#and i know they have an episode about racial bias and yet this kind of micro-aggressive racist as trope is what will happen

[evocatiio]

It genuinely stresses me out a little when tv shows write a character that has so many borderline toxic traits but is portrayed as the "good nice guy" within the narrative like you're telling me a whole collaborative effort between cast and crew and no one is able see how fucked up that is???

[aros001]

First time reading through the light novels. Vol. 1 random thoughts.

A while back I'd seen the first episode of the anime and...didn't take it well because of that one specific scene. I was interested in where Goblin Slayer and Priestess would go from there but I was worried about my ability to handle the rest of the series. So months later I asked this Reddit if you guys would recommend I continue and you were very supportive and encouraging. I watched the rest and really enjoyed it. I just recently wrapped up another light novel series (at least the books that were available in english) and figured why not give Goblin Slayer's LNs a try?

These are just some random thoughts I had while reading the first volume. I did the same with Rising of the Shield Hero and it was fun to do, with other fans pointing out things I might have missed and starting discussions about what happened each book.

Right off the bat, I think Goblin Slayer is one of the few series I've ever read that brings up weapons getting dulled and damaged by blood and fat (or even bringing up fat from a slain foe at all). Shield Hero had a little bit that early on but most stories just have weapons that are so high quality that the quality never dips.

Also, back in the anime I'd found it interesting that goblins could make poison when everything else about them seemed so crude. But in a general view "poison" is basically a harmful substance that you don't want in your body. That the goblins can make poison out of their own shit and some herbs actually makes sense and works with the idea that they have the mental capacity of cruel children.

The first kill we see Goblin Slayer make seems to say a lot about him. Pinning a goblin to the wall with his shield before stabbing a burning torch into its face. Efficient yet feeling almost vindictive.He kills it in the most painful way he possibly can at that moment.

The Priestess blocked the one goblin with her staff on instinct and kept it from getting away long enough for Goblin Slayer to throw his sword into the back of its head. I'm curious if that's why he let her accompany him through the rest of the cave or if he would have done the same regardless? If he didn't see her potential would he have ordered her to leave instead of asking what she was going to do?

Are the gods of Truth and Illusion meant to be literal gods or just figurative? Either way, I'm looking forward to hearing more about them and the Earth Mother, Dark Gods, and Supreme God. I like mythology and that includes the party's talk about where goblins come from. I like that they, and we the audience, don't yet have a for-fact answer. All the possible origins they share are from legends, folktales, and stories you tell children (with some racial bias thrown in between the elves and dwarves). It really helps the world feel more real and lived in.

Out of curiosity, do Slimes exist in the GS universe? They mention giant rats and goblins as the monsters a lot of beginners take on and slimes are a famous kind of newbie monster in other fantasy stories, so I'm curious if they have those as well (or if it's a Konosuba kind of case where slimes are NOT a monster beginners should be fighting).

Oh jeez, the anime really wasn't exaggerating with Cow Girl flopping over the windowsill. Why is that so funny to me?

“Yes. A group of rookies are in the southern woods. That one is a request from a village near the forest.”

“Beginners,” he murmured. “Who was in their party?”

“Let’s see...,” Guild Girl said. She licked her thumb and began paging through a sheaf of papers. “One warrior, one wizard, and one paladin. All Porcelain rank.”

...

The day after that, showing no hint of fatigue, he joined Priestess in venturing to the southern woods. Cow Girl heard later that the rookies never returned from the forest.

I might be misremembering or thinking of a different group but the rookies came back alive in the anime, didn't they?

A big thing that helped me get through the anime was the introduction of High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, and Lizard Priest. They brought a lot of life both to the series and to Goblin Slayer himself. He's a man who really needs friends and something other than goblins in his life. What he does is important but spending too long in nothing but that darkness would eventually break anyone. In fact, nearly all the characters help bring some enjoyment to the story. I was afraid Spearman was just going to be another Motoyasu but he quickly proved himself to be, overall, a pretty good guy.

I also like that this novel gives more insight into the extra characters. Not just the humans like Guild Girl, Heavy Warrior, and the Hero (which was a very welcome surprise. I want to know more about her), but also some of the goblins as well, like that one guard of the old elf ruins. Even if they can't talk in a way humans can typically understand, it's cool (and a bit uncomfortable) having a direct show of how an individual goblin thinks.

While it's not as much as Priestess, I do really seem to have a soft spot for Guild Girl. Why she seems to like goblin Slayer is just really appealing for me. She likes him because he's different but not in the traditionally tropey way of "Oh, he's so different from the other guys". He takes the jobs that no one else wants to do, not to brag about it or hit on her, but simply because they need to be done, which means a lot less newbie adventurers have died or worse at the hands of goblins, something she's indirectly seen happen way too many times, even if it's a reality she has to live with. Completely unintentionally, he takes a lot of burden off her heart and mind. I can easily see how her respect and appreciation for him would eventually lead into feelings of affection.

Goblin Slayer = Beard-Cutter? I can understand to an extent Orcbolg and that both names come from a goblin killing sword, but do Dwarves refer to goblins as Beards? And if so, why? Or am I missing something here? This confused me in the anime too.

“I owe it all to you, sir!” Her gaze, her beautiful eyes, bored into him. He caught his breath. What should he say? There was a long pause.

“Not at all,” he finally squeaked out. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You did so much!” she responded with a grin. “You saved me when we first met.”

“But I couldn’t save your companions.”

“True, but...” Her face stiffened for a moment. She couldn’t quite finish her sentence—understandably.

Even he still remembered the awful scene all too clearly. Warrior, Wizard, Fighter, who had all lost everything. Her party had been trodden into the dust.

I really like this. It's be really easy to just make Goblin Slayer a complete hardass who's oblivious to everything and cold to the world (and to an extent he is). But he does still have emotions other than anger. He's at a loss by Priestess' gratitude and doesn't know what to say. He has regret that he couldn't save her old party. He's used to the sight of what happened but still finds it awful. He appreciates the elf, dwarf, and lizardman's help and isn't against partying with them again, even if he won't go out of his way to join them again. He feels truly helpless when he tells Cow Girl he can't defeat the Goblin Lord's army. As the story goes on I imagine it'll be explored how much he's doing what he does to keep the past from happening again vs. him just wanting revenge on all goblins. Which side rules him more?

