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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Batfandom’s favorite word to use is “adopted.” And I don’t mean that in a good way, but in a ‘nah, this is actually kinda obnoxious’ way?

Like, 90% of fics and headcanons in Batfandom flat out refuse to use the words ‘father,’ ‘brother(s),’ ‘sister’ or ‘son(s),’ without the qualifier ‘adopted’ always, always, ALWAYS attached to the front of said words. Like, endlessly. Over and over. Not just once, early on, to establish the specific nature of the family relationships, but like....this sledgehammer insistence on bringing that point home. Each. And. Every. Time. A. Familial. Relationship. Is. Described. Ever.

Sorry to be cranky about it, I know people don’t mean any harm by it, and like, I’m not saying its offensive. That’s not the right word IMO, but its definitely....grating? And just to be clear, I don’t pretend I’m speaking for everyone who’s adopted or from adopted families, I’m sure plenty of people who fit that description have different takes on this than me. BUUUUT I also know for a fact that I am not the only person this bugs in a big way. I’ve had this convo over the years with a lot of other fans I know who are adopted. And its not just Batfandom either, its every fandom with central adoptive relationships, like Thor and Loki, etc. Its just especially jarring in Batfandom because there’s so many different adoptive relationships front and center, so this pops up like...EVERYWHERE.

Idk, like....I’d just ask that writers please consider WHY they feel the qualifier ‘adopted/adoptive’ is a necessary addition every time the label of father/son/brother is used in a fic. What they think it adds, what they feel it describes about the relationship that’s different from any other father/son/brother relationship. Because I do think that most people (at least those not from adopted families themselves) do it without thinking about it. It seems just like another descriptor, like its addition is just a level of specificity that’s like, slightly more accurate than JUST father/son/brother......its just. In my experience, and that of most other adopted kids/relatives of adopted kids I’ve spoken with personally....that’s not really how it works?

Its about context, is the thing. How a thing is framed. When used just initially, like when establishing the exact nature of family dynamics, sure, in that sense its an accurate descriptor that lends an additional level of specificity to family relationships. It describes how this particular family formed, how it came to be. But AFTER that’s been established....that qualifier of adopted tacked onto every family label....its no longer establishing anything further. Instead, now its just perpetuating the idea that the nature of the family relationship itself is inherently different, BECAUSE of how it was formed.

Its a subtle distinction, but its very much a real and definite distinction. When first used, ‘adopted’ describes a family origin. Used over and over, ‘adopted’ describes a family that’s somehow wholly different from non-adopted families, BECAUSE that specific family origin is seen as superseding and overlaying every other aspect of the family and its inter-dynamics. You see what I’m saying? And its that latter part that grates, because...no? That’s not....that’s not nearly the omnipresent thing that I think a lot of people seem to take for granted it is?

Again, maybe its different for other adopted families, but like.....okay. So, in my case, my mom’s technically my adopted mom, I have a different bio mom that I haven’t seen since I was ten, my older sister has the same bio parents as me and my two younger siblings are adopted with no biological relation to each other or to anyone else in our family, though unlike me and my sister were adopted at birth. For as long as my mom’s been my mom....I barely ever referred to my mom as anything other than my mom. It usually didn’t occur to me to use qualifiers when describing her, because like, she was who I saw as my mom. I mean, she’s literally my mom. That’s literally what that word adopted in front of the label ‘mother’ means. Whether you include it or not, the mother part remains true.

And in fact, describing her as my adopted mom wasn’t even like, an establishing qualifier I always included when first talking about my family to someone who didn’t know our history. It was usually more kinda....a tenth conversation kind of clarification because it was more an afterthought than anything else? Like kinda a belated realization when they looked at me confused at something I just said, like...’oh yeah, see technically my mom is my adopted mom, and when I said ‘my mom’ there just now I was actually talking about my bio mom, totally different thing. Like technically I have two, but only one really matters most of the time so its not worth mentioning to like, everyone I meet, you know?’ That sort of thing. If anything, I was more likely to use the qualifier in regards to my birth mom, the one I didn’t live with. Like I’d say, this is my mom when talking about my mom, as in my adopted mom, and I’d refer to my birth mom as just that, as my birth mom or my bio mom.

