bethanyblackblog

[bethanyblackblog]

Something I wrote a few years ago that bears repeating

Never has the Manic Street Preachers song title, "If White America Told The Truth For One Day Its World Would Fall Apart" been more appropriate. When I see what happened, what keeps happening over and over. White terrorists, white sports fans rioting white gangs getting into a shoot out leaving many dead and it getting played down. A lone crazy, not representative of white people, fans getting a little out of hand and playing games with the police, an altercation between two groups. When I see what happened on the streets of Ferguson, Charleston or anywhere that black people have had enough and protest and they get called thugs, rioters and chastised and told to stop making it about race. When I see how many trillions of dollars go into the millitary, sending disproportionately poor kids into conflict zones to protect the lives of Americans back home, and then see the rising death toll in the US due to gun crime, disproportionately white men killing women and people of colour. When I see how in the US trans women of colour have the highest death by homicide of ANY group in society. When I see this stuff, it blows my mind, it scares me and it makes me want to cry with the frustration and just... give up. It's fucking hopeless. I did a radio interview the other week, and we were talking about systems of oppression, how systemic prejudice is. That racism isn't something that you actively do, but how it's a system which benefits white people at the expense of others. It's the same with heteronormativity, patriarchy and cissexism. The interviewer was saying how he hated that this culture of racism is so ingrained that even though he'd never be actively racist he disliked the way the first thought he had when out at night and a young black guy (we never discussed whether he was in a suit on his way back from a city job, or if he was a working class kid, but I'm guessing it was the latter) was walking towards him on an empty street, his first thought would be to get a little nervous. I said that I don't have that reaction, and I don't, I'm not a saint. I'm no better than any other white person when it comes to this, I'm never actively racist, but I still do dumb white people shit all the time. I still want praise for being a decent human being. If I'm in my car and I let someone who is Black or Asian pull out in their car my head still goes "most people wouldn't have done that. You're better than most people, because they're mostly racists" handily allowing my internal monologue to skirt over the fact that that thought in itself is massively racist. But no, I don't have that thought when I see a black guy walking down the street, I may have a variant of the above one "Aren't I good I didn't even think that he was going to mug me?" Because I'm human, and an arsehole and I'm a work in progress. I am, however, more likely to be scared when I see a white guy walking down the street. Every time I've been attacked, almost every time someone's behaved out of character or threateningly or attacked without warning, verbally or physically it's been a straight white guy. In groups they're terrifying. If you are a woman, or gay, or trans, or bi, or any non-white race you basically have to put up with the fact that you're not the default setting for humanity, certainly not in The UK or the US. And any damage done to you, whether intentioned or not will probably happen as a result of you being other. Other than straight white cisgender male. And that DOESN'T mean if you are a straight white cisgender male that you're necessarily bad, it just means you benefit from the system in ways the rest of us don't. Often the ways you benefit are invisible to you, and that's okay, that still doesn't make you a bad person necessarily. That you get to go out and walk down the streets free from fear of attack, free from fear of arrest, free from fear of prejudice that will keep you from working or get you mocked in the street. That you get to see yourself represented on television and in films, and books, and politics, and in every walk of life so often that you don't get excited when you hear that there's a really good show on with loads of straight white cisgender guys in it, because your experience is normalised and anything else is considered a threat. These are all ways the world works in your favour. I benefit from some of those but not all, and you probably do too, we all have ways in which we get an easier ride than some and a worse ride than others. It's time we started talking about this. It's time we stopped getting defensive. I know in our heads we assume we're all good people doing the right thing, our minds like to tell us that, they need to for us to psychologically process some of the more dubious decisions we've been forced to take. But that's how we start to solve the problems like the racist terrorist attack in Charleston yesterday, that's how we start to look at why the rates of police stopping young black men in the UK are the same as they are in the US, the difference being we don't have as many guns so it takes a lot more for our police to kill an unarmed black man like Mark Duggan. Planning has to go into that one. It's how we solve problems like the disproportionately high incidence of mental health problems and suicide rates in the queer communities, it's how we reduce the number of rapes and sexual assaults, from one in four women being a victim to under a percent. We do it by looking inwards, look at ourselves, our motivations, who are we, how do we benefit from society like this, how can we change and order society to end this? It's a long long road, and some days it feels too much to fight, knowing that all you're hoping for is for it to be better, not perfect, just better than now. Just so the next generation can have it a bit easier, and the next and the next. It seems impossible, but we will get there in the end. We have to.

