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pluviophile-bookworm · 3 years

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AWAE 3x3 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

So I made a ginormous pause in between these again. I just wasn’t feeling up to the task, I guess. But it’s the anniversary of the premiere of AWAE, so what better day to do the penultimate one of these... Let’s just dive in because it’s been literal years since I first saw this episode and I remember literally nothing from it.

Oh my, Bash is just the best. And those baby chicks... well, I know what is most likely to happen to chickens on a farm when they grow older but... can we just maybe not think of that yet? Plus, seeing Mary keeps reminding me that soon I won’t be seeing her anymore. It’s safe to say I have mixed feelings about this cold open. Let’s move on.

Gosh, now they’re leaving Matthew alone with Delly, who is two types of people he’s uncomfortable around - a baby and a girl. But it’s fine, it will be just ‘a couple of hours’...

It is such a shame to think that Mary might have been saved... if she were white. People can be so awful. A human being is a human being. At least there are people like Dr. Ward and our protagonists who know that and act accordingly.

Oh... there’s that cute scene of Matthew showing Delly around Green Gables that I’ve seen in so many gifs... I can’t comment much on it so I’ll just sit back and enjoy. But before I go - Matthew is the best, most gentle man I’ve ever seen. He might be awkward around women and children, but he knows how to treat them right better than most people who are not awkward around them.

Oh gosh, the nappy! That kind of made me laugh out of place but, well, I just wanted to say - thank gods for Jerry and his many siblings. My boy knows how to change nappies.

Oh, they’ve got the printing press! Now that’s exciting! I feel like excitement is a good word to describe this episode, at least so far. We’ll see how I feel by the end of it. All I know is this is making me smile and I’ve really been needing that.

My, my, Ruby... I keep forgetting when it was that she got over Gilbert. Apparently it was not before mid-season, since she’s still in it way too deep.

Oh wait... is this when things began happening between her and Moody? I mean, the way he gives her his handkerchief, you’d think ever since he stopped trying to make Diana and her ‘very blue’ dress notice him, he’s been sitting back and watching Ruby from afar, hoping he can, somehow, compare to Gilbert. The best part is, in just a bit, he won’t need to. Boy, do I need a fourth season even if just to see these two develop... and for Diana and Jerry to make up, and just in general to see the kids being all grown up... now I feel like crying because we’ll very probably never get it... ok, moving on.

Anne: Sometimes life finds gifts in the darkest of places./ Marilla: Indeed. Wait, was this Marilla’s way of telling Anne she loves her? This is just the best.

The contrast between scenes dealing with Mary and the rest of the episode is just so stark, it’s jarring. It’s like, you never know the darkness someone might be sinking into while everybody else is bathing in the light. You know, everybody involved in making this episode, and the show in its entirety, made it so poetic, and yet it’s not. It’s absolutely devastating. And now Gilbert can’t even tell Mary that she’s got no more than two weeks left. This is the worst.

You know, Anne is right. Caring deeply will always be the right thing. I mean, it’s natural for Gilbert to doubt himself at this time, especially since the tragedy is happening to his own found family. You know, there’s something my mum taught me to do when I’m watching something and I can’t bear the subject matter of it - focus on the acting. And right now I’m just blown away by the superb performance by these incredible young people. But I really can’t bear to focus on the plot right now. And the acting being that good doesn’t particularly help me to detach myself from the story.

You know, tragic as what’s happening to Mary certainly is, it’s somehow lucky she has Anne in her life now that she’s about to leave her own daughter to grow up motherless. Because if only Anne’s parents had an orphan tell them what an orphaned child needs most, Anne’s own experience might have been very different. Mary is a very smart woman for realising that and talking to Anne about it. Because life is not about lamenting what we didn’t have. It’s about making sure we do what is in our power to make it easier for others if we can.

Ah, yes. Racism and ‘White Man’s Burden’ mentality are still very much a thing present here. I guess this here is the first mention of that horrible prison of a school that Ka’kwet would be sent to. This is. The. Worst.

