#because. i feel like the identity that fits me most on an entirely racial level would be indigenous salvadoran. it feels good to me

[woodnrust]

*rocking in the corner of the room* i am comfortable in my identity people respect my identity i am wanted i fit in with others who share my identity i am not an outcast nor am i an anomaly

[ceasarslegion]

Ive made my stance on oppenheimer discourse very clear but one detail of it that really bothers me is the "movies about sad white men are always bad" attitude, and i didnt really know why until i was able to sit down and parse it out.

Here's the thing. I have a film degree, I've spent more time in movie theaters than I have sleeping and I've easily seen more films and shows than all of my peers combined. Which isn't a flex btw, I'm a little hermit who prefers the warm embrace of a cinema seat to human connection and is the most annoying mfer imaginable during family movie night; don't be like me.

But I know hollywood, I know cinema history, and I know the legitimate frustration this attitude comes from. Hollywood doesn't like to take risks, they have to historically be dragged kicking and screaming into any territory that isn't a guaranteed profit, which usually means that we get periods of stagnation where every film is the same goddamn formula over and over again until audiences get sick of it and stop buying tickets en masse. Hollywood also tends to reflect the dominant culture and the sociopolitical issues of the time, but not SOOO much that you'd rock the boat. As an exec, you wanna hit that sweet spot where audiences relate to your films without them being so blatant that they'd cause them to question things that weren't acceptable to question. Noir was a picture-perfect example of that.

And in the modern day, that DOES tend to translate into the weird genre of Sad White Man Who Regrets Killing Foreigners movies. Like American Sniper. But I've seen American Sniper, so I can speak on how lowkey disturbing I found it, and the history it's based in and the goals it had as an art piece were to make you sympathize with a system of corruption. And here's my unpopular opinion: if done RIGHT, those films still have a place within the cinematic sphere of influence, like if you made a film exploring the psyche and experiences of what leads a man to willingly participate in a system like that, but that's not really what it was.

Now let's move onto Oppenheimer and other films like it. I don't think these films are at ALL equivalent to films like American Sniper, even if they follow a sad white man who regrets killing foreigners. You are looking at the bare bones surface level of it and assuming its contents both real world and dramatized and judging it based on that instead of the, well, actual film.

One of the biggest differences here is that Oppenheimer WAS an important historical figure just, objectively. Even removing all western racial influence from the equation, you can not look me in the eyes and tell me that the man who invented the atomic bomb in the middle of the largest world war of modern history was not an important historical figure. If you try to make THAT argument just based on the sad white man-ness of him, I'm sorry but your point is already moot, because it's not based in historical fact anymore but your own personal subjective feelings. He IS an important historical figure, he's not soldier number 648 in the middle of a massive battlefield who followed other peoples orders.

And also to be completely honest, you are a huge fucking liar if you try to claim that people like Dr. Oppenheimer are not interesting. Flawed people who make flawed decisions with complicated variables are what make for good fiction, so when one exists in the historical record, of course they are going to interest people. They are going to be studied and interviewed if they're still alive and have their entire lives and every word they said picked apart and analyzed because they are interesting. You are straight up lying if you try to act like these people arent interesting enough on their own to have media made about them, regardless of what identity they had that fits into the opposing side of the 21st centure culture wars. This attitude reminds me a lot of the people who claim that the only reason anybody could find true crime interesting is because they MUST want to fuck jeffrey dahmer or whatever. The argument just doesnt hold up because all it takes is one person going "thats not what i find interesting about them" to collapse that entire absolutist argument.

So yes, hollywood absolutely has a racism and war glorification issue. But I take issue when these accusations are just made blindly against any historical dramatization based on nothing but the poster. If you're going to talk about hollywoods sad white men issue, at least make sure the films youre citing actually fit that bill AND that you actually understand whats WRONG with those sad white men movies, because its not just the presence of a sad white male protagonist, its a conglomerate of various sociopolitical issues that must be present within those characters and what they represent.

[writingwithcolor]

Patrilineal Jewish girl, Sephardic culture

@feminismandsunflowers said:

hi! my character is a patrilineal Jewish girl in the usa, she didn't convert but still considers herself Jewish. her mom is Christian. her g-grandmother/father were undocumented refugees from Europe (antisemitism) and her g-grandmother was v closed off abt her origins but my character's dad thinks she said something abt being Sephardic. her fam has a fair amount of Sephardic culture. but could she claim Sephardic culture to any extent if they don't know? trynna get a handle on how to present her.

"My character's dad thinks she said something about being Sephardic"

and

"her fam has a fair amount of Sephardic culture"

are inconsistent statements. 

The first statement sounds like the only indication Dad has of which Jewish culture they are is a statement he's not even sure about ("thinks"?) and the second statement sounds like Dad considers himself Sephardic and practices Sephardic traditions.

So, to me personally, this would depend on the level of Sephardic cultural practice she grew up with. If she grew up with those traditions and Dad sharing them with her, then yes, that's who she is. If Dad isn't even sure he's Sephardic and what she practiced in her upbringing wasn't distinctively Sephardic in any way, I have a hard time seeing why she should claim the culture if she's not even sure if her ancestors were Sephardic.

Disclaimer that the Reform position is to 'count' patrilineal Jewish people as long as they were raised in the traditions. This is not the Orthodox position but I am Reform.

--Shira

I'm also a bit confused about this situation. I think it would be helpful if you start by specifying where in Europe the family comes from and what anti-Semitism they were fleeing from. I'm Ashkenazi and not the most knowledgeable about Sephardi history, but as far as I know it wouldn't make sense for a Sephardi family to be seeking asylum from the pogroms in Russia or Poland, for example. I guess it could make sense if they were from Spain, France or Italy, but we would have to know more, and I'm wondering if this isn't a 'trace your logic' situation. Why do you want them to come from Europe? *Quickly cracks open a Claudia Roden book* Sephardi Jews have origins in many North African and Middle Eastern countries, such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq just to give a few examples. If you want Sephardi characters, why not represent those cultures instead of re-hashing the same Euro-centric Jewish stories?   

In terms of whether she could claim Sephardi heritage of any sort if they don't know, I'm interested in what Sephardi followers think. Religion-wise, I don't think there would be too much of a problem with it. Yes, Sephardim are more lenient on some things and stricter on others, so by picking the wrong one she may be following some of the rules wrong, but that's just a matter of tradition really. If someone was a ba'al teshuva and had no way of finding out which population their family came from, I imagine a rabbi would advise to choose one and stick to it without worrying too much about which one. I don't know 100%, though. 

Culture-wise, I don't know if this is what Shira was getting at but I wonder if it would be cultural appropriation due to Ashkenazi Jews being more likely to be white-passing and getting more media representation. Is Jewish lineage enough to claim Sephardi traditions and culture, or do you need to know for sure that you're Sephardi - that will be for Sephardi followers to decide. 

To build on Shira's disclaimer:

I'm Modern Orthodox and I would describe your character as someone who is not halachically Jewish, i.e. not in Jewish law. In most situations, this would be a technicality for me and I wouldn't hesitate to treat her as Jewish if she identifies as such. In particular, with her family history it makes sense that she considers herself ethnically Jewish and the legacy of discrimination is part of her identity - that's not something we can erase or overlook. It would be different if my kid wanted to marry her, I think (not that I ever plan to be one of those parents who would disown their kid or something for marrying out but I'm not going to pretend I completely wouldn't care, either). Then I might be hopeful that she may formally convert, especially if she had always lived as Jewish anyways.

 Other things she may experience if she hangs out in Orthodox circles: a few people might act like jerks and be iffy around her like she's 'not really Jewish', probably the same people who are pro-Trump and mansplain why women's exclusion from parts of Orthodox worship is actually protecting us. On the subject of women's exclusion, if you have any male characters with a similar parental background, they can't get an aliyah in shul or count towards a minyan - the character you're describing couldn't anyway, though. 

Hopefully if your other Jewish characters are nice people, they take to heart the teaching that you should rather throw yourself into a fire than humiliate someone else in public. When I was a student, there was a patrilineal man in our community who once entered the shul just in time to be the tenth man, making a minyan. A Chasidic man in the congregation quickly stood up and said "Oh no, I left the gas on!" and left. That way no one had to make a whole song and dance about the other guy not being allowed to count. Patrilineal Jewish followers, feel free to add more! 

-Shoshi 

I'm going to add some things here, about the terms Sephardi and Ashkenazi, that I think might be partially tripping the author up.

Sephardi and Ashkenazi are terms used to describe the traditions that a person follows. Those traditions are heavily linked to the land where they rose up, and to parentage, as people are typically encouraged to follow the traditions they grew up with. However! Converts exist, and converts are usually encouraged to join in on the traditions in their community. So, as an example, a person can be from anywhere in the world, of any racial or ethnic background, convert in a Conservative synagogue, and follow Ashkenazi traditions. A person can be from a place that is usually seen as very Ashkenazi-heavy, like Germany, and then end up converting in an esnoga (synagogue) in Spain, and practice Sephardic traditions. Either of those converts might have children, and those children will take on their minhagim (traditions), and will be a part of the culture their parents joined just like their parents were.

It can be confusing for many people because the terms are so often conflated with ethnicity, which is in turn conflated with genetic lineage. The trouble is, the groups they describe are older than the modern, western conception of race, and ethnicity,  and we don't completely fit into these categories. Ashkenazi Jews don't all come from Europe, even their ancestors might not. In the US it's been estimated that at least 12-15% of American Jews are Jews of Color, and those JoC are very, very often Ashkenazi. Some converted, some didn't, but they are still following the traditions, and are still Ashkenazi.

So it's fair to say that the traditions of Sephardim grew in the Iberian peninsula, and North Africa, but they also moved along with those Jewish people as they dispersed, and were expelled. Jews from Portugal fled to the Azores, but also to the Netherlands, where there is a large Sephardic presence, right in the middle of a space that is assumed to be all Ashkenazi! Scores of Jewish people from Morocco moved to France. Then too, people marry folks from other groups. Often they will pick one family's traditions to follow, but sometimes they mix and match, and sometimes they end up moving somewhere else and taking on those traditions.

Because so many people have traditions that match their genetic background we've begun using the term Ashkenazi to mean strictly white, European Jewish people. Sephardi we have taken to mean strictly white, Iberian Jewish people (which doesn't even include the massive number of North African Sephardim). We've forgotten entirely to cover Mizrahim (a tradition associated with the Middle East), or the Romaniote, or Cochin Jews, or any number of other groups. Yes, genetic background accounts for a large portion of those people, but it doesn't map completely, and it's important not to forget that.

This complexity is why the statements Shira drew attention to:

"My character's dad thinks she said something about being Sephardic" "her fam has a fair amount of Sephardic culture"

Don't make sense. You would know you are Sephardic, because it's something you do first, and may be, secondarily, directly linked to something in your ancestry.

Finally, since you are showing a patrilineal Jewish person, I really encourage you to show them consistently engaging with their Jewishness, and actively participating in Sephardic culture. I'm the Conservative one here, and my movement, and Sephardi tradition (there are no movements for Sephardim, just varying observance) don't allow patrilineal descent to give a person Jewish status halachically. This is not something I endorse. Patrilineal descendants really struggle outside of Reform communities, to be seen as Jewish, and often to just be treated with respect, so it's important that you give this character every opportunity to participate, and show who they are.

-- Dierdra

[sarita-daniele]

Hi, angel! Hope you're doing alright 💓 (hola ángel! También hablo español :) ) I was wondering if you could give some advices in starting out in an arts career?

Hola amigx, ¡perdón que nunca vi tu mensajito! I’m not on my Tumblr very often and definitely forget to check my messages. Luckily my favorite causita @luthienne told me you’d messaged me! 

I don’t know what arts discipline you’re in, so feel free to let me know if the advice I have doesn’t apply to you (and ignore it!). There are so many ways to build an arts career, but I’m happy to share some things I’ve learned through trial and error along the way. 

(Outrageously long post below break!)

Educate yourself in arts technique, but also study widely. 

Techniques are important in art, but only as important as the concepts behind them. When I was younger, I wowed people by drawing near-photographic portraits, but that technical talent and skill alone couldn’t make me a professional artist. Memorable artwork has not just a how, but a why. It isn’t just the object but the story behind the object, and the meaning of the object in the world. Art is about what interests you, what makes you think, what you most value and want to change in this world. So as you build an arts career, learn the techniques behind drawing, woodworking, casting, writing, music-making, whatever your discipline is, but take time, if you can, to also study history, sociology, anthropology, ecology, linguistics, politics, or whatever else you’re drawn to conceptually. Study as widely as you can. 

The studio art program I went through (a public university in the US) was very technique-forward; we signed up for classes according to technique, like printmaking or small metals, learned those techniques, completed technique-based assignments. Then I did a one-term exchange at arts university in the UK that was very concept-forward. We had no technical courses, just exhibition deadlines, and what mattered in critique was the concept. Both of these schools had their strengths and flaws, but what I learned was that, to be a practicing artist, I needed both technique and concepts that I genuinely cared about and could stand behind. If I could go back and change anything, I would probably take fewer studio courses (after graduating, I couldn’t afford access to a wood shop, metal shop, or expensive casting materials, and lost many of those skills) and more courses in sociology, Latin American studies, linguistics, ecology, anthropology, etc., because my artwork today centers on social justice, racial justice, Latinx stories and histories, educational access and justice, the politics of language, and community ethics. 

And please know that whenever I talk about seeking an education, I’m not talking solely about institutional spaces. College career tracks in the arts (BFA, MFA, etc., much less high-cost conservatory programs) are not accessible to everyone and aren’t the only way to establish an arts career. You can study technique and learn about the world using any educational space accessible to you: nonprofits that offer programming in your community, online resources, Continuing Education programs. And of course, self-education: read as much as you possibly can!

Know the value of your story. 

I come from a Cuban/Peruvian family and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. My father’s family fled political violence surrounding the Cuban Revolution and came to the U.S. when he was a teenager. My mother was born in Brooklyn to Peruvian parents on work visas and moved back to Lima in her childhood. I grew up with these two cultures present and deeply embedded in our household, in our language, our food, our sense of humor, our sense of history. And yet, some residual assimilation trauma still affected me. I drifted towards the most American things, the whitest things, English authors and Irish music, in part because I enjoyed them but also because those were the things I saw valued in society. I wanted to fit in, wanted to be unique but not different, wanted to prove that I could navigate all spaces. The reality of marginalized identities in America is that our country tells us our identities are only valuable when they can be seen as exotic, while still kept inferior to the dominant, white American narrative (note that this “us” is a general statement, not meant to make assumptions about how you identify or what country you live in). 

But as an artist, all I have is my story, and who I am. I wasn’t willing to look at it directly. For years, I avoided doing so. It turns out, though, that I couldn’t actually begin my career until I reckoned with myself and learned to value everything about myself. To fully acknowledge my story, my history, my cultural reality, my sense of language, and my privileges. So I encourage young artists to look always inward, to ask questions about themselves, their families, and what made them who they are. 

The reason for doing this is to understand the source from which you make art.  Sometimes, however, for marginalized artists, the world warps this introspection into a trap, pigeonholing us into making art only “about” our identities, because that work is capital-I-Important to white audiences who want to tokenize our traumas. This is the white lens, and if anything, I try to understand myself as deeply as I can so that I can make art consciously for my community, not for that assumed white audience. 

