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your--isgayrights · 10 months

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You're like one of the only ones that I feel like can answer my question. But anyways, do you think there is a connection between Bathes framework(death of the author ig) being so prominent in HSY's arc and how it relates to JHY's, YSA's, JHW's arcs and their experiences as a woman. Like ik there was some gender stuff goin on with HSY when she was a guy apostle. But I feel like womanhood isn't as explored in her arcs like it is with the three other characters but I feel like you can somehow make a connection 😭 sorry if this is a tall order.

Anon babe I'm very flattered and I'll try to make some connections here, but if someone who is actually woman has something to say about this please come on in and feel free to tell me to stfu 😭😭. Like obv just from living in Society I have concepts of womanhood/gender dynamics/lived experiences of misogyny but also I need you to understand that identification with and appreciation of a personal identity of womanhood is something that I as a person have consistently been repulsed by my entire life. Like the act of wanting/choosing to be a woman is something I will never be able to fully understand or experience.

THAT BEING SAID I HAVE WRITTEN A FEW PARAGRAPHS HERE IN RESPONSE TO YOUR ASK.

TLDR;

authorship is creation outside of motherhood and therefore queer.

narrative control is queer, and therefore disassociation from traditional gender roles comes with increased narrative control.

the narrative of ORV equates Barthes' framework with the "reality" of a reader that has to be challenged by the compassion and love of another person experiencing their own "reality" and authorship of a story is an attempt of that act of impossible communication.

Like ugh ok wanna be clear that I'm not like shim saimdong on the 50,000 won style trying to equate womanhood to this role via like bioessentialist weirdness, but I think that the most obvious connection with authorship and the female characters in orv is the idea of creation that like is sort of tied with motherhood via a character like LSK. Bc yeah if you look at the two big authors writing Kim Dokja's life, it's literally his mom with her prison book and then also Han Sooyoung later on, right?

This is kind of fun to me bc I have a friend whose like actually a lit/film major type person and writing an essay about queer tragedy in film and we were talking about queer narratives and ideas of artificial conception/creation ala Frankenstein, the "unnatural birth." In Western lit tradition this kind of thing has obvi been like connected to horror more modernly, but I think in like early Korean lit (me saying this as a guy who has like only read the Samguk Yusa so 🌾 of 🧂) the connection between unnatural birth and the divine is less complicated and not treated as the same kind of perversion that subversions of nuclear family models have been by narratives in lit largely influenced by a majority religion that values that structure of subservience in the West.

(example of unnatural birth that is fun fine and normal in Samguk Yusa: the first king of Silla is born from an egg and so is his wife and like she even has a beak until it falls off and like Kylie Jenner lip cup style gives her bbl lips /hj.)

The act of authorship can then be seen in/equated with this unnatural birth, or maybe a better term is divine birth. Authorship/narrative control in orv is also shown to be something inherently queer bc like again if you think about LSK and HSY, there is, like you mention Anon, a conflict between the societal role of Woman and becoming an author. Like if you've read feminist lit you are probably already been knew about this but to put it in terms of a referenced text from ORV, there are foundations of an equation of womanhood with motherhood from those very beginnings of Korean lit. The bear mother is a story literally about becoming a woman and that good old neoconfucian influence can be seen in how the path to womanhood for the bear is to completely obey the instructions of a male deity without questioning or straying. She is then "rewarded" by said make deity when they wed and she becomes the mother of Dangun, the deity founder of Korea. This neoconfucian framework of 'womanhood' places emphasis on subservience to higher power and motherhood.

It is notable, then, that the act of becoming an author in Lee Sookyung's case is literally the very action that abandons her child. The act of authorship is juxtaposed from reality, as Kim Dokja's lived experience is retold transformatively and then believed to be true by others and by himself to some degree. Authorship is something that alters the 'natural' and 'real' and divests the author of their subservient societal role. (Abandoning your child #justqueergirlybossthings /j)

