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thephantomcasebook · 8 months

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Are the show writers aware that the Blacks are not the underdogs of the story? These guys have more dragons and more houses on their side. The only issue is Rhaenyra's sex but she has that more or less covered by marrying Daemon who is viewed by the misogynistic lords as the true power behind team black.

On the opposite aisle there's the Greens with fewer dragons and fewer houses. They are led indirectly by the Queen Alicent and Otto. Only by grit, stubbornness and spite did the Greens pull a surprising twist in the end, wiping out Rhaenyra and Daemon not only physically but also from the histories of Targaryen Kings and Queens. Many people assume the greens are the top dogs because they have a male heir and tradition favors their side. But the show has given almost no indication of any of these being an advantage. In fact the characters and their cause is treated with outrage and scorn in the show writing itself...as if they're making a grave mistake of challenging Rhaenyra's claim.

So which is which with these writers? I for one don't see The Blacks as the underdogs of the story. But thaz just me.

The show was built up and pitched as "The Avengers" of ASoIaF - basically GRRM's favorite characters - coming together to fight the evil-doers.

Now, on the surface, GRRM's world and writing doesn't work that way. However, when you get a bunch of room temperature IQ HBO Executives who are agenda minded over story telling, you get the good progressives vs. bad conservatives narrative that is germinated through-out the show. And I know that for a fact because - a now fired - former executive from HBO admitted that personally at a party that "Progressive Agenda" in their content was mandated in the "Trump Era".

So, to be fair, The Greens didn't stand a chance of getting a fair shake from the get go. It was basically mandated by the Studio Heads of the time that the Greens had to be an allegory for Trump Supporting Catholics. It was actually a selling point to Sapochnik who felt so fucking strongly about American Politics that shit for brains had to make some artistic statement - or his wife did.

They've dog whistled the Greens being bad from the beginning, from Criston beating to death a gay man to trying to make Alicent look like a Hypocrite by actively skewering Aegon's character from the beginning to make her both a bad mother and Stockholm victim of her own ideology.

Cause let me tell you as a minority - who looks like Criston Cole/ Fabian Frankel could be my brother (I'm not kidding) - and who is Roman Catholic and staunchly in support of Trump, there is nothing that a privileged white progressive hates more than a conservative woman - especially if she's a minority.

Alicent is and remains a lightning rod for every sexist and bigoted progressive to take out their weird and creepy hatred of women on and still claim themselves virtuous because of their assured cultist beliefs, it's fucking strange.

Also, the other problem is that the Normie fandom has been trained by "Game of Thrones" to root for the people with silver hair and the traditional Red Three-Headed dragon on a sable field. while the book readers, who should know by now from "Fire and Blood" and especially "Dunk and Egg" that the Targaryens are the fucking worst - which is the whole point of Dunk teaching Egg to be better than his family throughout the series. The hardcore ASoIaF fandom read obsessively but don't question the narrative as a whole.

@duxbelisarius did a 12 part Military Breakdown of the conflict and all the inconsistencies. But still, your average GRRM fanboy will agree it's fucking stupid, but let GRRM's bias in the narrative dictate their point of view. And in the end they just crave the blood shed and darker elements. Which - to be fair - has always been a part of the fandom since I joined it in 2009 when I was 19.

There's just a ton of factors, but those are the big ones.

Studio/Showrunners political mandates in the "Trump Era"

"Game of Thrones" residual bias for the normie fandom

GRRM bias toward characters creating false sense virtuous protagonists.

And a near fandom wide conditioning of disliking institution supporting moral characters.

I could write an essay about it all after 14 years, but that's what I've got tonight/this morning

#House of the Dragon #Alicent Hightower #Criston Cole #Aegon II Targaryen

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lloydmustache · 1 year

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I was reading @captregina blog and an anon hit a nail on the head for me.

“Different POC here. I get with the original anon was saying. Let’s push the “real or pr” to the side for a moment (this is fake as hell). This situation got him looking crazy to people. You can’t call out trump and others for their shit then be quiet when it’s people that you’re “around”, posting on your insta story and “more than happy with”. The association is the problem for people so I don’t blame them for questioning and being upset with him right now and there’s no one else to blame for this but Chris and his team because they have him looking crazy. “

This sums up EVERYTHING!!!

Chris will have a choice in the aftermath of this mess to either remain silent in his male white privilege or call shit out and address his own actions and inactions in this mess. No more pandering to his black audience with the constant eye fucking towards black female reporters, no more calling politicians out, no more whatever when he constantly has been associated to problematic people via relationships and work relationships. He’s never taken accountability for anything that I can recall. He uses his dog as a distraction. He has a fandom that has coddled him for years. People are literally online arguing about pr versus real, but what about Chris Evans always escaping situations.

I hope he opens his eyes and sees his own piss poor actions, people don’t know who he is that’s the root of much speculation and many want to believe and hope he’s better than he tries to come off.

Chris needs to understand his silence in this situation speaks VOLUMES. Majority of the population have no idea what’s occurred regarding the racism stuff, so again he’ll escape backlash. Unfortunately his fandom and those of us who are minorities specifically African-American will never be able to look at this man the same way based on how he’s handled this let alone how he’ll handle things once this is over.

If Chris wants to redeem himself, HE’s going to have to put in the work, learn from his mistakes and take accountability for his decisions and understand how his actions/inactions have affected others who have cared about him.

If we believe he’s in some mess regarding contracts and he’s limited to do certain things than once he’s out, it’s up to him to figure out how to right this and yes he does need to right this. He blocked fans, he associated with racists, he is the reason people have now lost their minds in this mess.

But see based on his past……I doubt anything will be addressed. I hope he proves me wrong because if he’s aware of any of the things we’re aware of and he’s seen this fandom defend his ass, then he better say or do something to show who he truly is.

These celebrities do bullshit and then pretend it never happened. Chris is human yes, but when we do screwed up shit in life, we don’t have a team of people to clean our mess, we have consequences, we have to acknowledge our mistakes and that’s how we learn and grow.

If his team once again cleans this mess up…..he’ll forever remain stagnant and then will wonder why he struggles with so much internally.

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simonalkenmayer · 2 years

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This is just so absurd I can’t not talk about it, so please read this short political analysis, even if you don’t usually read these, because this is…hilarious.

This election, almost 70% of the vote below the age of 21 went to democrats. Single women by a margin of 30 points voted Democratic. Minorities (particularly black women) broke for Dems overwhelmingly, black women mobilizing over 95% of their members in some constituencies.

The GOP is taking time to analyze this, running numbers, wondering how they can appeal to young people and women instead of only angry racist old white men…and these are their solutions so far as stated by multiple pundits on FOX, and why they are stupid:

Single women vote for Dems? Answer? Men, marry these women. Literally someone said “put a ring on it”. They said “it’s easy to see why single women vote Democratic—their policies keep women single”.

Why is this stupid? Well beyond the obvious misogyny of “we should just woo and marry women and then control them so they align with us politically”? There’s the fact that because women no longer need a man, to survive, men are now forced to bring character to the table, something many men (I’m thinking the alpha males of tiktok) never had to grow because of their privilege. You cannot just send men out into the world to literally conquer a woman’s heart. They’re not stupid. They can see when they’re not dating a decent guy. That’s why they stopped marrying them.

They’ve been, I kid you not,debating RAISING THE VOTING AGE TO 21.

Here is why that’s fucking idiotic, broken into many easy parts. 1. If they can’t vote, then they cannot be taxed, nor recruited for the military, nor jailed as adults. How’s that going to affect prisons, the military, taxes?

Well there’s over 600k active duty military below the age of 25 out of 1.35 million…you tell me.