But all things must end—often too soon.

The end to his idyll appeared in the form of repulsive black blotches on the dew-drenched morning pastures. Trailing mud and excrement across the fields, they were unmistakable: small footprints.

This is the one part I think the anime did a little better, if for no other reason than that we had a lot more times of Goblin Slayer checking for signs of goblins every morning. It was a great Chekhov's gun. It was something the audience knew had to come back into play later...but that you really, really did not want to because you knew what it'd mean. Every time he checked and didn't find anything was a relief but it left worry about the next time, building up that dread and anticipation, until finally we get that morning where he sees all the tracks.

At a table deep in the room, High Elf Archer made to stand, her face a furious red, but Dwarf Shaman and Lizard Priest stopped her. Witch sat on a bench, a slippery smile floating on her face. He glanced at the front desk to see Guild Girl vanishing into a back room in a panic. It occurred to him that he was looking for Priestess.

Awwwwwwwwwww! He does like having her around!

I think the main reason the story works, at least for me, is because it isn't just one of those "Life sucks. The world is dark. F**k you." types of "adult" literature. Yes, the world of GS does get very dark and messed up, but what gets you through it are these very likable and sunny characters who do care a lot about each other. At least with the content of this volume and what was covered by the anime, the draw isn't supposed to be how "edgy" the story can get but rather these characters trying to fight back against the darkness that exists in their world.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinSlayer/comments/fq3z9a/first_time_reading_through_the_light_novels_vol_1/

[im-the-punk-who]

Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom! 

Oof. That’s a question. xD 

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings. 

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show.��

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room. 

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog. 

OKAY! SO! 

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman, 

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters. 

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search. 

Let me reiterate the important bit there. 

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show. 

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so. 

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show. 

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully. 

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team. 

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover! 

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias. 

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him. 

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t! 

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism. 

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’  that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.) 

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep. 

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver. 

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people. 

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth. 

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like. 

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together. 

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point. 

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack. 

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.) 

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew. 

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM. 

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’ 

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show. 

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet. 

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies. 

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives. 

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll. 

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man. 

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men. 

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know. 

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.) 

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious. 

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross. 

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either. 

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

[metalgearkong]

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier - TV Review

5/1/21 ***spoilers***

Created by Malcomb Spellman, directed by Kari Skogland

Out of all the announced Disney+ MCU shows, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier seemed to be the most out of left field. Two sidekicks from the later 2 Captain America movies pair up and get their own show? What made their bormance so special? I mean, I like them well enough, but what is it that warrants a show? With all of it now said and done, this show is not what I expected, in a good way, but I can't say it lived up to its own potential. It brings up a lot of controversial subjects--stuff I really found interesting and progressive, but it doesn't fully commit. That being said, I'm glad it exists, and it takes many steps in the right direction.

6 months after Avengers Endgame, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) are returning to every day life, and the problems that come along with it. Bucky in particular is attending strict therapy to repair mental damage from decades of being Hydra's Winter Soldier. Sam is working with his sister and her boating shrimp business. As it turns out, the Avengers didn't technically receive a salary. Strange beings who they worked with, and i assumed Tony Stark or government funding supported the Avengers. Who built their base, made their suits, equipment, and how have the Avengers gotten by so far? The idea is brought up, but the show never comes around and fully explores this interesting point.

The Falcon the the Winter Soldier is only 6 episodes long, compared to WandaVision at 8. I feel like this show needed to be as longer for the numerous ideas it brings up and doesn't have time to flesh out. The main conflict of this series is the fight against the Flag Smashers. A revolutionary group, they want to return the world to what it was during the "blip." They want a worldwide policy of nations without borders. This is a really cool concept and something I could get behind, but yet again it's an interesting idea that is never sufficiently fleshed out. What (according to the Flash Smashers) was so great about the state of the world during the blip? What did nations do around the world that makes the Flag Smashers want to return to the way of life? Did people receive more finances and property? Did socialism thrive? None of this is ever expanded upon.

I also didn't care much for Karli Morgenthau, the leader of the Flag Smashers. Apparently their whole side story had to be changed last minute due to the covid-19 pandemic, and their inconsistent dialog and motivation shows this fact. I never bought actress Erin Kellyman as a revolutionary which thousands of people would follow and kill for, nor did I buy her as a juiced-up super soldier. The best character to come out of this show is John Walker as the government approved new Captain America. Wyatt Russell plays the character extremely well, and it's engaging to see a villain which so easily could have been one-dimensional develop into a more rounded person. He did however get a stupid small redemption in the final episode, but this "good guy" moment is wedged between him brutally killing an unarmed person in public, and joining what looks to be a "Dark Avengers" squad. For a show with progressive ideas, John Walker killing a civilian in a fit of rage should have been a point of no return.

My favorite aspect of The Falcon & the Winter Solider are the racial aspects it brings up. Finally we have a big mainstream company and mainstream show directly making light of the unfair bias and poorer treatment of minorities, especially black men. To see it happen even to an Avenger (Sam) was really cool, and fourth-wall breaking. Sam also discovers a man named Izayah who was a test subject, along with other black men, for the original super soldier serum in WWII. Izayah's mistreatment and his disenfranchised view of the United States is some of the best stuff in the entire show. Everything is all about living up to the legacy of Steve Rogers, but Izayah thinks no black man should even want to bear the stars and stripes. I hope this trend continues as it hangs a lampshade on something broad entertainment should address.

The action and cinematography also evoke my favorite corner of the MCU: everything directed by the Russo Brothers. The fight choreography is visceral without having to be flashy or larger than life (until the end). It was also great to see Sam Wilson reject the shield at the beginning of the show, thinking he would never live up to the mantle. His humility and growth throughout the show is also some of the best stuff to see. He truly is a man of the people, and the next best person besides Steve Rogers who truly can be and deserves to be the new Captain America. Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) also reemerges from Captain America: Civil War, but his character is totally retconned into being a Baron (comics accurate) with huge amounts of wealth and resources. I didn't like his character as much as I did in Civil War, as an everyday soldier tearing the Avengers apart is more compelling than a rich and powerful supervillain doing the same thing. He also had a dumb moment where he wore his purple ski mask for literally one action scene (less than a minute or two) and took it off never to be seen again.

