#disclaimer: like i said-i’m not trying to be the spokesperson for every black person. if you are black & you’d like to add something plz do

[ssa-sapphic-inactive]

let’s talk about juneteenth…

listen up, i’m gonna say what i have to say nice and respectfully, so y’all can understand and be educated. i’m in no way the spokes person for all black people, but i’m using the small voice that i do have in hopes that everyone will still amplify it and help me educate.

for those who are unaware, juneteenth (first officially celebrated june 19th 1866) is the date the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. note that this was two and a half years after president lincoln’s emancipation proclamation – which had become official january 1, 1863. but guess what? it took two years for it to reach the texan slaves.

and even then, it wasn’t like slaves just chucked up the peace sign to their masters and walked out. some slave lives were threatened by their owners if they even thought about leaving. whites and blacks didn’t just join hands and sing kumbayah together. work still needed to be done. they weren’t out of the woods just yet and we still aren’t today.

it wasn’t until 2021 that juneteenth was made a federal holiday. but if you’re wondering why so many are feeling negatively toward it becoming a holiday, it’s basically because we feel gaslighted in a sense. we asked for extensive voting rights protections, job training, anti-lynching laws, criminal justice system overhaul and reparations and so much more. but all it seems like is that white folks gave themselves another day off work. true definition of “what we asked for” vs “what we got”.

and before you say we should just be happy it’s being recognized, let me tell you something. black folks had already recognized and celebrated it for decades. as candice benbow, a cultural commentator stated: we were still gonna have our festivals, pageants, cookouts, fish fry’s, and gatherings (small or not). we didn’t need to be given a day off work to do stuff we were already gonna do. we needed you to actually do something to change the conditions of our lives.

as much as i love all my bipoc’s (black, indigenous, people of color) this is a black holiday. not a bipoc one. show your support for the black community please. below are some images from instagram with some information on what juneteenth as a holiday means, and what you can do to show your support (cred is tagged in each pic):

just a quick note: if you’re white, please don’t be performative. don’t wear a t-shirt with juneteenth on it or anything because it will be a problem for most. don’t constantly feel like you need to show everyone you’ve donated to organizations or the community and that you’re an ally. there’s no need to prove that you are “one of the good whites”, so don’t be more of an activist than the black community. it’s rude, distasteful, and frankly, annoying as hell. trust me when i say this:

you are not more “woke” than us, and you never will be.

#OKAY TO REBLOG IF YOURE WHITE #white people please don’t add anything whether it be in comments/reblogs/tags #disclaimer: like i said-i’m not trying to be the spokesperson for every black person. if you are black & you’d like to add something plz do #juneteenth #black history #american history #emancipation proclamation #anti slavery #blmisnotatrend

[gunshou]

This is probably a bad idea, but...

So @luna-rainbow has been posting quite a bit about the portrayal of racism in TFATWS and how it's difficult for non-Americans to understand why Sam didn't want the shield and why he didn't just explain his thinking to Bucky. I replied that I wanted to try and tackle that question, so here we go.

BIG DISCLAIMER: I am a white, middle-aged, cis woman living in the northeastern USA, so I am really in no way the proper spokesperson for this topic. I'm not going to put forth my views as truth, but instead try to explain why I think Sam was so ambivalent and why Bucky just didn't get it (and probably still doesn't even if the writers gave him a small epiphany in the penultimate episode).

Everyone knows that the US was built on the bleeding backs of Black slaves. There is no rational way to dispute this disgusting fact, but the white people who have been in power in this country since forever have done such a good job of normalizing and minimizing the ramifications of that fact that many Americans just go through their lives and never, ever, consider it. Schools teach history, but it's often sanitized and presented in a very "Oops, our bad, sorry y'all" manner that makes young students feel like it was Very Very Long Ago and Over Now. I'm a high school teacher (of literature, not history, but they're intertwined) in a school where I know my colleagues in the Hx Dept are teaching racism as a living, breathing, hideously present concept, and I still have kids tell me every day that "America isn't like that now" as if examples of racial bias and systemic oppression aren't all around them.

