#And they continue to go about their business and perpetuate anti-Blackness | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cindymoon · 3 years

Note

Did it ever occur to anyone that Wanda’s Roma background in the comics was BUILT on racist stereotypes? Similarly to M’Baku but also several others. And maybe that’s why the show runners stepped away from that..?

okay, so i think what we have here is someone who skimmed the original post in question (paragraph 2) and likely didn’t ready any of the links attached because that first message has been addressed already... but for anyone else in the same boat:

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's Romani heritage was canon for decades (including in their non-mutant backstory), although this depiction often had problematic undertones. Wanda is literally a mysterious foreign witch, a damaging stereotype that acquired more nuance in later comics. But instead of updating Wanda and Pietro as modern Jewish/Romani superheroes (much like how Black Panther's charismatic M'Baku started out as a villain named "Man-Ape"), Disney whitewashed them. This casting choice was divisive in 2013, when The Atlantic highlighted the negative connotations of casting a white blonde actress as Scarlet Witch. Roma people are a marginalized ethnic minority, and Disney chose to erase their presence from the MCU.

...This rewrite was rather tone-deaf, because it involved Wanda and Pietro volunteering for neo-Nazi experiments. In the comics, their original parents were Holocaust survivors. Whedon also ignored the most obvious solution to Wanda and Pietro's non-mutant backstory: Django and Marya Maximoff, their Romani parents from the comics.

white washing characters is never the best solution. it doesn’t address the issue in so much as it just sweeps it under the rug. as well as perpetuating the idea that white is some unproblematic neutral that ppl can just default to. like can you imagine if in an attempt to “fix” how m’baku is portrayed in the comics, they just...put a white guy in the role? you can’t just remove a characters racial or ethnic background. no one is saying that her comic background hasn’t been problematic, but this isn’t the way to remedy that.

@scarlet--wiccan has an amazing post about the erasure of this whole family’s ethnic identity in the fox x-men films (x).

@villyns also has a good post outlining some examples of the mcu white washing rather than actually fixing the problem (x).

and here’s a decent article on white washing in media and why it’s a problem (x), quote from this article below:

Making a movie is not an easy feat; there are many things to take into account and even more people that you have to please, but there are also standards and morals to uphold. Whitewashing, blackface, brownface or yellowface is not just about denying jobs to minority actors, appropriating the stories of these groups, perpetuating stereotypes or keeping them invisible, it is about undermining their value as human beings and turning them into stepping stones, props, for white artists.

as for the second part. i think that’s entirely possible, actually. it’s done a lot to characters, where they won’t explicitly state their ethnicity but give them attributes from one (often stereotypes) and make them a caricature without making it, like i said, explicit. take the concept of jewish-coded villains in media. no one from disney has ever said that mother gothel in tangled is jewish, but it’s been pointed out by everyone that she’s jewish coded through stereotypes, ones specifically often used for “evil” witch-type characters, which is no coincidence: large, hooked nose, curly hair, greedy, etc. edit: hollywood uses coding like this often for racial/ethnic groups and the lgbtq+ community.

the maximoffs in the mcu and xmcu have never been explicitly made romani, with disney going so far as to change their parents romani names (django and marya) to oleg and irina. the name changes were unnecessary, except to distance the maximoffs from their original romani identity. the mcu changed their origins stories and cast non-romani actors to portray the maximoffs, and considering they went as far as to remove their jewish heritage as i mentioned before, it’s not a stretch that this is all an attempt to veil their romani background too. while they often joke about stealing and fortune tellers and poverty (the wv halloween episode really put it all in one place, but they’ve been doing it forever in the xmcu and mcu), i wouldn’t say this is an attempt to make them romani as much as it is to use a romani-esque caricature, to use it as a sort of “aesthetic” for the twins without acknowledging that it’s an ethnicity. the aspects they choose to keep are often either negative or painted in a negative light. i think the fact that el*zabeth ols*en continuously uses the g-slur to talk about wanda and costume design, speaks to that.

and even if the mcu came out and said, “oh, our wanda is romani,” that wouldn’t change the fact that she’s played by a non-romani actress (who continues to use anti-romani slurs, despite knowing she shouldn’t) and that so far, they have not explicitly stated in the mcu that she is.

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's whitewashing feels like an attempt to "neutralize" them. It frames their ethnicity as a problem to be avoided, rather than an opportunity to celebrate an under-represented group. This also meant that Marvel could cast famous white actors instead of sourcing an unknown Romani actor, during a period when the MCU was visibly uninterested in racial diversity.

But Marvel Studios wanted to have its cake and eat it, too. While Wanda is now white and Sokovian, her role isn't completely divorced from its Romani origins. It can't be, because everything in the MCU is informed by the comics. That's how we end up with El*zabeth Ols*n describing her Age of Ultron costume as "kind of this g*psy, vagabond feel"—terms that usually wouldn't come to mind for a simple black minidress and maroon jacket. Wanda's Romani heritage remains visible through veiled references and superficial costume choices, sidestepping any hint of meaningful representation.

from jessica reidy’s article:

Today, some Roma do call themselves witches, and serve as healers and spell-casters in a community, but make no mistake, being a witch is a job like any other. I was trained by my grandmother, I studied hard, I started a business, and I take bookings in my Google calendar. This is the context that most people miss when creating (or, in this case, adapting) Romani witch characters like Wanda Maximoff, and while the Scarlet Witch has plenty of magic, she does not need to fall into the stereotype, nor have her identity erased.

Representation matters. Wanda’s Romani ethnicity has been well-stated in the comic books, sometimes capturing the discrimination and violence that Roma face, and other times falling flat and stereotypical. Marvel also owes us, as Roma are often rendered as mentally unstable thieves, such as Dr. Doom, Wanda and Pietro’s community, and Wanda herself, and the entertainment giant capitalizes off of these stereotypes, reinforcing them all the while.

Every opportunity we get for accurate and positive representation is essential to us because it shapes the way people understand us.

linking the post i made again, because it has a list of articles and posts i’d recommend really taking the time to look through and engaging with them, as well as following folks like jessica reidy and @scarlet--wiccan on social media for more info from romani folks.

#anon #b.inbox #hope this clears some things up for u #anti wandavision

673 notes · View notes

amphtaminedreams · 3 years

Text

Why Ethical Fashion Doesn’t Need to be Boring (In the Words of a Shopping Addict): Lookbook no.14

Hi to anyone reading,

Arghhhh.

I never know how to start posts when I literally just uploaded the other week because I tend to follow the very formulaic approach of summarising what I’ve missed due to sporadic posting…I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still posting sporadically, it just so happens I’ve had more content to get up recently-sometimes lightning strikes twice, ya know, and I have a brief, if chemically fuelled, reprieve from the permanent state of exhaustion. It’s not like there isn’t stuff to talk about- the last month has seen a horrific murder and public outcry in response. There are a lot of important conversations going on about women’s safety and misogynistic violence that I really cannot do justice to in a paragraph and feelings that have been brewing for a long time that I can’t articulate yet and will not attempt to offhandedly do so in this post. Right now I just wanna say that I stand in solidarity with all those with histories of experiencing violence at the hands of men, those who aren’t here with us anymore as a result of that violence such as Sarah Everard, and those marginalised women whose stories don’t make national news. It’s very telling the way Sarah’s vigil was responded to by the same police force that have allowed mostly male anti-mask protests to go ahead with protestors unscathed, and solidarity with the women who were treated with such an unjustifiable amount of force at the vigil too.

That being said, women’s rights are something I wanted to talk about in this post, with regards to the way it ties into ethical fashion. None of us are perfect and it’s easy living in a first world country to detach yourself from the issues stemming from fast fashion, especially when you don’t have the time or money yourself to be selective about where you buy from. Don’t get me wrong, I do treat myself to some new clothes from fast fashion companies like ASOS and Urban Outfitters a few times a year so this is NOT coming from a place of preaching, but I have drastically reduced that to buying about 90% of my new clothes either second hand from Depop or charity shops or clothing stores that are upfront about their outsourcing practices. I love putting outfits together and updating my wardrobe and I don’t want to abandon that as a medium of self-expression because it does bring me joy, but to continue to update my wardrobe with the frequency I do by buying from fast fashion retailers on such a regular basis I accepted was going against the things I care about; around 80% of textile workers on poverty wages in developing countries are girls and women (opensocietyfoundations.org), and whilst fast fashion companies in the West continue to outsource manufacturing to said countries to cut costs and there is little regulation enforcing employers to pay women the same amount as men or even adhere to a minimum wage, they will continue to be forced into these roles where they are subjected to horrific working conditions, impossible production targets and frequent abuse (according to an article published in the Guardian in June 2018, 540 incidences of abuse, often of a sexual nature, were reported by women working in factories supplying the retailers GAP and H&M when they were interviewed on the subject). There is no denying that the fast fashion industry depends on and perpetuates the subjugation of women and systematically prevents them from making steps towards gender equality in their countries, be it through greater financial independence or the freedom to pursue higher education; the popular current practice by western fast fashion companies of outsourcing manufacturing to factories unhindered by workers rights and gender equality laws by association condones the sexual and physical violence that occurs as a means of punishment for not meeting targets, the exploitative pay which affords women little independence from husbands and families dominated by patriarchal values, and the long, exhausting hours which women have little choice but to take in order to avoid their contracts being terminated and to put food on the table. No, one individual completely abandoning fast fashion isn’t going to put an end to these unethical practices but if all of us make a conscious effort to reduce our consumption at least a little and make it clear why we’re doing so, we put greater pressure on fast fashion companies to act in a more responsible way. There isn’t going to be any kind of miraculous change of heart, so to force them to change we have to hit the industry and the people at the top who benefit from such practices where it really hurts: their profit.

SO, for this post I thought I would highlight some of my favourite more ethical online clothing companies to buy from; the more popular these more socially responsible brands become, the more apparent it becomes to fast fashion companies relying on an exploitative business model that how they treat their workers is of growing importance to consumers. It’s all very well and good Missguided and PLT talking about empowering women and making “girl boss” slogan tees but we need to make it clear that we’re aware of the hollowness of the gesture, and that we want less hypocritical talk and more action to actually enhance the lives of the women that work for them, not just the ones they show in their flashy offices on TV. I’ve included my favourite Depop shops too, because if you can shop second hand, that’s even better; though I like to treat myself to new clothes now and again, I’m aware that the impact the manufacturing process in general, whether or not the company acts in an ethical way with regards to their employment practices, has on the environment is more often than not detrimental. Depop has really been my saving grace this past year-if you know what you’re looking for and have the time and patience, you can find so many gems, and at this point the balance of my wardrobe is tipped firmly in the favour of the reuse and recycle approach to shopping. In the vein of reusing fashion, I thought I’d also include a mini lookbook for a cardigan I got from one of my favourite online retailers, The Ragged Priest, just as a reminder that 1). The best way to be sustainable is to rewear and 2). That with tweaks, one piece alone can give you multiple completely different outfits. Like honestly, outfit repeating doesn’t have to be a literal repeat. Sometimes it’s worth spending a little bit extra on something that looks good with everything, and making that investment into your ability to fool people that you’ve got your shit together by wearing something cool as fuck.