Sharon Carter also makes an appearance, but I don't think the character, nor her twist being the Power Broker meant anything to me. It could be this show going a bit too far with its story threads. Carter has never been a charismatic character to me, and I'm wondering how they'll keep her interesting in the MCU going forward. She is the icing on the cake for too numerous and too weak of villains in this series. I also didn't think it was consistent of honorable of her character to go down a bad path especially knowing the lineage of Peggy Carter. I'm curious where this aspect of the story will go, but I'm not holding my breath. I wish this show cut out some of its threads in order to focus on some of its very good core ideas, especially only at 6 episodes.

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has a lot of interesting ideas and brings up a lot of important ideas. I didn't expect this show to be critical of racial treatment, police brutality, and government overreach. To eventually see Sam evolve into the new Captain America and believing it down to the atom is the best thing to witness about this story. Bucky gets the short end of the stick, and while he does go through healing, I wish he had more great action or dialog scenes. The Falcon & the Winter soldier sets up future stuff, as the MCU does best. Sharon Carter might be some kind of bad guy going forward, the Dark Avengers seem to be forming, and Sam Wilson as Captain America may go on to lead a new generation of Avengers. The show is far from perfect, and sadly doesn't commit to some of its best ideas. I would watch another season, but hope it would have a slightly sharper script.

7/10

[piccolina-mina]

My apologies @witchwolfmouse. I realized I kinda hijacked your post regarding M*ribel:

Y’all there’s room for people to ship Isobel/Maria and there is room for other people to be critical of the ship considering Isobel’s treatment of Maria and how deeply Maria dislikes Isobel because of how she treated Rosa... If you’re going to ship the two of them, considering what’s unfolded between the two of them onscreen thus far, then you’ve got to be prepared for some people not to be about it, especially fans of color and wlw of color and especially black fans who fall into either or both categories.

And I admittedly got in my feelings and droned on more than anticipated, so I made my reply into a post, since it was so long.

I'm ship and let ship. I have been that way from the beginning. The only reason I even became as vocal about shipping in this fandom in the first place was because of how unwelcoming it was for anyone who shipped anything alternative from the canon ships. There should be equal space for shipping and for those critical of it, and for a long time there wasn't equal space just all of one or the other depending on the ship.

Ironically, now it's slightly more equal but ridiculously divisive for silly reasons, but I digress.

I do think that an inability to take shipper goggles or whatever goggles off to actually understand certain criticisms about race and its relation to shipping, fandom, and within the show and how it's handled there has led to a lot of defensiveness by some who only see criticism as negative attacks, then respond in defense, which prompts defensive responses back and a host of others feeling genuinely invalidated and unheard, especially when what they are pointing out is skirted over.

There are genuine people who ship maribel, and hey, if you like it, I love it for you. I don't have to ship it or agree with it, but for those who genuinely love it, more power to them. Flood the tags for them. Make content.

Ironically, that's literally all I personally wanted from the beginning. Diversified content and discussions even if it's not my thing. By doing so, it makes me smile. It's all I ever wanted so it's not a nuisance for me personally.

Plus in this case, while I don't care for Isobel or the ship, I'll never say no to more Maria content. Fk it up!

Regarding M*ribel and discourse. To put it bluntly, and to go back to where some of the original friction and frustration stemmed in this fandom. The beauty of it is how much space there is to discuss in detail all angles of the amazing queer representation which I love, but the inability to discuss the race representation and issues and even the intersectional aspect of race and queerness, not without it always somehow stepping on the toes of queerness.

A wlw ship would be amazing. Hell, if it's done well, maybe this wlw ship could be amazing. Ship away, but also, please, know that someone criticizing it for legitimate reasons doesn't have to mean they are invalidating you or the wlw representation, especially when someone's criticism may be coming at it from an angle of a POC, or WOC, or QWOC who also feel invalidated. Quite damn often.

There are a lot of racial aspects of this show where despite the show's diversity, are very problematic or uncomfortable (a diverse cast does not mean all diverse issues disappear, if anything, it highlights them more so). And fans of color who voice them or have a different take than you should not have to be lambasted because they are approaching something from a different angle you may or may not have the experience with or know about.

LGBTQ fans some of whom may not be of color can look through their lenses of their own representation and what that means good or bad. But fans of color also do the same. We're always going to do the same. We can't shut that off as it's our identity and how we see the world through our experiences. Just like many of you, and those of both do it from both angles too.

There's a heterosexual bias willingly acknowledged frequently in fandom "the straights" or "the heteros" and that's fair and valid. Rarely does anyone enter the space and get pissy about that and not without being checked directly or indirectly. But you can't enter the tag and present something from a POC viewpoint or a WOC viewpoint without being directly or indirectly checked and often by people who honest to goodness aren't in the position to do so and show that based on how they choose to address or frame something.

Why? Why the "I don't see it that way so it must not be true?" Or "prove it or your lying" angle? Why do fans of color--too many to be dismissed as a fluke-- have to explain or otherwise be invalidated? That is what that is. Invalidation.

A racial bias being acknowledged or even a gender one makes people defensive or uncomfortable or unkind. That isn't fair. That isn't awesome.

And it has been a problem for a very long time.

Now if we're talking about m*ribel. Where some may see a wlw ship, a classic enemies to lovers ship, two beautiful women who could be something magical... Maria being in on the alien secret via Isobel... snarky personalities and sniding becoming something deeper ... hot hate sex ... two badass women who have been through some sh!t being a badass couple together... I do get the angle.

Where some people see that, I personally see a ship that makes me uncomfortable. I understand not everyone will see it as I do, and that's okay, as I said, ship and let ship.

But for me, when I think of Maribel, I think of Isobel violating Maria and her mind without her consent. I think of how disturbing it is that another woman did that to another woman without thinking about it as a violation (you don't have to agree, but much like what Noah did to Isobel at more extreme levels, it makes ME think of the rape and power dynamics and abuse dynamics).

I see someone who has had a total disregard for humans outside of her presumed husband violating them at will with powers she has yet to fully gain control of thus putting herself and those she violated at risk. I think of how unusual it is that she doesn't even have friends she hangs out with and doesn't know how to be one, or to be nurturing, or kind, or considerate.

