#racial form

[thelonguepuree]

Just as self-representation has not brought freedom from stereotype, empirical rebuttals to media distortions have not succeeded in making the 'model minority' go away. The disappointments of trying to dispel myth with reality afford more than a reminder of the general operation of language. They return us to the material conditions of an ideological construct, even as they require us to be cognizant of the fact that there can be no return to historical origins that is not mediated by our present standpoint.

Colleen Lye, America’s Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893–1945

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

Bigots denying a woman her womanhood aren't actually granting her the status of "man" esp with all its attendant privileges.

Degendering is a form of dehumanization. The goal of misgendering/degendering a woman is generally to treat her as a disposable object, unworthy of even the conditional and dubious "protection" that women are supposedly due under patriarchy.

If they actually saw her as a man she wouldn't be targeted in these ways, and "man/manly/male" would never be spat at her like an insult.

[neproxrezi]

someone else could write it better than me but i love how the fucked up nasty shit you can make harry do/say/be in disco elysium isn't just like, random stuff caused simply by the player having free will and control over him but they're parts of who he is and who he has been

you're not a tabula rasa. you're a sudden shock of blank pages in a big, aged, damaged book and sometimes the paper you're trying to write a better man on is torn and you see something through the gaps nobody needed to see ever again. and it's just there now again, back to the surface

[manie-sans-delire-x]

I love Mizu so deeply. Its like my female rage took form. My soul recognizes her as my own.

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

what is this. why is it literally just a list with no introductory paragraphs or citations or context. what does "in order of production" mean. why is this a pdf originating from Stanford University's website I'm crying 😭🤣🤣

why is one of them-- *googles the Nebraska State Capitol* ooohhh okay yeah that checks out

[murder-incarnate]

tfw the bhaalspawn is the only one in your friend group with a real conscience and they are hanging on by a fucking thread

my friend ez's tav trine (at least they're a tav in her bg3 au) + my durge abaddon + astarion. trine and abaddon typically live in separate universes but ez and i love to talk about how the two would interact, and they both romance astarion so like. this squad gets talked about a lot. abaddon tries so hard to be good despite everything, trine and astarion not so much, and things aren't helped by trine especially having a real tendency to poke the metaphorical bear because it's funny.

colors are messy so here's the lines-only version, which i also like, and is, admittedly, also messy

[bijoumikhawal]

[blood-starved-beast]

Also the thing about Marcille and butch-ness is also rooted in Elf typical xenophobia. Elves in Dungeon Meshi are notably feminine, even the males have more "delicate" features and their clothes would be consider feminine by tallmen or dwarf standards (see: Otta being butch but dressed the way she is). Dungeon Meshi is really clear on all the races having their own biases, and that elves in particular look down upon other races and infantalize them cause they don't live as long as elves do. Falin preferring to and dressing in what would be seen in a traditionally masculine manner by tallman standards would force Marcille not only to confront her own butchphobia, but her own elf raised racial biases.

[heliosphere-underthesky]

What are the ethnicities/races or the celestial bodies in your story ?

Howdy! Actually I don't really have 100% set ethnicities or races for each character, due to them being celestial bodies. This is so that there's freedom of interpretation for the viewers, but still taking inspiration from real life!

Here are some coding I've made for some of the characters although if you have a different headcanon, it's fine as long as it's respectful to me and other people who may have different perceptions.

Sun, Jupiter, Saturn - Caucasian, likely of European descent

Mercury - Southeast Asian (I personally pin him as Filipino because I'm Filipino. Haha. But he's meant to be broadly coded as SEAsian)

Venus - Latina or black/Latina mix

Earth - probably SEAsian or Latino + Caucasian mix (not sure yet)

Luna - likely East Asian mix, or purely East Asian

Mars - East Asian

Uranus - Caucasian (may be pure, may be a mix of some sort, but I personally see him as Russian)

Neptune and Pluto - at least part Asian (not sure yet, but probably a mix too)

Earth and Venus + Uranus and Neptune having different ethnicity/race coding is due to a piece of Heliospheric lore I wrote back then; nobody's literally "blood-related" and most of their "relationships" are simply titles of the bond that they feel towards each other.

[sapphosewrites]

I have seen many a gif and video from the SNW musical episode, but no one informed me about the Klingons.

[hussyknee]

Queer historical romance among the ton but make the rage of oppression and injustice howling across the centuries.

Sir Gareth tries to convince himself that his father's mysterious profits could not have come from smuggling and attempts to tell his erstwhile lover Joss Doomsday, grandson of a escaped American slave and the Crown Prince of Romney Marsh's Smugglers, why trading with the French during the Napoleonic war is Wrong™.

“Yes, but—Look, it can’t be that. He was in his fifties, a gentleman, a baronet. He can’t have been a smuggler.”