Know that your career doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, or like anything you’ve envisioned up to this point. 

As a high schooler I imagined that a life in the arts meant me in a studio, drawing and making, selling my work, getting exhibitions near and far, and gaining recognition. It was a solitary vision, one with a long history in the arts, rooted in the idea of individual genius. My career ended up completely different. Today, my arts projects involve teaching, collaborating, collecting interviews and oral histories, and creating public installations, rarely in traditional galleries or museums. 

As you work towards an arts career, figure out what does and doesn’t work for you: the kind of art you like and don’t like, the kinds of spaces that feel comfortable and those that don’t. I always thought I wanted to be part of traditional galleries, so I got a job working in a high-end art gallery in Boston during my grad program. Once in that space, however— even though I found the space calming and the work beautiful— I realized that there was something that I deeply disliked about the commodified art world. I didn’t like that we were selling art for over $10,000, that our exhibitions were geared exclusively towards collectors and wealthy art-buyers. The work was often technically masterful, but didn’t move or connect with me on a deeper level, and I realized that was because it wasn’t creating any change in the world. I liked work that shifted the needle, that made the world more inclusive and equitable, that centered marginalized stories (that gallery represented 90% white artists). I liked artwork that people made together, which drew me to collaborative art. I liked artwork that was accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy, which drew me to public art. I liked art exhibited in non-institutional spaces, which led me to community spaces. Since I was in an MFA for Creative Writing, I liked interdisciplinary art that engaged performance, technology, text, that was participatory and not just a 2D or 3D object. Figuring out all of these things led me to apply to my first major arts job: as a teaching artist in a community nonprofit that made art for social change in collaboration with local youth, in a predominantly Latinx neighborhood. 

My career path didn’t look like anything I expected, but I love it. The bulk of my income comes from teaching creative writing and art classes for nonprofits, working as a core member of a public arts nonprofit, and freelance consulting for book manuscripts. I love being an educator and consider it part of my creative practice. I love that I’m constantly collaborating with and talking to other artists. I love working with books and public art every day. I publish poetry, fiction, and literary translations, and exhibit artwork I’ve created in the studio and through funded opportunities. 

Fellow artists tell me often that I’m lucky, that my “day jobs” are all within the arts. But there are downsides to the way I’ve chosen to structure my career. I’m constantly balancing many projects, and my income is unstable. It’s difficult to save and plan towards the future,. I get by, but financial instability isn’t an option for many artists with families and dependents, with debts, medical expenses, and just isn’t the preferred lifestyle for a lot of people. I know artists who worked office jobs for years to support their practice and gain financial stability. I know artists who had entire careers as lawyers or accountants before becoming artists full time. I know artists who teach in public schools or work as substitute teachers. I know artists who are business owners and artists who work in policy and politics. I know artists who work in framing stores and shipping warehouses while being represented by galleries. These are all arts careers, and I admire every one of them. So as you build your career, don’t feel like it has to look like anyone’s else’s, like there’s anything you “should” be doing. Focus on the kind of artwork you want to make and what kind of work-life balance is best for you, then structure your career around that as best you can. 

Any job you use to support yourself can connect to an arts career!  

I get asked often by young people looking for jobs what kinds of jobs will best propel them towards an arts career. I believe that any kind of job can connect to and support an arts career, and I know that some suggestions out there in the arts world (like “get an unpaid internship at an art gallery!” or “become a studio apprentice to a well-known artist!”) assume a certain amount of privilege. So I want to break down how different kinds of jobs can connect to your art career: 

1) Jobs that allow for the flexibility and mental capacity to create. My friends who work restaurant jobs while going to auditions fall into this category. Who work as bartenders in evening so that they can be in the studio by day. Who dog-walk or babysit or nanny because the timing and flexibility allows for arts opportunities. My friends who are Lyft drivers or work in deliveries. These are often jobs outside of a creative field, but they can be beneficial because they don’t drain your creative batteries, so to speak. You still have your creative brain fully charged, and some jobs (like dog-walking) even allow for good mental processing (you can think through creative problems). As long as the job doesn’t drain you to the point where you have no energy at all, these kinds of jobs can be great because they allow time and space for your creative work. 

2) Jobs that place you in arts spaces, arts adjacent spaces, or spaces where you can learn about material/technique. My sculptor friends who work in hardware stores, quarries, foundries, or in construction. My printmaker friend who interned with graphic designers. My writer friends who work in bookstores and libraries, artists who work in art supply stores. My friend who worked with her dad’s painting company and got to improve her precision as a painter, which she then took back to the canvas. My teen students who get paid to work on murals or get stipend payments for making art at the nonprofit I work for. My filmmaker friends who worked on film crews. Friends who worked as theater ushers, in ticket sales, or as janitorial staff at museums. All of these jobs kept these artists adjacent to their artwork, whether through access to tools, materials, supplies, or books, through networking and conversations with other artists, or through skillsets that could enhance their art. 

3) Jobs that deeply engage another interest of yours, that bring you joy or can influence your work in other ways. If there’s a job that has nothing to do with your art but that you would love, do it! First, because I believe that the things we’re passionate about get integrated into our art, and second, because any job that gives you peace of mind and joy creates a positive base from which you can create. My friend who worked at a stable because she got to be around horses. My friends who worked at gyms or coaching sports because it kept them active. My friend who worked in a bike repair shop because he was obsessed with biking. An artist I knew who worked at the children’s science museum because she loved being around kids and planetariums. An artist who worked at a mineral store because rocks made her happy. If you have the opportunity, work doing things you like without worrying about whether it directly feeds your arts career.

Because believe it or not, all jobs you work can intersect in some way with your art. You’re creative— you find those connections! A Nobel-Prize winning poet helped his dad on the potato farm and wrote his best-known poem about it. Successful novelists have written about their time working in hair salons and convenience stores. A great printmaker I know who worked in a flower shop began weaving botanical forms and plant knowledge into her designs. The key in an arts career is to see all your experiences as valuable, to find ways that they can influence your art, and to be constantly thinking about and observing the world around you. 

As for me, I worked as a tennis instructor, a tennis court site supervisor, an academic advisor, an art gallery intern, and a coffee shop barista before and during my work in the arts!

Let go of objective measures of what it means to be good. 

I was always an academic overachiever. Top of my class, merit scholarships, science fair awards, AP credit overload, the whole thing. On the one hand, I grew up in a house where education was valued and celebrated, and my parents emphasized the importance of doing my best in school— not getting good grades, but working hard, doing my personal best, and reading and learning all I could. I loved school. I loved academics. And I’m not saying this to brag, but to lay the groundwork for something I struggled with in the arts.

It is jarring to be an academic overachiever and enter an arts career. I thrived off of objective value systems: study, work hard, get an A. If I worked hard and learned what I was supposed to learn, I earned recognition, validation, and opportunity. 

And then I entered the arts. The arts are entirely subjective. We hear it over and over— great artists get rejected hundreds of times, certain art forms require cutthroat competition, etc. —but it’s hard to understand the subjectivity of the art world (and the entrenched discrimination and commercial interests that affect who gets opportunities and who doesn’t) until you’re trying to live as an artist. That you can work hard on something, give all of your time and physical effort and mental and emotional energy to it, only to have it rejected. That what you think is good isn’t what another person thinks is good. That there is a magical alchemy in the act of creation that can’t be taught, or learned, but must be felt, and that you can be working to find that light while actively others try to extinguish it. That you can be good and work hard, yet still not get chosen for the awards, the exhibitions, the publications. If you chased being “the best” your whole life, you’re now in a world where there is no “best”, where greatness is subjective, where the idea of competitive greatness is actually detrimental to artists supporting each other, and where work that sells or connects to white, cishetero traditions is still the most valued. 

After struggling with this for a long time, I came to the conclusion that the most important thing to me now is making the art I want to make, the art only I can make, whether or not it fits what arts industries are looking for or what’s going to win awards. If I make art I believe in from a healthy mental and emotional place, doors will open, even if they aren’t the doors I expected. So try to let go of any sense that worth comes from external validation. Learn to accept critical feedback when it is given kindly, thoughtfully, and constructively. Surround yourself with friends and artists who who can talk to about your work, who build up your work and help you think through it rather than cutting you down. Don’t believe anyone in the arts world who thinks they get to be the arbiters of what’s “good” and who has “what it takes”. People have probably said things like that to the artists you most admire, and if they’d listened, you wouldn’t have experienced art that changed your life. 

Work to gain skills in basic business, marketing, and finances for artists. 

Many artists (at least where I am in the U.S.) go through an entire arts education without receiving resources or training in the financial side of the arts world. Your arts career will likely involve some degree of self-promotion and marketing, creating project budgets and grant proposals, artist statements and bios, sorting out taxes, and other economic elements. I can’t speak to other countries, but for artists in the U.S., taxes can be extremely complex. If you’re awarded a stipend, grant, fellowship, or employed for gigs or one-time projects, you’ll likely be taxed as an independent contractor and have to deduct your own taxes. Through residencies and exhibitions, you may pull income in multiple states and countries, which can also affect taxation. If you’re an artist who doesn’t have access to resources about finance and taxation in your arts program or who doesn’t independently have expertise in those fields, I recommend finding ways to educate yourself early: online resources, low cost courses, or even just taking your financially-savvy friends out for a coffee!

ANYWAY SORRY FOR THE LONG POST I HOPE SOMETHING IN THIS DIATRIBE WAS HELPFUL I HOPE THERE WEREN’T TOO MANY TYPOS AND I hope you have the most wonderful, fulfilling arts career! <3 

[woman-loving]

I’m curious about “respectability politics” and how it applies to variations on the “born this way“ / “it’s not a choice” argument for toleration of homosexuality.

I’ve heard that “respectability politics” was theorized by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church 1880-1920, which I have not read yet. (Although this might be a good time to start it, cause I’m just about to finish my current book!) My impression was that it referred to appeals to middle-class norms of respectability as a basis for claims to citizenship and protection and nondiscrimination under the law.

I associate the “it’s not a choice” discourse (and I’m not entirely sure if that’s a bit different from the “born this way” discourse) mostly with a counterargument to conservative Christian pronouncements about homosexuality in the US. I had previously rejected the idea that this argument was a form of “respectability politics,” because I didn’t think that “not being able to choose your sexuality” was a typical marker of middle-class respectable citizenship. I had instead described this argument as “toleration politics,” where, rather than being seen as meeting moral (or citizenship) requirements just as well as everyone else, a special exemption from the standard requirement was being requested based on a (tragic) inability to fulfill it.

But I’m thinking about some things I’ve read and feel like variations of these arguments (which each have their own particularity, but also some commonalities imo) may have more to do with respectability than I originally thought.

But the other part of the equation is that they may involve appeals to religious patriarchal moral authorities. And I’m curious about the relationship between patriarchal religious morality--which I would basically describe like that, although I’m trying to work “religious” out of it--and class and citizenship dynamics. Because it seems like, at least in Christianity (and also in Islam from what I know about it), the acknowledged orthodox sexual morality is patriarchal and doesn’t authorize sex outside heterosexual marriage, even if it overlooks it. (But what variations might I be overlooking because they’re not considered orthodox by more institutionalized authorities?) Is there an automatic link between orthodox patriarchal sexual morality and “middle-class respectability,” just because the former is taken as a basis for the later? In the US, appeals to Christian patriarchal morality are also important to citizenship given the influence of Christian conservatives in politics, but is this also/only about middle-class ideals? (This has all got me thinking about the argument I heard Naomi Goldenberg make on The Religious Studies Project that religions can be understood as vestigial states.) I’m also thinking of religious authority here in terms of patriarchal authority: is this a good way to think about it and how is it incomplete?

Anyway, there are some passages that have been fitting themselves together in my brain:

Karen, editor of Frauenliebe, used sexological concepts of congenital and acquired homosexuality to draw a strict boundary between the two. She argued that anyone seeking same-sex love out of enjoyment of transgression [acquired homosexuality] damaged society and should be "separated from the public." On the other hand, Karen continued, "Same-sex behavior, entered into voluntarily and clearly by both partners [congenital homosexuality], belongs, like every intimate heterosexual behavior, to the realm of things one accepts but does not talk about."[68] Karen also warned aspiring writers to avoid writing explicitly about sexual experience in their stories and essays.[69]

Categorical exclusion shaped a debate in Frauenliebe about bisexuality. Like prostitutes, bisexuals were excluded from homosexual community. Frauenliebe printed fifteen responses to a letter asking readers to express their view on women who had relationships with both sexes.[70] They saw homosexuality as moral and bisexuality as immoral. It was not only movement leaders who wanted to discipline sexual desire in their followers. Letters from readers grouped bisexual women with prostitutes and "sensual" heterosexual women, accusing all of seeking homosexual experiences out of curiosity or sensual desire rather than as an expression of inner character.[71] [...]

Vilification of bisexual women allowed women the opportunity to enter into the classification and definition work of sexology and to create a purified figure of the female homosexual suitable for political citizenship. The "sexual" in homosexual was tamed through strict denial that irresistible desire defined the category. Rejection of prostitutes and bisexuals allowed women to construct "female homosexuality" as materially and sexually pure. As a type, they argued, "true" homosexuals kept desire under the control of the individual will.

-- Marti M Lybeck, Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933, 2015 Fuller quote here. This one links sexual morality and citizenship most directly and perhaps in the most “respectable” way (the realm of things you don’t talk about).

To understand how MSM is read, it is important to examine how explicit and implicit boundaries are drawn around the category gay. Consider, for example, a passage from Paul Farmer in which he claims that, in recent years, there have been fewer HIV cases than predicted among gay men in the United States, a category he implicitly racializes as White via the contrast with “injection drug users, inner-city people of color, and persons originally from poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean.”21(p47) He further excludes gay from poor and suggests that “males involved in prostitution are almost universally poor, and it may be their poverty, rather than their sexual preference, that puts them at risk of HIV infection. Many men involved in homosexual prostitution, particularly minority adolescents, do not necessarily identify as gay.”21(p47) With this juxtaposition, Farmer seems to suggest that same-gender behavior among poor men of color (especially youth) is sex work rather than sex for pleasure and is devoid of identity and community; same-gender behavior among White men is read as synonymous with gay identity.

Compare these assumptions with a recent ethnographic report on men at risk for HIV in Dakar, Senegal.22 While many of these “men who have sex with men” are poor and engage in sex work, the authors found that they have indigenous sexual-minority identities that are differentiated and socially meaningful. Senegalese sexual-minority identities serve as a basis for social organization, including, but not limited to, sexual roles. The authors describe ibbi as men who “tend to adopt feminine mannerism[s] and to be less dominant in sexual interactions,”22(p505) whereas yoos are men who “are generally the insertive partner.” They also stress that the categories have “more to do with social identity and status than with sexual practices.”22(p506) [...]