Quickly before I get into it, I’m aware that some ethical companies are a bit out of the average consumer’s price range, and so I wanted to sort them into price point categories which will work as follows:

£= most of their stock is £40 & under ££= most of their stock is between £40-£100 £££= most of their stock costs upwards of £100

Now, in no particular order (and starting with online retailers before moving onto Depop shops), here’s the list!

1. THE RAGGED PRIEST

PRICE POINT: ££

Using recycled fabric to construct their pieces where possible and releasing clothing in small drops designed to sell out rather than following the typical fast fashion model of outsourcing the production of vast amounts of clothing overseas, the Ragged Priest is my absolute favourite clothing brand out there. It’s *semi* affordable and because they are all about those bold, in your face, your-grandma-will-probs-think-it’s-ugly kinda pieces, just one can do SO much for your wardrobe.

I recently bought this cardigan from their The Simple Life drop and had so many outfit ideas for it that I thought I’d put a few of them together for this post just as an example of how you can take the same piece over and over again and still make it interesting, even when you don’t feel like straying too far from your personal style preferences. While we’re at it, I also wanted to use this mini lookbook to point out how fucking great Depop is! Literally everything in these outfits is from there apart from the shoes and the jewellery, the leather blazer on the right I bought a few years ago and then the top and skirt in the outfit from the far left which are both from Ebay. The shoes with that outfit are from Koi Vegan footwear-I didn’t include them in this list because I wanted to keep it consistent and focus on ethical clothing companies rather than retailers that focus on one specific thing such as shoes or jewellery, but they are my favourite place to buy shoes from and focus closely on ethical production too so definitely recommend.

2. MINGA LONDON

PRICE POINT: ££

Towards the lower end of the ££ price point, Minga is probably the closest you’re gonna get to an ethical version of the Dolls Kill Deliah’s range. Their focus on being a socially responsible business is a huge part of their ethos and their pieces are put together in Portugal, where they're based, by a small in-house team; the majority of their fabric is sourced from local Portuguese businesses and even more amazingly, they recycle the fabric of the pieces they don’t sell in new designs. They are just a generally amazing company and I wish more people knew about them because their pieces are fucking adorable and wouldn’t be out of place (or overpriced) in your local UO.

3. ELSIE & FRED

PRICE POINT: £

A small, black owned business set up by 3 siblings from Coventry, Elsie & Fred have earned themselves a reputation as a staple provider of the festival season wardrobe. Being an independently owned business, they have strict standards that their manufacturers must adhere to and a close working relationship with the owners of the two factories who oversee production in Guangzhou, China, to ensure fair wages and a safe working environment. On the environmental side of things, Elsie and Fred are working to incorporate recycled fabric into their designs as much as possible and have this year introduced compostable mailing bags.

4. HOUSE OF SUNNY

PRICE POINT: £££

Follow enough British instagram fashion influencers and you are bound to have heard of House of Sunny in 2020-snagging what is probably my all time favourite coat from there in 2019 before all the hype is a humble brag I will allow myself on the basis that I haven’t been able to afford anything since, lol. Along with kooky, one of a kind designs, being decidedly anti-fast fashion is a huge part of their branding; HoS only drop 2 collections of limited stock a year, thoroughly screen suppliers and on their website you can find a tonne of information on how they’re working to offset their environmental impact too. If you can treat yourself to a piece from there at any point, the quality of the garments truly make the price point worth it.

5. JADED LONDON

PRICE POINT: ££

Similarly to The Ragged Priest and House of Sunny, Jaded London go the route of dropping limited collections on a less frequent basis intending to sell out (particularly popular pieces are occasionally restocked) rather than needlessly manufacturing vast quantities of garments to flog for whatever they can get and cutting corners with fair employment practices to offset any losses. By employing independent staff in the manufacturing plants with which they liaise to ensure fair, dignified working conditions and also by working closely with charities such as the Trussel Trust and Stand Up to Racism, Jaded London demonstrates a level of commitment to corporate responsibility that set them apart from a lot of similar online retailers. They are at the top of their game when it comes to daring and experimental yet wearable pieces and so it’s cool that they recognise the need to conduct their business in a considerate way too.

6. THE HIPPIE SHAKE

PRICE POINT: ££

Owned by UK based bohemian queen Naomi Hession, the Hippie Shake is not only a great small independent business to support but is also the definition of slow fashion. With a limited number of opulent 70s style pieces, I have always wanted to purchase something from here. I’ve yet to do so but I’m gonna make it my mission eventually.

7. VINTAGE HEARTS

PRICE POINT: £

An affordable, gorgeous array of quirky handpicked vintage pieces that would probably take you forever to find in a charity shop or that you’d be charged a small fortune for if you found it in a high street second hand store, Vintage Hearts is where you should go if you want a timeless statement piece that may have otherwise ended up in a landfill. The added benefit of vintage clothing is that it is, by its nature, great for the environment, but you can also look fab and groovy as fuck as you do your bit for the planet<3

8. WE ARE COW

PRICE POINT: £

Offering both original vintage pieces and reworked pieces using recycled fabrics, We Are Cow has both basic branded second hand items but also handmade streetwear style original designs all for a fair price. You can tell that it’s all high quality stuff consistent with their modern, functional aesthetic and it’s clear that the team behind the shop has a real vision in mind when they’re designing.

9. OUT OF THE ORDINARY CLOTHING

PRICE POINT: £

In the words of Corrie Davis, founder of OOTO "I start with the belief that fashion will be always be worn differently by the individual that wears it. Every collection from Out of the Ordinary is different to the last but undeniably Out of the Ordinary. I champion flamboyancy and embrace the cultures I've experienced around the world, merging the two and creating popular style trends in exciting textiles, prints and techniques to bring to you something a little Out of the Ordinary." That pretty much sums up the vibrancy, vivacity and bold elegance of the brand’s aesthetic perfectly, which is reflected by Davis’ commitment to ethical manufacturing based on relationships forged between the founders and family artisans and the sourcing of fabrics from textile markets around the world. Everything you need for a boujie summer holiday in the Mediterranean-when leaving the country is finally allowed again, lol, EVERYBODY GET YOUR FUCKING VACCINE-is here.

10. WILD THING

PRICE POINT: ranges from £-£££ depending on the brand

Probs the closest thing you’ll get to an ethical ASOS, Wild Thing brings together a host of sustainable and independent clothing brands and puts them all in one place to present to us all a collection of the sickest festival style fashion out there. Whilst it’s super cool that this already exists and a slice of humble pie for myself to remind me that I am not in fact the revolutionary marketing genius I thought I was, I’m bummed to know that my idea of said ethical ASOS style website is already out there. Fingers crossed for the next grand money making scheme that comes to mind that I can use to distribute some wealth (yeah, there probably won’t be any because very few original thoughts enter my head, clearly, tehe) xoxo

11. SHOPFLUFFY

PRICE POINT: ££

I know it’s 2021 and we all kind hate the idea of girl boss feminism and the connotations of privilege and exploitation that come with it but can we bring it back when we’re talking about women who embody what it was actually all supposed to be about? Because the owner of ShopFluffy, @lulutrixabelle embodies everything good about the term. Somebody who genuinely does (cue Ramona singer voice here) empower other women through her celebration of powerful female friendship and free spirited sense of personal style that should inspire every one of us to wear whatever the fuck we want (clashing patterns and over-accessorising be damned), Lulu handmakes all the designs on her site and very much places an emphasis on slow fashion by releasing only a few collections a year which you can clearly tell a lot of painstaking effort and talent went into. ShopFluffy is on the pricier side but the adorable crocheted coords LuLu specialises in, reminiscent of carefree childhood days and picnics in meadows picturesque enough to be the backdrop of a Jacquemus runway presentation, are a bold and beautiful expression of playful femininity worthy of departing with a bit more than you’d usually spend. After all, if you are gonna spend that money on a piece of clothing, supporting an ethical, independent woman owned business clearly built on carefully honed skill, passion and authenticity is the way to go.

12. SHOPEASYTIGER

PRICE POINT: ££

It feels correct to follow up the ShopFluffy mention with ShopEasyTiger given the friendship between the former’s owner with Tigerlilly Winfield (is that not the most wonderfully storybook character sounding name of all time?), owner of Easy Tiger. Up there with my most revered style icons, Tigerlilly’s designs are as flamboyant and glamorous and daring and dramatic as her own personal style, and again, they are ethically made! If you want to get that psychedelic rock n’roll groupie that’s actually way cooler than the band itself kinda energy too, her shop is the place to start.

13. HOTTTRAMP

PRICE POINT: ££

Founded by the incredibly hot Belle_hott_tramp on Instagram, HottTramp is a collection of both handmade pieces and carefully selected vintage finds that blur the lines between 90s Courtney Love style grunge and 70s summer of love hippy that make me want to start my own all girl rock band and hire a camper van to paint black and road trip through the American desert. Given my complete lack of hand eye coordination, I’ll most likely never have the instrumental skills to do that but I never said it was a realistic fantasy, okay?

14. LAZY OAF

PRICE POINT: ££

Is it just me that always thought Lazy Oaf was within the same kind of price range as The Ragged Priest? Because it’s a lottt more expensive than I thought. That being said, if you’re going for a playful, toned down Molly Goddard kinda look, anything bright and youthful, Lazy Oaf’s clothes 100% fit that brief. You are paying more, but part of that markup is reflected in their transparency when it comes to their ethical code, which includes ensuring that statutory minimum wage laws are adhered to in the supply chain as well as that all workers are of the legal working age for their countries and that their working hours do not exceed the legal limit. They are also steadfastly committed to donating a portion of their profits to charities dedicated to improving mental wellbeing such as Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, and Young Minds, something that is hugely important to me given my own experiences and the line of work I want to go into.

15. NEVER FULLY DRESSED

PRICE POINT: ££

Similar in their aesthetic to Out of the Ordinary, Never Fully Dressed is big on colour, print, and elegance. They have both specially selected second hand pieces on offer and original designs too and the about us section of their website clearly states how passionate they are about their ethical manufacturing process, which takes place both here in the UK and in China.

16. TUNNEL VISION

PRICE POINT: ££

Offering the dreamiest, one of a kind vintage 90s pieces, Tunnel Vision could just as easily be a grunge girl band come the craft themed moodboard as it is an online retailer. If the 90s isn’t for you-I mean, I don’t wanna question anybody’s taste levels but…-they also have the option of shopping by era, which I think is a really cool feature I wish a lot of irl vintage shops would incorporate.

