#racism cw

[llyfrenfys]

In which I try not to be That Guy TM when it comes to Irish ancestors: An exploration of ancestry, diaspora and culture

Because of The Horrors TM in my life atm I've been looking into my biological family tree. I'm adopted but estranged from my adoptive family and I never met my biological family since I was adopted just short of my 2nd birthday. I've been tracing my ancestry for about 3 years now and it's genuinely quite stress relieving to me. It's also fun and challenging from a research standpoint - putting together my own family tree gave me the skills to write articles like this one I wrote in 2022 about historical Welsh queer people, for example.

Lately, I've been finding out more about my Irish ancestors while an adoptee (and thus not knowing any of my biological family) - but also doing this as a Celticist and tired of people doing the 'my sister's friend's cousin's father's mother was Irish' thing. This has created an almost unbearable tension between curiosity at my own ancestry while trying not to be That Guy who finds out about one (1) Irish ancestor hundreds of years ago and is weird about it.

Especially since mine are quite distant ancestors - my great, great, great grandparents were born in Dublin and in a tiny village in County Down called Dunnaman (near Kilkeel). However, they were Irish Catholics and emigrated to Liverpool in the 1870s - all of their subsequent children and grandchildren were born in Liverpool and all of the above + great grandchildren were raised Catholic - including my grandmother (who died before I was born). So there was an obvious attempt to maintain that heritage. There's even evidence my great, great, great grandmother at least spoke Irish (which, as she was born in County Down, would have been Ulster Irish).

The problems with uncritically throwing oneself at an ancestor's nationality:

Now, not all North Americans of Irish (or Welsh, Scottish, Italian, Scandinavian, German etc.) descent do this - but there's a very vocal set of North Americans of Irish descent who find awe and interest in their ancestry - which is actually quite a positive thing! - however, due to either temporal or cultural disconnect, they may end up doing or saying things (and not necessarily with bad intentions) which can have a negative impact on the Irish and the Irish language (or [nationality] and [language(s) associated with that nationality].

I'm reminded of the time an American commented on a Welsh language rights post I made in support of Welsh speakers, but they accidentally ended up using a white nationalist slogan by mistake. It can be a minefield - and with regards to Ireland specifically, mistakes like that can be so much worse. To literally give my own (mild) example, today I decided to relearn Irish (since I haven't spoken any in years since being taught basics at undergrad) and picked up a blank notebook I bought at Tesco the other week, while completely forgetting the inside cover of the notebook was orange. I was planning on decorating the notebook anyway and painted it a different colour. While I know that nobody would really hold it against me if I didn't change the colour, I just know that walking around with an orange notebook filled with Irish I'm relearning because of interest in my Catholic ancestors could be a confusing set of messages, at the very least. If you don't understand why this is, look up the meanings of the colours on the flag of Ireland.

Which is to say, even those of us in Northern Europe who have significantly greater physical proximity to Ireland than North America (and therefore should know better) still can and do get things wrong. And not just benignly wrong like in my case.

The tendency for some North Americans of Irish descent (Canada isn't exempt from this) to conflate Irish ancestry with a contemporary connection to the modern countries located on the island of Ireland as a whole can have results ranging from 'a bit weird' to 'jesus fucking christ'. As a Celticist, I've seen far, far too many Americans of Irish descent try to weigh in on modern Irish politics without any background knowledge or tact at all - and naturally they stake their claim on modern Irish politics entirely on the premise of having distant Irish ancestors. Or, even worse, things start to get all phrenological.

'Irish blood' and the nonexistence thereof:

'Irish blood' is continually evoked by some to validate their sense of 'Irishness' and the obsession with '[insert nationality] blood' is a distinctly North American phenomenon- likely related to or an offshoot of the concept of 'blood quantum', in which enrolment into some Native American nations and tribes is determined by how much 'Native blood' a person has. Notably, many people who would ostensibly have been described under this system as 'full blood' were registered by the US as 'half blood'. This is a method of genocide intended to wipe out tribes and nations by imposing strict measures of who does or does not qualify to enrol into a tribe or nation. This concept seems to have been extrapolated over time (in a North American context at least) into the idea of descent from other nationalities' being measured in a similar or adjacent way. This is how you end up with some North Americans declaring they are '1/8 Italian and 1/4 Irish' on their dad's side etc. While in Europe (where these nationalities hail from, crucially) this practice is seen as a really weird way to describe your ancestry. In general, it's simply 'my 4 times grandfather came from Spain' or 'my great great grandfather on my dad's side came from Finland' etc. if it comes up at all. For various political reasons, many Europeans with descent from multiple other European nationalities may choose to omit to mention descent from certain nationalities, especially if in recent history there has been conflict between their birth nation and an ancestor's nation. The most famous example of this is literally the British royal family changing their surname from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the more 'British sounding' Windsor in 1917 due to the onset of the First World War.

