#however i am brown and was visibly muslim for a while

[rumplestiltrin]

must it take white people to report to you that what we say about our own queer experiences is correct? or will you get your head out of your ass and listen to what poc have to say about their own god damn experiences.

[ask-republicofcroatia]

Ooc:. Its time to talk about ocs and appearances!!

"Mika stop." Everyone around me pleas and cries with worry for my sanity "SYM-BOL-ISM!" I scream with a tin foil hat on my head while hitting pots and pans. Suddenly a spaceship appears with the word symbolism written on it. Stunned silence commences "Strap on motherf******." Yes my sanity is slowly slipping away. .: Croatia :. Hair:. Her natural hair is medium-dark brown. Its a very nice chocolate-y colour. Many years ago it was pure blonde due to the fact that she is a slavic country which are characterized by having light hair and eyes. And the highlights are just her way of trying to prove she is modern. Her hair represents the sea side in Croatia therefore Italy likes to touch it because historically Italians always wanted our sea side (she hates when people touch it) and its relatively dry naturally due to the fact that the sea side has dry land also thanks to Italy her hair has a wavy texture. On the other hand her eyebrows are a bit naturally darker than her hair and pretty thick with a good arch, they are darker because of turkish influence. Eyes:. The eye colour she has in a nice blueish green colour just like the sea. Her eye colour remained the same since she was a child leaving it very visible that she is a slav country. The shape of her eyes is a roundish almond with sharp edges but they are not very big. She has a lot of eyelashes but they ain't long. Skin.. Throughout history her skin was either tan or pale depending on the time period and her general role in it (royalty, soldier, commoner, etc). Her skin can tan very easily and nowadays it mostly remains in a slight tan. Her skin is full of moles (not freckles) as it is very common for people to have skin full of moles. They represent the thousands of islands that are a part of our shore. Also the tattoos you can find refs for them on the blog just scroll if you haven't seen em .: Bosnia :. Hair:. His hair is very dark brown naturally its lighter than Sadik (Turkey) but darker then Tamara. However he is chasing his old days of power because of his misery so he dyes his hair blond like it used to be when he was younger which in turn results into his hair being very damaged but the colour is very intense yellow so its obvious that its not natural. He also can't afford to re-dye it professionally very often and it usually has roots showing. The length of his hair is mid neck and often times its very messy and shaggy he will however style it on important events and meeting. He is very hairy like most men in the Balkan mostly on his chest and arms he regularly shaves his face though. Much like Tamara his eyebrows are also a bit darker then his natural hair and his don't have a good arch like hers. In the spirit of hetalia I also gave him an ahoege like Austrias but much smaller to represent Austrian influence Eyes:. Like Croatias eyes his also remained light throughout the years but his got a more grey tone to them. The reason to them being blue-grey is connected to water. Bosnia in itself means water so its obviously a very important component to the country. The shape of his eyes is more round and bigger in comparison to Tamara and they have sharp edges and he actually has very long and full eyelashes. Skin:. In terms of this he has one of the tannest skin tones in Balkan again because Turkey. Like Tamara his skin tone also varied in history but he was always darker then her by comparison. He has two very visible scars on his face across his nose and from the bottom of his jaw across his cheek almost reaching his eye. I'm not sure how related this is to skin its more like a facial feature but he has dimples that represent the two biggest ponds in Bosnia. Considering: I wanna put tattoos on him but he is a muslim and thats against their beliefs but Bosnia is not a country that 100% follows the rules of Islam and I read that some sort of tattoos are allowed like words but I am not too sure about that. .: Serbia :. Hair:. Right off the bat unlike Omer and Tamara his hair was always dark brown. There is turkish influence present in Serbia obviously but I didn't want it to be his hair like with the other two instead its more present in his face but thats not for this post. He is the hairiest of them all he has to shave every day and his chest, arms and legs are a forest (save him). His hair is cut like an undercut but he let the shaved part go longer in recent years. The small grey part of his hair was inspired a bit by the main boy in Catcher in the Rye on one side his hair is going grey partly because age and because I believe when Yugoslavia was falling apart Serbia was the most stressed by it (hair goes grey from stress too) Eyes:. The idea I had behind this is gonna be hard to explain but oh boy here I go. They look like a wolfs eyes. If you look up wolf eyes you can see they are very round and have a crease (??) on the bottom corner of the eye (the one near the nose) thats how I imagine his eyes. I also imagine him having a very predatory look in his eyes but he learned to control it in the recent years so he can look more friendly, I also believe Turkey was scared of the way his eyes looked lmao. The colour of his eyes is green but it also has a golden tint to which is common for wolf especially in the country. Skin:. I actually think he is the second palest person form Yugoslavia. This is mostly due to the fact that he wast the most royal out of all of them so he spent more time inside not being able to tan. As well as the fact that Russia had a lot of influence on him so it helped in the pale department. Nowadays I imagine him having some awkward tans especially in summer lmao. .: Montenegro :. Hair:. Definantelly has the darkest hair its pure black due to his name which literally has the word black in it c'mon. The length is very short and very messy like he just got out of bed. He also never had any changes to his hair colour. Like Serbia he is very hairy especially on his chest and legs. Thick brows and high arch to make his face look scarier/stricter. Eyes:. He has a very tired look like he never got enough sleep but he also has big eyes its just the sleep deprivedness makes them look smaller. *The colour of them is light blue because of the sea. * I might change the specific shade of it because I'm gonna see the sea of Montenegro myself in a few days so ye Skin:. He is probably the tannest one due to how his warrior behaviour always made him stay outside. Like Tamara he also has lots of moles/sun spots but much much less than her. One very visible scar on his cheek. .: Macedonia :. Hair:. From ancient Greek/Macedonian influence she has curly hair and she is the only person with properly curly hair in Yugoslavia. She also has cute bangs. The colour of her hair is reddish-brown due to the wine they have there and in recent years she also got a small purple ombre at the ends of her hair (because its the colour of grapes and I am in love with a certain idols hair). She also has thick eyebrows but no arch. Also always has poppy flowers in her hair that she will style differently but will always have a minimum of 6 flowers in her hair. Eyes:. Her eyes are brown because everyone gives Mace blue or green eyes and I don't feel like jumping on a bandwagon. No seriously I have no reason (yet!) for her brown eyes other than its the most usual eye colour. Her eye shape is round and small and her eyelashes are big and curly to emphasize the fact that she is the youngest lmao. Skin:. Her skin is tanned due to Greek and Turkish influence and she has all the standards the others had .: Slovenia :. Hair:. Like the outcast he is (and wants to be) he has dirty blonde/light brown hair its also a bit wavy like Tamaras but he styles it unlike the rest of the boys on a daily basis. The length reaches the bottom of his neck almost. And like Bosnia he has an ahoege to represent Austrian influence but his makes him angry cuz he can't style it no matter what. He is the only one that remained blondeish throughout their years of influences. Also the only one with thinner eyebrows but a mean arch cuz Croatia. The least hairy one but its unknown if he just naturally doesn't grows a lot of hair or he removes it Eyes:. He has sharp strict looking eyes that are almond shaped. He enjoys wearing glasses but he doesn't really need them. The colour of his eyes are honey because of the honey production there. Skin:. The actual palest guy thanks to Austria and also has trouble tanning unlike the rest. I didn't mention scars a lot in this post but he has the least amount because he mostly stayed in the house even in Austro-Hungarian times. Has one beauty mark under his eye.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Go Woke Go Broke

