#as a poc my cultural identity is very important to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sweaty-confetti · 11 months

Text

some thoughts about cultural appropriation

a few important notes before you read this:

- here, when i say “white,” i am referring to specifically white canadian, white american, and white european, with white european being a rather loosely defined term but typically relating to britain. this is not intended to ignore the existence other white identities such as white south africans, but i am a mixed-race indian+white person who has spent most of his life in the united states and does not have enough experience or knowledge of these identities to make accurate takes about them.

- this is not me making excuses for cultural appropriation. it is a dangerous thing that waters down and erases culture, and should not be encouraged. - this is written in a gentle and hopefully palatable way to white audiences, who i encourage to read this. not every take from a poc is going to be nice-nice about these kinds of things, but this is.

i find it very interesting that when you ask white folks about why they’re so obsessed with certain aspects of culture, the palatable, easily-appropriated ones like native headdresses and whatnot, their reason usually is in the form of “mysticism” and “exoticism.” this is a problem in itself, obviously, tying into the long-standing colonial fetishization of culture, but here’s the bit i actually want to talk about:

when you ask why it’s so “exotic” to them, why it’s so obviously “different and other” at a personal level - it comes from a sense of community.

let me break this down a bit. culture and community are often used as very loose synonyms, and for pretty good reason. a culture is based around the ideas of societal norms and roles, material things, ways of thinking and whatnot - and these all come down to community.

there are certain things that are intrinsic and unique to every culture (even if they are a medley of various different cultural influences), whether they be classical carnatic music in south india, pinakbet from the ilocos region of the philippines, or the ninauh-oskitsi-pahpyaki social role/gender in the blackfoot tribe. even cultures we would consider to “appear” white have these, such as the tales of tuatha de dannan in irish mythology. but the idea of whiteness as a concept does not have these.

whiteness as a concept is a sterilized, “de-cultured” identity that attempts to assimilate most/many folks who appear “white” into a single monolith. this is obviously very damaging and dangerous to many cultures - for example, many ancient celtic traditions have been lost due to the deliberate erasure of these in order to assimilate these people into whiteness.

whiteness as an identity was founded on a basis of eurocentric values and traditions as well as either the deliberate assimilation or erasure of all other cultures and traditions - white supremacy. it still exists like that today (see groups like the KKK or proud boys).

now we know obviously that not all white folks are intentionally racist and a large portion of them genuinely don’t mean harm to poc communities…so why is cultural appropriation so rampant, even in white folks who would otherwise be decent allies to poc?

again, it’s coming down to a sense of community.

i have grown up and lived in the united states for most of my life, and as early as i can remember i have always had questions about the cultural identities of white americans. i’d look at the indian half of me and indian culture that i partook in and experienced, things i cherish such as cooking traditional South indian food, learning carnatic classical music, participating in religious ceremonies, etc. and then i’d look at the white half of me. there was no culture there i could find.

sure, i could look at typically “american” things, such as hamburgers and surfboarding and apple pie, but these fall apart very easily with minimal research. similar hamburger-looking foods appear in europe as far back as the 4th century. bodysurfing/surfboarding has existed in peru, africa and various polynesian countries for thousands of years. versions of apple pie existed in british and french cookbooks as far back as 1390 BCE with influences from the ottoman empire - and apples aren’t native to the americas.

the colonization of the americas and the subsequent reframing of canada and the states as “white” areas is due to the influence of colonization, obviously - and the genocide of millions of first nations people. this was deliberate.

but here is the interesting bit. for hundreds of years, as far back as the pilgrims, cultures that were not fully assimilated into whiteness were rejected and oppressed - even as they colonized.

take italian-americans, for instance. the late 1800s to early 1900s saw a huge influx of italian immigrants to the united states. these immigrants faced oppression in the form of religious and political discrimination (anti-catholic sentiments and anti-communist sentiments). they were often subject to horrible living conditions compared to their american white counterparts as well as violence - one of the largest lynchings in america was the mass-lynching of eleven italian immigrants in new orleans in 1891.

yet today, when we think of italian-americans, we often see them simply as “white.”

a huge amount of immigrants to the united states and canada were forced to give up their original cultures in order to assimilate into whiteness. if not, they were subject to prejudice, discrimination and overall just shitty conditions. for some groups that resembled “white americans” in appearance, such as irish folks and italian folks, this method worked eventually and they were assimilated and accepted into whiteness. for many others due to their skin color or features, such as black enslaved folks or jewish folks, even giving up their own culture still meant they were not accepted as white - they didn’t “look white.” additionally, many cultural groups resisted assimilation and rejected being seen as white.

this is somewhat why i believe so many white americans, canadians, and british participate so heavily in cultural appropriation. it comes from a sense of loneliness, of little to no original culture - and whatever is left has been bastardized and reduced to just “white,” neglecting the cultural nuance.

growing up as a brown-skinned mixed person with heavy ties to the indian side of my culture, i was subject to a fair amount of racism. i remember people asking why my hair was “oily and gross,” and then begging my mom to never put coconut oil in my hair ever again. i remember people telling me that the khichdi my mom had carefully made for my lunch “looked and smelled like fish eggs,” and then only eating bland sandwiches at school. but there is one experience i remember very clearly.

i had a white american best friend when i was very young, from kindergarten to third grade. she never judged me for my food or my clothes or my grandparents’ accent or any other part of my culture and i loved her for it. but i remember having this experience with her one day.

she’d met my grandmother who came to pick me up, donned in an elaborately-formed red sari. the next day, when i sat with her at recess, she said something like, “i liked your grandma’s dress. it was pretty.” taken aback by open appreciation of my culture, i just mumbled a pleased “oh, thanks.” but she didn’t stop there. she said, “my grandma only wears boring clothes, like sweaters and granny dresses. i wish i was indian.”

i said something like, “granny dresses can be nice. you can be white and wear cool clothes.”

“yeah, i know. but any old person can wear sweaters and dresses. they’re just…not from anywhere.”

at the time, i didn’t fully understand her desire to be connected to a specific culture, but i understood in a bit of a detached way. i was always very connected to and appreciative of my indian culture, but look to the white side and i was met with exactly that - a gaping white void. the closest answer i got was “well, your great-grandparents came from germany.” that answer dissatisfied me, although i couldn’t articulate why. now i can.

it’s something like, “but after such a long time, they’re not really german anymore.” i’d seen the absence of culture in whiteness, and how my white friends and family could name a distant time where their family belonged to another culture - but not anymore. now, they were just “white.”

whiteness as a concept strips and sanitizes culture to fit a very, very narrow version of culture - a culture defined on the surface by cheeseburgers and british accents and football and canadian politeness, but dig deeper and you find colonialism, colonization, eurocentricism, racism, and various other systems of oppression.

once again, this is not an excuse for white folks who appropriate culture nor is this me trying to reason my way into approving of it. it’s not, and i’m not. i die a little bit inside every time i see some random hippie on the internet bastardize and water down the concept of chakras. but it is a bit of an explanation, and this is why i have some degree of sympathy for white folks who culturally appropriate.

so, to all white or white-passing folks who read this and understand/relate to it: i implore you this. please, please, please, if you have the time and resources to do so, reconnect with your native culture. talk to older irish folks, or learn about traditional welsh folklore. learn german, or watch documentaries of italian culture. read stories from white-passing native folk, or talk with your black grandparents. please do not lose the culture that your ancestors had to give up in order to assimilate into whiteness. understand that whiteness is a part of you and that it impacts those around you, but if you can, please make the effort to reconnect with your culture. it does wonders for your identity and sense of self.

48 notes · View notes

baobhanlore-art · 1 year

Text

*Across The Spiderverse Spoilers*

I'm just gonna rant a bit about whitewashing Miguel O'hara and how people don't know the difference between race and ethnicity.

Disclaimer: I am not poc. I'm white passing (Jewish whiteness is complicated) and if you are poc then I'd love to hear your perspective. I'm just repeating the views and teachings of poc figures and their analyses of media and representation.

