#and what it means that this divide has been normalised and accepted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deerth · 3 years

Text

my first mistake in witchcraft

yes i’m going to be petty over religion for a second here.

i have been slowly inching out of the broom closet as i now consciously move on from the atheist mindset to the pagan one. i was looking for more resources to research my path, and i ended up on a witchy server... woe unto me as i try to fit in once more, for it seems that not even witches are unified.

forget about all that shit about garden, cosmos and whatever witches. the religion actually broadly branches into two practices - Wicca and regular witchcraft. so you are primarily the one or the other, no matter what flavour of ritual you practice.

the primary difference between Wiccans and general witchcraft is your belief of whether religion can be used for harm or not. in short, Wiccans state “an it harm none, do as ye will” (as long as you don’t hurt anyone [including yourself], go bonkers), therefore you will not find Wiccans casting curses or hexes. we know the responsibility of our faith and we know that if you radiate bad vibes, it will come right back around to bite you in the ass later. that said, most Wiccans don’t mind witches who do curse or hex. some cultures use practices like voodoo, and even old eastern European practices were not free of rituals that were made to directly interfere with someone’s will (love spells that were supposed to make someone love you). therefore, a disclaimer: I’m not anti-hex. I would not use a hex because I feel that hate will not solve hate, and as long as you’re an adult, I trust you know what you’re doing with your power. maybe you are of an oppressed culture and have good reason to exact revenge on someone who severely hurt you, especially if you have a long-standing tradition of hexes. even Nina Simone sang “I Put a Spell on You” (albeit this is also a love spell). I know curses and hexes and even spells affecting with another’s free will are an inherent part of witchcraft and I won’t deny it. I follow my doctrine, you follow yours, that is fine by me.

what is NOT fine with me, however, is propagating hex culture among minors. why? because minors are not ready to take on that responsibility!!!! just like they are not truly ready to make healthy decisions about sex, alcohol or other substances, they cannot take true responsibility over causing harm, be it spiritual or otherwise. “what’s a little hex do?” you might ask, if you’re a minor. not to sound like a boomer, but when I was 16, I was edgy as fuck. I hated everyone while claiming to love everyone. I was in NO correct mental state to make decisions about the aforementioned things. even without casting any hexes, I made many mistakes. big ones. I hurt a lot of people. yes, I regret it all deeply. I wish I had thought things over rather than stay stubborn. in fact, most people under 20 are not ready to enter discourse, drama or a vicious cycle of hatred purely because it will always turn into “all bite but no bark”. I purposefully say it that way because although youngsters are admirably spirited and ready to take on the world... they often bite off more than they can chew. I see girlies straight out of high school trying to solve huge problems like racism, and although, again, admiring these young people, they have researched their stuff. to an extent, they know what they’re talking about... but I do believe hate will not solve hate.

one of the moderators of said server retaliated with it not being a universal truth, and claimed my take to be “unverified personal gnosis” (what is a verified gnosis, anyway? how do you measure it? especially in a practice like witchcraft where every bloody individual practises it differently and there are no priests or churches?). if the moderator happens to read this and wishes to elaborate, i’d be welcome for a bit of constructive discussion over what is and isn’t personal gnosis. I acknowledge that “hate cannot be fought with hate” is not a universal truth... that is perhaps where I went to the extreme. but believe me, I did not say it to be holier-than-thou. I was actually shocked to be called out by not one, but two moderators on my behaviour, instantly. I did not read in the rules that one would be forbidden to state their opinion or softly disagree, but perhaps it is so and I did not pay enough attention.

there comes another food for thought: is it possible to socialise without being opinionated in any way? would shutting down opinions truly prevent conflict? because I’m feeling very bitter and left out now. I know everyone on that server is not Wiccan. but to get slapped in the face right after I attempted to be friendly (laconic and feeble as that was), among who I considered to be my own people... I feel conflicted. now mind, I’m not going to leave witchcraft behind. it is my religion, and thanks to this experience, I learned that Wicca is the right thing for me. I don’t want to advocate for violence and a vicious cycle of hatred. my grandfather was Romani, therefore I believe I know a thing or two about mislabeling and hate enacted upon minorities and outcast people. does that mean I want to kill and hex every white in sight? the answer is no. if anything, me being both Wiccan and Romani, it would just add fuel to the fire. especially because Romani are stereotyped as evil witches in the first place, so it would be a double suicide. by propagating violence, I would give these people more reason to hate pagans and Romani people. both cultures are already feared and hated upon as it is. I am not going to give people more opportunity to hate me.

coming back to the minor I disagreed with in the server. I was shocked that the first thing that came to a teenager’s mind was a revenge hex. it screams of naiveté and irresponsible behaviour towards your faith. and not JUST your faith. as I am a student of psychology, I am well aware how mind patterns work, and here’s the funny thing: psychology has proven that witchcraft’s law of returns is somewhat true, not on a magickal level, but on a mental one. if you ponder over violence and revenge excessively, you are reinforcing those neural pathways in your brain. there is a reason why they say “hate breeds hate”. it is the same reason why depression is so hard to deal with. anything you obsessively ruminate over reinforces it again and again until escape seems impossible. I’m not only speaking as a witch, I’m speaking as a human being. is it correct to propagate petty violence among minors when we as adults can do better and guide young people to better paths?

I’m not saying young people shouldn’t use hexes. but I am questioning their ability to take on the responsibility of potentially hurting someone, or even just thinking of hurting someone. you plant a seed of hate and it may just grow. you knock on the devil’s door enough times and he will answer (disclaimer: I’m not Christian either, I just like the saying). soon there shall be nothing left but hate. if the person in question had not been a minor, I would have left it at that. but religion is sacred. a witch’s magick is essentially making something important to you sacred. it’s not a plaything. it’s not to be used light-handedly. it’s not a trend. and hexes should be the last resort if all else fails OR the person you hate has a damn good reason for being hated.

is it wrong to vote for love and peace? yeah, I sound like a hippie, but I think they’re right. love was not born from continuing to fight each other - love was born from unity, from coexisting. how does one fight racism? psychology says see more poc, interact with them, understand their struggles. how to fight religious fear? spend time with people of different views. how to get over homophobia? spend time with the gays and try to understand their views, and like, actually understand them. spending time with someone just to berate them is still bigotry. the interaction I mean here is coexisting with minorities in a shared space and them slowly, but surely becoming more accepted and normalised because we finally see them. even a bigot can’t stay a bigot if they are brought out of isolation. if they’re forced to see people different than them.

unfortunately, not even your own faith can comfort you sometimes, mostly because the community is still divided. there are rules on what should and shouldn’t be done, and woe upon thee if you dare to even peep one of your thoughts. I merely said thank you and sorry and left, as I always do when I feel misunderstood. it was a valuable yet harsh lesson, and I regret hoping for acceptance or even offering me a moment to be understood without being shut down without a second thought. I regret hoping for a little discussion where it is seen as a violation of rules.

again, as long as you are ready to bear the responsibility of harming another, do whatever you want. as a Wicca, I prefer staying benevolent and kind, even to those who traumatised me. you might argue that this essay in itself is not benevolent... after all, Wiccans don’t slander people behind their backs, you might say. but it is not my intent to slander. it is just me expressing sheer confusion over what I expected to be a community to hear out all voices, because why have a community at all if you allow for no discussion? do we shut off discussions entirely in fear of fights? but alas, it is human nature to be opposed, but it’s also human nature to still hold hands despite the differences - one just needs to acknowledge it.

blessed be.

#own post #witchblr #witchy #wicca #laconic and gross oversimplifications to this post will not be accepted.#i am naive in my own way for believing people want to be kind #but i do believe that there can be love and peace on the planet earth. as a survivor of hate #i know it.

10 notes · View notes

aroworlds · 5 years

Text

The Vampire Conundrum, Part Two

When Rowan Ross is pressured into placing an aromantic pride mug on his desk, he doesn't know how to react when his co-workers don't notice it. Don't they realise he spent a weekend rehearsing answers for questions unasked? Then again, if nobody knows what aromanticism is, can't he display a growing collection of pride merch without a repeat of his coming out as trans? Be visible with impunity through their ignorance?

He can endure their thinking him a fan of archery, comic-book superheroes and glittery vampire movies. It's not like anyone in the office is an archer. (Are they?) But when a patch on his bag results in a massive misconception, correcting it means doing the one thing he most fears: making a scene.

After all, his name isn't Aro.

Contains: One trans, bisexual frayromantic alongside an office of well-meaning cis co-workers who think they're being supportive and inclusive.

Content Advisory: This story hinges on the way most cishet alloromantic people know nothing about aromanticism and the ways many trans-accepting cis people fail to best communicate their acceptance. In other words, expect a series of queer, trans and aro microaggressions. There are no depictions or mentions of sexual attraction beyond the words "allosexual" and "bisexual", but there are non-detailed references to Rowan's previous experiences with romance.

Length: 3, 737 words (part two of two).

Note: Posted for @aggressivelyarospec‘s AggressivelyArospectacular 2019.

Romance, too, feels like one of the mechanisms by which a dangerous trans body can be rendered more acceptable to cis folks.

“His name’s Aro,” Melanie says after lunch, showing a new volunteer around the office. She pats Rowan on the shoulder as she walks behind his chair, startling him enough that the clipping path he’s making around a photo of Damien’s head goes veering off to the side. “He does our website, our flyers and the information guides we send out. Aro like from the Twilight movies!”

Introductions once only encompassed Melanie’s habit of overly-stressing pronouns when referencing him—a dysphoria-triggering reminder that she doesn’t think him masculine enough for people to assume it. Isn’t that bad enough without her also getting his name wrong?

He sighs, frustrated. Complaining about this, when trans people are in desperate want of a working environment free of outright antagonism and discrimination, feels unreasonable. Hell, Rowan knows aromantics who’ll revel in being named “Aro”, so isn’t his hurt just pettiness? Isn’t this why he’s no longer welcome at home, a man too intolerant of his family’s mistakes? How many times did they tell him that his harping on about little things demonstrates a concerning lack of gratitude for their acceptance?

His co-workers do seem to believe in Rowan’s masculinity; he shouldn’t take that for granted.

Instead, he feels like he’s failing at being both transgender and aromantic.

After a fair amount of editing, he places Damien’s image in the brochure mock-up and exports to PDF. The office will make suggestions, some useful, some ignorant and some so absurd that Rowan will laugh with his friends later on, but that’s fine. He can’t expect otherwise in a workplace where everyone considers him possessed of unknowable ability with computers. They’re good people, in the main, and they care about their work.

It’s just complicated, and Rowan hates the feeling that complicated is the best cis people will let him get to a normalised acceptance.

“Aro? An Arrow fan called Aro? Really? Do you like comics or are you one of those people only into DC TV?”

Rowan looks up from attaching his PDF to an email to find the volunteer sitting on a creaking office chair and crab-walking it over to Rowan’s desk. “Comics?”

“Oh, good.” The volunteer sighs as if in relief. “I mean, the TV show? It isn’t terrible—better than most of DC’s movies, at least—but I’m so tired of people who call themselves fans but have never touched a comic book.”

Rowan glances at his journal cover, ponders its possible similarity to the show’s motif and nearly bursts out laughing. He’s never read a comic and doesn’t plan on doing so. He prefers indie podcasts and audiobooks on account of increased representation and greater ability to sew and cook while listening. “I’m not an Arrow fan. Sorry.”

Another show about cis people possessed of everyone-should-pair-up amatonormativity?

Hard pass.

“You’re not?” The volunteer gapes, waving his hand towards Rowan’s cluster of pride mugs. Three, now. Only one contains coffee, which feels like a terrible oversight. “Is this a joke, then? Are they getting you arrow stuff because of your name? Like some office thing?”

Aro.

His name is not Aro.

Rowan once thought the concept of snapping a mere storytelling device, something as ludicrous or impossible as “glittering eyes” or “romantic interest that lasts after getting to know someone”. At best an experience had by people without a brain that doesn’t devote most of its time to screaming alerts at the prospect of anything dangerous. Absurd, irrational, void of any real-life relevance.

Not even with his family has he felt this chilling, all-encompassing moment of enough.

He looks back at his computer, attaches a second PDF file to his email and, before he considers pesky things like consequences, clicks send. Then Rowan climbs up on his office chair, steps up onto the desk and whistles like a country boy who owned a border collie prone to sneaking off the property and rounding up the neighbour’s sheep.