So then, let's look at female characters in ORV and their relative relationships to narrative control and femininity. YSA is a good contrast to HSY here, because as you note Anon, reading ORV HSY seems more divorced from womanhood than YSA, but why is that? In all likelihood, it's because YSA takes the place of a certain type of female character that often exists in the stories of this genre, a female colleague who performs her role much better in the original society than the male lead before an entry into the world of the story. Something to also note is, how, despite not being a "character" of the original WoS, YSA is particularly tasked with a role of passivity/narrative inactivity that commonly befalls female characters in the modern day but most notably is exemplified in East Asian lit by the monk Tang Sanzang in Journey to the west. A character who motivates the actions of the main character but is often thwarted in attempts to directly change the narrative and put into inert states (TSZ is told to go somewhere by bodhisattvas and follows their instructions and always gets kidnapped by demons who want to eat his hot cicada body or w/e, YSA studies languages, has her contract renewed, takes the subway when her bike is stolen, gets yanked around by Greek gods and prophetizes herself into a backroom library she can use to peer into the mind of God, etc.) In some ways, bc YSA tends to follow 'the rules,' because she appears to have less awareness and control of the narrative, she also seems to fall more easily into the societal category of "woman." Put directly in contrast with Han Sooyoung, whose perspective on the narrative as a creator leads her to show less care for the lives of those in the story and who actively kills many of said characters without remorse, perhaps contrary to the role of complete creation an comparison of motherhood and authorship might imply, narrative control is power both to create and destroy. If you're in a daoist mood, you could draw a taegeuk and equate this balance of divine birth and unnatural death with the balance of androgyny between feminine and masculine, the balanced whole then being considered a cosmic whole/the absolute/something powerful/ the author, etc. (Singshong being a couple who wrote the book together kind of also adds another layer of context to this in that like in the daoist/Confucian tradition of heteronormativity man and woman together are a complete form, if all cosmos can be divided to binary then the collaboration across that binary recreates the whole, an androgenous true state of creation)

Again, in this way, narrative control/authorship is something that inherently breaks reality and in a heteronormative world this force can be coloured as inherently queer. Thats probably why are transgender girlies JHY and YJH are so significant in that their experiences of womanhood are ones that directly defy the predestination of narrative. There is no direct reveal of YJH having been the Punisher, because it is something beyond narrative understanding, beyond the rules of the universe that Kim Dokja defines as the Reader. JHY's identity directly contradicts the design of the author/creator and reader alike, her choice in her personal gender identity directly defies narrative and in that way gives her agency outside of the realm of "character," her queerness being something that gives her transformative power and control over her reality.

In the matter of Barthes, I would say I'm a bit biased, because I find reading less interesting when the context and the intent of the author are not considered. In fact, I kind of resent that death of the author is sort of a literary standard in that a lot of modern English courses will discourage essays that use terminology like "what the author is trying to say could be" and instead encourage only the use of text, because on the whole I find it less interesting to look at words and not imagine the soul behind them. In some ways, I view death of the author as a selfish framework that emphasizes only the reinforcement of a reader's worldview and desire for escapism in text that doesn't have to be connected to the real world, a delusion. Not to say enjoying a book means one must love the author, but I feel that every reader will naturally have their own (mostly one sided, I suppose) relationship to the author within and without the text, and denying that fact denies personhood to the art form in some ways. In this view, I think one of the reasons I love ORV so much is probably that some of its themes seem to very much agree to this sentiment. Authorship and readership are often equated to this act of "impossible communication" between people. ORV views authorship, the sharing of stories, as this way to impossibly try to understand the life of another person. Part of what gives the text of WoS and then ORV itself so much meaning in the end is the fact that we know who wrote them in the fiction and for what reason. Knowing the author is actually phrased within the text as pivotal, foundationally important, the only understanding that can lead to the salvation of the reader in the end, his knowledge of the person he can recognize in the author's words being himself and the fact that the author's understanding means that he is in some way loved and and known by others who love the same story. When the HSY who wrote WoS is shown to literally cease to be, trying to reach the reader and failing to be seen, it's a scene that makes one cry, a tragedy, a loss. Death of the author is not a preferable frame of analysis in ORV, only connected by a morose sense of inevitability defined by a consumerist literary world that holds said framework as truth.

But again, if death of the author is "reality, " then the ending of ORV is one where radical joy can be found in the breaking of said reality. It's pretty notable from a queer framework that the "happy endings" in ORV all occur in non-nuclear family structures, the 999th turn adopting the OD, KdjCo wanting to live in a house together, etc. Also notable that, because that is a dream that KDJ cannot see as "real," the absolute power the reader is given to determine the world keeps it from happening. In this way, death of the author and absolute power of the reader is the final boss of ORV as HSY and the characters batten down the hatches and scream into the void "YOU ARE NOT ALONE, YOUR REALITY IS NOT THE ONLY ONE, LOVE THAT EXISTS FOR NO PREDETERMINED PURPOSE CAN BE YOUR SALVATION."

