#racism stories

[escapistcatontheinternet]

i love the extras of dungeon meshi in how it fleshes out the world because they make it so much more evident how race affects every part of the story while avoiding the zootopia racism problem. like obv a main theme of the story is like, humanity and desire, 'to eat is to live', etc, but since the majority of it takes place in the dungeon isolated from society and thru the lens of laios, the racial aspects play out more like shadows on a wall for most of the story.

then in the extras we get comics like this

which at a glance fleshes out the racial aspects via a character explaining the racial rules of universe - humans have x amount of bones, while orcs and kobolds have more. however, if u take it less straightforwardly, it points out how the concept of 'human' is a constructed concept in the world. the fact that there are different categories of human in different parts of the world based off of what types of humanoids occur there is already a demonstration of this. in response, the bones explanation seems to kabru and the characters as an objective way of measuring humans vs nonhumans.

but obv, when the culture was deciding what humanoids were humans and nonhumans, they weren't blindly analyzing skeletons and then deciding. just visually, one can glean that orcs and kobolds look less like the ingroup of tallmen, elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. the bones explanation appears as a justification for that immediate prejudice under a scientific guise - I'm sure that one could come up with the same number of physical differences between a gnome and an elf that they would find between a tallman and an orc. it sounds a lot better to say 'well, an orc has 230 bones while a human has 206' then 'well, an orc looks ewwww yucky yucky to me while a human looks normal'.

and what i like abt the comic is that the characters take the explanation at face value for the most part. when a contradiction is brought up in the oni, kabru can neatly slot them into the predetermined number of bones framework. bc that's kinda how it works irl - there r cultural prejudices that we can posthumously justify, and if we find something outside of it, we can twist it to fit into our predetermined binary. however, since the reader does not live in a world where there are orcs and kobolds to be prejudiced against, we can see that flaw in the cultural logic. when the party encounters the orcs, the number of bones has no bearing on their humanity. They r shown to be cliquish and distrusting of outsiders, but not any more than the elves are later in the story.

tldr dungeon meshi worldbuilding is so good

[blackfilmmakers]

"Orcs have been hunted down by adventurers for centuries, having their body parts get used in the markets and were all essentially chased out of their homes, but also they are naturally prone to violence and have brutal natures so look out for that in Dungeons"

Like yeah-

[ahaura]

im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

[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.

[nerdpoe]

It's in the Blood.

Danny's adopted, but his parents...aren't who you'd think.

It was a genuine adoption; a teenage mother who couldn't handle a child, giving up a baby to a family better suited for it.

Danny, meanwhile, turned into a halfa, saved the world multiple times, and became the Ghost King.

He's sitting through a boring meeting with the Observants, subtly doing his math homework behind the piles of paperwork in front of him, when one of them says something...off.

"I suppose it would only make sense you'd inherit a throne; you were always destined for one."

After some questioning, prodding, and outright threatening, the Observant flat out says what he means.

Danny's father is Arthur Curry, Aquaman; King of Atlantis.

The only reason Danny survived becoming a halfa the way he did was because of the diluted Atlantean blood in him. It wouldn't be enough for him to live underwater, but it was enough to bolster him so that he could semi-survive high exposure to Ectoplasmic Radiation.

He'd be seen as crippled by any pureblood Atlantean, due to his human heritage outweighing his Atlantean one.

That was what the Observant had meant.

Atlantis was always going to deny Danny the throne there, so of course Fate would rewrite itself to see that the little King got a Throne regardless.

Now Danny has a conundrum.

Because he was invited to a meeting with the Justice League, and Aquaman is absolutely going to be there.

Aquaman, who 100% has no idea Danny exists.

[stil-lindigo]

Source

While reading this interview with a West Bank settler, it's important to remember her views do not represent those of all Israelis just like Israel does not represent all Jews. There has been sizeable protest in Tel Aviv against the genocide (quickly squashed under Netanyahu’s police force just like all other pro-palestinian sentiment) but it’s worth reading to get insight into the minds of average people who cheer on Palestinian deaths, and draw up a chair to watch hellfire rain down on innocents. This is the impact of years of settler-colonial propaganda - a complete dehumanisation of a scapegoat population.

It also has to be said that ALL colonialist countries are complicit in encouraging this kind of extremism, by facilitating and stoking the fires of islamophobia post-9/11. Israel is not an outlier - this kind of sentiment is festering EVERYWHERE and attempting to detach yourself and your country's identity from it is like burying your head in the sand.

If you stand on the side of Palestinians in this crisis, you have to be prepared to recognise the signs of islamophobia and fascism everywhere, and stand against them.