Everyone in the office gapes up at him with a motley assortment of parted lips, unblinking eyes and, in Melanie’s case, the pointing of a long, vermillion-polished fingernail.

Up high, the room reeks of nesting rodents and the popcorn ceiling desperately wants refinishing.

Now Rowan’s brain tells his limbs to shake and his chest to heave; of course, he thinks as he shoves his hands behind his back, anxiety kicks in after he’s neck-deep in it! “My … my name is Rowan. I chose it.” He looks at the vent on the opposite wall, fighting to sound collected. Is that black mould? “Dad told me if I rejected my deadname, I was rejecting them. That I was being cruel and selfish. I earnt my name!” He stops, gasping for breath like a hooked fish—which, given his terror, feels far too appropriate a simile. “My identity is aro, short for aromantic, like being queer—one way of my being queer. So ... there’s a PDF booklet in your inbox about aromanticism. Read it! I’m proud of being aro, but you need to call me by the name I chose! It’s Rowan!”

He jumps down off the desk. The creaking laminate and the thud of his dress shoes, a little too large for Rowan’s feet, sound abominably loud in the sepulchrally-quiet room. Heading past giddy into faint, but pushed on by a heedlessness of the “this can’t possibly get worse because I’m going to be fired” variety, Rowan snatches up his satchel and reaches into the side pocket to pull out his handful of print leaflets. He drops one in the lap of the gaping volunteer, tosses the rest on an empty desk for luddites who prefer paper, and returns to his chair.

Seven sets of speechless eyes bore holes through his skull, shoulders and spine.

Rowan jams on his headphones, opens his no-romance metal playlist and turns his music up to a volume just short of deafening before queuing new posts to the project’s website.

When he invented the God of Trans Men as flippant rhetoric to cope with Melanie’s questions, is it right to pray to him?

***

Two hours later, doing his best to radiate an aura of do not disturb on pain of your bloody death, Rowan fights to pay attention to the last event write-up. Leaving early means asking permission and walking down the row of desks, risking stares and comments; he instead corrects Melanie’s idiosyncratic punctuation. Didn’t Melanie go to school at a time when they taught more than English comprehension? How doesn’t she know when not to use an apostrophe?

There’ll be consequences. Warnings? A formal discussion in the private office the supervisors only use for interviews? A request that he undergo counselling? A strong recommendation for psychiatric assessment? Firing? It isn’t like they can’t throw a rock and hit thousands of people under the age of forty with general computer skills and design ability who aren’t prone to standing on desks to make unwanted announcements.

No. Focus on the damn comma splices.

Should he ask his psychiatrist for the soonest possible appointment? New meds?

A tap on the shoulder makes Rowan’s head threaten to brush the probably-asbestos-riddled ceiling; he gasps and yanks off his headphones, trembling.

Melanie stands beside his chair, holding out her phone in its glossy pink case. “Those words that are underlined? Can I click on them to find out what they mean, like on a website? Like ... al-lo-sexual?”

“Hyperlinks in an interactive PDF—the file on your phone—work the same way as on a website,” Rowan says without thinking: in the last three months, he’s been asked this ten times. “If you click on those links, they’ll take you to a glossary at the end of the document with definitions.”

Damien sits facing his usual computer, his head tilted as if watching out the corner of his eye.

Melanie smiles the expression of a woman in an alternate dimension where Rowan doesn’t engage in embarrassing outbursts. “You’re so good at all this stuff, Rowan.” She stresses his name just enough that he can pretend she didn’t. “Where did you learn it all?”

He once tried to explain his philosophy of clicking on things only to realise that while the concept of generational divides requires excessive generalisation, a difference exists in terms of his willingness to fearless experimentation with electronic devices and programs. “School. Uni.”

“You’re so lucky. School was nothing like that when I was a girl. You have so many more opportunities now. And identities.” Melanie sighs and pushes a wisp of grey hair back from her eyebrows. “It’s good, it really is.”

Rowan blinks, startled into silence by a rare glimpse of validation stripped of performance and demonstration.

He hadn’t thought anyone here capable of it.

“It says that some people feel repulsed by romance? Are you like that? Should we do something? Do we need to not talk about romance in the office? Like, if I describe my daughter dating her boyfriend, not that I want to, is that bad? Do we need to hold a meeting? Damien—Damien—”

Damien turns, wearing the blinded look of a rabbit frozen in a spotlight. “Yes...?”

For how long has Damien worked with Melanie? For how long has the office rolled with Melanie’s interruptions and proclamations, her meetings called about the slightest of issues? For how long has the office accepted Shelby’s incessant reminding and Damien’s inability to surrender event photography to someone who knows how to modify their flash settings? Isn’t there a chance that they’ll tolerate Rowan’s occasional moments of desk-blathering?

A trans aro should be able to sew a patch on his bag reading “aro” without provoking cis weirdness. Since when does someone read a new word on his bag and assume that’s now his name? Isn’t that another over-the-top demonstration made by awkward cis people trying to prove their acceptance, something that’s never made Rowan feel safe?

Even when he’s aromantic, he never gets to avoid cissexism.

He slides his hands between the seat and his legs, aware of Melanie’s once again drawing the office’s unbroken attention. “I, personally, don’t care if people talk about their romances,” he says, certain that Damien needn’t answer Melanie about meetings, “but I do care when people assume I must want one. I do care when Sh … some of you just keep asking if I’m dating anyone.”

Rowan long set aside the need to bother with romance. He isn’t aromantic in the way most people first think of the word, as he does fall in love, but it describes his frayromanticism nonetheless. Why put himself through the inevitable messy, angry break-up when his partners don’t understand why what started as romance ends up to him as a friendship? When dating isn’t without trans-related challenges, why force himself into a type of relationship that he knows won’t last?

Romance, too, feels like one of the mechanisms by which a dangerous trans body can be rendered more acceptable to cis folks, in the same way it sanitises his equally-threatening bisexuality. If queers are holding hands and exchanging rings, just like cis and heterosexual couples, they’re safe.

He wants to be normal, but not that normal.

Melanie surprises him again by nodding. Opaque red only colours the corners of her lips; the worn centres reveal the brownish-pink beneath. “Like how we now don’t assume everyone’s—what’s the fancy word you use for not being you?”

“Cis. Yeah.”

“At my first job, I never dared yeah my elders. Can I ask what’s this a-sexual thing? Not-sexual? That’s a thing that can go with your a-ro-manti-cism? Am I saying it right? Is that something people can be?” Melanie grabs the volunteer’s vacated chair and wheels herself up to Rowan’s desk. “Tell me about this. Please.”

Damien gives a theatrically deep sigh, winks at Rowan and turns back to his keyboard.

Rowan’s tangle of feelings bewilders him too much to be simple relief, but he doesn’t appear to be at immediate risk of losing his job.

***

“We need to have a meeting!” Melanie announces ten days later, striding up to where Damien peers over Rowan’s shoulder to approve the touch-ups on a series of scanned photos. Rowan grasps the want to have a section on the website showcasing past events, but surely Damien’s film-camera predecessors weren’t all unable to take decent pictures? “Today. Perhaps before lunch?”

“Do we?” Damien doesn’t bother to turn his head. “What’s the number on the urgency scale, remembering that whiteboard markers aren’t a five?”

“I’m aro-ace.” Melanie stresses the words, beaming with the confidence of a child presenting a new finger-painted masterpiece. “I didn’t know, but I definitely am. I’m aromantic and asexual.”

“I’m glad for you.” Now Damien faces her, scratching his shock of unruly brown hair. “I don’t know why this needs a meeting? Do you want something addressed?”

Rowan leans back in his chair, too startled to do anything but watch. Melanie’s interrogation of him about all things a-spec over the last few days left him certain that she was questioning, but he didn’t expect this announcement—or Damien’s reaction to it.

“I’ve been reading, and I sent around a list of links everyone else should read, too. We must do something about our website. And, of course, everyone should know I’m aro-ace, and then let people ask any questions. Then we should consider changes to our submission forms, and then...”

Already, Melanie has done more to integrate her identity into the office and its projects than Rowan ever dared risk. Why, then, does he feel as though he’s being pressed inside a metal suit three sizes too small? Shouldn’t the end result be worth enduring a staff meeting in which she announces she’s aro-ace? Melanie being Melanie, she’ll gladly answer questions about aromanticism. Doesn’t that give Rowan everything he wanted—ability to be out as aromantic but someone else’s dealing with allo nonsense?

Matt’s right.

Rowan’s just a coward.

Damien nods at Rowan. “What do you think about that?”

“Uh...” Rowan draws a delaying breath, fighting against a brain too bewildered to be useful in forming comprehensible speech. “Uh … you’d have to run form changes past someone higher up, wouldn’t you? We have to ask about everything else? But...”

He doesn’t name Melanie a friend, but fellow aromantics aren’t common enough that Rowan will reject a companion—even if they’re cis and have subjected him to half a year’s discomfort, anxiety and alienation. He slides his restless hands under his legs, biting his lip against the sickening realisation. Melanie’s enthusiastic fearlessness may make this office and program better for him as an aro, but how can it answer all the attitudes that made Rowan fear coming out in the first place?

If he’s a coward, doesn’t he have reason?

“We do need a meeting,” he says slowly, his heart pounding in his chest like blast beats in death metal. “On better integrating marginalised people into our office. Because the way you emphasise my pronouns, Melanie, or the way Shelby reassures me five times that I can correct her … that doesn’t make me feel safe. It makes me feel reminded. Different. Too visible. And that’s why...”

“You ended up standing on a desk?” Damien asks with the gruffness of a middle-aged cis man trying to sound gentle.

“Yeah,” Rowan mutters. “That.”

Melanie clasps her fingers to her lips. “Oh! I didn’t mean anything by it! I just wanted people to get it right!”

How many times has he suffered through well-meaning people explaining that in response to his saying that they made him uncomfortable? How many times has he heard people justify their actions as though good intent always mitigates bad impact?

“You’re … you’re still making this about you! The only answer I want or need from you is thanks for telling me, Rowan, I won’t do it again! That’s all! Not your reasoning, not this effort to justify! I want to know that you hear me, that you’ll acknowledge that your intent however good still made me come home crying from dysphoria, and that you’ll stop because I don’t want to put up with it anymore! That’s all!”

For the second time in less than a fortnight, a chilling silence envelops the office.

“We need a meeting,” Rowan says breathlessly, reminding himself that at least this time he isn’t standing on his desk, “discussing how to include marginalised people in our office. Discussing all the microaggressions. Maybe you need to find … educators, trainers who come in and do this. I don’t know. I’m just so tired of never feeling safe or normal, never feeling like I can say anything because this isn’t hate and at least you’re not my parents! Like I don’t ever get to have anything better!”

He stands up, unsure what to do past fetching himself a distracting cup of coffee.

Maybe, then, he’ll be able to survive the way Melanie looks at him—as though he just ran over her puppy.

She just came out, and he did run right over it.

“I’m sorry.” Rowan sags onto his chair, leaning forwards to grab his satchel despite the unpleasant giddiness. “I’m sorry. It’s wonderful, Melanie, that you now know who you are and that you can come out. And it’s amazing that you’re doing things already, when I needed like six months just to get used to my knowing I’m aro. I just...” He reaches inside the satchel and pulls out a rough oblong shape wrapped in white tissue paper. “Here. I’m sorry.”

He, an allo-aro man, screwed up an aro-ace woman’s coming out. Shouldn’t he know better? He wants to laugh, wants to cry, wants to curl up in a ball and hide under his desk. Even now, when he’s trying to get what he needs as a trans man, he’s being the worst kind of aromantic!

Her lips pinched, Melanie takes the present in her hands, worrying at the top piece of tape with her long, pink nails.

“We’ll have a meeting.” Damien runs his hand through his hair as though he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. “I’ll talk to the heads about … sensitivity training, I suppose this also is. Would you be willing to write me an email outlining some of these behaviours and any ways we can make this office safer for you? Is that an appropriate thing to ask of you?”

“I don’t mind,” Rowan says. As long as he doesn’t go ignored, he’ll send a few emails—and he already has a few blog posts on which to draw. “Thank you.”

“Do you … want anything, now? To talk privately to me or anyone else? Or to a senior supervisor? Or someone with the government body? Can I do or arrange anything else?”