It's also kind of important to me outside of the text in the understanding that this story, though obviously formulated in the context of trying to appeal to a wide audience for commercial success, is also one that comes from people who experience our reality trying to tell us that love is the answer to it all. Young people today in SK are very likely to at least know someone who has attempted in the past and you know there are some pretty similar statistics if you happen to have friends involved in queer communities here in the US. Because of my own experiences, I've always felt that distinct lack of recovery narratives in fiction, as past generations tend to see it as either so outside the norm or so clearly regulated to certain situations that it's portrayed as obviously wrong choice by a weak person or the obvious right choice by a brave person and ORV is one of very few stories I've seen not try to make a value judgement on it, but rather illustrate exactly the reasons why KDJ wants to die, why he doesn't value himself, and saying please, please stay. There is so much love for you here even though I know you haven't seen it yet. And an understanding that these ideas of love and happiness are something some people in certain situations can only be shown proof of in the stories of others. And I feel like understanding of that context is what makes ORV so important to me as a Reader, even if I know very little about SS aside from that, the fact that they exist as people living in this same world is still important to my enjoyment of the story as a reader.

Ok, sorry, this became more about narrative queerness than death of the author/womanhood but again a lot of my views of womanhood exist in like, opposing it? Lol. Tho my experience of manhood also exists in opposing a lot of it, I just personally enjoy tussling with it much more than I ever would have with womanhood I think lol.

#orv #orv spoilers #cw suicide #cw misogyny #i was just spitballing on this literally after waking up so sorry that it is like not organized at all and maybe doesnt answer your questio #feel free to like poke me for more details/explaination if something doesnt make sense or is stupid lol #ask #anonymous

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ayakashibackstreet · 12 days

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Western Europeans stfu challenge

#sometimes you read some of the stupidest shit within the first hour of waking up

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lapeaudelamemoire · 7 months

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Every time I see white 'Westerners' talking about any kind of issue relating to non-white folks like the 'Voice [to Parliament]' for Indigenous folks in the ongoingly occupied settler-colony that is so-called 'Australia', or commenting on colonialism etc., it's always outstandingly marked by a complete lack of nuance.

It's also in itself an entire microcosm of colonialism in action when hordes of people reblog this type of 'progressive' shit.

It invariably, incessantly, comes across as continuing to push their own agenda which is inexorably marred by their white 'Western' colonial lens. I have no doubt people mean well and are trying to do the right thing but they continue to perpetuate colonial bs because they haven't done the fucking self- and decolonising work.

E.g.,

'Woke' white person: Vote Yes for the Voice so Indigenous folks will have a Voice!

Someone who has actually got a fucking grasp on what a settler-colony is: Actually this has nothing to do with me, a non-Indigenous person, and actually, given that Indigenous folks make up approximately 3% of the population and voting in the referendum is compulsory for all 'citizens', the 97% of non-Indigenous voices will functionally decide on whether or not Indigenous folks 'have a Voice'. Also, doesn't this imply that Indigenous folks don't have a voice/voices? Why does the settler government need to 'give/grant' them a 'Voice'? Isn't that kind of paternalistic colonia- ohhh...

It's not 'progressive' to do what you, as a white/'Western' person *thinks* is 'the right thing'; that's literally just continuation of fucking colonialism where the explicit notion is that white folks know better and are trying to 'guide or bring' others (see: 'primitive people who don't know better for themselves) on the 'right path'/'civilisation'.

Maybe actually white people stfu and sit the fuck out challenge. But no, it's too hard. You gotta put your voice out there (and probably also use it to argue/do so by arguing with me, thereby entirely proving my point).

#personal #rant #yeah this is a bit of a rant

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seymour-butz-stuff · 3 years

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As a lefty liberal in a conservative Northeast Wisconsin redoubt, I took a far less knee-jerk approach to 9/11 than some of my neighbors. I experienced the pain, horror, and fear of that day like anyone else. Still, my instinct was always to reject half-baked, jingoistic calls for “nation-building” (to resurrect a term George W. Bush had derisively used himself during the 2000 presidential campaign) and for using military action as a first—rather than rarely tapped and last—resort.

