series! (and I don't give a shit at all about Jews)"

interestingly though, when this was pointed out to you in the replies, you said "no that's not true" and "so what? that's no reason to get mad" and "actually YOU'RE antisemitic for thinking that goblins are supposed to be Jews". and personally I think that anyone who says that last one deserves a bullet though their skull.

8) also, I find it very interesting that you're complaining and crying and pissing their pants when trans people boycott one (1) game, yet they refuse to listen to anyone else, especially Black people or Jews, when they suggest boycotts, and also refuse to boycott any games with extreme sexism and misogyny in them, despite pretending to care about women.

I have never seen a radfem say anything negative about fat princess, the guy game, dead island, overwatch, persona 5, grand theft auto, and hell, even hogwarts legacy.

if you didn't know, this game was developed by people who were part of gamergate. and if you don't know what gamergate was, it was a massive controversy online where women were saying how sexism in online games is bad, and a bunch of men said "no, and you're wrong! my opinion is worth more than your lived experience". and then some of those men went on to make what you think is the best game of all time, that contains extreme amounts of racism and antisemitism, and sales of which are actively funding a genocide against trans people. but I'm assuming that none of those things are negatives to people like you.

tldr: op need to kill themselves

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

The Driver looked at this one dress yesterday and said, with what I understood to be mostly disgust but also confusion, "I mean, how would you even wear this?!" It was strapless, with a halter-ish top (? I couldn't tell if it was a halter top or just had a swath of fabric that went horizontally across the shouldere) and a cut in the back, the kind of dress that often has rouching up the sides even though this one in particular didn't, sort of slinky looking, tight.

I looked at him and went "Oh, it's a halter top, see? This part goes around your neck."

"I like T shirts," he said, "they're simple."

"Me too," I said.

It's a very complicated gender dynamic between myself and The Driver, because he's like, aggressively masculine— in the very stereotypical, "my hobbies are golf and guns and drinking beer and playing car video games (and also conspiracy theories that seem/feel/are very racist and probably antisemetic??)" white guy kind of way, and it's like.... everyone at work refers to me as female, and I'm technically out to him as nonbinary, but he forgets about my pronouns and it's not important enough to me to like, make a fuss about it or correct him or anything

But then I like it when he says that I'm strong, and he notices that

And it's like, I think even though he sees me as female and is reading me as like, a woman or whatever, he also forgets that I'm not into Manly Dudebro Hobbies. He was trying to tell me about a conspiracy theory yesterday and he was like "So you know [specific event from a war a long time ago]?" And I was like "No?? Why would I know about that"

(Is this what passing as butch is in the real world as a transmasc person? Being seen as female but people being surprised when you don't have Manly™️ hobbies??)

Most of the time when he comments on women's clothing, which I sometimes call him out for, he's talking about how gaudy something is. And most of the clothes that he, or I, think are gross/that I wouldn't want to wear that, are a specific kind of rich-old-woman-multi-patterned thing, or an icky texture, or something like that.

He also will talk about how he wore women's leggings (or yoga pants? Or something?) once and they were super comfy but they "didn't fit everything", and I, a genderqueer person whose friends are almost all genderqueer and GNC, was like "If you want to, you should wear them." (He didn't take offense to this as much as I expected, but he insisted staunchly that he wouldn't do it, and that it "wouldn't feel right")

Also, I'm starting to grow a noticeable enough beard that it's showing under my mask a little bit, which I really like :) I guess I'll see if anyone says anything about it to me

Got lost a little bit away from my original point, which was that The Driver and I both dislike rich women's itchy clothing, but he's coming at it from a perspective of "how/why would anyone wear that?!" And I'm coming at it from a perspective of "that fucking sucked when I had to wear that [kind of stuff]", which is way different

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s2 ep2: Initiations

When I realized this was the next episode up, I thought 'ugh, not this one'. My opinion of it hasn't changed much on rewatching.

It gets off to a less than stellar start with one of Chakotay's fake Native American ritual scenes. Every time he says 'akoocheemoya' it's like fingernails on a chalkboard; how they ever thought it was okay to make up a language rather than just you know, hiring a consultant who could translate a real language from a real tribe, I don't know. It's so disrespectful, and it doesn't set a good tone.

Then we get into to the actual story, wherein Chakotay saves the life of a teenage Kazon boy who was sent to kill him, and now he must help him escape dishonor, because the Kazon will kill kids who don't kill people for them. I'm sure this episode was meant to humanize the Kazon and give us some sort of insight into their culture, but unfortunately, their culture is a poorly concieved mish-mosh of toxic masculinity and racist tropes about 'primitive' and 'savage' tribal societies.

For one thing, the supposedly teenage Kazon is played by grown up Aron Eisenberg, who, as every single Trekkie would immediately recognize, played Nog for seven years on Deep Space Nine. I don't know if they genuinely thought that no one would recognize him, but even if that had been the case, his voice is easily recognizable, and it was way too distracting for me to see the actor instead of the character.

Second, the Kazon are just bargain basement knock-off Klingons- a cheap copycat with none of the depth of the original. The hair, for one thing, is distractingly bad- they've got these big clown wigs with like, seaweed and shells or whatever stuck in it. They're supposed to be these macho brutal warriors, but they're doing up their hair with all these trinkets like they're mermaids or something. It seems unlikely they would be concerned with that if they love fighting so much. And once again, they're yet another patriarchal culture where men are all warriors and women are nothing. I am so so sick of this trope I could scream. Every other culture we meet being a warlike patriarchy is unlikely, given how quickly patriarchal societies tend to destroy their own people and planets. Most likely they wouldn't even have developed to the point where they would have invented warp technology. From a writing standpoint, it shows a lack of imagination that they can't concieve of cultures that aren't violent and misogynistic. Sure, we have to have villains, but there's better ways to do that than simplisticly saying 'all these people are mean and bad because it's their culture. Also, there's only men. They hate women, because of course they do.' It's just lazy and gross and not something we need to see all the time. Especially when they're depicted as a nomadic tribal society, who in the real world often face oppression and negative stereotypes. Most of the Kazon being either darker skinned or made-up darker than they are feels like an insensitive choice, at best, for a species who are explicity depicted here as bloodthirsty brutes who routinely kill their own children.

I'm sure they were trying to say something about kindness being the true strength with Chakotay trying to mentor this boy and teach him that killing isn't the answer, but I feel like it wasn't really worth it if we had to be mired in all these gross sexist and racist tropes to get there.

The only things I liked in this story were a) Kes being included in the away team, and armed with a phaser. It's so nice to see her branching out beyond caretaking, and being given more responsibilty.

b) Tom Paris got left in command of the bridge for the first time, which was very unusual- I honestly don't ever remember another time that happened, and I'm surprised it was this early on, considering he wasn't technically even one of the actual Starfleet crew in the beginning. I guess Janeway sensed his inherent Starfleet goodness from the beginning, lol. I do think it was probably a big deal for Tom's overall character arc though, for him to realize that the Captain trusts him enough to leave him in command while she's gone.

c) hearing Neelix mention Lt. Ayala having kids back home. Apparently the guy who played background crewman Ayala was there throughout the entire series, as he has the most appearances on the show after the main cast. I never noticed him before while watching the show, so it's fun to go and try to pick him out now. I've recognized him in a few episodes, usually on the bridge, and learned he has kids. I love having continuity for background characters, it really helps flesh out life on the ship.

Robert Beltran did a good job acting wise too, but the story itself was just a big no.

Tl;dr: A story that falls back on old tropes so mired in toxic masculinity and racism that it overpowers whatever point it was trying to make.

[goatlingsvent]

I'm not a lesbiphobe. I'm only digging up actually common talking points made by lesbians to discredit the toothpaste flag, some of which have been mentioned on this blog. And then debunking them.

"Ugly ass version of MY flag" isn't a valid reason to drop a flag, especially when the flag isn't yours and you have no say in other people claiming it and using it.

I can say the same for the lesbians flags: I hate oranges and any shade of orange as well as pink and most shades of pinks especially reddish fruit punch pinks, by this logic I COULD call most of the stream lesbian flags ugly because I find the colors ugly and awful to work with.

Subjective options ≠ Criticism, and lean into insult, not valid reasons for me not to use a flag.

As I even said, in my rambles the oh but "it uses blue and green for boys!!!1!!!" Also isn't a valid take as the lesbian uses reds and pinks colors which are stereotypically "girly" colors.

Only half decent argument I'm seeing is not being a monolithic voice, and I'm not: but me being a gay trans man tired of cis and trans woman lesbian or not alike speaking over and or discrediting my experiences or opinions is gross. Me speaking out isn't an attempt to attack you or speak over you. You spoke over me first and so I'm correcting you on your "criticism" of MY symbols.

I'm tired of any attempt to point out there is a problem is quickly shut down by being denounced as lesbiphobe, it's like shutting down criticism by calling people racist or homophobic even when they being up good points that have nothing to do with identity or race.

Besides, if you actually knew your history you'd know the lesbian flag is a redesign/lesbian version of a flag that's a lesbian version redesign of a gay man flag (bear). We aren't a stealing anything. No one is stealing anything. Attempting to seek solidarity symbolically when there is only infighting and hate isn't the end of the world.

Additionally if your that twisted about flag "politics" that you have resort to actually just insults then telling me your live in a first world country with our telling me in your a first world country.

Me saying hey, I wish goatlings would actually listen to the people who COULD claim the flag over people who can't isn't lesbianphobic, and saying hey this flag isn't bad let's coexist with out your throwing insults and a transtrum because I refuse to be anything but reasonable shouldn't be such an issue. But your here. I'm not surprised.