[bethanyblackblog]

“The thing is” They begin “The young have voted for free stuff, with no idea how to pay for it” they continue “But they’ll have to pay for it eventually.” They conclude.

And thus spoke various right wing political commentators since the General Election last Thursday.  Already sticking to the bias they particularly want confirmed. Young people are stupid and just want free stuff repeat the generation who voted in favour of Brexit and have benefited most from the introduction of the welfare state in Post War Britain.  

That’s a particularly broad stroke, and not everyone who’s annoyed at the youth voting for Labour is older.  Clare Foges who wrote the article for The Times entitled “Let’s stop treating the young as political sages” is 35, and made her career in her late 20’s as David Cameron’s speech writer.

She falls well within the age cohort to be considered a Millennial, I at the age of 38 am right at the very top end of that cohort according to some measures, I sure feel like I’m in the middle of it.  

 Others Like Godfrey “Godders” Bloom are more in the middle of your stereotypical age grouping for this sort of opinion. The received wisdom is that young people don’t understand economics, they just want loads of free stuff, and that the Labour Party cheated by offering them a better future, when the over 40’s recognised “there is no magic money tree”.

The problem is that as The Independent shared yesterday, The Labour Party won 50% of the 35-44 year-old vote.  People who are mid-career, people who in previous generations would have been most of their way through a mortgage and starting to think about how they were going to pass that on to their children, these are people who naturally tend to drift rightwards in order to protect their money and see the Conservatives as the party who will protect that.

Times have changed.

 In the 1980’s when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power and implemented the Milton Friedman, Chicago School of economics pretty much destroyed the manufacturing base in both the UK and the US, it signalled the death knell for various industries and left us in a situation where full employment could never happen again.  A lot of the low skilled and unskilled jobs went out of the country, that combined with mechanisation led to fewer people needed to do the same jobs.  Whilst this was a tragedy for the people whose jobs were lost it was fine for the Conservative government who were able to cut taxes by selling off public utilities into private hands and hoping that private business and entrepreneurship would fill the gap left by the previous industries, and if it didn’t then it was the fault of the people who weren’t clever or motivated enough to save themselves. So far, so “Atlas Shrugged”.  The problem is this is bollocks, and it doesn’t work that way.  Free-Market Capitalism is nice in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work.  It doesn’t take into account that most people aren’t “Rational actors” not everyone acts out of benign self-interest.  People are not rational, we have motivations that do not necessarily result in our self-interest at all, some of us are excessively altruistic and some are excessively selfish, the unfortunate problem with this brand of economic Darwinism is that it doesn’t balance out.

Anyway, jump forward 30 years, The Labour Party has gone a Third Way, accepting that in the UK’s political system the only way to get enough votes to translate to enough seats to be a majority in parliament is to appeal to those voters who sometimes vote for the Conservatives.  Tony Blair winning landslides in 1997 and 2001 mean that it moves into the received political wisdom.

The rise of the internet has changed the way people work and where people have to be to work, the economy has been built on ever increasing house prices, personal credit and the Square Mile in London which is home to Europe’s investment banking industry. Some reports put that square mile as responsible for 60% of the country’s GDP, any talk of anything that taxes them higher or closes loopholes is seen as economic suicide.

 Then 2008 happens.