And I don't know if I would like to see her with someone who is snarky and such, but also all of those things too. I see someone who is selfish in general and selfish in all of her relationships, and it's troubling (to me) when someone so inherently selfish is ever combined with someone who isn't because of how draining that is.

And to me, Isobel is the most selfish character with no give, and I don't care for the (far too common) trope of a black woman having to guide her into the light as a project and build her into a better person.

I think of an unfortunate history of women of color being violated not just by men but also white women that goes back centuries.

I see Isobel's total disregard for Maria's life and agency. I see Isobel's sense of entitlement she cannot seem to shake where she thinks she is entitled to Maria's acceptance and attention and her anger that Maria has the audacity to dislike her because apparently people are supposed to like her even when she treats almost everyone terribly. Which is a very subtle but very insidious barely noticeable dog whistle type of example most people of color can attest to as an example of white privilege.

I see someone who has clung to Maria specifically despising her on behalf of Rosa (and maribel shippers are welcome to interpret it as confirmation of a crush or attraction, and they can do so I understand that take, too) so much so that her primary reason for believing that Maria was an evil alien killer was the fact that Maria didn't like her nor as a psychic with legitimate abilities didn't allow Isobel to violate her.

The racial context of that scene alone was bothersome because of two cops jumping to a conclusion and sharing their theory with citizens with no concrete proof before speaking to their suspect (Maria) and using the word of a known racist and an entitled white woman with a grudge (Isobel) to support their theory, which if that doesn't parallel real life and how POC can find themselves at the mercy of the criminal justice system due to this, I don't know what is.

I see a woman who didn't have the slightest grasp of mind violation until she was violated by a brown man (who subsequently ended up being the presumed big bad of the season). That's what I see with M*ribel.

Where some shippers are able to see the chance for more LGBT rep and that's valid. I see troubling racial undertones that genuinely make me almost as uncomfortable as Noah and Isobel, and that too should be valid, and considered, and respected, and not dismissed, or misconstrued deliberately or otherwise.

There should be space for the criticism too, and the different takes, especially takes deeply rooted in another form of disenfranchisement. Just, consider and respect that sometimes. Not all fans of color will have the same take, we're all different people, so no one person can speak for the others, which means sometimes there will be opinions that differ on reasons that relate to race, and that's okay too.

From the first episode until now. Through Maria sidelining, and maricael/miluca shipping, and Malex angst, and Echo obstacles, and Liz decentralization, and the demonization of Noah, and Rosa injustice...through all of, there are things that should be discussed freely without being invalidated, dismissed, or made into something else.

There are many ways in which there will be race perspectives and things fans of color will present and ponder that other fans may not consider at all. And sometimes it will spill into something you like or enjoy, but those feelings especially about something so personal and specific and real ... even if you don't like them, or agree with them, or they make you uncomfortable or defensive, they matter too.

[transracialqueer]

Five Potential Side Effects of Transracial Adoption

by Sunny J Reed

A trans- anything nowadays is controversial, but one trans- we don’t hear enough about are transracial adoptees. This small but vocal population got their title from being adopted by families of a different race than theirs — usually whites. But adoption, the so-called #BraveLove, comes with a steep price; often, transracial adoptees grow up with significant challenges, partly due to the fact that their appearance breaks the racially-homogenous nuclear family mold.

I am transracially adopted. My work is an outgrowth of my experience, research, and conversations with other members of the adoption triad; that is, adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. This piece is a response to the misunderstandings and assumptions surrounding transracial adoption, and I hope it brings awareness to some rarely-discussed side-effects of the practice. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, by any means, these are just a few of the struggles that many transracial adoptees grapple with on a daily basis.

1. Racial Identity Crises, or “You Mean I’m Not White?”

Racial identity crises are common among transracial adoptees: what’s in the mirror may not reflect which box you want to check. I grew up in a predominantly white town that barely saw an Asian before — let alone an Asian with white parents. Growing up, I’d forget about my Korean-ness until I’d pass a mirror or someone slanted their eyes down at me, reminding me that oh yeah, I’m not white.

There’s a simple explanation for this confusion: “As members of families that are generally identified as white,” writes Kim Park Nelson, “Korean adoptees are often assimilated into the family as white and subsequently assimilated into racial and cultural identities of whiteness.”

Being raised in an ethnically-diverse area with access to culturally-aware individuals would help keep external reactions in check, but still belies the race-based role you’re expected to play in public. Twila L. Perry relates an anecdote illustrating the complexities of being black but raised in a white family:

“A young man in his personal statement identified himself as having been adopted and reared by white parents, with white siblings and mostly all white friends. He described himself as a Black man in a white middle-class world, reared in it and by it, yet not truly a part of it. His skin told those whom he encountered that he was Black at first glance, before his personality-shaped by his upbringing and experiences-came into play.”

Positive racial identity formation might be transracial adoption’s greatest challenge since much of the dialogue related to race and color begins at home. Multiracial and interracial families sometimes have difficulties finding the language to discuss this problem, so it’s an uphill climb for transracial parents (Same Family, Different Colors is a great study on this).

Parents can begin by talking openly about their child’s race. Acknowledging differences is not racist, nor does it draw negative attention to your child’s unique status in your family. Instead, being honest about it places your child on the path to self-acceptance.

2. Forced Cultural Appreciation (à la “Culture Camps”)

Picture culture camp like band camp (no, not quite the band camp talked about in American Pie). The big difference is that, unlike band camp, culture camp expects you to learn heritage appreciation in the span of just one week instead of how to better tune your trumpet. Sometimes adoption agencies sponsor such programs, designed to immerse an adoptee in an intense week or two of things like ethnic food, adoptee bonding, and talks with real people of your race, as opposed to you, the poseur.

These camps often get the side-eye — and rightfully so. Critics argue that “fostering cultural awareness or ethnic pride does not teach a child how to deal with episodes of racial bias.”

Much like part-time church-going does little in the way of earning your way to the Pearly Gates, once-yearly visits with people that look like you won’t make you a real whatever-you-are. I know culture camps aren’t going away, so a better solution would be using these events as supplements to whatever you’re doing at home with your child, not as the sole source of heritage awareness. And yes, racial self-appreciation should be a lifelong project.

