#because it isn’t like white european americans. is this. is this making sense. i think im going in circles

[qqueenofhades]

Hoping you can explain this because you’re smart but why in the world are the same people who scream about a labor shortage worried about the border and immigration? Isn’t more people coming to our country a good thing if we train them properly to fill vacant positions (a lot of which are service jobs anyway)?

Alas, you are forgetting what is quite possibly the chief shibboleth of Western white supremacy/far-right nationalism: that all people from other countries, especially *gasp* the brown ones, are invaders, murderers, job-stealers, polluters of the (white) body politic, etc, and that under no circumstances should they be invited or allowed to stay. This isn't just an American thing; witness the Tories in the UK salivating over the idea of torturing migrants, trying to shut down any legal migration routes even with the employment black hole caused by Brexit, steadfastly denying that their workforce problems have anything to do with Brexit, steadfastly denying that they need to loosen immigration rules, etc. This is also the case with the European right/far right, the Australian far right, and anywhere else in the world that has historically been built on systems of white colonization, white supremacy, and other racial and legal scaffolds of privilege and exclusion. The white people who come to a country and settle it are bringing "civilization" and therefore should be welcomed and encouraged, but the non-white people who already lived there are "savages" and need to be exterminated for the good of the "master race." If they try to come back to the (white) nation state after their homelands were colonized, moreover, they are "invaders" who just want to "soak up the money of hard-working citizens" and etc etc.

The core fascist hatred of immigrants is also why Trump is directly echoing Hitler's anti-immigrant rhetoric with his "poisoning the blood of America" screeds, his promise to round up and deport migrants en masse, and otherwise be as massive of a dick as possible. The fact that there's no economic benefit and indeed a lot of economic pain is entirely beside the point. Trump and his deranged followers like the cruelty and the idea of torturing brown people for daring to come to "their" (white) America, and think that if they can be outrageously monstrous enough, this will finally deter all the other ones from coming. It won't, and no globalized economy will run without immigrants, but again, this isn't the point. Reality or pragmatic calculations have nothing to do with it. It's only about what can cause the maximum amount of cruelty and chaos to everyone who doesn't wholeheartedly worship and fit the (white) fascist model. That's why the Republicans yelled about wanting a border bill before they'd fund Ukraine; the Democrats obligingly gave them one with some of the toughest restrictions in years, and the Republicans yelled and threw it away because Dear Leader Trump told them to trash it. In some sense this is a good thing, because it meant that Ukraine got funded without being beholden to performative partisan cruelty at the border, but it also shows that they don't actually care about any of this. They have bluntly stated in so many words that they want a manufactured crisis at the border so Trump will have it as a campaign issue. Then he can take office and implement all his terrible concentration camps and all the other genocidal fascist bullshit of Project 2025 (bUt bIdEn iZ thE wOrsE oPtiOn!!!!!)

So: yeah. There's no point looking for any actual consistency or logic in the modern far right, because that is so far from the actual aim. No matter if migrants are essential, no matter if Americans literally won't take many of the jobs they do, etc. I live in a big city that has had a ton of migrants coming here and have read many, many news articles about how all they want to do is get a work permit, make their own money, learn English, and integrate into American culture; they are often far more positive about the prospects of America than actual Americans. But because the entire project of a (white) fascist ethnostate as advocated by Trump and co. in America, the Tories/Reform in the UK, and the far-right European parties, Russia, and other places (this is all connected worldwide -- again, it's not limited to one country or region), rests on demonizing (brown) immigrants as subhuman scroungers who come to rape, murder, steal jobs, and otherwise threaten (white) law-abiding citizens, that will always win out above every single other consideration.

[writingwithcolor]

Representing Biracial Black South American Experiences…Through a White/Asian Mixed Race Character in Europe

@colombinna asked:

I have a YA story that's in very early development - pre-alpha, if you will. For now what I have developed is the characters: one of the MCs is a biracial asian queer girl (her dad is thai-american and japanese, her mom's white), she has a medium/dark brown skin, and lives in a very white context in a fictional European country. The contact she has with her extended family is limited to phone calls and regular visits because her dad moved from the US to said fictional European country.

I'm a biracial black queer girl myself, living in a very white community in South America, my extended black family also lives in a different place, and I'm taking a lot of my experiences of being not white and queer whilst living in white communities into her story (the feeling of not belonging, the impostor syndrome, standing out as one of the only POC kids in class, etc) and thinking back to what I've heard asian friends and classmates say about their experiences in the same school/community context as mine. But I want to know how different her experiences as a dark-skinned asian girl would differ from mine and my friends' in a similar context (white community, small number of other asian people - and POC in general - in the social circles, and limited contact to her extended family), and what experiences could make sense if the character was biracial black like myself, but won't if she's biracial asian.

Why not write a biracial Black girl if those are the experiences you want to represent? 

This MC is straddling, like, 3 different cultures. Having multiple immigrant identities in not-Europe is not the same experience as being Black in South America; while both are complex minority experiences, there are too many differences in intersections and histories to compare. Not to mention, it really depends on what European culture(s) you’re basing your not-Europe on. 

I think you’ll find that the written result will ring much more genuine and rich in depth if you either translate your experiences more directly or pick a more narrow focus, instead of assuming that there is a universal for racism and colorism against biracial people that is transferable across contexts. Because there isn’t. There can be overlaps, but if you’re looking to cover the entire range of What It’s Like in general, it won’t work.

This isn’t to say that people can’t use other identities to write about specific experiences of their own, but in this case you need to think about what story you want to tell and what your reasons are. Marika’s commentary will go more into when and how this can be done effectively. 

Also, if the point is to make her a dark-skinned Asian, as a white/asian mix myself, I implore you: why must you make her 1/4 Japanese and 1/2 white? Even with the Thai ethnicity thrown in, Thai people very much range in skin tone and have their own domestic issues with colorism. It’s not impossible for dark-skinned examples of your MC’s ethnic makeup to exist, but still I don’t recommend it for two reasons: 

It's going to make researching people whose experiences fit that much more difficult. Most experiences of colorism, othering, and other forms of discrimination that mixed white asians tend to face are completely different from mixed race asians who tend to have darker skin & features.

There's enough Japanese & white mixed Japanese rep in the Asian rep sphere as is. Consider that this individual could be mixed Asian (not Japanese) with something else (not white)! 

But again, think over your motivations. I’ll spare you the copy/paste of our Motivations PSA, but re-read it and consider. Why do you wish to write a mixed Asian character to tell the story of your experiences as a mixed Black individual instead of a mixed Black character? What does it add to the story? Is it an effective vessel for the experiences you want to convey? 

~ Rina

I think Rina brings up some good points here: I’m not hearing a lot of specificity in your query. As you doubtless know firsthand, the more intersectional and complex an identity, the more of a chance the identity may come with unexpected baggage and nuances that fly in the face of what is common sense for less intersectional identities. This can make writing such characters challenging just because there is so much choice on which identity themes to emphasize. 

I once spent about 15 minutes explaining to a person the thought process I used to determine when I could wear jeans depending on which country I was living in as a mixed race person who is perceived as different things in different places. It might seem trivial, but it’s actually very important to me for the purposes of identity, safety and gender presentation, so I personally think it’s interesting. But will my readers think a character’s multi-page internal monologue on whether or not to wear jeans is especially compelling? Does the writer-version of me want to research the version of myself musing on my specific jeans conundrum to that extent? Or do I want to talk about other things related to attire a lot of other people would relate to? I think those are all YMMV questions, but hopefully, they provide some perspective that will help you be intentional about how you might want to tackle something potentially very time-consuming.

When I say intentional, I mean that when covering a complex identity with which you are peripherally familiar, it will always be more effective and easier to use it to tell a specific story extremely clearly than to be extremely broad in scope and try to include almost everything about your own experiences, especially because some of those experiences might not be as relevant for your character’s background as they are to yours.      

