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glitterytidalwavedragon · 4 years

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Putting it Out There (A Biracial Child)

I’ve always wanted to address this, I just never knew where or how to. But, as I write, I see the influences come into play more and more (More so when I am writing my B.B fanfic and the Tourist), so I thought, now is a good time as any and this is the only account and platform I feel safe (maybe because I don’t have 200+ friends or followers here who know me outside of social media). I also feel as if this prospective of life isn’t given much attention or heard.

I, as some may know cause I had commented as such, am a biracial child. My father is a Caribbean Hispanic male and my mother of German and Italian descent.

This does not mean I have the best of both worlds. In fact, most of the times I feel alienated.

Born in the early 90′s, the song “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin was every where. My mother would tell me that song was about me, now I was 5-6ish. I thought she referred to me liking cats, and trying to go out to perform a crap version of ‘Singing in the Rain’ along with the love for magic.

No, it wasn’t so innocent. It was straight up because of my skin tone. I looked like the girl the song was describing. I had no idea. Nor did I realize a silent war was raging in my family.

Growing up was...hard to say the least. It is even harder when you have racism on both sides pointing fingers at each other. On my mother’s side, my aunt and uncle wouldn’t allow me to visit unless it was a holiday to which there was pressure from the family. Out of spite, they would invite my much older siblings father over to cause a fight (The man did not celebrate christmas). Meanwhile my other aunt would tell me over and over again I was Italian. In the end, during these events I would end up alone and not know why.

Now lets turn to the other side of the family, my father’s. My first words had been Spanish. Yet, I lived with English speaking relatives... guess who stopped speaking Spanish for a long while. When visiting my family on his side, none of of my relatives would address me, only if they had to because my father was not around. These people knew how to speak English, very well even though they had moved from their native island. They just refused to speak to me. This sucked cause where it was 3 people on my mother’s side, it was 16 aunt’s and uncles on my fathers not counting the dozens of cousins I had. So, as the other family events, I ended up alone not knowing why.

The answer was rather simple but much to complicated for my child self. Both sides of my family was and still is completely racist. My white mother was near exiled for being with a man many would consider black (he considers himself Spanish and oddly doesn’t get the fascination on why his skin matters or makes me worry about him when he is stopped by cops...). I was the ‘mixed’ baby, a simple of her family’s shame.

My father’s side could not care what color my mother was, only that she was not Spanish. For those who don’t know, Spanish can be an array of color, its cool. But, she was no Spanish, did not speak Spanish and therefore my father was exiled by everyone but his own mother for many years (which is why we ended up in family events, my mama wanted to see her youngest grandchild by her baby boy). This meant being put at the back table, being openly mocked, and never told of big family events like babies or weddings.

This only lead to more fighting at home and in the end even my own siblings, alienated me. It was a pretty lonely experience.

This carried on to school and friendships. Elementary was not fun, but I felt the effects more in Jr. and High school. In elementary I was grouped with the other Spanish kids, because starting in late summer I had my Spanish tan on and therefore, I was not white to other white kids. But I did not speak Spanish. At one point I spoke gibberish to just to be able to hang with the Spanish kids at recess. It worked and I still don’t know how.

In Jr. ahhhh... at one point my family was making good money, which originally, it once took the income of five adults to keep us afloat, now it just took 2. My father and my grandpa (who I will talk about later). We moved to a ‘nicer’ neighborhood. In the early 2000′s that mean, a white neighborhood. Boy, did I stick out.

Now you might think “But you grew up in NYC, said you were from Brooklyn” well, here is a fun fact. Nothing is more segregated than NYC schools. The north did not do busing like the south did, so white schools stayed mostly white while schools in low income areas stayed mostly black or other minority races. I was a very tan child going into a white neighbor hood to a white school. Lets top it off that I played video games and Yu-Gi-Oh, HA!

I received hell. I had legit parents sneer at me, and girls asking me if I had sex because I was Spanish. A 12 year old, got hit on by 15 year olds because they thought my race made me easy. I was 12, all I wanted was to collect cards and play Pokemon on my stupid advance, I had no time for boys unless they were anime. But... someone (more than likely their parents) had set these ideas in their head on how Spanish people, more so girls, acted.

Then I realized, I really liked all things Gothic. A Spanish Goth.... it pains me to think about it. Everything from poser, to faker, and ‘trying to act white’ was laid on me. I could not wait for Jr. High to end. And when it did, a whole 180 happen.

I was no longer Spanish. I did not know why, just everyone referred to me as ‘the ONLY white girl’ in the school and that is not a joke. My school, was dubbed the worse in all of Brooklyn and shut down, which I believe it was dubbed that because of the 1% white population... I was the 1 after my second year when the other white kid (who was a boy people asked was my boyfriend) graduated. Now, in high school it wasn’t the kids who gave me hell. It was the teachers.

In fact, high school led me to meet others who were also feeling alienated. One of which I am very close to, a black man who is Jewish (adopted by a white couple) and gay. He did not where he belonged either. In the mid-00′s to be a black gay man living near the ghetto was dangerous. I can’t count how many times he had to hide who he was so he wouldn’t get shot. Nor could I count how many times my other friend coped with being a biracial black man who loved anime and being goth so much he was bullied for it when we weren’t together (who I ended up dating throughout high school).

Suddenly being labelled white get me an acceptance I was not expecting. I ended up being popular against my best efforts and people who I did not know knew me. At 15 I did not get what had changed, because no one had told me yet. No, I figured it out at 16, when I was placed in senior English because of my grades. My English teacher told me, I was white, in the worse why I could ever imagine.

My English teacher, a beautiful black woman who celebrated her African roots, gave an assignment one day. I was one out of five in a class of thirty who did it, because I did it in her class the day before. I played sports, so did half the other kids, I did not have time after school. This did not sit well with her, she was mad, which was an understatement. So, she turned to the class and said

“This is why our people end up in Jail or having babies to early. Because like black people don’t take education seriously.” Then called be out by name and continued “is why she will end up being successful, because white people know the importance of an education.”

First off, she was very racist towards EVERYONE, second I at 16, who was always called Spanish in school was now labelled white in front of everyone by an adult. I was both confused and terrified as my boyfriend who knew my family cared JACK SHIT about education looked ready to kill her. Luckily, he just walked out of class and waited for me as I was too studded to move.

I later asked him if he thought I was white, he admitted he did until he saw my father and called me biracial. For the first time in 16 years, I had been called biracial. Went home, did not tell anyone what happened, asked my mother if I was biracial and she said yes. To shorten this up, this was what life felt like,

At home, I had no race. Neither side welcomed me.

In school, I was told I was Spanish and had to fake my way in the Spanish group.

Jr High, I am now trying to distance myself from everyone as being Spanish makes me a target.

High School, I thought being Spanish would be a good thing. Now everyone is telling me I am white.

I had not idea who or what I was.

All I ever wanted was to be me. I wanted to understand why my family never got close to me, and I wanted friends who were friends because I was me.

It was like I was being ripped to pieces. I could be what others wanted or be no one at all. I had no idea what to do. If people at the new school found out I was Spanish, would I become a target again? I was allowed to freely play games, watch anime, and be my gothic self if I were white. But that also meant I could not hang out with my friends who lived in the Ghetto, shouldn’t like rap, R&B, and reggaetón or use the slang I grew up always using.

To be a Spanish person trying to be white

A white person trying to be black/another minority of color.

I had watched as the former got my friend (boyfriend at the time) kicked out of classrooms as he was compared to those involved in columbine shooting from teachers since he was different. Also the hell he received from other boys for cosplaying and playing anime based card games. At one point it was so rough he thought about dropping out and I begged him to stay along with his mother. I was so afraid of going through that again.

So I kept my mouth shut.

I took on the military standard of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. My father never came to the school because he worked so much so no one knew. Everyday, I just took what my English teacher said to be without any force back. When Obama was voted in, she told me I had no right to celebrate, that my people had JFK and that Obama was for all the minorities to celebrate. I fell into a dark hole of hating myself. My home life was awful and now school I had to pretend to be something I wasn’t comfortable with. I started ditching classes, got into more fights than I would care to admit, did some really shady stuff and began hurting myself.

The only joy I got was when I busted my ass grades wise and got out of school six months early. I did not have to go to school anymore and I could lock myself away to be no one but myself. It was lonely but I found company in books and my art. Through art I was allowed to be me and no one could take that away.

When I returned for Graduation I June, did I get the final laugh on that English bitch. My mother and father showed up, she asked if my father was a cab driver helping my mother as she had gone blind. I told her, rather happily, that was my father. She went from joy to sheer disgusts faster than you can blink. For years she kept talking about who ‘mix babies’ never got any where as their fathers were never around. Yet, despite me hardly showing up, I gradated top of my class, never had a baby nor was I ‘loose’ (In fact I feared sex as a teenager), and my mixed couple parents as she lovingly called it, were together.

She walked away from me and never said a word since.

But now school was over, college was starting. I still hadn’t figured out who I was. Was I white/Italian or Spanish. In college I learnt no one was going to tell me who I was anymore, nor did they care. At home, it was still a battle of the races. Finally, one of my cousins spoke up and declared I wasn’t Spanish as I knew nothing of the language. At home, my aunt and uncle decided I was Spanish and called me a ‘Spick’ as a joke. I did not take it as one and therefore I was called ‘uptight’.

My siblings also informed me, if I wanted free college to put down Spanish on everything unless it was the census. Then I should be white. Sometimes I still run into people who think I am one over the other. I had people come up to be speaking Spanish to be highly offended when I tell them I don’t speak the Language well. (I tried learning but it is hard when motivation is not there).

In recent years, I had someone at work tell me how they met a Spanish person, shockingly where my father works, and then described in detail my father and then tell me they thought he was illegal since he looked the type. All because they thought I was white... proud to say that person got fired for being racist.I did also inform them that was my father to their response was “you’re one of them”.

It never ends.

No, the reason why I haven’t been driven insane is because of my late grandpa. My grandpa was a man I adopted to be my grandfather. My biological grandfathers on both sides died long before I was born and the man I adopted was close to the family and acted like a father to my parents. He was a good man and the reason I had a childhood.

He once went through the same, Italian/Jewish, you wouldn’t think there would be a problem but when he was growing up that equaled Catholic/Jewish, to which he too was either pinned in the middle or rejected by both sides, this is the 1930′s-1940s. He gave me the best piece of advance ever.

To be myself.

That if I were myself, then it did not matter. The moment I stopped being who I am, that passing or faking would never tell me who my real friends were. That if he, could love me for who I was, a weird girl who liked boy things and drawing strange looking characters, then anyone else could. Being a stranger to myself would never bring happiness. So, after years of not listening to that, I finally decided to listen to my Grandpa.

I know who I am, I know the history of my families. They might not like that I am not what they want me to be, but they don’t have to live with me. I have to live with who I am. My friends are my friends because they know who I am, not who they think I should be.

So for all my biracial brothers, sisters and them’s, be yourself. Don’t try to force yourself into a mold, it isn’t worth it. None of it is worth it.

Look yourself in the mirror and say your name. Say it loud and let everyone know they can not define who you are, and so what if they say you don’t belong, guess what? You do if you want. You belong because YOU say so, because that blood runs in your veins as well as theirs. So you get to make that choice!

Make that choice of being you! Define yourself to YOUR standards.

Don’t let anyone take that away. I know I won’t.

So here I see myself! A strange fox who changes coats with the seasons, that loves anime and video games, who plays Yu-Gi-Oh and listens to opera and Metal while can twerk and get low to Daddy Yankee! Who eats sushi and makes a mean chicken cutlet but can also make the best empanda with beans and rice with the rest of them!

And no one can take that from me.

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incorrect-oldstar-quotes · 4 years

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The old stars as college students

(I got this idea earlier and I’m thinking about making it a full-scale fic series!)

Al: Gaming nerd who hosts a D&D club in the student center; has a tight-knit group of friends who are all as quirky as he is; English major and he’s 99.999% sure he wants to become a librarian

Buster: Everybody thinks he’s weird because he never talks in class but he’s actually got quite a few good friends; the one to initiate midnight McDonald’s runs; engineering major and is responsible for half the campus being renovated

Charlie: Has the biggest crush on Edna and everybody asks when they’re gonna start dating already; doesn’t like sports but loves the experience of going; history major with a focus on the ancient world (and for the record, no, it’s not aliens)

Chico: Throws all the biggest ragers on campus; nobody ever recalls seeing him in class but he’s always on the chancellor’s list; music major, and he’s always playing the piano in the student center

Curly: Kind of a recluse but he’s trying his best; president of the campus Jewish Students Association and is on the committee for organizing cultural education events; philosophy major but he’s not sure what to do with it (yet)

Edna: Member of the spirit squad and also manages the basketball team; volunteers with campus rec. and insists on getting everyone to sign up for yogalates; theater major and is on the Broadway track

Groucho: Giant bookworm who basically lives in the library; shows up to the parties that Chico invites him to but leaves after an hour; double-majoring in Economics and Public Affairs but don’t you dare ask him if he’s going into politics

Harold: Technically on the basketball team but he’s just happy when he gets time to play; been crushing on Edna since freshman year but he’s also best friends with Charlie so it’s weird; business major with a focus in marketing

Harpo: That one friend who drives everyone home from parties so they get home safe; he is the chillest dude on campus and everybody knows him even if they don’t know him; “majors” in sociology but he’s just going with the flow

Larry: Super smart kid in class but no one ever sees him outside of that setting (and the caf); always hangs out with the Howard Bros. and they roll in their own squad; studying mathematics with a goal to be a statistician

Mabel: Brings Starbucks to her 3 friends in her 8 AM class just because she wants to; voted Homecoming Queen one year even though she has no idea how; studying Eastern European studies and is on the MUN team with Zeppo

Minta: Sorority girl who sets up tables to give people positive messages between class; practically friends with everyone on campus; studying elementary education and wants to be a pre-school teacher

Moe: Volunteers doing stage set-up for campus productions; mostly hangs out with his brothers but he’s got some other random acquaintances; communications major but he doesn’t know if he wants to be a journalist or on TV

Ollie: Everybody thinks he’s mean when really he just always looks tired; has been roommates with Stan since freshman year because they can’t bare to be apart; biology major and currently studying obscure plant life in the local river

Roscoe: That one RA who feels just a little bit bad about being a party pooper but “c’mon guys it’s 3 AM on a Wednesday”; everybody thinks he and Minta are the cutest couple on campus; linguistics major and studies with Al all the time

Shemp: Works part-time at the history museum off-campus; super passionate about historical preservation and has led several landmark initiatives; studying anthropology and wants to become a museum curator

Stan: Super involved with student life and has a knack for organizing campus events; always hangs out with Ollie to the point that folks wonder if they’re ever separated; psychology major who wants to be a school counselor

Zeppo: Captain of the Model UN team; organizes voter registration events every year around election time; majors in international relations and never shuts up about that internship he had overseas one summer

#buster keaton #charlie chaplin #laurel and hardy #marx brothers #the three stooges #harold lloyd #roscoe arbuckle #mabel normand #al st. john #minta durfee #edna purviance #silent film #old hollywood #college au #meme #the stars as...

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flick-does-things · 4 years

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Remember

Holocaust Remembrance Day happened recently, and in light of that, I'm going to tell a story. I have this really good friend. They are amazing and I love them a lot. We're the same age, and they're really awesome. They told me about this, once, and it took a while to get the whole story. This is a story about bystanders, the unnecessary cruelty of children who are uninformed, and how the blind eye of teachers can be really, really harmful.