3. Mistaken Identities -aka — “I’m Not the Hired Help”

Transracial adoptees’ obvious racial differences provoke brazen inquiries regarding interfamilial relationships. Having “How much did she cost?” and “Is she really your daughter?” asked over your head while being mistaken for your brother’s girlfriend does not contribute to positive self-image. It publically questions your place in the only family you’ve ever known, setting the stage for insecure attachments and self-doubt.

Mistaken identities aren’t just awkward, they’re insulting. Sara Docan-Morganinterviewed several Korean adoptees regarding what she describes as “intrusive interactions,” and found that “participants reported being mistaken for foreign exchange students, refugees, newly arrived Korean immigrants, and housecleaners. [One adoptee] recalled going to a Christmas party where someone approached her and said, ‘Welcome to America!’”

Obvious racism aside, transracial adoptees often find themselves having to validate their existence, which is something biological children are unlikely to face. Docan-Morgan suggests that parents’ responses to such interactions can either reinforce family bonds or weaken them, so expecting the public’s scrutiny and preparing for it should be a crucial piece in transracial adoptive parent education.

4. Well-Meaning, Yet Unprepared Parents

Sure, they’ll be issued a handy guide (here’s one from the 1980s) on raising a non-white you, but beyond a few educational activities and get-togethers with other transracial families, they’re on their own (unless online forums count as legitimate resources).

Some parents may good-heartedly acknowledge your heritage by providing dolls and books and eating your culture’s food. Others may mistakenly adopt a colorblind attitude, believing they don’t see color; they just see people. But, as Gina Miranda Samuels says, “Having a certain heritage, being given books or dolls that reflect that heritage, or even using a particular racial label to self-identify are alone insufficient for developing a social identity.”

Regarding colorblindness, Samuels explains that it risks “shaming children by signaling that there is something very visible and unchangeable about them (their skin, hair, bodies) that others (including their own parents) must overlook and ignore in order for the child to be accepted, belong, or considered as equal.”

As mentioned in point #1 above, talking about color while acknowledging your child’s race in a genuine, proactive way can counteract these problems. This means white parents must acknowledge their inability to provide the necessary skills for surviving in a racialized world; sure, it might mean admitting a parenting limitation, but working through it together might help your child feel empowered instead of isolated. Talking to transracial adoptees — not just those with rosy perspectives — will be an invaluable investment for your child.

I’d also suggest that white parents admit their privilege. White privilege in transracial adoption is beautifully covered by Marika Lindholm, herself a mother of transracially adopted children. Listening to these stories, despite their rawness, will help you become a better parent. By acknowledging that you may take for granted that being part of a societal majority can come with dominant-culture benefits, you open your mind to the fact that your transracial child may not experience life in the same way as you. It doesn’t mean you love your adopted child any less — but as a parent, you owe it to your child to prepare yourself.

5. Supply and Demand

During the early decades of transracial adoption (1940–1980), racial tensions in the United States were so high that few people considered adopting black babies. People clamored for white babies, leaving many healthy black children aging in the system. (Sadly, this still happens today.) And since adoption criteria limited potential parents to affluent white Christians, blacks encountered near insurmountable adoption roadblocks.

Korea offered an easy solution. “Compared to the controversy over adopting black and Native American children,” says Arissa H. Oh, author of To Save the Children of Korea, “Korean children appeared free of cultural and political baggage…Korean children were also seen as free in another important sense: abandoned or relinquished by faraway birth parents who would not return for their child.”

After the Korean War, adopting Korean babies became a form of parental patriotism — kind of like a bastardized version of rebuilding from within. During this time, intercountry adoption fulfilled a political need as well as a familial one. Eleana H. Kim makes this connection as well: “Christian Americanism, anti-Communism, and adoption were closely tied in the 1950s, a period that witnessed a proliferation of the word “adoption” in appeals for sponsorship and long-distance fostering of Korean waifs and orphans.”

Although we’ve seen marked declines in South Korean adoptions, intercountry and transracial adoptions continue today, retaining some of their politically-motivated roots and humanitarian efforts. We need to keep this history in mind since knee-jerk emotional adoptions — despite the time it takes to process them — have serious repercussions for the children involved.

But we can make it better

None of this implies that transracial adoption is evil. Not at all. Consider this missive as more of a PSA for those considering adoption and a support piece for those who are transracially adopted. I’m aware that I’ll receive a lot of pushback on my work, and that’s okay. I’m writing from the perspective of what I call the “original transracial adoption boom,” and I consider myself part of one the earliest generations of transracial adoptees. Advancements in the field, many spurred by adoptees like myself, have contributed to many positive changes. However, we still have work to do if we’re going to fix an imperfect system based on emotional needs and oftentimes, one-sided decision making.

(source in the notes)

[random-notes-and-jottings]

Claudia Rankine and the construction of whiteness

In the past decade, the Jamaican-born poet has reversed the way we talk about race by focusing not on black victimhood, but on white privilege.

By Colin Grant

In the past decade, with works such as Citizen: An American Lyric, the Jamaican-born poet Claudia Rankine has reversed the way we frame and talk about race by focusing not on black victimhood, but on the construction of whiteness. Rankine’s inversion, which she teaches at Yale University, is simple but ­profound, countervailing long-lasting assumptions about race.

In her latest book, Just Us: An American Conversation, she invites readers to stand in for her discomfited students. If you tried out her thesis for yourself, asking white friends, for instance, when they first realised that they were white, you’d likely be met with silence, even bewilderment. But black people are born and live in the “castle of their skin” every day. Not thinking about colour is a luxury hardly ever granted to them.

Just Us explores the underexposed privilege of whiteness. Like Citizen which, when published in 2014, spoke directly to the concerns of the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement, the new work is a hybrid of prose, poetry, monologues and photographs, such as the idealised 1950s “Caucasian” model who illustrates how “Shirley Cards” determined the “correct” skin tone balance as an industry standard for North American photo labs. The racial bias built into photography may seem a trivial concern but is illustrative of the pervasive bias in society. Have black lives mattered more in the past few years? George Floyd’s murder suggests not.

The book begins with a troubling thought. At this inflection point in our culture of “racial reckoning”, when privileged assumptions are being shredded and long-term structural injustices more rigorously challenged, “What if in the long middle of the wait… nothing changes?” The question is directed squarely at the US, and seems a challenge to Martin Luther King’s assertion that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. It is bending surely, but the resistance towards change is still great.