Is MSM a useful term for describing groups that eschew prominent LGB categories? Much has been made of the fact that men on the DL lead secret lives and do not consider themselves gay.25,26 But DL is not a behavioral category that can be conveyed as MSM. As Frank Leon Roberts has put it, “DL is . . . about performing a new identity and embracing a hip-hop sensibility [italics added].”27DL functions not as a nonidentity but as an alternative sexual identity and community denoting same-gender interest, masculine gender roles distinct from the feminized sissy or faggot, Black racial/ethnic identity, and a dissociation from both White and Black middle-class gay cultures.26–28

-- “The Trouble With “MSM” and “WSW”: Erasure of the Sexual-Minority Person in Public Health Discourse,“ by Rebecca M Young and Ilan H Meyer, published in American Journal of Public Health, July 2005. This one doesn’t deal with the “it’s not a choice" argument directly, but suggests who people might want to exclude and have actually excluded in practice from categories of “sexual orientation" and “born this way” gay identity.

Omar’s analysis of linguistic terms has direct impact upon the issue of interpretation of the Qur’an. This analysis, published in 1997, predated the El-Moumni Affair by four years, yet illustrates exactly the conflation of terms which the imam pronounced in that controversial interview. Omar writes, “Many words are used to express sexual relationships that take place between man-and-man or between woman-and-woman. . . . Whether in modern standard Arabic or local dialects, there are terms like sexual deviance (al-shudhudh al-jinsiyya) and sodomy (al-liwat) and also homosexuality (al-junusiyya). . . . The problem is that most people use these different terms as synonyms, creating a situation of naming experiences with names that do not really fit, thereby generating misunderstanding and confusion about the topic of sexual orientation. . . . I see the critical importance of writing about homosexuality as the attempt to remove these confusing mix-ups of terms and issues.”[15] In this crucial passage, Omar explains that his project is to differentiate between homosexuality and sodomy. In his understanding, the Qur’an condemns sodomy as the act of anal penetration rather than homosexuality as sexual orientation, while the Islamic legal tradition mistakenly conflates the two.[16]

The distinction between homosexuality and sodomy makes sense if one asserts that there is a psychological reality called sexual orientation, which is separate from and prior to any sexual act. He writes, “Sex is a phenomenon that happens by way of the body, whereas sexuality is a matter existing at the level of psyche and personality.”[17] In his analysis, only a person with a psychological identity of constant and exclusive same-sex desire should be called “homosexual” (junusi in his terminology, or mithli jinsiyya in the Arabic terminology of other contemporary writers). The person who performs same-sex acts without doing so within the framework of exclusively homosexual orientation can be described as sodomite (luti). It is this behavior that characterizes the Tribe of Lot, who wanted to perform same-sex acts for reasons other than as a genuine expression of their sexual identity and psychological persona.[18] Omar’s analysis challenges classical Islamic law. Jurists instituted practical norms forbidding same-sex acts such as sodomy (liwat), with the assumption that those performing them were, in their inmost character, actually heterosexual (or at least functionally bisexual).

--Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims, by Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, 2014. I read this one yesterday. I can’t be sure whether bisexual people are considered at all, even as a footnote, in Omar’s analysis, and if they are, whether their pursuit of same-gender sex would be categorized with the acceptable homosexuals or unacceptable heterosexuals. I’m not sure here if Omar has in mind for sodomy rape specifically, or any anal penetration, or sexual activity (anal or not) between men that’s perceived as ‘voluntary’ rather than following the demands of exclusive sexual orientation.

But I think it’s interesting how intent/context/constraint of orientation is factored into ethical analysis here and in the first quote, in a way that accepts some forms of or reasons for having same-gender sex as unethical or socially disruptive. And in the first quote, these ‘voluntary’ expressions are imagined to be rooted in hypersexuality and sex work, distinctly un-middle-class. The last quote is engaging with Islamic legal traditions as well as theology, and I don’t know much about how this articulates with “citizenship,” although the author was writing in the Netherlands where LGBT rights were guaranteed by secular authorities.

Anyway, that’s what was bouncing around my head last night.

[eelsfeelgross]

Conclusions: Trans Activism v. Radical Feminism, a first-hand account

This is current stance after a lot of direct investigation on both radfems online and trans activists online. No group is judged based on the observations, rhetoric, or propaganda of any outside group, but from my own first-hand observations in combination with objective knowable facts such as actions known to be committed in public record by the likes of criminals or celebrities. However, the bulk of this is based on what I have seen, what I know to be true because it’s been done before my own eyes. While my conclusion may lack information on the more nitpicked aspects of things, I believe their overall impressions still hold true with the amount of experience I’ve had. Keep in mind: this is not my only account. I have dipped into the radfem community before, each time from a different perspective, at a different time, and with open eyes ready to receive whatever I was given. The same is true of the trans community.

Trans Activism

I want to make clear that these conclusions were mainly drawn from my direct experience with the trans community from within. I am not relying on critics of the trans ideology to tell me any of this, though they often echo the same concerns and observations.

The trans community has a serious problem with misogyny, homophobia, and sex denial. They employ magical thinking and emotional pleas to justify their conclusions and commit to arguments of definition that are ultimately lacking substance. However, while lacking rational, they are abundant with emotional reasoning and can be incredibly powerful rhetorical tools in convincing others to believe them without the necessary evidence of anything claimed.

This is especially prevalent when discussing sexual biology and sexual orientation. They consider self-harm to be the fault of other people, even in adults, and use this as a manipulation tactic to make it seem as if they’re being killed at higher rates than their general demographics. This plays hand in hand with the appropriation of statistics around things like racial violence or violence against sex workers to make it appear trans people, particularly white heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex) trans women from the middle class of Amerca who aren’t victims of prostitution, are under much more persecution than their lived experiences actually reflects.

This has grown into a political ideology not dissimilar to a religion, but without the usual trappings we associate with a religious group. It requires blind faith in the concept of gender and the “life saving” virtues of expensive hormone treatments and plastic surgeries without proper regard for the risks and consequences of these procedures. Challenging the dogma or asking critical questions is considered a sin itself, even when done with excessive caution for other’s feelings. Violence towards known dissenting groups is considered not just ok, but admirable. Expressions of this desire for violence against the out-group is seen as virtuous to the point that doing it too much will be taken as virtue signalling rather than a sign of deep-seeded anger issues as it would for any other situation. Self-identity is their belief system, and public shame are their tools of punishment to control those within the belief system. Due to sex denial, females suffer especially in this paradigm no matter how they identify or what presentations they choose.

However,

Radical Feminism

Once again, I want to make clear that these conclusions were mainly drawn from my direct experience with the radfem community from within. I am not relying on critics of the radical feminist ideology to tell me any of this, though they may echo similar observations.

Radical feminism, as it exists today in action and not in theories from the 1990s, has a huge problem with transphobia, homophobia, and racism. The focus has shifted almost entirely from protecting women to attacking trans women, understandable on some level but counter-productive to all but the individual ego. There is a preoccupation with what women are “allowed” to do, rather than whether their actions and the consequences of those actions actually benefit the cause of anti-sexism. People feel entitled to be nasty, hurtful and even downright transphobic and homophobic if it means hurting their “enemies” somehow. I’m not sure if they fail to see the big picture or have just given up on caring, but it makes all their pleas for compassion and an end to the trans community’s homophobia seem pretty disingenuous.

This focus on “women deserve more as reparations”, when self-applied to the individual, does nothing to combat sexism as these self serving actions often do little to stop sexism and everything to benefit the individual currently existing within a sexist system. It totally ignores the vital role women play in perpetrating sexism through the generations, from mother to daughter or sister or sister or peer to peer through an intricate web of social pressures.Its not totally ignored mind you, but it is conveniently unaddressed whenever addressing it would prevent them from acting aggressive and toxic toward someone else. However others in the community who aren’t personally benefitting from this at the time will notice, thus leading to endless pointless arguments as the egos clash.

This hypocrisy undermines all attempts at broadening their reach to a new generation of women. Similarly, this toxic attitude undermines all opportunity for organization and real activism which requires a certain level of tolerance and the ability to give basic respect to those you don’t like or agree with. All those who do not tolerate such behavior will simply assume radical feminism must be a hate movement because all they see is vitriol and toxicity, no matter how justified the perpetrator feels about it or the underlying motivators. They will not take the time to read theory because they’ve already seen the practice and they have the sense to know it’s bad. Then when these newcomers see this bad behavior for what it is, they’re belittled or deprived of their agency for their decision to turn away from your movement, called things like “handmaidens” and accused of being either selfishly misogynistic or plainly brainwashed, driving them ever further away. The refusal to take responsibility for your own image and the consequences of your behavior under some false impression of ideological purity justifying it only further cements this takeaway outsiders have.

The most egregious example that comes to mind is the “queers” issue. Radfems are adamant about queer being slur, and they’re right. I myself grew up having queer flung at me by violent straight men and I’m not even that old. I feel no joy in the sanitation and generalization of the term. That is not reclamation, that is erasure and appropriation of pain. Most radfems agree on this wholeheartedly. That is, until you decide to spell it “kweer” and start flinging it at trans people who fit a particular homophobic stereotype: strange appearances, unorthodox body modifications like piercing and colored hair, unwashed, perverted to the point of being predatory, self important children who are just playing pretend to be different. All these qualities call back to the stereotype of queers, gays, and it is deeply intrenched in homophobia going back generations. And yet, while radfems would condemn the trans community for the appropriation of queer and its homophobic implications, they have no problem employing it as a slur when it suits their own toxic impulses.

Some even seem to believe that misspelling the word or being homosexual themselves absolves this. It does not. Anybody without the blinders of radfem internal rhetoric will quickly see past this nonsense. If the trans community came back and started calling radfems “diques” and associating the term with severely lesbophobic stereotypes like being unwashed or too ugly to get a man or any of the other countless stereotypes around the slur “dyke”, radfems would be rightly livid. Making a point to only target straight radfems with this insult would not make it any different. But addressing these kinds of hypocritical positions has become a taboo within the radfem community, yet another spark to relight the fires of senseless infighting.

This is the worst example I’ve personally seen, but it is not the only one. There’s also the tendency for radfems, desperate for others who are gender critical to connect with, to make alliances with right wing conservatives despite their racism and homophobia simply because they’re also transphobic but for completely different reasons. And also a tendency to be much more forgiving of misogyny coming from these new “allies” that will glady destroy you too once trans people are out of the way. But I will not labor my point any further by bringing up everything all at once. Regardless, for those who harp on and on about getting to the root of the problem, the moment anyone suggests you try getting to the root of your own problems, taking accountability and making changes, all that self-righteous posturing seems to go out the window just like it does in the trans community. You’ve become a reflection of what you hate in an attempt to combat it, and it will be the death of your movement if you don’t make a serious effort to reform these behaviors and distance yourself from those who employ these forms of rhetoric.

It’s a harsh fact, but the world at large does not care what you deserve, just like sexual biology doesn’t care about your personal feelings about your sex. It just doesn’t. That’s why patriarchy exists in the first place. It is your job as a social movement to use your words and actions to convince them to care. That is what the trans community has managed to do successfully, in my opinion often for the wrong reasons but successfully nonetheless, but such things do not stroke the ego of the individual radfem and therefore simply doesn’t happen in an organized, ideology-wide manner. Small islands of rational stand isolated in a sea of this pointless vitriol, and alone they are hopeless against the attacks against radical feminism born from the trans community and their sex denial that leads to egregious misogyny.

Conclusion

When it comes to the underlying theory, the ideological core, I find that radical feminism has the best chance of growing to become a social movement for genuinely good change in the world, particularly for women and women-loving-women specifically. Trans ideology, in my opinion, is inherently flawed as its core tenants require faith in what one cannot prove and a rejection of science that doesn’t support said faith.

Trans ideology as it exists in 2020 is more akin to religion than science, and has proven its capability to do harm through its use of magical thinking and distorted points of view that constantly shift and change to make space for the core trans ideology to be “correct”. Core ideas such as: sex is either fake or less relevant than gender, that gender is an objective fact of the human psyche, that others failing to fix your own poor mental health are responsible for your harm or death, that transition is always a good idea if someone wants it and no gatekeeping should be performed regarding using plastic surgery to treat mental discomforts, and so on. Remove all these ideas, and the whole thing falls apart.

Meanwhile, removing the toxicity of the radfem community as it exists now will not destroy its underlying core beliefs. Its just that the current people who advertise themselves as radfems and take up that mantle do not actually follow the core ideology of their own movement when it doesn’t benefit them. It has been infiltrated and run amok with bad faith actors who abuse the movement for personal gain, whether they are aware of it or not. And with their combination of being excessively vocal and lacking any shame for their misdeeds, more and more are drawn into their toxic games to the point that the ones who actually speak to the spirit of the core theory get drowned out or attacked to the point none will associate with them openly. The ones who actually know the theory and practice it end up effectively shunned from a community that widely hasn’t even read the theory and thinks hating trans people and thinking pussy = superior makes them a radfem. And thus, by allowing this, that is what radical feminism has become in practice. No amount of appealing to that core philosophy will matter if the actual people don’t apply that theory properly.

So my conclusion? Radical feminism has the greatest potential for good, but it is grossly unrealized and will remain that way without radical internal changes. However, if anyone is equipped to get to the root of the problem and make a radical change it should be radfems. Or at least, the good faith radfems who aren’t abusing the movement, of which I’m convinced have become the minority of radfems in the present day. Perhaps it is time for feminism to once again branch off, not to try returning to the 2nd wave but to set the stage for a true 4th wave as many have talked about. A 4th wave that is based on the foundations set by 2nd wave feminist thinkers, but forward thinking, self-critiquing, and not limited by the hangups of the last wave. I guess only time will tell what radfems value more: their egos in attachment to the idea of identifying as a radfem, or the effective dis-empowerment of patriarchy through organized effort at the expense of satisfying your personal vendettas against all men.

[nudityandnerdery]

Please explain non-binary genders to me in a manner that isn't over simplified... Everything I find is either from a terf bigoted bullshit perspective, or just kind of a vague love is love be a decent human being that does nothing for those of us who try to be decent even when we don't understand.

Okay. So. We need to start with two facts.

Fact the first:

Gender and sex aren’t the same thing. Your biological sex is pretty much controlled by your chromosomes and the development of your body. Now, looking at these in a binary fashion, i.e., people either are one or the other, is an inaccurate oversimplification of things. But that's a bit really why we're here. We're here about gender, which brings us to9

Fact the second:

Gender is a social construct. There’s no specific universal definition for what counts as masculine or feminine or any other gender in the world. That shit varies from culture to culture and from time to time. So anyone who tells you something along the lines of “This is what a Real Man does” or “This is what makes you a Woman” or anything in a similar vein? Look, they’re full of shit, they’re either pushing conservative rhetoric or radfem bullshit, which are really not nearly as far apart as either of the aforementioned groups wants to believe they are.

So! With those two facts in mind, here’s what we get with our current gender situation. White western christian-influenced culture, in which most of us are soaked, pushes the idea that there’s two genders- masculine and feminine, whatever synonyms of the roles you want to take up. They want to take those two roles, cast them as opposing roles, and split up various traits in life by what side they think they should belong to.

This is bullshit on multiple levels.

First of all, those traits are arbitrary. According to society, where do some things fall out? Physical strength is masculine, empathy is feminine. We see confidence as masculine while tact is feminine. And they get ridiculous, too. Wearing pants? Masculine, apparently. Crying? It’s feminine to acknowledge pain of any sore, I guess. There’s whole lists of this sort of thing if you look into it, but the fact is that western society spends a lot of energy reinforcing this idea.

Did I mention this is bullshit?