17. LOVE TOO TRUE

PRICE POINT: £

Everything on Love Too True is fucking gorgeousss and it is no surprise that they manufacture their garments here in London because I feel their brand totally encompasses that stereotypical 90s East End punk vibe perfectly with a shit tonne of chunky boots and show stopping plaid pieces that makes my heart ache for a riot grrrl renaissance. Yes, when it comes to feminism’s place in mainstream culture, making sure the political goals and structural changes we’re aiming for are visible to all is by far the most important, but let’s have a resurgence of the grunge girl’s armour along with that and PLEASE let’s leave athleisure in the 2010s. No more Kardashian nude leggings, I beg (I AM being lighthearted, wear whatever you want! We’re not policing women’s clothes in this neck of the woods).

18. NINE LIVES BAZAAR

PRICE POINT: £££

Eurgh. Nine Lives Bazaar. I want it ALL. Their clothes give me all the Etro, Zimmerman, Torey Burch, modernised Stevie Nicks vibes on a slightly more realistic budget, though unfortunately for me said budget just isn’t realistic enough. You would think pieces being ethically produced is just a given when it comes to clothes within this price range but that’s not necessarily the case and Nine Lives Bazaar is one of the ones you can trust to actually be considerate of their employees needs when it comes to their approach to business. To anybody who can afford to shop here, I am insanely jealous. The rest of us, for now, can just browse the website n feel the fantasy, channel a Valentina level of delusion and pretend it’s just the import taxes from Australia that’s holding us back from making a purchase.

-DEPOP SHOPS-

1. @HOUSE_OF_EROTIQUE

PRICE POINT: ££

Everything handmade and latex and form fitting to make you the baddest bitch in the room, I’ve got myself a few pieces from this shop over the past couple of years. Customer service is a bit hit or miss and there’s been times when I’ve had to wait a while for my purchases to get to me but because they’re all one of a kind and custom made to fit, it’s worth it, and when they have messed up they were kind enough to add something to my order for free.

2. @SACREDHAWK

PRICE POINT: ££

If you picture raiding the wardrobe of a biker gang, snatching the Coachella bound suitcases of the Revolve ambassadors at Palm Springs airport, and then jumbling all those clothes together, that’s probably your best bet at getting an idea of Sacred Hawk’s aesthetic. Formerly an ASOS concession, the brand is now available on Depop and is a collection of the most lavish glam grunge pieces, all vintage or reworked vintage. Some things are a bit on the pricey side but I would say they are all priced fairly considering how unique and ornate a lot of the pieces are, and I reeeeally wanna be able to say I own something from there one day.

3. @IDENTITYPARTY

PRICE POINT: £££

I struggled with how to categorise this Depop shop in terms of price point because although there are some fairly low-priced pieces, the standouts are the vintage coats which are understandably a lot more expensive-if you want to fully immerse yourself in the Almost Famous Penny Lane fantasy, you’re gonna have to fork out a little bit.

4. @RETRO_RAIL

PRICE POINT: £££

Retro_rail is of a similar vein to IdentityParty, in that the standout pieces are the vintage coats which are usually upwards of £100-if you’re looking for one-of-a-kind statement outerwear to invest in, I can’t recommend this shop enough. If you’re like me and you’re looking for something more within the £ to ££ price range, Retro Rail is still worth a browse as inspiration for the kind of styles you might wanna try and find elsewhere on Depop.

5. @5THSEASON

PRICE POINT: £

Most of the quirky vintage pieces you’ll find on offer on this Depop shop are within the £25 to £40 price range and though you’ve got coats similar to those you’ll find on Identity Party and Retro Rail and they are sill slightly more than the tops and trousers and dresses on sale etc., they are more modestly priced than the other 2 listed.

6. @DREAMERSREBELS

PRICE POINT: £££

Another v pricey one, dreamersrebels specialises in the daintiest, most whimsical 60s style co-ords I’ve ever seen. Handmade upon purchase, which in turn guarantees little textile waste, you can find the kind of pieces you’d expect to see on a 21st century incarnation of Audrey Hepburn, all the soft pastels and timeless, retro silhouettes you could possibly wish for. I mean, wishing is pretty much all I can do rn but anyone with a near minimum wage retail job knows you need something to aspire to, lol. I managed to budget enough to treat myself to a Selkie dress so I’m manifesting that same level of self-discipline to get me a dreamersrebels piece next.

7. @AWKWARDPHASE

PRICE POINT: £

Very affordable vintage pieces that range from cutesy mid-century style dresses and coats to grungy 90s jackets, perfectly styled and presented too in a way that will have you wanting to order something for yourself to replicate that modern spin on old staples and give them a second life.

8. @EVIEHALLOWS

PRICE POINT: £

Another Depop shop where the clothes are styled so well, it’ll have you thinking you can make anything from a floral 1950s housewife style cardigan to a lycra jumpsuit look very intentionally on trend.

9. @JAHOOLI

PRICE POINT: £

There’s also Jahooli, which I will just say ticks all the same boxes as the other two aforementioned stores to avoid repeating myself.

10. @LOVELYANDLOVELESS

PRICE POINT: £

In terms of price, I would put Lovely and Loveless into the same category as Jahooli, Awkward Phase and Evie Hallows, the difference being that the clothes available are more on the dainty, classically feminine side. People who have a Pinterest board dedicated to the cottagecore or light academia aesthetic (whew, the gen Z is showing), this one’s for you.

11. @CHLOESTJOHN

PRICE POINT: £

Finally, we have the ChloeStJohn Depop shop and it’s definitely a good one to end on; picture the wardrobe of Carrie Bradshaw if she’d lived in Camden instead of New York in the 90s and hung out with a slightly edgier crew than Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha and there you have it, the vibe of the pieces on offer. Does it belong to a girl who probs lives near Primrose Hill and has access to all the boujiest second hand clothes shops available which she most likely routinely raids to resell on Depop? Potentially, but hopefully not because I am very here for this whole red wine in one hand and a cigarette in another back when people were allowed to smoke inside bars aesthetic. I’m sorry that the gen Z part of me once again jumped out in such an aggressive fashion with that last sentence, but I know you know what I mean.

And that’s everything!

I did wanna close off the post with a reminder of how nuanced a discussion this is-having the time and money to be more conscious about your ethical footprint when you’re buying clothes is in itself a privilege; fashion shouldn’t be an interest reserved for only those who have the means to pay extra or spend time scouring the internet. It’s also important to be aware of the lack of size inclusivity-a lot of the “trendy” sustainable fashion brands tend to not stock anything larger than a size 14 and attempt to deflect attention away from this by categorising clothes as either XS, S, M, or L, which is in itself a bit of a pisstake considering that 12-14 is the average clothing size here for women in the UK, and so in no way large. Shopping from Depop and Ebay is hard too when so many brands fail to understand how to fit a non-straight size body which in turn necessitates trying stuff on before you buy it, something that isn’t possible when you’re shopping second hand. A lot of Depop shops fail to offer returns and even with those who do, chasing up that return can be a time-consuming and generally all round frustrating process.

Basically, when we’re having these kinds of discussions it’s important to consider everyone’s situations and avoid sitting on some kind of high horse. I feel like things have become even more complicated lately- with the recent closure of once popular high street stores such as Topshop and Miss Selfridge, it has got me thinking a lot about just how many people’s income here in the UK is dependent on fast fashion retailers too and their popularity. The job scarcity resulting from these kind of closures, which are often all that is available to a lot of people with the demands of the job market seemingly becoming more and more impossible each day even for those who have been in higher education, is clearly an issue when the kind of support you can expect from the government as someone out of work is so woefully inadequate and likely to become even more so as the conservatives push for further cuts to UC and PIP. The past year has really shown us just how shaky the ground that an intensely capitalist society stands on is and how quickly everything can go tits up when we don’t invest in a safety net for those who are struggling. People seem to have realised more than ever the extent to which those whose jobs we deem “low-skilled” are actually the backbone of society, and yet even here, whilst the situation may not be quite as desperate as it is elsewhere, we still haven’t seen pay rises that reflect that. Turns out all the clapping WAS an empty gesture, who’d have thought it (for fuck’s sake)? Fair wages really are a global issue that starts with paying people enough for them to comfortably live on and in time should lead to a shift in consciousness away from the concept of profit before everything else and towards an equal playing field for everyone, something we should take every opportunity to speak up about and demand from our “leaders”, however shit a job so many of those leaders do. It’s frustrating how the focus on making ethical purchasing choices is so often on the overconsumption of things that women historically are more actively interested in such as clothes and accessories and make up when the reality is that the wealth of every industry titan on this planet, NOT just the ones who dominate the fast fashion sphere, depends on them continuing to get away with exploiting people-we should be looking at how we can show our dissatisfaction in all areas. Maybe I’m perpetuating that with this post, since a lot of the online retailers I mentioned only sell women’s clothing, but that being said, I’m not about to do men’s work for them, lol-they should make the effort, if possible, to research into sustainable clothing alternatives too.

Anyway, that’s the end of this post! If you read to the end, thank you so much! If I’ve made any errors in my research or there are more sustainable clothing brands that I could’ve mentioned, feel free to inbox me them too, and I can add them to this post if Tumblr allows. It’s usually a little bitch when it comes to editing long posts but I’ll try my best:) Again, thanks for reading! And if you are, I hope you are safe and well!

Lauren x

197 notes · View notes

advocaado · 3 years

Text

Fiction does not exist in a vacuum and absolutely can and does affect reality.

HOWEVER

Before you pin on your thought police badge and march off to start attacking people on the internet for the media they consume and create, let’s take a minute to talk about nuance and identify some actual problematic trends in media which have real life consequences.

The big question you need to ask yourself before you decry a person or piece of media is: Is that person/piece of media promoting, validating, and normalizing trends or acts that hurt real people? Or is that person/piece of media exploring a dark theme in fiction/harmlessly indulging in a kink?

Below are some examples of cases where “problematic” content in fiction is a danger to real life people, and many where it isn’t. This will not be an exhaustive list. I don’t have endless amounts of time to sit here and talk about every problem in fictional media, and even if I did, I wouldn’t, because there are many more things I’d rather do with my time.

Disclaimer: No media is 100% problem free. No human is 100% problem free. Engaging with others online to discuss problems in media is totally fine. If you don’t like something, it’s your god given right to bitch about it. Bitch to your heart’s content. Just don’t be an absolute ass cloak about it.