🦂

[absynthe--minded]

So I'm excited about the POC characters in the LOTR show if nothing else. But many people in fandom are really nasty about that. Is there anything concrete in canon saying dark-skinned elves are possible existing?

so first off, whatever Tolkien says or does not say ultimately doesn't matter. the existence of people of color in real life is a fact and there is no reason why elves and Men and dwarves can't be racially diverse. it doesn't matter that it's Eurofantasy, it doesn't matter that it's "a mythology for England". nothing about the Legendarium is inherently white in a way that cannot or should not be racebent.

gonna say that again, louder:

it does not matter what the intent was. adding racial diversity to a cast is not dependent upon authorial approval. Tolkien is literally dead and I don't care if this would offend him. I don’t think it would offend him for the reasons I’m including below, but even if it would, that doesn’t matter, racial diversity and an inclusive imagining of this world are more important than the hypothetical feelings of the author.

now. Tolkien was racist. this is an undeniable fact that everybody has to engage with when they read his works. it is uncomfortable equal-opportunity racism where no matter if you’re Black, indigenous, or Asian, he’s said something gross and loaded about you. you cannot avoid this in The Lord of the Rings, though it’s much less present in the Silmarillion and the greater Legendarium. I’ve made a study of his life and I tend to come down on the side of “he wasn’t well-informed enough to be truly aware of the racist aspects of his work, and was echoing stereotypes held by his society or put forward in the literature he drew from as inspiration”. this is for two reasons:

when he did get called out on the antisemitic portrayal of the dwarves in The Hobbit by a Jewish associate he apologized and wrote Gimli in The Lord of the Rings with a care to not behave that way again; Gimli exists almost as an apology for former antisemitism. this demonstrates he can learn and grow when he’s made aware of what he’s doing, and that he’s not doing it on purpose.

he taught nonwhite students at Oxford and none of them have come out and said that he was cruel and racist to them, which indicates at the very least that he was at least capable of respecting their personhood and treating them fairly even if he held racist beliefs. he also spoke positively of at least one of his South Asian students, calling him one of the best English literature scholars he’d encountered, which shows he wasn’t personally malicious.

of course, none of these things matter if you’re a person of color reading his works and you encounter what he wrote. this does not make Tolkien less racist, at all. I am not trying to excuse his racism or say that it doesn’t matter, because it does, and if the fact that it exists is a dealbreaker for you that is fucking understandable. There are parts of The Return of the King that I genuinely cannot fucking read without getting sick to my stomach. The reason I’m trying to provide this context is to show why I, as a scholar, consider his work worth studying and examining and loving despite that flaw, and why I don’t think he’s on the level of someone like Hates Phoreigners Lovecraft. I can’t make that decision for anyone, but that needs to get out of the way first because before I start talking about the genuinely surprising diversity in Arda I need to acknowledge that the guy who was making it diverse didn’t have the best intentions all of the time.

now, onto the actual examination of things. (more below the cut, the tl;dr is ‘dark-skinned elves have exactly as much canonical precedent as Gil-galad being the son of Finrod + a Sinda named Meril, so there’s no reason to discount them. also, the mortal Men and hobbits in Arda have a canonically established range of skin tones even among the heroes, so elves and dwarves having those too makes complete sense.’)

Maeglin is the only elf whose skin tone is ever explicitly mentioned, and it changes between the drafts. In his earliest Book of Lost Tales appearance, he’s “swarthy” and dark-skinned, in his latest appearances he’s pale-skinned. BoLT’s draft has the benefit of being the only complete account of the Fall of Gondolin that we have, which makes it large and weighty and too great to be ignored. In The Shaping of Middle-Earth (I think, that’s off the top of my head but if it’s not in Shaping it’s in Peoples) he’s described as physically resembling his mother and mentally resembling his father. Shaping as a draft is relevant because this is what Christopher Tolkien pulled from to write the ‘Of Maeglin’ chapter in the Silmarillion. If Maeglin is interpreted as both dark-skinned and as resembling his mother, that means Aredhel was herself dark-skinned, and that means her family isn’t white.

(note: Christopher Tolkien, so far as I can tell, invented the idea that Idril and the Gondolindrim found Maeglin disgusting for wanting to marry his cousin from whole cloth. I’ve scoured the drafts and Vinyar Tengwar and all the tidbits I can find and I’ve found absolutely no indication that Tolkien included a taboo against cousin marriage anywhere in his actual writings. he in fact explicitly allows it in one draft of Laws and Customs among the Eldar. In Shaping, Turgon loves and trusts Maeglin but Maeglin is scheming for the throne, and in BoLT - where Maeglin is outright villainous and the most racially loaded - Turgon is opposed to his marrying Idril because he doesn’t think Maeglin will love his daughter, he thinks Maeglin will use her as a tool for political gain. this is not really relevant except to say that Maeglin being seen as disgusting by the Gondolindrim reads in a very loaded and problematic light, and it seems to not be present at all in the original text.)

In most cases, Tolkien doesn’t really describe skin tone, instead reverting to somewhat vague descriptors like ‘pale’ or ‘fair’. I will admit that in a strictly literal interpretation of the text, that does seem to indicate that there’s a relative dearth of heroic elves of color, but I’m going to repeat what I said above (authorial intent does not matter more than making Arda inclusive) and continue on with the fact that ‘pale’ can mean things other than ‘white’.

Plenty of people who are not white are pale, or pale compared to others in their family or community. if you’re committed to a racially diverse Arda, this genuinely should not stop you, and if you’re bothered by people playing with this, that’s a sign you should examine yourself. the same goes with ‘fair,’ which Tolkien uses just as often to mean ‘beautiful’ as to mean ‘light-skinned’ or ‘of a light complexion’. someone can be dark and fair (Lúthien comes to mind) and that’s not a contradiction. again, it does not matter what the author thought, and while this is an admittedly creative reading of the text, it’s certainly not impossible.

We have significantly more textual and paratextual evidence for nonwhite mortals, and frankly that’s what I would consider the biggest evidence for nonwhite elves. And it’s not just the evil Men, either!

Hobbits are a canonically ethnically diverse group with varying skin tones and a lot of intermarriage and ‘mixed-race’ (by contemporary Earth standards) individuals; the smallest Hobbit ethnic group (the Fallohides) is the white one. Sam is darker-skinned than Frodo is, and he’s the true hero of LotR according to the author. And, The Peoples of Middle-Earth confirms that the House of Bëor is brown-skinned, which means Tolkien’s own self-insert Beren is not a white person. If Beren isn’t white, neither are Barahir, Andreth, Emeldir, Aerin, Rían, or Morwen Eledhwen. This means that Dior wouldn’t necessarily be white, and that Elwing, Elrond, and Elros are mixed-race both in terms of their actual bloodline and modern conceptions of the term.

On top of that, Gondor is a canonically racially prejudiced society, but Gondor is racist based on blood and ancestry and not on skin tone and is diverse in terms of the people living there - the Rohirrim are described as paler and lighter-haired than they are, indicating they’re already not white, and when Pippin is watching the reinforcements come into Minas Tirith in the first chapter of RotK he observes that there are some warriors who are significantly darker-skinned-than-the-others but are counted as men of Gondor. Aragorn’s crown as drawn by Tolkien in his letters also bears a resemblance to Egypt’s double crown, and Gondor has a Mediterranean climate, which famously yields extremely white-looking people here on Earth (that’s sarcasm lmao) And if Gondor isn’t white, that means Arnor and the Dúnedain aren’t white either, which means Númenor wasn’t white (Unfinished Tales says that a lot of descendants of the House of Bëor ended up on Númenor, so...)

tbh this indicates to me that we have absolutely no reason why elves - and not just silvan elves or Sindarin elves, Calaquendi too! - can’t be diverse in terms of skin tone and the races of the actors. the only thing stopping anybody is their own racism and their own lack of commitment to diversity. Tolkien was racist, but he’s dead, his ability to impact the world now is dependent upon the fandom and the scholarly community, and I think the way forward is to embrace diversity and also to explore and acknowledge his racism and his failings. crafting a version of Arda where everyone is included is to me reclaiming a space that I was both welcomed by and excluded from, and the fact that this sometimes means standing in opposition to supposed ‘purist’ reads on the text is fine by me.

so... what are we left with?

well, it’s contradictory. we’ve got a racist guy who nonetheless makes his heroic characters explicitly brown, a society that could either be read as very racially segregated or very racially diverse, and a lot of mixed messages (I haven’t delved into his takes on colonialism yet, I do not have the strength for that). It’s a space that has just as much evidence for including people of color as excluding them, and as a result, I say to include. if you’re not for that, you’ve got some self-examination to do.

[incorrectzutaraquotes]

let’s talk racial micro aggressions, because i’ve been seeing a lot of them being used online toward people speaking out about racism and even in fandoms unfortunately, so i think it’s time we have a talk. this is gonna be a semi long one, so buckle up.

just for reference, im asian american. because of that i’ve gone my entire life experiencing racism and discrimination simple because im not white. of course, i have definitely had it better than a lot of people, but that doesn’t take away from my experiences at all. i grew up hating the way i looked, trying to fix myself because i genuinely thought something was wrong with me. this led to years and years of insecurity and self hatred. something i had to go through alone, because my family was white and i was too afraid to tell them how i felt. i was afraid they wouldn’t understand. it’s still something i struggle with, though it’s gotten better.

growing up, as stated before, i was around white people. growing up in a very white town, i unfortunately wasn’t formally educated on racism or what micro aggressions were, i just knew that certain comments made me uneasy and uncomfortable, and hurt my feelings. it wasn’t until i was older, when i started using social media that i really came to understand what all of this was. 

a lot of you who have white privilege are using it to uplift bipoc voices, and i think that’s great. however it’s also important to acknowledge that many people who are actively anti racist still have implicit biases, which can lead to microaggressions.

first of all, what are microaggressions? you may or may not be familiar with the term. if you’re not, that’s okay! you can use this post to educate yourself and make sure you don’t make these mistakes in the future. microaggressions are defined as brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups.

basically, intentional or unintentional derogatory and prejudice behaviors directed towards marginalized groups.

these are very harmful to marginalized groups, mostly because they’re not as blatant as outright racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. this makes it often hard to detect, and you may have found yourself using micro aggressions at some point in your life. that’s not important though, what’s important is that, if you have used them in the past, you understand what you said or did was wrong, and that you learn from it.

now, what are specific racial micro aggressions? i’ve compiled a list of them under the cut, and explained why these are insulting and harmful to poc.

“where are you really from” – this insinuates that we will always be seen as foreigners, and not citizens to our own country. it brings on a feeling of not being good enough and that we will not be accepted. 

“not everything’s about race” – if you’re white stop telling bipoc how to feel about race. we are tired of it. please don’t speak over us when we are expressing our discomfort. if poc people are telling you something is racist, it’s racist. stop trying to argue with us, as you are not the ones being affected by it. 

“your food is so weird” – it’s only weird to you because it hasn’t been westernized or americanized. insisting that foreign foods are weird or gross because you aren’t used to it, is hurtful. it’s insulting. 

“all asians look the same” – by saying this, you’re taking away our individuality. asia is a huge continent, not all of us follow the same traditions and not all of us look the same. it’s not a funny joke, and it never has been. 