They’re arbitrary. They shift as time goes on- a hundred years ago, pink was a “stronger color” that fit boys better while blue was “delicate and dainty” and thus obviously a color for girls. Pants were previously only for men.

These fucking ridiculous norms are, then, entirely entirely subjective- and they are weaponized far, far too often by people who want to attack someone who’s not appropriately manly or lady-like for their taste. It was some standard bullshit that got thrown at the Obamas- making fun of Barack for not being Clint Eastwood macho, insulting Michelle as being too manly. (There’s also a fuck ton of racial weight to this specific instance here, too, and I’ll have to admit, I’m not a person qualified to do that justice. Do some research, there’s people who have addressed that aspect of it better than I have.)

So this means that forcing people into these standardized roles isn’t about helping them find self-confidence and who they are, they���re about ensuring obedience. They’re about punishing people for stepping out of line. They’re about reinforcing the strictures that our society wants us to have to spend energy adhering to, making sure that we’re more scared of being out of compliance with society’s expectations than we want to find the truth of the life we should be living.

(Every dude out there who’s blamed feminism because he was angry that his girlfriend didn’t need him to help carry a heavy box for him? Yeah, buddy. That’s you being suckered into thinking the cultural gender “norms” are more important than acknowledging that maybe your girlfriend doesn’t need you to lift boxes and fix leaky pipes, because it’s easier to get angry at feminism for that than to consider what else you can bring to a relationship other than simple mechanical abilities.)

Another reason they’re dumb? Because very, very, very few people are strictly one side of the register or another. Especially when those registers are politicized in their own way- negative gender stereotypes would tell us that traits of femininity make them gossipy, illogical drama queens, but then traits of masculinity make them territorial, egotists who act without thinking, and is there really much of a difference, or is there just something recursive about trying to describe similar traits in different ways to fit what you’re trying to argue?

And I’m not even qualified to get into the idea that a gender binary is a pretty specific idea. There’s other cultures out there that believe in more than just the two. But White western christian-influenced culture had pushed the idea that there’s men and there’s women and that’s all.

And it’s a pretty bullshit idea, at least to me.

Which. Well. I guess finally gets us to the point of your question here. And the answer is that while there’s all that standard, strict arguments of what counts as masculine and feminine up there? There’s also… everything else. Look, I’m not going to say that I have all the answers to everything. I’m not entirely joking when I say things like my gender identity is a vague handwaving motion. It’s something I’m trying to figure out. It’s not something that’s really got a straight answer to it. All I can give you right now is this.

Yeah, my body is pretty masculine looking. Got the beard, got a dick, got all that. But when it comes to all of those traits that are supposed to be masculine and that are supposed to be feminine?

I look at the masculine side of the register. A lot of that doesn’t fit me. A lot of that isn’t things I want to aspire to. There are things that do fit, but looking at them, do I feel there’s something inherently male about them? I don’t think so.

I look at the feminine side of the register. A lot of that doesn’t fit me. A lot of that isn’t things I want to aspire to. There are things that do fit, but looking at them, do I feel there’s something inherently female about them? I don’t think so. 

And I think that means the only option I have left is to figure out what a third option is that fits me.

I don’t feel comfortable describing myself as masculine. I don’t feel comfortable describing myself as feminine. So. I have to figure out what I do feel comfortable describing myself as. For the time being, that’s genderqueer. It’s a work in progress, and it may never be something I figure out entirely, and I’m okay with that.

Acknowledging that I don’t know was, in and of itself, kind of a relief.

[theothermegnolia]

I do not fit in a box, I am a human not an action figure; you do not fit in a box, even the man, Carl Jung, who invented the boxes (the personality archetypes in his early days before his own psychotic break, which so many people take far too seriously,) doesn't fit into a box. So much attention is paid to the labels people put on them selves, racial, gender, political party affiliation, religious, silly lables; especially the racist labels neo-Nazi who are new at nothing, the proud boys who are proud of a nothing, or boogaloo whatevers as they do not dance; it seems as though the labels are used to limit access. As if certain words, letters, hair and clothing styles are only acceptable one the label the human was born to.

Once upon a time I taught psychology university level; there were two chapters that I thought were the key to understanding; still do really, but personal acceptance and social acceptance; I was going through Chemo at the time bald as can be, so I would wear a rather dab mousy wig for the first weeks; I would teach personal acceptance, because if and when you accept who you are everything is going to be fine; then social acceptance I would start class as always and the just pull off my wig and asked 'why' pointing at my head; they would be confused at first, so I would throw things out; 'is this a choice' I would ask, and they would catch on expecting me to rebuff them. I would stand there and beat them to the laugh; at the end of the hour they would ask which were right; I shook my head and told them this is social acceptance, nothing relies on the truth, or reality it is their supposition that they formed upon seeing me. The difference between social and personal acceptance is what you as a person are willing to let others delineate for you. Years later i ran into someone from my class and they remembered me as the bald dyke druggy psychology teacher, so not all lessons taught are received well.

In the label department I have no idea what I am, honestly, seriously, truly; I have shirked them my entire life as I accepted myself as what I am; I have had one relationship; yes, as my birth certificate says am a female as I do have, err had, the appropriate reproductive plumbing for it or so science says yeah; the relationship it was with a male, so I have been slapped with a Cis label; I don’t know what it means nor do I care what it means enough to research it.

As it comes to sexual identity or preferences I take it all as a matter of style; do you feel rough around the edges or are you polished and shiny, both are a matter of personal style; preferences though, seriously why can't most people see that basing a persons worth on their preferred sexual position is beyond rude? As if sitting at a table, declaring people who like missionary position are sinners, are bad or evil because, well fill in your own adjective. When asked my own sexual preference I do not answer; when asked why, I reply what is far too personal a question, if a third time asked, I ask why would you a stranger want to know my favourite sexual position? Then I tell them I do like kisses, then ask if there is a title for a person who rashers fictional encounters? If there is one I am that.

They also tell me I am white, I suppose its true, I am light in tone, but there is so much more to that story. I can argue genoms and cosmic differentiations in less than the ten thousandths of a measure but all would be lost as science is boring and has no bearing on what is perceived as the truth. Race is merely the adaptation to different climates.

I did register as a democrat even though if you track the history of the two party system the two titles swapped meanings in 1951, but that is well beyond most peoples 2 year recollection, so suffice it to say. I voted republican twice, and I am proud of being able to discern the character beyond the title.

Honestly we must look past these labels, people, human beings, are far more than their limitations. There are Angels and assholes in every aspect of humanity. Look at the person beyond the visage, the character is often hard to find behind all of the bumper stickers that a person wears. Though to make this world the place I believe we all wish to live in, please, be kind; please just be kind. We are all trying to make it through.

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on Powers of X #6

It’s Not A Dream If It’s Real:

We start with an extended return to Powers of X #1, which might come off as somewhat self-indulgent if so much of the issue didn’t come down to an exploration of how this encounter between Charles Xavier and Moira X radically transformed Xavier’s life. We need a full page of Xavier walking happily through the forest, in other words, because we are seeing the last truly innocent moment in his life. 

One thing that I find more than a little frustrating is that, given their prominence in the circular framing device that Hickman uses, we’ve seen remarkably little of Rasputin, the Tower, and Cardinal. I’m really hoping they show up again in Dawn of X, although I recognize that it’s early days yet, because I feel like there’s a lot of unexplored potential there. 

One thing that really changes on this read is how we read Moira’s expressions in light of what the current and previous issue/s reveal about her motivations. You can really see that Moira feels way more ambivalent and regretful about what she’s about to do. 

What Happens When Humanity Stops Being Beholden To Its Environment?

But before we get to any of that, it’s time to close the books on our X^3 timeline. And while I’ve been rather critical of the pacing and characterization of this timeline in previous PoX issues, this is a significant improvement.

It begins with the Librarian going off to “feed the animals at the zoo,” confident that he’ll be unharmed because “my augmented brain is far more advenced than yours.” The Librarian’s intellectual arrogance and superiority complex - which (spoilers) will be his ultimate undoing, and quite possibly that of the Phalanx as well - is a running theme throughout this section.

Speaking of which, we get something of a debate where the Libratrian conintues to think of mutants as essentially mindless animals acting in “their nature,” whereas Logan insists on a language of resistance against slavery. Not surprisingly, the Librarian doesn’t have much have time for that kind of debate and instead wants to talk to Moira.

As befits both of their scientific natures, the two of them discuss the tension between “preservation” and “observation” in “controlled habitats” - and I’ll freely admit that I don’t know enough about zoology to have much of an opinion here. 

However, the Librarian really changes tack from the scientific to the reliigous when he lets them know that “the Phalanx will descend and absorb the entirety of our post-human society...what was once our post-human society will exist forever as part of that godhead.” Again, I think it’s majorly counting your chickens to assume you’ll be part of the godhead rather than food for the godhead, but that’s what happens when you really go in for Pascal’s wager in a serious way.

In a surprise no doubt built on eavesdropping on Moira to understand her mutant powers, the Librarian doesn’t want Moira to die before the translation, because he needs to make sure that “if you live past my becoming god, then -- existing beyond space and time -- we will know you, forever. And I think it very likely we would not tolerate something like you having any power over something like us.” Here is the first real threat to Moira since Destiny in Life 3, that for the second time there would be a hostile force that would know about Moira’s past lives who could act against her before she has a chance to prevent it. And the Phalanx/Dominion are way more powerful than just Destiny, which suggests that Moira’s motivations may be driven now by her perception of the ultimate threats to herself and mutantkind.

In a fitting end that pays more than a little homage to the philosophy of identity, the Librarian is undone by his doubts over whether "the universal machine state” is “a fake existence,” because his post-human abilities allow him to perceive material reality on a deeeeeper level, maaaan, so would he be as happy as just an uploaded consciousness, even one that he sees as godlike?

And here we get the link between the transhumanism/singularity stuff and Moira/Krakoa’s mission of preserving mutantkind: can mutants prevent post-humanity from arising, and escape the cage into which science has placed them? I think a lot of Krakoan policy, from the offer of Krakoan pharmaceuticals on down, is aimed at keeping humanity happy in its cage.

At the same time, we shouldn’t feel too bad about the Librarian’s burgeoning existential crisis, because he is still a pseudo-intellectual racial supremacist who’s just as convinced that technology makes him superior to the racial minority he’s holding subordinate as an Victorian or Enlightenment-era phrenologist. 

Let’s start with his argument that “mutants are an evolutionary response to an environment. You are...naturally occurring.” This is only kind of true, depending on which version of mutantcy’s origins one subscribes to. Even still, a reverse naturalistic fallacy is still a fallacy.

The more interesting idea, and it’s one I didn’t quite see coming is that post-humanity won when it used genetic engineering to make themselves superhuman, and used merely mechanical transhumanism - the Sentinels and Nimrods - to give themselves enough of a lead in the race against mutants that they could never catch up. Notably, this is not the scenario that took place in Life 9 - Nimrod the Lesser clearly didn’t have human afvancement in mind - so perhaps this is why humans need to be so careful about the Heller/Faust line.

Another important question that makes me question the rationality of post-humanity - if you have access to widespread genetic engineering, why not end the human/mutant conflict by switching everyone’s X-gene to positive? I feel like with the spread of CRISPR and similar technologies, this is a question that is going to have to be answered. (The answer is that bigotry is irrational by its very nature, but still.)

Proving once again that Monologuing Kills, Logan nails the Librarian to a tree with his claws - which prevents the Librarian’s knowledge from being incorporated into the Phalanx, and then kills Moira, which insures that the timeline reboots then and there, with the Phalanx getting none of post-humanity’s secrets.

Thus ends Moira’s Life 6...and I have to say I’m not really keen on the misdirect. Yes, it was likely that X^3 would be Life 6, since it was the one timeline we haven’t seen yet, but the misdirect requires you to believe that two Nimrods would capture Cylobel in the same way across the two timelines. The only thing that makes it feel less of a cheat is that apparently all the Cylobels look the same (which is something we saw more of in Life 9, so I guess), but that’s still a bit too close to feel satisfying.

Branching Humanity Infographic:

Speaking of infographics definitely written from a mutant perspective, this document really makes its perspective clear when it refers to humanity as an evolutionary dead end. (Which I’m not so sure about from a genetics perspective - we’ve seen before that humans can be carriers without expressing the x-gene, that the X-gene can spontaneously activate without parents who are carriers, that mutants and children can have children without difficulty, and that sometimes mutant-mutant pairings can result in non-mutant offspring, that doesn’t read like speciation to me. 

Homo novissima -is described as a “manufactured branch of humanity not restricted by normal evolutionary constraints,” which really plays into the naturalistic fallacy something hard. Arguably anyone who’s not lactose intolerant can be described as homo novissima under those standards.

The idea that really blew my mind is the idea that there is a “paradigm loop between organic and technological constructs,” such that advances in the one give rise to the other in a leap-frogging way. This is really different from Hickman’s Transhuman and how HoxPoX has depicted the stark divides between Krakoan and ORCHIS technologies. I wonder where Hickman’s new synthesis will lead us?

It’s Not a Complement:

At long last, we actually get to see what it was like for Charles Xavier to “read” not just a thousand plus years of memories, but a thousand years plus years of memories that are devastating to his entire worldview. Given how much this issue talks about Xavier being “broken,” I would count this as the first time.

Moira, who has thrown her “pragmatic” switch all the way into the red to have this conversation,” barely bats an eye at Charles’ existential crisis and instead pivots to her larger message that “hard truths are what’s called for when dealing with radical realignments to old ways of thinking.” 

The exchange that follows is extremely characteristic on both their parts: Moira is deeply pessimistic, stating that it’s not just that “we lose” but that “we always lose” (much more on this later); Charles, despite his initial shock is still a relentless optimist, thinking through scenarios that would allow him to continue his technocratic assimilationist vision of mutant rights.

In a very bittersweet move, Moira lays one on Xavier and lets him know that amidst all the complicated emotions she’s had towards him, “not once in all my lives have you changed...its not a compliment.” It is one of his most frustrating characteristics that Charles Xavier believes that, because he believes himself to be in the right even when he’s not, he’s incredibly resistant to change his mind. 

Hence why Moira believes “I have to break that part of you,” the part that believes “in the goodness of others.” This is a really significant point - Moira identifies Charles’ compassion, not his pride and intellectual arrogance, as his weak point that she will have to go all Ivan Drago on. This is kind of a problem, because Charles’ compassion has always been fighting a pitched battle with his utilitarianism, so stripping that away produces a man who will do anything for the greater good. 

The chief irony - and it’s one I’ve been surprised more people haven’t commented on - is that Moira’s decision here will directly result in what happens at the end of this book, because once you train someone like Charles to be paranoid and suspicious and even more of a utilitarian, he’s absolutely going to apply his new worldview on you. More on this in a bit.

A couple important things that are really worth keeping in the forefront of your mind when we get to the final confrontation: 

First, Moira is dead-on when she describes Erik Lensherr as “your shade,” because the two of them are mirror images and have been for a long, long time.

Second, Moira’s plan includes Xavier and Erik fighting her. 

Moira’s Journal Infographic:

Here we get an fascinating and frustrating infographic, as we get several pages from “Moira’s journal,” although to be honest it’s much more a Jane Goodall-style field notes on her attempts to influence the future by influencing the development of three men. (Which itself is a whole gendered thing, but also very much tied in to her observation and experimentation methodology in her earlier lives.)