I just can’t bear to listen to this guy. ‘Heathens’ - you mean people with a rich culture and belief system beyond your privileged straight white male comprehension? ‘Teach them all things civilised’ - you mean erase their own, I repeat, rich culture, and replace it with your white man’s ideas of civilisation? What deity fell from the heavens and made you God? And the way Rachel totally agrees with this guy, it just makes me sick. As if that guy would hesitate to discriminate against you on the basis of you being a woman! I just can’t with this. Let’s move on.

‘Be sure you marry for love. Only for love.’ Don’t worry, Mary, he will. Not before a huge, long period of confusion, mind you. But he’ll come to his senses eventually. People do stupid things when they’re young. That’s how they know they’ve lived it to the fullest.

Rachel just baffles me, you know. And Marilla, too, isn’t quite faultless here. How can you be so accepting of one kind of POC, yet so cruel to another? Then I remember their initial reactions to meeting Bash. They were not the most accepting at first. Yet they can see how they’ve now grown to accept and care deeply about Bash and Mary and Delphine. Why can’t they give Ka’kwet’s people a chance like this?

‘You may well have saved some Indians today’... Saved them? From what? Being free to practice their own culture? You know, white people can be so very ignorant... and I say that as a very white person. I’m just ashamed of everything my ethnicity has done to literally every other ethnicity.

‘I don’t wanna die’... You know, sometimes I do, and right now that makes me feel so ashamed. I should really think of Mary and also every real person who had an untimely death whenever I’m having those thoughts again. We should all learn to appreciate life so much more.

So this is the one with Mary’s Easter... this is beautiful. I might have to rescind my ‘excitement’ statement from earlier, but there is still a theme of beauty, love and family throughout this. Well, technically throughout the entire series, but especially here. I love this.

Delphine with a flower crown is the cutest thing ever...

Minnie May: She looks like a chocolate candy. I just... took notice of how the background music abruptly stopped. You know, coming from an older person, this would sound... not at all ok. But this 7-year-old didn’t mean any harm, and they realise it after a brief moment of panic in their eyes. Still... black people don’t call us, idk, butter or something. We should not compare their skin colour to chocolate.

Their singing is absolutely beautiful. But let’s be real - in a real-life situation, most of the people would be way off-key and those harmonies would be impossible to arrange. Still, for this beauty, I am willing to suspend my disbelief for miles. Also, that prayer at the end... well, I’m not Christian, but I am religious, and I know the power of a prayer as poetic as this one. However hard it must have been for Mary to know she wouldn’t live, it must have been a great consolation to know she would go in such a way, surrounded by so much beauty and love, and light. Well, that ending was bittersweet! But I absolutely loved this episode. Except for the racist parts that made me absolutely livid. It’s so frustrating to know there is still so much hate in the world based just on minor superficial differences between people. Yet it would have been even more frustrating if we didn’t have people in the world like our protagonists (and especially the protagonist, Anne). It is such an absolute shame that this show, and others like it, got cancelled over some trivial issues and wasn’t given the proper chance to develop its positive messages even further. But still, even with just the 27 episodes it was given, it was able to cover so much ground. I don’t know what to say. AWAE is just supreme.

Let’s sum up: the final weeks of Mary’s life; racial prejudice might have just cost this lovely woman, a wife and a mother, her life; Matthew showing Delly around Green Gables is the sweetest thing; the first press-printed issue of The Avonlea Gazette, with a significant typo; and thus, a ship was born; subtle ways of saying those three little words; ‘Caring deeply will always be the right thing.’; the legacy of a mother; ‘White Man’s Burden’ mentality is alive and dangerous; double standards regarding the acceptance of POC; Mary’s Easter; going surrounded by a loving community.

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tessatechaitea · 7 years

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New Super-man #5

MAGA!

Don't worry! Global warming from air pollution isn't a problem! Everything will be okay when seeing a blue sky is a rare occurrence. This was the sky every day in Eastern China and Hong Kong. And this was from 1997.