“Coffee. Please. And … and then to go back to fixing photos as though absolutely nothing happened because I don’t … do this sort of thing.” Rowan heaves a shaking sigh, pushing aside the thought that nobody can have failed to observe this. “Thank—thank you. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

He notices Damien gesturing at Melanie, notices that Rowan’s aro flag mug leaves with both and returns a few minutes later—now distracting from the office’s musty odour with its rich bitterness. He takes a few sips, but only by throwing himself into his work can he survive the gibbering, chattering thoughts building into a crushing tsunami of what the hell. Why did he do that? Why—no. Photos.

The soft clunk of crockery hitting laminate makes him look up.

Melanie leans against the edge of Rowan’s desk, her hand resting atop her new orange, yellow, white and blue aro-ace flag mug. “I’m sorry. Thanks for telling me.” She draws a deep breath, tapping her nails against the rim. “I didn’t know I could … that there’s an explanation, until I read your booklet. It described me. Things I didn’t realise about me! Things I’d been feeling! But … I’ve been learning about things like micro-aggressions. I didn’t know I’d been doing them myself. I’m sorry. I’ll keep learning. And thank you for my cup.”

“I know,” Rowan says softly, thinking back to the day when he realised the words “aromantic” and “frayromantic” describe him. A belated voicing of confusion and alienation; the naming of a constant sense of difference from the world. Revelation, understanding, explanation. “I know. I’m sorry, too. I don’t like … scenes. Or asking people things. I’m an anxious coward. So it just...”

He waves his hands, trying to mime an explosion.

Melanie, wide-eyed, jerks her head. “I couldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t done it first—and I wouldn’t have known to say anything if you hadn’t! And you’re asking us to do things knowing that we don’t understand, which must be frightening at least. You’re brave. And you shouldn’t be sorry.”

Rowan stares at her, unsure what to say in response. Never has anyone in his life freely offered such a sentiment. Never has anyone offered him something so generous without subsequent critique of Rowan’s intolerance for and impatience with their struggles to deal with him, praise softening the following reproval.

Brave.

His throat tightens and his eyes blur.

“Would you work with me on a proposal to put together for the submission forms? Damien insisted that I work with you, if you want to.”

“Uh … yeah?”

Melanie grabs a stack of papers from her desk and a chair. “I’ve gone through the old forms and highlighted passages. Do you want to read through and see if there’s anything I’ve missed or anything that should be left?”

He nods and takes the papers. Is this an alternate universe, the world flung upside down? Or, if people possess a minimum of decency, can he make needed change by addressing his problems instead of letting everyone talk over him? Can he build a world where he doesn’t endure cis or allo microaggressions by believing that their inconveniences aren’t worth more than his discomfort?

If his co-workers doesn’t object to correction, if they’re willing to make changes and investigate training, is the problem one of Rowan’s overreaction?

Does that mean he can talk to Matt the way he spoke to Melanie and Damien?

“Is something wrong?” Melanie asks, frowning.

Rowan shakes his head and plucks a pen from his frayro mug. “No.”

For the first time in a long time, that’s mostly true.

69 notes · View notes

caribbeanfeminist-blog · 6 years

Text

QUEER REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA 🏳️‍🌈

A post by: Danae Ali @acidmerbaby for @caribbeanfeminist

Queer Representation in media, be it television shows, books, movies, or even in the music industry, has significantly increased in recent years due to the progressive normalisation and acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals, but still has a very long way to go.

Still, in 2018, Queer Erasure in the media is an issue. You would think that with the recent headway made by the LGBTQ+Community, this would become less of a problem. However, there are numerous issues pertaining to the representation of Queer individuals in the media which are still very prominent and frequent such as Queer Erasure as well as Stereotyping. In this article, I will be talking on the issue of Queer Erasure.

Firstly, we must understand why accurate, positive representation is necessary.

Everybody is different, we all know that of course, as one of the earliest lessons we learn as a developing child. However, there are certain characteristics, such as race, religion, sexuality, gender and physical/mental ability, to name a few, which segregate us even further. In today’s world, ideals of intolerance, discrimination and hatred are so interwoven in the fabric of our society that due to these differences, such marginalised groups are discriminated against and denied opportunities and basic human rights. This is largely attributed to human history and many people being determined to carry over these antiquated mannerisms into modern society.

Due to this, we the LGBTQ+ Community, have been struggling to have our voices heard over those that divide us. A vital role in this, is representation. Representation can positively impact the viewers in many ways. It can present LGBTQ+ individuals as they are, as people, in order to spread awareness in the hope that people may change their minds.

Casually showing LGBTQ+ people just existing, living a normal life just as anyone else around them, can help acquaint people with the idea of them existing and being prevalent in their day-to-day lives. This is important because, while most of the population accept the existence of the Community, they still view it as something that should be censored, as if it’s something to be embarrassed about. I’m sure you’ve heard at least one person say, “I’m fine with gay people, as long as they don’t publicly show it.” Don’t you see how wrong that is? To treat someone being themselves as if it’s disgusting, or inappropriate? That presents their sexuality/gender identity to them, and the world, as something that should be hidden, as if it’s shameful.

This is incredibly damaging because to a young, queer person, it teaches them that something is ‘wrong with them’ and that it’s something to be embarrassed about. It also perpetuates the idea that that same something is ‘unnatural’ or ‘inappropriate’ for the public eye. It promotes the further alienation of Queer people from the rest of society. Therefore, representation, although it may not seem to be, is one of the most important tools which can be utilised to help destroy the segregation and negative image of Community constantly perpetuated by those in power.

Media consumption in our society is the highest it has ever been due to Globalisation and the Internet as well as the fact that devices such as laptops, tablets and phones are now commonplace within the average household. This widespread channel of potential distribution must be utilised to its full potential. On-screen representation is one of the best ways to obtain information about the world, therefore it is crucial that this information is not used to the detriment of marginalised groups.

Moving on to Queer Erasure. In today’s progressive society, there is much more representation that we could have ever hoped to get 20 years ago. Nevertheless, there is much room for improvement.

For one thing, representation doesn’t mean the token white gay that the show’s executives including for the sake of having a gay character. Who, majority of the time, plays into a stereotype such as the ‘gay best friend’. Now, there is obviously nothing wrong with having a best friend who is gay, but your only reason for becoming their friend shouldn’t be because they’re gay. In that case, it’s usually fetishizing which stems from the presentation of gay men in this way by mainstream media, as a gross generalisation, rather than a diverse group of people each with his own personality.

It also doesn’t mean the lesbian couple included for the pleasure of men. In that case, it’s once again fetishization, because to present lesbians, or queer women in general, as a source of pleasure for men rather than as their own person, is extremely toxic and dehumanising. It spreads the message that they exist for the pleasure of men, not as their own person. And that, furthermore, they must be of some use to men to be accepted, due largely in part to misogynistic ideals which survived to today. It also makes men feel entitled to their attention, which dehumanises them further.

True representation means having queer women who don’t all exist for men’s pleasure, masculine/feminine gay men, queer POC, bisexuals, pansexuals, polysexuals. Include gender non-conforming individuals. Have trans, genderfluid, and non-binary representation. Normalise everybody within the Community, represent everybody within the Community. Give young queer individuals people to look up to. Let them know that there’s nothing wrong with them.

A fairly recent example of Queer Erasure is the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, in which, Freddie Mercury will not be portrayed as bisexual. You can’t crop out a piece of his identity because you don’t like it. That’s extremely disrespectful and, as I have mentioned too many times before, presents his bisexuality as a negative aspect of his life. If you are going to do a movie about his life, include all of his life because if he had no issue with his sexuality, why should you now choose to exclude this part of his life.

As a result of constant Bisexual Erasure, many of today’s world doesn’t acknowledge the existence of Bisexual people and consistently invalidate them. However, at least there is some representation, for many other identities. For people who identify as pansexual, asexual, polysexual and non-binary, to name a few, there is almost no representation at all. Whenever I come out as pansexual, I almost always have to explain it. To this day, there are only two instances of pansexual representation I have come across.

Another instance of Queer Erasure is in the Marvel films. Do you know that in the comics, Loki is explicitly queer, and Valkyrie is bisexual? Odds are, you didn’t, because these facts were omitted from the movies. And for what purpose? Because it was too ‘explicit’? Someone’s sexuality should never be treated as explicit.

There is also the issue of negative representation. One very prominent example being the TV show ‘Friends’. In the show, jokes are frequently made at the expense of Susan and Carol’s relationship. Implying that there is something odd about them being lesbians, and often saying how Ben must be confused being raised by them.

Another instance is of Chandler’s ‘father’. Now I say ‘father’ because she is a trans woman whom the group constantly refers to as ‘he/him’, or laugh about her gender identity, which is blatantly transphobic and downright rude. This can lead to the audience believing that it’s okay to do the same to a transgender individual they know because it’s what they’ve seen and viewed as normal and acceptable.

However, there are sometimes where there are amazing examples of queer such as in Orange is the New Black, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Fosters and How to Get Away with Murder.

I see no reason for the erasure of Queer individuals from mainstream media as I , as a member of the LGBTQ+ Community, see nothing wrong with my identity and am the farthest thing possible from embarrassed about it, so I sincerely hope that there will not be as many instances occurring from here going forward as we move towards an even better tomorrow in which we can thrive.

#queer #lgbtq #lgbtpride #pride month #feminist #freddiemercury #friends #caribbeanfeminist #bisexual #asexual #queer erasure #stereotyping

4 notes · View notes

mastcomm · 4 years

Text

The rise of American Fool

Trump: an instance of American fool?

By Umair Haque

On 20 Might Donald Trump stated that having one of many world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks was a “badge of honour.” What sort of fool would assume that having the very best demise toll in a world pandemic can be a degree of delight? Fast, somebody give this moron a medal!

The American Fool is a determine the world has come to know all too properly — he’s a world well-known superstar by this level. Brad Pitt has nothing on him. And the world, today, as far as I can see, is laughing at America, horrified, astonished, bewildered — asking a quite simple query. Or at the least one which I feel could be very easy. Solely it doesn’t look like, as a result of as far as I see, People of a sure variety simply don’t even appear to get the query. After all, maybe you do, and possibly I’m incorrect. Nonetheless, let me title it. The chaos, demise, and despair we’re seeing in America at the moment are useless.

Once I sit down with my European, Asian, Canadian mates — anybody that’s not American — the one factor they’ll’t appear to grasp is why People, in flip, don’t appear to know this. Now, ‘useless’ means simply what it implies. None of this needed to occur. Or virtually none of it. Does that matter to People? Or is everybody, roughly, an American Fool now?

You see, when my European and Asian mates think about the determine of the American Fool, they don’t simply imply the Trumpist, the bleach-drinking shouter, the one who attends Trump rallies and rails in opposition to Mexicans, whereas voting in opposition to his or her personal healthcare. Additionally they imply the opposite sort of American. The one who goes to Democratic rallies, and votes in opposition to his or her personal healthcare. That, in any case, is what Democrats simply did…through the inception of a literal world pandemic…vote in opposition to higher healthcare…to not point out every little thing else…rejecting Liz and Bernie for Joe. Who desires much less healthcare whereas a pandemic is raging? What on earth?

What everybody from world wide who’s not American that I speak to essentially means is that this. There are two sorts of American Fool. The dunce, and the idiot. The wilful one, and the negligent one. There’s the Trumpist — who doesn’t know any higher, who’s solely recognized hate, ignorance, worry, and rage: the dunce. However there’s additionally the idiot. The Democrat who votes in opposition to healthcare, retirement, schooling — and will know higher. The subtle elite — who doesn’t see that America’s an imploding society in each attainable approach proper about now. The New York Occasions columnist, the CNN anchor, none of whom ever actually query if any of that is vaguely regular.

Now, if you perceive that, you find yourself bewildered. Which one in all these is de facto the malicious one? Who’s the Larger Fool? Which one is definitely the one something might be performed about?

Therefore, each of those sorts of American Idiots have lengthy baffled the world — however proper about now, they horrify the world. They drop it’s jaw. What the hell have People let themselves turn into? What varieties of individuals need worse lives for themselves…on each side of the political divide..over and over? What the? It doesn’t make sense, in any respect. It’s breathtaking, particularly to those that dwell in civilized fashionable societies, like, say Canada. I inform my European and Asian and Canadian mates, in return, that America actually is completely different. It’s a spot the place demise stalks individuals respiration down their necks each single day of their lives. What else do you name a factor hospital payments within the a whole lot of hundreds? “Medical bankruptcies”? An absence of healthcare is a really actual type of violence, too.