I am a fan of great stories. I adore brilliant, unique, art. I adore when both are integral to a creation be it film, comic, book, short story, light novel, fan fiction; Whatever. I find the ability to build worlds in almost any capacity, incredible. I’m also an older Millennial; Part of the tweener, X/Y, Oregon Trail generation. Born in the 80s, raised in the 90s, and came of age in the early 00s.We played until the street lights caught us, my first game system was an NES, and all my Saturday morning cartoons were sans Disney, toy commercials. I got an honorable mention once at a science fair and my parents were unimpressed so Participation Trophies were a joke to me and i learned how to deal with bullies by dealing with bullies. I had to worry about gangs shooting up my school, not that lone, weird kid in a trench coat. I’m all about representation but i understand that if you want people to look like you on film, you’d better find a way to make that film in white ass Hollywood. Basically, i have sense whereas most Millennials born after 89, do not. I need to make that distinction because we are about to get into some sh*t.

The merit and value of representation or visibility in mainstream media is dependent on the quality of said portrayal in the cultural zeitgeist. I’m a giant black dude who lives in America so representation for me basically begins and ends with a thug persona. As a black person in general, watching actors who look like me get passed over in roles that are uplifting and enriching to the culture like Hurricane or Ali for very specific, very demeaning, very marginalization, stereotypes, is disgusting. Black people, however excellent they are, never win for anything other than the magical Negro, uplifting slave, or non-threatening service person. Hidden Figures is an amazing tale of the trio of black women who saved NASA during the height of the space race. It was nominated for three Oscars and won none. Mahershala Ali did win an Oscar for best supporting actor portraying Juan, a drug dealer. Another movie he was in won several Oscars as well, Green Book. Ali plays Dr. Don Shirley characterized by the magical negro trope. I can go on and on. Denzel Washington got his second Oscar for Training day playing a corrupt ass cop when he turned in a much better, far more emotional performance, in Hurricane the year before. His first? Glory, where he played a former slave. A few years later? Snubbed for Philadelphia. Washington played, deftly i might add, a lawyer named Joe Milller who had to reconcile his own prejudices bout what it meant to have AIDS. Dude wasn’t even nominated. Tom Hanks won, though. See that pattern?

I don’t like Steven Universe. I don’t think it’s a very good show but because it has a massive fanbase among the LBGTQ community, it’s bullet proof from criticism. Nah, i’m about to go in. I adore Rebecca Sugar and i commend her creativity. My favorite episodes of Adventure Time are often attribute to her in some way, wither s0rt direction story boarding, or song writing. Marceline wouldn’t be Marcy with Sugar and i’ll always love her for that. That said, Steven Universe is melodramatic trash that uses pandering as a crutch. I don’t have a problem with the gays or whatever getting their visibility, but there are ways to do it without coming across as plagiarized drivel. Euphoria immediately comes to mind. Universe wears it’s anime inspirations on it’s sleeve. Sugar is a massive fan of Sailor Moon and you see, just, SO much of that in this show. Entire scenes and plot points are directly lifted from Usagi’s epic adventure but, because of the nostalgia goggles, cats are blinded to the straight-up theft. I’m not. That lack of originality is hindrance to the message. I mean, not really, i guess, because people love this show but it’s hard for me to acknowledge anything genuine about it because i know it is all a fraud. Hell, Land of the Lustrous, a manga by the name of Hoseki no Kuni, bares more than a striking similarity to Universe and came out a full year before Steven first bared his belly gem! Guess what Lustrous is? A manga! Guess who loves anime and manga? Sugar! Guess who has built a career on Sailor Moon images and Fan art? Sugar! Hell, Lustrous does a better job of LBGTQ representation by accident. Seriously, check that sh*t out. It’s an excellent narrative that doesn’t pander to the SJW crowd. It just tells it’s story about gem girls and space monsters. Sh*t is dope.