Rankine is the interrogator throughout Just Us, conducting a probing survey of attitudes by inserting herself into the text as a participating observer. She charts the turbulence of the past that now allows, at least among her tertiary-educated friends, for relative ease of black/white interactions. Each page offers richly rewarding anecdotes and insights into the quagmire of race and race relations in the United States.

[see also: Why Louise Glück is a worthy winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature]

Typical is an altercation with a white airline passenger who jumps in front of Rankine (a frequent first-class flyer) as she queues for boarding. When she informs him that she’s also in the queue, his response (an aside to his friend) succinctly encapsulates the arrogance of privilege: “You never know who they’re letting into first class these days.” Battle-hardened to such exchanges, she’s still rattled days later when recounting the tale to her therapist. On a subsequent flight, another white male passenger in the first-class seat next to her appears alarmed by her proximity. “Seeing his whiteness,” she writes, “meant I understood my presence as an unexpected demotion for him.”

The term “white privilege” was popularised by the academic Peggy McIntosh in 1988. She listed 46 ways in which she was a beneficiary of white privilege. All are illuminating, but number 36 is particularly so: “If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.” It can be exhausting being black. But Claudia Rankine is indefatigable and has a steely eye for white folk lamenting the shift in social tectonic plates that is undermining their previously unassailable positions. She’s not alone; white allies feature throughout the book.

Whitney Dow is among those Rankine enlists in support of her thesis. Dow, a documentary film-maker, has filmed hundreds of white Americans for an oral history project called “Facing Whiteness”. He tells Rankine: “We are seeing the deconstruction of the white male archetype. The individual actor on the grand stage always had the support of a genocidal government, but this is not the narrative we grew up with. It’s a challenge to adjust.”

That’s clearly the case for one of Rankine’s friends who is passed over for a job and feels victimised for being a white man. She encourages him to take the long view of America’s iniquitous workplace, which still favours white men. She wants to delve deeper and ask her friend “if his expectation was a sign of his privilege”. But she refrains, reholstering her pistol, as it were, remembering that her “role as a friend probably demanded another response”.

The use of “probably” is key. Although Rankine upbraids herself for ungenerous thoughts about white liberals, including her “woke” white husband, there are occasionally, in conversations, comments such as “I don’t see colour” that make her pull “an emergency brake” in her head and try to resist lubricating moments of tough questioning. No one is guaranteed a “pass”, not even her husband.

Rankine quotes the theorist Saidiya Hartman, who argues that the task of “educating white people about racism has failed”. North Americans, Hartman says, occupy a time in which the legacy of slavery is still present, where “the past, the present and the future, are not discrete and cut off from one another”. They live with a sense of “temporal entanglement”. Just Us is an attempt to narrate this process, one instinctively understood by black people.

Rankine’s reflection on the controversial play Fairview is a good example of her approach. Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play, which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, unfolds as a kind of game show interrogation of white perceptions of blackness, performative blackness and white minstrelsy. The play is a challenge for Rankine and a white female friend when they go to see it. Their friendship is put in jeopardy because of the white woman’s mute response and failure, when the theatrical fourth wall is broken at the play’s end, to gather on stage with the shamed white audience when enjoined to do so by a black cast member. Rankine voices her disappointment (bordering on disapproval) of her white friend, and the breach leads to days of silence. But the friendship is saved when Rankine receives an unsolicited written response from the friend, confessing: “I shrink… from scenes where I’m asked… to feel bad as a white person… to feel shame, guilt, to do penance, to stand corrected, to sit down chastised.”

Chastisement should not be confused with learning. Just Us is a provocation and, if read closely, will make difficult demands on the reader. But they’re demands that Rankine is determined not to shirk from in challenging the continuing pathological inequalities of the United States. “Remaining in the quotidian of disturbance,” she writes, “is our way of staying honest until another strategy offers a new pathway, an as-yet-unimagined pathway that allows the existing structures to stop replicating.”

Just Us: An American Conversation

Claudia Rankine

Allen Lane, 360pp, £25

[thesnhuup]

Confronting Racism, Past and Present

Our Board of Trustees meets in mid-winter for what we have called a “learning retreat,” going with my leadership team to a place where we can expand our thinking, to learn from some other area of work or industry, and to engage with thinkers and doers in other fields. One year it was Washington, D.C., where we did a deep dive into policy. Another year it was Silicon Valley to engage with new technology. Last year it was LA, where we visited SpaceX, heard from experts in entertainment, and met with Mayor Eric Garcetti. This past week we went to Alabama, to the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery and Birmingham, a fitting place to think hard about diversity, inclusivity, and equity. For most of us, maybe for all of us, it was the single most powerful experience of our time at SNHU.

I’m still processing why it was so. Almost everything we learned we knew at some level, intellectually, but this felt more visceral, often like a punch to the gut and a clasping of the heart. We know that the gun violence of a place like Chicago is out of control and exacting a terrible toll on the children and young people who live in what is effectively a war zone on American soil, but then Arne Duncan joined us with a group of the young men from his Chicago CRED program and we heard the reality of their lives. One had been shot ten times. Billy, the learning coach, had served twenty years for the murder of one of Arne’s best friends and the basketball hope of the neighborhood (a story told in ESPN’s 30-for-30 episode “Benji,” in which Billy appears). The story of the dinner he then had with the victim’s family was a knee buckling story of redemption and forgiveness – not a Hallmark version, but raw and true and ongoing. It’s a story I’ll never forget and one I really can’t recount here – I’m not good enough a writer to do it justice.

Arne shared that in the elementary school classrooms he can ask kids to raise their hands if they know someone who was shot and every hand goes up. He asks them to keep their hands raised if they know five people who were shot — all hands remain up. Ten people? Most hands. Fifteen people? More than half the hands. Twenty people? Half the hands. Think about it – these are little children in an American city. If they were white children, we would have a massive government effort to address the problem. This was a gut punch moment.

We spent time with our colleagues in Birmingham, one of our first urban eco-system learning pilot sites, and had a panel with the amazingly talented team Mayor Woodfin has assembled to address Birmingham’s challenges, including a similar wave of gun violence in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Not coincidentally, these are the same neighborhoods that were “redlined,” set aside for Blacks, as official city planning policy.