“you’re pretty for a *insert any race here*” – this is just such a backhanded compliment. it implies that we are not typically or conventionally pretty. it has the same negative connotations as saying “you’re really good...for a girl”. that’s misogynistic for the same reasons saying this is racist. 

“i don’t see color” – again, you’re basically erasing our individuality and culture and telling us we shouldn’t embrace it. many pocs even completely distance themselves from their cultures to seek white validation, which is in every sense of the word, upsetting. people want to fit in so bad that they’re willing to leave behind their entire culture. something that sucks about being adopted at such a young age from a white family, is that i have never had a connection with my culture. i know nothing about it, and that hurts. i rationalized in my head that the reason i didn’t learn about it sooner was because i was happy, but that was a lie i told myself for years. the sad thing is, is that because i wasn’t connected to my culture at all, i fit in better and had an easier time making friends then other pocs in my school. 

assuming all asian people are smart or good at math – stop. it’s not funny. never has been. the stereotype that all asians are smart is not a compliment, and puts a lot of pressure on us as individuals. it objectifies us, assuming we are more like machines and not actual people. long story short, it’s dehumanizing. 

“im not/cant be racist i have black friends” – contrary to popular belief, yes you can be. you can still have a racial bias while being friends with bipoc people. being associated with poc people doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not racist. you may even make racist jokes and think it’s okay because they don’t tell you to stop. just because they are seemingly unbothered does not mean it’s not still racist. a lot of times we are uncomfortable in situations like that, but are too afraid to speak up in fear of our feelings being invalidated or being told to lighten up because it’s just a joke. saying we’re too sensitive when it comes to making mockeries of our races and cultures, is also a micro aggression. 

saying “you people” or “y’all” when talking, usually negatively, about a person of a specific race – you’re generalizing an entire group because of one bad experience which is just contributing to the stereotypes and racism we face daily. one or a few bad interactions with a person of a different race does not speak for an entire population.

clutching your bag tight when a poc person, usually black or latinx, stands next to you or following them in the store – the way i still have to explain this one in 2020. they are not criminals, but by doing this, you’re contributing to the stereotype that they are all criminals and thugs, which simply isn’t true. this stereotype is very damaging and harmful, as it also contributes to the systematic oppression of those people. 

assuming someone only got a certain job or position because they’re bipoc – this insinuates that we did not work hard to get where we are, and that we did not deserve what we got. we simply got it because we aren’t white. affirmative action comes up a lot in this conversation. all affirmative action does is help decide between equally qualified people by favoring the ones who suffer from discrimination in society, but it does not reserve spots for them.

assuming someone knows how to speak mandarin because they’re asian – asia is a large continent with A LOT of languages and cultures. not everyone is chinese. not everyone speaks the same language. it’s insulting and adds to the already hurtful stereotype that all asians look the same.

“you speak english really well” or “how did you learn to speak english so well” – it’s called practicing because people have been making fun of those with accents for years, simply because they are not used to it. being surprised when a poc speaks english well implies that you may think because they’re not white, they are less educated. we’ve simply assimilated because our cultures are constantly rejected and mocked by white people and even other pocs. this also contributes to the notion that westerners are more “civilized” or that they are better, because they(generally speaking this obviously doesn’t apply to everyone)make no effort to learn our cultures, but we have to learn theirs in order to be seen as “acceptable”.

“but *insert race* are racist too” or pointing out immoral things other countries do when people of that race speak up about racism - you’re redirecting the conversation to avoid responsibility. you don’t actually care about those issues, you just want to invalidate our struggles by pointing out that a place many of us have not been to in a long time, or ever, is very flawed. we have no say in what that government chooses to do. not all places are a democracy, and many democracies around the world are flawed.

something important to remember is that anyone can be guilty of implicit bias and micro aggressions. this is not selective to one race. 

if you have anymore of these, please feel free to add on. also, if you’re a poc and something i wrote made you uncomfortable, please tell me. i want to make sure im being truthful with what i said. i did do research for some of these, and some were based on personal experiences, but if you want to add to something or you want me to change or delete something do not hesitate to call me out. 

unfortunately they and other racial stereotypes are very prevalent in american media, which has normalized it in our society. this post is solely meant to educate if you weren’t previously aware of the dangers micro aggressions have on minorities. i started the list because i was tired of seeing so much normalized racism online, but i hope you learned something useful with this. if you stuck around this long, thank you for listening. i appreciate it a lot. 

as for my zutara fans, i apologize for making so many rant posts rather than posting incorrect quotes. i just feel like im able to reach a larger audience with the platform i have on this account than any other one. 

anyway, that’s all. thank you again for listening :) 

[mumblino]

My self discovery journey

Heyo!

This is not what most of my posts are gonna be like, but I felt like it was important to talk about, and pride month is a perfect time to tell my (summarized) self discover journey~

My name is Brandon, although I don’t care if you call me Mumble. My pronouns change a lot since i don’t really know myself that well, but currently, they are He/Him, They/Them and It/Its. There are also days where I don’t really identify with any 3rd person pronouns, I’m just me, and that’s what I mean when I say No Pronouns.

I have Depression, Anxiety and Combination Type- ADHD, which is why i am on the internet a lot.

This is a very long post, so buckle up

//TW: Transphobia, Enbyphobia, Homophobia, Anxiety, Depression, ADHD,  Disordered Eating, Racism (not a huge part, but there are mentions of it), Self Harm, Mentions of a Psych Ward, Medication

I am a trans-masc, afab teenager. I am a romance-neutral aromantic (my interpretation of that is that I don’t mind romance, but I don’t actively want one or seek one out), and a sex-repulsed asexual (I am completely repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual intercourse with anyone). and I am currently out to my friends, my mother, and my step-father, and am in the beginning-middle of my transition.

 I started questioning my gender identity when I was in early 7th grade, after my friend Saturn (pronouns are They/It/Bun) first came out to me as Non-Binary, and asked me to use They/Them pronouns.

I’ve never really actively considered myself straight. I’ve always seen love as between two people, and while I usually thought of a man and a woman, I have always been open to same sex couples. My best friend in 2nd grade actually introduced me to the LGBTQ+ community (not directly, but she did talk about those types of things quite a bit), and while I don’t want to assume her sexuality, I am fairly certain she experienced attraction to both boys and girls.

Before this, the only thing I really knew about trans people was that they existed, and I didn’t really care that much. However, my brother and my father had the idea that most LGBTQ+ people are “snowflakes” and since I didn’t know anything else, I believed them.

However, I wanted to learn more about Trans people, and how to be respectful and supportive of them. I did, at the time, consider myself to be LGBTQ+. In both 5th and 6th grade I thought I was either a lesbian or bisexual, since I didn’t know the difference between aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction, and well, people are pretty!

I also had this need to be very masculine, and I always have. I’ve always wanted to be a tom-boy, to be the masculine one in the group, be the Buttercup of my friends! And during th grade, as I started to learn more about LGBTQ+ people, I wanted to be the top. I wanted to be the stereotypical lesbian. The one with the androgynous style, chill attitude, and the one that scares the shit out of guys.

I’ve even said to myself (not knowing that being trans was a thing) that I want to be a boy. I’ve always identified more with the guys at my school. Not in a pick me girl way, but in a “I relate to you a lot, and I feel like I fit in with you” way.

 And to some extent, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is because of how often feminine guys are made fun of. I would not be surprised one bit if this is because femininity has always been demonized to me, especially if a guy is being feminine.

Anyways, through this dive into the Alphabet Mafia, I found out about asexuality. It really resonated with me, because I always found sexual things gross, but that also confused me. If I was asexual, why did I want to be masculine so badly? Why wasn’t I like the other girls? I’ve always felt like an outcast around most people, but especially girls. I never related to them. I always related to more masculine people, and boys especially.

After this, I decided to start looking into trans culture, and FTM culture especially. Through this I found Kalvin Garrah. I know now that he is very much a toxic influence on the Trans community, but he taught me a lot about trans culture. I also found Sam Collins and Jammidoger through him, who also taught me a lot (and are much more positive influences.) These FTM youtubers taught me a lot, and I started to realize, that I might be trans.

Because of this, I decided to ask Saturn if they could refer to me by They/Them pronouns. I went with They/Them because I didn’t feel like I passed well enough to use them. My hair was still long, I wasn’t out to my family, I still acted feminine sometimes, etc.

I would also like to make note of the fact that at the time, I was not very accepting of most gender identities outside of the “binary” and didn’t consider it a spectrum. I had a very close minded and rigid view of gender, and this is mostly due to family influences. This view is why I didn’t want to use He/Him pronouns, because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I have since grown out of that viewpoint, reflected, and tried to do better when trying to understand other people’s identities.

This stress of my identity crisis, untreated mental conditions, toxic friends, and general struggle with school caused me to develop disordered eating habits. I have never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, however I’ve struggled with disordered eating for a long time. During 7th grade, I started to struggle with binge eating. The moment I would get home, I would immediately start a binge. It was uncontrollable, I felt horrible, and eventually, my mom had started to notice that I was eating an unhealthy amount.

A few months after this, I started to see a therapist, and at the end of my first session with her, I came out to my mom. I could not be more thankful for how supportive of me she is. She has only shown love, and care for me, and the only time she’d no to a step in my transition, is out of a genuine concern for my physical and mental health. She is also religious, but she loves me for the way that I am, and has a very loving and positive viewpoint when it comes to that.

I didn’t do much for my transition at the time (other than switching my pronouns to He/They at some point) and focused more on school, depression, and my romantic orientation.

This was a part that really confused me. I’ve never had a crush (except for one that came from peer-pressure) and I’ve never had an interest in romance. (Keep in mind I had no idea what ‘Aromantic’ was) So what was I? For the time being I decided to consider myself either bi-romantic or hetero-romantic, because like I said, people are pretty, and I tended to notice pretty girls more than pretty boys. 

There was also another hurdle. My (now ex) group of toxic friends. These friends weren’t toxic in the way that they wouldn’t include me, they were toxic in the way that they would talk shit about any minority group, a lot of which i was a part of. They were racist (I am not a poc but it still made me upset and uncomfortable) ableist (they threw the r-slur around a lot) homophobic (this was the biggest one, mainly making fun of them, callng them ‘pixies’ and would say they would ‘burn them’) and transphobic/enbyphobic (they didn’t consider they/them pronouns valid, they threw around the ‘attack helicopter’ joke, and they would dehumanize trans people, and call them ‘transvestites’)

Over the summer, I still spoke to them, and tried to ignore all of their behavior, because if I had cut them off, I would be completely alone. I have an extremely intense fear of abandonment, so the idea of doing that was comparable to death.