“Course not.”

“He can’t! He wasn’t making trips to France.”

“Not on his own legs, maybe,” Joss said. “Do you know how the trade works?”

“I have no idea.”

“Sometimes it’s barter—we bring over wool to France and exchange it direct-like. Sometimes an innkeeper needs his cellar filled, or a London merchant wants to stock his shop with French gloves, or pepper, or fine soap, so they place the order with us. And sometimes it’s speculation. Which is to say, a rich man invests his money with a free trader, who buys and sells as he thinks fit. A while later our gentleman gets his money back and more, and never gets his hands dirty touching the goods.”

That last was so exactly what Gareth had feared that he couldn’t face it, couldn’t hear it. The sheer, shameless crime of it all. “You are aware we’re at war with France?” he said furiously. “I mean, you do know you’re trading with the enemy?”

“Free trading’s what we do. I’m not one for politics.”

“Politics? This is more than politics. It’s more than crime, even. The Continent is supposed to be blockaded, and you’re helping the enemy by buying their goods! It’s all but treason, and you don’t appear to give a damn!”

“Hold on there,” Joss said. “Yes, there’s a blockade. The government set it up, and everyone who lives by the wool trade found themselves sitting on a lot of fleeces they couldn’t sell while the French spinners and weavers had empty looms. We’ve got a dunnamany sheep here and not a lot else, you’ll have noticed. How are people meant to live if you cut off their living?”

“It’s a war! People have to make sacrifices.”

“That right? What sacrifices have you made? The lordships and gentlemen in London, are they running short of food? You think the King’s husbanding his coals? Why’s all the sacrifice on us?”

“That’s entirely specious.”

“Talk English,” Joss suggested sardonically.

Gareth discovered he couldn’t instantly define specious. “The argument doesn’t hold up. If the nation is at war, trading with the enemy undermines us all. And it’s all very well to talk about livelihoods, but whose livelihoods are supported when you import brandy and tobacco and silk? How are those things necessary?”

“They are for the French who make them,” Joss said. “People over there are trying to feed their families, just like people over here. And as for whether they’re needful here, well, you tell me.”

“Me?”

“You’re gentry, and it’s the gentry who wants those things, need or not. I sell to London clubs and London drapers and who do you think they sell to? The men who make the laws and set the taxes still want their brandy and tobacco, the silks and lace for their ladies, and they buy it knowing where it came from.”

“Well…they shouldn’t,” Gareth said, uncomfortably aware of the lavender soap at home. “And you’re still ignoring the fact that we’re at war!”

“I don’t care.”

He sounded like he meant it. Gareth stared at him. “What? How can you not?”

“Lords and kings and emperors fighting about crowns? They aren’t my people. George means no more to me than Boney. German or Frenchman on the throne, who cares? We had a dunnamany French kings before.”

“When did we—You can’t be talking about the Norman Conquest,” Gareth protested.

“Got invaded by the French and the world didn’t end. What’s it to me which rich man runs the country? What difference does it make to Romney Marsh who wears the crown? Or no, I’ll tell you what difference: there’s no laws against sharing your bed with another fellow in France now. If you gave me a vote, I’d vote for that.”

So would Gareth. He struck out for safer waters. “This is all very well, but we’re talking about being defeated and invaded! Have you not considered what an enemy army entering this country might mean?”

Joss laughed, but not in a way that suggested humour. “Couldn’t miss it, with Martello towers up and down the coast. The invasion will come through here just like last time. That’s why they built the Royal Military Canal, to slow down Boney’s men.”

Gareth knew the Canal, an ugly, wide, straight gash that ran all the way from north of Rye and across the top of the Romney Marsh, just before the land began to rise. “Yes, so—”

“So when these terrible Frog monsters come over here breathing fire and seeking blood, they’ll be kept on the Marsh for as long as possible,” Joss said. “That’s what they built the Canal for: so the Marsh takes the brunt of an invasion. Am I supposed to be pleased about that?”

“Well, no, but… You must see they’ve got to defend the country.”

“Oh, they’re going to. You know the other plan? They’re going to breach the Wall.”

“To what?” Gareth felt a spasm of shock. He might be outmarsh, but he knew the Wall was sacred.

“When the French ships land, the soldiers are to set charges, blow up the Wall, and drown the Marsh.” Joss’s voice was harsh now, almost frightening. “Our land, our home, all gone just to slow the French down for a day or two. Oh, but there’s a plan to get the sheep off. Lot of important men own fine sheep here, so they aim to drive them out first. Got to save the sheep.” He spat that out.

Gareth stared at him. “Um. I don’t… Why is it so bad they want to save the sheep?” Joss didn’t say anything. He just waited. Gareth looked at his face, turned over his words. “There’s a plan to get the people out as well, yes?”

