#but also because it liberates me from feeling obligated to legally change my name to arthur when I get around to doing that

[obstinatecondolement]

In happier news, Art as a name in and of itself, as opposed to being short for Arthur, is apparently a thing! And better yet:

Art meant the ‘bear’ in Celtic languages. The name derives from Proto-Celtic *artos (“bear”) (compare Cornish arth, Welsh arth, Breton arzh), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos (“bear”). With bears the local apex predator, Art figuratively referred to a ‘champion’ and two Legendary High Kings of Ireland had the name, Art mac Cuinn and Art mac Lugdach.

[smiting-finger]

Bin AU Headcanons

Part II of the (〃ω〃) 500 followers! unwritten-headcanon amnesty (some given in response to AO3 comment questions, and others given unsolicited, lol), this time for Out of the Bin and Into Your Heart and from me to you, my heart to yours

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian

Pre-Wei Wuxian’s first arrest, Lan Wangji was quietly volunteering as general legal aid (helping old migrants with their internet/other service contracts, helping women with their domestic violence paperwork), and then Wei Wuxian gets arrested at a protest and Lan Wangji is not there and he doesn’t know this area of law so he signs up to get involved with Activist Legal Support the next day.

Relatedly: Lan Wangji’s approach to helping Wei Wuxian has always been to turn up, do what needs to be done for Wei Wuxian to achieve his goals and then silently leave again. So when the two goobers eventually move in together (and are finally fully in each other’s space, and fully across each other’s movements), Wei Wuxian goes through a period of constant realisations like “Oh, Lan Zhan, you’re the one who’s been doing this? This as well?! THAT, TOO???”

Pre-fake dating, Lan Wangji knows that Wei Wuxian won’t keep any gifts given by secret admirers, but will shamelessly accept anything that Lan Wangji gives him outright as a friend (”friend”). He derives a petty satisfaction from that, and so has responded more than once to a gift-incident by giving Wei Wuxian a corresponding gift of his own:

So if he heard about the gift socks, he’d go out and get Wei Wuxian a pair of novelty There’s No Planet B! socks, which Wei Wuxian would naturally wear both immediately and proudly with his shortest pair of 4/5ths pants. (And Lan Wangji would stand next to him and somehow radiate smugness without making any change to his expression.)

Needless to say, Wei Wuxian has received a lot of Lan Wangji chocolate (chilli, fairtrade), lunches (homemade, nutritious) and other small items.

Wei Wuxian never even considers the possibility of not putting all his fake-dating eggs into the Lan Zhan basket. And also never stops to think about why that iss.

In re kungfu practice: when sparring against normal people, Lan Wangji does annoyed-leg-sweeps because of “I’ll bring you down every peg to the floor” reasons he’s too well-bred to voice. 

Past recipients of this treatment have included:

Wen Chao, 

Xue Yang at his most obnoxious

Jin Zixuan when gossip about his comments in re Jiang Yanli not being pretty or successful enough to date him (”I can’t believe my mum set me up with someone so mediocre”) is at its height.

This is pre-Wei Wuxian onstage-punch. That comes during the second round of gossip.

With Wei Wuxian (and only Wei Wuxian), however, it’s always leg sweeps and pinning, which is because of ... “irritation”.

The Phoenix Mountain Reserve photo has been Lan Wangji’s favourite shot of Wei Wuxian since it was made publicly available, but he couldn’t use it as a wallpaper for obvious reasons.

Then he agrees to the fake-dating, sees how far Wei Wuxian was going to take it and realised: chansu!

At some point during the fake-dating, Wei Wuxian escalates from the phone entry of Oppa to calling Lan Wangji “Oppa~!” in real life, and then from there to a full “Oppa! Saranghaeyo~!” with the arms-on-head love heart. 

After n iterations of this, Lan Zhan responds with a mirror arms-on-head love heart and a deadpan “Saranghaeyo.” with his face still like (• _ •) and it’s an instant, supereffective K.O. for Wei Wuxian.

Every so often, when another one of his romantic overtures has soared right over Wei Wuxian’s head, Lan Wangji considers Jin Zixuan’s over-the-top demonstrations of affection and thinks (bleakly) “...Jin Zixuan got a singing telegram. Must I also resort to a singing telegram? ; _ ; “

In re: the concert hip-hop number, shirtlessness is the goal all along:

A-Qing (who is also a troublemaker on Lan Qiren’s radar - as soon as he receives the form that says that she and Wei Wuxian will be working together, his spidey senses start tingling) has been constantly referencing it throughout all their practices like: 

“Well, because you’ll be shirtless, you’ll have to make sure to-”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea, totally do that, but remember that you’ll be shirtless too, so-”

Even Song Zichen and Xue Yang know about it and have been visibly bracing themselves for the dress (or undress, lul) rehearsal

Wei Wuxian has missed all of this because of his amazing tunnel vision.

Speaking of Song Zichen and Xue Yang, while they’re having their Moments:

Xiao Xingchen is swanning around like “But do you think the performance had artistic integrity? A-Qing, I’m a little worried that the choreography didn’t do full justice to the abilities of all our members! I hope they don’t think I’m hogging the limelight!”, taunting them with his half-nakedness while he earnestly tries to make sure that all the other dancers are comfortable and happy with the final arrangement

A-Qing fully notices the heart-eye beams shooting over from the wings (and fully notices the same heart-eye beams shooting over during various practices), briefly thinks about saying something to put the two losers out of their misery (because Xiao Xingchen is not the special level of oblivious that Wei Wuxian is), but then thinks ... nah.

During practice back-painting, Wei Wuxian is so focused on Not Looking that his mistimes his ~sexy stretch~ and gets it in precisely when Lan Wangji has turned his back to get the towel, so it really is all for nothing, RIP.

In the reprise back-painting session (and there definitely is one, what with Lan Wangji’s love for marking and the fact that Chinese calligraphers usually sign their name on their work), the levels of both shamelessness and trolling shoot through the roof on both sides:

Wei Wuxian suddenly feels the need to do a lot more whimpering and moaning, and his flinches of “surprise” and wriggling to “get comfortable” suddenly happen a lot more in the hip area than they did before.

Lan Wangji does a lot more touching of the skin he’s about to paint to “warn” Wei Wuxian that the brush is coming (do warnings have to be quite so ... lingering? Only Lan Wangji knows), discovers a sudden need for wrist-pinning to “hold Wei Wuxian still while he works” and his blowing on ink to get it dry suddenly gets a lot more ... sensual ...

Lan Wangji is the teacher that all his babies are always proposing to. They lOvE him with every inch of their tiny baby hearts, and after they get together, Wei Wuxian watches on with a knowing nod, like “My fam, I getcha. Gege will support you in expressing your feelings and we can ALL win!”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know it, but he has a group of grannies and grandpas wringing their hands over his happiness, too: It’s all well and good that he’s seeing the Lan boy now, but when are they gonna get married, huh? HUH?! WHAT’S THE POINT OF SAVING THE PLANET IF YOU’RE NOT GONNA FILL IT WITH BABIES, WEI WUXIAN???

So once they officially start dating, Wei Wuxian steps into the Cultural Centre like “Ah, our fresh new romance! Even after all this time of fake-dating, I’d better give people some transition time to get used to this new state of affairs!”

And in the background, 73 aunties and grannies are thinking “Look how behind schedule you are, Wei Wuxian!” (because it’s definitely his fault, and not Lan Wangji’s). “Where are the babies? WHERE ARE THE BABIES??”

The wedding advice Wei Wuxian got from the grannies during Mianmian’s wedding prep is liberally flavoured with real life anecdotes like:

“Don’t be like XX’s son. He made the mistake of trying to skimp on the dowry - so disrespectful to people who’ve poured so much love and energy into raising a daughter - and it poisoned the entire relationship.”

“That venue is no good - YY’s daughter had her reception there, and we all had diarrhoea after eating the prawns.”

(And Wei Wuxian is like: “How can you retain all of this bullshit detail about every wedding the Cultural Society has ever witnessed, but still not know how to say the phrase ‘Excuse me, what time is the bus coming’ in English?!”)

Mianmian definitely also gets strong-armed by her excited mother into some glorious(ly terrible) Chinese-style studio wedding photos (with industrial-strength airbrushing and wedding costume changes that span many cultures and many Chinese time periods).

Mianmian swears to never let Wei Wuxian get his grubby hands on that album, on pain of death.