The comic book shows The Bund at night where you can see stars. When they erupt out of their submarine to discuss books with the people, The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom even comment on how "mesmerizing" the stars are. Ha! As if. The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom have stolen Starro from the Ministry of Self-Reliance (I know, I know. So ironic that they'd have Starro!) and they're planning on using it against the communist regime who won't let them read The Cave of Time in its original English. All they get is the Chinese Translation with the Government Approved Endings! Kenan has just walked in on his father wearing his Flying Dragon Father costume and now he has questions up the proverbial wazoo. Is the wazoo actually proverbial? Do things have to have been mentioned in The Book of Proverbs to be proverbial? What is a proverb anyway? Like a combination verb and pronoun? Flying Dragon Father tells his origin story to his son because he wants Kenan to fight for the correct side. The correct side is obviously the one against China's governmental interests. Those fucking Communists are evil. Not because they're Communists, of course. Capitalists are fucking evil too! The common factor there is the part where the people who come to power by whatever means one comes to power in whatever economic or political system exists in the country they were raised tend to be ambitious, selfish, greedy assholes. The kind of people who would rule well don't crave the kinds of power, status, and money that comes with ruling. So they never wind up in power. Go figure, right?! Flying Dragon Father met Kenan's mother in the early college incarnation of The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom. They have their Harry Met Sally relationship that eventually leads to Kenan.

I wish she'd become the Leather Liberty Goddess.

Flying Dragon Father reveals the big shock twist: the Ministry of Self-Reliance killed Kenan's mother! Okay, so it wasn't as shocking as you might have thought by my calling it a big shock twist and using an exclamation point. But if you're familiar with my blog then you know exclamation points mean nothing! It's like I'm a rich kid just burning money if money were exclamation points and they made people wealthy. Now Kenan has a decision to make. Does he continue to fight for the Ministry of Self-Reliance or become a mole for the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom? Or does he go his own way and forge his own path which will probably lead to Laney Lan's bedroom and some kinky ass roleplay. Kenan chooses to go off with his father to help the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom. Bat-man and Wonder-Woman also head to The Bund to try to stop the Book Club. Also joining the fray? The Great Ten! You might remember one of them, August General in Iron. If you remember any of the other nine, you get a cookie. But not my cookie.

Even Book Clubs of Ultimate Freedom have to deal with power-mad narcissists who insist on ruining everything by thinking the end justifies the means.

Uncle Human Firecracker actually says, "Whatever it takes for the greater good." See? Total dickmonster. Mmm, dickmonster. Both Kenan and Flying Dragon Father aren't too happy about Uncle Human Firecracker's methods and decide it might be time to stop him. Isn't this always the way with book clubs? They always fall apart due to infighting.

I just realized why I like Kenan so much. He's a total Huck Finn.

I like to assume that I can say something like "he's a total Huck Finn" and people will completely understand what I mean. While I believe the literary canon really needs to be expanded to include more voices of non-white males, I still think it's usefulness in writing shorthand to others is beyond compare. The literary canon should never shrink, it should just grow bigger and bigger. Sure it's more work for those who want to understand everything anybody ever writes. But fuck is it useful. I'm not religious but you'd better believe I've read The Bible because without that foundation, you're not fully accessing a majority of Western Literature. If the Ultimate Literary Canon of Freedom is expanded enough, people will be expected to also know The Koran and the Bhagavad Gita and, um, the other ones that are probably important to people who didn't grow up with a white, Western education. Uncle Human Firecracker somehow does something to remove Kenan's powers. He probably had some of those miniature red suns in his glove. Kenan almost drowns but Flying Dragon Father rescues him and takes him to the Ministry of Self-Reliance to be healed. So people's loyalties are becoming a bit fuzzy due to other loyalties. Meanwhile, Uncle Human Firecracker shoves a bunch of Starro-captured motherfuckers onto a plane. He's going to fly it into Beijing and the seat of Communist power so that he can mind-control them all into becoming a democracy. Sounds about right. But! On the plane is Lixin, the fat kid whose lunch money Kenan used to steal! He's not supposed to be there but his parents own the airline and he's trying to make a Youtube video or something in the cockpit. I guess he's going to have to be the hero on the hijacked plane! Always bet on fat! Super-man doesn't get his powers back even with a blast of yellow sun radiation. It looks like he lost his powers when he felt his dad was disappointed in him. So his powers fluctuate based on his esteem? That's actually a good thing for Kenan! Mostly, he's as cocky and arrogant as I am.