So there's been a lot of crackering towards Miggy. It's happened to most of the poc characters, don't get me wrong, but I feel like Miguel's has fallen under the radar for the most part. But Miguel is often drawn with very light skin even though the movie has portrayed him as having light brown tan-ish skin.

This is a screenshot from the train scene. As you can see he is still very much a light skinned person, not pale but a light skinned poc. And yet somehow people still make his skin way lighter than this. Practically the same colour as me and I'm Scottish and have ridiculously sensitive skin that makes me avoid harsh sunlight. Like it's not even that dark. And the train scene is bright as hell anyways, harsh sunlight and the white train exterior reflecting onto the characters, everyone's skin was lighter so I'd say his skin tone may even be a bit darker than this.

And often the excuse is that he's half Irish. But like, do you realise how terrible of a justification that is? Zendaya is half white. Barrack Obama is half white. Halle Bailey is half white. Are they perceived as white? No. Lukas Arnold is half black. Halsey is half black. Are they perceived as white? Yes. I'm not arguing Miguel doesn't have white heritage, but Miguel, at least in ATSV, is Latino passing. Just like I'm half Jewish and half British White but look more like my white mother, with the exception of my warm undertones and dark hair, meanwhile my Dad, Aunt, Grandad and Uncles are very explicitly Jewish/Middle Eastern passing. Nobody is arguing I don't have non white genes in me and according to eugenics I'll never technically be white, but I'm white passing. Similarly, Miguel has white genes in him and his Irish heritage could very well be part of his identity (I haven't read the comics so idk) but he's Mexican passing. He has Mexican phenotypes and you are erasing them by lightening his skin.

In short, if you want to know if a character or person is white or not, ask yourself how cops or airport security would profile them. That will give you your answer.

This is something Harriyanna Hook touches on in some of her videos, she's a queen, but I think the main reason why whitewashing Miguel isn't as openly critiqued as whitewashing other ethnicities, including light skinned ones, is that light skinned and white passing Latine people are overrepresented in Hollywood and the media to the point where people who aren't even Latine can be cast as Latine characters. Case in point: Ronni Hawk. It's incredibly rare to see anyone in mainstream Hollywood who doesn't pass the paper bag test unless they're a black man, which has its own history of fetishism and abuse (Watch F.D. Signifier, he talks about this in his colourism video.) Race and ethnicity are not the same thing but they influence how you're perceived.

(This is not me saying that they don't deserve to be represented, every culture deserves attention and representation, but dark skinned Hispanic and Afro-Latine people often get erased. Miles Morales is the exception, not the rule.)

So people don't tend to pick up on the erasure of Latine features and skin colours because it's so normalised.

I don't want to call out any artists in particular, that's not cool, but if you do see an artist who lightened the skin, I think it's important you let them know that it's an issue. They're more likely ignorant than intentionally harmful, but I feel like education around this issue is still very important.

Also idk if this is an ethnic thing but please stop giving him a K-popish soft boy face. This isn't an ethnic issue, it's an artist's having same face syndrome issue, but Miggy is hot enough without you erasing his sharp facial features. Istg if it weren't for his suit half of his fanart would be unrecognisable.

39 notes · View notes

s1yeye · 10 months

Text

make intro post yes say hi talk about who i am what i do

my name kuru or siyeye, siyeye ainu to mean be sick or be ill, kuru is ainu, reconnecting with culture and language, please be nice do not mock names or language just because not white not friendly sound funny to you.

kuru part in system, other system not talk here, but kuru is inside of, complex did / polyfragmented many alters many parts. do not let other parts on this blog, only for kuru, may only say hi if is an emergency or big worry need to adress things because kuru me i cant do it.

kuru it/its pronouns. kuru an it, thing, being, nonhuman creature weirdo crazy. no she he they no no do not use any of that. just kuru, just it, just me. kuru body transfeminine, kuru body boygirl nonbinary lesbian, but kuru not girl or boy, kuru only kuru siyeye it me thing being.

kuru have many disorders, many disabilities, kuru level 2 autistic medium support needs (mild ID), kuru have POTS and asthma and TBI and other body ailments that make life work hard not good hard to make a living hard to do things for good livings. kuru will talk about it, affect life happen very much. kuru also, more important, schizoaffective disorder symptom holder hold symptom for alters other parts not feel as bad as kuru do. kuru have schizoaffective since young age, 13 or 14, early onset, cause many many problems in life hard to deal with many many many harsh hard wow so many suffer medicate suffer evil. this will be main many post include symptoms vents rambles talk about life experiences medicate psychatric ward and others and others that happen because of this. kuru talk funny because of schizoaffective disorder. kuru talk and write weird due to positive negative symptoms mixing mixing cause words jumble mix up hard to speak thoughts racing by fleeting away from me. all words come out all at once becoming mixing jumbled and hard to understand word write or speak. kuru can not help this or fix this. other alter sometimes can write better, can help kuru siyeye do this, but abilities go downhill, catatonia apraxia alogia flat effect etc etc make worse and worse spiral go downhill eventually all gone some day maybe fear. kuru also speak weird part of trauma CPTSD DID abuse severe severe severe many happen occurence all at once. ruin kuru life, make extra extra difficult.

i kuru is an also poc indigenous east asian mixed many races mixed. if could not tell from name. do not want white people telling what to do on race related issues. has seen this happen, feel it felt it before. go away shut up.

kuru me i also a minor, bodily 16. if uncomfortable talking to speak to minors, let kuru know and will not follow.

kuru dni include endogenic (support ok, no syscourse on blog), transabled / transrace / etc (only transgender, transsexual, transspeices good), proship / comship, intersexists and transmisogynists. kuru block liberally, will use many block button, do not throw cry hissy fit if find out blocked by siyeye.

kuru may talk about triggering, bad bad hurt harmful things. can trigger tag if something heavy or obvious bad, but otherwise will not know to do unless you tell me to. if one of kuru follower, ok to ask to trigger warn tag things if they are being triggering to you. kuru ask that mutuals trigger tag heavy religion, around kuru, ESPECIALLY satanism / christianity, can triggering bad scary hurt kuru siyeye make bad visions remember horrible scary thing. thank you for if you are doing this.

edit : panphobes, acearo exclusionists, transmeds, do not follow like reblog interact!!!!! kuru is collective body mogai many genders and arospec, some parts acespec pan or others, support all harmless queer identity!!!!! go away if exclusionist bad bad person rude harmful mean leave

29 notes · View notes

ardourie · 4 months

Note

im sorry this is such a long ask i didnt expect it to be 😭 but im curious about your opinion/what discussion there is to be had bc i listen to a fair amount of rap but im not the most knowledgeable on the history and nuances of it all, and then of course im nonblack. but would you say the problem with white rappers in terms of gaining recognition in a genre not built for them carries over to other nonblack poc? because i think about it every so often especially growing up in a city with such a heavy nonblack latino presence, its like… complicated. because on the one hand the black american and latino-american communities have always been closely linked both with black latinos and nonblack latinos, like thats a whole other lecture on american racial identity, so i could see how many nonblack latino rappers are coming from a different place than the “i want to be somewhere i wasn’t already” place a lot of white rappers come from.

but at the same time i see the popularity of rappers like lil pump and 6ix9ine (not to mention how horrible they are otherwise) who so obviously want to pretend there’s zero difference between them and a black person, who have an obsession with saying the n word as if that somehow ever applied to them, and it just reminds me of the nonblack latinos i grew up around who would do the same (often influenced by those two even). thats not even mentioning less explicit versions of this, like when they had becky g rap for a (vaguely indigenous latin american) league character who they suddenly gave darker skin and larger lips wearing clothes and a hairstyle that originated in black communities. and then im not even going to start on ppl like kpop rappers or aquafina.