One of my favorite childhood picture books is written and illustrated by a Nikkei writer-illustrator team. The book is titled Ashok by Any Other Name (link). The story features a desi child growing up in the US who wishes he had an American name his friends and teachers wouldn’t think was strange. It covers how being othered for his name makes him feel, and how he copes with that feeling. Speaking as someone both Japanese and desi, I think through the plot device of names perceived by the majority of Americans as foreign, this book aptly shows how many immigrant/diaspora creators are capable of relating to the pressures of assimilation experienced by other immigrant, even if the creator, the audience and the story’s subject’s backgrounds all don’t completely overlap 100%. 

There will be aspects of your Blackness, mixed identity, skin color, sexuality and living in a local community lacking diversity as a member of many minority groups that you will find resemble/ resonate with the experiences of mixed-race, Japanese individual in a Europe-themed setting, and I think any story that leans into those themes will be considerably easier for you to research. In other words, instead of asking us “How does my experience differ?” I would approach this issue by deciding what narrative you want to show about your own experience and then research the specific contexts within which your desired story overlaps with elements of mixed-race Japanese experiences. 

- Marika.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 30, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 01, 2024

This morning, Time magazine published a cover story by Eric Cortellessa about what Trump is planning for a second term. Based on two interviews with Trump and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisors, the story lays out Trump’s conviction that he was “too nice” in his first term and that he would not make such a mistake again. 

Cortellessa writes that Trump intends to establish “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.” 

He plans to use the military to round up, put in camps, and deport more than 11 million people. He is willing to permit Republican-dominated states to monitor pregnancies and prosecute people who violate abortion bans. He will shape the laws by refusing to release funds appropriated by Congress (as he did in 2019 to try to get Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to smear Hunter Biden). He would like to bring the Department of Justice under his own control, pardoning those convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and ending the U.S. system of an independent judiciary. In a second Trump presidency, the U.S. might not come to the aid of a European or Asian ally that Trump thinks isn’t paying enough for its own defense. Trump would, Cortelessa wrote, “gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.”

To that list, former political director of the AFL-CIO Michael Podhorzer added on social media that if Trump wins, “he could replace [Supreme Court justices Clarence] Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and 40+ federal judges over 75 with young zealots.” 

“I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles?” Cortellessa wrote. No, Trump said. “‘I think a lot of people like it.” 

Time included the full transcripts and a piece fact-checking Trump’s assertions. The transcripts reflect the former president’s scattershot language that makes little logical sense but conveys impressions by repeating key phrases and advancing a narrative of grievance. The fact-checking reveals that narrative is based largely on fantasy. 

Trump’s own words prove the truth of what careful observers have been saying about his plans based on their examination of MAGA Republicans’ speeches, interviews, Project 2025, and so on, often to find themselves accused of a liberal bias that makes them exaggerate the dangers of a second Trump presidency. 

The idea that truthful reporting based on verifiable evidence is a plot by “liberal media” to undermine conservative values had its start in 1951, when William F. Buckley Jr., fresh out of Yale, published God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom.” Fervently opposed to the bipartisan liberal consensus that the federal government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, protect civil rights, and promote infrastructure, Buckley was incensed that voters continued to support such a system. He rejected the “superstition” that fact-based public debate would enable people to choose the best option from a wide range of ideas—a tradition based in the Enlightenment—because such debate had encouraged voters to choose the liberal consensus, which he considered socialism. Instead, he called for universities to exclude “bad” ideas like the Keynesian economics on which the liberal consensus was based, and instead promote Christianity and free enterprise.

Buckley soon began to publish his own magazine, the National Review, in which he promised to tell the “violated businessman’s side of the story,” but it was a confidential memorandum written in 1971 by lawyer Lewis M. Powell Jr. for a friend who chaired the education committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that insisted the media had a liberal bias that must be balanced with a business perspective. 

Warning that “the American economic system is under broad attack,” Powell worried not about “the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system.” They were, he wrote, a small minority. What he worried about were those coming from “perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.” 

Businessmen must “confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management,” he wrote, launching a unified effort to defend American enterprise. Among the many plans Powell suggested for defending corporate America was keeping the media “under constant surveillance” to complain about “criticism of the enterprise system” and demand equal time. 

President Richard Nixon appointed Powell to the Supreme Court, and when Nixon was forced to resign for his participation in the scheme to cover up the attempt to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel before the 1972 election, he claimed he had to leave not because he had committed a crime, but because the “liberal” media had made it impossible for him to do his job. Six years later, Ronald Reagan, who was an early supporter of Buckley’s National Review, claimed the “liberal media” was biased against him when reporters accurately called out his exaggerations and misinformation during his 1980 campaign. 

In 1987, Reagan’s appointees to the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine that required media with a public license to present information honestly and fairly. Within a year, talk radio had gone national, with hosts like Rush Limbaugh electrifying listeners with his attacks on “liberals” and his warning that they were forcing “socialism” on the United States. 

By 1996, when Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch started the Fox News Channel (FNC), followers had come to believe that the news that came from a mainstream reporter was likely left-wing propaganda. FNC promised to restore fairness and balance to American political news. At the same time, the complaints of increasingly radicalized Republicans about the “liberal media” pushed mainstream media to wander from fact-based reality to give more and more time to the right-wing narrative. By 2018, “bothsidesing” had entered our vocabulary to mean “the media or public figures giving credence to the other side of a cause, action, or idea to seem fair or only for the sake of argument when the credibility of that side may be unmerited.”

In 2023, FNC had to pay almost $800 million to settle defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems after FNC hosts pushed the lie that Dominion machines had changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and it has since tried to retreat from the more egregious parts of its false narrative. 

News broke yesterday that Hunter Biden’s lawyer had threatened to sue FNC for “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” Today, FNC quietly took down from its streaming service its six-part “mock trial” of Hunter Biden, as well as a video promoting the series. 

Also today, Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s criminal trial for election fraud, found Trump in contempt of court for attacking witnesses and jurors. Merchan also fined Trump $1,000 per offense, required him to take down the nine social media posts at the heart of the decision, and warned him that future violations could bring jail time. This afternoon, Trump’s team deleted the social media posts. 

For the first time in history, a former U.S. president has been found in contempt of court. We know who he is, and today, Trump himself validated the truth of what observers who deal in facts have been saying about what a second Trump term would mean for the United States.

Reacting to the Time magazine piece, James Singer, the spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign, released a statement saying: “Not since the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today—because of Donald Trump. Trump is willing to throw away the very idea of America to put himself in power…. Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to democracy.” 

Tomorrow, May 1, is “Law Day,” established in 1958 by Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower as a national recognition of the importance of the rule of law. In proclaiming the holiday today, Biden said: “America can and should be a Nation that defends democracy, protects our rights and freedoms, and pioneers a future of possibilities for all Americans. History and common sense show us that this can only come to pass in a democracy, and we must be its keepers.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[shivology]

ok so re: logan and racism (and marcia) because i’ve been having Thoughts TM rotating in my mind for a day or two but like. logan, obviously, is a very racist individual, but i think mostly in the sense that he perpetuates and weaponizes racism rather than actively, like, unironically having said bigoted beliefs (for the most part of course lmao)

in the sense that, like, he does not believe that, say, white people are inherently superior, and he knows and acknowledges that they have a leg up in the world because he’s many things but he’s not stupid. but to him, that’s not a bad thing. it’s not a good thing either. it’s just .. a Thing. it’s the way the world works. (same with misogyny and other forms of oppression. “i didn’t make the world,” he says to shiv after saying her being a woman was a minus.) 

he’s got a, like, might makes right natural selection type proto-fascistic sense of morality that prioritizes power and strength above all else.  rather than condemning systemic bigotry that he is very very very aware is real and exists, it’s like -- it is what it is. the world isn’t fair, tough luck. he’s aware that spreading racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, etc is profitable for him and therefore he will do it and he won’t feel bad because he didn’t create the world and it’s not his fault that that’s the way things are. racism and bigotry are tools and he won’t hesitate to use them if it’ll serve his interests. it’s all part of the game.