16% of our tax revenue comes from the under 25 bracket

Oh right and what are they supposed to do? They can’t go to college, since….how are they going to be able to sign contracts for student loans if they aren’t being fairly represented or given adult status? Are they going to raise the legal age of adulthood since adults age 18-21 can no longer do anything of their own accord, extend high school again to stockpile them while they’re not being busy or just recruit them straight into the terrible service jobs in which the GOP hopes they remain?

I’m telling you…there is nothing to offer but no climate, rich billionaires, more debt, less freedom, less rights, and bigotry in that party. They want to destroy education to keep people stupid. They want to use religion to control. That party is not a party. It’s an evil conspiracy. Meaning the kids and the ladies will shy away. They have nothing to offer. Nothing. So they have to cheat.

Make no mistake the the abortion ban idea was specifically to encumber these two groups with crippling debt and dependency. That party has nothing to offer. Especially with trump running it. And this they well know. Most of his candidates lost. Most. And the red wave that was expected was nonexistent. One of two things will now happen:

My predictions:

Expect lots and lots of redistributing debates to cheat, I.e. gerrymandering but that’s a given.

1. Trump is a malignant narcissist. He doesn’t care about party or the country. During this election he said “if they win I should get the credit and if they lose I shouldn’t be blamed” a “head I win, tails you lose” if ever there was one. He will run again in 2024 despite the overwhelming repudiation by voters. He will (not?) win the primary, but he will take so much of the GOP base vote with him that it splits the vote and hands Dems a second Biden presidency.

2. If the house is taken by the GOP, they will bargain with him to shut down federal oversight of him (including J6 hearings) to convince him not to run. He will still likely screw them in meaningful ways.

Unless he ends up in prison because of other investigations they can’t control…so the first seems most likely.

TLDR:

The kids and women are alright. Death to the Boomers. Enjoy your avocado if you can afford it. Don’t get married. Keep voting for change and keep using these platforms to educate your peers.

#political #politics #vote

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opabiniawillreturn · 2 years

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People tend to think of privilege in terms of “if these two people went head to head in the eyes of the system, who would the system favor?” when it’s not that cut and dry. Cops may very well favor a white woman over a black man, but that doesn’t mean that the black man doesn’t have male privilege. A black man will never need an abortion. A black man is less likely to be raped than a white woman. A black man will never face stigma for having a period, breastfeeding, etc. The dynamics of privilege and oppression can not be assessed solely by cases in which two individuals are in conflict. Having privilege over another group does not only apply to such cases. In such cases in the US, I think white privilege would probably trump anything else. But that does not cancel out all other axes of oppression

yep. black men still rape and abuse white women the way white men do. men are men

#ask

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bumblee-stumblee · 1 year

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I've been following radfem ideology tumblrs for a while and it's taking me everything not to make another blog just so I can join in, and that grey person is really making it hard not to.

When they use the 'as a white woman and based on my own experience, sex-based oppression doesn't exist/ isn't a huge problem because white privilege trumps all' they've failed to recognise one key thing. Social class. It's more likely that they haven't experienced as great an oppression as others because they come from a well off background on top of being white.

But we'll go off the assumption that all white women are from well-off backgrounds for the purpose of grey��'s argument. Even with this in mind, they will still face oppression that is sex based.

There's a whole book on the data gap we have for women (Invisible Women). In medicine the male body is the default and women are often prescribed the wrong thing for their body. I personally suffer from an autoimmune disease which is more likely to affect women (took 5 years of having debilitating periods where doctors just told me it was normal to have to wear 2 night pads all the time, be on two sets of pain medication, blood clotters, and female house mates asking me if they needed to call an ambulance several times because I looked that ill before I was finally taken seriously and they found out my thyroid was completely shot). Whenever I look up a disease that says, not much is known about this disease/there is no known cure and we can only manage it, I scroll down and 90% of the time it'll say mainly affects women and or people of colour. This also applies to the menopause which affects 50% of the population, ie women 50+. They say the treatment we have for this is good enough yet 25% of women (UK) have had to retire early because they suffered so much with symptoms and received no support. Then you've got female police with ill fitting stab vests because they only come in men's sizes. Look at those horrific stories coming out about female fire fighters - no idea why they were being harassed by male colleagues, must have been because they had small feet or something. Women are 47% more likely to get injured in car accidents because once again male is the default test dummy. The whole book said it best. Male is the default and when you actually try to speak from a female perspective it's treated like an ideology, because male is seen as universal and everyone just accepts it.

Another good book - why women are blamed for everything: exploring victim blaming of women subjected to violence and trauma. A good quote from this book:

"... the way we talk about victim blaming, sexual violence and abuse of women will shape the way we respond to it (individually and collectively). If our language minimises it, we will minimise it. If our language trivialises it, we will trivialise it. If our language constructs it as a hyperbolic issue that feminists moan about, we will treat it as a hyperbolic issue feminists moan about." By saying 'as a white woman I don't feel oppressed by my sex because being white means I have nothing to complain about,' they're making it so that the women who are oppressed based on their sex aren't taken seriously and that's a big problem. White women are still looked over and talked down to by male colleagues, are still raped and abused. Just because they haven't personally experienced this doesn't mean it doesn't happen (once again I think their experience probably includes their class privilege as well as their race). Look at Yeonmi Park (North Korean defector). She told the story of how she was robbed in NY, and when she tried to call the police, bystanders shouted abuse at her because the person who robbed her was a black man and her calling the police made her racist.

Then we have the book the authority gap: why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it. From the blurb alone:

"The Authority Gap provides a startling perspective on the unseen bias at work in our everyday lives, to reveal the scale of the gap that still persists between men and women. Would you believe that US Supreme Court Justices are interrupted four times more often than male ones... 96% of the time by men? Or that British parents, when asked to estimate their child's IQ will place their son at 115 and their daughter at 107?" Also from the blurb:

A woman is 30% less likely to be called for a job interview than an identically qualified man.

Male students consistently rate other male students as cleverer than better performing female ones.

Men are 4x more likely to read a book by a male author than a female one. Females are an even gender split.

The odds of recommending a woman rather than a man for a job is 38% lower if the job requires serious intelligence.

But no, sex based oppression doesn't exist. Or maybe the issue is, grey is so used to the world being this way they don't see what the problem is? Maybe because the issues above haven't affected them in their tiny insignificant patch of the world. I don't know. Just because you've got it better than someone else doesn't mean you have to put up with it. You don't tell a victim of a one time sa that they've got nothing to complain about because some girls experience it every day. This isn't the victim Olympics, both are bad. Both shouldn't happen. They are not 'lucky' that it only happened to them once. It shouldn't have happened at all.

Yes, exactly this.

#radblr

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straightfromthetorturedpoetsdept · 2 years

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Wealth oppression is still oppression and even if a human is still 99% privileged in all other aspects, they are STILL oppressed under capitalism if they are a worker.

Neoliberalism is the ultimate evil, and the harm it did to our political landscape is insurmountable. If The Left hadn't been so staunchly pro-capitalism in the early 00s, maybe so many poor white people wouldn't have fallen victim to the anti sjw to alt right pipeline.

I know it's fun to always criticize the other side, but some introspection never hurt anyone. Do you guys know WHY anti-sjw videos were so popular among poor white teenage men in particular? Do a YouTube search for anti-sjw debunk videos. The videos are all set up in exactly the same way: respond to accusations of social injustice with arguments of economic injustice to prove that you have it "just as bad" as everyone else does and "not all white people are rich."

None of us were class conscious enough at 15 to pick up on this was what was happening, so we just responded with "lol white male tears" ironically sending these teenagers the message to suck their pain up and deal with it because it's not real and doesn't exist- engaging in toxic masculinity standards ourselves while berating men for being "toxic."

