#stop anti asian violence

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Say it with me now:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

I’m going to try and figure out who died, maybe track down some resources, but it’s pretty much a live-update situation.

[sistersatan]

(via GIPHY)

[myinterestsvary-writes]

awesome video

[serious-cutie]

Here Are Some Resources About Anti-Asian Violence

https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co

[mahoutoons]

i'm feeling controversial today so here's another hot take. and before you type away at your keyboards, know that this is all coming from a south asian.

white leftists have got to stop acting like christianity is the only religion that deserves to be criticized and you cannot touch any other religion because that'd be racist and bigoted. because as an indian who's watching my country progress towards hindu nationalism, this attitude doesn't help at all.

white people see hinduism as this exotic brown religion that's so much more progressive but don't know the violence of the caste system, how it others a large portion of the population on the basis of caste, literally branding them as "untouchables". they teach us in school that this problem is a thing of the past but the caste system is still alive and shows itself in violent ways. and that's not even covering how non hindus are treated in the country. muslims especially are being killed, have their houses bulldozed, businesses destroyed, and are being denied housing, our fucking prime minister called them infiltrators and there's this fear among hindu extremists that they'll outnumber the hindus in the country. portraying hinduism as this exotic religion does a disservice to all those oppressed by the hindutva ideology

similarly, white people see buddhism as this hippie religion that's all about peace but have no idea how extremist buddhists in myanmar have been persecuting the rohingya muslims for years and drive them out of the country.

if anything portraying these religions as exotic hippie brown religions is a type of orientalism itself.

and also y'all have got to realize that just because christianity has institutional power in america doesn't mean there aren't parts of the world where they are persecuted on the basis of religion. yes karen from florida who cries christophobia because she sees rainbow sprinkles on a cake is stupid but christian oppression DOES exist in non western countries where they're a minority. pakistani christians get lynched almost on a daily basis over blasphemy accusations. just look up the case of asia bibi, a pakistani christian woman who was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges because of something she said when she was being denied water because it was "forbidden" for a christian and a muslim to drink from the same utensil and she'd made it unclean just by touching it (which is ALSO rooted in casteism and part of pakistani christians' oppression also comes from the fact that a lot of them are dalit but that's a whole other discussion). and that's just one christian group, this isn't even going into what copts, assyrians, armenians etc have faced and continue to face. saying that christians everywhere are privileged because of american christianity actually harms christian minorites in non western countries.

and one last thing because this post is getting too long: someone being anti america doesn't automatically mean they're the good guys. too many times i've been seeing westerners on twitter dot com praise the fucking taliban just because they hate america. yes, the same taliban who banned education for women, thinks women should be imprisomed at home, and consistently oppresses religious and ethnic minorities in afghanistan. yes, america's war on afghanistan was bad and they SHOULD be called out for their war crimes there. no, the taliban are still not the good guys. BOTH of them are bad. you cannot pretend to care about muslims and brown people if you praise the taliban. because guess what? most of their victims are BROWN MUSLIM WOMEN. but of course white libs who praise them don't rub their two braincells together to make that conclusion.

this post has gotten too long and i've just been rambling so the point of this post is: white "leftists" whose politics are primarily america centric should stop acting like criticism of ideologies like hindutva, buddhist extremism, and islamic extremism BY people affected by these ideologies is the same as racism or religious intolerance because that helps literally no one except the extremist bigots. also america is not the centre of the world, just because something isn't happening in america doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere

[bfpnola]

about the ongoing hunger strike to ensure that the historic anti-casteism bill passes in california ^^ wanna support?

if you’re on mobile, go to: https://tinyurl.com/Signsb403

other devices, like laptops: https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/

—

sample email below from the mobile link, not my own writing:

Subject: Please Sign SB403 (Wahab) to End Caste Discrimination

I am writing to request the governor to sign the historic bill SB403 introduced by State Senator Aisha Wahab, which would end discrimination on the basis of caste. This bill aims to clarify existing California state law and make explicit that discrimination based on caste is illegal by adding caste to ancestry and defining caste in the Civil Rights Act, Fair Employment and Housing Act, and Education Code.

Caste systems are social stratification where each position is characterized by hereditary status, endogamy, and social exclusion. Caste discrimination manifests as workplace discrimination, housing discrimination, gender-based violence, and other physical and psychological forms of violence.