But then her parents host something, and Wei Wuxian goes, and right there, hanging in their living room, is a floor-to-ceiling calendar, featuring Mianmian and Mian-man dressed as Chinese emperor and empress (because Mianmian certainly didn’t want it in her house, but it came with the package.)

Wei Wuxian makes a noise that Mianmian previously thought only dolphins could produce, and proceeds to take SO MANY photos with his phone.

At some point after Mianmian’s wedding, Lan Wangji comes out of the shower to find:

1 pair of pyjama bottoms waiting for him on the bed; and

Wei Wuxian in the corresponding top (which doesn’t cover his butt after all, but whatever, he’s committed), shooting him a double-thumbs up and wearing an expression like 8D!

(And Lan Wangji decides it’s not worth fighting and just goes with it.)

Lan Qiren

Lan Qiren is totally the kind of parent who never boasts about his children directly, but will listen politely to you telling him about how your son scored 86 in his maths examination, and wait for you to obligation-ask about his kids before casually saying, “Oh, Wangji? He scored full marks” and smiling thinly.

He’ll add “Sounds like your son worked really hard” for extra fuck you value if you were being particularly obnoxious.

The greatest tragedy in his parenting life is realising that if your children are The Best, it’s only possible for them to marry down.

His initial feelings regarding Wei Wuxian dating his nephew can probably be summed up as: “Wei Wuxian, I did not lovingly raise my precious Lan Wangji just to give him to you!!!” 

(The problem is that his nephew (inexplicably) likes Wei Wuxian so much, mumblegrumble.)

For weeks after The Resentment of Lan Qiren, every time Lan Qiren sees Wen Ning, he shakes his head sadly to himself and mutters “What a shame, what a shame.”

When Wen Ning responds with a slightly panicked “?!”, Lan Qiren just pats him on the shoulder, like, “No, no, it’s not you. We can’t choose our relatives. And isn’t that the greatest shame in the world?” - and then DOESN’T EXPLAIN ANYTHING.

And after many bouts of thinking and rethinking still lead him to the conclusion that Wei Wuxian is the best choice in comparison to all the other available options, Lan Qiren may or may not visit Cangse Sanren’s grave to burn some incense for an excuse to stand there and offer a sullen, “You fukken got me again, you bastard. I can’t believe you.”

He doesn’t know who he hates more:

Wei Wuxian for being himself and yet still the best choice

Cangse Sanren for not letting being dead stop her from continuing to be a thorn in Lan Qiren’s side

Wen Ruohan for being undesirable enough to disqualify the only valid competitor

The other parents for failing to produce children who are better than Wei Wuxian 

(Like: Surely it can’t be that hard if he (+ his brother + his sister-in law) managed to produce two)

So he settles for hating everyone.

For his next birthday, Lan Xichen sends him a box of blood-pressure-lowering supplements.

Lan Qiren is like “!!!” but he still takes them because just because his nephew is being impudent does not mean there is not also a Need.

In re 3zun:

Lan Qiren goes around determinedly Not Thinking about Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao. Every time his eyes approach something he doesn’t want to see, he just turns his head like NOPE.

He eventually realises that he and Wei Wuxian have this in common and that Wei Wuxian is therefore his most valuable ally - both in terms of having someone to pivot to and have very loud, very enthusiastic conversations about anything else whenever the 3zun do something they don’t want to see, and also having someone to commiserate with about Not Wanting to Know. (But because they’re them, they alternate between teaming up for self-preservation and using their mutual weakness to take petty jabs at each other.)

"-If two of them are dating, then where does that leave the third one?!"

"RIGHT? Imagine finding out that they were silently pining away, forced to third-wheel for their unrequited love and best friend - unrequited LOVES AND BEST FRIENDS? What would you say to that?!"

"That's not even considering which one the third wheel would be - I honestly don't know which option would be the worst, they're all terrible."

"I'm almost ready to say that I'd rather they all be dating each other, except then I'd have to think about how that would work, dynamic-wise, like - who calls the shots? Do you think Nie Mingjue is domineering all the time, or do you think it’s a public front, and he then goes home to be dominated by-"

“STOP.”

Even before 3zun get together (both Lan Qiren and Wei Wuxian have chosen to Never Know when this is), Jin Guangyao is throwing out suggestive comments left and right and then immediately whipping out his (◔◡◔✿) face for anyone’s double-take:

50% to test the waters of public sentiment before he makes a move and it actually becomes his problem

50% because he’s a troll who likes dominance displays

Knowing this factoid, one of Wei Wuxian’s mental 3zun Dynamics possibilities features Superdom!Jin Guangyao, but he does his best to avoid thinking about that.

After Lan Qiren mentally accepts Wei Wuxian into the fold:

He still internally responds to at least 50% of the things that Wei Wuxian does with “Why, that little shit”, but it’s also implied that Wei Wuxian is their little shit now.

And for Lan Family! Qiren, this means: If you shit on him, WE shit on you.

“Shufu” 

Lan Qiren definitely Notices when Wei Wuxian calls him that, but it Doesn’t Do to make a fuss.

He probably has a conversation with Lan Xichen sometime around the first family dinner that goes:

LQR: You've noticed that he's still calling me 'Uncle Qiren' like we're nothing to each other.

LXC: ...If you want him to call you Shufu, should you perhaps not mention that to him?

LQR: What? No, he should already know these things!

And then after the wedding:

LQR: Your brother's boyfriend is finally acting like one of the family. LXC: Haha, oh my.

Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan

Although their mothers have been friends for ages, Jin Zixuan grows up in a different city, so they don't see each other growing up. The Jins later move for Jin Zixuan's high-flying corporate job, Madam Jin joins the Culture Society at her friend's behest and immediately falls in love with Jiang Yanli as a daughter-in-law. 

After a lot of cajoling (in both directions), she gets them to agree to one date, which is a disaster (I have more headcanons about this but they won't fit in here) 

Jin Zixuan has a lot of money and zero sense of proportion, which does not generally result in tasteful things. (Where Jiang Yanli is concerned, his desire to keep up a "cool" image is completely overpowered by his desire to please, so that doesn't help either. Like a golden retriever who wants people to think he's a cat.) 

After they get married, Wei Wuxian sometimes thinks about the peacock's peacocking rituals, like: "It's good that he's gotten more reasonable now that they're married - no, wait, what if he hasn't gotten more reasonable, but there's just no one around to see it because they're married?!" and never gets brave enough to ask his sister about it. 

After Jin Ling's birth, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng (and maybe even Jin Zixuan) get locked in an ongoing battle for Jin Ling's affections. Jiang Yanli is the clear favourite, as she should be, but they all want to be #2, and their constant jostling is how he ends up with no chill despite being raised by one calm mum and one aloof (but secretly disaster) dad

But because Jiang Yanli is around, he's very polite about it: the kind of kid who barrels in screaming blue murder, skids to a halt and says "Auntie", and then tears out screaming blue murder again

Wei Wuxian tones it down a lot after he and Lan Wangji adopt A-Yuan because he’s got better things to do, but it’s still A Thing (during visits, A-Yuan spends a lot of time in Auntie Yanli’s lap being gently fed things while his dad and shushu yell at each other over the top of his cousin’s head)

Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli

Initially brought together by their brothers, they now meet up for regular, peaceful, wholesome tea-dates where they discuss the lives of their mutuals and gently exchange advice (and strategies on how to keep their angry-angry parent/proxy-parent's blood pressure down.

Whereas Jiang Cheng gets closer to coughing up blood with every year that passes by without Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji getting their shit together, Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli take the more optimistic view of "Look at how well-prepared we are, we've just run another year ahead of schedule!"

Dinner Crew

Jiang Cheng has been the unwilling audience to years of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s bullshit. 

If asked, he would say: “And you wonder why I’m so angry?! What do you mean ‘dating’, you’ve been fucking married for the last five years!” but no one ever does :’D

Every so often, he thinks about how happy their sister is about the dating situation because she doesn’t know that it’s fake, and he grinds his teeth because why can’t he also not-know!?

To this, Nie Huaisang says, “If we didn’t know we couldn’t help!”

And Jiang Cheng replies, “WE’RE NOT HELPING ANYWAY, LOOK AT HIM!!!”

Meanwhile, Jiang Yanli continues to gush about how happy she is for Wei Wuxian and all Jiang Cheng can do is laugh really unnaturally because he has to “Be strong, Jiang Cheng! Be strong for A-jie! ╥﹏╥”

He goes to read the comments on the Society Facebook after the fujoshi conversation, and gets so angry at all these people who are like “Ah, their love is so beautiful!” that he has to uninstall his Facebook app, and go and shout into a cupboard somewhere.