Now, pause, I am not writing this as a defense of white men or asking you to forgive neonazis. Please understand that all relationships are two way streets and analyzing how we can do better next time is not asking you to forgive the sins of racist murderers, okay? Insane I have to write this but neurotypicals gunna neutrotyp.

Okay, back to it. So, if you really analyze what these white men were saying, it boils down to "you say white men are the problem but im living proof that I have no "privileges," because I'm poor or homeless x y z," and instead of really engaging with that response, the left just kind of made fun of men for expressing their feelings? And I am not saying they were right for how they responded and the level to which they took it there, but analyzing the way the rich have set us up against each other will only help prevent them for creating more neonazis in the future.

Socialism has been kind of painted as this response to whiteness, if you really think about why the anti sjw pipeline was so effective especially after a black man became president in 08, and therefore it has become associated with the black man's response to the white man. It really all started with rich men like Ben Shapiro making YouTube videos claiming that sjws are full of shit and then peddling hundreds of millions into making sure poor men were tuned in and listening as social justice warriors became increasingly frustrated with how ignorant everyone was to injustice in America.

If you read the new Jim crow, it discusses the LONG history of Rich Whites pinning Poor Whites against each other and how effective that has been in upholding Capitalism, Colonialism and Patriarchy for centuries. I really recommend reading that book because then this post will make a lot MORE sense when you see how the same tactics described in that book were used by rich men like Ben Shapiro to funnel millions into literal anti-black and anti-socialist propaganda on the internet for years before Trump was elected.

Why do you think the right has been calling the left communist for decades now, even when neoliberalism was the main form of left ideology in the U.S. at the time? Because they were equating the economic solution for poor white people's problem with the social solution for everyone else's problems being one and the same (eat the rich= they're coming after you, your children and they want thing you don't even have out of revenge for things that happened centuries ago).

This is why white people see white privilege as economic privilege and economic privilege only because for a long time, they were pretty synonymous. However, capitalism is a self-eating system and eventually the social privilege will fall to economic privilege because not everyone can be rich means not every white person can be rich (a truth that's hard to swallow for poor whites who have been racist for decades under the guise of "economic freedom"). Now we're in "late stage capitalism," which is what white people are calling normal capitalism but affecting a huge amount of whites now.

This is why there was a huge anti-feminism crave that came along with the anti-sjw wave because if white women start realizing gender is a social concept + our role in creating gender inequality everywhere but Europe, where our husbands did that for us, we can convert our white male family into socialists and they can't have that. This is why in colonized countries, Feminism Appropriating Reactionary Transphobia (FART) is more mainstream feminism now. They cannot have people realize that capitalism/Colonialism created gender inequality because once they do- once women wake up to what our gender really is, it's fucking over for the capitalists.

Women with gender studies degrees are all coming to the conclusion that our gender was created as a way to instill capitalism into the world, and this scares the shit out of feminists because feminists are- at their core- racist as fuck. Feminism is an ideology that was created to protect White Supremacy and it will react in the exact same way any other White Supremacist organization does when threatened.

Anyways, I say all of this to say that it's all connected. Everything has always been connected and poor whites need to grow up, wake up and realize rich whites have been playing them for fools for centuries. Eat The Rich doesn't mean attack all white people because they're so privileged, but this is at the heart of many neonazi fears today. They don't want to die for revenge when they have nothing to give.

If we start saying "yes, white men are oppressed. Not because of any social injustice but because economic injustice is truly colorblind." And we start explaining to these young teenagers and men that what they are feeling IS oppression, just not social oppression, they will be much less likely to fall victim to the anti sjw to alt right pipeline. Because they will know that black people aren't the problem, Rich Whites are.

Stopping poor whites from aligning with Republicans has been a consistent weak spot for the left for decades now and it's because of neoliberalism's love for capitalism. Admitting that white people do feel economic oppression is the first step in deradicalizing and preventing radicalization to begin with.

#wealth discourse #anti sjw to alt right pipeline #capitalism #racism #transphobia #social justice #white male tears #this didnt click for me until i watched a video on autism in the manosphere

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sleepynegress · 4 years

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Yall probably not gonna like what I have to say about Christina but...

This show is all about digging deep into black folks ancestral memory and the generational traumas and how that presents, within a safer frame (YES, I said safer...) of magic (horror/adventure/fantasy/sci-fi). But... The clever thing is with Christina it’s not just addressing black generational trauma... But that of whiteness too. She aptly embodies that.

She comes from generations of white male sociopathy and narcissism. While there are cracks because she herself was excluded from certain aspects because of her gender, she’s still such a product, so ingraitiated in that generational culture, she literally does not have the ability to empathize with a black woman she has “feelings” for. The way Christina has been written, and this is true of whiteness...is as stunted in basic empathy that we the subjects/survivors of their societal callousness so often have had to have PHd’s in even to survive, even when actively trying to avoid it because of that generational pain. The mainstreaming of cultural bits like turns of phrases from black LGBTQ’s and black women especially is an attempt to tap into the honesty/authencity, that we literally have no choice but to be but they themselves have lost in the sauce of white Americanhood (remember Ruby’s co-workers’ trip to “the zoo’/southside Chicago?). When Abbey Lee Kershaw said she was the “ultimate Karen” you have got to understand that she is a rendering/embodiment of “whiteness” and how it operates. It loves appearances, consuming what is yearns for at all costs, but *also* doesn’t like to be thought of as simple callousness and desire. So, even IRL, you see these clumsy attempts to take on real human empathy. That is what Christina’s doing so far. And again it’s an *apt* visual metaphor for the hardheadedness of getting whiteness to have an iota of that basic human empathy. ...After so many generations of callous consumption and destruction of the other. I’m saying generational trauma is *our bag*. But whiteness? Also has a generational baggage that is still spilling all over the place.

-Hell, it’s the source of *our* bag. See: Trump and his followers and the social damage they have done for at least 40-50 years all because they crossed their arms in resentment of a black man’s poise and basic decency while serving, all because he didn’t fail at leading at so high a perch and was beloved while doing so. This bad faith game that we’re seeing? Where it’s obvious that Trump couldn’t get a job at the most underpaid working class position, but he is flaunting his ineptitude and his enablers are propping it up like it’s actually competent? That is whiteness, throwing a tantrum, reasserting it’s “place” by being as awful and submediocre as possible while still being empowered. ...Even to the point of sabatoging basic comfortable life for all, including other white people, including(!) those who righteously support it. They are legit punishing society for having the audacity to love a black male leader. ...but I digress... Christina is childlike, cold, immovable, but also helplessly fascinated because she *is* whiteness. Whiteness cannot be moved unless it moves itself. But privilege renders it handicapped in that, ignorant of certan aspects of life and not so deep down, whiteness knows it. tl;dr Christina embodies the legacy of social/emotional IQ conseqeuences for generations of evil. She is Toni Morrison’s famous quote asking “Who are you without racism?” Who is she w/o her pursuit of power, at all cost? Anything? Nothing? I think *that* is the big question she was trying to answer in her pain cosplay. P.S. For those who don’t understand the term “whiteness” Here, I use it as an indentifier for the cultural marker/legacy of white racism. -Specifically, the American variety in trying to encompass a very long historical basis for an established series of behaviors and habits that continue/haunt/hamper/hinder/destruct to this day. P.P.S. Those in the tag who keep crossing their arms and asserting simple minimizing negative evaluations of the black characters’ motives and hearts are those holding on hard to whiteness. Because the humanity on display in this show is too much for them to face. They have to reaffirm simple denials of black humanity for their comfort.

#meta #lovecraft country #christina #tagging it #anti-christina #even though this really isn't #so much as it's an analysis #because courtesy

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anderson-a25 · 3 years

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Society and its Racisms

1. Hypodescent

This tweet is an example of hypodescent racism. Mixed children are degraded daily by society. Specifically speaking, children mixed with both black and white often identify as a black man or woman because they are seen as “too black for the white community”. This puts up a wall between biracial people and an entire part of their ancestry and where they came from due to racism.