Caste discrimination occurs across industries, including technology, construction, restaurants, and domestic work. In these sectors, caste discrimination has included harassment, bias, wage theft, and even trafficking. Caste is today inextricably intertwined with existing legal protections in state and federal civil rights laws such that discrimination based on one’s caste is effectively discrimination based on the intersection of other protected identities. However, because of the grave discrimination caste-oppressed Californians face, these existing protections must be made explicit.

Caste is a workers rights issues, a women's rights issues, and racial justice issue. It is also a bill that has bipartisan support. That is why we are joined by Asian Law Caucus, Stop AAPI Hate, AAPI Equity Alliance, Tech Equity, Equality Labs, Alphabet Workers Union, Ambedkar Association of North America, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, Californians for Caste Equity, Hindus for Caste Equity, Jakara Movement, South Asian Network, Sikh Coalition, and Sikh American Legal Defense Fund. Every major legal association is in support of caste equity and the lawfulness to make caste equity explicit. This includes the American Bar Association, South Asian Bar Association, National Asian American Pacific Bar Association, and Asian Law Caucus.

That is why we urge you to make history and sign his bill without hesitation. Justice delayed is justice denied. Let's ensure California opportunity for all by ensuring that ancestry and caste discrimination is explicitly prohibited and make history across the country.

Thank You,

[Name]

—

and if you don’t know what caste is? send in an ask @bfpnola or join our Discord server, link in bio, so we can answer you in real-time!

[antifainternational]

Far-Right Mass Shootings, May 2022-May 2023

Now that we know that the mass murderer in Allen, Texas was a far-right extremist and incel (as well as that puzzling but not-that-uncommon mix of being a racialized neo-nazi/white supremacist), we wanted to illustrate that mass shootings by the far-right are not aberrations with this list of similar events from over the last twelve months: December 23, 2022: A gunman opens fire in Paris, killing 3 Kurdish people & wounding 3 more in a plan to “kill non-European foreigners.” The attacker had just been released from prison after attacking migrants in Paris with a sword the year before. December 19-20, 2022: 22-year-old Anderson Aldrich enters a CO. gay bar with an assault rifle & opens fire, killing five and wounding 25 others before he is subdued. November 25, 2022: A 16-year-old former student storms two schools in Aracruz, Brazil, armed with two pistols and wearing a bulletproof vest emblazoned with a swastika. The teen shoots 16 people in the rampage, killing three of them. October 12, 2022: After posting an online manifesto against Jewish & LGBTQ+ people, a Bratislava, Slovakia teen shoots three people outside a local gay bar, killing two and wounding the third person before fleeing. The suspect was found dead the next day. September 27, 2022: Brothers Mark & Michael Sheppard are charged with manslaughter for opening fire on a group of migrants getting water near Hudspeth County, TX. One victim died from gunshot wounds, and one is recovering at an El Paso hospital. September 26, 2022: A gunman wearing a balaclava and a t-shirt with a swastika emblazoned on it enters an elementary school in Izhevsk, Russia, killing 15 people - 11 of them children - and wounding another 39 before turning the gun on himself. September 11, 2022: 53-year-old Igor Lanis’ obsession with far-right conspiracies ends when he guns down his wife, 25-year-old daughter, & family dog, before turning his shotgun on responding police, who shoot him dead. Only his daughter survives. August 9, 2022: A group of Black men helping someone jump-start a car in a Macon, GA. Wal-Mart parking lot are subjected to racial abuse by another man who then pulls a gun and begins shooting at them. May 15, 2022: 68-year-old David Wenwei Chou is charged with hate crimes after storming a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, CA. and shooting parishoners, killing one and injuring five others

May 14, 2022: An 18-year-old white supremacist opens fire in a supermarket in a black neighbourhood in Buffalo, NY, killing ten customers and wounding three others while livestreaming the attack.

May 11, 2022: A masked gunman walks shoots 3 Korean women working in a Dallas hair salon. Authorities believe the incident is connected to two earlier drive-by shootings targeting Asian-owned businesses in the Dallas area on April 2nd and May 10th. This is just a list of mass shootings committed by bigots, fascists, and far-right extremists over the last 12 months. We haven't included shooting with less than two victims, thwarted mass shootings, or any of bombings, stabbings, vehicle attacks, or other acts of violence.