Entry 5: “unlike myself, observation has not granted himself perfect recall of my past lives, and as I wil not permit him to read me a second time, he is now dependent on my interpretation of past-life events.” 

As with his mind-reading of Krakoa, despite Xavier being an Alpha-level telepath, he doesn’t quite get the whole of the picture when he reads (unusual?) minds. This is crucial in understanding the power dynamic between them - the only thing that allows Moira to keep the upper hand is that Xavier is temporarily “dependent” on her, and that he hasn’t yet decided to violate her personal boundaries. 

Also, the fact that Moira describes these psychic impressions - so key to Xavier and Magneto’s conversion to the cause - as “my interpretation” really raises the question of whether Moira is an unreliable narrator of her past lives...which is really quite scary given how much the whole enterprise rests on her being right about how things will go. More on that later.

But as I was saying above, one of the downsides of making Xavier even more of a morally grey actor is that it makes it way more likely that “he will even act against type” (and boy is Moira’s understanding of Xavier shown to be flawed by her belief that this would be against type as opposed to absolutely his M.O) by reading her mind without her permission.

All that Moira can hope for is that because she knows that “all he will be looking for is confirmation of suspicions he might already harbor,” she will be able to steer his inquiry away from things she doesn’t want him to know, although she does have a Plan B of coming totally clean.

Finally, as with the redactions, there is very much a running theme here (and throughout HoxPoX) of struggling over control of (imperfect) information at the heart of all conflicts. 

Entry 14: “while we have become romantic, it is becoming clear to me that I am breaking Charles Xavier. And if I do break him, how will he become the man I need him to be in the coming days.” 

Here Moira gets a little bit self-reflective, realizing that one of the downsides of her master plan is that you can’t “manipulate these men into doing what I needed them to do without any repercussions to myself.” Breaking Charles of his hope and idealism doesn’t, it turns out, make him any more controllable, because he’s going to act on his new nature, and Moira can’t guarantee that she won’t be the object of that action.

One interesting question that I’ve seen raised is whether Moira is referring to Onslaught here. How much of his (to be honest, really quite banal and skippable) turn to the dark side was due to repression and how much due to cultivating his worser nature?

Entry 17: “he had the most marvellous idea regarding the potential tandem of several mutants and what they could accomplish if they worked in harmony.”

I find this one particularly fascinating, because it gets at how the collaborative process of creating Krakoa came together. Charles is able to build on “the potential windfall of knowledge I represent regarding mutandom” to get the idea for the Resurrection system and the broader mutant power synergy approach to Krakoan technology; Moira then “used my experience in genetic modification” to figure out how to make the mutants the system required.

At the same time, my god does this entry make Moira and Xavier seem even more cold-blooded and unethical with regards to Proteus and Legion, because rather than those relationships coming as a “moment of weakness” (in Xavier’s case) they were pre-meditated. The only thing that makes this even slightly better is that, according to the timeline docs, Moira didn’t have a relationship with Joseph MacTaggart in her previous lives, so that she didn’t knowingly walk into an abusive relationship to birth a super-mutant. 

Entry 22: “Magneto...with him, loyalty is something that must be constantly earned. He allows for no deviation of intent -- no wavering of belief. The idea that there will not be setbacks, and that his constant anger will remained tamped down, is a fool’s dream.”

Speaking of unethical actions...Moira trying to mess with Magneto’s mind, given what she undertands as his character, strikes me as pretty damn “casual[ly] arrogan[t].”

Likewise, Moira sees it as a “positive thing of note” that she’s managed to “imprin[t] the idea of stronghold in his mind.” While she notes that “it has always been there” - and she’s not wrong that Magneto has a thing for island, asteroid, and other separated bases. At the same time, it does help to explain why Magneto is so particularly gung-ho on the idea of Krakoa, which makes him their biological last line of defense.

Entry 29: “Apocalypse has made himself known to the world. Knowing him the way I do, and having aligned myself already with Xavier and Magneto, recruitment will not be an option until a much later date.”

Moira’s attitude to her ex suggests that the big blue-lipped boy’s Social Darwinist rage is basically the result of him being “in his raw, primal state,” and that he’ll mellow out once he has “f[ou]nd something to build on.” 

We also get confirmation that the conflicts between various X-teams and [A] were quite real - although intended more at “the avoidance of an apocalypse event” than his destruction. More of a managed conflict, if you will.

Given [A]’s interest in recreating his Four Horsemen, I wonder who the Omega-level mutants he might have been looking for instead of the ones he ended up with.

Entry 48: “I have underestimated Xavier’s infatuation with the possibilities of what can be accomplished with mutant genetic material. Without my knowledge -- and against my advice -- both Charles and Magneto have traveled to Bar Sinister and recruited Sinister to our cause.”

This is the crux of the matter when it comes to the double-edged nature of breaking Xavier of his better nature; the more you do this, the more he’s likely to do underhanded stuff like this.

The central irony is that Moira’s complaint (as much as it resonates with women in the fandom as representing their own life experiences) that “what is this thing that men do, where they think they can shape the world to their liking - and bend others to whatever they will” absolutely describes Moira herself as well as Xavier and Magneto. 

One ominous note, re the ongoing theme about timetables and schedules, is that Sinister is already producing chimerae, so merely leaving him alone might not change the outcome.

Entry 52: “We have lost Magneto.”

Speaking of consequences to manipulation, we see Moira’s attempts to reshape Magneto to “help make him a better man” (perhaps someone who would play nicely wrt to the Krakoan project?) backfire horribly during the events of Mutant Genesis.

For a short entry, this actually gives a really good window into Moira’s psyche, in that she’s more than a little bit prone to depression, when we combine her previous comment that “we always lose,” the trauma she experienced in her previous lives, with her immediate reaction that “I am just as bad as they are. If not worse.”

Entry 57: “I have decided to remove myself from the world.”

See what I mean?

This entry ought to remind us about one of the key aspects of Moira’s powerset: Moira’s ability to predict the future is contrained way more than, say, Destiny. The more Moira acts to change variables and try to produce her good ending, the less of a guide her memories of her past lives becomes. More on this in a bit.

it’s also a good reminder that Charles and Moira have been testing out their “husk...backup” system much, much earlier than poor Pyro thinks.

Tea for Three:

There is something wonderfully theatrical about this three-hander scene in that it all revolves around power dynamics and reversals: Moira starts out quite confident, hands-on-hips, reminding Charles and Erik that she doesn’t need them (I wonder which “of mankind’s greatest culinary cities” she has a backdoor to?), which Magneto responds to with a jab at her cynicism towards “the common kindness of others” and “assuming there’s always another shoe to drop.”

This next exchange gives me a real sense that, at least as far as the secret plan to secure Krakoa’s future goes, the Quiet Council are only really there to ensure that they “won’t be a deterrent to our broader plans.” 

At the same timethe surface of collegial conviviality, everyone knows that “we’re all up to something” - note how quickly Moira goes from her confident posture to a more defensive crossing of her arms, even as Magneto shows off his dexterity with his powers, which is a nice visual detail in an otherwise very talky page.

One area of disagreement becomes quite clear: Xavier and Magneto really disagree with Moira about whether “we can do this without” Sinister. Once again I’m frustrated in not knowing what the Plan A was wrt to the genetic database.

But here Xavier really brings down the boom: “We promised to bring Destiny back.” This freezes Moira right up, and shows one of the main tensions in their (joint?) project, the conflict between radical unity and political necessity.

However, there’s a significant question mark about why Moira believes that “there can be no precogs on Krakoa.” On the face of it, Moira’s objection is due to her fear that Destiny might “tell everyone the truth” that “we always lose,” I don’t believe her for a second. I think Moira’s objection stems from their traumatic meeting in Life 3, and because Destiny “has ways of seeing me.” I think Moira is up to something that she doesn’t want Xavier and Magneto, let alone anyone on Genosha to know about, and doesn’t want Destiny letting the cat out of the bag.

Here’s where I think people slightly get things wrong about the state of play wrt to Destiny and the other precogs. While Xavier repeatedly says “we know,” I don’t think they’re actually agreeing with Moira so much as trying to patronizingly soothe her. After all, their final offer is that, while Xavier and Magneto will “put them all off” with “tomorrow, tomorrow, not today,” (paraphrasing a German rhyme from Erik’s childhood) eventually Charles and Erik will ensure that everyone will "know the truth.” This seems quite different from what Moira wants.

A remaining question: when did Charlex and Erik learn the whole truth, as Entry 5 suggested? Did they?

And here we get the core disagreement between Moira and Xavier/Magneto: she sees “the truth” as meaning “we always lose,” they see it as “until now we have always lost.” I have to admit I’m a little curious as to whether Moira really believes her own nihilistic message, because in that case, why go to all this effort, but I do think it’s importatnt that people remember that Moira’s powers at this point only let herself see backwards. The world has changed too much to predict the future.

Speaking of gender and condescension, though, the resolution of this argument is really pointed. On the one hand, Moira given credit for her contributions to Krakoa: “you shaped us into this, you made us into this, we are the perfect tools for an imperfect age.” On the other hand, she is very firmly ushered to the bench, because “now it is time for you step aside and let us do the good work for which we were created.” It does come across a bit like Adam talking to Herr Frankstenstein, as Moira’s manipulations come to bite her in the ass one last time.

And as mutant fireworks thunder overhead, Magneto and Xavier have one last confab, worrying about the future. Krakoa might not be enough to ward off mutantkind’s Ragnarok, but Xavier and Magneto are ready to do “whatever it takes” to see it through. 

AND WE”RE DONE!

[hayley-lee-mit2150]

Reading Response - Chapter 11-to the end

This week, our reading was chapter 11 to the end of “The Hate U Give.” This was an extremely interesting and easily digestible read due to all the media circulating around gun violence among teens and the relatability of Starr’s identity issues. Specifically, within these last chapters, the book explored greater depths regarding black-teen culture and the trauma these individuals face - a trauma unlike any that other racial groups usually face. I really admired how this book was used as a medium for those who are not black, like myself to better understand and explore what black teens face such as the cognitive dissonance associated with constantly code-switching. As much as we like to think, we can only understand so much without having personally experienced it ourselves; that is why it is so critical books like “The Hate U Give” must exist to help initiate and facilitate discourse and dialogue regarding difficult topics. Specifically, from personal experience as an immigrant, when reading about Starr’s struggles with fitting in with both communities/environments, I instantly empathized and related. Starr challenges her identities through conscious and subconscious means, much like I did during high school. For example, she talks to Carlos and her uncle about trying to make peace with both her identities whilst she also is constantly in a state of confusion on which identity is her more authentic version. However, it is through these struggles that Starr equips herself with the knowledge and skills to better tackle certain scenarios where she may feel compromised. 

Going back to code-switching however, this is something I personally experienced all throughout high school when hanging out with different friends. When I was with my Asian friends I felt more liberated through my Korean culture and the group naturally related to one another due to the fact we had similar parental and academic issues and pressures. However, when I hung out with my white friends, I often felt like I had to suppress a certain part of myself as it felt irrelevant or unimportant or sometimes even embarrassing. The last part was one of the main reasons I felt so much discomfort, like Starr. You begin to question why you feel the emotions you feel and further how it impacts your genuine self. Like Starr being proud of being black when dancing, there are times when you feel proud and comfortable of your identity but other times where you suppress it entirely to fit in or to feel a greater sense of belonging. I think Starr like myself, felt as if her identity with some of her friends was a performance and subsequently, felt the symptoms of Imposter Syndrome. 

Furthermore, watching Starr struggle with her blackness, especially with the word “THUG LIFE” reminded me of being called a chink and a fob and how similar to the black community, the Asian community has taken those terms back and used them to empower us rather than divide us. In addition, the personal explanation of “THUG LIFE”: “a system designed against us”, made me think of how for most African Americans the system is cyclic and has no escape. African-Americans are the most vulnerable group to become involved with drugs and the most common to enter prison. Beyond that, there are no routes of escape or future growth for them; there are no proper supportive measures that are implemented to help these individuals to better ground themselves. This is truly an awful epidemic that many politicians are trying to reduce.

Moreover, with Khalil’s death, it was very representative of how prevalent racial bias is these days. Although I myself experience racial bias on a much less severe level, “The Hate U Give” showcased how much of a social norm it has become. Further, it highlighted how being a certain colour, in this instance, black, equated a list of characteristics, the main one being a criminal. As one of my peers stated in our discussion group, “when it comes to black people, the police take hills and make them into mountains.” An example of this would be how the child playing with a toy in a park was shot a couple of years ago and how poorly it was represented in the media, putting the blame on the child and not the police officers. Ultimately “The Hate U Give” just reaffirmed my personal belief that everything goes back to colonialism and capitalism. 

Moreover, this reading also made me think heavily about racial bias being used for hirings/completing a workplace quota. It made me think of the iconic question that many people of colour always return to: should you let yourself get hired knowing they are only hiring you because you are a certain race (completing a quota) or should you fight against that hiring protocol because colour has no relation to your qualifications? Additionally, it made me think of how racism has different levels. For example, saying the n-word vs saying yeehaw are yes, both examples of racism but have drastically different meanings and impacts. Therefore, it is critical we as a society understand our history and keep things in perspective. 

Ultimately, the last few chapters of “The Hate U Give” were genuinely enjoyable and stimulated me to think and question many different topics. It made me realize how much I missed reading and the impact it can have on your self-reflection and growth.

[xoruffitup]

BlacKkKlansman: Double Consciousness & Extremist Identities

I saw BlacKkKlansman last night, and I’m still trying to properly breathe around the cold stone it left in my chest. I’ve been thinking about it constantly, and whenever that happens I always feel the need to write some sort of analysis to try to articulate why I’ve reacted so strongly to something. So, here’s my half-baked BlacKkKlansman review.

First things first, I’m white. Of course, that affects the way I view the world and whatever art/media I choose to consume. I fully recognize that my experience and takeaway from this film are likely very different from those of a viewer of color. And sure, I can say that I try to be progressive in how I live my life and I took college courses on race politics and minority marginalization, but at the end of the day, this is a film about black voices and black equality and those are topics I have no right to discourse on. So please, if something I write below seems misguided or uneducated, please let me know so I can self-examine and adjust.

First of all: The simple fact that this movie had such an effect on me as a white viewer. I was in a crowded movie theatre, with an audience of diverse age and race, and never in my life have I felt such a powerful moment of silent, unified shock when the credits started. The ending left every single person speechless. White privilege means that when I read news articles or books about institutionalized racism in our country, I have the option of closing the book, walking away and thinking about something else for a while. Not the case whatsoever with this movie - It didn’t discriminate in its devastating impact. While I’ve read about Black Power ideologies, there’s always an aspect of such movements that are designed not to be fully understood by those outside of it. These are not for me. This seems as intentional as it is justified. Black communities are excluded from so many mainstream ‘white’ narratives or locuses of power, these movements are the sole spaces that belong entirely to them and which they entirely control. They are designed to alienate, the same way these communities are alienated from so much else in society. However, BlacKkKlansman seemed accessible to a multitude of viewpoints and cultural/racial positions. The film does not strive to tell the audience how they should feel, but leaves elements of interpretation up to the viewer by presenting a chorus of voices, rather than a single one; By presenting multifaceted characters experiencing conflicts of identity - Rather than a single protagonist with a single political message. This is certainly not to say that a film is only good if it panders to the understanding of white viewers, but in this case I was impressed by the multiplicity of narratives and perspectives that were portrayed.

