#immigrant household thing I think?

[night-ah-ahks]

okay I know there’s the joke of the player characters getting possessed and someone else talks out of their mouths (player is with someone else and they are talking to egg) BUT I can never not imagine it as a literal Skype call/video call

because I’ve grown up in a house where my mom will be on a zoom call with her sisters for hours on end every morning without fail

sooooo I just imagine all the eggs like sheepishly walking up to their parent’s phone to talk to an aunt or uncle they don’t really know (are they actually related to their parents?) and the aunt/uncle is just doting and being cute and AAAAAAA

[seravph]

that poll is reaching TOO MANY WHITE PEOPLE 🗣️🗣️ not enough nonwhite/mixed people have responded I wanna see if this is 1) a nonwhite thing 2) an immigrant/descendant of a recent immigrant thing 3) specifically an Asian thing

[heteromerous-rhyming]

i think that i've figured out why i don't like show sally.

ok like don't get me wrong, virginia kull?? she ATE with that interpretation. her acting?? amazing. like i could truly get the core of her character.

it's just that i don't like the character the writers give us.

cw: discussion of abusive relationships, of toxic family dynamics, probably a good bit of generational trauma. I don't really get into details except with stuff shown on the show and written in the books but i wanted to be safe.

as someone from an immigrant household, as someone whose mom works a part time minimum wage job, as someone whose seen and been there as my parents fought, i just really really dislike sally's portrayal in the show. and it's partly because of poseidon and partly because of gabe (mostly because of her character in general but yeah, lets get the men out of the way first)

I feel strongly about poseidon in his relationship to sally very specifically. i don't mind his relationship to percy either books or show. but it's pretty damn clear to me that this show was written by someone who's never experienced sally's situation, of being the single working parent with an absentee partner (or in gabe's case a partner who literally ahHHHHHh). because from the beginning, from sally's reaction and snark to gabe, I felt like something was wrong or off, and it was Specifically the show because i read the books and i watched (some) of the musical and i never felt that way towards either of those. i'm not saying that my family situation is sally's (don't have a god for a father for one), but. by all accounts sally knows that this is an abusive relationship, the only reason that she's with gabe is because of the protection he offers percy. i have to assume that this is true because sally jackson turning gabe to stone is something i'm assuming is staying in the show, and i remember this being mentioned by grover? or someone in the first few episodes. and the cord that struck in me was not the traditional (that is, visible, defined, i don't like this word but i don't have a better one) abusive relationship but relationships in my community, of women staying with husbands because of their children, women outright saying this, women who know the world is cruel to single women and to single mothers specifically. sally, to me has never been under any illusions that gabe is any sort of relationship material. she has never been under any illusions that poseidon would be able to help in any way.

and that crux of sally's relationships made her first scene in the show all that more jarring. but it's not anything specifically that i can put a finger on. and maybe i'm wrong for this or maybe i'm expecting too much. but. sally doesn't have the resentment or the quietness or the bitterness or even the loudness that i expected. you have been the only true caretaker for your child, the only one in the house that really puts food on the table and on top of that is expected to do emotional labor? to cook and clean or at least pick up the food?

but she treats gabe like he's an annoyance. someone to brush off. and you see the manipulation tactics from gabe, you do, but.

its not that i want sally's spirit to be crushed. my mother's spirit wasn't crushed. the women in my community, they laugh, they cry, they watch silly tv shows, they have lives that they live, and in many cases they live well.

but the women that i know are also angry. they are either on fire or they used to burn. when they banter with their partners it often turns ugly because they are tired of the same damn argument day after day, because often the trivial things that are asked are compounded and compounded and compounded because you live in the same house, there is no escape, there is no private space, not really.

it's new york and sally works a job to support an apartment and her family. they are not well-off. sally has no support network we can see, and how could she? poseidon mentions that she has no one to talk to about these things, her parents are clearly out of the picture. all this to say. there is a certain understanding of class that exists within the books that was excised, i believe unknowingly, from the show, and it is the worse for it. there is a tiredness, a worn-down-ness from being low income that sally had in the books, but in the show i only see a struggling first time single parent. i don't see the complexity of a woman who literally gave up on finding a fulfilling relationship to be with a man for her child. i don't see the complexity of a woman working fulltime and still getting demanded from at home. and i didn't realize that I wanted to see that until I saw the show. i didn't realize that that was what i loved about the books.

i hate that they tried to bring poseidon back into sally's life as this perfect man who through cosmic forces can't help. i hate that sally calls him, i hate that he says he'll listen. but most of all i hate that sally just accepts him, falls into him. it's really hard to be a mother when your partner doesn't seem to help you parent in any way, even if he cannot help you. he's a greek god, there's no way in hell that he can begin to understand the lengths that sally has gone through to sacrifice and survive, the very human things that she's done. sally in the books thinks of poseidon as a sweet memory, almost a fairytale, and it's clear that this story is the one that brings her comfort. poseidon is a one night stand, a sweet stranger, she understands he's not coming back. but this poseidon comes when sally calls, and that i cannot believe. i cannot believe that she still thinks of him as the fairytale man, that she accepts him so easily if there isn't that distance. i cannot believe that there is no resentment, that she still puts faith in him as her god (the first episode when she talks about him just felt so wrong to me) if he's not a memory, but a recurring figure. this is not a story of star-crossed lovers, sally feels too real as a human being for that.

sally finds trust, finds contentment, in the books after percy leaves home, after she no longer has to put up with gabe for his safety. she does not find poseidon again. she marries a human man, a very ordinary human man who cares for her. poseidon visits after she is in this relationship and its an amicable one. he is percy's father but also distant memory all in one. sally has the strength to survive a terrible relationship and still find a way to heal and live fully after that.

but the anger. the fire was there. she turned gabe to stone. she reclaimed her life with her two hands.

you don't kill a man for no reason. you don't kill a man without emotion.

but it's that reason and that emotion that i don't get from the writer's room. and it just makes me deeply sad.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for calling my friend out?

i (19F) have a friend V(19F). she seemed like an okay friend at first but has gotten on my nerves recently due to her acting like the “leader” of our group of friends. she tells us what we’re doing, where we’re going, and how to spend our money (we have a pool for alcohol that we share and even if it’s someone’s turn to pick what we get that weekend she still has final say). she guides conversations so they end up on her. she usually does this by describing her trauma until the conversation ends up with people feeling bad for her. i’m afraid of confrontation so i usually let this happen because, after speaking with my other friends most of them disagree that it’s a problem.

however, one thing has been really bothering me recently. she’s been talking about how poor her family is, even getting to the point of shaming me for being richer than her (my parents are IT consultants). however her family is paying all of her (very expensive) tuition and sends her $400 2x a month. a few months ago we were showing our neighborhoods and houses on street view, i pulled mine up and she told me “wow i knew you were bougie, but not THIS bougie”. she then pulled up her house, a one story house with peeling paint in a bad neighborhood. i thought nothing of it until she invited the group of friends to a party over spring break. she put her address in the text and i decided to look it up. it was a completely different house than the one she showed me originally. after conforming it was her households’ not a different family members, i looked it up on zillow. it is worth 200k more than mine and has a pool, hot tub, and is part of an HOA.

the next time the group hung out there was this girl i had a crush on there, V was trying to trauma bond with her by asking her about her home life (my crush is trans from a conservative family) (also V has gotten with some of my past crushes before, doesn’t matter to me because if they like her they wouldn’t have liked me anyway), V starts talking about how her family needs EBT to eat. i immediately cut her off and say, “i don’t think your family needs it if they send you $800 a month and have a $2k HOA fee.” she went quiet and i just continued. “i think it’s a little shitty that you’re telling people who are here on scholarship that you’re broke and then lying about where you live to seem like you’re worse off then you actually are.” she immediately left after that. the next morning i get a text from one of my friends and future roommates (me, them, and V are leasing next semester) that i embarrassed V and should have just confronted her in private. i asked if they care if V was lying and they tell me “not that much, she’s clearly acting out for a different reason. you just made it tense between all of us because she doesn’t want the rest of the group hanging out with you anymore”.

it’s been two weeks since this happened and i’ve only had contact with some of the people in the group. V confessed to lying about the wealth and finally said what her parents do for a living, her mom is a nurse and her dad is an injury lawyer (which also means she was lying about being a first generation college student, she brought that up after i told her that im getting scholarship money because my parents are immigrants)). however, she still doesnt want anyone to hang out with me because i embarrassed her in front of someone she had feelings for (i told her that i had a crush on this girl about a month before this went down). i want my friends back and i feel like i could’ve handled this better AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[ineffably-human]

It honest to God took me a month to rewatch the last two episodes of this season of Shadows, because I'm still so mad about how they handled Guillermo's decision. And I'm probably going to always be mad. I think this season wasted a lot of time that could have been spent laying better groundwork, for both Guillermo's decision and for Nadja and the Guide's subplot.

But something did click into place for me in that very last scene, where Derek's being ushered down by Topher to meet the other zombies. Season Three was unofficially about power and protection. Season Four was officially about change. I thought this season was going to be about secrets. But it's actually about belonging to a community.

The vampires were out in the world a lot more this season. Colin runs for public office (passing among humans as he can), which drags him into the interests of the community of energy vampires. Nadja connects to a community from her homeland, and winds up caring about them more than she ever expected. Laszlo's mostly focused on the experiments, but his natural ease with Sean (and humans in general) is on display a few times - and when the vampires think he's in distress, they throw a whole party to rally him. The Guide, of course, struggles the whole season with feeling like an outsider who can't be part of the group she cares for.

Sean links the vampires to the pride parade, not just celebrating the queer community, but making the vampires the face of queerness, of immigration, of Staten Island itself. (And Guillermo gets his first taste of Pride, and of a community he'd never been able to claim until recently.) At the same time, it's shown that vampires always feel like they're a step away from being found out by humans, of their surrounding community turning on them and forcing them out.

Nandor struggles throughout the season with social awkwardness, communicating, being misunderstood; he fails to connect with strangers without hypnosis guiding the conversation the way he wants it to go. But the other vampires have become his home, in a way that's evolved past their relationship during Season Three. He rallies them successfully during Local News. He and Colin Robinson look out for each other. Keeping Guillermo's secret is just as much about protecting Nandor as it is protecting Guillermo.