like he’s one of those people who would look at african and asian countries who have had their resources fucked to hell by colonialism and capitalism and imperialism and white supremacy, like iraq, egypt, iran, ethiopia, etc, and he wouldn’t try to downplay how much they contributed to humanity or whitewash them the way your run-of-the-mill old racist man would, but he’d also have no sympathy for their current suffering. he’d think well it’s their fault they let themselves get lazy and soft. that’s what you get. he wouldn’t downplay the crimes europeans have committed against native americans but he’d say that “they were conquered” and that’s the way the world works. oops sorry tough luck you lost. 

which brings me to: he respects people of color who, to him, “rise above” racism -- like marcia. because to him, human rights aren’t inalienable. you have to claw your way through the world to be respected and perceived as a human being but if you DO manage to do that -- then you’re one of the good ones. you deserve respect. (romanticizing suffering like a good old catholic lol) i think he feels like him and marcia are similar in the sense that they both rose above hardship -- in the sense that they’re both immigrants (obviously with VERY different experiences) who made something of themselves.

so he respects marcia in a way he doesn’t respect anyone else in the show, in a way. he doesn’t respect his kids or the pierces because they were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and he doesn’t respect poor people either because he grew up poor too and he still made something of himself so fuck that everything’s an excuse. he’s like the poster-child of someone who has personally experienced injustice (being abused as a child, living in poverty, etc) and rather than not wanting anyone else to experience these things, you’d rather everyone else did because that’s only fair. like why do YOU get to have a safe space when I didn’t? no fuck that

so like i think if one of the kids were to say something bigoted or micro-aggressive to marcia in his presence he’d be quick to be like, okay, well what do YOU do successfully. quickly. however. he wouldn’t of course actively make the environment they live in safe for her, and he WILL actively promote racism against her people because that’s what works for him, just like he didn’t take measures to keep his kids safe from the people he associates himself with.

[wordsmithic]

Hi, your post about misuse of Greek mythology was very interesting. I was wondering what exactly is considered a problem in depictions of the Gods. The lack of Greek cultural clothing for sure, and that makes sense, and the tendency to misunderstand their symbols and attributes, I think I’ve seen most people agree on that. But I see different opinions on skin color and I’m not Greek so I don’t know what to think. Is it disrespectful to draw non-white Greek Gods and maybe more specifically black Greek Gods? Some people say it is, others say it isn’t since some of the Gods came from different cultures, and everyone thinks that those who disagree with them are racist so it’s hard to know what is or isn’t acceptable

Hi! Thank you, it's nice to see interactions with this post and people wanting to know more!

While Greeks consider themselves White, other countries like the US don't perceive them as White due to different histories in their social issues. Actually... Greeks are suddenly White when people want to blame us for something that colonizer European nations did (or their own White - usually WASP - people do), but we are non-White when they see our appearance, our names, when they see our dances, our food, our customs, etc. Meaning, when they see what Greek culture and people really are, outside of their fantasy.

We are extremely close culturally and racially with Middle Eastern and North African nations. Western media and education won't tell you that because the thought always made Western powers uncomfortable and ruined their white supremacist ancient Greece fantasy. And yes, how we are perceived affects our interactions and our employability as studies have shown. So, in this context, the Greek gods are already non-White.

(*Many ethnicities are legally White in North American countries but they're not afforded this privilege in reality, because of systemic racism. The Greeks gained "White" legal status in the US and the Anglosphere very recently, but other countries still have us in other non-White racial categories).

In light of this big disclaimer... I think this post has a pretty comprehensive explanation of the situation and expresses the thoughts of the majority of Greeks.

[padfootastic]

H E L L O jfp-eyes pen (thats your new name btw)

i know its a little late but my mind keep going back to it and i also talked about a similar issue w several other people on here since and i was wondering if you can/want elaborate on what you said about this:

"like, u want potters to be desi? it’s not just the cute clothes and good food and linguistic differences u need to keep in mind. there’s so much more where it comes from, including several practices that will be considered highly objectionable by this rigidly judgemental crowd."

((i am v v interested but no pressure to answer this, i totally get if you dont want to get into this discourse))

dani—you’re gonna pull me into the desi potters discourse one way or the other, eh?

so. i’m not sure how much sense this’ll make because it’s like…half-baked thoughts but my problem with this scenario actually stems from a more macro, general trend i’m noticing in fandom behaviour. for some reason, puritan culture & veiled conservatism is coming back in the guise of progressiveness? and that’s leading to a lack of critical thinking in these spaces & randomly attributing buzzwords to things out of context bc u don’t have more than a shallow understanding of it.

which means that that comment was directed at a very specific subset of fandom that decided that idk ignoring the Bad Things & Flaws would somehow make them cease to exist. let’s only take the most ‘exotic’, fun aspects even if it’s a completely one dimensional reading & run with it. they wouldn’t be able to tell u what desi is beyond the barebones.

so, you’ll have people vehemently arguing that the potters can’t be anything but desi and white james is gross and i’m just like—why. why are u, as a non-desi person, so attached to this headcanon that you’ll ridicule real people for it? and then their attitudes as well. the incest thing, for example. there are communities in india that marry their first cousins—if i write a story tomorrow where james marries his mother’s imaginary brother’s daughter, then depending on how i HC him, that’s perfectly culturally acceptable (and desirable). if i write a story where euphemia and fleamont use corporal punishment for him, and he takes it super lightly and jokes about it, that’s also fine. (which is a direct contrast to how the western black family & sirius’ abuse is treated). there’ a community in india where the man ‘drinks’ from his mother’s breast, publicly, at his wedding to symbolise the last time he’d be her son before he becomes someone’s husband. another where a new mother can’t feed her son until her sister-in-law washes her breast thoroughly. caste is something that’s not even touched upon. it’s so complicated. but how do u think it’ll be received by most of the desi potter crowd if i actually do write any of this? will i be praised for my ~representation or called out on twitter for being a freak?

and that’s really where i get annoyed. the attitudes most of this crowd hold does not have any space for cultural subjectivity, what is ok to them has to be universally ethical. there’s no way other cultures do things their way and if they do, it’s barbaric/backward/problematic etc etc. pseudo-colonial, like i said.

(disclaimer: i want it to be made very clear i’m not demanding people nclude this stuff in their fics. i’m well aware of how escapism works, being the premier advocate for it. im just saying it won’t hurt to be mindful of these facts, that this is a whole culture that’s ridiculously diverse that doesn’t just exist for the sake of people’s headcanons)

and this isn’t even going into the cultural nuances of how desi families work. you can’t bring in american/european individualism & have james move out at 18 & write everything transactionally & do everything the way u would for a white character but only pay lip service when saying they’re brown ykno? when u say they’re a certain identity, there’s so much that comes with that. and if u don’t include any of that, then it really just makes me wonder why u want a brown james—feels like ego appeasement and falling to peer pressure half the time tbh.

another important thing for me is that so much of this crowd intersects with the ‘fandom is activism’ crowd and i just. fundamentally disagree with those people. and find their words/actions incredibly performative. by which i mean, the way they treat real people—people from the communities they’re adopting as HCs for their beloved characters. there’s this…hypocrisy, yeah? what i mentioned above, about how if i wrote some culturally different practice, i’d probably be attacked. they don’t want desi potter, they want white-lite potters that is palatable to & tailored for their own constitution but in a form that they can pass of as ‘oh look, my characters r diverse which makes me Morally Good and i can use that to shit on others’.

i think my problem is just that i don’t like it when people use the identity headcanons to portray themselves as being inherently better because they have ~equal representation. fandom is not a government institution—lateral visibility & membership is not a prerequisite to wanting to write about x and y fucking or going on a date or hugging or having a conversation. making a marauder group where each character—functionally an OC—is from a different community (often w/o considering how intersectionality works) for the sake of saying ‘oh i have a x in my HCs’ does not make u some radical leftist, yeah? and i strongly dislike people who pretend it does.