Heh heh. Compliance devices.

Super-man and Flying Dragon Father rush off to stop the plane. I guess Kenan's powers will come back now that he knows his father is proud of him. I hope Lixin becomes his pal! Does Lixin mean "Jimmy Olsen" in Chinese? What Did We Learn? Being confident is where real power comes from! You know that's true because it's what all the Men's Rights Advocates say! I think they're basic rule is to be confident even when you know you're a disgusting piece of shit that no woman in their right mind would ever touch. The worst part about this advice is that it's right. Being confident is attractive! The problem is faking confidence simply to get laid. If you need to get laid and you want confidence, pay a sex worker (preferably in someplace where it's legal because it should all be legal and by participating in places where it isn't legal, you're just encouraging illegal sex work which endangers women). They'll tell you how big your cock is and how good you are at the penetrations! Even if you blow your load too early, they won't act disappointed and upset and become bitter and resentful that you're not seeing to their needs. Although thinking you're good at sex when you're not might be harmful to your relationships in the long run. But at least getting laid might keep you from going on the Internet and getting involved with these MRA jerks. The Ranking! +1! This comic book is the best! Or close to the best! Don't challenge me! What I say here doesn't have to match up with what's over there on the sidebar in the Rankings. Especially if you're reading this on Blogger since I never fucking update the list on that site.

#New Super-man #DC Comics #Gene Luen Yang #Viktor Bogdanovic #Richard Friend #Hi-Fi

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andrewdburton · 6 years

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The plight of the poor: Thoughts on systemic poverty, fault, and responsibility

I write a lot at Get Rich Slowly about habits that foster wealth and success.

Like it or not, there are very real differences between the behaviors and attitudes of those who have money and those who don’t. This isn’t me being classist or racist. It’s a fact. And I think that if we want ourselves and others to be able to enjoy economic mobility, to escape poverty and dire circumstances, we have to have an understanding of the necessary mental shifts.

The problem, of course, is that it’s one thing to understand intellectually that wealthy people and poor people have different mindsets, but it’s another thing entirely to be able to adopt more productive attitudes in your own life.

In fact, sometimes it’s downright impossible. If you’re poor, you’re often too busy struggling to survive.

The Plight of the Poor

There’s a seductive myth that poor people deserve what they get. If poor people are poor, it’s their own fault. If they wanted to be middle class (or wealthy), if they wanted to be successful, then they’d do the things that lead to wealth and success.

Look, let’s get real. Nobody wants to be poor. Nobody wants to struggle from day to day wondering where they’re going to get money for food, for clothing, for medicine. And studies show that if you give poor people cash, they really do tend to use the money to improve their lives instead of squandering it on alcohol and cigarettes.

Yes, there are absolutely people who do dumb things that keep them mired in debt and despair. No question. Some people are poor because they’ve made poor choices.

But far more people live in poverty due to systemic issues and/or historical legacy than due to a pattern of financial misbehavior. Most poor people were born into poverty and don’t have the knowledge or resources to escape it.

What’s more, poverty actually alters the way people think and behave. It’s great for us to have discussions about the mindsets of millionaires, but the truth is it can be difficult (if not impossible) for poor people to make sense of some of the things we talk about. Here’s a quote from a 2015 article about the psychological effects of poverty (from the magazine for the Association for Psychological Science):

Decades of research have already documented that people who deal with stressors such as low family income, discrimination, limited access to health care, exposure to crime, and other conditions of low [socio-economic status] are highly susceptible to physical and mental disorders, low educational attainment, and low IQ scores…

[…]

Studies also show that poverty in the earliest years of childhood may be more harmful than poverty later in childhood.