What’s so thought-provoking to me about the film was the decision to tell the story from the position of the undecided and conflicted center. By following Ron and Flip’s investigation, we watch each character grapple with the opposite sides of extremism. While Flip has to ingratiate himself with the Klan members who would revile his Jewish heritage, Ron has to spy on his own community at Black Student Union events as they call for war against the police. Both characters must play roles in order to pretend to fit into the groups they look like they should belong to. In Flip’s case, feeling threatened and despised by the Klan’s ideals makes him re-evaluate the meaning of the Jewish identity he never thought much about. For Ron, he feels torn between his loyalty to his people, and to his own hard-sought and prized work as a policeman (an institution equally reviled by Patrice and Klan members). Ron and Flip both wear masks, and their feelings of separation from “their” respective communities makes them each consider the conflicting identities within themselves.

Aptly, Patrice speaks to Ron in one scene about double consciousness. She questions whether it is possible to be both a black woman and American citizen. To her, putting her country first would be a betrayal to her black identity. In juxtaposition, the Klan members dress up their intolerance behind the values of “America first” (I can barely describe the chills that went through me when the Klan members all started chanting it.) Ron’s struggle throughout the film is exactly this - His determination to be both a black man and a police officer. He and Patrice disagree on whether it’s possible to change a corrupt system from within, and the movie leaves ambiguous how much Ron succeeds in this front. It’s crushingly infuriating when, towards the end of the film, Ron is himself detained and beaten by policemen who don’t believe he’s an undercover cop. But shortly thereafter, he enjoys a triumphant entry into the police station where all his white colleagues congratulate his work and embrace him. The scene when he calls David Duke to reveal his identity with his three colleagues giggling on either side of him is downright charming in its camaraderie and gaiety. It looks like acceptance; But tempered by the fact that all his hard work on the investigation was ultimately scrapped in the end. 

These themes of double consciousness and ambiguity permeate the film, and lend to its impactful success. Split-screen parallels are presented between Klan and Black Power movement meetings - Certainly not to equate the two, but to show in stark, unmistakable terms that these are the polar opposite, yet intimately interrelated effects of racism. This is how distantly racism divides our country - And how it leads to beliefs on either side that people will kill for. Towards the climax, a Black Student Union meeting listens to the horrific history of a young black man being brutally lynched, while the Klan members cheer and applaud a scene in Birth Of A Nation depicting the hanging of a black man. Neither side exists without the other to perceive it as a threat - And both stand firm in their respective beliefs that their hatred of the other side is justified. 

Yet, the film wasn’t the story of the Klan, nor of the Black liberation movement - It was the story of the two men caught in the middle, looking for footing on quickly-shrinking ground between the two sides, as their mutual hatred brings the two warring sides to an inevitable conflict. It is the same story of many modern viewers, wondering how in hell we’ve come to the present moment with “Black Lives Matter” on one side and Trump proclaiming “America First” on the other - with not an inch of common ground or even common perception between the two. 

Although I hope most viewers would intuit which side is truly more justified in their grievances, a strength of the film was its balanced, rather than caricatured depiction of the Klan members; Who believe that yes, they live in a racist country - “An anti-white racist country.” The chilling brilliance in the depiction of David Duke was how harmlessly normal he first seems - Cheerfully spouting off phrases like “you’re darn tootin’“ on the phone to Ron and ending the conversation with a chipper “God bless white America!” This is exactly how ideologies of hate become disguised as civilized, mild-mannered “values.” David Duke has given up the flashy title of “Grand Dragon” for the more innocuous “National Director” (or something to that end). The first time he goes undercover, Flip is quickly admonished never to call the Klan “The Klan,” but rather “The Organization.” In a conversation between Ron and one of his superiors at the police station, it’s even discussed how a high-ranking Klansman might have the long-term goal of placing “one of their own” in the White House, after they’ve disguised their intolerance and bigotry under the empirical rationales of policy. It’s one of the most painful moments of the entire film. 

Yet, while Flip has to endure the Klan members’ talk of killing black people, and Ron hears Kwame Ture speak about race wars with inevitability, another stroke of the film’s thoughtful genius is the choice of individual who actually enacts violence - Felix’s utterly apple pie looking housewife. She looks like the plump, harmless woman you wouldn’t want to be in line behind at the grocery store because she’s likely to have fifteen coupons. She is the last person you would expect on sight to leave a bomb at the house of a young black woman. And yet, this is another powerful message: How the vulnerable and susceptible can so easily become radicalized. I certainly don’t have sympathy for her because she’s an adult who made her own decisions; But I’m also aware of the way her Klansman husband manipulated her into becoming what she was, and it’s an extra layer of nuance I appreciated. 

Finally, I’ll wrap this up on a personal, perhaps silly, note. There were multiple layers of this film that really disturbed me, and it’s taken me a good 24 hours to put my finger on this last one: I’m not sure I enjoyed Adam Driver as Flip. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m all over that shoulder gun holster look and he looked 500% finer in flannel than any man has a right to. Also, I’m not sure I would feel this same discomfort if he’d been played by a lesser-caliber actor, or one who I don’t have such an attachment to. But I realized that on an instinctive level, it upset me to see his face under a Klan hood, and to hear him say vile racist comments. Rationally, of course I know that A) He’s acting, and B) Even his character is acting, but Adam’s an utterly convincing actor, playing an undercover detective who’s very good at his job. Maybe both his and Flip’s performances were too good. I asked myself why it didn’t bother me the same way to hear Ron spout racist bullshit on the phone. Part of it is because he isn’t played by an actor I happen to deeply respect and admire, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a passage in the NYT review that got as close to my nebulous discomfort as anything I could express:

"The most shocking thing about Flip's (Adam Driver's undercover detective role) imposture is how easy it seems, how natural he looks and sounds. This unnerving authenticity is partly testament to Mr. Driver's ability to tuck one performance inside another, but it also testifies to a stark and discomforting truth. Maybe not everyone who is white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white.”

Adam’s performance as Flip is discomfiting because it shows how easily a white person can take up the mask of extreme bigotry and intolerance, and how easily they can be perceived as supporting a hate movement, regardless of their true internal ideologies. I know Flip doesn’t mean the things he’s saying, but he’s damn convincing because he looks the part. His whiteness paired with his words - regardless of whether they’re genuine - is powerful and terrible. And racism is what lends him the ability to put on that convincing mask. And if racism is what “makes us white,” Adam as Flip makes me wonder if I could do the same. If, for whatever reason, the situation was such that I had to convince someone I believed in these things... Would I surprise myself by finding that I’m capable of saying things equally terrible? Is this a role that every white person is capable of, at a certain subconscious level, because of systemic racism and implicit biases? 

In conclusion: This movie has fucked up my life. It’s genius and I think I need to see it again. (If I can stomach it...)

[sparda3g]

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma Chapter 274 Review

Last chapter sure left Erina in daze with the sudden Shoujo plot twist that didn’t prepare her to embrace it. Now, she is out of commission as the two guys are about to duel. Shoujo got nothing on this. This chapter however goes back to Shounen, going to a personal level. It’s the usual case of battle procedure; only now it’s personal and I don’t mean the fight over the Goddess.

In fact, you can say that the last chapter was done for comedic purposes, though I do believe it will lead to something later on. The point is the battle isn’t over obtaining the Goddess like she is placed on the line, but it’s the dignity that counts. It’s like me saying, “Once I win, I will be the best chef in the universe!” Unless aliens can’t cook, my words are just words. For those who believe that she’s on the line, that’s not the point at all. Besides, she’s knocked out as Megumi treats her. It’s a funny way to take her out before she can stop anything, especially since she is the Headmaster. I’m fine with this.

That doesn’t mean this battle will be just bragging rights. Instead, there’s a bet on the line, which essentially make this as Shokugeki-esque. Now I am interested. Soma is the one to make it happen since he challenge Saiba with a bet that if he loses, he will reveal his true identity. He still don’t know that Suzuki is Saiba. That’s funny, because I believe Erina knows, but since she’s knocked out, Soma made a bet on it. In short, it’s a useless condition. Clever move, I have to admit on the writing part.

As evil Saiba is, he plays fairly by requesting a bet on his behalf as well. I find it funny how he asks Megumi for a second opinion, like she happened to be his supporter. If he wasn’t evil, I could imagine a new pairing ensue. While Soma’s bet is wasteful in a sense, Saiba takes it to a deep situation. If Saiba wins, Soma will hand over his precious knife to him. Soma’s reaction is very telling.

I’m glad that this battle not only has gotten interesting, but it has taken to a personal manner; one in which Soma reacted with anger. That knife has been a signature to his persona. That’s like removing the straw hat from Luffy of One Piece. It does make me curious on how much value he has with that knife. Could it be from his father or even his mother? If the latter, that would be devastating as hell. As savage this may sound, but I want him to lose just to see how the story flow. Nevertheless, I am invested with this scenario.

The battle begins and Megumi is treating Erina with an ice pack. Dammit, Megumi. You were the chosen one! You supposed to train her to be prepared for any Shoujo or even Joei level of romance! Joking aside, it is comical to see her treating Erina. Megumi is assigned as the judge. That’s high pressure. She can be the savior or the destroyer; all depends on the victor. I doubt Soma will hate her if Saiba wins, but that would be some drama. I did laugh Soma got his gear ready; hype and hell bent to win. All of this wouldn’t happen if Erina was around, but Shoujo plot was too much for her. I blame Soma for his blunt words.

Another reminder that Megumi and Soma have no idea who Suzuki is as well as why he wants Soma’s knife. Soma believes he’s another Mimasaka, who goes around and takes their precious tools in a Shokugeki. Oddly enough, he’s not that wrong with the end scene, but obviously there’s more. I assumed he is going to take it to prove to Joichiro that he defeated his precious son. It’s the bragging rights at its finest (worst). But it’s fine with Soma, because he’s powered up for a while. Good for you, Soma!...

…Wait…

Megumi feels calm for Soma’s win as Erina is still in coma. It’s going to be a rude awakening if Soma loses. He puts the final touch to his dish and it’s done. It feels like it’s been a long time since we last saw a cooking process in this series. Soma creates Cheese Fondue Pork Loin Katsu Combo Meal. It is similar to the one I had not too long ago, only no cheese fondue. Thinking about it makes me hungry for one. Funny how Megumi considered this Soma-kun-y. That sounds right. Soma’s dish is first to serve…

…uh oh…

A little mug contains cheese, but with an added twist of black sauce. Dipping the katsu on it and you get something tasty. Now I really want to go back and get one with the sauce on the side. It also feels like it’s been a while since we last received a descriptive detail on the dish, which makes it sound even tastier. Soma has learned well with the timing use of heating the pork roast. The way how it sounds doesn’t seem easy to pull off. It creates an illusion that it has been fried yet they forget that it was.

Megumi is so floored by the tastiness, she has become a gal. Well, that’s one way to address the black sauce and the flavor. I never thought to see her in gal form, but there it is. Saeki must be hoping to find a way to do one. Clearly, Soma has upgraded a lot in his technique. With eggplant brulee as a secret ingredient mixed with his foundation of Yukihira Diner and the polish of Tootsuki studies, he made an excellent dish…

What are you doing to me, Soma…

As for Saiba, he’s just hanging out with others; pay no mind of his dish being made. That pretty much means he’s really top tier level if one isn’t worried about the process. All it was missing was a background music of evil. The dish is done and in a strange revelation, Soma wasn’t entirely wrong. He made the same dish as Soma; he is Mimasaka 2.0. Then again, perhaps Saiba is only mocking him by using the same dish and one-up him with a specialty. The only difference is the white sauce.

On one hand, you can see it as a ying-yang metaphor between the two. It’s the most fitting choice really. On the other hand, you can joke around by wondering, “If black sauce made Megumi a gal, what white sauce will do to her?” It’s best for me to avoid racial remarks. That all said this is bad news written all over it.

Not only Soma did start first, but the clear hype push for Saiba is running high. Not to mention, Soma is giving out everything he got to make sure that us audience know that he has signed a death warrant. He is about to be like Samus from Metroid once he loses. Like, “Yeah! I’m god-like at the start,” but once that knife goes, “I’m weak! No!!! N. O. O. O!!!!!”

Overall, I thought the chapter was good for the usual procedure of the battle, but my interest level has increased. The feud has gotten personal, despite Soma has little-to-no gain from revealing his identity. The dishes look delicious and it’s good to see something that I have tried before; just need to dip in a sauce now. The cliffhanger is worrisome, unless Saiba somehow loses, which would be a twist. I’m curious what direction we’re going with this. I guess the series has a lot more in its tank than some expected. If everything goes accordingly, well, the time to say goodbye to the knife is ticking. I’m going to miss you, buddy…

[stabbedinthenameofscience]

Liberation movements vs Equality movements

Equality- we’re on the same playing field.  The game has been made fair.

Equity- we also consider the factors that have disadvantaged the minority group and allow for compensation to create fairness.

But both exist within the current system.  This is the problem with equality movements.  They seek to maintain current structures, but to raise up groups within it through a system of equality or equity measures that give everyone the same rights and remove barriers to access in asserting those rights.  They do not abolish the structures that made those divisions and oppressions possible.

For example:  marriage equality.

Now don’t get me wrong, this was not a worthless cause by a long shot.  Relationships matter and all those that people want to have solemnized should be recognized as such.  But they still aren’t and can’t be.  Here’s why.  Marriage equality sought to raise up LGBTQ+ folks to the same level of relationship rights as those who already functioned well within the validated relationship hierarchy.  They wanted the “highest” relationship achievement certificate possible in the existing game.  In doing so, they utilized a form of identity policing that legitimized those who wanted to be “just like” their straight counterparts while pushing aside those relationship structures that existed outside it.  While it created equality within the system of marriage, it did nothing to actually change the system itself which is inherently inequitable.  Why?  Because it creates a dynamic in which only one type of relationship is considered good enough for the protection of partners in areas such as medical powers, end of life care, probate, child guardianship, etc.  A relationship resulting in marriage is the only one that counts.  The barriers are removed and the legal structures amended so those rights are within reach of those who want them.

Liberation, however, would have resulted in a fundamentally different outcome.  A liberation movement doesn’t accept that marriage between two equal partners is the only functional and validated relationship structure.  Were we to push forward under the flag of Queer Liberation, marriage may still exist, but it would be just one of many relationship structures given societal validity.  For example, a polyamorous relationship resulting in a network of adults caring for one another would not be considered inferior to a monogamous heterosexual couple with a certificate from a county clerk.  Partners living together and sharing a household would not be asked when they were going to be married as though their relationship wasn’t at its highest level of commitment without that process.  Liberation aims to give value to the personal choices of individuals who live their lives to their fullest potential.  It does not aim to decriminalize human trafficking or relationships with minors because “freedom,” rather it breaks the bonds of hierarchical institutions that oppress individuals that don’t fit in the neat little box made for them.  I don’t want marriage equality to be our aim, I want relationship liberation- the freedom to choose how we form relationships without having them seen as inferior if they don’t result in marriage.  That includes platonic, aromantic, and asexual relationships.  Your squish is important, too.