Where i feel the most sting, however, is in the US comic industry. All of this PC wokeness is in direct contrast to creative storytelling, for the most part. Marvel is hilariously guilty of this sh*t. I was on board when they decided to turn carol Danvers into Captain Marvel, effectively retiring her leotard costume and pretending kike it never happened. Fine. I liked that design but i get how impractical is was. The homage to Mar-Vell in her current duds is cool, too. I was one of the few that waited before running to judgment as Bendis race-bent Spider-Man into Miles Morales and then gender bent Iron Man into Riri Williams. Riri is a sh*t character in her own right but the outrage was more about her gender and race which made the criticism seem neckbeard nerd rage. Even then, i stuck around. Hell, when that Mockingbird run dropped and was literally a feminist manifesto, i let it ride because it was cleverly written and, foe the most part, i am kind of a feminist. More Equalist but there are feminist undertones in there. More recently, however, we got this New Warriors book and this is where i have to draw the line. Snowflake and Safe pace? Token non-binary hero? Marvel used to be at the forefront of this sh*t. They had gay superheroes in the 70s. They got married in the 80s. They addressed AIDS in the 90s and muslim bigotry in the 00s. Marvel was always crazy social conscious. That was one of their story telling staples and they delivered those messages with a light but firm touch.

F*ck, dude, the X-Men are an allegory for black people and the Civil Rights movement! Magneto and Professor X are literally caricatures of Malcom X and Dr. King.  mainstream comic, broaching the subject of discrimination, camouflaged in the vibrant arto f superhuman clashes, sold to white kids across America, during the f*cking 60s? Are you serious? That sh*t changes minds. That sh*t starts a conversation. That sh*t is status quo changing! Snowflake and Safespace? F*cking really? This is your social discourse now? Disrespectful parody of a marginalizing slur and already absurd concept derived by weenies? This isn’t even satire, it’s outright disrespect. I think safespaces are detrimental to proper, healthy, discourse or that the notion of those who stand up to offense are snowflakes who “need to get a sense of humor”, but for real? The fact that cats just tacked on the one is non-binary just outright exposes the true intent. This sh*t is pandering, straight up. It’s non representation It’s not progress. It’s disrespectful Woke point grabbing. It’s superficial lip-service being played to those that feel like their label isn’t getting enough media scrutiny. I think all of these new genders or whatever are stupid but i’m an old person. Some kid might identify with being non-binary or whatever and THIS sh8t is what they have to look forward to seeing. You can’t be serious.

Now, the whole reason i’m writing this, the entire reason i was even thing king about this subject, is because of Late Night with Lily Singh. Singh is a comedy Youtuber who has crossed over into the mainstream. I, personally, don’t find her funny, but i understand how important her success is in the world. Singh is, if you haven’t deduced by her name, a Desi woman. She’s a Canadian of Punjabi descent and she’s making moves. Ma is one of the most popular channels on the platform and, indeed, i first came across her through another cat i follow. Even though i personally do not enjoy her content, the breadth of what she has accomplished does not elude me. Singh is a powerhouse and should be recognized as such. However, her actual, on-air, late night talk show is f*cking dog sh*t. Singh is not geared for that. Like, at all. Her jokes are bad, her monologues are delivered with a clumsy anxiousness that belies the energetic skit-maker from her Youtube channel, and she is the worst interviewer on television! Her guests are often visibly bewildered. Watching James Corden interview someone is off-putting, dude does his best impression of graham Norton, but Seeing Singh just assault her guests with mediocrity is textbook cringe. Why the f*ck was she put into this very public position, thrown to the wolves, doomed to fail?

Her show is bad, man, but when you say so, the PC Police come out to beat your sh*t in. Singh is Indian, female, and bisexually; The three biggest spaces on the Marginalized bingo board. Being brown, or queer, or prone to vaginas gets you them woke points whenever you create anything but to have all three at once? Boy, you bulletproof! Saying anything remotely resembling criticism gets you cancelled on the grounds of sexism, homophobia or just plain classic racism, all the while, her show i literal sh*t! Singh, herself, is often racist and sexist throughout her “comedy” skits! I’m not one to subscribe to white people being discriminated against. A a black dude with a firm grasp of history, i personally believe white people should just take it when a minority goes after them because they never have a problem taking from everyone else. Goose/gander, you know what i’m saying? That said, there’s an art, a nuance, to that racial observation. Singh does not deliver her content with that deft touch. She’s built a career on malicious caricatures of the whites and the penises, which would be fine if there was a message in her satire, but there’s not. It’s base and uninspired.

