#stache present? let’s just say horses

[1343-40]

literally insane face card like what

[crusherthedoctor]

Christmas Time, Christmas Island

"Still awake, eh?"

"Well, that's insomnia for you, isn't it?"

Sonic the Hedgehog had been enjoying his time in the island of Viridonia, despite uncovering yet another plot by the deranged madman known as Dr. Eggman. Tonight however, he was having a little rest. The winter season was approaching, and him and his friends had went to a particular foresty area by the Gleaming Meadows, where it was said to be the first place in the meadow that you could see the drop of snow.

Alas, there had not yet been a single drop. They had waited for a fair while, but still nothing. By this point, Tails, Amy and Cream had fallen asleep comfortably after having waited for so long, but Sonic was still keeping a watchful eye, grateful that his surroundings were at least pleasant to look at under the night sky. Luckily for him, he wasn't alone on that, for the newest friend he had made, Lutrudis, was doing the same thing.

"Not tired yourself either?" the horse inquired.

"Nah," the hedgehog replied, as he remained comfortable resting by the biggest tree in the meadow. Having finished carefully pulling a blanket over their other three friends (evidently, she predicted not all of them would be staying awake through this event), Lutrudis sat down beside Sonic and followed suit, though she did so very carefully so as not to flare up her fragile body.

"How often do you get snow in winter?" Sonic asked.

"Goes either way, really," Lutrudis shrugged, as she very mildly crossed her legs. She chuckled. "Either there's too much, or there's barely much. And half the time it comes a month later. I could quite possibly count all the White Christmases I've experienced with my two hands... Everyone tends to just hang out in Sapphire Tundra for the festivities, since there's always plenty of snow there regardless."

Sonic smirked at her. "And how do you feel about snow personally?"

"It can be a bit inconvenient at times, but it's pleasant to look at." She brushed a gloved hand through her silky smooth ponytail, which was interrupted by a light cough. "Makes the asthma a right pain, though."

"Aww, if I had known about that, we could have stayed in your castle."

"It's fine," Lutrudis smiled as she continued looking up at the starry clouds. "You guys wanted to see this, so that's the top priority. Just hope it actually happens at some point..."

"Heh."

They both took in the environment for a moment. The swift breeze was the only prominent sound throughout the meadow, outside of their friends' light snoring. Amazingly, Cheese the Chao snored the heaviest. Eventually, Lutrudis broke the silence.

"Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"Talking of Christmas... you used to live on Christmas Island, right?"

"Yeah."

"If it's not too nosy of me to ask... what was it like there?"

Sonic blinked. It had been so long since the last time the memory of Christmas Island had even occurred to him. He honestly couldn't recall the last time he had discussed the subject. But he saw no reason to be secretive. Tails knew about his past history, as did Amy. What harm would revealing it to Lutrudis do?

"Well, it was pretty boring to be honest," he laughed. "I mean, it was nice and all, and the coconuts there were delicious. But I was thirsty for journey even when I was a little guy, and it was never going to appease me. You can only run around the same place so many times before you lose interest, know what I mean?"

"I suppose..." In reality, Lutrudis didn't necessarily agree, since she had always loved her frequent walks through the same forest surrounding her castle. But she understood her friend's needs and desires, and she wasn't going to shoot them down.

"I remember my mom and dad were always lecturing me," Sonic reminisced wistfully. "Always telling me to stay nearby, look both ways, do this, don't do that, be home at six, don't break the sound barrier again..." He chuckled once more. "They were good parents though. I respected them. Just kinda overprotective of me, that's all."

Lutrudis fiddled with her ponytail again. "I guess they got an awful fright when you started risking your life on a routine basis, huh?"

"Heh, you could say that," Sonic grinned sheepishly. "Especially with how young I was."

"You were fighting nasty fiends that early on?"

"Sure was! It wasn't just my need for adventure that kicked in early." He broke out a confident smile. "So did my need to stick it to 'em. Ain't letting jerks messing with my friends, or my planet."

Lutrudis' own smile grew more intimate, as she glanced to her side at the heroic hedgehog, with one hand on her chest, and the other resting her head. His altruistic heart was one of his greatest qualities in her eyes, and it contributed heavily to her admiration for him, even before she had met him in person.

"So then, what manner of dastardly rapscallions did you kick up the rear back in the day?" she asked in a playful tone.

"Oh, nothing extraordinary for the most part, just a bunch of petty crooks. They never prepared themselves for the good ol' Sonic Spin." He mimiced his signature attack by spinning his index finger. "Although there was one exception... There was this one time where I was menaced by a goblin."

A brief silence ensued before Lutrudis fully realised what Sonic had just said. She looked at him in mild bafflement.

"A goblin?"

"Yep. A goblin." Even years later, Sonic himself couldn't quite believe it either. "He was a big lug too, about the size of a building. Clawed hands, bald head, fangs, pointy nose..." He shivered for a bit. "He was kinda freaky. His name was Baron Giga."

"Baron Giga..." The lady horse had to stifle her laughter upon hearing such a ridiculous name. "Talk about naming yourself after your most obvious attribute."

The hero laughed nervously, clearly aware about the irony of her joking with a quick-footed hedgehog named Sonic. He quickly changed course.