What does residing amidst omnipresent violence — the very actual worry of demise, in any other case generally known as trauma — do? It shuts your mind off. It triggers your battle or flight response. It fills you with adrenaline, worry, anger. You’re on a hair set off. Rational pondering shuts down. The frontal cortex slows to a halt.

Is it the limitless brutality and cruelty of American life that’s made People Idiots, then? There are the opposite types of violence — the extra seen ones. Faculty shootings grew to become simply one other normalised, accepted a part of American life. America is the one nation — the one nation — on this planet the place masked males burst in, fake to shoot little children, and so they must fake to die. What on earth? This doesn’t occur anyplace else — not even, say, Pakistan or Iraq, locations the place there’s non secular violence, certain, however not common faculty shootings.

You see, America has lengthy normalised and accepted mass demise on a scale that will have ruined another society. Are you able to think about faculty shootings often in, say, France or Canada? The federal government would have fallen in weeks. People shrug — and make their children do “energetic shooter drills.” So possibly it’s no shock that People don’t get that this wave of mass demise is useless as a result of they dwell in an ultra-violent society of it anyhow, and have turn into resigned, apathetic, blind. They don’t even see, anymore, that mass demise is an aberration — not a factor to be tolerated, normalised, shrugged away. That’s what my European and Asian mates trace at — however can’t fairly say. Violence of a form that exists nowhere else on this planet by now has left People incapable — maybe genuinely physiologically — of rational thought, of something however responding in variety, brutality met with brutality, cruelty with cruelty. How else do you get to “lunch debt” and each day faculty shootings?

Then there are my black, homosexual, minority mates. Are you aware what they are saying? People appear inured to this wave of mass demise — I’m going to make use of the phrases they have an inclination to — as a result of not sufficient white individuals have died but. How’s that for an evidence? Painful. Too true, maybe. America’s the unique slave state — the one wealthy nation left with a structure nonetheless mired within the poison of slavery. Do you know that black individuals at the moment are in reality poorer than when segregation ended? That’s how little progress has been made in America close to what’s euphemistically referred to as “the race problem.” For my black, homosexual, minority mates — American violence started way back, and by no means ended.

That’s one other grim attribute of each sorts of American Fool: they’re racists, bigots, supremacists. Certain, there’s the obnoxious variety — the Trumpist, who cheers on placing children in cages. However what about that Democrat — who simply as reliably votes in opposition to healthcare for all, over and over? Isn’t that, too, pushed by the lengthy shadow of racism? If we’re trustworthy, the rationale that People deny one another the issues individuals in every single place else take pleasure in as fundamentals of civilised societies, whether or not healthcare, retirement, schooling, is that doing so carries a sure stigma with it. “I received’t pay for these peoples’ children! These lazy individuals’s retirements!” Even the Democrat says this indignantly sufficient, predictably sufficient that America now resembles a poor nation.

Answering a query like this — why don’t People appear to care about mass demise to the purpose the remainder of the world thinks they’re idiots — is like attempting to hold water in your fingers. You don’t get very far, and but each step counts. There are such a lot of aspects to this query that it appears virtually unanswerable. On some stage, America looks like a cursed society, a spot that’s destined to be haunted by demise, and as a substitute of exorcising the ghost, the American Fool appears to go on residing amongst the lifeless. Contemplate yet one more approach mass demise stalks America.

What number of courageous younger women and men have died within the limitless wars? I don’t know, however the reply is actually: too many. What have they been preventing for? Saddam didn’t have WMDs. Iraq wasn’t behind 9/11. Why did the crack epidemic come up — do not forget that plague of yesterday? As a result of the CIA was operating weapons to Latin American fascists. What the? Sure, actually. Do you know that a lot of the international locations America’s bombed merely dedicated the cardinal sin of eager to be…social democracies? America’s not liberating them. It’s nonetheless preventing a world conflict in opposition to communism, which by no means ended. However a lot of the world didn’t need to be part of America in predatory capitalism. Are you able to blame it, trying on the plight of the common American at the moment?

But who even is aware of what number of international locations America’s at present bombing? Anybody? I don’t, and also you don’t, as a result of it’s “labeled.” All we all know is that America’s a rustic that appears to enjoy violence to the purpose that no one a lot questions: what are these wars for, and what number of are there nonetheless? The banality of mass demise, but once more.

There’s the American Fool. Nonetheless cheering on all this violence. In case you ask him about conflict, he’ll inform you that communism is dangerous. He’s by no means as soon as understood the purpose above — the world didn’t need to be part of America in it’s capitalist empire, and that’s why America needed to bomb nation after nation, from Latin America to Asia. All he thinks is that America’s been giving individuals freedom for the final fifty years. And if a number of million or so world wide needed to die — so what? The America Fool thinks of demise as the value of freedom. He doesn’t perceive possibly freedom shouldn’t be having to die within the first place. Dwelling free from violence, brutality, cruelty, and ignorance.

So is it any shock that the American Fool additionally thinks the value of freedom — now, at house, throughout a pandemic — is 100 thousand lifeless? See the resonance, the hyperlink, the logic? Hey, shrugs the American Fool, if I hand over on my freedom, then possibly freedom itself involves a lifeless finish. Subsequently, I’m not staying put throughout a pandemic. It’s my constitutional proper to have a beer and infect half the city!! So what in the event that they get sick and a few of them die? Free-dumb!!

That’s how freedom grew to become free-dumb in America. It’s why America is one in all a dismal record of countries with the very best demise toll — the place the an infection hasn’t even peaked but. Who else is on that record? Britain, Brazil, and Russia. What do these 4 nations now have in widespread?

The American Fool — he’s gone viral. Coronavirus is one pandemic. However so is American Idiocy. In Britain, I noticed it occur. First the assume tanks rolled in, with their propaganda. Then politics turned American — austerity started to rule. Then media grew to become American, too — and as a substitute of all these great BBC nature documentaries, now there have been 100 channels taking part in Historical Aliens and police state TV. Bang! Brexit. Brits turned their again on their greatest mates and allies — light and clever individuals who’d hadn’t harmed them. These soiled Europeans! It was their fault Brits had been getting poorer!! Simply because it was Mexicans’ fault in America. America Idiocy unfold to Britain, and the outcomes had been as disastrous as they had been predictable. As we speak, The British Fool has made certain that Britain has the very best demise toll in Europe, by means of indifference, stupidity, greed, malice. You may lengthen that instance, too, to Russia and Brazil. Who’s Bolsonaro’s largest — solely, actually — fan on the Worldwide stage? Trump. Who’s does Trump admire and need to please? Putin.

The idiots of the world are forming an fool military. Its shock troops are the American Fool. It’s infantry and artillery, marching not too far behind, are the the idiots America’s helped create, with crackpot pondering, propaganda, and brutality. I may additionally converse of the Indian Fool, the Arab Fool, and so forth. All of them adulate Trump. The world’s fool military is rising, led by the American Fool. What does it need?

Who does the military of American Idiots see because the enemy? The press is the “enemy of the individuals.” So are minorities, intellectuals, critics. After all, liberals are a lot hated, and anybody additional to the left despised. The world’s fool military desires a lot the identical factor that the one of many 1930s did: purity, vengeance, supremacy, retribution. This military is cannon fodder. It’s fairly completely happy to die, so long as it’s informed that it’s great and robust and pure, like all suicide bomber.

Trump as soon as stated he may stand on Fifth Ave, shoot somebody, and get away with it. Seems that was an understatement. He may let 100 thousand individuals die, and one sort of American Fool would collectively shrug — and the opposite variety would cheer and drink bleach. The world’s fool military is being desensitized, habituated, to mass demise, to violence on a surreal scale. The world’s demagogues — Trump, Bolsonaro, and so forth — they aren’t letting demise on a mass scale occur and regretting it. They’re revelling in it. Why? As a result of they know if they’ll get individuals to cross this final line, then something is feasible.

It’s one factor to get individuals to vote in opposition to their very own healthcare, retirement, schooling, revenue, financial savings — as Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Farage all did. It’s one other — a lot larger one — to convey individuals to the purpose that mass demise doesn’t register anymore. Then, if you happen to’re a demagogue, you may manipulate and twist a rustic any approach you want. As soon as individuals have accepted the extent of degradation of mass demise, there isn’t a additional sort of degradation left. They’ve been dehumanized totally, lastly. That’s the reason the demagogues of the world are letting the pandemic rage. Simply as any abuser is aware of that his sufferer being harm is sweet for him, so too the demagogues know {that a} pandemic is a robust weapon, too. That’s how I consider the American Fool today. As an individual who’s been totally dehumanized. Are you aware the look? The look of the American Fool? If you say: “However why don’t you vote for healthcare?” and their eyes go lifeless, their face goes clean, their jaw units right into a rictus grin. They need to kill you. They don’t perceive why you’d need that. They’ll’t consider you ask it. Each sorts of American Fool — the dunce and the idiot.

That’s the face of an individual who’s come to enthusiastically consider of their their very own degradation. It’s the grin of somebody who’s accepted residing with out dignity, value, or objective, and subsequently thinks of everybody else as their rival, enemy, adversary, in an limitless, brutal contest. It’s the smile of the one who, handled as an inhuman commodity for too lengthy, exploited, has misplaced their humanity, too.

How do you give individuals again their humanity? Typically, you don’t. Perhaps the world’s Fool Military must eat itself earlier than the remainder of us can breathe simple once more. Perhaps that may also convey concerning the downfall of our civilisation — identical to it triggered America to break down. One factor’s for sure, I feel. The 2 sorts of American Idiots have shaped a suicide pact. They assume they’re enemies, the dunce and the idiot. They’re extra like Romeo and Juliet. Counting down the times to the bitter finish.

Umair Haque first revealed this text in Medium of 20 Might 2020

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com.ng/opinion/the-rise-of-american-fool/

#Opinion

0 notes

socialattractionuk · 6 years

Text

When did it become acceptable to not text after a date?

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Hello and welcome to another episode of Why Dating is Trash in 2018.

If you’re a single hetero woman on the dating scene, your Saturday night is likely to go much like this.

After a week of grafting a few guys on Bumble/Hinge/whatever hugely promising but ultimately soul destroying app you’re using, you’ve got a date lined up.

You down a giant glass of wine, put on your tried and tested date outfit and head out.

Jump on the tube, try not to sweat off your contour. Arrive on the date, awkwardly text your housemates absolute nonsense so you don’t look too disappointed that your date is late.

Dating App Man arrives and you’re pleasantly surprised. He looks a lot fitter than his pictures. A couple of pinots in, the conversation is getting decidedly more flirty and you realise there could be *potential*.

There’s definite chemistry, there’s flanter flying all over the place and there’s even talk of future dates.

Either you end the night at one of your places drinking leftover wine and doing ‘bits’, or it’s a quick peck at the bus stop. Either way, you know you’ll see each other again because the chemistry was great, and you’re not a total socially unaware idiot.

Plus, didn’t he mention doing something later that week?

(Picture: MMUFFIN for Metro.co.uk)

And then it happens. Or rather, it doesn’t happen. He has your number and you await The Text.

It does not arrive.

Sure, you could message first but as any seasoned dater will know, some men scare off easier than a box of feral kittens.

So you wait and tell yourself you’re ‘playing it cool’.

A few days pass and you become acutely aware that Surprisingly Attractive Dating App Man will not be getting back to you.

You bitch about the demise of manners to your housemates over an obscene amount of pizza. You tell them that’s it, you are done with dating.

Don’t get me wrong, every date does not have to be a success and no one is *obligated* to send a follow-up text.

But being polite takes very little effort and, besides, isn’t it just nice to be nice? When did it become acceptable to send zero messages after a date?

(Picture: Malte Mueller/ Getty Images/fStop)

‘I think people just can’t be bothered anymore and just take the easy route,’ says Vicky, who shares my disdain with modern dating. ‘In certain situations it’s far easier to ghost someone than come up with the reason as to why you don’t want to go on another date.

For Vicky, a noticeable trend is her dates not even bothering to take her number, let alone anything else, without explanation.

‘I think when you go on a date with someone/meet on a night out and they come back to yours for the night it’s common decency for them to take your number and at least say “had a fun night, nice to meet you” even if they then say they’re not interested.

‘But I’ve started to notice guys just don’t even bother to take your number.’

Elle echoes this depressing viewpoint.

‘Because of dating apps we treat dating like we are playing a video game,’ she tells us.

More: Lifestyle

When did it become acceptable to not text after a date?