(It's still Guillermo he's always calling out for, though. With the certainty of someone who already knows where home is, he just hasn't named it yet.)

And as always, Guillermo is stuck in between two worlds. He can't connect fully with his bio family, but can't truly step away from them. He wants to be a vampire, but his transformation fights him and he can't see humans as prey. He wants to come when Nandor calls, but can't tell him about the biggest thing that's happening to him.

By the finale he feels more isolated from the vampires than ever, to the point that he can't see what's actually happening: by the time they all know his secret, the others have rallied around him, and are seeing him as another member of the family in need of protecting.

And once Nandor realizes that he cares more about losing Guillermo than his own pride, he deliberately brings that community to Guillermo: he introduces Guillermo as the fifth of their household, and throws him a birthday party to bookend the one at the start of the season. He makes Guillermo a ceremony, invites everyone they know, and asks if he's willing to become one of them forever.

And it's not that Guillermo doesn't want to be a vampire. He does, desperately. It's that he can't stop also being a human.

So instead it's Derek (a vampire basically living as a human, and deeply lonely for it) who is ushered into a new community ready to welcome him, something Guillermo has always been hoping for.

("Do you like eating human flesh? Heh, you will!")

Guillermo still doesn't have The Thing he wants, not really. He still has to name exactly what it is. But Nandor helped guide him towards where home is. And Laszlo helped him pick up the pieces. The vampires don't love Guillermo like a fellow vampire, but they love him like Guillermo, and like with Colin last year that doesn't just reset. It can't. The roots are in too deep, it's already bound everyone stronger.

We'll just have to wait to see what it turns into.

[seungbinbin]

stray kids interacting with their hispanic s/o’s family

i had to take a trip back home and now that i’m here i’ve been thinking about how skz would be around a hispanic family so…here’s this!

chan who already looked up how to greet people and how to show respect in a hispanic household

chan who finds a way to understand your abuela’s instructions on how to set the table, even when it’s all in spanish

chan who will laugh and smile and entertain all your primos and primas that want to learn korean words or ask about his accent

chan who is quick to make friends with your mom, and promises to come around more often for a cafecito in the morning

minho who will dance with you even if he doesn’t know the song playing

minho who will try his best to keep up with the quick merengue beat playing loudly from the speakers

minho who’s a fast learner and starts spinning you around with a huge smile on his face because dance is his passion and a big part of your culture and it makes him happy

minho who gets stolen by your tías and they won’t give him back because “está bien guapo”

changbin who insists on getting there on time to make a good impression but doesn’t understand how hispanic time works so you get there before anything is even set up

changbin who has no problem being bossed around by your mom and does his best to help put everything where it needs to be

changbin who doesn’t refuse when your mom tells him to eat more, and it makes her smile so brightly

changbin who plays a la lucha libre with your little cousins, throwing them up in the air and making sure they don’t get hurt

hyunjin who immediately has your aunts complimenting him and touching his face just in case they gave him mal de ojo

hyunjin who gets comfortable around your family so quickly that they include him in the inner family chisme debrief

hyunjin who lets your little prima braid his hair and shows her how to draw all the pretty things she can think of

hyunjin who will take the time to learn how to pronounce the names of your family members, and will be patient while they learn how to pronounce his (they call him juan hyunjin and that’s fine!)

han who is immediately given a nickname by your family, and you have to explain that’s their way of accepting him

han who now knows to respond to “flaco” whenever he visits your family

han who is the only one that can calm the youngest primito down, and is happy to hold him so that the mom can go dance and enjoy herself

han who can only smile and blush and laugh when your abuela pinches his cheeks and coos at him “¡ay, mi nene guapo! ¡mi flaco!”

felix who insisted on bringing a dessert to the next family party, and spends weeks perfecting his flan

felix who has been learning spanish behind your back so he can sit and talk to your immigrant parents (“¡[y/n], tu novio habla puro español!”)

felix who is so interested in what and how your family cooks, asking for recipes so that he can make them for you at home

felix who insists on helping serve the food, and that it didn’t matter that he was “visita”

seungmin who brings beers for your dad because he’s a little scared of him and wants to make a good impression

seungmin who has been learning all the hispanic songs you have showed him, and joins in when it’s time to sing with the family

seungmin who is now known as “el que canta” and your family begs him to sing your favorite song every time

seungmin who is el novio favorito, gets added to the family group chat and included in the pictures

jeongin who is so stoked to find out that there’s double christmas in your household, but also confused because they celebrate on the 24th

jeongin who has the worst luck ever and gets the baby jesus from la rosca de reyes

jeongin who is suspiciously good at playing dominoes and you wonder if he practiced before coming over

jeongin who listens to the stories your tíos are telling, gasping at all the things they did when they were young and back in their home countries

[sheisraging]

If you're considering not voting or casting a pointless 3rd party vote in the upcoming US elections*, I'd urge you to read about Project 2025, which is the Republican transition plan for if they win the 2024 election (link is for the wiki page, not the actual website).

A short summary:

Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state"—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president. It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory, a widely disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States, which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration.

Among the many horrifying and notable points:

Abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other government agencies, or terminated. Basic research would only be funded if it suits conservative principles.

Promotes the ideal that the government should "maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family."

Proposed recognition of only heterosexual men and women, the removal of protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity, and the elimination of provisions pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from federal legislation.

Individuals who have participated in DEI programs or any initiatives involving critical race theory might be fired.

Explicitly reject abortion as health care

Revive provisions of the Comstock Act of the 1870s that banned mail delivery of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that could be used for an abortion.

Restrict access to contraception.

Infuse the government with elements of Christianity, and its contributors believe that "freedom is defined by God, not man."

Criminalizing pornography

Combat "affirmative discrimination" or "anti-white racism," citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and to direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807.

Recommend the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants across the country.

Promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences.

Reform the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) so that the nuclear household structure is emphasized.

Give state governments the authority impose stricter work requirements for beneficiaries of Medicaid

Mandate that federal healthcare providers should deny gender-affirming care to transgender people

Eliminate insurance coverage of the morning-after-pill Ella (required by the Affordable Care Act of 2010).

Remove Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices.

These are just a few things and I'm sure lots of people will be like lol this will never happen but lots of people said this about overturning Roe, as well.

*FWIW - I think it is absolutely valid to be angry, discouraged, and disappointed in our current administration.

Be mad at Biden! (though I would encourage looking into some of the actually positive things his administration has achieved).

But also consider what's at stake for a huge population of this country if we wind up with a GOP win.

[napakmahal]

Anon because I feel like I’m about to say smth cringe lol but how about a fic with a (possibly Psych major) reader that’s got a holistic view of the world with Tadashi? Would be interesting to see what that information brings concerning Baymax’s plan of care and how a relationship would form with Tadashi like dat ya dig

Idk mostly inspired by Natalia Lafourcade’s song María La Curandera (it’s in Spanish, you’ll have to search up the translation if you’re curious!) also growing up in an immigrant household with care alternatives to things maybe a doctor would not take seriously/ not being able to connect with a patient due to beliefs and or language barriers.

Can I just you’re actually so real for this. This is NOT cringe pookie okay. First of all, love my psych classes but also second of all my family is so holistic. We’re from the Philippines and the hospital is reserved special for if you’re dying. (Btw that’s bad, go to the doctors please)

You don’t fight with your boyfriend…like ever. You don’t like fighting and he thinks fighting i childish. But that’s not to say you two agree on everything. Exhibit A:

“At least with my remedies I know I won’t be overdosing on cough syrup.”

“Baby, with all due respect I’m not using herbs to get rid of a respiratory infection.”

Another thing, you love Baymax. You really do. You were there to help build him, he knows you personally but he has nothing to do with your health. And that irritated Tadashi to no end. Flu season had come around and it seemed like everyone was getting sick. Including you. The basic fever, cough, headaches, and disgusting amounts of phlegm hacking out of your throat. Yet, you denied any help from your boyfriend’s healthcare robot.

It made him upset because you could get better so much faster if you let him use his extensive medical knowledge on you, and yet you still said no. But nothing about your ideologies had created such tension until recently. When he caught you doing something he deemed unfathomable.

Almost a week into you being sick, he’d seen you chopping onions late into the night after making his lemon tea.

“What are you doing?” Tadashi looked over at you after coughing up a chunk of bloody phlegm from his own throat.

You sniffed, clearly congested. “Cutting onions.”

“For what?”

“My socks.”

“I’m sorry?”

Surely he must have misheard you. You and him had been together for years and he knew all about your home remedies. There was a stained food processor in your house from when he had joint pain in his wrist and you had him eat turmeric paste. When Hiro had unknowingly given him stomach flu you went out and bought efficascent oil and rubbed it on his stomach. He’s seen you gargle salt water, chew on peppermint, put baking soda on bee stings, eat raw garlic, and drink cranberry juice for your menstrual problems but that one took the cake.

“Do you want some?” You’d asked it so innocently but your tone could have changed if you’d seen the look of utter disbelief on his face.

The both of you had been sick for a week in an endless cycle of eating strawberries, and oranges, taking magnesium, and eating spoonfuls of grainy raw honey. All of that to him seemed fine. Even he understood to a certain extent you couldn’t just take medicine all the time. But when he offered to buy cough syrup, ibuprofen for throat pain, Tylenol for cough headaches, and other flu medications you shut it down. He was free to take all of those things to make himself feel better and he swore it did.

But you were in so much pain and it seemed like whatever you were doing wasn’t helping. Just that morning, Tadashi rubbed your back while you had a 10-minute coughing fit that was so bad there were streaks of blood in your spit. You’d cried when a pounding headache hadn’t left and he felt so helpless knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

Tadashi stuttered. “W-Why are we cutting onions for our socks?”

“You put them in your socks and then you sleep with them on, my mom swears by it. But if you have like sensory problems that’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“Baby don’t you think- maybe you should just take something for it?”

You scoffed because you already knew where this was going. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. It’s just you’re so sick.” His voice dripped with concern.