like i dont claim to be the expert on all this but it always came across to me as so off-putting and strange, and when these rappers pop up getting success (especially among other nonblack poc who also want to pretend there’s no difference between them and black people!) it just puts such a bad taste in my mouth so i could understand why even when it comes to the nonblack rappers who are usually more respectful and avoid shit like this the want might be there to just put the focus on BLACK rappers alone, the ones who so much of the time (considering like total amount of black vs nonblack rappers) get way less recognition than nonblack ones despite it being a genre they literally invented by and for themselves. again im sorry that was so rambling 😭 but im just curious if you have any opinions on it or anything to add to the discussion as a like… better voice to listen to then me and my vague thoughts LOL

ur fine dw! i love rambles but my feelings r just as complicated as urs im way more accepting of nonblack rappers who aren’t white but like u said the issue of some of them thinking that acceptance means theyre honorary black is very common and a lot of times nonblack brown rappers like 69 for example lean into portraying themselves as black and using the n word and its like . yes ur proximity to us makes u have a better understanding but that still doesn’t make u black, the problem definitely carries over but to a lesser extent

like i said b4 i think anyone can do rap but the further away from being black u are i think it makes it more distasteful, i feel like the distinction would matter less to me if antiblackness wasn’t prevalent everywhere but you’ll have ppl imitating black people and black culture while absolutely hating actual black ppl 😭 i think brown solidarity is important in general but until the root of the issue is addressed when i see nonblacks participate in hip hop it’s just corny like unless they r heavily outspoken about supporting black ppl etc it just comes across slightly opportunistic, its complicated tho

#💌

17 notes · View notes

whitepassingpocs · 8 months

Note

I'm reconnecting to my cultures and my partner and friends and some of my family are encouraging me to call myself a POC, but sometimes I worry I shouldn't because my skin is white

To start this off, I don't have any white or European or anything in me. I'm Hawaiian, Hispanic, and Native American (+ a few other things, like AA, but not as much as the others, so I don't think they're as important to include). You can tell I'm not white by looking at me. None of my features are white, I have very visible POC features. My entire family (besides people I'm related to through marriage) is visibly black.

HOWEVER, my skin is light. I'm allergic to the sun and have been since I was a kid, I've had to avoid it for my own safety, but I was a very dark kid before I needed to start avoiding it. I was so dark (+ hairy) as a kid that my entire family and neighbourhood called me Monkey as a nickname because of it. I have vitiligo. My vitiligo spots are darker than the rest of my skin, but when I was a kid, before I had to avoid the sun and I was a lot darker, the spots were way lighter than my skin.

I feel like if I identify as a POC, then I'd be taking from actual POCs. See, I know I'm white-passing, I know I'm privileged and very lucky to be white-passing, and anything I experience isn't nearly as bad as what actual POCs experience. Which is why I'm really not sure if I should be taking their identity to use as my own, despite technically being a POC. Would it be wrong? Is there a different term I should use?

identity being defined by skin colour was a concept created by the white people. but actually, your identity is who you are culturally and ethnically, and has relatively little to do with your skin colour. also, for the record, many poc are pale. there are pale Indigenous people, pale south asians, pale Arabs, pale Black people, etc. their skin colour doesn't make them any less part of their communities. communities are bound by common culture and experiences, not exclusively by looks. you are a poc because you come from parents of colour, were raised in a culture of colour. how tanned you are is only relevant if you agree with white colonial policies of assimilation, that having white-ish skin makes you white. white people want you to think this because they do not want people of colour to exist. claim your identity with pride and fight the coloniser.

#hawai'i #hawaiian #native #hispanic

9 notes · View notes

matan4il · 2 years

Note

I love your posts about Jewish representation on TV and it reminded me of another post I saw by someone else who talked about how there’s a movie coming soon to Amazon that’s based on a book (it’s called Red and White & Royal Blue), and how the only Jewish character from the book was the only character to not be cast authentically in the movie because the actress and her family and openly and proudly Christian. I don’t think the character herself was canonically very religious, she goes home for Hanukkah, but she was written as Jewish ethnically. The blog I read it on talked about how it’s Jew erased because they didn’t cast someone Jewish and you can’t play another ethnicity (especially a minority one) and because the character doesn’t really do anything Judaism related, no one will even know she was supposed to be Jewish. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on it?

Hi Nonnie! And just lemme give you the BIGGEST hug! I thought this was fascinating. I'm so glad that you enjoy my posts about Jewish representation on TV and in film, they're obviously really important to me on a very personal level. IDK if this'll make you happy to hear, but I plan on writing at least two more posts about Jewish rep, one on OUaT and one on Friends. All in the context of my theory regarding Jewish rep. Here’s my thoughts on your ask...

What you're asking about can be referred to as the question of "Jewface." It's a term that has existed since the late 19th century, when non-Jews started portraying caricatures of Jews, often while wearing fake enlarged noses, fake long beards, ragged clothes and speaking with a thick Yiddish accent. By 1909, mainstream American Jewry had already decried this custom. But recently, this term has been brought up again, in 2021 Sarah Silverman wanted to talk about the way Jewish roles often go to non-Jewish actors.

I have to admit that as a general understanding seemed to take over that white people should not be cast in the role of POC for several reasons, Jews were left out of that discussion, so I think Sarah was absolutely right in bringing it up, as are you to ask about the casting of this Jewish character in RW&RB. The thing is, Jews ARE an ethno-religion. That means that we're not like Christians or Muslims, who are only bound together by a shared religion, Jews are also bound by shared ancestry. We're not the only ones, BTW! Another prominent ethno-religion is the Druze. Now, the Druze are far more strict than the Jews, they cannot marry any non-Druze and no one can convert to the Druze religion. Judaism isn't as strict: Jews can marry non-Jews, and people can convert to Judaism. However, for most of Jewish history, not that many people converted to Judaism. It was due to more than one reason:

Many non-Jews never got a chance to know Jews and Judaism, so there would be no reason for them consider converting.

Judaism on its part is against trying to convert non-Jews to Judaism (we believe that if someone converts, that means their soul was always Jewish, they were always meant to be a part of the Jewish people. But for that, conversion has to be an act of free will and not the result of a campaign of persuasion).

Jews were persecuted to such a degree, they suffered discrimination in every walk of life you can think of, they were lied about, demonized, repeatedly attacked, too often even massacred, so why would you want to be a Jew? Even if you did get to know Jews and Judaism and decided you liked this, the price to pay for being Jewish was just too great. This was an obstacle to conversion as well as to simply marrying Jews.

This is why for the most part, non-Jews did not convert to Judaism. At the same time, Jews sought to marry other Jews in order to pass on the Jewish identity, faith, values, traditions, culture, language, etc. As one lady explained it to me some years ago, "If you truly believe that a certain set of values is full of good, that your religion is true and enriching, and that your culture is beautiful, why wouldn't you want your kids to have all that as well? And the best way of ensuring that inheritance was by marrying and having kids with another Jew."

That means that to a great degree, the People of Israel (notice, this is what Jews call themselves in the Bible: not the Religion of Israel, the People of Israel, עם ישראל) did remain one people, one nation. Even the exceptional people who did convert to Judaism, they also married into the Jewish people, and their kids married Jews as well, and so did their grandchildren, and so the descendants of converts still shared that same common Jewish ancestry.

And all of this together was probably critical to the survival of Jewish identity. Take for example the Philistines. They were a seafaring people (most likely Greek and originating in the island of Crete based on the pottery they left behind) who invaded the Land of Israel from the west and settled along the southern part of Israel's coast. When the Babylonian empire invaded and occupied the Land of Israel roughly 2600 years ago, the Philistines were expelled to Babylon together with the Jews. But where the Jews maintained their identity long enough for the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great to defeat the Babylonians and allow the return of exiled populations to their homelands, the Philistines disappeared from the pages of history. Historians believe it's most likely that as a small minority, they inter-married with the majority, the Babylonians, to the point where they lost their culture, their language, their faith, and as a result, their distinct identity, and that's why there's no record of them after the expulsion to Babylon.