Where it gets really weird (and also very offensive and rude) is when cultural stereotypes get invoked alongside the whole 'blood' thing in usually quite damaging and/or disparaging ways. I've seen way too many North Americans of Irish descent claim they're alcoholics because they have 'Irish blood' or even worse, claim it's normal to domestically abuse their spouses because of it!! (Genuine thing I have seen btw). Same goes for claiming to be a naturally good chef because of 'Italian blood' and so on. As a general rule, people from the place where your ancestors were from don't generally like to be inherently be considered drunks or prone to violence due to their nationality. Or have weird and inaccurate idealisms projected onto their language or cuisine.

Aren't there any positives?

It wouldn't be fair to make a post like this without mentioning some of the positives that can come from interest in an Irish ancestor. Like I mentioned at the start of this post, I myself felt inspired to relearn Irish because of my own Irish ancestors. I was taught the Connacht dialect at undergrad, however, since my ancestor was from County Down, I'm going to try and learn Ulster Irish instead. One doesn't need Irish ancestors to learn Irish of course - when I learned I wasn't aware I had any Irish ancestors. But being inspired to learn Irish because of an ancestor can't hurt and directly increases the number of Irish speakers in the world (provided you keep at it). This is a net positive for the language as a whole.

Similarly, people who have educated themselves on Irish politics because of their ancestry and genuinely learned something are also a positive thing to come out of discovering Irish ancestors. In my experience, these people are the kind of people I enjoy talking to about being a Celticist because they actively want to learn and respect the cultures being talked about. Which is huge to me!

Conclusion:

As a Welsh speaker whose national identity is more-or-less Jan Morris-esque, my Irish ancestry is an interesting facet of my ancestry I simply didn't know about before. And being an adopted person, I can sympathise with the general sentiment of a lot of white North Americans of feeling disconnected or alienated from any ancestral heritage. The conditions which create That Guy TM as described above rely on that sense of alienation to propagate a very ineffective, tactless and often very insensitive approach to Irish and other European cultures. But the important thing is that that approach can be challenged by people genuinely interested in their ancestry who are also conscientious of the living versions of the cultures their ancestors hailed from.

For me, that means learning Irish in a dialect my ancestors are likely to have spoken. I also visited the library today to check out some books on the Irish emigration to England and the sociopolitical reasons behind that emigration. I know the broad strokes, but the details are desirable to know to get a better idea of the why and how the country of my birth had a hand in creating the conditions which led my ancestors to emigrate in the first place. I think the world would be a better place if people took the time to understand the history and politics of ancestors which don't share their nationality.

As always, reblogs and thoughts are welcomed and encouraged!

Thank you for reading to the end - and if you'd like to support me, please see my pinned post. Diolch!

[lizardsfromspace]

Was there ever a news event in our lifetimes that the media fumbled more aggressively than Columbine. They genuinely got every single detail wrong

From reporting that they killed someone for saying she believed in God (a different girl who said she did survived) to not reporting that they sought out students of color while yelling racial slurs - on Hitler's birthday & a day after the anniversary of OKC and Waco - while promoting the idea that you have to watch out for loner bullied nerds. Even though later research shows that the shooters were, in fact, bullies themselves, who had a wide social circle, and they were, you know, Nazis motivated by racism and not the video game Doom (1993).

It's a generational fuck-up, the GOAT of bad reporting bc it's still with us. The narrative of persecution after "she said yes" is a huge reason the evangelical right is like how it is today (they made a biopic that uncritically repeated it just a couple years ago!) & they still push the idea that it's primarily victims who do that sort of thing and not aggressors & people still shared that stupid video of Marilyn Manson saying he'd "listen" until a couple years ago (though the shooters being abusive Nazi creeps would uh, not diminish Marilyn Manson's desire to befriend them, I feel)

[heritageposts]

if you're subscribed to the washington post, it's time to cancel your subscription

as if their coverage of the genocide in gaza wasn't bad enough, this is now the kind of vile racist shit they're apparently okay with publishing in their editorial cartoons

and if you're unfamiliar with the artist, michael ramirez, here are some of the cartoons he's made for other publications:

(putting them under a read more because there are so many of them and they're all disgustingly racist and/or islamophobic)

[probablybadrpgideas]

Ok, just thinking out loud, but maybe we should let the Great Old Ones out.