In 2022 we documented 477 violent incidents motivated by hate or committed by bigots, fascists, or right-wing extremists, including 112 shootings. These attacks killed 366 people and injured 399 others. Read our 2022 report here. When we say anti-fascism = self-defence, we meant it. The endpoint for far-right ideology is mass murder. Fascists intend to do harm to our communities and will seize on any opportunity to hurt others. The only thing stopping them is ourselves. WE PROTECT US!

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Religion and the conflict- an excuse for antisemitism

Many users seem to use everyone's interest in the conflict to spread misinformation and antisemitic beliefs. Antisemitism today is being rebranded as antizionism.

Zionism is simply the notion that the Jewish people should have a state of their own, in Zion (AKA the historical and religious name for Israel).

Debunking some common musconcepti0ons about Zionism -It's not a new movement- This concept has been around ever since the Jewish people were first expelled from Israel. Jews have tried to immigrate to Israel ever since and were often met with refusal. They were then sent back against their will to nearby territories such as Cyprus.

But I’m not antisemitic, I’m just anti Israeli

-Antisemitic hate crimes rates have gone up globally:

from slurs, genocidal chants and violence in American college campuses, to hate crimes and violence spiking across Europe…

Take London for an example - there’s currently a 1,350% spike in antisemitism.

People are killed for being Jewish. Swastikas are drawn, and the hashtag “Hitler was right” is trending all over social media.

You can’t deny that chanting “gas the Jews” in protests in antisemitic…

It's not like what happened in Canada & the USA -Treatment of Palestinians after the founding of the state of Israel: To better understand the situation, you'll need to understand the difference between Palestinian territories outside of Israel, Palestinian territories inside Israel, and Israeli territories.

-Palestinians living in Palestinian territories Outside of Israel (The Gaza Strip) are governed by Hamas. -Palestinians living in Palestinian territories within Israel are governed by the Palestinian Authority and not Israel. *For further reading, you can read about the differences between A, B, and C zones.

-Arabic Muslims and Arabic Christians living within Israeli territories have the exact same rights as Jewish Israelis. There are many "mixed" cities in which Arabic people and Jewish people live peacefully, it's a nonissue.

Israeli people are European settlers \ white colonizers

Are they all white? I can't believe I have to write this, but contrary to popular belief, not all Jews are white, just like not all Christians are white ... Stop being ignorant: there are Jewish People from Asian, Arab, and African countries. Please stop telling Arabic\African Jews to go back to Europe, You are embarrassing yourself. The reason why there aren't a lot of them in those countries right now is that they were either killed or forced to leave them (often without any of their possessions) after years of discrimination and violence. *Are they collonsiers?

The Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel. There is much historical, and archeological evidence for that. There is evidence that supports that the Jewish people have been here for thousands of years. The Jewish people all originated from Israel, and are an Ethnic group that originated from Israel. How can we be colonizers on our own land?

Most of the land of Israel was either given by the British mandate or purchased legally.

Obviously, some land was occupied- but that was during wars that were forced on Israel, after many terror attacks. -Many of the people claiming Israeli people are colonizers, are European, American, or Canadian.... AKA the biggest colonizers in history, who have 0 connection to the land they occupied. While Israel was a British colony until 1948-and Unlike popular belief, the conflict doesn't start there. That's what Hamas wants you to think. Your favorite Maps are a lie

They won't tell you about the Balfour declaration in 1917, the 1936 Peel Commission, or the 1947 UN partition plan which the Palestinian people rejected. Do you know what followed that rejection? Foreign armies from Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia attacked.

Many peace accords including the 1993 Oslo Accords (which since then were violated by the Palestinians)- were all initiated by Israel.

Not one of the wars in Israeli history was initiated by Israel. * Besides the occupation of the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula** Most of the lands that make up Israel were either given by the British after their mandate over the country had ended or purchased legally*. *Besides the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula**. **The Sinai peninsula was returned completely to Egypt in 1982. as part of the 1977 peace accords between Egypt and Israel. Further context and more information:

I suggest you read about the Suez Crisis \ The Sinai War of 1956, The Egypt- Israel Peace Accords, the Oslo Accords, the British mandate over Israel (especially the end of it), and different UN decisions made in the years before the founding of Israel.

