#'no David racists are inherently bad people and you're a good person'

[tanadrin]

went back and listened to the episodes on david bokovoy's personal experience with religion, and man, it's funny just how different the stuff that people twig on in their experience of faith is--for bokovoy, even as a scholar of biblical criticism, it really isn't the truth claims of the LDS church that were ever a problem for him. like his academic career definitely primed him to move from a more orthodox, small-c conservative theology to a more expansive one (and he remains a pretty spiritual guy in general from the sound of it), but the thing that really started to fuck him up was the church's insistence on beating the anti-gay-marriage drum, starting with proposition 8, and culminating in the 2015 declaration about the children of gay parents not being welcome in the church unless they denounced them.

and it's a little infuriating to listen to him talk about how he feels about the LDS church after all of that--this whole "the leadership are good people deep down, i just disagree with them on this." like, come on, dude. i get that you're a straight guy whose experiences with mormonism have been generally very positive, but you are also self-aware enough to talk with compassion about LGBT people, about the experience of having a gay daughter, about the way in which people raised in Mormonism who are gay or even just a little bit nonconformist in some aspect of their life can have a really brutal time of it, and yet you cling to this idea of the organization as having some noble core, some inherently good quality that is only failing in its ultimate expression. he even talks about the experience of watching a movie that dramatizes the way different faith leaders came together during the civil rights movement, and having a moment of acute discomfort remembering that at the same time the leadership of the LDS church was still racist as hell in its teachings and policy

like, you should not be afraid to admit that the LDS church fucking sucks! it's always fucking sucked! most organized religion fucking sucks, and the organized religion that doesn't fucking suck has mostly gotten there by virtue of progressives splintering off and forming organizations that retain only a general flavor of the awful bullshit they grew up with and none of the core dogmas. i don't know of a human organization from the beginning of time that rigidly patrols boundaries of identity politics and creates structures of authority based on spirituality that didn't rapidly collapse into tyranny, a grift, or both, except the ones that were already that from the beginning.

and this, i suppose, is my disappointment with even the very open-minded progressives that John Dehlin interviews, which is that they want to redeem an organization that i think is fundamentally unredeemable. no particular shade to mormonism here--I think the Catholic church is also fundamentally unredeemable. hell, if i knew more about tibetan buddhism, i'd probably think that whole hierarchy was fundamentally unredeemable as well. the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints cannot become progressive on LGBT issues and honestly pursue truth and cease to misrepresent its history and spend its money on helping the poor and needy instead of conservative political campaigns and exploiting eighteen year olds to do morally questionable missionary work in third world countries without ceasing to be the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and its leadership knows this. for the exact same reason the Roman Catholic church can't go "lol you know what, our bad, this Pope guy isn't all that he's cracked up to be" and remain the Roman Catholic church.

i mean ultimately bokovoy doesn't go to church anymore; he says that the 2015 declaration was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, and even if it was revoked tomorrow, it's not like he'd start going back. i assume he's not tithing anymore either. and he seems like a generally very gentle soul who wants to see the best in people, and i don't want to get on his case too much about that, because i admire that. but man, i think it's kind of disappointing to watch someone as apparently smart and compassionate as he is work himself into knots to excuse the behavior of the leadership of an organization like that when the simplest explanation is just that these people are assholes on a fundamental level and always have been.

[rametarin]

That weird phenomenon.

The people running around screaming at non-Asian people that if you like Asian girls, you must be a pedo.

They aren't right wing white supremacists. These are the leftist of the left, "women have curves," "healthy at any size," "it's a CULTURE CRIME to feature a woman in art and media that is skinny because it gives SOCIETY a false ideal of feminine beauty we don't like." believing, progressives.

But just like how progressives relied on the eco-warriors to be eco-terrorists in the 80s and 90s, just to go "they aren't affiliated with us; those are actually eco-fascists and have more in common with the right wing. :^)", mark my words.

5-15 years from now they're going to talk about this phenomenon in sociology textbooks and talk about how it was a bunch of insecure right wing white men and women screaming about how Asian femininity was infantile and the big worry was actually Yellow Panic and fear of miscegenation. When the reality is, the motivation of the people objecting to skinny or fit Asian women in media is because it contradicts the fat and mid to ugly standard they want to be for iconic female beauty.