The non-Wei-Wuxian members of the dinner group have set up a separate chat to act as a support group, where they all go to:

Wail and gnash their teeth after Wei Wuxian does something particularly dumb

Scheme ways into getting Wei Wuxian to get a clue

Console one another when someone’s brave attempt at getting Wei Wuxian to face the truth fails miserably (because while they play by the rules of ‘what a normal human would do’, Wei Wuxian lives by the principle of ‘lol norms are for losers’.)

Relatedly: for every resigned Nie Huaisang face or enraged Jiang Cheng face that Wei Wuxian notices, there are at least three desperate-yet-silent exchanges that he doesn’t. 

Wen Ning is always really optimistic about it, nodding encouragingly like “He’s gonna get it - he’s gonna get it! - oh no, he’s not gonna get it. Oh. Oh no. Ó╭╮Ò”

Wen Ning always has at least one small child hanging off him at all times when he’s at the Cultural Centre because they know he can always be bullied into playing with them and they think he’s great.

Past bullshit dinner group projects have included Getting Jiang Cheng a Date and Making a Picture out of Jin Guangyao’s Forehead Dot While He’s Sleeping

(In re the forehead dot, they end up settling for making it bigger every time he nods off during a movie night at Nie Huaisang’s house, and Nie Mingjue comes home to what’s basically a Japanese flag on Jin Guangyao’s forehead and is like ಠ_ಠ)

Future dinner group projects include providing Wei Wuxian with support for Grand Plans like Getting Along with Uncle Qiren and providing Jiang Cheng with unwanted support for things like Workshopping Jiang Cheng’s List of Partner Requirements

A-Yuan

After A-Yuan’s adoption, Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren redouble their efforts in Can we divorce an in-law?! because although they couldn’t save themselves from being related to Jin Guangyao, for their PRECIOUS BOY--

Therefore, when A-Yuan is five or six and starts to sound out how he’s related to people and why:

A-Yuan: So if Jin-yeye is Uncle Guangyao’s dad, then that makes him my-

Wei Wuxian: NOTHING!

Lan Qiren (springing up from the other side of the room): NOTHING!

Lan Xichen: lol

At around about this same time, Wei Wuxian, who is never gonna stop trolling Lan Qiren about ruzhui until the day he dies, runs A-Yuan through the “You see, my son, my family is not so well-to-do, and since your Uncle married into the Nie family-” talk, and then proceeds to reference it at every opportunity:

1: Despite A-Yuan almost certainly not asking, and

2: despite (/especially because of) Lan Qiren shouting “DON’T TEACH HIM WEIRD THINGS!” in the background.

(Lan Wangji probably lets it happen or encourages it because he thinks it’s funny)

[everydayanth]

Some Observations On Talking About Race With White People:

Context: I am a white person. I studied anthropology and then went and traveled all around the US and talked to a lot of people about race. With so many people urging white people to use their voice and privilege to begin discussions with other white people in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, here are some things that I’ve learned:

1. It is exhausting. 

You have to start from the most simple kernels of truth and work backwards from there with a lot of people. Many of whom have never in their lives thought about their skin color and what it means or says, who have never questioned their position as a majority or been in a society that asks them to. You start with the basic pieces and talk in circles for them or else they dismiss you. You feel like shit but laugh at some of their jokes so that you can talk about the issues or else they’ll just leave and dismiss the idea as liberal or you as a millennial, you understand the push and pull and the tug-of-war game you’re playing, but it’s still exhausting. Maybe you have a breakthrough and it’s worth it. But it doesn’t end. You might make progress one day and the person reverts back to old habits the next. But you keep going. You keep trying. 

Keep trying. People change.

2. Keep trying, but stay safe. 

There’s a lot of psychology involved, and knowing how to get through to someone is a skill but can be dangerous. Facing that obligation to talk to people in the face of racism and violence can give your courage, but sometimes it can make you stupid. Sometimes walking away is important. Sometimes simply not laughing at the joke is enough because there is no place to start. Sometimes you wish you could peel off your own skin because you don’t want to look like them, you are horrified at the idea that someone might think you are like them, there is a dread and that’s okay. It’s good, it means you are not like them because of your fear. When challenging people, especially in their psychology and philosophy and the way they think about life and the world around them, it is enough to keep trying. Sometimes to keep trying, you have to walk away.

3. Context matters.

In order to romanticize eras and think nostalgically of times when they were not alive or don’t have full context of, some white people will ignore the extra efforts minorities had to go through to fit in, and the silenced violence and struggle. For many older white people, individualism is a threat and they value homogenous cultural identities, romanticizing pop-culture eras like the 20s or 50s without stopping to reflect on the media/historical interpretation vs reality. There is a pervasive view that there was less racism in the 80s, or another era around then, because there was a predominant popular culture, without ever taking the time to stop and consider the extra lengths minorities had to go through to fit that culture, or how they were limited in representation and ability by a larger oppressive system. I really like the quote going around by Will Smith that “racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” But for many white Americans, what they see in the evening news and on their personalized social media feeds does not challenge them, but reinforces their bubbles to say “no, it wasn’t like this in the 50s/60s/70s/80s.” 

There are plenty of ways to trick our minds into believing our own world views to avoid challenge or growth, and for some white people, reminding them of the biases of their context with details like: in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr., Anne Frank, and Barbara Walters were all born; with something as simple as that, contemporary familiarity has been added and placed over two names so heavily associated with the Civil Rights Movement and WWII for American-educated white people. Or talking about Ruby Bridges walking into a white school in 1960 and how many of our parents and grandparents were alive at the time, helps recognize that this isn’t new and it’s not that old. Explaining why the southwest US is so “Mexican” because when the US bought the land there were people living there, and asking about why they thought the land was empty (”history books/class”) and what they thought happened to the people (”I never thought about it”) has been the beginning of a redemption arc for several people. 

Talking to ignorant white people about what’s currently happening in the world when they ignore it forces them to think about it. Keeping police brutality and racism in conversation forces people to look into it for fear of not contributing to social conversations or not being in the know, and having those conversations face-to-face means they are more than random tweets or social media opinions. Talking matters, conversations matter, context matters, and challenging people (and yourself) and their ideas and world views matters.

4. Sometimes you lose.

There is a comfort in a homogenous society, an easy way to spot the outsider. Many of the most racist people I’ve met and chatted with retain an us-vs-them mentality that happily accepts POC who they know personally, while generalizing and labelling all others as a threat and outsiders. There is a fear perpetuated by false information and lack of context that takes so long to dismantle it hardly feels worth it.

This mentality is often recognizable by its discomfort with language it doesn’t know, obsession with brands and their perceived identity, and patronizing explanations of just about everything. It takes so much patience to get through the arrogance and sometimes the other person is “just having fun” or “playing devil’s advocate to see what you really think” or “you should read x, y, and z, then you’ll get it.” There’s an arrogance sometimes and wading through that muck to get to the bigger problems can take a while. Spotting the hypocrisy can be infuriating. 

It’s okay to stop and take a step back out of fear that you might hurt someone else by changing the person’s limited-accepting view. For example: by challenging a racist person ranting about “China is bad” and asking then why they accept their kid’s Chinese friend, you may fear risking that child’s friendship as the racist person talks themselves into believing they shouldn’t be friends. Sometimes letting a person rant about the exceptions to their view is a place to start a conversation about diversity and tolerance and acceptance and culture, but sometimes walking away defeated is more important and okay.

5. You are combatting fear and it isn’t rational.

The fear of losing authority extends a strong arm into political language, rhetoric, discourse and control. The fear of being controlled by masses and not having individualism, even while forcing others to conform, is an irony many willingly admit and agree with through that paternal view: I can be contradictory and demand free speech without consequence while telling you to stop with threats of government/legal action, but you can’t. There is a paternalism that stems from privilege and religion. It is exhausting to combat. It says drug users need to be locked up because it’s what’s best for them; it says abortion is wrong because I believe in a soul, because I am Christian, because my church says there is a soul present, and so my religion says it is wrong, therefore I want it illegal because of that and I know what is best for women. It says girls who are assaulted asked for it because paternalism requires a solid foundation of black-and-white truths in order to determine right or wrong and good or bad. That mentality struggles to see grey, to understand their own biases and why the political language matters in the first place. 