"Well anyway, this guy was all big and mighty, and he was all..." He puffed his chest in preparation for his subsequent impression. "Foolish mortals! I'm the great goblin king! And your precious island is now mine! Muhahahahaha!"

He turned his head in Lutrudis' direction. "He had a really stupid voice by the way. Like it wasn't actually his voice, if you know what I mean."

"I see," Lutrudis commented, still lightly amused by his impression. Her hand was brushing gently against the petals of a daisy. "Did he have any ghastly minions?"

"You bet he did! He had walking cannons, and walking hands!"

"Ooooooh...!"

"And there were freakish hands with wings, and big googly eyes!"

"Spooky..."

"And there was this one that looked..." Sonic paused, as he attempted to find a suitable comparison for a creature with a long blunt object on its head. He was visibly embarrassed by what came to mind. "...Well, I don't know how to describe it. It was a weird looking one."

"So what happened?"

"Hm?"

"How did you stop him? Did you do it on your own?"

Sonic was ready to answer, but as a certain realisation kicked in, a gradual look of reluctance began to shape itself onto the hedgehog's face. Whatever the next part of the tale was, he clearly did not want to remember it. He hesitated briefly, before finally continuing.

"Well, not exactly..."

------

"Are you the local hero, Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Yeah! That's me!"

"Thank goodness! Pleased to meet you. I'm afraid I'm in need of a bit of help..."

"Where are we going?"

"Oh, you'll see in just a second."

The young Sonic was taken aside by an older man. He couldn't guess how old the man was, but he appeared to be somewhere in his later years at the very least. The man did not seem at all bothered by the heat the scorching sun was passing down onto his hairless cranium. Not that Sonic focused too hard on that part, for he was more hypnotised by the man's extremely bushy moustache, as well as his deep pink nose. What on earth could cause a nose to turn so pink...?

"So like, are you a scientist or somethin'?" The little hog took notice of the humble little laboratory he was escorted into. Machine parts were scattered all across a bunch of tables and desks, some of them vaguely resembling insect appendages for some strange reason. There was also the occasional beaker on the desks, each of them filled with brightly colored liquids. Who knows what they could be for...?

"That's right, kid," the man stroked his brown 'stache as he examined his own private domain. "They don't call me Doctor Ivo Robotnik for nothing. I earned my PhDs, I'll have you know!"

"P h what...?"

"Well, anyway," Robotnik started, seemingly trying not to notice his acquaintance's lack of awareness regarding his profession. "I don't come from here, but I'm aware of this island's plight with Baron Giga, and I wanted to do what I could to help. Just as well then that I've been researching entities like the baron for the last few years now, as I find them deeply fascinating... Which means I know how to confront this menace efficiently."

The scientist went up to a suspicious curtain in the corner of his lab, and removed it as dramatically as he could. To the kid's amazement, behind the curtain was a huge machine of some sort. It looked very much incomplete, and it didn't even boast a single coat of paint, but the basic foundation was very much present. Its appearance was highly reminiscent of a humanoid, and upon squinting, Sonic could make out a similar moustached shape near the head.

"That looks cool!" Sonic exclaimed in literal childlike ecstasy. His spines had spiked out as an impulsive extension of his excitement. "You gonna use this junk to beat up the goblin guy?"

"That is the purpose of this machine, yes," Robotnik confirmed matter of factly. He followed it up with a depressed sigh. "Or at least, if I had more rings..."

"Rings...?"

Robotnik promptly took out a map of blueprints and shared it with Sonic. The hedgehog could make out from the highly detailed schematics that the machine was making use of the rings he had seen throughout the island, or to be more specific, the mysterious energy that they often came with.

"My mech requires a particularly powerful source of fuel in order to function to its best ability," Robotnik explained, all the while trying to make sure the little hedgehog's focus actually remained on the blueprints and not elsewhere. "Therefore, I've been collecting rings for that purpose. But the amount I have as of now is hardly enough..."

He sprinted to the giant computer in his lab, surprisingly so for someone his age, and using his impressively fast typing prowess, he got the computer to confirm exactly how charged up his mech was. As of current, it reached up to a pitiable 20%. The doctor's moustache drooped as he sighed once again, as if on purpose.

"That baron has been stealing all the rings for himself," he muttered while gesticulating with one hand. "Probably for some silly witchcraft nonsense, you know these types." He chuckled sadly, like a warm-hearted grandfather. "But that's why I need your help."

"Me?" Sonic didn't even know this person. How was this scientist so sure about him?

"Only you can collect enough rings before it's too late." Robotnik then proceeded to cough and splutter as though he were ill, though if it hadn't been for Sonic's idealistic youthfulness, he may have sensed it wasn't a genuine cough. "I'm just an old man, after all. My best days are long behind me, and I only want to help make the world a better place while I still can..."

"Well, don't worry!" the kid grinned and waved a finger out of cockiness. "I'll help you get those rings, Eggman!"

"...Eggman...?"

"Yeah, that's my name for ya." Sonic gave the doctor a wink. "Cause you're kinda shaped like an egg and all... so I'm gonna call you Eggman!"