[sailorspica]

I'm curious to know what you think would happen in a "Kenny raises Mikasa" scenario because in hindsight I feel like it's a missed opportunity to not have them interact

this sent me down several lines of thought. it seems like a missed opportunity because of the ackerman lore, sure, but also because kenny bizarrely interacts with two other 104th girls: annie and historia. kenny and historia's parallels are near and dear to me as—chapter 65 is one of my favorites and so poorly adapted by WIT—so he's actually kind of an incredible scene partner for teenage girls a la arya stark and sandor clegane

on mikasa's side, her concept of "family" is conspicuous as hell from beginning to end. i'm not the most familiar with EMA, but i'm pretty sure she refers to both eren and armin as "family" while levi stays firmly her superior, even one she's fond of and admires apart from others, because that's how they met. any bonding between them feels post-canonical

logistically: frieda eats uri in 843 and mikasa's parents are killed in 844. i puzzle through kenny's resume here, but in 844 he would have most likely been part of the first interior squad. speaking to his grandfather in snk 65, he's aware of the southern cadet branch. in 850 trost, MPs have records of mikasa and eren killing the human traffickers, so the "ackerman" name is floating around the military for sure besides ""captain ackerman"" (SO crazy to me, fake job)

many questions

when kenuri meet and "the persecution of the ackerman family" stops, that only means the MPs leave them alone and obviously doesn't reverse their fortunes. he went underground most likely intending to bring kuchel back up to the surface(?), but that care didn't extend to these distant relations. seeing how he ditched levi, why in the world would he be invested in mikasa?

answering my own question in the style of a scholastic summa: i generously think his guilt toward kuchel is one of kenny's softest qualities. the fates of kuchel and mikasa's mother stand out as this universe's most horrifying misogynistic violence, and that they're both ackermans even if only by marriage is significant. so MAYBE, maybe, kenny could be moved by mikasa's circumstances like he wasn't by levi's, certainly due to chauvinism! don't get me wrong! children of any gender should be protected, and this is the man who was ready to slit historia's throat! since his narration pities kuchel as different from him and levi: "long as ya got [power]… ya won't meet an end like my little sister's," he might not be compelled to look after mikasa since she's been awakened to ~the ackerpower~, which unfortunately seems to be kenny's measure of majority/adulthood

mikasa's adoption is like story crucial. whatever. but i AM intrigued by the thought of kenny's arms-length mentorship instead of the jaegers' warmth. would she be comforted by the shared name? despite the lighter hair, her father's face shape is similar to kenny's. she already knows who the fuck she is, she has/had parents; maybe much like kenny knows he's not cut out to be some kid's dad, mikasa doesn't want that at ALL, versus levi's much worse position of suspecting kenny might have been his father. child levi's painful conclusion that he disappointed kenny somehow would be so much worse if he saw someone else was worth kenny's attention

but! this would only be because uri is fucking dead. would dealing with a traumatized middle schooler be a satisfactory "hobby" for kenny before the anti-personnel control squad? i doubt it!! though maybe the funniest panel of all time where grandpa ackerman describes the azumabito as "'asians,' a people vastly different from us" would make mikasa a Little little more interesting to him, like a lab rat more than anything. but this is why historia and kenny's interactions are so fun to me, as well as kenny's ambivalence toward frieda: i really think he'd feel more obligated to the reiss girls than any ackerman. see levi

anyway, i could see mikasa joining the cadets still and succeeding, perhaps even angling to make it to the first interior squad. bereft of eren, i imagine her treating kenny as a doddering old man who should retire even though i'm pretty sure he's like. 45-50 at most in 850. and this right here is a setup for an MP mikasa canon AU, I Think. mikannie. mikahitchannie. mikahisu. jeankasa or eremika i fucking guess

[letters-to-rosie]

okay maybe favorite part of Afropessimism so far:

An Asian-Danish woman asked me, “If the violence of White supremacy and capitalist, patriarchal violence is what I, as an Asian woman, suffer, and if you’re suggesting White supremacy and anti-Blackness are not the same—in fact, I hear you saying that the people who suffer White supremacy are also the people who, along with Whites, perpetrate anti-Blackness—then my question is what does that mean . . . what does that do . . . maybe what I want to say is, how do we forge solidarity in multiracial coalitions such as Marronage?” (I’d be asked the same question in two days’ time, in Berlin; but the tone and intent would be hostile, and I would say, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about solidarity.” Which wasn’t true; but the way I cared about solidarity wasn’t the way the mob that had packed its bags to meet me in Berlin cared about it.)