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My friend (We'll call them Mor) was in first grade. They were starting at a new elementary school in the same area because their old school had been shut down due to budget cuts. The school district had done a poor job of distributing the kids across the three other elementaries in town for the kindergarten class (we were all affected by this) from that school, and so at the time, the elementary school (we'll call it Washington Elementary) had 56 kids in one grade.

That was 1) really unusual and 2) not able to be split between the two 1st grade teachers they had already. So, to fix this, they brought down a teacher from 4th grade, as that class was small, and had her teach 1st instead. This meant that there would be three 1st grade classes.

Mor says they don't really remember how they dealt with the need for a new classroom, only that it was solved and it wasn't a big deal. (And yes, Mor knows what I'm doing and they gave consent.)

Now, Mor is... bad at letting other people answer things they know the answer to now, and they aren't the most patient person in the world. They say that it wasn't better when they were little, shock of shocks. Also, Mor is Jewish, which is, I suppose, something I should have started with. The teacher (we'll call her Mrs. Alligator) didn't like smart kids, at all. She also didn't like Jewish kids, as Mor later found out.

From what Mor tells me, it all sort of started when everyone in the class had to draw a part of their favorite holiday and write a sentence or two about it. When everyone was done drawing, they went and sat on the rug in a circle and everyone shared. Mor had drawn a dreidel and had written a sentence about Hanukkah, at the time their favorite Jewish holiday (this is no longer the case, but that has nothing to do with this story). They say they remember everyone staring at them.

From then on, whenever something non-Christian was mentioned, Mor or their friend Lilia (again, not real name) who is Muslim were stared at and singled out, either by the teacher or by their classmates. Mor says they hated the feeling of being stared at without being able to stare back, and so Lilia and Mor sat in the back corner of the rug, away from everyone and far away from Mrs. Alligator.

This didn't fix the staring issue. It just meant that instead of everyone staring uninhibited, they all had to turn around.

Now, this is right about where Mor tells me that they only remember bits of that year.

They remember that Mrs. Alligator would not let them move ahead in their work until everyone was done, relegating Mor to either help the other kids in the class (that already had an LTA) or sit at their desk, bored out of their skull, until Mrs. Alligator moved on.

They remember that the LTA was really nice to them. (Mor still loves LTAs and respects them a lot.)

They remember that other kids were mean to them because they were Jewish and that Mrs. Alligator stood by and watched. She never said anything to the class. Mor recalls that it happened to Lilia, too.

Mor does remember that Mrs. Alligator let her and Lilia advance in reading by reading Charlotte's Web. This mostly meant that because of poor inter-school curriculum communication, by 5th grade Mor had read Charlotte's Web about half a dozen times for school, not counting for fun.

That didn't stop the bullying, both intentional and unintentional. Mrs. Alligator sat by the whole time and watched it happen.

From what Mor has told me their mom said, Mrs. Alligator was pretty bad to her too. The only reason their mom says that they didn't try to get Mrs. Alligator fired for what she did was because she and Mor's dad decided they didn't want them to spend their whole summer in court, reliving the past year. Mor's mom says she remembers how upset Mor was about the whole thing, and she didn't want to have to watch that again in court. (Mor's parents are pretty reasonable on that front, actually.)

But here's the thing: this wasn't just a shitty year of school for a 7-8 year old. Mor still has habits and fears left over from that.

They can't sit in the front of a room without panicking unless one of their best friends is right behind them. This is horrifically embarrassing to them, especially because many teachers give assigned seats, and in smaller classes, sitting in the dead last row isn't an option when the teacher wants everyone near the front.

That same fear also pertains to other situations: they need to have their back to a wall at almost all times to feel safe. They sleep with their back to a wall most of the time. They always pick seats in restaurants with their back to the wall. If they can't see the door, they almost certainly won't be able to sit there calmly

Every time something about religion is mentioned, they practically hide. They say it's gotten better, but they got singled out all through elementary school for being Jewish by other kids who stared at them.

They hate Christmas, The Beatles, and baseball with a burning passion. Christmas has gotten better for them over the years, but for a long time, other kids called them the Grinch.

For a long time, they didn't show facial emotions except very rarely.

They are aggressively honest and brutal and sarcastic, and it's meant to keep people out. It works, mostly. They have a reputation for being a violent bitch and a jerk, although that's left over from elementary school but is a hard reputation to shake.

They are cruel with their words when they are angry or scared. Damaging type cruel. Again, it's gotten a lot better, but they got in trouble for it a lot as a younger kid.

They absolutely avoid telling people they're Jewish at all costs. (This is a big point of contention with their dad.)

Trust of teachers? Yeah, they don't really have lots of that.

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Long story short: they were emotionally affected, hard, by this teacher who wouldn't stand up for them and the fact that nobody else caught on.

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This isn't about Mor. It's about me. I am Mor.

This isn't a call to "get this teacher fired!" for what they did. This is a call to remember and to acknowledge that anti-Semitism is still out there and still hurts kids, just as much as adults.

We have to remember the past so that it doesn't happen again in the future.

Never Again.

#school #jewish #antisemetism tw #islamophobia tw #mine #my story #holocaust tw #never again #judaism #holocaust remembrance #okay to reblog #please dont repost #long post #bullying tw #im so sorry if the formatting is trash

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ilovemygaydad · 6 years

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part 5/? of punk!patton gets adopted by single parent logan

part one - part two - part three - part four - ao3 version - masterlist (includes asks and art!)

pairings: moxiety, eventual logince, background pining remceit, mentions of past thomas/female oc

warnings--these are very important this chapter: food mentions, stress, anxiety, kissing, flirting, divorce mentions, making out, mentions of murder (i’ll mark it out), attempted murder, guns, gunshots, gun wounds, head trauma, homophobic parents mention, homophobia, there’s so much swearing i am so sorry, maybe something else

a/n: no joke i’ve had this planned out since before the last part came out, but i literally just couldn’t write it all at once, and i’ve been having a really emotionally weird week. next chapter should start out pretty funny. idk. please enjoy this.

a/n 2: sorry that this took so long to get out. i don’t think it’s that great, but... yeah. whatever.

it’s friday night babey which means that it’s dinner time with the sanders, and logan and patton are freaking out

logan has been cooking/prepping food for the past day, and he immediately started finishing up as soon as he got home from work

patton, on the other hand, was feverishly cleaning the entire house

it isn’t even messy, but he’s worried that virgil and/or roman are going to be upset

(which they aren’t????? but whatever)

and patton even cleaned himself up! he tried (and failed) to tame his wild curls into some sort of neat anything, and he wore his nicest pair of black jeans and a black sweater with floral designs that he’d bought at the mall with virgil a while back

it was a little out of his comfort zone, but virgil insisted that he get it because it looks very good on him

and, god damn it, you can’t say no to virgil’s puppy eyes

the doorbell rang just before five, and logan ran out of the kitchen to get it

patton literally vaulted over the couch, skidding to the door just behind logan

virgil is like

literally the cutest person on the planet

he’s wearing a white lace dress that has a flowy skirt, and he’s got a white flower crown on, and he looks like an angel

during the time that patton’s being a gay disaster, virgil holds out a bouquet of blue flowers and says, “dad made me get them for you”

patton smiles gently and takes them, pulling virgil in for a quick kiss before leading him inside

roman has, like, eight giant tupperware containers full of cookies and brownies and stuff in his arms, and logan’s like

what???? the fuck?????

“you didn’t need to bring desserts, roman. i have ice cream...”

and roman gives this cocky smile and says “my best friend, emi, loves to bake for us, but he doesn’t really know how to limit himself, so we have tons of baked goods lying around that we can’t eat. not to mention that i can’t keep up this fabulous figure if i only eat sweets!” wink wonk

and logan can feel his face heating up after that wink, but he pretends that it’s just the heat from inside

roman really does have a good figure...

logan chooses to not respond to roman, instead saying, “let’s go inside so you can put those containers down”

they turn to go, and they catch a glimpse of patton and virgil from down the hall

the kids are sitting on the couch, laughing and talking and exchanging the occasional kiss

the adults watch for a second because aw, but quickly move on to the kitchen

“you can set the containers down on the counter over there. i made a a couple of different things for dinner just in case you two didn’t like something that i made, so there’s spaghetti, pizza, and hamburgers. everything is absolutely gluten-free; i know because i triple checked with a list online and bought new utensils to reduce contamination. you’re free to have as much or as little as you like--i won’t be offended either way.”

roman kind of freezes because holy shit that’s so thoughtful and kind

“that’s... logan, that’s too much. you didn’t have to do all that for virgil.”

“what are you talking about? it’s only common courtesy to assure that your guest is able to eat without getting sick, especially when they have a disease that can cause irreparable damage to their body.”

“yeah, but a lot of people don’t care enough to ask or remember, so virgil often has to find something else to eat last minute... i brought an extra dinner just in case, which is very unfair to your person, but virgil has suffered too much for me to not be careful.”

“that’s...” logan starts, trying to express what he feels. “that’s just shitty.”

roman smiles and laughs a bit, replying, “yeah, it is, but at least you aren’t, you know, shitty”

and they have this little moment where they smile at each other, and both of them are like wow this man is... good looking but they snap out of it because

dumb gays

everyone in this au is a dumb gay

including yours truly but that is noT important

logan’s like “hey we should get the kids for dinner” and roman obvi agrees

but when they go to get them, they see the kiddos being all adorable and gay and logan turns to roman with this very serious expression like

we must spy on them. this is the cutest shit i’ve ever seen.

so they shuffle over to the edge of the doorway, just out of sight, and logan peeks his head in every now and then for visuals, and he’s repeating what he hears so that roman can understand what’s happening

logan’s in the middle of telling roman something when

dun dun dunnnn

a voice suddenly appears from behind them like

(the voice is virgil)

“what... are you two doing...?”

fucking busted

logan is like

aHa i can lie to these children!

and he says, “we were talking about work--”

but patton just cuts him off with this deadpan look and “you two are horrible liars”

cut to: roman gasping in offense that this emo nightmare of a child just called him a liar when he didn’t even say anything

so he says, “i didn’t even say anything”

patton, being... well, being the asshole that he is, says, “my point still stands”

roman splutters for a while longer, trying to look at virgil and logan for help, but virgil just shrugs and walks with patton to the table, and logan is still very embarrassed about getting caught

it takes a few seconds, but both adults recuperate and move on to what’s important

which is, obviously, dinner

logan walks virgil through what’s available and offers to cook something else if he isn’t feeling particularly happy with anything

virgil damn near cries at how nice logan is

dinner gets served, and they all start eating the (delicious--who would guess that calculator watch knew how to cook something that tasted like it was served in a fancy restaurant) food

after a few minutes of idle chatter and slight pda between the kids, logan offhandedly comments, “you know, i am extremely happy for the both of you that you didn’t cycle through numerous girlfriends before finding out that you’re queer like many of us do.”

and everyone at the table freezes because

logan’s gay????

“hold up,” roman says with a shocked expression. “you’re gay?”

and virgil sighs and shakes his head because “dad, you’re an idiot. he literally has a pride phone case, and there are multiple pictures of him at pride around the house--including one right behind you.”

he also elbows patton when the punk mutters out a very soft “what the fuck”

“i applaud your observational skills--”

“i assume neither of you knew that he was jewish, either”

and now it’s logan’s turn to be surprised because... who the hell is this kid

“you have a dreidel on the mantle that i assumed you forgot to put away after Hanukkah last year.” everyone stared at him. “oh, i’m sorry that i’m not as much of a dumb gay as my father.”

cue roman getting offended again

“excuse you! the role of ‘dumb gay’ is exclusively reserved for thomas f. sanders!”

poor patton hasn’t stopped being confused this whole time, but roman luckily jumps right back into his explanation

“my twin brother, thomas, didn’t realize that he was gay until he had been with a woman for six years and had a child with her. they amicably parted ways because, like him, she was also gay. i am not nearly as stupid as my brother, and i take great offense to virgil calling me a ‘dumb gay!’” he said matter-of-factly

virgil opens his mouth to say something, but roman cuts him off with a swift “if you so much as think about saying what you’re going to say, i will throw you into the ocean without a moment’s hesitation.” roman then very calmly turns to patton and says sweetly, “so, only good child at this table, tell me a bit about yourself so that i know what my devil child is getting himself into.”

unbeknownst to roman, virgil mutters “dumb gay,” under his breath, causing logan to crack a smile across the table

patton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “my birthday is february nineteenth, my favorite color is blue, and i’m homoromantic asexual.”

roman waited for patton to say more, but the teen averted his gaze back on his food and took another bite

logan decided to pick up the slack after the few seconds of awkward silence “what about you, virgil?”

unlike patton’s less than enthusiastic reply, virgil perked up at the chance to speak

“oh, well, my birthday is june second, and i really like purple! i’m pretty sure that i’m pan, but i have a preference for guys. oooh! and i really want to be an elementary school teacher.”

that made logan perk up. “really? i currently teach first graders across town.”

“no way!” virgil gasped. “that’s awesome! i love little kids so much. they’ve got so much energy.”

“and their intelligence is unrivaled!”

“yes!”

roman and patton watched as the two excitedly conversed about kids and teaching

patton admired virgil’s enthusiasm, and was happy that he was getting along with logan.

and virgil looked really cute with his happy smile and the little glimmer in his eyes

patton may or may not have zoned out in favor of staring at his beautiful boyfriend

roman couldn’t really tell what logan and virgil were talking about (they were speaking far too quickly for him to follow), but he admired how excited logan looked when he was speaking

oh no

roman was falling for logan

time to not follow his own advice and pretend that his feelings don’t exist

after another half hour or so of chatting, the adults and kids split ways for a while

patton and virgil went up to patton’s room, and logan and roman stayed in the living room

the boys settled together at the end of patton’s bed, holding hands and leaning on each other

“you look paw-sitively purrfect, virgil” patton giggled

“is... are you saying that because i have cat-eye eyeliner on?”

“...maybe”

virgil smiled and pulled patton in for a kiss

they kissed for a little, but patton eventually pulled away

he looked worried, and he fidgeted with his hands as he said, “do you think that your dad likes me?”

“well...” virgil started. “he didn’t like you for a long time. after the first day of school, he kind of held a grudge on you.” patton winced, but he didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. “i think he’s forgiven you now.”

“really?”

“i promise. he just wanted to protect me because he’s my dad, but i think he’s realized that you’re not actively trying to hurt me, and you’re just a bit dumb at times”

“hEY”

virgil smiled and nudged patton “you know i love you”

“hnnnnnn i love you too”

“heLL YEAH!”

meaNwhiLE downstairs

logan led roman into the the living room and roman was

stunned

because logan had at least a thousand books meticulously organized around the room

“how many books do you have in here...?” roman asked, running his hand over an entire collection of encyclopedias

“about one thousand two hundred on the shelves, but i have some children’s books in those baskets at the bottom as well as the books that are starting to fall apart like my copy of hamlet”

“how did you even get so many books? i’ve been collecting novels my whole life, and i only have a few bookshelves full”

“my mom is a librarian, and whenever they would get newer copies of books or get rid of unwanted books, she’d give them to me. i’ve bought a fair few of these myself, but there are only so many that i can buy on a teacher’s salary”

and roman’s like

????? hot

and logan keeps rambling on about books, and roman’s just having a gay crisis but it’s fine

but then logan looks at roman expectantly, and roman hadn’t exactly been paying enough attention to read logan’s lips, so he played the “can you repeat yourself? i didn’t catch it” card

“sorry. i asked how you came to adopt virgil”

and roman obviously is like hey how about we spill a lot of sad life things with this almost stranger because he’s cute

~this is where the murder is mentioned~

“his mom was my best friend in high school. although we went our separate ways for college, she stayed supportive of me after i came out. she was... the only one from my old life who would even think to talk to me. even thomas hesitated to talk to me for fear of crossing our parents and their ridiculously catholic ideas.” roman sighed. “eventually, though, she got mixed up in some bad stuff, and she got with this drug addict who got her pregnant with virgil. when virgil was about a year old, the guy thought that my friend was cheating on him, and he shot her. the shot, luckily, didn’t kill her right away, and she was able to push him into the corner of a table and kill him before he could get to virgil. she called the police, but she died before they could get there. as soon as i found out, I went and started the adoption process. i had only been a year out of college at that point.”