 The world banking crisis happens quickly and suddenly someone like me who’d been blissfully unaware of how economics worked at all finds that it’s the biggest and most important subject to know anything about on a daily basis.  I’d just finished getting a university degree and was starting out on my career, about 8 years later than everyone else I grew up with because, well I had problems that are better expressed elsewhere.

I really resented having to learn about economics.  It didn’t interest me and seemed like it was “for cunts” as I’d have said at the time.  But I did, I read and I learned and here we are nearly 10 years later and I feel like I’ve got a bit of a grasp on it.

 I know that because I naturally lean leftwards I consider morality to be based entirely in whether it causes harm physically, emotionally or mentally, rather than if it causes harm to authority or social order.  So as a result certain narratives play better to me; less Milton, more Keynes.

 Anyway, in order not to go into bankruptcy like in the great depression the banks were bailed out, austerity was introduced, and the housing market was propped up allowing this bubble to artificially continue to grow.  The Bank of England dropped the base rate almost to zero and Quantitative Easing (The only magic money tree that matters) came into effect to help try to kick start the economy.  Of course, the people who work at the top level in the investment banks are not rational actors, they fall slightly to the “massively selfish money hoarder” side, as they have to in order to do their jobs properly, so rather than trickling down the economy it stayed at the top, and pushed wealth inequality to ever higher numbers.

 Ten years after the credit crunch that preceded the big crash and interest rates are still nearly zero. Most people in their mid 30’s still can’t afford a house and are paying ever increasing rents for ever dilapidating properties, people like me who’ve been out of university for 10 years and should really be in the middle of their careers who still struggle month to month on pay check to pay check, with massive personal debt just from trying to exist.

 No wonder Labour did well with everyone who wasn’t settled before 2008.

 But, free stuff.  Free stuff.  Free stuff.  That’s what this young and entitled cohort wants to vote for isn’t it?  Is it?

With interest rates as close to zero as they’ll ever be, any government borrowing and investment in infrastructure right now would be as close to a free loan as it’ll ever be, in turn it’ll create a lot more jobs, lots of younger and unskilled people working, earning, paying back in tax and spending the money.  Unlike those who were aided through quantitative easing, they’re less likely to hoard their money, and around that new businesses will spring.  With the increased money coming in it’ll be easier to pay down the debts run up, and easier to live within your means. A lot of my generation has learned that sometimes in order to survive you live beyond your means now, and then pay down that debt when you’re financially more able.

 A Keynesian model helps a Friedman model work, it’s only when there’s a social safety net that people really are in control of the right to sell their own labour for a good market rate.

 Those under 45 know that it’s not free stuff, it’s an investment in themselves, and an investment in their future because Thatcher was wrong, there Is such a thing as society, and there is such a thing as a societal good, and better educated people freed from personal debt make better choices that are in the best interests of everyone.

[bethanyblackblog]

[bethanyblackblog]

An elderly woman plays GTA V

[bethanyblackblog]

Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

[bethanyblackblog]

My seat back.

[bethanyblackblog]

The dream is over

I wrapped on Doctor Who on Wednesday. We shot my final scene and suddenly that was it, "That's a wrap on Bethany." They presented me with a chair back with my name and the Doctor Who Logo and away I went to get out of costume and take my make-up off. A life's ambition achieved, every moment relished and then... Over. I said bye to all the crew and to Sara my make-up artist and then went to my trailer and cried whilst I got changed. I know it's not over, it's not even begun, from here there's recording ADR then when it comes out there's the attention, and then for the rest of my life, Whovians like myself wanting to talk to me about it, writing emails to me, and the conventions. Who's always been a part of my life, and from here it will forever be a part of my life. It's awesome, but for now it's back to reality knowing that down in Cardiff the Doctor and Clara continue on their travels. As a fan of Doctor Who, being in it is like living it for real. The most interesting time of your life happens with the funny man in the blue box and then he goes, and you're left to deal with the reality, from danger, aliens and the time lord with all of time and space at his disposal to emptying a blocked sink, cleaning cat puke and doing my washing Greatest job in the world, and I recognise how lucky I am, so many millions of people would give anything to be in my position, and now to deal with the realisation, I've probably reached the peak of my life's ambitions. Where can you go after that? Star Wars? Marvel Comics Universe? Game of Thrones? Hopefully all three then a Sesame Street guest spot followed by Desert Island Discs, then to weep salt tears for there are no more worlds to conquer.