Through the first half of 8th grade (I was doing school from home) I didn’t talk to many people other than them. I stayed in my room a lot, and the first half of 8th grade was a steady decline in my mental health. My depression and anxiety had significantly worsened over that time, and I was extremely lonely. This was also worsened by the fact that I have ADHD, and at the time, it was undiagnosed, so I was failing almost all of my classes. 

The only way I was able to comfort myself was through my hyperfixations, and over the summer, I had a developed a hyperfixation on the Origins MCRP group. Because I had nothing else to do, I decided to pick up drawing again, and in October, I did an Origins version of Inktober. Every day, I would draw a different character from their series Fairy Tail Origins. I did not complete the challenge, however I did get through the first week, and I am proud of myself for that.

One one of the days, I had to draw a character named Brandon (partial inspiration for my name lel.) Brandon is a sky devil-slayer, and a co-guild leader of a guild named Divinus Magia. and I decided to draw him in a picture that symbolically showed his mental struggles with a devil named Jupiter. I posted it to the fan discord, and the actor and creator of the character (online username is ReinBloo) noticed my artwork. I was extremely excited about this, and decided to start drawing more and more. 

Because of this newfound motivation to pick up drawing again, I decided to create my own persona. I decided to make my main persona a revised design of my profile picture at the time. It was an improvised character, but I liked the aspects of it, and in late 2020, (yes i am 14 shut up) I created my main Oc, Jupiter. (at the time he didn’t have a name and I landed on Jupiter because I like it, and it fit him.) Jupiter is a space inspired demon, with dark grey skin, white star-like freckles, pure white eyes, white hair (that is slightly purple) and light gray ram-like horns with gray stripes on the base and tip. His color palette is that of the Asexual flag, and this was originally unintentional, but since I like the colors, and my Asexuality is an important part of my identity, I went with it.

I fell in love with this character, and he helped me figure out a lot about myself. I continued to watch origins, and draw for them (mainly ReinBloo’s characters lel) and on January 27th of 2021, in the premier chat of one of the episodes of My Hero Origins, I met MissyLea (She also goes by Lea, and Vesper). We instantly became friends, and moved over to discord to continue our conversation. By February 10th, we were already planning on being platonic valentines. We related on so many things, she was so kind, and loving, and understanding, and very quickly, I grew a strong emotional bond with her.

By the end of February, I developed an emotional attraction to her. I wanted to be with her forever, and while I personally wouldn’t consider it romantic right now, at the time, I did. After a few months of identifying as Aromantic (I had learned about it by now, through the Asexual community) I decided to change that label to Demi-Panromantic. I realized that I didn’t really see her gender, I didn’t care. I love her, and that’s all that matters to me. Now, I feel as though it was more of an emotional and somewhat sensual love for her, but even so, I love her to the edge of the universe and back, no matter what our relationship is.

I have told her things I’ve told no one else. When I was struggling, she was there for me, with kind words, and an endless amount of unconditional love. She is the type of person everyone deserves to have in their life, whether they are a friend, a family member, a partner, or anything else, everyone deserves to have a friend with the amount of love in their heart that she has.

On March 19th, I decided to tell her how I felt. When she said she felt the same way about me, I was happier than ever. To have someone who feels the same way about me as I do about them is amazing. We started dating later that day.

It’s only been 3 months, but I feel like I’ve known her for 3 years. Vesper has made me feel complete when I’m around them, but they’ve made it so much easier to stand on my own as well. 

Near the end of my 8th grade year, I officially cut them off, and came out to them (albeit in a very aggressive way) and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without Vesper’s support. Just one person has made it so much easier to cut off toxic people.

Vesper’s support also made it easier for me to be more open with my therapist. I began to tell her more of what I was struggling with, and it has made my mental health journey so much more bearable.

Over these past two months, I have finally gotten a diagnosis, and been able to truly know what direction to go in to properly treat my mental health.

I hope that by sharing my story you can better know me, and I also hope I can help create a safer environment for others to talk about their stories.

I hope one day people will be able to be themselves, and talk about their experiences, without the fear of judgement, or persecution, and if just this one post helps us get closer to that, I will be happy.

Happy Pride Month everybody! You are all amazing, loved and valid! 🌈💖

[asianadjacent]

We are not all the same

An open letter to white men everywhere

Dear (drunk) white men,

It may come as a surprise to you but all yellow-looking people are not the same. We even speak different languages and are from places that could be geographically further apart than the length of your tiny island. What a shocker, I know - but I have no doubt that you’ll get over it very quickly.

And while it may sound like I am addressing all white men, I am in fact addressing two specific drunk white male individuals and your one token Asian-ish pal. One of you looking very fat, balding and grotesque, the other lanky with a misshapen face akin to Steve Buschemi (no offense Steve!), and the token Asian with a wispy moustache beard combo (not a good look dude). We’ll get back to the token later on but the focus for now is solely on the two white men.

I spotted you both coming into Rasa Sayang, the Malaysian restaurant that I just so happened to be sitting in for a late Friday dinner in Soho, with your Asian friend coming in shortly after.

This particular Malaysian restaurant, which I regularly frequent, was originally located in Chinatown. It has temporarily moved slightly north into a supposedly trendier part of town as the original shop house is under construction. However, given the fact that businesses in Chinatown restaurants have dropped over 60% (an anecdotal stat from Chinatown restaurant staff) since the start of this COVID-19 fuelled hysteria with gross racial overtones, the short-term move for the owners is probably a blessing in disguise. (While I could entertain you with stories of overt racism in central London due to coronavirus-mania, that is another subject to tackle at another time.)

We now go back to the evening, where out of the corner of my slightly suspicious looking slitty eyes and large ears, I see and hear this group of three men, obviously under the influence and slightly boisterous. While this may seem not out of the ordinary as we’ve all been a bit loud and obnoxious after a few post-work pints, what proceeded to happen was also sadly, quite the norm.

As a server approached them, the fat one decided to shout “KAMSAHAMNIDA” while the lanky one shouted to their Asian friend to be more “Asian”. The Asian friend proceeded to squeeze his face to make smaller eyes while holding up his hand to make a peace sign while greeting the waiter with the good old “herro”.

(“Kamsahamnida” is “thank you” in Korean, which doesn’t even make sense in this context.)

Seeing as I was rolling solo waiting for my food to arrive, it was only natural that I was people watching. They were especially hard not to miss as I was sitting near the entrance. The moment that happened, a rage welled up inside of me and I was immediately shooting evils at the group. I was making my displeasure known through my stares and they definitely felt it. Instead of looking contrite or toned down, they instead muttered under their breath about how European Asians usually have better manners and wouldn’t stare.  

So as I sit here on the 14 bus, rage typing on my way home, I decided to write an open letter to the drunk white men out there who think this is ok. Obviously, this is not addressed to the good ones out there, just the ones who think it’s perfectly acceptable to go into an Asian restaurant and speak rudely to the wait staff in a language that they know does not belong to them. You know exactly who you are.

You wouldn’t walk into a German beer hall and speak French. You wouldn’t walk into an Italian pizzeria and start shouting random Greek words. You wouldn’t walk into a Dutch bar and start rattling off the only Spanish phrases you picked up during your pathetic GCSEs. So why would you think it’s ok to walk into a Malaysian place and start shouting the first Korean phrase that popped into your head just because you’ve heard of Parasite, BTS or Samsung?

And to you, the token Asian. Yes, you. I was offended by you the most, not because you joined in, but because I see so much of my old self in you. I know you.

I know that you act a bit more ‘white’ and a little less ‘yellow’ so you’d fit in better with your mostly straight, white, male friends. I know that you really milk the Asian stereotype jokes in front of your white friends to feel more accepted. However, I will tell you this now. When you look back in a few years (or maybe more), in a time where you’re attempting your damndest to reclaim your identity because you feel like you’ve lost a part of you over the years, you will look back at these moments with regret and shame.

You will reflect on moments like these and realise that you reduced yourself to the common denomination to fit into the majority because you are afraid that you won’t be fully accepted due to your skin colour and background.

Because you lowered yourself to the common denomination to fit into a group because you are afraid that you won’t be fully accepted for who you are just because of your difference in lived experience due to your skin colour and background.

I know all this because that used to be me, making “eating dog” or “chinky” jokes just for a few cheap laughs. I’m trying to be better now and you, my fellow yellow asian friend, should stop too. And if you don’t want to do it for the rest of us, do it for yourself.

We are more than indistinguishable yellow faces with interchangeable languages, just like how these white men are, probably, more than just a couple of drunk twats. We are not our skin tone or the shape of our eyes. We are also not solely defined by the location of where we were born or the colour of our passports. We are a culmination of our individual lived experience, which makes us truly unique, while still being able to belong to the various cultures and influences that shaped us.

So the next time you want to tell a self-deprecating ‘Asian’ joke, or shout Japanese words at a bunch of Mongolians, please do us all ‘yellow’ people a favour and just don’t.

Fuck you very much, A Malaysian Chinese hetero(ish) male, aged 29, with lived experiences across three continents and five countries (so far), a better grasp of the English language than most of the white people who invented it, and with enough manners to not be an absolute racist cunt, even when drunk.

[calleo-bricriu]

Why do I keep doing this?

It’s nearly over, there are fewer than 100 pages left in the horrid thing after this one.

((Oh also, these few chapter contain a hell of a lot of really casual racism mostly against Native Americans and whatever “half-breeds” are, because that’s not specified.))

Okay, chapter 18 starts with finding out that the stroke didn't kill Mother it did, of course, exactly what Mizpra wanted: Left her a mostly paralysed invalid.

Despite that, she's written as still being pretty mentally lucid, just not physically capable of doing much but being propped up in a chair facing a window. Now somehow she's being called "The mother of Leigh" instead of Mrs. Newcomber.

Anyway, she's staring out the window, occasionally being annoyed by the fact that her nurse is a "strange and harsh woman" and how she's a toy of Mizpra's now somehow.

It's also somehow "perverted" of Mizpra to let her mother reminisce about when she was younger but okay.

Watching birds is supposed to make one cry; I'm guessing mabye I watch birds incorrectly because, while interesting, I've never really felt any sort of urge to cry over them.

Mizpra evidently thinks, "partially paralysed from a stroke" means "also deaf" and is now always written shouting right into her mother's ear. Also, she was sick of her mother watching birds because "the mist will soon commence to fall" whatever that means.