~end of the murder mention~

logan was stunned. “that is... horrible, roman. i am so sorry for your loss.”

“it’s alright,” roman said with a shrug. “it was over a decade ago, and it led to me getting the best thing in my life. the circumstances were shit, but virgil has made me a better person, and i wouldn’t know what i’d do without him keeping my head on gay.”

“you mean straight...?”

“nothing about me is straight, logan. don’t be absurd”

eventually, it’s time for roman and virgil to leave

virgil and patton walk out to the car and leave the adults at the door because they wanna kiss each other goodbye without being spied on

on their way to the car, virgil whispers “how much do you want to bet that they’ll be flirting with each other by the time we leave”

“ten dollars. i mean, didn’t you see how your dad looked at logan? it was gross!”

meanwhile, at the door...

roman leans back on the doorframe and smiles. “this was a nice night, logan. virgil definitely had a lot of fun”

“that’s great; i’m glad”

“here--give me your phone. i’ll put my number in, and we can get together some other time to get to know each other better”

logan obliged, and roman sent himself a text using logan’s phone and set his contact name as “prince of your dreams”

they chatted for a minute or so longer, just to give the boys enough time to say their goodbyes, before parting ways

logan didn’t spend the rest of the night texting roman

don’t be ridiculous

to be continued

asks are loved and encouraged, and make sure to check out the amazing art people have made on the masterlist! 💖💖💖

tag list: @residentanchor @eeveeawesome @xionical@absolutesandersidestrash @stormcrawler75 @musikasworld @ironwoman359@a-weirdo-with-a-computer @thegaypotatoroyalty707 @darkrainbow333@ravenclawunicorn1 @noahlovescoffee @whymustibedraggedintofandomhell@romansleftshoulderpad @still-waiting-for-cookies @emounicorn2006 @lana–22 @angels-ofthe-sea @demonickittykat @lonelysoul43 @the-virgil-mary @five-second-cookies @noisywolfbatbakery @band-be-boss-blog @heck-im-lost@lamp-calm-sanders @patton-e @knightofbloodcancer @cloudchaser7@really-sleep-deprived-nerd @era-eclipsed @khadij-al-kubra @anxiousmorality@are-you-really-sure-about-that @today-only-happens-once@notalwaysthevillian @backatthebein @sunshineandteddybears @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn @dodos-in-damnation@some-lost-meme-boi @dead4sevenyears @spookyingarbageisland @the-poison-apple-of-art@radioactivehelena @the-melody-of-eliza @im-a-mess-aaaaaa @whycantihavemorethan32characters @broadwaytheanimatedseries@veryvirginvirgil @llamaavocado @unisaurioamorfo @caterpiller-tea@cornycornfriendo @simon-at-3am @calico-kiri

#sanders sides #moxiety #logince #m writes things #remceit #ts deceit #roman sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #punk!patton au

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wvldcvrd · 5 years

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[SHAWN MENDES, CIS MALE, HE/HIM] have you seen MARCO SPIEGELMAN around sedona? MARCO is a BEEKEEPER, but they’re also THE WILD CARD in the sedona sleuths, so you’ve probably seen them around the firehouse shed. they’re known for being WARMHEARTED and OPTIMISTIC, but they’re also known to be OVERWROUGHT and NAIVE. when they’re not at the shed, i can usually find them at THE SEDONA FOREST. i can always recognize them by (a worn guitar neck with old strings, coming home three minutes before curfew, a crackling woodfire, and freshly blown out birthday candles).

hi friends ! my name is reed, i use they/she pronouns, and am so stoked to be here ! keep reading to find out everything you’ve ever wanted to know about my boy, marco.

tw: cancer, death, car crash, addiction

marco joshua spiegelman was born on an overcast august day in the city of boston, massachusetts. he was the fourth child and the youngest by seven years, meaning that in some way, he was his parents’ last hope.

the spiegelman family practiced orthodox judaism – his dad was raised orthodox and his mom converted from reform judaism in order to marry his dad– so marco’s childhood was very much focused on religion. the spiegelman family went to services every friday night, celebrated every holiday, forced marco to wake up early on sundays to go to hebrew school, and treated him they same as they had treated his older siblings. however, as his siblings grew up and moved out, they all stopped devoutly practicing judaism and moved into a more modern and laid back interpretation of their religion. marco craved this from a young age, but because he was stuck at home with his parents, he was forced to follow their rules and beliefs.

marco went to jewish private school for elementary and middle school, had his bar mitzvah in the seventh grade, and tried to blend in as best as he could. he liked history and english, eager to learn more about the past and help shape the future. at this point in his life, he had his goal of becoming a politician pretty much set. he would help the end the fighting in israel, solve world hunger, and just be an all around awesome guy.

however, his plans shifted on valentine’s day his eighth grade year. after coming home from school, his parents sat him down and told him that his dad had stage four exocrine pancreatic cancer. he knew that his dad had been losing weight and not eating as much recently, as well as complained all the time that his back hurt, but marco didn’t realize that it was something so terrible and life threatening.

with a survival rate of about one percent, the spiegelman family knew that his dad’s chances of survival were not good. the next few months were difficult, his dad went through lots of chemotherapy and experimental trials, but nothing seemed to be working, and he passed away before june. this crushed marco and his mom; his dad was a kind, gentle, and loving person, and the three of them had grown extremely close with each other due to marco being the youngest and the only child still living in the house.

it was hard for the two of them to live by themselves in a town that his mom didn’t really have any connection to, so a few months after his dad’s passing, marco and his mom moved to sedona, the place where she had grown up, to try and start fresh. their new beginning came coupled with the loss of their connection to their religion, and marco and his mom no longer practiced judaism

freshman year in a brand new town was intimidating for marco, and this resulted in him being extremely quiet and shy for the majority of the year. however, his history teacher saw how invested in history and current events he was and convinced marco to join the debate team. this is where he found his voice once again.

marco did a type of debate called public policy debate, a style of debate where you talk extremely fast and have to do an insane amount of research to ensure that you know what you’re talking about. in order to participate in that style of debate, his teacher assigned him a partner and he grew extremely close to her very quickly. the two of them went on to win the national title their sophomore and junior years

after joining debate, marco grew more confident in himself and began to talk more both in and out of class. being good at something gave him the boost he needed to no longer be shy, and he was well liked by most people at school. marco’s sophomore and junior years were quite possibly the best years of his life.

however, right before the trophy ceremony his junior year, he got a call from his mom, telling him that his sister had gotten in to a car crash and that she was in a coma in a hospital in san francisco. marco flew to san fran immediately after receiving the call, leaving his partner to collect the trophy on his behalf.

for the following two weeks, marco rarely left the hospital for fear that his sister would pass away without him there. although the two of them were not that close, losing another family member was something that marco could not imagine. on the fifteenth day of her being in the hospital, the doctors said that there was nothing they could do to save his sister. so they harvested her organs as donations, and the spiegelmans were forced to put another member of their family into the ground.

senior year came around and marco was a changed person. he was not as passionate or confident as he used to be, he quit debate, and he focused on judaism again to try and give his life some meaning. however, he explored the type of judaism his sister was into, reform judaism, based more on learning and exploring the ideas of religion than sitting in a sanctuary and praying.

although he skipped school often and had mediocre grades, he managed to graduate, his dreams seeming unimportant and his life in shambles. throughout this, he still managed to keep a positive attitude, now convinced that god had a plan for him and that everything would work out fine. he does have really bad anxiety tho, so it’s this classic combination of trying to have faith in the way things work out but never really being sure that they will

without his debate professor, he wouldn’t have even gotten into college, but with the help of someone making sure he followed through, he got into college t to study sustainable food & farming. this seemed like a out of the blue choice, but it combined marco’s love of research & science, and allowed him to feel like he could have a greater impact on the world than he could as a politician.

college went by without incident, but here are some highlights (joined hillel and loved being w/ other jews, was a nerd, did nerd things **including a lot of acid, lived his best life)

he recently graduated, and has found a love for beekeeping ! he has two hives and thousands of bees and he loves them all.

headcannons !

marco worked as a waiter at an italian restaurant in high school so that he could have spending money. money was never a problem in his household as his mom is a cardiologist, but he always felt bad asking for money for things, so he made his own money instead

if marco was a crayola crayon, he’d be pine green. the color is a bit darker than most of the other greens in the crayola family, just like marco in his family, but also has a hint of blue in it, hinting at the sadness that lies beneath marco’s outer layer.

marco really loves old school video games. his old nintendo 64 is collecting dust in his closet, and although he rarely has time to play it anymore, he refuses to throw it out. while growing up, video games were his way of connecting to his two older brothers, his older sister always watching on with a disapproving gleam in her eye. whenever the siblings get together, however, they always manage to turn on an old, favorite game of theirs, and the competition is always heated

in high school, marco smoked a lot of weed. he would always be seen outside at any high school party, smoking by himself or with a group of other people. however, after graduating, marco switched to cigarettes. he smokes frequently, but will furiously deny being addicted if approached about it

marco plays as waluigi when he plays mario kart/party

marco is a night person. he utterly hates getting up early in the morning, but staying up late comes easy and natural to him.

marco recycles religiously. if something is recyclable and you don’t put it into the recycling bin, he’ll lose a bit of respect for you as a person

marco absolutely loves space and the universe and stargazing (part of his appreciation for nighttime), but he also wholeheartedly believes that aliens are real, no doubt about it.

1/2 wholesome sunshiney boy, 1/2 sad and lonely and lost kid

#intro.

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thestrangestofplaces · 5 years

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On Rosh Hashanah

Last night I went to Rosh Hashanah services for the first time in my life.

I’m 37 years old. I have always been Jewish. My parents are both Jewish. I strongly self-identify with Jewish culture and my extremely Jewish family history, but I was not raised in the religion. I have been to temple a handful of times, and I have never gone on the High Holy Days.

Why last night, then? Well, I have tried throughout my adult life to connect with the religious aspect of Judaism. As a kid, I was jealous of kids who went to church. They had this community, this default group of people who were connected to them, who they shared time with every week. I went to an elementary school where I was often the only Jew. Ironically, teachers would put me on the spot when it was time to talk about the only Jewish holiday non-Jewish people seemed to know about: Hanukkah. I did know about Hanukkah, because it, along with Passover, were the two holidays we celebrated as a family. I think we celebrated Hanukkah mostly because of its proximity to Christmas, and Passover for my grandmother, who hosted the seder every year. I loved these two holidays deeply, clinging to them like a lifeline. We did not celebrate Rosh Hashanah, or Yom Kippur, or Purim, or Sukkot. For most of my childhood, I was only somewhat aware these holidays existed.

I have a lot of friends who are jealous of my mostly secular upbringing. I understand that many people have a complicated relationship with the religion they were raised in, and rightfully so. But I sometimes wished I had been given a choice about whether to make Judaism part of my life as a child. I would have appreciated an opportunity to connect to my ancestral roots, especially because I was so frequently labeled by them.

As an adult, obviously, I do have that choice. Last night I chose Kol Tzedek, the heavily queer, extremely diverse, Reconstructionist temple located about five blocks from my house. I had attended events at Kol Tzedek before, even taken a course in Judaism and Food Justice, and I’d had universally positive experiences. It seemed like the gentlest possible introduction to what are truly the most important of Jewish holidays.

Kol Tzedek is wonderful. I have never been in a space where I felt so welcome. They are emphatic in welcoming you no matter what your experience level is with Judaism, or how often you go, or even whether you identify as Jewish or not. As someone who is queer, as someone who has been to church with friends more than I’ve been to temple, as someone who has profound disagreements with the liturgy — this is the ideal place for me. I know I will be back. Kol Tzedek seems to use Judaism as a way to gather and unite, to support and spread love, and that is exactly what I want out of any spiritual endeavor.

And yet — I walked out of services last night. Not because I was offended, or upset, or even uncomfortable. I walked out of services because we said the Mourner’s Kaddish, and I began to cry.

Two and a half years ago, I lost my friend Shannon to cancer. I probably went to more religious services with Shannon than I have with anyone else. Shannon was raised Catholic, and would periodically go through phases where she would try to reconnect with her faith. It was hard. We tried different congregations and parishes, but none were quite the right fit. To make matters worse, the Catholic church has had a few bad years in terms of its reputation in the public eye - especially in the state of Pennsylvania. It was intensely difficult for Shannon to feel she could separate her faith from the horrible acts committed in Catholic churches against children everywhere, as well as the way the Church itself worked to cover its sins. Shannon was constantly trying to connect to the parts of the religion she enjoyed, but kept being pushed away by the parts she didn’t.

As we said the Mourner’s Kaddish, I felt a wave of grief for Shannon. I have these waves often. Shannon was my person. She is gone.

But I also wished so intensely, in the way that I do sometimes, that Shannon had been there. I wished she could have seen that it is possible to have a faith that embraces you, no matter who you are. I wished she could have seen me have that moment that she’d had occasionally at the Catholic services we attended, that moment where you feel connected not only to the divine, but to all the wonderful divine energy that exists all around us in people, in community, in coming together.

I think the Jews do the New Year right. It is not a drunk celebration with fireworks. It is a quiet, communal process of understanding and reflection. I love that. I love the idea that we commemorate the creation of all living creatures this way. This is the anniversary of the beginning of self-knowledge, of thousands of years of worship. That’s amazing.

I will go back to services. Hopefully, I will actually stay the whole time. But this time, I am grateful for that moment of grief, because it was also a moment of connection and a moment of release. It was a letting go.

I love you, Shannon. I hope you know that, wherever you are.

(Also, for my Jewish friends, who, like myself, were not able to take the holiday off to reflect, I am with you in solidarity. May we see a new post-capitalist age that does not force us to choose economic necessity over faith and self-knowledge.)