2. Intersectionality

Click here for Intersectionality TED Talk

This TED talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw discusses the importance of understanding intersectionality. Intersectionality is the cross between different social categories (race, class, and gender) and how they apply to an individual. For instance, I am a middle-class, black woman. Those who have a harder time in society tend to be on the more oppressed side of the spectrum; black or brown, lower class, and/or a woman. However, those who do not fall under the oppressed characteristics can come off as privileged.

3. White Privilege

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This video is a prime example of white privilege using the metaphor of life being like a race. However, throughout the race the black runners were either held back, stopped, or completely incapable of proceeding due to obstacles placed by society. This left the white runners to continue the run and get ahead in the race, hence getting ahead in life. The system is made for minorities to be set up for poverty, prison, or death. This is shown when the black man is caught by the gate and is carried away. This metaphor is implying how black men typically end up in jail or prison. Similarly to when the woman was stopped by an authoritative figure and given a drug test. This implied racial profiling, assuming that the only way a black person could be so good at something is by cheating it with drugs or steroids.

4. Colorism

The two images above represent colorism. Colorism is a racist issue mostly found within the black community. Darker skinned women are seen as less than compared to light skinned women. Light skinned women soon became the “beauty standard” for society. It even got to the point where darker women would claim to be lighter (Tiktok here ! Beware of profanity). In The Hate U Give (2017), the main character Starr was described as a dark skinned teenage girl. However when the movie came out in 2018, Starr was played by light skinned actress, Amandla Stenberg. Just like in the children film Princess and the Frog (2009), Princess Tiana was a dark skinned woman and in Wreck It Ralph 2 (2018), she was lighter skinned. Considering that Tiana is the only black princess, this is insulting to my childhood.

5. Institutional racism

A Black Lives Matter protest (bottom) and the Capitol Riot (top). Two groups of people fighting for what they believe is right, with 2 very different outcomes. The BLM protesters fought peacefully for the equal rights of black individuals and justice against police brutality. Meanwhile, rioters with weapons climbed the walls of the Capitol building, got past the gates, and fought Capitol police. Forbes staff, Tommy Beer, wrote that former President Trump referred to the BLM protesters as “thugs, terrorists, and anarchists” and the Capitol rioters as “very special”(Forbes 2021). This is a prime example of institutional racism within the legal system.

6. Microaggression

My last example is not something I found on social media, but something that I experienced myself. Saturday, October 2nd, I was a victim to microaggression. While at work, I was speaking with a coworker, white male, about school and how the only class I am not too fond of is English. My coworker proceeded to say “so you like to write how you talk instead of properly” then followed up with what seemed to be his attempt at AAVE. I felt both shocked and culturally insulted. His statement implied two things. One, AAVE is improper. And two, my skin color is somehow linked to my inability to speak “proper”. I then proceeded to end the conversation there because I refused to converse with someone who was so loud, yet so wrong.

#Youtube

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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No one actually believes that identity trumps ideology

Today I read through a lengthy profile of John Fetterman’s budding senatorial campaign. You might recognize Fetterman--he looks like a regular dude and is known for dressing like a working class dad. Fetterman’s politics do not align completely with my own--his stance on fracking, especially, is troublesome (though not outside the Democrat mainstream). But he’s a genuine economic progressive and one of the most committed criminal justice reform advocates in American politics.

But, oh, there’s a catch. Fetterman is white. While he’s kind of weird looking so far as national-level politicians are concerned, he’s not weird-looking in the right way: he resembles a villain in an exploitation film, which means he’s not “coded as queer” or whatever. He rose to prominence as mayor of a majority-black town, but, still, he’s white. And the people who moved heaven and earth to get Joe Biden nominated sometimes find that to be a dealbreaker:

But for many party leaders, this isn’t a question of “the intractable outsider” vs. “the establishment.” Fetterman’s candidacy hits at the heart of the debate roiling the Democratic Party today: Should the party try to win back working-class white voters who stray further from them every year or double down on the suburban and Black electorate that has powered their recent wins? Fetterman’s white guy working-class appeal, they say, is outdated for a party that should be committed to addressing structural racism.

Ryan Boyer, the African American president of Philadelphia’s powerful building trades council, took to Facebook earlier this year to make the case for a Black nominee: “What has John [Fetterman] done to warrant a U.S. Senate seat? If black [women] are the base of the Democratic Party … shouldn’t the state party recruit an African American candidate[?]”

One African American state House member says Fetterman’s “authentic” brand smacks of white male privilege. “I know it would be an impossible race [for a Black candidate] to be able to run for anything across the state being dressed down every day,” says the lawmaker. “It’s just not fair. It’s such a double standard.”

Now, the notion that a down-to-earth black candidate would be a priori unable to run for office within today’s Democratic party is simply false. It’s a lie. But moving on from that, you’ll notice that, well, such concerns don’t seem to apply across the board. It’s only when a white and/or male candidate poses some threat to the Democrat consensus that, suddenly, their identity markers become a deal-breaker.

Again, every person who raises such a concern voted for Joe Biden. The vast, vast majority of them supported Biden in the primary. Joe Biden is a white man. Joe Biden is a conservative Democrat. Many of the most horrible structural problems faced by non-white Americans were engineered and abetted by Joe Biden. His race and gender, somehow, never matted to his supporters.

These people would not vote for Candace Owens or Condoleezza Rice. The same as you and I, they have most likely joined in and made fun of Majorie Taylor Green and various other nonwhite, non-male Republicans. And this is because they’re not actually sincere about valuing a person’s identity positioning over their politics. They only care about that when they need an excuse to support less progressive candidates over ones who might potentially lead to intraparty reform.

This is the entire con. Any time, in any context, when someone refuses to support or listen to a progressive candidate because they don’t quite have the right skin color or genitals, this is what it always--always--boils down to. There is always an ideological component. Commands to “just listen to” people of group X or Y always imply the assumption that the members of Group X or Y who are worth listening to are the ones who share the beliefs and values of elite, monied Democrats. Real Candidates don’t waste their time on piddling stuff like “freeing reformed prisoners.” Nosir. They focus on serious issues, such as forcing newspapers to capitalize the B in Black.

Never, not once, has such an argument ever been made non-cynically. If a workplace demands that only candidates from certain identity groups be considered for hiring or promotion, they always presume that those candidates will still share the same beliefs as the people conducting the search. If an academic field starts to mandate that publications and presentations will only be considered if they are authored by or cite a sufficient number of people from X groups, again, the unstated presumption is always that the members of those groups will understand their field and their identity positioning in a manner that poses no threat to the established power. (This is how we get into messy discussion of what makes a person an “authentic” member of different groups, which is something that liberals simply pretend doesn’t exist because they realize how incredibly insane and evil it is...)

The unavoidable, absolute outcome of the adoption of policies such as these will always, always, be a narrowing of acceptable ideological parameters. This will, in turn, always, always, lead to the conceptual naturalization of malignant social realities. This is how a great deal of liberals have come to believe that war is an apolitical constant and that neoliberal economic brutalization is simply an unchangeable reality. After all, they only listen to Authentic Members of certain groups, and those authentic members don’t get their authenticity until they toe certain party lines.

In short, this is a conservative worldview. It is anathema to any attempts toward addressing racial inequality as it actually exists. It’s self-serving. It’s dishonest. And it’s conservative.