This means it is often in favor of other black-or-white extremes such as strict gender roles, anti LGBTQ+, or anything else like race that involves a spectrum of identity values rather than a scale of one side or another. This also means there is more room for conspiracy and ungrounded theory to fill in, because a black-or-white mentality demands explanations for things it can no longer explain through the denial of spectrums – if you look at the color purple and have to decide if it’s red or blue and those are your only options, you have to have a reason to put it one place or the other, but regardless of the reason, both may be true since color doesn’t exist on a one-or-the-ther scale but a spectrum. This means there are reasons for their way of thinking, but they are often not logical or expressible in language that makes sense or discourse that can be dissected; it is devoid of introspection and often projects and lashes out at language and the way something is presented rather than the thing itself. Learning to get around that with simple examples of context and explanations that don’t rely on academic language is crucial to communicating with some people.

6. Being an ally is not easy, you have to listen and be willing to fail and grow.

I was ignorant at first, when talking to POC friends (and probably still am in some ways). I didn’t understand that I was unfamiliar, as a white person talking about racism and social issues, until a POC friend confided that they’ve never heard a white person capable of talking about race or understanding the complexities of the scale before. Suddenly I understood the generalization that white people are stupid and privileged. We built a bridge between us, simply by being open to a conversation about race, and then by later realizing and respecting that my openness will be challenged at first, because the majority of experiences for my own POC friends at the time were white people being ignorant or dismissive of race. I am not infallible, I make mistakes, but looking at how and why is the part that matters, and realizing that I also represent an experience and a race, and that I also have expectations, was an important moment for me. Understanding the balance of influence and being able to face it without the intent to take, but with the intent to understand, is important. Starting from the understanding that we all have biases, we are all racist based on our context in the sense that we judge people to protect ourselves, and that skin is a visible marker we often use for culture and heritage, we begin understand race’s role in modern society, and then we can talk about it. 

I will also admit this was a point of pride for me. I am white, but I tan well and have dark wavy hair and my grandparents are immigrants so I know my heritage cultures. I have been mistaken for many ethnicities based on my location and other identity markers like clothing and body language, which initially made it easier for me to personally talk about race with others without waiting for permission, because I can relate. White women have walked up and grabbed my hair before, I have been in embarrassing situations where I didn’t match the expected environment or was judged for not properly coding-switching my language. I have been the only white person in many rooms, growing up in a black neighborhood; I have experience with poverty and was on the same free hot-lunch programs as my neighbors, and we avoided the same corners and colors together; I have been accused of trying too hard and not enough, talked to in random languages on the street with expected understanding, and I have a conservative family to remind me over and over again how hard I had to work at building this mentality and how oddly lucky I am that the world around me and my own curiosity made me constantly question those views. 

It’s important to choose your battles and learn from your mistakes, to recognize your growth, to question and doubt yourself, but one of the most important things I’ve come to learn about being white and talking about race with POC is the ability to empathize without needing to relate. You don’t need permission to talk about race. You are one. Everything I said about my experiences just now? At the end of the day, I learned, none of it matters. It doesn’t matter where I grew up or what my experiences are, because I can’t relate to everything and knowing the limits is important. But the other side of that is knowing how to relate to the end emotion with empathy, even in your limitations. You can’t relate with everything and that’s true for everyone, but you can try to understand people and their emotion, you can empathize without first-hand experience by being vulnerable.

Many conversations that I’ve had with white people involve the insistence that they are more than white, like what I just did above, to prove that I can have a seat at the table: look at all these exceptions I have, validate my experience. That’s not important, and I’ve found time and time again that white people (myself included at one point) value that, first out of fear of being insensitive and racist, but also out of a fear of being rejected and invalidated. The best conversations I’ve had with POC about race had to start with me validating myself and my own experiences with an open mind, ready to understand theirs. 

If you are white and you look to join or start a conversation about race with validation from others, that’s not starting from vulnerability or the potential that you’re wrong, it’s starting with the expectation that they give you something, and that never invites understanding or sincerity from either side. You have to be willing to learn and be wrong and know where you stand on your own, with your own validation, before you can begin to talk with others about their experiences or understand and empathize and grow.

You have to be willing to shine a light instead of be the voice. The best example I have of this is the 1968 Black Power salute. Sympathetic to the cause of fellow athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Peter Norman, the bronze medalist and a white Australian, asked what he could do and he listened. They asked him not to raise his fist. In solidarity, he wore a pin, opening himself up to the harsh criticism of conservatives at the time. He was willing to suffer the backlash without demanding a role in the symbol, and I think that by doing that, he shows how to be an ally, how to talk about racism and listen and understand the meanings behind things. When Peter Norman died, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral, and I think that says a lot about friendship and alliance. Sometimes, you can’t relate to POC experiences, but you can listen, and you can understand.

7. Fear is the root. 

Fear of sharing, of not having enough, of being tricked or taken advantage of. It is manufactured and created through our own context bubbles and media, and some of it is naturally culminated because of those propagating pieces, so people think it’s okay, that their racism is important, that it protects them. 

We fear unfamiliar things, but pointing out to people that they are the ones who are ignorant and naive is tricky. The psychology that makes people deny and exist on a black-vs-white spectrum is nearly 100% a protection from feeling out of control, based on fears and a lack of personal context. Meaning that the most racist and judgmental people often rarely see people who are different from them in skin color (or when they are different in skin color, they blend in economic class or religion, etc.). They don’t have context to things outside of themselves, their familiarity is limited. 

This is where the issues of white people thinking all [insert any minority here] “look alike.” Because of their lack of context, the key traits they notice are those in contrast to other white people rather than other people in general; rather than noticing a pointed chin or square face, a heavy brow or long nose, a white person without diverse contexts of faces or people might simply notice skin complexion or epicanthic folds and nothing else, they might not even consider body shape, because they are around other people of diverse shapes and heights. This is not an excuse, it’s sad, but it helped me understand where to start several conversations with racist people ranting about race, by considering their own lack of personal context. Starting with race being a cultural construct often, in my experience, does not work here, though I often found myself starting there and working backwards until I learned more about fear and politics and how people use them together to retain control in their lives. 

Explaining how minority cultures are “good” can help, but often there is that rebounding psychology that says familiar is good, unfamiliar = bad. The fear of losing the majority, the upper-hand, the paternalist authority of determining right/wrong based on their views and forcing assimilation on others is deep-seated and rampantly unconscious, and that’s the dangerous part. In some conversations a simple “oh, you’re scared of losing your power” has changed an already-introspective person for the better in such an epiphany moment that reaffirms starting at the very basics with many white people - do you recognize that you have power here? And in many cases they recognize the existence of privilege but not the details of it, discussing those details can also add important context. But fear often makes people reluctant to understand, so looking at their own fears can be a place to start.

There is also a fear of losing parts of the self. For some white people, their travels or appropriative behaviors are the most interesting things about them (according to them), and so the idea of talking about race becomes a conversation challenging their own identities, which encompasses a fear of losing those identities. This is a tricky road for me, because I understand the exciting allure of learning new things and exploring new cultures. I think I can be susceptible to exoticism and tokenism, but that’s also what makes it important to talk about, because I challenge myself at the same time. That becomes a conversation about intent and meaning and culture, and I think it’s important to remember, as a white person talking to other white people, that you do not wear a badge of honor giving you permission to accuse and assume. 

It can be easy to generalize and build assumptions about people, but there are other white people willing to talk about race, there are people who look white and are not at all, and by assuming people’s fears or intentions or consequences, you can easily become the asshole. For example: shamefully, I will admit that I talked to a “white girl” who was really into yoga once, and I made an internal judgement about her, but in conversation, it came up that she grew up in India, speaks Hindi and a bunch of other languages, and works as a translator. That was embarrassing for me, though I never said anything out loud, and I think that’s important too – that we analyze our internal judgements and think about them. I spent some time thinking about my initial judgement, what changed, and what I considered “acceptable” appropriation or identifiable appropriation and “acceptable” displays of culture and value, and I found that it’s complicated. It’s important to be aware of ourselves and not fall into a self-righteousness that ends up demanding to be the voice of others, but to listen and have conversations with those around us. 

8. Context matters part II.

Talking proud white people through the history of European cultures before Rome, and explaining their own heritage, if available, has continually seen those white Americans stop and question what they know of their history and timeline. Talking about tribes and clans and nomadic groups, basically anything during the Roman Empire that wasn’t Rome, has forced many people to pause and question what they know of empire and colonization and conquest and all that they know of “right” and “good” and resource stockpiling, because suddenly there is a before, where they had only ever learned of the after. 