#rosh hashanah #shana tova #judaism #jewish #religion #in my own words #tw: grief #tw: cancer

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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507

Name everyone you know who... is Jewish: I don’t think I know anyone who is. Do people I don’t know personally count? ‘Cause the first Jewish person I thought about was Colt Cabana lmfao. is Christian: 92% of this entire country. is Atheist: Me. JM is also atheist I think. is of another religion: I had a classmate in high school who I heard quietly converted to Buddhism, but I was never close with her so I don’t know if that is true, and if she still is. I haven’t seen her since we graduated. has brown eyes: My sister probably has the brownest eyes out of all of us, but it’s still quite a dark shade.

has blue eyes: I doubt there’s anyone in my circle with this eye color. has green eyes: CM Punk? LMAO has another colored eyes: Almost everyone I know has black eyes. is between the ages of zero and five: My youngest cousin is turning 6 in December, but until then, he is 5. is between the ages of six and ten: My cousin Sam is definitely in that age range, I’m just not so sure what the exact age is. is between the ages of eleven and fifteen: Gabie’s sister is 14, turning 15 this November. is between the ages of sixteen and twenty: My sister (18, turning 19), Gabie’s other sister (16), my old busmates Yanna (18) and Lex (17). is between the ages of twenty-one and thirty: Me and almost all of my friends. A bunch of us were born in 1998, making us 21 years old; a handful are 1-3 years older, like JM (22), Jum and Aya (23). is older than thirty: Other than my parents, my internship supervisor. Not sure how old she is but she’s definitely between 30-40. is a morning person: My mom. It drives me crazy when she wants to get soooo much stuff done within the day since I’m more of a night owl and like it’s just not my schedule lol. is a night person: Me, and just about everyone in UP. is employed: One of the more senior members in my org, Toby, has a job. is unemployed: Everyone else I go to college with. works at the same place as you: I don’t work yet. is single: Laurice. Although we’re counting on her to get a boyfriend before she graduates, so she still has around two years to go. :)) is in a relationship: Jo, who is seeing Aya. is engaged: I have a high school classmate who posted a status about her boyfriend proposing to her many months ago. She hasn’t said anything about it since then so I dunno if they broke it off or nah.

is married: Uh...my parents. is widowed/divorced: The mom of one of my childhood friends is widowed. Her husband died from cancer a few years ago when their daughter and I were in high school, if I remember right. is pregnant: My class adviser from senior year in high school. I know she’s in her 40s, so it was a really pleasant surprise when she announced her pregnancy. has kids: My dog, hahaha. has no kids: My friends in college. has brown hair: Agatha dyed her hair brown a while back. has blonde hair: Gabie had blonde tips until just recently. She had them cut off last week, so now she’s back to having black hair. has natural red hair: No one I know. has black hair: Aya. has their hair dyed an unnatural color: Everyone I know who has unnaturally-colored hair had it dyed, because Filipinos only have black hair unless they’re half-something. is good at singing: Hannah is a born superstar tbh. I know Ed and Laurice sing too. is good at dancing: Dianne. She’s a high school batchmate who was always the best dancer from our class. She’s a member of the Streetdance Club in my uni now. is good at drawing: Aya! She’s our go-to editorial cartoonist in the org. Angela too, and my sister. is good at painting: Gabie and her youngest sister. My sister’s really good too. She also has a classmate I follow on Twitter, and she’ll post her paintings from time to time, all of which are amazing. is good at acting: Gabie. She was president of the theatre club in high school. is good at writing: Me? Hahahaha gotta flex my own talent too :(( is good at guitar: Gabie’s younger sister. I swear those siblings have the most amazing set of talents. is good at piano: My cousin Luke has been playing the piano for as long as I can remember. His grandma (my great-aunt) also knows how to play and they have a grand piano in their house, so he must have picked it up from her. is good at drums: Denise, a classmate from high school. She was the drummer for my batch’s band. is good in another instrument: JM plays the violin. He’s still a rusty here and there, but can play a tune nonetheless. is athletic/sporty: Hans, Angela’s boyfriend. He plays basketball with his friends all the time. is into fitness and going to the gym: Gabie has a gym membership, but she’s not super obsessed with fitness. smokes cigarettes: Mik, an orgmate of mine. He has always extremely smelled like cigarettes the few times I’ve seen him and I honestly have to step away from him every time :/ smokes weed: I know Danika has had weed brownies. does shrooms: Not anyone I know in real life...I think. does other drugs: Can’t name anyone I know, buddy. drinks often: JM will have moods where he will buy a whole bottle of gin or whatever alcohol he’s feeling at the moment for himself and drink it all in his room, but he’s not an alcoholic hahahaha. doesn't drink: My eldest cousin from my mom’s side. His dad is a horrible alcoholic, so it’s understandable why he avoids it at all costs. doesn't do drugs [not even weed]: Me. is emo/goth/scene/alternative: I uhh...don’t know anyone who identifies as this since probably 2011 at the latest... is preppy/popular: KATE without a shadow of a damn doubt. doesn't fall in either of those stereotypes: Aya. has cats: My tita has multiple cats. It’s her business, but she also loves those cats to death and pampers them. has dogs: Gabie’s family has four dogs, but I only get to see Harley since the other three aren’t behaved all that well. JM has two dogs, Mika and Alley. has other animals: Michelle has a bird named Moonmoon, but I don’t know what kind of bird it is. A girl I used to be friends with in high school (she was from a different school) had a pet snake. has no pets: Jo. is vegan: @badsurveyshit! is vegetarian: Not sure if I know someone. Filipinos are obsessed with their meat. is on some other diet: The same tita with a bunch of cats is on a keto diet. has no diet/dietary restrictions: ME is lactose intolerant: Also me. But I still have milk and other dairy stuff because yum haha. has/had cancer: My great-aunt died from cancer. My old Filipino teacher had thyroid cancer, but she beat it. is bipolar: Edi, a friend of mine. is depressed: Me, I guess. plays videogames: My sister, my dad, my kuya, Gabie. loves to read: LAURICE. It’d be such a shame if I went with someone other than Laurice. got a GED: We don’t use that here. never graduated highschool: One of my friends’ mom. graduated college/got a degree: Both my parents, and all of my friends who graduated before me, e.g. Kate, Aya, Luisa, Jane. is or has been enrolled in beauty school: I don’t know anyone. makes YouTube videos: Ricel, my sister’s classmate from high school. She seems like such a sweet and nice person so when she started her channel a few weeks ago, I was more than happy to support her. is white: My uncle from New Zealand (unrelated; he married my mom’s cousin / my aunt). is black: I have a mutual friend from high school who’s half-black, half-brown. His dad, if I remember correctly, is from Nigeria. is Asian: Literally everyone I know!!!!!!!!!! is Hispanic: I don’t know anyone in real life but one of my favorite wrestlers, AJ, is Puerto Rican. is of another race: Everyone I follow on this Tumblr :)) is into photography: Reiven. likes rock: Rick, I think? The few times his earphones were blaring his music too loud it was always hard rock. likes metal: I dunno if I still know any metal fans nowadays. likes pop: Hannah. likes hiphop/rap/R&B: Hans. And all the other kids in uni who think they’re white. likes KPop: JM and Jum. likes country music: No one I know. likes jazz: Gabie and me. likes classical music: Sofie. When I was driving us to Batangas a few weeks ago for a beach getaway, she was in control of the car music and she briefly played stuff from her classical music playlist :(((( I was shookt at first but I liked the music anyway, so I didn’t tell her to change it. is a male: My dad. is a female: Me. is non-binary: Gabie’s editor from this website she’s a part of. is trans: Mac, from high school. He was formerly Maica, but he started going by Mac once he graduated. is straight: Laurice. is gay: Gabie. is bi: Patrice. lives on the eastern half of the USA: My Tito Rocky, who lives in New York. My Tito Raffy is also from New York. lives on the western half of the USA: Aubrey, Rielle, Norielle, Margeauxe. All originally from elementary/high school, but eventually migrated. lives in a different country: My Tita Pia and her husband, who is the one I listed under the “is white” portion of this survey. They live in Vietnam, but they used to live in New Zealand. is blind/visually impaired: I had a classmate from my History of Southeast Asia class who is legally blind. He has this device he puts on his eye to be able to read our professor’s slides. is deaf/hearing impaired: I don’t know anyone IRL. is in a wheelchair or disabled: One of my orgmates’ mom is in a wheelchair. is austitic/retarded/has learning disbilities: My Tita Bianca. is very thin: Aya. is overweight: Gabie is a few pounds overweight.

#survey #surveys

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timotheetea · 7 years

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Could you write a post "50 unusual facts about Timmy"?

Don’t know how ‘unusual’ these are, but here’s 50 facts/quotes:1. “To love someone is to become them, and that love is an act of empathy, and that to take on your [lover’s] name in an expression of love is to totally reveal yourself as a human being and to offer yourself as a compassionate lover and friend.” 2. “(Happiness is) that feeling of flow. I think you can accomplish flow doing anything, it can be stapling papers, it can be playing sport, it can be the way you drive a car. If you can achieve that kind of ow where it becomes mindless, sensory and instinctive – that’s happiness.” 3. He grew up in hell’s kitchen, Manhattan, 43th and ninth, in a 33-floor high-rise so close to the clouds that ”it felt like we were literally floating in the sky”. & “I grew up in this melting-pot of cultures in the 33th floor of a tower floating above the sky, and I felt like it let me be free to find myself.”4. Favourite actor: mainly he mentions Joaquin Phoenix, but one time he said it was Louis de Funès. 5. “This is the dream, to be at the forefront of any film… I get to be a part of something that is beyond any sort of acclaim, affecting people on a visceral level when they see it, or at least some members.”6. What does love feel like to you? “The definition changes by the day, and what I can think of today as far as what love is to me would be having the security to receive warmth.” 7. “I was in college for a little bit and it felt like a clear decision to not [finish]; it was scary because I didn’t want to rob myself of growing as a human. But it’s been the exact opposite: going from set to set, working with creative, open people, having mentors rooting for you. There’s education within that, I guess.”8. His father’s side of the family is from La Chambon-sur-Lignon and saint-Agréve in France 9. “I want to pursue other things creatively, not so much music, but definitely writing and directing. I’m going to be very, very patient about that. The dream as an actor is to be economically self-sustainable and what this year has been is beyond that now. I’m getting a creative license of sorts.” 10. How did your parents meet? “My father, who’s French, was on a business trip in New York for Le Parisien. He’s a journalist, who now works for the United Nations. My mom was a dancer, now she’s in the real estate business. I can’t tell if my sister and I feel more French or American. I stayed in New York while she’s been living in Paris for quite some time. I spent every summer in France until I was 15 years old, but New York is my home.”11. What do you read in your spare time, do you prefer essays or literature? “Literature. I’m currently obsessed with Russian authors. Tolstoj, but also Dostoevskij. Crime and Punishment is a gut punch.” Also he said he’s read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Homer, and Lord Byron, books mentioned in Prodigal Son. About reading: “Maybe the deep narratives that comprise most books are really daunting.” 12. He’s really good at improv 13. Timothée Chalamet’s high-school drama teacher Mr. Shifman on the naturalism of his acting: “He just happened to come to my room for the callback audition, and I remember his audition because I gave him the highest score I’ve ever given a kid auditioning.” 14. He mentioned James White as his favourite film. 15. He watched interstellar 12 times.16. Blue Valentine is his favourite romantic film. 17. “I saw The Dark Knight when I was thirteen, before I applied for LaGuardia, and Heath Ledger made me want to act” in another interview: “When I was 12 years old I petitioned my mom and grandma to see Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight with me. I left that theatre a changed man. Heath Ledger’s performance in that film was visceral and viral to me. And I now had the acting bug.”18. His favourite reality tv show is I love New York 19. He said La La Land was so inspiring, it felt like an ode to his grandma’s life. 20. He wanted to be a famous footballer growing up. “I am French, after all.” & “I was a coach at a soccer camp in France. I coached 6 to 10-year-olds when I was around 13. I was good at it, but the pay was not acting money.” 21. Up until he was 15 he went to France in the summers to visit his father’s side of the family. 22. His sister Pauline is 26. 23. His great great grandparents were jewish immigrants who were fleeing prosecution. 24. His mom once called their family a ‘nuclear family’. 25. He’s got a turtle named ertle. 26. His parents have been married 32 years - I believe their anniversary is on October 13th. 27. His grandfather is Harold Flender, who wrote Rescue in Denmark28. He went to the elementary school ps87 29. He went to J.H.S. 54 Brooker T. Washington on the upper west side which he called a “miserable, miserable 3 years” 30. His old roommates were Giullian Gioiello and Kristina Reyes 31. He once said about his high school LaGuardia: “Truthfully I went because I thought there’d be less academic work!” 32. “I naturally have a me-against-the-world mentality and I’ve been fighting it since I was 13. It’s felt like it’s only gotten me in lonely, angry places.”33. He studied Cultural Anthropology at Columbia University. He said about Columbia: “I felt like I was another product on the factory line.“ 34. He used to live in the Bronx on the Grand Concourse 35. “Fourteen was the worst year of my life. Sixteen was the worst year of my life. Seventeen, 18 and 19 were pretty bad, too, but 15 was excellent for me. I know what the “special, beautiful room in hell” means. It just speaks to John’s genius in seeing the world through the eyes of this age.” 36. “LaGuardia was my Thomas More in that I was surrounded by kids like me who were outgoing and obnoxious and needed a ton of attention.” 37. Did you have support from your parents, Timothée? “Oh yeah, I’ve been very lucky. One article [about Prodigal Son] started by saying that I had a “challenging upbringing in Hell’s Kitchen,” and my mom was incensed. She said, “What are you talking about? You had babysitters!” But we all have our issues. Whatever genetic loading I had put me through trials and tribulations I almost didn’t make it to the other side of, but I’m here now. I wouldn’t be able to do a play like [Podrigal Son] without having gone through that.” 38. “The most humbling part of these experiences is realizing how ladder-oriented it is,” he said. “And that’s only fair. It’s a testament to gatekeeping, I guess, and you do have to earn your stripes.”39. “Columbia takes a wholehearted academic commitment that I think I have in me, but it was just not where my mind was at the time.” 40. About Prodigal Son: “It’s been kicking my ass, but in the best way possible,” he says of the run, with its eight- and even nine-show weeks. “There are some days when I go home, especially during the rehearsal process, and I’m like, ‘Wow, this is really hard,’ but the lower the lows, the higher the highs. When I have those days where I feel like everything clicks, it’s the most exceptional feeling in the world. The ups and downs are crazy, but it feels like every muscle is being used on stage.” & “I have to get up on the nights when I feel like I don’t have it in me and find a way to wrench it out of me and get through the nights when it feels amazing. The story is so emotional and it hits so close to home. I was living in the Bronx last year and I was losing my mind, and I get to exercise those demons every night.”41. “I’ve always had that smaller guy’s mentality, and I fought my entire life and tried to assimilate more, but [acting in Prodigal Son] is like a mental exercise that I get to be this guy and people are watching. I feel like it serves a purpose and my me-vs.-the-world mentality is not just dragging me down like I usually feel. In fact, it’s being put to some good use.”42. ��I’m going to enjoy every second of this—it sounds cheesy, but I think of myself as an actor third, an artist second, and a fan first,” he said. “But I have genuine fear of having the inability to replicate this moment again.”43. Similarities with Elio: “An openness to life—to the universe, a yearning for deep experiences, hopefully.”43. “New York in the summer is my favorite time of the year; there’s something special about it.”44. About borrowing Call Me By Your Name (the book) at a college library: “I didn’t give it back for a year and I had a fine of $100, so before this movie gave me a career it took money from me.”45. “When you’re suffering, or grieving, the only thing you can control or protect yourself from is the added layer of shame, beating yourself up over heartbreak, or forbidding yourself the pain.”46. “No sexuality, just love.”47. Do you have a secret party trick?“A capacity for self-loathing.”48. He auditioned for Spider Pan, “I read twice and I left sweating in a total panic.”49. “Now that my foot is in the door, I’m locked and loaded. I’m focused.” 50. “The villain in Call Me by Your Name is the tragedy of love—what seems to be part of the deal you sign with someone when you experience an amazing time with them.”