You can build a career on that type of content. Dave Chappelle’s entire career is that type of content and he’s one of the greatest comedians to ever comedy. The difference between his material and Singh’s is that Chappelle says something. Chappelle hits you in the gut and forces you to look within. His sh*t is actually profound. Lily Singh is not. She’s skews closer to that trainwreck, Nicole Arbour, than she does Eddie Murphy. She’s more Amy Schumer than Wanda Sykes and that sh*t is on full display with her terrible, terrible, talk show. I read somewhere that it might be getting cancelled soon and my first thought was, “It’s not cancelled now?” If i am aware that Singh’s content is pedestrian, surely the studio knew it was. I mean, the ratings of her show are abysmal. She even found her way into a race controversy as a female, lesbian, Desi on TV! Then it dawned on me; This wasn’t true representation This was NBC casing Woke points. They never believed in this show, rather, wanted to use Singh as a sounding board. She’s a trophy for a network trying to court that meek, 90s baby, everyone-is-special, “Muh anxiety”, crowd. It didn’t work and Singh’s show is getting shelved, as it should, but it’s f*cked up that this is what representation at the corporate level looks like. This sh*t is tokenism, plain and simple

Representation is great. I want all of us to be seen. People around the world judge our various cultures based on what our entertainment contributes to the cultural zeitgeist of the world. Mot blacks aren’t gang-bangers, rappers, or dug dealers. Most Muslims aren’t terrorists. hell, most Muslims aren’t even of middle eastern descent! Islam is the largest religion in the world. You’re more likely to meat an south Asian with a Koran than an Iranian with a suicide belt. Gays aren’t going to turn you, Women don’t have vagina dentata, and the handicapped are more resilient than you think. Don’t pander. Don’t token. This game of playing for Woke points in the media and arts needs to stop. All of this faux outrage by mostly rich, white, people on behalf of the people their privilege marginalizes, needs to stop. Patting yourself on the back because you’re book has a Sudanese, paraplegic, lesbian, lead is not being progressive, it’s masturbatory at best. Approach your project with a sense of levity, common sense, and, more than anything, respect. Is what you deem “representation” a good look for whatever class you’re trying to champion? Or is it just a means to stroke your ego and push your politics? Are you Brad Pitt or are you Kathleen Kennedy? Is what you want to show us going to do more bad than good?

At the end of the day, create what you ant to create, just be conscious of how you create. Evaluate your message. Make sure it’ something that needs to be said. Something that, when said, can’t be ignored. Make the message profound and the representation enriching. Make that sh*t count because doing so in an effort to appear the Wokest, just trivializes everything you are attempting to do.

[smokeybrand]

Go Woke Go Broke

I am a fan of great stories. I adore brilliant, unique, art. I adore when both are integral to a creation be it film, comic, book, short story, light novel, fan fiction; Whatever. I find the ability to build worlds in almost any capacity, incredible. I’m also an older Millennial; Part of the tweener, X/Y, Oregon Trail generation. Born in the 80s, raised in the 90s, and came of age in the early 00s.We played until the street lights caught us, my first game system was an NES, and all my Saturday morning cartoons were sans Disney, toy commercials. I got an honorable mention once at a science fair and my parents were unimpressed so Participation Trophies were a joke to me and i learned how to deal with bullies by dealing with bullies. I had to worry about gangs shooting up my school, not that lone, weird kid in a trench coat. I’m all about representation but i understand that if you want people to look like you on film, you’d better find a way to make that film in white ass Hollywood. Basically, i have sense whereas most Millennials born after 89, do not. I need to make that distinction because we are about to get into some sh*t.

The merit and value of representation or visibility in mainstream media is dependent on the quality of said portrayal in the cultural zeitgeist. I’m a giant black dude who lives in America so representation for me basically begins and ends with a thug persona. As a black person in general, watching actors who look like me get passed over in roles that are uplifting and enriching to the culture like Hurricane or Ali for very specific, very demeaning, very marginalization, stereotypes, is disgusting. Black people, however excellent they are, never win for anything other than the magical Negro, uplifting slave, or non-threatening service person. Hidden Figures is an amazing tale of the trio of black women who saved NASA during the height of the space race. It was nominated for three Oscars and won none. Mahershala Ali did win an Oscar for best supporting actor portraying Juan, a drug dealer. Another movie he was in won several Oscars as well, Green Book. Ali plays Dr. Don Shirley characterized by the magical negro trope. I can go on and on. Denzel Washington got his second Oscar for Training day playing a corrupt ass cop when he turned in a much better, far more emotional performance, in Hurricane the year before. His first? Glory, where he played a former slave. A few years later? Snubbed for Philadelphia. Washington played, deftly i might add, a lawyer named Joe Milller who had to reconcile his own prejudices bout what it meant to have AIDS. Dude wasn’t even nominated. Tom Hanks won, though. See that pattern?

I don’t like Steven Universe. I don’t think it’s a very good show but because it has a massive fanbase among the LBGTQ community, it’s bullet proof from criticism. Nah, i’m about to go in. I adore Rebecca Sugar and i commend her creativity. My favorite episodes of Adventure Time are often attribute to her in some way, wither s0rt direction story boarding, or song writing. Marceline wouldn’t be Marcy with Sugar and i’ll always love her for that. That said, Steven Universe is melodramatic trash that uses pandering as a crutch. I don’t have a problem with the gays or whatever getting their visibility, but there are ways to do it without coming across as plagiarized drivel. Euphoria immediately comes to mind. Universe wears it’s anime inspirations on it’s sleeve. Sugar is a massive fan of Sailor Moon and you see, just, SO much of that in this show. Entire scenes and plot points are directly lifted from Usagi’s epic adventure but, because of the nostalgia goggles, cats are blinded to the straight-up theft. I’m not. That lack of originality is hindrance to the message. I mean, not really, i guess, because people love this show but it’s hard for me to acknowledge anything genuine about it because i know it is all a fraud. Hell, Land of the Lustrous, a manga by the name of Hoseki no Kuni, bares more than a striking similarity to Universe and came out a full year before Steven first bared his belly gem! Guess what Lustrous is? A manga! Guess who loves anime and manga? Sugar! Guess who has built a career on Sailor Moon images and Fan art? Sugar! Hell, Lustrous does a better job of LBGTQ representation by accident. Seriously, check that sh*t out. It’s an excellent narrative that doesn’t pander to the SJW crowd. It just tells it’s story about gem girls and space monsters. Sh*t is dope.