And my siblings and I tended to describe ourselves as adopted siblings more upfront, at least when introducing ourselves and our familial relationship to someone new...but that was less about us seeing us our sibling relationship as being different from non-adopted families, and more just like...a necessary avoidance of bullshit? LOL, because I mean, its kinda obvious that my siblings and I aren’t biologically related. I’m white, my little sister is Vietnamese, my little brother’s indigenous Mexican. We tended to lead with “this is my sister/brother, we’re adopted’, but mostly because like.....full offense, but people are kinda dumb? *Shrugs* If we just said ‘this is my sister and this is my brother’ and just left it at that, people would nine out of ten times like....stutter and get all squinty-eyed and confused and be all...what...how...because lol, idk, apparently its a hugely hard leap to figure out oh hey, maybe adoption is a thing here?

(And also just FYI in general, it was always just annoying because like, even if you don’t ‘get’ HOW two seemingly unrelated people can be related and all they say when introducing themselves is ‘we’re brother and sister’, like.....you’re not actually owed an in depth explanation as to omg how did this strange phenomenon come to be. And the entitlement so many people we encountered growing up, where like....they felt they were owed our life stories upon meeting us just once, simply because they Didn’t Understand and somehow this equated to But They NEEDED To Understand, because...Reasons....like, no. You don’t actually need to understand how two people are related if they don’t feel like providing you with the full context. Either take them at face value or don’t, you don’t get to be a dick and demand a full accounting of their legal and symbolic relationships just so you can like....validate this and be all okay yeah, that checks out, I’ll allow it. LOL. No? Your validation of our relationship is not required, nor is your understanding of it, get over yourselves. So just. Like. Don’t be Those Guys. If you meet people who introduce themselves as family and the exact nature of that family relationship isn’t immediately obvious or seems somewhat confusing like....just...deal? They’ll tell you more if they want you to know more, and if they don’t tell you more they probably feel you know everything you need to know and that’s literally their call to make, so....yeah).

Idk. Like, due to the age differences in our family, my little sister and I were the only ones who overlapped in attending the same schools at the same time, just different grade levels. And we used to have this bit where any time someone new stumbled while grasping the fact that we were brother and sister, and they did that Brain Malfunction, Processing Error glitch face while they tried to compute Asian sister, white brother, how does that even work....so like, at some point we just started doing this thing where any time we saw that Look, my little sister would launch into this painfully earnest explanation of how so, “okay, our dad’s Vietnamese and our mom’s white, and I got all the Vietnamese genes and my brother here got all the white genes,” and I would just keep a totally straight face and nod along, backing her up, and you could literally see them falling for it for a good minute or so before they realized oh hey, they’re totally just bullshitting me. And then eventually we got told to cut it out because teachers were complaining about looking dumb in front of other students when we did that, which, well duh that’s cuz you were, dumbasses BUT I DIGRESS.

But point is.....I honestly do not know many (if any) adopted families who go around making a point to emphasize the adopted part of their family relationships any and every time they come up, the way most fiction tends to depict adopted characters doing? Once we established to a person that yes, we’re adopted, we didn’t ever feel a need to re-emphasize that or re-establish that same point any time after that. If they idk, forgot or got confused again or whatever, I mean...not our problem, you know? You get one explanation, if you still don’t get it after that, you’re probably not gonna get it anyway because its not like....rocket science. Was pretty much our stance.

And so okay, full disclosure, since anyone who’s followed me for some time has heard me talk about not really having a relationship with my family anymore....like yeah, its true, but because of a whole host of reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with anyone’s adoption status. I mean, I basically hate my parents’ guts and have for a long time, but they’re still my parents, biological and adopted ones alike. And I love my siblings, we’re just unfortunately not close anymore because of all kinds of baggage that got heaped on us that there was really no way to deal with gracefully, look there are reasons I project on the Batfam and identify with that source material, lmao.

Again though, my point is.....even at the best of times, my family was crazy dysfunctional, much like the Batfamily is.....but even at the worst of times, literally nobody in my family was ever going around insisting on making a distinction about most of us not being biologically related, you know? That’s just....not a thing, IME. Like, family’s kinda all or nothing. You’re either family, or you’re not. The how of it only really matters if you’re hashing out something where that’s specifically relevant, otherwise, not so much because I mean....if it was that easy to make a distinction about how your family is only kinda technically sorta your family, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to just...walk away, you know? Like, even when you flat out hate members of your family, there’s not really a lot of confusion on whether or not you actually consider them family. As complicated as your family dynamic might be, people aren’t usually looking for places to add in that additional complication of ‘mmm but are we reeeeeeally even family, technically?’