Positioning their own heritage in a perspective that adamantly opposes the idea that guns and colonization were a natural progression of society, and instead asks why and answers: because they were built to invade and take, has made many people pause, and others simply nod and say yes, and that’s why it’s mine now. Which is chilling and frustrating, but does shed light on where to go next. Many white Americans were taught history in the context of victories and kings and presidents and drama, not slavery, servitude, or lives of normal people. Positioning their heritage as one of a conquered people enslaved by Rome suddenly has them questioning that same story they learned about the Trail of Tears and Native American history. And those moments of questioning, of being offered new information that challenges their familiar order of thoughts and cultural context, that can make all the difference.

9. People look different for #reasons.

The single most efficient tool that I have found to really make a difference in the way people see other people is educating them on what the differences mean. Because, in the same way that understanding why someone hurt you makes forgiving them easier, understanding why someone looks different from you makes seeing them as a whole easier.

Explaining to people things like: how skin color works, what it does to protect us, how history and culture and things like slavery and migration impact it, how hair works, what coils, kinks, and curls do for heat dispersion, what big lips or rounded jaws or epicanthic folds or big noses or curvy booties mean, how a human population’s general shape is impacted by their environment, and that it’s ALL IN THE NAME OF THERMOREGULATION, has made so many people go “oh wow, I never knew that, that’s so cool!” And suddenly skin color, hair texture, body shape, etc. are not longer a single reflection of a person’s culture or heritage, but an organ their body is using to maintain their health and keep them alive. 

Telling someone that, based on genetic diversity of populations and a bunch of other stuff like migration and cultural mating habits, they are more likely to find a doppelgänger that looks most like them in another race, has also helped. Out of all your human traits and phenotypic markers, you are more likely to find another human with your similar body/face shapes and structure, but with a different skin color. Showing people these pictures and talking about two friends I had in college who looked exactly alike but one was from Afghanistan and the other from Mexico generally gets people interested in looking at people more intently.

[Note: sometimes it can be harder to find obvious pictures of women/LGBTQ+ individuals with different-race doppelgängers because of the use of makeup, cultural expectations of beauty, and general oppression and erasure of minority cultures, POC, and women, so these are mostly white men who look like other men.]

There you go, some observations about talking about race with white people as a white person. This is all I can do right now, in the midst of the suffering and grief, the fear and continual horror. A few observations stitched together, a little encouragement, some hot tips that have worked for me, and a whole lot of defeated sighing that I know isn’t fair. At the end of the day, I know it’s not all I can do, that it is what I can do. It is a position I take up because I know how easily I can walk through the door of the “white club,” and I have accepted the responsibility of stirring it up and getting people talking about social issues like racism. 

It’s a strange thing, to automatically belong and hate it, to not fit an ideology but be expected to from the outside; I suspect we’ve all felt that one way or another, since it’s the subject of pretty much every popular franchise and story, it has to resonate in a big way somehow. So I know I’m not alone there, I know we’re all exhausted and feeling that there is no progress, that there’s nothing to do, that talking isn’t enough, that we’re stuck inside while people outside are suffering and there’s not a goddamned thing we can do, but it’s a lie. 

We can talk to people. It takes a long time, and you can be tired, and you can be down about it, and you can be frustrated, but it matters, so you can’t give up. The urging of white people to talk to other white people is important. It makes a difference. You might not see it right away, but it matters. 

If you keep at it, you’ll see some of the changes you can make: one day, that racist person starts to tell a joke and you see them stop and think for a minute and then say “you know, actually maybe that’s inappropriate.” Or you see that racist person start to get uncomfortable around their racist friends, or they start asking more complex questions about society, their opinions take longer to form, they ask for sources on information, they slowly grow more comfortable talking about social topics. There are some people I’ve been talking to regularly about this stuff for over a decade and they have not changed in anyway, but in the process of talking to them, in person or on social media, people around them noticed and began to think and question, messaging me to talk more or to say thank you. Changes happen, and people change.... slowly.

It can be scary to talk to white people about race, but if you are white, it is what you can do. Because no matter how you feel about it, at the end of the day, you walk in the door of the white club unbarred. That is a privilege, and that’s what people mean when they say “use your privilege.” 

I hope this helps someone a little bit, because even though I keep at it, even though I know it’s what I can do, it still feels like all I can do, and it never feels like enough.

[gwynnew]

'Molly’s Game' inspiration Molly Bloom says she saw famous men abuse power – but wouldn't have protected Harvey Weinstein

Molly Bloom, left, and actress Jessica Chastain attend the Molly’s Game New York premiere on Dec. 13, 2017 (Photo: AFP News)

Molly Bloom knows what it’s like to be notorious character; now, for the first time, she gets to simply be a famous one.  Molly’s Game, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, dramatizes the true story of Bloom’s rise and fall as the “poker princess” who hosted an underground, semi-legal gambling den for celebrities and billionaires. The scheme made her independently wealthy, but left her with a drug addiction and a disgust with the powerful men whose money got her there. After she got out, the FBI seized her millions and threatened to jail her unless she released confidential information about her famous clients; determined to hold on to integrity, if nothing else, she refused. (In the film, Idris Elba plays the attorney who stands by her side as the tabloids pile on.)

Coming on the heels of the Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement, Molly’s Game has added resonance. Here is the story of a woman who saw the underbelly of elite male Hollywood, and faced jail time for refusing to expose its vulnerabilities to a gossip-hungry public. “You’ve seen what’s on those hard drives — families, lives, careers will be ruined,” Chastain, as Bloom, says in the film. Similarly, when Bloom wrote a memoir to help her climb out of debt, she only named the men who had been publicly identified in the federal indictment (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Tobey Maguire). But speaking to Yahoo Entertainment, Bloom was very clear on where she drew the line. “I wouldn’t have protected Harvey Weinstein,” she said. “As [Sorkin wrote] in the film, if I knew people that were child molesters or harming women or killing people, I would have voluntarily gone into that prosecutor’s office — but I didn’t.”

In a conversation with Yahoo Entertainment, Bloom spoke candidly about seeing the dark side of money and power, as well as the lessons she learned from her ordeal and the inspiring experience of watching Sorkin’s film come to life.

Watch a trailer for ‘Molly’s Game’

Yahoo Entertainment: Being in this secret poker world with celebrities and producers, you’ve seen a side of Hollywood that most people will never see. What’s it like being on this side now, doing these very public red carpets and interviews? Molly Bloom: It’s super weird. I’m really kind of a behind-the-scenes person. [laughs] I lived underground, in a sense, for a long time, so the full exposure is definitely strange. But it feels really liberating to just be out there and openly discussing all these things that I really buried, or kept a secret from a lot of people. So that part of it’s great, just being able to own it.

And then being on this side of it, being part of this movie-making process — there’s definitely a different feel to it, because these are passionate artists that want to create great, inspiring work to send out into the world. And that couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to underground poker. [laughs] So yeah, I’ve been really inspired by the conviction and the goodness of the people that have been involved in this project, from Aaron to Idris to Jessica, [producers] Amy Pascal and Mark Gordon — all these people have fought so hard to tell this story. Because as you can imagine, most people didn’t want to touch it. There were so many different stars orbiting this thing. So while there was a lot of interest to tell the story, it was hard to get it through. And these people really fought so hard for it, and Aaron was so insistent on retaining the humanity of the story. So it’s been a really incredible process to see Hollywood from above ground.

So you’re an Aaron Sorkin heroine now. I mean, no pressure there, right? [laughs]

When Aaron was writing the screenplay and having conversations with you about the story, was there anything that surprised you about the questions he asked or what he was interested in? I was constantly surprised, and sometimes annoyed, by the questions he was asking. Because I was like, why do you care what the pitch of the slope is? [Editor’s note: Part of the film involves Bloom’s youthful career as a competitive skier.] Or why are you asking me about the DIN setting in my bindings?  Aren’t we supposed to be writing a movie here? But in retrospect, the story he tells is so richly layered, and every question led to this incredible sort of storyline.

Was there anything he pursued that didn’t end up in the movie, where you were like, ‘Why did I talk to you about my dry cleaning for two hours?’ [laughs] Probably. I looked in my file on the computer and there were 740 emails between us, just of him asking me questions — and those are just the ones I saved. So I’m sure that there was something. But his questions were so different than anyone else’s that I had been working with. Most people want to know about the celebrities, the money. Aaron wanted to know about that, but he more wanted to know about the relationship between my father and myself, or he really focused a lot on my skiing career, and my brothers. It was clear he was writing a different story.