Now back to the question of casting, while Jews all over the world share common ancestry, we don't necessarily all look the same. The Middle East is actually a place where facial features and skin tones have always been very diverse, and that's what the Jews are, Middle Eastern. Add to that some degree of inter-marriage with convert Jews, and the result is that there really is no one look that all Jews share. So the question of casting, I don't think it's best tackled through that prism. I think it's more about the way the ethnic part of the ethno-religious identity of Jews should be acknowledged. About feeling like we matter, and that casting directors take Jewish identity into account, just like they do when they cast for a black character or an Indian one or a Native American. I also think having this conversation would allow us to talk about how the idea of Jewish facial features HAS BEEN demonized along the centuries (precisely that idea of the "Jewish nose" that was used in ugly antisemitic caricatures, or the idea of Jews having darker complexions than the average European).

Lastly, I know some people might point out that Jews get to be cast as non-Jews, so supposedly this shouldn't prevent non-Jews from being cast as Jews. Well, other actors who are POC are sometimes cast in roles originally intended for white people. An example is the 2018 show Troy: Fall of a City which cast a black Achilles, even though he was Greek (and specifically described as having fair features, as the ancient Greeks believed that was a sign of being favored by the gods). As much as such a casting might stir a discussion, at no point would we assume this means it would be okay to cast a white person in a movie about Martin Luther King Jr.!

Which brings me to another point, the question of which Jewish roles are played by Jews and which are not. This is something that I thought of being a gay woman. I know that a lot of gay actors, once they come out and are publicly perceived as gay, they get type cast as gay. It doesn't matter whether they look gay. It doesn't matter that prior to coming out, they could get lots of straight roles. Once they're identified as gay, there's a world of roles they're not going to get anymore, especially as a romantic lead or an action hero. It's a part of why many gay actors choose not to come out, even if they're okay doing so on every other level.

I'll just stop the analyzing of gay roles for a second to mention that this was true for Jews for a really long time as well. Yes, they were cast in non-Jewish roles, but they had to change their names and make sure no one would know they're actually Jewish. For example, beloved comedian Danny Kay was actually born David Daniel Kaminsky. Kirk Douglas, the movie legend? Born Issue Danielovitch Demsky. Winona Ryder? She was born Winona Horowitz. Natalie Hershlag? You know her as Natalie Portman.

At the same time as openly gay actors are limited to (mostly minor) gay roles, there are MAJOR gay roles in the entertainment industry, the ones that will have prestige attached to them, and those are almost always played by actors who are publicly known as straight. Think of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club or Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name. They're all men that the public knows as straight. Now, I think straight people should be able to play gay and learn some empathy for gay people through that, that gay people should get to play straight and not be punished through the loss of work opportunities for being open about being queer, and I also think that when it's all mixed up, that can also prevent the bullying of an actor for taking on a gay role to the point they're forced to come out (by accepting that it's okay to be queer, straight, questioning, gay-but-before-realization, and take on a gay role). BUT I do think we have to talk about the Big Gay Roles being cast almost exclusively by straight actors. We should put studios and execs, not actors, on the spot, and ask them for more Big Gay Roles and for more diverse casting in those roles, and we should def not badger a teenager for being cast in a gay role.

Along the same line, I was asking myself about Big Jewish Roles. TBH, over the years, there haven't been many, give or take mostly Holocaust movies. But now in recent years, we have the non-Jewish Rachel Brosnahan in the lead role as a Jewish woman in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, until that show was canned we had the non-Jewish Kathryn Hahn set to star as the Jewish Joan Rivers, the non-Jewish Daniel Craig was cast as the lead in the movie Defiance which told the real story of Tuvia Bielsky leading a group of Jewish partisans and saving the lives of roughly 1200 Jews during the Holocaust. These are just some examples off the top of my head, there are many more. So yeah, I'd like more Big Jewish Roles and more actual Jews cast in them.

In conclusion, I think Jewish actors being cast in Jewish roles should, at the very least, be talked about because it does matter and it does help explain a part of Jewish identity, and I also think we need more Jewish stories with Big Jewish Roles, and I think it does very much matter that those be cast (at least predominantly if not exclusively) with Jewish actors.

Thank you so much for being interested! And I am so sorry for the length... But I really didn't know how to do this subject justice in less words. xoxox

You can find my ask tag here and my other posts about Jewish representation here. xoxox

52 notes · View notes

yellowocaballero · 2 years

Text

Iron Fist is Kinda Weird

Or: How do we talk about talking about social justice?

I have a diseased brain poisoned from reading comic books since elementary school, and I think it's fun to look at bad things and wonder why they're bad. I ended up writing Danny Rand AKA The Immortal Iron Fist for my Moon Knight fic series and I got so deep into researching him and the Heroes For Hire that he began to interest me. I ended up having a lot of opinions about it, things went out of hand again, I wrote a very weird Iron Fist story, and I'm officially giving up and putting my thoughts down about the character.

TL;DR: Iron Fist's history, character, and most notable relationship has an intrinsic relationship with race that really shouldn't be ignored, but the consistent framing of the character is highly revealing of the assumed context of media about social issues.

Yeah, there's some stuff to talk about. Rest under the cut. I want to make a giant disclaimer here that I am speaking from the perspective of the origins and histories of the characters, and that I am sourcing from the 1970s-1980s Heroes For Hire comic.

Unfortunately Important History

In 1974 comic book executives realized that martial arts movies were highly popular among teenage boys and were making a lot of money. Similarly, the other comic book execs across the hall were also realizing that Blaxploitation movies were also super hot right now. Thus, Iron Fist and Luke Cage were born. With this identical genesis, it's fitting that they ended up so tightly paired.

Thanks in part to the martial arts movies and the booming Hong Kong and Japanese industries, Orientalism was at a huge high America. Probably highest since the 1920s when the whole archeology thing and movies with dancing women were really taking off. TV shows like Kung Fu, about a man who wandered around knowing kung fu, were about the glories of kung fu and featuring a half-white half-Asian man played by a white man. Similarly, Blaxpoitation movies (which I know relatively little about besides the fact that the NAACP hated it, so that's probably the main takeaway here) were probably the first American film genre predominantly featuring Black people. Blaxploitation films...talked about Black issues...kind of...in a way, and you can see that thread in Luke Cage. The main thing you need to know about Luke Cage was that Dwayne McDuffie, one of the founders of the imprint featuring the only comics that actually deserve to talk about race (DC you neutered Static Shock), hated him. The background for these guys and the cultural & media landscape that gave birth to them is important, but you mostly just need to get that they were born from an American voyeuristic fascination with sensationalized depictions of other cultures.

Frog (Luke) and Toad (Danny) Are Friends

To their credit (?), they did eventually realize this about themselves, and Danny and Luke's strong friendship was characterized by their polar opposite backgrounds. Danny had been adopted at nine years old by the mystical Oriental city of kung fu etc, became the specialest little white boy and harnessed his chi to become the hero of K'un Lun, and travelled back to America in a revenge quest to find his father's killer and avenge him and inherit a fuckton of money. Luke was in a gang and then prison and he's very bitter about the prison industrial complex. They're good friends and a great team, but you can see repeatedly that no matter how seamlessly they work in the field they essentially can never understand each other. The most interesting parts of their relationship involve the push and pull of this disconnect, where Danny's naïve and clueless about America and Luke has to teach him about how the world works and the injustices that POC face. Luke teaches Danny about racism and checks his privilege like a thousand times a day. Observe.

Danny doesn't know or give a shit about money so he cluelessly tells Luke that they are best friends, what's mine is yours! Luke's tetchy about it because of Blaxpoitation Baggage. Danny's offended and he doesn't know why, Luke's old wounds are reopened and he struggles to explain it. Frog and Toad have racial conflict.

Danny is, basically, the clueless white guy. The backstory panels highlight that: he was trained in kung fu in K'un Lun, and now he's swimming in money and privilege in America and Luke feels weird about it.

Look at the way Danny talks about himself - Danny talks about his life in K'un Lun as if he had gone to the weirdest boarding school of all time. He talks about K'un Lun from a distance, using words an American would use. Danny is the privileged, sheltered white guy.