"...I see." Robotnik didn't show much reaction to the new nickname he was suddenly given, though his body language subtly emphasized that he wasn't too keen on it. "Right, well then, I guess you better get started on your little adventure."

"Alright! But uh, where should I go?"

"Anywhere, really. No doubt the baron's demons will be scattered all around the island. If you find THEM, you'll find their rings." The doctor walked back to his mech, having brought out a wrench and several additional tools to continue working on his homemade creation. "You collect the rings, I complete the mech. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. A team effort, if you will!"

Sonic began revving up already. "No worries, I'll have them all in a flash!" He flashed another grin to Robotnik, along with a good-natured thumbs up. "Catch ya later, Eggman!"

And with that, he was gone in an flash. Unfortunately, the scale of his speed had caused all sorts of blueprints to be knocked over all around the lab, much to the doctor's grumbling exasperation.

------

"So you were working with Eggman?" Lutrudis asked, with a hint of surprise.

"Essentially, yeah." Sonic scratched his ear before continuing. "We teamed up to beat Giga and his... 'demons'. He seemed pretty cool at the time. A bit eccentric, cause it was still Eggman, but y'know."

"Well, that's certainly fascinating," the horse noted, as she gently stroked one of her legs with her other. "To think he was a decent man at first, that he once had noble intentions, and wasn't always so selfish and cruel... Goodness, I can't even imagine living in a reality where he wasn't a ripe stinker. Must have been something alright."

As soon as she said that however, she was quick to notice the growing look of hurt on Sonic's face. As she examined his uncharacteristically quiet discomfort, she gradually figured out that she had spoke too soon. Her own ears mildly drooped in disappontment at what her friend's body language spelled out to her.

"Oh... he was... he was a stinker the whole time, wasn't he..."

Sonic simply looked aside dejectedly, as he recalled that one moment...

------

"I got the last rings, Eggman! The hand monster gave me a hard time, but I snatched them off from hi-"

Sonic cut himself off in shock at what he witnessed upon arriving back at the lab. Robotnik was there as expected, as was his big mech... but so were rows upon rows of smaller droids, each of them based on a variety of members of the animal kingdom. He had also just interrupted the process of Robotnik working on something... something that looked an awful lot like Baron Giga. The doctor was visibly flushed upon Sonic's arrival.

"Ah... Sonic... you finished up earlier than expected..."

"What's... what's all this, doc?"

Robotnik stumbled for a little bit. "I was just, uh... just finishing a side project of mine! Wanted to do even more to fight the good fight, you know?"

"Doc... what is this?" Sonic asked again, this time more firmly. "Why is Giga here? Why are you doing stuff on him? And is this... an army...? You never mentioned anything about making an army..."

Robotnik stroked his moustache to bide some brief time as he thought out his response. "It's all to fight Baron Giga with, see? There's a strength in numbers, you understand. As for this... erm..." He motioned towards what appeared to be the very Giga himself. "...A lifelike replication. For locating weaknesses and whatnot. Yes, that's right..." 

He quickly rubbed his hands. "Now then, the final rings, please..."

He extended a hand, but was instead greeted with Sonic hesitating, even hiding them away from the doctor's view. The young hedgehog looked troubled, and alert. He didn't like the feel of any of this.

"What's going on, Eggman...?" He looked up at the other, desperately wanting an answer.

Robotnik looked down at Sonic for a few seconds, unable to say anything at first. But then, he slowly kneeled down to match Sonic's point of view, and just as methodically, he took off his glasses for the hedgehog's sake. Sonic was greeted with a pair of regular blue eyes, as the scientist pleaded for forgiveness.

"Sonic... I'm sorry," he started, as he put a hand on the other's shoulder. "Baron Giga doesn't exist. I created him. I should have been more honest with you, but I didn't want you to have even more on your plate than what was necessary."

"But... I don't understand..."

"It was a test, you see. A test to show that you truly were the hero people said you were, and to make us more prepared for when something like Giga happens for real. The world is a dangerous place, and there's a lot of threats out there. We have to do what we can to protect our world from them."

Sonic remained silent. It didn't make sense to him, and he still felt hurt about being lied to.

"I understand why you may not trust me," Robotnik muttered quietly. He briefly looked aside at the floor, as if to accentuate his apparent remorse. "But do you not recognise our potential? This situation may have been staged, but our efforts were not. We can do great things together, Sonic... extraordinary things. We can be heroes together... But I need those rings if that is ever to happen."

Sonic hesitated still. He kept glancing slowly between the old man's face, and the rings he currently held in his own hand. Robotnik ushered him once.

"Do the right thing, Sonic... I know you can..."

Unable to dither for any longer, Sonic closed his eyes tightly as he gave Robotnik his last bundle of rings. Robotnik gently patted him on the head for his assistance.

"Thank you," Robotnik whispered. He quickly put his glasses back on, obscuring his eyes once more. "You've helped me change the world for the better."

After taking some time to accept his decision, Sonic slowly started to relax as the doctor applied the energy of the rings to his towering mech, before climbing inside it himself.