[uncanny-tranny]

Medical racism isn't important to address just because it's mean to be racist to patients (I mean, it is mean), but because medical racism kills people. It contributes to systemic suffering of those deemed non-white, and the disinformation that spreads about non-white people.

[aheathen-conceivably]

Twilight was beckoning over the horizon, battling with the sun as it sunk below the mountains. Its rays cast the final streaks of light through the sky, sending all the colors of the desert into one final blaze. Antoine rarely stayed at Abraham’s ranch this late, at least not when Zelda hadn’t taken Violette up the hill to meet him in the afternoon. But tonight Abe had besieged him with coffee and cigarettes in an uncharacteristic display of emotion; so Antoine remained, sitting with him as the first stars began to appear in the sky. 

The fire was crackling in front of them and Abe seemed antsy, as though he was waiting for the comfort of night before he began speaking. Antoine knew better than to ask what the matter was, or even to be the first to speak, because when he got that way someone else’s attempts to draw the words out only made him bury them deeper inside. So he kept dragging on his cigarette, watching the fire dance as the air grew colder and the sky rapidly fell to the inevitable pull of darkness.

But as the final blue of daylight began to give way to a bruised purple above them, Abe threw his cigarette into the fire and brought his hand to a handle of wood near him that Antoine hadn’t noticed before. His fingers trailed on its tip aimlessly as he kept staring into the fire, “I told you my granddad came out here to herd cattle, didn’t I?” Antoine nodded his head in agreement, a gesture that wasn’t really needed for Abe to continue in a gruff voice, “Well he didn’t. Not really. That came after. He came out here to outrun the patrols after he escaped Alabama.”

Antoine kept his cigarette on his lips. He didn’t have to ask for details to know precisely what Abe meant, or the sort of pain he must have felt in saying any of this. He thought of Silver, and how distrustful she was of anyone. Only horse who ever knew my granddaddy, and he always kept her nearby. 

Abe’s finger ran along the wooden handle next to him and a low note escaped it. Antoine immediately recognized it as a B flat, and then realized that Abe’s hand was nervously moving up and down the handle of a guitar, “This was his. Then my Poppa’s. Only Poppa wasn’t content to stay out here. He got some idea in his head that he was meant to be a blues musician. Word after the war was it was better for us up there, so he moved me out to Chicago chasin’ some dream and false promises when I was just a boy.”

Now the words seemed to come more easily, like a song once it started or the faint dissonance echoing from the strings of a rarely played guitar that had the whole story locked inside its cavernous body. “He never gave up. Not when Momma left him. Not when I married Mabel and moved back out here with Grandad. Not ‘til the riots of ‘19 when he was just on the streets, walking alone back from a gig when the crowd found him, riled up on some horrid hatred and set on violence no matter who crossed their path…”

He stopped in his tracks and moved his hand from the guitar to wipe a lone tear from his eye. The faint sounds that had been coming from his hands on the strings settled into the loud silence of a desert twilight, filling in the ending to the story that Antoine didn’t need to hear to know.

Abe seemed to purposefully pull himself back into the moment, redirecting his attention to the guitar beside him. Then he brought it onto his lap and spoke looking directly at it, as though it had a life and a mind of its own, “You know, all his life he had some hair-brained idea that I would be able to play like him; but truth is I’m no better now than when he himself tried to teach me. And if he couldn’t, nobody can.”

He stretched out his hand, offering Antoine the old but clearly well looked after guitar, “I know I haven’t been able to pay you what your work is worth, and you’re always going on about your piano back in New Orleans, so I thought this might bring you some joy. More joy than it ever brought anybody else, maybe.”

Antoine looked down at the extended instrument frightfully, because he knew it wasn’t just some guitar. It was just as alive as his piano had been, because someone had poured their very soul into it. Abandoning it had been like leaving part of himself behind, the part that had been ripped to shreds and then reassembled by the movement of the keys. He yearned for it every day of his life here, no matter how happy he was.

But the soul in the guitar before him wasn’t his memory, or his pain. It belonged to another man, one who had been parted from it in violence and hatred. “I…I couldn’t, Abe. It’s yours. It’s your father’s, your family’s. Surely it belongs with you.”

Abraham stretched his hand out further, the emotion coming back to him for a minute as his voice went raw and he dared to lock eyes with Antoine, “I insist, chap. I want somebody to play it again. Give it life, make it sing. The way he would’a wanted.”

Abe inched the guitar closer to Antoine, and he moved his arms to accept the burdened gift. Because how could he say no to that? He had seen himself in Abe since the day they met, in his humor and the incessant guard he refused to let down. They spent nearly every day together, mostly talking about horses or work, somehow never with the need to show any other side of themselves. Now here he was, without armor or pretense, asking for nothing but to see some semblance of his father’s memory find life and joy again.