Example 1: Huckleberry Finn

This book famously contains racism. Is this a problem? No, not really. Listen. This book is literally about how racism is bad. The message is to not be a racist piece of shit. That’s the takeaway. If you got any other message from this book you need to work on your reading comprehension. Books that teach lessons are good things and impact society in positive ways. This book does literally the opposite of normalizing, promoting, and validating racism. It’s taught in schools for this exact reason. It’s not sugarcoated and that’s exactly what makes it powerful.

Example 2: Fairy Tail

The famous complaint about this and other works by Hiro Mashima is that the women are overly sexualized. Over sexualization of women is a big problem in media across the globe, but particularly in the media that comes out of Japan. It’s a problem that absolutely does affect real women. More on that later. But is Mashima really the big perpetuater of the kind of gross male reader voyeurism that has such a fierce grip on the anime industry? Actually, no. Not really. Yes, almost all the female characters in Fairy Tail are hot and have big boobs in a way that appeals to men. However, the lens through which Mashima tells his stories is not voyeuristic. He doesn’t go out of his way to draw panty shots or sexualize female characters nonconsensually. 9 times out of 10 the women are sexy because they want to be and do it in a way that is empowering for them. There are occasional exceptions, but by and large Fairy Tail is not the big offender of female objectification in anime. Moreover, almost all its male characters are hot and have six packs and idol hair in a way that appeals to women. Everyone is hot. There is no deeper meaning here. Enjoy this series if you like to watch hot people having fun and going on adventures together.

Example 3: Goblin Slayer

Oh, boy, Goblin Slayer. Now here’s a can of worms. Many upon many have decried GS for its inclusion of rape scenes and mentions. The goblins in GS have no females of their own species so they must impregnate human women to continue their race. This sounds utterly awful and it is. But is this finally our shining example of a dark theme in fiction that is problematic in a way that is dangerous to real people? Sorry, but no. Firstly, the concept of a fantasy creature who needs to use humans to reproduce was not invented by Kumo Kagyu and is in fact common in folklore around the world. He didn’t make it up as a way to condone rape. Could he have? Sure. But that’s not the reality of the series. The assault by goblins on human women is not treated as a good thing by Kagyu. It is shocking and horrific and has big consequences within the narrative for both the goblins and their victims. It isn’t treated lightly and does not serve to normalize, validate, or promote rape in real life. The reader/viewer is meant to be disgusted by the goblins, and these scenes, which are few and brief, serve their intended purpose. Nobody is going out and assaulting women in real life because they thought it was cool when the goblins did it in GS.

Oh, but Goblin Slayer, I’m not done with you just yet. Because while it would be a huge stretch to label the inclusion of rape in the series a danger to real life people, there’s something else that you don’t need to stretch nearly so much to identify as such. Remember when I talked about the voyeuristic male gaze being a concerning trend in anime? Well, GS has that in spades. The normalization of sexually objectifying women in non sexual situations is very much present in the series. Describing in loving detail the chest size/shape of every female character often and with gusto is a big part of the light novels. Kagyu loves to describe what a girl’s boobs are doing while she’s sitting at a table eating or doing any other mundane thing for no reason other than to sexualize her for the reader. He made the intentional decision to make Sword Maiden, a rape victim, very overtly sexual for the male gaze without the character having any agency in it. Sword maiden isn’t trying to be sexy. She doesn’t own her sexuality. Hell, she’s blind. Being sexy doesn’t empower her. She’s just fap fodder for the male reader. These things normalize objectifying women and are part of a longtime trend in anime which have real world consequences for both women and men. The sexualization of nonconsenting women is a huge problem in Japan and very much promoted through their media. Anime and light novels continue to send and perpetuate the message that objectifying women is okay and natural for boys to do, and while Kagyu certainly isn’t the worst offender, he’s happily hopped aboard that trolly because he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. And he can’t, because it’s been SO normalized.

Example 4: The Birth of a Nation.

This movie, while entirely fictional, is straight up anti-black propaganda intentionally made to spread hate and fear of black people. Obviously this is incredibly problematic and harmful to real black people. This movie was designed to be that way. The message is very clear. It’s a movie meant to rally whites against blacks, and it did. Horrifically so. Typically media containing hateful messages is less overt about it today, but abusing stereotypes and caricatures of real groups of people and otherwise intentionally perpetuating harmful ideas through fiction is a shitty thing to do and should be wholeheartedly condemned. (Note the keyword “intentionally”. If an author does this out of ignorance, which is all too common, rather than condemn we should seek to educate. People are capable of learning and growing and canceling them for mistakes made in ignorance is every bit as shitty as the mistake they made in the first place.)

Example 5: Fanfiction and shipping

At last, we come to fan media. This is where “don’t like don’t read” becomes the golden rule. Indulging in a kink or exploring dark themes in fanfiction is harmless 99.9% of the time. Fanfiction simply doesn’t have the reach, and thereby the influence, that mainstream media has. If someone wants to write something really fucked up, that’s their choice and nobody is making you read it. Unless the author is outright condoning harming real people, it’s really not your business what they choose to write about. Furthermore, deciding to read fucked up fanfiction does NOT make you a bad person. As stated before, the human psyche is messy and the world is not squeaky clean or a safe place. People are drawn to dark things and there’s really nothing wrong with that so long as real people aren’t being harmed. If something makes you uncomfortable, don’t engage. Protect yourself. You’re not making the world a better place by harassing people online. You’re just being a jerk and honestly doing far more harm to real ass people than that 20 year old writer on AO3 who wanted to write a story about Sasuke having sex with Naruto’s son because of 10 years of repressed sexual impulses toward Naruto.

I could say more but I’m tired and ready to celebrate my Friday by getting drunk. Feel free to interact if you want, just do everyone a favor and don’t be a dick.

TLDR

Things that make you a bad person:

Murdering people

Sexually assaulting/harassing people

Having sex with children

Creating or indulging in porn of real minors

Harassing and sending death threats to real people over the fictional media they create and consume

Espousing, condoning, or perpetuating hate toward marginalized peoples

Espousing, condoning, or perpetuating hate toward anyone tbh

Using fiction as a vehicle to promote, validate, and normalize causing harm to real people

Generally being an ass cloak

Things that DON’T make you a bad person

Consuming media that contains problematic elements

Creating media that contains problematic elements so long as you aren’t promoting, validating, and normalizing harmful acts toward real people

Writing fanfiction

Reading fanfiction

Shipping whatever you goddamn want to ship

#there’s been so much discourse surrounding this that I finally needed to weigh in #pro ship #we’re allergic to nuance here #tumblr I love you but

36 notes · View notes

96thdayofrage · 3 years

Text

How lawmakers block progress and maintain oppressive policies

Many lawmakers, especially in the South, fought to maintain the nation’s founding principles of white supremacy.

In Alabama’s Dallas County, more than half the population was Black in 1961 but fewer than one in 100 Black citizens were registered to vote due to daunting poll taxes and other measures meant to disenfranchise Black voters.

Across the South, registrars could selectively ask Black voters to read part of the Constitution, then decide whether the text had been read to their liking, said Carol Anderson, an African American studies professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

As such, they had enormous power to block people from voting, Anderson said.

A modest civil rights act passed in 1957 had enabled the Justice Department to sue states for voting rights violations but put the onus on people whose rights had been violated, requiring them to challenge systems designed to keep them down, Anderson said. By 1963, a federal report examining 100 counties in eight Southern states found that Blacks remained substantially underrepresented at the polls.

Selma, the seat of Dallas County, became an important battleground as tensions escalated. A local judge stifled demonstrations by declaring public gatherings of more than two people illegal, drawing a visit from Martin Luther King Jr. and thrusting Selma into the national spotlight.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Southern legislators repeatedly derailed civil rights-related proposals while chairing key committees, said David Bateman, an associate professor of government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

“Their control over these committees allowed them to gate-keep the agenda,” Bateman said.

Images of officers attacking voting rights activists – including then 25-year-old activist John Lewis – on a Selma bridge with clubs and tear gas in March 1965 helped sway public support. Days after the so-called “Bloody Sunday” incident, President Lyndon Johnson pressed lawmakers to pass broad voting rights legislation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests and other discriminatory practices while requiring federal approval of proposed voting-eligibility standards before states could implement them.

Today, Bateman said, as increasing voting restrictions continue to disproportionately affect people of color, “there’s every reason to believe voter disenfranchisement campaigns will persist.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 reversed a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act, allowing states to alter voting rules before obtaining federal consent. This summer, the court issued a ruling that disqualifies votes cast in the wrong precinct and only allows family members or caregivers to turn in another person’s ballot.

At least 18 states have enacted laws making voting harder this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. In Montana, legislators abolished Election Day registration. Florida curtailed after-hours drop boxes.

Georgia shortened absentee ballot request periods, criminalized providing food and water to queued-up voters and made opening polls optional on Sundays, traditionally a day when the Black vote spikes as congregants vote after church.

“We still have not dealt with anti-Blackness in this society,” said Anderson, of Emory University. “We’re really looking at the same pattern, the same rhymes.”

In September, Democrats introduced an elections and voting rights bill that would expand early voting options, identification requirements and access to mail-in ballots while allowing Election Day registration.

Police have long upheld racist laws, often with violence

As Blacks demanded equality during the civil rights movement, they faced hostility not just from fellow civilians but from those entrusted to protect and to serve.

In 1961, Freedom Rides occurred throughout the South as activists challenged Southern non-compliance with a Supreme Court decision ruling that declared segregated bus travel unconstitutional. The campaign met with often ugly resistance: In Birmingham, riders were attacked by a Ku Klux Klan mob, reportedly with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains.

Within the mob was an FBI informant who told the agency of the impending attack, but the agency did nothing, reluctant to expose its mole. Two decades later, a U.S. District Court judge excoriated the FBI for its inaction.

“The FBI was passively complicit,” said Diane McWhorter, author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.”

The attack occurred with the blessing of Alabama public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, who told Klan leaders that police would wait 15 minutes before stepping in.

Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said he sees the links between the police violence of Birmingham and “Bloody Sunday” and the tanks, tear gas and rubber bullets employed at today’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

“We have John Lewis and others marching on that bridge protesting police brutality, and they get attacked and beat up by police,” said Butler, author of the book “Chokehold; Policing Black Men.” “And last summer, throughout the country there were marches on police brutality – and at these marches, police attacked the people protesting police brutality. The parallels are clear.”

People of color continue to be disproportionately affected by fatal police shootings, with significantly higher death rates than whites over the previous five years, researchers at Yale University in Connecticut and the University of Pennsylvania reported last year. “So it’s unclear whether change is actually occurring,” Butler said.

Critics note the police presence and brutality faced by Black Lives Matter protesters during the unrest following Floyd’s murder – the open-source database Bellingcat found more than 1,000 incidents of police violence – in contrast with the relatively unprepared force that was unable to stop hordes of mostly white Donald Trump supporters from breaching perimeter fencing and entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“There has never been a time when policing of public speech hasn’t been racially biased,” said Justin Hansford, executive director of Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center in Washington, D.C. “With the civil rights-era protests, most people understood that they were standing up for core American principles as opposed to Jan. 6, where they were trying to stop people’s votes from being counted.”