This 60-year-old stand-up comedian is set to take America's Got Talent by storm

What to eat when you have a cold, and what you should avoid

‘It’s really easy to swipe through and match with people and then talk to them and because you’re never actually meeting a person face to face (or at least at first), you don’t feel consciously obligated to give them the nicety of saying “no thank you” or “I don’t think this is going to work” so you just leave.

‘And for most people that’s fine when you just talk and you’ve never met but the attitude is also beginning to seep into our face to face behaviours as well.

‘If a date or the beginning of a relationship doesn’t go well you are always in the knowledge that another date, f*** or human connection is literally a swipe away so there is no real sense of wanting to make things work.’

When did we stop caring about other people’s feelings?

(Picture: Ella Byworth)

Psychologist Marc Hekster tells Metro.co.uk: ‘We’re living in the age of instance access, initial impressions, speed dating, superficial communications.

‘I think that perhaps this smart phone/internet inspired attitude is converting into human relationships now.’

‘We could think of this as a form of throwaway relationships, as if the intimacy has no meaning, and that there are no feelings involved.

‘Young people are growing up with smartphones in their hands, and this IS the new intimacy; it falls short though.’

So does this mean we’re essentially becoming less polite as a generation?

‘It would not surprise me to see that people struggle to know how to interact in an intimate setting and so may remain remote or detached and this may be construed as “less polite”.’

Hmmm. This doesn’t fill me with much hope. Here’s what real life men had to say on the matter.

‘I think men that do this are broadly divided in two camps’ says Freddie.

‘There’s those men with no regard for anyone’s feelings other than their own, seeing dating and sex as just another thing to have. They see sex as something they’re entitled to. For these men, not taking a number or not replying to a text comes as second nature.

‘The world outside their own narrow worldview may as well not exist; other people’s feelings live in a different universe.’

Yes, I’ve met a few of these. Please continue, Freddie.

‘Then there are the men who aren’t emotionless husks, devoid of all empathy. If, for whatever reason, they’re not into someone, they might think that texting to cut things off before it’s a thing is being too forward and unnecessary.

‘For these men, being ‘cool’ about things (i.e. not communicating) is so normalised that they can’t see the harm in it.

‘Not returning a text or taking a number might be, in their minds, just not prolonging a situation that’s going south anyway.

‘It’s probably best to be up front about these things though and be honest.’

Yes Freddie, that would be lovely.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

And this is the main point of contention. If you’re not into it, why not just text and say something like ‘Hey, was really nice meeting you but I’m not sure I see us being a long-term thing’?

This happened to me fairly recently and although I was disappointed, ultimately I appreciated his honesty.

Getting straight to the point, George says: ‘Blokes will go on and date and not text after because they are simply not fussed about doing it again. They will know that it is the right thing to do to text and explain, but it’s the much easier option just to do nothing.’

Don’t hold back, George.

‘You never have to see them again, and everyone knows that if you don’t text for a few days then it means you’re not keen anyway. It’s cowardice really, just avoiding an awkward situation.’

But what if you have genuine chemistry on the date? That can’t all be in our heads, right?

‘Maybe they seemed keen on the date because they were a bit pissed and they actually were less bothered’ says George.

Wow.

So what is the answer? Should us women throw away the (extremely outdated) notion that it should always be the men who text first? Should women step up and make the first move (assuming they actually gave you their number)?

Lily seems to think so.

‘Absolutely, if I liked them,’ says Lily. ‘I wouldn’t always expect to hear from them first and if me getting in contact before them freaked them out, then it’s no skin off my nose cos they obviously have issues.

‘It’s about a 75/25 success rate in my experience – most men seem to appreciate the confidence it implies, so I’ll often get a second date/shag.’

‘It mostly works. Doesn’t need to be something devastatingly funny or contrived, just along the lines of “Thanks for a lovely date/I had fun last night/Everything hurts and I blame you.”‘

Side note: I decided to try this tactic myself just the other day. Following (what I thought was a successful date) I left it a couple of days and sent a similarly breezy text. He left me on grey – I repeat, grey, meaning he hadn’t even opened the messages – ticks for six days.

But wherever you sit on the woke scale, you can always be a victim of cesspit dating.

As Lily notes: ‘I do think there is less decency in dating, yeah. But I’m probably bad for it too sometimes. But I do have one basic rule that I’ll always tell someone if I want to stop seeing them because I hate it when someone isn’t that interested but just wants to let it fizzle out.

‘This has happened to me recently and it’s maddening. So I met a guy on a dating app, he was super keen, texting me all the time being like “oh you’re so great blah blah”, we met for a date, still seemed keen for a few days and now he only resurfaces every few days and it’s infuriating.’

Preach.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

An important point is that women ghost too. Jess is one such female casper.

She tells us: ‘I ghosted a guy I’d been on one date with, and it’s something I’m really not proud of. I was new to dating and he was really sweet but we just didn’t gel at all.

‘He texted to ask me out again afterwards and I said maybe but ended up ignoring his future messages. It was selfish on my part as I didn’t want to knock his confidence and have to say there was no spark.

‘I got ghosted after two dates with a guy not long after that, and that was certainly a taste of my own medicine. It’s something I’d never do again and feel so guilty about.’

Not everyone shares the view that dating is a burning pile of trash.

More: Dating

Having bipolar doesn't mean I'll go home with you

What are 'daddy issues' and why do some men avoid or look for partners with them?

Be prepared for university to change everything you know about sex

Harry (who is now happily engaged and therefore an actual fountain of knowledge) says: ‘I think it’s reasonable not to text someone if you don’t fancy them, or vice versa. Maybe it’s different for women though because guys can be dicks, but I can’t remember feeling disrespected while dating.

‘I have ghosted someone and I’ve been a ghost. I felt like she was more way into it than I was, and I didn’t want to dump someone I barely knew – ghosting was basically the coward’s way out.

‘Plus I have a super hot fiancée now so I’m not too hung up about it.’

Well done to you, Harry.

So friends, this is my pitch to you. You don’t have to like the person you’ve been on a date with and you definitely do not have to see a future with them. But you absolutely do need to treat them like a human.

Pay them the basic respect of being honest. Be brave and say how you feel instead of taking the easy route of pretending they don’t exist.

In short, just try your very best to not be a dick.

MORE: I’m not an object or a toy for your white gaze – don’t fetishise me as a black man

MORE: ‘Deleting your Tinder is the new way to say I love you’ – why do Brits delay saying those three little words now?

1 note · View note

chaoticharmonywasteland-blog · 7 years

Text

Company Intelligence 5

iDataFive ERP method Singapore Enterprise intelligence computer software has received significant traction considering that its introduction as “decision help systems” in the 1960s. Right now, more than a hundred computer software businesses are promoting some organization intelligence device. We put together this buyer’s guidebook to support customers comprehend the marketplace. In this information, we’ll overview: * What Is BI Application? l ERP Software program Singapore * Selecting the Correct BI Resource * Best Enterprise Intelligence Instruments * Information Management Equipment * Info Discovery Programs * Reporting Equipment * What Variety of Consumer Are You? * Marketplace Traits To Recognize * Latest Events You Need to Know About What Is Company Intelligence Software program? iDataFive Enterprise Intelligence Computer software aids organisations organise and analyse data to make much better choices. This iDataFive ERP method Singapore Company intelligence application consist of inner info from business departments as nicely as from exterior sources, social media channels, this sort of as marketing and advertising information solutions, or even macroeconomic data. The idatafive enterprise intelligence software marketplace is overgrowing since of the proliferation of information to analyse. ERP System Singapore over the earlier few decades, most of the organizations have deployed Business Useful resource Preparing, Client Relationship Management and other data that can be analysed. ERP Software Singapore Also, the expansion of the Net has enhanced the desire for tools that can analyse large datasets. A single of the most developments in the organization intelligence computer software marketplace is the change in application architecture and style to a lot more user-friendly applications. Business consumers are now utilizing These apps not just IT staff—to analyse distinct sets of departmental information, retail, like advertising, procurement, and Net information. iDataFive Normal Functions of Organization Intelligence Software. Enterprise Intelligence Software program can be divided into a few wide application types: Data administration resources, visualisation software, info discovery applications and reporting resources such as dashboards. What iDataFive Enterprise Intelligence Software program instruments you want count on how your info is at present managed and how you would like to analyse it. For example, if it is presently scattered throughout disparate transactional databases, you may possibly need to have to construct a data warehouse to centralise it and commit in data management tools that supply Extract, Transform and Load operation to move and re-construction it. As soon as info is provided a normal framework and format, you can spend in knowledge discovery options this kind of as Online Analytical Processing, info mining and semantic or text mining purposes, with the capability to create customized, advert hoc studies. And since info is saved in the warehouse, consumers can quickly pull reports with no impacting the efficiency of the organisation’s application purposes, this kind of as CRM, ERP and provide chain management answers. But this is not the only way to implement iDataFive Business Intelligence Software inside your organisation. If you’re only analysing data from a solitary resource, ETL and info warehouses are unneeded. Alternatively, you may need a number of warehouses, and hence, demand various resources to link information between both these servers and other iDataFive Business Intelligence Computer software programs that require obtain to this data. We’ll include these in element in the subsequent section, but in general, the characteristics you should look for in a new Enterprise Intelligence Software answer must contain: *Data top quality management * Extract, rework and load * Data mining * On-line analytical processing * Predictive analytics * Semantic and textual content analytics * Visualizations * Dashboards * Report writers * Scorecarding iDataFive Knowledge Management Tools. Therefore, Far better selection-creating commences with much better information. Thus, iDataFive Information management resources aid thoroughly clean up soiled data, organise info by providing format and structure and prepare databases for analyses. iDataFive Data high quality administration: Also, Aids organisations sustain thoroughly clean, standardised and mistake-totally free data. Standardization is specially critical for Organization Intelligence Software implementations that combine information from various sources. Hence, iDataFive Knowledge quality administration assures that later analyses are proper and can lead to improvements in the enterprise. Extract, change and load: Hence, Collects knowledge from outside resources, converts it and then loads it into the concentrate on technique a databases or warehouse. Because primary information is frequently organised using diverse schemas or formats, analysts can use ETL tools to normalise it for helpful investigation. iDataFive Info Discovery Applications. The ability to sift through huge knowledge and appear to meaningful conclusions is one of the most powerful benefits of adopting company intelligence tools. iDataFive Data discovery programs support customers make sense of their information, multivariate evaluation for the duration of OLAP, regardless of whether it be by way of rapid or statistical computations for the duration of knowledge mining and innovative algorithms. Knowledge mining: iDataFive ERP program Singapore Company intelligence application kinds via massive amounts of data to recognize new or mysterious designs. Organization intelligence software program is frequently the initial step that other processes count on, this kind of as predictive analytics. Databases are generally as well huge or convoluted to find styles with the bare eye or through simple queries. iDataFive information mining helps stage customers in the correct path for additional evaluation by providing an automated approach of getting previously neglected tendencies. Online analytical processing l ERP Software Singapore Allows end users to analyse multidimensional data from different views rapidly. It is normally manufactured up of three reasonable operations l ERP Program Singapore iDataFive System Information consolidation, knowledge sorting and classification drill-down and analysis of data from a specific viewpoint slice-and-dice. Organization intelligence software program user could analyse product sales figures for different goods by store and by thirty day period. OLAP enables users to make this analysis. Company intelligence predictive analytics: iDataFive Method analyses present and historic data to make predictions about long term pitfalls and possibilities. An illustration of this is credit history scoring, which relies on an individual’s recent fiscal standing to make predictions about their potential credit behaviour. Semantic and text analytics: Extracts and interprets large volumes of the guide to identify designs, sentiment and associations. The acceptance of social media has created textual content analytics useful to organizations company with a big social footprint. iDataFive System knowing semantic traits is a strong resource for organisations analyzing buy intent or customer gratification between end users of these channels. Reporting Resources l ERP Computer software Singapore The most significant value is when it forces us to observe what we never ever expected to see. Reporting applications are an essential way to existing info and swiftly convey the benefits of the evaluation. Business intelligence software end users are ever more organization customers, not IT staff who need to have fast, straightforward-to-comprehend displays of information. Enterprise intelligence application sellers have been functioning to mask the complexity of these apps and progressively concentrate on the consumer experience. Visualizations l ERP Software Singapore Enterprise intelligence software aids customers develop advanced graphical representations of information by means of basic consumer interfaces. Enterprise intelligence interactive tools can supply groups with the potential to the two analyse and manipulate studies in genuine-time. Dashboards l ERP Software Singapore Dashboards typically highlight key functionality indicators, which support supervisors target on the metrics that are most essential to them. Company intelligence dashboards are usually browser-based mostly, generating them very easily available by any person with permissions. iDataFive report writers l ERP System Singapore Thus, Organization intelligence permits customers to design and make customized studies. Also, iDataFive System CRM and ERP techniques contain built-in report creating tools, but end users can also obtain Crystal Studies, standalone applications, to create advert hoc studies based mostly on intricate queries. Therefore, Business intelligence computer software is helpful for organisations that regularly modify analyses and want to produce new reviews rapidly for all organization. Business Scorecarding l ERP Program Singapore Hence, Business intelligence scorecards connect a numerical excess weight to functionality and map development towards ambitions. Therefore, Believe of it as dashboards taken 1 phase more. In organisations with a strategic efficiency-administration methodology balanced scorecard, Six Sigma, scorecards are an efficient way to keep tabs on essential metrics. Company users and departmental consumers l ERP Software program Singapore Hence, These purchasers favour little information-discovery vendors and Enterprise intelligence resources more than the huge, standard BI programs. Consequently, Relieve-of-use and quick deployment are more vital than in-depth functionality and integration.