The publication I was writing for doesn’t exist anymore (it’s hard to overstate how unpopular antiwar sentiment was back in the early 2000s), and I don’t have any copies of those old, dusty opinion pieces, but I do distinctly recall my conclusion about our foray into the infamous “graveyard of empires.” I wrote something along the lines of “it’s hard to imagine a thriving Western-style democracy coming out of all this.”

Given the cultural and political challenges inherent in creating the kind of free and open “nation” that Bush was then proposing we “build,” it looked, to some extent, like a lost cause from the beginning. An operation to locate and capture Osama bin Laden? Sure, I was on board for that, and as Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner writes in this important retrospective, we had more than one opportunity to nab bin Laden without turning Afghanistan into a perpetual graveyard.

So why were we invading? Good question. Was it because they wanted to run an oil pipeline through the country? Was it to boost the fortunes of military contractors, who would waste no time scurrying up to the money spigot the U.S. government was preparing to put on blast? Or was it simply that our leaders at the time had big, feral war boners for any nation populated by brown-skinned Muslims? Or maybe it was a, b, c, and then some.

Whatever the reason, I smelled a rat. It was similar to my reaction roughly a year and a half later when Bush and his war machine started agitating for an invasion of Iraq while furiously misleading a great nation about Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) connections to bin Laden. By that time, I was smelling several rats and maybe a sewer-dwelling capybara or two. Just as the war party had less-destructive options early on in Afghanistan (as Sumner notes, the Bush administration rejected a surrender offer from the Taliban as well as overtures that could have led to the capture of bin Laden himself), the invasion of Iraq seemed, at least to me, completely unnecessary given that the UN had inspectors on the ground in Iraq looking for WMD even as Bush champed at the bit to invade. They were so sure the WMD were there, and they were spectacularly wrong.

Now, with the collapse of the Afghan government, which we spent nearly 20 years propping up with considerable blood and treasure, it’s clear that I—and the vocal minority of antiwar protesters at the time—were right. Bush and his enablers, including many of today’s anti-Biden armchair quarterbacks, such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, were disastrously wrong. And, not for nothing, those pro-war cheerleaders cost us plenty in terms of lives, resources, and lost credibility.

There’s a lot that’s galling about conservatives’ reaction to the chaos we’ve seen in Afghanistan over the past several days. First and foremost, this was their hero Donald Trump’s plan all along, only he wanted to leave by Christmas and had established a May 1 deadline for the wholesale removal of our troops. The situation would have likely been worse under a second Trump regime, and even if things had somehow appeared less chaotic (given Trump’s allergy to planning and his affinity for chaos, this seems unlikely), it’s a preposterous fantasy to think the result—a complete Taliban takeover of the country—could have been avoided.

https://twitter.com/thetonymichaels/status/1427282625543217153

I assume President Biden received some bad intelligence concerning the Afghan military’s ability and willingness to confront the Taliban (this December 2019 Washington Post story about the clusterfuck that is was the U.S.-trained Afghan army should have given the Pentagon and our intelligence agencies pause, of course), but being the mensch he is, he’s taking full responsibility for this sad, disturbing denouement.

But blaming Biden—who, as Barack Obama’s vice president, wanted to get us out of Afghanistan in 2009—for 20 years of terrible decisions made by others seems a stretch.

Obviously, the pullout has not gone well, and Biden will, and perhaps should, receive criticism for that. But the idea that we were on the verge of turning things around in Afghanistan (like we supposedly were every year for the past 20) is nonsense.

Although I’ve become a big Biden fanboy over the past year, I initially second-guessed his decision to withdraw our troops completely. But if the past week has shown us anything, it’s that the Afghanistan project was always a pipe dream and an illusion. Yesterday, while I thought about the human rights repercussions of Biden’s decision, I felt like I needed a reality check. In his nationally televised speech to the nation, Biden provided it for me:

American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong — incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies. We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force — something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.

I don’t have children, but I do have nieces and nephews, and I can’t imagine encouraging them to risk their lives and limbs for a mission that is and always was vaporware. Nor would I lay down my own life for such a venture. So how could I quibble with a commander in chief’s decision to prevent other Americans’ kids from dying or being maimed in a lost cause?

I couldn’t, and Joe Biden, whose own son may have died because of his deployment to Iraq, couldn’t either.