Where i feel the most sting, however, is in the US comic industry. All of this PC wokeness is in direct contrast to creative storytelling, for the most part. Marvel is hilariously guilty of this sh*t. I was on board when they decided to turn carol Danvers into Captain Marvel, effectively retiring her leotard costume and pretending kike it never happened. Fine. I liked that design but i get how impractical is was. The homage to Mar-Vell in her current duds is cool, too. I was one of the few that waited before running to judgment as Bendis race-bent Spider-Man into Miles Morales and then gender bent Iron Man into Riri Williams. Riri is a sh*t character in her own right but the outrage was more about her gender and race which made the criticism seem neckbeard nerd rage. Even then, i stuck around. Hell, when that Mockingbird run dropped and was literally a feminist manifesto, i let it ride because it was cleverly written and, foe the most part, i am kind of a feminist. More Equalist but there are feminist undertones in there. More recently, however, we got this New Warriors book and this is where i have to draw the line. Snowflake and Safe pace? Token non-binary hero? Marvel used to be at the forefront of this sh*t. They had gay superheroes in the 70s. They got married in the 80s. They addressed AIDS in the 90s and muslim bigotry in the 00s. Marvel was always crazy social conscious. That was one of their story telling staples and they delivered those messages with a light but firm touch.

F*ck, dude, the X-Men are an allegory for black people and the Civil Rights movement! Magneto and Professor X are literally caricatures of Malcom X and Dr. King.  mainstream comic, broaching the subject of discrimination, camouflaged in the vibrant arto f superhuman clashes, sold to white kids across America, during the f*cking 60s? Are you serious? That sh*t changes minds. That sh*t starts a conversation. That sh*t is status quo changing! Snowflake and Safespace? F*cking really? This is your social discourse now? Disrespectful parody of a marginalizing slur and already absurd concept derived by weenies? This isn’t even satire, it’s outright disrespect. I think safespaces are detrimental to proper, healthy, discourse or that the notion of those who stand up to offense are snowflakes who “need to get a sense of humor”, but for real? The fact that cats just tacked on the one is non-binary just outright exposes the true intent. This sh*t is pandering, straight up. It’s non representation It’s not progress. It’s disrespectful Woke point grabbing. It’s superficial lip-service being played to those that feel like their label isn’t getting enough media scrutiny. I think all of these new genders or whatever are stupid but i’m an old person. Some kid might identify with being non-binary or whatever and THIS sh8t is what they have to look forward to seeing. You can’t be serious.

Now, the whole reason i’m writing this, the entire reason i was even thing king about this subject, is because of Late Night with Lily Singh. Singh is a comedy Youtuber who has crossed over into the mainstream. I, personally, don’t find her funny, but i understand how important her success is in the world. Singh is, if you haven’t deduced by her name, a Desi woman. She’s a Canadian of Punjabi descent and she’s making moves. Ma is one of the most popular channels on the platform and, indeed, i first came across her through another cat i follow. Even though i personally do not enjoy her content, the breadth of what she has accomplished does not elude me. Singh is a powerhouse and should be recognized as such. However, her actual, on-air, late night talk show is f*cking dog sh*t. Singh is not geared for that. Like, at all. Her jokes are bad, her monologues are delivered with a clumsy anxiousness that belies the energetic skit-maker from her Youtube channel, and she is the worst interviewer on television! Her guests are often visibly bewildered. Watching James Corden interview someone is off-putting, dude does his best impression of graham Norton, but Seeing Singh just assault her guests with mediocrity is textbook cringe. Why the f*ck was she put into this very public position, thrown to the wolves, doomed to fail?

Her show is bad, man, but when you say so, the PC Police come out to beat your sh*t in. Singh is Indian, female, and bisexually; The three biggest spaces on the Marginalized bingo board. Being brown, or queer, or prone to vaginas gets you them woke points whenever you create anything but to have all three at once? Boy, you bulletproof! Saying anything remotely resembling criticism gets you cancelled on the grounds of sexism, homophobia or just plain classic racism, all the while, her show i literal sh*t! Singh, herself, is often racist and sexist throughout her “comedy” skits! I’m not one to subscribe to white people being discriminated against. A a black dude with a firm grasp of history, i personally believe white people should just take it when a minority goes after them because they never have a problem taking from everyone else. Goose/gander, you know what i’m saying? That said, there’s an art, a nuance, to that racial observation. Singh does not deliver her content with that deft touch. She’s built a career on malicious caricatures of the whites and the penises, which would be fine if there was a message in her satire, but there’s not. It’s base and uninspired.