0 notes

hellodavidjcarlsonesq · 7 years

Text

our starting point divides us

There is a well-worn proposition that politics divides us and there is some truth in this. More often than not, we talk about ourselves and others as being on the right or left of an imaginary political divide. Further, this has perpetuated, despite the fragmenting of political parties and movements on both sides of the divide.

In his book, Politics with Purpose, one-time Labor minister and champion of the left, Lindsay Tanner questioned the merits and relevance of the left-right divide in contemporary politics. Indeed, he suggested that it was no longer relevant for parties to consider themselves left or right, especially given the variance within all political parties on social and economic issues, a point especially relevant in 2017.

Malcolm Turnbull, is having real problems in his conservative party because he is economically conservative and socially progressive, while his enemies in his party, like Tony Abbott are socially and economically conservative. The same is true on the left of politics where some ‘hard left’ catholic politicians are economically progressive but socially conservative – like Trotskyites around the world.

I agree with Tanner that the left-right divide is less relevant than it once was. I also agree with the separation of the economic and social perspectives that make up the complete politician. I would argue however, that there is a more relevant factor that separates us and explains the political divide, and that is ‘starting point’.

This can first be examined from the economic perspective.

All politicians across all political parties are in 2017, concerned about the ballooning budget deficit and the debt that we are potentially leaving to our children and grand-children. Although there has always been excessive exaggeration, and a reasonable amount of hot air and hyperbole in this debate, there is no doubt that it is in the countries best interests to reduce the deficit.

How this is best achieved is one of the most significant areas of differentiation between the left and right of the political divide. One solution on the right is to reduce unemployment and social security payments, or make theses payments harder to access, with a view to taking out of the system all of those who are rorting the system, while retaining a safety net for those who need it.

Here is where ‘starting point’ comes in. On the right of politics there is a view that money can be saved and probably needs to be saved by clamping down on the rorters, even if the system put in place hurts a number of legitimate claimants. Their view is that if some legitimate claimants are hurt in the quest to clamp down on the rorters, they are legitimate collateral damage. Their starting point is that the saving is more important than the few people hurt.

On the left of politics, it would more often than not be argued that the rorters should be the exceptions that are allowed to exist so than no legitimate claimants are hurt. Their starting point is that when a necessary service needs to be provided to those in need, rorters are an acceptable casualty of what they view as compassionate policy.

This, to a very large extent gets back to the perspective of politicians, their parties and supporters on the role of the economy and the community. The starting point of the right is that the economy is the centre of everything and that the community must serve the needs of the economy. Without a strong economy we have nothing. The left starting point is that the economy simply serves the community. The community is at the centre of everything and without a strong community we have nothing

The left and the right come at this and similar issues from different starting points.

The divide on social issues is much less easily explained with the left-right paradigm, but it none the less gets back to starting point.

Consider for example the divide found in the refugee debate, where views are readily shared across the left-right political divide.

Social conservatives say that the 600 refugees on Manus Island need to be made an example of to deter further boat people and deaths at sea, while social progressives are arguing that these 600 people should be treated humanely even if that means a few more refugees try to get to Australia in the years ahead. The conservative starting point is that we can sacrifice the few for the cause, while the progressive starting point is that we need to show compassion to the few and come up with other strategies to stop future refugees.

Then of course there are the pragmatists on both sides, like Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten who are only interested in where the votes are, but we will leave them for another debate.

A similar situation existed with the recent marriage debate. Even after the community poll, conservatives on the left and right in the Senate vote abstained or voted against same sex marriage, while progressives from the left and right voted for marriage equality.

The conservatives were arguing that to extent marriage to the homosexual community, legitimised and normalised homosexuality, this somehow diminishing the status of traditional marriage. I would argue that the discussion of God in this debate was a distraction. The starting point for the conservatives was that homosexuals would have to live with not being considered equal, at least in so far as marriage is concerned, for the sake of the broader community.

The progressives were at the same time arguing that homosexuality and living in a homosexual relationship was normal and legitimate. They were further arguing that this had no impact on traditional marriage. The starting point for this group was that it is not fair and reasonable that a portion of the community, albeit a minority should not be sacrificed in terms of equality just so that the majority can feel more comfortable.

On both of these social issues the conservatives were prepared to sacrifice the interests of the few for those of the many. On both of these issues the progressives were not willing to sacrifice the interests of the few for those of the many.

It is further interesting to note than in the three examples highlighted in this article, the desire of the right and the conservatives was to address the needs of the many ahead of those of the few – a stance most commonly associated with communism, and that communism, from the political left, is more commonly associated with being harsh on both refugees and homosexuals.

This is a somewhat convoluted way of making two points, Firstly, the left-right political paradigm is less useful today than it has ever been. Secondly, that it is an individuals starting point that determines their political views. It is our starting point that divides us.

�[�s[@

0 notes

unorthodoxlybeautiful-blog · 7 years

Text

The Hashtag Revolution: Citizen Journalism and Twitter Activism

Digital media has completely turned around the way in which news reporting and journalism has been traditionally. Continuously one sees the evolution in the sense that mainstream media has stopped being the only source of news and traditional consumption methods such as print, radio or television are quickly becoming out-dated. Although these are still widely used means of delivering news, digital media has quickly made headway for ordinary citizens to now be the producers of news. This has had an immense effect in politics as revolutions such as The Arab Spring and #FeesMustFall have been large digital media revolutions. This essay will look at the ways in which digital media has transformed to allow citizen journalism and how this has had an influence on politics in society.

The Origin of Citizen Journalism: Convergence

Convergence within the media space is defined by the traveling of news between various platforms outside of those that are of traditional or old media (Jenkins 2006: 02). Therefore convergence is understood as a technological process where media moves across different systems and these systems function to inherently deliver news or media messages (Jenkins 2006:03). Examples of media convergence are how print media is now found on internet websites, translated to tweets and Facebook posts or news bulletins posted on YouTube.

Citizen Journalism as a Form of Political Expression

Often what we see today is that due to news being so widely accessible in mainstream digital media, digital media platforms have become a platform for political expression and uprising. Banda (2010) defines citizen journalism as an ordinary person reporting news using digital media platforms outside of the confines of a given media institution. To expand on this Bruns, Highfield and Lind (2012:04) fully lay out the activities of citizen journalism in the following manner:

…voluntary contributions of a wide-ranging and distributed network of self-selected participants rather than on the paid work of a core team of professional staff, and they utilize Internet technologies to coordinate the process and share its results. Such activities may take place under the auspices of a central Web site (from Indymedia through Slashdot and OhmyNews to the Huffington Post), or unfold in a more decentralized fashion through interactions among individual participants in the (political)blogosphere or through the collaboration of dispersed networks of individuals using a shared underlying social media platform such as Twitter.

The synergy between digital convergence and citizen journalism is seen in how these two together create a participatory culture within the media audience outside of the spectatorship which once existed (Jenkins 2006: 03). Jenkins (2006) explains here that in the time of old media the audience was confined to being fed news now; new media technology has allowed for the audience to become the producer of media and news thus undermining the traditional business model that was used. The limitation to this new found participation then becomes that the digital divide within a polis does not allow for all citizens to participate in this form of journalism and political expression.

The notion of normalising Twitter as a platform for political expression with the larger emphasis on digital media has led to an increase in user-generated news as well as using the platform as a mobiliser, distributor of information as well as a platform to counter hegemonic systems. We see this revolution in the #FeesMustFall revolutions of 2015 and 2016. Though limited to 140 characters a tweet (Murthy 2011: 782) has described Twitter as “a microphone for the masses”. This characterisation is attributed to the free will expressed on Twitter, lack of censorship and lack of gatekeeping in terms of what is acceptable to publish (Murthy 2011: 782).

The #FeesMustFall movement is stated to be an internet age revolution much like the Arab Spring (Luescher, Loader and Mugume 2017: 232). Arguably the increased use of digital media in the movement is seen as an expansion of democracy where digital media reconstructs the public sphere into a place more autonomous (Luescher et al. 2017: 234). Lutz (2017: 154) argues that Twitter acted as a public sphere which challenged the dominant public sphere as well as challenged the state in its perceptions and actions around student fees in tertiary education. In revolutionising the public sphere Lutz (2017: 154) continues to argue that Twitter then also created an imagined community of students and sympathisers of students who equally shared in the values of the #FeesMustFall movement. This is solidified by the omnipresence of the movement itself. Digital media allowed for political expression online that translated to action on the ground at grass root levels (Luescher et al. 2017: 240). Twitter was able to give live accounts of the protests and often refute main stream media coverage which sought to defame students and believers in the movement.

Conclusion

It is evident that in the case of internet revolutions and citizen journalism digital media in politics has opened the platform for engagement where a reconstruction of the media space can take place. Digital media and in this case Twitter is a mouthpiece for the ordinary citizen to not only report on news as they experience events but also to give commentary and refute dominant narratives published in mainstream media. The solidarity that comes from established imagined communities online is the exact consequence of digital media in the political space and allowing digital media to influence state politics. The essay has shown how media convergence has evolved to establishing citizen journalism and by using the #FeesMustFall movement as a case study has used digital media as a platform for political expression.

#FeesMustFall

0 notes

ccinthecity · 7 years

Text

Brick Lane: The Power, Role, and Interpretation of Communal Art

By S. Brenneman, R. Brown-Campbell, C. Chapman, S. Faruzzi, A. Fritz-Muller, & C. Ramdhanie at the University of South Florida

In the boroughs of East London, across from the glistening towers of the business district on Liverpool Street, among the sweet-smelling vendors and merchants of Banglatown and the sparkling shopfronts of Spitalfields market, lies a forty-some year old relic of a culture constantly in a variant state of growth and change. It could be said that the streets themselves are the backdrop upon which such a strong community culture has grown, as there is no necessary permanence to the work there; but all the same, it remains integral to the identity of Brick Lane. Graffiti and street art are the medium of expression for artists in this community--inspired by hip hop culture, and reminiscent of similar movements from the 1970’s in New York and other American metropoli, it not only represents the landscape upon which it was sprayed, spread, or scribbled, or the individual artist’s social experience, but also is an indicator for the creative scene and differing community to come.

East London is not definitively a part of the City of London proper, but rather the area historically outside of Aldgate, on the ancient city’s borders. Although growth was slow, by the nineteenth century, a steady population had arisen in the area, due to industrialisation. The closest borough to City of London, Tower Hamlets, soon became known for its overpopulation and poverty, and concentration of minority groups, especially European Jews. Unfortunately, the neighbourhood faced more hardships in the turn of the century, in waves of crime (notably, the murders of Jack the Ripper), and mass bombings during the world wars that demolished a majority of infrastructure. Movements were made to rebuild, and, relocate—the docks and industries that provided interest in the area before had since deteriorated. The area did not receive any special interest again until the 1970’s, with an influx of Asian immigrants, and the development of docklands (to the business district known today as Canary Wharf) a decade later8. This is the height of the graffiti movement, and in an historically overlooked, ethnically diverse, and relatively economically disparaged neighbourhood, disenfranchised youth would find an outlet.

Tony Porter explains the struggle of inner city (and especially black) male youth in this similar situation: when placed in stressful social parameters, they run into the issue of the “Man Box”—a phenomenon of conflicting ideas of what it means to truly be a man, in relation to your surroundings and community9. In interest of pandering to masculine status, perhaps subversively doing so, these young men, like the young men in the states, turn to Graffiti, which acts as a kind of outlet of expression.