I'm just saying. Lovecraft wasn't exactly an unbiased source. Maybe they're perfectly nice. Maybe they just want to stop people saying slurs. Maybe they're just Welsh.

I'm not saying I want the world to end, but I think that it would be a decent compromise to maybe unseal one or two of the smaller ones, just to see what happens. I bet we could put them back if there's a problem. And maybe they'll give us candy!

If it's just one of them, and maybe just for the weekend, it'll be fine. Come on, guys. What's life without a little risk?

Ritual! Ritual! Ritual!

[gendercriminals]

Anyways, I cannot fucking understate the psychic damage that is done by transitioning as a trans- masc while being a person of color.

People already didn’t listen to my opinion and boundaries before my voice and body started passing as somewhat male. But as I’ve started to pass, more and more often, my voice and opinions and boundaries are not only ignored; I’m treated as hyper-aggressive/hostile/mean, inagreeable, and stubborn.

Even by my loved ones and friends, they way they treat the words that come out of my mouth or words through text has changed.

When I cannot say “What you said/did hurt me and I need you to own up to that in some actually active way, or at least apologize.”without invoking white tears - when I cannot get upset over boundary crossing and being ignored without invoking anger about my “attitude”… How am I meant to exist safely?

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

“You see, Tintin, Londoners are a particularly miserable subspecies of Englishman. Subterranean, anti-social, you could kill one with eye contact alone-”

“Captain, now is really not the time.”

It’s 1940. London is getting firebombed by Nazis. For the past few years Tintin and Chang have been out of work, having been outed as a couple by the press. They have spent some time travelling around with an ageing Captain Haddock to foil various fascist plots. Upon hearing about the bombing runs on London they go up to check on Chang’s uncle, who has an antique shop in Limehouse.

More story details under the Read More. Let me know if there’s anything you wish for me to tag, cw for mentions of racism:

Chang’s London cousins have since been evacuated to Kent. While trying to get what remains of Mr Wong’s possessions together they run into one of them, the boisterous Wendy Wong. She ran away from her countryside guardians back to London, revealing to have suffered a lot of racial abuse. Being the bravest of her siblings, she and her siblings planned for her to go back to London to find their dad. She’s distraught at her home’s destruction and feels frustrated and powerless. Her father is less than thrilled, and demands Chang take her back up to Kent. 

Tintin is really trying his best to help Mr Wong and get on his good side, knowing full well he doesn’t approve of him and Chang. While searching through rubble Haddock gets talking to some community organisers and learns about locals planning on using the local Underground stations as shelters and agrees to help. One evening he stumbles across a disused service tunnel and overhears some German spies discussing suspicious plans.

Tintin offers to escort Wendy to Kent. A worried Captain Haddock informs Tintin of what he witnessed last night. Wendy overhears and wants to help, wishing to be a hero like Tintin and Chang, and emboldened by a sense of responsibility for her home. Chang, having previously lost family members to war, is sympathetic to her and believes she should be allowed to help. Tintin is reluctant to let Mr Wong down. Haddock feels like he’s herding cats.

TL;DR: Trains! Anti fascism! A story about finding common ground to fight back against nazis.

[txttletale]

blasted, sarah kane / serious weakness, porpentine charity heartscape

[papasmoke]

I’m having fun imagining this miserable white south african expat in a red faced blind rage hunched over their computer still furiously ranting about the glory days of apartheid south africa 30 years later, barely able to type a sentence they’re so mad lol.

[roundearthsociety]

Pro tip: when Zionists on this website say "Not all Zionism is support for the Israeli government", they mean this guy and his friends specifically

[thenugking]

doctor who spoilers/critical below cut

It's not even that I necessarily object to that regeneration storyline from an in-universe perspective (even if RTD pulled pretty much the same plot in Journey's End. Even if Moffat's Doctors stayed still in one place for Decades, on multiple occasions).