So all of that plays into why its so jarring to see writers so insistently and repeatedly emphasize the ‘adopted’ part of Batfamily relationships, as though its like the most important aspect of their entire family dynamic...the be all and end all, the thing EVERYTHING inevitably traces back to, in every fight, in every dynamic, etc. And yeah, I do think people who aren’t adopted or from blended families themselves should maybe put a little more thought into what’s going through their head when they emphasize the adopted part of a family dynamic, like why they fixate on it as the most defining aspect or criteria of it. Because its really not nearly as reflective of reality as the sheer overwhelming SAMENESS of how often its written that way would suggest. Again, just speaking in my experience and that of those I’ve had this fandom conversation with, over the years.

Like, any way you write them, the Batfamily is dysfunctional as hell and always will be. But bottom line, there are some not that great implications underlying the....default assumption, that this dysfunctionality all stems from or inevitably traces back to that ‘adoptive’ qualifier. Have Dick or Jason or Tim or Damian flat out hating each other’s guts at times, there’s certainly canon to support it, and sure, insecurity as to their individual places in their family is always going to be at least a PART of it, but like....being insecure about your place in your family isn’t exactly an experience unique to adopted members of families, you know? But the way the Batfamily is usually written certainly seems to treat that as the takeaway, and again, I’m not sure offensive is the way I’d describe that, but it most definitely is grating. And it never fails to pull me right out of a story and like, moan dramatically at the heavens “oh my god, whyyyyyy, why do so many writers think we’re all just...totally unaware that these kids are all adopted and need to remind themselves and each other and us of that every other paragraph’.

Mostly because I’m dramatic like that, but also because its annoying too. Like....we get it, dudes. This is not brand new information. Its okay. You can refer to Bruce as just ‘their father’ or to their brothers or Cass as just ‘their brothers and sister’. You will not have like...lied, or anything.

Anyway. Those are my 6 am thoughts on the Batfam, fandom in general, and how you really only need to use the word ‘adopted’ like...once per relationship per fic. That’s really all it takes? The additional 674 mentions of adoption are kinda....gratuitous.

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marymosley · 4 years

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“The Movement Is Winning”: Alleged Ringleader In Statue Attacks Claims Victory In Public Comments

We have been discussing the case of Jason Charter, the George Washington University student who is alleged by the government to be the “ringleader” of the attack on the statue of Andrew Jackson near the White House. He is also of participating in the destruction of the statue of Confederate leader Albert Pike in Washington on June 19th. This case raises some difficult questions over the admissibility of his political views. However, he may be making that issue easier (and harming his case) with continued comments on an unverified Tweeter account where he continues to support Antifa and claim victory. The public comments raise the possibility of an effort to trigger a politically-infused case like the “Chicago Eight” prosecution after the 1968 Democratic National Convention. These comments have greater value in rallying supporters than building a defense.

Many on campus have been discussing the Charter case and how it may play out in federal court. The fact that the alleged “ringleader” of the recent attack on the monument is a GWU student came as a surprise for many. However, Antifa has long had a presence on our campus, including a 2017 incident where Charter appears to have had a confrontation with the very same conservative journalist in a government video from 2020.

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I have been a long-standing critic of Antifa due to its profoundly anti-free speech views and its history of violence against those with opposing views, though I have opposed declaring Antifa a terrorist organization. They have a history of attacking journalists, academics, and others. Indeed, I have been critical of Democratic leaders who have supported Antifa despite this history. Some professors openly support the group, including its violence.

Faced with these charges, most defendants would be cautioned to avoid public statements. However, soon after his arrest, Twitter comments from Charter began to appear. While the account is unverified, there has been no denial that these are the comments of Charter and the account links to a defense fund for him.

On July 2, one posting on the site proclaiming #IAmAntifa stated:

I am innocent and the fact @realDonaldTrump is tweeting at and prosecuting a crippled 25 year old activist shows how desperate his is to creates false narratives. Please support my legal defense.

He also posted a film to defend Antifa.

Jason Charter Retweeted

VICE @VICE·

Jul 2

If your well-meaning family members and friends are freaked out about antifa, here’s how to start correcting the false narratives around it. https://bit.ly/2NReoKu

One posting states “When you are winning you get fascism. The movement is winning so the State turned to fascism to try to stop it.”

Jason Charter

@JasonRCharter 9h

When you are winning you get fascism. The movement is winning so the State turned to fascism to try to stop it.”