Back to insulting Mizpra again, "With her energy, moral palsy, masculine effrontery, and unbridled control of a large fortune, she moved the men and women around her." He's writing that like it's a bad thing.

I mean, it'd be a lot easier to dislike her if he focused on the things she's done rather than the fact that the author just thinks she's a little too "masculine" because, really, by this point we know she stripped down a teenage girl in front of her class to berate her about wearing corsets, married a guy just because he knew how to use a typewriter, and planned her mother's stroke and had the thought of, "It'd be super inconvenient if she dies but whatever, I'll make it work if that happens." You know, legitimate reasons to dislike someone.

"There was not enough of sex instinct in her to enjoy being flattered as a woman," well, who the hell could blame her? Flatter her based on the abilities she's shown, none of which are remotely terrible (by modern standards at any rate).

The author doesn't seem to think highly of women as doctors either because the first one described is, "one of the big-footed, short-haired kind" you know, manly.

Oh, but, "a mild sort of fellow-feeling--not womanly--brought about business arrangements between Mizpra and the female physician."

This is such an exhausting book to read; no wonder so few copies still exist, even in reprint. Normally, I can’t get enough of getting my hands on and reading rare books that only have one or two copies still left anywhere but this? This one is a harsh reminder that some books may actually be better off eventually fading completely from anyone’s memory.

"The older inhabitants of the surrounding country had become interested in Mizpra. The Spaniards, Mexicans, half-breeds, and Indians, all bigoted and ignorant, were now singing her praises." I'm--pretty sure the only bigoted and ignorant one here is the author.

MOVING ON.

Oh look, someone brought her one of her Genius Brother's books: "Insanity in the Adolescent Caused by Religious Rites and Mysticism in the Catholic Church," by Leigh Newcomber, M.D.

There's also a typo in the book that the editor apparently missed, "It had been a distressing day for Mizpra, and she was ugly in mood, and agitated in feeelings."

Feeelings.

""I saw a pretty Indian girl to-day. I'll have as many as--" at this moment the blood rushed to her heavy cheeks and her hands and feet began to feel cold. She grasped the back of a chair to steady herself for a moment, then strode to the bed to throw herself down upon it."

Well, that came out of nowhere. Pun intended.

So now she's going to pretend she's Catholic and devote her time and money to teaching "the Indian and half-breed girls". I'm just going to assume she's moved beyond stabbing sleeping men with scarf pins and is moving on to--that.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't be all that off-putting sounding if not for the use of the term "half-breed" and girls. Girls--that often indicates that they're not adults.

Anyway, she gets a telegram presumably from Rev. Bald indicating he's ruined Leigh's life but, since I've read the previous chapters and the author is about as predictable as the tides, I'm going to assume Leigh sent the telegram and is planning a surprise visit.

Oh look, more casual racism: "An Indian lad, a protege of Father Francisco, arrived at the house with a note from that priest. He was a fine specimen of his race; lithe, bright-eyed, and cunning." He also doesn't like Mizpra, probably because she keeps calling people half-breeds and savages.

Wonderful! He even talks in a perfectly stereotypical racist manner, "Big bone squaw. Too much talk. Want chief."

So, she asks when "the woman" arrived at the priest's house, he answers, "Yes, bad squaw come."

Which makes her angry because he apparently said it in a defiant tone so she grabbed him and demands he explain why she's bad and if he doesn't she'll have him flogged.

I can't exactly parse the racist as hell way he's writing this kid but it seems something to do with an Indian who converts to Catholicism gets salvation?  

So Mizpra slaps him because that's a rational reaction but then he keeps talking and I have no idea what the hell is going on, "Indian boy understand. He white squaw no Christ squaw; Indian boy no white papoose. He squaw, look out."

He leaves, no further explanation, time skp three days later from "Rev. Bald" who basically details what Bald had intended to do but ended up getting tag teamed by Leigh and a prostitute. So, definitely Leigh writing that letter. I mean it also said that Mops was poisoned (diphtheria, for the last. fucking. time. infects you; the bacteria can produce toxins, which are what can cause the range of symptoms, some of which can be fatal, so unless you're just injecting the produced C. diphtheriae toxins right into someone, you are not poisoning anyone by exposing them to diphtheria, you are infecting them and I know that seems like semantics but the author is a doctor and should know better than to think infect and poison are the same thing) and died.

Anyway, Mizpra believes the letter is from Rev. Bald, so I'm sure that'll end well for her.

"Mizpra had but one thought, one passion now; that was, to wallow in her perverted pleasures to the saturating point of satiety." All right.

Chapter 19 begins with "The reader has probably already surmised from the letter received by Mizpra that Bald had recovered."

In the sense that he wasn't dead, yeah, I guess.

Leigh told the hospital Bald was hit by a trolley car and Bald is just, "Well, since I can't remember what happened, that must be correct!"

So Leigh shows up the next day because Rev. Bald is his patient and the first thing the author does is write something creepy in the narrative, "Leigh now noticed a distinct refinement in Bald's features. he was pale, and the whilom sensuous lips had lost some of their grossness."

Who--thinks like that? So he sits there watching Bald sleep for awhile then leaves after leaving some magazines and "a basket of luscious fruit".

Weirdo.

Nurse starts in with some story about how Leigh lost his wealth or something, then Leigh shows up again and Bald immediately goes turncoat on Mizpra.

So Leigh decides that Mizpra is "undoubtedly mentally ill" and "he would see her placed where she could no longer do injury to herself o rothers."

And they’re headed to California; of course, Leigh had Bald write the telegram and letter to tell Mizpra her plan went off flawlessly.

Predictable writing.

Leigh insists the issue is that Mizpra is insane, not a criminal, and that she's "not responsible for her actions". I mean, mentally ill or not, she's still responsible for her own actions unless someone else is forcing her hand, which they are not. That's been made clear.

Only about 100 pages left, thank everything.

Now they're talking about one of the other sisters, the older one who married a lawyer. That turned into a rambling story about how the lawyer "misappropriated" funds and somehow that landed them under having to get an allowance from Mizpra.

Chapter 20 appears to be Leigh is Stressed and Wants a Drink.

Manages to get home without doing that and apparently Obera's only method of showing support is to just fling herself around and cry.

"Leigh went to work instantly to eliminate the poison which his faulty nervous system had allowed to accumulate in his body and thus produce a self-intoxication." ...what?

He calls Dr. Bell to come and write something to Bald and Leigh has to be whiny about it, "Well, I don't believe you or any other man can understand what I suffer."

Please stop being 13 at some point, Leigh, you are an adult.

Now he's relating his life to Poe's stories and needs to stop--but I guess this book is where the whole "psychic incubus" thing came from because he's talking about one now.

And that sort of drifted in to him rambling incessantly about Edgar Allen Poe and how Leigh is just like that, only with more friends and less good writing, I guess.

I might have added the last two things.

Dr. Bell insists on heading out to California with Bald and Leigh and that's the end of that chapter.

It was 85% Leigh rambling on about Edgar Allen Poe while saying very little about him and just sort of quoting random bits of his work.

No surprise the author of the book had a weird obsession with the same thing.

[badfauxmance]

Anti-Asian Racism

This is first and foremost a gossip blog. However we are currently dealing with racism as an ugly, old problem coming to the forefront again. Obviously I have no idea what are the backgrounds of all of you readers out there. However for those of you who AREN’T Asian, you’re about to get a window into the really complex views of almost 5 BILLION people in the world.

Basically one of the biggest issues amongst Asians is the fact we’re so diverse and there are so many of us that have experiences that some don’t. This is basically a repeat of the “Asian Night” picture that came out last year when people started looking into who the hell Alejandra Onieva is. Predominantly Asians from Asia were like “What the heck are you guys going on about?” while Overseas Asians were the primary people who was upset about it. And that’s because Asian people in Asia don’t experience racism for being Asian. I mean kind of hard to be dealing with Anti-Asian racism when you’re in Asia and YOU are the majority, you know?

One last thing. As an actual Asian American person, this is just my personal opinion and doesn’t necessarily reflect that of my co-writers. I don’t want to drag  this issue out because we’re a gossip blog, not an anti-Racism discussion blog. Anyways I’m going to use a cut below because this is going to be long.

Anon 1:  “a sentence that is insensitive towards asian female. “Love you long time”” // I’m a female Asian, SouthEast Asian if we’re being specific. and have been living in Asia for as long as I am alive and I just???? What about his sentence is racist???? Which part???? Because I am so fucking confused??? Like??? Are people always triggered about every fucking thing??? Now I’m confused and annoyed.

I’ll be 100% honest with all of you. When I first heard about this comment and the uproar I was legitimately confused why this was causing a problem. Then when I looked into it I started understanding why. Basically it’s similar to this line from the movie Full Metal Jacket. In the movie there’s a scene where the characters are being propositioned by a Vietnamese sex worker who says “me love you long time.” There have been racist douchebags over the years who will say this to Asian women partially to be racist douchebags, but also to sexually harass Asian women. It’s also used to mock how Asian people speak or the assumption that because we’re Asian we must be foreigners while ignoring there are plenty of Asian people who ARE born in the US, Canada, Australia, etc. and are perfectly able to speak English and are citizens of said countries. The perpetual foreigner stereotype.

Anyways I was really confused because I never actually saw the movie and only heard about this line in passing years ago. No one’s actually been a douchebag and said shitty things like this to me, so it quite never occurred to me or jumped to my mind what this issue was until I looked into it. 

Like I said above, a lot of Asian people living in Asia don’t really know the kinds of racism people living Overseas have to deal with, so I’m not all that surprised you’re not aware of the problem. I do remember many people from Asia being confused why other people were upset when Alejandra and her friends were dressed up for “Asian Night” considering I know there are clothing rental stores in various cities in Asia where tourists can rent them and take pictures, etc. So I get how you’re probably confused why some of us Overseas Asians are upset about things. Personally I was more offended by their “yellowface” makeup trying to “look Asian.” It’s basically the same thing as “blackface” makeup used to mock and parody Black/Brown/African American people with gross stereotypes about them.

Anon 2:  I’m quite surprise when I saw your response. Because I feel like I was being dismissed. I’m an asian woman too, and I have been on the receiving end of that phrase for too many times. It’s insulting. It makes me feel bad about myself. I can’t tell you how many times people said that to me and saw me as a sexual object. It’s disgusting. I am truly sad and disappointed when I read your post. It feels as if you’re saying that is okay, I should gave him the benefit of the doubt, cause he’s ignorant

It’s really shitty that you have to deal with that. Asian woman or not, frankly no one should have to deal with being sexually harassed or mocked for being Asian. I 100% agree that is an awful thing for anyone to endure. It needs to stop and enough is enough.