#timothée chalamet #timothee chalamet #cmbyn #call me by your name #lady bird #beautiful boy #miss stevens #prodigal son #the EFFORT to write this lmfao

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mobscene-london · 6 years

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BASIC INFORMATION:

NAME: John ‘Jack’ Katz. AGE: 35. PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City, New York, United States. AFFILIATION: Neutral. OCCUPATION: A-list movie actor, and stand-up comedian. FACE CLAIM: Robert Sheehan. AVAILABILITY: TAKEN.

BIOGRAPHY:

Jack was born to a first-generation Irish immigrant and a Jewish man whose family had been established for a very, very long time out on Long Island. His parents met, fell in love, and started their family in the city that never sleeps, until it was their baby boy and not their late nights partying that was keeping them up all night. They adored city life too much to leave it, they just needed a city that went at a different pace, and found their home in Washington, D.C., where Jack took his first steps just a few blocks from the White House. His father started work as a corporate lawyer and his mother started working for a non-profit, first as a volunteer and then working her way up to an intern, paid secretary, and higher and higher over the years.

From a young age, Jack always had creative talents. He got distracted during T-ball and would start fantastical conversations with other students, and found infinite humor in how upset his coach got over it. He was signed up for art lessons, but rarely drew or painted the pictures he was asked to by the teacher. His artistic talent was obvious from a young age, but he grew tired of lessons before long and his parents settled for just giving him piles of coloring books, sketchbooks, and art kits. A couple years into elementary school, they started to grow concerned with the familiar teacher’s notes of “Jack is a wonderful student, but we wish he would speak up more.” A new job offer for Mr. Katz brought the family out to Chicago, and Jack’s parents decided it might be a chance for their quiet son to try out his artistic skills in a different arena.

Jack was signed up for the school play without being asked, but in hindsight, it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. Something about being on a stage was so different than being in a normal conversation, and it was as if he was a completely different person who was completely detached from the real world. Because he signed up late and was still only in second grade, he was just in ensemble. Five minutes into his first performance, his parents were nearly crying with joy as they watched their shy little boy strutting confidently around the stage and were so pleased to see him part of a small crowd of kids after and chattering away with them.

Joining drama didn’t miraculously change Jack’s entire disposition. Off-stage, he was still very shy, and as a result, many of his friends throughout the years were only met through school and community theater. He didn’t mind at all, finding comfort and support in a group of people who all seemed to understand the way it seemed like a little switch went on once someone was on stage. When he was fifteen and this time it was his mother who was offered a position back in New York City at her non-profit’s headquarters, Jack was heartbroken to leave his close-knit group of friends. Especially right before the school’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream where he was to play Puck.

It was a hard adjustment to move back to the city that his parents kept calling home but that he didn’t recognize at all. He spent many afternoons sneaking into the movies and watching the latest released comedies and dramas. With no play to focus on, he became a lot more interested in television and film acting, and informed his parents he wanted to start signing up for auditions. Nothing big, just as an extra for films in New York. Their one rule was that he couldn’t miss school for it, but by the time he reached seventeen, he barely attended any of his afternoon classes. Far more often than not he didn’t get the gig, but those few times in two years that he did were enough to boost his confidence that he started sending out more and more audition tapes and dedicating all his time to it.

For his eighteenth birthday, Jack’s dad took him to see a comedian they both liked. The comedian was dry, just like Jack and his mother, but it never occurred to him that his sarcastic observations of the world could be used to entertain until that night. It was like an epiphany, and he went home that night with his audition planner now filled with random words and phrases he wanted to piece together into a comedy set. He found an open mic comedy place that was supposedly good for beginners and went back three weeks in a row despite his hands shaking (unnatural for him on stage) and getting booed off every single time before he finished.

It took another few audience rejections for Jack to finally find his groove when he realized it didn’t have to be him up on stage, it could be a character. A sharp, dry, critical character with a penchant for using the microphone, stand, and stool as physical comedy props to add to his sets. His parents tried to ground him when they found out he’d been missing so much school and hadn’t sent out college applications in time, but he was so certain he was on the right path that he didn’t care. He stayed home and wrote and wrote, and took videos testing out material, or tested it out in front of his family. His parents always tried to act uninterested, but it could only last so long before they cracked.

Over the course of a year, Jack worked his way through the comedy clubs in the city. He stopped sending out audition tapes or attending casting calls and focused all his time on comedy. He got and lost three day jobs in the course of the year, but all that mattered was he had just enough in his bank account to get into the clubs and pay whatever fees might be necessary. Eventually, he was the one getting paid to perform, and introduced to people whose names he now worshipped despite not knowing three years before. One night, when he was drunk on too many beers other people bought him after his set and just about ready to stumble home, someone mentioned a name that was perhaps the most effective sobering agent he could’ve asked for. The executive producer of Saturday Night Live wanted to speak with him.

Jack sweated his way through the audition and thought he was finished, but it turned out to be just the beginning. He was thrown into the mix, gaining recognition and exposure he never imagined he’d have at such a young age. Three years went by in a hilarious, stressful, anxiety-ridden, often drunk haze, with non-stop work during the live season and dozens of small roles in comedic movies and stand-up gigs scheduled during the off-season. He made a new friend and connection in the business every week it seemed. He had major backlash over a joke from a set that went viral, but it was more loved than it was hated so his manager said it was a good thing. The fact he got a manager was perhaps the most shocking thing of all to him.

At the end of his third season with SNL, Jack was offered the opportunity for a major role in a former cast mate’s film that was getting huge buzz even before the casting was finalized. It wasn’t his manager’s prodding but his friends’ and family’s that made him choose the movie, which meant not returning to SNL for the next season. He made his final appearance, said his good-byes, and then jetted off with his younger brother and a couple friends to travel for a month before arriving in London for filming. While filming, Jack fell in love with the city. He finally understood how his parents could call New York City their home. Since he’d technically still been living with his parents, at twenty-two he bought his first flat in Hackney Wick.

For the past five years, Jack has been switching between brief stand-up tours around the United States and Europe and starring in a couple other major comedic films and TV shows and that one indie drama his manager didn’t want him to do. He still remains based in London, though technically also has an apartment in New York City where his brother and a friend live but he crashes at when he’s in the States.

Though it has been a fast five years, Jack is aware of when he’s reached his limit and won’t be afraid to go on a “hiatus” for a month or two to travel, maybe take some community art classes, and just relax. He’s also developed a bit of a habit and reputation for skipping awards shows. He likes to make up excuses that he was just sick, but in reality, he feels too uncomfortable at them and prefers to just show up at the after party that allows the most casual attire after watching the awards from his flat.

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS:

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. FAMILY: Daniel Katz (younger brother)

#taken #takenm #neutral #jackkatz #robert sheehan

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anaxolotladay · 6 years

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( big fucking word dump to get my thoughts together; TW for antisemitism and a lack of editing

tentatively titled, “Lucky”, ‘til i can edit it to the essay i want to write )

❝ We didn’t know much about Jesus of Nazareth at all, but wasn’t that guy Jewish, too? He wasn’t as lucky as I was. ❞

it took a while for me to be able to joke about being the “token jew friend”. because really, what was so “token” about it? ever since i stopped wearing my star and keeping my hair tied up, it’s harder to tell. i’ve been teased about “pointed ears” and my family’s long-passed-down “jewy nose”, but with these thick rimmed glasses, it takes the attention away. i’m aware of the privilege my skin color affords me. nobody looks too hard; i’m passing. i’m lucky, something i’ve always been told by every generation of family i meet. i’m lucky, and i know it.

my elementary schooling was private hebrew schools (on scholarship for our low income large family, where my mom worked as a school employee) between two different states. i grew up in so many jewish communities and with such a large family, i never thought of it to be so different.

that was lucky.

fifth grade- the first year of junior high- we couldn’t afford private school any longer, nor could the majority of my sixteen-person grade level. three of us switched to the same public middle school. nobody knew where we came from, but that was alright until somebody asked. Dan H. in art class asked if we were “hebrews”, because “oh, i thought ‘jew’ was a bad word”. the three of us laughed! that was hilarious! until he started interrogating us, asking us if we knew it was OUR people who killed Jesus.

we didn’t know much about Jesus of Nazareth at all, but wasn’t that guy Jewish, too?

he wasn’t as lucky as i was.

throughout middle school, more and more students had just started to learn about the Holocaust and Hitler- aka my second grade history unit, aka my family history-- and all the jokes they’d heard and read about began to make sense. the “shoah”, the “fire”, the “ovens”. hilarious. the wise words of my old hebrew teacher echoed in my ears: as long as we don’t forget, it will never happen again. but i started wondering why we had to teach THESE kids about it, and fuel THEIR jokes. middle school, it was mostly all just poorly timed jokes in bad taste.

THAT was lucky.

come high school, i shared a bus with the only other jewish kid in my neighborhood, Ari J.-- a year younger than me, left our old hebrew school a year later than me. he was a bully and i hated his guts, yet, he was kin. we didn’t talk in all my four years of high school. but at the back of the bus sat another group of boys, the ones who wore shirts that read: “That’s nice, babe, now make me a sandwich”, and called eachother “f*gs”, and told jokes in racist accents. they were larger than Ari and i combined. we kept our heads down.

they dared not crack the same racist jokes in the hallways of school-- there were black, indian, AND asian teachers around, who could call their parents, god forbid!-- but the gays and the jews of the school? outnumbered and quiet. i heard nazi jokes shouted two hallways down. i heard the laughter that followed.

one day, boarding the bus about four seats in front of Ari, the ringleader of Back of the Bus Bad Boys waltzes up the steps and shouts, “HEY, you Jew in the back!!!” i felt my blood run cold, and sat completely still as he stormed down the aisle. i smelled his gym sweat as he breezed past my seat, and exhaled a relieved sigh. except, turning around to see who he was referring to, i couldn’t believe my eyes: the lot of them had slid into and behond Ari’s seat, were tousling his hair, were shoving his shoulders and laughing. “Pretty hot outside, but not as hot as those ovens, am I right?” i couldn’t hear if Ari replied. i didn’t know what to do. the bus lurched forward and the insults were hurled louder: “Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy, y’know? Just incompetent. He never carried through, but he had the vision.” when i got home that day, i cried and cried. the next morning, i reported them to the counselor, but begged her to wait a few days to take action; what if they thought it was Ari who’d reported it? what would they do to him?

would he be so lucky again?

a year later, i’m on a trip to New York City- the second time i’ve been, but the first time alone with my mom. it was a busy day over school break, and the city was bustling-- walking back to our lodging, there was a pro-palestine rally occurring about a block away. flags were waving! people were shouting for justice! it was amazing! we raised our fists in support and kept walking. but after packing our bags and leaving the same way we came in, we stepped to the sidewalk and heard louder noise down the road. the streets were stuffed to gills, police officers stood with their backs to the rally, face to the crowd. the proud rally had turned angry, blaming not israel for their troubles, but their “rabbinic leaders”. new flags were hoisted, depicting the magen david, star of david, crossed out in red. their faces were pink with righteous fury, shouting against the ears of the officers to let them march, to take vengeance on their jewish oppressors. my mother and i ducked to the back of the crowd, removed our star necklaces, and kept our heads down. i felt the points digging into my palm. i wore it a few times afterwards-- the star i’d fawned over at our Yom Ha’Atzmaut festival, supporting local israeli immigrants, bought for me in surprise by my bubbe-- but after the chain broke, i couldn’t find it in me to wear again. i’d never felt so scared, but i emerged unnoticed and unharmed.

that was the luckiest i had ever been.

during my first year of community college, i had a class with a nazi apologist. nobody thought about it too hard, since he was also the best designer in our group, but walking to our class, i’d hear him shout from behind me: “What’s up, you fucking kike?!” i’d never heard it out loud before. when i whirled around, it turns out he was greeting his “buddy” further up in front of me. i walked a little faster to class, hoping he wasn’t suspicious of me now.

he wasn’t. how lucky of me.

on that same campus, i heard more jewish slurs than i could even recognize at the time. some i’d only read of. others were learned of in hindsight. ignorance was bliss. past tense.

i told my family these stories, face burning. my zayde’s eyebrows would raise and my mother would shake her head, recounting her own stories. my siblings had never been familiar with these terms. i wish i could apologize for teaching them.

they were pretty lucky, too.

when i transferred schools, it was during election season. i never brought up my judaism until the high holidays-- early in the school year-- when i’d need to miss class, and would be returning home to NY for a few days. even then, i told my roommates and teachers, that was it. i was alone for some of those holidays for the first time ever, and there was no community to be found. it was an irrelevant secret.

during election season, however, were the pro-Trump rallies. the protests. the women’s marches and the mud slinging. some of my friends saw words on the news that they’d never heard of before. the mistake i had made was explaining them, outing myself. again, it was no big deal at the time, my friends were supportive.

but from then on, i was referred to as one of their “minority friends”. and that was annoying, because i didn’t have the right to claim that title. i wasn’t being “oppressed”. i had just started to learn about “privilege” and “oppression” and politics and diversity. i knew i was privileged, i never had the RIGHT to claim oppression. i didn’t experience racism daily and i never would. there were people of color who were harassed and discriminated against and denied service because of the way they LOOKED, things they could not change about themselves. i will never experience that. it was 2016, i was not oppressed!

multiple times, i was introduced to others as the “jewish friend”. and it stopped bothering me, because it wasn’t untrue. apparently, jews were a rarity in these parts. it was funny. it was part of my identity. and for the most part, people didn’t care.

then, our 45th president was elected.

within three days, over four dozen synagogues, campuses, homes and vehicles had been vandalized with swastikas. jewish cemeteries were torn apart. hasidic civilians were punched in the faces. i couldn’t bring myself to call home for an entire week, because that would mean admitting out loud that i was scared. my research writing essay that semester was a small 8-page essay, analyzing and documenting the rise in jewish hate crimes, and where they happened. i had to stay in the know. i brushed up on jewish history. i listened to family stories. i relearned everything i could so i knew how to navigate arguments, debates, and accusations. afterall, i’d been pretty sure i was the only jew on campus.

within a year, i met another one. it shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but my excitement was tangible. we’d throw yiddish back and forth and tease eachother in brooklynese or russian-bubbe accents. he knew what holidays i would refer to. it wasn’t a big part of the friendship, but it was nice to have some familiarity. i was brought into a new group of friends who were curious, and eager to learn. i’d never thought about judaism as a culture or history before that, until these discussions ensued and i realized just how MUCH my life was shaped by it. and it was fun to share stories and meals and holidays with people who wanted to celebrate with me.

this past semester was the first time i didn’t go home for the high holidays. i found a synagogue in the next city over, and two whole other jews who wanted to celebrate with me on campus! on yom kippur, we met up to break the fast. they were clearly as excited to meet another jew as i was.

unfortunately, i was a girl. a “nice jewish girl”, if you will. their view bled into the conversation. and on top of that, one of them wanted to chant the barucha, loudly, OUT LOUD, in the middle of a dinner-busy campus dining hall. the other guy and i mumbled it with our heads kept down. suddenly, we were tense. we were scared. my roommates asked me why that was. i told them that you can’t just chant hebrew in public in this day and age! why was that? have you ever heard of muslims speaking arabic in public and being labeled terrorists? do you understand the kind of danger semitic languages entail?!

we had been ignored, but some folks aren’t so lucky!

a week ago, i was walking down the hall of my class building. it was mostly empty, save for one or two other students. out of the blue, i hear one of them say loudly, “Shalom!” i spun around. “excuse me?” the girl walking behind me laughed and said, “it’s just something he does”. we walked down the hall for a few more min, chuckling about it. i asked if she or he was jewish, she said neither of them were, but thought it was hilarious when i explained how the guy had managed to say “shalom” to the only jew in the department.

i let out a breath i hadn’t realized i’d been holding. funny, right? he never would’ve guessed.

yesterday, at 9:50 AM, a synagogue was shot up an hour and a half away from me. but not just any synagogue. one of the most well known conservative shuls in the Squirrel Hill area. in particular, the one my pittsburgh family were members of. the one i had watched my two cousins become bat and bar mitzvahs on the bimmah of. the one i had, for the first time, met three branches of family from my adopted uncles’ side, family who had welcomed me to their congregation and introduced me personally to the rabbi: “Yes! She’s our brothers’ niece! Our family has come such a long way to celebrate with us, tonight!” and then-rabbi, Rabbi Chuck, laughed a booming sound and shook my hand with both of his, cracking jokes and telling me how happy he was i was here.

yesterday, at the Tree of Life--Or L’Simcha temple, there was a baby naming ceremony- a time in jewish tradition where a new baby of the community is spoken into the family and recognized by the congregation. the rabbi will speak its names-- english and hebrew-- and the world rejoices under them. yesterday, there were twins to be celebrated. yesterday, three congregations had come together under one roof, so many families and friends supporting and celebrating the new arrival.

yesterday, a celebration of life turned into a vigil mourning death.

eleven shulgoers were not so lucky.

i have never met Rabbi Hazzan Myers, but i know he’s taken care of the community since then. i can’t imagine the fear he must have felt, after hosting the tight-knit community he’s helped build, harbor, and lead. i can’t imagine walking back into that building a week from now and continuing to read torah, the way i know he will.