He does not think of Asia as an actual home. He doesn't identify with it. Narratively and thematically, he is a white guy who grew up in a sheltered place learning kung fu and now he's Dazed And Confused in America struggling to connect with his best friend's very unsheltered experiences.

The conversations Danny has with Luke about race are held as a white person. It is Luke explaining racism to a white person over and over again. It is a white person's clueless privilege being knocked down a peg again and again. Danny could be from Antarctica or Mars and his relationship with Luke would be he same.

Wait, Why Would A Dynamic Entirely Around Race Never Engage With The Fact That One Party Grew Up In Asia

You tell me buddy!!!

Why! Why make this choice? It is RIGHT there! Why would a guy whose entire schtick is living in Fantasy Vaguely Tibet from ages 9-19 never once speak from that cultural perspective? Why flush all of that experience and perspective down the drain?

Why would Danny engage with the world as a privileged, clueless white guy? He was just a kid when he left America. He doesn't engage with these conversations with Luke as, "Wow, your weird American situation's fucked up", he engages with it as "That can't possibly be what America is like!". Like a white person. There is no difference between Danny and someone who never left their boarding school as a child.

Is this really the most interesting way to talk about race? The characters, by virtue of their history and genesis, are inherently about race. Why are we talking about it as a Black guy constantly educating a white guy instead of as a Black guy talking to a white guy who grew up in Fantasy Tibet? As a a product of capitalism to a product of Whatever K'un Lun's Fantasy Economy was. As a product of a highly racialized society to an aracialized society. As someone who's from an area of great cultural and racial diversity to someone who grew up in a racial and cultural monoculture.

Why does Danny not have a complex relationship with his own race? He was the only white guy around for ten years, that has to be kind of weird. How does he relate his adopted culture to his home one? How does he deal with the white privilege he does hold when he doesn't understand why he holds it? I can seriously go on. I absolutely did go on.

None of this makes any sense. And the only way it makes any sense if if you see that Luke & Danny's conversations about race are not actually conversations about race. They are Luke explaining racism to the reader. Danny is the audience stand-in. The audience is obviously American white guys, so Danny has to be white and engage with the entire thing as an American white guy would. As he audience stand-in Danny has to come from the same place and viewpoint as the assumed reader, so he has to come from a place of white privilege.

It sucks. Not every reader was a privileged white guy. Not every reader was white. This narrative decision, conscious or unconscious, cut off a lot of interesting choices at the kneecaps. Because there is a basic assumption that white audiences cannot relate to nonwhite characters, and that they are incapable of looking through another's eyes and learning from their perspective.

How Do We Talk About Talking About Race?

Why should we care that Iron Fist is uninteresting and bad? This is not news. The premise has always been vaguely racist and boring. I've read some pretty nifty Iron Fists in my time and there are a fair handful of good Iron Fist comics, but the very root of the character is Orientalist. This Dances With Wolves style of 'story about POC but the lead has to be white or white people won't watch it' scenario is very old hat.

Heroes For Hire is interested in race. Luke Cage & Iron Fist are characterized by race. Their writers can admit this or not, but it's true. At its best, this inherent disconnect opens up the comics for potentially interesting breakdowns of racial dynamics, prejudice, the prison industrial complex, privilege, and American society. Luke & Danny talk about everything from capitalism to crime. Pretty reliably, the comic tends to actually try.

But all of these conversations are fixed through a white gaze. Luke talks through a white gaze, Danny's characterized by a white gaze, and these conversations are written with the white audience as the implied constant observers. At a certain point it never really feels like two different perspectives clashing and changing - just one perspective, talking about two different issues from both sides of its mouth.

I have mixed feelings on #ownvoices, but I think this is what people mean when they talk about it. There is a provincial, reductionist scope of perspectives allowed into the conversations Heroes For Hire holds, and although that's not a crime it's abjectly disappointing when compared against the interesting stories that could be told.

I haven't read a modern Iron Fist comic in like ten years, and the last time I read Heroes For Hire was during the cursed Civil War situation. I really don't know if modern Heroes For Hire and Danny & Luke are still like this. They probably aren't! But the same problems probably still underlie the two characters, and their origins will always occupy this strange space.

TL;DR: Read Milestone comics. Start with Static and move to Icon & Rocket. These are the only comics about race people should read. Look up their history sometime, it's fascinating. Ignore Luke Cage & Iron Fist. Good god.

#my writing #iron fist #luke cage #danny rand #heroes for hire #it was all RIGHT HERE and they didnt DO ANYTHING WITH IT #i got pissed off and decided to. do something with it #I think when you make it so that danny doesn't remember america #and change danny from #weirdest boarding school member of all time #into #guy who is from this country #more interesting stuff opens up. if ur not a coward.

114 notes · View notes

hjellacott · 1 year

Text

What trans women, feminists and Jews all have in common.

A/N: I originally wrote this as a response to a reblog, but then I realised it's perhaps the most important post I've ever written, and I know it's very long, but I hope that you, whoever you are, will read it. That's why I wanted to give it a voice of its own, shortening it a tad. This post discusses, in a kind, friendly and polite manner the whole fight between trans and feminists, the debate about Hogwarts Legacy and the problems of anti-semitism and transphobia. And it does so lovingly, and without an aim to brainwash, hurt or offend. So please, if you have ten minutes, please do read. Whoever you are. Thank you.

----

1. FIRST LET ME TELL YOU WHO I AM, SO THAT YOU KNOW THE KIND OF PERSON YOU'RE READING FROM.

I am very much sick of the fights between people who at the bottom, all just want to feel safe, and I am very much sick of the lack of actual polite conversation between us. I come from a Jewish background, from Sephardic Jews (meaning ethnically Jews, which makes me ethnically a Jew both in my maternal and paternal lines), but I also come from a city that has historically been Roman, Iberian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Arabs, Visigoth, Phoenician, Tarshish and many more, which means I am aware that I am only alive because my ancestors mixed with people very different from them, and repeatedly survived persecution because their religion and/or civilization wasn't the "right one" to stay alive in depending on the historical time. My Jewish ancestors were likely prosecuted to such an extent, and not even that long ago, but during World War II, that they hid and pretended to be Catholics and kept quiet to save their lives. And then there's the fact that I'm bisexual, and whenever I've been in a same sex relationship (one of which lasted me several years) I had to hide, keep it quiet, and keep it a tight-lipped secret because I knew even on this day and age a lot of my loved-ones wouldn't understand, not because they're right-wingers (which they're not), but for other reasons. And I'm saying all of this because I want it to be understood that I know what it is like to be persecuted because of who you are and to never feel entirely safe. I never even felt I could hold my girlfriend's hand in public without receiving some kind of backlash. I never even dared to go into a LGBT march without wearing something to conceal my identity. And on top of things, I'm a woman, and I've never, ever in the decades I've been in this world, in no city I've ever visited, felt safe to be alone out in the street at night. I know I'm talking a lot, and I'm sorry, and I know you'all just want to shout terf, antisemitic and transphobe at me and stop reading, but I beg you to keep reading, even if it's long, because I'm hopeful that we can finally reach some kind of understanding.

Let's forget what divides us. What unites us is that we all feel unsafe. We all, women, gays, trans people, POC people, Jews, we all feel like just because there's something about us that we can't change, we're more likely to die than anyone else. To be raped, beaten-up, abducted and taken from the face of the Earth, just because of who we are.

So what I'm saying is, you're afraid? I understand. So am I. Too afraid to walk alone at night, too afraid to date anyone who isn't a friend of a friend (therefore pre-approved), too afraid to go around in my real life outside the internet telling people how multi-ethnicity I am, simply afraid. All of the time.