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vettelewis · 4 years

Text

Lewis Hamilton: ‘There are so many things to fight for’

In his 14th season in Formula One, Lewis Hamilton has won more races than anyone else. And with his win in Turkey earlier this month, he achieved a milestone not just in his career but in the history of his sport: a seventh world title. But it’s also his actions off the circuit that make him our Game Changer Of The Year, as he takes a knee and raises a fist for the global Black Lives Matter movement

By any standards, even if Lewis Hamilton hadn’t spoken into a single microphone this year and hadn’t sent a single tweet and hadn’t once bent knee to ground in order to shake up the very male and oh-so-pale world of Formula One, he would have had one of the most remarkable years of his life. In winning the Portuguese Grand Prix in October, the 35-year-old surpassed Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 race wins, a feat most in the sport felt untouchable. And with his victory at the Turkish Grand Prix earlier this month, he equalled the German’s seven world championships. As his race engineer Peter Bonnington succinctly put it, “You are rewriting the history books.”

But GQ’s Game Changer Of The Year is not only a sporting great: he has quite literally used his exalted platform – or, more specifically, podium – to raise the issue of race in a sport for which it rarely comes up, precisely because there are so few black faces in it. In taking a knee before races – and even making his team change the colour of its car – he has pushed for change in a world that badly needed changing, consequences and criticisms be damned. GQ spoke to him as he was on the cusp of claiming his seventh championship and found that, both on and off the track, he’s just getting started...

Misan Harriman: What was your motivation when you first decided to take the knee?

Lewis Hamilton: I remember watching the video [of George Floyd’s death]. This life extinguished in front of my eyes by the people who are hired to protect others, and I heard when he was calling for his mum. This happens time and time again and that’s why there’s been such a large cry out. When I was watching it, tears came, so many emotions came up. It brought stuff up of my past. I started experiencing racism when I was five and people looked upon it so lightly, when someone would throw out these words, the bullying and the beatings and the intimidation... My dad always said, “Do your talking on the track,” so I held my tongue, but we suppress a lot of things and all my suppressed emotions came up and I was like, “You know what? I have to do something. I cannot stay silent.” If we all stay silent, it will continue for generations. I look at my niece and nephew and do not want them to experience what I experienced.

How do you feel about the response from F1? Thirteen drivers knelt with you in Spain and I think seven didn’t...

It’s not always a good thing for me, but I often post out of just kneejerk reaction, passion. And I called everyone out. I see all of you out there who have platforms, who have a following and just stay quiet. My team was the first to react. Since I joined, I remember mentioning that this team is not diverse. Year on year, I would talk about how our team is not diverse, how our sport is not diverse. So I got to sit down with my team and get into deep conversation of what is going on. And, you know, we changed the car to black and that had to go through a chain of command. Everyone got on board and it was overwhelming to see the response from our partners, because logo colours had to change. Brands put the issue first rather than themselves. I think as a sport, they were very, very nervous of what the right steps were. We saw the reaction: 13 drivers, as you said, took the knee. Obviously, the ones that didn’t, I don’t know if some drivers were like, “I’m not doing it because this is what Lewis is doing” or whether they didn’t get it... I think there are plenty of people in our sport that still don’t understand what we’re doing.

Do you think it helps that your record is so extraordinary that it adds to your ability to do this within the sport? If you weren’t winning, would it be harder?

Well, you can look at some other sports and there’s some people that aren’t super successful yet, but the more successful [you are], the wider your audience, the wider the impact. I’ve had a very, very difficult life and I’ve been thinking a lot about all these wins. I’ve had a lot of success in my racing career. It’s a great feeling, it’s a real privilege, but what does it really mean? All these numbers... what is it? Why was I the one who was chosen to represent black people in our sport? But I think as my life is unravelling, as the journey unravels itself, my purpose here is to utilise my voice to help encourage change. And my goal, really, is to shift the sport in a direction that it perhaps wouldn’t have gone if I wasn’t here. And most certainly not have gone if the Black Lives Matter movement hadn’t started, if George’s life wasn’t so visible.

You were critical of Vitaly Petrov’s comments about Black Lives Matter before the Portuguese Grand Prix. Was it a mistake for the FIA to appoint him as race steward?

I don’t know whether they call it a mistake. I think that the FIA is a large organisation and they are leaders and if you’re going to state what your values are and what you fight for, yet you hire people who don’t seem to have those in common... I don’t understand. I don’t personally get that. I don’t really know the guy very well and I won’t really comment about whether he’s good or not – I think his results speak for themselves over his career – but I thought that it was a step in the wrong direction or even a step backwards. But, you know, you look at Donald Trump, people can obviously see he’s racist. He even said, “I am the least racist person in this room,” so he’s acknowledging [it]. But people are willing to put aside the fact that he’s said so many bad things about minorities, for wealth or for other policies.

Formula One rules were changed after the Tuscan Grand Prix to effectively ban T-shirts with political statements after your Breonna Taylor message. Will you ignore those rules in the future?

If I believe it is important enough, I will. I will do it again. Going into that weekend, the case with Breonna Taylor had really been on my mind and I’ve been chasing down this shirt for weeks. Every weekend that I arrive, we have the spotlight on us and every weekend there is an opportunity to raise awareness. We don’t live in a time when everything is OK. And I remember as I went through the day I was like, “OK, I’ve got to win this race. I can’t come second and wear this top.” So I remember racing my heart out, pushing with every ounce for first place and I remember getting that win and I was like, “OK. I’m here for you, Breonna.” And I put that shirt on and in the 70 years of our sport, no one’s ever stood up there for anything but themselves. And I was standing up there for someone else. It was one of the greatest feelings.

You’re virtually in uncharted territory, on the verge of a record-equalling seventh F1 world championship. Is it sinking in? Is your operating system even able to process what that means?

I remember winning my first championship when I was ten years old and I remember how great that day was. My dad was – is – a tough man. It was really not easy to make that man happy, but I remember winning that championship and we had the best moment – we went away singing, “We are the champions.” And I remember the relief I had in that period of time, because I wasn’t good at anything else. I struggled at school, no matter how hard I tried. Then I won these other championships and, as I started getting older, I realised it doesn’t change anything. Like, it’s a relief of tension for a second, the muscle can let go, but then you’re like, “OK. What’s next?” And it’s taken time to be present and enjoy the moment for a longer period, because it passes so fast. I never thought I’d get to seven. No one ever believed that I would ever get to seven. And now I’m on the verge of equalling the most successful driver of all time and [have] more race wins and I have a chance to potentially go and win more championships. Even if you just take my name away, there will always be at the pinnacle of our sport someone of colour. So I’m very proud of that and I think that’s probably the thing I’m going to be most proud of.

Do you think you have reached your own limits or do you think you can get even better? And would you love to race everyone in the same car, without any advantage?

Well, firstly, on the driving side of things, you know, I was just doing the race yesterday and I was going through this race realising that I’m getting stronger. My skills are getting sharper – my intuition and understanding of strategy, my understanding of my tires... I’m getting stronger and I didn’t expect that. And I didn’t know at what point I was going to plateau, but I’m realising that I’m getting better and that is a great feeling. But it doesn’t come without the hard work. There’s no coincidence that I’m driving the way I am. And, of course, we do live now in a sport where there’s such a gap between all the teams. And people try to devalue what I do because of the machine that I have, so without doubt, I would love to have everyone in the same car, with a track that enables you to really, really race. And then we’ll see... Like, [Fernando] Alonso, I beat him in my first year, straight out. I was 22 years old, a rookie, and I finished ahead of him. Even today, you know, people talk about Max [Verstappen]. Like, it’s probably never ever going to happen, but if I did have Max come into my team and I did the job I currently do and beat him, people would say, “Oh, it’s rigged.”

What about the rumours of you ever being tempted by the red paint of Ferrari?