They'll genuinely try to play this bullshit off as the sort of shit under the same umbrella as Trump and Ben Shapiro and David Duke. And completely abandon any attachment to it to these fat advocates, mad that media won't bend over backwards to put, "more realistic women" in every star slot by preference.

Because they are genuinely using this as an argument for why more slender Asian motion capture and body types are somehow wrong for body models. In Asia, or outside of it. They're unironically saying Asian women have "underdeveloped" bodies and those that prefer them are effectively dangerous monsters.

And then because, "the left is inherently anti-racist, so you can't have racist progressivism," that's the line of thinking that will attribute bigotry and ignorance in the name of their goals and objectives for culture on arbitrary "right wing conservatives" in abstract concept.

Imagine if you could rob someone's house and go, "It wasn't me, I'm a Good Boy. Good Boys don't rob banks, so it couldn't have been me. But I hear Daniel the Bad Boy Bank Robber has robbed banks before; clearly, he's the person that must've done it. Because as a Good Boy, I'm incapable of that.

That's the sort of response you get when you say that certain flavors of leftism have fascistic or authoritarian centralism desiring streaks. They go, "Nuh-uh, that's right-wing. So those are actually right wing, because the left opposes authoritarianism and fascism."

People that will run as far left candidates, aspire to impose far left policies, impose ludicrous policies for principle reasons no matter what reality says. Retroactively, they'll have what's wrong with them get discredited as more problems from the right wing, because, "that's the sort of thing conservatives do."

FUCKING OWN your ignorance and bigotry and accept racism and bigotry and stupid values based on them can absolutely be progressive, left-wing views. Running around screaming that people (specifically, whites. Specifically, men) are pedophiles because Asian women aren't, "REAL women with curves" unless they're fat and average to ugly, is asinine and terrible, and anyone that purports to be progressive at all should feel ashamed of the mental gymnastics and philosophical corruption it took to get here.

They're just clinging to this idea that NOT trying to put fat and average women up on a pedestal in the media as The Hot Girl icons is somehow a disservice to them, that somehow you're supposed to just tokenistically "make" a body type and standard popular because "oppressed." That somehow you can manipulate what society finds attractive by telling them, "society finds this attractive."

It's a pipe dream of autocrats that believe they have, with the stroke of a pen, the ability to rewrite the DNA of their entire populace as if they're objects, and that they have the right to do so. That principle matters more than the reality of DNA and personal choice because, "my principle is RIGHT!"

It's so embarrassing being a westerner that enjoys Asian media, because seeing the intersectionalists try and sneak in to being the rudder of foreign Asian content and top from the bottom on what their media and literary culture is, or is allowed to be, makes me worried they'll see this not as the specific political philosophy it is, but as the west itself trying to sabotage and control their culture, thoughts and minds.

You intersectionalists are every bit as imperialist as you view any other sort of imperiaism, you just do mental backflips to define the imperialism as something limited to wrong people, not good right people with your correct views and values. You determine something to be absolutely true despite having subjective origins and roots, based on the idea nothing objectively matters more than your subjective values and principles, and interpretation of the world must begin and end bowing to those. That is the stubborn source that defines things the way they are under postmodernist social constructionism, and why they're at such odds when reality threatens what they view as civil rights.

It's an incredibly bad faith, dogmatic system of understanding and interpreting the world that you don't even have the temerity to cite singular books from, because you know if you cite the literature consistently, that'd bring debate of and to it, and it's easier just to have your ideological opponents swing at shadows, not know where you're getting your values or political culture to even argue or debate with you on them, unless you own the debate class and the school it takes place in.

So we wind up in this awkward time and space where supposed anti-racist fat activists are demanding censorship and browbeating for female characters to be "realistic and average" (more fat, less attractive/more ugly) to better reflect real women. Because that will somehow bring "justice." That will somehow solve misogyny or make people love fat ugly people because a celebrity received it. Probably the most childish, narcissistic idea a sheltered and selfish person could come up with. Using semantic arguments, subjectivist race science and a demand people accept their supposed authority without question and potential violent consquences for not.

If you didn't live through this era, you'd never believe this was true.

[justagaycryptid]

What's actually actually racist is the writers of Velma thinking black people are so stupid that they won't see how lazy and reductive it is for them to go: "Look, this character is black now! You should feel included!" Literally zero effort involved, yet they want a pat on the back for being 'progressive.'