Rabbi Hazzan will forever remember how lucky he was, to make it to next week’s torah portion. living in a community that has always been safe, and hospitable, and embraced eachother as neighbors, the remaining minyan will never forget how lucky they were, as well.

my family in pittsburgh-- aunt janice, uncle steve, and cousins hannah and tyler-- were so lucky to have stayed home, yesterday morning, and i am so lucky that we live in a day and age of cellular devices.

i was on the phone with my father and grandfather, both in florida, when dad received a group text between his brothers, their sister janice, and him, assuring everyone that they were home safe. he asked me to look up what happened in pittsburgh.

i never thought it would be my family.

i never thought it would be their home.

12 casualties could have been 16.

i’m so lucky it’s not my family sitting shivah, this week.

#venting #antisemitism #long post under read more

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cityoflondon-rp-blog · 6 years

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BASIC INFORMATION:

NAME: John ‘Jack’ Katz. AGE: 27. PLACE OF BIRTH: New York, New York City, United States. RESIDENCE: Hackney Wick, Hackney. OCCUPATION: A-list movie actor, and stand-up comedian. FACE CLAIM: Robert Sheehan.

BIOGRAPHY:

While filming, Jack fell in love with the city. He finally understood how his parents could call New York City their home. Since he’d technically still been living with his parents, at twenty-two he bought his first flat in Hackney Wick.

For the past five years, Jack has been switching between brief stand-up tours around the United States and Europe and starring in a couple other major comedic films and one indie drama his manager didn’t want him to do. He still remains based in London, though technically also has an apartment in New York City where his brother and a friend live but he crashes at when he’s in the States.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Humorous. Creative. Open-minded. Level-headed. NEGATIVE TRAITS: Anxious. Shy. Defiant. Unfulfilled.

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS:

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. FAMILY: Daniel Katz (younger brother) IDEAL CONNECTIONS:

#1 Younger brother. As a writer in the making, Jack’s little brother needs to come to London - or so Jack is insistent upon saying. He feels less anxious and shy around family, and though Daniel isn’t necessarily the most outgoing person, he would like to have the man as a plus one at events where Jack still isn’t sure how to act around people who only know his stage persona.

#2 Manager. Jack is admittedly wary of the well-seasoned manager he only just hired a couple years ago. Jack purposefully keeps things a bit distant, afraid that if he gets to close he might get too sucked into the idea of wanting money more than anything. He makes sure his manager runs everything by him first.

#taken #takenm #b:hackney #robert sheehan #I AM A HAPPY BUNNY #COME TO ME ♥

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years

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Two ideas puzzled me deeply as a child growing up in Brooklyn during the 1930’s in what today would be called an integrated neighborhood. One of them was that all Jews were rich; the other was that all Negroes were persecuted. These ideas had appeared in print; therefore they must be true. My own experience and the evidence of my senses told me they were not true, but that only confirmed what a day-dreaming boy in the provinces—for the lower-class neighborhoods of New York belong as surely to the provinces as any rural town in North Dakota—discovers very early: his experience is unreal and the evidence of his senses is not to be trusted. Yet even a boy with a head full of fantasies incongruously synthesized out of Hollywood movies and English novels cannot altogether deny the reality of his own experience—especially when there is so much deprivation in that experience. Nor can he altogether gainsay the evidence of his own senses—especially such evidence of the senses as comes from being repeatedly beaten up, robbed, and in general hated, terrorized, and humiliated.

And so for a long time I was puzzled to think that Jews were supposed to be rich when the only Jews I knew were poor, and that Negroes were supposed to be persecuted when it was the Negroes who were doing the only persecuting I knew about—and doing it, moreover, to me. During the early years of the war, when my older sister joined a left-wing youth organization, I remember my astonishment at hearing her passionately denounce my father for thinking that Jews were worse off than Negroes. To me, at the age of twelve, it seemed very clear that Negroes were better off than Jews—indeed, than all whites. A city boy’s world is contained within three or four square blocks, and in my world it was the whites, the Italians and Jews, who feared the Negroes, not the other way around. The Negroes were tougher than we were, more ruthless, and on the whole they were better athletes. What could it mean, then, to say that they were badly off and that we were more fortunate? Yet my sister’s opinions, like print, were sacred, and when she told me about exploitation and economic forces I believed her. I believed her, but I was still afraid of Negroes. And I still hated them with all my heart.

It had not always been so—that much I can recall from early childhood. When did it start, this fear and this hatred? There was a kindergarten in the local public school, and given the character of the neighborhood, at least half of the children in my class must have been Negroes. Yet I have no memory of being aware of color differences at that age, and I know from observing my own children that they attribute no significance to such differences even when they begin noticing them. I think there was a day—first grade? second grade?—when my best friend Carl hit me on the way home from school and announced that he wouldn’t play with me any more because I had killed Jesus. When I ran home to my mother crying for an explanation, she told me not to pay any attention to such foolishness, and then in Yiddish she cursed the goyim and the Schwartzes, the Schwartzes and the goyim. Carl, it turned out, was a schwartze, and so was added a third to the categories into which people were mysteriously divided.

Sometimes I wonder whether this is a true memory at all. It is blazingly vivid, but perhaps it never happened: can anyone really remember back to the age of six? There is no uncertainty in my mind, however, about the years that followed. Carl and I hardly ever spoke, though we met in school every day up through the eighth or ninth grade. There would be embarrassed moments of catching his eye or of his catching mine—for whatever it was that had attracted us to one another as very small children remained alive in spite of the fantastic barrier of hostility that had grown up between us, suddenly and out of nowhere. Nevertheless, friendship would have been impossible, and even if it had been possible, it would have been unthinkable. About that, there was nothing anyone could do by the time we were eight years old.

Item: The orphanage across the street is torn down, a city housing project begins to rise in its place, and on the marvelous vacant lot next to the old orphanage they are building a playground. Much excitement and anticipation as Opening Day draws near. Mayor LaGuardia himself comes to dedicate this great gesture of public benevolence. He speaks of neighborliness and borrowing cups of sugar, and of the playground he says that children of all races, colors, and creeds will learn to live together in harmony. A week later, some of us are swatting flies on the playground’s inadequate little ball field. A gang of Negro kids, pretty much our own age, enter from the other side and order us out of the park. We refuse, proudly and indignantly, with superb masculine fervor. There is a fight, they win, and we retreat, half whimpering, half with bravado. My first nauseating experience of cowardice. And my first appalled realization that there are people in the world who do not seem to be afraid of anything, who act as though they have nothing to lose. Thereafter the playground becomes a battleground, sometimes quiet, sometimes the scene of athletic competition between Them and Us. But rocks are thrown as often as baseballs. Gradually we abandon the place and use the streets instead. The streets are safer, though we do not admit this to ourselves. We are not, after all, sissies—that most dreaded epithet of an American boyhood.

Item: I am standing alone in front of the building in which I live. It is late afternoon and getting dark. That day in school the teacher had asked a surly Negro boy named Quentin a question he was unable to answer. As usual I had waved my arm eagerly (“Be a good boy, get good marks, be smart, go to college, become a doctor”) and, the right answer bursting from my lips, I was held up lovingly by the teacher as an example to the class. I had seen Quentin’s face—a very dark, very cruel, very Oriental-looking face—harden, and there had been enough threat in his eyes to make me run all the way home for fear that he might catch me outside.

Now, standing idly in front of my own house, I see him approaching from the project accompanied by his little brother who is carrying a baseball bat and wearing a grin of malicious anticipation. As in a nightmare, I am trapped. The surroundings are secure and familiar, but terror is suddenly present and there is no one around to help. I am locked to the spot. I will not cry out or run away like a sissy, and I stand there, my heart wild, my throat clogged. He walks up, hurls the familiar epithet (“Hey, mo’f—r”), and to my surprise only pushes me. It is a violent push, but not a punch. A push is not as serious as a punch. Maybe I can still back out without entirely losing my dignity. Maybe I can still say, “Hey, c’mon Quentin, whaddya wanna do that for. I dint do nothin’ to you,” and walk away, not too rapidly. Instead, before I can stop myself, I push him back—a token gesture—and I say, “Cut that out, I don’t wanna fight, I ain’t got nothin’ to fight about.” As I turn to walk back into the building, the corner of my eye catches the motion of the bat his little brother has handed him. I try to duck, but the bat crashes colored lights into my head.

The next thing I know, my mother and sister are standing over me, both of them hysterical. My sister—she who was later to join the “progressive” youth organization—is shouting for the police and screaming imprecations at those dirty little black bastards. They take me upstairs, the doctor comes, the police come. I tell them that the boy who did it was a stranger, that he had been trying to get money from me. They do not believe me, but I am too scared to give them Quentin’s name. When I return to school a few days later, Quentin avoids my eyes. He knows that I have not squealed, and he is ashamed. I try to feel proud, but in my heart I know that it was fear of what his friends might do to me that had kept me silent, and not the code of the street.

Item: There is an athletic meet in which the whole of our junior high school is participating. I am in one of the seventh-grade rapid-advance classes, and “segregation” has now set in with a vengeance. In the last three or four years of the elementary school from which we have just graduated, each grade had been divided into three classes, according to “intelligence.” (In the earlier grades the divisions had either been arbitrary or else unrecognized by us as having anything to do with brains.) These divisions by IQ, or however it was arranged, had resulted in a preponderance of Jews in the “1” classes and a corresponding preponderance of Negroes in the “3’s,” with the Italians split unevenly along the spectrum. At least a few Negroes had always made the “l’s,” just as there had always been a few Jewish kids among the “3’s” and more among the “2’s” (where Italians dominated). But the junior high’s rapid-advance class of which I am now a member is overwhelmingly Jewish and entirely white—except for a shy lonely Negro girl with light skin and reddish hair.

The athletic meet takes place in a city-owned stadium far from the school. It is an important event to which a whole day is given over. The winners are to get those precious little medallions stamped with the New York City emblem that can be screwed into a belt and that prove the wearer to be a distinguished personage. I am a fast runner, and so I am assigned the position of anchor man on my class’s team in the relay race. There are three other seventh-grade teams in the race, two of them all Negro, as ours is all white. One of the all-Negro teams is very tall—their anchor man waiting silently next to me on the line looks years older than I am, and I do not recognize him. He is the first to get the baton and crosses the finishing line in a walk. Our team comes in second, but a few minutes later we are declared the winners, for it has been discovered that the anchor man on the first-place team is not a member of the class. We are awarded the medallions, and the following day our home-room teacher makes a speech about how proud she is of us for being superior athletes as well as superior students. We want to believe that we deserve the praise, but we know that we could not have won even if the other class had not cheated.

That afternoon, walking home, I am waylaid and surrounded by five Negroes, among whom is the anchor man of the disqualified team. “Gimme my medal, mo’f—r,” he grunts. I do not have it with me and I tell him so. “Anyway, it ain’t yours,” I say foolishly. He calls me a liar on both counts and pushes me up against the wall on which we sometimes play handball. “Gimme my mo’f—n’ medal,” he says again. I repeat that I have left it home. “Le’s search the li’l mo’f—r,” one of them suggests, “he prolly got it hid in his mo’f—n’ pants.” My panic is now unmanageable. (How many times had I been surrounded like this and asked in soft tones, “Len’ me a nickle, boy.” How many times had I been called a liar for pleading poverty and pushed around, or searched, or beaten up, unless there happened to be someone in the marauding gang like Carl who liked me across that enormous divide of hatred and who would therefore say, “Aaah, c’mon, le’s git someone else, this boy ain’t got no money on ‘im.”) I scream at them through tears of rage and self-contempt, “Keep your f—n’ filthy lousy black hands off a me! I swear I’ll get the cops.” This is all they need to hear, and the five of them set upon me. They bang me around, mostly in the stomach and on the arms and shoulders, and when several adults loitering near the candy store down the block notice what is going on and begin to shout, they run off and away.

I do not tell my parents about the incident. My team-mates, who have also been waylaid, each by a gang led by his opposite number from the disqualified team, have had their medallions taken from them, and they never squeal either. For days, I walk home in terror, expecting to be caught again, but nothing happens. The medallion is put away into a drawer, never to be worn by anyone.

Obviously experiences like these have always been a common feature of childhood life in working-class and immigrant neighborhoods, and Negroes do not necessarily figure in them. Wherever, and in whatever combination, they have lived together in the cities, kids of different groups have been at war, beating up and being beaten up: micks against kikes against wops against spicks against polacks. And even relatively homogeneous areas have not been spared the warring of the young: one block against another, one gang (called in my day, in a pathetic effort at gentility, an “S.A.C.,” or social-athletic club) against another. But the Negro-white conflict had—and no doubt still has—a special intensity and was conducted with a ferocity unmatched by intramural white battling.

In my own neighborhood, a good deal of animosity existed between the Italian kids (most of whose parents were immigrants from Sicily) and the Jewish kids (who came largely from East European immigrant families). Yet everyone had friends, sometimes close friends, in the other “camp,” and we often visited one another’s strange-smelling houses, if not for meals, then for glasses of milk, and occasionally for some special event like a wedding or a wake. If it happened that we divided into warring factions and did battle, it would invariably be half-hearted and soon patched up. Our parents, to be sure, had nothing to do with one another and were mutually suspicious and hostile. But we, the kids, who all spoke Yiddish or Italian at home, were Americans, or New Yorkers, or Brooklyn boys: we shared a culture, the culture of the street, and at least for a while this culture proved to be more powerful than the opposing cultures of the home.

Why, why should it have been so different as between the Negroes and us? How was it borne in upon us so early, white and black alike, that we were enemies beyond any possibility of reconciliation? Why did we hate one another so?