[bethanyblackblog]

Doctor Who and me

Ever since I was little, I mean tiny, the TV has been my best friend. Growing up as a queer kid in rural Lancashire in the early 80's That and my Commodore 64 were my only escape. I watched everything, but especially Doctor Who. My earliest TV memory was Peter Davison in Doctor Who in Four to Doomsday, I remember running into the lounge, running away from the music, running back in and hiding behind the couch, leaving when it got too much. I've been a Doctor Who fan ever since. The first time I remember seeing someone I wanted to be when I grew up it was Sophie Aldred as Ace. And I was heart broken when it was cancelled. As time went on I was a casual fan, I'd watch anything Doctor Who related when it came on the TV, whether it was BBC four showing old episodes, or the BBC's "Doctor Who Night" with sketches by the members of the League of Gentlemen. When it came back my passion was fired up again, stronger than when I was a kid, and my friendship with Toby Hadoke, who is one of the most knowledgeable Doctor Who fan I've ever met really cemented that. About ten years ago he was just starting an Edinburgh fringe run of his show "Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf" a show all about growing up as a Doctor Who fan, and how it helped him build a relationship with his kids. It's an amazing show, and I suggest you find yourselves a copy of it on CD or something, it's ace. I was fortunate enough to drive Toby on the tour that followed and saw his show over 40 times. Driving up and down the country I got to fill out the gaps in my knowledge. The excitement when Toby got help with the show from Russell T Davies, and then David Tennant recorded some bits for the show was immense, like touching a world of dreams that had seemed to perfect and out of reach, and now it wasn't, it was a tangible thing. And that's as close as I thought I'd get to it. Then last year, I accidentally ended up with an acting career. Honestly, I'd not thought about acting since I quit my performing arts A-level in 1996, I was having a tough time, I was skint, I'd broken my leg and couldn't work and suddenly someone passed me on an open casting call for Banana; Russell T Davies new series. I honestly never thought I'd get it. And then I did. And then two days later I was walking through the offices of the production company with Andy Pryor, the casting director of Doctor Who, when former show runner Russell T Davies came bounding out of his office and greeted me, my head was spinning, then I got sat in a room waiting to go into the read through with Andrew Hayden Smith, who'd been in David Tennant's first Cybermen story. I thought how lucky I was to be alive and to get to do this. It was an honour and a privilege. Anyway cut forward a year. I'm kind of thinking "well acting was fun, maybe I'll never get cast in anything else though." When my agent sent me a message that I'd got an audition for Doctor Who. I got it. I got the job. I had to keep it silent. But I GOT THE JOB! When I went down for the read through and saw my name on the table next to Jenna Coleman's it suddenly started to feel real. It is genuinely the greatest job I could ever have imagined getting. Everything about it is magical. I'm enjoying every day of filming and cherishing it, because you never know if you'll ever get to do anything like this again. I only hope that I do the role and the show justice, and that you all enjoy it. For me it's the gig of a lifetime.

[bethanyblackblog]

!!!!!!!! ATTENTION !!!!!!!!!

Illinois Woman Who Drove To Texas For New Job Found Hanging/Dead In Jail Cell 3 Days Later

Sandra Bland died in police custody this past Monday. Visiting Texas from Chicago to interview for a college job at her alma mater of Prairie View A&M, she was pulled over for a routine traffic violation (failure to use her turn signal). Everything from that point forward screams racism and foul play, including her death in the Waller County jail Monday.

The Waller County Sheriff’s Office told the Chicago Tribune that Bland was arrested on Friday and charged with “assault on a public servant.”