It was the same reason I couldn’t justify the invasion of Afghanistan 20 years ago and why our Iraq adventure seemed particularly noxious. Old men with no stake in these wars other than their own reputations and political fortunes were making life-and-death decisions on poor and middle-class kids’ behalf.

Anti-war activists were right then, and we’re right now. And no amount of Biden-bashing from the warmongers on the right will ever change that.

As satisfying as it might be to say “I told you so,” what we and the sometime doves in the GOP really need to say is “never again.” Biden deserves ample credit for finally getting us out of George W. Bush’s mess, and his hypocritical right-wing critics need to finally and forever STFU.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Just $12.96 for the pack of 4! Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

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high-pot-in-noose · 2 years

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If I read one more "hot take" post about filial piety from someone who's NOT culturally Confucian, Buddhist, or Shinto, I'm going to flip my shit. Y'all literally barely have any idea of what that even means in the grand scheme of the belief system; you have no grounds to be saying this person or that person "isn't filial." Western Stans STFU Challenge.

#mxtx #mdzs

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lucianalight · 5 years

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My Thoughts on MCU Comic Con Announcements 2019

*Please note that this is my personal thoughts and feelings and they are negative regarding some of the news. But I’m genuinely happy for people who are happy and excited and hopeful by them. Warning for a long and disorganized rant*

Remember the time when Marvel’s announcements didn’t induce anxiety? Those where good times and I miss them. Because the moment I opened tumblr and read the couple of first posts on my dash I had a fucking anxiety attack. Over sth that counts as entertainment and generally should cause hope and excitement. You know the feeling you normally expect from sth owned by Disney. Anyway, I was having a conflicting inner monologue/dialogue(?) with myself(- “Clam the fuck down. It’s just a fictional character.” -“Stfu! You’re not helping. Like at all. I got this”) until I calmed down and was able to read the news and watch the panels.

The first thing I checked was the release dates of “Loki” and “Thor: Thunder and Love”(They couldn’t have found a more cheesy title than that). Because I can’t stress enough how much I don’t want Tom’s Loki in Thor4. They are both set to release on the same year with 4-5 month interval. So logically they have to work on the production at the same time. But does it leave enough time for Tom to be in two productions? I’m asking because I have no idea that whether it’s possible or not( @sevensamurai1951 Can you help me here?).

On the other hand watching Thor4 panel made me %85 sure that Loki, or at least Tom won’t be in it. TW was all about Korg and Thor budding romance or bromance or whatever. They are going to be the new duo(tm). And I have to say I fear that the first openly LGBTQ character(Valkyrie) is going to be handled by TW. Not only that, Jane Foster as Thor story line too. Considering the kind of “representation” we had in TR; And the way TW view strong female characters as “being more of a guy than guys” I fear for Jane’s characterization too. A lot. Anyway, I don’t care about this movie unless it’s going to include Tom’s Loki in it and if it happens I’m going to scream and complain and probably hit sth too. I’ve never thought a time would come that I don’t want Loki in a Thor movie but here we are. Final thought on this movie, the logo has a 80s vibe and reminds of the old western movies.

Now about “Loki”. I’m kind of relieved that it’s going to be post 2012 Loki and not Loki influencing history. But then how can the concept art of Loki in 70s be explained? With this story line also comes the fear that it’s going to have Cap in it who chases Loki to capture him and fix the branching time line and it would end with Loki being capture again and ultimately die in IW. And now that I think about it, it might be possible considering the concept art too. Would Cap chase Loki in different points of time with the help of Pym Particles? Ugh. This is not really promising and sth I’d like to watch. Since they won’t let the villain coded character win in the end. And notice how Tom emphasized on the Avengers era Loki and the way he said “a lot of psychological evolution that is still yet to happen“ implies to me that he is going to be portrayed as villain coded. However, Tom is excited and I can’t dismiss his other words: “it is one of the most exciting creative opportunities I think I’ve ever come across. This is new territory, a new world, new challenges, and I cannot wait to get started” . So I feel conflicted about the series. I’m also conflicted about the new logo. My first thought upon seeing it on my phone was “what the hell is this monstrosity?” But looking at it from the laptop screen, I feel it’s not that bad. It’s weird and chaotic and doesn’t have a specific style. Like Loki. I don’t exactly like it but I don’t hate it either.