Out of universe though, were there not enough fans who considered David Tennant the "proper" Doctor?? Were there not enough racists looking for any excuse they could find not to accept that a black man was going to be the Doctor?? And now DT's going to just continue, (and I don't believe for a second that this is the last we're going to see of his Doctor) and Ncuti Gatwa's just... the other Doctor. Not the next Doctor following on from David Tennant or Jodie Whitaker, the Doctor who's also there next to David Tennant, the most amazing wonderfullest specialest Doctor we've ever fucking had, who not only the fandom but the fucking showrunner refuses to let go of.

And RTD's been giggling about "oooh Doctor Who fans aren't going to like this one, I've messed with the Lore, that makes those Serious Old Doctor Who fans who are so certain they're Right so angry!!" so any criticism of That can just be dismissed as whovians taking the show too seriously. Literally any other pair of Doctors would have been better to do this with, except maybe Tom and Jodie. Just. Why would you do this with the first black Doctor? Does the BBC not have a single sensitivity reader? Can you not see a single Unfortunate Implication with this????

[sokkastyles]

what's your opinion about the take "pocahontas zutara"? I'm so tired of this

My take is that comparing indigenous women who choose to be in interracial relationships to the actual tragedy of what was done to Matoaka and her legacy is unconscionably racist and tone deaf and people should not do it. Full stop.

You don't have a right to look at a woman's relationship and say "wow, she must be being abused" because she makes a choice you don't agree with.

[petrichorvoices]

non-Natives cannot be w/nd/go/g. non-Natives cannot be w/nd/gokin, nor w/nd/go extranths, nor any other sort of w/nd/go identity. i don’t say this to be exclusionary, i say this as a Native person who’s tired of our culture and religion being bastardized, appropriated, and stolen by colonizers. i say this as someone who’s tired of plain old racism being excused by those who straight-up don’t care about Native voices

a w/nd/go is not just some cannibal ice monster, nor is it some deer cryptid, nor is it merely a Native personification of evil. it is far, far more than that, and it requires cultural knowledge and experience to really understand. this is knowledge and experience that non-Natives are not let into because of centuries of us sharing our culture with people who take it, misunderstand it, silence us when we try to correct them about it, and then continue to oppress Natives while enjoying cherrypicked parts of our culture

if you, as a non-Native, believe that you may be a w/nd/go; no, you are not. i’d recommend looking into monsters and such that aren’t from closed cultures, as well as potentially taking a look at invented species from things such as the furry culture, and then proceeding to uplift Native voices on this topic

non-Natives are encouraged to reblog this, and please, don’t uncensor the word unless you have to. i don’t want anything coming after me that i’m not prepared for

[blackbackedjackal]

You know I've been feeling a little anxious bc Captain's werewolf form and June's shadowy version of her werewolf form look a lot a like and I always hope no one accuses either of us of design theft like it happened to me with one of my old characters, though I made his werewolf form in like 2020. June is cool as hell (if not cooler) I wouldn't want someone to be a jerk about it. Maybe I should draw them together shaking hands as a preventive measure lol

Heya! I hope this is ok to post but please don't worry about it! June's design is based off of other (mostly animated) werewolf designs I liked, but was given meaning through her story and the reason as to /why/ her form looks a certain way.

It's not that she's just shadowy, it's an intentional visual representation of black trauma. There's are cultural and social stigmas of Black people being systematically denied access to mental health resources or being told that they're just "lazy" or "crazy" or "faking it". June's form is altered by her mental/emotional state, it's what she /believes/ she is due to her past trauma and her story is, in part, learning deal with her trauma in a healthy way.

June's form is also based on the lesser known theories that The Beast of Gévaudan (which June is related to via her lycan lineage) was either a product of mass hysteria from the high number of wolf attacks in the region or was potentially a serial killer. The way the beast is often described (black fur, red lips, white/yellowed eyes and teeth) is similar to racist depictions of Black people in the past. I used this as a basis for designing her form. It's the intention and her story that's important, followed by visuals that are found within the werewolf genre and outside of it.

I'm a little too tired to go more in-depth but I'll leave this quote from the Jim Crow museum:

The mission of the Jim Crow Museum is straightforward: use items of intolerance to teach tolerance. We examine the historical patterns of race relations and the origins and consequences of racist depictions. The aim is to engage visitors in open and honest dialogues about this country's racial history...The Jim Crow Museum is founded on the belief that open, honest, even painful discussions about race are necessary to avoid yesterday's mistakes.