Just as he’d said it you dug your face into your elbow and started coughing. The loud, raspy, crunchy kind of cough. Almost like the universe was on his side. Then came the cough headaches. The one thing you had allowed Baymax to scan you for and nothing else. A build-up of pressure from consistent coughing and sneezing in your head could cause pounding headaches.

The second he saw the grimace on your face, Tadashi jumped up from his study table and ran over to you. Pulling you in for a hug and gently pushing his fingers through your head. But that was also the time he decided he couldn’t take this anymore. His girl was in pain and crying over a sickness he could use his brain and his bot to figure out how to cure.

“I can’t take this anymore.” He confessed still holding you. “Please, will you let me give you a Tylenol?”

“T, no.”

“Why not? It’s so obvious you’re hurting. I know you don’t like taking medicine. I get that, but you just aren’t getting any better.”

You gently lifted your head off Tadashi’s chest and looked up at him. “So are you and you’ve been taking medicine.”

“But I feel like I’m getting better.”

“Hunny, you threw up an hour ago.” You deadpanned.

He racked his brain for a positive way to spin the horrible retching experience. “O-okay but that’s-um, that’s the body’s way of making itself feel better.”

You two were going in circles. But Tadashi was not backing down. He was adamant that you get better if it was the last thing he did and you knew it. Last year Hiro got sick with a particularly horrible kidney infection. So bad that when he’d tried to walk to the restroom he collapsed on the floor physically unable to move. After that none of your friends ever really saw Tadashi for almost two weeks. Right after school, he’d sprint home just to take care of him. That was his thing. Your boyfriend lived to take care of people.

Some people in the world don’t care about anything you’ve ever done and something you will do. Like doctors. Doctors don’t need to know how good or bad of a person your friends think you are in order to take care of you. Finding people like that is rare. Tadashi is one of those people.

And you, one of the people he loved and cared for most in the entire world wouldn’t let his extensive knowledge on healthcare help you feel better. And no matter how many times you reassured him, he couldn’t help but feel like you being sick was his fault.

“How about this,” He suggested, moving his hand from your head to your face. “I will do your onion-sock thing if you let me give you cough syrup. Just one spoonful and then we’ll drop it. Sound fair?”

A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you slowly nodded your head. Out of relief, you were going to let him do something about how you felt, Tadashi leaned down and kissed you right then and there. It was extremely counterproductive and he couldn’t have cared less.

That night, you let your boyfriend spoon artificial cherry-flavored Robitussin into your mouth. And he let you put loosely chopped pieces of white onion in his socks while he slept. For the record, neither of your immune systems ever really recovered in that one night. And yet-somehow, you woke up feeling the best you had in over a week.

[mitigatedchaos]

The Floating Causation of Vulgar Anti-Racism

Post for August 12, 2024 ~7,400 words, 36 minutes

-★-

The late 20th century and the early 21st century were an excellent time for 'catch-up' development in under-developed countries. For example, the GDP per capita of the People's Republic of China rose from $312 in 1980, to $12,720 in 2022, more than a 40x increase. This is despite the People's Republic being nominally communist, 92% Han Chinese, and one of the largest potential geopolitical rivals to the United States. This is not a one-off – exports from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States rose from $50 million in 1994 to $114 billion in 2023.

While the ideologically liberal government of the United States did invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and placed strict limits on Iran, in practical terms, the United States was willing to direct hundreds of billions of dollars of demand, for everything from disposable gloves to rice cookers, to countries that were neither majority white nor, officially, capitalist, which allowed these countries to build up their industrial base.

Inside the United States, as of the early 2020s, Americans of Indian descent, Americans of Asian descent, and a number of other non-white groups are outperforming the median household income of white Americans. It's not uncommon to see an Indian-American as the CEO of a major US corporation, such as Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, or IBM's Arvind Krishna. And while Americans of Nigerian descent aren't earning quite as much money as Sundar Pichai, they are doing better than the U.S. national average. [1]

The American economy is willing to award non-white Americans and non-white immigrants with average pay higher than that the average pay for white Americans, and American society is willing to award members of these same groups with highly prestigious positions – Google is one of the most famous American companies, and to be its CEO is highly prestigious indeed.

Why is it that vulgar anti-racists aren't content to leave well enough alone on negative racial messaging, and take advantage of this opportunity to focus on personal development, ingroup development, and national development? Why is it that they have a strange totalitarian bent, such as Ibram Kendi proposing to give veto power over all government policy to a body of unappointed race experts, which would de facto end democracy?

Last month, @max1461 wrote a post, attempting to find a balanced compromise between the social justice movement and its critics in the discourses on racism over the past 10 years. Perhaps this was intended to close the books and allow the participants to move to a saner footing going forward. Subsequently, Max flagged the post as unrebloggable in order to prevent it from being beat up like a piñata. Near the end of the initial chain, Max wrote:

I can’t stress enough that, for all the excesses of DEI seminars and modern anti-racist academia and whatnot, for however unhelpful or even regressive these things may often be, what they exist in response to is fundamentally a horror of an entirely different and incomparable scale; something unspeakably evil and destructive. And, after 200 years of such an evil world order, which only really began to melt in 1945, I think it would be incredibly naive to believe that all the wounds are now healed.

It would seem that for the most part, the wounds that Japan suffered from America in World War II have already healed. The country already went through reindustrialization, followed by a boom period (which startled Westerners), and then a subsequent crash and the 'lost decade' of the 1990s. The Japanese have a favorable view of the United States, as perhaps they should – Japan has prospered in the Post-WW2 international order, in which they can simply purchase whatever materials they need on global markets with no need to invade or occupy anyone.

Yet for others, the past lingers on.

Ibram Kendi is one of the most famous contemporary self-identified anti-racists, a New York Times bestselling author (his most famous book was titled "How to Be an Anti-Racist") who was not only platformed by major corporations such as Microsoft (in 2020, an advertisement on the login screen of Windows 10 computers linked to a search for "anti-racism books," with his at the top), but even received funding for his own anti-racism center (now under attack for its ineffectiveness).

At one time, Ibram Kendi thought that white people were aliens. A roommate talked him out of it, asking how it was that white people could have children with everyone else if that were the case. To his credit, Kendi did change his mind.

...but how could anyone have come up with Kendi's conclusion in the first place?

In school in the United States, children are taught that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs. It is true that Spanish military forces brought about the downfall of the Aztec Empire, but often people forget the details of what they learned in school, and often what they learn in school is itself a simplified story, designed to be told to children. Encyclopedia Britannica's summary of the Battle of Tenochtitlan largely agrees with the gist of Wikipedia's more detailed article on the Fall of Tenochtitlan, which is littered with instances of "[citation needed]."

Wikipedia, however, provides more numbers. In particular, Wikipedia's version provides one of the Internet's favorite parts of wiki battle articles, a listing of the balance of opposed forces (with citations):

There is a racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the brave Spanish explorers overcame the savage, human-sacrificing hordes of the Aztecs. There is an inverted, anti-racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the powerful, cruel Spanish showed up to oppress the weak, innocent Aztecs.

And then there is a third narrative - a narrative that politics happened. A number of tributary states had grievances with the Aztecs, and the small number of Spanish probably didn't seem like enough to conquer the whole territory from the perspective of the tributaries, but did seem powerful enough to rally around to fight the Aztecs and win.

Nobody comes out looking good in this third narrative. The Spanish brought about a brutal war with tens of thousands of casualties, and devastating disease followed their arrival. The Aztecs and tributaries combined failed to overcome a foreign invasion due to (relative to the foreigners being from another continent) local infighting. The Aztecs were awful enough that a number of tributaries sided with an army of foreigners against them.

Now, suppose that we delete the 200,000 native allies from the balance of forces above, but still record a victory for the Spanish. The effect of the native allies remains, but the cause of that effect disappears. This creates an effect without a cause – unattributed causation, which is disconnected from what came before, or what we might call, "floating causation."

Some might call overcoming a force of 80,000 with only 1,000 or so men a miracle. For those not so inclined, the 'floating' causation gets attributed to the Spanish soldiers – their equipment, their valor, their tactics, and their discipline. Each of a thousand Spanish infantrymen is now somehow worth 200 native warriors.

In this cartoon version of history, the Spanish are an unstoppable psychic warrior race. Their steadfast will in the face of danger and their unit cohesion are quite nearly inhuman, and their technological advantage is overwhelming. The natives have not merely made a political miscalculation similar to others of the pre-modern era, such as the decisions of states facing Genghis Khan, but are buffoons to the slaughter, incapable of putting up any real defense.

In this cartoon, the Spanish can go anywhere. They can do anything. And because of this, they are the only people with agency in the whole world.

They sound... like aliens.

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

All three of the above counter-examples are from Asia, which is usually conspicuously absent from self-identified anti-racist thinking, but none of them are obscure.

-★-

It is my belief that floating causation is a source of distortions across the ideological spectrum.

Ideology is not independent from human beings. Manifestos, one might say, do not print themselves. From the other direction, it is not a piece of paper which murders somebody – it is a human being who pulls the trigger.

There is ideology, which is a system of related rules and beliefs, and there are adherents who adopt ideology, spread beliefs, and put ideological rules into practice.

An ideology can contain taboos which prohibit noticing or explaining the true cause of some outcome, separating the cause from its effect. Practitioners can then attribute that effect to a preferred ideological construct instead, making it seem much more powerful, and often dangerous, than it really is.

The Elephants

Imagine (as this example is entirely made-up) that there is some village in which elephants are considered sacred, but the elephants in the area have a habit of trampling crops in the night. To avoid loss of face, the damage to crops is attributed to "bandits" by an initial group of elders. The young children who do not know better are then taught this explanation. Later, after the death of the elders, the initial truth is lost. Anyone claiming to have seen elephants trampling the fields is denounced as choosing the vile bandits over the virtuous elephants. An outsider who did not realize what was happening might be quite impressed to hear that a bandit in the region ruined a dozen fields in a single night, and assume that the bandit has tremendous physical stamina.

But floating causation is not necessarily the result of an ideological taboo. Someone may be ignorant about the cause of an effect, unable to understand the process by which an effect came about, have powerful emotions about the topic which they are unwilling to confront or may not even be aware of, or may simply have poor judgment. An adherent may be drawn to an ideology for these reasons.