He also announced that “There will be a press conference early next week where I will be making a statement.”

There are real risks for criminal defendants in such public statements. What is striking about the Antifa references is that I identified the connection to Antifa as a potentially weak point for the defense to address. While Charter is connected to Antifa, the government does not say that he was leading an Antifa effort. While Charter does not make that claim, his own continued references to Antifa may undermine the type of motion in limine before trial.

My concern when Charter was charged was that prosecutors would use political views to taint a case, particularly when you have an association with an extremist group like Antifa. Whether or not such statements are admissible at trial, as discussed in the earlier posting, they could play a role in pre-trial motions in key issues of admissibility.

There would be particular concern from a criminal defense standpoint with the statement that “When you are winning you get fascism. The movement is winning so the State turned to fascism to try to stop it.” That ties is case — and his actions — to Antifa. It also will make it more difficult for Charter to take the stand in his own defense. Even if the court grants a motion in limine on the political associations, these emails can easily be introduced for cross-examination or impeachment purposes. The risk would be too great for most criminal defense counsel.

Charter’s claim of innocence is less of a problem though he will have to address photos of him on these statues and even lighting a cigarette off the burning statue of Pike. Of course, being present does not mean that he caused the damage. As discussed, the indictment says that he is seen “waving others away from the statue, and squatting down behind the statue where his hands are not visible. Seconds later, the statue catches fire. Charter is said to be ‘seen standing over the flames as it burns.” That still requires an assumption from the jury on what he did behind the statue.

The threshold is a showing of $1000 of damage. U.S.C. §1361 states:

1361. Government property or contracts

Whoever willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States, or of any department or agency thereof, or any property which has been or is being manufactured or constructed for the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or attempts to commit any of the foregoing offenses, shall be punished as follows:

If the damage or attempted damage to such property exceeds the sum of $1,000, by a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both; if the damage or attempted damage to such property does not exceed the sum of $1,000, by a fine under this title or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

One possible prosecutorial move could be to argue that, as the alleged “ringleader,” Charter is responsible for the damage caused by others at the scene. Again, this magnify the importance of the linkage to Antifa and related advocacy by Charter.

The alleged public comments by Charter may help generate support for his legal fund, but it will likely cause greater difficulties for his criminal defense counsel. Charter is already in a highly precarious position. He has been tagged as a leader in this effort, which reduces the likelihood of a deal with prosecutors. He is more likely to be the subject of other plea deals than the beneficiary of a deal for himself. If the prosecutors can admit statements claiming victory, it will advance that theory.

As the rhetoric increases on both sides, these cases are taking on the fear of past criminal cases with strong political overtones like the “Chicago Eight” Trial (sometimes called the “Chicago Seven”) involving alleged conspiracies leading to the violence surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention. As here, the federal government took the lead in the prosecution with charges against Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged by the federal government. (The eighth defendant, Bobby Seale, was tried separately). The trial became a rallying cry for the movement as the defendants mocked the court and the case. They were ultimately acquitted of conspiracy, inciting to riot and other charges. However, they were given sentences for contempt of court by the hard-nosed judge in the case, Judge Julius Hoffman.

The trial became an utter circus, particularly due to the mocking of the court by Hoffman and Rubin, both “Yippies” (or members of The defendants, particularly members of the Youth International Party). At one point, Hoffman and Rubin appeared in court dressed in judicial robes. Huffman ordered them to remove the robes but then discovered that they had Chicago police uniforms underneath. Abbie Hoffman was particularly vocal, even telling Judge Hoffman “you are a shande fur de Goyim [disgrace in front of the gentiles]. You would have served Hitler better.”

The strategy ultimately worked for the defendants. It served to electrify the counter-culture and movement. While it resulted in contempt sentences (including for counsel), they had succeeded in making Judge Hoffman so angry that, on November 21, 1972, all of the convictions were reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on of judicial biased as well as other problems at trial. While contempt charges were retried before other judge, he did not impose a sentence on Dellinger, Rubin, Hoffman, and or their counsel.

That however would not be a good strategy today. Judges are all too familiar with the Chicago Eight litigation. Moreover, the case against the Chicago Eight was more attenuated than the claims raised against Charter. Nevertheless, there are going to be difficult issues for the court (and possible an appellate court) to resolve on evidence admissibility and the attribution of damage to an alleged leader of a protest.

“The Movement Is Winning”: Alleged Ringleader In Statue Attacks Claims Victory In Public Comments published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

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