The Graffiti community is not simply about proving oneself worthy of being a man, but too, adversely, an artist (the pinnacle of sensitivity). Josh, (a graffiti tour guide) recalls his experience as a young man in the streets of East London, becoming an artist: “You have these young men, finding themselves in their adolescence, and hip hop culture, the arts, start to play a role,”. Once intrigued by graffiti, proving ones work is integral to belonging in the community. “If you can’t hang with the big boys, then you just have to work harder,”.

There is a system of respect and pride in skills. Like in any traditional art movement, each artist has their own style, preferred media (spray paint, stickers, chalk, crayons, etc) and pseudonymity, and plays into the changing piece that is the neighbourhood. Interaction is casual: pieces don’t need to remain (and rather, have an expiration date), so it’s okay to paint over other artists older or scrap pieces, bonus points to tag places harder to reach or where it might be illegal, and if a statement really needs to be made, an artist may simply scrawl a phallus over a piece (or artist, establishment) they dislike, eliciting the universal message of “fuck you,”.

To be a graffiti writer is to, as in any underground subcultural movement, exist in this semi-permanent margin of adolescence and adulthood, expression and dissidence. Unfortunately, the dissidence and adult aspects hold more weight in the systemic evaluation of the graffiti community, and artists are likely to be prosecuted for their (mostly illegal) craft. If an artist is identified in a particular act of defamation of property, depending on the degree of damage, an artist can receive a maximum of 10 years in prison if at age of majority, and up to a year in prison if a minor, according to the Criminal Damage Act of 1971, section one10. Although an outlet, graffiti writing, as a practice, is still a relatively risky art to get into.

However, through the years, with the ever-growing presence of social media and technology, significant impacts have been made to neighbourhoods like Brick Lane, and to artists who once painted their pseudonym on the backs of buildings for fun—the normalisation and fascination with urban art forms, as explored by popular artists in the later decades of the twentieth century (like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat) brought hip-hop culture and its coexisting forms (including graffiti) into a new age of overt expression. ‘Street Art’ became the new colloquialism for ‘graffiti’ and related arts, and gained attention, not only on the streets, but in museums, art schools, and oddly enough, the business world. Although not all graffiti writers are street artists, the transition from one to the other made more than sense—as street art became accepted, so did their work. As it became lucrative, so did their trade. On Brick Lane in particular, street artists have risen to a kind of local fame (this time, not only among their peers) in that they are allowed, if not commissioned, to paint pieces—portraits, murals, and otherwise—in the very spaces (shops, businesses, etc.) that once looked down upon the art form. The rise in aesthetically pleasing pieces, in combination with the historic reputation of the area, and the current societal obsessive trend with street art, wear (and to be quite blunt, appropriation or adaptation of street culture), has led to the creation of tours, which capitalise upon the fascination with the art form.

It’s a completely different culture than that of the London Graffiti of decades prior—instead of having expiration dates, pieces are digitally commemorated and effectively memorialised. A tourist posting a picture of a piece, whether it is illegal or commissioned/pardoned, contributes to a new culture of respect and reverence for not necessarily the artist, but the piece itself—a piece may even be furthermore curated in collections of now, culturally significant or emotionally/politically/artistically evocative pieces3. It’s not necessarily against the original intents of the artists involved—whereas graffiti writing was at its roots rebellious and political, street art has more flexible foundations: many artists paint murals, posters, or stickers for the sake of creating artwork, some to make a name for themselves, some to express a political message. Dreph, an artist hailing from East London, paints enlarged portraits of significant or up-and-coming black contemporary figures, and uses social media, especially instagram, to make his work known outside of the places he paints (and has gained a rather large following, as well as a commission from the black arts festival, AfroPunk). Stik, another London artist based out of Hackney, also ties in pseudo-political themes in his work: “the figures that I draw are representing marginalised communities,”5.

Really, the divide between that which is purely pretty and starkly, somewhat consciously offending is steep, and all the more present due to the increased hype (and ensuing pressure) in and around the landscape of Brick Lane. In Star Yard, for example, satiric caricatures of Donald Trump, posters with the words “HOMO RIOT” and a pornographic scene overlaid with imagery of iconic graffiti artists can be found adjacent, if not on top of, sunset-coloured faces, stickers of traditional-style tattoo roses, and simple displays of incredible artistry. It’s a clash of old and new school, in an environment flourishing with the movement, yet facing its potential extinction.

Gentrification is a more threatening issue for Tower Hamlets, Brick Lane, and doubtlessly other areas where graffiti and street art make up the urban landscape. The growth of financially endowed districts, socioeconomic groups, and chains directly impacts how street art and graffiti are interpreted, as an aspect of the community. As street art is commodified to fit the needs of the incoming groups and conform to a middle class ideal, its role as a subversive form of political and creative expression is changed to one of decoration, less of a statement, and more of a “statement”—less a community, more for the consumption of society, under the surveillance and capitalisation of systems that seek to remove the art form (and its participants) from its original surroundings entirely. Not everything fits into that system, perfectly. Although street art can somewhat easily be commodified and repurposed, graffiti, which is not meant to have a clear, singular, or universally understood message, is harder to take in, especially when the movement itself is meant to defy authority and express the frustrations of the artist in a system that so influences their place.

Where Stik is commissioned time and time again to retouch a piece on Princelet Street, “SONY” is quickly tagged in a metallic aerosol paint, alongside “joon” “krass”, and others, not as disrespect to the artist, but instead as an indirect affront to the sensationalist culture that, although is meant in earnest appreciation, inherently contributes to the threat against street art on the whole. It’s an insidious battleground, between the more powerful businesses that seek to gentrify and “clean up” the history of the area, slowly making it more difficult for less privileged groups to remain, and the prevailing artists that refuse to relinquish their canvas and community.

References

Akbar, A. (2008, July 15). Graffiti: Street art – or crime? The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/graffiti-street-art-ndash-or-crime-868736.html

Aulette, J. R., & Wittner, J. G. (2015). 1. Introduction, 3. Socialization and the Social Construct of Gender, 6. Work, 11. Popular culture, media, and the spectacle of sports. In Gendered worlds. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bell, B. (2016, December 16). Street Art: Crime, Grime or Sublime? Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-38316852

Jeavons, J. (2017, July 12). Excerpts from Graffiti tour (Alternative Tours London) - Brick Lane [Personal interview]

Lynskey, D. (2015, August 11) “Street Artist Stik: I felt invisible it was my way of showing I’m here” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/11/street-artist-stik-interview

Maric, B. (2014, September 25). History of Street Art in The UK. Retrieved from http://www.widewalls.ch/history-of-street-art-in-the-uk/history-in-the-making/

Merrill, S. (2015). Keeping It Real? Subcultural Graffiti, Street Art, Heritage and Authenticity. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 21(4), 369-389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2014.934902

Oakley, M. (2013, July 15). The History of London's East End. Retrieved from http://www.eastlondonhistory.co.uk/

Porter, T. (2010, December). A call to men. Lecture presented at TEDWomen 2010, Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tony_porter_a_call_to_men

Criminal Damage Act 1971, c-48 s. 1 Retrieved from http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/48

#Street Art #Graffiti #East London #gentrification #brick lane #HUM4938 #media analysis paper #USF #university of south florida #academic material #essay #excursions #projects

0 notes

ilovelanglit · 8 years

Text

Advertising Documentary and Thoughts

Note: All statistics are taken from the ASPS National Clearinghouse of Plastic Surgery Procedural Statistics 2015 unless else indicated (the words are underlined)

Since I have read previously on the issue, I knew about the outcomes of ads such as increasing violence, causing eating disorders and separating masculine and feminine qualities. What shocked me were some of the advertisements themselves. Since Bulgaria is not a wealthy country, I suppose the high end brand do not target it as much. I am not saying that there are no sexualised ads here but I suppose not to that extend. Surely they do affect people here since there are over 150 000 people diagnosed with anorexia and bulimia in Bulgaria, mainly teenage girls. That is a big number considering our population is barely 7 million.

”Being a slave to fashion and desiring to have the body of a fashion model can ruin your health”

-Gabriela Marceva, 17

Kilbourne’s three main points were the obsession with becoming skinner, the closeness of ideal beauty and the violence against women that advertisements cause subconsciously.

Advertisements constantly showing us these unrealistically thin models, which are only 5% of the US’s women and have all been photoshopped one way or another, makes us desire that look. Even though the 80s anorexia nervosa craze has passed, the fashion industry continues to use models that look closer to walking hangers rather than people. European models continuously try to get around the weight minimum tests. We consider all of this normal since we are constantly surrounded by it. With 30 million people with eating disorders in the US alone, advertisements continue to show models who wear sizes 00, making women normalise pain and medication and feel bad about eating in order to achieve this unachievable beauty standard.

Advertisements aim to portray the ideal woman, which according to them is:

White

Skinny

Long Hair

Young

Big breasted

Sexy

Submissive

Passive

Fragile

Less Powerful

An Object

The list goes on and on and of course some things change depending on what's trendy. That’s right. From the Gibson girl ,to the Twig, to the Waif, the beauty standards, just like a piece of clothing, change depending on a trend. Does that mean a woman should change every single time a new trend arises? For example, all the women who trimmed and plucked their eyebrows in the 2000s are now drawing in and getting cosmetic tattoos to fill in them in because that’s what is advertised. Because of a certain famous American family, lip fillers and butt implants increased 70% and 98% respectively. All of these trends that are shown in ads and the media make women highly self conscious and brings low self esteem. 92% of all plastic surgery is performed on women, making a total of 13.9 million cosmetic procedures in 2015. Ads constantly objectify women through not showing their faces, silencing them, putting them in ridiculous poses or quite literally turning them into object, implying that a woman’s most important measure of success is her looks, excluding other qualities such as personality, intellect and talent. Even though, sexualisation of men is also on the rise, they are affected differently by the adverts. Nudity seems to be used regardless of gender but men are shown as dominant, big, powerful, strong and additionally in the media as violent. Instead of being shown what to do, the ads seem to show the men what not to be. Society throughout history has divided qualities into feminine and masculine, and even though it’s seen as normal for a girl to be masculine (be a tomboy), a man being feminine is often received very negatively (being called a sissy or a faggot). Ads seem to tell men not to be feminine, to ignore normal human qualities such as compassion, cooperation, empathy, intuition, emotion and sensitivity, which should not belong to any gender. All of these shape our perspective of what is a man and a woman, it shapes our view on gender. This in turn leads to another problem.

The lack of these qualities often leads to real life violence. If a woman and a man are both present in an ad:

The man tends to be the dominant one

The woman either desires him or is shown as his belonging

She is naked or shows sexual body language (or both)

Her head is not in the shot or she is looking at him

Now, there are always exceptions to the rule, but that seems to be the general trend. All of these ads sexualise violence. The ads do not directly cause the violence but “objectification is the first step to justify violence” as Kilbourne said. All of the ads that normalise men being violent to women, bondage, battering and even murder affect us, research has proven that violence does affects us, it transfers to real life.

I personally agree with all that was said in that video. Even though, I do not pay much attention to ads, I do look a lot at social media, where the same problem is very much present. I see how strong it has affected me because I still find it amusing to see the roles of the roles reversed, showing that I have accepted a woman to pose like basically a bagel as normal. The ads set gender roles by showing that women and men must posses certain qualities shaping our perception of gender, which should not happen. A woman wearing jeans and cutting her hair short, should be just as normal as a man wearing a skirt and dying his hair pink, thankfully androgyny has become represented recently. Ads seem to reflect society’s desires rather than the people themselves. For example, only 5% of women in the US have the skinny body type, and even less have it with big breasts but that is what is being represented, which makes it desired. I, personally, do not expect anything of my own or the opposite sex in terms of qualities or appearances. This could be because of the music that I listen to (where it’s normal for men to wear makeup, to wear skirts or to dye their hair in any colour- But I do often hear from other people who do not listen to it that they look like girls or that they are gay) or because of the people I’ve chosen to watch (I rarely watch movies, tv shows or tv in general, so I rarely see stereotypes in the media).

Fluid Gender, born Female

Cis Male

0 notes

urbanfriendden · 8 years

Text

Minoes makes the most of it

The first denial the young prince had ever received was, “Don’t open the door to the dungeons”. So unsurprisingly, the first thing the prince did when opportunity presented itself, the universe’s way of saying ‘teehee’, was to insert and turn a key. But to do so, the pampered royal rascal had to elude his caretaker’s ever-watchful gaze, a retired military scout once known as The Cat in part due to her sharp senses, and even now she retains that title, but only because she enjoys taking catnaps in her rocking chair.