That’s not going to happen. The Ferrari thing is not going to happen... I think. I’ve always been positive about Ferrari. I watched Michael win there. I’ve always been a Ferrari fan. I remember one of the first cars I ever bought was a Ferrari. And I think it’s a hugely iconic team and brand, particularly. I think the team has, in my period of time... There have been things I’ve seen that I don’t necessarily feel mirror my values and my approach. However, it is a team that every driver, I think, has dreamed of what it would be like to sit in the red cockpit. No disrespect to them, but when I stop I want to work with Mercedes in helping them be even better in the outside world. You know, they’ll always have beautiful cars, but how can we be a more diverse industry?

So when you stop, what are you going to do? Salsa dancing, fishing, Fifa?

Definitely not salsa dancing. And definitely not fishing. I’m vegan! I’m not going to catch fish out of the sea! There’s a lot of different things that I want to do. I would say on the fun side of things for me, I’d love to try a bit of acting. I love my music, so I’ll continue to do my music. And I want to continue to want to learn to play the piano. I really would love to learn a language. My mum is a dancer, so I may take her to go and do a dance course with her son. But then, on the business side of things, there’s not a lot of black-owned businesses in the Fortune 500, for example, and I’ve had the privilege of working with someone like Tommy Hilfiger, who’s really opened my mind to the fashion industry. And I love that industry. I really do have a dream of one day having a fashion brand that’s fully sustainable, fully ethical. I’m always going to be trying to get involved in tech, because that’s the key to the future, I think. And then, most importantly, working with organisations out there to raise awareness for important issues that I care about. There are so many things to fight for.

Lord Hain, who was a Labour cabinet minister and who vice-chairs the All Parliamentary Group On Formula One, said it was “unacceptable” that you hadn’t had a knighthood yet. Is he right?

Well, it’s the first I’ve heard about this! It’s not what I’m racing for. I’m not like, “I’ve got to win these races so I can be knighted.” My granddad served in the Second World War – I’ve got all his medals – and I was so proud to see Captain Sir Tom get his knighthood this year. I think the unsung heroes are the ones that deserve these things. If I’m one day honoured, I don’t think it’s something I’d say no to, but it’s not an issue for me right now. Like, I’m really grateful. The fact I’ve even had the opportunity to go to Buckingham Palace and I’ve got an MBE – like, wow, a kid from Stevenage, so I’m grateful for that. Look at Captain Tom, he was 100 years old before he got recognised.

The black community, obviously, are very proud of our own and sometimes I think the frustration is your level of success should have been recognised a lot earlier on. And maybe, ironically, your activism is getting that kind of attention, instead of what you’ve done on the track, which is a surreal thing to say. I actually think the Lewis Hamilton of 2020, what you’ve done off the track, is almost making as much noise as you making history by beating Schumacher’s record.

The mixed feelings that I’ve had this year... I could never have ever dreamt of having the year that we’ve had, in the sense of the sadness, the isolation, the trials and tribulations. This is going to be the one I remember the most, I think, and, you know, I still have a job to do: I’ve got to win the seventh title. And when I win that seventh title, what am I going to do with it? I’m still going to be taking a knee and using my voice on that day. But I’m near. I’m closing in on it. I’m still energised. I came back last night [after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Italy] and I was like, “I can’t believe I just won that race,” but the thing is, the world moves on so fast, you just keep going.

#my jaw is on the floor #lewis hamilton #f1 #txt #long post

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larsmaischak · 4 years

Text

Race, Gender, Class and the Old vs the New Left

With an afterword by Sojourner Truth

1960s

Capital: Maybe we look bad, now that the Soviets have female tractor drivers and engineers, and Africa is governed by actual Africans, while we have a labor market that privileges white men?

New Left: The Old Left has not done enough to recognize the specific ways in which women and African-Americans are oppressed.

Old Left: Who has been leading all those Civil Rights marches, if not the left? Who has been paying for the field organizers and buses, if not the labor unions? Who has been pushing for equal pay and equal rights for women, if not socialists like Margaret Sanger?

1970s

Blue Collar Workers: Let’s beat the crap out of some hippies. USA! USA!

New Left: See? The Old Left is for the war, and against the counter culture, and all that. They are squares!

Old Left: You know that the craft unions representing those reactionary white, male workers have a long history of exclusion of women, immigrants, and African-Americans that goes back to the 1880s, right? That’s different from our industrial organizing tradition that goes back to Eugene Debs, the Wobblies, the CIO…

New Left: Workers are the enemy! Let’s focus on women and people of color!

Old Left: Now wait a minute! 95% of women and people of color rely on wage work for their income! They are working class!

New Left: Let’s march through the institutions! I’ll be a lawyer! You can get tenure!

1980s

Capital: Let’s squash Communism and the unions!

New Left: What unions? Were there any left? How quaint!

Old Left: We have to defend the rights of workers!

New Left: Workers are (a) fine, and (b) sexist, racist, reactionaries. Shut up!

1990s

Capital: Look, the Soviet Union is gone! Let’s modernize our economy, and return personal responsibility to the individual!

Old Left: Responsibility for what, exactly?

Capital: For how they survive a modernized economy without adequate wages, health care, housing, and retirement benefits.

New Left: Did you know that all those old, secure, well paid jobs were held by - gasp! - white men? It is about time that they let go of their privilege and give women and people of color a chance. Did you know that women and people of color like flexible jobs and thrive in them? The kinds of jobs for which working class men are frankly not suited? That require intelligence and education?

Old Left: You mean making wage-work less secure and rewarding, more stressful, and placing the burden of obtaining the required education on the individual workers is good for women and people of color?

New Left: Aha! You are still your old racist, sexist, unreformed selves!

2000s

Old Left: Fight Globalization! For the rights of indigenous people, women, workers, for environmental protection!

New Left: Hooray! You know how we can get all those good things? By opening up our markets for Free Trade! Modernize! Knowledge economy! Global village!

Old Left: That sounds an awful lot like the stuff corporate consultants are saying …

New Left: Many corporate consultants are women, people of color, and even gay or lesbian! We are not surprised that you fossils are still afraid of those groups gaining power at the expense of white men!

Old Left: White men, like the indigenous women in Chiapas backing the Uprising?

New Left: Cultural appropriation!

2010s

Old Left: Listen, have you paid attention lately to the free fall of the working class through the tattered social safety net? There’s a swath of human misery and devastation from opioids, the starving of public institutions like schools and libraries, neoliberal schemes to penny-pinch urban areas that literally poison people with their tap water, …

New Left: OBAMA! Oh, the dreamy, well-spoken, intelligent, Obama! Sigh!

Old Left: … as we were trying to say …

New Left: It is the Millennium of Modernity! History is at an end! All contradictions in the world, all conflicts, have been laid to rest! Hosiannah!

Old Left: ... and these unaddressed problems will not just go away. We have to pay attention …

New Left: Will you SHUT UP ALREADY about the flyover states and the human scum that dwells in them! We’re trying to listen to NPR, here.

2020s

Capital: Enough with this democracy business. It allows the wrong people to have their dirty fingers on the levers of power. Didn’t we have a pretty good system in place for dealing with this stuff? Steve?

Bannon: Heil Trump!

Capital: Sounds good.

Fascism: Cultural Marxism has too long incited women and other inferiors to aspire to a status far above their place. It is time to restore America to Greatness by putting these people back in their place. By force, if needed.

New Left: See what you’ve done! All your decades of coddling the working class, those reactionary white men! Now they’re back in full force, and all because of you and your idiotic refusal to go with the program. We had it all! Tenure! Professional jobs! CLOUT! NPR! MSNBC! And you ruined it all!

Old Left: Let’s talk about SOCIALISM …

New Left: All the rights of LGBTQ+ people, women, people of color, and you want to throw that all out by capitulating to the Fascists?

Old Left: No, actually, we want to fight capital, so that the reactionaries are deprived of their funding and support. Then we can rally the vast majority of the people, who are working for wages to survive, around their common interest as working, suffering, hoping, creative, loving humans.