One thing I want to make abundantly clear is that if you believe what I wrote last night was dismissing your experiences, that is entirely because YOU interpret my comments that way. It’s kind of hard for me to dismiss your experiences when I frankly don’t know you or even knew you existed until you posted this Ask.

I have considered myself fortunate that I was never subjected to a fraction of what you have apparently dealt with. The one and only time I got harassed in that manner was some random drunk guy catcalling me with “Hey Miss Chinatown.” That’s literally all I’ve experienced in 30+ years of life. Not every Asian woman has dealt with the bullshit you dealt with. It’s just a fact. I’m very much aware that there are other women who have your experiences. What you also need to understand is that there might be Asian women who are like me and didn’t have the kind of interactions you did. We are not one monolithic, united people. We’re over 4.9 billion people with different experiences and interactions with non-Asian people. The first anon above literally didn’t even understand why that phrase was even offensive because she never had to deal with random men saying stuff like that to her.

I’ve been accused in the past of being soft with Sebastian before. Maybe I am being too optimistic or kind towards him. I’m just trying to be reasonable here and not automatically assume that he’s being a racist asshole. He’s said and done things carelessly before. It’s really up to every individual to decide if they think his mistake is one step too far. Also I don’t pretend to be 100% perfect and I’ve made my share of mistakes in the past, so I’m not going to just call him a racist when he probably wrote what he wrote without any real consideration of the meaning. Also how do you know he didn’t do a grammatical typo? If he wrote “love you a long time” this wouldn’t even be a topic of controversy at all. I want actual evidence here and not things that are dependent on a syntax error to be considered offensive.

I very clearly stated that I don’t have the presumption to tell anyone what to think or feel about anything. You’re the one who seems to believe I’m doing so despite the fact I very clearly stated I didn’t. All I can say is that if you believe that my opinions are offensive to you, then you can choose to unfollow or block the blog going forward. I’m not here to tell you what to do. At all. My experiences are mine and yours are yours. My experiences influence my views and yours influences yours.

[do-you-have-a-flag]

racism isn't unintentional, they were well aware of what they were doing when they reduced poe to harmful stereotypes and sidelined finn in favor of white ppl, and it was a deliberate and homophobic choice to make everyone straight, none of this is unintentional which is kind of the entire issue and they do not deserve leniency or forgiveness and im glad that it's reflected in audience reviews b/c frankly LGBT and fans of color didn't like it for good reasons dont invalidate that b/c ur white

“at this point im so distracted by the homophobia and racism that every single character being out of character is just like the icing on the cake, like have your opinion on the movie but don’t be surprised that fans we’re digging the blatant racism and homophobia (and seriously, never again say they meant well when writing in racists tropes, thats fucking gross dude)my mood is u using “or*entalist” while trying to explain that you’re not ignoring the racism in the fandom… you literally said it was good intentions gone wrong that led to the racism we saw on screen, it wasn’t! it was white dudes who loved kylo ren as much as every other white person and hated all of the poc in the movie, if lgbt/poc fans are saying the movie was shit you know they’re saying that b/c we got shafted so dont be like “well it had good parts” like who cares, it was bigoted”

firstly: I use the term orientalist in the context of the racist exotification of east asians by western countries, england and america have a history of this, so does australia, I’m specifically addressing that exact form of appropriation as opposed to, for example, the appropriation of black culture, it was an attempt to conjure up specific associations to make a point and i’m sorry i wasn’t clear enough in my use of the word I assumed i would be understood but I should have worded myself better.

like i said before, I can’t speak for the entire lgbt community by from my tiny place in it and for myself I never expect a mainstream genre film coming out at this point in time to give us anything more than maybe audience baiting, tv shows have more freedom but even Star Trek, a franchise of similar standing to star wars, only managed last year to make canon gay characters a thing that wasn’t subtextual and it was only a few seconds of screentime. Is it disappointing and frustrating? Absolutely! we need to keep pushing for representation. but i wouldn’t call it’s exclusion homophobia but rather a result of the inability for the franchise to go beyond what’s safe in representation due to the homophobic culture of the west and in overseas markets (such as china). 

If we’re going to change this garbage representation we have to think nuanced about it, individuals can be pressured to change but we have to understand who they answer to.  Money is of course the root of all this, the fear of losing their biggest over seas market is one thing, if Disney owned Marvel movies edit the race of their character to avoid losing Chana’s audience don’t you think that Disney owned Star Wars might be in the same shitty position in terms of LGBT content? You don’t think that a franchise so entrenched in military skirmishes that WARS is in the title might have some other motivations that we need to examine critically? after all the Pentagon funds movies provisionally based on how positively they show militaristic content, and space fascists aside let’s not forget it is about generals and fighter pilots and bombardiers. there are a lot of institutions at play here in the influencing of how the movie show’s it’s content. it’s not just one man it is many making these bad decisions.

And as for racial representation as i stated i love the casting personally of poe and finn and rose, and the various resistance members, but I cannot speak on their characterisation and stereotypes and would like to see the arguments against them laid out because this really is the point i have least perspective on. 

Racism based on skin isn’t something i face because growing up in australia my mum immigrated here after the white australia policy was already ended, australia is still a racist country and the type of racism my mum and i faced was based on accent and sterotypes about “wogs” and horrible nationalism and islamophobia.  SO I don’t get a say in if it’s bigoted or not. But I do want to be able to talk to people who, because of my weird accent assume i’m american, will let their guard down enough for me to amplify the voices of people of colour concerned about this film. I want to be able to talk to people who because of my presentation of femininity assume i’m straight, will let their guard down, and i can talk to them and about why i think lgbt representation is important and should have been in this film.

my enjoyment of a movie doesn’t make it morally pure, i don’t believe any movie is morally pure, but i think we have to rate these things complexly and I care that it had good parts because kids deserve to see themselves in fun genre movies and this film was a baby step and coul have been better but if people keep buzzing about the stuff they want then the garbage money driven execs might be less resistant next time around

star wars is too big a franchise to die, it survived the prequels after all, so we have to be SPECIFIC with our criticisms if we want change.

listen, you seem determined to hate me and that’s fine, I’d rather you didn’t but you don’t have to like the movie that’s okay. 

bigotry is pervasive in many cultures, we have to get rid of it, and your anger and frustration is an important part of that. 

but i’m only gonna respond with my thoughts and feeling and my thoughts are that if we wanna fix things we have to be clear and nuanced in our discussions before we outright dismiss this type of film, my feelings are that it’s fiction shaped by the climate it was made in and the responses to it are also shaped by that climate and from my position in al this i have some criticisms but overall don’t think it is the be all and end all battlefield for representation.

anyway, another bias i have is i assume that people working on a franchise they love are gonna go in with good intentions, they have their own blind spots and biases that result in bad writing and casting decisions. being aware of these things is not excusing them it’s putting them in context. wanna change it? write about it. be clear. make a vlog. record a podcast. you sent me a message and that amplified your words so that’s a good step forward but you’re still being really vague be more specific

i agree with your concepts but not your specifics because you’re being too general with me. 

i don’t appreciate your tone because i have, you know, emotions, but my emotions aren’t what matter here, i still see what you’re saying and while i don’t agree with how you’re coming at it i think you’re being hyperbolic based on truths. they should have done better.

listen, i don’t know who you are but i’m not here to fight you, hey, what would you recommend I watch instead in terms of film? I can think of some decent scifi and fantasy content that have POC character and/or LGBT content in terms of tv that i have and haven’t watched (luke cage, star trek, the exorcist, raising dion, sense8, Shadowhunters) but it’s not enough and in varying levels of quality but if you have movie recs you think are good on this measure i wanna hear them because everyone deserves good scifi and fantasy stories

[monicalorandavis]

The Water Dancer is a salve for a broken country

The Water Dancer is so good that I believe it can fix America. No matter where you stand, or live, this country is hanging on by a thread. We’ve needed solutions since 1619 when the first African slave was brought to our shore. Instead we’ve avoided the wound that slavery inflicted. It’s too late for state-sanctioned racial sensitivity seminars. Politicians are not to be trusted on such matters. The most radical option is the only option. We need art.

America is (and has been) a dangerous place for people of color. The police are antagonists and Congress is useless. We need a spiritual overhaul. (And I am using the following pseudo-Christian language loosely so forgive me. My intention is not to isolate anyone.) The healing has to start on a personal level, at a cellular level. We need God. And I don’t really mean God god. We need something good, and big, and something we can all believe in. God is convenient that way. He’s up in the sky, the sky we all share and look up to and out of ourselves. We need something unifying like art. We all listen to music. Everyone laughs and cries. Art is God by proxy. It is our nonverbal expression that cuts to the core of us. And while, to the rest of the world, Americans are not known for our intellectual arguments, I argue that “The Water Dancer” plays into that great American heart center that makes politics in this country so volatile. We are people full of feelings. So many feelings. Lucky for us, this is a book with the power to heal.

And you might think that we’ve moved past books. Do people read anymore? True, we’ve moved on in so many other areas of life and entertainment. We can watch movies on our phones. But, reading, like much of our consumption of entertainment in the last year, is private. It isn’t too far removed from how we spend our time already. 

Reading provides a mirror and a window. It presents characters unlike us but united in a human fabric so much so that we are them. Our own experiences color the character’s decisions. To extricate yourself from the person about which you’re reading is antithetical to the fantasy of reading. Books teach us about ourselves by teaching us about other people.

Perhaps the move away from reading, and the larger consumption of media through our phones has dwindled our capacity to consume longer narratives. But I don’t feel that the damage is irreversible. It is perhaps the exact metaphor for the damage racism has caused. All is not lost. Yes, America has carried on its racist legacy too long. We are doomed if we do not act. We are on the verge of being a people we will not like. But Americans have many ideas about their benevolent destiny. We are soon to be lost from the idea we have of ourselves. Or perhaps not.

So how is it that one book, and one man, provide the salve for America? I’m not nearly smart enough to give you the entire argument. Nor should I. But I must implore you to read The Water Dancer. It is your civic duty. But I will lay out a couple of the finer points that have stuck with me since I finished the book three months ago. (It has taken me some time to get my thoughts in order.)