A USA TODAY analysis of arrests linked to the insurrection found that 43 of 324 people arrested were either first responders or military veterans; at least four current and three former police officers now face federal charges.

Education leaders have maneuvered to keep segregation, hide racist history

Education leaders have also at times sought to stall progress.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision ruling segregated schools unconstitutional, Virginia Rep. Howard Smith took the floor to address his colleagues.

There, he introduced a document signed by 82 representatives and 19 senators, all from former Confederate states. The so-called Southern Manifesto called for resisting desegregation and blasted the Brown decision as an abuse of judicial power violating states’ rights.

The gesture demonstrated how deep resistance to desegregation ran in the South. The next year, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus summoned the National Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering Little Rock’s Central High, in defiance of a federal order.

“After the ruling comes down, you have massive resistance in the South,” said Sonya Ramsey, an associate history professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “You have school boards saying they’re not going to do it. You have government officials saying they’re not going to do it. That’s a system.”

Resistance came in many forms, she said, from committees formed to study the matter in perpetuity to policies that allowed whites, but not Blacks, to transfer schools.

Some institutional leaders did make positive strides, Ramsey noted, even if for economic reasons. While many Southern cities resisted desegregation efforts, officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, eager to promote the area as a progressive business climate, constructed a districtwide busing plan designed to have schools reflect the community with the help of Black and white families and local leaders.

But institutional ills continue, Ramsey and others say – in charter schools now struggling with diversity, in faulty school funding formulas and in ongoing debates about what students should be taught about slavery and racism. Bills limiting how educators can teach about racism have been introduced this year in at least 28 states.

A 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center study of educational standards in 15 states found none addressed slavery’s justification in white-supremacist ideology nor its integral part in the economy; furthermore, the report noted, a separate survey found just 8% of high school seniors identified slavery as the Civil War’s cause.

“It’s fear of the unknown and of disruption,” said Donnor, of William & Mary. “And seeing that the status quo is no longer acceptable. One of the major parallels is in the hostility of the pushback. If you peel back the layers, you can see the similarities.”

News media shapes how Americans view race

The news media has throughout the nation’s history helped Americans understand racial issues – for better or worse.

In 1962, after James Meredith tested federal law to become the first Black student admitted to the formerly all-white University of Mississippi, the station manager of Jackson’s WLBT decried the decision on-air, saying states should make their own admission decisions.

Station officials strongly supported segregation, rebuffing calls for opposing views, avoiding civil rights coverage and notoriously blaming technical problems for interruption of a 1955 “Today Show” interview of attorney Thurgood Marshall. Ultimately, after repeated complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and a crucial federal court decision affirming public input in FCC hearings, the station lost its license.

“These are the stories we weren’t taught in journalism school,” said Joseph Torres, co-author of “News For All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.” “They (civil rights groups) were saying, it’s a public airwave, and it’s not being fair to the Black community.”

Black media stepped up to offer different perspectives of mainstream narratives or provide coverage that wasn’t otherwise there. When 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in 1955 by two men who would ultimately be acquitted by an all-white jury, Jet magazine published a photo of Till’s mutilated body that helped kickstart the civil rights movement.

While some white-owned media such as Mississippi’s Delta Democrat Times and Lexington Advertiser condemned segregation and violence, others such as Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger held to the status quo. Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY, purchased the newspaper in 1982.

“Had the Clarion-Ledger taken a leadership position denouncing atrocities going on in front of their faces, the state would be farther along in terms of getting past some of the pain,” said Mississippi Public Broadcasting executive editor Ronnie Agnew, who served as the newspaper’s executive editor until 2011.

In 1968, the landmark Kerner Commission, appointed to investigate the unrest that had exploded in national riots, faulted the media in addition to longstanding racism and economic inequalities. “The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men's eyes and white perspective," the commission’s final report read.

“They made it absolutely clear that the white press had done a terrible job of covering civil rights,” said Craig Flournoy, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota who has critiqued the Los Angeles Times’ “incendiary” coverage of the 1965 Watts riots, for which the newspaper won a Pulitzer.

Flournoy said the Times relied heavily on white police and white elected officials for material. In one particularly egregious example, he said the newspaper, having no Black reporters on staff, sent a young Black advertising staffer into Watts to dictate dispatches by payphone, but his notes were repurposed into sensational stories that exaggerated the supposed Black threat.

8 notes · View notes

jewish-privilege · 4 years

Text

nerdsofafeather replied to your link “When Rosie met Jim: the anti-racism picture that wasn’t”

Unfortunately, viewpoints can vary greatly. There are KKK members in the US who aren't inherently racist despite the point of their whole organization. It's hard to make sense of.

wearyewe replied:

you think there are non racist members of the KKK? Really????

nerdsofafeather replied:

Yes, in the exact same way that there are "non-racist" antisemites. People are stupid in *the* most complex ways.

wearyewe replied:

There's a difference between objective reality versus the pretzel-like delusions people wrap themselves into to make themselves feel better. Just because they may believe they aren't racist, being a member of the KKK de facto makes you a racist and an antisemite.

nerdsofafeather replied:

Convincing them of that, especially when people are adopted into these places by family at an early age, is difficult. I understand where you're coming from, but intent is important as well. The effect of conditioning and the variation of sentiment between locations is hard to measure. I have some level of experience with people who have had this lifestyle. It's rarely in malice, though that doesn't justify it. Thankfully we're experiencing social revolution in North America. It may not be focused upon quashing antisemitism, but a fortunate side effect is that it will have an influence in the long run that changes the structure of societal beliefs. The events in the OP are unfortunate but I don't personally believe that they're going to suddenly become the norm, and I'm hoping against it.

wearyewe replied:

That's fine that it's not out of "malice," but you'll forgive me and any Jewish or Black person for not having the luxury of waiting to see if a member of the KKK intentionally hates us or is just wrapped up in an organization that was built on the lynching of a Jewish man, a pogrom of Jews in Georgia, and the continuation of lynchings, mob violence, and terrorism of African Americans. You may have the ability to question their intent; we only have the fear of being killed.

nerdsofafeather replied:

Lady, I may not be Jewish, but I don't have the ability to appear white. I'm well aware of the history of the Klan, my family has a few stories if you're interested. But my point is that the KKK has no momentum and its young members either don't stay or don't hold the same beliefs of the elders. It's an organization that'll die with its elderly, and its youngest members have adapted and will perpetuate the changing status quo of progressivism, unlike alt-righte Things will change so long as we don't become complacent with our outcry. It has an effect, and that's what I'm ultimately getting at. Even the organizations of the most apparent evil are gradually changing because of our influence.

Moving this from the replies to a post @jewish-privilege, because this sure is something and I don’t know why you’re getting defensive when you’re the one replying with this nonsense about members of the KKK not being individually racist on a page about antisemitism and white supremacy. I must have missed your point that the KKK doesn’t have any momentum and that the youngest members are more progressive (progressive in what way? their way of killing Black people?) unlike the alt-right when you were busy explaining to a Jewish woman that there are KKK members who aren’t inherently racist and weren’t motivated out of malice to join the KKK. So, they’re just misunderstood?

I don’t doubt that there are some people in the KKK who are deluded enough to think they aren’t racist, but are just supporting “white pride.” (White pride, by the way, also being de facto racist but anyway...) That doesn’t make them racist, it makes them delusional.

ETA: And “our influence” assumes that you think all people, including Black people and Jewish people, have some ability to impact the Ku Klux Klan, which is...well it’s a statement I guess.

If you have any other thoughts about this, have enough courage to voice them in a post instead of hiding them in the replies on someone else’s account.

#KKK #ku klux klan #white supremacy #nerdsofafeather #wearyewe is my personal #jfc #things i learned today #you can be a non-racist member of the KKK #formatting edited for readability #original post

108 notes · View notes

themangoyogurt · 4 years

Text

Clementine: Chapter 3

Kylo had to hand it to you. Despite your questionable business sense, you had a fantastic eye. The space you found was in a prime location, neighbored by a trendy womenswear boutique on the left and a hot new restaurant headed by a celebrity chef to the right. The space itself was a perfect mix of industrial and bright, with open white washed ceilings and a modern concrete flooring.

Watching you gush as you stood outside staring in through the window only steeled his resolve to help make your dream come true no matter the cost. After spending the entirety of his life stepping on the “little guys” to make his bottom line, he felt it was appropriate to atone for his sins.

The fact that you had a million-watt smile and an infectiously bubbly personality only sweetened the deal.

You continued to bounce between the left and right floor-to-ceiling windows flanking the front entrance. As you hopped back and forth, you rambled off all your ideas to transform the space into a warm and inviting neighborhood spot.

It was going to be equal parts trendy and homey. Shelves filled to the brim with new and old books alike, ready to be borrowed or bought. The scent of freshly ground coffee beans would permeate the air, causing a heady mix of warmth and relaxation. There would be nooks and crannies with the coziest chairs and sofas for patrons to gather, sip coffee, snack on freshly baked pastries, and catch up on reading.

Kylo admitted that even to an anti-social recluse such as himself, the concept sounded like a dream. If he had still been working, he would have enjoyed a little escape from the office to focus on work.

Despite his pleasant daydreams though, nothing could stop his spine from stiffening as soon as the landlord made his presence known. He was a sorry looking man, equal in width and height. The balding man had beady little eyes that narrowed into slits as soon as he caught sight of Kylo.

Kylo’s hackles rose even higher as the landlord completely ignored him and turned to give you a very lewd look.

“Hi Plutt,” you chirped, completely oblivious to the tension between the two men. “This is Kylo. He’s my friend and lawyer!” You gave Kylo an extra little eyebrow wiggle at “lawyer”, a silent tease at how different he looked today.

He had rocked up to your meeting far more dressed than he was the previous night. Gone were the fuzzy slippers. Instead, he was clad in a black suit with a matching black dress shirt that struggled to contain the man’s wide chest and thick arms.

Who would have thought that the slobbish raven haired man could clean up so well? While you weren’t really one to judge a book by its cover, even you couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when he had proclaimed himself to be a retired, yet fearsome, corporate lawyer.

It was adorable how the more disbelieving you looked, the harder he fought to convince you that he really was a big, bad, lawyer. You giggled at the memory of how he was so focused on the argument that Kylo didn’t even notice a drop of lukewarm tea dribble down his chin and land between his pecs.

His very defined and firm looking pecs, if you had to say so yourself.