[hellenic-reconstructionism]

[Image description: Anonymous asker asking: Wait, I'm confused. Would it be so bad to have one of the gods or goddesses be black or a little dark skinned? Aren't there black people in Greece? I'm not saying the whole pantheon needs to be black or is historically black, but still. I do get where you come from tho with how people think they can rewrite the myths to their liking as though it doesn't belong to a culture. alatismeni-theitsa responds: Short answer for this question, “please follow the ancient texts and depictions of the culture as the natives of the culture have done for millennia, because ancient deities from another culture aren’t your coloring book”.

Long answer: Dark-skinned in the Mediterranean sense, it’s fine, because that’s also in the ancient depictions and it reflects the appearance of the local people. But I sense you are seeing this matter as some type of “white supremacy” of some sort and that’s why you are focusing on the Black “race”. In reality, the iconography excludes even the most light-skinned Russian.

“Aren’t there black people in Greece?” Yes there are (even though very few compared to the country’s population. Greece is among the least diverse countries on the planet). But also consider: Aren’t Black people in China? Aren’t Black people in Mexico? Aren’t Black people in Mongolia? Aren’t East Asian people in Congo? Aren’t White (e.g. Slavic) people in the Arabian Peninsula? Do you think each country should change the depictions of their gods to suit the minorities in the country each century? Countries worldwide never did that. They keep the ancient depictions of their deities and the deities reflect the appearance of the local people.

Greek people also do that and have done so for millennia. The sudden decision for “diversity” after 2,000 years later came not from the Greeks who preserved the culture, but from the US Americans who started the trend so the Greek pantheon can reflect their own society. This shows a type of ownership by the US over the Greek pantheon.

Since these people have grown too familiar with Greek antiquity (a superficial image of it, mostly) they have adopted an imperialist stance towards our deities. If the Americans (people on the other side of the Atlantic) judge our pantheon as quote, too White, then that’s the global standard, all of a sudden.

This doesn’t happen with mythologies the US people (I would also put Northwest Europeans) are not interested in. For example, would you go to a Mongolian person and ask “sorry but why can’t we make your gods Black? Why can’t we make them look Cherokee? Why can’t we make them look Korean?”

Well, technically you can (and gods can transform), but I hope you can understand why you as one person and as an outsider changing Mongolian deities wouldn’t be the politest thing to do. Such changes aren’t for a few people outside a culture to decide. This isn’t for a few people inside the culture to decide. The shift must come from the culture itself in a way that reflects the opinions of the majority.

(A.K.A. not your one to two young Greek mutuals on Tumblr and TikTok, but even my yaya on the mountain and my theia on the shore should be okay with it. Also, most Greeks as of now feel very uncomfortable with the appearance changes in our gods. If you go on the streets and ask Greeks about the matter, the majority will say WTF my dude? Why would you even do that? And yes, that includes dark-skinned people.)

For many people on the Western side of the internet to extend the same courtesy of the Mongolians - in our hypothetical scenario - to Greeks is very difficult. The reason is they don’t see the Greek pantheon as our heritage. The Americans think they have broken free of the colonization mindset of the antiquity stealing Europeans but they are wrong. They still see the Greek pantheon as something theirs, with the younger often perceiving it as characters from a very cool fandom. (No, the Greek gods aren’t just cool deities I learned about in school for Americans and that’s it. There’s millions of Greeks who still consider them extremely important for our tradition, and part of our national identity). In some cases, US Americans feel they are the continuation of the quote unquote western civilization so the gods belong to them now and can change them as they see fit (or quote unquote appropriate). Meanwhile, they don’t know how the average Greek even looks/-ed like. Or whatever they know is mostly based on 40’s racist propaganda - that’s why they often tell Greeks they don’t, quote, look Greek. (see my tag Greek speaks) I don’t need to spell out how absurd the whole thing is. Take a look at my F.A.Q. in the section “What’s this “don’t change the depiction of the gods” all about?” There the mindset of the most privileged nations for the Greek pantheon is best described and it covers different scenarios and also Greek history. It’s long but a serious disentanglement must be done because this is deep-rooted imperialist thought that must be undone. There are also the tags race bending or/and racebending for more. /endID]"

Setting aside the fact that Greece is the West, I find it concerning when pagans who position themselves as resources reblog this racist person. Including sag-dab-sar, an Orientalist who joked about dropping nuclear bombs in a Japanese religious context.

[ishallbelife]

Scarcity: What Tipped Me Off {We Shall Remain + Oliver Enjady}

In roughly 2013, I watched something I’ll never forget. It was somewhere in the We Shall Remain documentary, part of PBS’s American Experience series.

But I’m 95% sure that the speaker was Oliver Enjady. In the film, he was listed as a Chiricahua Apache, but I’ve also seen him identified as Mescalero.

(Mr. Enjady, if this was not you, I sincerely apologize. You were quite memorable in We Shall Remain, and I also sincerely enjoy your paintings—and the song Lyla June Johnston wrote based on your words.)

Anyway, moving on, here’s a paraphrased version of what was said:

In a healthy village, before the Europeans came to colonize this continent, barring famine or disaster, all needs were met in indigenous villages, because everyone had different talents. If an individual had more skill in gathering food from the plants around them, they take what they needed and harvest what was appropriate; then they would share the bounty with others in the village. A talented hunter may kill more animals than he could personally consume, but he would share with those in the village who didn’t have enough, like a widow and her children.

Now, if a hunter were to come in and hold on to more than he needed, that didn’t make any sense. That food would go to waste. Therefore, it was considered a sickness among his people, and the rest of the village would look after him and try to treat his illness.

{In my memory, the video’s graphic was quite powerful, because the graphic showed the hunter literally on top of a hill made of all his food, which looked a bit like a painted hambone. I think the food even started to rot.}

Now, when the Europeans first came to this land, it was well known and understood among the people already living on this continent: not only did the white men HAVE this sickness, they were rife with it.

Here is the reason why this isn’t a direct quote: My Memory Doesn’t Match.

[jadagul]

Ok, so I was thinking of the very online discussion where some Italian or Irish person goes “ why do all these 3rd plus generation Americans keep calling themselves Italian or Irish or whatever, your not Italian or Irish , your all ethnically Americans, ethnicity isn’t ancestry it’s your culture and community ” , and like , besides the technical inaccuracy of being of European and not “ real” American descent ( mostly, their is a bit of inuit on my maternal grandmother’s side). There is this internal US secetarianism thing going on, where a the label “American” as an ethnic/cultural group has already been grabbed, by a culture and community very different from mine as a North eastern urbanite , and that I have weaker ancestral ties to then to Poland or French Canada , because this is the third largest country in both size and population so of-course its not culturally/ethnically homogeneous ( not that any country is, I just mean relative to most European countries ) . And the theoretical italian or Irish person I mentioned before, they are telling me, consciously or not, to self identify as one of /those people/ . Which I would much rather not do, ( and doesn’t make sense even on pure ancestral/genetic grounds) and I wonder whether other white american citizens that don’t identify as Americans, have a bit of resistance to being an unhyphenated-american in the same way for the same reasons.

Yeah, that all seems true.

But also it's long been true that Americans also associate with The Old Country, whichever Old Countr[y/ies] they happen to be connected to.

Like, when I was in middle school, my grandmother traveled "back" to France. My grandmother is not from France. Her parents are not from France. Their parents are not from France. My grandmother's ancestors immigrated from France when Louisiana was still part of France.

But she went "back" to France. To the area where her great-great-great ancestors had immigrated from, and went and met some people who were related to her family from France.