One, America has disrespected black Americans for centuries and as a result our country is broken. No more senate hearings or long-winded debates will fix it. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes of the pivotal story of America, slavery, the inciting incident - as a disease of forgetfulness. In The Water Dancer, Coates juggles multiple storylines, and timelines, deftly. He writes of a two-class system, the “quality” versus the “tasked”, and while these terms might rub rough in the mouth, they conjure up the same broken system of today. The psychic power in Coates’ storytelling lies, with all good things, in the in-between’s.

Between the stories of cruelty and separation, is a Marquez-inspired, metaphysical story of teleportation through memory. And before you can scream sci-fi, let us first establish, Americans are suffering from widespread memory loss, be it purposely or not. The memories of slavery are simply too painful to live in regularly. This is a story beyond genre. It’s an all-encompassing, sweeping story. It’s sci-fi but it’s also historical fiction. And now that I’ve totally bored you, let’s push on. The magical realism up Coates’ sleeve is one I’ve yet to see and hope to see more of. Coates writes of the metaphysical capacity of memory and he uses water as the conduit. Kaboom.

Yes, water, the scene of so much crime against the African American, as it has been the pathway, the passage, and then more recently, the segregated pool with its lack of access and subsequent stereotypes - that place is the only location charged with enough ancestral wattage to summon the power to travel groups of people safely out of slave lands. That sounds confusing and impossible. But, slavery seems sort of confusing and impossible now too. And yet...

We need metaphysical stories. We need fables. We need slave super heroes. That is why “Django” felt so important and “12 Years” felt so expected. (And yet, there seems to be only one slave narrative that we reward with awards and accolades.) I won’t spoil all the fun of the teleportation travels because they are fantastic and soulful. And, most of the fun comes from who we get to meet along the newly-imagined Underground Railroad. To spoil that would ruin the occasional surprise of hope along the journey.

Now, the second point, and, I guess, larger argument for “The Water Dancer” is that it is not a shaming tome. It is not an indictment of white people (though I don’t know if they deserve such generosity. Coates is a more enlightened being than I.) It holds white people and black people in its palm and pokes at either, revealing how we, belonging to our groups, subjugated each other to a system that benefited neither. White people, “the quality”, were privileged in their position, avoiding manual labor and brandishing discipline with whips and cruelty. The quality subjugated the tasked through years of degradation to the point that the tasked stopped fighting. That is the part slaves played. They could have revolted every day, but then again, they could’ve been lashed every day. While their responsibilities in the system are certainly not equal, they play a factor. And then there was a third option for the slave. Run away.

A life on the run, hiding in free states, leaving loved ones behind and never being able to sit still long enough to get discovered, all that constant running and constant anxiety proved to be its own set of chains. But this was the only option for tasked people who wanted more. Mothers left children. Husbands left wives. Slaves faced terrible decisions for the chance of a better life. Just the chance. It was horrible and sad and we are not so long removed from the trauma. To expect black people to move on from a tragedy when entire family lines have been lost to never be repaired is not only disrespectful, it’s unrealistic. Slavery was abolished and white lawmakers asked former slaves to be superhuman. We’ve penalized being normal, feeling beings (I believe because slaves were never supposed to be seen as such).

What did we expect would happen? This is the natural outcome. Disorder. Unease. Tension and resentment. Black people do not owe their former masters’ forgiveness. Some are gracious enough to provide it. But expect it, you should never. It is not yours. Forgiveness is the highest gift from any person. It is, in effect, spiritual gymnastics and we are not all limber or athletic enough to go there. Yet, The Water Dancer is full of forgiveness.

To backtrack slightly: I did say black people participated in the system, too. But, in many respects, they had to to simply stay alive. (That or flee and that guaranteed nothing.) To be a “good” slave, meant that you, the slave, obeyed your master. In so doing, white people suffered. That little exchange, be good or be punished was the sacrifice to black (and white) people.

Let’s go deep. White people’s integrity was lost in this system. That is not some holy, esoteric ill. To put it plainly, their moral fiber was compromised. The slave owner suffered greatly from their barbarism though it be their own. MIddle-class white families participated in every day, commonplace violence. Men, women and children fancied themselves “good white people” all the while owning other human beings. Even if they didn’t beat, rape, starve or maim their slave, they diminished another human’s life continuously, every day, every second. Down to the smallest detail. A slave lived a life without a choice. What does that do to a person? 

On the other side, to be a master of a man was to be emboldened as that man, or woman, or child’s God, in a sense. You fed, clothed, housed and ordered them around, all the while, maintaining a firm grip on discipline and decorum. You were feared. And after generations of such cruelty, your grip on morality suffered. You could not be fully Christian, as many defended themselves to be. You see, to be feared was a handicap to the white man. They have been made inhumane with their own actions. Their inherited legacy and DNA has been mutated and bent to explain gross acts of violence (just as African Americans’ DNA has inherited the pain of slavery). White Americans are no longer what they could’ve been. Their wounds have resulted in a manipulated sense of power. Their compassion, their grace, their eternal goodness and humanity has been violated. And they did it to themselves. They participated in their own moral corruption. That is their burden. The tasked fed into the system, however slightly, to protect themselves. They witnessed the firsthand degradation of their masters’ humanity.

And now that we’re all involved, let’s talk about the present issue at hand. How to right this wrong? We could start with reparations.

No, I don’t think that will ever truly happen. It would become an overwrought “proving” system of blackness. There would be measurements and rigamarole and the money would be delayed and the bureaucracies in place would be as shitty as the DMV. But what we can do is promote black art. Without conditions. Let it be taught during all months of the year. Let’s stop fearing the psychic damage it does to us. We are all mature enough to speak about this open secret. Black people were slaves. White people owned them. Was that so hard? I don’t believe so. Let us finally go to the hurt places and repair them so that we can be better. Let us use the gifts of those smarter and more creative than us to be better.

I think Ta-Nehisi Coates knows the way. No pressure, sir. But I think you’ve written the book that we needed in 1619. Now if you could only teleport a copy to the shores of Virginia...

"The Water Dancer” might be the most seminal book of our country’s history. We, black and white, are united in a shared legacy of torture and bondage. Cry as we might, we are not color blind. We were never color blind. There are things to atone for. 

And if I haven’t convinced you yet, black people teleport. And they teleport through fucking water by summoning their memories - and if that’s not a big middle finger to every racist “black people can’t swim”-ass clown from the Mayflower to the present, then I don’t know what is. He served us magical realism on a platter with a gravy made from the ancestors. Let us listen to artists now. Aren’t we tired of fighting?

[getoutblockbuster]

“Get Out” True Horror, Turned Horror Film

A $4.5 million budget somehow was able to make former comedy writer and comedian Jordan Peele into a well-respected, Oscar-nominated horror filmmaker. Get Out has grossed over 255 million worldwide which is a massive profit considering its small budget (Wilkinson). But what could have possibly made Get Out succeed so much as a horror movie such as the likes of “The Conjuring” and “The Blair Witch Project.” The issue with Horror films is that audiences seem to have gotten bored of the traditional jump scare horror flick. Every film seems to be more based on the formula of eerie music and jump scares than the one that came before. But how come this low budget film was different? Jordan Peele takes a very different approach to horror than many directors and writers of the Genre. Peele takes the approach of taking something real and transforming it into a fictional horror story (Landsberg, 630). The real horror in Peele’s 2017 blockbuster was its themes surrounding racism.

This film was able to take a real hot topic in America (especially since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency causing racial tensions to rise in the country) and use a narrative to show people the real horrors of something like racism. Get Out is a film about a young black man in his 20’s named Chris who is dating a white girl named Rose Armitage, who comes from a wealthy family who lives in a rich white neighborhood. Their house is isolated and there isn’t another house in close proximity. Rose’s family are elite white liberals who apparently want to show their approval of their daughter dating a black man. The first few interactions are filled with multiple micro aggressions such as Rose’s father showing Chris a picture of his father who lost an Olympic race to Jesse Owens, a black Olympic gold medalist, who won a gold medal in Germany in front of Hitler. He also went on to say that if he could vote for Obama for a third term then he would because he was the best president of his life time by far. These are all is if the family is trying to blatantly say: “WE’RE NOT RACISTS.”

This is a common theme with white liberals in today’s society with people constantly trying to defend their biases through their obscure connections and support of black people or people of marginalized identities. You can see through Chris’ facial expressions that he is not surprised that people are acting this way around him and its almost as if he finds this to be something comical. Chris starts to become suspicious as he realizes that there is nothing but white people around when the Armitage family throws their annual party. Everyone is a white affluent person other than the two black servants that work for the Armitage’s. There seems to be something off about the two servants as if they are living in someone else’s body. It’s at the climax of the film that Chris realizes that something odd is going on at this place. Once we see another black person at the party it is clear that something is odd about this person. Chris tries to connect with him on a level that connects them on the basis of black culture. However, when Chris recognizes him as someone, he used to know who has gone missing and tries to take a picture with flash to which this person (old acquaintance Andre Hayworth) nose starts to bleed and he starts to desperately yell “Get Out” to Chris (hence we get the name of the film) As if he was trying to warn Chris that this was not a place that he wanted to be in. Rose’s mom is able to calm Andre down, but Chris decides to take a walk and to tell Rose that he wants to leave to which she agrees. When Chris is gathering his stuff, he stumbles upon a box of photos of Rose with other black men and even a woman who looks like Gorgina (one of the family servants).

Through this Chris realizes that he must live but not before he is ambushed by the family and is basically explained that these white people who came to the Armitage’s house, were there to bid on Chris’s body. For a multitude of reasons, we see that these people are fetishizing these black bodies so that their consciousness could be transferred into a black vessel. This is the horror of the film (Virtue). No matter how nice these white people seem, there is always something that makes them look at you in a different light. When Marketing this film, Peele Insured that people knew that this film would address racism.

When the original trailer of the film was released, it received about 66 million views which is three times as many as a regular horror film trailer usually gets (Marich). This was mainly through people sharing the clip because its subject matter was different than anybody had ever seen before. As the video continued circulating, more and more people were intrigued by the film and the subject matter. How could you take something as real as racism and make it into a horror film? 

That’s exactly what made this film something that people were dying to see. Posters continued to be released with text saying things like: “do you belong in this neighborhood?” 

and from this, fans started to create their own fan art posters that mimicked what was being done by Peele and Blumhouse (Marich).

Reception from audiences was overwhelmingly positive. People loved “Get Out.” And people started to recognize the genius of Jordan Peele. He was more than just a comedy writer, he was a writer and director that could take true horror and make it into a big-screen blockbuster that brought real issues to people’s attention (Virtue). The critic's consensus from Rotten Tomatoes says Get Out is: “Funny, scary, and thought-provoking, Get Out seamlessly weaves its trenchant social critiques into a brilliantly effective and entertaining horror/comedy thrill ride.”