Continuing with our example, a fresh-off-the-boat colonial administrator arriving at the village might be unaware that elephants exist, or trample crops, and conclude that there were ongoing feuds driven by animosity among the villagers, with bandits as the cover-story. Alternatively, the new colonial administrator might love the elephants and hate the villagers, and be unwilling to consider the possibility that the elephants are trampling the crops, including cooking up rather elaborate rationalizations.

Ideology

Issues with not understanding a process are more likely to come up with things like economics – occasionally a worker will post a video to social media complaining that he is not paid the full value of the items he sells or creates, ignoring all the money that went into the construction of the facility, the work from other workers putting together the input materials, and so on.

Liberals in the late 00s and early 2010s had an interest in memetics, which concerns the replication and spread of ideas. (This field is where the term "Internet meme" comes from.) Then, as now, they had a tendency to treat people as too similar to each other, and some of them leaned towards the idea that any person could hold any ideology. Ideologies do (in my judgment) influence behavior – there are far fewer monarchists around these days, and far fewer monarchs with real power, for example – but how a set of beliefs is expressed depend on the emotions, motives, and temperament of the person who holds those beliefs.

So do people choose ideologies, or do ideologies choose people?

One way to view this matter is as a cycle. Someone's social environment is partly a matter of choice, and partly a matter of circumstance. The ideologies that show up in someone's environment are generally going to be ones that spread (as ideologies that don't attract new adherents will die out), but which ideology someone actually chooses and how they practice it will be influenced by what type of person they are.

Another way to view this matter is that emotions, motives, temperament, and beliefs are all things that make certain actions or thoughts either easier (and cheaper) or more difficult (and more expensive). A drug addict who believes in hard work and free market capitalism, but finds himself stealing to feed his habit, may find that the influence of his beliefs is not enough to overcome his addiction. (He is likely to feel miserable.) However, when a religious person is choosing what time of day, or day of the week, to worship, the explicit belief of their religion is likely to have a great deal of influence.

Yet another way to view this matter is to treat things like social relations, ideology, and temperament as interacting layers, and then propose that politics spans multiple layers.

Human Talent

I don't believe that all human beings are equally talented, and I don't believe that they all have identical temperaments. Therefore, one of my beliefs is what might be called the "human capital theory of movements." Ideologies consist of networks of related beliefs which can be used to interpret the world, to guide behavior, or to create arguments. But ideologies do not create beliefs or arguments themselves. Humans do.

When a movement has a lot of talented, virtuous people working for it, these people can create new arguments in order to win debates, and change parts of the ideology, the network of beliefs, to adapt the network to changes in conditions. Without talented people, the ideology of a movement will drift farther from environmental conditions, causing its responses to become more misaligned with conditions on the ground.

Talented people are also needed for the implementation of an ideology. An ideological book is just an inert text. No matter how complex it may be, it is fundamentally limited in its complexity. Applying that text in the environment, bridging the gap between what the text says and what that means in the reality of a specific situation, requires both intelligence and good judgment. Not every person is equally talented, and not every person is equally informed. If someone more talented and with better judgment is around, they can read the situation and come up with some simpler rules or orders for others to follow.

The less talented the adherents of a movement are, the lower the ability of the movement to adapt to conditions over both the short-term and the long-term.

A shift in the distribution of talent can precede other forms of political change. Ideologues may smile as the most disagreeable members are driven out of their movement, but at the same time, the lack of criticism will reduce the movement's ability to respond to change.

There are trade-offs. The use of floating causation may make an ideology less aligned with reality, but it may also be useful for the movement to stoke the emotions of their followers in order to drive action. (This emotional motivation bit is why every election in the United States is "the most important in your lifetime.")

-★-

Beliefs are not intelligence. Nonetheless, a person with a belief may act as though they are smarter (or even wiser) than they actually are. This is just the nature of knowledge (as cached intelligence, wisdom, and observation).

I developed the talent theory in the prior section by observing opposition to racism in the United States prior to 2014. In the United States between 2000 and 2014, there was substantial support for individualist "colorblindness," while at the same time, there was immense social pressure against overt white racial organizing.

Racial organizing takes time and effort. Because white Americans were not subject to racial discrimination, they could simply go out into the market and earn what their work was worth. For talented white Americans, the gains from white racial organizing would be marginal, so the penalties could easily overcome those gains. The less talented would have the most to gain due to the ability to reduce the amount of economic competition they would be up against, but they were also less able to organize. [2]

There was somewhere famous for white racial organizing in the US during this era: prisons.

Racial prison gangs have been particularly noted in the California prison system. Prison gangs offer inmates a credible threat of retaliation if the inmate is harmed, so every inmate has an incentive to join one, and the bigger the gang the better that threat of retaliation is, so every gang has an incentive to recruit. If you're a gang member and a new guy comes in and starts causing trouble, and you don't want to escalate (and thus risk extra charges for your guys or reduced privileges), what are you to do? You would prefer to negotiate with someone that has leverage on him. Race is very visible, even if inmates move around between prisons, so if all inmates get sorted into gangs by race, then someone is responsible for this guy, and by talking to the right people, you can make sure he knows it. (If the troublemaker still doesn't respond, and his own gang cut him loose, then you can punish him without fear of retaliation from other inmates.)

Different incentives produce different results.

Four Options

Glenn Loury is a black man, and an economist at Brown University. He views himself as an American and therefore an inheritor of human rights philosophy of the American founders and their English forebears. He has his own show on YouTube in which he regularly discusses matters with John McWhorter, another black man, who is a linguistics professor at Columbia University. (John strikes me as more liberal, and I heard that he was frightened of Donald Trump, a sentiment shared by many white American culturally liberal Democrats.) Both of these men are quite smart, and if you watch the show, you'll see them easily consider arguments from various perspectives and toss hypotheticals back and forth.

Neither of these men are vulgar anti-racists.

Roland Fryer is a black man, and is an economist at Harvard (although he was suspended for 2 years) who I have discussed previously. He thinks like an economist, and has conducted studies such as paying children to read books. In previous appearances, it seemed that he believes that education gaps can be closed through extremely rigorous selection of teachers and other methods.

Mr. Fryer does not appear to be a vulgar anti-racist.

These men are all relatively prominent voices. If you go looking for the sort of content they produce, they aren't that hard to find. And they're all smart. They might have disagreements with each other and with some of my readers, but smart people can disagree.

However, during the 2014-2022 era, when it was decided to push a black academic to prominence, political forces settled on Ibram Kendi instead. There must have been dozens of other candidates.

When I think about why that happened, I suspect that the answer is that while the first three men care about the interests of black Americans, all three of them are willing to say, "No." Although I doubt they would phrase it in exactly these terms, I suspect that all three understand human rights as rooted in high-order consequences, limits on information, and human bias.

If you proposed to John McWhorter that we should give veto power to a committee of unelected race experts, he would immediately recognize the problem with just that.

Why Vulgar Anti-Racism?

With all of that said, I believe we can think about vulgar anti-racism by means of comparison.

a. Economics

Loury and Fryer are both economists. They know about gains from trade, prices as a distributed form of economic planning, property rights as enabling investment, specialization of labor, economies of scale, and dozens of other things. They understand where wealth comes from.

The typical vulgar anti-racist that you will encounter on an Internet discussion board has little knowledge of economics, and tends to think of total production as fixed. From their perspective, if someone has more resources than another person, it has nothing to do with production, and is purely the result of hoarding.

The typical vulgar anti-racist also doesn't think in terms of entropy, the tendency of things to break down over time. They tend not to discount temporally-distant advantages. (If a well was built 400 years ago, they treat that advantage as retained today.) They tend to think of capital as fixed and not as something that is constantly being rebuilt and adjusted. They don't understand that the ability to create new capital is generally more important than the initial capital in the long-run.

Thinking about production is probably why we see Fryer focused on educational gains. His theory is likely that if the children have a good base of education, they'll be able to produce more, avoid losses, overcome entropy, and net accumulate wealth. If they don't have a good base of education, then they'll be less productive, and entropy will eat a higher percentage of their earnings, leading to reduced wealth.

If someone doesn't know economics, then the wealth of developed countries is "unexplained," and so are the motives of many people within developed countries.

b. History

I don't know about Fryer specifically, but Loury and McWhorter seem to have a good grasp of history.

A solid understanding of history leads to seeing actions as emerging from their historical contexts. This places a limit on the range of expected behavior.

For example, for most of history up until about the 1900s, the child mortality rate was about 50%. That example is relevant for feminism, as under such brutal conditions, we would expect any society that didn't push for women to have at least 4 children to die out. Gender-based oppression didn't occur for no reason, or because of pure male greed, but was influenced by material circumstances.

If we run this understanding backwards, it follows that 1700s or earlier gender norms would be unlikely to return without 1700s or earlier child mortality rates.

Likewise, some basic historical knowledge would reveal that wars of conquest have happened pretty much everywhere, so it's quite unlikely that Europeans are uniquely conquerors. You end up having to declare everything from feuding Chinese kingdoms, to the Māori, to chimpanzees, be "European" in order to fit the model.

The typical vulgar anti-racist's position is, implicitly, "Everyone lived together in peace and harmony, until one day, for no reason at all, the Europeans became possessed by the spirit of greed, and attacked."

If someone somehow doesn't know that war existed outside of Europe prior to 1492, then the wars of colonialism are "unexplained," and so are the motives of the people who fought them.

When vulgar anti-racists do research history, they generally focus on collecting racial grievances in order to build up a case that the group they favor are poor, oppressed, not responsible for anything bad their group has ever done, and are owed indefinite benefits for incalculable harms. They don't proceed from the idea of, "How does this work?" They don't, say, look at the tremendous economic success of South Korea, and ask, "Based on how South Korea obtained their wealth, how can our group achieve such riches?" (They don't even look at South Korea's birthrate and ask how they can avoid such a fate!)

Even before World War 2, Japan did look afar to ask how they could become rich. That kind of mentality is part of how they were able to become a developed country (who could threaten other people with tanks) in the first place.