Did the scenes with Molly and her father (played by Kevin Costner) feel like they came directly out of your conversations? He wrote the scenes more artistically, but it wasn’t that big a departure from reality. I think my dad really wanted me to survive the world. He knew as a psychologist how difficult the world is, and I think he wanted me to be tough. And I think the way he went about it as a young man maybe wasn’t always the kindest, softest way. But I think it really came from love. I do.

Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba in ‘Molly’s Game’ (Photo: STX Films/Everett Collection)

The film illustrates the mid-boggling idea that famous men would come to your poker games to lose millions of dollars, and be grateful for the privilege. How did that experience affect the way that you see money now? I think before I had money, I believed that money would solve my problems, that it would give me power and I wouldn’t have financial stress anymore, and it would completely change my life. And then when I had money, it changed a lot of things, but it didn’t change the way I felt inside at all. At the end of the day, it really afforded me things, and nothing else. And I stopped appreciating things. Nothing material was special anymore. I also used money like a drug; anytime I felt uncomfortable or sad or whatever, I’d spend money.

Then when I lost all my money, it caused a lot of stress, being broke and having bills. But that was when I decided that I needed to go inside and figure out why I made these choices, who I wanted to be, how I veered from that, and why — all those questions that I think, eventually, we need to ask ourselves. And I started doing the job of building self-esteem from the inside instead of believing it came from the outside, from money or success. It took getting a better relationship with myself for me to be able to appreciate and deal with financial crisis or financial gain.

Like every movie I’ve seen lately, I viewed this one through the lens of the Weinstein scandal and everything else that’s happening in Hollywood right now. In the case of Molly’s Game, it lends a different kind of resonance to the idea of “What’s on those hard drives?” I wouldn’t have protected Harvey Weinstein, let me by very clear about that. That’s not a person I would have protected. As [Sorkin wrote] in the film, if I knew people that were child molesters or harming women or killing people, I would have voluntarily gone into that prosecutor’s office — but I didn’t.

It was a question in my mind — did she feel morally obligated to share anything? My obligation in that context would be with the victim.

But at the same time, what’s your perspective on all this stuff, coming from a place where you knew celebrities’ secrets and you were privy to this alpha-male world that most women don’t get to see? They’re not missing anything, I promise. So first thing is, I am continually moved by the courage and bravery we’re seeing. I am also moved and very encouraged by the response. For the first time in history, we are seeing a swift response and true consequences to this behavior. And it looks like a brave new world. And so that’s where I stand, on that particular question.

But what I saw was men abusing power. There was not any sexual harassment or sexual assault in my world. I didn’t run into that. But I certainly saw men abusing power. And you know, it’s annoying. It’s not appealing. And I think that things are changing.

In an excerpt from your book that appeared in Vanity Fair, there’s a disturbing story where a famous actor named Tobey [presumably Tobey Maguire, named in the indictment] holds a thousand-dollar tip in front of you and tells you to bark like a seal if you want it. Right. So when I wrote that book, I had to make a lot of tough moral choices. I believed that writing my story was my best shot to be able to pay my mom and my attorneys back, and pull myself out of this massive crisis that I had put myself in. But I wanted to retain my integrity. And so the choice that I made, as you saw in the movie, was, “OK, listen, these names have been circulated all over the place as people who played in the game. But I don’t want to harm anyone’s life.” But that story about Tobey was important for me to tell, because I wanted to talk about how there are going to be people in positions of power that may ask you to do something that doesn’t feel right to you, and you don’t have to do it. And maybe the consequence is you lose the game or you lose your job, but you’ll get another job. That was an important story for me to tell.

You made an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’s show, and she said that she’d heard about these poker games and was intrigued, but didn’t dare go. Did any woman ever try to play? No! I mean, I would have gladly let them in and they probably would have done really well. No, women never wanted to play.

And were you ever tempted to play? No. And it wasn’t because I had discipline; it just wasn’t interesting to me. I had plenty of other issues with different addictions, but gambling just wasn’t part of it. And that’s probably why I was one of the only game runners whose game was sustainable, because I didn’t gamble.

Watching the movie made poker a lot more interesting for me than I thought it could be. You and me both! Listen, when you’re watching the game and you know the people and you’re personally invested and your money’s on the table, like mine was, then you’re engaged in the game. And there were a couple hands a night that were really, really exciting. But not most of them.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

2017’s 50 best movies: A tough year to choose

The best celeb reactions to the Golden Globes nominations: Liev Schreiber, Jessica Chastain, and more

‘Woman Walks Ahead’: Jessica Chastain, Michael Greyeyes, director Susanna White on their portrait of old West

[11toe11-blog]

No autocorrect. e for stickie

“Thats such a good lesson. On patience” he says. After yanking out two of the sapota seeds he had to lovingly planted. Its sticking out of the mud, may be i should pushi it back inside, something is not right, let me pull it out and see whats going on he must have thought. And the two of the early earnets, reposnding to his watering dropped dead. Thats the garden as the zen master i suppose. 

The very change that we water and nourish, when it starts expressing, we wonder why it is not how it is supposed to be - familiar, buried deep in the soil and my role to keep watering. Or final, green and with a leaf on it. The inbetweens where its neither this or that, uncertain. I assume im a doing something wrong.

I notice that as a programme running when i am doing my body work. A sense that i am not paying attention where i should be paying attention. I notice the feeling and when it dissolves more attention is generally availble and flowing.

I am feeling like now. Oh! This is not what i wanted to start the post with. 

Its because R is around. Otherwise i would be more contemplative. I should have this, i should have that. I havent this, i havent that. 

And its not entirely just the whiner programme. Had i woken up early i would ahve had more quiet time. But for that i have to sleep early. 

Now that it is what it is, i didnt sleep early, i didnt wake up early, things arent going picture perfect, but they are not bad either. A chunck of the sticky can see that. Its sticking. Stuck like resin onto how it should have been. This is the  cant-let-it-go resin.  Can let anything go. Want to stick to everything and anything passing by.  Like an ocptopus with a million legs and holding on to everyhthing passing by and being pulled in infiinte direction.s 

Imagine if it suddenly lets go, what a whack it would get from all its legs combined recoil. 

Methi paratha. Would go very well with the garlic pickle he is making. 

Where is this

Where is that 

Incessant. Wont look. Cant see.

I havent been making sprouts for a while. Nor micro greens. 

I like the kichen counter to be clean. Spot less. A few 

You this. You that. 

A clean kitchen counter whre we can cook. 

Its a small counter and i need it clean. Right now its a clutter.

You this you that

This is like this This is like that

Where have i seen this play out in loop. My mother. R has turned into my mother this morning. R keeps turning into my mother. 

That when i hate him. Hate is strong. Intensely dislike. When he keeps driving home this point of how one is not doing what what one is supposed to be doing. That what and who one is,  isnt ideal. 

This was beginining to feel like a whiny pointless post with zero insight. 

And R calls up his mom to ask if she minds  onion in the kadala curry he is making. We are taking puttu and kadala over with us when we go to visit them today.  I would have thought it odd the affection he bestows on his mother. And early on when i met him, he wasnt so expressive with his affection towards his parents. A 54 year old man being being possibly moer affectionate with his mom that i am with mine. Is actually such a wonderful and beautiful thing. In my own conditioning, formed by acerbic relations between my mom and her mom-in-law and my father’s absence, that i never got a clear idea of my fathers relationship with his mother. What  do i mean by that? I suppose we form neural pathways of expectations based on what we are exposed to. Somewhere in my liberal hyper-independent idea of the free woman, modelled along the independent man,  was one who didnt need anyone. And so it seems strange, for the adult man to express his affection for his aged mother. He can take care of the financial and social obligations et al. But to express geniune affection outwardly. How unstoic. 

ANd how human. To actually accept and acknowlege ones need for this primary connection to the world. Than hide it in thick layers of indifference and independence as expression of masculinity. 

And somewhere, the articulation of the Oedipus complex lurks suspiciously, watching out for abnormality in everything and everyone. That if one thing that has been named and labelled, and its all just that. 

I know that its my own possessive tendencies and programming that assumes that every ounce of the adult male’s attention must be and must only be directed towards his “legal” mate.

Ah. There were are inching closer and notice the familiar subject in the horizon. Envy. 

Yesterday when R said he was intensely attracted to E at some point in the exercise which was to gaze into the eyes of another, a stranger or friend for 10 minutes, i felt the sensations. Bubbling that demanded more space. Didnt want touch. Words that came out first - was to reassert power. “I know, i sensed it then”. And its true, i am quite sensitivve and i may have sensed it then and it may have had its effects on the evening. Sure. 