I am a fairly cultured person. I'm not the kind of person who simply goes online, believes whatever without evidence, and on and on. I am the kind of person with several higher education certificates, with studies both locally and abroad, the world-traveller, the ferocious reader, the one who reads all the news every day (Spanish, English and French) in several newspapers both right wing and left wing so that in the end I have all sides of the story, I come from a well-educated and very humble family, and I am not someone who blindly decided to support J. K. Rowling. I was horrified when I read the first people saying she was transphobic. But hey, I'm the kind of person who, if I disagree with someone, I read them to bits, because I want to know exactly what they think and why, and why I think differently, and I know that's not something a lot of the people you read do. And I'm in the arts, so half my friends are gay, another are trans, and a very small minority are straight and cisgender, so I promise you, that if I had any sincere belief that Rowling went against any minority, I would've been ferociously against her. I would've. And with that aim I set out to read her every tweet, and you know what I found?

She never actually says anything wrong about transgender people. Never. In fact she doesn't speak against them, she speaks in favour and defense of women and against sexist, violent men. Not against trans people. And I had this conversation with my transgender friends, asking them why they'd gotten offended exactly, and when they looked at Rowling's tweets, you know what they told me? That that wasn't what they'd been told she'd said. Because like many of you, they'd read some rumour in social media, some article in the press, and got so angry they never bothered to actually read what she'd really said, in their context (meaning, following the Twitter conversations and everything, not isolated tweets either). But when I showed them? They were baffled. And they understood she wasn't transphobic. It's been years, and I still don't have a friend who does not stand with J. K. Rowling. And that, listen, that includes Jews, trans, gays, lesbians, and so on, because like I said, I work in the Arts, which as you know is one of the most diverse collectives. And another thing that I noticed was how much had been lost in translation. English is not my first language, but as you can see I mostly manage all right. But when I read translations into Spanish and French, they missed so much about what Rowling had really said, and twisted so much. So let me give you a brief summary of what she actually believes:

2. LET'S DELVE DEEP INTO ROWLING'S ACTUAL WORDS.

Sex is real. If you're born with female or male sex that cannot change. We know this to be scientifically and medically true, which is why when you have surgery to transition, for which a friend of mine is preparing right now, you need to have lots of hormonal medications to try and keep your body behaving as the gender you identify with and against your sex, and the minute you stop, your body will naturally begin behaving like your sex again. And this doesn't change even if you have surgeries, this is for life. If you don't believe me, simply check medical websites, I promise you this is true.

It is dangerous to have transgender women who have not undergone a physical transition in the same private spaces as women. I know this point is very contentious, but before you get angry, hear me out. This is not because anyone thinks transgender people are dangerous. This is because men have proven to be dangerous. What's more common, for a man to rape a woman, or for a woman to rape a man? how often do you hear of women who were murdered by their male exes or even partners, or relatives? I mean, I've gone to several of those funerals and vigils for women and girls killed like that. So the idea behind not wanting trans women and women to share spaces where trans women might have it easier to rape women is that perhaps those trans women, if they haven't physically transitioned, still have the physical advantages of the male sex: more strength, bigger body, and a penis. Imagine my shock if I was getting naked in my prison cell and then I found a person physically stronger and bigger than me, with a dick, naked next to me, in a perfect opportunity to rape me. Would I call them a trans woman? No. But they would call themselves that, and use it to get into that space. That's why Scotland had to backpedal in their laws allowing people to identify themselves as trans women and go into female prisons, because they had several cases in which this resulted in women being raped by trans women, or by people who claimed to be. Because as we all know. plenty of men who are sexual predators will identify as women not just to have access to women, but to have access to transgender women as well, and rape them, and kill them. So it appears that in order to keep trans women and women safe from male predators, we need to make sure that no one with biological advantages of men can share private spaces with them. And if this means having a separate prison for people with the physical built, strength and sexual organs of men, so that they cannot predate on anyone, I vote we do it.

Women won't wheesht. This refers to the fact that achieving rights for someone shouldn't mean removing them for someone else. So in order to give transgender people rights, we cannot take them from another collective, in this case, women. If women are shouting they're terrified of being raped and killed, we need to listen. It is a disrespect, a sexist, female-erasing, cruel thing to do, to ignore them and force them to accept sharing spaces they don't want to share with anyone else. And the only thing that imposing transgender women in their spaces is going to cause is what's happening now: violence, harassment, and an imposibility to have peaceful conversations, not to mention an immediate dislike and fear of transgender women. So instead of achieving transgender rights by harassing someone else, we need to give them their own things. For example, say you have a sibling and you want their room, right? well, harassing them into letting them share it is not going to work. You'll never again get along with your sibling. But asking your parents to build you your own bedroom will keep both sides happy. That's what Rowling and people like me believe in. That fine, if you don't feel safe sharing spaces with people with a dick because you don't want to be raped and murdered, hey, neither do we. So why don't we respect each other's fears and safety wishes and each have our own spaces? And then we can all feel safe around people exactly like us.

Transgender CHILDREN shouldn't be able to go through life changing, irreversible surgeries to remove their sexual organs without plenty of check-ups with doctors and psychiatrists or psychologists who can make sure the child fully understands the risks. This is due to the avalanche of feedback we have from detransitioners who spoke up about having been brainwashed, having given "informed" consent that wasn't actually very well informed, and having deeply regretted surgeries they did without really knowing what was going to happen, and that have now caused them chronic pain that cannot be cured and irreversible physical, mental and emotional damage.

That's all Rowling has said. Nothing against transgender people. She's only worried about the safety of children and women. Period. And I can tell you that with my hand on my heart because I have read her every tweet, and I have also read her open letter against cancel culture, and plenty of articles on the matter.

3. LET'S TALK ABOUT JEWS.

Now about the Jewish thing. Rowling is NOT an anti-Semitic. The first person who called her anti-Semitic was a Jewish man called Jon Stewart, who did so jokingly, and who was immediatelly appalled by the harassment Rowling received from people that took him seriously, forcing not just him, but also multiple Jewish celebrities, Jewish organisations and Jewish charities, to speak up in support of J. K. Rowling and publicly state that they don't believe she's anti-Semitic.

I bet you've only been reading from people who think like you. Many of you, the second you've heard something you didn't like, shut the other person out, called them insults and names, labelled them as Terfs, transphones and anti-Semites, and refused to listen. And if you never hear the people you disagree with, you're never going to hear anything but validity, even if your ideas are insane. Like the flat-Earthers. And all you've been reading from Rowling have been things taken out of context, or told to you by someone else. Do your people ever encourage you to read extract from the source? no. Do they ever show you receipts? only if they've been carefully trimmed.

But people have agendas, you know? That's what happened with Nazism. So you get a collective of Trans Radical Activists, radicals who might not even be actually trans, but know that if they fight women, people like Rowling, and put enough pressure in the governments, they can make laws change so that men, not trans women, but men pretending to be trans women, have easy access to rape women and trans women. Think about it. Wouldn't it be incredibly smart for alt-right men to infiltrate the Transgender activism to start violent fights against women, calling them cunts, telling them to kill themselves, and telling them to suck dick, making women the bad guys, convincing trans people that women are out to get them and to kill them, and getting lawmakers to make laws that allow anyone to simply say they're women and go into female prisons or lockers? Hold on. That's exactly what's happened. I don't believe for a second that the TRAs are all transgender. I believe many of them are alt-right men. And you'll identify them easily by their sexist, violent behaviour and speech, and their whole discourse against women and claims that women like Rowling actively threaten trans people's rights, when none of it is true.

So now say the TRAs, who want women to have less rights and men to have more, and who want to easily be able, as men, to infiltrate spaces that were previously private to women, so that they can no longer have their own spaces, find something else that gets people furious towards their enemy. Rowling has stood against alt-right men her whole life. Naturally, when they saw someone call her anti-Semite, they jumped into that waggon. Another opportunity to get someone cancelled. To demonise a defender of women, until there's none left. So that's what they did. They called her anti-Semite, came up with the whole BS about the goblins, made lots of things up, took more stuff out of context. And because they were in the trans collective, aka, "the good guys", the perceived victims, people have been far more inclined to believe them, to listen to them, and to be compassionate to them. But let me tell you, if these men are allowed into female spaces, and actual trans women find themselves in those spaces with them, they'll be in as much danger as any other woman, if not more.