[uselessheretic]

The more I think about it the more I dislike interpretations that Izzy is forcing Ed to be violent and The Kraken coming out is Izzy fault entirely where he’s manipulating Ed to be this way because of masculine ideals. I think I said it before, but white men don’t want moc to be violent. When it comes to racial stereotypes, they’re utilized as a way to hold up specific structures of white supremacy. For Polynesia, and the Māori specifically, viewing them as “savages” who idolize violence and are a danger was used as a justification for their colonization. It was a tool leveraged against them to push for “civilizing” the native population, where the focus on their body came with two goals: 1. Justify colonialism by saying that the Māori were inherently violent and in need of English intervention and 2. Isolate their physical skill as a positive where they could then funnel Māori men into roles of manual labor.

When talking about roles of masculinity, Izzy isn’t an example of British masculinity to be revered. In Britain, class trumps masculinity where Izzy’s distinctively working class demeanor could never be held up as an ideal. This is different than in American (and New Zealand too actually!) where working class aesthetics are fetishized and appropriated. In England, however, the ideal was to be stoic. You had control over your emotions, you didn’t swear, you were refined. Izzy’s outbursts and tantrums would never be held up as ways to celebrate masculinity, they’d be looked down upon as uncultured.

It doesn’t make sense to interpret Izzy as weaponizing race to force Ed into a position of a violent moc. This stereotype isn’t one that serves white supremacy in that context. The Blackbeard we know, which is violent, wild, vicious and brilliant, is one that the British hate. It threatens their livelihood and pokes holes in their view of whiteness as absolute and impenetrable. You can’t view Izzy as aligning with colonialism while also saying that he is forcing Ed into this racial stereotype. Especially when historically, you’re looking at an incomplete and decontextualized caricature.

Like I said before, Māori men were stereotyped (and still are) of having their bodies and physical skills valued above all else. This came hand in hand with diminishing their intelligence and painting them as mentally deficient. There’s a specific history of European colonizers forcing Māori schools to remove academics from their program and to only teach agriculture and other manual skills like that. When the stereotype of the violent native exists, it’s one that has to be careful to not threaten the inherent supremacy of whiteness, which means it gets coupled with this idea of “purity” of the native as well. They’re violent and brutal, but that’s because they’re closer to “primitive” and are acting out on their basic instincts. Therefore, they need to be pushed into the proper career fields where their physical talents can be used productively. There’s a romanticization almost, of viewing this violence as child-like and in need of correction. Hence, the need to civilize them.

I just don’t think this context works with the way Izzy interacts with Edward. Izzy is never trying to control Edward or to position himself as above him. He values him for his intelligence and his brilliance. He never wants to captain Edward, and happily accepts a role of subordination to him. This is a position that doesn’t fit within white supremacy where whiteness can never be seen as second class to a poc. Even when valuing moc’s physical skill above white men’s, it’s done with a caveat that this proves white men’s superiority because that means they’re able to best moc based on intelligence alone.

So, we know that the masculinity Izzy presents isn’t the one that is idolize. That Edward having angry outbursts and violent tendencies isn’t working within the ideals of British masculinity. We know that Edward’s violence isn’t something white supremacy would encourage because that’s not how white supremacy functions. And we know that the way Izzy interacts with Ed is at complete odds to white supremacist viewpoints where whiteness can never be placed as subordinate to a poc.

But, if you want to see a place that this white supremacy does show up, you can look to the British navy as a much more cut and dry example of how Ed’s violence and physical ability is treated under colonization.

At no point in the show do we ever see the navy talk about Ed as someone who is intelligent. He’s the legendary Blackbeard, yes, but that isn’t said with admiration. When the navy jumps to accept Ed’s Act of Grace this is because it represents a symbol of English superiority where Blackbeard is able to be brought down and under control. In the same vein, we can see how this can also be used as a way where Edward can act as an example of the civilizing of an Indigenous man. When Edward shaves his beard, dresses in uniform, and conforms to the rules of the navy, he is for the first time exemplifying British masculinity. Ideals of stoicness, cleanliness, rule abiding, orderly. These are all things that make up British identity, not anger or out of control violence. Edward’s surrender is valuable because it signifies that the British goal of “civilizing” poc is working, and allows him to act as an example of that. This goes alongisde a history of Māori men being valued in white society exclusively for their ability in either war or sports, where there’s a precedence of Māori men in the army specifically as something to celebrate.

In a way, you can view Blackbeard the pirate and Edward, the king’s soldier, as playing out a fantasy of white supremacy where this dichotomy showcases the binary view of Māori men and their masculinity. Consider this film analysis of Crooked Earth as an exmple.

There’s a distinct polarization here, another reason why I’d strongly disagree with the assertion that Ed post-Act of Grace is living his truest, most happy self.

So, again, I just? Don’t vibe with the idea that Izzy is forcing Ed to act out a caricature of violence. I think there’s too much complexity Izzy affords to Ed for him to view Ed as a caricature, and that him valuing Ed’s intelligence is inherently at odds with the colonialist view of Māori men. More than that, I think taking away Ed’s agency and portraying him as someone who is being manipulated into violence against his will, plays into ideals of presenting Māori men as mentally deficient in comparison to white men. It continues a viewpoint that they’re simply misguided and acting out on their baser instincts. By presenting Ed as a puppet to Izzy, Ed loses his autonomy and becomes a weapon in the hands of white men. (and also opens up a LOT of questionable assumptions about what it means to then view Stede as a gateway for Ed to escape that life by presenting aristocracy as an alternative which imo would be a much more cut and dry example of how the British view moc as a project of civilizing) When in reality, Ed has purposefully crafted his image of Blackbeard as a way of utilizing his reputation in careful directed ways to elevate his pirating career.

Also, because I’m trying to encourage people to always check sources and look things up for themselves but am too lazy to do in text citations, if you want to read more about Māori masculinity, colonization, and violence here’s a few sources! [x] [x] [x] [x]

(just saying but even tho I am a poc, I am not Māori and I’m also in the process of learning more!)

[qqueenofhades]

Hey, wanted to say I love how you’ve written about slavery in your fic! Also, sorry if this is out of left field, but as you’re a historian wanted to ask how much do you know about slavery of other ethnic groups across europe. It’s a subject I’ve been passionate about but have no on really to talk to. I’m from romania, and the racism there against romani people is very widespread, and whenever I try to call to people’s attention that they shouldn’t be, idk, racist, it never gets taken seriously. A part of me feels like the fact that slavery in the region isn’t thought about in schools from an ethnic standpoint is also to blame. Roma (and tatars but to a lesser extent) were not the only slaves, with romanians being in that group as well, and slavery didn’t start with them, but a lot were enslaved because of their background. Even the fact that it’s not clear if romani people came to wallachia and moldova on their own or were brought there through slave trade is unclear is never mentioned, which makes my bloood boil. Sorry for the random ask, but again, it’s something that I can’t discuss seriously with anybody else, and wanted to see your opinion on it.

Welp, okay. This is the kind of ask that I want to think about and carefully source before I answer, because there is obviously so much possibility for inadvertent or deliberate misinterpretation, bad-faith reading, and all the other tedious idiot gymnastics that both Tumblr and the internet at large like to engage in. So here goes.

First off, unfortunately, slavery is one of the oldest institutions in the world, and has a long record of practice in ancient and medieval history, as well as its best-known manifestation in the transatlantic African slave trade from roughly 1619-1807, as well as its continued practice in the British Empire until 1833 and in America until 1865. (1619 is when the first shipload of slaves arrived in the American colonies, the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in Britain in 1807, the practice of slavery in the British Empire was phased out starting in 1833, and while Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it didn't have any kind of actual effect until after the end of the Civil War in 1865). That does not even include the profound damage done by both slavery itself and its after-effects, which are obviously prominent and persistent down to this very minute, and infect social attitudes, financial circumstances, generational inequality, and all the other poisonous and permanent consequences of systemic racism. So sometimes when people try to insist that White People Were Slaves Too!, it puts my hackles up. I absolutely 100% know that's not what you mean here, and you're very rightly pointing to how complicated the idea of "whiteness," race, and inequality is in a European context, as well as an American one. But in other cases, the "white people were slaves too!" argument is used as a straw man and deliberate deflection to argue that African-Americans don't have some kind of unique experience with slavery, or that their present circumstances and disadvantages aren't impacted by their past. Which, of course, is racist bullshit and straight-up deflectionary reactionism and doesn't make any sense, but still. That is their MO.