You shook your head out of the memory, scolding yourself for getting distracted. It was time for business, and you were prepped to fight for the storefront of your dreams. During your walk over to the shop, you had divulged as much info as you could to Kylo. Things like your budget, business plan (although, business “plan” would have been more accurate), and even your credit score.

You probably shared way too much info, but Kylo didn’t indicate that he was bothered or overwhelmed. The man merely nodded while typing quick notes in his cellphone. He probably had enough info to steal your identity, but something about him just made you trust the man.

Maybe it was in the way his eyes always looked soft, balancing out his perpetual scowl. Or maybe it was how he hung onto your every word, and was one of the few people who seemed genuinely supportive and interested in your dream.

Or, maybe it was in how he defensively postured himself between yourself and Plutt, chest puffing out and stance ready for a fight.

Kylo stuck his hand out and impressively didn’t flinch as Plutt squeezed back with his own moist and grimy hand. Kylo didn’t miss a beat as he harshly dived right in.

“Kylo Ren. I’ve taken a look at your offer, and we are not happy with the upfront terms and conditions. A fixed lease would only...”

Kylo completely transformed within seconds. Years of working with the worst of the worst in the corporate world made him ruthless and unshakable when it came to business dealings. Someone like Plutt didn’t phase Kylo. He was ready to threaten, growl, and glare his way into getting you the best deal possible.

Plus, the caveman portion of his brain beat its chest and flexed at the chance to impress a pretty lady. And if your look of tender awe only spurred him on more... well, that he’d keep for himself.

The entire exchange was a blur to you, the two men exchanging barbs and threats so fast, you could barely keep up. Acronyms like “CAMS” and “TI” were used, and before you knew it, two hours had passed. Kylo was triumphantly squaring away notes in his phone while Plutt sputtered, red in the face.

Apparently the entire situation had gotten away from the man.

“Send over the contract by midday tomorrow,” Kylo lazily commanded Plutt, before leading your stunned body away from the building. His hand was warm in the crook of your elbow while he steered you towards the nearest Starbucks.

He seemed tense during the short walk over, letting out a huge exhale as he slumped into the closest empty seat. You felt concerned as his pale complexion somehow became even paler. Without prompting, you darted away to find some water.

“Are you okay?” you asked upon returning. He seemed calmer, but received the cool plastic cup with gratitude.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to do that.”

“But you were so cool,” you gushed in response. You instinctively reached out to hold his shaky hands. Giving him a light squeeze you continued, “I’ve never seen someone talk like that before! Or...or stick up for me so fiercely. Like my knight in shining armor!”

Your eyes twinkled in excitement, so filled with joy that Kylo couldn’t help but be affected. He smiled and flipped his palm upwards so he could lace his fingers with yours. He squeezed back and laughed, “Well, you don’t seem like someone who needs saving. Just someone who could use someone in their corner.”

“Then I’m glad you’re in mine. Even if we don’t know each other very well.”

His heart fluttered at your shy smile, and Kylo replied, “Why don’t we start, then? Getting to know each other that is. Let me buy you some coffee?” Now significantly calmed by your touch he added a flirtatious eyebrow waggle and added, “Maybe even dinner afterwards?”

You playfully smacked him in the chest and argued, “I thought I was the one buying coffee.”

“Alright. You buy me coffee and we’ll go over the terms and conditions of your new lease. Then, I take you out for dinner.”

It was definitely a deal too good to pass up, so you happily bounded to the counter to buy his S’mores Frappuccino (the man really was full of surprises, wasn’t he?). You decided that it would be cute to match, and ordered one for yourself as well.

A few minutes later, and you were returning to the table with two icy and teeth-rotting drinks. Kylo was all but recovered, and lawyer man was back in full swing. You happily noticed that while he was all business while going through your lease, his expression and tone was far softer than what he had used earlier in the day.

You were shocked at how Kylo had cut such a favorable deal for you. The man was kind in explaining why certain things were more beneficial for the tenant, and even helped you understand places where Plutt was trying to take advantage.

The initial offer was apparently horrible, and would have surely trapped you into some serious debt. Kylo made sure that your lease was fair, and that you would have enough money leftover to help your new business flourish.

Kylo sipped on the last of his drink, unaware of some leftover whipped cream resting on his top lip. Without thinking, you reached across the table and wiped it off with your thumb. You instinctively sucked the digit between your lips, earning a blush from Kylo.

“Ah,” he stuttered. “All that’s left is to sign. If you could send me your business license and some tax documents, I could help you file everything.”

A little furrow appeared between your brow, causing Kylo to frown. He had a bad feeling about this.

“You do...have a business license, right?” he tentatively pushed.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘business license’...”

He groaned, dropping his face into his palms. You felt sheepish, and ridiculously uneducated. Just as you were about to die from embarrassment, Kylo finally looked up.

He cast you a small smile and calmly replied, “Alright, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to take you out to dinner as promised. Then, I’m going to take you home. You’re going to change into something comfortable, grab your laptop and personal documents, and then we’ll hammer out the final details of starting your business.”

“You...you’d seriously do that for me? At the risk of sounding totally ungrateful... why?”

Nobody had ever been this kind to you. If even your own blood could laugh away at your grand dreams of opening a business in New York City, then how could a stranger be so supportive? Not only was he gentle with you, but the man went out of his way to help you in tangible ways.

Retired or not, what kind of high-powered lawyer took an entire day to go fight a small-time landlord like Plutt on behalf of a new neighbor?

Kylo asked himself the same question. Growing up as an only child and then going into a field like law didn’t exactly foster selflessness in his personality. He was used to putting himself first and stopping at nothing to achieve his goals.

Something about your bright eyes and hopeful smile made him pause. He spent so many years of his life tearing things down - people, places, relationships. Perhaps, he saw this as a chance to redeem himself. To finally use his skills to build.

And hey, if the object of his newfound efforts happened to be a very pretty and very sweet woman, then that was just a bonus.

He gave you a smile and replied, “Honestly, I don’t know. But something about you tells me that I won’t regret it.”

That was good enough for you.

💖 Masterlist

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x you #kylo ren #modern au #clementine

15 notes · View notes

a4bl · 4 years

Text

Asians 4 Black Lives: Uplift Black Resistance, Help Build Black Power

ETA: A previous version of this post stated that two of the officers involved in George Floyd’s killing were of Asian descent. We have not yet been able to confirm the race of the second officer and so have updated that below.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight by four Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers. This gut-wrenching tragedy, in addition to the police murders of Tony McDade, Yassin Mohamed, Sean Reed, Breonna Taylor, Steven Taylor, the vigilante murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and the hate crime murder of Nina Pop, and countless others, has re-sparked collective outrage that is being met with the brute force of state repression — all during a pandemic that is disproportionately claiming Black and Indigenous lives in this country.

We, as Asians4BlackLives (A4BL), join our comrades in denouncing these gross displays of state-sanctioned police violence, and renew our call to all non-Black people of Asian descent to move in solidarity with Black communities for Black liberation and resistance.

We cannot look past the fact that at least one of the MPD police officers involved in the murder of George Floyd, Tou Thao, is Asian American. While we acknowledge the complex and contradictory histories of who make up “Asian Americans,” another instance of the direct involvement of officers of Asian descent in the death of a Black man is not just a damning symbol for Asian American complicity in the death of Black people, but also a direct manifestation of anti-Blackness in our communities.

This history of anti-Blackness runs deep, from the murder of Latasha Harlins by Soon Ja Du to daily practices of racial profiling and cultural appropriation. Non-Black Asians must act swiftly to end all forms of violence against Black people. We call on Asian Americans to reject the model minority myth, which was historically created to delegitimize Black resistance while absolving non-Black Americans from addressing systemic racism. It is our duty to continue the legacy of past and present Black and Asian solidarity — from activists like Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, and Kartar Dhillon to the Black Buffalo soldiers who defected from the U.S. army in support of Philippine independence. This means organizing our communities in solidarity and protesting using a diversity of tactics, including shutting down business as usual to ensure that each life wrongfully taken by the police does not go in vain.

Abolish the Police

We echo what Black activists have said countless times: the institution of modern-day policing — with its origins in slave-catching — has always served to protect private property and the ruling elite at the expense of Black, Indigenous, and poor and working class communities. Police violence against Black people is not the result of some officers being “a few bad apples.” The trees producing these apples are rotten to the roots. The problem cannot be fixed with simple reform measures — abolition of the police as an institution is necessary to prevent further Black lives from being lost.

Uplift Black Resistance, Help Build Black Power

We uplift the demands from the Movement for Black Lives and amplify the call to divest from police and invest in community. We also join Reclaim the Block, Black Visions Collective, and others who have called on the Minneapolis City Council to defund the Minneapolis Police Department (and all police departments) and invest in resources that actually keep Black communities (and thereby also all communities) safe and healthy by sharing and signing this petition.

We urge our communities to continue to join spaces and groups of people that are on the frontlines of building a society rooted in Black Power and Black Liberation, a world where Black Lives truly matter:

Build strong communities and community safety plans; #DontCalltheCops.

Fight to abolish the prison industrial complex that continuously profits from locking up Black people and perpetuates a never-ending cycle of criminalization and violence. #AbolishPrisons.

Fight to #CancelRent and raise the minimum wage so that Black communities can afford to live in the neighborhoods they are often displaced from.

Fight for a just transition, a #BlackNewDeal, #RedNewDeal and a #GreenNewDeal to counter the greed of corporations that for too long have profited off of the destruction of our Mother Earth and the environmental racism that disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous people.

Fight for #MedicareForAll, so that Black people can have access to quality healthcare that does not lead to catastrophic spending and bankruptcy.

Fight for a society in which wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few billionaires who utilize the police to violently protect their interests.

Fight against imperialism, which threatens Black communities globally, and support people-led movements worldwide.

Build life together that promotes not just surviving, but thriving: SOLUTIONS not PUNISHMENT.

Research the Black-led groups in your area. Talk to your non-Black friends and family about anti-Blackness. Listen, plug in to action, and donate to Black individuals and organizations.

Donate to vetted, Black-led organizations, bail funds, and allied groups in your area. In Minnesota, we recommend the following, which are currently accepting donations as of June 1, 2020: George Floyd’s family GoFundMe, CTUL, a low-income worker of color-led organization (mostly Latinx) down the block from where George Floyd was killed, who have been offering mutual aid to protesters, and Northstar Health Collective, street medics treating people and training folks how to take care of each other in protests.

In all these struggles, follow the leadership and center the perspectives of those most affected.

All lives do not matter until Black Lives Matter. Asian Americans need to strengthen our solidarity with our Black siblings. We must struggle and fight together for an end to the unjust siege against Black communities everywhere, and put an end to the police state and all forms of state-sanctioned violence.