You can build a career on that type of content. Dave Chappelle’s entire career is that type of content and he’s one of the greatest comedians to ever comedy. The difference between his material and Singh’s is that Chappelle says something. Chappelle hits you in the gut and forces you to look within. His sh*t is actually profound. Lily Singh is not. She’s skews closer to that trainwreck, Nicole Arbour, than she does Eddie Murphy. She’s more Amy Schumer than Wanda Sykes and that sh*t is on full display with her terrible, terrible, talk show. I read somewhere that it might be getting cancelled soon and my first thought was, “It’s not cancelled now?” If i am aware that Singh’s content is pedestrian, surely the studio knew it was. I mean, the ratings of her show are abysmal. She even found her way into a race controversy as a female, lesbian, Desi on TV! Then it dawned on me; This wasn’t true representation This was NBC casing Woke points. They never believed in this show, rather, wanted to use Singh as a sounding board. She’s a trophy for a network trying to court that meek, 90s baby, everyone-is-special, “Muh anxiety”, crowd. It didn’t work and Singh’s show is getting shelved, as it should, but it’s f*cked up that this is what representation at the corporate level looks like. This sh*t is tokenism, plain and simple

Representation is great. I want all of us to be seen. People around the world judge our various cultures based on what our entertainment contributes to the cultural zeitgeist of the world. Mot blacks aren’t gang-bangers, rappers, or dug dealers. Most Muslims aren’t terrorists. hell, most Muslims aren’t even of middle eastern descent! Islam is the largest religion in the world. You’re more likely to meat an south Asian with a Koran than an Iranian with a suicide belt. Gays aren’t going to turn you, Women don’t have vagina dentata, and the handicapped are more resilient than you think. Don’t pander. Don’t token. This game of playing for Woke points in the media and arts needs to stop. All of this faux outrage by mostly rich, white, people on behalf of the people their privilege marginalizes, needs to stop. Patting yourself on the back because you’re book has a Sudanese, paraplegic, lesbian, lead is not being progressive, it’s masturbatory at best. Approach your project with a sense of levity, common sense, and, more than anything, respect. Is what you deem “representation” a good look for whatever class you’re trying to champion? Or is it just a means to stroke your ego and push your politics? Are you Brad Pitt or are you Kathleen Kennedy? Is what you want to show us going to do more bad than good?

At the end of the day, create what you ant to create, just be conscious of how you create. Evaluate your message. Make sure it’ something that needs to be said. Something that, when said, can’t be ignored. Make the message profound and the representation enriching. Make that sh*t count because doing so in an effort to appear the Wokest, just trivializes everything you are attempting to do.

[jay24thinks]

Mining for ‘Good Governance’ in the gold sector – (submitted 4/4/2017) .

Pt. 1

The Bamako airport opened a new terminal since I was here in 2015. It is a modern, open structure that represents development in a country – Mali -- with few visible examples of such progress. The national socio-economic context causes me to question why the third largest gold producer on the continent sits near the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index.

I arrive in Bamako, Mali, West Africa, a few days ahead of the Africa-France 2017 Summit. It attracted upwards of fifty heads of state, most whom arrived at the new airport terminal for the first time themselves. Their presence is a display of international support for the government and citizens of Mali. The people go about their daily business despite the tense security that escalated on 20 November 2015. On that day at 8 am, I was driving to the former airport terminal unaware that an attack on the Radisson Bleu Hotel was already under way. A group of Islamist insurgents killed 20 people, many of them whom were there for the Mali Mining and Petroleum Days Conference, just like me.  

My dissertation study brought me back this year to conduct semi-structured interviews with persons in connected to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, more popularly known as, EITI. I spoke to bureaucrats, politicians, corporate executives, leaders from civil society organizations, members of print and radio media and development professionals to learn about the impact of the EITI on the governance of the gold mining sector and its impact on sustainable development.

The objective of this research trip was to learn about the national level MSG – Multi-stakeholder group, otherwise known as the EITI steering committee. My study looks at how the national governance structure interacts with the local, community level governance structures in the gold mining regions of Kayes and Sikasso.

Pt. 2

I experience the city as I hustle from one interview to the next. The capital is frenetic. Merchants in the informal markets bustle  along the road sides with baskets of wares to hock. Children scatter around weaving through the seams of adults, donkey carts, automobiles and pot holes.  Babies are bundled, wrapped around their mom’s back while she works. Worn-out umbrellas cast minimal shade on the women/mothers selling fruit and vegetables. Less fortunate moms sit in the sun with pineapples, tomatoes, dates, oranges, and lettuces sweating in the sunshine.

I am speaking French to the best of my ability. However, I need to learn the Bambara language according to a woman selling me fruit and another across from me on the Green bus. It costs only 300 West African Francs for a ride in contrast to the yellow cab which costs up to 3000XFO and both are stuck in traffic. Always be alert as you walk. Watch out for motor bikes and pedestrians and automobiles because they all jockey for position.

A blind beggar holds out his hand, one eye crusted over the other a grey pupil. I put a few Ciffe in his hand and he returns to me god’s blessings. ‘Alhamdulillah’, I reply.

The president’s compound is bleach white up on the cliff overlooking the city. It can be seen from across the city. It is bleached white against the brown-red background. My feet and pants leg are stained red from the clay.

People are dressed in tatters, and in fine, pressed, colorful garments. Women do not wear head scarves and, yes they do. Some are long, others short. Hair is covered, or it’s not. All three hundred and sixty five degrees of religious faith are represented. The majority of people are Muslim, but I also met Christians and animalists. Yes, that is right out of the literature. I greeted a young man with an impulsive ‘As-salamu ‘alaykum’ and he responded, ‘I’m an animalist, man.’