“What we’re doing in this workshop is a form of solidarity,” I replied. “The important things we need to understand are the ways non-Black people of color can crowd out discussions of a Black grammar of suffering by insisting that the coalition needs to focus on what we all have in common. It is true that we all suffer from police aggression; that we all suffer from capitalist domination. But we should use the space opened up by political organizing which is geared toward reformist objectives—like stopping police brutality and ending racist immigration policies—as an opportunity to explore problems for which there are no coherent solutions. Anti-Black violence is a paradigm of oppression for which there is no coherent form of redress, other than Frantz Fanon’s ‘the end of the world.’ Solidarity means not crowding out discussions of Black social death just because there is no coherent form of redress on the horizon. I think that’s what we’ve done today. Your participation in this workshop with the Black people in Marronage is an act of solidarity.”

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

They’ve been scared of it for decades but it still isn’t stopping them. The youth vote never worked out for the Dems even when millions of young boomers took to the streets to protest Vietnam, Nixon, and Republikkkan terror at home. Their is no grand coalition of young people, marginalized people, and recent immigrants. Pundits like Van Jones can preach this all he wants in an attempt to make it reality but it’s simply not happening, never has, and likely never will.

The Republikkkans have had great and expanding success with their simple strategy of regional separation. The push the notion that the South is inherently more free, more moral, and more patriotic. Which is bullish-t on every level. They’ve even managed to expand this into the west and mid-west while making inroads into the rural counties of the few blue states left. They keep the people poor and angry and then they make the northern and west coast Dems the villains, the scapegoats just like Hitler did. Everything northern, blue, and urban is evil because propaganda works best when oversimplified to black and white.

The red states are so heavily radicalized that their youth vote red while many of our youth don’t bother to vote. Further the Republikkkans are still drawing deeply from the affluent “Log Cabin Republicans” (LGBT) who prioritize their pocket books and own racism over their very existence. Recent immigrants voting blue hasn’t existed since the mid 1800’s yet the Republikkkans still use it as a talking point. Immigrants nearly always side with the loud mouth autocrats in the GQP because it reminds them of the “strongman” autocrats they left behind. Anyone from a recent immigrant family or community can vouch for this. The only time it’s not true is in blue states where the Dems allow good paying entry level jobs that don’t require mastery of English. Voting Republikkkan makes immigrants feel like super patriots and they think it will help them blend in easier and quicker. Even with the massive rise in anti-Asian and anti-Semitic violence those two groups still vote their pocket books. And for the life of me I’ll never understand why 1/3, and growing, of the Hispanic population votes GQP. Especially in the border states where they are treated the worse. They literally chant “send those sp-cs” back at Trump rallies and other GQP events.

The biggest, and perhaps mortal, mistake the Dems ever made was to shift away from its base of union workers to embrace every group under the sun when all those groups have spotty voting records at best. They don’t vote, don’t vote regularly, and as mentioned often vote GQP. Some may not like that and find it insensitive but it’s a truth that is overlooked by the ultra-liberal, educated elite, and the so called mainstream media. The focus should always have been on expanding union rights since they had excellent Democratic turn out. At the same time attempts should have been made to attract marginalized people. It never should have been one or the other, that was a catastrophic mistake. Biden is the first high level Dem since the 60’s to realize this mistake and is working to bring unions back.

Many of us on the left still have bought into endless attacks on unions produced by Republikkkan oligarchs who want every hindrance to profit removed regardless of the human cost. Just like so many bought into the decades of repugnant attacks against Hillary which gave us Trump and MAGA. Nearly all unions are pro-Democrat. The only unions that are pro-Republikkkan are police unions that get everything they want from local Republikkkan officials who need them as foot soldiers. There are still a handful of law enforcement unions, mainly in the north, that are pro-Dem because they realize the value of unions as a whole. Once Repubs have stamped out all the other unions they will weaken and eventually eliminate them as well.

People on our side just don’t recognize what unions do for a free society. Most know the basics of higher wages, sick leave, benefits like over-time, health insurance, protections against unjust/illegal termination, guaranteed raises, vacations (often paid), and the basic human dignity of not having to grovel at the bosses feet. Further, and this is important and overlooked, unions provide work place safety and security for marginalized people. African-Americans, LGBT, immigrants, young, women, old, religious minorities, the handicapped and infirm all have a place where they are safe to work. Most importantly union workers have built in recourses if management becomes hostile or takes unfair or prejudicial action.