“Course not. The old, the crippled, the children, everyone with their worldly goods on their backs, we’ll all have to fend for ourselves when our own soldiers flood the Marsh, but sheep are valuable. Look, nobody gives a damn for the Marsh except Marshmen. The government and the King don’t care if we starve. They put on the blockade but charge their rents and taxes same as ever, and they’ll let the sea or the French take us if that preserves their skins for another day. So we look after ourselves. And that means trading, and selling wool—some of it wool off the sheep that are going to be saved when old women and children will be left behind, acause if you think those landowners have given up their income for the sake of the war, you’re joking. They want their wool sold, just like the Quality in London want to wear silk and drink brandy, and the merchants want their shelves stocked. We run goods for them, and when they catch us doing it, they hang us for the look of the thing.”

Gareth had no idea what to say. He wasn’t a political philosopher. He had a vague sort of idea that country, king, and law were the foundations on which the nation was built, while nevertheless acknowledging that he had no intention of taking up arms for the country, the king was a mad German, and he’d spent much of his adult life happily breaking the law. Still, they were principles, even if they weren’t his principles. He’d thought this would be an easy fight to pick.

He’d met plenty of radicals in London—men who wanted wealth redistributed, laws changed, the government made representative. Joss Doomsday, fervent patriot of a hundred square miles of marshland, was perhaps the most radical man he’d ever met.

[anonymous-gambito]

Where did people get the idea that Fire Nation people all have light skin, Earth Kingdom are mostly darker skinned, and that people with darker skin in the Fire Nation must be mixed?? I mean, maybe they made a list of all FN and EK characters and concluded that FN people tend to be lighter but still... Why would anyone take the time to do that? For what reason? Why would someone feel the need to focus on that so much? It's really weird. Also, I doubt any EK or FN person would get "clocked" by their skin tone in case they set foot in each other's nations regardless.

[deqdyke]

Cw: race, genocide denial, antiblackness

Just working through some thoughts after seeing the millionth annoying "Are x group white? Discuss" tweets.

Honestly I think like 90% of discourse around race and whiteness in leftist spaces could be solved by people saying "I don't know that history well enough". Like, people when they discuss race, have these competing internal desires to treat race as solely defined by current social standings, and also point to historical oppression as evidence. Neither works. If you go purely by current social standings, then we have absolutely nothing to build off of besides personal lived experiences. I've met Italians who have had old white people call them wops. Does that mean Italians aren't white? Are Polish people not white because of the existence of anti-polish sentiments? Are Russians not white because of how often they're portrayed as villains? Are Armenians white universally bc of the Kardashians?

But then if you base it entirely off history, then you have to accept that no Jewish person has ever attained whiteness. That race is a permanent and immutable aspect of someone's character - something that just... That's just racial ideology, same as it ever was.

The reality is whiteness is nebulous and difficult to pin down because it serves a social function. It needs to be fluid, but it needs to justify itself by appearing as if it's immutable. It also props up European nation-building myths. Like, if the question is "Are Italians white" the question should be "Well, who's an Italian?". Who's a Russian? I know Black Russians, and Black Ashkenazim. Is the understanding they're somehow less part of those groups due to their Blackness? Because I know they would take serious issue with that. Romans (as in, Italians from Rome) are a core part of the Western nation-building myth. You can't exclude them from whiteness without whiteness collapsing. But Sicilians were ruled by North African Muslims for hundreds of years - they're noticeably darker, and their culture is distinct. So Sicilians were denied whiteness, and they were used as a scapegoat for xenophobic sentiments during waves of Italian immigration. When they had sufficiently assimilated, then suddenly Sicilians were "Italians" and Italians are white, so Sicilians are white. So you've now managed to redefine whiteness across an era of immigration to build white unity and maintain a white supremacist majority.

White Fascism is self-destructive and suicidal because it maintains rigid immutable boundaries and requires constant expansion, which means eventually whiteness WILL be a minority. Liberalism upholds whiteness by redefining whiteness over time to maintain a White social majority. When whiteness needs to be mutable, there needs to be a population that can be used as the scapegoat. (Which is also why anti-Blackness is a core component of White supremacist racial ideology - it functions as a permanent fixed class to pivot other groups' whiteness around).

That's how it functions in America. But the rules of whiteness ARE mutable, and they change based on time and region. So the question of "Is x person white" really depends on time AND location, and how their identities exist in relation to nation-building myths. And it reaches a point where asking a question like "Are Armenians white?" or "Are Balkan Muslims white?" or "Are Jews white?" stops being useful, because the point shouldn't be to reify race, it should be to point out that people who fail to fit neatly within these national racial narratives are the best possible example to show how Whiteness contradicts itself. Is an Arab white? Is a Jew white? Is a North African white? It depends, when, where, and who are we talking about?