Poverty breeds poverty. Economic mobility does exist and people do manage to make it to the middle class, but it’s not easy. On an individual level, people become trapped by a “poverty mindset”. On a societal level, there are systemic and historical issues that exacerbate poverty and make it difficult to escape.

This morning, Kris (my ex-wife) sent me a long Twitter rant from Linda Tirado about how poverty changes your brain. It’s fascinating. (For the past few years, Tirado has been a polarizing figure in poverty debates.) Kris also helped me edit this article, which she thinks is totally misguided. (She’s a crusader for societal change!)

Systemic Poverty in Action

As an exercise, let’s look at the single largest example of systemic poverty in the United States.

For hundreds of years, white Americans enslaved black Americans. Around 150 years ago, slavery was abolished in this country.

In 1860, slaves made up 13% of the U.S. population. After Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on 01 January 1863 (and after the Civil War), these slaves were made free. But that freedom did not mean they were given an equal playing field with other Americans. Economically, for most black people, things got worse.

During the late 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (or WPA) conducted the Federal Writers’ Project, an attempt to create a sort of oral history of the United States. As part of this, the WPA compiled a 10,000-page collection covering 2000 interviews with former slaves. If you’ve never read it, the Slave Narratives are equal parts frustrating and fascinating. They offer a first-hand view of what life was like for black Americans both during and after slavery.

For purposes of our current discussion, the Slave Narratives clearly demonstrate the origins of black poverty in the United States. Take this volume of stories, for instance, which is peppered with anecdotes about how difficult it was for former slaves to make ends meet after the Civil War. (If you’re offended by a certain racial epithet, even when it’s used in context by members of that race, you should skip the following quotes.)

Here’s Ella Kelley from Winnsboro, South Carolina:

Money? Help me Jesus, no. How could I ever see it? In de kitchen I see none, and how I see money any where else, your honor? Nigger never had none. I ain’t got any money now, long time since I see any money.

And here’s James Johnson (“The Cotton Man”) from Columbia, South Carolina describing his experience:

It ain’t what a nigger knows dat keeps him down. No, sir. It is what he don’t know, dat keeps de black man in de background. […] I sho’ am glad I didn’t come ‘long then. I feels and knows dat de years after de war was worser than befo’. Befo’ de war, niggers did have a place to lie down at night and somewhere to eat, when they got hungry in slavery time. Since them times, a many a nigger has had it tough to make a livin’. I knows dat is so, too, ’cause I has been all ‘long dere.

If you read interviews with former slaves, you see this pattern again and again. During slavery, their basic needs — food, shelter, clothing — were provided (at the cost of their freedom, of course). After slavery, meeting these basic needs became a struggle. The former slaves talk about this period as “the hard times”, and that seems apt.

Obviously, the abolition of slavery was a good thing. But the process failed to provide a means for newly-free Americans to become self-sufficient.

Houston Hartsfield Holloway, a former slave who taught himself to read and write, became a traveling preacher after emancipation. He once wrote, “We colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them.” Colored people didn’t know the rules of the game, and they were playing at a severe disadvantage.

Please note that I am in no way defending slavery. Far from it. I’m merely pointing out that upon emancipation, black Americans did not magically become equal with white Americans. Aside from receiving their freedom, things got worse economically for the majority of former slaves.

Think of it this way: A group of friends is playing Monopoly. Everyone has been around the board a few times. Most of the players have acquired a few properties and some cash. One player has managed to build hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk. In walks another friend, Jenny. The group invites Jenny to play the game, but she has to start at square one. Not even square one, actually. She doesn’t get the same $1500 everyone else got at the start of the game. She gets nothing except the wheelbarrow token. Jenny spends the rest of the game trying to gather enough money to pay the rents when she lands on properties the other players own. She never gets an opportunity to begin stockpiling money so that she can buy property of her own.

In this situation, is it Jenny’s fault that she’s unable to compete with the other players? Of course not! She was handicapped from the start. Yet for some reason, there are people who cannot comprehend that there are large populations in the U.S. that suffer similar handicaps in real life. Yes, it’s true: The economic effects of slavery are still being felt today, more than 150 years after the institution was abolished in this country.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for white Americans in 2010 was 11.6%. The poverty rate for black Americans was 25.8%.