If they genuinely wanted black people to feel included, they'd have created something new. Hell, it's not like any of the characters seem to possess the same personalities or character traits any more. Instead, they took a cultural icon like Scooby Doo and used it as a skin suit for their crappy ideas because they knew their writing would never stand on its own. Standing on the shoulders of giants is fine, standing on the shoulders of giants and peeing down their shirt collar isn't.

And on top of that, they decided to alienate 90% of the people that would have watched it in the first place by insulting them in the trailer. Insulting your fanbase and ignoring their complaints has never ended in success; Captain Marvel comics have been cancelled year on year since 2013, She-Hulk was a failure, Star Wars is dead, Saints Row is dead, He-Man is dead, She-Ra is dead, Lord of the Rings is dead, Doctor Who is dead, etc.

The one thing they have in common is that they ignored their own source material and insulted fans who expressed concerns about it (however politely those concerns were raised). Every time, without fail, when you deviate from the source material and tell your fans to go F themselves, you lose.

Well, how do you win? You create a show with charm, free of identity politics, free of writers using beloved characters as mouthpieces for their own politics. You create a show filled with escapism, good dialogue and fun. What you do, is you create a show that people can enjoy regardless of their race, sexuality and politics; you know, like the original Scooby Doo.

I mean like I don't have a problem with them making the characters different races since especially now it is so so difficult to get investors/studios or whatever to greenlight original ideas, so them doing a more diverse reboot of Scooby Doo is actually a great idea in my opinion. But I do agree that I don't really like what I've seen so far of the new gang's personalities because they don't really seem like all that pleasant people, and they definitely could have put more effort into it.

Though I don't know what you're talking about with some of those shows you listed because She-Ra and Doctor Who aren't dead, Star Wars obviously brings in enough money that they're still pumping that shit out, and I don't know if there was a He-Man reboot so like I don't know what to say about that because that's been dead since like, the 80s. Now sure some of these things aren't at peak popularity, though for Doctor Who I'm pretty sure that the David Tennant/Matt Smith era was the most successful, especially with SuperWhoLock and whatnot. And She-Ra ended a few years ago, but it was incredibly successful when it came out.

I get hesitant though when you talk about a show free of identity politics, because having characters of different races/genders/sexualities isn't inherently political. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't implying it in that way but it does give off the energy of 'its fine if you're like this but be like this quietly so I can ignore it'.

And even if it is political, talking about the real world harm that is caused to minorities is not a bad thing. And the show is made by people of color (at least that's how it appears to me from brief research) so I don't think them including themselves is them trying to be fake progressive.

I have seen other people of color excited that their favorite characters are the same race as them, and it helps them feel seen and represented in popular media. So in general I do think them adding more diversity is a good thing.

But yeah I do agree that the trailer was a little hamfisted, though to be fair I'm also incredibly petty so I would make fun of the people bitching about how 'oh I can't believe Scooby Doo has gone woke' at every chance. But doing it as the first trailer probably wasn't a smart move. Though I don't think saying racist shit about how the show made an originally all white cast more diverse is criticism, I think that's just people being racist.

But the general backlash against the show despite how it appears to be is incredibly concerning due to the sheer amount of racism, homophobia and transphobia I've been seeing.

Like even if you just search the show on Youtube all of the videos that come up are so incredibly bigoted.

[back-to-louis]

.

[criticalrolo]

Hey Hope you're doing okay It's a really random question (feel free to ignore it) but it just happened and I saw your ex-mormon tag My cousin who grew up in a very strict mormon family and got married at nineteen and had two kids very young Just came out as a lesbian and left her ex husband As someone who was in this religion, do you think she can stay in it and will be accepted? Like is there lgbt space there ? And even if there is what's the general view on the inside ?

Short answer: no

Longer answer: Mormons will talk about how they “love” lgbt people but you have to know that this is pretty much. just a straight up lie when you compare their beliefs and practices to how they want to be perceived as loving Everyone No Matter What. 

In mormonism, it is required that gay people stay completely celibate for their whole lives until they die and God “sorts things out” in heaven, meaning that a gay man would be “given” a wife or a lesbian would be “given” to a husband. And by celibacy, they mean no having any sort of romantic inclinations ever. All gay thoughts must be repressed, no holding hands, no kissing, CERTAINLY no marriage. They are required to just stick out being alone in this life until God can make you straight in the afterlife. Hopefully I don’t have to explain to anyone that telling gay people “everything will be better and God will fix you once you die” is. not great.