Beeping horns; flowing cash; the train has not run through Bamako since the coup d’état in 2012 . The train tracks are a market place. Newspapers, fruit, furniture, rice, vendors and customers line the train tracks, but there is no concern for an oncoming locomotive.

Tea is brewed in every gathering. A tea pot for two is filled with leaves, sugar and water then cooked over charcoal flames. The tea is poured and re-poured mixing the sugar. I find myself slapping the red clay stains off my pant leg waiting for a cup.

The expectation is that the EITI can contribute to sustainable development outcomes through the promotion of ‘good governance,’ specifically the democratic values of transparency, accountability and public discourse within the mining sector. Some development is taking place in Mali, but the majority of people are living subsistence lives with pervasive insecurity. People go about their routines aware of the daily terrorist attacks and counter-terrorist maneuvers of the various military forces deployed in the northern regions of the state. The capital is only relatively safe from insurgency.  

The aim of my research is to better understand the relationship between the implementation of the EITI and socio-economic development. I am pursuing a political-institutional question with implications for socio-economic development. I look forward to returning again this summer.

[hvsafstanzi]

Diversity matters

”Why Does Everyone Look The Same?”

- Grace F Victory

This is one of the subtitles of Graces latest blogpost. Why am I borrowing it? I hear you wonder. Well, because she is annoyingly right in her question.

This is in regards to the bloggers blog awards shot list being announced this week and the lack of diversity in them can’t be ignored.

We can all do our bit here to shine light on the problem that so openly stared back at us. I won’t try to rewrite Graces text because she put it out good enough for everyone to understand the gist of this situation. I will however give you a small sample of how this affected me once.

*If you would like to read Graces blogpost you can find a link to it at the end of this text.*

Ten whole years ago I started a fashion and design blog. I wrote about different design and fashion houses, how they evolved, and how their style is a trademark for each individual designer. I wrote about clothing and furniture and jewelry too. The aspects of creating a brand and how to evolve it was what I wanted to write about. I soon noticed that the bigest hits and comments came whenever I wrote about fashion. So I slowly started to focus primarily on fashion, clothing and style. And slowly and steadily the blog was growing. I got people inviting me for fashion events in China, Spain and Germany. I had to decline them all because I had no income at the time that would allow me to drop my work for a few days and enjoy these events. What I regret more however is the behavior I encountered from agents in Sweden. I live in Sweden if you did not know, and at the time of me having said blog I lived in Stockholm.

When I realized that there was a potential for my blog to grow so much as to have event planers and companies reaching out to me I looked into pr and agency firms that at this time were starting to reach out and cater for bloggers. As a blogger the business beyond gathering content and posting it was beyond my knowledge back then and I wanted to look into getting the appropriate help for this. However every single one that got back to me said basically the same thing. ”They didn’t know what category to place me in and market me as” and when I replied fashion, their answer was that they already had fashion bloggers and I was writing differently from them and they did not believe they had the right people to help me.

My best friend Lina and mine arm placed side by side.

”I was writing differently”? each blogger should have their own voice. That I am a firm believer of. Don’t copy your content. If you write about similar or even the same thing, do it in a way that sets you appart from the rest. And now these agencies told me that I was different. Surely they should be wanted that? What point is it to work with yet another blogger that is the mimic of the others. In hindsight I realize that that is actually what they all wanted! One assistant had the decency to take me for a business fika to talk. It was not different from the other answers but she was kind enough to meet me in person and tell me that what she understood as being the problem was that they didn’t know what to do with me. Not because my content wasn’t good enough but because I did not fit their mold of a 20yr old Swedish woman and how could they sell that? The agency didn’t believe there to be a audience big enough for someone like me and they didn’t want to take the risk.

Not until she told me that did I realize that this was why everyone else had turned me down too. I did not fit their preconceived mold. What the - is that suppose to mean in 2010? I was too shocked at the time to do much about it. Not only that, I was not born with a quick business brain and at 22 I did not have the knowhow to get in touch with those agencies and set my point of view straight to their faces in this matter.

But I was confused, I was sad and angry - frustrated that all this time I spend on blogging, because it does take an enormous amount of time, not only on the content but to write and edit and the image layout and post at the right time and all that, was not really leading anywhere any longer because those who held the market did not find me interesting enough to make a place for me. I should have made a fuzz, I should have written names and companies out in black and white and I could and would have acted very much like a vindictive child and not really gotten anywhere with it anyway! But at times I wonder, if I back then would have highlighted what had happened to me, would it have made a difference? Would I have seen more diversity in the bloggs of today? As I wrote before, seven years later I realize that the sweet mainstream young white woman is what they wanted and still what they want it seems. Back then I kept my blog for two more years but it had reached it’s limit of all I could do to boost it and I was not feeling as invested as before. I had grown tired so one day I just decided it was done. I erased every trace of it that I could. I had grown too frustrated in doing something that I enjoyed when I just felt like I was trampling water - not getting anywhere.

Life took me to other places and different works and meetings with new and exciting people. All the while YouTube was growing.