After a few seconds of inactivity, Robotnik's masterpiece slowly came to life, like a robotic Frankenstein's monster. By the doctor's piloted command, it broke free from the tubes that had formerly kept it wired up, and a small number of lumbering steps each caused a slight tremor throughout the lab. Sonic looked up at the doctor's cockpit, gradually regaining his previous excitement and enthusiasm about the project. As the mech walked all the way across the room, just outside the laboratory's exit, it turned towards Sonic's direction, and its mechanical hand gave a proud thumbs up to the kid. Sonic grinned, and gave a thumbs up himself.

"So doc, what's the first threat that needs taken care of?" he asked jovially.

He could only barely see the doctor's face in the cockpit, but he could hear a bit of laughter from him... It didn't sound at all like an ordinary laugh... And the thumb of the mech was rotating slowly, yet surely, until it was upside down, pointed firmly at the floor...

"Ho ho ho... you."

"What...?"

As if by instinct, every last one of the smaller robots had immediately come to life. Some of them revved up their wheels, while others flapped their wings, but all of them focused solely on the blue hedgehog, and before he could realise what was happening, before he could respond with anything other than confusion, before he could seek for an explanation...

"Thanks for everything, kid."

And right on cue, the robots began to attack and overwhelm the poor boy, while Robotnik - Eggman, as christened by the one he was now leaving for dead - left the scene in his mech.

------

"That fiend..." Lutrudis muttered in disbelief with clenched fists. "That dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking fiend... And while you were a child, no less... I'm so sorry..."

"Don't sweat it," Sonic shrugged casually. "It worked out in the end. I wrecked up those robots, and I caught up to him and beat him. It wasn't easy though..."

"If Eggman wanted the rings," Lutrudis mused as she scratched the back of her ear. "Why did he even bother with the whole Giga smoke and mirrors? He was going to get the rings with or without your help, surely?"

"It wasn't about the rings," Sonic explained stoically. His arms were now crossed. "It was about keeping me distracted. He knew I could have been a threat to his operations, so he did all that to get me out of the way without me even suspecting he was up to something. By painting another target."

"Well... you got him in the end," Lutrudis put her hand on Sonic's shoulder, and rubbed it tenderly. "You set things right. Like every time after."

As Sonic recalled his first proper fight with the mad scientist, he was bothered not so much by the fight itself - though being forced to fight who he thought was a friend was certainly hard to swallow - but rather, all the things the doctor called out to him as they traded blows:

"Is it Eggman that you want? Then it's Eggman that you'll get!"

"Who am I to dismiss a name for your king?"

"You could have avoided all this if you were more like me, and just thought!"

"They only care about the hero! The legend! They don't care about YOU!"

"They'll turn against you one day! They always do! Take it from me, kid! No one likes what isn't normal! I was shunned for my genius, and so will you for your speed!"

"Where are your friends now, Sonic? Oh, that's right, they don't exist!"

Sonic looked up at the night sky as he remembered those biting words... before glancing at Tails, Amy and Cream, who still remained asleep even now. He then glanced at Lutrudis, who in turn caught his vision. His smile slowly began to return.

"So.. what did you do after that?" the horse queried.

"Well, I cleaned the place up, made sure everyone was okay, got yelled at by my parents for trusting a stranger... then I left."

"You just... left?"

"Yep. The ol' adventure thirst was calling, and after what happened with Eggman... I felt uncomfortable there. Couldn't shake it off me."

"How did you leave?"

"I..." Sonic hesitated, knowing what he was about to say was going to sound rather inexcusable no matter how he put it. "I erm... I stole my dad's plane."

Lutrudis blinked. She took a few seconds to contemplate, then blinked again.

"Right."

"Yeah, I know..." Sonic scratched his left quill, ashamed at what he just admitted to.

Another brief period of quietness followed. The night remained as beautiful as when they had arrived, and the stars continued to glow radiantly. Upon breaking the silence this time around however, Lutrudis' tone grew more lighthearted.

"You ever gonna give it back to him then?" She let out a joking smirk.

"Ah, heh heh, I think too much time has passed for that..." Sonic's face grew even redder as they continued discussing his rather delinquent theft. "Tails has modified it to infinity by this point anyway... I really should talk to them again though."

Lutrudis looked once more in the direction of the sleeping Tails. Though you couldn't tell at first glance due to the sheet, the bumps in the sheet made it obvious that his titular twin tails were keeping the similarly dozing Amy and Cream warm. Lutrudis' heart couldn't help but melt ever so slightly.

"You've got good friends," she commented, as she looked in Sonic's direction. "Who cares about Eggman, when you have them."

"Sounds about right," Sonic agreed with a satisfied nod. He wagged his finger with a wink and a smirk. "But don't leave yourself out, Trudy. You're pretty cool as well."

Lutrudis tried to fight back the bashfulness she felt in response, to blatantly little success. She rubbed her arm and glanced down at the flowers around them, before looking back up at Sonic's famous emerald eyes.

"You too, Sonic," she assured him quietly. She didn't seem to be aware that her tail was swishing to and fro, just a little bit.

"Oh, wait...! Is that... ... ...yeah, it is! The snow's came!"

"It has?"

Sonic and Lutrudis both stood up, and sure enough, the first few drops of snow were gently falling. Sonic quickly, yet carefully, attempted to wake his other friends. Controlling his own glee, he waited for them to reach a reasonable level of semi-consciousness before continuing.