I suppose if I tried, I could answer those questions more or less adequately from the perspective of what I have since learned. I could draw upon James Baldwin—what better witness is there?—to describe the sense of entrapment that poisons the soul of the Negro with hatred for the white man whom he knows to be his jailer. On the other side, if I wanted to understand how the white man comes to hate the Negro, I could call upon the psychologists who have spoken of the guilt that white Americans feel toward Negroes and that turns into hatred for lack of acknowledging itself as guilt. These are plausible answers and certainly there is truth in them. Yet when I think back upon my own experience of the Negro and his of me, I find myself troubled and puzzled, much as I was as a child when I heard that all Jews were rich and all Negroes persecuted. How could the Negroes in my neighborhood have regarded the whites across the street and around the corner as jailers? On the whole, the whites were not so poor as the Negroes, but they were quite poor enough, and the years were years of Depression. As for white hatred of the Negro, how could guilt have had anything to do with it? What share had these Italian and Jewish immigrants in the enslavement of the Negro? What share had they—downtrodden people themselves breaking their own necks to eke out a living—in the exploitation of the Negro?

No, I cannot believe that we hated each other back there in Brooklyn because they thought of us as jailers and we felt guilty toward them. But does it matter, given the fact that we all went through an unrepresentative confrontation? I think it matters profoundly, for if we managed the job of hating each other so well without benefit of the aids to hatred that are supposedly at the root of this madness everywhere else, it must mean that the madness is not yet properly understood. I am far from pretending that I understand it, but I would insist that no view of the problem will begin to approach the truth unless it can account for a case like the one I have been trying to describe. Are the elements of any such view available to us?

At least two, I would say, are. One of them is a point we frequently come upon in the work of James Baldwin, and the other is a related point always stressed by psychologists who have studied the mechanisms of prejudice. Baldwin tells us that one of the reasons Negroes hate the white man is that the white man refuses to look at him: the Negro knows that in white eyes all Negroes are alike; they are faceless and therefore not altogether human. The psychologists, in their turn, tell us that the white man hates the Negro because he tends to project those wild impulses that he fears in himself onto an alien group which he then punishes with his contempt. What Baldwin does not tell us, however, is that the principle of facelessness is a two-way street and can operate in both directions with no difficulty at all. Thus, in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, I was as faceless to the Negroes as they were to me, and if they hated me because I never looked at them, I must also have hated them for never looking at me. To the Negroes, my white skin was enough to define me as the enemy, and in a war it is only the uniform that counts and not the person.

So with the mechanism of projection that the psychologists talk about: it too works in both directions at once. There is no question that the psychologists are right about what the Negro represents symbolically to the white man. For me as a child the life lived on the other side of the playground and down the block on Ralph Avenue seemed the very embodiment of the values of the street—free, independent, reckless, brave, masculine, erotic. I put the word “erotic” last, though it is usually stressed above all others, because in fact it came last, in consciousness as in importance. What mainly counted for me about Negro kids of my own age was that they were “bad boys.” There were plenty of bad boys among the whites—this was, after all, a neighborhood with a long tradition of crime as a career open to aspiring talents—but the Negroes were really bad, bad in a way that beckoned to one, and made one feel inadequate. We all went home every day for a lunch of spinach-and-potatoes; they roamed around during lunch hour, munching on candy bars. In winter we had to wear itchy woolen hats and mittens and cumbersome galoshes; they were bare-headed and loose as they pleased. We rarely played hookey, or got into serious trouble in school, for all our street-corner bravado; they were defiant, forever staying out (to do what delicious things?), forever making disturbances in class and in the halls, forever being sent to the principal and returning uncowed. But most important of all, they were tough; beautifully, enviably tough, not giving a damn for anyone or anything. To hell with the teacher, the truant officer, the cop; to hell with the whole of the adult world that held us in its grip and that we never had the courage to rebel against except sporadically and in petty ways.

This is what I saw and envied and feared in the Negro: this is what finally made him faceless to me, though some of it, of course, was actually there. (The psychologists also tell us that the alien group which becomes the object of a projection will tend to respond by trying to live up to what is expected of them.) But what, on his side, did the Negro see in me that made me faceless to him? Did he envy me my lunches of spinach-and-potatoes and my itchy woolen caps and my prudent behavior in the face of authority, as I envied him his noon-time candy bars and his bare head in winter and his magnificent rebelliousness? Did those lunches and caps spell for him the prospect of power and riches in the future? Did they mean that there were possibilities open to me that were denied to him? Very likely they did. But if so, one also supposes that he feared the impulses within himself toward submission to authority no less powerfully than I feared the impulses in myself toward defiance. If I represented the jailer to him, it was not because I was oppressing him or keeping him down: it was because I symbolized for him the dangerous and probably pointless temptation toward greater repression, just as he symbolized for me the equally perilous tug toward greater freedom. I personally was to be rewarded for this repression with a new and better life in the future, but how many of my friends paid an even higher price and were given only gall in return.

We have it on the authority of James Baldwin that all Negroes hate whites. I am trying to suggest that on their side all whites—all American whites, that is—are sick in their feelings about Negroes. There are Negroes, no doubt, who would say that Baldwin is wrong, but I suspect them of being less honest than he is, just as I suspect whites of self-deception who tell me they have no special feeling toward Negroes. Special feelings about color are a contagion to which white Americans seem susceptible even when there is nothing in their background to account for the susceptibility. Thus everywhere we look today in the North, we find the curious phenomenon of white middle-class liberals with no previous personal experience of Negroes—people to whom Negroes have always been faceless in virtue rather than faceless in vice—discovering that their abstract commitment to the cause of Negro rights will not stand the test of a direct confrontation. We find such people fleeing in droves to the suburbs as the Negro population in the inner city grows; and when they stay in the city we find them sending their children to private school rather than to the “integrated” public school in the neighborhood. We find them resisting the demand that gerrymandered school districts be re-zoned for the purpose of overcoming de facto segregation; we find them judiciously considering whether the Negroes (for their own good, of course) are not perhaps pushing too hard; we find them clucking their tongues over Negro militancy; we find them speculating on the question of whether there may not, after all, be something in the theory that the races are biologically different; we find them saying that it will take a very long time for Negroes to achieve full equality, no matter what anyone does; we find them deploring the rise of black nationalism and expressing the solemn hope that the leaders of the Negro community will discover ways of containing the impatience and incipient violence within the Negro ghettos.1

But that is by no means the whole story; there is also the phenomenon of what Kenneth Rexroth once called “crow-jimism.” There are the broken-down white boys like Vivaldo Moore in Baldwin’s Another Country who go to Harlem in search of sex or simply to brush up against something that looks like primitive vitality, and who are so often punished by the Negroes they meet for crimes that they would have been the last ever to commit and of which they themselves have been as sorry victims as any of the Negroes who take it out on them. There are the writers and intellectuals and artists who romanticize Negroes and pander to them, assuming a guilt that is not properly theirs. And there are all the white liberals who permit Negroes to blackmail them into adopting a double standard of moral judgment, and who lend themselves—again assuming the responsibility for crimes they never committed—to cunning and contemptuous exploitation by Negroes they employ or try to befriend.

And what about me? What kind of feelings do I have about Negroes today? What happened to me, from Brooklyn, who grew up fearing and envying and hating Negroes? Now that Brooklyn is behind me, do I fear them and envy them and hate them still? The answer is yes, but not in the same proportions and certainly not in the same way. I now live on the upper west side of Manhattan, where there are many Negroes and many Puerto Ricans, and there are nights when I experience the old apprehensiveness again, and there are streets that I avoid when I am walking in the dark, as there were streets that I avoided when I was a child. I find that I am not afraid of Puerto Ricans, but I cannot restrain my nervousness whenever I pass a group of Negroes standing in front of a bar or sauntering down the street. I know now, as I did not know when I was a child, that power is on my side, that the police are working for me and not for them. And knowing this I feel ashamed and guilty, like the good liberal I have grown up to be. Yet the twinges of fear and the resentment they bring and the self-contempt they arouse are not to be gainsaid.

But envy? Why envy? And hatred? Why hatred? Here again the intensities have lessened and everything has been complicated and qualified by the guilts and the resulting over-compensations that are the heritage of the enlightened middle-class world of which I am now a member. Yet just as in childhood I envied Negroes for what seemed to me their superior masculinity, so I envy them today for what seems to me their superior physical grace and beauty. I have come to value physical grace very highly, and I am now capable of aching with all my being when I watch a Negro couple on the dance floor, or a Negro playing baseball or basketball. They are on the kind of terms with their own bodies that I should like to be on with mine, and for that precious quality they seem blessed to me.

The hatred I still feel for Negroes is the hardest of all the old feelings to face or admit, and it is the most hidden and the most overlarded by the conscious attitudes into which I have succeeded in willing myself. It no longer has, as for me it once did, any cause or justification (except, perhaps, that I am constantly being denied my right to an honest expression of the things I earned the right as a child to feel). How, then, do I know that this hatred has never entirely disappeared? I know it from the insane rage that can stir in me at the thought of Negro anti-Semitism; I know it from the disgusting prurience that can stir in me at the sight of a mixed couple; and I know it from the violence that can stir in me whenever I encounter that special brand of paranoid touchiness to which many Negroes are prone.

This, then, is where I am; it is not exactly where I think all other white liberals are, but it cannot be so very far away either. And it is because I am convinced that we white Americans are—for whatever reason, it no longer matters—so twisted and sick in our feelings about Negroes that I despair of the present push toward integration. If the pace of progress were not a factor here, there would perhaps be no cause for despair: time and the law and even the international political situation are on the side of the Negroes, and ultimately, therefore, victory—of a sort, anyway—must come. But from everything we have learned from observers who ought to know, pace has become as important to the Negroes as substance. They want equality and they want it now, and the white world is yielding to their demand only as much and as fast as it is absolutely being compelled to do. The Negroes know this in the most concrete terms imaginable, and it is thus becoming increasingly difficult to buy them off with rhetoric and promises and pious assurances of support. And so within the Negro community we find more and more people declaring—as Harold R. Isaacs recently put it in these pages2—that they want out: people who say that integration will never come, or that it will take a hundred or a thousand years to come, or that it will come at too high a price in suffering and struggle for the pallid and sodden life of the American middle class that at the very best it may bring.

The most numerous, influential, and dangerous movement that has grown out of Negro despair with the goal of integration is, of course, the Black Muslims. This movement, whatever else we may say about it, must be credited with one enduring achievement: it inspired James Baldwin to write an essay3 which deserves to be placed among the classics of our language. Everything Baldwin has ever been trying to tell us is distilled here into a statement of overwhelming persuasiveness and prophetic magnificence. Baldwin’s message is and always has been simple. It is this: “Color is not a human or personal reality; it is a political reality.” And Baldwin’s demand is correspondingly simple: color must be forgotten, lest we all be smited with a vengeance “that does not really depend on, and cannot really be executed by, any person or organization, and that cannot be prevented by any police force or army: historical vengeance, a cosmic vengeance based on the law that we recognize when we say, ‘Whatever goes up must come down.’” The Black Muslims Baldwin portrays as a sign and a warning to the intransigent white world. They come to proclaim how deep is the Negro’s disaffection with the white world and all its works, and Baldwin implies that no American Negro can fail to respond somewhere in his being to their message: that the white man is the devil, that Allah has doomed him to destruction, and that the black man is about to inherit the earth. Baldwin of course knows that this nightmare inversion of the racism from which the black man has suffered can neither win nor even point to the neighborhood in which victory might be located. For in his view the neighborhood of victory lies in exactly the opposite direction: the transcendence of color through love.

Yet the tragic fact is that love is not the answer to hate—not in the world of politics, at any rate. Color is indeed a political rather than a human or a personal reality and if politics (which is to say power) has made it into a human and a personal reality, then only politics (which is to say power) can unmake it once again. But the way of politics is slow and bitter, and as impatience on the one side is matched by a setting of the jaw on the other, we move closer and closer to an explosion and blood may yet run in the streets.

Will this madness in which we are all caught never find a resting-place? Is there never to be an end to it? In thinking about the Jews I have often wondered whether their survival as a distinct group was worth one hair on the head of a single infant. Did the Jews have to survive so that six million innocent people should one day be burned in the ovens of Auschwitz? It is a terrible question and no one, not God himself, could ever answer it to my satisfaction. And when I think about the Negroes in America and about the image of integration as a state in which the Negroes would take their rightful place as another of the protected minorities in a pluralistic society, I wonder whether they really believe in their hearts that such a state can actually be attained, and if so why they should wish to survive as a distinct group. I think I know why the Jews once wished to survive (though I am less certain as to why we still do): they not only believed that God had given them no choice, but they were tied to a memory of past glory and a dream of imminent redemption. What does the American Negro have that might correspond to this? His past is a stigma, his color is a stigma, and his vision of the future is the hope of erasing the stigma by making color irrelevant, by making it disappear as a fact of consciousness.

I share this hope, but I cannot see how it will ever be realized unless color does in fact disappear: and that means not integration, it means assimilation, it means—let the brutal word come out—miscegenation. The Black Muslims, like their racist counterparts in the white world, accuse the “so-called Negro leaders” of secretly pursuing miscegenation as a goal. The racists are wrong, but I wish they were right, for I believe that the wholesale merging of the two races is the most desirable alternative for everyone concerned. I am not claiming that this alternative can be pursued programmatically or that it is immediately feasible as a solution; obviously there are even greater barriers to its achievement than to the achievement of integration. What I am saying, however, is that in my opinion the Negro problem can be solved in this country in no other way.

I have told the story of my own twisted feelings about Negroes here, and of how they conflict with the moral convictions I have since developed, in order to assert that such feelings must be acknowledged as honestly as possible so that they can be controlled and ultimately disregarded in favor of the convictions. It is wrong for a man to suffer because of the color of his skin. Beside that clichéd proposition of liberal thought, what argument can stand and be respected? If the arguments are the arguments of feeling, they must be made to yield; and one’s own soul is not the worst place to begin working a huge social transformation. Not so long ago, it used to be asked of white liberals, “Would you like your sister to marry one?” When I was a boy and my sister was still unmarried, I would certainly have said no to that question. But now I am a man, my sister is already married, and I have daughters. If I were to be asked today whether I would like a daughter of mine “to marry one,” I would have to answer: “No, I wouldn’t like it at all. I would rail and rave and rant and tear my hair. And then I hope I would have the courage to curse myself for raving and ranting, and to give her my blessing. How dare I withhold it at the behest of the child I once was and against the man I now have a duty to be?”

#racism #Norman Podhoretz #neoconservatism #tw: racism

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janiedean · 7 years

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Question, I'm working on a fic with a character born and raised in Roma. Do you have little tips about the fic he'd like to do/go: we're speaking about a giant scientist nerd with not much money and a giant anticlerical atheist attitude. Thanks for the help!