Sojourner Truth:

I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. … That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

#Old Left #New Left #Capitalism #fascism #democracy #socialism #racism #patriarchy #Sojourner Truth #liberalism

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lizzybeth1986 · 4 years

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This won't make you feel better, but this anon might have an explanation for the problems in Pixelberry's stories: essentially, I think it's because media and fandom culture in general has been hijacked by people with much older value systems, value systems where "whether behavior hurts people or not" was at best a secondary concern. The way Olivia is coddled, for example, does resemble how children used to be expected to be grateful to abusive parents for at least being given food and shelter.

Thank you for the ask anon.

Initially, when you'd sent the first ask, I'd had a different answer planned. Because sure, those kind of mindsets could very possibly factor in on how they treat a certain character type or trope...but it never actually happened with any sort of consistency. There were these invisible unspoken rules that certain characters would get away with breaking, and other characters would be punished for. So if there is no consistency in this treatment, how could I believe that it comes from a value/belief system that the writer holds, and nothing else comes into play?

Which brings me to the second thought you had. It's possible, yes, that the demographic they're hoping to cater to the most are the ones who may benefit the most from seeing white (and perhaps straight) characters thrive above others. The ones who will benefit from black and brown characters being placed on a heirarchy of worth - the most exoticized being the most "worthy" of "good treatment". But PB does benefit from a show of appreciating and celebrating diversity, and they do know it - as you can tell from the posts they were putting out during Black History Month last year:

(Thank you @nikkisha16 for helping me source these!)

This is a "nice gesture"....if we ignore the fact that only three out of the handful of default black characters featured at all. And if we ignore the fact that Griffin from this tiny list was hardly given an opportunity to use his skills in the biggest "disaster relief" diamond scene in the series, just to make more space for the white guy. Or that Luke's "alternative romance" arc was given more attention than the one where the MC chose him - to the point where we didn't get to see his mother (more attention to the alternative arc is often a surefire sign that the team is focusing on another LI and presuming said character as single by default, which is why you'll see more effort in the playthroughs where they're single). If the demographic you aim to please are the ones who may not notice or care about what actually happens to such characters in their respective stories...why this posturing? Why this pretence that you care?

It's not that PB is evilly rubbing their hands and contemplating on which character of colour to screw over today. It's very rarely as cut-and-dried as that. Very often it is just as possible that they don't know, or notice how some of these subconscious beliefs translate into their art. Ignorance of how damaging certain tropes can be for certain communities, and an unknowing favouritism towards certain characters based on their skin tone just as plausible causes for the mess we see in most stories of PB now. And a certain dismissiveness, would account for why it keeps happening despite people pointing out these problems. (I mean, this is the company that issued an apology on Twitter for Drake Walker calling a pink cake girly. And I don't recall them making apologies for anything else thus far)

It takes awareness to understand the cultural weight of some of these tropes and archetypes, and certain kinds of treatment in some cases. It also takes awareness to figure out ways to empower these characters within their stories and arcs! And I do believe for that kind of awareness to emerge in the storyboards and the office meetings...there (possibly? Idk what the PB office is like) would need to be more voices from varying communities in the rooms. For instance, look at this incredible interview by Chelsa Lauderdale on the experience of writing Griffin's character in The Elementalists:

Griffin is the rich, fullfilling character that he is because the writer brought her own experiences and worldview to that character. And you can see glimpses of that promise in so many different black and brown characters when they're given even half a chance. Kiara's ambition and logical bent of mind. Hana's loyalty and struggle to discover who she really is. Sloane's courage in taking on the world while battling an anxiety disorder. Teja's love for her craft and desire to excel in her field. Jax's protectiveness towards the underprivileged. Lily Spencer's humour and playfulness and recognition of those who have less privilege. William's (RoE) recognition of his work-home imbalance and his commitment to change that for this woman he loves. James Ashton's creativity and insecurities. Victoria's wisdom and her experience in the film industry. Aurora's desire to make a name that's her own, so that no one will ever view her as benefiting from her aunt's high position again. But unfortunately, we're often only allowed glimpses for a lot of these characters, rather than whole stories that use these traits as a foundation. Having writers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse experiences - not just a handful but many - with voices that will be embraced and respected, would go a long, long way in both pointing out these blind spots and in enriching the writing and stories themselves. Only a handful of writers cannot be burdened with the task of "educating" an entire company, but a vast team of diverse writers would mean there is an environment where they can more openly question and maybe shoot down more tone-deaf narrative choices.

@massivelysilentchaos made an amazing post about this sometime last year IIRC. A lot may have changed since this post, but there's plenty in it that still applies. More now than ever, I tend to go back to this one paragraph in her post (but please, please read the full thing):

I think a lot of PB’s problems with regard to representation in their writing could be helped by having more diversity on their writing staff. That’s not to say they don’t already have a fairly diverse staff (at least it looks that way from their blog) but some of their narrative choices are tone deaf in a way that tells me they could benefit from more black and brown perspectives on more of their stories. Specifically I’m thinking of the choices to have a book set in Trump country where an eventual protagonist pulls a gun on a potentially black MC or the recent decision to include the detail that Syphax, a black man who spent 8+ years at Lena’s scholae where MC was presumably taught to read and write, can’t read. Both of which were entirely unnecessary to the overall story they’re trying to tell and left a bad taste in mine and many other black fans’ mouths.

To add to this - I can speak, as a South Asian woman who was excited everytime a South Asian character appeared in a series - of Teja Desai getting one solitary scene to address her parents' initial doubts about her becoming a filmmaker, and one solitary scene about being a "woman in a boys club" as a director - which the writers never bothered to connect to her current work ethic - and being presented her as overworked, pressurized, frazzled by the punishing amount of work she was taking on - only for RCD's narrative to turn around and compare her to Marcus von Groot, the mediocre white male whose lack of control over his crew came from his own incompetence and delusions of grandeur (btw, in subsequent books he was written as this adorable funnyman the MC could bond and hang out with). I can talk of Jackie Varma, who was placed in a position where players could pick and choose between her and Bryce (with Bryce having more free scenes), before the narrative wrote her out for a large chunk of the story. Even in Book 2, scenes we get with her explore OUR backgrounds more than hers. Given that getting into medicine or engineering is such a huge deal in our communities, I can just imagine the ways in which that would tie up with Jackie's work ethic. And I know that many desi voices in that room would maybe make those connections and understand how to tie that into these stories.

I'd like to close this post with a quote from Chelsa that I showed you all earlier in this post: "Stories can perpetuate stereotypes or change narratives. That's really up to the people who write them". And perhaps, the people who hire the writers as well.

#long post #ask me #ask lizzy #characters of colour #sorry for the lack of read more guys but placing it in the post the last time was a fucking nightmare. you can block long post or ask lizzy #if that helps

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it’s getting harder and harder to be a “white ally” in the service of racial justice. And yet sometimes it actually does take a rocket scientist. U.K. native Nick Berry has lived in Seattle for the past quarter century. Berry is a rocket scientist, like, fer real, man (his degree is in aeronautical and astronautical engineering). Berry’s your standard Seattle white male…Trump bad, masks good, Trump hates science, STEM needs diversity, etc. He’s even done a TEDx talk (a rite of passage in that tribe). In his spare time, he runs a neat little science blog that’s actually quite worth a visit.

Nick Berry is dying of stage IV cancer, and he’s using what little time he has left to give free science lectures at colleges and universities. His politics aside, he seems like a decent enough guy who’s handling his bum deal with humor and dignity.

Last week, Berry was sitting in Seattle’s Ravenna Park minding his own business when a large, “muscular” black man started beating the living crap out of him. No provocation, no reason at all. White man sitting quietly in park = “that ofay devil be needin’ a beatdown.” Berry had to be rushed to the ER.