Yes all institutions have faults as they are run by people and people are not infallible. But your union dues provide you with shop stewards and if necessary legal representation. You don’t get that anywhere else. No non-union company will protect you if you are discriminated against you. Workers have a contract with their union that is contractually bound to protect them. It doesn’t always work in a very small number of instances where lower level union shop stewards are corrupted by management but 99% of the time it functions as planned and goes on smoothly without us even being aware. Of course when something doesn’t work out the media blows it out of proportion leading us to think every institution is corrupt.

How many workers hate their underpaid jobs where they have no chance of advancement, wage theft, long hours, at will scheduling, abusive bosses, unsafe working conditions, and fear of termination? That’s not how it is when you have a job with a strong union. Again nothing is perfect but union work places are vital to our democracy and the protection of marginalized people who would in millions of cases unable to even find work. That’s something to stop and think about before you go off on an imaginary blue collar white union worker you believe voted for Trump. Remember you are buying into Republikkkan propaganda whenever you disparage unions.

And if you want that youth vote to turn the tide then get off your backsides and start educating the young people in your orbit before Fox News MAGAts radicalize them.

[the-rainbow-lesbian]

I've seen others on here complaining about pierriq before but only now looked at her posts and she literally isn't even offensive, she's basically the average Taiwanese feminist i.e against dating and sex with men, supportive of lesbians, anti-surrogacy, anti-corset, anti-porn, anti-selfid… I think too many of the girlies on here are too used to being coddled and babied and "of course you're a good radfem despite having a man! of course you're still a good radfem despite having a man's baby!" whereas Taiwanese radfems are highly against it and would laugh in the face of any woman claiming to be a feminist who does that stuff. Radical feminism is more than just writing "lmao KAM" online and then going about your day with your boyfriend/husband. A lot of radfems on here are basically normal women who just are against porn and makeup and TIMs in women's spaces who call themselves radfems because they have no other word to refer to themselves as, they have no intentions of actually doing anything to challenge the patriarchy because "it's too difficult uwu Not being with a man is impossible uwu You want me to die alone uwu" This is why I only follow other lesbians and women who are from or originally from non-western countries, the level of understanding is much different.

warning I am gonna get a little personal and maybe trauma dumb a bit uwu

the moment I realized western feminists will never understand me is when they write posts disparaging separatists by weaponizing women in global majority countries against us, and then finishing off with “men will become more violent if we stop being with them/doing what they want us to do” like I am very painfully aware of that I could’ve been a victim of honor killing but I still took the risk to live a life worth living. I lost my family, my country, my home, I have not seen my nephews and nieces (the only family members I care about) and my bestfriend in almost a decade, my asylum case is stagnant, I am not doing well financially and I have been very mentally ill and I am still recovering but that also caused me physical health complications, all of that because of the trauma I went through, but I would still run away again in a heartbeat because this is preferable to living a life where you are constantly fearing male violence and having every decision dictated by someone else, fucked against my will and giving birth to children I don’t want. and anon it’s not just me, so many Arab women are fleeing to seek asylum and some of us didn’t make it, so we are the global majority women that you use in arguments but when those women like myself and when Asian feminists that they all love to hype up so much actually speak up here and challenge them, suddenly we don’t matter actually because we are worth less than their comfort. so they don’t get me and I don’t get them, I fought and survived to live this life, to enjoy rights they were born with, and they decided to be comfortable and not think about anyone else.

[tsunflowers]

I finally finished reading dhalgren. what an incredible book. there just isn't anything else like it. I really think dorohedoro might come closest but dhalgren is both more meandering and more incisive. there are parts that feel completely surreal but then there are parts that cut to the core of social unrest in America in such a way that you wonder if the surreal parts have a meaning you aren't seeing

I read it bc it was on a list of top ten scifi novels people pretend to have read. you shouldn't pretend to read it, you should just read it. but it's hard for me to explain what I found so appealing about it. even if I describe things that happen in it I'll miss important stuff and I won't be able to convey the experience of reading it

it's about a city called bellona, which used to be one of the top ten cities in America but then something happened to it that disconnected it from reality. now there's only a thousand people mostly living in abandoned houses and looting from empty stores. people come to visit from all over for their own various reasons and one of those visitors is a man with amnesia who takes on the name "the kid" or "kidd." before he gets into the city he has sex with a woman who turns into a tree and acquires a weapon called an orchid which is like claws over his hand and appears without him putting it on sometimes. these things are not explained but they happen