Looking to Asia is useful for people making comparisons to figure out how things work, but is not useful for collecting racial grievances in order to build up racial claims to make demands. That's why vulgar anti-racists often don't know basic facts about Asian history, like that state testing to determine government positions was practiced in ancient China. [3]

c. Racial Attachment

Even during the individualist colorblindness of 2000-2014, there were still white Americans with some talent engaged in racial organizing. In general, these were people to whom race was very important, and thus who were out-of-step with the mainstream of white America.

It's my opinion that there is a natural range of tribalism among human beings. Sometimes, the rival tribe on the other side of the mountain just want to trade. Other times, they really are out to kill you. The trait doesn't disappear, because wars still happen, and even if they didn't happen, someone could just reinvent war and start it all back up again.

In my view, this tribalism trait isn't attached to race specifically. It can attach to religion. It can attach to sex. Some of the rhetoric from radical feminists sounds the same as rhetoric from hardcore ethnic nationalists – or at least it would, if we treated men as an ethnicity. In our modern environment in which race is highly legible due to intercontinental travel, for a lot of people, it gets attached to race.

Rather than assigning people a single number on a scale from "moral" to "immoral," it's probably better to think of people as having virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses.

Some level of racial attachment itself is not inherently evil. Based on his research topics, for example, Roland Fryer seems interested in bringing about the success of people with a similar background to himself. His virtue (his interest in truth) and his strength (his intelligence) convert that attachment into something that's beneficial to society.

High levels of racial attachment fly much closer to the wire. A highly racially attached individual might do good work in other domains, but there's a risk that they'll end up routing too much of their sense of self-worth through their race, and become obsessed with guarding their race's self-perceived reputation. For such a person, any information deemed unflattering to the group may be interpreted as an attack on himself (or herself).

The Mayo Clinic (a network of hospitals in the United States) describes narcissism as:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.

A number of users on Twitter (now known as X.com) began using the term "ethnic narcissism" to describe this sort of disordered thinking when done on behalf of a racial or ethnic group rather than oneself specifically.

2019 and 2020 were banner years for platforming this sort of behavior, with the nation's leading newspaper arguing, in its own words, that we should make the suffering of a particular racial group the core narrative of American history, that everyone should define their identities around:

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Obsession with self-perceived ethnic reputation is part of what leads to the "rebalancing the cartoon" behavior I discussed earlier:

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

How does someone end up so ignorant that they don't know that Genghis Khan existed? By being the kind of person that doesn't want to know that Genghis Khan existed. They don't look it up. If you tell them, they either forget or they take a conflict theorist approach and think that it's some sort of trick.

Unfortunately, while a fairly accurate description of the behavior at issue, the term "ethnic narcissism" can also be used as an attack by ethnic narcissists themselves, as well as people engaged in ethnic conflict. This makes it of limited utility in practice.

The Mysterious Anglo

Option #1: In general, the right wing would consider the vulgar anti-racists to be liars working to selfishly advance their own personal interests and those of their preferred groups. Left-wingers would tend to take a negative view of this, as they believe that right-wingers are unjustly dismissive in order to 'protect the unearned and unquestioned advantages of the privileged.'

In this version, vulgar anti-racists won't drop the issue and hit the GDP gym because they're bullies who think the particular groups they dislike are easy targets. The appropriate response is to become a harder target by systematically defunding any institution that supports them, putting them on the same footing as conventional racial supremacists in the US.

I tend to agree that many of the vulgar anti-racists are just being selfish. There is a question of just how consciously aware of it they are, however.

Option #2: A left-wing view would be that the vulgar anti-racists are "good people, just a bit misguided." Right-wingers tend to take a negative view of this, because if a right-winger published a book titled "Black Fragility" that was as circular in its reasoning as the "White Fragility" of Robin DiAngelo appeared to be, he would be hounded as a racist.

In this version, vulgar anti-racists just need patient guidance to put their empathy back on the right track.

I tend to believe that a good chunk of the vulgar anti-racists are just low-tier progressives who get their opinions socially. If the social consensus changes among progressives, they'll forget ever fretting about "microaggressions." Arguing with them individually mostly won't work, though, because it doesn't override their social consensus, and it won't make them think harder about the issues.

Many left-wingers would disagree with me on this assessment.

Option #3: A more centrist view would be that vulgar anti-racists are a mix of people with excessively high racial attachment, enthusiastic people who are underinformed, and people who serve their niche of the information and political economy, and that this isn't that different from the lower quality wings of other left and right political movements (look how bad "degrowth" is, for example), except that race feels much more core to people's identities (it's certainly not easy to change one's race), so it evokes more powerful emotions. A centrist would likely say that there are more academically and philosophically serious opponents of racism out there, but because the things they say are more serious, they're less controversial, so they get less coverage. ("You wouldn't expect a textbook in the Sunday paper.")

A person with this perspective would say that the appropriate course of action is mostly just to wait for it to blow over.

I would disagree. If vulgar anti-racism is taught in schools for a generation, it would create an expectation that racial blame is the default course of action. This would create a situation which is much more favorable for racial conflict, so it should be shut down now to prevent that from happening.

However, I feel that this does not adequately explain the totalitarian bent. What about other values society might have? What about trade-offs? [4] I would like to throw a fourth possibility into the ring.

Option #4: Life inside the vulgar anti-racist worldview is anxiety-inducing and subtly terrifying.

I don't fully endorse this view, because I think that vulgar anti-racism is a coalition of multiple groups (see the previous three options).

However, while I learned from school that racism and ethnic conflict are extremely dangerous in general (e.g. they can boil over and result in mass murder), the susceptibility of vulgar anti-racists to, "It's impossible to be racist to white people," which is very obviously racist, strongly implies that what they learned was, "Jews good; Germans bad" – basically just a list of which groups are acceptable, and which groups aren't. [5]

I reverse-engineered a sophisticated moral worldview, and when I was young, I assumed that everyone else had done so, too. And for a little while, society approximated that view closely enough for that misconception to kind-of work.

I think that a significant number of people in the vulgar anti-racist coalition don't understand white people.

In terms of anxiety, a number of them seem to think that Europeans and their descendants think about race as much as the vulgar anti-racists do – that they are silently passing judgment, or saying nasty things when others are not listening.

I've been around middle-class and above white Americans my entire life. I've seen some kids make stupid racist jokes, and I can imagine bullying targeting race if it looks like an axis of vulnerability, but in general, among themselves, they don't talk about race much at all.

A skeptic reading this may say that that's just anecdotal. However, according to surveys, "white conservatives" have about the same "racial/ethnic" "ingroup favorability" as either "hispanic moderates" or "asians." "White liberals" were the only group on the chart to have a "pro-outgroup bias."

If we interpret these ingroup favorability measures as racism (which is a stretch, because a favorability measure is not itself a discriminatory policy), then white conservatives have a "normal" (as in typical of most groups) amount of racism. White liberals (probably in the sense that the label "liberal" is used for the entire left in the US) are the only ones who loop around into what might be called "anti-racism." (Razib Khan has his doubts about the stability of this arrangement of anti-racism as opposed to non-racism.)

A vulgar anti-racist doesn't know this, and doesn't want to know this.

Now, for the "subtly terrifying" part. If someone accepts, for instance, that the British were sincere in sending warships to intercept slave traders, then there are all sorts of explanations that they can come up with for that behavior, such as it being a natural result of industrialization, or maybe a result of rising literacy, or motivated by Christianity in combination with previous political developments in England, and so on.

From Wikipedia, here's a map of the British Empire, a map of the Spanish Empire, and a map of the Portuguese Empire. While from the perspective of Europeans at the time, the European states were in competition with each other, if taken together as a group, they were closer to achieving true world conquest than anyone else in history. (Sure, the Mongol Empire was huge, but they didn't make it over to the Americas.)

If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the slave trade for some sincere or enduring reason, then the 1700s are unlikely to come back. If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the 1700s for no reason, or for a secret reason, then one day, they could just... turn the 1700s back on.

And maybe that thought isn't entirely conscious. Maybe it just sits quietly, at the back of the mind.

And they get stuck, much like people who are still focused on "overpopulation" as birthrates plummet in industrialized countries throughout the world.

-★-

Whether they consciously intend to or not, vulgar anti-racists leverage social taboos to make it difficult to argue for one group's innocence without making another, generally more vulnerable, group, look worse. People don't want to be mean and say mean things about a vulnerable group. Vulgar anti-racists exploit this. (This kind of behavior is immoral, but I'm not sure how much vulgar anti-racists consciously understand that.)

Online Tactics

I've developed tactics to argue with them in online space, but I haven't tried them out in in-person institutional spaces where they have institutional influence (power).

In general, you cannot argue with vulgar anti-racists grievance-for-grievance. Building up an ammunition depot of racial or ethnic grievances on behalf of "overperforming" groups won't work – vulgar anti-racists will dismiss you as irrationally motivated by racial hatred and dismiss your entire collection, and normal people will also think it's weird (even though they still don't think many racial or ethnic minorities collecting grievances is weird). [6]

A better approach is to pick one or two grievances to shut down the idea that the group you're defending are "invulnerable." Morally, you shouldn't have to point to, say, children or minors being mass victimized, because it should be obvious that people of any race can be victimized. But that's just the world we live in.

Collect examples of institutional policy, such as by governments, corporations, or universities, that is racially discriminatory against the group you're defending, in order to show that the intent of vulgar anti-racists is racial discrimination. Use center-left, mainstream sources to prevent dismissals. The goal is not to show major harms; most Democrats who are not social justice critical will initially attempt to deny that racial discrimination is a goal of vulgar anti-racism.

(If necessary, it can be emphasized that not wanting to be racially discriminated against is a normal thing to want.)

Vulgar anti-racists will try to shut you down by reciting their list of grievances. Memorizing racial grievances is something that they are strong at. Redirect the conversation to where they are weak: demand that they show whatever policy it is that they want will actually improve things and permanently close racial outcome gaps.

If you find someone who has memorized a list of successful academic or nutrition interventions, you've likely found a philosophical liberal. In my experience, almost no vulgar anti-racist has any even modestly-successful intervention memorized. If they propose an intervention, demand evidence that it will work.