[queasyferret]

my hot take is that identity politics is more or less suited for handling different contexts

[hazel2468]

I really wish that people, progressives and leftists in particular, would stop responding to discussions of antisemitism with “Jews are white!”

Antisemitism is RACISM. White supremacists don’t fucking ask me how often I go to synagogue before they call me a kike or threaten me with an oven. Antisemitism is the hatred of the Jewish people, not of our religion. It is of US, our ethnicity, our race, as white supremacists call it.

And to anyone who respond to Jews discussing ourselves as an ethnic/racial group with “That’s some Nazi shit, why would you encourage what the Nazis did?”, you can go fuck yourself. Even if we weren’t an ethnic group, which we are, we’ve been designated as an “other” race since the fucking beginning. It is also NOT up to goyim to tell Jews how we are and aren’t allowed to self identify.

IMO? The reason the left has latched onto antisemitism as purely an anti-religious sentiment, instead of a hatred of the Jews as a people and an ethnicity, is because if antisemitism WERE accepted as racism, they wouldn’t be able to continue to perpetuate it the way they do. It’s the “cool” thing in a lot of progressive spaces to hate on religion, and by passing off antisemitism as both a “I just have a problem with religion!” (which, honestly, I have yet to come across someone who is ACTUALLY expressing a gripe with a problem we have in Judaism instead of just projecting their issues with Christianity onto all religions) and a “I hate colonizers/ white people in power!” (this despite the fact that Jews are NOT people in power, that’s an antisemitic trope) they are allowed to continue to do things like kick Jews out of their spaces just for being Jewish, assault Jews in progressive spaces for being Jews and feel right in doing so, leave out Jews at every turn when calling for solidarity with marginalized people, and ignore Jewish voices telling them that their movements are ignorant and exclusive at BEST sometimes, and downright antisemitic at worst.

[forbiddnsky]

I don’t mean to be like disrespectful at all… but how do u feel about how prophet Mouhammed owned slaves? I know you once said he lead with compassion and gentleness and as much as I wish that were true I can’t get over the most probable fact that he was just another man in power utilizing theology to manipulate armies and women to serve him? It’s so hard not being able to talk to anyone about this bc most Muslims live and die by him and all he represents but it just doesn’t line up with reality for me and it makes me feel so alienated from Islam altogether

Brother asked a very good question! ☝🏼🤓

Ngl with a TAD bit of basic research you would've found your answer but that's okay lol, there are a few books I can point you to that go more in depth, which is where my understanding of Riqq comes from.

Islam does not legitimize slavery. But when we use the word "slave" we usually correlate it with the transatlantic slave trade. English words rarely correspond to Shariah concepts, so the use of "slave" isn't conceptually the same. Slavery has not always been the binary opposite of freedom, cultural traditions profoundly obscure our understandings of this concept. I think this is important to keep in mind when understanding slavery, or Riqq- in regards to Shariah. (Not to say that there weren't slaves back then that were treated unjustly and were abused! Of course there were slaves, (not pertaining to just race or gender), which were oppressed and abused).

However, we are discussing slavery in the framework of Islam. The Prophet PBUH knew that any form of oppression goes against Islamic teachings. That's why he treated everyone with utmost respect and dignity. To have a "slave" Islamically meant you had to treat them no differently than you treated yourself. You could not harm them in any way, or overwork them, you had to feed and cloth them, they were not considered "less than". The raqīq was considered an extension of the family and household. By this very logic, we would conclude that the Prophet PBUH did not have "slaves" in the same way we would use the term in this day and age- they were not forced to do labor nor were they abused or dehumanized in any way, shape or form by the Prophet PBUH, as that would be forbidden in Islam. Also, RACIAL SUPREMACY IS FORBIDDEN IN ISLAM!

One example of the treatment of slaves by the Prophet PBUH is Zaid, may Allah swt be pleased with him (a simple google search will give you the info ya need) as well as Bilal ibn Rabah, one of the closest and most trusted and distinguished companions of Prophet PBUH. He faced torture prior to his freedom by Prophet PBUH and in turn became one of the greatest names in Islamic history, honored to this day. AGAIN, There is no such thing as racial supremacy in Islam.

The laws of Islam sought to emancipate abused slaves; to free someone of any form of oppression was regarded as an act of piety and an act of worship. By Islamic law, autonomy and equality are valued and the belief that no tribe, no race, no human is better than another is emphasized. In Islam, there is no submission to ANYONE or ANYTHING but Allah swt.

I hope this cleared things up for you. May Allah swt increase us in knowledge and forgive us for our ignorance Ameen. 🤲🏼🤍