So no, I don’t want economic equality.  I think our economic system is inherently flawed and built on the back of exploitation of the working class.  I want economic liberation where everyone can reach their potential because they are actually allowed to function as humans both within a system of work and within a system of barter and creation, of trading skills or earning money for other goods or services.  But I also want that liberation to come with a basic income, guaranteed healthcare, and an end to the prison-industrial complex.  Equality only guarantees the end of unfair labor practices.  It does guarantee true power over one’s future.

I do not want racial equality.  I want racial liberation.  Racial equality means bringing people of colour up to the same level of treatment to white people in a system that was created with their blood and bones ground into the foundation.  People of colour shouldn’t be expected to accept being a part of a system that inherently devalues them because it was built with the expressed intent of keeping them as lesser humans.  They need liberation- the power to either tear down the systems that were built specifically to oppress them (local zoning, a good chunk of our mortgage and banking industry, parts of our interstate highway systems, police profiling, the for-profit prison system, the entire Violent Crimes Act, etc) or to operate entirely outside of them like the successful black communities did in Detroit (black bottom) and Tulsa, and so many other cities that had thriving black economies before white people literally burned them down and murdered people or decided that eradicating them through eminent domain and building interstates on top of them was the best course of action.

I do not want equality of the sexes.  I don’t want women to have to be equal in a system that is built on their emotional labour, on their physical labor in the home that has never managed to lessen even with technological advances and more involved men, on their ability to be the sole emotional companion of the man in her life.  I don’t want women to have to be equal in a system that has been built on her role as a mother and support system, not as an independent leader.  When I say I want to see the patriarchy burn, I am talking about liberation, not equality, where a woman can define herself however she likes without ever having to worry about being equal within a system that was built on rape culture.

I do not want trans equality because I don’t want transgender and nonbinary people to also have to be equal in a society that was created without them.  I want their liberation so they can stand up and say that they were a part in crafting their communities, their opportunities, and their lives.  I don’t want them to have to fight for the use of a pronoun on official documents and to have to feel like they should be thankful for something they should have been guaranteed all along as a result of their humanity.  These people should not have to fight for equality in a system that doesn’t serve them.  They should be allowed liberation in which they are not constantly surrounded by their own erasure.

I don’t want educational equality because I don’t believe a failed system of student debt is going to solve anything by creating more opportunities for access through further debt and scholarships that saddle students with years worth of salary lost when they are just trying to find a job.  I want educational liberation where seeking out opportunities in trade or academia is available to all without hesitation and learning done in a variety of manners is valued.  Many of our most pioneering scholars in science were self-taught beyond a basic education and yet we deride any knowledge that isn’t taught at an accredited institution with a degree attached.  I don’t think that certification should be entirely eliminated- trades do need safety measures in place and measures to ascertain credentials in hiring are generally considered necessary, but these should be open to all who can prove they know their material and can demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

I don’t want disability equality because we shouldn’t have to exist in a society that automatically assumes it has to adapt itself to us rather than seeing us as an integral part of society.  It shouldn’t be an afterthought to add ramps.  It shouldn’t be considered something you have to do to adapt an existing default.  Liberation would mean that disabled people are a given and that their needs are just a part of how humans live.  There are no “adaptations” because that indicates that something else is the normal state of being and disability is not.  I want liberation because disability would just be another type of person.

Equality leads to “we gave you this, you’re just like us, now shut up and stop complaining- you have what you wanted.”

Liberation leads to “you mean there are places that don’t see you as human?” because it’s just normal that people are a part of the communities in which they live.

Burn it all down.  It’s not serving us.  Liberate.  Rebuild.  Include all people in how we do it this time.

[rpbetter]

hey! ive got a question! is it acceptable or problematic to rp a biracial character with a face of which you don't know if theyre actually biracial/partially white? like, I'd like to play an Indo Dutch character faced by marcel fritz, an indonesian model with an assumably german name origin, but with no noted relationship to any european ethnicity..

Hey there, thank you for your question!

I want to say, before anything else, that much of this advice is opinion based. It’s my opinion, formed by my experiences. The basis of what we consider acceptable or problematic is often thus influenced, even when there is an underlying hard yes/no possible. Furthermore, that you’ve both taken the time to consider this matter and reach out to someone tells me that you’re already infinitely more on the side of acceptable here than most people. A hell of a lot of RPers (and published authors, screenwriters, etc.) don’t bother to worry about these things, so thank you for being concerned!

As to your initial question, “is it acceptable or problematic to rp a biracial character with a face of which you don't know if theyre actually biracial/partially white?” I feel like this isn’t inherently problematic. Before anyone kills me, I say that because it’s reality-reflective. Human genetics are weird as hell. It’s often difficult to tell someone’s detailed ethnicity with full accuracy just by looking at them, especially if their genetic heritage isn’t one that presents in a way that is widely recognized, thus obvious. A person can be biracial and present as entirely white, as the race of their non-white parent, or in myriad combinations in between.

So, on a very basic level? There’s nothing problematic about the way this character looks.

What can make it problematic is the handling of the situation, which you explain in more detail, “I'd like to play an Indo Dutch character faced by marcel fritz, an indonesian model with an assumably german name origin, but with no noted relationship to any european ethnicity..”

In order to answer this better, I looked up the model, Marcel Fritz, and also double checked the surname origin. I wanted to see Marcel because where we get into potentially problematic areas with casting muses who are diverse in race is pretty apparent immediately in whitewashing. While there isn’t a load of information anywhere about him, he does legitimately fit your desired parameters without being whitewashed. He doesn’t look like a white European dude with some cliché “exotic” features as a selling point, is what I’m saying. That’s good, that’s very acceptable!

Now, as I said, I also couldn’t find much on his actual history. Marcel is most often a French name, and you’re right that Fritz is German in origin. The Dutch language isn’t one of my strong points, but it does seem to have a lot similarity, use, and transferable word instance with both German and French. (Reasonably.) I think it’s very likely, given the Dutch history with what is now Indonesia, that the model has some Dutch ancestry. Regardless, he doesn’t show any extreme reflections of any manner of what we’d think of as white European appearance. I don’t think it’s going to matter much if, three years from now, you find out that the model is, let’s say, German...it’s believable, both visually and in real-life history, that your muse isn’t.

So, again, you have thought about this, you have done some research, and you haven’t grossly physically whitewashed the muse for the sake of giving them some kind of sex-appeal while remaining, you know, white. You’re doing great so far!

What you need to do to keep doing great is to make sure you’re being respectful and realistic about the muse’s culture, experiences, and so on. Refraining from whitewashing them culturally where you’re already not doing so in appearance.

I, obviously, don’t know if you created this muse because you are from the same background, or one similar, but if you’re not, this is extremely important. It’s one thing for me to point out adherent stereotypes that have points of accuracy with my own race while portraying a character, it’s a whole other, legitimately problematic as fuck, thing to do it with a character who isn’t my race. Even if there are similarities to my racial or cultural experience, it’s important to responsibly portray the things outside of my viewpoint and to be aware of them. You feel what I’m saying?

I also don’t know what sort of muse you’re making, and that’s definitely important. A muse that is never going to set foot in our reality is going to have different experiences. It’s still important to be aware of potential stereotyping in your plots, language, and overall representation.

I call this “don’t make all your villains black, even if the characters are all cyborgs in space” when trying to explain it. It means that while a totally fantastical setting may never have generated the same stereotypes and racism  and so on as it did in real-life history, we’re interacting with the content as people with those realities. So, you’ve created a fantasy world set in a fictional space saga, you set it up where there’s representation of different races of humans, but didn’t set up as though they have a real problem with racism between humans. That’s great and viable. But...if you, the creator, are still making every one of your villains black men, that’s bad shit.

No matter how unreal the circumstances, be mindful of the reality of the people you’ll interact with and how your muse presents to them. Fantasy, supernatural, post-apocalyptic, whatever narratives and their muses may be lacking our identical experiences with racism, but that doesn’t mean your audience (in this case, the RPC and your writing partners) isn’t going to see it like an offensive neon sign. Make sure you’re not doing that!

And if this muse is going to be played in our reality, or a close derivative thereof, it’s your responsibility to be accurate and respectful. Bad representation is worse than no representation.

To avoid that, keep researching, and don’t stop at just dry history and info; check out real people’s perspectives on blogs and platforms like tiktok, instagram, and youtube. It’s important to have a range of real-life experiences from real-life people similar to your muse. I know it may be tempting, especially if you are white, to engage only with cultural tragedy and negative experiences as a point of realism. Those things are important, but fixating on them erases positive culture and history from the experience.

For example, you say you want the muse to be Indonesian and Dutch. You can ask yourself questions and build on them, like: did he grow up in Indonesia, and if so, what real aspects of this heritage did he experience/learn? From whom? What was a visit to his Dutch-heritage grandma’s house like vs a visit to his Indonesian grandma’s house? Can you list three things that are not well-known outside of Indonesia that are of significance to your muse? If he came to another country, what were the biggest cultural shifts he experienced that had nothing to do with his physical appearance?

By answering these kinds of questions, and those that will naturally come after them, you’re developing a more genuine portrayal. It’s a good way to stay fully in the lane of “acceptable” instead of becoming problematic, including giving others a cliché, offensive, hollow “representation muse.”

It’s always tricky, as I said in the first paragraph, these things can be seen as problematic if someone really wants them to be, as beyond the foundation of legit problems we have different viewpoints, emotions, and experiences. There are people in the RPC who, at the same time they demand more diversity, are hostile to anyone writing a muse who isn’t identical to their own culture, race, or gender experience. You are likely to run into them, it’s an unfortunate part of writing diverse muses. So long as you are approaching it with the genuine desire to not be offensive, doing the research, remaining mindful of how you’re using your muse in different writing situations, and keep being willing to learn more, ask more, listen more...you’re alright.

Hang in there, be respectful and accurate, and thank you for choosing a different muse-type and being interested in doing the right thing, you’re awesome for that!

As a last note here, I know I said “respectful” several times, but I think people may get something...less intense, maybe, out of that. This is a sensitive issue, there are so many things to be respectful of.

I mean things like, be mindful that in many cultures there are unspoken “rules.” Outsiders are not to speak certain languages or words, know some mythology, customs, or interact with other aspects of the culture. Please, be respectful of these things! This isn’t finding cool inside knowledge for your muse, you need to leave things like that alone when you encounter them. It’s fine to research and know they exist by way of that and stop there, it’s fine to allude to the fact that your muse isn’t going to share some knowledge with anyone, but it’s not at all fine for you to expose and use it.

These things often seem ridiculous to outside parties, people who are looking into the window of a culture that’s tinted by being raised in an industrialized, wealthy, or science-oriented culture. That’s inappropriate, and yes, problematic! If you start to feel like this, remind yourself of how things like the varied brutalities of colonialism were justified for so long; that these people were all ignorant savages. Don’t be like that.

Furthermore, if you are of the same ethnicity, if this is your experience, you really do have slightly different rules. Using the above example, let’s say that in a mun and muse shared ethnic experience, the muse has an aunt who is Very Superstitious. That’s difficult for the muse, who had a vastly different cultural experience as a Millennial or Gen Z person, but also loves their aunt. It’s alright to approach the reality of the muse viewing the things she speaks of as stories, where she views it as hard truth. However, this easily falls into an offensive category of tropes when written by someone white who is just going for...well, those tropes of generational disparity represented through Cool Weird Religious Beliefs.

That sort of shit is what you need to be mindful of avoiding when being genuinely respectful. Not everything is open and usable to everyone, and it is someone’s actual life experience and heritage you’re using.

[elderflwr]

What most Americans get wrong about Islamophobia

It's no mystery that loathe wrongdoings against Muslims have been on the ascent.

In one late episode, a mysterious gathering in the UK announced Tuesday, April 3, to be "Rebuff a Muslim Day." They flowed handouts in a few UK urban communities calling for individuals to assault Muslims in different courses, by "utilizing firearm, blade, vehicle or something else," and upheld for consuming and bombarding mosques.

What's more, in the US, examines demonstrate that in 2015 and 2016, loathe wrongdoings and assaults against Muslims soar. As indicated by a 2017 Pew Research focus investigation, which depended on FBI insights, attacks on Muslims have "effectively outperformed" post-9/11 levels.

One factor that specialists regularly point to is the ascent of Donald Trump.

As a presidential competitor, Trump made regular utilization of hostile to Muslim talk, saying things like, "I think Islam detests us," and proposing that he was not restricted to the possibility of a Muslim database. Subsequent to taking office, Trump marked an official request banishing individuals from a few Muslim-greater part nations from entering the US. He's designated individuals who have embraced hostile to Muslim perspectives to key Cabinet positions. What's more, he's even flowed against Muslim recordings to his a huge number of Twitter adherents.

In any case, Khaled Beydoun, a law educator and the writer of another book called American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear, contends that there's something significantly more intricate going on. As per Beydoun, Islamophobia — dread and disdain of Muslims and the religion of Islam — has profound roots in American history.

I got Beydoun to discover more about Islamophobia in America — and what he let me know was amazing. He clarified that this kind of racialized scorn isn't restricted to Muslims; it likewise impacts non-Muslim Arab Americans and South Asian Americans, among others. What's more, hostile to Muslim assumption isn't exclusively an issue on the privilege in America, he brought up. The left likewise has an issue with Islamophobia.

Our discussion has been gently altered for clearness and length.

Alexia Underwood

How might you aggregate up the contention of your book?

Khaled Beydoun

Basically, it's that despite the fact that Islamophobia vivifies a cutting edge type of fanaticism ... the embodiment of the loathe isn't new. It's profoundly established in American political talk. It's profoundly established in American law. It's profoundly established in American framings of who was a native and who was definitely not. Be that as it may, it's been given another face — another exaggeration — as an outcome of the war on dread, and afterward heightened by the talk of, for the most part, President Trump.

Alexia Underwood

You compose that Trump demonstrated that Islamophobia was a successful crusade strategy. How has this played out amid his organization? Have things deteriorated for Muslims in the US under Trump?

Khaled Beydoun

Amid his crusade, Trump received this system of undeniable, express, and antagonistic talk against Muslims as well all in all scope of individuals.

I'm certain you recollect savants and investigators on TV, even researchers, saying that Trump is just doing this to win the race, and that once he was very office he'd get rid of that exceptional talk.

We saw generally, clearly. Just seven days into his organization, Trump marked the official request now known as the main interpretation of the Muslim boycott, or the movement boycott. What numerous thinking was insignificant talk to assemble voters immediately developed — or decayed — into Islamophobic arrangement amid the beginning times of his administration.

He weaponized that talk into genuine strategy affecting Muslim people group.

Alexia Underwood

There's a great deal of discuss how Islamophobia is especially solid among conservative US government officials, however you call attention to that it's likewise extremely display on the left.

Khaled Beydoun

Better believe it, certainly. Islamophobia, to a great extent because of it being so firmly attached and fastened to Trump, is mimicked as only a type of despise that originates from individuals on the right. We nearly conflate Islamophobia with conservative governmental issues, which is extremely shortsighted. It overlooks you have people on the left captivating in and engendering Islamophobia.

President Obama set up this state-supported program called Countering Violent Extremism. As a result of this program, his observation of Muslim people group really was more extensive and more exceptional than the Bush organization — and Obama was praised as a standout amongst the most, if not the most, dynamic presidents in our nation's history.