A video capturing the incident shows differently!! 

It shows several police officers standing over Bland while she is on the ground, arguing with them about why they’re being so rough. 

At one point, she can be heard saying, “You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that?” She also thanks the man recording the incident for filming as she is led to a police cruiser.

Her friend, Malcolm Jackson, told ABC 7, 

“After he (an officer) pulled her out of the car, forced her and tossed her to the ground, knee to the neck, and arrested her.”

What we see from a bystander video is her telling the officers she is in pain and cannot hear after her head was slammed on the ground by the male arresting officer. 

We have now learned that Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith, who made the first public comments about Bland’s in-custody death, was suspended for documented cases of racism when he was chief of police in Hempstead, Texas, in 2007. After serving his suspension, more complaints of racism came in, and Smith was actually fired as chief of police in Hempstead

Family and Friends close to Sandra, including most of twitter, is at an uproar, believing there was no way she committed suicide, and saying that foul play was at work.

“I do suspect foul play,” another friend, Cheryl Nanton, told the news station. “I believe that we are all 100 percent in belief that she did not do harm to herself.”

Source / Source / Source / Video

#StayWoke

[bethanyblackblog]

Serena Williams and the bizarre transphobic abuse

I know it's nearly a week late, but the Body Shaming of Serena Williams is awful, and also that NO ONE has mentioned that it's utterly transphobic in nature, even the people defending her have been guilty of transphobia, most of the abuse comes down to "Fucking hell, doesn't she look like a man?" Like masculinity in women is shameful, it's the worst thing a woman can be, you've seen cisgender women say it loads "God I look like a bloke!" Or "I sound like a bloke!" Or "christ, that makes me look like a drag queen!" Or even "that makes me look like a tranny!" Because, women who look masculine are defective, they're wrong, they're not women, they're not sexy, they're not enough, they're not quite human enough. The worst insult you can level at a woman. And the defenders go "No she doesn't!" Because they're still playing within the narrow parameters of socially acceptable gender presentation. People praising JK Rowling for doing just that, the same woman who in her latest Novel, The Silk Worm had a main villain who was a trans woman, who was described by pointing out the ways in which she didn't look female enough, and who within a page of her introduction had the main protagonist threaten her with men's prison, and how she'd clearly get raped a lot. In defending someone from bigotry, don't be a bigot yourself. What it means to be a woman is as different as women, there is no one way. So stop with your body shaming, and stop with your transphobia.

[bethanyblackblog]

[bethanyblackblog]

I love these. The words of Christian Grey over picture of Lord Flashheart

[bethanyblackblog]

"The only losers at Improv are the audience!" - Gene Belcher, Bob's Burgers.  I LOVE Bob's Burgers.

[bethanyblackblog]

White privilege is being a 21-year-old loser who plots and kills 9 people in their church and when you are confronted by the police, armed, you survive without incident. Later, when you’re escorted to the police station, you are not handcuffed and you even have a bulletproof vest for protection. Meanwhile, the media is already infantilizing you and blaming your actions on anything other than you, even though you planned this attack for 6 months. No one is asking why White men are so violent when 87% of mass killings in America have been committed by White men and nobody’s calling you a terrorist when your very intent was to cause terror.

[bethanyblackblog]

[bethanyblackblog]

If White America Told The Truth For One Day Its World Would Fall Apart

Never has the Manic Street Preachers song title, "If White America Told The Truth For One Day Its World Would Fall Apart" been more appropriate.

When I see what happened, what keeps happening over and over.  White terrorists, white sports fans rioting white gangs getting into a shoot out leaving many dead and it getting played down.  A lone crazy, not representative of white people, fans getting a little out of hand and playing games with the police, an altercation between two groups.

When I see what happened on the streets of Ferguson, Charleston or anywhere that black people have had enough and protest and they get called thugs, rioters and chastised and told to stop making it about race.  