Together, with our comrades, we demand:

Justice for George Floyd Justice for Tony McDade Justice for Yassin Mohamed Justice for Sean Reed Justice for Breonna Taylor Justice for Steven Taylor Justice for Ahmaud Arbery Justice for Nina Pop Justice for all Black Lives

Black Lives Matter

In Love, Power, and Solidarity, Asians4BlackLives

#JusticeforGeorgeFloyd #JusticeforTonyMcDade #JusticeforYassinMohamed #JusticeforSeanReed #JusticeforBreonnaTaylor #JusticeforStevenTaylor #JusticeforAhmaudArbery #JusticeforNinaPop #BlackLivesMatter #Asians4BlackLives

24 notes · View notes

gaminggoddessinc · 4 years

Text

I’m Korean-American, born and raised in LA, and I hate the Roof Korean memes

So for some background, several right-wing 2nd Amendment touters have been spreading images of Korean Business owners on the roofs of their businesses with rifles as a meme, calling them the "Rooftop Koreans". These images are from the 1992 LA Riots, after the brutal deaths of several black individuals including Rodney King. One of the deaths that prompted the riots was the murder of a black teenager named Latasha Harlins who was murdered by a Korean shop owner who mistakenly thought Harlins was robbing her store because of her own prejudice. This prompted race tensions that led to riots (and honestly these tensions have not ended).

These Rooftop Koreans took to defending their stores with guns because Koreatown was ignored by the LAPD. The LAPD ignored 9-11 calls from Koreatown. They were willing to let Korean businesses burn because they didn't care about Korean Americans, who back then didn't have the legislative power that they have today. Rooftop Koreans also never fired onto rioters, but they stood over their businesses as a warning.

But to see these white supremacists take this image to bolster their racist beliefs is so fucking disgusting. I swear I have seen so much blatant racism in the comments of these memes on Twitter and on Instagram. The appropriation of this part of Korean History does two things: one, it may worsen the already bad relationship between Korean Americans and Black Americans; and two, it continues to perpetuate the harmful "Model Minority" image that Asian Americans have been trapped by. Koreans did not go to the rooftops because they saw black people as threats, they went there because the police did not care about them.

Is the legacy of Rooftop Koreans complicated? Yes, because it follows the legacy of a contentious race relation and the legacy of a racist shop owner who happened to be Korean. However, it is not for white supremacists nor is it for 2nd Amendment touters. It is against the LAPD and their negligence towards minorities.

If you are a person who laughs at these memes and use them to further your racist beliefs, then I, a Korean Angeleno who loves her city, say this: fuck you. Fuck you for pushing your racist ideologies. Fuck you for using my people as puppets in your anti-blackness. Fuck you for not doing your goddamn research. Fuck you for appropriating my history. Fuck you.

Black lives matter, defund the police, white supremacists should eat shit.

#this was removed from reddit #so imma post it here #tumblr #defund the police #korean #korean american #la #los angeles

7 notes · View notes

militantinremission · 4 years

Text

Time 4 Real Talk

The World has responded to the 'New Age' Lynching of George Floyd. The man lived a simple Life, but in Death, he was celebrated on a scale that matched James Brown's Homegoing; possibly a testament to his wealth of Spirit. His Death was horrible, but his Legacy is already bearing fruit. All four Officers involved in his death have been charged, & a National Spotlight has been trained on American Police Tactics.

It's very interesting to see how the 'Powers that Be' go about the business of shifting a narrative. Group Organizers have 'The Masses' calling for Police Reform, but they are missing the point. Police Officers aren't 'The Problem', they're only following protocol. Some Officers are more aggressive than others, but Society has allowed an acceptable range of violence when it comes to Black America. It's cool that Whitefolk (& some POC) have learned the phrase 'Systemic Racism', but that is just a byproduct. The phrase they should become acquainted w/, is White Supremacy.

The System of White Supremacy, is the true Dragon that needs to be slayed. News Flash: America is not a Democracy- It's a Capitalist Republic. A Republic built on the blood & bones of Black/ Indigenous (Copper Toned Aborigines) People that depends on their continued disenfranchisement. White Privilege, can be viewed as a method of wealth distribution & social autonomy. Modern day Law Enforcement Officers were assembled to uphold the racist principles (State & Federal Laws) that keep Blackfolk in that space between Human Being & untamed Animal.

White Privilege doesn't guarantee Whitefolk an escape from adversity. The wealthy White Class, classically called WASPs (White Anglo- Saxon Protestants), wanted poor Whites to take solace in the fact that no matter how bad Life gets for them, they will always be above Blackfolk. A lot of programming went into making this a reality, & Americans either have selective memory, or incredibly short memory spans... Now we are not so naive that we are blind to the fact that Law Enforcement Agencies exist to protect Corporate Interests, while The Military exists to expand Corporate Interests.

What we are saying, is that while the multiple Ethnic Groups that make up America compete w/ each other for a higher spot on the Food Chain, they All agree that Black America belongs on The Bottom. Nothing is absolute, so we know that we have always had allies; i'm just pointing out that each Federally Mandated attack on Black America, since the Hayes- Tilden Compromise (aka 'The Great Betrayal') of 1876 has been sanctioned by the (collective) silence of White America. They for the most part, stuck their heads in the sand, when it regarded the plight of Black America.

Schools featured books like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" & "Huckleberry Finn", Theaters ran 'Minstrel Shows' for nearly 100Yrs- even the modern day clown can be traced to Minstrel (Black faced) performers that mocked emancipated Slaves that traveled the rails in tattered clothes (i.e. Hobos). All of these images allowed the typical American to have little to no compassion for Us before The Civil Rights Movement. Television Cameras were as instrumental in that 'Revolt', as Phone Cameras are in this current one. Back then, Southern Whites were the mean villains in The Story, just as Police Officers are today. Northerners gasped in astonishment @ the atrocities being done in plain sight.

Then a funny thing happened- attention to Black Oppression shifted to Northern Cities. The Black Codes were here as well. We were Redlined into industrial areas, far away from the white picket fences. Blackfolk took to the Streets, & Northern Whites weren't so supportive anymore. Blue Collar Workers felt that Black migration North was jeopardizing their job security. 1968 brought 'The Great Exodus'- White Democrats in Northern States, particularly in the current Rust Belt States fled en mass to the Republican Party.

Ronald Reagan read the tea leaves as well then, as Donald Trump does now, & acted on White America's 'collective vibe' of That's enough for Black America... [*Note: Joe Biden embodied this sentiment literally up to the point when he joined the Obama Ticket in 2008]. Reagan, like Trump, pushed a Conservative Agenda that starved the Middle Class & rewarded Corporate Elites. Donald Trump became a rock star during this time. Reagan blamed the Recession he caused on Black Welfare Cheats & 'Bleeding Heart Liberals'; Trump blames Barack Obama's policies. Joe Biden was a prominent player in Reagan Era Legislation. By his own admission, he had a hand in every Anti- Crime Law on the books since 1976. Each Law played a role in systematically destroying Black Families; together, they decimated a generation of Black Men.

The Conservative Agenda for Black America was pretty clear- 'No Soup for you!' They never hid their intent. Liberals on the other hand, preached a brand of Coalition Politics that required Black Votes, but advanced a non- Black 'Minority' Agenda. The focus was on: White Women, White LGBTQ..., People of Color, & Black Women- in that order. Black Men were targeted by the Liberal Party's 'Tough On Crime' Legislation. Mandatory Minimum Sentencing kept Black Men out of Society, & Felony Convictions ensured they would have a hard time getting back in. Middle Class Black Communities were hit as hard as White Communities, but White Families were able to weather the hardship as a Family Unit; Black Women were forced to assume the roles of Mother & Father, in the face of rising drug & gang activity .

Its pretty awesome to see so many people of different ethnicities & social backgrounds coming together to protest Racism in general, & Anti- Black Racism specifically. Black America has been oppressed by White Supremacy for 400Yrs & counting; We need more than justice, We need to be indemnified- made whole. It's a total insult for the American Gov't to tell Us 'No' to Reparations, after watching European Jews, & Japanese receive payment for far less than we endured. An even bigger insult, is this notion that ALL 'Afrikan Americans', & Native Americans should get a share of what is specifically owed to Us. American Descendants of (Chattal) Slavery (ADOS) are a specific group w/ a specific need. No one else shares Our experience in America.

This plays into the White Supremacist view that whatever we give to Black America, we can give to Everyone else. This is how Affirmative Action Programs for Black Americans became Diversity Initiatives for 'Minorities'. It's no surprise that the Immigration Act was passed the same Year that the Civil Rights Law went into effect. White Supremacy thrives on the misfortune of Black People. America has used immigration as a weapon for over 150Yrs to slow any progress in the Black/ ADOS Community. They have not been able to kill Us off, so they are perpetually watering down Our overall percentage of the population.

Immigrants are offered Grants & Services that are denied to Black America/ ADOS. Immigrant Enclaves in Cities & Suburbia are thriving, while Black Communities are starved of resources, leaving them vulnerable to 'gentrification'- modern day Homesteading. These same Immigrants set up Stores in Black Communities, where they are welcomed, but Blackfolk are critiqued when we enter these Immigrant Communities- much like the way we are, when we enter White areas.

The Black- Brown Alliance sounds heart warming, but honestly, most use this 'Alliance' to profit off Black Effort & Dollars. A lot of these people identified as 'White' on past Census rolls. 50Yrs ago, Black Men were the focus of that attention; today, it's Black Women. Divide & Conquer is a tried & true weapon of White Supremacy. Black America flounders because of the inner conflict instigated by this method over the Centuries. I'm aware that every group had to endure this assault, but Black America is the one target that Everyone else seems to agree on exploiting. There's no hiding from this.

While i'm happy to see multicultural crowds globally protesting anti- Black racism, I can't help but wonder how far will support go? If We judge by past acts, not far enough. Resources are necessary, & Society has a limit to how much it's willing to spend on Black Problems, before extending those same resources to Everyone else. Politicians talk about Equality, but never about Equity. To be honest, Black America only needs to be left alone. Our Story is one of perpetual 'Arrested Development'. Black Codes, Klan violence, Jim Crow, Redlining, Imminent Domain, & Benign Neglect created the current State of Black America. So called 'Empowerment or Opportunity Zones' are disingenuous @ best... I'm not sure what Society will do, but one thing is certain- as Black America goes, so will the Black Diaspora.