To turn, then, to the subject of slavery in Europe, among people who would now be identified or assigned as white, and in the premodern, pre-Triangle Trade period. For all the admiring press they've gotten in recent years as a supposedly "free" or more gender-egalitarian society, the medieval Scandinavians/Vikings were prolific slave traders (possibly a reason why the dudebros love them as a supposed model of White European Masculinity) and it was a fundamental part of their economy and their world. Concubinage (aka domestic/sexual slavery) and slavery were also closely connected in the Viking world, and the slave trade peaked in the British Isles (including Ireland) between the ninth and eleventh centuries. The people who were trafficked in this trade were usually Slavs (i.e. eastern and southern peoples from the frontiers of the continent of Europe), which is, after all, literally where the word comes from (Slav --> slave). There was a possible but unclear racial element to this belief that Slavs were the best slaves, and probably based more on religion (paganism vs. Christianity) than any explicit notions of racial superiority or inferiority. They were, at least in appearance, white people sold to other white people, and the idea of them being a "different race," while it existed, again wasn't really clear or defined.

In the context of medieval Bohemia (modern Czech Republic, Slovakia, and parts of Germany), it's hard to tell how exactly "free" and "unfree" laborers were distinguished, and how much slave markets drove the local economy, which is often the case elsewhere as well. In England there were even supposedly "free" and "unfree" knights until at least the Norman Conquest, recognizing the fact that knighthood alone wasn't the prestigious social standing it later became with the development of chivalry (and raises the question of whether there were essentially "slave knights.") The whole was-serfhood-essentially-slavery debate has likewise been raging for years: serfs didn't have legal "personhood" or recognition in the court system, weren't able to leave their land without their lords' permission, weren't financially compensated for their work, etc., but most historians agree that this isn't exactly slavery as we would now define it. It was certainly unpaid bondage of a sort, but there were still systems, rules, and expectations that governed the serf's life, some amount of implicit personhood even if not in the eyes of the law, and goods and services they were entitled to receive in return for their work. None of this existed in slavery.

The slave system in medieval and early modern Iberia (Spain and Portugal) was the essential basis for what was exported to Spanish colonies in the New World, in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America. So by the time both transatlantic voyages and colonial economies had expanded to such a scale that the widespread capture, transportation, and exploitation of Black Africans into bondage was practical, it was already building on a system that had existed for centuries, rather than innovating from scratch. This, I think, represents the key distinction: first, that of size, as the transatlantic trade was far larger in scale, scope, and duration than any of the localized and essentially informal slave markets of the Viking/medieval world. They did generally do it as a practice, but transatlantic trading made it a main pillar of the early modern world and the economies of the colonizing Western European countries, on a central and integral level. Next, this was when slavery began to become explicitly racialized, and a suite of theories were developed as to why black people were both inherently inferior to white people and therefore actually "benefiting" from slavery and were the natural candidates for it. I have written before about how while Irish and Scottish people were indentured laborers in the New World, their status did not equate to slavery, and they were still recognized as essentially human (if of a lesser standard than the "supreme" Englishman). They were also increasingly phased out as the Black African slave trade became the preferred option both economically and racially.

In the specific context of the Romani: as you say, it's true that at this time and through much of the late medieval/early modern period, they were automatically enslaved, and this status persisted beyond that of other comparable groups, affecting perceptions of and racism to them down to the present day. Shannon Woodcock summarizes:

Romani individuals in Romania exist in historical sources as the property of boiers (landowners), state administrators and the clergy, where they are called “Ţigani.” The first archival evidence of Roma in the Romanian principality of Wallachia is the record of 40 sălaşe (families) given to Voivod Dan I in 1385 from Vladislav I, a Serbian landowner. Until 1699 (when Transylvania came under the administration of the Hapsburg empire), all Roma who entered the Romanian principalities of Transylvania, Wallachia or Moldova were captured and made slaves of the state; and after 1699 this practice continued in Wallachia and Moldova and was modified somewhat in Transylvania. The state could retain slaves for their own use, or sell them to boiers or monasteries. Slaves were called sclavi, robi, or Ţigani. Other ethnic groups were also slaves, such as a small percentage of Tartars, but these groups were freed by the end of the 15th century, and only Roma remained slaves. The term Ţigan came to conflate the legal and social position of slaves with ethnic Roma. To be a slave was to be considered an ethnic Ţigan. There was no such thing as a free Ţigan, or a free Rom. Romanians did not recognize or interpellate Roma as anything other than Ţigani, sclavi and robi.

Because Romani people still suffer the effects of this system, and are subject to modern-day prejudice resulting from this generational inequality and discrimination, yes, it's fair to say that they experience the aftereffects of slavery similar to African-Americans. Your average white man claiming that his distant ancestors were enslaved (such as they very well might have been in the Viking markets) does not suffer in any way from this. Nobody is going to treat him differently (aside from maybe avoid him at parties because he's a blustering racist). That ancestral experience does not affect him now, and his racial status is not conflicted or perceived as inferior in any way. Nobody is still going to treat him as Lesser because he's Irish-American (no matter what he thinks or likes to say), and he and his ancestors have never been subject to an all-consuming world order and economic system that prescribed their automatic inferiority and their essential dehumanization for centuries, and which is still largely unchallenged today, despite some superficial disruptions and reforms. Just because white people have been subject to slavery in history does not make their experience equivalent to the entire world order of white supremacy that has been systematically implanted into global power systems, and still exists to this day. A black person, however, is still automatically subject to that legacy and its discrimination whether they like it or not, and they have no choice of opting out.

As such, because Romani are not "white" in the European hierarchy of race and racial relations, even if they might be considered as such by superficial American analyses, they suffer that same sort of inherited generational discrimination just by nature of who they are as a class. This is the case especially with Eastern Europeans in general, who have long been seen as not being quite as "good" or "pure" as Western Europeans, reflects those old religious fault lines (they were pagan or Orthodox Christian or Muslim or etc., while the Westerners were Latin Catholics), and makes European racism a far more complicated matter than who simply "looks" white to outward eyes. The Romani cannot "opt out" of their background and the inherent prejudice that comes with it, in the same way that African-Americans can't "opt out" of theirs (while as noted, it makes absolutely no difference at all to your average white person what their ancestors were and whether or not they were enslaved, because they benefit from the operation of white supremacy as a power structure and overall system of perception). As such, a black or Romani person has no choice but to be black or Romani, and they can't have the luxury of deciding whether or not they're going to care about what those labels signify to the rest of the world. It just happens to them anyway.

In sum: thanks for the ask, and hopefully this was helpful as a discussion for you. It was certainly interesting for me. :)

[hazel2468]

Sorry to be a salty Jew on the first day of Pride but like...

I just came across yet another person going on about how Jews are white and, aside from the obvious- anyone can be a Jew, of any race, from anywhere, it also made me think. Like... Jews may look white to you, oh enlightened person on my Facebook feed.

But when I was younger, I remember that time that a cop told my mother that she wasn’t allowed to have me at a public park. He said she wasn’t allowed because she “wasn’t from this town” and this park wasn’t for “your kind of people”.

My mother is, like me, white. Paler than I am.