It's possible that they could propose something scientific, but science is undergoing a replication crisis, and 'race scholars' have come under fire for scientific misconduct. If a vulgar anti-racist does come up with something, the next step is to get a binding commitment to close the racial claims against their target group.

If their political leaders will not agree, in writing, with binding mechanisms (and punishments with teeth if they don't follow through), to close out the racial claims against their target groups, conditional on some social intervention going into effect, then they don't believe that the intervention will work.

A working intervention is win-win. Outcomes improve, and the odds of conflict (over this particular issue) decrease.

IRL Tactics

X user CantonaCorona must live somewhere very different from me, because I never hear vulgar anti-racism from people in real life. His advice?

100%. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been in a friendly/polite mutual friend gathering, and someone who knows 10% of the room will add “gawd, white people, gross” etc.

The issue is they are also the person lacking social skills to see the room gets uncomfortable

In 2023ish I started responding by asking them very honest seeming questions and leading them into saying really crazy stuff.

Takes a lot of finesse to not sound like a schizo, but if you can pretend to be genuinely curious it works wonders and someone else will call them out

It does, indeed, take a lot of finesse, even online. Because vulgar anti-racists are exploiting taboos, they have a huge terrain advantage in most encounters due to normal people not wanting to touch reputationally-damaging information. Successfully navigating the situation without sounding "schizo," and without sounding cruel, is difficult.

The advantage of the tactics discussed above are that you don't have to attack the reputation of the vulnerable group that vulgar anti-racists are using to justify their own bad behavior. It isn't surprising that, like a successful hostage rescue, it requires being more careful than the hostage-takers.

"Corrective" racial discrimination that does not permanently close racial outcome gaps is not actually a correction, it's just extra harm for no reason, and the motives of people who support it are suspect.

Demobilization

While the online tactics I've discussed above are reasonably effective for an online debate or argument format (and vulgar anti-racists are increasingly retreating to protected contexts where they don't have to engage in open debate), the long-term goal needs to be demobilization. Ethnic conflict interferes with stability and good government.

There are some supporters that don't recognize the logical errors in their positioning, but they can sense, "Wait, this guy isn't like the others," and flee rather than risk being split off from the social approval of their group.

I propose the fear theory for the potential to develop new angles. If the real motivation is fear, then addressing most of the intermediate arguments won't work, as the intermediate arguments are just products of the fear.

Reportedly, black musician Daryl Davis demobilized many Klansmen just by befriending them. [7] I suspect that most vulgar anti-racists already know a number of white people personally, so that tactic probably won't work here.

I have not conducted field experiments (either online or offline) on using the fear theory during encounters, so I can't provide solid information on its tactical use, yet.

-★★★-

[1] Stylistically, I have chosen to capitalize nationality while not capitalizing racial groups. On a quick reading, the tables provided by Wikipedia don't appear to disaggregate between first-generation immigrants, who have foreign nationality of origin and American citizenship, and second-generation immigrants who only have American nationality. All three CEOs listed were born in India.

[2] The ability to buy off competing talent is one of the reasons for the endurance of capitalism. Capitalist systems tend to be extremely productive. They can offer wages from increased productivity that are higher than the wages that other systems offer from rents.

[3] This is one of the reasons I got into writing about politics. It became common to find people whose professed opinions implied they'd never even heard of Genghis Khan, and at that point, I figured the bar was set pretty low.

[4] Positions on migration appear related, but I'll touch on that in another essay.

[5] One reason it wasn't obvious that people were just making an acceptable targets list at the time was that quite a few people from all over the world have a tendency to get wacky about Jewish people specifically, so putting antisemitism off-limits looked like it was backed by more sophisticated reasoning than it actually was. Obviously, people shouldn't hate Jewish people. The problem with the acceptable targets list approach is that it's fragile – since the list is based on social approval rather than deeper philosophical principles, it can end up being "readjusted" later.

[6] I also suspect that continuing to constantly expose yourself to the worst behavior of other groups may be corrosive. Watching a video where a man is shot on some other street, in some other city, may give you a jolt of adrenaline while you sit helplessly in your chair. Reading about atrocities may make you feel helpless and doomed.

[7] This behavior is morally praiseworthy, not morally obligatory.

[bluebelly-sun-serpentine]

I feel as though the language of accommodation is backwards in so many cases. Especially in regards to covid, I’ve started reframing things in my head. I am constantly accommodating other people; treating their disability to deal with reasonable daily decision-making and the existence of chronic risk with kindness and empathy, reacting to their defensiveness and hostility about my continued use of and advocation for masks, ventilation, and regular risk assessments with measured responses that mask the rage and helplessness I feel about the apathy of ableism, communicating about my household’s needs in the softest possible way, reacting compassionately when people who have stopped taking any kind of precaution complain that their health has worsened in the long term or their most recent bout with covid has cost them income (even when these people have continually judged my choice to take precautions), being endlessly patient when people invite me (or try to pressure me) to attend risky indoor gatherings instead of saying “you know I can’t do that. Nothing has changed since the last time I had to say no. You could always invite me to something I don't have to say no to.” Ignoring so much cognitive dissonance and self-delusion. Opening as many windows as possible so we all have a better chance of staying healthy. Apologizing constantly about continuing to protect myself and others so that people get off my case about it and can continue living in a fantasy of post-pandemic normality.

I don’t, anymore, think I’m the fragile person in this situation, and I have realized how much this rings true for other ways in which I have navigated the world prior to the pandemic. Bringing my notes and printouts to doctor’s appointments so that doctors don’t have to properly do their jobs. Bringing my partner so doctors don’t have to look past their own misogyny and ableism. Masking physical pain so that others don’t have to feel bored or distracted by it. Masking my expressions of joy or sorrow or wonder when they don’t conform to norms. Tip-toeing constantly around a passive aggressive regional culture of toxic positivity rather than communicating frankly and directly in the manner that has always been more natural to me (for both nurture and nature reasons) to reduce friction for everyone else.

I’m really going to urge other people who find themselves marginalized or othered in some way: how are you accommodating the people who fail to accommodate you? Not just “what accommodations do you need?” Or “how are you being or not being accommodated?” What have you been doing to make everyone around you more comfortable, and how much of that is actually serving you? Some of it may, and some of it may not. How much work are you doing to unburden people of their own consciences? If no one else sees it, can you, at least, take a moment to look it in the eye?

I'd guess this is true of any condition of life (and by condition I don't mean illness, just "a mode or state or being" or "existing circumstances") that is somehow considered non-normative in its context. If you are an immigrant or you live in a racist or xenophobic culture of which you are the target, if you are a woman, if you are fat, if you are gay, if you're an effeminate man, if you are ill, if you are old, if you are deaf, if you use a wheelchair, etc. I know you've experienced something similar to the labor I'm talking about. "Accommodation" is the word we use talk about things disabled or differently abled people need or deserve to have in order to allow them to navigate an ableist world. Practically this language has sometimes been helpful to me – in getting care, in forcing professors into basic ADA compliance by not stuffing me in an overcrowded, unventilated room with 100 unmasked (frequently contagious) people, in allowing me time to catch up after I've been so ill I can't move, in providing spaces where people like me can sit and catch a breath – but increasingly I see it as something that isn't uni-directional, not just something I'm receiving (or fighting and failing to win) but something I am constantly, endlessly doing without acknowledgement, and which, if I ever stopped doing it, would invite serious penalty. I don't know how to change that except by talking about it.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

For the pairings can you talk about The Prototype and Angel? Your interpretation of them has me in a choke hold lol

I'M SOOO HAPPY I ALSO HAVE YOU IN A CHOKEHOLD, THESE TWO HAVE CONTAMINATED ME WITH THEIR SILLINESS.

They're parallels and mirrors of each other. Angel could have become the Prototype, and the Prototype could have become Angel, if only the circumstances were different. They share similar grief and a deep feeling of alienation: Proto for being the first one and the only one that's as crooked and weird as he is, and Angel for being both an immigrant and a queer person in the USA. Grief for losing loved ones, Angel with their friends/coworkers and the Prototype for seeing his loved ones become nothing but experiments of a company he made from scratch. I could go on and on about their similarities and differences, but in the end the conclusion is the same: They KNOW each other. They KNOW how similar they are and they just Get each other, and to me this is sooo fun to explore and think abt whenever I talk abt them!

Also like. They're literally the parents of a household with almost 90 kids (numbers will prob grow once we get the official Chapter 4, but alas). Sure that it takes a while for Proto to be promoted to parent #2, but DANG, THEY ARE THE PARENTS. Two best friends who decided the best course of action was to get legally married bc this would provide some extra protection for the kids if anything bad ever happened to Angel!!!!!! AND SPEAKING OF BEST FRIENDS.

Angel loves annoying the Prototype and the kids. Their love language is being a menace (just ask their parents and Miguel about it), and after a while Proto both gets used to it AND starts annoying Angel back. What is a friendship but an excuse to be awful in an affectionate way. Angel will forever bully the Prototype for not realizing the critters were all alive, and in turn he's literally going to drag them to random places so they can stop working for ONCE. They have the same dad humor, by the way, much to the horror of some of the kids. They're besties!!!! I have said this a thousand times but they are besties!!!!! Only Proto knows some of the shit Angel went through, only Angel knows the things Proto went through. The torture the scientists made him stand, what he did and thought and felt the decade after the Hour of Joy, everything. Angel tells him about how sometimes they think they aren't enough for the kids, or how they fear they're being either too harsh with them, or how awful their last nightmare was.

Also to me the funniest phase of their relationship happens after Angel realizes that, unfortunately, they want a QPR with the Prototype. Like. They're all "I can't fucking believe this, I doubt he would accept the offer if I explained I may want something more but not the romance part of it" and "how the fuck do I explain to him that I value our friendship more than anything and I think it's something different than all of my other friendships without it sounding weird as fuck". Because Angel DID tell him what a QPR was, but they doubt Proto would want something like that. And then it cuts to him like "hm I think there might be something else to this friendship, but not romantic in nature. We may have achieved a deeper bond than anything I have ever had before, friendship-wise". Disaster of a human person vs scientist DESPERATELY wanting more affection. It's SO funny to me.

also like. Post-officially-becoming-a-QPR-couple. HILARIOUS. They pull the "we're partners" thing whenever it's convenient even if it involves pretending to be a romantic couple. They have no idea how it works. These two 100% do the "ask your other dad" thing in order to annoy one of the kids into going back-and-forth between them until said kid goes "stop doing that!!!" and then Angel has to control their laughter. Nothing really changes post-that except that now Angel sometimes gives him a kiss, they got too used to using Proto as a giant teddy bear by the point the QPR happens. Proto, however, now has excuses to just grab Angel and give them a hug without feeling weird for doing so [he's awkward when asking for affection in general].