Children will cause trouble without ever understanding why, the prince was told no, after all, and that is enough for most to seek out the forbidden. Curiosity, however, this drive shaped like a key, is superstition’s pendant, a force which pries open mountains and poisons goblets just to see what happens, and what happened was that the young prince opened the door and was never seen ever again.

We can say he shouldn’t have done this, but this is a hindsight, a wisdom that catches up too late, a friend tapping on your shoulder to warn you about the paint bucket on a wobbly ladder one unfortunate dye-job too late. Simply put, to forward ourselves, we must accept that he is no longer needed, but his actions stand at the precipice of events we could never prevent, motion creates motion, and loathe as we are to admit but quick to realise, nothing is without consequence.

For it was the caretaker who took the blame for this child’s derelict behaviour and for the nastiness which ensued, but we won’t blame her, not an inch or iota or other quantification one might use for culpability, as it is fear together with the mechanism of the unknown which becomes a justice that demands a scapegoat, never a justice to begin with. She was locked in the darkest dungeons for this, for the crime of being herself a circumstance and a subject.

But what is a subject without a name, no one should ever be just a referential! The name she is with is Minoes, and her cell is quite alright. She was branded a witch, a demoness, an arcanist, conspirator with the dark, she is rather fond of that title, agent of the Brim Dividing; these nominations have their benefits, because no one with a soupçon of superstitious sense will ever think to disturb her. Or execute her, for that matter. Death, who welcomes all strangers, but who is always personal, we are never true strangers to them, should never be made to host a true stranger in their halls. Minoes is exempted from even this.

There is another boon to this ordeal: this dungeon is the biggest home she’s ever owned, wooden walls became stone, metal partitions to give her rooms, plural. Middle-left will be my gallery, she thinks, Bottom-right has the most hay so that is where I will sleep, upper-right can be my own little dining hall. There is nothing we could consider furniture but this is where the theory of forms picks up. The far exit of the dungeon remains locked, separated from the castle proper with a thick wooden door, wrapped in chains and padlocks plus a sliding grate for the convenience of eye-contact, to deign dignity and courtesy for a context where there is none. Nevertheless, Minoes makes the most of things.

Before you ask, no, she does not have a surname, an inheritance common to her bloodline, which makes birth a spectacular event: parents, uncles, aunts, nephews, and cousins, even friends are invited to deeply consider together what special name to give to the new-born. Beer is brewed and herbs are smoked, it must be exemplary and magnificent, suggests tipsy cousin Wilhelmina, recognisable and grand, yells the undulate uncle Armand. Then father Swit interjects, it must fit her and only her, there is no blood to make her special, only one word, let her decide it when she is old enough. Minoes picked this name five years ago.

Most days, Minoes simply eats bread upper-right. On the scratched metal tray they slide through the viewport is fresh bread and a relatively generous jar of pickles, but you see, she cannot open the jar, she has no strength in her hands, sometimes she curses these vestigial things, but what she lacks in physical strength can be found in her resolve, patience, and respiration. She makes due with just the bread, she calls her meals a latecomer’s banquet. The jailor knows about her condition, yet spares her no cruelty, morality is an objection saved for humans, so he chooses to see a monster.

A monster that came from the dungeons, of course. It hid the entrance to the Brim Dividing, a dark dimension where demons roam, if the old and corny legends are to be believed, and they are by many, perhaps that is why a simple door could for the longest time stave off this invisible threat, one needs only peer inside to let our worst nightmares out, yet it is the door that keeps us up at night.

But as it stands, no terrible demon army or rain of fire has come pouring through the portal, desecrating our symbols, burning our farms and fortunes, committing the massacres which are clearly a fantasy, in both senses of the term, that which is unreal and that which is a desire, but no king will address that everything might actually be alright. In the dungeon, there was a woman, no more, far from less.

This woman, it must be stated, is neither demon nor apparition nor delusion of a lonely woman, she is simply there, a being-there, Minoes calls her Daar, an old word meaning ‘there’, because that’s where she is. Daar is happy to provide, she is younger and healthier and can glide between worlds with relative ease, she even goes so far as to remove her feet with a comical plop, because that’s customary for guests, right?

Minoes, used to and even familiar with the bizarre, or perhaps there truly is no place for suspicion when under suspicion yourself, there are no pretenses for solidarity, appreciates Daar’s company, the only thing she provides. No greetings or thank-yous, no whispers or rumours, no conspiracies or conversations about the difference between their radical worlds and the funny fact that all life everywhere contains more questions than answers but this is distinctly not a bad thing. Hardly ever a word about Daar’s transparency or the occasional cough of Minoes, not everything lends itself to exposition, not every meeting requires words, the coward’s language.

They dance through the rooms, familiarised with the subtleties native to bodies, Daar offers Minoes the things she asks for. A rug please, she begins, My knees are quite sore, Then I would like an oil lamp and some blankets, perhaps a jar opener. Bring me a mattress and many chickens for filling, she chuckles a joke, Then a bookstand, two quills, one swan and one goose feather, their thicknesses differ and that difference is valuable, some parchment and ink if it’s not too much of a bother, you are such a dear.

The chickens announce another daybreak, this is the only time Minoes knows, wasting away takes so long, but when the sun is your clock, it swings by faster than before, no pesky minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, clothes, letters, crows, deaths, geriatrics to subdivide time into frustratingly-present minutiae, pieces of the past that keep stacking with each new experience.

Minoes receives a platter of things she can only eat one half of, even equipped with a jar opener her grip fails her. Daar, unprompted, opens the jar of pickles for her, with no twist or turn of the wrist, no second attempt after great exertion, the lid simply comes off, vertically. She mentions how olives are stored much more practically and are much more delicious, too. Minoes agrees, but doubts any funds would be spent on providing such lucrative fruit to a witch. She then discovers she does not enjoy the taste of pickles. Finally, she chomps down on the loaf of bread only to hurts her teeth on something hard, a cruel prank by the guard, she concludes, and tosses it away. No food today, it seems.

However lovely this arrangement seems, its paranaturality cannot go unnoticed by way of its own nature, it escapes the conventions we’ve been taught to recognise and normalise and has fled into, created a new modality of comfort, a love that’s better than regularity, loud in its weird and new silence, therefore horrific. It doesn’t help she was already branded an evil woman.

The first pair of eyes to take note is the torturous guard who is normally stationed fifteen superstitious steps away from the door, only closing in when the overworked chef hands him the food tray. Today of all days he has reason to exert a supernormal amount of cruelty; we might empathise with that and attempt to scrutinise what’s got him feeling prickly, for we share that base humanity with him, but how about instead let’s not.

He yells a dehumanising word, hoping to draw attention, for what is power without a subject which acknowledges and which despairs, but he receives none, and it his attention that fixates on Minoes and her silly expression instead. Sour pickles will crumple the most statuesque of faces, and he only knows her through death-wishing glares.

It takes him a second to realise this, that she is eating pickles, and demands to know how that is possible, not out of curiosity or wonder, and an old woman who overpowers vacuum packing is deserving of praise, but moreso out of panic at losing control over the one cruelty to prove himself with. He spots a feetless ghost and scampers off to call for help, but not before tripping, the echoes of his armour fill the dungeon. The ladies laugh; the prisoner’s victory comes small and easy.

What are you making, May I know more about you, two questions like kisses on the left ear of Minoes, inflections audibly added to the end like Daar was taught is the custom when asking questions.

Curiosity, as we know, is not only a tool for scrutiny but is often a question behind a question, wanting to keep words dear, wanting to fill in the blanks together. To figure out the legends to navigate your maps with, what words are your roads, what nouns line out the mountains and the malpaises, what verbs show where the winds are fiercest, a remark in your throat that tells if this river can be forded or must be caulked, dotted silver phonemes for cities, towns, borders, places we named together, red squares for the landmarks around which memories are built, monuments to what two people share. The brass plaque reads and a pair of lips speaks, I will keep your secrets safe.

Minoes replies, quilling down a last word before tickling Daar’s nose with the feather, their mattress feels warm, A memoir. Daar repeats this as a question, Minoes lets her know it’s a simple piece of evidence that she has been here, a being-here, in the cell, in this life, in anyone’s life.

Why do you need to write it down when I know you have been important, this emotional declaration coming from a quasi-physical being, it must be noted, unfalsifiable words we pitch against a background of metaphysics, love as we might call it, means more than words, hers or these, can convey. Minoes chuckles and snuggles closer to the woman, her body incorporeal but the intimacy is there.

Do you have to die here, there is a height in the breath of Daar’s question that feels cold, No, dear, but I am an elder and a prisoner, and what they have in common is that both have to wait for freedom to come, Do you have to be, No, dear.

In the ensuing embraced silence, where language piles up in minds and gets stuck in throats, everyone resorts to their most personal selves, personal in the individual and independent sense, tiny habits become havens, each idiosyncrasy a pub, a bar, a quiet pier, a leaf-green bench beneath a lantern overlooking a cold and smelly promenade crowded with sailors making the most of it. Daar does something inscrutable, Minoes gnashes her teeth, remembering the exact hardness of the loaf she tried to eat. She lets her eyes wander as if a tourist inside her own awkwardness and spots a key sticking out of the bread.

You see, there was a second pair of eyes to take note of the extraordinary fate Minoes had been subject of: the overworked chef in charge of the meals of prisoners as well as the custodians, the servants, the knights, the advisors and ambassadors, the halberdiers stationed in the courtyard though not Clarice because she is allergic to nut oils and buys her lunch in town instead, and, of course, the undeserving royalty. Every very early morning, Antoin waits for the steward who unlocks the kitchen and the pantry to return to his tiresome job of saying yes sire and promptly heads out to the markets carrying a satchel of saffron, which he trades for a jar of pickles.

The guard had never known the pickles aren’t a part of the prescribed meal, but conversely, because everyone has their own tasks, Antoin means well but seeing as the entire day he must cure meats and bake breads and baste pheasants and broil soup and remember each royal member’s favourite combinations of herbs, he spits on the king’s pork, he could not have been aware of his refusal to perform the base courtesy of twisting the lid for Minoes, the sliding grate evidently only there for show.

He figured the delirious guard running up the stairs, falling back down the stairs, and running past him meant that his plan to free Minoes had worked. A monster without a cage to him, but to Antoin, she was a woman he had served with half a lifetime ago, who told him five years ago, Let’s change our name together, But we’re so old, he had lied, Age is no objection, Antoin. He had snuck in the key, a shape that spells curiosity as well as freedom, and there is only one possible outcome, really, the one where Minoes is an ex-prisoner.

What Antoin hadn’t accounted for was that she would be having company. Oh dear, I didn’t want to believe the story of your incarceration, but this ghastly girl here is damning evidence you are in some faint way conspiratorial with demons, he shrugs, Anyway, did you like the pickles?

Oh no, not at all, an honest lament, but a chef knows they cannot please every palette, their art the art of necessary destruction, after all. Minoes continues, So you were the kind soul who expanded my meals, is it too late I trouble you for olives from now on?

Yes, actually, all-considering. The two friends pause and laugh, Daar joins in, drawn in by shared amusement and the weird elation of freedom. Antoin conjects it is likely our friend the guard is screaming for reinforcements and Minoes laughs again, a beautiful sound, So having a girlfriend was the last drop, was it? Daar’s face flushes at the statement. Antoin, knowing there is no time left to ask who Daar even is or where she came from — does it matter? — or what the deal is with all those chickens, instead makes a suggestion which sets into motion events we could never prevent: escape.

Where there is a captive, escape is always at the horizon, where there is love, there is an unfathomable weirdness that is good and that tickles, where there is a prince, there is an incredible lout of a person, where there is motion, things will never be contained. Daar asks Minoes, they are in the back of a wagon, and outside in farthest possible distance there is a city with a castle, Let me hold your face, her rough hands on her dark cheeks, she feels warm and hers, what a strange meeting, so of course they kiss, of course they do.

In the cell, the fuddled guard scratches his head as his retinue attempts to catch the mysterious chickens. He finds a piece of parchment.

It reads “I will make the most of it.“

#my stories #my writing #fiction #writers on tumblr #surrealism #fantasy #queer fiction #hey i still write sometimes #this was a month-long project and i'm v. proud of it

0 notes