But she also has that dark, thick, wiry brown hair most of my family has. She has my grandfather’s, her father’s prominent nose. She has (and this makes no sense to me) “Jewish eyes”- something to do with how her eyelids sit that I’ve never understood but that I’ve heard from her and a few other, older members of my family, who share the same traits.

Yes, my mother is white. But in that moment. To that cop, who knew nothing other than we lived in state based on my mother’s license plate, she was a Jew. Instantly identifiable. Recognizable. Marked by features that he, and other white supremacists like him, consider undeniably non-white, non-European. Other. Alien.

I was adopted into my family from birth. I do not have my mother’s nose, the one my grandparents had. The one people constantly mocked, according to my grandfather (z’l) as a “kike nose”, a “jewboy nose”. But I have, funnily enough, her hair, and my father’s brown eyes. I have my mother’s hair, which has grown thicker and more like hers in texture as I age. I look like my parents.

I am white, yes. I go out every day and I benefit from being seen, in passing, by most people as just another white woman on the street. But I am keenly aware that at any given moment, someone might look at my hair, my eyes. This isn’t some hypothetical, this has happened, more times that I can count or remember. Either people have looked at me and said “You’re a Jew, aren’t you?” or told me “Oh, I knew it!” when they find out.

So yes, enlightened Facebook commenter, every single annoying leftists who has spat, with venom, at me that Jews are WHITE and as such we are the oppressor and privileged and EVIL... To you, I am white.

To a white supremacist. To a Nazi. To the people who view me as an alien, a stain, a foreign invader. I am a Jew. Instantly identifiable. My family even more so.

I am white when it suits the narrative. And make no mistake. Us Jews who can go out in public and pass as nothing but white Americans benefit from that, yes. But there is no place for us in white supremacy. And those who perpetuate it know who we are.

[hearthhag]

hi, in mundane life i’m a history/humanities student! i study disability, fatness, queer life, magic, and all the intersections those entail; particularly (at the moment) when they intersect with fascist movements and ideology.

why am i telling you this? because we need to talk about nazis and fascism.

why? because unfortunately fascism has a long history of using occultism, pseudoscience, and pseudohistory to spread white supremacist ideas, racism, antisemitism, ableism, & antiziganism.

before i get started, i wanna make sure we’re on the same page about what these things are.

occultism - the study or practice of non-mainstream or novel belief systems, especially as they pertain to the supernatural, mystical, magical, and metaphysical.

pseudo- (prefix) - not based in any accepted fields or findings.

pseudoscience - ideology that has been “translated” to sound scientific. not based in real science.

pseudohistory - ideology that has been “translated” to sound historical or like historical fact, or uses historical motifs. not based in real history.

let’s break down what that looked like in the 1930s: (we’re going to be looking at untranslated documents from the NSDAP— if you don’t want to see that, i completely understand, feel free to scroll to the point where there’s red text like this.)

so here we have the two big, prominent, fonts used by the NSDAP; Futura and Fraktur.

futura was— and is— the font of choice for scientific [sic] writing, reports, and ‘good’ modern art.

fraktur was the font of choice for history [sic], ideology, ethics, morals, and emotional writing, and aimed to appeal to a sense of historical german glory. it’s also known across europe as the nazi font for this very reason.

these two documents are from the same year. which one feels older or more foundational? if its the antisemitic book set in fraktur, you’re like most people.

here is the line of red text for people avoiding triggering content.

fascism relies on calls to history, especially one where we [sic] were better off in the past than we are now. (see: Make America Great Again)

fascism also relies on looking toward a future where its scapegoat no longer exists. (see: drain the swamp)

when we’re studying marginalized people and their history, and when we’re studying pre-christian and early christian european practices, we need to be particularly careful of white supremacist ideas, pseudoscience, and pseudohistory.

let’s say you wanted to learn about your personal heritage and what folk practices you might want to reconnect with. you decide to look online for something like a human migration map. (again, scroll away to the green text like this to avoid.)

you find this.

i mean, it looks legit, right?

wrong. this is a map by prominent eugenicist madison grant.

he made all of this data up to confirm his ideology— that’s pseudoscience being used to create pseudohistory.

this is a line of green text for people avoiding triggers.

so, now that you’ve been throughly inundated with primary sources, let’s discuss this.

one, the nazis straight up did not come up with nordicism, they took it to its extreme. nordicism has its origins in the us, as does eugenics as a whole.

two, look how innocuous all this bigotry is. you are not immune to propaganda isn’t just a meme! the point of propaganda is to blend in and to be subtle. it’s not going to stick in your head if you think it’s bullshit.

three, just like how nazis used american white supremacy, they co-opted a lot of ideologies from a lot of different cultures. some they took to use for hate and didnt change much, others they took something that wasn’t hateful (like an alphabet) because it just looked cool, and they made it hateful.

four, and really this is where i cut this post off to make a part 2 because #4 is so large, nazis justified co-opting symbols and ideologies with their belief that there were these vast, connecting elements and traditions and this former glory of “the aryan race” that were being covered up or polluted by whoever the marginalized group of the day was, usually jewish people. anything that even seems a little like that is probably fascist.

my goal here is to help you develop your nazi detector. america has been parroting fascism for a long time, and we’re in serious trouble. remember, if you’re not actively against them, you’re for them, or you might as well be.

i’m going to leave you with umberto eco’s 14 core elements of fascism and some further watching (videos that do a good job explaining what i’m talking about but in different ways) while i go write pt. 2.

eco grew up under mussolini’s regime, and these are from his 1995 essay Ur-Fascism.

The cult of tradition.

The rejection of modernism.

The cult of action for action’s sake.

Disagreement is treason.

Fear of difference.

Appeal to social frustration.

The obsession with a [secret] plot.

The enemy is both strong and weak.

Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy.

Contempt for the weak.

Everybody is educated to become a hero.

Machismo and weaponry.

Selective populism.

Fascism speaks Newspeak.

dissecting turning point usa’s americafest

let’s talk about broadway

how did the nazis even happen in the first place

what does eugenics even mean

why do all of today’s op-eds sound really similar

[priceforrottenjudgement]

this might be a dumb thing to get worked up over and this text post ended up being WAY to long for a topic this stupid, but americans deciding to make a movie about eurovision, having it be written and directed by americans, casting an american and a canadian actor to play the lead roles of two icelandic musicians and having a few british actors as “european representation” and having them play russian and icelandic people is... so symbolic for how americans see other cultures.

I’ve seen americans (tumblr bloggers and celebrities) be passive aggressive about america not being in eurovision and acting like its specifically excluding them... despite there being multiple other continents who dont participate in esc.

and so these people see this phenomenon that many europeans seem to be passionate about and they see that they are not a part of it and then they get the idea that hey! this could be a movie! and who better to produce this movie than us americans. because we’re just better at that.

NOBODY ASKED FOR A EUROVISION MOVIE. MUCH LESS A EUROVISION MOVIE PRODUCED BY AMERICANS STARRING WILL FERRELL AS AN ICELANDIC PERSON.

This isn’t cultural appropriation in the sense of taking an idea from a marginalised community and passing it off as your own (although europe is not entirely “white/privileged” and includes many marginalised, ignored and looked down upon nations and ethnicities), but its still (white) americans thinking they get to make money off of a thing that wasnt their idea and that doesnt include them.

Yes, this is not a grave transgression, but it once again shows that americans think theyre better at telling stories than the people in these stories.

You could have had this movie written by a european. you could have cast actual icelandic singers. you could have used this opportunity to put the spotlight on more marginalised groups in europe. but you chose to have it all be done by americans. because you’re just better at it right?

Ps bc yall cant read: lead roles arent the same thing as cameos, like, by far. Conchita Wurst appearing in the movie doesnt hold the same weight as will ferrell being the main character, you understand this, dont act like you dont.

Nowhere am i saying this is a form of oppression, please dont derail.

Not all europeans are white and YES, even communities that are considered white by american standards (which are not universal) can be marginalised.