June's story is about racism. It's about intolerance towards black queer folk. It's about how Black people (especially black women) have to suffer under a system that denies them mental health resources, resulting in many Black people turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms. Her design was me intentionally marrying old werewolf motifs with a different perspective on the werewolf genre (since even today is it still mostly a white space). There's a stark difference to me when someone comes up with a similar design independently vs when someone is actively lifting direct inspiration from my work and twisting the meaning in the process.

[lestatslestits]

“Should we start calling Anne racist?”

Yes! If you haven’t started already, you should do that now! Have you even read any of the books written by this dead white woman who you are defending soooooo hard from *checks notes* Black people on Tumblr trying to discuss racism during Black History Month?

Aren’t you tired? Don’t those fuckin’ clown shoes give you blisters?

[punkeropercyjackson]

Saying kid characters of color can't be kids because 'They don't really act that age' is actual rethoric used to adultify irl traumatized younger poc as an excuse to make emotionally abusing or even sexualizing them look not bad.In addition to the racial aspects,this also plays into society's idea that kids can't be people because 'they're too young to comprehend feelings and thoughts' and it provides a safe haven for REAL child abusers both online and in person and it really shows with how often minors in fandom are cyberbullied by adults for speaking up for themselves even outside of this context

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

hi! loving your art. I was watching your awesome stories/gifs and I was wondering: how did Chang develop his feelings for Tintin? Did he discover them before or after him? How did he react and why? (English is not my first language so if you see a grammatical mistake, I'm sorry. Also, sorry if so many questions made you feel like you were in a philosophy exam)

Thank you so much! As a contrast to the rest of the Marlinspike team I'm writing Chang as someone who makes friends and develops crushes pretty easily!

I imagine he's had a crush on Tintin for some time, possibly from when they first met. He's been at the mercy of his circumstances for most of his life until that point - Tintin basically makes him feel capable of doing stuff.

He's pretty heartbroken after the Blue Lotus. Tintin doesn't contact him for years. Chang is struggling to adjust to his new family and is failing at school, having missed out on a good education for a few years prior. Until Tibet he feels pretty hopeless, he will never live up to the time when he took down a drug ring.

His near death experience in Tibet shakes him out of this rut. He starts to travel and take up hobbies like dance and photography. Didi trains him in some basic martial arts. Tintin makes an effort to actually stay in touch this time. Chang has some abandonment issues as he's frequently lost people throughout his life, so he's someone who's willing to give people second chances, even if they've hurt him badly. Chang thinks he's well over his crush on Tintin when he comes around to Belgium for his studies, but falls for him again very quickly!

Unlike Tintin, Chang is a lot more comfortable with who he is. He's used to being the odd one out and has generally low expectations for himself, so just goes with the flow.

Below I talk a little with how I'm going about writing him and the historical context surrounding this, cw for mentions of racism (sinophobia) and queerphobia:

I'm writing Chang as bi, I thought it would be interesting to explore as Asian men were perceived differently in the 30s compared to today. While Asian men in the West are currently heavily desexualised in the early 20th century they were stereotyped as predatory and deviant. In London a lot of Chinese immigrants were male dockworkers, so when they married white women there was a lot of fearmongering about predatory and disloyal Chinese men.

A lot of depictions of Asian men in Western media reflected these stereotypes (and often used queercoding to push the idea of Asian men being animalistic seducers - General Henry Chang in Shanghai Express (1932) was written to be bisexual while posing as a threat to the white leads). Some examples off the top of my head include Hishuru Tori from The Cheat (1915) and The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Novels frequently depicted Chinese drug lords with borderline supernatural powers in manipulation.

On the other hand I've noticed how fans frequently depict Chang as someone who's submissive, demure and soft, which ignores how ridiculously brave and proactive he is in canon (stealing documents from police officers, charging into a man immediately after getting shot at by a machine gun, I could go on!). It's a common example of Fandom Racism (not accusing anyone specifically, it's just a trend I've noticed.)

When writing Chang I'm kinda reckoning with two different eras. From a contemporary angle I'm writing him as a love interest, which as an Asian guy I rarely see in media today. I also gotta consider his own time and context, how he would navigate being a queer Chinese guy, and how that would affect his relationship with others and himself.