Another case are famous media identities and savants like Bill Maher. I was a fanatic of his show, Real Time With Bill Maher, and I now and again still end up watching it since it's a space for extremely energetic and essential dialog on a scope of issues. Bill Maher is some person who is left-wing on a scope of issues, similar to the LGBTQ people group and the earth.

In any case, he veers completely far from that with regards to Muslims and Islamophobia, and upholds this conflict of civic establishments, this restricted perspective of Islam just like a confidence that is altogether contradictory toward the West — that Muslims are an outcast that should be policed and managed by the state.

Alexia Underwood

You additionally say in the book that it's not simply Muslims who have been focused on. Speak more about what you mean.

Khaled Beydoun

When we consider Islamophobia and who it misleads, it's essential to be nuanced. So your regular person and Jane living down the road who may be oblivious or misled about Islam, who embrace a racialized perspective of muslims' identity, these are private Islamophobes. Private Islamophobes can deceive and target non-Muslims.

A quintessential case is Balbir Singh [Sodhi], a man who was murdered in Arizona in September 2001. He was a corner store proprietor, a Sikh man who had a turban and a whiskers, and he was the main post-9/11 loathe wrongdoing, or despise kill.

He wasn't a Muslim, but since Sikh men fit inside this racialized personification a few people have of Muslims, they can be casualties to private Islamophobia. Clearly there are South Asian men who are Hindu or Christian or skeptic or rationalist. On the West Coast, a great deal of Latino men sort of fit inside the physical personification of how individuals see Muslim men.

The state, regardless of whether it be the central government or even neighborhood government, is extraordinary. They have a more nuanced and created comprehension of Islam as a result of 9/11. They know, I think, at this crossroads, in light of the war on fear command, that Muslims are racially various and ethnically differing, assorted as to philosophy, et cetera.

American Islamophobia/Courtesy of Khaled Beydoun

Affability of Khaled Beydoun

Alexia Underwood

You say Black Lives Matter in the book. How does Islamophobia influence a gathering like Black Lives Matter? How might you interface those two?

Khaled Beydoun

Islamophobia converges with Black Lives Matter in unique and unmistakable ways. Countless Americans are Muslim; we realize that anyplace in the vicinity of 25 and 33 percent of the whole Muslim populace here, in the states, [is] dark. When we consider brutal policing, we consider these issues that the Black Lives Matter development has focused on tending to and destroying.

I believe it's additionally critical to outline Islamophobia as another part of racial oppression. In particular, war on fear programming, when we consider the state-supported Islamophobic programs that I discuss in the book, regardless of whether it be counter-radicalization in the Patriot Act, the Muslim boycott, et cetera.

These are likewise devices that are attached to racial domination. A definitive, essential target of Black Lives Matter is to disassemble and get rid of racial oppressor structures and approaches from the state, and that is likewise the goal of a development that is hoping to get rid of auxiliary Islamophobia.

The casualties of Islamophobia, bigot policing, the school-to-jail pipeline et cetera, can be dark Muslims, they can be Latino Muslims, they can be needy and average workers Muslims. It's essential to outline that these developments cross and that they unite in extremely unique ways.

Alexia Underwood

Do you see these developments cooperating to battle this sort of segregation?

Khaled Beydoun

One of the positive advancements with regards to this present, exceptional minute is that Islamophobia has turned into a standard social equity issue.

It's something that Muslims, yet in addition non-Muslims, are discussing. I'm doing these discussions at colleges, and you can converse with, for instance, a Chinese-American undergrad at UCLA who realizes what Islamophobia is, who has a nuanced understanding that it's being reached out by the state, and it's been released by private people.

That, to me, is truly educational, and I think it marks advance. It hints, I think, much more noteworthy steps being made later on — the possibility that there's an entire scope of new groups that are activated and focused on battling Islamophobia in the greater part of its structures.

A moment thing is that Muslim America at the present time has a sizable and developing harvest of administration. Administration that are extremely familiar and educated in the dialect of racial and social equity. I feel that is mostly an a worthy representative for the Black Lives Matter development, in all honesty with you. I think a great deal of more youthful age Muslim-American pioneers were extremely politically engaged, assembled by the BLM development.

So I need perusers to comprehend that Islamophobia is complete: that it's not just this type of detest and savagery originating from people on the periphery. It's much more mind boggling than that. See that it's something that is led by state strategy, and that it's profoundly settled in, it's profoundly established. It is anything but another marvel.

Read Top 100 Prophet Muhammad ‘s Quotes

I additionally believe it's a foundation racial equity issue, and I trust that that dedication [to battling Islamophobia] doesn't blur away when Trump ventures down.

External Links Read about Five Pillars Of Islam

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Culture in Real Time

by Don Hall

“I have a surprise for you in honor of February!”

Dana and I have this thing we can’t quite find common ground upon concerning birthdays. She is a minimalist from a wholly unsentimental Pennsylvania family. I’m a materialist raised by a mother who calls presents “prizes” and gives gifts as a part of her love language.

While I’m old enough not to care, I still want my birthday to be a celebration of me. It’s small in spirit but, in that self-diagnosis we all attempt on our own psyches, I was the child of a beautiful woman who attracted men who wanted her but tolerated me. Birthdays were my mother’s way of reminding me that, at least to her, I was someone of note.

“I’m putting the blue in the toilet!”

Another unusual record skip in our marriage is those Tidy Bowl tablets you put in the tank and turns the water blue. To her, they are a sign of white trash, low culture, unnecessary expense. To me, they are an odd bluish signal of semi-wealth and extravagance. 

For the most part, the toilet remains clear. She likes it that way because she can then examine the color of her urine to see if she been hydrating properly (too yellow and she’s not). Once in a moon, she indulges me with a tab of unnatural blue with a hint of ammonia. It’s stupid but I love it every time.

We are both Aquarians which means we both are almost zealous in our personal independence and the sight of her in the bedroom and I on the couch, doing our separate things in the same space, is common. We do well together.

Our differences—in terms of how we view money, consumerism, art, reading, politics—are bizarrely cultural.

My DNA is mostly Irish. Some British, a bit African American, some Native American, but mostly Irish. I have the fair skin and propensity to addictive behavior of someone Irish but culturally I’m not one who embraces Ireland or her ways. Culturally, I’m a bit trailer trash, a dash biker gang, a sprinkling of Southern United States with a Midwestern sensibility.

I’m an American mutt.

A child of the seventies, a GenX guy who came of age in the 80’s, I’m the archetype of classic rock and slightly retrograde sexist attitudes that almost every Motley Crue and Scorpions song conveys. I still call women I meet “darlin’” and “honey” as a sign of friendliness. I prefer to throw the rock and roll horns to a thumbs up. I have tattoos but most are quotes from my favorite authors.

Culturally, I’m a fucking mess, man.

I have friends who live a more culturally identifiable life. I’ll admit to being somewhat envious of them.

Arlo is black. I mean, black black. He is originally from a tiny county in Georgia and laughs as I tell him how much he fits the stereotype of a sixty year old black man from Georgia.

"You could be played in a movie by Louis Gossett, Jr." and he cackles.

Arlo has a love/hate relationship with his cultural bedrock. He loves the food. "Barbecued pork, collared greens, black-eyed peas. My gramma's kitchen table was what I think Arab suicide bombers dream of instead of virgins." He loves the music. "Mississippi John Hurt, John Hooker, Buddy Guy? Sh-eee-it." He hates the drug culture which he was surrounded by growing up. He hates the idea that all black people can dance. "No one in my family had any of that. No dancing."

Jim (his Korean name is Junghoon but everyone who knows him calls him Jim) tells me he feels out of place when he sees his family. "I guess I'm like a self-loathing Jew in that I'm Korean but by way of Decatur, Illinois." Culturally, he is a "no zone" in that his parents tried to instill the cultural markers of a second-generation Korean kid but he was never really into it. "I always hated kimchi. Hot Pockets. Pepperoni. Keep your Bibimbap to yourself. Give me a bag of Doritos, please."

Culture is comprised of four things in increasing levels of significance: symbols, heroes, rituals and values.

What the three of us all have in common is comic books. All three of us claim to have learned to read courtesy of Stan Lee.

The Fantastic Four. The Avengers. The Amazing Spiderman. The X Men.

The difference between the DC world and the Marvel world was that the heroes in DC were gods and the heroes in Marvel (mostly) were humans with godlike power.

These were the legends and fables of growing up. These were the morality tales of my youth.

From Peter Parker I learned that with great power comes great responsibility. From Logan, his mantra that "The pain let's you know you're still alive" resonated. Daredevil showed that any liability can be overcome (with the help of some radiative waste). 

Bruce Banner instructed that anger can be managed. As an angry Irish-esque kid in Nowhere, Kansas during high school, I needed that lesson. Arlo loved Luke Cage ("But not the Netflix one. The one with the chains and the afro. I was country-black but he made city-black look cool.") and Jim was a huge fan of Ben Grimm ("He always felt like a freak but had his family to give him a purpose.").

I had girlfriends who had broken my heart but nothing I could compare to Peter Parker's grief from Amazing Spiderman #121-122 ("The Night Gwen Stacy Died"). Not only did he lose his great love, he snapped her neck trying to save her. Holy fuck! I was seven years old when I read that and the gravity of a beloved hero failing so horribly was traumatic and took me years to process.

Iron Man #120-128 has Tony Stark dealing full-bore with his alcoholism in "Demon in a Bottle." 

The entire early X Men storylines find an incredible synthesis of the civil rights issues of the late sixties. While the debates about discrimination, non-violent vs violent protest, and inclusion bypassed my ten year old brain, the ideological battles between Charles Xavier and Magneto set the groundwork for when I started reading James Baldwin in high school.

Even more pervasive in the Marvel Universe was the idea that heroes were as flawed as the villains. Doctor Octopus was the bad guy but not evil. Galactus was not evil but simply trying to survive and his means of staying alive involved eating planets. The crossover of villains to heroes was commonplace in the Marvel Universe cementing an ethic that anyone—even Magneto—could find redemption.

My friend has a kid who loves his superheroes. His introduction to them was the MCU and the films of the Avengers. One day, he and his kid were watching Captain America: Civil War and the child wanted to know if Tony Stark was a good guy or a bad guy. My buddy had a bit of a conundrum because in this case there was no easy answer.

This is a bedrock principle of Marvel: there are no good guys or bad guys. Every character is flawed and can make mistakes. Every hero gets to take turns being selfish, afraid, greedy, and enraged. Every villain has a tortured past and is only the villain out of misguided and traumatized perspective. Like the Netflix Daredevil series when Kingpin doesn't realize he's the bad guy until the thirteenth episode and then is astonished by it.

“Culture is how you were raised,” a friend tells me.

Comic books and the desire to be one of these flawed superheroes are culturally important to me. They are as defining of who I am and who I wish to be as natural hair on a black woman working in an office defines her or traditional prayer rituals are to someone raised in a church. These heroes have been a part of my life since I can remember having memories and I've been engaged with them since that nebulous time.

Isn't that culture? My cultural identity?

We GenX types were raised, in part, consuming pop culture in ways previous generations did not. Hours upon hours of televised stories infused into the soft tissue like an army of Manchurian candidates waiting for the buzzwords to activate our consumerist triggers. The advent of VHS tapes made viewing movies the ultimate babysitter. While a kid born and raised on the streets of Detroit might have very little in common with another born and raised in Idaho, both had cultural roots in their mutual boners for Jill Munroe and devastation over the death of Lt. Colonel Henry Blake. A black kid in Birmingham, Alabama could be as racially different from a white kid in Salt Lake City, Utah but both could bond over Star Warsand Nintendo.

As I read it, culture is comprised of four things in increasing levels of significance: symbols, heroes, rituals and values. By that quite academic frame, it seems that as we parse out our differences in our current multi-cultural war in America, it is a fixation on the symbols that trip us up. Skin color, hair, clothing and style, food, language, sexual proclivities and the presence of certain genitalia are all surface-level identifiers. They are the symbols of each human on display. 

I knew a (white) guy who grew up on the South side of Chicago, went to predominantly black populated schools, had mostly black teachers, and whose only friends were black. He dressed black, spoke black, acted black. Did any of that make him somehow less white and does that make any difference? I know a (black) woman—you'd know her, too, if I shared her New York Times Bestselling name—who, if you talk to her on the phone sounds like the secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off but looks like Weezy Jefferson from Good Times. Did her accent and nerdy mannerisms make make her less black and does that make any difference?

“Culture is how you were raised,” a friend tells me. “A lot of it is hidden in the back. It’s not just the food you ate growing up but why that food and not something else. It’s what your family decided to spend money on and what they wouldn’t spend money on. It’s those weird rituals you’d practice every holiday. It’s the clothes you wore but more deep than the fashion is why you wore those specific clothes.”

He tells me a story about clothes. His family didn’t have a lot of money so they saved cash by handing clothes down from one sibling to the next. It was frugal and smart with five kids. By the time my friend got the clothes (he was number four of the five) the strain of wear, the places his mother had stitched up, was obvious. And his little brother then got new clothes because four was the limit of the physical shirts and pants.

My friend spends a lot of money on fashion. He wears the latest trends and has a closet full of suits. He says he spends maybe a third of his take-home on shoes. “That’s culture in real time.”

I don’t dress up for much. I own no suits. I have ties but they’re mostly Marvel, Star Wars, and Beatles ties. My dress shoes are either decent tennis shoes or boots. When I was a kid, my mother wanted to please her aunt. Her aunt was a church-goer so we joined her church. I remember the day she told me I couldn’t go to church because my clothes weren’t up to snuff. “You can’t go to church dressed like that!” she guffawed.

I recall being embarrassed. I didn’t have anything nicer. She laughed at my best clothes. It obviously stuck because I still cringe at the memory. As a result, I bristle at the idea of dressing up for anything or for anybody and I do not go to church. “That’s culture in real time.”

While a follower of The Avengers as a kid, I was never a fan of Captain America. No good reason for that. Steve Rogers just never did it for me. That is, until Chris Evans portrayed the character in the MCU movies. Maybe it was my time to appreciate his retro-goodness; maybe I needed to be a bit older to fully appreciate his specific kind of superhero.

Perhaps I needed to live some life before the ideas that the “I can do this all day” persistence did me any good. The belief in something so strong that he’d go against all of his friends in a fight. His loyalty to Bucky despite the fact that his childhood friend had become a villain. His enduring love for Peggy Carter. His stalwart acceptance that he is almost a century older than he looks and most of his friends are long dead.

I didn’t need those values as a kid. I need those values today.

Dana is fourteen years younger than I am. No, I wasn’t looking for a third wife who was born when I was entering high school. It just worked out that way. The age difference feels sometimes like I was encased in ice for seventy-five years only to be resurrected long after the war was won.

The differences we have are bizarrely cultural. She is a free spirit. I am a worker bee. She is a poet in need of inspiration and subject to the mood swings of that breed of writer. I am an essayist who approaches writing like the laying of bricks to build a house who becomes more a follower of Stoicism the older I get. She grew up in the same house she was born in. I grew up moving from place to place with no true sense of a physical grounding. She is relentlessly frugal. I am an impulse buyer.

But we make it work.

Once in a while I wake up in the morning to take a leak and the toilet water is blue.