As Antoine settled the guitar in his lap, Abe left his hand on its neck for a moment. Then he let it fall away, moving the strings along with him as though it were saying goodbye. With his palm wrapped around them, every echoed sound moved up Antoine’s arm into his soul, as though it were speaking directly to him.

[pigdemonart]

I think its really cute that Manuel gets the most love from comments! I think he deserves it, because even I have dubbed him as the Best Boy. But, Mani has mixed feelings about receiving praise and being considered the favorite. He’d sooner think people are lying to him than believe they actually like him that much. Because, why would they?

His view of himself comes from years of being stuck in the middle.

[pisscreant]

I'm so glad that my fav story has such good 'wasian raised in racist environment' angst it's so specifically relateable to me. it's a common experience but a bit hard to find in media

Kim my dear friend, my enemy, my idiot elder brother... the white men that you'd die for would feed your bones to their dogs if they decided it was "necessary"......

[pomodoko]

I'm allowed to be uncomfortable by a man with a one-sided obsession on a woman ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

? Okay radfem in the making? Isn't Marcille the same in her drive to bring Falin back, to the point she used the Dark Arts to perform fucking Necromancy (highly illegal and banned across all nations as of right now in anime canon)? You people were applauding her for her sacrifice and her drive, and yet Shuro who has a crush on her, who fell in love with her authentic self (her compassionate nature, her love for creatures others would be disgusted by, ie, dungeon caterpillar) is hated. He acknowledged he was wrong in mistrusting Laios, but when he left the party, he still risked his own life to find her, to the point he's on the verge of starvation and exhaustion. His dedication to saving her is born from the same love and appreciation Marcille and Laios held for Falin.

I understand that the prospect of a man in love is disgusting to you, especially if that man is from other culture with different courting customs than you. But can you at least recognize his drive? And that despite him proposing to her once, he never pushed her to marry him? She told him to wait and he did, for months. None of his behavior on screen has shown him to be lecherous. If she had told him no and he kept pushing, then it would be seen as obsession and creep behavior.

I don't mind that you dislike him, but you're refusing to acknowledge the depth of character Ryoko Kui is bringing to the table. That, I dislike.

[blazingcobaltx]

I think we'd all benefit from having more stories about the refugee's journey. People speak callously about refugees because they don't know what it feels like to leave a literal life behind just to save your family. They don't know what morally grey stuff is involved to get out of a country that is turning against them. Without these narratives we will always demonise refugees rather than sympathise with a fate that could befall anyone.

[crippled-peeper]

I haven’t seen anyone on my dash talking about this:

At least 215 bodies lie buried in secret graves behind a state jail in Jackson, Mississippi.

Bettersten Wade's 37-year-old son Dexter left home with a friend March 5, 2023, but didn't return. She filed a missing person report and continued contacting the authorities for months about his disappearance but got no reply. It was not until five months later that an investigator came to her home to tell her that Dexter was dead. According to the official story, just an hour after leaving home Dexter was hit by a police car driven by an off-duty cop. The authorities claim they have been unable to reach her—despite finding her son’s wallet in his pocket with his ID and her address. Dexter's body was buried behind the jail with the number 672 stuck to the pole.

[kenniex2]

it is so painfully obvious that white gays have never been oppressed or marginalized outside of their queerness. y’all see Mizu, a woman marginalized into hiding her gender for her own safety and you think it’s a story about you. You’ve never been discriminated against as a woman of color. All the people on this site that I have seen saying the same things as me are other women or people of color, with few outliers, who understand what Mizu is going through. I’m sorry that you’re starving for representation but so are we, if you want to project go watch Nimona or Our Flag Means Death. If you want to understand, you need to sit down and shut up.

if you think this is a story about a trans man you are missing the point

if you think this is a story about a man you are missing the point

[phoenixyfriend]

A week or two ago my sister and I were walking the dog and ran into a middle-aged couple also walking their dog

And obviously we talked dog names

They said theirs was named Meimei

Before I thought better of it, I said "oh, like the Mandarin for 'Little Sister'!"

In the second before they responded, I just about died because What If I'm Wrong And They're From A Different Country And I Just Assumed

Then they said I was right (yay) and asked how I knew that (uh oh)

And I had a DIFFERENT kind of major embarrassment

Because I had to admit I knew it due to Firefly

[shewhotellsstories]

Among other things, it’s just the double standard for me. Two people can be sworn enemies and be shipped, people can be different species and be shipped, two people can be full blooded siblings and be shipped, two dudes who talk about their feelings with each other are shipped and seriously guys, more power to you. Go nuts. But ask yourselves why fandoms will get on board with just about any pairing on vibes alone, but only seem to suddenly become passionate about friendship when a Black girl’s involved.