The design in “O” kind of reads like “Ikol” to me which I think increases the possibility that they will go for the kid Loki story line too. Sth I don’t particularly care about and I’m going to be relieved that it’s kid Loki who will be in Thor4 and not Tom’s Loki. Honestly I prefer Tom’s work in MCU finishes with this series. Loki doesn’t deserve to have more retcons or be the punching bag for TW and CH. Although if they include him in Dr. Strange considering it’s about multiverse and it will have Wanda too, it might be fun. But I don’t think it will happen considering how much they declawed him in TR and IW and I don’t want the powerless version of him with those two other magicians.

On a final note, I couldn’t help but to notice how much people cheered for Tom and Loki and chanted Loki’s name again. And the reactions to Thor4 panel, specially TW and CH, wasn’t as enthusiastic.

#anti thor ragnarok #anti chris hemsworth #anti taika waititi #anti thor4 #loki #loki tv show #loki tv series #loki logo #mcu sdcc 2019 #loki panel 2019 #jane foster #valkyrie #anti infinity war #ranting

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leaveharmony · 6 years

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I feel like every time I open my mouth whatever comes out is an unwanted and irritating burden on everyone who hears or reads it. Which is...no different than usual, really, because that's essentially how I've always felt. Just...moreso lately. And that...anyone actually reading this is just nodding and thinking 'Yeah, finally! Maybe she'll stfu now.' It isn't even like the social-anxiety obsessing after the fact flinch "Why did I say that?" it's more like "Why have I ever been stupid enough to say ANYTHING? No one cares." Which I'm sure isn't accurate and is probably one of those sick brain things, but it feels true. It never hasn't felt true. It just bothers sometimes more than others. And of course the actual rules don't apply to me specifically. For me, specifically, reaching out to try to start a conversation is bothering people and asking for validation is pathetic and even voicing when I'm upset isn't permitted because I'm not allowed (to be upset - but especially to be upset and say anything about it). It's a mess tbh. It's just a mess up here. And you'd think that would be a situation I'd be accustomed to, but...sometimes it's quiet enough to hurt (which is also pathetic). I wonder if I'll have the energy or focus to start on the Tana dress tomorrow? It's going to be an uphill battle...the lining is so slippery, I can already tell it's going to be hell to work with. But as always that's a mere physical challenge of ability that will be overcome bc doing things anyway despite total ignorance and ineptitude is just what I do; it's the mental struggle, as always, which is the issue. I think he'd really dig someone (especially a western fan!) going through all that trouble as a tribute to him. And...simultaneously, I also think it would be a better gesture coming from someone able-bodied, sane, graceful, thin and pretty. The dress has to be perfect because I cannot be, so anything short of perfect, and my pitiful nature will drag the whole thing down to the point I may as well be wearing something stapled together out of children's drawings. Quaint, and maybe charming...but undeniably, fundamentally sad.

#it's real why was I born hours in this chilis tonight

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crazycatsiren · 1 year

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Westerners will crack jokes about communism as if there aren't enough of us out there who are still dealing with generational traumas left over from what communist regimes had done to our countries, our people, and our families.

#racism #xenophobia #westerners' bullshit #westerners stfu challenge #authoritarian communism is still authoritarianism

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duaneodavila · 6 years

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Post Runs White Nationalist Propaganda Masquerading As Law-Talkin’

When you attack birthright citizenship, I know what you are really doing. I know you are really trying to lay down intellectual covering fire, under which your argument for white nationalism can be brought to the masses. I know you are afraid of the browning of the country, I know you’ve crunched the numbers and have come to the obvious conclusion that you can’t deport your way into a future of white majorities. I know you have two options: double down on apartheid rule, or strip away rights from non-white people who you can’t stop from living here. The Electoral College is going to do the work of the former, so when you come for birthright citizenship, I know you are fighting for the latter goal.

I also know that you count on decent people being too weak or frightened to stand up to you when you try to infect people with your bigotry and stupidity.

You can’t get an op-ed in the Washington Post if you titled it “America Needs To Be Ethnically Cleansed Of Illegals.” Somebody over there would notice that as inappropriate. But, if you call it: “Citizenship shouldn’t be a birthright,” well the Post ran that very piece of racist drivel yesterday. I’m sure somebody over there noticed that as inappropriate too… but somebody else probably said, “Hey, there are good people on both sides.”