In my mostly white district, the few Black kids don't speak up in these discussions, and lord, I do not blame them one bit. For one, they are tired. Tired of being oppressed, tired of talking about it, tired of trying to make other people see their lives and their struggles. Second, no one wants to be the Poster Child and have to bear the ignorance and intrusive interest of their peers. I imagine Sam feels similarly, and that's why he just never gets into it with Bucky. Sam is an optimistic and positive-thinking guy, and probably wants to talk about a million other topics before he wants to educate a 106-year-old white dude about the Black American Experience, and that's his damn right, good for him.

Said 106-year-old, by the way, has literally no concept of what being Black in America means. Luna-rainbow likened him to an immigrant in his own country, and there's some merit to that, especially considering the bulk of his conditioning as the Winter Soldier was at the hands of our Cold War enemies who were invested in making Bucky see America as an enemy. But mostly, the problem is that Bucky was asleep or absent from normal life during one of the most racially tumultuous times of our history. Now, the man lived in NYC, one of the most diverse cities in the USA, and seems relatively chill for having grown up in Ye Olden Times. But he likely hasn't studied the Civil Rights Movement, and how the Whites In Charge panic-reacted to the idea of other people having basic human rights with a coordinated and systemic effort to stop that shit in its tracks while appearing to bow to the social zeitgeist. Jim Crow, Confederate statutes, voter oppression, gerrymandering, redlining -- all the things that the United States Government did (and still does) to keep those BIPOC in their proper place and whites in power -- are often big news to modern people, so of course Bucky wouldn't get it.

He wouldn't intrinsically understand that The Shield represents a government that did its GD best to keep Black people poor, ignorant, and powerless while at the same time pretending to advance them and congratulating itself on how well it tied justice into knots and r*ped that blindfolded bitch holding the scales. He wouldn't know that Sam struggles with how to best embody his hope for the country he loves while also acknowledging that his country doesn't really love him all that much. How conflicted he must be as a veteran who fights for freedom while knowing he's not free to be treated with the dignity and respect everyone deserves. That Shield is government property, Sam is told many times, and to take it up means being the face and mouthpiece of a government that does not look, act, or experience life the way he does. A government that doesn't want him to gain power and will do basically anything to keep him down while all the while denying that they're doing any such thing. Captain America may visibly punch out Nazis, but is he punching out Karens? Or racist cops? Or racist teachers? "A complicated legacy," indeed.

So yeah, there's no way Bucky could know why Sam refused the shield and Bucky took it personally, as a rejection of Steve Rogers himself. And maybe to explain that would have forced Bucky to confront that while he is still Steve's Best Sidekick(TM), Steve abandoned him to this crazy future of alien invasions and divisive politics and tiger selfies and Bucky really just cannot deal. So he just gets pissy about it.

And Sam, for his part, was not going to unpack 70 years of American history and racism because that shit is tiring, especially when he's literally living in it right the f now. So he gets rightfully pissy about Bucky's inability to let it go.

And TFATWS writers go traipsing into the sunset congratulating themselves on the buddy cop story they pounded out that has all the buzzwords and the right tone for our post(?)-BLM times without ever once delving as deep into the story as the topic deserves. And people are confused and disappointed and don't really know why. But the truth is that 200+ years of history and oppression are not easily condensed into a 6-hour superhero TV show, and maybe the writers should have given some damn thought to how much they could realistically convey with sophistication and sensitivity instead of trying to have it all. Because we deserved better, not just as fans, but as critical viewers. (On the other hand, hooray for some people having these discussions instead of just saying BuT it'S JuST FiCTioN LiGhTen UP. Because it is never "just fiction," it is a reflection of our lives and has weight as such.)

Thanks for coming to my long-winded TED Talk, please don't send me hate mail. I'm already having a panic attack at having posted this.

#fandom dissertation #marvel meta #tfatws #I'm shaking with nerves at having posted this #at least I'm not high this time #so maybe it's coherent #idk idk