"Guys, wake up! The snow came!"

"Whuzzat...?"

"Oh, yes! At last!"

"Snow? Yay!!!"

"Chao!!!"

Wasting no time, Cream and Cheese used their ears and wings respectively to fly closer to the new snowfall, followed shortly by Tails. The snowflakes glistened marvellously, and the celestial skies complimented their pristine elegance. Amy looked at her flying comrades with a hearty laugh, as she waited for Tails to hover down and pick her up so that she could get a closer look as well.

Sonic simply stood there, with his hands firmly on his hips. He smiled at the sight of his friends enjoying themselves. He turned to Lutrudis, who stood beside him.

"Well, I guess we could be in for a ~White Christmas~ after all."

"Quite so... Wait a minute, don't tell me you're about to-"

"~Iiiii'm... dreeeeamiiiing~" Sonic started, as he shamelessly showed off his impressive vocals. He followed this up with a slow, yet goofy dance. His grin was wide, knowing full well that he was indulging in silliness. "~Of a Whiiiite... Christmaaasss~"

"Oh, jeez," Lutrudis laughed out loud, as she shyly covered her face with one hand. One thing would always remain certain: this was Sonic the Hedgehog alright.

[blasianangrymom]

What do white people dream about: the struggle for representation

What do rich white people dream about?

Putting overtime in the unconscious to fight the battle to be considered human, as I am.

I like to imagine that out there is some person who is spending their precious time asleep dreaming relaxing, fanciful dreams.

This morning I dreamt of a brown person (sometimes he was South Asian but then sometimes he was Black, as dream characters can shape-shift without any reason or problem within the dream) with a mustache who was wrongfully imprisoned for about twenty-three years according to NPR.

I remember wondering what crime he was accused of. It turned out that I knew somehow that his mother was killed and he was wrongfully imprisoned; his father had his life upturned because he was under suspicion as well. The Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person went into the slammer when there was no internet or ATMs. He was seventeen, and he came out a middle-aged man.

In the dream, I meet him again and pour him some special whisky I got from Canada. We sit down together with friends in my living roothis My tall Nordic friend Stacey is here. I have a tiny glass cup from Hokkaido with lilies etched on it that I usually serve my daughter water or milk in. There’s some leftover whiskey in it. There are several glasses of whiskey, enough for the whole crowd of a few close, yet, for now, faceless white friends standing in my dining room, and we drink to the Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person. Right now, he presents as a striking South Asian, maybe  E. Indian, jet-black hair with a part and a barely-there wave to it, rather long. He has an intense set of eyes that stare deep and is mustachioed with an almost-comically bushy (it’s shaped hipster- or 19th century person-like, but not quite handlebar as the ends don’t curl up) ’stache.  I offer Stacey my baby’s water cup with the little bit of golden whiskey to drink to the Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person. She shrugs when I give her the leftover baby whiskey and plops it in her drink. Now, the whiskey in the cup has magically turned into milk. She makes a face (we all do). I’m sure her milk/whiskey-Jaeger-bomb (did she plop it in a beer? I’ll never know.) was nasty as hell. The white woman on NPR interviewing Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person says, “How do you deal with anger?” He begins to answer, a vague, polite, canned response, I cynically think. The dream ends.

When I was fed a steady diet of U.S. media growing up, I used to dream in racist. After all, it was what was around me and being ingested by me at least three to four hours a day and upwards of thirty or more hours a week. I remember in one instance, there was a tiny leathery-skinned Mexican mini-man who was about to shoot me with a revolver bigger than he was as I hung crucified on a cross between two other crosses at the edge of a cliff. He was obviously a pseudo-person modelled off of America’s favorite Mexican, the mouse Speedy Gonzales. I did not question the strange Mexican at the time; it was about 1993 and I was under ten years old. I just remember feeling terror at the prospect of being shot.

Now that I deal in anti-racist work as a full-time, compulsory position, balancing that with writing and working full time as contributor to the economy+mom+wife+daughter+friend and erstwhile art-scenester, I put in overtime during my dreams.

I had the Stay at Home Mom-privilege  of attending white anti-racist notable Robin DiAngelo’s daytime workshop on Understanding Structural and Institutional Racism about a year ago. Though it was heartening to have my perspectives and feelings validated as a person of color, i.e. “you’re not crazy in thinking that white people as a social order do not acknowledge or care that you exist, because the current wave of racism is that of white isolation,” it was also re-triggering to re-live all the ways in which our society, government, business, and media are racist. She provided AV slides of the ways in which even the Donkey (its black afro-puff, brown fur, and Black male voice Eddie Murphy) from Shrek supports White Supremacy in that he dreams of his best self being a white horse with a straight, flowing white mane. Ah, Racial Purity.