I had always heard the expression and assumed it was a tacit understanding. It was instead official policy, planned, and its effects are still being felt decades later. Arne’s program in Chicago aims to give young men an alternative to the violence, through work pathways. In Birmingham, we are working to create educational pathways to work through LRNG, our newly acquired community impact group. Billy made a simple and yet deep insight: if you live in a war zone and fear for your life, you carry a gun. If your little sister is going hungry and there is no work, you do whatever it takes to get money to buy food. If you live with incessant fear and hopelessness, you self-medicate through drugs or alcohol. These are rational choices when seen through that lens. Arne and others doing the hardest work imaginable in the hardest places in our country are trying to create hope and a different set of rational choices. I hope that our work with the city of Birmingham will provide a pathway to education, and connect talent with opportunity.

While in Birmingham, we visited the sacred ground that is the 16th Street Baptist Church, where in 1963 white supremacists planted a bomb that killed four little girls.

This storied church is where the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement met, and often preached, including Dr. Martin Luther King, the resolute Fred Shuttlesworth, an amazing man who is not as widely known as he should be, and Ralph David Abernathy, and where the 1963 Children’s Crusade was organized.

We have all read about the heroic struggle for equal rights, but there was something about being in the place that was incredibly powerful. One feels a kind of gravity, the weight of a history that suddenly feels less distant or abstract. It was a feeling I’ve had on the battlefields of the Somme or in the Killing Fields of Cambodia — the presence of those who haunt these places. It was true of Kelly Ingram Park, right across the street from the church and the site of the demonstrations where Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor had dogs released and fire hoses used on marchers.

The images from the church bombing and the brutal repression of the marchers made headlines worldwide, sparking outrage across the U.S., and led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Voter suppression and an ongoing attempt to undercut the act, including demonstrably false charges of widespread voter fraud, are stark reminders that the most basic civil rights remain under threat even after all these years.

If there was any doubt of that fact, it was shattered by our visit to the newly created National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a stunning memorial to all those killed by racial terror, including thousands of lynchings, in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is the first time I’ve seen in the U.S. a formal coming to grips with the racial hatred of our past in the way one sees in Berlin, which lays bare its guilt around the Holocaust.

Every metal piece, reminiscent of tombstones, represents a county and the names of those murdered there. While they are mostly from the southern states that enslaved people, New York, Oregon, California, and Illinois are among the northern states also represented. Racism knows no boundaries in America then or now.

The “crimes” for which people were murdered are shocking.

Lynchings were not rare. The Memorial is stunning in visually and physically capturing the scope of the multi-decade domestic terrorism that created a mass migration north, ethnic cleansing in today’s parlance.

Lest we take some comfort in the notion that these were the acts of some small, psychotic group of terrorists, the nearby Legacy Museum reminds us that thousands of people would turn out to see the violence, bringing children and whole families. Postcards were made and sold. As Bryan Stevenson would remind us, the perpetrators of this systemic terror were not just the uneducated and backward. Complicit were the best educated politicians, business people, clergymen, and yes, academics. And that history is not so distant, extending into my lifetime.

The Memorial and the Legacy Museum were the brainchild of the aforementioned Bryan Stevenson, the crusading lawyer and author of Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan has fought against the death penalty (which overwhelmingly reflects racial bias in its application) and mass incarceration. The Museum draws a clear and unequivocal line from slavery to racial terror to mass incarceration and a deeply racist criminal justice system. Later that evening Alabama put another Black man to death, a jarring and vivid reminder that the injustice remains that close.

Bryan met with us and gave a talk that was at once enraged and inspired. The MacArthur Prize winner was an inspiration, a master storyteller, and reminded us that however hard the challenges are today, they pale in comparison to the fights and the suffering that was endured by those who came before and that it is to them that we have a responsibility to continue the struggle for civil and human rights.

It’s how we honor their sacrifice.

How elevated and inspiring the fight can be was made clear to all of us when we spent over an hour with fabled Judge Myron H. Thompson, the first Black federal judge in Alabama. We sat in his courtroom, the courtroom where Judge Frank Johnson ruled in key civil rights cases, including the Rosa Parks case that struck down segregation in public transportation and the ruling that allowed the march from Selma. Judge Thompson, who has also ruled in famous cases, including Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments case and Planned Parenthood vs. Bentley, reminded us that in this melting pot of a country (some would say “salad”), it is the Law that acts as the pot, that keeps it all together. He reminded us that we were sitting in seats once occupied by Rosa Parks and Dr. King. It was absolutely inspiring and that old beautiful 1930s courtroom, witness to so much history, seemed like church.

As we walked back to our hotel, one member of my team, with tears still in her eyes, said, “I thought I knew. This was like a 2×4 to the side of the head.” At dinner, someone else said, “I’ve never cried so many times in one day, both out of sadness and inspiration.” It was against the background of these remarkable three days that the Board of Trustees unanimously approved our new Strategic Plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity, which we will release in the coming weeks. They did so because it is a superb plan. They also did it with a deep and abiding resolve that SNHU should play its part in countering this country’s long and ongoing racism and genocidal origins. The Legacy Museum begins with American Indians, the far too often neglected origin story steeped in bloody genocide against a whole people, acknowledging that we have so far to go as an institution and as a country.

On our evening news, the embarrassment that is Virginia politics right now, and in the chants of “Don’t shoot” that ring throughout American cities, we have stark reminders that before we can have reconciliation, we need truth. The truth about America’s ongoing racism is hard to bear, as all who were with us this week would attest, but it did not feel defeating. It felt freeing and empowering and humbling. As it does in so much of its work, SNHU will now put its resources into doing its part. At a time when American higher education is seen as part of the problem, we have to be part of the solution. Access is a starting point and we’ve worked hard on that part of the calculus of hope. With purpose and determination, we will focus on equity, diversity, and inclusivity.

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[chocolate-brownies]

Mindfulness is often packaged as an individual pursuit: you carve out a space in a comfortable setting or a studio that suits your needs so you can take time to calm down, relax, or focus better for work. The benefits advertised are very me-oriented.

This personal project, essential to mindfulness, overlaps with an inherent tendency in society to stack or silo individual and community, says Rhonda Magee, mindfulness teacher and law professor at the University of San Francisco, in a recent podcast with Mindful’s Editor-in-Chief Barry Boyce. In other words, we see an opportunity for mindfulness to make us better team leaders, community members, and activists, but we don’t see where the personal and social agenda can align—indeed, would they cancel each other out altogether?