But what was remarkable was how my viewing expereince of the film that E made, (and it was while watching the film that R made this statement) shifted ever so slightly. My neutral viewing and expereince of admiration shifted slowly and clearly towards disinterest and and veiled criticism. Basically, to put it simply, i found more faults with the film in the last half an hour after the greens than i did in the whole one hour before that. To the extent that i even found a scene dishonest and without integrity.

Now the question that i wont ever have a real answer to - is if the scene actually had elements that lacked a certain integrity and congruent with the position taken by the maker. And my envy allowed for a critical lens, or a wiping out of rose tinted admiration?

Or it was a discouloring and distrotion of the viewing experince, from the sensations expereinced?

I dont know. 

Maybe what i am trying to ask is - is there any use of this sensation or expereince of envy. Does it serve any purpose in the larger sense of things? Because everything does, no, if we go by the idea of interconnectedness. Even the weeds have uses, unknown to us.

The sensation is sure unpleasant. It immediately put a distance between me and R and even E. 

It created a distinct expereince of seperation. And with it came thoughts of security, or more like insecurity. Discrediting the other in someway as being weak. The need to claim, reclaim power. “ yea. When i have hung out with her husband, i was also quite intensely attracted to him”. 

And also raised aloud once again the nature of commitment. Between R and me thats an on going conversation. How does one arrive into a mature sensible relationship. 

Writing is slower today. I shared the blog link with 3 and a half people. And i know this will be read by someone other than me. Earlier there was no such thought at all. 

It is changing the tone of what is being written. At this point atleast.

__

“ Dil mein mere hai Dard-e-disco dard-e-disco” … keeps appearing in head at random moments. Like a tape was left on and the power kept coming on and off. The two lines become backdrops to the most incognruent thoughts. 

I go looking for the source. I dont find it. 

In the play - 

The character goes looking for the source of the song that fills the scene, and keeps looking and doesnt find it.

In another play, as ina thiriller , the song is the red color coating the pill. The memory that needs to placed into the slot to rewire the expereince of reality. Of joy. Or rights and wrongs. Of this one girl and hence of the collective. The logic is a lot  like inception. 

__

Ok. time to wrap. Dissatisfaction .

That the future gaze of another is coloring my expereince of perceiving and expressing. Maybe thats the distance between the master and the novice. The future gaze of another, for the master is also the future gaze of herself. The other not seperate from the self. And the novice rolls in the muck of otherness. 

Rolling nice long distances made by the idea of such a seperation. Making huge spaces. And feeling small. Pretending to be big and feeling small.

I have had more backspaces operating today than i have ever in the recents. 

Ok so envy makes some space and distance on one plane, while clingling like resin on another plane. Two opposite properties belonging to the same idea. Thats also another interpretation of duality.

HUnger hunger.

I go eat and make puttu.

I really hope i do my exercises in the evening. My knees need it. ANd not keep it off to the next morning - because only mornings are perfect. And if i cant do it in the morning i can nver do it, nonsense. 

Afternoon today mom starts stitchinging classes with me. 

We pulled out almost a hundred bed sheets from the trunk in the outhouse. Apparently, they are some 40-50 years old. Belonging to R’s grandmom. 

Quite timely that R opened the trunks. We intend to keep some sheets for us, and for people who visit and some for the stiching classes and send the rest to La. Maybe there will still be enough to generally give away. 

R and Rc are bantering int he kitching. Waiting for some sense of satisfactiong and lcarity i stick onto the word doc. Inspite of raging hunger and the smell and sight of mangoes. 

Ok thats it. Today is this. Just observe it. Guilts. Nothing to do. Just watch. 

_

I entered. I apologize if i pushed it. I have sense that i may have. Or treated it casually.

I ask for forgiveness. And i forgive. As a student would. 

I leave now. To return wiser tomorrow.

[touchpointpress]

Following the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly in the spring of 1852, threats against its author became common. Hate mail arrived daily at the Stowe’s house in Andover, Massachusetts.  One morning the mailman rang the doorbell with a small package. When Harriet Beecher Stowe opened the box, she was horrified to find a human ear sent her from the owner of a southern cotton plantation who had cut it off one of his slaves.

It was the Fugitive Slave Act that fired this professor’s wife and mother of six to write a book that shook the nation. Passed by Congress in 1850, this law empowered the federal government to prosecute any person, black or white, who aided runaway slaves. Punishment for doing so usually meant prison and a $1000 fine. It legally gave every white citizen the right to challenge any black person not in the company of a white man or woman.  Federal agents could now pursue slaves into free states and apprehend suspected fugitives, even if they had been living free for years.  Former slaves who had earned enough money to buy their freedom, as well as their children born free, were in peril of being captured and sold south.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her blockbuster in Brunswick, Maine where the family had recently moved from Ohio. Harriet’s husband, a professor of theology and the Bible, had obtained a position at Bowdoin College, his alma mater.  She described Calvin as “rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and alas! rich in nothing else.” He also vowed not to shave his beard until every slave was free.

Harriet was glad to leave Cincinnati since she’d lost her 18-month-old son to cholera there. She credited her grief as one of the inspirations used in her novel. “It was at Samuel’s dying bed and at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn from her and sold.”

It had been a long, hard trip by train and ferry to mid-coast Maine, especially traveling with children and expecting another baby soon. Now settled in the drafty house on Federal Street, Harriet was homeschooling her youngsters, as well as selling original sketches to make ends meet.

“I always felt I had no particular call to meddle in politics,” she wrote a friend, “but after the Bloodhound Bill, I feel the time has come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak.”

Harriet’s brothers, all ministers, were passionately committed to the anti-slavery cause.  “If only I could use a pen as you can, Hattie, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is,” one sister-in-law urged. Stowe believed she could bring about positive political and social change using the power of her pen. And hadn’t Calvin always encouraged her gift of writing?

“This horror, this nightmare abomination! Can it be in my country? It lies like lead on my heart; it shadows my life with sorrow,” Harriet said. “I am obliged to write as one who is forced by some awful oath to disclose in court some family disgrace.  The time has come when the nation has a right to demand and the President of the United States, a right to decree their freedom.”

Stowe would later deny actually writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, convinced she had been “an instrument of God to stop the national sin of slavery…I the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin?  No, indeed! The Lord Himself wrote it. I was but the humblest of instruments in His hand.”

Harriet had stayed on a Kentucky plantation and spoken with slaves there.  She’d interviewed fugitives who’d crossed the treacherous Ohio River and hidden in homes belonging to her family. Stowe’s character, Eliza, who fled Kentucky to the free state of Ohio on ice floes, carrying her baby, had been inspired by one runaway she met. And she’d listened to her brother’s descriptions of slave auctions he’d observed in New Orleans.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or Life Among the Lowly was first published in installments between June 5, 1851 and April 1, 1852 in The National Era, an anti-slavery newspaper.  Harriet claimed each chapter was written with her “heart’s blood” and that many times she thought her “health would fail utterly.”  She was putting out sixteen to twenty pages daily.

“As long as baby sleeps with me nights, I can’t do much at anything, but I shall write this thing!” Some sections were written at the kitchen table on paper bags while “chowder bubbled on the wood stove and the baby slept by my feet in a basket.” She read sections out loud to her children. After hearing one chapter, nine-year-old Freddy burst into tears, crying “Oh Mamma, what a wicked thing slavery is!”

Harriet’s husband was napping when she wrote Uncle Tom’s death scene, which she insisted appeared to her in church as a vision during a Sunday service. She’d completed nine pages, pausing only to dip her pen, when Calvin awoke and she read it to him.  Afterward, she asked him if it would do. “Do?”  His sobs shook the bed he lay upon. “I should think it would do!” He insisted she send it to the publisher immediately without revision.

It was published in book form by John P. Jewett in March of 1852. Of the five thousand copies printed, three thousand were sold the first day. Stowe’s novel became an international phenomenon and the single best-selling book in the world at that time. It was eventually translated into fifty-eight languages from Hindu to Hungarian.  A missionary sent the Stowe family a Japanese translation.  Three hundred mothers in Boston named their baby girls “Eva” after the character in Stowe’s novel. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner shared the book with his Southern colleagues in Congress.

Harriet had hoped her book would make enough money to buy a new dress, but to her amazement, the first royalty check amounted to as much her husband had earned in a decade. With ten thousand dollars in the first three months of sales, the Stowes were suddenly wealthy.