After attending the workshop, that night my dreams were again colonized by racism. I dreamt that my great-grandfather had a soymilk factory in the 1800s. I was transported to a seaside ghost resort town with little commerce other than a giant gymnasium that was the former site of a world’s fair. I walked around in the giant gymnasium and upon stepping into my great-grandfather’s circular novelty soymilk wave machine (it used to contain a shit ton of soymilk and could fit probably 3-4 people at a time), I suddenly had a vision of the past. The black-and-white relics--neon signs and old machines, etc. all around me suddenly turned to a burnt sepia, with a scratchy phonographic soundtrack to match. I saw that the one Asian and possibly the only person of color (though, what would They have called us back then? Mongol-savage-oriento-afroloids?) exhibiting at the fair was my great-grandfather. He might have even had on a bowler hat or top hat and suit and tie with coattails. Although nothing major actually happened in this within-a-dream flashback, I witnessed my great-grandfather, a proud soymilk-factory-owning man and successful entrepreneur, walking along the boardwalk by himself. The other business stands, white people, sniggered, jeered, and/or glared at him as he walked by them. I saw his pride melt away as they reduced his self-image to that of a buck-toothed, queue-having yellow Oriental with slanted eyes. He had to go back to his particular corner--which it turns out wasn’t with the entrepreneurs selling their wares and promoting industry--it was the circus area alongside the naked Filipinos who were supposed cannibals or dog-eaters or whatever “savage” act the fair organizers had them on display for. As in the dream, I woke up crying.

--

the TICKING TIME BOMB to infinity

So much of my short (or long) 31 years has been spent unlearning self-hate. So, much of my motherhood (13 months) is seeking the tools to prevent self-hate from being inculcated in my daughter. I’ve tried the following tactics in the past few years:

1. Educating white folks about racism by explaining how POC are affected (failed; work in progress).

2. Encouraging white folks to think about their own racism by explaining how they enact the white Gaze of Normalcy (meh, like pulling teeth; work in progress)

And my new tactic is?

1. Expressing among people of color groups how we can unite together and work on our own inter-ethnic and internalized racism (total fucking failure; work in progress), without white people around.

I pore over the internet looking for baby books featuring children of color so Ruby can see that her absence does not mean she is deficient in some way. There are books out there, but few with characters that look like her Blasian, beautiful self. The best we can shoot for is Latina in terms of a skin color similarity. What well-intentioned folks saying “just read a book with animals in it” don’t understand is the negation of the self through absence.

I can’t say for men of color, specifically Asian-American males, what it means to be constantly invisible, but in a society where women and girls are judged and valued for their beauty--their image--I assume that there is an extra urgency for little girls to see themselves reflected back at them in a sea of images of white girls as the ideal--blonde thin pretty ones.

ways the struggle exacerbates the time confetti experience of ladiez

*community

*education to self affirm

*carving space

*fighting self-hate

*getting hated on

The multilayer cake to eat and have (not). I. The Need.

Fake it til you make it?

Picture perfect? Minivans and soccer?

Clean House? Therapy? (Do you KNOW how many choices of therapists there are that are people of color let alone women of color?)

Happy Marriage?

Adjusted baby?

When your early childhood experiences have the sting of you being the butt end of some racial shit--white people hating on your special i.e. otherness, you spend a lot of time trying to prevent that for your own child. When you are the sole actor of color in an ensemble of whites only, burnout is inevitable.

*CARVING SPACE

*COMMUNITY *EDUCATION *ACTIVISM *ART?

The cycle of hate, anger and release

The Asian mom way of parenting based upon fear and trepidation -- probably has some merit to it. Considering the way that parents of color have a different set of concerns than white parents - i.e. will my child be racially targeted, racially objectified, along with the worry of some kind of sexual violence. Who has time to be in the struggle, be a picturesque lady (whatever the fuck that entails), a loving partner and co-parent, be a feminist revolutionary? And have dinner, a clean house, and a put-together sense of calm?

In the same way la French Madame Louise Bourgeois carves things--makes sculptures from raw materials--because she’s not happy with the way things are---I will be

CARVING A FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE.

Carving a fortress of solitude involves twisting time’s masculinist arm to your will. A feminist has to block out messages of inferiority due to X unfinished business (manicure-less hands? Messy hair? Messy kitchen? No food hot, ready, and lovingly made from scratch?).

Here’s the thing though. A mother of color has to strategically choose from which stone to carve her time for RELAXATION and DECOMPRESSION and it is unlikely she will ever have a truly freed space without the use of heavy intoxicants.

Should she take time away from her precious family to soothe herself? Well she’s been has taught her to self-sacrifice as a woman, and likely culturally as well. My mom ate leftovers and she ate last if at all with the family, leaving the best for everyone else. She worked so hard to scrimp and save and to this day gives me a mountain of um, “useful” items like the 1980s “Can Crusher” or the acne-reduction face wash from circa 1995, In order if just to save the environment from waste and to save me a little money. Squeezing fractions of pennies from thrift shop finds like squeezing blood from a stone.

The thing about carving time is it feels like the easiest option is not to do it. Should I carve from that sparkly gem, the sleep stone? Be extra-productive by not sleeping? Okay, my (insert task) can be accomplished but then I feel like shit all day.

In the hyper-connected social media activist age where we SAHMs (stay at home moms) are underemployed if at all by the current economic system, Angry POC groups or blogs can serve as a therapeutic source of community. If I have time after deigning to attempt to keep all the beings of the house fed, watered, and diapered , I can then put on my volunteer/do gooder/activist/get knowledge hat.

My Baby broke my glasses while I was riveted by an interethnic race relations article. I assume this means something.