once in the city he drifts around getting to know the different groups who call bellona home. theres disorganized hippies in a public park. there's a gay guy who lives in a shack behind a row of meat hooks. there's a white family who are living in a bubble refusing to see the reality of the city they're in. and there are the scorpions. scorpions are sort of gangsters, but they don't really claim territory or deal drugs. they're just a pack of people who all live crammed into one house and look out for each other and sometimes go on runs where they smash up buildings. and they wear holographic projectors that look like dangerous animals, like scorpions. kidd becomes the leader of a group of scorpions, and he also gets a girlfriend and a boyfriend. he's in a stable polycule for the back half of the book. also a lot of the book is about the creative impulse and whether your words stop being your own once they're published and interpreted. bc kidd writes poetry almost compulsively but has mixed reactions to people's responses

I think I would be remiss to rec this book without trying to provide some content warnings. I think I'm probably going to miss a few things but the book does include: heavy use of slurs (mostly n-- but also f-- and a brief appearance of an anti-Asian slur), sex with minors (the main character dates a teenager), child death, racial violence, explicit descriptions of rape, consensual but degrading sex, and gun violence. also the main character describes going to the bathroom more than maybe any other book I've ever read

it's heavy, and it's 800 pages, but if you're even a little intrigued by any of this I think you should try reading it! as strange as it can be I found it very readable. the dialogue feels natural and is often very funny. it's not actually an impenetrable brick of a book but it's completely its own thing

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: King Kong

👻 You can support me on Ko-fi ❤️

★★★

Plot: When a film crew travels to an island, their actress is kidnapped and offered up to a giant ape.

Review: A technical marvel that changed cinema, it is also an over-long relic steeped in racism.

Year: 1933 Genre: Creature Feature Country: United States Language: English Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes

Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack Writers: James Creelman, Ruth Rose Cinematographer: Eddie Linden, Vernon Walker, J.O. Taylor Editor: Ted Cheesman Composer: Max Steiner Cast: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher, Sam Hardy

-----

Story: 1.5/5 - Sadly, anti-black racism is baked into the foundation of this tale, as is misogyny. Its dialogue is also often stiff and its characters flat.

Performances: 2.5/5 - Varies. Wray does her best as an early scream queen, but she and Cabot share little chemistry.

Cinematography: 4/5 - Some really excellent framing and camera movements that bolster the action.

Editing: 3.5/5

Music: 3.5/5 - Somewhat standard but effective.

Effects: 5/5 - Extraordinary. The use of stop motion animation, miniatures, backlighting, the Williams process, and the Dunning process was revolutionary for its time.

Sets: 4.5/5 - A delightful combination of sets, mattes, and locations. I love the jungles.

Costumes, Hair, & Make-Up: 3.5/5

Trigger Warnings:

Moderate violence

Anti-black racism (uncritical)

Anti-Asian racism (uncritical)

Misogyny (uncritical)

Animal death

[cosmicanger]

Why did you stop posting about Palestine you coward

(received 11 dec 2023)

because this site is majority nonblack and all nonblack people on here are anti-Black and do not see how the occupation in Palestine is connected to the other genocides happening globally right now that very few on here even talk about like the invasion of Haiti happening soon or the violence on AfroIndigenous Asians rn. and i would rather do material or tangential things for Black people and oppressed people offline and I would rather not waste my time doing public hot takes or long form criticism in my lifetime. neoliberalism is pushing this moment to be like 2020/2021 and i will not make myself a target again for things to stay the same at the end of the day. so few people on here wear masks in their daily lives like… im chillen online, hit me up when ppl wanna go beyond radical liberalism

[kissingcullens]

How Not to Think Like a Cop, with Naomi Murakawa

“Naomi Murakawa, a professor of African American Studies at Princeton and the author of The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America.

Naomi talks with us about her J-A roots in Oakland, how her dad’s career in the criminal-legal system got her thinking about carceral politics, why police reform has long been a trap, and the history of hate crimes legislation in the US. She shares her observations on Black Lives Matter, the emergence of abolitionist thinking, and the discourse around “anti-Asian violence.”

What can crime statistics tell us about the world? How do we stop ourselves from thinking like cops? Which groups are pushing Asian America in a more punitive direction? And how should “Asian American history 101” inform our analyses of recent violence?”

Time to Say Goodbye Podcast, April 2021

🔥🔥🔥🔥