#ADOS

#B1

8 notes · View notes

tlatophat · 4 years

Text

Outrage

You know... at this point, maybe I should re-brand myself as “Career outsider tells you what you don’t want to hear”. Because whoooo boy are there people that don’t want to hear things right now. Funny how even lawmakers who were shutting down barbershops, revoking licenses, and trying to sue churches suddenly don’t care about masks and 6-ft distancing and staying home and self-isolating when there’s an easily exploitable movement of reactionaries to cater votes from with empty motions and stupid promises. Because here we are again, caught up in what I need to start calling the “Wheel of Half-Truths”; one of the greatest perpetual lies of omission ever perpetrated. Blindly believing the American press about social issues in 2020 is akin to believing North Korea when it says all its people are well fed and Westerners drink hot snow in the winter to keep warm. They’re just saying what the people who hold the leash want them to say so they get their treats and live fat and happy. So, since the rags and talking heads on the news won’t report it, it falls to people like me to inform you of what’s actually in the public record, but isn’t being told to you. But first of all, congratulations to the rioters in Minneapolis, Minnesota! You just successfully destroyed your neighborhoods, sunk dozens minority-owned businesses, removed countless jobs from the community, and drove at least one major employer out of your state! Give yourself a round of applause, guys, because you proved. . . absolutely nothing. Except that you’re violent, greedy, ignorant anarchists and vandals; the very kind of people our police forces exist to stop. You’re not revolutionaries. You’re self-destructive criminals, and I hope you realize that you’re going to have to continue living in the neighborhoods that you just destroyed; with no jobs, no grocery stores, no gas stations, and now no factory to employ you. You are menaces to your own communities, have made your neighbors suffer in the long term for a small pile of ill-gotten gains, and proved to the rest of the country why police are not only appreciated, but necessary. Again, congratulations. You played yourselves. Oh, and you rioters and vandals in other cities around the country? You’re not far behind, and you’re just as vile and villainous. Don’t think I don’t see you trying to knock over ambulances and blocking fire trucks, defacing and damaging buildings and property. I see you, and I pray for your incarceration. But now on to that juicy stuff. The stuff that people don’t want to hear because it spoils this pretty little narrative we have going right now. And oh how the people hate it when someone tries to come in and spoil a narrative. How dare I suggest that this outrage is built on misinformation and omission of truth! Well, I dare. The following are facts, not opinions or perspectives. And are in the public record, so you can find them for yourself. - Of the cops present at at the arrest, most were minorities, including one Black officer, and their reports all match - The arresting officers called an ambulance to the site twice, while the ‘victim’ was still alive and struggling against arrest in response to the man’s insistence that he was claustrophobic... despite having just been pulled out of his own car and simply being put into... another car. - The ‘victim’s’ “I can’t breathe” quote came from him insisting he was claustrophobic and ‘afraid to get in the car’, not in response to anything the officers were doing... other than trying to get him into the car. - The autopsy report shows the ‘victim’ had drugs in his system and had multiple problems with his heart, meaning that just about anything could have caused the heart attack that killed him. Oh yeah, it was also a heart attack, not suffocation, that killed him. Important detail. - The victim was being arrested on suspicion of counterfeiting $20 bills, which he had just tried to use to defraud a Muslim-owned business. Just saying. - The officer who had been the one restraining the ‘victim’ when he died was arrested on a holding charge while a full investigation began, and he is now sitting, in jail, with a million-dollar bail. The formalities have barely started and people are already accusing him of racism and protesting ‘racist cops’, and tacitly supporting rioting. In other words, “I can’t breathe” is yet another “Hands up, don’t shoot”; a lie of omission perpetuated by suppressing the evidence that contradicts it. Now... maybe this cop did cause the death. Maybe he does deserve to face Negligent Homicide or Murder 3rd. That’s for a jury to decide months from now when he goes to trial But, based on the information in the public record, this has nothing to do with race, which is the major premise of this whole protest movement. “The cops is racist and they killin the Black man” is the only reason this movement even exists, but the evidence in the public record casts a great amount of doubt on that narrative. And the media? They don’t want to ruin that narrative, so they just choose not to report that evidence. Outrage is easy clicks, it’s easy views, it’s easy clout. Companies can cash in on the outrage with their “[Brand] supports Black People” marketing. Politicians get easy votes by promising change and making grand gestures and speaking empty words to an angry crowd. Propagandists can take the stage and push their anti-cop, pro-riot philosophy to gain donations without people questioning them. All the suits get to turn a profit, so long as the outrage narrative continues and the reality goes unreported. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is just reality. If what I said above really is a matter of public record, and it is, why isn’t it reported clearly? Why is it being buried? Why aren’t CNN, MSNBC, and ABC talking about the fact the cops called an ambulance while the victim was alive, or that the cops were mostly minorities, or that the victim was trying to defraud a Muslim business, or that, despite having been sitting in his own car and attempting to get away from the scene of his crime, he insisted he was claustrophobic and refused to peacefully get into the patrol car? Think about it. Why not report these facts, unless there’s a reason to not tell you the whole truth? So I don’t blame the protesters, in one sense. They don’t know any better. They’re just reacting to what they’re being told. That a racist White cop brutally suffocated a Black man. It’s easy to believe that. It’s what the media has been telling people for at least a decade. That the White Man is evil, the Black Man is a victim, and the Cops are the Fist of the White People. And if you believe the media always tells the whole story, then you have no reason to doubt them. Until someone like me shows up and shows you they’re not telling you the whole story. Which begs the big question: What else aren’t they telling you? And why?

6 notes · View notes

chiseler · 4 years

Text

The Violence of Demanding “Peaceful” Protest

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, dozens of U.S. cities have be rocked with unrest, ranging from small protests to open rebellion and riots. In watching coverage of the protests over the last week, several predictable issues and themes have emerged in how these protests are being framed by city and state leaders, police, and mainstream media outlets. I think that those of us who are committed to anti-racist politics need to directly grapple with some of these frames if we are going to shift how our collective efforts to challenge racism and injustice are understood going forward, for the wider public and for ourselves:

1.) “Outside agitators” Both the governments and the media are going all in on dividing the good vs bad, legitimate vs illegitimate protesters, in order to control the unrest by turning people’s sympathies against it. They will say they support the cause but not the methods, but these are crocodile tears. They will cite MLK as a weapon against black protest, but it was MLK who said that his biggest enemy was the white moderate who valued order over the struggle for justice. It is these same moderates who condemn rioters rather than blame those in power who make riots inevitable.

The city government leaders are just lying, point blank, saying that the people who are doing anything other than quietly praying in their Sunday best are outside agitators. They have no evidence of this at all, and there is actual evidence from arrest records that most people vigorously protesting enough to be arrested are locals. This is an old tactic, and is used around the world by those in power seeking to discredit energetic social and political movements.

MLK felt compelled to condemn this rhetorical tactic, since it is the same one that was used by Jim Crow mayors and sheriffs against him and other civil rights protesters. The most important of his numerous criticisms here is that *it does not matter* if someone comes from elsewhere to stand with those protesting injustice. Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere: the logic of domination and oppression breeds and spreads, and produces further domination and oppression, while insensitivity to injustice anywhere breeds insensitivity to other injustices. We are all woven into a single garment of destiny, and cannot pretend that any injustice could (or should) stay parochially contained.

2.) Violent vs peaceful protests Those who condemn property damage during protests should reflect on a few specific points:

First, tactically, riots and the damage they cause raise the economic and political cost of continuing with the everyday violence of business as usual, and have been an integral part of successful struggles for democracy and equality throughout history. This increase in cost can force elites to make concessions, and shift what counts as an acceptable policy bargain to buy peace again. Polite tactics have not worked whatsoever to ease the systemic racial and class inequalities and violence of places like Minneapolis. What else is left, besides people of color opting to die without a fuss?

Second, the human costs of continuing business as usual, from the early deaths and sicknesses imposed by police violence, racism, poverty, lack of healthcare, environmental racism, stress, etc, are incomprehensibly massive. They are far higher than any costs from these riots, at a minimum producing hundreds of thousands of early deaths in the U.S. a year.

This means that if you are opposed to “violence”, then you must prioritize ending these systemic conditions over the flash in the pan of any riot damage. It also means that if you truly oppose violence, then you must consider what given tactics *do* about this systemic and state-enforced violence. If your “peaceful” tactics don’t pose a threat to the continuation of a violent status quo, and even help sustain it by institutionally channeling, containing, and de-fanging challenges to it, then those measures are *more violent* in what they produce than riotous street clashes or mass strikes that compel actual concessions and change.

3.) Property damage as “violence” Conceptually, calling broken windows, burnt cars and looting “violence” is extremely dubious in it’s implications. It puts unexpected forms of damage to or destruction of things as such in the same moral continuum as human suffering, and conveniently only those things that pose a direct threat to the people who own the world. Legal material destruction, of course — such as through a manufacturer shuttering and offshoring a factory (and with it a community’s ability to thrive), or a developer destroying poor people’s housing to put up empty luxury condos for investment, or a company spilling pollutants into the environment and our bodies — is never really framed as “violent”, even though it is more widespread and destructive.

Calling property damage violence also ignores the violence entailed simply by the state-backed imposition of particular rules and distributions of property. Property isn’t just stuff, it is also the rules for deciding who will be denied the right to use that stuff, and how that denial will be legitimized. If you’re concerned about looting, consider it in light of this.

The current distribution of resources is the result of racist state violence, centuries of openly white supremacist policies, imperialism, and exploitation. No honest person can disagree. It cannot be considered just or moral. Even in market terms, it cannot be considered a result of consent or fair competition. The pitifully low wage exploitation perpetuated by retail outlets in these areas are a product of these violently imposed unjust conditions and systems, and is itself a looting of the time, sweat, and well-being of people who are not truly free to do otherwise.

What, then, justifies condemnation of people’s attempts to grab goods that alleviate conditions of violently imposed and flatly unjust conditions of inequality and poverty? If just distributions are blocked politically, then how can we condemn what essentially amounts to material self defense against illegitimately imposed conditions?

REPORT THIS AD

4.) On looting during protests Charges that people looting are acting opportunistically, or without pure enough motives make the mistake of thinking that pursuing material enhancement amidst unjust conditions is at odds with, rather than a central component of the demand for dismantling systemic racism. This isn’t separate from the fight against police brutality, since policing as such, as well as police brutality in particular are historically and tightly connected to state efforts to maintain racial and class inequalities and property rules under American capitalism. Demanding saintly selflessness from rioters is a dehumanizing double standard, and itself undercuts the legitimacy of demands for material justice and restitution.

Insofar as looting contributes to raising the cost for elites to ignore an unjust status quo, we can consider looting to be a useful element in producing an actually status quo-threatening pressure for concessions and change. Depending on the target (or Target), we may even say that it is ethically obligatory, if we take the struggle against violence seriously.

*** Ultimately, whenever those in power attempt to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate protesters during times of social unrest, this should be interpreted as nothing more than a classic divide and conquer tool designed to make the unrest more manageable and to divert a fraction of the less demanding participants towards the least costly (to those in power) concessions. It means they are scared. It also means we should investigate what it is that they are truly scared of losing — and what we stand to gain.

The world.

by Justin Mueller

5 notes · View notes