Is the question of either a Do I need to choose between a productive life OR a peaceful life OR an activist life OR a wife and Mom life?

The Madonna-Whore complex and Momcat Can you be a sexy, mom, activist, feminist, aesthete professional wife-partner? Do you have the energy to do so?

The Bechdel test for moms

STEREOTYPE THREAT.

Carving space from: -sleep -baby -relationship -self -idealism -volunteering -achieving professional goals -writing -art -house -eating

Every mom becomes a pragmatist. Ideals? What are/were those? Moments to breathe not filled with the drudgery of daily tasks? I can no longer fathom without much ___

SPACE TO BREATHE

giving yourself permission to be okay, say that you’re okay, in a space where clearly you are not okay. A suspension of the social order. A brief moment in time. Upsetting the social order. And not feeling bad about it. Women are in the caring industry. Do we become callous to the needs of others in order to care for ourselves? Is our pain and suffering and struggle REQUISITE to the order of society and is the corollary of this true?

CARVING SPACE for healing. In the fortress of solitude -- we set aside and get away from the din of the roar of inferiority, the voices in our own heads, hearts, that we’ve absorbed from around us. There are frequent breaks that create more fissures to patch up -- getting hated on (WHEN YOUR OWN PEOPLE hate on your daughter or your dude for being non-anglo-featured or non-light-skinned--it is a non-revolutionary betrayal and yet another fissure in the romantic idea that all POC want the same thing--equality, empowerment, self-acceptance + reminds me how much the struggle is of liberating our own colonized hearts and minds.)--

FIGHTING SELF HATE -- This society thrives on our invisibility and availability as willing participants + Free/low wage/slave labor, as women, as mothers. Our pursuits and perspectives are not valued monetarily because they are assumed. The feminine is not productive - yet our wombs (apologies to those for whom this is not true) and the work of our hands are fertile fecund as fuck. Recognizing our own power and strength is only one piece of empowerment.

I wasn’t a feminist until now; good job ma.

The struggle to accept femininity was due to my hatred of all the weakness associated with said concept. Now that I’ve birthed a human I can truly see the sheer strength and invisible struggle of women, the policing of our bodies, and the insurmountable tasks set before us to be considered normal, let alone good, members of society. It’s crippling and I cannot believe my immigrant mom with my dad's assistance did this raising kids business for so long with three kids and yet instilled a keen sense of identity and ethnic pride (along with the unhealthy self-hate and self-sacrifice to a fault).

What will it take for us to be integrated human beings? Not just a vagina and tits but a whole human person who has those parts (if they identify with those parts)? Good!!

The Momcat and Imperfection revolution

The White woman

It's been said that theis white woman is a good example of feminism or this one or that one in the u.s. white man heavy media. But so often the trope is a trope of utter perfection in looks, business, relationship, skills, sexiness, and/or motherhood, meaning all women fall short of the glory of Motherhood.

What does it mean to have an equitable society where men pick up some of the slack? Letting go of perfection. You're never going to be the whitest thinnest blondest mommiest superfreak with the hottest wife or husband and best kids. It's not going to happen.

If l stopped chasing a strangely pervasive ideal of a singular form of femininity and motherhood (overwhelmingly white middle class and upholding the Madonna/whore complex), that of perfection in self spouse house and children would I…

Write an opera?

Learn an instrument?

Take up diving?

Perhaps it is for this reason the acknowledgment that children take time and housekeeping takes time that I have thought “when my husband and I retire we can go to theology school together.” “when I retire I'll play surf rock, nirvana covers, and fix 1960s cars.”

I'm no fool. Kids take time, energy, and stress. They also create a crushing environment of sacrificial love and pure elation. Does driving perfectionism for child rearing necessitate death of self or putting your dreams on hold? Does it for men? Is having professional or creative goals impossible with children?

It's taken time to unlearn my regular mode of constant guilt or shame around failures of any kind. I went from working barely five hours a week to five jobs and forty hours, so that I could have my own earned income, stay on top of debt, but most importantly, designated non-working time (i.e. leisure). In motherhood at home, there is no such thing. Life is a constant hum of things to be done, unless you want someone to drown in poopy diapers or starve. I still wonder whether women or people of color really have ever had such a thing as leisure time…is sabbath for all or only the elite? Who was God talking to when God commanded rest?

After over a year of waking up every single night to feed Ruby, I thought since I'm working now I get some relief from that duty. I was wrong.

It's not enough that I stayed with Ruby for a year, because apparently I was lazily lounging around then (I was not); and now that I'm taking her to daycare as a daycare teacher, plus the other jobs, now I'm doing too much. It's never enough. I'm never enough. Our ideal woman does everything without complaint, effort, or any consternation whatsoever.

Why do we set ourselves up for failure?

Is there an alternative to this impossible, idealized vision of motherhood?trope to these ideas of sahmomming?

-Madonna whore complex

-ugly clothes

-your vagina is over!!!

All are middle class upper white woman?

Very unhealthy view of sex

Feel tired

Give up and be asexual or spend massive amounts of time on beauty

Double standard

What colors do mixed babies dream of?