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A white scientist battling cancer gets beaten half to death in a public park, and his first reaction (and the first reaction of his friends) is to be a black “ally.” We’ve reached the point where “allyship” has become the No. 1 priority of the average white American. A higher priority than family, employment, or even physical safety and well-being.

The problem is, blacks don’t seem to be very interested in white allyship at the moment.

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The unbearable agony of the white ally was experienced firsthand by a guy I covered in this column two weeks ago. Dr. Brian Richardson is an Alabama urologist who, along with another doctor, hatched the greatest, most amazing plan in the history of white saviorism: White doctors should wear black scrubs because the sight of a doctor wearing fabric that sorta looks like black skin will make blacks feel good about themselves or good about whites or something along those lines (the details are fuzzy). #BlackScrubsForBlackLives day was Aug. 28, and even with heavy promotion from the national news media, the thing laid such a rancid egg I damn near got salmonellosis reading about it. A search of the #BlackScrubs hashtag shows that the paltry few who “commemorated” the event were Richardson’s fellow white saviors. The tag didn’t even slightly crack “black Twitter.”

Embittered by the tragic reality that he wasn’t spending his big day being carried around like a hero on the shoulders of the Crimson Tide, poor Doc Richardson took out his frustrations by whining to me on Twitter over the course of a couple of hours, seemingly under the impression that his project was sunk by my critical coverage rather than his scheme’s inherent crappiness. And while I generally prefer not to revisit past amusements, Richardson’s impassioned defense of his “allyship” is too good not to use.

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Again and again in the course of our lengthy exchange, Richardson kept circling back to his “good intentions,” which, he posited, prove his allyship even if his campaign fizzled. But the doc couldn’t grasp the core problem, which is that, broadly speaking, there are two types of black Americans. There are the normal ones, the sane ones, the ones who go about their daily lives uninterested in buffoonery. The ones who would have nothing but derisive laughter for a white man who says, “Hey—I’m wearing a shirt that kinda looks like your skin. Doesn’t that make you feel good about yourself? Aren’t you proud of me?”

The other type of black American is the BLM terrorist thug. They would likely have an even more viscerally negative reaction (à la “Feminista Jones”) to the “I’m wearing your skin!” campaign. BLM’s race hatred, coupled with its paranoia, makes its members highly aware of and hostile to white condescension and pandering. They’d kick Richardson to the curb (and stomp him) in a heartbeat.

That leaves Doc Richardson a savior without a flock. A savior preaching to other saviors.

But there is a path to salvation for whites…there is a perfect way to show allyship with the BLM bullies, thugs, and terrorists. And it ain’t wearing black “skin” or joining protests or putting BLM signs in your yard. It isn’t half measures and good intentions. You want to be a white ally? Here’s the one true way:

The Amy Biehl way.

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Although the Biehls had no connection to South Africa prior to Amy’s murder, the parents still felt “responsible” for the plight of blacks in that country, because all whites owe all blacks everywhere and for perpetuity. The Biehls decided that the killers were owed the “right” to puree their daughter, and they’ve spent every year since doing everything they can to compensate the murderers for the pain they suffered when their knuckles were tragically bruised against Amy Biehl’s skull.

The Biehls didn’t order a hit on their own daughter, but one could be forgiven for thinking they did, considering the astounding amount of praise they’ve heaped upon her assassins, and how much they’ve crowed about how Amy’s murder made the world a better place by enriching the blacks who offed her.

Now, that’s allyship. And it’s the only kind BLM allows. “Let us rob and terrorize you, let us murder your children. You owe us the right to commit these crimes; take your losses with humility. Don’t prosecute us; reward us. Apologize to us for what we’ve done. Defund the police, and fund us for the privilege of suffering under our fists.”

There is no other type of allyship that BLM seeks. “Let us kill you. Do not hold us accountable or judge us. Ask us to forgive you, and pay us for our troubles.”

As I said at the start of this piece, it takes a rocket scientist (not a urologist). Nick Berry got it, instinctively. He responded to his near-fatal pummeling exactly as whites are supposed to: “I’m terribly sorry my face got in the way of your fists.”

“Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

Welcome to Amy Biehl Nation.

#david cole #taki's magazine #read the whole thing

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lisamoralesphoto · 4 years

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What if he stays?

This is the essay that if not written today has to go on the day-old pastry shelf of history. The question is not what if he wins but what if he stays. As we have been shockingly reminded it doesn't matter who wins the popular vote. We all seem to have forgotten about that little bit of history designed to keep white males of privilege in powe; the electoral college. We now are well aware of its consequences.

While America and the world marched bravely forward through the age of space, the age of technology into the age of virtual reality, these pieces of history have been dusted off to remind us how firmly rooted we are in our past. Forged by brilliant men who indeed intended to stay in power they designed the perfect system for disenfranchising any future comers. But now we face our reckoning and it is not something to be dealt with in the next 24 hours, and those in power of any persuasion have no interest in disassembling the structure that is designed to keep them there.

I don't think for one moment Donald Trump wants to win this election, I think he desperately does not want you to lose. He does not lose graciously. I'm not at all convinced he wanted to win the first time. However I am equally not convinced that Joe Biden wanted to spend the latter part of his 70s as leader of the free world. I've spent some time in the last four years driving around the country, listening and watching. I wanted to see for myself away from my liberal East Coast university-laden state of Massachusetts seeing what "real” America had to say and why they might think the way that they do. Getting down low and not flying over, camping as opposed to staying in fancy hotels, allowed me to get a bit of a feel for what's out there. I saw that they are more opposed to Barack Obama than they are pro Donald Trump. It's still showing up over and over again with opposition to Obama who is not in this race, with opposition to Hillary Clinton who is also not in this race. The racism and misogyny that leads to the opposition of a black man and a white woman who are not in this game is still so palpable that it's painful to see and hear. I have been through all of the Rust Belt states and the hills of Pennsylvania. I've been on the West Coast up-and-down California's beaches and valleys. I've been to West Virginia where the poorest most ramshackle forgotten towns are emblazoned with Trump in what seems to be a desperate measure to say, “look over here! we are here, we need help, save us!” There is nothing in Washington that's going to resurrect those mining towns or bring back the days before the United Mine Workers’ glory days.

I've been to New York City, its most gaudy citizen absent, so much cleaner than in the early 80s, with Times Square filled with tourists and homeless hidden away. I've been up to Canada and driven across the border more than once, a border now unbelievably closed to Americans because we are not safe for Canada. I've listened at hot dog stands and at taco trucks to the conversations of ordinary Americans. I've read the billboards in the T-shirts, Donald Trump and Jesus rent so many billboards in middle America! What I conclude from these thousands of miles and tens of thousands of photographs I've taken is that the American dream is alive and well but unattainable for the majority of Americans. This is insidious and it's been growing and those of us who came of age in the early 80s believing that it was morning in America and that whatever we wanted was at our fingertips are responsible for what's been left behind. We, myself included, have raised a generation of comfortable young adults now raising their own generation who believe that they are entitled to the life we told them they should have. There was a complacency that led us into record levels of disengagement with local politics, to record lows of labor union membership and record highs in the stock market.

All through history we know that we reap what we sow. Tomorrow is historically the day that we would choose to continue with the regime we have become familiar with or with another leader with whom we are also familiar. Except that since this process started weeks ago millions have already made their choice and while we were already choosing a supreme court justice who could sit for 40 years was placed on the bench. and there was nothing any citizen or lawmaker could do to stop that from happening. The world is watching and waiting and in the meantime a plague has been visited upon us and how we weather that not as a nation, but as humanity, rests in the balance of this choice.

#politics #election #usa

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