A Widespread Problem

That’s just one example. It’s not just black Americans who have been handicapped in the game of wealth.

For most of its history, the United States has been the proverbial melting pot, a place where people from other countries came to escape their pasts and to pursue more promising futures.

Many, many of the people who immigrated to the United States were poor. They fled poverty in Russia or Ireland or Italy or Poland or Germany or Mexico or China only to find a different sort of poverty here. Sure, we celebrate success stories of people who achieve the American Dream — as we should! — but there are just as many stories of families who came to the U.S., worked hard, and…struggled to get by. (Don’t get me started on Native Americans. They’ve been screwed over repeatedly, essentially been forced into poverty. The afore-mentioned Census data revealed that Native Americans had the highest poverty rate at 27.0%.)

By this point, I’m sure some of you are bemoaning the fact that I’m a bleeding-heart liberal. I’m not. And, generally speaking, Get Rich Slowly does not do politics. (I’m doing my best to keep this piece apolitical too.)

I did, however, grow up in poverty. Not ex-slavery poverty, but poverty nonetheless. Post-poverty, I spent nearly twenty years digging out of debt. While my life is comfortable now (and I have plenty of money), that hasn’t always been the case. I have lots of financial empathy for people who are poor because I have first-hand experience with some of the problems they face.

I’m not willing to dismiss the poor as stupid or ignorant or lazy or unmotivated because I don’t believe it’s true. Besides, my aim at Get Rich Slowly is to help everybody get better with money, no matter where they’re starting from.

Solving Poverty One Person at a Time

But here’s where I part ways with my more progressive friends: While I agree that there are very real problems with systemic poverty in this country (and, more so, in the world at large), I think it’s pointless to try to fix these problems on a grand scale. It’s never going to happen. You’re not going to eliminate poverty through government policy. You’re not going to eliminate poverty through redistribution of wealth. You’re not going to eliminate poverty by trying to make wealthy people feel guilty or by inciting class warfare.

Sure, we as a society should foster economic policies that make it possible for everyone to have the opportunity to succeed. No question. But I believe that poverty must be solved one person at a time.

I believe strongly that the best way to help individual people escape poverty — to escape it permanently — is to teach them the skills and give them the tools needed to improve their circumstances, to show them that the quickest and easiest way for them to defeat poverty is to do it themselves.

Your situation may not be your fault but it is your responsibility. It’s up to you to change things for the better. It’s up to you to learn how money works, then use that knowledge to build the life you want. It’s up to you to dig out of debt, shake the shackles of poverty, and work your way toward financial freedom.

Here’s something actor Will Smith posted to Instagram a couple of weeks ago about the difference between fault and responsibility:

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If you’re poor, it’s probably not your fault that you’re poor. But like it or not, it’s your responsibility to escape that poverty.

Meanwhile, I believe the rest of us have a responsibility to:

Acknowledge that not everyone enjoys the same start in life,

Create a “level playing field”, removing barriers to class mobility, and

Do what we can to help those who are less fortunate work to improve their situation.

What does that mean for you? I don’t know. Only you can make that call.

For me, it means meeting with anyone who wants to pick my brain. It means publishing material at Get Rich Slowly that can help people of all circumstances better manage the money they have. It means teaching migrant workers how to budget. It means investing in businesses that help people to help themselves.

I do believe that wealthy people and poor people think differently. And I do believe economic mobility is possible in the United States. But I also believe that it’s callous to dismiss poor people as lazy, stupid, and unmotivated. Poverty is a weight. It’s a handicap. It’s a trap. We should be doing what we can to help others escape this trap.

Again, I recognize that this topic is loaded with political ramifications. While we generally steer clear of politics at GRS, I understand that this discussion is going to go there. That’s fine. What’s not fine are name-calling, facile arguments, and gross generalizations. Please keep the conversation civil!

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