In Lizzy Human’s Article “Fetishism of the Black Body in Get Out.” She points out how one of the main points in this film revolve around stereotypes surrounding black bodies. In the movie it is pointed out multiple times that black people are more physically gifted than white people when it comes to athletic ability, strength, and aging black bodies are just better. In this sense, these people are just creating their own fetish about what the advantages are to being black (Human, 1). This plays on the issues surrounding white people stereotyping black people. This is something we often see in sports where people think that black people are better at some sports because there is something genetically that gives them an advantage. This is the type of thing that some people focus on instead of what it is actually like to be black in today’s society with all of the oppression and marginalization that hurts black people, white people are just focused on what black people might physically have that they don’t.

The success of this film is based on how Jordan Peele was able to take a real-life horror and turn into a successful film in the horror genre. This is known as “Horror Vérité” or “True Horror.” In this case, the true horror that Peele uses in the film “Get Out” is the horror of racism in today’s society. When people think of racism towards black bodies, they often think of slavery or the civil rights era where black people needed to fight for the right to be considered regular people. However, Peele’s film Speaks about the Racism that Black people face today, where they are still seen differently as a result of the color of their skin (Landsberg 631). This film starts this horror off by conveying how elite white liberals constantly try to justify their lack of racism through several microaggressions such as saying things like Rose’s Father saying that he “would have voted for Obama for a third term if he could have” or Rose’s brother saying things like Chris would have an unfair advantage in MMA because of his “genetic makeup” claiming that black people have some sort of unfair advantage over white people, basically ignoring the centuries of oppression by white people who claimed that they were a superior race and species.

“Get Out” was a revolutionary film that turned the Horror Genre on its head (Bishop). it was able to take the true horror of racism and create a world that was truly terrifying and made black people feel seen and was able to tell a story in a brilliant way thanks to Jordan Peele, who is more than just a comedy sketch writer. 

Bishop, Bryan. “Get Out Director Jordan Peele Wants to Change People's Minds with Horror Movies.” The Verge, The Verge, 2 Mar. 2017, www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14781308/get-out-jordan-peele-horror-movie-race-interview.

Human, Lizzy. “Fetishism of the Black Body in Get Out .” Literary Cultures Nottingham Trent University, vol. 2, 2017, pp. 1–2. This source talks about how Jordan Peele created this film not on the basis of common racism as we know it but more on the fetish of black bodies from the antagonists in this film which are the white "open-minded" liberal elite family the Armitage’s. This is what makes this film a horror, it's that these white antagonists crave and need the bodies of innocent black people for various reasons which is what creates the horror for the protagonist.

Landsberg, Alison. “Horror Vérité: Politics and History in Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017).” Continuum, vol. 32, no. 5, 2018, pp. 629–642., doi:10.1080/10304312.2018.1500522.

Marich, Robert. “'Get Out' Marketing Tapped Into Relationship Between Racism and Horror.” Variety, 22 Mar. 2017, variety.com/2017/biz/news/jordan-peele-get-out-marketing-racism-horror-1202012833/. This source from Variety talks about the initial marketing of the film Written and Directed by Jordan Peele and how since this film spent about 4.5 million dollars, and made over 33 million on opening weekend. Peele and Blumhouse Studios pushed peoples buttons by deciding to tell people that this was a horror film based in racism which piqued curiosity, I also believe that the way this article speaks about the promotion of the film through social media by fans truly helped it as well

Nguyen, Olivia Bé “How Get Out, the First Great Movie of the Trump Era, Got Made.” Vulture, 22 Feb. 2018, www.vulture.com/2018/02/making-get-out-jordan-peele.html. This article from Vulture talks about how Get Out was a movie that was made in criticism of the post-racial era of Obama and how the Presidency of Donald Trump allowed Peele to make this movie, taking the real horrors of racism and creating it into a horror film. I think that this source can help me take a look at the politically charged reasons for this film being made and help me start to look into how people looked at this film from a political standpoint after its release.

Poll, Ryan. “Can One ‘Get Out?" The Aesthetics of Afro-Pessimism.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, vol. 51, no. 2, 2018, pp. 69–102. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/45151156.

Virtue, Graeme. “Is Get Out a Horror Film, a Comedy ... or a Documentary?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Nov. 2017, www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/nov/17/get-out-golden-globes-race-horror-comedy-documentary-jordan-peele.

Wilkinson, Alissa. “Get Out Is a Horror Film about Benevolent Racism. It's Spine-Chilling.” Vox, Vox, 25 Feb. 2017, www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/24/14698632/get-out-review-jordan-peele.

[s4banf-blog]

Geek Culture, Part 2

As with any culture, there will always be problems. In the geek culture, one of these main problems is sexism. Typically, it is assumed that geeks will refer to the straight white male. Sometimes, the culture doesn’t acknowledge that there is women who also fit into this ‘category’. Roli Varma states that “scholars have yet to critically examine the impact of geek culture on the under-representation of women in CS/CE in relation to the ethnicity/race and class”. Varma writes her paper in direct reference to the under-representation of women especially minorities in geek culture, she then goes onto to investigate this and why we need more representation within the culture. When women emerged from the all male dominated culture, it created internalised misogyny. This then created memes to try and stereotype the female geeks, which were often seen as “fake geek girls”. These memes often depicted young women wearing heavy makeup with gigantic over the top ‘nerdy’ glasses. However, this isn’t anything new. Women have often been marginalised within the community. Often in comic books, they have been ‘refrigerated’. Frank Miller the author of The Dark Knight Returns and Renin states that ‘refrigerated women’ is “a trope wherein female characters are killed (or raped, or suffer some other form of violence) solely to further a male character’s story or development”. These agendas have slowly been tackled with such characters such as Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman that continue to challenge this male dominated world. Some women however, are completely oblivious to the ongoing misogyny. An example of this is Allie Townsend. Her article written in 2011, “There’s a New Geek Girl Site in Town. I May Already Hate It” claims that the “internet culture has evolved way past the gender divide”. Throughout her article, Townsend puts down women-centric geek sites and blogs. She implies that because she’s never personally experienced any sexism in geek culture, it simply does not exist. This invalidates the experiences of real life women who have been harassed at conventions for their costumes or aggressively pestered by men when walking into a comic shop. However, when you have men and women in the community and industry who turn their heads away from new female fans, you are shutting out new fans.

People self-identify as geeks because they have been put down, excluded, and hurt by other people due to a certain interest in "uncool" things like comic books, or board games, or computer programming. More and more millennials are embracing being a geek, whilst previous generations saw the label as being something to be embarrassed about. Millennials are slowly starting to shape mainstream culture, they have changed the idea of what it means to be a geek - thus encouraging more and more people to embrace themselves to the term.  Some of those who self-identify as geeks look back nostalgically on the time when their status felt rebellious, says Benjamin Nugent, author of American Nerd: The Story of My People. Being geek means that you have permission to like what you like no matter what it is. In 2012/3, a new trend came about of wearing t-shirts that simply said “GEEK” and “NERD” across the chest. Topshop brought out the designs. By springtime they were unavoidable, seen on the chests of schoolkids, ravers and posh kids alike. Literally worn by everyone apart from those named on these t-shirts. As all things fade, so did this fashion statement. If you wore one of these t-shirts before it became cool, then you would’ve been ridiculed. Another example of the ‘wrong’ type of people associating themselves with being a ‘geek’ is Kim Kardashian revealing that she watches anime. People were absolutely furious about this, how can a popular famous reality star enjoy something only ‘geeky’ people enjoy? There is an implication that Kim is a ‘fake geek girl’ who can’t name so many anime series’ that she watches is an example of something that’s been happening for years, as self-declared keepers of a community struggle to come to terms with its growing popularity. Why shouldn’t Kim like anime? She grew up with it. Sailor Moon hit American screens in 1995. She’s a globetrotter deeply interested in world cultural trends. It would be surprising if she didn’t know what it was. Just because people don’t like her as a person -  is no excuse to assume that she’s ignorant that anime exists entirely. Her spouse, Kanye West has also declared his love for anime, tweeting that Akira was one of his favourite films. Fans of a cultural product assume that other fans are like them; that they share the same ideas, opinions and presumably, background.

Slowly consumerism is becoming filled with superheroes and fantasy, which create a lot of revenue. For example take the company Marvel and their sadly deceased owner Stan Lee before he died, he was worth a whopping $50million alone - (not including Sony and Disney). Marvel’s Black Panther became the highest grossing film for the Marvel Universe.. To date, the franchise has made over $14.7billion worldwide, making it the highest grossing franchise ever. It’s currently $6bn ahead of Star Wars. According to statistics, four of the top 10 highest grossing films of 2017 are comic book adaptations. In 2017, consumers in America spent $14.6billion on video games, hardware and related. The first San Diego Comic Con in 1970 featured 145 attendees. Last year, that number exceeded 130k. Geek culture is a cultural phenomenon.

Pop-culture portrayals of “geek culture” aren’t entirely accurate according to some. Shows like The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley may get right overwhelmed by tone-deafness to the culture they are supposedly giving to us, the people. What our core culture perceives to be geek culture is just a set of marketable trends. Actor Will Wheaton from Star Trek: Next Generation says in his memoir ‘Just a Geek’ that “Becoming mainstream is the wrong word; the mainstream is catching up”. Knowing obscure facts about favourite subjects has also lost its flavour. The number of Star Wars characters or the name of a constellation is all on Wikipedia now.

Nowadays people are starting to associate the alt-right with ‘geek’ culture, especially with what is going on with our modern day lives. There is no direct parallel between the alt-right and geek culture. Simply, an invasion. Recently, there was much debate surrounding horror author HP Lovecraft becoming the figure of the World Fantasy Award due to his well documented racism. His passionate fans - most of who have never experienced racism - asked why such historical oppression even mattered anymore. The movement is an online community whose values are almost identical from the far-right racism and sexism of the National Front and the Klu Klux Klan. It began as an attack on individuals, on a supposed lack of integrity in gaming journalism, which was then exploited by alt-right ‘activists’ using misinformation to start a huge fire of hatred online against women and minorities in gaming. This outrage helped to build their ever growing army of white, (mostly) male supporters. The fury of alt-right ‘activists’ helped push a minority of young male geeks to them. But far more members of the geek community went against the racist ignorance of the alt-right, and have stood against them.