Please learn to read 💖

Also the comment "op clearly didnt watch the movie" yeah DUH.

PPS bc its gaining notes and i’m sure as hell gonna use this platform. some good comments hidden in the notes:

And if you want to read up on minorities in europe:

European ethnic groups by sovereign state

The who?! Europe’s lesser-known ethnic minorities

Romani People

Crimean Tatars

Racism in Europe

also google is free imaine thinking all europeans are white

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Wait, I'm confused. Would it be so bad to have one of the gods or goddesses be black or a little dark skinned? Aren't there black people in Greece? I'm not saying the whole pantheon needs to be black or is historically black, but still. I do get where you come from tho with how people think they can rewrite the myths to their liking as though it doesn't belong to a culture.

Short answer for this question, "please follow the ancient texts and depictions of the culture as the natives of the culture have done for millennia, because ancient deities from another culture aren't your coloring book".

Long answer:

Dark-skinned in the Mediterranean sense, it's fine, because that's also in the ancient depictions and it reflects the appearance of the local people. But I sense you are seeing this matter as "white supremacy" of some sort and that's why you are focusing on the Black "race". In reality, the iconography excludes even the most light-skinned Russian.

"Aren't there black people in Greece?" Yes there are (even though veery few compared to the country's population. Greece is among the least diverse countries on the planet). But also consider: Aren't Black people in China? Aren't Black people in Mexico? Aren't Black people in Mongolia? Aren't East Asian people in Congo? Aren't White (e.g. Slavic) people in the Arabian Peninsula? Do you think each country should change the depictions of their gods to suit the minorities in the country each century? Countries worldwide never did that. They keep the ancient depictions of their deities and the deities reflect the appearance of the local people.

Greek people also do that and have done so for millennia. The sudden decision for "diversity" after 2.000 years later came not from the Greeks who preserved the culture, but from the US Americans who started the trend so the Greek pantheon can reflect their own society. This shows a type of ownership by the US over the Greek pantheon.

Since these people have grown too familiar with Greek antiquity (a superficial image of it, mostly) they have adopted an imperialist stance towards our deities. If the Americans (people on the other side of the Atlantic) judge our pantheon as "too White" then that's the global standard, all of a sudden.

This doesn't happen with mythologies the US people (I would also put Northwest Europeans) are not interested in. For example, would you go to a Mongolian person and ask "sorry but why can't we make your gods Black? Why can't we make them look Cherokee? Why can't we make them look Korean?"

Well, technically you can (and gods can transform), but I hope you can understand why you as one person and as an outsider changing Mongolian deities wouldn't be the politest thing to do. Such changes aren't for a few people outside a culture to decide. This isn't for a few people inside the culture to decide. The shift must come from the culture itself in a way that reflects the opinions of the majority.

((Aka not your 1-2 young Greek mutuals on Tumblr and TikTok, but even my yaya on the mountain and my theia on the shore should be ok with it. Also, most Greeks as of now feel very uncomfortable with the appearance changes in our gods. If you go on the streets and ask Greeks about the matter, the majority will say "wtf my dude? Why would you even do that?" And yes, that includes dark-skinned people.))

For many people on the Western side of the internet to extend the same courtesy of the Mongolians - in our hypothetical scenario - to Greeks is very difficult. The reason is they don't see the Greek pantheon as our heritage. The Americans think they have broken free of the colonization mindset of the antiquity stealing Europeans but they are wrong. They still see the Greek pantheon as something theirs, with the younger often perceiving it as characters from a very cool fandom. (No, the Greek gods aren't just "cool deities I learned about in school" for Americans and that's it. There's millions of Greeks who still consider them extremely important for our tradition, and part of our national identity).

In some cases, US Americans feel they are the continuation of the "western civilization" so the gods belong to them now and can change them as they see fit (or "appropriate"). Meanwhile, they don't know how the average Greek even looks/-ed like. Or whatever they know is mostly based on 40's racist propaganda - that's why they often tell Greeks they don't "look Greek". (see my tag #greek speaks) I don't need to spell out how absurd the whole thing is.

Take a look at my F.A.Q. in the section "What’s this “don’t change the depiction of the gods” all about?" There the mindset of the most privileged nations for the Greek pantheon is best described and it covers different scenarios and also Greek history. It's long but a serious disentanglement must be done because this is deep-rooted imperialist thought that must be undone.

There are also the tags #race bending or/and #racebending for more.

[bondsmagii]

sounds like the problem with those people jumping on you for that book review is that, well, us americans don’t conceive of ireland or irish people as oppressed. as a people who are indigenous to their own country and being oppressed by external invaders, the connection doesn’t occur to them. because irish americans are their frame of reference, and most of them are assimilated and respected in their own country, and at times the source of racism or ignorance towards others. irish history, suppression of irish culture, even recent irish history, are just. Not talked about. if you even tried to mention it to these people, they would not understand. saying this as someone with irish background in the us, it’s a shame but it sounds like this lack of information is these people’s main problem. they see a userpic or the word irish and connect it with us irish descendants, and none of that context, and don’t understand.

undoubtedly that has something to do with it. I've bitched about that before, actually -- I cannot tell you the amount of times I've mentioned I'm Irish, and had Americans begin to lecture me as a fellow American. in fact, on this very same review, somebody responded and said "I am also a white settler", and I had to explain that when I said I was Irish, I meant I was Irish, and grew up in the country, and was actually from Ireland. the fact that when I state my nationality online I have to confirm that I'm literally from that country is infuriating, but that's a rant for another day.

I know that this is probably controversial, but at this point, Irish-Americans are not Irish in the same sense they used to be. this isn't to say that the struggles of their ancestors aren't just as heartbreaking, nor is it to say that back in Ireland we shun the diaspora, but it is to say that if their great-great grandparents came over on the boat in the late 1800s or whatever, they're not Irish. they're American, with Irish heritage. this is a basic distinction that I think needs to be more thoroughly acknowledged, because there's a difference between having heritage and being from a place -- and this also works in reverse. if you're born and raised in Ireland, for example, or you come to Ireland for university, and you make a home there and you identify with the culture, you're Irish regardless of the colour of your skin or your genetic heritage. but note the difference -- you're in the country. the idea that someone from America, who has never set foot in the country and whose only link is a single relative four generations back, is just as Irish as I am? it's ridiculous, and I resent this attitude because it leads to shit like what you outlined.

for most Americans, Irish history is something their grandpa tells them at family weddings or dinners or whatever. and there's a lot to be proud of, and a lot to be resentful of. but what a lot of Americans -- Irish-Americans included -- don't understand is that the kind of oppression and atrocities that were happening way back when are still happening, and there are plenty of people online, like me, who have lived through the very real effects. when we then get lectured by a foreigner, on our own history, as though it's ancient history and not still ongoing... it's inexcusable. I've noticed an extreme ignorance in Americans over European culture, history, and issues, and a lot of the things that are said about us would be deemed outright racist if said to anyone who wasn't comfortably white: the idea that the Irish can't be racially stereotyped or weren't oppressed; the constant ridicule of working-class English accents; the preposterous idea that Italians have no idea what fascism is. if this level of ignorance and ridicule was levelled at somebody with darker skin there would be an uproar. the double standards absolutely infuriate me.

sorry to go off, but this is something that I've had to put up with for years and years, and now it's got to the point where I can't even dislike a book without having my nationality (and therefore ignorance) assumed, or my own oppression thrown back in my face. this isn't ancient history; this is trauma I live with daily. I know that things are different in the states, and that a lot of people don't conceive of such things; I'm aware of the relationship between Irish-Americans and the NYPD and the horrific ties to systematic racism there; I understand this will colour views. but I know this about America -- why do Americans not take the same initiative with other countries? I could excuse ignorance twenty, thirty years ago, but with the whole internet out there, and real-life Irish people like me kicking around, there's no excuse for this kind of laziness.