I started a YouTube channel this past december. It’s fun. A small scale thing that I try to get done whenever I have the time to set up my camera and film something. It’s different from a blog. Sure, preparation and content all takes time here too but I am for the first time sharing me. My stuff, not highlighting others work. It’s different and sure I would love to work more with the design/fashion side of things but that requires contacts that I do not have and that also requires a financial situation that I too lack. But I am enjoying it. And a few months ago I decided to create a blog on the side of youtubing. The blogging world has changed tremendously since I left it. Just choosing where to have my blog was a knot that took me weeks to undo. Then I started slowly with placing my youtube content and Instagram feed into the blog. But what was I suppose to write about? Last weeks post was one that just landed on me and it felt easy once I knew the subject. This week I was dragging myself, all the time pushing the deadline for this weeks blog post. Then yesterday I read Graces blog, I looked at the twitter conversations that had been taking place and I genuinely decided what to write as I realized that here we are again. I’m not going to build my blog as I did back then, I don’t have the time to follow each fashion house as closely as I did ten years ago, but I am definitely making sure that I stay active this time around. Visible. Sure I still don’t fit ”their” mold of a blogger, I just need to do a quick search on Google to see that the Swedish and European bloggers still fall into that same category as they did in 2010. Nothing bad with that, I follow a few of them and I genuinely like them, they deserve their place. However, do they deserve it more then others just based on them fitting a mainstream notion of what is the norm? And around the world it looks pretty similar too! It’s a disgrace. And the agencies who work with these bloggers and search the internet to find new ones should feel a bigger shame than the one I know they don’t.

If the representation always looks the same, if all we see are young, white, 20 something women as being the representatives for every single woman on this planet then brands and companies will only create products that fit in to their daily life. And everyone outside that mold will never really be given their true right to exist to their fullest self.

I will never fit that mold even if I tried. Not by nature nor by design. Let’s do this: It would be a lie to say that your looks isn’t the first thing someone notices when looking at you on a blog, YouTube channel or in person. At first glance many people tend to believe I’m Asian, I’ve never minded that however I’m Latina, from Chile to be more precise. But I grew up in Sweden and going back to my ancestors I am Scottish and Italian, and Spanish and Native American and probably Asian and African too. If I go by my ancestors family names then I have jews, muslims, christians, pagan and native american roots. I have big dark brown eyes. A defined nose that is either Mapuche or Scottish (if not a mix of both). My skin is darker than light but lighter than dark. I’m 1.73m. I have wide shoulders and hips with a smaller waist. I have black hair with red (dyed) ends. My upper arms are thick and long sleeved shirts are always to short for my arms. I have a stern looking resting face but have a positive disposition and a genuine love of laughter (and books). I dress more modestly then not and I have six piercings in one ear and two in the other. I am as Swedish as all my white friends I grew up with. And yet if you look at me I am different from them by nature. I don’t mind that some of you see me as a foreigner. I have luckily (how this is in any way lucky is just another thing that shows us how wrong peoples perception of acceptance and norm is) only ever directly face to face encountered discrimination for my born looks four times in my life (counting the above experience together as one). When I was a teenager I encountered more negativity from people my own age on my looks but that was based on my style and makeup so it is a difference. Still pathetic to evaluate someone based ont their looks but one I create (style) the other I am born into. Yet I go into beauty shops and can’t find foundations dark enough for me. I can’t fit my jeans over my hips unless I go up in size but then they will be loose at the waist? I understand that ready to wear fashion is made after specific guidelines but why can’t those guidelines vary more? And why can’t brands make skin toned products that are for people of all colour too? I’m tired of always seeing those 10  shades of beige.

I love the way I look. I like that my features are a huge mix from all over this world but that does not mean I should be excluded form the conversation as it where. I do still live on this planet with all the others, and believe you me, white is not the only colour that should be catered for.  This time, I’m here to stay. I’ll proudly do my bit to be visible, even if that means being a torn in the eye for some because the other choice is not an option any longer. It’s been ten years and nothing has changed in the blogging world. I will do my bit to make sure that when the next generation grows up they get to see more than a pale monochrome woman talking about fashion, design, arts and beauty in this industry.

Thanks so very much for reading this text. I’ll write to you again next week.

Stay amazing,

 x ~Stanzi

I encourage you all to read Graces blogpost if you haven’t already done so, through the link here:

http://www.graciefrancesca.com/2017/08/lack-diversity-blogging.html

Grace also posted this list which I hope she won’t mind that I share with you:

How Do We Move Forward?

The question that I get asked time and time again is 'what can we do?' and my honest answer is 'I don't know'. The lack of diversity within blogging is a reflection of the world we live in. That, and the lack of appreciation/respect/understanding of POC and very little intersectional feminism understood and recognised by our white feminist sisters. These are all societal issues which have to change via movements, governments and the very system racism was born from. However, as a blogging community we can all do our bit to improve on the issues we are face re diversity.

Call out brands who don't produce makeup for POC

Call out brands who don't use POC in campaigns

Support your fellow bloggers when they are tweeting about their experiences as a POC

Do not disregard a POC feelings and experiences

Ask questions to POC when you feel like you need educating or you don't understand something that relates to them

Seek out content created by POC

Follow POC who actively talk about racism and prejudice

Read books on intersectional feminism

Recognise your white privilege

Recognise your light skin privilege

Celebrate diverse voices and opinions

Go to events that discuss the lack of representation

Read posts like this to educate yourself

Collaborate with more POC

Share content from your favourite POC

In anything you do, be inclusive of marginalised people (the less abled, fatter bodies etc)