“The problem is that in our society it’s sort of either or, it’s either about the personal or it’s about the social. And yet, if we can open to our own experience we know we’re always already both individuals and a world,” she explained.

Magee’s research focuses on issues of social justice and inclusivity. In a world that faces increasingly complex problems, Magee argues that mindfulness provides an opportunity to understand issues through multiple points of view.

The following excerpt explores the difficulty of achieving both personal and social growth, and the role mindfulness plays in balancing the two:

  Rhonda Magee on Mindfulness and Inequality

9:28

Rhonda Magee: We largely continued to live in very segregated communities and cultures and systems. And that’s a fact that is one that we struggle to keep coming back to. You know, we know that part of the way we’ve been taught to look at these issues is that we were segregated officially, and now we’re not. And now if communities are racially identifiable or culturally distinct, it’s all a matter of choice. It’s all, you know, a matter of the market. It’s not, about patterns or conditioned habits and also structures, the way we do schooling, public and private, the way we continue to structure our religious communities. We tend not to really see how we are very, very, very deeply still embedded in and committed to, actually, we have a taste for, it seems like, segregation.

Barry Boyce: We reinvest invest in boundaries that we think we’ve gone beyond, mentally, in our media, we reinvest in those boundaries.

Rhonda Magee: We really do.

Barry Boyce: …that you are more different from me than is really the case.

Rhonda Magee: Yes, and we reinvest meaning, we send our kids to schools that are still very isolated. We move around the country. I live in San Francisco. I hear people find various and sundry different ways to explain why they leave a very diverse region. And often my white friends, for example, find themselves in much more white spaces after the “stresses of the city.” And, you know, sometimes this racial piece of it is mentioned, often not widely, but maybe in these quiet conversations. I had a young woman come and talk to me about a friend of hers; it’s often, you know, speaking about a friend, not myself. This young woman was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and she had another friend, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who came to San Francisco and said she wanted to move away because she wanted to be around more Americans, and by that, she actually meant more whites.

There still is a way that part of the legacy of white supremacy in America is that we define what it means to be American, still and in the eyes of many both domestically and internationally, as white. And that is what we are still up against, is what we have been seeing emerge in the political culture and the discourse around making America great again. So there’s a deeply embedded desire, or kind of a way in which we keep moving into segregation and reinforcing it, reinvesting in it, as you say. We’re all in that world. So, even mindfulness organizations are built up in networks that are already very segregated. All of our networks for reaching out, finding potential teachers, finding people to come to our organizations, our events, they’re already very segregated. And so, we are up against that challenge of, again, living in a society that’s already structured to push us apart. And those dynamics are coming from so many different institutions that it’s actually very hard for any institution to start reaching out to adults, adult learners or adult practitioners, and saying let’s come together from these very different places of relative segregation and isolation.

And so a concrete way to address that is, I mean, there are short-term steps, but I actually think a longer-term cultural change is what has to happen. This effort must outlive our own lifetimes. It will. Another problem we deal with in the West is very short-term focus. If we can’t imagine our efforts realizing some gain tomorrow, or at the outside six months from now, we’re not sure it’s worth our time. We are not going to change these patterns in this country that took hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years to embed without a commitment to changing them that is at least as farsighted.

There still is a way that part of the legacy of white supremacy in America is that we define what it means to be American, still and in the eyes of many both domestically and internationally, as white.

Barry Boyce: Are you suggesting that if you have too much of a hunger for immediate results, you won’t really commit? That you really have to take on that notion that we’re planting seeds in a garden that we will not see flower? I haven’t really thought of it that way: If silently in your mind you think you want to see a short-term gain, you just give up…

Rhonda Magee: It’s very easy to get frustrated.

Barry Boyce: You think… this neighborhood isn’t going to change.

Rhonda Magee: Yes, the community isn’t going to change, this meditation group isn’t going to change.

Barry Boyce: Yeah. So yeah that’s very helpful. Keep going.

Rhonda Magee: So, we need both a very long-term commitment and a lot of patience, both of which, I think, are gifts from me of my own mindfulness practice. And not that I’ve gotten there, right, I’m a work in progress just like everybody else. But to be able to sit with the frustration that comes with, oh, here we are again trying to address this same issue of the denial of white supremacy in our history with people who, once again, don’t want to talk about. It’s frustrating.

Barry Boyce: How does patience square with the possibility of falling into apathy or not being willing to call somebody on something?

Rhonda Magee: So it’s “both and” again. You know, realizing there’s time for, and a place in our own being in the world, for patience. And there are times for, and a place for, being in action. And it’s again, it’s not either or. It really is both. So there are ways we can call people into conversations about white supremacy with compassion for the fact that we all are in this together. We’ve all been trained away from this conversation. So, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to have to go by fits and starts and be interrupted, maybe even for years in a single organization because we’re not ready for it yet. To really deal with these issues is high pay-grade level mindfulness work. It isn’t for people who have not really come to see the depth of what it means to see clearly, what it means to work with our own conditionings, to sit in the fire of the painful recognition that, oh my mind actually does orient me to people who look like me. Oh, I do feel safer. Honestly, I wish I didn’t, but in fact I do feel safer when I’m in these places. Mindfulness can help us with a lot of the really subtle difficulties of doing the work that must be done to dismantle these patterns and habits that draw us to reinvest in segregation. Mindfulness compassion practices, these actually can help.

Mindfulness can help us with a lot of the really subtle difficulties of doing the work that must be done to dismantle these patterns and habits that draw us to reinvest in segregation.

So, it’s actually, it’s both that kind of patience that comes with a mindful holding of a multi-generational looking back and forward at the same time type of project. Because we are both, looking at a particular history is how we got here and trying to imagine a future for our children and our children’s children that will be much different. And then trying to work towards that future, in part by trying to redeem our past, looking at the role our particular communities, our particular families, our cultures have had in setting us on this journey that we’re on that keeps pushing us in corners and polarizing us. What’s been the role of our family, our culture, my neighborhood, my own conditioning in those tendencies? How can I address those and at the same time realize that we’re not going to address them overnight? We can’t. It will not happen overnight. We didn’t get here overnight. But we can take steps, we can take steps.

This conversation is adapted from Episode Seven of the Point of View podcast with Barry Boyce.  

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