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

When Donald Trump flew to Pennsylvania for a 9/11 anniversary event this week, he brought an unusual companion: a 9/11 conspiracist named Laura Loomer. Loomer has been a quasi-journalist on the fringe right for about a decade, with a penchant for saying things that make even hardened MAGA types recoil. She is a self-described “proud Islamophobe” who has cheered the deaths of migrants and called for Muslims to be banned from driving for ride-hail apps. She ran for Congress twice, in 2020 and 2022, and failed both times. More recently, Loomer has called Kamala Harris a “drug-using prostitute” and warned that, if she wins, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.” Despite all of this, Trump has long displayed a soft spot for Loomer. He endorsed her House bid in 2020 and, in 2023, tried to offer her a spot on his campaign — only to back down after aides revolted. Undeterred, he hosted her at Mar-a-Lago afterward, repeatedly boosted her content on Truth Social, and traveled with her on the 2024 campaign trail.

It’s not clear what Trump gets out of this relationship. But his ties to Loomer have become a major controversy since the 9/11 event, with some of the former president’s closest allies speaking publicly against Loomer. “The history of this person is just really toxic,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the HuffPost. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — who claimed a Jewish family was using space lasers to start wildfires! — thinks Loomer is a bridge too far, calling Loomer’s tweet about Harris and curry “appalling and extremely racist.” (Loomer responded by accusing Greene of sleeping with a “Zangief cosplayer.”) It’s hard to take these condemnations all that seriously. Trump and his vice presidential pick have spent this week pushing a nasty conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating people’s pets that appears to have inspired real-world hate crimes. If you’re worried about racism and conspiracy theorizing, maybe take a look at the top of the ticket. But what makes Loomer different from Trump is that she has literally no filter. She says the quiet part out loud, every single time. The more time Trump spends with her, the harder it is to deny that his thinly veiled bigotry is anything but the genuine article. And that, for the Republican Party, is a very big problem indeed.

Who is Laura Loomer?

Loomer isn’t a household name for most Americans, but she’s been a presence in the conservative media ecosystem for quite some time. She first attracted attention in 2015 when, as a college senior at Barry University in South Florida, she secretly filmed a meeting with administrators in which she attempted to form a campus club supporting ISIS. The video was released by Project Veritas, the conservative group that specializes in (questionably edited) sting videos. Loomer worked for Project Veritas during the 2016 presidential campaign and learned to build a career out of political stunts. She grabbed the national spotlight in June 2017 when she stormed the stage at a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in New York that dressed the Roman general like Donald Trump. The disruption earned Loomer a booking on Sean Hannity’s show.

“You were making a very strong point. I applaud you for what you’ve done,” Hannity told her. Loomer parlayed the notoriety from the Julius Caesar incident into a kind of internet celebrity on the pro-Trump right. The problem with celebrity, though, is that it can give you too many opportunities to show yourself. And Loomer proved to be someone with truly out-there opinions. After an ISIS supporter killed eight people with a truck in November 2017, she went on an Islamophobic rant on Twitter, blaming popular ride-hailing apps for employing Muslim drivers. “Someone needs to create a non Islamic form of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver,” she wrote. The two services subsequently banned her, the first of many bans from high-profile tech platforms.

[...] This particular cocktail of hate speech and conspiracy theory misinformation became the hallmark of Loomer’s political style, prompting bans from major social media platforms. The straw that broke the camel’s back on Twitter, for example, came in November 2018 when Loomer tweeted that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) supported female genital mutilation because she is Muslim. In response to the ban, which came a year after Twitter stripped her blue check mark (then something given to notable people rather than a badge to be purchased) as punishment for similar false and offensive claims, Loomer physically chained herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York while wearing a Nazi-style yellow star. It’s worth noting here that Loomer is Jewish but has long had tight links to the white nationalist movement. She is, for example, close with the avowed anti-Semite Nick Fuentes who dined with Trump in 2022, and once broadly boasted that “I’m going to fight for white people.”

Presenting herself as a victim of Big Tech censorship, she found allies in popular far-right publications like Breitbart as well as in Washington. In December 2019, then-President Trump retweeted a Loomer supporter calling for donations to her campaign. In May 2020, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr calling on him to open an investigation into Loomer’s Facebook ban. She was reinstated on Twitter after Elon Musk’s purchase of the site.

[...]

Why Laura Loomer matters

There is a reason that Laura Loomer has even Marjorie Taylor Greene panicking, and it’s not just that the two reportedly have personal beef. It’s that Laura Loomer makes the rest of the Republican Party look terrible. For decades, right-wing flirtation with racism has taken place through dog whistles and coded messages. Ronald Reagan’s attacks on “welfare queens” didn’t involve actual racist slurs but conjured up a mental image for some white voters of a poor lazy Black woman exploiting taxpayer dollars to live comfortably. Liberals would call this rhetoric racism, conservatives would say liberals are just trying to shut down legitimate debate, and round-and-round we went. [...] But after capitulating to Trump, the GOP fell back into its old habits. No matter how outrageous Trump’s rhetoric and even his actions became — from the Muslim ban to family separation — liberal critiques were met with the same kinds of dismissals. Trump’s rhetoric about immigration and crime can’t be racist, they would say; he’s just speaking the language of forgotten Americans left behind by globalization. Liberals, they’d say, are making everything about race when it’s not.

Vox gives an insightful overview into the right-wing MAGA shill that's too toxic for even MTG and virulently anti-Islam hack Laura Loomer.

See Also:

MMFA: Donald Trump and “pro-white nationalism” pundit Laura Loomer: A guide to their relationship

MMFA: Trump amplified Laura Loomer on Truth Social over 20 times in 9 months

[thenixkat]

Mundane AU!Laios thoughts

Note:

Probably contains spoilers

Mundane au= no magic and no fantasy 'races' (like... little people are a thing, they exist in reality, some people just have dwarfism. The elves are just skinny racist and xenophobic Europeans like? And there's already parralells made with the demi humans so if I do anything the orcs are Afro Native and Kobolds are somewhere African or Arab. And for the ogres... gigantism is a thing that exists in real like and totally a teen girl would just wear some horns.)

Thoughts:

The Toudens are European-born. From somewhere cold as hell, really isolated and conservative, that's close to some mountains, that's racist towards the local indigenous people.

(The sibs, but especially Laios got chewed out about some shit and has been trying to be better, slips up every now and then but takes criticism well so long as folks tell him what he did/said wrong).

Local weird kids put off vibes that the rest of the village didn't like, Laios and Falin grew up bullied and ostracized. Falin got sent off to schooling in the big city and later to a university in Italy where she met Marcille.

Laios dropped out of high school and joined the military as soon as he was able to b/c he wanted to get the hell out of dodge. Served for a few shitty years b4 just... deserting and backpacking across Europe just straight up homeless and working whatever odd jobs he could find. Man was going through it. Wound up in the same city where Falin was studying at a university in and decided to visit her. She took one look at him and refused to let him just go back to what he was doing, so Laios started couch surfing with her (very much against dorm rules but he looked terrible and Falin wasn't about to let anyone stop her from making sure her brother has a roof over his head and food).

Eventually, she takes him with her when she does a work-study in the USA for her ecology degree and they ended up staying/Falin kinda maybe sorta dropped out and got a job with a vet near where she was doing her work-study.

Laios and Falin are technically illegal immigrants but they're white so no one really questions their citizenship (their working on getting citizenship/papers)

Laios gets a GED. Does some self-study from Falin's textbooks and online stuff but that's about it for his schooling.

Laios definitely, like, lives in Falin's basement. Falin is the primary breadwinner in this household, Laios is aware of this and has learned to accept it even tho he would like to take care of his baby sister and sometimes feels bad about not being able to. They used to share a room in a cheap apartment but after building up enough savings they managed to buy a suspiciously cheap house in a rural town bordering a reservation and not far from a national park.

Laios still works odd jobs, mostly physical labor and stuff where they won't ask for a degree. Has worked retail, where his customer service was trash but he's darn good at just stocking and shelving shit.

Met Chilchuck while working retail, Chilchuck introduced him to the concept of a union which Laios thinks is really neat.

The town where the Touden's moved has a sizable population of people with dwarfism, Chilchuck is a notable member of the little person community in the area. The Touden's go to Chilchuck for help with paperwork (they pay him a small fee) and he doesn't ask too many questions about why they don't have this or that piece of documentation.

Laios enjoys doing citizen science and bird watching. During the tourist season, he runs a small wilderness guide giving campers and hikers tours in the local national park.

There's a hermit that lives in the national park illegally (Senshi) that Laios and Falin made friends with. They love his cooking.

Laios is active in the online furry community. He does commissions, mostly of digital and physical art or people's fursonas and vore stuff. He does great ferals, and decent anthros, but his human art is not good (he's working on it).

Laios is decidedly chubby in this, his weight goes up and down depending on the season and how much physical activity he's doing. But ever since he reunited with Falin, she's been making sure he doesn't skip meals if they can afford to eat. And ever since he met Senshi he's gotten heftier since he loves that man's cooking.

[pineapplerightsideupcake]

So I didn’t want to dump this essay in the reblogs of someone else’s post but they were talking about how it’s scary that more and more US teachers are reporting kids that don’t know basic knowledge by middle school and have to learn emotional lessons at 10 they should have learned as pre K kids.