The argument against birthright citizenship is a common one in white nationalist circles. But unlike most of their stink, this one comes perfumed with an air of Constitutional interpretation. That thin veneer occasionally gets the dumbass argument repeated or published by mainstream sources, because otherwise intelligent and upstanding mainstream non-lawyers can be easily intimidated by things that sound like the have some basis in the Constitution.

Essentially, the argument comes in three parts:

1. The original Constitution did not define “citizenship.” (Non-lawyer mind = blown) 2. Birthright citizenship stems from a misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Non-lawyer mind = confused) 3. Birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration. (Non-lawyer mind = intrigued)

The Post op-ed was written by Michael Anton, a former Trump national security adviser. It quotes the work of Edward Ehler, an anti-immigration author. It hits all of these classic points.

The notion that simply being born within the geographical limits of the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship is an absurdity — historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.

Constitutional scholar Edward Erler has shown that the entire case for birthright citizenship is based on a deliberate misreading of the 14th Amendment.

Practically, birthright citizenship is, as Erler put it, “a great magnet for illegal immigration.” This magnet attracts not just millions of the world’s poor but also increasingly affluent immigrants.

Usually, these central premises stand unopposed. Lawyers don’t fight these white nationalists on the law, because their interpretation is so stupid that it’s barely worth their time. And liberals don’t fight on the law, they fight on the policy that immigration is good for the country, a point on which there is overwhelming evidence.

But, I have the time. As a wise man once said: “If the milk turns out to be sour, I ain’t the type of pussy that’d drink it.”

1. The Constitution didn’t define federal citizenship, because it was taken as an article of faith that citizenship flowed from the individual states, and not the federal government. Our entire concept of “diversity jurisdiction” rests on the concept of people being citizens of different states and not one country as a whole. That’s doesn’t mean that the Founders thought birthright citizenship was “absurd.” It just means that they didn’t think it was their call to make.

2. The Constitution does weigh in on the issue with the Fourteenth Amendment. Everybody agrees that the whole point was to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves, citizenship that was taken from them by the Dred Scott decision.[1] To give African-Americans citizenship, it had to be as a matter of birth. There was no other way. You couldn’t do it through whether their parents were citizens, because Dred Scott said their parents were not. You couldn’t do it as a one-time grant to newly freed slaves, because that would leave out all already free blacks. The only way to do the thing we all agree they were trying to accomplish was to make citizenship attach upon birth.

WHERE IS THE MISINTERPRETATION? These white assholes keep saying that we’re misreading the Fourteenth Amendment. HOW? The writers of the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to do a thing. They did it in the only way they could. THEY WROTE IT DOWN. Where’s the freaking confusion?

If you pin one of these jerks down, they’ll start talking about Native Americans. The Fourteenth Amendment didn’t confer citizenship to Native Americans, who were clearly born here, and thus, they argue, citizenship wasn’t meant to be a birthright. I have little patience for people who use our racism towards the First Americans to justify racism towards New Americans, but there you go. If you think that our treatments towards Native Americans was a feature instead of a bug, that’s your argument.

3. Birthright citizenship is, almost exclusively, a “New World” phenomenon. In Europe and Africa, citizenship generally flows from the parents, not the place of birth.

Why? Well… slavery. Other New World nations had the same problem America did after the Civil War. Having a system where rights flow from the parents is UNWORKABLE in a society made up of newly freed people. Almost all the countries in the Western Hemisphere tie citizenship to the land.

That reality means we can test the white nationalist assumptions that birthright citizenship has the unintended consequence of creating a perverse incentive for illegal immigration. When we look at Europe do we see countries that are free from the challenges presented by illegal immigration? No? Then I think these white nationalists need to STFU and come up with an argument that is grounded in REALITY.

************************* This stuff isn’t hard, folks. Birthright citizenship is NOT a controversial proposition. Mainstream media is hell-bent on creating an argument where there isn’t one, in their endless effort to normalize white supremacists. Not all arguments are created equal, and it really shouldn’t be too much to ask a national publication like the Washington Post to be able to READ THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT before publishing white nationalists talking points.

People who make arguments against birthright citizenship are racist, dumb, or both. Here endeth the lesson.

[1] As an aside, it’s an article of faith that Dred Scott necessitated the Fourteenth Amendment, but you could just as easily argue that Dred Scott was wrong on the law at the time it was decided. Maybe if we weren’t so quick to excuse racist white men as “trapped by their times,” we’d more easily recognize that.

Citizenship shouldn’t be a birthright [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.

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