The additional problem with this is, Mormons believe in an “Eternal Plan of Happiness” which necessitates marriage in the mormon temple for someone to be truly happy. Other kinds of marriage/living together without being married outside of mormonism (referenced specifically in a gay way lmao) aren’t “real” marriages.

Iconic quote from a church apostle Jeffrey Holland:

“Can you see the moral schizophrenia that comes from pretending you are one [in marriage], pretending you have made solemn promises before God, sharing the physical symbols and the physical intimacy of your counterfeit union but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects of what was meant to be a total obligation?” (Ensign, 1998, pg. 76-77)

From 2015-2019, it was mormon doctrine that if a gay person got married, they would be automatically excommunicated and their children would not be allowed to join the church until they were 18, no longer lived with their gay parents, and specifically disavowed their parents’ marriage. Making being gay a more heavily punished sin than murder/rape/etc.! If your parent commits a crime in mormonism, then you personally are not judged or restricted at all. If your parents are gay, then you have to take specific steps to distance yourself from them. From a church that thinks that the only way to be truly happy is to be Mormon and take all the necessary steps in mormonism such as baptism and being sealed in marriage you can see why this is such a huge deal to them to deny it to people! (This policy was reversed in 2019, which makes it kind wild to think that god apparently changed his mind about how severely to punish gay people within a span of four years. don’t worry now gay marriage is just equivalent to murder/rape instead of being worse)

The church has been staunchly opposed to every form of progress for lgbt rights for decades. In 2008 they advocated heavily for prop 8 in california, which would deny lgbt people the right to marry. They’ve also been vocally anti-gay marriage in their own sermons and addresses to the mormon population in a service called General Conference. As a lesbian who was mormon until I turned 18, I can tell you without any doubt that an anti-gay message was worked into nearly EVERY lesson/sermon/etc. It’s been their THING for the past 20 years or so, once everyone called them out on being racist and they had to try to stop that. (the insanely racist aspects of mormonism is ANOTHER post for another time)

Let’s go through some of my favorite anti “same sex attracted” quotes from the past couple of years!

“Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose many of the current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage or to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women,” Oaks said in an address to the church's General Conference in October. Those pressures, he said, come from none other than Satan, who “seeks to confuse gender, to distort marriage, and to discourage childbearing, especially by parents who will raise children in truth.” -Dallan H. Oaks, General Conference Oct. 2018

“There are no homosexual members of the church.” David A. Bednar, Feb. 23, 2016

pretty much anything Boyd K. Packer ever said, fuck this guy for real

more boyd again I hate this man

“There are some men who entice young men to join them in these immoral acts. If you are ever approached to participate in anything like that, it is time to vigorously resist. While I was in a mission on one occasion, a missionary said he had something to confess. I was very worried because he just could not get himself to tell me what he had done. After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, 'I hit my companion.' 'Oh, is that all,' I said in great relief. 'But I floored him,' he said. After learning a little more, my response was 'Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way.' I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself.“ - Boyd K. Packer, 1976

There’s about a million more, but a good summary exists here on wikipedia about the church’s changing homophobic stances. Including all the electroshock therapy at BYU! good times.

Here are some good videos that explain why mormons trying to say they’re not homophobic are Complete Bullshit

On a more personal level, I can tell you that my experience with homophobia in the mormon church has been pretty devastatingly awful and I’m still experiencing the repercussions of being raised in an environment that actively told me what a horrible thing I was for Being Gay. Not all experiences are universal of course, but I can pretty much guarantee that any lgbt people still in the church are experiencing some major cognitive dissonance in order to justify their treatment there and keep believing that this is what God wants for them.

The homophobia usually isn’t outwardly violent and obvious -- it’s always couched in “language of love” while still conveying the meaning that gay people are inherently bad and will be better off once they die. Some people are still trying to change the church’s general opinion about this, especially the younger generation. The fact is, though, that the mormon church is inherently homophobic and that its doctrine cannot be separated from that. So, your cousin might know some good people who will do their best to accept her in spite of their mormon beliefs. Just know that those people will also probably be believing all the above things I’ve stated as absolute truth/doctrine at the same time.