Stowe’s story focused readers’ attention on the evils of slavery in a way as never before.  Previously most Northerners had simply accepted slavery as economic necessity sanctioned by the Bible and a property right guaranteed by the Constitution. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” either inspired or infuriated Americans in a manner that political pamphlets, newspaper accounts, and slave narratives never had before.

John Greenleaf Whittier claimed that, “The heaviest blow which slavery has received for the last half-century has just been struck by a woman.”

Popular anti-slavery poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote Stowe to say, “I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense success and influence of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  It is one of the greatest triumphs recorded in literary history, to say nothing of the higher triumph of its moral effect.”

From France, author George Sand wrote, “The book is in all hands. People devour it.  They cover it with tears.”

Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist leader, deemed it “a work of marvelous depth and power, whose effects are amazing, instantaneous, and universal.”

However, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” brought the wrath of Southern slaveholders and supporters of slave labor, down upon the author who was labeled “a meddling woman who knew nothing about slavery.” Many regarded it as so destructive to slavery it would cause slave insurrections.  Punishment was possible for possessing this “filthy negro novel.”  In some southern towns, one could be arrested and jailed for buying the book, having it on your person, or just lying around your home.

Little girls jumped rope to the chant: “Go! Go! Go! Old Harriet Beecher Stowe!  We don’t want you here in Virginny! So Go!” The Alabama Planter newspaper said in print that “the woman who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin must be either a very bad or a very fanatical person.” A Tennesse pastor called Harriet “as ugly as original sin.”  A cousin, then a Georgia resident told her that “prejudice against my name is so strong there she dares not have it appear on the outside of letters to me.”

William Lloyd Garrison endowed the book with high praise in his radical newspaper, The Liberator.  “I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings.” He told its author. “Now all the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing you!”

Because pro-slavery advocates accused her of publishing “a tissue of falsehoods,” Stowe put all other writing aside to document her sources in detail. “I am now very much driven,” she explained. “I am preparing a key to unlock Uncle Tom’s Cabin…It is made up of facts which my eyes have looked upon and documents my hands have handled…  I write “The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin” with the anguish of my soul and tears and prayers, with sleepless nights and weary days.”

Playwright George Aiken adapted Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the stage. The three daily performances in New York were always sold out with actors remaining in costume from noon until midnight. By the late 1850s, versions were playing in sixteen different theater companies simultaneously across the country.  At the time, it was the most successful play ever produced in the American theater. It ran for two hundred and fifty performances in Boston, one of which Harriet attended. She was reluctant to go because her father, conservative preacher Lyman Beecher, disapproved of theater and Harriet’s husband was then Professor of Sacred Literature at Calvinistic Andover Theological Seminary.

“I’ve never been to a theater in my life,” Harriet said, “but I have such curiosity to see how my characters can go from page to stage; to see in flesh and blood the creations of my imagination.”

It was these theatricals that turned the character of Uncle Tom into a “step-‘n-fetch-it” buffoon never intended by Stowe. Her black hero became a character of ridicule. It was this image of the spineless slave that so angered African-American author, James Baldwin, a century later. Harriet’s Uncle Tom was not the meek yes-man depicted in stage adaptations. Since Stowe neglected to have her work copyrighted, she had no say over such changes nor did she ever receive any profits from the productions.

Spinoff souvenirs, posters, and publications, including sheet music, known as “Tomitudes” were for sale everywhere.  A variety of board games, dolls and nick-nacks were manufactured in multitudes.

W. E. B. Du Bois, the renown African-American scholar said, “To a frail overburdened Yankee woman with a steadfast moral purpose we Americans, both black and white, owe our gratitude for the freedom and the union that exist today in these United States.”

  You Risked Jail for Reading This Book! by Juliet Haines Mofford Following the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly in the spring of 1852, threats against its author became common.

[cristina-eloisa-blog]

UST Hiraya: Advocating for Gender Equality and Equity

by Cristina Eloisa A. Baclig

Misconceptions and doubts did not stop a group of Artlets to start an intersectional feminist organization in the University of Santo Tomas. With their organization’s tagline: “It starts with us,” these Artlets are embodying intersectional feminism in the Artlet identity and bringing it closer to the Thomasian community.

For a good cause

It was from personal experiences that made Legal Management seniors Stephanie de Guzman and Aleana Bantolo cognizant of the lack of feminist advocacies in the University.

De Guzman came from an abusive relationship. With no one to talk to, she began believing that she was the one to blame for that toxic bond. She, then, met Bantolo, who experienced being catcalled.

Like de Guzman, what Bantolo needed the most back then was a companion who would listen to her. “[W]hat I clearly needed then was [...] a person who would just validate the feelings of suffering that I have had,” says Bantolo, the organization’s internal vice president. 

De Guzman, after seeing Bantolo’s Facebook post about the catcalling incident, felt genuinely concerned and reached out by sending her a message. Since then, the two became closer, allowing them to know more about each other personally. Both of them attend labor class, in which they find themselves discussing issues on gender.

One day, when their professor was not able to show up in class, the pair sat and talked about the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act. Their discussion made them realize the need for UST to have an organization that aims to help individuals who experience gender equity issues and harassment. Consequently, this inspired de Guzman to form a group that focuses on intersectional feminism. 

With her growing passion for forming an organization, de Guzman, a graduating student, thought of leaving something that could make a difference in UST. After doing intensive research and sharing of ideas with Bantolo, she finally established UST Hiraya (formerly known as Tomasina). Although the organization addresses a sensitive issue, as UST Hiraya’s president, de Guzman believes that the Artlet community should not be afraid to speak up “as long as you know [that] what you are fighting for is for a good cause.”

Changing the mentality

Growing up in a conservative family, Journalism senior Keara Eugenio adopted a mindset that women should stay at home while men work and provide for the family. Eugenio, UST Hiraya’s executive secretary, says she carried this kind of thinking throughout high school until she entered UST. It caused her to struggle in giving support to people who experienced harassment.

Instead of reassuring people who came to her after being harassed, she suggested that they should try to dress neatly. “[L]ittle had I known I was so wrong. That was a mentality that shouldn’t have existed in the first place,” Eugenio says. Now that people are tired of adjusting to society's standards, she admits that what she did was a mistake: "I’ve been giving such biased and narrow-minded advices until I discovered the strands of feminism."

With the recent prevalence of posts in social media regarding stories of people getting harassed, Eugenio became aware of the alarming growth of sexual harassment cases in the Philippines. It made her realize that rather than teaching people to avoid harassment, people must understand that doing it in the first place is wrong. Seeing the issue in a new light, Eugenio thought that UST Hiraya would help her educate and empower unfairly treated individuals. “[I] thought it would be a perfect avenue for me to release my advocacies,” she says.

 New experiences

UST Hiraya’s Internal Public Relations Officer Michelle Mislang had firsthand experience of how women are being harassed and mistreated in the Philippines. Her current observations and experiences in the country are very different from what she had experienced while growing up in Qatar where women are highly respected. During her first few months in the Philippines, Mislang had already experienced being catcalled. Unfortunately, she experienced it again upon entering UST, this time, from one of her fellow students. “[N]atakot ako. Bakit ganoon tingin nila sa mga babae?” Mislang shares. “[I] didn’t expect na educated people would do such a thing.”

Because of the initial discomfort caused by the events she experienced in the country, Mislang admits she did not know how to console victims of harassment. The Journalism junior finds herself unable to tell other people to face their problem valiantly since she admits that she would also be afraid if it happens to her. All she could do was to empathize.

Eventually, Mislang was able to gather the courage and confidence to defend herself and offer help to others. “I can extend support to other people [for them to be unafraid of] what is happening because, in the first place, it should never happen,” she says.

Artlet conviction

UST Hiraya aims to inform and educate the Thomasian community on intersectional feminism, correcting the common misconception that feminism is only for women. Mislang notes, “[W]e are not just for women; we’re here to help everyone.”

Intersectional feminism, for the organization, is a more inclusive type of feminism—it acknowledges the different facets of life. UST Hiraya takes into consideration the race, gender, religion, and situation of the individual in extending its support to people who seek their help. It also has a specific advocacy called University Gender Equity Council, which is responsible for advising on gender issues and harassment cases in the University.

For UST Hiraya, it is important that Artlets should have a say in feminism and gender equity issues given that they are part of a liberal arts college. “It is part of their moral obligation and consistency in the kind of program they entered into.” Bantolo says. F

 UST Hiraya was formerly known as "Tomasina." The decision of renaming Tomasina to UST Hiraya was made to secure the organization's recognition in UST and to avoid confusion between the organization's name with the Thomasian identity “Tomasino.”