When I see how many trillions of dollars go into the millitary, sending disproportionately poor kids into conflict zones to protect the lives of Americans back home, and then see the rising death toll in the US due to gun crime, disproportionately white men killing women and people of colour.

When I see how in the US trans women of colour have the highest death by homicide of ANY group in society.

When I see this stuff, it blows my mind, it scares me and it makes me want to cry with the frustration and just... give up.  It's fucking hopeless.

I did a radio interview the other week, and we were talking about systems of oppression, how systemic prejudice is.  That racism isn't something that you actively do, but how it's a system which benefits white people at the expense of others.  It's the same with heteronormativity, patriarchy and cissexism.  

The interviewer was saying how he hated that this culture of racism is so ingrained that even though he'd never be actively racist he disliked the way the first thought he had when out at night and a young black guy (we never discussed whether he was in a suit on his way back from a city job, or if he was a working class kid, but I'm guessing it was the latter) was walking towards him on an empty street, his first thought would be to get a little nervous.

I said that I don't have that reaction, and I don't, I'm not a saint.  I'm no better than any other white person when it comes to this, I'm never actively racist, but I still do dumb white people shit all the time.  I still want praise for being a decent human being.  If I'm in my car and I let someone who is Black or Asian pull out in their car my head still goes "most people wouldn't have done that.  You're better than most people, because they're mostly racists"  handily allowing my internal monologue to skirt over the fact that that thought in itself is massively racist.

But no, I don't have that thought when I see a black guy walking down the street, I may have a variant of the above one "Aren't I good I didn't even think that he was going to mug me?"  Because I'm human, and an arsehole and I'm a work in progress.

I am, however, more likely to be scared when I see a white guy walking down the street.  Every time I've been attacked, almost every time someone's behaved out of character or threateningly or attacked without warning, verbally or physically it's been a straight white guy.  In groups they're terrifying.

If you are a woman, or gay, or trans, or bi, or any non-white race you basically have to put up with the fact that you're not the default setting for humanity, certainly not in The UK or the US. And any damage done to you, whether intentioned or not will probably happen as a result of you being other.  Other than straight white cisgender male.  And that DOESN'T mean if you are a straight white cisgender male that you're necessarily bad, it just means you benefit from the system in ways the rest of us don't.  Often the ways you benefit are invisible to you, and that's okay, that still doesn't make you a bad person necessarily.

That you get to go out and walk down the streets free from fear of attack, free from fear of arrest, free from fear of prejudice that will keep you from working or get you mocked in the street.  That you get to see yourself represented on television and in films, and books, and politics, and in every walk of life so often that you don't get excited when you hear that there's a really good show on with loads of straight white cisgender guys in it, because your experience is normalised and anything else is considered a threat.  These are all ways the world works in your favour.

I benefit from some of those but not all, and you probably do too, we all have ways in which we get an easier ride than some and a worse ride than others.  It's time we started talking about this.  It's time we stopped getting defensive.  I know in our heads we assume we're all good people doing the right thing, our minds like to tell us that, they need to for us to psychologically process some of the more dubious decisions we've been forced to take.

But that's how we start to solve the problems like the racist terrorist attack in Charleston yesterday, that's how we start to look at why the rates of police stopping young black men in the UK are the same as they are in the US, the difference being we don't have as many guns so it takes a lot more for our police to kill an unarmed black man like Mark Duggan.  Planning has to go into that one.  It's how we solve problems like the disproportionately high incidence of mental health problems and suicide rates in the queer communities, it's how we reduce the number of rapes and sexual assaults, from one in four women being a victim to under a percent.  We do it by looking inwards, look at ourselves, our motivations, who are we, how do we benefit from society like this, how can we change and order society to end this?

It's a long long road, and some days it feels too much to fight, knowing that all you're hoping for is for it to be better, not perfect, just better than now.  Just so the next generation can have it a bit easier, and the next and the next.  It seems impossible, but we will get there in the end.  We have to.