The person was at a loss to explain it but I think I can shed light on it:

Half the people I know who have kids just don’t parent. As in they do the bare minimum to keep them alive. So many kids just aren’t being raised at all. Food and clothing is tossed at them periodically by completely uninvolved adults. So they sit in front of a screen all day and don’t learn even the most basic things. A huge part of that is because everyone works all the time. Both my parents worked but my grandparents were homemakers or retired by the time I was born. Now kids go from overworked parents to overworked and over crowded and understaffed child care centers to exhausted grandparents that can’t afford to retire but at least can pick them up from school. My friend who works at a private school for 3-10 year olds says that there are tons of kids there from 6am to 7pm and that she knows about half her kids better than their parents do. At least in her (modestly) fancy private school she is actually educating them. Most kids have those same hours but in low quality programs or over burdened public schools.

My cousin who is a SAHM says that she’s often the only parent in the class that even responds to the teacher sending info home. Parents don’t go to meetings. They ignore phone calls home. They ignore calls to pick their kids up. A huge part of that is they’re working working working.

It’s why you see some 13 year olds twerking on TikTok and the others are self diagnosing DID and Tourette’s. It’s why there are 900 genders and porn sick 12 year old boys.

A friend of my sister’s nearly got her daughter taken away because she developed malnutrition because she was letting her basically live off candy. This woman was a cook/caterer. She worked 6 or 7 days a week. Shifts were often 12 or more hours. She couldn’t slow down because her husband developed a pain killer addiction because he’d already destroyed his back at 28 with non stop manual labor and warehouse shit. She was only able to worry if her kid ate protein or vegetables because my sister let her and her daughter move in with her until the divorce/financial crisis was settled. Most people aren’t that lucky.

A tremendous amount of people in the US live paycheck to paycheck. This was always how it worked for people in “low income areas”. And as long as those people were disproportionately black or non white immigrants nobody cared. How many movies are about a Brave White Teacher coming into low income schools and asking “where’s your mom?” And gets back “she works three jobs and dad left”. How often are the kids presented as being emotionally stunted, behaviorally challenged, and embarrassingly ignorant. “Wow Mr. S, you’re saying the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. Pssh, do a rap about it if you’re so right” But now that the wealth gap has widened to the point the average white household is as poor as this country was happy to let POC be, and POC have an even lower standard of living, suddenly it’s worth discussing.

It’s poverty folks. It’s crushing, inescapable poverty. And it’s not just now starting to be a problem. It’s just the first time it was affecting enough of the “right kind of people” to pay attention.

[mary-laib]

I'm thinking of writing a very long, multi-chapter human!au fic about Alastor (might be the caffiene talking and tomorrow I'll forget to go through with it lol) but I've got a ton of headcannons and have been thinking about a timeline for this thing for months now. Only thing is, I'm making a lot of ocs for it (keeping only Husk and Mimsy in the story) and I want the characters to be as era-accurate and culturally accurate as possible, so I was wondering if anybody here wanted to help beta it while I'm writing out the timeline and details.

I'm doing a ton of research, but I feel like for some of it, it's best to get real-person explanations on things, so here are some of the characters and details about them that I'd like to hear people's personal experiences with:

•Alastor's mother's side of the family:

African American with a lot of cultural roots in their history, such as their practice of Voodoo, and Fijian ancestry (I'd like to reference or even introduce a Fijian character, but I mainly add this piece of info to give Alastor some background with Cannibalism, not necessarily to introduce a character that actually practices). I'm p sure I have most of this down (outside of voodoo, which I'm still researching and will be putting a fantastical twist on) but if anybody has info or personal experiences they'd like to share, please reach out to me.

•Alastor's father's side of the family:

Alastor's father was non-religious, but grew up with an older sister in a catholic household. My dad's catholic so I'm p certain I can work with this, but again, help is welcome.

•Gay Muslim character that appears later:

I know a decent amount about Islam (more than I do about judiasm and I have jewish family lol) but I'd appreciate some tidbits on writing him since I'm def not Muslim myself and plan on writing a lot about this character's experience with discrimination, going to mosque, daily prayers and duties, and Qur'an lore, specifically relating to angels and armies in the afterlife/end of the world.

•Gang characters:

I'll admit that I'm not well-verses in early 1900's gang etiquette, but it's my hyperfixation rn so this is what's happening.

•Russian Husk:

I have some knowledge of Russian culture (specifically in a historical context) but am also looking for info relating to other east-European countries (such as Germany and Slovakia) since his background is going to have him moving around a lot before coming to the US.

•New Yorkers:

A lot of these characters come from New York (due to immigration, city-backgrounds, entertainment industry, etc.) and I'm p confident in my historical knowledge of the city and state, but fun facts are appreciated nonetheless.

•The Queers:

I'm planning on adding multiple gay/lesbian/bi characters to interact with Alastor's ace-ness to kind of compare to. I know some about old-time gay clubs, but if anybody wants to lmk more about them, I'd love to hear it.

•Tech:

I have no idea how modern tech works, so if I'm gonna write about Alastor starting his radio biz through mechanical work, I think I should know a thing or two about how it works lol

Anyways thanks! Might add more later!

[fbfh]

Tristin Dugray lore hcs

wc: 1k

warnings: mentions of broken/dysfunctional families, tristin's siblings both have drug problems, mentions of sexism and abortion (v briefly), mentions of cheating (also v briefly), tristin is not super close with his siblings, brief mention of DUIs (not tristin), I think that's it??

summary: lore on Tristin's family whipped up in my little plastic play kitchen by yours truly lol

a/n: I MISS HIM!!!! I SAW SOME GIFS THAT MADE ME SALIVATE!!!!! also!! in case it wasn't obvious the Dugray family is based on the real life Dupont family, just like how the Huntzbergers are based on the Sulzbergers

song recs: family jewels - Marina (ouch!), be here - palaye royale, everything is romantic - charli xcx

The Dugray family have made their fortune as far back as the American revolution, starting with immigrating to America and manufacturing gunpowder for the American soldiers

This eventually led to the Dugray family owning one of the largest and most established chemical manufacturing corporations in America, DuGray

They invented a number of household names like pyrex, teflon, styrofoam, and even superglue, and also make ppe for people who work with or around chemicals

A while back, they also acquired two bank chains on the east coast, one of which is for east coast businesses, and the other is expanding slowly across america. 

The Dugray family’s net worth is roughly 18.6 billion. I know. 

Also, the Huntzberger family’s net worth is roughly 21.7 billion. I know.

Tristin mentions at one point that he has a “matching set” of baggage with Paris, and we know Paris’s parents are not at all close to her, or each other

We also know that her father is the head of a pharmaceutical company, and when her parents divorced it was in the newspaper

So yikes!

Anyway the only family mentioned by name is Janlon Dugrey, his paternal grandfather (I’m assuming if Janlon was his mom’s dad he would have a different last name yk)

So OBVIOUSLY I had to flesh things out a little 

Looking at this family tree I made a while ago, Tristin has two older siblings: his oldest brother Royce, and his older sister and middle sibling Sutton

They’re both a bit older than Tristin, since his mom is their dad’s second wife

Truett DuGrey married Helena Holshire and had Royce, then Sutton

They divorced when Royce was around 7 and Sutton was almost 5 because Helena suspected Truett of cheating, and Truett suspected Helena of being a gold digger

Both were true

A couple years later, Truett is introduced to Blythe Ross while working on publicity for the banks his family as acquired 

Blythe and Truett didn’t necessarily get along, but she could handle him better than most other women he’s met 

They were actually introduced through Mitchum Huntzberger and his wife Shira, because Shira and Blythe are sisters

Surprise!

So Blythe gets pregnant and Truett can feel another Helena gold digger situation coming

That’s when Blythe tells him she can’t go to his work event because she has to go to a clinic

Truett stops in his tracks and realizes three things at the same time

Blythe is not in fact using a pregnancy to try and get access to his money

He loves his son Royce as much as he’s able to, but he’s already becoming apathetic and Truett can’t pass over the family business to someone with no drive or ambition

Royce is 10 by the way

Lastly, he realizes that this might actually be beneficial to him

So he convinces Blythe not to get an abortion and to elope instead

Once she gets her body back after the baby they’ll stage some wedding photos and claim it was from a little over a year ago so no one knows he had the baby out of wedlock

When she’s 18 weeks along, he schedules a private ultrasound to find out the baby’s gender

He tells her that if it’s a boy, everything will be fine

If it’s a girl, he’ll serve her annulment papers and nice fat alimony and child support checks to keep both of them out of his life

Blythe isn’t sure if she’s relieved or not when the doctors announce they’re going to be having a healthy baby boy, but Truett sure is

So he grows up watching his burnt out older brother and back bone of the family older sister navigate middle school and high school when he’s barely starting kindergarten

They don’t have any harsh feelings toward Tristin

Not really

They were just never that close yk

It’s like the pilot of umbrella academy, “we only see each other at weddings and funerals”

Except really, they only see each other when Truett forces them into whatever is going on with the family business, or to bail each other out of trouble

Royce is just waiting for his trust fund to kick in so he can fuck off and smoke weed in peace

Sutton is desperately trying to keep her image and life together while hiding her nicotine dependency and steadily growing pill problem from the public eye

And Tristin just wants to fucking feel something

His mom has been in and out of “med spas” and “wellness retreats” for so long he wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t recognize him, and the only time he and his dad talk is when he’s making charges go away

Sutton is engaged to this guy Clint

And he’s fine or whatever, Tristin hasn’t really talked to him much before

But he’s keeping his ear to the ground to make sure he treats his sister right

Sure Sutton can be condescending and a total control freak and act more like a mom than his actual mom

But she’s still his sister

So Sutton’s been off planning this huge wedding and trying to start some lifestyle brand for luxury dog beds and organic phone cases or something

Royce barely managed to keep his latest DUI for driving stoned under wraps but Truett still found out and sent him off to rehab

So Tristin starts high school at Chilton feeling almost lonelier than ever

Tristin aches for consistency, for stability

Thanks to Duncan and Bowman he sort of has that

And people like Paris that he’s literally been in school with since he can remember

It’s not that they’re particularly close, but he just likes that she’s always around when he’s going to and from class

There’s a few other people like that too, loose acquaintances that haven’t dropped out or transferred

They make him feel like even if everything else has gone to shit, he still has his winning personality

And he still has Chilton