PS: Because I just realized I forgot about this. The character also has a unhealthy addiction to caffeine. Thanks :)

Roma anon: He's in his late teens/start of twenties. So born in the 90s.

hmmmmmmmm okay I’d say (also pls link me this thing when you’re done because ATHEIST CHARACTER RAISED IN ROME I wanna read it):

depends on when they grew up but if it was pre-nineties they’d probably think about the times when they walked through the center and it was full of cats and taxis were yellow and now it’s all white taxis and no cats (I swear all of us who grew up in the 90s have the OH GOD I MISS THE CATS AND YELLOW TAXIS moment, the cats were more or less driven away at the beginning of the 00s and the yellow taxis as well) I wrote this before you specified so they probably don’t remember the yellow taxis and shit but their parents might

thing is, SCIENCE stuff here isn’t that great but if they grew up before the 90s/in the 70s they might have enjoyed going to the historical planetarium which used to be in the center near the main station but then it was closed and moved to the EUR in I think 2004 and now is in san lorenzo so if they grew up in between 80s/90s they missed that window, if they grew up in the 00s or were teenagers in the 00s they might have gone to the EUR one, this is the website - it’s supposed to be in english but obv it’s NOT but maybe you can figure something out? > post specification: if born in the 90s he DEFINITELY went to the planetarium u__u

if this person’s into animals he definitely would have visited the local zoo/the bioparco in villa borghese which has a lot of animals and is actually pretty ethical as far as I know, I personally never was much into it but it’s a favorite with kids (also back in the day you could pay to ride a pony always in villa borghese, I’ve done it a couple of times and it was fun so if they’re into horses they might have done that but it was like mid-90s I have no idea if they still do it), there’s also the zoology museum inside the bioparco so they might have liked that as well

these days there’s a cat colony in piazza argentina so if he likes to pet cats (which are all neutered/kept clean thanks to volunteers) he can go there once in a while

OR if he’s into physics there’s the physics museum in enrico fermi’s house which opened in 1999 that he might like to go to

that’s for the science stuff you could do other than going to libraries and check books out and stuff, sadly this city never was The Science Place, but about the rest:

if he’s atheist/anticlericalist, there’s two most likely ways it might have happened: his parents are also atheists and never baptized him, or he comes from a catholic family (either REALLY practicing or enough to baptize him/get him to take his sacraments) and changed his mind later. this brings to two fairly different outcomes/possible backstories.

if option one: he’s never taken the religion hour in elementary/middle/high school (you can opt out), he most likely was the only one in the class or maybe two people unless he had jewish/muslim/other-religions people in his class but a lot of people don’t opt out even if they’re not catholic, he thought it was weird af when his friends talked about going to catechism and stuff, he might have tried going to church with relatives once in a while and found it highly boring af, he never got the point of it and then got fed up with the church and stuff when he realized that they don’t pay taxes to the state and the various other church misgivings TM;

if option two: he probably didn’t get the point of sacraments but went through with them (and catechism) to make the family happy and took religion hour while hating it, at some point decided he was atheist during his teenage years or so on, he’d insist to not take religion hour and depends on how practicing the family is, that could have brought him a few issues because people actually do argue horribly about this and there’s the immortal BUT IF YOU DON’T GO TO CHURCH YOU’LL MAKE YOUR GRANDMOTHER SAD;

obviously it varies but those two are the most common atheist experiences around here as far as I know - if your entire family is or if they’re lowkey practicers it’s fairly fine, if they’re practicing it might cause you problems (unless he has enlightened parents who respect his choices ofc), but count that option two tends to make you a lot angrier at the church/at religion in general, like someone who comes from an option two background is a lot more likely to have the dawkins approach than to just appreciate him as a scientist lol

also: when you take religion hour, you’re put with a teacher who’s supposed to do something *alternative* with you. every time it happened with me, they asked me if I didn’t take religion hour because I was Jewish, then when I said no they went through a few other religions before going like ‘... wait, Muslim?’ until I went like ‘no I’m atheist’ and the last reply was always, ‘but then why don’t you try religion out’. always. at some point you just laugh so you don’t cry.

THAT SAID someone who’s into science and who’s an atheist AND MILITANTLY SO would totally read dawkins, hitchens and be into that shit a lot so like, consider that xD like it’s the magical combo ;)

if he’s a Proper Nerd he saves money to buy books at fahrenheit 451 in campo dei fiori;

(guys srsly fahrenheit is a staple of roman independent bookshops I love that place, also they have a signed bradbury copy of that book in the entrance made just for them and they also sell like science books and stuff so someone who maybe is also into scifi would totally love that place)

(if he’s desperate for cheap stuff there’s used books sold for not much in a small market in front of termini station though)

this person most probably wouldn’t like to hang around the vatican - like he’d go there to bring friends and stuff and he’d go to the vatican museums once in a while but unless you’re an art student you tend to avoid that area

also remember that john paul II died when I was in high school and it was what, 2005, and the funeral day all the schools were closed and for the previous two weeks you couldn’t move through the center/the vatican because it’d be full of people going to pay respects to his burial chamber and so on so like if he remembers it he’d probably be very ‘I don’t get what’s the deal about all of this’ about it (and anyway if he was going to school he definitely missed that day since they were closed for the entire city)

this person also would not go to churches in general if not for a) tourism, b) weddings, c) funerals and they most probably would try to avoid baptisms and further sacraments if they could (obv if it’s they’re little brother’s they would go but if it’s a cousin or smth they’d just tell their mother to say hi from them)

they might want to be an uaar volunteer;

also if they’re as lucky as I was, nine times on ten they say they’re atheist to someone they don’t know they get the usual horrid questions ie ‘how do you get up in the morning, how do you live without God, so do you think it’s fine to kill people since you don’t believe in heaven, so are you a satanist’ and so on. they might lie and say they don’t practice if they don’t want to have an argument. or they might tell those people to fuck off if they’re done. or they might try to argue. anyway you usually try to not touch the subject if you’re not sure of how people might take it especially if you don’t know them and especially if you’re older than you;

if their parents are atheists they most likely give the eight thousandth of their taxes to the waldensian church (they only use it for secular purposes) and he would too if he lived in italy and paid taxes there; he wouldn’t give it to the state because that money ends with the catholic church anyway;

if the parents are not atheists they might have gone to a nuns’ run kindergarten. spoilers: everyone I know in italy (catholic or not) except maybe two people has horror stories about kindergarten with the nuns so it could totally be a the reason why someone starts having issues with religion;

(if they’re atheists obviously they sent them to a normal kindergarten)

at some point he has read the bible so that he could tell people that no, reading it didn’t make him want to convert;

coffee stuff:

most people around here like espresso as all italians do, and you start drinking it at SOME POINT in high school (I started at fifteen/sixteen but I know people who started later and who never got any until uni for one, but they’re a rarity);

if he’s like me, he started drinking espresso made at home and then couldn’t stay awake through high school for six hours in a row so had always one or two at the school’s coffee machine (at some point when I was seventeen/eighteen I drank like six espressos per day DON’T DO IT IF YOU HAVE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE)

anyway most of us addicts make it at home with a regular moka

but if he has money to splurge once in a while or if he wants to treat himself/others he might go have coffee at sant’eustachio, it’s a historical bar in the center that has the Best Coffee Ever and IT COSTS A LOT BUT IT’S WORTH IT

random:

if he doesn’t have much money he most likely goes around with public transport. the public transport is shit. always has. always has been. the 00s weren’t a good time. if he lives on the A metro line he hates that it’s full all the time, if he lives on the B line he hates that and that it has old-ass trains from the 80s still, if he lives outside any metro area it takes him at least forty minutes to go anywhere with the bus so he hates that, the bus company and both metros for not reaching his place, if he lives in the center sometimes he thanks his lucky stars

he most definitely doesn’t use taxis if he can’t absolutely help it

he might have lived to see the ending of the emos vs truzzi debate of the 00s. to give you a context: you remember emo music? people who were into emo in the 00s used to hang around piazza del popolo all the time so like the place was full of people dressed in black and singing evanescence and shit, and those people were picked on by truzzi who were basically... like, outskirts kids without manners who listened to hardcore rap music and shit, idk, in english it’d be something like hicks, you know those people who dress brightly and have no manners and speak terribly and think they’re the center of the world? more or less. anyway these people hated each other and there was an entire culture of making fun of how they hated each other and like it sounds dumb but is2 it was a fundamental part of our high school experience so idk if this guy went to middle school in the 00s he’d... probably know. and think it was ridiculous. I’m sorry this probably makes no sense but like let’s just say it was srs young subculture to make fun of this rivalry shit I DON’T EVEN KNOW and you probably don’t need it but here now you know it’s ano option

he was probably very politicized in high school. most likely went to marches especially if he had pOLITICAL ideas about the vatican. in the way 15yo people are anyway, but like italian high schools are all politics arguing where everyone thinks they’re communist or fascist no in between and especially here it happened

he most likely did like a thing we all did in hs where for a week every year students would organize lessons instead of teachers and talked about stuff they felt strongly about/know more about and he might have been a students’ representative

if he’s gay/bi, he’d probably go near the coliseum to find a date because there’s the so-called *gay street* nearby and most bars have rainbow flags outside and back then if you weren’t straight and wanted a date you’d go there

if he wanted to buy cheap stuff but decent quality he’d go around campo dei fiori for anything other than books

especially if he wanted good cheap-ish alcohol and absinthe (which btw is banned here but you could get for cheap in most bars in campo dei fiori bless them)

if he does cosplay and stuff he’d go to romics which is our... cheapass horribly organized comicon

he’d remember fondly the nokia 3310 that never got destroyed and you could only use to call, text and play snake

... I hope it helps if you need anything else just ask :)

#writing tips #i guess #janie rants #welcome to rome #christ i'm sorry about the emo vs truzzi debate I didn't mean to unhearth THAT #Anonymous #ask post

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purplesmmr · 7 years

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more dwsa headcanons pls!!!!!! ❤️

aaaAAAA !!! anon, of cou r s e! i would LOVE to !! ❤️❤️❤️ i lov my kidsi’m jus gonna do the same layout as my other one bc it’s Neat lol (yet again, credit to @wordofyourbodyreprise for helping me out w these)

melchior:

has a secret star trek obsession

he’s also a huge military history buff

def a ravenclaw

he smells like a library & old spice bc he’s a ne r d

he’s fuckin Tall

he does swimming, football, and track

he’s totally the philosophical drunk

ends up goin to mit bc he’s a Smarty Pants

he also ends up getting a doctorate in something (idk,, mb physics??) but doesn’t do anything with it besides teaching at a college

has a cat named alexandria (yes after the former library in egypt) but he will veh eme ntl y deny that the cat is his

he sings when he’s drunk

wendla:

will stop everything she’s doing to pet a dog

she’s a dancer n a rly fukcign good one at that

likes to color bc she cannot actually Art

she goes to juilliard for a bit before dropping out & then going back to school to become an elementary school teacher

plays the flute

Does Not Do Running Sports

hufflepuff

she has asthma

she n ernst went to the same catholic combined elementary & middle school

that said, they dated to half make sure ernst really was gay, and half to hide that fact from their school

talks in her sleep

is al w ay s singing or humming something

moritz:

ends up with a collection of deaf animals

gallaudet bb !!

he’s always twitchy & jumpy and yet he drinks highly caffeinated things anyway

got a handjob from melchior once their freshman year (it made him realize he was ace)

he’s shorter than his gf (martha)

smells like vo5 ocean breeze conditioner, cigarette smoke, and hair gel

gryffindor for some reason??

he’s still in his teenage emo phase bc he works at hot topic (he used to work w his brother there but alex got fired. from hot topic)

he, otto, n mart all live together n they’re ha p p y

ilse:

no one ever rly knows where she is

smells like acrylics and pine trees

ends up going to yale for art but double majors it and does law too

her lawyer ass throws martha’s pos dad in jail for the rest of his mcfuckin miserable life

makes it a Thing every week to make sure her nails are short enough ;))))

doesn’t trust herself with any pets besides fish

she has two named vincent and claude

she found out a year after she had them that vincent was actually frida

gryffindor

she’s the drunk person that you can’t tell is actually drunk

martha:

she has Birds

slytherin baby

always smells like conditioner and nail polish

she took violin lessons for the longest time

for as Tol as she is, she can curl up so sm al l when she��s sleepy or is having a Rough Time

plays guitar

shows up at melchiors house unannounced sometimes??

she doesn’t go to college right away bc she needs a Break

it’s ridiculous how much she loves her boyfriends,,

like she’s always ready to kill someone if they fuck w them

hanschen:

had braces as a kid

he’s soooo bad at remembering to wear his retainer

he prbly lost it lbr

slytherin as well

goes to caltech bc he’s Fancy

he has a earthy/woody smell w a lil bit of smokiness. no one knows how he smells like that

he’s shorter than his bf and it makes him Mad

always knows when people are lying

he smokes and ernst Does Not Like That

as i’ve said before, my boy is depressed

bc of that depression + self destructive behaviors (probably learned from moritz) he’s one of the guys who’ll stub out cigarettes on his skin

he’s got a big gay crush on chris evans

ernst:

he anxiously taps but it’s always in a three-four pattern

bites his nails

hufflepuff

he has a notebook for pressing and diagramming plants

he presses flowers for all his friends

he’s got some in a phone case to make it pretty

gets ver y loud and swears a lot during sex

he’s naturally left handed but was forced to use his right hand in elementary school bc they thought left handedness was the devil’s work

he smells like orange ginger shampoo

he’s a soccer nerd and also does knowledge bowl

georg:

he’s,,, a fuckign band student an d a wrestler

he gets shit all the time for wresting from his friends (specifically otto)

he n otto are gryffindor buddies

as mentioned previously, he plays a fuckton of instruments

piano, cello, trumpet, percussion, slide whistle, french horn, oboe, alto clarinet, and my personal favorite, the super bone

he ends up with sooo many dogs

smells like valve oil and rosin. even after he showers and does laundry

he sometimes doesn’t think before he says things and ends up making ppl upset

h*cka jewish

he got melitta to listen to Emo bands like fall out boy and panic! at the disco but in return, she got him to religiously listen to lana del rey

otto:

golden retriever guy. that’s all i have to say on the matter

smells like charcoal and fire smoke

he’s an artsy hoe who likes to do portraits of his gf

he knows how to surf

ends up going to unc for college, not really sure what he’s gonna do for a career

he eventually becomes a pediatric nurse who loves all the kids and sneaks small animals in for them

proposes to martha a nu m be r of times but she’s happy with things as they are (she eventually says yes though)

he gets really good at being able to calm moritz down when he’s not doing too well

would drop literally ev ery th in g for mo and mart

thea:

she’s dating marianna wheelan and they’re adorable

ravenclaw

wendla’s best friend

has some kind of Twin Telepathy with melitta

she smells like hazelnut

she’s hoh and uses sign in most public situations, melitta usually acts as her translator

makes constant closet jokes

always has a deck of cards on her

she’s got some depression

has a combined playbills collection with melitta

Huge crush on tom holland

gay for brenda song

melitta:

makes terrible puns at even worse times

has a te r ri b le memory and adhd

loves to just,, sit in small coffee shops to feel the atmosphere

smells like vanilla

ravenclaw

she, hanschen, and thea are all witches (so is martha)

loves crystal and candle magic, is really good about sensing auras

tarot master

she and thea are supposed to follow hanschen out to california for college after they graduate, but melitta ends up staying on the east coast

tends to excessively beat herself up about things, even after people aren’t mad anymore

never leaves the house without stones and/or crystals

always shading, always vague posting

anna:

she’s a hufflepuff

smells like a combination of floral and fruity

her fashion sense is to die for and everyone goes to her for advice

everyone minus ilse that is bc she’s ilse and she makes her own fashion rules

would totally make the red carpet her bitch

v confrontational

lives in a constant state of Denial that she’s related to bobby

Mom friend that makes everyone’s appointments for them

during the winter season at school, she carries two thermoses around

one is hot chocolate and the other is vodka

she charges melchior for the vodka

she has asthma too and likes to make jokes about “ well thank god i don’t run”

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