Now you probably think we're crazy and paranoid. Question. Is the transgender collective telling you that? and if so, isn't it a little suspicious that someone wants to convince you that someone else is being paranoid? that they're out to get you? Because that's what they're doing. Me? Rowling didn't convince me. Nobody had to. I just had to read the news, like I told you I do all the time, and see all of this coming true. See women being repeatedly harassed, sexually and physically, threatened, often by men, far-right men who are strangely, suddenly, very interested in trans rights (isn't that also suspicious?), and seeing all the news and personal stories around me of women being raped because a man was allowed to identify as a trans woman and put into their space, where they had freedom to rape and murder. This is out in the news. The real news. And it's happening all over the place, which tells you I'm not being paranoid or dellusional, I'm telling you what's going on.

This is how Nazism worked as well. It started with Nazis who wanted a kind of economical power that at the time was in the hands of Jews. Do you remember when people tell you immigrants take jobs! women are transphobic! black people are criminals! All that is classic far-right speech. And it's all studied in the Nazi propaganda techniques, which had been long studied and employed by all politicians across the globe. What you do is identify one minority you can blame for current problems, and turn the world against them, in such way that the public doesn't realise all you're doing, supposedly to erase the problem, that is actually just to make you more powerful. The Nazis decided Jews shouldn't be having so many businesses and thriving economy, so they demonised them, said they were greedy, thieves, the inferior race, less good than aryan people, criminals, that they didn't deserve to live. The Nazi was a legal party that was elected to remove the problem, much like Trump was elected to end the problem of the immigrants and the POC. And legally, Hitler got his people to vote for him to have more and more power, until he could rule the world, on the basis that he'd do it to rid them of the Jews. Only that then he didn't stop with the Jews. He went after "traitors", after gypsies, after LGBT, after POC, and so on. And they took or burned art and books along the way.

So now think again of who's supporting Hitler-like conducts. I'm not supporting anyone who's telling me not to listen to opposing opinions, who's telling me to spread a message of threats, harassment and sexual insults, nor who's telling me to burn books, culture, and cancel, silence, erase, eliminate anyone who has an opinion other than mine. You are. And that's what's Hitler-like. That's what's fucking dangerous, and a threat to freedom of speech, to democracy.

Going back to the bloody videogame. You know why they call it anti-Semitic or blood libel? first was with the goblins. Now that speech seems to have died down because we're pointing out that seeing goblins as Jews is more Nazi-like, than non-Nazi. That they're simply folklore. So now they shut up about that. Now they tell you that the Avalanche developers (that's the company behind Hogwarts Legacy) are anti-Semites. That's based on the fact that an alt-right, Troy Leavitt, was the lead designer of Hogwarts Legacy. Well, you've been pleased to know he's lost his job now, and also, that Avalanche is full of normal people just like us, and that the alt-right was a minority. This guy, perhaps one or two more we're yet to know about, which, given the amount of alt-right worldwide, it's safe to say that every big company has at least a small amount of alt-right employees or even bosses.

But it takes thousands of people to make a videogame as big as Hogwarts Legacy, and just because two or three are alt-right, it doesn't make the game anti-Semitic. We're taking the game from them. We're making it ours. And personally, I've been playing for a few days now, and there's nothing even remotely far-right or anti-Semitic. Any war game I've ever played is far more anti-Semitic and racist and sexist than this one will ever be.

And in any case, before you go like dumb sheep simply believing what people say, I encourage you to make your own informed opinions. Don't be lazy. Empty your brain from judgement and make your own research. Be like scientists. But believing whatever BS you hear from people who've never played the game about said game, from people who've never read Potter about Potter, and so on... That is such a stupid thing to do. Such a brainwashing. You don't believe someone can cure you if they don't show you a CV and reputation as great doctors, so why do you believe a word from people who haven't even researched the thing they criticise, on their own, not through other's comments and ideas?

But hold on! Don't just take my word for it. Don't just believe me. Please, do research. It's time-consuming, but you're going to want to read the news, who are TRAs, their links to the alt-right, Rowling's actual tweets, who Troy Leavitt is, what Avalanche Software is, and you're going to want to read the news about female violence, legal changes, and detransitioners, and a horrible thing called transmaxxing, which will really open your eyes. I won't tell you to burn books. I'll tell you to open books, newspapers, everything... And get really informed. Knowledge is power.

24 notes · View notes

southernmermaidsgrotto · 1 year

Note

Hi! I read your blog post about the term bruja and I wanted to ask a question. I am Nicaraguan of heritage (my abuela is from Nicaragua and still believes a lot of the folklore etc which she has taught me). But I also have heritage from Scandinavia, Spain, and Ireland. I was wondering if I should or should not call myself a bruja (because according to your post my practice fits that definition), but I’m worried people will think I’d be appropriating because I am a light skinned Latina (I look latina but my skin is pale is what I mean), and because I’m not purely of 100% Nicaraguan heritage. So what are your thoughts on me using the term bruja in regards to myself?

Hello there!

First of all, latines come in all shades, there's no way to "look latina" that isn't fetishizing. Your ethnicity is between you and your family+ancestors and random people don't get to tell you who you are. I don't think anyone can be "100% nicaraguan" in this day and age either, maybe you should read a little more about colonial and neocolonial ideas of blood quantum, mestizaje, and how those ideas of being "100%" something actually come from colonizers & are a weapon used to separate people of color and take away our rights. For centuries, and even today, indigenous people are subject to tests to see if they're "indigenous enough" and saying they're "not 100%" is the colonizer's excuse to reject & deny our human rights and our rights to ancestral land. Being latine is not just about nationalities and percentages of anything, it's about the history of your people and the culture you were raised in.

Second, I think this is a very similar situation to the ask I just reblogged. Even if you're a hereditary practitioner of some sort, is your practice latine or is it just remnants of european practices brought over by colonizers or european immigrants? Because if it's the latter, it's not "brujería" in the latine magic sense of the word, it's hereditary witchcraft or hereditary folk magic. So, is your magic tied to the history of your latin american country? to the oppression of indigenous, black, POC in latam? You should research your personal family history to learn as much as you can about all this. Also, do you claim your identity or are you just trying to bypass boundaries by saying "I'm technically latina"? are you actively and loudly supporting latine/latinx people of color? do you support black latines, indigenous rights over land? or do you stay silent, hide it and deny it every time?

To me, people who don't claim being indigenous, afrolatine, brown or latine and don't have a connection to -& understand- the history of oppression from imperialist countries like Spain, England, France & even modern US imperialism, who stay silent and use lightskin or white presenting priviledges to stay out of discussions of race & ethnicity, those are the ones who don't get to claim brujería. Because our brujería is born of resistance against that oppresion.

If you're not that kind of person, then you're good to go, bottom line what I want you to understand is that brujería is rooted in that cultural & historical context and cannot be divorced from it.

I understand where you’re coming from and I hope my answer doesn’t come off as rude! But it’s very important that we approach all this with a decolonizing perspective, and always challenging and gettind rid of these colonial ideas of who “looks latine” or “is 100% latine” etc.

Hope that answers your question!