I'd like to imagine my daughter, Ruby dreams of herself reposed and in power, served by variously hued men and breasts flowing with milk. There are so few portraits in u.s. pop culture of ANY women of color, let alone powerful ones, that it is hard at this point to imagine she will continue to dream in such grandeur without grand interludes of racism and whiteness.

Contrast that with the treatment every male but most especially cis het able bodied middle class white ones, gets on every front: divine worship, centrality, agency, prominence, the expectation of service, excellence, exceptionalism, normalcy, individuality, the benefit of the doubt, the assumption of ability and strength, AND no need to:

-be empathetic

-f with poc esp female trans lgbtq differently abled poor Black ones

-disprove any number of stereotypes about belonging or competence

What a difference a brother makes

In my private life I've wavered from being an egotistical fashionista to complete iconoclast-ascetic. I'd always admired those with swag. I never knew whether I had the “right” to have or own any swagger as the nerdy Asian model minority, so I erred on the side of caution.

However, as time wore on in my beautiful interracial marriage to a young black man, I got my “(married to a) n* wake up call.”

If we weren't being hated upon or micro-aggressed by my classist and racist family, there was always the young white male yelling “FUCKING NIGGER!!!!!” from a pickup truck, or the passing over for promotions coupled with Obama-ing (“there's something about him. I just don't trust him!”) and other beautiful stereotype quoting (“lazy, white woman stealer, crack seller, sketchy, deserving to be shot by police,” etc.) by the ridiculous white racists at work.

What do you call a patient kind loving Black dad in argyle sweaters who is a Early childhood educator and critical race theorist preschool teacher and so church worker, for christ sake? I'll give you a hint: it means Black and is a racial epithet. It doesn't matter how much white posturing this good man does because ultimately the problem is white people and their psychotic issues around identity, sexuality, racism, and fear of a Black planet. Their issues get projected onto people of color especially Black folks, and we’re blamed for them.

Every time some shit goes down and we have a n wake up call, I want to shave my head, put on expressive eyeliner, don bright colors--turn mourning into dancing. The thing white people complimenting such boldness don't understand is where the swag comes from and the fact that they can't have or take it from us (But this is a great line!). Speaking only from my personal experience, I think when a white woman who is literally oppressing me with her good intentions to be color blind and preserve the status quo of white power compliments my manicure, “yeah well it's not FOR you even though it is in response to you. You don't get this and you don't get to and you don't own me.”

The power that comes from self-expression through fashion has never been more potent when at a time women are unvalued unsexy and made to feel like “you had a baby your life is over and you're not useful as a sexual being anymore” and yet the fashion available for breastfeeding is: all made for white Christian soccer moms. Have you ever seen a couture nursing shirt or dress that doesn't make you gag with its complete lack of spirit, thrill, or pizzazz?

I haven't, unless it's out of my price range. So I've spent the last year or two wearing the ugliest clothes ever and making do with bright pink lipstick and bold blue eyeliner. White women don't have the additional burden of proving that they are sexual beings (unless they're moms), because they y'all are portrayed as the standard and ideal (although it is tough to speak for all white women). So when I'm putting on my anti oppression armor makeup and you go to PCC in your jammies sans any effort I am thinking, ok, well I look good, but it's from a place of pain, and you look schloopy but it's from a place of resignation, defeat to misogyny, or ignorant white privilege, I suppose.

The white upper to middle class woman soccer mom ideal is so pervasive and monopolizing a view of the feminine ideal that I've often distanced myself from it. As. Far. As. Possible. This is the genius of Kool AD (of “Bitch I'm Madonna” obscurity) and his parenting column in Vice (add link). Not only is he spinning an alternately gendered narrative of parenthood, it is antithetical to every white woman ideal in diction (hip-hop) and philosophy (Young Jeezy). Perhaps the closer one is to white woman idealism the more you try to be a perfectionist. The opposite is true. (Why is the opposite true?)

It's not that I think being a good mom is a terrible ideal, I think a gendered raced and patently inequitable and unachievable narrative is destructive to all, white people included. Or especially?

I can't help but think that “proper” “appropriate” parenting involves whiteness, and everything else, especially Blackness, is patently inappropriate, shameful, or harmful. If I want Ruby to be ready for her future n word wake up call, which is a horrible constituency to plan for, she's going to experiment  with  different modes of expression, which do not inherently have Shame around body, sex, and movement and propriety. It's like all white women were taught to look Victorian with their hands obediently crossed or in a cross stitch and stayed in that seated position with a high necked ridiculous turtleneck, but the white men went out of their way historically to rape and pillage women of color.

An old white man at the racist church my husband worked at once told me and my husband: “you are children. Children should be seen and not heard.” Ooh, was I pissed about the racial connotations. At least he didn't call Jasen boy or Negro, or me oriental hooker whore…

In response to that comment is the end note here.

No. I'm not a child for challenging your racist bullshit.

No. I will be seen.

No. I will be heard.

And Ruby the beautiful child my progeny will be too. First in her power trippin’ dreams of men serving her and mama’s flowing titty milk, then in her swaggy response to some white sexist racist bullshit. And, we will design some better pregnancy and maternity clothes for our people in the next twenty years. We can share the look but not the swag with poor tired and resigned white mommies too.

Love,

Concerned Mother of Color