#brujería #bruja #bruja latina #brujas of tumblr #witches of color

13 notes · View notes

casual-eumetazoa · 1 year

Text

changing my reading goal criteria from “books finished” to “books read to 20-25%” made me a much more adventurous reader, made me read more, and helped me understand what it is that I like the most in books. great decision, 10/10 would recommend DNFing if you constantly get stuck in reading slumps

so now i can say that, as of 2023, these are my reading preferences:

first and foremost - prose-forward, character driven, in any genre; i’ve realized that 9 times out of 10, if the book doesn’t have a distinct voice and complex language, i lose interest in it fast

in terms of genre - sci-fi, literary, horror, fantasy, in that order; 90% of what i read is either sci-fi or literary, or in between those two. i finish maybe 1 fantasy book a year, and most of the time it’s very light on the magical aspect (e.g. “Babel”). on the opposite side of that spectrum, i prefer sci-fi as heavily speculative as it gets, though not necessarily hard sci-fi/plausible stuff - i like it strange and far-away from our world, but with a clear science/technology “aesthetic” for lack of a better word

worldbuilding that is given to me like a puzzle - i have very low tolerance for direct infodumps unless it is written in a witty way or fits into an omnicient narrator structure (e.g. hithchikers guide has plenty of infodumps but they are also hilarious); i like to be thrown into the story and be confused about the world and have to assemle my understanding of it from scattered pieces

i need books to have clear themes, preferably philosophical or societal or existential - this is often the main criteria i use for deciding what book to read, and this is what i think when someone asks me what a book is about (e.g. “Leech” for me is about identity and utilitarian ethics and the importance of culture for our sense of self, the plot is less relevant)

i love everything experimental, in every aspect (style, narrative structure, world, etc) - the weirder the book, the more likely i am to stick with it

i am extremely picky about the voice and i never end up buying 95% of the books that sounded very appealing based on the blurb purely because i didn’t vibe with the style of writing

i cannot read anything that isn’t adult category with adult protagonists, which i suspect is mostly because of my own childhood trauma (i really have tried but i can’t get past the first 5% of any YA book,,,)

i vastly prefer books written from a marginalized (poc, queer, disabled, ND, etc) perspective

and finally, i am very much a mood reader and will sometimes drop books (temporarily or permanently) purely because i went out of the mood for the genre or the themes and it’s just not fun to read anymore

realizing all this makes me feel kinda bad because a) i feel like these are not typical reader preferences, especially e.g. being very into prose-forward books as someone who reads a ton of speculative fiction, or reading only in the adult category and b) because of how many great books i just cannot enjoy purely due to them being YA or not having a style i vibe with

i guess by extension this probably means my own books will never have a mainstream appeal... oh well, “fiction writer” is not a feasible full time job anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#writeblr #bookblr #random

4 notes · View notes

mariproducer · 2 years

Text

I haven't watched this show (yet) but I've never felt so ecstatic seeing my culture being represented in western media in my entire life. While I didn't have the experience of meeting my grandparents, a lot of the things in this scene are just absolutely relatable and are things I saw in my childhood and was raised with: relatives teasing me and doing the bless (and being pressured into it lest you come off as disrespectful LOL). I really like how the girl(? Sorry i havent watched this show so idk their name) mentions "not understanding" some things, because that's the reality for a lot of the children of Filipino immigrants (there's a huge difference btwn those raised exclusively outside of the Philippines and those who moved outside of the country after a few years in the PH). And the cherry on top was the decision to specifically portray Visayan!! Filipinos can have very different backgrounds depending on which region you or your family comes from.

Honestly, clips like this is why representation is important, especially in kids shows. I mean, I'm an adult and this clip alone is absolutely bringing me to tears because it just feels so personal and understandable. Allowing POC kids to see their experiences reflected back on the screen makes them feel seen, feel heard, feel acknowledged.

But representation isn't just citing or visually having a character as this race or have this gender identity. It's how this representation is executed that makes it stick. This clip is good because not only do we establish that the character is Visayan, but we see how being Visayan affects their daily life and their relationships. It's in the little things like how the character in glasses introduces Craig to the idea of the bless and helping him perform it. It's just great 🥹

#craig of the creek #not mlb #r(en)bles #SORRY I JUST. wanted to say this somewhere i always latched on to any sort of filipino rep whether big or small #but thjs clip is absolutely amazing ive never felt so happy seeing filipino-isms portrayed in western media

13 notes · View notes

beautifulpersonpeach · 2 years

Note

Hello BPP! I hope you’re doing great :) I used to follow your old blog and was sad when you deactivated so when I found out that you were back, I was so happy!

Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you have any opinions on the common discourse of white people trying to become k-pop idols. I’m not much of a k-pop stan but I am of asian descent so seeing fellow asians rising through the world stage as k-pop idols makes me happy for the representation.

A lot of stans say that white people are encroaching into asian spaces - k-pop is still just one of the few ways asians CAN take vs trying to get there through the USA or UK or any of the western countries - and taking away chances from asians because white people traditionally have it easier if they want to establish a music career compared to POCs. They have fewer barriers of entry so them trying their luck in SK is seen as greedy.

In a way, I can see their point but I also don’t want to gatekeep, you know? I guess I want to be more inclusive and that way of thinking is kind of racist or at least discriminatory? I’m aware that a homogeneous country like SK and Japan can be racist too and can make foreigners very othered so the chances of them blowing up the same way as native koreans is slim… I don’t know, I haven’t reached my own conclusions yet so I was hoping to hear your perspective.

Thank you!

(Thanks for the kind words anon 💜)

Oh goodness,

Anon, this topic is one of the discourse topics that can get me heated. Even my casual manner of speaking is typically a bit caustic so I'm going to try to keep it together in this post. And the best way to do that is to try to make this short.

"In a way, I can see their point but I also don’t want to gatekeep, you know?"

I (EYE) want to gatekeep. I want to gatekeep everything. Needless to say, I think most white people are perfectly capable of respecting whatever culture they take interest in, and many will be phenomenal idols. I might come to love a few. But if I was convinced that K-pop and Korean artists will also be elevated, respected, and accepted as true equals to their white counterparts in America and the West, I'd be all for this. But it would be stupid to expect equitable treatment even though Asian representation is so needed. Real and equitable Asian representation is terribly needed, and just when it's starting to really happen partly thanks to BTS, non-Asian artists want in. White/American artists are already played everywhere in South Korea. Random people on the street know what Billie Eilish did on TikTok last week. But if you ask Jennifer from Kansas if she knows who Yuqi from (G)I-dle is, I hope she'd say yes, but it's more likely she says no. If White entrants into the genre increase rapidly, Korean artists will benefit as well, but the benefits won't be split equitably imo.

An influx of white entrants would also facilitate some exchange of culture as well, which is a great thing, but...

There's so many ways I can go about saying this, but the bottomline is, roots are important. K-pop is distinctly Korean and should mostly remain that way. By this I don't mean all the members have to be Korean, I mean the group has to remain Korean. We have Korean groups with members of all nationalities and races, but the group's identity remains Korean - the language and culture is infused somewhere in the group. I'm not talking about J-pop or C-pop or whatever, I'm talking about K-pop. And let's be real, it's easier to have this arrangement with POCs than not, because we can’t ignore a history of imperialist/colonizing impulses in white cultures, and the impacts those attitudes have had on other cultures. It's not just possible but likely that whatever is Korean about K-pop will be appropriated and whitewashed, and I struggle to see how respect will be given to the history and culture behind the genre.

But,

Ironically, and maybe because of my background, this is exactly how I feel about k-pop, but with regards to Black culture. This time the k-pop industry is the offending party, because k-pop also borrows heavily from Black culture and even in the big year of 2022, refuses to sufficiently credit and elevate the Black artists they too often, blatantly rip off. And this one thing I will always give props to BTS for.. Because these guys do their homework. They put in the work and pay up. It's respect and cash, from Bangtan to every single Black artist they've referenced (because let's be real, money talks and you should put your money where your mouth is). We need to talk more about the sort (and lack) of homage paid to Black culture, Black artists and activists by the K-pop industry.

More exposure and collaboration with other nationalities/races is almost always ultimately a good thing. Homogenous societies like Korea are somewhat unprogressive in their politics and racist in their attitudes, and mingling with more liberal ideas could be a good thing for the industry. There's a lot of room for growth in K-pop.

I think it's inevitable we get more white participants into K-pop. It's also possible that rather than white entrants into K-pop in Korea, what we end up seeing is something more of a hybrid of "K-pop" with more Western ideas of a boy/girl band. So something a bit like FLO, but a group with more of a K-pop structure.

Music entertainment is going to evolve in interesting ways this decade. And I hope to be here for all of it. I hope the same for you too anon.

#music asks #k pop music #kpop #cultural appropriation #kpop industry #music industry

3 notes · View notes